The sky was just beginning to turn red as the sun started its slow descent.

Ghost stared into his bowl of ramen, unusually silent. Rayna looked over at him. "Is something wrong?"

"No. I'm just thinking," he replied, his gaze never leaving his dinner.

"That's something new," Auzzie commented.

Ghost didn't respond and Auzzie looked searchingly at him for a long while. "Something's bothering you. You should tell us what it is."

"Look, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

Although neither one was satisfied with his answer, Rayna and Auzzie decided not to push it. 'Although,' thought Rayna, 'I can probably get him to tell me later.' "Rayna."

"Yes?"

"Will you please pay this man, so I may leave?" Ghost asked.

"But you barely ate anything," she protested, sounding slightly worried.

"Oh well. I need some time."

"Okay," Rayna paid for Ghost's ramen and he left Ichiraku.

"Shouldn't we go with him?" Auzzie asked, once he was gone.

"Probably. But sometimes he just needs some space. He'll find us later." Rayna said, as she stared after him thoughtfully.

"Alrighty," Auzzie said as he turned back to his food.

Ghost was calmly picking his way through the village of Konoha, his forehead protector getting strange looks from the people. He was stopped at one point by a group chuunin and asked quite calmly why he was here.

"I'm here to take the chuunin exam. Here are my papers," he said, producing the forms from his pocket.

They had accepted them, handed them back and wished both him and his team good luck. Ghost continued walking through the town and then into the training grounds. He had seen a pole sticking out above the trees earlier and was looking for it. After a good twenty minutes of searching, he finally found the base of the pole and at the bottom was a big diamond-shaped stone, with several names etched into it. He stood there for about half an hour reading them. Then, he noticed a presence behind him. He turned around and saw a girl with white eyes and blue hair and his first thought was that it was Hanabi, but this person was dressed differently. Instead of a light blue shirt and shorts, this girl was wearing a dark blue kimono with a light blue obi (belt thingy). He was about to say "Who the hell are you?" when he realized that this was a Hyuuga, and Hyuugas could beat the crap out of him without even trying. So he tried a more formal approach.

"Hello, Hyuuga-sama," he said, bowing. Without rising, he added, "My name is Chikara Ghost. Is there something you need?"

"Please, do not bow. I truly am not a superior person," she said in a gentle voice. "I am Hyuuga Hinata. Where are you from?"

Straightening, Ghost replied, "I am from the Hidden Spectre Village. My team and I have come to participate in the chuunin exams."

"My sister is going to participate in that this time. She is quite gifted, even more so than myself. She fights almost as well as her uncle Neji did," she said, her voice saddening slightly.

"You say she fights as well as her uncle once did. Does this mean her uncle has died?"

"Hai. His name is carved into the stone behind you. That stone contains the names of the many shinobi who have died so that their mission could be completed. He left four years ago with a few others in an attempt to bring back another shinobi of this village. Apparently, they all died on that mission. This was four years ago."

Ghost was silent for a while before he spoke. "A memorial to your fallen heroes. Interesting. Well, Hinata, it was nice meeting you. Before I leave and return to my comrades, I have one more question I would like to ask you."

"What is it?"

"I ask on behalf of my friend and teammate, Marganos Auzzie, that your sister, Hanabi, be allowed to see him."

Hinata blinked twice. "Excuse me?"

"In our brief meeting with her and her team today, I believe Auzzie found her, how to say this, attractive. Although, to be honest, he lacks the balls to do anything about it. So as his friend, I am asking permission for him to see your younger sister." 'There,' he thought, 'that should do it.'

"It is not my decision what my sister does or who she sees," Hinata replied.

"Thank you, Hinata-sama. Now, I must return to my teammates. Good night," Ghost said as he left.

Hinata continued looking at the monument after Ghost had left. Her gaze kept traveling back to one name. The one that never left her thoughts before the mission and still wasn't gone. Uzumaki Naruto. After another fifteen minutes, she decided it was time to head home and chew her sister out for skipping training that day.

Ghost walked back to the Ichiraku in silence. He arrived only to find Rayna and Auzzie not there. He asked the ramen man where they went, and he pointed Ghost to the "Konoha Hotel for Fiery Young People in the Springtime of their Youth". Guess who named that place…. Anyways, Ghost took a leisurely walk to the hotel, and Auzzie and Rayna had already checked in. The desk clerk gave him a key to room 3. He walked in and found a strange scene in front of him; at the moment, Auzzie seemed to be on top of Rayna. Ghost, deciding he didn't really want to know in the first place, turned around and left. Ten seconds later, the door opened again and Ghost walked in to find the two sitting in the room talking to each other. Deciding he liked this a bit better, Ghost remained in the room. He told the two about his conversation with Hinata, and made sure to point out the part about Hinata not caring what Hanabi did and the fact that she was open for the taking. Auzzie just grinned.

Hinata arrived home and went in search of her younger sister. Well, she more of activated her Byakugan and found out where she was (do you think the Hyuugas have ever lost at hide and go seek? I mean, they seem to have this unfair advantage in the ability to see through things.). She found her sister in her room, reading, so she walked over and knocked on the door. Hanabi opened it. "Can I help you?"

"You skipped training today."

"I didn't skip. Sakura-sensei let us out early so we went around Konoha for a bit."

"You also met a group of shinobi from a different village, did you not?"

"Yeah, so what? It's not like I'm not allowed to make new friends," Hanabi replied.

"I realize that. Did Antonio try to fight one of them like he usually does with new people?"

"Yes. She saw through his Bringer of Darkness technique and laid him out in one shot. It was pretty impressive."

Sighing, Hinata said, "He really needs to be more careful. He's going to get himself killed one day. So tell me about this Auzzie guy. Do you think he's cute?"

Hinata smiled mischievously as Hanabi groaned. Their laughter lasted well through the night.

The early morning sun rose over the bridge that Team 7 had met at so many times before. Sakura was sitting on top of the gate that Kakashi would always appear on in a puff of smoke with some lame excuse for being late (a/n: the best excuse was the one about how he got lost on the road life). She watched as her team began arriving one by one. When they all had arrived, she dropped down and walked over to them.

"So I heard you guys met a group of ninjas from another village," she said, looking right at Antonio, who had a rather large bruise on his cheek.

"Yes, we did. Antonio also got beaten by one of them," Akira said calmly.

"Hey! I could have won that fight if I had a little longer!" Antonio yelled.

"Antonio, her teammate kept her from beating you senseless by trapping her feet in solid ice. That was not a fight you could have won," Hanabi said.

"But still-"

"Antonio, you of all people should know better than to fight a person just because of how they look," Sakura said.

"Bah, you guys are all against me," he said.

"No, we're just trying not to get you killed. But anyways, it's time to get to the reason why I called you all here this morning. As you know, the chuunin selection exams are coming up. Each village will select its strongest and most promising groups of gennins to take the test, and hopefully be promoted up a rank, to chuunin. I have decided that the three of you are ready for the exam, however this test is no joke. It will be hard on you both mentally and physically. I almost lost both of my teammates during the second part of that exam, and they were two of the strongest of the new gennins from Konoha. Although sadly, neither one made it to chuunin level. One of them died four years ago, and the other is still a missing-nin bent on revenge. Here are your applications; fill these out and report to room 315 of the academy in one week at 4:30 pm. That is all. You may have unsupervised training today if you wish, or you may take the day off. However, I strongly suggest that the three of you train. Antonio, you especially. Your genjutsu needs work if somebody could break through it that easily. If you need me, I'll be at the old training ground."

And with that, Sakura left.

"We should go train," Akira stated.

"But come on, we have a day off. Let's go do something else," Hanabi said, all for ditching another day of training.

"If you want to do that, go right ahead. I'm working." Akira stated as he walked towards one of the training grounds.

"Right, well, I'm not working. You feel like ditching today with me?" Hanabi asked Antonio.

"Of course."

Akira stood at the top of a tree. He looked around at the multitude of them growing around Konoha. Sighing, he walked back down the trunk with his hands in his pockets. When he reached the large stump about twenty feet from the bottom of the tree, Akira jumped onto it and sat down with his legs crossed. And so, he began sorting his thoughts regarding the chuunin exam. He remembered watching the final matches so many years ago, right before the Sound and Sand attacked Konoha. He went over the fight between Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuuga Neji, and the one between Gaara of the Sand and Uchiha Sasuke. And to think that now Naruto and Neji were dead, while Sasuke had become a missing-nin. Akira remembered what Sakura had said about her those two almost dying in the second part of the exam. Akira knew he would need to work a lot harder to become a chuunin, to even make it to the third round, to be seen by so many, to show his full strength. To be able to show off in front of her. Yes, he decided, he would have to work for that. But hard work had never bothered him before. In fact, he sometimes enjoyed it.
My current record of reviews per chapter is 4, set by this story and my yu-gi-oh fic. I hope I will be able to beat that one day.