Team 7 stood in shock facing a large room filled to the brim with ninja from all different villages across the Five Great Shinobi Countries. Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the group of ninja, most look many years older than himself and his teammates. Sakura and Naruto did little to hide their shocked and somewhat fearful expressions.
"I had no idea there'd be so much competition" Sakura thought to herself as her eyes drifted from one menacing looking face to the next. The silent reverie of the teens was interrupted by the sound of hurried footsteps.
"SASUKE WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" A voice called out.
Sakura turned to see Ino Yamanaka engulf Sasuke in a back hug; her cheeks stained a pretty pink. Sasuke immediately stiffened and turned his head to glare at the loud blonde girl who had her arms wrapped around his neck lovingly. The Yamanaka fan-girl of course, the only one equalled to Sakura in loudness and annoyingness.
But Sasuke no longer considered Sakura loud or annoying; in fact he didn't exactly know where he stood with his female teammate. However he did know that too much time spent around the pink haired girl caused him troublesome thoughts and feelings.
Glancing at his teammate Sasuke once again encountered these troublesome thoughts as he observed that Sakura looked none too happy with the Yamanaka girl on his back. The same emotion Sasuke felt when Sakura rejected the bushy brow kid flared up again, approving of Sakura's facial expression and Sasuke allowed a small smirk to grace his features.
She was clearly put out by the Yamanaka girl's attentions towards him, could it be she was jealous? Sasuke's smirk grew wider at the thought of this but it was soon diminished as Ino spoke yet again
"Boy you have no how much I was hoping you'd show up here! I've missed those brooding good looks of yours" Ino exclaimed as she clung to Sasuke tighter.
Sakura watched the interaction, deadpanned and attempting to control the jealous fury rising within her. She clenched her fists in an attempt to control her emotions. She wasn't supposed to be feeling this way anymore, Sasuke was just her teammate… right?
Upon hearing the comment made about Sasuke's 'brooding good looks' Sakura let out a slight hissing sound which quickly drew Ino's attention.
"Well well Miss Forehead. See you've had a makeover, another useless attempt to win Sasuke's heart no doubt. You've still got those frown lines on your billboard brow I see" Ino jeered and Sakura glared.
"Shut up Ino and get off my teammate" Sakura said in an annoyed voice. Ino simply stuck her tongue out at her rival.
Sasuke shook Ino off his back (much to her disappointment), still wearing the same self-satisfied smirk. He was met with an annoyed questioning glance from Sakura to which he shrugged his shoulders and re-adopted his emotionless expression.
"Oh it's you guys, I knew this thing was going to be a drag but I didn't know it'd be this lame" Shikamaru said, approaching the group along with Choji who was stuffing handfuls of potato chips in his mouth.
"So all three stooges are here" Naruto teased and Shikamaru looked up angrily.
"You know what pipsqueak! Ah forget it, you're a waste of time" Shikamaru replied, the lazy side of him kicking in.
"Hmph that Shikamaru Nara is one of the whiniest and laziest guys in the academy and Choji Akimichi though it's more like Akimunchy, I think he'd eat his own head if he could!" Naruto thought.
"Well, well what do you know? Looks like the whole gang's back together again" Kiba called out, walking across the room with his teammates Hinata Hyuga and Shino in tow. His dog Akamaru resting on his head.
Seriously? More of them? All 9 rookie squads must have been nominated for the Chunin exams then,Sakura thought.
"H-hi N-Naruto" Hinata stuttered out shyly and Naruto simply stared at the Huyga girl who turned a bright red. Sasuke watched and shook his head; his blonde teammate truly was a clueless idiot.
"Looks like everyone his here for this stupid thing" Shikamaru spoke; voicing his annoyance which Sasuke silently agreed with.
"Yep! Here we all are the 9 Rookies! This is going to be fun, at least for those of us good enough to make the cut. Right Sasuke?" Kiba declared loudly and smirked at the Uchiha boy.
"Hmph, Kiba. Careful you don't get overconfident now" Sasuke replied arrogantly.
"Just you wait; we're going to blow you guys out of the water. We've been training like crazy" Kiba declared and Naruto's ears pricked up.
"What do you think we've been doing? Sitting around picking daisies? You don't know what training means!" Naruto all but screamed back.
"U-uh d-don't mind Kiba. I-I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it" Hinata spoke in a soft voice, fidgeting and promptly turned a bright red which drew Kiba's attention.
Mmmm, Akamaru's looking plumper… juicier Choji thought hungrily and withdrew his hand from the chip packet before taking a step forward towards Kiba and his clearly edible dog. He didn't get very far before Shino stepped in front of him.
"What do you want?" Choji asked gruffly but Shino remained silent and shifted his gaze to the ground where a bug crawled past Choji's foot.
"Thought maybe you hadn't seen it. Didn't want you stepping on it" Shino said, his voice low with an eeriness to it.
"Why, you saving it for lunch?" Choji asked but was met with no response.
"Hey, you all might want to keep it down a bit" Sakura spoke up as the rookie's turned their attention to her.
"And why would we want to do that forehead?" Ino asked, annoyed by Sakura's new attitude.
Wordlessly Sakura gestured towards the rest of the room, every ninja had their head turned towards the Rookie 9, eyes fixed on the group listening closely.
"I was about to come over here and say the same thing, but looks like she beat me to it" A voice called out from the right hand side of the room.
The owner of the voice approached the genin squads, his silver hair tied back in a ponytail and horn-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. Sakura observed he was quite a few years older than them.
"You're the 9 rookies, fresh out of the academy right? I wouldn't go making a spectacle of yourselves, like your friend said you need to cool it. This isn't a class fieldtrip" The unknown man spoke.
"Well who asked you? Who are you?" Ino asked in an annoyed voice.
"I'm Kabuto Yakushi, but like the pink haired one said, look around you. You've made quite an impression" Kabuto replied smugly and the genin gazed over the room in shock.
Sakura's eye made contact with a group of male ninja who had four straight lines on their forehead protectors and dark cloaks covering their bodies.
"See those guys; they're from the Rain Village. Very touchy. They all are. This exam makes everyone tense and you don't want to rub them the wrong way right now" Kabuto spoke and all genin silently agreed.
"But it's not your fault, how could you know? You're just rookies. You remind me of myself a few years back" The silver haired man mused.
"So this isn't the first time you've taken these exams?" Sakura asked.
"No it's my seventh, well they're held twice a year so this will be my fourth year" Kabuto explained.
"So I guess all those rumours about the exam being tough are true. Oh man, I knew this was going to be a drag" Shikamaru said dejectedly.
"Hey don't give up hope yet. Maybe I can help you kids out a little, with my ninja info cards" Kabuto said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a stack of cards with markings on the back.
"What are those?" Sasuke asked and the rest of the rookies gathered around as Kabuto put the cards on the ground.
"These cards are chakra encoded with everything I've learnt over the past four years. So I haven't really been wasting my time. They don't look like much to the naked eye; in fact they're completely blank" Kabuto spoke, picking a card up from the stack and turning it over.
"Don't want just anyone seeing this stuff" He continued and placed one finger on the card and began to spin it around.
"What are you doing?" Ino asked.
"You see I'm using my chakra to reveal their secrets. Like this for example" Kabuto explained and put his fingers to his lips, concentrating his chakra. A small puff of smoke and suddenly the once blank card now revealed a map.
"This map shows the geographical history of all the candidates who have come to take the Chunin exams. The villages they come from, and how many from each village. Why do you guys think they all come here to take the exam together at the same time?" Kabuto asked.
The genin remained blank faced apart from Choji who had resumed shovelling handfuls of chips into his mouth.
"Wouldn't it be to foster friendship between nations? Well outwardly anyway. The only other possible reason behind it would be to regulate the amount of Shinobi each village has, thus maintaining the balance of power between the nations?" Sakura responded surprising everyone and impressing Kabuto.
"Very good, you've got a brain about you" Kabuto said and Ino's eyes narrowed at Sakura.
Stupid smarty pants forehead. What exactly happened to her since we left the academy? Ino thought angrily.
"If the balance of power isn't maintained, one village could end up with more Shinobi than another and it might be tempted to attack its neighbours. So they try and maintain the status quo" Kabuto finished and looked around at the genin who seemed to comprehend the importance.
"Do those cards of yours have any information on the other candidates? Individually?" Sasuke asked, stepping forward.
"They might… do you have someone special in mind?" Kabuto asked confidently.
"I might" Sasuke replied in a cold voice.
"I've got something on just about everyone, including you guys of course. Tell me any information you can about the candidates and I'll give you what I've got" Kabuto replied, picking up the stack of cards.
"There's Gaara of the Sand, and Rock Lee of the Leaf Village while you're at it" The Uchiha prodigy spoke, eyes narrowing.
Swiping over the deck quickly, Kabuto picked up two cards in his hand and turned the first one over. Sakura peered over Sasuke's shoulder to see better, the card had a picture of Rock Lee as well as his teammates Team 7 had seen before.
"First up is Rock Lee, he's about a year older than you guys with 11 C Ranks and 20 D Ranks of mission experience. His squad leader is Gai, in the last 12 months his taijutsu has radically improved but his other skills are a little shaky. This will be his first time as a candidate for the exams as for some reason last year he chose not to participate. His teammates are Tenten and Neji Hyuga" Kabuto read from the card.
Hinata looked up cautiously at the mention of Neji's name but nobody seemed to pay any attention to it apart from Naruto, but his attention was quickly drawn back to the cards as Kabuto placed a new blank info card over Rock Lee's and performing the same technique.
"Now for Gaara. Mission experience is 8 C Ranks and how about this, one B Rank as a genin! There's not a lot more information on this guy. He was a rookie from another land originally but there is this. He survived every mission without getting a scratch on him" Kabuto said, mildly surprised.
Placing another blank card down, the silver haired man activated the map once again.
"Leaf, Sand, Rain, Grass, Waterfall and Sound. From the looks of it they've all sent exceptionally good candidates to the exams this time around. Of course the Hidden Sound Village is small, it sprang up recently so no one knows anything about it – those guys are a mystery" Kabuto said placing his cards back together.
"In the four years I've been coming here I've never seen a crop of candidates with this much potential" The silver haired man finished, leaving the rookie 9's confidence quite small.
Well that's a fine and optimistic way to finish things. Naruto's even shaking and nothing normally gets to him,Sakura thought as she watched her blonde haired teammate silently.
Making a move to try and reassure him, the pink haired teen took a step forward but Naruto turned around quickly letting out a loud growl and pointing his finger straight at the room full of candidates.
"MY NAME IS NARUTO UZUMAKI AND I'M GOING TO BEAT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU! BELIEVE IT!" Naruto yelled loudly as Sakura stared in disbelief. Sasuke and Kabuto both smirked at the outburst.
"You heard what he said about the Hidden Sound Village?" A man asked quietly within the crowd.
"I heard" Another with bandages across his face replied.
"I say we teach this guy some manners" The female on the squad decided.
"You moron, are you trying to get everybody in the place to hate our guts or what?" Shikamaru asked Naruto who was feeling extremely proud after his outburst.
Kabuto's eyes suddenly narrowed and the three Sound ninja moved quickly within the crowd undetected. Kankuro who felt their presence began to remove the mummy from his back but was silenced with a hand from Garra.
The Sound Village ninja with spiky black hair lept into the air and pulled out two kunai knives and threw them straight for Kabuto who dodged them skilfully. Before anyone could blink, the other man with the bandages covering his face was in front of Kabuto in an instant preparing to throw a punch which Kabuto dodged instantly.
He's almost as quick as me, Sasuke thought as he and the rest of rookies watched the fight in shock.
Kabuto however stood unharmed and a small smile crossed his face until his glasses cracked and the glass promptly fell from his frames onto the floor. The whole room remained silent, watching Kabuto's reaction.
Calmly the silver haired man removed his frames. "Oh I get it, it was that kind of attack" he spoke in an oddly calm voice.
"Hang on! I saw it all, he dodged the attack. How did that happen?" Sasuke asked angrily.
"It must have come closer than it looked; psh look at him acting like it was nothing. Real tough guy" Shikamaru scoffed.
Kabuto gasped suddenly and his vision went blurry, dropping to his knees he began to shake before throwing up a little. Sakura and Naruto rushed over to help him to his feet.
"Write this on your little card punk. The genin from the Sound Village will be Chunin when this is over. Guaranteed." The spiky haired Sound ninja taunted.
There was more to that attack than just speed, it had to be some kind of trick, Sakura thought as she watched the Sound ninja carefully.
Suddenly a huge puff of smoke covered the front of the room, drawing everyone's attention.
"ALRIGHT YOU BABY-FACED DEGENERATES. PIPE DOWN AND LISTEN UP!" A voice called out loudly. The smoke cleared to reveal a team of people in dark ninja clothing with a tall man standing in the centre of the group with two long scars across his face. He was the one who had spoken.
"It's time to begin. I'm Ibiki Morino your proctor and from this moment your worst enemy"