Oh great, a F***** maths test: Part 2

The exam hall was in a very well hidden chaos.

That Sasuke could see: there was razor wire spiderwebbing at least a third of the room, one of the proctors was definitely a puppet, Shino's bugs were competing with sand grains for airspace, and there was far too much condensation on the roof for a mist ninja not to be doing something. Time for him to contribute. The pencil in his breast pocket vibrated (there was only so much someone disguised as a static object could do) and Sasuke very deliberately wrinkled his nose. After a moment he leaned back, creasing his eyes up, and let out an almighty sneeze. A few of the proctors looked suspiciously at him, and he smiled at them apologetically. Nobody noticed that his pencil had vanished.


"Okay, here come the memories." Said Sasuke-clone, scribbling on a piece of paper as fast as he could. "One, kunai arc physics, two..." he devolved into muttering.

"Don't you have perfect memory?" Naruto-clone asked.

"When the Sharingan is on, sure." Sasuke mumbled. "Less so when it's memories I got from a pencil...there."

He activated his Sharingan and scanned the paper. "Okay, that's everything we need to know. Now we just need to worry about knowing it."

He folded up the paper and put it in his pocket, looking up. The two were outside what was affectionately called the 'lesser library of Konoha' after the 'great library of Konoha' had been destroyed in the kyuubi attack. Sasuke had reasoned that it should contain all the knowledge required for the exam; if not in their normal stock, then because the proctors had probably put it there in case the graduates were enterprising enough to escape the exam hall.

"Alright, we've got a bunch of maths questions, obscure history, chakra theory and (for some reason) the forging process of a kunai. Once we learn the facts and equations we can just dispel ourselves and our real minds should learn the information."

"What about Hinata?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke smiled. "Leave that to me. Actually, my plan should work on you as well, when you inevitably forget what we've learned."

"Ehehe..."

"C'mon. We have thirty five minutes before question ten drops."

They were able to get into the library, through a combination of Sasuke's 'big ancient clan' threatening and Naruto's 'the kyuubi's far less likely to destroy this place if I'm using it' rationalisation.

A sufficiently terrified librarian told them that books on those subjects had recently been delivered ("I told you so!") and they were quickly directed to the appropriate location.

After a combination of ten Naruto clones, Sharingan perfect recall, and far more noise than was polite in a library, they were most of the way done inside of ten minutes.

That was when lookout-Naruto tapped Sasuke on the shoulder.

"So the theory that Hashirama passed over Madara for Tobirama due to an illicit sibling relationship was actually proposed by one Mr Jinato-what?" Sasuke looked up.

"We, uh..." the blond genin pointed towards the library entrance. "We may have a problem."


Itachi Uchiha walked into the lesser Konoha library and smiled at the shaken looking librarian. "Good morning." He began. "I'm looking for a few specific titles on the warring states period, I was wondering if you could help me."

"Oh, Uchiha-sama!" Exclaimed the woman, upon noticing. "Yes, of course I can help. Is this related to your brother's research?"

"My brother's?" Itachi asked, feigning surprise.

"Yes, he and the, um, Uzumaki child came in just a few minutes ago." She quite blatantly swallowed the word 'fox' and pointed to a stack of shelves halfway down the corridor.

"I see. Excuse me for a moment." Itachi nodded politely to her, and quickly but calmly walked down to the correct isle. A good six heads of hair, one black, most blond, turned to face him.

"Oh, hey big brother." Sasuke waved absently, then went back to his book. "What're you here for?"

"Doing some research." Itachi replied. "What about you?"

"Doing some research." Sasuke smiled.

"That's not much like you." Itachi responded, leaning on one bookcase. "And definitely not like Naruto here."

"We're looking for some information on who his parents were." Sasuke explained. "You wouldn't happen to know who 'Jinato Kusumaki' was, would you?"

"One of Jiraiya's older pen names, unless I'm mistaken." Itachi replied. "And that lie was almost good enough for me to miss it."

Sasuke, to his credit, only tilted his head in confusion.

All six of the Narutos, however, did some combination of gulping and shifting on their feet.

"Not to mention the fact that you're both supposed to be in a written exam at the moment."

"Fuck." Sasuke growled.

"Quite." Itachi drawled.

"So what now?"

"Well," Itachi pretended to think about it. "I'm technically not a part of the examination system," Sasuke's face rose, "But I am a jonin of the leaf, so I'm somewhat expected to stop these things. And if you couldn't even manage to infiltrate a friendly building without being caught, that's not exactly chunin behaviour."

"Oh come on!" Sasuke complained.

"Well, looks like you got us." One of the Narutos said, sighing dramatically. "I guess we'll just dispel ourselves and you can-"

"I know how shadow clones work, Naruto."

"-Crap."

"So what are you going to do?" Sasuke asked, defiantly. "You can't stop us without dispelling us. And even if you go to the exam hall and tell them to drop two points from us, we'll still be in the positive."

"Oh, but you're wrong on the first point, Sasuke." Itachi wiggled a finger. "I know plenty of techniques that let me seal away shadow clones without dispelling them. Even one that summons the grim reaper, if you're interested." He cracked his fingers.

"Do you think I can get all seven of you before one of you dispels yourselves? Or, I suppose, I'll only have to really bother with Sasuke, as he's the one with the perfect memory."

Sasuke seemed to deflate. "Alright, great, we're doing this...can I ask one last thing before you do god-knows-what to us?"

"Go on." Itachi allowed.

"Apologise to the librarian for us, okay?"

Itachi had a feeling he would someday regret the invincible reputation he'd built up in front of his little brother, as the kunai that came flying towards him would have definitely murdered a regular civilian. It wasn't a great throw; (leading him to believe it was Naruto who had made it) two kunai attached clumsily by razor wire coming in behind him with the intent to wrap around his torso. He could catch them, of course he could, but they didn't mean to hit him, they just wanted to keep his hands busy. The remaining clones had decided that the fastest way to dispel each other was to stab each other to death. Creative. Watching as if in slow motion (which he pretty much was. Ninja are fast) he used one hand to grab one of the kunai flying towards him, ducking the wire so the second kunai went flying over his head, then used his other hand to individually pull the knives from the suicidal clones hands. He then snapped the wire between his fingers, throwing one knife to hit the Naruto who was in the adjacent aisle (he had probably substituted with the books, clever) and letting the kunai on the other end of the wire fly, butt first, towards the furthest away Naruto in the group of seven, who was running through a familiar set of hands seals and-oh, transformation technique, very clever. The great fireball blew from Naruto (Actually Sasuke)'s lips. Every other shadow clone there jumped backwards into the flames as Itachi, conceding defeat, stopped his suicide-prevention and started weaving a much rarer set of seals. Even as the fire flew out into the aisle, it was sucked into a rotating sphere above Itachi's hand. This was not before the set of clones jumped through the flames, however, cooking themselves into puffs of smoke.

After another second, there was quiet.

"That was very well done." Itachi said aloud. "They must have had, what, three or four seconds to prepare?"

He turned around. The librarian was staring at him with a slightly horrified look on her face.

"Not to mention Sasuke casting the great fireball jutsu with, what, a clone that had a quarter of his chakra? Less?" Itachi continued gushing. "I've got to ask him about this when we have dinner tonight."

The librarian pointed mutely at his hand, and the flaming sphere of death floating above it.

"Oh, right. I should probably take this somewhere it can explode harmlessly. Sasuke says sorry."

He breezed past the woman out into the hallway.


An owl flapped down from the corner of the room and landed on Hinata's desk. It prodded one of the options of a multi choice on her paper, then fluttered back up to a nook near the ceiling.

"That isn't mine." Hinata said, deadpan, circling the option it had indicated.

One of the proctors rolled his eyes, but didn't call her on it.

Naruto and Sasuke, who had been dozing throughout the last twenty minutes, both suddenly jerked upright in their seats, exchanged glances, and started writing. Sasuke looked across to her, and their eyes met for a few seconds, before he went back to his test. Hinata shrugged, glad her teammates had finally come up with something, and turned back to her own paper. That was when she heard the voice.

"Hinata it's me don't react don't dispel the genjutsu!"

She froze in place. Sasuke was still sat working diligently, but his voice was appearing in her head.

"I've placed you under an auditory genjutsu." His voice explained. "Me and Naruto worked out the answers to just about all the questions. Did you get any yourself?"

Hinata tapped three times on the desk. Paused. Tapped seven times. Paused. Tapped six.

"You got questions three six and seven?"

She nodded minutely.

"Wow, okay. Well, here's what we got for most of the others..."

Team seven filled in their answers in silence as the minutes ticked by.

"Alright then." Spoke up Ibiki, right as the clock hit ten to. "It is now time to reveal the final question."

The espionage warfare across the room all stopped.

"Now, before I do so, I am going to offer everyone in this room a chance to forfeit. Doing so will still knock out your entire team, of course."

"What?"

"Why would we do that?"

Ibiki grinned at them. "Because once I give you this final question, failing to answer it correctly will mean instant failure. Your teammates will drop out too, of course, but more than that; you will be banned from ever taking the Chunin exams again."

The room exploded into outrage.

Hinata's knuckles went white on her table.

"Make your choice." Ibiki continued. "If you drop out now you'll be free to retake the exam in six months. Maybe then you'll face a nicer examiner. But if you're going to take the last question...be ready to put your future as a ninja on the line."

The whole class felt the wave of killing intent he projected.

There were a few moments of pressure.

"I'm out." Said one of the genin Hinata was almost sure was a plant.

Him and his sullen teammates walked dejectedly out the room. That opened the floodgates. One, then two, then three more teams dropped out, walking out the class with their heads held low.

Hinata barely noticed them, she was a bit busy having an internal crisis. Naruto was going to stay put. She could see it. There was no doubt in his eyes, there never was, and she admired him so much for it but it was going to ruin him. Sasuke had filled her in on their plan via genjutsu message, (though was now strangely silent) they didn't have any more shadow clones on the outside. There was no way this new question could be answered by what they'd already learned, it would probably be some extra hard problem solving or, even worse, some philosophical question about what it meant to be a ninja. Will of fire or no, Naruto did not have the mindset to pass that sort of question. Sasuke wouldn't give up either, he had a clan behind him, an expectation to meet, his older brother was Itachi freaking Uchiha, biggest prodigy in his generation. It was...up to her...

Could she do it? Drop out? She didn't have a clan's expectations. Her clan was dead. Ranks and titles meant nothing to her, so why did she want to become a Chunin? To test herself against strong opponents, for one, but mostly to access higher difficulty missions. To get stronger. But was six months of B-ranks much more useful than six months of knuckles-down training?

Would taking the question even matter, if one of her teammates got her disqualified?

No, she could drop out. The question was whether she should. Naruto would be upset but he would forgive her; she hated manipulating him but he would. And if he was banned from ever becoming Chunin...she knew it would crush him. Better a temporary pain and some patience than permanent consequence. Shaking, one of her hands began to raise.

That was when Naruto jumped on top of his fucking table.

"You must be outta your Goddamn mind!" He declared, sweeping his arm across the room to encompass all the proctors. "If you think, that anyone in this room is going to give up because of a stupid threat like that!"

The class' eyes were on him now. Hinata's mouth fell open in shock.

"We're ninja!" Naruto continued. "We were prepared to face death in this exam. You think we're going to run away with our tails between our legs because of a ban from promotion?"

"Not to mention the political ramifications." Sasuke spoke up. "You think the other hidden villages are going to meekly accept when you tell them their genin can never be promoted? The Kazekage's children are in this room. Good luck with that."

"Interesting theory." Ibiki smiled down at Sasuke, looking for all the world like he was watching the boy dig his own grave. "You willing to bet your future on it?"

"And even if you do stop me from being promoted." Naruto continued. "Who cares? I'll keep getting stronger. I'll become so strong the idea of me being a genin is a joke. And then," He pointed his finger at Ibiki. "When I'm the first genin to become Hokage, I'm gonna fire you for being such a crappy exam proctor!"

"He means we're staying." Added Hinata, her hands now very deliberately laid on her desk. "Do your worst, Proctor-sama."

"Well, one team has more balls than sense." Ibiki chuckled, looking across the room. "Anyone else want to leave while they have the chance?"

Nobody else did. Naruto's talk no jutsu had gotten through to them, it seemed, and they were all resolutely sat at their desks, eyes determined.

"Very well." Ibiki shrugged. "I suppose now's the time to say that everybody still in this hall...

...Passes!"


"...What?"

"So what's the final question?"

"The final question." Ibiki explained. "Was seeing whether or not you were willing to risk continuing in the face of serious consequence. To many of you, death is an ethereal thing, not much of a motivating factor sat in an air conditioned exam room. Expulsion is a much more tangible threat. If you're willing to put your careers on the line to do your duty, you're ready to be chunin. Alternate passing methods include calling our bluff like the Uchiha did, infiltrating my office to find the plans for the exam conveniently sat on my desk, or throwing a tantrum and successfully defeating me and all the other proctors."

"Sick of all this ninja fake out bullshit." Sasuke mumbled to himself.

"So, to all you who have succeeded." Ibiki continued. "You get to progress to the second round of the exams, which entails-"

At which point the window was smashed in.

A head of purple hair and an uncomfortably tight mesh suit jumped through the aperture, landing in front of the class in a dramatic pose.

"My sincerest apologies, kiddies." The woman said. "Because passing has just caused you a hell of a lot more problems." She looked up with a wide, vaguely sadistic grin. "My name is Mitarashi Anko, proctor of the second stage. And if you thought Ibiki was sadistic...

You ain't seen nothing yet."


I do love doing character development, it makes me feel like an actual author and not some idiot posting fanfiction onto the internet...

And more Itachi! Itachi is still best big brother, though I'm probably preaching to the choir here. Obviously the next chapter, we head into the forest of death.

And you all know what happens in the forest of death.