The Second Test

Naruto stared incredulously at the man who was, just seconds ago, torturing him. "What the hell do you mean passed!? You're telling me this was a test!?" He wasn't quite sure what he should believe. This could easily be a way to get him to lower his guard and get his hopes up. Crushing a person's hope was an excellent way to mentally torture them.

The man momentarily ignored Naruto in favour of removing the Iwa hitai-ate he wore. After carefully folding it and placing it upon the table he strode into the shadows of the room. "I mean exactly what I said, are you deaf?"

Lights suddenly flickered into existence, bathing the room in light. Naruto closed his eyes, momentarily blinded. When he opened them once more, he could see medic-nins rushing into the room. Struggling to see past them as they began healing his wound, Naruto barely caught sight of a slightly scarred face and the mocking smirk upon it before the man left.

Naruto relaxed back into his chair, feeling rather disconcerted. It was still hard to accept that what he had just gone through was a test. He had been resolved to resist as long as possible and was having trouble coming to terms with the fact that not only was he safe, but that he had passed the first test. He also couldn't believe that that was the first test. Why couldn't it have been some written test where they had to cheat in horribly obvious ways?

"Did I really pass?" Giving his injury one last look, a medic-nin decided to answer his whispered question.

"Yes you did. The whole point of the test was to demonstrate your commitment to your village and your comrades. Still, I think that this was a bit too extreme for genin. Speaking of that, are you ok?" Naurto understood that he wasn't talking about any physical injuries.

"I'm still a little shaken up. I think I'll be fine though, this isn't the worst I've been through." The medic-nin sighed; the kid was too young to be saying something like that. Unfortunately, the kid wasn't even that out of the ordinary. His line of work brought him many sad stories like the one in front of him.

"Alright kid, you're good to go. Here's your stuff. Just be careful out there." As Naruto was released from the chair he nodded his thanks. They had done an excellent job, Naruto couldn't even feel any more pain from his side. He'd have to try and learn some of their techniques in the future. Being able to heal yourself or another was extremely useful.

After retrieving his weapons pouch he walked out of the room into a nondescript corridor. There were two doors on either side of his and two at the each end. Confused, Naruto turned and looked at the medic-nin he had been talking to earlier. Noticing Naruto's hesitance, the medic-nin answered the question that Naruto had been about to ask.

"The door on the far right."

Thanking the man one final time, Naruto set out towards the door. As he reached it, he could hear some commotion on the other side. He was already paranoid thanks to the random kidnapping, so he took out a kunai. As he leaned up against the door he could hear a multitude of voices. It seemed like the meeting place for those who had passed was through the door. Putting his kunai back, still keeping a hand on his pouch just in case, he opened the door.

As the door swung open, Naruto was met with an intimidating sight. The room had a large number of shinobi from various villages who all turned immediately towards him upon his entry. It was a rather disconcerting experience to be scrutinized by so many. Gazing around the room he noticed it seemed to be a waiting area as there were many tables and chairs scattered about.

As he was observing the crowd, the door once more opened to reveal Atsushi.

"Hey Naruto, nice to see you passed. I was hoping that I'd be the first one from our team here but I guess not."

"Don't worry, Naruto wasn't the first either." Both genin turned to see that Itachi had joined them.

"It's great to see you two though. If we're all here then that means we can continue onto the next test." Naruto was about to comment when another door opened. Turning to see who had entered, the entire group of genin became silent as they saw a Konoha jounin.

"The last of the teams has finished their test. All you kids are the ones who passed, so follow me." The genin all began to file out after the jounin, although everyone tended to stay around other teams from their village.

After a while of walking, they came upon a massive forest. A fence surrounded the forest with gates into the forest at regular intervals. Warning signs were posted all over the fence, promising whoever entered a terrible death. The trees seemed to scrape the sky with their branches and let very little light through. All in all, it painted a rather ominous scene.

"Alright kids, listen up. I'm going to explain the next test. What you see here behind me is the Forest of Death. It has that name for a reason. If you can't figure out that reason, kindly get the fuck out of here. Once I'm finished my explanation you will be going into that forest for the test. You'll be in there for a maximum period of 3 days."

"What the hell is this? First you torture us and now you're throwing us into a place like this?" The question was met with murmured assent from quite a few of the present genin.

Looking over, Naruto was surprised to see it had been a Takigakure shinobi who had spoken up. They had precious few shinobi in the first place, so for a team to be sent to the exams they had to be exceptional. He took special note of the one who seemed to be standing away from her teammates, as if uncomfortable around them. She was about his age and her hair was the oddest colour, green. Her eyes were also peculiar; Naruto had never before seen orange eyes.

Noticing the attention, the girl smiled and waved at Naruto. Uncomfortable with being caught, Naruto acknowledged her greeting with a nod of his head. He didn't like being caught, but it was more than that. Therapy had helped mitigate his more intense feelings, although it couldn't get rid of a deep-seated mistrust of those who weren't from Konoha. In fact, he was rather anxious being surrounded by so many foreigners.

"Quit your whining." At the sound of the proctor's voice, Naruto snapped back to attention. "When you become a chunin and, if you're good enough, a jounin, you will face many situations like this. If you can't deal with them now, then what good are you? We don't normally expect genin to deal with this kind of stuff, but you're here to become chunin, so deal with it." Looking abashed, the Taki shinobi stared at the ground, finding something there infinitely interesting.

"This is going to be a mission simulation; one that I doubt more than five teams will be capable of passing." Most of the teams seemed slightly scared of the test at this point. Not only were they entering a place with death in the name, very few teams were projected to pass.

"Once I tell you, you will go over to those nearby tents and receive a dossier. This will contain the photos of the team that you will be hunting during this exam. Your mission is to capture that team alive and bring them to the tower that stands in the middle of this forest. Of course, at the same time you will also be hunted. The time limit, as I said, is three days, so you will have to move quickly yet cautiously at the same time. This is a simple capture and return mission, once you are likely to do as a chunin" Motioning to the tents, teams began to get called forth to go in.

"This test sounds like it'll be difficult, do either of you have a plan." As Atsushi asked his question, Itachi looked towards their third teammate, causing Atsushi to do the same. Naruto was an expert in this kind of operation as many of the simulations he completed were similar.

"Perhaps we should wait before discussing our tactics." Naruto cast a glance around at the other teams in the area, clearly suspicious. Glancing over at the tents, he caught sight of a Kiri team exiting. They all had deadly looking gauntlets equipped. Just as he was about to turn away, his team was called over.

Going into the tent, they received their information. Looking inside, Naruto noticed that they were assigned the Kiri team that he had just seen exit from another tent. Smiling to himself, Naruto began formulating a plan.

As one of the last teams to enter, the examiner soon called for their attention. "Now that you have been given your targets, each team will be brought to a different gate that they will enter the forest from. Once in there you had better start moving because three days isn't a very long time." As the teams all began to prep themselves for the test, the examiner laughed drawing their attention.

"I just remembered something important. After about one day, jounin teams will be sent in to capture any and all teams they come across. Better capture your target in the first day then. Good luck with that." With one last chuckle at the looks of horror on most of the gathered genin, the examiner disappeared in a whirlwind of leaves.

This wasn't good. That last bit of information completely destroyed most of the plan that Naruto had been crafting. Being led away by a chunin, Naruto began to rethink his plan.

Once they reached their gate, Atsushi couldn't hold it in anymore. "Shit, this sucks. How the hell are we supposed to not only track a single team, but also avoid one that's hunting us and later on, teams of jounin!"

"I'm unsure how to best go about this, perhaps Naruto has an idea that can help us." Both genin turned towards Naruto expectantly. Closing his eyes to get his thoughts in order, Naruto began to speak.

"The best place to hide is in plain sight." Naruto opened his eyes, finding teammates stared at him in confusion, silently waiting for him to continue his train of thought. "These pictures of our targets, they were taken today. Not only that, but we saw each other before the test began. So we change how we look, hiding in plain sight."

"How does that help us? We'll still get attacked if we're seen." Naruto frowned, trying to think of how to best explain his idea. Itachi seemed to have already gotten the basic idea, so Naruto turned to address Atsushi.

"Normally you'd be right, but think about how this test works. Any and all fighting would either attract other teams or perhaps scare them off, one of which could be the real target. If more join the battle, you could easily be blindsided and taken out. If teams flee, you lose a good chance at catching your own target. Plus, after the first day there are jonin in the forest. While they aren't tracking to the best of their abilities, finding a fight won't be too hard. All teams have to be careful and either only pick fights they can win near instantaneously or dodge all other teams and attack only their target. So, if we change clothes, those hunting us will be far less likely to find us."

"Wow, that's a pretty good idea. What if the people we're hunting have the same idea though?" Even Itachi was awaiting Naruto's answer at this point. In their team, Naruto was by far the best at both stealth and tracking, making this test ideal for him to showcase his skills.

"The best way to hunt your prey is to know what its habits and prey are. We're going after Kiri shinobi, so it stands to reason that they will predominately use water based attacks. Notice how they all had gauntlets on? So we've got a group of water users who are all close ranged fighters. Not only that, but two of them had connected gauntlets, indicating that they fight as a tag team, while the other is a solo fighter. We now know how they will fight, the only thing we need to know is who they will fight, their prey." Atsushi looked quite impressed, although Itachi seemed slightly exasperated.

"I suppose you already know and are just trying to draw it out." Naruto sighed as he glared at the Uchiha.

"Fine be like that, killjoy. Yes I do know. The Kiri team was slightly less discreet than we were. They all turned at once towards a single group and after that continually glanced over at them. They're actually going after a Konoha team, the one with the sword wielder. The Konoha team is most likely going to be entirely fire-based. That and the swordsman makes them rather easy to find. All we have to do is look for traps that make use of specific things in the environment. Perhaps animals, or some sort of plant. A high concentration of traps like that will indicate shinobi who are highly familiar with the terrain, Konoha shinobi. Also, when we change clothes, we will be changing to look like them. That way our target will also try to hunt us."

"So, now that we have our plan for travelling and tracking within the forest, what are we supposed to do when we meet them?" This wasn't exactly Naruto's area of expertise. He was used to missions where he would either fight one-on-one or could sneak past his enemies.

"I really don't know Atsushi. I might be able to come up with some basic plans, but you and Itachi have far more experience fighting in a group." Atsushi seemed rather happy at the chance to show Naruto that he wasn't the only one who could contribute to the team outside of battle.

"We should do our best to avoid dragging the fight out, for reasons you discussed. The specifics will largely depend on the situation and the surrounding environment, but we can we should still have an idea of what to do. Me and Itachi are used to fighting with each other, so we'll take on the connected ones, while you fight against the loner. Naruto, I know that you pack a lot of explosives and ninja tools, so don't be afraid to use them to distract your own opponent."

"Why do I want to distract my own opponent?" Naruto didn't quite understand what Atsushi wanted. Shouldn't he be trying to defeat his opponent, not distracting him?

Itachi, having been mostly silent until this point, took over the explanation. "A lot of ninja love having one-on-one fights. They begin to forget about everyone else but their opponent. For that reason most wouldn't expect someone to break off from their own fight to attack another person. Distract your opponent and move quickly to hit one of ours. Atsushi and I will be doing the same thing, with brute force and genjutsu respectively. Of course, this is all dependent on them being as powerful as us, if they are weaker, take down your opponent as quickly as possible then switch to helping your teammates."

"Alright, the only thing left is to change our clothes. Let's try to make ourselves look as much as that other Konoha team as possible. I've got a fake sword in my scroll, so I'll pose as the swordsman."

Short missions could often end up being longer than anticipated, so their team had taken to carrying extra clothes in a storage scroll given to them by their sensei. The many seals on the scroll allowed for the storage of everything they would need should a mission time unexpectedly lengthen. Spare clothes were just one of the many things held within.

Naruto quickly dressed into what the other Konoha shinobi had been wearing. A dark blue elbow length shirt with bandage wrapping from his elbow to his hands. He put on a pair of ankle length black pants. To finish it up, he took out a fake sword that he carried in his scroll and a small pair of sunglasses. He also used the cloth of his hitai-ate to cover his hair.

Itachi, much to his dismay, had a bright orange t-shirt on and had wrapped his knuckles in bandages. At the very least he was able to keep his pants, though he wrapped bandages around them from the knee down. He too covered his hair as Naruto had done.

Atsushi had a green flak jacket, similar to the one worn by chunin, with noting underneath it. He too wore long black pants and covered his hair as his teammates had done. Looking at Itachi he couldn't help but smile.

"You know, I rather like this outfit. I might keep it on. You should think about it too Itachi, you look wonderful in orange." Itachi's glare was the final straw as he burst out laughing. Just as Itachi was about to say something, their gate opened.

The genin shot forward into the forest the moment before it had even finished opening. Naruto, who was at the head of the group, began slowing down. Anxious to continue moving, Atsushi decided to ask him a question.

"Why have we slowed down? We need to get to the middle as soon as possible. Everyone is terrified of the jounin hunters who'll be here soon and so they will begin to congregate around the finishing point. If we don't establish a foothold, we might lose our shot at this."

"Entering a zone with so many traps and groups around us will only make our search harder. We're going to let the majority of the teams move in while we scout their perimeter. We can't afford to commit ourselves to such a deadly area until we know exactly where our targets are." With a nod of understanding from Atsushi, the group fell into silence once more.

The forest was a rather eerie place. A heavy silence permeated the environment, punctuated by the thick canopy of leaves that prevented light from entering. Every sound seemed unnaturally amplified and it put everyone on edge. After continuing on in a tense silence, Naruto spoke once more.

"When we get close enough, we'll rest up for a bit. Everyone will be too wary at the beginning to do anything serious. However, as the day comes closer to ending, everyone will be a lot more panicked, allowing us to search for our target a lot easier."

Continuing onward, Naruto made sure to scan every bit of forest they passed. He was rather confident that after doing so many simulations in a forest setting that he'd be able to spot anybody and any traps they had set up. As it was, they encountered no one for a long time. A few howls from the animal population broke the silence every now and again, but no sounds of fighting reached their ears.

Naruto decided that they had traveled far enough into the forest at this point so he motioned for his team to stop. "At the pace we've been going at, we should be quite close to the tower at this point, so let's rest up here." Creating two kage bunshin to help him, Naruto began to set up traps around the perimeter of the clearing they decided to camp in.

Once finished with the traps, Naruto returned to his two teammates. "I'm going to send my two kage bunshin out to scout for us while rest. Hopefully they can find some indication of one of the teams we're looking for." As they settled down to relax the two clones began scouting the surrounding area.

"How's that going to help? If they get dispelled than they won't be able to report what they've seen."

"Don't worry Atsushi, kage bunshin actually transfer all knowledge they've gained to me once they disperse. They should disperse in about half an hour and if they find anything of promise we'll set out earlier than intended. Until then just rest and relax."

The half hour soon passed and when the clones dispersed Naruto winced at the influx of information. Realizing that one of his clones had actually come across a recent battlefield, he got up.

"Come on, my clones found something. A part of the forest has a bunch of marks from a recent fight so let's get over there and begin our search." The team quickly followed Naruto as he ran towards where his clones memories were leading him. Hopefully they'd be able to find something that could lead them to their target, after all, everyone else in the area of the battle would have come to search the area.

Catching sight of something, Naruto signaled to his teammates to stop and join him. Once they were beside him he pointed towards a patch of ground not too far away from the tree where they currently resided.

"You guys see that?" Naruto spoke softly so that no one eavesdropping would hear. "A small cloud of dust, kicked up from the ground. Someone was here and ran just as we arrived." Looking towards a tree near the cloud of dust, Naruto smirked. "See that tree there? It's got a branch that has five gouges in it, all of them side by side. There's a good chance that we've gotten lucky and stumbled upon our targets."

As he continued alone, Naruto couldn't help but notice a puddle on the forest floor. It was such an odd place for one, in fact it probably was impossible for it to have formed naturally, considering the lack of rain and the nearby vegetation. On closer inspection, it was possible to see patches of nearby grass were bent, indicating someone had been standing there recently.

Sending a shadow clone to collect his teammates, Naruto waited, observing the puddle. When his team arrived, he pointed to the puddle. "Let's get a closer look; I don't see any other traps."

As the team cautiously approached the puddle, two figures burst up from it and attacked. Atsushi and Itachi easily blocked the strikes while Naruto went in to disable them. Had it not been for his excellent situational awareness, Naruto would have been skewered by twin gauntlets. Quickly backing off, Naruto's attacker followed.

Getting a good look at him Naruto realized he was the loner of the team. The guy had what seemed like a rain coat on, just like his teammates. His over had a hood which obscured most of his face, although his rebreather was visible. The things that really drew Naruto's attention however, was the twin deadly gauntlets that he wore.

"Those two idiots are Meizu and Gōzu, brothers. I'm Roba, the leader. It's rather lucky that we were able to run into you guys. We weren't sure who our fake battlefield would attract, but it worked out perfectly." With his monologue complete, he shot forwards, intent on ending Naruto's life.

Managing to dodge one strike and redirect the other, Naruto landed a palm strike straight into his opponent's chest, knocking him backwards. Seeing his opponent was actually skilled, Roba began to analyze his opponent. Closing the distance between them once more, Roba began a fast flurry of strikes that Naruto had trouble dodging.

Realizing he couldn't keep it up forever, Naruto formed some handseals. A sudden gust of wind knocked back Roba, giving Naruto the chance to go on the offensive. Moving in with greater speed than Roba, Naruto quickly came within striking range and unleashed a series of of jabs, winding Roba, before jumping up and kicking off his face, knocking Roba to the ground.

"Shit, what the hell was that technique?" Naruto almost laughed, as if he was going to explain the great breakthrough technique and waste his offensive chance. Throwing some shuriken to keep his opponent off balance, Naruto rushed towards Roba once more. Just as Roba was about to stab him, Naruto created a clone to take the blow while he used it to catapult over his opponent. Landing behind him, Naruto wasted no time sending two devastating blows to his opponent's kidneys before kicking him away. Creating another clone to distract him, Naruto moved to help his teammates.

Watching as the two brother moved with their gauntlets high in the air, Naruto took his chance and fired off a kunai. His aim was true and it caught their chain, trapping it against a tree. Turning back to his own fight, Naruto frowned as his clone was defeated. This guy was extremely deadly at close range. If only Naruto had a weapon that granted him greater range.

Once again put on the defensive, Naruto couldn't help but notice that although Roba was a primarily melee focused ninja, he had almost no technique. His swings were wild and unrefined. A lot of them left him over extended and vulnerable. It was only Naruto's inferior reach that prevented him from taking advantage of the opening. It seemed he wouldn't be able to win like this.

While Naruto was analyzing his opponents fighting style, Roba was doing the same. The brat that he was fighting was certainly talented; in fact he might have already lost to the brat if he had a longer reach or a weapon. "Wait a minute, why the hell haven't you been using your sword!?"

Naruto smiled at his opponent. "You fell for our trap. We aren't the team your hunting, we're the team that's hunting you!"

Barely hearing the rustle of leaves that indicated something was heading towards him, Roba just managed to dodge the thrown kunai. His lapse in concentration cost him heavily as a kunai was stabbed into each of his legs. Lashing out as he fell, his gauntlet made contact, digging deep into Naruto, who exploded in white smoke.

Unable to see and move properly, he stood no chance of blocking the heavy hit to his head that knocked him out. "Kage bunshin, it's a pretty useful technique. Idiot didn't even realize he was fighting one the whole time."

Standing over his defeated opponent, Naruto turned to see how his team was faring. The attack on the chain had forced the two brothers to abandon it and they had been quickly separated.

Itachi had his opponent trapped in a genjutsu, one that the poor guy was unlikely to get out of any time soon. Atsushi was physically overpowering his opponent, whose gauntlet arm was hanging uselessly by his side. As Naruto went to take care of the brother in the genjutsu, Atsushi landed a devastating roundhouse on his opponent, sending him flying into a tree. As he finished tying up both his opponent and Itachi's, Atsushi came over carrying a beaten lump of flesh.

"Wow, you really knocked him around didn't you?" Naruto's question was met with laughter.

"Sometimes being sneaky just isn't an option and you have to rely on pure fighting skill." It was Naruto's turn to chuckle at the obvious bragging.

"We can joke later you two, for now we have to get moving before someone comes to investigate." Quickly sobering up, the other two ninja followed Itachi's lead and began to move once more towards the tower.

"This is the most dangerous part. If we get seen by any other team, we'll be attacked. They won't want us passing so we have to hurry." Starting a mad dash towards the tower, Naruto looked back and was terrified by what he saw. Catching up was a group of Konoha jounin.

"That son of a bitch, he lied about when the jounin were entering the forest! Atsushi catch!." Throwing his captive to his teammate, Naruto slowed down a bit to protect his team's back.

Creating three clones, he sent them out to distract the jounin. As the front most jounin met the first clone, he got ready to kill it. To his surprise it began to expand. If it wasn't for his quick reflexes, the exploding clone would've nearly killed him. As it was he was still going to be unable to continue chasing Naruto's team.

Seeing the hesitation of the other two jounin, Naruto turned to catch back up with his team, although not before creating another two clones to cover their flank. Those two clone quickly began to set explosive seals, which they then detonated to collapse a couple of trees towards the group of jounin. Seeing their friend's life in danger, the other two rescued him. They were soon attacked by four clones who were soon destroyed.

"Shit, those kids got us good. Didn't expect one of them to have such high level techniques. We're going to have to get you medical treatment instead of following them."

Breaking into the clearing around the tower, the three genin didn't stop running until they had reached the entrance to the tower. Trying desperately to catch their breath, they waited until the door opened.

Arriving inside the tower, the exhausted genin were met with a chunin. After confirming the their and their targets' identities they were given a room to rest in.

"Finally, we get a break." Although he was the only one to vocalize his relief, Atsushi's feelings were mirrored by his teammates. Their day in the forest had been tiring. They were lucky to have found the Kiri team as quickly as they had. Spending another day or two in that forest would have resulted in almost certain failure. It wouldn't be too surprising if their team was one of the only ones to pass this test.

"Now that it's over, I'm curious to see what our next test will be." After the last two tests, Naruto was wary of what could be coming up next. These tests were trying and the next one would most likely be worse.

"In the first test our fortitude and loyalty was tested. In this one our ability to track, sneak, survive, and complete a mission on time were tested, among others. The only thing really left to test is our fighting ability. Most likely the next test will be combat and it will probably be the final test, considering how few teams will pass." What Itachi said made sense.

"Well, if our next test is going to be combat, then we had better rest up." Biding the other two a good night, Naruto went to his bed and got ready for sleep. The constant use of his clones had started to tire him. He'd have to work on expanding his chakra reserves even more.

Soon he would show everyone his talent. His promotion to chunin was assured.

Late as always. As a consolation, it's by far the biggest one yet. Bit of bad news, got a new job so I'm gonna have less time to write. I'll try to continue posting at a regular pace of between 1-2 weeks but we'll see.

In regards to my quip about the canon first test, didn't anyone notice that most of the main characters info gathering was horrendously obvious, an exception being Dosu? About that moral at the end, the one about sticking through and being courageous or whatever the hell it was, it was terribly done. The mission is to become chunin and failing that tenth question would prevent them from ever doing so, failing the mission. There were too many unknowns; therefore, those who quit retreated from a situation that would most likely end in the mission's failure, so they could regroup and wait until a better opportunity presented itself. You know, something you'd hope the shinobi of your village would do instead of foolishly continuing onward, dying, and failing the mission.

Anyways, tried something different for this test again, though it's probably been done before. The only reason it's still in the Forest of Death is basically home advantage. It would be safe to assume that Konoha shinobi are the most acclimated to traveling/fighting in a forest. Every village would do its best to aid their own shinobi. Plus, there's some familiar faces in this exam.

Finally, has my writing been getting any better? I know that I'm writing longer chapters, but has the quality improved at all?

Btw, have a happy Easter and for those who don't celebrate it, have a wonderful weekend.