The chuunin exam III.
Dix was having his good night's sleep, when the Hidden Sound squad rolled in with their smug faces and infinite self-confidence. They were told to assassinate Sasuke, and deal with the rest of Team 7 however they want. These idiots were kinda strong genins in their small village, but even Sasuke could mostly beat them if he is in good condition.
So the 'assassins' woke Dix up, who hated waking up early, so he was rather pissed. He summon a clone in front of the den and passed over the Beheading Sword that he was storing in a special seal on his palm. The clone wasn't tired because he was made out of pure chakra, but had the original's memories and emotions, so he was equally pissed. There wasn't much place for mercy. Sakura also woke up and was looking at Dix with a scared face, as they were surrounded and Sasuke was still out cold. Dix just kept lying with his back to the den's wall, like everything was alright.
"Hey guys, good morning to you too. You woke me up, and I don't really like being woken up early in the morning. Come with me for a sec. I don't want to make a ruckus so the original can go back to sleep." said the summoned clone, then pointed with the huge sword at one of the mean-looking enemies.
"What are you talking about you dipshit? Don't you understand the situation you are in?" answered the one the clone was pointing at.
Hearing his refusal to cooperate the clone threw the Beheading sword towards the kid so hard it almost broke the sound barrier, then rushed after it at max speed. The sword was about to completely destroy the enemy without any way to react, but the clone stopped it milimeters away from his head.
"I said move!" said the clone with a low and threatening voice, and even used some of his chakra to intimidate them. All of them were scared shitless, first by the extreme speed the clone showed, then by the suffocating chakra it emitted. They had no other choice but to move. After a minute of walking away from the den they stopped and the clone spoke.
"Thank you for your cooperation, it seems like we are already far enough. Now you can scream as much as you want, I can block the sounds enough to not reach back there." Everyone around him were terrified at those words. Their leader understood immediately that they won't survive this, so he tried trading their lives for the scroll they had. Actually, Dix was willing to do it. Getting a free scroll and not having to work for it is the best. He could've killed them for it, but he still had the feeling of sleeping well in his mind, so he opted to get over this circus fast so he can go back right away.
After the trade the kids rushed away, while the clone slowly walked with the scroll back to the camp. Now they just had to wait for Sasuke to wake up and then they could head towards the tower.
The clone walked back to the den, put the scroll into Dix's hand then vanished. Sakura was looking at Dix with a terrified face, as she feared the worst. Not unfoundedly. He noticed it and began to explain.
"Ah, don't worry. They were beaten fair and square and they traded their lives for their scroll. It was a good offer, as they had an 'Earth' scroll, something we needed, so I just accepted without pressing the matter any further." Hearing this Sakura was a bit more relieved, but next she looked at the unconscious Sasuke, and her worries returned.
They had to wait for half an hour more, when Sasuke suddenly jumped up with a ton of dark and evil chakra swirling around and inside him. The curse mark was acting up and made him lose his reasoning.
"I feel... limitless power!" he shouted and looked at Dix with his sharingan like he wanted to attack him. But Dix knocked some sense into him. He used his own chakra to suppress Sasuke, who soon turned back to normal as he had no way to fight against him if he were to get serious. He then needed some time to recuperate from the effects of using the cursed mark, and the damage he sustained from Dix's suppression.
In an hour they were able to move out. Sasuke was in good condition again, so they were able to run towards the tower without having to stop. There were a few ambushes and traps ahead, but Dix sent ahead a few clones to clear the way in front of them. He also sent out many clones to search for Kabuto. The reason for this was that he wanted to plant an FTGT formula on him, and he simply forgot to that before when they were close to each other. Kabuto wasn't hostile in the anime, so he shouldn't be now either.
One clone managed to find him after around 15-20 minutes. He jumped down close to him and called out to him.
"Hey, Kabuto! How are you faring?"
"Ah, hey there, Naruto. I'm getting tired for sure, and had a bad sleep last night. Are you here alone? You shouldn't just walk around like that, you could be ambushed." Kabuto replied after turning his way.
"Don't worry for me, I am just a shadow clone, the original is already on its way towards the tower. I am here to scout stuff, when I ran into you, just wanted to say good luck."
"Ah, is that so? Well, you guys are quite good. You should pay attention at around the tower though, there are many teams that set up traps and ambushes in that area."
"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind and tell the others too." came the final sentence from the clone, as he was moving closer while speaking, and reached out to shake Kabuto's hand. Kabuto found this a bit odd, but wasn't really suspicious. He also had to appear weak to fulfill his role, so he thought a simple handshake would be okay. He was pretty sure he would be able to at least escape with his life, even if the one in front of him turned out to have malicious intents. So, after a second of deliberation, he accepted the handshake.
The clone planted the formula, which is actually quite hard to notice, if you don't have some sort of eye technique. "I'll be going now, see you at the next part. Bye!" said the clone right after he was done, then cancelled himself.
Dix got the report and cracked a smile at the successful mission. Kabuto would be left over as the last loose end after the coming attack on Konoha, so its great to know he was easily trackable. In a few hours Team 7 finished their survival trial by entering the tower with both scrolls, then opening them in the hall. From the seal Iruka appeared, who was tasked with knocking out the test-takers who open the scrolls during the 'mission'. He gave some explanation about the situation and congratulated them for their great performance.
After that it was resting time till the five days time limit ends. In the anime Team 7 didn't wait at all, as they managed to enter the tower at the last second. Now they had a lot of time to recuperate and energize before the preliminary duels start. Sasuke was tended to, Kakashi sealed his curse mark, which left him in a bad shape, but he was able to get his shit together by the time the duels started. Sakura was trying to train something, which was kinda useless, the same way whatever she does before Tsunade starts teaching her.
When the time-limit was up for the test the genins that successfully finished the second part were lined up in a big arena-like chamber. There they were told by the Third that way more teams managed to pass then what they need, so they will have to thin the herd a bit by preliminary duels.
There was a huge screen on one of the walls of the room, which displayed two randomly picked names that will have to fight for the right to continue to the third exam. The first to fight was Sasuke against one of Orochimaru's undercover agents, who had the special ability to suck away their enemies' chakra trough physical contact. The fight was very similar to the one in the anime, Sasuke didn't change much compared to that, he was a tiny bit weaker, but this time he wasn't tired and the curse mark was also taken care of. In the end Sasuke easily won.
Next Shino fought against one of the Hidden Sound kids, and easily won as he had a solid plan against them. He used his bugs to clog the air-pipes the Hidden Sound kid had in his arms and used to fight with. That made his arms blow up, which was quite scary to see for many rookies there.
Next Kankuro, one of the Sand Siblings had to fight against the second of Orochimaru's nameless undercover agents. That one could move his body however he wanted, like he had no bones, which is a kinda lame superpower. Kankuro easily beat him with a puppeteer trick.
Next Sakura had to fight against Ino, which is a funky turn of events, as they were friends in the past but somehow turned against each other. For now they were in a grey zone, but they had to fight. The fight itself was as anti-climatic as possible, because both of them were extremely low skilled and Sakura didn't even have any useful unique skills, while Ino had a fairly useless skill for combat. It was an extremely 'normal' and boring fight.