These insane proctors—I feel a migraine coming on (title by Sasuke)

"Helloooo, bitches!"

The window lay in shattered parts, and the competitors that had sat near it looked rather shell shocked.

With a fwoomph, a huge black banner unfurled and displayed the words: "The Amazing, Sexy, and Wonderful Anko-sama is HERE!"

"Mitarashi Anko, Examiner for the Second Test!–" Sasuke could hear the capitals. "–You'll be with me for all the exciting bits."

She was wearing a rather revealing outfit… he blushed.

(Sasuke was still a prepubescent boy, no matter how he tried to deny it.)

"Hey Ibiki, you didn't leave that many for me to play with. Only sixteen teams…"

Morino Ibiki's expression didn't change. "This year had did not meet my standards…"

"Does anyone? Oh well, I'll just have to drive these lovely competitors harder than ever!"

Someone rather conspicuously groaned, clearly already tired. Mitarashi's eyes pinpointed the speaker, and in a saccharine sweet voice, she asked:

"Are you already tiring of me, sweetie? Because I can reverse that…"

They shut up extremely quickly as the entire room started to glare.

"Don't get rid of all of them."

"Hmph. Spoilsport."

The woman turned to them. "Midgets, follow me to the location of the second test!"

Then she jumped out of the window (the window that still had rather sharp broken pieces all around it and jagged glass clinging to the frames.

Team Seven looked at each other. Their gazes held looks of "Oh shit, this woman is insane!" …to Naruto's "Yes! This is going to be GREAT!" The other two facepalmed.

Sasuke got up and then his teammates did also—and with a mutual understanding… took the doors. Thankfully, the proctor was waiting outside the doors for them. She seemed way too excitable. There was a pout on her face as she observed that they'd used the stairs.

"You guys are too boring!" she complained.

"No, we're not!"

…and that was Naruto. Sasuke sometimes wondered why he was on a team with that blond idiot; clearly, you don't argue with a proctor who could potentially make things harder for you and your team. As Naruto got into an argument with the psycho proctor, he simply exchanged glances with Sakura, a look of consternation on his face that was eagerly copied.

(Please, he thought, please, Sakura, don't go fangirl on me now and leave me the only sane man… but it was too late. He saw her brain turn to mush and inwardly screamed.)

More people began to stream from the building, from the window and the doors, though Sasuke noticed that those people came out significantly slower than the ones who had braved a few injuries and gone out the window.

And suddenly they were moving, following the proctor (who was still arguing with Naruto) in such a confusing route that if he hadn't know Konoha, hadn't grown up there, he would have no idea where they were. As it stood, he still only had a vague understanding of their location.

Many genin were deeping in harsh pants; Mitarashi had pushed them to their limits and they had followed in desperation, afraid of falling behind, being disqualified.

"Welcome to the stage of the Second Exam, Training Ground Forty-Four, more commonly known as the Forest of Death." Her face was gleeful, sadistic, shadows deepened by the enormous trees that reached up to block the sun. Several of the genin shivered—the Forest contained an abundance of corrosive chakra, a sort of slow poison was only barely contained inside the fence… it almost seemed sentient.

(But that was impossible, right?)

"I wonder if I'll hear your screams from the Tower?" she asked conversationally. "I wonder how many different types of fear that I can categorize? How many of you will break, become a gibbering mess, hm?"

Naruto opened his mouth, probably to say something idiotic, and Sasuke slammed the palm of his hand against his teammate's face.

Sakura hissed, from the corners of her lips, "Naruto, do not antagonize the proctor further or draw attention to us."

Mitarashi quirked her eyebrow at their antics and looked slightly amused, in the sweet, you-only-just-saved-yourselves way. Sakura shivered.

"See? You do not want to get your team killed before the Second Exam, are we clear?"

Naruto nodded vigorously and then, in a fit of petty revenge, bit down on Sasuke's hand. The Uchiha yelped (quietly) and snatched the appendage from the whiskered blond. Sasuke gave his best death glare to the dobe, who only stuck out his tongue.

"Now, before we start the test, there's something I have to pass out." Mitarashi Anko looked almost innocent, and the whole of Team Seven shuddered with the force of the foreshadowing. "You must sing these agreement forms~~"

That was the sound of Kakashi-sensei's sadism. This was going to be bad.

"What?" a particularly idiotic looking genin asked.

"Oh, did I forget to mention? There will be deaths in the Forest, so I'm gonna give you these waivers saying that your blood is not on my hands and that I can enjoy the show without getting disapproving looks!"

The clearing was dead silent. (The Forest of Death groaned, as if hungry, as if anticipating…)

Mitarashi broke the silent as if it weighed nothing more than a leaf. (The genin, on the other hand, felt it an enormous pressure, as huge as the Forest looming over them.)

"Let me explain the Second Exam, and then, my lovelies, you can go give your signed forms to the men in the booth over there as well as checking in. Makes you accountable, y'know?"

The men in the booth? What? Wait, were they there all this time… how did they not notice?

"So, rules. Basically it's an ultimate survival test. First I'll give you a basic rundown of the Forest of Death." Mitarashi pulled out a roughly drawn map. Sasuke immediately turned on the Sharingan for a second and memorized it. (He felt an odd prickling in the back of his neck, but when he looked around, there was no one particularly paying attention to him…) "There are forty-four locked gates around the Forest of Death, the river bisects it, and the Tower's in the center."

She put the map away, and Sasuke could hear a few of the genin, especially those further away, swear. He was pretty sure that if he could hear it, so could the proctor. (It's never a good thing to get on the proctor's bad side. As shinobi they should be able to analyze the flow of power in a situation. Idiots.)

"During the survival test, you will be asked to complete a certain task: using any techniques, weapons, or strategies, you will compete in a no-holds barred scroll battle."

"Scroll?"

"Yup! You'll be shedding blood over these two scrolls, Heaven and Earth. There are sixteen teams, so that means, that half of you will get an Earth scroll and the other half will get Heaven. To pass you must be in the Tower with both scrolls with you."

Eight or more teams would definitely fail. That was insane, what were they thinking?!

The proctor licked her lips sensuously. Sasuke shivered. "Ooooo, and to make things more fun, you get a time limit of five days, or one-hundred-twenty hours~~"

"Five days?!" "What about dinner?!" Ino and Choji yelled simultaneously.

"See?" Sakura hissed at Naruto. "This is what we want to avoid, okay?"

Naruto pouted.

"You're on your own!" Mitarashi was definitely savouring the looks on their faces. "And the Forest is full of food. Just watch out for man-eating beasts, poisonous insects, lethal plants… Oh, and there's no chance that eight teams will pass. As time ticks down, the distance will grow longer and the area will be crawling with enemies—you'll probably pass out from sleep deprivation if you ever get to the tower… Some will fail because one of their teammates are killed or just dies from the harshness of the course… but that's part of the rules, so let me spell it out for you."

Several teams were already white with fear.

"You're disqualified if: One, you don't make it to the Tower with both scrolls by the fifth day. Two, if you lose a teammate—you need the three from your original team to pass. Oh, and if you feel the course is too harsh for you, you still get the lovely opportunity to experience it for five full days! Aren't you lucky? That is to say—" and here, Mitarashi's voice suddenly became quite serious. "There is no quitting. One more thing… you cannot open either of the scrolls till you get to the Tower."

"…what happens if we do?"

"Well~~ you'll get an interesting surprise. A Chuunin must be able to handle classified information. If you fail to show proper caution, you could be branded as treasonous or executed by your village. Nobody likes a traitor…"

A spike of killing intent. Sasuke's knees quivered.

"That's it. Exchange your forms for the scrolls at the booth, and a proctor will lead you to a gate."

People started to move.

"Final words of advice: don't die… or if you do, at least make it interesting. There's nothing worse than a pitiful death."

A/N: Sorry for the wait… here's the missing scene from chapter 7! This takes place during the First Exam before Sakura writes down her answers

Yamanaka Ino and an unexpected confusion…

In which Ino finds herself wondering why she ever thought this was a good idea, and Morino Ibiki comes to a terrifying conclusion.

"Okay, I only have a few minute to answer the questions, so I've got to make this quick. Thank goodness that I know that Forehead will be smart enough to solve this…"

Ino opened her stolen vivid green eyes and frantically looked down at the test paper.

—I—

Would it be possible to use serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or rather, the affectation of serotonergic and catecholaminergic pathways in the central nervous system (that is, by way of presynaptic reuptake inhibition, blocking catabolism or receptor agonist/antagonist effects) to condition the subject to associate previous values and/or people with alternate emotions or psychological changes in order to influence their loyalties? By utilizing a carefully regulated regiment of enhancing (and depressing) monoaminergic transmissions, one could potentially keep the target in a disoriented fugue and, much like behavioral conditioning, teach them to associate certain images or concepts with certain moods. One could potentially reorient the subject to reveal sensitive information without backlash from his own self, as that self would have been suppressed. However, this method, if it were ever undertaken, poses its own complications and dilemmas. While certain emotions can be suppressed, the suppression in and of itself could be dangerous. A mind under strain is exceedingly unpredictable, especially if the target themself is not aware of the strain and can take no steps to relieve it. (Consider this a form of alternate Stockholm Syndrome, where the target can sense previous conditioning that contradicts what they are shown.)

Therefore it would be necessary to give the target a controlled way to release the tension, and this too can be manipulated to elicit the reaction that one is aiming towards. Consider surrounding the target with values or images one wishes the target to look favorably on when they are in affected by the enhancement of the monoaminergic mechanism. This would begin to break down previous conditioning and aggression, and when observation shows that the target is close to breaking, abruptly remove the inhibitors from the body and immediately present him with that which one would have the target reject, or allow them to remember the values and/or people that no would wish them to break ties with. This pressure would also come from the target wishing to demonstrate negative emotion to the images or scenes show when the inhibitors are in place and only finding the artificial happiness that has taken its place. (The target must be shown that they and their captor are not different, that they share similar characteristic—the applier must know how to use their body as a canvas from "trust" and "understanding" to be painted.)

Of course in all this, one must be subtle and know exactly when and when not to apply pressure. If one allows their intentions to be blatantly shown, previous learned behaviors may surface through subconscious rejectal and they would be wary of any other meddling. It must be handled with care, and the transition from one value system to another must be slow. Then the cost-benefit analysis must come into play—would it be better to use a time-consumptive system that may have a chance of failure to breed a loyal target? The surveillance must be extremely high for the first months, perhaps years to make sure that the conditioning has "caught." At this point, the question arises; do the benefits of an integration of the target outweigh the amount of effort used to change the allegiance of the target?

Therefore, the prime targets for this type of conversion therapy would be those with already wavering allegiances, or those whose minds are weak against mental intrusion.

Note: These procedures can and will result in dissociative fugue – when the target will appear "normal," no signs of psychopathology or cognitive deficit. This sort of "fugue" can result in a sudden, unexpected and purposeful travel back to the original place of attachment – to prevent episodes like this, it is suggested that light surveillance be placed on the target (there is no need for heavy surveillance in the usual cases as the target will usually abandon all stealth in the attempt to follow the strange urge to move to an unseen place.) The "fugue" can also result in loss of identity, and the target may have to undergo reconstructive sessions to regain the created identity…

—I—

Ino let out a silent scream as her mind rebooted from the overload of technical jargon…

*I*I*

Morino Ibiki picked up the paper of Hatake Kakashi's kunoichi student.

He did know what he had been expecting (the proctor who had been observing that row had let him know that Haruno Sakura had not tried to cheat at all – only was implicitly involved in her teammate's attempt targeting her). Perhaps she had had the intelligence and knowledge to answer some of the questions correctly…

His eyes widened slightly when he glanced over her paper.

One of the proctors shunshinned over to him and asked him (almost frantically) what was wrong. (The Head of T&I only wore that face when there was a severe deficit in information [as in the Wave fiasco] so the proctor thought that he was justified in being rather worried.)

"Nothing," replied the quiet voice. "However, I will be keeping this paper… it is rather… interesting."

Not only had Haruno Sakura answered all of the extremely difficult questions correctly and had foiled all competitors' attempts to cheat off of her, she had also outline a viable (if inefficient) method of interrogation/torture… this would be a genin to focus on.

He needed to talk to Hatake Kakashi.