Chapter 46 May the Exam begin

This was the day, the day that Naruto and his friends would enter into the chunin exams. He had barely gotten any sleep that night as he had been too excited. When he caught up with his teammates he could tell that both of them looked to have a little trouble sleeping as well. But they were all looking forward to this.

They made their way to the academy, Naruto wanted to run there but both teammates held him back. Sakura scolded him to keep his excitement down, they needed to focus and there was no telling what they would be up against. As they made their way there, Team 7 noticed other teams going to the building.

"Looks like a few other teams are here," Naruto muttered looking at the different forehead protectors. "I can see a Grass Nin team and is that a Mist headband?"

"Looks like it," Sasuke said seeing the three man team Naruto pointed out.

Naruto felt a bit nervous about that, it was a good thing that Zabuza wasn't here with Haku. He had wanted to know if they could come but his dad had warned him that it was a bad idea the last time Naruto sent a letter to Wave. After all, Zabuza was 'officially' listed as dead and if someone recognized the man it wouldn't have been good.

"Looks like Iwa finally sent a team this year," Naruto muttered seeing the markings of the Village Hidden in the Rocks. His dad had told him stories of the last Great War, there were still hard feelings between the villages, mainly from Iwagakure since they had lost the war. Normally when Konoha held the chunin exams Iwa didn't always send a team. Apparently this year things were different.

"Hey, out of the way Shorty," said a voice that came behind Team 7.

Naruto turned to see who called him that, as he was still a bit sensitive about his height. Behind him was an older boy in some kind of black suit with purple face paint and something on his back. With them was a blonde girl and standing a little off to the side was a red headed boy. There was something off with the last one; he just kept staring into space looking bored. He was kind of creepy looking too.

"What did you call me?" Naruto challenged him.

"You heard me," the boy said.

"I think the last person that should insult someone, is a guy who wears makeup on his face!" Naruto shouted out at him.

"What the hell did you say!?" The older boy said angrily. "This is war paint you little shrimp!"

"Call me that again and you'll need more makeup to cover the bruises on your face."

"That's enough Naruto," Sakura said to him knowing his temper. "Are you three Sand ninja, our villages are supposed to be allies so I apologize for his behaviour."

"But he started it," Naruto whined but was silenced by an angry glare by Sakura.

"Kankuro that's enough out of you as well," The blonde said to him.

"Oh come on Temari," Kankuro said back. "I was just having some fun."

"Be that as it may, the girl is right." Temari glared at her younger brother. "We're here for the chunin exams and I won't let you get us getting kicked out for fighting with a team when we haven't even gotten into the building.

"We're wasting time." The red headed boy suddenly said. "We're moving, now."

The way the boy spoke was something that Team 7 couldn't miss, he was quiet but there was a threatening undertone to it all. They were also surprised by the killing intent behind the boy as well, that was directed at his own teammates.

"O-of course Gaara," Temari said quickly as the Suna team moved off.

"Man I'm so glad we don't have a guy like that on our team," Naruto muttered. "Was he giving anyone else the creeps?"

"Yeah," Sakura said. She had just met the boy but there was something just, not right about him. Those cold emotionless eyes and face and his voice was very off putting. Sasuke just gave a small grunt as he walked on.

"Bastard is trying to be cool again," Naruto muttered to himself.

With that Team 7 entered the academy it was weird to be back here after spending so much time as genins. Although they didn't have time to think about old times as when they made it to the second floor they noticed a whole group there. They saw Team Gai arguing with a couple of older kids who seemed to be trying to keep people out. They kept on saying things like how everyone here wouldn't make it, how hard the exam was and things like that.

Naruto was a bit confused when he saw Tenten and her team being pushed around.

"Why the hell doesn't she just kick his ass?" Naruto said to his friends.

"Quiet," Sasuke told him. "Can't you see what's going on?"

At Naruto's blank look he sighed wondering why he let himself become friends with an idiot. "They're acting; everyone here is against each other's teams, remember? That means everyone here is looking to see what the other can do."

"So if they act weak, everyone here will think they're weak." Naruto suddenly got it. He had to admit it was a neat trick.

"There's something else odd," Sakura said as she noticed something else. "We're on the second floor so why does that room number say it's the third?"

Everyone looked at the small sign above the door, it was then Sasuke cast a quick look behind them and noticed the other doors started with a two. He gave a small grin as he caught on to the genjutsu. He explained it to them and said they should quietly make their way around this. Sakura agreed that it would give them better odds in the exam if they didn't blow the genjutsu. Besides she caught Team Gai sneaking past when another group challenged the two boys.

"Nice acting job guys," Naruto said as they caught up to Team Gai.

"Thanks," Tenten said then rubbed her ass. "Although I wish I could have landed better."

"Sakura-chan, Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun!" Lee came up to them with a huge gleaming smile. "I was glad to hear that you all joined as well, let us all compete and see whose flames of youth burn brightest!"

"Huh, you said something?" Naruto said as though he wasn't listening.

"Ah!" Lee pointed an accusing finger at Naruto. "You are using your father's hip and too cool attitude!"

"Great," Neji muttered to himself next to Tenten. "Now it's Gai and Kakashi; the next generation."

Tenten giggled at the joke covering her mouth as Naruto and Lee acted like Gai and Kakashi. She noticed Sakura and Sasuke walk up leaving the other two to their little interactions.

"Hey Tenten," Sakura greeted. "It's nice to see a familiar face in this."

"Yeah but remember, we may be friends but in this it's every team for themselves." Tenten said in a friendly tone.

Sakura nodded in agreement, "Oh trust me I've been working on my tonfas and a few other things in case we meet up again."

"Then I look forward to it." Tenten told her as both girls shook hands.

It was then that they noticed that Sasuke and Neji were posing and staring at the other, neither one wanted to show any weakness to the other. This left both girls to sigh at this, it just seemed that they couldn't expect those two to get alone for a few seconds.

"Hyuga," Sasuke said.

"Uchiha," Neji returned.

With the friendly greeting out of the way Sasuke turned to face the girls. He noticed Tenten and suddenly an evil idea entered his mind, after all he remembered what Naruto did around her to get under Neji's skin so why let it go to waste? Naruto had a girlfriend and couldn't continue the little fun, plus he had to admit Tenten interested him.

"It's nice to see you again," He said to the weapons girl.

Tenten was surprised at this but gave a smile back, "Yeah nice to see you too."

"I look forward to seeing you show your skills out there," Sasuke told her and then leaned in a bit close. "You know, Naruto isn't the only one that thought you were cute."

With that he moved off leaving a very blushing Tenten behind and Sasuke could swear he heard Neji grinding his teeth together, or at least he imagined the other boy was.

Team 7 after prying Naruto away from Lee, got to the front doors. No one was there so they entered into and they couldn't believe what they found. The entire room was nearly filled up with genins from all over the place.

"Great," Naruto muttered. "So much for thinning out the crowd downstairs."

"Oh well just another challenge right?" Sakura said trying to be optimistic.

Sasuke was about to make a comment when a loud piercing scream made him flinch. He also felt the familiar arms of another annoying blonde in his life as Ino latched onto him. Seriously, couldn't the girl take the hint he wasn't interested in fan girls? He was wondering if he could convince Tenten to pose as his girlfriend of something to get them off his back for once.

"Ino!" Sakura yelled at her. "You know that Sasuke-kun hates that!"

"Oh come on I hardly ever get to see my precious Sasuke-kun," Ino whined. "You get him all to yourself you know."

Naruto snickered at Sasuke's face as he tried to get out of Ino's grasp once again. "So where's Choji and Shikamaru?"

"Over here man," Choji said as he and his life long friend walked up to them.

"I'm surprised you guys could get Shikamaru to enter into this," Naruto joked.

Shikamaru just sighed. "Ino threatened to make my life a living hell if she couldn't enter into this. My life is troublesome enough as it is without her on my case all the time about this. I really didn't want to do six months of her complaining until the next one."

"Figures," Naruto smirked. "So where's Team 8?"

"Why looking for your girlfriend?" Kiba asked him as he came forward with a huge grin on Naruto's blushing face, at least the blush that could be seen just above his mask.

"At least I got a girlfriend dog breath," Naruto told him.

"Yeah? And it took you only how long to realize that she likes you?" Kiba laughed as Naruto had nothing more to say on that.

"Kiba-kun be nice," Hinata's voice said as she walked out from behind her teammate. Then she turned and smiled brightly at Naruto. "Hello Naruto-kun."

"Hey there Hinata-chan," Naruto said brightly taking a hand in his and giving her a light peek on the cheek. Making the young girl blush but still smiling at it. "Missed you, and good luck today."

"Y-You too Naruto-kun." She smiled back at him.

Ino sighed at the sight, "Why can't Sasuke-kun be like that with me?"

"Because he doesn't like you?" Shikamaru sighed.

Ino quickly glared at the shadow user. "Shut it!"

"You kids really should learn to keep it down."

They looked to see a genin that was a few years older than they were, he had glasses with white hair but he seemed to have a friendly manner about him. "You're starting to get on the nerves of the others."

Everyone looked behind him to see a room full of glares at their antics.

"Oops," Naruto chuckled as he scratched the back of his head. "we'll keep it down, uh…sorry I didn't get your name."

"That's because I didn't say it yet," the boy smiled at them. "I'm Kabuto Yakushi."

"So is this your fist time here?" Sakura asked him.

"Oh no I've done this many times before, it's kind of embarrassing actually." Kabuto said giving a small laught.

"Oh man how hard is this?" Ino moaned, she had hoped to pass but if this guy had been doing it several times, she suddenly didn't have such high hopes anymore.

"Well if it was easy anyone could make chunin," Kabuto explained to her. "Although this year I think I got the inside track. You see all this time has given me a good insight to all the competition. I've been gathering information on all the people here so I know what they can and can't do."

"That would be extremely helpful," Shino observed. "But wouldn't such information be valuable to others as well?"

Kabuto smiled as he pulled out what looked like blank cards. "I thought of that, that's why I made these. These cards hold all my information but they respond to my chakra only so only I can use them. Watch this."

With that he pulled out a card and a slight blue glow showed up around it. Then the information suddenly appeared, there were states, a bio and even a picture. It was a very detailed piece of information actually.

"Let's see who we got here…ah look at that. Sasuke Uchiha, genin of the year of his graduating class, put on Team 7 under Kakashi Hatake. You have 16 D rank missions, one that was turned into a B rank and another that went up to an A rank mission. That's impressive for someone that young. Now then says here you have a few fire jutsus under your belt, activated you Sharingan and you're above average with swords. Family fighting style of Intercepting Fist is your primary taijutsu style as you're above genin level in hand to hand."

"Also says you're the only of two living Uchiha left in the world as well, given that your brother-"

"That's enough," Sasuke snapped at him. The last thing he wanted was to go through that personal history. He also didn't want to go into his brother, he knew what that man did and there was no need to open that door to his past up again.

"That seemed kind of specific," Kiba remarked.

"Well I do my research plus as a Konoha ninja I have better access to those in our village." Kabuto explained to him. "But I still have information on the other just in case as well."

"Really?" Sasuke asked then looked at the sand team. "What can you tell us about that Suna team?"

Kabuto pulled out the cards and read them off apparently they're all siblings and the children of Suna's Kage. Kankuro was something called a puppet user, this was a bit lost on the genins as they had never heard of it. Apparently it was a specialty in Suna that uses giant ninja puppets. Temari was a wind user and top Kunoichi of her class with very high marks. Gaara was a bit more of a mystery other than he used some kind of sand jutsu but what was really odd was the team's mission profiles. They had many B ranked missions and Gaara had never been injured once while on them.

"What? That can't be right," Kiba said looking at the card. "No one can go on those missions and not get hurt, at least not a genin."

"Well I assure you that my cards are very accurate," Kabuto stated pushing up his glasses slightly.

"Looks like that team is the one to be careful of," Sakura said casting a slight worried looked at the Suna team.

"Hey don't worry," Naruto said smiling at her. "They never met us yet and we'll show them what Konoha ninja are made of."

"Hey I don't recognize their headband," Choji said as he noticed a trio in the room.

"Which ones?" Ino asked looking around.

"The girl with the long hair, with the boy and the other guy with bandages all over him."

"Oh I see them, yeah that is weird," Ino said noticing the symbol. "What kind of village uses a musical note as a symbol?"

"Ah that would be the Sound Village," Kabuto explained. "You see they're a new village in fact this is their first chunin exam. But not much is known about them, since like I said they are new and in one of the smaller nation."

"Hey you got a problem with us?" One of the Sound genin said as the trio moved closer. They had been listening in and they didn't like the way the Leaf genin was talking about their village, almost like he was looking down on them just because their village was new. Well they were going to show that just because their village was young it didn't mean it was weak.

It was then that a fight broke out, Kabuto got into a fighting stance as the leader of the Sound team a boy named Dosu, ran forward and took a swing. It had looked like the bandaged boy had missed but Kabuto's glasses broke and the older boy fell to his knees sick to his stomach. Before anything else could be done, Naruto was there with his sword drawn at Dosu. The other two Sound members made to move but both Sakura and Sasuke went to block them as well.

The entire room tensed up as genins from all over started to get ready for a brawl. All the pent up energy that had been building up in the room was about to explode.

Thankfully before the first ever chunin battle royal in history, the doors flew open as a large powerfully built man with a commanding presence entered. He wore a trench coat and his face was covered in scares.

"That's enough!" He commanded. "Everyone get into your assigned seats within three minutes or I'll fail any of you that aren't seated!"

"Oh crap," Naruto muttered as he saw Ibiki.

"Friend of yours?" Sasuke asked dryly.

"One of my dad's poker buddies," Naruto told them as they started to move towards their seats. "He's in charge of the Torture and Interrogation Department. He's kind of creepy and likes to play mind games."

"Is that so Hatake?" Came the deep voice as Naruto froze in place.

He nervously looked over his shoulder at Ibiki who was standing behind him. "I suggest you get to your seat before I fail you, you got that?"

Naruto quickly nodded and ran off to find his seat. Ibiki grinned, maybe this first exam would be a bit more fun then he thought it would be.

Naruto couldn't believe his luck when he sat down in his assigned seat, to find Hinata of all people right next to him. To him that was a good omen as he gave her a little wink, he smiled seeing her blush shyly; he loved it when she looked like that. She just looked so cute and he wondered if there was any way for them to sneak off to a closet. But then Ibiki told them to shut up and the rules of the first part of the exam. Just when things were looking up, Naruto heard what the first part was.

It was a damn written test of all things, the bane of his existence in school. Naruto silently screamed in his head, he had never been good with tests. Even his dad had once said that he was great at the practical stuff, but with this kind of thing he just sucked.

Never let it be said that Kakashi Hatake never mixed words, he said what he thought without pulling any punches.

Naruto looked at the sheet and his eyes glazed over at the questions. Sure he hadn't been that good with his studies and needed help at times but looking at the sheet he was sure they never covered this stuff in school.

The first question alone read as 'if target A is 15ft away, traveling at a speed of 5mph due East. You have a kunai of a weight of 1 pound and you have a throwing arm of 70mph, wind velocity is coming from the West at 4 knots. At what point from the center of axis between Target A and yourself, do you throw your kunai?'

Naruto just sat there his mind totally blank, he was in big trouble and he knew it. That was just the first question and already he just felt his confidence dwindle to nearly nothing. He was so dead and he knew it. He felt a slight nudge from Hinata who had filled out a few of the answers already; he was surprised to see her Byakugan activated. She was cheating and apparently with how easy it was to look at her paper, she was giving him an easy way to cheat as well.

He wasn't sure if he should when he noticed something else, everyone seemed to be cheating. Well, except Sakura, she was the only one that actually didn't need to cheat as she was smart enough to actually know this stuff. With that he suddenly got the idea behind the whole test, he knew that Ibiki liked to play mind games, was that what all this was?

'Well, look underneath the underneath like dad says,' Naruto thought.

-Outside-

Across the building waiting on the rooftops was Anko, she had her little surprise there just waiting for her grand entrance. Although she never was one for waiting and she was getting very bored. She leaned forward against the waist high wall just looking through the windows at the genins. She could see a few being thrown out for being too obvious in their cheating. Honestly, if a ninja couldn't learn to cheat well they would be better off as genins.

"Man I wish I brought myself some dango at least," Anko sighed.

"Ask and you shall receive."

Anko quickly turned around as instincts kicked in, she didn't like having people sneak up on her and she lashed out without thinking. Thankfully the person caught her wrist and pulled her up against his body.

"Now is that any way to greet me?" Kakashi asked her amused.

"You ass, you knew what would happen if you snuck up on me," she wanted to be angry but she couldn't totally be angry with him. Although she did hate the fact that he could sneak up on her, barely anyone could do that as it was. Then she noticed that with his free hand he lifted up a few sticks of her favourite type of dango.

"Ooooh, gimmie!" She reached out but he pulled his arm back just out of reach. "Hey!"

"I think that being the good boyfriend that I am, I should get a reward for this don't you?" Kakashi smirked.

Anko grinned and with her free hand pulled down his mask to give him a long sensual kiss. She had to admit there were some very good up sides to being in a relationship. She liked the way Kakashi tasted and although you never knew it, he put a lot of passion into these kinds of moments. The man he looks and he could sure damn well kiss. But she wasn't going to be out done by him, she slipped her tongue through his lips pulled herself up against him even hard.

By the time they pulled away both needed some air and both felt like they wanted more of each other as well. There was surprisingly a lot of passion in their relationship, maybe it was all that repressed emotions and never letting it out before. It cold also be from that fact that they had never been comfortable enough with another person to open up like this. Whatever the reason their relationship burned like a fire within them.

Kakashi smiled as he pulled up his mask, "Well that's a good reward all right."

"It better be," Anko smirked as he released her wrist and she took a step back, and took the dango sticks in her other hand to her mouth.

Kakashi blinked and looked at the hand that was supposed to have held the snacks and then gave a small laugh. She had used the kiss as a distraction to take them from him cleaver and he would remember that. He looked at the bundle by her and looked at it confused.

"Do I even want to know what you have planned with that?" He pointed at it.

She smiled at him, "Just my way of making a big entrance."

Kakashi sighed, "Always have to make an impression don't you?"

Anko laughed at that and nodded, "Oh yeah you know it."

"I do," Kakashi said as he got closer to her. "I think I still have a few 'impression' your nails did on my back a few nights ago."

"Awww, want me to kiss them and make them better?" Anko teased taking another bite of the snacks. Although to her it was his own damn fault, if he didn't want her to leave marks then he shouldn't get her so worked up in bed. Although she remembered a few marks he left as well and was thankful her clothing covered those areas up.

"Maybe later," Kakashi said and then looked at the windows. "so how are they doing?"

"Not sure," Anko said. "I can only see like a third of the damn room but I think your brat is still in the running."

"Oh I know," Kakashi said happily. "He's my son after all and I trust his team to do well."

Anko had to admit that Kakashi made a good father at times, he was so confident in Naruto and his team that she kind of wished she had that before Orochimaru. But she learned that you can't change the past just live with it and go on. And she had moved on, she was a special jonin now, had good friends, and was finally in a healthy stable relationship. Yeah, so far life was good and she felt like things were going well.

As she finished the last of her snacks she leaned next with Kakashi as they watched the kids. She wasn't the type to be all girly but with no one around she could drop her guard a little. She leaned her head against his shoulder and she wasn't surprised when he gently placed an arm around her. She gave a small sigh of contentment, for some reason just being held by him like this felt nice.

After about five minutes though it was getting a bit boring just standing there waiting.

"God, how much longer is Ibiki going to drag this out?" Anko muttered.

"Getting bored?"

"Hell yeah."

"Hmmm, okay then how about…" Kakashi trailed off as his arm went down slowly caressing her back along the spine. He gently started to make small circle patters in her lower back for a bit. "We pass the time in a more pleasurable way?"

His hand then reached her ass and she suddenly didn't feel so bored at the moment.

-Chunin Test Room-

Naruto couldn't believe that after everything it had all been a set up. After he got the answers from Hinata and waited for the clock to end the test but before the end that scared bastard pulled a fast one on them. He should have known that Ibiki wasn't through with them yet, so he made up that so called "tenth" question. A question that if they took and failed they were supposed to stay as genin forever and the other option was to leave but your entire team would go as well.

A few took the leaving option but Naruto didn't want to back down, there was no way in hell he was going to quit now. He saw that Hinata looked a little nervous and gently took her hand in his, she gave him a small smile and he felt her grip his hand a bit harder. He gave a quick nod to his teammates and they waited. But it turns out it was just another mind game, the way to 'answer' the question was to just simply stay in the room.

Naruto felt relieved and also pissed off at this. Of course he forgot it as soon as Ibiki took off that bandana of his and went on some kind of speech about information. He honestly wasn't really paying attention as he tried not to stare. Ibiki liked to show those off during the really high stakes games to put everyone off their game. He had done it to Naruto a few times and he really hated it when the man did it.

After his speech he said the next person to take over the exam would show up.

So they waited, and after twenty minutes even Ibiki was checking the clock.

"She's not normally this late," Ibiki muttered to himself.

Finally the window crashed open and a giant poster with the words 'Anko Mitarashi, Proctor for Part Two!' on it. Naruto groaned, he should have known that he would run into someone else he knew from his father. To have his 'crazy aunt/his dad's girlfriend' in charge he was sure she would try and pull some kind of jokes on him.

"You're late," Ibiki said to her. "What, did you do run here?"

He noticed how her hair was slightly unkempt and how her clothing was a bit ruffled. She also seemed a little flushed as well. Anko nearly sweat dropped as she scratched the back of her head.

"Uh, well, this thing took more time to set up than I thought so I had to run to get here." Anko said hoping everyone believed the lie. Then she noticed one of the boys was looking at her strangely, she remembered him as one of Naruto's friends.

"You got something to say?" Anko asked.

Kiba smirked as he and Akamaru could smell more than just sweat on her. "Nothing but was the running before or after you met Naruto's dad?"

Anko tensed up as she suddenly cursed in her mind, she had forgotten what clan that boy had come from. That damn Inuzuka nose of his must have smelt the sex on her as well as Kakashi.

Naruto blinked at few times as he thought about what Kiba said and how he was trying not to laugh. Then he looked at Anko and suddenly it all hit him.

"Ahhhh! I didn't need to know that!" He shouted grabbing his head and slamming his face onto the desk. Kiba burst out laughing as Anko made a mental note to torture Kiba later on for this, no one made a fool out of her and got away with it.

"This is going to be a long exam," Ibiki sighed palming his face with his hand.

Next up Chapter 47: Into the Forest