"Do not ever make an attack that cannot win you the fight. Every blow must have the potential to defeat your opponent. Strike as many times as you must, but cut only once."

Momochi Zabuza, Swordsman of the Mist, to his apprentice Haku

-O-

Dawn brought a chorus of birdsong with it. Naruto watched as Sasuke crawled out of his sleeping bag to join Sakura on watch.

Naruto stayed curled up a moment longer. He'd taken the worst watch, the middle watch, what Kakashi called 'two naps don't make a night's rest'.

Feeling good about the future, Naruto dressed himself and started taking down the tent. He'd found two good ambush sites yesterday, and now it was time for Sakura and Sasuke to decide which one to stake out.

Naruto knew Sasuke struggled to sleep, although he wouldn't talk about why. That meant it would be up to Naruto and Sakura to carry the team. Sasuke had done enough to get them this far. Without him, they could have failed the first test, twice over.

After a quick breakfast of leftovers and dried trail rations – Sasuke ate some of the cold rabbit, which Naruto took as a good sign – they hid all traces of their campsite. With the camping gear stowed away and the sun just coming up, Naruto led the way to the first ambush site.

He'd found a clearing in the trees, with a thick layer of brush at the forest fringes. Sakura liked the amount of cover it provided, but Sasuke pointed out that the clearing itself was long but narrow. If a taijutsu specialist team encountered them there, it would be difficult to create space to use ranged techniques. The bushes would also hamper fast movement if the fight went wrong and they had to flee.

The second ambush site was to the north of a small pool of freshwater surrounded by soft grass, perfect for a short rest. Naruto found some hour-old tracks in the soft mud at the water's edge, although whoever it was had moved on. A game trail wound away from the pool and up a slope, between brambles and thick stands of hazel, heading towards the castle.

"Picture it. A team sees the pool from a distance and decides to refill their water and look for fish or animals. They scout out the area but don't find anyone lying in wait. But meanwhile, we're sitting at the top of that hill, watching them," Naruto explained, proud of his find. "If they let their guard down, we can attack. Otherwise, they'll finish resting and head towards the castle – which leads past our position. There's a few spots where they would need to move in single hit the rear of the column with the element of surprise. Once we've removed one enemy, we will have an advantage in numbers."

"This looks great!" Sakura said. "The slope also gives us a good view, and enemies will be tired by the time they reach the top."

"What do you think, Sasuke?" Naruto asked. Their last teammate looked a bit preoccupied. Naruto wondered if he needed another break.

Sasuke peered at the small pond, then swept his gaze up the slope, narrowing his eyes as he approached the top. "This looks good," he said, his voice carrying. "We should walk up the slope and find a spot to set up from. Naruto, send a shadow clone out to scout behind us, and look for any teams who are coming."

Naruto was about to use the Shadow Clone technique when Sasuke whispered an extra pair of instructions to him. "Replace yourself with a clone as well, and stay hidden. Follow us up the hill." Sasuke was tense and twitchy, so Naruto wasn't going to argue.

The puff of chakra smoke that accompanied the two clones was enough for Naruto to duck into the shadow of a mossy tree stump. One clone crept away towards the cliffs, while the other clone stayed with Sasuke and Sakura.

"Let's head uphill," Sasuke said. "Naruto, you bring up the rear."

A small wave of his hand, aimed at Naruto's hiding spot, let Naruto know that Sasuke wanted him to stay close. Accordingly, he slithered through the dirt to a thicket of hazel bushes, then crept through some nettles, never more than twenty paces from his team. The shadow clone was starting to fall behind a little as Sasuke and Sakura clambered over dead wood and brushed past bushes. Sasuke whispered something to Sakura, who nodded once.

It was Sasuke's white-knuckled grip on his spear that clued Naruto in to what Sasuke had realised.

Team Seven weren't the first group to find the ambush spot. Someone was lying in wait for them already.

-O-

The attack came as a complete surprise.

Two shinobi stepped out of hiding, kunai in hand, already striking. One rammed a blade into Naruto's clone's throat, and the other drove it into his stomach.

Naruto could almost taste the confusion when their victim dispersed into a cloud of chakra. That split second of hesitation cost them, as Sasuke barked out an order that Naruto couldn't quite hear.

Sakura flung herself down and Sasuke spun around, hands at his mouth. He spat a focused stream of fire at the two ambushers, who leapt back from the expanding ball of flame.

One wasn't quite fast enough. It was a tall boy from Sand, wearing green-and-grey facepaint and flowing tan-coloured robes that were now on fire. He fell into a bush and rolled around, screaming.

Naruto burst out of hiding a mere two steps away from the surprised and burning genin. He landed a kick in the Sand ninja's chest as he tried to beat out the flames, and followed it up with a sharp punch to the face. The genin's head bounced off a tree trunk and he slumped to the ground. Naruto's knuckles ached from the force of the blow.

Taking advantage of the moment's pause, Naruto made a dozen shadow clones, and left two of them to guard the injured boy. One of them tied his arms and legs together while the other smothered the flames.

Sasuke had grabbed his spear again and was engaged in a confusing chase through the bushes. His foe had more injuries from the thorny branches than from Sasuke's weapon so far, although as Naruto watched, Sasuke caught up with the girl and stabbed clear through her calf. She went down in a tumble of limbs and blood.

Naruto's clones were fanning out to search for the last member of the trio. Sakura faded back into view, still pressed against the dirt path. Her clothes were almost as muddy as Naruto's own but her eyes were cold. She strode over to Naruto's prisoner, drawing a kunai as she went.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to hear the answer.

She stared at him. "I'm getting information."

Two of Naruto's clones helped Sasuke haul the other ambusher over. Her Sand headband had slipped over her eyes and Sasuke had stuffed a makeshift gag into her mouth. She was struggling feebly against her restraints, but the fight had gone out of her when Sasuke's spear went in.

"We can't torture them!" Naruto said, appalled.

Sakura gave him a withering look. "We're ninja, and they just tried to gut you. But fine, you can watch, and stop me if you think I'm going too far."

She started with the girl. Sakura slapped her across the face twice, then pulled her headband off. "Let's get one thing clear. You tried to kill my teammate. Any mercy you want to get will have to be earned." The girl looked back, terrified. Sakura pinned her in place with her gaze as she formed a set of handseals out of the girl's sight.

For the next twenty seconds, neither of them moved. Then the girl started thrashing against her bonds, and Sakura released the technique. "She's ready to talk," she announced. "Sasuke, you do the asking."

"What did you show her?" Naruto asked.

"Don't ask questions you don't want answered." Sakura let out a shuddering breath and brushed some of the mud off herself. "Now help me with the other one. He'll be easier; the genjutsu I distracted him with during the fight will still be in his system."

"Was that why I had such an easy time with him?" Naruto asked.

Sakura nodded. "I guided him to your position and then distracted him. He didn't see you coming until you'd already hit him. The flames made it easier; I can't do that every time. Let's get some water and wake him up. It might take a while, you hit him pretty hard."

By the time Naruto had woken up the boy, Sasuke had already finished with the girl. "Yesterday the Sand team traveled towards the tower, then spent the night searching for campsites to attack. They found one team and beat them, so they have six tokens, but their last member was injured in the scuffle. The ambush here was out of desperation; neither of them have slept since yesterday morning. They were three tokens short, and their teammate needs medical care."

"Alright, so we take the tokens, send them off to get medical care, and get to the tower," Sakura said. "With our tokens that's a total of nine, and we're in the clear."

Sasuke rifled through their captives' pockets. The girl appeared to be the leader, as she was carrying all six metal discs. Naruto took two and added them to his starting token – Team Seven had decided that splitting up the weight would be better.

Sasuke also filched some extra kunai and shuriken and shared them out. Naruto wondered if that was it. Was he going to pass the second round of the Chunin Exams because another team had been unlucky? The barely-a-fight was something that any of them could have handled all alone, if not for the element of surprise.

"Let's head out." Sasuke looked invigorated after the scuffle. He'd cleaned his spear and was twirling it around as he waited.

"You should be able to get free in ten minutes or so," Naruto told the Sand ninja. "If you hurry you can make it back out by lunchtime, even if you have to carry your teammate."

Both of them were still bound and gagged, so he didn't expect a reply. As Team Seven left the site of the brief battle, Naruto tried not to look back. The two ninja had been prepared to kill him – why did he feel the tiniest bit of guilt?

The rest of the day's travel went smoothly. Naruto sent out a trio of shadow clones to act as scouts, and periodically left one behind to watch their trail and alert the team if they were being followed. No other ninja crossed paths with them.

Towards the afternoon, Sasuke called for an early halt. "We're close to the castle. We should slow down and prepare for a fight, possibly with several teams. There'll be some clever folks who decided to set up here so they could pick off injured and tired teams."

"Here's an idea – Naruto can send a swarm of clones charging for the castle as a distraction, and then we can hide in them," Sakura said.

Sasuke considered it for a moment, then shook his head. "We would alert every team within a mile or so, and then have to fight them all. Better to rely on stealth, and keep that as a backup plan for if we get spotted very close to the castle."

Naruto shared out some food and water, and Sasuke checked everyone's weapons. He'd taken on the role of armourer sometime in the last week.

Sasuke had an eye for small nicks or flaws in a metal blade, and Naruto begrudgingly admitted that Sasuke did a better job. Sasuke double-checked his spear and relieved himself behind a tree. Sakura led the team through a series of quick stretches, loosening travel-tired muscles and restoring flexibility to their hands and wrists. Naruto joined in, despite only having one technique that he expected to need, which only needed one hand seal anyway.

As prepared as they would ever be, Team Seven set off.

-O-

"Well, this is one thing I didn't expect," Sasuke said. Naruto couldn't help but agree.

Crouched between two trees, Ino was keeping watch over the main approach to the castle. Beside her, a small tent presumably held Shikamaru and Choji. Team Seven were a good eighty paces away, but Naruto could still see the stress and fear on Ino's face.

"What do we do?" Sakura asked. "We can probably sneak past them."

"I don't know," Sasuke said, trailing off into silence.

Naruto looked over at Ino again, who was still scanning the area. "We're not attacking. They're friends and comrades. And we don't need anything from them."

Sakura bit her lip, deep in thought. "We don't know whether they'll let us past if they see us. It's the Chunin Exams. The stakes are high. At the same time, treating them as hostile just because we worry they might be hostile is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they follow the same principle we're bound to fight. And trying to avoid them seems like we're declaring ourselves as hostiles."

"Are we actually scared of Team Ten though?" Naruto asked. "We can take them if we have to. If anything, they should avoid picking a fight because there'll be easier targets for them."

"Be quiet a moment," Sasuke said, eyes narrowed. Naruto and Sakura both obeyed instantly.

"...know you're out there, Sasuke!" Ino shouted again.

Sasuke shook his head. "There's no way she's spotted us over all this distance. She's not that good and we're not that sloppy. That means her teammates are close. They must have given her a signal. Let's go talk – it's better than a fight."

Naruto agreed wholeheartedly, but he still left a pair of clones behind with strict instructions to intervene as soon as the discussion went poorly.

"Hi Ino! How are you doing?" Sakura was the first one down, and Naruto couldn't tell whether her smile was forced or not.

Ino grinned back. "Not great, but not terribly either. We came across a fight between Team Eight and a team from Sand, and we had to bargain for our freedom with our tokens. We're camped out here, looking for a team to steal from."

"Which team?" Sasuke asked. "We fought another Sand team, but they were pathetic."

"There was a girl with a fan, and a guy with white and purple facepaint, but the scary one was the redhead with a gourd of sand on his back. He's called Gaara. When we showed up he'd already broken Kiba's arms and he was about to kill Hinata and Shino. We offered him all our chips to let his victims go, but it took his teammates a good minute to convince him to accept. That was terrifying, I won't lie to you." Ino's smile slipped for a moment and Naruto saw the dark circles around her eyes stand out against her pale skin. She was still very afraid, that much was clear. "Team Eight had to pull out after that. At least that Sand team has enough chips to pass, so we won't see them again during this round."

"What did Gaara do that was so powerful?" Sasuke probed.

Ino shuddered. "Ask Shikamaru about it, he's got more of a head for analysing that sort of thing. But from what I saw, Gaara controls sand, and he likes to kill with it."

Shikamaru slouched out from under a low fir, where the sweeping branches had hidden him. "I'll give you a full debrief later," he said. "For now, we have other priorities." Choji crawled out of the same piece of cover and took up position on Shikamaru's right.

"We're not going to fight you," Ino said quickly. Sakura had already slid a hand down to her kunai pouch, and Naruto glimpsed one of his shadow clones creeping closer, a fistful of shuriken ready. Sasuke was the only one who'd stayed calm, and now he seated himself. His spear lay by his side, pointed away from Ino.

"You're here because you want to pick off a winning team and take their tokens and their place," he said. "That means tackling one of the strongest teams, and afterwards fighting off all the other teams that have the same plan as you. It's very risky, and so you want our help. Am I missing anything?"

Shikamaru nodded. "We've set up an elaborate network of traps, stretching half a mile, between us and the tower. After that it's a straight run for another mile or so. I think we can escape any pursuit from behind once we have the tokens. And Ino asked me to prepare a joint battle plan, in case we ran into you and you agreed to help."

"So will you? Help us, I mean?" Ino's words were directed at Sasuke, but she was looking at Sakura and Naruto as she asked.

Naruto opened his mouth to agree, but Sakura beat him to it. "Of course we'll help you, Ino," she said sweetly. "It's our duty as proud ninja of the Leaf to aid our comrades who are less able than we are, isn't that right?"

Ino looked like she'd just swallowed a live frog. Shikamaru and Choji laughed in the corner.

"I'm in as well," Naruto said. "I guess that makes it official – it's time for the Grand Leaf Alliance to kick ass!"

Sakura giggled.

"Yeah, we're definitely not calling it that." Why did Sasuke always have to ruin the fun?

-O-

Working with Shikamaru was a novel experience. He was quiet and lazy, and that meant Naruto had forgotten how perceptive he was. "Trample down this bit of brush," he would suggest, and when Naruto challenged him he would lay out how it opened up new sight lines for Sasuke's hiding place, but the flat area couldn't be seen by anyone coming from the cliffs, at least until they were in the ambush zone.

Four pit traps, dozens of hidden wooden stakes, and eight separate kunai traps were laid out. Shikamaru spent half an hour hammering the safe routes into Naruto's head, and describing how enemy ninja would spot the obvious trap and walk straight into a concealed sharpened branch. "Cripple, don't kill," he explained. "An injured comrade is a bargaining chip. A dead comrade will either break the enemy's spirit, or spur them on. We don't want them to run or go berserk, we want them to surrender."

By the evening, Naruto was thoroughly uncomfortable around the quiet Nara. Shikamaru was calculating and vicious. As an ally, he was deadly. As a foe, well– Naruto found Shikamaru terrifying.

"Let's take watch in pairs," Sasuke suggested as the group ate dinner. Choji had impressed them all by pulling out enough ingredients to stock a pantry, and then putting together a three-course meal. "We're in very dangerous territory, and two sets of eyes will give us more safety. There's enough of us that it's not a problem."

Sasuke warned Naruto to keep an eye on his partner during the night. There was still a very small chance that Team Ten would betray them. In the end, though, Naruto and Choji spent a peaceful few hours debating the merits of different restaurants in Konoha.

Dawn brought more birdsong, and Naruto lay and listened to it wrapped in his sleeping bag. Sasuke gently snored on the other side of the tent. Sakura stuck her head through the flap, stress written in the lines of her face. "Get dressed quickly!" she hissed. "There's a team from Mist that's approaching, and we're going to attack them in two minutes."

Naruto stumbled into his clothes, splashed some water on his face and strapped his weapons pouch on. He was out of the tent just in time for Shikamaru to direct him to his hiding place. The order of battle had already been decided, and Naruto knew his role inside-out. He would send waves of clones to harass the foes and lead them into traps, as well as create flanking opportunities for the other Leaf ninja.

He crouched down behind a fallen log. There was a small crack he could peek through, and he watched the Mist team come into view. They were walking, and must have set off recently, perhaps just after dawn.

As the three genin came out of some heavy brush, they found tall trees and little undergrowth, a poor place for an ambush. They would see the same game trail that Team Seven had taken yesterday. It wound between the trunks, heading almost directly for the castle. Naruto held his breath as they stopped and discussed for a few seconds. He let it out again when they walked down the trail.

There was a holly bush nearby, and the Mist team kept a set of watchful eyes on it as they came closer. Naruto had checked if he could hide it in, but there was no space. When they came to the same conclusion, they relaxed a little.

That was when the ground gave way under their feet.

Naruto created a dozen clones as he watched the entire team fall into the pit trap, and then lots of things happened very very fast.

He and his copies raced forward, readying a volley of shuriken. Sasuke burst out of a shallow trench beside the pit, dead leaves and twigs cascading off him. The first Mist ninja climbed out and had to dive straight back in or take a spear to the face. From the cursing inside, someone had landed on a spike.

The tallest Mist ninja vaulted out of the pit next, an open umbrella in each hand. They were ninja tools, easily deflecting the second volley of shuriken. While they were blocking the rain of weapons, they also created a blind spot. Sasuke used that to sneak in close. His first kick came as a complete surprise to the Mist ninja, and Naruto thought he saw some ribs break. The Mist ninja frantically tried to fall back and create some space, but Sasuke drove him into an open area and stole one of his umbrellas.

Naruto and his clones dove onto the two ninja who had finally climbed out of the pit trap. He felt three clones die in quick succession, but in exchange he landed a nasty right hook on the shorter ninja, sending him staggering away. And then the Mist ninja both froze in place, defenceless. Even knowing what to look for, Naruto couldn't make out Shikamaru's technique in the shifting web of shadows cast by the foliage. They were ensnared almost as soon as they left the trap.

The fight was over, and the shadow clones trussed them up and bound them to a pair of sturdy branches. Choji whistled the all-clear from his perch in the tree-tops. No other teams were coming towards the commotion, at least not yet.

Sasuke and the leader were flickers in the distance. After the first brutal exchange, neither of them had got a solid hit in. Sasuke was ducking in and out of range, using the trees as cover against his bigger and stronger opponent. Naruto had to suppress a pang of envy as he saw the fluidity and grace of his teammate.

The Mist ninja launched hundreds of senbon from his umbrella, but Sasuke deflected them with the stolen umbrella he'd held onto. Sasuke replied with a trick that Naruto remembered from the Bell Test – he used a shuriken to trigger a remote trap, launching a spray of kunai at his foe. Sakura and Shikamaru were in position to support him if needed, so Naruto ignored the end of the fight. His clones had brought the prisoners to Ino, who was using a freaky Yamanaka jutsu to steal their thoughts. Naruto kept a lookout for more enemies rather than watch. He saw Sasuke slam the butt of his spear into the man's forehead, dropping him. Sasuke looked disappointed for some reason, but he helped Shikamaru carry the unconscious body with no complaints.

"All done playing around?" Naruto asked when they got close. "Ino's finished scanning the other two – they gave this guy their tokens. Let's grab them off him and get out of here."

Sasuke nodded curtly. Naruto rifled through the ninja's pockets and pulled out a stack of nine tokens. After checking that they weren't fakes, he passed them to Shikamaru.

"Thanks, we really appreciate this," Shikamaru said.

Naruto grinned, feeling a little bashful. "It was nice and easy. Your plan worked really well."

The celebrations lasted another five seconds before Choji's shrill whistling interrupted them. "Shit," Shikamaru said.

Naruto tried to decode the series of short and long blasts. "Incoming enemies, but is it one team or two?"

"It's three teams." Sasuke twirled his spear, grimacing.

"Shit," Naruto said, with feeling.

Sakura and Ino waved from where they'd already started packing up the two camps. "Thirty seconds, then we leave whatever's not stowed away. We have to move!" Ino shouted.

"Stealth isn't a concern any more, is it?" Naruto checked. When Sasuke shook his head, he prepared to cast the Shadow Clone technique. The seal was familiar, but he spent precious seconds building up his chakra. It flowed through him, building and building with no upper limit in sight. His vision swam, the sounds of the forest seemed very far away. Tiny tremors wracked him.

"...Naruto!" echoed faintly. He released the hand seal and the technique, and all the strength fled out of him in a single instant.

Dozens, hundreds of copies flooded the forest, grim and silent. Kunai out, they swarmed towards the castle. "I don't know how much help this will be," Naruto said, panting, "but the clones will clear out any traps or ambushes, at least."

Naruto followed the others as they raced towards the tower in the wake of the orange horde. The clones' footsteps had trampled the undergrowth flat, leaving an easy path to follow.

"How far is it?" Choji gasped. Out of them all, he was having the hardest time running.

Shikamaru was the one to answer, in between short sharp breaths. "Half an hour, if we can keep this pace. Forty minutes in practice. Longer if we have to fight."

"I think we're outrunning them," Sakura said.

Naruto felt the first of his clones die. "Kunai traps up ahead," he bit out, and saw the concerned looks that Sasuke and Shikamaru swapped. Traps meant enemies, which meant…

"Combat formation. Sasuke leads, followed by me and Choji. Sakura and Ino next as support, and Naruto acts as a rearguard. Naruto, keep us informed if your clones spot anything. If we find a fight – I will work with Sakura to pin the foe, Sasuke and Choji will hammer them. Naruto, Ino, you're ranged support and keep an eye out for flanking forces." Shikamaru sounded calm and collected as he slowed the pace. Naruto approved; this way the Grand Leaf Alliance wouldn't be out of breath when the inevitable fight happened.

Two more clones fell to kunai traps, and then Naruto was almost knocked off-balance by a rumbling boom and a rush of memories. An exploding tag had taken out a dozen clones at once.

Naruto winced as another clone died. "Fire jutsu user!" he shouted, and then the staccato of bursting clones was too rapid to process any details. Naruto could make out a huge commotion up ahead, and his shadow clones were taking a beating. A Leaf team and a Rain team were fighting each other, with the clones caught in the crossfire. Two Leaf ninja were throwing small fireballs around, while the third used volleys of shuriken to keep the Rain ninja at a distance. The Rain ninja took their frustration out on any shadow clone in reach, and one of them was working some sort of complicated air technique.

When Team Seven and Team Ten showed up, things didn't calm down.

"Focus the short one," the shuriken-Leaf-ninja, a lanky guy with a squashed nose, shouted to his companions. Shikamaru dove out of the way of the first fireball, crouching behind a tree. The second gout of flame splashed harmlessly against the trunk, but Shikamaru was pinned for the moment.

Sasuke pointed at the enemy Leaf team. "Naruto, take Choji and Sakura and deal with them. Ino, Shikamaru, long-range support. I'll engage the Rain team."

Naruto stared at him for a long second. Sasuke's lips were drawn back in a snarl, and his eyes sparkled with bloodlust. "Three against one is poor odds. Are you sure?" Naruto wondered for a moment whether he would have to protect Sasuke from himself.

"Relax, Naruto. I'm just going to stall them while you clear a path. We don't need to win, just move past."

And that was all the discussion there was time for. Choji was moving for the squashy-nosed Leaf ninja. One of the fire users, a boy with a braid down one shoulder, stepped into the way and Sakura darted towards him. Naruto made another four clones and charged with them for the last enemy Leaf ninja. With his clones throwing kunai, the guy was too busy defending to torch Naruto. Soon they were hammering on each other in close range.

Naruto knew that his team was one of the youngest in the Chunin Exams, but this was a bit ridiculous. His opponent had a beard, as well as a foot of extra height. The difference in reach was balanced by Naruto's clones throwing weapons and abuse from the sidelines, but the taijutsu fight was still not going great. Naruto spun away from an axe kick and blocked two heavy punches that would have broken half the bones in his face. His reply, a hook to the kidneys, was sidestepped.

Another shuriken whistled past and his foe flinched back, barely avoiding losing an eye. Naruto took advantage of the opening to stomp on a foot. It was a cheap trick and wouldn't cause much damage, but it was looking like Naruto would need to win a drawn-out slugging match. Beardy hadn't moved much since Naruto came in close, and it didn't look like Naruto could force him away.

"Go on boss, show him!" one of his clones cheered in between throws. Naruto wished they would shut up and let him focus.

And then the ninja leapt back, dropping his weapons and raising his hands. "It's me, Ino," he shouted. "I'm possessing him!"

"Tell me something only Ino would know," Naruto demanded, guard still up. His clones stopped their bombardment.

The bearded man shrugged. "You ate almost as much as Choji for dinner yesterday."

"Fair enough. What's the plan now?"

"Now," the man grinned, "we cause havoc."

Naruto watched Ino pilot her target away, feeling decidedly mixed. "Let's follow her," he told his clones.

Sakura stood over one of the enemy ninja. He was lying face down in the dirt, bleeding from a stab wound in his shoulder. "I put a knife to his throat. After he surrendered, he tried to set Shikamaru on fire. He'll be fine once he's been treated," Sakura said dismissively. She set to work tying the genin up.

Choji dodged another fireball as Naruto watched. Shikamaru was busy helping Sasuke stay a step ahead of the angry Rain ninja. The occasional shower of long-range kunai bought Sasuke just a little breathing room, and then Shikamaru would have to hide again to avoid getting skewered by the response.

Choji's foe was the last enemy Leaf ninja to handle. Unless the man with the braid knew Ino was a Yamanaka, and all that that implied, he would trust his team-mate. They could use that.

"Ino, you get in close to Choji's foe and take him down. I'll help Sasuke disengage and we'll get moving before anyone else finds us," Naruto ordered. "I'll send my clones towards the tower again."

The bearded man nodded and ran towards Choji's fight. Naruto watched his shadow clones set off, then tried to figure out where Sasuke was. There were only forty clones left, but they would still be enough to scout out the best route through the forest, and clear any traps they came across.

A muffled explosion behind a screen of bushes, followed by a ragged scream, had Naruto hurling himself forwards, heedless of the branches that whipped at his face and legs. He skidded to a stop as he saw Sasuke facing down the last Rain ninja. A half-dozen trees had been smashed down as though by the hand of a giant, and huge scars rent the earth. Sasuke was panting but he wore a triumphant grin. Two of the Rain ninja were crumpled to the ground, one of them bleeding hard.

"You have one chance to walk away," Sasuke taunted. The Rain ninja spat out a horizontal wave of compressed air, but Sasuke was moving almost before the technique finished. It went wide, tearing down another tree. He hurled the same technique back. The Rain ninja tried to leap out of the way of the wave of air, but Sasuke had oriented it almost vertically. The bottom edge dragged through the dirt, throwing up a huge plume of dust, and the top corner smashed into his legs. Naruto heard bones break. The ninja fell to the dirt and didn't get up again.

"Naruto, what are you doing here?" Sasuke asked, spotting him for the first time. Naruto realised he was holding a kunai, and put it away.

"We're finished, I think. We need to get moving again before we run into another fight." He didn't ask about what had happened in the clearing, or where that air technique had come from. Either Sasuke would tell him in his own time, or he wouldn't.

Sakura had a nasty scrape on her arm and Choji was limping from a cut to his calf, but other than that they'd managed to avoid serious injury. They kept up a good pace, following the trail that Naruto's clones had made. After another fifteen minutes Naruto felt the first of the shadow clones disappear as its chakra ran out. The rest followed shortly after. The forest started to thin out, and at last the genin burst out of the treeline. A few hundred yards separated them from the castle, and just beyond it, the ground gave way again. A green leafy sea stretched all the way to the horizon.

"What a sight," Naruto said.

Sakura stopped and stared. "I guess walking amongst the trees all the time, you don't get to see the beauty of the forest from above."

"Whatever," Shikamaru muttered. "Let's go to the castle and get this poxy exam over with."

-O-

The gatehouse of the castle was empty except for a single chunin examiner smoking a pipe. "You need three tokens per person or none of you can come in," she drawled as she saw the two teams together.

"We have eighteen tokens total," Sasuke said. She shrugged and took another drag of her pipe.

"Bring them over. There's two teams already through, so if these are all real then you'd be the last lot." She gestured to a table with a pair of seals engraved on it. Sasuke and Choji collected the tokens from the teams and brought them over. The chunin tapped each one against both seals, listening for something.

"Why do you fight people hand-to-hand?" Shikamaru asked Naruto. "Wouldn't it make more sense to just send in a clone?"

Naruto smiled. "I used to do that, but there's two problems. The clones can't block hits, they die whether they're hit on the arm or the head. So I would lose a lot of them very quickly. And if I want to organise them properly it takes a few minutes of talking to them. Otherwise they just pile in with no tactics, which doesn't work so great. Kakashi says that will improve as I get more used to the technique, though."

Shikamaru seemed satisfied with the answer. Naruto's clones could deliver hits without breaking, so Shikamaru must know there was more to the technique, but he didn't pry. During the lull in the conversation that followed, Naruto heard Ino and Sakura chatting a few paces behind him.

"So Ino, I've got to ask, what does it feel like to possess a guy?" Sakura whispered.

"Okay, that all seems to be in order. Come on through," the proctor said. The two teams followed him into an almost-empty hall with a plain stage at the other end. Naruto frowned at the two teams waiting for them. One was a Leaf team with a tall Hyuga, a boy with the world's worst bowl cut, and a cute girl with her hair up in buns.

The other was the Sand team that had almost killed Team Eight. And the crazy redhead was staring straight at them, murder in his eyes.

"That should be everyone," the proctor called. Anko, the jounin supervising the stage, dropped down from the ceiling into the middle of the two teams already set up in the hall. Naruto flinched, but it was the redhead that drew his attention. The boy hadn't moved, but tiny grains of sand had appeared out of nowhere and lashed out at Anko. She slipped to the side, and the sand curled back towards him.

"No fighting until my say-so," she said in a sing-song voice, wagging her finger at him. The raw hatred in his eyes was visible from all the way across the room. "Now, you might be wondering what new horrors the Chunin Exams involve. Perhaps you want to know whether dear old Anko has finally got permission to beat you all senseless, coat you in fresh honey and throw you to the snakes. Well, bad news – you're done with the second stage, which means you're out of my hands. Probably for the best. I'm disappointed with you for not making the forest bloodier."

"That's enough," came a stern voice from the rear of the room. Naruto spun around, shocked, and saw Hiruzen Sarutobi, Sandaime Hokage, stroll in. "Thank you for your services, Anko." It was a clear dismissal, and she bowed and left.

A murmur went through the gathering. It was rare to see the Hokage in person; whatever came next would be rough.

"All of you are here," he began, voice deep and clear, carrying effortlessly to every corner, "because you have proven yourselves to be strong, smart and skilled. Before I talk about what happens next, I want to give you a history lesson."

Naruto scowled, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He wanted to know what the next part of the test would be. History lessons belonged in the Academy.

"To look at the history of the Chunin Exams, we have to look at the past of the Chunin system as a whole. Where does the rank of Chunin come from?" The Hokage paced at the edge of the stage, his hands folded behind his back. "Long ago, well before the first ninja village was founded, there existed a clan system. There was the clan head, or sometimes a small council instead, who ruled. There were followers. But the larger a clan grows, the harder it becomes to manage.

"If you have five ninja under your command, you will know them all well. You know their strengths and weaknesses, their skills and their specialities. If you have twenty ninja under your command, you might know their broad skillsets and have a rough hierarchy. Once you have a hundred ninja, things become unmanageable."

Naruto stifled a yawn. The Hokage was clearly going to be talking for a while. He wondered if there was a polite way to sit down, then realised there probably wasn't.

"And once you have a hundred ninja, you cannot train them all personally. And so you can split your force into teachers and students. Thus, we have Jounin on the one hand and Genin on the other. And this isn't just a meaningless title or a new way to organise a clan. When hostage exchanges happened, a genin was seen as much less valuable than a jounin. Across clans, this system spread." The Hokage gestured wide, wide sleeves trailing. "In a sense, it was the first piece of ninja culture."

Naruto dug a snack bar out of his pocket and started munching on it. The crinkle-free packaging, meant to be silent in the field, was proving to be invaluable.

"But some ninja never became teachers for reasons that had nothing to do with skill. Eventually, a new rank spread from clan to clan. Chunin. The rank was given to any ninja who had killed another ninja. Naturally, this is now considered outdated, but the core concept of chunin as those who have fought – and won – against enemy ninja still remains. You are all here because you have passed the first two rounds of the Chunin Exams. You have thought in the first exam and fought in the second. You are all now granted the rank of chunin."

Naruto dropped his snack.

"Congratulations." The Hokage disappeared off the stage, and a new ninja leapt into view.

"Hello, and well done." The jounin cleared his throat. "My name is Hayate Gekko. I am the organiser for the Chunin Tournament. It's traditional for the Chunin Exams to conclude with a public show of strength between the new chunin. We only need eight people for it. If there are more volunteers than places, we'll have some preliminary rounds."

A murmur raced around the room, brief snatches of question asked and cut off.

"Is that it?"

"Did we pass?"

"-surely there's more-"

"-looks like we did it!"

Sakura giggled to herself, eyes darting around the room. Sasuke was frozen in shock. And Naruto opened his mouth, pointed a finger at the examiner, and shouted "What is this bullsh-"

Kakashi removed his hand from Naruto's mouth. He'd come out of nowhere, faster than Naruto could follow, and now he was shaking his head. "Can you at least pretend to be respectful?"

"Are we really Chunin now?" Sasuke asked, looking like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Kakashi nodded. "Congratulations. Now you have to decide whether to take part in the tournament."

"What do you think we should do?" Sakura asked.

"That's for you to decide. I will, however, mention this much. The Fourth Hokage won the Chunin Exams tournament when he was twelve years old. Itachi won it at eleven. And I won it at nine."

That's for you to decide. Naruto was smart enough to realise that Kakashi's little speech had already made the decision for all of them. "We volunteer!" he shouted at the examiner, who nodded and made a mark on his clipboard.

The other new Chunin, all of whom were also talking to their instructors, looked up. There were twelve candidates in the room in total, and two other teams immediately joined Team Seven in volunteering.

Hayate called them onto the stage - Team Seven, the Hyuga team, and the squad from Suna. "Anyone else?" he asked.

Shikamaru shook his head. "I'm sitting this one out. I only took part to get the promotion; I don't care about beating anyone up for fame or money."

"We volunteer," Ino said, dragging Choji with her. He looked a little unsure, glancing back at Shikamaru, but then he steeled himself and marched onto the stage too.

"Alright, that's eleven people. We only need eight, so let's do some preliminaries. Does anyone have any dice?" A tall man in green spandex thrust his hand in the air. Naruto had sometimes seen him hanging out with Kakashi. "Of course you would. Bring them over here, Guy. I'll line the chunin up and roll to see who's competing against who."

Naruto felt thrilled at being casually called a chunin.

"I have a selection of dice right here! May I suggest we begin with this twelve-sided one to pick the first candidates? I will re-roll any twelves, and any duplicates, until there is a fair selection of fighters! And if I cannot do that, I will run a hundred–" Guy was cut off as Hayate rolled twice, then pointed at Naruto and the scowling Hyuga boy.

"You and you. You'll be in the first preliminary round."