A/N: Well, I need a new goal now…so I say it's time to aim for 200 reviews. I'll have a high review story yet…Anyway, I really don't have much to comment on right now, a rare occasion indeed, so on with the story.

Shadow Fox

Naruto was, for one of the few times in his life, genuinely happy. He really enjoyed his time with Kin that night, it was the only time that he had felt relaxed since he had arrived back in Konoha. It hadn't been a particularly eventful night, but he had enjoyed it none the less. They just had a simple dinner at the Ichiraku ramen stand, enjoying each others company as they had short conversations about training or the upcoming exams, or anything else that they felt like talking about. Naruto had been a bit sad that he could not greet Ichiraku and Ayame, but he figured there was nothing he could do about, so he decided to not let it get to him as he enjoyed his meal with Kin.

After they were finished, they went back to their hotel room, where they were greeted by Izuko, who had a questioning look on his face, and a smirking Zaku. Izuko had been wondering where they had been for all this time. Zaku had returned to the hotel, but he had no idea where they had been and as such was starting to get slightly worried that something might have happened, like Naruto being discovered. Zaku on the other hand, had seen Naruto head off on his own earlier, and had seen Kin head out to look for him afterwards. He figured that either Kin couldn't find him, or that she did find him and they had spent quite a bit of time together. Seeing as how they came home together, he assumed the latter.

"I am glad to see that you two are ok, I was worried that something might have happened to you." Izuko told them with a sigh of relief.

"Were sorry Izuko-sensei, we just went out to get some dinner." Kin replied.

"Awww, did the two of you finally go out on your first date?" Zaku asked in a mocking tone. Naruto was his friend and he had stopped looking down on Kin after seeing her work so hard at her training, but he still couldn't help but tease them about this. The looks on their faces were nothing short of priceless.

"ZAKU, IT WAS NOT A DATE!" Kin yelled at him. Only Zaku noticed the small slump in Nartuo's shoulders as she yelled this.

"She just went with me for dinner so that I could have some company, nothing more." Naruto added with a small, sad smile, though this went unnoticed by all since his face was covered in bandages.

The team spent a while talking about the upcoming exam or other things that came to mind. As it grew later, the talking wound down and Kin went to go get a shower, but not before threatening that Hell was nothing compared to what she had in store for them if they tried anything while she was in the shower. After they heard the water starting in the bathroom, Zaku turned towards Naruto and smirked.

"You like her, don't you?"

Naruto started panicking for a second until he calmed down and realized that there wasn't much point in trying to hind things from his friend now.

"I am not really sure. I do care about her and enjoy being around her, and she is very cute, but I don't really know. The way I feel about her is…different from the way I have felt about some girls in the past."

Zaku smiled at his friend, he knew that Naruto had never really felt loved before as a child and thus had a bit of a problem understanding love himself. He could see that something was beginning to develop between his two teammates and he was happy for them. However, Naruto really didn't understand love and Kin was just to stubborn and always acting tough to admit anything to him.

"I understand. Don't worry about her, she just tends to put on a tough act around people, but I think that she cares about you too. I can't say for sure if it is love, but I know that she cares about you a lot."

"And how is that?"

"Because I have never seen her this happy until you came and joined our team."

Naruto smiled at his friend who returned the smile. They were both happy to have each other as a friend. Suddenly they heard a shout coming from the bathroom.

"DAMMIT, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HOT WATER!"

Both Zaku and Naruto both stared at each other for a second.

"You care about her?"

Naruto gave a small laugh as he replied "Who wouldn't."

Zaku smirked at him, "You do know that I will have to give you a hard time about this whenever she is not around."

"I wouldn't expect it any other way." Naruto replied with a smile.

The two of them shared a laugh as Kin came out wearing her pajamas. She gave the two of them a questioning look, wondering what the hell was so funny.

"What the hell are you two laughing about?"

The two boys smiled at her and replied with a simple "nothing." Kin stared at the two of them for a while before throwing her arms up in frustration and walking off to her bed, knowing that the two of them had no intention of telling her why they were laughing. Zaku and Naruto followed her example, figuring that there was not much else to do that night.

'Naruto, I hope that you two can be happy together.' Zaku thought before he drifted off to sleep.

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The rest of the week had been a fairly simple affair for the sound genin. They had spent most of the week relaxing and having light training sessions. Finally, the day came for start of the chuunin exams. Naruto led his team to the Konoha academy where they saw a crowd of people gathered around a doorway. There was a boy in green being thrown to the ground by two men in front of the door.

"What the hell are these people doing, can't they see that this is a genjutsu?" Kin whispered to her teammates.

"Who knows, lets just stay back and see what happens." Zaku replied.

They watched as a girl with her hair in buns helped the boy in green, she was probably his teammate. Naruto then tensed as he saw Sasuke, Sakura, and a third boy that he didn't know walk up to the guards.

'Why does Naruto tense up every time that he sees that girl and boy?' Kin thought to herself. Zaku was thinking the same thing in his mind.

"Move out of the way, we want to go to the third floor." Sasuke ordered the guards with a smirk. "Your not going to stop us with some pathetic genjutsu. Sakura, you probably noticed this before any of us, you are the analytical mind of our team."

"Huh…Oh, of course I noticed, we are on the second floor, so this can't be room 301."

"Impressive." One of the guards stated "But can you stop this."

The guard suddenly launched a kick as Sasuke moved to punch the guard. Both were interrupted, however, by the boy in green, who stopped both of their attacks.

"He's fast." Naruto told his teammates, "looks to be that he is most likely a taijutsu specialist."

His teammates nodded as they watched the boy and his team meet with the members of team seven. (I see no point in including this since you all have probably read it at least 20 times, so you know the deal by now.) Everyone began to head towards the testing room when Naruto noticed that Sasuke was being challenged by the boy in green. As this new boy and team seven went to find a place for the two to fight, Naruto turned to his team.

"You guys go ahead, I am going to check up on something, I will be there soon."

His teammates hesitated for a minute before they nodded. They weren't entirely sure about what he was planning to do, but they trusted Naruto not to do anything stupid. They continued towards the testing room while Naruto went to watch his old teammate fight with this boy in green. Naruto hid in a corner, watching them from above as the boy in green introduced himself as Rock Lee. Naruto took a closer look at the boy and noticed something that he hadn't really noticed before.

"Wow…those are some huge eyebrows, aren't they Kyo?"

The fox kit at his side yipped in response as they watched the fight begin between Rock Lee and Sasuke, and to put it simply, Sasuke was getting beaten…badly. Even after he had activated his Sharingan, he was still unable to stop Lee, he was just too fast for his Sharingan to keep up. Any doubt that Naruto may have had that this was Sasuke were gone, as only Sasuke could have the Sharingan. However, this just brought back up the question of how Sasuke was alive, Naruto just couldn't figure it out.

"Heh, looks like Sasuke-teme doesn't have a chance against this guy does he Kyo?"

The fox kit gave another playful yip as he turned his attention back to the fight along with Naruto. Lee was explaining to Sasuke that he was using solely taijutsu in this fight as he began to use a new move on Sasuke. Naruto's visible eye widened as he saw the bandages around Lee's arm unwrap and thought of what he might be doing with it. He quickly pulled out a kunai and threw it to attach the bandage to the wall as he disappeared into the shadows to return to the exam room.

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Sasuke was falling to the ground fast and Sakura was running to catch him. She dove out and managed to catch him before any damage could be done by his collision with the ground. Sasuke was still in a state of shock that he could be defeated so easily, by this weird guy with huge eyebrows and a green leotard no less. They looked to see what had stopped the boy when the noticed…a talking turtle telling Lee that he was not to use that move, and Lee was apologizing to the turtle for planning to use that move.

'…He is taking orders from a talking turtle…that's just weird, although I suppose it is not that weird for a boy with those eyebrows, haircut and outfit.' Sakura thought to herself.

'I lost…to this guy…damn' Sasuke thought.

'Hmmm I wish I had a talking turtle, then I could be like "hey everyone, look at my talking turtle" and they'd be all like "you don't have a talking turtle" and I'd show them the talking turtle and be all like "haha, told you, take that bitches. Now give me some pudding."' Their third team member thought…needless to say, he was quite a ways out there. Oh sure he seemed normal enough on the outside, but inside…well, he was a bit odd.

The three watched as the turtle asked Lee if he was prepared for his punishment and once he said that he was, there was a plume of smoke, and as it cleared, on top of the turtle stood…an older man wearing the same green leotard with the same hairstyle and the same humongous eyebrows standing in an unusual pose.

'Oh kami, there's TWO of them. What the hell is going on here.' Sakura thought.

'Why me?' Sasuke thought.

'Hmmm, I need my own dramatic entry and pose.' Thought their teammate.

The man who introduced himself as Maito Gai, the "Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha" began to ramble on about the "flames of youth" until he finally approached Lee.

"Lee my student, I told you not to use that move."

"I am sorry Gai-sensei, but I wanted to prove that hard work could be a genius."

"Lee, I understand that you would like to prove that the flames of youth burn brightly within you, but you have used a move that I have forbidden you to use, and I must now punish you, are you prepared?"

"Yes Gai-sensei."

Team seven watched as Gai approached Lee and proceeded to punch Lee, only to kneel down and hug Lee as tears streamed down their faces with a sunset in the background.

"Lee."

"Gai-sensei."

"Lee."

"Gai-sensei."

Team seven just watched on in confusion and mild discomfort.

'Good grief, what is with these two, and where the hell did that sunset come from.' Sakura thought.

'Why me?' Sasuke continued to sulk.

'I should put my left foot there, and hold my arm out there, and I'd appear in a plume of smoke and be all like "none of you shall leave alive, your death is assured" and they'll be like "NOOO, don't hurt us, we'll do whatever you say." And I'll be like "get me some pudding."'…yep, he was completely put of it.

Finally, the teacher and student broke their hug as Gai told Lee to go and run 200 laps around Konoha, until Sakura reminded him that he would miss the exam if he did that. So Gai told Lee that he would run his laps later and then turned to team seven.

"You must be Kakshi's students, so tell me, how is my eternal rival."

The members of team seven gaped at this strange man, there was no way that he could be as powerful as Kakashi.

Gai chuckled at their reaction, "I see that you don't believe me, but I assure you that Kakashi and I are eternal rivals."

The members of team seven blinked a few times, when suddenly, Gai was gone, and then he appeared behind them.

'No way, how can this weird, giant eyebrow guy be that fast.' Sakura thought.

'I couldn't track his movement at all.' Sasuke thought.

'THAT'S IT! He must use his eyebrows to hypnotize people, and then when they are entranced, he gets behind them. I should do something like that…is there a way to grow out your eyebrows?' Yup, there was something really wrong with that boy.

Gai moved up to remove the pinwheel that bound Lee's bandage to the wall when he noticed that right beside his pinwheel was a kunai that was also holding the bandage to the wall.

"Oh my, it looks that someone else was watching this fight and also decided to help young Sasuke. OH THE POWER OF YOUTH!"

Team seven was once again left staring at the strange jounin, but another thought was also running through Sasuke's mind. 'Someone else was watching us the whole time and I never even noticed him. What was he doing here and why was he getting involved in my fight.'

They all watched as Gai left, then Lee turned to them and explained that he was not the strongest genin from the leaf, but that his Teammate Neji was. The three members of team seven then proceeded to the exam room where they met with Kakashi in the hallway who gave them a speech wishing them luck.

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Naruto had returned to the room where the exam was to be taken while team seven had met with Gai. He looked around the room and noticed that there were a lot of other ninja here to take the exam. He noticed his team and began to walk over towards them.

"Dosu, where were did you go?" Zaku asked.

"I just went to watch a fight that was taking place." Naruto replied.

Zaku and Kin wondered why he had just gone off to watch some people fight, but accepted it and gave him a nod. The three of them looked around the room at all of their opponents, trying to figure out which would pose an actual threat to them. The three of them watched as they noticed Lee entering the room, followed soon thereafter by team seven. They watched as other groups of leaf genin approached team seven to greet them. Kin was rather annoyed at the fan girl behavior that two of the girls were showing as they argued over some brooding boy who wasn't really paying much attention to either of them, and if he did show any emotion towards them, it was annoyance.

'That guy doesn't seem all that great to me, he seems pretty boring. Besides, Naruto is better looking then he is, that guy is just to…pretty for a boy.' She thought to herself.

"Well, it looks like all the rookies have arrived…hey wait, where is the loud mouth idiot?" A boy with a dog on his head asked team seven.

Both Sakura and Sasuke had tensed a bit at the mention of Naruto, while Naruto was remembering why he had not really enjoyed life in Konoha that much. The third member of team seven…well, who knows what he was thinking.

"Y-y-yes, where is N-N-Naruto-kun, I h-h-haven't seen him around w-w-when I w-w-was stalk…I m-m-mean, I h-h-haven't seen him around." Muttered a shy, pale girl. (sorry, I just had to do it, you can ignore this line if you are a rabid Naru/Hina fan)

"The dobe is on a training trip to get stronger, he won't be back for a while." Sasuke told them. That was the excuse that they were told to give anybody that asked where Naruto was.

"Huh, why are they wasting their time on that idiot. Oh well, I suppose that if anybody needed extra training, it was him." Kiba said as he laughed at his own insult.

Sakura and Sasuke had to restrain them selves from attacking the dog boy for that comment, they were still rather upset about the fact that Naruto had left. Their new teammate was ok and all, but he wasn't Naruto.

Naruto was surprised, why had they not just said that he was a missing nin, he was sure that it would not be any secret, he was sure that the council would tell the village so that they could rejoice that the demon was gone and that they had an excuse to kill him, so why were they covering up his departure.

"So who is this new guy that is on your team." Kiba asked them.

"This is Hokuro, he was put on our team to replace Naruto until he comes back, we needed another team member to participate in the chuunin exam." Sasuke replied.

"He's not so bad, he is kind of quiet though, so who know what he is thinking." Sakura added.

Indeed, who knew what went on within the strange mind of Hokuro.

Naruto was still wondering about why his team had covered his leaving when he noticed a white haired man with glasses approach the group. He introduced himself as Kabuto and explained to them that this was his seventh time taking the exam, and that he could give them information on any of the participants. Sasuke had asked for information on Rock Lee and Gaara and Kabuto revealed their information on his cards. He then began to tell them about other things when Naruto noticed that he said that the sound village was small and insignificant, and that none of them needed to worry about the team from the sound. Naruto looked over and noticed that Kabuto's comment had pissed off his two teammates. Kin always got angry about people calling her weak, and Zaku…well, he just got angry pretty easily.

"We'll show him whose weak." Kin muttered as Zaku smirked.

Naruto sighed, knowing that there was nothing that he could do to stop his teammates now. He gave another sigh as he gave them a nod and they began to travel towards Kabuto.

Kabuto dodged a few senbon needles thrown from Kin and jumped back in preparation to avoid a punch from Zaku, only to find that he wasn't able to move. The punch struck him in the gut and he doubled over in pain.

'What the hell, how come I couldn't move?' Kabuto thought, until he saw his shadow on the ground, 'Of course, it must be that new boy that Orochimaru-sama informed me of.'

All of the Konoha rookies were confused, they had seen Kabuto try to dodge the attack, but for some reason he couldn't. All were confused, except for one however.

'He was held in place by the shadows. Someone else in here can use shadows, most likely one of those three ninja from the sound. And here I thought it was only my family that used the shadows. But I didn't see anyone forming any hand seals that would make a jutsu like the kagemane jutsu, I didn't see anyone make any hand seals at all. Then how?"

"Remember this, the genin from the hidden Sound village will be chuunin when this is over." Zaku told them with a smirk.

Then, in a puff of smoke, Ibiki and a number of other ninja arrived.

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A/N: There you all go, another chapter. You know I spoil you all with these frequent updates. Anyone who wonders about Sasuke and Sakura's new teammate…well, I just felt like making him really random, enough said. Anyway, I don't have many general comments, so on to review responses

Silver-Foxie: umm, yes, Naruto and Kurenai is a nice pairing for those who don't mind pairing Naruto with an older woman, however, the question is this: What the hell does that have to do with anything regarding this story?

Hell's Sorrow: Like I said last chapter, I am not trying to convert anyone to any other pairing, people are free to choose whichever pairing they like. I was just kidding about the whole being sad thing, and Naru/Saku is my second least favorite pairing with Naruto, I just still happen to read it. You are free to like or dislike any pairing you choose.

Endolphins: Well……that certainly is an interesting idea for where the plot will go, but I assure you that Zaku will not fall in love with Gaara and Gaara will not have children. As for the other Naru/Kin stories, one is the story White, and the other I don't remember the title of, but it was a short one shot and not all that great. Also, you've caught on to me thoughts on who is good and evil. The sound village is always portrayed as bad, but they are just following orders from Orochimaru, I mean, Haku did the same for Zabuza, but no one considers him evil, do they.

Skarm: It seems like you wanted an already developed character on team seven. However, no one was changing teams, so the only given character I could have put on their team is possibly Hanabi, and I didn't want to do that.

Vegeta the 3rd: I said that if he learns the rasengan, it will only be from Jiraiya, because if they had it on a scroll, don't you think more people would have learned it by now? As for learning jutsus from the foxes, you apparently missed that they can't use jutsu because they lack opposable thumbs.

Rant time!

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Today's rant is on the high school fics and adding in the random crap ideas for fics.

Once again, to start out stating things simply, WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA! Who sat there and decided, "Hey, I've got all these characters living in a cool ninja world with ninja abilities, what could be better…I know! Let's take away all there powers and put them in high school so that instead of going through amazing life threatening adventures, they reenact all of the high school angst and depression that I go through. The would be so much better than ninja fighting. What kind of half witted idiots are writing these things. I don't care about your high school experiences reenacted through the Naruto characters. This is an anime, not damn Dawson's creek.

On a related side rant, we have the idiots that write these kinds of stories: Know your stars: Naruto style, Whose line is it anyway: Naruto style, Elimidate: Naruto style. What Idiots are making these stories. Adding Naruto style to a TV or game show does not make a good idea or a good fic, you are wasting my time and that of others because NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR CRAPPY STORY!

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Well, that's it, a short rant, but it is 5:15 A.M. and I don't feel like writing more

Till next chapter.