Naruto slowly walked up to Ino and Shikamaru, who were both leaning against the fence surrounding the Academy. "So we are doing this, huh?" Naruto asked looking at the determined looks on both of their faces.
"We've trained too much to throw this away." Ino said as she raised a clenched fist. "As troublesome as it is, I agree." Shikamaru said, placing his hands behind his head.
"You all packed everything like we said right?" Naruto asked pulling out a scroll. He unfurled the scroll to reveal that it's a sealing scroll.
"Of course we did." Ino said pulling out her own scroll. Shikamaru sighed as they both looked at him. "I have mine as well. Let's go before we are late."
The Genin made their way inside of the Academy and up the stairs. They stopped briefly on the second floor seeing a large gathering of Chunin hopefuls. Shikamaru and Ino shared a look briefly. "Why are they standing here?" Naruto asked.
"Look at the number above the door Naruto." Ino said pointing. Naruto read the sign seeing that it claimed to be room 303, the designated testing room. "We only went up one flight of stairs?" Naruto muttered to himself. "Exactly. This is probably a test to weed out some Genin." Shikamaru said as he turned to go up another set of stairs.
Team Ten made it to the right room only to find Asuma-Sensei outside. "I'm glad to see all of you here. If any of you decided not to participate, then the whole team would have failed." He said looking over them.
"You don't have to worry about us sensei." Shikamaru said, looking oddly motivated. Naruto and Ino inched away from him slightly, staring in shock at the Nara. Asuma just smiled and moved out of the way.
They entered the room to see about ten other teams already inside. Naruto could see two teams from Suna, one from Taki, three from Ame, two with a music note headband, and one from Kiri. Naruto looked over the team from Mist and noticed a familiar face.
"Haku!" Naruto shouted, waving a hand. Haku turned and smiled when she saw him. She made her way over to Team Ten, her own team following behind her. "Naruto, it's great to see you again so soon." She beamed, a light pink flashing on her cheeks briefly. Naruto, not noticing, began looking at Haku's team.
Naruto saw a tall Genin with light blue hair and framed glasses. He carried a massive bandaged sword with two handles strapped to his back. Beside him was heavy set boy with grey burnt armor covering his upper body. His arms and neck were covered in bandages and he had what appeared to be a massive scroll on a sword handle strapped to his back. The sword had a small edge along one side with a scroll unrolled on the other.
"Nice to meet you Naruto. Haku has told us much about you My name is Chojuro, and this is Shen." The glasses wearing genin said, pointing at the armor wearing one.
"Nice to meet you two, but what's with the swords?" Naruto asked looking over the three genin. Naruto looks at Haku again and notices she too has an odd sword. Hers being a thin needle like sword with ninja wire attached to the end.
"We are training to be the next generation of the Seven Swordsman." Shen answered proudly, his fist hitting the chest plate of his armor. "Like Zabuza then." Shikamaru said, joining the conversation.
"Exactly." Chojuro answered before turning away.
Everyone in the room goes silent as the door to the room slams open. Kiba jumps into the room laughing uproariously. Sakura walks in behind him and punches him in the head causing him to fall to the floor. "What are you doing idiot." She hissed as she began to drag him to the closest corner, Sasuke following behind with his hands in his pocket. Choji, Hinata, and Shino follow as well but leave a little space between them and the fuming pinkette.
"Troublesome, that bunch is here too." Shikamaru muttered. "Should we go say hi." Ino said, looking at Sakura and Sasuke.
"Lets wait and see what happens next. They caused a scene and now everyone hear is staring at them. Walking over now may cause that attention to spread to us." Shikamaru said, appearing oddly focused compared to his usual lazy outlook.
Team Ten watch as a grey haired genin walked over to the rest of the rookies and began talking. They saw the newcomer pull out some kind of deck of cards but couldn't hear the exchange. Shikamaru began going through hand signs before his shadow launched out, snagging the three camo wearing genin as they appeared to be trying to attack the card holding genin.
"Now now, we are here for a test are we not." Shikamaru said as he held the three genin still. "He was bad mouthing Sound, we don't take that lightly." The one with a hunch back said.
An explosion of smoke erupted in the front of the room. The smoke quickly cleared to show a scared looking man in a dark leather trench coat standing at the front. Several ninja in Chunin garb stood behind him holding clip boards.
"That's enough!" the trench cloak wearing man yelled. "Any more fighting without a proctors permission will result in automatic failure. Am I understood?"
Shikamaru nods as he releases the three genin. The hunchbacked Sound Genin bowed before saying, "Our apologies proctor. Our nerves are just thin with the exam about to start."
"Well get it under control whelp." Ibiki replied.
The genin are quickly placed into random seats with a test placed in front of them. After the rules were explained, the sounds of pencil's writing filled the room. Naruto stared down at the test in front of him. 'I don't know any of this' He thought, beginning to sweat with worry.
Naruto continued to worry until he suddenly couldn't move anymore. He watched as his hand began to move on its own, filling out the test. A shadow connected Naruto to Shikamaru, who was filling out both test easily.
"Thanks" Naruto muttered to himself, relieved.
Around the room multiple different methods of cheating were taking place. An eye made of sand floated over someone's shoulder, mirrors attached to wire moved on the ceiling, Sasuke stared as another genin wrote, copying his pencil movements.
Shikamaru's shadow retracts just before a kunai launches past Naruto's head. It struck the desk behind him, sticking in the middle of an Ame Nin's test.
"Hey, what's the big deal!" The Ame Nin yelled, slamming his fist on the table as he jumped to his feet.
"You were caught cheating five times. That means you and your team fail." Ibiki replied as the Ame team were escorted out. The time continued on as more and more genin failed. After close to fifty minutes Ibiki walked to the front of the room again.
"Alright whelps, time for the final question. But first you have a choice. You can choose to take the question, but if you get it wrong, you will be stuck a genin forever. Or you can leave now and retake the exams at a later date." Ibiki said, a sinister smile marring his scared face.
The room filled with shouts of outrage as everyone processed what he said. "You can't do this, we aren't even from your village!" A blond girl from Suna shouted.
"It doesn't matter what you think, I already approved it with all of the higher ups. Now make your choice." Ibiki said over the genin. "I can't do this." A Konoha genin said as he stood up and left, his teammates leaving with him. Soon more and more chunin hopefuls leave one after the other. After about five minutes of the genin leaving, Ibiki held his hand up.
"Alright, listen up. Congrats on passing the final question." Ibiki started before he was interrupted by a crash erupting from the window behind him. A woman appeared behind him wearing fishnet mesh, a brown trench cloak, and a tan skirt. She crossed her arms looking over the teams.
"Damn Ibiki, you're losing your touch if you let this many survive." She said haughtily. "Don't worry, by the time I'm done with them, there won't be half as many." She finished with an evil grin. "Alright whelps, to the Forest of Death!"