Initiate further ado.

Chapter 12: Tests of Varying Difficulty

"So, wait," Naruto spoke up, scratching his chin as he looked around. "Those guys we met earlier were from the Wind country…"

"Yes," Zabuza sighed, looking down at the boy with a vague sense of annoyance. "They were from Sunagakure."

"But that's what I don't get!" Naruto exclaimed suddenly, pointing up at the man with gusto. "Cause like, wind and sand are two totally different things, why's the country named so differently from the village?!"

"Uhm, Naruto…" Sasuke interjected. "So are fire and leaves, but you've never thought Konohagakure was a weird name, have you?"

Naruto looked completely dumbfounded at this revelation, his mouth opening and closing rapidly as he tried to comprehend so many different things, like the meaning of life, the best flavor of ramen, and why people named things the way they did.

"But like… Sand's way dumber than Leaves!"

"That's a completely subjective statement." Sasuke spoke as he massaged his temples, trying his best to not throttle his best friend for being a complete moron.

"Don't use big words just cause' you can!"

Sakura laughed from behind the trio of guys, doing her best to not become involved in this conversation, which was a philosophy that Sasuke wished he could get behind, because right now he wanted out of this as soon as possible.

"Could you two just shut up for like… five seconds." Zabuza walked in front of them, but not so far that they weren't immediately recognizable as a group.

That seemed to give some people pause, a few of them probably recognized the man, Sasuke guessed, as the Demon of the Mist village, and for him to suddenly be leading a group of leaf Genin was probably quite weird.

"OK, listen," The assassin of the mist turned to look at the three of them, kneeling down in front of them and putting his hands together in front of his face. "I didn't do jack shit to train you guys for this."

"Very true." Sakura spoke, which earned her a glare from the man speaking.

"But," Zabuza continued with a huff. "I have a hell of a lot of faith in you idiots, a whole lot of faith that you've literally done nothing but test for the past hour and a half."

"That's a bit rude." Naruto spoke lackadaisically.

"Shut it!" The man exclaimed. "OK, I'll just be honest."

"I like you kids, honestly, I do. You're a tough bunch, and you work better together than a lot of Jonin squads I've been on before, so I really do think you guys could go far in this thing." Zabuza rubbed the back of his head, and whether it was because of his honesty in saying that he liked them, or just a general nervousness in jinxing them, Sasuke couldn't tell. "But you also shouldn't underestimate anybody here. You have to remember that some of them have the same goals and aspirations that you do."

"Treat every opponent with the respect they deserve, nothing more, nothing less. Hope for the best, expect the worst, and don't forget to work together." Zabuza commanded, pushing Sasuke and Sakura into the main building, and practically throwing Naruto. "Now get the hell out of my sight! And if I have to see you before the third stage of the exam, then each one of you is getting some practical training with yours truly!"

The man slammed the door behind him, and the three of them were left alone in complete silence. It probably shouldn't have been, what with the 40 or so other people in the room with them, but none of them dared to speak either.

"Huh." Naruto exclaimed a second or two later, standing up and dusting himself off. "That guy's kinda mean."

Sasuke just sighed.

/-/

Naruto had absolutely no clue what he was supposed to do, which was a feeling he was becoming intimately familiar with.

He'd be the first to admit that he didn't much care for studying. It was boring, for a start, and a complete waste of his time, which was much better spent pranking some crappy ninjas in the shopping district or polishing up his shuriken throwing skills.

He'd been banking on the Chuunin exams being a test of your skills in combat. After all, what separated a Genin from a Jonin if not the strength of their attacks?

Well, apparently, it was a bit more than Naruto had thought.

And to think, I completely brushed Sakura off when she offered to study with me…

Naturally, his fate had been sealed the moment he'd doubted the girl for a second. The universe had once again flipped back into a state of vehemently hating Naruto Uzumaki and declared that the first test of the Chuunin Exams would, of course, be a written one.

He glared at nothing in particular, grumbling under his breath as he stared down at the questions before him. He nearly fainted as he read a question involving trigonometry, a concept he was sure he'd been taught, but one he'd never even begun to understand.

He looked around the room, trying to locate anything that could potentially save him from his predicament, and found nothing.

Nothing, except, of course, one Sakura Haruno, who was quietly and dutifully writing down her answers onto the small leaflet in front of her, looking like she could just as easily answer any of the mind-bending puzzles as she did take out the trash in the morning.

He gave a small wave to her, and her gaze rose to meet his.

'Help me?' He mouthed silently.

The girl gave him a look of smug satisfaction, mouthed back 'sounds like someone should've studied', before she turned back to her paper, pretending as if she'd never seen him at all.

"Traitor!" He whispered just a bit too loudly.

A quiet scribbling sound made him turn around, and Naruto gulped as he saw one of the exam's proctors gazing directly at him, raising an eyebrow in a challenging way, almost as if to say, 'you want to talk again?'

He gave the man as intimidating of a glare as he could muster, which seemed to only amuse the adult ninja, who smiled as he looked away from him and towards a red-haired boy, who was currently covering one of his eyes with his hand.

He'd met the boy only briefly, as him and his team, all of whom hailing from the Wind country, had entered the leaf village. They'd of course completely ignored him, focusing only on Sasuke, making all sorts of bold claims about how they'd 'defeat him' and that he'd 'Be felled by their hands.'

It hadn't even stopped when they'd arrived at the venue either, as they'd immediately been pulled aside by some super buff kid with a bowl cut, who then, naturally, challenged Sasuke to a duel.

Every single one of you punks can screw off! Naruto thought with no small amount of annoyance. He was my rival way before you people even heard of him!

Still, he had to admit that said bowl-cut-touting kid had been pretty impressive, managing to surpass Sasuke's speed without much effort. Naruto was pretty sure that with his new Sharingan, his friend could've taken the boy, but even then, it wouldn't have been easy.

But what the hell even is the Sharingan? Naruto couldn't help but ponder, scratching his chin as he leaned back in his chair. Like… is it his irises? Or is it like… his pupils?

"Um… Excuse me?"

Is it the whites of his-? No, it can't be that, the whites don't change…

"Naruto-kun?"

Is it his brain? I mean… it has to be, right? He's born with the Sharingan, but Sasuke said it develops over time… wait that's even more confusing…

A light tap on his arm caught his attention, and he turned to see the blushing face of one Hinata Hyuga, who looked more than a little nervous.

"Hinata?" He whispered as quietly as he could, just loud enough for the girl beside him to hear, but, hopefully, not loud enough for the proctors to catch it. "What's up?"

The girl didn't say anything at first, well, that wasn't true, she certainly said something, but it was barely intelligible past her mumbling, and so the only word he caught of it was 'help'.

"Er, I don't really know much about this stuff," Naruto admitted painfully. "I can't help you much Hinata."

"N-no!"

He looked back up at her and saw an expression that looked like determination set on her face.

"I said that… that I want to help you!" The girl whispered just a bit louder, and he couldn't help but feel both warm and ashamed at what she said.

So, she thinks I need help, huh? Naruto thought to himself. Even if I know she's right, it doesn't make it feel any better.

But he'd gotten pretty good at accepting the facts recently, what with a thousand different things being thrown at him every moment of every day, and so he'd come to accept that he'd never be some mega-genius like Sasuke, or book-smart like Sakura.

If he wanted to compete with them, go on to the next stage of the exams with them, then he'd have to accept those truths.

He was just about to take whatever help it was Hinata was offering when he heard that same scratching come from behind him. Naruto turned around, and locked eyes with the same proctor from before.

The man simply raised his eyebrow.

He gritted his teeth, but turned back to the girl beside him, nonetheless.

"Sorry, Hinata, but I can't do that."

"W- But Naruto, you-"

He tried to be subtle with the slight motion of his head, trying to show her they were being watched, observed at all times.

"I wouldn't want you to get in trouble for my sake." He smiled down at her to show he wasn't mad or anything.

To her credit, the girl beside him clearly caught on, clamming up and turning back towards the table in front of her. She lowered her head a second later, becoming incredibly small.

It made it all the more surprising for Naruto when, even still, she pushed her answer sheet towards him and gave him a minuscule smile.

"I used my Byakugan to take the answers from the person in front of me… I… well, I know the proctors caught it, because I heard them scribble that down…" Hinata looked up at him, seeming oddly confident. "And I… I think cheating is… cheating's the point of this exam."

Naruto couldn't quite see the leap in logic there.

"Wait, what?"

"Well, earlier, you accidentally shouted out to Sakura…"

Oh crap, was it that loud?

"And I know the proctors saw it and heard it, because they all, well, at least most of them in the room wrote that down…"

Oh crap, it was that loud.

Hinata suddenly moved towards him, eyes full of an unusual fire, and she took a moment to blush and calm herself down.

"S-so that's why I think… If we weren't supposed to cheat, then, Naruto, you would've already failed!" She brought her hands together in front of her, fiddling with her thumbs in a way Naruto could tell meant she was nervous. "Plus, if we weren't supposed to cheat, then they would've already caught me, so that's how I know for sure!"

Naruto felt like there was an awful lot to dissect there but couldn't help but look above him as a small shadow graced over his section of the table, and saw an eyeball, an honest to goodness eyeball, floating just a few feet above him.

He held back the instinctive scream that he felt would've been appropriate, instead gulping and turning back to Hinata, choosing to ignore what he'd just seen entirely.

"Hinata, you could be right, and cheating could be the point of this exam, but there's also another possibility."

"What's that?"

"What if the proctors could tell that my attempt at cheating was unsuccessful?" Naruto spoke quietly, gauging the reaction on the girl's face.

She seemed to ponder his words for a moment, before she rose up again, shaking her head.

"Even if that's true, then they still would've caught me after I took the answers."

"What makes you think that?" Naruto had to ask, leaning towards the girl a bit. "From what I understand, which to be fair, isn't a ton, your eyes let you… see through things, right?"

The girl twiddled her thumbs once more.

"A-among other things, yes."

"So, what I'm trying to say is that your eyes are pretty hidden on their own, it wouldn't be hard to believe that the proctors just didn't catch something like that." Naruto felt he'd outlined his reasoning pretty solidly, but the girl in front of him didn't seem so sure.

He couldn't help but ask the question that burned in his mind.

"Why are you so convinced that you couldn't do it?"

The girl gave a small squeak, and it seemed to Naruto that he'd hit the nail on the head.

Hinata faltered for quite a long time, looking just about anywhere other than him, as she gazed above her and saw the floating eyeball he'd seen earlier, she gave another squeak, notably louder than the first one.

The Hyuga girl turned back towards him, seeming a bit downtrodden as she tried to formulate a sentence.

"I… I uhm…"

It was a bit weird, but as he watched the girl fumble around with her words, the expression on her face falling by the second, he instantly realized what was wrong.

"Hinata, why don't you have any faith in yourself?"

It was a mistake, saying that. He knew it immediately, from the way the girl's entire body scrunched up, how her figure became smaller, how she nearly disappeared from view entirely.

"Er, I'm sorry," He interjected. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine, Naruto." The girl spoke sadly, turning to face him with a pathetic expression upon her face. She looked like an abused puppy.

Something within him, the part of him that Sasuke called 'perceptive at the worst of times', told him that his analogy wasn't so far from the truth.

He shook his head, not waiting for the girl to speak up again.

"No, it wasn't fine…" Sakura had told him before that he could be just a bit too insensitive, a bit too prying, and once again those parts of him had reared their ugly heads. "I wasn't really… respecting your boundaries. You don't have to tell me anything."

That sounded good, and he was pretty sure he remembered what his teammates had told him he wasn't very good at doing.

"I…" Hinata smiled up at him. "Thank you."

She turned back towards her paper, looking like she felt just a bit better than she had the minute before.

It made him feel a tad better as well. Even if he wasn't as strong a ninja as Sasuke was, or if he wasn't as smart as Sakura, he felt like he understood people's problems more than the other two did.

It's a bit of an odd skill, Naruto admitted with a light chuckle. But it's mine, I suppose.

"Very well, 45 minutes have passed, I will now administer the 10th question!"

Wait, What!? How long was I talking to Hinata!?

Naruto looked at the clock, which had indeed just passed the 9th notch, and towards the head examiner, who was now reading off the rules for the 10th question.

He gazed down at his own paper.

Not a single word written.

Why do these things only happen to me?

/-/

"Heh, this office is the same as ever," A white-haired man spoke as he stepped inside. "Boring as all hell. I swear, Sensei, you really should redecorate the place."

"Yes, I'm sure you'd like that." His old master responded, looking up from his papers and giving him a tired expression. "Did you receive my message?"

"Jeez, straight to business?" Jiraiya couldn't help but spout out as he walked over to the desk, standing a few feet in front of it. "You're growing so cold in your old age, old man."

"And you're growing awfully brazen in yours." Hiruzen replied, giving him a small smile.

"Hah! I haven't aged a day! I'm the spitting image of myself from the war."

"Remind me to call a doctor for you later?"

"Oh?"

"Yes," A small gleam of mirth entered the man's practically deadened eyes. "It appears you need to have both your head and eyes checked."

Jiraiya gave a wry laugh at that one, giving into his own amusement for a few seconds, before he gave in to the rather heavy mood.

"So… you're sure of it? Orochimaru's really moving?"

"Yes, our spy's say so, and you know that if Orochimaru wanted to disappear completely, then he could." Hiruzen took a long draw of his pipe, sighing out the smoke a second later. "The fact that our agents found him at all show's that he's up to something. He can't be nearly as covert if he's moving his pieces."

"Heh, you always did like your shogi analogies."

"Would it kill you to be serious for half a second, my old student?"

"I'm not sure, I've never tried." He gave him an amused smile, but it dropped off his face a second later at seeing the look on his old master's face. "There's something else worrying you, isn't there?"

"Yes… quite a few things, honestly." Hiruzen leaned back in his chair, seeming to sink into the light fabric as he gave a long sigh. "We have Orochimaru's unseen scheme, The Akatsuki going eerily quiet, and what's worse, there was an incident with the Nine-Tails just a few weeks ago that we were still dealing with, and of course all of these events have to overlap with the Chuunin Exams."

"Whoa whoa, I didn't hear anything about the Nine-Tails," Jiraiya couldn't quite hide his worry, that was his student's son, after all. "What happened?"

"The Fox gave us quite the scare, nearly took over his Jinchuuriki's body a few weeks back. He was subdued by Zabuza Momochi, the demon of the mist." Hiruzen looked up at him seriously. "Have you heard of him?"

"Just in passing, I've never met the guy, if that's what you're asking."

"Hmph, well, you might get the chance, he's been annexed in as a pending member of the Leaf village's ninja corps."

"Wait," Jiraiya felt like he was missing something there. "I'm sorry, what?"

His old sensei gave a completely honest laugh, one of the very few he'd heard from him in quite a number of years.

"Can you see how I've been a tad exhausted lately? It's a bit of a long story, but the short version is that our resident Jinchuuriki's team is... odd."

"Yeah, you still seem to be underselling it."

"Perhaps I am, just a tad."

"But… I think I can see the big picture." Jiraiya sighed as he looked his teacher in the eye, and the man gave him a nod. "You called me back not only as some added defense against Orochimaru, but also so I can watch the Nine-Tailed kid, too, yeah?"

"Hmph," The old man gave a small chuckle. "You understand, then?"

He couldn't help but sigh again as he felt his expected workload for the coming weeks nearly triple in half a second, but nodded anyways.

"Yeah, I got it." Jiraiya let out, waving his hand in a dispelling motion. "How do you want me to go about it?"

"I'd like you to teach the boy more about his powers, and to train him while you're at it." Hiruzen's eyes darkened, looking up at his student with a small fire behind his eyes. "Our Jinchuuriki could use the strength, what with the Akatsuki threatening to attack him at any time."

"Got it." He walked backwards towards the door, content enough with their little rendezvous to leave it there.

"Oh, and Jiraiya?"

"Yeah?"

"Do try to stay on the Men's side of the baths from now on," His teacher gave him a disappointed look, taking a hit from his pipe that struck him as unimpressed. "I've received enough reports about you peeping on women to last a lifetime."

Jiraiya felt his face grow hot, which was a feeling he'd become quite familiar with, and ran out of the room. He screamed one final thing as he ran down the spiral staircase.

"I-I swear, it was just research!"

/-/

Welp, Zaku thought, as he rose from his seat and walked to stand with his other teammates. That was surprisingly easy.

The exam, if one could even call it that, had consisted of 9 questions that didn't matter, and the choice of whether or not to pass on to the second stage.

How could they be stupid enough to fall for something like that? He couldn't help but snicker to himself. Never once in the exams history have they ever barred future applicants from competing again, of course it was a bluff.

He hadn't wanted to spoil it, of course. Any of the people who'd be fooled by something so simple didn't deserve to be Chuunin at all.

Or maybe I should have told them, let them all pass through. He thought as he waved to his teammates, who both gave a noncommittal wave back. Gods know this place could do with having their chaff culled, and I hear the second test is a whole lot more deadly.

He and his teammates walked ahead of most of the others leaving the exam sight, heading down towards the forest of death at a more immediate pace. It wasn't to try and earn points with the proctor, or any such nonsense, but a far more deep-rooted problem.

They didn't like being around each other.

It wasn't overt, in that they avoided one another entirely or couldn't bear to speak to each other, it was far more subtle than that. It was like when their eyes met, they'd look the other way without so much as a word. Or if they ran into one another at the compound, they'd pass by one another without exchanging a greeting.

Oh, they'd talk, but only in a fickle manner. They'd ask the other how they'd been doing, the other would reply that they were 'fine', and they'd walk along as if they'd never so much as seen the other. They talked like they were being forced to talk.

If Zaku were being honest with himself, he wasn't particularly satisfied with that.

It was a quiet thought, though, one that drifted within his head like a passing wind. With Orochimaru around, he didn't dare act on it. He wouldn't put it past the man to watch their every move, just to see if he would go along with his idea from the other day to invite his teammates out.

It seemed a bit petty, if he were being honest.

Just like him, I suppose. He snickered to himself.

Zaku nearly jumped out of his skin as Orochimaru himself seemed to melt out of the wall in front of them a second later, clad in his Jonin outfit, looking just a bit too pleased with himself.

Can he like… read minds or something?

"Good, you've all passed." The man gave the three of them a sly grin. "Not that I expected anything different, but it would have been quite the irritant for you to flunk out so early."

All three of them felt a small chill at the man's words and could tell what he was saying.

They outlived their usefulness the moment they were removed from the competition.

If Zaku guessed, Orochimaru needed a good excuse to be hanging around the Leaf Village, and his role as their Jonin Sensei was as good of one as any. That was probably his Plan A, to enter into the final stages of the competition by riding their accomplishments.

But he knew the man well enough to know that it wouldn't be his only plan. Contingencies upon contingencies, Orochimaru took no chances when it came to his ideas. If the three of them proved to be useless, the man wouldn't bother with them any further than to throw them away.

And doesn't that thought leave me feeling all warm and fuzzy.

"Proceed normally through the next exam." Their master told them, giving each of them a bit of an unnerving look. "Although, I'd like to have you hunt down a particularly interesting prospect for me."

"Who, sir?" Dosu spoke up, being the de facto leader of their group, and overall the only one who could even stand speaking in Orochimaru's presence.

"I'll let you know later, if he ends up passing my little test." The man's malicious grin gave them all pause. "Oh, and I have another infiltrator in this exam aside from the three of you, just as a… backup, we'll call it."

Zaku gulped, knowing that their place in this plan had just become even more unimportant.

"You've met each other, though it would be best for your two groups to not intermingle, what with the risks that would entail." The man spoke his words like they were made of honey, though each one of them only made Zaku feel sick. "Rest assured, they have their own tasks. They won't be encroaching on your mission."

"Thank you, sir." Dosu bowed deeply, before gesturing to the three of them. "Shall we go to the test site, sir?"

"Hm, yes, I suppose I've nothing left for the three of you." Orochimaru stepped away, walking over into a tree, and literally melting into it.

Just before he was about to disappear completely, his face turned back towards the three of them.

"Do try to become Chuunin, you all." He smiled in a predatory way, and Zaku's instincts screamed at him to get away. "The opportunities for senior ninja are often far greater than that of those in the lower rungs."

'Do well in this mission, and you become more important.'

A second later, Orochimaru was gone.

His heart wouldn't stop pounding, even as the seconds ticked by. Even as Zaku and his team stepped out into the clearing where a handful of students stood waiting for the exam to begin, it never ceased to beat as hard and as fast as it could. It seemed to scream at him to run away, to get as far away from that man as he possibly could.

Perhaps he already knew, on an instinctive level, that staying with Orochimaru could only ever end in his death, but that didn't particularly matter.

He'd been trapped and caught by that man so very long ago, the very moment their eyes met in that abandoned alley he'd scrounged for food in. One passing glance, one fleeting interest, and his fate had been sealed. He'd been deemed useful, and had air tubes carved into his arms to prove it.

And Orochimaru didn't let go of things that interested him, not until they broke…

Or stopped being interesting.

Zaku couldn't help but laugh a bid morbidly as he thought that, causing his teammates to give him odd looks.

The same thing seemed to happen to both.

End Chapter 12

Another Wednesday, Another Chapter.

A pretty big change here, because of Naruto losing himself to the Nine-Tails, Jiraiya is actually called in to watch and teach him, instead of Naruto stumbling upon him in the baths.

Zaku, and really the rest of his team, know that they're the pawns on Orochimaru's board, and that that's a really bad thing.

Kakashi's in bed, Zabuza and Haku are alive, and Jiraiya's here a few days early. Surely this will have no effect on any future events.

Alright, that's all from me, have a good week!