Kabuto is staking out every other contestant when the doors open and a new team comes barging in. They are Kakashi Hatake's team of fresh graduates. Kabuto watches them carefully to see how they respond to the intimidating glares the older, more experienced teams are giving them. Seasoned chunin exam takers can smell noobs a mile away.
For a few tense seconds, the three noobs and the rest of the room stare each other down. The one with the blue hair blushes and retreats behind her teammates. The one with the pink hair sticks his chin out and glares fiercely.
Then the blonde one takes a deep breath and shouts, "What are you freaks staring at?"
The glares in the room intensify.
"My name is Naruto Uzumaki!" yells Naruto. "Remember it!"
The pink haired boy face palms and the blue haired girl moves to one side so that she is closer to the pink haired boy as if to say 'I am ashamed to be on the same team as this person'.
"NARUTO!" a girl with short, black hair and white eyes glomps Naruto from behind. "You came!" Kabuto thinks carefully. If he remembers correctly, this girl is Hinata Hyuuga from Team Eight, Kurenai Yuhi's team.
A boy in sunglasses and a hood joins them and smiles at the blue haired girl. "I am glad you made it, Sasuke," the boy says. The boy is Shino Aburame, from the same team as Hinata. Kabuto struggles to remember who the blue haired girl is. Shino called her 'Sasuke'...Oh yes, Sasuke Uchiha from Kakashi Hatake's Team Seven.
"Hey, Pinky," says a boy with a dog on his head, slouching up to Team Seven. "Are you planning on burning people's eyes out of their sockets with excessive girliness?"
"Oi, lay off Madoka!" growls Naruto.
"You wanna fight me, big shot?" growls the dog-boy. He is Kiba Inuzuka of Team Eight, Kabuto recalls.
"I'll kick your ass before we even get to the finals," grins Naruto, and Kabuto knows in that moment that Naruto could kick the ass of anyone in the room. These exams are going to be interesting.
"As if!" says a girl with red hair and glasses, draping her arm around the pink haired boy's shoulders. "If anyone kicks his ass for making fun of MY Madoka, it'll be me!" Kabuto has a good think. Pink's name is Madoka Haruno, the medic from Team Seven. The redhead is Karin, no known last name, a member of Team Five, lead by Shisui Uchiha.
"Hey, you're welcome to defend Madoka's honour, Karin," says Naruto. "I wanna kick Kiba's ass because he annoys me, dattebayo."
"That's alright then," nods Karin.
"Does Kiba annoy you because he has more balls than you?" asks a pale boy, smiling sweetly at Naruto.
"SAI!" snaps the white haired boy standing beside him. Those two are Sai and Shin, ex members of Danzo's Root training program, Kabuto recalls.
"OI!" Hinata wacks Sai upside the back of the head. "You can't say things like that unless you've actually seen the proof! Thanks to my byakugan I know for a fact Kiba's got nothing on Naruto."
Both Naruto and Kiba go very red.
"Hinata, this is not the time or place," says Shino. "Why? Because…"
"I see you are as savage as ever, Hinata," says a boy with a spiky ponytail, walking up to the growing gathering accompanied by a fat boy with a bag of potato chips in his hands.
"So you losers are here too, huh?" says Naruto.
"Yeah, it's a drag, but I don't wanna be outdone by a no-hoper like you," says the ponytail boy. He is Shikamaru Nara of Asuma Sarutobi's Team Ten.
"Aw, come on, you guys," says the fat boy, shoving a handful of ships in his mouth. "Don't be like this again!" He is Choji Akimichi of Team Ten, Kabuto recalls.
"Aw, leave them to it, Choji," says a girl with long blond hair, joining the steadily growing group of noobs. "Nice hairdo, Sasuke!" she gives the Uchiha a double thumbs up. This girl is Ino Yamanaka, the third member of Team Ten, Kabuto remembers.
Sasuke blushes and hides behind Shino.
Kabuto decides that he should do something before the noobs from other villages turn on the Leaf noobs and get everyone disqualified. That actually happened one year. All the noobs started fighting and the old hats tried to stop them. When the proctors arrived, they simply disqualified everyone. Kabuto walks up to the noobs and says, "You lot better pipe down."
"Huh? Who are you?" asks Naruto.
"My name is Kabuto Yakushi," Kabuto introduces himself. "You kids have caused quite a stir, and not in a good way."
The noobs turn their heads to look at the rest of the room and immediately seem embarrassed at causing such a large amount of people to send them death glares. The mood in the room mellows out somewhat.
"Watch out for that team over there," says Kabuto, gesturing to the most dangerous-looking Rain team. "That team is from the Hidden Rain, and they have short fuses. We wouldn't want someone to snap and beat you up, would we?"
"I guess not," says Madoka, with a nervous laugh.
"It's probably unavoidable, though," says Kabuto. "Like most rookies, you'll be easy pickings for the rest of us."
"Is this your second time doing these exams?" asks Madoka.
"Not second, seventh," says Kabuto.
"Don't worry," says Naruto, patting Kabuto's arm. "You'll make chunin eventually, dattebayo."
Kabuto is surprised by this. He smiles and pulls out a handful of his Ninja Info Cards. "Well, since you're fellow Leaf ninjas, I suppose I could give you kids some helpful advice," he says, showing them the cards. "With my Ninja Info Cards."
"Really?" says Naruto, his eyes shining. "You're the best!"
"What the heck are Ninja Info Cards?" asks Madoka.
"Well," explains Kabuto, placing a card face-down on the floor. "They are chakra encoded cards containing information about specific ninjas. This set is all the information I have about this year's applicants. It took me four years to collect all this information."
"Is that because some of the people here were here previous years, so you had to add to your collection every year?" asks Naruto.
"That's pretty much it, yes," says Kabuto, surprised at Naruto's insight. "I have almost 200 cards." He turns over the card and starts channeling his chakra into it. "They look blank until I channel my chakra into it to show the information stored on it."
"That's a type of fuuinjutsu, isn't it?" asks Karin. "That's pretty cool."
"This card shows the geographical distribution of the contestants," says Kabuto. "This year we have 10 teams from the Sand, 7 teams from the Rain, 2 teams from the Waterfall, 29 from the Leaf, 2 from the Grass, one from the Sound and four from the Cloud."
"Do you have cards on individuals?" asks Shino, apparently passing on a message from Sasuke.
"Of course," says Kabuto. "There would not be nearly so many if I did not. Who do you want information on?"
Sasuke whispers something in Shino's ear and Shino says, "Gaara from the Hidden Sand and Rock Lee from the Hidden Leaf."
"Oh, you have their names," says Kabuto, pulling out the appropriate cards. "That's almost too easy." Kabuto turns over the two cards. "First up we have Rock Lee of the Hidden Leaf. He is a year older than the three of you and graduated from the Academy last year. His team leader is Might Gai. His talent lies in his extensive taijutsu knowledge. He was a star graduate last year, graduating with a specialist pass in taijutsu. He has completed 20 D-ranked mission and 11 C-Ranked. However, he and his teammates Neji Hyuuga and Tenten did not take the chunin exams last year. That's about everything worth mentioning." Kabuto turns to the other card. "Next up is Gaara of the Sand, a ninja of the Hidden Sand in the Land of Wind. Since he is from the Hidden Sand, I do not have much on him, but he has come back from every mission unschathed. He has completed 8 C-Ranked missions and one B-Ranked mission. It seems that his teammates, Temari and Kankuro are his siblings, and that they are the Fourth Kazekage's children." Kabuto decides to take these kids down a peg or two for their own good. "These two are fine examples of the kind of competition you can expect, and they are just first-timers. Every village sends its best teams to these exams. The general rule is: the less teams, the higher the skill-level of those teams."
"So then the Sound team must be really strong?" asks Hinata.
"On the contrary," says Kabuto. "They are a tiny, very new village. It is highly likely the team they sent was the only team they had." Kabuto waits.
"Oh, our country is nothing and we are nobody," says one of the Sound genin, stalking over to them. "Is that it?" All three move to attack Kabuto.
Dodge, dodge, turn and kick in the face.
"Don't you noobs dare cross me AGAIN," says Kabuto coldly, pressing his foot into Dosu Kinuta's back.
"Oi, get off him!" protests Kin Tsuchi.
Kabuto gives her a look.
Both the Sound genins back off. Kabuto lets Dosu get up off the floor. "Have we learned our lesson?" asks Kabuto, a little too sweetly.
The three genin glare at him and slink back to their seats in shame.
With a poof the proctors arrive. If Kabuto's memory serves him well, the one in the front is Ibiki Morino, the head of Konoha's T and I department. Confirming Kabuto's intelligence, the lead proctor says, "Sorry to keep you waiting. I am Ibiki Morino. I will be your proctor for the first stage of this exam."