Disclaimer: Ch 1

I apologize for being 2 days late with this update, but I was unprepared for how focused my ADD medication would make me in regards to studies and was hard pressed to fit in some time to write this chapter.

Before you read, a couple things:

First, something that should have been answered last chapter that I forgot to address: Yaoi.

Everyone who wanted it, I'm sorry

Everyone who didn't, relax

I canNOT write yaoi. The yaoi moment in the 6th chapter was influenced by me having a couple friends who are gay and was purely for comedic purposes; my Ex-Gf always seemed amused at how unsettled I was when one of her gay friends hit on me so I decided to share the joy with you. Also because I really can't see a male-Haku as being anything but Bi at the very least.

As far as the pairing for Naruto goes, one of the few things that Kishimoto did consistently correct was keeping romance from interfering with the true nature the manga. Similarly, this story isn't focused on romance and won't have an identifiable pairing for Naruto till much later on. It will be Naruto x Female though.

On another note:

I had over 50 follows for the last chapter alone and feel extremely honored for all support.

I STILL NEED A BETA. IF YOU APPLY THEN YOU GET TO READ CHAPTERS A DAY EARLY.

RRFSC

Jiraya stilled his breath as he crouched down behind a bush at the edge of the clearing: his eyes trained on the single figure sitting lackadaisically on the porch of a small hovel.

The Toad Sage was currently deep in Land of Rice fields, attempting to gain information about the recently declared Sound Village. After spending some time snooping around the daimyo's mansion, Jiraiya gotten lucky and followed a messenger-nin back to the entrance of Sound. Unfortunately, it turned out that Sound kept itself hidden by keeping the entirety the Hidden Village underground; with a single visible entrance, Jiraiya knew he wouldn't be able to get through unnoticed as it was well manned and there was no civilian traffic for the white haired man to blend in with.

Jiraiya had attempted to enter the Village via an Earth Jutsu but had been stymied when he realized the the tunnels below were lined with seals that he couldn't quietly dismantle without being on the other side. Following alongside the tunnels, looking for gaps in the sealing, Jiraiya had found a tunnel branching away from the village. Following the tunnel for a few miles, he had eventually found the apparent back door to the village and was now staking it out.

Using low levels of Senjutsu, Jiraiya boosted his sensing range and was able to get a feel for the opposition: there were a total of three guards that he would need to get past. The first was the rather inattentive man on the porch with the other two being a similarly bored pair within the house.

Smiling at how easy this would be, Jiraiya quickly got to work.

The man sitting by the porch was able to see the blur that jumped out the bushes at the edge of the clearing, but he wasn't able to make a single sound before a thin needle slipped between the space in his spine where it connected to his skull. Nearly instantly, the guard felt himself go numb and become unable to control his limbs or vocal cords.

Jiraiya smiled at the effectiveness of the drug he had coated the specially designed senbon with. Tsunade might remain unwilling to talk to him cordially, but Shizune was always willing to help her master's teammate.

As Jiraiya turned from the slumped ninja, he tried to decide how to take care of the other two guards that remained oblivious within the hovel.

Deciding that discretion was the best choice of action, Jiraiya just a slight amount of lightning chakra to shock the first guard's vocal cords into the producing what could be construed as a shout of surprise. Jiraiya stood back and watched as the pair of men within lept out through doorway. Shaking his head at how easy they had made this for him, Jiraiya quickly got behind the pair and knocked them out with a chop to the neck each.

It would be foolish to aggravate a new village before he even knew its military strength, so Jiraiya quickly used one of the few techniques he had managed to wrangle out of the Yamanaka and wiped the memories of the last few hours from the trio while setting them up with a pile of empty sake bottles and entering the hovel.

Once he was inside, Jiraiya could easily see the 'hidden" exit and made his way down it. For a few minutes, Jiraiya sprinted down the tunnel in darkness: using what remained of the slight senjutsu chakra he had originally prepared to help guide him. Soon enough though, Jiraiya arrived at wide passage where the tunnel had originally branched off from the village just as the last of his senjutsu faded away. He was surprised to see that it was unmanned and thanked his luck as he transformed himself into looking like an unremarkable man wearing the same style of clothing as the guards he had knocked out.

Suppressing his chakra signature to the level of an average chunnin, Jiraiya began to explore.

'Odd,' Jiraiya thought 15 minutes later as he passed by a somewhat short man waddling down the corridor with a stack of papers.'That was only the third person I've seen so far. Even if its a new Hidden Village, there should be more people.'

Seeing a ninja turn the corner ahead of him, Jiraiya upped his pace and began to trail the man. They turned a few corners before making their way through a downward sloping corridor. Eventually, they reached the end of the in behind the man, Jiraiya looked around to see that he was in an absolutely enormous cavern that was filled with thousands of Shinobi.

'So this is where they all were,' Jiraiya mused, staying in the shadows as he observed the large group. ' but why-'

Jiraiya's thoughts screeched to a halt as he recognized the maneuvers the veritable army was practicing. They were slightly different than the ones JIraiya knew, but the couple thousand shinobi were definitely practicing invasion maneuvers. There was only one reason for a Hidden Village to have what looked like all its shinobi practicing for an invasion during a time of peace and, as Jiraiya began to understand, he grit his teeth in anger.

Knowing that it was even more crucial than ever to find information about Sound, Jiraiya slipped back into the tunnels and began to search in earnest. It took a while, but Jiraiya eventually made his way to what looked like a throne room. It wasn't very ornate, but there was a raised dais and plenty of room: indicating that this was where the village leader met with his shinobi.

Looking around of a hidden entrance, Jiraiya snorted as he remembered that the leader of the Hidden Sound apparently called himself the Otokage. There were only five true kage and, even though they wouldn't feel any true backlash from it, it was impudent of this village to insinuate that they were on the same level of the Great Five.

Fingers hovering lightly over the walls as he traced along the back walls, Jiraiya began his search before stopping as he felt the slight vestiges of chakra. As a Fuuinjutsu Master, Jiraiya was able to quickly reveal and deactivate the hidden seal, causing a section of wall to drop away and reveal the tunnel that lay behind it. Jiraiya snuck down the hallway before it opened up into a decently sized room filled with rows large tanks but otherwise empty. Jiraya ignored the familiarity that the empty tanks provoked before realizing that one of them was still full. Walking over to it, Jiraiya found himself experiencing an extreme case of deja-vu as he observed the young girl floating in the green liquid: the electronic readout at the side of the tank indicating that she had passed on.

Beginning to have an inkling of just who ran this village, Jiraiya once more entered a diluted form of the sage mode and tried to find another sealing array that would lead to the next room. He wasn't able to find another hidden door, but he did find a smallish seal set four feet up a wall. This seal was a good bit harder for Jiraiya to undo, but he eventually succeeded in safely deactivating it.

As a rectangular section of the wall slid away to reveal a decent sized cubby hole Jiraiya grit his teeth in anger. Still in his diluted Sage Mode, It was impossible for him to mistake the chakra signature that lingered within the small storage space.

Orochimaru.

Looking within for any clues, Jiraiya found it empty except for a shriveled hand. Jiraiya wrinkled his nose as he realized that the severed appendage was, almost imperceptibly, emanating a cold, corrupt version of Nature energy and was about to reflexively torch it before stopping as he saw that there was a ring on the pinky of the closer, Jiraiya observed the ring and noted that it was colored a pale green and embossed with the kanji for "sky" where a gemstone should have been.

Jiraiya reached into his vest and unsealed a pair of tweezers. Delicately, Jiraiya used the tweezers to pull the ring off of the hand. As the ring slipped off the finger, Jiraiya realized the corrupt Nature Energy he had been feeling had been coming from the ring and not the hand. Repulsed by the feel of the energy it was emitting, Jiraiya quickly pulled out a scroll and sealed the ring into it, channeling chakra through the tweezers so as to avoid touching the ring directly. Stowing the scroll into a seal on the inside of his vest, Jiraiya didn't bother spending time to close the storage space. He quickly made his way back into the main chamber and to a sealing tag that was stuck on one of the walls. Ripping it off, Jiraiya ran through a set of seals and sank through the wall, now that he was no longer blocked from doing so by the tag he had just pulled off.

He didn't bother trying to search for more information, knowing just how thorough Orochimaru was and that it was highly unlikely for the snake faced bastard to have written his plans down.

Jiraiya quickly reached the surface and began to run for Konoha. He was more useful in the village than he would be outside it for the foreseeable future.

Yugito Nii cleaned her nails as she walked through the hallway, headed for the Raikage's office. She'd been summoned by one of the communication-nin and was calmly making her way there.

Yugito's face was slightly scrunched in concentration as she continued to try to pick at the slight bit of dried blood that was stuck beneath one of her nails. Had anyone from another village seen her, they might have been tempted to call her a fangirl: based on how much care was visible in her nails. They would have been mistaken and quickly mangled. Yugito was a consummate professional: experienced in the rigors of being a frontline shinobi, and dedicated to keeping Kumo safe; she just had a little bit of a complex over her nails. No one truly knew the reason for it, but most just agreed that it was an influence of the two-tailed cat that was sealed within her and then hid in fear whenever someone chipped one.

Eventually, getting out the last of the blood, the Kumo jonin smiled slightly before once more clearing her face of expression and opening the door to the Raikage's office.

Looking up from reading mission reports, the musclebound man sitting behind the only desk in the room saw Yugito standing in the doorway.

"You needed me Raikage-sama?", Yugito asked as she watched her kage, Ei (A), continue to pump a barbell in his right hand while closing the mission reports with his left.

"Yes," Ei nodded before cutting to the chase."you are to take your team to Konohagakure and have them participate in the Chunnin Exams that will be held there in four days time."

Yugito's eyebrows shot up in surprise. She had been prepared for the brusque manner of the Yondaime Raikage but this completely threw her off balance. Years ago, when she had believed herself to be a mere tool of Kumo, she would have simply followed the orders. Then she had met Bee: the other "tool" of Kumo.

"On such short notice?", she asked, internally remarking that her interactions with the Eight-tails' Jinchuriki had definitely changed her.

"Yes," Ei said, continuing to pump his barbell as he looked out the window towards where Konoha lay. "I've already had the paperwork processed and gotten you and your team clearance to quickly pass through the borders."

"But I thought we had already declined?" the Jinchuuriki questioned.

"Officially," Ei gruffly explained," we are rescinding our previous statement because we have learned that the clan heirs of many of Konoha's strongest clans will also be a part of the exam and wish to pit some of our best gennin against them."

"And unofficially?", Yugito asked, having picked up on Ei's wording..

For a few seconds the room remained still save for the methodically moving right arm of Raikage. Yugito thought that she was going to be denied that information and had decided to leave and get her team on the road to Konoha. Before she could speak up and ask permission to exit, she stopped herself as Ei reached out with his left hand and pumped some chakra into a small seal on the edge of his desk. A moment later, the seal glowed blue before thin lines shot out from it and connected to seals scattered along the walls, door, and windows before they all faded away.

"Unofficially," he started, this time his voice carrying none of the impatience it usually did, "we have received information that an Uzumaki remains in Konoha."

Sasuke's teeth ground against each other as yet another team passed by him and entered the Academy. Next to him, Sakura was in a similar state of annoyance:not even in the mood to "discretely" oogle Sasuke.

The pair of rookies were currently waiting outside the entrance of the Academy for the third genin of Team Seven to show up. It was currently 9:30 on the day of the Chunin Exams; while they weren't necessarily late, the exam was to start in 30 minutes and they had originally planned to be waiting in the designated room 301 by 8 so that they could have plenty of time to scope out the competition.

Sasuke watched the clock in the reception area of the Academy as it slowly kept ticking until it was 9:40. Turning back to the pathway leading up to the building, he was seconds away from deciding to simply go to Naruto's apartment and drag him out when he observed that a mop of blond hair was finally making it's way towards him.

Watching the whiskered boy come to a stop before his teammates, Sasuke got ready to watch Sakura take out her anger on the source of their mutual frustration until they both noticed that Naruto had his head hung low and was oddly quiet.

Concerned, Sakura bent down and looked at her teammate's face to see that his eyes were closed and had bags beneath them. She was about to tell Naruto to open his eyes before she was startled by a loud buzzing. Sakura straightened up and looked around to try to figure out where the sound was coming from. Another buzz a few seconds later clued her in to it's source. Incredulous, Sakura realized that her teammate was literally asleep on his feet.

Sasuke, for his part, was equally surprised at seeing his normally hyperactive teammate in such a condition but pushed the shock to the side as they were running out of time.

"Dobe, wake up." Sasuke commanded as he stepped forward and tried to wake Naruto up by shaking him.

Without a hint of warning, Naruto's arm swung at Sasuke and the raven haired boy was nearly hit: managing to get out of the way of the backhand just in time thanks to his above average reflexes. Missing it's target, Naruto's hand continued its swing heading for one of the pillars that held up the overhang in front of the Academy entrance.

Sasuke subconsciously prepared himself for his teammate to start yelling in pain as Naruto's hand got close to the cement structure. Instead, Sasuke felt a familiar pulse of chakra just as the blonde's loose fist made contact with the pillar.

Sasuke clenched his fist as he brought his arm up to his face so as to protect himself from the chips of cement that were now headed for him. Once he felt that the impromptu stone shower had passed, he brought his arm back down to see the shallow indent that Naruto had made in the pillar.

'Dammit,' Sasuke thought furiously,''that would have hurt.'

Stepping forward to end the fight that he thought Naruto wanted to start, Sasuke's jaw mentally dropped upon seeing that Naruto was still sleeping.

"Did Naruto just reflexively dent a cement pillar?" Sakura asked from behind him as she noticed the same thing.

Sasuke merely nodded in response.

"Great," fumed Sakura, stomping her feet in frustration, " now how do we get to the exam room in time?"

Before he could come up with an answer of his own, Sasuke realized that Kakashi was crouched on the overhang above them and merely pointed at the jonin.

"Sensei!", Sakura said in surprise.

"Yo," Kakashi said, the amusement obvious in his tone." It seems like you have a bit of a problem."

"Can you help us?" Sakura asked.

"Hmm. a Jonin sensei really isn't supposed to interfere in the Exam." Kakashi replied.

Clasping her hands, Sakura tried to reinforce the request with what her father liked to call her "Puppy Eyes" kinjutsu.

Kakashi pretended to muse over the request for a few seconds before giving his answer. "Say please and I'll help my cute little genin one last time before the exam begins"

"Please?", Sakura said nearly instantly, wanting to get to the room as soon as possible.

When no second "please" came for her Uchiha teammate, she looked over to see that he looked slightly pained.

It wasn't so much that Sasuke was too arrogant to say please to a man like Kakashi, but more so that he was annoyed that the first time he'd be using the word in over 5 years would be for something as trivial as asking his sensei to wake up his teammate. Before he could grunt a negative to his sensei, he saw that the clock inside the reception area now read 9:50. Realizing that time was running out, he forced the word through his lips. "Please."

Despite the tone of response, Kakashi apparently decided that it was acceptable. As the two genin watched, their sensei ran through a set of three hand signs that were followed by Kakashi spitting a glob of water at Naruto.

Instead of yelling in surprise and jumping around comically from the cold water like he had a week ago, Naruto merely raised his drenched head: eyes now half open,holding none of their usual impatient energy.

"Oh hi sensei,' the usually exuberant boy spoke sluggishly before turning to his teammates. "What are you guys waiting for lets get to the room."

Kakashi watched as the boy walked through the entrance to the Academy, head once more hanging in exhaustion as he shambled through the reception. Not even having to look back, the jonin reached out with his left hand and caught the cuff of Sasuke's shirt before he could dash past and attack his teammate.

"Now, now," Kakashi admonished the second oldest of his genin team, " the first phase of the Chunin Exams requires you to be in teams of three. If you go and put our little sleepyhead in the hospital then you'll have failed the exams before they even begin."

The raven-haired boy just huffed in irritation before shrugging of Kakashi's hold and walking into the building at a brisk pace so as to catch up to Naruto.

As Kakashi watched Sakura jog to catch up to the other two boys, he thoughtfully rubbed the tip of this left pointer finger: he almost hadn't caught the cuff of Sasuke's shirt.

"You two really like to keep me on my toes don't you?" the one eyed jonin muttered to no one in particular before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

Team Seven walked down the hallway, nearing their destination; Sasuke was in front while Sakura trailed behind to make sure that the near asleep Naruto didn't wander off. The end of the corridor was packed with genin teams from various villages: milling about as a pair of older genin stood in front of a doorway.

Sasuke stepped forward as he and his teammates also reached the end of the corridor: intending to expose the genjutsu that he had identified based on the slight lighting inconsistencies around the sign of the door number.

The two chunin disguised as genin had noticed when Sasuke stepped forward. Based on the confidence reflected in his body language and the way he had looked at the fake room number, they could easy tell that he had figured out the genjutsu and was about to call them out on it. Had he come 25 minutes ago, they would have let the boy put a target on himself by revealing the trick. Now though, there were only 5 minutes until the Official start time for the exam: It was like sending lambs to the slaughter to allow any teams that still hadn't figured out the genjutsu to continue on and likely get themselves killed in the Second Phase if they somehow made their way past the First. Wanting to save some lives, even if they were from other Hidden Villages, one of the chunin prepared to dash forward and engage Sasuke before the Uchiha could speak up.

Before either party could initiate their decided course of action, they were prematurely halted as Naruto simply walked between them and towards the stairs.

Looking between the pair older genin and Naruto, as he obliviously trudged up a set of stairs, Sasuke eventually decided that it simply wasn't worth it and followed his blond teammate up the stairs with Sakura still taking the rear.

On his part, Naruto hadn't even registered the genjutsu nor the false genin that was about to attack his teammate. Naruto had simply stumbled on in autopilot as his exhausted body simply followed the path to room 301 it had once trudged during Naruto's first year at the academy.

As the trio finally reached room 301, they entered to find that it was packed a huge number of genin: some sitting at the desks while others milled about at the front of the auditorium style classroom.

Seeing teams 8 and 10 talking to some unknown genin with glasses, Sakura grabbed Naruto and led him over to join their peers as Sasuke followed behind her.

"Sasuke-kun!" Ino squealed as she caught sight of her crush, though it was oddly strained as if she was trying to keep quiet.

"What's wrong with Naruto?", Kiba asked as he too caught sight of the final rookie genin team.

"He's really tired for some reason," Sakura replied as she held on to the shoulder of Naruto's orange tracksuit to keep him from wandering away.

"Is he sleeping?" Kiba asked incredulously as the blonde started to snore next to Sakura..

"Yeah," Sakura groaned as she realized that her teammate had once more fallen asleep while standing. "Just don't try to wake him up."

"Why not?" Choji asked as he munched on bag of chips.

"Oh hi Sakura," Ino interrupted with a fake smile before Sakura could respond, " I couldn't see you there with your enormous forehead in the way."

"All that rolling around in the mud must be affecting your eyesight Ino-buto." Sakura growled back, causing the other girl's eye to start twitching in anger.

"That's enough you two," drawled Shikamaru as he stepped between the troublesome girls before either of the two preteens could start a catfight: physical or verbal. "we've already drawn enough attention to ourselves. Kabuto's been kind enough to share his info so let's listen up."

"Thank you," the silver haired boy said, adjusting his glasses. "Like I was telling you, I'm not that great of a front line fighter so, over the past few months, I've collected an extensive amount of information about the participating genin from each of the various villages.I have detailed summary for all of them except the team from Kumo sitting in the corner as they registered extremely late and I didn't have time really get all that much on them."

The three teams of genin, sans Naruto, turned look at Kumo-nin Kabuto pointed out before choosing to ignore them for now as they seemed engrossed in a silent but apparently heated discussion.

"Overall," Kabuto continued as the younger kids turned back to him, "the biggest known threats are the team from Suna, due to their track record of coming back from each of their missions without a scratch, and the Kumo team as the Raikage was apparently confident enough in them to send them on their own. Conversely, the teams from Kusa and Oto are unlikely to be too big of a problem as they come from small and, in the case of Oto, very new hidden Villages."

A clatter rang out from the far side of the room as Kabuto voiced his low opinion of Oto. Looking to see what it was, they were able to see that one of the Oto-nin had taken offense and had knocked over his chair as he sprang towards the insulter. Kabuto's eye's widened at the incoming retaliation and prepared to dodge out of the way.

Since the moment that the chair had fallen over, every single genin had their eyes locked on the imminent conflict. To the trained ninja, time seemed to slow down as the bandaged Oto genin neared his target. Five feet away from Kabuto, the entire room widened their eyes as a new variable entered the equation.

During Kabuto's speech about the various teams, Naruto momentarily woken up and, seeing that there were chair and desks, slipped out of his jacket so he could head for them, falling asleep only a quarter second later while his body continued forward to it's programmed destination.

Over 100 genin watched as Naruto's path put him directly between Kabuto and the Oto-nin.

Cursing at the boy for getting in the way, the Oto-nin swung past Naruto's head knowing that he didn't need to make contact with Kabuto for his attack to work.

Kabuto and the rest were confused at the Oto-nin's actions but, before even Kabuto could react to his new unexpected nausea and the surprise of having the lenses in his glasses crack, everyone's attention was instead drawn to a different event.

The melody gauntlet, wielded by the Oto-nin known as Dosu, utilized extremely high pitched sound to disorientate targets. The frequencies used meant that even though they were affected by it, normal ninja couldn't hear the noise it generated.

Naruto was far from normal.

When the gauntlet activated inches from Naruto's sensitive ears, that were being subconsciously boosted with chakra, he was violently woken up and once more reflexively swung his arm: This time it connected.

Eyes wide in surprise, Dosu felt the air be forced out of his lungs as he was sent flying into the ceiling, his upper back smashing against it, before gravity once more asserted its control and sent him crashing to the floor before he could brace himself.

The room was silent: everyone staring at a confused Naruto who was frantically looking around and trying to figure out just what the hell was going on.

"That's why," Sakura said softly, finally replying to Choji's earlier question as he stood frozen with a chip hovering before his open mouth.

Bruised but otherwise okay, Dosu snapped out of shock and was about to attack Naruto when smoke began to billow from the very front of the room and then dissipated just as quickly to reveal a bunch of ninja wearing Konoha flack jackets as they stood behind a scarred man in a black trenchcoat.

"ALLRIGHT MAGOTS," the man in front boomed, grabbing the attention of the few who were watching Kabuto throw up in the corner. "My name is Ibiki. I don't know what horrible things you've done in your life to mess up your karma so badly and honestly dont give a damn: I will be your proctor."

"What!," Sakura screeched along with many of her fellow genin.

"You pass," repeated Ibiki. "The final question wasn't really a question but more of a test in itself. Those of you who pass the next two phases of the exam will become chunin. As chunin, it will be your job to lead teams of genin or participate in crucial missions: missions which we can't have you running away from just because you're scared of injury or death. Only those of you who had the guts to face a life altering situation deserved to pass. the final portion of the First Phase"

Before anyone could speak further, the windows shattered and a blur shot through them. Bringing down their arms from covering their faces, the genin saw that the source of the commotion was now standing at the front of the room: wearing a beige trenchcoat and having put up a black banner."

"Alright genin, this is no time to-" the lady began to shout before having to dodge the kunai that passed through where her head had been and then tore through her banner."

Looking to the back of the room, everyone could see that it's source was obviously the angry genin standing up from his seat.

"Dammit!" Naruto yelled, annoyed at having been woken up." Just be quiet and let me sleep!"

AN :

Poor Naruto just wants some shut eye.

For those of you who didn't get my terrible pun:

Chex mix = ChEx MEx = Chunin Exams : Mental Examination

Threefold Path is evolving on it's own:

Originally, the first section of this chapter wasn't a part of my plans until I had one of my reviewers state that it would be cool to see Jiraiya's viewpoint when he infiltrated Oto. Thank you Kronos96 for the idea. After adding it in, it began to take on a life of its own and added another unplanned facet to the story.

Another unplanned part was the section in the last chapter (Ch 7) involving the reveal of the Uzumaki clan. As you can see, it too changed the story as I hadn't originally planned to have Kumo be in the Exams.

For my readers of Midday:

I apologize, but I probably won't be releasing a new chapter till next Sunday. I know what needs to happen in Ch 4 (and the next 6 chapters after it) but I am currently stuck at around 2,000 words as character dialogue refuses to cooperate. If I end up breaking through early enough in the week, then I'll try to get two chapters up instead of one for next Sunday.

To the rest of my readers:

GO READ THE CHAPTERS OF MIDDAY THAT I HAVE ALREADY POSTED!.

A special thanks to those who left a review and an EXTRA SPECIAL THANK YOU to

those who took the time to ask me questions. I am pretty sure I responded to all of them and really enjoyed the discussions we shared.

Brownie points to anyone who can figure out the TV show reference I made.

WOAF