Hinata Hyūga: A Gamers Potential

"Hey Teme, get back here," Naruto shouted with indignation as Sasuke pushed passed him to be first into the reception area.

Moments earlier Sasuke had boldly declared that as team leader it was only fitting that he be the first to enter, claiming that when he became a Chunin Naruto would have to get used to following his orders anyway.

Sakura could only sigh in frustration as she watched the two boys jostling each other to be first through the door. Though since Hinata's recent chastisement she had noticed that a little of the bitterness that had always been present in their interactions was now gone.

"Well I guess if they didn't fight the world would probably be ending, or something," Sakura thought whilst shaking her head. As neither boy seemed to be making any headway Sakura went up behind them and kicked them both in the back, causing them to fall forward into a heap on the floor.

"Sakura-chan…" Naruto grumbled as he attempted to extricate himself from Sasuke' limbs. "So mean."

"Hn." Sasuke picked himself up off of the floor, cheeks tinged pink. Recently he'd found himself ending up in embarrassing situations whenever he let himself get caught up in the annoying blonds pace.

"You know it would be great if you both could go one day without fighting each other in some macho display to get my affection. Not that Sasuke-Kun needs to try very hard for that." Sakura said, descending into a small fit of giggles by the end.

Naruto felt a small spike of irritation towards Sasuke as Sakura proceeded to fawn over him. Oddly enough though, it was less pronounced than normal. "Must be excited about all of the butt I'll be kicking later," he reasoned to himself.

Earlier that morning Kakashi had let them know where they would need to go for the first stage of the exams. The most surprising part was the fact that he was only one hour late, as opposed to his usual three. He had wished them well, and then in an oddly serious tone for the usually so easy-going shinobi, he'd told them that he had a lot riding on their success before going on his way.

"Kakashi Sensei is counting on us, and as future Hokage I can't stop here!" he thought as he sprang to his feet.

"First step Chunin, next Hokage Dattebayo!" He cried as he stormed up to reception desk and slamed his ID down. "Uzumaki Naruto here, let's get this exam started!"

The bewildered Chunin behind the desk could only stare speechlessly at the orange monstrosity in front of him. Shaking his head the Chunin pointed to the corner of the room where several chairs were laid out.

In this waiting area two teams of Suna Shinobi and one team from Kiri were giving team seven very peculiar looks.

A scarlet faced Sakura ran up to Naruto and clocked him on the head before dragging him off to a quiet corner of the room.

"Sorry for the disturbance," she said with a bow as she seated herself next to Sasuke.

Waking with a start Naruto gingerly rubbed the top of his head where he could feel a bruise beginning to form.

"Che, Sakura-chan hits hard as usual," he bemoaned to himself as he slowly pulled himself up into a seat, wisely choosing to sit next to Sasuke rather than his more temperamental teammate.

As he was about to make conversation, one of the Suna teams was called up by the receptionist to head through a door at the end of the room.

Sakura then explained that while he was having a nap it had been explained that each team would need to go through that door for the first stage of their exam. Team Seven would need to wait their turn until they were called.

In what only felt like a few moments, but must have been closer to three or four minutes, the door opened again and out came the Suna team. Where initially they had walked in with a positive swager and a boatload of confidence, now they returned glassy eyed and shell-shocked.

"Oi, what happened in there," Shouted a male from the other Suna team. The only response he got was a mumbled whisper of 'complete monster' before they were lead to a different area by the receptionist.

When he returned he motioned for the Kiri team to go next. While they looked slightly unnerved they still made a disparaging comment about the sand snakes clearly not being up for the job as the door closed behind them.

"What do you think is behind there?" Sakura whispered to her teammates.

"Probably a ghost," Naruto shivered.

"It's not a ghost Dobe." Sasuke retorted with a roll of his eyes.

Several minutes later, just like the team before, the Kiri ninja left looking dazed and defeated.

"How is something so old so nimble" the Kiri team said as they were lead to the next room.

"It's a ghost, the first team called it a monster remember, this team called it old!" Naruto said as he began to bite his finger nails.

"I'm not having this conversation with you," Sasuke muttered as the last Suna team entered the room.

It was a tense silence before eventually the door opened once more to reveal a second haggard Suna team.

"None of our attacks even connected," they mumbled.

Shooting up from his chair Naruto pointed at the door "See totally a ghost!"

"Even if it is a ghost we just have to win," Sasuke begrudgingly relented.

"What's so bad about Ghosts?" Sakura questioned only for Naruto to materialise in front of her, grip her by the shoulders and seriously peer into her eyes. For a moment Sakura felt shocked at the sheer authority his gaze held.

"Sakura-chan, ghosts are the most vile things in the world. Everything just slips through them, which means they can't eat. And that means that they can't even eat ramen!" he bellowed. "Only the most vile, evil beings in the world would be unable to partake in the god given glory that is ramen!" he began to preach.

"And the feeling of admiration is gone," she thought as Naruto continued his sermon.

"He-hem," came a voice from behind. "If you kids are done messing about, you're up next," the receptionist said as he pointed at the door.

As one, team seven shifted their heads to peer at the door with a sense of mounting dread. Seeing the pale look on Naruto' face, Sasuke decided to take charge by dragging his two teammates up to the door.

"Dobe, get your head in the game," Sasuke chided.

"You don't need to tell me that," Naruto grumbled as his competitive spirit began to return.

"Guys, are we going in or not?" questioned Sakura.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted as he pushed open the door and stepped inside.

"Che, trying to leave me behind... jerk." Naruto grumbled to himself as he too pushed into the room, followed only a moment later by Sakura.

Once the door shut behind them, they noticed a figure standing at the other end of the room.

The figure wore a dark grey shinobi battle suit atop a mesh underlay that was visibly protruding from his arms and legs. Atop his head sat an armoured hood that proudly displayed his leaf forehead protector at its centre. The sides of the hood were fitted with metal greaves to provide extra protection, and tied to the hood were two long black traps that trailed all the way to the figures feet. In his hand was a large metallic Bo staff that gleamed menacingly in the light from the room.

"Ji-ji?" Naruto bellowed in confusion as Sarutobi Hiruzen, the God of Shinobi turned his full attention on them.

"Hello Naruto-kun, welcome to the first stage of the Chunin exam. All you need to do is get past me in order to pass." Three pairs of eyes widened collectively, but weren't given any chance of reacting to the old man's words. "I hope you three have prepared yourselves because the exam starts now," he said as he launched himself off the floor.

Before any of them could move so much as an inch, Hiruzen appeared in the middle of their formation and with a swing off his staff he swept each of their legs out from under them, sending them all crashing to the floor.

As team seven stared up at the elderly Hokage from their positions on the ground, a rare unified thought passed through all of their minds.

"Crap."

Authors Notes

Hi All, I know some of you are disappointed that this is such a short chapter however this was more of an interlude just to show what was happening at the same time with team 7 as I know many of you want to see a bit more of them.

However the main reason for this short chapter is that I have just completed on my first property within the last month so as you can imagine things have been hectic. Leading up to the purchase with all the legal stuff and now after the purchase I am doing the place up a bit and buying furniture. As you can imagine this has not lefty much time for writing.

I should be moving in to my new place at the end of August, but I didn't want to leave you guys with no update for that long o I decided to write this, to give you some content and to give you an update. I honestly would not have time to focus on doing a full length chapter.

Also I will soon be reaching the point of no return in respect to a couple of plot points that I am undecided about. I have thought about how I would be progressing the story in multiple different ways and I will need to make that decision soon.

On the plus side I am very much looking forward to writing the Chunin exams as this is the point of the story where the small changes that have been made up to this point will start to spiral a bit all the way up until the time skip. Though even the time skip will not be too much of a timeskip as during that free period of time I have a lot of stuff planed so stay tuned.

Once again a big thanks to my Beta and a big thanks to all of you, I can't believe we are at over 3k follows and almost 2.5k faves. As usual let me know what you think what did you like, what do you think could be improved.

See you next time.