Akira's POV

It was the day of the exams and after much explaining to Kakashi I was off to temporarily join this new team. I ran into Naruto and the others, they warned me about this one team from the sand. It seems the others have already run into them and from the sounds of it these enemy ninja are anything but nice.

As I stood there contemplating everything I had recently been told I failed to realize that my new team had just entered the court grounds of the exam hall. It wasn't until two tall shadows were cast over me that I finally took notice of their presence.

"Hello, you're Akira right?" A friendly and soft voice asked.

"Yeah, that's me, can I ask who you are?"

"We, my little friend, are your new team mates! At least temporarily." A new voice said before getting lethal "But know this if you mess up even one time, I swear you'll wish an enemy had shown you mercy and killed you."

"Okay then…what's your name and who's your crazy friend?" I turned to the nicer one while the crazy one glared at me.

"Um…I wouldn't call her that. Her names Yukari and I'm Misaki, it's a pleasure to meet you even under these circumstances." She held out her hand which I took hesitantly into a hand shake.

"Pleased to meet you as well. So, I'm guessing we should talk on the way?"

"Yeah, we'll have to try to get along with you, even if we really don't want to." Yukari pushed past me and into the building.

Misaki cast an apologetic look towards me, "She's may be harsh sometimes but its only because she misses Shun, our ex-team mate. One day though she'll warm up to you, you'll find she's really dependable. I've don't think I've ever not trusted her."

I nodded and followed her as we walked into the building to catch up to Yukari. People inside were bustling around trying to register before noon. It was complete chaos, when we finally managed to catch up to Yukari she was asleep while standing against the wall.

'Uhh…how did she manage that in this place?' I thought as one person bumped into her roughly, the weird thing is she didn't move an inch while he ended up on the ground.

I heard Misaki sigh beside me, "Yukari, wake up. We have to go in now. Come on! Wake up!"

Misaki grumbled a bit before slowly opening her eyes, "Get out of my room…let me sleep."

I glanced around, 'Either her room looks like a hallway or she is really out of it.'

I settled for the second one even though I'd really like to believe the first. Eventually after much poking and encouragement we finally managed to get inside, there were at least a 100 genin and most looked way tougher than any leaf genin I had seen so far. 'Yeah we're dead.'

I looked around the room before my eyes caught sight of nine familiar faces, 3 of which were my team. I moved to go talk to them but was stopped by Yukari.

"Kid, in this test no one is your friend, only your teammates are truly trustworthy. Do. Not. Talk. To. Anyone. Got it?" She lowered herself until she reached my height, it was then I noticed her piercing eyes we're actually a very pretty shade of jade.

A complete contrast to her fiery red hair, I thought. Her hair was wild just like a growing fire and it matched her perfectly. When she stood she seemed powerfully tall, her confidence added to the powerful illusion.

Misaki seemed to be the opposite she had blonde, long hair and the sweetest smile. She seemed reserved just like the nobles back home. The two made an odd pair, an angel and a devil.

I smiled, thinking about how well they seemed to get along, it was like they trusted in each other one hundred percent. I suddenly felt very conscious of how I didn't seem to belong. This didn't last long as some ninja attacked a man that had been chatting with Naruto's group. Luckily it didn't touch him or at least that's what I had thought.

I watched as the guys glasses broke, he kneeled to the ground and puked violently before glaring at the ninja. I couldn't hear the conversation but the whole argument came to a close as a familiar voice bellowed into the room.

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

'Ibiki! No way! He's gonna hate volunteering for this.'

"It's time to begin. I'm Ibiki Morino, your proctor and from this moment your worst enemy. First you candidates from the village hidden in the sound, Knock it off! Who told you, you could fight?" Ibiki pointed a threatening finger at them. "You want to be failed before we've even begun?"

"Sorry, it's our first time, guess we're a little jumpy. Sir." The sound ninja with bandages on his face said.

"I'll say this once, so listen up. There will be no combat between candidates, no attacking each other without the permission of your proctor and even then the use of fatal force is strictly prohibited. Anyone who even thinks of messing with me will be disqualified immediately, got it?" Ibiki's voice was sharp and commanding, enough to strike fear into the majority of the room.

"No, fatal force that's no fun." The other male sound ninja said. The chunin in the room laughed a coldly.

"Who on earth would think violence is fun? Not to mention the fact that this sounds like a military beauty pageant. Shouldn't he have said failed instead of disqualified?" I thought aloud.

"Who said that?" Ibiki's head turned in my direction, he kept scanning the area as I was unseen amongst the taller genin.

I stepped out slightly close to the group of chunin, "Me. Who else would say these things, Ibiki?"

I smirked as his eye twitched but his mouth curved into a small smile, Izumo and Kotetsu were having difficulty hiding their joy at whatever scenario they decided would happen during the test all because I decided to take the test but not before pissing off Ibiki just a bit, not enough to make him throw me out or anything.

"What are you doing here? This test is for squads of three and as I recall you are on squad of four." Ibiki walked over to me, glaring me down.

"Actually, I've been temporarily placed onto a new squad that only has two people, plus Gramps was the one who told me to take the test." I stood as tall as a thirteen year old could never losing eye contact.

"You have to stop being so disrespectful, now then. You lot," He turned to the rest of the room. "I want you all to try to make this kid quit. Try not to kill him but otherwise I give complete permission to target him."

"Woah, wait what? I don't want to be targeted, I just can't stand your pompous attitude."

He smiled down at me, but it wasn't a warm smile, it was a murderous one. "Good luck Akira."

He walked proudly back to the front, "Now, if we're ready, we will proceed to the first stage of the chunin exam. Hand over your paper work, in return, you'll each be given a number. This number determines where you will sit, we'll start the written test once you're all seated."

After I heard 'written test' I quickly glanced to Naruto who as I had expected was already freaking out. 'Why did there have to be a written portion? Why not just a fight?'

I sighed before Yukari dragged me off to get a number, it wasn't long before we were seated nearly ready to take the test. I had an aisle seat and to my right was just some random guy I didn't know. My team mates, new and old, were scattered throughout the room. What got me though was a guy who was an exact copy of Gai was sitting in front of me.

Ibiki tapped a piece of chalk on the board, "Everyone, eyes front. There are a few rules you need to be aware of and I won't answer any questions. So you better pay attention the first time around, Akira that includes you! Alright rule number one is this, the written part of the exam is conducted on a point reduction…"

Around this time was when I zoned out and stopped listening. It wasn't long before Ibiki was walking over to my desk looking very irked.

"Akira. Do you have any questions?" He was testing me, seeing if I would dare to ask him.

"I wasn't listening. People can't ask questions when they don't listen. I would expect you of all people to know that."

He glared down at me while Izumo and Kotetsu tried to compose themselves, "Alright then this may interest you, teams will pass or fail based on a total score. Get a zero and you will fail. Get it so far?"

I nodded, "Yes it means if I mess up or sleep all three of us fail."

"Good, and Akira no cheating. For every incident you lose two points. Get caught five times and you're done. Good luck, Izumo and Kotetsu will probably watch you like hawks in particular as you seemed to have gained their attention." Ibiki walked back to the front as the chunin took up postions around the room. "Show us what exceptional shinobi you can be. The final question will be given out in the final fifteen minutes. You have one hour. Begin!"

The shuffling of papers echoed throughout the room before the sound of pencils followed. I scanned over my own page and quickly came to the conclusion that it was impossible. So for the code I used Ibiki's name and made a story. The weird thing is, it fit the code, scary… I shook my head before moving on. I didn't get the next question either so I drew some weapons in the space provided but not out of boredom. I had decided to cheat.

I thought my kunai looked a little off so I took out a real kunai and placed it in my hand so I could draw freely.

Within a second Ibiki was standing beside my desk, "Akira, what are you doing?"

"Sir, should we mark that as a cheat?" Izumo yelled from across the room.

Ibiki glanced at my paper, "No. He's done nothing wrong."

Outbursts echoed across the room as people said things about favoritism and equal punishment.

Ibiki raised his hands, "There's no need to punish him, for wasting time. He's drawing not cheating."

"Don't say that. Now my team will be glaring at me for the next half hour. It was better when they had no idea I was slacking off."

"Too bad." He walked off and eventually the room settled itself back into its rhythm. Meanwhile I felt the glares of my team for quite a while.

'Sheesh, the best way to cheat is to fake ignorance.'

I lifted my kunai a bit, and began to 'draw' while every now and then looking at the reference object. In reality, I had noticed the mirrors the Gai look-alike was cheating off of and figured I could do something similar.

I tilted my kunai until I got the reflection off of the guy's paper behind me. I wrote his answers down. I decided that someone could only be interested in drawing kunai for so long so I removed my head band. I tilted it to different angles pretending I was wondering how to draw it. I then angled it so I could see my neighbors' answers. It wasn't long before I had all the answers double checked. I then continued to pretend to draw before laying on my paper and feigning sleep. Can't have people knowing my answers now can I? I just hope the others will get in.

It felt like ages before Ibiki finally announced the rules for the tenth question. During this time many failed, a few got beat up for defying and everyone was tearing themselves apart as more and more numbers got called. Izumo seemed to enjoy freaking Naruto out the most.

"Now that we've weeded out most of the hopeless cases, it's time for the main event. Alright, listen up. Here's the tenth and final question."

I perked up not really noticing that my sudden movement had shocked most of the people around me including a red haired individual that sat across the aisle from me.

"But, before I give you the question there are some more rules that you need to be aware of. These rules are unique to question ten. Listen carefully and try not to let them frighten you." Ibiki's eyes pierced the already shaken genin.

'Don't freak out Akira, he's just playing with us…I hope.' I glared at him hopefully telling him to knock it off.

"Very well then, rule number one. Each of you is free to choose now to be given the final question, it's your decision."

'Woah, what?' I could tell from the looks on everyone's faces that they were thinking the same way.

"Woah, so what's the catch?" A blonde girl from the hidden sand yelled from further down my bench. "Let's say we decide we don't want to do it? What happens then?"

"If you choose not to take the tenth question, regardless of your questions to the first nine, you'll get a zero. In other words you fail and that means, of course, both your teammates fail as well." Ibiki seemed to be laughing at the confusion before him, no one wanted to fail let alone make their teammates fail.

'So why do we have a choice, no one in their right mind would leave and disappoint their teammates. Especially when one is practically bi-polar…'

"Not so fast," Ibiki said. "you didn't let me finish."

I could practically feel the growing hatred towards Ibiki and his rules.

"If you do accept the question but answer it incorrectly, you will not only fail…" Ibiki's voice escalated in a domineering voice. "You will be barred from taking the chunin exam ever again!"

Cries of outrage, frustration and lamentations rose from all corners of the room, sounding ever louder in the ears that had grown used to just the scratching of pens. My mind was rendered confused as the noise added to my mental trauma.

'That's not fair others have taken it, just like Kiba said. I don't care if Ibiki is proctor he shouldn't be able to decide…that's it!'

"You can always not take the question and come back and try again next year. Now then if you're ready, the tenth and final question. Those who don't want to take it, raise your hand and your number will be recorded and then you're free to go." Ibiki's cold eyes scanned the room, knocking what was left of some people's courage out of the water.

'Calm down and think. Even if Ibiki had full control over the Hokage, which he doesn't, there would be other ways to become a chunin. There is never one path to success, there are many smaller paths always tucked away or at least my brother believed so.' I rose my head and stared Ibiki directly in the eye before smiling knowingly.

Ibiki's eyes showed shock but not nearly as much shock as when Naruto slammed his hand down on the table. For a second I'd thought he'd quit but not Naruto, he'll make it to his dream one way or another.

"Don't underestimate me, I don't give up and I don't run. You can act tough all you want, you guys aren't going to scare me off. No way! I don't care if I do get stuck as a genin for the rest of my life. I'll still be Hokage someday." Naruto sat down crossing his arms, determination seemed to eminate from him improving the moral of the entire room.

'That's the kind of person I want to follow some day. I'll be by his side whenever he needs me, which might not be to often seeing as he can handle himself. Maybe I can be part of the Anbu…yeah Captain of the Anbu, why not? I need to have a goal don't I?' I smiled to myself.

"This decision is one that could change your life. If for any reason you would rather quit, now's your last chance."

"No way, I never go back on my word. That's the way of the ninja." Naruto spoke with more confidence than ever before.

Ibiki scanned the room looking for anyone that was still breaking, none of us were. Even I could see the obvious.

I stood catching Ibiki's attention along with my team who immediately sent glares of don't say something stupid and sit down, "I doubt anyone will leave now. So, I say you give up this mind game. Ibiki, for once I think you're beat."

Ibiki chuckled before getting an affirmative nod from the sentinals on the sides, "Akira, you were one of the only people to see past my little games, this kid just brushes them aside, a good team base starts with balance. I admire all of you, your determination if nothing else. For those of you remaining there's only one thing left to do and that's for me to tell you…that you've all passed the first exam."

"That's cruel Ibiki really cruel…" I mumbled under my breath as I replayed the torture some genin will now have.

As I expected roars of outburst echoed across the classroom, I paid them no attention I was too drained from a written exam to care.

Kakashi's POV

'With Ibiki as their proctor all of them will be back in no time, especially Akira. He has the least chance of passing, after all he did to Ibiki…' I sighed gaining the attention of both Asuma and Kurenai.

"What's the matter with you? Are you that lost without your genin?" Asuma joked.

Kurenai smiled, "Oh leave him be, he's just worried."

I smiled behind my mask, "Thank you, Kurenai. I suppose I am worried, what if they weren't ready for this?"

"There you're students Kakashi I'm sure they're doing fine." Asuma puffed on his cigarette.

A green blur passed in front of us coming to a rest sitting beside me, "Hey there Kakashi! Worried about your students? Or is it your kid? Is he even taking the exams, I didn't see him with your team?"

I watched Asuma's cigarette fall and Kurenai's face looked plan shocked. They exchanged a look before glancing at me. I hung my head. 'Why did he have to mention Akira? He was supposed to protect the secret.'

"What is he talking about?" Asuma asked lighting a new cigarette.

"Oh, you didn't hear? Kakashi's is Akira's father. I was shocked too. I didn't think Kakashi had it in him." Gai explained.

"Before you get any ideas, I'm his foster father, the Hokage has told me to care for Akira and that's what I've been doing. Also if you don't mind don't spread it around the village. It's supposed to be a secret for his safety." I explained in more detail.

They both nodded understandingly.

Kurenai turned her head before commenting, "But to think, the Hatake would be able to care for a kid. It's almost unbelievable."

The others nodded silently in agreement as I sat there in silent shock. It wasn't long before they were asking a multitude of questions about Akira and how we've adjusted to living. I had to tell them the whole story which ended up taking much of the waiting time, sparing us any anxiety we could have had.