I'm BACK!!! WOOT I'M HOME

Yup me too im back as well

Well after a week of being attacked by hairdressers, make up artists, manicurists and a loonatic with a spray tan machine, I was all lovely and pretty for my sisters wedding yesterday and it went on with out a hitch awwwww.

So my holidays end now on Tuesday but I didn't forget about my loyal fans so with out further ado here the next chapter!!

Bout time!

You're such a buzz kill….

Let the Exams Begin

"This sand gets everywhere!" moaned Sakura as the came up to the valley leading into Suna.

"Tell me about it…" Monoki said reaching under her mask to shake loose irritating grains of course sand. All the ones from leaf where getting very uncomfortable with the sand where as the sand ninja smirked at them. Temari took great pleasure in poking fun at Shikamaru as he created several funny walks in the attempt to shift sand from his boxers.

"Leave me alone!" he shot back.

"Enough" Tsunade shot at Shikamaru, who, in turn, shot a scowl at Temari. Temari led the group through the city to the Kazekage's tower. Gaara was waiting on the steps to greet the hokage. The two kage's went into Gaara's office to clear the formalities and sort out the final details. While they where in the office the rest of the group waited in a large council meeting room. The genin were in one corner of the room along with Shikamaru and Temari. Monoki sat on the table and swung her legs, Sakura lent on the table next to her, Shikamaru lounged in a chair, the three stayed a bit away from the other gennin they just didn't know them.

"So how do you feel about the exams Sakura." Monoki asked

"I guess I feel okay about this. Tsunade-sama has taught me a lot so I think I'm ready for this." Sakura shrugged. "How about you?"

"I dunno… I think so. Then again if he could do it…"

"What is it pick on Shik day?" he groaned from the chair.

"yup, so when do we meet the other girl?" Monoki asked and shuffled further onto the table.

"Right now" Temari came back into the room and came over to the three of them, "Gaara wants to talk to you two, and you Takara-san"

"Okay" Takara broke off the conversation she was having with one of the ANBU body guards. "Come on kid" Monoki slid off the table and Sakura followed. The four women headed up to the top floor to Gaara's office. Gaara was seated at his desk with a young female ninja standing behind his chair with short brown hair. Tsunade was seated opposite with Shizune behind her. Takara moved behind the hokage and pulled Monoki with her, Sakura moved automatically to the other side of Tsunade. Gaara looked over the two gennin with his impassive face. His eyes lingered over the Monoki's mask for a moment. Then back to Tsunade.

"Well everything has been organized no one has any objections about the apprentice team, so there is no problem." he said slowly. Tsunade smiled to herself.

"Well then you've traveled far so I'll let you get some rest the first exam begins tomorrow at 2:30 in the afternoon. Matzuri would you take your new teammates to the dorms please."

"Yes it would be a good idea for you three to get to know each other, it would be better if you were able to work as a team." Tsunade added to the girls, Gaara gave a small nod in agreement.

"Yes Gaara-shishou." Matzuri stepped around Gaara and beckoned Sakura and Monoki to come with her.

Takara held back in the office.

Matzuri led the way down the corridor and down a few flights of stairs and into another part of the Kazekage tower. They came to a plain door with a small sign on the wall next to it reading 'Matzuri'.

"You live in the Kage tower?" asked Sakura a little surprised.

"Hai, I'm an orphan so I was in an orphanage most my life, but when Gaara took me on as his apprentice he prepared this for me, he told me it would be better to have somewhere to myself, but I think he just wants to make sure I'm safe after the whole kidnapping thing although he'll never admit it out loud." She smiled and opened the door. (A/N There is nothing about Matzuri laid out in the manga or anime so I'm making it up…….. just go with it people) Just in the door was what seemed like a small living room, it had a coffee table, a two seater sofa, a rather beat up looking arm chair and a small book shelf stuffed with instructional scrolls. On the left was a tiny kitchen with a fridge, cooker and a kettle on the right was a bedroom with a large enough bed and two camp beds pushed in as well.

"Cool" said Monoki as she looked around the rooms.

"Well I like it, you can leave your bags in the bedroom there" she pointed to the bedroom door and while the two leaf dumped their bags Matzuri dug out a couple of cans of coke from her small fridge.

After handing over the drinks the three sat in the living room in an awkward silence for a few minutes.

"So…ano …. Sakura Tsunade-hime told me that you took part in the exams before"

"Yeah… I got knocked out in the prelims for the third test."

"So whats the exam consist of then?" Matzuri asked, "It might help if we know what to expect."

"Good point, Well Tsunade-sishou said that the exams have more or less the same structure each time, so first is the written exam which is really a test of covert information gathering skills, second is the survival exercise, and then last is a straight out elimination fights of the genin that have passed the other tests."

"Right…" Matzuri thought for a moment, "Do you have any ideas or strategies worked out for this?"

"Now that you mention it… no…" said Sakura.

"Well we've been given this time, so we may as well compare each others fighting styles and strengths so we can work out the most efficient way of working together. For example, at this time my strengths lie in medium to close range combat with elemental attacks and my blades." Monoki offered.

"I'm a medically trained ninja with close range hand to hand combat skills." Said Sakura following Monoki's lead. Matzuri nodded,

"I'm a medium to long range type with my jouhyou (the dart on a rope thing Gaara gave her) I can distract enemies and even disable them."

"Looks like we got a well enough balanced team, that will be good for the survival part of the exams, but first we gotta figure out how we get through the written exams, we still have to get a decent score, after some guy passed by handing in a blank paper they're up holding that rule now, each of us has to get at least three questions correct." Monoki said.

"Hee, yeah that was Naruto, he was on my team last time, but okay so I could answer most of the questions last year on my own so I think I'll be okay, Monoki?"

"I got something but it's a clan secret" she said, Matzuri snorted in mirth.

"Yeah okay then, Gaara-shishou taught me a cool trick." Matzuri reached over the side of her chair and pulled what looked like a thick broadsword sheath from the floor, when she sat it on the table the other two girls could see that it was a cylinder. Matzuri gave the top a twist and it popped off the tube was filled to the brim with sand.

"Its called the 'Third Eye' Matzuri closed her right eye and pressed the tips of her index and middle fingers of her right hand on the eyelid, as she did a small ball of sand rose from the tube and formed into an eye.

"Cool!" exclaimed Monoki, "Creepy but cool"

"You can manipulate sand too? I thought only Gaara could do that because of the demon."

"Well yeah that's for his sand shield, but other things like his sand armor and creating more sand takes a level of conscious effort and control. Basically this sand in the tube has been infused with a large amount of my charka so there fore it will respond to anymore I channel towards it."

"Oh I see like Tenten channels chakra into her giant shurikan to control it after she has thrown it." Sakura said,

"Well, yeah but on a much larger scale, you have no idea just how much chakra it takes to animate the sand, its taken me this long just to create this much, so for now the sand is more of a supporting role."

"Still a good weapon though." Monoki pointed out.

"Yeah" Sakura agreed, the three girls planned until around midnight, thinking of plans for both the first and second exams. Monoki continued to pretend that she had not taken part in an exam before and just let Sakura explain the process. At midnight they turned in for a restless nights sleep.

The trio got up pretty late because after they finally did get to sleep, they over slept.

"Damit, Damit, Damit" muttered Sakura as she pulled on her gloves and hopped about trying to pull on a shoe.

"Relax its only 11:45, the registration doesn't close until two, so calm down." Said Monoki doing up the straps on her single vambrace on her left arm.

"Yeah, don't tell me you're one of those uptight types." Matzuri said while she double checked her equipment in her pouch.

"I'm not I just don't wanna mess up this time." Monoki rolled her eyes but the others didn't see it due to the glasses.

"Don't mind her Matzuri, I'm sure we'll be fine but to spare ourselves from an earful we don't we speed it up a bit and be early."

"Hey!" Sakura shouted and chucked a spare t-shirt at her a lose button caught the edge of her mask and the other two laughed as the t-shirt hung from Monoki's mask.

"Hey respect the mask!" She shot back and carefully unhooked the t-shirt.

"You even wear that thing while you sleep, hope it's a good reason you keep it hidden." Matzuri prodded while she slung her tube of sand over her back.

"It is…" Monoki said quietly

"Alright I'll take you're word for it, now come on we'll head on over to the school, doesn't hurt to be early." Matzuri said not pursuing the matter.

"Yeah okay" the two leaf genin followed Matzuri out of the small flat and out of the Kazekage tower. They chatted away on the way to the school at the sign in they paused while filling in the forms

"What village do we write, I mean it's a mixed team." Sakura asked the other two, they shrugged.

"Write the 'apprentice team' that has already been settled." Matzuri and Sakura jumped as Takara appeared behind them.

"I got used to that…." She muttered to the other two girls, Matzuri muttered curses to herself and lifted a fresh form as the scare caused her to drag her pen across the page.

"Stealth is important Monoki you know that." She teased. "Well anyway hurry up with that kids and good luck to all of you okay." Takara ruffled Monoki's hair and walked off down the hall. They filled in the form and headed into the room. They sat in a corner in their own team, the other teams sat in different parts of the room each in groups from their own village. Monoki sat on a desk Matzuri sat on a seat and Sakura leant against the wall.

"What time is it?" Asked Sakura, Monoki shrugged she didn't have a watch.

"Almost time…" answered Matzuri, and nodded at the clock behind Monoki on the wall. The moment Matzuri closed her mouth the door opened and a number of shinobi entered the room. Monoki and Sakura noted Shikamaru and a few other Leaf chunins in the group of proctors, the sand jonin leading the group glared over the suddenly silent room. His piercing eyes swept the room.

"Alright kiddies, here's the deal you're gonna shut up and listen. Welcome to the chuunin exams, don't expect it to be easy. Alright line up and take a number and sit in order." One of the sand proctors stood forward with a box, at first no one made a move pick out a number, the sand jonin cleared his throat loudly and glared at the corner in which the sand genin where huddled, they jumped and started forward right away, it was clear that this jonin was well known and it seemed the genin where scared of him. The others followed once they where seated and spread apart from each others team mates the jonin started up again.

"Alright listen up, this is the written portion of the chuunin exams. Being handed out to you now are the papers don't look at them before you're told, anyone who does otherwise will fail immediately!!." He started and glared at a guy who was fiddling with the edge of his paper. A couple of proctors finished handing out the papers and they with the others sat at the end on each row on both sides of the room with a clip board and a pencil, Shikamaru was at the end of Monoki's row, she glanced over the one mist village person that separated them, he was gazing lazily at the jonin explaining the test and stifled a yawn, he and the other leaf chuunin helping out where dressed the same as the sand chuunin. Fair enough Suna wasn't too proud to ask for help from their friends but they just didn't want the other villages to know about it, Tsunade understood about that and didn't mind, Suna didn't want it well known that it's military was lacking in high ranked Shinobi, so Tsunade lent a number of chuunins to help with the exams while most of the real Suna chunins where on missions.

"Alright kiddies here's how this works. Each of you start off with ten points, there are ten questions, for each question you get wrong a point is deducted, for you idiots that means that if you get all the questions right you keep your ten points if you get one wrong to end up with nine point and so on. Now here's the real kicker, this is a team test, whether or not you pass depends on the combined score of the whole team, so each team has thirty points and you gotta work to keep as much of them as possible, so if any of you have a idiot on your team you pretty much fail. Any questions?"

A few genin raised their hands.

"None? Good, moving on." The jonin ignored them, it was either understand him or fail. "Next anyone caught cheating three times will fail automatically along with their teammates. Remember you are being watched carefully!" he indicated the chuunins seating around the room. Monoki looked over her shoulder to Sakura, she was seated a few rows behind Monoki and was twisting the pencil around in her fingers, on the other side of the room from Monoki was Matsuri and one row back, she was seated at the end of the row, right in front of one of the proctors. Both girls where getting ready, Sakura sharpening her pencil, Monoki taking the top off a soda bottle and setting it on her desk, the bottle was filled with some of her sand and would be less conspicuous than trying to get sand out of her cylinder but even then that was only if Sakura wasn't able to answer the questions, before the exam Matsuri planted some sand on her and Monoki, but from what she gathered Sakura would be able to answer the questions but still just in case.

"Alright pencils ready the test starts …." He said watching the clock waiting for the second hand to reach 12. "NOW!" the room filled with the rattle of papers as everyone looked at the paper. Monoki scanned the page to see if there was any she could answer herself the first one was a diagram of a tree and a projected arch. The others where graphs, ciphers, code breakers, and a complex formula that made Monoki go cross eyed it was clearly too difficult for a genin, and the tenth question was 'this question will be handed out 45 minutes into the exam listen to the examiner carefully before answering.' As she had hoped it was more or less the same as the last time, questions so complex it forced the genin to cheat. Monoki read the first question.

The diagram shows the path of flight of a standard kunai knife thrown by a shinobi at the top of a tree, calculate the increase/decrease in range when the following items are attached to the kunai allow for a southern wind at 15mph.

Monoki read the question again. Okay fuck that, Byakugan!!! She scanned the room looking for one of the three planted chuunins in amongst the test takers to leak out the answers. Genin, genin, cheating genin, genin on verge of nervous break down, genin, chuunin perfect. She found one and copied his answers, they all seemed to be right all she would need to do is wait for the tenth and trick question. A kunai slammed into the desk next to her right through the paper of the mist ninja.

"Number 48, you fail" said Shikamaru with an uncharacteristic authoritive tone. "So do your team mates leave the exam room now" the three mist shuffled from the room, the first but by no means the last of the group to be eliminated by the first test. The test continued with teams being disqualified at random intervals until finally,

"Alright, pencils down and listen closely, its time for the tenth and final question. But first you have to choose whether or not you wish to take it, if you don't want to then leave the room with your team because you fail."

"That's stupid of course we're gonna take it then!" shouted a cloud ninja.

"Quiet!" shouted the jonin and threw a kunai into the desk in front of the boy.

"ACK" he shouted as he fell out of his chair.

"If you decide to take the tenth question and get it wrong, you're score will be reduced to zero and not only will you fail you will lose the right to ever retake the chuunin exams" the room erupted in shouts of unfairness but Monoki and Sakura had heard it before from Ibiki and knew what to expect.

"So if any of you don't think you're up to this then leave now and retake the exam when you think you can. So kiddies choose" the jonin glared around the room as a number of genin stood up and left followed by their team mates, Monoki turned to look behind herself and Matsuri had turned sideways in her chair so she could see both her team mates, the three girls exchanged glances then nodded to each other, they weren't moving. Finally only 42 genin remained, 14 teams.

"Is this all then… very well then. First off the proctors are going to check your test any team that has failed to get at least 3 questions right per person will fail." The proctors checked team lists against the answers but no further teams where sent away.

"Very well then there is only one thing to say, and that is to congratulate all of you for passing the first exam." Monoki sighed it was identical to the first test in the first exam, and while the jonin explained the whole 'leap of faith' thing as a reason for passing the test she wondered what the second test would be like, more or less it would be a variation of the forest of death, but it would be harder now because although she knew what to expect she and Sakura where two plants in a dessert, unfamiliar terrain so that in itself would make the next test hard and another thing was would it be the same theme as last time too with the scrolls. As she pondered another jonin appeared.

"You let far too many pass, this means the second test will just have to be tougher, this may be fun to watch. All of you follow me to the second test."

The Jonin lead them out of the school and outside the village the walked for about a mile outside the village until they cam to a large door sunk into the ground. The door opened for them and they wall stepped inside. Just in the door was a small corridor that stretched in both directions opposite the main door was another door marked 1, to the left and much further down the hall was a door marked 2, there was another door down the right hand side corridor marked 44.

"Welcome to the labyrinth! This is where you will carry out the second exam, your goal is to deliver a scroll to a temple in the centre of the labyrinth." Explained the new jonin.

"That's not so hard." Complained a cocky moon village shinobi.

"Oh well listen up then cuz if you think this is easy then you must be a fool. First I'll explain the terrain, the labyrinth is a large circular area that has a radius of 10km with 44 evenly spaced gates, each of these gates leads into a different part of the maze, yes a maze" he shot when a smoke ninja shouted,

"ya wha?"

"If it's a maze how are we meant to get to the centre?" asked the smokes team mate.

"that's the fun part. Each of you will be given maps to help you locate the centre of the maze, but you will only get either the outer ring or centre circle of the map. You will need both parts of the map to find your way to the centre, and there is only 7 complete maps, meaning 14 half maps so this in itself will chop your numbers in half." The Jonin held up the maps one was blue the other was red to show the difference.

"So that means we have to take the other half of the map from another team?" asked a leaf genin.

"That's exactly it, but that would still leave us with 7 teams which is still a little much. So because of this large group we've had to change the test a bit. What would have happened was that you would have had to navigate your way through the maze to collect a scroll from one of 22 rooms but instead you must locate one of the scrolls in only four rooms with in the maze and return it to the temple. So 22 scroll rooms but only four of which contain scrolls"

"That you mean at the very most only four teams can pass this test meaning there's only 12 of us can fight in the finals, they mustn't want all the brother of prelims like we had in Konohua" Sakura said quietly to her team mates, the other two nodded.

"Now listen up there are some rules to this test. One, if one of your team mates is disabled or killed then you fail the test even if you recover a scroll all three members must finish the test. Two, This test has a time limit of five days and will test your survival skills because you will have to scavenge food and water from the landscape, but don't worry there is plenty in there you just have to find it. Three, both parts of the map will be needed to successfully navigate the maze and unlock the room in which the scrolls are hidden so you can't force you're way with only one part. Four, once you have obtained the scroll you must not open it, to be able to transport sensitive documents is a must for a shinobi so self restraint must be shown, so if the scroll is opened you will automatically fail. And finally five, when you arrive at the temple you must have all three scrolls or you will fail. Okay, now then to warn you with in this maze are a number of traps and wild animals as well as your competitors so you will get hurt or it is possible that you can be killed. So you will have to sign one of these consent forms once you have done that go into that booth and collect your half of the map then go to your assigned gate and wait the start of the second exam."

The apprentice team signed their sheets and collected their scroll, the red one, then headed with a proctor to gate 13 while they waited they checked what food they had enough for three days and water for two. Sakura looked at the map with the other two looking over her shoulder.

"this is the best we could hope for." Monoki said happily.

"How so?" asked Sakura

"It's the outer ring so if we can find our gate we can have an advantage by knowing what's around us, look there's water hole marked those will help." Matsuri continued catching on to what Monoki meant.

"Oh right I get it right so none of the gates are labelled so we will have to figure it out once we get in there." Sakura said looking closely at the map of the maze with a large white patch where the middle should be.

"Right, you three get ready." Said the proctor looking at his watch he unbolted the door and stood with his hand on the handle. "3…2…1" an air horn blasted echoed out along the hall and he wrenched the door open and the three girls entered into the maze.

The second exam had begun.

End chapter 25

I was gonna continue on a bit into the second exam but it's the day after my sisters wedding I have a house to clean and im hungover so you can for give me and wait

Well people was this worth the wait? Read and review please and Thank you!