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(A/N:) Read me! sorry that this took longer than I said it would. I am currently haing problems with the server. I was Also slightly depressed at the lack of reviews. I promised that I would update no mater what, buIt just takes me longer wen I have no reviews. Thank you to those who DID review. You are sweet. Editors Notes at the bottom, as usual. Enjoy your read!/\
On the Wings of Revenge
Zeida and Maria (Maria)Insanity, crack, violence, blood, gore, plotholes, randomness, lack of plot to begin with, language etc... Etc... I don't own it. Zabuza finds Naruto after Haku, and takes him away. This is half crack nuttiness. Vengeful!Naruto. It's starting to look like a foursome to me but it's not? Just brother love? Gaara, Haku, Naruto and Sasuke...nuttiness. Shikamaru shows a lot too! Have I proved myself nuts yet?-
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NOTICE!: This one wants to hold a little contest! The prizes will be: A chapter dedication to you! and a (non-NC17, X, or R rated) Fan art drawing of your choice! (Yes, I CAN draw) Now, In this story, I seem to be being VERY nasty about/to Kabuto. He is very likely to die, really. But the truth is he is one of my favorite characters! Weird, eh? The only Character that I can't bash is Shino, actually. Someday, I will make a story that is nicer to the poor guy. But as for the contest: Me and Zeida were role playing once and we made Kabuto stalk (but was in LURVE with) a REALLY random character. Except in Canon, he was actually nice to said chara! I want you, loyal and sweet reviewers to try and Guess who it is! Guess! Go on, I dare you! You will NEVER guess! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Anyway, this contest will end when someone guesses the right person. I will update anouncing this no matter how much of mine chappie is done, so you are very likely to get one helluva weird chappie!
Thanks
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ChApTeR EiGhT: Beginning The Chuunin Exams
Shikamaru recovered quickly. When he awoke again, this time with Sasuke and Chouji present, he could not remember anything that happened in the past day. Asuma, not sure what to do about the information about Kakashi attacking his student, told all three that the deer boy had forgotten everything before they got a chance to ask. Currently, he and Jiraiya (Who wasn't as bad as he first suspected, although easily distracted) were stalking the silver-haired Jounin. They weren't sure why, but Jiraiya hypothesized that they were somehow trying to prove him innocent.
Asuma was faced with a conundrum. Shikamaru was his student, and he had been attacked. He would remember the details perfectly. But, then again, the smoker (Who had stopped doing so, actually) had known Kakashi for years, as had Jiraiya. He just wouldn't do that, even to an enemy. Besides, it was debatable that he knew medical skills like those that were evident of his students body, although the man could learn it at a glance.
Well, if he ever got a chance to wreak vengeance an a couple certain, dead, people... he might just resort to that.
But they were already dead, and they weren't Shikamaru.
The silver haired jounin was behaving perfectly normal as far as the two stalkers could see. He was training his last remaining student, Sakura, with her new team, and their sensei. The pink haired girl and Temari (one of the sand nin) tag teamed brilliantly, but the sensei were trying to get them to work with Kankuro as well.
It wasn't working. They kept using him as a distraction, or his puppets as a shield. It ended rather painful most of the time for the poor boy. They just weren't made to work together. Asuma silently decided that the sand boy would work best with a close-range fighter, using his chakra strings to up his or her speed and dexterity. Neither of the girls fought like that.
-:- -:- -:-
Kurenai's team had recovered for their traumatizing ordeal as well. Hinata came in the next day, telling her team that her father had asked her why several ANBU went through lengths to tell him that they didn't do anything to his daughter. That caused a laugh (well, from everyone but Shino).
The female jounin was quite happy with the information that they had gotten and grinned widely as she saw who the examiners would be. She ordered them to train specifically in anything they thought they might need in the exam. They were to come to her if they felt the need to learn anything that she hadn't already taught them, and she would help them along.
Kiba worked mostly on his partnership with Akamaru, training up a move they had create together. Shino worked against them a lot, working on his own defense. Both started to help Hinata on a Jyuuken move that she wasn't quite getting.
"Hinata-san, I do not believe that this will work for you." Shino said, as she fell once more, failing to block the bug user. Kiba glared at him for making her look so defeated, but didn't really say anything against it. He, too, could feel that this wasn't what the girl was good at.
"You coulda been a little less blunt." he muttered to the taller boy instead.
"I'm s-sorry..." Hinata said, getting up. She knew she wasn't good at this, but her father...
"Calm down Hinata," Kurenai soothed. "Don't worry about it. They just don't think that you are made for close range fighting. How about you try something new?"
Kiba nodded happily and Hinata seemed to cheer up a bit. "Yeah! You could try that really cool stuff that the jounin do sometimes! The chakra blades and stuff!" He mimicked what he saw one of them doing and attempted a little dagger made of chakra. It came out a bit limp as his control wasn't all that great. Imagine a wet noodle.
"Kiba," Shino said, foregoing honorifics in his annoyance with the smaller boy. "That is still close range fighting. If she were to do something like that then it would have closer relation to kunai." He didn't mean to sound so testy. He just wasn't feeling quite right. His kikai were acting oddly and telling him that there was something wrong with him, but when he went to check it out, he came up with nothing.
Kurenai looked worriedly at the bug-user, but only replied to his comment. She would just keep an eye on him, there was no need to pamper her students. "That's a good idea, Shino. Would you like to try that, Hinata?"
The Hyuuga girl looked interested but looked away. "My f-father would not want me too... It is an insult to the clan." Kiba pouted, about to object, when their sensei interrupted him.
"Enough about him! He isn't here and even if he was I wouldn't care! Do you want to try this?" she asked.
The timid girl looked down for a moment and he team almost thought that she was going to refuse. "Yes!" she said firmly, looking up again. Kurenai smiled at her as Kiba celebrated (danced) and Shino patted her shoulder briefly and nodded.
The tranquility of the moment was brutally murdered when Kiba tried to get Shino to celebrate (Dance!) with him and got knocked halfway across the clearing.
Never make an Aburame dance.
-:- -:- -:-
In another part of Konoha, on another day, other teams were training hard for the upcoming exams as well. Although, maybe not all with the same amount of willingness. Chouji and Ino chased their third teammate all over the training ground, springing surprise moves and pit falls and traps on him. They barely gave him time to react before attacking him again, and definitely not giving him enough time to think. Asuma was there for once, and kept an eye on them to make sure no one got carried away and accidentally killed someone.
Although at this point the jounin was pretty sure that Shikamaru was going to murder the other two with quite a bit of premeditation. Suddenly, the group steered towards him, the genius thinking that maybe the other two would slow down coming at their sensei. Unfortunately for all parties involved, Asuma thought that maybe when Shikamaru's plan worked he would stop as well. Both assuming that the plan would work, and the other two would slow down.
Chouji sent an explosive kunai ahead of the deer boy in hopes of redirecting him and completely forgetting her sensei. Instead of veering to the side, Shikamaru tripped over the protrusion, accidentally looking back right as it was thrown past his other side. He crashed into the older man with an explosion from the kunai and a loud pop as the bushin of their sensei dissipated. The deer boy landed on the ground with a surprised thud.
For a moment, all three just stared at the place where their sensei was, expecting him to pop out of a tree and reprimand them about losing control. After five minutes and he still didn't show, Ino exploded. "He's not here AGAIN! We need to train Shikamaru so that he doesn't get himself nearly killed again!"
"I don't want to train, Ino." Shikamaru objected. Both of his teammates glared at him and he shut up. Even Chouji was being scary about this. Troublesome...
"It was too close a call last time, Shikamaru. What if we were on a mission! No one would have gotten to you in time." the Akamichi was giving him that puppy dog look. The boy couldn't stand it. Chouji was one of his best friends and he was worried. The chubby boy was losing weight alarmingly fast because of all the exercise that they were putting the pony-tailed boy through. Not to mention he wasn't eating nearly as much. He was obviously depressed about what happened. Damn, depressed peacemaker is not a good thing!
After waking up again in the hospital after the sannin, Jiraiya, had cured him, he found he couldn't remember anything after getting to the training grounds early several days ago. He didn't remember what had happened to him, or how bad it had been. Although the genin could guess that it had been pretty awful, however, by the way everyone was acting around him. (There was even one of the newer nurses at the hospital that couldn't look at him with out turning a nasty shade of green.) There were also scars all over his body. They were new and very visible, but he couldn't tell how deep any of them had been. He assumed that they must have been pretty bad if there were left over marks.
Shikamaru sighed, resigned. "Fine. I'll go along with this crap. But only if you-" he pointed at Chouji, "Start eating right again. And you- " his finger moved to Ino, "Come help me find Asuma-sensei so I can watch you yell at him." Both his friends grinned at him, their new objective in sight.
-:- -:- -:-
Asuma himself was watching as the newly formed team lay gasping on the ground. This was his, and Jiraiya's, third day watching the copycat jounin. There was only two days left to the chuunin exams. The smoking nin (who, again, stopped) had told his team about the upcoming exam, explaining that what he was going to talk to them about that awful day was entering them in the exams. He said that he didn't want to do that anymore, but that had caused an uproar. Even from Shikamaru, the boy was secretly (as in they didn't tell Ino) hoping to run into Sasuke there. He was also deeply ashamed that his sensei didn't think that he could do it. That he was weak.
The team on the ground had just completed there team attack. It could not be called perfected as it was a strategy more than a move and must be versatile. The jounin training them looked exhausted as well, having had to go against the rather formidable move. Kakashi was acting as he usually would when tired. As far as the two men could see, he was exactly the same as usual.
Maybe he acted the same, evil or no? That was a scary thought. He wasn't even showing guilt.
Or stress that Shikamaru had survived. Maybe he knew the boy would forget? Damn, he-
"Good Morning, comrades!" Howled a sudden voice from between Asuma and Jiraiya. Both men turned shakily towards him, and evil look plastered on their faces. Their hearts still beating a million times a minute. "Why are you sp-!"
Kakashi looked up at the loud tree curiously as both stalker-sans pounced on Gai to shut him up and ran far, far away.
Stopping quite possibly on the opposite side of Konoha, Asuma dropped the man and glared at him. Jiraiya rubbed him temples trying to ward of a growing headache. He looked down at Gai, then up as the man stood, dusting himself off.
"Comrades... that was un-youthful. My butt hurts." Gai frowned manly...ly at them.
The other jounin glared at him, ready to strangle the man. "We were in the middle of something!" he growled instead. Jiraiya nodded in agreement.
"You were stalking eternal-rival Kakashi." Gai said, posing. Jiraiya nodded in agreement.
Asuma sighed. "Hai, we were trying to figure something out." Jiraiya nodded in agreement.
"Does this have something to do with the very un-youthful attack in your precious student?" the green man (2) leaned in curiously, his hands akimbo.(3) Jiraiya nodded in agreement.
"Shikamaru's last statement of the man who attacked him, before he lost all memory of the subject, condemned Kakashi. And he's not precious! It's just that he's my student..." bearded jounin informed him. Jiraiya nodded in agreement.
"Ah, I see, that is quite bad. But it could have been a genjutsu. Or perhaps someone else. I know Eternal Rival Kakashi well, and he would not do such a thing." Gai nodded forcefully. Jiraiya nodded in agreement.
"That is true..." Asuma conceded. "But we have nothing else to go on." Both men looked at Jiraiya curiously when he did nothing.
"..."
"..."
"..."
Jiraiya nodded in agreement and both jounin did and excellent double rendition of an anime feint.
Recovering quickly, Gai leapt youthfully to his feet. "Yosh! I will help you in your quest to find this evil-Eternal-Rival-Kakashi-Imitating-precious-student-murd-ahem-,-I-mean-attacking-man." the green man pumped his fist energetically through the air and started jogging in place.
The other two just looked at him. "Sure, I would appreciate all the help I can get. And stop saying precious!" Asuma said finally.
Jiraiya nodded in agreement.
-:- -:- -:-
The mist team lazed around in the hotel room that they had rented out for their stay in Konoha. They had but one day left to go, and it was one boring day. They had trained earlier, but were kicked off of the training ground by some irate ninja or another.
Sasuke had been whining ever since.
Naruto was actually doing a pretty competent job of ignoring him, considering the blonde's temper. Then again, considering his attention span, it was no miracle. He and Gaara had been playing with cards for the past two hour, running trough a list of games. They were currently trying to tell each others fortune, Tarot style, but the cards really didn't work like that. Haku was watching them, and the Uchiha was complaining to him, getting even on his patient nerves.
"You said that if I came with you, you would train me. You said that it would be soooo hard I'd be lucky to be breathing after, let alone 'thanking' you." he groused at them. "Well? I'm breathing I'm talking just fine- "
"We noticed." Gaara muttered.
"- so we should go train!" The bird haired boy ignored him.
"We can't." Haku stressed. "The Konoha nin get first dibs on their own training grounds."
Sasuke frowned at the pretty boy. "Then we can find somewhere else to train." The long haired male twitched.
"Oh? And why would we do that?" Naruto asked curiously. Seriously, it didn't make sense to him.
"Because, then we can train." Sasuke said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Sasuke. You are training." Gaara deadpanned, flipping over another one of his cards. "Damn, I think you won, Naru-chan."
Naruto raised his eye brows, not looking up. "How the hell did I do that? This isn't a win-lose thing."
"I want to train more." The broody brunet interjected.
"Be patient, Sasuke. We will catch up at home." Haku soothed.
"Well," Gaara said to his Tarot companion. "You got this card, and this one too! That adds up to twenty-one."
The other three turned to look at him. "Wrong game, Gaara." Sasuke drawled.
The red head pouted up at his 'pet'. "Aww, come on. It's hard to remember what were playing with these cards. What game does it belong to?"
"Whatever." The Sharingan wielder muttered, ignoring his teammate and heading for the door. He peeked out of one eye at Haku, who he could see was twitching. "Can we go train now?"
That was the last push, the original mist nin spun around, fire in his eyes. He lashed his arm out in an arc facing the unfortunate Uchiha, releasing half a dozen needles. Sasuke turned around with an incredible slowness that comes from watching with adrenaline. Four of the senbon lashed past him, embedding in the wall behind him. The fifth whizzed past his head as he just barely dodged it in his sluggish movements.
The last hit dead on, burying itself in the boy's temple.
"Oh, SHIT!"
The other three shot up as he fell to the ground, running over in a panic.
"I didn't mean to! I really didn't" Haku squeaked, crouching down. Gaara followed him, and felt for the boys pulse with trembling hands.
"I-I don't feeling anything..." he stammered.
"I really didn't! I'm used to dealing-hic- with you! I shouldn't- You could have dodged!" the black haired boy was trembling, on the verge of hysterics.
Naruto stared at the fallen boy in shock. For some reason he felt that he had lost someone as precious to him as the two boys on either side of him or Zabuza-sama. He hadn't even known him that long, why would he feel like that?
Then, the genjutsu popped, and the needle fell to the ground with a clatter.
The trio looked on in minor catatonia, their hysterics turning to weak, sparse giggling, half in relief, half in confusion.
"Heh heh... heh... heh heh... WHAT?!" all three streaked, startling most of Konoha.
-:- -:- -:-
Finally the week had ended. The jounin lead their nervous teams over to the meeting place for the first test. It was a very tall wood and brick building. It looked fairly old, and several parts looked like they were rebuilt from destruction caused by something, or someone, crashing through it. All in all, it was not a place that you wanted to go in.
They were told to meet their sensei on the third floor. Everyone arrived at different times, meaning that the teams would have to meet up in side. There was no way to know what was coming next. Even team 8 which got a glimpse of what was coming had no clue what was about to hit them.
The dark hallway that was the entrance opened up to an enormous room. That was absolutely stuffed with ninja. genin from all the major villages, and quite a few of the minor ones were there. All animosity and dread from ninja and kunoichi of all different ages forced to occupy one room. Kiba, when he entered, noticed a distinct scent of blood. Obviously a couple genin had already lost their tempers. There were, however, no sings of any unconscious or wounded ninja or kunoichi. There could be healers, but it was much more likely that they were deemed too weak and carted out with their teammates.
Several of the Konoha ninja knew that, in several other villages, the unfortunate genin would also be fallen upon by their own team later, for failing.
Everyone spun around as the doors were kicked open by a short boy with silvery hair and eye patch. The eye patch was attached to his headband, which proudly displayed the symbol of the mist. His air was in a long braid flopping around behind him as he shot into the room landing in an exaggerated ready stance.
"I'm prepared for anything! So, cummon! Cummon! Let's fight!" he yelled cheerfully into the room. Everyone stared.
A tall black haired boy followed him in and set a calming hand on his shoulder. He seemed to be wearing a white mask with a kanji symbol at the top. He too wore a headband with the Kiri sign, though not on his forehead. His clothing was ass long and graceful as he himself, and there was no skin showing.
"Arashi-kun, please calm yourself. We should not be making so many enemies so early on." he told the other boy in a soft voice.
"Too late." the third voice hissed, stepping in behind them. The last teammate seemed to be their kunoichi. She had violently electric blue hair, and soft features. From what they heard of the hiss, her voice was soft, but not in a kind way like the other one. Her skin was a medium hue, peach, but not pale. She had a small animal perched on her shoulder that looked to be a cross between a lemur and a raccoon. Something only native to Mist, perhaps?
Most males in the room were instantly... fond of her, but were creeped out as she spoke again.
"Let's find somewhere to sit." not all that frightening on it's own, except for the fact that 'her' voice was deep, far deeper than a girl's was. Damn, that hiss was misleading.
They wandered over, with Shikaeshi in the lead, to a group of Leaf genin that had gathered in one spot. Several people looked up at the intrusion, but only one did anything. To most everyone's surprise, Shikamaru stood and walked over to the mist stranger. Grabbing his sleeve, he pulled his friend back to his seat with him.
Others in the group recognize the mist team as well. Team eight recognizing the silver haired boy as one that had bounced over to congratulate them.
Naruto recognized them too.
He walked straight up to Shino, asked him how he was, then thumped him hard on the back, again. The bug user frowned at him from behind his collar. That hurt.
Neji's team walked over to them, lead by an enthusiastic Lee. He wanted to see the other 'youthful flowers of Konoha.' Oddly enough, he zeroed in on Sakura.
"Green… Green spandex…" Gaara said, staring at the boy that he had mentally traumatized earlier in the week. Yes, there was a talking lemur-raccoon perched on Sasuke's shoulder. Shikamaru looked it oddly, but no one else seemed to have noticed. For their own sanity, truly. Sasuke felt that his was certainly gone after noticing the thing.
"Oh, Gaara, just ignore-" Sasuke muttered, temporarily forgetting his teammates affixation with the color and wincing at the attire of the wide eyed boy.
"Green Spandex on a total hottie..." the other three could see a little drop of drool making its way down the side of Gaara's mouth. His teammates stared at him, then Lee, then back at him. This time several others did turn their head, and Shikamaru was staring at the fuzzy Gaara with wide (disturbed) eyes. Unfortunately for the Uchiha reputation, not that most people knew it was him, they thought he had proclaimed the older genin to be attractive.
"Um, Gaa- I mean, Suishu-shu? That boy is, one a boy, you can't make babies with another boy, and therefore, they aren't supposed to appear 'hot' to you. And two, he is soooo not hot." Naruto tried to explain. Sasuke snorted and Haku rolled his eyes at the attempt. Those that thought that the mysterious Shikaeshi had been the one to speak, now believed his name to be Suishu-shu. Shikamaru, who had noticed this course of events, smirked. He doubted that his friend would escape Konoha again with his dignity.
Lee, hearing this, turned slowly to face the raccoon.
It winked at him.
And blew a heart at him.
The green genin's eyes went wide and he fitfully dodged the kiss. Tenten and Neji looked down at him, both raising an eyebrow. Several of the rookie nine tried to hide giggles and snickers at the antics of a nutcase and a pet. They all heard a voice that none of them had heard before, laughing along. Looking around, the Konoha group tried to locate the eaves dropper, but the laugh wasn't coming from any of the surrounding group. Suddenly, Kiba spun around as Shino clapped a hand over his mouth, his face slowly turning red.
"Did... did you just laugh?" Kiba crowed, astonished. He was pointing a shaky finger at his teammate.
Shino didn't answer. He just stood there, looking nervously at the people starring at him. The bug user seemed to shrink, not liking the attention in the least.
"Sh-Shino-kun? Are you alright?" Hinata asked looking worried.
"I am fine." The Aburame answered, a little loudly. His team looked at him oddly. As did most of the room.
The bug-user, seeing this, side stepped so that he was standing behind Kiba. The dog-boy looked up, smirking. "Do you know that you look like a big evil shadow behind me?"
"Shut up, Kiba."
Kiba raised his eyebrows, still smirking. This was a riot. "My, my, so testy. Are you nervous?"
"No!" Shino answered loudly again, a bit too fast. The dog user turned to look at him closer and Hinata peered in as well. Both looked as though they were about to say something, but it was not to be.
"Alright, you brats, settle down! Do yourselves a favor and go home!" The group turned to see two genin standing, guarding a door. Many of the older genin glared at the intended insult.
It was the door they needed to go through to the test. Several genin stalked up to the door, looking pissed. One got up from the ground where the guard-genin seemed to have thrown him. His team looked angry and they attacked, "Let's see you stop all of us!"
One of the pair, the one with tape on his cheeks and chin, raised an eyebrow. He stepped forward alone, and blocked the three of them easily. "See what you're up against?" He said, ignoring the groaning team on the ground to address the whole crowd. "You don't stand a chance."
Shikaeshi looked at his team to see what they would do and saw them smirking. Next to him, Shikamaru was frowning hard at the genin. He saw Sakura and her sand teammate, Temari, whispering together, Ino joining in soon after. They nodded at each other to emphasize some point or another, and broke off to alert the remained of their teams.
"Do you see it?" The Uchiha was shaken from his thoughts as his short, silver haired partner shot a question.
The genin looked again at the pair and noticed a thin haze around them. The remnants of a medium grade genjutsu. Looking around, Shikaeshi saw it on the door as well. Neji, spotting it too, hurriedly stopped his green teammate from attacking the group.
"That is a very poor ploy." Team 8 stared at Shino as he spoke up. The rest of the room turned as well and he 'hid' behinds Kiba... again. He refused to say anymore until Hinata and the dog-boy managed to calm him enough to get him to tell them what his bugs had told him of the floor.
Shikamaru summed
"How long have you known?" The deer boy looked around to see Sasuke looking forward as another team attacked the pair guarding the door.
"Since I saw them, they don't match the description of any genin in Konoha, but they do match the younger ages of two upper-class chuunin that are known only to work together." And just about everything else, too. he thought. The Uchiha shook his head at the knowledge of his friend, he should really use it more often.
"What do you say we discreetly walk out under the pretext of giving up?" he questioned again.
Shikamaru shrugged, getting up. "This is all too troublesome," he said in a loud, annoyed voice. "I'm outta here." His team followed him out, catching onto his plan, each sighing dejectedly. Sasuke's team went soon after, muttering audibly about not standing a chance if the teams from the place were scared. They were mimicked by the rest of rookie nine, Neji's team, and the two from sand, all making their own excuses on giving up.
Izumo snickered to himself, catching on to what they were doing.
You're so sadistic...
You love it.
-:- -:- -:-
The new room was also filled with eager genin, about as much as there were in the other room. All of them had either noticed the genjutsu and walked out, as our heroes did, or didn't even bother to enter the room. There was actually one team that didn't even bother to enter the building and used chakra to climb up the side to the floor. They all turned as the new group walked in. Someone muttered loudly about a bunch of brats giving away the game. Another joined in with 'How easy are they gonna be to beat.'
Naruto, braid flopping angrily opened his mouth to yell out some new challenge, when he was interrupted.
"We did not give away your 'game'. We simply solved it, likely faster than yourselves, and left the room." Shino clarified in a loud voice. Some of the genin cringed. Aburame were scary people. Especially one that deemed you noticable to target. Which was never a good thing.
Kiba and Hinata looked sideways at their teammate again. Something was seriously up.
The bug user, seeming to finally realize that he dissed a large group of bloodthirsty shinobi, clamped his hands over his reddening face again and 'hid' behind his teammate yet again. The dog user sighed.
"Now, now don't make such a scene out of yourselves." The group turned as a leaf genin walked toward them. "Look around, do you really want to be making enemies so soon?" He was tall with round glasses and silver hair tied back in a pony tail. He smiled kindly at them, introducing himself. "My name is Yakushi Kabuto. You?"
They all stared at him, mixed opinions among the group. Temari tried to remain inconspicuous, knowing that this was in fact the right hand man of the village that her father was working with in the invasion of Konoha. Kankuro, on the other hand, had other ideas. "Oh, hello, Kabuto-san. It's nice to see you again!" Temari glared at him, Kabuto looked confused (although inside he was fuming) and Sakura frowned thoughtfully at him.
Shino's insects went wild, screaming at him to stay far, far away from the man. Akamaru had a similar reaction, causing Kiba to stick to puppy in his jacket instead of his hood, to better comfort his companion. Hinata looked worriedly at both her teammates and decided that staying back would be best.
Gaara recognized the silver haired males voice as the one that had been talking to the another about Sasuke. His name, too. The rest of the mist team did as well, pulling their newest member with them, and backing safely away.
Shikamaru looked at Kabuto oddly, he seemed familiar. Very familiar. It was the kind of feeling you get when you're eating and you look at the red mushroom with white spots that you seem to have just taken a bite out of.
He backed up as well, his team following.
Neji, Tenten and Lee looked around them, confused, as they were suddenly the only ones within talking distance of the random leaf genin. The green boy twitched as he felt the weight of a small furry animal suddenly land on his shoulder. "You need to get your team away from him!" it hissed into his ear so he was the only one who heard. Lee frowned, perplexed. Surely a genin of their own village was someone they could be safe around. They were comrades of youth!
"He smells like the blood of hundreds, including that of a couple of you friends!" Gaara tried again. The genin's wide eyes grew wider.
"Yosh, this spot is unYOUTHful! We should...-he looked around frantically- back up over there!" Lee latched on to both his teammates and dragged them away from the traitor in disguise.
Kabuto looked around in confusion. "Do I smell funny?" he asked. The group did their very best to ignore him. Take into mind that they are shinobi, and their best is pretty dang good.
"Oi! Oi, ya bunch of gakitachi!!" The room was distracted as a very tall man appeared out of nowhere. He was backed by a herd of powerful and scary-looking chuunin. The man ordered them into assigned seats all over the room. They were to go to one of a set of three seats at a desk, there were two columns of five desks, meaning that in this room, there were thirty genin, ten teams. Some teams were lead out of the room into another, where the numbers are unknown. Any that got mixed up were lead to the correct spot by the chuunin. To make matters worse, said chuunin spoke loudly about how if they couldn't manage to get to the right spot, how did they expect to pass the actual tests? That was two more teams down, that they could see. Many noticed that they were no longer anywhere near their teammates, although all teams were within the same room.
"Now that you're seated, I'm Morino Ibiki. I'm the examiner for this exam." The chuunin sat along the edges of the room, pulling out clipboards. Each was at the end of one of the desks, assigned to a group of three people.
"Now, there are some rules for this test." The jounin started to write on the board, still talking. "First, there are ten question. You notice that there are only nine on the page? Good, if you didn't you need to go back to school for about five more years.
"Well, the last one will come 45 minutes before the end of the test. As for the rest, you start out with ten points. Every answer you get wrong is a point off. Every time you're caught cheating, it's point off. Got it? Good.
"Next, If you run out of points, you and your team are out of here. If you don't have enough points at the end because you completely and totally suck at tests, you fail. Before you start, I don't care if you have perfect everything else, you fail you leave." he finished, turning to face the group again.
"Start."
Sasuke frowned down at the written exam. He didn't know the answers to most of these.
Or any, really.
But he had gotten the implication of the jounin examiner. This was a test of his information gathering skills. They weren't supposed to be able to know the answers. Damn, if he just had the Sharingan, then he could do this no problem. There was just the minor difficulty of he didn't and now what was he supposed to do?
He looked down at the paper again, huffing. Then just barely suppressed surprise as he saw a tiny amount of sand worming itself around the paper. Squinting at it, he realized that it was forming words. With a start he compassed that Gaara was giving him the answers. From his vantage point on Sasuke's head, he could see the room, and the few people in the room that seemed to know what they were doing. Actually, now that the raccoon thought of it, it was very suspicious.
In another part of the room, people were having it a little easier with cheating. Upon entering the room, Haku suspend a number of icy mirrors from the ceiling, out of the sight of prying eyes. Creating a final one in his hand, he had a full view of the entire room. Easy cheating.
The original mist boy looked out of the corner of his eye to see his other teammates. Sasuke seemed to be doing fire with Gaara's help, so he looked for Naruto.
The blond boy had no idea what he was going to do. He had tried to contact his demon, but the annoying fluff ball had said that he needed to learn such things himself, if he wanted to make it any further. Damn.
Annoying honorable ... fuzz! Naruto pouted and looked up, leaning back in his chair. Wait... There were mirrors hanging from the ceiling. One bunch seemed to be Haku's and then there was another group, controlled by wires from somewhere in the room. Smirking, he looked at the reflections of the answers in the two sets of mirrors.
Lee moved his hitai ate a little two the left, sending out a blink of light that was the okay sign. Keeping the shiny accessory there, he was able to see the answers he needed twice reflected in the metal.
Tenten stopped twitching her wires at the signal, and took her own headband down as though to polish it in annoyance. Quickly she memorized the answers she saw and wrote them down. It was with a triumphant smirk that she tied the protection device back on.
Across the room their final teammate finished writing down the answers acquired by the Byakugan. He noticed that his small, and timid cousin was also using this strategy.
Hinata, when finished with the test, looked discreetly (Byakugan) about the room for he teammates. They were both doing fine, to her relief.
Kiba was getting the answers barked quietly to him by his dog and Shino had just finished writing the last of his. Suddenly things went wrong.
"Caught!" One of the chuunin at the edge of the room said to Shino. The bug user looked up at him in confusion. "You were caught cheating." the man clarified with a sigh.
"I did not cheat." Shino 'protested'. The chuunin just shook his head. Everyone in the room had stopped to watch.
"I did not." he said again. He pointed at a boy in one corner of the room, causing the rest of the room to look there as well. "You were concerned with the genjutsu that was situated next to me? It belongs to him. Not me. Continue to think things through thoroughly before pinning the blame on an innocent. You should consider yourself lucky that you are even a chuunin with your present skill."
The chuunin sat very quickly, his face burning. Ibiki laughed to himself. There were some interesting kids in this group. He turned to the only one, aside from the secretly placed chuunin in the room, who seemed to actually know the answers. She was hurriedly scribbling down the last one.
There! Sakura thought to her self. All done. Now to signal to Temari to start the genjutsu. She started signing with her hands at Kankuro, who had just asked to be accompanied to the bathroom. He barely nodded, the poked Temari as he passed. She grinned as her brother headed to the bathroom with his puppet to get his answers. Then started synchronized hand seals under the table with Sakura.
Suddenly she was seeing through her teammates eyes with her mental voices explaining her answers. They decided that it would be best if she understood it, because they might be asked to prove it, or need to use the information later.
Then all went black as Ino completed he Shintenshin no jutsu and entered their (at the moment) body. No one noticed that two girls seemed to fallen asleep on their tests.
Ino smirked to herself. Too easy. She looked out Sakura's eyes to see the answers and memorized them. Giggling to herself, she decided to take a quick look around her rival's mind. It was mostly black, no sign of the sleeping embodiment of Sakura that was supposed to be there. Then she came upon it.
There seemed to be... two Sakuras and a Temari sleeping together in a heap.
Weird!
Ino left very quickly, and rose from her seat. She wrote down her answers and began a second Shintenshin.
The jounin had indeed noticed the two girls sudden sleep, but thought nothing of it. It wasn't until a third collapsed and the first two rose that they started to worry. The the second girl goes and fall down again. Then she gets up and two boy collapse!
Geez, what was up with these genin?! It seemed like they were playing some perverse game of whack-a-mole. Ibiki did consider that it could be part of a code, but there was nothing discernable he could make out from multiple students giving themselves concussions.
"Alright, the last question" the examiner said suddenly. Everyone sat up and looked at him, full attention.
"First, there is one more rule to be added. This is absolute, there are no special cases. You get to decide whether to answer the question." The genin murmured surprised and delighted. "The rule, however, is: if you get the question wrong, you fail instantly, you leave, and you can never take the test again. You will never progress past genin."
"What?!" several people yelled in dismay. This had never happened before. "That's no fair!"
Ibiki shrugged, smirking. "Oh, well. I guess you've never had me before."
"What happens if we choose not to take it?" another genin asked.
The smirk widened. "Then you lose all your points, and you along with your team fail this test." The room fell silent, looking to their teammates for their opinions. Pass or Fail.
Pass or never be anything more than genin.
Ever.
Four teams walked out one after another. Each with their head hanging down in misery and shame.
Gaara and Naruto met eyes, nodding simultaneously. Suddenly all hell broke loose as two voices started shouting objections at once.
"That's stupid!" Squeaked the little raccoon on Sasuke's shoulder, causing the boy to jolt. Along with everyone else in the room. Oddly enough, a number of people still refused to connect the voice with anything other than the nearest human to it, despite the fact that summons of any sort or level are known to speak. There goes a little more of Sasuke's dignity.
"Do you really think we would give up so easily?!" Naruto joined in, pounding his hand on the table.
"Who cares if you don't get passed genin!"
"Ranks don't really matter anyway! Do you really think an enemy is gonna care?"
"Besides, after a point, everyone's going to know how strong you are with or without rank."
They both nodded to emphasis it, suddenly lapsing into silence. Ibiki smirked. Quite the group we have indeed. he thought.
"I see. So anyone else?" No one raised a hand. Everyone looked at him apprehensively, waiting for the question.
"Good job, all of you. You pass the first test of the chuunin exam."
-:- -:- -:-Owari-:- -:- -:-(1) just a fancy way of saying realized(2) oh, how tempting it was to write Ho ho ho Green Giant, or something along those lines...(3) For those who don't know, akimbo means hands on hips.\/
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