(A/N) The answer is….you get to wait and see, congratulations.
They headed deeper into the forest in search of another team. They just had to find someone with an earth scroll. Not too hard.
Wind came out of the deep forest, and Sakura immediately shot chakra to her feet, holding herself to the ground so she didn't get blown away. She could see the boys doing the same, Naruto's wolf leaping behind a tree and digging its claws in.
"That wasn't a genin level wind jutsu," Sakura warned her teammates. "Not at all." Her dust swirled up around her, flashing in the low light.
"Yeah I think I can tell that," Sasuke noted sarcastically, drawing his gunbai.
"Kukuku," a voice rang out, and Sakura's dust shoved Sasuke and Naruto behind her.
"Hey!" they both squawked.
"Stay behind me," Sakura hissed to them. "That's Orochimaru. I recognize his voice."
"The snake sannin?" Sasuke hissed back, gripping his gunbai tighter. "The one that dropped you in the desert for dead?"
"Is there another one?" Sakura replied snippily.
"She has a point," Naruto whispered.
The snake sannin chuckled. "Smart little children are we?" He blurred, coming for them.
It ended up being quite the indicator for how the rest of the fight went. Fast and in a blur. They dodged his head, which was on a long neck and seemed to be going for all three of them equally and without a plan.
Sakura was somewhat worried, especially since it was all three of them in the line of fire. Orochimaru looked to be acting without a plan, going after all of them equally in random patterns. He didn't seem to care who he bit, which seemed to be what he was trying to do.
She was momentarily distracted by a rustling in the bushes, and it seemed to be the opening Orochimaru was looking for. He lunged for her, and her dust reacted too slowly, and it wouldn't get there in time.
Something appeared in front of her, shoving her out of the way, sand, real sand, flaring frantically out of who'd pushed her out of the way. Gaara.
His siblings were half a second behind, just in time to see Sakura bring a kunai up, and chop off Orochimaru's head and Gaara collapse.
Unfortunately the snake was still alive, and the end of the neck retreated before a fully formed Orochimaru crawled from the end of it.
"I have seen that jutsu once, and I already hate it," Sakura noted, kicking the head Orochimaru had left behind. "Lets bring it in for evidence. Kankuro, do you have a sealing scroll to stuff it in?"
Kankuro nodded wordlessly, chucking a scroll at her. Sakura caught it easily, then sealed the head into it.
"What happened to him?" Naruto asked cautiously, approaching Gaara's unconscious form. "And, uh, if he's asleep, shouldn't Shukaku be having a fit?"
Temari opened her mouth, then closed it. She nodded.
"Then why's he just straight up unconscious?" Sasuke asked, crouching next to Gaara.
"I don't know," Kankuro admitted, looking up from where he'd been looking at Gaara's shoulder where he'd gotten bitten. "It looks like a seal? Kind of?"
"What does kind of mean?" Sakura asked cautiously.
Kankuro shrugged. "It means I think it's a seal, but it also might not be, and I don't know what it is if not a seal."
"We'll have to ask Kakashi-sensei. I don't know how much help he'll be, but he was in ANBU, he's got to have some idea of what it might be." Sakura sighed. "I'll check the library once we finish this second exam if he doesn't know. Although honestly, I'm not sure how much I'll find, a lot of Orochimaru information was wiped from the library after he defected."
"That's kind of dumb," Temari noted, raising an eyebrow. "Does Konoha always do that?"
"Wipe information? Yes. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find information on Uzushiogakure, and we were once allies with them." Sakura sighed, shaking her head. "At this point, if just over the library, I will strangle the Sandime."
Temari snorted. "Right, well, we still need a heaven scroll, so we need to be on our way."
"Do you have an extra earth scroll?" Sasuke asked quickly. "Because we have an extra heaven scroll."
Temari pulled out two matching earth scrolls. "Yeah. Switch?"
Sakura pulled out the heaven scroll she had, tossing it to Temari as Temari tossed one of hers to Sasuke.
"We should head to the tower together," Naruto suggested, his wolf leaping to stand beside him. "Less chance of us coming across something we can't beat. And with Gaara knocked out, you've got him slowing you down and tying one of you up in a fight. Even with someone carrying him, we still have four people ready to fight if we're ambushed."
Kankuro nodded. "Sounds good to me. Sis?"
Temari hesitated just a bit longer, but nodded. "Alright. Sasuke and I in the front, Naruto and Kankuro in the middle, Sakura, can you be in the back?"
Sakura nodded, looking to Naruto. "Can you and Kankuro watch Gaara if I float him between you two?"
Naruto and Kankuro exchanged glances, then nodded.
"Let's get to the tower then." Sasuke said, already leaping away to head for the tower.
Luckily they made it to the tower without any further issue, splitting ways once they reached the tower to go in seperate doors.
"What are we even supposed to do?" Sasuke asked skeptically, looking around the very empty room.
"The scrolls maybe?" Naruto suggested, pulling the one he was carrying out.
Sasuke pulled his out. "Might as well. Maybe lets throw them away from us to open them."
The boys both tossed their scrolls after Sakura nodded in agreement to the plan, the two crossing in the middle.
"Oh, both are summoning seals," Naruto noted as a puff of smoke appeared over the scrolls. "Put them together and it makes one full seal. Hey Iruka-sensei!"
Iruka, the person from the smoke, smiled. "Hello Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke. I trust you are well? And read the thing on the wall?"
Sakura had indeed read it, although she bet the boys hadn't. "I did. It means we have to work on both our bodies and minds, right?"
Iruka nodded, his 'proud smile' taking over the polite one he'd had on. "Very good Sakura. It is indeed telling you that. Chuunin have to be smart and able to handle themselves in a fight. Congradulations for making it past this stage of the chuunin exams."
Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. "Can we see our sensei?"
"The jounin-sensei of the teams that have arrived have been notified, although since you have Kakashi, don't expect him for another hour or two. I think he's peeling oranges."
"Doesn't he hate oranges?" Sasuke asked suspiciously.
"Yep, but he's very good at peeling them. His services are much requested." Iruka looked like he was trying very hard to keep a straight face, although it wasn't working very well.
Sakura snorted. "Well, he can keep doing that after we talk to him. It's important. Something happened in the forest."
"I'll send a falcon to get him," Sasuke said instead. "I have one of the falcons trained to come to me when a sound that's in a specific register humans can't hear sounds. I'll get right on that, but I'll need to be at the top of the tower for it to work right."
"Go nuts, you have free reign in here," Iruka said. "I'm being summoned by someone else, so excuse me." He disappeared in a puff of smoke, much similar to how he'd come.
"Lets go find the top of the tower!" Naruto cheered.
"I'm going to go check on Gaara and the sand team," Sakura said, gesturing vaguly to where they might be. "But you guys go do that. Don't die please."
"Course not!" Naruto shouted. "We're too strong to die here!"
Sakura patted his back. "Sure." She left to Naruto's offended squawks behind her.
Because the universe hated them, they had preliminaries. Luckily Kakashi-sensei had been able to identify the seal as a cursed seal, and seal it away. Honestly, Sakura wasn't sure whether Shukaku's seal was worse or better then that one. That one depended on will power, although wouldn't break or let the cursed seal out if Gaara fell asleep. On the other hand, Shukaku's seal depended on who knows what, and Gaara not sleeping. Which, honestly, Sakura thought was unfair. That was neither here nor there however.
Gaara was fine, for the most part, although clearly, Temari was still salty about it. She defeated her opponent, a leaf genin called Tenten, immediately, and with much prejudice.
Kankuro wasn't much better, not bothering with too much playing around and just straight up stabbing the person with one of his poison blades, then chucking the antidote at the proctor's head. "He'll be dead in ten minutes. Better get that in him fast."
"Kankuro wins," the proctor called quickly. The medics came and fetched both the boy and the antidote.
Gaara was thoughtful enough to simply knock out his opponent, as opposed to the usual squishing, even if it was after a difficult fight. The Lee kid put up quite the fight however.
Sasuke's was an easy win, as was Naruto's, both over powering their opponents quickly and easily.
Sakura's was similarly easy, against Ino. The girl seemed to have grown up a bit during her time as a genin, which was better then being a ridiculous fangirl. Sakura was glad for it, it made her less likely to be killed in battle. And that was always a good thing.
In the end, as expected, everyone in their two teams passed, and were in the finals. They had a month to prepare, and Sakura intended to use it to its fullest.
(A/N) Be proud of me, I managed over 1500 words on this chapter. There are two chapters after this one till this finishes, one in three weeks, then one in December. WBBU finishes the week after that, so make sure to stay tuned here, cause I'll be posting links for polls this time. Since I'm also posting on AO3, it's the easiest way for me to do a poll.