Chapter 26: Chunnin Exam(1)

Finally, the day for the Chunnin Exams arrived.

Naruto and Hinata's team arrived at the exam centre together. More like they tailed Naruto and Hinata who arrived together.

Everything was going just as canon. They passed the false room, trapped by Genjutsu. There they met team Neji, where two NPCs were pushing around Lee.

Naruto wanted to avoid the whole charade and his team, Hinata and Neji already knew about the Genjutsu so they wanted to move ahead when suddenly Lee intercepted Sasuke. He turned to Sakura, giving his best smile, "Please go out with me!!" he shouted.

Naruto turned around, initially, he wanted to avoid it, but now that he was witnessing it, it was quite fun.

Hinata felt a glare, she also turned around to see Neji giving her a provocative glare, to which Hinata just smirked and turned to look at the amusing spectacle in front of her.

"....No" Sakura just gave a simple no this time. There was no repulsion on her face.

Sakura has already been humbled by Hinata a couple of times and seeing Naruto beheading Zabuza like cutting a radish made her realize that she is nothing great in the grand scheme of things.

Lee understood what he needed to do. He then returned his eyes to Sasuke, his eyes brimming with determination and defiance.

"Sasuke Uchiha, I challenge you, the winner will get a chance to date Sakura."

Sakura wanted to intervene, she didn't want her already strained relationship with Sasuke to get worse because of Lee or create some misunderstandings.

Sasuke realized who was challenging him. He has already heard about Might Guy from Naruto and his feats in the fourth Ninja War.

To be honest, he wanted to learn the inner gates technique, but currently, he is being guided by Naruto and he had already told him about his training schedule for the next four years, which included learning the 8 gates technique.

He wanted to accept the challenge and learn how the student of the greatest taijutsu master spared against his sharingan. But before he can say anything, he notices Naruto looking at him with a mischievous smirk.

He got a bad feeling about all this. So instead of accepting the challenge, he resorted to ignoring the problem. He has already experienced being Naruto's tool for pranks and amusement.

Instead of responding, Sasuke poured chakra into his eyes, three tomoes appeared on, scarlet eyes. Next second, Lee was seen talking to empty air as Sasuke completely ignored him and moved in front of Naruto.

"Mou, you are no fun Sasuke, here I thought Konoha Times would get an article on the thrilling fight between two Konoha genins to get the favour of a certain pink-haired maiden."

"Uchiha Young Master's Tryst with a Civilian Kunoichi!!"

Hearing him, a faint blush appeared on Sakura as Sasuke groaned, meanwhile, Tenten and Hinata gave a light chuckle.

Neji looked like someone had asked him to return all the loan money with additional interest. He went ahead to dispel the genjutsu from Lee as Team Hinata and Team Naruto went towards the next floor.

Naruto had already decided to sleep during the exam, so he went ahead and took his seat, which was next to Hinata. The rest of the team stood near them as there was still time for the exam.

As the rest of the teams arrived, team Shikimaru and Team Neji also came and stood near them. While they were all engaged in conversation, Naruto and Hinata were in their world, behaving like a typical High school couple flirting with each other on the school desk.

A voice suddenly interrupted them much to Naruto's displeasure. Everyone from Team Hinata, Shikamaru Sasuke and Sakura had a look of shock on their face.

There is a rule that everyone has come to realize, both Naruto and Hinata absolutely hate to be disturbed when they are having a good time with each other. You might talk around them or even continue with your work in their vicinity, and they will not mind, but there is a single rule, don't specifically disturb them or try intruding in their zone.

And a white-haired bespectacled guy with a foolish smile exactly did that.

"Are you Naruto-kun and Hinata-san. I have heard a lot about you and your teams. You have excellent records and strength. I have also collected cards regarding everyone here. See, it's a simple ninjutsu. I have ....."

Kabuto started blabbering about his cards and what he had heard about Naruto, Hinata and Sasuke's strength and even started comparing with other contestants. He was unusually being a chatterbox here.

He wanted to lower their guards today because of orders from Orochimaru. He knew, with Naruto around, that getting Sasuke would not be easy. Even Orochimaru himself can't behead Zabuza in a direct conflict like this. So he wanted to use the tactics of poisoning.

In the forest of Death, Kabuto with his friendly personality join team seven and tries poisoning Naruto, so that Sasuke can marked. A direct confrontation is strictly against common sense.

Everyone listening to Kabuto rambling on about other competitors and giving them advice felt that he was a good man. They thought that this Konoha genin, who was not that talented at least had the will of fire in him. Even if he failed the chunnin exams seven times, he still gave away such crucial information to fellow Konoha shinobi. Truly an inheritor of the will of fire.

But, alas!!! this is where his road ends.

Naruto stood up from his place, and everyone around him backed off leaving only Kabuto in his vicinity. Kabuto also looked at Naruto this time, perplexed what was happening.

The atmosphere became quite tense. The constant noise from people discussing about the exam also stopped seeing the tense atmosphere towards the front seat around Naruto.

The sand trio and sound trio also took notice of it. They both wanted to say hello to Naruto, albeit for different reasons, one to know about what happens next in the manga while the other to know about their strength.

Naruto approached Kabuto. His height was the same as Kabuto, quite tall for a 12-year-old. He grabbed Kabuto's head and picked him up just like Yami picked up Asta but the scene was quite awkward as they both were of the same height.

Kabuto's instincts kicked in, and he was able to battle Kakashi, even if not at his level, still it speaks for his strength. He felt that if he didn't take action his head would be squashed.

The horror was that sensors including Kabuto didn't detect even an ounce of chakra being used by Naruto.

"Listen here you piece of shit! If you don't want to die, you will keep your mouth shut and forget about ever appearing in front of me. This time I am being generous and forgiving you."

Kabuto tried every trick even weaving signs of ninjutsu, but no trick worked, and taijutsu was also ineffective. He never felt this powerless in front of anyone. Even in front of his master.

Naruto turned and threw him back like a baseball pitch. Kabuto collided with the wall and was visibly injured.

Kabuto himself felt that his injuries were also internal, but he was a good medic, so he could heal himself, but outwards, he only showed a few scratches and scars that were visible. He feigned his appearance as his mission required him to continue the exam.

He can make Naruto disqualify but that will also affect Sasuke so he didn't take such a drastic step and just used Mystic Palms in secret to heal himself.

Everyone looked at Naruto like looking at a monster. Both the groups of Sand and Sound refrained from approaching Naruto seeing his bad temper.

'He was such an amiable person that day. Maybe he is having a bad day or that guy must be his enemy.' thought the Sand trio.

'Konoha genins are scary.' thought the rest of them.

"You don't have to go that far. He was just trying to help us, and he is a fellow Konoha shinobi." voiced Tenten and the rest of them nodded.

Even Sasuke and Hinata looked at him quizzically as if asking, 'Wasn't that too much?' because they sensed that Kabuto was internally injured and was not letting it reflect on his appearance.

"His name is Kabuto Yakushi"

"Yeah, we heard it when he said that." this time it was Shikamaru, who said that, he felt that something was wrong. Naruto was temperamental and had his quirks but this was out of the ordinary. Naruto never went this far and that too hurt a stranger just being friendly.

But Hinata and Sasuke understood after a few seconds. They recalled that Kabuto was the one behind impure world reincarnation in the fourth Ninja war.

They immediately sent a fierce glare towards a battered Kabuto. This was not missed by Shikamaru. There was a story behind this Kabuto guy and the three of them have some sort of enmity with the Kabuto guy.

But they didn't recognize him by face, but by name. Shikimaru with his keen intellect started detecting the anomalies here.

"What is happening here!!!" a loud shout came from Ibiki.