Morino Ibiki barely suppressed a sigh as he looked over this year's crop of Genin. What had he been on when he agreed to proctor this exam? Oh, right, he'd stayed awake for 96 hours straight and had been barely functioning on soldier pills and copious amounts of caffeine when the Hokage had sent his request.
Konoha's paltry offering for the first time it hosted the Chunin Exams in the more desirable Summer slot in nearly a decade had a high point in the arrival of the second Ino Shika Cho team whose fathers he'd worked with extensively but, mostly seemed to consist of whatever had been scraped from the bottom of the barrel this year. Not only was the boy labeled as the one "Most likely to become a career Genin" here but, so was the potentially homicidal and quite possibly insane Uchiha Sasuke, and the Fox Brat.
Thinking about the Fox Brat sent a phantom pain shooting down a particular set of scars on his arms. The two times he had encountered the boy, he had come off the worse. The first time had been when he was beginning his stint in Intelligence and, as a most junior member, had been the one sent to retrieve the stuffed duck that the spymaster Jiraiya had sent to his "Godson". It had only been after he'd gotten his arms shredded nearly to the bone retrieving the stuffed animal, that it was discovered that Naruto really was Jiraiya's godson, and that the item in question had indeed been a gift for the boy's second birthday, not a coded message. The second time he'd encountered the boy had been four years later after he'd passed out after a rather difficult interrogation. He'd woken up to the snickering of several run of the mill ANBU, and the sight of a small child whose hand was holding a permanent marker a couple inches away from his face. It had taken him the last six years to regain his fearsome reputation amongst those in his department after that bit of humiliation. The gods only knew what this encounter would bring.
Carefully schooling his body language so that none of his unease at the situation and one being in particular showed, he started the first phase of the Chunin Exams. Fortunately, all of those little teen-aged brats and the scattering of adults who really didn't know when to quit seemed to be sufficiently intimidated by his act. Everyone but the Fox Brat that was. Figures.
Naruto had intellectually known that, with all of the changes that had been made to the timeline, the seating arrangements that were left to chance most likely wouldn't turn out the same as they had the last time around. Still, he had been half expecting to be seated next to his friend Hinata as he had been the first time he had taken this test. Despite his hopes however, that didn't come to pass. Instead, he had found himself in a completely different section of the room between a twitchy fellow and someone whose face he'd never forget as long as he lived considering the fact that he'd seen it be ripped off to reveal a completely different one underneath tomorrow.
Being seated between a nin from Mist who kept shooting him nervous glances, and someone who was either incredibly feminine or a slightly masculine Kunoichi from Grass who may or may not be Orochimaru in disguise depending on whether the original entrant had been killed before the first or second phase of the Exams had not been his idea of fun. This time however, he knew the answers to several of the questions and wasn't sweating bullets over the possibility of failing. As he knew what was going on and therefore wasn't as worried, he was beginning to notice things he had been too overwhelmed to notice the time before, such as the fact that Ibiki was slightly unsettled for some reason, one of the ringers seated amongst the Genin was nursing a hangover, and one of the examiners either had a case of hemorrhoids or an injury to his backside.
Putting those thoughts aside, he turned back to his test and started writing down the answers to the questions he knew he could answer without resorting to cheating. He had been in the middle of answering the second question when the Mist Genin poked him in the arm with a needle of some sort.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" he asked as he snatched the needle away and chucked it in a seemingly random direction, hiding a smirk as it hit Kabuto as he intended.
He had absolutely no idea what was on the damn thing but, considering who had stuck him with it and why they would do such a thing, he had a feeling that it was lethal under normal circumstances. Even though he knew it was wrong of him, just as flinging the needle at Kabuto could be considered wrong despite the fact that Kabuto could technically be considered an enemy combatant, he found himself hoping that Kabuto suffered a bit before the end. The last time around Kabuto, like Mizuki, had shown him kindness in order to gain his trust for the express purpose of exploiting it and this time around Kabuto had, despite being foiled, shown all evidence of intending to do the same.
It was while he was answering question seven that he started feeling queasy indicating that whatever poison had been on that needle the foolishly brave Mist Ninja had stabbed him with had been a nasty one. By question nine, which was thirty minutes into the test, the urge to vomit had become uncontrollable. Remembering that Kankuro had been allowed to use the restroom and that he could do the same, he raised his hand.
"What do you want?" Ibiki said in a rather bored tone as one of the proctors went over to check on Kabuto who had made a strange gurgling noise and fallen over.
"I need to go to the bathroom." he said, as his mouth began to fill with saliva, indicating that he was going to vomit sometime in the next few seconds.
"You should have thought about that earlier brat. Now sit there and hold it." Ibiki said.
"But I.." he started before he leaned over and puked in what was probably Orochimaru's lap.
"Sorry man." he said by way of apology before looking down at the mess and muttering "Puking up Ichiraku's has got to be sacrilege or something.".
Gaara sighed as he started on his written test half a second after the proctor had told them to begin. He hated paperwork in all of its myriad forms, including that of the exam or the pop quiz. Considering how easy the questions were to him now, he wasn't even going to bother to cheat. However, he was half tempted to cover his test with his body to prevent that loudmouth Inuzuka he was seated next to from cheating off of him, as he was rather ineptly trying to do. But, the boy was one of Naruto's friends, and because he was one of Naruto's friends, allowances should be given. Once the boy realized the examiners were onto him, he would pick another method momentarily anyways.
Considering Naruto's reaction to those he'd been assigned to sit next to when his friend had first sat down, it was quite possible that the boy who was and wasn't the Hokage he knew had faced either one or both of those seated next to him in battle in his future. The way he leaned away from the Grass shinobi indicated that it was quite likely her or possibly him - it looked like a her, but sometimes you just can't tell without getting a much closer look - and that the battle had not been a fond memory. There had quite likely been killing involved rather than a miraculous redemption of the enemy if Naruto's expression was any indication.
As he observed the actions of his friend and his friends seatmates, he was briefly puzzled by the Mist Genin's reaction to Naruto, considering the fact that the shinobi from Mist hadn't shown him anywhere near that much respect until after he had become Hokage. Then, he remembered that this Naruto had somehow changed the timeline and had gotten quite a fearsome reputation and the odd moniker of Hell God while doing practically Fuck All to earn it. After a few minutes, the Mist Genin eventually drew on a well of courage and made his move. A second later, a small needle whizzed past his ear before sticking itself into Orochimaru's lackey Kabuto who quite likely made a fatal mistake in not dodging it in order to maintain his Loser Genin persona. Had the needle missed Kabuto, it would have harmlessly embedded itself into the table behind him. And, if what was on the needle was what Gaara suspected it was, Naruto's reputation would be receiving a boost and Kabuto would be dead rather shortly.
He had finished the ninth question and had been doodling on the back of the exam paper when he heard the gurgle and thud that marked the passing of one Yakushi Kabuto. This was soon followed by Naruto puking on one of his seatmates. Based on the fact that it was the Grass Genin rather than the person who had attempted to poison him, he had a feeling that Naruto really disliked the woman? for some reason. Deciding to solve that mystery later, he turned his attention to the front of the room and began his wait for the "Tenth Question".
Based on the fact that two of the proctors were now dragging a corpse out of the room, it was quite possible that there would be a delay that would make the wait longer than the fifteen minutes it was supposed to be until the "question" was "asked".
Ibiki groaned. Trust the Fox Brat to cause problems for him without even trying. It was quite obvious that the boy his fellow examiners were dragging out was dead. Now came the decision of what to do about it and who to dismiss. The Genin from Mist and his team was an obvious choice since it had been his needle and, one of the things he'd stated at the beginning before the tests had even been handed out was that there would be no killing during this test unless he gave leave to do so, which he hadn't. But, the question was should he dismiss the Fox Brat's team as well?
The Yakushi boy's death had appeared to have been an accident, and partially the boy's own fault too since, if the teen had dodged, he would have been digging a poisoned needle out of the table behind him after the test rather than watching the boy's corpse be dragged from the room. But, he'd seen that little grin Naruto had tried to hide when the needle had hit Kabuto and, it was quite possible that others had seen it as well, placing the accidental nature of Kabuto's death and therefore whether or not any rules had been broken on Naruto's part as well under question.
Under normal circumstances, he would have immediately dismissed the boy and ordered that he be brought in for interrogation into why he had thought it funny to kill a fellow shinobi from his own village. This case was different however, as Jiraiya had recommended that the "Career Genin" Yakushi Kabuto be discreetly placed on a list of individuals that needed watching due to suspicion of espionage a few months ago, making this something other than normal circumstances, especially considering the fact that, after careful surveillance, it would appear that Jiraiya's suspicions had panned out, and that Naruto had quite likely just done the village a service.
By all rights, he should be dismissing the boy and his team for "accidentally" killing one of his own anyways but, failing a student for taking out a spy seemed a little...Thus the headache.
"Twelve is dismissed." he said when Kabuto's body had finally left followed by the boy's surviving teammates. "Thirteen, you and your teammates may remain though, I must tell you that if you aren't more careful in the future, you won't make it past Chunin if by some miracle you pass this test, or Genin if you don't. May young Kabuto's death be a reminder to you all that if you are in a crowded area and someone pokes or stabs you with something that may be poisonous, it is not a good idea to grab it and throw it in a random direction. There is a good chance that you could hit one of your friends or allies as Uzumaki Naruto did earlier."
Despite the questioning glances he'd received from the other examiners over his decision, the test continued as scheduled. If the first headache Naruto had caused that hour wasn't bad enough however, he ended up causing another one less than fifteen minutes later when he decided to inspire the other Genin during the "tenth question", meaning that seventy-two Genin were left in the room at the time of his little speech. This of course would be causing another blow to his fearsome reputation as there should have only been 48 or less of the brats left in the room when Anko arrived. While he tried to put a cheerful face on whole mess, internally he was feeling a serious need for a drink and maybe some painkillers for the massive headache that had formed as a result of the Uzumaki's actions today. It would seem that the score as it currently stood was Fox Brat 3, Ibiki 0.
Edited 11-3-12