Ah, this chappie came a bit later than the other chapters. I dunno, maybe I should stretch the time limit to three weeks. I'll keep it two weeks for now though. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I frankly don't know how much longer I have to say this, but I DON'T OWN NARUTO, if that wasn't already clear.

OwOwO

Hinata nervously walked to her designated seat, right beside a Mist ninja she didn't know. She looked around for Naruto and Sasuke–they were seated far away from her.

I guess that's to be expected, she thought ruefully.

"The first exam will be a written test," Ibiki spoke tonelessly. He looked around at the genin. "If one person on your team fails, then everybody else does so as well. Two points are taken off for cheating." He smirked. "Don't underestimate us, we have eyes all over the room." A ninja with his eyes bandaged leered at a poor genin. "When a person gets to zero points, they fail, along with their team."

Hinata looked at Naruto with wide eyes.

"You get 45 minutes for the first nine questions," Ibiki continued with narrowed eyes. "The last question will be the last 15 minutes. Your time starts now."

Hinata flipped over her paper and scanned the questions. I think I know some of these, she decided, but I'll have to use Byakugan for the rest. She looked at a certain blond jinchuriki. I wonder how Naruto and Sasuke are doing…

OwOwO

Sasuke smirked. The point of the test was clear. Cheat without being caught. Simple. He activated his Sharingan and found out Hinata was using her Byakugan. Smart girl, he mentally praised. Well, at least he knew he had a reliable source. He turned blood red eyes in Naruto's direction. The loser better not fail us.

OwOwO

Said loser was struggling. Naruto gripped his head, staring at the test. I should've listened to Kakashi-sensei when he said I needed to increase my knowledge book-wise, he thought mournfully. It was strange, though, why were only two points taken off for cheating. Naruto frowned at his paper. Maybe the goal of this… He perked up immediately. That was it! I need to cheat!

He whipped an arm up.

"I have to go to the bathroom!" He called.

Ibiki turned calculating eyes towards him. "Very well. A jonin will be sent with you to supervise whatever you're doing."

Naruto smiled nervously. This might complicate things a bit. "Heh, whatever, not like I'm going to cheat or something."

As he walked past in the direction of Sasuke's desk, a kid right next to him got disqualified.

"On your feet, number 102," A jonin sneered. "You're disqualified."

The boy gulped and got up. His teammates let out a frustrated huff and followed him out.

"You coming?" The jonin that Naruto was following leered at him. "No shady stuff, got it?"

Naruto coolly nodded and followed the man out.

Sasuke grinned at his test paper. This was going perfectly.

OwOwO

Naruto sat back, hands behind his head. The plan worked perfectly. He grinned at Sasuke, who rolled his eyes. Naruto studied his test. All the questions were answered, and it was only a matter of time before the tenth question was up.

"Alright, time's up," Ibiki announced. "Time for the tenth question." He grinned. "This question has a special…rule."

OwOwO

"Did you hear who was proctoring for the first exams?" Asuma popped out a cigar and lit it.

Kakashi nodded. "Last I checked it was Ibiki Morino."

Asuma laughed. "Those poor genin better be watching their step."

Kurenai narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, I forgot you're new here." Asuma turned to her, face solemn. "Ibiki just happens to be a torture and investigation specialist."

"He doesn't need any force to get those students shivering in their pants." Kakashi looked up from his book. "He knows how to really mess up your head."

Kurenai took in this information with wide eyes. "Oh."

"So, how do you think your kids will do, Asuma?" Kakashi continued to read. "Worried?"

Asuma blew out a puff of smoke. "Shikamaru will do just fine, if he bothers to try, that is. Ino and Choji have their own methods. They're basically set."

"Mine as well," Kurenai chimed in. "Sakura is amazing at this thing–no cheating needed. Kiba has Akamaru, and Shino has his insects."

"What about you, Kakashi?" Asuma asked. "I hear that Naruto is on your team. Isn't he, I don't know, dead last?"

Kakashi smiled slyly. "Ah, Naruto. Surprising kid, to be honest. You never know what he has up sleeve."

Kurenai narrowed her eyes. "I can't wait to see how your genin match up with mine, Asuma, Kakashi."

Kakashi gave her a mock salute. "Same here."

Asuma grinned. "Who feels like betting?"

OwOwO

"The last question will decide whether or not you pass." Ibiki looked over the genin. "So I'll let you all decide whether or not you want to stay. If you leave, you can take the Chunin Exams again next time. If you stay, you have a chance to answer the question, and if you get it wrong…" He chuckled. "Well, you're going to be genin for the rest of your lives along with your teammate."

Hinata froze. What if I fail? She worried. Then I'll just drag all of us down…

She watched one by one, as genin raised their hand to be excused from the test. She watched one by one as they exited the classroom. Her hand shook.

No, Hinata! Naruto was watching her carefully. Just believe in yourself more! He widened his eyes when he saw her lift her arm a little.

He shot his arm up. Ibiki raised his eyes at him.

"There is no way I'm going to opt out!" Naruto yelled at him. "You can try all you want, but I will never back down! Even if I have to stay a genin forever I will become Hokage! That is my ninja way!"

Hinata lowered her hand. He's right, she realized. Giving up is not the answer.

Ibiki raised an eyebrow. That kid… He looked at the rest of the genin sitting at the table. Nobody else raised their hand. Some influence he is, he thought, partly amused.

"Well, then…" He paused. "Those who stayed pass."

"Huh?" Naruto tilted his head. "Wha?"

"That's right," Ibiki explained. "The first nine questions were given to test your information gathering skills. But this last question…it's the most important. It decides your courage and determination to go on, even though there is a chance you could fail."

He lifted his hands up and undid the wrappings around his head. Hinata silently gasped when she realized it was covered in scars.

Suddenly, a flash of purple broke straight through the window.

"Anko Mitarashi, at your service!" A purple-haired jonin posed dramatically with her large tan trenchcoat.

Ibiki sighed. "Anko, you're early."

"Huh?" Anko looked around, and then sheepishly scratched her head. "Sorry 'bout that, but holy–Ibiki, you barely failed anybody!"

Ibiki shrugged. "What can I say? They're a promising bunch."

"And the rookies are still here as well–" Anko shook her head. "By the time I'm done with them, half these squirts will be gone. Now, follow me!"

"Anko–" Ibiki cut himself off and watched the poor genin follow the over-enthusiastic proctor.

When everyone left, something came to Ibiki's mind as he collected a certain test paper.

"Hmm, Naruto Uzumaki," He murmured to himself. "What an interesting kid…"

OwOwO

"Hey, Kakashi," Asuma was reading a slip of paper. "Don't you want to know how your kids did?"

Kakashi didn't look up from his book. "Did they pass?"

Asuma frowned at the paper. "Yeah, but don't you want to know how they did?"

Kakashi shrugged. "As long as they passed–"

"It's recorded that Hinata, Sasuke, and Naruto all got decent scores," Kurenai continued the conversation for the two other jonin. "Excluding the final question, Hinata, Naruto, and Sasuke all got eight points. Points were only taken off due to cheating."

"How'd they cheat?" Kakashi asked, curious.

"Ah, so you do care," Kurenai noted, amused. "Well, since you want to know so badly, Hinata used Byakugan, but it says here that she answered some of them without it…"

Kakashi nodded. It was expected of her to use Byakugan, of course, and while he preferred that she had used it for the rest of the questions as a "just in case", he would accept her depending on her base intelligence.

"Sasuke copied off Hinata…"

Kakashi nodded once again in approval. It was wise of Sasuke to use a teammate as a source–someone else might be giving you false answers without you knowing any better.

"And Naruto," Kurenai widened her eyes in surprise. "Well, it says here that he used a transformation jutsu along with Sasuke, and substituted places with each other. They only found out after they realized too late that their chakra signatures were different."

Kakashi smiled smugly and turned to his fellow instructors. "Try to beat that."

Asuma rolled his eyes. "Well, Shikamaru passed, but I have a feeling that he just worked hard enough to barely do so. Ino used the mind transfer jutsu on Sakura, and then passed the information onto Choji using the same technique."

Kurenai sniffed haughtily. "It's nice to know that your students rely so heavily on mine, Asuma. Sakura got full points, Kiba used Akamaru, of course, which took off a few points, and then Shino used his insects. They all passed as well."

"Talking about our cute, little genin, are we?" A man in a bright green jumpsuit hopped into the conversation. "Why don't I brag a bit as well? After all, I can't have my eternal rival's students outshine mine, right, Kakashi?"

"Hmm?" Kakashi looked up from his book in a show of absolute boredom and uninterest. "What did you say?"

"Gah!" The man fell down in despair.

"Guy…" Kurenai shook her head.

OwOwO

"Here is where you'll be having the second stage of the Chunin Exams!" The proctor that reminded Hinata so much of Naruto waved at the large forest behind her. "The Forest of Death!"

Naruto peered at the said "Forest of Death".

"Seems like it's just a regular forest with a big name," He commented.

Suddenly, a kunai flashed by and scratched Naruto along his cheek. Anko appeared right behind him.

"You talk big, boy," Anko smiled sadistically and licked the blood off his face. "But do you have what it takes to cross "the regular forest with a big name"?

Naruto shivered. Anko was about to laugh, when a grass ninja walked up.

"I'm sorry." Hinata shivered. The grass ninja's voice was like a disgusting syrup, sickly sweet and slimy. "But I think you might've lost this." To add further to Hinata's repulsion, she stuck out an abnormally long tongue that had the kunai that Anko tossed wrapped in it.

"Thank you," Anko retrieved the weapon without a second thought. "Anyways, now, I need to explain the rules!"

She hopped away gracefully.

"Now, each team gets either a Heaven or Earth scroll. Your goal?" She gestured at the forest. "Get the other Heaven or Earth, respectively, and then get to the tower in the middle of the forest in the span of five days." She smiled sadistically. "In the forest, you have dangerous animals, poisonous plants, and enemy ninja." She stood up to finish her speech. "Go to that tent to receive your scroll, and good luck!"

Hinata took one more look at the strange grass ninja, and then followed Naruto and Sasuke to get a scroll.

"Who'll hold it?" Sasuke looked at the two.

"Ah, I'll lose it within the first five minutes," Naruto waved a hand. "You fine with holding it, Hinata?"

Hinata nodded slowly. "I-I think so…"

She timidly retrieved the scroll and placed it on the bottom of her backpack. "It should be safe."

She looked at the two. "Ready?"

"Ready," they both confirmed.

They stepped up to the forest entrance.

"And your time starts now!" Anko announced, and the three raced into the Forest of Death.

OwOwO

"You ready guys?" Sakura was eager to go into the forest.

"Why would you even care?" Kiba mumbled grumpily. "You were so obsessed with Sasuke to even notice us at the Chunin Exams."

"Oh, are you still on about that?" Sakura huffed. "It was like for two seconds, or something!"

"Kiba has a point," Shino uttered quietly. "You were pretty engrossed with the Uchiha."

"I just…" Sakura looked down. "I thought he'd notice me after all this time, you know, notice how much stronger I've gotten."

"Well, that was not the way to do it," Shino reprimanded Sakura. "You just further imprinted into his mind that you are still a clingy fangirl. You can show him that you've grown up from that phase by not being so openly fixated on him, and even just accepting that he does not have feelings for you. At least then, even if he doesn't share what you feel with him, you will still gain his respect for the person you are."

Sakura nodded. "Yeah…you're right. It's probably about time that I grew up."

Kiba laughed and patted the pink-haired kunoichi's back. "Don't worry, Sakura! If he doesn't like you, you can still hang up with Naruto! He still seemed to be pretty engrossed with you!"

"Shut up!" Sakura yelled, banging a fist into Kiba's head.

"I'd suggest you listen to Sakura, Kiba," Shino advised. "Remember that time when she put you into a genjutsu that had you believing that cats were taking over the world?"

Kiba gulped. That was not a pleasant memory to look back on.

Sakura cracked her knuckles threateningly. "Wanna try me, dog boy?"

Kiba cowered back, and Akamaru whined in fear.

Maybe they shouldn't have brought up Naruto.

OwOwO

Water Style: Stormy Blockade! Hinata thought while flashing through the hand signs. After having water pour onto the enemy ninja in front of her from the sky, she raced towards him with a palm that was flickering with a spark of lightning.

BAM!

The man flew backwards into a tree, dazed. One of his friends was laying on the floor, scorched, and the other was tied up by a bunch of clones. The man rubbed his eyes when his vision started getting hazy. They had started to attack the girl, thinking that she was the weak link of the team, but she had thrown jutsu after jutsu at them, which caught them off guard because the Hyuga were notorious for never steering away from their gentle fist.

A technique the girl had never used when they ambushed her team.

The ninja watched the girl through blurry eyes, as she approached his teammate.

"Please, don't…" He croaked out. "We have a scroll."

"Don't worry," The girl merely knelt down beside his fallen teammate. "I'm just going to fix him up a bit."

A hand that was glowing green was placed onto his burns, which, right before the man's eyes, started to patch up.

The girl walked to him. "I'm sorry," She said apologetically. "We have to take your Earth scroll now, but," She reached inside her pack. "We have an extra Heaven scroll, so here." She placed the scroll gently beside the man and retrieved the Earth scroll from him.

"Hinata, let's go already," Sasuke said. When he caught sight of the Heaven scroll next to the man, he scoffed. "You're too soft," He muttered.

Hinata smiled. "I don't believe that's necessarily a bad thing."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Tch."

The chunin secretly watching from the bushes wrote something onto the paper that was on his clipboard. He shook his head when he saw Hinata give away their Heaven scroll; the Uchiha was right. She was too soft. But all in all, commendable action with the enemy ninja, he thought. She had artfully used lightning and water style jutsu, the Uchiha had showcased a fireball that was well over expectations for his age, and Naruto, whom the chunin had heard as "dead last", had shown great use of shadow clones, and decent taijutsu. A few things knocked off because of the Hyuga and because the Uzumaki tripped over his own clone once, but great work–for genins, that is. The man was getting ready to leave when he sensed a strange presence. He scoped forwards, and was met with the sight of a huge snake–wait.

Nothing this big and dangerous was kept inside the forest, not even the most deadly creatures were at this level. And weren't snakes…

He had to get the information to Anko, to the elite jonin, heck, this was Hokage business! He started making a run for it, this was vital.

"Well, well, well."

The man froze at the sight of a female Grass ninja, but it was her, or was it a he?, eyes that kept him paralyzed in fear.

"Look, the little mouse wants to run," the Grass ninja laughed, and a smirk that was positively disgusting grew on her face. "You know what happens to prey, don't you?"

The man gulped and raised his hand to fire an emergency signal–CHOP. The chunin stared at the now useless hand on the floor, carrying a flare just like his–

The man reeled over, dry heaving on the branch. The Grass ninja grinned and nudged him off, sending him falling into the giant snake that was waiting patiently for its next meal.

"Dinner." The Grass ninja waved her hand dismissively. "This should keep you full long enough to devour the blond-haired brat, and then…" She licked her lips with her unnaturally long tongue. "Sasuke will be mine."

OwOwO

"So I've been thinking," Sasuke said while taking a drink of water while they were resting on the forest floor. "What if we get split up? We can't just trust appearances–you have a simple transformation jutsu to thank for that. We need a solid method to confirm we are who we say we are."

"How are we going to do that?" Naruto asked.

"A password," Sasuke answered. "A secret one, something known only to the three of us. Do not trust anyone who doesn't know it, no matter what."

Hinata nodded.

"Okay, listen closely because I only want to say this once." He paused to look both at Hinata and Naruto. "The question is: when does a ninja strike? And the response: a ninja waits until the time is right, when the enemy sleeps and drops his guard, when his weapons lie forgotten in the stillness of the night. That is the moment for a ninja to strike. Got it?"

"Mhm," Hinata confirmed. "Got it."

They both looked at Naruto.
"Uhh, you got one a little shorter?" He asked, scratching the back of his head nervously.

"No, not at all, that's it," Sasuke replied curtly. "Unless you're incapable of memorizing this one?"

"No, no, I got it, I got it," Naruto protested. "No problem! I just thought it was gonna be a password, not a past speech."

"Naruto, are you sure?" Hinata asked anxiously.

"Don't worry about him," Sasuke told Hinata. "Let's go now." He stood up and dusted off his shorts. "I'll carry the Earth scroll, and you carry the Heaven, that fine with you?"

Hinata nodded, a tad bit uncertainly, but stood up as well.

"Wait, Sasuke–" Naruto's words were cut off when something sharp cut across his cheek.

Suddenly, a large gust of wind blew into the three.

"What is it now?" Sasuke exclaimed, bracing himself against the huge torrent of wind.

Everything was whipped around, in and out of their sight. The members of Team 7 braced themselves.

I guess the password will really have to be used now, Sasuke thought humorlessly as he was swept away.

OwOwO

When the dust cleared, three ninja lay in its wake, one of them was the grass ninja that killed off the chunin that dared to ruin her plans.

"You two, spread out and search the forest," She commanded. "I'll handle this one by myself."

OwOwO

Cliff hanger! Again! Because this correctly represents the end of 99.9% of all Naruto episodes that have fights and are not fillers. As for ships, to be honest, I've always held a sweet spot for NaruSaku, possibly because they have more chemistry in the Naruto anime SO FAR. I am not done, so I don't know who'll be with who yet. I think NaruHina would be a nice ship, but NaruSaku...that just hits different. So it's quite possible that will happen. Also, NaruHina would be a bit...predictable, no? I want to challenge and cause more pain to myself with a SasuHina! That's my so far plan. But I can add tidbits of all three throughout the story ;). REVIEW.