Naruto couldn't help but shiver as he walked into the building, he didn't know if it was the cool air outside or the fact that Haku was standing two feet next to him. He didn't have much time to think about it... and the fact that the Chunin exams were beginning an hour after they arrived made Naruto a little antsy. Ryouichi was standing next to him in curiosity as he looked around the academy hallway they walked into, whistling as he did look around. "So, you learned here huh?" Ryouichi asked with a smile.

"Yeah, well it's not as great as the capital's walls so don't judge it too harshly," Naruto muttered to himself making Ryou laugh at that and wave his hand dismissively. They all turned and as they did the three plates on their forehead shined and showed the kanji "Fire". As they were walking Haku muttered to himself, "they said room 3-e right?" he turned to Ryou as he nodded. "Well, it's 3 floors up. Let's go." Naruto said as they headed their way up, but suddenly he heard a familiar voice just as he as walking up the first flight of stairs. 

"Drop the genjutsu." Naruto froze as he felt of dread wash over him, looking over he saw Sasuke and Sakura in front of a few genins trying to get passed a door. Naruto looked over towards Ryouichi and Haku who seemed to be looking over at the others in interest. "Let's just go passed them," Ryou suggested making the two nod in agreement.

Sakura who was staring at the supposed genin in front of them felt a cold shudder and turned around and saw nothing... She frowned slightly, she didn't remember feeling cold before... but now it was there lingering. She looked forward to the genin who was blocking there way.

Naruto sighed as Haku slowly closed the door to the room that they walked into. Looking up he saw that there were many teams. Looking around at them all he saw many different headbands, Sunagakure, Amegakure... mostly they were from Konoha which didn't surprise Naruto but when he turned again he saw a headband with a sound emblem on it and he tensed briefly, feeling a hand on his arm he looked over and saw Ryouichi smiling at him. 

The tense air around Naruto was gone and he was pulled over towards the window where Naruto was able to stare out the window, him readying himself for his old team to question why he was here... there was no way to fully hide from them. One by one he saw more teams walk in and eventually the recently graduated teams showed up. Naruto tensed slightly once again, his breath was caught before he focused chakra to his ears and started hearing the conversation taking place.

"Well, it seems like everyone's here," Kiba stated with a big grin as he placed his hands behind his head in a carefree way. Sakura seemingly frowned as she said that before Sasuke scoffed, "Yeah, not exactly everyone." Shikamaru raised his eyebrow at the tone Sasuke was giving, as if he was annoyed at the world, more so then usual. "What do you mean Sasuke-Kun?" Ino asked as she held onto his arm like a leech. Akamaru seemingly barked ontop of Kiba's head as she asked. 

"Naruto left the team." Sakura said sadly, Naruto frowned slightly as Sasuke scoffed once again before saying "Good riddance." Naruto tensed at that. Before anyone could get a word in another walked up to them. "You guys should stop chatting so carefreely." A white-haired teen walked up to them, his headband signifying he was one of them. "You are being sized up." Looking up all of them noticed he was right. "My name's Kabuto, if you need any information I'm your guy." he pointed towards himself with a smile.

Sakura looked up at him curiously. "Really? Do you have any information on the teams this year." She asked curiously making him nod. "That's easy, all the teams have already participated before in previous exams here except for two villages." all of the genins curiously looked around. "Otogakure and The fire capital." Many got mixed reactions out of them all.

Shikamaru furrowed his brow in confusion. "The fire capital? Since when did they send genin teams?" Choji asked munching on some chips. "I'm not quite sure, I only heard that there was one team from Otagakure and the capital." Akamaru wagged his tail before barking and jumping from Kiba's head and running across the room, "H-Hey Akamaru!" The little white blur made everyone's eyes follow him and as it jumped onto a desk into another person's arms.

"Damn it Akamaru..." Naruto muttered as he lightly patted the dog's head as Kiba quickly ran up to him, "I'm so sorry, he normally never..." There was a small pause before Kiba noticed that Naruto was the one petting the little white pup. "Naruto?" He sighed slightly as he lightly brought the little pup in his arms up and gave the dog back. "Hi, Kiba.." Muttering silently Sasuke's nose twitched in a scowl seeing the blond and the red-head.

"I see so you left the team to go join your Boyfriend?" He scoffed at that making Sakura frown, she never would have guessed that but it did seem like that was the case. Ino seeing the familiar redhead and Shikamaru slowly piecing it together. "I left the team but I can't quit being a ninja, so Hokage-sama let me leave to clear my head to come back and take the chunin exams." It was all the truth what he said, but not denying about Ryouichi got everyone wondering. Sakura looked to the third teammate and tensed. "H-Haku-san!?" She asked making the boy turn his head.

"Yo." Was his reply to the girl while Naruto felt his hand get squeezed by his fiance. "I see now, you were from the fire capital, that was how Naruto was able to get into the team." Shikamaru theorized making the Daimyo smile and nodded, it was fairly close, but for the boy to get that much information from their brief exchanges. "Kabuto, I want all the information you have on that team." Sasuke pointed towards Naruto mostly, his hatred still showing. Kabuto flipped his card and looked down at it and frowned. 

"I only have the information about Naruto-san." He smiled sheepishly but inside he was fairly confused, he usually had information on genin... so why were Ryouichi and Haku anything different? "Naruto Uzumaki, he has completed.. wow 1 A-rank mission, and 50 D-rank. He is able to control his chakra in such a way that he can change it to any nature of Chakra, Impressive Naruto-san." He commented making Naruto roll his eyes, he was curious as to how he got that information unless it was from a mission report and he heard about it.

Ryouichi was also thinking along the same lines but had an edge of suspicion. He tapped Naruto's hand briefly with one finger before the door opened and revealed a man with two scars across his face making Naruto squirm uncomfortably, knowing exactly who this man was. "QUIT YOUR TALKING! GET INTO A SEAT!" Naruto quickly got up and sat in one of the middle seats while Ryouichi and Haku were pulled away from each other making Naruto grimaced, being seated next to Sasuke who seem to be eyes ahead and refused to look at the blond next to him.

Naruto looked ahead and saw the smirk on the man's face which told him that he was not up to any good. "Alright then, we will be having a test." Naruto's hand twitched as he couldn't help but sigh in relief, he wasn't entirely dense as he acted, he knew many things so a test would be fine for him. "If you are found cheating we will deduct you 5 points, reach 0 and your entire team will fail." Ryouichi frowned at that, confusion settling in.

"You may now flip your tests over." As Naruto did he couldn't help but feel a pit in his stomach as he stared at some of these questions. his eyes moved to his left and saw Sasuke also looking concerned... before his black orbs turned red and his hand started to move to make Naruto realize the big picture. "Cheating is the option."  Naruto couldn't help but bite his lip, he couldn't think of a way to cheat without using his Sharingan... "Or you can ask your personal immortal entity." 

Naruto flinched as Kurama invaded his thoughts and his hand started to work, the kanji seemingly writing itself as Kurama fed the information to Naruto. Looking down Naruto saw Haku using one of his ice mirrors to reflect the answers off of another student's paper to his sight and began writing them down. Ryouichi seemingly was answering them effortlessly, only silently having a glance upwards to see where Naruto was.

Ibiki who was standing in front of them all sized them up, his eyes like orbs of death looming over all of the Genin presented. He called many teams out before the time slowly ticked down before he said "Time is up! Put your pencils down." Naruto sighed in relief as he had already done the questions fairly quickly but he was still holding his breath in anticipation for other teams and his own.

"Now, we have a final question." The collected genin tensed at the thought of another question, for one reason or another. "However... You must decide whether you want to take it or not... if you do and fail, you will never become a chunin." Naruto's brows furrowed as he said that... Something wasn't right... "What do you mean! You can't do that!" Kiba stood up making the man smirk and shrug his shoulders. "You guys got rotten luck for having me as your proctor." Ryouichi couldn't help but smirk at the ploy. "What a cunning trick to weed out more people. A feint that is to hard to see..." 

His eyes began to wander each of the contestants and saw many had looks of nervousness... Only a few stood out to be very certain with taking the test... Some he could have guessed why, like Sasuke, blindly going forward because he is determined... But his eyes landed on the sand genin and Kabuto and his teammates... "If he took the exam that many times... Why is he so confident over this question? Is he weighing the odds that it might be a question he heard before? Or does he really know that this is a fake." His mind was going quite fast.

Naruto saw many teams get up from being too scared of taking the question, while most were fidgeting but seemed to stay put. Ibiki seeing no one else leaving smirked, "Not bad... Everyone still here has passed the first test." Ryouichi kept his eyes on the two teams watching the reactions... he didn't get one... while everyone seemed to be giving each other confused looks. "We have two teams to watch out for then..."

Ryouichi tensed as a banner came crashing through the window and he couldn't help but gawk as another ball of purple followed after it and sprung to life. The banner reading, "THE SEXY AND SINGLE ANKO MITARASHI!" "Oh no..." Ryouichi heard his fiance mutter under his breath as he saw a purple-haired woman, one hand held a Dango stick while the other held up with a thumbs up. "Oh! It seems there is a lot more than expected Ibiki... Why is that?" She said sickly sweet to the man, wiggling her hips making a few guys in the room having a small nosebleed.

"A good batch this year. You're early as usual?" Ibiki asked making Anko stand up straight and stretch her arms slightly. "Of course~ I just picked up my Dango and my banner and walaa! I am here!" She stopped her stretching before pushing her finger towards them all... and smirking at Naruto and gave him a point. "I'll be cutting this group by half so do NOT get comfortable with me!" She brought her thumb to her neck and motioned a cutting motion with a sickly sweet smile.

Naruto breathed in briefly before she grabbed her banner with a smirk. "FOLLOW ME! To training ground 44!" Everyone got up and seemingly followed after the... eccentric woman. Ryouichi grabbing Naruto's hand and bringing him up. "Who was she?" Haku who walked up to them was fairly curious himself and nodded his head in wanting to know the answer. "That, is Anko... She is... Friendly for Dango." Naruto's pausing made them assume he was trying to find the right words so she WOULDN'T gut him like a pig.

"I see... Well, Lead the way, you must know where Training ground 44 is?" Naruto sighed and rubbed his head. "Yeah... The forest of death... Follow me, we are in for one hell of a month."

...

TBC

An update, I know... Surprise?