Upon entering the room, team 7 were met by a classroom filled with genin. Dozens and dozens of shinobi from several different villages were ready to take on the first phase of the Chunin Selection Exams. The image was almost intimidating to the inexperienced rookies of Konoha.

It did not take long for the first team to approach them. It was team 10, which included Ino, Chouji and Shikamaru. However, their attitude towards their reunion was not exactly as cheerful or intense as they expected. There was even a hint of suspicion in the air.

"You must be very eager to die to participate after the beating you took." Said the boy of the ponytail, whose face showed nothing but unwillingness to be there.

Chouji simply stood firmly, eating chips from the bag he was holding. Carefully staring at each member of team 7.

"Ami? What the hell are you doing here?!" Yelled Ino. She was as abrasive as ever, and her bursts of anger usually scared those not used to her character.

The purple-haired girl smirked and then shrugged. Her playful smile, that of a prankster, even gave a slight flavor of ill intentions.

"I've replaced your best friend, as she unfortunately died." It was hard to tell if she was laughing about Sakura's death or about Ino's anger.

"You piece of-" Ino tried to jump on the purple-haired girl, but Chouji made sure to grab her by the arm before she could actually attempt anything.

Ami giggled.

"You know her?" Asked Naruto, who was only able to realize that he was missing some context.

"We all do, idiot." Replied Shikamaru.

Ino got out of Chouji's grip, but did not continue her approach against Ami. Instead, she fixed her purple clothes and turned to look at the blonde boy.

"She was Sakura's bully back in the academy." Upon the revelation, Sasuke gave the purple-haired girl a stare filled with killing intent. Naruto, on the other hand, seemed more surprised than furious. "I have no idea how you accepted her into your team."

"It wasn't our decision." Grunted Sasuke after looking away.

"I'm stronger than her anyways, let's be honest."

"Woah, Ami?!" Another voice said as a different team approached the two that were already interacting. "No way!"

As they reached the other two trios, it was revealed that the voice came from Kiba Inuzuka. He had two red markings on each cheek, while his wide smile revealed the fangs that were characteristic for the Inuzuka clan. Next to him were his teammates, the silent Shino Aburame and the shy and nervous Hinata Hyuga.

"Nice to see that the gang's all reunited!" Continued Kiba. "Though, I'm quite disappointed that Sakura didn't make it."

"Sasuke seems injured." Whispered Shino, who made sure only his female teammate picked up what he was saying.

Hinata nodded, it was quite obvious that his posture was odd, and his way of walking was awkward. Almost limping. However, she had spent most of the time carefully analyzing Naruto, and she was glad to find that he was fine. Perhaps too fine.

"Yeah, yeah. It would be nice if you all did us a favor and shut up, though!" A stranger's voice caught the attention of the rookies, who turned around.

It came from a silver-haired shinobi, whose hair was tied into a ponytail while two bangs of hair still flowed over his hitai-ate. He wore a pair of circular glasses.

"This isn't a school trip!"

A couple of days had gone by quite quickly. Piccolo was yet to return, but the half-blood was still able to pick up his Ki. He obviously let his master remain alone, as he probably had a good reason to have gone so far away. It also meant, though, that Gohan didn't have much to do other than fishing and hunting.

He was left with many free hours in between foods, while Sakura spent a lot of that time napping, as she was still recovering. It had surprised Gohan how, even after a coma, the girl could sleep so much. He figured their 'Chakra' had to be a lot more wasteful than Ki, which wasn't a good look since it was also much weaker.

As he sat outside in the clearing taking some sunlight, he figured he could continue his training. It had been a considerable amount of time since they arrived at that strange Earth, and yet he had completely abandoned his training so far. His father would not like it to see him slacking off, if he could.

He got up, stretched a little and proceeded to improvise a training session for himself. All knowing from the get go that nothing there would be like the training with his father in the Time Chamber. Perhaps he could ask Piccolo for some tips.

The hours went by flying, and Gohan had spent it all training nonstop. The sun was very intense, so he took his shirt off to cool off a little. And after so long, he decided to relax a little by just lifting sets of three trees as weights.

That's the image that Sakura found when she came out of the hut after having woken up from her nap. She was yawning before she noticed that Gohan was using whole trees as weights. Her mouth did not close after the yawn due to the shock.

At least, that explained the boy's muscles.

"Are you sure you guys aren't demons?" She asked, laughing nervously.

Gohan turned around, surprised to find that the girl had woken up. He let the trees fall down, creating a small crater around them.

He spoke while wiping some of the sweat that rested on his forehead. "Well, I'm just improvising. I normally don't use trees."

As the boy laughed nervously, the pink-haired could only stare in shock at the literal craters–even if small ones–formed on the ground from the sheer weight of the trees.

"What the hell are you even training for?" Asked the girl, still in disbelief.

Gohan put his hand over his chin as he carefully thought about it. "Well, I've always trained very hard since I was a little kid. But I guess there's no big threat anymore."

"Big threat? And how little?"

"I was probably 4 years old when Mr. Piccolo trained me for the first time." He scratched his messy hair as he spoke.

Sakura's jaw fell to the ground. Inside, she could only think of the tortuous training he had to be put through as a little boy.

"Why so young?"

The boy laughed nervously. "Well, let's say my uncle attacked us and when my father defeated him, he told us two of his friends, who were far stronger, were also going to attack and kill everyone."

Forcefully trained as a toddler, forced to fight and on top of all that, family drama! What a childhood. Sakura was starting to be glad that she came from a healthy family of commoners.

"It's a complicated story." Gohan admitted while laughing it off.

"How old are you now?" If she was to guess, she would say the boy was older than her. Possibly around 15 or 16 years old. He looked young, but on the latter end of puberty, especially due to his muscles.

"I'm 12 years old." Said the half-blood with a smile on his face.

He was in fact younger. Sakura fell on her back at the shocking revelation. Younger than them, and stronger than Kakashi. She figured her master was not lying, after all.

Gohan helped her up, and she wiped some of the dirt and grass from her clothes. At that point, she really wanted to wash her clothes. She really missed her home.

"How about you?"

She was trying to clean the metal of her hitai-ate as the boy spoke. She raised her head to look at him and replied.

"Well, I'm 13. Not much older than you."

"I see."

A short, uncomfortable silence took over the place in between them once again. The girl just continued to wipe some of the dirt off her clothes. She also tried to fix her hair a little, as she had not taken a bath for days now.

However, there was a question that was going around the boy's mind, and he was curious. Piccolo probably wondered a little about it, too.

"So, would you mind telling me about that 'Chakra' you use?"

The first exam went by normally. The majority of the bunch quickly figured the whole point was to cheat, while some others like Naruto were too desperate and nervous to realize. The latter's exam was left completely empty all the way to the last question, and so was Ami's. Academic knowledge was not exactly her area of expertise either, but she was certainly a very good cheater.

In the end, twenty-six teams made it through the exam. Ibiki, the very tall and bulky proctor of the exam, had expected his first exam to really filter far more shinobi than it ended up doing. He had created a new set of rules and a new methodology, and yet it seemed like this new generation was ready to stand up to the challenge. Instead of being frustrated by the outcome, he didn't seem too bothered.

Immediately after the leader of Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Unit declared that the exam had finalized, what seemed like a meteor entered the classroom through one of the windows. Very quickly, four kunai were placed on the ceiling and the floor. Each one was tied to one of the four corners of a piece of cloth with a phrase written on it in kanji.

Once the cloth had been neatly placed right in front of the previous proctor, the second one landed on the floor and revealed herself as the responsible for the spectacular entrance.

A young woman of spiky, violet hair styled in a short fanned-out ponytail. Her clothes were quite revealing, as she wore a custom outfit made of thin metal mesh, which covered from neck to thighs. On top of it, she only wore a brown mini-skirt and a tan overcoat. Despite being a jounin, she wore no uniform nor pieces of armor, other than a pair of metallic shin guards.

"None of you are in any position to celebrate!" She declared with her loud and flaming confidence. Very similarly to how Naruto tended to declare his intentions of being a Hokage. "I am the second Chief Examination Officer, Mitarashi Anko!"

Everyone in the room cringed at how intense she was. And from behind, Ibiki removed the cloth from his face to peek and look at her.

"Time's running out! Let's go!"

Ibiki cleared his throat, and successfully gained the woman's attention. "Can you not sense the mood in here?"

She quickly scanned the room, looking for an excuse to turn the situation against Konoha's top torturer. Quite luckily, she was quick to find such an excuse.

"Seventy-eight are still here?!" She yelled while placing her hands on opposite sides of her waist. "Ibiki, you obviously went too easy on them!"

He smirked. Quite confidently, in fact. "Well, this year we got a talented bunch."

"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say." She looked away. "Whatever. I'll cut them by half or less by the time my exam is over!"

Her smile grew in size and adopted a playful, even malicious nature. Her body started to even shake a little from the excitement. Still next to her, Ibiki could only cringe at her behavior.

"Ooh! Hehehehe…" She giggled softly, almost to herself, imagining how her exam would unfold. "Let's go! Now! I'll explain the details once we move to our next location. Last one to arrive is dead meat!"

"So that's it, huh?" He scratched his chin. "It kinda sounds like Ki, but also a lot more… specific."

Both him and Sakura were sitting right in front of each other. Some of his sweat had gone dry now, which meant he was a little more smelly. However, their conversation had continued normally.

"Though seeing how quickly you recover from all that training, maybe Ki is less wasteful." Sakura thought about it a little. "I guess it depends on each person's Chakra control."

"But then I wonder why you can't fly." Gohan said. "It's not very hard to learn to do it with Ki."

The pinkette shrugged. She wasn't exactly sure, but it probably had to do with how heavy they were, which would make it quite costly for them to try and fly.

"There's a legend that says the Tsuchikage and his family have a secret jutsu that allows them to fly. But then he would be the only person able to do it."

"Tsuchikage…. No idea who he is." The half-blood shrugged.

Sakura looked away while thinking about something. She had an idea, but was unsure on the logistics of it. Could she even learn such a thing if she was a Chakra user?

"Um, Gohan." She began.

The boy raised both of his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"Could you teach me how to fly, like you and…" She tried her best not to call the other one 'The Green Guy'. "Mr. Piccolo?"

He nodded and shrugged. "Sure, why not?"