Quick note: I know I left the scene from the last chapter unfinished, but I got too impatient. Also, I decided to skip sensei-student bonding and will include chapters on that in the WoW: Plus if you want to see some team bonding and missions!

Anko, bless her evil, decrepit heart, taught me a new form of taijutsu that worked with my limited use of arms.

It was a kick-boxing style, where hands were used primarily for defence and legs acted as the offense. My dead arm made for a great shield also simply because I could feel no pain in it, so I could use my chains to lift it to act as a quick defence, and retaliate with kicks.

She was a god-send to Naruto as well. She tasked him with the goal of creating a seal that could seal a large portion of his chakra away. Of course, this sounded like a horrendous idea at first, but when she explained it did make sense.

While Sakura was taking her turn on an obstacle course through a (extremely dangerous) forest, Anko gave us the run down.

"Listen up, kid. Because of that beast sealed in you, you have a far greater chakra capacity than anyone your age should, and it will only make people suspicious. They might connect the dots that you are Naruto. So, when you've sealed your chakra away, with ready access should you properly need it, I'm going to teach you how to control your chakra properly. You can be our sealing specialist."

And that was exactly how it went.

The chunin exams was approaching far too quickly for comfort. However, I hadn't been idle. I'd planned how everything would happen, and it was a pretty solid plan if I said so myself.

It would go like this:

I would convince Sakura not to join the exams by telling her to do medicine so she would start on her career to becoming an iryo-nin. Then, I would convince the Hokage to place Sasuke on our team in her stead.

For the exams I would dress up as Sasuke, and Sasuke and Naruto would dress up as Naruto and me. Then, we would overlay our disguises with henges of random people so we would be even more protected. That way, even if Orochimaru did figure out Sasuke was on our team in a henge, he would mistake me for Sasuke and in the worst case scenario I would get bitten instead of Sasuke.

It was pure genius. I was pure genius.

However, things didn't quite go according to plan.

Starting with how Sakura responded to my suggestion after Anko announced she'd nominated us for the exams.

"Are you kidding me?" Sakura growled, raising a fist at me. "Are you saying I'm weak?"

"What?" I replied, paling. "That's not what I said! I mean, you are, which is why you should try medical jutsu and-"

The broken nose I received may have been deserved. Anko-sensei was too busy howling with laughter to take me to the hospital while I was curled on the ground, so Naruto had to do it.

So basically, my whole plan crashed and burned with the minor oversight that Sakura might not want to become a medical ninja. Yet.

But all hope was not lost. It was time to enact my back-up plan.

After my nose was healed, I tracked down Sasuke and told him how awesome it would be if he dressed up as Naruto and went into the exam in a henge, and I could pretend to be him.

His response was to stare at me weirdly, shake his head and walk away with his hands in his pockets.

Akio-sensei, who had watched the whole exchange, smiled at me and told me he thought it was a great idea. But also…

"Why so paranoid, Sora-kun?"

I turned to look at the orange-eyed man.

"Ninja must learn to be paranoid at all times," I told him solemnly. Then I made a show of eying him condescendingly. "Some of us know the world can be a harsh place," I finished waspishly, hoping that would wipe the cheery, naïve smile from his lips.

It didn't, and when I turned around and stalked away haughtily, I swear I even heard him chuckle. Stupid happy people.

My third attempt to help save Sasuke's ass was to speak to my Arch Enemy, the Hokage. I rebelliously didn't book an appointment and simply wandered past the receptionist, whistling a merry tune, and knocked on his door. I wasn't brave enough to do the 'kick the door in without knocking first' act, so after a second had passed after knocking I slammed the door open.

My first thought was that perhaps that was a bad idea, because it might set traps off. My second thought, however, was the realisation that bookings might actually be for a reason. Hence I was faced with a terrible conundrum.

There stood Danzo, in front of the Hokage's desk, his face half turned towards me. The Hokage sat at his desk, the usual pile of paperwork stacked beside him and an air of tiredness surrounding him.

Unfortunately, I couldn't just meekly slide away after such a dramatic entrance. Nor would I apologise with Danzo standing there. So, with a façade of confidence I stepped into the office.

"Hokage-sama," I greeted, bowing. I didn't want to greet Danzo, but I found myself moving almost robotically, bowing just as low to him. "Danzo-sama."

I dropped to my knee in a submissive gesture that had long since been trained into me during my time at Root.

The two stared at me in silence, Danzo's eye sizing me up in that cold, calculating way.

"Now is not a good time, Sora-kun," the Hokage said stiffly but not unkindly, despite my crass actions.

"Since he had the audacity to barge into the room like that, why not let him speak," Danzo said almost snappily.

The Hokage sighed and gestured for me to stand. I rose slowly, my eyes darting between the two of them, and I stood to attention with my back ramrod straight.

"I would like to enquire as to Sasuke's placements in the chunin exam, since he has no team of his own," I droned.

Please tell me he won't be getting in because he doesn't have any team members, I prayed.

"One of our older genin teams has a vacancy because one of the members was injures, and have already agreed to accept Sasuke onto their team as a replacement," Hiruzen replied with a weary smile.

"Oh," I said, mind working furiously. There was no way I would convince the Hokage to keep Sasuke out of the exams, and no way to get him on my team short of killing or injuring Naruto or Sakura (I swear I wasn't considering it!) but one thing I could do was try and get Sasuke on my team with Naruto and Sakura. That way, things would hopefully happen as in canon and I could keep track of Sasuke, and could join up with him in the second exams.

"Hokage-sama," I started hesitantly, unsure how to bring this up without it looking suspicious.

Ooh, I know!

"Would you mind if I took Sasuke's place on the older genin's squad, and he can replace me with Asahi and Sakura? You see, Sakura and I had a bit of a fight and I feel like we won't-"

"Yes, yes," Hiruzen said, clearly impatient to get back to whatever he was quarrelling about with Danzo. "That is fine, Sora-kun. I heard you were in hospital. You are dismissed."

Inside, I whooped with glee. Any other day and he surely would have been on my case, asking questions, but clearly he was so pressured by Danzo's presence he had no time to spare for me.

I wandered home, to Kakashi's old clan home, with a grin.

Tomorrow, the chunin exams begin!

Explaining to my team why I had transferred to another genin squad was awkward, to say the least. Anko was giving me this searing look, as if she was trying to see into my soul and dig up all the hidden truths.

Naruto was crushed, something I didn't have the foresight to prepare for, so when his face dropped guilt crashed over me in waves.

At least someone was happy, though.

"Ha! You're not a man if you are so scared of me that you changed teams!" Sakura crowed victoriously. I didn't have the heart to refute her, not after watching Naruto turn his back on me.

"Well kiddo, I don't really know what to think of this, so you better get your ass over to your new team before I make up my mind," Anko drawled, and slapped me on the back, hard enough to propel me towards my new team at the same moment Sasuke appeared, looking bemused.

I didn't bother to greet him and instead trudged over to my temporary squad.

Now, at this point I hadn't had a chance to have a look at my new team, so when I did I got a nasty surprise.

A very nasty surprise, in fact a surprise so nasty it stopped me dead in my tracks.

Kabuto was there.

Something tugged at my consciousness, telling me I should have remembered Kabuto was part of the chunin exams, on a Leaf team.

But the chances it was his team I was put into, out of all the fucking older genin teams-

"Hi! You must be Sora-kun," Kabuto greeted, with an insincere smile. "My name is Kabuto, and this is Yoroi Akado," he informed me, pointing the the guy beside him who had round black glasses like Shino's, and a purple-black cloth over his lower face. His head was covered with a bandana too. He was silent.

I took a breath.

He doesn't know who I am, I'm Sora now, I reminded myself.

I smiled.

"Nice to meet you," I told them, covering the last of the distance between us without so much as a hitch. "I hope we make a good team. Please take care of me!"

The first exam went basically exactly as in canon, except this time Kabuto didn't do his little show of ninja info cards, not that I was complaining.

Ibiki pulled the exact same 'cheat and you'll pass', but also a 'don't write anything just don't give up on the last question' type exam.

So basically, I waited in my allocated seat for three hours, staring out the window. I was watching a crow caw as Ibiki declared he was going to ask the final question in a dramatic tone, scaring away half the participants, then told us we had passed and yada yada yada.

What I didn't expect, despite it being canon, was Anko's entrance.

The only reason I wasn't startled when she shattered through the window and threw out her banner was that I had seen her approaching like a bullet through the window.

Now, the reason I was surprised because in most logical societies, a teacher that has taught some of the students in an exam does not oversee that exam for they may advantage or disadvantage their students.

But then again, having Anko as the proctor for our second exam wasn't really surprising if I analysed a bit further. After all, it was common knowledge she was a veteran of the Forest of Death, having trained there for many years, and there was really no way she could give any sort of advantage to any of the participants simply because all she did was pass out the consent forms and tell us the run-down of the exam. Plus, there would be other shinobi there who would be making sure she wasn't dropping any hints to specific parties.

It comforted me a little, to know my sensei would be in the vicinity during tomorrow's exam, but in canon it had changed nothing and there was no guarantee the same wouldn't happen.

That night I spent tossing and turning, sweating bullets. I hadn't planned further than plan #1 which had dramatically failed and I was realising then that my backup plan really wasn't a guarantee of anyone's safety. Sasuke was still in plain sight, on Team 7, waiting to be picked like a ripe cherry. The only thing I had guaranteed was that he wasn't on a team with Kabuto, which was unintentional anyway.

I bolted upright as an idea hit me.

I knew exactly where the exam was going to be held, and what we had to do for it. Why wasn't I using that to my advantage?

Ok, I decided. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to break off from Kabuto and Yoroi as soon as I can, and I'm going to find Team 7 and help them get to the end safely. In the meantime, though…

I slipped out of the apartment, as quietly as possible so as to not wake Naruto, and I headed to the Forest of Death.

Now, I can tell you without a doubt that being in the Forest of Death at night is intensely creepy. I spent several hours, from dusk until dawn, tracking the way to the tower and back again so I would know where to go. I had to evade all sorts of weird creatures too, but luckily I didn't encounter any animals that were too dangerous.

I also lay traps down. Everywhere I could in the amount of time I had. It was impossible to cover the whole forest of course, but I chose a couple of the more obviously used trails I could find to place down the odd trap.

I would have to tell Naruto and the others where the traps were so they could avoid them.

The last thing I did was create several clones. They nodded at me silently and went to each of the gates to enter the forest, where I knew they would hide themselves so they could track each team.

I nodded to myself as I headed back home, the sun already rising above the village. It wasn't a fool-proof plan by any stretch, but it was as good as I could get at this point.

When I slipped back into the apartment, Naruto hadn't woken yet, and I dropped into my bed with the hopes of getting a good nap before heading to the exam.

Lots of funsies coming up next chapter XD Feel free to throw me your thoughts and predictions yayyyyy