Team Eight melded into the confused, chattering crowd that surrounded the entrance to the first examination waiting room. Two smug-looking genin stood guard at the door, but their smirks and postures only made Kiba narrow his eyes.

"They're the gate dudes that always check us in," he murmured as he assessed their younger guises. Akamaru wriggled his nose pointedly as he rested in the front of his partner's jacket. "Same smell of syrup and ginger root, too. This a test or somethin'?"

"It has to be," Sakura replied in an equally low tone as she stared up at the room number above the door— two-oh-one. "The waiting room's on the third floor. We're on the second." She wore her typical sleeveless navy shirt but this time with a gray tank top hoodie thrown over to cover up her hair and lower her chances of immediate attention.

Shino hummed. "So a genjutsu, then. Surely a handful of teams have noticed but are biding their time as well. Why? Because a test such as this would have the few genjutsu types here realize they've been tricked. No one is making a move towards the stairs. Everyone who knows is waiting it out, just as—"

A sudden shout cut their conversation short as a genin dressed in a jumpsuit was thrown back and landed in a clumsy heap on the ground. Eye-straining green, neon orange weights, and an immaculate bowl cut. Kiba shivered.

"Holy shit he looks like Maito Gai. Did sensei ever say anything about him havin' a kid?!"

"Rock Lee. The only relationship he has to Maito-san is being his student, astoundingly," assured Shino.

"You sure? You're shitting me." Akamaru yipped quietly and Kiba shook his head. "Right, right, stay focused. Sorry. So— Maito's team. That kid can't really get tossed like that. He's got, like, four of those monster weights on, and we only know how much they weigh 'cause that's the team sensei got your weights from." He nudged Sakura. "And the guy he's with's the Hyuuga we're worried about. Neji. Y'know, noble clan, total sticks up their asses. He wouldn't be caught dead with a lousy teammate, 'else he woulda been transferred by now."

Sakura tilted her head in acknowledgement as her eyes roved over the rest of the participants. She was right to have walked the streets those few times prior to the exams since most of the faces are vaguely familiar at worst, very little of them completely foreign to her at all.

Tenten, the last member of Maito's team, rushed to Lee's side as murmurs of disapproval rippled through the audience. Sakura ignored them too in favor of scrutinizing one of the exasperated-looking figure leaning in the shadows and watching the confrontation with a humored tint to his eyes.

But then he blinked and moved his gaze to her.

"Unfair?" the guard with the bandana scoffs. He addressed everyone gather with a puffed chest and a pointed smile, but Sakura paid no mind and nodded across the room. "We're being nice to you brats—you think these exams are for weaklings? I've seen people quit after realizing what they have to go through to get to the top, people getting crippled for life because they pretended to be strong."

Kankuro took the nod with a lazy wave of his own and motioned towards the guards, the word boring silently dripping from his mouth as he rolled his eyes.

The second guard with the spiked hair continued on with a sadistic grin. "Chuunin need to be leaders. You're going to have missions that fail, subordinates that'll die—"

Kankuro gestured to his head with a decidedly mocking smile and Sakura shrugged, giving her hood a little tug with one hand and using her other hand to rub at her cheek with only her middle finger. He snorted.

But then something in his face changed as some sort of realization crested his skin like the sunset. His lips pressed into a grim line and he turned away, his blonde teammate oblivious of their discussion and watching the slowly churning disaster like the rest of the crowd, and his red-haired teammate stony-faced as he intently eyed green jumpsuit.

"Uh, Sakura? What was that?"

She looks over at Kiba's confused face, unconcerned. "Hm?"

"That whole—that. That weird—secret talk—that—that thing! With that Suna guy! That!"

She almost snorted at the absolutely bewildered look on his face, but she kept her expression calm at the sight of a familiar genin team strutting up the corridor. She sighed as she tugged her hood farther down her face and slunk back closer to the back of the crowd, prompting her teammates to follow. "Later," she muttered. "Shino, I found your strain of coccinella septempunctata."

Coccinella Septempunctata, or more colloquially, the seven-spotted ladybird—seven being the key word in the name.

Just another code to memorize.

Sakura's words sobered her teammates enough to close themselves off and observe. Uchiha Sasuke they had to worry about most, but Naruto was a loose cannon in the gears that cranked the exams. Depending on his actions and recklessness he could either automatically fail his team strictly on the basis of his conduct, or propel them to the finals solely on his unpredictability.

As much as they supported Naruto and his endeavors, he was an anomaly in their calculations and sometimes they hated the thought of having to wait mere seconds after one of his decisions to act.

One of the guards punched Tenten in the face, forcing her backwards and onto the floor. Kiba's lips turned down into a shadow of a sneer, but other than that, Team Eight was unresponsive.

"Argue all you want," Sasuke said as Team Seven breached the crowd. Hinata stood to his left and Naruto remained on his right, and his voice was as silky monotone as it always was. Sakura's eyes flickered back over to Kankuro's face quick enough to catch the genuine distaste in his grimace, "but you will let me through."

Me, not us.

"While you're at it," he continued, "take down the barrier you created with this genjutsu. I have business on the third floor."

Shino glanced around the room as the murmurs started up again. He didn't know why Sasuke's play was to make everyone immediately aware of just how much of a threat he was—arrogance, perhaps it was, and it was that sort of arrogance that was going to get him and his team one of the first ones targeted if they made it to the Applied portion. "He truly doesn't care for others, does he?"

Akamaru whined softly in reply.

The smug grins fell off the guards' faces.

"Well, well, look at you," Bandana mused.

"Noticing right off the bat. Cute," Spiked-hair frowned.

"Hinata," Sasuke announced abruptly. Her head shot up and she blinked rapidly, hands folded neatly at her front. "You realized it too, didn't you? Your intelligence has improved the most of our team—"

Sakura closed her eyes and brought a hand to her temple. She knew Naruto had a big mouth, but only an idiot that made a scene in one of the most politically-charged events of the year would be handing out neatly packaged information like pamphlets.

"—so? What do you think?"

Her cheeks flushed as all the attention in the room shifted to her, and she gulped. "The-The second floor..." she started timidly. "We... We're only-only on the second... floor..."

Spiked-hair shrugged. "Well done, I guess. But all you've done is catch on." Before anyone had a halfway chance to blink, he flung himself onto his hands and flipped to bring a heel down onto Sasuke's head—and Sasuke, quick enough to notice and quick enough to react, swung a leg forward in retaliation.

But then Lee was between them with their shins in his hands and his arms barely trembling with the strength to keep two simultaneous attacks at bay, his face blank. He was a far cry from the waif that'd been tossed on the ground minutes ago. Fast, too. Ridiculously so.

Sakura didn't fail to notice the shift in Hinata's posture when she withdrew her defensive stance back into her meek reservation.

Spiked-hair retracted his leg and shunshinned away, leaving the crowd's murmurs to grow again as they dispersed as Lee's team congregating around him. Kiba turned his back towards most of the participants and Shino and Sakura fell to his front. A hound sense of smell wasn't the only notable trait of the Inuzuka, and it was odd that many seemed to forget a canine's attuned ears.

"Lee planned to slip under the radar to avoid attracting attention 'til he saw Sasuke. He was goin' on about a whole 'potential rival' sort of deal, and I guess he wanted it enough that he threw his old plan out the window," Kiba informed, his head tilted slightly to the right. He rolled his eyes. "I know I do dumb shit all the time, but this is pretty bad. No wonder all the other hidden villages hate our damn guts."

Shino exhaled tiredly, unable to disagree. "At least we know what we're up against. Let them flaunt their abilities all they want—it just makes it easier for us to deal with. Why? If everyone else thinks Konoha is full of idiots, there's not much else we have to do."

Sakura, on the other hand, couldn't help but observe the Konoha genin she could spy from her spot half-hidden behind her friend. A powerhouse did not automatically equate to a good shinobi, as covert ops and subterfuge were their primary arts, but it seemed that message was one that had been forgotten. She thought of her father and his towering gait, his earth-crumbling techniques, his cries for bloodshed on the battlefield.

"Sakura?"

He could be all the things a shinobi shouldn't, but he still climbed to the top by slipping through the mist. Acting a destructive force to be reckoned with was a right to be earned, not something genin-nobodies should be puffing out their chests for. She knew they were all young, stupid, inexperienced, and the most likely to die on the front lines if war ever swung onto their doorstep, so she knew—so they all should know—that sticking their necks out here and now was more suicide than bravery.

Her eyes drifted back over to Neji as he took a sure step towards Sasuke.

"You, there," he said. "Identify yourself."

"I don't need to answer to you."

She turned her attention back to the rest of her team, deadpan and unsurprised. "I never knew Sasuke had such a wonderful personality."

Kiba laughed.

And even though they all seemed to migrate to a lighter, exam-unrelated topic, it wasn't beneath their attention at how Hyuuga Neji never once acknowledged the heiress of his own clan and treated the spot where she stood like there was nothing to be seen.

As the three of them spoke, Akamaru wiggled out of his jacket confines and landed on the ground with the slight click of his nails. He watched Team Seven walk to the other end of the hallway and, with a slight wrinkle to his nose, also watched as Lee broke off from his own team with a few choice words and followed after them. His ears flopped about his neck as he met his partner's eyes, the latter nodding once before meeting two questioning looks.

"Jumpsuit went after the ladybirds. Should we care?"

A few black insects trickled out from Shino's sleeve and down his pant leg before disappearing into the grooves of the wooden flooring. "Not primarily," he answered. "But if there's anything that can be learned, we will learn it. Why? I would be a fool to deny us even more information to deal the cards in our favor." He glanced once more around the room. "It would be unwise to stay here much longer as the crowds are slowly migrating to the true waiting room. Shall we go?"

Kiba swept his arm in a wide gesture. "Nerds first."

Shino's face barely twitched. "What an asinine attempt at humor—"

"Well someone's gotta be the funny one and I'm tellin' you right now it sure as hell ain't you—"

Sakura cracked a small smile at their banter as she fell into step beside Akamaru just as an unsettling feeling slithered along her collarbone and gripped at her jaw. A slight nudge of fur at her ankle alerted her that her discomfort was not as hidden as she hoped it'd be, but all she could offer was an apologetic shake of her head before trying to tune back in to the argument in front of her.

All she wanted was a moment of peace, of the luxury of knowing nothing else could go wrong—but she also knew she couldn't have that. Not now.

Not until both Danzo and Hiruzen were dead.

Akamaru merely turned his nose down to the ground, snuffling worriedly but keeping quiet. Secrets were what they were trying to unearth and bring to light to all those who deserved to know, but Sakura had many of her own and many both Kiba and Shino hadn't a chance to consider because they didn't see what he saw.

And he wondered just how much longer it was going to last.

::

Kisame sat on a bench about a block from where he tracked down the first part of the Chuunin Exams to be. He managed to sit and contemplate for an hour before he hunkered over to the nearest overhang with a slight scowl to his lips and beads of sweat dripping from his brow. Maybe he didn't do too well in burning hot temperatures, sue him—Kiri's population barely knew what the sun was and that was still better than Ame, so excuse him for doing so poorly in a place that rained no more than three days of the year and had more green than they knew what to do with.

He sighed. Konoha had always been the place he dreamed of taking to Sakura to one day where she'd be able to see a bright blue sky and feel the warmth of summer, something Ame could never offer.

'But I guess Konoha found her anyways.'

"'Scuse me, could I get through that door?"

Kisame snapped out of his reflection and looked over his shoulder to see that he was half in front of the door to one of the, what he guessed, were one of the lesser known weapons shops in the village. A quick glance through the window showed a couple of people milling about—locals, mostly—and he dawned an apologetic look before quickly stepping to the side. "Sorry 'bout that. Didn't see where I was standin' nin-san."

The stranger stopped just short of the door handle and stared at up him. "Nin-san?" they mused. "Not 'kunoichi-san' or somethin' or other?"

"Oh, uh, should I have, uh—"

She shook her head, an amused grin stretching her face. "No, no, don't backtrack, it's refreshing. Any particular reason why y'called me that?"

He shifted his weight and shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno why there's a distinction anyways. Everyone defends and fights for your village all the same, right? So the only difference should be ranks with everyone gettin' the same shot at it."

He was no stranger to the gender imbalance in the shinobi career bubble. He'd seen it enough to know it was a problem and grew up in a village where kunoichi had to be a little tougher because the populace was a little bloodier. That too could've been another reason why it'd been better for Sakura to grow in Ame than to have her watch her back every second in Kiri.

Then again, she was supposed to be an Akatsuki.

He still couldn't think of anything that was a worse fate than that.

The stranger's eyes solidly bore into him for a whole seven seconds (he subconsciously counted) before she threw her head back and barked out a laugh.

::

Nothing interesting normally happened when she was out and about the village, so Tsume was delightedly surprised to find herself spending her shopping trip in the company of someone she bumped into on the street. He startled her so much with his polite rhetoric that she'd smacked him on the shoulder and, when she found out he was visiting, offered to show him around the village.

His name was Kenta (or at least that was what he told her) and he was a fisherman from the outskirts of River Country who'd come to Konoha half on business, half on leisure. When she mentioned a family, he spoke of a younger daughter left in the care of her grandpa while he was tied to wherever his work took him.

There was something sad in his eyes when he talked about her and Tsume really felt for him, one parent to another. "My job gets dangerous sometimes, but it's something, you know? I haven't seen her in a while 'cause of it and..." He sighed. "I hope she knows I'm doing what I think's best for her."

Tsume and Kuromaru shared an understanding look. A father who had to travel for work to support his family was a truth for both shinobi and civilians alike, and at least Kenta made the effort to see her as much as possible. And it must've been even harder on him—she didn't think she heard any mention of another parent in the picture.

But it didn't meant that she was going to lower her guard for a kindred soul. Sure, he said he was a fisherman and he said he was a father, but how did she know there was a truth to anything he'd said? Usually she wouldn't be so skeptical of a burly man that stepped as heavily as his build allowed, but the Exams were a tense time and Konoha was simply crawling with foreigners and underlying threats.

Kenta was a man that smelt of salt and the sea and was kinder than most—and if he happened to be everything he said he wasn't, she hoped at least that part of him was real.

They were at one of the many parts Konoha had to offer, one just blocks away from the Jounin Standby Station, when Kenta gazed up at the clouds from his spot on the shaded side of the bench he shared with Tsume.

"About the Exams," he started, and she immediately grew wary. Had she been right to be suspicious? That he was building the conversation to mine for information? "Are they... safe?"

Her mind blanked. "Safe?" she repeated dumbly.

"Er, well, I guess you could say maybe I came to Konoha for a lil' more than what I said before," he answered. His eyes never left the blue, blue sky. "My kid, too smart for her own good sometimes—at least since I saw her last... She wants to be the best shinobi out there and even though I don't want that life for her, who the hell am I to stop her?" Kenta's shoulders dropped. "Who in the goddamn hell am I stop her?" he whispered.

The trees above them stood as still as a painting, not even a puff of a breeze to flit through and help quench the slowly scorching heat, and for once, Tsume was stunned to silence. Kuromaru, though, had always been more level-headed than his counterpart.

"Parents always believe that it's their duty to keep their pups safe, and though it's not something I would argue against, I don't think it to be the primary directive," he stated thoughtfully. Kenta blinked at the ninken who spoke in a deeper voice than his own. Tsume didn't know if he was surprised her partner was capable of speech or something else. "Yes, pups are to be protected, but never forever. There will always come a time that they're destined to leave the pack, but until then you must be a guide, not a bearing. It's in that way you will never lose them."

Tsume frowned to herself. Guiding or protecting, she felt that she hadn't been doing a good job on either lately. Hana was her first born and she'd been stricter because she'd been alone and scared—a parent and clan head whose husband wasn't around as much because Konoha wanted his deep cover skills and he didn't know how to say no.

But then after having Kiba and running off that no-good ex of hers (how frustrated she'd been then because all he had were flimsy excuses while she balanced being a clan head and raising their—her—children and still had enough time to kick his ass), she relaxed. She clearly remembered what she thought then; since she raised Hana find and that girl turned into a successful veterinary medic next in line to take the clan seat, maybe she wouldn't be as harsh in raising Kiba.

In the beginning, though, she hounded him especially after he and Akamaru met and especially after proving themselves a tad more reckless than his sister and the Haimaru brothers. It wasn't until she met Sakura that she started to back off. Kiba had finally made his first friend outside the clan while in his first year at the Academy, and as cold and smart and antisocial as Sakura was, she was there for him.

When was the last time Sakura visited like she had when she was younger?

Then Team Eight was formed with Shibi's son seamlessly weaving into the group as far as she could see. Tsume met him a couple of times at the team's inception and not much more after, and all she could recall was how relieved she was at how they got along so well. She'd ask Kiba about it, but—

When was the last time Kiba was home? The last time he sat at the dinner table with his family? The last time she didn't open his door to find a clumsily made bed that hadn't been used in days—weeks?

Tsume's hand twitched.

Why did Kiba break that mirror?

Her canines ground together.

And why the hell hasn't she been doing anything about it since then?

"—t for you to be worried."

"But kids've died in there, haven't they? What if—"

"All graduates are assigned a competent, highly capable sensei. At least that's what I know in terms of Konoha's organization." Kuromaru tilted his head. "You said you intended to bring your daughter here when she's old enough?"

"That was the plan. Always thought Konoha would be the safest place for her."

Tsume quickly lent an ear to Kenta and Kuromaru's conversation as if she hadn't lost herself in thought in the first place. Kenta, for a civilian wizened by tedious labor, seemed generally respectful and unconcerned at having something explained to him by a ninken. A part of her still wanted to be suspicious and question just another one of his quirks, but the more she listened to him the more she believed he was who she saw: a worker swept by the tides, a father who would do anything for his kid, a stranger with eyes too tired and shoulders slumped too low.

Kenta scratched the back of his head and sighed. "I jus' hope I'm doin' the right thing."

Tsume threw an arm behind the bench, the sun shining through her spiky brown hair. "Why wouldn't you be? You're a pretty good guy as far as I can tell and your kid loves you, right? There's nothin' to worry about."

He smiled at her words, but when she caught sight of it, her chest grew somber so fast that it sent chills up her spine. "Thank you," he remarked quietly. His hair, as black as the depths of the ocean, shimmered with dark blue when sunlight spilled past the leaves above at just the right moments. "But I know I've never been a good man, and no matter how much I try to change for her... there's already so much." He turned towards Tsume and Kuromaru. "And I know I can't."

::

It took nearly all of Kiba's willpower to not double over in laughter as he stuffed part of his jacket into his mouth and bit down. Sakura's expression was half caught between disbelief and amusement, her mouth hanging open just slightly.

"It was how bad?"

Shino checked their position tucked against one of the walls of the true waiting room. The colors they wore were dark and muted enough to pass as just another team in the building and they'd relocated their hitai-ates to less assuming spots on their persons—Sakura's on the top of her head hidden by her jacket, Kiba's around his neck and partially hidden behind Akamaru's form, and Shino's around his thigh so that he could easily shield it with his overcoat if the situation called for such.

The closest team to them was situated just about a foot away, so he kept his voice low. "Imagine our first attempt at the obstacle course. Then imagine that attempt while that course was one fire." Sakura pressed her fist to her mouth and Kiba bit down even harder into the thick, gray cloth. "Had there not been such a... courteous intervention, I propose Sasuke would have, as you say, 'had his shit pushed in.'" Kiba buried his face into Akamaru and shook with stifled laughter. "Why? If he thought he was a match from anyone on Team Elephantidae—"

Elephantidae. The family class of one of the most notorious land mammals with a prowess in physical, close-range fighting, much like Team Gai's specialization.

"—then he is horribly disillusioned in what he thinks the severity of these exams is."

The jacket finally dropped from Kiba's mouth as he sat up and drew in a deep breath and parted his lips to reply, but he was stopped short when the doors swung open and Team Seven traipsed in with no preconceived notion to slip in quietly or avoid drawing attention to themselves.

He sunk in on himself just a bit as the rest of the participants minutely taper their conversations to size up the new competition.

God, Naruto needed to swatch himself for a new color to wear.

Kiba saw Hinata gulp as her eyes darted from genin to genin and as she took in the tense, unrelenting atmosphere that suffocated the space around them. She was so nervous it was palpable, and he wondered if she always wore her heart on her sleeve or if her shyness simply shadowed everything else.

"Sasuke-kun! You're late!" A pair of arms appeared and wrapped themselves around Sasuke's neck as a body pressed against his back. "It's been so long! I was waiting and waiting and—"

Sasuke pushed her arms off and took a step to the side, ignoring the slight stumble Yamanaka Ino took as she was thrown off balance. Hinata grimaced as much as she allowed herself and opened her mouth shakily. But just as quickly as she decided to protest, her teeth click back together and she ducked her head once Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chouji ambled towards them.

"What, are you guys taking this troublesome exam too?" Shikamaru sighed. Naruto puffed out his chest and got up in his face despite Hinata's sudden fearful expression and outstretched hand.

"'Course we are! If the dumbass trio can get in, so can we!"

"Quit calling us that. Damn, what a bother."

From deep in the crowd, Sakura could feel a distinct headache creeping up the side of her skull as Shino tiredly exhales. Not even a minute in and they were already causing a scene while simultaneously dragging another team into the mix. Akamaru grumbled something and Kiba groaned.

"Should we, uh, join 'em? Since we're all part of that 'Rookie Nine' bullshit some people have been callin' us, and it'd be kinda weird if we didn't go. Since Naruto knows us and Chouji knows Shino," he said. Sakura pinched her temple with her calloused fingers as she considered it. The point he made would go directly against their choice to keep out of Shikamaru's way, but it might make him more suspicious if they didn't decide to jump in on the fun.

She ran a hand over her face and tucked any loose strands of hair back under her hood. "Joining them now could jeopardize our chances at these exams," she answered. "If that happens, it could be years until we get another shot at this."

"And they are doing nothing but making these trials worse for themselves, as—"

A new voice axed Shino's sentence in half. They turned their heads back to the group of their former classmates. "Hey, you guys should be a little quieter," the voice offered genially. "Rookies, right? Fresh out of the Academy, but there's only... one, two, three... six of you? Where are the other three?"

Shino and Kiba immediately angled themselves so they were hidden behind a taller group of genin, but Akamaru whimpered and wriggled to grab their attention. His partner's head snapped up to find Sakura frozen, her nails catching the skin of her upper arm and her full attention on the scene unfolding at the entrance.

He took her arm and pulled, dragging her to the side as Shino held an arm out to keep her from tripping backwards. "Dude," he hissed. "What's wrong? Do you know him?"

"You can't keep going on like that, cute faces and all," the new arrival continued. His hair was silver and pulled back into a neat ponytail with his bangs perfectly framing his Konoha hitai-ate. "You aren't in school anymore and this isn't a field trip."

Ino's lips curled in offense. "And who the hell are you, acting so damn haughty?!"

The stranger smiled. "Yakushi Kabuto." Sakura snapped out of her stupor, her normally blank face erupting in understanding and fear. "Take a look around. That team behind you—they're from Amegakure, and I don't think you'd want to annoy them before the Exams even start."

She tuned them out and met her team's worried stares. "Konoha's compromised." She said it barely above a murmur and her lips didn't move, Shino's hand around her shoulder tightening ever so slightly. "The threats we talked about and the possibilities we—our luck has never been the best, but I never knew it would be this bad."

Kiba's moves his weight from foot to foot as his eyes blow as wide as twin moons as he tried not to make any wild gestures with his hands. "The hell do you mean? What are you—you're saying that guy—"

"I know him," she whispered fiercely. Endless gray skies flashed in her memory, as do scorpion tails and wooden parts and a young teenager with round glasses dragging a lifeless body behind him at the command of his red-haired master. It was only a grand total of one time she'd seen him because he never came to Ame again since she'd been there, but she never forgot words or faces or ideas, and if she did, that meant she was dead. "I don't know what he's capable of or if he even knows that I know of him, but he's dangerous and he's not a Konoha shinobi."

"Sakura, what—"

"MY NAME'S UZUMAKI NARUTO AND I'M NOT GONNA LOSE TO ANY OF YA', YA' HEAR?!!"

Team Eight slowly turned towards the outburst, stared for a few seconds, then slowly turned back to each other as the tension in the room swelled and the collective animosity of the participants shot through the roof.

Shino rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and tried to ignore the fact that he just lost a few of his brain cells. "Anyway." Fatigue seeped back into the bags beneath his eyes as he crossed his arms over himself. "Where have you seen him before? If he's skilled enough to immerse himself in this village for who knows how long without being caught, then he might be more dangerous than we can imagine. Why? He must be an elite to convincingly cover as a genin without rousing immediate suspicions. Did you see him on your own terms?" His face softened in concern. "Or was it through your father's channels?"

Kiba frowned. "Hey—"

"We need to know," he interrupted. Sakura's face was carefully calm save for the slight crinkle in her brow as she ran a multitude of thoughts through her head. A chanced look over her friend's shoulder had her meet Kankuro's gaze for a split second before he quickly looked away and forced a menacing grin as he talked with the rest of his own team.

"... After," she decided, stopping Shino and Kiba's sure-to-be scathing argument before it even began. "I'll tell you after the first exam."

Shino nodded. "Thank you."

When the clock tacked on the wall struck 8:30 am on the dot, smoke ruptured at the end of the room directly opposite of the entrance. An imposing figure swamped by a black trench coat appeared alongside his entourage of gray-uniformed subordinates, the two gate guards from earlier among them.

"Sorry to keep you all waiting," Trench Coat grinned, and it was anything but kind. "I'm Morino Ibiki, the proctor for the first section of the Chuunin Exams." He pointed towards the group at the entrance with, aside from the rest of the rookies and Kabuto, now contained three Sound-nin. "The team from Oto! No doing as you please before the Exam even starts unless you want to get failed!"

Bandaged from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers save for a single, wired eye, the team's ringleader looked as apologetic as he pretended to be. "Our apologies. It's our first exam and, well... we flipped out despite ourselves. It won't happen again."

"I trust that it won't," Ibiki warned before he regarded the rest of the room. "Listen up! No fighting without permission from the proctors! And even if we do allow it, no bullshit leading up to the death of your opponent is permitted. Any shithead that decides to screw with me gets disqualified, got it?"

Shino took the opportunity to grab each of his teammates' wrists. He sent three female kikaichu up Sakura's arm and four up Kiba's. One would nestle itself beneath Akamaru's chin, two would be stationed behind each of his friends' ears hidden in their hair, and one would be positioned in the collars of their hoods. A precaution, he liked to call it, so they had a means of soundless communication and a way to find each other if separated.

"Now, exchange your applications for a number and sit in the designated seat. You all will be given the paper for the written portion and further instructions will be given then." He surveyed the silent crowd. "Well? Get the hell on it, you baby-faced degenerates!"

Everyone slowly divided into clustered lines in front of Ibiki and his helpers who were scattered about the room. Sakura looked at all the possible supervisors they could get their numbers from; most of them she'd only seen in passing, maybe on the street or in a grocery store, and Ibiki's mostly engulfed by the genin that decided to size him up. That left Kamizuki Izumo and Hagane Kotetsu, the only ones who would know them based on the sheer frequency they were forced out the gate for menial missions, and hopefully the most likely to give them the least flak for being a Konoha shinobi.

"Eh, let's go with Hagane," Kiba shrugged, his nose wrinkling as he jerked his head. "He's the one that smells like syrup. Easier for mine and Akamaru's noses to deal with than ginger root."

So they did.

But when they eventually make it up the line with their papers in hand and their demeanors polite as they hold them out, Kotetsu eyed them up and down before flashing a pearly-white grin. "Well, whattya know, Unlucky Eight's competing too, eh?"

Sakura narrowed her eyes. "'Unlucky Eight'?"

"Have you guys seen your mission reports?" he said with a cocked brow. "Dead-end, long-ass missions no one wants and then y'all get ambushed on your last one." He wanted to say more, but then he saw the clear discomfort in their stances, the way the Inuzuka constantly checked over his shoulder at the teams waiting behind them, how the surname-less girl stared him dead in the eyes to shut the hell up, that the Aburame's face was stone cold in warning. Kotetsu quickly snatched their papers from their grasps and replaced them with their numbers before waving them away. "Uh, go ahead and find your seats. Sit quietly 'til Morino-san gives you further directions."

Shino and Kiba were quick to retreat, both acting as if his earlier words hadn't affected them nor acknowledging the few genin who'd overheard that snipped and were now warily glowering after them. Sakura stayed a bit longer, though, maintaining full eye contact with the sentinel from the moment they offered their papers to when she nodded slightly in thanks and turned to follow her team.

Something struck in Kotetsu then as he watched them go from the corner of his eye while he dealt with the next team in line, and for some odd reason, he suddenly recalled an old rhyme from a story his mother always told him as a child.

Walls have ears. 

Doors have eyes. 

Trees have voices.

Beasts tell lies.

Beware the rain.

Beware the snow.

Beware the man

You think you know.

::

Naruto mussed his hair as he suffered a mini-breakdown in his seat. A paper test? In order to be a chuunin? There wasn't anyone in the room more screwed than he was! He barely managed to get through the Academy—scratch that, he didn't get through the Academy and he absolutely failed the final and was only promoted because he saved Iruka-sensei from that bastard Mizuki and now that he thought about it he didn't have any skills to savehimselfnowandhewasgoingtofailandhisteamwasgonnakickhisass—

His head thunked onto the desk and he groaned pitifully. "I'm. So. Dead."

"That doesn't sound very reassuring from someone who said he wouldn't lose to anyone. Where did all that go?"

Just the sound of that voice sent hope fluttering up his chest. He flung himself upright and swiveled right, a blinding grin breaking out of his depression at Sakura with her elbow on the desk and her chin propped up in her open palm. She was so at ease, even at what could be the biggest exam of their lives, but it's so like her that he couldn't find himself to be worried.

"Sakura-chan!" he exclaimed, but quieted down at the half-hearted glare she sent his way. "Sakura-chan!" he repeated in a scream-whisper. "You're here!"

"You thought I wouldn't be?"

"Nah, you're super smart and strong so there wasn't no way you wouldn't show!" She smiled in surprise at his genuine sentiment. "And this paper test is gonna be way easy for you so—" Naruto's reality immediately crashed back down, and he collapsed back onto the table. "I'm so screwed, 'ttebayo!"

He startled when knuckles knocked against the stop of his head, and he whined more out of surprise than pain. When he looked back up it was to Sakura's wider smile—nothing too friendly or grand, just the slight upward curve of her lips that he would've missed if he wasn't looking.

"You'll do fine," she said as Ibiki walked to the front of the room. "Uzumaki Naruto's gonna be Hokage one day, right?"

He nodded his head so forcefully he almost dizzies himself. "Yeah!"

And he really believed her.

::

"There's a number of rules for this test, and I'm only going to go over them once," Ibiki barked as he tapped a piece of chalk against the board behind him. "And I won't be taking any questions either, so stay quiet and listen the hell up!"

Kotetsu sat on one of the fold-able chairs evenly spaced along the edges of the testing room with a clipboard perched in his lap and his pen tracing doodles in the corner of his blank sheet. Ibiki's spiel he didn't care much to listen to, so he tuned out most of it as he appeared as intimidating as he could to the nervous genin bunched together.

But he knew he was distracted. Who wouldn't be after that brief meeting with Unlucky Eight? He and Izumo had never really interacted with them besides checking them in whenever they passed the gates. He wasn't the only one that found it kind of weird that a fresh-out-the-Academy genin team were the ones getting shepherded into the bottom of the barrel D-ranks—the ones done outside the village long periods of time with limited pay. They were mostly past-time missions that shinobi would willingly pick up if they had nothing else to do and were bored out their damn minds, but he never looked into it because he thought that Hokage-sama was giving them some tough love.

Still, he always felt bad for them when they came back exhausted, filthy, and miserable. Out of pure curiosity he'd gone and skimmed through their mission reports and could only grimace at what they had to go through. Then they'd gone and gotten themselves ambushed by a pack of rogues in Wave, and why they were the team assigned to the follow-up of Team Kakashi's disaster, he'd never know.

"—heating caught will have two points deducted for each instance. In other words, there's every possibility that you can be dismissed from this test before the hour's even up. If you want to pass, you'll act like exemplary shinobi or be fuck-all nothing."

Kotetsu's eyes were on Sakura when Ibiki spat out that line, and he's interested in her sudden flinch and tightening of her jaw. Again, strange, but he also had to admit that nearly everything about her team could be classified as strange. They didn't join the other rookies making a fuss earlier, and they were so cautious about other teams overhearing what he had to say. If he didn't know any better, he'd say they were well on their way to what Ibiki dubbed as 'exemplary shinobi'.

"If even one person on the team gets a zero, everyone on the team fails." Stunned outbursts filled the room but were quickly shut down when Ibiki's fist met the wall. "Shut the hell up! Who the hell said you could talk?!"

Kotetsu moved his attention to Shino. He wasn't much different than from what he saw earlier and pretty much fit the Aburame stereotype to a T; reserved, swallowed in clothes despite the heat, and appeared wholly unconcerned with everything around him. But as Ibiki started the time and papers flipped while pencil tips hit wood, he could also see that Shino worked through the problems like he was at school—carefully, thoughtfully, and not like the exam would determine his future as a shinobi.

He squinted, immediately suspicious. Thirty seconds of searching didn't grant him any sign of cheating, so he marked it down on his clipboard.

Number 24 Cheating Strategy: ?

He checked Kiba next. He knew for sure that the Inuzuka wasn't the sharpest kunai in the pouch, according to files and notes in subsequent Unlucky Eight mission reports, so there wasn't any other choice but for him to cheat. But again, it happened, and both him and his canine partner puzzled through the answers like they weren't meant to be solved by the upper-division.

Completely and utterly boggled, he made another note two minutes after his first.

Number 43 Cheating Strategy: ?

Kotetsu monitored the other genin in his line of sight, marking down some point deductions on the most obvious cheating methods like sneaking looks at the paper next to them or passing notes. His last check was on Sakura, and surprise surprise, she chugged along the exam like it wasn't anything serious.

Number 13 Cheating Stra—

He paused. Did Unlucky Eight even understand that they needed to cheat in order to pass the exam? Because they sure as hell weren't smart enough to solve all nine problems on their own... were they?

He bit the inside of his cheek and looked back up. It was only his experience as a well-seasoned chuunin that stopped him from jumping three feet in the air.

Sakura stared straight at him as her hand continued to move fluidly over the paper. That was when he saw it: a small tan insect perched atop her pencil like an extension of the eraser. It was simple, subtle, and allowed perfect communication in a space jam-packed with a slew of chakra signatures and unstable fluctuations.

And he wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't shown him in the first place.

She held his gaze much like she had earlier, three whole seconds of intense green lightning, before she looked back at her paper.

Kotetsu crossed out what he had on the clipboard and rewrote.

Number 13 Cheating Strategy: Aburame Kikaichu.

Number 24 Cheating Strategy: Aburame Kikaichu.

Number 43 Cheating Strategy: Aburame Kikaichu.

His hand hovered hesitantly before he wrote his final line.

No points deducted.

::

Kakashi hummed. "It's quiet when the kiddies aren't around. No one begging for missions or whining about the ones I do give them... I almost miss them."

Kurenai, Asuma, and Kakashi lounged in the Jounin Standby Station as they waited to find out the results of the first exam. They were the only ones on the break floor with most of the other jounin spread out within the village to minimize any sort of threat conceivable. Hosting the Chuunin Exams meant it was a tense time both politically and economically, and they technically should be one of the busy bodies fluttering around Konoha, but their statuses as sensei with genin competing gave them a pass.

"Give it time," said Asuma. He tapped his cigarette over an ash receptacle. "Didn't you hear? This year's first proctor is the one and only Morino Ibiki."

Kakashi sighed dramatically. "That sadist, huh?"

Kurenai forced an air of curiosity around her like the name didn't ring a thousand warning bells in her head. "Sadist?" she questioned. "What sadist?"

"The type that heads the Torture and Interrogation Sector," Asuma informed chipperly as he took a drag. "There won't be any physical torture, but imagine having to sit in a stuffy room with someone whose favorite hobby is cracking heads open and picking at brains. One hour in there might as well be a month anywhere else.

"But there's still a limit, isn't there? There's only so much he can do until it turns into a flat out interrogation," she replied. Kakashi picked up the cup at his side and swirled it a few times.

"Maybe," he shrugged. "But I suppose it just depends on the genin." He tilted his head in consideration. "Kurenai-san, do you think your kids would hold up well against someone like that?"

An image of a pitch-black seal swam up from her memory, and she shoved down a humorless laugh. "Maybe," she said, mimicking his earlier words as she glanced up at the clock. 9:45 am. "But I suppose we're about to find out right now."

::

Shino's head was in his hands.

The first exam was officially over, one of the windows was shattered into a million pieces, there was crazy woman aggravating their proctor in the front of the room, and they had five minutes to leave the facility before they were thrown out themselves.

Kiba rapped the desk with his fist. "What's the matter, dude? We passed!"

"My brain literally cannot handle the stress," his muffled voice mumbled. "In the complete absence of common sense, Naruto's ridiculous outburst motivated everyone and moved the proctor and we passed on the basis of idiocy."

Sakura came up behind him and patted his shoulder. "It's something, isn't it?" Shino only seemed to sink further in on himself and Kiba fought the urge to snicker. "Come on, let's tell Kurenai-sensei the good news."

Shino slipped out of his seat and dejectedly slunk out of the room, Kiba following with his arms crossed behind his head and Akamaru nestled happily in his hood. Sakura cast one last look at paper-lined desks before she moved towards the door as well, and just as she stepped out, her shoulder bumped into a Kusa-nin's back.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I didn't mean to run into—"

The woman turned.

And Sakura forgot how to breathe.

The Kusa-nin's dark hair ran past her shoulders and over her chest, her slightly pale face unblemished and her eyes bubbling with something dark before they widened in unfathomable surprise.

"... It was merely an accident," she said. She stretched a hand out to tug the back of Sakura's hood and pull it all the way off her head. At the sight of pink, she filled with an excited disbelief. "No harm done, hm, little pup?"

Sakura flinched violently at the nickname, and the woman grinned as she let her arm drop back to her side. A sudden prickling sensation at the base of her neck had her turn to the side, her hair spilling off her shoulders like ink. The two boys standing by the stairs glared straight at her with guarded expressions while the small white ninken growled, prepared to pounce.

"Is that your team? They look rather upset," the woman hummed. She chuckled at the frozen fear on Sakura's face and leaned in, pink lips a mere millimeter away from the shell of the girl's ear. "Don't be sad our reunion was cut short," she crooned. "I'll be sure to pay you another visit soon, Ho-shi-ga-ki-chan."

::

A/N — Please Read

I'm really sorry that this chapter took so long to come out you guys, and I know I said I'd try to update every month, but with how things are looking now, I don't think I see that happening in the foreseeable future.

To make things clear, I am NOT  abandoning this story. I know it may seem like it at times, but I've spent way too much time going into detail with Hoshigaki that I refuse to push it aside. This story is ongoing, will update infrequently, and if any of you have any questions, clarifications, or just want to chat, I will always answer any messages that are sent my way.

Now the reason for this change in updating is simple: 

I'm tired.

I work at a lab for my internship and I'm there every day after my summer classes, both of which will last over the summer and both that will continue into my fall semester with even more classes and even more lab projects. I don't nearly have as much free time as I used to, and the off times I do have I spend catching up with friends, resting, and getting sleep.

Please bear with me, everyone, and thank you a million times over for all of you support!!!

<3

::

"Walls have ears.

Doors have eyes.

Trees have voices.

Beasts tell lies.

Beware the rain.

Beware the snow.

Beware the man

You think you know."

- Catherine Fisher, Sapphique

::

And we end this chapter with some fantastic pieces—

A great Stumble cover by KaedeKayano!

A cute Kisame and Sakura by CandythePotatodatz!

An awesome Team 8 banner by joonism!

An an adorable cover, fanart, and my new profile picture by WattPearl!