They had been traveling for hours heading towards the tower when the group began to complain about their incessant hunger so they stopped in a clearing near a river. Sasuke put Naruto, who had fallen back to sleep on Sasuke's back during their travel, on the softest piece of the ground that he could find and went to go fishing with Sakura.
"This is so tiring," complained Kiba, "Why can't we just leave him behind," he gestured to Naruto, "Then we wouldn't have to be held back by him."
"W-we c-can't just l-leave h-him here," said Hinata.
"I agree," said Ino, "There's something wrong with him. If we left him here he could die."
"And the rules say that you can only pass if you have all of your team," Shikamaru said tiredly, "So if we leave him behind Sasuke and Sakura will fail the exams."
"Fine," grumbled Kiba, "If you put it that way." Kiba allowed himself to fall backwards so that he was laying down and the two scrolls that he had gotten for his group fell out of his kunai pouch. He picked up the earth scroll and looked at it curiously.
"What are you doing?" asked Ino.
"I'm looking inside of it," said Kiba.
"Y-you c-can't do that," stuttered Hinata, "W-we aren't allowed t-to open th-the scrolls."
"Aw come on Hinata," answered Kiba, "Don't you want to know what's inside of it."
"I do," Chouji piped up.
"Troublesome," sighed Shikamaru as he turned so that his back was facing towards them.
Chouji and Ino came closer so that they could see the scroll as Kiba slipped his thumb under the first little bit of paper readying himself to open it. Before he could, however, he found a hand holding the scroll closed. They looked up to see that Kabuto was standing there and Naruto was awake and fully alert and ready to fight behind him.
"Kabuto-san?" asked Ino.
"You shouldn't do that," he answered looking directly at Kiba, "bad things happen to people who open the scroll when they were told not to which forces them to quit the exams."
"Take your hand off of that scroll," said Naruto as he took out a kunai and lowered himself into a defensive position that could easily be changed to offensive if it were required.
Kabuto raised his hands to show that he meant no harm. "There's no need for that Naruto-kun," he said kindly, "I wasn't going to take it."
"I know you weren't," said Naruto as he stood straight, but didn't put the kunai away, "You don't need it. You already have two yourself don't you?"
"Why yes I do," said Kabuto taking out his own two scrolls to show it to him, "but how did you know?"
"If you had needed either of the scrolls you could have easily taken it from Kiba, seeing as he has them both out in the open, and then run away without ever having to get into a conflict," answered Naruto.
"Very good," said Kabuto eyeing Naruto's kunai, "but then why did you threaten me if you knew I didn't need the scrolls."
"This is a competition," he answered just as Sakura and Sasuke arrived back and both of them pulled out their own kunai, "You never know what someone will do."
Kabuto laughed, "That is true, but I promise you that I don't intend to do anything."
"We don't believe you," said Naruto.
"Come on Naruto," said Ino, "He just helped us."
"He shouldn't of had to save you if you guys hadn't have been so stupid," growled Sasuke.
"But I guess we are still indebted to him," sighed Sakura. The three of them put away their weapons simultaneously.
Sakura and Sasuke came closer with their catch and began to make a fire while Naruto just sat down where he had been standing.
"How are you feeling Naruto?" asked Sakura as she handed him some water.
"I'm feeling alright," he answered, "My wound is almost completely healed up. I'm sorry for falling asleep."
"Don't worry about it," laughed Sakura, "I think your steady breathing really relaxed Sasuke a lot. He was really tense before you fell asleep."
"I'm glad," said Naruto.
"So what are we going to do now?" asked Kiba.
"How easily you forget," sighed Sakura turning to face him, "We are going to do the same as we were going to do before."
Kiba blushed and mumbled, "I knew that."
"What are you going to do?" asked Kabuto.
"I don't think it's any of your business," hissed Sasuke.
"We're gonna go to the tower," said Kiba proudly, "since all, but Naruto's group already have their scrolls."
"Kiba," hissed Sakura, "You can't just tell random people you don't know our plans. He could have just been saving you so that you would let your guard down around him at a later date."
"But we do know him Sakura," said Kiba, "We met him before this exam started."
Before Sakura could answer Kabuto interrupted by saying, "Excuse me, I'm sorry for interrupting but, do you even know what's going to be waiting for you at the tower?"
"A whole bunch of teams waiting to ambush us to get our scrolls," answered Naruto easily, "It's the smartest idea since everyone will be going that way and could not avoid there attack."
"That's right," said Kabuto. He was about to say something else as well but before he could Sasuke said, "I'm sure we'll be fine since we have nine people already."
"But don't you want someone to help you get through without running into too many traps?" asked Kabuto.
Kiba and Ino said "Yes that's a great idea," at the same time Sakura and Sasuke said, "No. You just want someone to help you get through so that you won't have to do much work."
"You guys are so annoying," growled Kiba, "It's a good idea and you know it. Kabuto is a nice guy and he only wants to help out."
"Actually," said Kabuto, "you caught me. I do want someone to help me get through, but I can be an asset to your group as well."
"Kiba's right though," said Ino with a face that told everyone that she did not like to give Kiba any credit, "Kabuto-san hasn't done anything to harm us and has actually helped us greatly so why can't we just help him out."
"Ino's right," sighed Sakura, "I guess we should."
"Are you crazy?" growled Sasuke in her mind, "We can't have a danger like that on our team when Naruto is injured like he is now."
"But," Sakura tried to say, but she was interrupted by Naruto saying, "Sakura are you only agreeing because Ino was the one who said it?"
"No," cried Sakura defensively, but when both Naruto and Sasuke gave her a knowing look she relented by saying, "Yea I guess I am. It's probably one of the worst ideas I've ever had."
Naruto smiled at her and said, "I agree. You can never have to many people in a group on the defensive," at the same time that he told Sakura and Sasuke through their telepathic connection, "Don't yell at me for this one. Orochimaru wants us to trust Kabuto so that he can get information on us. If we were to say no than he would keep trying or follow us and keep 'saving' us until we do trust him."
Sasuke sighed and nodded his head in agreement.
They hadn't been travelling for long when Sasuke stopped in the middle of the clearing with Naruto, who had fallen asleep again, on his back.
"What is it Sasuke?" asked Sakura as everyone else stopped. The other two groups collapsed to the ground in exhaustion because Sasuke had been pushing them the whole time to go at a fast pace so that they could get to the tower faster and maybe avoid some unwanted attacks, but Kiba had fallen into almost every trap that they came by and that slowed the group considerably.
"You feel that?" Sasuke muttered.
Sakura gave a curious look and then felt around her surrounding to try and figure out what Sasuke was talking about when she realized that her surroundings didn't truly exist. They were only creations made from a genjutsu. "Darn it," she hissed under her breathe.
"I didn't notice it until just now either," said Sasuke, "Kiba kept distracting me with his idiocy. This isn't good. I didn't want to run into these guys while Naruto is like this. He was going to be the main part of our plan to get rid of them."
"I can still do it," said Naruto as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
"Naruto," gasped Sakura, "You can't do that. You're injured."
"Sakura," sighed Naruto as he climbed off of Sasuke's back, "I am not injured. It's just another seal to deal with."
"Then why have you been so tired?" growled Sasuke.
"I'm not really tired," answered Naruto, "I've only been sleeping a lot because when I sleep I can concentrate solely on destroying the seal. The more I sleep the faster it goes away."
"But still," said Sakura, but Naruto interrupted her.
"I'll be fine Sakura," said Naruto as he gave her a hug in order to reassure her, "We have a plan to stick to and if we're going to use it I'm gonna need you two to get Kiba out of here. God knows he'll try to stay and fight."
"Fine," grumbled Sasuke, "but if you get hurt at all we are going to come up with a new plan."
"Of course," Naruto smiled, "Now, would you like to do the honors?"
"Yea, yea," said Sasuke as he put his hands together to create a seal, "Release!"
The others gasped as the area that they were in gave way to a completely different area that was still surrounded by large trees and still had the clearing that they were standing in, but the vines and leaves connecting the trees seemed to be closer together created a foreboding sense of danger.
"This isn't good," Kabuto muttered, "They were trying to tire us. Since that plan failed there's no knowing what they're going to do next."
"They're going to send clones made out of illusions after us next so that we'll start fighting them and waste all our energy on them," answered Sakura just as the strange clones began to appear out of the trees and the ground.
Naruto just shrugged and said, "Let's match a clone for a clone." He made one of his favorite seals and for every illusion that was made he made one clone. He also made clones that quickly turned into all his teammates. Sasuke and Sakura thought they would have to force Kiba to leave, but it was a lot easier than they thought because Kiba was in shock due to Naruto's ability to create so many clones.
Naruto began to attack with quick slices of his kunai's sharp blade. They weren't too quick because he didn't' want Kabuto to be able to read him. Not that Kabuto could if he was going full speed, but there was no need for that at the moment. Every time he hit his target the clone would just grow back into what it had been. On the other hand his clones, the ones that hadn't transformed, were slowly, but surely dwindling down into nothing.
He had planned not to stop fighting until all of his clones had disappeared, but his shoulder suddenly began to send painful jolts of white hot fire through his body. He refused to grab his shoulder as he collapsed to the ground in what looked like exhaustion as his last clone was destroyed and the transformed clones fell back gasping for air, because he wanted Kabuto to believe that Sasuke still had the curse seal. Instead he had his Sasuke clone grab his shoulder as though he was in pain.
"Don't come yet guys," he said as he sense that they were about to, "They're coming out."
The rain ninja laughed in false pride as they slipped out of their hiding place. "Well, well," said the one that Naruto recognized to be the one who had already attacked them, "You're the one who gave me that injury in my stomach."
"I am," Naruto affirmed, "I'm also the one who drew you idiots out of your hiding place so that you would have to face us head on."
"What?" gasped the one that only had one eye showing.
"Did you really think that we were stupid enough to exhaust ourselves before finding out where you guys were?" Sasuke asked from behind them.
The rain ninja turned in shock as everyone came out surrounding them. "I'll leave this up to you guys," said Naruto waving as though shooing a pest off himself and onto his teammates and his transformed clones disappeared.
"Ok," Sakura said as she took out her own kunai.
"Wait," said the one who had attacked them at first, "Please don't hurt us. We'll give you our scroll."
"We don't need one," said Naruto as he pulled out both the scrolls for his group, "We're all set. It looks like you don't have a bargaining chip so they're going to attack you."
The group closed in on the rain ninja and they took out their kunai ready to fight. "We won't lose to you," growled the one with only one eye.
All three of them attacked, but were blocked by Sakura, Sasuke, and Kiba. Naruto watched carefully as they fought the rain ninja. Most of the group was fighting the ninja that Kiba had blocked as Sakura and Sasuke practically took on their own enemy by themselves. The only one that wasn't fighting, Naruto noticed, was Kabuto. He was staying a little ways away from the fight and was carefully analyzing both Sakura and Sasuke's movements. Naruto smirked at the thought of Kabuto gathering information from them as they weren't even really trying to fight.
Sakura and Sasuke's enemies had been long defeated by the time the last enemy fell unconscious. "Well that was fun," said Naruto happily.
"You didn't even do anything," growled Kiba.
"Kiba," scolded Ino, "did you not just see him fight off all those clones."
"Fine he did something," growled Kiba, "He did the easy job. It wasn't even a little bit dangerous."
Ino was about to say something, but she was interrupted by Naruto who said, "Don't worry about it."
"Are you alright?" asked Sakura as she crouched down before him. Sasuke remained standing by his side glaring at Kiba.
"I'm fine," said Naruto, "I'm just tired that's all."
"Should we rest here?" asked Sakura.
"No," answered Naruto, "We're almost there. We can rest when we get to the tower in nice cozy beds."
"Alright," Sakura nodded.