DISCLAIMER: Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto.

Edited: 14/3/2021

The Leaves of the Tree

7.

It was all posturing, really.

The Chunin Exams.

Luckily, Team 7 possessed a sort of natural flair when it came to being utter dicks.

"This exam is first and foremost a competition for clients," Kakashi-sensei said flatly about a month before the event, as Team 7 was camping out after a rather dull C-Rank. "It's an opportunity for the participating villages to flaunt their new recruits."

"It's a business transaction," Sakura deduced. "The villages flash the goods, and the clients decide which they're buying."

Kakashi-sensei nodded.

"That… makes me feel a lil' weird, dattebayo," Naruto said slowly.

"I am not merchandise," Sasuke deadpanned with an angry frown.

"You are," Kakashi-sensei said sharply. "We are shinobi, and shinobi are property of their village. Konoha rents us to clients, that is our main use."

Sasuke's frown twisted into an ugly scowl, as if he completely disagreed with what Kakashi-sensei just said. Sakura couldn't blame him for it, not really, but she already knew this particular aspect of their career choice. Her mother had screamed this in her face, when Sakura was just five years old and decided to follow Ino to the Ninja Academy.

'You want to be a thing? You want to be traded like a piece of meat and pay with your life?!'

Sakura's mother reminded her of this every year until Sakura finally graduated, after which Haruno Mebuki scowled, shook her head and said: 'your life is Konoha property now. I hope you're satisfied.'

Sakura was satisfied back then.

She was still satisfied, even now. Because as much as Konoha took from her shinobi, it also gave back. Sakura firmly believed in this.

"So, the exam's basically a bidding show," Sakura said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. "How do we win?"

"You stand out," Kakashi-sensei said flatly. "But not too much. You need to look promising enough that the client believes you can do anything they ask, but also not too competent, so that you're not a threat. For Konoha's perspective, you need to prove you're capable of being more than genin – strength wise and brain wise." Here he leveled Naruto and Sasuke with an unimpressed look. "It requires an attention span of longer than ten seconds."

"Huh?" Naruto blinked, clearly having not listened to a single word.

Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Sakura felt Kakashi-sensei's exasperation as if it were her own.

"Just remember to watch your backs," Kakashi-sensei said finally. "Some of the participants… they won't be genin, nor true allies. Keep your guard up, listen when Sakura tells you to shut up and be on your worst behaviour."

"Sir yes sir, Kaka-sensei!" Naruto saluted, delighted with the permission to misbehave.

"Hn," Sasuke smirked and nodded his head.

"Honestly, sensei," Sakura smiled brightly, and Kakashi-sensei chuckled. "We're always on our worst behaviour."

They made it to the first stage of the exams much earlier than everybody else, but only showed themselves when it was truly crowded. Kakashi-sensei told them to make themselves noticed. If they're not noticed and not remembered, they can't be promoted. So, Team 7 unanimously decided to use him to their advantage.

After all, what's more memorable than the first ever students of the Legendary Copy Nin?

Sakura bound her pink hair as tightly as she could, to the point the skin around her eyes felt tighter than ever. Sasuke pulled back his own bangs as well, mostly to draw attention to his Sharingan – which he'd kept on from the moment they were seen despite the drain on his chakra. Naruto now carried a sealing scroll on his back, similar to Tenten's but thrice as big and not at all standard. It was stuffed to the brim with the nastiest things Kakashi-sensei could get his hands on, and money (Sakura's money) could buy, even bordering on some semi-legal tricks. It was almost cheating, but their goal was to be promoted – not to play fair.

For the sake of theatrics, the three of them even copied Kakashi-sensei's clothing: simple black shinobi pants and shirts, blue sandals and weapon pouches on their thighs, forehead protectors tied perfectly on their heads and fingerless gloves. Only the family crests on their backs differentiated the attire.

And so it was that Team 7, each a personalized miniature of the famed Hatake Kakashi, calmly glided through the gaping crowd of genin. Sakura dully noted that from all the foreigners, at least one genin glared at them as if they've personally slaughtered a puppy before their eyes. Perhaps using Kakashi-sensei, who was not very much liked for the arguably justifiable reason of being a glorified murderer, as a style model wasn't a stroke of brilliance on her part. But it worked.

"Oi!" Kiba yelled, "you assholes! What're you doing here?"

"Take a guess, dog-breath," Naruto snarked, in a perfect imitation of Sasuke. He'd taken Kiba's constant mocking to heart and was nowhere near calm enough to act civil yet.

Sasuke snorted.

Sakura rolled her eyes and started climbing to the next floor, closely tailed by her teammates.

"Sakura-chan," Tenten's voice drew her attention. "Where are you going? The exam starts here."

Sakura eyed Tenten's curious expression for a moment, and noted both Lee and Tenten didn't seem the slightest bit irritated that they'd been lied to. Lee was actually excitedly congratulating Naruto on making it to the exams after all, bless him.

Behind them skulked a white-eyed boy, almost femininely pretty.

'Must be the bastard,' Inner noted curiously. 'You know what, Tenten's right. He does have that prissy vibe, even from all the way there.'

"The exam's not here," Sakura said flatly, while desperately trying to keep her eyes diverted from the white-eyed boy, lest she erupt into giggles.

"This is the second floor," Naruto agreed, while making rude gestures at Kiba, who was being held back by both a calm Shino and a red-faced Hinata, who'd been enthusiastically hugged by Naruto not even a minute earlier. Keeping Kiba in line was probably the only thing maintaining her consciousness at the moment.

"Or are you lot so pathetic you can't spot a genjutsu, hmm?" Sasuke finished, the pinwheels in his Sharingan spinning ominously in the direction of a strange trio wearing the Suna headband. They'd been eyeing Team 7 up a little bit too intensely, and it obviously grated on Sasuke's nerves.

As mayhem broke out all around them, Team 7 beat the hastiest retreat of their life to the third floor, where all three exhaled in relief.

"Right," Sakura said. "This is where it really starts."

"Hn," Sasuke nodded.

"I won't mess up," Naruto promised seriously, "I won't, 'ttebayo!"

'You bet your ass!' Inner Sakura screeched, 'we spent two weeks teaching you!'

More like beating him up with all the academic knowledge Naruto somehow managed to avoid remembering. Since Naruto learns best through his fists, Kakashi-sensei gave Sakura and Sasuke permission to do whatever they thought necessary until Naruto assimilated at the very least a passable amount of necessary information.

Sasuke took this permission to beat Naruto up very seriously, and got down to it with gusto. Sakura supervised, a little.

"We can do it, dattebayo!" Naruto cheered.

"We got this," Sakura agreed.

'Damn straight!'

"En."

They exchanged sharp nods, and each went into their separate examination room, as prepared as they could ever be to face the unknown.

The unknown was a written exam. And all the questions were jonin level, or above.

Sakura could answer these questions, no problem. She could probably land at the very least a 95% correct rate, too. Being a bookworm and a paper-ninja for most of her life paid off. But her teammates?

'This is rigged. Naruto's gonna fail,' Sakura thought in a horrified tone.

'Just Naruto?' Inner Sakura snarked back. 'Mistress Uchiha's going to flunk.'

'Sasuke can copy off someone who knows what's up with his Sharingan,' Sakura mused anxiously.

'And Naruto's ballsy enough to not write squat rather than bullshit his way through,' Inner Sakura latched onto this line of thought hopefully. 'The point's to cheat, anyway. Naruto's got years of experience.'

'That's fair. Assuming anyone in their classrooms knows the answers,' Sakura fretted, sinking her self-made boat of hope.

'Speaking of, Ino's watching us.'

'I know,' Sakura huffed, 'it's why I'm not writing anything. She wants to cheat off us.'

'Then let's screw her over, yeah!'

Sakura blinked.

Then she smirked.

Then she wrote down the worst exam of her life.

From that point it was really no big deal.

The proctor announced the trick tenth question and Sakura briefly considered laughing hysterically when he did. The test she so carefully tricked Ino into failing, only to completely rewrite it herself, was just a distraction.

'Underneath the underneath, huh?' Inner Sakura snorted.

This wasn't about information gathering skills.

This was about teamwork!

"What about you, pinky?" the proctor hissed, having reached Sakura in his attempt to scare the participants off. "You taking your chances?"

"Of course!" Sakura said proudly. "My team won't fail."

"What makes you so sure?" he growled.

"Our sensei doesn't like failures," Sakura bluffed, purposefully reminding everyone in the room just who mentored Team 7. It was both to irritate and to threaten, as if Sakura were saying: we're different from the start, we're not even on the same playing field. Ah, but if you think you can do something about it, remember the exam's going to end eventually. And then Hatake Kakashi will hunt you down.

It worked.

At least half of the participants in her classroom immediately looked elsewhere, while before they were glaring openly at the pink-haired upstart. The other half eyed her suspiciously, as if considering just what this tiny thing could do to them.

'Me? Not much. Naruto and Sasuke? They can trash your asses.'

'Trash 'em good,' Inner Sakura agreed sadistically.

The proctor quickly moved on. When he was finished, only about a third of the original participants remained in the classroom.

From the corner of her eye, Sakura saw Ino doing her utmost best to not break out in laughter. Afterall, Ino knew Sakura was bluffing. Kakashi-sensei couldn't do shit to anyone for something that happened during the exams. And even if he could, he probably wouldn't, being the absolute lazy asshole that he was. But most people didn't know that.

"Damn Forehead," Ino teased, "you went ahead and tricked me."

"Sorry Pig," Sakura chuckled and offered Ino a shrug, "couldn't be helped."

"You sure your idiots are doing fine?"

"My idiots?" Sakura snorted, "what about yours?"

"Bold of your to assume they're in control."

Inner Sakura immediately perked up at this little slip up of Ino's, and Sakura did too. If Ino could control Shikamaru and Choji without seeing them, without being in the same room, this meant Sakura severely underestimated Ino's control over the Mind Transfer Jutsu.

'We can't let our guard down,' Inner Sakura whispered.

'No, we can't.'

'She'd underestimating us,' Inner Sakura continued, 'revealing this much.'

'We're friends,' Sakura argued, 'Pig trusts us not to abuse the knowledge!'

'We're totally abusing it, though.'

'Duh! This is a competition.'

Five hours later, when Team 7 huddled in a little clearing on training ground 44, the Forest of Death, Sakura wasn't at all thinking about how to take advantage of Ino's mistake. The only thing she was thinking of was the terrible, terrible killing intent of those strange yellow eyes, far too malicious to belong on a young genin from Kusa. How those eyes greedily drank Sasuke up, as if he were good enough to eat, filled to the brim with a perverse joy Sakura could never, ever, understand or tolerate.

Those eyes were still out there, somewhere. Watching, waiting.

And Sakura?

She stood alone.