Don't own Naruto, we've been through this before. And I apologize for how clumped and jumpy the last chapter seemed, when I wrote it, there were line breaks but apparently they don't crossover when you upload so I'll have to manually put them in this time. I'll go back and fix the chapter later.

Kushina watched as the white serpent was slowly dragged into the fox's cage. While the sounds of gnashing teeth and pained screams could be heard her main concern was what to possibly do with the curse seal, with her fuinjutsu skills she could easily destroy the seal but before she could actually get around to it the fox made it thoughts known.

"You know Kushina, you could use the seal yourself." She turned back and narrowed her eyes at the beast.

"What are you getting at Kyuubi?" The fox smiled, its enormous teeth and eyes the only thing showing in the darkness of its cage.

"Your special chakra, why not give some to the girl? You always claim you wish to protect her so why not use what has been given to you?" While the idea had merit Kushina was more concerned as to why the fox was so eager to have her do it.

"And why do you care Kyuubi?" Again like the Cheshire cat the fox's eyes and teeth were the only things showing.

"Call it…curiosity, mixed in with survival. I wish to see how this affects my host and I know it'll help her protect herself in case he shows up again." Kushina knew who the fox was referring to and decided to (for once) listen to the beast. She could stand to give her special chakra to her daughter and without Orochimaru's influence the curse seal would not affect her mind.

Neji stared at the mark on Naruko's neck and saw the foul chakra that was in Sasuke's mark was gone from hers, being replaced by a different kind of chakra, it was the same kind of chakra used in barrier jutsus.

"Hmm, that's interesting. Anyway time to wake you up. Naruko, come on." Neji shook the blonde repeatedly hoping she would awaken soon.

Naruko was standing before the village, donned in the hokage robes and the hat in her hands. The village was chanting her name and she couldn't be happier, at least until a pair of arms wrapped around her waist.

"Glad you finally made it my love?" Naruko craned her neck back and reached around to hold her beloved.

"Yes I am, I have everything I could ever want in life, I'm the hokage, the village respects me, and I get to share my life with the greatest man in the world." The man behind her smiled, and kissed her neck.

"And I get to share my life with the greatest woman in the world, shall we head home beloved?" Naruko smiled and turned around giving her man a passionate kiss.

"Yes, we shall." As the couple walked home hand in hand, Naruko could feel her lover stop her and pull her close to him, his eyes gazing into hers.

"I love you Naruko, with all my heart." Naruko even after so many years blushed when hearing this.

"And I love you, Sasuke."

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Naruko shot up, her forehead slamming into Neji's hitai-ite sending the Hyuuga prodigy on his ass. Naruko steadied her breathing and tried (unsuccessfully) to regain her composure. It was hard though when a dream is that real and that…nice.

'Did I just dream I was married to Sasuke? Did i just dream I was married to Sasuke and liked it? Was it something I ate?' Naruko looked around and saw Sakura tending to Sasuke, Tenten tending to Lee and Neji nursing a nice bump on his forehead.

"Hey guys...anyone mind telling me what's going on?" Neji just glared at her and sighed.

"It wouldn't really do me any good to explain as we just got here moments before you awoke. Ask your teammates, we just came to collect ours." Neji and Tenten both left carrying Lee on their shoulders leaving Team Seven alone in the clearing. Naruko got up and dusted herself off, not before shuddering when afterimages of the dream came back. As she got close to her teammates she realized two things, one Sasuke was awake, and two…Sakura looked butch…very butch.

"Hey bubblegum…umm how do I put this nicely…you look very…mannish…yeah, that's the word." Sakura just glared when she realized her teammate just said she looked butch.

"Planning on playing for the other team huh bubblegum? I'm sure Ino will be happy to know Sasuke only has one she-devil hunting him down now." Naruko began laughing making Sasuke smirk at hearing Ino being called a she-devil.

"SHUT UP NARUKO!" Naruko began to roll on the ground, clutching her stomach.

"Alright you two that's enough, we need to get the other scroll and get out of this damn forest." Naruko wiped a tear from her eye while still laughing.

"Okay, okay asshole I got it. So what's the plan?" Sasuke sighed, knowing they didn't have much time left.

"The second test started around 2:30pm, so by my estimates we only have about 25, maybe 26 hours left until it ends. So whoever we meet next-"

"Is gonna be on the ass end of an ass whooping!" Sasuke smirked, leave it to Naruko to get straight to the point. Though he noticed every time he looked at her she would look away or blush. He hoped she wasn't turning into a fangirl like Sakura or Ino.

"Well I may be able to help you with that." All three turned to see Kabuto, a smile on his face.

"Hey, it's the sucky guy!" Kabuto's eye just twitched, the sucky guy? Then he remembered her saying he sucked when he said how many times he had taken the exam.

"Cute, anyways I-"

"Why are you here?" Sasuke looked ready to fight and Kabuto put up his hands to show he meant no harm.

"I happened to get separated from my team and we told each other if we get separated to meet at the tower, and seeing you cute little rookies I decided to be a nice guy and help you get a scroll, since I'm assuming that's why you're still here." Team Seven looked at each other and nodded before following their senior genin away from their campsite, their goal being to move towards the tower.

The tower was within sight when they stopped on a large branch. Kabuto pushed his glasses back up his nose and smirked, the moonlight gleaming against his lenses.

"Alright, we should be fine for now. But I urge stealth and caution, we should move and carefully and slowly towards the tower as time allows."

For hours it seemed like the group walked, the tower not getting any closer as Naruko's patience was reaching its end.

"It feels like we've been walking for hours! See that rock? We've passed that same rock like eighty fucking times!" Sakura was drained and while Naruko was being very obnoxious about it…she had a point.

"It does feel like we've been going in circles…"

"That's because we have, looks like we met our first welcome party." Kabuto looked on as several black covered shinobi came out of the trees, their numbers in the dozens.

Before anyone could do anything a large chunk of rock slammed into one of the shinobi's, his body turning into ink and instantly reforming into three more.

"Damn, so much for that plan. Anyone else got anything?" Kabuto just stared wide-eyed at the blonde girls strength, he just saw her rip out a large chunk of earth with her bare hands and launch it like a cannonball.

This bared further observation.

The rain ninja were watching as the blonde threw a chunk of earth at the illusionary clones, prompting the creator to create more.

"She just threw a chunk of earth at the clones, you really wanna mess with her man?"

"She has a limit, everyone does! I'll pay her back for my earlier embarrassment."

His teammates both looked at each other, hoping their team leader wasn't about to get them killed because he got defeated by a girl, they had thought he was lying when he said she had launched him clear across the forest but seeing her throwing boulders around made his claims seem less outlandish.

Down below the blonde girl used a clone jutsu of her own and each of the illusion clones now was fighting with a clone of the blonde.

"Hah, for every clone she destroys I can make another. You think this I gonna be a long night?"

Their team leader just chuckled until he felt a kunai on his neck.

"No, I don't think it will be."

Sasuke was glad his blonde teammate could create such a ruckus with her clones, if not him, Sakura, and Kabuto wouldn't have been able to sneak up on the rain ninjas, who were promptly beaten to a pulp by Naruko, the beatings intensified when Sasuke mentioned their team leader was the same rain ninja who caught her when she was using the bathroom and he had to hold back a chuckle at the amount of cursing the blonde let loose.

The fact he saw her curse mark while she was giving the rain ninjas their beatings didn't go unnoticed by the Uchiha either. He decided he'd bring it up later when they were alone. He let out a sigh of relief as they finally came up to the tower his hand touching the door just to make sure it was real this time.

Once inside however the team was confused at the cryptic message on the wall.

"I think it's telling us to open the scrolls." Naruko looked at Sakura and with a shrug grabbed the heaven scroll while she grabbed the earth scroll.

"I swear bubblegum, if we fail because of this, it's all on you."

"Bite me Naruko."

"With your new butch haircut I think you actually want me to." Naruko chuckled as Sakura's face turned red with anger. The scrolls once opened erupted with smoke.

"Sakura! Naruko! Toss the scrolls!" Both kunoichi threw the scrolls and got ready for a fight as they saw a figure in the smoke.

"Long time no see you three." Naruko's face split into a smile as she recognized the voice.

"Iruka-sensei!" Sasuke watched as the blonde charged their former teacher hugging him around his waist like a daughter would to a father.

"Glad to see you haven't changed much Naruko, I'd buy you a round of ramen, but you're gonna have to take part three of the exam soon. Don't push yourselves too hard in this okay? Unfortunately you guys won't get much rest time since so many of you passed…"

"Don't worry Iruka-sensei! We're here to kick ass and take names!" Iruka smiled knowing the blonde meant every word of what she said.

"So you are, alright, go through this door and meet with the other teams in the central arena." Iruka led his former students in the preliminary arena and took his place amongst the other chunin and jonin.

Naruko looked around and saw most of the leaf rookies had passed and winked at Hinata, confused as to why the Hyuuga girl was blushing.

'I hope she's not catching something, I'd hate to catch it as well.'

"Okay, now we have too many people here, and because we have many highly influential people coming for the third part of the exam we're going to have a preliminary exam, if anyone doesn't want to fight they can quit now, you're team will not be affected." Naruko was shocked that Kabuto raised his hand.

"Sucky guy, why you giving up?" Kabuto's eye twitched but he kept his calm.

"Sorry Naruko-chan but my body is beat up, that and I'm nearly out of chakra. I'll leave the ass kicking to you okay?" Kabuto smiled as he walked away. Sasuke felt a rush of pain and noticed Naruko didn't seem to be affected by hers.

"Naruko come here." The blonde girl leaned in close and she shivered as she felt Sasuke's breath on her ear.

"Why isn't your mark affecting you?" She shrugged and honestly wondered why.

'Momma?' If anyone could tell her what was going on her mother could.

'Don't worry baby, I took care of it, just tell him you haven't activated it like he has so that's probably why.'

"I don't know Sasuke, I haven't used it yet, so that's probably the reason." Sasuke figured it was a good enough reason. He'd drop the issue, for now. The proctor coughed as he counted the remaining test takers.

"Okay we got twenty left meaning we can have ten preliminary fights. These will be one on one fights, just like a real life confrontation. There are no rules, you lose if you can't continue fighting or you die, I'll try and make sure that doesn't happen though, now I know this I sudden but let's start the first match shall we? Will everyone but the two fighters please move to the upper level please?" As everyone began to move towards the stairs Kakashi walked up to Sasuke.

"Sasuke, don't use the sharingan."

"So…you know."

"Yes I also know about Naruko's. Using the curse seal may kill you, if that happens, then I'll have to stop the fight. Be careful Sasuke." Kakashi joined his two students up on the upper level, his face turning into a smile at how worried Naruko looked for her teammate.

"Worried about your boyfriend Naruko?" Kakashi said as if asking about the weather.

"Who Sasuke? Of course I'm worried about him."

"I'm glad you didn't deny he's your boyfriend Naruko." Kakashi smiled as Naruko exploded.

"YOU TRICKED ME KAKASHI-SENSEI! THATS NOT FAIR YOU LOWDOWN, PUNK ASS, SCARECROW-LOOKING MOTHER..." Kakashi tuned his blonde student out and pulled out his icha icha smiling at the fact he wont this round.

'Kakashi-sensei - 1, Naruko – 0'