The cave is massive and looks big enough to swallow a boss summon with ease. Why is this in the leaf village? All the other chunin hopefuls are amassed in front of the cave and there is a general air of unease. Great. Instead of having a written test like dad when he was my age, i skip that and go straight to a fucking death cave. Just great. I glance over and see that the proctor is standing in front of the cave and on a podium so she is above us.

"Alright! You may have noticed that we have skipped the written test and gone straight to the survival part. The reason is that we have nobles watching and they didn't want to be bored by a written test. So the survival is much harder to make up for the lack of the first part. Now your goal is to survive long enough to find the end of this labyrinth. There are lots of beasts that want to rip you open. Try to avoid that so your audience doesn't have to see you die. If you will please sign the forms being passed around. These are waivers that say your home village can't sue us for the deaths that will inevitably happen. Yes?" she shouts .She points to my raised hand.

"Hey. I'm from Leaf village. Do I need to sign the form? It's not like the leaf can sue the leaf." I ask.

"The waivers for members of clans say that your clan cant sue our hokage for the death of its member." the woman explains. I nod and she continues.

"Okay. now that the waivers are sent out. You will each be given a kunai. These are specially made by our late fourth hokage. Merely charge chakra into the blade and it will teleport you directly to a predetermined location in the labyrinth. This test has three goals. First you must find your team, then you will face off against a ninja that we have placed in a cave, then you must reach the end of the labyrinth. Any questions?" the woman roars.

"Is killing allowed?" gaara asks.

"Anything is allowed. This is to simulate a real mission that chunin has to take. Kill, steal, lie, rape, betray. Anything that gets the mission done. Although rape is generally punished so dont do that. Next!" man this bitch is annoying.

"Do we have to kill the ninja to defeat them? Do we steal their headband? What counts as a victory?" asks some green haired chick with a waterfall headband.

"Each ninja in the cave is given a medallion with their village inscribed on it. You must find a ninja from a different village than yours, leaf ninja need a rock medallion for example. This way you prove you can defeat enemies at the required level. The medallion is the goal. If you need to rip the enemy in half then take the medallion off the corpse, go ahead. You could also just steal the medallion then flee. It's up to you. Now. Everyone, come get a kunai." the woman replies before jumping down and pulling out a wooden crate.

I join everyone in a line and accept a kunai. Now I just charge chakra into it? I do so and vanish in a puff of smoke.

Oh shit! I drop to my knees and vomit. God that sucked. I spit and stand. Why couldn't I just use the shadows? Okay. I shake my head and look around. Cave is pitch black, which helps that a shadow demon can see in the dark. Screams echo and I hear growling. Shit. I guess it's started. Okay. I need to find my friends. First jake, james is probably just tanking hits and fucking up anything that fights him.

I drop to the ground and cross my legs before clapping my hands together as though I'm praying. Okay. I sent my shadow out to find my friend. Where are you? My shadow peeks through the darkness following my will. Wait. my shadow returns to a spot i already looked through. There he is! Shadow consumes me and I appear next to my friend. He has a fireball floating above his head as he explores. He looks over to see me.

"Why am I not surprised you already found me?" Jake says with a grin.

"Come on. I think I saw james." I replied.

I grab Jake by the shoulder and we sink into the shadows.

We reappear next to James and he reacts by swiping at us with a sword of bone. My shadow blocks the hit and Jake spits out a fireball that hovers above us. James lowers his blade.

"William? Jake? That didn't take long." James grumbles.

Jake is currently throwing up and cursing at me. Shadow travel isn't that bad! James snickers at Jake before we hear a growl in the darkness. Jake leaps to his feet and we all nod.

I sink into shadow and James wraps himself in bone as Jake draws a blade that he wraps in fire. Where is it? There you are, the fuck are you?

The creature is a short squat thing that looks like a human. Ya know. If you take away the claws, giant ears, lack of eyes, bone white skin, fang filled mouth, and the tail with a sharp talon on the end. Take away that and you have a regular human.

The beast growls again and Jake lunges forward with James behind him. Jake swings his blade and the fire illuminates the beast as it slaps aside the blade with its tail. Jake flips backwards and James rushes in to unleash a barrage of punches that are covered in bony spikes that rip through flesh. The beast snarls in pain and slashes at james. Shadow blocks the attack and James continues his attack. Jake drops his blade and flows through hand signs before spitting out a wave of flame. I drag James into darkness and the flames consume our enemy. The monster screams once before it falls into ash.

I emerge from the darkness and James follows me. We all walked to the ash that was our enemy and I kneel by it. Bone survived. What is this thing? Its bones are thicker than anything its size. The fangs are deeply rooted in its skull, these are meant to last for life. The lack of eyes isn't just an aesthetic thing. The front of the skull is smooth where eyes are supposed to be. They also seem to possess more ribs than us. This thing isn't new. It's spent generations evolving for cave survival. This cave is the home it's known its whole life, this cave is where its entire species has lived their whole lives. Shit. I look around and hear other screeches. The others heard us. Fuck.

I grab my friends and drag them into the shadows. We need time to figure out a plan.