Dark Phoenix of Konoha by White Angel of Auralon

Part 25 - Showing True Skill

Showing True Skill

It was nine thirty and team seven stood outside of the academy building. Their strategy was to not give too much away about their abilities, but also not shrinking away from a conflict if provoked. Though they would avoid unnecessary fights. Intimidation worked mostly much better than wasting energy before a test. They walked up two floors and found a big group of people trying to get past two other genins that seemed to block the room, trying to keep the competition out.

Naruto signalled the others quickly to ignore the whole thing and walked on.

"Why would they put such a stupid genjutsu on the door?" Sasuke asked. "It was too easy to spot."

"Yeah, I mean, everybody with a bit of common sense should know that room 301 was on the third floor, not the second." Sakura agreed.

"I guess it is the first obstacle in the exams. Noticing the genjutsu. After all, if a ninja can't spot something as obvious as that he doesn't deserve to become chunin." Naruto stated and got nods from his teammates.

They proceeded to the real room 301 and opened the doors. They noticed that a lot of genin had already found their way here and were now trying to intimidate the opposition. Not that it would work on team seven. The killing intent of the other participants was pathetic compared to what they had dealt with in their training.

Over the next half hour more and more teams trickled into the room. Kiba caused a little commotion greeting teams seven and ten loudly. Naruto could only shake his head. Kurenai still didn't manage to calm the boy down. He had thought that after the 'wake-up call mission' that he had performed against the other rookies they would work more on their flaws. Okay, perhaps it was just Kiba. He could sense that Shikamaru was much more serious than before and was observing the competition. Seemingly he had realised what being unprepared and not thinking about every little clue could cost you.

Shino also was aware of his surroundings and Hinata seemed to have grown more confident and determined again. She had got away lightly during the mission and had even managed to escape a trap. Though he had to admit she looked good in tight clothes. Though no spandex like the ones he had put into all the wardrobes in the Hyuga compound that day to force her to wear it to the meeting. That the other Hyugas had to run around in them before they could get new clothes was only an added bonus. It had improved their security measures next to the ones that the Hokage had ordered all clans to set up. Naruto had to grin about that. He liked being allowed to prank some stuck-up people to point out flaws in their security measures. While everything going on in the village had been kept a close secret, the clans didn't like to have flaws pointed out. It damaged their standing.

Concerning Kiba's behaviour, well, at least he wasn't an easy target to take out. An older genin called Kabuto came up and told them to be quieter. He then offered, as a veteran of the exams, to give them a little head up with his ninja info cards which reacted to only his chakra. Naruto's eyes narrowed. Nobody would willingly give up valuable information in a test that was meant to be a competition among all the teams taking the test. Sharing with your teammates, okay, that was normal, but with people he didn't ever meet before, even if they were from the same village? He would have to keep an eye on this Kabuto Yakushi. He knew that he was on the list of suspected spies based on some irregularities in their files. Danzo had said that Kabuto had been recruited by ROOT when he had been younger. But there were some holes in his reports. Those could have been caused by Kabuto simply having to be careful while being deep cover but it could also mean that somebody else had got to him and turned him into a traitor.

Ino took the chance as did Kiba to get more information. Thankfully nobody asked about his information. It would be nice to keep a little surprise for later. He only interfered when the team from Oto attacked Kabuto. No matter how suspicious the guy was, for now he was a Konoha shinobi and that counted higher than shinobi from other villages. So three quick senbons later the Oto Shinobi experienced the same feeling that Sakura and Ino had had the day the genin teams had been announced. Five minutes of being paralyzed.