Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

10pts to anyone who caught the white collar bit last chapter. I'll be watching it with u all tonight :D.

lawl due to a game between me and a friend(who is also the beta):Leaprechaun1, we were talking on AIM and I made a joke about how he never reviews. He in turn chose to slap on 10 or so reviews saying I don't give him credit. Anyways HEY BRO, BIG LETTERS AT THE TOP OF THE CHAPTER, YOU, LEAPRECHAUN1 ARE THE BETA OF THE STORY :D!

on a serious note he didn't care whether he was acknowledged for betaing or whatever, but I felt that I should post this because I felt it reflected on both of us as a bad way. It made me seem like a dick, and him appear obnoxious.

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Naruto sighed, he was standing in this giant room full of shinobi. All genin aspiring to become shinobi. Some of them were exceptionally old, near adults that hadn't been able to pass this test. Some of them merely graduated the year before him and failed, or perhaps the just hadn't taken it yet. There were teams from all sorts of countries... almost. Shinobi from the Cloud and Iwa appeared to be absent. However still, they have shinobi in the room from places as close as Suna to as distant as the Hidden Moon. He idly wondered if this many shinobi went to every chunin exam.

Naruto and his team had spent the last few days training in teamwork drills. Or in Naruto's special case, teamwork drills and refining his style. Well... they tried teamwork drills which would be closer to what actually happened. Every time they attempted a drill, they would get a quarter or half the way through before either Naruto or Sasuke would start throwing verbal jabs at each other. At times it even went into deeper subjects like Sasuke's loss of family or Naruto's lack of family. They fought like children if you were to ask Sakura.

Sasuke had been in a lower mood as of late, and Sakura was no longer always wanting to spend time with him. Now that wasn't to say he ever enjoyed her pestering by any means. However... it was nice to know that someone wants you. While Sakura had agreed to let Naruto live with her, he had been pushed out of her life. It was as if he lost Sakura to Naruto. He couldn't just openly start talking to Sakura or try to get her to notice him once again. As time carried on, Naruto appeared to be progressing in leaps and bounds. He had gone from slowest in the class save Chouji to by far faster than himself. The thought only served to bring a scowl to his face.

He had learned, that was true. Since he unlocked his sharingan on the trip to wave while he was fighting bandits it had been much easier to learn the majority of his clan jutsu. He had gone off some days and asked private training from Kakashi when he was free. The training was usually just abusing the abilities of the sharingan. If he could learn things, or should he say copy techniques near instantly... that was a valuable tool. A shinobi was well within his right to abuse it.

The opinion that he and his sensei both shared, which was one likely not shared by the general public. The public likely believed that it was wrong to copy jutsu from your allies and what not. The two of them disagreed, as did nearly any Uchiha. Or should he say late Uchiha?

The ability to know near limitless techniques was invaluable. For example, if copying your teammate's water technique that could save him in the long run from an oncoming fireball. Than by all means do it. Could it be perceived as wrong? Of course, however that didn't matter.

So Sasuke had learned the remaining jutsu of his clan, which gave him a considerably larger jutsu arsenal. In addition to his clan's jutsu, Kakashi had worked with him on his sharingan and predicting his opponent's movements. It sucked when he realized the hard way that predicting an opponent's movement wasn't everything. You needed to be faster than the opponent to be able to even counter the opponents that you can foresee.

Naruto stood in the room full of shinobi, team 8 was specifically surprised at the fact Naruto was there at all. He however took the time to pull Ino off to a corner in the room and began to whisper, "Lets get this over with now. Why the hell did you go in my head Ino?" Naruto whispered with a scowl.

Ino's heart raced when the question was asked. Especially since they were in a room full of shinobi. Many would likely be able to hear them. "Are you kidding me Naruto, you want to talk about this now?" she asked in surprise and frustration.

Naruto resisted the urge to laugh. "Yes I want to talk about it now Ino, now stop avoiding the question. If I didn't bother to ask you about it now when would you seriously come up to me and start the conversation about it." Naruto didn't want to come off as an asshole or anything. He didn't want to be abusive either. He just knew that it had been a little bit more than a month since they had been in Wave, and yet he and Ino had yet to talk. They had sex... but they didn't talk? That was pathetic in his eyes.

Naruto stared into Ino's gaze waiting for her to begin, which she did a few moments later. "Hey... I'm sorry alright?" she looked genuinely sad, she could barely look Naruto in the eye. She continued to look around the room to avoid his gaze, "I went into your head because I wanted to know why you chose Haku over me..."

Naruto scowled, he had gathered that from the way she acted afterwards. "I really don't care about that, my life has practically always been public knowledge Ino. You now know why. My question is why did you help it." Naruto put emphasis on it. He didn't want the shinobi that could listen in to know what they were talking about.

Ino shifted uncomfortably on her feet and her face turned ghostly pale. She appeared to be answering the question, until Sakura saved her day... and ruined Naruto's. "Naruto come here!" she practically yelled in the chunin exam room. Heads all turned to her which made many of the rookies sweat drop. You don't want to paint yourself a bigger target than you already have as a rookie. That was the case with nearly any competitive game.

Naruto turned to where Ino was only to ground his teeth in frustration. Ino had taken to walking over to where Sakura and the Konoha rookies were hounding over a man covered in black garbs. The man's face was covered more than Kakashi's. He actually thought they could be distant relatives due to the small spots of silver hair that randomly poke out of the worn headband.

It appeared he had been talking to the team for a while since he already had a stack of cards out and everyone was looking at them in wonder. Sasuke stared across the small circle of people and said, "Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto looked up at him with the look of someone that was ready to snap at the person who addressed him. However before he could do that, the man before them tapped the stack of cards, and pulled out a small card before he read it out loud.

Uzumaki Naruto, Genin
Age: 12
Birthdate: October 10th

Teammates: Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke.
Sensei: Hatake Kakashi

Chakra type:???

Missions:
Leader of 1 S-rank Mission.

27 D-rank missions.

Notable mentions: The Hokage gave Uzumaki and his Team his consent
to enter the Chunin exams without the proper amount of Missions

Naruto was beginning to grow a scowl the more this guy read off the damn card. He knew a lot about him and that was frustrating.

On a scale of 1-10 in comparison to the average Genin...

The masked individual held up a card that had fours and fives across the board when it came to things such as Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, Genjutsu, Bloodline use, and ninja tools.

Ninjutsu: 8
Genjutsu: 2
Taijutsu: 10
Bloodline: 0
Ninja Tools: 5

Many eyes went wide when Naruto was listed a 10 in Taijutsu. For them the only other person on the cards that had been listed as a 10 was the green spandex kid that Sasuke had asked about earlier. However while everyone's eyes went wide in surprise, Naruto's only narrowed in frustration. He had used his lightning manipulation to increase his speed once in public. How was it that this guy seemingly knew that he had recently increased his skill in Taijutsu. The thought alone brought a scowl to his face. That was why he was particularly happy when a red headed girl with a cap came up to them and practically told the shinobi in front of them to follow her back to her team.

Naruto assumed that there must have been some chain of command amongst their team because she obediently followed the white haired shinobi that sat at the back of the room next to a grass ninja. However the shinobi that was just next to them seemed to get up and obediently follow the girl.

Sasuke however was staring a Naruto in frustration. While his Ninjutsu skill was a 10 compared to the other genin, his Taijutsu was only a 7. Naruto had never been able to beat him in a fair fight. Yet suddenly he is ranked higher then him in Taijutsu? What the hell could have happened over this past month that he had not seen?

Before Naruto could drag Ino away and allow her to finish her statement from earlier, a large man suddenly appeared in the room. He knew the exam was about to start...

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Naruto scowled at the paper down in front of him. This was retarded, these questions were ridiculously hard. He had gathered that the test was about gathering information since he saw Hinata who sat beside him activate her Byakugan. That or she was a cheater. He liked to think the former. However that was the source of the problem.

Naruto had no way of gathering information. He didn't have the tools for it either. He didn't gather information sitting at a fucking desk with a pencil and paper. He gathered information the way he did in wave, by actually talking to people. This, this stupid test? This was a fucking joke. Why did he need to know what angle a kunai should be thrown, or the proper spin or throw to put on it if his Kunai's hit their mark regardless through proper practice.

Better yet who says he even planned to actively use Kunai again with the development of his new style? Naruto scowled, what are ways that he could gather information without being caught? He had been thinking for a while, and time was just ticking down to the final three minutes of the test. Hinata had offered to let Naruto see her answers, but that would surely just get them both disqualified.

However, the more he thought about all the times he had even heard about gathering information, the more he realized that there were three solid ways to gather information. One, you could do so stealthily, trying to listen in on conversations and what not. He had done that a lot during his childhood, listening in on conversations on store clerks... Well it was more to get away with stealing food. However he did find out that the husband that ran the butchery was cheating on his wife. Naruto now realized however that as a kid, probably the worst person to steal things from was a person who cut up meat for a living. Although he didn't get caught, so all is well.

The second way to gather information was his preferred way, just talking to people. If you can befriend people, most usually become pretty loose lipped regardless. He also had a knack for making friends with people outside of Konoha. Hell, he was sure a country probably loved him. Yet he had robbed them of a forth of their funds. Not his proudest moment... but it made it possible for him to live a well off life, as well as the possibility of Haku developing a spy network.

While from Haku, he truly realized the third and final method of gathering information he could think of off the top of his head. Violence. Haku interrogated Gato, and he ended up spilling the location of his funds and he made Naruto 250 million richer. Out of all forms of gathering information, it appeared that violence worked the absolute best. So with a minute left on the clock, he did the best thing that came to mind.

Naruto promptly stood up quickly and slammed his fist onto the back of the person's head right in front of him. The action gave off several-startled cry, and made the people next to the boy jump when his head bounced off of the desk. Naruto quickly reached over and looked at the name on the tests before transferring and changing the names.

Naruto now had a test that had a good eight out of nine questions answered with three seconds ticking on the clock. The team whose teammate had been knocked out was practically screaming for Naruto's head. Stealth was obviously not Naruto's top priority when he had decided to steal the boys test.

One of the screaming teammates was forced to be retrained by the chunin lining the walls of the room. He was thrashing and kicking against them, yelling at Naruto for making them lose the test. They looked absolutely murderous, but could the people really blame the raging shinobi? They would probably be acting the same way if they had lost the test that way.

Ibiki, the proctor of the test stared at Naruto with a frown on his face. They can't really pin the boy down here, there was nothing against violence in the test. They just had to pass it. Sure violence may be frowned upon, but knocking someone unconscious only counted as cheating once, twice if he wanted to be critical about Naruto taking the unconscious boy's test. Proctors in the room looked over to Ibiki seemingly for an answer, however when Ibiki was able to give nothing but a shrug everyone moved onto the final question.

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Naruto sighed, the test just suddenly took a major turn. Mitarashi Anko came on the scene, and dropped a time bomb on every team still in the exam.

"Alright kiddies! You want to be chunin right? That is what this exam is for. As a chunin you may get a mission or a team that you don't want. This test is supposed to promote teamwork and recreate a situation you may be placed in as a chunin. Here your teams will be split up amongst the other teams among you. You don't get to choose the teams, they have been chosen for you. Now that that has been said... I need you to sign these contracts that say you knew that you are likely going to die in here."

Naruto scowled at that. He thought it was bad that he was already picked to work with the red haired girl in the cap, and the blind boy. His team had gotten the guy with the ninja info cards. However, the annoying part had yet to come.

"You will be getting scrolls. These scrolls will be your ticket out of this place." She motioned behind her as she said this. "This place is the forest of death. True to it's name, most of you will probably die. If the shinobi in the forest don't kill you, the animals and conditions of the forest likely will. The scrolls, will be heaven and earth scrolls." she emphasized it by each type of scroll at already separated teams.

"You need both to get into the tower located at the center of the forest. You see where I am going with this?" the second test proctor could only lick her lips a bit before continuing, "That's right, half of you at least will fail. Some of you will probably die, and some of you may disqualify yourselves. You can opt out of this test at any time, just open one of the scrolls before you reach the tower..." She paused as everyone took in what lies beyond the gates before them. "So anyways, sign the forms if you wish to continue. If not go home, this test isn't for the faint hearted. The simple rules are survive and make it to the tower with a heaven and earth scroll as a team before the 5 days is up. Have fun, and good luck. You all will need it."

However, Naruto did hate one more thing than the test. That was this red headed girls attitude, she had a shorter temper than Sakura. He hadn't even bothered to get their name, they merely positioned themselves near their gate entrance. He could only assume that this was going to be a long five days.

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Short chapter, yes I know. Setting the scene and frankly didn't want to think up questions for the exam test or a lame way for him to pass it. I enjoyed all of you chunin exam ideas, and I'm affraid that I have grown to hate writing about the exam. It has become more of a "Damn why do I have to write today." instead of "Alright let me kick out 3000 words for the next chapter."

Hopefully it doesn't start to reflect on the chunin exams, however in case that I feel that it starts to. Expect a bunch of flashbacks(sorry)

This got brought up to me recently and it is in fact the truth with this story. This story was originally going to be revolving around Naruto learning to use the blade. However I have just stopped writing the blade in, and cast it aside on a shelf in Naruto's house. As such I feel that the name is not doing justice to the story, and where I plan to take it. I still plan to finish up a little plot with the sword, or perhaps get back to it later after time skip. However as of now I don't see the things I originally intended with the blade actually happening. So if I am going to rename the story, it will probably be called

"Time Keeps Dragging On." or "It Seems So Slow."

Anyways thank you everyone(nearly -.- Leaprechaun1) for reviewing. So read and review. Bit of a twist with the exam arc. The concept of the forest of death pisses me off, so I have no idea how long I will make that last. I really want to get to the prelims then the month break personally. Right there, quite a bit happens.

I said I would address why Naruto choose to live with Sakura soon. I doubt that I will do it however until the prelims start.

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Two things: 1, I know this is a long way off but what do people think about Konan? I really like her however I have yet to find a serious story with her in a pairing with Naruto. Would you read a NarutoxKonan story? I am asking because I am thinking about writing on after this story is finished.

2: Why do people hate Karin? Anyone care to explain? Out of all of team hebi(save Sasuke) I feel Karin is the most useful... People seem to hate her.