Let's start this from the beginning

Chūnin Exams

V

Considering there were currently five teams in the cave, which brought their number up to eighteen if you counted the sixth team that was guarding the entrance, it was surprisingly silent.

On the other hand, maybe it's not surprising at all, Yugito silently conceded. After all, they were all from different villages, none of which had close relationships with each other. So, while they might have allied for the duration of this exam, the atmosphere could hardly be called 'comradely'. They were currently resting while they waited for their last ally, the group from Konoha, to return, hopefully with another team. Though it can hardly be called resting when everyone sits with their backs to the wall and watches everyone else for anything suspicious.

The only group that seemed somewhat at ease was the one consisting of the two teams from Suna, which was also the only village from their group that had more than one team. They probably thought themselves safe because of their numbers.

There was also a tension in the air that hadn't been there previously. Not surprising considering this were the last few hours before the fighting would begin. Once the team from Konoha came back, with or without reinforcement, they would allow them a break before heading out to the enemy camp to end this exam one way or another.

There were no doubts in her mind that the coming confrontation would be victorious.

She snorted at that. Before the exam began, she had been so confident that she could pass this exam in a matter of hours at most, so assured that all it would take was beating some random team and then reach the centre of the training ground, but where was she now, two days later? In some stupid cave with a group of people that should be her enemy, that's where.

A commotion at the entrance made her turn around just in time to see the three shinobi from Konohaw walk inside.

"We found no one," the girl of the group said, her face set into a frown for once instead of the wide, fake smile she seemed to wear all the time. It had probably something to do with the fact that they failed to find the other remaining Konoha team. "Seems we will need to do with the numbers we have."

To be fair, they were more than they initially had hoped for. It seemed like they had been fast enough to contact most teams before they could be picked up, managing to get together seven of the ten teams that weren't from Iwa.

"We should be enough as we are," Mezo, the leader of the Ame team who had become something like a spokesperson for their group, said. "Additional support would have been optimal, but we don't necessarily need it."

"Right, their group has only fifteen more people than us," someone called sarcastically. "No big deal, right?"

Mezo momentarily glared in the general direction the exclamation had come from before replying. "We knew from the beginning that we would be outnumbered. As it stands, there are more of us than anyone has expected. As long as we have the element of surprise on our side, we're more than even with them."

There was some muttering, but no one openly disagreed.

"Alright," Mezo continued. "Let us go through the plan one last time.

First, we will split into two teams. The first one, which contains the six of us that claim to be capable of suitable powerful Ninjutsu, will use their techniques to do as much harm from afar as possible before the actual battle begins. The members from team Taki" –he nodded at the three members of the aforementioned team- "have scouted the area and managed to find a passable place north of their camp from which they should manage to stay unnoticed until they attack.

The rest of us will use the commotion to attack from the south. Their attention will be elsewhere by then, allowing us to fall into their back when they're the least prepared. Remember to throw explosion tags into their ranks first; it causes a lot of damage to those close by and disorientates the rest.

As soon as the fighting begins, the first team will descend upon them as well, forcing them to fight on two fronts. Both of our teams will then fight their way through their lines until they meet in the middle. At that point, most of the enemies should have been either beaten or forced to flee.

Also, let me remind you that we're allies. We all know that that doesn't mean much, but we will lose if we don't work together. No one asks you to be the best of friends, but you should help each other if you see someone struggling. Up to eleven teams can reach the finals, so there is no need to worry about not getting the pearl your team is missing."

The plan was rather simple, but that was an advantage as plans tended to fail as soon as you made contact with the enemy; the more complex the plan, the higher the odds that something would go wrong.

Yugito stopped listening when people started to discuss possible additions or changes to the plan, knowing that nothing would come from it. They had this conversation several times over the last two days and every time it was agreed that the plan was as good as it would get. Everything else they came up with was either too complex to actually work, above their skill level, or depended too much on actually trusting each other.

No, rather than wasting her time by listening to that nonsense, she observed the youngest member of the Konoha team.

Sending such a young Genin into these exams seemed stupid, but he wouldn't be here if his village didn't think him ready. They would hardly send an Uchiha to his death just like that. Besides, Konoha was known for plopping up a child prodigy every generation or so, much to the chagrin of everyone else. The likelihood of this boy being one of them was high and the prospect of seeing his skills for herself excited her.

Even now, he was standing in the back of the cave, hidden in the shadows while his teammates did a good job at steering any attention away from him. She was sure she would have fallen for it as well if she hadn't deliberately looked for him.

Yes, there was no way his teammates would act like that if they didn't trust his abilities. By helping him to vanish from view and trusting him to watch their backs, thus allowing them to appear less attentive and less of a threat to everyone else, they made everyone underestimate them. After all, what could a team of two careless idiots and a little child possible do, right?

She grinned.

Maybe this exam could still be fun.

The location of the Iwa camp wasn't poorly chosen, Itachi thought, although it could have been better as well.

It was located on the border of a relatively plain field with no rock formations or boulders to speak of, allowing them to easily see approaching enemies from far away and thus making sneaking up on them nearly impossible. The group had built their camp with its back to the mountain in the north, giving them a safe front on that side as well.

For civilians, such a camp would have been as secure as it could get; it was impossible to attack from the mountain without the use of chakra to walk on its rocky cliffs and it was impossible to surprise them from any other side. That and their numerical superiority put together made for a good base, no doubt about that.

They had chakra, though, which meant they could attack from the mountains. Their opponents obviously knew that as well, which explained the two outposts on earth platforms above the camp. They were placed very well too, their position making it impossible to easily sneak up on them from any side. Also, as they were in clear sight of each other, you would need to eliminate both guards simultaneously to evade discovery. Under normal circumstances, that would be nought but impossible, at least for Genin or even many Chūnin.

Fortunately, the Genin from Iwa had become too confident in their superiority and eventual victory, so sure in their assumption that no one would dare attack their camp when there were so many of them, that the guards were lax in their duty. That in turn was what made their attack possible in the first place.

Itachi was currently sitting with the majority of their little group far to the south of the camp, just close enough to see the light of the campfires but too far away to hear any voices. He guessed they would need approximately five minutes to reach the camp if they ran at full speed, which was even more reason to pay close attention; they needed to start running the moment their other team started their offensive to support them as fast as possible. Every second mattered, for the longer the enemy had time to react, the more likely it was that they could reorganize.

It would be bad if they arrived and the others were already taken care of, especially because both Anko and Yukio were part of that team.

He would have joined that group as well if there hadn't been enough others to do so, but when it turned out that there was a sufficient number of Ninjutsu users, he decided against it. His age was already an advantage in that it made others underestimate him and the less of his abilities he revealed, the longer that would stay this way.

Also, he wanted to stay out of Yugito Nii's as much as possible. She apparently had already picked up on the fact that he was hiding his abilities to some extent if the way she watched him was any indication and he didn't want to give her more chances to do so. Too much attention was never a good thing, especially if it came from an opponent.

He was pulled out from his thoughts by the sight of fire, earth, water, and lightning descending upon the camp from above, giving them the signal they were waiting for.

There was no need for any command; silent as the night, they started running.

They were running for a little more than three minutes when he noticed that something was off. From their current position, he should be able to hear screams and confused cries, and he did, but there seemed to be too few of them. It could be possible that the first wave of attacks had taken out much more enemies than they had dared to even hope for, but he doubted it. Plans just didn't work that well.

Then the attacks from their other group suddenly stopped and the sound of clashing metal rang through the night.

"Throw your weapons!" Mezo screamed, obviously realizing the same thing he did. "Throw them now, blow them all up!"

They noticed us, he thought. The surprise failed. Thanks to his Sharingan, he could see clearly even during the darkest nights, which meant he was more than capable to see the various bodies of Iwa Genin laying on the ground. The problem was that there seemed to be a dozen of them at most, which meant the majority of the camp wasn't present at the camp at all.

But neither we nor the other group had been ambushed before the attack started, he thought as he threw a kunai with an explosion tag in a random direction away from their group. So they probably didn't know we would come in advance but saw us while we were getting into position. But then why leave so many people behind...?

His face hardened when he realized the answer to that question.

They had been decoys. Whoever was in charge of that camp left them behind to serve as targets. But that wasn't all; going by the lack of any defensive structures, he assumed they hadn't even been told what was going on. No, they had probably been fed some lie as to why the rest of the group left and just went about their day, unaware that they would be sacrificed by their leader.

And as long as they acted normal, there was no reason for us to believe something was wrong. Our scouts probably believed that the rest of them were inside their tents, not thinking anything about their disappearance. If anything, they were probably happy, thinking lesser numbers made for an easier victory and thus making it easier for them to sneak up on us.

Itachi had no more time to think as just at that moment an arm broke through the ground and tried to grab him, telling him exactly where all the vanished enemies must be.

"They're underground!" he exclaimed while simultaneously jumping away from the arm and throwing an explosion tag towards where the rest of its body should be. "Watch your feet!"

He had no idea how effective his warning was, nor could he see how the fight was going.

They had planned to throw their explosion tags into the ranks of their enemy while they were still a good distance away. Instead, they now threw the weapons at enemies below and right in front of them, meaning they needed to not only pay attention to them but also the weapon of their own allies as well.

All the explosions, be they from explosion tags or other techniques, stirred up so much earth and dust that it soon became impossible to see what was going on more than five feet away from you. Not that he could have focused on anything but his next enemy anyway.

Itachi dodged the sword of the kunoichi in front of him, tilting his head so that it swung a mere centimetre above his face before jumping and twisting his body to send a kick at her temple. Then, without stopping in his movement, he snatched the katana from the loose grip of its now unconscious wielder and used it to block a random shuriken that flew in his direction.

He didn't get a break, though, because another form appeared to his right and nearly decapitated him with a cleaver that was the size of Itachi's body. Rather than using his newly acquired weapon to block it, he backed down and dodged every attack by using his small stature to his advantage. Unfortunately, that worked for less than ten seconds before he collided with someone else. Seeing his chance, his foe took another swing at him. However, his time he left himself wide open, so Itachi jumped forwards and plunged his katana right through his chest at the same moment the cleaver plunged into the person he had collided with.

He ignored the sick sensation as the blood of both his enemy and the third, unknown person sprinkled on his face and neck. He also didn't turn around to see whether the unknown person had been an ally or an enemy.

Seeing the trademark uniform of an Iwa shinobi to his right, he rushed towards that direction and used the grip of one of his kunai to knock the boy in the neck before using the falling body as a springboard to jump towards two shadowy silhouettes.

As it turned out, the bent over one belonged to one of the Genin from Suna while the other one belonged to an enemy who was just about to behead the kneeling Genin before him. As he was closer to the Suna-nin, he used his momentum to kick him out of the way of the incoming attack while simultaneously slashing at the Iwa-nin with his kunai in an attempt to end this quickly.

However, while he managed to save the life of his ally, the Iwa-nin managed to evade his attack.

Not being put off at all by the sudden appearance of another enemy, the other boy swung his sword without any grace and thus allowed Itachi to counter easily. Dodging the slash with a flick-flack, he used his upwards lying feet to kick the sword out of his opponent's hands, throwing it up into the air. Not giving the other boy any time to recover, he next jumped towards him and rammed his elbow against the right side of his ribcage, right where his liver was. Then, finally, he dodged the clumsy counter-attack from the now bend-over enemy before catching the falling sword and using its blunt side to knock the boy out.

He was just about to start running again, looking for his next opponent, when his instincts screamed at him to move. Without thinking about it, he let himself fall to one knee, feeling the breeze of air sweeping through his hair as a leg flew over his head half a second later. He then jumped around to prepare for another fight, but it didn't come to that because as soon as he and his 'enemy' came face to face, they both froze.

"Wait, you aren't-" the Ame-nin started, recognizing that his opponent was actually an ally all along the same moment Itachi did, only to be interrupted as Itachi jumped against his chest. Putting all his strength into his legs, he pushed himself off from the Ame-nin, throwing them in opposite directions.

A big orb of fire hit the place where they had been standing a moment later.

For a second, the flames filled his entire vision, but then the moment was over and he flew out of the cloud of dust he had been fighting in for the last few minutes. However, rather than crashing into the ground, he managed to land on his hands with which he propelled himself upwards again to make a flip and ultimately land on his feet.

Itachi stayed tense and alert, looking around in expectation of another attack only to find that the area was relatively calm. Most of the fighting seemed to be where he came from, the sound of crashing metal and the cries of pain still loud and clear in his ears, while only a handful of fights happened out here in the open.

"Itachi!"

He didn't jump at hearing his name being called, but it was a close thing. A second later, Anko and Yukio landed beside him. Thankfully neither of them seemed hurt aside from a few scratches.

"Anko," he greeted. "Yukio. Good to see that you're alright."

"We're the ones who should say that," the other boy grumbled while still looking him over. "They sent only eight people to our position. Once the surprise wore off, we could handle them without any problems. Only one of our group was taken out while all eight of them are down."

"What about you?" Anko asked with a glance towards the cloud of dirt. "Who is winning?"

"Impossible to say. It's too chaotic and the sight inside is too bad to do more than to react to close-by enemies."

"Then let's change that," a new voice cut in as the three remaining members of his teammate's group appeared, consisting of Yugito Nii and two Genin from Suna.

"And how are you gonna do that?" Yukio asked the Suna-nin that had spoken.

He laughed before bringing his hands together to weave hand seals. "Why don't you just watch and learn?"

"Fūton: Daitoppa!" (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)

The gust of wind wasn't especially strong, but it didn't need to be to do its job. Blowing all the dirt and dust away, it revealed what had been going on inside the cloud of dust for everyone to see:

There were only about fifteen or sixteen people left fighting, a bit more than half of it being shinobi from Iwa while about the same amount of people was lying on the ground. Some of those injured were screaming in pain, but most forms were unmoving, though whether because they were unconscious or dead was impossible to say.

The moment their cover was exposed, most fights momentarily stopped. The more experienced Genin overcame their surprise pretty fast, however, and used the moment to end their fights in their favour. Soon enough new screams joined the already existing ones.

"Alright," the blonde Jinchūriki at his side said with a somewhat feral grin on her face. "Shall we end this?" She didn't wait for a reply before she jumped into the fray, quickly followed by the two Genin from Suna:

"Come on," Anko whined before following them. "We can't let them have all the fun, guys! Let's go!"

He and Yukio shared a short glance that was similarly amused and long-suffering before they started running as well.

At this point, it was fair to say that the day was won. Not only did they outnumber the Iwa-nins at this point, but they had also superior fighters on the field. In fact, he saw a few figures running away from the fighting, meaning the gap between their two groups became even larger. It wasn't a question of 'if' but of 'when' they would win.

This didn't go quite as planned at all, Itachi thought, but at least everything worked out just fine.

It was around dawn of the fourth day of the exam that a group consisting of one team from Konoha, one team from Suna, one team from Kumo, a two-man team from Ame, and another two-man team from Taki arrived at the circular building at the centre of the training-ground, bringing with them the necessary pearls to pass the exam. No words were spoken when they walked in, nor when they met their instructors and departed to follow them to their rooms.

They might have been temporarily allies, but while there were no bad feelings between them, no one forgot that they were still opponents as well. However, the fact that none of them felt the need to look over the shoulder in anticipation of a possible attack spoke volumes of the trust in their current alliance, no matter how temporarily it was.

(No one noticed the short eye contact between a certain young Uchiha and the Jinchūriki of the two-tailed beast.)

On that day, the instructors of all foreign teams were visited by a crow with a short message that told them the location of the bodies of their Genin, whether they were alive or not.

Just because Iwagakure was willing to risk antagonising other nations by letting their Genin die if they didn't find their way back didn't mean Itachi needed to let it happen. Not after they had allied with each other, even if just briefly.

Besides, who knew what kind of goodwill such a gesture could evoke in the future?

It was just shortly before sunset of the fifth and last day that the last finalist arrived at the building in form of a single team from Iwa, bringing the final number of participants for the third exam up to sixteen.

Shortly afterwards, the second exam was officially declared finished.

The tournament which would serve as the final exam was then set to start in exactly three weeks.