It was early. A tad too early for ordinary people to be awake, but the group gathered outside a rather dull-looking building was not made of ordinary people. They were assassins, dangerously armed to the teeth. They had skills that civilians could never hope to have. Worst of all, they had just started puberty.
Naruto bounded up and down on his feet, sweaty hands shoved in the pockets of his atrocious orange jumpsuit. Sakura was mimicking a hamster biting her fingernails and Sasuke was... well, Sasuke. Only a tad more nervous.
Ino's team crouched in a corner because their paper bags had torn under the weight of Choji's snacks and now they had to stall them in front of them like a pick-nick except that they were guarding them. Also, Shikamaru wanted to take a nap.
To their left, Hinata was getting revived from what seemed to be the fifth fainting spell by Akamaru who happily slobbered all over her face. Kiba squatted beside her looking equal parts worried and exasperated. Shino stood there, an occasional bug escaping his collar.
Tenten was apologizing on behalf of her stretching, spandex-clad teammate. She was quite busy. Neji glared at everyone in his view. So at literary everyone.
Team 11 was doing last-minute drills. They somehow got the feeling from their sensei that failing this exam was not an option. Chi was reciting her first grade math-book and discovered that she knew very little. Shinji boasted about her knowledge only to open her notes again a second later. Ryuya had given up and was praying.
The building was from the civilian school so there were no trapdoors, kunai barrage, poison-gas bombs, insane rodents or those funny little papers that you first write on and then discover that they explode. It was safe, spacey and the perfect place for hormonal teens.
More Genin started arriving, some in robes, some with thick jackets bundled up in their arms and others with masks on. Sakura scanned the crowd until she saw the red haired creep with his team turning around the corner. She grabbed Naruto's arm and pressed them against the wall.
Just a few hours earlier, they had run into the other boy, whose name turned out to be Gaara, and he freaked them out. Gaara had taken a special interest in Sasuke and decided to show that by threatening Sakura. That made Naruto angry and then he got the redhead's attention instead.
Only a flash of brilliance from Sakura prevented a fight and they got away safely. Nevertheless, she had felt cold sweat at the base of her neck during the entire opening speech of the Hokage.
The doors of the school opened, startling the Genin. Genma stood in the entrance, grinning lopsidedly and chewing on a senbon.
"Brats!" He got a few angry grumbles in response and cheerfully spat the senbon in front of the protesters. No one spoke up again.
"I hope you all slept soundly and ate your breakfasts. It will be a long time before you get any of those again." He smiled, showing all of his teeth.
"Time for Hell." He stepped aside and let the large crowd enter through the door opening.
Shinji was clutching the yellow sleeve of Chi's haori as they navigated through the mass. Ryuya was holding on to Shinji's hand in turn, but was mostly pulled along by the former. They all squeezed in the narrow hallway and let out a collective sigh of relief when they reached the large room in the center of the school. Staircases ran against the walls and doors were on each side and Shinji wondered which room they had to get. There was no way all of the Genin could fit into one regular classroom.
Chi was taking full advantage of her height and looked over the heads to spot the rest of the Konoha's rookies. She noticed a staircase being blocked by two boys. Team 7 stood in front of them.
"There." She pointed, getting the attention of her teammates. "Team 7 is usually in the middle of the action, so lets go there."
Shinji nodded, sullen "That's true, I sometimes feel like a side character in my own life. Have I told you that?"
"Yes, plenty of times. This morning, for example, when that little boy ignored your greeting." Chi deadpanned. Ryuya snorted.
They reached the other teams just in time to hear Sasuke reveal a Genjutsu that prevented them from entering the right classroom. 'Oohs' and 'Aahs' went up all around them as the two boys transformed back into the Eternal Chuunin and moved aside.
Chi frowned as her mind put one and two together. Once she figured it out, she groaned and hit her forehead. Sasuke turned, a smug smile on his lips. Naruto and Sakura were smiling as well and high fived each other.
"What's wrong?" Sasuke grinned (for as far as an Uchiha can grin).
Chi scoffed "Don't look so smug. You just made everything ten times harder."
"What are you talking about?" Sakura's forehead creased in confusion. Shinji looked at the ceiling, feeling embarrassed on behalf of her crush. Experience had however taught her not to mention said crush in front of Chi.
Chi motioned with her hand to the large group of Genin, waiting to go up to the classroom. "This was definitely the kind of test that would take out the first group, the ones that can't discover a Genjutsu. It was supposed to thin the amount of contestants, but now you've spoiled it for everyone and so everyone who heard it, has passed. You just gave us more competition."
With that, she grabbed her apologetic teammates and marched up the stairs. The rest followed. Sasuke's chakra spiked angrily but he remained quiet.
The classroom they were supposed to enter was C205. It was not big enough and thus another room was quickly prepared by the Chuunin and even some Special Jonin. The latest rookies of Konoha all gathered in front of C205 and entered together.
There were already some Genin inside and, because of Naruto's loud entrance, they were all glaring at them. Shikamaru felt his eye twitch.
"Let's go find a corner." He waved at the group. They followed him to a couple of empty seats and gather around. Shikamaru looked at each of his former classmates and wondered how many would be left at the end. He knew that he had a pretty good chance of becoming Chuunin, but it just seemed so bothersome. He really wanted to give up already.
"You guys are new, huh?" A voice spoke up.
Sakura twirled around, hand on her weapon pouch. The gray-haired boy in front of them smiled and lifted his hands. "Easy, I come in peace."
The group eyed him warily. Chi's eyes started to change, a process so abrupt and intense that her teammates and Naruto felt in their veins. A soft groan of metal came from underneath her haori. Shinji grabbed her wrist and the unpleasant burning dimmed. By that time, Chi's eyes were already yellow.
The boy looked at Naruto and smiled again "My name is Yakushi Kabuto. This is my eleventh time here at the Chuunin Exams, so you could say that I'm kind of an expert."
Naruto narrowed his eyes and said what everyone had been thinking: "Are you that bad?"
"A-ah, well-" Kabuto stuttered "it is pretty tough and I specialize in medical ninjutsu so I have to rely on my team a lot."
Sakura frowned but didn't say anything. Kabuto perked up and reached into his pocket. He retrieved a pack of cards and waved it at them.
"I wanted to tell you about this. These cards are special, you see?" He spread them out on the table, revealing a blank side. The Genin gathered around the table.
"They are empty now, but when I send my chakra in-" a list of statistics appeared on the card, with Naruto's name on top, "they reveal the skills and identities of shinobi. Pretty cool huh?" He grinned.
Naruto and Kiba were enthusiastic and demanded more. Team 11 had gone still. Shikamaru glanced at them and almost winced when he saw Chi's eyes. They were burning and fixated on Kabuto. Ryuya quietly walked aside and looked at the rest of the teams. Shinji's expression was tight.
"We actually need to talk, before the exams." She spoke suddenly, gesturing at the Konoha rookies. "If you don't mind?"
Kabuto looked at her and nodded "Sure, I'll see you guys after the first round then. Don't fail!"
He left with a wave and his cards. Kiba scoffed "What was that about?"
Chi spoke curtly, crossing her arms. "Use your brain."
Shinji sighed and quickly took over before Kiba could retaliate with some less polite words. "Think about it: he just randomly shows up and is all smiley faced while everyone else is prepared to kill one another. Then he shows us these cards, even though they are immensely valuable to passing this exam. And finally, how did he even get that information on Naruto? It is supposed to be classified for anyone outside of Konoha."
The group fell quiet. Naruto turned pale and tugged at his jacket. Shikamaru yawned and scratched his head.
"We need a backup plan."
Ino hugged herself. "What are you talking about? We are supposed to defeat each other."
"We just need to be able to contact each other when it gets necessary." Shikamaru explained, while keeping an eye on Chi. The girl was following Kabuto's movements from across the classroom like an eagle. She did seem to pay attention to the group though, because she spoke up next.
"I have a method, but we need to be quick and make sure no one sees us." Her eyes flickered over her former classmates. The yellow was still as intense as before, and still just as mesmerizing. Sakura felt herself being drawn towards them and she just knew that she wasn't the only one who felt like that.
Half an hour later, their teacher (Akumo Mize-something, no one really paid attention) had entered the classroom and explained the rules in a manner that made even Sakura fall asleep. He was a young man, dressed like a monk with a bad bowl-cut and stupid little glasses perched on the end of his pointy nose. He managed to turn the horror story that is the Chuunin Exam into something less thrilling than the annual meeting of the Land of Fire's accountants.
That meeting was infamous because at the end of the three days, most bodyguards and staff members get admitted in the psych ward, mumbling about numbers and coffee. The rest has to be kept away from windows and sharp objects for at least a month afterwards.
Needless to say, Naruto, Shikamaru, Kiba, Akamaru and Ryuya had already succumbed to a pleasant nap. They only woke up when the buzzer went off to announce the start of the test in both classrooms. The test started and soon the Genin were in a state of hysteria.
Chi however, had something else on her mind. Kabuto's presence behind her was grating on her already frayed nerves. There was a scent, a nagging memory at the back of her mind, that had sent her in a fit of panic.
Danger. Monster. Kill them all.
The voices from her clan drifted up to her. She knew that smell, it was too distinct and too important.
She sighed and decided to focus on her test first. The first question had her wondering what paragraph or book or grade she had skipped while studying.
'When a Chuunin level-shinobi is surrounded by six rogues in a forest where it has not rained in weeks, what jutsu's should he use?'
'Note that he only has three-quarters of his chakra levels left and he is two days away from his hometown. Also note that he has only one hand and the rogues are fully armed and Jonin-level.'
'Extra credit: give us the exact hand-signs needed to perform this jutsu.'
Chi stared and felt her heart coming to a slow halt. She just managed to scrawl "R.I.P." before her head dropped on the table.
Ryuya licked the tip of her pen, smacked loudly and wrote: He should get some poison and drink or eat it. He should be able to do so with only one hand. I wouldn't recommend using ink as I am still breathing and apparently ink is not poisonous. It does taste really bad, so you should spit it out. Maybe some berries would wor- oh wait, the forest is dried out so the berries are dead as well.
He should ask the rogues for some poison then!
She looked at it for a moment and then drew a nice little picture underneath.
Well,- Shinji wrote down carefully- he should kill himself honorably and wait for my teammates and I to arrive in the afterlife.
Shikamaru yawned and scribbled: He should Body-flicker the Hell out of dodge.
Ino took his body over and copied the answer, then took Choji's body and wrote the answer for him. She was going to be very tired by the end.
Naruto's version of the question was near unreadable because of his tears dripping on the paper. Sasuke's answer would later assure him a meeting with a psychologist and a biologist as well as an anger management session with the Hokage. Sakura had written about four paragraphs with detailed illustrations and with no signs of stopping yet.
Kiba and his loyal companion were hunched over their desk and attempted to smell the right answer. Hinata- after a rather long and intense moment of anxiety- activated her Byakugan and looked at Shikamaru's paper and then at Sakura's and summarized them on her own paper. Shino's bugs were crawling over the floor, stealthily creeping up on the resident geniuses and relaying the answers through some Aburame magic.
All in all it took the rookies of Konoha a good fifteen minutes to get their act together and work up something legible. In the other room, Team Gai was doing as expected. Neji used his Dojutsu, Tenten made brilliant use of her weapons as mirrors and copied Neji's answers. Rock Lee was quite unfortunate to be sitting in the first row with Gaara just a couple of seats behind him on his left. The redhead had covered one eye with his hand and the other was fixated on Lee's head.
The latter was frozen in his seat, looking straight ahead without blinking, hands clenched on his table and rivulets of sweat gushing down his forehead and neck. His face was growing red and a vein in his neck was growing thicker and thicker by the second. He had yet to pick up his pencil or to look at his paper. Their proctor- fourth cousin of Kiba's father's uncle's son's neighbor's daughter- Inazuka Rai with a teacup poodle, quietly got up and went to ask for a medic.
The torture went on for another two hours after which both proctors got up and requested for some attention. Akumo Mize-thingy rang a teeny tiny bell, the Inazuka let his poodle bark. Neither method should be regarded as effective in situations other than a room full of tense, shinobi kids working in dreadful silence. Actually, even if the classroom is full of tense, shinobi kids working in dreadful silence, this method might result in death.
Many of the assistant proctors in Akumo's classroom woke up from their nap caused by the earlier speech and were almost immediately lulled back to sleep by the former.
The surprise question was explained (Give up, fail your entire team but get a shot at next year VS Fail the last question and you and your entire team can not compete again. Ever. It's a matter of team bonding really.) and then some kids started crying, one suffered a heart attack, the other had a seizure etc.; it was really messy.
Naruto was pretty sure he was going to explode like a can of soda. His hands were shaking, his brain was working more than it had ever done before, and he could feel the heat rising in his cheeks.
His hand moved up on his own, eliciting a muffled gasp from some Konoha rookies. Only Sakura's voice sighed in something like relief. A surge of energy shot through his body and his raised hand came down on his table, hard enough to send his paper flying. He didn't care, it wasn't like he had actually written anything.
"You think you can scare me? I am never giving up and you better believe it!" He breathed hard and stared just as hard at the proctor.
The latter was staring back, completely bewildered and nodded timidly.
"Good speech. You all pass." He squeaked and the class erupted in confused cheers. The other room had gathered around Lee and attempted to bring him back to life. Neji, stepped forward, kicked him where the sun doesn't shine and Lee woke up. It was intense.
Later on, when the brats where whisked away by an overly giddy Genma, the proctor went to gather the papers. As he reached down to grab Naruto's, he stopped and groaned.
His back had given up on him again.
The kids meanwhile had arrived at the entrance of the Forest of Death. Chi was restless, scratching her arms and looking around. The scent that hung around Kabuto was stronger here, mixed with the undeniable sweet metallic perfume of blood. The Konoha rookies, as a result of Chi's nervousness, became distracted. Choji had even lost his appetite.
Sometime after Genma had explained the rules and every group had received one of the two scrolls, he casually strolled to the group of elder Nara's. Keeping his smile on, he relied his observations.
"Ketsueki Chi is hella nervous. I got a feeling something big is going to happen, we need to keep an eye on her."
One of the men shook his head "We can not meddle with the test. They all know the risks."
Genma's smile slipped off "Yeah, but what if she loses it? You remember what happened before, right?"
The other man sighed "Better than you, boy. Still, we have no choice but to wait. Those kids are smart, if something were to happen-"
"Chi is the only fighter on her team." Genma interrupted but didn't elaborate, suddenly sensing a feint Killer Instinct in the air.
The Nara's froze and slowly got up. Genma turned around and bit his senbon in half. The Genin looked ready to slaughter each other on the spot. A little away from them stood Team 11. Shinji and Ryuya were talking to Chi, obviously trying to calm her down. Chi herself seemed to struggle with herself. Her bright yellow eyes were flitting over the crowd until they found Genma's.
The Chuunin's breath hitched. "I've got to go to her."
But he barely took a step forward, when the other proctors blew their whistle and send the groups to their own gates. They would be in that cursed forest for at least the next five days. The eldest of the Nara's patted his shoulder.
"It's out of our hands now. We can only have some faith. Besides, I am sure that there won't be another bloodbath this time."
Genma closed his eyes and blamed the remains of the Ketsueki's Killer Intent for the sudden flashback.
At the time of those Chuunin Examns, he had been barely ten years old. They were hosted in Konoha as well and the second exam was in an open field. It was remembered as the most nauseating exams in history.
The Genin were supposed hold out for five days in a field nearby the village. Everything was allowed. It sounded easy but with barely enough hiding places, no food or fresh water and high running tension between the groups, it became a horror story. The Genin attacked each other for every little morsel of food, for every hiding place and for every weapon they could find. To make matters worse, it was held during a particularly hot summer. In the end the ANBU had to be called in to guard the field and make sure no one would escape.
Among the Genin that year, were a couple of Ketsueki; a girl and twin boys. They were all in separate groups and at first seemed to be the designated survivors. They were strong, well trained and didn't need water or food to keep fighting. However, no one seemed to have taken into account what the generous amount of blood surrounding them would do to the blood drinkers.
The first day the trio worked well within their teams, dispatching the other Genin and dragging the bodies in the shadows. The second day, their teammates were weakened and thus the Ketsueki went out alone to find some food or water.
On the third day, the temperature shot up to the point where no one ventured out at day. They were all waiting in the sparse shadows, covering themselves with their clothes. That night, the night of the third to the fourth day, screams were heard all over Konoha.
On the fourth day, the Ketsueki's didn't bother to hide their drinking methods. They drained the bodies in the middle of the field. It was a sight that made even the toughest of ANBU sick. Many of the other contestants begged to be released, they wanted to give up. They were not allowed. The bodies started to rot in the warmth of the sun. Some Genins resorted to cremating the dead and that caused a raging fire that nearly scorched everything inside it. The ANBU did step in at that time to ensure there would be some survivors left.
On the fifth day, the grass had turned red. The smell of blood hung over the village for the next week. The remaining contestants had hidden themselves underneath the bodies. The Ketsueki trio was forced out of the field by their clan members. Their eyes were wide and yellow, blood was smeared all over their faces and dripped down from their arms. They were taken away and no one saw them again.
Genma had spent the first couple of days in the classroom, anxiously looking forward to the weekend when he was free to watch the Exams. When Saturday finally arrived, he rushed to the field despite his brother's protests and got as close as possible. What he saw on that field still made him queasy and now, as he watched the last of the Genin disappear behind the trees, he wondered how this one would turn out.
