*****Author's Note*****
Woot! Another update! More action in this chapter, and the finale of the ANBU exams! Starting next chapter we will finally see what Sasuke will have to go through with his trail and punishments, so stay tuned! Keep the reviews coming and I'll see what I can do about updating faster. I have a busy weekend and I have been fighting off a bit of a cold, so it may be a while, but reviews are always a good way to make me feel better! Also, many thanks to C.A.M.E.O.1 and Only for offering to draw the main characters from my story in their new outfits (Naruto and Sakura's outfits that I described in Chapter 10 and Sasuke's, who's has yet to be unveiled!), I am so excited to see how it turns out! Thank you thank you thank you! And now, on with the story!
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Physical Exam Day
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"Sakura, look out!"
Turning towards the sound of her comrade's voice, Sakura sees another hooded ANBU hurtling through the trees towards her, shaping his hands for a doton jutsu. Pushing off of the branch she had been perched on towards the next tree, she reaches into her pocket and pulls out a handful of senbon, lacing one between each finger of her right hand. Sensing her pursuer directly behind her, she charges each long needle with a touch of suiton chakra and flings them behind her without looking. Heeding the rules of the exam, she didn't aim high enough to hit any of the vital spots, only high enough to maybe take out a knee or thigh. Hearing a muffled thud and a groan, she grabs an overhanging branch and spins around, looking for the ANBU. She sees him crouched over on a branch a couple trees behind her, pulling three of the four senbon she had thrown out of his left thigh. Looking towards her with his(her) hooded and masked face, he(she) makes a one handed sign, signalling that he(she) was down. Sakura grins to herself, spins around, and heads for the meet up point that she and Naruto had agreed on before the test began.
When they had reported to the ANBU office that morning, leaving Sasuke under the watchful eye of Kakashi (who said something about fixing a congratulations dinner for the two of them, leaving Sasuke to roll his eyes with boredom), they had been presented with a detailed map of a training ground that neither of them had ever known existed before, training ground 99. Similar to most of the other contained training grounds, it was circular shaped, surrounded by a 15 foot high chakra fence. However, this one was divided into 5 zones, like a pie, with each zone being based off of the five main chakra forms, earth, water, wind, fire, and electricity. Sakura had quickly committed the map to memory as Naruto finished securing the necessary survival tools that they had been presented with by the exam officers to his chest and legs. Having already completed arming herself, the lead officer told them about the exam.
They would enter the training grounds form a point on the south end, directly in the middle of the fire zone. She noted that this area was completely devoid of anything that could be used for cover, and was covered in small pits filled with chakra maintained fire. The officer informed them that each zone was patrolled by two senior ANBU examiners. Their job was to get past both of them, having them both submit by using non lethal methods, until the examiners give them a hand sign, signalling their defeat, and advance to the next zone. The difficult part was that the ANBU in each zone were masters of jutsu's based off of the zone's nature, starting with Katon. Apparently being able to adapt to one's surroundings and being able to counter all five kinds of jutsu was the main aspect of the test. Starting from the fire zone, they were expected to move counter clockwise around the zones in order, from fire onwards to water, wind, earth, and finishing with lightning. Only once all five zones had been cleared would they be able to leave the training ground and pass the test.
So, here she was, in the fourth of the five zones, this one dedicated to doton, earth jutsu. The one good part of this zone was that it was almost exactly the same as the majority of the training areas in Konoha, being covered in humongous trees with almost no space left between them. With most of her jutsu's being suiton or water type jutsu, she was afraid that she would be out matched in this zone, but she found that because her chakra control was so delicate and perfected, that her suiton infused senbon were enough to penetrate the doton of the examiner that had come after her just after they had entered this zone. The one that had taken after Naruto was quite a bit bigger than hers, but because his primary jutsu's weren't dependant on a change in chakra nature, he had been doing fine so far into the test. If Naruto managed to get through this zone, the last one was going to be a piece of cake, being the lightning area. If she remembered the map correctly, there was a chakra induced thunder storm over the area with large rock outcroppings that had been laced with metal alloys to attract lightning. But, with Naruto and his wind style jutsu, the Rasen-shuriken, they should be able to pass the final zone with no problems. With Naruto now being able to throw his signature jutsu when in sage mode, he could make sure that it would not directly hit the examiners, preventing disqualification, but still be able to counter any lightning jutsu's they may throw at them. Then, at long last, the exam would be over, with them having been going for almost 6 hours now without a rest.
Coming up on the point that they had chosen, the exact center of the circular training grounds, where all five zones met, she sees her orange and white clad friend leaning against the signpost depicting where the zone boundaries were. He had a huge grin across his face and the only sign of how long his infraction in this zone went on for was a bit of dirt smudged across his face. Giggling at him, she slips her gloves off of her hands so that she can run her healing chakra along his arms, checking for any damage he might have sustained. Knowing the damage that his Rasen-shuriken could do to the chakra cells in his arms, she wanted to make sure that he was in as good of condition that he can be before advancing to the final zone.
"Sakura-chan, that tickles." he gasps out between laughing outright. "What on earth are you doing?"
"Making sure you're ok to use your wind style jutsu." she says, smacking the side of his head with her free hand. "The last zone is lightning and you have the advantage if you use it."
"Ah." he says, rubbing the spot that she had smacked.
"There, all done. Do you want to leave your clones here for sage mode?" she says, pulling her gloves back on and re-stocking her supply of senbon in her pocket from her medical bag on her hip.
"Sure, they should be ok here." Naruto replies, forming the simple hand signs and causing three more Narutos to appear in front of them. "You guys know what to do."
"Hai!" the three clones say, before dropping to the ground to sit cross legged and place their hands together, starting to collect sage chakra.
"Alright, let's go Sakura-chan." Naruto says, pointing towards the last zone.
They move forward, Naruto taking a point position ahead of Sakura, who had her weak chakra sensing abilities extended ahead and to the sides of them. The storm above them started to worsen and rain started to fall, causing their range of vision to be reduced. Naruto made a small motion and created another clone, sending the clone on ahead of him to check the area beyond.
"Where the heck are they?" Naruto mumbled, looking around. "The examiners usually jump on us as soon as we enter the zone."
"I don't know Naruto." Sakura replies, pulling her wet hair back out of her face and tucking it behind her ears.
Suddenly, two dark figures appear in front of them. Sakura had not even noticed their approach and Naruto's clone must have walked right past them.
"Welcome to the final zone, Naruto, Sakura." the figure on the right calls out, gesturing to them. The figure's voice sounded strange, as if they were using some kind of voice altering jutsu. "You have done well to advance this far on only your first attempt."
"Thank you, but can we just get on with this." Sakura replies sarcastically, crouching down into a defensive position and sensing Naruto do the same next to her. "I'm getting wet."
"Very well, as you wish… forehead." the figure replies, and Sakura finally recognizes the voice.
"Ino?"
The figure on the right chuckles and addresses the other examiner, revealing their identity as well. "I do believe they have identified us, I'm sure you can let your pet come out as well, dog boy."
"How many times do I have to ask you not to call him my pet?" the other figure replies, making a small beckoning motion with his hand, causing a large, white figure to come out from behind one of the rock outcroppings.
"Kiba?" Naruto says, trying not to sound so stunned. "Akamaru?"
"What are you two doing here?" Sakura asks, amazed. "How can you guys be examiners already, Ino, you only became ANBU a couple of years ago, and Kiba, you've only been ANBU for 10 months!"
"I know, but they decided that a good test for you two would to have you face some old friends at the end." Kiba replies, placing one gloved hand on the back of his canine friend and partner, who barked in agreement.
"So we are really expected to go up against you two?" Naruto yells over a crack of thunder from the storm above them. "What if you get hurt?"
"That's our problem to deal with Uzumaki." Ino replies, laughing at him. "We are ANBU." With that last comment, Ino jumps towards them, drawing a short katana from a sheath along her back and swinging it towards Sakura. Dodging to the side, Sakura pulls out a handful of shuriken from her leg pouch and throws them at the now exposed back of her closest friend, only to see her turn in mid-air and bat them away with her blade. Landing on one foot, she laughs out loud.
"Is that the best that you can do, forehead?" Ino taunts, dropping both arms to her sides. "I have learned a lot of new tricks since I passed this test myself, like this." Thrusting the sword she carried into the ground in front of her, she forms a series of hand seals before finishing with the tiger seal. "Raiton - Lightning Scepter!" With that, a bolt of lightning crashed down from the clouds above into the sword in front of her. Ino bends over and picks it up and Sakura is shocked to see that it no longer resembles the short katana it was just a second ago. It has almost doubled in length and crackles with electricity.
"One touch with this and you'll be knocked unconscious, forehead." Ino explains. "You'd better think fast."
Sakura turns around to see Naruto engaged with both Akamaru and a very feral looking Kiba, who had dropped onto all fours and had what looked like a ball of electricity covering the both of them. Deciding that the only way to get past their friends was to have Naruto ascend into sage mode and try to corner them before throwing a Rasen-shuriken at them to leach away the electricity that they were both using.
"Naruto, listen to me!" she calls, turning her attention back to Ino just in time to dodge again as Ino charged towards her with the lightning enhanced sword. "Attack plan D!"
"D? Sakura, have you gone mad?" Naruto calls back, calling up at least a dozen clones to create some kind of shield between him and his opponent. "These are our friends!"
"Do you want to pass this exam or not?" she yells back, throwing a couple more shuriken at Ino, only to watch in dismay as they explode upon contact with the katana.
"Alright, give me a second." he calls out, pulling back a couple of paces. He closes his eyes and releases the first of the three clones they had left behind and, when he opens his eyes again, they are rimmed with a dark red, signalling his ascension into sage mode. "Ok Sakura, go!"
Hearing the ok to move, Sakura starts to try and back Ino up against a large rock about thirty degrees to her left, the largest rock in the area that was about half way between the two examiners. She sees Naruto call up more clones to replace the defeated ones and starts to move Kiba and Akamaru towards the same rock. Smiling to herself, she aims a chakra filled punch into the ground to her right, causing the ground to splinter and shatter, causing Ino to stumble right in front of the rock they had chosen.
"Naruto, any time now!" Sakura calls out over another crack of thunder.
"10 more seconds." Naruto replies, two of his clones taking a run at the lightning shield and exploding on impact, but causing Kiba to stumble sideways into Akamaru's side. They both take a couple of steps towards Ino before regaining their balance.
"There, do it Naruto!" Sakura screams.
"Hai!"
Naruto calls in another of his sage chakra clones and two of the existing clones close in on either side of him, extending their hands. Sakura throws a simple smoke bomb in front of her, blinding their opponents for a couple of seconds, but that is all Naruto needs.
"Rasen-shuriken!" The smoke clears with the force of the wind-enhanced jutsu to clear a path directly between the two ANBU with just enough penetration force to leach away all of the electricity from both Ino's katana and Kiba's lightning shield. The projectile slams into the rock behind them and causes it to explode into a cloud of dust and debris. Naruto and Sakura throw their arms over their eyes to protect them from the flying rocks and, when they lower them, they see their two friends both kneeling on the ground gasping for air with exhaustion. Akamaru was standing over Kiba whimpering, and Ino's sword lay on the ground more than an arms length away from it's owner.
"Are you two ok?" Sakura calls out, once again crouching down into a defensive stance, not wanting to drop her guard if this was a trick.
"Yeah, we're fine." Kiba gasps out, laughing weakly. "I should have known that you might use your trump card, Naruto."
"Ugh, remind me to never get you mad at me." Ino agrees, sitting down on the wet, rocky ground. She looks at her fellow examiner and, with a slight nod, they both turn to their opponents and make the one handed sign that signalled their defeat.
"Congratulations, forehead, Naruto, you pass!"
