Let's start this from the beginning

Grand Assembly

- Part 2 -

"Deceptions and Truths"

I

Ultimately, Hinata thought the first stage of the exams had been manageable. Finding the correct room had been outright easy, even!

To be fair, however, the Genjutsu hiding it had been more than decent and had surely been good enough to deceive at least a few teams. It wasn't the proctors' fault that her team had an unfair advantage in terms of familiarity and capability for Genjutsu. With their sensei being Itachi Uchiha, that was only to be expected. Furthermore, fooling a Hyūga's Byakugan, an Aburame's Kikaichū, and an Inuzuka's nose – it was surprisingly hard to mimic their increased sense of smell when using Genjutsu that didn't rely on the victim's subconscious to fill the gaps in the technique but instead created the details manually as was the norm in mid to high-level Jutsu, Hinata had found – was pretty hard to begin with. With that in mind, it was almost unfair to criticize the proctors for failing to trick them when the technique had probably only been meant to merely separate the wheat from the chaff.

And if Hinata thought that she might have been able to cast a better illusion after all this time studying under Itachi-sensei, well, she wisely kept that opinion to herself. There was really no reason to be rude, after all.

Also, regardless of whether it was actually true or not, she was uncomfortable with how arrogant that claim sounded to her own ears. Speaking it out loud would be mortifying!

Following that, the exam itself had been harder than finding the right room had been, but not exactly hard either.

A written test hadn't been what any of them had been expecting, and that had been the first clue that something else was going on – something Hinata had been pleased to note both her teammates had immediately noticed as well. She could answer around half the questions without too much difficulty, which was probably a good middle ground between what she suspected Shino and Kiba's performances to be; the former would most likely be able to answer more than she did while the latter a bit less.

Shino had constantly been at the top of their class, so if he couldn't answer all these questions, there was no way any of the participants could realistically be expected to do so. No, they were most certainly too difficult for Genin slash aspiring Chūnin. Add to that the fact that they would lose points instead of being outright disqualified if they were caught cheating, and it quickly became clear that they were expected and even actively encouraged to do just that.

That realization had been the second time in less than an hour that Hinata had thought her team had an almost unfair advantage. She herself hadn't even bothered to be very subtle about activating her Byakugan; she would have to be caught five times to be disqualified, so if she was caught only once, it didn't matter. Thus, after seeing that there were about a dozen people in the room already finished, she didn't particularly care whether anyone saw her as she quickly copied their results. Considering they all had the same answers to the questions she herself hadn't managed to solve, it was probably fair to assume that they were correct.

She also took a moment to check on her team. Her relieved smile was probably out of place in the tense atmosphere of the room, but she was too happy that both Shino and Kiba had already finished as well to be bothered by that. The latter's abilities to spy on others were a bit more limited than hers or Shino's, so it was good to see that he had managed to find a way.

Not that she had expected anything else from him, of course.

The situation surrounding the tenth question had been a bit more tricky, and Hinata was embarrassed to admit that she had hesitated for a few moments before getting a grip on herself. Her team had overcome too much – their very first C-Rank mission in particular came to mind – to lose the chance at promotion because she lost her nerves.

Even hours later, neither the fact that she managed to pull herself together so quickly nor that doing so fulfilled the requirement to pass the first stage was enough to make the hot ball shame in her stomach go away.

Shino and Kiba probably didn't hesitate for even one second…

The location of their next exam didn't exactly fill her with confidence either, nor did the fact that they had to sign liability waivers of all things before they were even told what they would have to do next.

"Welcome to the second stage of these exams; Forty-Fourth Training Ground, also known as Forest of Death. My name is Shisui Uchiha, and I will be your proctor for this stage."

Hinata had met the Uchiha once during a shared lunch between him, his girlfriend, and her team. That and the fact that he was apparently her sensei's cousin and best friend should probably be reassuring, but she found it hard to reconcile the current man with the impression she had gotten of him during that one meeting; while he was smiling right now, the gesture didn't hold any of the warmth or mirth it had back then.

She realized that this difference in attitudes stemmed from the fact that he was now in business mode instead of humouring his friend's Genin team during his free time, of course, but that didn't make the difference any less unsettling.

Hinata had to suppress a shudder as she continued to listen to the explanation he was currently giving:

"The heart of the matter is very simple," he explained with a low, dark chuckle that did very little to help her relax. "At its core, this is a survival test. Each team will be given either a Heaven Scroll or an Earth Scroll before being led by a Chūnin to one of the forty-four entrances into the training ground. Once you're allowed to enter, you will have five days to collect the scroll you're missing and head towards the tower at the centre of the forest. It's located exactly ten kilometres away from each entrance, so none of you will have an advantage.

"Note that a team is not disqualified if it loses its scroll. You may use however much remaining time you have left to try and get another copy. By the same extension, acquiring both scrolls doesn't guarantee completion of the second stage as you still have to reach the centre building in time. Whoever isn't there at the end of the fifth day is qualified regardless of how many scrolls you might have collected by then."

A very straightforward and simple task, really. That was not necessarily a good thing, though. Shisui hadn't told them anything about any rules or restrictions, so depending on the other teams' attitude, things could get very dangerous really quickly.

Hinata tried not to think too much about the liability waiver they had signed mere minutes ago.

As if he had been reading her mind, a wave of killing intent swept over the crowd, and judging by the sudden increase of insects buzzing to her left, the low growl to her right, and the general turmoil all around her, her instinctive reaction to fall into a more ready stance wasn't abnormal at all.

Shisui grinned at their reaction, the gesture that might otherwise have been charming now appearing sharp and terrifying. "You're allowed to do whatever you want to get your hand on both scrolls," he said, drawing out every single word as if he was enjoying the undivided attention on him. "And with that, I mean you're allowed to even kill your opponents if you wish to."

Hinata forcefully stopped herself from flinching at that revelation, but that didn't stop the traitorous part of her mind that whispered she should have let herself and her team get disqualified during the first stage after all. She didn't plan to listen to it, didn't plan to capitulate now either, but the confirmation that their lives were on the line was more than enough to shake her to her core.

Then, she glanced at her two teammates before taking a deep breath and pushing these thoughts and emotions as far away from the forefront of her mind as she could.

This wasn't the first time they had risked their lives, not even the tenth time, and this was no different from being on a mission outside the village. She wouldn't allow herself to be cowed by this, no matter how much a part of her wanted to. Not after having managed to overcome her fear during her fight with the missing-nin Yuwaku.

She wouldn't allow herself to let her team down.

"There are only two things you have to pay special attention to," Shisui continued. "First, you are under no circumstances allowed to open any of your scrolls until you reach the central building. If you do, you're eliminated."

He probably meant that doing so would lead to disqualification, Hinata was sure, but the slight edge of his smile seemed to imply another interpretation of his words - words, she realized, which he had most likely chosen intentionally. Judging by the uncomfortable muttering all around her, she wasn't the only one who had noticed that either.

"Second, all three members of your team have to arrive at the tower for you to proceed, and all of you have to be conscious and healthy enough to walk on your own at that point. If you arrive with only one or two members, or if even one of you isn't able to walk by themselves, all three of you will be disqualified."

That rule, at least, didn't change anything for her team. Hinata had no intention of losing or leaving behind either of her teammates, and she knew they definitely felt the same way.

"Well then, with that said, let's begin with the second stage of this year's Chūnin Exams, shall we?"

"This reminds me far too much of Kakashi-sensei's survival training," Sakura muttered as she jumped from one tree branch to the next, earning herself a laugh from Naruto.

"Hey, do you think they put traps in here too?"

"If the proctor of this stage is anything like Sensei, then probably yes." Sakura furrowed her brows. "I'm not sure what to think about him, to be honest. His introduction seemed to be more of an act than anything else."

And wasn't that something to consider? Sakura liked to think of herself as rather sharp and intelligent, but she was not so arrogant as to think she would be able to look through a Jōnin's facade – at least not unless the Jōnin in question allowed her to. That wasn't to say that every Jōnin was automatically a great liar simply because of the rank they held, of course, but she doubted someone selected to be one of the proctors of the Chūnin Exams would be that easy to read.

Noticing her and Naruto's questioning eyes on him, Sasuke hived out a sigh. "In most regards, Shisui is nothing like Sensei," he said. "He likes messing with people just as much as he does, however, and he's much more open about it. It probably depends on how much of the planning he did himself and how much he delegated to others, but I don't think we have to expect to run into a lot of actually threatening traps. Humiliating ones and some that capture and make us easy targets for other teams are open game, though."

"Sounds like him," Naruto laughed. "Shame I don't run into him a lot. Hey, do you think he would like to collaborate with me on one of my, ehm, projects?"

Sakura didn't think it would be a good idea to give Naruto time to actually consider this, so she quickly moved the conversation along:

"I think I should be able to sense if someone tries to sneak up on us, so if we don't have to worry about traps, our greatest problem will be wild animals."

Although her sensory skills were coming along in leaps and bounds, she still found it much harder to sense animals and civilians with little chakra than actual shinobi, so she might miss a danger if they relied solely on her sensing abilities.

Sasuke nodded. "I heard about this training ground from one of my cousins before. Apparently, the animals here grow to be significantly larger and more aggressive than in the wild. We should be fine in a straight fight, of course, but being caught by surprise might end badly for us."

"If nothing else, any unnecessary injury would cause problems when we eventually meet another team."

She was not looking forward to that. The words from that weird Suna-nin still rang in her head; there was clearly something else going on with these exams, and she was sure it had something to do with at least some of the participants. Therefore, she would prefer to get this done as fast as and with as little enemy contact as possible.

"Right," Sasuke agreed. "So, does anyone have an idea how to proceed? We should probably aim to get the scroll as fast as we can and head to the central building. If we wait, other teams will only have more time to lay traps or find each other and team up. Many of them should be eager for fights right now, too, and I don't want to risk some of them camping around the central building to wait for teams who already got their missing scroll."

That sounded sensible to her. Their team was competent enough; all of them had the basics down just fine, and they possessed a variety of abilities that complimented each other as well. However, there was always someone stronger out there, and things would be particularly dire if they were to be outnumbered or caught in a trap.

Sakura would obviously like to avoid something like that, if only because she was suddenly uncomfortably aware that she was ultimately the weak link in their group. They would need some clever, preferably subtle plan to–

"Alright, leave it to me!"

Neither Sakura nor Sasuke had enough time to react to stop Naruto before he followed up on his words by crossing his fingers in a single hand seal.

A second later, the three of them were forced to stop as their sight was blocked by a massive cloud of smoke.

"Naruto," she groaned, unsure if she felt angry, devastated, or just resigned to her teammate's antics. "What have to done?!"

Judging by his careless grin in response, he either didn't notice her reaction or simply didn't care. "Solved our problems, of course!"

Sakura could only stare at him, unable - or perhaps unwilling - to accept that he had just given away their position to everyone in the entire forest with such a careless attitude. Did he even realize what he had just done? One didn't even have to be a sensor to have felt the enormous amount of chakra Naruto had just thrown around without a care in the world.

She didn't hear what Sasuke was muttering under his breath, but his tone implied that it was nothing positive. There was no time to think any further about that, though, as it was then that the smoke finally dispersed enough to reveal what exactly Naruto's technique had achieved:

They were surrounded by an innumerable number of Naruto clones.

"What the–"

"I'm not done yet!" Naruto interrupted her with a yell before she could finish. "Now, transform!"

The next moment, two-thirds of the clones vanished once more into a cloud of white smoke. When it dispersed a few seconds later, the Naruto clones had been replaced by…

"Clever," Sasuke muttered, sounding reluctantly impressed.

Sakura nodded before she knew it. "I suppose if we don't go with subtlety, this is the next best thing..."

She ignored Naruto's boasting as she let her eyes wander over the masses of clones all around her, one-third of which still looked like Naruto while the rest had taken the form of Sasuke and herself. Naruto really has insane chakra reserves, she thought, shocked by that revelation even though she should have been used to it by now. The only reason I can distinguish between Sasuke and his copies is that I'm so familiar with his chakra signature, but that wouldn't help me find the real Naruto if he were to hide between his clones. I don't think anyone else will be able to recognize them as clones at all unless they manage to destroy them.

Even if dozens of teams were to come rushing in now, the three of them would be able to hide in the crowd and wait for the perfect opportunity to surprise them or, depending on the situation, flee unnoticed.

"Naruto," Sasuke suddenly spoke up. "You get the memories of your clones when they get destroyed, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Then we can use them as scouts. Let them spread out in every direction and see who they encounter. We can decide on which team we want to attack depending on their size and strength while hiding safely in the back of the sheer number of clones."

Her eyes widened. That was a great idea! Considering Naruto's insane chakra levels, it would hardly even bother him to throw as many clones at this problem as they needed; they were perfect, disposable scouts!

Furthermore, they would probably get rid of who-knew-how-many of the traps that were potentially lying around as well, either by finding them or by accidentally tripping them themselves. Most wild animals would most likely avoid just a large crowd of people as well, and those who did get attracted would be too distracted by the fakes to bother them, so that was one more problem they didn't have to worry about!

And thanks to the clones' memories returning to the real Naruto, they would constantly be kept up to date, too!

Unfortunately, things turned out to be not quite that easy after all.

"Ehm, I don't think it will work like that, actually," Naruto grimaced, uncomfortably scratching the back of his head.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes at him. "And why not?"

"I kinda do get the memories of my clones. It's just that it doesn't work that well when there are so many of them." He gave a nervous chuckle. "Kakashi-sensei had me experiment a bit with this jutsu, you see, and things become a bit blurry when I use more than ten clones. It gets harder the longer they exist, too. If they run around for longer than about fifteen minutes, I usually can only remember the last few moments before they get destroyed. Sometimes a few other things as well, if something stood out in particular."

"So we can't use them as scouts, then?" Sakura groaned. They would still be a good distraction, of course, but it was somewhat of a let-down nevertheless.

Naruto quickly shook his head. "No, no, we totally can! I mean, I won't get a lot of details, but I will still know in which direction the other teams are!"

"Will you be able to tell how strong someone who destroyed your clone is?" Sasuke asked.

The other boy thought about it for a few seconds before replying, "Probably? I mean, ehm, if someone destroys one of my clones really fast, I don't think I will get a lot back from that? I should be able to know if the fight took a while, though!"

"Then we will make do with that. I wager it's still better than what most other teams have."

"Hah, I bet you're happy that I'm on your team, eh?"

"The only thing I'm glad about is that you're not a total deadweight."

"You–"

Sakura ignored their bickering for the most part as they moved on, but she couldn't quite keep the fond smile off her face.

With the dozens of decoy teams running in every direction and consequently serving to distract potential enemies from noticing them, she felt much safer than she did earlier. This way, they should be able to avoid any fights they didn't choose themselves; without the threat of an ambush or a surprise attack looming over their heads, she was much more confident in their abilities to handle themselves. They could avoid those who were too dangerous to approach and find a suitable team to steal a scroll from without too much difficulty now.

Maybe they could actually get through this stage just as smoothly as they had through the first.

"You know, slowly but surely, I think people are avoiding us."

Kankurō snorted at that, but Temari gracefully decided to let it go. After all, she had other, more important things to be annoyed about than one of her baby brothers being disrespectful to her.

"Seriously, though," she continued with a sigh, her hands on her hips. "There's no way it's a coincidence that we haven't run into anyone yet. It has been hours!"

Kankurō gave her a dry look. "What gave it away, the fact that we have found any signs of other teams battling it out or the funny thing about anyone we do find signs of just so happens to run in the exact opposite direction as soon as they notice us?"

"I'm more concerned about the fact that it's literally everyone doing it. It would be one thing if only the more well-informed teams tried to avoid us – fighting another strong team when there are plenty of weaker targets around is just asking for trouble, after all. However, there should be enough teams with no idea of just how foolish engaging us would be, and we should have run into at least some of them by now."

It wasn't exactly hidden that they were the children of Suna's current Kazekage, a big red flag to anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path, but they also hadn't particularly proclaimed that fact to anyone either. Similarly, while Gaara's strength wouldn't be a secret to anyone with good connections, their father had walked a balancing act between using him to demonstrate Suna's power and keeping him safe while he was still young and more vulnerable to enemy attacks; there was no way any run of the mill Genin knew just how dangerous he was.

It was Gaara who ultimately said what all three of them – or at least Temari hoped it was all three of them; it was always hard to say with Kankurō – were thinking:

"Someone is deliberately trying to interfere with our progress, then."

Out of the corner of her eyes, she gave her youngest brother a careful look, trying to gauge his emotional state. He had grown up much more stable and in control of his abilities than his younger years would have led anyone to expect, probably as a result of their father's miraculous and to this day inexplicable change of attitude a bit over ten years ago. Calling him warm or fatherly would push it too far, but he had certainly taken much more of an interest in Gaara after returning from some sort of trip back then. In all three of his children, really.

That didn't mean that he didn't have phases during which it was wiser to leave him alone, though. Temari loved her brother, but that didn't mean she was stupid; their relationship wouldn't protect her if he was in one of his increasingly rare bad moods.

Judging that he was still fine, she focused back on the conversation. "Well, we can't let them get away with that, now can we?"

"We really can't," Kankurō agreed, lips tucked upwards in a just slightly unhinged grin. "You know how much I hate losing!"

"So we better step it up a notch, then."

"And the only one they can blame for getting hurt is themselves for forcing us to get a bit more serious."

The two of them shared an amused look before simultaneously breaking into chuckles. As annoying as brothers could be at times, it was moments like this that reminded her that there were positive aspects about them as well – far and few between as they might be, mind you.

Gaara turned around and began to walk away. "Let's hurry. I want to get out of this forest."

Bland as his words might be, they couldn't quite hide his excitement.

Not even trying to hide their own, Temari and Kankurō followed right after him.

"Contact in about a minute. One of them is waiting for a frontal clash while his teammates are a bit further away to either side of him, probably waiting to ambush us and attack our flanks while we're distracted. I can't see any traps."

Shino nodded at Hinata's muttered comment. He had a rough estimate on their opponents-to-be as well, of course, but the Byakugan was more precise, so the information still held value.

"I guess now we will see how good of a plan this actually is, eh?" Kiba said from his right, only the tension in his words belying the carefree attitude he tried to convey.

"Just do as we agreed," he told him. "Their chakra levels are low. As long as we follow the plan, this should be over quickly."

Add to that the fact that Hinata had not recognized any of the members of the opposing team, which meant that they could not be one of the more dangerous teams they had already gathered information about before the trials had even started, and one could be reasonably sure that they would emerge victorious from this fight.

While he didn't allow it to show on his face or let it go to his head, Shino was proud to say that he was the one who had come up with the idea of their current plan. It was a shame he wouldn't be able to use any of his new tricks, some of which even his teammates didn't know about yet and which he had looked forward to showing off to them, but it was probably for the best. Whatever he could keep hidden now could be used at a later date; eventual opponents wouldn't be able to prepare for something they didn't know exist, after all.

When the attack finally came, Shino did his best to morph the familiar and yet strange face he was currently wearing over his own into a convincing expression of surprise while jumping out of the way of the quickly approaching water stream.

Just as planned, he, Kiba, and Hinata pretended to be separated by that "surprise" attack by jumping in three different directions while still remaining close enough to be capable of helping each other in case of an emergency.

Shino heard an explosion somewhere to his left where Kiba should be, but he didn't have the chance to look at what had happened before he had to dodge a volley of kunai that were clearly supposed to herd him in a specific direction.

Suppressing his instincts to jump in the exact opposite direction of where his enemy wanted him to go, Shino allowed the projectiles to "force" him a bit further away from his team.

A second later, the branch beneath his feet gave way – clearly prepared in advance, he thought – and sent him into a free fall towards the ground. Then, while still in mid-air and therefore supposedly defenceless, another water stream drove straight through his chest.

Shino tried not to relish too much in his opponent's surprised exclamation when his body dissolved into hundreds of insects.

Surprised as he was, he had barely enough time to react before the real Shino enveloped him in a second swarm that flew out of his sleeves. While he managed to avoid that by a hair, however, he couldn't do anything about the staff that suddenly appeared in Shino's hands with a puff of smoke and smashed into his face.

Shino didn't pursue, choosing to instead glance towards where his teammates were finishing their own fights:

Kiba's opponent, a kunoichi that appeared to be maybe two or three years older than him, had clearly expected to quickly overwhelm him with Taijutsu while he was still surprised from the earlier explosion – not unexpected considering their plan was based on the idea of giving their enemies a wrong impression about their abilities and then catching them flat-footed when their expectations weren't met.

Unfortunately for her, Kiba quickly got the upper hand in their fight. Shino suspected the only reason he hadn't won already had little to do with his opponent's skills and more with the fact that he didn't have Akamaru with him from the beginning. The ninken in question actually joined him just as Shino glanced over to watch.

This meant he was in a prime position to see Kiba crouch under a punch before throwing a kick to the kunoichi's chin, heaving her a few feet into the air just in time to collide with Akamaru's incoming Tsūga.

That should be enough to finish her, Shino mused, feeling a tingle of amusement as Kiba rushed towards his fallen opponent, clearly eager to continue the fight. I suppose he will be disappointed, then.

That made him cringe a little. After all, it would be he and Hinata who would likely feel the brunt of his disappointment later. And speaking of Hinata…

He didn't get the chance to check up on his other teammate as he had to dodge a kunai thrown at his head.

"Don't ignore me, dammit!"

Suppressing an exasperated sigh, Shino turned back towards the boy he had smashed into the face with his staff earlier. Observing Kiba's fight had taken less than three seconds, which had just about been enough for his own opponent to recover and get back to his feet, and now he was glaring at him from a safe distance.

"What is with this look?" the boy demanded between clenched teeth. "I–"

"This fight is over," Shino interrupted him, "you just don't know it yet." Then, when the boy opened his mouth for a no doubt scathing comment, he continued, "Why? Because you forgot about my first Kikaichū swarm, of course."

His opponent didn't have time to react with more than a confused look before the insects that had previously made up his clone flew at him from his back and enveloped his entire body.

Shino watched the boy trying to escape or somehow get rid of the assailants for a few seconds while ignoring his screams. It was only when he was convinced that his opponent had indeed no way to defend against his Kikaichū and therefore would soon be unable to attack or even just move due to chakra exhaustion that he turned around once more to look in Hinata's direction.

He was just in time to see her opponent's limp body fall to the ground, his eyes rolled back into his head and his mouth gaping in a toneless gasp.

"I have the scroll, guys!" Kiba exclaimed as he walked away from his fallen opponent and towards them with a jump in step. "It's an Earth Scroll!"

Shino allowed himself a small smirk he hid behind his high collar upon hearing that, absently noting that the screams behind him already began to subside as he began to walk towards his teammates as well. I knew that Hinata was right, of course, but it's good to have it confirmed that they indeed had the scroll we need nevertheless.

The three of them met in the middle, and at his nod, they simultaneously stopped their transformation technique.

"I knew this plan was amazing," Kiba said with a wide grin, scratching Akamaru's head with one hand and holding up their newly acquired scroll with the other. "That went like clockwork!"

Feeling rather indulgent after their victory, Shino ignored the hypocrisy in that statement considering what Kiba had said earlier as he nodded his agreement. "The engagement went as well as we could have hoped for. Well done, team."

Was he a bit smug about not only being the one who came up with the plan, but also the official team leader for the duration of this exam? Quite possibly, yes. Did he care? Not at all, no. Not when he was perfectly capable of keeping such thoughts off his face and for himself.

Unaware of his thoughts, Hinata gave them a bright smile. "So we can head towards the central building now, right? We might even be the first ones there!"

"Indeed. We should hurry, however. Other teams will have found each other by now as well."

That being said, their team had a clear advantage as their skill set should allow them to easily avoid other teams from here on. Even if others had managed to get the scroll they need, they would still have to be careful to not run into more fights; Shino's team, on the other hand, would have plenty of warning if anyone came even close to them. Traps, too, were nothing they had to fear.

And even if they had to fight again, they could reuse the same strategy that had brought them their recent victory as often as they had to.

The plan in question had been simple and involved only two steps:

First, Shino, Hinata, and Kiba used the basic transformation technique taught to every Academy student to change into each other; Shino into Hinata, Hinata into Kiba, and Kiba into Shino.

Then, all they had to do was to wait for their enemies to attack.

Whoever would attack Shino would expect someone weak in Taijutsu who depended on his teammates to defend them in close combat. That was a sensible conclusion considering their respective clans, after all. Thus, whoever attacked him would be unprepared for someone as aggressive as Kiba, especially if he used one of his clan techniques.

Similarly, whoever attacked Hinata would try to keep their distance. Hyūga were famously known for their Gentle Fist all over the continent, so no one in their right mind would allow themselves to get into her range if they could help it. With that in mind, Shino's Kikaichū weren't something anyone would be prepared to handle.

The person who attacked Kiba, on the other hand, would expect some form of the Inuzuka's usual, aggressive Taijutsu style in combination with Akamaru. Being subjected to the Gentle Fist when one expected "regular" Taijutsu had to be an uncomfortable experience, Shino thought.

Judging by the results of their recent fight, a variation of this strategy would probably prove to be useful in many future encounters to come as well.

With that positive thought in mind, Shino joined his two teammates in the trees as they rushed towards the central building to finish this stage. Who knew? Maybe Hinata was actually right and they would be the first ones there. Maybe they would even set a new record! Now that would be a great finish for the second stage of the Chūnin Exams!

In hindsight, Shino would later ruefully acknowledge, expecting things to go that smoothly was really foolish, wasn't it?

"So this concludes part one, eh?"

"I suppose we were lucky that we were assigned as we were. It's almost ironic that Konoha would help us beat its own teams!"

"Just don't forget about what Tsuchikage-sama told us. We have to play to their rules in this for the time being."

"Yeah, yeah, we know. No need to keep reminding us, man."

"There is a need for that when I think you're about to forget, actually."

"You–"

"That's enough," a new, booming voice interrupted the group. "We have just found each other. I don't want to have to break up fights already. At least wait a few hours before smashing your heads in, would you?"

The previous speakers muttered something unflattering at that, but in the end, they didn't try to argue and yielded to the man's authority.

Seeing this, the booming voice continued, "We have to move on now. One of the off-limit teams is approaching faster than I would like. They will probably be here in less than ten minutes, and we want to be as far away as we can by the time they arrive." Looking around the clearing, he then addressed everyone present rather than just the small group who had been arguing before: "I assume all of you have read the mission papers, so I will cut this short. Join your assigned teams and spread out. There is a member in every group capable of leading you to others for collaborative actions should it become necessary. Go!"

With that, nearly a dozen teams of three, all wearing forehead protectors that identified them as shinobi from either Iwagakure or Takigakure, leapt into action by running away from each other and deeper into the forest, leaving behind only the bodies of six fallen Kusa-nins.