Author's Note: Well I'm back. Hopefully by the time this chapter is done I'll be almost halfway done with the second exam but nothing's guaranteed. Anyways, I'm going to be trying to put up as much as I can over the next two months because I start back my classes come the first week of July so I'll be seriously focusing on school when they begin. Now that that's been said, let's get chapter twelve started already.

"I…" indicates conversation.

"I…" indicates inner thought.

"I…" indicates Kyuubi is speaker.

Chapter 12: The Forty-Fourth

"Thirty minutes remaining." The stoic and almost lifeless sounding voice of their proctor Ibiki called, his words just barely registering with Naruto as the young kitsune carefully smelled the air to try and locate the tiny copy of him that would help him and Hinata pass the exam. Without another word from the dark-looking proctor, a single kunai shot past Naruto's shoulder with deadly accuracy, pinning the test of a genin sitting behind him to the desk it was on. Three of the chunin and jonin sitting along the walls simultaneously got up from their seats and immediately grabbed the young man and his teammates without so much as a single word.

"B-but I wasn't cheating! You can't do this to me or m-my team; this isn't fair!" The genin roared as the sub-proctors led him and his associates toward the back of the classroom to the exit door. Ibiki just looked as unfazed and dead behind the eyes as he had since the moment he walked into the classroom, the shouts and screams of how unfair he was being not even bothering him in the least. Naruto could not help but gulp a little at the sight; it was the seventh team out of the nearly thirty that had been eliminated without so much as a second glance from the cold and emotionless man that stood at the front of the room. Turning his attention back to his own paper, the Kyuubi could only hope that Ibiki didn't notice the half-inch orange-clad copy of him that was soon going to disappear so Naruto could learn what it was memorizing right now.

He closed his eyes, breathing a deep breath in and tasting each and every little scent and pheromone that was drifting throughout the classroom as a small, prideful little smile slowly crept over his cheeks.

"Now." Naruto whispered as he opened his eyes, staring directly at the examiner dressed in black and gray as he picked up his pencil. A moment earlier, there was an almost imperceptible pop that he had just barely picked up with his focused ears. The next split second later, his mind was flooded with the images of a test that was already completed, all nine of the currently available questions answered without so much as a hiccup of bad knowledge. As graphite met paper, the kitsune boy quickly and furiously wrote each and every word that his clone had memorized.

'You would dispatch of the genjutsu master first and then, if battle is unavoidable, attack the tactician before worrying about the final two ninja. As the other two are skilled primarily in the use of 

offensive-based ninjutsu, you should only engage whenever you have eliminated their advantages. With their genjutsu user incapacitated, they can only primarily attack without any real deception in their movements with the exception of speed. Eliminating their tactician will force them to rely on whatever tactics they themselves have created and thus, they will be less organized.' He quickly wrote down the answer to the first question without a single problem, Hinata shyly following suit a moment later as she kept her eyes focused on her own paper. Naruto couldn't help but be amazed at the sheer versatility of her Byakugan as it gave her a nearly perfect field of vision even when she was not watching him. So even with her pupil-free irises not even gazing at him, she could see his pencil as he wrote across the test and she could copy everything he scribbled.

"Fifteen minutes remaining." Ibiki spoke up again.

The last few minutes they had remaining of the test passed rapidly as Naruto continued to work, marking down every little letter with the utmost of haste. Even as another three teams got expelled from the exam, he continued to maintain his focus, not paying attention to their cries for mercy or their shouts of injustice. All he cared about at this moment was that he and Hinata finished up. Based on how Kaname had reacted when he had hinted as best he could at what they were really supposed to do during the test, he had a good deal of faith that the boy was probably already done. So as he quickly wrote down the answer for question nine, he just sat back and relaxed, putting his hands behind his head.

A moment later Hinata finished writing as well, her eyes briefly glancing cheerfully at him as she deactivated her Byakugan. Naruto flashed a knowing grin, his right hand slipping across the surface of the table to cover her left while they waited for the test to finish.

(I)

"Five, four, three, two, one; pencils down." With Ibiki's final countdown, the twenty-three genin teams that had either not cheated or just not gotten caught all quietly put down their pencils and, as one, all looked up to face their iron-jawed examiner. Once they had done so, the man in the black trench-coat showed the first ounce of emotion Naruto had seen from him since he walked in the room: he began to smile. It was such a creepy thing to see, something so at odds with the disfiguration and scars that covered his face that it sent a cold shiver down even the Kyuubi's spine. As he stared out over the crowd of ninja from the great villages, his smile grew more and more wide and disturbing until he at last opened his mouth. "The most basic thing that any good shinobi must know is secrecy, the art of complete and utter deception. A ninja must be unseen, unheard and, most importantly of all, unknown until the final moment before they act; and even then, they must slip back into oblivion as quietly as they had appeared from it. The first part of this test was to see if you worthless little genin understand this principle."

While Ibiki spoke, the kitsune felt a deep sense of pride and accomplishment as he did so, having figured out what they were really supposed to be doing during the exam while some of the other genin did not. Looking around the room, he could tell that there was at least about a fourth of the class that had not seen through the thinly disguised rules of the test based on the shocked or disappointed reactions. However, all of the other rookies had the same self-confident smirk plastered on their faces that he himself had.

"As soon as any of you picked up this test, you all should have been immediately able to tell that it was not designed for someone of a genin's skill level and knowledge. That part was clear to each and every one of you. However, there were three among you who clearly knew the answers from the start of the exam. Mikotsu, Sado, and Rinoka; stand and present yourselves to the class," In perfect unison, the two men that Naruto had pegged as the people they were supposed to cheat off stood up, accompanied by a young woman in her late teens from a few rows back. Each one of them looked stern and serious as though they had just completed an utterly life-threatening mission of the utmost of importance. "The real objective of this exam, as many of you already knew or have figured out by now, was to see if you could effectively cheat and get away without being caught. These three chunin were placed in your midst and given the answers to all nine questions of the first portion of the exam. It was your job to find them, to learn their answers, and then copy them for yourselves without being noticed. You all know what happened to the ones who failed so I congratulate all of you maggots who succeeded in escaping my gaze this time around… But, before you go patting yourselves on the back, you still have one last question. And this time, there's no cheating your way through it."

The Kyuubi's clear blue eyes widened just slightly as Ibiki reminded him of what he had almost wonderfully forgotten: there was still one last question before he was one step closer. And from the looks of the other people in the class, he wasn't the only one who was depressed about that fact.

"Mikotsu, Sado, Rinoka, leave your rows and take your seats with the rest of your fellow examiners. As for the rest of you, listen carefully to the words I am about to speak because they may be the last you hear as a ninja." Now that got his attention. Screw being depressed that there was still one more question to go, all Naruto could focus on was that one simple sentence. What did he mean; they could be the last words they heard as shinobi? "As I said before the test began, I will be giving you the final question. Before I give it to you though, I offer any of you the chance to resign from the test. If you do, you and your team will be disqualified and you'll have the opportunity to take the next round of the exams in six months. All you have to do is raise your hand and your squadron will be shown the door."

"Well why the hell would we do that?" Kiba's voice sounded off from clear across the room. As Naruto glance over to him, he couldn't help but smile at his best friend's clear-cut honesty in the question that had been on the tip of everyone's tongue, his included. Ibiki, meanwhile, just turned his attention and ice-cold stare toward the furry-headed boy and the dog that was resting on his head.

"Because if you choose to take this question and you get it wrong, you and your team will be stripped of your rank and you will never be allowed to become ninja again."

The room went deathly silent.

From all around him, the pheromones of fear and anxiety began to flood Naruto's nose like the most potent of elixirs, overloading his brain while he fought off the feeling of hopelessness that was trying to wash over him. Although it was only a few seconds before someone finally spoke up, it felt like an endless eternity as the whole room watched and waited to see who would resign from this ludicrous exam and just throw in the towel to save their own skins. A moment later, someone finally spoke up.

"Shoichi, what the hell are you doing?" Fiercely spoke a silver-headed boy wearing a leaf headband only two chairs down the row from where Naruto sat. Across the walkway and one row closer to the front, a young man of about sixteen who the kitsune could obviously assume was his teammate had shakily raised his hand and was slowly climbing to his feet. Pushing the single strand of crimson hair 

that had fallen down in front of his face out of the way, Naruto took a good long look at the incredibly nervous teenager, watching his pale face with the utmost of intensity. "Sit back down, now!"

"I can't do it, Jin. I j-just can't do it!" His teammate almost cried as he shakily stepped out into the row. "If you, m-me or Narusegawa m-m-miss the question, w-we'll never b-be able to be ninja!"

"Examiners, remove him and his teammates from the classroom." Ibiki commanded. In perfect unison, six of the chunin that were sitting along the walls stood up and calmly walked over and extracted the whimpering boy, his still shouting companion and a girl with dark auburn hair a row away from the door. One by one, they exited the room, their footsteps carrying such finality to them as the echoed across the hardwood flooring. Once they had all been escorted from the classroom, Ibiki once again opened his mouth. "Anyone else? I'll give you a moment to think about it amongst yourselves."

The room went loud with the whispers of more than sixty remaining shinobi as he began to drown in the white noise. An ice-cold bead of sweat ran down the back of his neck as Naruto fought to maintain his cool. All inside him, his mind was screaming at what complete and utter stupidity it was to take the final question when he could be forced to give up being a ninja. If he was ever to realize his true potential as a shinobi or even think about becoming the next Mizukage, there was no way he could ever give up the ninja lifestyle, not even for a single moment! It seemed like total idiocy to want to stay and take the question, but the cool and calculating side of him seemed to scream from within his own mind that a real man would face such an obstacle. 'If I give up now, then I've failed Hinata, Kaname, Anko-sensei, Mom, Grandpa Jiraiya and even that damn old man Sarutobi! But if I stay and don't get it right, what kind of loser would I be then? My instincts are telling me to take the question but my brain's telling me not to! Why in Kami's name did we have to be given this unreadable sadist for our first proctor?! I can't tell anything about him from his scent or anything!'

"Naruto…" Hinata whispered nervously from beside him. The Kyuubi had been so caught up in his own little inner-monologue he had not even noticed that she was gripping his hand as tightly as she could. As he turned to face her, the worried expression she had been wearing as she watched his inner confusion softened ever so slightly and her eyes took on a calm and pleasing glow. "Tell me what you are thinking."

"I don't know… what to do. One way or another, I'm risking complete failure." He gazed at her lavender irises with an intense look of turmoil plastered clear across his whiskered face. "I honestly don't think I can risk not being a ninja."

With a nod, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment before leaning in to speak to him quietly. Her voice went nearly silent as she whispered fiercely and directly into his ear, a serious and truthful tone filling what sound came from her lips. "Naruto, during the fight with Haku, did you sit back and wonder if it was worth it? If you had, then there is a very real possibility that both Kaname and I would have our names on the Hero's Memorial right now. Anko-sensei would probably be lying somewhere at the bottom of the sea, Tazuna would have been dead long before the bridge was finished, and who knows what Gato's sick men might have done to his family. You proved that day that you're more of a ninja than anyone else I have ever met because you didn't hesitate to fight and you saved everyone's life." She spoke, all the while gripping his hand as though it was a piece of driftwood and she was out in open water. "I… I have always watched and admired you because you never stopped living. You were always giving everything you could in the tests back in the Academy and you always 

brought laughter to the class as though it was a stage for you to entertain from. In all the time I've been in the Academy with you, you never once gave up… Are you honestly about to start now?"

Pulling away from his ear for a moment, she leaned back and allowed him to see the gravity clear in her eyes. She had never been one to speak her mind, let alone speak at all, before they had become teammates, and now here she was asking him one of the most brutally honest questions he had had to answer since he had first wondered what he was. It sent a cool, refreshing shiver up and down his skin to hear such strong words from the girl who had given him his first kiss less than ten hours earlier.

"Now, what are you going to do?"

'She's right! A real ninja wouldn't shy away from a challenge like this! And I'm one going to be the best damn Mizukage that ever lived so there's no way I could ever walk out on this test!'

A split second later, he nodded, the coy and cunning smirk that he had had during the first part of the exam returning to his cheeks as his eyes slowly began to slit and change from their bright and vibrant blue to a deep and powerful red.

"Thanks Hinata." He replied as he squeezed her hand with a look of pure excitement showing through his intense eyes. "I really needed to hear that."

"This is your last chance. After this, you will not be able to walk away from the exam." Ibiki spoke clearly, his eyes moving across the sea of faces to lock gazes for the tiniest of instants with the Kyuubi. The creepy, eerie little smile that Ibiki wore upon his dead-set face never faltered once as he peered directly into the crimson irises set squarely in Naruto's forehead, giving the boy the impression that he knew something. Either that; or he had been through so much that he was incapable of being shaken by such a simple change in appearance. "Will any more of you leave?"

The room went as deathly silent as it had the moment the exam began, a wave of adrenaline and steeled nerves washing over Naruto as he, like everyone else in that classroom, simply stared on ahead at their proctor. None of them even whispered, even breathed in that moment as they waited for the test to resume and give them the chance to meet their fate. Nine teams had been eliminated since the exam had begun only an hour ago so the genin had already lost nearly a third of the number that had been in the room when Ibiki had arrived. And yet, even with the knowledge that those nine teams could still retake the exam whereas the ones that remained might never get another chance, the sixty remaining genin just deadened their stress and calmed their minds and waited.

"No? Very well then." Ibiki took a long pause as his smile began to soften very slightly until it was less of a completely disturbing sight. After a moment, he just began to clap. "Congratulations, you have all passed the first stage of the Chunin exams."

"W-what? WHAT?!" Across the class, an almost furious uproar of stunned shock and utter disbelief echoed from sixty different voices as they all struggled to come to terms with what he had just said. From behind Naruto, Kiba's voice rose above the rest as he asked one simple question. The blonde-headed boy couldn't help but feel a little relieved that he was still sitting in the classroom and had not been disqualified. "Are you freaking serious?! What about the tenth question?"

"That was the tenth question." The Morino man replied calmly as he stared up at the future clansman of the Inuzuka. "And you have all just passed it."

"B-but that doesn't make sense. What was the question supposed to be then?" Ino's tone was filled with just as much shock as everyone else in the room. Gazing around at the other genin, Naruto couldn't help but notice every face had the same bewildered and stunned expression plastered on it with the exception of Shikamaru and red-haired genin from Suna that he had noticed when he first entered the room. However, he quickly turned his attention back to their proctor, awaiting a suitable answer just like everyone else.

"The question… was whether or not you all are truly worthy of being ninja at all, much less worthy of being Chunin." The black-clad proctor reached up with those final words and proceeded to untie the knot that held his bandana over his scarred and disfigured head. As the knot gave way and the black bandana slipped off, it revealed a terrible and horrifying sight to them all. A wave of gasps and whispered prayers and swears echoed through the room as each eye was immediately fixated on this… this canvas of atrocities. Across his completely bald head ran numerous now bloodless cuts that went down nearly to the skull with screws and permanent stitching covering up the scarred and battered tissue in between each slice. Looking upon the uncovered flesh of his hairless head was like looking into a sadistic butcher's back room the day that fresh livestock arrived every week. Naruto could hear a few students throughout the room actually gagging at the sight of it while he fought back the knot that was pushing itself up into his throat from the pit of his stomach. Beside him, Hinata tensed up visibly as she held even tighter to the young kitsune. "Look. Look upon each of these scars! These are what await you if you continue on the path of a shinobi. If you are ever caught by an enemy during a mission, they will torture you until the point you break or they will just outright kill you as they see fit. During a mission, a ninja must be willing to look past this fact, look past the possibility of death and complete the task that his Kage has given to him!

"If any of you had been too cowardly or afraid to risk your future as ninja by taking the final question, then how could you ever be trusted to risk your very lives when it would count? If you had resigned, you would not have been worthy of being ninja. Yet because you did not, you are one step closer to becoming Chunin." Ibiki said with pride.

The Kyuubi felt his head nearly spinning as he watched the steely-eyed proctor with the utmost of attention, a single question rising in his mind above all the chaos.

"Well then, what happened to the people that did give up?" The young kitsune asked honestly.

"The teammates of those who gave up will have a chance to take the exam again the next time it is held in six months. As for the two who personally quit instead of being retired by the actions of their teammates, they will never be shinobi again." Those final six words sent a frigid chill down the spines of almost every single shinobi in the room save a small number of completely emotionless ones. Naruto could feel his own heart racing at the simple little phrase, the realization that, had Hinata not said anything to him, he could very well have been banned from the ranks of Konoha ninja for the rest of his life. Yet for the time being, he just forced himself to push back that knowledge and calm his pulse while Ibiki continued. "Such cowardice, such selfish regard only for one's own personal wellbeing, is not something that can be tolerated if any of you wish to be more than the dregs of your own villages. Each one of you has passed this first stage because you did not quit. Consider yourselves all fortunate."

As the room began to speak again, the fox child's ears picked up over the dull murmurings of the class the sound of a pair of heavy-booted feet as they and their owner made their way across the room behind the class' current proctor. A moment later, the door behind Ibiki opened for the second time. As if the sight of the tortured and disfigured first examiner was not enough to scare the already tense and nervous students, the man that entered the room from behind Morino-sensei was an equally disturbing shinobi wearing the basic blue pants, flak jacket, and hitai-ate of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. However, what made this new shinobi's appearance as unsettling as that of Ibiki was the fact that he had burn scars and flesh grafts stretching up across his face, as though his face had been only a hair of a centimeter away from a well-aimed fireball. Most of his hair had grown back from this undoubtedly horrible event, leaving his visage partially hidden by long brown locks that framed it up intensely. The man's left eye was sunken in because of the scarred skin that wrapped around it while the area around his right eye was left untouched. Overall, it gave his distant and uninterested stare a seemingly sinister feel as he looked out at the class like it was just one big annoyance. To Naruto, it was like someone had taken Shikamaru's father Shikaku and put a torch to the left side of his face and just held it there for a minute.

"So these are the ones left?" He asked Ibiki without even turning to look at the man. His tone was as uninterested as his lazy gaze was.

"These are the ones that are still worthy of taking the Exam," Proctor Morino replied, that cold and dark smile still upon his otherwise emotionless face.

"Are they now? Well then, it looks like you've gotten soft lately, Morino. I was thinking you'd weed them out a little better than this." He spoke coolly. The entire class went silent and wide-eyed at those words. The sheer thought that the almost sadistic mind-games that their Proctor had played with them since they started this exam were easy was incomprehensible to them, as was the thought that this tough-as-nails looking sociopath that had administered the test had gone mentally 'soft' any time recently. Ibiki, meanwhile, actually turned his icy stare away from the class for only a moment to glare at the unblemished side of the new man's face. Even though he had not given off a single emotional pheromone since the test began, the kitsune began to smell an intense anger coming from him, a killer intent unlike anything he had felt since Zabuza first appeared.

"Just do your job, Hibal, before I do mine."

It sent a cold shudder up his spine to wonder what that job could be, a feeling he could feel shared with Hinata as her hand tensed up while she gripped his.

"Very well..." He paused for a moment before taking a step forward so that he was now standing in front of their first proctor. Straightening up fully, the man named Hibal spoke with a colder but far fiercer tone than Ibiki had yet. "To all of you would-be ninja who think you've accomplished something this morning by cheating or lucking your way through this first part of the Chunin Exams; I'd like to introduce myself. I am Hibal Miyami, the Proctor of the second stage. And as of right now, playtime is over."

'…Ah damnit.'

(I)

The Outer Konoha Forest

12:23 p.m.

Naruto breathed in deeply through his nostrils, letting the scents of the hundreds of different flora and fauna of the forest around him register in his mind. Since the end of the first portion of the exam almost three hours earlier, the burnt jonin that he assumed was their proctor for the second test had been leading them further and further away from the village and into the deep wilds of the forest that covered most of the Land of Fire. Other than a command for the genin to follow him and a few mumbles under his breath about what a crappy assignment this was, the man had refrained from speaking almost at all, especially not to the genin themselves. Quite frankly, the kitsune was losing more and more of the worry that had filled him when the man named Hibal had first introduced himself; all his senses were telling him that their proctor was nothing more than a grumbling young adult who liked to play it cool. 'It's kind of like someone took Sasuke, aged him ten years, and then put the left side of his face on an open fire. Hmm… Sasuke and an open fire… Sounds like a great way to waste a few hours.'

He fought back a chuckle, instead smirking at his own little inner joke.

Up ahead, their new proctor had stopped walking for the first time. In front of him was a ridiculously giant chain-link fence, one that was at least twenty five feet tall, which cordoned off a section of the forest which seemed massively overgrown when compared to the relatively normal sized trees they had been walking under for the last two hours. Listening intently, Naruto's ears picked up the distant sounds of many different types of life in the extremely gargantuan trees. The scent of dried blood, caked on from what must have been years upon years of conflict and death, flooded his nostrils as he breathed in the air. Within him, the sights, sounds and scents of it all was making his blood pump and his animalistic senses flair.

"Pay attention, genin dogs; I'm only gonna say this once." Hibal turned to face all of them, standing in front of the link fence like it was the backdrop for a stage and he was some sort of twisted main actor. All eyes turned to face him while he stared them down with the same coolly demented stare from behind the burnt flesh that covered his face. "This is the Forty-Fourth Battleground, affectionately named by those who have survived it 'The Forest of Death'. In this little blood-soaked hellhole, you'll be taking the second part of your exam. And unlike Ibiki's little cheat game, this time you'll all have a chance to kill each other."

There was an audible gulp among the crowd of students as he spoke these words, even from the older ones that had taken the exam before. However, none of them said a thing because the proctor continued before any of them could speak up.

For the first time since he had opened his mouth back in Ibiki's classroom, Proctor Miyami spoke in a serious and "During this second portion of the Chunin Exams, each genin team will be given one of two scrolls: either a Heaven or an Earth scroll. Your objective as a team is procure the other type of scroll and then make it to the tower at the center of the forest, five miles in. If you open either of the two scrolls you need before you are in the base and greeted by a judge, you will be disqualified and forced to suffer the consequences. So, in case any of you do not understand these instructions, it's real simple: all you have to do is find a team who has the scroll you need and take it from them the get to home base without being stupid enough to open them. It's capture the flag; only difference is this time, you can and just might die."

"So then what are the rules?" Naruto turned to see Sasuke himself being the only one who spoke up, asking the question that was on each and every one of their minds as they all mentally prepared to kill their fellow test-takers if necessary.

"To put it simply: there are none." Trying not to gasp or gulp, Hinata's hand slipped through the kitsune's fingers and began to grip tightly as her throat seemed went cold and clammy with those words. Without even trying to use his advanced senses, the blonde-headed Kyuubi could literally feel the wave of fear washing over him from her and almost every other person in the crowd of teenagers and young adults. Deep inside him, however, an almost primal feeling seemed to stir with the knowledge that he could possibly even face his own death during this stage of this exam. It was as though those three little words had flipped a tiny little insignificant switch somewhere deep within his heart and activated some sort of an adrenaline pump that was making his body nearly twitch. His heart was racing with the possibilities of being to face any and possibly every one of the other teams taking this exam, to be able to truly test his own skill while fighting for his very life if it got that far. It was a rush of epinephrine to his brain, a deadening of his nerves, and an instant activation of his instincts like they had not been before. In all honestly, it felt really good.

"Are there any other questions?" Hibal asked. All of them remained silent this time. "Good, then we can get started. But just one last thing: if you die out there, you won't have been heroes for your village. You'll just have been useless fodder."

(I)

The Forty-Fourth Battleground

1:54 p.m.

Within another hour and a half, Proctor Miyami had split them all up until it was only each three man cell together at one of the gates spread out around the forest. Naruto and Team Nine were relatively close to the original entry gate that they had all first arrived at and, in another six minutes, would be starting the second stage of the Chunin Exams. Wearing a serious grimace on his face, the kitsune just twirled the small scroll that the two sub-proctors guarding the gate nearby had given them once they arrived at it. It was a small little thing wrapped up in a black border. On the front of it, the word 'Heaven' had been inked in clear, black kanji. Other than that though, the scroll had no distinctive characteristics.

"It is most obvious that we need one of the earth scrolls; however, it would be unwise for us to attack all other teams we come across before we learn which scroll they possess." Kaname half-whispered as he kneeled down on the soft grass, kneeling in the proper stance they had all been taught as children. He was holding a single kunai and drawing up a rough representation of what the objectives were for the second stage. "Proctor Hibal said that the tower we must reach is precisely five miles from the fence, squarely in the center of the battlefield. If that is true, then this fence encircles an area fifteen and a half miles around and since there are twenty remaining teams, then that means that we are spaced out about three-fourths of a mile away from each other."

"I'm not good with math so what exactly does that mean?" Naruto asked honestly, kneeling down in front of Kaname's little circle drawing while Hinata put her hand on his shoulder. "How does it help us?"

"Well that is the dilemma, my friend. We do not know which teams have an earth scroll and which ones have a heaven scroll. For all we know, they may have arranged it so it goes one than the other at each entrance or we may all be on one half while those with the other scroll could be on the other." The sand-colored preteen replied as he pushed back a strand of the long silvery hair that fell down to his shoulders. Spinning the kunai about with the simplest of ease, he marked a single x in the middle of his drawing and then circled it. With the same silky and foreign tone he always spoke with, Kaname resumed to discuss his idea for their tactics in this little war-game. "However, what I am thinking is this: for any team to succeed in this exam, they need both scrolls. So once they have them, they will come toward the tower. If we were to make our way to the tower to begin with, we could simply just hide out and wait for one to arrive and then take what we need from them. Like a sand scorpion, we will let our prey come to us."

The Kyuubi nodded seriously. "How do we go about dealing with teams that may come up with this strategy as well though, Kaname?"

"That is where you come in, comrade. Even though it is allowed to eliminate one's opponents in this stage, I do not believe that it would be justified for us to kill someone else just for trying to succeed as well. If we are approached by another team who wishes to take our scroll, all we must do is hinder their means or break their will. And forgive me for being blunt, but I believe your clones may have a way of accomplishing both. All it takes is a little disguising."

As he started to understand just what his other male teammate was saying, the kitsune couldn't help but smirk a little bit at the ideas he was getting.

"I may have just the thing." He replied, climbing back to his feet as he slid his hand into Hinata's. "Hinata, when we get into position near the tower, we'll need you to act as a lookout so I can prepare a special little welcome gift for whatever team we come across. Is that okay with you?"

Without even responding, she just smiled as the veins around her eyes suddenly shot up against her pale skin.

"I'll take that as a yes." Naruto finished.

"Team Nine, you will be allowed admittance into the forest in thirty seconds. Prepare yourselves because once you are in you may not leave unless you forfeit the exam or are disqualified for opening the scrolls." The ninja guarding their gate spoke up from his post behind the kitsune. Nodding, Kaname rose to his feet and pulled out a single kunai in his right hand while Hinata deactivated her Byakugan. In between his two teammates, the Kyuubi's blood began to burn as his chakra swirled with anticipation and eagerness for a good fight. With Kaname on his left and Hinata on his right, the boy let his irises burn to an intense shade of red and bared his fangs. In front of them, the gate just opened on its own. "The second portion of the Chunin Exam has begun. Good luck."

"Let's go." The Bijuu spoke, leading them into the ominous forest.

(I)

Inside the Forest of Death

3:11 p.m.

"I can't detect anything other than the animals around us. Still no signs of any other ninja around," Hinata called out to her two teammates as she stopped for a brief moment on one of the tree branches that made up the nearly impenetrable canopy of the Forest of Death. Since they had entered the Forty-Fourth, they had been traveling along some of the higher branches that they could reach with Naruto leading their group, Hinata following in the middle and Kaname bringing up the rear based on Kaname's strategy. With her Byakugan, she was constantly scanning a massive sphere around them as best as she could to keep an eye out for any other shinobi that might be down on the ground below. By how fast they were traveling, they still had about another two miles to go before they would reach the tower and find a spot to lie in wait in, when her Naruto's part of the plan would come into play. Once they touched down, he was going to create a massive army of shadow clones who would then hide themselves around wherever they set up base so they could ambush whatever unlucky team happened to cross their path. "Naruto, have you smelled anything yet?"

"Nothing other than the smell of this forest and dried blood. My nose isn't detecting any smell remotely human." He replied without stopping to face her. "And speaking of the smell of the forest, you both should be glad you can't smell what I can. I've nearly tasted the scent of old animal crap since the second we stepped into this place."

From behind her, a deep and smooth laugh came from Kaname. "Are you sure that is not just your own body odor, comrade? The scents are pretty similar."

Hinata couldn't help but chuckle a little at the sand-born preteen's attempt to lighten the mood of their current situation. It was one thing to have to trek through this literal deathtrap of a forest while having already had to fend off some ridiculously large animal and insect life and some species of flora she hoped to never see again; it was quite another to try to do it while maintaining any sort of good morale in their ranks. They had already passed over, and had to hide from, a snake that was literally more than two hundred feet from tip to tail and a good thirty feet tall and then wasted a good portion of their weaponry on a mess of leech-like creatures that had attacked them and were easily as big as her own head. Throughout the last hour of their flight through the branches, she had really begun to understand just why they had named this place the Forest of Death.

"Why didn't I think of that? Tell you what, next time we go to the baths I'll make sure to wash real well right after I drown your ass!" Naruto replied as he landed on a branch about thirty feet in front of Hinata.

"Kaname, Naru-kun!" Hinata shouted as silently as she could, the cheerful chuckle fading from her voice and face instantly. Crouching down on the large branch she was standing on, she carefully peered over the edge of it and down toward the ground far below. Only a few yards in front of Naruto on the ground nearly two hundred feet below, her eyes detected something… something that was definitely not right. Glancing up quickly at the boy she had kissed, she gestured for him to jump back to her and for Kaname to do the same before looking back down. She waited until they both landed on the branch and knelt down too before she spoke up. "I see what looks like it could be another team but… in front of them… are three dead bodies."

"What?" Naruto asked sharply, instantly shooting his eyes down toward the floor of the forest where Hinata was staring intently.

"What's more, the team that is still alive, there is something wrong with one of their chakras." She spoke, her voice sounding more and more shocked and amazed. "I-it's like the flow inside one of their bodies' is being disrupted and… overpowered… by another source of chakra from within their body. It is not anything remotely like what I normally see within a person's chakra network."

Leaning in toward Naruto so that Kaname could not hear, she whispered one vital fact that personally affected his involvement in this team. "The chakra, it is almost like yours."

"I'm going down there." The kitsune said as he rose to his feet. His heart was racing with what Hinata had just told him, pumping chakra-fueled blood to every part of his body as he prepared himself for a fight. "Kaname, Hinata; drop down after I do but hide in the bushes until I say it's safe. I want to find out a little about these people."

Without another word, he pulled a single strand of razor wire from his satchel and tied a kunai to each end of it. Wrapping one part around the tree branch, he grabbed the other kunai and then leapt off the branch.

As the ground rushed up to meet him, the wire went taut and dropped him down toward the ground nearly a hundred feet below where Hinata and Kaname were still looking on. While he dropped closer and closer to where the group, his eyes saw the three dead bodies of a genin team lying in front of a single redheaded boy while his teammates stood a few yards behind him. The sickly metallic scent of fresh blood soaked into the soil, coupled surprisingly with the aroma of sand, hung heavily all around the redhead while just watched his victims continue to bleed out.

Letting go of the kunai, Naruto dropped silently just behind the boy's two teammates.

"Do you honestly think I can't hear you?" Spoke the redhead, turning around. Even with his two teammates turning to face him, Naruto's attention was drawn to the boy with the different chakra that Hinata had detected. The boy could not have been any older than he was but his face showed a pure death behind his black-lined pale green eyes. His pallid face was expressionless, like that of a corpse being viewed in the casket. The only defining characteristic he had besides his hair and eyes was a single mark on the upper left part of his forehead, a kanji that had been burned through the very skin itself like some sort of branding job that had gone horribly awry. Around his back hung a gigantic gourd that seemed to be almost as tall as the boy himself.

"Kankuro!" One of the boy's two teammates, a girl with sandy blonde hair dressed in a short white one-piece dress with a red sash, spoke to the other boy. Before he could react, however, the redhead simply waved his hand and both of his fellow squad members stopped moving. "… Gaara?"

'Gaara… so that's his name.' Naruto just stared down the boy, a cold and still feeling washing over him like an icy wave washing onto a deserted beach in the middle of the night. There was something about this tattooed boy, something in his blood-soaked scent, the was driving the young kitsune insane; it was something that ignited a deep desire somewhere buried far down in the darkest reaches of his subconscious to fight Gaara. Even though he maintained a calm face save his eyes, his mind was screaming inside for him to rip apart the boy with his own two hands like the worst kind of beast. All of his instincts begged for the chance to just kill the redhead. 'There is something about him, something different that whatever part of me still carries part of her does not like. I can already feel my chakra churning and twisting in my body just looking at him! Damnit, what is up with this guy?!'

"Mother does not like you." Gaara spoke as he began to walk toward Naruto. His voice was so dead and emotionless but so full of malice, of hate that it sent a cold shiver down the kitsune's spine. "I'm going to kill you now."

Without a single bit of notice, the ground beneath Naruto seemed to de-solidify, turning to sand which dragged him down whole.

(I)

"So how have they done today, Anko?" Kakashi asked, leaning back against a tree branch as he stared out over the village while the sun fell down over the horizon.

Stretching her arms as she slid another dumpling into her mouth from the stick they were on, she just looked up at the silver-haired young man who had been long-since been one of the only Konoha ninja entrusted with the truth of just what her orange-clad pupil really was. Even with only his right eye exposed for the world to see, the man looked completely natural, at peace with the world around him as though he did not have a care at all.

"They passed the first stage. No word on the second stage yet but I'm sure the love-birds can handle it; especially with how Kaname's starting to step up to a role as the team's tactician. I was worried that the little transfer would be deadweight when they gave me his file but he's really starting to show a mind that's better than most. Why this kid didn't ace the Academy's exit exams I still can't figure out. Maybe it was just nerves." She replied calmly as she leapt noiselessly up to the branch and landed at his feet. Sitting down, she could not help but admire the view he had as the whole of Konohagakure no Sato was lit up with brilliant splashes of red and orange and yellow and blue from the setting sun. The few clouds that hung in the sky were colored like marvelous rainbows that seemed to capture the very essence of the night. Smiling a rare peaceful smile, she just looked at him as she sat down on the branch. "What about you? Did yours make it?"

"Yeah, they made it to Stage Two. I'm glad that they're finally starting to work together more because I swear I was ready to kill both Kiba and Sasuke when they first got put together because they would not stop fighting." He answered casually. Swinging his legs over the side of the branch, he turned so that they were now sitting side by side. "However, things are finally starting to smooth over."

"That's good… So, we have four days before we have to meet our teams…" Anko said nervously, facing the masked shinobi. "What are we going to do?"

From beneath his face-mask, she could make out the distinct lines of a smile upon his lips. "I think we can find something. Like you said, we have four day–"

"What?"

Following his stare to the space behind her, her eyes immediately locked on to the reason he had stopped talking: two emergency carrier hawks that were flying their way with a notice from the Hokage tied to each one's left leg.

"Oh shit."

Author's Note: Really slow on the update this time so sorry about that. Classes started for Summer II this last week and let's just say that it isn't fun trying to study until 2:00 a.m. in the morning. Anyways, you're probably wondering what's in the notice for both Kakashi and Anko. Well you'll just have to wait until next time to find out. So until next time, so long and thanks for all the fish. Peace out.