Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
AN: Once more, I am not trying to bash either Sakura or Ino, I'm staying close to canon in this chapter including interactions, with some differences, Ino and Sakura's dialogue is close to canon and this is what they say...so I'm not bashing, I'm only accurate. I apologize if your offended by this.
Chapter Fourteen
Hinata stood outside the academy with Shino, "I wonder where Kiba-kun is?" Hinata murmurs, looking at the gate, "We agreed to meet an hour early to get a good look at the other competitors."
Shino adjusts his glasses, "He's coming now," just then Kiba-kun turned the corner, he stopped as he hunched over, his hands on his knees as he breathed heavily, "I could hear him from here."
Kiba unzipped his coat halfway, "Are you okay Akamaru?" He asks, the dog yaps happily and jumps out of the jacket and runs to Hinata and Shino, Kiba hurrying after him, "Sorry I was late, my mom held me up."
"It's okay Kiba-kun," Hinata says with a smile, "Let's go inside now."
When they get to the second floor they see a group of people surrounding a door, on the door it said 'Room 314' the three glance at each other and decide to walk passed it and head to the stair case.
Kurenai is waiting in front of the Exam room when they arrive, "Kurenai-Sensei," the three greet with a bow.
Kurenai smiles at them, "I knew you'd three arrive together, and I'm glad you did, if you hadn't I wouldn't be able to let you pass, because in order to take the Chunin Exams you need to be a three man team."
"My sister gave it away after I told her we'd be entering as a team," Kiba says.
"I already knew this," Shino states, "Why? Because the Chunin Exams tests our capabilities as a Genin, and the most important thing for a Genin is the ability to work as a team."
"Neji-Nii-San told me," Hinata says sheepishly.
"I'm so proud of you all, you've come far in the short time we've been a team, and I'm proud to be your Sensei and to call you my team, I couldn't have asked for a better team to start my career off as a Jounin-Sensei," Kurenai hugs all three of them.
The group hug lasted a few minutes before Kurenai let go of them, "I'll see you soon, good luck."
The Jounin flickers away and the three Genin quietly enter the room, a lot of people were already there, but the room wasn't that crowded.
One team that caught Hinata's eyes right away was the one of the teams from Suna, the crimson hair of the youngest of the three stood out among the other Genin, but his cold jade eyes that seemed to be always glaring and staring into your soul was what she saw first.
The three find a place and lean against the wall, watching the other teams who in turn watched each other.
The other team that caught her eye was the Sound Team, she had heard rumors of a Sound Village from the elders, a new village that had just started up. Hinata was surprised to see a team already taking the Chunin Exams.
The door opens again and Team Eight look over and see Team Ten, the three Genin don't move far from the door, but come in Team Eight's general direction, Hinata catches Shikamaru's eyes, the Nara gives her a nod in greeting.
Around half an hour later Hinata noticed neither Team Seven nor Team Gai had arrived yet, they had about twenty minutes left.
Soon enough Team Gai walked through the doors, Neji immediately spots her and gives her a small smile, wishing her luck.
Hinata looks around the room again, 'There are so many Genin here,' she thinks, 'No wonder the Chunin Exams have multiple stages to weed out the Genin.'
Team Seven finally arrives, entering with a bang, everyone looks over at them, Hinata saw Ino walk over to them, and was initially confused to see her sneaking behind the three, and then when she jumped Sasuke, followed by Shikamaru and Choji walking over she understood.
Kiba lead Hinata and Shino over to the rest of the rookies, she felt the eyes of the other Genin and refused to let her nerves to get to her.
"Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura," Kiba greets, "Looks like the Rookie Nine are back together again."
Naruto smiles widely, "Of course! Did you think we wouldn't take the Exams?"
"That thought never crossed my mind," Shikamaru says with a yawn, "You wouldn't let an opportunity to beat Sasuke pass you up."
Naruto nods, "Shikamaru gets it," he says, ignoring Sakura and Sasuke's annoyed glares.
"It's true Naruto's gotten stronger but he can't beat my Sasuke-kun," Sakura states.
"Your Sasuke-kun?!?" Ino hisses, keeping her voice down, she didn't want to draw any more attention to herself.
"Yeah Ino-Pig! Now get your hands off him!" Sakura yells, her voice almost echoing throughout the room.
The other rookies look around and see that all the Genin are staring at them.
"Keep it down Forehead-Girl," Ino snaps, "Way to draw all this attention to us!"
"Hey," The nine Genin look over and see a guy with silver hair and dark eyes walking towards them, he wore glasses and wore a purple outfit, "Keep it down over there, I know your all rookies but this isn't a class field trip you know."
Ino glares at him, "Oh yeah?! And who are you anyways?" She asks.
"Kabuto Yakushi, I know this is your first time and all but you need to calm down, everyone is on edge and all your doing is rubbing them the wrong way," Kabuto states, "You see them? The Rain Village Genin? Their touchy, they all are, it's the Chunin Exams after all."
"What do you want anyways?" Sakura asks.
"I'm just here to help, the Chunin Exams are very difficult after all, and your all rookies," Kabuto states.
"And your not? This is probably your first time too," Kiba says.
"This isn't my first time, it's my seventh actually, the Chunin Exams are two times a year," Kabuto says sheepishly, "But I know a lot about the Exams anyways."
"Yeah? So much for that, this is your seventh time, you just said if yourself," Shikamaru drawls.
Kabuto pulls out a thick deck of cards, "I haven't just been wasting my time all this time, these are my ninja info cards," Kabuto says, "All the information I've gathered from my other six attempts, you can't see what the cards hold since only my chakra can reveal them."
Kabuto flips one over, showing the blank surface, before crouching on the ground and placing it there, he holds one finger on it as the card spins around, "What're you doing?" Sakura asks.
"Revealing the information," he stops and picks the card up, showing them.
"It's a map," Shikamaru says dryly.
"A map of the distribution of the candidates from the different nations and villages," Kabuto says, "Why do you all think they come here to take the Exams all at the same?"
The Genin are quiet and Kabuto continues talking, "It's to foster friendship between the nations, international brotherhood and all that, and its true enough."
"But there's another reason," Sasuke says.
"It's to carefully regulate the total number of Shinobi that end up in each village, to maintain the balance of power," Kabuto states.
"Balance of power, big deal, it's all a drag," Shikamaru mutters.
"If the balance isn't maintained then one nation can wind up with more Shinobi and be tempted attack another nation," Kabuto says, "It makes sense I suppose."
"Hmph, do those cards have any information on the other candidates? If so can I see them?" Sasuke asks.
"I might, do you have someone in mind?" Kabuto asks.
"I might," Sasuke replies.
"Well I can't promise you anything but I've got something on just about anyone," Kabuto picks up the stack of cards, "Including you guys of course."
Hinata's eyes slightly narrow, 'This guy is kinda shady, he's helping us for absolutely no reason, and he claims to have information on all of us.'
"Gaara of the Desert and Rock Lee of the Leaf Village while your at it," Sasuke says, breaking Hinata out of her thoughts, the Hyuuga glances over at him.
"Ah, you know their names, that's not fun," Kabuto, looks through his cards and picks out two, "Here they are," he says as he holds them up, looking over the cards at the Genin.
"Show them to me," Sasuke says, glaring down at them.
"Alright, up first is Rock Lee," Kabuto says, Hinata looks at the silver haired boy, interested in what he knew about her friend, "Looks like he's about a year older than you..mission experience looks like eleven C-ranks and 20 D-ranks."
Hinata looks over at Team Gai, Neji was watching them and they made eye contact, Hinata smiles at him, she looks at Tenten who looked to be looking at the other candidates while Rock Lee was also looking at the Rookie Nine.
"His team leader is Gai," Hinata isn't sure but she thinks Sakura and Naruto shiver when Kabuto mentions him, "And in the last twelve months his Taijutsu has radically improved but his other skills are pretty shaky, last year he got a lot of attention as a Genin, but didn't participate, so it's his first time like you guys."
'He must've been watching them for a long time, but how could he know this? They weren't even apart of the Chunin Exams in the last four years, and he says he's a Genin of the Leaf but I've never seen him before,' Hinata eyes narrow at him again.
"And his teammates are Tenten and Neji Hyuuga," Kabuto finishes.
"I already knew half of what you just said," Shikamaru mutters.
"Next up is Gaara of the Desert," Kabuto says before revealing the card, "Mission experience, Eight C-Ranks and one B-rank, there's not a lot of information on this guy, he's a rookie from another land originally..but get this, he's survived every mission without getting a scratch on him," Kabuto states.
"The dudes done a B-Rank as a Genin, but hasn't even been injured!" Shikamaru says, shocked by the information.
"What's with this guy?!" Naruto says, looking at the card incredulously.
Hinata glances around at the Rookie, and then at the red head they were talking about, 'I knew there was something strange..but I couldn't have guessed this.'
Kabuto reveals another map, "Leaf, Sand, Rain, Grass, Waterfall, Sound, from the looks of it they all sent exceptionally talented Genin this time around," Kabuto says, "Of course the Hidden Sound Village is small, it only sprang up recently, those guys are a mystery."
Kabuto picks up the card, "Just because the Village is small doesn't mean you should underestimate then," Hinata says quietly.
"You guys get the point, the competition is going to be intense this year," Kabuto states.
"Do you really think it's gonna tougher this time?" Sakura asks.
"Oh yeah, in the four years I've been coming, I've never seen a drop of candidates with as much potential as this one," Kabuto says.
"Hm," Naruto closes his eyes, 'I'm gonna defeat Sasuke and that mummy guy, these guys don't scare me!'
"Yep," Kabuto says, "We got our work cut out for us."
"Naruto are you okay?" Sakura asks, watching Naruto shaking, 'Maybe I should try to cheer him up.'
Sakura walks up to him, "Hey Naruto, don't worry it'll be fine."
Hinata looks at Naruto, 'I don't think he's nervous or scared.'
Hinata was proven right when Naruto turned and pointed at the other Genin with a shout, "My name is Naruto Uzumaki! And I'm going to beat all of you!" Naruto yells.
"What're you trying do?! Get us killed?!" Ino yells.
'I should've know he wasn't smart enough to be scared,' Sakura thinks.
"Tell your boyfriend to keep his big mouth shut!" Ino yells at Sakura.
"Who's boyfriend?!"
"Oh I forgot you can't get one!"
"Oh yeah! I feel a lot better now!" Naruto says cheerfully placing his hands behind his head.
Sasuke smirks, nodding at his teammate while
Kabuto smirks, amused by the blond.
The other Genin all glare at them, talking amongst themselves.
"You heard what he said about the Sound Village? He called us little, a mystery," one of the Genin from the Sound says.
"We should teach him a lesson," the female says.
"Yeah," the leader of three says, "We should teach him that the Sound Village Shinobi shouldn't be underestimated, and that anyone who insults the Sound Shinobi should be ready for the consequences."
"Ugh, can you say that a little louder?" Kiba asks, "Didn't quite catch it."
"Do you want everyone in here to hate our guts?" Shikamaru says.
Naruto starts laughing but is cut off when Sakura grabs him from behind yelling at him, "Naruto! You idiot! Why'd you go and say something! You obnoxious little-" Sakura freaks out when she sees everyone's glares, "Oh! Sorry about him everyone! Sometimes he's spazzes and says these stupid things! He really should be on medication," Sakura says sheepishly.
"Look what you did Naruto!" Sakura yells shaking her fist in the air, "You hurt everyone's feelings! Now they think you disrespect and that's not true is it!"
"Ready?"
"Let's do it!"
"Would you just once in your life think about what your doing? Think about what your doing to the rest of us?" Sakura shouts.
Suddenly the three Sound Village Shinobi appear in front of Kabuto, the leader attacking Kabuto, who's able to jump back and dodge the attack at an impressive speed.
'He's quick,' Hinata thinks.
Kabuto's glasses suddenly crack and he gasps, "Oh I get it, so it was that kind've attack," Kabuto says.
"Wait a minute, I saw all of it, the attack didn't land," Sasuke states walking forward.
"It must've been closer than it looked," Shikamaru says, "Look at him acting all tough."
Kabuto suddenly falls on his knees and throws up.
"What..did he just!" Naruto stutters.
"What's wrong Kabuto!" Sakura says.
"Hmph," the leader of the Sound team says, "It seems like he isn't that strong after all."
"Write this down on your notes punk, the Sound Genin are gonna be Chunin by the end of this," the other male states.
Suddenly a large smoke cloud appears at the front of the room and a man's voice bellows out, "Alright you maggots! Pipe down and listen up!"
The smoke clears revealing a tall Jounin dressed in black with a scar across his face and Chunin who all stood behind him.
"I'm Ibiki Morino, the proctor for his Exam, and from here on...your worst enemy," Ibiki states with a smirk.
To be continued...
AN: That took a long time to write...and a lot of bingeing on the Chunin Exams Arc lol. Another chapter done! Yeet!
So yeah, I changed up some scenes and the dialogue, and also, I was rewatching Naruto while I wrote this and personally, Hinata's suspicions aren't unfounded...he's super creepy and shady lol.
To LB Cat: I like looking into what the other rookies are thinking and feeling, I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for the review and I hope you enjoy this chapter! I also hope you had an amazing Easter as well!
To Hinatapaths: Thank you for reviewing! I hope it was worth the wait and you enjoyed the chapter!
A special thank you to hikari0605 and Mystic Blade Works for Favoriting and Following Altered I hope you enjoy this chapter!
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I'll see y'all next chapter! Bye!