A/N: I think I finally realize why I had so much trouble writing Itachi's character. I was trying to read into something that wasn't there from the beginning, and I didn't have enough info/proof of good Itachi to expand/do anything with it. I was trying to write a fake character like it was his actual personality, which is why I hit a wall. Oh, and fyi, I seem to have lost capability of hating Itachi with a burning passionate hatred. Though I still hold him responsible for Sasuke's current behaviour in the manga. You do not drill something like "hate me, take revenge, do everything you can for power so you can kill me" into the head of an eight year old. Sheesh, he should know better than that.


Chapter Fifty: The First Task The Written Exam


Sasuke was a little apprehensive on the morning of the test. It wasn't because he was nervous for the written portion, nor was it because he felt he would do poorly on the parts afterwards. In fact, he was very confident about how he would do on the Exam, even more so than he had been when he had taken it the first time—and he had been almost overconfident back then. What made him apprehensive was that he could sense the strange anomalous signature very well. What made it worse was the closer he, Sakura, Naruto, and Kakashi drew to the Academy, where the written portion was held, the ridiculously powerful chakra signature drew closer. What's more, the closer they got, the more Sasuke began to realize that the anomaly signature was in the Academy already.

He did not fear the signature, but it made him uneasy—he didn't know what it meant. Naruto's chakra own strange chakra came from the nine-tailed fox demon within him, Sakura said, but it was always undetectable until it was tapped into. This signature was not compressed in such a manner, and Sasuke didn't know how to interpret that. He hadn't said anything about detecting the signature to Sakura, he knew that she would get worried if he continuously mentioned it—it made him sound unhesitant, almost worried, which would concern her. She had done more than her fair share of worrying already the past couple months.

When they finally arrived out front of the room where all the other participants were, there were only a few left trickling in, and the group that was Team Seven stopped. They had all come to see him off and wish him luck. Sasuke felt a rush of gratitude towards them as they all imparted their statements of confidence in him.

"I can't say this for sure, but it seems the 'don't cheat' thing has been pretty standard here in Konoha," Sakura was saying, "But I don't know—I heard that from Konohamaru, and he's about as reliable as Naruto."

"I hope you came up with a good way to cheat, teme!" Naruto exclaimed enthusiastically, and then Sakura's insult seemed to register, "Hey!"

"Are you sure it's okay to be telling him so loudly to cheat?" Kakashi asked, tucking his book out of sight, "Anyway, I guess I should say something too, being the teacher and all… Don't fail, for one."

Sasuke raised his eyebrow at his sensei.

"You'll do well, you've trained hard for this," Kakashi said more seriously, "I can't remember the last time I had a student single-handedly beat me. Sakura and Naruto managed it together, but…"

"Wait… Sasuke beat you on his own?!" Naruto exclaimed, pointing a disbelieving finger in the Uchiha's direction.

"That he did, Naruto," Kakashi replied, patting Naruto on the head, a patient expression on his face, "Many times."

"Are you being serious, now, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura had a skeptical expression on her face, "Because when you use that tone of voice, it's hard to tell."

"I'm perfectly serious, Sakura, or are you doubting Sasuke's ability?" he replied, raising an eyebrow at her.

She looked startled at being accused of such a thing, "Of course not."

"Teme…" Naruto glared at Sasuke, "I've got my eye on you! Don't think I'm going to let you get stronger than me, you hear?"

"Wait until after the exam before you attack him, Naruto," Kakashi said patiently, "Anyways, I think we'd better let Sasuke go. We don't want him to almost get disqualified because he was late—just like last time."

"That was your fault," Sasuke said indignantly.

"Anyways, good luck!" Kakashi said smiling under his mask, and then affixed him with a serious look, "One last thing—just because you beat me on your own, doesn't mean that should be the only way to do it."

"I know," Sasuke replied; Kakashi gave a nod and the disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"Whatever happens, you're still strong," Sakura said, coming up to him and putting her arms around him in a light hug, "You could be genin until you're forty-five, and it wouldn't matter to me."

"Haha, that would suck if Sasuke ended up being a genin until he was forty-five," Naruto laughed, but then his face changed as he looked at Sasuke, a sincere grin on his face, "Do your best, teme!"

Sasuke found an affectionate smirk forming on his lips, "Hn."

"That's 'yes' in Sasuke language," Sakura said, letting go of him and then pushing on Naruto's shoulder, "We shouldn't hold him up any longer. We'll come back when the written part is over, okay?"

He gave a nod as Naruto waved, and then turned towards the classroom door, preparing himself for what lay in wait for him.


Sasuke entered the exam room with a group of shinobi from Suna, and peered around the room. Everyone was moving around the room, looking for their place names for the test, and even though he could sense the strange signature wandering around, he couldn't get a good look. He would wait until they were seated before looking at the person.

He was older than the majority of the people there; most of them were hopeful genin taking the exam for the first time. Others, like him were taking the exam for their second or third time. There looked to be a few around his age though, and a couple who looked older. There was also one person who looked frighteningly like the girl, Karin, from Otogakure—could have been her cousin, the resemblance was that startling.

A few eyes turned towards the door as he and the Suna shinobi entered, but they flicked away again disinterestedly. Nobody noticed or paid attention to the scratch mark on his headband, which suited him just fine. He knew already that he would eventually attract attention to himself because he was an Uchiha, but he wanted to avoid anything additional if possible.

He quickly found his seat which was positioned middle front of the room—a couple rows back. Sitting down, he looked at his test papers in front of him, neatly laid out, pencils lined up. Taking one, he scrawled his name in the corner of the page and then waited for the others to assume their seats. He folded his fingers beneath his nose and closed his eyes. He followed Naruto and Sakura's signatures out of the building and down the road outside, and then once they were a moderate distance away, lost interest and turned his attention elsewhere.

The room was now settled, and relatively silent, and Sasuke took the opportunity to examine the owner of the signature—he activated his senses and focused in the direction of the owner, who was sitting towards the back of the room. Unfortunately, because of this, there were many people between them and him, and one of which happed to be a rather tall and wide genin—who looked no older than fourteen—was sitting right behind him. This rather effectively blocked his view.

It was then that the form of a familiar looking man wandered to the front of the room while rows of Chuunin filled in the sides of the room. Sasuke recognized instantly the setup of the 'no-cheating' test—it looked like Sakura had heard correctly.

"Alright everyone, listen up!" boomed the voice of Morino Ibiki, "My name is Morino Ibiki and I'll be your proctor for this part of the exam!"

Morino Ibiki was still the same as Sasuke remembered. With small narrowed eyes and a set jaw, he still looked as gruff and as intimidating as he did three and a half years ago. Though one of his scars didn't show with Sasuke's chakra senses; the other was a deep chasm across his face and was visible to him. The other that he knew was there, was just a ribbon of scar tissue and couldn't be seen. Missing one scar changed his look almost entirely, Sasuke pondered.

"Uchiha, pay attention please!" barked Morino, and Sasuke was startled at being addressed.

He deactivated his senses and opened his eyes, remembering that to others it looked like he was dozing off.

"I was," he replied, straightening up, as whispers erupted throughout the room, "I apologize if it did not appear that way, Proctor."

Morino held his gaze for a moment, and Sasuke wondered if it was meant to be a warning look. He did not look away though; Morino broke the gaze to give a thundering bark that silenced the room instantly.

"Alright, here are the rules: Before you lie your written tests. Each test contains nine questions, which you must answer before time is up. You will be given an hour and a half to write each test and after that, you will be undergoing personal interviews before myself and four Jounin," Morino told them, turning around and writing on the chalkboard.

Sasuke frowned slightly—interviews? That was definitely different than last time, but he didn't think he had anything to worry about anyways. He would be forthright and succinct, a combination that of late hadn't failed him. He would have to answer his questions carefully.

"Each of you will be called in individually to answer the questions we will ask you, and we shall evaluate you and give you your results before you go," the man continued, "As for the written portion—cheating is not tolerated. That is what the men and women at the side of the room are for. They are all chuunin who are reputed for excellent eyesight and will be watching you throughout the written portion. They will be monitoring you for possible cheating—yes, there are some of you who will try. You will know when you've been caught. If you are caught cheating, you are to leave the exam room and you will not be permitted to participate in the Chuunin Exam again."

The rules were the same, Sasuke noted, except they had made the prospect of cheating much more frightening, and had elevated the penalty for being caught, and you could only be caught once. Of course he knew that cheating was required to pass the written part, and it sounded like the infamous Tenth Question would be out of the equation entirely, as he had mentioned no point systems for getting the questions on the exam wrong.

"The papers you are about to write will be graded on your accuracy of answering the questions correctly, anyone who gets below eight-five percent will not be permitted to continue onto the next portion of the test," Morino Ibiki added sweeping the room with his intimidating gaze, "Are there any questions?"

There was dead silence in the room.

"You may begin."


"So what're we going to do while we wait?" Naruto asked, putting his hands behind his head, looking at the sky in a partially disinterested manner, "The exam's supposed to take about three hours."

"I know already," Sakura replied, walking down the street, looking for possible options of a pastime, "And it makes me wonder—how did you manage to get through it? Twice, not to mention. You can sit still about as long as a squirrel can."

"That's not nice, Sakura-chan," Naruto said making a mock pouting face, "And I'll have you know that squirrels are deep and meditative creatures."

Sakura laughed, "A squirrel that was a monk in the making? And since when have I ever been truly nice to you?"

He made a face at her, and she only laughed again. "If there's ever been a meditative squirrel, it'd only belong to Hinata," she went on, "She's such a quiet girl with a gentleness that rubs off on other people."

Naruto smiled then and nodded sharply in agreement, "She always watched my back, even if I didn't know she was there. I'm glad that I finally slowed down enough to look behind me—I think I would have lost purpose in pushing forward if I had never known she was behind me all the way."

"Not to mention she'd exhaust herself trying to keep up," Sakura added, and she had to avoid a playful nudge in the ribs.

Suddenly, Naruto looked up at the end of the street, something having caught his attention, "Anosa…Sakura-chan, isn't that Kanaye coming down the street towards us?"

She turned her head and looked, and sure enough, her brother could be seen dodging and zipping between people out doing their morning shopping. He was looking excited overjoyed and then at intervals, where somebody blocked his way, frustrated. It was as he got closer that he started waving at the two of them, but then he started shouting her name.

"Sakura! Sakura!!" he yelled, getting frustrated with a slow moving elderly couple, he leapt over them by applying chakra to his feet. He landed neatly in front of them.

"What's with you at this time of day? Normally you'd be at home, slee—" Sakura started, but Kanaye interrupted her.

"They found Dad!" Kanaye blurted out, a wide grin on his face, his expression the definition of happiness, "They've got him at the hospital right now! He's completely okay!"

Sakura stood for a moment, her mind frozen by the words, and then slowly, they sunk in. They had found their father, he was home, and he was here, in Konoha. She applied chakra to her feet faster than she could remember directing it before in her life, and in an instant, she was flying across the rooftops towards the hospital, tears smarting in her eyes. She knew Kanaye was in her wake, but she wasn't really paying attention. Her father was alive, and that was all that mattered. She had to tell him everything that she had meant to say but had never said it. She would make sure she would tell her father she loved him, because the next time, fortune may not be smiling on her with a third chance.


To pass the written portion was simple, Sasuke noted. Last time there had been two Chuunin mingled in with the students who had the answers already. The test was to get the information from them by cheating without getting caught, but they would be graded on how accurate they copied the information. It was simple enough—Sasuke needed to find the Chuunin among them, and copy from them, or from someone close to them.

Closing his eyes, he began scouting out the different signatures in the room—chakra was something that grew gradually with time and experience. Those who had used and implemented their chakra had larger signatures that those who were less experienced—there were a couple exceptions though, like Naruto's Kyuubi, and those born with larger amounts of chakra than others. However, in a room full of genin, it shouldn't be too hard to find the Chuunin among the rest, if he could disregard the distraction that was the darned signature in the back of the room.

A sea of life was around him, the moods flickering and changing—some people were so nervous that it showed in their signatures. Some were more practiced that others, some were almost so weak they were nearly like normal non-shinobi and there was the irritatingly abnormal signature at the back of the room which was hard to ignore. But despite this, it didn't take him more than five minutes to pick out both Chuunin. One was seated towards the back of the room, on his right side, while the other was seated in the exact middle of the row in front of him, one person to his right.

With his eyes closed he could not easily be accused of cheating, because they would have no evidence, so all he needed to do was hope that Chuunin, whose paper was so clearly within his sight, pressed hard on the paper when he wrote. The room was silent—nobody had started writing yet. Everyone was clearly puzzled by the difficulty of the questions. After about two or three more minutes of absolute silence—only broken by the occasional shuffle of paper, cough, or creak of a chair—Sasuke heard someone begin to write in the direction of the Chuunin who was farthest from him. His hearing was still sharp, he noted with satisfaction. Then, a few moments later the Chuunin near him began to write as well.

Sasuke opened his eyes only to make a deep groove under each question, so that he could see where he should write, even with his eyes closed, and then closing his eyes once more, he watched the Chuunin carefully. As the Chuunin wrote down the answer to the first question, his hand blocked the way, but as he moved on to the second one, Sasuke smirked quietly to himself. The Chuunin indeed pressed hard while he wrote—hard enough at least, as his answers were left as clear indentations. The rest was simple.


Sakura burst into her father's hospital room, huffing and puffing, having run the entire way from the Academy district. She leaned against the door for support as she beamed a bright smile at her father sitting lying on the hospital bed, her mother sitting on a chair next to him, both of them looking up at her in surprise. She opened her mouth to say something when Kanaye crashed into her from behind, and then Naruto crashing into him. The three of them fell to the floor in a heap.

"Ack!" Naruto squawked as they all fell.

"Hey!" Sakura remarked indignantly to Kanaye as she pushed herself up from the floor.

"Not my fault, it was you who stopped so suddenly," Kanaye retorted.

"You haven't even seen your father for more than ten seconds and you're already fighting?" came the voice of their mother.

Sakura scrambled to her feet, completely forgetting Kanaye, and dashed to her father's side, throwing her arms around him.

"It's a cornucopia of love!" Kanaye declared, embracing both her and their father, "Mom, Naruto, join in!"

Naruto squeezed in on the other side of Sakura and with a musical laugh, their mother joined in too. Sakura could hear a deep chuckle in her father's chest and she smiled happily, tears moistening her eyes. A few seconds later, there was a gruff 'alright, alright, everyone off' and they all detangled themselves. Sakura wiped her eyes and looked at her father, who put a hand on her head affectionately.

"Hey," he said with a grin on his face.

"Hi," she replied with a smile and then tried to fight back tears when she continued, "Don't scare us like that again, okay, Dad? We almost gave up hope."

"Where were you? What happened, Dad?" Kanaye asked desperately, plopping down on a chair on the other side of the bed.

"Your father was about to start telling me when the three of you fell in the door," her mother said, "Start over from the beginning, dear."

"Alright, so it all started right after we made it out of the prison area. We had nearly made it out of the complex when we took a wrong turn and found ourselves in a room of what were obviously subordinates," he started, "The problem was that there was a red-cloud clad member in there too. Things kinda went downhill after that."

Sakura listened intently as their father recounted his story of how he and the team made their desperate escape with a sickly and weak Jiraiya, and how he had gotten separated while trying to throw a persistent pursuer from their trail. And how despite his efforts to rejoin the group, he couldn't find them and was eventually captured. He recounted each episode with detail and explained the situation, and Sakura knew that it couldn't have been prevented at all. But when her father's story came to his time captured, and questioned, the details were smudged away and hazy images came to mind. He had most likely been tortured, though he didn't say it directly. He continued on, telling of his detainment and his encounter with Uchiha Itachi and a young girl named Nariko, whom he discovered was host to the six-tailed weasel demon.

Detail resumed it's normal level as he explained how he managed to convince the innocent Nariko of her true fate in Akatsuki, and how she had come, hurt and betrayed, to free him. Despite his insisting, she refused to come with him, and he was forced to leave her behind as his window of escape slowly began to close. At this point, Naruto frowned and demanded why he had not brought her with him, where she would live a full life. A small argument ensued, which Sakura's mother had to break up, by saying what was done was done, and she hoped that kindly Nariko would find her own way out of Akatsuki's cruel clutches.

Moving on, Sakura's father continued to tell them of how, despite his escape, he had a difficult time hiding from those who were sent after him to find him. And it was a good couple of days before things quieted down enough for him to leave the little crevasse he had been sheltering in. After that, he left as quickly as he could, on what little energy and chakra he had left. The room that they had detained him in had made sleeping and resting very difficult, and the confinements placed on him had made his chakra sluggish and useless. It was only after he was out that his chakra could be implemented again, and even then, it took a week before he could use it properly.

He made for the nearest town and was taken in by an elderly couple who had need of an able bodied man who would be willing to assist them with their fall harvest. Still not trusting that Akatsuki would have passed him off as long gone so soon, he hid away his headband and took the job. He stayed with the elderly couple for a couple months and was fed and was cared for in exchange for the labour he contributed. Any injuries he had received were healed and once the harvest was over, he bid the kind couple farewell and headed home.

"It took me about a week to get here at top speed—getting up early, retiring late in the evening," he said, lying back on the pillows of the hospital bed, "And as soon as I walk through the front gate, they swoop down on me and throw me in here. I keep telling them I'm perfectly fine, almost better than when I left, but they won't listen."

"It's just to be certain, Dad," Sakura said, "They just want to be completely sure nothing's wrong with you. Make sure there's no residual jutsu on you, memory modifications, loyalty manipulations…"

"…lasting effects from the old woman poising your food," Kanaye picked up where she trailed off, and their father gave him a 'don't talk like that' look, "Hey! It's a possibility. She might not have even done it on purpose—she could have been a really bad cook."

"In any case, it sounds like you've been through a lot, and I'm guessing you arrived after traveling all morning," Sakura's mother said, standing up, "We'll let you rest, and let the nurses finish their check-ups so you can go home."

She gave him a quick peck before grabbing her bag, a hand resting affectionately on her husband's shoulder. Sakura gave her dad one last hug before standing next to Naruto who was waiting by the door.

"Don't go missing ever again, okay?" she said with a sad smile. She was serious, but she didn't want to worry him either.

"I'll try not to," he said with a grin, before she and Naruto exited the room, leaving Kanaye and her mother in the room.

Out in the hall, she looked at Naruto, who was staring at the ground with a dark look on his face. Tilting her head slightly, she felt concern mar her brow. Normally her father and Naruto got along well together, but the discussion of the host of the six-tailed weasel had him upset. She knew that Naruto felt an innate need to help any others who were like him, and it had already torn him that he couldn't help whoever Uchiha Itachi and the other blue-hued man were after. And now there was someone else who was doomed to die.

"I'm sorry, Naruto," she said quietly, "that he couldn't save the poor girl who helped him."

"He should have knocked her out and brought her anyways," he replied almost bitterly, "That's what I would have done."

Sakura didn't say anything—there was no arguing that. The girl could have slowed her father down, or made it easier for them to find the both of them, or traveling would be much slower. But she knew none of these reasons would make it justifiable in Naruto's eyes, because he would have done it despite all those things. She knew it was selfish, but she was just glad her father was home, safe, sound, and alive, with or without the Nariko girl.


"Alright, your time is up!" Morino Ibiki thundered, making most of the genin in the room jump—Sasuke was one of those few people who hadn't jumped at all.

The whole room was a little jumpy and nervous—the first person who had been caught cheating was a girl about four rows back and she had screamed when the kunai embedded itself into her test paper. After that, the mood in the room had been tense, on edge, everyone was nervous—except Sasuke. He had finished his test paper after copying down what the Chuunin had written—who was pretending to check his answers—and turned over his paper, and he could tell by how tense the people next to him had gotten, that they were frustrated that the could no longer cheat off him.

He had folded his arms and rested his head on them, pretending to sleep while he was analyzing different techniques others had been using to cheat. There were some quite obvious cheaters who had been bumped off rather quickly—they mostly consisted of people who lacked creative thought and were neck-craning. Others were using subtle jutsu to obtain their answers, and soon rather than nervous chakra signatures, Sasuke sensed chakra molding and flicking about the room.

The number of people slowly diminished, and about half the people were thrown out before the time was up. The powerful chakra signature at the back of the room was one of those who had remained in the room, and Sasuke noticed that the powerful chakra was never once used during the exam. As the number of the people in the room lessened, the tension and anxiety seemed to rise in exponential intervals among those who had taken the test the first time. It was quite irritating, and Sasuke was rather relieved by the booming announcement that the test was over.

"Hand pass your papers to the Chuunin on the right side of you, the Chuunin on the left will be monitoring you to make sure that you don't try and copy from the papers as they go by you," Morino said, crossing his arms.

There was the shuffling of paper as everyone handed their papers down. By this point, most people were too unnerved to cheat, so no one else was exterminated from the exam room. Sasuke passed his paper and the rest to the right and then folded his fingers under his nose, studying Morino tentatively. Now it was time for the interviews.

"We'll be calling your name in alphabetical order," Morino Ibiki declared as he took the thick stack of exam papers from one of the Chuunin, "Aburame Himawari. Please enter the room."

Sasuke knew that his last name would be one of the first be called, after the 'a' came the 'i' and then came the 'u', which would be him. The only way he would probably be able to find out who had the anomaly signature would be if he or she had a last name that started with 'a' or 'i'. But as the names were called, he realized that the person probably wouldn't be called before him, and he wouldn't get to see them on his way out, because nobody had come out of the room yet. There must be another exit in the room.

"Uchiha Sasuke," a Chuunin called from the door.

Sasuke rose from his seat and shuffled along the row until he reached the end. There were vast amounts of whispering now, and he felt irritation creep over him. Some people probably knew that he had left the village and were surprised he was back, others were probably just awed at being in the presence of an Uchiha. Tch. Either way, it was annoying.

He walked over to the door, and before he walked in, he cast a final glare into the room, which silenced everyone. He turned away and allowed himself a small smirk—Morino Ibiki could silence the room with this voice, but he could silence it with just one look. And with confidence building inside him he walked through the door.


A/N: Yes, I know it's short. Only came out to be Eleven pages on Microsoft Word, but, guess what? The last chapter was twenty-seven, so I think I have the right to a short chapter. Next one will be longer, I promise. There's a reason I cut this one off here, so yeah…

Anyways, the Cornucopia of Love © Neil Ciceriga, creator of Potter Puppet Pals. And I think that's it. Yeah. See you in two weeks.