DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, Naruto speaking to Kurama in her mindscape, etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

A/N: As so often happens when I'm writing, you'll see a bunch of characters' points of view in this chapter as it moves along. I'm sorry if it bothers you, but I think the story will still make enough sense! I always change paragraphs when going back and forth between them. I'd really appreciate your opinions or ideas to help me improve my writing. Anything constructive would be so helpful, and hell: I'd even take some plainly painful criticism! Thanks, y'all!

Without further ado, here we go...

"Don't hurt me!"

Shisui stopped his pursuit. Standing nearby on the treetops were his two teammates for this mission, Funeno-san, and Hatake-taicho. "Don't hurt me," she says. Honest to Kami-sama, Naruto: you are just too cute! He looked at his partners. Hatake-taicho looked like he was about to swoon straight off the tree branch he was on while he held his hands over his heart, while Funeno was rolling his eyes.

Well, they heard the kids say that they had another plan and Shisui guessed this was it.

Naru was lying on the forest floor, her lower half-covered with - So Gross! - animal blood, her hair still in braids with little ribbons on the ends of them to make her look even younger and more pitiful. The blood was from the rabbits that they cooked earlier, although when the real Chunin Selection Exams came she feared that this might be her own blood, or worse: maybe another person's.

She'd also learned in her senseis' pursuit of her and her teammates, they'd probably be unable to cook. Doing so would give away their position, but she wasn't sure if Maruten could put up with five days and nights of ration bars; he certainly couldn't as of this morning! Maybe she could ask Lady Ichika for a seal in which she could hold food that would stay preserved? It had to be possible, right? Crap, I should've asked her for something like that a long time ago...

"Why shouldn't we end you right now and put you out of your misery?"

Funeno sounded and looked awfully serious about doing that to her. It was almost enough to make her want to run! And then there was the sudden Killing Intent. Naruto gasped, it was so heavy and SHARP. But oddly enough, it wasn't directed at her. It came from the Electric Stalker - and it was directed at Funeno-sensei?

Funeno looked at his frightening captain for this stupid mission, still finding it unbelievable that he had been assigned a MISSION, for Kami's sake, to ensure that the two healthy members of his team made it through the Chunin Exams with that damn jinchuuriki. They had been training for weeks now, and the Exams were upon them. This was it: the Forest of Death and he couldn't have been happier to be away from the little blonde terror, who had been springing up seals filled with what SHOULD have been explosives but instead had stupid things like paint and the most horrid smells in them. Shisui was an idiot, something everyone knew. But what the hell was he doing, teaching the fucking jinchuuriki FUUINJUTSU? He tried to take in a sharp breath, but found the pressure he was under too hard to breathe at all: what the hell was Hatake's problem?

He should want the little bitch dead more than anyone! She killed his sensei! A demon disguising itself as a cute little girl, he sneered.

There was a very pregnant pause while Naru wondered where the heck her teammates had run off to. She could feel them close by, though, but they weren't moving! C'mon, Hana! Give me a break here!

Then it happened.

*BOOM*

Where the hell's Hana-chan?!

Hana was supposed to be the one who attacked first while Naru was "drawing in our prey:" Hana's words for those pursuing them. Hana was really funny. Maruten, instead, attacked first with his crazy expansion jutsu - one of a variety of techniques that were still amazing to Naru and she figured they always would be - and Naru jumped up to attack her stalker.

Kakashi couldn't help but grin even wider under his mask. His little sister was up and attacking him with wind ninjutsu and moving so fast! Kawaii! Even with the rabbit's blood that he could smell all over her, she looked absolutely adorable in the little blue dress that he'd left in front of her house. It matches her and sensei's eyes perfectly. So cute! He was so happy that she chose to wear it. Even all dirty and stinky she was just too adorable.

Fuck, this old asshole's fast, Naru thought, and she was the apprentice of Sunshin no Shisui! After months and months of practice, she had nearly replicated his technique! She remembered clearly this old guy breaking her arm but little else because she had stupidly opened the Gates at nearly the same time. "Handsome Masked Fucker" is what Hana had begun calling him as he and his team chased them around the Forest of Death. Gosh, she really liked Hana-chan. Naru fell back as she felt Hana and her ninken finally spin in to aid her. She jumped out of the way just in time, and it looked like Electric Stalker/Masked Fucker - because who could tell if the old masked dude was handsome, really? - got wiped out.

"Sorry I'm late!" Hana yelled as she waited to see if her combined attack worked. "A weird plant was trying to eat me," she laughed. "That's what I get for being curious about it."

"He's underground," Naru exclaimed, but Hana was already gone. Funeno-sensei had thrown some kunai at them and now Hana was hot on his tail. "Not fair!" the blonde yelled, citing the injustice that the old dude had an earth affinity, too.

Did I really yell that?! How embarrassing.

Naru took point, searching for Electric Man's exact position while Hana and her cute little ninken chased Shisui and the nasty sensei. As long as she didn't get caught and pounded into mush by Maruten's crazy jutsu, she thought they'd be alright. The Jonin had just been playing with them for days. Naru had been able to get multiple hits on Funeno "-sensei" using both ninjutsu and taijutsu, while Shisui had been jumping or sunshinning away from her repeatedly, pulling her hair and generally being a jackass rather than a real threat. Electric Stalker was the real threat here: it was no wonder the Jonin referred to him as captain.

And then there were her seals… She snickered to herself. All of the Jonin were already very "colorful."

Suddenly the ground erupted with dogs - and not Hana's ninken.

Wait! She knows that pug, right? Readying a simple Gale Palm jutsu, she hesitated, feeling terribly guilty for hurting and throwing dogos. The dogs stopped in front of her and were… Smiling?!

"Uzumaki Naruto," the little Pug began, surprising her, "we are here to assist in the capture of Boss, Hatake Kakashi."

"Seriously?" Naruto kept her hands up, and the ninken - they were talking, all wearing adorable little ninja outfits and hitai-ates, so they had to be ninken - each came up to smell her, their tails wagging wildly. She looked around for their owner and only felt this Electric Hatake guy running away. Skipping through the Forest of Death? What a weird person. "Umm, it's nice to meet you dogo-san. Oh, umm. I beg your pardon, Ninken-sama? Pug-sama?"

"Pakkun. Let's sniff out, Boss." The larger ones, including the big black drooly one that was as tall as she was (while all four of his paws were on the ground,) pushed her forward. The sounds of her teammates' battles were behind her and she really didn't want to leave them. "But my team! I've gotta back them up!" She was summarily attacked by dogs and licked from head to toe. They even lapped up and lightly chewed all of the rabbit's blood off of her. She struggled to get up, and couldn't help but laugh at the situation - and from their licks.

Now she was a slobbery mess, rather than a bloody mess.

"That's just the kind of thing we like to hear, princess," the pug said as she got up from the ground they'd knocked her on. "If you feel so strongly about it, we'll help you! Who do you want to go after first?"

She gestured for the ninken to follow her, hoping that they would really remain allies. "Well," Naru said, scratching her cheek as she thought about it while running toward her teammates who were simply yelling at the Jonins now, "Shisui-shishou is the tougher opponent of the two, but awwww," she whined. "Shame on me, but part of me wants to just take down Funeno-sensei because he's been so mean," she admitted. "Then we could all team up - me and my teammates to hunt the other two. What do you think?"

"Well, Boss has got to be wondering where we are, so we gotta make this quick. And I think you're right about Funeno-san," Pakkun thought grimly: he really wanted to bite the man from everything Kakashi had said when he summoned him last night to give him this assignment. He was being awful to Naru-hime! "He has studied iryo-ninjutsu and will patch the others up!"

"Thank you!" Naruto hadn't realized that, yet now that she thought more of it, Shisui had been (hilariously at the time) caught by a disgusting thing that looked like a giant fuzzy caterpillar and munched on, but was fine soon after. She knew that her shishou knew a little medical ninjutsu, but he couldn't do much. He was very impatient, and medical ninjutsu took a lot of patience and precision. Shisui certainly couldn't fully heal the big bites that had been taken out of his leg.

Poor shishou. Gosh, she hated this particular forest and the things within it!

Naru slowed down and put up her finger to her lips in order to shush the pack of ninken. "He's at 3 o'clock," she whispered. The dogs already seemed to know that, which made sense. The blonde closed her eyes and concentrated. It seemed that Funeno-sensei was taking a break. "Perfect! Can y'all be quiet and attack him along with me? I don't want to hurt you," she whispered. Her wind jutsus were pretty sharp, after all.

"No problem, princess," the one with the sunglasses said. All of the ninken slunk down low as if to begin hunting and surrounded the jerk sensei without him realizing it. Naru wouldn't have believed how fun this was, had she not been with Hana and her ninken for the past few weeks. Dogs were the best!

Funeno looked around in shock, wondering where Hatake was. It looked like all of his ninken were here and surrounding him. "Wait a minute," were the last words he got out before he was hit with a volley of wind-enhanced shuriken.

He barely rolled out of the way of half of them, knowing full well which brat this was. He pulled out a very high-powered explosive tagged kunai he'd been holding onto for a situation just like this and flung it, only to have the jinchuuriki rush forward, grab it out of the air, and send it back toward him.

It felt like the entire forest exploded. Just like I thought, she killed me.

He woke up in the hospital.

Naru woke up in the hospital first, the day after the explosion. Thanks to her fast-healing, she was out the next day. Not that she hadn't felt all of that pain, plus the pain of scarring... which eventually seemed to and looked like the scars boiled away, leaving her with perfectly healed skin. She had to thank the still-refusing-to-give-his-name Kyuubi, but she did NOT have to thank him for all of the pain that she went through because of him.

And now he was threatening to eat her again ("after I finish your tree-hugging friends and those fucking red-eyed monsters you associate with,") should she not make Chunin immediately.

"I am known to sniveling worms, such as you, as the great Kyuubi no Kitsune as well as the magnificent Kyuubi no Yoko! Do you seriously believe one such as I would put up with a vessel lower ranked than Jonin?! Fear me..." Yada yada yada. Goddammit, no matter what she said to that guy he was always just awful.

"Well, sometimes you're alright I guess," she said to the sleeping fox. Naru thought it was cute the way he listened to her about movies and book plots from her first life. She tried to make her stories as entertaining as possible, even though the fox had never heard of constructive criticism to make her a better storyteller.

Shisui saw her off to the Academy the following day, bringing with him a fresh supply of even more seals and new weapons for her. Regular classes had been called off today and Naru apologized all over herself to her two teammates for incapacitating their sensei. Shisui was temporarily in charge of the three of them now: something that he was not happy about. Hopefully, Funeno-sensei would be back on his feet in no time.

On the other hand, he definitely did try to kill me. Jeez! When she'd returned that tagged kunai his way, she had no idea of how large a charge it contained. Had she known, she never would've sent it back at him. She still hadn't seen the ninken that were with her, and although Shisui said that they would be fine, Naru felt that their injuries were her fault. She should've refused their assistance. As Shisui said, they wouldn't be with her this week.

If anything, what Funeno had done had ultimately forced her and her temporary teammates to all wise up and get more serious very quickly. Shisui had apologized profusely for playing around with them while chasing after them in the Forest of Death and not training them properly, but Naru knew that he realized that all three of the kids were nearly worn out by the time they first trekked out there. They had been training like crazy before that, individually and as a team.

Naru hoped that she wouldn't be forced to go back into the Forest of Death, but knew there was a reason three Genin would be taken to such a dangerous place immediately ahead of the Chunin Exams. She dreaded what might happen after this first test.

"I've learned that for years, no matter what village hosts the event, the first stage of the exams is a written test over 75% of the time, and the second stage is a survival and endurance test, always," Itachi told her as they sat near the koi pond in his backyard after dinner one night. "I am not giving you this information in advance, of course. This is... a genjutsu: one that you cannot detect!" His voice was teasing.

She entered the large classroom on the third floor. There were a couple of Chunin who reminded her of the gate guards that tried to stop them from entering, but Hana had smacked them both in the face with one swipe, making their heads clunk together. Her ninken had also nipped at their legs under the table while she soundly told them off. It was a little excessive, but pretty funny. Man, this ninja stuff is totally warping me.

Yeah. She was finding others' pain - her comrades' pain - humourous. So not cool.

Naru replied to Itachi, smiling and being truthful, "Even if this is a genjutsu, I'm still going to tell Maruten-kun and Hana-chan what I've learned. But not whom I learned it from, of course."

Looking around the room, she felt a rather pathetic attempt at Killing Intent being thrown around by the Suna genin compared to what she felt out in the village oftentimes, or even what the Uchihas would push to "toughen her up." Damn Uchihas, she thought with a smile. She really loved them and didn't care what gossip went around about the clan: there was no way any of those she'd met had released the Kyuubi from her mother.

Tests were passed out while a bored Genma droned on about the rules of this stage of the exam. He gave her a wink, then acted like he had something in his eye. Naru hadn't seen him in a while. She turned toward the guy that was staring oddly at her and smiled, trying to be friendly. He had a Mist headband on. Who the hell wears a half-open kimono as a shinobi uniform?! The young teen offered a small grin in return before beginning to take his test.

Naru answered more than half the questions to the best of her abilities. The math in this world came easy to her; it wasn't too high-level: thank God. There was a lot of theoretical stuff that she knew wasn't taught at the Academy, but she had no problems with it. Being a college-educated adult in a child's body helped out a lot with things like this.

8. Describe in detail how to make and break a genjutsu.

Naruto groaned (out loud) just thinking about it.

"This is... a genjutsu: one that you cannot detect," Itachi said teasingly.

"I wouldn't doubt it," Naru pouted. "That would be all genjutsus for me then, ne?"

Itachi hummed, a thoughtful look on his handsome face. "Trust your logic, Naru-chan. If your logic tells you that something you're sensing seems impossible, pulse your chakra, or search out your comrades so that they can help you disrupt the chakra to your brain. We will get there with your genjutsu, truly." Naru felt herself blush again. The Uchiha Head family always had so much faith in her - and unlike some people, they seemed to believe in her, not because of her prodigious parents, but because they cared for and knew her.

Sasuke was like a little brother, even though he was technically a little older than her, and looked up to her. She smiled to herself as she began to answer the question, incredibly glad that the proctors weren't asking for a technical display of genjutsu. If they did, she wouldn't be able to pass even the first stage of these exams.

A few kunai whizzing around the classroom had startled her a bit, then Naru realized that the proctors were simply nailing people that were caught cheating. A few even got thrown out. She went back to her test and answered a question about the Warring Clans' Era before the villages were founded. Her mind traveled back to the Uchihas, whom she pretty much-considered family at this point.

Of course, Shisui was an idiot. A handsome, talented, goofy idiot, but her idiot. She needed to get that guy a girlfriend. Poor baby. His attempts at flirting are so obvious and pathetic. Often slapping her forehead behind him when he made repeated attempts at wooing virtually anyone female over the age of 13 (all the way up to 80 from what she'd seen) probably didn't help him. She needed to be a better wingman, but not when he was approaching girls younger than him! Perv.

Or she could just leave him be. But once again, his efforts at getting girls' attention were too funny!

Then there is Itachi. Man, puberty sucked: it wasn't like she wanted him or even had a crush on him. He was still a child for Christ's sake: that would be disgusting! Naru was going through puberty years earlier than she had as Rachel. She looked up at Genma and thought how cute he was and cursed her hormones.

One of Hana's ninken huskies surprised her by licking her leg. She looked up to see that there were only 15 minutes remaining for the test. She frowned as she looked at a couple of questions that she'd never considered about creating a jutsu. There was no way a Genin could answer and knew about such a thing! Naru hummed and considered what to do, thinking about the Yondaime's careful notes on how to create a Rasengan. What she knew about that didn't necessarily apply to all new jutsus, clearly; but there had to be an answer there...

The dog licked her again, then gave her a nip. She looked down, petted it, and carefully pulled a note that Hana must have sent her way into her lap while making sure the proctors weren't looking at her.

How did Hana know about creating jutsus? And her math was spot on! Oh...

Cheating. Naru rolled her eyes. The test was probably more about successfully being able to gather intelligence, (which unlike her, Hana had done,) than being able to answer the questions.

Fucking ninjas!

She copied the answers onto her paper, lost in thought about how one needed precise chakra control to manipulate elemental energies or shapes. Yep, just like what her biological father in this life had written about. She was still on water balloons and wanted to surprise Shisui-shishou with a Rasengan if at all possible.

"Pencils down," Genma said lazily. "Now I'll give you the tenth question." Genma rolled his eyes, making Naru hold back a chuckle. Genma didn't like doing annoying things, and he wasn't a huge talker. He looked like he was reciting lines. "Decide now if you want to attempt to answer it. Get it wrong, and your team is outta here, no matter how well you've done on the rest of the test."

There was a lot of grumbling, complaints, and questions about that around the classroom. The guy in the kimono was looking at Naru pointedly, not complaining about what her uncle-figure had just said. His hands were on his desk, and he had six fingers out. What is he trying to signal me about?

The Kyuubi groaned in her mind, but Genma-oji was talking again so she tuned the fox out.

"I'd suggest getting out of here if you're unsure." Here, Genma smirked. "If you get the answer wrong, you'll never rank up to Chunin, let alone Jonin." Gasps were heard around the room but Naru found this peculiar. She meekly raised her hand up. "What is it, brat? I mean, Genin-san."

"Well, I don't think what you said makes sense... Proctor-san." She scratched her head and squinted. The more she thought of it, the more she knew it was bullshit. "What about field promotions? And how in the world will you enforce that in other villages? Like, I don't think your authority extends to the Kazekage's decisions, for example." Genma had smacked himself in the forehead (bandana) almost comically, making Naru shrink back. Had she misunderstood?

He crossed his arms over his chest and spit a senbon at her. She shrieked but moved over without getting hit.

He obviously wasn't trying, because Genma was deadly with those things. Weird that he spits them, she thought for the umpteenth time.

"Fine," he sighed deeply. "You all pass." He walked out of the room, looking irritated, but threw back instructions to the other proctors to gather up the tests they'd taken.

Some people were celebrating passing the stage immediately. Naru got up to stretch and was knocked over by a hug from Hana and her ninken's licking as they jumped around. She even got a hug from Maruten! He nearly crushed her! What a sweetheart this guy is... "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Oi! You Genin brats shut up!" Izumo yelled over the rowdy group of Genin. The group sat back down, but most were sitting with their teammates now. "I got something to say." Izumo began reading off of a piece of paper, although it seemed he was putting his own two cents/ryo in along with whatever he needed to read aloud. "Your goal in this test was to successfully gather information from the plants most of you found in the room." He looked at Naru and a Nara that was behind her and glared at them. "There are times when information is more important than life or can save your life. IF you make Chunin, you will risk your lives to keep or get it." He blew a bubble from the chewing gum he was smacking on, but still looked very serious about what he was saying.

"Chunin are captains that lead teams. They must be courageous and survive any hardship." Here, Izumo seemed to puff his chest out while munching away on his gum and read from the paper again, although it seemed like it might be from stagefright, as he wasn't actually reading whatever was written down. He looked up fiercely and glared around at the Genin in front of him. "Those of you who won't risk your lives or think 'there's always next year?' You're not Chunin material! We'll weed out those of you who can't hack it. That is all."

"What now?" was voiced throughout the classroom.

Anko - "Yay! Anko!" Naru thought to herself, smiling hugely before her smile fell in the realization of the trouble that always accompanied the woman - strutted into the room, yelled "OI!" then opened her overcoat and basically flashed everyone. She wasn't wearing much! The purple-haired woman turned around in a slow circle, giving everyone a saucy wink. Naru whined as she sunk down into her seat.

The blonde wasn't sure if she longed to be that confident, or if it would be horrible to be that confident. Aaaand, Anko's presence here meant one of four things for the next part of the exam:
1. The survival stage of the exam really would be in the Forest of Death: Anko's favorite place to train, she'd often told her.
2. She could be forced to perform a perfect tea ceremony. Highly doubtful, but it would weed out a lot of Genin.
3. Dango-eating Contest. Possible! Yum!
4. The Forest of Death, because Anko was Anko. And in Naru's mind, it deserved to be mentioned twice! That place should not exist!

"You've got an hour for lunch, kiddies. Meet me at Training Ground 44 at 1500 and don't be late. Ja!"

"Goddammit," Naru groaned as she slumped over her desk.