Hiro's eyes grew wide when he saw all the participants in the room. "So many are going to enter?" 

"Well that was kinda the point,"  Daro commented, "didn't Taryn-sensei tell us there would be a lot of Genin? That's the purpose of the whole Chuunin Exams." But he too eyed the room nervously.

"Guys..."  Kuro said, "it looks like a written test or something." He pointed at the desks that were lined up in rows of five and frowned.

"A what?!" Hiro shouted.

One of the other participants, a Genin from Rain, rubbed his ear. "Geez kid. Tone it down will you? If you're not up for it, then why bother to come in the first place?"

Hiro narrowed his eyes, but Daro placed a hand on his arm. "Not now," he said.

"But I don't like written tests," Hiro whined.

Kuro sighed. "You'll do fine."

Daro eyed the desks confused. "I don't know what all the fuzz was about if it's just going to be a written test. How would people die from that?" He glanced at Hiro who was trying not to cry. 'Then again... some just might.' "She was just messing with us, right?" He looked at Kuro who shrugged and looked just as confused.

"Hey, isn't that Hanabi-chan?" Daro suddenly said. And indeed the young Hyuuga prodigy walked into the room with her two teammates.

"You did know she was going to be in the exams, right?"  Kuro said, "that's about the only thing sensei did tell us."

"Eh right,"  Daro scratched his head, "sorry. I'm just nervous."

...

A small giggle drew Akira and Ken to attention, and they both glanced down at their teammate.

"What's so funny." Akira asked, the boredom in his voice evident.

Suzume gave a tiny point forward, they're here.

"Hm?" Ken followed her finger as did Akira, "Oh, yeah," Ken muttered, "your three little crushes."

"They are not!" The entire room went silent, and Suzume slowly turned her beat red face slowly to face the gathered crowd. They were all staring at her--some with curious expressions, others very annoyed, and some were a bit nervous. "Ehehe," she scratched at the back of her head with a small smile and closed eyes, "don't mind me."

Ken rolled his eyes, "Then why do you pay so much attention to them? They aren't even friends...like me," he huffed under his breath.

Akira smirked, "Ooo, someone's jealous." he teased.

"Am not. Why would I be jealous? Suzume is the last person I'd be jealous over." A chill ran down his spine, and he slowly turned his head nervously to face the angered red-head.

"Ken..." she growled.

"Ah, w-wait, Suzume," Ken held up his hands in surrender, "I didn't mean it like that. I meant--Gyah!" Ken was doubled over in his seat, with both hands over the back of his head, a nice red bump forming. Suzume crossed her arms and turned away with a 'hmph', "Jerk," she muttered under her breath.

Akira snickered quietly to himself, not wishing to be the next person beaten over the head.

...

A commotion in the front of the room made Daro and his teammates look up and their eyes grew wide.

"They are here too?" Hiro gasped, "but I thought that kunoichi said they were Chuunin already?"
  
"They must be proctors then," Daro mused and he frowned in worry. Those three could give them a real hard time in here. They couldn't exactly go against the rules, but he had a feeling they should still be on guard and he told his teammates the same thing.

"Well, one thing is sure," Hiro said while watching Ken clutch his head, "I think it's good we don't have a girl on our team after all. They get violent."

Before they could think on it any further, a what they presumed to be Jounin, stepped in front of the classroom.

"Welcome to the first round of the Chuunin Exams. My name is Shikaku Nara, I will be your main proctor for this event..."

"Did he... just say... Shukaku?" Hiro shivered.

"No moron," Daro rolled his eyes, "Shikaku."

"Shh," Kuro hissed at them, "we'll get scolded."

"Please be seated."

The Genin nervously made their way to the spots appointed to them.

"There are three rounds in total," Shikaku continued, "the written exam, the survival test and finally the combat. But there are few who will make it that far." He paused a moment and took in all the candidates. Some gulped nervously, others seemed full of confidence. Some appeared indifferent. He was not impressed. There was more to being a Chuunin than good fighting skill. They would find that out soon enough. "At this first round you will each been given ten questions. Answer them correctly. You will start off with a total amount of ten points, one for each question. For every question you answer incorrectly one point will be deducted. But there is a catch. This is also a team test. If one of your teammates' point hits zero, the entire team will be disqualified."

Several gasps were heard and some of the Genin muttered amongst themselves.

"Quiet, I'm not done," Shikaku said. He glared around the room. "If one of your teammates is caught cheating more than three times, the entire team is disqualified." More mumbling, but this time Shikaku ignored it. "There are Chuunin proctors all throughout the room to observe you. You have two hours to finish this test. Good luck. You may begin."

...

Suzume glanced around the room with a small excited smirk on her face. She then glanced over to Ken first, who seemed to be discreetly looking around the room too, before glancing over to Akira. Her face fell into an unimpressed expression--Akira was leaning on the arm of his chair, notepad in hand, and he looked to be napping.

'Figured as much.' She inwardly sighed before 'accidentally' bumping Akira's arm off of his perch, causing him to jump awake with a small noise of surprise, though it had cause every single persons' attention and they looked to him with questioning gazes.

Akira face drew into a nervous sweat as an eyebrow twitched. "Uh, yeah, I'm watching all of you, so you better watch out rookies!" He gave an inward huff of triumph, 'Yeah, way to cover yourself Akira,' he praised as he sat back down with a smug expression on his face.

Suzume and Ken slid a hand down their faces with an embarrassed sigh.

Shikaku, let out a sigh and shook his head. Of course, Hisayo's students would be the ones to cause a scene, and with Akira at the helm of it all.

Akira leaned back in his chair, glaring at Suzume. "You didn't have to put me in such an embarrassing spot," he whispered.

Suzume smirked, "You brought it upon yourself. Stop thinking about this whole proctor job as baby sitting, and you might actually have fun."

...

Daro rolled his eyes at Akira's outburst. 'What a clown,' he thought, 'is he really a Chuunin?' He sighed and focused on the first question.

1) Your enemy is positioned at point A. Your location is point B. If you measure the angle of the Sun (X), how likely is it that another enemy will attack you from point C without your notice? Also calculate the angle in which you would have to throw a shuriken, with the wind coming from the South with a force of 5 Beaufort, to take out opponent C before opponent A.

Daro growled and bit the end of his pencil.  'What the ...?' He read the question again. And again. And let out a frustrated sigh. This was way hard. 'How am I supposed to know this? I don't even know what it says.' He dared a glance two tables to the right, in the row in front of him, where Hiro was sitting. His teammate was writing vividly, edge of his tongue between his teeth. 'And he's the one afraid of written tests,' Daro thought annoyed, 'he excels at calculus.'
He couldn't see Kuro, because he was seated in the back of the room, but there was no doubt the black-haired boy would do good as well.
He turned back to his paper and stared at the next question.

2) You and your team are walking through a dense forest. It rained severely two days ago. You have fifteen miles to go until you reach your destination. Describe the kind of footwear suitable in these circumstances and explain your choice.

At least that one made sense. You had to erase your footprints after all in case an enemy would be following you. He carefully read through all of the questions. Most of them were too difficult to answer. His eyes landed on the final question.

10) The rules for the last question will be discussed at the time of the given question.

He frowned. 'Weird. What is that all about?'

...

One...two...three...'Wow,' Ken hid his surprise, 'so many people already starting to cheat. Too bad that most of them are hiding it so well—It would be easier for me to mark them down for cheating if I could visibly make out their actions. But Nara-san did say not to bother if they were able to hide it, and well at that.' He glanced to his right to see what his two teammates were up to.

Suzume was the one paying attention of course, with a concentrated look on her face as she glanced around and back down to her writing tablet, before looking back up and glancing around once more. Akira was...napping. Ken let out a small sigh, '...Akira, you slacker. Just because this—'

A kunai landed just in front of a genin from Cloud's paper, gaining many surprised reactions from the genin, and secretly, Ken and Suzume.

"Three strikes; you're out, kid." Akira let out a bored yawn.

Ken's surprised expression fell into a smirk as he gave a small shake of his head, 'Guess he really is taking this seriously...for the most part.'

Suzume was smirking as well as she tilted her head to her right where Akira was seated, "See? Isn't this fun?"

The Cloud-nin stood up from his chair with a growl, "I wasn't even cheating!" He argued against Akira's actions.

"Dude, you were so obvious, it wasn't even funny." Akira smirked as he held up another kunai, flipping it around in a careless manner.

"Where's your proof!"

Akira glanced over to Ken. "You saw it too, I know you, Ken."

Ken nodded his head. "Yup, sure did, so tough luck. Maybe next time you'll do better."

"I did not CHEAT!" The genin from Cloud's hand quickly reached up, over his shoulder to draw on his sword on his back. A whip was quick to lash out and wrap around the genin from his waist up, forcibly halting his actions. He looked up at the shadow glooming over him, to find a red-head smiling down at him.

"Na-uh-uh," She scolded, "fighting isn't allowed unless Nara-san says so."

Hiro's eyes grew wide at the girl's actions and he almost dropped his pencil. 'She really is scary.'
Two rows back, Daro stared at the Cloud ninja's outburst. 'He really was obvious about it. Even I noticed... wait... ' He rethought what had just happened and frowned. 'What if... what if we are meant to cheat? Shinobi have to gather information at missions too... like we did on our first mission with Taryn-sensei. Why didn't I think of that before?'
He turned his head to the front where Shikaku was observing the room. The Jounin narrowed his eyes at the Cloud ninja. "The rules were made clear at the start of the test. If you are caught cheating three times, you're out. If you lose your temper that easily, perhaps you are not cut out to be a ninja at all. Now get yourself removed from the room. Your teammates too and if there is fighting again..." He glared at every Genin in the room now, "then be sure there will be consequences."

Kuro sighed and used the opportunity to drop his genjutsu. It costs a lot of chakra to keep it up that long and he was glad of the reprieve the commotion offered.

The rest of the particular genin team from Cloud, stood up to leave, with their teammate who was being escorted out of the room by Suzume, who still had him wrapped up in his uncomfortable upper body position. She paused, when she came near Hiro's seated position, and she gave a closed-eyed smile and a small wave.

Ken grunted as he sank in his chair. "Not cool," he muttered, soliciting a smirk from Akira.
"Come on Ken, you know Suzu-chan, she's just being nice."

Hiro turned a deep red and quickly lowered his eyes to his paper again.

Daro stifled a laugh when he saw it. He was not letting his friend forget this. 'Serves him right for always talking about Casey to me.'

"Okay," Shikaku said sternly, "show's over. Back to your tests."

It wasn't very long after the Cloud genin made their escorted exit, that Suzume waltzed back into the room with a cheerful smile on her face, sitting back down between her two teammates, one of which seemed to be sulking; meanwhile the other was glancing down at said sulker with a small chuckle. Suzume blinked as she looked at Ken with innocent eyes. "Huh? What's wrong Ken?"

"N-nothing." He looked away with a pink tint over his face, after having caught a glimpse of her cute expression.

Hiro coughed and raised his hand.

"Yes?" Shikaku narrowed his eyes at the boy and Hiro gulped.

"I was just... I need to go to the bathroom..." He flinched and looked at his desk.

A few chuckles came from the other Genin in the room, but Shikaku ignored it. "Fine, you can go, but someone will go with you." Hiro nodded and stood up.

Shikaku glanced around the room for a volunteer (victim) to escort the boy to and from the bathroom.

'Ugh, don't pick me.' Akira inwardly whined, 'Please, don't pick me.'

 'Haha, I'm a girl, so I'm safe.' Suzume beamed brightly in triumph from within.

'Pick me,' Ken smirked hopeful, 'so I can bust someone, at least once.'

Shikaku smirked when his eyes landed on the perfect candidate. Despite the boy's earlier display, he wanted to make sure the young Chunin continued to stay alert. "Akira," He called, "you take him."

"What?! I didn't sign up to babysit, Nara-san, sir!" Akira whined, but made sure to address the Jounin with the proper respect. Suzume and Ken, along with several other Chunin proctors, stifled their chuckles.

"You don't have a choice in the matter, now go," Shikaku ordered.

Akira growled, but otherwise did as he was told. "Sheesh, alright, alright." He stopped in front of Hiro and glanced down at him with an annoyed expression. "Come on, let's hurry and get this over with."

Hiro eyed the Chuunin nervously, but walked out of the room with Akira at his side. He had to admit he was a bit intimidated by the boy. The way he threw that knife earlier... 'I thought he was sleeping, but he was just pretending. I have to be more careful around him. Sensei always says to stay alert.'  He sighed. With Akira as his escort, his little plan was going to be a bit tricky. And he wasn't at all sure it would work. He didn't know how the bathroom looked like after all.

"Hey," Akira's voice suddenly broke his thoughts. The Chuunin glanced at him from the corner of his eyes, "no hard feelings right? From the other day?" A playful smirk was around his lips.

Hiro eyed him carefully to see if he was genuine. "Sure..." he said after a pause.

A smirk tugged at the Akira's lips. "Great. Sensei doesn't normally get so worked up, so sorry 'bout that."

"Taryn-sensei has a bit of a temper sometimes," Hiro said hesitantly, "I'm sure she didn't mean to argue though."

 "Wonder why they did end up trying to fight each other? Suzu-chan has this crazy idea about it," Akira chuckled, "but it's not like it's what was really going on."

Hiro stared at Akira blankly. He had a slight suspicion that this 'Suzu-chan' wasn't so crazy after all. "Oh really?" he asked casually, "what did she think?"

"She thinks Hisayo-sensei was fighting with your sensei over Hatake-san--he was the one with the mask that dropped in on us all the other day." Akira chuckled again. "Suzu-chan always thinks there's something 'romantic' going on between the two." He then rolled his eyes. "She thinks that of most everyone who looks to be in some sort of relationship."

Hiro bit his lip, for once smart enough to withhold any comment that normally would have come out. He didn't want to get his sensei in trouble. "Well..." he said instead, "sensei does know him for when she was banished. I don't know your sensei's relation with Hatake-san, but he and sensei are friends." 'And I don't think that's the whole story,' he added in his mind. He grew nervous again. Kuro was better at handling these kind of situations. 'Now I really have to use the bathroom,' he thought annoyed.

Akira nodded, and came to a stop. "Alright, bathroom, here we are." He glanced down to Hiro and smirked. "Don't get caught doing anything in there," he warned.

Hiro was hesitant. "Y-you're not going in with me?"

"I was ordered to escort you to the bathroom," Akira explained, the smirk growing wider on his face, "I wasn't told to go in with you."

Hiro eyed him suspiciously for a moment. He had been planning to come up with some excuse as to why he had to go in alone. That he couldn't go with someone there or something. But now the Chuunin had handed him a free pass. He knew he couldn't refuse though. That would seem suspicious. 'Does he know I'm planning something?'  He nodded at Akira. "I won't be long."

"Remember," Akira teased, "don't get caught doing anything...I'll just be here, waiting until you're done." He leaned up against the wall with crossed arms and a small wave of his hand.

Hiro slipped into the bathroom and closed the door. He swallowed nervously and glanced at the door for a moment. Suddenly he wasn't so sure this had been a good idea. But he knew he didn't have much time. 'Come on Hiro. You can do this. Remember when you broke into Gaara-sama's office?'  He let out a deep sigh and let the water run to drown out the noise. He then bit his thumb and quickly waved a few seals. A small hawk appeared in a cloud of smoke. Before the bird could squeal, Hiro pressed a finger against his lips and pointed at the door. The hawk nodded in understanding and Hiro pointed at the open window.

"Are you done yet?" Akira called from the other side of the door.

"Just a second! Hiro called back and quickly helped his hawk outside. He glanced back nervously to make sure Akira wouldn't come in and then shut the water off. He opened the door. "Okay, done," he said with a slight smile.

Akira pushed off the wall with a grin, "Sheesh, you take about as much time as a girl." he teased.
  
"I really had to go, okay? Nerves. I hate written exams."

Akira chuckled. "And I hate babysitting."

"I'm not a baby," Hiro growled annoyed.

"Then prove it by passing this exam." Akira's voice was friendly, but serious.

Hiro's eyes widened for a moment, but then he smirked. "I will."

"Heheh, oh, and just a word of advice," Akira grinned.

"What is it?" Hiro was hesitant once again.

"Don't get scared if Ken glares at you or anyone on your team. He's a bit...jealous, ehehe."
Hiro blinked for a moment, but before he could come up with something to say, they had reached the exam room again.

...

In the exam room Daro perked up when he heard a soft tapping outside the window. He blinked a moment and hid a smirk. 'Go Hiro,' he thought. His friend had pulled it off then. He must have used one of the smaller hawks. Kera wouldn't have fit through a small window. He concentrated on the morse code that Kuro had taught the hawks some weeks ago. From the corner of his eye he could see the small bird perched on a branch just outside the exam room. He could faintly hear Kuro's soft tapping of a pencil to pass the bird the questions. With a smirk he wrote down the answer on question one.

"You sure took you're time." Ken teased in a whispering voice as Akira sat back down.
"Meh, the kid's lucky I'm feeling sluggish today. I would have put him on a harsh timer otherwise."

Kuro shook his head as Hiro sunk down in his seat again and focused on question five.

5) You have an important document that should be delivered to village A, twenty miles from you current location. One of your teammates has been captured by the enemy and they threaten to kill him if you don't hand over the document. Your deadline for this mission is sundown. If you don't deliver the document to village A by then, your entire village will have to face retaliation. How will you proceed?

He frowned and bit his lip. There was no cheating for this question. He wasn't sure if there was a right or a wrong answer either. 'They want to know how we would react in certain situations. But that is determined by village's upbringings too. What is it they want to achieve with this question?' He knew what he would do. Taryn-sensei had always taught them the importance of protecting your team. She had said the mission was important too, but there was always a way to do both.

***

They placed their order, with Naruto grinning widely, "Hisayo-san, hey, so Akira, Suzume, and Ken are helping with the exams, right?"

"They are. In fact, they're all on stand-by during the second part that started just this morning," Hisayo answered.

"Wonder what it's like on that side?" Naruto's grin grew even wider as he thought of the possibilities, "They probably get to play tricks on everyone—I bet it's a lot of fun." He chuckled.

"Akira didn't seem to think so."

"Why?"

"He thinks of proctoring as 'baby-sitting' and he isn't the biggest fan of such tasks." Hisayo smirked.

Naruto snickered. "Hehe, a Chuunin and still having to get stuck with those missions."

Hisayo raised an amused brow. "You're still a Genin, Naruto, and I believe you are the most certified to take on those mission."

Naruto's head fell. "That's right...I'm still a Genin," he sulked.

A new client entered the ramen shop and searched for a spot at the bar. When her eyes landed on two familiar figures, she smiled on seeing the first one and then scowled when recognizing the other. She was so not in the mood for another fight. She was about to turn around and find somewhere else to eat when two things stopped her. One being the rumbling in her stomach. The other was shrill sounding voice that called her name. "Taryn-san!"

She bit her lip and forced a smile on her face as she turned around. "Naruto... I didn't see you there. How are you?"

"I'm great! Wow, it's been a long time since I've seen you. What are you doing here?" The woman sitting next to him had yet to spin around to meet Taryn's eyes. She had smelled her a moment ago and had hoped that she had been just passing by, but when she entered the little ramen shop, she had gone quiet. She had caught the woman trying to turn and leave though the moment she caught sight of her, and Hisayo couldn't help but let a small relieved sigh out, but Naruto had taken quick notice of her and called her over. It seemed now, that Kakashi and the Hyuuga weren't the only ones that knew the Suna woman.

"My students are in the exams," Taryn answered the boy. She gave a sideway glance towards Hisayo who hadn't turned around yet and was trying to ignore the kunoichi from Sand. Talk about awkward situations... though she was curious now about Naruto 's relation with this woman. 'Seriously, is she going to attack me too for knowing Naruto?'

Naruto noticed Taryn's glance to Hisayo and he brightened up, giving an apologetic smile, "Oh, right, sorry." He then pointed to Hisayo, "This is Hisayo-san, she's my friend!" he grinned happily.

"Yeah," Taryn said slowly, "we've... met."

Hisayo simply nodded, thankful to see that Teuchi was turning around with hers and Naruto's order. She needed the excuse not to have room for chatter.

Naruto rose he eyebrows, curiously. "Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?" A light bulb then clicked, "Oh, I get it! You're just being shy! Here!" Naruto took hold of Taryn and Hisayo's hands and forced them to be in even closer proximity of the other. Hisayo gritted her teeth nervously with a large drop of sweat, as did Taryn , though she seemed to be forcing a smile on her lips.
"Taryn-san is really nice, so don't be scared." Naruto grinned, in his mind believing that everything would soon be alright if he got them to sit with him and talk.

"Naruto...I don't think..." Hisayo resisted as gently as possible so she wouldn't accidentally hurt Naruto.

'...this is a good idea...' Taryn finished in her mind, her bead of sweat growing in size. "Err... I'm gonna sit over there. I'm a little hungry,"  Taryn tried to excuse herself, "I don't want to bother you."

"It's no big deal, there's plenty of room by us, Taryn-san."

"Naruto," Hisayo whispered, "just let her eat in peace."

Naruto frowned. "Aw, but I haven't seen Taryn-san in a long time. I wanna talk."

"But your ramen is here," Hisayo tried to get the boy sidetracked by his favorite dish.

Naruto narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "If you keep acting like this you'll never meet new people," he scolded his friend. He pulled Taryn's arm, making her crash into one of the stools. "You can eat here, Taryn-san. Tell me how Gaara's doing and stuff."

Taryn gritted her teeth and plumped down on the stool. There was no denying the boy when he had set his mind on something. She could handle a few minutes of civil conversation. Perhaps it would distract her from her concern over her students.

Hisayo opened her mouth to protest, but shut it upon seeing how happy was Naruto looked. She didn't want to deny Naruto his happiness with his friends, even if she wasn't particularly fond of them. It was just selfishness on her part if she continued to refuse Naruto his time with his friend. She would just have to endure the small time of conversation the two would have, for Naruto's sake. Maybe she would even learn more of Taryn—other than her relation to Kakashi and the Hyuuga.

An awkward silence followed and Naruto frowned. This wasn't going to work unless he helped them a bit. He knew Hisayo wasn't comfortable around strangers, but he didn't know the same counted for Taryn. Okay, she wasn't very social, but she wasn't shy either. "How's Gaara doing?" he asked Taryn.

"He's buried in work," Taryn said and a hint of a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth when she thought of her youngest brother, "but otherwise he's doing fine. He told me to say hi if I happened to run into you."

"Cool,"  Naruto smirked. "Hey hey," he suddenly said, "have you talked to Kakashi-sensei yet? Does he know you're in Konoha?"

Hisayo's eyebrow twitched dangerously on hearing those word, but otherwise she said nothing.

Taryn, who was just about to take a bite of her food, hung her head and sweat dropped. "Eheh heh, yeah he knows I'm here..." 'Can I just dig a hole and die now?' She sighed.

'Be...nice...' Hisayo bit at her lip, remembering what both Akio and Kakashi told her.  

"She's Kakashi's friend, Hisayo, so try to be considerate of that, if only a little."

"Please, try not to start any fights with her. I'll ask the same of her, so you two try to be civil with each other while the exams are taking place."

Hisayo sighed. With Naruto in the middle talking like he was, it was really hard for her.

"So you said you have students in the exams? What are they like?" Naruto turned a one eighty in conversation—a turn that made Taryn cringe slightly.

She had a thoughtful expression on her face. How did one explain her troublesome trio? "Daro I'm not worried about," she said, "he's the steady one and he'll pull the others through. It's Hiro I worry about the most. He gets distracted easily and he's a bit insecure, though he's very smart. All three of them are. And Kuro is good at analyzing situations." She sighed and stared at her food. "I think it's just the fact that they're on their own now. Part of me wants them to stay my students forever."

Naruto had grown quite, showing a rare, serious expression as he thought of and understood his friend's feelings.

A flicker of emotion crossed Hisayo's eyes, and she let out a tiny sigh with a near unnoticeable nod as she closed her eyes and spoke, "With the way they handled our first meeting...I'd say that they are well qualified for the exams, so there shouldn't be too much to worry about."

Taryn looked up surprised. That was actually a nice comment. Maybe her stay in Konoha wouldn't be so strained after all. "Thank you," she said a bit stunned, "you know," she continued hesitantly, "... that one student of yours, with the barriers, he's pretty good. And very brave too to jump in like that."

Hisayo let a small smile tug at her lips. She hadn't expected a comment in return, and the comment coming from the woman she was so wary and unsure of, made her feel a little less on edge. "Thank you," she replied.

Naruto looked to his left, then his right between the two women, confusion written all across his face, though he was inwardly relieved that they at least were speaking to each other now. "Er, what are you guys talking about?"

"Nothing." Both Taryn and Hisayo replied.

"Yeah, right." Naruto let out a little huff, pouting because he felt left out of the loop.

Taryn let out a soft laugh. "Don't worry Naruto, you didn't miss out on anything." She smiled at Hisayo hesitantly, "right?"

Hisayo paused and looked at Taryn with an unsure expression on her face, before she nodded, returning the smile with a small one, "Right."

Taryn's smile became a bit warmer and she nodded. She finished her bowl and stood up. "I should go now. It was nice talking to you again, Naruto. You should visit Gaara soon. I'm sure he'd love to see you and you can distract him from work." She turned to Hisayo. "It was nice talking to you. See you around." She placed some coins on the counter and left the restaurant.

Naruto grinned and looked to Hisayo, "See, Hisayo-san? I told you Taryn-san is nice." 

Hisayo gave a small nod as she looked down at her near empty bowl. "So who exactly is Gaara? Another friend of yours—from Sand?"

Naruto nodded vigorously. "He's one of my best friends. He's Taryn-san's younger brother and he's the Kazekage. He's so cool and everyone likes him." His face turned sad. "Not before though. Before that, everyone hated him." Then his face brightened again. "Except for Taryn-san of course!"

Hisayo glanced down at Naruto, her curiosity further spurred. "Hated?"

Naruto sighed sadly. "Yeah... you know... like they hated me. Gaara is like me. Only he had it worse. Because I still had Iruka-sensei. And you. Gaara didn't have anyone."

Hisayo's eyes went slightly wide in surprise. "He's like you? As in...?"

"Yeah," Naruto said, "the One Tail was sealed in him."

"I see..." Hisayo relaxed onto her seat, her expression somber, "and what of Taryn-san? She was banished, but why? Apparently everyone knows, but me and Akio. Though I can understand—we haven't been here for that long."

Naruto was silent for a long time. "Kakashi-sensei told me," he finally said, "Taryn-san's father, and Gaara's father, he was the Kazekage before... He..." Naruto paused for a moment and stared at the counter, his ramen long forgotten. "When Gaara was six... his father wanted him dead, because of the One Tail... He...." Tears formed in the boy's eyes. "He ordered Taryn-san to do it. Because she was the only one Gaara trusted. He told her to....to kill her own brother." He gritted his teeth. "But she didn't do it! She told him she would never do that and he banished her!" Naruto's eyes were full of anger now. "She was only fourteen you know. And she came to Konoha then."

Hisayo didn't know what to say. She sat still, staring at Naruto with an unreadable expression. 'She's...She has the same loyalty and love for this Gaara, as I have for Naruto.' "Taryn-san," She finally opened her mouth to speak, "I think that she...has had to endure quite a bit of backlash, hasn't she?"

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, a lot of people used to really hate her. They were also really afraid of her."

Hisayo brought her arm up and around Naruto at his shoulder, pulling him over in a side-way hug, surprising him to the point where he let out a small cry of the unexpectedness. Hisayo smiled, "It seems to me though that she has been able to make it past all of that. She has friends here in Konoha and I've yet to hear any negative comments about her from anyone."

Naruto grinned. "That's right, cause Taryn-san is really a great person! I really hope you two can be friends too, cause I'm sure she'd understand your circumstances, Hisayo-san."

At that, Hisayo's hold on Naruto lessened, and she frowned. "It isn't the same Naruto. I'm far different than you or your friend, Gaara."

***

Hiro bit the end of his pencil and glared at the clock. Fifteen minutes to go. One team after another had been sent away. Sixteen teams were still here. Suzume's whip cracked through the air and smashed a test paper in two, three rows ahead. 'Make that fifteen,' Hiro gulped. He let out a sigh and focused back on his paper. Outside the exam room, he could still hear one of his summons tapping against a branch. So far, he and his teammates were still safe, but he had seen that Akira glance outside suspiciously once or twice. He sighed again. 'Fourteen minutes.' And they had still to face the final question.

Hanabi narrowed her eyes at the clock. 'Get on with it already. I finished ages ago. What's up with that tenth question?' She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. Her cousin's team was still here as well. 'I guess they aren't completely hopeless then.'
The sound of a whip made her look up. Another team was caught at cheating. Hanabi scoffed. The less teams remained, the less competition to take care of, but that would also be a bit boring. People that couldn't even gather information the right way, really had no business being here. She silently hoped the Suna brats would survive this round. She was curious about their abilities. And apparently she wasn't the only one. She had seen a few of the young Chuunin proctors had taken an interest in them too. 'Hn. I wonder why.' She focused on the clock again. 'Thirteen minutes.'

10) The rules for the last question will be discussed at the time of the given question.

Daro stared at the question. He had read it over and over, but couldn't make out its meaning. Was this some kind of test? Perhaps the tenth question was a battle, though he couldn't quiet envision how that was supposed to work. 'The rules for the tenth question. How can a question have rules? It doesn't make sense.' He glanced at the clock. 'Thirteen minutes. I guess we'll find out.'

Ken sighed, 'Really? Man, some of these guys have no sense of stealth.' "Hey, team from Rain. Yeah, you," Ken pointed to the door after catching a kunoichi's attention, "get out. You fail."

Akira smirked, tapping his fingers on the arm of his chair as he seemed to take no interest in the roomful of people. Discreetly, he glanced out the window, inwardly grinning like a fool. The kid had definitely done something when he had been in the bathroom. For a while now, he kept seeing a small hawk flying back and forth before resting on a tree branch and seemingly cleaning its talons, before it would fly off again, only to repeat the same pattern. 'So, just like Akio-sensei's summon, Karasu.' No one else seemed to notice, but then again, he kinda was the only one familiar with bird summons working in such a manner with their summoners. He'd let it slide, unless he saw the trio doing something obvious... kind of like that team from waterfall he was now catching sight of. The smirk on his face grew as he drew on a kunai, flipped it in his grasp, and let it fly. 'Only five minutes left. Then I can get out of this place.'

All remaining Genin in the room jumped in their seats when suddenly the window broke. A woman with a big grin landed in front of Shikaku Nara and held her thumbs up.
Shikaku sighed. "Anko, please step outside for a minute. The test is not yet over. They have five more minutes."

The woman, that was apparently Anko, snorted. "Meh Shikaku, A good ninja is prepared for anything. Including unexpected attacks. Test is over guys. Time for the second round."

"That is not for you to decide," Shikaku said, "they still need to answer the tenth question."
Anko grinned and turned to the class. "The answer is yes. Can we move on now?"

Akira grinned, standing from his chair. "Yeah, can we Nara-san, please? What's five minutes anyway?"

Ken rolled his eyes, smirking. "Of course you would side with Anko in this kind of matter."

"Well yeah! Besides, I'm starting to get hungry."

"Would you stop whining, Akira," Suzume couldn't help but giggle though.

Shikaku sighed as he folded his arms and shook his head. "Fine, but they still need to answer the last question." He turned to the classroom and stared at the Genin seriously. "This question will determine the rest of your life. However, you must decide here and now if you will answer it. If you choose not to, then you may leave the room and try again next time. Answer it correctly and you will pass onto the next round. Answer it incorrectly and you will never be able to take this exam again. Your ninja career will end here and now."

Several gasps were heard. "That is not fair!"

"How can you decide if you can answer a question if you do not know the question?"

Shikaku turned to the voice. "Those are the rules. Take it or leave it."

The shinobi sighed and looked at his teammates apologetic. "Sorry guys." He stood up and walked towards the door. His teammates stared after him in shock.

Shikaku looked at the remaining two. "That means you're out too."

"But that's not fair! I wanted to hear the tenth question."

"There's always next year," Shikaku shrugged, "I told you at the start that this was a team exam. When your teammate gave up, you automatically failed too. Goodbye." He watched as the two left the room under loud protest.

Hiro glanced over his shoulder at Daro who smirked at him. In the back row, Kuro gave Hiro an encouraging nod. They were in this together. Taryn-sensei had trusted them to pass. They could do this. Hiro then glanced in Akira's direction.

"I'm not a  baby."

"Then prove it by passing this exam."

He nodded to himself. There was no way he was going to fail this test.

Shikaku looked around to see if more genin would leave, but the rest stayed put. 'Twelve teams.' Not a bad score. He smiled. "Congratulations. You all passed."

The Genin stared at him confused. "What about the tenth question?" a kunoichi from Grass asked.

"That was the tenth question," Shikaku told them, "being a ninja is about more than smarts and skills. You won't always know what to expect. Being a ninja includes taking risks. By accepting the tenth question you took the risk of never having a chance of surpassing Genin level. That showed determination and team spirit. Those who were afraid of the consequences will endanger their teammates on a mission. You took the risk, so you passed." He sighed and looked at Anko who had a bored expression on her face and was cleaning her nails with a kunai dagger. "They're all yours now Anko."

Anko grinned and threw her dagger aside, almost hitting one of the proctors with it.

"Hey!" he called, but Anko ignored him. "Hello fresh Genin. I will be in charge of the next round of these exams. Ready to spill some blood?"

"Next... round?" Hiro stiffened. There was more?

Anko's smirk grew wider. "Follow me kiddies. We're going to have some fun." She laughed darkly and Shikaku sighed deeply. "Stop scaring them, will you?"

"Ah now Shikaku, don't ruin my fun. Alright kiddies let's go. The second exam will take place outside."

She strolled over to the door. The Genin looked at one another, the first timers with an unsure expression, and then followed after the kunoichi.

They stopped in front of a large fenced area. Above the gates the Genin could clearly see the tree tops. Just outside the gates was a small tent. Daro looked at his teammates confused. Kuro shrugged.

"Do you think we're going to fight now?" Hiro asked, remembering the comment that Anko woman had made about blood spill. Or was that just to scare them? She did seem a bit freaky.

"I don't know," Daro answered, but I guess we will find out. He pointed at Anko who had taken a stance in front of the group with a big grin on her face.

"Okay! Before we get the show on the road, allow me to introduce to you this little playground behind me as well as give you the details about what this next round is about."

"Playground?" Hiro scoffed, "Does she think we are kids or something?"

"We like to call this place, the Forest of Death. I think you're all smart enough to match a correct theory to it." The woman happily grinned, before drawing out two scrolls from her jacket pockets. "Basically you all will be fighting over these puppies. They are both different—the Earth and Heaven scrolls—and each team will be given one."

"So a Conquer the Flag of sorts?" one of the Genin from Rain asked.

Anko smiled brightly. "Well what do you know; I guess this year's Genin are smart." She chuckled, twirling both scrolls before dropping them back in her pockets. "Once you do get your hands on the other scroll, you're to make your way to the tower at the center of this site. Oh, and don't even think about prying into these scrolls before you reach the tower—you'll be in for a nasty surprise if you do."

"What kind of surprise?" Hiro asked suspiciously.

"Aw, it wouldn't be a surprise if I told you, now would it? But no worries," a sharp glint suddenly made itself present in her eyes, and she gave a sinister smirk, "it's to die for."

Hiro shivered. Something about those words gave him an uncomfortable feeling. He swallowed difficulty. "Is it too late to back out now?" he asked Daro in a small voice. There was a look of panic in his eyes.

"Yeah," Daro nodded, "I think it is, "besides, we're in this together. Remember? As long as we stick together, what could happen?"

Kuro gave a slight smile. "You know," he told Hiro, "as long as you don't open the scrolls, you don't have to worry about that 'surprise'. Perhaps it's a good lesson for you to not be so curious."

"Meaning?" Hiro glared at him.

Kuro shook his head. "Nothing."

"Right," Hiro gruffed.

"It's simple," Daro said, "I bet it's a test on how trustworthy we are. You know, like on a mission. Sometimes you'll have to deliver sealed documents. You aren't allowed to peek into those either."

"Now then," the bright smile returned to Anko as she then held up a document, "I'll need you all to sign your life away—I mean to sign this consent form. You know; saying we aren't responsible for any injuries, deaths, etcetera, etcetera; whether it be from combat against other teams or from the many giant animals and poisonous plant lurking about in there."

"Say what?!" Hiro shouted.

Other first time Genin were shocked too.

One of the older Genin rolled his eyes. "Seriously, if you can't take a little blood, then you have no business here, kid."

Hiro narrowed his eyes at the Mist shinobi. "Who's a kid here?" he said and stomped towards Anko. "Give me a form."

Kuro sighed and looked up at the sky. 'Leave it to Hiro.'

Anko handed over the form, a large grin on her face. "Great! After you do that, report to the tent to my left to receive your scroll and starting gate number. Once the exams starts, you'll have five days to complete your task of gaining the partner scroll to the one you were given, and reaching the tower. And final rule is there are no rules. Anything goes, and don't worry about making too much of a mess. If our proctors don't get to it first, you can be sure that the wildlife will. Now don't look so nervous," Anko looked on at the large group, shifting in their stances, the nervous auras obvious, "it'll be fun...for me that is. I can hardly wait to see how things will turn out."

Daro and Kuro scurried after Hiro to get a form of their own and disappeared into the tent to get the scroll.

"Who's going to keep it?" Hiro asked. Both he and Kuro looked at Daro.

Daro sighed and put the Earth scroll on his pouch. "Alright, alright. Come on now. Gate Ten is our starting spot." He eyed the fence warily. He didn't like the idea of five days into this place with its 'wildlife' as Anko had put it. Of course, it could be just a little psychological game to scare them beforehand, that woman did look like someone who would enjoy that, but he had the feeling that in this case it might be the truth. People died here, Taryn-sensei had said.

They stopped in front of their gate number. Through the gate, they could see a bit of the area now. The three boys stared at the Forest with wide eyes. "This... is a f-forest?" Hiro said nervously.

"That's what she said," Kuro answered distracted.

Truth to be told, after the first test, even after Anko's explanation, they hadn't really imagined something like this. A survival test, yes, but this....this was ridiculous.

"If we want to make it to Chuunin level, we won't have much choice," Daro said with a confidence he did not have. The scroll they had received earlier was safely tugged away in his weapon pouch. He had to admit, when they were forced to sign a declaration, taking up responsibility for this event and the possible lethal outcome, he had for a second wanted to back out too. "Taryn-sensei wouldn't have entered us if she didn't think we could do this," he told his teammates, "so we can do this. It won't be that different from any mission we've done so far. We just have to stay alert at all times. And one of us should stand guard at night. We'll be fine. It's all Genin in there."

"Yeah," Kuro said slowly, "but not all Genin are first timers."

"That just means it is possible to survive," Daro said. He took a deep breath. "Ready?"

Kuro nodded.

"No," Hiro muttered.

"Okay," Anko's voice sounded through a speaker, "get ready. The Gates will open in three..."

'I will make it to the final round.' Hanabi gave a small confident smirk as she focused her
sights in front of her, waiting for the gates to open so she and her team could enter and find the closest team to take a scroll from. 'Father won't be disappointed in me, I'm sure.'

"two..."

"Tengai, Itsuki...follow my lead." The young Hyuuga commanded of her two teammates.

"one..."

"Here we go." Daro shifted in his stance, ready for the final mark.

"Go!"

The gates opened and the twelve Genin teams entered the forest from all sides, hunting for scrolls.
For the next five days they would be locked up in here, forced to find their own food and shelter.
  
"Alright," Daro said when they were well away from their entrance, "we have an Earth scroll, so we need a Heaven scroll." He looked at Kuro. "How do we figure out what team has what scroll?"
  
Kuro shook his head. "There's no way of knowing that. What we should worry about is what team we think we can take on. It doesn't matter what scroll we get. It's always good to have a spare one."

Hiro had a puzzled look. "We started round two with eleven other teams. That means only six Heaven scrolls." He sighed. "What should we do?"

"Find another team," Daro said. He started walking and the other two followed him. "Kuro," Daro continued, "did you happen to notice what teams are still left?"

Kuro nodded. "Yeah. There are two from Rain, Cloud and Mist. One from Stone, Grass and the new one Caves. Oh and two from Konoha too. The one with sensei's cousin is one of those."

"So which team are we most likely to beat?" Daro asked with a smirk.

***

Red eyes cast over to her two teammates and she giggled, pushing her dark hair off her shoulder with her red painted nails. "Let's show everyone the power of our team girls."

A kunoichi with dark bluish hair nodded, her sapphire eyes sparkling in delight. "Anyone who underestimates us will be sorry indeed."

The smallest, of the trio popped up behind the first two with a very childish smile. "Hinageshi, Fuji, can we go out for sweets after?"

Hinageshi rolled her eyes. "Yes, Yuri, but stay alert at least, will you?" she ended with a sigh.

Yuri nodded and her orange eyes grew sharp and dangerous as she giggled. "Okay. Let's go have some fun then."

***

Hanabi motioned for her teammates to be quiet as she searched the area with Byakugan. She didn't need them to distract her. If an enemy was near, she didn't want to alert them before she had located them first.

The forest was eerie quiet, but with twelve teams inside there had to be at least one team nearby. Silently Hanabi hoped it would be the Suna team, but her eyes landed on another group before she could locate her cousin's students. Three boys, some years older than her team. Definitely not first timers. And from their signature she guessed they were from Cloud. She nodded her head towards them, alerting her teammates to their target's location.

"So who'd you find?" Itsuki hesitantly asked. "Someone we can keep up with at least, right, Hanabi-sama?" It was pretty obvious that the two boys were very wary when it came to engaging an opponent.

Hanabi sighed. Why did she have to get stuck with these two scaredy cats? She'd have a better chance going in alone. But she remembered Ebisu-sensei's reprimand that she had to learn how to support her teammates if she ever wanted to make a good Chunin.

"A good leader is more than someone that can fight well. They need to be able to strengthen their team's weaknesses and make use of their qualities."

"They have a strong signature. My guess is that they are Lightning users. Be on guard." 

Tengai, let out a small groan, "Lightning...it had to be lightning."

Itsuki gave his teammate a light pat on the back. "Hey, it's not all that bad. Water can be strong against lightning too."

"Or I could get my timing completely off and get electrocuted."

"I'll help ground you so that doesn't happen."

"Yes, and I'll keep them off with Kaiten if it happens to get that far. Can we go now?"

Both boys nodded and began to head out, not wanting to get on Hanabi's bad side by making her grow impatient.

...

"Ugh," Yuushi groaned, "this is boring, "we had the Forest of Death last time too. Can't they come up with something else?"

"Shut it, Yuu," D answered. He shifted his Cloud hitai-ate and glanced at his last teammate. "Seen anyone yet?"

Tsuntsun shook his head. "Not yet, but it can't be too long. If we just head in the direction of the tower, we're bound to run into other teams. Should be easy enough. Did you see this year's runts?" He snorted. "Piece of ca..." His words were cut off when something slammed into him. He gasped when he felt a tremor through his chakra stream. "What the..."

His teammates barely had time to look up and see what was going on, because a whirlwind was headed their direction.

"Tsun!" D yelled. He jumped to avoid the spinning whatever it was, but was thrown aside by a tidal wave that soaked him to the bone.

Yuushi gasped as his teammates went down and he formed a few hand signs. A lightning cloud appeared.

"Tengai now!" a girl's voice said.

"Water Style: Raging Torrent!" A huge surge of water from the nearby river crashed down from above, hitting the jutsu that Yuushi was forming. The electrical cloud then engulfed the Kumo-nin, causing a great light show to occur. The crackling sounds of the lethal combination grew louder, eventually dying down to nothing more than a few crackles and then to nothing.
Tengai let out a sigh of relief from the tall wall of earth that had been created underneath him, by Itsuki.

"See," Itsuki breathed, "nothing to worry about."

"We're not there yet," Hanabi told them. She motioned towards the two remaining Cloud nin who were gaping at them, their eyes wide in shock. " You can close your mouths now," Hanabi smirked, "you wouldn't want any bugs to fly in."

"You brat," Tsuntsun growled and he raised his hands to make some signs. But nothing happened. He tried again. "What?"

Itsuki smirked. "Can't tap into your chakra, can you?"

"You won't be able to for quite some time too," Tengai added, "when Hanabi-sama uses her Gentle Fist, it's over for you."

D's eyes twitched in confusion. "Gentle...Fist?" It then clicked. "You mean that brat...?"

"That's right, Hanabi-sama comes from the Hyuuga Clan."

"Is she still a brat now?" Itsuki smirked.

Tsuntsun spat to the side. "That name means nothing to me! You brats don't know who you're messing with!"

"Wait! Tsun!" D called out to his teammate. The Hyuuga's were no joke, and he knew that with Tsuntsun already cut off from using his chakra, he stood as much chance now against the
Leaf-nins as a worm had a chance against a hungry bird.

Tengai dropped down from the wall of earth, confidence showing in his smirk now. "Have fun with that one, Hanabi-sama." He gestured to the angered shinobi.

"Yeah, we'll take care of the other one," Itsuki said.

Hanabi smirked and sped towards Tsuntsun. "Eight Trigrams, Sixty-four palms!" she shouted. Tsuntsun was being seen slammed back and forth as the Hyuuga girl landed her fast blows on his body. He dropped to one knee, panting heavily.
"The thing with Gentle Fists is," Hanabi said in a mocking tone while circling the Cloud shinobi, "it doesn't just inflect damage on the chakra stream, it affects the internal organs too. But I'll be nice. You can just hand over your scroll and we'll walk away right now."

 "I don't think so," Tsuntsun growled out of breath.

Hanabi shrugged. "Suit yourself. But I warned you."

"It takes more than that to take me out." He took a handful of explosive tags and threw them at Hanabi.

Hanabi sighed and spun around. "Kaiten!" The explosive tags were thrown in all directions, but she wasn't too worried about hitting her teammates. They were used to fighting beside her and knew how to avoid being hit by random objects.

Tsuntsun gasped as his tags came back at him and barely managed to avoid them. He glared at Hanabi. He took a step in her direction, but forgot to pay attention to his surroundings and was slammed aside when his teammate was thrown into him.

"Oops, my bad," Itsuki chuckled, "guess he should have been paying attention."

Tengai also chuckled, but grew serious once more as he saw the two slowly starting to pick themselves back up. "Hey, Hanabi-sama," he called out, "not to be whiney or anything, but, can we wrap this up? I thought you wanted to get to the tower on record time."

"Yeah, yeah," Hanabi said and waved her hand, "did you find the scroll?"

"You mean, this scroll?" Itsuki held up a Heaven scroll.

D gasped, feeling around his weapons pouches for the scroll. "Why you—!"

"Yuushi!"

D turned to TsunTsun who had taken notice that their teammate was still alive. The genin let out several groans as he was slowly starting to come to.
D glared as the three brats from the Leaf stood several feet away, but knew when he was beat. "Don't get too cocky, thinking that just because you've won that you're invincible. There are still
other, stronger teams in this event."

Hanabi rolled her eyes and turned to her teammates. "Let's go. These guys are pathetic." She turned and flicked her hair.

Itsuki put the scroll away in his pocket and the two boys followed the Hyuuga without glancing back.

***

The forest, to anyone just entering the area, was eerily quiet. That hadn't been the case almost twenty minutes ago. Before, there were the sounds of fighting, screams, and finally...silence. Not even the birds were chirping. A chuckle finally broke the silence. "Wow, that was fast." Zarinagi, a kunoichi from the mysterious Caves, expressed her surprise.

"I know, but I was expecting this team to be a lot more tough to deal with than this," another kunoichi from Caves said.

The third member of the team dropped down from the branches above, a smirk on his face as he looked down at the opponent they had defeated. "I guess the blood village of Mist was nothing more than talk. Heh, no challenge at all."

"Let's go find someone stronger then. Whaddaya say, Touji?"
  
Touji shrugged his shoulders. "Nah, if a team from Mist is this weak, then why even bother with anyone else. Besides, you heard what Sensei said, Terasu—make sure we make it to the finals."

Terasu pouted. "Oh, alright. But what if we happen to run across anyone else?"

The young man smirked dangerously. "Then I guess we could have just a little bit of fun."  

***

"Did you hear that?" Hiro asked his teammates when a loud explosion sounded in the distance.

"It was kinda hard to miss," Daro pointed out.

"Probably some fight going on," Kuro said. He paused and looked at the other two. "Should we head in that direction?"

"Are you crazy?" Hiro said, "we don't want to end up in someone else's fight."

"Actually," Daro mused," we do." His teammates looked at him as if had lost his mind. "I'm serious," Daro said, "we need scrolls. And the only way to get them is to meet other teams. Where there are fights, there are other teams. And if they are tired from their battle, we can take their scrolls."

"So you wanna fight, do you?" a crazed giggle sounded from every direction it seemed, putting the boys on their toes, standing back to back with one another.

"Ooo, ooo, I wanna fight! Can we, Hinageshi, can we?" Another, much younger sounding, feminine voice begged; eager to fight.

"My, my, Yuri. You sure are gun-ho about fighting these little boys." A third voice made its presence known.

A little girl, looking to be younger than the Sand shinobi dropped down into view on a branch that was in Daro's line of vision. Her strawberry blonde hair was long, it's shorter ends resting on her shoulders as she happily took in the sight of the boys with her orange colored eyes. "Well, you both did say we could go get sweets after. So the sooner we finish this, the sooner I get my sweets!"

Daro eyed the girl's headbands and slightly leaned his head so he could speak to Kuro. "Kuro, what do you know about Grass nin?"

"They use Earth based attacks mostly. Water is also possible. And they are known for their... poison," he muttered.

Daro nodded and slowly pulled out a kunai dagger. "Stay on your toes." These girls may look young and innocent, but he knew looks could be deceiving. He noticed Hiro pull out an explosive tag behind his back. He looked at Daro questioningly and Daro gave the smallest nod.

Yuri giggled. "See, they wanna fight too."

A dark haired woman dropped down just across from Kuro, at the same time the third and final of the grass team did the same in front of Hiro. "It's going to be such a shame to have to kill them," Hinageshi purred.

"Agreed," Fuji said, her eyes sharp and dangerous as she eyed the boys up and down, taking note of their on-edge stances, "they do look kinda cute after all."

Yuri stuck out her tongue at the two older kunoichi. "Ick, boys have cooties, you know?"

Hiro scrunched his nose. "These three are weird," he whispered harshly. He cast a nervous glance at the girl in front of him and got a tighter hold on his tags.

"On three," Daro said. He smirked as he saw the girls shift at those words. "Three!" he yelled. He formed a few signs and disappeared in the earth. Kuro flashed his chain forward to wrap it around the girl in front of him and Hiro threw his explosive tag, after which he flitted out of the way to avoid getting hit.

"Aw, they're playing hard to get!" Fuji spun around, letting several senbon fly out of her spinning vortex of wind.

Yuri leapt down from her tree branch, letting several kunai fly. Meanwhile, Hinageshi seemed to shimmer away from the chain that had wrapped around her body. The chain dropped to the ground, surprising Kuro.

'Genjutsu?' He gasped when two attacks came at him from two different sides. The kunai hit his shoulder and the senbon needles dug deep in his leg muscles, making him drop to his knees.

"Kuro!" Hiro yelled and he formed some hand seals. "Tidal Wave! Hurricane!" A huge wall of water smashed into Fuji.

Meanwhile Daro broke through the Earth's surface and trapped Yuri in a cage made of earth spikes.

Hinageshi threw her head back in laughter. "You two are too cute! You really think that your attacks will have any effect on us?" She then drew her hands together. "We'll crush you like we
did to your friend!"

"Are you sure about that?" Daro asked amused.

"Are you blind?" Fuji smirked as she pointed to the dark haired boy lying still on the ground, but he soon vanished, the blood disappearing as well. Her eyes went wide. "Wh-what?"

A chain came out of nowhere and struck her in the face. "You're not the only ones that can use genjutsu." Kuro's voice came from all around them.

Hiro, who had been standing close, now also disappeared.

Fuji growled as she held her sore and bruising face. "They've been playing us this whole time!"

"Calm down, Fuji," Hinageshi glared at Daro as she and her team regrouped, "they may be little boys, but you still need to be careful."

"Yes, I suppose. Yuri is quite a good example of that."

"Aw, thanks Fuji!" Yuri grinned at the compliment given to her. "So I guess I'm up!" she put her hands together forming signs and bringing a hand up to her face to blow air through. "Shady Mist!" A purple mist slowly stretched out from her body, the grass along its path shrivelling and turning brown.

"Watch out!" Daro yelled at his teammates. They might be invisible to the others, but he knew exactly where they were. He didn't trust that mist in the slightest. It looked poisonous.

"Massive Water Storm!" Hiro made a gust of water pore over the crawling mist and washed it away, but gave away his position as well.

Hinageshi's eyes darted over to her left. "Found you out!" she leapt to attack.

"No, no me! I got him, Hinageshi!" Yuri eagerly leapt forward as well. The two ended up colliding together...and landing right on top of Fuji.

"Ugh! Idiots! Get off of me!" Fuji cried out.

"Sorry Fuji!"

"Shut up Yuri and get off me as well! Ugh, like you really need any more sweets!"

Yuri gasped. "I'm not fat like you!"

It was Hinageshi's turn to gasp. "You little brat!"

Fuji was chuckling until she heard Hinageshi turn on her. "Fuji's the one with the big butt!"

"Thunder thighs!"

"Take that back, Fatty Cakes!"

"Ooo, I like cake!" Yuri happily exclaimed.

Both Fuji and Hinageshi looked up, "Shut up!" they both shouted.

Hiro appeared next to Daro and stared at the pile of girls with a major sweatdrop on his head.

Daro blinked. "Are they for real?"

Kuro sighed and shook his head. He strolled over to the bags that belonged to the girls and started piling through it.

"What are you doing?" Hiro asked confused.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Kuro said, "you might want to take a few steps back. Trust me, you don't want to get in the middle of that."

Daro chuckled. "It's not like they would notice we're still here." He walked over to Kuro. "Tell me they at least have the one we need."

Kuro pulled out a Heaven scroll and grinned. "Well, that was easy. Now we just have to get to the tower." He cast one more glance at the girls who were still arguing. "They'll be at it for a while. We should get away while we still can."

Daro nodded in agreement and looked over his shoulder. Hiro was still staring at the girls with a bewildered look on his face. He sighed and walked over to his friend to drag him away by his sleeve.

"Forget what I said," Hiro sighed, "I never want a girl on my team."

"You're lucky that sensei isn't here to hear that ," Daro said.

Hiro froze and the three of them vanished into the forest.

***

Akira let out a sigh as he and the others looked down at the bodies of the fallen Genin team. "I guess we were bound to get this kind of job at some point."

"Yeah," Suzume frowned, "I guess we should be happy that it isn't anyone from our village."

Ken also let out a sigh as he looked at the deceased shinobis' headbands—they were from Mist. "Can't say the same for the people from their village. They have loved ones like the rest of us."

Akira dropped down, leaping between the massive trunks of the trees before making it to ground level. "Let's hurry and get out of here. It's getting dark."

"Yeah, it'll get even more dangerous in here at night. I'm surprised nothing has shown up yet to eat these guys."

A chill ran down Suzume's spine at Ken's words. "This is worse than having to baby-sit."

For once, Akira had to agree to like the idea of baby-sitting better. "Yeah, I just hope we don't have to do the same for any of our own."

"What about those guys from Sand? Do you think they're doing alright in here?"

Akira smirked. "Yeah, I think they're doing just fine in here. We'll see them competing in the final round for sure," he assured Suzume.

***

Taryn eyed the night sky with concern. She wondered how her students were holding up. The Forest of Death was not a fun place to be at night. She sighed and knocked on the wooden door in front of her.

It took a while before it was opened and she was met with Kakashi's surprised face. "Taryn?"

She gave him a faint smile. "Can I come in? I could really use a friend."

For a moment Kakashi wasn't sure what to say. She was his friend and he knew she was worried about her students, but there was Hisayo too and she might not be too thrilled when she found out.

Taryn nodded in understanding and turned to leave when he came to a decision. She was still his friend after all. And she looked like she could use some distraction. He opened the door a little wider. "Would you like a drink?"

Taryn smiled and slipped inside. She sat down on his couch and watched as he moved over to the cabinet to grab a bottle of sake. She let out a soft laugh. "Perhaps I should keep to tea." Memories of long ago came back to her. Memories of other drinking nights.

Kakashi looked over his shoulder and gave her a closed eye smile. "Alright." He moved over to the kitchen.

Taryn sighed. "On the other hand. Maybe one drink won't hurt."

Kakashi shook his head amused, but poured her a cup of sake and sat down across from her with a cup of his own. "I'm sure they'll be fine," he tried to assure her.

Taryn sighed. "That's what I keep telling myself. I know they are ready, but... they still look so young. Then again, Kodan and Inari were their age when we participated and I was much younger." She sighed again. "I don't know. I'm just... finding it hard to let go of them."

Kakashi kept silent as she vented her worries to him. He knew from experience that it was best to just let her talk. She didn't need to be comforted. He watched as Taryn downed her drink. "Another one?" he asked.

Taryn shook her head. "I think I'm ready for that tea now."

Kakashi stood up without complaint and she smiled. That was what she liked about him. He always knew when not to ask questions. Ever since her banishment he had always been there for her. Even when he disagreed with some of the things she did. "Thank you," she said when he handed her a cup of tea.

"You're welcome," he said. He paused. "I'm sure they'll do fine. Hanabi too. She also made it to the second round."

Taryn nodded. "Yes, I heard."

"I know you and the Hyuuga clan don't always see eye to eye, but I'm sure that they'll help each other out if they get in trouble. Hanabi is you cousin after all."

"This is still a competition," Taryn said, "and Hanabi is quite competitive from what I've seen so far."

"True," Kakashi admitted.

"I know I probably worry for no reason," she said.

"I think it's natural to worry about your students. And you've always been the protective one. Hisayo told me they're quite impressive for genin." He gave a sheepish smile when those words slipped out. Perhaps it would have been better not to mention her, but Taryn didn't even seem to notice.

"They are," she said proudly. She smirked. "They always find a way out. They're good fighters. And they have great teamwork."

"See," Kakashi smiled.

Taryn's smirk got wider and she stood up. "Yeah, they'll be fine."

She walked to the door and Kakashi followed to see her off. She hesitated in the doorway. "Thank you," she said softly.

"Hn? For what?"

Taryn shrugged. "For being you. For always being there for me, even when I complicate things for you."

"And we all know how you like to complicate things," Kakashi smirked.

Taryn gasped and slapped his chest with the back of her hand. Kakashi chuckled and gave her a closed-eye smile. "Night Taryn."

Taryn laughed. "Bye." And she stepped into the night.

***

"It's so dark here," Hiro shivered. The three of them had made camp near a small stream. They had survived the first day and they had managed to get the necessary scroll. Now all they had to do was reach the tower. Which was still miles away, much to Hiro's dismay. He hated long walks.

"Yes, well it usually is at night," Kuro said while seating himself under a large tree. He looked up at Daro. "Should we catch some fish?"

Daro bit his lip thoughtfully. It was true that they should find something to eat, but in the dark, a fire would be easily spotted by other opponents. Perhaps they should have thought about this earlier, when it was still light. He sunk to the ground and hid his head in his hands. 'Stupid, stupid. I should have thought ahead. Taryn-sensei would have thought about it.'

"Daro?"

Daro sighed and looked up. "They'll spot our fire. We can't risk it, but there are fruits and such in the forest. We'll just have to eat those and catch some fish in the morning."

"But I'm hungry," Hiro complained.

"We've been without food longer on our last mission,"  Daro said calmly, "we ate this morning before the test. We'll be fine." He sighed. "I'll find us something to eat. I won't be long."

"Take one of my summons with you," Hiro suggested.

Daro shook his head. "We shouldn't play all our cards just yet. I'll stay close by. But just to be sure, keep one of the scrolls with you. I'll keep the other." He handed one of the scrolls to Kuro and disappeared into the trees.

***

"Are you alright Yuu?" D and Tsuntsun looked at their injured teammate concerned.

Yuushi groaned and leaned his head back. "Shocked by my own jutsu," he growled, "those brats... they came out of nowhere." He could still barely move.

Next to him, Tsuntsun didn't look  much better. His chakra was slowly coming back, but he grimaced every time he stirred. That Hyuuga kid hadn't been lying when she told him her jutsu inflicted damage on the organs as well. He gritted his teeth in anger. No bratty girl made a fool out of him. She was gonna pay. "When I get my hands on her...."

"Yeah, I know," D agreed, "but in our current state there's not much we can do. We'll get our scroll back tomorrow after we've rested."

"I swear," Tsunstun said viciously, "the first team we run into tomorrow is going to be crushed until there's nothing left of them."

***

Her gold orbs followed the scene below with confusion and a bit of contempt. She had decided to drop by his place when she had caught the whiff of the kunoichi from Sand, Taryn. Because of that, she had decided not to disclose her arrival and took to the high top of the building across from Kakashi's. The playful interaction between the two really got under her skin, and a sense of jealousy filled her. Given how the last meeting between the two went, and how Kakashi took to Taryn's defense, it caused her to be especially wary of the woman despite Kakashi's explanation of the relationship between him and Taryn; so a direct encounter was not something she wanted, least of all now.
She stepped further back into the shadows as Taryn turned to leave. Her gold eyes followed the kunoichi until she was gone, before they shifted back to Kakashi who was standing outside his doorway still, with a somewhat solemn look on his masked face. He then looked up in her direction, as if sensing that he was being watched, and she sank quietly sank further back in the shadows until she was sure she was completely out of sight before she turned to leave.

Kakashi thought he could feel Hisayo's presence, but was uncertain if  his mind was simply playing tricks on him. If Hisayo was in the area, then she would have surely come across Taryn's scent radiating from his place, and would have confronted both her and him. He sighed at the thought of the two fighting again, as he glanced up towards the sky in the direction he thought Hisayo's signature was coming from, but there was nothing to be seen and the presence faded suddenly as if it hadn't even been there in the first place.

***

"Alright! Look alive people, we still have four more days to go!" Anko's voice rang through the intercoms of the upper tower where the proctors were all staying.

"Sheesh," Akira grumpily covered his ears, "does Anko never wake up cranky?"

"Sounds about right," Ken said as he continued to walk down the halls to the breakfast hall with his teammates on either side of him.

Suzume couldn't help but yawn, they had stayed up most of the night helping to monitor the video screens after they had finished with retrieving those Mist shinobi from the forest.

"Yeah, I could still use a bit of sleep."

"No whining Akira," Ken scolded, "we've gone days without sleep before." A yawn escaped him just then.

"But things were more exciting during those times."

Ken only let out a sigh and Suzume smiled.

"Things sure are more quiet when you two are tuckered out," she commented, "maybe I should tell Anko to make you guys stay up more to watch monitors."

"Don't!"

"Yeah, Suzume, don't. We'll be sure to return the favor if you do." Ken glared.

Suzume only laughed. "You two are cute when you're cranky."

Akira and Ken went red in the face, but otherwise kept quiet, too flustered by the comment to say anything at all.

Meanwhile, Suzume seemed to grow more awake and she let out a content sigh. "Yup, definitely more quiet. I kinda like it."

***

"Get up," Daro said, "we need to get going. We'll eat while we walk." He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He had stayed up most of the night, taking guard duty almost completely on himself. Only when Kuro had found out about it, after waking up close to dawn, had he relinquished the job to his teammate who had scolded him to no end. Kuro was right of course. He should have woken one of them up earlier.

Hiro sighed as he plucked the now cooked fish from the fire. He carefully wrapped them in a leaf and handed his teammates their breakfast. He didn't understand why Daro was so eager to get going. They had both scrolls already. All they had to do was reach the tower. No big deal. He bent to pick up the last fish but came face to face with two large yellow eyes.
A large centipede stretched down from the tree they had been sitting against a moment ago. It was at least five times the size of any normal snake they had ever encountered. Hiro froze for a moment but then screamed his head off and jumped back.

"What?! What?!" Daro looked around wildly, kunai drawn and Kuro jumped two feet in the air.

Hiro stumbled back and pointed at the creature that was now eating away his breakfast.

The other two boys gasped too at the size of the beast. Kuro suppressed a shiver. "We should get away from it before it decides that fish isn't enough to ease his appetite."

"But that was my breakfast," Hiro complained.

"Unless you want to become his breakfast," Daro pointed out, "we should really go now. We'll find something to eat along the way." He sighed when he saw his friend's face. "Here, I'll share mine with you."

Hiro eagerly took the offered food and wolfed it down.

"Easy now," Daro sweatdropped while taking a bite from his half of the fish. The centipede took that moment to look up and eye them hungrily.

"Uhm... guys..." Kuro said nervously.

"Yeah," Daro nodded just as nervous, "we really should go now. That centipede is probably not the only thing after us now with that girly scream of yours just now."

"My scream was not girly,"  Hiro glared, but he jumped back when the centipede hissed, "gah okay, let's go."

***

"What was that scream just now?" Tengai looked up alert.

Hanabi shrugged. "Probably one of the other teams being attacked. Who cares? We need to get to the tower. Finish your breakfast already. I don't want to run into other teams."

***

"Did you hear that?" Tsunstun smirked, "sounds like little runts in trouble."

Next to him Yuushi stretched his muscles. "Well why don't we go over and cause more trouble? I want to beat someone up. Especially after yesterday." He stood up and pulled out a sword. "Let's thin out the competition and get us a scroll."

***

"We should have killed and eaten that centipede," Hiro complained with a sigh.

Kuro stared at him incredulous. "You're not serious, are you? After you screamed like that? You alerted every team in the area where we are. Do you think we would have had time to eat? Besides, that thing looked poisonous." Suddenly he looked up alert. "Incoming!" he shouted and jumped just in time to avoid a kunai. The weapon embedded itself in a tree behind them, almost scarring Hiro's cheek. Hiro glared at the kunai and then towards the direction the weapon had come from.

"Heh, looks like another lot of brats." Tsuntsun scoffed.

"And look where that same kind of attitude landed you yesterday." D quipped to which Tsuntsun only scowled. It was just the two of them on a branch, sizing up the three Genin from Sand before them. "Now, which one of you has the scroll?"

"Yeah," said Tsuntsun as he brandished another kunai, "we're in bad moods, so best to just hand it over, unless you'd all like to be my personal punching bags."

The three Suna boys narrowed their eyes at the Cloud nin.

Daro stared at them with suspicion. 'There's only two of them. So where is their teammate?' He glanced around, but couldn't find anyone. He couldn't alert his teammates either. He had trust that they would notice it too. His hand tightened around his kunai dagger and he tried to remember what he knew of Cloud. 'Lightning users for sure. We're at a disadvantage.' "Like we would just tell you," he spat at the ninja that has spoken up.

A sadistic grin appeared on Tsuntsun's face. "I was hoping it'd be something like that. Ha!" He leapt down, throwing the kunai at Daro.

D followed, forming hand signs before throwing a charged fist of chakra that took on the form of a roaring tiger's head. "Lightning Style: Roaring Fist!"

Hiro gasped when he saw the attack coming for him. There was no way he could dodge a lightning attack like that.

"Earth Wall: Barricade!" Daro shouted just when Hiro closed his eyes. A huge wall appeared in front of him and took the worst of the attack, but the wall slowly cracked and lightning came for him.

Kuro pushed him aside and got struck instead. "Wake up will you!" he grunted as he fell to the ground.

Hiro gasped and whipped around to Daro who had been skimmed by the dagger while protecting Hiro.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," Daro said through his teeth, "stay alert. One of them is missing."

D stood upright as his the attack around his fist faded, and began forming the attack once more to attack.

Meanwhile, Tsuntsun seeing Kuro in a more vulnerable position switched his attacks to him. He drew up on multiple kunai now, giving his hands the appearance of claws. "Mountain Cat Strike!"

Kuro flinched and drew his chain to whip the daggers away, but missed one.

"Water Style: Steel Blades!" Hiro shouted. He formed a few signs and razor sharp water blades flew at the kunai, slashing it in two, giving Kuro the time to crawl to his feet.

Daro eyed D's attack warily, not sure what he could do about it now that his earlier block hadn't worked.

Kuro too was uncertain. His chain was made of metal. Metal guided lightning and Hiro's water attacks wouldn't be much help either. He gasped as he suppressed a jolt of pain. It seemed the jutsu that one ninja had used had an aftereffect. He could feel the current jab his muscles. He gasped and sunk to one knee again.

"Kuro!" Hiro said in shock. He glared at the ninja. He knew his attacks were weak against them. 'Wait... their other teammate... we need to find him.' He nodded determined, bit his thumb and formed a few hand seals. "Summoning......!" A cry left Hiro as lightning laced palm struck his right shoulder from behind suddenly, before he could complete his summoning technique. The third member of Cloud team had made his appearance.

Daro had been forming hand seals for his signature attack, but momentarily lost focus when he heard his teammate scream. It seemed the third member of the Cloud team had decided to jump in before Kera could flog him out.

"Wrong move kid!" D took advantage of Daro's break in concentration and shot forward, his Roaring Fist charged and ready. It made contact with Daro's side, ripping off his weapons belt.

Daro gasped, a combination of having the breath taken out of him so suddenly and the electrical surge that spread throughout his abdomen. The pouches on the belt flew open as the belt hit the dirt, and the Earth scroll rolled out from it, catching D's attention and bring a victorious smirk to his face.

Daro groaned. 'Stupid. So stupid! I know how dangerous sensei's Chidori is. How could I lose focus with a jutsu like that?' His eyes flew to the weapon pouch and he ducked for it, trying to reach it before one of the Cloud nin could.

"I don't think so kid," Tsuntsun, who read Daro's expression,  smirked and threw a dagger in Daro's path.

Daro jumped back, but before Tsuntsun could reach the pouch with the scroll, Kuro's chain had slammed it a few feet away.

Tsuntsun glared at Kuro,twisting around and letting loose a hand full of kunai, though one was tagged. He let out a smirk as he set his sights back on the rolling scroll.

Kuro gasped when he saw the tag and rolled out of the way. He was surprised to find out it wasn't an explosive tag. An electric shock flushed through him. 'Lightning tags?' he thought confused. Did those even exist? He eyed his two teammates concerned. They were badly injured and he himself could barely move as well. They couldn't draw out this fight much longer. He was surprised that Daro could even move. Hiro sure couldn't take another hit. He might get fatally injured. There was only one thing he could do. That was, if he could muster up enough chakra in his current state. He just hoped Daro and Hiro would get the cue. He glanced at them momentarily, but decided it was for the best. They could afford to lose that one scroll. They had another one still. And a few more days left before the deadline. 'Genjutsu.'

Tsuntsun grinned as he picked up the scroll and tossed it over to D who then stashed it in his weapon pouches just as Yuushi re-joined them. "These kids are just amateurs after all then, huh?" He then crackled his knuckles as he turned his sights on Hiro who was the worst off of the three thanks to Yuushi.

"We got the scroll like we wanted, Tsun. Let's go already."

Tsuntsun ignored D and stepped forward. "But I haven't quite relieved my stress."

"Be smart..." Yuushi whispered, "Did you forget the reason why we decided to attack them in such a manner?"

"That's right, Tsun," D said, "now let's go already. We've probably caught the attention of nearby teams with our fighting anyway; it's best that we leave."

Tsun seemed to growl under his breath before turning away to leave. "Fine then. The one I really wanna beat hard to the ground is that Hyuuga brat anyway."

The three then made haste, disappearing further into the forest.

Kuro let out a relieved sigh and dropped his hands, but he knew they couldn't stay here either. Those Cloud ninja had been right, they would have alerted other teams and they were in no condition to fight. He dragged himself over to Hiro who was on his knees, clutching his shoulder. He was grimacing in pain and his face was pale. "You okay?" he asked.

"He dislocated my shoulder," Hiro groaned.

Kuro swallowed difficultly. He didn't have much medical knowledge, but he knew it wasn't a pleasant experience to have a dislocated shoulder put back into place and he wasn't sure he would be up to the task. He glanced at Daro who was gathering himself into a sitting position, obviously exhausted, but too stubborn to give in to it. "Can you walk?" he asked concerned while looking back at Hiro.

Hiro shook his head and bit his lip in pain.

Kuro sighed and frowned concerned. They had to rest. Usually they would have Kera stand guard, but Hiro was unable to perform the signs for a summoning jutsu. He looked at Daro again.

"We have to get your shoulder back in place," the oldest of the trio said quietly.

Hiro's face became even paler, but he nodded. "I know."

Daro and Kuro exchanged concerned glances. "I'll do it," Daro said uncertain after a moment. He took a deep breath. 'Come on Daro,' he told himself, 'you can do it. Taryn-sensei would have done it. If we don't fix Hiro's shoulder, the next time we run into someone will be the last time.'
Kuro watched as he moved over to Hiro and then resolutely turned away. He didn't want to see this. Hearing it would be bad enough. Besides, someone had to keep an eye out for approaching teams, even if they were in no condition to fight. Perhaps he could cast a simple genjutsu to make any passer-by overlook them.
"Here goes," Daro whispered as he took Hiro's arm.

A loud scream filled the air.

***

Her somewhat passive aggressive nature had been kicking in all through the night and to the next day as she seemed to keep a frown on her face, growling at anyone who tried to pry. To anyone that didn't know her, they probably would think her to be having a serious case of PMS, but no, that wasn't the cause for her foul mood. Poor Akio, for he was the one that lived with the woman. He had said only one sentence when he saw Hisayo return. "So how was your little visit with Kakashi?" and the rest was history.

He warily peered around the scroll he was reading (a cover for what he was really reading—Icha Icha) to see Hisayo appear out of her room, having stayed in a bit later than usual that morning. She held a look of determination on her face—or wait, was that a face of murderous intent instead? The dark-haired man let out an exasperated sigh, knowing what could be the cause for such a turn in her usually calm self; connecting the dots for her foul mood and negative reception of his simple question from last night. Kakashi sure was being an idiot.

"You saw them together last night, didn't you?"

Hisayo shot a death glare in Akio's direction, but calmed down somewhat as she realized that her father was not responsible for what she saw last night. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't too kind to him last night either. She dropped down on the couch with crossed arms and a sigh.

"Sorry if I was a bit too...mean...last night." She apologized.

Akio set down his reading material(s) down with a small smile. "It's alright, but maybe talking about it will help?"

"I was going to go see him at his place, but she was already there. Ugh, she was touching him and he seemed perfectly fine to let her!" Akio sweat-dropped as Hisayo had quickly taken him up on his suggestion and talked in a quick and irritated manner. It had surprise him greatly. Usually Hisayo would avoid doing such a thing, replying with small threats or glares instead. "He says they're friends, but is that what they really are? I mean we've been here for how long now—and then here she shows up outta the blue! Why did he never mention her before?"

"It wasn't completely out of the blue," Akio continued to sweat-drop, "but there's no reason to be jealous, Hisayo."

Hisayo's eye twitched and she sat up straighter in her seat with a frown. "I am not jealous."

"Right..." Akio acted like he was looking out the window and he pointed a finger with raised brows in interest, though the voice that came out was completely bland. "Oh look, there's Kakashi and Taryn now."

"Where! I'm going to end this right now!"

Akio let out an even greater sigh as he had seen the reaction he earned with his words; Hisayo was standing up now, looking out the window with her right hand on a kodachi, ready to draw on it. "I was just pulling your leg, Hisayo and besides...we're on the third floor with a building staring at us from across the street. There's no way I could have really seen something like that unless they were walking past us on the railing."

Hisayo turned her sights to Akio and he flinched. "Father..." she hissed.

"I was merely trying to prove my theory!" he shrank back, looking about ready to cry, though really, he was just being his usual melodramatic self.

"I'm not jealous!"

"No more comment!"

"I'm going out."

The door slammed shut, giving Akio no time to comment. He let out a sigh as he sank in his chair out of relief. But stood up soon after and readied himself to leave as well. Hisayo's reactions to everything just then really didn't set his mind at ease at all. If she were to run into Kakashi at all today...

He put on his sandals and exited the apartment. Maybe he should make sure that no one met their untimely demise at his daughter who was obviously in denial...and moody...and most probably in a murderous mood especially if she were to run across Taryn. Oh boy, he had better hurry so he could tail Hisayo and make sure she really didn't hurt anyone.

...

Taryn stretched and let out a yawn. She had slept surprisingly well last night. Her talk with Kakashi had taken most of her anxiety away and she felt a lot calmer now.
She stepped outside her apartment door and crossed the main square to get some breakfast. With so many visitors from other nations the shops tended to open earlier than usual.
Her eyes focused on one of the sensei's from Rain. He was hurrying towards the Education Center without so much as looking where he was going. People quickly moved out of the way as he ran by and Taryn eyed it concerned. It could only mean one thing, his team had been taken out of the game. Yesterday, a team from Mist had been killed. She had overheard that the team from Caves had been the culprit and it made her even more wary of them. It made her uncomfortable that she didn't know anything about them. Her students would be better of avoiding them in the Forest.
Taryn sat down in an empty boot in a small restaurant and ordered an omelet and a plate of onigiri. It didn't take long for her order to arrive, even though the place was quite busy.
She sipped her tea and had just taken a bite from her omelet when her eyes saw something move outside the window. She shifted her eyes just in time to see a flash of white disappear around the corner. She blinked at it, but then shook her head and continued with her breakfast.

...

The people passing by that were familiar with the white 'dog' which stood around the corner of one of the eateries, quickened their pace, knowing full well that that 'dog' was actually a wolf; and that monstrous kunoichi at that too. A small boy reached out just then to try and pet the animal, but was suddenly pulled away by his mother. "I told you not to touch any strays, especially ones that look like that one. Now come along."

Hisayo let out a wolfish sigh as she turned her attention back to peering around the corner of where she had seen Taryn disappear into. More and more people were becoming aware of who it was that was walking around in a white wolf's form. For a while, people had thought nothing of her, believing her to just be a stray, but that wasn't so much the case now; not after previous events at the last Chunin exam held in the village. She pushed the thoughts away and focused on her current task—stalking.

Not long after she left the apartment, she had taken to her wolf form so as to not so easily be spotted by the Byakugan user, though she figured that she might possibly be able to distinguish her by her chakra signature anyway, but with a bit of effort, she could suppress her chakra just enough to remain under the radar. Besides, in this form, she figured that if Taryn did happen to catch her chakra signature, she could just leave the area, making the half-Hyuuga believe that she was just passing by elsewhere.

...

Taryn glanced around suspiciously as she continued her way towards a more deserted part of town. She had the strange feeling of being watched and a familiar chakra signature floated around the area. Taryn narrowed her eyes, but couldn't locate the kunoichi anywhere. It bothered her, especially with where she was going. She didn't need an audience.
She used the same trick as before and stopped at various stands at the market, trying to get her stalker in sight, but to no avail.
When she had almost reached her destination she caught sight of white fur slipping behind a bush and she narrowed her eyes. 'She's having her summons following me around?' Taryn gritted her teeth. Hisayo was making it real hard to keep her promise to Kakashi. 'And I thought we had gotten past this at the ramen bar yesterday, but apparently she has some grudge against me. Ugh, seriously Kakashi, you want me to make peace with her?'
She clutched her fists and slipped between the fence boards, disappearing onto Uchiha land.

...

'Nearly two hours...' Akio's eyes faded from brown back to their true color of emerald. Not wanting to risk the chance that Hisayo would catch either his scent, signature, or sight of him, he stayed a relatively far distance away, using the help of Karasu to keep tabs on his daughter as she continued to follow Taryn like a hunter stalking its prey. 'What are you trying to do exactly, Hisayo...?'

He thought for certain, the moment Hisayo had caught sight of Taryn, that she would confront her, but it had yet to happen. It didn't appear that Taryn had caught sight of her, even with her Byakugan, but didn't seem too surprised. Hisayo was using her Kekkei Genkai, 'Of all the things to use it for...childish spying', so the only thing she would see with her gifted sight was a wolf and nothing more, though he was certain that by now she was feeling suspicious of the whole situation.  And speaking of suspicion... 'Why is Taryn going to the old Uchiha compound of all places?' It wasn't uncommon knowledge of the fate of the Uchihas, but Taryn was a Hyuuga and from Suna at that, so what significance did the compound have to her?

He let out a sigh and pressed onward so as not to lose the trail of Hisayo or Taryn. There was no use milling over things he had no business in. Akio understood that there were some events, some people of the past even, that were best left unknown to others.

...

Hisayo carefully poked her head around the bush she had hastily taken cover behind, when she had believed Taryn to have finally suspected her of stalking; though just as she had earlier hoped, Taryn had not been able to discern her as being Hisayo, but just a wolf. 

She inwardly smirked, 'Being mistaken for a summon does have its upsides.' She then perked her ears curiously as she saw Taryn disappearing through some broken fence boards, entering the Uchiha compound. 'Hm, interesting...' her interested highly peaked as to the reason behind why the woman was choosing to come here of all places. When she was certain that Taryn had walked ahead a far enough distance, she exited the cover of the brush and trotted forward, stopping just before the broken boards and glancing upward, seeing the outline of a fairly large bird circling high above her. 

'Karasu?'  She looked around a moment in the sky, catching sight of similar flying figures circling and finally shook her suspicions away. It seemed to be just birds scavenging. It wasn't like she hadn't seen them doing so before in the area, so there was no need to be alarmed, with thoughts that she was being followed herself. Finally, she disappeared through the boards, sniffing the ground for a moment since her earlier distraction had caused her to fall behind more than she would have liked, and carefully took off down the empty roads when she caught Taryn's scent.

...

'Phew,' Akio sighed as he dropped the genjutsu he had placed in the sky. The multiple birds faded and only Karasu was left soaring in the sky.  'That was a close one.' He was looking forward into nothing, with brown eyes, before he once again dropped his collaboration with Karasu and his normal expression returned, 'Sure glad I decided to check up on her position one more time. She'd have suspected something for certain had she realized it was you, Karasu.' 

He then dropped down from the last building of inhabitants before continuing onward to the deserted compound of the late Uchiha Clan.

***

"Why didn't you use a wind attack?" Hiro groaned as he shifted into a more comfortable position. He was still feeling terrible, but at least he could move his arm again.

Kuro lowered his eyes. "I don't know. They were so fast and I only just began to train with wind based jutsu."

"It's not your fault," Daro cut in, "if you had used wind, you could have hurt us too. We all should have paid more attention. We can't be taken off guard again. We need to start treating this as an A-rank mission." He sighed. "At least we still have one scroll."

"Yeah," Kuro said, "but we need two. And two different ones at that. And this is the second day. Some of the teams might already have reached the tower."

Hiro gasped. "The tower? That fast?"

Daro nodded. "We only have a few chances of getting another Earth scroll." He bit his lip. "That is, if they were telling the truth."

"What do you mean?" Kuro asked.

Daro looked at his teammates. "What if there is an odd number of scrolls? Who says there really were six Heaven scrolls and six Earth scrolls? There might be more of one type of scroll."

The boys looked at each other stunned. They hadn't even considered that possibility before.

"We need to get going," Daro said firmly, "can you two move?"

Kuro nodded and crawled to his feet.

"Yeah," Hiro sighed while pulling himself up. He wiggled his shoulder a few times. It was still sore and he felt tired, but Daro was right. The other teams wouldn't sit still either and time was running out. 'And I promised that Akira dude that I would pass the exam.' He took a deep breath. "Let's go."

***

A loud sneeze interrupted Anko who was going over the reports of the Genins' progress and which ones had already made it to the tower. Everyone was no looking at Akira who was sniffling as he wiped at his nostrils.

"Ah, sorry." He sniffled again. He then glared over to his left after hearing a very familiar snicker, "You got something to say, Ken?"

"You sounded like a cross between and donkey and a pig."

Suzume couldn't help but chuckle into a fist. It had sounded quite funny actually.

"Not my fault I had to sneeze!" He growled before calming down a bit, "so strange, it just happened all of a sudden. My ears are even ringing too."

Anko didn't seem the least bit pleased by the continued interruption. "Like we all really care, Akira. Now pay attention or you'll be on kitchen duty for the rest of this exam round."

Akira straightened up in his seat with wide eyes. "Right, sorry Anko! I'm shutting up now!"

Again Ken was snickering, gaining another glare from his teammate but Akira refrained from commenting.

"Shut up or you'll find yourself in the kitchen as well, Ken!"

"Yes ma'am Anko!"

The expression on Akira's face turned into a more pleased one as he leaned back in his chair.

Anko gave a small roll of her eyes as she went back to reading the report. "Now, as of this morning we are down to ten teams, one of which, has been reported as being nearby and with their required scrolls..."

***

She let out a mental sigh of boredom as she continued to see Taryn training. She had thought there to be a bigger, deeper reason as to why the woman would choose to come to the Uchiha compound.

...

Taryn stopped her wind jutsu for a moment and glanced back. The wolf was still there. She frowned. 'What does that creature want of me?' It wasn't acting like a summon, though it had to be. No regular wolf would get this close. She narrowed her eyes at it. 'Summons can talk right?' "Why are you following me?"

Hisayo wasn't too surprised that she had been called out. The kunoichi was part Hyuuga after all, and she had foreseen such actions taken by her. She stayed hiding in her bush a moment, before deciding that perhaps being in direct presence of Taryn might be to her advantage, assuming that she was still being seen as a wolf and not as who she really was. She calmly came out from the cover of the brush that had been slowly over-taking the compound, and sat several paces away, remaining silent as she stared at Taryn.

"Not going to talk are you?" Taryn sighed and turned around. She walked further into the Uchiha Territory until she reached the spot where she had put the flowers a few days ago. The flowers had withered, but the crack on the wall was still there. Sadly she placed a hand over it. It was a memory that could never be erased. She wasn't surprised to see the wolf had followed her again. It sat the same distance away from her from the first time—never drawing too close. Now
however, it seemed to be staring at the flowers and at her hand where she had placed it on the wall.

'So she is connected to this place somehow...' Hisayo continued to observe the broken and withered area. She could sense the sadness and sorrow in the air, and it suddenly dawned on her that like the memorial stone, where she would stand with Kakashi, and sometimes find him at, that this place was the same for Taryn. She allowed herself to draw closer, standing parallel to Taryn , but still at a far enough distance to be unthreatening, and she stared down at the flowers once again before her golden orbs glanced up to Taryn.

Taryn tried to ignore the wolf, but strangely enough found comfort in its presence. She usually felt lonely in this place. There were so many things that she couldn't talk about. Things she had to hide from the people she cared about. Some had their suspicions, but no one ever asked about it anymore. Not that she would tell them anything if they would. She glanced at the wolf momentarily, wondering if it really couldn't talk or simply wouldn't. She took a deep breath. "I miss him you know,"  she whispered.

Hisayo's ears twitched, and she turned her head slightly in a curious manner, much like any regular canine might do. She was a bit irritated by the way she had to play herself off as, but she knew that at this point, if she were speak, then Taryn would realize it was her and what little comfort there had been would vanish.

Taryn let out a sigh again. "Itachi." It slipped out before she realized it.

Hisayo's ears flattened back at thename and before she even realized it, she let out a snort of scorn.

Taryn's head snapped towards the animal and she narrowed he eyes. "Stop that! You don't know a thing!"

She was met with a growl and the wolf turned on its heels, giving its snow white tail a flick as if saying "Screw you."

...

Akio sweat-dropped as soon as he had seen the sudden change between the two women. 'And it had really seemed that it was going well too.' He let out an exasperated sigh as he leaned against the ridge of the rooftop he had stationed himself on. He wasn't sure what it was that had been said or done, but it sure seemed to thoroughly anger both parties.

He was thankful that Hisayo hadn't reacted in a more negative fashion; the same being said of Taryn. Both women seemed to really have short fuses around the other after all.
With Hisayo taking her leave, Akio decided that it was best if he did the same too. He still had to make sure that Hisayo would make it home without causing anyone any inconvenience.

***

"Summoning jutsu!" Hiro weaved a few signs and a moment later, a large sand hawk was staring at them from a branch above their heads.

"I was wondering when you would call me out."

"Sorry Kera," Hiro said, "we didn't want the others to know so soon that I had summons. But we only have a short time left. So we need your help."

"What is it you need?" Kera asked seriously.

"We need you to find another team. We need an Earth scroll."

The hawk nodded and flapped its big wings, making the boys momentarily shield their eyes from the flying dust.

"Come, let's go," Daro said and they followed the hawk from the ground.

...

Masaki let out a sigh after taking a long drink from his canteen. "Ah, now that's some good water."

"It is when we're as thirsty as we were," Mori complained.

"Well I can't help it that I got thirsty and drank my whole canteen yesterday morning. It was really hot!"

The female member of the team from Leaf, rolled her eyes with a small chuckle. "Should have been more conservative like me," she sang.

Both boys rolled their eyes. "Ayame," Mori said, "shut up."

"Yeah, don't rub it in, and besides, we're guys, so naturally we need to eat and drink more than you." Masaki smirked.

"That's right, cause I have my figure to look after, unlike you porkers."

"Gyah! Can we just get going now? We have our scrolls, so let's hurry and get to the tower
before we run into any other teams. The last two were a pain to deal with and only one of them ended up having the scroll we needed."

Masaki jumped to his feet, wiping his mouth of any access water, but his hand stopped midair and his eyes went wide when a huge wall of water suddenly rose up in front of him. He gasped and tried to warn his teammates, but didn't get much further than waving his arms in the air in shock.

"What's taking y..." Ayame gasped too at the sight of the water. She stepped back when it came towards her.

"Tidal Wave: Hurricane!" a voice shouted and the wall of water crashed over Ayame.

She screamed. "You ruined my clothes!"

"Ayame," Mori glared, "I hardly think it's the time to worry about that. We're under attack!"

"Yeah, I can see that just fine, Mori. What I wanna know is how you could miss them!"

"Me?! Masaki was the one that couldn't think to warn us!"

"In my defense I was still in the middle of drinking water!" Masaki took to some higher branches to continue to avoid the wild torrent.

Ayame smirked. "I guess you can fill your canteen all you want now."

"Earth Style: Spike Cage." Several spikes burst through the ground and trapped Mori.

"Kera!" the first voice shouted, "shake that kid from the tree."

A large gust of wind followed and the cry of a hawk was heard.

Ayame's eyes went wide as she tried to reach her teammate. "Masaki, watch out!"

Masaki looked up where Ayame pointed, shielding his eyes when the strong gust hit. It was powerful enough to make even the thick branches of the tree shake and creak. He lost his hold on his branch, falling back down towards the earth. Ayame hastily threw wire-tied kunai all underneath him to form a netting to stop his fall.

Mori let out an angered cry as he broke out of his confines, using an earth jutsu. "You aren't the only one who can use earth!" He then formed hand signs before burying his hands in the earth. "Earth Style: Seismic Rumble!"

The earth began to shake, the trees creaking and shaking as well. From above, Ayame, who was now with Masaki, looked down and smirked. "Way to go, Mori! Flush them out!"

"Too bad we're not in the ground," Daro smirked.

Kuro dropped his genjutsu and Daro jumped from another tree, directing a high aimed kick at Mori's back.

"Wind Style: Silver Wind," Kuro shouted and sent a sharp wind towards the two Genin in the tree.

Both Ayame and Masaki leapt away mere seconds before the wind cut through them; the
wiring being sliced through instead.

Meanwhile, Mori crashed forward, sliding on his stomach and face after Daro had landed his
kick. The rumbling stopped, but that didn't mean the team itself had.

Masaki dropped down between his teammate and Daro, forming signs and holding his hands
out. "Fire Style: Birds of Prey!" Several flames appeared and took on the shapes of hawks, falcons, and even eagles. They all let out shrilled cries and flew forward, swooping, diving, and flapping away in their assaults. "If you won't all come out, then I guess we'll just take you out one at a time then! Ha!"

Daro leapt back, avoiding many of the flaming birds, before he felt his back meet up with a web of wire. A chuckle soon followed and he looked up to see the Leaf kunoichi just finishing her work; "Try dodging now! Go for it Masaki! He's yours now!"

"A little help would be nice now!" Daro yelled to no one in particular as he found the wire to be much more complex in set up than he first believed. The strings of wire he had seen were thick, but he had completely missed the near to complete invisible wires the kunoichi had set up while he had been distracted by Masaki.

"Water Style: River of Rain!" The fire birds Masaki had formed sizzled and vanished when Hiro's water jutsu hit them and Daro. Daro coughed when the jutsu drenched him.

"Sorry," Hiro called while landing between his teammate and Masaki.

"No... kidding," Daro coughed and he spit out a mouthful of water. "Thanks though."

Hiro grinned.

Kuro jumped into view and threw a handful of shuriken at the web that held Daro prisoner,
cutting the wires. He took his chain and whipped it at Mori in an attempt to wrap it around the boy's ankles. His aim was true and he roughly pulled back on Mori, causing Masaki to fall on his butt as Mori slid from behind and underneath him.

"Mori!"

"The smoke bombs, throw the smoke bombs, you idiot!" Mori ordered as he tried to
free himself.

Masaki quickly drew upon several of the said items and threw out in all directions. "Ayame,
get ready!"

"Right!" she replied, understanding what her team intended to do, just as the black smoke engulfed the whole area.

Kuro felt a sudden slack in his chain, as he brought up an arm to shield his nose from the smoke.

"Kera!" Hiro shouted, "clear the smoke!"

"Get ready!" Daro warned. He took out a kunai dagger and quickly weaved a few signs. A platform of earth shot up, lifting him up in the air so he might see over the smoke.

Hiro's hawk was flapping her wings and large gusts of wind blew the smoke away.

All three's eyes went wide in surprise and urgency as they saw a sea of wiring with explosive tags danlging from them.They could hear many of them beginning to become active, the sizzling sound they made sending panic through their bodies.

In a few seconds it would all be over. They had to think of something. And they had to do it fast.

---

A/N Picture of Taryn's team to the side, made by Amaterasu :)

Songs for this chapter

Kokuten – Naruto OST

Eyes on Fire – Blue Foundation 

Tsunami – DVBBS & Borgeous  (Hiro's theme)