Chapter 11 - Okay, now it officially begins.

From what I could deduce from partially listening in on the words of random groups of people there was some skirmish with a genjutsu earlier in which some people had been messing with the floors signs. I felt kind of lucky that I'd missed it.

Soon after we found ourselves sitting in room 301 with the rest of the candidates. When I walked in with the rest of Team 8 it was rather intimidating to say the least. The room that everyone had been told to congregate in was a large classroom. Files of desks covered the room while scores of ninja sat in the seat, and on the tables, filling up the room almost completely.

The different headbands that were placed around each ninja's body gave an indication of where they were from: the leaf village, the hidden sand villages, the hidden rain village and a newer nation, the sound village. I was my first time ever seeing ninja from that village. As we found seats/a patch of table at the edge of the collection of ninja I sat on the table next to Kiba. Hinata and Shino found seats next to us. Shino had no change in expression as he looked off into the crowd of ninja. Hinata was occasionally looking around nervously but other than that was managing to keep up her composure. Kiba seemed to crack a small grin as his eyes surveyed the surrounding exam participants.

After a moment he leaned and muttered in my ear, "Looks like we're the first of the 10 to arrive. You think the others are going to turn up or do you think they've woosed out?"

I shook my head and lifted my hand to pet Akamaru who was on Kiba's head, "I know for certain that Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji will be here, I met up with Shikamaru for a while yesterday to play a game of shogi. I don't know about team 7 though, we'll just have to wait and see if Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura turn up." I told him as softly as I could.

Many of the genin here seemed much older than us and so I figured it wasn't such a good idea to attract unnecessary attention to us before the exams even begin. We sat around for a couple of minutes before team 10, Neji's Hyuuga's team, walked through the door. They didn't waste time loitering around before heading over to find somewhere to wait on the other side of the room from us. It wasn't much longer before the last of the genin from our academy class came through the door. In case you couldn't guess it was Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura. As they walked in, looks of shock overcame Naruto and Sakura's faces as they observed the other ninja in the room.

"Wow. I guess we're not alone." I could hear Sakura announce and it caused Kiba to snigger.

"Seems like they turned up unprepared. What did they expect?" He told me and I could find some humor at Sakura's expense.

'She couldn't have been blind enough to not notice the dozens of foreign shinobi coming into the village during the past week.' I thought to myself and kept my eyes focused on the front of the room. Thankfully I did as I was able to see Ino come up behind Sasuke and throw her arms over him gleefully. He did not seem very impressed.

"Sasuke, where've you been? Boy you have no idea how much I was hoping that you'd show up here. I've missed those brooding good looks of yours."

I sniggered a bit not expecting any less from Ino Yamanaka. Sakura was getting irritated at how close Ino was to Sasuke and was making it quite known.

"Hey you porker, back off he's mine!"

"Miss Forehead, they let you in? Still got those big frown lines on that billboard brow I see." Ino responded knowing that mention of Sakura's forehead would piss her off

"Leave my forehead out of it!"

I watched in amusement as Shikamaru and Chouji walked up to join the other four. Chouji was busy stuffing his face with a bag of crisps while Shika walked like usual with his hands stuffed into his pockets "Oh you guys then. I knew this was going to be a drag but I didn't know it would be this lame." He said broadly as he approached.

"So all 3 stooges are here." Naruto stated matter of factly and Kiba nudged me.

"Hey Kina, everyone else is here, so why don't we go up and say hello?" He suggested and I shook my head.

"No need to start anything Kiba. Let's just stay here, going up is too much effort." I told him but he didn't listen. Instead Kiba grabbed my wrist and pulled me up onto my feet much to my unwillingness.

"Hey guys lets go see the others!" Kiba announced. The others didn't seem to mind so that's what we did, Team 8 made their way up to speak with the others. Kiba partly dragging me behind him as we walked. I could feel a lot of eyes on us as we walked up to the others. It made me kind of uneasy. "Well well, what do you know? Looks like the whole gangs back together again." Kiba said cockily as we caught up with the others, as we joined them he let go of my wrist and I grinned at Ino who was still lounging on Sasuke's shoulders, she gave a small smile back.

I heard Hinata begin to greet Naruto shyly from behind me, "Oh...Hi Naruto." She began and Naruto's eyes went straight to her. I could guess that Hinata began to blush as within a moment she stepped slightly behind me.

"You guys too huh?" Shikamaru observed as we arrived and met my eyes. I smirked a bit and he sighed, "Man, everyone's here for this stupid thing."

"Yep." Kiba agreed as I separated myself from my team and walked over to a wall. As Kiba continued to speak I slid down the wall so that I was seated slightly behind Ino and Sasuke so that I was slightly less obvious to the rest of the room. "Here we all are, the 10 rookies. This is going to be fun. At least for those of us good enough to make the cut. Right Sasuke?" Kiba declared, aiming the last part at Sasuke because he was easily known as the most skilled back in our Academy days. Sasuke seemed amused by Kiba's confidence by the tone in his voice, from where I was sitting I couldn't see his expression.

"Kiba, be careful that you don't get overconfident." He replied.

"Just wait, we're going to blow you guys away. We've been training like crazy." Kiba bragged, completely ignoring Sasuke's words.

"Well what do you think we've been doing, sitting around picking daisies? You don't know what training means." Naruto declared pointing at Kiba as if to reinforce his point. Hinata being the considerate person that she was tried to make Kiba's statement seem less boastful...if that were even possible.

"Oh...uh..Don't mind Kiba...I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it." She defended shyly which caused Naruto to look over at her. Seeing his gaze Hinata started blushing which caused me to raise an eyebrow. Kiba seemed to notice Hinata's bashfulness too as he glanced down at her. As I rested my head against the wall, Chouji began to walk forward toward Kiba, only to be intercepted by Shino.

"What do you want?" Chouji asked looking up at the much taller boy. As Shino's gaze went downwards, as did mine. A small black beetle was scuttling across the floor by Chouji's foot. I recognized it as one of Shino's many chakra beetles. Which would explain the interception.

"Thought maybe you hadn't seen it. Didn't want you stepping on it." He explained in his deep voice. Like seriously, how come Shino has such a deep voice, it's almost as deep as that sand ninja, Gaara's. It's a bit concerning just how deep his voice is when he can't be older than me.

A newcomer's voice called me out of my thoughts.

"Hey, you guys. You might want to try keeping it down alittle. I mean, no offense. But you're the 10 rookies right, fresh out of the academy?" I looked up to my right and saw a guy, he was around 19ish years old. He was averagely pale with silver hair and black eyes. His eyes were augmented by a pair of large round framed glasses. His leaf headband was tied around his forehead, marking him as one of us. He was dressed in a mostly purple jumpsuit, which cut off at the shoulders to white short sleeves. He also had a cream sash wrapped around his waist. He also had a slightly commanding tone to his voice as he continued speaking, "I wouldn't go making a spectacle of yourselves. Just cool it, this isn't a class field trip." He commented which caused Ino to grow irritated.

"Who asked you? Just who are you to tell us off anyway?" She demanded and the new shinobi smiled slightly before replying.

"I'm Kabuto Yakashi. But really, don't believe me? Look around you. You've already made quite an impression."

We all did what he said and to be honest the sight around us was intimidating but didn't really surprise me. Almost all of the shinobi in the room were glaring at us for our noise. Some rain ninja in the right hand corner where glaring at the 10 of us with more verosity than the others. Many of us rookies seemed rather shocked by the hostility. I sighed again.

'I did tell Kiba not to go drawing attention to us before the exams even started. And look at us all now. Everyone hates us.'

"See those guys. They're from the rain village, very touchy. Everyone here is. This exam makes everyone tense, so you don't want to rub them the wrong way right now." He explained and Sakura seemed particularly surprised by the news.

"You can't help it. I mean, how you could know how things work, your just rookies. You remind me of myself awhile back." He told us and this time it was Sakura who spoke.

"Kabuto, is that your name?" She asked but didn't wait for a reply before continuing, "This isn't the first time you've taken the exam?"

The Kabuto guy seemed to falter slightly before replying, "It's actually my 7th."

I raised an eyebrow and that seemed to mirror everyone else's surprise. I mean, seven times really says something about how difficult these exams must be.

"Well, they're held twice a year, so this will be my 4th year."

Sakura seemed impressed by how many times the guy had need to take the exams, "Wow, so you must be a veteran?"

"Yeah sort of." The guy confirmed.

"Cool!" Naruto exclaimed happily, "You can give us all the inside tips." He was clenching his fists lightly which showed his excitement.

"Yeah, some expert. He's never passed." Shikamaru stated bluntly which caused Kabuto to scratch the back of his head nervously.

"Well...seventh times the charm they say.."

'I thought it was '3rd times the charm' ' I thought to myself as I watched Shikamaru look down at the ground slightly grumpily.

"So that must mean that all the rumors about the exams being tough are true. Ahh man, I knew this was going to be a drag."

"Hey now, don't give up hope. Maybe I can help you kids out alittle." He encouraged and began to reach around in his pocket. Sighing I leaned my head against the wall and shut my eyes, silently wishing for Shikamaru to join me so that I could have a pillow.

I heard Kabuto say the words "ninja info cards..." and I sighed. Not wishing to be fully invested in what he was saying but still keeping and ear out I grabbed the hem of my grey shirt and lifted it above my head to try and block out light, (don't worry, I wear a red fishnet vest top underneath so I'm hardly exposed).

I listened to him explain about a card which showed the geographical distribution of candidates who came to the leaf to participate in the chuunin exams and the numbers of candidates. He then went on about the chuunin exams partly being meant to enhance positive international relations and at the same time monitor the number of shinobi in each village to evenly spread out power amongst the nations to avoid a power struggle and the possibility of war.

Yadda Yadda Yadda.

I can only say that because my mother would explain why keeping up good appearances while hosting foreign shinobi was important during times like the chuunin exams and so I had heard it all before.

"So do those cards of yours have any info on other candidates? Individually?" I heard Sasuke ask and I listened to hear Kabuto's answer.

"Well I can't promise that my information is complete or perfect. But I've got something on just about everyone. Including you guys of course."

I frowned a bit at that and wondered what information that he had on me exactly.

'More importantly, how the hell did he even get it?'

"He's Gaara of the Dessert, and there's Rock Lee from the leaf while you're at it." Sasuke told him and that peaked my interest, after all, I was hosting the red head in my home right now...at least the section of it I don't live in.

Alittle bit of silence passed before he started talking about Rock lee, some guy I'd never heard of who apparently increased his Taijutsu rapidly in the last 12 months. Apparently his teammates were some girl named Ten Ten and Neji Hyuuga, Hinata's cousin. When Kabuto said that Naruto seemed to speculate over the last name Hyuuga but clearly didn't make the connection to Hinata.

When Kabuto announced Gaara I listened in with a good ear.

"Mission experience, 8 C ranks and...hey get this, 1 B rank as a Genin. There's not a lot more information on this guy. He was a rookie from another land originally...but there is this. He's survived every mission without getting a scratch on him"

If my eyes were open they would have widened slightly in surprise while some voice their surprise I kept mine contained in my head. Kabuto went on to explain something else but I kept focused on my thoughts.

It was certainly curious as to how someone so short and scrawny and a genin at that could carry out a B ranked mission without getting even a scrape. There was also the fact that he hadn't once done any D ranked missions, it was like he skipped them and moved right on to C ranked ones as if D ranked missions were too easy for him, even as a genin.

I mentally shook my head as I realised I was focusing too much on the one shinobi and zoned back in to what kabuto was saying.

"... The hidden sound village is small. It sprang up recently so no-one really knows anything about it. Those guys are a mystery. Well you get the picture, the competitions going to be tough this year. In the 4 years I've been coming, I've never seen a crop of candidates with as much potential as this. Yep, we've got our work cut out for us."

'I figured as much. This really will be a drag and we probably will get our asses handed to us if we fight against a much more experience group. However we have been training hard so if we're smart then we should be able to at least drag ourselves through.' I thought to myself and began to hear someone twitching. Figuring that it must be someone being a bit nervous I shrugged it off and went back to daydreaming against the wall. However a sudden yell caused me to yank my shirt off my face and look forward. Naruto was pointing at the crowd of older and more experienced ninja with a large grin.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki. And I'm going to beat everyone of you. BELIEVE IT!"

I stared up at the rash orange clad ninja for several seconds before slowly shaking my head.

'That fool. I should give him a sedative or something from my pouch. I had one request when we arrived, and that was not to draw attention to ourselves and make everyone target us before the exams even begin.' I thought to myself bitterly as I stared up at Naruto. Ino seemed to feel the same as I did, however she was much more vocal about her opinions then I was being. She started shouting at Sakura about the idiocy of Naruto's actions...somehow it turned into an argument on the subject of Sakura's inability to get a boyfriend. Naruto didn't really seem to realize the tense situation around him and was blissfully laughing.

"Yeah...I feel a lot better now."

While Naruto blissfully laughed I took a read of the mood of the room, it was very very tense...to put it mildly. Almost the entire room was glaring at the 10 of us and Kabuto. The aura of the room was one of hostility, all the ninja around us were clearly on edge and everything that all of us newbies were doing was riling them up even more. Here we're all the annoying ones, meant to fall in line due to our youth and inexperience. It made perfect sense. Unfortunately Naruto is the type who can't read situations like this, the same can be said for most of us as we didn't just sit down and shut up when we first arrived.

"Naruto, you sound like a jerk." I sighed under my breath, thankfully no-one heard me.

"Could you say that again, alittle louder, didn't quite catch that?" Kiba snarked to the blonde.

"You moron, are you trying to get everyone in the place to hate our guts or what?" Shikamaru asked Naruto who completely ignored the lazy genius by laughing again. Sakura who seemed to be completely done with Naruto's outbursts came up behind the boy and grabbed him in a choke hold around his neck.

She began shouting at him as he thrashed around gasping for air.

"Naruto, you idiot, Why would you say something like that? You obnoxious little..." Sakura trailed off as she was finally able to take the temperature of the room and noticed everyone not only glaring at Naruto for his outburst, but also glaring at her for how rude she was being. She loosened her grip around Naruto's neck and began waving at the rest of the room with a clearly fake tone of voice.

"Oh...hey there everyone. Don't mind him. Sometimes he says these spazzy things...he doesn't really mean them, they just kind of come out. He's got this condition, you know. Kind of a psychological thing. He really should be on medication."

Sakura then continued to shout at Naruto about 'disrespecting' everyone here and shouted at him and told him to think about the rest of us rookies before opening his big mouth.

'You know, just by observation... it would seem that everyone got even more adjitated when Sakura started shouting at Naruto.' I noted in my mind, shutting my eyes. As I shut my eyes I felt a sudden shift in the locations of 3 bodies of blood from within this room. Being so in tune with the internal workings of people's bodies I could generally sense where collections of blood were, AKA people. There were a lot in this room, too many for me to tell apart easily, however, I could tell that 3 bodies had rapidly started moving.

I opened my eyes. I couldn't hear anything except for Sakura's shouting at Naruto but within seconds the blood sources I sensed moving became visible. One ninja wearing a yellowish shirt and with spiky black hair emerged from the other genin with a leap through the air. I watched in shock at the rashness of the other ninja's actions as he launched kunai towards Kabuto. Thankfully the grey haired ninja jumped backwards towards the nearest wall behind him in time to dodge the flying steel. Before I could register fully what happened next another ninja appeared before Kabuto and swung a punch towards his face. In the nick of time Kabuto swung backwards and avoided it. I had to give the guy props, he's pretty fast. As Kabuto steps back away from the ninja I read their headbands and noted they sported a single music note, showing that they were from the hidden sound village. Like the rain ninja, I'd never seen any ninja from their village either.

From my sitting down view it seemed that no-one had been hit, that was until I heard the patter of glass hitting the floor in pieces. I sat up straighter while at the same time the rest of us rookies looked on in the same shock that I felt.

Kabuto didn't seem that phased by the attack and simply took off his glasses, "Oh, I see, so it was that kind of attack." He commented simply not seeming bothered at all by what just happened.

Sasuke came forward questioning how Kabuto's glasses broke when it appeared that he hadn't been hit. Shikamaru commented on how the attack must have come closer than we all perceived and also on how Kabuto seemed to be acting like it was nothing. I couldn't help but agree with my long time perceptive friend.

Kabuto seemed fine for another moment or so before without warning I could see his body begin to tremble from behind within the moment Kabuto was on his knees and retching like he was going to throw up. In concern Naruto and Sakura ran towards Kabuto to try and see if he was okay.

One of the male sound ninjas chuckled, minus one eye the man's entire face was obscured with bandages, the whole of the guys back was draped in what I guessed was a massive fur cloak or something. I didn't really want to think about what it was.

He seemed to be sneering alittle at Kabuto going by the tone of his voice, "Not such a tough guy afterall? Maybe that's why he's on his seventh try."

To be fair the sound ninja did kind of have a point but I did think that trying to attack Kabuto was a bit much.

The spiky haired sound ninja that had originally thrown the kunai spoke out next, his words were confident and boastful sort of like how Kiba spoke but with more menace.

"Write this on your little card Punk. The genin from the sound village will be chuunin by the time this is over; I guarantee it."

I clenched my hands lightly into fists to promote circulation in my otherwise stationary hands. We had been here for a while, hadn't we?

As if the world was answering my question as large and sudden puff of smoke erupted from the centre of the floor on the far side of the room, probably taking everyone by surprise. As if to add to the tone a gruff voice called out from within the screen of smoke.

"Alright you baby faced degenerates. Pipe down and listen up."

Slowly the smoke cleared and standing in the centre of the formally open floor was a man in a black trench coat, the finger sign he held about his chest indicated that he was the one to have cast the smoke jutsu. Behind him stood around a dozen or more grey clad leaf ninja who probably were here to help with the exam.

"It's time to begin." The black clad ninja announced, two lines of scars running down his face as he spoke, "I'm Ibiki Marino, your exam proctor. And from this moment, your worst enemy." I watched as our exam proctor lectured the sound ninja on fighting before the exam had even began. He then proceeded to forbid any genin from fighting one another without permission from any of the exam supervisors, additionally he stated that the use of fatal force between candidates was forbidden at risk of immediate disqualification. It was all pretty serious stuff. He seemed somewhat satisfied by the lack of objection by most of the room and then continued, "Now, if we're ready, we'll proceed to the first stage of the chuunin exam. hand over your paperwork, in return you'll each be given a number..." as if to illustrate his point he held up a white square with a black number 1 plastered on it, "This number determines where you will sit. We'll start the written test as soon as your all seated."

I eventually digested all the information that had been given to the genin in the room. We were all to sit in randomly generated seats and participate in a written exam...AKA a test. A part of me seemed a bit exited by the fact as I'd never really had any problems with a written test before, however the more dominant part of me registered that that was mostly because Shikamaru and I would sleep through almost all written tests that we were given to sit.

Naruto didn't seem to like this information as he was groaning instantly in disbelief at taking a written test, I don't think theoretical application was ever his strong point at the academy. At least in my memory it wasn't. At least for him I hoped not.