"Rasengan." Naruto slammed a first phase, non-lethal, rasengan into the Grass kunoichi's stomach. Naruto felt no hesitation about striking a woman. Silly notions about men not attacking women had been purged from him back in the academy.

His attack landed and sent her body spinning into a tree knocking her out. Her two teammates already lay defeated.

Naruto went over to her and slipped off her badge and put it around his own neck. "Now we've got three, let's head for the base in the center of the forest." Kiba and Hinata nodded their agreement, both eager to completer this phase of the exams.

XXX

They made it to the central base without incident. There a Chunin directed them to where the proctor was waiting. Anko accepted the three badges and performed a simple jutsu to confirm their authenticity. Nodding satisfied she made a notation on a clipboard.

"All right brats, you pass the second phase. Now you can just relax for the next two days until this part of the test ends. You'll be assigned rooms and you're free to do whatever you like until then. The base has all the usual facilities including a dojo and weight room is you want to train. There are only two rules you need to follow. Now that you've passed you're not allowed to leave again until you're dismissed and you're not allowed to fight any of the other teams when they arrive. Beyond that you're free to do as you please."

"Are we the first team to arrive?" Hinata asked curiously.

Anko shook her head. "Second, team Sarutobi's already here."

"Sasuke's team was the first to make it in?" Naruto sounded impressed.

"Great," Kiba muttered. "You just know he's going to start with Uchiha this and Uchiha that crap." Akamaru growled his agreement.

"They're our fellow Leaf ninja Kiba," Hinata said mildly chiding. "We should be glad they did so well."

Naruto nodded. "Hinata-chan's right, it's good to have another Leaf squad in. Maybe we can all hang out together for the next two days."

"I wouldn't count on it." Kiba grunted.

XXX

Kiba's prediction proved correct as Sasuke and his squad were polite but kept a frosty distance, choosing to eat and practice separately from team 7.

Early on the second day team Gai made it in.

Hinata was relieved to see her cousin and his squad had made it through safe and sound. Naruto was also happy to see his friend. The two squads were familiar with each other due to the Hyuuga connection and sat down to share a meal and compare notes.

"The squad from Suna," Neji told them. "They're dangerous."

"Well, the red headed kid is," Tenten said. "His teammates didn't seem like much."

"Oh? You fought the team from Sand?" Naruto asked sounding somewhat interested.

He failed to notice an unhappy glance from Hinata.

Neji nodded and gave a quick run down of he battle including his decision to withdraw at eh end of it.

"You ran away?!" Kiba mocked laughing. "And you call yourself a ninja?"

Neji frowned at him. "It's because we're ninja that I retreated. Ninja carry out the mission to the best of their ability, doing whatever that requires. The 'mission' was to acquire two badges from enemy squads. In my opinion the best way to accomplish that was to withdraw and seek out weaker teams. We are not samurai following bushido, shinobi don't worry about appearances or losing face when it comes to the mission."

"We got our two badges do Neji was right," Tenten said coming to his defense.

"Yosh! But it was still most unyouthful to retreat as we did."

"I'm sure big brother Neji made the right decision," Hinata said with a nod. "There is nothing wrong in showing discretion."

"Still sounds like he was scared to me," Kiba put in.

Neji sent him a friendly look. "Would you care for a friendly spar Kiba-san?"

Naruto and Hinata both looked alarmed and tried to warn their teammate.

"Sure! I promise I'll go easy on you!" Kiba answered immediately giving his teammates no chance to interfere.

Naruto and Hinata shared a look.

"You've got your medical balm right?" Naruto asked.

Sighing she nodded. "Yes, and I'll reopen all his chakra points for him."

Kiba looked at them frowning. "What are you talking about?"

"You'll find out," Naruto told him.

XXX

One Hour Later

"Secret technique: Thousand Years of Death!" Neji shouted.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagghh!!" Kiba howled.

"Now that's just mean," Naruto said.

Hinata, Lee, and Tenten all nodded and winced.

XXX

Late in the afternoon on the second day Team Ten arrived.

"Alright," Anko said. "Let's see your badges."

Ino and Chouji both looked embarrassed.

Shikamaru answered her with a disinterested expression. "We haven't got any."

Both of Anko's eyebrows jumped up in response. "What do you mean you haven't got any? You understand that coming here without any badges means you're disqualified from these exams right?"

All three of them nodded.

"Ah, we all decided as a group to come here and forfeit," Ino said sounding uncomfortable.

"How come? Don't you want to be promoted?"

"Sure," Ino said. "But there's something else we want more."

"Oh really?" Anko asked mocking. "What's that?"

"To live," Shikamaru said sounding dead serious.

His two teammates nodded in total agreement. He decided it would be too troublesome explaining to the proctor they had witnessed a red headed kid massacre a squad of Grass nin with sand. Seeing that and cowering in terror at the thought of having to face him they'd all decided forfeiting was a MUCH better option.

XXX

On the third day, just an hour before the deadline the squad from Suna arrived.

"Here," Gaara said in a bored voice as he handed over six badges. A couple of them had dried blood.

Anko accepted them with an unhappy face. "You only needed three! Why'd you collect more than that?"

"Because I felt like it," Gaara answered and walked away.

Temari and Kankuro followed after him. The only good thing about the whole experience in the forest was that it had at least calmed him down.

XXX

The Hokage was in a conference room with Tsunade, Kakashi, and Sarutobi as Anko made her official report regarding the Second Phase.

"We had four teams successfully complete the second test, that's a total of twelve finalists. Any more and we would have required a preliminary round."

The Yondaime nodded, his expression was solemn and serious as were the others at the table. Normally he would have been overjoyed at his son's team doing so well on their very first attempt. However there was another much more serious matter on his mind.

"How many casualties?"

"We have a number of minor injuries and one Leaf nin with a broken arm being treated right now in the base infirmary. We also have fifteen dead." She tossed down five badges on the table with a flourish. "Checking the badge numbers confirms that all fifteen were eliminated by the squad from Suna. The dead include one squad each from Rain, Mist, and Grass as well as two from Leaf."

There were always deaths in theses exams and all the participants went in understanding the danger was very real. However to have over a quarter of all the candidates killed was unprecedented. That it had been done by one team made it all the more unbelievable.

"This was a bloody massacre," Tsunade said in disgust. She hated useless deaths, and these had been completely pointless and unnecessary. "You should immediately disqualify that team! That's if you don't have them arrested and charged with murder!"

Both Minato and Sarutobi shook their heads.

"Arresting them would violate the agreements made between the villages." Sarutobi said. "The candidates cannot be arrested for any crime committed during the course of the exams."

"Well what about expelling them then?" Tsunade demanded.

"I can't do that," Minato replied glumly. "No matter how excessive it was the fact is killing other ninja during the exam isn't against the rules. I have no grounds for denying them advancement to the third round."

"So they actually get rewarded for this?!"

"My hands are tied Tsunade," Minato told her. "Being Hokage doesn't mean I can just ignore the rules and the treaties. Like it or not they passed and did so within the limits we set for this phase of the exams. We will just have to keep a close eye on them from this point on."

Tsunade looked murderous.

"These exams were meant to foster mutual respect and friendship between the ninja villages," Sarutobi pointed out. He had been the driving force in establishing the exams following the Third Great Ninja War. He believed in them. "This is the price we pay sometimes for bringing all these different groups together. Hopefully this will be an aberration."

"I'm sure that's a huge comfort to those fifteen dead shinobi old man."

"Come on," Minato said. "The decision's been made. Let's just do our best to keep the body count down from here on out."

XXX

Temari and her team were headed down a long corridor to an underground arena where the finalists were all being gathered.

She hoped for the chance to talk to Naruto. She'd heard that his team had made it. She was hoping to chat and get to know him a bit better. That was if they didn't go directly into the third phase.

When she and her brothers exited the corridor to arrive at the large arena floor she was not expecting trouble. So when Gaara suddenly stopped and went rigid she was surprised.

Kankuro saw the problem immediately. "Aw damn it to hell!"

"What? What is it?" Temari asked having no idea what the issue was. Gaara had been fine until just a moment ago.

Her older brother pointed to a homely kid in green spandex. "That's Rock Lee."

"Oh hell!" She instantly understood. Gaara had gone on and on about what he was going to do to Lee.

The cork in his gourd popped out and sand began flowing onto the ground.

"Gaara you can't!" Temari cried in horror. "The Hokage's here! So are all the senseis! You have to stop!"

Lee and the others all saw the sand and felt Gaara's killer intent.

"I'm going to kill you!" Gaara said and sent his sand across the floor.

There was a flash of yellow light.

In the next instant a stunned Gaara found himself sent spinning to crash in the arena's far wall. His gourd shattered and he spat up blood as his sand had no chance to cushion his blow. He crumpled to the floor gasping with the pain of two broken ribs. He looked up to see the Lord Hokage standing where he'd been a moment before, a rasengan still in the palm of his hand.

"The second phase is over and the third has not begun yet," Namikaze Minato told him with a voice as hard and unyielding as iron. "Calm down right now or you're going to die here." The legendary Yellow Flash sounded as though he had no doubts at all about that.

Gaara stared at him, and for the second time since coming to Konoha felt fear begin to rise up inside him. He struggled to get back to his feet, wincing in pain. "Very well," he said. The sand began to retreat and surround him. "I suppose I can wait to kill him."

"How kind of you," Minato said. "Now please get into line so we can explain about the Third and final phase of these exams."