Thanks for the reviews everyone! Yes, I know that the last chapter was slightly shorter than the others but that was just to finish off the wave arc and the return trip to Konoha. Keep reading and reviewing for this is the chuunin arc.

Chapter 5: The Chuunin Exams: Part 1

After the whole fiasco in Wave, Team 7 continued to do D-rank missions for around a few weeks. This brought loud proclamations of complaint from Sakura, Annoyance and anger from Sasuke, and mild irritation from Naruto. Their luck would take a different turn when their sensei Kakashi turned up carrying forms, much to the confusion of the Genin.

"Okay, gather around guys." He gestured to them. Once they were near him he shoved three forms into their hands. One for each of them…

"An 'Application for the Chuunin Exams'?" Sakura read off the sheet before looking up at her sensei in confusion. "D-don't you think it's a bit too soon for something like this, sensei?" She questioned in slight fear. She was somewhat aware of what happened in those exams. Kakashi eyesmiled.

"Maa…don't worry too much Saku-chan! Just look, Naru-chan and Sasu-chan have the right idea!" He gushed as the two other Genin twitched violently at the names they were given.

"Please refrain from those names." The two said in eerie unison. Kakashi waved them off and gestured to the forms once more. Sasuke and Naruto wordlessly signed the forms and Sakura hesitated slightly before giving in and hoping for the best. Maybe she should train…

Meanwhile, some time later…

Naruto was walking calmly down the street, ignoring the glares of the 'Ugly dolls'. His keen senses picked up a disturbance in the area. When he reached the corner, he peeked around to confirm his suspicions.

A person dressed in black pyjamas and purple face paint was holding up a young boy, who was younger than him. Thinking it trouble, he moved to investigate.

"If I were you…" His dream-like voice descended upon the boy. "I would leave that child alone…" He fell slowly from the trees and landed on the ground with glowing petals falling from the sky. The guy in pyjamas looked at him funnily before ignoring him and tried to throttle the kid. Naruto had enough of this insolent mongrel…

"Ame no Ikusen Hanabira (Rain of a Thousand Petals)…" He called out after performing the correct seals. Suddenly, the whole sky was seemingly engulfed in glowing flower petals, which then proceeded to crash into the startled boy in pyjamas. Outside the genjutsu, the boy was rolling on the floor, trying to shake off an invisible enemy. The kid who was being held hostage looked at him in awe.

"Woah…So cool!" He gushed. "Thanks mister!" and with that he ran off. Turning back, Naruto noticed that the boy had broken the genjutsu and was making subtle gestures to the package strapped on his back. He was about to remove it when a girl with blonde hair tied up in four pigtails stopped him with a…fan?

"Kankuro…what are you thinking? You planned on using Karasu this early? Do you want 'him' to find out?" She yelled and the now named Kankuro twitched. His flinching was put on hold as a stone careened into the back of his head. Looking at who dared hit him, he found that it wasn't the feminine redhead guy, but a black haired boy in the trees, smirking at him.

"What are you doing here Suna-nin? The exams aren't until later so you shouldn't hang around, or people would get suspicious." The boy said as he hopped down, revealing himself as Sasuke.

"Okay screw it! I'm gonna-!" Kankuro couldn't finish his sentence as a slightly shorter red haired boy appeared next to him in a swirl of sand. The boy had black rings around his green eyes and the kanji for love tattooed on the left side of his forehead. On his back was a huge gourd. He focused killing intent on Kankuro.

"Kankuro…stop playing around…or I will kill you." He said in a monotonous voice with a menacing edge. Kankuro edged away in fear, while the blonde girl was slowly moving away.

"Temari…why didn't you tell Kankuro to stop?" The red haired boy questioned.

"S-sorry Gaara…I didn't g-get here in t-time." The girl now known as Temari said fearfully. The boy nodded to her before looking at the people in front of him. He looked at Sasuke and Naruto.

"Who are you?" The question caused the two to look at each other before Sasuke went first.

"Uchiha Sasuke." "…Uzumaki Naruto." Came the introductions. The boy nodded.

"I am Gaara…I look forward to seeing you in the exams…both of you…" and with that, the boy departed with his friends just as Sakura finally turned up.

"Huh? What's the matter?" She said to her team-mates. Sasuke grunted before stalking off, Sakura trailing behind him like a loyal puppy.

A few days later…

The groups of Genin were all huddled together in a room, waiting for the exams to begin. Genin from all over the world came to test themselves in these exams, hoping for not just promotion in rank, but an opportunity to fight others from all over. All of the Genin were shivering with anticipation at the coming exams. Out of the corner of his eye, Naruto idly spotted Teams 8 and 10.

After meeting up with each other in the midst of the crowd, Team 7 moved in silence towards the building where the first exam would take place. As they entered the building, Sasuke took notice of the genjutsu covering a sign. Narrowing his eyes, he and his team moved towards the designated area…when they saw a few other genin arguing with two disguised chuunin. The one with a bowl cut, large eyebrows and green spandex got decked across the face, landing across the floor. The girl on his team, wearing her hair in twin buns and a Chinese outfit spoke out.

"We're just trying to enter the exam, please let us through!" See seemingly begged to the doorman, who scoffed at her.

"Listen kid, we know all about these exams and let me tell you, we failed two times before due to the insane difficulty." He said. The one next to him spoke up.

"We're just trying to save your lives instead of letting you risk them!" He yelled. It was at that moment that Sasuke chose to interfere.

"Yeah yeah…just get rid of that pathetic genjutsu on the door and show us the real room" He announced with a victorious smirk. The doorman took offence to the pathetic remark and moved to kick the Uchiha in the face, who prepared to attack with a fist in retaliation. The biggest shock came when a green blur shot between the two, catching Sasuke's fist and the chuunin's foot with his hands. This got the bowl cut boy a scolding from the other members of his team, the hairbun girl and a feminine looking Hyuuga boy. Suddenly, to her chagrin, the bowl cut noticed Sakura and blushed.

"My beautiful Cherry Blossom! How beautiful you are! Will you go out with me?" He yelled and Sakura backed away, looking like she witnessed a murder.

"N-No Way! You're too weird! And Sasuke-kun is the only one for me!" She yelled, causing the boy to twitch.

The feminine Hyuuga stepped up to the aforementioned Uchiha and Sasuke looked at him with something akin to confusion.

"You are Uchiha Sasuke, correct?" He asked the Uchiha.

"Its normally polite to introduce yourself before asking for someone else's name." He said in response. The boy twitched a little in agitation before replying.

"I an Hyuuga Neji…I look forward to seeing you in the exams, Uchiha." He introduced himself. The spandex guy perked up at the name 'Uchiha' and sprinted to Sasuke.

"Uchiha Sasuke-san! My name is Rock Lee! I would be grateful if we could have a match." The now named Lee announced. Sasuke looked a little baffled before smirking.

"Bring it!"

"Yosh!"

A little away from the building, the two teams arrived at a training ground. Team Kakashi on one side and Team Gai on the other. The girl, Tenten, walked to the middle.

"One on One, Taijutsu only…" She called out in boredom. With that, the two genin tensed up and jumped to fight.

Heavy and light hits were exchanged as Sasuke and Lee battled across the field, although it was clear that with age comes experience because Sasuke was losing, even with his Sharingan he couldn't keep up with the spandex menace as he managed to land strike after strike, brutalising Sasuke's defence at alarming speed.

"S-Sasuke-kun is losing? Even though he has the Sharingan?" Sakura yelled, unwilling to believe that Sasuke and the bloodline of the Uchiha would lose to such a weirdo. Naruto spoke up after a while of silence after observing the genin.

"…Lee-san is more suited to Taijutsu than our Sasuke is..." He said. "Even with those eyes…if he can't even see Lee-san's movements, how can he even expect to keep up?" This caused Lee to look at Naruto with amazement.

"You are most knowledgeable! Yes, my speciality is Taijutsu and I won't lose easily in my forte!" He shouted at the end, delivering a powerful jump kick to Sasuke's jaw, causing him to soar into the air, and caused Sakura to scream in fright.

Lee suddenly reappeared behind Sasuke and began to unwrap the bandages on his arms.

"Now…I will prove to everyone that geniuses of hard work are better than natural geniuses!" Just as he was about to unveil his technique, an animal's fist collided with his face, hurling him into a nearby wall. Lee looked up in confusion, which morphed to shock when he saw that the animal that hit him was a large turtle with a Konoha hitae-ate. The turtle, much to the surprise of Team 7 spoke, yelled at Lee.

"Lee, you baka! You know that the move you were about to use is forbidden!"

"B-but!" Lee made to reply but the turtle cut him off.

"I hope you are prepared for punishment because Gai-sensei is here!" The turtle yelled. A man who looked like an older version of Lee appeared on the turtle, looking quite angry with the boy. Suddenly, he punched Lee in the face. Then he started crying.

"Lee! You fool! Why did you attempt use such a technique on a comrade?" He yelled, which caused Lee to tear up as well.

"I'm sorry Gai-sensei! I- I just wanted to prove that hard work surpassed genius…" The man's face softened…then he embraced the boy in a hug.

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

"LEE!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

A sudden genjutsu clouded behind them, giving off a sunset beach. The three disturbed genin and cat of Team 7 moved to leave but the man had unfortunately spotted them.

"Oh what is this?" He reappeared behind the team at an insane speed. "You are Eternal Rival Kakashi's team aren't you?" He questioned getting dazed nods from them. After mild chit-chat with the man, and Sasuke being angry that his speed was slow, they ran to the examination room but saw Kakashi standing outside the door…reading porn…again.

"Yo! Good work team! Have fun in the exam!" He called as he ran off, leaving a mystified group of genin.

"He came here…just to say that?" Sakura yelled. Sighing, the group moved to the hall, oblivious to the people stalking them.

"So…what did you find out?" One questioned to the smaller group of three.

"Nothing. All we learned is that he's team-mates with an Uchiha brat and a civilian girl." One of the three remarked, decidedly male in voice. Suddenly, a female voice came from next to him.

"Huh? That's all you know? Didn't he do anything in the brawl with the other team?" She questioned. This time, a third voice spoke up, this one again female.

"He didn't participate in the fight…rather giving observations about the one in green spandex." She spoke with a shudder. That one freaked her out, especially when the older one turned up…

"How disappointing…oh well, at least we located him amongst the others. Keep an eye on him during the exam but don't do anything to draw attention to yourself." Spoke the older voice, again another female. This gave us three females and one male. "Move out…" she ordered to her team. As the woman looked up in the sky, her Uzu hitae-ate shined from under her long black hair while the sun struck it. She sighed before vanishing in a swirl of leaves.

With the Genin…

"Wow! Looks like we're all here huh? Don't hold back guys!" Kiba said in a loud voice, which caused them to wince at the noise.

"Sheesh! So loud, its like you guys are rookie academy students…" Came a drawl, causing most Genin in the room to turn to the voice. A silver haired older teen wearing glasses approached the group.

"Hello there, fellow Konoha Genin!" He said cheerfully. "My name is Yakushi Kabuto, nice to meet you!" The group looked dumbfounded at him.

"I suppose it's my duty as a fellow shinobi to offer a helping hand to newbies…" He said, slightly adjusting his glasses. He pulled out a deck of orange cards from the inside of his pouch.

"These…are my Info Cards. I have access to a wide range of things such as info on shinobi, past exams and other stuff." Sasuke walked up to him.

"So you can give out info, huh…Let me see." Sasuke practically ordered. Kabuto laid the cards out in front of him like a professional gambler.

"I have two names…Rock Lee of Konoha and Gaara of Suna…" He said as the silver haired bespectacled teen frowned.

"It's really not that fun if you know their names…but oh well!" He said as he rummaged through the cards before two fell out. Clearing his throat, he read them out.

"Okay…first we have Lee. Says here that he can't use chakra so he specialises only in taijutsu. His team-mates are Hyuuga Neji and Tenten. His mission record is 42 D-ranks and 3 C-ranks (Don't know if this is right)."

He picked up the second card and cleared his throat once more.

"Now its Gaara…Hmm…says he has an impenetrable sand defence and that he returned from every mission he's been from unharmed. Team-mates are his brother and sister, Kankuro and Temari. His mission record is 1 D-rank, 7 C-ranks, and…woah! A B-rank! This guy doesn't fool around…"

The Genin gaped at the idea of someone with such power and still be only a Genin. Sakura looked around, thinking of a question on her mind, she asked Kabuto.

"Um, Kabuto-san. Do you know who those guys are?" Sakura gestured to two groups, one with whirlpool symbols and one with musical note symbols. She silently noticed that most of the whirlpool shinobi were looking at Naruto in one way or another.

"Well, I know that the ones with the whirlpool insignia are from Uzu-no-Kuni but I had heard it was destroyed…perhaps they rebuilt it? The others are just some no-name village called Oto, quite weak actually." He said loud enough for the Oto Genin to hear, who became furious and attacked the bespectacled teen, causing his glasses to break and killing intent to be released. After getting over the shock, the door slammed open revealing the intimidating figure of a giant man with a black trench coat and bandanna.

"Alright, shut up you little maggots! You, Oto Genin! I don't know how they do things where you're from but here we have a thing called restraint!" He yelled, and the Genin apologised for the ruckus.

"Follow me…your first exam will be taken in an empty classroom."

When the group entered, they noticed the rows of desks lined up across the room. Naruto took a seat next to Hinata, causing a blush, and was joined next to him by Shino. After a murmur of good lucks, the exam was underway.

As he looked over the questions on the test, Naruto raised an eyebrow. These questions absolutely had him baffled. Looking around left and right, he could see a vast amount of the students thought the same while others were cheating in some way. The bun haired girl was using wire to manipulate the mirrors in all four corners of the room to get answers for her and her team-mates. Sasuke was using his Sharingan to copy the hand moves of the guy in front, and the Hyuuga were using their Byakugan to see the answers from the hidden chuunin of the room. Shikamaru was sleeping and Chouji was eating…big surprise. Ino was using her Shintenshin technique on Sakura, taking over her body temporarily to get her answers. The most interesting one was the redhead from Suna, who used some kind of sand eye to observe the answers. Frowning, Naruto turned back to his test.

A few solutions came to mind. He could use genjutsu to cover the area in enough time to get the answers, or he could simply try to work out the test normally…He went for option one. Placing hands together under the table, he whispered quietly.

"Ame no Ikusen Hanabira… " With that call, over a thousand flower petals erupted outside and entered through the open door and windows. This caused people to swipe in irritation or give looks of awe at the suddenly beautiful scenery. In the confusion, Naruto had Mia run across desks and snatch a random paper. After Mia gave him the paper, receiving a stroke on her right ear as a reward, Naruto proceeded to copy the stolen test paper before ripping the stolen document up and mixing it in with the flowers in the genjutsu.

Ibiki was not having a good day. First, his alarm clock (ringing of painful tortured screams) woke him up two hours early. Then he found out that the store ran out of coffee, causing him to spit death threats and torture the owner of the store briefly. Now, someone had flooded his wonderfully dull exam room with flower petals, blinding him from seeing who the little shit was that did it. After finding no one responsible he grumbled before returning to his seat and glaring at the genin. After an hour, an alarm rang, signalling the end of the first test, and many genin sighed in relief. This didn't last when, from outside the window, a ball shaped object smashed through and exploded to reveal a banner.

"INTRODUCING THE SEXY AND SINGLE MITARASHI ANKO!" it read, and soon a woman with purple tied up hair in a brown trench coat and very revealing undergarments came in and smiled at them.

"No time to rest yet, maggots! The second test will begin immediately! Now, follow me!" She yelled, ignoring Ibiki who was complaining about her entrances.

She lead the group of genin towards a foreboding looking gate to a dark looking forest. She turned and smirked at the genin.

Alright you maggots, this is were the fun begins! This second test will be to gather one of each scroll, Heaven and Earth from the other teams." She said, gesturing to the marked scrolls. "You will be doing this in my little playground, The Forest Of Death." She finished with a smirk.

Of course, Kiba being Kiba, he had to open his big mouth to provoke the woman.

"Huh? What kinda name is 'Forest of Death'? Wow soooo scary!" He mocked while laughing, which was cut off when a kunai slashed his cheek and Anko appeared behind him.

"You better watch out in there, little boy…it's your kind that spill that delicious blood I love." She then licked the boy's cheek, getting a blush and goofy smile. After retrieving her kunai from a kunoichi with a long tongue, she prepared to hand out the scrolls, giving team 7 an Earth.

Soon, the groups of chuunin hopefuls were each stationed at a gate for each team. After a few moments of preparation, Anko slowly started to let the teams in.

Hopping through the dense jungle was quite troublesome in Sasuke's opinion. What did this have to do with growing stronger? Playing fetch the scroll? He should be working on new jutsu, fighting strong opponents and obtaining the means to kill that certain man. This was nothing more than a pointless childish game…

Sakura was quite happy even in this horrible foreboding forest. She finally had time with Sasuke-kun! This was the perfect opportunity! Even though her other team-mate was there, she knew he wouldn't get in the way. Yes, she was quite grateful to be on this team.

Naruto was observing the surrounding area with caution. This forest was…absolutely vulgar. A seeping presence was stalking them slowly, like a predator about to snap its jaws upon its unfortunate prey. Shaking these thoughts, he could idly sense some of the other genin groups in the exam watching them. Sighing a little, he addressed his team-mates.

"Sakura-san…Sasuke-san, I will be scouting elsewhere…" He said and before the two could reply, he vanished in a swirl of red petals. His team-mates had then realised that they were being watched and silently thanked Naruto for diverting them.

With Naruto…

He idly noted two teams following him as he separated from his team. He smiled in amusement. 'She' would enjoy this…

In the trees, a Kiri genin team was pursuing the feminine boy with his cat. They were dressed in all beige bodysuits with breather masks. The apparent leader watched as their target stopped moving and landed in a clearing. He smirked, this would be enjoyable. He and his team had gathered in a circular formation around the boy.

"Sorry pal, but we're gonna have to ask you to nicely hand over your scroll." He made gestures with his sword. The boy just ignored them, content in stroking that cat on his shoulder, much to the anger of the team who began moving around him. Suddenly, the boy sighed.

"How uninteresting…" The boy commented in a dream-like voice. "This ordinary type of battle is boring to her…I will make her happy." He said and the team watched in awe as flower petals began to surround the boy, who started to glow a pinkish purple. The boy then clutched his hands over his heart.

"This is it…come to me, my friend…come to me, my MACHA!" He screamed the last word as his body glowed brightly causing the team to cover their eyes.

As the glow died down, the team slowly lowered their arms and gazed with wide terrified eyes at this…monster in front of them.

It was huge, that was an understatement. Easily dwarfing the size of most Summon bosses. Its upper body resembled a feline-like creature that was a deep purple bordering black, with its eerie red eyes gazed impassively at them. Over the left side of its face was a white mask like appendage and covering its head like a wedding veil was a transparent patterned cape. Its lower body was the most surprising as, in place of what should have been legs, was a gigantic white rose with intricate black patterns. (NOTE: See Macha Avatar form from .Hack/G.U. only with a white rose instead of a red one)

"…Only through boredom and pity do I reveal this form to you…" The cat beast spoke in a chilling voice. "Pray that you suffer quickly…" With that, the cat suddenly placed its hands together.

"Gesshoku no Kyuushuu…(Moonlight of Attraction)" Suddenly, to the surprise of the genin team, a huge red moon with an eerie yellow glowing eye appeared behind the cat creature and an ominous red light fell from it, striking one of the genin. The struck genin went wide-eyed before slumping. His comrades the moved to their unconscious friend to help wake him up.

Suddenly the boy's eyes shot open but his eyes appeared dazed, like in a trance. As fast as lightning, the entrapped boy's sword met flesh through his comrade's chest.

"Nezumi, what the fu-" His leaders comment was cut off as Nezumi's sword slashed his throat. The charmed boy looked at the cat creature, which was gazing back impassively.

"Fool…to give in to temptation is an unforgivable sin…I must amend the vice that has sprouted root…" He then gathered a sphere of pinkish purple energy in his left hand. He gazed with narrowed red eyes at the still dazed genin, who still looked love struck.

"Love can sometimes be a cruel and harsh mistress…Kyozetsuhannou! (Rejection)" With that, the sphere was driven through heart of the last Kiri genin, whose eyes shone with unshed tears as the life left his eyes, and caused him to collapse in a pile.

The cat creature then glowed brightly and shrunk down, revealing Naruto and Mia, who looked quite happy at the events. Naruto smiled softly at her and then picked up the fallen team's scroll before walking out of the clearing slowly.

Up in the trees a little further away, another team with the headband marking Uzu had seen the battle. Wide eyed were they, who were still trying to regain their nerves. None of them had seen what happened to the team as all that happened was the group of Kiri-nin standing in front of the boy, then one started to kill off his own team-mates! This would have to be reported to their sensei…

With Sasuke and Sakura

"AAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH" Sasuke cried out as the snake man had bitten him on his right shoulder, leaving a strange black pattern in his wake.

"Kukuku! Farewell Sasuke-kun. I will be seeing you again soon." He then idly heard Sakura ask the man's name.

"I am Orochimaru." With those words, he blacked out, vaguely hearing Sakura's screaming.

Sakura was scared. This strange and unexpectedly strong man had appeared in front of them from out of nowhere. He then proceeded to fight Sasuke while she stood frozen in fear at the man's killing intent. Soon, the man had then bit Sasuke in the neck, eliciting a scream from the black haired boy. As the man vanished and Sasuke collapsed, she wished with all her heart that someone would help her…

"Dammit Dosu! Why do we have to fight some brat for anyway? This sucks!" Came the voice of a brown haired boy, who complained at the mummy-like boy called Dosu.

"Zaku, shut up." Dosu said to the now named Zaku, who sniffed in irritation. "It was an order, so we have to do it or we die. Simple as that." Zaku shuddered. Dosu was so nonchalant about things like this…

"Dosu is right Zaku…" came the voice of the black haired kunoichi of their team. Zaku growled.

"Shut it, Kin!" The girl glared and was about to retort when Dosu held out his arm.

"Silence…I hear something." He said and the other two tensed up, wondering if it was their target. Suddenly, Dosu sharply turned his head and grinned under his bandages when he spotted a girl with pink hair of all things, dragging their target to safety. Gesturing to his two team-mates, they moved in.

Sakura was relieved. She had managed to perform basic medical checks on Sasuke and was moving him to a safe location by one of the larger trees of the forest. Suddenly, to her shock and fear, she heard footsteps and, when turning around, her eyes widened.

"Hey there girly, can Sasuke come out and play?" Came the sadistic voice of the one with brown hair. The bandaged guy shook his head at the boy's acting.

"Shut it, Zaku." He said and the boy named Zaku scowled. "You, give Sasuke to us and nobody gets hurt." He warned her menacingly. Sakura backed away frightened and watched as the girl with black hair sneered at her.

"Tch! How pathetic! You call yourself a kunoichi?" She yelled and grabbed Sakura by the hair. "My…look at this beautiful hair, it makes me quite jealous." She said with a wistful smile, which then turned into a vicious sneer. "It's girls like you that give us kunoichi a bad name!"

Dosu then proceeded to order her to wake up Sasuke although it wasn't needed as a dark chakra suddenly filled the area causing the group to look…and see Sasuke standing with an ominous black and purple glow swirling around him and tattoo-like patterns going down his left side. Dosu's eyes widened.

'What? This is Orochimaru-sama's-' His trail of thought was cut off when Sasuke had started to attack, crippling Zaku's arms as he failed to perform his wind based jutsu. Cringing at the scream Zaku made, as his arms were rendered useless, he shrunk under the gaze of those cold red eyes that were directed at him. Thinking quickly, he laid his scroll in front of the Uchiha and retreated with Kin and the injured Zaku. No need to fight a useless battle, their task was complete…

"Not enough…need to get stronger…" Sasuke muttered as his gaze was fixed after the runaway cowardly Oto-nin. He growled and contemplated going after them when a foot collided with his face, slamming him into a tree.

"Yosh! I do not know what has occurred here but you are behaving most unyouthfully, Sasuke-san!" He recognised that annoying voice of that bushy eyebrows kid that kicked his ass…dammit. The boy then got into a taijutsu stance and charged at Sasuke, who smirked and prepared to engage the boy in a battle of fists and kicks.

However, much like a repeat of earlier in the first exam, their attacks were blocked this time by Lee's team-mate, Hyuuga Neji, who frowned.

"While this fool is my team-mate…I will not allow you to bring him harm!" He then proceeded to attack Sasuke with a barrage of hand strikes, rendering him unable to draw chakra and forcing the marks on his body to recede to his neck, where the snake man bit him…

He collapsed into a state of unconsciousness, and Sakura smiled in relief. Then, she wondered. Where was Naruto? She knew he had been off somewhere in the forest, most likely a good distance away…

Said genin was currently hopping through the trees, hoping that his team was competent enough to survive without him. After homing in on their chakra signatures with his All-Seeing Eyes technique, he sped faster as it appeared they were injured. Cursing under his breath, he hoped he could reach them in time.

He had been correct in his assumption as Sasuke was out cold and Sakura was mildly shivering in fear. After throwing the scroll in her lap, getting a look of surprise and slight elation, she helped shift Sasuke onto his shoulder as the group made their way to the tower…

As they arrived, Naruto carefully placed Sasuke on the ground while Sakura cradled him. He decided to kill the wait by looking at around. After waiting, he turned to Sakura.

"Sakura-san…I think we have to open the scrolls here…" He said and the girl blinked before a spark went off in her head and nodded. As Naruto unravelled the Heaven scroll, and Sakura doing the same with Earth, a smokescreen suddenly blocked their vision and from it came a familiar face.

"Woah! you guys actually made it! Good job!" Came the voice of Iruka, who stepped out of the shadows of the smoke. He then looked concerned at Sasuke.

"What happened to Sasuke?" He questioned and Sakura started to wail loudly.

"I-it was horrible, Iruka-sensei! Some freak called Orochimaru bit Sasuke-kun and made him all crazy!" Iruka's face froze into panic at the name she mentioned and proceeded to help Sasuke to the medical wing. If that mark on the Uchiha's neck were an indication, then everything would turn to shit. And fast.

A week later…

The genin were gathered in a large stadium, lined up in their respective teams as they were listening to the Sandaime Hokage give a speech. Many were ignoring this speech in favour of observing their would-be opponents.

Many stood out in Sasuke's eyes as all he saw was a means to an end in his pursuit of power…none would get in his way. Sakura had looked from terrified at the amount of people to concern for Sasuke as he kept gripping his neck in pain. Naruto watched all of this impassively…the foolish girl truly thought that the boy would listen to her? He wasn't even the least bit interested in any of the women including her…perhaps he went the other way? Naruto paled a sickly green colour and moved away from the boy as if he smelt something awful and Mia hid in his red curtain of hair.

Moving from Sasuke, he took note of the others in the room. It seems that all of the Konoha teams had somehow passed, along with the Suna team, Oto team, and finally two Uzu teams. Looking at the last group, he frowned slightly. He knew that there were two teams there when he annihilated the Kiri-nin but they had hidden themselves so well that he couldn't locate them and do the same…oh well, he would remedy that in the exam, where everyone would recognise his love that he would show the world. He smiled and scratched Mia behind her ear, eliciting a satisfied purr.

Apparently, because so many teams passed the second exam, they would have to 'weed out the weak' as it were by holding preliminary matches…what a bother. He then tuned back in to hear the last message from the ill sounding chuunin.

"Now, in order to start these matches, your names have all been entered and some will be selected to compete for their right into the third and final exam. Those who don't get called, consider yourselves lucky…now lets begin!" The man said, with hacking coughs between his words that made it slightly difficult to understand but the message was clear. You win, you're in, You lose, and you go home. Many tensed as they watched the names flicker fast on the black huge screen behind the chuunin when it finally stopped.

Matsu no Nenshou Akuma (Matsu the Burning Devil)

VS

Uzumaki Naruto

Many looked at the two red heads that would be competing against each other. The Konoha-nin looked at one of the now named Uzu-nin. He had short bright red hair and red eyes with tribal patterns on both sides of his face. He wore no shirt, but covering his bare muscular torso was a cross strap holding a huge package on his back. Covering his arms were a pair of light armoured black gloves. His lower half consisted of a black and orange kilt over a pair of black trousers and orange and black boots. 'Matsu' smirked.

"Oh, now this is gonna be so much fun!"

END OF CHAPTER!

Sorry for ending it here but I wanted to write the tournament matches in the next chapter as I have something planned. I hope that I can encourage more people to read this as well as my other fic, Dead Bone Pulse. Anyway, time to move on the Jutsu Corner.

Endo's Jutsu Corner

Only two here to mention (I am finally glad to use Avatar Macha now after trying to come up with good techniques)

Gesshoku no Kyuushuu (Moonlight of Attraction): Used by Naruto only in Avatar form. A large red moon with a glowing yellow eye appears behind the user and, with its rays, charms a target and brainwashes him or her into attacking their allies. Unranked Genjutsu. (NOTE: This was based on one of Macha's techniques in the original .Hack games called Suspicious Seduction, but this is a toned down version of that)

Kyozetsuhannou (Rejection): Used by Naruto only in Avatar form. User generates a sphere of pink/purple energy in his palm and thrusts into the heart of the victim, signalising rejection and heartbreak. Unranked Ninjutsu.