"So, does Baki remember?"

"No, as far as we can tell only the three of us remember the future in Sunagakure"

"OK, we'll protect you guys but seeing as how we don't know when Orochimaru switches with your father you're going to have to do something that proves you earned our protection since we're the only one who remember in this time, there will be two more at least from the village but now isn't the time"

"Okay, we'll see what we can do, by the way Lee if there are preliminaries I want a true match against you seeing as how I am not crazy...mostly"

"Gaara..."

"Sorry Shukaku is getting really, really annoying right now, I have almost killed a few people recently and Temari and Kankuro have noticed my mutterings getting more frequent lately, I could really use some help with him by the way"

"Sure, Kurama doesn't remember as far as I know but maybe, just maybe we can fix the seal for you so that Shukaku isn't so loud"

"Works for me, just be careful when you do this"

"Not a problem"

"By the way have you three been working towards war conditions?"

"Yes, but in secret which means we're probably behind you guys in regards to regaining our strength since we're watched more closely with Gaara"

"Good point, but you work on it when you can which is the most important thing"

The group quickly handles Gaara's issue and then simply talk and train in secret. Finally the day of the exam arrived and naturally before they even entered the exams they ran into the gate guards Kotetsu and Izumo hiding the real exam room with a genjutsu, this time though Sasuke didn't say anything knowing it was yet another part of the test. When they arrived the other teams had already gotten there if only because of the fact that while Lee didn't challenge Sasuke this time Team Gai and Team Kakashi got waylaid by a few of the testers trying to use a supposed shortcut and naturally everyone who remembered was discreetly giving Kabuto the evil eye but they said nothing about him being a traitor if only because they felt it was too dangerous to reveal him at the moment, but Naruto actually thought of a brillaint plan and relayed that to the others via quick coded hand signals due to orders from Tsunade who they acknowledged as the fifth Hokage

*Take out Kabuto in forest if possible, no Ibiki message*

He gets discreet nods from the others knowing that while the Hokage knew he was going to die soon thanks to Tsunade having to reveal it, without proof they couldn't reveal Kabuto as a spy for Orochimaru to Ibiki, but since in the forest of death they were allowed to kill their opponents for the scroll that's when it would be best to take out Kabuto. Kabuto then gets himself attacked by Sound and while the group pretends to be concerned they knew it was an act, finally though Ibiki arrived and the Konoha 12 plus the Sand siblings breezed through the exams without having to resort to cheating, except Naruto and a few others cheated anyways just to keep suspicion off of the entire group since gathering information was the point of the first test. When Ibiki revealed the reason behind the test most were repulsed at the torture scars he showed, but Ibiki wasn't phased one bit, and then Anko came in and the group smirked knowing that they were going to enact their plan soon. Once they reached the forest of death they had one plan and one plan only, reach the tower within the deadline while also trying to take out Kabuto, but they let the others know that Team Kakashi was going to encounter Orochimaru since he wanted the Sharingan so Orochimaru was Team Kakashi's all the way. And the fight was epic, the team didn't regain their true war time strength but Naruto's insistence on them being able to make and maintain a shadow clone for an active hour meant that Sasuke and Sakura managed to do some damage, Sasuke couldn't manage a Chidori yet but that was only because he didn't have the chakra reserves for both a shadow clone and Chidori and Sasuke decided the shadow clone was more important against Orochimaru. Sasuke and Sakura did excellent though Sasuke still got marked they actually managed to hurt Orochimaru and when Naruto came back from dealing with the snake the three combined did even more damage. Finally all groups made it into the tower and Team Kakashi was disappointed that Kabuto was still alive, but this time he was seriously injured by Gaara and forced to drop out and Gaara wasn't even trying to injure him, it turned out that Kabuto got caught in the blast radius of an attack that Sound ninja made on him

*Reveal skills early?*

*No, too suspicious, during invasion*

*Okay*

Gaara and Lee did indeed have to fight but with Shukaku under control it was an intensive taijutsu match with Gaara winning only because he had more stamina as Shukaku's Jinchuriki. Lee literally passed out from exhaustion and Gaara simply caught him in a sand cloud and made sure he got back to his sensei safely. The other fights turned out pretty much like before, except Neiji made sure not to use any lethal blows and Naruto and Kiba actually fought instead of the way it happened before, though Naruto did manage to use a pepper bomb on Kiba, not because of the fact that he was actually trying to use his nose against him but because of the fact that quite frankly if Naruto hadn't used it when he had there was a very good chance of an accidental deployment

"Sorry Kiba, would have probably gone off at an inopportune time otherwise"

"Oh like when?"

"Observation point"

"Oh, that makes sense then still annoying though"

Finally matches were over and the final exam team ups were exactly the same as last time which got a typical Shikimaru comment

"Troublesome"

"You have one month to prepare"

The group quickly met up at the secret training ground once dismissed