DISCLAIMER: I don't own anything from the Naruto universe.

Thinking (+ flashbacks, Naruto speaking to Kurama in her mindscape, etc.)

Emphasis

Bijuu, etc. speaking

Bijuu, etc. thinking

Naru was the last of her teammates to sign her life away, literally.

Konohagakure now had no responsibility if she were to die, lose a limb, be blinded, burned, jutsu-ed into dust, and all kinds of other horrors that were part of the waiver that she had to complete in order to compete in the Second Stage of the Chunin Selection Exams. What a drag.

She didn't think that they would really die, but she had heard that Genin HAD perished in these exams previously. Fortunately for her, Anko was the proctor of the exam and not some Jonin that hated her, as Funeno-sensei had. Naruto was incredibly grateful. She was also thankful for her great team; she couldn't have asked for anyone better to work with than Hana and Maruten.

A bunch of teams had passed (i.e., had successfully cheated through) the written test and the blonde wondered what tasks, if any other than surviving, they'd be assigned here. Anko was busy picking up forms and picking on Genin. Naruto studied the other teams as the woman circulated, trying to determine what she could about them through what they wore and carried, and how they stood. Using her sensing abilities, she also tried to determine what their elemental affinities may be. She figured that Hana was doing something similar, considering the hard look she was giving the other competitors as she and her ninken sniffed around, including at some Leaf nin. A few Leaf nin petted her "pups" but most of the rest shied away from them.

Smart thinking.

"That guy's a med-nin," Hana whispered, directing Naru's attention to a grey-haired Genin that her ninken had informed her smelled funny; different from the way Kabuto-kun normally smelled. "I've known him a while and…"

"He's creepy," Naru said before apologizing for interrupting. The Genin had been watching her way too closely. She didn't sense any malice coming from him, though: he was simply curious about her, it seemed. Overly curious! And he did smell funny - not that Naru had run into him before, though.

"He's almost harmless but knows how to use a chakra scalpel. If we have to fight anyone in there, he might be a good target," Hana reasoned. "Gotta watch out for that scalpel, though. It could really fuck you up! It's weird that I've never seen his teammates before. They can't be much older than me..."

"I don't know, Hana," Naruto whispered back, hiding behind the ponytails she pulled toward her face in case any one of the competitors could lip-read, especially that team of Uchiha triplets whom they would definitely avoid. She didn't want to fight any of the Uchihas here, but she didn't need to mention that to her teammates. She figured they already suspected as much, just as Naru knew that Maruten and Hana-chan didn't want to fight any of their clansmen. "That med nin has really large chakra levels for a Genin, especially if he's a med-nin." Most Genin and even Chunin studying to become medical ninjas had really small chakra reserves; Hana's had been the biggest of those she'd encountered so far before this guy. "And we need to avoid the Mist teams." One of their Genin had chakra nearly as large as hers!

"I definitely do not want to mess with Kiri," Maruten agreed: they were known to be blood-thirsty, and all of Konoha was surprised that they sent two teams to the exams. He nodded at one of his younger cousins who was taking the exam. The kid looked so nervous! "What about Suna?"

Naru shrugged her shoulders. None of them seemed that impressive, but that didn't mean they weren't. They may have simply hidden their abilities thus far - which was easy, considering that they had only taken a written test. She gestured toward the group closest to them; the ones who had tried to pull that little stunt with the Killing Intent before the first exam began. "The boys have an Earth Affinity, and the girl has really small chakra reserves. So small it's hard to tell: I'd guess she's Wind-natured like me, but that's mainly because that's common in Suna; otherwise I really can't tell."

"I bet she's got precise control then. Either another med-nin or puppet-master: maybe both," Hana said, making Maruten and Naru grunt in displeasure. Looking at the group more, Naru had to agree: the team was not-so-subtly hiding something that looked like it could contain a puppet. When strategizing for the exam over the past month, they'd talked about Suna's puppet brigade and all agreed that puppets were creepy as hell.

"May I have your attention even more than I already do?" Anko asked boisterously (and a little saucily.) "Oi, you brats! I want one member of each team to come forward to take a scroll. You've got exactly five days to get to the Tower with your team intact if you want to reach the Third Stage."

"What's the scroll for?" another Inuzuka in the back hollered. Anko rolled her eyes.

"If I were you, I wouldn't open it in the Forest of Death. That's right, kiddies," she mocked and let out some Killing Intent. "Training Ground 44 is better known as Konoha's worst nightmare: the Forest of Death! It is eat or be eaten in there, and I'm sure some of you will... Hmm." Anko looked an older Konoha Genin up and down with lustful eyes. "Some of you will be quite tasty for my babies in there."

Naru wanted to smirk at the way some of the Genin were either frightened or grossed out by her big-sister figure. She was definitely pulling a number on them. The fact was, though, that Naruto was worried. Whether or not she'd died and yet lived afterward before, she'd come to value her friends and the family that had all but adopted her. Plus her ANBU family! Leaving family again wasn't something she wanted to do.

But she needed to get through this test successfully so that she could become a Jonin sooner, and learn how to get back to Texas to check on her own/Rachel's family. It had to be possible! The stars looked the same to her, after all. (Not that she was an Astronomer, by any means, though. And gosh, did she ever regret not knowing much about the stars when she was Rachel? Oh yes...)

"...spread out, one team to a gate. Your gate number is on the scroll. Go!"

"I can't believe I didn't hear what we were supposed to do," Naru whined. She had promised Shisui, especially, that she'd pay attention!

"Goof," Hana muttered, playfully pulling the end of one of the chibi's bright blonde ponytails. They proceeded into their assigned gate, which happened to be the one right in front of them. Genma was inside Gate 1, chewing on his senbon.

"Hey," he greeted lazily before holding his arms out when the door behind them closed. It was just the four of them, after all. Naru gave him a squeeze and introduced him to her teammates. She wanted to snicker at the way Hana blushed all the way to her ears when meeting the handsome Tokubetsu Jonin but then got down to business.

"So what did I miss?"

"We've got the Heaven scroll, so we need to take an Earth scroll off another team."

"Why?"

"That's just what she told us to do," Maruten said, a little exasperated that their youngest member had zoned out again. Aside from being a nice little person, the kid could be untamed and speedy but was sometimes super flighty.

"Did you not listen to the instructors, Ru-chan?" Genma asked, his head tilted to the side and looking like he expected such a thing from her. His hands were in the pockets of his pants and he looked bored as hell.

"I had my mind on other things! ...Surviving things, I swear!"

He groaned and muttered about her being a brat.

"We've gotta have two scrolls: one Heaven and one Earth and get to the Tower as a team, and we can't open them," Hana explained, always the patient one. "Funeno-sensei said the Tower is in the exact middle of the forest. Oh, and we can kill if we need to."

"Yikes," Naru said and noticed that her teammates didn't feel any better about being permitted to kill in this exam than she did. "Shishou said the gates around the tower are equidistant, so we just have to run in a straight line, right?"

"I've got a map," Maruten whispered, pulling it out and trying to hide it from Genma, who just chuckled at him, saying he didn't care. The team reviewed the map, which showed not only the tower and gates but also the area's terrain and waterways. Naru couldn't believe how large this area was. It was no wonder they were given five days to reach their destination.

"Does this map come from a trusted source?" Naru asked.

"Absolutely," Maruten said. His father had given it to him, after all.

"Oh! We should hide the scroll," Naru said, pulling out some sealing paper and ink. She quickly made two copies of what their Earth scroll looked like. Considering she was only copying the outside of the scroll (a scroll that looked standard-sized,) there really wasn't much to it. All of the scrolls were wrapped in plain black ribbons, and Lady Ichika had given her a long one just like it to bring to the test!

"What are the odds?" she thought jokingly.

When she promised that she'd take the ribbon with her, Naru thought that Lady Ichika just wanted her to wear it in her hair!

If she and her team had not had precious people in the know about this forest and the exam in their lives, their mission here would be far more difficult. Hana said that since Naru "looks like she can't do much and shouldn't be a Genin," she was given the real scroll, which she put in a storage seal in her jacket before sealing it with her blood. For her little jacket's inner pockets alone, Naru was the one who needed to protect the real scroll. Hana didn't need to be so mean about the way she looked!

"What do we do now?" Maruten asked anxiously.

"You wait. It's going to take a while to sunshin all the teams at gates around the Forest," Genma said. "Ya might want to get comfortable."

The team spent the next two hours sitting on the ground, plotting to make their way through the Forest, deciding whom they might be able to successfully attack and whom they should stay away from.

"Alright, Maggots!" Anko's voice echoed from a loudspeaker. "In two minutes the Second Stage of the Chunin Selection Exams will begin! Good luck and try not to die!"

Genma groaned and rubbed his forehead. "Line up and be ready to haul ass," he directed the Genin. "Good luck, and please stay alive." He received three determined nods in response along with one surprisingly tight hug from a chibi. A very loud buzzer sounded, and the gates opened. All three Genin took off at top speed: one that their group had practiced over the past weeks since they all began with varying speeds and had different levels of chakra and points at which they'd reach exhaustion. "They're fast, I'll give them that," Genma drawled lazily as he began putting on his ANBU gear. It was his job to guard "the jinchuuriki" from afar, to make sure she stayed alive as well as evaluate the team's skills as they proceeded through the Forest.

He wasn't sure whether he wanted little Ru-chan to become a Chunin or not this early. It would only put her in more danger, and she wasn't really used to danger outside the village. Shisui had been very careful in choosing missions, and Naru's safety wasn't ever really in question on any of them; not that any Genin's should be. Yes, they'd run into bandits several times, and rogues once or twice, but none that an experienced Genin or new Chunin couldn't handle.

You never knew what could happen in these exams, but hopefully, everything would turn out alright. Maybe Naru would experience harsher combat here than she had in the past several months. From what he'd seen, she needed to be tougher to make it as a shinobi. And as far as Genma was concerned, the little princess absolutely had to make it!

He slowly made his way through the forest and caught up to them as they were arguing with another Leaf team and hung back in the trees. The two Inuzukas were yelling at each other. What a surprise, he thought sarcastically.

"...And since when do I claim some kind of preferential heiress status, you dumbass! You should just leave before we take your scroll," Hana yelled at her cousin, Miso. The boy's dog was even barking a reprimand at him! She hadn't realized what a moron Miso was before this. Oh, wait: yes she did.

"You've got two girls on your team," his civilian-born teammate said arrogantly. He really shouldn't have.

Hana and Naruto looked at each other, a deadpan expression on each of their faces, before looking at Maruten, who shrugged his shoulders. It was a pretty shitty thing to bring up, he thought. The dude was obviously a misogynist, which ticked him off, too. Naru-chan was so chibified: that would've been a much better thing to bring up if someone was going to taunt them.

"You've signed your fate, Miso-kun," Hana said and spun into action. "Gatsuga!" She and one ninken were spinning at the kid who'd just taunted them for having two girls on her team, while her two other ninken joined to do the same thing. Between the two attacks, Miso was knocked out cold.

Naru took on the team's kunoichi, whom she didn't know. The girl wasn't expecting her incredibly fast sunshin and mean punch in the face, however, and their little battle was over. She and Hana moved to back up Maruten who was taking out trees with his giant punches. Hana's clansman was agile, though.

Hana whistled and her cousin's dog came to a halt. The Inuzuka heiress jumped forward and pointed a kunai at her cousin's throat. "Who's got your scroll?"

"You're not going to hurt me," he sassed, then yelped when Hana drew blood. "I've got it! Hang on." He dug around in his jacket and pulled out a Heaven scroll. Hana took it but Naru questioned the move.

"That's not the one we need and he is your family, right?" she whispered to her team leader.

"Yeah, but Hiro's stupid."

"C'mon, Hana-chan. Let's just leave him with a warning. He'll owe us, ne?" Maruten asked. Hana reluctantly agreed.

"Alright, listen up, ya butthole! We don't need your crummy scroll, but if you tell anyone which one we've got or how we kicked your ass, I'll neuter you! You know that I know how!"

"Y- yes, ma'am!" Hiro knew when he was beaten, and his ninken was going to probably bite him for taking on his clan's heiress, whom he had wanted to challenge for months. "I won't tell a soul, I promise!"

Hana gave him a stern look before healing his teammate - somewhat. "He'll wake up soon. Just don't fuck with us or I won't hold back! And neither will they!"

Hiro again nodded his head. Even though put together on short notice, Hana's team was pretty serious. Akimichis were always dangerous, but Maruten was known for being nice and often holding back unless he was in the field. The little blonde, though? Kami, she was fast. He couldn't believe his teammate had gotten knocked out with one punch! His teammate, Himari-chan, had to spar with him a lot, and Hiro thought she was tough. What a bummer! "Sorry, Hana-chan."

Hana rolled her eyes and took off with her team, eager to hunt for prey holding an Earth scroll.

Genma watched the team as they set up for the night, hours later. They'd been doing well, avoiding animals and venomous plants. The three Genin showed good teamwork from what he'd seen so far, and they'd been communicating quietly with each other, mainly about the forest's "critters," as Anko lovingly called them. He shivered a bit, remembering the horse-sized wolves that prowled the area, and the giant snakes Anko had raised aside from her summons. The woman also had a fondness for huge insects and she nurtured them like a mother.

What a crazy woman.

The next morning, things became more interesting.

Naruto woke up when one of her patrolling clones dispelled. Without moving she planned to alert her teammates. Maruten was on watch and had tossed acorns at both of them at almost the same time. She saw him nod at her and felt safe to sit up slowly as she scanned the area, closing her eyes to rescan and feeling annoyed. "It's that sand team," she whispered. "They're the ones hiding badly in the bushes. Behind them, though, are two Suiton-types and a... something else." Seeing that neither team was moving - so much so that Naru wondered whether they were still awake, she and Hana quickly got up and adjusted their equipment, her ninken all excited and ready to hunt.

They took off at top speed, all agreeing that taking on two teams at once wasn't a good idea. They did leave some nasty traps behind them, though.

The sand team followed them but had a lot of trouble keeping up. Eating ration bars at a creek, the team decided that they couldn't wait to get to the tower to fight, as by then they'd most likely be tired. They agreed that other teams would be waiting for them there, too, which would just make matters worse. Naru's clones were madly setting up traps even before they decided on their new strategy. Hana scratched her head before refilling her canteen. "We should've taken Miso's scroll," she said regretfully. "We coulda traded it for another team's."

"At least this way they'll have a chance for promotion," Naru said easily. She didn't want to hurt anyone in this test, (although the seals she and her clones were placing on the ground were all pretty nasty,) and as usual, felt guilty for knocking a child out, even though that child was older than she was physically now. The blonde once again told herself to think of her fights out here as spars, although she wasn't sure that the Suna ninjas were going to allow that.

Hana turned around and waited for her prey. Hopefully, since they were from Suna and two of them had Earth affinities, that meant that the team had an Earth scroll, too. Either way, her team was taking that scroll.

"Daimaru, check out the chibi," the Suna nin chuckled as he came closer to the stream.

"Chibi, huh?" Hana scoffed as her ninken barked alongside her. "Funny, that. You've been following us for a day and a half. Seems you're pretty scared of our vicious little chibi." Naru played along, looking frightened by both the Suna nin, and by what Hana had just said.

She actually was a little freaked out over the dead eyes of the teenage girl in front of her. The Sand kunoichi simply stared at her like she was a tasty steak (and she had something on her back that could be a puppet!) Oh well. At least it made her acting easier. "A- a- are you sure, Inuzuka-san?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"We'll watch out for ya, kiddo," Maruten said, getting in on the act.

Naru internally pouted. Maruten wasn't supposed to say that! Now she REALLY had a target on her back. "O- okay, Akimichi-san." No one moved for over a minute, but finally one of the Sand nin began moving through hand signs as he put his hands on the ground.

The area exploded in his face, as he had disturbed Naru's seals, but it didn't stop him. No, if anything, this guy was controlling the dirt and making it fly around. Naru moved out of the way at the last second as Hana and her ninken went flying toward the guy, through some of his dirt, but not all of it. The guy was making shapes out of the dirt, and using the dirt as a shield, even when it wasn't connected to his body or the ground! The blonde wondered if this guy was from the Kazekage's lineage, as she'd heard about the family's ability to move sand. She hadn't thought of how the sand was so similar to flying dirt particles before this.

Dummy, she said to herself.

Speaking of dummies, strings of chakra tried to grab her, and had Naru not been a sensor, she might have been seized by them. The blonde kunoichi sent a nasty Great Breakthrough wind release, and at the last second sent a blast of the dirt that was irritatingly flying around into the current at the kunoichi. "Futon: Fujin no Jutsu!"

Fuck! That technique was still too weak, and worse yet, the kunoichi returned from where she'd been blown back and had saved herself by hiding underground, running forward with a damn puppet! Naru moved in front of Maruten when the Suna kunoichi aimed several weapons at the Akimichi from it, sounding like some kind of goon, she felt, as she yelled at the kunoichi, "Your battle is with me!" Naru hoped that Maruten and Hana would stay out of her way with this girl. Puppeteers were notorious for using poison, and Naru figured that she was the only one who could handle being poisoned out on their own without medical attention like this, thanks to the Kyuubi.

She doubted Hana could heal herself or anyone else if she was poisoned.

The girl's puppet was damn creepy. It was loaded with weapons, but it looked... human. It even smelled like skin or something. The idea that someone would actually turn a person into a puppet almost made Naru sick. Fortunately, it also infuriated her. Snarling, she used her speed and Shisui's sunshin to get behind the girl and hit her in the neck, knocking her out. She sunshinned to Maruten's side, only then recognizing that she was much slower. Understanding hit her like a brick: she'd been hit with a volley of senbon. Naru groaned and pulled one of those that remained from her arm. It was really tingly.

"Help me, Kyuubi-sama! Please?"

"You'll be fine, Worm."

What an asshole!

Maruten and Hana were working to hold the third Suna shinobi to a confined area. Naru sent out her clones to confuse their target, and Maruten yelled out "Bubun Baika no Jutsu," pushing his expanded hand from behind her, slamming her into the boy and knocking him out with the blunt edge of her kunai.

They'd been working on that move for a while and it worked!

Naru's clones came over, most complaining about their numb arms, while a couple asked if she was okay. She laid on the ground like she always did after combining with one of Maruten's crazy Akimichi jutsus and nodded, silently praying that no one else was around. She only sensed Genma nearby, who was hanging out south of them as he had been for most of their trek through the forest.

"Got it! Got it, got it, got it!" Hana exclaimed, bouncing up and down as she recovered an Earth scroll from the last Suna Genin that had been standing. She and Maruten ran over to Naru, excited but worried when they realized that she wasn't her normal hyper self.

"It's not a big deal, I swear: like I told y'all before, I'm immune to most poisons."

"Kami, Naru-chan! You shouldn't put your life on the line like that," Maruten scolded the girl.

"Sorry. They were a handful, huh?" Naru asked as she was given a hand up by each of her teammates. "We've lost those Suiton guys, but there are a bunch of Konoha Genin that we'll have to watch out for first, in the next 8 hours or so. What should we do with these guys?" They all looked at the downed Suna shinobi and sighed, then grinned at each other.

They'd done pretty well in their first big battle.

Hana insisted that they tie them up, but Naru tied the kunoichi she'd fought pretty loosely. She didn't want her to be eaten by giant animals, although she did take her main weapon away. Using a low-level fire jutsu, Naru burned up the girl's puppet.

And it smelled like death. It was burning skin and stuff! How appalling.

Maruten asked Naru if she could run before they made their way well downwind from the stink and mess she'd accidentally created. Naru couldn't eat after what she'd just witnessed, but Maruten pulled out something that resembled a meaty hoagie and nearly swallowed it whole. The team moved into the trees to regain some chakra and feed the ninken before heading out again.

How much longer could it take to get to the Tower?!

A/N: This is part 2 of 3. I know I'm not great with fight scenes. I'm sorry!