Thanks to Kaiya Eri Ishikawa, jgirl1984, Malix2, Lady Rini, Alternative Angel, Rat1993, and Rena the pirate jedi wizard for your awesome reviews! We have now hit the ten thousand view mark! Whoohoo! Although, our last chapter only got 73 hits, so make of that what you will.

"You're…you're a…you're a girl!" Sarunte half screeched. "GIRL!" He cried again waving his arms for emphasis.

Nara put her hands on her hips. "Really, was it that hard to figure it out? I must have made a thousand slip ups. I mean, Mitsu thought I was gay for crying out loud."

Sarunte shrugged. "Mitsu is a cloud cuckoo lander. He also thinks plants have feelings and he has no depth perception."

"I knew she was a girl." Haruna mumbled. "I figured it out ages ago." Whether she was lying, telling the truth, or somewhere in between, Nara didn't know, and Haruna wasn't planning on letting on how much she had, or had not, been fooled.

Something was bothering Nara. She had a plan, a rather good one, but something just didn't sit right with her. She knew there was something about this test. Some sort of hidden meaning. Something. Why had she chosen this story of all the others to ignore and forget? WHY? Did Kami hate her or something? What had she done to offend him?

It was nothing. Nothing. Just her nerves getting the better of her. There was no hidden meaning. It's not like Kakashi, tactical genius and former ANBU member could have devised a hidden meaning…

…Yeah, right, and Sarunte was the reincarnation of Sasuke, complete with sharingan and chidori. Right. There had to be something…

"Oi, wait, that's the Byakugan ain't it?" Sarunte said suddenly, interrupting Naras musings.

Nara nodded. "Yeah…yeah it is."

Sarunte crowed in victory. "HAH! I knew no normal person could see from behind that hood! I knew it! I KNEW IT!"

Nara rolled her eyes. "Honestly, do you know how much chakra it would take to keep my kekkai genkai going all day? I'd drop dead from exhaustion."

Sarunte frowned. "Well…yeah…but…uhhhhm…hmmm…" He disappeared in thought. Unlimited chakra…unlimited chakra…how would she have unlimited or close to it chakra?

"You feed off of other peoples chakra?" Sarunte shot out.

Haruna rolled her eyes. "Sarunte, shut up. If I'm going to spend the rest of my time as a genin, with you, then you better learn to stop talking."

Sarunte gave her a rude hand gesture. "And you better learn to use transformation jutsu properly, if you know what I mean," He hissed.

Haruna paled, and her eyes turned a violent purple. Zajigan. Sarunte paled for a moment. He didn't know what to be more scared of. Him falling under the spell of the Zajigan, or him reacting and accidentally activating his sharingan.

Luckily, Nara stood in between them. "Guys, stop it! You are all shinobi of Konoha! You don't fight each other! We're all on the same side here."

Sarunte and Haruna looked at each other sheepishly.

"I'll stop if he stops." Haruna said simply.

"Me? You started it runt!"

"Did not."

"Did too."

"GUYS!" Nara yelled in a harsh whisper. "We. Need. To. Work. Together."

Sarunte narrowed his eyes. "I'm not working wit' her. 'sides she makes my blood crawl."

Haruna crossed her arms. "He's a jerk. I hate him.'

Nara felt her veins pulsate. "Sarunte, Haruna, if you don't cooperate, you will both fail. You will repeat another year at the genin acadamy. Together. Haruna, you will be force to admit you are not ready to be a genin like the thirteen year olds, and Sarunte, well, I don't know much about your situation, but I'm certainly glad I'm not the one giving your parents the news of why their son failed a simple little bell test."

Sarunte and Haruna stared at the ground , in a mutual embarrassed silence.

"I mean, my father passed, and he was dead last in his class. He passed with a girl who couldn't fight to save her life, and a self centered idiot who refused to be upstaged by anyone. They passed the bell test. The same one we're taking. Do you honestly want to admit that you failed a test that they passed?"

Well, it was most likely a different test. After all, all three of them had passed that test. And in this one, this one only two would pass.

Wait…

How did that work? How could only two people pass and still form a genin team? That didn't make sense. She was missing something here. What was it? Would Sakura sensei promote all three of them?

No, that would be stupid. Why would she pass all three when only two could get the bell? It made no sense, it was like allowing someone who failed to still pass, just because his friends passed. This had to be a different test…

"So…ya said somethin' 'bout a plan Nara?" Sarunte finally asked.

xXx

Sakura was bored, to say the least. She had given them way too much time. She had specifically given them this test so they could fail it. She disliked the idea of Nara staying in the village against her will. No matter how much she didn't want that child to go into the world alone with only a bunch of rogue ninja, if she honestly didn't want to stay here, it wasn't her right to stop her.

She just hoped that Naruto had told her the story of the bell test.

She felt a bit sorry for the other two. The Uchiha and the Cataki.

The Uchiha, he was the one with the sharingan. The friend of Shikamarus kid. She felt sorry for him. He was so unlike the rest of the clan. What had been pride for the others, turned into cockiness and rashness for Sarunte. In many ways, he was a lot like Naruto, in other ways, not so much. He was still raised in the typical Uchiha manner after all.

His parents would be absolutely ashamed of course. The Uchihas were still not perfectly in sync with the rest of Konoha. They wanted to try and get as many of their ranks into high ranking positions, in order to prove that even with power, they wouldn't automatically pull a coup d'état .

Unfortunately, everyone who thought that did everything possible to make sure they didn't get into high powers. It was a vicious cycle really. And with one prodigy, Daisuke, the other Uchihas wanted to raise their children to be as strong as him.

It was a huge competition, and the children were the casualties. No doubt if…when…Sarunte failed, He would be getting a 'you have shamed our clan' speech.

Haruna was a bit luckier in the matter. The Cataki clan was young and fairly small, and held no clan pride like the Uchihas and the Hyuugas. But Haruna herself would be crushed. She was only ten after all, and not used to complete failure.

What was Tsunade thinking putting three kekkai genkai on one team anyway? Well, alright two. When they had made the teams, Sarunte hadn't activated his sharingan yet…

What the-

Naruto.

Across the field, staring at her, was Naruto.

Well, Narutos sexy jutsu. In clothing.

An odd white sleeveless shirt, dark black shorts, and a white skirt with the sides cut out. The Konoha head band on her waist.

It was entirely Naruto as a girl-

Except the eyes. Hyuuga eyes. Why-

Oh shit-

It was too late, hand signs away, Nara used her kage bunshin no jutsu.

Then she disappeared. Transparency jutsu.

Then Sakura felt an upsurge of chakra. She was activating her byakugan. A deadly combo.

Thankfully, the transparency jutsu was imperfect. No one could really make themselves entirely unseen. Jiraiya, the maker of such a jutsu, had been caught many times before when he had been unlucky enough to spy on a shinobi.

Listening carefully, Sakura aimed for each clone, and punched each of them out one by one.

Then an array of weapons came out, from Sarunte.

This was significant, because Sarunte chose to cloak the weapons with fire.

Sakura used a substitution jutsu. She was impressed. They were working somewhat together. Naturally the attacks were spate, but the fact was, she was meant to be occupied by Nara while Sarunte attacked.

But, she was a Jounin. You needed to do better than that to distract her.

Haruna appeared in front of her. Nara most likely found her in the trees and pointed in her direction…

She had the Zajigan activated. Sakura smirked. "Didn't I just tell you that wasn't going to work?"

It wasn't really Haruna though. Transformation jutsu. Sakura decided to play along, she wanted to see what Haruna really Nara was planning on doing.

Haruna (Nara) reached into her pocket and retrieved some odd looking balls. Sakrua recognized them from the bag that Tsunade had confiscated back when Nara was only the last name of Shikamaru.

She through it and to Sakuras surprise, an explosion of chakra came out of it accompanied with a cloud of smoke.

Naras chakra balls had been her main way to fight for a long time. She used them to escape from enemies, in order to conserve her chakra, and make quick getaways.

Sakura took a step back, and was confronted with Sarunte and the real Haruna. They were all holding those odd chakra balls. They dropped them, and instead of smoke, ice came out.

It was very slippery. For the genin. Sakura merely applied some chakra to her feet and she was fine. Nara was fine too, but Sarunte and Haruna began to struggle to stay standing.

Sarunte started making his hand signs. " Smoke release" He roared, and breathed out a haze of smoke.

Sakura blinked. Behind her, Nara activated her Byakugan and took out some kunais. Sakura turned around to take care of Uzumaki-

But she stopped with the tinkling of bells.

The smoke cleared, Haruna stood up on a branch grinning hugely, with two bells. She cast a longing look at Nara, before throwing the bell in Saruntes' direction

Sarunte caught it and gave a crow of victory. "YES! YES! YES!"

Sakura turned to the two of them. "So, you two choose to pass then? Even at the cost of letting Nara fail?"

Haruna bit her lip. Sarunte looked down at the ground.

"I chose to let them take the bells." Nara said quickly. "We discussed it before, and I volunteered."

Haruna shook her head, and outstretched her hand. "Nara take my bell, I can't do this, knowing that you're going to fail."

Nara gulped. "No Haruna, it's fine, really, I'm totally fine with failing."

Haruna shook her head again. "But I can't Nara, you take it" She forced the bell into Naras hand, before smirking.

Sakura nodded. "Congratulations. You all pass."

Haruna shot her hand in the air. "I knew it. I knew it. Teamwork! That was it wasn't it?"

Team…work…?

No.

No.

Nara did a face fault. THAT WAS THE SECRET TO THE TEST? How had she missed that? Shit shit shit SHIT! It was right in front of her the entire time. Why else had her father cited team work over everything else? Kakashi valued team work over everything else. How had she missed that?

Because she had gotten so used to that idea, it had simply become a part of her. She had seen no reason to actually learn about team work. It was like teaching someone to breathe, or to eat. It had been so obvious, she had missed it.

"You were this close to failing." Sakura said conversationally. "If Haruna hadn't given up her bell and given it to Nara, I would have failed you."

Sarunte blinked in confusion. "Huh? Whyzzat?

"Teamwork, as she pointed out, was the key to this. Even working together, it was entirely possible for you all to be waiting for the perfect time to double cross each other. So in the end, the person who did get the bells, had to show she or he was ready to give them up for his team."

Haruna smirked arrogantly. She had figured it out. She knew there was something wrong with this test. No way would a team of two be allowed.

"Isn't this great Nara? We all passed!" Haruna cried out cheerfully.

Sarunte looked around. "Uhhh…can we start training tomorrow? I'm STARVING!"

Sakura gave a nod. "You guys can have the rest of the day off."

Nara bit her lip. It wasn't fair. She had been so close to failing and leaving Konoha forever. This was all Tsunades' fault. She had assigned the teams; she knew that Sakura would have made sure she would pass. She was going to have a word with the Hokage.

xXx

"Tsunade-baachan!" Nara yelled bursting her way through the doors. It was easy enough to get pass everyone with her transparency jutsu and shadow clones.

Tsunade rubbed her temples. "Hello Nara, I would say it's a pleasure to see you again, but it's not. Get out. You're not supposed to be here. Shouldn't you be saving some cat or weeding some garden right now?"

"You set me up!" Nara cried out.

Tsunade stood up. "What did you say?" She asked threateningly.

"You set me up so I couldn't fail! You purposely assigned me to Sakura, and made it so-"

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE." Tsunade cut her off, murder in her eyes. "I have given you favor after favor. I tolerated your insolent behavior at the acadamy, and I gave you every chance in the world to leave Konoha. You just missed your second chance by your own stupidity. Sakura wanted you to fail."

Nara blinked in confusion. "She…she did?"

"Why do you think she gave you the exact same test that she had been given? So you could exploit it, and play Haruna and Sarunte against each other until the timer rang or someone ate food! You knew everything else! You knew who Shino was, you knew about the Nara family, you knew Narutos nickname for me, you obviously recognized Konohamaru and his team- this is all your own fault, and blaming me isn't going to help anyone!"

Nara looked down and pushed her two forefingers together. Granny Tsunade was right. She was being irrational. "Sorry," She mumbled.

Tsunade sat back down in triumph. "You should be. Now go, I have paper work to not do, and you have training to do. After all, that's the only way you will pass the chuunin exams."

Nara nodded, and she turned to go. "Oh, Tsunade-baachan?"

"Yes?"

"Even if I did know the meaning behind the test, I think I still would have passed. I…I don't think I could have let Haruna fail."

xXx

Reniko dove into his meat with much enjoyment. He had passed. He had passed. He was now an official genin. The test had been somewhat hard, but nothing a genius, a plant lover, and a logical bug freak couldn't overcome.

Sarunte entered the Korean bar-b-que, and when noticing that Reniko was already there, he rushed over and crashed into the chair with marvelous results.

"RENIKO!!! Reniko!!!!"

"Hey Sarunte! I passed!" Reniko said cheerfully.

"I…I passed too, but. That's. Not. The. Point." Sarunte said between gasps, and grabbing a pair of chopsticks to freeload off of Renikos food.

Reniko raised an eyebrow. "Then what? It's not about your…eye…thing…is it?" He asked in a hushed tone.

Sarunte shook his head. "No…no…Naro…" He took a bite of food "Naro…is Nara…and he. Is. A. GIRL!"

Reniko winced. "Dude, your spraying food everywhere."

Sarunte flailed his arms. "I'M SERIOUS!!! HE'S A SHE!! AND A HYUUGA!!! AND SHE'S GOT BLONDE HIAR AND SHE LOOKS LIKE A GIRL TOO!!!"

Reniko stared at him. "Naro. A girl. Did you snort something on your way here or did you just hit an all time low IQ?"

Just then, Haruna and the newly de hoodified Nara walked in talking cheerfully.

"OI!! NARA!! TELL HIM!! TELL HIM YOU'RE A GIRL!!" Sarunte roared.

Nara rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'm a girl." She tugged on her pigtails a bit. "Obviously."

Reniko turned a bright scarlet red. He kept staring at Nara. For the love of kami…he was a girl! A cute girl! And not ugly, like Naro should have been!

Nara got closer to Sarunte. "But could you keep the thing about being a Hyuuga down?"

She pointed to her eyes, which were now a bright blue. She had used a transformation jutsu to change them as soon as she decided to stop wearing the hood. Her whisker marks were also gone because of it.

Sarunte nodded. "Got it. Ya can count on me."

Haruna rolled her eyes. "C'mon Nara, let's go."

Nara smiled, "Haruna, Saruntes our team mate now, we can at least try and be nice to him."

Haruna scoffed. "Well, fine, but not Reniko. He's not part of our team. He's just a jerk."

Reniko said nothing, and glared at her evilly.

Sarunte ordered another serving of food, and scooted over to let Nara and Haruna sit next to him. "Alright, you can eat with us, jus' don't eat too much. The food is mine."

"Eh-hem." Reniko coughed.

"I mean Renikos. Renikos food. Reni…Reni-kun…Neko-kun…" Sarunte grinned hugely.

Reniko sighed before getting up, "Eh, help yourself, you know that I have a free tab at this place anyway." He got up to leave. "But I have a mom and a dad and a sister to confront. Later Sarunte. Nar…Nara…runt."

He left without another word. His face still a bright red. Naro. Nara. Naro. Nara. He would never lok at his last name the same way again…

xXx

"But…I…you…and…we….but…he…with…and the….HYEH?" Konohamaru stuttered.

Udon nodded. "Yep. Uzumaki all the way. You should see her without the hood. Spitting image of Narutos sexy jutsu. Except the eyes, being a Hyuuga and all."

Moegi giggled. "Konohamaru-kun, it was a bit obvious when you think about it…"

Konohamaru sat down quietly. "I think…I think I'm going to just not move for a couple of days. If I learn anything else, my brain is going to explode. Nara…Uzumaki…Uzumaki…Nara…it just…HYEH…"

And with a groan, he collapsed on the ground, and proceeded to stare at the ceiling for six hours.

To Be Continued