Disclaimer: I still don't own Naruto.
Note: I don't like using section marker to divide sections but does anyone else know of a better idea? Everything else I tried didn't work…
Chapter 5
Outwitting a Genius: Shikamaru's Test!
"We have to hurry! We can't be late!" Sakura yelled to Chouji.
"Easy for you to say!" he protested, "I didn't even finish breakfast before you barged in and toppled me out of bed!"
"That's the problem! You eat so much you can't keep up!" Ino said.
Sakura sighed. They really were going to be late if they didn't hurry.
"What did you say?" Chouji yelled angrily.
Sakura had an idea.
"Hey, Ino…" she said, whispering the idea. Ino brightened.
"Hey, you fat fatso! What's your middle name, 'fatty?'" Ino called back to him, sticking out her tongue.
"INO!!!!!" he yelled, running faster than they knew he could. Faster, Sakura thought, than even Lee.
"There we go," said Sakura, "But now we have to speed up too or who knows what he'll do if he catches us?"
They reached the building and ran up the two flights of stairs quickly, aware of an enraged Chouji on their heels.
"At least they didn't cast a genjutsu to change the floor numbers again…" Sakura thought, "That was nice of them. They must be confident about their test to fail us if they didn't try any cheap tricks like last time."
The reached the desk in a hurry, Ino casting a variation of her mind spells that temporarily stopped Chouji in his tracks as he caught up with them, fist raised. The jutsu seemed to calm him down, since he put down his hand and seemed more relaxed. Ino released the jutsu and found, to her relief, that it had worked; Chouji was calm and didn't remember any of the things Ino had said a few moments before.
"Team 10 is here." Sakura said, out of breath.
"Oh? Good timing, you just made it. Asuma's already waiting for you." the secretary said, ushering them in.
Like before, the room was packed with formidable looking ninja left and right, their Jounin leaders standing to the side. They found Asuma quickly to set his mind at peace that they had arrived, then walked around, searching.
"Hey, Sakura!" called a voice.
"Lee…" Sakura thought. It was this very building where Lee had asked her to be his girlfriend. She didn't want a repeat of that again.
Fortunately, he didn't seem to have anything of the sort on his mind right now.
"Hey, you guys. You're rather late." said Tenten as Team 9 approached Team 10.
"We made it just in time, actually." said Ino proudly, as if it were some great accomplishment.
"Well I did five hundred laps around this building and still had five minutes to spare." Lee bragged.
"Yeah, and you woke up at 6:00 to start." Tenten pointed out.
Lee visibly deflated.
"Did you notice too, Neji?" asked Sakura.
The others turned to her, as if to say, What the heck are you talking about?
"Yeah." he said, "No genjutsu on the classroom number. And Kotetsu and Izumo weren't there to try to stop us from entering either. Something's different this time around."
"Either we're all missing something, or they are really confident in their test to knock out a large portion of the entrees." Sakura finished.
This seemed to dampen everybody's spirits.
"Attention everybody! Please make a single file line, to get your seat number." said Shizune from the doorway. The line instantly formed, and the line slowly thinned. Both Teams 9 and 10 were near the end. It took over twenty minutes to assign seats to the over 200 ninja, even though Shizune had the chart right in front of her.
Sakura was next in line.
"Seat 22, over on the far left side of the room." she said to Sakura.
"Seat 289, that corner seat just to my right." she said to Ino.
"Seat 112, near the center." she told Chouji.
None of the three were sitting anywhere near anyone they knew. Apparently all the teams were likewise situated, being on entirely different ends of the room from where their teammates were. Except for Lee and Tenten, who were five rows apart from each other, nobody was anywhere close to their teammates.
Sakura took a good look around the room. She didn't recognize any Chuunin planted in the crowd of ninja this time, at least not any Konoha ones she would recognize. And considering she had to see almost every ninja in the village at some time or another for some medical reason, she felt safe to assume that this year, there were no plants.
On the side, like last time, there were many Chuunin and Jounin who sat in chairs or stood alertly. The only odd thing, she noticed, was Shikamaru standing in a corner, one foot against the wall, apparently doing nothing.
"All right," said Shizune, moving to the front of the room, "I'm going to come around and give out your tests. Don't turn them over yet."
Seat Number 1 was Neji. Some irony that was, Sakura thought.
"Your name?" Shizune asked brusquely, even though Sakura was sure she knew already. She was putting on a show, perhaps.
"Hyuuga, Neji." he said.
She nodded, looking at the chart in her hand, then ruffling through the papers. She slid a paper face down on his desk.
"Don't even think about using Byakugan." she said.
He blinked, Shizune searching his face. As soon as she was satisfied that the trademark bulging veins of an active Byakugan were not showing, she moved on to the next person.
Shizune reached her, finally.
"Name?" she said.
"Haruna, Sakura." Sakura said.
She wordlessly slid another piece of paper on her desk.
"Why all the name stuff and the chart?" wondered Sakura, "Why not just pass out all the tests quickly."
It was taking much longer to pass out the tests as it did to assign seats. Over thirty minutes into the undertaking, Sakura felt an odd sensation hit her back and spread up her. Her vision blacked.
Inner Sakura gasped and looked around in blackness, and was surprised to find the spiritual form of Ino in her body.
"Ino! What are you doing here!" Inner Sakura screamed.
"I have to tell you something. I just talked to Shikamaru this same way since I was getting bored of the waiting… But I found out something by accident that might be valuable. I don't know if Shikamaru meant for me to figure out- he usually isn't so careless- but either way, we should use it to our advantage." Ino said.
"Ok…" Inner Sakura started, "Now quit babbling and tell me!"
"All right, all right. Anyway, I found out that this test that we're about to take… Shikamaru wrote it!" Ino said.
Sakura was stunned. Shikamaru? The 200 IQ genius wrote the test they were about to take?
"We're doomed." Inner Sakura whispered.
"Don't say that! We don't even know what the test is yet!" Ino said encouragingly.
"Heh, I didn't think you could hear that. Anyway, Shikamaru's not too motivated and all, so he probably didn't put much effort into making this hard. If anything, we should be happy Ibiki didn't do it again." Inner Sakura thought.
"Unless he was motivated…" Ino commented, "Tsunade can get pretty scary when she wants to be."
"True." Inner Sakura replied, "Now get out of my body and go tell Chouji."
Ino's presence left compliantly. Sakura blinked once, control of her body returning to her in a snap.
How long did that conversation take? Wondered Sakura, seeing that Shizune was almost done with the whole room now.
She looked at the paper in front of her, as if she had the Byakugan and was trying to see through it to see what was on the other side. What could it be, what could it be? She had to assume that Shikamaru had tried his hardest to make this test. If that was so, she was facing a mind of 200 IQ. No matter. She, too, was known for her brain. Kakashi called her the best Genin mind in Konoha on the Zabuza mission- but he didn't know about Shikamaru then.
Could she really butt heads with a genius? Could she outwit the master of wits? It seemed like a challenge that her, if anyone, could handle… but still…
"All right, you will have thirty minutes to complete this test. Under no circumstances is cheating allowed- the Chuunin and Jounin here will assure to that. If your or one of your teammates fail, the whole team fails." Shizune said, returning to the front of the room.
All right… nothing new there… thought Sakura.
"You may turn over your papers."
The room was filled with the rustle of paper as they revealed their tests.