Naruto was up bright and early the morning of the Chunin Exams, and there was a palpable sense of excitement in the air as he prepared for his morning. Even if he wasn't going to run through his usual training regime, he still was going to go for a warm up run and do some stretching to make sure he was as loose as can be, and ready for anything. They didn't have to meet at the Academy until 2 in the afternoon, so he still had plenty of time to kill until he needed to go.
Since he didn't want to do anything too stressful physically in case he was tasked with something right from the start, he went down to the Facility and joined some of his clones working on Fuinjutsu study. His clones were making pretty steady progress through all the various Fuinjutsu scrolls they had obtained from the Uzumaki Shrine and the notes provided from Mito and Kushina that were given to him by the Hokage. It was a pretty fascinating field, and one that was very in demand of masters, and the Uzumaki were definitely considered masters of the field.
At around lunchtime, he left his clones working in the Facility and went to Ichiraku's for a wonderful meal in celebration of the approaching chunin exams, and ate his usual special batch of ramen while casually chatting with both Ayame and Teuchi. He reached the Academy ten minutes before 2pm, and found both Sasuke and Sakura waiting out front for him somewhat impatiently. He nodded to them both, and apologized for keeping them waiting as the threesome made their way into the building, finding a large crowd gathering around Room 202 and preventing their entry.
Naruto recognized Lee near the front of the group, seemingly trying to force his way into the room despite it being blocked by an older pair of shinobi who were trying to prevent anyone from entering. He knew Lee wasn't stupid, but was seemingly playing up his stupidity, maybe to get others to underestimate him and his team as he unnoticed Tenten and Neji nearby. The other problem though, was the classroom itself as they were supposed to meet at room 302 another floor up, but there was something going on that was confusing others that took the blond a moment to notice.
"That genjutsu is pathetic," scowled Sasuke loud enough for all the gathered genin to turn towards him, some in shock and others with scowls on their faces at him ruining their plan to eliminate more of the weaker teams, "let us through to the stairs."
"Nice going teme," spoke Naruto quietly, "you just helped all those weak teams get past the obvious ploy."
"Hn," grunted Sasuke, seemingly not caring as he pushed his way through the blocked hallway to the staircase at the end, until they were interrupted by Lee appearing in a flash in front of Sasuke as his teammates rushed to catch up, and glared at the green clad boy.
"You are Sasuke Uchiha?" came Lee's question that had Sasuke step back and look at the newcomer, "this year's Rookie of the Year ...I want to fight you."
"Lee," came the exasperated voice of Tenten who was seemingly ignored by Lee as he continued to stare at Sasuke, "we were supposed to be trying to downplay our skills."
"If you know who I am," started Sasuke with his customary smirk in place, dismissing Lee because of his appearance as many do, "then it is foolish of you to challenge me."
"No," interrupted Naruto with a glare at both boys, "what is foolish ...is to fight right before we enter these exams ...we only have a few minutes to get to the 'proper' classroom, and I've trained enough with you both to know this won't be that quick."
"You've trained with this …," started Sasuke with an unusual look at Naruto and then the green clad boy with the thick eyebrows in disbelief before being interrupted again by his blond teammate.
"Careful Sasuke," interrupted Naruto, glancing between the two, "Lee is not someone you take lightly ...and I'm sure you will both get the chance to prove yourselves if you don't get us all disqualified before the exams even start."
"Thank you Naruto," sighed Tenten in appreciation, as she grabbed the back of Lee's neck and started steering him towards the stairs, as Lee spluttered at being manhandled, and their final teammate gave Naruto a fierce glare of hatred from his milky white pupil less eyes, "come on Neji."
Neji scowled at Tenten's words, but never let his glare move from Naruto, as the two had only interacted a few times and there was definitely no love lost between the two. Neji eventually scoffed at Naruto, ignored Sasuke and Sakura, and turned to follow his teammates up the stairs without a word, causing Sasuke especially to scowl at being dismissed. Sasuke then turned his glare on Naruto as well, but the blond simply smiled at him, and told him to watch out for Lee, his speed and strength in taijutsu was well above the both of them.
"Come on, we don't want to be too much like Kakashi-sensei," said Naruto as he then led his disbelieving teammates to climb up the stairs to the third floor, where Kakashi was standing there waiting on them with an eye-smile in place probably having heard everything that just happened.
"My cute little genin," greeted Kakashi warmly, with Might Guy standing nearby, having just greeted his students who were passing through the doors, "I am glad you all came ...as you can only compete as a full team."
"What?" asked Sakura, "why didn't you mention that part?"
"I didn't want your teammates to pressure you into competing," replied Kakashi easily, "it had to be your decision."
The three genin each had different expressions on their faces as they stared at their jounin sensei, wondering why he left that part out, but not too surprised that he didn't give them all the information they needed as was his usual. Naruto also gave a nod to a smiling Guy sensei, who gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up, probably for what he said earlier about Lee and interrupting the fight he wanted with Sasuke. Kakashi told them how proud he was of them, and encouraged them to do their best and look out for one another and he would be seeing them when they were done.
The three genin of Team 7 then entered the doors to the large room, where they found an impossibly large amount of genin all staring at them, some in just curiosity, but a great many of them with glares. Naruto and Sasuke, who were both used to being glared at or stared at for most of their lives, completely ignored the staring, while Sakura kind of shrunk behind her teammates to avoid the attention. There were a great many Konoha headbands among the bunch, but also a lot of other hitai-ates from various villages, most notably among them was the symbol for Sand.
"Sasuke," came the excited shout of Ino, as she seemingly appeared hanging on the back of Sasuke from nowhere, causing her rival to scratch in anger.
"Get off my Sasuke-kun, Ino-pig," came the loud yell, as Sakura physically shoved the blond girl off their mutual crush, as they were approached by several well known teams and bringing a lot of attention on their group from others.
"Well, well ...looks like the whole gang's here," came the loud arrogant voice of Kiba Inuzuka, as he approached the growing group of recent Academy graduates along with his teammates Shino Aburame and Hinata Hyuga, as Ino's teammates Choji Akimichi and Shikamaru Nara had followed her at a much slower pace.
Several of the most recent graduates from Konoha's Ninja Academy greeted one another happily, having not had too many chances to catch up with one another since becoming genin, but only a few noticed the looks they were getting from the rest of the crowded room of chunin hopefuls. Sasuke, who was never very social, was trying to put distance between him and the others, and noticed along with his teammate Naruto the amount of attention they were receiving. The only other two to visibly react to the many stares they were receiving was Shino and Shikamaru, who were the usual observers of the group.
"You should quiet down," came the older voice of a grey haired Konoha genin who looked much older than the rookies, and had an unusual habit of continually pushing up the round reflective glasses he wore, as he approached them all, "you are drawing a lot of attention to yourselves."
"And why shouldn't they be paying us attention," came the arrogant boast from Kiba, as he turned to look at the newcomer, dismissing him easily in his arrogance, "we are the best."
"You are all rookie genin," came the smooth reply from the grey haired older boy, as if that answered everything, "most would consider you easy pickings."
"Hn," grunted Sasuke with a look of superiority on his face, excited to start proving himself the best, a look shared only by Kiba among the rest of the group as the others either had doubts or the intelligence to know they might not be the best of everyone present.
"I'll show you how easy it will be," came the challenge from Kiba, as he stepped up threateningly towards the grey haired ninja, as several other members of the group now realized just how much attention they were drawing from the almost 200 other genin in the large room.
"Hey," held up the newcomers hands in a defensive and submissive way, as he diffused Kiba's advance, "I'm on your side ...just thought I would come over and help you rookies out a bit ...this being your first chunin exams and all ...I'm Kabuto Yakushi."
"Oh …," trailed off Kiba, not knowing how to respond and still be seen as the Alpha he always saw himself.
"So ...you've taken these exams before?" came the bossy voice of Ino, as she injected herself into the conversation, wanting to at least learn something from all of this.
"This will be my seventh time," came Kabuto's response, causing Sasuke to scoff in disdain, and Kiba to bark out a laugh at Kabuto's obvious weakness if he couldn't pass these exams six times already.
"You must have learned a lot about these exams?" came the timid question from Hinata Hyuga, as she pushed her fingers together in a nervous gesture Naruto had noticed the several times he interacted with the shy girl.
"I have," replied Kabuto with a knowing smirk, that Naruto didn't seem to like at all, as he started wondering what this older boy's angel was in regards to coming over here and offering help, "I even made these information cards on all those participating ...go ahead and ask ...who do you want to know about?"
"Rock Lee and Naruto Uzumaki," came the voice of Sasuke, giving his blonde teammate a smirk of his own, and causing several of the other rookies to look at the mentioned blonde and confused that he wasn't the loudest among them all.
"Gaara of the Desert," spoke Naruto as the whole group really looked at him, noticing how much he had changed, and wondering just how much information this older genin could really have gathered on every participant here.
"Oh ...you know their names ...that makes this easy," replied Kabuto, who again adjusted his glasses causing the light to flash a moment before he pulled out three cards and sent a little chakra into them. "Rock Lee ...genin under Might Guy, teammates with Neji Hyuga and Tenten, member of Lee Clan of Konoha, he is a taijutsu specialist, with no ability to manipulate chakra outside of his body ...missions include 25 D-Ranks, and 12 C-Ranks."
"Wow," came the response from Sakura, as she tried to reconcile that information with the goofy looking guy in green spandex and terrible eyebrows, and that had Naruto concentrate even more on Kabuto for having that much information on another Konoha genin.
"Naruto Uzumaki …" continued Kabuto with a quick glance to the blonde boy in question, and seemingly unaffected by the glare he was being sent in return, "genin under Kakashi Hatake. Teammates with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno, member of the Uzumaki Clan, prolific user of the shadow clone kinjutsu, taijutsu and ninjutsu are both very high, genjutsu non-existent, known Fuinjutsu user of unknown level, primary Wind Element, insanely high chakra ...missions include 117 D-Ranks, 25 with his team, 1 team A-Rank, and 1 solo A-Rank."
"WHAT?!" shouted Kiba in shock as he heard Naruto's skills and mission record, the dead last of their class, and couldn't believe it along with most of the rest of the gathered rookie genin, while Naruto's eyes tightened that this Kabuto character had so much information on him that he shouldn't have and promising to keep a closer eye out on this shady guy.
"Um ...Gaara of the Desert," continued Kabuto quickly, as he could tell he had pissed off the young blonde, and wanted to continue playing his helpful part in order to ingratiate himself with this group of Clan kids, "genin under Baki, son of the Fourth Kazekage, teammates with his siblings Temari and Kankuro. Missions include 1 D-Rank, 8 C-Ranks, and 1 B-Rank, and has apparently returned from every mission without a single scratch."
"That is very impressive," came the lazy drawl of Shikamaru, though he was still sending occasional glances to Naruto, and trying to reconcile what they just heard and what he himself had noticed in the few times they encountered one another over the last few months.
"Pff," scoffed Kiba, dismissing the information as not important, and trying to re-establish himself as the top dog of the group, though many of them were sending concealed looks at the quiet blonde among them, wondering if all that information was true.
"There are ninja here from all over the nearby countries," continued Kabuto into the growing silence, wanting to bring the conversation back to where he wanted it, "besides Konoha and Suna, there are teams from Rain, Grass, Waterfall, and even the new village of Sound ...though they only sent one team and are pretty much unknown."
They were interrupted by the quick movement of three people with musical notes on their headbands arriving very quickly, the one with a metal contraption on his arm seeming to attack Kabuto, who leapt away just avoiding the swing before keeling over and throwing up all over the floor. Only a few of the rookie genin were even able to react to the movement, Sasuke and Naruto, the closest and most obvious, as they both were preparing to counter if the attack continued and wondering why that missed swing still seemed to do damage. But the whole thing was interrupted again by a loud cloud of smoke erupting at the front of the room, and the arrival of two dozen chunin and the loud yelling of a Konoha ninja in a bandana who stood front and center.
"There will be no fighting unless authorized by the instructors," came the loud voice that reached every area of the room, and instantly brought all movement to a stop and everyone's attention split either forward or towards the disturbance the newcomer was glaring at. "Don't make me kick you out of the exams before we even start."
The new arrival was someone Naruto instantly recognized, as Ibiki Morino, having just worked with him regarding his infiltration and apprehension of three of Konoha's Civilian Council Members, and knew he wasn't someone to mess with or cross. All around him, nervous genin were looking to the front as the tall, bandana wearing ninja captured everyone's attention and started laying down the rules for the first stage of the exams. He told everyone to slowly come forward and get their assigned number, and to go quickly and quietly to their corresponding seat in the large room behind him for the first stage to begin, the written test.
"Oh come on," grumbled Naruto, the moment he heard the first stage was going to be a written test, getting several of his fellow rookie genin around him to snicker, and be reminded of the type of student he was at the Academy.
Due to those around him though laughing at his misfortune, they all missed it as he seemingly scratched the back of his head to draw any extra eyes on him away from his other hand that dropped a small smoke pellet onto the ground. He had only taken a few more steps forward, when some unfortunate genin stepped on said pellet causing a billowing cloud of smoke to erupt and catch everyone's attention long enough for him to quickly create a handful of clones that perfectly resembled the pencils sitting on every desk, and swapping them at random with a few of those nearby. The smoke quickly cleared, and the genin behind him were given glares and warnings not to be so careless and quickly find their assigned seats as the test was getting ready to begin.
Once it did start, Ibiki went over the rules, stating there were 10 questions and that everyone started with 10 points, and lost 2 points if they were caught cheating until being caught 5 times and being removed. It was also described as a team test, and every member of a team needed to pass to move forward and incorrect answers cost 1 point each as well. Naruto was very glad that he added some clones disguised as pencils, as maybe between them all he would be able to answer all the questions, though he was by no means the same idiot he was months ago and may be just fine.
When he flipped over the test put in front of him, he had to do a double take, as many of the questions seemed ridiculously hard, and even if he maybe could have answered half of them, he didn't think there were many other genin that could even do that much. He was surprised though to see maybe a dozen or so of the almost 200 people instantly starting to answer their test questions, and was happy one of them happened to be using his clone pencil and concentrated on it. He was able to understand that pencil's movements and what it "saw" to help him answer the questions on his own paper, and was quickly filling all the questions out, not worried in the slightest about being caught.
It wasn't too long until he was finished filling out the nine questions to his satisfaction, and took the time to really look around, and quickly discovered that the goal of this exercise was to cheat as he witnessed several good and bad attempts from those around him. He also started noticing the chunin proctors that walked around penalizing those they caught, and eventually pulling some genin and their furious teammates out of their chairs after they were disqualified. Neither Sasuke nor Sakura looked in any way troubled, so he broadened his search to the other rookie teams, Team Guy, the Sand siblings, Kabuto, and a few others who caught his eye getting a front row seat on their information gathering tactics as he waited for the end of this section of the test.
"Alright, time's up," called out Ibiki after about 50 minutes, and Naruto realized that there were still just over half the original 200 genin still in the room, including all his friends and those he had been expectantly watching, "now for the tenth question."
"For this question," continued Ibiki, easily holding the attention of every genin present, "there are a few special rules ...first ...you must choose whether you are going to take it?"
"What do you mean choose?" asked Temari from the Sand team, "what happens if we choose not to?"
"If you choose not to take it, your points will be reduced to zero and you fail," answered Ibiki with a growing smile that looked anything but friendly.
"Of course we'll take it then," came the shout from an unknown genin in the back of the room.
"If you choose to take the tenth question and answer incorrectly," responded Ibiki, pausing for dramatic effect, "then you will be banned from ever taking the chunin exams again."
"You can't do that!" came several shouts, as the noise level increased significantly in the large room.
"People here have taken this exam many times," complained another, that sounded suspiciously like Kiba.
"My test ...my rules," came the almost growling voice of Ibiki that instantly quieted the test takers. "If you want other chances to retake the test, quit now and try during the next village's chunin exam ...but this is my exam. If you want to quit ...raise your hands and you will be removed before the tenth question."
The room was practically buzzing in anticipation after Ibiki's threat, and several genin were nervously looking around at their teammates and others to see what was going to happen. Then, the person who had used Naruto's cloned pencil and answered every question perfectly, became the first to raise his hand and was quickly escorted out of the room with his two complaining teammates starting a rush of others to do the same. Another almost twenty teams ended up leaving, bringing the remaining total to just under seventy people remaining when Naruto noticed a nearby Hinata practically shaking and about to raise her hand, and knew he needed to intervene.
"That's bullshit," he stood up and shouted, bringing much of the remaining people to look at him in shock, "it doesn't matter if I fail and never become a chunin ...I'll still become Hokage one day ...nothing will stop me, dattebayo."
While his remarks were completely in character to what most knew or remembered about him from the Academy, Naruto's purpose was successful when he saw Hinata stiffen and straighten in her chair, and several other previously nervous looking genin were now all strengthening their own resolve as well. The chunin proctors and Ibiki in particular all gave him a harsh glare inteneting to scare him, but in fact was completely ignored, having dealt with similar looks most of his life, and knew now how much he didn't care about others' opinions of him. He smirked right back at all of them, daring them to intimidate him anymore and watched as the remaining 66 genin all seemed to settle down considerably after his declaration.
"No more are going to quit?" asked Ibiki once more with a glare at the remaining ninja, but knew with the blonde's words that he was not going to be able to turn any more away and sighed, "very well ...you all pass."
"What?!" erupted from all over the room.
"What do you mean we pass? What about the tenth question?" came the shout from Sakura, a thought many of them wanted to voice.
"You could say that your choice to continue was the tenth question," responded Ibiki with a smirk.
"Then what was the point of the nine questions?" asked a visibly irritated Temari of the Sand.
"To test your information gathering skills, to put pressure on your entire team, and test your resolve in the face of overwhelming odds and entering unknown situations," responded Ibiki, "all traits we look for in a chunin leader, because sometime information is more important than our lives," he finished and took off the bandana that covered his horrifically scarred head, making many in the room blanch at what must have been an insanely difficult thing to live through, and Naruto's respect for the Head of their Torture & Interogation department to rise considerably.
As the other genin were still processing passing the first part of the exams, or stealing glances at the horrific scars that littered Ibiki's bald head, fast movement at the side of the room broke through a window as a large purple banner was pinned to the back wall with a pair of kunai. Before anyone could really react, another familiar face for Naruto was standing seemingly half naked in front of the room and the purple banner that read "the single and sexy, Anko Miturashi" causing Ibiki to groan in exasperation, as several male genin were obviously drooling. Anko, wore her customary open trench coat with a fishnet see-through shirt and a strip of fabric that could barely be called a skirt, hiding very little of her impressive body.
"Sixty-six genin left?" she asked as she looked at Ibiki's frowning face with a careless shrug, "you're getting soft Ibiki ...but don't worry ...I'll easily cut that number in half by the time I'm done with them."