Chapter 40

A female Cloud genin slowly made her way toward the green team's field unit. She knew her comrades coming in from other directions would meet her in the middle. But as she reached her destination, she saw nothing but her teammates and a clearing with a large, muddy puddle in the middle. "What the hell?"

"I know," Chouji said with a confused expression. "They shoulda been here."

A female Rock genin glanced around and then frowned in irritation. "I knew we couldn't trust the directions of a bunch of stupid bugs!" she complained.

A male Cloud genin spoke up. "No. He seemed to know what he was talking about. Something's not right here...a genjutsu, maybe?"

Chouji nodded in agreement, just as the scenery changed. Suddenly, they were surrounded and had no time to react.

"Kaiten!"

"Rasengan!"

Between Hinata and Naruto the blue team was covered in mud in less than ten seconds and quite a bit of it had gotten in their eyes. "Dammit! I can't see!" The male Cloud genin complained.

Naruto stopped his jutsu. "Lee! GO!"

Lee saluted and ran off toward the base while the others stayed to fight.

The Rock genin wiped the mud from her eyes but they were red and watering from irritation. "You think that one guy is gonna get past our guards?" she spat at the green team.

Naruto grinned. "He's too fast to be caught by just a couple guards. That scroll is as good as ours."

The Rock genin glared and the green team attacked.

Temari stood tensely as she scanned the forest. Where the hell are they? she thought.

Neji watched in horror as the lava surrounding his little island began to rise. When it covered his body, it was more than his mind could take.

A female sound genin was about to break Neji out of the genjutsu but he suddenly screamed and fell over unconscious. "What the hell happened?!" she asked in alarm.

"Something in the genjutsu must have put him into shock. We'll hafta take care of him later," said a female Mist genin.

"Dammit," Temari cursed. Suddenly, her shadow came alive as a leg came out of it and kicked her legs out from under her.

Inner Sakura stood and the rest of the blue team's field unit ran out to meet her.

Tenten stood in a battle stance, kunai at the ready. "If you were trying to surprise us, you failed miserably," she said with a smirk.

Sakura returned the smirk and folded her arms. "Oh no. We succeeded alright. You're out a byakugan user."

Tenten nodded. "Yeah," she raised the kunai, "But you're still goin' down."

Nao's hands went into a seal. Kiba recognized it and smiled. "Kuikkusando no jutsu!"

The ground under the green team turned to quicksand, and while the others managed to jump away in time, the sound genin was sucked into the ground up to her neck.

Nao released the jutsu and the ground solidified. "You're not going anywhere for a while," she said with a smile. But her smile was quickly wiped away as she dodged a barrage of Tenten's shuriken.

A rain genin's hands flew through a series of seals. "Koorihari (Ice needle) no Jutsu!" Thousands of ice shards formed from the moisture in the air and rocketed toward Sasuke, who used a fire jutsu to melt them. The rain genin glared in frustration. "Dammit," she cursed.

Kankuro stepped on rock that immediately sunk into the ground. His eyes widened as he heard a hissing sound a second before several explosive tags blew up in a circle around him. "AAAAAHH!" He yelled as he was thrown backwards from the blast. After a minute he staggered to his feet. The small explosion seemed to have been designed to incapacitate, rather than kill. He was dizzy and his ears were ringing but he was otherwise alright. The dizziness quickly got to him though and he promptly vomited.

Suddenly a loud whistle came from the trees and the jounin examiner leapt down in between the teams. "Everyone stand down. The green team is the winner."

Cheers broke out from the green team at their base, with the exception of Kankuro, who only managed to smile through his nausea.

"What?!" Sakura complained. "So quickly?"

The jounin smiled. "You're welcome to read the reports if you wish. But for now, everyone is to return to Amegakuru."

With heavy hearts the blue team gathered their incapacitated members and headed to the village.

Naruto was grinning like a Cheshire cat when the jounin made the announcement. The field group for the green team had gotten through the ordeal with only relatively minor injuries. Hinata had a small cut on her arm and everyone else was only bruised.

Lee returned, proudly holding the blue team's scroll.

"Alright, Lee!" Naruto cheered!

Tobi stepped closer to Naruto. "May I have a word with you in private?" he asked quietly so he wouldn't be over heard.

Naruto blinked in surprised. "Um, sure. Just lemme tell Hina-chan to go ahead without me."

"Arigato," Tobi answered.

Hinata had an uneasy feeling as she walked away from Naruto. They had only met this Tobi person a few days ago at the start of the exams and yet he was asking Naruto to speak in private. What could someone who they barely knew need to talk to Naruto in private about? She suddenly reached out and grabbed Sasuke's sleeve. "Sasuke-kun," she said softly.

Sasuke turned to her, a questioning look in his eyes. "Hm?"

"Something's wrong. I can sense it. We have to go back and check on Naruto-kun," she said with urgency in her voice.

Sasuke frowned. Truthfully he'd been a little suspicious of Tobi from minute one but he'd convinced himself he was being paranoid. But now that Hinata was also concerned he decided it was time to act. "Wait here," he said to her. He jogged a little ahead to catch up to Kakashi. "Kakashi-sensei, Hinata and I think Naruto might be in danger."

Kakashi cocked his head to one side. "How so?"

"That Tobi guy. Something about him doesn't seem right and he asked Naruto to talk to him alone," Sasuke answered.

Kakashi cocked an eyebrow. "That's not really enough to make me think Naruto's in danger."

"Please. I know I'm right," Sasuke urged.

Kakashi sighed and folded his arms. "Alright. You round up a few genin and I'll get Tomoyo-chan and Gai-sensei. But we're not bothering any of the higher-ups until we know for sure that there's actually a problem."

Sasuke sighed in reluctant agreement and ran off to help Hinata form a group.

"So, what's up?" Naruto asked Tobi.

Tobi removed his mask, revealing a man who was much older than the teenager he had pretended to be. This man had to be in his mid thirties at least.

Naruto backed up a step. "Who are you?"

"Tobi," he took a step closer to Naruto. "And you...are coming with me."

...TO BE CONTINUED

Sorry for the long wait everyone. As I've said numerous times in the chapter notes I will finish it no matter how long it takes. But things have been very difficult for me the past 15 months. Starting last year first my favorite aunt died, then about a month later one of my grandmas died, two days after that another aunt died, one of my uncles died a month or so after that, then one of my cousins later that week, then six months later my favorite grandma died and then a few months after that one of my daughter's best friends died (The poor kid was only 9). So...yeah...I swear I'm cursed. I'm nervous every time the phone rings now.

At any rate, all this is why the next chapter has sat halfway done for the last year. Also aside from the fact that the manga has been sucking so much ass lately, I'm actually working on a novel I hope to get published so that's using up a lot of the time that I actually feel happy enough to write. I've spent a lot of the last year or so drowning my sorrows in video games. It's gotten better though.

Aside from my real life problems you guys know I hate writing battle sequences. And just to give you guys a heads up, I will be massively lowering the power of a couple of the Akatsuki. One of the reasons the manga is annoying me of late is the ridiculous amount of god-modding. I fricking hate bad guys in Naruto so powerful that I'm wondering where they're hiding the damn Harry Potter wands. Seriously. It's s'posed to be ninjustu, not magic. And Naruto defeating Pein with a Sailor Moon like tactic (AKA: I can fight you with love)?! WTF?! I love Sailor Moon but keep it out of my Naruto, dammit. Sorry, I'll stop ranting now.

Anywho, if you've stuck with me for this long I thank you greatly. I'm honestly astonished I have any readers left.

Laters,

Song