Kakashi waited for them in front of the real room 301. He looked more bored than usual, slumped against the wall as he was. He also had the audacity to tell them they were late, at which point Naruto practically exploded. The blond recounted everything that had happened since they had entered the building, wildly gesticulating between Sasuke and Haruka, and almost hitting them in the process. Kakashi politely waited until Naruto was halfway through his tale before he interrupted, telling them not to embarrass him and then vanishing in his usual manner.
Naruto was completely outraged by that point, and ripped the doors to the room open with a loud bang. Inside were several dozen shinobi from a few different villages, all staring at them. Haruka wasn't surprised, she'd felt the mass of chakra signatures a while ago, but her teammates seemed stunned by all the hostile glares. They didn't get a chance to decide what to do about it because a girl with a long blond ponytail, Ino if she remembered correctly, jumped Sasuke from behind. The girl said something about having missed him terribly, and Haruka used her chance to get away while she still could, already anticipating the drama that started the second Sakura saw them.
While the two girls were fighting, the rest of Ino's team joined her. Nara Shikamaru, who had perfected his clan's slouch and Akimichi Choji, who was munching on a bag of chips as if he hadn't eaten in ages. Sai arrived a moment later, taking his customary position slightly behind and to Haruka's right. The Nara noted it with an interested glance, but didn't say anything.
"Found you!" Another voice bellowed as the tracker team composed of Aburame Shino, Inuzuka Kiba and Hyuga Hinata joined them. "Well well, seems like everyone's here."
He was right too. Four genin teams had passed their respective jonin's test and all four were there, mere months after graduating. It seemed very unusual and made Haruka wonder if their senseis actually expected any of them to pass or if this was just a way to give them more experience.
After a while a guy with bluish gray hair and round glasses walked up to their little group. He wore a Konoha hitai-ate and looked pretty pissed, apparently all the shouting that had been going on between Sakura and Ino, and Naruto's and Kiba's declarations of skill had annoyed some of the other genin. The guy introduced himself as Kabuto and reprimanded them for their behavior, saying that the exams weren't a picnic and that they should take them more seriously. Haruka thought he might be in his late teens or early twenties, which he indirectly confirmed by telling them that this was his seventh time participating in the chunin exams.
He also offered to share some information with them since they were new and all. It immediately made alarm bells ring in her mind. There was no reason for anyone to help their competition through the exam, especially not someone who had failed that often. Not to mention that he shouldn't have the kind of knowledge he was offering to share. And then there were the cards he used. Ninja Info Cards appeared blank unless the person who originally burned the information into them activated them with their own chakra. They were really useful for people that wanted to keep information safe and easily accessible. They were also really expensive, certainly out of the price range a genin could afford with nothing but D and C-ranks.
Most of the genin in their little group looked really interested in Kabuto's knowledge, but only Haruka, Shikamaru and Sai seemed to realize that he wasn't trustworthy. Either his information was false or had been gained illegally. Knowing how many teams each village had sent and having basic knowledge about the participant's names and skill sets was one thing. Those were things printed on brochures for the tournament stage so the audience had some facts to go on when betting on the outcomes of matches. Getting that stuff a little early wouldn't be easy, but was certainly doable and at worst worth a reprimand. But Kabuto had a lot more than that. He had lists on the number of completed missions, sorted by rank even, for both foreign and domestic shinobi. He also knew that Lee had greatly improved his taijutsu skills over the past year and that Gaara had never even received a scratch on any of his missions. Unless Kabuto and Lee were friends, that kind of detail was suspicious and in Gaara's case it practically screamed 'spy'.
But why share and risk being found out? He couldn't possibly think that all twelve of them were so naive that nobody would even raise an eyebrow, could he? Having those cards was risky even should the information on them be completely fabricated. With the hidden villages constantly vying for recognition, clients and power one incident was all it took to start a war. If anyone was looking for a reason to start something, a Konoha genin sharing illegal knowledge on other villages with several clan heirs, during the chunin exams no less, would be the perfect excuse. So maybe he was hoping someone would call him out? Or was he not thinking that far ahead and just trying to ingratiate himself with the people that would hold sway over the village in the future?
"My Name is Uzumaki Naruto and I won't lose to you bastards!" Naruto suddenly shouted, ripping Haruka out of her thoughts. He looked a little embarrassed right afterwards. The Oto nin that attacked a moment later didn't have it out for his head though. Apparently the sole team Sound had sent wasn't happy that Kabuto had dismissed them as a minor village.
The guy that rushed forward had bandages covering his whole head, except for the left eye. He wore a straw raincoat and gray clothes, the scarf and trousers patterned with dark purple blotches. The sound shinobi pulled up the sleeve covering his right arm with his left hand, revealing a metal brace with several holes in it, as he ran. With him was another boy that jumped over the crowd, and wore the same clothes, minus the raincoat, braces and bandages.
The second boy threw two kunai at Kabuto, who just managed to step back in time to avoid his foot being skewered. Afterwards he barely dodged a vicious blow from the first guy. Haruka gasped at the wave of chakra that followed the hit, and then Kabuto's glasses suddenly splintered and he started to vomit a second later. The guy with the straw raincoat mocked him while Naruto and Sakura ran to see if he was okay.
It didn't get any further than that though because Ibiki and a little army of T&I personnel arrived in a giant cloud of chakra smoke. Izumo and Kotetsu among them, untransformed this time. They made quite the entrance, all in their gray Intelligence uniforms and with glares on their faces. None of them could quite compete with Ibiki's scowl, but they certainly gave it their best shot. There were some audible gulps from the audience when the Head of T&I introduced himself, a smile that wasn't even remotely friendly stretching the scars on his face and black coat billowing behind him. He reprimanded the Sound team for their behavior and explained that fighting without express permission wasn't permitted, and would end in exclusion from the exam and possibly a cell.
Naruto looked terrified by the show and he wasn't the only one. Haruka thought a few of the genin might piss themselves if Ibiki so much as glared at them. Their expressions didn't lighten up any when the proctor changed their seating arrangements to separate teams, and explained that the first test would be a written exam. Naruto seemed stumped for a moment and then actually screamed. It was so loud and shrill that Haruka considered hitting him over the head to make it stop, but Sakura was faster.
There were some odd rules to this test. Everyone started with ten points and would lose one for each question that was answered wrongly. The test scores would not be evaluated individually but for the whole team. Anyone who was caught cheating would lose two points. Those that lost all their points, either by answering questions incorrectly or being caught cheating, were disqualified together with their teammates. Ibiki also made a little speech about how they should be proud shinobi, and that pathetic ninja who got caught cheating weren't worth the rank of chunin.
If the rules hadn't given it away before, that last part certainly did. He hadn't sad 'ninja that cheated', but 'ninja that got caught cheating'. This test wasn't about what they knew, it was about how well they could gather information. The questions themselves were another confirmation of that fact. The first one was a cryptogram that required chunin level knowledge of ciphers, something the Academy most definitely did not teach. The only reason Haruka could solve it on her own was the training she'd gotten from Ibiki on the subject. She didn't have nearly as much luck with the other questions though. There were a few she could guess at, but nothing she felt very confident about. And then there was the tenth question that wouldn't even be revealed until fifteen minutes before their time was up.
Everyone could get caught cheating a total of four times without failing. In theory that meant they could just get up and copy the answers from someone who had them all. Judging by their chakra levels there seemed to be some chunin plants among the participants, so that would actually be a viable option. Of course it would also cost two points, which was to be avoided because they would be ranked in the end. Since Ibiki hadn't told them how many points they needed Haruka assumed that there was a cutoff after a certain number of teams had passed. In fact, knowing him there might actually be a cutoff and a point requirement, so even losing just two point could be too much depending on how well the others cheated.
She saw and sensed many of the genin panicking as they read the questions, but it didn't take long for the first to figure out what the test was really about. Soon enough Sasuke started to copy the pen movements of one of the chunin plants using his Sharingan. Gaara did something involving sand, the Inuzuka dog barked in a way that was obviously code and the kunoichi from Lee's team was manipulating the reflective parts of one of the light fixtures using ninja wire. If Haruka could detect them doing that, that meant so could the T&I members that lined the walls. They scratched away on their notepads, presumably recording all the cheaters. She wondered how strict they were. Was Sasuke's Sharingan subtle enough that they wouldn't take points? And what about Naruto? Her blond teammate was still panicking, either unable to figure out the test's purpose or not knowing how to gather the information.
"Jubei," Haruka whispered as quietly as she could, while hiding her face in her hands. "Can you transform into a fly or something and get the answers from the guy in the second row, third seat from the right?"
The little tanuki didn't respond, but a second later her leather bracelet was gone. It took him a little eternity to get back, but Haruka wasn't worried. He'd have to wait until the guy had solved all the questions and then he had to memorize the answers to each. When he was finally done Jubei transformed into a pen, hidden behind her outstretched arm. She let the original pen vanish into her sleeve before picking up the transformed one. Jubei would very subtly move in her hand to indicate the direction she was to move the pen in. It took ages to answer every question that way, and she resolved to teach the tanuki a simple code. Naruto still hadn't calmed down by the time she was done, but they only had a little over twenty minutes left, so she couldn't help him. Ibiki would announce the final question long before Naruto was done copying out the answers, provided he even understood why the pen was moving and didn't make a fuss about it.
Haruka was seriously contemplating just having Jubei transform into his actual form on Naruto's desk and answer the questions for him, when a kunai flew past the blond's head, piercing the desk behind him. Kotetsu was the one who had thrown it and was now telling the genin that he had messed up five times and failed. The guy looked utterly surprised for some reason and both of his teammates seemed pretty pissed when they were thrown out as well. The next guy that was disqualified tried to claim they couldn't prove he had cheated. He got pinned to the wall for his trouble. Haruka had no idea who the chunin was, but he had T&I's intimidation tactics down pat. Afterwards everyone who got called out left the room without protest.
And then it was time for the tenth question. Ibiki gave all of them the option not to answer. Doing so would result in disqualification, but answering incorrectly would mean losing the right to participate in future chunin exams. There was a lot of protest at that announcement, especially from the people that weren't taking the exam for the first time, but Ibiki shot them down, saying that they were free to leave and try again in six months. It seemed like the logical choice. There was no rush to advance in rank and a six months wait wasn't worth the risk of potentially never being allowed to take the exams again.
It was also a bullshit rule. None of the other nations would adhere to it. In fact, Haruka was pretty sure not even Konoha would. Ibiki was giving them a lot of time to back out as well. The whole thing was fishy and most likely had another layer to it just like the rest of this test. While Haruka thought about it one of the chunin plants raised his hand, making a show of giving up. After that the dam broke and a lot of other people left the room, some of their own volition and some that were thrown out because only full teams could pass the first stage. That only cemented her belief that the decision itself was somehow important, otherwise Ibiki wouldn't have bothered with all these mind games.
What did it represent though? Not taking the tenth question meant failing, but getting another chance later, answering wrongly meant never getting a chance again. That last part didn't make a lot of sense for these exams, but it would fit very well as a metaphor for death. They also failed or passed as a team, which fit with missions. Take a dangerous mission and risk dying or refuse and live another day. Shinobi couldn't just refuse missions though. There might be exceptions under some circumstances, but in general when your kage gave you a mission the only option was to accept. So this decision wasn't really a decision at all, was it?
Haruka smiled, happy with her theory, and content to wait and see if she was right. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto would leave, they were both much too competitive, and arrogant in the Uchiha's case. The room was half empty by the time Naruto suddenly raised his hand. It shivered and the gesture had Haruka frowning because while his chakra was agitated, he didn't seem afraid anymore. And then the blond suddenly sprang up, slamming his palm on the table.
"Don't underestimate me!" He shouted. "I won't run!" He went on to declare that he didn't care if he failed because even if he was a genin forever he would still become Hokage anyway. A stunned silence reigned over the room when Ibiki asked again if anyone wanted to leave, telling them it was their last chance, but after Naruto's outburst nobody even considered it. Everyone, no matter how unsure they had been before, was suddenly filled with the determination to see this test through, and, even after seeing it herself, Haruka had no idea how the blond idiot had done it.
It only lasted until Ibiki let a slow smile stretch over his face, but the fear that gesture caused was washed away by a wave of relief and confusion when he announced that all of them passed.