Chapter 3

Years later, Naruto stood with Temari, Gaara, and Kankuro at some gates with a pair of chuunin in front of it. Their sensei, Baki, was showing the chuunin their papers, and they reluctantly let them in. They had changed, but not by much. Gaara was perfectly sane, even if a little gloomy at times, as even though Yashamaru tried to kill him, Naruto was there to calm him down again. As such, Gaara looked the same as usual, with no scars or tattoos marring his face.

Naruto had changed his style of dress, after hearing the pleas of his friends. Naruto now wore a light brown, almost white, T-shirt and sandy colored baggy pants with plenty of pockets for his various kunai and shuriken. He wore light brown bracers that helped him improve his poor chakra control, doubling as a demonic suppressor.

They walked through the streets before Gaara said that he had to go somewhere. They let him be and rounded a corner, only to have a little kid run smack into Kankuro. "Hey you little brat, that hurt." Kankuro snarled at the shaking boy. The boy tried to stammer an apology as a young girl came into sight.

Naruto winced at her appearance and wondered vaguely if this what something like how he had looked. She had long hot-pink hair and a long red dress. If it wasn't for the hitei-ei on her head, Naruto would have ignored her completely. The girl stared at their hitei-eis before shouting out, "What are you doing in Konoha, Sand shinobi? You realize that without permission, that this is an act of war?!"

Naruto answered immediately, "Yeah, we know," Temari and Kankuro watched Naruto warily, "But, do you really think we'd let you get away alive if it was?" The girl took a step back and shuddered. Naruto grinned but turned and caught an incoming pebble. "Is that the limit of Konoha shinobi? Throwing pebbles? I'm glad then, that I'm from Suna, where we throw real weapons."

Naruto disappeared from sight and picked up the small boy, holding a kunai to his throat. "Now, do any of you think you can stop me from slitting this little boy's throat?" Temari and Kankuro were about to speak, when Naruto glanced at them, mirth showing in his eyes, proving that he was joking, but didn't want them to say anything.

The boy suddenly decided that he had been ignored for too long and said, "I'm the grandson of the Hokage, if you hurt me you'll have to answer to him." Naruto froze for a second as vague memories of a kind old man flashed in his head. The boy grinned stupidly, thinking he had won, when Naruto said, "If I'm here to start a war, what makes you think that I would care if you are the Hokage's grandson?" The boy paled but it was then that Gaara decided to show up.

"Naruto, you're disgracing our village." Naruto glanced up at the tree, spotting Gaara and smiled, saying, "You know I was just kidding Gaara!"

A swirl of sand appeared next to Naruto and all but the Suna nin flinched. Gaara appeared in the midst of the sand with a grin on his face that quickly disappeared as he turned to face the Konoha shinobi. "We have permission to be here, didn't you know that the Chuunin Exams were being held in your own village?"

The girl blushed as a boy with black hair and eyes jumped down from the tree. 'Hmm… black hair, black eyes, cold stoic attitude. Yep, he must be Itachi oniisan's little brother, Uchiha Sasuke.' Naruto and the other Suna nin turned to leave but stopped suddenly when Sasuke called out, "What are your names, gourd-boy, whisker-face?" Naruto turned around and said, "Isn't it good manners to introduce yourself first, if you want to know the names of others, Uchiha Sasuke-san?" The boy visibly flinched at the Suna-nin already knowing his name and Naruto grinned.

Gaara spoke up and said, "I agree with my brother, but my name is Sabaku no Gaara." Naruto sighed, "And my name is Sabaku no Naruto."

Sasuke smirked and said, "Well then, I can't wait to fight you in the Chuunin Exams then, Gaara-san, Naruto-san." Gaara inclined his head, "Likewise, I'm sure." With this Gaara summoned a large cloud of sand beneath the Suna nin's feet and carried them to their hotel room.

The next day, Naruto, Gaara, and the others walked onto the second floor and saw a crowd of genin and two chuunin in henges blocking the door. They witnessed the idiotic Uchiha announce to the room about the obvious genjutsu and was attacked by a freak with big, bushy eyebrows and a bowlcut while wearing a bright green jumpsuit. The Suna nin shuddered at the sight and resolve to take him out of the exam as soon as possible.

In the main room, Naruto sat at a desk and waited for the examiner to show up, when his enhanced senses picked up someone saying something about ninja info cards. He nodded to Gaara and the two of them took off for the boy just as he finished showing Gaara's card and was about to access Naruto's card. They attached themselves to the ceiling and watched carefully.

Meanwhile, Kabuto had just activated Naruto's card. "Sabaku no Naruto. Teammates, none. Sensei, unknown. Stats, very high ninjutsu, genjutsu, and fuinjutsu. Average taijutsu and insanely high stamina. Mission status, 42 B ranks, 5 S ranks, and 12 A ranks." While the other genin stared dumbly into space, Naruto leapt down and swiped the card from Kabuto's hand. Kabuto glared at Naruto and said, "Give that back."

"Oh no, I can't do that, I can't have valuable information about me just float around like this." Naruto then burned the card he was holding. "And now there's no chance of that." Naruto walked back towards his group as Kabuto scowled at him. When he returned to his group, Gaara showed up with the remainder of Kabuto's ninja info cards. Naruto took them and burned the whole deck.

As he did that, a large poof of smoke appeared in the front of the room. "Alright you maggots! Shut up and listen up! I'm Ibiki Morino, and I'm your first examiner!" 'Ibiki Morino? Didn't I put a hole through his chest?' "This first exam is a written exam!" Many of the genin in the room groaned, "Shut up! I'm only going to go the rules once, and no more then that!"

As Ibiki wrote the rules down, he explained them. When he finished, the various chuunin around the room passed out the test. "And… BEGIN!" Naruto flipped his paper over and saw many jounin level questions on it. 'Hmm, from the difficulty of the questions and the way this exam is set up. It appears as though they want us to cheat. In that case…' Naruto swiftly gave the test a once over before flipping it over and putting his head down to sleep.

'So, the kid thinks he can just sleep through this test? We'll just see about that. But I've got the vaguest feeling that I've seen this kid before, oh well.'

When there was only a quarter hour left, he called the room to a halt. "Alright you maggots! It's time for the tenth question!" Naruto picked his head up but didn't say anything, "Now, first off, you got to decide whether or not you want to take the question." Several genin started shouting at this, one in particular said, "Why the hell wouldn't we want to take it?" "Oh, but you didn't let me finish. If you choose to take it, and get it wrong, you and your team will never be allowed to take the Chuunin exams ever again."

A short red haired genin, from Konoha if the headband was correct, stood up and said, "What the hell! That's bullshit! There are people he who have taken the exam before!"

"Ah, but I wasn't the one making the rules that last year. Anyway, if you want to, you can choose to not take it and try again next year. So, what's it going to be?"

Several teams quit and then, you could see the red haired genin raise his hand before slamming it down on the table. "I'll never give up! The hell with you, I'll take the damn tenth question!"

'Moron' Both Ibiki and Naruto thought.

"Well then, to the rest of you… congratulations on passing the first exam!" Many genin stared at Ibiki before screaming, "WHAT!!!" Ibiki then began to explain the purpose of the tenth question and what a chuunin is meant to do. Naruto just tuned him out and looked around the room. He spotted Sasuke and the pink haired girl glaring at the red haired moron. 'Hmm, they must be teammates.'

Suddenly, Ibiki was interrupted by a black ball crashing through the window and a banner coming out of it. A woman stood in front of it, wearing a tan trench coat, tan mini-mini skirt, and a fishnet bodysuit leaving nothing to the imagination. As the trench coat fluttered, it gave a select few genin quite a view, including Naruto. Naruto shuddered and thought, 'I am not into older women, I have Temari-chan, I am not into older women, I have Temari-chan!' Regardless, a small trickle of blood traveled down from his nose.

"There's nothing to be happy about! My name is Anko Mitarashi and I'll be your second examiner!" She leapt out the window after telling them to follow her. The genin looked at each other before walking out the door or leaping out the window. Naruto walked over to Sasuke and his team before asking, "Is he seriously on your team?" The small genin glared, but Sasuke replied, "Unfortunately, yes. In Konoha, they put the top of the class with the dead last. This is Haruno Sakura," He pointed to the girl, "and this dobe is…"

"My name is Yume Genkaku! And I won't lose to you or anyone else in this exam!" Naruto smirked and said, "What, a, moron. Do you three know that in the next exam, you're allowed to kill other genin?" Sakura and Yume visibly flinched. "Yes, I'll be looking forward to when we next meet in this exam." With this, Naruto walked off, laughing maniacally, just to scare the weak genin.

When all of the genin had left, Ibiki walked around the room, picking up the tests. When he reached Naruto's seat, he saw a message on the back of the test for him. "Didn't I put a hole through your chest, Ibiki-san?" Ibiki shivered and walked away quickly, burning Naruto's test so none would see his message.

When all of the remaining genin had reached where Anko was, she started to explain the second exam. Naruto listened enough to get the gist of the exam, but otherwise ignored her. Somewhere in the middle of her explanation, a kunai was thrown at him and he caught it. He flipped it around in his hand and stabbed behind him where he felt a jounin chakra signature. Anko gave a grunt of pain but swiftly disappeared to finish explaining. When Naruto was called up he received a consent form and signed it immediately. Later he was called again and gave the consent form up for a heaven scroll.

He walked calmly to gate 14 and waited for the signal. He ended up waiting for five minutes as some of the slower genin finally made it to their gates. Naruto crouched down, making sure that the scroll was secure in his pocket.

Finally, the chuunin next to him nodded to him and opened the gate. Naruto sped out and widened his senses for his first prey. He found a weaker team from Kumo and grinned ferally. 'This is going to be fun!'