(A/N) Chuunin Exams! Well, the start of them. We're starting with Team Gai. Mostly getting to know other people here. Meeting the relevant teams and such. I don't remember if I said this, but different villages have their own Shinobi Sign languages, while there is a universal civilian sign language.

Neji stared at the Rookie nine. Sure, he knew Kakashi's team was quiet, and why, but this was ridiculous. All nine of the rookies were silently watching him. He would've thought that at least the Inuzuka would be loud, Inuzuka were notorious for it. The pink-haired one and the Inuzuka looked both irritated and resigned, and Neji briefly wondered why.

"This is almost creepy, an entire graduation class of silent kids? What is wrong with your year?" Tenten asked, confusion written across her face.

"So unyouthful!" Lee exclaimed.

The Aburame adjusted his glasses, and if Neji didn't know better, he would've said the Aburame was smirking. "We are a very quiet graduating class, true, but there is a reason behind it. Why? Because Naruto and Sasuke are mute, Shikamaru believes it too troublesome to speak, Team 8 is very shy, and my teammates have been silenced."

Neji raised an eyebrow. "Silenced?"

The blond kid made a series of hand seals, and the Nara sighed, apparently translating. "Naruto asks if you really believed an Inuzuka was that quiet naturally."

Neji raised the other eyebrow. "Of course not. Kami forbid there ever be a quiet Inuzuka."

Now the Inuzuka just looked offended, making a series of hand signs himself.

Shino translated. "Kiba wishes to inform you that there are quiet Inuzuka, thank you very much. And he informs you that no, he is not one of them, disproving his earlier statement."

Lee frowned at Shino. "It is not very youthful to degrade your teammates."

Naruto sweatdropped and made some more signs, prompting the Nara to translate again.

"Naruto says that he really doesn't care if it's unyouthful, because it's true," Shikamaru sighed, yawning.

Lee moved his disapproving frown to Shikamaru and Naruto. "That is not very youthful," he scolded.

Sasuke sighed, stepping between them, and signing something.

Shikamaru reluctantly translated. "Sasuke says that you need to calm down Lee, and ignore the unyouthfulness of the people here."

Lee nodded, only slightly reluctantly. "I will endeavor to do that, Sasuke-san, if not, I will run around Konoha 20 times on my hands in under 20 minutes! If I fail to do that-" Neji cut off Lee's speaking, and dragged him away, Tenten following with only a hesitant glance back at them.

They met a pair of Suna nin next. Well, except Team 8, which had gone to get a pep talk from their sensei.

'Oi! Let Konohamaru down! He's the Hokage's Grandson ya know!' Naruto signed, glaring at the one with purple makeup.

The purple makeup dude blinked at him. "Huh?"

"Naruto says to put Konohamaru, who is the Hokage's grandson, down," Shikamaru drawled reluctantly.

"What are you, mute?" Purple makeup dude sneered.

Naruto gave him a flat look and started signing expletives at him.

"I'm not translating that," Shikamaru sighed.

Shino shook his head. "Agreed. Why? Because that is a very long string of expletives, and I see no reason for them."

The girl raised an eyebrow. "If my memory of Suna's SSL is accurate, and our sign languages are close enough, I would agree. Also, Kankuro, drop the kid, and shut up before I hit you with my fan."

Kankuro wisely dropped the kid.

"Kankuro," a dry voice droned. "You're embarrassing us."

"G-gaara!" Kankuro said, taking a slight step backwards.

Shikamaru eyed the interaction with interest. As far as he could tell, Gaara was younger than the two, and yet they seemed afraid of him.

Naruto started poking him in the arm, so he looked at his teammate. "What."

'The Uzushio teams should be arriving soon,' he signed, glancing towards the front gate.

Shikamaru nodded reluctantly. "Fine. If you don't mind, we have people we'd actually like to greet. Perhaps we'll see you in the first challenge."

Temari inclined her head politely, and the two teams moved past the sand team.

"Hey team 7!" Eidoko shouted to them as they approached, waving cheerfully. "I'm afraid I don't know the rest of you."

"Shino Aburame," Shino replied, making the hand sign to deactivate the silencing seals.

"Hi!" Sakura chirped, smiling. "I'm Sakura Haruno, and these two are my teammates."

Akamaru barked from Kiba's head. "I'm Kiba, and that's Akamaru. You're from Uzushio, right? You smell like salt."

"You can't just tell people they smell!" Sakura screeched, whacking Kiba's back.

"Ow!" He complained.

Shino gave the three Uzu teams that had stayed to chat a stiff little smile. "Excuse them."

Umi snickered. "It's fine. I'm Umihebiro, but Umi's fine. These are my teammates Eidoko and Yunikon. Shisui's our sensei." She gestured back to where the three jounin were chatting. "The black haired one."

He noticed them staring, and waved with his fire arm. They waved back.

"What's up with his arm?" Sakura asked after a moment.

"He lost it," Yunikon stated dryly. "That's a prosthetic. Did you not learn about it in school?"

Sakura paused for a moment, then turned red. "Ah, yes, yes we did."

Everyone broke into laughter for a while.

"That aside," one of the other genin, a slightly older one said, flicking a stray strand of red hair aside. "I'm Hirata, and these are my teammates Kamisori and Fuji."

One with wine red hair waved, and one with a massive scroll strapped to their back waved as well.

"We're Katsu's students," Kamisori said, jerking a thumb at the jounin-sensei. "The bright red haired one."

"And we're Hoshiko's guppies," an androgynous genin said, shrugging. "I'm Jinbei, and those two are Miyo and Tamako."

"I'm Shikamaru Nara," Shikamaru yawned. "My teammates are Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha."

"We've heard," Miyo said, smirking. "Those three wouldn't stop talking about it."

Eidoko frowned at Miyo. "Hey, that was one time."

"Four hours," Tamako said, and that quickly shut them up, each looking away in apparent embarrassment.

Naruto broke down into silent giggles.

"Get out of the way."

Shikamaru eyed the newcomers, even as they moved to the sides. Kiri. They looked a bit tall to be genin, but who was he to judge their choices. He would keep an eye on them however, each was armed to the teeth, although Shikamaru didn't really expect anything else.

They were still silent long after the Kiri teams had all passed.

"Is it just me or were they far too old to be genin," Miyo noted. "Especially in a place like Kiri. Konoha may have it's occasional eternal genin, but I doubt a place like Kiri does."

"No kidding." Fuji noted. "Wasn't that one of the seven swords?"

"Yeah," Sakura agreed quietly. "That was. Why did they let one of the seven swords out of the village attached to the back of a genin."

That was a good point. Why did they give it to a supposed genin? There had to be more to this.

"Yeah, kinda fishy," Yunikon said, yawning. "If you don't mind, we may want to get food, then turn in for the night. The first exam is in two days."

(A/N) First exam next time! Anyone wanna guess what's gonna happen? By the way, there were more genin teams then the three introduced, I just didn't need to introduce them for reasons. Also I didn't want to make up that many names. Too troublesome, to quote a Nara.