Chapter 5: Do You Dare?

"Hey, who the hell are you?" Konohamaru demanded of the strange intruder. The face paint and ominous black cloak looked too suspicious to pass by.

Kankurō looked back at the Hokage's grandson, his gaze strangely blank. "I'm Kankurō," he said tiredly. "Whaddya want, kid?"

Konohamaru fumed. "You're wearing a Suna headband! Whatcha doin' here, huh?"

"Chūnin exams," was the succinct reply.

"What are you waiting around for?" asked Temari, who also looked distinctly tired. She was a few feet ahead of him, and her mother's fan dangled limply from one hand. "C'mon, we have to go check into our hotel. Baki needs to put in our registration before tonight."

"Yeah, coming," her younger brother replied. Together, they trudged off.

Konohamaru was more than a little confused. Two ninja from Suna with bags under their eyes, wandering through Konoha? They said they were here for the chūnin exams, but he didn't buy it. There had to be some ulterior motive! Now, what would Naruto do...?

Naruto would totally follow them! Then, when he figured out their evil plans, he would kick their asses and bring them to the Hokage! Smiling gleefully, Konohamaru erected a terrible disguise and began following the Kazekage's children.

.:.

"SHUT UP!" Ibiki thundered. The auditorium held hundreds of people, and its high ceiling gave every voice a resounding echo. Nevertheless, Ibiki's voice was the loudest, and soon the hordes of jōnin were quiet.

"Thank you," he said again, this time much more quietly. On his left at the table was Anko Mitarashi, chewing idly on a stick of pastry, and on her left was Hayate Gekkō, who looked somewhat embarrased just to be there.

"Welcome to the Bi-Annual Chūnin Selection Exams," the proctor announced to the audience. "You have already been informed of the three events which will be taking place over the next month and a half, beginning tomorrow. As a... precaution, your documentation will be scanned for authenticity today, after which you will be officially registered. Before we do that, however, the Hokage has asked me to look for any late acceptances. Anyone who has yet to submit their genin team will do so now, please."

The room was silent for a moment, as the assembled ninja from all walks of life looked each other over. Who would want to enter a genin team now, of all times?

"I will," said an old, powerful voice. Walking purposefully out of the crowd with a cane by his side, Danzō approached the platform.

Ibiki grunted neutrally. "Name, village and documentation."

"Danzō Shimura, of Konohagakure." Danzō produced a sheet of paper covered in writing, which Ibiki snatched out of his hands. He read it quickly, then set it down on the table.

"Anyone else?" he demanded.

"I will as well," said another man. This one had a head of orange hair, combed into a spiky mop. "Yahiko Sato, of Amegakure," he said, offering his own papers for consideration. Ibiki dropped those into the pile too.

"Last call!" he shouted, waiting for any final applicants.

At the back of the room, a door popped open. Izumo Kamizuki swept forwards, dropped another paper into the pile, and vanished again. Ibiki picked it up.

"It seems Kabuto Yakushi, Yoroi Akadō and Misumi Tsurugi are trying again," he remarked.

Anko spat out her dango stick and grinned. "No kidding, huh?" she chortled. "Next thing you know, Kosuke is gonna come in!"

There were some laughs from the Konoha jōnin who knew who she was talking about. Kosuke Maruboshi had declined a direct promotion to jōnin for over four decades. Kabuto, on the other hand, had been trying and failing in the chūnin exam for almost five years.

Hayate coughed quietly. "I-If there's nothing else," he forced out, "please come back tomorrow. Take your passports to the back of the room, and we will begin the process of ensuring you are who you say you are."

.:.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and I'm not going to lose to any of you sorry ninja!"

The crowd of genin stared at the blond as if he had two heads. Desperate to do damage control, Sakura wrenched him into a headlock, apologizing for her teammate with Tourette's Syndrome while Sasuke stood to the side and pretended neither of them existed.

"You're kinda arrogant, for someone who's going to die!" Kiba remarked arrogantly. Akamaru barked in agreement.

"You shouldn't dismiss his abilities based on his propensity to brag," said Shino. "Why? Because you are hardly a pushover yourself, and you are quite possibly louder than even Naruto."

"N-Naruto isn't t-that l-loud," Hinata said shyly. "H-He's just c-confident, that's all."

"Meh, Sasuke's even more confident," Shikamaru said dryly. "So's Kiba, Ino and Sasuke, but you don't see them shooting their mouths off."

"Actually, Kiba was– Gurk!" Whatever else Naruto had to say was viciously cut off by Sakura tightening her forearm around his neck.

"No!" she emphasized. "You've already put your foot in your mouth; try not to swallow it, you blockhead!"

The door burst open then, admitting a silver-haired genin with glasses. Following him were two other ninja, both of whom looked like they'd just run a marathon. "Sorry," Kabuto said, with only a hint of exhaustion creeping into his voice. "We just got back from a mission to Hot Spring Country's border, and we had to run to get here on time."

On cue, the clock struck eight, and Ibiki Morino appeared at the head of the room in a puff of smoke, accompanied by a squad of chūnin from Konoha's Torture division.

"All right you lot, shut the hell up!" he roared, again employing his intimidating presence. Then there was silence. Instantly.

"Good," he said, apparently satisfied. "Congratulations on making it to the chūnin exams. A third of you are still on the second floor, about to be failed. For now, everyone take a look at the seats. Find the one with your name on it, and sit down. The first portion of the exam is a written test."

"What? NO WAY!" Naruto moaned in despair. Though they didn't say it, the sentiment was echoed by a good chunk of the room's occupants. Miserably, they shuffled around until they found their respective seats and sat in them.

"Now, this test is fairly simple," Ibiki told the assembled genin. "There are ten questions, and for each question you have two points. If you fail to answer a question or answer incorrectly, a point will be subtracted from your total. Each member of your team must have at least one point at the end in order to pass.

'Great,' thought Sakura, glancing at the distraught Naruto.

'Oh dear,' thought Shino, discretely watching Kiba out the corner of his eye.

'How troublesome,' thought Shikamaru. Ino could probably cheat her way to victory, but Chōji was a lost cause.

"There are extra rules that concern cheating," Ibiki went on, inadvertently dashing Shikamaru's hopes. "If you get caught cheating twice, you fail. Furthermore, if you fail, your entire team will be disqualified with you. The first time you are caught cheating, it will be recorded by the examiners. It will not reflect well on you while promotions are being considered."

Ibiki gestured to the examiners, who were taking up positions around the room. "These chūnin will be watching your every move, so getting away with it is going to be next to impossible. You have one hour to finish, use it wisely. Turn over your test papers now."

The was a rustle as hundreds of papers were flipped over. Naruto scanned the first page's questions. Number one was a cryptogram, and number two was a physics problem dealing with the trajectory of a shuriken thrown on a flat plane. Neither of them made any sense at all.

'Dammit, how am I supposed to know what all this gibberish is? What the hell is a 'ballistic projectile'?' He looked around the room, but it seemed that the majority of the competition was equally stumped. Even Sasuke was staring at the paper, looking like he'd swallowed a lemon. On his right, Hinata was staring at her test paper with a grimace.

Only a few people were actively working on their tests. In particular, Naruto saw Sakura hunched over hers, feverishly working out the answer to question three, which dealt with the history of Hōzuki-jō. Every once in a while, Shikamaru would mutter something under his breath and write something down, and near the front a pale boy was steadily filling out his paper. A few others were trying, but they seemed to be the islands in a sea of confused faces.

Ten minutes later and no more enlightened (though Sakura seemed to be halfway through already), an examiner with bandages over the top half of his face stood up. Lunging forward, he grabbed Chōji by the scruff of the neck and hoisted him in the air.

"Chōji Akimichi, you are disqualified."

"What?" Chōji yelped, trying futilely to twist out of the grip. He had, in fact, been looking at the test of the pale boy in front of him, but he thought he hadn't been so obvious about it.

Ibiki picked up a list of the applicants and crossed off some names. "Chōji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara," he read off. "Team Ten of Konohagakure. Get out."

"Chōji!" Ino hissed, standing up. "How could you blow it so quickly? I totally had it under— don't you dare say this is troublesome, you lazy bastard! This wasn't even hard for you! Chōji, put the chips away! Why the hell did you bring chips to an exam?! YOU AREN'T EVEN LISTENING TO ME!"

The door closed on her, shutting out the enraged monologue.

Now that he was looking for it, Naruto started to see plenty of people cheating. Hinata's eyes, which he vaguely recalled were a dōjutsu of some sort, were surrounded by bulging veins. Whatever it was, she was getting the answers almost as fast as she could write them down. The girl on his left, who had a pair of buns in her hair, took out a hand mirror and pretended to adjust the wooden sticks that held them in place. Also, depending on the angle it was at, she might have been copying off the guy two rows back, but he couldn't tell.

Sasuke, sharingan activated, recorded the hand movements of the woman diagonal in front and to his right. Shino had placed an insect on someone else's table, and was now translating its clicks and moans into legible writing. A boy with orange hair slumped forward in his seat at the same time a man across the room stiffened and started to 'check his answers'. Amost everyone was trying to cheat, aside from the ones who genuinely knew the answers.

Well, almost everyone. The redheaded boy was just staring straight ahead, and hadn't even picked up his pencil. The boy wearing the black cloak and the ridiculous makeup was busy folding his test into an intricate paper airplane. If this were any other place and time, Naruto would have asked how he was making it and whether it was any good.

Across the room, a blonde Suna kunoichi was fruitlessly trying to answer question two, with the sneaking suspicion that she was doing it wrong.

Over the next half hour, over thirty people were noticed cheating a second time. Unlike the first time, subsequent evictions simply consisted of Ibiki reading off a set of names and ordering them to leave without warning. The tension was rising in the room as everyone struggled to find the correct information without being caught.

At the same time, Naruto finalized a plan in his mind. He only had one shot to pass the test and not let his team down, so it had to be just right. He sat, and he waited.

.:.

With just under twenty minutes left in the test, Naruto Uzumaki stood up. Immediately, hundreds of pairs of eyes locked on to him. Shrugging carelessly under the attention, he waltzed across the room to Sakura's chair, where the pinkette was idly twirling her pencil and waiting for the tenth question to be announced.

Without further ado, he picked up her test and began reading the solution to question one. Sakura's mouth dropped open, as did several other peoples', but nobody made a move to stop him.

"Hey, how did you figure this out?" he asked curiously, thumbing the paper.

"It's a polyalphabetic cypher," she answered automatically, slipping into a tone of lecture. "The encryption of one letter is determined by that of the unencrypted letter before it, so that– Naruto, what are you doing?!"

"If we get caught twice, we're out," Naruto said casually. "I'm only going to get caught once, though. Hey, this is pretty clever!"

Sakura blushed, but stayed silent. Under the watchful gaze of the proctor, Naruto put the paper back down and ambled back to his own desk. In the last minutes before the final question, he hastily parroted Sakura's answers for the first two questions.

Ibiki stood up. "Before we begin the tenth question, there are some additional rules to go over."

"Great," Nejiri muttered under his breath. He knew from experience that this was the do-or-die portion of the exam.

"If you answer this question correctly, you are your team will pass on to the next portion of the exams. If you do not, you and your team will fail. Furthermore, if you do not answer the question correctly, you will be prohibited from ever taking the chūnin exams again... along with your team."

"WHAT THE HECK?" Kiba bellowed. "There are people here who've taken this exam before!"

"You have the misfortune of being in one of my scenarios," Ibiki deadpanned. "Feel fortunate that you will survive. For those of you who do not feel confident in seeing this portion out to the end, there is a third option. If you choose not to take the tenth question, your team will fail automatically. However, you will be allowed to take the exam again at a later date. Any of you who wish to take this route, please say so now."

Almost immediately, hands started going up. Ibiki and the examiners started taking notes furiously, and soon the proctor began to speak.

"Keiko Honda, M, Ukyo Yotsuki. Team Eleven of Kumogakure. Nejiri, Sachiko, Tomomi. Team Two of Sunagakure..."

.:.

Hinata Hyūga thought hard about what she wanted to do. Kurenai's recommendation for the status of chūnin was a great honour, especially so quickly after graduating from the Academy. It was her father's desire that she attend and do well, and thus far she'd done the first one. How the examiners had failed to see her use of the byakugan was beyond her, though it was possible that fell into the realm of 'one time only', like Naruto's method. She had quickly observed Neji while looking for answers, and was somewhat surprised to see that his byakugan was inactive. What you'd expect from a prodigy, she supposed.

Now, she had a choice. What Hinata wanted to do more than anything else in the world was to stay and move on. With chūnin rank under her belt, she could finally earn some measure of independence from her clan. Neji would be forced to acknowledge her prowess, and best of all, Naruto would finally notice her for the talented kunoichi she was!

(Privately, she wished she could have breezed through the exam on brain power alone like Sakura, but if the two of them ever clashed in a fight...)

On the other hand, she had more than her family and her crush to think of. Shino's and Kiba's futures both relied on the choice she was about to make. It pained her to say it, but being barred from ever taking the chūnin exam again was a bigger blow to her team as a whole than simply to herself. With that privilege forever beyond their grasps, none of them could hope to become the heir to their parents. At least she had a younger sister who wanted to replace her, but Shibi depended wholly on his only child. It would be devastating to Kiba, whose older sister had passed the right to succeed Tsume on to him.

Frankly, Kiba was too stubborn to admit there was a chance of failure. Shino was inscrutable as always, but Hinata suspected he would not fold. It was up to her, then, to shoulder the burden of her teammates' hate. She thought about Neji's smug grin and Naruto's smiling face, wondering which of them was right.

Amidst a sea of weakening faith, Hinata looked at Naruto's determined face one last time. Then, arm trembling, she raised her hand.

Firstly, I figured I would change a portion of the exam. Not much, just enough to avoid using the stale version from canon. Giving everyone two chances instead of five makes the tension a little more palpable, and therefore I'd imagine a greater number of people would crack.

Yes, Team Kurenai and Team Asuma didn't make it. Unlike canon, Chōji figured out the purpose of the test, and instead of waiting for Ino to switch with him and do his test for him, he tried to cheat anyways. Without any real talent for subtlety, he failed his teammates. Shikamaru and Ino would have otherwise passed.

Hinata's decision at the end was supposed to be a mirror of Naruto's decision. While he has unyielding belief in his teammates and himself, Hinata looks up to him as a paragon of faith. So it stands to reason that she might waver when he wouldn't. Being stuck as a genin forever, in her mind, is infinitely less preferable than failing her team so they can improve themselves and try again later.

Why did I do this? Because I want to make Naruto a puppeteer, but I also want to make it believable, and I want to write interesting fight scenes. Team 8 and Team 10 won't surprise and delight as much as their substitutes will, I think.