Sakura watched the small child being shaken around by the black clad Suna-nin with an unimpressed expression.
"Basically, I hate midgets." The guy said. "Especially younger ones that are rude. Makes me want to kill them."
The Uzumaki was screaming at him and she wondered if she should get involved, but for all the kid's bluster he didn't actually seem like a killer. He was definitely capable of it, and probably wouldn't get too cut up about it, but he didn't have any of the bloodlust that would lead to murdering random children in the street. At the most he'd probably just bruise the kid.
It might even do the brat some good.
But then the Uchiha decided to interfere; proving that he'd only faked going home and instead chose to sit in a tree and brood like the angsty preteen that he was.
"What are you bastards doing in our village?" The Uchiha growled and Sakura felt her lips twitch despite herself. He was like a troll under a bridge.
"Ah… another guy who pisses me off."
"Get lost!" Uchiha spat, causing the black clad boy to puff up in offence.
"I hate show-offs like you the most!" He yelled, pulling the strangely shaped bundle off his back and catching Sakura's interest. The bandaged wrapped thing looked suspiciously human-shaped.
Was he a puppeteer? She would actually be keen to watch that fight.
Then the voice came.
"Kankuro, stop it." It dripped like acid in the ears, a chakra signature appearing behind the Uchiha that burned and blistered like the desert heat. "You're an embarrassment to our village."
The Suna kids visibly froze, poorly concealed panic on their features as they unconsciously took a step back from the small form on the tree.
"Losing control of yourself in a fight, how pathetic. Why do you think we came to the leaf village?"
"Listen Gaara, they started it and-"
"Shut up." The redhead said, voice as cold and humourless as ice. "I'll kill you."
He wasn't bluffing. The black-clad kid might not be the type to murder random children in the street, but the redhead was.
"It looks like we got here early but we didn't come here to play around." He said, appearing between them in a swirl of sand. "Let's go."
There was a monster in the village. Sakura's blood pounded and her breathing quickened. A vicious smile tried to stretch her lips, but she forced it down.
"Hold on." She said, her calm voice cutting through the street. "You're foreign shinobi in the village, one of whom just attempted to kill the honourable Hokage's grandson." The black clad figure shifted nervously. "I'm afraid I have to ask your purpose for being in the village and see your permits."
"Talk about clueless, don't you know anything?" The blonde said, a hand on her hip as she displayed the permit. Sakura walked closer and memorised the disappointedly little information on the small card. "We're genin from the hidden sand. We've come to your village to take the chūnin selection exam."
Sakura ignored the bait- filing away the information that the chūnin exams were coming up- and turned to the other two. "And your permits?" She asked, the redhead glared at her before withdrawing his own card, she greedily absorbed the information. The black clad figure scoffed at her.
"As if." He spat, looking down his nose like he was looking at something particularly disgusting.
"YOU BASTARD, DON'T LOOK DOWN ON SAKURA-CHAN!" Uzumaki (un)helpfully added and the man with the painted face sneered. Thankfully the redhead intervened before it could escalate again.
"Kankuro." He said, voice barely above a whisper and the black clad figure scowled but complied, holding out his own shiny card.
"Thank you for your compliance." Sakura said, a brilliant smile on her face. "I'll look forward to watching you in the finals, I've always wanted to see a competent puppeteer fight."
"Th-thank you." Kankuro stammered, his cheeks visibly flushing under the face paint, confirming that he was in fact a puppeteer. The redhead scoffed, turned and left.
Sakura hummed, watching the retreating backs of the figures.
"What did you find out?" The Uchiha asked, showing actual intelligence instead of angst for once. Sakura turned to see the honourable grandson and the Uzumaki already in another fight.
"Sabako no Gaara, Sabako no Temari and Sabako no Kankuro." She said and he raised a jet black eyebrow. "Suna has a slightly different naming system, they don't have family names, but titles. Sabako means they're the children of the Kazekage. They've likely been trained by Suna's best from childhood." She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. "Kankuro is a puppeteer, a discipline that takes decades to truly master, so he'd likely be a fairly easy fight as young as he is. Temari was carrying a war fan, a powerful weapon but one she likely doesn't have yet the chakra reserves to use for extended periods, she'd be a hard fight but a straightforward one won through attrition."
"And Gaara?" The Uchiha said, impatience colouring his tone. He'd likely already dismissed the other two, then, and was hence happy to completely ignore them, thinking himself above even knowing about them.
"Gaara would likely break every bone in your body and laugh as he did it." She said and he scowled. "My advice for fighting him? Don't."
"Tch." He spat and left without another word.
Sakura didn't miss the way his hands clenched, however. She didn't worry. They weren't ready to take the exams yet, anyway.
"I know this is sudden but I've nominated you for the chūnin exams." Hatake said. "Here are your applications."
Sakura stared incredulously at the slips, not noticing as two were taken and it was just the one before her. She didn't understand.
They weren't ready for the exams. Why would he nominate them?
"Sakura-chan?" Hatake said, the slip of paper being waved in front of her face. She absentmindedly took it and frowned.
Was it political? But that didn't seem quite right, the Hokage had a massive soft spot for the Uzumaki. He would be more likely to stab someone for suggesting that he risk the kid's life for political purposes than put pressure on Hatake to enter them for the sake of a strong showing.
"Sakura-chan?" Hatake asked, a finger poking the crease between her eyebrows.
Was it for training purposes? But if Hatake wanted to promote their teamwork or something else it would be far more efficient to simply dump them in the wilderness for a couple of weeks.
"Pinky?" He said, a hand landing on top of her head and moving it slowly from side to side.
Bragging rights maybe? Were the other jōnin pressuring him-?
"No." She gasped, green eyes locking onto Hatake's stupid eye smile. "Just to beat Gai? Really?"
Hatake sniffed, a gloved hand coming up to rest over his heart and an exaggeratedly wounded expression on his sliver of face. "I would never!"
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Fine." He ruffled her hair and turned back to the other two- very confused looking- teammates.
"This is just a nomination. Wether or not to take the exam is up to each of you. Those who wish to take it should sign those papers and turn them in at room 301 by 4PM tomorrow. That is all." And then the asshole just disappeared.
"You guys want to come to mine to prepare?" She asked.
"No." The Uchiha scoffed. "Don't get in my way, losers." He walked away.
"HEY DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE TEME!" The Uzumaki screamed, chasing after the raven-haired boy and leaving her alone on the bridge.
The exams were going to end badly.
(But if she was going to have to compete in them anyway, she might as well put her all into it.)
The group of genin surrounding the wooden doors seemed to part before the Uchiha. Probably the one good thing about his personality was that it made him great at naturally commanding attention.
Baby-Hagane winked at her whilst Baby-Kamizuki made a gesture for her to stay silent. She waved subtly and smiled before pretending not to know them.
"You will let me pass through and also remove the surrounding genjutsu." Uchiha said, showcasing one of the worst parts about his personality. His need to show off rather than quietly let the idiots fail. "Sakura, you must have noticed it first right? Your analytical ability is the best on the team."
"Of course. This is the second floor." She replied, an easygoing smile on her face. Internally she was freaking out. Was the Uchiha actually trying to demonstrate the abilities of the entire team? Did he have a passing thought that was about something other than himself? Or was this a my-team-must-be-great-I'm-on-it situation?
"Yup." The Uzumaki agreed.
"Not bad, but all you did was see through it!" The baby-Hagane said, punctuating his sentence with a kick. Uchiha responded, only for both to be blocked by a sea of fluorescent green.
Sakura's eyes narrowed. She hadn't seen team Gai in person before, not wanting to risk her tentative blackmail position with Hatake, but that spandex was very distinctive.
"What happened to the plan?" Said a Hyuuga, undoubtably the supposed prodigy. He definitely looked like a clan prodigy, with the amount of angst the kid radiated. "You're the one who said we shouldn't draw attention to ourselves."
"Well…" The mini green beast locked eyes with her and she felt a sinking feeling appear in her gut.
"Oh no." Groaned the kunoichi of the group, a sentiment she very much agreed with.
"Hi!" The green nightmare said. "My name is Rock Lee, so yours is Sakura."
"Haruno Sakura, pleased to meet you Lee-san." She said, holding a hand out and smiling. He ignored her hand to give a hearty thumbs up instead, winking and teeth sparkling.
"Let's go out together! I'll protect you until I die!"
"I'm flattered, Lee-san." Sakura started and he wilted. "But I'm afraid I'm not looking for a relationship at the moment. You three are team Gai, right?" She deflected and they looked surprised.
"Has Kakashi been talking about us?" The weapons mistress asked and Sakura chuckled.
"Not at all, I just do my research." She said. Feeling emboldened by the general competitive atmosphere of the exams and strangely protective of Hatake in the face of weirdos, she crossed her arms and tilted her chin cockily. "I guess that makes our teams eternal rivals? We'll look forward to beating you three into the dirt."
In a rare showing of teamwork- likely only happening because the boys couldn't back down from a challenge- Sasuke stepped smoothly into position at the front, placing Sakura on his left flank. Naruto stepped into his own on the right. They moved in synch, away from the trio and towards the third level. Sakura listed off facts just loud enough for them both to hear as they went.
"Maito Gai has been Kakashi-sensei's rival since they were in the academy, they're Gai's genin team."
"So we destroy them." The Uchiha said, nodding once, and Sakura smirked despite herself.
"Yes! Believe it!" Uzumaki cried.
"Gai is a taijutsu expert, so expect all three to be strong hand-to-hand. Lee is Gai's protégée, specialising in purely taijutsu. Keep him at a distance whenever possible. Hyuuga Neji is a clan prodigy, expect him to be strong in his clan techniques but largely unadaptable and with a host of mental hangups. Create chaos. Tenten is a weapons mistress and the weakest of the group, but would be highly effective as long range support and likely to be carrying a million different weapons at any given moment." She hummed. "In a team fight, Sasuke take Lee, Naruto take Neji, I'll take Tenten." The other two nodded.
"And individually?" Uchiha asked.
"Hmm, I think we could all take them if we were smart about it, but me and Naruto would struggle the most with Lee, Sasuke you would struggle the most with Neji."
"HAHA! We'll beat them, believe it!" Uzumaki cried, bounding ahead with his hands behind his head.
"Hey, guy with the dark eyes." Said Lee, appearing from above them. "Will you fight me right here?"
"A fight right now?" The Uchiha replied.
"My name is Rock Lee." Lee settled into a relaxed stance. "Uchiha Sasuke. I wish to test my techniques against the Uchiha clan."
"Challenging me with the Uchiha name." Uchiha begun, his voice having gone into full angst mode. Sakura sighed, knowing he had heard the mention of his family name and let his logic fly out the window, almost definitely forgetting everything she'd said about the green genin in favour of trying to punch him in the face. "You're about to learn what this name means, thick brows."
Sakura eyed the Uzumaki. He was getting increasingly red faced and angry, now outright glaring at the Uchiha. They must have hit their teamwork quota for the day.
"Please-" Lee started.
"WAIT!" Uzumaki interrupted. "I'll take care of thick brows. Just give me five minutes."
"Who I wished to fight is not you, it's Uchiha." Lee said, effectively cutting through Uzumaki's remaining sanity and ensuring he definitely forgot everything she had said.
"DAMMIT I'M SICK OF HEARING ABOUT SASUKE!" He screamed and immediately charged in, easily getting flipped by the taijutsu specialist.
"I'll say this. You guys cannot defeat me, because right now you are not the strongest leaf genin."
"Sounds fun, I'll do it." Uchiha replied, mimicking the Uzumaki- though he would probably try to kill her if she pointed that out- and immediately charging in. Sakura stepped back to lean against a wall and prayed for patience. She was a little curious to see the Uchiha using the Sharingan without telling anyone on the team he could, but she supposed she wasn't actually surprised.
Maybe if he'd shared that he'd unlocked his doujutsu she would have shared that Lee would be able to counter it. Oh well. Maybe it would be good for the arrogant preteen.
Sakura eyed the very unsurprised look on the Uzumaki's face despite the surprise doujutsu use and made a mental note that she couldn't even trust the babblerer to inform her of basic team information.
A turtle appeared.
A man appeared on the turtle.
Suddenly, Sakura understood why Hatake was so terrified of the genin teams meeting. Maito Gai was a lot. His spandex was eye burningly green. His hair unbelievably shiny. His teeth blindingly white. His eyebrows absurdly thick. She walked over to join the other two, feeling the unfamiliar need to commiserate with human company as she watched Maito and mini-Maito sob over each other.
He looked over at them. She unconsciously shifted away.
"Hey you guys, how's Kakashi-sensei doing?"
"Kakashi?" Uchiha asked, incredulous with conversation whiplash. The green monstrosity simply disappeared, something that was Very Strange considering that Sakura hadn't been able to take her eyes off it.
"People refer to us as eternal rivals." A voice behind them said and she whipped around. "50 wins, 49 losses. I'm stronger than Kakashi." His grin was blinding. His voice was smug.
Sakura's eyes narrowed, her blood boiled. "So we'll be the tie between you two." She growled, cracking a fist as she talked and let a slow smile stretch over her face. "When we destroy your genin."
"YOSH!" The man screamed, throwing himself into a pose. Sakura just barely resisted the need to flinch away. "WHAT YOUTHFULNESS! You guys should head to the classroom!" He said before he disappeared.
A brow twitched with annoyance. She stalked towards the classroom, ignoring whatever spat the boys had that delayed them following by a few minutes. She glared at the man standing lazily before the doors.
"Ah, Sakura-chan, was that a particularly loud bout of youthfulness I heard?" Hatake drawled.
"For the record, I am annoyed that we are being used to settle a petty competition between weirdos." Sakura said, her tone scathing as she radiated killing intent. Hatake looked rightfully nervous. "But for some, inexplicable, reason I find myself more annoyed at the insinuation that you are lesser and hence we are lesser to that insane man and his genin team. I will make sure we win this battle." Her smile was feral and her body oozed bloodlust.
"Aah." Hatake nodded. "It's good to see you motivated." His tone was bland, but his eye crinkled with fondness at the corner. The boys appeared and stood next to her warily. "It's good to see you all here, the test can only be taken in teams of three so if one of you had decided not to take it the test would have ended here."
"But you said taking the test was an individual choice? You lied to us?!" Uzumaki asked, as if the man hadn't been lying to them from the moment they met.
"I didn't think any of you would say no, but I wanted you to all make the choice yourselves, without pressure from the others to take the exam. But you all came of your own free will; you guys are my proud team." He smiled. "NOW GO!"
"YEAH LETS GO!" Cried Uzumaki and they stepped through the doors.
The sea of genin were a surprise. Sakura knew intellectually that a lot of people took the chūnin exams every year, she had seen the very few publicly available statistics, but knowing it and seeing it were two different things. The room pulsed with chakra and killing intent. The air seemed to tingle with the amount of agitated power in one room until she felt like her very bones were singing with it.
The corners of her lips quirked.
"SASUKE-KUN!" A blonde blur yelled before attaching herself to the Uchiha. "I haven't seen you for a while so I've been waiting in excitement."
"Shouldn't a Yamanaka know better than to throw themselves suddenly onto a shinobi?" Sakura said, tone flat.
"Why if it isn't Sakura. Big ugly forehead as always." The Yamanaka sneered, ignoring what was actually said entirely in favour of petty insults. Sakura raised an eyebrow in the Uchiha's direction and he scowled, but made no effort to actually throw the girl off.
Chauvinism, resignation or actually returning her affections? Sakura couldn't tell.
"You guys are taking this stupid test too? Don't die." Nara said, appearing behind the blonde with the Akimichi.
"Oh! The idiot trio!" Uzumaki said, apparently entirely sincerely believing that, despite the Nara being an actual genius, if lazy.
"You're concern is touching, Shikamaru." Sakura monotoned. The Nara wouldn't fall for any act of sincerity no matter what she did anyway. As expected, he grimaced at her and leant his weight away, as if afraid her psychopathy was catching.
"I'm sure you're well aware of the exam mortality rates." He replied and she smiled not-so-nicely.
"Of course, these facts just seem to find me whenever I enter a library." She tilted her head and looked over the three teams. "Why did your sensei nominate you?" He huffed with annoyance.
"He made a bet with yours, and apparently I'm 'chūnin material'."
"And Yūhi followed Sarutobi's lead." She nodded.
"Why did Hatake engineer this?"
"You haven't figured it out?" Her voice was filled with mirth and he glared. "Maito Gai, his eternal rival, has entered a team."
"And he doesn't want the attention being the only sensei to enter rookie genin would bring." He finished. "Troublesome."
"You guys are rookies just out of the academy right? Screaming like little girls, geez." A soft voice said, a silver haired teen approaching the group.
Every possible hackle was raised. Sakura had spent two lifetimes pretending to be human. She could tell when someone was like her. It was instinct. A mental sign that says 'this person is a shell desperate to be filled with blood'. She forced herself not to react.
Willed herself neutral.
She didn't know if the boy could see her, too.
"This isn't a picnic." The boy said, thankfully not even glancing in her direction. If anything, the teen seemed inordinately focused on the Uchiha.
"And who are you?!" Uzumaki slurred.
"I'm Kabuto. But instead of that, look behind you."
Sakura did not want to turn her back on the teen. Every instinct in her body willed herself to not turn her back on the teen. But she had to.
She couldn't draw attention to herself and to everyone else he was just a mild-mannered, slightly annoyed fellow Konoha genin. A friend. Trustworthy.
She turned her back on the teen. Her nerves were set on edge. She couldn't put the sounds coming out of people's mouths together into words beyond the crawling up her spine, but she forced herself to copy the expressions around her, she forced herself to memorise every detail for reevaluation later. It wasn't until he crouched, putting his own back to her that she relaxed enough to concentrate again.
Nara sent her a quizzical look. She double checked the teen couldn't see and discreetly signed 'danger/enemy'. Thankfully, he caught on quick and pretended nothing had happened. Sakura forced herself to focus on the conversation that was happening and felt her surprise rise with the cards the teen was showing.
Was he really stupid enough to think he could get away with that? The information on his chakra cards was well above anything available to a genin. Unless the kid had a sensei with Hatake's disregard for rules, a ridiculously high clearance level and ability to break into and out of the safest places in Konoha and every other hidden village- the chance was negligible, if it even existed at all- then he was outright lying about his identity.
Sakura looked at her fellow genin. None of them were suspicious of the cards. The Nara was wary of the teen, but he didn't even bat an eyelash at the very blatantly illegal and full of classified information cards.
She reevaluated just how obvious that fact was and realised that she was probably the only one with the potential to actually realise it. Sakura was the only one there who had spent years in every available library and archive scouring for these kinds of facts. Knowledge about mission histories, basic stats, accurate numbers and statistics for the various villages. That knowledge was power and hence shinobi made it really, really hard to get. The Nara was smart enough to understand why it was useful to know that stuff, but too lazy to go out of his way to try- and fail- to find it.
The rest were just young, impressionable kids faced with an older, more experienced authority figure. They wouldn't even second guess the teen.
The important question was why.
Seeing the teen continue to pay the most attention to the Uchiha, she didn't think she'd like the answer.
"MY NAME IS UZUMAKI NARUTO! I WON'T LOSE TO YOU BASTARDS!" The blonde screamed, fulfilling his need to do something loud and distracting once an hour. "YOU GOT THAT?! Ah that felt great."
Sakura smiled, every single eye was on him, completely disregarding the harmless looking, pastel girl at his side. She could work with that.
"Hey?! What is he-?!" Ino cried, for some reason looking to her for the answer.
"You tell 'em, Naruto." Sakura encouraged and his grin widened, his stance hardened.
"Heh." The Uchiha agreed.
Morino Ibiki and the rest of the Torture and Interrogation team appeared in a cloud of smoke and a vast wall of killing intent. His scarred, cloak clad form commanded respect and drove a number of the room to quiet whimpering.
Sakura's vicious smile stayed with her even as she was sat down and looking at her test. She couldn't help it, the man was one of the closest things she had to a personal hero.
"The first rule. You guys start off with ten points. The test is made up of ten questions. You get a question wrong, you lose a point.
"The second rule. This is a team test. Wether or not you pass will be determined by the combined score of your teammates.
"The third rule. Anyone caught cheating by the testing officers will lose two points for every offence."
Her eyes narrowed.
"Pathetic ones caught cheating will be destroying themselves. As shinobi trying to achieve the level of chūnin, be proud ninjas.
"The final rule. Those that lose all their points during the test and those that don't answer any questions correctly will be failed along with their two teammates."
She cracked a knuckle.
"The test will last one hour. BEGIN!"
She lifted her pencil and considered the paper in front of her. There were nine questions, instructions for a mystery tenth at the end. The first rule was pretty straightforward, but the last three were straight psychological warfare. Saying 'you get two points off for cheating' was just saying 'you get five chances to try and cheat'. The fourth rule removed anyone's safety net, ensuring they couldn't feel safe with two competent teammates even whilst the second ensured they would feel responsible for their team's failure.
The test was designed to put them into a position of stress and see how they responded.
Her eyes narrowed on the tenth question. The timed aspect was suspect, but without more information she couldn't rely on it to get her by.
She could answer every question. Uzumaki and Uchiha likely could not. In fact, it was incredibly likely that almost every single genin in the room could not answer a single question.
Uchiha had the Sharingan. He could cheat successfully.
Uzumaki was an idiot. She could either wait for him to freak out and fail to cheat five times, hence failing the exam, or rely on her suspicions about the tenth question.
Her eyes narrowed on his seat. Or, she could lose two points and do the cheating for him.
Of course the Procters could simply fail her for doing so, they hadn't given any criteria or need to prove the one's failed were cheating, but she felt she could argue her way out of that if it came down to it.
She hummed under her breath and finished filling out the test. She glanced at the clock. Fifteen minutes had passed. Naruto was shaking but he hadn't yet done much else. She wrote 'A present -from Sakura' on the top of the page and coated both hers and the Uzumaki's papers in her chakra.
It was something she'd learned to do whilst reading up about puppetry. The technique was almost identical to her kawarimi, she just had to feed far more chakra into it. It was extremely obvious that it was being used, but Sakura wasn't going for stealth in this situation.
With a serene smile and a twitch of her fingers her paper went flying through the air. It reached Naruto's desk and slid neatly into position in front of him whilst his own slid away, flying though the air and deftly landing in front of her. Naruto jumped, visibly prepared himself to shriek, before reading the message on the top and dramatically collapsing on the desk in relief. No one called her number to fail her.
Morino was either glaring at her or trying very hard not to laugh. She took it as the latter and smiled sweetly at the man, before reproducing her answers onto the second test. She considered it for a second, flipped the paper, and stuck it to the desk with her chakra.
When she regained her concentration a few minutes later, angry gouges having appeared in the wood at the edges of her paper, she figured that was for the best. She could feel the Yamanaka's glare on the back of her head.
Thirty minutes passed. With nothing else to do she recreated the memorised information cards, adding a transcript of the conversation with the teen at the bottom and a quick profile sketch.
Underneath it she simply wrote, 'As someone who's scoured every possible legal source for this information, I can attest to the fact that it's completely impossible for a Konoha Genin to amass this kind of thing. And he hid it well, but he was also extremely creepy and unnaturally focused on Uchiha Sasuke.'
She unstuck her paper and flipped it back over just in time for the tenth question to begin. Hopefully, at least one of the Torture and Interrogation professionals would notice the information and pass it on to the relevant people. Just to be sure she included a request to read the back of the test on the front.
"And now, we will begin the tenth question." Ibiki said, somehow managing to make his voice boom whilst talking intimidatingly quietly. "Before we get to it, I'd like to go over the added rules for this question."
The back door opened, the black clad kid and his puppet strolling in.
"Heh, nice timing. Was your doll playing beneficial?" Ibiki taunted. "Just sit down." Sakura's eyes narrowed. The kid wasn't getting failed? Was it because the puppetry was impressive or for the sake of the Drama of the final question?
"I'll now explain, these are the rules of desperation.
"First, you must decide wether or not to take the question. If you choose not to, your points will be deducted to zero. You fail, along with your teammates.
"And now, the other rule. If you chose to take it and answer incorrectly, that person will lose the right to take the chūnin exams again."
"WHAT KIND OF STUPID RULE IS THAT?! THERE ARE GUYS HERE WHO HAVE TAKEN THE EXAM BEFORE!" Yelled Kiba.
Ibiki's entire face darkened. The corners of his mouth turned up. The laughter that filled the room was filled with sheer, sadistic pleasure.
"You guys were unlucky. This year it's my rules. But I am giving you a way out. Those that aren't confident can choose not to take it and try again next year.
"Now let's begin the tenth question."
Sakura's cheeks were hurting. Her eyes were manic. Her smile was feral. A hand did its best cover it.
She'd leant all the way forward in her seat. She just couldn't help it. The guy was a master.
He had gotten the entire room of genin hooked on his words, made an entire room piss themselves and turn into obedient dogs. Fortunately for her, her team was trained by Hatake Kakashi. The very first thing he'd taught them was that all rules were bullshit, people in positions of power will lie to you and that everything was a logical ruse.
Sakura schooled her face into blankness, leant back in her seat, and enjoyed watching the idiots leave. She considered the first to quit.
Was he a plant? If he was he worked. After that first hand there was a veritable flood of forfeits. More than half the room trickled out.
Then she watched Naruto raise his hand. She tensed. Uzumaki Naruto turning down a challenge? Was he sick?
His hand slammed down and she relaxed. Uzumaki was fine. He just hadn't done anything loud and distracting for an hour.
"I CONGRATULATE YOU ON PASSING THE FIRST TEST!"