"I fucking knew it." Naruto muttered, glowering at the rusted sign on the fence before them.

"Wait. You've been here before?" Ino asked, turning from the sign to Naruto, who nodded.

"Yeah. Anko-sensei thought the prospect of leaving a child inside that place for a week with no food or water served well for survival training. It did, I guess." He finished the last part, and then led the team over to the small kiosk set up outside the fence. The fact that its position was covering the hole created by some creature escaping went unmentioned.

"You were supposed to follow Anko." One half of the eternal chunins said, amused by the fact that they weren't being led around Konoha in a merry chase that would pass the Academy building three times.

"I didn't want to deal with Kiba trying to find out if she wore panties or not." Naruto deadpanned, taking the release forms from Izumo.

Their forms had been signed and given back to the Eternal Chunin before the other genin arrived, some looking extremely aggravated over passing many landmarks of Konoha at least twice.

"And that concludes Anko's grand tour of Konoha! I will not be answering questions. Go get your release forms, and then take your team to one of the gates. This stage of the exam begins in one hour."

A chunin-hopeful from Ame, apparently slow on the uptake, piped up. "What are the release forms for?"

"Oh, those? In case you get maimed, injured, or killed, Konoha is not held responsible." Anko responded cheerily, shortly after slicing open the genin's face with a kunai for asking a question.

"Any more questions?" The purple-haired woman asked, a sadistic grin on her face. When nobody asked any, that grin transformed into a happy smile. "Good! Now, get to your gates. Try not to die!" With that gem of advice, she hopped onto the kiosk that Izumo and Kotetsu were working inside, and began eating some dango.

"Alright, Kiba, take the scroll." Naruto stated quietly, handing it to his teammate/friend.

Confused, Kiba spoke, though he thankfully matched Naruto's silence. "Why?"

"Because," Here, the Senju heir glanced around for eavesdroppers, "You're the fastest and strongest of the three of us. If I get taken out, grab Ino and run for the tower. It's in the exact center of the forest."

"You're not going to be playing the hero!" Ino accused, earning a dry look from the 'hero' in question.

"Yes, I am. I'll do my best to hold off whoever is overpowering me until you two can get to the tower. Now, as for the plan, we're going to run into the forest for about two hundred yards, then make half a lap of the forest. That way, we'll avoid most of the other teams – not to mention their traps – and we'll take out any teams we come across until we get the scroll we need, and continue our half lap. There's a seldom-used back entrance to the tower, and we'll be using it to our advantage."

Ino and Kiba seemed satisfied with the plan, and didn't argue any further. Over the months of their status as a team, Naruto had quietly become the de facto leader, mostly due to his natural charisma than anything like a coup.

Unseen to the three, a snake slithered away from them, returning to its owner.

When the clock struck exactly two p.m., the gates all opened simultaneously, allowing the prospective chunin inside Training Ground 44.

Naruto took the lead, sprinting into the forest for two hundred yards then breaking away sharply to the left, as he had considered their position relative to the tower. Breaking right would bring them closer to the front entrance, which everyone else would be doing.

They didn't come across many teams, and the ones they did come across were easily dispatched. Each time, they used the element of surprise to their advantage, with Ino utilizing her Shintenshin No Jutsu to cause confusion in the ranks when one member of the team beginning to attack the others.

Naruto burned the scrolls they didn't need, eliminating competition. The Heaven scroll was given to Ino, because Kiba was carrying the Earth scroll. This way, if they were separated, it ensured that no other teams could get both scrolls.

A day passed, and Naruto judged them to be in the right area to head to the back door. He kicked dirt onto their campfire, which he had ensured was kept small to attract as little attention to them as possible.

Ino came back from washing her hair in the nearby stream that bisected the forest, and soon they were ready to go.

Their journey to the tower passed without incident, though when they got to the actual tower was a different matter entirely.

Anko was waiting for them, her arms crossed under her ample bosom. Ino elbowed Kiba in the side to ensure that he didn't stare too much.

"You're out of luck, Naruto-kun. Everybody has to use the front entrance. Them's the rules." She stated, producing a container of dango from a pocket of her coat.

"Fuck that. Rules are meant to be broken. Besides, a ninja doesn't use the front gate; they come in over the back wall." He stated, looking around to make sure they hadn't been followed.

"That's true. Gimme your scrolls and get to your room, then." Anko stated, seeming to be pleased with her sometimes-student. Ino and Kiba complied, seeing as it was an order from a superior.

Stepping around the sadistic woman that had taught him weapons, Naruto pulled the senbon from his mouth and entered the tower, beginning to climb the stairs up to the third floor, towards his home away from home.

The room was rather Spartan, the only decoration being a pair of plush animals on one of the shelves. One was a snake, the other a fox.

"Aw, Naruto, I didn't know you had stuffed animals!" Ino cried, having (naturally) noticed them immediately. Naruto, to his mortification, blushed.

"Yeah, Anko-sensei gave me them when I passed survival training." He muttered, refusing to comment on their meanings when asked.

"Don't worry about it. Get some rest you two; I've got to go see Anko-sensei. Before you ask why it has to be just me, she'd like it if you came along, so she could tease us mercilessly about being in a relationship." Somewhat put out, Ino took the small bed in the corner, while Kiba was forced to take the floor, using some spare blankets he'd found to make a makeshift bedroll. He would have used his own, but he'd rather not be reminded of that forest at the moment.

Soon, the remaining members of Team Ten were sleeping, while the third member climbed up to the roof of the tower and settled down on it, to wait for their sensei to arrive at the tower. Or, if he was already there, to find him.

As it turned out, Naruto didn't have to wait very long, because he was soon joined by Kakashi, who mirrored his position, staring out over the forest like Naruto was.

"Good job." Kakashi started, surprising Naruto. That wasn't how he'd expected things to begin, after all.

"For what?"

"If a kill was needed, you did it, and made sure Ino didn't see it. I'm proud of you, keeping her sheltered in childhood just a little bit longer. At the same time, I'm disappointed, though. She needs to realize that being a ninja isn't a game."

"I know. Most of my classmates act like they're playing ninja. There's a difference between getting results on a practice dummy and taking a life. Ino and Kiba will eventually have to do it." Naruto sighed, his gaze flicking from the forest to his sensei. Anko had him killing small animals for food before he was in the academy. While it was horrific to his young self, it also served to make him accept that killing came with the job.

"Indeed. Hopefully they'll accept it as a fact of life, like you have. Otherwise, they'll be forcibly retired. I know many former shinobi that were forcibly retired, either because they couldn't bring themselves to make the kill, or because they took far too much pleasure in it."

Standing, Kakashi's hand descended onto his white-haired student's shoulder, and he gave a small smile. "For what it's worth, I'm proud of you." He repeated, then vanished in a shunshin.

Naruto sat there long after his sensei left, thinking on what the older man had said to him.

After the reaming four days of the five day grace period passed, with teams trickling into tower on each day, they were all brought into one of the lower floors, this one housing the practice arena. They were greeted by the sight of the Hokage, flanked by some Jonin of Konoha.

"Good afternoon, genin. Congratulations on passing the second portion of the Chunin Exams. Unfortunately, there are too many of you for us to simply move onto the finals. Before we begin these elimination matches, I will impart to you the true reason for the exams. They are war games, for each of the elemental nations to gauge each other's strength without fully going to war." Understanding dawned on many of the more intelligent people's faces, while some simply didn't care, and others did not grasp the concept.

"Hayate, you have the floor." The Hokage finished, stepping back amongst the Jonin.

A cough announced the arrival of the sickly Tokubetsu Jonin, who began speaking, occasional coughs interrupting his speech. "Thank you… Hokage-sama. I will be proctoring these preliminaries. Each fight will be to the death, I call it, or one of the fighters surrenders… to the other. All decisions are final, and will not be disputed. The board behind me will decide the matchups randomly. When two fighters are selected, please make your way down to… the arena. Failure to do so will result in forfeiture of your match. There will be no postponements now or in the finals." Speech given, Hayate motioned for everyone's attention to focus on the board while he wiped his hand on a cloth he had taken out of his pocket.

The board flashed through many names before it settled on two, with the owners glancing at each other before shrugging, then making their way down to the arena, where they took up position across from each other.

One was relaxed, cracking his knuckles, while the other was tense, taking up his clan's fighting stance.

"First match, between Sarutobi Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke… Hajime!"