Foxfish
Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto
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Ages:
Naruto and Isaribi and the Rooky Nine: 12
Anko: 22
Yamato: 24
Kakashi: 26
Third Hokage: 70
Gin- 15
Hyuuga Haran- 23
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Previously
From behind a tree steeped a boy around the same age as Gin with silver hair and glasses, "Hello, my name is Kabuto. It's very nice to meet you."
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Now
In the crowded examination room teams from every shinobi nation allied with Konoha were present. But just because they were allies did not mean that they were friends with each other.
The tension in the room could practically be cut with a kunai and the whole situation could very easily turn into a blood bath.
Standing near the back desks Naruto, Isaribi, and Kabuto waited. During the time the two spent with Kabuto yesterday they felt that they were able to get a reasonable assessment of his skills.
The medical-nin was strong and was very intelligent. This intelligence had been used as they found out to try to get a heads up on the competition. He had shown them the information cards and they were too surprised and impressed by his information gathering skills to question where he got his information.
As they waited they watched as more and more genin came into the room. Most of the chunin hopeful's where either from Konoha or Suna, with Konoha in the majority.
This made sense given the fact that those two were the two major shinobi villages in the alliance and Konoha was hosting the exams.
Watching the genin nervously shuffle around they noticed that some, like the group of rooky Konoha genin or the sword team from Suna were nervously pacing around, while others like the Kusa genin or the red head, named Gaara or something according to Kabuto, looked like they wanted to kill everyone there.
Suddenly the tense silence was broken by a loud "Sasuke-kun!" as one of the rooky Konoha genin launched onto Sasuke's neck.
"Get off of him Ino-pig!" yelled Sakura as she slapped Ino away from Sasuke.
Already their little argument had gained the attention of the entire room and at it looked like blood would be spilt at any second.
Seeing this, Kabuto left Naruto and Isaribi and politely told then to be quiet.
Isaribi and Naruto stayed where they were standing, only catching glimpse of the conversation Kabuto was having with the rooky genin. Apparently he was showing them the info cards he had.
At this Isaribi snickered, causing Naruto to shoot a glance at her.
In response she surged her shoulders and said, "Boys in their trading cards."
This caused Naruto to chuckle a little and almost missed what Kabuto said as he held up a card showing the villages attending.
"…Otokagure only sent one team, most likely due to the fact that they are a new village and can't afford to send out more than one team."
Upon hearing this, Isaribi and Naruto caught out of the corner of their eyes two figures moving swiftly through the crowd of genin towards Kabuto.
Without thinking, the two hurled themselves at Kabuto's would be attackers, with Naruto tackling the poncho and bandage wrapped nin while Isaribi brought down the other.
In a mater of moments, before any of the rooky genin could react, Naruto and Isaribi had their opponents pined and held kunai at his throat (Isaribi) and the base of his neck (Naruto).
Before the scene could escalate into real violence, the proctors appeared in a puff of smoke with Ibiki standing in the front.
"Alright, settle down you maggots! And you guys from Konoha and Oto, settle down unless you want to be kicked out."
"My apologies" replied the poncho wearing Oto-nin as Naruto let him off the ground. "We're just a little excited, that's all."
"I bet you are" smirked Ibiki. "Alright, all of you, take a number and go to the set with the corresponding number."
The room became filled with the sound of the genin shuffling around and taking their seats.
When all was said and done, Naruto found himself near the center of the room with Isaribi off to his left and back, while Kabuto was two rows in front of him and a little to the right.
Glancing next to him, Naruto saw that on his left was a Suna genin with two small wrapped bundles on his belt ( AN: it's not Kankuro, it's just another puppet user, I was thinking something along the lines of two bird puppets that he can use to fly around and stab/poison targets). And on his right was one of the rooky genin, Hinata, looking nervous, but trying to hide it behind the famous Hyuuga cold demeanor.
"Alright maggots" Ibiki said once everyone was seated, "I will now explain the rules, and there will be no questions asked!"
Turning to the blackboard behind him and writing down what he said Ibiki announced, "To start with, you all have ten points. Get a question wrong and you loose a point. Get caught cheating and you loose two points. If you or one of your teammates falls below zero points then you are all disqualified. The tenth question will be announced in forty five minutes into the exam."
Pausing for a moment, Ibiki looked over the faces of the gathered genin, "Alright, begin!"
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Naruto spent a full minute looking at the page before him, dumbfounded. Kabuto had told them that they would have to cheat and not get caught, but Naruto thought that the questions might be somewhat answerable.
Instead he was faced with a theoretical physics problem involving the trajectory of a weapon thrown by a 150 pound shinobi at an 18 degree angle.
To answer it you would have to deduce the force of the throw, atmospheric conditions, and the strength of the man all based on the variables given.
'A lot of jonins would have a problem with this one. No wonder we have to cheat.'
Looking around he saw that other genin had already figured out the need to cheat and began to do it as discreetly as possible.
Almost immediately the chunin on the side of the room began to record the attempts to cheat they caught. Within the first five minutes the first team, a Konoha team, was disqualified for cheating.
Turning his attention back to his test, Naruto began to contemplate the ways he could cheat. While their talk with Kabuto had highlighted the need to cheat, they did not go into length on the how part of the cheating.
Kabuto knew what he was doing, so no concern there about being caught, an Isaribi knew what she was doing, so no concern there either. This left the only weak link in his team's ability to pass this test in himself.
'Ok, no pressure'
Looking down at the test again Naruto began formulating a way to cheat. The simplest method would be to simply look at the person next to him, but that was also the most obvious.
'Yea, that might work' he thought as a plan began to formulate in his head.
Glancing at the people in front of him and to his right, Naruto covertly looked to see if any of their test papers were in view.
As luck would have it, Kabuto was purposefully angling his body, allowing Naruto to see the answers on his test paper. 'Well, that's better than nothing I guess.'
Looking back down at his paper, Naruto used the shadows created from the wrappings around his face to hide his eyes as he moved back and forth from his own paper to the Kabuto's paper, copying down the answers as Kabuto wrote them down.
Once Kabuto finished taking the test and Naruto finished copying the test paper, Naruto positioned the test paper so that while it looked like it was being hidden, it was actually visible to Isaribi in the back.
'She probably won't need any help, but might as well. Now I just have to wait for the final question to be reviled."
Sitting in silence Naruto waited as the clock ran down to the 45 minute mark. More and more teams were called out for cheating, but the majority of the genin were not being caught.
"Alright, time for the last question!" called out Ibiki, breaking the silence than hung in the air.
"Before I give out the final question, there is a new rule to go over. If you so choose, you may leave the test room right now and fail the test for you and your team."
Hearing this, the assembled genin were puzzled. Why would the willingly give up when there was only one more question left?
"And if you stay and fail the last question, then you will never be able to become chunin" finished Ibiki with a sadistic grin.
"What!?" cried out one genin. "There are people here who've taken this test before and they never said anything about this?!'
"Well, luck isn't on you're side. Those people did have me before and I've decided to make this rule this year. Deal with it."
Many of the genin began to sweat. Could they answer the last question? Did they want to stake their future on this unknown possibility?
For a moment, no one moved. Them slowly, one genin in the back raised his hand and him and his team shuffled out of the room. With his act, the proverbial damn broke and soon a flood of genin became to raise their hands and leave the test room.
From her seat, Isaribi was contemplating what to do. Should she quite or go on? Neither Kabuto nor Naruto gave any indication that they were going to quit and from what she was able to see from Naruto's paper, he at least knew what he was doing.
'I'll just have to trust in them' thought Isaribi, making up her mind.
No sooner did she come to this decision, the tide of genin giving up halted and the room was considerably less crowded.
"Are there no others who want to quit? This is you is last chance…" said Ibiki with his sadistic grin.
The silence in the room was almost suffocating when all the sudden Ibiki broke out into a big smile.
"Congratulations, you've passes the first test."
"…What?"
"What about the final question?" asked Tenten, raising herself in her seat slightly.
"Oh, the willingness to accept the risk was the final question. As chunin you will be constantly faced with life or death situations, not just for yourself, but for your team as well."
"But if that's the case then, what was the point of cheating to take the test?" asked Temari, leaning up from her seat.
"Hehe, that was to test you ability to gather information discreetly." As he was talking, Ibiki pulled off his bandanna, showing his scares from torture. "In the world we live in, information in life. Get bad information or get caught gathering information and you dead."
Ibiki looked like he was about to say more, but just as he was about to open his mouth a black ball shot into the room.
Kunai shot out and pinned the corners to the floor and ceiling and Anko stood in the center grinning like a mad women. Behind her the black cloth had, painted in white letters 'Your second proctor, Mitarashi Anko!'
"Alright brats, now's not the time to be celebrating, for you have to go through my exam now!"
Taking a quick survey of the room she noted that Twenty-four teams survived the first test.
"Ibiki-kun, you're slipping, twenty-four teams? What gives?"
Ibiki was about to reply but Anko cut him off with a wave of her hand. "It doesn't matter, I will cut that number down my half!"
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That afternoon found the remaining twenty-four genin teams standing by the chain link fence that surrounded training area 44, also known as the forest of death.
Anko had just finished telling the teams the rules for the second event and they were getting in line to receive their gate assignment.
Throughout the entire briefing and even the day before, Anko was detached from Isaribi and Naruto. It might have seemed like a perfect opportunity to tease the two in front of all the gathered genin, but they also knew that any familiar interaction between the proctor of an exam and the genin would raise questions about favoritism and the fairness of the exams.
Soon they got their earth scroll, their gate assignment and where standing idly while waiting for the exam to start.
Pulling out a map of the training ground, Kabuto motioned to Naruto and Isaribi to gather around it.
"Here we are" he said pointing at one of the gates. "We're going to need to set up an ambush in a place where every team is sure to go.
"So the tower or a source of water?" asked Isaribi.
"Correct, good thinking" smiled Kabuto. Pointing at the map again he continued "If we go 12 degrees to the left when we enter the area we will make it to this stream. It's near the tower so we can ambush any team that goes to get a drink before quickly making it to the safety of the tower."
"Sound good…but is your map accurate enough so that we don't go stumbling off in the wrong direction?" asked Naruto concerned.
"Don't worry Naruto-kun, I slipped this map from my father's files a week ago when I heard that that this would be the place of the second exam, plus I've been in these woods before so I know for sure that that stream in right there."
Before they could say anything else the sound of a blow horn ripped though the air, and the gates swung open, the second exam was on.
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Two days into the exam a team from Ame were moving silently through the trees towards the tower. A genjutsu team, they were dressed in gray, had re-breathers over their mouths, and wraps on their faces.
The leader, with both of his eyes showing, motioned to his two teammates that they were nearing their destination. They could smell the water ahead, and like every Ame-nin, they knew at least some suiton jutsus to go with their genjutsu.
Pulse, they reasoned that other teams would be coming to the water to drink, and when their let their guard down they would strike.
Cautiously they approached the stream. The Ame-nin with both his eyes covered looked around first. Due to a bloodlimit he could detect genjutsu and people's chakra signatures with greater ease than anyone else. The only people who could beat his clan in this regard are the Uchiha and the Hyuuga clans of Konoha.
Turning his back to the river he motioned 'all clear' to his teammates.
Just as the Ame team began to fill their canteens and set up traps, that another trap was sprung on them.
From out of the water came a flurry of kunai, shuriken, and even two fuma shuriken.
Caught off guard, the Ame-nins scrambled to get out of the way, but the one with both his eyes covered and the other with one eye covered were still wounded by the weapons.
Suddenly the two fuma shuriken exploded in a cloud of smoke, reveling that they were shadow clones of Naruto and they launched kunai at the Ame-nins.
Catching them by surprise, the kunai pierced the throat and the back of the head of the leader (the one with both eyes showing) before his two injure teammates were able to dispel the clones.
But while the two were distracted, Kabuto appeared out of the woods behind them and with a chakra scalpels in each hand, destroyed their hearts from behind.
As the two dead nins fell forward into the grass and mud, Isaribi and Naruto emerged from their hiding place in the river.
Their outer clothes were safely stored in their storage scrolls and as they began to gather up their thrown weapons, Kabuto searched the bodies for their scroll.
Finding both a heaven and an earth scroll, Kabuto handed the heaven scroll to Isaribi and pocketed the other earth scroll for himself.
As Kabuto moved away from the bodies, Naruto moved towards them and began to pat them down, removing any weapons, scrolls, and other tools that could be of value.
"Naruto-kun… what are you doing?" asked Isaribi as she watched Naruto pocket a length of ninja wire.
"No point in leaving these guys with all their gear. Pulse, they actually have some pretty good stuff on them. Check out the quality of this kunai" said Naruto and he held up on of the kunai.
As Kabuto and Isaribi looked closer they understood what Naruto was talking about. While it was shaped the same way as their kunai, it was expertly crafted with the use of a couple of different metals, insuring it's sharpness as well as its durability.
Seeing this, Isaribi and even Kabuto moved to the other bodies and removed their weapons for themselves too.
Once they were done they began to make their way to the tower. With the tower in sight, Kabuto seamed to notice something off in the distance, back the way the came.
"You two wait here. It seams like another Konoha team is in trouble."
"Shouldn't we go with you?" asked Isaribi.
"No need" shrugged Kabuto. "I need you two to secure the path to the tower while I help them out. I'll be back before the exam ends."
With that, Kabuto took off into the woods, leaving Naruto and Isaribi behind.
"Well, this sucks" said Isaribi.
"Yea…come on, let's get to work"
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For two and a half days, Naruto and Isaribi waited for Kabuto to return.
In that time they laid traps and dug pits to disable any other team that was trying to make it to the tower this way.
Already their traps caught another Konoha team as well as a Suna team.
Finally, as the exam was nearing an end Kabuto appeared, a little worse for the wear, and with a battered looking team seven behind him.
Leaving Team Seven behind and rejoining Naruto and Isaribi, Kabuto smiled at them.
"It's a good thing I showed up or else they would have been killed. Well, shall we complete this exam?"
Nodding their heads, Naruto and Isaribi followed Kabuto into the tower to compete the second part of the chunin exam.
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Next up, the preliminaries!
So what did you think of the way I had the first to exams go?
Until I write again, ja ne!