~*****~

Upon entering, we were stared down by a huge amount of people. They glared at us just as we entered. "Sasuke! Where have you been! You have no idea who much I was hoping you'd show up here!" I hear a familiar voice yell, making me look back to Sasuke. He carted Ino on his back with an irritated look on his face. I giggled at his anger, watching as a flush crawled up his cheeks. "I've missed those brooding good looks of yours!"

"Hey, you porker! Back off! He's mine!" Sakura yelled at the blonde.

As they continued to bicker, Shikamaru and Choji stepped in, who currently munched on a bag of BBQ chips. Shikamaru's face broke out with a grin as he and Choji came to my side. Choji offered me some chips, which I gladly accepted. "Hey." Shikamaru greeted casually after clearing his throat. "I knew this was going to be a drag, but I know it was going to be this lame." He said, trying to sound brooding. I giggled at him, and elbowed his side.

"Says you, but you sure looked happy when you stepped in!" I smirk to Shikamaru, who turned bright red at that.

"So the three stooges are here, huh?" Naruto hums.

"Hey! You know what, pipsqueak-" Shikamaru started, but stopped after wards. "Ah, forget it, you're a waste of time."

 We turned to see Squad Eight. "Well, well, well, what do you know? Looks like the whole gangs back together, huh?" Kiba remarked, casting a glance towards me. A smirk slipped onto his face as he slung his arm around my shoulders.

"O-Oh, hi Naruto..." I hear Hinata's soft voice call out. Naruto looks over at her, and she casts her gaze downwards with a heavy blush on her cheeks.

"Hey, Ren. You pulling your hair out with your team yet?" Kiba cooed, smirking when Akamaru gave a light bark. "You got that right, Akamaru, we should show Ren what a simple evening looks like, am I right?"

Shikamaru, Sasuke, and Naruto all gave the dog boy an angry glare. I let out a small laugh and pulled Akamaru away from Kiba, holding him like a small infant and scratching his belly. "No thank you. But I will take Akamaru for a bit!" I coo at the small dog as he kicks his leg from the attention. Akamaru barks once at his master, a wide grin embeloshing his muzzle.

"A-Akamaru...." Kiba muttered, embarrassed. "Dont brag, alright?"

"Still as clueless as ever, I see..." Ino grumbles to Sakura, their bickering halting for a moment.

"We're all here. The Ten Rookies." Kiba laughed after receiving Akamaru back. "This is gonna be fun. At least, for those of us good enough to make the cut, huh Sasuke?" Kiba smirked at him.

Sasuke returned the smirk. "Careful, you don't want to become over confident, Kiba."

I giggled at their exchange, wondering out this would all play out. "Just wait, we're gonna blow you guys away! We've been training like crazy!" Kiba announces.

"What do you think we've been doing? Sittin' around pickin' daisies?" Naruto accused. "You don't know what training means!" He points at Kiba, a frown settled on his face.

"D-Don't mind Kiba... I'm sure he didn't really mean anything by it...." Hinata says, pushing her fingers together nervously.

"Huh?" Naruto hums, turning his gaze on her. She blushes again and looks down. Kiba gives her a questioning look, which I make him stop by clearing my throat.

Choji stares at Akamaru, and takes a step forward, but Shino cuts him off. "Hm? What do you want? What's wrong?" Choji asks as Shino looks down. I look down, following their gaze to see a small bug scurrying past them.

"Thought maybe you hadn't seen it." Shino says mysteriously. I started shivering. I really, and I mean really, did not like bugs. Choji hums in confusion. "Didn't want you stepping on it."

"Why?" Choji jeers. "You savin' it for lunch?" It grew silent as I took a step away from Shino, the nervous sweats running down my back.

"Hey! You guys!" We hear an unfamiliar voice call out. I turn, watching a older guy with silver hair and purple clothes approach us. A creepy feeling settled in my stomach as I stared at him. "You might wanna try keeping it down a little. I mean, no offense, but you're the ten rookies, right? Fresh out of the academy? I wouldn't go making a spectacle of yourselves. Just cool it! This isn't a class field trip." He says nonchalantly.

"Well, who asked you? Who are you?" Ino asks angrily.

"I'm Kabuto Yakushi," He introduces. "But really, look around you. You've made quite an impression." We all looked around at everyone and I started to feel a bit queasy. He was right. Everyone had been glaring at us the entire time. "See those guys, they're from the Rain Village, very touchy. They all are. This exam makes everyone tense. And you don't wanna rub them the wrong way right now." He explained while staring at the group of the Rain Ninja. Sakura hummed out in agreement, her face showing her fear.  "You can't help it. I mean, how could you know how things work? You're just rookies. You remind me of myself a while back." He smirks.

"Kabuto," Sakura starts. "Is that your name?"

"Yeah."

"Then, is this your first time taking the exam?" Sakura asks.

"No, its....." He trailed off. "My seventh..." He admitted.

"Huh?" Shikamaru and I hummed.

"Well, they're held twice a year, so this'll be my fourth year."

"Wow! A veteran!" Sakura exclaims. "You must really be an expert by now."

"Yeah, sort of."

"Cool! You can give us all the inside tips!" Naruto cheers.

"Yeah, some expert. He's never passed." Shikamaru droned.

"W-Well, seventh times the charm, that's what they say, huh?" Kabuto says bashfully, rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"So, I guess everything they say about the exam being tough are true...." Shikamaru hums. "Oh man, I knew this was going to be a drag." I smiled at Shikamaru and leaned against his shoulder, giving him my support.

"But everything's a drag to you, Shikamaru." I whisper to him. He frowns as his cheeks turn pink.

"Hang on, don't give up hope yet." Kabuto smiles, reaching into his pocket. "Maybe I can help you kids out a little!" He pulls out a deck of cards. "With my Ninja Info Cards."

"What the heck are those?" Sakura asks, staring at the cards.

"It's hard to explain, but these cards have been chakra encoded with everything I've learned for the past four years." Kabuto explains, setting the cards down. "I've got more than two hundred of them, so you see, I haven't been completely wasting my time. They may not look like much to the naked eye. In fact," He flips over the first card. "They appear blank." I edged closer, standing by Sasuke now. He presses his finger against the card. "Don't want just anyone seeing this stuff." The card starts to spin under his finger.

"What are you doing?" I question, curiosity taking over.

"You see, I'm using my chakra, to reveal their secrets." He explains. "Like this for example." The card lets out a cloud of smoke, and a little map appears with stats written on the side.

"Woah! It's a map!" I exclaim. "Of the five great nations!"

"It shows the geographical distribution of all the candidates who've come to take the Chunin Exam. What villages they come from, and how many from each village." Kabuto explains, lifting his head. "Why do you guys think they come here to take the exam together, at the same time?" He asks. Choji just stuffs his face as Kabuto continues. "It's to foster the friendships of the nations, of course. International brotherhood and all that. And it's true enough, as far as it goes." Kabuto hums.

"But there's another reason." I state, staring down at him.

"Yeah, see the important thing, is that this way, they can carefully regulate the total number of shinobi in each village. By maintaining the balance of power." Kabuto answers.

"Oh, yeah.... Balance of power..." Naruto repeats, tilting his head to the side and hums in confusion.

"Balance of power, big deal. It's all a drag..." Shikamaru complains.

Kabuto releases the chakra in the card, making it blank once more. "The balance isn't maintained, one nation could wind up with many more shinobi than it's neighbors. And it might be tempted to attack them." Kabuto states. "So, they try to maintain a status quote. Makes sense. I suppose."

"Do those cards of yours have any info on the other candidates?" Sasuke asks, stepping forward. "Individually."

"They might." Kabuto smirks, looking up at him. "You have one special in mind?" Kabuto asks.

"I might." Sasuke snaps, narrowing his eyes. 

"Well, I can't promise my information is complete or perfect, but I've got something on just about everyone. Including you guys, of course." Kabuto smiles eerily. "So, which one is it? Tell me anything you know about them. Description, where they're from, whatever. Anything at all." Kabuto smirks.

"He's Gaara of the Desert. And there's Rock Lee and Ren of the Leaf Village while you're at it." Sasuke recites. I snap my head over to him, raising an eyebrow. Everyone just gazes at him.

"Why do you need to know about me?" I question. "We're on the same team."

"Yeah, but we've never fought, and I'd like to see where you're at." He smirkebeat my confused expression.

"I wanna know...." Everyone started murmuring behind me. I felt a flush crawl up my neck as I sighed.

"Man, that's no fun, you even know their names! That makes it easy." Kabuto complained. He swiped his hand across the deck and held up three cards. "Here they are."

"Show them to me." Sasuke commanded.

He sets down the blank card. "Okay, first up is Rock Lee." The card once again lets out a cloud of smoke and a little stat card on Lee is shown. "Looks like, he's about a year older than you guys. Mission experience; Eleven C-Ranks, and Twenty D-Ranks. His Squad Leader is Guy. In The last twelve months, his Taijutsu has radically improved, but his other skills are pretty shaky. Last year, he got a lot of attention as a Genin, but for some reason, he chose not to participate in the Chunin Exam. This'll be his first time as a candidate, same as you guys. His team mates are Tenten, and Neji Hyuga"

I could feel the unease from Hinata behind us as Naruto hummed out. "Huh? Hyuga?" He questioned. I sighed heavily as he set down another blank card.

"And here's Ren Yukimura." He pressed his finger to the card. It twirled once and my stats came up. Unfortunately, the only thing displayed, was just who my teammates are, and missions I've completed. A big question mark had been placed in the stats. "Well, well. It looks like your friend will remain a mystery. Even I can't get close enough to get a read on her abilities." I raised an eyebrow. Sasuke just shot me a look as I turned the other way, smiling to myself. "I can tell you she's from the Country of Lightning, but for some unknown reason, she came to the Leaf Village by herself. And, the fact that she's apart of the illustrious Senju Clan." Everyone's eyes snapped to my again, this time whispering about my clan. I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest. "One of the last known ones as well." He placed down another blank card, and everyone moved on. "And now, Gaara of the Desert." He pressed his finger against the card and it spun a few times before an image appeared. "Mission Experience; Eight C-Ranks, and- Get this, one B-Rank as a Genin. And it's the same with Gaara as it was for Ren. There's not a lot more information on this guy. He was a rookie from another land originally. But there is this; He survived every mission, without getting a scratch on him." Kabuto informed us.

I grasped onto Shikamaru's shirt, shivering in fear at the mention. "The dude's done a B-Rank as a Genin? And has never even been injured?!" Shikamaru exclaimed.

"What's the deal with this guy?!" Naruto exclaimed, staring down at the card.

Kabuto set down one more blank card and pressed his finger to it. Another map appeared. "Leaf, Sand, Rain, Grass, Waterfall, Sound." He recited. "From the looks of it, they've all sent exceptionally skilled candidates to the exam this time around. Of course, the Hidden Sound village is small. It sprang up recently, no one knows anything about it. Those guys are a mystery." Kabuto finishes with his cards, packing them up neatly. I swallow roughly as I release Shikamaru's shirt, still shivering from Gaara's stats. That dude was no laughing matter. "Well, you get the point. The competition is going to be intense this year."

"So it would seem...." Hinata replies softly, holding her fist to her lips. "It's almost enough to make you lose your confidence."

"It's a fine time to start talking like that!" Ino reprimands her.

"Do you... really think it's going to tougher this time?" Sakura asks.

"Ohh, yeah." Kabuto hums. "In the four years I've been coming, I've never seen a crop of candidates with as much potential as this bunch." Naruto hums angrily. "Yep, we've got our work cut out for us." I let out a breath of air and leaned against the wall, trying to calm down a little.

I hear soft shivering coming from Naruto. I go and stand by Sakura as we both stare at Naruto in concern. 'He's quaking? Is he actually as scared as I am?' I think to myself, reaching out for him. "Don't worry, Naruto, everything will be-" I stopped as I see him stop shaking.

He whirls around with a scream, holding his fist out. "My name is Naruto Uzumaki! And I'm gonna beat every one of ya! Believe it!" He exclaims excitedly.

I feel my nerves just fly out the window as I stare at that knuckle head. Ino starts reprimanding me for having such a clueless team mate, but I just start laughing, wiping away a few tears before grinning brightly at the orange clad coconut. "Ren! Are you listening to me?!" Ino basically screams.  I look to her and start laughing again.

"Yeah! I feel a lot better now!" Naruto cheers. Sasuke smirks at him. I wrap my arm around Naruto's shoulder and lightly punch at his gut, giggling happily with him.

"Ahh, can you say that a little louder?" Kiba jeers. "Couldn't quite catch it."

"You moron." Shikamaru reprimands him. "Are you trying to get everybody in the place to hate our guts or what?" I wrap my arm tighter around Naruto's neck and tug him downwards, grinding my fist into his head as Sakura tries to sooth the glares coming our way. Something makes my stomach lurch as I release Naruto and wave my arm out. Water seems out from the tile in front of Kabuto and forms a wall in front of him just as a mighty arm swipes across his face. The water ripples and warps in front of him, then bursts and falls to the floor. I raise my eyebrow as I gaze at the genin from the Hidden Sound. Kabuto's glasses shatter after a brief moment.

"So, it was that kind of attack." Kabuto comments.

"Hang on, I saw it all, Ren blocked the attack, how did that happen?" Sasuke growls.

"It must've come closer than it looked." Shikamaru reasoned. "Look at him acting like it was nothing." Shikamaru sneers. "Real tough guy."

"That's not what happened." I state, taking a step closer. "Their attacks use sound." Kabuto's eyes widen for a second before he falls to his knees and pukes.

"What?! Did he just-"

"Kabuto..." Sakura and Naruto express their worry. "What's wrong? What is it?"

Naruto and Sakura run over to Kabuto while I step in front of them, crossing my arms across my chest. "You realize, that fighting is against the rules of this exam. Not to sound snotty or anything, but they're always watching." I state simply, glaring at them.

"All right, you baby faced degenerates! Pipe down and listen up!" Someone screams as a cloud of smoke appears in the front of the exam room. A man with scars on his face stands at the end with a bunch of proctors with him. "It's time to begin. I'm Ibiki Morino. Your proctor. And from this moment, your worst enemy."