Review Responses:

Narusaku: Yes, I know how you feel. I like Zabuza and Haku too. But I needed to do this. One reason was to show how strong Naruto really can be while another reason is because I already had Naruto declare that he has no love for missing nin. He will give them one chance before he proceeds to act with the intent to kill if they refuse. There may be very few exceptions to this. Hopefully you keep enjoying the story.

Fan01: Yes, Zabuza and Haku are dead.

Drums4life: Yeah I just figured that since she loves her perceived image of Sasuke then if someone began to break that image well there is no doubt in my mind that her feelings would have rapidly shifted to her hyperactive, knucklehead of a teammate. You know the one :)

Mr. Motivator: Thank you. As for your question: soon. Very, very soon.

Nanai: Well the Chunin Exams are here so hopefully they don't disappoint. If they do, I will run across the United States 100 times on my hands! Haha...Wait...what have I just signed myself up for?!

sortofbored: Well I'll do my best to make sure you continue to like it.

Message from the Author: I have decided to start with the third exam and just do flashbacks to the second exam. I find the first one is INCREDIBLY boring to write about so I'm not even going to try.

"Congratulations on passing the second exam! From now on things are going to get much more difficult for all of you." Naruto tuned out the Third Hokage and instead turned his attention to his pink haired kunoichi comrade. A lot had changed during the Second Exam and Naruto wasn't so sure he actually knew what she was thinking. From her actions during their time in the Forest of Death he wasn't sure he knew who she loved anymore.

-Flashback Begins-

No one knew what just happened. One minute all three of them were jumping through the trees and the next minute the air itself seemed to slam into Naruto and send him flying through the forest, breaking trees and branches as he flew.

"Naruto!" Sakura seemed frantic as she called out for the blonde but the only answer she got was a chilling laugh and a spike of killer intent so massive that it brought her to her knees. She didn't even need to look into the pale woman's face to see her death. Why do that when her death was playing in her very eyes. Tears began to fall uninterrupted as the images engraved themselves on her brain.

"Kukuku. Don't worry about little Naruto-kun. I'm not going to kill him yet. No his eyes are much too precious to be wasted like that."

'His eyes?' Sakura and Sasuke's thoughts echoed each others but they couldn't dwell on such things when two kunai were thrown directly at their faces.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Naruto had to think quickly. His eyes flared to life and he pointed a hand at a tree he just passed.

"Bansho Ten'in!"

The tree didn't budge. Instead, Naruto used the tree as the center and focussed the gravitational pull on himself. The force of the air bullet was cancelled out and Naruto soon found himself holding onto a tree branch.

"SASUKE!"

The cry rang out loud and clear, the pain in Sakura's voice was evident and pushed Naruto into action. Desperate to reach his team sooner Naruto decided to do something incredibly stupid. After each chakra enhanced jump he used Shinra Tensei on the tree branch using his foot as the release point. After three Shinra Tensei jumps he crashed head first into the clearing where he watched a pale faced man or woman (he couldn't tell at his angle) sink his or her teeth into Sasuke's neck. He quickly scanned the area for his other teammate and soon located her. Sakura was holding her side and leaning against a tree, she looked very exhausted and very injured. Each of her legs had several deep gashes that prevented her legs from supporting her weight. Her arms were cut and singed while a single kunai protruded from her shoulder. She was helpless in this situation and could only watch as Sasuke fought a very one sided battle. The clearing sported several new gashes in the earth and plenty of fresh burn marks, the smell of burning flesh and burnt wood permeated the air in some sort of sick mixture of nature and death. The teeth were removed from Sasuke's neck as the mouth opened so the head could return to its normal position. Sasuke cried out in pain and fell to his knees while trying to cover his neck and tear the new marks out that were causing him such pain. He continued to try both of the actions before his eyes widened. His overly large pupils shrank to almost nothing in an instant and Sasuke fell face first into the earth and stayed there in an unmoving heap.

"You fucking teme! What did you do to Sasuke?!" Naruto brought his furious gaze to rest on the eyes of the pale, half melted face that belonged to what he assumed was a guy. The pale faced "Genin" licked his or her lips with an unusually long tongue.

"Tsk tsk Naruto-kun. Why weren't you here sooner when I was giving Sasuke-kun his gift? You're too late to get yours. Maybe another time kukuku." Still laughing, the pale teme sunk into the ground and disappeared from sight. Naruto felt the evil aura and killer intent that flooded the area vanish along with the strange Grass shinobi.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu."

Eleven more Narutos poofed into life and set out on their tasks. One went to go gather up Sasuke and check his vitals while eight more took up watch and disappeared into the leaves. The final two had split up the task of finding somewhere to hide and leapt into the trees before disappearing into the forest in two different directions. The real Naruto quickly made his way to Sakura and began to treat her wounds. The kunai was deeply embedded in her shoulder, the handle being the only exposed part of the weapon. Sakura was breathing hard while she tried to do some basic combat first aid to stop, or reduce, the amount of blood she was losing from several deep slashes and cuts. Naruto felt like he was being stabbed in the stomach repeatedly as he saw her constantly wincing in pain.

"Naruto could you please grab my pouch. It should have my medical kit inside. I lost it over in those bushes you came through when we fought...whatever that shinobi was." Naruto quickly stood and began to search for the lost pouch. During his search one of his two scouting Shadow Clones dispelled. The memories flooded his mind and he quickly sorted out what the clone wanted him to see. He grinned at his clone's find and redoubled his efforts to find the pouch. After another two minutes of frustrating searching he threw his hands up and groaned. Tilting his head back he caught sight of glinting metal. Upon closer inspection he realized it was a kunai pinning Sakura's pouch to the tree. He sprinted up the tree, grabbed the pouch, and hurried back to Sakura.

She instantly smiled upon his return and her smile only grew once he produced her pouch. Several minutes later and plenty of tape, gauze, and thread in the case of the shoulder wound, Sakura was able to bear the pain of standing. Naruto had the Shadow Clone grab Sasuke as he stuck close to Sakura in case she collapsed. Their progress was painstakingly slow and Sakura kept apologising for slowing them down. Finally Naruto decided to try something to speed them up.

"Sakura-chan." The blonde turned his head to face the kunoichi as they took another quick break.

"Nani?" Sakura turned her head to show that he had her attention.

"Do you trust me?" He fought back the sly grin that threatened to reveal his plans.

"What kind of question is that? We're teammates, of course I trust you. Why?" Sakura still didn't get where he was heading with this.

After a few moments of thinking, Naruto smiled and nodded his head. "Good. Well I guess we better get going now." Sakura went to stand when she suddenly found herself being swept into a pair of white clad arms. She found herself staring into his blue, rippled eyes. He didn't bother deactivating his eyes since he had an advantage to keep them going. It wasn't like he was losing chakra either. Since his eyes had been changed his new eyes were his natural eyes so he wasn't using chakra to maintain something natural. She quickly realized that she was getting lost in his deep blue eyes and instead focussed on the fact that he was carrying her.

"Naruto I can walk on my own."

"This is much faster. Don't worry, you said that you trusted me and I'm not about to betray that trust. So just sit back and enjoy the ride." He gave Sakura a warm smile before he refocused his attention on jumping through the trees. To her credit, she didn't even lose her temper once.

She snuggled into his chest and the exhaustion of the fight finally caught up with her.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun."

-End Flashback-

After that Naruto had decided to head for the tower. He found the other scroll they needed and went straight for the tower. They were the first team to arrive. Upon arrival, Naruto sent Sakura and Sasuke to the infirmary. He then found Kakashi in the room assigned to Team 7 and reported the run in with the Grass shinobi. After that, Naruto hadn't seen any of his teammates until today. He had spent most of the time trying to evaluate the relationship between Sakura and himself. The results of said self evaluation was frustrating and confusing so he stopped thinking about that. Instead, he took the rest of the time to hone his mastery of his doujutsu. During one of his meditation sessions, he stumbled across another memory of the Rikudo Sennin and finally learned the name of his eyes. The Sage called them the Eternal Mangekyou Rinnegan. Naruto decided that the name was too long and began to think of another. He was still thinking.

He let out a frustrated sigh at the confusing thoughts he was having and began to glance around. He noticed that the Suna team didn't have a scratch on them. He felt a strangely familiar pull when his eyes locked with the red head. It was unsettling thinking that he knew the boy without actually ever meeting him. He gave his head a quick shake and continued to scan the group. His eyes finally settled on Kabuto's back. His previous suspicions were still fresh in his mind. He remembered the cards that Kabuto had and how much information was on them. When Sasuke asked about Naruto, Kabuto produced the requested card. At the angle Naruto had been standing, he was able to see the card before it was revealed. He had quickly snatched the card and burnt it to ensure his secret wasn't revealed. A secret that his teammates didn't know much about. In fact even the Third Hokage was still in the dark about it. He had lied to Kakashi when the one eyed Jounin had confronted him and was still barely maintaining the shroud of secrecy around his eyes. The same shroud that he highly doubted would remain after today was over.

"For the first match of the preliminary round we have..." the sickly proctor turned to watch the screen roll.

Kabuto Yakushi

Vs.

Kiba Inuzuka

Naruto grinned. The preliminaries were finally beginning and he wanted to have fun.

Naruto was extremely disappointed. He had been matched up against the puppet user from Suna, Kankuro. The fight was fast. Really fast. Naruto had opened with a barrage of wind bullets that were strong enough to punch holes through the puppet. Naruto had quickly followed up by using the bullets for cover to reach Kankuro. After that it was as simple as holding his sword to the boy's throat and it ended the match. He didn't even get to use his eyes.

The final line up was determined by drawing a slip of paper with a number on it. The line up went as follows:

Naruto Uzumaki vs. Kabuto Yakushi

Gaara no Sabaku vs. Sasuke Uchiha

Rock Lee vs. Neji Hyuuga

Hinata Hyuuga vs. Sakura Haruno

Shino Aburame vs. Shikamaru Nara

Sakura had surprised everyone by pulling the win off against the Sound kunoichi. During the whole match she could hear Naruto constantly yelling out his support to her. When she had finally won, Naruto was extremely happy for her. When she got back up by the rest of Team 7 Naruto had shown his joy by wrapping her up in a big hug. She surprised everyone who saw by returning the hug. After that he noticed Sakura was almost always watching him when she thought he wasn't looking. He took note of her behaviour and mentally filed it away for later.

"You have one month to prepare for the finals. Use this time wisely. Dismissed.

Naruto walked absentmindedly throughout the village. He had trained from early morning to mid afternoon and he was both mentally and physically exhausted. Well, he was exhausted until he noticed Sakura was heading his way. He didn't bother to put his arms by his side and instead kept his hands laced together behind his head, the living embodiment of comfortable at that moment.

"Hey Sakura-chan." He heard her footsteps beside him but didn't get an answer.

"Hey are you ok Sakura-chan?" Again no answer. He stopped walking and turned to focus on her and saw the reason she wasn't talking. Sakura sat lost deep in thought about her relationship with her teammates. She had always thought she liked Sasuke but now that image of perfection lost large chunks every day. She had soon been left with the image of the real Sasuke. The real, power hungry, revenge driven, uncaring image. She could easily say that she viewed Sasuke as a close friend. Not a crush. She was driven from her thoughts when someone called her name while tapping her shoulder. Reality came rushing back and she found herself standing in front of a concerned Naruto.

"Hey Sakura-chan, you still alive?" He lowered his head to look into her eyes. She felt her cheeks flare to life at the attention he was showing her.

"Yeah Naruto, I'm fine. Just got lost in thought is all." She gave him the most convincing smile she had and watched as the blonde responded with his own mega-watt smile. She felt a warmth spread through her at the sight of his smile.

"Hey Sakura-chan, you want to come with me to Ichiraku's?" She was about to accept until she noticed the time.

"Sorry Naruto I can't today. I've got genjutsu training with Kurenai-sensei in five minutes." That warm feeling left when his smile dropped slightly. Instead she leaned over and kissed Naruto on one of his whiskered cheeks. He was absolutely, without a doubt, shocked.

"Thank you for believing in me Naruto. I'll see ya later!" With that the pinkette disappeared onto the rooftops leaving a stunned blonde behind.

"Sakura-chan kissed me...Sakura-chan kissed me!" The smile returned bigger than ever and the blonde felt energized beyond comprehension. He booked it down the road determined to train until he thought he was ready.

AN: Sorry this wasn't up yesterday. I type on my Kindle since I don't have a computer and my Kindle decided it was going to break up with FF for a day. But I'm back now and give you this chapter! Sorry if some of you guys were disappointed about the lack of fighting. The Chunin Exams are big but honestly, I REALLY didn't want to write the preliminaries. But have no fear! The next few chapters will have their fair share of fighting. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy!