Author's Note: Gasp! An update! Though I really should be working on Bandersnatch, since everybody likes it so much. Hehe, oh well.

Ready, Fire, Aim

Scene:

The Chuunin Exams, part 1

-or-

Do explosions count as cheating?

Three sets of eyes contemplate the building the first part of the chuunin exams was supposedly held in, illuminated by pre-dawn light. The building location had only become visible on their registration forms at 4am, the day of the exam.

"Do you think," Naruto wonders idly, "if we just blow up the building we would win?"

Sakura and Sasuke tilt their heads and squint at the building, considering.

"They might just move the exams if we blew the whole building up," Sakura says thoughtfully.

Naruto lets her eyes slide over her team and then back to the building, "Sooooooo, just blow it up a little?"

Sasuke clicks his tongue, "We'll need more Intel." Naruto and Sakura automatically nod in agreement with his assessment. Knowledge is power; Team 7 could always get behind having more power. It made for better explosions. He sweeps his gaze thoughtfully over his female teammates, "Maybe also some back-up plans. And emergency exits."

The two girls share a contemplative look and a nod; Sakura drums her fingers on her knees.

"I've got the best transformation and genjutsu skill. I'll see if I can walk in the front door," Sakura decides after a moment. "Naruto, leave a few clones as sentries, and can you use them to see if there are any other possible points of entry and exit?"

"You got it, Bossman!"

Sasuke inclines his head, "I'll take perimeter with the real Naruto, then."

A moment later, only a solitary Naruto clone remains on their rooftop vantage point. The other teams don't know it yet, but the chuunin exams have begun.

[Ready, Fire, Aim]

Sakura finds she can indeed just walk in the front door. Then waltzes through the building with a steadily emptying pocketful of patented Team 7 Explosive Tags, mapping structural weak points along the way.

Naruto discovers nine alternate points of entry and exit, promptly uses one to meet up with Sakura, and carefully notes the position of the others. Kakashi-sensei had made sure his team knew the value of emergency exits, (God knew they, of all teams, would need them, after all).

And Sasuke, well, Sasuke watches the rest of the teams begin to appear around the building, thinking disgustedly that the majority are completely worthless. Then he has an idea.

[Ready, Fire, Aim]

Kakashi saunters into the Konoha Chuunin Exam observation lounge a full twenty minutes before the Exam is supposed to start. Kakashi slides through the crowd of Jounin to an open chair set near the observation screens.

"MY RIVAL!" Gai bellows excitedly in his ear, just as he slides into the adjacent seat. "You have come to join us in cheering on our vigorously youthful students! Taking the Chuunin Exams is truly a momentous occasion! Our students truly burn with the Flames of Youth!"

"Huh? Did you say something?" He waves at Kurenai and Asuma.

"Uwaah! My Rival is just too cool!" Kakashi turns towards the screens as Gai weeps in a corner.

The chuunin-hopefuls that made it to the correct exam room, despite the tricks set up on the way, are milling about. He's just in time to watch his cute little monsters stride in and survey their prey. Their confident entrance doesn't go unnoticed. The other members of the so called "Rookie 9" of Konoha crowd around and the older foreign teams eye the group with frankly adorable attempts at intimidating glares. Ah, genin. Though the crazy looking kid from Suna has potential, and, hm, both of his own teammates are edging away from him. Interesting.

Kurenai sniffs, "Your team seems kind of cocky, Kakashi."

Asuma frowns and inclines his head, "Hopefully it doesn't get 'em killed. This is only their first time taking the exams, after all."

Kakashi only hums and eye-smiles in response, before turning back to the screens. Poor fools. His students weren't going to take the Chuunin Exams, they were going to eat them. Whole. There probably wouldn't be many survivors.

He blinks. Very carefully not learning forward, Kakashi sweeps his eyes across the other teams on screen. There's something strangely suspicious-No. They hadn't…what is he thinking. Yes. Yes, of course they had.

Poor fools indeed.

Earlier…

"Mmphg!" The shout of the third and final member of the Ame team is muffled when Sasuke rips off his rebreather and Naruto slams her hand over his mouth from behind. He falls unconscious a moment later when Sakura jabs a pressure point in his neck with a senbon. It's also coated in a powerful paralytic, because Kakashi-sensei taught them to be thorough.

Naruto unceremoniously drops him next to his teammates, where Sasuke is already at work divesting them of their clothing and placing each shinobi's clothes in neat, separate piles. As he finishes with each one, Sakura ties them up thoroughly, and then Naruto and her clones, wrinkling their sensitive noses, heave each ninja into the separate dumpsters they've chosen as hiding places for the bodies.

When finished, all three of them stand together and survey their handiwork. For a team of what were apparently genjutsu specialists and sensors, it was pathetically easy to ambush and subdue them.

"Really," Naruto says cheerfully, as three of her clones begin pulling on the sets of clothing, "if they're this bad, we're doing them a favor taking them out of the exams. Other teams might not be as nice as us!"

"Hm," Sasuke smirks, deeply satisfied with the fruition of his idea.

As Sakura contemplatively watches the clones disguise themselves, she tilts her head in a way that catches her teammates' attention immediately. "Hey," she says slowly, "What if we just, kept thinning the competition?"

"What, like, ambush more teams and replace them with more of my clones?"

There's a pause as the three stare at each other. Suddenly, they're all wearing identical evil smirks.

And so it comes to pass that at 12 o'clock noon, when the intimidating proctor makes his appearance, about a quarter of the genin in the exam room are Naruto. Explosive Naruto. Just in case.

[Ready, Fire, Aim]

When all is said and done, a third of the building is rubble and Team 7 has successfully passed the first test, along with half of the other teams, of which about a third are Naruto. Still primed to explode.

Omake

How did Team 7 know to check for the building location so early in the morning?

"Good morning, my ducklings~!" Kakashi-sensei sings, surveying his cute students nested in Sakura's room (they'd fallen asleep plotting, adorable), then neatly sidesteps all the sharp and pointy objects sailing towards his head. Sakura growls from her place on the bed.

Author's Note: OP Team 7 is OP.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. (lol are these things even necessary when posting to this site or is it just tradition now?) ~TF

(Also, you should like, totally go take the poll on my profile. For reasons.) ~sparkles and love~