Chapter 25

Kurenai and Asuma walked into the medic bay and walked until they found the section set up for Team 8. Hinata was unconscious with the battle-wear clear on her person. Kiba wasn't in the room, possibly still being actively worked on by the medics. Shino was in the room though, sitting away from Hinata's bed in quiet contemplation. As the two jounin got closer he looked up through his sunglasses, "Kurenai-sensei, Asuma-sensei." He said in an even-toned greeting.

Kurenai gave Shino a smile and walked over to him, putting a hand on his shoulder as she kneeled down to pet the whimpering Akamaru that had been sitting by the chair, "Are you alright Shino?" She asked in a concerned voice.

A nod came from the young Aburame, "I am uninjured Kurenai-sensei, do not worry about me." He then spared a glance over to where his female teammate lay asleep, "The others though weren't as lucky as myself."

"How are they?" Asuma asked, feeling a little bit of concern himself. Hey, they were all Konoha ninja, his team and their team were friends and classmates in the Academy, and his… comrade Kurenai was their sensei. He could show some worry. He even put out his cigarette before entering the room, that was how much he cared.

"Hinata will be fine with a day's rest they say, a little sore but nothing more." Shino said informatively before his eyebrows furrowed, "Kiba on the other hand needed to undergo intensive treatment, but he should be able to leave once the exams end. They say we should watch out for the atmosphere shift once we leave and that he should be checked out upon his return to Konoha."

"That's good." Kurenai said, sighing in relief at the same time. The brutal kick from Fuu to Kiba was exceptionally violent and he had been completely unable to protect himself whatsoever. She noticed the stoic boy shift slightly in his chair, and while for a normal person it could be taken as just that, for Shino it might as well have been him letting out a long sigh, "Shino what's wrong?"

"I… I'm sorry Kurenai-sensei." Shino said, "I wasn't strong enough to win or keep them safe."

Asuma stepped in front of Shino and smiled at him, "It was your first exam kid, and you're just a rookie. You outdid hundreds of others and you just got unlucky in the team you ran up against. All you can do is prepare for the next time. Those weren't normal genin."

"Everything will be fine Shino." Kurenai said reassuringly, "Once you heal we'll get right back to work. Now do you want to head up and watch the rest of the day's fights? You can go with Asuma."

Shino thought about it for a moment before shaking his head in the negative, "No, I believe it would be better for me to stay here in case Hinata wakes up or Kiba is returned from his treatment."

Asuma nodded and turned to leave with a wave, "I'll be heading back up and leaving you with your team then Kurenai. Make sure they get some rest after all of that." Kurenai nodded and went to go find a seat to go sit with Shino.

XxX

"Taki brought out a jinchuuriki." A said in the aftermath of the last battle, "And a user of their kinjutsu as well. They certainly went all out for this exam didn't they?"

"It's meant to show a village's ability and power for the future so I don't see a reason not to." The Kazekage said as a method of reasoning, "Jinchuuriki can be genin as well. As a matter of fact a lot of them don't rank that high in my experience. The highest ranked one in memory is our absent colleague the Mizukage Yagura."

Onoki let out a laugh, "And you see what he's doing don't you? Killing bloodline users. He's touched in the head."

Hiruzen personally wanted to get off of the subject, because the topic of a jinchuuriki always went down an ugly road as a conversational topic. It was just inevitable, "I believe next up is that new hidden village Otogakure."

The attempt at switching topics worked as the Kazekage responded, "Yes, the village only sent one team and they made it all this way. I almost had a meeting with the leader of this village a few months ago."

Hiruzen raised an eyebrow at this, "Almost? You mean you didn't meet with their leader?"

"I'm afraid not Hokage-dono." The Kazekage said with a shake of his head, "A representative from that village would not divulge the identity of his leader nor was he very forthcoming with the general locale of the village. I did not trust a meeting with such a figure that deemed himself the 'Otokage'. I'm afraid Suna is still just as in the dark on the village as everyone else."

"Otokage?" A said before letting out a laugh, "Someone is certainly quite sure of themselves and their village aren't they?"

XxX

(Competitor's Box)

"I can't believe it…" Ino said quietly now that Fuu and Dorobou were back in the waiting area with the rest of them, "I can't believe that Hinata, Kiba, and Shino were beaten like that. And another jinchuuriki?" She finished with a hissing whisper, "Do we even know how to deal with the first one we found out about yet?" She asked, looking over at Shikamaru.

"I'm working on it." Shikamaru said, thinking tediously. The proverbial smoke was pouring from his poor overworked brain, 'I need more time. We need to win the next round first… then I'll have all night to actually think of something. Then I'll know more about both of them if they advance.' Shikamaru had directly instructed them all not to go jackhammer until it was necessary. In all honesty the Iwa team from the first round weren't that difficult to defeat at all. Naruto probably could have done it by himself or only one of them with him at the most, but that wouldn't have shown good judgment, thus they wouldn't have been promoted just from that overwhelming show of force.

Now though, with the knowledge of two jinchuuriki in the exams and knowing the caliber of the opponents they were to face next round they wouldn't have much of a choice in the matter.

Naruto was looking over at Fuu who was leaning against a wall looking out onto the field not paying anyone else any mind, 'She was so angry about being revealed to be a jinchuuriki. She cried for a second… so I'm not the only one that doesn't enjoy being one.'

"-ie-kun!"

"What?" Naruto said abruptly, getting shaken back into focus by Ino who was looking at him curiously, "What's up Ino-chan?"

"Kiba was really hurt out there." Ino said, rubbing her arm sheepishly, "I think this is really the first time that I'm getting the point of how dangerous these exams are. Even Hinata took a beating out there. I didn't think I'd even see her fight, let alone take that kind of punishment."

Naruto frowned at remembering what had happened, "She went right at that Fuu girl though. It was pretty surprising."

"Hinata-sama's spirit may have been impressive, but without the talent to back up that fire it was her fate to fall." Neji interjected as he walked past Team 10, "As you saw it was her destiny to be a failure despite her status in the clan."

That bastard just had to raise Naruto's hackles again didn't he?

"No one was talking to you." Shikamaru said to Neji once he saw Naruto clench his fists tightly, "Honestly, there's no need to try and start such a troublesome situation for no reason." Trying to be the voice of reason was such a pain in the ass.

Neji turned towards Shikamaru with a smirk, "It is just the truth. It's not my problem that your teammate can't accept his own fated status as a failure. He must empathize with Hinata-sama's plight to try to prove herself. Is that it?"

Naruto growled at Neji and made to step forward before Shikamaru spoke up again, "Well if Naruto's a failure then what am I?"

"You are merely a slacker." Neji explained calmly, crossing his arms over his chest, "This has no bearing on your fate though. You are destined for the future of mediocrity, not necessarily failure."

"So are you saying that I'm destined to be mediocre because I slack, or I'm destined to slack because I'm mediocre?" Shikamaru asked Neji with a raised eyebrow, "Because if it's the first one I can stop slacking if I felt the need to, so would that make me extraordinary? Or if I was just born awesome then wouldn't my slacking not matter? What's the point of trying to be great if it's your fate? Won't it just happen anyway? There's so many places I can go with this, I just really want an answer though." A small smile came to Shikamaru's face, "You sounded so much like you knew what you were talking about… so how about it?"

Neji could of course tell when Shikamaru was poking fun, thus he didn't bother responding. He merely walked along away from Team 10. Naruto was more than happy to see him leave and then looked down to his fists to see that Ino had managed to loosen one and get her hand to wrap around his, probably to keep him from stepping forward to smack Neji one, something that would have gotten them disqualified.

The understanding smile he got from Ino got him to calm down even more than Shikamaru's shooing away of Neji did, "…Sorry about that. Thanks Ino-chan, Shikamaru. I was really about to hit that jerk." Naruto punched his palm, "I'm going to stomp Neji's ass and I'm not going to stop until I'm wearing socks made of dried sh-."

"-Okay whatever. Just be cool." Shikamaru said in an advisory manner, ignoring the rather graphic threat, "If it really is that big of a deal to you then all you have to do is wait until next round. Until then it's time for the next fight. It's Team 7 against those Oto gu-."

"Come on Goldie-kun, it's Sasuke-kun's turn." Ino said suddenly at the reminder of the next match as she dragged Naruto over to the railing to watch, cutting Shikamaru off mid-sentence, "I wonder what he learned over the last month."

With a sigh, Shikamaru shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over to watch the fight as well. Playing straight-man to Naruto and Ino's over the top natures was a tiring endeavor… at least for him anyway.

XxX

In a separate box seating area, Gato looked rather unpleased as he gazed down at the field. An older batch of Iwagakure genin that he had given more than ample monetary motivation to perform their job failed to kill even one of Team 10. The Konoha squad didn't even find it necessary to resort to killing one of them to survive the battle.

Oh well. He still had one chance left at exacting some kind of revenge on one of the genin teams that screwed him over. His Oto associate assured him that his genin were more than capable of accomplishing their goals.

All of the work he had gotten out of Otogakure had proven that in the past, and the 'Otokage' had assured Gato that his genin team would be going for nothing less than the kill against Team 7.

XxX

On the field stood Sasuke, Chouji, and Sakura facing off with the mummy-looking Dosu and his partners that looked quite confident. Kin seemed to be looking at Sakura as if she would walk right through her, something that earned her some measure of ire from the pink-haired girl. Zaku just looked at Chouji and couldn't stop chuckling, especially since Chouji was still eating chips at the time.

The look on Sasuke's face was cool and calm by design, but the fact was that he was extremely excited to finally get his own fight out of the way. He barely registered Sekki asking him which side of the coin flip he wanted, "Tails."

The coin was sent up and landed heads up, thus the pick went to Team Dosu, "One-on-one matches…" Kin and Zaku smirked at that. The chances of getting a kill in one-on-one matches was higher than in a team battle where teammates could save others.

"Fine." Sasuke said, not caring too much one way or the other how he got to fight as long as he was provided the opportunity to do so. The two teams headed off on their own to decide who would be the first to fight whom on the Oto team, "So… who wants to test the water?" He didn't have any problems with going first, it might make things go faster, but it was about more than him in this instance.

'This is my chance.' Sakura thought to herself before taking a deep breath, "I'll do it." She volunteered with a serious look on her face.

Chouji stopped eating for a moment to look at her in surprise. What exactly had he missed while he had been training with his father again? This was certainly new. It was either Sasuke or him that went in first to fight… it was kind of the reason he had become more confident in his own abilities, "Uh, are you sure Sakura? Sasuke or I could fight first if you aren't."

"I'm sure Chouji." Sakura said resolutely before putting a smile on her face, "I've got to stop following along sometime don't I? I can do it." She turned towards Sasuke to see if he would offer any sort of dispute towards her fighting first.

Sasuke merely gave her a normal even-tempered look, only this one came with a nod of a seemingly appreciative nature, "Go on then if that's what you want."

That nod was more or less as close as anyone was going to get to hearing Sasuke say 'I believe in you'… at least as close as anyone was going to hear in this century.

On the other hand though, from their area off away on the other side of the field, Dosu managed to somehow hear every word that was being said over on Team 7's side over the low waiting rumble of the crowd, "It seems the little girl wants to play at kunoichi and go first."

"I'll take her then." Kin said, flipping her very long black hair back, "Someone has to put the princess in her place." With that she turned and strode confidently out to face Sakura, this time on the stone bridge spanning the stream in the arena. She looked over the younger girl and scoffed, "Are you sure you want to fight me sweetie? You might mess up your manicure."

Sakura let out a humorless laugh with an unamused smile on her face, "As long as I get to mess your face up too I don't think I'll mind too much."

'Catfight.' Genma thought to himself before shaking that thought out of his head, 'Kami what's wrong with me? They're like 15 years younger than me.' Clearing his mind of the previous thought, Genma started announcing, "First round match, fight one: Haruno Sakura of Konoha vs. Tsuchi Kin of Oto! Begin!"

Sakura drew a kunai while Kin drew a trio of senbon. Both of them jumped away from the other, thinking that their opponent would throw their weapons. When nothing initially happened Sakura took it upon herself to act first and quickly used her free hand to throw shuriken at Kin, which she easily dodged.

"Hah." Kin responded in kind with her own attack of senbon, one of which came close to hitting Sakura as it bounced off of the surface of the stone bridge near her leg once Sakura turned to run, "You'll need more than cookie-cutter Academy crap to beat me." Chasing someone was such a pain, but if Sakura was going to run the fight wasn't going to end until she ended it herself.

As she neared the forested section of the field, Sakura made a quick set of hand-seals, "Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu)!" Making several copies of herself that all split off and headed into the forest in an attempt to confuse Kin, Sakura already had her main plan set in mind.

It wasn't like a forested environment was foreign at all to Kin, thus she had no problems with the shift in the combat zone. As far as she was concerned it was just a lowly attempt to throw her off-guard, "Just because you're a Konoha ninja doesn't mean you stand a ghost of a chance in this place with me."

"You sure do like to talk a lot."

Sakura's voice was thrown through the area to reach Kin's ears as she entered the foliage. A simple trick. It seemed like all Sakura could do to fight were simple tricks, "You know your rookie friends that won their first fight earlier might have done nothing but run away until the very end, but at least they made it interesting. Do you really think I couldn't tell which you was the real one?" She asked before the sound of a cord snapping directed her attention down to a broken wire.

"No, I didn't think you could… because you didn't."

A series of kunai flew from the leaves at Kin, forcing her to dive out of the way to dodge, 'That was too eas-. No, I was supposed to jump this way!' As she thought that a log swung down from the branches directed right at her. Kin jumped over it to stick to the surface of a nearby tree that the log slammed into, dislodging her and knocking her to the ground, 'That trajectory was dead on! How'd she set it up that well with less than a minute?'

Sakura jumped out from her place of hiding with her kunai still in hand and landed on the ground with barely a sound before taking the opportunity to rush Kin directly. The slight noise provided by the quiet footfall told Kin where Sakura was however, and the Oto kunoichi was quite angry with her at the moment. Kin glared deeply at Sakura before throwing more senbon at Sakura.

'Once I dodge these she won't have any time to grab anymore, and she won't have any weapons with her that I can see either.' Sakura thought as she moved towards the side, avoiding the weapons, 'Alright now let's-.' She stopped in her tracks and fell backwards, senbon stuck in her abdomen. Luckily she wasn't hit in a soft spot, though it still hurt damnably, "What? I dodged them!"

"So sorry…" Kin said sarcastically as she got back up off of the ground, "But you dodged the ones with bells." She pointed where her discarded senbon had wound up and Sakura saw that small bells had been tied onto the ends of them, "I threw ones without bells to attract your attention so you wouldn't react to the second set that didn't have them. Kage Shuriken (Shadow Shuriken)."

XxX

Shikamaru and Naruto's eyes turned to Ino who was watching the battle with her cheek in her hand as her fingertips drummed the railing. She wasn't even dignifying her teammates by paying attention to the fact that they were looking at her. She did manage to speak though, "That doesn't mean that she's better than me with senbon, her aim is terrible. She just has a trick… a trick that I'm going to steal when I find out a better way to do it."

Shikamaru shrugged at the idea, "Well it would fit in with the theme we seem to have with shadow-named techniques."

A thoughtful look came onto Naruto's face, "I know a move that's kind of like that. Maybe it works the same? I've never actually used it before so I don't know." Ino turned towards him with a hopeful look in her eyes that got him to back up a step, "Um… I will teach you after the exams are over?" Ino nodded happily and turned back towards the fight, getting a sigh of relief out of Naruto.

Shikamaru laughed and made a sound of a whip thus getting Naruto to glare at him, "Oh don't give me that look you know it's true." Shikamaru let out a sigh of his own and shook his head, "We all are…" He said in a disenfranchised manner.

"Come on Forehead!" Ino yelled down to Sakura, "Don't lose like that! If you can't beat her then you'll never even touch me!"

XxX

Kin heard Ino's attempt to motivate Sakura and turned to look and scoff at the blonde girl, "So I guess being a loud, fake kunoichi just runs rampant through Konoha's ranks. How could weak girls like you ever think you could win here!" She finished, throwing more senbon at Sakura in an attempt to finish her off.

The needles hit Sakura before in a puff of smoke a log lay on the ground in her place. Sakura had made the hand-seals for the Kawarimi while Kin had been busy with her attention turned towards Ino.

As Kin started looking around for Sakura, the trees around her began to shake off a large amount of leaves due to movement, "So now you're a squirrel? I guess you would be a rodent wouldn't you?" The leaves around Kin slowly began to change in appearance from leaves to cherry blossom petals and as they fell around her and on her they began to cut her.

So this was Sakura's trap? Kin wasn't about to stay there if that were the case and she made to run out of the falling cherry blossoms, but as she did so they brushed against her and cut her further and running through them kicked up the multitude of petals already on the ground, forcing them to cut her as well. Kin was caught in a torrent of cherry blossoms made by her own doing and yelled in pain due to all of the cuts that were piling up all over her face and body.

In the real world however, there was nothing happening. At least not on the scale of things from Kin's point of view. Sakura actually had been in the trees though, and she had been intentionally forcing leaves to fall to mask the activation of her genjutsu that seemed to be working beautifully.

"Sakura Hanakaeba no Arashi (Cherry Blossom Razor Storm). And now it's time to finish…" Sakura said to herself before jumping down from her perch and landing directly on top of Kin, knocking her unconscious, "Ow… next time I'll need to finish better." She muttered to herself, rubbing her backside after her fall. Getting up and looking down at Kin, Sakura poked at her limp body with her foot before walking away, "Thanks for the help Kakashi-sensei." She said quietly to herself.

"Winner of match one: Haruno Sakura!"

Sakura smiled brightly and waved to the crowd while holding her wounds from Kin's weaponry, a rather modest celebration, though in her head it was a different story, "Hell yeah! We totally kicked that bitch's ass! I know Sasuke-kun had to see that!"

XxX

"Wow." Asuma said from the stands, sitting beside Kakashi, "Didn't see that coming."

"Yep." Kakashi replied with an eye-smile at her performance. Sakura had actually done very well. She'd taken a few wounds but she could get that patched right up, "Just needed a little push. A push, and some genjutsu theory… and a living practice dummy."

Still in the vicinity though, sitting right by both Konoha jounin, Gai was still there and he was even more enthusiastic than Kakashi seemed to be about things, "Kakashi! Your hands-on teaching of your student is reminiscent of my own manly education style! I cannot wait to see what other things you've taught them for the exams!"

Kakashi just kept looking down at the field for several more seconds before turning towards Gai, "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

"Damn you and your hip attitude Kakashi!" Gai exclaimed in a grandiose manner, disturbing the other spectators enough to get popcorn thrown at him. He didn't seem to respond too much, instead focusing on Kakashi, "Our competition this time will be between our students! Yes! Whoever has their students advance furthest wins!" He neglected to remember the fact that there was sort of a standing bet going on between the Konoha jounin already over the exact same thing.

Asuma just stared at Gai before shaking his head as he put a cigarette in his mouth, "Goddamn man I would just love to live in your world for just three hours or so. I don't think I'd get much done, but I don't think I'd care too much either."

XxX

(On the Field)

Sakura was given rest to allow herself to patch herself up since no medical treatment could be given to active competitors. Thus Sasuke walked down for the next fight, this time facing off against Dosu in the usual starting place of the Zen-garden, "Sorry about this. Nothing personal, it's just that we have to kill you and yours. You in particular Uchiha Sasuke."

A usual smirk of amusement came from Sasuke, "Well this is embarrassing. You seem to know who I am and I don't have a clue who you are."

"My name is-."

"-I never said I cared enough to find out." Sasuke interrupted in an attempt to infuriate his opponent prior to the battle at hand, "I just said that it was embarrassing that I don't know who you are… mostly for you. But I guess it really doesn't matter though." He set himself in his combat stance in preparation for the start.

"Kin let her guard down and underestimated your teammate." Dosu said, narrowing his single visible eye at Sasuke, "That won't happen again with you. I guarantee you'll remember my name since it will be the last thing you ever hear."

"Match two: Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha vs. Kinuta Dosu of Oto!" Jei shouted, getting everyone's attention. Sasuke was more or less an attraction to the event off of name value alone. Just calling out his name got a mass of cheers from the people, "Begin!"

Wasting no time at all, Sasuke and Dosu rushed at each other head-on without hesitation. Sasuke moved to strike first, but stopped himself and instead jumped back when from one of Dosu's long sleeves he revealed a metal gauntlet with pores throughout it on his right arm and attempted to punch him. Sasuke felt a strange ringing in his ears that made him feel slightly lightheaded but found no reason for it. Literally nothing had happened in that exchange.

Dosu seemed to smile under his bandages once he saw Sasuke activate his two-tomoed Sharingan to continue the fight. He held up his gauntleted arm and beckoned Sasuke forward as if asking him to attack again. In response, Sasuke threw a kunai that Dosu blocked with his gauntlet before the Oto genin rushed forward to take Sasuke down. He had his right arm cocked back and ready to attack before he ever even got close to Sasuke, something that the young Uchiha saw in slow motion due to his kekkei genkai.

In response to Dosu's direct attack, Sasuke retreated back away from Dosu and jumped onto one of the elevated meditation rocks in the Zen-garden, watching intently as Dosu jumped at him to attempt another attack. Sasuke didn't even let him get close before jumping off of the rock and over Dosu, 'A direct attack. He really seems to want to fight me with taijutsu.' Even as he thought this, Sasuke was steadily getting a headache and he simply couldn't comprehend why.

He couldn't comprehend why until he got a good glimpse at Dosu's right arm. He had been intentionally swinging it wantonly during his sprint up to Sasuke and even when Sasuke jumped from his perch on the rock he still went through with his punch. Sasuke didn't know why until he noticed a faint glow with his own heightened eyesight and perception. It was chakra directed through the gauntlet and it was causing Sasuke's headache.

What a subtle attack. He hadn't even gotten close to hitting Sasuke yet, and even then he had an increasingly pulsing headache that was steadily getting worse. So that was why after he dodged Dosu's first punch he felt like crap inexplicably. Whatever that arm of his was doing, Sasuke wanted no close-range part of it. And luckily he didn't have to fight like that.

Dosu crouched atop the rock that Sasuke had just jumped off of to avoid him once again, "Is this all that the almighty Uchiha Clan is capable of? Konoha really is a soft village after all if this is what they consider to be a genius shinobi."

"Heh." Sasuke said with a smirk, not letting the jab get to him. As if he'd fight on his opponent's terms just because of a reason like that, "That arm of yours is really interesting. Too bad you can't get close enough to actually do anything useful with it."

Dosu stood up from his crouch seemingly accepting Sasuke's challenge, "We'll see about that." He dropped down the backside of the rock out of Sasuke's sight, but even though Dosu moved quickly, concealing his movements as he rushed from rock to rock for cover Sasuke was able to see and keep track of him.

"So you want to play whack-a-mole?" Sasuke said to no one in particular though it was directed at Dosu, "Fine. Let's play." Sasuke jumped atop a rock and brandished a kunai. At the first hint of seeing Dosu he threw his weapon.

Dosu saw the weapon coming and lifted his gauntlet to block his head, but it landed sticking itself in the rock he was about to take cover behind. He averted his path and headed the other way to disrupt Sasuke's tracking of his movements. Dosu wasn't nearly fast enough for Sasuke's body to be unable to keep up with him though, he had been getting beaten up by Hatake Kakashi for an entire month.

'Not even close to getting away from me. You aren't going to even get close, cover to move behind or not.' Sasuke immediately brandished a fuuma shuriken to go with the rest of the kunai he had in his hands to bombard Dosu with, "Let's see you dodge this!" In one move he threw them all in a widespread manner the moment Dosu emerged from behind cover once more.

The sound of the metal flying through the air filled Dosu's ears, "You'll never touch me with any of that!" He yelled as he jumped onto a rock to avoid the weaponry. Over a dozen metal kunai and shuriken littered the rocks filling the Zen-garden, and like Dosu said none of it ever touched him, "I can hear the trajectory of your projectiles and can judge the proper way to dodge them. You'll never touch me with a shuriken." He said before jumping back down into the rock pit, planning to finish closing the distance on Sasuke, "What is this?"

Until he realized that the entire area surrounding the rock he had been on was tangled in ninja wire, making the area look like the nest of a metal spider or something. Looking up at Sasuke on top of his own rock he saw a wire trailing through his mouth while he had been finishing up a chain of hand-seals, "Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Dragon Fire Jutsu)!" Fire flew from Sasuke's mouth along his ninja wire and turned the trap into a screaming metal deathtrap.

Knowing that he was trapped while in there and not wanting to find himself trapped in what was to be the equivalent of a stone oven, Dosu jumped back on to the rock that was the center of the wired attention as the fire blazed around the rock. He needed to find a way out because the rock was rapidly heating up. He wouldn't be safe there for long.

Sasuke knew he would get him with the jutsu or he would trap him up on the rock out in the open, which would eventually catch fire and finish Dosu. Either way he was easy pickings for what would be next.

"Give up." Sasuke warned as embers floated through the air, enhancing a rather treacherous appearance that had initially been given by the orange glow of the flames.

XxX

"Sasuke-kun is so cool!" Both Ino and Sakura shouted as it looked like Sasuke had his win in hand.

Naruto on the other hand leaned against the railing, "Come on. I'm cool too… I chucked a fucking machete through a barrier and beat two guys at once with brute force and wind chakra. Nobody said anything about that."

Shikamaru placed a hand on his shoulder, "I told you already Naruto; guys like us are just designed to be uncool. You can't beat standing in the middle of a raging fire on the cool scale, it's visually magnificent and airheads love it." He said pointing at Sakura and Ino who were still gushing over Sasuke's tactic, "Find a way to make wind chakra look cool and I'll find a way to make creeping shadows look cool. Then maybe guys like us will have a chance."

Chouji put a hand on Naruto's other shoulder, "You get used to it Naruto… trust me."

"He's not that cool." Naruto insisted, "I mean he's looking at the explosion. Cool guys don't look at their own explosions."

"Technically it's an inferno, not an explosion." Shikamaru said, with Chouji nodding in agreement.

"Oh shut up with your 'logic' and 'correct definition of words'." Naruto wasn't going to let something stupid like common sense and actuality mess up his argument.

"Hey!" Sakura said, turning away from the field and towards Naruto and Shikamaru as her senses had picked up something rather late, "…Did you just call us airheads?" Ino seemed to then pick up on that as well and looked equally upset.

Shikamaru looked over at her impassively before looking back at the field as if he hadn't been in a conversation beforehand, "Hey look, Sasuke's going to finish it." That was all it took to get Ino and Sakura's attention back onto the field, "*sigh* Airheads…"

XxX

(On the Field)

At this point Dosu's common sense was crying out for him to give up, but it was his slated mission, it was the mission of his entire team, he was supposed to kill Sasuke Uchiha. Otogakure ninja did not fail their missions, there was simply no room and no place for it. That was why Team Dosu were the only genin from Oto sent for the exams, because they were supposed to be the only ones necessary, they were the only ones sent to represent Otogakure as a means of showing strength.

Even the metal on his gauntlet was heating up enough to burn at the touch now. He couldn't stay on his rock for much longer or he'd just catch ablaze and die soon anyway once the flames grew high and hot enough.

"Don't do it." Sasuke said, making hand-seals and stopping on the tiger seal as he charged up the chakra needed for his next jutsu once he saw the subtle shift of Dosu's body, "You'll never make it to safety, you'll never even get close. Just give up." He had trapped him. Sasuke didn't even want to actually follow up because unless Dosu quit there was only one feasible way that the fight was going to end.

"If I give up or lose without taking your head I fail…" Dosu said lowly, taking a few steps backwards, "If my team loses to all of you then we fail and our village looks weak. If we fail a mission given to us as important by our Otokage then we are dead anyway. So we aren't going to give up by choice." His foot shifted back as if he was preparing to move forward, "Sorry."

"I'm telling you if you move-."

"Let's see if your Sharingan can predict sound."

"I'm not joking!"

"Neither was I. Sorry." With that, Dosu ran forward and jumped off of his deathtrap towards Sasuke, the only other rock he could have possibly reached from his position, his arm set to utilize the abilities of his gauntlet if he got close enough to do so.

He didn't.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu)!"

Sasuke didn't hold back and fired directly at Dosu, hitting him in mid-air and catching his body ablaze as the fireball stopped him while in flight. He then proceeded to drop down into the fire created by Sasuke's previous jutsu that had trapped Dosu and from that point all Sasuke could do was stare into the fires of his own creation before snapping out of what he had just done.

He turned around and jumped down the clear side of his rock that was left untouched so that he could leave it and he simply walked away while proctors headed over to put the fire out. There was no reason for it to be like that. If Dosu had quit then the proctors could have put the fire out and gotten him away, "I was his mission." Sasuke said to himself, trying to reason why Dosu attacked him in the end when there was no logical reason behind it or way that it would work, "And he put his life on the line to take mine…"

"Winner of match three: Uchiha Sasuke!"

XxX

Shikamaru, Naruto, and Chouji just stared over at the remnants of Sasuke's fight with Dosu without flinching. They were ninja and death was a part of their job description, and Naruto and Shikamaru had killed in the past before as well.

"Naruto." Shikamaru said plainly.

"Yeah Shikamaru?" Naruto replied evenly.

Shikamaru rubbed his temple as the proctors put the fire in the Zen-garden out, "I know you're not really one to surrender or quit in the middle of fights or anything like that, but if you're ever stuck on an isolated rock in the middle of a raging fire and you don't have a way out of it and surrendering is an option you'd better do it or I'll drag you back from hell somehow to smack the stupid out of you."

"Got it." Naruto said in full understanding. They then looked over at Zaku who wordlessly walked down for his fight, 'Why didn't he stop the fight for his friend? That didn't have to happen.'

Chouji could tell what Naruto was thinking as he watched Zaku descend the stairs towards the entrance tunnel for his fight, "Don't worry." He said, getting Naruto and Shikamaru to look at him, "I'll ask him that myself right now." He then left to follow behind Zaku and meet up with Sasuke to switch out for the next fight.

Elsewhere in the viewing area, Gaara's eyes were locked on the charred remains of Dosu as the proctors tried to keep it from view of the audience and tried to get it out quickly. Temari and Kankuro could feel the bloodlust around the young man rising and backed off to give him his space.

XxX

(On the Field)

After a rather short talk between teammates, Sasuke relinquished the fight with Zaku to Chouji. It hadn't even taken that much convincing in order to do so. And so Chouji faced off against Zaku on the barren, mountain-based side of the field instead of the usually chosen neutral starting place of the Zen-garden for obvious reasons.

Chouji stared at Zaku who even in the situation he was in looked back at him with a smirk on his face, "I don't understand why you didn't throw in the towel for your teammate just now." Chouji said, "You had to know he wasn't going to get out of that mess."

Zaku let out a cruel sounding laugh, "Dosu was the one that wanted to fight Uchiha. He knew what the score was. It's our mission to kill Sasuke during these exams… that's what I'm going to do. And once I win here and finish off the rest of the round I'll just keep on winning until I reach that other Konoha rookie team that advanced earlier. Apparently if I kill them there's a nice little prize in it for me as well."

He was talking about Shikamaru's team. This guy didn't just want to kill him or Sasuke he wanted to kill Shikamaru as well if he got the chance, "You want to kill my friends?" Chouji said with an edge to his voice.

"Oh so fat boy can hear after all? I thought that all of that blubber of yours might be clogging up your ears too." Zaku taunted cruelly, setting himself in a fighting stance to prepare for the start.

Chouji's frame stiffened at the insult, "…What did you just say?"

"You heard me!" Zaku said, "You're so fat I'm surprised you're not leaving your footprints in the rock!"

Chouji didn't verbally respond to that jab, his gaze was merely set on the ground so that Zaku couldn't see his eyes, "…Start the match."

Genma looked over at the younger Konoha shinobi and shifted the senbon around in his mouth before shrugging and looking at Zaku, "Are you ready?"

"Oh yeah." Zaku said, cracking his neck to the side.

Genma nodded and began the announcement, "Match three: Akimichi Chouji of-!"

"START THE DAMN FIGHT ALREADY!"

"Begin!" The Konoha-born proctor said suddenly after Chouji's angry outburst before getting the hell out of the way. There was no way he was staying near that battle if he didn't have to.

"Baika no Jutsu (Multi-Size Jutsu)!" Chouji's body ballooned outward to a rounded and expanded appearance in the abdomen that Zaku took a step back at seeing, "Now you're dead you bastard! Stop me if you can!" He then tucked his limbs and head inside of his clothes to give himself a massive ball-shaped appearance.

"Holy crap!" Zaku exclaimed, taking a jump back away from Chouji at the sight of him, "What the hell is that?"

"Nikudan Sensha (Human Bullet Tank)!" Chouji's ball-form began to roll in place, picking up momentum before it moved forward towards Zaku with the intent of running him over and squashing him.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Zaku growled to himself at the sight of the incoming Chouji, "There's no way I'm going down like that!" He put his arms straight out to reveal hollow tubes open through his palms, "Zankuuha (Decapitating Airwaves)!" From the tubes in his arms a harsh blast of air came out that struggled to stop Chouji in his tracks, "You can't beat my air waves!"

Though he said that, he seemed to be having one hell of a time holding Chouji back from smashing him, even with the wind from his air tubes stopping him. Still, it gave him an opportunity to dive out of the way to avoid being smashed, "Is that the best you've got!" Zaku taunted as the ball rolled away from him and didn't turn back around, "Are you running? I don't blame you fatso!"

Despite the insult, Chouji just kept rolling on away not even bothering to turn back around towards Zaku. Feeling triumphant, Zaku smirked and figured that he wasn't able to see or hear anything while in that form and proceeded to chase after him to finish him when given the opportunity.

What he didn't realize or seem to notice that Chouji had however, was that the barren, rocky area that they had chosen to fight in was sloped and uneven in many places with hills and craters and all kinds of things… and against the wall that was at the end of the field the terrain turned into something of a makeshift ramp against it… a ramp that Chouji rolled himself up once he reached it as far as he could go.

Then he rolled back down in the exact opposite direction.

Now if Zaku could barely stop Chouji when he had started from a dead stop on flat ground, how would he fare now that Chouji had been rolling for quite some time and had even gotten a boost from rolling himself down a ramp on very uneven ground?

It was just simple physics.

Hey, spending six months on a team with Sakura and spending years and years hanging out with Shikamaru had to rub off somehow.

So now coming with at least three times the momentum, Chouji flew right at Zaku who stopped in his tracks once he saw the ball roll up the side of the wall and right back down coming right towards him, "Block this!" Chouji shouted mid-roll.

And try Zaku did, firing up his air tubes for a blast that was at least twice as strong, "Zankuukyokuha (Extreme Decapitating Airwaves)!"

But a blast twice as strong just wasn't enough for what was at least three times the original force of Chouji's own jutsu, thus it did not stop the rolling this time around… and Chouji rolled right over him, smashing Zaku into the ground and even staying on him for an extra moment to 'spin his wheels', pulverizing the rock with his own spinning before rolling off of Zaku.

Genma immediately headed over to where Zaku got hit and looked at the groaning, broken body of Zaku that was still alive… but he sure as hell wouldn't be getting back up, "Winner of match three: Akimichi Chouji! Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, and Akimichi Chouji advance to the next round!"

XxX

In the competitor's box, Shikamaru let out a chuckle as the crowd cheered for the victorious Team 7, "That guy more or less dug his own grave right from the start."

Nearby, Sakura nodded with an awkward smile on her face, "Yeah… it kind of didn't take anyone on the team long to figure out that calling Chouji fat wasn't really the smartest thing to do." She turned back to the field where they had managed to peel Zaku off the ground and put him on a gurney, "Still, that was kind of violent wasn't it?"

Naruto gave Sakura a deadpan stare and pointed over at Sasuke, "Sakura-chan he just set a living human being on fire and you're talking about the way Chouji won being violent?" He then looked over at Ino who had her mouth open ready to speak, "And if you say 'that's different' you're full of crap Ino-buta-chan."

"Stop calling me that." Ino seethed out through clenched teeth while Sakura had to if nothing else giggle at hearing someone else make fun of the meaning behind Ino's name.

As she kept laughing, Sakura couldn't imagine anyone on her own team calling her the nickname that Ino usually lambasted her with, "I can't believe your own teammate calls you that." She managed to get out between her laughter.

Her laughing stopped however once Gaara and his teammates walked past her on their way to the stairs to enter the field for their turn. All of them noticed that unlike his siblings that didn't pay any of them any mind, Gaara made direct eye contact with Naruto as he passed, if only for a moment. The feeling of the temperature of the room dropping left once Gaara and his team exited to head to the field.

Kabuto saw this and walked over from his own team to talk to the rookies, "Wow… even I felt that." He looked at Naruto, "What did you do to make that guy so mad?" The older genin inquired.

Naruto didn't know how to respond other than with the only answer he could come up with, "I got in his way I guess." He replied vacantly, still looking at the stairwell Gaara had descended even though he was no longer there, "I kind of had a run-in with him during the last part of the exam."

"Really?" Kabuto said before laughing nervously, "Well my team is probably going to have to fight him next round so did you get anything out of his skill set."

"Sand." Naruto said, "Lots and lots of sand. Stay the hell away from it."

A frown came across the silver-haired, bespectacled young man, "That's it? You don't have any real advice to help anyone fight him?"

"Well what are your abilities then? What can you and your team do?" Naruto asked Kabuto in return, "I can't tell you how to fight him if I don't even know how you fight."

A smile came to Kabuto's face, "That sounds like fishing to me… but us? We're nothing special." He said in a modest, pleasant fashion.

"Oh." Naruto said in understanding before turning to the field to watch the fight, "That's easy then." Whether he knew it or not, everyone including Neji and Team Gai as well as Fuu and Dorobou were listening to him, "You run." Naruto said without hesitation, "You run or you quit."

"That's it?" Kabuto asked him in disbelief, "You're kidding right?"

"Well you can die too." Was the dry response from Naruto, "…That's always an option."

"He can't harm Fuu." Dorobou said in an opinionated manner, though said girl seemed to be listening to what Naruto had to actually say, "Sand? That's all he has?"

Neji scoffed over with Team Gai, "Don't try to offload your own fears onto the rest of us. A few of us aren't outright failures like some." Tenten and Lee looked at Neji in an almost disgusted manner and shook their heads.

That managed to get an angry look from Naruto directed at Neji, though he just let it drop. Neji was ignorant and he didn't know what the Dorobou guy's problem was thinking that Fuu could beat anyone just because she was a jinchuuriki, "I don't really care what you think."

XxX

(On the Field)

Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro stood across from the team from Ame that had made it to the finals. The similarly dressed Oboro, Mubi, and Kagari all with their breathing apparatuses waited at the ready.

"Tails." Sekka commented on the preceding coin flip, "Suna team chooses."

Before anyone could even take a chance to think about it, Gaara spoke up, "Team battle." He said plainly, surprising his own team that expected him to rather fight alone.

Not willing to question Gaara due to knowing firsthand what Gaara was like, having cleaned up a few of Gaara's messes in Suna, Sekka merely backed out of the way… far out of the way… all the way out of the Zen-garden, 'Poor bastards… why did they pick this terrain to start in? Just for the sake of a face-off?' A sandy area with rocks littering the vicinity… not the best of choices to be made in his opinion and experience, "First round match, one team battle only! Sabaku no Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro of Suna vs. Oboro, Mubi, and Kagari of Ame! Begin!"

Temari grabbed the large fan from her back and Kankuro took the bandaged bundle from his back to prepare to fight, but Gaara's voice stopped them, "No. Just stay out of my way." He said as the cork on his large gourd of sand popped off the top of it.

"Are you sure Gaara?" Kankuro asked tentatively, he involuntarily took a step back when the sand began to filter out of Gaara's gourd.

"Leave." Gaara reiterated with more of an edge this time to get his point across, "Or I'll kill you too. I don't need either of you to finish the exams at this point. I could have killed either of you any time after the second exam. You're in my way."

Kankuro growled to himself, but Temari put a hand on his arm and shook her head, choosing to listen to Gaara and get the hell out of the way.

"You think you can just leave?" Oboro said, his voice restricted by the breathing apparatus, "Sorry, but you're not that lucky!" As he said that, multiple eerie black forms of the Ame team came from the surrounding rocks and even rose from the ground all throughout the Zen-garden, "You're staying right here where we want you, surrounded."

That statement was responded to by Temari when she took her fan and let loose a swing of it that cut a path through the black copies, making them look like inky illusions as she and Kankuro just kept on walking their way out of the Zen-garden, "We're not leaving because of you." She said calmly.

"We're leaving because of him." Kankuro said, jerking his head back towards Gaara before continuing on after Temari, "You guys should just quit now while you're ahead."

Kagari scoffed, his voice also distorted by his breathing apparatus, "You think only one of you can beat all three of us?" Kunai from different angles flew at Gaara's unmoving form only to be stopped harmlessly by a shield of sand holding them in place before they dropped to the ground harmlessly. Gaara's response was the entire amount of the sands in the Zen-garden whipping around in a torrent.

In the midst of all of this, Gaara stood there calmly in the center with his arms crossed and an emotionless expression on his face, "You're annoying me." He said as the sand settled to reveal himself standing all alone in the area. The entire place was still as the audience just watched and waited for something; an ambush on Gaara's person, something.

They weren't let down as this time a multitude of more exact copies of Team Oboro emerged, wearing their actual clothes and looking just like them.

"Clones…" Gaara said in his gravelly voice, "I hate clones." More sand began to rush about dangerously, smashing about and stripping the surfaces off of the rocks in the Zen-garden, but not doing any damage to the clones even to dispel them, nor were there any cries of pain or alarm. But they had never left the Zen-garden, if they had then Kankuro or Temari would have done something.

Gaara looked around the entire battlefield, ignoring the largely useless clones of theirs that weren't doing a thing but standing around. No sign of them anywhere. That really only left one place for them to be, and they wouldn't have tried it at a distance with their useless clones littering the immediate area, thus Gaara kneeled down and placed his hand on the ground, burying it into the sand.

He seemed to be patiently fishing for something and seemed to find it after not too long, "Sabaku Kyuu (Sand Binding Coffin)." With that being said, Gaara pulled his hand out of the sand and shortly thereafter the three Ame ninja emerged from the ground before being lifted into the air, suspended there by the sand entirely encasing their bodies, "You're from the village of rain correct?"

They didn't respond to Gaara's question as they were busy wondering what the hell was happening and why they couldn't get free despite their attempts to struggle. It was impossible for them.

This suited Gaara just fine however because the question had been rhetorical and he hadn't necessarily cared one way or the other about their answer. He instead lifted his arm into the air with his hand held wide open, "Well let's make it rain blood." He said darkly before making a tight fist with his outstretched hand, "Sabaku Sousou (Sand Waterfall Funeral)!"

And that was it. The sand imploded and crushed all of Team Oboro and much like the name of the second of Gaara's chaining techniques the blood fell from the sky and showered the Zen-garden with gore. The crowd collectively began to freak out at Gaara's one-man decimation of an entire team as he filtered his sand back into his gourd and calmly walked away.

Over with the proctors, Jei grabbed Sekka by the front of his clothing looking angry, "You knew that was going to happen didn't you?" He accused, seeing the way that Sekka had been treating Gaara since being asked to oversee the beginning of the fight (if one had the audacity to call it that), "Why didn't you tell us that was going to happen?"

"There was nothing we could do." Sekka said in a calm manner, the medic-nin yanked himself from the bald Kumo-nin's grasp as he did so, "You couldn't stop Gaara even if you had know what was going to happen. It wouldn't have made a difference. That's not a regular genin, he's not even a regular person."

"What is he then?" Genma asked, still not particularly over the rather graphic deaths of an entire genin squad.

"Just like that girl from Taki only ten times worse. He's Suna's nightmare." Sekka said, shaking his head, "He's our jinchuuriki." He moved away from his fellow proctors to announce the results that were clear for all to see, "The winners of the team battle and advancing to the next round: Sabaku no Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro!"

Not even polite applause was given.

And Genma could now officially say once and for all to everyone that still had their problems with Naruto that Konoha had absolutely nothing to complain about when it came to Naruto being their jinchuuriki if that was what other villages had to deal with in their genin jinchuuriki, 'I hope everyone watching this at home figures that out. For Kami's sake that was just…'

XxX

Everyone in the competitor's stand that had borne witness to the demise of the Ame genin had no words for what they had just seen. The way Sasuke killed Dosu in the last round was one thing, what Gaara had done was something else completely. The only one there that wasn't surprised was the only person there that had actually experienced it firsthand before.

Naruto let out a sigh to disguise the discomfort he felt, evident by how tight his hands were clutching the railing. He had already seen what Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro could do when his clones went at them in the caves, but having Gaara's sand defeat actual people was something else to see altogether, "I knew that was going to happen… I didn't think there'd be so much blood though." He said to himself quietly, 'And damn it we still haven't seen anything that we can really take advantage of!'

Shikamaru's mind was racing though, 'Okay, he doesn't move and he doesn't like to have his team anywhere around him… ever. And we are staying right the hell out of that sand trap garden if I have to pin our feet to the ground somewhere else. We need more.' Next it was that Kabuto guy's cloth-faced team's turn to fight against the team of older Kiri ninja. They were already on the field, ready to go, 'I hope whoever wins can push the hell out of them next round.'

The battle was mostly underwhelming thus far, more of a dogfight than most of the other matches that had been fought, but there wasn't much to see other than the guy that could stretch his body and the guy that could absorb chakra on Kabuto's team. Kabuto himself seemed to be really good at dodging attacks and quite alright at taijutsu, and as they took the win they got their round of applause, but Shikamaru wasn't given much confidence after that first showcase that next round would be any tougher for the team from Sunagakure.

XxX

A pretty boring series of one-on-one fights led conversation to break out again prior to the thirty minute break between rounds, though just like before there was no one approaching the Suna team or Taki's team who finally got their third wheel Houki back from the medical bay.

This led to Naruto actually taking a minute to go out and get himself something to drink due to thirst… also to give himself a minute to smoke a cigarette, he felt like he deserved one after round one and that he needed one after seeing Gaara obliterate those other genin. He took long enough to finish one cigarette off before stepping on the butt of the cigarette on the ground on his way back to the viewing balcony.

On his way back he found Fuu sitting on the stairwell by herself and stopped walking, standing to her side less than 15 feet away. He felt like walking back to the viewing area was the smartest move at the time, but for the life of him he just couldn't bring himself to do it. From the angle he was standing at he could see her eyes. While she didn't seem nearly as angry or irritated as she did when she was around people, as a matter of fact she seemed to like being by herself, he could also tell the look of her eyes… and they were just like the way his used to be.

…

Damn it he was going to get killed in a stairwell between rounds. Who dies during the intermission? That would be the lamest thing conceivable.

Well at least being a nice guy would only wind up with him dying alone, worst-case scenario. Not Shikamaru or Ino this time.

Maybe they'd promote him posthumously?

Nah, they'd call his trying to talk to Fuu by himself a tactical fault and he'd never get that sweet flak jacket… even if he otherwise would have gotten it lain on his grave.

"Hey." Naruto said, noticing Fuu's eyes immediately dart to the side towards him, allowing her to see him through the hand rail set up on the stairs she was sitting on, "What are you doing out he-."

"I'm not staying in that room with all of those people just to watch a shitty fight between people I'm never going to face." Fuu said, cutting him off tersely as she narrowed her eyes at him, "Now what are you doing out here?"

He was tempted to mouth off and say that technically he was supposed to fight next again once the intermission was over, but making an enemy out of another fellow jinchuuriki was not high on his list of things to do at these exams, "Just taking a walk to clear my head, kind of like you I guess. Do you mind if I sit down?"

"Yes." Fuu said lifting a hand and making a fist to crack her knuckles with just the motion of doing so, "I do mind. Now beat it kid before you wear out what little welcome you had and I beat you."

There was a low and underlying killing intent coming from Fuu but when Naruto took a step back it lessened slightly, "I don't want to fight… yet anyway. Not until I win the next round" He said as he leaned against the wall in the hallway, "I heard what that guy said, your teammate."

Fuu's eyes turned away from Naruto to look down the stairs at the reminder of her outing as a jinchuuriki last round, "So what? All that means is that more people I've never met are going to think I'm a monster, just like always."

"You're not a monster." Naruto argued in return.

"What would you know about it?" She snapped in return, looking at her hands, "You saw what I did out there to that other team from Konoha. And you're telling me you don't want payback? You're telling me you don't think I'm a monster? Every single time I've ever touched someone since I was a little girl I've hurt them. I break things and I break people without even trying to. So don't give me that crap, because you don't even know kid."

A frown came over Naruto's face before he said his next bit, "Well you can touch me… I'm pretty sure I won't break."

Fuu let out a humorless laugh and placed her hand on the metal railing with an oddly sweet smile on her face, "Well come over here and shake my hand then." She said pleasantly.

Well, she said to come on over. Naruto was pretty sure if she was trying to trap him he could evade an attack easily enough. Thus he took her up on the offer and walked over. The closer he got, the more strained the smile on Fuu's face became before he finally heard a strange noise that sounded like metal groaning .

"And stop right there." Fuu said in a strained voice once Naruto got within 5 feet of her. She let go of the metal railing and Naruto's eyes looked towards it to see that her grip had left a crushing mark in the railing, "You still want to shake my hand? How about give me a hug? Are you still sure you won't break?"

The sarcasm was rampant in her speech, getting Naruto to look at her through squinted eyes, "I was serious you know."

"It doesn't matter if you were or not." Fuu said, "You think you're the first person that tried to be all friendly with me to get me to let my guard down? You're not. The Academy teachers, the caretakers, my classmates… so many of them got me to think they were my friends and when they got close enough they would attack me… they'd say that my abilities with the Nanabi's powers were too weak and report it to the village leader."

No one had ever treated Naruto like that when he was a kid, people basically treated him like a leper and went out of their way to stay away from him, but he wasn't attacked by his own villagers or falsely befriended. She was basically telling him that she was befriended just so others could get close enough to force her to activate her abilities with her biju, "That's horrible! Who does that?"

Technically Jiraiya did, but that was just one person, and he apologized afterwards. Fuu was talking about multiple people used to spontaneously attack her to test her skill with her ability and they didn't seem to care.

Ignoring him, Fuu then punched the rail, bending it thoroughly from the force she used, "So no. I learned that no one ever wants to be around me without causing me some kind of harm. Anyone willing to stick around is just biding their time to attack me. So you can shake my hand, I'll turn your bones into powder… you can hug me too if you really want to, but I'll snap your spine like a hickory stick. You'll wait until I drop my guard at any moment and you'll turn on me… you're my enemy remember? So slay the monster… kill me and I bet you they'll just drop a promotion in your lap out of gratitude."

"Will you stop saying you're a monster!"

"Why does it matter to you?"

"Because if that stupid thing inside of you makes you a monster that means I'm one too!" Naruto yelled at her, taking great care not to step forward to set her off any further. Still, he was going to get his damned point across one way or another. Fuu's eyes widened at him before rolling in distrust. Seeing he had to prove it, Naruto backed off and drew his machete, putting Fuu on instant alert. Naruto merely dragged the blade of the machete across his hand to draw blood and sheathed it again. He wiped the blood on his pants and showed Fuu the light wound.

Watching the cut heal visibly right before her eyes set Fuu's doubt back to nearly nothing. No normal person healed like that, "You're a-?"

"Yeah." Naruto said, fishing some medical wrap out of his supply pouch that he began to wrap around his hand, "And I know I'm not a monster. Neither are you, and I'm going to prove that to you and everyone one way or another."

Having spoken his mind to Fuu, Naruto walked past her to head back into the viewing area to link up with his team before the next round began. Once he went further down the hall he found Sasuke standing on the wall, "So what was all that about dobe? I heard the echo of you yelling."

"How much of that did you hear?" Naruto asked.

"None of it." Sasuke replied honestly, "But I'm fighting her next. I was just wondering if you told her anything about us to help her team win in case you're scared of taking me on again." He finished with a smirk, "Because you should be. It won't be as even as it was last time."

"I agree." Naruto said with a challenging grin, "I'm going to beat you way easier this time. We all know I was winning the last fight."

"In your dreams dobe." Sasuke said with a scoff as they began walking back to the waiting area, "I must have kicked you in the head too hard the last time."

Before Naruto could open his mouth to offer up a sniping response, Gaara's voice stopped them both, "Uzumaki." Both Konoha genin turned around to see Gaara standing in the low-lit hallway staring at the both of them, "I'm going to kill you. I just want you to know that. And unlike your friend Uchiha I did hear what you said to the girl. I want to tell you right now that we are monsters…"

Sasuke looked ready to defend himself. He could tell something was off with Gaara from the moment he first stood in his presence and watching him crush three genin to a bloody paste didn't really remedy the mindset any, "We're not friends. And what are you talking about?"

Gaara's seafoam colored eyes turned to Sasuke momentarily, "I wasn't talking to you. Shut up or I'll kill you too."

Sasuke bristled at the casual threat and turned his Sharingan on in response, "Come and try it you psychotic little-."

"You're not a monster Gaara." Naruto said, cutting off Sasuke from forcing the situation to escalate any further, "It's what's inside you that's the monster. Don't let yourself become the thing that everyone thinks you are."

"Dobe what are you doing?" Sasuke said, still defensive and with good reason to be so once the cork popped off of Gaara's gourd and sand started filtering out of it. Both of them knew full well what that was used for, "Stop trying to talk down the homicidal guy and think of something that will actually work. I don't feel like fighting him in a hallway."

"It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks." Gaara said as his sand began to slowly billow about, "If they believe I'm a monster, a demon, it's only because I am. From the moment I was born I've killed. I took the life of the woman that brought me into this world. Ever since the age of six I've been killing assassins sent after me by my own father the Kazekage, the man who had the Ichibi no Shukaku sealed within me to make me Suna's ultimate weapon." His sand started to creep along the ground towards Sasuke and Naruto who both drew weaponry in case it came to a fight, "Mother wants both of your blood right now… she's screaming for it."

"I thought you said your mother was dead." Sasuke said with a kunai drawn and at the ready for all the good it probably wouldn't do, 'This guy is really insane.'

If that weren't enough for Sasuke, Gaara began talking to himself right there in front of them, "…Please mother, just wait. Wait a little bit longer. I promise you'll get more blood soon. Not here… this isn't the place to kill Uzumaki. This isn't the place to kill Uchiha. But I'll make them both pay… I promise. No one will make me disappear."

Both Naruto and Sasuke slowly began to back away towards the waiting area while Gaara kept muttering to himself and his 'mother', not even noticing them creeping away from him, "What the fuck was that all about?" Sasuke said once they got far enough away.

"I don't know." Naruto said, wiping a cold sweat from his face once the tension from before died down. He hadn't even known he had been perspiring, "I don't think I'll be taking the stairs again for the rest of the tournament though. I think I'll just walk up and down the wall." There were still ten minutes left in the intermission.

Even though the situation had faded out, Sasuke was well aware that he had missed a significant chunk of what the issue was with Naruto, Gaara, and even Fuu. Why was Naruto out there talking to her in the first place? Gaara really had a monster sealed inside of his body like Fuu? And when he said that they were monsters it didn't sound like he was simply referring to himself and Fuu. It sounded like he was talking about Naruto as well, 'Naruto has a monster in him too? That had to be what he was talking about. But Naruto isn't anything like either one of them. No way.'

Why couldn't things be simple and straightforward? They were supposed to be there for a promotion test and now they were stuck surrounded by these jinchuuriki guys and people trying to kill them. Did most other genin taking these exams have to deal with this stuff when they took them? It would have to be pretty hard to dredge up this much crazy and stick it all in one exam twice a year.

Hey You're Not a Genius. Who Cares? Read This and You Won't Suck at Fuuinjutsu (by Jiraiya)

Fuuinjutsu is just one part of your never-ending war on life

Now like I said before at the start of this book; it is not only meant to teach you how to make nifty little seals, it is also meant to coach you on life, since if you're reading this book and decided to intentionally specialize in fuuinjutsu you need all the advice and guidance you can get.

In an effort to make a man out of you I will now be giving you a crash course in my true major and life's calling; picking up the luscious ladies. Trust me chums, listen to Jiraiya-sama and you won't be able to keep the women off of you, this is my money-back guarantee to you, the consumer.

First thing's first: being a ninja is cool… to civilians. Civilian girls dig the danger aspect of your life, wishing that it would insert itself into their lives somehow to make their existence less mundane. She yearns to be one of those women seeing her lover off to war like in those books and movies all over the place. If you have a headband that's the opening for you to buy her a drink, if you have a regulation flak jacket then you've earned yourself two good hours to woo the lass with your stories of awesome. Basically, the more regulation items on your person that signifies that you are elite and important to the hidden village military society the easier it will be for you to hook up.

A note to remember though if you are pursuing a civilian woman. They are high-maintenance and a lot of them have gold-digger tendencies whether they know it or not. If you are preparing to make a girlfriend or a wife out of a woman like this then you had better have a lot of free time and funds because you're going to need it.

If you're looking to pick up women based off of the merit of your job then you'd better shoot for a civvie chick. If you're aiming a higher up the totem pole at the pinnacle of human female development, the kunoichi, then you must know this: your rank means little to nothing to them usually. A kunoichi is a ninja just like you. You have about a snowball's chance in hell of going home with a kunoichi that outranks you. It just isn't going to happen. As a matter of fact even if you're her rank she won't treat you with any romantic interest without a good reason (Such as you saving her life, you being friends with her for years and earning her unconditional trust, you being smoking hot and having her crush on you for years, things like that.) so rank is useless.

Also you must, must, must make sure that if you're going to try and get with a kunoichi that you are just as strong as her or stronger. This is not any sort of chauvinistic bullshit, this is mostly for your safety, because if you piss a kunoichi off your rate of survival drops depending on how strong she is by multiples of two for each rank. They will gain strength past the limits of their normal parameters for every rank past Academy Student that they obtain. I've done my math over the course of my many years of life, do not dispute me! Who's reading whose book here?

I have much more advice than this (I have enough to fill a fucking book… as a matter of fact I might just do that.), but I'll leave you with this gem.

The Only Pickup Lines You'll Ever Need:

1) "Hey, my friends over there were wondering if you liked me."

2) "Just to get this out of the way; I'd like some sausage and eggs for breakfast."

3) Jiraiya: "Hey are you a courier ninja?"

Hot Chick: "No. Why?"

Jiraiya: "Because I swear you were checking out my package."

Hot Chick: "*titters* I was. Now ravish me please. Call down the power of the ancient gods and ravish me pagan style you beast of a man."

You're welcome in advance.

Jutsu List

Sakura Hanakaeba no Arashi (Cherry Blossom Razor Storm). B-rank genjutsu, offensive, supplementary. Victims of this genjutsu will see a rain of cherry blossoms around them. The slightest movement will result in the sensation of being cut with tiny blades in order to force movement. Movement is necessary for the full scope of the jutsu to be felt; the movement of the body and its nerves will guide the foreign chakra through the system of the enemy making the illusion of more blossoms cutting into the target. While painful and difficult to stomach, staying still in the 'storm of blades' long enough to break the genjutsu is the best way to ensure the least amount of pain, but it also makes you a target for the caster of the genjutsu to attack directly with a follow-up.

Ongoing Stats (Out of 5) Revamped

Team 7

Uchiha Sasuke

Ninjutsu: 3

Taijutsu: 2.5

Genjutsu: 1.5

Intelligence: 2

Strength: 2

Speed: 3.5

Stamina: 2.5

Hand-Seals: 3

Total Score: 20

Akimichi Chouji

Ninjutsu: 3

Taijutsu: 2.5

Genjutsu: 1

Intelligence: 1.5

Strength: 3.5

Speed: 1

Stamina: 2.5

Hand-Seals: 2

Total Score: 17

Haruno Sakura

Ninjutsu: 1.5

Taijutsu: 1

Genjutsu: 3.5

Intelligence: 3.5

Strength: 1

Speed: 1

Stamina: 1

Hand-Seals: 4

Total Score: 16.5

Team Dosu

Kinuta Dosu

Ninjutsu: 2.5

Taijutsu: 2

Genjutsu: 1.5

Intelligence: 2.5

Strength: 1.5

Speed: 3

Stamina: 2

Hand-Seals: 1

Total Score: 16

Abumi Zaku

Ninjutsu: 3

Taijutsu: 2

Genjutsu: 2

Intelligence: 1

Strength: 1

Speed: 2.5

Stamina: 1

Hand-Seals: 1

Total Score: 13.5

Tsuchi Kin

Ninjutsu: 2

Taijutsu: 1.5

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 2

Strength: 1

Speed: 2

Stamina: 1

Hand-Seals: 2

Total Score: 14.5

Sand Siblings

Gaara

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 1

Genjutsu: 2.5

Intelligence: 2.5

Strength: 1.5

Speed: 2

Stamina: 4

Hand-Seals: 4

Total Score: 21

Temari

Ninjutsu: 3

Taijutsu: 2.5

Genjutsu: 1.5

Intelligence: 2.5

Strength: 3

Speed: 2.5

Stamina: 2

Hand-Seals: 2

Total Score: 19

Kankuro

Ninjutsu: 3.5

Taijutsu: 1.5

Genjutsu: 1.5

Intelligence: 2

Strength: 2.5

Speed: 2

Stamina: 2.5

Hand-Seals: 3.5

Total Score: 19

Team Oboro

Oboro

Ninjutsu: 2.5

Taijutsu: 1.5

Genjutsu: 3.5

Intelligence: 2

Strength: 1.5

Speed: 2

Stamina: 1

Hand-Seals: 2

Total Score: 16

Mubi

Ninjutsu: 2.5

Taijutsu: 1

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 1.5

Strength: 1.5

Speed: 2

Stamina: 1

Hand-Seals: 1.5

Total Score: 14

Kagari

Ninjutsu: 2.5

Taijutsu: 1.5

Genjutsu: 3

Intelligence: 1

Strength: 1.5

Speed: 1.5

Stamina: 1.5

Hand-Seals: 2

Total Score: 14.5

Team Kabuto

Yakushi Kabuto *(You'd damn sure better know what the star means…)

Ninjutsu: 2.5

Taijutsu: 2.5

Genjutsu: 2

Intelligence: 3

Strength: 1.5

Speed: 2

Stamina: 1

Hand-Seals: 2

Total Score: 16

Akadou Yoroi

Ninjutsu: 3

Taijutsu: 2

Genjutsu: 2

Intelligence: 1

Strength: 2

Speed: 2

Stamina: 3.5

Hand-Seals: 2.5

Total Score: 16

Tsurugi Misumi

Ninjutsu: 2

Taijutsu: 3.5

Genjutsu: 1.5

Intelligence: 1.5

Strength: 2.5

Speed: 2

Stamina: 1.5

Hand-Seals: 1

Total Score: 15