The three found Kurenai waiting at training ground 14. She noticed them immediately and smiles. "Good you're all here. I'm not going to beat around the bush. I've entered you all into the the Chunin Exams. If you're interested in participating go to the first academy at 9am tomorrow." She was about to say something but seeing the looks on their faces she sighs. "You know I was gonna tell you it's your individual choices but seeing your expressions you'll all go anyways won't you?"
The three nod and Hinata speaks. "I guess now that you've entered us I should stop keeping this a secret."
"What secret is that?"
"If Hina-chan doesn't win the finals then she'll either be forced into the branch family or forced into an arranged marriage."
"Why haven't you told me this?"
"I know the exams are deadly and I didn't want you to force the other two to compete for my sake. I want to win but it's not worth getting them killed if you don't think we're ready. Clearly you do." Hinata could never forgive herself if her own desires got Naru-chan hurt. Hell even Sasuke, he was one of her closest friends.
"Alright I can understand that reasoning. Well here are your exams forms, bring these to the academy filled out. More information will be available upon officially entering." They nod and she continues. "Alright well, you three should relax, it is still your day off."
"Yeah Hina-chan and I have a date to get back to." The Hyuuga nods and takes Naruko's right hand in her left. "See you later Sasuke and Kurenai-sensei." With that the two walk off leaving the other two.
"Kurenai-sensei what do you think of them?"
"I think Hinata is too focused on protecting Naruko. Wave was a good wake up call for her, Naruko can protect herself. But outside of that I think they're great. You as well you know. When you came to this team I was expecting you to be a sexist prick, what with all the fan girls. But you've grown into a respectable young man in these past five months. So let me ask you the same question Sasuke. What do you think of them?"
"I love them, they're like the sisters I never had. They brought me out of my grief without making me feel like my memories of my family are a burden. They're both incredibly blunt with me and it's great after having been the object of peoples plans and desires for the past six years. Though Naruko could use some common sense."
"You know, I think if she did have common sense we'd all probably still be tip toeing around you."
"Perhaps you're right."
"You know I heard Hinata used to hate you."
"Yeah when we were six, I had a crush on Naruko and she knew it. She's been staking her claim for years."
"So why'd you stop crushing on her?"
"The massacre made me feel the need to cut out my connections."
"And you truly don't feel that way anymore?"
Sasuke had to think for a moment before shaking his head. "I couldn't imagine cutting my connection with the people I care for anymore." He hadn't realized how miserable he had been until he became friends with the other two.
"And what of your goals, have they changed?"
"No, I will still kill Itachi. But you and the others will be right there with me, right?"
Kurenai smiles, "Of course, you're one of my precious students. My goal is to help you all fulfill yours. Though you're on your own when it comes restoring the clan." Sasuke splutters.
"Ew, Kurenai-sensei you may be hot but that's weird."
"Why must all my genin comment on my body."
"You just made a joke about my sex life, are you really one to talk?"
"I guess not."
Sasuke rolls his eyes, "I'll see you later Kurenai-sensei." He left smiling.
***
The three genin found themselves standing outside the academy at 8:30 am. The three nodded at one another and then headed inside. The academy to no surprise hadn't changed a bit in the past five months. They couldn't help but contrast just how much they had grown in the past five months since they graduated. They had all grown taller in the past few months, With Hinata standing now at 5'1", Naruko standing at 4'7" and Sasuke being the tallest of the three standing at 5'4." They hadn't really changed the way they dressed, still wearing the same garbs as before. Of course they had also grown as ninja, given that they were all chunin level now, if their being entered into the exam indicated anything.
They bring their filled out forms to a chunin at the front desk. He looks them over and then says, "Head up to room 301, don't wait until the last minute. There are only so many seats, and extra genin will be turned away." The three genin nod and quickly head up the stairs. They had always had class on the first floor and only really thought about it now, but why does this stairwell only go to the second floor? It seemed odd. They shrug and walk down the corridor, as they do they notice an odd commotion going on outside of room 201. Well, it said 301 but they weren't stupid enough to forget they've only climbed one set of stairs. Plus Kurenai-sensei would never settle for them being unable to dispel one of the simplest Genjutsu.
Oddly they notice Lee seems to be having trouble entering the room. It's weirder to them that he's even trying. He's not that stupid and Neji certainly would recognize the Genjutsu with the Byakugan. The team decides it must be an act and quietly decides to ignore the older team. They don't want to waste their time by dealing with this. They could have sworn they heard Lee talking about Sakura as they pass but they shake it off as pre-exam jitters. How would Lee even know Sakura?
They arrive at the exam room on the third floor and find Kurenai-sensei standing outside waiting on them. They look at her quizzically. "Good luck you three, remember what you've learned under me and you'll do fine." They nod and she steps aside to let them in.
Entering the room they notice the killing intent radiating out from the other genin in the room. They are largely unfazed, having experienced worse in their childhoods. And in the case of Hinata and Sasuke, they had also felt worse from their very own teammate. The second thing they notice is the shrill cry of one Yamanaka Ino as she glomps the Uchiha heir. "Sasuke-kun! Did you miss your Ino-chan?"
Naruko sees an opportunity and whispers to Hina-chan. "Do you wanna mess with Ino and Sasuke at the same time?" Hinata looks at her and nods, it sounds like fun. "Good, then follow my lead." They turn their attention back Sasuke who had just managed to break free of Ino's grasp. Naruko quickly rushes forward and latches onto Sasuke's arm. Hinata catching on quickly does the same for his other arm. "Sasuke-kun, are we not enough to satisfy you?" He looks at her dumbfounded. He had never heard her call him "kun" before or use a tone like that. It was weird and he didn't like it. Not to mention the implication.
Hinata pipes up before he can respond. "Yeah Sasuke-kun, after everything we did last night are we really not enough?" Sasuke curses in his head, these two were stirring trouble just to watch him squirm. Two shrill screams erupt, one from Ino and the other from Sakura who just arrived. Sasuke decided he was wrong about his teammates. He hates them.
"Looks like Sasuke taught them how great cock is."
"Of course you would know just how great it is to take some cock, Kiba." He may hate his teammates at the moment, but he wasn't just going to let dog boy insult them.
"What was that, you bastard?"
"Aren't dogs supposed to have good hearing along with their noses? I guess the runts are typically just to trashy to inherit that trait. I'm surprised your sister didn't set you straight." By this point Naruko and Hinata had let him go, seeing as he wasn't reacting to them anymore. Oh well, hearing him insult Kiba was equally fun.
"My sister is too busy fucking the snake woman to care." That's not true, she and his mother had beat his ass for his treatment of the two girls. But he didn't regret it, he just regretted being caught.
"You realize that snake woman is going to kick you're ass for insulting her girlfriend right?" Team 7 had met Anko a few more times over the course of their careers and if they learned anything, it would be that Anko was crazy the vast majority of the time.
"You guys are already bickering, this is such a drag."
"Shikamaru you haven't changed at all. If anything I think you got lazier." Hinata shoots back.
"And you three have changed a lot." He had noticed immediately that Hinata was lacking a hand, and that Sasuke was far more talkative than their academy days. Naruko seemed to have some indescribable change about her, he couldn't put his finger on it. "How'd you lose the hand?"
The rest of the rookie nine turn to Hinata and see that indeed she is missing a hand. Gasps ring out from Ino, Sakura, and Choji. Shino was ever stoic and Kiba scoffed. "Probably lost it because she's a worthless ninja."
"If protecting my girlfriend makes me worthless then yes I suppose I am. After all what genin team would get injured fighting two A-rank nins and an S-rank nin." It was a bit of hyperbole, they hadn't actually fought Fuu, and hadn't fought Konan at the same time as Utakata. But it wasn't technically a lie.
"Yeah right, as if. You'd be dead if you actually went up against an S-rank." They would have if Konan had been trying to kill them, but she wasn't.
"You all should quiet down, you're drawing attention to yourselves." A gray haired boy with glasses says, interrupting them. As if to prove his point the rest of the room glares at them. "This must be your first exam or you would know better."
"Is this your second?" Sakura asks curiously.
"No, actually this is my seventh."
Kiba scoffs, "So this guy is just a loser who can't pass."
"Or these exams are more difficult than we were expecting." Still Shikamaru couldn't help but feel seven attempts is a little excessive.
"Fortunately with all of my failures I've managed to gather information of pretty much every one here."
"Really do you have anything on Yuki Haku?"
"You know his name, that's so boring." He goes through his cards and quickly finds the one on Haku. "Says here he's from Kiri and is a student under one of the seven swordsmen of the mist, Momochi Zabuza. He is also a member of the Yuki clan and has Hyoton. Anyone else you'd like to know about?"
Shikamaru speaks at this point. "Uzumaki Naruko." Team 7 looks at him surprised. "What? You're still competition." They shrug, fair enough.
"Uzumaki Naruko, says here she's proficient in Genjutsu and Fuinjutsu. She has two unknown techniques that allow her to change her hair, she powers up considerably when using them. She has directly fought an S-rank nin on her first C-rank mission which turned A-rank. She killed the A-rank missing nin Utakata." Team 7 immediately goes on edge. They knew the Hokage had kept her use of the Juubi's chakra under wraps. The number of people who should know about it can be counted on two hands. Likewise her use of sage mode shouldn't really be known to people. This is no ordinary genin. He also shared information specifically to make her seem like a powerful target. No they cannot trust him. Not to mention the fact that Team 7 hadn't been in a Chunin Exam before so he couldn't have gotten info on them by meeting them in another exam.
Shikamaru speaks again, "I didn't ever catch your name."
"My apologies, I'm Yakushi Kabuto." Sasuke recognized the surname, Yakushi was the name of the second in charge of the hospital, right after Nohara Rin. So then this Kabuto character was likely a medic of some kind. Though that's assuming he follows in his fathers footsteps. "I don't know if you realize but these exams are pretty historic, it's the first time in years that all five major villages are participating in the same exams. Not only that but Ame has finally come out of it's isolation and is sending more than one team to the exams. And there is a new village participating, though since they're so new they're pretty weak." Team 7 couldn't help but wonder if they would meet Konan again, since Ame was here. Would Fuu have officially joined as a ninja? Guess they'd have to wait and find out.
There attention is drawn to the ninja rushing toward Kabuto, with a forehead protector they didn't recognize. Guess that's the new village. They watch passively as the genin misses Kabuto, only for the gray haired boy to puke his guts out. Well that's an interesting technique, it's worth looking into how to avoid it. The genin who struck forward was wearing a gauntlet that they assumed caused it. He said something about Otogakure being strong or something like that, but Naruko was more interested in how his technique worked.
She distracted from her current train of thought as a man bursts into the room with a puff of smoke. "Silence! Degenerates!" The man wore a black trench coat and was covered in scars. "I'm the proctor for the first exam, Morino Ibiki." Hinata recognized the name, Anko-san had mentioned him when talking about her work before. "Any fighting will not be tolerated, failure to comply will be met with instant disqualification. Now come up and take the number cards I have down here. Then go to the matching seat."
One by one the genin head down and take their cards. Naruko got number 27, and looking at her girlfriend she sees that she got 26. That's pretty lucky. It seems Sasuke is further in the back, with a 63. They quietly take their seats and await further orders. "Good, the first exam is a written test. It has a total of ten questions, each is worth one point." That's pretty simple. "Your points will be scored as a team, any team with less than 21 points fails." So in other words everyone on a team has to get at least one point. "The tenth question will be delivered separately. Finally cheating is prohibitted, everytime you're caught cheating you lose a point. Get caught five times and your whole team is disqualified."
Naruko couldn't help but notice how odd that seemed. In the academy the rules were that they would instantly get a zero if they're caught cheating. And she doubts the message the proctor is trying to send is that things become more forgiving as time goes on. She's cut from her musings as the tests are passed out. She quickly flips it over and sees a whole lot of random shit. Why does she need to find the derivative of the velocity of a kunai traveling in an arc of 30 degrees to the ground. Looking over the other questions she notices it's all mostly just worthless math or literature from higher level civilian courses. Though interestingly she does notice a problem of Fuinjutsu that she quickly answers.
Looking to her left she spots her girlfriend with her Byakugan active and a mostly filled sheet. Ah, so the whole point is to cheat then. Subtly glancing back at Sasuke she sees he's cheating too, his Sharingan was blazing. Then they're fine. She's answered one of the questions already, and the other two will get perfect scores so it should be fine. Though maybe she can do another way. Looking for someone who seems mostly done she subtly weaves a Genjutsu around them. The boy suddenly stands up and shouts out the answers to his first three questions. Naruko quickly copies them down. All she had done was show him a Genjutsu of Ibiki telling him to call out his answers, he had done the rest for them.
Ibiki was swift and ruthless "Number 19 and his teammates number 87 and 102, you three are all disqualified." Ibiki was looking right at Naruko as he said that, and she instantly knew he was aware of her trick. He seems to be letting it slide for now, but likely wouldn't let her get away with it in the future. That's fine she got all she needs.
As the exam goes on Ibiki calls out more and more numbers, by the time the timer rings roughly a third of the room was empty now. "Alright it's time for the tenth question. But there are some extra rules for this one. You may choose not to take the question and be instantly disqualified." A girl from Suna with a large fan calls out.
"Then why wouldn't we?"
He glares at her and continues, "As I was saying, you may choose not to take the question and fail; however, if you choose to take the question and get it wrong you and your teammates will be barred from ever entering another Chunin Exam." Outrage erupts from the room.
Kiba shouts out, "Bullshit! There are people here who have failed multiple times."
"Shut up maggots! These are my exams and my rules, it's your shitty luck that had you try and become a chunin under my watch. Now then if you don't want to take the exam simply raise your hand so I can mark it down." A minute passes by in tense silence before a genin raises his hand. "Number 35 and his teammates 48 and 56 you are disqualified." The group leaves silently and the tidal wave of others leaving starts. People start raising their hands left and right, it doesn't take long for the group to be halved. Naruko and her teammates never would have quit anyways, Hina-chan has to much riding on this exam.
Hinata is watching the room carefully, she had noticed during the test that there were chunin planted in as genin. The one she had been copying off of had been the first to raise his hand. All of the first people to leave were the chunin she realized, but they had set the standard for the unsure genin. She notices out of the corner of her eye that it seems a cloud genin was about to raise his hand, he was muttering something fierce about how his staying in the exams would lead to nine great monsters being created and then collected together somehow creating the Fourth Shinobi War. That seemed a little outlandish to her.
It seemed he wasn't the only one to notice as Samui speaks up. "Ugh, Omoi continuing to raise your hand would so not be cool." And that was it, just like that the tension in the room broke and people stopped leaving. Hinata didn't think for a second that the blonde actually wanted to help the room but it was necessary to stay in the exam. The boy nods his head and lowers his hand.
Ibiki eyes the room for a little bit longer before saying, "Is there anyone else who'd like to quit now? You won't get another opportunity." He's met with silence. "Then you all pass." Like before outrage erupts from the genin in the room.
"So there was no question?" Naruko was curious.
"No I just asked it without telling you. The question was 'will you proceed knowing it could be dangerous or will you turn your backs on your village and your comrades?'" Ah, when he puts it like that then yeah he asked the question implicitly.
A boy from Suna in a weird catsuit speak, "So then what was the point of the first test?"
"It was to test your information gathering skills. The ability to get good information without being caught will be crucial in your careers as ninja." He removes his bandanna style forehead protector and reveals his scarred head. "This is what happens when you get bad information." He looked like he wanted to say something more but a cannon ball comes crashing through the window.
It turns out to be a container of some kind as Anko pops out. Behind her is a banner that says "Proctor of the second exam, the sexy and taken, Mitarashi Anko!" Ibiki sighs and says.
"You're too early Anko." She ignores him as she counts up the number of teams.
"Wow, you must be going dull Ibiki, you passed 20 teams. Ah well I'll be sure to cut that in half. Alright you brats, follow me to training ground 44, don't be late!" And with that she jumps out the window.
"She didn't tell us how much time we have to get there!" Ibiki smirks and says,
"Then you better get going." Team 7 quickly leaves the room, they had never been to training ground 44 before but they knew it's rough location. Though Naruko had to admit, she feels like she should recognize the name.