Chapter 11

"GYAAAH!"

Muahahaha! All according to plan...

Despite what the dialogue said, quiet frankly it didn't came from master planner of Konoha world like Danzo or Madara. Also, there was no ill intent from the Kyuubi who finally drove the boy insane. And especially the blonde Jinchuuriki did not channeled someone from a universe where monsters were called angels and humanity fought them using a bio-robot of the cloned progenitor of said monsters.

Rather, it came from the truest mind of the biggest idiot in the village, Uzumaki Naruto, who, frankly, was their biggest pranker as well.

You see, the two men who interrupted a blacklisted customer of Ichiraku from calling Naruto a fox just visited his apartment last night. Apparently both of them had several ideas regarding a certain someone from District-J. Naruto rarely approved acts of revenge (although avenge was cool), but he took a 180 turn when the next information about Mr. Rotten Sphincter was given to him.

If you tried to make Teuchi and his daughter's life a hell just for charging him a little more for the toppings, then you probably deserved a hell in the first place.

That toilet will be clogged with rotten egg for the rest of the day! Oh, that reminds me of the good old days...

"I can't believe it, boss!"

"Hmm?" Distracted, Naruto tilted his head at Konohamaru's direction, now back with his scattered brain self to the point that he still couldn't theorized what the boy possibly thought, despite his. At his most nervous moments, the boy often felt that he put on a cheerful mask to keep his morale up, but the truth was that he always being that way. After all, Uzumakis were infamous for being learn much better by practicing, and when they couldn't learn it fully, they would just made a gimped version of it. They always being motivated to strive against all obstacles. It's just that Naruto's depressing upbringing made him had this question, but even if he grew up with his parents, his unorthodox way of shinobi would stay intact.

"I know that scream! That guy had the nerve to threaten grandpa, just to avoid afternoon guard duty! Not only you have the best honeys, but you also possess army of justice in your disposal to create order in this village. Boss, you're awesome!"

Uh, I know that I want the recognition, but this...hyperbowl(?) things is ridiculous! Naruto sweatdropped as Konohamaru romanticized him even more. Somehow, his legend kept going wilder and wilder. That was also part of the reason for why he hadn't visit Iruka in his classroom; he's afraid of Konohamaru told everyone about his own take of Naruto. What would he do had they asked him to do ridiculous things? "Listen Konohamaru, I-"

"Don't worry, boss! The result of my super duper awesome investigation for Uzumaki Naruto will stay as a secret!" Naruto groaned a little. Seemed like the legend of fishcake crusader would not die anytime soon. "And besides, we have better things to do, like playing ninja!"

"Playing ninja? With a real ninja? Naruto, that sounds like an oxymoron."

"Hey!"

"Sakura-chan! What are you doing here?"

"Strolling around, and if lucky I might encounter Ebisu or Anko-sensei. You?"

"I just met some acquaintance, although I also hoping to meet ero-jiji."

"Ero-jiji? You mean Jiraiya-sama? That's an offensive name for one of the greatest ninja in the Leaf!" Sakura exclaimed, slightly upset by the disrespect that Naruto showed. The boy just somehow always got too informal and rude with the elders, although she admitted Danzo the Grouch had a nice rhyme to it.

"SHANNARO! That pervert deserves every mockery against him!" However, her inner disagreed.

"Jiraiya?" Konohamaru blinked. "The one and only, the gallant of the toads, and greatest ladies man in the world?"

"Uh, yes. You know him, Konohamaru?" Naruto asked, inwardly groaned at the thought that Jiraiya already exposed his insane dance to Konohamaru.

The younger boy only stared at Naruto in confusion. In the blink of an eye however, that confusion turned into an awe. Before our most unpredictable ninja could say anything else, the Hokage grandson gave him a shit-eating grin and an okay sign before ran off, muttered something about the awesomeness of his rival and boss. It was only after awhile that Naruto's brain finally clicked, and he realized what Konohamaru must've thought.

"Oh god, why did he have to know!" Naruto shouted as he realized the gravity of his situation.

"What's wrong with Konohamaru finds out about Jiraiya and you?"

Naruto then explained about Konohamaru and his wild imagination about how Naruto's the hottest shit in the village that's not a Hokage. "So let me get it straight. Konohamaru thought that you have enough manpower and loyalists to fight injustice in Konoha's underground while get all the bitches?"

"In a cosmic sorta way, yes."

"Kids today are so weird." Sakura shook her head before she rubbed her jaw in thought. "Wait a minute. So with this information, he thought that legendary Jiraiya, is your underling?"

"Yes! And it could make my story even wilder!"

"Oh dear." Sakura facepalmed. She knew that Konohamaru was almost like Naruto's carbon copy, but it turned out that he's even more unpredictable in a way. "And now he'll go to tell about his findings and-"

"KYAA!"

"Konohamaru!" Despite the conflict that the younger boy caused, Naruto still did not hesitate one bit to go for him. Not even a drop of thought about how the boy probably deserved that popped into his mind.

When he made it, he looked at the sight of someone looked like a cat lifted the Hokage's grandson into the air. The older girl near him gave him the disapproval look, knowing that her partner there just reveled the sensation of being an asshole.

"Hey! You cat man! Let go of him!"

"Boss! Save Konoha-kun, please!" Moegi pleaded from her rock camouflage.

Naruto did not hesitate; he charged at the

"Hn. Weak."

"Naruto, careful! I've read about people who use chakra threads to control objects."

Damn, so the only option is a long range jutsu. I don't have any long range jutsu, at least ones with small area effect to avoid hitting Konohamaru in crossfire. Where are you, Sasuke! This is your area of expertise!

"I hate rude people. And midgets. But rude midgets who bump into people without care? Well, they deserve some real lessons. Don't you think so, Temari?"

"Whatever, Kankuro. I'm not going to be involved." Said Temari, only hoped that someone would force him to drop it before he came. The girl never liked to fight her brothers, even if they were on the wrong side.

Again the Jinchuuriki boy made a hesitation move, only to find himself ensnared by the chakra threads once more. Kankuro never released his grin, and he lifted his arm to hit the brat in front of him...

And got hit by a rock, hard enough to made him wince and released Konohamaru out of his hand.

As if it didn't got bad enough, he found his pocket got hit by a senbon, just after he turned around to look at the direction of his attacker.

"What are you doing in our village?" Said the one with Uchiha fan on his shirt.

He's quiet cute... Temari mused. She had preference for younger boy that's still around her own age, and the Uchiha was definitely one hell of a looker.

"Boss! Thank god the cavalry came!"

"Hn. Get lost."

"Move, and that arm will be useless for the rest of the week."

"Kyaa! Sasuke-kun's so cool!"

"We love you, pretty ice boy!" Say two of Konohamaru's friends, somehow figured out Haku's gender on the first attempt.

Either way, Naruto got outclassed.

"Aw, come one boss! Don't let your underlings out-cool you!" Konohamaru whined and showed his disappointment.

"Underling?" Haku blinked at the blatantly wrong assignment of their role.

"That kid have wild imagination." Sasuke replied simply, actually got amused that the kids mistook him as Naruto's servant.

Naruto tried to come up with something cool, but his admittedly dumb as brick brain ended up with nothing. "Konohamaru, ever heard the phrase 'speak softly, but carry a big stick?'"

"Eh? But you're always so loud, boss!" Said Udon who got confused.

"Yeah, Naruto! That's like corrupt referees talking about fair play!"

"Bah! Just say that you got outplayed, bro!"

Damn it! The time my image has to be shattered, why it have to be like this! The humiliation hit Naruto even harder than usual, despite the appreciation that Konohamaru had for him was almost totally false in the first place.

"But it's okay, boss! I understand your Will of Fire!"

"Huh?"

"The Will of Fire, according to grandpa, is the will of Konoha people to get stronger from their friends, who can either teach each others, or fight for them! As far as I concerned, you're really awesome at this!" Konohamaru exclaimed, and made Naruto have to rethought of his opinion about Konohamaru. "You hear that, cat freak? Boss Uzumaki have people in his disposal to fight for him even if he failed, because of his nindo to fight for them! He's more of a man that what you could ever be!"

"Why you..."

"Hmph. This kid's deluded." Temari snorted at the comment about Naruto's supposed Will of Fire.

"But he's right." Sasuke retorted. "I can't believe I'm saying it, but if there's one idiot in this village that I would consider as my rival, that would be him."

Naruto rolled his eyes despite his widening grin; Sasuke might not be that much of a bastard anymore, but the guy just couldn't make a proper flattery to people without injecting some of his condescending nature. That part, he could never understand. "Jeez, thanks teme."

"Hmm, a friendly rivalry relationship in a team is always tell people a good story."

"Sir? Who are you?" Udon asked a stranger that appeared out of nowhere.

"A journalist, kiddo. Now let's be quiet and see how they solve the problem, okay?"

"You tree-hugger always sacrifice yourself for the weak. That's why your elite jounin numbers diminished over the year and-UGH!"

"Sir, I think you forget this!" Naruto exclaimed as he and his clones released the chakra threads that they just pulled to make Kankuro's head crashed into the wall nearby.

"Ha! I knew that you're the man here, boss!"

The real Naruto gave a smile to Konohamaru. "Thanks. But I won't be able to do that without Sakura's genjutsu!"

"...The honey is also your under-?" A cracking knuckle stopped Konohamaru's mouth. The Yamanaka heiress's hit was objectively painful, and he did not want to see just how much stronger the pink haired one was.

"What? That's impossible! I even felt the threads coming back at me!"

Sakura's grin gave a way that she's simply that good at genjutsu. This angered Kankuro even more, but just after one step, a senbon got into his pocket that was filled with something else. The pinpoint accuracy of the warning stopped him in his track. After all, the fact that Haku only needed two strikes to hit all his pockets showed that none of them came from lucky shot.

"I'm here to make sure that you don't make a terrible mistake that will be punished severely by our officials."

"Humph. I knew it; all you threehugger can't even see the benefit of tough love."

"Some kids perhaps need to get tough reality check, but are you sure that you want to crack the skull of Hokage's grandson just to make a point?"

"WHAT?" Kankuro screamed at the revelation before he pointed at Naruto. "WHY THE HELL DID YOU NOT TELL ME BEFORE THAT THIS BRAT IS SOMEONE IMPORTANT?"

"YOU'RE THE ONE WHO TALK! NO ONE SANE WOULD CRACK A KID'S SKULL JUST FOR RUNNING INTO THEM!"

"THAT'S BECAUSE KIDS HAVE FAST HEALING, DUMBASS!"

"Konohamaru, still think that you being the grandson is annoying?"

"Yeah, yeah." Konohamaru mumbled. If there's one thing he didn't like from Moegi, was that she's unable to see what's so bad with being Third's grandson. Surely the benefits of people respected him were nice, but some of them either spoiled him too much, or thought he's nothing but a spoiled brat. Not to mention some of political kidnappings that made him have to be holed up in his room for days!

"Hmm...so this Kankuro guy's reckless and put his village in very high pedestal, and Naruto is your wild card that can motivate anyone regardless of his actual competency." Said the only literal adult in the room, his pen recorded his observations.

The appearance of this man caught her attention before, but this time she couldn't pass the urge to ask. "Um, excuse me sir, but why are you here again?"

"Oh, just examining the young shinobi force here, pinky. I can say that you guys are already...quiet eccentric." Said adult before he got back into the confrontation. The Suna teenager just about to release one of his weapon, and his sibling tried to convince him out of it. Much like what the journalist said, the boy was too stubborn to hear her persuasion.

"Kankuro, stop it." Any calculation that running on Kankuro's head about the attack got shattered by the quiet, and yet still cold as steel voice of someone.

Said someone hung near Sasuke and Haku's own branch, took them in shock.

"You see him coming, Haku?" Sasuke asked, still astonished by how the short kid managed to hid his presence so well.

"No. This guy's something else."

"We're leaving now." The redhead, who carried a gourd near his own size ordered.

Kankuro, struck by dilemma between his fear of his brother and his own pride, tried to make an excuse for his behavior. "G-Gaara, I-"

"Shut up, Kankuro. You embarrassed our village with your reckless actions."

"But they started it first!"

Gaara's stare was all that he needed to shut his older brother's mouth.

"Hmm...the leader of the team is able to assert his authority, but there's something dark about his demeanor, since I could see the Suna loudmouth got scared by him..."

"Scram!" The face-painted puppet master lashed out at the man who taking notes, only to get surprised by how he managed to avoid the attack like it was nothing. "What-"

"Yare-yare. Don't make people who buy ink by barrels your enemy, boy!"

"Hey! Who are you? I never see you here before?" A certain blonde boy asked.

"I'm reporter Sukea. And I'm here to independently assess the quality of current chuunin contestants!" Said the reporter. "And don't worry. This confrontation won't be reported unless I deemed it necessary. Your behaviors will be filed under different circumstances."

"This is the first time I'm grateful that Konoha are tree-hugger for most of time..."

"Want to see how far your luck can go, boy? Even if I could not defeat you, I could still ended up reporting your actions, even the bits of your immaturity that could weighed down your chuunin results." The man threatened.

"Tch. Fine, I'm sorry." Said the Suna genin reluctantly.

"Good." The reporter gladly concluded, before he looked at the girl from Suna. He grinned as he looked at her not-so-subtly undressed every single male in her radius with her stare. It was fascinating to see the otherwise stoic girl looked at everyone like piece of meat. "Like what Konoha males offer to you, girl?"

"Eep!" The previously stoic Kunoichi got her cheeks reddened at Sukea's question. "I-I have to admit, Konoha have plenty of lookers. E-even the annoying blonde..."

"Hey!" Said the blonde, obviously offended.

"Whatever, we're leaving." Said Gaara with finality, but he betrayed his own demand and looked at the tree branch. "Who are you two?"

Both Sasuke and Haku shunshined to front of him"My name is Uchiha Sasuke, and this is Yuuki Haku. State the reason for why you're here, or there will be troubles."

"My, my. Seems like news spread rather slow here if some ninjas still don't know the upcoming event." The Suna girl smugly said as she showed her own pass.

"Mr. Sukea, you mentioned Chuunin exam. Does that means they come here to take one?"

"That's right, Haruno-san!"

This piqued Sakura's interest even more. "I thought Chuunin came in promotion?"

"That's for officers only. Those Chuunin are likely only promoted as public officers, like academy teacher, as well as just to give them official pass for A-rank missions. This exam, on the other hand, will give anyone who pass them an ability to act as team leader. Also, Jounin rank can only be given to leader-type Chuunin, unless the Chuunin's prowess are too great to be ignored, and even then the papers required for all party would be problematic."

Sasuke only nodded at Sukea's explanation before he stared at Gaara again. "You haven't told your name. Show some manner."

"Gaara of the Desert. Me and my siblings are here for the same reason."

"Hey, hey, Konohamaru! You think I can enter the exam?"

"Of course, bro!" The Nine-tailed Jinchuuriki's fellow attention deficit friend okayed him.

"...Gaara, I think I just got dumber from seeing these two interract." Temari said, almost like she pleaded to get out of here quickly.

However, seeing the three about to leave, Naruto's curiosity got the better of him, so instead of complained about Temari's rude remark, he made a question instead. "Hey, hey! Don't you want to know my name too?"

"Not interes-" Gaara stopped, before he looked at Naruto in great curiosity. This caught everyone's interest; even when he addressed Sasuke, he still had that aura of cold indifference. His siblings were even more interested, since Gaara rarely had a change in mind in the blink of an eye.

"...Why is she scared of you?" The redhead asked to himself cryptically before he turned around, this time leaving for good.

Naruto, obviously confused by what Gaara just said, decided to tune into Konohamaru's newest theory about Sabaku no Gaara, where the boy was convinced that Gaara's gourd was somewhat sentient and made him so scary. He could see why he had those crazy imaginations; they were entertaining in retrospective.

Meanwhile, Sukea himself became fascinated with a sight that he saw a little, but just enough to confirm his suspicions.

The Sound ninjas were here. Somehow, a fresh new village had enough resource to send their genins to Konoha for this exam.

And they monitored the confrontation.

When no one looked, the reporter popped out, making sure that it looked like he teleported somewhere instead.

-naruto-

Meanwhile, in Hokage's office, around the time of confrontation...

"So...who think that their team's good enough to enter the Chuunin exam?"

All Jonin that have their own teams have been summoned, but there were only four of us here. I guess the rest felt that their team did not ready.

"YOSH! MY TEAM IS READY FOR THE TEST!"

"I nominate Team 7- Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura- for Chuunin Exam of this semester, just like what Gai did."

"As the man in the left of me, I nominate Team 8- Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata- for this semester of Chuunin exam."

"Just like the lady in the left of me, I nominate Team 10."

"Woah, woah! Timeout! Timeout!" Iruka interrupted, as the Hokage about to end the meeting. "Sir, with respect to all of you, don't you think that you going too fast?"

"Iruka's right, everyone! I took pride in my genin team, one of them is an obvious genius, one of them turned to be genius, and I still wait for another year before entering them!" Gai exclaimed, despite knowing the demand from Hiashi that would force Naruto to get into the exam now.

"I'm a Chuunin when I'm six years younger than when they graduated..."

"Different time, Kakashi! And none of them are like you, especially Naruto!"

"Well they're our soldier and responsibility now, but we have our own reason to force them into entering the exam, right?" Everybody else nodded. "So for the starter, my genins, well...they won't forgive me if I deny them of a chance to test themselves against other villages. They're so competitive, they'll eat everything in the table if I said that they need to replenish their energy by eating."

"...That's your reason?" Iruka got flabbergasted by me.

"Naruto and Sasuke nearly destroyed team chemistry just because they found that Haku's stronger than them. They could've accused me of holding them back if I chose not to, and break my team apart. As I said, they are troublesome." Reluctantly, Iruka accepted my reason, and perhaps, somewhere, a Nara felt that their copyright has been infringed.

"My team need the motivation and experience boost. And Shikamaru have the prowess to pass it just from his intelligence alone. He also could lead his team to safety thanks to his reluctance to play anything aggressively." Asuma explained.

"Same. Also, I don't want their first Chuunin exam outside of Konoha. Their sacrifice the weak to protect the strong policy disgust me, and will set bad examples to them. Not to mention that policy means they don't want to prevent any potential deaths."

"So Anko-chan's second exam insanity, death-prone exam that require some waivers about us not being responsible to their well-beings is a fluke? I know the second stage was actually safe, but I thought Anko would ramp it up with some new stuffs."

"As long as they play it smart..." Asuma muttered.

"I feel Anko would think that taped a team fell into her trap and could do nothing but pissing their pants for the rest of the exam would be a better entertainment..." Ah, yes. The T&I were sadistic bunches. Their sadism was also the only reason the name still hold some grains, since we have acknowledged that torture was ineffective since it could be circumvented by consummate liars. Why else Ibiki capable of causing extreme discomforts just by talking to them alone?

"...Okay, I think I don't have much choice. Although I would like to give a test for all of them to see if at least they can survive this." Iruka stated.

"Well, my team survived Zabuza's attack, but feel free to conduct one."

"I will, Hatake-san." Iruka gave his words to me. After that everyone walked out of the room, me included. All to keep appearance of course, since there was still one more business that I had to conduct.

But before that, I began assimilating memories from my reporter clone, which was created and modeled in honor of Rin.

As I thought; every of my students this time actually capable of humiliated the Kazekage's children. Ah, how proud I was of them.

And Gaara's admission that they're his siblings and the Otogakure nins...It gave me a chance to bring something about all of them to Hiruzen.

So I stepped back into Hokage's office...

...And got a surprise by the sight of Asuma and Hokage, smoking together. Both of them always talked about how they wanted to amend things, but none of them had make a move yet. Seemed like it's time for them to do that.

"So dad...did you smoke because you have seen some shit as well?"

"Ah, so you acknowledge that sometimes we simply don't have the resource to do the morally right, and sometimes, you just can't save everything. And it eat you from the inside."

"Turned out that sometimes human can be so unreasonable that you need to maim a quarter of them just to deliver a point. Although in all fairness, I shouldn't lashed out at my clan since Yondaime have done the same exact thing with Iwa's west flank. Not to mention that half of the reason I move out of Konoha was to gain financial glory."

"And we smoke, because our guilt consent make us unable to move on fully. That was what make us human, the fact that we still think that we can solve something in better way. And that fact, will drive us to overcame the horrid feelings enough to stay functioning, and become even better. I'm glad that we're on the same page now, son." Hokage patted his son's head affectionately, not getting a protest from his son who've grown up enough to finally appreciate everything that his father have done. "So Kakashi...I bet that you're not here to see a heartwarming moment between a father and son."

"Well it's a nice touch, but you're right, Hokage-sama. I need to know what happened in Suna. It's really irregular to have a team composed of siblings. A Kage's children in that. Any other reason than nepotism and stacking the elites?"

"All I know is that the youngest is unstable, and they need everyone that he liked, or at least tolerate to keep a check on him. Or else, he'll just kill everyone in sight."

This information appalled Asuma. "This is not right. That boy won't have a chance to get promoted in an all-village exams."

"Sadly, Kazekage is a man who believe that ninjas are weapons. His own son have been subjected to...artificial assassination attempts to make him stronger. If anything, he would think that he's more than ready."

"Mad man. Sunagakure deserves someone better." Asuma said before he stomped out in disgust.

"You know...even if we're being pragmatic, Suna does deserve something better. Their own Daimyo trust us more, to the point that we get more missions from him."

"How bad is the situation there?"

"Very bad. Economically they're at their lowest point since they always depend on their shinobi force; Suna's location is not good for anything but defense, so it's too imposing and intimidating for vacation spot like other desert villages, and their Daimyo dumped half of his jobs to us means they're starving right now. It was self-inflicted; they have few genin now since Suna treated them more like cannon-fodder, ready to be sacrificed to save their higher ups and villagers. This resulted in insufficient force for lower rank missions, and caused their Chuunin and Jonins have image of being spoiled and over-promoted, even if that's not the case."

"I guess Kurenai was right, more than just moral perspective." I summarized as I finally took a seat. One of my old habit from my old world, where I would prefer to stand, still stuck. I could only wonder why no one asked my changes. Probably because my tardiness still convinced them that I was the same Kakashi.

Hokage-sama finally took his pipe, and started to smoke again. "Even then, if my hunches were right, the Kazekage could be a changed man if someone can show him the way. His situation was partially fueled by Suna's council assassination attempts on him before, and perhaps...there's something in Gaara that made him like this. But this still mean trouble; Suna Shinobi, just because their leader wanted to change, that doesn't mean their force have the same mindset as he is. And since Kage have to weigh in his people's opinion, even if he's technically have total control, and they're not entirely right..."

"That means they want their job back. And perhaps, getting more experience for their genin is too slow of a way."

"Indeed. Not to mention that Rasa...have done plenty of big mistakes that he thought could help. And the Sound village...they grow so fast. Too fast. This means that their leader's someone on true Kage level, not just a strong ninja."

"Or they get favor from other villages. Either way, this could make Suna interested."

"And it could mean trouble." Hokage-Sama concluded as he inhaled his pipe once again. "Kakashi, keep going with your reporter disguise. Try to find what the hell these people from Sound and Sand up to. Let me handle Kabuto's situation; Hayate and Yugao would be more than enough to search for his hideout when he applied for Chuunin exam."

"Yes sir."

"Now go, and tell your genins what they're up to."

-naruto-

Next morning...

"HA! YOU FELL FOR OUR TRAP!"

The Iwa-nin couldn't believe it. The girl from the team had placed such a well placed trap genjutsu, he didn't even heard the bear trap contraption working before it bit him! He was soundly beaten by Sasuke's fire jutsus alone, and when he just about to escape, they pulled this shit to him!

"Now..." Naruto's grin only grow even wider, before he did his usual clone jutsu. For some reasons however, they had a sickening orange glow. Almost like it was ready to release something bad. Something real bad. "Ready for some fireworks?"

-naruto-

"OH GOD!" Iruka gasped for fresh air as a explosion was heard from 150 yards, nine o'clock. The area of effect itself was big enough to destroy something as big as a truck. Not that it existed in Konoha. "I NEARLY DIED THERE! Oh, thank you, log-sama. Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Man, I thought log cult have been proved to be heretic by Sannin trio?" I stated as Iruka kept groveling for one of the log substitute, my comment came from one of the few surviving data logs from the original Akatsuki trio and Minato Namikaze, which showed that logs were exchangeable by even living things like rabbit. That was the start of decline for logs.

"Don't know, don't care. All I want is to thank log-sama for saved me from those three...maniacs!" Iruka retorted before he returned to his newly found god. Man, were my genin really that good? "Oh, log-sama! I won't use any leafs for my Kawarimi again! Branches for the win!"

"Uh, won't that require some great control to make sure that the logs won't hit you and..." I groaned as Iruka just kept hailing the log's second coming. Obviously, the first aid steps to stop the log cult did not worked. The only thing I could do, was to hit a signal so an ANBU could pick him up.

Besides, after he gained his sanity back, he would say that my team's more than ready.

-naruto-

"WOOHOO! We beat him, yeah!"

"NARUTO BAKA! We could get information from him first before you obliterated him!" Sakura pointed out.

"Ehehe..." For a second, I was about to worry for his mental health, before Naruto realized his mistake as he stared at the aftermath of his fight. "OH NO! I KILLED HIM SO HARD, HIS REMAINS HAVE BEEN ERADICATED! WHAT HAVE I DONE!"

"Don't worry, Naruto! The guy happened to made a kawarimi before your clones explode. But even if I didn't apprehend him, you have scared him enough to make sure that he won't touch Konoha without a 5 kilometers pole."

"Sensei! You fight those guys too?"

"Yup! And they won't be here for the rest of the exam."

"Fyuh! I'm glad that everything worked out well in the end."

"But that means you need better self-control, Naruto. Rasengan needs a great control and patience to learn it, and you don't have one now. Not to mention of your Uzumaki secret." Naruto lowered his head in shame. "But don't worry, Naruto. I won't hold you back from Chuunin exam just because of this mess."

"You mean, we're going to the exam? SWWWEEEET!" Naruto's morale jumped back into his normal state.

"Yup! And unlike other Jounin, I will tell you the mechanism to get promoted!"

This stimulated my genins' interest even more. "Really, sensei? Won't that make us disqualified and get you in problems?"

"Don't worry. The exams are always randomized every semester, so you guys are still pretty much on yourself." This made all of them engrossed even more instead of disappointed them. "Here's the thing: people who get promoted as Chuunin, are not always the strongest in the test. In fact there's always a chance that the strongest fighter in the test will ended up not promoted."

"WHAT? HOW'S THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE!"

"Naruto, be quiet!" Sasuke reprimanded him before Sakura could went insane from his scream. "Sensei, continue please."

"Because the juries valued leadership more. This means that proper planning will be appreciated more than raw power. For a great example, the ninja who managed to surrender on good term with his opponent will get the highest recommendation from the juries."

This, if anything, aggravated Naruto even more. "How's that making sense? Surrender could be seen as act of cowardice!"

"Well, if the guy beaten his opponent soundly, but decided that he has impressed enough people to surrender so both of them could not waste any more energy, get stupid wounds, and made both of them not ready for the next fight regardless of the winner, would that make sense to you?" This shut Naruto's mouth for the question.

"Sensei, on what ground that survival is the highest priority for Chuunin?" Sakura asked.

"Chuunin, for most of time, are expected to be the leader of mission if there's no Jounin. This means that successful missions with the least bloodshed will be the one who get appreciated the most. They also see ninja who can see and able to escape from something they can't handle as the highest priority."

"Even those from other villages? Kiri's rather prideful of its violent nature, sensei." Sakura pointed out.

"Those Suna nins also consider us as tree-hugger. Seems like other village would prefer ninja who could, and would maim their opponent into shreds." Sasuke finally added his own thoughts.

"Well they won't be able to promoted them if they're already dead, right? I think the only difference is that village like Suna and Kiri will appreciate brutality while we will place it against the contestants instead. We will stop any match where the contestants are too stubborn to quit, for example."

"Oh, I'm so glad that I was born in Konoha!" Naruto gleefully exclaimed. Seemed like he forgot of his Jinchuuriki status for a minute there.

"Now here's the thing: Whether you guys managed to get promoted or not, I will be proud of you. As long as you give everyone a good show. However," I looked at the three of them sternly. "With my information, would you want to lose your chance to test yourself against the best of other village genins, since now you know how to play it safely?"

"Hn. Then it's settled: I don't care if I don't get that promotion. I just want to fight these strong people."

"Me too!"

"I...I guess I want to see how strong I've become."

Ah, so proud of them!

"Good choice, everyone! That means I'm going to teach all of you in preparation for next week, and you guys don't have to search for anyone to join your team!"

"Three members are required? Eh, what would happen if one of us already promoted, and we want to take the next exam?"

"What would happen if Hokage wants to give us field promotion when we're qualified enough for the exam? Should we take it, or reject it?" Sakura added.

"The rest of you need to pick someone else, preferably your friend since you need to display your teamwork on it. And in case that you going to get that Chuunin field promotion, it's better for you to accept it, and get an extra test for Jounin examination. Usually, Jounin examination's straight forward, but people who get a Chuunin field promotion instead of exam promotion will only get a Jounin invitation if he's proven to have great potential, so there will be extra tests ahead."

"Eh? That Sukea guy said that filling the papers for special Jounin examination would be nightmare instead!"

"He did?" I feinted my surprise. This was all to make sure that they won't recognize my disguise. "Hmm, then the term must have changed since I became Jounin. So in that case, you need to find out whether it's worth it or not. If not, then you guys need to take a Chuunin examination again."

"Yes, sensei!"

"Now, is someone here have another question? Like, best criteria to create a temporary three-man team?"

Naruto about to object about something before he realized something, and he smiled so sweetly. Not in the 'don't worry I'm fine' smile, but the 'I'm glad all is well' smile. Seems like he just wanted to whine about how hard finding other team would be for him, before he realized that this time, he did have friends that would help him.

Ah, my little brother. You have suffered so much.

"Hn. You won't mind if you have to join Konohamaru's team when even that lazy bum Shikamaru have been promoted. Right, Naruto?"

"BASTARD! TAKE THAT BACK!"

As the two of them got into some kind of silly fight, and Sakura herself avoided their big ball of rumble, I wondered about something instead:

DId Sasuke and Naruto get promoted in canon?

-naruto-

-time skip to thirty minutes before first exam-

"FRONT LOTUS!"

"WHAT?" Sasuke was shocked by how ferocious of a fighter that Rock Lee was. He barely able to block that guy's taijutsu even with his sharingan, and just when he about to get a major hit via Box of Fire (a technique in which he spat a Great Fireball into a sealed wardrobe where he trapped his opponent and turned them into ashes unless they surrender), Rock Lee just simply broke the wardrobe and outpaced his fire technique. In two seconds, he found himself flying in the air, his ribs felt like it's got hit by a charging bull, and just about to get piledrived into the ground.

"Sasuke-san, you're indeed a worthy adversary. But as you can see, your sharingan can barely able to read my taijutsu, and now... You're just not ready for this kind of fight. I just wanted to open your eyes for how a genius can be born just from training. And it's fine, you're still worthy enough to be my rival." In his freefall, he switched from lecturing Sasuke to made a pathetic attempt to woo Sakura...again. "Also, I'm looking forward for that date, Sakura-chan."

"NOOO! Sasuke-kun, please! Win this match!"

"I can't believe it, but I'm rooting for you, Sasuke! Don't let bushy brow traumatize Sakura-chan! Teach you a lesson my ass!"

The comments from Sasuke's teammates hurt so much, it made Lee loosened his grip for a while. This gave enough room for Sasuke to wiggled out and threw Lee to the ground. This shocked Lee as he never thought that Sasuke was trained enough to outmuscle him, even in just moment of weakness. When Lee looked back at Sasuke, the not lone anymore avenger did a shunshin. Lee, still in effect of Front Lotus, turned back and about to pound Sasuke. He knew that in Lotus mode, his power was no match for Sasuke.

Only to found a dummy, filled with enough fire chakra to knock someone out and gave them some nasty body burn that would've hospitalized them right away.

And when he looked to other direction, The Uchiha Avenger was on the floor, not even bothered to make a stance anymore.

Lee just found out that he was defeated by two shunshin, an exploding doll, and a kawarimi.

His new eternal rival was truly something else.

BOOOM!

"Yeah! Sasuke-kun win!" Sakura cheered, only to get a shock when Naruto pulled Sasuke's collar. "Naruto, what the-"

"Teme! I know that firecracker substitution jutsu take many chakra from you! What were you thinking, drained your chakra that much before the exam? Are you really going to handicapped yourself just for this?"

"Hn. Like yourself would miss the chance to use one of your best jutsu to win it. I guess your attitude rubbed a little off of me, so I have to blame you for this one, dobe."

The admission made Naruto a little redder. Angry from the duckbutt probably dumped his mess as somewhat his fault, a little proud of himself for getting another praise from the Uchiha, and a little pride for Sasuke thanks to being this competitive. "Sasuke..."

Unfortunately for both of them, another observer got into the area. Only Sakura noticed her, and the pink haired girl went into cardiac arrest as she looked at the blood flowing from her nose, and a sketch book, where she drawn something so furiously.

OH NO! THAT'S ONE OF SASUKE'S FANGIRLS WHO WANTS TO SEE HIM ON YAOI! NOW THERE WILL BE GIRLS WHO THOUGHT THAT SASUGAY IS CANON! NARUTO TOO!

But before Sakura could warn them of the newest thing to worried about, the trio saw something that they could ever expected.

Rock Lee was not knocked by the elemental explosion, and still looked like he could go for another round.

"What the..."

"That lotus jutsu...what it actually did to him? Did it really made him that strong?"

Sakura looked at Lee's burnt left shoe, his left legging that have been forced to get a little crispier, and concluded, "The Lotus probably still had enough boost to help him get out of that explosion."

Naruto gasped at Lee's insane speed. "Amazing..."

"In all honesty, if it's a real fight, I would've slapped that dummy with shrapnel seals before." Sasuke retorted, his pride did not want to lose.

"You're something else, Sasuke-san. For your great performance, you'll taste my true power in our second round." This made everyone else gasped. He had even stronger technique? "REVERSE-"

"Stop this foolishness!" Something rammed into Lee, disrupted the technique that Lee just about to show.

And the smokes were clear, it was clear that the thing that stopped Lee was a giant turtle.

"What the hell did you think, Lee? We have forbid you to use Lotus for sparing! And now you're going with the reverse version too? The rule was not just to teach you lesson of secrecy and moderation, but also to make sure you will not needlessly get exhausted for any potential task in the future, and you're using it just when you about to test yourself in Chuunin exam?"

"I-it was clear for me that Sasuke-san could handle it and-"

"SILENCE! You know that flimsy excuse won't hold in my court!"

Everybody got crazy at the sight in front of them. A talking turtle admonished Rock Lee for putting his body in heavy strain just to win a fight against the Uchiha boy, all the while ignored the real trial ahead of him.

The talking turtle was not weird by any means. After all, Kakashi-sensei have showed him his dog summons. But the way that turtle talk to Lee was so unprecedented. Almost like if he had authority over him.

Also, the thing somehow able to stand.

"What the hell? Is that talking turtle his Jounin? How's that even possible?"

"I thought Dragon Ball is not real man..."

I nearly lost to this freak?

"So, are you ready for your punishment?" The turtle asked.

"Y-yes!"

"Then...here comes Gai-Sensei!"

The turtle didn't know it, but it just shattered Team 7's memory blockade, a side effect of their self-attempt to remove that horrible sunset of youth. Not for its chakra-defying logic, mind you, but for its sheer display of madness.

"YOSH! EVERYONE'S YOUTH HERE ARE SO INVIGORATING!"

And it came back with vengeance.

"OH MY GOD! HE BRED!"

"Sensei..."

"Lee..." Both of them stared at each others before Gai punched Lee out of nowhere. "You FOOL!"

In any other cases the trio would've thought that Gai was being abusive. But these nutjobs made it difficult for them to feel anything but the shock value that came from whatever happened in front of them.

"You...you..."

"Sensei...I...I'm so-"

"YOU DON"T NEED TO TELL IT, LEE! I KNOW WHAT YOU FEEL! AND I FORGIVE YOU!"

The youthful genjutsu was a truly terrifying sight to be seen by naked eyes. Two ridiculously testosterone fueled man and boy in horrendous, clingy, and definitely not in fashion spandex, hugged each others under the sunset of sorrow, ridiculous waterfall of tears make sure that the scene won't attract any kind of sympathy. To make things even more inappropriate, there was a faint sexy jazz song accompanied the teacher and student. As the previous event showed, none of the regular genjutsu breaker technique worked on the sunset.

And as if it wasn't bad enough, the goddamn turtle decided to split into four images with different bandana for each of them, surfing up while eating pizza. Even one of them yelled cowabunga for no reason.

Needless to say, all of them were mortified.

-naruto-

Hmm...I think I'd better tried to peek on Sasuke and Lee's fight...

"KAKASHI NII-SAN! WAKE WE UP INSIDE SO WE CAN GET OUT OF THIS BUSHY NIGHTMARE!"

"HEY! PAY RESPECT TO GAI-SENSEI!"

"SHUT UP! YOU THREE WENT OVERKILL WITH THIS FREAK SHOW! OUR REACTION IS COMPLETELY NORMAL!"

"Um, did I miss something here?"

"SENSEI! THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE!" Was the last thing I heard before Naruto glomped me.

Somehow, I expected that my genins would be traumatized by the sunset genjutsu on full power.

What I did not expect, was Gai's tortoise engaged in their youthful shenanigans. And knew TMNT out of all thing. But why did it look more like a turtle?

"Sorry, Gai! I have to peel off my cousin's marital problems for a while and-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE NINKAME!"

"B-boss Ningame! I-"

"No excuses! I left Lee with Umigame since he'll be the only one responsible enough in our clan to stop Lee. Now where he is, and what you have done to him?"

"MMMPH!"

It was clear that Umigame was involved in involuntary bound and gag. "...Any good excuse, Kame?"

The gotcha question had no possible exit for the turtle, especially since his leader was furious. "Uh...I wanted to see his Front Lotus? I-I stopped him from going Third Gate, sir! At least I know when he's going too far!"

Ningame only grabbed the turtle by his ear, and ordered him to release Umigame from his current situation. What a weird summon family.

"Hmm...you know, Kakashi? I still want to know how you become," Gai suddenly appeared behind me, his kunai pressed my collar. "So good that our record went from 51-49 to 53-57?"

"Maa," The next thing Gai knew, he was holding a log, and this time it was me that hold a kunai against his neck. "What if I said that I just recently tried to take our rivalry seriously?"

"Then I need to become even more serious! YOSH! Or," I found myself on Gai's mercy once again. "I'm going to demand you to stop any shortcut, and unyouthful plays from you."

"Like what?"

"Your sharingan. I never realize it until now-actually, I just theorized it last night- but what if, you used your sharingan to gain advantage against me?"

"Maa, you got me. However," Our kunai clashed with each others, and soon both of us found each others ready to plunge our kunai into each others' neck. "I haven't cheated since the last three matches."

"Impossible! I have a four losing streak before!"

"Ah, but that's because you're so invested in figuring out what happened with me that you forgot to figure out that my body language have been replaced with Asuma's." Gai's eyes widened as he realized that it was just one of my test. "You forgot how it's like to fight genjutsu, Gai. You used to be able to ignore them. All of my sharingan genjutsu for the Jan-Ken-Pon were not that strong. What happened?"

"You're right, my hip rival I should be able to detect it and just rush to somewhere else to ignore its effect! I guess that I have been too invested in taijutsu recently." As he admitted his recent mistake, he put his kunai on his pouch again. "YOOSH! For my lacks of training in ignoring genjutsu recently, I'll get Kurenai to struck me with genjutsu for the rest of weekend!'

"OH MY GOD! THEY'RE SO COOL!" Naruto responded to our kunai fight.

"All of that for cheating in Jan-Ken-Pon?" Maa, Sasuke never know how to have fun.

"Who's faster though?"

"Of course Gai-Sensei is the fastest!"

"He is, Lee. However," I stopped any celebration by Lee for his sensei. "I have more vast skill repertoire, so unless we're fighting in Strong Fist Style, I'm going to win if we're going by style alone."

"YOSH! You're right, Kakashi! And for my weakness in Genjutsu, I'll bunny-hopping around the village for 20 laps as well!"

"Save it until later, Gai. We have our own genin team to motivate." Gai stopped before he could go dynamic entry on the whole school wall again. "Now, is there's something you need to say, Lee?"

"I'm sorry for baiting you, Sasuke-san! I just want to see the other strongest top three Konoha genin right now. My team have another guy who's very much the candidate for it."

"That long haired Neji guy?"

"Yes. And maybe, just maybe he'll finally see that I'm his equal."

"Eh, no offense, Lee. But he doesn't sound that bright if he couldn't see your fighting prowess." Sakura pointed out.

Gai motioned me so I could cover up Neji's condition for now. "Neji's just that proud of himself, Sakura. He's a Hyuuga, remember?"

"Hn. They're indeed." Sasuke agreed.

"Well, I hope for good luck to all of you!" Lee exclaimed before he noticed that his hand bandages were messed up. He then started to roll them back. Anyone with keen eyes could see the nasty bruises on his hands.

"Hey, Lee!"

"Hmm?"

"Forget what I said earlier. You definitely can kick Sasuke's ass even if he knows your move before."

Lee stared at Naruto for a while, before he gave him his thumbs up and good guy pose, and left to rejoin his team. Gai also did the same thing.

"What was that, Naruto?"

"You saw his hands too?" Sasuke asked.

"Yeah. I hate to say this, but bushy eyebrows trained really hard, even more than me."

"Now, now. You two. Lee's your senior by one year. Of course he's going to have much more training hours than you guys have."

"That's not what I meant, Kakashi-sensei. He trained way harder than me-"

"And that's because he can only do taijutsu well." I retorted before Naruto's confidence sank down again. "If any of you can only do taijutsu like him, I would drive you to the wall like Gai did to him. But since you guys have great talents in other area, you're going under a different training regime, where you need to get the fundamentals first. And once you reach a certain point, I'll drive you harder than a slave master." I said, purposefully stared at them blankly.

This made everyone shivering, and grinned in anticipation. This was before Sakura broke it with something else on her mind.

"Still, to think of his other even more powerful technique..."

"Well that will just make everything more interesting, right?" Sasuke smirked before he walked out of the room. The other two then walked out with even bigger ambition than ever.

And here I was, stared at my contact lenses and purple face paint.

-naruto-

"Now everyone need to sign it and-"

"Mitarashi-san! We found an intruder!"

This shocked Anko, and she could do nothing but ordered her guards to bring the prisoner to him.

And got a surprise by a white-haired man, still holding his camera.

"Hey! You're that reporter guy!"

"Yup! And this is just my day. Poor me, trying to get an early report, but ended up violated the rule...Now I have to wait until the exam's done before I could report anyone!"

Kakashi? Anko asked to herself as she realized the face structure of that man. Also, she recognized that Rin makeup. There was no way that it was anyone but him. Just what's going on here?

"KYAA! YOU'RE SO HANDSOME, MR. REPORTER!"

Anko's eyes twitched, and she had to hold back an urge to pummel that red haired skank for fangirling her boyfriend in disguise.

Soon enough she almost unleashed her snakes to the whole girls in that exam.