Chapter 116

Could he have been the one to make that wind? He narrowed his eyes for a moment before looking away.

After a while he looked over at the clock, Times up. "Alright pencils down, it's now time for the tenth question."

Just as the man was about to reveal the tenth question the door opened and in walked Kankurou.

Huh? I don't remember him leaving. Naruto scratched his cheek in though before shrugging.

"Ah! I hope your 'trip' to the restroom was 'enlightening'," Ibiki said with a smirk.

Crap! He knows about Karasu! Kankurou thought in shock. He tried to play it off as he walked to his seat, absently tossing a piece of paper on Temari's table.

"Now that we're all here I can begin the tenth question," Ibiki started. "However, before that there are some rules pertaining to this question that you need to know about. First rule, you have to decide whether or not you wish to take a question."

"Choose? What happens if we don't take it?" asked Temari.

Ibiki smirked, "If you don't take it then your points will be reduced to zero, and you will fail along with your teammates."

"Well then of course we're going to take it!" A random Genin shouted.

"Shut up! I haven't finished explaining the rules yet," Ibiki snapped. "If you do choose to take the tenth question, but get it wrong, you will not only fail, but you will be barred from taking the Chunin exams ever again! You will remain Genin for the rest of your lives!"

"What! That's bull! There have been plenty of people who have taken this test more than once!" Kiba growled as he stood up.

"Well it seems you just got unlucky this year. I wasn't proctoring those exams, but now that I am, we're playing by my rules! Here I am Kami, and you will all listen to what I say!" Ibiki chuckled a bit at the shocked and scared looks, "However that's why I'm giving you a way out. If you don't feel you can complete the tenth question then you can bow out now and try again next year."

"Now for the final question! I will ask those who don't wish to take it to raise their hand. When your number is called you will be forced to leave along with your teammates."

Nobody spoke for several long seconds. However several people began to raise their hands, bowing out and taking their teammates with them. Naruto frowned as he watched people quit, angry that people could be such cowards. As he continued looking at everyone he saw Sakura about to raise her hand.

Damn it Sakura! Not now, of all the times for you to get cold feet!

Naruto tried to think of a way to get her to stop. Flying by the figurative seat of his pants he did the only thing he could think of. He raised his hand, shocking the other rookie members. They, along with everyone else were in for another surprise when Naruto slammed his hand back on the desk with enough force to leave small spider web cracks.

"That shit's not gonna fly here scar face-san!" Naruto glared at the man, "You can't use such pathetic scare tactics on me, perhaps the head of the I&T division is losing his touch."

Leave it to the dobe to say something like that, Sasuke shook his head before smirking, at the very least, he keeps things interesting.

I know I keep saying this, but this kid is so odd, Yugito looked at the defiant blond and smirked. Odd, but as I already said, definitely cute and I like his attitude.

I knew this cutie would keep things interesting, Temari smirked; I wonder if I can get to know him better after the exams.

Ibiki glared at the blond before looking at the other occupants, noticing that everyone who was about to quit were sitting back down. "I'll only ask this once, are you sure you wish to continue? Realize that if you fail, you will remain a Genin for the rest of your careers."

"If I wasn't willing to risk something as mundane as my career on this question, how could I be asked to risk my life on a mission." Naruto said with a smirk, "If someone's actually enough of a pussy that shit like this scares them, then they don't deserve to be Chunin anyway."

That little bastard dispelled the illusion of fear I was trying to create, Ibiki frowned as he saw everyone sit back down. Though I do have to hand it to him, he's quite an interesting one, Uzumaki Naruto, he looked around and counted the number of people still there, There's seventy-eight people left. Stretching this out anymore would be pointless.

He glanced over at the Chunin proctors to see them giving him a nod, "To those of you still remaining I only have one thing to say…congratulations on passing the first stage of the Chunin Exams!"

"What!" A random Genin shouted.

"What about the tenth question!" asked Ino.

Ibiki opened his mouth to speak however a sound cut him off. He along with everybody else turned to look at Naruto who was laughing maniacally. The two blond girls leaned away from him, wondering if he had somehow lost his mind.

"You care to share what's so funny, Uzumaki?" asked a disgruntled Ibiki.

"It's just that Ino is supposed to know you since her dad was the head of I&T before you," Naruto laughed, a wide grin on his face. "I would have thought she realized your specialty is in psychological torture. She should have known that the entire test was a sham."

"A sham?" asked Yugito, tilting her head in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"I mean the question on whether or not to continue taking the test was the whole point of the entire exams." Naruto answered with a wide grin, "Isn't that right proctor-san?"

Ibiki grunted in acknowledgment, "Give the gaki a cookie. Yes, that's right the last question was the point of the exam."

"Then what about the other nine questions?" asked Temari, confused and angry at being led on like that.

"That's easy to figure out," Naruto said as his more analytical mind began taking over. The blond looked over at Ibiki and raised an eyebrow.

Ibiki sighed as he gave a wave, gesturing for Naruto to continue.

"Right, so the first nine questions were quite obviously an intelligence gathering session," Naruto began as he recalled some of the information that was in the books Anko had suggested when he asked her. "Gathering accurate intelligence in a timely manner has always been one of the key components towards learning more about your enemy, especially in wartime. It's one of the fundamental skills for a Chunin to know, and so Scar face-san over there wanted to make sure we could gather accurate information while under pressure. Hence the Chunin watching us," Naruto looked over at Ibiki and grinned. "How am I doing so far?"

"Accurate," Ibiki grunted before continuing where the blond left off, "I'm sure most of you figured out that the questions on the test were far too hard to answer. So you had to cheat in order to get the answers. Though even knowing you had to cheat would have been useless if you didn't have the answers to begin with. Therefore we placed two Chunin in the room with you who did have the answers."

It was here that the two Chunin raised their hand; one of them was the person that Naruto stole the test from.

Ok, I did not see that coming, I must have incredible luck, Naruto thought with a sweatdrop.

"As the gaki said accurate intelligence is important," Ibiki took off his bandana to reveal a head full of scars.

"Holy shit!" Naruto shouted in surprise, "When I called you scar-face I didn't realize it was so literal! Man. It looks like Ten-chan decided to use your head as target practice."

A little ways behind Naruto, Tenten blushed, secretly vowing vengeance against her blond friend.

"You better learn to keep that mouth of yours shut gaki," Ibiki threatened while a few of the class snickered. This kid was ruining his reputation!

"This is the result the result of when misinformation is more valuable than a life. On missions and on the battle field people will risk their lives to get that information."

"But that doesn't explain the point of the tenth question," Temari said....