The rest of the week went by in roughly the same manner; countless training sessions that ran long into the night, hours after even their sensei had said they should call it off, and lazing around the village in spots far enough away from the crowds that they never worried about anyone intruding on their time.

Well, no one except the occasional Konoha genin who knew about all the good training spots, anyway. They saw Neji, Tenten, and Rock Lee plenty over the week that led up to the Chuunin exams, and even took to joint training sessions on occasion; and by that, they were almost always training together most of the time.

As much as it felt like a competition, they were still more or less on the same side. The tension was palpable enough, and it was clear that Neji was more than eager to cement the fact that they were not teammates in the sense that the three-person squads were a team. Training together just proved beneficial in the long run; Naomi was half-convinced that her presence alone sparked his already icy demeanor to be colder than it usually was.

There had been plenty of times where she had almost said that thought aloud, but it wouldn't have felt right; the Uchiha weren't much better in their own sense of aloofness in an attempt to keep anyone at arm's distance. She couldn't talk, not when she was the way she was, with all her sarcasm and anger to hide behind.

So, any time they saw each other, she opted not to say anything. But the fact that they were almost always paired together during most training sessions did not help matters all too much. The tense silences that they often shared held something that spanned back long before they were born and for reasons that were long lost to time; she hardly cared about status, really, but he seemed to; enough to throw her a glare on occasion (or what she thought was a glare, Neji was difficult to read and didn't really give much in the way of facial expression; he reminded her of Sasuke that way but she figured neither of them would appreciate her saying that).

The day before the start of the exams felt different, somehow. The village buzzed with an anticipation that bordered on anxiety, which in itself was not a feeling Naomi was unfamiliar with. She laid in bed for most of the morning, breathing in the silence in the hours after Sasuke left. The stillness that settled in his wake was almost enough to convince her that time was not real, that it was not moving around her like water around rocks in a river.

But she had to get up eventually.

It would be well after 2 pm that she met up with Hiruko and Atsuko at their usual haunt; the roof of a restaurant, though none of them ate.

They really should've been eating. But the exams that loomed over their heads like the afternoon sun was more than enough to eat away at whatever appetite they might have had. Which Naomi found ironic in almost every way, she would've laughed if not for the atmosphere that suffocated it; it died in her throat before it ever had a chance to escape past her lips.

"C'mon, we should head to the training grounds," Hiruko said, lazily stretching; his feline-esque grin might have been unnerving on anyone else. But it was perfectly fitting to his image, so much so that Naomi was half convinced that he might have been a cat in one of his previous lives.

"To do what, exactly? Not like an afternoon of training is gonna make much difference at this point."

He shrugged, his expression melting into one of apprehension (though it was hard to tell with him, he wore a mask that was notoriously difficult to see through if you didn't know what to look for, Naomi rarely knew what to look for with him). Her eyes scanned the crowd below; it wasn't as dense as it was yesterday, but the number of people that still wandered the streets of Konoha was more than she was used to.

She didn't like people very much, anyway.

"Alright, whatever, let's go. I'm getting real sick of sitting here."

They arrived at the training grounds just past 2:30; they would've made it sooner if they hadn't stopped for food.

"Ah, it seems like we're late to the party."

Naomi wasn't the least bit surprised; most of the Konoha genin whose names she ever bothered to remember were here. Team Seven stood closest to them, though if she had to guess, they had arrived not long before they had. Her eyes met Sasuke's for a brief moment; she loved him; she did. But after everything, the trauma really stunted their ability to really show the same affection they used to as kids.

Well, that and a slew of other things that came about as a result, but that conversation was not one she was ready for; even the thought of it was exhausting enough to make her want to hibernate for a year.

She was never really good with dealing with emotions (at least she could say she was probably better at it than Sasuke, but only marginally at best).

Somewhere on the other side of the training grounds, she could hear something akin to the wind but not quite like the wind, the whirlwind of chakra that she had grown accustomed to. Neji's, it was as familiar to her now as the breeze; his chakra was like the wind, but if it was condensed down into human form, almost like a tornado if given a mortal body.

Across, standing some fifteen feet away, was Rock Lee; she didn't need to pinpoint his chakra signature to recognize him; his yelling was more than enough for her to be able to identify him. The other genin looked exhausted; she would hardly be surprised as to how long they've been here; some were likely here all day judging by the exhausted looks they threw her way in place of a formal greeting.

Well, maybe except for Shino, who looked more to be an observer than actively participating in the training. When their eyes met, he gave her a curt nod in greeting, of which she returned just as quietly. They were never close, but she liked him; he was likely the least insufferable of the bunch of them all.

"Last to arrive doesn't mean you're late," Lee called from all the way on the other side of the training grounds; she mused at the idea of Lee having super hearing. The thought almost makes her giggle.

Training that afternoon goes by as . . . as eventful as training with twelve Konoha genin gets. It started as something Naomi could only describe as being in the same vein as a battle royale of sorts. As it goes when you leave a bunch of genins unsupervised, the training session goes from fighting each other to something more similar to capture the flag, but if capture the flag was also a scavenger hunt but only if the scavenger hunt included them attacking each other as often as they could.

That night, Naomi stared at the ceiling, bundled into a blanket and surrounded by old, worn-out plushies that she didn't have the heart to get rid of, there was little she could do to minimize the damage that her anxiety was wreaking. If she listened closely, she could almost hear Sasuke snoring through the paper-thin walls. It was almost enough to lull her to sleep.

It isn't until some time past two in the morning before she slips into the realm of sleep, welcomed only by the void; it's been a long time since she slept through the night without being plagued by nightmares.

Getting to the classroom for the first exam proved to be more an annoyance than an actual test.

"It's hardly fair though, Naomi-chan," Hiruko snorted as they climbed the stairs to the third floor, "Sharingan and all. Not that you needed to use it, I guess."

"She's perceptive." Atsuko chirped, skipping up the stairs two at a time, "It was far from a complex genjutsu anyway."

"It was enough to fool everyone else there, though."

Behind her, the footsteps of the genin followed them but everyone largely kept their distance. Well, everyone who wasn't their friend anyway, and this team was never short of friends despite their antisocial behavior.

Lee was animated in his praise over her ability to detect genjutsu; not that it was surprising. He was rambling on and on, which was exactly why he accidentally walked into the wall, completely missing the door. She snorted in amusement, but quirked an eyebrow in a silent question; she found amusement in the incident but she cared enough to make sure he didn't hurt himself walking into the wall. The thumbs up and the brilliant grin he threw her way was enough to tell her the answer.

She swung open the door with all the confidence of a thousand suns, they all stopped when coming face to face with a classroom full of genin.

Naomi tried her best to keep her anxiety from showing. She only hoped that she wasn't failing, but she was always one to wear her heart on her sleeve and she couldn't help but feel like she was.

As they all stepped in, she made the conscious effort to take deep breaths. It was something Atsuko noticed, quietly lacing their fingers together as the door closed behind them with the last of the stragglers filtering in.

"Seems like all of Konoha's rookies are here."

Naomi recognized Shikamaru's drawl, her eyes flitted over to him. Almost nothing about him had changed since the day they graduated in terms of appearances, but it hadn't been an entire year yet; it was hardly surprising.

Behind him, Chouji munched away on whatever chips he had brought along with him; she could tell he was nervous, he was eating faster than usual. He had the most obvious tell between the three, Shikamaru hardly seemed like the type to crack under pressure and Ino was decently good at hiding hers if she was at all nervous.

Speaking of, Naomi wasn't entirely sure if she was amused of exasperated at the bickering between Ino and Sakura.

'Pair of best friends if I ever saw it. Not that they'd ever say that out loud.'

Her eyes drifted over to Kiba, who she would dare say rivaled Naruto in his volume and general brash ways. That wasn't to say it wasn't at least somewhat endearing, if not insufferable a lot of the time.

But they were all kids, they'll grow into their personalities.

Naomi could hear Hiruko sighing as Naruto started yelling something about not backing down. Or not being defeated. It was one or the other; maybe both, she hadn't been paying the conversation much attention, too focused on keeping her breathing even.

She hadn't noticed that they had somehow acquired another person to their group, of whom she did not recognize.

He caught her staring and gave her a friendly smile; she didn't trust it for a second, something about it felt a little . . . fake. But she chalked it up to nerves playing it to be something it likely wasn't.

'Unless it is something.'

She hated the voice in her head sometimes. Or most of the time, really.

"Naomi-san, I don't believe we've met."

Naomi gave him an inquisitive look, one that bordered on controlled bewilderment. Him knowing her name was somehow unexpected but not entirely surprising.

"And yet, you know my name. How odd."

He chuckled, moving to stand a little closer as to not have to speak so loudly over everyone. The general din of the conversation within the room made it hard to hear each other.

"Well, the last two Uchiha in the village are quite notorious, I'd be ill-informed if I didn't know your name, and I prefer to stay in the loop."

She stared at him, perhaps for a moment too long with a look in her eyes that likely was either suspicion or anger; it was difficult to tell the difference with her. Any emotion that wasn't happiness or neutrality often translated to anger with her.

"Would it not be common courtesy to tell me your name then?"

He was silent for a heartbeat too long, watching her almost as if examining her. She didn't like the way he was looking at her.

"Kabuto." He introduced, his expression melting into an easy smile. A hum rattled in her throat but was drowned out by the swell of noise around them.

The conversation then shifted onto other topics; him having to retake the exams several times being one. He started explaining the cards, and all the information he'd gathered up until that point. Naomi hadn't paid much attention to the details; she didn't particularly care enough to.

That was up until he said he had information on some of the other participants.

Not surprisingly, Sasuke was the one to jump on the opportunity when offered; he asked about Rock Lee, an unsurprising choice. Naomi can't imagine him interacting very much with the older genin very much. The second genin he asked for came more as a surprise to her, however.

Gaara.

When his picture came up, she recognized him, if only in fleeting memories. They had seen him earlier that week.

But that wasn't quite the memory it had dug up; it was one from so long ago, at a time when they were all a little more innocent and a lot less traumatized.

"I know him," they went quiet for a second, all their eyes on her now, "or, at least I did, once upon a time."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Yes, this is very self indulgent, I know sshh, we aren't gonna talk about it