All the different ninja stood staring at the huge forest that had been erected where the third training grounds used to be. It was surrounded by a tall fence that was locked shut with several locks. To one side, a small booth had three ninja sitting inside. Unlike the arrogant way Ibiki's assistants sat smiling, these assistants seemed nervous and weak. Anko, the woman from yesterday, walked to the front of the group and faced them. Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto were near the front so they had a good view of her. She was gripping a stack of papers in one hand, and two scrolls in the other.

"Welcome to round two of the Chunin Exams. You've done well to make it here, but sitting in a room taking a high stakes pop quiz is nothing compared to what you're about to endure. From here on out it's life or death."

The words rang out and the ninja began to whisper nervously to one another.

"Behind me is the Forest of Death. It's a huge forest with all of the same qualities as a regular forest, including natural resources and bodies of water. In the middle, roughly 10 meters from any one entrance, is a tower. Of the ninja that showed up to participate in the first round yesterday, only 30 of you survived, meaning there are 10 teams among you. Each team will receive one of these two scrolls, either heaven or earth."

Anko held up the two scrolls which seemed to oppose one another. One was black with white markings, the other was white with black markings; one read heaven, the other read earth.

"What is the objective?" Naruto asked simply.

"To reach the tower with all of your comrades in one piece, as well as one earth scroll and one heaven scroll. How you obtain the scroll you don't start with is entirely up to you. You'll have 120 hours, or five days exactly, to complete this task."

"Well no one is just going to give up a scroll, it means we'll have to fight each other right?" The hooded ninja from the Sand trio asked from almost directly behind Sasuke. "I wish we would quit with all the secrecy and just have something straightforward. This isn't really the best way to—." Before he could finish Anko tossed a Kunai at him at top speed. It tore through the top of Sasuke's shirt, grazed the boy's cheek, sliced a few strands of hair off the tall Kunoichi behind him and hit the ground several meters away.

In an instant, Anko was behind the hooded boy, wiping blood from his cheek. "You shouldn't talk back to someone as scary as me who's thirsty for blood." She'd barely finished her sentence, when she quickly pulled another kunai from her jacket and pointed it backwards at the Kunoichi whose hair had been cut. Sasuke was disturbed and nearly sick when the woman extended her tongue the full length of the space between her and Anko and offered her back the kunai she'd just thrown.

"This woman is seriously creepy." Sakura whispered to Sasuke; he agreed.

After accepting her kunai back, Anko returned to the front of the group. "In order to compete in the second round of the exam you have to sign these release forms. There's no rules once you enter the Forest of Death. You have to sign the release so that I'm not held responsible for those who may not make it."

Even though she was delivering such horrifying information, she had a bright smile on her face. "Decide as a team if you will compete. You must go in together, so if any one person on your team chooses not to participate, none of you can. Three must go in, even if three do not come out."

Not far from Sasuke, one of his classmates, Shikamaru, raised his hand slowly. "Can we quit halfway through?"

"Ah good question. I suppose that is one of the only rules. You must spend all five days in the forest even if you lose both scrolls. The only other rules are those that could disqualify your team from the exams. If any member of your team becomes incapacitated, the entire team is disqualified. Further, if you can't get to the tower with both scrolls in tow, you fail this round. If you've have decided to press on, sign your form, turn it in and then select an entrance gate. All doors will open in exactly 30 minutes. Good luck!" Anko finished explaining and handed the stack of papers to the person nearest to her who followed suit by taking one and passing it to the next person.

When Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto signed and turned in their forms they chose gate 38 chosen mostly by Naruto who walked to the nearest gate and refused to go anywhere else. They were waiting in silence when Naruto suddenly turned around and faced Sasuke and Sakura.

"Look, I don't want to be here, but I'm not about to die taking some stupid test so let's get to this tower quickly and get this over with." Naruto lectured.

"We still have to get the other scroll Naruto; we only have the heaven one." Sakura looked at the scroll in her hand.

"That reminds me, I think I have a good strategy. One of us should head to the tower with the scroll while the other two go out and look for the Earth Scroll. That way all we have to do is get the Earth Scroll back to the tower rather than running the risk of losing one of the scrolls on the way back." Sasuke pitched.

"It's not a terrible idea." Naruto replied, much to Sasuke and Sakura's surprise. "Sakura should be the one to hide at the tower with our scroll. You're smallest and smartest so it will be easiest for you to keep the scroll safe. Sasuke and I are strong enough that we can split up and each look for an Earth Scroll."

Sakura smiled and blushed at Naruto's compliment and Sasuke was happy he was participating. He smiled with determination. Kakashi was right, things did work much better as a team.

"ROUND TWO OF THE CHUNIN EXAM BEGINS NOW!" They heard Anko scream from the other side of the nearby booth.

Sasuke immediately braced his Sharingan as they walked in. "It seems there's no team at either gate directly next to ours, but we're sure to encounter some on the way to the tower which should be straight from here; be on your guard."

"Sasuke, can you get Sakura safely to the tower? I'll start searching." Though Naruto posed it as a question, he hopped off before they could answer.

"He didn't even wait." Sakura noted. "Well no problem, let's go."

"Right." Sasuke agreed and they took off for the tower.

Sasuke was relieved to not run into any other teams on his way to drop Sakura at the tower. When they got there she ingeniously came up with the idea to hide in the shrubbery outside the tower; using genjutsu to hide herself from others. It was her idea to use genjutsu that actually led Sasuke to suggest exchanging Kunai knives. If anyone tried to imitate them, but didn't have the other's kunai, they would be able to determine the one was a fake. Ensuring that she was well secured, Sasuke leapt back into the forest to find an Earth Scroll.

Suddenly a harsh gale of wind flew in his direction and knocked him off of his feet. When he looked up he saw the same creepy woman he'd seen outside, facing him with an Earth Scroll in her hand. He used his Sharingan to glance around a bit; he could tell she was alone. Though she creeped him out, Sasuke was confident in his ability to take her down, if he used the new jutsu Kakashi taught him. He didn't want to pull it out right away so he rested and waited for her to make the first move.

"Sasuke Uchiha. You appear to have good use of your Sharingan, shocking for your age." She hissed out at him. He was becoming increasingly more nervous; why did she seem to know him? "You want my scroll right?" Sasuke remained silent. His look of determination turned to horror as the woman opened her mouth wider than humanly possible and swallowed the scroll whole.

She bit off the top layer of skin on her thumb and drew a line of blood along her forearm. Then she slammed her hand down on the branch of the large tree where they were perched. "Summoning Jutsu."

In a huff of smoke, a giant snake coiled its way up the tree, showing its huge head above the woman's. Even with Sasuke's Sharingan, the fear of the situation overcame him and he became immobilized as the snake slithered towards him with lightning speed. It wrapped its way around the tree, binding Sasuke to it, and stopping face-to-face with him. The head was nearly as large as Sasuke. It opened its mouth and Sasuke's fear increased when the head of the woman appeared from it.

"You're not very strong yet Sasuke; we'll change that." The head of the woman flew forward and bit Sasuke on the neck. His body began searing with pain and he felt like he had no energy left.

With the small bit of composure Sasuke had left, he saw a flash of orange light fly by him suddenly. The giant snake lost the light of life in it's eyes, and the woman's face looked shocked. It gagged a bit and then her Earth Scroll popped out. Sasuke caught it and held onto it tightly as he slowly passed out.

When he woke up he was sitting on the top of the tower with Sakura looking down at him.

"Naruto! He woke up!" Sakura called out. She was cradling his head in her arms.

Sasuke sat up and was a touch embarrassed to see Kakashi, Anko and several of the other village ninja standing around him.

"What's going on?" He whispered out.

"Well we passed the test, but it seems some dangerous ninja snuck into the exams. He's gone now, so things will proceed as scheduled but that ninja was the snake one you ran into back there." Naruto explained.

"It's a good thing Naruto came along when he did otherwise things might have gotten much worse." Kakashi noted.

"Yeah and you managed to hang on to the Earth Scroll so Anko is passing us along with the 6 other teams that had at least one scroll when they came in to cancel the rest of this round. Due to the fact that so many people passed, and some without completing the task, there's going to be a one-on-one round in just a few hours."

Sasuke rubbed the back of his neck, still not entirely what happened when Kakashi approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll deal with that."