Lovely awesome amazing beta: Monster Cat Music Girl with assistance from Igornerd and Duesal Bladesinger

Chapter 3: The First Exam

The first thing Sakura did with her new found sensei-dom, was to head down to the jounin observation lounge. It was a wonderful place filled with snacks, coffee and observation screens for the jounin-sensei to discreetly watch their charges and brag to other jounin about how much more awesome theirs were than everyone else's.

Which was precisely what she found Kiba doing when she entered and took a quiet seat nearby. The jounin from the other villages were off in their own groups, cautiously eyeing everyone as potential threats. The Inuzuka, however, was up on the table loudly proclaiming the virtues of his genin team, Akamaru punctuating each remark with a bark.

"5,000 ryou on my team making it to the finals! Anyone who says otherwise better put their money where their mouth is!"

A chuunin in the corner jotted down his bet on the chalkboard that had been brought in to keep track of the betting pools. Betting was a time honored tradition, apparently. Something about keeping the foreign jounin occupied and out of trouble. Sakura wasn't sure she agreed, but in this case she was glad for it.

"I'll match your bet, dog breath," an Iwa kunoichi spoke up from across the room. "5,000 on my team for the finals!"

"Me too for mine," someone from grass added.

Sakura took this chance to place her own. "Uhm, even though I'm not very confident in my team since I only just picked them up... I'd like to bet 10,000 ryou on my cute little genin."

Ino whipped her head around to stare at her in shock, nearly hitting the poor Kumo jounin that had been chatting her up with her ponytail. "You got a team, forehead?"

"Yeah, just now. They were outside without a jounin sensei and Tsunade-shishou gave them permission to enter so I offered to fill the part. Care to wager, Ino-pig?" she arched an eyebrow in challenge.

Ino wasn't fooled for a second. She knew a bluff when she saw one, especially a bluff from Sakura and extra especially when the pink-haired girl was making no effort to hide it from her. However, clearly her best friend was up to something, and clearly she wanted her help.

She sent a silent, 'halfsies on your winnings?' offer via best friend eye talk, and when she got a confirmation, her mouth split into a smirk. "You're on, billboard brow! 10,000 against Pinky's team even making it past the first exam!"

'You're totally footing that, by the way,' she added in a glance back at her friend.

As a chorus of voices echoed the blonde's bet, Sakura reassured her, 'Not a problem. Trust me.'

Well, this would certainly prove to be interesting. What was her bestie up to this time?

Izumo and Kotetsu were at their usual post outside the genjutsu'd door that was made up to be the mock first examination room. A herd of genin were around them and they were soaking up the attention and chance to beat on the little morons.

At least, that was until a familiar mop of blonde spikes showed up with his equally famous brunette and redheaded companions. No. No way.

They didn't even give Naruto a chance to speak before Kotetsu jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and down the hallway. "Keep walking, Blondie. Don't you dare ruin our fun."

Naruto paused in the act of speaking, thinking it over for a moment before sighing and doing as requested. Sasuke rolled his eyes and followed, while the Kazekage showed no reaction at all.

They did get a few stares from the genin however, most of which wondering what the trio of living legends were doing at their chuunin exams. The ones that had seen the three signing up however, blanched in horror as their fears were confirmed.

To their credit, only two of those teams chose to quit on the spot.

Shikamaru refrained from letting out a sigh as the noisy genin around him shuffled nervously and whispered amongst themselves about that strange teen sleeping on the proctor's desk. Idiots. Underestimating him already? He was hardly even trying to pretend to be asleep; he hadn't even slowed his heart rate or breathing.

Troublesome.

He'd already compiled a mental list of those that were going to pass and those who weren't, though there was a third column he'd dedicated to Naruto-like cases. Where he wasn't sure if they were brilliant or just incredibly stupid. Those ones were too difficult to predict to be sure if they would pass or not.

A particularly obnoxious duo had come up with the brilliant idea of using Shikamaru as kunai target practice. 'To see if he was alive' they'd said, even though it was obvious he was breathing. He made a note to take extra special care to disqualify those two.

He had a timer going in his head, and the actual exam was due to start in two minutes. Anyone not in the doors before then were disqualified.

The doors slammed open with a bang, and an oh-so familiar voice shouted, "Uzumaki Naruto reporting for the first exam, dattebayo! Eh? Shikamaru?! You're the proctor?!"

Screw two minutes, the exam started now; before Naruto ruined all of his element of surprise.

He pooled more chakra into the shadows at his feet, and lazily raised his head to prop on one elbow. He blinked in false bleariness at the blond and his two companions (Seriously? Who's crazy idea was that?!) and yawned. "Hmm, Naruto? What are you doing here?"

Oh, Shikamaru already knew, but he was using the question to distract his old classmate from giving away the dark tendrils now crawling stealthily across the floor. Fortunately there were 'decorative' hangings on the ceiling casting shadows to help disguise them; but Naruto was off and on a sensor, depending on how much nature chakra he had in his system. Chances were, he'd sensed them.

His suspicion was confirmed when he saw the blond's gaze flicker toward the shadows before coming back to him with a wide, proud grin on his face. "Baa-chan says that I gotta take the exam if I want to be promoted, so, here I am! Sasuke and Gaara too."

Setting aside the logistical knot of the Hokage ordering the Kazekage to take the chuunin exams (he was pretty sure he'd get a headache if he even tried and just wrote it off as 'Naruto did it') Shikamaru focused on dealing with situation at hand instead of puzzling out all the details.

"Hmm, well, if Hokage-sama ordered it...," Shikamaru said with a shrug. "I suppose we should start the exam now? Normally I'd give you some written test or something, but that sounds so troublesome... Instead, all you have to do is touch my desk."

Ignoring the protests and questions of incredulity, the Nara let his head fall back down onto his arms and went back to 'sleeping'.

Immediately about half a dozen genin surged forward, and just as quickly were frozen in place. It was a watered down version of his clan's technique, it didn't force them to copy him and it was easier to break, but it was enough to paralyze them. The shadow-user hadn't twitched so much as an eyelash, leaving the rest to wonder how he'd stopped them.

Naruto laughed. "You're evil, Shika."

"I never claimed to be nice," came the muffled reply. "Time limit is a half hour."

That spurred a couple more into action that the examiner easily captured. They still hadn't figured out the trick of it yet, but Shikamaru figured it was only a matter of time. Then the real test would begin.

He felt more than saw the surge of chakra as Naruto leapt to the ceiling then to the desk at lightning fast speeds, nearly destroying the wooden furnishing in the process. It would have been more impressive if Shikamaru had had even the slightest inkling of stopping him. He'd run through all those scenarios, and any that stopped the jinchuuriki and had even a small chance of succeeding were far too much effort. Naruto could have walked right up to his desk for all the Nara cared.

"Yosh! I pass, right?!"

The shadow-user peeled one eye open to glare at the blond in annoyance. "Yes, you pass. This portion. You and your team can move on to the next room."

"What?! You're not going to make Teme do it too?"

"No. Worst-case scenario: he destroys this building and possibly a good chunk of the village. Kazekage-sama's worst-case is not much better. You three pass, now get out of my classroom."

A few genin tried to copy Naruto's maneuver, walking up the walls and across the ceiling. Without the blond's speed though, Shikamaru easily snared them before they'd made it halfway up the wall.

Naruto narrowed his eyes at his old classmate with suspicion. "Isn't that against the rules, 'ttebayo?"

"I made the rules. Go, or I'll fail you for not following instructions."

By this time Sasuke and Gaara had already made their way to the front. Like with Naruto, Shikamaru made no effort to stop them. The Uchiha rolled his eyes as he grabbed his teammate's arm and began pulling him toward the door. "Take the easy pass, idiot."

Still scowling, the blond jumped down off the desk and shrugged out of the Uchiha's grasp. "... just 'cause he knows we'd kick his-"

"I can still hear you," Shikamaru interrupted his muttering. "And it's not too late for me to fail you, if you'd prefer."

Sasuke didn't give Naruto a chance to reply as he clamped a hand over his mouth and shoved him through the door. Gaara followed along after them as if this were perfectly normal.

The Nara gave a mental sigh of relief. He'd wanted to get those three out of there before the fireballs started flying once the Genin thought to suspect the shadows. Speaking of which, unless he'd seriously overestimated their intelligence, they should be starting right about-

FWOOOSH.

-now. Yep. This was going to be troublesome. Still, it was less work than grading paper tests.

A/N: So... two years, huh? Sorry guys. Real life and what not. D:

But, here's another chapter to a story I'm sure many of you thought would never update! Yay! On the minus side I still need to finish the chapter for M:TABD.

Anyway! I hope you guys enjoyed the first exam. I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to work on chapter four of this little bit of insanity, as I will be working on finishing up the almost complete next chapter of Babysitting Itachi before going to work on M:TABD, but I promise I haven't forgotten it. Far from it.

Naruto and Sakura-muse are both really excited about this one and will not let me leave it alone. Sasuke and Gaara I think are excited but it's hard to tell with those two...

Thanks for reading!

-Py

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