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Cyrro, why can't you guys guess that yet.

9. Chunin exam.

"Ready for the exam?" Itachi asked, leaning against the door frame.

Sasuke was packing his back pack for the chunin exam. He turned towards Itachi with a frown in his face and a scroll in his hand. "Itachi why is there an extra scroll in my back pack?''

"Oh that?" Itachi straightened up. He hesitated at first but finally sighed and said. "Well it's a medical kit. When I entered in the chunin exam for the first time, mother made one for me. She did the same for you as well on the day you graduated. I had it with me since you said you are going to participate in chunin exams. She would have given you herself if..." he trailed off. He wasn't sure Sasuke would take it, so he put it inside his pack earlier. He really wanted his brother to have their mother's last gift. With the Uchiha massacre still fresh in their minds, he couldn't tell how Sasuke was going to react.

Sasuke looked back to the scroll and silently put it back to its previous place.

"I am ready to go brother. I shall be meeting Naruto outside and we will leave together and meet up with Sai in front of academy. You want to come with me?"Thank you brother.

"Sure lets go little brother. " I am glad you took it little brother.

The Uchiha duo left their apartment in a comfortable silence.

Line break..

Naruto was waiting for him outside their apartment complex.

"Good morning Naru," Itachi greeted her with a small smile.

Naruto looked back and him and nodded with a smile of her own.

Sasuke watched the interaction with a small frown. He greeted Naruto as well and she just nodded at him. He never saw her smiling at him or anyone else for that matter. It was only Itachi that she smiled at. Moreover, whenever she is talking to his brother she seemed relaxed and happy, same goes for his brother too. His big brother, who wasn't relaxed even in his freaking bedroom, was relaxed around Naruto. Who was this girl? Who was this Naruto Uzumaki to get his brother's approval so much? He knew they were close, but just how close was a question with no answer for Sasuke, yet.

Granted Sasuke trusted Naruto with his life, but she still was a mystery. A mystery he desperately wanted to solve.

He watched his brother making small talk with his female team mate, while walking towards the academy. Said team mate nodded and occasionally signed back to him with a small but constant smile.

They looked like a really happy couple...Wait! What? Did he just think Itachi and Naruto were a couple?

He looked up at the two supposed best

friends and did a double take.

Yep, he did.

An evil smirk formed on his face at that thought. It would be real fun to tease his normally flawess and seemingly perfect big brother.

Neither Naruto nor Itachi noticed his smirk . 'Hn, it will be real fun.' he thought.

Line break..

Sai was waiting for them with an ever more pale looking Shin standing with him. "Hello , Naru and Duck Butt. Let's go," Sai greeted.

Naruto blinked and slowly nodded, she didn't bother to look at Sasuke for a reaction.

Shin literally choked on air at the nick name.

Itachi suddenly coughed and looked

really, really innocent.

Sasuke's brow twisted and just like that his good mood – well as good as it could be – vanished.

Damn that Sai! "Sai I told you not to call me that ever again," Sasuke said slowly in a really cold tone.

Before Sai could say something in reply to that, Shin quickly intervened. "Get going you guys or you will be late. Remember no matter what, we will always be proud of you," he said with a slight bit of nervousness in his voice.

The trio nodded at his words, Sasuke's nick name crisis forgotten for the moment.

"What he said, and remember to stick together no matter what. OK team, go and all the best. We are sure you guys will do great," Itachi added with a small smile and a adoring look towards them.

All three of them nodded again and stepped inside together, more determined

than before.

Though Sasuke's foul mood didn't lift up, both big brothers took a relived breath.

Phew..! Danger escaped...for now.

Line break..

"Naruto, Sai there is a genjutsu in that door. It's not 307 its 207," Sasuke said in a low tone.

They were in the hall way of the second floor. The whole hall room was crowded by participants from different villages. Most of them were standing near a room reading room no. 307, which was their destination. In front of the room two rough looking Leaf nins were standing preventing the participants from entering the room.

A Leaf participant with green spandex was glaring at them, telling them to let him and his team enter that room before he broke their bones, and was roughly pushed back by the rough looking Leaf nins.

No one around them seemed to notice that the whole set up was just a genjutsu.

Naruto and Sai looked at all this and nodded their understanding to Sasuke.

'Let's just pass from here. There is no point in alerting our competitors.' Naruto signed.

Sai and Sasuke nodded in union and quickly passed the hall way to head towards the actual 307.

An pair of pale lavender eyes followed their exit, 'So this is team 7' thought the owner of those eyes.

Naruto turned around and matched his

gaze for a second, then they broke eye contact and proceeded on their way. Sai and Sasuke didn't notice the interaction.

Kakashi was waiting for them in front of 307 with his ever-present orange book on his hands.

"Well good, you all made it. Now, I have just one thing left to say to you, good luck and I am proud of you all. Go and show them how a team supposed to work," he said with an eye smile.

They nodded in unison.

Let the game begin.

As Sai and Sasuke went ahead, Kakashi slipped a small scroll on Naruto's hands.

'Have a look at this when you are alone,' he signed to her in ANBU code.

Naruto nodded and followed her team.

Line break..

"Well its quite crowded," Sai commented on entering room no. 307.

True to his words, it was really crowded, with a lot of teams sitting or standing inside.

Naruto tensed, she sensed a lot of negative emotions all at once. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself. She would admit that she was a little nervous now. She wouldn't be so panicked if Sai and Sasuke weren't with her. They had become an important part of her life and she needed to protect them at all costs. She couldn't let her team down.

She suddenly felt two larger hands holding her smaller once from both sides. She opened her eyes and noticed both Sai and Sasuke looking at her with concerned look on their faces. Sai was holding her left palm and Sasuke her right.

"You OK Naruto?'' asked Sai with a genuine concern in his voice.

She felt a warmth wash over her at their concern, and just like that she was able to block away all her anxiety. She smiled at them softly for the first time and nodded. Yes, she was all right. She almost forgot that they were quite a capable team and besides, it was just an exam, what could go wrong. ..right?

Both boys returned the smile with their own real smiles and squeezed her hand in reassurance, the message was clear; 'Don't worry, we got your back.'

Unknown to them, a pair of sea green eyes and a pair of golden eyes were following their interaction.

"SASUKE ...I MISSSSSSED YOUUU ..." a loud violet blur came to interrupt them and attachment itself with Sasuke, breaking their moment.

Sasuke let out a painful grant at that.

Sai backed away from him a little.

"Ino stop being a drag and let him go. This is such a pain," called out a bored voice from their side.

A lean boy with a spiky ponytail who was slouching and a fat looking boy munching

on chips came up to them.

"What's with you Shikamaru? back off!" yelled the parasite on Sasuke, now known as Ino.

"Troublesome," said boy muttered.

Beside him, his friend continued on munching on his chips.

"Sasuke l et's go on a date after this stupid exam~" said Ino with a sweet

voice, still attached to him.

"Ino, let go of me," Sasuke finally snapped. He really hated fan girls.

"Awww, but what about our date...?" Ino continued on talking.

Naruto was looking at the scene with slightly wide eyes. So that is why both of her team mates hated fan girls.

They behave like parasites , it all makes much more sense to her now. Sai was almost hiding behind her. He was even slightly shaking in fear.

"She is scary," he muttered from her back and Naruto couldn't agree more.

"Hey, look it's that pretty and kickass girl from before. What was your name again? Nara? Naka? Naonao? Damn it! Akamaru, do you remember it buddy?" another loud voice came from opposite direction from where they were standing.

"It's Na-Naruto, Kiba," supplied a small voice from Kiba's side.

"Thanks Hinata, I knew I could always count on you," Kiba flashed a grin to hid female team mate. Who blushed a little at the praise.

The trio of Kiba, Hinata, Shino along with Kiba's dog Akamaru also came to stand beside Naruto's team.

Kiba flashed Naruto a wide grin too, showing his a little larger canines, "Naruto, nice to see you again. I am Kiba Inuzuka and this is my partner Akamaru," he introduced himself and his dog.

Akamaru barked at her in response to his name, probably greeting her in his dog own language.

"Anyway I was hoping to see you again. Can we train together some time after the exam? I will love to be as fast as you. Your display on graduation day was really

cool," Kiba asked, the grin not leaving his face.

Before she could even try to answer him, Sasuke who was finally free of Ino beat her to it. "I think it's not the time or the place for such discussions Kiba," he said.

"Back off Uchiha. I asked her and it's her decision to make not yours," Kiba growled at him along with his dog.

"Now, now guys calm down. You are attracting much attention towards yourselves. It will not be good for you all," said a calm and charming voice from near the group.

Naruto sharply looked at the person belonging to that voice. He looked harmless enough, but appearance was

hardly matters in the ninja world and

besides, this person smelled like trouble.

"Who are you pal?" asked Kiba crossing his hands over his chest.

"I am Kabuto Yakushi. As you see I am a fellow Leaf nin too." kabuto answered with a small friendly smile.

"What do you want?" Kiba asked, Akamaru barked in support to his question.

"I was just warning you that you shouldn't speak so loudly. I have been to these exams before so you guys can trust me," he answered.

"You took these test before? Was it hard?" asked Ino, looking a little nervous.

"Well yes it is quite tough. I mean I failed the exam last seven times I took. Though I was able to collect a lot of info. from those failures. I can share that if you want." Kabuto l ooked a bit sheepish, and rubbed his back.

"So you are a loser. I get it. We don't need your info. loser guy," Sai said with a fake smile.

Kabuto's face fell for moment, but he regained his compose quickly, "Well don't say I didn't warned you. I thought that you are all rookies and I should help fellow leaf nins. But if you don't want it then it's okay with me. Good luck," he said disappointedly.

"No no, we want that information. Please don't mind his rudeness," Ino quickly stopped Kabuto.

"Tell me do you have information on individual participants?" she asked.

Kabuto smiled gorgeously at her and said, "Why yes I do. Tell me who do you want info on?" he said pulling out a stack of postcard sized cards.

"Um...Naruto Uzumaki," she answered glancing nervously at Naruto.

Naruto raised a golden eye brow at her request, but otherwise did not look

bothered.

"You have a name? Good. Let's see...Naruto ...Naruto...here it is," he said pulling out a card. "Naruto Uzumaki. Orphan, had a major accident when she was around six years old which left her mute. Since then she was home schooled in shinobi arts. Average in taijutsu, no significant genjutsu, good in ninjutsu. Her team mates are Sasuke Uchiha and Sai. Completed 23 D-r anks and was called back from a C-rank turned B-rank turned A-rank mission," he finished reading looked back at the group.

Everyone was silently listening to him. Shikamaru broke the silence and asked, "How did you get your hands on A-rank mission info?"

Sasuke frowned and narrowed his eyes at Kabuto, he had the same question as Shikamaru.

"Well, I can assure you that all this Info is legally gained, though I am not going to give you the details on how I gained it,'' Kabuto answered smartly.

Naruto narrowed her eyes, legally her ass.

All this info was from shinobi data file, which was NOT open to genins and chunins. Only a part of it was open to Jonin and ANBU. IT has a lot more access to it and that's all. So how did this Kabuto person get his hands on the information? This was not a good sign.

The exam hadn't began yet and problems were starting to show. She rubbed her temple in annoyance.

Before their little chitchat could continue, Ibiki appeared along with a bunch of chunin proctors, and started the exam.

Line break..

Anko looked at the remaining contents with a unimpressed expression. Frankly they all looked like snake food to her. The Hyuga girl looked like she was about to faint. That dog on that Inuzuka's head would be great starters for her snakes. Was that Uchiha trying to glare at her?

How cute. That blond girl look like Yellow Flash and that hyuga boy at that conrne- wait what?

Yellow Flash?!

She turned to look at said girl again. Damn, that girl had exact same colouring

as the Fourth Hokage. If she didn't know better, she would easily mistake that girl for Fourth's dead kid. Well, it was never clear what happened with the kid, so she might be the Jinchuriki after all. A sadistic grin crossed Anko's features, not all the candidates were snake food as she thought before. Well, let the fun began.

Naruto and her team had passed their first exam quite easily and now they were outside the forest of death waiting for the second part of the exam to take command.

"Well don't die is my last advice," Anko said with a grin and sent a wink at a random unfortunate genin.

Soon the gates of the Forest of Death opened up and all the teams rushed inside.

Anko's eyes followed the blond girl and a frown crossed her features. Where the hell did that child learn to move like that?

That brat had a speed and accuracy of a killer not a green genin. She was easily running along with her team, but there was a grace that comes with long hours of practice and missions. Whatever the Hokage did to the young girl must be really brutal. Anko made a mental note to talk with her after the exam was done.

Line break...

"Sasuke run!" Sai shouted. He dodged the shuriken thrown at him and jumped to another tree. His heart was beating at a very fast rate as he tried his best to search out his fellow male team mate. The forest area they were in was now

covered with mist from Naruto's water and the grass nin's fire attacks. He had no idea why but as soon as they

encountered the crazy grass nin with seemingly endless chakra, Naruto rapidly signed him to get the hell out of that place along with Sasuke. He wanted to argue with her, but Naruto's eyes pleaded something he couldn't read very clearly, but he could at least tell the desperation she was feeling to save the boys and decided to follow what she said. Besides, even if he stays there, he would just get in her way.

Sai mentally noted how wrong they were about Naruto, she was on a whole other level than him and Sasuke. He watched with fascination how precise her movements were as she attacked the grass nin, who clearly wasn't a genin.

He dodged another attack and made a bee line for the tree Sasuke was in.

"Duck butt, let's go," he said as soon as he found his other team mate. Said team mate was panting slightly and was clutching his right thigh, which was bleeding.

"No we can't, we need to help her," Sasuke answered between gritted teeth. It was quite evident that the wound wasn't a small one.

Sai eyed his fellow male team mate for a moment and sighed. "You think you can match up to her speed? "

Sasuke abruptly looked up at Sai with a nasty glare but didn't say anything.

So he noticed her strength difference as well, Sai thought. He looked back at his female team mate and a knitted his brows. Naru's speed and stamina though, still quite high, was slowly degenerating. He realized she was trying to figure out a

plan, and she also was buying them some time to escape.

He quickly turned towards Sasuke and said, "Look Duck Butt, it is clear that we are going to get in her way. We already are a bother, so let's go," and tugged on Sasuke's hand. Sasuke let out a

frustrated sigh and followed him anyway.

But as soon as they got out of their hiding place they found Naruto being pinned to the ground by four huge snake summons and she was struggling to get out. The grass ninja was kneeling in front of her and was saying something in a raspy voice. Both the boys froze in their path as they saw the snake summoner turn towards them with a creepy grin on his face.

"Well well, I see you finally came out of your hiding place, Sasuke," he said and rose up from his position. Both Sai and Sasuke found themselves unable to move due to the amount of killing intent the grass nin was spreading.

"Now, I am going to give you a certain gift," the grass nin said as the boys saw with horror that 'her' face fell off and took the shape of a male face. "If you survive this gift then come to me and I shall give you the power you were looking for kukukuku.."

To Sasuke what happened next was a

blur. One second the grass nin was extending its neck towards him, next second he was pushed away from its line of attack by Sai. He saw the extended head of Grass nin canines cut Sai's lefthand and a bone chilling scream coming out of his throat and Sai collapsed on the ground. Sasuke's eyes become too clear when he unconsciously formed giant fire ball and attacked the grass nin out of pure rage.

"No one hurts my team!" he screamed and punched the grass nin who took his hit and spat out some blood.

"Kukuku. I see you are quite powerful," The Grass nin said and spat out more blood. "But now that my gift was ruined, I must kill you."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and took a fighting stance. But to his utter horror the grass nin didn't attack him. In fact he pulled up Naruto in her tied up condition. Sasuke cursed inwardly for forgetting that Naruto was within that bastard's reach.

"As I can't fight in my full strength due to this team mate of yours, I am going to make her into bait. Kill yourself or your team mate gets killed, isn't it just a wonder full deal, Sasuke?"

Sasuke gritted his teeth. He looked at Naruto who had shocked expression on her face and wasn't struggling at all. On the contrary she was looking at the unconscious body of Sai behind Sasuke. Sasuke realized she was more worried about Sai then her own life and a feeling

of dread formed in the pit of his stomach. He had never thought about this before but he couldn't lose either Sai or Naruto. Beside he wouldn't be able to look at his brother or Shin's face if he let any of

them be killed. So the safest option he could find was killing himself.

Realization dawned on him as he changed his stance and held the kunai in front of his chest. It was better to die than live in a place where he had to watch his family die again and again. He took a last look at Naruto and saw her shaking her head from side to side. Her expression was of desperation and her eyes were flooded with tears, her lips were trembling as she helplessly struggled to get out of the strong binds. At that moment Sasuke understood how vulnerable she was. She indeed was strong but at the same time she was very

alone. Just like brother.

"Naru, take care of Itachi and this idiot here and be happy," He whispered and closed his eyes. He couldn't look at those desperate hurt blue eyes and see the unspeakable pain she was facing.

He let out a dry laugh and pulled the kunai towards his chest only to find his hands blocked by something else.

"That's enough Sasuke. I shall take it from here," he heard an almost unfamiliar voice spoke up. He opened his eyes and saw his hands bound by sand, which held him from taking his life.

He looked past his bonded hands and saw tendrils of sand had captured the Grass nin by his neck. He also noticed Naruto's binding summons were being crushed under sand. Sasuke promptly

looked behind and saw a guy with red hair was controlling the sand. Gaara of the Sand. He was standing alone and had a very angry expression in his eyes.

"Orochimaru I told you I am not and will never be your ally. But you still came here and attacked people you shouldn't have," Gaara said in an angry voice.

Sasuke took a step back when Orochimaru's, (or whoever he was) body exploded under the pressure exerted through the Sand. This Gaara person clearly was miles stronger than Sasuke.

"Sasuke take Sai and run; do not look

back," Gaara commanded and Sasuke found it hard to refuse such commanding voice. He backed to were Sai was lying and picked him up. He gave a last look at Naruto who was fighting the snake person along with Gaara, she sent a curt nod towards Sasuke and he knew what she meant.

"Be safe Naruto," he said and took off towards the deep forest path.

'God, please take care of my friend.'

Line break...

Orochimaru was pissed. Why, do you ask?

Because Minato's spawn was a problem, a very big problem with strength which

can't possibly be right for a green genin. Now he knew all Team Sevens in the past have become super powered individuals even for the ninja world, but still, she was far beyond her team mates. Why on earth Kabuto didn't inform him about the

Jinchuriki having ANBU level skill is beyond him. Kabuto is going to pay for that. But first Orochimaru needs to escape these two Jinchuriki who were easily overpowering him.

He dogged another sand attack and threw a water jutsu at Gaara, who easily blocked it with another wave of sand. Then Orochimaru had little time to dodge Naruto's wind attack, which was on a fairly large skill level. He took advantage of the dust formed by her attack and used an earth jutsu on his himself. Once the dust settled down he would be long gone, and the Kazekage's brat will pay for his

insolence later.

No one disregards him and survives, no one. Orochimaru needed to go check exactly which child got the curse mark. Sasuke or the other brat who looks too much like Sasuke, but before that he needs to recharge his chakra. Fighting two Jinchuriki at once tends to drain a lot

of chakra.

A/N. More to come guys, so review. Please guys I am really great full if you read this stuff and it just makes my day if you review.