'Finally, the start of the Chunin Exams.'

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke, with applications in their hands, walked into the building Konoha used for the exams. Team Seven met with Kakashi earlier in the day to get their applications and any other information they would need for the upcoming exam. Kakashi wasn't allowed to say much, the village counsel was against giving their ninja any type of 'home field advantage'. The only thing Kakashi could tell his team was to be in room '301' of this building by midday.

Team Seven heard commotion coming from up ahead as they made their way up the first flight of stairs. They turned the corner to see a large number of genin. There was a kid in a green spandex suit with black hair styled into a bowl cut, and the bushiest eyebrows anyone could ever imagine, stood at the front of the group, wanting entry into the room guarded by a single chunin. The room was '301'.

"Just give up kid. You'll probably be the first death in the exams. We're doing you a favor by not letting you get that far." The chunin said.

A girl with brown hair tied up in Chinese style buns on both sides of her head and a pink qipao-style sleeveless blouse walked up and stood next to the boy in the spandex suit.

"Please just let us through."

The girl was met by a harsh slap to the face by the chunin, the slap was hard enough to knock her on the floor. The green clad boy came to her side and helped her back to her feet.

"What's wrong with you?! We just want to be a chunin, just like you!"

The chunin smirked. "The Chunin Exam aren't easy. I failed three times before I was promoted. Chunins are team leaders and are responsible for the lives of your comrades. No way a kid can do that."

The girl wanted to retort but Sasuke stepped in front of her before she could get a word off. "Just release the genjutsu, will ya? Honestly, how stupid do you think we are?"

The other genin murmured to themselves and their teammates, wondering what Sasuke was talking about. Naruto let a knowing smirk slip his features while Sakura chuckled slightly herself, it was obvious from the very beginning.

The chunin smirked. "You noticed? I must say I'm surprised, even for the 'Rookie of the Year'."

Sasuke smirked confidently at his title. "It wasn't difficult to see through. We were laughing about how lame of a trick it was when we first walked up. But seriously, how could anyone not realize this was the second floor?"

Instantly, the sign '301' changed to show the correct number. The chunin released the hand seal and went on his way up to the third floor. Team Seven was about to follow but the green suited boy stepped in front of them. He flashed a very toothy smile and held a thumbs up.

"My name is Rock Lee! If you're the 'Rookie of the Year' then you must be Sasuke Uchiha. Fight me!"

"Enough Lee. Aren't you the one who said we needed to keep a low profile?"

A kid with long black hair and pale, white featureless pupils and a beige colored shirt, along with bandages wrapped around his right arm and right leg, came forward and stood next to Lee. As did the girl with the Chinese bun style hair.

"Jeez Lee, we don't need to cause a scene."

"Neji, Tenten, I must do this! I cannot contain myself! This fight will be a great way to show how far I've come to beating you, Neji!" The boy proclaimed.

"Are you three done?" Naruto groaned. "We'd like to go and start this thing already."

Team Seven turned and started towards the stairs that led to the third floor. Naruto and Sasuke went up the stairs first. Sakura was about to but, somehow, Rock Lee had closed the distance between them and stood between her and the stairs.

"You are an angel. How would you like to be my girlfriend?"

The strange genin gave her a quick wink before blowing her a kiss, causing Sakura to visible cringe and shutter. The poor girl was clearly caught off guard and really had no idea what to respond with.

"Hey, Bushy Brows, get lost."

Lee turned around to see the blonde-haired kid with the odd whisker marks on his face. He was clearly not amused by Lee's attempt to capture Sakura's heart. Lee could clearly see two things, this boy had feelings for the pink haired kunoichi and he was not be messed with. Lee may be clueless but he knew when someone was strong, and Lee could tell Naruto was very strong.

"It seems you are my rival in love! I must fight you for her hand in love! What is your name?"

"Naruto Uzumaki. Now, get out of Sakura's way. We need our full team to be in the Chunin Exams."

Lee moved out of the way and Sakura scurried past Naruto and up the stairs to where Sasuke was waiting. The blonde eyed the green clad genin, it was apparent this kid was no joke. The bandages that covered his forearms suggested that he was a taijutsu expert, and the out of place orange leg warmers on his shins were obviously hiding something. Chakra weights, Naruto was pretty sure about that.

"We will meet again, Naruto Uzumaki. Our fight will be one that I will remember forever!"

Naruto wanted to brush off the statement but knew he couldn't, he wanted to fight this guy too. It would be a straight brawl, if his hunch about him being a taijutsu expert was correct. The blonde simply nodded and went back up the stairs, where his team was waiting for him.

Lee watched Naruto ascend the stairs while he waited for his team as well. Tenten looked at Lee in slight confusion. "What's with you Lee? I've never seen you like this before."

"I feel Gai sensei's teachings lighting a fire inside me! The power of youth fuels my drive! I will beat both Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha and claim Sakura's heart in the name of love! That is my goal!"

Both Neji and Tenten deadpanned at Lee's loud and 'youthful' statement.

-With Team 7-

"You good, Sakura?"

Sakura shivered again. "That guy was just plain creepy, and that hair cut is not attractive at all!"

Naruto chuckled slightly and Sasuke couldn't hold back an amused smirk. Team 7 continued down the hall towards the actual room '301'. A large set of double doors awaited the team at the end of the hall. The three looked at each other and nodding, letting each other know that they all were ready and wanted to go through with this.

Team Seven opened the doors and entered the next room. When Kakashi said that this year had the highest turn out in the past few years, Naruto thought he was joking. He wasn't. What Naruto expected was there to be a quite a few people present but there was a ton of genin. If he was to guess the amount of people in the room the number would easily be above the one hundred and sixty mark.

"Wow…Kakashi sensei wasn't kidding about the highest turn out…there's so many people in here."

Sasuke scoffed and smirked at Sakura's statement before glancing at her. "Yeah, but we're the strongest team this room. There's nothing to be worried about."

Sakura nodded and scanned the room, hoping to see someone she knew. There weren't any familiar faces as far as she could tell but she did notice someone with red hair. She really didn't want to think about that guy, he gave Sakura a deeper scare than Zabuza ever did.

"Sasuke!" Ino shouted as she jumped on the black-haired boy's back.

"Get off Sasuke, Ino-Pig! He doesn't want some pig like you weighing him down!"

Ino unhooked herself from Sasuke but stayed directly next to him. Naruto still couldn't tell were he should be sorry or envious of him for the attention he was given. Then he noticed the bleach blonde's teammates come up to them.

Team 10: Shikamaru Nara, Chōji Akimichi, and Ino Yamanaka. Shikamaru was a lazy bum, and that was putting it lightly, who always complained about everything. Naruto was pretty sure that Shikamaru thought breathing was a chore. But the Nara boy's I.Q was second to none, easily being the smartest one in their entire generation. Chōji was true fat boy, always eating and complaining constantly when he didn't have some type of food in front of him. Ino was Sakura's rival in love, the two of them had been competing for Sasuke's attention since day one of the academy. Her and Chōji didn't seem to have much of a chance in the exams, but Shikamaru would certainly come up with a plan to get them through most of it.

"Well, well, everyone's all assembled."

Team 8: Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, and Hinata Hyuuga. Kiba, and his ninja hound dog Akamaru, was probably the loudest out of the academy, he always considered himself the boss of anything he was involved in. Shino was very quiet and reserved, Naruto didn't know much about him. Hinata was possibly more reserved than her teammate. To be honest, Naruto thought the girl was a bit weird, every time he looked in her direction she blushed and looked away. He never really thought about that much.

"Geez, not you guys too." Shikamaru groaned.

"All nine of the genin rookies are taking the exam, I see. I wonder how far we all will get, eh Sasuke?"

Ino became visibly agitated when Kiba, who she thought was a loser, started talking to Sasuke.

"Pft…you seem confident Kiba."

"We did a lot of training specifically for the exams. We won't lose to the likes of you."

This time, it was Naruto who scoffed at Kiba's comment. "You're all talk Kiba, Sasuke would never lose to you."

Kiba eyed the blonde up and down before responding. "And who are you to say anything? You rarely ever came to class, even when you did all you did was sleep."

"Yeah, I needed to rest from all the real training I was doing. And who was it that scored the only perfect on the graduation exam and never lost a sparring match?"

Kiba growled and closed the distance between him and Naruto. Hinata seemed to say something, probably trying to stop Kiba from causing a scene, but she was too timid and shy to speak up.

"I don't get your deal man. You think you're better than everyone else because you had some training with the Sandaime during the academy, well you're not."

"Actually, Ojiisan never trained me directly. I did most of that myself."

Kiba growled again as he anger grew, Akamaru whimpered as a sign for his owner to calm down. "I thought you might've changed, become less of an asshole, I thought wrong."

"You guys should be quieter, stop drawing attention to yourselves. It is the dumbest thing you could be doing right now."

An older boy drew the attention of the nine rookies as he made his way towards the small group, He wore a pair of black glasses, and his grey hair was pulled back into a small ponytail. And it was very apparent that his favorite color was purple because his fingerless gloves, shirt, and pants were all different shades of purple.

Kiba shot a confused look at the boy. "Who the hell are you?"

The boy was not fazed by Kiba's brash question. "My name is Kabuto Yakushi. And my suggestion is that you take a look around."

Most of the nine rookies took the opportunity to look at their surroundings, and to their shock and horror nearly every single person the room was glaring at them.

"Some of the villages here are known for having short tempers and will target you if you piss them off. Try to keep your outbursts to a minimum from here on out."

Sakura looked back at Kabuto. "You seem to know a lot about the exams, is this your second time taking it?"

Kabuto laughed slightly and shook his head. "Heavens no, this is my seventh time."

That was a reality check for the rookie nine, they suddenly realized that these exams might be a lot harder than they had previously first thought.

"Your seventh time? You must be a pro at this by now."

"You could say that. I've gathered quite a bit of intel during my four years of taking the Chunin Exams."

It was Shikamaru who spoke next. "What kind of intel?"

Kabuto reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards then taking selecting one from the pile. "These cards are filled with information that only I can activate." Kabuto laid the card face up in his left palm. The front of the card was completely blank and gave no indication that there was any information on it at all. "These are my personally created Ninja Info cards. All I have to do is channel some chakra through them and the info on the specific card will appear."

Sasuke forced his way into view, surprising everyone, as he stared at Kabuto, now very interested in Kabuto's cards. "Can you look up certain people on those cards?"

Kabuto nodded. "Yes. I have information on this year's participants, but the amount varies depending on the village."

"Gaara of the Desert."

Kabuto gave a slight smirk as he flipped through his cards. "You know the name, that makes this much easier."

While Kabuto looked through his deck of info cards, Naruto looked at him suspiciously. Why would he have information on this year's participants? And how? There was no way of telling who would enter the exams, or even predict that this year would have the highest amount in recent years. Hell, Team Seven wasn't entered until a few days ago. The boy kept his suspicions to himself but logged them in the back of his mind.

Kabuto held the card and pumped some chakra into it. "Gaara of the Desert…he's the same age as all of you. His two teammates are his brother and sister, Kankurō and Temari, and there is no information on a sensei. There isn't much on this guy, but he's already completed eight C-Rank missions and one B-Rank mission. His most impressive feat is that he came back from every mission completely unharmed."

Sasuke was surprised to hear this. A B-Rank mission as a genin and returning unharmed from that mission? How strong could this guy be? The black-haired Uchiha loved the idea of challenging Gaara and was growing more and more excited to do so.

"Anyone else want to know something?" Kabuto asked.

"Rock Lee of Konoha."

Kabuto glanced at Naruto, making sure he was the one who had requested it. He shuffled through his deck and pulled out the right card.

"Rock Lee…he's a year older than you and was highly praised for being an outstanding new genin. His team consists of Tenten and Neji Hyuuga with their sensei, Maito Gai. His taijutsu skills are very impressive, but his ninjutsu and genjutsu are nothing to be impressed by. He's completed twenty D-Rank missions and twelve C-Rank. This is also his, and his team's, first time taking the exam."

Naruto nodded and thought about the intel on Lee, considering options on how to possibly win a fight with him. If they were to fight that is, but Naruto was sure of it happening at some point.

"Anyone else?"

"Yeah, Naruto Uzumaki."

Kiba glared at the blonde Uzumaki boy, before looking back at Kabuto, who already had the card pulled out with the information ready.

"Naruto Uzumaki…there are no records of him of being in the village until the age of six. He was enrolled into the academy by the Hokage himself. His attendance was subpar at best, showing up for class on average once a week, but his graduation test score was the only the perfect in the class. He is a well-rounded ninja, having learned, at least, one jutsu of every chakra nature. Some have gone so far to label him as genius. There also seem to be SS-Rank classified files regarding Naruto, with only the Hokage and a select few to have access to them. His team consists of Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha with their sensei, the famed Copy Cat ninja, Kakashi Hatake. He's completed thirty-six D-Rank missions and one C-Rank mission that turned A-Rank, where he captured the Demon Brothers and fought on par with missing S-Rank ninja Zabuza Momochi."

All of the rookie nine, even Sakura and Sasuke, looked at Naruto in shock and confusion. If the boy wasn't already clouded in mystery enough he certainly was now. Having been stared and glared at for the past six years, Naruto was not fazed by everyone's eyes being on him.

"It never dawned on me that Naruto just showed up one day." Ino stated.

"So, what are you hiding, Naruto?"

Naruto looked over at Kiba. "Why do you care if I'm hiding something?"

"That's total bullshit if you have some secret hidden power!"

Naruto rolled his eyes, seemingly more amused than annoyed. "Yeah, because me having a hidden power so much different than Sasuke having the Sharingan, the Hyuuga clan having the Byakugan, or you having an extra partner only you can talk to. Unless you've been just bullshitting us by making us think you can talk to a dog."

Kiba had enough with this asshole insulting him and Akamaru. It was high time someone set him straight! Kiba quickly closed the distance between himself and Naruto but before he could do anything a giant cloud of smoke appeared in the front of the room.

"Everyone shut up and listen!"

Everyone's attention was drawn to the loud, booming voice that came out of the cloud of smoke. It quickly vanished and roughly fifteen Konoha shinobi stood behind a single man. The man wore a trench coat over a simple button up grey vest. His face had two large scars on his face and he wore his hitaiate like a bandana.

"My name is Ibiki Morino, and I'll be your examiner for the first part of the exam. And I'm going to make one thing clear. If anyone fights without an examiner's permission, you and your team will instantly be failed. There is no fighting for this part of the Chunin Exam…that comes later!"

Ibiki turned towards one of the shinobi standing next to him and took a small tile from the man's hand. "Everyone will come up here and grab a number tile to determine where you sit."

It took about twenty minutes before every single person in the room had grabbed a tile and found their assigned seat. All the genin were patiently waiting for further instructions. Naruto tapped his fingers on the desk as he waited, patience was never Naruto's strong suit when it came to tests. He glanced to his left and right, seeing who was seated around him. There was only one person he knew, Hinata Hyuuga.

The Uzumaki could tell that the dark blue-haired kunoichi was nervous. Whether it be because of the exam itself, her teammate nearly starting a brawl with him, or it could be the fact the girl had a crush on him. Naruto did not know or really care. Though, the blonde always wondered why she had a fixation on him, it's not like he did anything special for her. The girl was attractive, in her own right, and Naruto could foresee her becoming very beautiful as she grew up, along with the rest of his former female classmates.

"Now then, to go over the rules of the written test. First, there will be no talking: anyone who talks out of turn will fail instantly. Second, if you fail then your team will also fail. No exceptions. Third, this exam will be completed in one hour. There are ten questions that you'll have to answer correctly in order to make it through to the next stage of the exam. You begin with ten points and each question you get wrong you'll lose a point. Answer all ten questions incorrectly and you fail, along with your team. Also, take notice that the other proctors are seated around the room. They are there to catch anyone stupid enough to cheat, you will lose two points if you are caught…so don't get caught."

Naruto raised his eyebrow. 'That last comment seemed so unnecessary…I'm stunned cheating isn't an instant fail.'

"You have one hour. Begin!"

-One hour later-

Naruto stood from his seat and stretched slightly with a yawn, he had put his head down and a fell asleep when he had figured out the secret to the test.

'It was pretty obvious what they wanted. With all the chunin in the room and that off the wall comment about not getting caught cheating, the point to the test couldn't have been clearer. They wanted us to cheat. To gather information without getting caught is a ninja's main job out on a mission. If you're too obvious then you'll die out on an actual mission. It was never about the questions but rather how well you gather the intel without being detected.'

The blonde, however, decided to push his luck and prove a theory he had. He wished he could see the look on that jōnin proctors face when he would look over his test. The only thing on Naruto's test paper was his name and nothing else.

"You all did well to make it through this part of the exam. You are the ones that actually have the guts and determination to possibly become the ninja we need. But the exam only gets harder from here on out. Now, head outside and you'll meet your instructor for the second stage of the exam."

The passing genin excitedly talked among themselves as they made their way out of the exam building. Once all made it outside, the proctor greeted them loudly.

"There's no time for celebrating! I'm the next examiner for the second test! My name is Anko Mitarashi and you'll be following me from now on!"

All the genin, including Team 7, had no idea what to think about this woman. She had violent hair set in fanned ponytail and wore a tan trench coat over a mesh bodysuit, that seemed to cover her entire body down to her thighs, and a dark orange mini skirt.

Anko looked over the crowd of genin and shook her head. 'Seventy-six, huh. Your test was way too easy Ibiki. Oh well, when I'm through with them at least half will be gone.'

"Alright! We're going to the next testing site! Let's go, you maggots!"

The large crowd of genin followed the new instructor, Naruto stayed next to Sakura and Sasuke.

"What do you think this next test will be?"

Both Sasuke and Naruto glanced back at the pink-haired girl who seemed both nervous and excited about what was coming.

"Who knows. I'm just itching for something more exciting, I want to fight people, not take more written tests."

Naruto nodded in agreement, he, too, was ready to some action. Sakura, however, wasn't as excited about the idea of fighting other people as much as her two male counterparts.

"Yeah, I guess…honestly, I wouldn't mind another written test."

Naruto shot a small smile to Sakura. "Don't be so worrisome, Sakura. You've been training and already have improved so much. And Sasuke and I are more than enough to protect you during the exams if something were to happen. It's going to be okay, Sakura."

The blonde's words seemed to have reassured the pink-hair girl as she nodded and returned the smile.

"Looks like Naruto isn't being an asshole for once."

"Oh grow up Sasuke."

Sakura was confused by her teammates bickering. "I don't understand, why do you and Kiba keep calling Naruto an asshole, Sasuke?"

"You didn't talk to Naruto much when he showed up for classes at the academy, did you Sakura?"

The girl shook her head.

"Well, if you did, you would've realized how much of a jerk he used to be."

"I was going through some stuff, sue me. And it's not like you were any better Sasuke."

Sasuke rolled his eyes and didn't respond to the blonde's comment.

"What kind of stuff were you going through, Naruto? Do you want to talk about?"

Naruto's demeanor suddenly changed, emotion disappeared from his eyes and face as he kept his gaze on the path ahead of him. "It won't make a difference, why talk about it now? All it will be is a waste of time, just like everything else."

Sasuke raised his eyebrow and looked at his blonde teammate in slight concern. Never had he heard Naruto speak like this, it seemed totally unlike him. But then again, there was so much Sasuke didn't know about Naruto. And the possibly of Naruto going through something as traumatic as he did isn't completely out of the question. Maybe it had something to do with him living outside the village before the academy.

Sakura's concern for Naruto skyrocketed even more than it already was from the other day. The more he started to finally open up to them, the more she realized that Naruto held a lot of his true emotions and personal thoughts in. Whatever happened to Naruto that made him bitter towards the world, or possibly himself or someone, but it must've been bad. Sakura came to see that Naruto, despite a somewhat rough exterior, was a kind-hearted person deep down. Letting Haku go, changing Inari's attitude, and being a 'big brother' to Konohamaru showed Sakura that Naruto has a caring side to him.

Sakura wanted to comment on Naruto's statement but was interrupted when Anko suddenly stopped in front of a tall and long chain-linked fence that surrounded a massive forest.

"This is practice area 44, or better known as, the Forest of Death!"

Anko took two scrolls out of her pocket, one with the kanji for 'earth' inscribed on it and the other with the kanji for 'heaven'.

"You will be spending the next seven days inside this area. Each team will be given one of these two scrolls. Heaven and earth. You must obtain the scroll you didn't get and safely make your way to the tower in the center of the forest. If you do this, then you pass the second stage. You have seven days to accomplish this task and killing is allowed, so try and not to get killed."

Anko was handed a large stack of papers by a chunin. She handed out a few stacks of the same paper to the crowd of genin.

"You'll need to sign these waivers because I'm not gonna be responsible for you guys killing each other. Also, opening the scroll you are given is prohibited and will result in you and your team's immediate disqualification, and I can't fully guarantee your lives if you do, so don't open a scroll."

Once everyone accepted the rules of the second part of the Chunin Exams, they turned in the needed paperwork to the desk and received one of the two scrolls. Team Seven was given the 'heaven' scroll. It took about thirty minutes for every team to get a scroll and walk to their designated gate of entry.

Naruto hand checked his gear, making sure he had everything he could possibly need for this next stage of the exam. Sakura and Sasuke did the same as they waited outside their gate. The blonde let out a sigh as he leaned against the fence, the proctor said it was going to be a couple of minutes before the signal was given that gave them the go ahead to enter the forest. His excitement was growing by the second, it was finally time to let loose and go wild!

Sasuke was equally as excited as his blonde teammate, he couldn't wait to start making his way into the forest. He wanted to start fighting people immediately. This was his chance to learn just exactly how strong he really was, and gauge himself to his blonde teammate.

Sakura was easily the least excited member of Team Seven, it wasn't hard to see why either. She was clearly the weakest member of the team, despite training on her own, and she was being thrown into a life or death situation. Naruto and Sasuke were more than plenty to get them all through the exam but that did not calm her anxiety on the situation.

Naruto noticed that Sakura looked nervous, simply by the fact that she continuously combed her fingers through her long pink hair.

"You okay, Sakura?"

The pinkette's head shot towards her blonde teammate. She quickly gave him a small, yet reassuring, smile. "Yeah, of course Naruto!" Then her smile faded and she looked concerningly at Naruto. "What about you? Are you okay? Is there anything you need to talk about?"

Naruto's concern for her quickly faded away from his features and now he showed no emotion. "Why do you want to know so badly? Knowing what I've been through isn't going to change anything."

Sakura was going to speak but it was Sasuke beat her to it.

"We're teammates, dobe. Telling us your experiences gives us a deeper trust than before. Tsunami said that back in the Land of Waves."

Sakura nodded. "Yeah exactly! We won't judge you Naruto. We're here for you."

Naruto looked at his teammates longingly, he felt an odd sensation spreading throughout his body. A feeling he had not felt in a long time. A deep care for those that surrounded him. He nodded slowly.

"Okay, I'll tell you. But only after we made through this stage and on to the next one."

"You promise?"

Naruto nodded again, a small smile gracing his lips. "Yeah. I promise."

There was a loud chiming bell that echoed through the air and the entry gate suddenly sprang opened.

"I guess that was the signal telling us that the test has started." Sasuke figured.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah. Let's get a move on!"