"Wait... what do you mean we already passed?" Sakura asked, with a look of shock on her face. "What about the tenth question?"
At that Ibiki outright grinned, telling them there never was one to begin with, or rather that the decision to leave or stay had been the tenth question. The kunoichi from Gaara's team piped in with an angry shout then, wanting to know what the point of the other nine questions was. Haruka shook her head at her, while Ibiki explained that they had already served their purpose by weeding out those that couldn't gather information without getting caught.
"Is he scaring them on purpose with those personality changes?" Haruka asked the T&I chunin to her right. The guy just shrugged helplessly, apparently having no clue, which made her chuckle. It was just like Ibiki to make people uneasy by being friendly.
Naruto excitedly nodded along while the head of T&I explained what exactly the test had been about. The blond loudly proclaimed, that of course he'd known and that one would have to be a moron not to figure it out. The Hyuga girl that sat to his right looked a little embarrassed, but stuttered her agreement when prompted. Ibiki didn't reprimand anyone who yelled questions at him, but cut the spectacle short after a while by removing his hitai-ate and displaying his scarred head to the room.
"Sometimes knowledge is worth more than your life, and during missions and on the battlefield people will risk their lives to get their hands on information," he proclaimed. Haruka knew he was proud of the nasty scars, even if he usually kept them hidden. After all, the mess of burned and badly healed flesh was a testament to what he was willing to endure for the sake of his village. There were more and worse marks on the rest of his body, but that little display got the point across well enough, so he put his hitai-ate back on.
Moments later a kunoichi burst through the window in a spray of glass. Some of the genin and Intelligence guys were on their feet before she even landed, but Ibiki only looked mildly annoyed, so Haruka stayed put. It was a hard decision though because the purple haired woman in nothing more than a mesh suit, short skirt and tan overcoat, had a trace of Orochimaru's chakra on her left shoulder. It was barely there, but Haruka would have recognized it anywhere. She didn't quite relax when the woman introduced herself as Mitarashi Anko, the examiner of the second test. It meant Orochimaru wasn't really here and the chakra was only in the cursed seal, still who knew what that thing could do.
"Follow me!" Anko shouted, and then started to complain to Ibiki that there were still twenty six teams left. Haruka wrote a quick note in her and Ibiki's personal code on her test paper when she saw him collecting the exams. It mentioned Kabuto by name, gave a short description of him and then listed the kind of information the boy had.
***
Anko led them to the Fourty-Fourth Training Ground, otherwise known as the Forest of Death. It was enclosed by a massive chain-link fence that was easily ten meters high, and still dwarfed by the gigantic trees behind it.
While Anko explained just how dangerous the forest was, Naruto made an ass out of himself by aping her and declaring that she couldn't scare him. The examiner just grinned at him, and then she was suddenly behind him and the blond had a fresh cut on his cheek.
"Kids like you always die first," Anko chuckled, licking the blood from his face. Haruka almost freaked out a second later when one of the shinobi from Grass handed her kunai back to Anko with an overly long tongue. For a second she would have sworn the oddly feminine looking guy was Orochimaru. Was that the cursed seal? It had seemed to come from the guy, not the proctor, but the two had been very close.
'Problem,' someone tapped out next to her.
When she turned to look for the source Haruka found Sai standing at her side, a mildly concerned look on his face. She held his gaze for a moment before shaking her head once. There might be, but she couldn't be sure and she certainly wasn't about to drag Sai into anything that involved Orochimaru. The boy had his own monster, he didn't need to deal with hers as well. Still, it was good to know that he was there if she needed him.
Anko handed out papers for everyone to sign, stating that they were aware they might die during this stage and that they were willing to accept that risk. For all Haruka knew it might be a real document, or it might just be another intimidation tactic. Not that it mattered. Only those who signed got to continue.
The second part of the exam would be a survival test. Haruka nudged Sasuke to activate his Sharingan when Anko held up a map of the training ground. It wasn't particularly detailed, but memorizing it wouldn't hurt. Apparently the training ground was circular and had a diameter of twenty kilometers. The fence that surrounded it had forty-four gates, evenly spread apart and in its center was a tower. Most of the area inside was forest, inhabited by a variety of nasty animals, except for the river that split the training ground into two even halves.
Every team would be given a Heaven or Earth Scroll before the test started. During the exam their task would be to get the other scroll and reach the tower within five days. Teams that lost a member, opened the scrolls early, didn't get both scrolls or didn't manage to reach the tower within the time limit were disqualified. They would also not be able to give up after entering the forest and while inside fighting and killing were allowed.
Since there were twenty-six teams left after the first stage half that number of each scroll type would be handed out. Accordingly a maximum of thirteen teams would be able to pass this test. Anko cautioned them against the dangers of the forest a second time and then told them that any team that still wanted to participate could exchange their signed forms against a scroll in the booth behind her.
Jubei transformed into a fly and made his way into the booth before Haruka could even say anything. While her little spy was busy learning which team got which scroll, Haruka memorized the order in which they entered and their chakra signatures.