“Arrow Rain” Athena held her spear up towards the sky and as it came crashing down a wave of chakra arrows followed, flooding the area with strikes. The telltale *Poof* of a dispelled shadow clone hammered out again and again as the attack finished.

  “You got all five this time!” Naruto shouted excitedly, while jumping into the air.

  “The aim is weird, it's kinda like ordering a barrage of arrows from a unit of archers that doesn’t exist,” Sakura grumbled. Naruto just stared at her in confusion for a moment before a smile rose to his lips.

  “I don’t know what that means, but it looks like you can use it without hitting yourself or us so I’m gonna call it a win!”

  Naruto was correct about that, regardless of any difficulty Sakura may have had with ensuring she hit an entire group with the technique, the arrows seemed to never fall on her or her allies. The challenge came from spreading the barrage to be as wide as she wanted it. Right now it seemed like her limit was a roughly 10 foot radius.

  “You said there were other techniques, now that you seem to understand that one you should test the others. We only have today to sit around, and you’ve been throwing down arrows for hours.” Sasuke called out to her from his lookout spot in a nearby tree. He was electing to stay on watch duty during training as he didn’t have Naruto’s absurdly fast healing, and didn’t want to use too much chakra until he could get Orochimaru’s seal inspected.

  “Yeah! I wanna see what else Athena can throw out!” Naruto stared up at the floating centurion with stars in his eyes, they hadn’t faded once since he first saw her. It felt affirming to Sakura that her squadmate was so impressed with her technique, as she had never wowed anyone with her skills outside of chakra control. While learning tree walking within a couple of hours had been impressive, it certainly wasn’t very flashy.

  “Understanding your combat resources is an important part of conducting any battle, I am in agreement with the orange child. Please, allow me to show you my other abilities.” Athena’s voice rang out with a soothing calm as she bowed towards Sakura.

  “Alright, alright. But the other ones are weird! Arrow Rain is her only attacking technique for right now.” She conceded.

  “Techniques that cause direct damage are important in any fight, but it’s not the only thing that matters. My Sharingan can’t hurt anyone directly, but it’s still the most useful tool in my arsenal. Don’t look down on utility.” Sasuke reminded her with a, hopefully, playful glare.

  Sakura pulled on her chakra core once again, feeling the two remaining techniques. One felt like a blade waiting to be pulled from its scabbard while the other felt like a wall of protection. She knew which one she wanted to try first.

  This technique, she knew, targeted an individual and Sakura didn’t want to use herself or either of the boys as a guinea pig until she knew exactly what it did. “Naruto, give me another shadow clone. Just to be safe.”

  “Coming right up!” Naruto put his hands together and quickly summoned another clone from his seemingly endless sea of chakra.

  Sakura pointed at the clone with one hand while raising the other towards her summon, “Athena Rakukaja on that clone!” Athena once again pointed her spear up but this time she whacked the ground with the butt of the weapon and upon the impact a blue aura surrounded the clone’s body. The aura hovered an inch over the skin, attacking as a layer of protection.

  “Uhhh…you can make people glow?” Naruto seemed disappointed while scratching his chin.

  Sakura threw a kunai at the clone, which sailed through the air and quickly stuck into the clone’s leg. “Hey!” the clone shouted angrily before looking down, noticing the weapon sticking out of its leg, and warping into confusion. “Wait, why am I still here?”

  Sasuke threw another kunai from the tree, and this time, upon impact the clone disappeared. “It’s a defence boost.” He stated confidently.

  “Indeed, my other two skills Rakukaja and Tarukaja are short-term supplements to the target’s defenses and attacking power, respectively.” Athena confirmed with a nod.

  “Heh, now if some guy is too tough for our jutsu we have a secret weapon to bring the smackdown even harder.” Naruto wore a predatory grin at that. It was easy to forget, with his generally excitable attitude, that the blonde was a battle junkie at heart.

  The trio experimented with the enhancement techniques until the sky began to darken. Over time they discovered that while both were sizable leaps in comparison to their normal states, the effect only lasted around a minute per use. Towards the end of the training Sakura was full on sparring with Naruto and, though she didn’t win, she was able to keep up most of the time. Provided there weren’t any shadowclones.

  The night was spent in watch shifts and soon morning came, with it the knowledge that their break from involvement with other teams was coming to end. They still needed an Earth Scroll and to make it to the tower at the center of the forest in just over 48 hours, but Team 7 didn’t want to cut it that close. It was thus quickly decided that they head straight to the tower and try to find a team to steal a scroll from.

  Packing up the clearing they had claimed for the last day or so was a short affair, but Sakura found herself trying to capture an image of it in her mind. This place, though they were only here for a short time, felt like the place where Sakura truly became a ninja. It was where she began to actually be a member of her squad. She would never forget the day she spent here. Sakura took a quick moment to adjust her newly short hair, and shot off after her teammates.

  The journey to the tower took most of the remainder of the day, the group was moving carefully as Sasuke didn’t want to risk using his Sharingan for anything but emergencies. It was late afternoon when the tower came into view. The tower was massive and grey and, looming over the surrounding forest, it stuck out like a sore thumb. Which meant approaching it without notice would be difficult.

  The trio slowed their pace even more as they got closer, wanting to ensure they got the jump on their next enemies rather than vice versa. The minutes ticked by into hours before, even at a slow pace, Sakura realized something was wrong.

  The tower was still looming in the distance, just as far away now as when it had come into view in the first place.

  “Something’s wrong.” Sakura spoke up.

  Sasuke linked eyes with her and she watched his pupils turn red and separate into tomoe. “It’s genjutsu. Someone has trapped us and we didn’t even notice.” He huffed.

  “C’mon out, cowards!” Naruto shouted into the uncaring environment. “You might have run us around in circles but it won’t mean anything if you can beat us!”

  Suddenly the surrounding trees stirred and out came dozens of copies of the same man, who were wearing rebreathers, black jumpsuits, and headbands that denoted them as shinobi of the Hidden Rain Village.

  “Are you kiddies tired yet? We’ve had you wasting your energy for hours, there's no way you're prepared to face an army.” One of the clones declared confidently.

  “Just give us whatever scroll you have and we’ll leave you alone. There’s still plenty of time in the test after all. You don’t wanna die here, do you?” Another taunted.

  “Oh we can take on an army all right, Shadow Clone Jutsu!” Naruto immediately threw one army of clones at the other, but their blows seemed to cause no actual damage to the Rain ninja’s. The clones weren’t doing any jutsu and were mostly just throwing around shuriken and flailing in taijutsu.

  The strange part was that not every weapon that connected with a Naruto clone caused the clone to disperse, sometimes the weapon collided with a clone, sometimes it harmlessly passed right through. Sakura immediately reported her observation to Sasuke who took a closer look with his Sharingan.

  “These clones are weaker than Naruto’s shadow clones. They don’t actually have physical form, the real squad must be hiding nearby and timing their weapon throws with the clones.” He completed his analysis after another moment of fighting.

  Sakura blanched “So, that means-”

  “Yup, we’re still trapped in a genjutsu.” He confirmed with a frustrated nod. “I have an idea, get ready for a barrage Sakura.”

  “Bond Release: Fool - Athena!” Sakura called on her ally once again who appeared from behind her in a flurry of cherry blossoms. Sakura had her ready an Arrow Rain upon arrival. As she performed the jutsu a shuriken sailed right towards her, seemingly thrown by a clone. But Sasuke’s eyes were focused, he knew that immediately upon seeing Athena, someone would strike. His Sharingan allowed him to instantly calculate the angle of the throw, giving away the enemies position.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “23 feet forward, 7 to the left!” He shouted as quickly as he could and she was ready, a volley fired down into the trees, skewering branches and kicking up dust as they collided with the dry dirt.

  The Rain ninja’s clones faded away just after she fired the volley, and the small army of Narutos took off in the direction she fired. Sakura could hear the telltale signs of a brawl but by the time she and Sasuke arrived there were three unconscious Rain shinobi on the ground. They all wore the same clothing and rebreathers, ripped in places from arrow wounds and with bodies covered in bruises from the battery of clones.

  Naruto sauntered up to the pair with a small darkly colored scroll held up on two fingers. “That’s a pass, right?” He asked with a knowing grin.

  “As long as we get to the tower without any issues, yes, we have everything we need.” Sasuke said with a serious nod, but Sakura could see a gleam in his eye that told her he was just as happy as Naruto was.

  “Alright! One step closer to becoming chūnin.” Naruto raised a fist in celebration and the group made a beeline towards the tower. Without caring about stamina burn or stealth the trio made it there in just a few minutes but stopped at the edge of the clearing that surrounded the tower, just on the edge of the treeline.

  Surrounding the entrance to the tower was Kabuto, along with two Leaf genin that Sakura didn’t recognize. They had purple cloth masks covering the bottom half of their faces and wore glasses, leaving them with few distinguishing features.

  Kabuto had apparently taken and failed the exams many times over by this point and made himself a known quantity during the first test by sharing information on the competitors with his Ninja Info Cards. While her teammates' cards had been accurate, showcasing Sasuke’s Sharingan and Fire Release, along with Naruto’s Shadow Clones, Sakura now had the element of surprise on the team guarding the tower. Sasuke appeared to think similarly.

  “We blitz the entrance. If they manage to catch us, Sakura, have Athena drop an Arrow Rain on top of us, it should give us the opportunity to escape into the tower.” He instructed, without breaking his gaze on the group ahead. “Naruto, if you see the arrows start to fall, make as many shadow clones as you can, the chaos will help.” All of Team 7 nodded wordlessly and shot off towards the tower as one.

  Kabuto, to give credit where it was due, didn’t seem surprised to see the genin hurtling towards him and he quickly yelled out “There they are! Grab them before they get inside!” The other team all braced themselves to launch into Team 7 but a strange floating woman, spear in hand, made them have a moment of hesitation.

  In that moment all hell broke loose. Arrows of pure chakra rained down from the sky and in the seconds it took to ensure the arrows didn’t impale any of them, the clearing was swarmed with two dozen Narutos all running towards the trio. Just as Kabuto was gathering himself, his eyes locked onto the Uchiha, who leapt into the air and unleashed a massive ball of flame.

  Kabuto and his team jumped back and that distance gave Team 7 all the time they needed to burst through the massive doors leading into the tower.

  “What the hell was that?!” one of the unnamed genin shouted as the door began to close behind them.

  “A miscalculation.” Kabuto sneered as he pushed up his glasses.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Once inside the tower the trio was met with a plaque that contained a riddle about how to complete this stage of the exam. While Naruto just stared at it in frustration, Sasuke and Sakura quickly determined that it was an instruction to open both scrolls at the same time. Upon doing so, Iruka-sensei from the academy appeared in a puff of smoke.

  After Naruto calmed down from his joy of being reunited with Iruka, their apparent closeness surprised Sakura, he explained the lesson that the riddle was trying to teach: a shinobi needs both a strong mind and strong body in order to succeed. Naruto seemed to take it seriously due to who was delivering the speech but, if she was honest, Sakura didn’t get much out of it. She had been told similar things many times within the academy, and she always paid attention to the shinobi lectures.

  There were still about 36 hours left in the exam so the trio were allowed to rest within the tower until the time was called. While it probably would have been smarter to scope out what remained of the competition, Sakura instead spent as much of the time as she could regaining her energy either by sleeping or eating. She didn’t know if they would immediately be thrown into the 3rd stage once it was over, and wanted to be as refreshed as possible.

  Sasuke was doing much the same after pulling Naruto and Sakura aside and telling them to keep quiet about the seal. They had both tried to argue that it was stupid not to tell someone but Sasuke wouldn’t listen.

  “This is my burden to bear, if they think something is wrong with me they might pull me out of the exam. There are too many powerful people here to let that happen, I need to test myself. I need to use this opportunity to get closer to my goal.”

  Sakura flashed back to their first day as squad, when Sasuke had told them in no uncertain terms that he planned to murder someone. She didn’t know who it was that pushed Sasuke to such a dark mindset, but she hated seeing him that way. At the same time, however, she didn’t want to damage the newly building trust between them, so she agreed.

  “Fine, but as soon as we are in the clear you need to tell someone. That thing is freaky, and someone needs to make sure it’s not killing you.” She conceded. Eventually Sasuke relented and the topic was dropped.

  Naruto, at some point, did go to see who else made it and informed his squad that Asuma’s Team 10, Kurenai’s Team 8, and Gai’s Team 3 had all made it to the tower within the allotted time. With Team 10 apparently completing the stage within the first day. The Sound Team, Sand Team, and Kabuto’s Team all also made it.

  As time was called all of the genin were called together with their Sensei, and Lord Third himself, to a large room that contained an arena surrounded by viewing balconies on all sides, at one end of the arena was a massive statue of a shinobi’s hands, clutched together in the Ram seal.

  Anko, the wild and imposing purple haired woman who had introduced them all to the Forest of Death, called out to them all once the room had filled.

  “There’s too damn many of you guys here still, so here’s how it's gonna be! Preliminary matches now and whoever wins will face off in a tournament in a month's time.”

  The room immediately erupted in surprise, one of the men from Kabuto’s team yelled out towards Anko, “Now?! We just got here an hour ago, what if we aren’t in condition to fight?”

  Anko’s face dropped into a cold expression as faced towards him. “Then you’ll lose. Welcome to the real world kiddos, the mission doesn’t wait for you to rest up, it just happens. And when it does, it’s do or die!” she motioned towards a much more unassuming looking man wearing standard Leaf Jonin garb and tired eyes.

  The man cleared his throat before speaking. “Hello, I am Hayate, the proctor of the 3rd exam.” The entire room quieted down to listen to the man’s words. “As Tokubetsu Jonin Mitarashi just informed you, we will be having preliminary matches to determine who will be attending the final stage of the exam. The matchups will be randomly determined and will be announced after the conclusion of the previous match. Before we begin, would anyone like to drop out? These matches will be life or death fights and if you aren't confident you should probably leave now.”

  Kabuto’s hand shot into the air as the words left Hayate’s mouth. “I think that’s gonna be enough for me this time, the people here seem strong, maybe next year.” He gave a shrug and then bowed before walking out of the room.

  “That guy was a coward! I’m not backing down, believe it!” Naruto shouted with a finger pointed at Hayate, who only gave a light cough in response. The room was silent for a moment but no one else made a move to leave.

  “Well then, let’s get started. The matches will continue until someone concedes or I determine that the battle cannot continue. The first match,” He motioned up to a large screen suspended on the ceiling which cycled through multiple pairings of names before finally settling:

  Sasuke Uchiha v. Yoroi Akado

  “Heh, that’s one of Kabuto’s goons, if the only one worth remembering already dropped out then I’m not nervous at all.” Sasuke declared with a cocky grin.

  “...Will be between those two, so, if you would, ” Hayate continued as the other few dozen shinobi in the room made their way to the balconies. Just a moment later Sasuke and Yoroi were the only ones remaining, standing about 20 feet apart, with eyes narrowing at each other as Hayate declared with a chop of his hand “Please begin!”

  Yoroi moved first, with one of his hands taking on a blue chakra-fueled glow while the other tossed a trio of shuriken towards Sasuke. Sakura felt her breath hitch watching weapons fly towards the boy but he deflected them easily with a kunai before closing his eyes for a moment.

  A second later they were open with the typical twirl of the Sharingan tomoe. Yoroi charged towards Sasuke, but with enhanced reactivity the blows were easily dodged. Sasuke leapt back to place some distance between them.

  “That hand seems dangerous, but you're not fast enough to touch me.” Sasuke taunted while continuing to fall back. His hands quickly became a flurry of seals before he launched a Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu towards the bespectacled man. Yoroi managed to dodge the ball of flames but it collided with the floor and exploded into a wave of heat and smoke.

  He leapt back, eyes instinctively closing for a split second to avoid the smoke, but a second was all Sasuke needed. Seeing his chance, the Uchiha suddenly shot forward and practically appeared before Yoroi as he flew right through the flames. Sasuke quickly adopted a low, but familiar, stance before launching his leg up into Yoroi in a move that elicited gasps from a number of those in the audience.

  “That move!” Lee shouted in disbelief from a few feet behind Sakura. Others among them knew the truth as well, as the technique Sasuke just used to launch Yoroi to the sky was Lee’s own taijutsu. Sasuke had only needed to witness it once to take years of hard work, replicate it, and incorporate it into his arsenal.

  Sakura could feel the frustration radiate off of Lee for a second but a quick pat on the shoulder from Guy-Sensei knocked him out of it immediately. A look of understanding passed between the matching shinobi before Sakura turned back just in time to see Sasuke slam Yoroi back to the ground with a powerful spinning heel.

  Yoroi did not get back up.

  The next couple of matches went by quickly as well. She thoroughly enjoyed watching Shino trick Zaku into blowing his own arms off. He deserved it after what happened back in the Forest of Death. And the face-painted Sand ninja had a terrifying puppet that he seemed to be able to coordinate with on an even higher level than Kiba with Akamaru. The matches did seem to be getting very bloody which caused Sakura to start to dread her own impending match as the fights went on.

  Hopefully whoever she fought wouldn’t try to kill her.

  Just as that little prayer passed through her mind the screen once again lit up with a new pair of names:

  Sakura Haruno v. Ino Yamanaka

  Oh. It was her childhood best friend turned rival in love. They hated each other, sure, but it wasn’t the kind of hate that meant this was a fight to death! They were just gonna kick each other’s ass and use it as another point in their unending rivalry for a boy who barely looked at them.

  Totally fine.