Chapter 19

Naruto was snapped out of his musings when he heard something behind him. Glancing back, he barely registered the urge to smack his forehead when he saw a brown box with two holes facing him.

It was an eventful day, meeting the old man's grandson. He had managed to, somehow, become a rival of Konohamaru in becoming the Hokage. He had knocked some sense into that boy's head, showing him that not everybody bowed to him just because he was the Hokage's grandson. Ever since that day, he became an object of hero worship.

Turning to the box, he said with some exasperation, "Konohamaru, square boxes with holes don't exist, you know."

A squeaky, muffled voice came from the box, "Wow! Discovering my presence this early! As I expected from my rival and my hero!"

There was a bright explosion of colored smoke, from which three figures emerged, coughing. "Hey, you used too much powder!" It was then they noticed Naruto looking at them with something akin to amusement.

Naruto was looking at Konohamaru and two other kids he had never seen. One was a boy with black hair, glasses and a runny nose. The other was a girl with orange hair, a slight blush on both of her cheeks. Konohamaru grinned up to Naruto.

"Boss, you have some time, right?" Naruto looked confused at what he was trying to say at first, but he quickly pieced it together. Hyper eight year old kid with friends, asking if he was free or not. Yep, they wanted him to play ninja with them.

'How about you humor them', Kurama asked with a grin. Naruto rolled his eyes, 'If I humor them, Kurama, I would be stuck with them all day. That is something I don't want to do,' he said with resignation.

Turning his attention back to Konohamaru, he said, "While I do have some time, I won't be playing ninja with you. You guys get too carried away," he tried to gently let him down. Then something struck him.

"Hey, you haven't introduced your friends. Who are they?"

"I'm Udon and I like numbers!" The black haired boy greeted in what was the deadliest voice possible.

"And I'm Moegi! The most beautiful kunoichi in Konoha!" The orange haired girl said in a bubbly voice. Naruto smiled, 'God, how innocent these kids are.'

"What's the point of a ninja playing ninja?" A voice that sounded detached came. All of them turned to look at Sakura, who looked like someone had just told her Sasuke was gay.

Naruto's expression became his usual bored, indifferent look, "Sakura, what are you doing here?"

Before Sakura could reply, Konohamaru nudged Naruto with a sly look. "Hey boss?"

"Hm?"

"She's your….right?" He asked holding up a pinky with a smirk. Naruto chuckled, "No Konohamaru, she's just my teammate."

That seemed to fire up Konohamaru even more, "Just what I expected from my rival! Her forehead is huge and her chest is flat as a board!" Naruto's head snapped to Sakura to see her reaction. Konohamaru might as well have signed his death.

Sakura's mood did a full 180 after hearing the kid wearing the blue scarf. She got a menacing look on her face and cracked her knuckles, clearly saying "You are dead!"

Naruto pushed Konohamaru, "Run kid! I'll meet you later!" Konohamaru needed to more pushing as he ran in the opposite direction with his friends, screaming in horror.

Naruto shook his head and made to follow him, ignoring Kurama's chuckles. 'That kid has a lot to learn,' he thought as he made a shadow clone who took after Konohamaru while he took a different path. If he was fast enough, his little rival wouldn't have bumps in his head.

He kept his sensing active to track Sakura's signature and made his turns such that he would meet them in the opposite direction. What he did not expect was face the back of two shinobi his age, one boy and a girl, the boy holding up Konohamaru who was terrified.

'That's not good,' he thought as he perfectly switched with his clone, and that was when he got a good look at the foreigners. The one that held Konohamaru honestly looked like a cat, with how his headwear looked. He was wearing face paint of all things, black sandals, black shirt and black pants.

The other one was the one who caught his attention in a way that no girl had caught before. He somehow couldn't stop staring at her. She was, by far, the most beautiful kunoichi he had ever laid his eyes on. She wore a single light purple colored, off the shoulders garment that extended to halfway down her thighs, with a red sash tied around her waist. She wore a fishnet over her exposed shoulders, along with on her left thigh and right calf. She was also carrying a large fan on her back.

She had her hair toed up in four ponytails, with a rather developed chest for her age, which he guessed was a year higher that them, curves in all the right places, slightly tanned skin, sandy blonde hair and alluring teal eyes.

Temari noticed the blonde boy staring at her and couldn't help the slight blush that came onto her age. He was pretty tall, easily a bit above five feet and obviously well built if how his clothes fit him were anything to go by. His hair, to her pleasant surprise, was a very golden shade of blonde, bordering on yellow. She looked at his eyes and her blush darkened a bit. His eyes were the most beautiful azures she had ever seen, staring at her with curiosity and something else she couldn't identify, but it gave her a warm feeling.

She shook her head and focused on her brother, who was glaring at the kid with annoyance.

"That hurt, you damn brat!" He was clearly pissed off.

Naruto decided that now was the time to intervene and with a hidden signal to his clone, spoke up, "You might want to put him down, kabuki boy."

That only seemed to piss him off even more, "Yeah? What if I don't?" He then froze, getting the unmistakable feeling of a kunai on his neck. "I don't need to say it, right?"

Temari looked with wide eyes as the blonde who was standing before them had somehow made a clone who was holding a kunai to her brother's neck. And they hadn't even seen him move!

'He's good,' she thought as she saw Kankuro grudgingly release the boy, who ran and hid behind the blonde's legs. A second later, a pebble hit his hand, which he clutched in pain and cried out, "Who did that?!"

Naruto couldn't help the sigh that came out. 'Didn't he say he was going to train?' he had already sensed Sasuke, who was standing on the branch of the tree behind him, bouncing a pebble in his hands with a superior look on his face. Interestingly, he also sensed another guy, who was giving off a very malicious feeling and oozing off killing intent like nobody's business.

Deciding to address it later, he turned his attention back to in front of him.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura shrieked. Naruto rubbed his ringing ears at the terrible soprano. Temari looked at Sasuke, 'Hm, he's cute, but he's nowhere as handsome as the blonde,' she smirked, eyes turning back to check Naruto out.

Kankuro snarled and made to grab the package on his back, which Naruto deduced to be a puppet judging from their sand headbands and the fact that Suna is known for puppets, when he decided to intervene. Temari asked, "You're going to use Karasu, Kankuro?!"

"Wait!" His sudden exclamation momentarily stopped the sand shinobi momentarily. He pointed to the tree behind him, "I just wanted to know if the guy standing behind my teammate is with you or not?"

Both of their eyes widened along with Sasuke's, who whipped around to see a redhead standing upside down on a branch behind him. He had a kanji for love on his forehead, teal eyes with black rings around his eyes, giving him an appearance like a Tanuki and he was carrying a gourd on his back.

He disappeared in a whirl of sand and reappeared by the side of the puppet kid. "Kankuro, stop it. We're not here to cause trouble. Stop embarrassing our village," he spoke in a voice so cold that even Naruto shivered. However, the reactions of the sand shinobi were even more scared.

Kankuro stammered out an apology, "G-Gaara! They started it! They-"

"Shut up, or I'll kill you," Gaara said in his deadly voice. Kankuro shut up immediately.

Gaara turned to the Konoha shinobi, "Apologies to you guys." They made to walk off when Sasuke jumped in front of Naruto and demanded in an arrogant voice, "You there! What's your name?" pointing to Gaara.

All three of them turned, with Gaara speaking, "Sabaku no Gaara. What's yours?"

Sasuke gave off s challenging smirk, "Uchiha Sasuke."

"I wasn't talking to you," Gaara said monotonously, eyes turning to Naruto, who straightened up. "Uzumaki Naruto," he said in a strong voice. Eyes shifting to Temari, he smiled and asked, "What's yours?"

Temari smiled in return, "Sabaku no Temari, nice to meet you." They looked into each other's eyes and kept staring, neither wanting to look away. Unfortunately, Sakura chose this moment to speak up.

"Listen, although Konoha and Suna are allies, our treaty prevents shinobi from entering each other's villages without permission. State your purpose." Naruto simply looked on, his face not betraying anything.

Temari spoke up, holding up her passport, "As you can see, we're genin of Sunagakure no sato, Kaze no kuni. We've come to this village to take part in the chunin exams." She gave a mocking smile to her, "Don't you know, being the genin of the host village?"

Naruto gave a shake of head from behind Sakura, clearly mouthing, "Our sensei hasn't informed us yet, Temari."

Temari had thankfully seen him and received his message, giving him a nod. The three sand siblings then turned and walked away, leaving team 7 with Konohamaru and his friends.

XXXXXXX

"You all should already know why people from other villages are here," the Hokage addressed the assembly of jonin and chunin.

Kakashi spoke up, "Is it that time of the year already, Hokage-sama?"

Asuma replied to him, "I believe so. I have already seen a few shinobi the age of our genin in our village."

Kurenai spoke up. "When is it, Hokage-sama?"

"Seven days from now, Kurenai-chan. Now, will all the jonin step forward who are in charge of the newest batch of genin?"

Asuma, Kakashi and Kurenai stepped forward. Hiruzen gave them a contemplative stare and asked, "Do you wish to enter any of your genin in the exams?"

Kakashi spoke up, "From the squad that I lead, Team 7, I recommend Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke and Haruna Sakura to the Chunin selection exams under the name, Hatake Kakashi."

Asuma spoke next, "From the squad that I lead, Team 10, I recommend Nara Shikamaru , Akimichi Chouji and Yamanaka Ino to the Chunin selection exams under the name, Sarutobi Asuma."

Kurenai was the last, "From the squad that I lead, Team 8, I recommend Hyuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino to the Chunin selection exams under the name, Yuuhi Kurenai."

The crowd behind them erupted into murmurs. "All three of them nominated their teams!" "All the genin being entered are fresh rookies!" "It's been so long since rookies have been entered in the chunin exams."

Iruka, who had been standing in the back and watching his former students, who were not even one year into their career, get nominated for the chunin exams, could hold it anymore.

"Please wait, Hokage-sama! Permission to speak?"

Hiruzen gave him a silent nod to continue.

Iruka then spoke frantically, "Excuse me for saying this, but your nine students were once my students in the academy. They need more experience before they enter the chunin exams!"

Kakashi knew that Iruka was worried about Naruto, but he was now Kakashi's student, not Iruka's. So he spoke up in a serious tone that betrayed his lazy posture, "I became a chunin when I was six years younger than Naruto."

Iruka's comeback was spot on, "Don't compare Naruto to yourself, Kakashi! He is different!"

Kakashi knew that Naruto could easily ace the exams, but he addressed the issue that was common among all genin. "The genin are starting to believe that a shinobi's life is easy. Putting them in dangerous situations might set them straight."

Iruka began speaking, "But-"

"They are not your students anymore, Iruka-sensei. They are my subordinates now and as such, I am the one who will make such decisions for them," he sternly reminded the gentle chunin-sensei.

Hiruzen spoke to the defeated Iruka, "Iruka, I see where you are coming from." Iruka lightened up a bit, "Which is why, the rookies will be put through a special preliminary round. Dismissed!"