AN: I'm copping out a bit and skipping the first exam. It's boring to write and nothing significantly changes. The second exam is where the story picks up and interesting things start to happen. Enjoy!

Team 7 stood in front of the gate marked 13 with a bored looking Chunnin leaning against the fence. As a whole the lot of them were twitchy and varying degrees of impatient. Sakura thought that worse than actually being in a five day fight for your life was the waiting for it to start. At least she'd have a direction to focus her nervousness then.

None of them commented gate thirteen was something of an ill omen in a land that still took things like the stars and prophecy at least somewhat seriously. Surprisingly even Naruto seemed to feel the atmosphere and decided not to comment on it. That wasn't to say he was keeping quiet though. It would be a strange day when Naruto could stand around patiently waiting for something to happen.

"Hey, Chunnin guy! How much longer?" badgered Naruto incessantly. The Chunnin just gave him a bored look.

"I'll open the gates when I open them. It's not for you to know," he said in a slightly condescending tone. Sakura couldn't blame him since this was the third time had told Naruto the same thing.

Before this could set Naruto off Sakura laid a hand on his shoulder. "Let's not bother the proctors Naruto. You don't want us to get disqualified do you?"

Sakura didn't think Naruto being annoying would be enough for them to get disqualified, but by the suddenly horrified look in his face it didn't seem her teammate reached the same conclusion. He firmly pressed his lips together so hard they went white and turned decisively away from the Chunnin. It was kind of childish, but then again when wasn't Naruto immature? If she was honest, the horrifying truth was that she was secretly sort of starting to like it. It was a bit of innocence when Sakura was desperately trying to hold on to the tattered scraps of her own. In a way his childish antics had become somewhat comforting.

She looked at Sasuke, looking outwardly calm but Sakura thought she could detect his impatience and eagerness in the tense line of his shoulders. For all his stoicness she knew that so far the exam had been a roller coaster ride with him, what with their mission, the plethora of seemingly strong foes, the looks from the Iwa team and him getting beaten by Lee right before the exam. She trusted Sasuke but occasionally he could be as much of a hothead as Naruto. His decision to fight Lee right before the first exam, for example, had been monumentally dumb in her opinion.

Sakura took a deep breath and tried to settle her own nerves. If she entered First Heaven during the exam she would almost certainly go for the kill no matter what. It didn't matter if killing was technically allowed in this part of the exam. She didn't want any more deaths than absolutely necessary on her conscience. Also, she was afraid of what would happen if she encountered other Konoha teams out there while in First Heaven. She knew she wouldn't hurt her teammates but what about her fellow Leaf-nin? She probably wouldn't seriously hurt the people that graduated with her or Lee's team. But what of everyone else?

It was a scary thing to not know how you would act. The scariest thing was that she wasn't as concerned about hurting her fellow Leaf nins as she thought she should be. Was part of the remorseless mind of the Santengoku leaking into her normal consciousness? She hoped not. The possibility of that chilled her to the bone.

She was snapped out of her musing when she saw the Chunnin move and step closer to the gate. The man put his hand on the mechanism to open the door while his eyes were trained on the watch on his wrist. Sakura and her whole team moved into position and lowered themselves slightly in anticipation.

"Second test of the Chunnin exams," said the Chunnin, "begin!"

With that he opened the gate and threw it wide open. Sakura and her team dashed through the door, the adrenaline and anticipation of the wait driving them to rush in at full speed. Swiftly they took to the trees positioning themselves at perfect distances from each other like a well-oiled machine. In moments they were racing across the canopy of the forest as fast as their legs could take them.

"Hey, so what's the plan?" asked Naruto, "How are we going to find the scroll we need?"

"We have five days and rushing to pick a quick fight would be an amateur move," said Sasuke, "since we only have rations for half a day we should secure food and water before we do anything else. Then we can find a relatively safe place and you can use your Kage Bushin to scout for possible targets."

It made sense, Sakura had thought up much the same plan while waiting for the second test to begin. While training them Kakashi-sensei had finally told them that the Kage Bushin had at first been used as a scouting tool as all the memories of the dispelled clones returned to the user. Sakura wasn't sure if she had been more exasperated at Kakashi for never having bothered to explain that before or at Naruto for being so dense he'd never noticed he got the memories of all his clones.

To her surprise both Sasuke and Naruto were looking at her. It took her a moment to realize that they were waiting for her input.

"We need to plan to potentially stay here for the whole duration even if we end up not needing to. Supplies first is a good plan. I'm not thrilled about going blindly looking for other teams either with things like the Byakugan and the sense of smell if the Inozuka's running around. We're fairly vulnerable until we can find a position to secure since we don't have anyone with special tracking or detection abilities on our team," she said.

"I can have a bunch of Kage Bushin all around us to keep watch, make sure we're not caught by surprise," suggested Naruto.

Sakura shook her head. "With that many bodies near us we'll draw far more attention to ourselves. We also need you to save your stamina for when it counts. It's true you have insane chakra stores but even you will start to get tired holding clones up all day."

Naruto nodded and Sasuke grunted his acceptance of her analysis. A tiny smile appeared on Sakura's face. This is what she was comfortable with, for all her training to improve and learn new skills recently Sakura was at heart a thinker and a planner. It made her feel good to be able to use her mind to come up with strategies for her team. Even if things eventually went belly up at least she was confident they'd had a sensible plan to start seeing them through the second exam.

"What about the team from Iwa?" asked Naruto, and through he tried to hide it the worry was still easy to pick out in his voice. She knew it wasn't concern for himself since the boy had no sense of self-preservation but rather concern for her.

Sakura wished she had a good answer for Naruto. Unfortunately she didn't. "The only thing we know is what little Kabuto had on Kurotsuchi. I don't think there's anything we can do except play it by ear."

Both Naruto and Sasuke were clearly unhappy with that but there was nothing else they could do. She suspected that they had probably been placed to start as far away from her team as possible so that would reduce the chances of running into them. Finding one specific team would be very challenging in a forest this size. With any luck they could avoid them altogether.

Karin breathed a sigh of relief as it turned out she would be able to do what Kabuto had instructed. As she and her team left the gate to enter the forest she could feel the signatures of the team Orochimaru-sama was interested in near the edge of her sensing range. If they had not been close enough for her to sense she didn't want to think about what might have happened to her. Given that her max sensing range was only a couple of kilometers she knew she had been extremely lucky that they had been close enough for her to detect.

"Girl, where is the closest team?" asked Homu roughly. It made Karin feel small and insignificant that her temporary teammates refused to even use her name and simply referred to her as 'girl' or something even more derogatory. She hated that these pigs could make her feel anything at all but Karin couldn't help but feel pain at such treatment. She really should have known better by now but she had always been a sensitive girl.

"About one kilometer that way," Karin said, pointing off to their right.

"Hmm. Well keep us away from any of the other teams girl. First we'll get water, then food. After that we'll pick the closest team and go after them," said Homu decisively.

"Don't mess this up. If anyone manages to sneak up on us I swear I'll fucking kill you," said Sora. For some reason he had always been especially hostile towards her. She couldn't figure out why. It probably had to do with her and her mother being immigrants to Hidden Grass and how many Kusa ninja had an almost inbred distrust and hostility towards outsiders.

"Hai Sora-san," she said quietly, intimidated by the older and larger teen. Sora merely made a rude sound in her direction then turned away, pointedly ignoring her.

Idly, she wondered if life living in Orochimaru's village of Hidden Sound would be better than living as essentially an unwilling spy for him in Kusa. As much as Orochimaru frightened her she also couldn't help but find herself drawn to him. He was the only one aside from her mother who had ever taken any notice of her. On top of that there was no doubt the man was incredibly powerful. Karin had always been drawn to power and powerful people for better or for worse.

Maybe one day Orochimaru would order her out of Kusa and have her work for him directly? She knew her abilities made her valuable and she knew she was a lousy spy. She could hope. However she also knew she was perhaps equally likely to end up dead or strapped to a medical table if Orochimaru's mood, or Kabuto's for that matter, ever turned in that direction.

Karin shook her head to clear her head of all her extraneous thoughts. She had to complete her task or all this thinking would be never add up to anything.

Searching she found the powerful and somehow slippery diseased aura of Orochimaru. It at once disgusted her with its slithery corrupted feeling and fascinated her. Whatever else you might say about him Orochimaru-sama was an impressive individual.

Discreetly she brought her hands into the rabbit seal hidden from the line of sight of her teammates. In a move that only a sensor with great control could pull off she sent small bursts of chakra directly towards Orochimaru in code. She didn't know how he could sense her tiny directed chakra bursts from such a long distance, it should have frankly been impossible. Yet for Orochimaru-sama it seemed to take no effort whatsoever.

He was a monster. A fascinating, powerful monster.

Moments after she had finished transmitting the Uchiha's team location and direction she felt Orochimaru-sama and the two with him change direction and head on an intercept course. Karin had observed the Uchiha's team discreetly while in the first exam. They all seemed so young and carefree. The redheaded Uzumaki couldn't help but feel a spark of guilt at sending someone like Orochimaru straight towards them.

But what could she do? It was obey or die. The same way it had always been.

Idly she wondered if other people had a life that didn't feel like it was always hanging by a thread. The last time Karin had ever felt safe was with her mother before she died. Secretly Karin wished she could somehow get some of that back again, though as much as she might hope it was clear that her chances of finding that were probably as close to zero as you could get.

She just had to stay alive. Maybe things would get better with time.

"Use it now Kisuke. We don't have time to waste if we're going to find that team," said Kurotsuchi.

The team from Iwa had raced into the forest just enough so it wouldn't be immediately obvious to anyone where their team had gotten to from their starting gate. Any additional precaution they could take was well worth it. They were deep in hostile territory, inside the borders of the damn Village Hidden in the Leaves itself. Who knew what dirty tricks the Leaf nin might have set up to slow them down or get rid of them.

"As you say," said Kisuke in that scrapey, gravelly voice of his that always made Kurotsuchi think that he gargled rocks in the mornings. He flicked his golden dreads to the side and produced a scroll that he opened up and laid down on the ground. Nicking his thumb with a kunai he smeared blood on the scroll and began to go through a series of hand seals.

Their team was by far the strongest Genin team in all of Iwa. By all rights they shouldn't have still been Genin. All of them easily had Chunnin level skill coupled with some Jounin level techniques and all of them were proficient at using them. If there was one thing they were not as proficient in however it was tracking. Kurotsuchi had a lead on a summoning contract that could help solve that weakness but so far as a team they had nothing. Which is why they had been provided with a little help to aid them in tracking down their prey.

This was probably the most important mission for Iwa any of them had ever undertaken. On top of that Kurotsuchi couldn't help but feel a personal resentment towards that girl with her stupid pink hair. No matter what happened both her grandfather and Iwa had already been humiliated. She was going to make sure the Saotome suffered long and hard before the end.

Kisuke completed the string of seals and slammed his hand down on the scroll. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Technique)!"

There was a large puff of white smoke as the technique was completed. When it cleared the team was looking at fifty tiny sparrows standing closely together on the ground. They were all brown and perfectly ordinary looking and looking up at the team with curiosity as they turned their heads from side to side.

They were cute, though Kurotsuchi would rather cut out one of her eyeballs than ever admit such a thing.

"Greetings sparrow clan," said Kisuke with grave formality. The fact he was using that tone with a flock of miniature birds looked more than a little ridiculous. "We request that you find someone for us in this forest. I've been instructed to offer you ten pounds of bird seed in return for this task."

The birds all turned to look at Kisuke for a few long moments before turning into a huddle and chirping loudly to each other. There seemed to be a vigorous discussion going on for a few minutes before they seemed to settle and turn back to Kisuke as one. The sparrow at the forefront chirped something at the dreadlocked teen.

"What?!" he said, sounding incredulous. "That's highway robbery!"

The bird continued and let out another long string of chirps directed at Kisuke.

"What are they saying?" asked Kurotsuchi sounding annoyed. She wasn't comfortable wasting time messing around.

"The greedy little bastards say they want fifty pounds of bird seed instead. Something about how the forest is extremely dangerous and we need to make it worth their while. I think they are just aiming high and expect me to try and haggle them down. However, Gari-sensei said not to let them push you around and really that's just extortion-"

"Kisuke," said Kurotsuchi sharply, cutting him off, "just give them what they want. We won't have to pay up for a while and we can take the cost as a mission expense. We don't have time to sit here while you argue with little birds."

"Little birds are cute," said Akatsuchi in his childish tone.

Kisuke sighed. "We're getting scalped by the little bastards, I swear," he muttered. "Fine," he said louder towards the birds, "agreed. Find a girl with pink hair in this forest. Take us to her. Do that and the agreement is complete."

As one all the tiny sparrows straightened up and lifted one of their wings in what could have passed for a salute. Then all of them took to the air and scattered in all directions in search of their prey.

"Let's see if we can't find a team to take down in the meantime. Pretty much everyone in this exam looks weak. We still need to make sure we have the scrolls to continue on to the next part of the exam. When the sparrow clan comes back with something then it will be time to go hunting," said the Kunoichi.

Her teammates grunted their assent and followed her as she leapt into the forest. Kurotsuchi couldn't suppress a wicked smile. They were tigers in a forest of mangy dogs. Privately Kurotsuchi thought they were the strongest Genin team in all the Elemental Nations. Whoever they ran into was about to have a very bad day.

She just hoped it was a Konoha team they bumped into first.

"I need to take a piss," blurted Naruto as they were running close to the ground.

Sakura made a disgusted face at that. "You can put things more delicately you know. I never want to hear about your bodily functions that graphically ever again Naruto," she said to him while giving him the stink eye. "In fact I don't ever want to hear about your bodily functions again at all. Ever."

At least Naruto had the good grace to look embarrassed and look away from her gaze before she took it as an excuse to revert to her old self and clobber him over the head.

As a team they all dropped down to the ground in a small clearing. Without another word Naruto scampered off behind a tree and some bushes doing a funny dance as he ached to relieve himself. Sakura and Sasuke pointedly looked away as they focused on keeping aware of their surroundings.

"Sakura…" began Sasuke, surprising Sakura enough that she started a little. He trailed off giving Sakura the impression that he was looking for the right words.

"Yes Sasuke?" she asked, curious about what he had to say.

"If it comes down to it don't hesitate to use all your skills. We have an important mission. We can't afford to let scruples get in the way," he said.

His words made her feel surprised and a little defensive. She hadn't considered that Sasuke would have picked up on her conflict of how she didn't want to use her Kekkei Genkai unless it was absolutely necessary.

"You don't understand Sasuke. I will try to kill whoever we come up against unless I have a compelling reason not to if I use that. The people I have to kill just to survive are bad enough. I don't want to add any more to my conscience unless it's a last resort."

"It will just increase the chances of one of us getting injured or killed if you hesitate in using your full abilities. You heard Kakashi, this mission is extremely important to Konoha. You have to toss your fear of killing aside and come at this exam with everything you've got," he replied in his usual blunt way. Sakura hadn't noticed before that sometimes he could come across as an insufferable know-it-all.

Sakura was about to retort that she didn't need that kind of lecture from someone who had never killed before when she was stopped by Naruto returning from the other side of the tree and bushes.

He walked towards them with his hands behind his head in a carefree way. "Man, I peed a lot! That felt really good," he said as he got near them.

Already irritated Sakura geared herself up to yell at him and possibly hit him over the head for real this time. However Sasuke beat her to the literal punch. He stepped up to the blonde and surprised him with a right cross across the jaw. Naruto was knocked off his feet and crashed on his rear end in front of a tree several feet away.

"Sasuke, what are you doing?" she barked at him. She was suddenly pissed at hell at him, how dare he punch Naruto?

Sasuke however ignored her and kept his eyes firmly planted on their third team member. "Look closely at him Sakura. That's not Naruto," he said in his trademark detached and arrogant tone he liked to use in tense situations.

It took a split second for what he said to register in her brain before she turned her eyes sharply back to 'Naruto'. Now that she was looking she could see the differences. The weapon's pouch was on the wrong leg and he carried himself subtly different than Naruto even sitting there on the base of the tree, doing a fair impression Naruto's guileless look.

"Sasuke! What's the hell did you do that for?" the blonde at the base of the tree asked as he pulled himself to his feet. The movements were just a bit too fluid. That confirmed it for her. The person in front of them wasn't Naruto.

A horrifying thought suddenly struck Sakura. Where was the real Naruto? Had this guy killed him to take his place?

The thought almost caused Sakura to fall into First Heaven against her will. It was only Sasuke's calm demeanor and response that kept her from charging the Shinobi and unleashing the horror of her Kekkei Genkai on him. She knew that acting rashly wouldn't solve anything but it was difficult to reign herself in.

"Where did the cut on your face that the examiner gave you go?" asked Sasuke acidly, "Also your shuriken pouch is on your left leg. Our teammate is right handed. You're even worse at Henge than Naruto, you pathetic loser."

The Shinobi gave a very un-Naruto like rueful grin. "How unlucky. I guess I've got no choice since you figured it out."

The Henge dispelled in a cloud of white smoke revealing a ninja with a mechanical mouth breather and the headband of Ame. The ninja took out a kunai and charged the two of them surprising Sakura with his reckless boldness.

"Which of you two has the scroll?!" the foreign ninja howled.

Sasuke used his chakra and jumped high in the air. Guessing what he intended to do Sakura moved away from him and the incoming Shinobi.

The Uchiha sped through a set of hand seals and brought his hand to his mouth. "Katon: Housenka no Justu (Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu)!"

Fireballs twice the size of a man's head shot from Sasuke's mouth, forcing the foreign ninja to jump and dodge as the flaming balls exploded around him with concussive force. He avoided all of them with an impressive display of agility. The Ame nin jumped high in the air to meet Sasuke striking out viciously with the kunai in his hand. Sasuke drew his own kunai and blocked the strike from the Ame nin, creating a few sparks from the force of the blow.

As much as Sakura wanted to join in the fight she instead ran up the side of the huge trees and sought to gain the high ground. Chances were high that guy's teammates were around and she needed to get in position to cover Sasuke or do something if and when they decided to join in. Frustratingly she knew she would just have to watch and trust in Sasuke to come out on top.

She lost sight of the fight momentarily while positioning herself high above and frantically stretching her senses looking for anyone else ready to ambush them. The sound of an explosion and ripping tree limbs drew her eyes back to the fighting ninja. Sakura felt a small flash of fear as she saw Sasuke awkwardly falling away from the point of the explosion while trying to right himself in mid-air. He landed heavily on all fours and the enemy nin wasted no time running speedily to attack his open back.

In a flash Sakura threw a spread of kunai at the ground directly behind Sasuke to intercept the enemy. The Ame nin dodged her attack by jumping high into the air.

This proved to be a mistake. Sasuke stepped on one of her kunai that had landed next to his feet and stuck it to his foot with chakra. He kicked out with that same leg and released the kunai, sending it hurling at the enemy shinobi at high speed.

Wow… that was a really sweet move thought the Kunoichi.

The shinobi twisted in the air for all he was worth to dodge the launched kunai. He was so concerned with it he didn't notice Sasuke jump into the air after him. Sakura saw a flash of steel and then there was Sasuke, Sharingan blazing, with one of his kunai sunk deep into the shoulder of the enemy.

The Ame nin gave a cry of pain and kicked Sasuke away from him sending Sasuke to the ground while he landed high on a tree limb. Immediately seeing his intention to flee Sakura began to move into position to intercept.

He was too far away from her and looked like he might make his escape. On the other hand he hadn't noticed her yet. Praying she wouldn't screw this up since she'd only had limited practice with the technique Sakura formed her hands into the Ram seal and began to focus her chakra.

She felt it flood all her muscles while at the same time tagging a spot ahead of the rapidly fleeing enemy with her chakra. With one last mental nudge she activated the Shunshin no Jutsu for the first time ever in battle.

The pinkette felt her chakra grip her body and literally hurl her to her destination at blinding speed. When she arrived at her destination she was disoriented for maybe a fraction of a second. Luckily for her the enemy was too surprised by her suddenly appearing in his path to take advantage of the small opening she'd given him.

She stepped forward and launched a roundhouse kick at his head which he scrambled backwards to dodge. Sakura pressed him with rapid punches and kicks while the Shinobi was clearly looking for a way to flee as Sasuke had to be only seconds behind. In desperation he rushed her and threw a hasty punch at her face. Big mistake.

The body memory of her training with Guy took over. She deflected the punch with one hand and slammed her other elbow viciously into his head. The Ame Shinobi fell on his back clearly stunned and dizzied by the blow. It was then that Sasuke arrived on the other side of the downed Shinobi which left him surrounded between them. The Ame nin tried to stand and looked ready to try and bolt again. Sasuke stepped forward and gave him a sharp chop to the neck that made the enemy flop forward and lose consciousness.

"Good job," said Sasuke in a business like tone as he approached the limp Shinobi while drawing ninja wire from his pouch.

Despite the situation Sakura flushed a little at the comment. It was rare to get such direct praise from Sasuke.

"Thanks. You didn't do too bad yourself," she replied a little awkwardly.

Sasuke finished securing the enemy's hands in seconds while looking around warily. "Search him for the scroll. I'm going to go look for Naruto," he said sounding grim. Sakura just nodded her assent and Sasuke took off to look for their missing teammate.

The Kunoichi knelt down and began searching the unconscious Shinobi feeling like there was a heavy rock in her stomach. What if this guy had killed Naruto? He had been good enough to do it if he had caught her blonde teammate completely unawares. It… would be devastating losing Naruto like that. Absolutely crushing. Also their mission would have failed almost right out of the gate.

Because she didn't think anything of letting Naruto out of her sight for him to relieve himself she may have just let their teammate get killed. Wasn't she supposed to be the smart one of the team?

Looking down at the unconscious boy she was searching Sakura wondered what she would do if Naruto was dead. She didn't have to think about it long. She would slit his throat just like she had done those men down in T&I. It was all right to kill enemies. Enemies deserved death.

They had been sloppy. This wasn't a game… or if it was a game it was clearly one where they put their lives at stake. Was Sasuke right? Was hesitating to use her Kekkei Genkai going to get to get them all hurt or killed? That wasn't what had happened here but now the thought wouldn't leave her head. She didn't know.

Her search turned up empty; he wasn't carrying the scroll for his team. Sighing she kept him in sight while keeping alert to her surroundings. It was only a few minutes later when she felt two figures approach and land on the tree branch next to her.

"Naruto!" Sakura cried out in relief at seeing him in one piece. He looked embarrassed and dirty like he had been rolling in the dirt but not much worse for wear.

"Idiot got himself tied up and gagged after taking a nasty blow to the head. Luckily nothing else seems to be wrong with him," informed Sasuke. Though he hid it well she could also see his relief at having Naruto back in one piece.

"Oi oi oi! Bastard attacked me while I had my junk out and was peeing. How sick is that? Isn't there some kind of rule against that? It's kind of perverted if you ask me, dattebayo!" Naruto said angrily, obviously embarrassed at having so easily been caught.

Sakura was so relieved she wanted to go over and hug him. But really all this talk about peeing was making that so not an attractive proposition.

Omake

Strange and Random Crossover # 1

Naruto and Sakura stared at Sasuke, eyes so wide they were likely to pop out of their skulls. They had fallen through a random and inexplicable portal and fallen through into an unknown location. While Naruto and Sakura had landed on dry land Sasuke had landed in a natural pool of suspiciously chakra saturated water.

"Oh, so sorry! Usually I warn people away, but you fell out of the sky. Your friend here fall into Spring of the Drowned Girl. One Thousand Year ago pretty young girl drown in pool, very tragic story. Now anyone who fall in Jusenkyo pool cursed to turn into pretty girl," said the old man who was the caretaker of the so-called cursed training grounds.

Sasuke sat in front of the other positively fuming. He tried to cross his arms across his - her - chest (damn pronoun confusion) but she found she now had these large... these large... Sasuke had never been more mortified in his life when his arms brushed his - her - breasts and accidentally sent a pleasurable shiver through her.

The Uchiha used all her mental discipline to decidedly not think about her situation. If she actually did then she was a hundred percent sure she would start screaming.

In front of Naruto and Sakura now sat a short, curvy redhead. She was gorgeous and while Naruto intellectually knew it was Sasuke - Sasuke! - his eyeball to libido connection apparently hadn't been informed yet. The horrible mental dissonance it gave him gave the blonde a new appreciation for the devastating effects of his Sexy no Jutsu. He couldn't look away. Mentally he made a note to cut some more slack to all of those he kept calling 'perverts' if this messed up situation is what they went through all the time.

Sakura for her part had her brain frozen on the fact that Sasuke was not only a girl, but she had a much better figure than she did. How was that even fair? Sakura was a real girl and she didn't have a chest or hips like that! And she was even prettier than Sakura. But wait, this was Sasuke. Her hottie crush. She cradled her head in her hands trying to keep her poor abused mind from falling apart at the seams.

Sensing the communal distress the caretaker was quick to tell them the small bright side of the curse. "Don't worry friends, Jusenkyo curse can be reversed."

Sasuke snapped her head at the man. "Why didn't you say so in the first place?" she snapped. At hearing her own higher pitched cultured voice she couldn't help but visibly cringe at yet another reminder of her new femininity.

"Oh, cure not hard. You see cold water turn you into girl, and-"

Suddenly the sky turned dark and ominous, lighting crashing from seemingly out of nowhere. The caretaker stopped and all the people gathered looked up at the sky in sudden alarm at the unnatural weather.

Suddenly the sky ripped open and the Shinigami stepped through.

"You three Shinobi! You're in the wrong universe. Get back where you belong before you mess anything up!" it bellowed.

With that he wrapped the three ninja in chains and dragged them back forcefully to their world.

All the caretaker could hear as they were dragged away was Sasuke's high pitched yell,

"What about my currrrrrrrreeee!"

Then the portal closed and they were taken back to their world.

The caretaker sighed. "That is easily top twenty strange things I have ever seen. I'm sure grumpy boy figure out cold water hot water curse eventually."

AN2: The Chunnin Exams are underway! Let me know what you thought of the fight scene. Promise I'll have the next chapter updated soon.