"So now that you know we're going to breeze right through this, maybe let's reflect on how mean you were on me for no reason and you can treat me to a bowl of ramen and make-up?" Naruto shrugged with an overconfident expression as if he had just accomplished something epic.

"I can't believe that we're in the same profession even…" Kiyomi grunted while shaking her head. "Not if that's what you think is enough to make it. Our team dynamic is all wrong, what we will be doing until the late hours of evening is grind our combinations because, otherwise, we will just be three random people put on a team."

"Maybe that's a bit harsh…" Meiko hummed out with a lingering buzz of her voice. "I mean the two of us have worked just fine as a duo, you can't say that adding one more element to it somehow makes our dynamic terrible."

"It does though. Bacon and eggs work fine together but if you add milk on top and your stomach will be growling for the rest of the day." Kiyomi objected. "You're strong, more so, you're the second toughest person I've met, right after a guy that is literally invincible. I am telling you right now, just those two things won't cut it. We've been "just strong" before, it didn't work."

"That's true…" Meiko sighed. She didn't like to admit that fact but she agreed to Kiyomi on this one point. "I was too strong and overqualified in my last Chuunin Exams yet I very nearly flunked the very first test and the answer to that test was literally to do nothing."

"Hey… Lamenting your weakness still, I see. Makes me feel bad, makes me feel like I should have finished you off back then…" a cold yet oddly familiar voice distracted the trio of Team Hokage, forcing all three of them to look at the nearby treetop. Shock paralyzed both Naruto and Kiyomi but for vastly different reasons. Kiyomi was petrified that someone, an Uchiha no less, could have just snuck up on them like this, in the middle of nowhere, of all places, where they could have been murdered and their corpses would not be found for quite some time, if at all.

"Sasuke…" Naruto muttered, it was only after that whimper that Kiyomi snapped out of her shock and realized that the reason why this voice sounded familiar was because she had seen and heard this man, in fact, she'd seen him not one hour earlier, it was just that this Sasuke was from a whole different point in time. "Sasuke!" Naruto roared out, becoming aggravated, adding the frustrations from his team training into the mix of meeting the friend that caused him so much pain before.

"Why Naruto-kun… Meeting in a place like this sure brings back memories, doesn't it?" a man of grey hair dragged his hand across it. He was not a looker but he was not flaunting his appearance, he was forcing his very existence down Naruto's throat.

"Kabuto, you bastard!" Naruto growled, Kiyomi couldn't help it but turn to Naruto, she could not fathom just what sort of thing befell her teammate. With each passing second the future Seventh began taking a stance that might have belonged more to a wild animal rather than a person, his voice turned more and more ferocious while features that would have appeared cute like Naruto's whiskers began becoming more prominent with new ones popping out – like the sharpening of his canine teeth. "What are you doing here!?"

"Always the entire road behind. Just like his master, so old yet so refreshing each time…" a despicable chuckle that was born and died in the shape of a hiss. It came from a red-haired woman with glasses standing nearby the duo that kept antagonizing Naruto, as if waiting for something interesting to happen.

"Cut me some slack, Orochimaru-sama, I did fool everybody as to which universe we came from. As far as Hokage Naruto is concerned, I am the Kabuto he met during his own Chuunin Exams. He might not like me and he might know all about my allegiances but he must stomach it because of the rules as to who can and cannot sign up…" the four-eyed man that Naruto was so enraged at snickered while looking at the red-haired woman.

"Oro… Orochimaru!?" Naruto growled out through his ground teeth. "So you're here too!?"

"Well, well… Kabuto and his mouth…" the woman smirked in a manner that was entirely unlike her. It was self-evident that the woman's body was not meant to be twisted and bent in such a shape, her lips stretched out to the point of tearing while her cheeks twitched and trembled from the sudden tension placed on them. This was no mere transformation. If this Orochimaru person truly was shapeshifting, his jutsu was far more advanced.

A faint blue flame lit up around Kabuto's hand as the silver-haired ninja took a step forward and raised his hand up. As if threatening to charge and slash with his blue flame technique at any moment.

"That means we must kill them, no?" Kabuto said.

"Nice try but not now." Sasuke shut the man down. Judging from the look Kabuto gave the Uchiha in the middle of the formation, Sasuke was not the leader of this group of theirs but he was certainly favored and protected, given how Kabuto shut his jutsu down without asking for a pretty please.

"Sasuke-kun… You give this gutter trash so many chances… It's almost as if you're still attached to your past life, your weakness?" Orochimaru looked at Sasuke with a passionate face. Normally when someone of authority muttered these words they were suspicious, Orochimaru seemed to crave this boy and his talents even more, despite his suspicions. Now Kiyomi began to understand why Naruto looked so creeped out by this guy.

"Hmph… You said it, not me – his uselessness is entertaining." Sasuke closed his eyes, deflecting the accusations with a flair of coolness and apathy, all radiating from his person at the same time. It was frightening how attractive this man was, not just in his looks, but every aspect of his presence. His speech, his voice, his swagger. Had Kiyomi not felt sick every time she saw an Uchiha before her, she'd have been instantly smitten by this man, she knew it.

"I see… Well, now that you two caught up, I still have use for you, Sasuke-kun…" Orochimaru declared while Naruto finally lost all semblance of what was to be considered "his shit". The young man leaned over his front and took an all-fours stance, similar to the Inuzuka fighting stance but this was no Beast Mimicry, this was something on a whole different class.

Chakra, red and vile spilled out of Naruto like a chili rushing from a fallen pot. The intensity and shade of the chakra sent Kiyomi back a few steps but the Yamanaka had somehow managed to maintain her stance, Naruto had not been at the level where he'd have been compared to a local ninja of his experience yet. Had he been, however, Kiyomi would have survived being this close to his outrage unharmed. The shadowy corruption of the ethereal, crimson bile wrapped around Naruto like a cloak while the eyes of the youth gleamed red, piercing even through the fervor of his chakra cloak and freezing all that have caught glimpses of it in place.

"You asshole, stop talking about Sasuke like he's your toy!" Naruto roared out in a voice that was half his new, ferocious self, half something else entirely. Something that must not have even existed in the material world, however, something that busted through just with sheer power alone. A blink. A blink and Naruto was gone.

A dull thud followed by a hundred and twenty hisses all echoing in synchrony stopped Naruto's advance. The transformed ninja struggled and tried overpowering the living entrapment Orochimaru encased him in but he failed to do so. There was something in the hundreds of snakes emerging from the sleeve of the red-haired woman's kimono, something sapping strength from Naruto. The cloak surrounding the youth incinerated the snakes through touch but it failed to keep up with Orochimaru's continuous revival of his snakes.

"Arrogant, very much so…" Orochimaru cackled while the snakes all burrowed through the cloak and bit Naruto at once, consuming his chakra cloak at once and leaving the young man weakened enough for a sideways swing to sling him through a tree as thick and hard as a boulder. "You forget that I am not like those restrained Akatsuki dogs. By fooling Konoha that I am just a genin from Otogakure, I have been permitted a complete strength restoration course. You now face a Sannin empowered to the brinks of godhood by the standards of this incredible universe."

"That's bullshit, Konoha is full of sensors! We're within a sensory barrier, someone would have noticed a Sannin trying to pass as a child." Kiyomi objected, finally overpowering the sense of dread that befell her after witnessing and hearing about the fact that someone of Sannin class was going to not only attend the Chuunin Exams but, quite likely, meddle with their team because of Naruto's membership in it.

"Maybe, however this girl whose body I possess was special. As useful as she was in life, what with her uncanny sensory ability and incredible healing powers, the temptation of attaining this universe's power and returning home a god was too much to keep her alive for…" Orochimaru licked his lips with a tongue that was elongating and taking very reptilian features despite having been quite human for the entire lifespan of the original owner of the red-haired woman's body. "Karin possessed an ability to not only sense other chakra but also suppress her own. It was like she was born on this Earth to serve as my vessel for this very purpose…"

Orochimaru just sniffed a pair of times before transitioning into a hissing form a peal of laughter, before going full maniacal ass and beginning to boom with laughter. Complete with the whole arms spread out wide shtick and a confident pose to boot.

"Let's just leave. I was interested at first but now I see there's nothing of value left here to look at." Sasuke sighed, turning away and fading off in a collapse of blue flame tongues. Orochimaru and Kabuto were quick to follow. Both of them did appear somewhat conflicted about just letting the trio live after they heard of Orochimaru's plan but Orochimaru had lost the sight of Sasuke for a whole pair of seconds which must have been like an eternity to him whereas Kabuto was a dog that just followed around his master, in hopes of being thrown a bone.

"Mind telling me what that was all about?" Kiyomi wondered while observing Naruto use Meiko's shield as a riding platform to better deliver his Rasengan to its intended destination. This way, by forming the jutsu in the hand of a clone, he did not even have to put himself in harm's way which was always a potential danger.

"That was Sasuke. My Sasuke… I think…" Naruto replied with irritation in his voice. It may have been him converting that same frustration into his work that allowed him to succeed with the combination whereas it came as a struggle earlier.

"That's like… Five percent of all the questions I had answered." Kiyomi raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "If we are going to be in a team, I'm going to need to know if we're being hunted by a Sannin. Hell, we will need to bring this up to the authorities after we are done here."

"We should have gone right after they left…" Meiko sighed. She was a real workhorse but even her impressive stamina had limits. Limits that were not too far out in the horizon at this point. It had been hours since the two saw a ray of light break through the foliage.

"And risk a full training day? Risk our promotion? Fat chance of that!" Kiyomi shook her head. "Assholes try to invade this village and end the world every week, Chuunin Exams happen once in a couple of years."

"Orochimaru isn't some joke. He killed the Third during the finals of Chuunin Exams back home. That being said, he's not here because of me. He doesn't really care about me, it was Sasuke that wanted to see me. He talks a big deal about severing all bonds and leaving his old life behind him but he misses it, he can't help but wonder about what kind of person he'd have been if he stayed, I know it." Naruto declared. He was energetic in his attempt at convincing a pair that needed not to be convinced. That being said, while Kiyomi and Meiko took no effort to take him for his word, the one true person Naruto was trying to convince needed more work still.

"Is he going to be a danger then? Try to kill the Hokage or something?" Kiyomi placed her hands on her hips as she continued her inquisition.

"No, I don't think so. Orochimaru cares about few things, power and something interesting to do with it are two of the ones that he's into. He likes starting to spin the windmill faster and faster but to make the blades spin he needs strength…" Naruto replied while his eyes stared at a point to his side with blankness to his expression. It took a short while for the youth to realize that neither of the two young women understood his analogy.

"It's a speech he keeps on rattling on about. The windmill dying down, the grass and the leaves standing still. He likes them moving…" Naruto's eyes squinted before he scratched his own head in confusion, it was tough to believe that just mere seconds before this goofball was in the gloom of his life. The pair of the original Team Hokage knew of some people that could have used some of this young man's traits.

"He likes to do things for the sake of doing things, seeing the chaos coming out of it… I think I get it." Kiyomi sighed. "We will bring it up to the Hokage but who knows… We've no proof, nothing about him senses like an S-Rank ninja. Unless we challenge him enough to unleash a bigger deal of his power, we might never see the village move a finger. It would have been way easier to make happen with Hanasaku-sensei in power…"

"Whatever, I don't want the village kicking Sasuke, that four-eyed jerk and the snake bastard back home. They're right where I want them – within my line of sight!" Naruto punched his own palm as his eyes turned from a foolish squint to ones filled with crystal clarity and iron resolution for success. "For years I wanted another shot at rescuing Sasuke and now I've got it! Just give me a chance to score that shot!"

"That would save us a trip to the Hokage's office." Meiko turned to Kiyomi.

"No. We bring it up but we acknowledge the fact we've no evidence. We tell the pair of Sevenths to keep an eye on that team, be ready for anything and then we mind our own business." Kiyomi objected with some passion to the shaking of her head. She knew why she was so adamant about doing it by the book – honoring Naruto's request and acting behind the village's interests would be what she would do… Kiyomi was nothing like the stage magician. Nothing in her game plan was like something a criminal would do.

"That power-up you went through, you're a Jinchuuriki, aren't you?" Meiko pointed her finger at Naruto without any weight to her question that should have accompanied this topic.

"I… I thought that would be a bit more secretive of a topic around these parts…" Naruto shrunk with his hands weighing him down. "People don't know those kinds of terms or talk about it that much back home."

"Well, in our universe this knowledge is open to anyone willing to look for it." Kiyomi pointed out.

"Which one's your Tailed Beast? It would be hilarious to see a pair of Five-Tails duking it out…" Meiko smirked as if the concept of two world-breakers coming to blows was something entertaining.

"Nah, I'm with the Nine-Tails." Naruto pressed his arm to his belly and scratched it as one did during early hours of the morning, before the first thing to bite or drink entered one's mouth. "I don't remember calling out to that Fox now. Then again, tensions were high, I might have blacked out and done something reckless…" the Jinchuuriki scratched the back of his head while beaming out a goofy smirk.

"We've got loads of problems to iron out but I think we're done for today…" Kiyomi declared with a solemn tone to her voice. "Let's eat up and then hit the hay. Even the sharpest blades break if you don't stop grinding them."

"Heh heh, alright!" Naruto shot his fist out into the sky. "I'm not sure what problems you're talking about but I'm always up for a bowl of ramen or twelve!"

"Oh, so the fact that you serve the role of a close-range ninjutsu user in our team doesn't at all ring a bell? Close-range is the most useless kind of ninjutsu there is. Ninjutsu is supposed to be a long-range disruption or damage specialization. If you could hurl lightning bolts or breathe fire… Then we'd be talking." Kiyomi shook her head.

"It's okay, you can cover mid to long-range just fine…" Meiko shrugged, recalling Kiyomi's earlier roles, before Mana squeezed her petite little tush into the role of a long-range blaster of the team, leaving disruption and intelligence gathering as Kiyomi's golden tasks. Ultimately, it was for the better – the Yamanaka was way better at those things as compared to just acting like her clan abilities did not exist…

"Well, at least you're already protecting your teammate. At least we've got the camaraderie part of the team down…" Kiyomi sighed with her hands over her chest.

It would be tomorrow when the first stages of the Chuunin Exam would begin, however, they would not be the final stages and the training that Team Hokage had done up until then would not be the last training they'd get to do in the exams. Their team synergy was still a work in progress and that was just fine, as long as it got to the final destination eventually…