With the exams still yet to commence changes had yet to be made to their daily schedule. As it stood, for a team of fresh genin it was compulsory that they would meet up for a minimum of 6 hours per working day. For Naruto this had not been a problem, it was more of a chance to prove that they could become chuunin. But would they be able to without having gone on a c-rank mission? Improving in training sessions was one thing but without being able to have displayed evidence of coping in an actual battle scenario it would be hard to judge their actual progress. What good was it to be able to throw a kunai well if you froze when faced with the possibility of getting your hands dirty with anothers blood for the first time? Not only that, just how much of his power would he have to display?

Nevertheless, even if they had to be more secretive towards their actions regarding changing events, things had slowly been set into motion. Sasuke's lack of sharingan had the council demanding for him to be trained in ninjutsu and genjutsu to build up his arsenal. Unfortunately this left his taijutsu to suffer as a result due to the misguided belief that he was already on par with most chuunin and would be able to pass the exams with his current level. A foolish assumption that would only cause a hindrance to the genin and his performance.

Sakura had remained weak, disregarding the training plan that her teacher had set forward, as Kakashi had failed to break her out of her fangirl ways. This would only be detrimental to her performance with her team, alongside with her foolish diet she had maintained to keep up her 'figure', the pink haired kunoichi was the least prepared for a shinobi lifestyle.

But with the exams steadily approaching, the kages of each village hastily prepared genin to show off their ranks and accomplishments. Years of turmoil had left Naruto with an impressive insight to the workings of the political influences, while the exams were an excuse for war, it would be calamitous to their forces if they had sent in so many unprepared ninjas, cutting down their forces for years to come until another satisfactory graduating class. It was one mistake that Konoha had made often, as all three rookie teams had been nominated, they feared the deaths of clan heirs who had been thrusted into a fight without the proper guidance or mindset, simply for the village to boast.

The academy hallway swarmed with hopeful genin awaiting their chances to participate in the exams and bag a chance to advance in rank. But more than half the contestants would end up dead or would drop out later in the preliminaries. Out of the corner of his eyes, Konoha's kyuubi vessel could see candidates arguing with Izumo and Kotetsu who had cleverly hidden under a disguise using henge. He scoffed inwardly, if they had wanted a promotion, should they have not solidified their understanding of the basics? If one could not distinguish the difference between a henge and the true form of a person, how would they survive in a field where manipulation and deceit prevail? Maybe he was being too harsh, younger him had certainly fallen into that trap, but he would never be able to let go of the failing of the system itself, sometimes it wasn't truly always the fault of the individual.

Forcefully steering the raven haired boy away, Naruto led his team up to the third floor in silence ignoring their complaints. A poof of smoke startled the teens, as their teacher appeared before them.

" It's good to see that you're all here, even you Sakura!"

Tuning out the speech that awaited them, he waited until the man finished so that they could enter the examination hall. Upon arrival, the genin were blasted with killing intent, however the silence and veil of intimidation was broken due to Kiba's voice as he sauntered his way towards his fellow graduates.

"I wouldn't have expected to see you three here!" The brunette laughed boisterously causing a wave of sighs as they dismissed the taunt. In moments, the rookie 9 found themselves huddled together discussing the probabilities of the exams.

He could feel a wave of exhaustion overcome him, even now it was all still too much. After spending so much time adjusting solely to his own team, seeing everyone gathered together that hid him like an avalanche, there was a tingly feeling in his ribs that disappeared just as quickly as it had come. He had loved them so much. Leaning on Shikamaru, he ignored the curious looks thrown their way, eyes narrowed as he spotted Kabuto making their way towards them.

Years of training his senses made him notice the horrid stench of snake that lingered around the long haired genin. It had taken years for him to realise the advantages given to him by Kurama's presence and in times like this served as a blessing. Unconsciously, a sneer formed on his face, a traitor had been in their midst, and they had been unaware of the obvious signs, allowing him to manipulate them into a false sense of comfort and protection.

He watched, eyes drooping as his teammate inquired about Gaara, watching as the information was offered, as he attempted to rile Sasuke up with the difference in power.

"Shouldn't you be keeping such information to yourself? Wouldn't it increase your own chances?"

Fighting back a chuckle at the Nara's words, he let his eyes drift to the front of the room, once more ignoring the chatter and cries of indignation. A wisp of smoke alerted them that Ibiki had arrived, ready to start the first test. It had seemed that things had already begun to play out differently, whereas last time he had been placed next to the meek hyuuga heir, this time round he found himself placed next to a suna genin he didn't recognise.

The clock ticked as the time passed, idly he observed the fairly obvious ways of cheating, ranging from the use of dojutsu to Tenten's mirrors. Looking down at his own sheet, he could now realise that these questions, no matter how skilled the genin, would only be able to be answered by an elite chuunin. Although Sakura could be an exception due to her talent in book smarts. It wouldn't do for him to leave his page empty, although he knew the tricks of the game, staying idle would arouse suspicion amongst the proctors which he could not have happening, so why not have some fun and drop some subtle clues?

His pen glided across the page, creating an image provoking laughter from the whiskered teen. Carefully he placed pictures as clues that the untrained eye would not be able to understand but for the head of Interrogation would be a walk in the park.

"... You can choose to leave and never be permitted to take the exams again!"

A smile crept up onto his face as he noticed that Sakura had not doubted him this time round, well it may have been due to the fact he had chakra strings holding her hand down but then again who had to know that? With the first stage over, sans the dramatics of the first time round, the remaining genin cleared themselves out of the hall eager to get away from Ibiki and Anko's insanity.

Speaking of, Morino Ibiki prided himself on not being able to be caught off guard, yet when he came upon the Uzumaki brats paper he found his eyes widening, a sense of dread overcoming him. Instead of answering the questions, the blond have taken to drawing. A picture of a grand forest littered with snakes slithering up the branches, but most intriguing was the fact that they all seemed drawn towards the centre of the page. Towards the drawing of three tomoe.

His breath hitched, if what had been implied was true then Konoha had a nuke nin within their ranks, within their exam where genin would be left unattended to survive by themselves. But the question arose, How did a mere genin get his hands on such information?

He would have to see the Hokage immediately.

Tipping off Ibiki had not originally been a part of Naruot's plans, no they had decided to quietly dispose of Kabuto during the exams, leaving a shadow clone each with their teams until they returned. The abrupt change caused Shikamaru to hit him on the head and for complaints of a headache to come tumbling out of his mouth. He had always been impulsive and unpredictable, he just had to hope that this wouldn't come back to bite them in the arse. However with the village being aware of Orochimaru's presence they reasoned that Anbu would be able to reach them faster, increasing the chances that they would be able to reach the tower with Sasuke being unmarked.

It was ultimately a necessary change, if things played out right they reasoned that with Sasuke's thirst for power, the sound four would still come after him, something that they would be ready to intercept. Although there was the new added responsibility of having to come up with a way to evade the hokage's attempts to find out how exactly Naruto had gotten the information.

However, that was a headache for later, the exams were about to begin and they both had to be ready to make changes, the first of which would be made in the forest they were entering, where everything had changed and taken a turn for the worst.

The Forest of Death.

Afternoon in the Forest 15:00pm

Kabuto ran through the thick foliage, steps silent with a practised ease. His teammates ran close behind as they commenced their search for the last Uchiha. The dense forest had provided them adequate cover allowing them to progress swiftly without drawing attention to their above average skills in what was supposed to be a hopeless team made up of failures. The feeble attempts at trapos made by the chuunin hopefuls had been laughable easy to bypass, allowing them to pursue their goal with little delay. Orochimaru had wanted him to assess the boy's skill level, pushing him hard in a fight to draw out his strength but to leave him alive at the end of it. His master had wanted the boys eyes, but as it stood the famed dojutsu that made them so valuable had yet to be awoken. Problematic. Without the family bloodline, his plans could nit advance and taking over the younger body would be pointless, he had plenty of other vessels but none were as special as Sasuke's.

A smirk found itself on the grey haired teens face, finding Sasuke would be easy. He was headstrong and arrogant, believing his companions to be beneath his feet. Arrogance bred weakness. He would enjoy toying with him, slowly but surely ripping his confidence to shreds, destabilising his already fragile mind. When he eventually broke and shattered, the snake sannin would be able to mould him into the traitor he was destined to be. Konoha could give him nothing, his master could give him the world and more, even if only temporarily.

A few miles away from him was the aforementioned Uchiha with his team, where Naruto stood debating with himself. Now, while he was well aware that putting the Uchiha in charge was a horrible idea, there was really no reason for the other two to place any trust in his own abilities so they'd compromised. Yeah right, the Uchiha had taken charge caring very little about what his teammates had thought. Typical. But while some things didn't change other clearly had, for instance gone was Orochimaru challenging them under the guise of a Kusa genin, instead came Kabuto's team, all sense of friendship and camaraderie gone.

'Kabuto-san!' Sakura's voice sounded horrified, as if unable to comprehend that a leaf shinobi would attack one of their own. Sasuke on the other hand, had allowed anger to overcome him, anger at the fact that Kabuto of all people had underestimated him. The very genin that had taken the exam 7 times. He was not a worthy opponent for him. But while these thoughts ran rampant in his head, the jinchuuriki wanted to throttle him. You couldn't just walk away or dismiss every opponent you deemed unworthy of your time. In the real world, in war, no one gave a fuck, it's how even genin and squads of chunin managed to take of opponents stronger than themselves. You worked whatever shit was thrown at you and win. Shinobi didn't have pride and scruples, they had missions and objectives, and Sasuke was failing.

A curse slipped from his mouth as his attention faltered, the ninja in front of him was no average genin, he was a highly skilled med-nin and a proficient all-rounder. Some would find medical ninjutsu ineffective in battle, but Narutto had seen Kabuto wield those scalpels first hand, they were as deadly as any other weapon. However, with his teams lack of knowledge to this fact, they wouldn't know how to properly defend themselves, and he couldn't do anything without arousing their suspicions.

Although, there was one way that he could slightly delay their attackers. Grabbing onto both of his teammates, he began to drag them away as he summoned his shadow clones. Together, they began to form a circle around the opposing team.

'Water release: water severing wave'

Naruto cackled at the looks of bewilderment, spewing water directly into their faces allowing for the others' vision to become blurred. With little time remaining, he'd sent clones transformed as his teammates in different directions and hoped that it would be enough to stall them so that they could get away

Preliminaries

Making it to the tower had been rough, many of the pthr genin teams had fought hard and smart, clever decisions made leading them to camp out near the tower waiting to attack approaching teams for their scrolls. Which was a great plan against most teams, but with Naruto's abundant use of shadow clones made that particular plan of action pointless. He'd be able to overpower them himself without any need for his teammates' involvement.

What that didn't mean was that slipping past them was easy, with Sasuke on the same team it seemed that it was inevitable that most encounters would devolve into fighting. Peering over his shoulder, he noted that Shikamaru's team hadn't done so well, their bodies were littered with various injuries as if they'd walked straight into an ambush. Although, there was a good chance that the Nara had let that happen in order to not raise any expectations since genin teams returning unscathed was unheard of.

Quietly, he listened as the Hokage droned on with his explanation of how the exams were a substitute for war and an important event that helped keep peace. Realistically and with all his foresight, he knew that it was pretty much bullshit. No amount of staged fights or supervised battlegrounds would ever keep villages from betraying each other. Shinobi lived at times, to betray. The exams served as a perfect opportunity to scope out the ability of your enemies and anticipate what was to come should they stab you in the back. It was why Otogakure had been able to slip into Konoha and almost cause their downfall.

Leaning against the railing he looked up at the board as it randomly generated the pairing for the upcoming fights.

In bright orange it read 'Sasuke vs Yoroi'.

Much to his bemusement, most of the fights had carried out pretty much entirely the same, though now it was clear to him that the hidden plant fighting Sasuke was clearly holding back. He supposed that the purpose of that was to ensure that Sasuke would enter the finals, if not the invasion plans would likely have fallen through. Something inside of him settled, if such minor details hadn;t changed then it was unlikely that they had done anything drastic enough yet to leave them blindsided.

What had not remained the same however was the next fight called out.

'Temari vs Shikamaru'

Naruto stood stunned as Hayate's announcement echoed in the hall, that match was supposed to happen in the finals, not now. Of course, sooner or later there was bound to be a problem created. If the match had commenced as planned then suna would not be able to use Temari to stall. The sole purpose for having the three siblings participate would vanish as Kankuro would forfeit to keep his skills hidden and Gaara with his inherent lack of control in keeping Shukaku restrained.

Anxiety trickled into his veins as he wondered what they would do. The only good thing about the current situation was that they had the upper hand due to knowing how Temari fought, meaning that out manoeuvring her would be easy.

'You're not winning against me you lazy bastard'

'Listen, I don't want to be here but there's no reason for a man to lose against a woman'

In the distance, Naruto couldn't help himself from face palming as he watched his lover purposely rile up the suna kunoichi. Why did someone so lazy do things that would make things harder for himself? Amused, he watched as a look of disgust filled the blonde's face and watched as she decided that no second rate shinobi would defeat her.

'Kamaitachi no jutsu'

Smug, the Nara took control of her shadow, and flung the wavy battle fan away. Unlike the fading shadows in their original fight, the hall had been filled with an ample amount of shadows to use to his advantage.

'Kagemane no jutsu, success'

Temari was outraged but had no choice to forfeit her chance to win as the proctor called the match.

As the two made their way back to their respective teams, Naruto shifted his eyes back to watch the electric board flash as it decided the next match. With any luck, the rest of the match ups would remain the same so that he could finally leave. The near constant sound of battles was beginning to take a toll on his mental health, and neither shinobi had escaped the war they had come from without any lingering effects. Every clashing kunai and flying shuriken would force his nerves to kick he didn't get that under control before the finals, his instincts would react to any form of danger presented to him, completely blowing his cover.

"Sakura vs Ino"

Unintentionally he winced, he had no desire to watch that cat fight. Both Kunoichi were evenly paired skill wise, throwing their training aside allowing them to barely reach genin level. If anyone was to predict the match without the knowledge that he possessed, they would have believed that the Yamanaka had the upper hand with her family jutsu. But knowledge was nothing without the skill needed to really put it to use.

"Shintenshin no jutsu"

While the Yamanaka's had truly crafted a magnificent jutsu, Ino simply was not proficient enough in using the technique for it to truly be useful in a fight. With Sakura's immense will power, the jutsu itself would become redundant, unable to serve its purpose.

Unfortunately for everyone watching, this in turn lead to the brawl that they were witnessing.

"NOT TODAY INO-PIG!"

As Sakura pushed the blonde out of her mind, simultaneously they fell to the floor with a expected the final decision was a draw, as both had collapsed and failed to show any qualities needed to be a chuunin. He sighed for what felt like the thousandth time that day, his heart yearning to see the powerful women that they would become, however there was still time to grow and Naruto would make sure their skills would flourish in due time.

Then came the final announcement.

"Kiba vs Naruto"

Finally, it was time to kick some ass and get the hell out of there.

"Hurry up and come down deadlast, or are you scared?"

"Shut it mutt, you watch how I beat you."

The vessel fully intended to show strategy and skills in his fight, he would not go from genin to Hokage in a day, so getting the respect of his superiors would greatly benefit him even if it would take longer for the villagers to come around. Beating Kiba would be easy, the Inuzuka clan treated their animal familiars as partners not tools to be thrown around, by threatening Akamaru he would ultimately lose his cool and attack recklessly.

Digging into his pouch he found what he'd been looking for, smoke bombs. While it wouldn't deter his opponent due to his hieghtened senses, it would allow him to throw out a more foul smelling bomb at the same time so that he could throw Kiba of his trail and set up his traps.

"HA Those things won't stop me!"

Atleast, that was what he thought, but the minute the bombs exploded the brown haired nin found himself gagging unable to take the stench. Using the boy's repulsion to his advantage, Naruto swiped the dog from beside him. Slowly, the dust cleared revealing the orange wearing boy holding Akamaru with a knife against his throat.

"Forfeit or he dies mutt."

He could hear gasps from the spectators, knowing that it was cruel he hoped that the other would give up.

"Fine, I forfeit this match."

Anger brimmed in Kiba's eyes as he watched Naruto let go of his dog, but was left confused when the other spoke.

"I wasn't actually going to kill him you know,"

His head tilted in confusion.

"I've seen your clan around with their dogs and know the bond you have is closer to partners, not a pet or tool, riling you up was my ticket to victory, you wouldn't let Akamaru get hurt not while you were alive."

Gratefulness flooded Kiba along with curiosity, since when has Naruto been observant enough to be insightful. Unaware of the other genin's thoughts, the Namikaze heir walked away glad that it was all over. The sooner things were done the better. With his match now over, all he had to do was keep an eye out for any other changes. Weeks worth of exhaustion washed over him as he slumped down onto the floor ignoring the incredulous looks sent his way. He felt tired, bone-deep and aching. But a month dedicated to training awaited him, alongside meeting Jiraiya for the first time.

Rest would have to wait.