Chapter [NaN]

Eroninja

Kukaku was sitting within the office that most of the villagers of Ironfog believed belonged to the Black Fox’s leader Menma’s. Which was where Naruto had taken her the night after breaking into Leaf Maximum Security Prison. He had arrived that morning with Rin, who had dawned a fox mask as she resumed playing the role of a doctor tied to the gang’s leader. A job that she took quite a bit of satisfaction from, as she was developing quite the thriving practice in the town of Ironfog. Particularly due to her having exposed the previous doctor’s tendency to string his patients illnesses along to maximize his profits. It hadn’t just been due to Rin’s involvement in confronting Obito that Naruto had brought the medical kunoichi along, but had been due to a request made by her, since if she was going to take an active part in shaping the Black Foxes’ future, she believed that she would need to overcome her current disability, without going against the word that she had given the woman had taken her arm. Deciding that a prosthetic would not be a violation of the decision to live with the loss, she had still been somewhat surprised when Rin had been the medic that arrived with him.

Rin was currently making the final adjustments to the artificial arm that she had fitted her with, prompting the Bijuu to state, “I’m rather surprised you appear so capable with these techniques. I was under the impression that it was the one field where the Leaf trailed behind the Sand village.”

She could hear the smile that she imagined was appearing beneath Rin’s mask as the kunoichi replied, “Well, unfortunately for you, Naruto hasn’t banged any Sand medics yet.” The smile seemed to slip some, which wasn’t surprising as she explained, “But, it seems that although Kushina removed my memories of my time as Joseki’s puppet, it appears that I picked up a thing or two from it while serving as his daughter’s tutor.”

Kukaku frowned as she asked, “Are you saying you can recall that period of time?”

“No,” Rin said shaking her head, as she tightened a screw at the elbow, “But, it makes the most sense that would be where I would have gained my current understanding. I didn’t even know I possessed it until a villager here lost a leg in a fishing accident, a mast broke away and pulled a chain across the deck catching the sailor at the knee. The doctor on the boat tried to save it, but lacked the equipment. When they asked me to look at it, sadly too much time had passed and it needed to be amputated. After the operation, I blacked out for a time and the next thing I remember I was fitting him with a leg.”

“That seems rather dangerous,” Kukaku stated, although she had heard Kiyomi make mention of how Kushina at times possessed knowledge of how to use techniques she hadn’t come up with due to memories contained within her sister’s original form.

Rin nodded, but putting the Bijuu at ease said, “It only happened the one time. I think it was just because the knowledge sort of unlocked itself, and so I went on autopilot while I absorbed it. It is still kind of strange, to have answers to questions the current me has, which are answered without having the slightest idea of how I came across it. But, sometimes I feel Joseki’s daughter might have been the one who taught me.”

Kukaku turned to look at the brown-haired kunoichi in surprise whose smile returned as she said, “I know it doesn’t make any sense. But, sometimes when a question arises it isn’t my voice that answers it. I think that even if she was aware that Joseki was using me to help raise her standing in Suna’s medical program. She might not have been entirely comfortable with the situation, but couldn’t exactly refuse because of him being her father. So, just maybe she was feeding me information she knew I lacked as a form of exchange.”

“Even though chances were high you’d just be killed the minute you outlived your usefulness,” Kukaku said sounding doubtful. Rin looked down causing Kukaku to fear that she had insulted the woman, so stated, “I apologize, if my words offended you.”

Rin shook her head saying cheerfully, “No, I know it is kind of a silly thought. I sometimes feel tempted to ask Kushina to return the memories. But, honestly think it best to just be rid of them, and let this just be a little mystery better left unsolved.” Her voice lost most of its cheer as she added, “Sometimes knowing the truth is worse than not. At least this way I can imagine that maybe someone who was using me as a means to an end, had some humanity still contained within them.”

“As opposed to using you as a justification to toss theirs away,” Kukaku thought figuring Rin was thinking much the same thing considering her former teammate’s actions and supposed justification for them.

Rin finished making her adjustment and returning to her chipper shelf said, “Well, regardless of how I came by them, its times like this that make me glad I did. So, how about giving the arm another whirl?”

Kukaku nodded and concentrating first made a fist with the prosthetic’s hand before raising it up and began working it through a full range of motion. Rin despite having watched Kukaku do so once already, before she had found an angle she had been unable to move the arm in which had led to her needing to adjust it said, “It’s incredible how easily you picked it up.”

Kukaku smiled, but sounding humble said, “It’s strange, but I suppose that it might be tied to having spent so much of my existence without an actual physical form. I suppose that it may just come down to it being that moving a body made of chakra is no different than manipulating this arm using it.”

Rin nodded in agreement, but both of them focused on the door as it began to open. Naruto who was currently donning his Menma persona entered first followed by Ganju as Koharu was the last to enter and closed the door behind them. Indicating a chair sitting before his desk said, “Please take a seat Ganju.”

The man nodded as Naruto sat behind his desk, while Koharu and Rin stood to the sides of his high backed chair. Ganju nodded to his boss’s second-in-command and personal physician, but grew confused as he noticed the third woman standing beside his desk looking a bit unsure as to where she should stand. Commenting on her presence, he said, “Um boss, who’s the new lady.”

To his surprise, Menma began to grow a little nervous which was definitely not an emotion he ever expected to see the gang leader exhibit. He didn’t do a good job of hiding it from his voice either as he said, “Well, actually she’s the reason we wanted to speak with you. You see, her name is Kukaku Shiba and…”

Ganju’s gaze darkened as he affixed it onto the woman who was calling herself by his deceased sister’s name, “I don’t know who the hell you are but…”

Naruto seeing his timidity, due to his nervousness about potentially revealing some if not all of the secrets that he was keeping was leading to the meeting getting off on the wrong foot said stridently, “Hold on Ganju! We know she isn’t your sister. However, for the past several years that is the name that she has been going by. When she originally selected it, we just assumed that it was a random name without any meaning. Recent events have made us question that some, but I’m afraid I haven’t had time to hunt down the truth.”

Confused, the male Shiba asked, “Okay, but if you are aware that it is just some alias. Why bring it to my attention now?”

“Recently, I caused a bit of a disturbance in the Leaf village, which centered around her,” Naruto explained, as the woman began to look rather embarrassed. “Due in part to my involvement, we’ve heard that the Leaf took her last name as some sort of explanation for my having appeared, and we want to play off of that to justify my actions and her joining our group.”

Ganju frowned as he stroked his chin in thought, but finally said, “I’ve got to admit that I’m kind of confused boss, who gives a shit if the Leaf has a justification for you causing a little hell. I mean sure you turned things around here. But I’m sure that as far as they would be concerned, we’re still just basically criminals.”

Naruto looked back towards Koharu, who gave him a nod before turning towards Kukaku who seconded it causing Naruto to sigh before admitting with a sense of importance, “Well, to begin with, we don’t want the Leaf looking too hard at my actions because in actuality, my real identity is Naruto Uzumaki.”

Ganju stared at him for a moment since it was apparent the man that he knew as Menma expected some sort of reaction to the name. But, unable to place it he finally ended up simply asking, “Who?”

Naruto opened his mouth several times feeling a little deflated as his ego took a bit of a bruising especially as his three lovers began laughing at the lieutenant’s response. It caused him to grow somewhat frustrated especially as he said, “You know, the guy that supposedly ruined my face, and who I stylized this one after.”

Ganju for a moment looked like the story sounded familiar, but finally admitted, “Sorry, I know there was supposedly some beef between you and some Leaf-nin, but I just figured he was a scrub that got lucky or something.”

This caused his lovers to laugh even harder causing him to slink down in his chair as he muttered to himself, “I’m a big deal dammit.”

“Of course, you are my dear,” Koharu said playfully ruffling his hair teasingly before stepping forward. Standing at the side of his desk she informed the man sitting before her lover, “Ganju Shiba, allow me to introduce to you Naruto Uzumaki, and much as he claims, he is quite the important figure within the Shinobi World.” Which caused Naruto to drop the henge that he had adopted for the meeting having not gone through his normal means of preparations in order to adopt his Menma identity.

Ganju nodded in acceptance of the information that he had just received, and rather surprised by the man’s lack of reaction Naruto said, “I must admit that you seem to be taking this revelation remarkably well.”

The Shiba chuckled, before stating “I guess you can say my calmness is mostly due to how you’ve turned things around in the gang and village. It’s pretty obvious that you aren’t a bad guy, and I doubt this is some sort of elaborate sting operation, as why else would we be facing the crisis in manpower that we are in. You could just recruit all the scumbags you needed, secure in the knowledge you’d be busting them all later.”

Naruto smiled at the first part of the Shiba’s reasoning, but partially corrected him by saying, “Well to be honest, we did start out on this endeavor as a sting operation of a sort.” He wasn’t surprised to see Ganju’s guard raise immediately, but putting him at ease explained, “However, our hope was to attract the attention of certain shadowy elements that we believe are responsible for supporting disruptive individuals in order to prevent the establishing of a lasting peace between the shinobi villages.” He could tell Ganju wasn’t quite following him, so he stated, “Take these lands where Orochimaru first established his Sound Village. Granted, he had the aid of the Daimyo of the Land of Rice Paddies. But, the support of one minor Daimyo from a relatively poor country does not explain how he would have been able to establish bases all over the continent. Not to mention, having the funds to run dozens, if not more, experiments simultaneously.”

Koharu took over saying, “Our belief is that there is some sort of organization out there which props up elements they know will be disruptive and give them the funding and means to become true agents of Chaos. Continuing with Orochimaru as the example, within a little over a decade he was able to make a just established minor village into a threat which almost toppled the Leaf.”

“Yeah sure,” Ganju replied in a tone that made it clear that he wasn’t exactly buying what they were selling, “But, didn’t he have the help of the Sand Village when he made his big play?”

“He did indeed,” Koharu conceded with a slight nod. “However, at present we have knowledge on around a dozen and a half bases that he established. One of these bases once existed in the Land of the Sea, where he ran experiments to create ideal warriors adopted to battling in the ocean. Orochimaru supported it for years, and we only became aware of it when he abandoned the experiments, but the head researcher refused to follow suit, and thus soon needed to begin attacking gold shipments traveling between the Lands of Sea and Water.”

Ganju was beginning to understand why the Leaf would perhaps feel that Orochimaru would have some sort of shadowy backer, since he doubted the Sanin was footing the bill for such research. Especially as it sounded as if he was willing to just walk away from it without any kind of return on his investment. Not exactly an action he imagined most would be willing to do, especially as it was apparently that it had been such a money drain that the researcher who had continued the experiments, soon had needed to attack enough boats loaded down with gold that eventually the Land of the Sea would ask the Leaf to get involved. Granted, there was the old saying that fools and their money were soon parted. But, in Ganju’s experience, even a fool would be looking for some form of reimbursement after dropping such money for what he had to assume was years. In his experience, the only people that he generally found who acted in such a manner were politicians, who would drop all sorts of cash which they accumulated through taxes on one project or another, and wouldn’t necessarily care what the results were seeing as how it wasn’t their money that they were spending in the first place.

Still, it did leave him with an abundance of questions, since he had to imagine that whatever the current operation was, it was no longer geared to smoking out these shadowy backers. A conclusion he reached based on how the Black Foxes were being run, since if these backers had supported the likes of Orochimaru, then he imagined what attracted them was their capacity to create trouble within the various countries. Whereas the Foxes, while perhaps operating on just the wrong side of the law were one of the definitive forces of order holding the Land of Rice Paddies together. A truth he suspected the Fuma also recognized since it had been nearly a year since the last time the Clan had staged a raid on the criminal element of Irongfog.

It was thinking along this line which prompted him to ask, “With how the gang is being run, you have to realize we are probably not the type of organization that these guys would reach out to. So, what is the point of all this? Plus, with your concern with how the Leaf would perceive your actions in Konoha, is this an operation they are even aware of?”

Naruto spent a moment to collect his thoughts before responding, “I’ll answer the second question first, by saying there are elements within Konoha that are quite aware of our actions here. Many of them are rather highly placed, but even if they could just squash the investigation into why Menma appeared in Konoha. It would only lead to elements within the village asking questions as to why they would do so. So, if we can provide an answer that will satisfy these parties, it just makes things easier for everyone.” Ganju nodded in acceptance of his point, prompting the Uzumaki to continue, “As for why we are continuing the ruse, well for starters most of the Black Foxes members are just like you, good men who through bad luck and a few poor decisions ended up here. But, when given the chance to be something more leapt at it, and I’m not going to abandon you just because my initial reason for coming here fell through. Especially, with Sabertooth on the loose. Besides, you never know, even though they probably will not reach out to us as someone they want to elevate. That doesn’t mean there are no other services that we could provide which they may find useful, and in turn could provide us with some clues as to how they operate. Or, at some point they may decide to elevate some of our adversaries who upon being dealt with may also provide us with other threads that we can follow back to them.”

Ganju was pleased by the Uzumaki’s answer, not only because it helped reenforce the idea that he had been following a good man, but because he had also provided more selfish reasons tied to his original goal to explain his willingness to continue the ruse. Although hearing there was still a possibility they may come to the attention of such a shadowy group did fill him with some trepidation. Wondering if it might explain the sudden rise of a certain saber-toothed cat gang, he asked, “Do you feel these shadowy guys might explain why Sabertooth has been so dominate.”

“We can’t rule out the possibility,” Naruto admitted, yet was quick to follow up with, “But, being honest, I don’t think so. From all the intel that Koharu has gathered, it looks like Jiemma has been placing the pieces into position for quite a while now. The guilds initial success seems more to do with the quality of its members rather than a sudden influx of cash which would make recruiting more men easier. A trend they appear to be continuing by making the surviving members of the gangs they conquer battle each other for the right to join them. Still, even if they take the best of the best, such rapid growth does still tend to impact the quality and cohesion of the group as a whole. Which is where Kukaku comes in?”

Ganju winced upon hearing his sister name being attached to the woman the Uzumaki was referring to. Naruto noticing this said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No, its fine boss,” Ganju interrupted, “I understand that she must have been using my sister’s name for quite a while for the Leaf to think there may be some relation between us. But, it does beg the question that if you know this not to be the case, then who is she really?”

Naruto quickly looked to the woman as some concern appeared on his face since while it was expected it may be asked, he still wasn’t entirely sure how Ganju would respond to the woman who they were hoping would be allowed to assume his sister’s identity was in fact one of the Bijuu. Yet to his surprise, Kukaku straightened proudly as she said, “The name my father gave me was Son Goku. However, you perhaps better know me as the Four Tailed Monkey.”

Upon hearing the name that he had been given, his first thought was, “That’s a rather masculine name for such a Buxom woman.” However, as his brain processed the rest of the information his face suddenly grew pale as he stared at her with increasingly widening eyes.

Naruto didn’t need to be a Yamanaka to see how Ganju’s mind was processing the information as it switched from confusion to borderline terror. Standing from his chair, he said, “I hope you understand the great honor you have been shown. A Bijuu considers their true name to be something to be cherished, not given out on a whim.” As he talked, he walked behind Kukaku and caused her to jump a bit as he gave her ass a firm squeeze.

An action that Ganju didn’t miss as the Bijuu’s cheeks immediately began to color, prompting the man to quickly switch his focus to Koharu, a woman that he also knew that his currently blond leader was sleeping with. Koharu gave a slight nod causing his gaze to quickly switch to Naruto, who he was beginning to wonder if he was even human if he could tame a bijuu. Not to mention doing so in the seemingly same manner as he had Koharu considering his having interrupted them on several occasions as his skull could attest.

“H…how,” Ganju’s managed to ask as his brain began to reset due to the bombshells it was being asked to process.

“Well, it is kind of a long story,” Naruto said as he moved to the front of his desk figuring Ganju was question Kukaku’s current form, “Let’s just say, it came about as a result of my overall goal which is establishing a lasting peace between the Shinobi Nations. A goal which I now consider the Black Foxes to be a vital part of. But, if you’re looking for the specifics on how one of the Bijuu is…”

Ganju held up his hand suddenly saying, “I’ve heard enough, and to be honest I want you to make me forget it.” Naruto frowned at the response, and Ganju noticed the Bijuu also appeared disappointed so standing from the chair said, “Boss, you have allowed me to hold my head high as a proud man of Shiba. So if you believe this is the best course of action to protect the gang then you have my permission. But, as you just saw, having my permission and my being able to play along are two different things. So, it is best if you make me believe. Don’t you shinobi have such means?”

Naruto began to look uncomfortable as he said, “We do… but…”

“Don’t worry Boss,” he interjected quickly, “This is what I want, if there are shadowy elements watching us I don’t want to be the one that screws everything up because a slip in my performance. Plus, I’m guessing that bringing in…Kukaku is meant to blunt Sabertooth so the sooner you can call on her the better.”

Naruto pushed off from his desk and standing tall held out his hand saying “Thank you, Ganju Shiba! You are a credit to your clan, and I am honored by your service and I hope friendship.”

“Of course boss,” Ganju said taking the hand and shaking it firmly, “To be honest, even if you were playing some part, it doesn’t really feel like Menma and you are all that different. You might want to work on that.”

Naruto chuckled as he said, “I’ll take it under advisement.”

Stepping back Ganju asked, “Um, so how do we go about this?”

“Take a seat,” Kukaku stated as she approached an instruction that her future little brother followed,, “I should be able to bury these memories under a false set of ones.”

“Should?” Naruto asked with a hint of concern.

“Relax,” Kukaku stated waving her prosthetic arm dismissively, “If Kiyomi can create whole personalities from wholecloth. I can easily just tweak a memory or two.”

Placing her other hand on Ganju’s head, she said, “Now relax, you may feel a little jolt.”

“Huh?” Ganju just managed to grunt before the jolt in question hit, and he grabbed the arms of the chair in reflex before the world went dark.

*******

“Ganju… Ganju…” a somewhat annoyed voice called out to him.

“Huh…um…” Ganju responded as he opened his eyes to find himself staring up at the ceiling of Menma’s office. Sitting up, he found the black haired leader of the gang was still sitting in his chair, while Kuharu was the one calling his name. Moving to sit-up, he was aided by the masked woman everyone called simply Doctor, who acted as the Menma’s personal physician as well as much of the towns. Shaking his head, he said, “I’m sorry… what happened…”

Koharu huffed, as she said in the same annoyed tone she had just been using, “Here Menma went through all the trouble of heading to the Leaf at your behest, and you thank him by passing out and breaking one of his chairs.”

Hearing Koharu’s description of what had happened, he recalled hearing rumors of someone going by his sister’s name living within Konoha, and of his having asked Menma to use the gang’s resources to look into the possibility of her being alive. Several days had passed before Koharu and Menma had asked him to meet with them in his office at which point he had moved to stand before his leader’s desk. Where after Menma had taken his seat, he had been told his sister was still alive, who had then promptly stepped out from behind the gang leader’s highbacked chair to say, “Ganju, it looks like you’ve been eating well.”

At which point, he assumed that he must have passed out and fell back to crush the chair whose remains he was laying atop of. Finding that the woman was now standing beside him, he rushed to his feet and lifted her into a large bear hug, shouting happily, “Sis, you’re alive.”

Kukaku was a little annoyed at being manhandled in such a manner so said, “Put me down you idiot.”

“Hey, is that anyway to greet your little brother after so long?” Menma admonished looking both amused and perhaps slightly uncomfortable.

“What business is it of yours,” Kukaku said sternly while still being suspended, having gleamed from Ganju’s memories that his sister had been a bit overbearing in her treatment of him. “Now put me down.”

Ganju complied with the request, and Kukaku cupped her brother’s cheek affectionately while saying, “It is good to see you again.”

“But sis, how…”

“There’ll be enough time for those questions later, Ganju” Kukaku said, figuring she’d be able to just follow the original backstory Kiyomi had created for her feeling more and more confident that she had at some point intended for her to assume the role of the likely deceased woman in order to infiltrate the Land of Iron. “Menma has informed me that you’ve been putting together a squad of trouble busters.”

“Yeah,” he said proudly, “We call ourselves the Boar Riders.”

Nodding Kukaku said, “Good, get them ready to go. I want to be on the road within the hour.”

“But sis, we just got reunited…”

“We’ll be able to talk more on the road, but Menma has informed me of the problem brewing in Spoken Wheel Village. We’re going to take it, and show these Sabertooth bastards what the Shiba are capable of,” Kukaku stated turning to walk past him as she made for the exit.

Caught by surprise by his headstrong sister, Ganju moved to followe but quickly stopped to bow deeply to Menma saying, “Thank you, Boss! I owe you.”

To his shock, Menma stood and bowed even deeper stating, “No, it is I who must thank you Ganju. I owe you more than I can convey.”

Caught a bit flatfooted by the amount of respect that he had just received, he wonder if perhaps his sister and boss had grown fond of each other during their short trip from Konoha, and what that might mean for him and his second in command, who he was more than aware that he was already sleeping with. But, before he could really delve down that road of thought, he was forced to follow his sister as she said, “Come on Ganju. There is no time like the present.”

“Wait sis,” Ganju called after her as he began to follow in order to dissuade her, as he knew that Sabertooth had turned the village that she wanted to ride to into a fortress, and while he recalled that she had always been stronger then him, couldn’t imagine that even she’d be able to take the giant of a man that Sabertooth had stationed there.

*********

Darui approached the Raikage’s office to find a new, but welcomed sight of a woman bent over Mabui’s desk as she listened to its owner explain various mistakes that she had made in the file that she had brought her. He took a moment to admire the view, before picturing said backside minus the green skirt the woman was wearing. Mabui noticed his approach, causing Darui to lose interest in the sight his imagination was project before him as he fought back against glaring at the woman as he detected a vague sense of smugness in her demeanor. He wasn’t quite sure why just looking at her recently filled him with a degree of animosity. After all, he imagined that if he put his mind to it, he could easily have the woman currently bent over Mabui’s desk, bent over his in a similar manner, although sans clothes as he ploughed her from behind. Still, that animosity was there, which as he studied his former fling, he began to attribute his negativity towards her to the idea that what he was seeing as smugness was perhaps contentment. Which in turn, was a reminder of the blow that his ego had taken when rather than come crawling back as he had half expected back when they had ended their semi-relationship, she had instead shacked up with some asshole from the Land of Spring, and his damaged Snow-nin lover. Particularly, since one of the things that had led to their last separation had been her pushing for a steady relationship in response to his having tried to get her to join him in a threesome when she had come over to find him entertaining another woman.

“Shit, why’d she put up such a stink about it if she was D.T.F. some pussy from Spring,” he thought as he moved to stand in front of her desk, not only to get a look at the face of the woman whose better half he had already been admiring, but to find out if the Raikage was available. Coming to a stop before Mabui, he continued to himself, “If she had just said yes, I might have actually considered her request to make things more official.”

Mabui looked up towards him, yet rather than inquiring if the Raikage was in he asked, “So, is this lovely lady going to be your replacement?”

The young woman in question straightened up, allowing Darui to give her figure a quick glance. She appeared to be in her early twenties and although he found her a bit lacking in the chest department, he considered that it might just be the outfit that she was wearing which wasn’t doing her any favors. A uniform which consisted of the green skirt that he had already noticed, with a matching vest under which she was wearing a long sleeve white shirt. Still, he found that she had a pleasing face and bright green eyes that he wouldn’t mind staring into while her lips were wrapped around his cock. A possibility he imagined might not be too far off as she pushed some of her orange hair which was styled into a bob behind her ear as she blushed slightly from the comment that he had paid her.

He wondered if Mabui knew where his thoughts were at as he detected a hint of annoyance in her voice as she answered, “She represents a fourth of my replacement.” A comment which caused Darui’s brow to wrinkle some in confusion. At least until some of the annoyance that he had heard in her voice appeared on her face as she looked down towards the opposite side of the hall that he had approached from.

He felt a smile appear as he realized that the outfit the one orange haired woman that he had yet to be introduced to was in fact a new uniform, as the three women approaching them all matched her. He nearly chuckled, as he understood what about the situation had Mabui feeling annoyed. However, rather than commenting he took a moment to study the approaching clerks who were all carrying a stack of files in their arms.

Although all of them appeared to be in their twenties, the woman he focused on first due to her being at the center of the trio appeared to be the most mature of the three. However, he imagined that it could be the apathetic look that she was wearing, along with the way that she carried herself. Her long black hair was held back by a plain barrette, which he could see as her head was turned towards the blonde woman walking beside her who appeared to be complaining about something. A conversation that could perhaps explain the disinterest on her bespectacled face.

The blonde woman walking beside her was one whom Darui was familiar with although only barely, as he recalled that her name was Camilla. It took a moment for him to recall the memory of their first meeting, as she had appeared on the arm of a man named Dominic. Who worked in Kumo’s diplomatic core primarily on the more sales-oriented side of it. Their task basically being to schmooze the various powerful figures on the continent such as company heads and Daimyo in order to convince them to use Kumo’s shinobi rather than their rivals. Although he had some basic shinobi training, as he graduated from Shujin Academy, he was always destined for the bureaucratic fields.

A task that he excelled at as the function where Darui had first met Camilla had been arranged by her boyfriend, with his presence having been requested to talk up Kumo’s forces as they had entertained several VIPs. Darui recalled Camilla coming off as rather snobbish, and even a little mean spirited, while she had talked with many of the VIP’s and their spouses. But her yellow eyes had sparked with genuine admiration whenever they focused on Dominic. Something which had sparked in him the desire to seduce her into his own bed and awaken her to what true pleasure was. However, things had been too hectic in the aftermath of Yugito’s defection for him to follow through on that desire. Although, as there were plans to hold another such event during the Final Round of the exams. He was glad to see her as an apparent replacement for Mabui since it would allow him to lay the groundwork.

His gaze settled on the last of the three quickly approaching women and found her to be the most attractive of the replacements. He suspected that she was perhaps the second oldest of the group, although there seemed to be an almost childlike innocence about her particularly as she listened to Camilla vent while Darui began to pick up on the topic of her conversation as they approached. The woman’s red eyes seemed confused, like she was having trouble understanding what Camilla was alluding towards.

…there I was wearing nothing but a smile as he got home from work,” Camilla said the frustration evident in her voice, “Only for him to say that he couldn’t stay as he was meeting some oily minor Daimyo for dinner and had just needed a change of clothes. Worse still when he got home smelling of smoke and booze, he wanted to…”

Camilla trailed off as she noticed his attention was focused on her, which caused the woman in the middle to look relieved as if she could stop pretending to care, while the red-eyed woman seemed disappointed as she was unsure what Dominic wanted when he had finished entertaining the noble.

Mabui stood from her desk as she addressed the approaching women, “Now that you have pulled the filled out requestions for those looking to enter the village during the exam. You’ll begin screening them to try and weed out potential spies…”

“Now hold on a moment there,” Darui said charmingly, “Are you not going to take a moment to introduce me to these lovely ladies?”

Mabui rolled her eyes, already aware of where his interest in them lay. But, despite her personal feelings about it said politely, “Ladies, I’m sure you already know who this is, but in case you are unaware this is Jounin Commander Darui.” The women bowed to him politely while Mabui first indicated towards the orange haired woman while introducing her by saying, “This is Millie a recent graduate of Shujin Academy.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Commander Darui,” Millie said before again giving a quick bow.

“Please, call me Darui,” he said giving her a charming smile.

Before she could respond, Mabui indicated the bespectacled woman who had been at the center of the group that just joined them, “And this would be Sharon, she’s transferred in from procurement.”

“Commander,” Sharon said bowing enough to be considered polite despite her apparent ignoring of his request to be addressed in a less formal manner. Still, he fought back a smirk as he noticed the wedding ring on her finger, that and her transparent attempt to create a boundary of professionalism between them actually causing him to add her name to the list of his future conquests.

Still, he allowed her the minor victory of making it appear as if she had achieved her desired result giving her a slight nod. As he turned his attention to the blonde woman beside her as he said, “Camilla, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance again.”

“Darui,” Camilla said offering her hand which he grabbed and kissed politely. Although allowing himself a pleased smile as he did so, since it was apparent she was using their prior meeting as a subtle means of showing off in front of the other women. “I’m pleased you remember me.”

“I could never forget the name of a beautiful lady such as yourself,” Darui said piling on the charm. Camilla smiled appreciatively while he added, “By the way, I couldn’t help overhearing that it seems Dominic doesn’t quite have his priorities in order. Feel free to give me a call the next time it happens, and I’ll gladly step in to show him where they should lay.”

Camilla’s smile faltered some, as her eyes made it clear she wasn’t quite sure how to take his suggestion, while her cheeks also colored slightly, likely in embarrassment at some of her conversation being overheard. Yet, despite her uncertainty his words had instilled in her, on another level she was glad to see someone taking her side as Sharon had not been the most sympathetic of listeners prompting her to say, “I’ll be sure to take that under advisement.”

“Glad to hear it,” Darui said while planning to add to Dominic’s workload in order to recreate the scenario she had described.

Turning to Mabui, he could see her eyes regarding him with suspicion which nearly caused him to give her a smirk, but instead he asked, “Is the Raikage in?”

“He is,” she replied before adding, “Don’t you want to introduce yourself to the final member of the team replacing me?”

For a brief moment Darui was confused about what she was talking about, however he noticed a brief flicker of movement just out of the corner of his eye as he suddenly recalled the red eyed woman. With the sudden flicker of motion having perhaps been her reacting to his seemingly forgetting about her and caused him to realizing that she was standing right beside him. He was shocked that it appeared that she had not only effortless entered his blind spot, but had also seemingly dampened her presence to the point where he had only sensed Mabui and the other three women making it so that his own senses had failed to recall her.

Turning to face her, he quickly apologized, sounding genuinely embarrassed, “Forgive me… Mrs…”

“Ms.,” the woman said correcting him politely, “Ms. Yor Briar. I transferred in from Customer Relations.”

“Ms.” Darui said sounding surprised, “Surely someone would have tried to tie you down by now Ms. Briar. I cannot understand how any kunoichi around your age remained unentangled. Particularly considering your coming from customer relations. Surely, some noble has tried to sweep you off your feet already.”

Yor looked rather nervous, almost like she was formulating a response as his words instilled in her an entirely different scenario then his words had been meant to imply as she eventually stated, “Usually, it’s their bodyguards who try doing the sweeping…” then realizing her reply didn’t quite make sense added hurriedly, “…because the nobles themselves are married.”

Yor began smiling seemingly to herself as if her reply had made all the sense in the world, while Darui was left rather perplexed so settled on saying, “I… I see.” Not really sure how to continue on his charm offensive, he returned his gaze to Mabui, who appeared just as confused as him which he was glad to see, so settled on saying to her, “I’ll go see the Raikage.”

“Right,” Mabui replied snapping out of the stupor Yor’s reply had left her in before saying to the gathered women, “Okay, as I was saying, I want you to screen those files. You’re to flag any you feel are people looking to enter the village under false pretenses using the criteria I provided, at which point you’re to write a suggestion on how to proceed.”

Millie sounding confused asked, “Wouldn’t we just reject them since they are probably spies looking to infiltrate the village?”

“Not necessarily…” Mabui began to explain.

But the rest of it was drowned out as he knocked on the door to the Raikage’s office and immediately received a brief response of, “Enter.”

*****

The Raikage looked up from the coded message which he had received from Zosui when Darui stepped into his office. Unaware of any meeting on his docket, he was initially concerned and waited until the head of Kumo’s conventional shinobi forces came to a stop in front of his desk before asking while allowing some of his confusion at the jounin’s presence into his tone, “Darui, what brings you by this morning?”

The Raikage relaxed some as Darui looked back towards his door before he replied appreciatively, “Oh, just taking in the new sights to be had.”

A chuckled in bemusement, well aware of the jounin’s proclivity to play the field and imagined it wouldn’t be too long before he began hearing rumors of how one or two of his new assistants were the latest of the jounin commander’s sexual conquests. A considered cautioning his friend against it, partially due to his desire to one day promote the man to his position and was concerned his tendency to chase anything in a skirt could damage the image that a Raikage would need to cultivate among his people. As while Darui was highly respected among shinobi forces, there was a small contingent of former flings that he had grown bored with which had less than stellar things to say about him. Still, he ultimately decided to hold his tongue, since he doubted that when the time came Darui would have an issue producing a heir which could inherit the title he expected the man would one day receive from him. A choice he would have to make due to his own lack of one as a result of his unwillingness to move on from his own lost love, primarily as he felt many of the partners that he could choose from would produce inferior progeny.

Still there were times when it was extremely difficult not to take advantage of the power of his position, particularly considering the current crop of women just outside his door. Although, one of them certainly had thorns, which was the other reason that A was considering telling Darui that it would be best to leave his new assistants alone. For while Konoha once used Root in order to handle its wet work operations, Kumo in addition to Zero Squad, also had the Garden. Although, unlike Zero Squad, he did not have direct oversight of Garden. This was a necessary precaution, as while Zero Squad handled a considerable amount of the dirty work outside of the Land of Lightning. Garden was often tasked with eliminating individuals within who proved to be untrustworthy or were suspected to be working against the Raikage or the Daimyo’s interests. As such, they were semi-independent of both, and thus served to keep balance between the two most politically powerful individuals in the Land of Lightning. Meaning, that from time to time, Garden had likely assassinated individuals with ties to both men, not only because they may have been serving their own interests. But rather because they were extremely loyal and looking to destroy the balance in favor of whichever political power they supported. In essence their goal was to prevent the formation or the spread of groups such as the One King Movement, who wanted to destroy the Shinobi villages in favor of the Daimyo, or their opposite number, the Eternal Sunrise, who wanted to kick off a war which would see one of the Kage become the sole political power.

As such even A didn’t know who the current director of Garden was, although he had often suspected that he resided within Kumogakure currently. An idea that he was beginning to suspect was fact, particularly since the morning after Mabui had announced to him that she was quitting in favor of keeping her job at the Great Tree Shipping Company, and before he could even put out the call or had bothered to look through the files of the individuals that she had selected as possible replacements. He had stepped into his office to find a beautiful arrangement of flowers on his desk, underneath which sat a missive and several personnel files from a man who had called himself the Shopkeeper. In his note, he had explained that he had concerns that Mabui was perhaps working with a group looking to subvert either his or the Daimyo’s authority. As such, it had been the Shopkeeper’s wish for him to select the four women in the files as Mabui’s replacements. Which led A to believe one of the four women may very well be an assassin looking to eliminate the woman they were replacing.

Personally, he had some doubts about this Shopkeeper’s concerns regarding Mabui. After all, he felt that if she were to be working with someone planning to supplant him, then she had already possessed the perfect position to do so. Although, he suspected that what had truly attracted Garden’s interest was her declared support for the continuation of the Alliance, which she apparently hoped to contribute towards by working for the Great Tree Shipping Company in place of continuing on as his assistant. But, admittedly the Land of Lightning’s Daimyo had never truly supported the Alliance, only giving his tacit approval after he had explained the expanded trade would give Kumo access to markets it sorely needed to strength their military forces, and to help boost its stagnant economy. Not to mention, he had made it clear that he truly didn’t buy into the notion of peace between the villages being possible and so fully expected that it would collapse in time.

Granted, losing Yugito on the way to that collapse had been almost too steep a price to pay for the economic prosperity they had achieved during the Alliance’s existence. But, Aizen’s little project had the potential to not only counteract her loss. But could very well leave Kumo in the position that upon the Alliance’s termination, it could launch an assault that at the very least may allow it to knock Konoha from the board completely. Better still, it would be Tsunade herself who would declare the war that led to her village’s destruction, after he had the pleasure of extracting the Kyuubi from her precious jinchuriki.

A allowed himself a brief smile as he pictured a naked Tsunade strapped down to her desk, as her village burned outside the shattered window of her office just before he avenged himself for the humiliation that she had subjected him by using her to add the much-vaunted Senju bloodline to his own. All while under the watchful stone gazes of her predecessors. He felt a stirring in his pants as imagined her cries of defiance and revulsion giving way to ones of pleasure as he took her on her desk. An action he normally would have considered himself above, but his distaste for the woman had only grown and well if anyone deserved to see the woman taken down a few pegs he believed it was him. Particularly as the manner in doing so could potentially result in Kumo getting the Wood Release Kekkei Genaki, or possibly see the birth of an entirely new one. He considered also taking Hiashi’s Hyuuga’s two daughters as Brood mares in recompense for the death of his old friend who had tried to abduct his eldest, but also for the humiliation that failure had caused him through Tsunade.

He was pulled from his indulgent fantasies of the three women moaning while he worked to keep his position in the family, when the man whom he considered as his future successor should the future not unfold as he just imagined added to his previous statement in an amused tone, “Although it doesn’t appear Mabui is entirely happy with your selections.”

Born out of a similar sort of vindictiveness as Darui’s own, he replied while wearing a wide grin, “I just can’t understand why. You’d think she would take it as a compliment that I feel it would take four individuals to replace her.”

Darui’s chuckled in response before stating, “Well, it could potentially have something to do with how she often complained that she was doing the work of three other people, and it seemed to double whenever we held an exam.”

A’s chuckles joined in as he said in a mocking tone as if he hadn’t considered such being the case, “Ah, I had the feeling the number four was bouncing around this old skull of mine. I just must of have forgotten since it has been quite a while since we even held an exam.”

The two shared another laugh on the matter, although A felt a cold shiver run down his spine as while he had been perfectly aware of Mabui’s complaints. It had just occurred to him that it was possible that the Shopkeeper had as well. Granted, he already suspected one of the four women whose files he had been given and had selected was in some way tied to the Garden. Which was yet another reason why he wasn’t cautioning Darui against trying to get into his new assistants’ panties, as he intended to use his subordinate’s applying his charms to them as a means to ferret out which of the four it was. As while he found the most likely candidate was the bespectacled Sharon due to her demeanor, he wasn’t prepared to write any of the women off yet.

“Well, perhaps I can cross that Yor woman off the list,” he amended to himself as he found her to be a few sandwiches short of a full picnic. So couldn’t imagine her as a spy for an organization that had remained in the shadows since Kumo’s founding so successfully, let alone one of the group’s powerful assassins. Still although only the Raikage, Daimyo, and a few close advisors of both were aware of Garden’s existence, that was not a privilege that had been extended to Darui just yet. Which is why he hoped Darui might get a feel for the women in a less physical sense, which might help expose which woman it was as it was a rear opportunity to establish a link to the group, and who knew, in time perhaps get a few agents into their inner sanctums as well.

Refocusing on what brough his subordinate to him, and noticing for the first time he had a few hidden concerns of his own, A asked, “So, what truly has you seeking me out this morning?”

Darui’s amusement from before almost instantly vanished, revealing how close to the surface his concerns were, which he voiced as he stated, “It’s about the operation sir. I can’t say I’m entirely comfortable with it.”

A didn’t need him to clarify since there was only one major operation in play which he imagined could be causing Darui’s unease, so sitting back in his chair asked, “Which parts are you uncomfortable with?”

“How about all of it,” was the Jounin’s quick reply which caused A to frown since while Darui had voiced some concerns previously, based on his tone and demeanor, it appeared there were considerably more to come.

A schooled his features before responding, “You’ve never balked at taking the fight to the Leaf in the past.”

Darui wasn’t quite sure how to respond for a moment, as he wondered if the Raikage was calling his bravery into question. But, keeping his cool countered, “Is that what we are doing?” Before his village leader could respond he continued, “I’m not calling into question the idea of using the exams as the cover for the operation taking place. Gods knows, the Leaf certainly used the Alliance as cover to help that traitorous bitch Yugito defect to Ame regardless of what they say.”

Although A would have been all too quick to agree with the sentiment in the past, among the stack of papers on his desk was a report from J.A.I.N. which detailed how only a few days earlier Menma had appeared in the Leaf, and seeming convinced one of the women who worked for the Great Tree Shipping Company to join his gang. Admittedly, it appeared to be one of the weaker women considering the injuries she had sustained. Yet regardless of her overall strength, he couldn’t imagine the owner of the company was overly pleased by the defection, and thus by extension the Hokage that she apparently had a close relationship with judging by the aid that she had lent during the Battle of Ame.

A considered pointing this out to the Jounin, but knew that he had been earmarked to receive the report as well so figured he would see it in time and would likely arrive to the same conclusion that despite their initial beliefs, Menma and Naruto may indeed be two separate individuals. Not that it would matter even if they had conclusive evidence of that being the case, as they had used the idea that the Leaf had a hand in Yugito’s defection to stir up Anti-Konoha sentiment to make their eventual dissolution of the Alliance all the more palatable.

Focusing on the matter at hand however, he asked, “Then what is troubling you?”

Darui paused for a moment as while in the past he had been intrigued by the project that had produced the warriors they would be sending. It was the candidates that had been selected to undergo the process which gave him pause, which he stated, “Sir, with all due respect. Why were those eight chosen to undergone the Hollowfication process first? Two of them were barely worth of being called Kunoichi before undergoing the process, while the other six are little more than thugs that seemingly have almost no love for Kumo and are just spoiling for a fight. Hardly the type of soldiers I would want handling such a delicate operation. Admittedly, all of their chakra has increased substantially since undergoing the process, but against a fully realized jinchuriki, I’m not sure that will be enough.”

A sighed having similar concerns of his own, particularly as the commander of his Anbu Tosen had also shared the same concerns about those that had been chosen. On top of Aizen’s own issues with the plan which was that they were rushing things, as he considered only one of the eight to have undergone the Hollowfication process to be truly on an even footing with a jinchuriki. However, in this case A felt considering the odds stacked against the Leaf’s jinchuriki it would be enough, so explained, “I understand your concerns. However, we have to act now.” He could see that Darui was about to argue that wasn’t the case, and having a good idea why was forced to reverse his earlier decision regarding the leader of the Black Foxes, “Evidence has come to light that suggests Menma may not be just an alias for the nine-tails’ host. The details are laid out in a report that you should be receiving later, if it hasn’t hit your desk already. With this being the case, the exams are truly the only venue this operation can be carried out without a fear of reprisal.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that being the case,” Darui stated sounding unconvinced, “The current Hokage hasn’t shown the same aversion for fighting as her predecessors, and many state she has deep feelings for the jinchuriki. Rumors state she only took up the Hokageship because of him. Chances are if she feels we specifically targeted him, it happening during the exam will not prevent her from retaliating.”

“All the better,” A stated confidently, “There seem to be cracks forming between her and the Kazekage if the results of her previous attempt to oust us from the Alliance were any indication. Furthermore, the Kazekage has apparently resurrected a program that old warhawk Joseki had initial started regarding those animated suits of armor. Although, he has made no attempt at hiding his doing so. His reasoning that it is to develop future weapons against the Hidden Darkness village rings hollow to me. My guess is he awakening to the idea that whether it was its intention or not, Konoha has the most pull within the Alliance, and without jinchuriki of their own, are looking at ways to strengthen their forces. Particularly, since the Kazekage values peace in much the same way as the Third Hokage, so even if Tsunade tries to start something, she’ll find him blocking her path.”

Darui frowned as while he found his leader’s reasoning to be sound, countered, “I can’t say I necessarily agree with that sentiment sir. The Nine-tail jinchuriki has acted twice to save the Kazekage, with one of those times looking as if he was willing to walk the path of the missing-nin.”

A chuckled in response, while stating, “Very true, and there was once a time when Hiruzen Sarutobi was known as the God of Shinobi. People change, particularly when they are so adamant about their legacy being one of peace. When that becomes the case, well then, they become willing to make all sorts of devils’ bargains in order to keep it going just that much longer. Moreover, even if things go poorly, and it was clear Konoha had a leg to stand on in declaring war on us. I imagine the Kazekage wouldn’t be so eager to support them less his legacy suffer for it. But, factor in something happening during the Chunin Exams, and well the only way the Leaf truly could make a case against us were it to capture us red-handed in the act of trying to smuggle their precious jinchuriki out of the Country. Which is where Grass comes in, as they’ll handle the actual extraction. So, even if the Leaf realizes he has gone missing, they’ll undoubtedly focus on any paths that a force would take to reach Kumo safely While in actual fact, he would be heading to Grass.”

The Head of Kumo’s conventional Shinobi forces felt some of his apprehension lift, as he was confident the Raikage had a good read on his fellow Kage. After all, although he had not been a jounin at the time, he imagined the Raikage had faced similar pushback in regards to his plans to use a peace ceremony between Konoha and Kumo as a means of getting his hand on the Byakugan. However, while the operation itself had not panned out as planned, he couldn’t deny it had likely been the Raikage’s read of how the Third Hokage would react in the event of failure which had made him go through with it. Not only that, but to have the audacity to then turn around and demand the Leaf hand over the would be kidnapper’s killer in order to still get what he wanted. Granted that too had not gone as planned, but it had revealed that rather than risk a war the Third Hokage would offer up the life of an innocent man. So, with the Raikage stating he was seeing similar traits within the current Kazekage, Darui felt somewhat relieved that Kumo wouldn’t suddenly find itself in a three against one conflict. Particularly, since much as its name suggested, he imagined the Hidden Grass Village would blow in whichever direction that appeared to be winning the conflict. Which considering Amegakure was all but assured to be in the Leaf’s corner, particularly as one of the S-ranked kunoichi that made up Akatsuki’s current roster was their target’s mother, who also happened to have once been a target of another Kumo plot, meant he wasn’t entirely convinced their new Hollowfication process would be up to weathering the coming storm of retribution they would face.

However, putting that distant concern off in favor of a more immediate one he asked, “Would Grass even be capable of handling transporting him? I can’t imagine they have anyone on par to contain even a half-dead jinchuriki. Not to mention, considering the mad scramble abducting the Uzumaki would set in motion, I can’t imagine they would want to risk having their involvement discovered.”

A indicating the coded message he had been reading upon Darui’s entering his office replied, “All too true, which is why they have apparently secured the aid of the Spiders in handling the actual transportation.”

Darui’s eyes grew wide, as if there had been a criminal organization that could have given even the old incarnation of Akatsuki a run for its money, it would have been the Spiders. A group, which despite what its name would have suggested actually had twelve members. All of whom were identifiable by a twelve legged spider tattoo which had a number on it. The group also went by the moniker of the Phantom Trope and were wanted for numerous crimes ranging from common robbery all the way to mass murder.

Yet, despite their sinister reputation Darui actually felt more of his concerns fading although their true goals were quite mysterious, once they accepted a job they tended to follow through. “I can’t imagine they came cheap,” he stated confidently.

“They didn’t,” A said somberly, “Either for Grass or for what I’ll eventually be forced to pay to its leader in recompense for securing their services.”

Darui nodded gravely, before asking, “Has Zosui given any indication of what he’ll want in return?”

“No. My guess is he’s going to hold this as a favor to be repaid some time done the road,” the Raikage stated gruffly before adding more thoughtfully, “Those are always the favors that come with the most interest.” However, ignoring such future worries to try to calm the ones his Jounin Commander had in the present he asked, “I trust that I’ve at least addressed some of your issues with the operation.”

Darui couldn’t say he felt that a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but he didn’t feel as bogged down as he had been upon entering the office so stated, “Enough of them that I don’t imagine I’ll lose too much more sleep over it sir.”

“Good,” A said standing as moved around his desk to stand in front of his commander before stating, “Because once this farce of an Alliance is finished. I’m going to need you in top form for our inevitable clash with the Leaf.”

“We’ll be ready sir,” Darui said confidently, despite his previous concerns as while it had been a fight he had been spoiling for before. He looked forward to it all the more, particularly as he wanted to rub it in Mabui’s face that the Alliance and peace that she had come to believe in had never been meant to be anything but a means to gather the strength needed to removed Konoha from the board once and for all.

“I know you will be,” A said clamping a hand on his shoulder in a supporting gesture, “You are the future of this village after all.”

********

Despite sitting in a large classroom auditorium, where the first stage of the exam was set to be held, at least for his team, Naruto couldn’t muster the excitement that he would have expected to be feeling. The reason for his muted mood was the sight that had awaited him as he and Kurenai had arrived at the large hotel where the Konoha exam participants were to stay during the first exam, which had been a large crowd of protestors who were there protesting the Leaf over the imprisonment of Baki. A crowd which upon recognizing him had attempted to pelt the two of them with rotten fruit, eggs, and even a few rocks. But, pulling Kurenai close he had surrounded the two of them in his Wind Rotation jutsu which had shielded them from the projectiles until the Suna Shinobi guarding the outside had moved in to stop the crowd. Although Naruto had noticed that the Suna-nin had seemed reluctant to do so. He imagined they likely wouldn’t have, if not for the Konoha-nin who had been stationed inside the Hotel Lobby, who had looked like they would have stepped in and disbursed the crowd only in a far more violent manner.

Kakashi had been there to greet them, and had informed them that considering the disposition of the locals Tsunade had issued a decree that Konoha’s exam takers should remain on the hotel grounds. Naruto had already been aware of the decree, as his Hokage lover had met him at the safe house the morning after his confrontation with Obito to inform him that Ibiki may have need to call on him some time after the first phase of the exam concluded. Although, he had expected there would be some who had been angered by his actions as a result of what happened in the Land of Ruins, and his turning Baki over to Tsunade to answer for the murder of Hayate. He had not really anticipated just how many or how passionately angry they would be. Not that he truly could say he blamed the people protesting the Leaf at the moment, since he knew how popular Baki had been within Suna. But, if there was one thing that he would admit was bothering him about their actions, it was that many of those same people had been just as quick to praise him back when he had rescued Gaara from Kabuto’s plot which had nearly seen their Kazekage executed. Which all in all was why he kind of was done with the whole hero thing as the current situation showed that people didn’t really look at why he acted the way that he had, but only reacted based on whether they felt they had benefited from his actions. Not to mention, it further annoyed him that the people currently pissed at him didn’t seem to be directing their ire at their own Kazekage who had seemingly ordered Baki to plead guilty to the murder. But were instead assigning him the noblest of reasons for doing so, which was to maintain peace between the two villages. Which while Naruto was willing to accept that may have certainly played a part in Gaara’s reasoning, he also suspected that an ulterior motive behind his decision was to make a point to him about the necessity of being willing to sacrifice to maintain that peace. A mindset that Naruto was not at all comfortable with since he felt it was easy to talk about the necessity for sacrifice, especially when Gaara wouldn’t be the one spending the time in prison. After all, the peace Naruto wanted to build was meant to be enjoyed by all, particularly those close to him. Not for them to be used as sacrifices not only to build it, but to become lives spent towards keeping it going. Which was why it was so disconcerting to see Gaara not only believed in a philosophy so similar to his father and the Third Hokage, but was now putting it into practice by offering up years of his own sensei’s life.

But, the past several days hadn’t been all bad, since he had gotten to spend a relaxed few days with several of his lovers. Although, they hadn’t been allowed to be intimate for fear their rooms were bugged or monitored, if not by Suna, then likely by some of the other participants hoping to get a leg up on the competition. Still, he had been somewhat disappointed that he hadn’t been allowed to explore and scout out the competition himself. But Moegi and Yakumo having returned to the Hidden Oasis Inn after the events in Ruin, had often traveled Suna in disguise to gather some intel on the teams that they would face before Tsunade had issued her decree and so had transferred to the hotel. As such, they had spent those days reviewing what they had found, as well as formulating strategies on the teams they had information on should they engage them in a combat situation. Not to mention, trying to figure out what challenges they would be facing from the exams themselves.

Considering at least his and Moegi’s prior experience with the exams, they were quite sure the first would be some sort of written test. Which, Naruto figured was just a way to weed out the truly ill prepared from the rest. Granted, one could get through the exams with just guts much as he had. But having come around to truly understanding that knowledge was power, he could see why the previous exams felt it best to first weed out those who couldn’t even put some of the most basic knowledge that they were supposed to possess down on paper before sending them off to potentially kill one another.

Upon gathering in the hotel lobby that morning, he had concluded that this exam’s first round wouldn’t be any different as the gathered teams were all given a piece of paper which contained the location for where they would be taking the test. The paper also contained a map with the route that they were to take from the hotel to reach it, which had been cleared of protesters to ensure no one interfered with them along the way. As a result, the journey for the most part had been uneventful, although it appeared that the instructions that had been given to Konoha weren’t entirely a result of the current tension between the Sand and the Leaf, since once they began to near the testing location they found their path linking up with ones being traveled by participants from other villages.

Naruto tried to be nonchalant about studying the other participants as he gauged which he had information on, and which he didn’t. Sadly, as more and more groups joined the procession, he began to feel a little underprepared. Especially since whenever he felt the gazes of the other teams land on him, he felt the vast majority of them had some idea of who he was. He couldn’t necessarily say this was a bad things, as more than a few times the person’s eyes would grow wide and a clear look of panic would appear. Which indicated the person might not have realized the nature of the first test, and was anticipating they might be pitted against him in a physical confrontation. Not that this was a negative reflection on those who didn’t realize what was likely going to be the first exam, since as he reminded himself it had been several years since the last Chunin Exams. So although most exam participants were very rarely rookies like he had been. Even those that had been shinobi for several years lacked exam experience.

Moreover, he reasoned that his own apparent lack of knowledge about the participants was probably a trait shared by many due to the sheer number of those who would be taking part in the exam. As there had been at least ten paths starting out from their hotel, and with the auditorium theirs had led them to holding about thirty-five teams, meant there could be around a thousand people participating if all the locations were similarly packed.

“Cheer up Boss,” Moegi said noticing the frown that he was wearing, “We’re finally here. It’s time to focus on the task ahead of us.”

Looking to his left, Naruto found Moegi giving him a pleasant smile although her eyes showed that she was concerned about the weight he had seemed to be caring since his arrival in Suna. She wished they had been free to talk about what was troubling him, although she imagined it was tied to how Suna had seeming become hostile territory for the Leaf-nin present. However, with the concerns that they had about being monitored, most of the time they had together had been spent prepping for the exams.

Naruto gave her a warm smile before nodding his head, at which point she shared a concern of her own stating, “I wish we had spent more time studying. With this many people present, I have to imagine the test is going to be a killer so they can fail as many of us as possible.

His smile faded, causing Moegi to fear she had just added to his concerns, but Yakumo who had been sitting to his right seemed to have arrived at a similar opinion as him as he nodded while she said, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. If this tests true objective was to weed us out by forcing us to cheat, why would they sit us right next to each other?”

Nodding in agreement, Naruto said, “Yeah, that thought just occurred to me too. But with the teams all grouped together like this, you’d have to be extremely blatant to be caught cheating.”

Moegi pursed her lips in thought for a moment before suggesting, “Well, maybe this is just an orientation for the first exam, and the actual one is being held somewhere else.”

“I don’t know,” Yakumo replied the doubt at that being the case was quite evident in her tone, “Why split us up this morning, just to give us an orientation, before then splitting us up again?”

Although Moegi would admit it was highly unlikely, she had possessed an idea of why they might which she shared, “Well, maybe that’s because each location has a different kind of exam?”

“I doubt it,” Naruto state causing Moegi to frown, “I can only imagine the chaos that it would cause if one of the locations had a test that proved substantially harder than the rest and wiped out an entire group of hopefuls.” Scanning the room, he added, “While it does look like there is a good amount of representation from each of the villages in ours, the balance may not be as close in others. So, my guess is they would probably have an across the board standard regarding the criteria necessary to pass to avoid any complaints of a village’s most promising hopefuls getting wiped out by an unfair exam.” Before Moegi could say she agreed, Yakumo stepped in while nodding to a woman that had entered the room with several other individuals all of whom appeared to be holding a stack of papers in hand.

The first woman, Naruto recognized as a member of the Torture and Interrogation department named Inaho, who had been partnered with the two men that Toka was taking the exam with. He didn’t recognize most of the others following her into the room, but found one of the apparent proctors was Chouji. Naruto guessed that whatever bad feeling the Akimichi had towards him were alive and well, as he almost seemed to be making it a point not to gaze in his direction.

Inaho made her way to the front of the room, where she leaned against the front of the desk while those who had followed her in each moved up the stairs of the to stand at the end of each of the rows. Once each row had a proctor standing beside it, Inaho began to lay out the rules of the exams.

*********

Toka felt a spike of concern as one of the two doors located at the front of the room opened, and the proctors began to file in with the majority of them heading up the stairs in order to hand out the test she suspected they would be taking. She tried to quiet it down, reminding herself that she had faced battle on countless occasions and rarely felt as nervous as she currently did. Of course, it did little to help as she was quickly reminded that her prior education simply consisted of training to kill her clan’s enemies before they killed her and them in turn, and so a paper test was an entirely foreign enemy to her. Admittedly, Naruto had helped her to prepare, but this would be the first one where the stakes actually mattered.

She sent a glance towards the Uzumaki who she was bound to and was seated several rows before hers, towards the middle of the room. However, her attention soon shifted towards the woman that had taken up a position in front of the desk at the front of the room. She frowned as she recognized her having just made her acquaintance the night before, although she had heard about her due to the two men she had partnered with to take the exam, Gennai and Komugi having been the Proctor’s teammate before she had received a promotion to Chunin following the last exam that had been held several years previous.

Inaho had swung by hotel room that had been assigned to Toka and her two teammates for the duration of their stay in Suna, and had asked Toka if she could excuse herself so she could catch up with her former colleagues and wish them well. Although somewhat put off at having been asked to evacuate her own room, she had joined Naruto and the others in his, where she had found them preparing for the following day. Pleased by this, she had decided to join in, particularly since she often had to be browbeat her current teammates into putting in the extra effort. Although, she would admit quietly to herself, that Komugi and Gennai had come a long way from the pair of slackers that she had originally agreed to partner with.

When she had returned later that evening Inaho had already left, but she had noticed that her teammates had seemed unusually smug about something. For a moment, she had wondered if something sexual had happened after she had left considering the shit eating grins the two men had worn. But, she had assumed that wasn’t the case, since if it had occurred to Naruto and his lovers that they may be under observation, she assumed a member of the T and I Department would undoubtedly consider the possibility. However, she hadn’t really cared enough to pry, but upon seeing Inaho taking up her spot at the front of the auditorium began to suspect her visit hadn’t really been about wishing her former teammates all the best in their exam endeavors.

However, rather than focusing on trying to figure the puzzle out, she focused on the kunoichi as she began to say, “Greetings. My name is Inaho, and I’ll be in charge of administering the exam for this group. In a moment, my fellow proctors will be handing out the tests that you will be taking. They have been sealed, and you are to take one from the top of the stack you are given. Do not attempt to break the seal until I give you permission.” She nodded to the proctors that had taken up positions at the end of each row, who then began handing out the papers. Inaho crossed her arms across her chest as the gathered Chunin hopefuls began passing the exams out, before suddenly saying, “Oh, a word of warning. If you’re incapable of following even simple instructions, not only are you going to be failed, but your teammates as well, and all three of you will be set out through our little washout row.”

Toka was confused as she watched Inaho indicate the door at the front of the room opposite the one she and the other proctors had entered through. She then noticed one of the exam takers, pause suddenly as he was about to hand over the stack of tests, and quickly slipped the one he had taken back to the bottom as he took one from the top. Needless to say, none of the others exam takers seemed to be willing to test her observation skills. Still, Toka was confused as to why it mattered, at least until she received her test and found it was a booklet that had a rather intricate wax seal applied to the end of the paper preventing it from being opened. At first she suspected that the reason the order in which the tests were handed out was because worked within the wax was a hardening seal that would make removing it, and the paper keeping the book from being opened almost impossible. Which meant that the means to remove it may have been tied to each individuals test takers chakra. However, she realized that would have been an extremely difficult and expensive undertaking. So studying it further found that while the formula for the seal was written around the edges of the wax, at the center was what appeared to be a company logo, comprised of three animals, each of which had a corresponding hand signed tied to it so she realized quickly a standard release sign wouldn’t work. But, would need to use the correct handsigns tied to them, although she wasn’t sure if there was a correct combination or if they could be made in any order.

But, she put figuring that out on hold as upon the last test reaching its recipient, Inaho said, “Now then, the test booklets that you have received are each comprised of ten questions. You have one hour to answer all ten. At the end of said hour, we will begin grading your tests. The goal you want to achieve is at least seven correct answers. After grading the tests, we’ll be giving the eleventh and final question.”

Toka wasn’t surprised by the sudden murmuring the broke out among the teams, since she couldn’t see why they would need to bother with an eleventh question. She figured it might be a means of further reducing the number of Chunin hopefuls who moved on if the first ten questions failed to do the trick, and so the difficulty might be based on just how many still need to be culled. But, Inaho didn’t seem inclined to give them any chance to linger on it, as she said, “You may now begin.”

Toka was about to focus on finding out what combination of signs, she would need to use in order to release the seal, but paused as some of the greener among the participants showed they hadn’t even noticed the seal as they tried to break the paper with the pencils that had been waiting for them upon entering the rooms. As such, several of the pencils snapped, while one of the less careful participants nearly tore their tests in half. To which Inaho said, “Careful, you only will be receiving the one booklet. Damage it beyond the ability to take the test, and you’ll be automatically failed and told to leave.”

“How am I even supposed to open it?” the genin asked annoyed, as even though his booklet was nearly bisected in half, the pages now free of the seal appeared to still be held together.

“How indeed?” Inaho retorted almost mockingly earning a scowl from the chunin hopeful, “But, I’d get busy trying to figure it out if I were you. You’re down to fifty-nine minutes and thirty seconds remaining.” Inaho then began to move behind the desk, where she took a seat and leaning back crossed her legs while putting forth the appearance that she was clearly enjoying the power that she was currently wielding over their fates as she causally added, “Oh, as many of you likely have prior exam experience, I’m guessing that you have noticed that you’re seated with the teammates that you’ve chosen to participate with. As opposed to being spread throughout the room. This may lead some of you to believe that you’re allowed to work together to answer the questions. However, this will be considered cheating, and each instance that you are caught will deduct one point from your final score.” She spun around in her chair before standing, and moving to the white board that hung on the wall between the two doors that were located at the front of the room. She moved towards the side of the board, and touching it channeled chakra into the board, this caused the white portion to suddenly grow slack revealing it to be a variation of the cloak of invisibility technique as Inaho quickly pulled it away to reveal way lay behind it. However instead of hiding a person it had been hiding the fact that the proctors had drawn a seating chart of the room on it. The chart showed each shinobi’s first name, and where they had been assigned to sit.

Underneath each name there looked to be enough room to make several marks or to write a number, which Toka assumed would be filled in as each proctor caught instances of cheat. An assent that Inaho confirmed as she stated, “We’ll be keeping tally of any instances here, which means that even if you get a perfect score. If you’ve been caught four time, you’d still end up failing to achieve the given objective.”

Toka frowned at the explanation of rules still taking place even after the test had begun, but supposed it was a way to keep the pressure on them. Especially, as she hadn’t even figured out how to open the booklet yet. She sent a look to her right, and her frown deepened as her teammates didn’t seem to be feeling any of the same pressure as she was. As while she had trained them hard during the months leading up to the exam, that training had generally focused on their combat and tactical abilities. A situation like this was about as far outside her field of expertise as she could get, and so imagined if any part of the exams would trip her up it would be this one. Which although Komugi and Gennai had about sixteen exam attempts worth of experience between them and that may explain the calm which she noticed the pair weere exhibiting. As they had routinely failed to get through even the first round in about a third of them, she felt they should way more tense then even her at this point. Particularly as neither seemed all that concerned with the fact that they had failed to even open the booklet yet, more to the point seemed uninterested in trying to figure it out.

She felt her own concerns rachet up, as she noticed several teams had not waited for Inaho to finish her breakdown of the rules, and had already figured out how to open the seal, Naruto’s team include, and were already answering the questions that laid within. Quieting her nerves, she focused on getting past the first hurdle and studying the edges of the wax seal she didn’t notice any kind of complexity in the formula which would indicate it required a combination of handsigns, although there did appear to be a need for more than one to be performed. However, without the corresponding seals indicating a sequence, it meant she would need to make all the seals at the same time. A task she couldn’t imagine any of the test takers could have performed on their own, as even using a one handed sign at best she would only be able to make two of the necessary ones. Naturally, she could use a clone to make the third, but that didn’t seem to be a viable strategy as she hadn’t noticed any of the other candidates that had already dealt with the seal having resorted to such a jutsu. Granted, there hadn’t been anything in the rules against using jutsu, but it would be an inelegant solution since it would immediately clue the other test takers into a means of beating the challenge, and she didn’t wish to aid potential rivals to her advancement if she could help it.

She mentally cursed since she hated such brainteasers, and noticed that over five minutes had passed and still her teammates seemed unworried, and inclined to let her figure the puzzle out. Moreover, the pair almost seemed to be taking a certain measure of satisfaction from her having failed to figure out the trick already. She supposed she couldn’t entirely blame them for that, since she had worked the pair relentlessly until they could easily perform any task that she had set for them. Not to mention, at times when particularly annoyed with them, she had done little to hide her frustrations at how they could call themselves shinobi while struggling to perform at a level that she had needed to at an age when they would just be entering the Academy. As such, although she was vexed at it appearing they already knew how to beat the seal, she supposed she could understand their letting her sweat a little. But, she wondered even if they had encountered this trick during a previous exam, did that mean it was being used in the same manner. Granted, several years had passed, but she couldn’t really see them just reusing an old trick, especially if their goal was to weed out as many people as possible.

So, with that thought in mind, she set about trying to solve it on her own, while allowing Komugi and Gennai to savor the moment a little longer. Just in case they were acting in an overconfident manner, that could screw them down the road. Focusing on the center of the wax where the animals resided, it showed a horse with a bird on its head, with both animals being encircled by a dragon. She looked towards her right where Komugi was sitting, and saw that the animals in his seal were the same, and so assumed that would be the case for Gennai’s as well. She looked towards the Sand-nin sitting to her left, who was doing his best to ignore her presence, likely due to the fallout from Baki’s imprisonment. He had failed to open his test booklet as well, and so looked to be panicking a little, which his two teammates also appeared to be feeling the pressure. However, Toka began to feel her nerves begin to relax as she noticed the animal although also comprised of those tied to hand signs, all three were different from hers. She reasoned this was the true reason the order in which the tests had been passed along the row had mattered, as it would likely have been extremely difficult for a team to pass if one of the booklets earmarked for her team, had ended up with another group.

Testing her theory, she discreetly made the sign of the horse causing the outline of the one in the seal to begin glowing softly. To her surprise, she noticed the bird start next, which was quickly followed by the dragon. For a moment she was confused, at least until she looked over to see her teammates were making the other two. Komugi being right next to her, had apparently notice her attempt to be discreet as he was making the bird sign under the table. However, Gennai was making the sign of the dragon out in the open, which earned him a glare from her, especially as the Sand-nin next to her noticed the small pfft sound and puff of smoke which arouse from her booklet as the wax seal began to heat up before cracking. The Suna-nin noticing the hand-sign, got the attention of his neighbor by giving him a soft elbow, likely in order to communicate how they would need to work together to deal with the seal.

Gennai looked a little sheepish as a result of it appearing as if he had likely just provided their neighbors with the clue that they had needed to get past the first hurdle to at least begin answering the questions within their booklet. Toka rolled her eyes, and again figured that her teammates must have experienced the seal trick at a previous exam they had taken. At least that was her theory, until both of them opened their test booklets, and seemingly without even reading the question, in unison began to act as if they were filling in an answer but to her shock was already there in Komugi’s book. Yet, rather than the answer being printed on the sheet, which could have indicated that he had somehow been given a booklet with the answer key by mistake. The answer appeared to have been written in his handwriting, with his barely tracing over it was meant to imply he was answering it himselt to any observers.

Toka turned her gaze away, less any of those observers believe she was cheating. But, opening her book found that unlike her teammates, it appeared as if she was going to need to answer the questions herself, or find a means of cheating. She looked towards the front of the auditorium where Inhao having finished her explanation had retaken her seat. Toka wondered what was going on, since she was beginning to wonder if the head proctor was somehow pulling strings to get her former teammates through the first round. If so, she wondered why she wouldn’t have been made aware either by Inaho herself, or Komugi and Gennai since all it would take for her to throw a wrench in the plan was to raise her hand to call out their cheating. Although, rather disgusted at the idea that Komugi and Gennai would resort to such measures to move through the first round. She supposed she couldn’t condemn them too harshly since it was clear that cheating was a legitimate avenue to successfully clearing the first round, and there was no surer method then having the proctor themselves aiding you.

Still, much like Naruto, who was lovers with several of the women that had not only been a part of the committees that had designed the tests along with the criteria that would be required to pass them, and so, could have similarly been handed the answers, or been informed of what challenges they would face, had instead decided not to call on those advantages as he wanted to earn his promotion. She also would rather see herself tested and proven to be worthy of advancement. She wondered what would happen if she exposed the cheating her teammates were apparently engaging in, but imagined that if Inaho was complicit as her meeting with Komugi and Gennai the evening before would seem to suggest, then they had likely taken into account that she could ruin things for them, so felt it best to just proceed. After all, if need be, she could just report the whole affair to her grandniece later, if she was unaware of it already that was. Yet, she let the matter drop for the moment, less she fail to pass herself due to her being too busy trying to figuring out the questions raising up in her mind regarding what her teammates were up to, rather than trying to answer the ones right in front of her.

*******

Quistis Trepe placed her pencil down, and looking towards a nearby clock found that she had about twenty minutes before they entered the grading portion of the exam. She smiled as she looked around the gymnasium that she and her teammates had been informed to head towards once she and the other chunin hopefuls had gathered in front of the Kazekage building. For Quistis it was a bit of a coming home moment, as the gymnasium had served as the final meeting location of the Suna Paranormal Support Group, before its members had given themselves to Naruto and joined the Family. Her pussy began to grow moist and tingle with desire as the sensation and images of the night began to rise from the depths of her memory. But, before they caused her to embarrass herself, she suppressed them in order to return her focus to her test in order to double check her answers. As although she was confident that she would achieve a perfect score, as the test while certainly far more challenging than anything she would have given to even final year academy students. The techniques required to solve the various puzzles and equations should have all been acquired from it. Which although Quistis had been an instructor at the Academy for a decade at this point, she refused to become the type of teacher who became unable to teach a subject if they were deprived of the answer keys located within their books.

Finding her first few answers worked out correctly, she paused as she heard the proctor in charge, a kunoichi who had introduced herself as Ran perked up as she noticed one of the other proctors signal her. She wasn’t familiar with the man who began communicating with a quick few hand gestures and, was wearing a tan uniform of a similar in style to the kind that members of Konoha’s T and I department favored, although the uniform appeared to have been designed specifically for the proctors as Ran was also wearing it. She guessed the hand signs they were using to communicate were also created just for the exams, as they didn’t hail from the same village as evident by Ran’s having a small Kumo symbol printed over her right breast, while the back had a larger version of the symbol on it. The man communicating with Ran would be from Konoha based on the symbols printed on his jacket. As the silent conversation finished up, Ran rolled the chair that she had been sitting in back towards a white board where taking one of the markers from the lip, quickly removed the cap and after giving it a flourishing spin marked down a third tick mark under the name of Tezutsu.

The Konoha shinobi in question, who had spiky brown hair and a green tear mark under his left eye looked like he wanted to protest, especially as if she had to guess by the look that he sent towards one of the Kumo participants that he had been cheating off of, he felt he shouldn’t the only one called out for cheating. Particularly, as if she had to guess, Tezutsu believed there was some kind of fix in the works, as certain participants appeared to have been given a filled-out version of the test that they were in the process of taking.

A fact that was benefiting one of the members of her team, Ittesu who after the three of them had figured out how to open the test booklet, had let out breath of surprise. Which he had quickly clamped down on before covering his test with his arm blocking her view of it. However, when Yome the third member of their team had explained why by tapping down on her foot in a control variety of quick taps and long presses in the vein of morse code, she supposed she could understand why he had reacted in such a manner. As he likely feared that as an instructor, she would assume some sort of mistake had been made and would inform the proctors, thereby depriving him of his seemingly good fortune.

He had some reason to fear such a result, as she had nearly done just that. But, before acting too rashly she had typed out a message on Yome’s foot asking her to use her Kekkei Genaki, which allowed her to create water droplets in the air, a task made easier to sustain at present due to the gymnasium being air conditioned, to magnify her vision allowing her to see miles away if need be. Yome using her Dojutsu, had confirmed Quistis’s suspicions that Ittesu hadn’t received the test in error as at least one participant from each row appeared to have been given one.

As she finished double-checking her work and saw that she still had fifteen minutes remaining, she decided to dedicate her remaining time to figuring out what the true point of the test was. After all, with so many copies that apparently had the answers having been circulated throughout the room, she couldn’t see failing as a truly viable method for eliminating those present. Although, she did consider that perhaps by making the answers so easily available, it may cause those reliant on the cheating method to pass to begin questioning the validity of those answers. Thereby exposing them to the possibility of getting caught, as they tried to double check the answers from one of the nearer booklets that had them with another or from other test takers. She imagined even those who had received a test with the answers already filled in, could be eliminated this way. Since even those benefactors would still be responsible for securing the correct answers if the booklet they received was filled with incorrect ones.

However, Quistis began to reject her theory that there were booklets in circulation with false answers. As for starters, with each of the teams having been assigned seating next to each other, it was difficult to imagine the designers of the round would eliminate a promising candidate in such a manner. As considering how it had seemed that the order in which the proctors had passed out the tests had mattered, it was clear that those who had received the booklets with the answers had been the intended recipients. This would seem to indicate that on some level, those individuals were meant to breeze through the first round. Although, being honest, she couldn’t imagine Ittesu being a target of any special disposition meant to see him through as at best she would describe him as competent, not a future superstar of the shinobi world. Therefore, she imagined that it was likely that the recipients of the answer booklets had just been picked at random, although likely spread out so that each villages’ participants would receive them based on a representative percentage to prevent complaints of favoritism down the road.

Quistis imagined that she could just settle the matter by asking Yome to use her Dojutsu again to see if she noticed there were different versions of the filled-out booklets among the recipients. But, as the table her team had been assigned left their legs exposed, she didn’t feel it was worth the risk of being caught trying to convey her request, and have it misinterpreted by a proctor as an attempt at cheating. Especially as at this late stage she supposed that it didn’t truly matter.

But the longer that she thought about it, the more she was convinced that the test that they had spent the last fifty minutes taking truly didn’t matter either. As while handing out the answer to participants at random, might have been a solution to making sure there were correct answers to be had in the room. Since having the teams sit together meant the proctors couldn’t just slip in a few of their number among the participants without it being obvious. Admittedly, they could have slipped in multiple teams made up of proctors, in order to ensure the answers were spread throughout the room to give everyone a fair shake at collecting them if need be. Yet, she felt such a method could prove difficult considering the considerable experience most of the exam participants this year would have due to how long it had been since the last one had been held. After all, typically when the exam had happened around every six months, it would be less likely for the participants to have any real experience with jobs that would have included chunin or jounin who would be used as proctors, due to the lower rank mission fresh genin would be assigned. However due to the several year long drought, since the last exam had been held, this was no longer the case as many genin would have begun to receive missions based on their experience not necessarily their rank. Thus, if a proctor was recognized by a participant, it would be clear as day any test that they were pretending to take likely held the answers. This wouldn’t be a conclusion drawn from any skill, but rather just dumb luck so she couldn’t imagine the test designers would want such possibilities to exist. Which as the solution that they had arrived at also seemed to just be based on luck, she felt the test itself was a smokescreen. Meant solely to increase the tension and anxiousness the chunin hopefuls were feeling, before receiving the final question which would probably truly determine who passed and who failed.

An answer she would receive soon, as Ran stood from her chair announcing, “Time’s up everyone.” She then ordered, “Please hand your pencils to your left, which will be collected by the proctor at the end.”

While the exam takers followed her orders, another group of proctors had moved to stand to the right of the rows which had been created by the desks where the participants were sitting. Once all the pencils had been collected, these proctors began passing out red and black pens which they informed the genin next to them to take one of each, and then pass it down. Ran waited until all the genin had received their pens before instructing them to, “Now pass your booklet to one of your fellow examinees.” Naturally, the genin did so, but made sure their tests stayed within their team. Hers was no different as she handed hers over to Yome, while said kunoichi slid hers over to Itessu who in turn passed his booklet over to her.

Quistis was rather pleased by the development, since it allowed her to study the booklet, which rather than just having the answers printed out, the proctors had taken the time to forge his handwriting. At least based on the comparison that she could make from the sample that she had where he had printed his name. The only portion of the test that he had actually filled in himself. She suspected that it was likely that whoever had written in the answers had done so using the application all the participants had filled in to apply.

Quistis focused on the head proctor as Ran provided her next set of instructions, “Now, taking the black pen, you are to circle each of the answers on the page. In a moment, I will reveal the correct answers. You are then to take the red pen and either mark an x at the top of that circle if the answer is incorrect or put a C if it is correct.” Ran then moved back to the whiteboard, which she spun around in a circle to reveal the back along with the answers to the exam. At which point she informed them, “I’ll give you five minutes to grade the papers. At which point, we’ll give you the final question.”

Applying herself to the given task, despite her confidence that all the answers would be correct. She hoped the five minutes passed quickly as she looked forward to seeing if her theory about the importance of how they had spent the previous sixty was correct.

*****

Ann Takamaki looked at the front of her test booklet which she had just received back and felt it was fitting that they had taken their test in classroom within Suna’s hospital as her chances at promotion looked to be rather unhealthy as a result of the six out of ten marked on the front in fatal looking red ink. She looked to her left where Makoto, her teammate that had graded her paper, gave her a sympathetic smile, before whispering to her, “There is still hope Panther. I don’t think this test mattered as much as they made us think.”

Ann was confused by Makoto’s statement, while also feeling tempted to reprimand her for kicking her under the table every time she had tried to cheat. She looked back towards Ryuji Sakamoto, who of all the people she had traveled to Suna with was the one she knew the best, due to their having many of the same classes together. He seemed overly too pleased with himself as he sat between the two Persona users that he had been paired with to take the exam, one of whom was an eccentric artist named Yusuke Kitagawa while the other was a red headed girl a year younger than her named Kasumi Yoshizawa.

As for her, she had been partnered with two woman both of whom were third years at Shujin Academy, one of whom was the class president named Makoto Niijima. While the other was the heiress of a major corporation based in the Land of Lightning named Haru Okumura. Ann had only begun working with the others for around a year, since Shujin Academy didn’t really turn out shinobi. As most of its students were from upper class families who wanted their children to possess the title, without necessarily the dangers that went along with it. Therefore, most of its graduates were destined for more bureaucratic fields, which suited Kumo just find as they’d much rather those they trained to actually be shinobi apply the skills they were taught out in the field, rather than dealing with the bureaucracy that resulted from running a village dedicated to the mercenary profession.

Not that Ann had intended to become a paper handling drone, as she had intended to become a fashion model. Feeling her being able to say she was a shinobi would help give her a leg up on her competition. But, that all changed shortly after joining Shujin, and she began experiencing headaches along with a voice speaking to her. Ann had kept the fact that she was hearing voices to herself, which was why she had not noticed over the next few months how her only real friend, a girl named Shiho Suzui, had begun to withdraw within herself. Eventually though she had, especially as she had noticed that Shiho would begin to show up to school with bruises, which when Ann inquired about them, she would explain away as something she had gotten during volleyball practice. A believable enough excuse as Shujin’s coach had been a former student, and had gone on to when a major championship within Lightning, so the school had treated him as a god when he returned, and overlooked just how hard he would push the members of the volleyball team. However, Ann would come to learn it wasn’t just from his tendency to overwork his students that Shiho was sporting such bruises, as the coach had begun sexually assaulting her. A fact she was made aware of when he had set his eyes on her, and tried to use her friendship with Shiho as a means to get her to agree to become his plaything. When Ann had learned the full extent of the indignities that Shiho had suffered from the man who had inflicted them, the voice she had been hearing off and on again for months particularly as she had wondered if Shiho was as fine as she claimed to be, had come through crystal clear to ask if she intended to give in to the coach’s demands, or intended to fight. She had chosen the latter, which was when her Persona had fully manifested as she had attacked the coach. Much of the fight was a blur to Ann, but her last conscious memory from just before she had blacked out upon the arrival of a group of Anbu who had come to investigate the surge of chakra her manifestation had released, was of the coach on his knees begging her not to kill him

When she had come to, a female doctor by the name of Wakaba Isshiki had informed her that the coach had admitted to his crimes for fear of facing her wrath again. From Wakaba, she had learned that she was not the first student to display such abilities, although the phenomena was centered primarily around Shujin. More to the point, it was one that seemed to be increasing in strength with each subsequent generation. Of which Ann fell into the most current the fifth, designating her a P-Five. However, it wasn’t necessarily the strength of the Personas themselves which designated her a P-Five. Rather, she had learned that unlike previous generations, the P-Fives seemed to have a more profound effect on the world as whenever she called upon her Persona, her clothes would change to a skin tight leather outfit while a cat-themed mask that covered the upper portion of her face would appear. The reason for the change in attire appeared to be a result of the cognitive view that she had of herself, which Wakaba had explained was born of the part of her soul that she had tried to hide or reject. Although, Ann wanted to deny it, she couldn’t exactly do so, as during one of Wakaba’s tests she had manufactured a copy of the leather outfit, which when Ann had called upon her persona had not been altered. Which Wakaba determined was due to the fact that she was dressed closer to her cognitive self, and as such whenever she and the others were sent out on missions where they expected to fight they had taken to wearing the outfits the Doctor had made for them so as to conserve charka. They had also given each other codenames, as some of the P-Five members were confident their parents or family would be upset at their taking part in actual shinobi missions, not to mention the exams which was why they were currently in costume as their guardians believed they were participating the Shujin Graduation Ceremony. Which typically coincided with the Chunin Exams, to act as a work around to the rule then Genin could not be promoted without an exam being held. On paper, Shujin students were considered Genin having mastered basic techniques from the preparatory middle schools that their parents sent them to, at which point they would spend the next three years at the Academy preparing them for a career in Kumo’s government. Or, such as Ann’s case a career as a model, which could afford her access the village could perhaps one day benefit from. However, that trajectory was shot once her and the others manifested their Personas, since the Village wanted to determine just how viable the Personas were, so they were expected to take the actual Chunin exams, as opposed to just the paper one Shujin Students typically took while the exams were being held.

The doctor Ann had first met upon awakening her ability, Wakaba had been studying the phenomena since it first manifest with the P-Ones. But, they had never truly been sent out into combat, outside of a few missions to deal with bandits. As such, Ann wasn’t too familiar with the characteristics of the P-Ones or P-Twos having never interacted with them. Primarily due to their having graduated from Shujin before she had even left middle school. Moreover, she had only recently met a P-Three just before leaving for Suna, a red-headed woman named Mitsuru Kirijo. She was currently serving as the sensei for the two teams taking part in the Chunin Exams that were each comprised of three individuals who all fell within the P-Four designation.

From Wakaba, Ann had learned that while the P-Fives were unique in how their persona manifestation seemed to affect the physical world as well. It was also vastly easier for them to call upon their Persona, which was primarily what separated each of the generational designations. The P-Threes for example could not manifest their Personas without the aid of a devise called an evoker, which was pressed against the head and fired an electronic shock directly into it, giving the Persona the means to manifest itself. Wakaba had explained the device aided in this not necessarily through the electrical shock, but through the act itself which symbolized an acceptance of death. The P-Fours had an easier time manifesting their Personas, not needing to go through a symbolic act of killing themselves. Although when they first called upon them, the Persona manifestation was usually accompanied by fog that made it difficult to perceive the world around them. As such, special glasses were developed for them which as a result of the mental image of gaining clearer vision caused the fog to dissipate. Admittedly, the fog could have served as a tactical advantage in certain situations. Yet as the Kumo-nin were nowhere near as proficient at fighting in fog as a Kiri-nin, it had been decided that it would be best not to rely on it. Strangely enough, as time had gone on and the P-Fours had grown more proficient with their abilities, the fog had ceased to appear leaving Ann to believe the reason that they still wore the glasses in battle was because they felt it made them look cool. A sentiment she could agree with as she would much rather be sporting trendy shades, then to give the impression that she was some sort of cat themed dominatrix. Yet there was one characteristic that all the Persona users did share, which was that their eyes changed to a golden color whenever they manifested their Personas.

Sadly, just as Ann was about to start her second year at Shujin, she had learned that Wakaba had died suddenly at the close of the previous one. A fact that she and the others had only been made aware of when they had returned from summer break, and had attended their first examination. Which had been performed by Kumo’s head medical officer Sosuke Aizen. In terms of researchers Ann had found the man to be a strict downgrade, as while he had come off as personable enough, she was always left with the impression that he was immensely disappointed at the conclusion of their examinations. A rather stark difference from Wakaba, who had exhibited a glee at the testing of her theories. Both in what had first created the Persona’s and why they exhibited the various personalities that they did. Since, while it would be a simplification to call them a variation of puppet ninjutsu, they did have personalities of their own, which seemed to be a manifests of the users own wants and desires.

Her teammate Makoto for example, who was currently going by the codename Queen during the exam. Usually was a straight-laced A student, as evident by her not allowing her teammates to cheat despite it obviously being one of the means in which one could pass. But if one was to judge her by her current appearance, they would probably suspect her of being some delinquent who ran a biker gang from an apocalyptic future. To further cement the image, her persona took the form of a futuristic bike which could generate a special Blue fire to attack opponents. Ann, did need to be a psychiatrist to understand that the reason for this was due to her wanting to rebel against the life that she currently felt trapped in. Mostly by her somewhat overprotective big sister, who gave off the impression that she saw Makoto as a burden their father’s passing had settled her with which was holding her back from enjoying life. While, her determination to force Makoto to accept a less dangerous job rather than becoming a shinobi officer as he truly desired forced her sister into similar circumstances.

Still, Makoto could be a little tyrannical herself as evident by the failing test Ann now held which was a result of her forcing her views of right and wrong on her. Granted, Ann knew cheating was wrong, but she had argued that if it was an avenue to passing they should be all for it. While Makoto had countered that if she had spent more time preparing for it, she wouldn’t need to cheat in the first place. Recalling the smirk Ryuji had been wearing beneath his skull mask, Ann turned back annoyed to see it still in place as his eyes were focused on the grade of her test causing her to say, “What are you smirking at?”

Ryuji chuckled before turning the front of his test booklet towards Ann as he said, “Oh, just remembering what it was like to be a failure.”

Ann’s mouth dropped open as Ryuji, who was even a worst student then her, had received a perfect ten out of ten score. Makoto nodded appreciatively as she said, “It’s good to see that you properly studied for the exam.”

Ryuji’s smile faltered some, and it quickly shifted to a look of betrayal when the man seated next to him and was about as social inept as they came said, “Oh, I doubt that he did. He just received a test which already had all the answer already filled in.”

“What!” Makoto said standing looking betrayed, while Ryuji sat back in his chair.

“Is there a problem,” the head proctor, who had introduced himself as Ibiki Morino asked his gaze briefly drifted to the board behind him towards the seating chart.

Makoto sent a glare towards Ryuji, and although she looked conflicted responded, “Well, I was just made aware that one of my fellows was given a test that had already been filled out.”

Ibiki chuckled, “I see, Ms… Queen… you are no doubt aware that cheating was viewed as an acceptable means of getting the correct answers to the exam. Yet, despite that, you seem determined to force your teammates to pass without falling back on it. At least as evident by Ms. Panther’s abused shins, and now evidently your willingness to throw Mr. Skull under the cart as it were.”

“Cheating is wrong sir,” Makoto fired back, “And just because it may have been an acceptable tactic, doesn’t mean it is one we should call upon.”

“Strange,” Ibiki responded sounding amused, “You would force two of your colleagues to fail, and cut off their means of advancement based on your own perceived sense of justice. I could perhaps understand calling out another team, but according to the records that I received on the participants, not only are the two beside you sponsored by the same sensei, but so are the three behind you. As such, I am assuming that all six of you have some familiarity with each other. Yet, you still would force them to fail rather than allow them to cheat in an environment where cheating was allowed.”

“It is better to attempt to pass honorably and fail, then to cheat and succeed?” Makoto said confidently.

“Tell that to the dead,” Ibiki shot back as his voice took on a solemn note. “I am sure there are thousands who wouldn’t mind a little cheating happen if it gave them the means to stay alive.” Focusing on the rest of the class, Ibiki said, “Raise your hand if you received a test that had already been filled out.” In response, one to two test takers per a row raised their hand. Seeing this, Ibiki nodded while adding, “Good, now raise your hand if you were aware of these answer sheets being among you.”

A request to which only Makoto, Ann, and Haru did not raise their hands. Ibiki smiled grimly as he moved from the front of the room, and began to climb the stairs to approach Makoto while ordering, “Now, only of you who passed the exam, whether through cheating or knowing the answers raise your hand. Lower them if you failed due to the number of answers you got wrong or were caught cheating.”

Makoto and Haru raised their hands, while about a third of the room lowered theirs in accordance with the new criteria as Ibiki came to a stop behind Ann while standing before the woman he knew as Queen. Ann kept her head down, not wishing to meet the imposing man’s eyes even as she could feel them staring past her towards her test. Which he then picked up, and inspecting it focused on Makoto as he said, “Because of your blind pursuit of justice, not only were you unaware of what was happening around you, your teammate failed her exam. If passing this test was life, and failing was death. Would you not be responsible for getting her killed?”

“This isn’t a life or death situation though,” Makoto countered.

“It is, if I say it is,” Ibiki said while towering over her intimidatingly, “Especially in regards to your moving on and becoming Chunin.” Turning away, he descended the stairs while addressing all those present, “Normally in the past, when I’ve run similar such exams, I would have those who failed and their teams eliminated. That is because as proctor my job was to insure only the best of the best move on. Some would complain that it was unfair to tie the fate of all to the worst among their team. But, when you are genin, the team you are assigned is a lifeline, it is usually formed to help balance your strengths with someone else’s weaknesses. As such, I would eliminate the teams as a whole since it was apparent that they failed in this.” Reaching the front of the class, he held up Ann’s failed test while stating, “However, characters like Ms. Queen, an alias she either gave herself, or was given to her perhaps by her own teammates that consider her to be rather tyrannical, perfectly demonstrates to us why perhaps that is unfair.”

“I…I’m not tyrannical,” Makoto weakly said while sitting down in her chair, hoping it would make her small enough to stop all the people from staring at her. Ann felt rather sorry for her, but also was feeling rather mortified with it being her test Ibiki was holding up as an example of failure, so was also trying to shrink down into her chair.

A test that he continued to wave around as he spoke, “Her unwillingness to bend is directly responsible for the failure of her teammate. Worst still, she forced those views onto said teammate, who aware of her own lack of intelligence, sought to use the very tests that we proctors filtered out to you all to insure that the correct answers were available. A course of action which would have been well within the rules that we established, and helped her teammate to pass provided she had the skill to gather the information discreetly.” Ibiki lowered the test down to his side as he chuckled menacingly before stating, “I suppose only time will tell if my old testing methods were more humane, as this year we’re trying something new. It is time for you to be given the eleventh question. Which is simply come to a consensus as to who is the weak link. Those selected will then be asked to leave. I’ll give you five minutes to decide.”

Ibiki turned away to move towards the front wall in order to lean against it as he waited for the five minutes to pass. He had a sense of dread welling up as he suspected that he may have gone at Makoto too hard as her teammate looked as if she was about to speak. But she refrained when a voice from the team seated behind her shouted, “What!? That’s bullshit!”

Although rather thankful for the outburst, as he suspected the woman dressed as some sort of flamboyant thief had been on the verge of ruining the exam as despite projecting an aura of being somewhat demure, he had noted there seemed to be an aggressiveness raising up as he had belittled her teammates. Still level an icy glare towards the source of the outburst.

Which as the person who shouted at him was Ryuji, meant Ann was right in line with it, which caused her to shudder.

“Mr… Skull is it?” Why is that the case?” Ibiki said his voice growing cold as he turned to face him, while to Ann the area surrounding the proctor seemed to darken.

Ryuji felt the fire feeding his anger almost instantly evaporate as the intimidating proctor focused his cold gaze upon him. Still not one to back down, after making a nervous sounding gulping noise he responded, “Well, between my teammates, I’ve worked with Inari way longer then Violet, who was just paired with us. So, it’s only natural that we would select her.”

Ibiki stared at him for a moment before allowing a slow building chuckle to turn into a full on laugh which caused quite a few of those present to look around nervously. As it concluded, he said menacingly, “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Especially considering how when you opened your test and found it was already filled in with the answers, you made a face as if you were literally thanking the gods. So, if I had to guess your strengths lay along the physical pursuits, while your head is as empty as your little codename implies. However, there is no guarantee that the next round of the exam is going to need those skills you excel at any more than this one did. Which as the kunoichi of your squad, based on how she conducted herself, appears to be quite gifted physically as well and apparently had no issue answering the first ten questions on her own despite being younger then you two, who’s to say the weakest link of your team isn’t you.”

“Indeed,” Yusuke said as he struck a thinking pose making it clear that he was taking Ibiki’s words to heart.

Naturally, this served to set Ryuji off as he rounded on him shouting, “Hey you bastard! What’s to say you are not the one who needs to get cut? I mean you actually failed the test.”

“Yes,” the blue haired man replied calmly not showing any sign that Ryuji’s sudden angry outburst towards him had bothered him in the slightest, “However, unlike you I was not given the test answers, which if we are being honest is the only reason you passed, and while I did score just one short of the goal. Resorting to cheating to pass is much akin to stealing someone else’s painting and passing it off as yours. Which any great artist should understand that it is better to try and fail elegantly then to resort to underhanded methods to succeed.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ryuji said while throwing his arms up in frustration, “Cheating was a valid option to passing. Which as I passed means I’m far from the one that needs to be cut.”

“Quite true,” Yusuke said with a nod, before adding, “At least regarding the part where cheating was a valid method for getting the answers. However, as Mr. Ibiki has pointed out, you were given the answers, and by his statement regarding your reaction, it is clear that you were not colluding with anyone to get them. So, the question to ask is, did you cheat? You were used as a means to get the correct answers out amongst us exam takers. But, getting those answers required zero skill on your part. So, who is to say my trying but falling short is worse than not needing to do anything at all, yet succeeding?”

“A fair question,” Ibiki said his amusement being carried in his tone, “Now I imagine you all have quite a bit to discuss, and not a lot of time to discuss it. So I’ll leave you to it.” Moving to the front of the room, he placed his back against the wall and crossed his arms across his chest while he watched the discussions that his question had started grow more and more passionate as they quickly descended into arguments about each other’s worth. He settled his gaze on the Persona users that Mabui’s information had revealed, and a part of him smirked at a job well done as they sat in their seats in silence as it was clear that both Makoto and Ann had yet to recover from his singling them out.

However, this also caused a hint of concern to well up within him, not that he let it show. As there had been some belief that the Persona users would possibly be sent against Naruto as a part of whatever plot the Raikage had in store for the Uzumaki. However, if that was the case then Ibiki was all but sure that the Raikage would have already provided them with the details needed to pass each exam. Determining if this might have been the case, had been one of his reasons for zeroing out the team that he had. The other being that he suspected either Makoto or Haru would have possibly figured out the truth behind his question. Focusing his gaze on the latter of the two, who was calling herself Noir for the exams, she was sitting silently beside Makoto seemingly unconcerned with the erupting chaos around her, leaving him to believe that she likely already knew the best path forward. But, was not sharing it with her teammates, likely because she knew Makoto in particularly would act on it, in order to try and soothe the anger erupting around her.

At present, Ibiki was rather convinced that at present no one in his group were only taking the exams as a ruse to get to Naruto. Which as he had details on three of what he suspected was six Persona users, at least judging by the getups of the remaining three sitting behind Makoto’s group. Along with the apparent familiarity between Ann and the young man calling himself Skull. He was basing his opinion primarily off of Makoto’s behavior during the exam, since her having prevented Ann from cheating indicated that despite her outfit suggesting otherwise, she was still a stickler for the rules. Leaving him to believe that she wouldn’t participate in some sort of underhanded scheme to kidnap and ultimately murder one of the other participants. It didn’t necessarily clear the rest, but it was apparent when he was pushing Makoto that the others had been bothered by it. In fact, he was rather thankful for Skull’s outburst, as he suspected that Noir would have ruined the ruse that he was presenting as a form of retaliation. But, as the two now arguing behind her seemed more intent about debating whether or not getting handed the answers constituted cheating, rather than discussing who they would sacrifice in the belief it would allow them to advance. It appeared she was willing to allow things to run their course, in the belief Makoto would also recover enough to see through his ploy. This respect all of the suspected Persona users harbored towards Makoto was what had him convinced that they at least were unlikely to be a part of any plot the Raikage had cooked up, outside of the one they already were a part of that was. Although he doubted that they were aware of their being caught up one.

Looking towards the clock, he saw that approximately half of the five minutes had elapsed so began focusing on which of the teams he would call on first in order to get the answer that he was looking for. Which was to say the one he felt was most likely to sabotage their chances of surviving to the end of the Chunin Exams.

********

Kurenai watched via several television monitors as the various testing locations erupted into vigorous debates which quickly turned into arguments as the proctors began giving out the eleventh question. Unlike the test locations, the banquet hall the team sponsors had gathered at were relatively quiet with only a handful of muted conversations taking place among them. Sadly, unlike the seating arrangements for those taking the tests, the gathered shinobi sensei had segregated themselves into groups based on the village that they hailed from. Which she was rather disappointed by as she felt it showed just how high the tensions between the villages were currently. Granted, this wasn’t the case for all those present, as Temari, who was sponsoring Quistis’s group, was making the rounds and chatting with various Leaf shinobi present. A few other Sand-nin were following her example, which Kurenai suspected may have been a result of bonds which had been forged during the days of the Training Force Konoha and Suna had created in part to counter Danzou’s plot, and had worked together during Pain’s attach on the Leaf Village. There were a few Grass-nin as well moving among the various village representatives, as they were always interested in making the connections that they could one day take advantage of.

For the most part, Kurenai was keeping to herself, as she stood towards the center of the room where stacks of televisions had been setup offering those gathered an opportunity to observe the Exam Participants. Despite the evidence of the Family’s ambition coming apart that was currently being displayed, in truth Kurenai wasn’t all that bothered by it. As while she would admit that Naruto’s goals were noble, she hadn’t exactly joined up because of them, but rather the pleasure based benefits that being a member received. That wasn’t to say that she was opposed to peace, far from it. But, as evidence by the growing discord between the Leaf and Sand over how the matter of Baki being responsible for the murder of Hayate was being handled, she just didn’t know if it was worth the effort. Although, she did admit that there being any among the Leaf and Suna willing to still act friendly towards one another despite the current difficulties between the villages, were most likely due to the Family’s efforts.

Still, Kurenai didn’t much care to think on the matter too hard, as she’d rather focus on the pleasure that she had received from the hands of the man at the heart of the Family’s ambition. Something that she feared was going to be in short supply for the foreseeable future. Focusing her attention on the monitor showing that man, she smiled as he seemed whole unaffected by the arguments taking place around him. Not that she was wholly surprised by it, since she imagined that as Naruto had been willing to walk away from becoming Hokage over the idea of needing to make a choice between it and a woman he cared for. Then he would easily do so again at the idea of becoming a Chunin by casting off one of the two women he was taking the exams with. Still while she knew the answer might have been arrived at long before Naruto had even taken the exam, a part of Kurenai wondered if his current calm was just out of the principle having been one that had already been tested on, or if he understood the reasoning behind the eleventh question.

She suspected it was the latter, due to Moegi giving him a nervous look as the last few precious minutes ticked away and it was responded to with a warm one from Naruto. Although Moegi appeared somewhat buoyed by it, her nervousness quickly returned as she cast her eyes back up to the clock. She was somewhat surprise that neither Moegi or Yakumo were pressing the Uzumaki on the question that had been asked, although she imagined that it might be due to neither really wanting to hear the answer either. Still, she was somewhat surprised that Naruto wasn’t really offering up any reassures to them, although suspected that if he truly understood the point behind the question then he wanted it to play out so didn’t want to take any chances at cluing in the other participants around them.

Kurenai looked away as she felt someone’s gaze upon her, and met Kakashi’s lone eye as she turned towards it. The Cyclopean jounin nodded towards her, before issuing a brief farewell to the kunoichi that he had been talking to. Which peaked Kurenai’s interest as she wondered if it was tied to the summons that he had received about halfway through the written exam. Particularly, as the kunoichi in question was not just a member of the Civilian Council of Konoha, but its current head, Tsubaki Katou.

Tsubaki although officially retired, had reactivated her commission to act as the sensei and sponsor for her three daughters. Which, Kurenai briefly wondered if her children were adopted, since while they had seemed energetic and rather inquisitive from her brief observations of them while they had stayed at the Suna Hotel they had been assigned. By contrast their mother came off as suffering from a major case of stick up the ass disease. “Or, perhaps she just hadn’t enjoyed the correct one yet,” Kurenai thought to herself as she recalled the times that she had climaxed while enjoying her lover’s long and girthy stick as it pounded hers. Something she found easy to believe as Tsubaki favored the back of the retreating Kakashi’s head with a look of distaste.

As her fellow Jounin approached, Kurenai asked, “Trouble?”

“I don’t think so,” Kakashi replied, “The summons was just to make me aware that Lady Tsunade had sent me a new message. Which didn’t contain anything pressing, just a few basic updates regarding the Anbu proctor placements for the second exam. But she asked me to pass a message on to Councilor Tsubaki about wishing to speak with her upon her return to the village. Unfortunately, the Hokage didn’t include enough details regarding why she wants to meet for the esteemed councilors liking. As she was quick to remind me that she is a busy woman, and will be all the more so upon her return due to the leave of absence that she has taken. As such she may not have time for some frivolous meeting.”

Kurenai briefly wondered if Tsunade’s desire to speak with the Councilor was tied to her previous thoughts about fixing her surly attitude by replacing the stick up her ass with something far more pleasurable. She would be a little surprised if that were the case as she hadn’t really heard the woman’s name come up during any conversations. Not to mention her currently being married. But, let the matter drop in favor of asking her fellow Jounin, “So, now that we are approaching the end of the first round, what are your thoughts on it?”

Kakashi shrugged as he focused on the television sets displaying the various testing locations. He first focused on the one containing the team that he had sponsored which consisted of Toka, along with Gennai and Komugi. He noticed that Toka seemed to be arguing quite adamantly with the two leaving him to believe she may not see the trick of the question. But, he wasn’t entirely surprised by such a development, since he imagined that considering her life experience, being asked to sacrifice a team member to achieve an objective had happened to her on more than one occasion. He was, however, somewhat surprised to see Gennai and Komugi standing up to her, since in their previous training sessions she had usually been able badger the pair into following her directives.

He felt something was off about what he was witnessing, as seeing the pair pushing back against the vastly more experienced kunoichi when they would normally relent seemed to indicate they had far more confidence than they had previously displayed to him. Particularly as it was quite clear who the strongest member of the team would be. But as the argument seemed to be escalating, it indicated none of them actually saw the proper path forward. Kakashi supposed that it could just be that as Gennai and Komugi had been teammates for years, they were refusing to accept the idea that one of them were to be sacrificed for the benefit of her and one of them. Still, he suspected that some of the confidence that he saw from the pair might have been related to how they had each received one of the prefilled-out test booklets. Which to his knowledge was an occurrence that had not happened at any of the other testing locations. So, considering the booklets had been filled out in the recipients’ own handwriting, left Kakashi believing that something else was at play.

Answering Kurenai, he replied, “It is hard to say since it is somewhat unique in what it hopes to achieve.” Nodding his head towards the screen where his team was openly arguing as was the case for many of the others, he explained, “Toka for example, is taking the answer literally. Which isn’t too surprising considering her background and experiences. Especially considering the fate that befell her cousin the Second Hokage.”

Kurenai inclined her head at his point, but a small smirk appeared as she stated, “Yes, but something tells me she isn’t arguing for how she should be the one who is cast off and ‘failed.’”

He chuckled in agreement, before stating, “Agreed. But the objective the person being sacrificed is meant to achieve is different this time around. The Second may have sacrificed himself due to his being the strongest and as such believing and ultimately being right in it buying the most time for the future leaders of the Leaf. This time around those being asked the question are under the impression that all they achieve is a very personal failure.”

Kurenai noticing a few teams looking to be on the verge of fighting one another, which proctors who noticed the same began positioning themselves to stop any fights that erupted said, “Well in that regard it would appear to be a success.”

“That I wouldn’t be so sure of,” Kakashi said, “While the idea might be to weaken the teams beforehand, and to perhaps learn something of the exam participants personalities. I imagine the second objective only works best on teams that came up through the system together, as opposed to a team that came together just for the exam.”

Kakashi nodded his head towards a team from Grass that was on a different screen, who while they were having an adamant discussion. It was clear they were discussing a solution as opposed to arguing over who would be cut. Taking a look at them Kurenai noticed that one the Grass-nin who was doing the most talking had black hair done in a large pompadour style, and was dressed in a cross between Yakuza student and gladdator due to the style of his uniform which sported large metal pauldrons affixed to his shoulders. One of his teammates seemed to have lost interest in the conversation all together, as the large obese man had procured an entire table full of snacks from somewhere which he was in the process of gobbling down. However, it was the smallest of the three Gass-nin a youngish looking man with Brown-hair kept in a short pony tail which filled Kurenai with a sense of dread although she couldn’t quite place why that was the case. Particularly as he seemed to be carrying himself as if he was somewhat meek, as he occasional responded to his passionate teammate’s arguments. But, although his eyes were partially hidden by the small shades he wore. She noticed a cruel glint appearing whenever he broke eye contact with his teammate, and then ended up landing on a Konoha-nin. Which at present, he kept casting glances towards Tsubaki’s three daughters who had taken the test in the same location.

Yet, focusing back on the passionate youth, his seeming argue for their staying together seemed to be a pattern that was repeating among many of the other gathered teams, although it was overshadowed by more adamant arguments taking place around them. Although she did notice that outside of the Grass team which appeared to have been together for a while, that a lot of the teams taking a more measured approach to the eleventh question seemed to skew younger leaving the impression that they may have only graduated the year before. In hindsight, she supposed that made sense, due to it having been years since the last exam due to the villages of the Alliance needing to come up with a format that they could all be happy with, so there were teams taking part with three to four years of experience. Many of them, despite their current rank as Genin would have begun receiving higher ranked missions and thus experienced the pressures to go along with them, which would push them all the harder to succeed during the exams. Naturally, with so many driven individuals looking to make their mark, the concern was this would make these exams far more dangerous and life threatening than earlier ones.

Still, she wasn’t quite sure what Kakashi was driving at since to her eyes, the last question looked to have the desired effect on most of the teams, which she stated, “I don’t know. It looks like things are going about as well as can be expected. Individuals ambitious or callous enough to toss aside a teammate for advancement will find themselves at a disadvantage…” She paused for a moment as she caught a slight shifting of Kakashi’s mask indicating a sudden frown, and imagined her words had dredged up painful memories. Either of the team that he had led, and the former student who had betrayed them all for power, and revenge. Or more recently, the believed deceased teammate who had turned his back on everything he had proclaimed to believe and betrayed everyone for his own selfish desires. Hoping to turn his emotions around, she continued, “or, they’re the type who would be able to walk away from even the most prestigious of positions, especially if it meant tossing away those they care for.”

Kakashi’s visible eye reflected his pride as it sought out the same man hers had as she spoke of him, and he added, “Yep.” He grew serious though as his gaze focused in on one of the teams that was taking the exam in the Suna Academy before stating, “Yet, one thing I don’t think the first test has taken into account is how some of these teams may have been just cobbled together for them.”

Kurenai assumed though that he was referring to the team that he had sponsored, “Well sure. In such cases you couldn’t really count on the bonds between teammates to invoke an emotional response. So, you’d probably be relying on the participants’ desires to advance in those cases. I’d imagine many of the teams falling to pieces are these cobbled together teams. Isn’t that the problem Toka seems to be facing, she probably sees herself as being the most qualified to advance. But, is running up against her teammates who have come up through the academy together so aren’t willing to sacrifice themselves for her ambitions. I imagine if she’d calm down for a moment, she’d see the trick of it.”

“Yeah,” Kakashi admitted, “But, it is kind of easy to understand her falling for the ruse though. Yuugao hasn’t made it much of a secret that she intends to recruit her into the Anbu.” Adding a more serious inflection to his tone, he said, “I’m referring to teams that may have just been thrown together not necessarily with the exams in mind. But for some other purpose.”

Kurenai frowned as she wasn’t quite sure what Kakashi was referring to. After all, considering how long it had been since the last exam, it would only be natural for some of the longer running teams to have lost members. Either from the dangers of the profession, or kunoichi dropping out to start families. As such, it would only be natural for some of the teams currently taking part to have been created to fill these vacancies without necessarily considering their cohesion during the exams.

However, it suddenly dawned on her that Kakashi might be referring to Kumo in particular, and the belief that they may target Naruto in retaliation for Yugito’s defection. During the exam, Kurenai had found herself watching the team that they suspected was comprised of the three Persona Users that they possessed information on and they believed may be used in any such plot against Naruto. Which by extension, she believed she had at least identified another three members due to how they were all similarly dressed up in some sort of costumes. Not to mention by the fact that it appeared all six had been sponsored by the same man, who apparently called himself only Wolf. The details of which was contained in a booklet that all the team sponsors had received upon gathering in the hall.

She looked towards the side of the room that the Kumo-nin had claimed as their own. Her gaze laned on Samui for a moment, who was leaning against a wall keeping to herself even among her fellow shinobi. But, it soon landed on the man she sought who was dressed in black vest and pants while atop of his head he was wearing a large brimmed fedora whose front came to an almost sword-like point. His outfit also consisted of a high collared coat with silver accents and a mask that would often be worn by stereotypical burglars in some kids cartoon. All in all, he had the appearance of some sort of flamboyant highway man, which considering the costumes worn by the teams that he was in charge of definitely gave the appearance that there was some sense of familiarity between them.

Kurenai wondered if the far younger looking red-headed woman that he was talking to might also be a Persona user. But while perhaps overdressed for the occasion, as she was wearing a skin tight black catsuit under a white fur coat, she was not dressed anywhere near as flamboyantly as the others that she suspected. Not to mention the booklet she had received had given her name as Mitsuru Kirijo, while the other Persona users were apparently using code names. Still, the woman who appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties, appeared to carry herself with a degree of confidence judging by the rapier that was sheathed on the left side of her hip, while there was some strange handheld device holstered on the right. A confidence that Kumo apparently shared in her abilities as she was also sponsoring two teams for the exams.

However, Kurenai was beginning to harbor doubts about the Persona users posing a threat to the man that she had taken as a lover. Primarily due to how the young woman that Ibiki had signaled out in order to setup the eleventh question that he had given his group had responded to his mental prodding of her. Which as she focused on the screen displaying the room where the kunoichi in question was, Kurenai saw the young woman appeared to have recovered her mental balance and apparently saw what needed to be done as she was calming down the Skull masked youth in the trio seated behind hers. The fact that the two teams of the students sponsored by Wolf had ended up sitting in close vicinity of one another had been a red flag for her. But, watching how they had reacted to the various stimuli of the test had lessened those concerns to the point where she was willing to write it off as a coincidence.

But, it did leave her wondering just who the Raikage would throw at her lover, if not a group of shinobi who gained special abilities from secret experiments the Cloud Village was conducting on its citizens. She did have to concede that maybe they were just jumping at shadows, and just inclined to believe the worst about the man considering some of the stunts he had pulled against the Leaf village.

However, looking towards Kakashi and following his gaze towards the screen he was watching, she began to feel it was looking more and more likely that the Raikage was living down to their expectations. Studying the team that had caught her fellow Jounin’s attention, she began to understand why Kakashi had mentioned how teams just thrown together wouldn’t necessarily be tripped up emotionally by the last question, as the team although not arguing like the others around them certainly screamed cobbled together. As sitting between two kunoichi was a muscular looking blue haired man in his late teens dressed in white, strangely enough all three seemed to have a similar sense of fashion as Tier, and more recently Nel when undertaking missions for the Great Tree Shipping Company in her grown up form. Which didn’t just extend to their favoring white clothes, tabi, and sandals, but affixed to all three of them appeared to be remains of some sort of mask. Which while the mempo that Tier favored in battle, and the skull helmet Nel favored in general had been gifts created from a statue the diminutive Nel had ruined that Naruto had subsequently had to pay for. The mask fragments of the trio she was currently watching appeared to be almost a part of them. With the blue haired man’s being the remnants of a upper and lower jaw which covered his right cheek, while the woman who had dark hair styled in pigtails that sitting next to him had a remnant of a mask covering her left eye. The third woman who was sitting on the man’s other side, had short blonde hair and much like her dark-haired teammate had a similar looking mask piece although hers was covering her right eye.

But, what truly struck Kurenai about the trio, was that it was clear the two women were terrified of the man that was sitting between them. As if afraid that the slightest wrong movement on their part might result in their teammate attacking them. Focusing on him, she was surprised by the kunoichi’s demeanor as they sat angled away from him, as he looked as if he was bored out of his mind due to his having placed a foot against the top of long table he and the other teams of his row were sitting at and used it to rock his chair back while his hands were folded behind his head. Kurenai found her gaze traveling down his exposed and muscular torso due to the open jacket he was wearing, but found herself confused by the black dot on his stomach. It didn’t look to be something he drew on himself as she couldn’t imagine an ink quite as dark as it, almost as if it was absorbing all the light around it. Making her wonder if she was even really seeing it, or just the absence of the light that would otherwise be reflected back.

She began to wonder if it was some sort of seal, but Kakashi noticing that her attention seemed to be fixated on the same team shifted her focus as he said, “Look at his test.”

Kurenai did as instructed, and didn’t need to ask what he found special about it as she noticed it was marked with a zero. Shifting her gaze back to the her fellow jounin, he lifted the early release of Naruko’s next book, which Sakura had given to him the morning he had left for Suna with his team, in order to hide his face as he kept his voice low enough so that only she could hear it as he said, “I noticed during the testing portion that he tore through the exam in under five minutes. So, he was either a genius or didn’t much care what he scored.”

Which Kurenai didn’t need explained that judging by his score it was the latter, which would seem to indicate that he had advanced knowledge as to what to expect. A fact further emphasized by his apparently just waiting for the five minute countdown to end. Kakashi seeing her arriving at such a conclusion added, “There’s another group of them. Top right corner.”

Directing her attention to the monitor, she was about to ask how she would recognize them, but found the question was unnecessary due to three men, who were all dressed in a similar white outfit, while also appearing to possess mask like remnants on their face. Although in the case of two of them it looked more like broken helmets. Which in the case of the first man it was a helmet that was mostly gone, as what remained just covered just the top of his head, allowing his long blond hair to spill down past his shoulders. He wore his white jacket open to about his midsection, allowing Kurenai to see that he too had a similar black mark on his chest. The next man also seemed to be wearing the remains of a helmet, although his was far larger and bulkier. Which from the camera’s view sort of looked like a hammer-head shark head in overall shape, although it was clear where the eye sockets had been towards the front, at least from what she could see, as most of the remaining masks right side was wrapped in a cyan colored bandage. However, enough of the left side and lower half of his face were exposed for her to see that he had short grey hair, while his visible eye was also grey, and his mouth had sharp shark like teeth. He wore his jacket fully open showing off that he also had a black circle on his chest. The last man was by far the tallest of the three, as well as the most muscular. Also unlike his companions, the only item that would seem to have indicated he had also possessed a mask was a piece covering his nose which had what appeared to be eyes sockets sticking out to the sides. But, much like them he had a large circular mark on his chest which was exposed due to how he wore his jacket open partially as if to display it.

Kurenai was struck by a sudden sense of recognition from the uniforms that the men of both groups were wearing, causing her to look over towards the gathered Kumo shinobi. It didn’t take her long to pick the two that she would peg as being the teams sponsors, not only because they were dressed in similar attire. But due to them standing off on their own, while carrying an air of disdain about them, a scorn that she felt they might even be feeling towards their fellow Cloud-nin.

Kakashi noticing her shift in attention said, “Yep, those are the two that sponsored them. Strangely enough, both are only Chunin.”

Kurenai frowned at the revelation, although she imagined that while traditionally a jounin was required to sponsor a team to take the exams. Due to how long it had been since the last one, Kumo may have found itself running short of Jounin-sensei. So, may have had some of their more experienced Chunin taking over as the leaders of some older teams so that the jounin could watch over the less experienced Academy Graduate teams that were still being formed each year. Still, she didn’t feel the theory exactly fit, even though at least two Kumo Jounin appeared to have sponsored two teams. Which begged the question as to what exactly made the two teams Kakashi had pointed out to her different.

She opened the book containing the details on the sponsors and the breakdown of their teams and frowned as she saw the one which had included the blue haired man had indeed been sponsored by a Chunin named Shawlong Koufang. Who was dressed in similar attire as the man that he had sponsored, who she now knew was called Grimmjow. While his two female teammates were named Loly Aivirrne and Menoly Mallia. Much like those he had apparently sponsored, Shawlong also wearing what resembled the remains of a mask, which covered the top of his head and had a long spike like portion which stuck out to the right, with a portion also dropping down to cover the upper-left portion of his face.

The large fat man who was standing hunched over beside him, was identified by her book as being named Nakkem Grindina. His appearance made it quite clear that whatever it was that seemed to be either bonded too or being held in place by chakra on each of the Kumo-nin had indeed all at one time or another been some kind of mask, as fully half of Nakkem’s face was covered by the remains of his. Which based on the half that remained, she imagined that it was meant to invoke that it was some kind of evil spirt. But, the portion of his face that was uncovered showed that he possessed small brown eyes, and hair which was cut in the bowl style.

If either he or Shawlong possessed the same circular black mark as the rest of the men had seemed to, she couldn’t say due to their choosing to wear, what she was finding easier to identify as a uniform, in a buttoned up manner. She hadn’t noticed one on either of the two women either, which was kind of hard to imagine she wouldn’t have noticed one in the case of the woman named Loly due to the amount of skin she was showing. Although, she couldn’t rule out them not having one either as the placement of Grimmjow’s indicated that circular mark didn’t need to be reside on the chest. As would have seemed to be the case for the three men that Nakkem had sponsored for the exams, Di Roy Rinker who was the grey haired shark tooth man, Yylfordt Granz, the blond long haired man and finally the tall muscular man who went by Edrad Liones.

Now armed with their names, Kurenai found she couldn’t understand why they would use Chunin as the teams sponsors. Especially as neither of the Chunin in questions seemed to be all that well known which would perhaps hint as to why they would be put into a position of trust where their sponsoring a team would in any way reflect positively on that team. After all, even for a team just thrown together, for someone to vouch for them it would indicate that on some level the one doing the nominating believed the team was capable of passing. Granted, it could just be a matter of what she originally thought and be related to a personnel shortage of some kind, where Kumo’s Jounin commander, who was in charge of the standard shinobi forces, found himself lacking viable shinobi to assign to all the teams that he wanted to push through, and so he was the one actually doing the nominating while just assigning Chunin as fill ins.

Yet, Kurenai doubted that was the case, particularly as the similarities that she had noticed about the suspected Persona users style of dress. would seem to indicate that the two teams and their sponsors that Kakashi had brought to her attention may very well have been the end results of some experimentation as well. She shook her head at how a village could unintentionally out itself through something as trivial as providing a standardize uniform, although admittedly thanks to Naruto’s lovers who called Kumo home she possessed more details about it than most Konoha-nin would.

“What should we do?” Kurenai asked while keeping her own nose in the team booklet she had used to find the names of the teams and their sponsors.

“There is nothing that we can do at the moment,” Kakashi said calmly, “For now, all we have to go on is that it appears one of them may have known what to expect from the first test, so didn’t bother applying himself to answering the questions. Which is damn sloppy for someone being tasked with a special mission. So, he might just have had a source among one of the proctors or even among the committee that first came up with the tests. His teammates at least appeared to be trying to take the test seriously, but they might just have been doing a better job of covering. Also, I was called away so didn’t notice if the other team appeared to have similar inside knowledge as I didn’t notice the similarities between those teams until just now.”

Kurenai didn’t act overtly to avoid indicating that they were having a conversation, so quietly replied, “Understood. I should have time after the exam to inform Naruto of our suspicions and to keep his distance from them.”

Kakashi didn’t bother with a response as he closed his book upon noticing the time was winding down, so said, “Looks like the fireworks are about to begin.”

Kurenai nodded in agreement with his statement, as many of the teams seemed ready to fight among themselves as those looking at being cut disagreed vehemently with those willing to toss them aside for advancement. Although, this didn’t appear to be the case for all, as Kurenai noticed one of the teammates of Hinata’s sister almost seemed to be pleading to be cut. Although more worrisome for Kuenai was that she and her teammates were seated only a few rows ahead of the one containing the three Kumo-nin that had been sponsored by Nakem, and if her concerns she felt welling up in her gut were correct, then both teams might very well be a part of whatever plot the Raikage had in store for the man that she had taken as a lover, and considering the Raikage’s past actions, she felt there was also a real concern it might also just involve the daughter of the man who had ruined his plans the last time he had targeted the Leaf.

********

“Come on, there’s only thirty seconds left,” Hanabi’s teammate Hoshi stated as he gave her yet another update on info that she was already well aware of. Before adding, “So, just chose who you want to kick to the curb and be done with it. You don’t need to pretend it’s that hard of a choice for our benefit.”

Hanabi held back the annoyed glare she felt like sending Hoshi’s way, and very nearly chose him not so much because he was angling for it. But just so she could be done with him. However, she imagined that if she really wanted to annoy him, she could always just choose Mieko as the one to cut from the team. As her other teammate had remained silent ever since their proctor had announced that the gathered teams should reach a consensus on who to discard, and had not really voiced her opinion on what she would prefer.

Hanabi closed her eyes, as she hoped some answer would present itself to her as to the correct choice, since she felt there was an angle that she just wasn’t seeing. After all, the nature of the Eleventh question would seem to suggest that perhaps the Main Family was right in its treatment of the Branch Family. That it was okay to sacrifice those necessary to achieve the objectives that one desired. Which as the only Main Family present among her teammates, it was ultimately her choice as to which of them it was her right to discard in order to guarantee her advancement. A decision that she would probably find herself having to make time and time again should she best her sister and become the Head of the Hyuuga Family.

Yet, while Hanabi didn’t doubt for a moment that should her sister become the Clan Head that the first thing she would seek to do was elevate the Branch Family so that they didn’t always catch the brunt of such decisions. She found herself wondering just how Hinata would have confronted such a decision. At which point it dawned on her that her sister had come up through Konoha’s Academy system and so wouldn’t have been able to just order her teammates to take the hit for her.

Which prompted her to look towards Mieko and ask her fellow kunoichi, “What are your thoughts as to how we should proceed?”

Mieko couldn’t hide her surprise at Hanabi inquiring as to what her opinion was, which allowed Hoishi to say sounding rather annoyed, “Hey, what about mine?”

“You’ve shared your opinion quite enough already,” Hanabi replied not bothering to hide the frustration that she felt at him and his general attitude towards her. Returning her attention to the kunoichi, she asked once more, “Please Mieko, I’d like to know what you think.”

The kunoichi nodded, before stating, “I believe that the end result this round of the exams is aiming for isn’t so much about eliminating teams, but weakening them.” Mieko was again surprised to see that Hanabi was considering her words, while Hoshi looked rather dismissive of the idea, so she supported her reasoning by nodding her head towards the front of the room where the head proctor had placed a printout of the seating chart on the wall. Where for the past hour he had marked down the number of cheating infractions which he and the other proctors had caught. Using the chart as support of her reasoning she explained, “If it was just about eliminating people, then why would they not have started with the ones who already failed. Such as those who incurred too many cheating infractions as even with a perfect score you would not be able to pass with four or more. Yet, there are some present who have as many as five so they could have eliminated them before we even graded the tests.”

Hanabi following her teammate’s logic, added, “Yes, and then there is the eleventh question itself. The proctor didn’t necessarily stipulate that those selected would fail, only that they would be asked to leave.”

“Which sort of dictates that you fail doesn’t it,” Hoshi replied just short of mockingly.

“Not necessarily,” Mieko quickly stated, before adding, “We were asked to come to a consensus as to who the weakest link is. It is a leading question though, as the answer to cut someone just requires a majority of us to agree, but it doesn’t exclude all of us from coming to an agreement not to either. So, theoretically all we need to do is agree that none of us are the weakest link.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Hanabi stated with a degree of confidence as she felt the concerns that had prompted her to reach out begin to fade, and noticed Mieko seemed pleased by her deciding to go along with her suggestion.

Hoshi though looked a little surprised at her accepting Mieko’s reasoning, but quickly came up with a more nefarious reason for her to do so stating, “If we fail, you’ll probably just blame the whole thing on Mieko.”

A look of concern quickly appeared on Mieko’s face, but Hanabi quickly countered, “How would it be her fault if I was the one who ultimately decided the course of action.”

“You’ll just say she mislead you,” Hoshi fired back quickly.

“Which even if that were to happen, my detractors in the clan would just point out that it was a weakness on my part that I could be misled,” Hanabi countered not bothering to hide how tired she was of the male Hyuuga’s constant need to paint her in as poor a light as possible. Continuing she added, “My father’s supporters will be quick to counter that if there was a weakness on my part, it is in my naivete at being too trusting, and allowing myself to be led astray by those who obviously support my sister.”

“Yeah, but you forget…”

“Be silent Hoshi,” Mieko said sternly, surprising the other two Hyuuga due to her not having spoken previously without first being prompted. She didn’t elaborate on what had caused her to speak up this time, or why it was seemingly in support of Hanabi as she just returned to facing towards the front of the room.

Yet, before either of them really recovered enough to inquiry the Head Proctor said, “Alright it’s time to hear your answers.” Pointing to a seemingly random group in the middle of the room, the Proctor asked almost like he was a host on a game show, “So, how about it, who is the weakest link?”

Hanabi frowned as she turned back to see which team it was, as the two members of the indicated group quickly offered up the third, and so felt her concerns quickly return. However, she did take some comfort from the fact that judging from how the member currently standing and making his way to the exit was glaring at his former comrades, she doubted the proctor had even needed to ask who they would nominate to receive his answer. So, settled in to wait for when he called on them to see if she had made the right call or not.

*******

“What!!!” Toka said angrily as she stood to glare at the two teammates that had jumped at the chance to nominate her when Inaho had asked for volunteers to go first. “You ungrateful little toads, after all the months that I put in to helping you raise your skill sets up, this is how you thank me?” she added as she moved as if to pummel the pair, but stopped as she noticed several of the Proctors moving to stop her if she did.

To her surprise, Gennai responded showing a backbone that he had lacked previously, especially as she had made the case for why he was the weakest of the three, “How can you be surprised that we’d nominate you? Sure you helped us, but only in order to help yourself. You just got done making the case for why the one to be cut should be me. But, you forgot one thing, it was to come to a consensus as a team. Well, sadly for you, Komugi and I agree that what’s best for our team going forward is losing you.”

Komugi stepped in as he said, “You made it clear that you’d easily sacrifice Gennai to get ahead to the next round, why would I want to continue on with you. You might very well be the strongest of us, but not necessarily the best choice for a team effort going forward.”

Toka frowned, since their defense of their decision seemed rehearsed to her, leaving her wondering when exactly they would have come up with them. Primarily as both men had remained silent when she had laid out her case.

Yet, before she could press them she was interrupted as Inaho stated from the front of the class, “You’ve heard their choice.” She indicated the door opposite the one she and the other proctors had entered from as she added, “Please exit the room.“

Toka clenched her fists as she began to suspect the embarrassment that she was currently being subjected to may have been orchestrated by the Head Proctor. However, rather than trying to make such a case, even if it would explain how both of Inaho’s former teammates had received the filled out test booklets, she imagined the deck was too stacked against her currently. So, knowing there was a proper time and place to fight such battles, raised her head and marched for the exited in a proud and dignified manner.

********

Yakumo sent a worried look towards Naruto as the door closed after Toka. She noticed him frowning, and she began to wonder if it was because he was questioning their decision not to nominate someone. She noticed that Moegi was also shooting him a look of concern. But, upon noticing their stares, Naruto’s frown melted and he favored them both with a warm smile before just giving a quick shake of his head, indicating that he hadn’t changed his mind. Leaving Yakumo to realize what he had been frowning about had been Toka’s treatment. Still, she was rather shocked to see the Senju getting eliminated in the first round, especially as Naruto had made it seem like the right answer was for them not to nominate somebody. But, having witnessed Toka drill her teammates on several occasions like she was preparing them for war, and that she probably would have given them an honest assessment as to who she believed was the weakest link of the team. Something which had apparently just blown up in her face.

But to her shock, they were given the chance to present their answer next as Inaho focused on them and Naruto in particularly asking, “What about you three? Who are you cutting loose?”

“Nobody,” Naruto stated firmly.

“Very well,” Inaho replied sounding disappointed, “Well, as you’ve failed to nominate anyone, I’m going to have to ask all three of you to leave.”

Yakumo felt a sudden urge to nominate herself, not wanting to drag Naruto down since she believed his unwillingness to choose between them might be causing him to make a mistake. However, what held her tongue was that she felt that she needed to make a good showing in the exams in order to further her clan’s identity as becoming experts in Anti-Genjutsu tactics, now that the truth about the Kurama not possessing a bloodline was exposed. It was her hope that by reaching the final round, and hopefully having a chance to put on a good showing in it using the tactics that her clan had been coming up with for the past few years, would act as a catalyst for her clan’s star to rise some by receiving more mission requests where such services would be necessary.

Moegi though was not so restrained as she suddenly grabbed Naruto’s arm as he stood while she said, “Boss, it’s okay, you can nominate me.”

Inaho smirked as she said, “Well, how about it Mr. Uzumaki? She’s willing to be cut, all you need to do is agree and…”

“No,” Naruto said firmly as he placed his hand over one of the ones she was holding his arm with.

Moegi though quickly looked past him as she said, “Yakumo just say you nominate me, and we’ll be able to outvote him.”

Yakumo felt tempted to, but Naruto quickly turned to meet her eyes, which easily made it apparent as to what his wishes were. However, before she could make her decision known, Chouji scoffed from where he stood several rows up, “That’s right Naruto, leave it to others to make the hard choices for you. Since you’re never willing to make them yourself.”

Naruto just shook his head disappointedly as he turned to meet the Akimichi’s angry gaze, “No, Chouji, I just haven’t lost sight of what the choice that is being asked of me is. I’m not someone so heartless as discard a comrade simply because it looks like it is being asked of me.”

“Nah,” The Akimichi said derisively, “You’ll just discard them because it’s easier then avenging them.”

Naruto turned away, “You’re wrong about that. I’m just not willing to sacrifice others under the mistaken belief that the pain I feel will go away. How many lives are you willing to spend to bring Sasuke to what you feel is justice?”

“Including mine,” Chouji said quickly, “As many as it takes.”

“A decision you perhaps feel is noble because you’re willing to lay down your own life to achieve your goals,” Naruto countered without looking back. “But, what about all the other ones you use up to get there? You lose sight of them wrapping them up as noble sacrifices to achieve your own aims. Well what is being asked now is no different, except I’m not willing to toss away those I care about just to achieve my goals, which this time around is just to achieve a higher rank.”

Yakumo could tell Chouji wasn’t about to drop the matter, although he didn’t get a chance to press him further as Inaho stated to her subordinate, “Okay, that’s enough.” Focusing on the Uzumaki, and trying to salvage the situation she said, “You say you are unwilling to step over those close to you in order to achieve your goals. But, you’ve taken these exams before. Even if you were to carry on, you have to realize that at some point you may need to be the one who crush their chances to advance. Otherwise there is no point in even showing up.”

Naruto nodded his head in recognition of the point she was trying to make, but having a different take explained, “Well, assuming there is a similar phase as the prelims or third round like in the exam I took, then yes there is a possibility I might be the obstacle standing in one of my teammates way. But, in that scenario they have just as much of a chance of being the one to stop me. It will all depend on the skills and abilities we possess that determines who it is that advances.”

Inaho let out a little snort of dismissal as she said, “Any easy stance to take for a jinchuriki and especially one that many believes might be the strongest one currently taking the exam.”

“That’s uncalled for,” Yakumo said standing from her chair, joining Moegi on her feet, who was also glaring at the Proctor.

“Is it,” Inaho asked raising an eyebrow, “It’s easy to preach about being strong and seeing where the chips fall when you have the ultimate trump card residing in your gut.”

Yet Naruto simply let out an amused chuckle before stating calmly, “None of which truly matters if I’m making the wrong choice now.” Some of the mirth drained from his voice though as he looked over his shoulder towards Inaho’s old teammates, before adding, “But, perhaps what is really getting your panties in a twist over our answer, is you are recalling how when faced with your own final question it was one of your old teammates who cost you a chance at promotion by choosing himself over the team rather than face it for fear that he’d never get another shot.

Yakumo wasn’t quite sure what Naruto was referring to as she looked back at Toka’s teammates, but it was clear Kumogi did as he suddenly looked uncomfortable. Turning back towards the Head Proctor, the Kurama Head realized Inaho must have been partnered with the two at some point as she was currently scowling at the Uzumaki. After a moment, Inaho calmed as she simply shrugged before stating, “Water under the bridge. But, you’re right, I suppose it doesn’t matter if you’re making the wrong choice. Please leave the room.”

Naruto inclined his head, and allowed Moegi to pass before him before following her and Yakumo towards the exit.

*******

Miu Furinji watched as the Uzumaki followed his two teammates towards the exit, and for a moment she flashed back to a discussion she had experienced with her sensei Samui, where her fellow blonde had mentioned a man that she was fond of who seemed intent on following his principles no matter how difficult the path. She smiled as she imagined this Uzumaki was someone of a similar caliber. Although, she suspected this time around his principles may have led him to the easier path, at least in terms of earning the rank of Chunin.

Admittedly though, she had harbored some doubts especially considering how the first team had so quickly and easily offered up one of their teammates. Almost as soon as it had happened, she had felt her own teammates gazes burning into the back of her skull as they had been all about offering up one of them. Particularly as both Renka and Kisara from the moment Inaho had finished asking them to offer up the weakest among them had tried to get her to side with one of them. She suspected that it was only the fact that while none of them were truly friends, not that Miu hadn’t tried to bridge the divide, that it was their distaste for each other which had prevented them from gaining up and choosing her as the one to be let go. Miu had managed to get them to agree that they should all just agree that all three of them were necessary to continue, but only when the time had almost ran out. She suspected that the only reason they had gone along with it, was after trying to make a case for why the other should be booted, they couldn’t exactly trust one another enough to try to form an alliance to kick her out.

Still, when the Uzumaki had given the answer that she had intended to, and seemed on the verge of being eliminated because of it. She had quickly found herself contemplating changing it. This was because she figured that when asked if she gave either Kisara or Renka’s name, the other would quickly fall in line and agree. After all, there was a real danger that a failure to arrive at some sort of consensus could just as easily lead to the entire team being dismissed as it agreeing not to cut someone. A part of Miu was rather disappointed in herself for contemplating it, but if she was being honest with herself, she figured the temptation might stem from the belief that Renka in particular might being contemplating the same thing, and in that case might offer up Miu’s name figuring Kisara thought her too much of a goody-goody to do likewise, so would quickly go along with it. Admittedly, this would leave the two kunoichi alone with each other, but she figured if there was one thing the pair may agree on at times it was that they both found her to be rather annoying.

However, hearing the Uzumaki’s reasoning, made Miu begin to feel a little unclean as she realized she was falling into the real trap of the test. Not to mention, would have made a mockery of her previous attempts to befriend her teammates.

As he had spoken, she felt the burning stares from them begin to fade, so that when she looked back she noticed both seemed openly impressed by him. Especially after his teammate had offered up herself as the one to be cut, yet he had refused to relent. Looking around the class, she noticed that many of the teams that had been at each other’s throats moments before also seemed ashamed of themselves, so wasn’t too surprised that once the door closed after the ejected Uzumaki team the next team asked also refused to nominate some.

*******

“You know for someone who is called the most unpredictable shinobi, you tend to be rather ease to anticipate.”

“Shikamaru, what are you doing here?” Naruto asked as they arrived in a hallway after leaving the room where the first exam was being held.

Naruto noticed another shinobi approaching from the opposite end of it, which prompted Shikamaru to push off of the wall that he had been leaning against and walking away waved them after him while saying, “I volunteered to be the first to say congratulations on passing the exam. Although to be fair, you’d have to be a complete idiot to fail it.”

Naruto noticed that the newly arrived proctor had occupied the spot Shikamaru had been so would probably greet whoever came out the door next. But, Naruto confused by the Nara’s statement asked, “What do you mean? Are you saying, Toka didn’t get eliminated?”

“Yes that is what I’m saying,” Shikamaru said shaking his head in some amusement, “Did you even really see through the eleventh question?”

Naruto frowned as he said, “Well, it just made sense that you didn’t necessarily need to offer someone up. But, if they wanted to trick you into thinking that was not the right answer then they couldn’t just have a team sit there after one refused. That would reveal the whole thing to everyone. But that doesn’t necessarily mean those who were kicked out of their teams didn’t get eliminated.”

“Fair enough,” Shikamaru conceded as they exited the building and Shikamaru began taking them back to their hotel, “No, she didn’t get eliminated. Truthfully, in this first stage the only ones who will would be anyone stupid or angry enough to attack their teammates after getting the boot. She and the other people culled from their teams are currently chilling out in one of the other rooms. They’ll be informed that they can still continue the exams, but may find it an uphill battle. After the Proctors get all the teams’ answers, they will inform those that remained in the exam room much the same. The teams that picked someone are going to be reassigned a new room, and once they have relocated the culled will be allowed to leave. Since you decided to remain together there’s no need to detain you to allow you to cool your heads.”

Naruto nodded figuring it made sense, since he imagined things would be pretty heated if the teams that had sacrificed a teammate believing it to be the path forward were forced to remain with said teammate. Moegi though stepped forward asking, “What did you mean about Boss being easy to anticipate?”

Shikamaru chuckled, before saying, “Well, I guess you can say that ultimately the reason Toka was sacrificed in the manner that she was is due to what some have taken to calling the Uzumaki factor.”

Naruto frowned, “What is that? Did my mom do something back when she took the exams?”

Shikamaru looked at him incredulously, “You know just when I feel you have shed that nitwit persona of yours, you go and show me that you can still be that same clueless idiot.”

Both Yakumo and Moegi giggled, more so at the face Naruto made as opposed to what the Nara said, which was followed by Uzumaki complaining, “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything all that spectacular during the exams.”

“Except go toe to toe with a sanin,” Shikamaru countered.

“And got slapped with a seal that disrupted my chakra,” Naruto shot back, “Which doesn’t begin to explain why you would single Toka out to be eliminated.”

“Then how about an idiot who was so clueless that not only did he fail to answer a single question on the test he was given,” Shikamaru said before pausing to lite a cigarette. Which he took a drag of before continuing, “Then when asked if he was willing to take the final question, even under the belief that he would never be allowed to become a chunin proclaimed that just meant he’d become a Hokage straight from being a genin.”

Naruto looked somewhat embarrassed by how Shikamaru described his first exam, stating, “Yeah, but that was a long time ago.”

“Maybe,” Shikamaru replied, “But, while you may be marginally smarter, underneath it all you’re that same brash idiot who believes that he’ll forge his own path before going back on his word. A path that others then tend to follow after you on. So, Ibiki who seems to be cooking something up, reminded us all that it was after your little speech that nobody was willing to back out of his test. So, we staged thing to make it look like you’ve chosen poorly, especially on the off chance you had decided to go first.”

Naruto frowned not enjoying the idea that Toka was made an example of, especially if it was tied to her being one of his lovers so asked, “Why was she selected?”

“Well, as I said, it looks like Ibiki is up to something, and I believe he had plans to use her teammates as that is merely conjecture on my part,” Shikamaru stated. “But, I suspect she still might have been selected as in all honesty she has the means to go the distance even without a team. Word has it Yuugao already put in a request that she be elevated to Jounin, and then Anbu should she become a chunin.”

Naruto felt some relief at that, so stated, “That’s good. But, I don’t think things went exactly as planned.”

“No, it didn’t sound like they did,” Shikamaru said sounding concerned particularly by how Chouji had verbally gone after Naruto.” But trying to remain relatively upbeat added, “I don’t think they planned on little miss, Oh please Boss, feel free to cast me aside. You have a destiny before you.”

Moegi blushed as she said, “I didn’t say that.”

“No,” Yakumo said teasingly, “but he did capture the spirit behind your display.”

Moegi’s blush deepened at least until Naruto said, “I was touched though. But, please don’t ever think of throwing away your dreams like that again.”

“Boss,” Moegi said happily, “I just wanted to make sure you had the opportunity to become a chunin, and didn’t want to be the one holding you back.”

Naruto smiled at her, but stated, “I appreciate that. But, when I become a chunin, I don’t want it to be said that it was because I was willing to toss away a comrade.”

“Even if the comrade doesn’t mind?” Moegi asked quickly.

“Especially then,” Naruto replied, favoring her with a warm smile, “Because those are the hardest and most precious comrades one can find.” Turning towards Yakumo who was beginning to look disappointed that she had not been as quick to throw her ambitions away, he added, “Don’t you start feeling like I’m disappointed you didn’t, Yakumo. You have more than your own hopes riding on a successful exam. You both proved you are exceptional kunoichi today. I’m very lucky to be able to call you min…my teammates”

Shikamaru watched as Moegi and Yakumo seemed to positively beam from the Uzumaki’s words, and couldn’t help thinking, “Hard he says. He practically makes them by the dozen.” Arriving at the hotel, Shikamaru said, “Well, this is as far as I go. Kurenai should be arriving soon to give you the tomorrow’s meeting location, and an envelope that you’ll need to complete the next exam. Good luck!”

*********

Naruto stood in front of the Kazekage Mansion with many of the other Exam Participants from the various villages, with him assuming that many of those gathered were likely comprised of the teams that had not cut anyone. A theory he was basing off of the numbers and how the participants were grouped up, as well as the lack of hostility. “At least among those hailing from the same village,” he amended to himself as he noticed several Suna-nin giving him the evil eye. Although, he was standing next to Toka, so knew that might not be entirely the case, but this morning she had learned her teammates had apparently dropped out of the exams all together. So, suspected that at the very least the various gathering places the teams had been asked to meet at where at the very least not filled with former team members who might still be sore with one another.

Which despite it appearing that their location was going to be the place where the next proctor was going to explain their objectives due to the balcony, he assumed they’d all be hearing the same speech due to the massive screen hanging just below the balcony and the video cameras on it.

He was proven right as Shikamaru stepped out on the balcony followed by two of his fellow proctors who remained standing just behind him and then a moment later his face was projected on the screen. At which pointed he started off by saying, “Well, normally I’d start off by saying congratulations to those of you who passed. But, by now you’ve likely figured out the goal of the last test wasn’t really to whittle down your numbers. Now, we are not passing judgement on those of you who didn’t see through the ruse. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, we haven’t decided to fail you. Namely, as we couldn’t really come to a unanimous decision on the matter. Personally, I’d have failed every one of you. But apparently some villages value the type of person that…”

Naruto watching the screen could just make out one of the two proctors make a loud coughing noise behind him, and as Shikamaru looked back towards her causing the camera to pan enough to see her, he recognized her as one of Konan’s trusted shinobi Fuyou. Shikamaru looked rather annoyed, but turning away said, “But, personal matters aside. Here you stand ready to take on the next challenge. Which should be simple enough for most of you, as at noon today, you are to leave Suna and head to Konoha. You then have six days to complete the journey.”

“Hardly a challenge,” Toka said prompting Naruto to nod in agreement as he and the remnants of Team Seven had managed in just under three when Gaara had been kidnapped, and felt that if he had been traveling by himself, he would have been able to do it even faster.

“Now, I imagine there are those among you who feel this can’t be all there is to the challenge, and you are correct,” Shikamaru said while raising a hand to one of the snaps on his vest before adding, “Last night, your sensei gave you a sealed envelope that you were instructed to leave alone, but bring with you today. You may now unseal those envelopes.”

Naruto having been holding onto it for his team, produced his from his pouch and tore off the end. He dumped the contents into his hand causing three tokens to land in it. Which although they resembled the type of change one might receive when breaking a bill, were larger than standard coins. They also seemed unusually warm the to touch, which Naruto attributed to the black seal on either side which resided at the center of each coin.

Looking back up at the screen, he found Shikamaru was holding up one to the camera as he explained, “These tokens now represent your lives, and should they be taken from you, well much as if what they represent is taken from you there goes your aspiration and dreams to be chunin. I’m not just speaking figuratively here. As some of you may have heard, there have been a few people who dropped out after realizing they have cut their own odds at success down, and have decided to drop out. While the odds are low, if they had performed well enough during the first exam before flunking out on the eleventh question, again in my personal opinion.” Shikamaru paused to send a smug towards Fuyou, who looked as if she was about to force a cough again, but stopped to roll her eyes upon meeting his gaze. While the other proctor, a Cloud kunoichi that Naruto did recognize with short cropped brown hair and blue eyes, was giving the back of the Nara’s head an icy glare leaving him to guess it was the Cloud Village that hadn’t necessarily viewed teammates cutting one another as a weakness. Completing his previous train of thought, he stated, “Personal opinions aside, even with just the one exam under their belt those that dropped out may still be elevated to Chunin. But, those who decide to take this exam but fail, will not be eligible for advancement. Consider it my means of punishing those who are squashed because they now find themselves a man down. Or unwise enough to continue despite how stacked the odds against you are.” Turning towards the Cloud-nin, who maintained her glare at least until he tossed her the token, Shikamaru said, “Now Proctor Ran will explain just what we expect you to do with these tokens upon arriving at Konoha.”

Giving the coin a quick flip before catching it out of the air, Ran moved towards what appeared to be a camera mounted to a pole which was being held upright by a large block of cement. At the top of the camera was a metal covering with three openings which appeared large enough to hold the tokens, and a lever. Demonstrating the devices function she placed the coin in one of the openings, then began speaking as she performed the actions she described, “Upon reaching any of Konoha’s gates, you’ll find one of these cameras. Simply, place your teams tokens in like so and depress the lever. You’ll then have ten second to get in front of the camera to take your team’s picture.”

After the device flashed indicating it had taken hers, Ran then moved behind the device where she opened the back of it. She held up the coin, and after the video camera zoomed in on it, Naruto noticed the black mark was missing now. Ran explained its disappearance by stating, “As you can see, the seal has vanished this is because when it is registered by the camera, it pass a corresponding seal which causes it to transfer to the film. The coins each team have been given are all bonded together, meaning that should one of them be used all the seals will fail rendering them unable to trigger the camera.”

Although Naruto imagined the film in the camera would need to be developed, Ran apparently had already prepared one which she produced from the back of the device and held up for the camera to zoom in on. Naruto smiled as in the picture was, Shikamaru, who looked like he didn’t want to be there, along with Temari and Karui. He guessed the picture had likely been taken to test the camera would function as intended, although he wasn’t quite sure if it had been taken before or after Karui had become his lover. Both Temari and Karui had been forced to stop aiding in the exams, with Karui needing to upon her deciding to become an Anbu, while Temari had aided developing the test right up to the end, but had given up her proctor duties in order to sponsor Quistis’s team for the exams.

The smile faded some, as he recalled Tsunade informing him that Ibiki was planning some operation to coincide with this round of the exams. Which although she hadn’t given him much in the way of details, she had informed him that the Jounin had intended to speak with Temari about how best to change some special provision in the rules that had been geared towards him since he may be called away to aid them if things got hairy. With the knowledge that he now possessed, he suspected there was going to be a rule geared towards preventing him from just grabbing Moegi, Yakumo, and even Toka as soon as the explanation was over and Hiraishining the lot of them to Konoha.

Yet, not getting too far ahead of himself, he focused back in on the explanation, as Ran pointed to three black marks that appeared on the photo which he imagined were the same ones that had once been on the coins. Which she confirmed by stating, “As you can see, when the picture is taken we’ll be able to judge how many coins were used once the film is developed by the number of marks that appear. Any team trying to trick us by having members who have lost their coins posing in the picture will be failed. There will also be a Konoha proctor stationed at the gate at all times, this is so they can verify that all the members are actually present at the time the picture was taken. Just in case someone tries to use a clone or a henge to cover for a team member who may have fallen behind for some reason or another but passed their coin on. For an explanation for the rest of the rules, I’ll pass you on to Proctor Fuyou.”

Fuyou smiled politely as the camera panned to her while she stood in front of a map which was blown up to show in detail the territory that laid between Konoha and Suna. Holding her hand up to it she said rather playfully, “Now perhaps you are beginning to understand why you have been given six days to complete the journey, since depending on your current strength it may not be wise to make straight for the Leaf Village. But, I suppose that depends on what rules you are expected to follow doesn’t it.” Growing serious, she stated unequivocally, “First, any team or should we say former teams caught fighting each other or another during the trip will fail this round of the exams. You will of course be allowed to defend yourselves if you are attacked, so this rule only really applies to the aggressor. There are Anbu proctors stationed all throughout the territory between the villages so even if you think you are alone, don’t count on that necessarily being the case. They also will step in before things get too out of hand, so keep that in mind if you are thinking of settling any kind of grudges.”

Naruto felt some relief at that hoping it would dissuade most if not all of the Suna-nin who were currently staring at him angrily from acting on those feelings. Still, he knew he couldn’t relax his guard completely since although the rule on the matter seemed clear enough, considering the number of participants there probably wouldn’t be enough proctors to be everywhere at once allowing for plenty of gaps to appear in their coverage. Plus, given the test fully allowed for the coins to be stolen, it meant a team or individual might resort to attacking whoever had stolen it. Particularly due to all the coins of a team being bonded together, which meant that only one needed to be stolen and then its thief could just reach the camera first to use it thereby causing all the team member to fail. He also realized that was also the reason behind the rule not allowing missing team members to have their picture taken. Since the best way to perhaps deal with such a situation would be for the member who still had their tokens to rush ahead to use them before they were rendered useless.

This also explained why they were being given so much time complete the journey, as while many would think traveling quickly and in a straight line might be the best option in order to divest themselves of their tokens as quickly as possible. One of the more winding paths that one could take to Konoha, and was mainly traveled by civilians actually ran through several towns. Which could help mitigate the risk of being attacked, as Naruto imagined that would be the path where a considerable number of the Proctors would be stationed to prevent any harm from coming to the people of the Lands of Fire and Wind.

His ears perked up as Fuyou said, “Now some of you have the means to teleport great distances. But, it wouldn’t be much of a competition if you just snatched up your teammates and appeared in your house or something. So, any such techniques are forbidden. But, the point was recently raised that such a rule could prove detrimental to any individuals possessing such techniques and using them in battle or more importantly to escape from one. So, we’ve amended the rule. Which is now should you come under attack you can use any teleportation jutsu to defend yourselves in the immediate vicinity. But, if you are using it to cover a considerable distance, you may not use it to travel towards the Leaf Village. Meaning, you’ll only be able to teleport back in the direct of Suna, or along lateral line from your current location. So any distance lost as a result has to be made up on foot.”

Naruto understanding that the change was meant to free him in order to aid Ibiki if necessary, guessed that meant the operation was definitely taking place in the direction of Suna. He felt a sense of amusement at his earlier hubris as depending on if and when they needed his aid, it would likely mean that he’d be given the chance to prove he could complete the journey between the villages faster than most.

Fuyou wrapped up her explanation by stating, “Well, you still have a few hours until you’ll be allowed to leave for Konoha so spend that time as you wish, although I’d keep an eye on your tokens if I were you. However, for those of you who want to avoid the mad rush that will probably head out of here at noon, you are free to remain for as long as you want. You just better be able to cover the distance in whatever time you leave yourself. But, from this point on, the rules against fighting your fellow participants are in effect.”

Naruto nodded feeling excited as the crowed began to disburse to collect their things. He handed Yakumo and Moegi each of their tokens, while placing his back in his pouch but just as he was about to ask them how they wanted to proceed, he heard his mom’s voice calling his name excitedly, “Naruto!”

Turning towards her, he was rather confused to find her dressed in her Akatsuki robe as she ran towards him waving happily, “Mom, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I wanted to congratulate you on passing the first round of the exams.”

Naruto was about to correct her stating that it wasn’t much of an achievement as all he had basically needed to do was show up. But, he noticed that quite a lot of the genin around him were looking rather mortified almost on his behalf, while picturing how they’d feel to have one of their parents show up in such a manner for them. Of course, Naruto imagined that for many of them, they likely had experienced it plenty of times coming up through their Academies. While all he had been able to do was sit and watch on. Realizing his mother was trying to give him one such moment, he smiled warmly and gratefully as he said, “Thank you mom!”

Kushina smiled happily, glad to have such a moment herself, wrapped her arms tightly around her son’s neck and pulling herself tight against him said, “Mommy’s so proud of you.” Naruto wrapped his arms around her midsection as they ignored those around them to just enjoy the moment. After several heartbeats his mother’s chipper tone switch tracks as it became sultry as she whispered into his ear, “So hurry up and ace these exams so mommy can reward you by using all her holes to drain your balls dry.”

Naruto felt his dick begin to lurch as Kushina, using the sleeves of one of her arms to hid her face as she began nibbling on his earlobe. She then stepped back pushing against his chest causing him to stumble back in surprise at her sudden shift as she returned to her chipper self while stating, “Although, mommy’s not going to be able to give you a reward for passing if you fail to do a better job of holding onto this.”

Naruto’s mouth dropped open as his mother held up his token before giving him a wide smile as she turned on her heel to take off while laughing. “Hey give that back,” Naruto shouted taking off after her retreating and laughing form as first Kushina and then Naruto leapt up to Suna’s rooftops.

Moegi and Yakumo shared amused looks while Toka occupied the spot the male Uzumaki had just vacated while asking, “I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier, but you don’t mind if I join you three on this leg of the exams.”

“Of course not,” Yakumo stated quickly losing sight of the two Uzumaki.

“Yeah,” Moegi seconded, “As the more the merrier is kind of our motto, right?”

“Indeed,” Toka said contently quite pleased with the new Family that she found herself blessed with.

Next Chapter: The Chunin Exams Part Deux!: The Mad Rush Forward!

Author’s notes: Hello everyone, and thank you for your patience. As always I hope the chapter proved worth the wait. Well we are finally at the exams themselves, and I hope I did a relatively good job of covering what can admittedly be a hard test to convey a proper amount of tension considering it having been probably covered to death in other stories. I hope the twist although most would probably see through it, considering the nature of the Eroninja in generally, at least left enough doubts as to what the true answer was until the end. Well, I guess I just hope I managed to properly lay out an worthwhile scenario since really while I’ve ragged on Naruto and the ending. His reaction to the first round of the exam was really something that made me fall in love with the character enough to dedicate over a decade to a fiction about him, and so regardless of the scumbag I currently view him as in the manga and its continuation through a cheap knockoff, at least this chapter displays the characteristics I originally found so appealing about him and try to keep alive in this story.

I would also like to take the time to thank those of you who take the time to leave a review as they really are the fuel that keep me motivated to write.

Going forward, although I am not going to give an exact time line my goal is to have up to the third round wrapped up shortly after the New Year. This would include the support stories tied to it as I intend to work on the Anthesis chapter concurrently with chapter 106 which will focus on the second round where we’ll be introduced to a few other teams that had been mentioned or hinted at, as well as a few that haven’t. I’ll probably then drop the Limelight chapter next, and the focus on the third round of the exams, which is probably going to be where the bulk of the arc is spent. The final round will probably take place several chapters after that considering the month time those who make it that far are given to prepare. Although who can say if there will even be such an occurrence if certain plans that have been hinted at come to fruition.

However, after we reach this breaking point, I’ll probably dedicate at least the time needed to write one chapter of the Promise, and perhaps one or two of the Pride. Before we conclude the arc. If you read this far, well I thank you again and hope you enjoyed it and are looking forward to the next installment. So until then, take care! Sincerely, the Lemon Sage.