The two weeks leading up to the chunin exams were a time of quick development for Naruto: physically, mentally, and emotionally. He continued to train hard in the mornings and afternoons honing his skills. However, each night is when the biggest changes in Naruto took place. Working with Kurenai and talking with her each night gave Naruto a sense of worth that he'd never had before. Every day for two hours, she worked with him on his gen-jutsu skills showing him that he does deserve help. He now knew that it wasn't that he wasn't worth helping because he was stupid. It was just the prejudice of the academy teachers that held him back before. After each session, Naruto and Kurenai would eat dinner together. Naruto knew he was no longer a dobe or a dead last, Kurenai had shown him that, and he was tired of looking like it.

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"N…Naruto? What are you wearing?"

Naruto gave a small grin and responded to his bewildered pink haired teammate, "I believe it's called clothing, would you prefer it if I were naked?"

Naruto had gotten rid of the jumpsuit, he now sported steel toed boots, baggy black ninja pants, and a red muscle shirt under a flowing white coat that went down to the middle of his thighs. Over the past five weeks, Naruto had changed a lot physically, but he hadn't felt the need to show off his new skills to his teammates, nor had it been necessary to do so on the pointless d- ranks they had. However, due to his new found desire to not be seen as a dobe, he had chosen to unveil his new skills at the exams.

***************************Flashback************************

"Kurenai Sensei, do you think tomorrow you could help me get some new clothes?"

"Sure Naruto, but why do you want my help and why are you changing your clothes?"

Naruto paused for a moment before answering all the while thinking how he could phrase it best to prevent Kurenai from getting mad at the villagers.

" W…Well, it would be useful to have someone else's opinion on my clothes and I just think its time for a change." Naruto finally spoke with little conviction.

"Naruto, that's not why, is it?" Naruto regretfully admitted that he wanted some help in case he was refused service and that he wanted the new clothes because he didn't want people to think of him as the dead last anymore. Kurenai just cringed and said

"Alright Naruto, tomorrow we'll do that, but for now we have work to do."

*************************End Flashback*********************

Naruto zoned back into the present in time to hear Sakura sputtering, searching for something to say. Finally, she smacked Naruto on the head while yelling

"Baka! Stop trying to be cooler than Sasuke-kun!"

Naruto rubbed his head and retorted "Whatever Sakura, let's just go take the test."

Team 7 walked up the stairs towards room 301. They got off the stairs and saw a huge group of genin clustered around a door being blocked by two chunin. Cries to be let in could be heard throughout the room. With a smirk of arrogance on his face, Sasuke stepped forward and demanded that the Gen-jutsu be released. Naruto sighed to himself 'the jerk just had to make sure everyone knew that he figured out it was a gen-jutsu, he couldn't just walk past it and let these teams get cut out.'

Naruto walked away from his team to continue to the third floor. Fifteen minutes later, Sasuke and Sakura showed up, the former with a lovely black eye. Naruto raised his eyebrows in a questioning way, but Sasuke just glared at him in response.

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'Shit' Naruto thought to himself. Although he had changed greatly physically over the past five weeks, and was now great at the practical part of being a ninja, he was still awful when it came to written tests. Naruto groaned to himself, head in his hands. 'Why are these questions so hard? I can't be the only one who can't figure this out. These are just impossible' Naruto was panicking; his feelings of inadequacy that had only recently dissipated started to wash over him again. As the sweat dripped down his face, Naruto noticed that Hinata had her Byakugan active. 'Wait a second… I'm an idiot! You're supposed to cheat. The test is super hard because they want us to cheat. Now how can I go about it…' Naruto grinned to himself finally remembering that he had hidden in his sleeve, a kage bunshin transformed into a spider. He quickly sent it out to look over other answers. A few minutes later, a proctor noticed the spider crawling up the edge of someone's desk and flicked a senbon at it. His eyes widened as he saw it poof into smoke and he wondered which genin he had just helped. Naruto quickly filled out the answers to the four questions he had been able to get before his bunshin was hit and waited for the tenth question to be asked. The scarred, smirking proctor stood up in the front of the room. "I will now give the tenth and final question. This question is different from the others- you can choose whether or not you wish to take it. If you choose not to take it, you and all your teammates fail and must leave immediately. However, if you take it, and get it wrong…" At this point Ibiki stopped and chuckled menacingly, "Well, if you get it wrong you'll be stuck as a genin forever." Naruto just sat there staring at Ibiki, resolute to take it. After all, the first part was a trick, so the second part probably was too, right? However, many in the room didn't share his resolve. One by one, teams dropped out leaving the room, too scared to try the question. All of a sudden, Naruto sprang up from his seat "Don't underestimate me! I'll take it! I am not afraid." With that, Naruto sat back down and stared at Ibiki in defiance. Ibiki saw no one was getting up after Naruto's little speech, so he looked up at the Genin and announced " You 78… all pass!" Ibiki quickly explained that the test was to examine the genin's spying skills and their resolve. However, there was no time for the genin to celebrate, as through the window burst a woman, Anko Mitarashi, if the sign pinned to the walls with kunai was to be trusted.

"What the hell? Ibiki, you left 26 teams?! You made the exam too easy."

Ibiki just looked back at her, and said "This time there are a lot of good ones" he said tilting his head slightly toward Naruto. Anko had no idea what the brat had done, but she was very curios, that was the gaki Kurenai had been helping… the one like her. Quickly shaking off her thoughts on the boy, Anko called out "Follow me, but be careful, by the end of my exam, at least half of you will be done."

With that warning, Anko jumped from the room, genin trailing her in anticipation of the exam to come.