Chunin Exams I

Immunity

Sakura bit her lip tightly as Ino stepped out onto the field. She'd stood by, watching each of her friends step forward to duke it out in the final round for their chance of promotion. The remainder of Team Asuma, Team Kurenai, and Neji from Team Gai had entered into the Chunin exams. Lee, looking a little forlorn, had admitted that he didn't feel ready yet, and that he'd much rather have Tenten watching his back when Sakura asked why he hadn't signed up. Sakura herself had decided to take another year – Shishou claimed that she could really benefit from another couple months in perfecting her chakra scalpel. They sat together, watching as each of their friends stepped into the ring.

Kiba swaggered his way off the field in more or less the same way he'd stepped on it. Choji steamrolled his foe, who had predictably provoked his ire by pointing out his plump figure. Neji beat his foe up with the least of movements and helped him to his feet in the most anticlimactic fight in history.

"What about you, Neji-san?" Sakura asked once he returned to his seat, not even winded, though she only did so to be polite. She had no doubts about his ambitions.

"Tenten would deem me an idiot for waiting for her, especially as we have no inclination as to when she will return," he explained, his eyes trained on the next bout.

Hinata vs. Shino. This would be worth watching.

Lee smiled at Sakura.

"He's right, as usual," he said, before turning to the sight before him.

"D-don't go easy on me, Shino-kun," Hinata said seriously as she slipped into the Gentle Fist stance. Sakura noticed Neji's Byakugan activate from beside Lee.

"Funny," Shino said, his hands hidden in his pockets as a swarm of bugs emerged above his head. "I was going to say the same thing."

Without Neji to psychoanalyze her and freak the shit out of her, and no Naruto in the bleachers to impress, Hinata's poker face was formidable. The two teammates really held nothing back from one another, and the bout was a mass of bugs swirling around flashes of grey jumper and blue chakra. Hinata managed to dispel most of the bugs through a release of chakra through her tenketsu, but Shino had devoured enough chakra by then that this was a last resort move.

"Ah, she's lost," Lee cried softly, his knuckles white as he clasped the railing before them. Shino caught Hinata as she fell forward and lowered her to the ground as medics rushed onto the field.

"No," Neji said slowly, as Shino got to his knees to gather his unmoving bug army. Hinata was sitting up, shaking her heady slightly. "She held back."

"None of them are dead!" Sakura shouted, leaning forward, as the bugs shook themselves as if coming out of a dead sleep and flying woozily toward Shino, disappearing into his large jacket and into his body.

"Foolish," Neji muttered, but he was smiling a little bemusedly.

Last, but certainly not least, was Ino.

Ino was up against a kunoichi from Sunagakure who specialized in poisons. Sakura watched impassively as Ino stretched out her shoulders. Lee glanced curiously toward her.

"Shouldn't you be cheering her on?" he asked.

"She told me she would kill me if I embarrassed her today," Sakura explained easily, grinning as she looked down on the blonde oompa loompa. "I'd like to see her try, but then again I wouldn't want her to blame me for messing up her concentration and costing her the fight."

"Lee, you are under no such obligations," Neji said patiently.

Lee, grinning, shouted, "Good luck, Ino-san!" as he had for all their friends. Ino glared up at the bleachers and waved, grinning, when she saw them sitting together.

"Your friends?" the Suna kunoichi sneered. "How nice of them to come watch you get poisoned."

"Poisons," Ino huffed, unimpressed, and sprang forward. Suna girl shot a handful of senbon at her, but she disappeared in two well-placed substitute jutsus – the same move Sakura had used the previous year against Kin – and barreled into the kunoichi, trapping her beneath her, and did the mind-body transfer, grinning.

When the kunoichi struggled against her, she rifled through the other girl's stash of poisons, expertly picked out a moderately fast-acting concoction, one whose effects she herself could escape, and threatened to ingest it.

Getting her to forfeit was like taking candy from a baby. Sakura couldn't help shouting when Ino emerged victorious in her own Tinky Winky body.

Well, now both Charlie's Chocolate Factory and Teletubbies exist in the Naruto universe. You're welcome :)

Hehe, thanks for reading!