When Team 7 returned from the Land of Waves, they all took a week-long break. Nothing much happened.

When the team's vacation was over, the genin seemed exceptionally excited. Everything they did, they did with the same levity and tenacity they had before leaving. So much so, in fact, that Kakashi felt they were ready for the next step in the shinobi world.

7:30 A.M. Friday, two weeks since Team 7 returned

Kakashi arrived at Team 7's rendezvous point, prompting his genin to gasp, "You're... Early!", they all said.

Kakashi smiled at this. "You bet I am! I met with the Hokage earlier today and he's decided that you three are fit for the chunin exams!". He pulled out three pieces of paper. "I've filled out the necessary paperwork, all you have to do is show up and take the exam."

He held the papers back before his genin took them. "Just keep in mind," he put on a stern face and warned, "this exam will push you to your limits. You might even die."

The genin looked at each other, then smiled.

Sakura spoke up for them, "We're a team, Sensei! We'll do everything we can to keep each other alive!"

Kakashi smiled again. "Good. I'm proud of you kids.", he said. He handed them the papers. "Now shove off, you only have 2 hours to attend - it's room 3B at the academy."

Team 7's genin were making their way towards the academy - they basically ran, with Naruto and Sakura holding their hands to move together, while Sasuke walked at his own pace.

A mile off from the academy, however, they came across a guy in a black jumpsuit, purple facepaint, and a Sand village headband, holding Konohamaru up by his collar.

Next to them was a blonde girl who seemed to be yelling at Konohamaru. Team 7 immediately ran up to them, and Naruto yelled, "Put him down!"

The blonde girl looked at Naruto and said, gritting her teeth and clearly irritated, "This kid slapped my ass. Then, when I bent down to scold him, he slapped my breasts, too."

Naruto looked at Konohamaru. "Is that true, Konohamaru?"

Konohamaru got a nervous look on his face and admitted, "It is, Naruto-sensei, but I just wanted to see if they were real!"

Sakura and Naruto were fuming.

Naruto then began to scold Konohamaru. "You jackass, are you gonna be a pervert like Ebisu?!

"Konohamaru looked down in shame, and said, "I'm sorry, Naruto-sensei..."

Naruto told him, "Don't apologize to me, apologize to her!", he pointed at the blonde girl. "What's your name?", he asked.

"Temari.", she replied. Konohamaru looked at Temari and said, "I'm sorry, Temari..."

Just then, a voice was heard from a tree nearby.

"Put the kid down, Kankuro. You're an embarrassment to our village.", he called.

The voice then came down and revealed himself - it was a kid the same age as Naruto, but he had red hair and black eyelids, and he had a tattoo above his left eyebrow of a Kanji that translates to 'love'.

"Come on, Gaara!", Kankuro protested. "The kid was messing with Temari!"

Gaara shot him a nasty look, and with no humor, said, "Let's just go and take the chunin exams before I kill you."

With that, Naruto and Sakura watched as the Sand kids walked away.

"Hey, Kit.", the nine-tailed fox's voice rang inside Naruto's head. "That redhead kid... I sensed the one-tailed demon's spirit within him. Be wary. He's a jinchuriki, just like you."

Naruto adopted a look of unease and absentmindedly squeezed Sakura's hand a little bit tighter.

"What's wrong?", she asked.

Naruto would've told her, but he didn't want Konohamaru to overhear.

"I'll tell you later..." he said.

Then, two kids Konohamaru's age approached him.

"Sorry for leaving you on your own, boss.", the boy with glasses said.

"Those guys were really scary!", the girl added.

Naruto stared them down. "Y'know, if you're ever gonna survive as a team, you should always stick together, even if you're scared, y'know."

The kids saluted at Naruto, thanked him, then ran off to wreak more havoc.

Sasuke finally showed up, having caught up with his friends.

In the academy building

Team 7 made their way to the third floor of the academy and walked to room 3B.

There were a few older kids standing outside the room, one of whom said, "Here for the chunin exam? This is room 3A. You shouldn't be here."

Sasuke looked at the sign and said, "You've clearly painted over the letter 'B'. Also, we passed by 3A already."

The older kid sighed and washed the paint off. "Come on in.", he said defeatedly.

Upon entering the classroom, Team 7 greeted their fellow genin teams who were already there - Teams 8, 9, and 10 were all taking the exam.

Sakura made a beeline for Ino and they gossiped.

Sasuke walked towards Neji and Shino, and the three just stood in silence.

Lee, Tenten, and Hinata had formed their own dynamic and talked about how their training was going.

Naruto walked over to Kiba, Shikamaru, and Choji.

"So," Kiba taunted, "Finally showing your face around us again? It's kinda funny how you needed some time off after that C-rank mission!", he snorted and laughed.

Just as Naruto was about to retort, the genin were approached by a silver-haired teen wearing glasses.

The boy said, "So, you're the rookie nine who just graduated the academy, right?"

They nodded their heads.

The boy continued, "You're being pretty loud, attracting unwanted attention."

The genin looked around the room and saw that they were receiving angry stares from half the genin in the room.

The silver-haired kid then said, "I'm Kabuto Yakushi. If you need to know about anyone, just ask me! I've got ninja info cards!". He pulled out and displayed some cards.

Naruto's eyes narrowed.

"Show me what you have on a redhead named 'Gaara'.", he requested.

Kabuto read the card out loud, "Gaara of the Sand. Turned genin this year and is in a team with his elder siblings, Kankuro and Temari. He's completed 17 D-ranks, 1 C-rank, and 3 A-rank missions without a scratch on him. Says here that he's clinically psychotic."

Naruto thought about it. "That's a lot of information... I wonder what he has on me?"

He commanded, "Show me what you have on Naruto Uzumaki."

Kabuto gave him a friendly glance, "Want info on yourself? Alright, then!". He pulled out a card. "Naruto Uzumaki, notorious prankster. Completed 20 D-ranks and 1 C-rank that became an A-rank. Says here that you and your team assisted in a revolution in the Eastern Land of Waves that led to the unification of the West and East. Also says that you killed the A-rank rogue ninja Zabuza Momochi, one of the 7 Legendary Swordsman of the Hidden Mist!"

Everyone in Teams 8, 9, and 10 gasped at this. Naruto never told them about that! They all looked at Naruto.

Sakura, Ino, and Sasuke looked at him with concern.

Kiba and Neji's glares were jealous, while Shikamaru and Choji's eyes were widened in amazement. Hinata and Tenten covered their mouths in shock.

Shino looked indifferent, and Rock Lee was yelling something about Naruto's flames of youth.

Naruto was deep in thought. "This guy has a lot of information... How does he get it?"

Naruto looked at Kabuto. "What do you have on... Kabuto Yakushi?", he asked.

Kabuto looked shocked, then smirked and replied, "I've completed 77 D-rank missions, and this is my 7th consecutive attempt at this exam. It's twice yearly, so I've been a genin for four years."

Everything about this boy just aroused Naruto's suspicion.

It was then that some sound ninja approached Kabuto.

The leader wore a fur jacket and covered head-to-toe in bandages. He was accompanied by a guy with headgear, a camo scarf, and a poncho. The 3rd member of the team was a girl with long black hair, a camo scarf and a sleeveless shirt. They all wore the same black pants and sandals.

The leader asked, "What do you got on us? I'm Dosu Kinata, he's Zaku Abumi, and she's Kin Tsuchi."

Kabuto began to pull out some cards, but as soon as he shifted his attention, he was punched right in the face by Dosu, breaking his glasses and knocking him down to the floor.

Dosu scoffed. "What are you made of, glass? Spindly little shit..."

"That timing was a little too perfect...", Naruto thought.

Finally, a man wearing a bandana walked into the room.

His voice boomed throughout the room. "Each desk has a number on it. The paper that your sensei gave you has the same number. That desk is your seat."

Naruto recognized that voice... It was Morino Ibiki! Naruto remembered him as one of the guys whose help Hiruzen employed after the day that Naruto was maimed by some villagers.

"I know Ibiki... test is probably gonna have some sort of secret test within it.", Naruto thought.

As soon as the genin took their seats, Naruto noticed that he was sitting between Kiba and Neji - far away from Sakura and Sasuke - very far away. In fact, every team was separated. "I wonder how this'll play into Ibiki's test."

Ibiki yelled, "This test will have TEN questions. Each question is worth one point. Every time you are caught cheating, 2 points are deducted from your exam. If any one of your teammates drops down to zero points, the whole team is disqualified."

Then, a slew of chunin walked into the room, handed everyone a test paper, and then sat on the sides with notepads.

Ibiki commanded, "You have 60 minutes. BEGIN.", and the students began the exam.

Throughout the exam, most students had figured out the hidden meaning - they were supposed to cheat, this was a test to gauge information gathering! Some students got unlucky, as Ibiki called out their numbers and had them ejected for being caught too many times.

Sasuke used his Sharingan to memorize the movements of a student in front of him.

Neji used his Byakugan to study the X-ray of the student in front of him.

Tenten set up a mirror that would allow her to see others' answers. "Man, Dad really is a genius!"Kiba had Akamaru scouting the room. "Arf, arf!", Akamaru barked. 'Arf, Arf!', Kiba wrote.

Choji just sat there, gripping his head, wondering what the Hell the answers were, and was mostly guessing as to what they were.

Shikamaru put his pencil down on the paper to write every once in a while, completing the test slowly, but accurately. "This is SUCH a drag..."

Lee answered the questions with ferocity. "If I write fast enough, my flames of youth will help me blaze through this exam!"Hinata took her time to finish the exam, making sure that every little detail - even her handwriting - was perfect.

Sakura finished within the first 30 minutes, and was just checking over her answers (not that she'd change anything - it was already perfect).

Noticing this, Ino decided to use her kekkei genkai. "You should be honored, I don't use this jutsu on just anybody." Her body went limp as she used the jutsu.

Sakura suddenly felt a tingling throughout her body, and found that she couldn't move, but her body was still moving! Then, she heard Ino's voice. It rang, "Thanks for letting me hop into your soul for a bit, Sa-ku-ra, even if it is a little crowded in here." Sakura gave up on trying to regain control, remaining a bystander in her own mind as Ino thoroughly read and reread her answers, memorizing all of them.

Naruto literally wrote nothing, nor did he attempt to. He just kept thinking about the purpose of the exam. "Obviously, we're meant to look 'underneath' the exam, and we're meant to cheat - the questions are much too hard for even jonin to answer, and Kakashi would've told us to study if we were meant to answer these. Yeah, we're definitely meant to cheat. It's why we have point deductions rather than immediate failure for getting caught cheating. Now, there's only nine questions on this paper, but Ibiki specifically said 'ten'. So whatever's 'underneath the underneath' has something to do with the tenth question... All I have to do is answer that one correctly, and we'll pass.Naruto smirked at that last thought. Whether our team passes relies on every individual passing the exam... So the exam must be about teamwork, too!"

Naruto continued to just stare into space, as Neji and Kiba rolled their eyes at him. "What an idiot!", they thought.

Ibiki called out, "ONE MORE MINUTE."

Naruto picked up his pencil and wrote his name in the allotted space, then put his pencil back down.

After waiting for another minute, Ibiki called out, "PENCILS DOWN."

All the genin obeyed.

"Now,", he continued, "you will be receiving the tenth question of this exam. But before you do, you must be aware of the consequences."

All the genin got nervous looks on their faces as Ibiki explained.

"If you answer the question incorrectly, you will NEVER become chunin. If you leave now, you can take the exam again next time. Raise your hand now if you want to leave."

It was like a jigsaw puzzle just got finished in Naruto's mind.

To everyone's surprise, Naruto was the first to raise his hand, before slamming it down in his desk and standing up.

He pointed to Ibiki and began a speech.

"I fully intend to be hokage one day, so there's no way I'm gonna give up when I've gotten this far, and there's no way I'm gonna let any of my peers suffer because of such a cheap trick, Ibiki!"

Everyone's attention was glued to Naruto as he continued to speak.

"We all figured out that the purpose of the first 9 questions was to test our information gathering, which is why we were expected to cheat, and not getting caught would qualify just how skilled we were in that field! But the tenth question is clearly about teamwork! If even one person from a team quits, the whole team is disqualified! But you've purposefully separated our teams so that we can't converse as to whether or not we should quit, so it's quite obvious that that's the purpose of the tenth question! I'd even go so far as to say that that is the tenth question! 'Will we abandon our goal and let the whole team suffer, or push forward and bring our whole team up'! There is no tenth question that we have to answer, because I just answered it for everyone - we are NOT quitting!"

Everyone, even Ibiki, stared at Naruto in amazement at his speech.

Then, Ibiki broke out in laughter.

"You figured it out, Naruto! YOU ALL PASS!"

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas, if that's your thing! Have a blessed new year!What do you think about the events that transpired?Please leave a nice review! It will help me write better!