The country I'm in is currently in lockdown so I'll probably be getting more chapters out over the next month or two. Sorry this one took a while, I was in Japan for a couple of weeks at the start of the month and typing a fic out on a tablet while also being out most of the day is very hard.

"Now that you all have gathered, Jonin Sensei, I would like to hear your recommendations for the Chuunin exams."

The Hokage looked around the ninja sat in the room, most were Jonin, but there were also Chuunin ninja that would be participating in the exams too. A beat of silence followed.

"I'd like to put forward my team for selection, Hokage-sama," Itachi said, hoping no one would challenge him on it.

"What after you nearly got Choji killed?" Iruka balked, half-standing up from his kneeled position.

"Choji is fine. You're exaggerating."

"You and Kakashi are irresponsible!" Iruka argued, "Sasuke was heavily injured in his last mission too. They only graduated two months ago; they should not be exposed to such danger!"

"If not now, when Iruka-sensei?" Kakashi asked flatly.

Sasuke had been hurt on his mission? Itachi fought to keep his expression neutral. Yes, he was worried about Sasuke, but here was not the place to comment. Certainly he couldn't argue with Kakashi.

"Both were mistakes on the client end," Hiruzen broke in, drawing attention back to himself. "I accept your recommendation, Itachi-sensei. Anyone else?"

"Yes, I'd also like my team to participate," Kakashi said with the barest hint of smugness, his visible eye still looking at Iruka. Kurenai raised her hand and recommended her team followed by a ninja in a green jumpsuit with garish orange legwarmers and an ugly bowl cut. Itachi knew him by sight as Might Gai, but generally avoided any and all contact with the man or the smaller copy of Gai that followed him around like the beginnings of a cult.

"Alright. Please deliver the application forms to your students. As they progress through the examinations, further instructions will be provided. Your teams are still permitted to go on missions, but I would recommend against it. If they are absent for any part of the exams it is instant failure," Hiruzen explained. "I would also appreciate it if all of you could be welcoming to the foreign ninja coming to Konoha to take the exams. However, do not forget to be vigilant. Intelligence suggests the Village Hidden in the Sound, of which we have one participating team, is linked to Orochimaru."

Itachi's lip curled. Orochimaru was supposedly one of the three legendary Sannin, the students of the Third Hokage. However, the only memories Itachi had of the man were of a pale creep that had been lusting over his body. He'd only been young when Orochimaru had left the village, so Itachi made a mental note to ask about the man if he was going to suddenly become relevant again.

He sent the forms via summoning crow and made his way to Kakashi's home. It didn't cross Itachi's mind as to whether his fellow ninja would be there or not as it did not matter. He knocked politely on the door and after a minute of waiting, Itachi let himself in with a gentle tendril of chakra into the lock, shifting the pins and allowing him into the room beyond.

Unlike Itachi's own, Kakashi had furnished his apartment with pictures and bookcases, though most appeared empty bar the shelf above his bed, where Icha Icha Paradise stood out beside a few other novels and pictures of Kakashi's Genin teams; one where he was a Genin himself with Nohara Rin, Uchiha Obito and the man who later became the Fourth Hokage Namikaze Minato. The other was his current team. In both, it was the Kunoichi that seemed the happiest to be in the team and after a slightly longer look, the further similarities were very apparent. Kakashi and Minato were in the same pose, a hand on each of the male team member's head, the Uchiha of the group was on the left. It seemed as well that both pictures were taken in the same location.

He didn't bother flicking on a light, instead taking a seat at Kakashi's desk which stood to the right of the bed and had a bulletin board on the wall, with notes such as when the rubbish collection was and reminders of when the next Icha Icha novel was being released.

Itachi didn't have to wait long for Kakashi to appear, the older ninja opening his door with the key like any normal human being.

"Well, this feels familiar," he noted a paper bag of groceries in hand. "And somewhat more malicious in the dark."

"Mr Ukki is bigger than when I was here last," Itachi said, pointing to the plant beside the team pictures, where the title 'Ukki-san' was written onto the pot.

Kakashi turned his head to survey the plant too. "I suppose he is. If you came to check up on my gardening ability, that's just creepy," he added, his visible eye displaying a remarkable amount of disgust. "What do you want?"

"I want to know why we both nearly got our teams killed despite our qualifications."

"Oh?" Kakashi paused in his step, presumably he had been about to ignore Itachi in favour of storing his shopping away. Instead, he now dropped the bag unceremoniously on the desk by Itachi and took a seat on his bed. "I suppose it is a curious situation. It'd be coincidence if it was only one of us."

"But both makes a correlation," Itachi agreed. "Will you tell me about your mission?"

"So long as you tell me about yours," Kakashi allowed. While the two didn't explicitly like one another, they were both efficient in their explanations. After his own mission summary, Kakashi went on to explain how his team had been almost constantly assaulted on their way to the Land of Waves.

"The second time we fought Zabuza, his brat joined the fray, matching up against Sasuke. I couldn't see the details as Zabuza was using a mist jutsu to make the Sharingan harder to use, but the kid also had a kekkei genkai. Ice transformation."

Itachi hummed, hand on his chin, "You mentioned Naruto was asleep when you left that morning, did he join you later?"

"Yes, he and Sasuke fought against the boy, Haku. I believe something happened that caused strain to Naruto's seal, though I can't prove it," Kakashi said. "His seal isn't visible most of the time."

"Probably linked to the kyuubi's chakra."

Kakashi nodded, "Kushina mentioned jinchuriki often have similar seals that allow for the host's and beast's chakras to mix. She never showed me hers, but I wouldn't be surprised to find Naruto's is the same."

"Would you consider it reasonable to say Naruto's awakening saved your team?"

"Not at all. I bested Zabuza and Haku jumped into the path of my Raikiri without instruction as I attempted to finish Zabuza off," Kakashi explained. "Though I would consider it reasonable to say that Naruto saved himself and Sasuke. But I would have gotten there sooner if his chakra hadn't skyrocketed."

Itachi chewed on his lip slightly, not the answer he wanted to hear, but it was fine. They needed to let the children grow, if it was possible even under dangerous circumstances, it was their duty as Jonin Sensei to do so.

"You mentioned your team ignored a direct order to retreat. Are you sure they're ready for what's ahead?" Kakashi asked, breaking Itachi's train of thought.

"I really don't know what I would have done if Ino hadn't bought us those precious seconds at the end. And I have no idea if I would have been able to defeat Deidara had they left," Itachi admitted. "But I think they can manage. Their teamwork is impeccable."

Kakashi put a finger to his chin. "If we take the stance that our teams nearly died because they were targeted, who do we assume the culprit was? And is that person the same for both teams?"

"It's possible. I had a fleeting thought it could be Orochimaru."

Kakashi tipped his head curiously. "Oh? Why him?"

Itachi considered his words, "He had an… obsession with me when I was younger. I believe what he was really after was the Sharingan."

"Something like that would sound about right. I heard a lot of rumours back in the day that he was obsessed with learning all the jutsu in the world. A Sharingan or two would certainly help that venture." Kakashi agreed, adding slowly, "It's also possible since Sound will be bringing ninja into the village that he could try again."

Itachi frowned. "How? We'll be with the other Sensei and on guard simply because outsiders are in the village."

"Because the target may not be us. Sasuke unlocked his Sharingan during his fight with Haku," Kakashi explained. "If there's a team from Sound in the exams, they may target Sasuke instead."

Itachi's lip twisted in displeasure. Well that was a rather large detail to miss out. Still, by now Sasuke would have told his parents about his Sharingan, which means he would be aware of people trying to take it and the jutsus that seal it. Sasuke would also be invited to Clan meetings, which could have… interesting consequences. Being the heir didn't make him any less of a child in that space, something that had annoyed Itachi to no end.

"What else do you know about Orochimaru?"

"Nothing really. Anko was his student, but I doubt she knows much about him either," Kakashi shrugged. "He was ousted from the village a little bit after the Third Ninja War due to inhumane experimentation."

"What kind of experiments?"

"I'm not sure on the details, but Orochimaru killed a lot of children trying to implant some kind of power in them." Kakashi raised a finger and pointed at the juncture between the back of his neck and his shoulder. "Anko has a mark around here that sometimes alters her chakra flow in an unnatural manner. Apparently as a Genin she woke up after passing out in pain to a room full of ninja her age with similar marks, but they were all dead. Only she survived."

"Well that's disturbing." Sitting back, Itachi crossed his arms. "I don't remember hearing about any ANBU teams tracking Orochimaru either." This lack of intel was… unnatural. Sure, their intelligence network wasn't infallible, but how did no one notice children going missing, winding up dead and then not track the bastard that did it?

"I don't think anyone was. Or the teams that did were killed," Kakashi shrugged. "I have a theory it's just a Sannin thing."

"A what?"

"The Sannin were all Lord Third's students. When Orochimaru left, Jiraya followed. I think Lord Hokage ordered no one to pursue because he thinks Jiraya is handling it."

"Jiraya? As in that Jiraya?" Itachi asked jabbing a finger at the Icha Icha book on Kakashi's bookcase, his tone dripping with disbelief.

Kakashi seemed unphased. "I'm not saying it's the case. It could be there are people watching Orochimaru and we don't know. It could be that Root was handling that back in our ANBU days." Sadly as ex-ANBU, they both knew it wasn't their place to ask. ANBU agents were often given classified missions that couldn't be spoken about to anyone but Lord Hokage himself. Itachi's time spying on the Uchiha being one such mission.

Sensing that was the end of the conversation, Itachi rose from his chair and turned to leave.

"Itachi," Kakashi called, Itachi pausing mid-step in the doorway. Silence followed so Itachi turned, barely catching a book as it was thrown at his face. "You should read that. It might drag the stick out of your ass."

Moving the book so he could see the title, Itachi turned beat red. "Y-you shitty pervert! Why would I read this!?"

"It holds information about the great secrets in life. Goodnight Itachi-Sensei," Kakashi bid, his tone suggesting a smile before he slammed the door in Itachi's face.

Itachi trembled in a mixture of utter shock and anger. Icha Icha Paradise's cover dented slightly in his grip. "Damn you Kakashi," he muttered, spinning on his heel, shoving the book in his back pouch as he went. He would rather die than be caught with erotica in public.

A week later at the designated time, Itachi slipped into his old training ground on high alert. He kept his chakra low and his senses high for other presences. Shisui was already there waiting for him on the rock Itachi used to hide targets behind.

Spotting his friend, Shisui smiled and waved.

"You seem in high spirits," Itachi commented, a smile working its way onto his face too.

"What can I say, I miss your face," Shisui said, jumping down to meet Itachi. "Sasuke has his Sharingan now."

"Yes, I'd heard from Kakashi."

"Oh? Are you getting along with the other Jonin Sensei then?"

"More like being forced to socialise with them," Itachi huffed. "I'm slowly plotting Kakashi's purely accidental murder."

Shisui laughed, throwing his head back in amusement. "Well, in all seriousness. You look like you're doing okay. I was worried when I saw the sign in sheet."

"You'd be frazzled too after being exploded in the dark and trying to tape up a twelve year old with third degree burns for an arm."

Shisui winced. "That does genuinely sound awful. I read your report after you left the station," he continued. "We should have known Deidara was in our boarders."

Itachi raised an eyebrow, "You looked into it?"

"There's a number of small but similar discrepancies over the decades. Missing information where our ninja were involved at one point in time, but there was no follow up or the people that could corroborate the story are dead. They're quite well hidden; most are from the wars, periods where records weren't as easily kept or involve areas out of Konoha's jurisdiction."

"Those discrepancies would be random chance at best. What have you got that links them?" Itachi wondered.

"Danzo." Noticing Itachi's drawn eyebrows, Shisui added, "You seem surprised."

"I thought you might say Orochimaru. He seems to be the flavour of the month right now."

"With that Sound Village team that's wandering around? Nah. But Danzo's got links to Orochimaru, so I suppose it's possible. Just, Orochimaru wouldn't have any interest or ability to censor our intelligence network."

Frowning, Itachi asked, "Wait, go back. How are Orochimaru and Danzo connected?"

"Danzo put Orochimaru forward for the position of Fourth Hokage. Obviously he didn't get it and not long after he left the village after getting caught in a secret base doing creepy experiments," Shisui explained. "Knowing that, I started thinking that Danzo could be manipulating the flow of information to better suit his agenda. Sure enough I see records of events not lining up with the truth of the matter."

"So this goes beyond the coup?"

"Oh definitely. The Man Who Can't Be Hokage just manipulates the world from the shadows instead."

"Can you prove anything?"

Shisui shook his head. "No, the signs aren't even there unless you're specifically looking for them."

"Can you draw up a list of incidents?"

"I can try, but it'll be hard. I get to look through more files now while being off police duty, but if I take too many or the wrong one, that will send intel to Root that we're onto them. At best I can get you something in a month, but it'll only be as good as 'I think Danzo was here' or 'someone's uncle's friend's cousin's wife saw a thing that could be a ANBU shadow or a particularly violent leaf six years ago at the equinox of Tuesday'."

It was better than nothing, and Itachi trusted Shisui's skill implicitly. "Well, let's hope it was sunny on the equinox of Tuesday."

Shisui smirked and shook his head a little. "We can hope. Have you looked into anything on your end?"

"Sort of. When I was speaking to Kakashi before, we theorised Sasuke could be targeted in the Chuunin exams. If they use the Forest of Death as they did during my Chuunin exams, it would be the perfect area for an ambush."

"Sasuke will be expecting it in that area though," argued Shisui, "The main point of that task is to fight the other teams to gain scrolls of heaven and earth. Unless. You're concerned about people other than the Genin getting in?"

"Exactly. I know people will be watching and there will be a Jonin area but all the same… I can't shake the feeling something will happen."

Shisui reached out and squeezed Itachi's shoulder. "You're being a good brother. It's natural to worry about him, Itachi. But Sasuke can manage. He's been doing missions for your father over the years. He knows how to protect himself and he'll have his teammates there too. It'll be okay."

Itachi wasn't totally convinced but he forced himself to accept the situation. He couldn't protect Sasuke all of the time, and Shisui was right. Sasuke was strong, and he would no doubt get stronger as his Sharingan developed. Be able to protect his friends.

Again Tenma's blood-stained form flashed before his eyes. And the strange masked man that had brought it about. Sasuke was already better than he was back then. His team was still alive and together. They'd be okay, Itachi had to believe in that.

"Room 301 by four PM…" Ino hummed checking the Chuunin application form once more.

"I didn't think the Academy had a room 301," Choji mumbled as they walked through the entryway to the ninja academy. It wasn't a school day, so there weren't any children around, which meant anyone they came across was likely taking part in the exams.

"They probably changed the signage or something so we wouldn't have home advantage," Shikamaru yawned. "It's gonna be such a drag."

"The bigger drag is Itachi-sensei making us train before we came out," Choji insisted as he fumbled with a bag of crisps. Rolling her eyes, Ino whipped the bag out of Choji's fingers and opened it for him before returning them. "Thank you, Ino~." Choji sang.

"Yeah, yeah, just keep your eye out for the room."

As they wandered through the hall and ascended the stairs they came across a small crowd of people trying to get into a room.

"Number… 301. This is it," Choji said, rising up on his tip toes to see what the ruckus was.

"I could have sworn we only went up one flight of stairs…" Ino frowned. Beside her, Shikamaru looked around also unsure.

"No way it's that easy." Bringing his fingers together into the ram seal, he released a small burst of chakra, more than enough to remove any genjutsu, something his team had long become paranoid about as it was one of Itachi's favourite techniques. Sure enough the next time he looked at the sign above the room everyone wanted to enter, it said 201, not 301.

"It's not that easy, looks like there's two guys beating up anyone trying to get in," Choji noted.

"Probably a fake out. Look again," Shikamaru said, touching Choji on the shoulder and letting out a burst of chakra. "Ino it's genjutsu."

Ino quickly made a release seal and frowned at the sign. "I guess the academy layout is the same as normal then?"

"Seems like it. Let's go upstairs."

"Is it okay to leave those guys there?" Choji asked, looking over his shoulder.

"I don't see why not, genjutsu's easy to break out of," Ino reasoned. "Lots of people probably figured it out."

"Well, maybe. But not every team has a Shikamaru."

Shikamaru smirked. "Nope, I'm totally special."

"A special kind of lazy maybe," a familiar voice called from the end of the hall.

"Ah! Itachi-sensei!" Itachi smiled slightly and waved from his perch on the windowsill.

"What're you doing here?" Shikamaru asked.

"I wanted to see if you all turned up. I'm glad you did," he added, "You see, you need a three man cell to participate in the exams."

"Nice of you to tell us before we came," Ino huffed.

"To be fair, neither did our parents," Choji consoled.

"Not the point."

Itachi raised his voice, drawing attention back to himself, "Alright, alright, enough." He tipped his head to the door. "Get in there and make yourselves comfortable. I'll see you outside when you're done."

Choji raised his eyebrow, "You're not going to wish us luck?"

"I don't need to, I have every faith you'll pass here, but if it makes you feel better, best of luck, Choji."

Choji smiled and shot Itachi a thumbs up, then turned on his heel to catch up to Ino and Shikamaru who were waiting, each with a hand on the door. "Let's go!"

Opening the door to the assembly hall, it was laid out like a normal classroom but on a larger scale, with easily over one hundred desks. Only the first few rows were filled up and only a handful weren't wearing Konoha headbands. The ninja that were there already though turned to regard the three rookies intently, their gazes dark.

"Who let the brats in?" asked one.

"That fat one looks like he's going to piss his pants," commented another.

Shikamaru nudged his friends, "Let's go over there. Kiba said he got recommended too so their team will be here soon."

"I really wish we hadn't come three hours early now," Choji mumbled, sitting in the corner as Shikamaru suggested.

"It'll be okay, Choji, ignore them," Ino encouraged.

Shikamaru got up on the desk and made a show of yawning. "I'm gonna nap until this starts." Laying down he turned to raise an eyebrow at Choji.

"I think I'll watch the clouds. I'll nudge you if there's a particularly good one."

Shikamaru smirked. "Sounds good to me."

Ino rolled her eyes, "You two are so relaxed. I wish I'd brought a book."

More comments about their childishness and inexperience rose, but so did a couple of comments of doubt. "They wouldn't be so calm unless they were either completely naïve or completely prepared," and variations thereof could be heard more than once.

It was the most awkward three hours of their lives, broken up by more much older ninja entering, finding seats and muttering amongst themselves until a single group entered an hour later, which wasn't unusual, but the sudden change in the air snapped Shikamaru out of his daze. He sat up slowly and looked to the door, spotting three ninja with unfamiliar headbands.

"Suna ninja," Ino provided softly, also looking over. One was dressed in a black one-piece with a weird cat hood and purple facial markings with some kind of item on his back covered in bandages, the next was a blonde with her hair separated into four ponytails and wore a lilac dress over mesh armour with a sash around the middle and a large folding fan strapped to her back. Finally between them was a shorter boy with red hair and dark bags around his eyes. He looked quite plain in his black shirt over ninja mesh and plain dark pants. It looked as though he had a huge gourd strapped to his back with a strange leather harness and white strip of fabric. But it wasn't their appearance that had caught Team Ten's attention. It was the killing intent the little one was giving off. It was stifling.

"Let's… not get their bad side," Choji suggested his voice hardly louder than breathing. Silently, Shikamaru agreed. This guy was worse news than Deidara.

With barely half an hour to spare, a larger group of ninja arrived, amongst them was Team Seven.

"Sasuke!" Ino ran over and threw her arms around the boy. "I thought you guys were never going to show!"

"So you signed up for this too?" Shikamaru asked Naruto, coming over to greet them, hands in his pockets.

"Hell yeah! Believe it!"

"Shikamaru! There you are!" Shikamaru and Naruto turned to the voice, showing the last of the rookie Konoha teams, Team 8. "And the blonde shrimp too!"

"Hey Kiba!" Naruto greeted, the insult sliding off him. Kiba was a boy about Shikamaru's height with a head of shaggy brown hair hidden under his fur trimmed hoodie. Like Choji he had facial tattoos common for his clan in the shape of two red triangles going from his eyes to point at his chin. A bark drew attention to Kiba's puppy, Akamaru, who as far as Shikamaru knew, lived either on Kiba's head, as he was now, or in the front of Kiba's hoodie.

Either side of him were Shino, a quiet boy from the Aburame Clan who all wore big jackets and goggles over their eyes, Shino being no different, and Hinata, who was prone to stammering and seemed to be staring at Naruto with her lavender eyes, trying to find something to say.

"Hey, Hinata, you came too?" Choji said, smiling. "Well done, you're super smart so I'll be they make you Chuunin."

Hinata turned her head, a blush forming on her cheeks, "Aa-ah, th-thank you, Choji."

"Looks like the nine rookies of the leaf are all here then," Shino noted. "I wonder who among us will succeed?"

"We did a bunch of training, our team's totally going to pass!" Kiba declared.

"Training isn't everything if you don't know how to put it into practise," Sasuke jabbed, having finally extracted himself from Ino.

"YEAH! Like hell we'll lose to you!" Naruto roared.

"Sorry, N-Naruto, Kiba didn't mean it like that," Hinata mumbled, unable to meet Naruto's eyes as her blush grew.

"EH?" Naruto cocked his head and stared at Hinata. As he was about to open his mouth and say something else, a new voice cut in.

"You guys should be more quiet. The competition's going to eat you alive."

Turning, the group found a leaf ninja in a purple turtle neck and pants over a grey shirt. On his hands were purple gloves with a sheet of metal over the back to protect his knuckles and a beige sash around his middle, probably for hiding weapons in. Other than obviously being older than the nine rookies, he didn't seem particularly strong. He certainly didn't give off the same air as the sand ninja had.

"Who the hell are you, Four-Eyes?" demanded Naruto.

The boy pushed his circular glasses up his nose a touch. "I'm Kabuto, maybe you should take a look behind you and be glad I'm offering helpful advice?"

"Be…hind?"

As Kabuto said, behind them a group of three ninja that looked more than a little ready to tear someone's throat out were glaring, one already half out of their chair. Naruto paled.

"Their ninja from Amegakure. They have super short tempers, so calm down before something happens? We're all nervous you know," Kabuto explained. "If we fail here it's another six months until ninjas can try again. I mean, if my Sensei even lets me try again."

"This isn't your first time," Sasuke noted.

"Nope, my seventh."

"Wow, you must know a lot then. About the exam," Choji said, a slight creep of awe in his tone.

"You bet!" Kabuto smiled. "Hey, why don't I share some of it with you?" he added, reaching into his pouch and pulling out a small deck of cards. "With my Ninja Info Cards!"

"That name is so lame," Shikamaru muttered under his breath while they all looked on in confusion as Kabuto knelt down and placed the deck on the floor.

"Since the exam is every six months, I've four years' worth of slowly built up on these cards – almost two hundred of them – they all look blank at first glance," he added, flipping the first card over to show the lack of information. "But if I use my chakra…" A small puff of smoke erupted and the card changed instead to a map of the world, with graph of ninja by country.

"This is… the people taking the exam this year?" Sasuke guessed.

"Yep, I've been counting the people in the room and updating while I wait, so it might be a little off if some more ninja come in while we're talking, but I can fix that later," Kabuto said.

"Do you have information on individuals?" Sasuke asked.

"Of course! Why? Someone you're worried about?" Kabuto chuckled.

Naruto nudged Choji. "He's worried about me obviously."

"Uhm… wouldn't Sasuke know how strong you are?"

Naruto's eyebrow twitched in annoyance.

"The info might not be complete, but I'll have something. Can you describe them?" Kabuto asked.

"Gaara of the Sand village and Rock Lee from Konoha," Sasuke said flatly, surprising Kabuto.

"Oh nice! If you know their names that makes this way easier." He moved to draw two cards from his deck. "Here we go. Rock Lee first. He's a year older than you guys, his Sensei is Might Gai. Done 20 D-Rank missions and 12 C-Rank. Other than his taijutsu being off the charts, there's nothing really of note about him. He made a stir when he graduated last year but this is his first time entering the Chuunin exams, same with his teammates Hyuuga Neji and Tenten." Leaving the card on the floor, Shikamaru could see the profile of data and a stat wheel framing a picture of Rock Lee, a kid he remembered seeing a while ago because the garish jumpsuit and bowl cut had been pretty hard to miss, even without Ino commenting on the fashion disaster.

Next, Kabuto brought up a similar data card on Gaara. Shikamaru's eyes widened. It was the red-headed sand ninja from before. Why the hell would Sasuke want information on that guy?

"Gaara of the Desert. My information is spotty because Wind and Fire country don't have much contact or friendly treaties, plus he's a newcomer, I haven't seen him before. But I do know he's done eight C-Ranks and even a B-Rank, which is near impossible for a Genin. Word on the street is Gaara's never even gotten a scratch. He must be pretty fast…"

"Or freakisly strong," Ino mumbled.

"I'm more of the opinion people see him and run the other way," Shikamaru commented. "Who're his teammates?"

"Kankuro and Temari. And their info cards are about the same. They're total unknowns, which is weird because Kankuro is 14 and Temari 15. At least in Konoha, ninja don't get held back for that long."

Choji sighed, "Seems like everyone is unknown."

"Well, it makes sense," Kabuto reasoned. "Particularly since the exams move country every six months, most villages will send their strong ninja to the foreign lands as a show of strength, meaning anyone who isn't leaf is probably super strong. But as you saw with Lee, we tend to put our best foot forward too."

"Says the habitual failure," muttered Sasuke.

"Who are the other villages than leaf, sand and rain?" Naruto blinked.

"Don't you know anything?" Ino chastised. "The five big ninja villages are Konoha, Suna, Kiri, Kumo and Iwa."

"There's also littler villages here, like Kusa, Ame and Oto."

"Sound village?" Shikamaru said, raising his eyebrow at the last name. "Never heard of it."

"They're recently formed, and only have one team entering this year. They're the ones with a musical note on their headband wearing camo," Kabuto replied.

Silence fell on the rookies, each awkwardly avoiding eye contact as they digested the fact the bst of the best were here, and yet their Sensei had each thrown their fresh teams into the exams too. Even Naruto was shaking like a leaf.

As Sakura reached out to comfort him, her words were drowned out as he exploded in excitement, finger jabbing at the rest of the examinees. "My name Uzumai Naruto! Don't forget it because I'm going to beat all you bastards!" he yelled confidently. "Believe it!"

"No, no you're definitely going to get us killed instead," Shikamaru said, a beat of sweat rolling down his temple.

"Is he braindead?!" Ino demanded of Sakura, whose hands were still over her ears from being too close to Naruto when he shouted.

"You fucking idiot!" Sakura screeched at Naruto, unaware Sasuke looked just as, if not more confident than Naruto.

Around them, the air grew thick with tension. It seemed Naruto's outburst had been taken as a challenge by the entire room. Them against the rookies.

This was going to be the ultimate drag.

So I looked up Dosu and his team. Apparently they're actually wearing 'snake patterned' clothes. But it totally looks like purple camo to me, so it's staying in. Plus I'd like to assume Orochimaru being behind Otogakure is a little more secret than common knowledge. Kabuto knows obviously, but why would he tell blabby Genin brats? The Hokage only found out through the ANBU network and allowed their entry into the Chuunin exams to figure out what Orochimaru is after. At least, that's my take on it.