Chapter Eleven

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Note: Because of some confusion, let me clarify that yes Sasuke did fight Lee in canon before the exam started but what Sasuke meant about Gaara was wondering how he managed to not kill anyone in the prelims so he could face him in the actual final portion. This was, of course, because Gai stepped in when Gaara was trying to kill him.

Another point of contention was Gaara deciding the people of Konoha were saner than the people of Suna. That's not to say they necessarily are (I highly doubt it, in fact) but they've been pretty nice to Gaara so far while the people in Suna keep trying to assassinate him despite the fact they live in a desert and he has automatic sand armor. Not to mention the whole 'let's treat the guy who could kill us all like crap because we think he's going to snap' mentality that the people of Konoha had towards Naruto when God knows it would make more sense to try and persuade them NOT to hate them so if they did snap and start killing people, they would be less likely to kill them.

"I've got to go to the bathroom," Naruto announced once they had been in the forest for about an hour. "Later."

"Wait, I suggest we come up with a codeword first," Sasuke said. "In case someone tries to impersonate you."

Naruto made a face. "You just want to try and trick me with one of those stupid epic poems again, don't you?"

"Stupid epic poems?" Sakura repeated incredulously. "It was only five or six lines!"

"Well it seemed longer," Naruto said defensively. "And someone might be spying on us so there's no point."

"Then what do you suggest we do?" Sasuke asked sarcastically. "Ask you something only you would know?"

"Actually, all things considered, that would probably be the best plan," Sakura mused. "It wouldn't even have to be personal just recent. We do have an advantage after all."

"I'm glad we've worked that out," Naruto said, heading for the bushes. "Again, later."

"So do you think we'll run into that snake pedophile?" Sakura asked conversationally while they waited.

Sasuke sighed. "I really wish you wouldn't call him that."

"And I really wish you hadn't run off with him," Sakura countered. "But you know what they say: you can't always get what you want."

"When are you and Naruto going to drop the whole 'Sasuke had an affair with Orochimaru' thing?" Sasuke demanded.

Sakura raised an eyebrow. "That depends. Was that an admission?"

"What? No!" Sasuke protested.

"So you're still in denial then," Sakura concluded.

"I'm not in denial!" Sasuke insisted. He paused. "Although I do realize that that in and of itself constitutes as a denial."

Sakura laughed. "Damned if you do, damned if you don't. And I'll drop it when you drop the whole 'Sakura's useless' thing."

"I would love to drop that, I really would," Sasuke said innocently. "And I will. The minute you actually do something."

Swiftly, Sakura pulled out a kunai. "I can do something right here if you'd like," she mock-threatened.

"Sakura-chan, there's really no need to be so violent, is there?" Naruto asked, stepping out of the bushes. "Especially towards our teammate during the exam?"

"He'll be fine," Sakura said dismissively. "How long did it-"

"Wait, I'll handle this," Sasuke interrupted. "Tell me about our first kiss."

Naruto turned red. "Sasuke! Don't try to trick me! 'When was our first kiss'…honestly, you know we never did."

"Wrong answer," Sasuke said smoothly, throwing a shuriken at the boy he had decided wasn't his teammate. "The day we graduated we kissed. Technically."

"Oh, right," Sakura remembered. "I gave Naruto a concussion."

"Very clever of you to figure it out," not-Naruto said, turning back into his real form.

"Not really," Sasuke said easily, watching as Sakura crept around behind their would-be attacker. "You're just really bad at impersonating people. Since it was an embarrassing moment for us both, I could easily see Naruto denying the event ever happened, but you didn't even try."

"I-" the boy began before feeling a tap on his shoulder. Automatically, he turned around in time to see Sakura's fist flying towards his face.

Sakura reached down to check their unconscious opponent for a scroll. "He doesn't have one," she reported after her search was complete. "He probably left it with his teammates while he played infiltration."

"Smart move," Sasuke remarked.

"Yeah," Sakura agreed. "And guess who finally did something?"

Sasuke snorted. "Took you long enough."

"Hey guys, I'm back," Naruto announced.

"Hi Naruto, how many times have I kicked your ass?" Sasuke asked.

"Oh, that so didn't count!" Naruto replied hotly. "You were using your drag form!"

"My…drag form?" Sasuke repeated uncertainly.

"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "You know, the one you got from the hickey."

"That was my curse seal form! You could even call it my demon form if you wanted to. It is NOT a drag form," Sasuke said firmly.

"Are you sure?" Naruto asked innocently. "Because I could have sworn I saw lipstick."

"That's him alright," Sakura giggled. "So, Naruto, what would you have said if we asked about the first time you and Sasuke kissed?"

Naruto turned red. "That never happened!"

"Really? Because I seem to remember-" Sakura began.

"NEVER HAPPENED!" Naruto cried out, sounding almost desperate.

Sakura shook her head in amusement. "Aright, alright…"

Suddenly they were assailed by projectile weapons in the form of leaves.

"Oh for the love of…we just took out someone," Naruto complained as he took cover.

"Oh, don't even start, you weren't even there!" Sakura snapped as she headed off in a different direction to do the same.

"You guys just play around over there. I'll take care of them myself," the ninja in the middle said.

Sasuke sought out the teammate closest to him – Sakura – once the attack was over. "What did I tell you right before ditching you?"

" 'Thank you'," Sakura said softly.

"Okay, now for-" Sasuke started to say.

"Not so fast," Sakura cut in. "That was vague enough it could have meant anything so answer me this: who did you attack the Summit to get at?"

"Danzo," Sasuke practically growled.

"Hey guys," Naruto said cheerfully as he ran up to them.

"What did you tell Tsunade-sama after your godfather died?" Sakura asked him.

Naruto gave her a puzzled look. "Jiraiya's not dead."

"Wrong answer," Sakura told him flatly.

"So you figured it out," fake Naruto number two shrugged as he melted back into his current form. "That won't be enough to save you."

"EAT THIS YOU STUPID SNAKE!" Naruto shouted out from a little ways away from them. "RASENGAN!"

"There goes a giant snake, I'm sure," Sakura noted.

"We're both after a scroll, right? You have an earth scroll and I have a heaven one," the imposter said, lifting the scroll to his lips.

"Wait," Sasuke said suddenly. "I know you! You're Orochimaru of the Sannin!"

Orochimaru paused and smirked. "Very impressive, Sasuke-kun."

"Don't call Sasuke that, you pedophile!" Sakura said angrily.

"So not the time," Sasuke told her.

"I am NOT a pedophile," Orochimaru insisted, sounding offended. "Why do people keep saying that?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe it's your tendency to seek out young boys, give them a hickey, and then take them to live with you?" Sakura suggested sarcastically.

"They aren't hickeys, they're seals and I'm interested in their powers and bloodlines not their bodies!" Orochimaru hissed. "Well, that's not quite true, but I'm not out to molest them!"

"You give them the 'seals' via sucking on their neck," Sakura pointed out. At Orochimaru's startled look, she explained, "We know Anko."

"Orochimaru," Sasuke growled, drawing attention back to him. "You killed-"

"Hey guys, I'm back. Again," Naruto informed them, bounding up to them.

"Timing, Naruto, God we've talked about this," Sasuke complained. "When someone's in the middle of a dramatic moment, don't interrupt unless you're going to add to the drama or if they're evil and really pissing you off!"

"Sorry," Naruto apologized. "I can go back and wait until you're done if you want."

Sasuke gave a put-upon sigh. "Don't bother now that you're here. Just keep quiet and let me do this, okay?"

"Okay," Naruto said agreeably. "Just try and keep the sexual tension to a minimum, okay?"

Sasuke twitched and opened his mouth to say something about how he and Orochimaru didn't have any sexual tension when he stopped suddenly and smirked. "Why?" he asked instead. "Jealous?"

"Bastard," Naruto accused.

"Not an answer," Sasuke pointed out.

"If you guys don't hurry this up than I'm going to tell Kiba about this," Sakura threatened. "Hell, I might do that anyway."

Paling at the thought of telling the one guy who persisted in believing that they were secretly in love about their current conversation, both boys abruptly stopped arguing.

Sasuke cleared his throat and turned back to Orochimaru who was just staring at them in disbelief. Clearly, he didn't get ignored by preteens who knew who he was very often. "My name," he said dramatically, "is Uchiha Sasuke. You killed my family. Prepare to die."

"I did not!" Orochimaru burst out unexpectedly.

"…Pardon?" Sasuke asked.

"I did not kill the Uchiha. I haven't killed an Uchiha in years!" Orochimaru claimed.

"My family died years ago," Sasuke reminded him.

"But I didn't do it! Why doesn't anyone ever believe me?" Orochimaru demanded.

"Possibly because you said 'What's this? ANOTHER Uchiha? I was so afraid that I had managed to kill all of them so this boy would be my only option as a host, but now I see that there is a spare! How wonderful. This is getting a little crowded, so I'll take my leave now, but never forget…I, Orochimaru of the Sannin, WILL be back to steal your body, mark my words'," Naruto told him helpfully.

"I guess he could have managed a password after all," Sakura murmured to herself. "Ah well, that still carries the risk of being overheard."

"That wasn't me! I was nowhere near Konoha that night!" Orochimaru insisted.

"There's a large crowd of witnesses that say otherwise," Sasuke said flatly.

"They showed up to see what? Your brother and 'I' alone amongst the corpses? How do you know he didn't do it?" Orochimaru challenged.

Sasuke laughed bitterly. "What, you think Itachi killed everyone? I'm sure next you'll say he was ordered to do so because, let's see, they were planning a coup."

"I don't know what happened because I was not there," Orochimaru said, clearly getting frustrated. "I was framed!"

"Why would anyone frame you?" Sasuke asked, sounding skeptical.

"I don't know but I do not appreciate being known as the one to wipe out such a valuable bloodline," Orochimaru announced.

"Does that mean you're after either my body or my brother's?" Sasuke demanded.

Orochimaru tilted his head and smiled. "Now that you mention it…yes."

"I see," Sasuke said staring Orochimaru straight in the eye. "Let me tell you what I think of your little proposal," he said slowly as he activated his Mangekyou Sharingan. "Tsukuyomi."

In less than five seconds, Orochimaru crumpled to the ground.

"Did you really just beat him?" Sakura asked dubiously.

"I did indeed," Sasuke sounded smug as he quickly cast the jutsu to counteract the Mangekyou's corrosive tendencies.

"Total cop-out," Naruto complained.

"To be fair," Sasuke admitted, "he probably didn't have any experience with the Sharingan if Madara is still pretending not to exist and definitely wouldn't expect me to have the Mangekyou Sharingan. From what I can tell, this is how Itachi beat Orochimaru when he went after him before leaving Akatsuki. Should we face him again, it will not be so easy."

"Sweet, he has a heaven scroll!" Naruto cheered, picking the aforementioned item up.

"Give that to me, you'll just lose it," Sasuke insisted, snatching the scroll from Naruto.

Naruto glared at him. "You suck!"

Sasuke was about to reply when Sakura forestalled another argument with a simple sing-song-y, "Kiba!"

"Do you think we should contact someone and let them know?" she asked seriously.

Sasuke shrugged. "Why should we? They figured it out before and they can figure it out again. Besides, he should be out for awhile. And we really don't want to risk getting disqualified for contacting them."

Looking reluctant, Sakura nonetheless agreed to keep moving.

"So…" Naruto said once that was settled. "What did you do to him anyway?"

"He gets to live through that time Ino and Sakura managed to drag me along with them on a shopping expedition for seventy-two hours straight," Sasuke said grimly.

"It wasn't that bad!" Sakura protested.

Naruto shuddered, ignoring her. "You're evil."

"I know."


"So which of the genin did you molest this time?" Kakashi questioned his girlfriend over lunch. "It wasn't Naruto again, was it? Because Minato-sensei's kind of getting concerned about that."

"I do not molest them!" Anko insisted.

Kakashi simply waited.

"It might have been the dog boy," she grudgingly admitted. "But in my defense, he was being an idiot."

"I really hope that's covered by the waiver," Kakashi said.

Anko shrugged. "If these kids are agreeing to die then I'm sure they won't put up too much of a fuss about what some might call being overly forward."

"Or molestation," Kakashi translated.

Anko ignored him. "Besides, that Nara boy told the dog boy that he would have to actually read the waiver in order to see if he could sue and dog boy decided he'd rather just make Naruto 'help him through his issues' later." She scoffed, "Issues. Please. A couple more years and he'll be begging for someone to lick him."

"Someone who really shouldn't be you as you're twice his age and my fiancé," Kakashi pointed out.

"Don't worry," Anko assured him. "I have no interests in dogs."

Kakashi gave her a wounded look.

"Oh, come off it. Dog summons are different," Anko told him. She threw the last of her dango sticks at the same tree where she'd thrown all the others. "Perfect leaf pattern!" she beamed.

"How long did it take you to learn how to do that?" Kakashi wondered.

Anko shrugged. "A couple of weeks. When I was younger I went through a period where I refused to eat anything but dango and since I practiced every time I ate it, I got really good, really fast."

"Kind of like Naruto and his ramen obsession," Kakashi noted.

"Yeah, but he seemed to tone it down quite a bit when he turned eight," Anko mused. "I always thought that was kind of strange."

"Well, trauma can do strange things," Kakashi offered lamely.

"Big trouble, Anko-sama," one of the Chuunin examiners announced as he appeared on the scene with a poof of smoke.

"Mozuku?" Anko asked. "What happened?"

"Bodies, three of them. And they're…weird," Mozuku told her.

"Weird how?" Anko demanded.

"Maybe…maybe you'd better come see for yourself," Mozuku said hesitantly.

"I'll come, too," Kakashi said immediately.

Making their way to the site where the bodies had been discovered, they saw several of the examiners gathered around the corpses.

"After examining their papers and personal items, they seem to be the hidden grass shinobi who were entered in this exam but as you can see, they have no faces. They are blank...as if they were melted off," Kotetsu explained.

Anko looked horrified. "Show me the pictures of these three people!"

The chuunin scrambled to do as she requested.

"Are you okay?" Kakashi asked her quietly.

"He's back," Anko replied just as quietly. "The last time I saw him he had just wiped out the Uchiha and was vowing to steal the body of either an eight-year-old kid or a thirteen-year-old one. How could I possibly be okay?"

"My mask had a feeling this would happen," Kakashi said, looking deadly serious. "Of course, it seemed farfetched, so I really couldn't tell anybody…"

"Your mask," Anko repeated.

"That's what I said," Kakashi confirmed.

"What, is it psychic now?" she asked incredulously.

"I don't know, do you want me to ask it?" Kakashi asked dryly. "It either won't answer so it won't do any good or it will and I might need to take Minato-sensei up on that long-standing offer of therapy…"

"Why haven't you if he's so concerned?" Anko wondered.

"Well there's no point, is it?" he replied rhetorically. "We can't talk about anything confidential and that's where half of our various issues come from. What we need are ninja therapists."

"Like Obito," Anko supplied. "Or Naruto when he gets older."

Once the pictures were in her hand, her mood did not improve. "Damn. So even then…before the exam, I saw him. He was talking about his bloodlust and he kept using his tongue like an extra appendage. I should have known! I mean, seriously, who else does that?"

"You probably would if you could," Kakashi muttered.

"True," Anko admitted. "But I'm not part-snake like he seems to be nowadays. This is bad guys, someone go tell Hokage-sama that Orochimaru's back and has infiltrated the exam. Send some ANBU captains to the forest of death. I'm going after him right now!"

"We're going after him," Kakashi corrected.

Anko didn't bother to argue; she just lead the way into the forest.


"Hey look, it's Gaara!" Naruto said excitedly. "Hey Gaara!"

Gaara greeted the new arrival with a nod. "Naruto."

"Oh, so you got another scroll, too?" Sakura asked. "Is it the one you needed?"

Temari, who was in the process of retrieving the scroll, quickly checked. "Yeah, it is."

"Do you guys want to walk back to the tower with us?" Naruto offered. "It will be fun."

"Do you guys NOT see all the blood lying around and the crushed corpses strewn about?" Kankuro demanded.

"Of course we do," Sasuke told him. "Why?"

"That doesn't, oh I don't know, BOTHER you?" Kankuro asked.

"We're ninja," Sasuke shrugged. "Besides, we signed the waiver."

"What will it take to convince you that my brother is evil?" Kankuro demanded.

Gaara's lips thinned a little at that, but he needn't have worried.

"Evil puppet guy, it's not very nice to try and use poor Gaara as a scapegoat to try and make us forget how evil you are," Naruto rebuked.

"Why aren't you trying to defend me?" Kankuro demanded of his sister.

She shrugged. "I've come to the conclusion that Konoha is just insane and besides, Gaara hasn't actually shown any sings of wanting to kill them and that can only be a good thing in my book."

Kankuro groaned theatrically, but let it go.

Nevertheless, as they made their way to the tower together, Temari pulled Naruto to the side. "So, just between us, do you really think Kankuro's evil and/or crazy?"

"He wears makeup and a cat-suit," Naruto said flatly.

"Point," Temari acknowledged. "What about the 'evil' part?"

Naruto grinned at her. "Does it really matter? I'm not planning on letting up either way."

Temari sighed. "I suppose not."

It figured that Gaara would manage to accidentally befriend the craziest people around. Or at least, she HOPED they were the craziest.


A few hours later, after braving the perils of tigers and snakes, Anko and Kakashi finally stumbled upon the still-comatose Orochimaru.

"…I guess someone else took him out," Anko said eventually.

"Looks like whoever it is left a note," Kakashi remarked, picking up the paper that had been folded twice and placed on Orochimaru's chest. Unfolding it, he read, 'Dear responsible Konoha ninja, congrats on actually getting here before That Man recovered from my Tsukuyomi. I would like to take this time to thank both Itachi and Naruto as I could not have beaten him without them. Itachi, of course, taught me how to use the Mangekyou Sharingan and Naruto died for me. Sakura, as per usual, did nothing. But she did punch someone earlier. –Sasuke."

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