Three days later, the three genin approached the Academy building to begin the Chuunin Exams. A large crowd of genin were waiting to enter the building.

"What do you think, guys?" said Naruto. "Should we join the throng or skip to the third floor?" They were supposed to head to room 301.

"I say we bypass these losers," said Sasuke.

"You would say that, Emo-chan," smirked Naruto.

Sasuke grunted. "Like you want to deal with them either, Dead Last."

"I don't know, Emo-chan. Don't you want to show off?" Naruto asked.

"Well, maybe a little," he admitted, "but not to this rabble. Most of these guys are Konoha shinobi that will likely never get promoted, based on their age." Most of them were in their late teens and early twenties—past the age when "elite" shinobi were already chuunin, if not jounin.

"Be nice, Naruto-chan, Sasuke-kun," said Hinata. "Most of these don't have clans to support them."

Sasuke and Naruto both snorted. "You know what I mean," said Hinata, "even if your clans aren't around, you both have high chakra reserves and other advantages."

Naruto supposed that was true, while she had never had anyone really teach her before Kakashi, she had been placed on a team with two clan heirs which gave her a leg up on these others. This did not count her Bloodline Abilities, the chakra reserves to pull of insane numbers of Shadow Clones, or the Kyuubi to provide even more chakra.

"Regardless," Sasuke said, "let's avoid them."

The girls both nodded.

"I know the best way to sneak to the third floor," Naruto said.

"Of course you do," Sasuke smirked. "You've had to sneak in after being chased around all morning after a stupid prank. Haven't you, Dead Last?"

Naruto stuck her nose in the air and said, as haughtily as she could manage, "I'll have you know that none of my pranks are stupid, Emo-chan."

"Whatever," said Sasuke. "Just lead the way, Dead Last."

Naruto activated her Byakugan as she led them around to the back of the building. "We're in luck," she said. "There's an open window on the third floor. We can just walk up the wall."

The three of them used chakra to walk up the wall and climbed in the window. They exited the empty class room into the third floor. They noticed people entering a room at the far end of the wall. From experience, they knew this was room 301. As they approached the door to room 301, Naruto noticed Kakashi in one of the side rooms. He Flickered in front of them. Naruto smirked. The Byakugan took some of the mystique out of their sensei's tricks.

"I knew that you would all show up together due to our last mission," he said, "but there are formalities to observe. Only full teams of three genin can compete in the Chuunin Exams. I want to wish you good luck and remind you to look after each other."

"Will do, Sensei," said Naruto. "Thanks for the well wishes."

Sasuke simply smirked and Hinata did a quick bow in acknowledgment.

"Wait a second," said Naruto. She grabbed Sasuke's arm as he was about to enter and pulled him off to the side. Hinata followed them. "Let Hinata and I scope the competition."

Kakashi lingered to hear what Naruto and Hinata would say.

Hinata and Naruto focused their Byakugan's on the room. Three chakra signatures grabbed Naruto's attention and two others were suspicious. The rest of them were normal genin or chuunin level signatures.

"I see five unusual chakra signatures," she said. "One of them we've already met: Gaara from Suna. He easily has jounin reserves and remember what I told you about him."

Sasuke and Hinata nodded.

"I also see someone with even more chakra as well as something weird with her chakra core. She's a green-haired girl from Taki."

"I think she might be like you and Gaara-san, Naruto-chan," said Hinata.

"I think so too," said Naruto. "The next is a red-haired girl from Kusa. She has jounin-level chakra."

"She does, but it doesn't look refined," said Hinata, "so it could be she just has naturally high reserves."

"Red hair and high chakra reserves, you say?" said Kakashi. "I wonder if she's an Uzumaki."

Naruto's eyes lit up. "That would be awesome!"

"Just be careful," said Kakashi. "Even if she's a distant cousin, she's from a different village and will have a different agenda. Since you don't have the trademark red hair and due to your recent changes, she may not even believe you're an Uzumaki."

Naruto pouted. If the Kusa nin was a relative she wanted to know. However, she knew that Kakashi was right.

"There are two others that have their chakra suppressed, so that I can't get a reading on them. A feminine-looking older boy from Kusa with a straw hat and long, dark hair and an older, silver-haired, glasses-wearing boy from Konoha."

"You can tell that their chakra is suppressed?" asked Kakashi with interest.

"Yeah, it's denser than normal, but not uniformly. It's densest around their gates. I've had to learn how to suppress my chakra in order to be stealthy for my pranks, and I've seen how my clones look when they suppress theirs."

"I see what you mean, Naruto-chan," said Hinata.

"Interesting," said Kakashi. "While suppressing chakra is something most jounin can do, it is unusual for genin to do it. Those two may just have large reserves they want to hide, like you, Naruto-chan, but it wouldn't hurt to be cautious around them."

"Even the Konoha nin?" asked Hinata.

Kakashi responded, "While I'd like to think that a Konoha shinobi wouldn't hurt another Konoha shinobi, he is a competitor in the Exams. Even if he doesn't want to harm you, he may try and knock you out of the Exams. You three ought to head in. Good luck, again." He gave his patented "eye smile" and disappeared in a Flicker.

A few teams had entered while they were talking about what Naruto and Hinata had seen with their Bloodline, but none of them contained anyone they knew. The three looked at each other and entered the room. They handed their forms to a chuunin at the door. Almost immediately their ears were assaulted by high-pitched shrieks of "Sasuke-kun!"

Ino jumped on Sasuke's back and said, "Did you miss me, Sasuke-kun?"

Sakura shrieked, "Get off my Sasuke-kun, Ino-pig!"

Naruto and Hinata looked at each other and rolled their eyes. "Fangirls!" Naruto sneered.

Sasuke looked at them pleadingly, but Naruto just shook her head and grabbed Hinata's arm. No way was she getting into a screaming match with Sakura or Ino.

"So you guys are involved in this troublesome exam too, eh?" Shikamaru said as he and Chouji made themselves known. Shikamaru was slumped over with his hands in his pockets while Chouji was munching on chips.

"Hey, Shika-kun, Chouji-kun," said Naruto. "Although it looks like it's way more troublesome for Sasuke-kun."

"Sasuke-kun, eh?" said Shikamaru. "You've made your peace with him, then?"

"Eh, Emo-chan isn't that bad once he decides you aren't useless," said Naruto.

"Hah, so why do you think he gets along with you, Bunny-chan?" said Kiba who also joined their group.

"Akamaru," Naruto said dryly, "can't you keep your puppy under control?"

Akamaru yipped amusedly while Kiba gave an exaggerated "Hah, hah."

"You guys should keep it down," said the silver-haired boy that Naruto had noticed was suppressing his chakra earlier. "You rookies are attracting too much attention to yourselves."

"So you've taken the Exam before?" asked Sakura.

Sasuke had managed to free himself. He stepped up beside Naruto and gave her an irritated look. Naruto simply shrugged in response.

"Yes," the silver-haired boy responded. "This is my seventh time."

"Wow," said Kiba. "You must suck."

"Or maybe the Exams are just that hard," the older boy said. "Look, since you guys are rookies from my village, I'll help you out." He pulled out a stack of cards. "These are my Nin Info Cards. They have information on the various villages and contestants."

"Those are blank," said Kiba.

"I just have them encoded with my chakra for security." He channeled some chakra and a map of the Elemental Nations appeared with some numbers that Naruto assumed were the number of contestants from each.

"The information is that special?" asked Sasuke sarcastically.

"Not really," the boy said. "It's pulled mostly from public databases, but any little bit helps, you know?" He looked at them. "Anyone or anything you want to know about?"

"How about the three contestants you think will be the toughest?" asked Kiba.

"How about your own card?" asked Sasuke.

"My own card," he laughed. "You're lucky I'm obsessive else I wouldn't have one of these for myself: Yakushi Kabuto. Completed 30 C-rank missions and 327 D-rank missions. Teammates are Akadou Youroi and Tsurugi Misumi under jounin Suzuki Hideo. A certified medic nin." He looked up. "I'm nothing special." He shuffled his cards. As for the three toughest contestants, I'll go with: Sabaku no Gaara of Suna, Hyuuga Neji of Konoha, and Uchiha Sasuke, also of Konoha."

Kiba snorted at the last name while Naruto elbowed Sasuke and whispered, "Don't be getting a big head now."

Sasuke grunted in response.

"Sabaku no Gaara. Completed 1 B-rank and 8 C-ranks. Teammates are his siblings Temari and Kankurou under jounin Baki. I don't have much on him since he's not from here, but rumor in Suna is that he's never been even scratched on any missions.

"Hyuuga Neji. Completed 16 C-ranks and 416 D-ranks. Teammates are Tenten and Rock Lee under jounin Maito Gai. He was last year's Rookie of the Year and has been touted as a genius. He is very proficient in the Hyuuga Gentle Fist taijutsu style and the Hyuuga Byakugan Bloodline.

"Uchiha Sasuke. Completed 2 C-ranks and 62 D-ranks. Teammates are Hyuuga Hinata and Uzumaki Naruto under jounin Hatake Kakashi. He was this year's Rookie of the Year and also rated as a genius. He has the Uchiha Sharingan Bloodline Ability which he awoke recently and is rumored to have helped free Nami no Kuni from a warlord along with his team."

Sasuke frowned. Naruto thought it was the mention of his Bloodline. Sakura and Ino both shrieked and yammered about "their Sasuke-kun" being a hero.

"Even not counting the elite genin like Sasuke, Neji, and Gaara, there are tough contestants from all over: Konoha, Kusa, Taki, Ame, and even a new village called Oto. They're all going to be tough, except for possibly the new guys."

Naruto felt a killing intent focus on their group, she turned to see three shinobi from Oto approaching. She activated her Byakugan.

"Put this on your cards, Tree Hugger: the shinobi from Oto will definitely make Chuunin," the lead Oto shinobi said. He swung his right fist at Kabuto. He had a metal device with holes in it on his forearm.

Kabuto dodged, but then bent over and started puking while holding his ears. Kiba and Akamaru both whined and Kiba put his head over his ears. Naruto had noticed waves of chakra coming out of the device. She looked at Sasuke and Hinata. "Sound?" she whispered. It made sense given the name of their village.

"I think so," Sasuke whispered back. Hinata nodded.

"All right, you pukes!" came a stern voice. Everyone looked away from the spectacle and saw that a scarred man with a bandana covering his head was now at the front of the room. "If you haven't picked a number for your seat, do so now, and sit down. You Oto clowns pull a stunt like this again and you're out of here, understand?"

"Sorry, Sir," the Oto shinobi who had attacked Kabuto said, "We're just excited to be here."

Naruto picked up a number from a chuunin and went to her seat. The only person near her that she knew was Aburame Shino. The proctor, Morino Ibiki, explained the rules: ten questions and ten points, one point off for missing a question, two points off for being caught cheating, and if you reached zero points, your whole team was disqualified. Nine of the questions were on a written test with the last to be given later.

Naruto felt her heart sink as she saw that it was a written test. She looked at the test and saw that she had no idea how to answer any of them. She idly started doodling on the top of her exam. She looked around and saw people cheating. She thought about the rules again and found it odd that you got points off for cheating rather than disqualification. She remembered one of Kakashi's favorite phrases: look underneath the underneath.

She decided that cheating without being caught was the point of the test. She put her arm on her desk and then rested her head on her arm so that the veins that popped out when she used her Byakugan weren't visible. She activated it and found that there were several people already done or nearly done. She compared answers and chose which ones she thought were right and memorized them. She sat up again and started filling out answers.

After she finished, she laid her head down again and started to doze. She awoke to Ibiki giving the additional rules for the tenth question.

"You can choose to take the question or not. If you don't take it, you and your teammates are done, but your career is safe. If you take it and get it wrong, you'll be a genin for life. I have agreements from the leaders of all your villages to honor this rule."

Various contestants protested, but Naruto just snorted. Being safe was not what being a shinobi was about. She doubted that Ibiki had the Hokage's okay for his rule, but she was willing to risk it. She looked at her teammates and nodded firmly. Sasuke nodded too, but Hinata looked hesitant.

Several contestants got up and left. Naruto noticed that they included some of those that she had thought had the right answers. The tension mounted and a wave of contestants got up, until almost half of the seats were empty.

Hinata was starting to waver again. In response, Naruto stood up and slammed her fist on her desk. "Being a shinobi is not about being safe!" she shouted. "I personally don't think you have the authority to prevent me from being chuunin, but even if you do, I'm willing to risk it. If I need to, I'll be the first ever genin promoted to Kage!"

The tension building in the room shattered and no one else left. Ibiki frowned and let them stew for another minute.

"Very well," he said. "You all want to take the tenth question?" Nods answered his question. "Then you all pass."

The room erupted in questions about the absence of the tenth question. Ibiki explained that chuunin are expected to take risks. He took off his bandana and showed them more of his scars that he had gotten in the line of duty. Someone asked about the purpose of the first nine questions and he explained that chuunin were expected to be resourceful. Naruto only half listened as she started doodling again. Ibiki was even dryer than Iruka.

Suddenly, one of the windows shattered and a banner unfolded along the wall opposite with kunai keeping it in place. A figure flew though the broken window and landed underneath the banner which read: "The Sexy and Single Second Exam Proctor: Mitarashi Anko!"

"This is no time to celebrate! Mitarahi Anko is the proctor for the next exam!" she yelled.