DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto, Kishimoto does. I don't own Hikari Aino.

A/C: Constructive criticism is warmly welcomed and appreciated, as well as readers' suggestions/ideas (particularly when it comes to Lemons – I really suck at those! :S).

FIGHT TO THE FINISH

"I want to feel.
I want to put my hands around an innocent neck and feel it crack.
I want to bite off a young girl's face and feel the skin and gristle slither down my throat."
―The First Evil (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

~HIKARI P.O.V~

Sasuke and I returned to the entrance of the hollowed out root, hand in hand - as he's still a little vulnerable (unusual, but not unwelcomed), and found Shikamaru and Chouji attempting to wake Naruto from his sleep.

Sakura and Ino were watching from not too far away as Ino quietly asks Sakura if she could help her fix her ruined haircut. Lee is still out cold, but somewhat unharmed. Chouji pulls a grease covered hand from his current chip bag and backhands Naruto over the head with one solid slap - which does absolutely nothing, except cause Naruto to mumble contentedly in his sleep and start grinning inanely.

I exchanged glances with Sasuke who shrugged with disinterest. I rolled my eyes and sauntered forward shoving Chouji aside.

"Watch this." I requested as I went over to Naruto's side and crouched next to him.

Leaning down so I was level with his ear I cleared my throat and whispered entertainingly:

"Na-ru-to-"

He frowned as he moaned in his sleep and rolled away from me, I followed leaning over him.

"Your Ramen is getting cold…" I improvised a convincing lie which made nearly everyone roll their eyes.

It was a well-known fact that Naruto was obsessed with Ramen, and almost everyone learnt not to invite Naruto out for a bowl of Ramen – not unless you valued the amount of money you have in your wallet by the time he was through eating – Iruka-sensei learned that the hard way.

Almost immediately, Naruto sat up, narrowly avoiding my head as I moved out of the way quickly. He was completely alert and searching around for his beloved 'ramen'.

"WHERE? GIMME!" he yelled then blinked confusedly at the incredulous frowns or self-satisfied smirks on everyone else's face.

"What happened?" He asked frowning slightly. Then he takes a good look at Sakura's hair.

"What did you do to your hair, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura winced, bringing her hand up to feel the jaggered spikes of her butchered haircut and smiled sheepishly at him.

"Uh… it's a new image I'm trying out." she lied badly, but Naruto seemed to buy it, naturally.

He looks around and spots Shikamaru, Chouji and Ino and frowns again.

"What are they doing here?"

"We got ambushed again-" I cut myself off as I was getting to my feet and winced again because of my injury. Naruto's observant blue eyes zeroed in on the wound on my arm just as Sasuke immediately came over, standing protectively beside me.

I blushed slightly, feeling a little embarrassed about this.

"-and they arrived and helped us out." I added ignoring the sting. Naruto nodded absently before immediately coming over and examining the ugly graze which was already starting to crust over.

"Are you sure you're okay, Hikari-chan?" he asked with this worried tone in his voice.

I frowned at him and shut down.

"I'm fine, Naruto. It's not even bleeding anymore. Just focus on the problem at hand." I answered firmly before turning around and realising that Lee hadn't woken up yet.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" a new voice broke the uncomfortable silence and Tenten suddenly appeared in the clearing.

"We were attacked by a bunch of Sound Ninjas who were trying to kill us." Sakura answered still slightly freaked out by the entire ordeal. Tenten's face shifted to a more serious one as she nodded and went over to Lee.

"Oi Lee! Wake up!" Tenten shook Lee awake and the green unitard ninja sat up groggily.

"What happened?" He then realised where he was and sprang to his feet looking around anxiously.

"Is my Sakura okay?" he asked desperately and everyone except Sasuke, Naruto, Shikamaru and Sakura smirked.

We all knew that Lee had a huge crush on Sakura, and we were all too willing to poke fun at her for it, but we also realised that this was not the time. Tenten looked extremely annoyed as she got into Lee's face.

"Sasuke took care of them." she replied.

Everyone except Sasuke and Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"How did you know that?" Ino asked suspiciously, but Tenten ignored her. She was too intent on lecturing Lee on his carelessness.

"You shouldn't just rush in and take care of things by yourself. Not only is it completely stupid (Sakura and Sasuke smirked at Naruto who scowled back at them), but it's also dangerous." Tenten explained sternly.

Lee was instantly contrite.

"I'm so sorry, Tenten-san. I guess I was just too youthful. I shall punish myself by running 200 times around Hokage Mountain after the Chunnin exam is over!" He declared enthusiastically.

Everyone sweat dropped.

"Does anyone want to join me in this youthful activity?" he asked staring hopefully at Sakura who shuddered in disgust.

He had no takers.

Naruto's sombre mood as a result of my injury instantly changed to his trademark grin and he started to make fun of Lee. Sakura immediately backhanded him over the head.

"He helped save your life, you baka!" she snarled. Naruto sighed and rubbed the back of his head, sulking.

"Sorry, Sakura-chan." he replied quietly and didn't speak for several minutes.

A new record.

"Thank you very much, Lee." said Sakura politely, fixing Lee a small smile.

"You're very welcome, Sakura-chan!" yelled Lee enthusiastically then fixed the rest of us with an ambitious, almost determined expression.

"I shall train harder and become stronger for the next time we meet." He vowed and then he and Tenten left. Sasuke looked extremely mystified.

"What's eating you?" I asked giving Sasuke my full attention as Sakura started fussing over my drying wound and bandaging it. I'm guessing it was because she didn't want me to hang around Sasuke for too long.

I ignored her.

"How can that green moron lose to the Sound Ninja?" He questioned sounding a little disbelieving.

"No idea" I shrugged.

"But I'd hate to see what 'stronger' is in his eyes, if what we saw before when he had been fighting those idiots had anything to do with it." I added.

Sakura nodded in agreement which caused Sasuke to scowl at the both of us.

"What do you mean?" he demanded, which caused Naruto, Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji to come over to hear what we had to say as well.

"Well, let's just say we discovered what made Gai-sensei angry enough to make him ban Lee from using the Lotus technique on you." Sakura replied nervously.

"It was extremely freaky." I added.

AUTHOR P.O.V~

Kiba was sitting with Hinata and Shino, holding a shaking Akamaru in his lap and trying to calm the trembling white and brown puppy down. The last thing that Team Kurenai had encountered had not been fun. In fact it was downright terrifying and dangerous.

That had been 12 hours ago, but they had managed to gain the scroll they needed for access to the Tower much to their relief.

"Damn that was close. Let's never do that again." Kiba muttered.

Shino nodded absently, still distracted by that ant he had rescued the day before. Hinata on the other hand didn't make any response as she was currently staring at the distance, her Byokugan activated. Kiba immediately became alert and went over to Hinata's side, followed closely by Shino.

Both boys knew Hinata had found something crucial to this exam.

"What did you find?" Shino asked patiently.

"T-that d-dangerous sand n-nin, G-gaara and h-his t-teammates." Hinata stuttered uncomfortably.

She never liked conflict or fighting, which was why her father and her beloved cousin, Neji, always had a negative opinion about her and her skills and strength as a Konoha Kunoichi. This always made her ashamed and she was determined to prove both of them wrong.

Kiba frowned.

"Where?" he asked with sudden determination. Hinata deactivated her Byokugan before replying to him.

"1 km that way." she said pointing northwest.

A cocky smirk instantly appeared on the Dog-ninja's face.

"Awesome. Let's go!" he said and moved to follow, but Hinata instantly grabbed onto his arm.

"B-but, we've already g-got the s-scroll we needed." she protested confused.

Shino nodded, "Agreed. There's no point."

Kiba sighed in frustration before gently pulling out of Hinata's grip on his arm.

"I just want to observe them. If they look too tough then we'll forget about them and just head for the tower. But I don't want to pass up a chance to improve my skills." he bragged a little rigidly.

Hinata and Shino exchanged glances before nodding reluctantly. Kiba did a mental victory dance briefly before perching a wary Akamaru on top of his head.

"Let's go!" he said and charged off through the trees followed swiftly by Hinata and Shino. However, as they approach the clearing, Akamaru could clearly sense Gaara's chakra readings and immediately began to panic.

"He's f-frightened." Hinata said, looking a little afraid herself.

Suddenly, they could sense a different group of chakra approaching and immediately look around, alert. However, the chakra sources they could feel weren't heading for them - they were heading for Gaara and his team.

"Incoming: Rain ninjas." Shino predicted.

Sure enough, three rain ninjas immerged from out of nowhere and challenged the three intimidating sand ninjas. As Kiba, Akamaru, Hinata and Shino watched one of the Rain ninjas used the Sprinkling Needles ninjutsu on Gaara, he immediately emerges from the attack completely unharmed using Sand from the Gourd tied to his back.

"Whoa." muttered Kiba slightly impressed.

The Rain-nin who launched the attack snarled in frustration and hurled another round of needles at Gaara but once again the sand deflected it. Gaara fixed the ninja with an emotionless stare that made everybody in the area shudder in fear. The sand from the Goard started circling gently through the breeze surrounding the terrified rain-ninjas. Somehow the fine grains of sand looked incredibly threatening, as far as Team Kurenai could figure.

"Soon, it is going to be raining blood. Mother should be pleased." Gaara promised, his face remaining emotionless but his eyes had an insane glint in them that made everyone in the vicinity uneasy.

Kankuro stepped forward looking to all intents and purposes cool and collected but in reality was almost as disturbed by his younger brother's behaviour as the rain-ninjas and the carefully concealed Team Kurenai.

"The sand my brother carries within that goard on his back has Gaara's chakra in it. He can harden the sand using an enormous amount of chakra, and only Gaara has the ability to use it. No matter how hard you try to penetrate through his sand, you will not be able to harm him." Kankuro explained looking almost sorry for the rain-ninjas who now looked incredibly outraged by the information they had just been told.

They charged at Gaara aiming to kill.

"Hm. Fools." muttered Kankuro without sympathy as Gaara easily caught them and held them in his Sand Coffin - trapping them within a large sand orb. Gaara blinked coldly at the floating orb and raised his hand into the air.

"Sand Funeral." he muttered and closed his hand into a tight fist.

The sand orb immediately tightened and crushed the three rain-ninja instantly. Kiba's eyes widened. He felt sick at the horrifying way Gaara had managed to defeat the opposition. He heard Hinata whimper and looked over to see that she was paler than usual and had a slight greeny tinge in her skin. She looked on the verge of fainting from fear.

Shino? Well Shino was Shino, but even he looked unnerved by what he had seen.

"Any other bright ideas, Kiba?" Shino asked sarcastically.

Kiba heard the sarcasm but was too scared to be fully offended by the question. Instead, he seized Hinata by her wrist and turned to run for it, Shino hot on his heels.

"I vote we just head for the tower and never speak of this to anybody else." Kiba suggested.

Shino grunted in agreement. Hinata didn't say anything but merely nodded in agreement while Akamaru shook from fear on top of Kiba's head.

Note to self: never do that again…

~HIKARI P.O.V~

The fourth day of the exam came and we were still stuck in this suck fest.

Add in a quieter than usual and constantly irritated Uchiha, a bored, restless hyperactive ninja and a possessive cherry blossom - then I'm sorry, book me a room in the funny farm because this test clearly isn't worth it. Plus the information Orochimaru had also given me about his involvement with my family's death also didn't help matters at all - it mostly made me forget all about the exam and focus on how I was going to get that bastard back for taking away my family.

Now I sort of know how Sasuke felt when he learnt the truth from Itachi that day…

"Sakura."

I heard Sasuke's deep voice breaking the tense silence that had been created the moment Shikamaru, Ino and Chouji had left to resume their search for their scroll. I glanced at my pink-haired team mate and rolled my eyes when I saw the hopeful expression on her face when Sasuke called her name.

She'll never learn.

"Yes, Sasuke-kun?" she answered him sweetly.

I shuddered at the tone of her voice and turned away from them. I watched as Naruto started playing around with the black scroll we already had, and he looked like he was contemplating opening it up.

"We need to find that white scroll quickly so we can get out of here fast." said Sasuke obviously ignoring Sakura's flirtatious advances.

I smirked slightly at that, but it went away just as quickly as I continued watching Naruto trying to open the black scroll without success. I giggled in amusement just as I heard a dejected Sakura say "Oh" in a very disappointed voice before agreeing and then falling silent again. I sighed heavily before letting my head fall into my hands.

"Naruto, stop that. You know that we can't open that - there's a special seal on it that prevents us from attempting to until we're supposed to." Sakura scolded him.

I heard Naruto grunt in reluctant agreement.

"What's wrong?" I looked up from where I had my head in my hands and saw Sasuke sitting beside me with the same stoic expression on his face, but his eyes told another story - he looked concerned.

I glanced over automatically at Sakura and just as expected, saw resentment and jealousy in her sharp green eyes. I glared back at her before sighing again, this time tiredly.

"Nothing you need to worry about, Sasuke." I replied and got to my feet.

I moved to pack my things for the remainder of the exam when Sasuke instantly grabbed my wrist. I paused and looked over to see Sasuke narrowing his eyes at me in annoyance.

"I don't believe you." he decided and I smirked at him.

"Doesn't matter if you do or you don't Sasuke-kun-" I drawled shocking Sasuke slightly before gently pulling my hand away from him and walking over to roll up my sleeping bag and stuffing it into my backpack.

"-I'm still not telling you." I said with a finality in my voice, before jumping into the nearest tree and waited for him, Sakura and Naruto to get their things together.

It was clear that Uchiha's were incredibly stubborn people, because for the remainder of our search Sasuke never left my side much to Sakura's disgust, Naruto's confusion and my annoyance. Eventually, we stopped to rest and think of another strategy when Naruto made another attempt to open the scroll despite the fact that Sakura was threatening to bust open his head with her fist if he tried too.

"You're playing with fire, Naruto." I muttered causing Naruto to look up at me.

Suddenly, Kabuto appeared from out of nowhere and scared the hell out of all of us.

"Don't open that!" he yelled.

"Why?" asked Naruto suspiciously. Kabuto shook his head in annoyance.

"It's dangerous to open that scroll, it has a hypnotising script inside it that will render you and your team mates unconscious if you do so." he explained sounding like he had limited patience.

Which is understandable, considering it was Naruto we were talking about.

"How do you know this?" I asked also feeling suspicious of Kabuto. He looked at me for a second before replying.

"I saw another team attempting to do the same thing you did and they fell victim to the hypnotising script and fell unconscious. But apparently when you wake up, you won't be able to retake this exam again…ever." he said, looking at me again - his glasses glinting wickedly in the afternoon sun.

This time I froze because I saw a sinister smirk on his face that was directed to me.

I frowned - what was his deal?

Meanwhile my friends/teammates were more concerned about the concept of being stuck as 'genin' forever if Naruto was stupid enough to open the scroll and doom us all into falling unconscious and making us all wish that we had stayed sleeping forever.

Sakura immediately clobbered Naruto over the head with her fist.

"OW! What was that for?" growled Naruto as he rubbed the large lump now currently growing like a second head on Naruto's skull. Sakura got into his face causing Naruto to gulp nervously.

"For almost costing us this exam by trying to open that scroll." she responded. She snatched the scroll from Naruto's hands and moved away.

"I'll take that, so you don't get any more stupid ideas." she explained snobbishly, to which I snatched the black scroll out of her hands and stared her down with an irritated look.

"No. I'll take that, and give it back to Naruto." I retorted and gave the scroll back to a shocked but grateful Naruto who took it and immediately put it back into his backpack.

Sakura frowned murderously at me for even daring to contradict her. I wasn't scared of her, she needed to learn to have some faith in other people if she was going to gain respect from anyone.

"You need to cut the crap, Sakura, and let Naruto judge the situation for himself instead of bullying him, beating the shit out of him and sticking your nose where it's not wanted. It will get you into trouble one day, because you'll do it the wrong person and end up getting bitch slapped yourself." I lectured her.

I noticed Sasuke smirking from out of my peripheral vision.

"So back off my friend, stop beating him up - that's my job-"

"Eh!? What?" spluttered Naruto who had obviously overheard me. I grinned at him - causing him to grin back when he realised that I was just joking around.

"-or I'll beat you up and see how you like it? Got it?" I threatened her.

Sakura didn't reply, beyond fuming resentfully and storming away towards Sasuke, probably hoping that he'd tell me off and comfort her. Instead, he merely ignored her, focusing on Kabuto who was observing the little catfight with amused interest. It appeared that Sasuke didn't entirely trust Kabuto.

"You should always be aware of your surroundings at all times, you know." Kabuto reminded with a serious tone in his voice. I didn't buy it, because the seriousness didn't reach his eyes which were wrinkled up in complete amusement.

"Thanks for the heads up." I replied guardedly.

Sasuke elbowed me in the ribs and I turned and glared at him for it before he indicated the two scrolls Kabuto had in his possession. I nodded, but we both decided not to make a move just yet, didn't have a chance to as Kabuto started looking around all paranoid-like and fled from our view.

"Quick! Let's tail him. We might be able to steal his scroll." Sasuke demanded.

The three of us nodded and quickly followed the bespectacled ninja - keeping him within our sights for as long as possible. However, it appeared that he knew we were following us as he slowed down and spoke over his shoulder at us.

"If you must follow me, pay attention to what I'm about to tell you." He murmured mysteriously.

We nodded.

"The closer you get to the tower, the more dangerous it gets." Kabuto explained.

Of course he would know that, he's done this many times before. So what's stopping him from accomplishing it this time 'round? Why was he helping us advance to the next stage of the exam?

"What do you mean more dangerous? What we've experienced before in this death trap wasn't exactly a walk in the park." commented Sakura sceptically.

"Are you saying it get's worse?" asked Naruto with a slight tremor in his voice that any worthy ninja ought to have if they were a serious ninja.

Sasuke snorted pompously.

"Of course it gets worse, dobe. If it didn't, there wouldn't be any point to this exam." he retorted matter-of-factly.

"Try telling me that without sounding like a complete dick, teme!" snarled Naruto.

"Can it, guys. We don't have time for you to start flexing your egos." I stated - before Sasuke could rip Naruto a new one. I was getting increasingly sick of their constant bickering.

"Thank You. They were starting to give me a headache." Kabuto complimented me warmly.

I glared at him.

"I didn't do it for you, dude. I did it for my team." I bit back and Kabuto reddened in anger.

"In that case - I should warn the four of you that it's also extremely easy to find opponents because they will all be hiding out near the tower waiting for the opportunity to jump you and steal your scroll and or kill you."

We got closer to the tower and took refuge in a nearby tree, pausing for a moment to collect our thoughts and figure out how to ambush and retrieve our final scroll. Kabuto beckoned us closer and started whispering more advice to us.

"Be careful. We are being watched." he said.

Immediately, we went on alert trying to sense where the nearest team was.

"We all need to keep an eye out for any examinees. But most importantly we also need to keep an eye open for any collectors." he warned us.

"What are collectors?" asked Sakura curiously.

Kabuto chuckled humorously before explaining.

"Collectors kill examinees for the scrolls in their possession and use them for their own needs. Sometimes they might even sell them to others." He explained.

SNAP!

"NARUTO, LOOK OUT!" I screamed and watched as Naruto narrowly avoided being killed by a shower of sharpened kunai. It was Kabuto who instead caught the brunt of the kunai in his back! Sasuke immediately inspected the area around Naruto and bristled at what he found.

"You moron! You stepped on a trap!" he growled at him which naturally got Naruto's back up. But this time, I tended to agree with Sasuke - Naruto should've been constantly inspecting everything around him, including where he stepped.

"I think Kabuto is dead." Sakura announced in a small voice as she indicated where his body lay deathly still. Suddenly his body vanished, replaced by a log which had the kunai embedded in it.

"Wha-?" she exclaimed and looked around frantically for the silver-haired ninja, then spotted him lying not too faraway, completely unharmed. I frowned - I was completely certain that I saw him being impaled by the kunai. I even saw blood seeping out of the numerous wounds on his back.

Hmmm…

"Whoa, that was close." Kabuto breathed a sigh of relief before getting to his feet and dusting himself off.

I chewed on the inner part of my cheek, still studying Kabuto suspiciously before reluctantly replacing my kunai into my weapon's pack, leaving it unzipped a little for easy access. We continued moving for a few more minutes before Sakura started complaining about how much her feet were killing her. Soon, it appeared that something was getting fishy around here.

"That rock looks suspiciously familiar…" commented Kabuto dryly as he crouched down beside the rock we had passed for the umpteenth time and started inspecting it for any differences to confirm his theory.

I sighed in frustration.

"That's because we've been here before..." I muttered kicking a stray pebble with my sandal. Sakura looked at me in outrage.

"We've been walking around in circles all this time!?" she shrieked. I winced and glared at her for almost deafening me just as Naruto started pulling his hair out in frustration.

"Great, now we're lost!" he said in a hopeless voice. I placed a reassuring hand on my best friend's shoulder.

"Doubt it, Naruto - don't jump to conclusions." I scolded him just as Sasuke nodded in confirmation.

"She's right. We're stuck in a genjutsu." he said before making a hand sign.

Suddenly before he could release it, more random ninjas jumped from out of nowhere and attacked us. I had had enough, I just wanted to get out of here and sleep forever. Or at least until the next part of the exam rolled around. Dodging a well aimed kick with my arm, and aimed a palm strike to my opponent's chin. I probably broke it. I rushed over to Sasuke, who was taking on two ninjas at once and stood back to back with him.

"On three, we'll disspell this stupid genjutsu. You ready?" I asked him. He nodded still focused on a particularly frisky looking ninja. He kicked him square between the legs before we both fashioned handsigns.

"THREE!" we both hollered and yelled 'KAI!", successfully dispelling the genjutsu.

The five of us were panting like a pack of dogs - all equally fed up with this entire exercise. Instantly, we recognise the ninjas we had been fighting in the genjutsu all lying in heaps and passed out. Not too faraway was a white scroll - the scroll of heaven - which was what we needed to get out of this stupid forest.

"Thank you…" I muttered and sauntered over to the scroll and scooped it up before heading over to Naruto (he held onto the scrolls in his backpack) and stuffed it into his bag.

"Let's get the heck out of here." Naruto suggested happily - probably imagining a huge bowl of steaming hot Ramen waiting for him when he got out of here like the rest of us.

"Agreed." I nodded and looped an arm around his shoulders. As we approached the entrance to the Tower, we saw that Kabuto's team were all there waiting for him.

They looked pissed.

"Where the hell have you been, Kabuto. You have the scrolls we need to get into the damn tower." one of them snapped as we approached.

"Catch you later." Kabuto promised as he sauntered over to his annoyed team and they disappeared through a set of doors.

"Later!" called Naruto grinning his trademark grin as Sasuke, Sakura and I grouped around him and turned to face us.

"Much later…" I added causing Naruto and Sasuke to chuckle and Sakura to glower at me, obviously still pissed at me for threatening her earlier and because she wasn't at all amused by my dry sarcastic comment.

It's not my fault I don't trust Kabuto as much as I could throw him.

We approached a set of doors with a big red '7' stencilled above it and we entered the room, to find a giant billboard blocking our path.