After a brief break, the remaining genin reassembled in the classroom, and Team Seven was not in a good place. Sasuke and Sakura still weren't comfortable talking to each other, and neither deigned to acknowledge Naruto's existence. It didn't help that the mood in the room was generally uneasy, as Morino-sensei was sitting silent in his chair, waiting for something, radiating a tension that suggested he was preparing for danger. It didn't take a genius to figure out that anything that could be considered a threat by Morino Ibiki was something no genin would ever want to face.

Bang! The door to the classroom flew open, making several people jump.

A kunoichi strode in as if she owned the place. Mouths dropped open as the genin took in her appearance, overlooking her sticky-up violet hair and beige longcoat and moving straight to the mesh bodysuit beneath it, which left very little to the imagination.

"What is this, Ibiki?" the woman demanded in a petulant voice. "I ask you for the elite of the elite, and you give me this swarm of maggots?"

Morino-sensei made to reply, but she beat him to it.

"Well, listen up, maggots. If any of you want to stop being the deepest shame of your village and turn into beautiful chūnin butterflies, then you're going to have to come out of your shells and show me everything you've got in Stage 2. I'm Mitarashi Anko, Leaf jōnin extraordinaire, and I am going to put you through hell."

Morino-sensei stood up and opened his mouth again.

"So here's the deal, my dears," Anko cut him off before he could say a word. "You're going out into a scenic little spot we like to call the Forest of Death. There, you'll be fighting each other in your teams to see who can get the most conversion tags, while surviving the elements, the deadly wildlife, the killer plants, and just a bunch of cool stuff that I'll leave for you to discover. I'll be watching you from the Itama Tower, slap bang in the middle of the forest, and at the end of the third day, you'll be bringing me all the tags you've hunted down like a cat brings its owner dead mice." Here she briefly ran her tongue over her lips, causing involuntary shudders in a number of genin.

"The teams with the most tags get to go through to the Finals. Will it be ten teams? Twenty? Just three? Who knows? All right, I know, but what would life be without surprises? Isn't that right, Ibiki?"

Morino-sensei tried to answer, but Anko carried on without a pause.

"Now, I'm sure you're all wondering what a conversion tag is, 'cause we're not talking anything boring like explosive tags or sealing tags. No, my dears, we're talking the bloodstained, delicious cutting edge of technology, and so I'm going to hand over to the man who can tell you all about it. Pleeeease welcome… Professor Kurogane Jirō!"

A disturbingly familiar-looking man strolled into the room. He looked much like the doctor who enjoyed messing with Naruto's head, except that he was shorter, his beard was rounded and bushy rather than pointy, and instead of the cool, piercing gaze of Dr Kurogane he had a jovial expression that somehow wasn't any more reassuring.

"Hello there. As the delightful Miss Mitarashi has stated, my name is Kurogane Jirō, and I am the head of ANBU Research & Development." He bowed.

"I expect you're all wondering what I'm doing here. To be honest, I am as well."

The two jōnin examiners both gave him the same long-suffering look.

"Oh yes, the prototype. Sorry, I'd forget my own head if it wasn't securely attached with magnetic clamps."

Prof. Kurogane tapped his fingers together in anticipation. "So here's the basic concept. Dotted randomly around the Forest of Death are a number of what we call chakra obelisks. Small man-sized pillars, you see, almost the colour of the lovely Miss Mitarashi's coat there."

The various genin immediately turned to look at Anko, who gave a happy little twirl as if she were a girl trying on her first ever ball gown.

Prof. Kurogane gave an appreciative smile and continued. "You put your hands on one, it drains your chakra—now don't give me that look, chakra drain isn't always fatal—and once you take your hands off, there's this orifice that spits out a number of tags based on how much chakra you've given it. I advise you not mix different people's chakra or try to accelerate the draining process, or interesting things might happen to you.

"Once the tags come out, it goes to sleep for eight hours while the transmutation evaluators recharge. Oh, and so that for once no one can accuse us of harvesting people's chakra for undisclosed purposes, while you're using the obelisk it'll be converting the chakra it drains into a pretty beacon of light shooting way into the sky."

He glanced sideways at Anko. "Did I leave anything out?"

"Ooh, ooh, tell them about the indescribable torment thing!"

"Oh, yes. Now there's one more thing I've been asked to warn you about. I know it can be tempting, out in the field, to blow things up just so your enemies can't have them, but if you damage one of my lovely little prototypes…"

There was a faraway look in his eyes for a moment, as if he was trying to work something out. Then he relaxed.

"Now that I think of it, it will still be useful experimental data for me. You, on the other hand, might not enjoy the process so much. If you don't mind, I'd rather not go into detail. Some of us have just had lunch."

Morino-sensei stepped forward quickly, starting his speech exactly as Prof. Kurogane finished.

"There is only one absolute rule for this exam. Inflict as much violence on each other as you wish, but any killing of fellow shinobi will be punished with instant disqualification and court martial. This is a competitive examination, not a bloodbath."

Anko's eyes lit up at that last word. "Actually, I once—"

"Not in front of the children, Mitarashi."

"Aww, but…"

"Very well," Ibiki said in the unreadable voice of a master diplomat agreeing to a concession. "If you insist on sharing the details of your private life with these genin, I shall assist you. Let us begin with the Noodle Incident of—"

"I'll be good!"

Ibiki raised an eyebrow very slightly. Then he turned back to the genin, his face blank, and it was as if the whole exchange had never happened.

"Reconvene at the entrance to the Seventh Training Grounds at 7:00 tonight," he instructed. "Foreign teams, follow the signposts from the Hokage's office. Leaf teams, the signposts are not part of the exam, and modifying them is a punishable act of vandalism. Bring any provisions and equipment you expect to need over the next three days, because attempting to leave the forest during the examination will result in immediate disqualification. Dismissed!"

-o-

Team Seven was enjoying a quiet evening in the Forest of Death, having picked a broad clearing with a clear line of sight across it for their campsite, and chased away a number of venomous snakes and eradicated what appeared to be a nest of giant jumping spiders. Well, perhaps "enjoying" wasn't the right word, given that all of the members were still either too embarrassed or too hostile to speak to each other.

It was when they finally put the fire out, and were preparing to decide who took second watch (naturally, Naruto would take the first, since his clones were already in place and would vanish once he went to sleep) that a trio of strangers walked into sight unopposed.

With a clear sense of priorities, Sakura immediately turned on Naruto. "And what happened to that shadow clone perimeter watch of yours?" she hissed, quietly enough that the sound wouldn't carry to the intruders.

"Hey, I would've spotted them just like that! But it's dark, and I swear there was no noise at all!"

The leader of the three, a teenager with long loose sleeves, a mostly bandage-covered face and a silly fur cape, pointed to his forehead protector, twitching his index finger in a sort of "duh" gesture.

"We're Sound ninja. That means we know how not to make any."

"All right," Naruto said. "So what're you doing here? You know we haven't had time to get any tags."

"We're here to take you out nice and early," the second ninja said casually. This one was possessed of black hair which stuck up in a conspicuously gelled fashion, and a tan top with the traditional character for "death" written on it in a bunch of places. One use of the character might have been vaguely intimidating, but the excess made it seem almost self-mocking. Then again, Naruto knew from his own example the kind of power that could lurk behind an irreverent façade.

"You've got Red-Eye here and you, Mr Shadow Clone," the ninja went on. "We'd rather deal with you now while we've got every advantage."

"It's as Zaku says," confirmed the third one, a girl with no notable features beyond very long black hair. Admittedly, very long hair was an extremely notable feature, since in the ninja world it was code for "I am so amazing at taijutsu that I'm OK with giving you a really easy target to grab".

"But don't worry, sweetie," she went on. "We're not going to kill you or anything. We'll just have a little fun—the girl's mine, by the way—and then tie you up and leave you for the local wildlife. We take rules and regulations very seriously, don't we, Dosu?"

Dosu, the long-sleeved ninja, rolled his one visible eye. "You know you shouldn't play with your food, Kin. Let's just get on with this."

"Oh, come on. What's the point of fighting without a little pre-battle banter?"

Naruto decided to take her up on this, for reasons of buying time as much as anything else.

"How'd you know I have shadow clones, anyway?"

Zaku fielded this one. "We're Sound ninja. It doesn't matter how quiet anyone was about using their techniques in Stage One, we heard 'em. Plus, if we weren't sure before, Miss Bubblegum Head there just confirmed it for us."

Sakura went pink, unfortunately making the nickname even more appropriate.

"The other thing I was wondering," Naruto continued, "is why you'd stroll in like that instead of doing a surprise attack when you obviously could."

"We've got instructions," Dosu said. "Can't gauge other countries' strengths if their genin go down in seconds because they're useless at keeping watch."

Naruto nodded sagely. "Truly Sound logic."

Dosu glared.

Naruto grinned. "And those explanations took just long enough. Worldwide Uzumaki Naruto Coalition, attack!"

Thirty clones rushed the three Sound ninja from all sides, kunai out.

But before they could get close, Zaku made a few seals, then spun in a full circle, the other two ducking beneath his outstretched arms. Naruto briefly caught sight of what seemed to be nozzles set into the palms of his hands.

"Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!"

For a second, the air was eerily still, and all sound disappeared from the area.

Then something hit Naruto hard in the chest.

The blow wasn't that strong, not even enough to knock someone over if they were in a defensive stance, but it did have enough force to pop a shadow clone, and it covered the entire clearing in a full 360-degree radius.

"Nice one, Zaku," Kin said, smirking at Team Seven's stunned expressions.

"You didn't think we'd come unprepared, did you, kids?" Zaku grinned.

Dosu glanced at Kin. "You go after the girl with the huge forehead. We'll take care of things here."

-o-

Even as they spoke, Sasuke was already charging in. He would have no problem tying up the long-range technique user with taijutsu, and the Sharingan would alert him to any surprises from Dosu. That ought to give Naruto enough time to replenish his shadow clones and restore their numerical advantage.

Then, as he got close, Dosu raised his arms to chest level. With a shrug, he let his sleeves fall back, exposing oddly perforated bracers. He pulled his arms apart, and then violently slammed his fists together.

"Death Knell!"

With the predictive power of the Sharingan, Sasuke could see the move coming just in time to abort his charge and do a chakra-enhanced leap away. But the sound wave was invisible, and he dodged too late to fully evade it.

It was a horrific hammer blow of noise with a frequency that went from brutally low to screeching high. Instead of his normal perfect landing, Sasuke collapsed on the ground, ears bleeding, and vomited. The Sound ninja seemed unaffected.

Zaku laughed. "So here's a little puzzle for you, Mr Shadow Clone. You can't get close, and we don't need to. We've got Sound's best ranged striker, which is to say me. Obviously, it would be boring if you tried to run, 'cause, as Dosu said, Sound ninja. We can track you just like that, and we're also a lot faster, more agile and generally more skilled in every way.

"Well," he added, "that last bit's not 'cause we're Sound ninja. That's just us being awesome."

-o-

Meanwhile, Sakura had taken up Kin's challenge. As Kin made a bee-line for her, Sakura ran around the edge of the clearing, trying to position herself in time. She knew exactly where she needed to be—

Kin, suddenly there, thrust a kunai into her chest.

There was a puff of smoke, and the kunai turned out to be stuck in a log. Sakura really was good at the Substitution Technique.

"Oh, come on!" Kin protested in an insulted tone. "That's the best you've got to—"

Then the explosive tag inside the log went off. Kin screamed as she vaulted sideways to minimise the damage from the blast—and fell headfirst into a concealed pit. There was a dull thud.

"It's recently been forcefully pointed out to each of us," Naruto commented, "that we do have a third teammate."

-o-

Naruto faced Dosu and Zaku, the Sound ninja in a comfortable position in the middle of the clearing: not surrounded but having a perfect field of fire.

"Zaku, gauge his abilities, then take him down," Dosu ordered.

Well, that at least gave Naruto time to attempt the same. First off, he needed to know the limitations of that technique.

"Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!"

"Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!"

The clones were destroyed as soon as they'd finished forming. Apparently, Zaku's technique had a very quick use time.

Unfortunately, Naruto would have to rely on the Shadow Clone Technique anyway. Transformation wouldn't do him a blind bit of good, and Substituting between different points on the circumference of a circle wouldn't help while his enemies were in the middle.

Sasuke was still down. If Naruto could hold out until he recovered, their options would increase dramatically. What could he do?

More experimentally than anything else, he threw a series of shuriken at Zaku, and then immediately started making seals.

"Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!"

"Multiple Shadow Clone Tech—"

The wave, having knocked away all the shuriken, hit Naruto, disrupting his technique. That was an extremely powerful application, assuming you started the Nova Thrust just before your opponent began their ninjutsu.

Could he make pre-transformed shadow clones that would endure the attack? He didn't think so. Even the Demon Fox hadn't been able to make clones that survived powerful hits, only ones that could soak up their force before popping.

Then again, he did have one more resource that he hadn't previously considered.

Naruto turned around, facing away from the killer ninja who specialised in rapid ranged attacks.

"Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!"

"Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust!"

Naruto's clones appeared as a series of very narrow wooden barricades, lined up in a column exactly behind him. The wave hit—but it hit Naruto first, and though he was nearly knocked over, he endured it, and the barricades were untouched.

Naruto was quick to make his next move, leaping over the barricades to the position of safety right behind them. Between them, he figured that the barriers should be able to absorb a single Nova Thrust, giving him the opening he—

"Improved Wind Element: Landshark Technique!"

A tall, extremely narrow vertical blade of wind, curving slightly backwards like a shark's fin, skimmed rapidly along the ground and went through the clones like an advanced elemental cutting technique through butter, only the distance and the very slight momentum absorption of the barricades giving Naruto time to dodge and not be cut in half.

"C'mon, Mr Shadow Clone," Zaku laughed. "Did you think I was a one-trick pony?"

He flexed his fingers. "Well, if you're out of tricks, then I guess it's time to finish this.

"Improved Wind Element—"

A smoke bomb went off in his face.

-o-

Sasuke, reports of his incapacitation having been greatly exaggerated, jumped up as soon as the bomb left his hand. Most people would think that restricting the vision of ninja trained to hunt by sound was a waste of time, but then most people weren't Uchiha.

"Fire Element: Great Fireball Technique!"

Sasuke started running around the periphery of the clearing, flashing Naruto hand signals that the enemy ninja couldn't see, counting on them to be too distracted to target him.

With only sound to guide them, the enemy wouldn't be able to precisely predict the fireball's trajectory, forcing them to guess which way to dodge. Sasuke could have aimed the fireball dead centre—but he could also have gone a layer of prediction deeper, aiming it left, right or above since with two people dodging independently, there were good odds one of them would end up jumping in its way. In that case, the correct response for Dosu and Zaku was to stay in place, beating his bluff. But Sasuke, being aware of that possibility, could have gone a layer deeper, double-bluffing and aiming the fireball at the centre again, in which case Dosu and Zaku needed to dodge after all. Unless he was a third-layer player, and triple-bluffing them. And so on. Would these two losers from some barely-founded backwater village be able to read the mind of an Uchiha and figure out what level he was playing at, or would they fail and be burned to ashes?

"Improved Wind Element: Vacuum Dart Technique!"

It would do no good, Sasuke knew. This time, at long last, the circle of elements was working in his favour. Fire beat Wind, every time, and he was looking forward to seeing Zaku try to put out a fire by feeding it more air.

Zaku stuck his arms out to point at the fireball as the technique activated. Something almost invisible flew out of them, creating a slight distortion in the air. As it hit its target, a pulse of pressure pushed all the air around the fireball away in one quick thrust. The vacuum only lasted for an instant before the air rushed back in, but by that time the fireball had been starved of oxygen just long enough to extinguish the chakra core.

As soon as he'd finished performing the technique, Zaku dissipated Sasuke's smoke with a brief blast of ordinary air from his hand nozzles. Unfortunately, he'd figured out the only possible way to counter an Uchiha's prowess at mind games, which was not to play at all.

Sasuke was now diametrically opposite Naruto. Both boys charged in at the same time.

There was no more room for the Sound ninja to hold back.

"Improved Wind Element: Landshark Shiver Technique!"

A square formation of blades zoomed at Naruto, aligned so that even if he miraculously dodged one—horizontally or vertically—he'd still be sliced up by the others.

So Naruto didn't dodge. Instead, right before he was obliterated, he threw a kunai high up into the air.

Then, the instant the blades had passed, the kunai transformed into the real Naruto. He hadn't wasted his brief time behind the barricades.

"Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!" he shouted, timing it right as Sasuke was about to reach his target on the other side.

With perfect coordination, Dosu ducked to allow Zaku to perform his arm sweep, then came up slamming his fists together.

"Death Knell!"

"Improved Wind Element: Nova Thrust Technique!"

And then the initial wave of silence from the Nova Thrust cancelled out the wave of sound from the Death Knell.

Sasuke promptly shoved both ninja off-balance, and Naruto used the window of opportunity to summon more shadow clones. The rest was history.

-o-

A throwing needle zoomed out of the tree above Sakura's head and impacted in the ground between the Worldwide Uzumaki Naruto Coalition and Sasuke as they stood over the two unconscious Sound ninja. There was the faint ring of a bell, and then all of them stopped what they were doing and stood still as if in a stupor.

"Dispel!"

Sakura had time for a moment of confusion, and then Kin's backhand slammed into her face and knocked her to the ground.

"I know I really shouldn't, but it's no fun playing with people when they can't feel it happening."

Kin viciously kicked Sakura a few times, aiming in particular for her face and stomach, but happy with any other targets of opportunity.

"You were so cute after I nailed you with that first bell, all 'Yay, that beautiful Sound ninja is still lying in a pit and totally not looking for an opening to disable the rest of my team while I stand around like a moron'."

She gleefully kicked Sakura some more, the last blow knocking her into the pit.

"You're… genjutsu-spec… not taijutsu…" Sakura choked out.

Kin looked down at her with a satisfied sneer. "What do you know, that enormous forehead does hide a brain after all. Everyone just assumes you're taijutsu when you try to close with them, and no one even wonders whether there could be such a thing as melee genjutsu techniques.

"Now, you set my hair on fire, and for that I'm going to give the giant millipedes a head start once we tie you guys up. But you're in luck. Dosu's the one with the rope, so you get a few more seconds of lying there and thinking about how useless you are."

She walked over to her unconscious teammates and pulled something out of her pocket.

"Sound-brand smelling salts, the one-stop solution for all your idiot-awakening needs from the best chemist in the business. Now with bonus splitting headache for dumbasses who forget to combo-test their new techniques."

She leaned over Zaku and Dosu.

-o-

"What the fuck are you doing, Lee?!"

Before the Sound kunoichi could identify the source of the shout, a high-speed flying kick to her lower back sent her flying several metres.

Neji and Tenten emerged from behind some shrubs.

"We were supposed to allow them to fight it out and then defeat the weakened winner, you—you incoherent clown!" Neji threw his hands up in frustration.

"We still can," Tenten observed in a flat voice. "Haruno's the only one left, and she looks like she's barely conscious."

Rock Lee held up a hand in protest. "No way. You do not save a fair maiden only to then stab her in the back. I know this was your strategy, Neji, but there are things in life more important than strategy, like the burning spiri—"

"Lee," Neji snarled, "I swear to the Sage of Six Paths that if you finish that sentence, I will block all of your outer channels and leave you for the vampire bats."

Then he frowned as his righteous rage was put on pause by a more practical concern. Hadn't the Sound kunoichi dropped something between her unconscious teammates?

Before Neji could investigate, the two Sound ninja leapt up, immediately assessed the situation, and fled the clearing with a dazed kunoichi leaning on their shoulders. Since they had no tags, and didn't seem to present much of a threat to a team that was actually competent, Neji decided not to spend the rest of the night pursuing them.

At the same time, the Haruno girl finally reached her teammates, clapped her hands together, then put one on each of their backs.

"Dispel!"

Uzumaki stared around him with a look of predictably moronic bewilderment and groaned. "Not again…"

-o-

Having established that Team Seven was in no immediate danger, Naruto listened as Neji and Rock Lee's argument grew increasingly heated. Phrases like "shame lasting a thousand generations" and "mental capacity of a stunned jellyfish" were being thrown around with abandon. Finally, their third teammate (maybe Sakura would know her name) gave both of them an uncomfortable look, took a few steps back, and said, "I don't think I feel like fighting them anymore." Then she simply walked away, presumably back to her team's original campsite.

Neji and Rock Lee exchanged glances.

Neji turned to Naruto. "You owe me, you scum," he spat, and stalked off.

Instead of following, Lee walked up to Sakura and unexpectedly fell to one knee.

"Haruno Sakura," he said, stretching out one hand, "will you do me the honour of going out with me?"

Sakura shot Naruto a brief look which he clearly read as "See? Here's how real men do it".

Then she underwent something that looked to Naruto like a magical girl releasing her combat form, only without the traditional flash of light. In the next instant after looking at Naruto, she was an innocent, gentle young woman, shifting her weight bashfully from foot to foot, her hands clasped behind her, gazing awkwardly down at the ground.

"I'm sorry, Lee. You seem like a really nice guy, and I appreciate you saving us and all, but… my heart belongs to someone else."

Lee sagged in dejection.

"But," Sakura completed the traditional formula, "I'm sure we can still be friends!"

Lee stood up, his usual enthusiasm unexpectedly restored.

"You truly have a pure and kind heart to match your beauty. I will be your friend, Haruno Sakura, and I will not rest until I prove myself worthy of your love."

Naruto strongly suspected that wasn't how friendship worked, but as a newcomer to the concept he didn't feel qualified to comment.

Without waiting for a response, Lee beamed at Sakura, spun around, and walked away with a spring in his step.