A/N: Okay so I've had a poll on my profile, asking what should happen when Naruto meets Orochimaru, and from the results, Sasuke will get the mark and go to Orochimaru and Naruto will fight Orochimaru, hurting him quite a lot but not too much because he is a sannin, even if Naruto's a demon.

Thank you for all the reviews!!

Humans and Tongues

"Wha-what is this place...?" Sakura asked astonished. Team 7 and all the rest of the passing candidates stood in front of a forest. Not any forest however. You could hardly see inside from the darkness, and the only colours were green, brown, grey and more green. The trees were as big as houses, and the leaves shaking in the wind made an ominous sound that seemed to want to lure anything into a deadly trap. And to top it off, there was a large fence encircling the area, with a large sign saying 'Forbidden Area'.

"Welcome to the Forest of Death," Anko said, stepping in front of the Genin. Great, Naruto thought. Even the name is creepy.

"Forest of Death?" Naruto repeated.

"Sounds welcoming," Sakura muttered, running her hand in her hair. She sensed something and looked past Sasuke. On the ground was a... square rock?

Naruto looked at the 'rock' too, eye twitching.

"Is that supposed to be rock?"

Naruto started walking. The rock followed. Naruto stopped. The rock stopped. Naruto began to run back and forth, faster and faster. The rock ran after Naruto, just as fast. After a moment Naruto stopped and rounded on the rock that had also stopped. Naruto pointed a finger at the rock.

"Hey Konohamaru! Come out! What do you think you're doing? Even a human baby would know that's not a rock!"

"Good job detecting me boss, I should have suspected." In a flash of light and a puff of smoke, the 'rock' was gone. In its place it revealed three children, coughing.

"Ugh, too much smoke." Konohamaru spluttered out.

"Sorry." Udon replied.

The three stopped coughing and started their introductions.

"The one who possesses the sex appeal of an adult and the female ninja from the group, Moegi!"

"The one who loves dividing math, Udon!"

"The village's number one genius ninja, Konohamaru!"

The three forms together in a group pose. "And together, we make the 'Konohamaru Ninja Squad'!"

"What do you three want?" Naruto asked, one hand scratching his head. "We're about to take the second part of the Chunin Exam, I don't have time to play with you."

"We didn't come here to play! We're on official business," Konohamaru said.

"Business?" Naruto asked, tilting his head slightly to the left.

"We're here for an interview for the school newspaper," Konohamaru explained, his two friends nodded from behind him.

"Hey, what's going on here?" Anko walked over to the group.

"Apparently Konohamaru is doing an interview for the school newspaper," Naruto said.

"Huh? Oooh," Anko put her hand behind her head laughing. "Yes I forgot, the Hokage did mention something about that."

Everyone sweat dropped. "Forgot...?"

"Alright! We will be taking a ten minute break! We will resume afterwards!" Anko announced.

Sakura sat on the grass, Sasuke sitting against a large rock. They watched Naruto talking to the young reporters several feet away.

"Alright, so I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I'm, of course, a ninja of the Hidden Village of Konoha. My hobby, uh, pulling pranks is always fun!! I love ramen and became a Genin just recently." Naruto said to them. The Konohamaru ninja squad were furiously writing down everything he said.

"What about your teammates?" Konohamaru asked, excited.

Naruto tapped his chin. "Well… Sasuke Uchiha, last of the Uchiha Clan is an emo bastard that likes to brood all day. He thinks he's all that! Sakura Haruno is a Sasuke fangirl and constantly asking him for dates, but she is okay sometimes, and I guess Sasuke can be okay sometimes too. And Kakashi-sensei… is perverted. He is also late to everything by two hours and you always see his nose stuck inside a certain book that's a little too old for you right now. But he's a good sensei, and one of the best ninja in Konoha."

They looked at him in awe.

"So our job is to do missions and stuff, though the D-ranks are more like chores. Now go interview someone else."

"Right!" they chorused and scampered off… towards his two teammates.

"Oi, I just told you about them!!" Naruto shouted and walked after them. He stopped to hear what they said.

"Excuse me," Moegi walked over to Sakura. "Sakura, you are the kunoichi I admire most, mind if I interview you?"

"No! I want to interview her!" Konohamaru exclaimed, stepping up beside her. Sakura sweat-dropped. Konohamaru took her hand and pulled her over to another tree. Sasuke's eyes followed her curiously. She leaned against the tree trunk as Konohamaru began his interview.

"Well, I'm Sakura Haruno, the only ninja in my family. I'm a part of Kakashi Hatake's team. Team 7. Sasuke is so cool! He's such a good ninja, and one day I'm gonna marry him, and prove to Ino-pig the he loves me and that LOVE WILL PREVAIL!!!"

Konohamaru scribbled it all down, mumbling the words and etching 'LOVE WILL PREVAIL' boldly into the paper.

Sasuke had moved himself further from his group, pretending he was part of a different squad. Udon walked over to Sasuke.

"You're Uchiha Sasuke! I want to be just like you when I'm older! Can I get an interview with you?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I guess someone has to set the stories straight."

"My name is Sasuke Uchiha. My team consists of the jounin Kakashi Hatake, Uzumaki Naruto, and Sakura Haruno. I contain the most skill on this team."

Naruto twitched at the last comment.

"Shikamaru Nara, Choji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka of Squad 10. Hinata Hyuuga, Kiba Inuzuka with Akamaru, and Shino Aburame of Squad 8. Each one has their own unique talent…but I'm still better than all of them combined."

"Aw Sasuke, and here I thought you were gonna set some stories straight." Naruto butted in.

Sasuke just 'hn'ed.

"Well thanks for the interviews boss!" Konohamaru shouted, and all three academy students disappeared in a puff of smoke. Or rather, they threw smoke bombs so they could run off.

----

"T-This is a scary pl-place..." Hinata squeaked as everyone was once again assembled in a large group in front of the forest.

Anko grinned as she stared at everyone. "Once inside you will all be able to experience why this place is called the Forest of Death."

"Ooh, scary…" muttered Naruto, but it was heard. Anko whipped out a kunai and threw it, causing Naruto to flinch out of the way, but not fast enough. She then appeared behind him, hugging him and licking the blood oozing out of the cut.

"It's boys like you that die first. After spilling the red blood I love all over the place." Anko said sadistically while Naruto made funny faces at her for licking him. Anko suddenly tensed and whipped out another kunai, but stopped as a genin from Grass handed back her kunai… with his tongue. What is it with humans and tongues? Naruto thought. Then, Jeez, they both smell like snakes!

Anko just smiled, accepting her kunai back. "Thank you." Anko said with a smile as she took her kunai from the ninja. The grass nin's tongue flew back into his mouth. "But don't stand behind me like that; unless you want to die young."

"My apologies. I got excited at the sight of blood. And you cut my hair." the ninja spoke. The grass ninja smiled and began to walk away.

"Well, it looks like we have some very hot-headed candidates this year," Anko spoke with a smirk. "This is going to be interesting."

Naruto glared up at Anko, hand over his wound which had pretty much healed up already. "You're the most hot-headed person here… crazy lady... and they say Shukaku was mental…" he mumbled at the end.

Anko walked back to the fence and faced everyone.

"Now, before we start the second exam, I'm going to pass these out to everyone," Anko reached into her long coat and pulled out a stack of papers. 'CONSENT FORM' it read on the top. Anko handed it to someone who took a sheet and pass it along.

"If you are going to take this exam, you must sign these."

"Why?" Naruto asked, obviously not having read his form.

Anko smiled. "Just so we have your consent that if you die it is not our fault."

Naruto twitched and the colour drained from many of the genin's faces.

"Now, you will all be going through this extreme survival match."

"A survival match eh? What a drag..." Shikamaru yawned.

"First," Anko unravelled a map of the Forest of Death. "I'll explain the training area's geographical features. This forest has 44 locked gate entrances all around the area. There's a river, a forest and a tower in the middle. The tower is approximately 10 Km from the gate entrances. Inside this limited space you will have to go through a difficult survival program."

"Survival program?" Ino questioned.

"The survival program where anything goes." Anko put the map away and pulled out two scrolls. One was a cream colour with the symbol of Heaven written on it. The other was black with the symbol for Earth written on it.

"Scrolls?" Naruto asked.

"Yes, you will be fighting for these scrolls," Anko held out the cream-coloured scroll. "The scroll of heaven." she held up the black one. "The scroll of earth. 26 teams passed the first exam. Half of those teams will receive a Scroll of Heaven. The other half will get the Scroll of Earth. Each team will start out with either one of these. You must fight over them."

"What's needed to pass?" Sasuke asked.

"Bring the Scroll of Heaven and Earth to the tower with your teammates," Anko answered.

"Okay, so say my team starts out with the Scroll of Heaven. We have to keep that safe and in our possession and then we have to fight a team to obtain their Scroll of Earth? Then make it to the tower with our team?" Sakura asked.

"That's correct. You must have both scrolls and your whole team must make it to the tower," Anko confirmed.

"So this guarantees half of the candidates will be wiped out..." Sakura sighed.

"And this all has to happen in a time limit. The second exams lasts a limit of 120 hours," Anko said.

Everyone's jaw dropped. "A whole five days in there!?"

"But what about food!?" Choji panicked.

"The Forest will provide you with everything you need," Anko responded.

"But there are a lot of man-eating beasts, poison bug and poisonous plants," Kabuto informed.

"So it's not possible for all 13 teams to pass." Neji informed.

"As time passes, you will be required to move more and more," Lee said. "So your time of rest will be shorter and shorter."

"And we're surrounded by enemies. We won't be able to sleep in peace." Sasuke realized.

"People will get hurt in the process of fighting over a scroll as well." Anko stated.

"Can we quit in-between?" Shikamaru asked.

"Once you are in the forest, you must be in there for the duration of the time." Anko answered.

"Just as I thought," Shikamaru complained, arms crossed. "How troublesome."

"While were on the topic, here are the conditions that will fail you. First," Anko held up a finger. "A team who cannot bring both scrolls to the tower with all their teammates will fail. Second, a team that loses a teammate or produces an unrecoverable teammate will fail. Also, just as a note, you are not allowed to look inside the scrolls until you reach the tower. "

"What happens if we look?" Naruto asked.

"That's a surprise to whoever dares to peek," Anko said with a sly grin. "If you become a Chunin, you will be handling top secret documents. It's to determine your reliability. That's all I will say. We will exchange your consent forms for your team scroll and then you will pick a gate to enter through. Everyone will get a ten minute recess and then we will all begin at the same time." Anko looked up at all the candidates,

"And one last piece of advice... don't die!" This scared Sakura and many others.

"D-don't die?! Is it really that dangerous??" A genin from the crowd stuttered.

Anko just closed her eyes and turned around.

"Heh, you have no idea…" she smirked.

----

GATE 12

It was reasonably quite, except for Sakura who kept fidgeting worriedly. But Naruto didn't really mind going into the forest. He used to live in a forest somewhere in Fire Country, away from civilization. Usually any animals would stay away from him, and the foxes would greet him and offer food to him…

GATE 27

"It's troublesome but we have to put our life on the line for this," Shikamaru said.

Choji rummaged through his backpack.

"Let's what I have... potato chips, cake..."

Ino twitched as she watched her teammate count off all the food he had packed.

GATE 20

"The time has come... to accomplish our task." Dosu spoke underneath the bandages covering his face.

Zaku and Kin smirked.

GATE 38

Kabuto smirked, his two teammates eagerly waiting behind him.

GATE 6

"Don't take this too far Gaara," Kankuro warned.

Gaara remained silent and Temari sighed.

GATE 15

"So we're going after the rookies first, right?" a grass-nin asked, looking at his team members. The grass-nin from earlier smirked.

"It seems we can kill them here, it will become easier."

GATE 41

"Gai-sensei! I will get through this! Watch me!" Lee exclaimed in his head, fire in his eyes. Neji and Tenten smirked.

The team watched the Chunin unlock the gate. It was a long 30 seconds before everyone heard Anko announce,

"We will now begin the second exam of the Chunin Exams!" Everyone burst through the gates, taking a running start.

A/N: Aa, this one was a little shorter than the last one, sorry. Two reasons why this is late…

One: I've recently gotten into The Prince of Tennis. The manga style pictures aren't favourable, but the anime rocks! But not the English dubbed ones, cause let's face it, most anime with English voices suck, like Naruto's voice sounds like a cheese grater!

Two: I'd used all my internet, and when that happens you can't review, upload or add anything. You can't even vote on a poll!

Thank you for all the reviews! Tell me what you think about the story and have a nice day!