Well here it is.
The first part of the chuunin exams. It's kind of a weak chapter altogether now that I look at it. I'm not that pleased with the effect, but the story must go on so I give it to you freely, on the condition that you all review.
I don't own Naruto by any definition of any words you might possibly try to use against me
They walked into an enormous room filled with shinobi from all lands, each separated into groups and talking amongst themselves. They were slightly awed at how many shinobi were there, but didn't let that stop them for long. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a figure attached itself to Sasuke's back.
"Sasuke!" The blur yelled, "Where have you been cutie? I could hardly wait! It's so exciting, seeing you again after all this time."
"Ino, you pig!" Sakura yelled to the figure, which was apparently a girl "Get you hooves off of Sasuke kun!"1
"Hello to you too Sakura." Ino replied smugly from atop Sasuke's back "Are you still hoping big mutant foreheads will come into style?"
Before the two girls could get into it any further, Reiko walked over and put a hand on her shoulder, causing her to jump slightly and fall off of Sasuke. As she sat on the floor she stared at Reiko, a strangely confused look on her face.
"Hello, my name is Himura Reiko. Pleased to meet you." Reiko said, offering Ino a hand up.
Ino continued to stare at him confusedly, then at Sasuke, then back at Reiko. Her eyes were the size of dinner plates. Finally, she rested her eyes on Reiko. If he didn't know any better, and he wasn't sure he did, Reiko would have almost assumed that she had just made up her mind about something.
"Hi Reiko kun, I'm Yamanaka Ino." Ino said sweetly, getting up very suddenly and standing as close to him as possible. "It's very nice to meet you."
"Hello there!" Said a familiar voice belonging to none other than Temari "I was just coming to-"
She stopped short as she saw a very smitten Ino glued to a very worried Reiko. It looked almost as if she was squeezing the life out of him, although he didn't do anything to try and stop it. His arms were in the air, making motions for people to come and help get this strange girl off of him.
"Excuse me, but just what the hell do you think you're doing?" Temari asked Ino rather angrily, making everybody's eyebrows raise a little bit. "I come over here to see Reiko kun and I find you hanging all over him! Explain yourself bitch!"
"Go away you disease carrying whore!" Ino yelled at Temari "He's mine, and I'm not letting go of him."
"Oh, you wanna play that way?" Temari said, reaching for her fan when Reiko's arm wrapped around her shoulder, causing him to nearly stop breathing.
"Ino chan, this is my girlfriend, Temari chan. Have you two met each other before?" Reiko asked pleasantly, seemingly ignoring the fact that Ino was still attached to his chest like the worlds blondest growth.
Ino was quite literally crushed…for about ten seconds. She stood up and walked off with her nose in the air. For some reason, Reiko had a feeling she would be back. He removed his arm from Temari and made sure the coast was clear. It was.
"Wow, thanks Temari chan, you really saved my life back there." Reiko said, turning back to her with a smile. "I have to repay you somehow. How about I take you out to eat sometime?"
"I um…I would like that um…Reiko kun…" Temari stammered, her face beet red as she calmly hurried off.
"Hey, why don't all of you kids try and keep it quiet!" A boy with white hair and glasses said from across the room. "This isn't some school field trip. You brats need to open your eyes."
"Who the hell are you punk?" Naruto asked defensively, not noticing the angry glares from everybody in the room.
"The name's Kabuto." Kabuto said with a smirk "Those behind you are Amagakure, and they've got very short fuses. Everybody's on edge, and I just wanted to give you some pointers before somebody snaps and beats the crap out of you."
"Is this your second time to apply for this exam Kabuto san?" Sakura asked curiously.
"Not second, seventh." Kabuto said "Twice a year for…going on four years now I think."
"Wow, you must have lots of experience at this then." Sakura said with slight awe "Could you tell us what kinds of things to expect."
"Well…the least I could do is give you children some intelligence on these shinobi skill cards." Kabuto said, pulling out a deck of cards. "These cards hold information and can be accessed by my own personal chakra. It took me nearly four years to get these two hundred cards."
"Do you have individual dossier cards for applicants?" Sasuke asked, slightly intrigued by the thought of extra information.
"I don't think so Sasuke san." Reiko said suddenly, interjecting into the conversation. "I think it's best we save some surprises for later. It makes the whole thing more interesting."
"If you say so…" Kabuto said, putting the cards away "You know, every ninja village has sent their best junior shinobi here to this exam. Everybody here is the best of the best when it comes to genin of their country. Expect that none of you have a chance."
Suddenly out of nowhere, a flash of movement was seen heading straight towards Kabuto. It looked like the group of sound nin were going after him. One of them who looked like a mummy made a swing at him with his fist, which Kabuto dodged by a small margin. After the attack however, his glasses shattered to pieces, falling to the ground like shimmering rain. Soon after he began vomiting all over the place as the three sound nin stood smugly next to each other.
"Take this and add it to your cards you little-" The mummy started to say before he was cut off by Reiko's swords sliding right under all three of their throats.
"Well, well, well…what have we here?" Reiko chuckled from behind them, holding the swords firm with both hands "It seems you three are a little too anxious to hurt people. I don't think I agree with that."
Before anything else could happen, there was a huge explosion in the front of the classroom, stopping everyone's previous activities. After the blast cleared, there was a group of people standing in front of them. Standing in front, the leader most likely, was a man in a trench coat. He gave off a strange aura that gave everybody shivers, and the scars across his face only augmented the effect.
"All right everyone. My name is Morino Ibiki, and I'll be your examiner today." Ibiki said coldly, his voicesettling over the roomlike a sheet of ice"Everybody turn in your papers and get a number. You will sit in the seat number you get on your card."
Before Ibiki had a chance to say another word, everybody filed into a seat as dictated on their cards. Ibiki was probably almost as creepy as Reiko, just in a different, less pleasant way.
"Once you get your test, keep them face down until I give the signal." Ibiki commanded before picking up a piece of chalk to write on the board. "Here are the rules to the test. Listen up because I'm not taking questions and I'm only saying this once. The first rule is that each one of you starts with ten points. The test has ten questions, and for each one you get wrong, we subtract a point from you."
Ibuki waited a second for this to sink in. He idly noticed thata boy with golden yellow hair andwhisker marks on his facelooked like he was about to crap his pants.
"The second rule is that this is still a team event." Ibuki continued "whether you pass or fail this test depends on how many points your team has combined. The object of the test is to have as few points deducted from your total as possible"
"Wait a minute!" Sakura burst out "The whole starting points thing was hard enough to follow, but what is this team total thing?"
"Didn't you hear me when I said no questions?" Ibuki shot back at her "Sit down and shut up and you might learn something."
Sakura sat down quietly, mentally hitting herself for starting off on the wrong foot already.
"Rule number three." Ibuki continued again "If, during the course of the exam, a candidate does anything out of the ordinary, or anything that leads any of the proctors to believe that they are cheating, we subtract two points from each of the cheater's team's points. If you run out of your allowance of points during the exam, you will promptly be asked to leave."
"I'll be looking over your shoulders when you least expect it." Said one of the proctors haughtily from the side of the room.
"If the proctors catch you cheating, you bring yourself and your friends down." Ibiki said sinisterly "If you want to be chuunin, you had better start acting like it. And one more thing… If one member loses their entire ten points, then the loser's team, regardless of how many points they have, will be disqualified immediately. You have one hour. Get started."
At that, everybody began to write on their tests hurriedly. From his position, Reiko could see Naruto ripping his hair out frantically, Sasuke going at it calmly, and Sakura already tackling the third question. He looked down at his test for a second and decided he just didn't want to do the work. It was at that point where he thought up a plan most devious, and began setting it into motion.
Later on, everybody was still plugging away at the test. Several teams had already been eliminated for cheating. Naruto was still completely clueless. Sakura finished the test confidently. Sasuke had cheated using his sharingan. Reiko…Reiko was asleep on top of his paper with his hands under the desk.
"All right everybody. It's time for the tenth question." Ibuki said, his voice cutting through the silence deftly. "But before I give it to you, I have to put down one more rule. You must first choose whether or not to accept the question."
"What happens if someone doesn't accept the question?" Temari asked worriedly, standing up slightly.
"If you don't even try to answer the question, you lose all your points and you fail immediately, along with your teammates." Ibiki said with a cold chuckle, obviously enjoying this more than most people would believe possible.
"Then why would anyone choose to reject it?" A few students yelled, among other things.
"Because of the other rule…" Ibuki said, clearly enjoying this "If you accept the question and fail to get the correct answer, you will never be permitted to enter the chuunin exams again. Not ever."
"You can't be serious!" A boy with a dog yelled from across the room "There are ninja here who have sat in for the chuunin exams more than once already!"
"Just your rotten luck. I wasn't making the rules in past years, but I am now." Ibuki said with a cold smirk. "Now, anyone who wishes to reject the question…speak now, or forever hold your peace."
One by one, several people cracked under the pressure. Naruto almost lost count of the number of teams that were escorted out of the exam with their heads hung. Shakily, Naruto slowly began to raise his hand.
"Ibuki san…" Said a voice, catching everyone's attention, including Naruto's. At that point, Reiko sat up in his chair, keeping his hands under the desk. "If you think we're stupid…you might just be right. But if you think we're cowards…you're in for a rude awakening."
Slowly Reiko brought his hands up from under the desk, revealing them to be in the form of a seal. In an instant, the entire room went fuzzy for a second. When everything returned to normal, all of the surrounding walls were plastered over with pornographic pictures and random insults. Everybody stared in shock at what was around them. A majority of their papers had even been tampered with. The only one who didn't seem to be affected by it was Ibuki himself.
"You're Himura's kid aren't you?" Ibuki asked with a smirk as he quietly surveyed the completely vandalized room around him.
"Not only am I the heir to the Himura clan, but I am the first to wield it's bloodline since this village was established." Reiko said with a smirk "Neither I, nor my teammates will run from you or your question, so put that in your pipe and smoke it until you get all queasy and get diarrhea scar face!"
Staring wildly, Naruto looked down at Reiko's paper to see that he had every single answer. It struck him as odd that someone who had cheated at the entire test would be so willing to put the entire teams future on the line.
"I'll ask you one last time…this decision affects the rest of your life." Ibuki said calmly, staring Reiko right in the eyes. "Will you accept or decline the question."
"I told you once already. Now don't make me have to put you in a world where you wished that the only things that marred your appearance where those scars." Reiko said with a smirk. It was an empty threat and everybody knew it, but still, it served the purpose of establishing a sense of boldness in the rest of the examees.
"Well, if that's the case…" Ibuki said, as if thinking about something "Everybody here, just passed the first exam."
"What do you mean passed?" Sakura demanded, "When did that happen? What about the tenth question?"
"There is no tenth question beyond the whole 'accept or reject' thing." Ibuki said, his mood suddenly becoming more cheerful "Uh, Himura san, are you okay?"
"Well…" Reiko said, who had been standing perfectly still while staring straight forward without so much as blinking "I might have just had a heart attack, but I can't be sure. Maybe a couple of strokes too."
"Why the hell did we have to suffer through the other nine questions then?" Temari shouted in an irate manner. "That was a total waste of our time!"
"There was no waste." Ibuki said rather gleefully "Those questions had a purpose, which they already served. The goal was to test your sneaking skills."
Everybody sat back and thought about this. All the cheating they had just done had been encouraged. It almost took the fun out of cheating. Reiko took this time to sit down, saddened at the fact that he wasn't nearly as devious as he thought he was.
"Remember the rules at the beginning? The part about passing or failing as a three man cell?" Ibuki asked, explaining all "With that, I pressured you into believing that anything you did would affect your teammates. However, the questions were much tougher than anything any of you should have been able to handle. So, the rest of you felt that you would just have to cheat in order to stay afloat."
"You mean to tell me that this whole thing was rigged?" Reiko asked,looking down at his paper which he couldn't show off now"I'm normally all for rigging things, but this just wasn't very nice."
"There are times when being caught in an act of espionage can cost you more than your life." Ibuki said, taking off his headband to reveal screw holes and burn marks all over his head. "You can pay for it in ways that can be taken from you little bit by little bit."
"Okay…" Temari said, looking a little like she was going to vomit "What was the deal with that tenth question?"
"Ah, the tenth question…" Ibuki said, putting his headband back on "It was a choice between two options that were both difficult and dangerous. It was a nasty, unfair set of questions."
"I get you here screw head." Reiko said, interrupting him "You were all like testing us to see if we had to courage to face the unknown. Sometimes a chuunin has to take the dangerous jobs without any clear information. I guess that means we all have what it takes."
It was then that a blur crashed through the wall of the room and skidded to a halt at the podium, pinning up a large banner saying something about the second exam. Immerging from the spinning mass was a woman with wild hair and a long coat. She was a tiny bit frightening to all except Reiko, who wasn't really afraid of things like normal people were.
"None of you have any reason to celebrate!" The woman barked, causing everybody to jump a bit more"I am Mitarashi Anko, the second chief examiner of the chuunin exam. Time's a wastin' people let's go! Follow me!"
Everybody slowly filed out of the room, wondering if they would die at that hands of Mitarashi Anko, except Reiko, who was just happy he didn't get busted for trashing the entire room. Very soon, they would start to learn exactly what they were in for in the forest of death.