This chapter was brought to you by my internet connection playing up and me having nothing better to do.
The delay was caused by my not having a clue as to where I'm going with this story. That's why last chapter was a filler.
Chapter 11- The First Exam
It's time for the first exam, and I am more nervous than I've ever been in my life. I shouldn't be, I suppose. I'm on a very strong team and I personally train harder than anyone I know. Not needing sleep gives a person a lot of extra time on their hands, and researching seals gets very boring after a while.
No, I have no real need to be nervous, but I am. Helping Naruto with his love life or lack thereof had distracted me for a while, and Kami knows he needed my help, but my work there was now complete, and I'd lost my distraction.
I have to ignore the nerves, rise above them and concentrate on what matters the most at the moment: protecting my team and showing everyone that I was a force to be reckoned with.
Entering the building, we followed a group of mizu genin up to where our first test was supposed to be. Strangely, we only went up two flights of stairs before we reached the door marked 301, which was the room we had been told to go to, but I was distracted by a familiar scent, the scent of snakes. It was too faint to worry me much, so I decided to ignore it and focus on our destination. Outside this room was a large group milling about the door, but none going in. Moving closer, we found out why. Two other ninja were blocking the door and forbidding entry to everyone. I pulled my team to the side.
"Ok, I've got an idea. Naruto, make a shadow clone to henge into the Hokage and yell at those two idiots for blocking the door. Said shadow clone can then go off to another area, the toilets or something, and dispel. Then we should be able to go in without too much hassle and hopefully without alerting our competitors to any of our moves. Brilliant huh?" I grinned at my teammates. Naruto looked suitably impressed, Sasuke just looked exasperated.
"Yes, that would be a good plan, if we needed to get into that room, which we don't. That room is actually room 201, there's a genjutsu over the room number."
"Ah. Well that simplifies things! I had come up with multiple other plans, but if that's the wrong room then they're obviously not needed. I did think it was odd that we only went up 2 flights of stairs, but I thought that they'd started numbering from 100 at the ground floor or something like that. Don't look at me like that! It was perfectly reasonable!" Sasuke was staring at me with his and-you're-supposed-to-be-smart expression. I hate that expression. Admittedly, it's pretty similar to all his other expressions, but with one eyebrow slightly raised, but it's the meaning I hate. Realizing that I was muttering to myself about "stupid know-it-all Uchihas with their superiority complexes and their oh-so-special bloodline… I was just distracted… freaking hate genjutsu" I cough and continue with what I was saying. "Anyway, let's focus on what matters. Let's slip past this group and on to the real room, and remember, don't draw attention to the genjutsu. The less genin that make it past this, the less we have to fight…"
As soon as we entered the waiting area, I sensed a fast-approaching blonde missile headed straight for our team, more specifically Sasuke. Recognizing it as Ino, I allowed her to pass, seeing it as just revenge for Sasuke mocking me earlier. To be fair, he didn't really mock me, but I was still upset and didn't feel like being fair.
Besides, Sasuke was a big boy now. He had to learn to deal with his own crazy fangirls.
Instead, I decided to greet the rest of the Rookie Nine who were also coming to say hello. I had already briefed Naruto about the importance of staying quiet and collected during this exam, saying it was all about giving a good impression, but I couldn't fully trust him not to end up running around like a hyperactive 3-year-old, yelling at the top of his lungs, especially if Kiba goaded him into it. I wasn't sure if Naruto had an inside voice anyway. If he had, he certainly never used it.
Sure enough, Kiba tried to start up a little insults match as soon as they were within 5 feet of each other, so of course I had to go over there, hand firmly covering Naruto's mouth, and drag him over with me to talk to Shikamaru.
"Shika-kun! How's my favourite older brother today?" I smiled warmly.
"I'm your only brother, and I know when you want something, so cut the crap and spit it out. Troublesome woman." I sighed. Shikamaru was just no fun sometimes.
"Well, I was thinking, how about a little alliance between our teams? Good for one favour only and immediately null and void if we have to go against each other, of course. You know it makes sense; after all, our teams are geared towards different things. My team might be in trouble with recon and yours isn't as combat-orientated. And you're going to need allies; after all, this is the Chuunin exam. I imagine there's a pretty high mortality rate…" I smiled. I knew I'd won, but in case Shikamaru needed a little extra convincing, I decided to bring out the big guns. "Tell me Shika, who do you think is the most dangerous team here?"
He looked around at the opposition, paused, and pointed at the Suna team. Excellent.
"Well, it just so happens that I know the redhead on that team very well…" Shikamaru looked at me with suspicion. He was right to be suspicious; I didn't know Gaara well enough to be of any protection to him, I doubt anyone did.
"How? You've never been to Suna!"
"I… met him on a mission. Isn't that right Naruto?" I elbowed Naruto, mentally begging him to play along and praying to Kami that Shika hadn't noticed that brief pause.
"What? Oh… yep! They were best friends, like, instantly!" he nodded wisely, but Shikamaru still looked unconvinced, possibly because Naruto wasn't the best liar and he'd known me for long enough to tell when I wasn't being strictly truthful.
"Fine then. Prove it."
Sighing, I turned around and walked towards my new fiancé, who had been watching me warily since I came in. His siblings silently move out of my way, assuming that if I knew Gaara and I wasn't dead yet then I must be dangerous.
"Good morning. I expect Shukaku will have told you about the deal by now, correct?" He nods. "Could you put up a sand barrier or something? I'd like to keep this conversation private." Shikamaru was too far away to hear what we were saying and most groups wisely kept a distance from Gaara, but I was still a little paranoid. Gaara waved a hand and we were surrounded by a sphere of sand.
"Talk." Gaara was still as emotionless as he'd been when I'd first met him.
"Firstly, I hope you don't have any problems with our engagement? I understand that it's a little shocking, but think of it as a business agreement if you will. We both get something out of this- you get to be officially adopted by Shukaku, become his heir and get more powerful, I ensure that my clan and yours stay allied and honour an agreement my father made." He just nods impassively. I suppose it's not like he's really losing anything from this deal. Jinchuriki don't tend to be loved by their fellow villagers, so I was almost certain he didn't have a secret girlfriend or crush. "Anyway, we should probably wait a while before announcing the engagement. It would be a bit sudden, as we haven't had many opportunities to bond yet, and telling anyone about the true nature of our engagement would reveal I'm a demon, which obviously I don't want yet. It would be best if we were seen in public as often as possible together, give it a few weeks and then officially start going out. We can reveal our engagement in a couple of years, that way we both have some freedom before we settle down. Any issues with what I've just said?" Gaara looked a little surprised at my efficiency, but for years I've been trained every night by some of the Kitsune elders to be the perfect heiress, so I knew better than to bring personal feelings into a political marriage.
After Gaara returned the sand to his gourd, I quickly walked back to Naruto and Shikamaru, both of whom looked pretty relieved to see me. I don't know what they thought was happening, did they think Gaara was going to eat me? I had proved that I knew Gaara, my original objective, and now I was certain to get the alliance I wanted.
"So? Are you satisfied now, or do I have to go back over there and get him to tell you himself?"
"Ok, you win. We'll help you out."
Hmm. Maybe being married to Gaara would be better than I'd thought…
Soon after this little exchange, we rookies were approached by a Konoha nin that smelled of snakes. This alone made me very wary, but when he offered to show us classified information about anyone in the room, I knew something was dangerous about him. A genin with that level of security clearance? Highly unlikely. So I decided he was a threat to my team, and all threats to my team had to be dealt with.
"Ok, I'd like to see the cards for Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, Nara Tsubomi and… yes, I suppose I'd better get his too… Sabaku no Gaara." Upon Kabuto producing said cards, I immediately grabbed them, folded them up several times, and ate them. Ignoring the sweatdrops of everyone else, I declared "If you ever try to gather information on my team again, I'll summon my largest fox and it'll be you that gets eaten." I then flared my chakra for a few seconds to remove the alien chakra residue from the cards, glared at him for effect, and then walked back over to Shikamaru, who'd watched over my antics with amusement and no small amount of exasperation. A few seconds after this encounter, the examiners came in and lead us into the next room. Looking at the rows of desks, I sighed.
Oh great. A written test.
How very ninja-like.
After working out the point of the test, i.e. to cheat, I simply sat back and waited for Shikamaru to possess me. He was smart, he knew that he'd best get his part of the deal over with before there was a risk of danger. A few minutes later, I felt Shika taking over, and watched as my hand wrote down all the answers unbidden. At the end was a little note: You owe me. As soon as the last letter was written Shikamaru let go of the jutsu and I in turn possessed Naruto. I had warned him not to start shouting if I shadow-possessed him, so although he wasn't sure about what was going on he didn't struggle as I wrote the answers down for him. Finally, I released him and settled down to daydream for the rest of the exam. Sasuke could handle himself; he had his Sharingan after all. Stupid copy-cat bloodline… Yes I was still bitter about the room number genjutsu.
After what seemed like hours, and might have been- I didn't really pay attention when the examiner guy was telling us how much time we had- examiner guy told us it was time for the 10th question. He then went through a load of crap about how if we got it wrong we'd have to stay as genin forever, which he obviously couldn't do. The other hidden villages would kick up a huge fuss for a start… anyway, then Naruto stood up and made a nice motivational speech which I didn't really listen to but probably involved how he was going to be Hokage. Then we somehow passed the test by not quitting, which if you ask me just shows we're all really arrogant and don't believe we could possibly fail, but I digress. Finally, the crazy hooker lady came crashing through the window and said we were going to the forest of death, but by this point I was so bored of sitting there that I'd have followed her if she said we were going to all go to the nearest volcano and throw ourselves in.
Looking back, I wish things had stayed that boring…
A/N- yes, I got bored near the end. So did Tsubomi *shrugs*
Oh well.