Kagome Uzumaki (On Hold)

Chūnin Exam Entrance

Sasuke, Sakura, and Kagome were, once again, waiting for Kakashi to show up. However this time, Kakashi told them to arrive very early in the morning. But he was late, as usual so far. Sakura obviously wanted to get to their meeting place on time. The funny thing was that Saukra's hair was out of place while Kagome and Sasuke looked like they were clean and refreshed.

"Ugh! Why does he always make us wait so long when he's the one who called us up at this time?! I didn't get the time to do my hair!" Sakura exclaimed angrily.

"How long does it take to do your hair exactly, Sakura?" Kagome asked, brow arched.

"An hour, why?" Sakura questioned, confused.

"It takes about less than 10 minutes for me." Kagome commented.

"That's because you have shoulder length hair!" Sakura retorted.

"So?" Kagome asked, shrugged.

Before Sakura could say anything else, Kakashi finally appeared in a puff of smoke on a post above the bridge.

"Sorry everyone, I got lost on the road of life." Kakashi greeted happily, raising his hand.

"LIAR!" Sakura yelled as she pointed at Kakashi. He jumped down from the post and appeared in front of them.

"Anyway, I'll get straight to the point. I recommended all of you for the Chūnin exams." Kakashi pulled out three slips of paper from his pockets, "So here are your recommendation forms."

"Recommendation forms?" Sakura repeated.

"Please don't repeat me, Sakura. If you don't want to fill it out, then you won't have to take the exam." Kakashi stated, "Only those who wish to take the exam, fill out the applications and five day after that, bring them to the school in room 301 by 3 pm. That's all I have for you all." After that, he disappeared the same way he appeared.

"The Chūnin exams..." Kagome trailed off as she stared at her recommendation form.

She remembered the group of Suna shinobi from the other day. She wanted a proper fight against the puppet user. She was definitely more curious about that Gaara guy. Somehow, he reminded her of Sesshomaru when he was a heartless being. However Sesshomaru changed after meeting and bonded with Rin. But Gaara was very different from Sesshomaru. When she saw his eyes, there was coldness and hatred in them. There was something else she sensed; a tailed beast.

'So he's a jinchūriki.' Kagome thought.

She also noticed the symbol on his head. It seemed to be a unique one too. Gaara looked like an uncaring person, but he has the symbol of love on his forehead which made her ponder.

Sasuke was very interested about the Chūnin exam. He was excited about the powerful opponents who might be there. He remembered those Suna shinobi from the other day. He wanted to fight the red head called "Gaara". The way he used the sand was very intriguing. But he mostly wanted to show Kagome that he had gotten stronger since their first B-rank mission. Although he was disappointed that he didn't join Kagome when she went with Shikamaru and those kids to lunch. He didn't want to be near another fangirl, especially Ino Yamanaka. That blonde annoyed him to no end. Sakura was practically the same. The only difference is that Sakura doesn't know when to lower the volume of her voice whenever she talks. So he had to let Shikamaru spend time with her. Truth be told, he'd always had a crush on Kagome, but she never seemed to notice at all. He had a feeling that she only viewed him as a friend and he was trying to show her that he wanted to be more than a friend.

'I don't want to do this...' Sakura stared at her recommendation form. She didn't think that she had the strength or skills to participate in the exams. Most importantly, the courage to participate. 'I can't compare with Sasuke or even Kagome.' She looked back up at Sasuke and Kagome, 'Can I really do this?'