✔ Book 1:Sakura's New Beginning

Chapter 20: Sakura's New Beginning

"SASUKE WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?" A voice called out.

Sakura turned to see Ino Yamanaka engulf Sasuke in a back hug; her cheeks stained a pretty pink. Sasuke immediately stiffened and turned his head to glare at the loud blonde girl who had her arms wrapped around his neck lovingly. 

"Boy you have no how much I was hoping you'd show up here! I've missed those brooding good looks of yours" Ino exclaimed as she clung to Sasuke tighter. Sakura felt her jealousy start building up as she watched this happen. Sasuke shook Ino off his back, as Sakura walked over to Sasuke and held his hand.

"Please don't ever hold my boyfriend like that." Sakura demanded as Ink raised an eyebrow. "Boyfriend? Yeah right!" Sakura smirked before she grabbed Sasuke's face and kissed him with as much passion she could muster. Ino turned into a dark read while watching this.

"Oh it's you guys, I knew this thing was going to be a drag but I didn't know it'd be this lame." Shikamaru said, approaching the group along with Choji who was stuffing handfuls of potato chips in his mouth.

"Well, well what do you know? Looks like the whole gang's back together again" Kiba called out, walking across the room with his teammates Hinata Hyuga and Shino in tow. His dog Akamaru resting on his head.

"Hinata-chan!" Naruto yelled as he held his girlfriend in his arms. "You're the 9 rookies, fresh out of the academy right? I wouldn't go making a spectacle of yourselves, like your friend said you need to cool it. This isn't a class fieldtrip" The unknown man spoke.

"Well who asked you? Who are you?" Ino asked in an annoyed voice.

"I'm Kabuto Yakushi, but like the pink haired one said, look around you. You've made quite an impression" Kabuto replied smugly and the genin gazed over the room in shock.

Sakura's eye made contact with a group of male ninja who had four straight lines on their forehead protectors and dark cloaks covering their bodies.

"See those guys; they're from the Rain Village. Very touchy. They all are. This exam makes everyone tense and you don't want to rub them the wrong way right now" Kabuto spoke and all genin silently agreed.

"But it's not your fault, how could you know? You're just rookies. You remind me of myself a few years back" The silver haired man mused.

"So this isn't the first time you've taken these exams?" Sakura asked.

"No it's my seventh, well they're held twice a year so this will be my fourth year" Kabuto explained.

"So I guess all those rumours about the exam being tough are true. Oh man, I knew this was going to be a drag" Shikamaru said dejectedly.

"Hey don't give up hope yet. Maybe I can help you kids out a little, with my ninja info cards" Kabuto said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a stack of cards with markings on the back.

"What are those?" Sasuke asked and the rest of the rookies gathered around as Kabuto put the cards on the ground.

"These cards are chakra encoded with everything I've learnt over the past four years. So I haven't really been wasting my time. They don't look like much to the naked eye; in fact they're completely blank" Kabuto spoke, picking a card up from the stack and turning it over.

"Don't want just anyone seeing this stuff" He continued and placed one finger on the card and began to spin it around.

"What are you doing?" Ino asked.

"You see I'm using my chakra to reveal their secrets. Like this for example" Kabuto explained and put his fingers to his lips, concentrating his chakra. A small puff of smoke and suddenly the once blank card now revealed a map.