Hello, again.

Okay, I'll keep it simple this time. The Training Trip period will be them making connections to Equestria/Earth. Just not sure of an exact timetable yet. Also, to sort of set up for it. I'll start setting up omakes sooner or later that center around Equestria and Earth, sort of make occasional 'bumps' come from the Shinobi Lands and knock a few things for a loop in each. Nothing major like the Mane 6 losing or anything, though.

Perspective: Team 7

Don't own MLP or Naruto, by the way.

The Prelims

Sunset woke with a groan, feeling the bed underneath him. Wh...wha...

His eyes shot open as he remembered what happened. He tried to get up, only to fall out of the bed and hit hard floor. "Agh!"

"Sun!" He felt Sakura's arms help him up, then embrace him. "You're awake!"

"Sakura? Where are we? Where's Orochimaru?" Sun asked, confusion in his voice when he saw his surroundings.

"We're in the Forest Tower." Sakura told him. "You had managed to scare the 'overgrown rotting worm' off. He didn't quite expect being blasted by literal sonic words."

Sun released a breath in relief, only to draw it back when Sakura said, "He managed to put a seal on Sasuke."

"Show me."

Sakura took him to the other side of the room, where Sasuke was. He instantly found it on his neck.

He turned to her. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave the room and keep most people out."

"What?" Sakura asked.

"I'm going to need every ounce of focus I can to at least fix that seal, let alone destroy it." Sun explained. "And unless they are willing to simply keep Sasuke down, then others are going to distract me. At the stage it is, I can't afford any distractions."

Sakura paled, but nodded. "What about Dash and Pinkie? They're right outside."

"They'll do." Sakura let the two boys in as she went out. "You two, keep Sasuke pinned and stay quiet. This isn't going to be pretty."

They nodded and moved into position, Dash holding Sasuke's legs while Pinkie had his arms, somehow tying the sheet underneath around the boy's mouth while leaving the seal exposed.

Sun breathed to steady himself, then placed his hands over the seal and concentrated. A few moments later, the seal glowed and Sasuke started struggling, screaming through the gag pretty loudly.

"Just bare with us, Sasuke." Sun strained. "I know this hurts, but this needs to be done."

Even Sakura outside tensed at the clear pain in the Uchiha's voice as the process went on, tears coming up from knowing they couldn't do anything to draw away the pain.

After what seemed like an eternity, Sun finally tried to pull something away. A snake-like construct was coming out of the seal, but was fighting against his pull, trying to stay in.

"Come on!" Sun grunted out, anchoring himself to the ground as he pulled, his chakra subconsciously twisting around the snake up to the seal.

"You little brat!" It shot at him when it's mouth was finally free of the seal.

Seeing a chance, Dash charged some chakra in his mouth, and shot it at the snake's head, knocking it into position for Pinkie's foot to uppercut it and force it away. Coincidentally, he wasn't in the right position to do that normally.

No longer have to pull all of a sudden, Sun fell backwards and accidentally let go of the snake. But once it landed, Pinkie was there, dispersing the construct with a foot crushing the head.

"And that is that." He said as Dash helped Sun up. "Now what?"

"At the very least, Sasuke no longer has to worry about the seal causing problems." Sun said tiredly. "As for me, I could go with some food right about now."

As if to prove his point, his stomach growled, getting all three to laugh as they walked out, Sakura joining them on the way.

XXXXX

A few days later, the three members of Team 7 were standing in line with the other remaining hopefuls in an arena before the Hokage. Alongside them were Teams 8, 9, 10, Suna, Taki, Oto, Kumo, and Kabuto and his team.

Sakura, with help from Sun's brothers, had filled them in on what happened while they were unconscious, which wasn't all that much compared to what they found out afterwards.

Karin's team had pretty early got wiped out, making it much easier for the girl to defect.

Fuu's teammates made it through, but definitely couldn't go on any farther. Fuu herself was fine, to Shino's relief.

Alongside that, the Hokage and Anko both found out about what Sun did and interrogated him about it. Plans were made to see about doing the same for Anko herself.

Hiruzen cleared his throat. "It's nice to see so many with great potential. Unfortunately, this means that we will need to cut your numbers even further with a Preliminary round. The Chunin Exams aren't just to promote shinobi, but also to promote your respective village without the risk of war thanks to a conflict out in the field. To do that, we can not take too long with any part of the Exams, so a potential 27 participants will be nothing but problems all around. However, that isn't my job. Hayate, if you please."

A somewhat sickly man walked forward. "Thank you, Hokage-sama. The rules for the preliminaries are simple. Two random names will show up on that board, and anyone who doesn't show up must head up to the stands until their turn. Out of the two still down here, whoever wins is determined by me, so don't try and do anything such as attack your opponent after they forfeit or I already declared the winner. Understand?"

"Hai!" rang through the genin.

"But first, would any of you like to back out now?" Hayate asked. "From this point on, you won't cause trouble if you decide to. It's one on one now."

As expected, Fuu's teammates accepted the offer. Thought Kabuto was a surprise, getting Sun to look at him in suspicion.

Hayate nodded, letting them go, then looked up as the board he mentioned started scrolling through their names. It eventually landed on 'Yoroi' and 'Sasuke.'

"Will everyone except those two please vacate the arena?" Hayate called out.

They quickly complied, leaving Sasuke and Kabuto's teammate alone on the floor.

The Oto kunoichi moved over to Sun and Sakura. "Hello. I'm Kin."

"Sunset/Sakura." They replied.

The first question was somewhat unexpected. "Think you two could tell me anything about the cutie down there? I would consider Sun, but you don't need sense to know that you two aren't parting. But he looks like he's single."

Sun chuckled. "Yeah, Sasuke's single. Although, for the record, if you are considering trying to date him, I'd suggest proving that you're worthy of interest to him. Fangirls can kind of do that to a guy."

Kin winced. "I here ya."

"But if you get that, then you'll probably have him to yourself in a heartbeat." He continued. "Might actually get Pinkie off his back about his attitude if he got himself a girlfriend."

Kin blushed. "Well, it would certainly get some from Oto off of my back. Not the nicest place around."

"It it has the remotest connection to Orochimaru, then that's an understatement." Sun quipped, only to notice her stiffen in shock. "After all, since when has Orochimaru ever cared about others?"

"Hehe, right." She chuckled awkwardly, hoping Sun didn't notice a thing.

"What the heck? How is he stealing chakra?" Sakura suddenly asked, bringing their attention back to the fight.

Sun watched for a moment, then said, "He's been experimented on. I've just checked with my chakra, and it's not natural. Signature is Orochimaru."

Sakura looked at him. "Recent or past?"

"Just past." Sun told her. "Can't quite tell if it was willing, though."

Kin paled and shuffled back, not wanting to spook them. How the heck did he figure that out?

Thankfully for her, Sasuke had just knocked out his opponent, getting the proctor to say, "Winner, Sasuke."

The board came on again, bringing up 'Karui' and 'Choji.'

"Would the two mentioned come down so we can begin?" Hayate called out, getting them to do so while Sasuke came up to his teammates.

"How's the seal?" Sun asked.

Sasuke shrugged. "Didn't feel a thing, until I channeled a bit into it directly. It bounced back twice as potent, but not corrupted at all. Thanks for that, by the way."

Kin blanched as she realized something. He had the Curse Seal?! What are they?!

Sasuke then noticed her. "Hello."

"H-hello." She replied, only to berate herself in her mind at how she sounded. "I'm Kin."

"Sasuke." He returned with a small smile, until he noticed Pinkie's smug look being sent at him. He glowered right back, only to confuse Kin when she looked and didn't see anyone there. "Dang Uzumaki."

"Who?" Kin asked, confused.

"Pinkie was there and giving him a knowing look." Sun pointed to where the boy was. "My brother has been pretty spot on whenever he brings up something even remotely connected to the future, like who's with who."

Kin sputtered, still confused, "How? This is the first conversation we had!"

The entirety of Team 7 looked at and said as one, "He just knows."

"Winner, Karui! Would the two mentioned come down so we can being?" They heard, with it this time being 'Fuu' and 'Yugito.'

Time quickly passed for them after that, somehow. Both Yugito and Fuu knocked each other out, Karui and Yugito's teammate Samui won against Dosu of Oto, Shino won against Zaku of Oto, Kankuro won against Yoroi's teammate Misumi, Temari won against Tenten.

They finally noticed Pinkie pressing a stopwatch when 'Kin' and 'Shikamaru' came up.

"PINKIE!" Sun shouted, getting said boy to laugh and run off.

Kin wisely chose that moment to walk down to the arena to face her opponent, who sighed at the sight of her. "So I'm stuck fighting a girl. Troublesome."

"Was that supposed to be a sexist crack or something?" She shot, brandishing her weapon of choice, senbon needles.

Shikamaru stared pointedly at her. "And let my mother tan my hide? Not a chance."

"Are the both of you ready?" Hayate said. They nodded. "Begin!"

Decided on doing a cliffhanger here, partly because this caught me at a pretty bad time (work, weather, and my sister's newborn, among other things). However, I do have a little something extra for you. This will be progressively consistent to kind of go with the feel I'm trying to develop with it.

Equestria

Inside a white castle, a lavender unicorn popped up from her reading in confusion. "Hey, Spike?"

"Yeah, Twi?"

"Did you just feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"The somepony had just made the time of an entire world temporarily move fast?"

"Uh, no."

"...Meh, it's probably nothing. Sorry to bother you."

"No problem."

Yeah, some of the events that the Uzumaki brothers partake in will start to affect things in Equestria and Earth as well. Of course, it won't be quite discovered until the full connection is made.

Until then. Please let me know what you think.