"How did you do it?" I asked Shri curiously.

"Just glanced at a paper," he shrugged.

Both Daisuke and my mouth dropped open. "That's it? It was that simple?" Daisuke asked. "How did you not get caught?"

"I cheated when you two were distracting the guards," he said.

"About that... Thanks, Daisuke," I smile.

He grinned back. "No problem," he nodded, then scowled slightly. "Why is that creep back here anyways?"

We all shrug. I felt shame crawl in my stomach as I think back to how I let him cheat off me. What was I thinking?!

"What's wrong?" Shun asks, demonstrating his inept ability to see right through people.

"I'm just nervous about the next part of the exams," I say, demonstrating my inept ability to lie on the spot.

"What about it?" Daisuke questions, demonstrating his inept ability to be absolutely clueless.

"Over half the teams will be gone, out of the running!" I exclaim.

"Not to mention that the proctor seems to be half out of her mind," shun mutters.

"Really?" Daisuke frowns, "I thought she was funny..."

"That's what you concentrate on? Not that more then half the teams are going to fail, but whether or not the proctor is crazy?" I exclaim in dismay.

"What?" He snaps defensively.

I sigh. "Sorry, I didn't mean that in a mean way. You know what? We have a few hours until the second part of the exam. How bout we go to Fuji Yama? My treat, as long as you two don't eat that much."

Daisuke grins. "Yeah! You're the best!" He gives me a friendly punch on the shoulder before racing off. "Last one there's a rotten egg!"

I laugh and chase after him, knowing that I would lose. Daisuke is fast over short distances. He was one of the best sprinters in the academy.

Shun keeps a steady pace, not missing a beat with his long legs. I just try my best to keep up.

With a smirk I shoot off into an ally, sprinting down it quickly. Scurrying through the maze of backstreets and allies, I try my best bit to trip over the garbage and scraps.

I sprint out of the ally, accidentally knocking into Dai and Shun. We all fall over, then glance at each other's gobsmacked expressions and burst out laughing.

Daisuke is panting hard. "You really need to work on your long distance," I tell him, smacking his arm. As I clamber to my feet.

"You definitely need more stamina," Shun agrees.

"Well it's not like either of you are as fast as me," he says.

"Touché," Shun and I mutter at the same time as we push open the restaurant door. We're quickly seated, sitting down in front of the grill. The cook comes out and prepares the grill as we order.

"Why didn't you order anything?" Daisuke asks me.

"I did!"

"Yeah, a small dish of vegetables," he scoffs. My stomach clenches in worry as he gazes at me suspiciously. "What's wrong?"

"Just worried." I half lied. "I'm nervous."

The server serves us quickly then bowed and walked away. "Don't be worried." Daisuke shovels several noodles into his mouth. "You worry too much!" He tells me, pointing his chopsticks at me.

I feel affronted at his breach of etiquette. It was rude to point ones chopstick at someone. I sniff and turn my knows up slightly as I place a piece of vegetable in my mouth.

I curl my lip in distaste at the oily, salty food. I struggle to swallow the greasy fried vegetable before placing my chopsticks down as I drink my entire glass of water.

I swear, I must have gained five pounds from just the one greasy legume. I pick my chopsticks back up and listlessly rearrange my plate, making it look like I'd eaten.

"We gotta go," Shun announces, glancing at the water clock. "It starts in an hour."

We all nod and stand, and I go to place some money on the table. Daisuke stops me. "Hey, I got this," he grinned.

"It's okay," I answered. I mean, not to be rude, but he didn't have much money. More then Shun would have, but less then me.

"No, seriously," he insisted. His sparkling green eyes looked into mine. I hesitated, then nodded.

"Fine," I grumbled, pocketing the money. We walk out of the restaurant, and as soon as his back was turned I reach forward to slip some money in his pocket.

He whirls around and grabs my wrist. I automatically cringe away, but he doesn't seem to notice. "Nice try," he grins, letting go of my wrist.

My eyes narrow. Oh, it's on. I was paying him back when he least expected it.

Together we run along the rooftops towards the location for our second exam. Everyone seems to be grabbing slips of paper. "We're late," I hiss.

"We're just supposed to grab permission slips and sign them to say that we won't blame them for our deaths," Shun says casually.

"Oh. That's all. OUR DEATHS?!" I shriek quietly.

"Don't worry, I'll protect you... For a kiss," Daisuke teases.

"In your dreams," I retort, smiling slightly at his pout. We all grab the paper. Daisuke and Shun sign without hesitation.

"What are you doing?" I berate them, "You didn't even read that! You could be forfeiting the soul of your firstborn child!" I snatch the paper from them so I could read it over personally.

"The soul of our firstborn child?" Shun mutters to Daisuke.

"I think she feels strongly about this," Daisuke replied, straight faced.

"Oh, shut up and sit in a corner," I mutter to them.

"Yes ma'am," they both agree. I roll my eyes as they sit underneath an apple tree, laying down as though to take a nap.

I find nothing wrong with the forms, so I sign as well and turn them in, then go to sit next to Daisuke and Shun.

"Find anything about the soul of our first born child?" Daisuke teases.

"For me and Shun, yeah. But not for you," I reply dryly.

It takes him a minute to understand. "Hey! Red heads have souls!" He retorted. Shun and I rolled on the ground, laughing.

I wipe a year from my eye. "Your hair is incredibly handsome," I overly reassure the disgruntled Daisuke.

"You know it," he mutters.

I share a look with Shun and giggle. Everyone quiets and gathers around as the crazy proctor lady-- aka Anko-- explained the rules. It seemed fairly simple, but dangerous.

I felt the nervous out in my stomach grow larger. In here, we wouldn't have Sensei to protect us. In here, we would be all on our own.

We walk into the small booth, and receive our scroll. Heaven. "Who want to hold it?" Shun asked.

"I think Dai should. He's fastest, and can run away if need be. I'll carry a fake scroll and put a genjutsu over the real scroll."

"Sounds like a great plan to me," Daisuke shrugged. I take out a blank scroll and transform it into the heaven scroll, then slip it into my pouch so people would be able to see the bulge created.

"C'mere, Daisuke," I ordered, then created several hand signs, focusing. Soon the scroll wavered out if existence.

"Sweet," he breathed, "It disappeared!"

"Nope," I say lightly as he slips it into one of his pants pockets, "It's like... A perception filter. It misdirects your senses; it becomes that one place you never want to look, in the corner if your eye, in the back of your mind,"

"Cool," Daisuke breathed.

"I understood like half if that," Shun muttered.

"Half? I understood like a quarter of it," Daisuke laughed.

"Whatever," I huff. "Let's go claim a gate. This starts in ten minutes."

We walk around until we find an empty gate. "How about we have a pass code so we know it's actually us?" Shun offers.

Daisuke and I shrug. "Sure, sounds good. "How about, "Cho"?"

"Cho?" I ask, amused.

"Yeah, like the butterfly I was playing with before!"

"Good enough," Shun agrees.

In the end we figure out three ways to identify each other: a hidden mark, a hand sign, and the password.

"We're ready," Shun says, determined.

"Course we are," Daisuke grinned.

"Well, there's no turning back now," I shrug.

And with that, the gates opened.

________

I'll try to update soooooon!

I'm off of spring break now T.T

How'd ya like it?

Yup. Guys, can you PWEASE check out my new fanfic, The Child of God? I'm really excited about it, and I think you'll really like it!

Comment! Vote!

Bye!

gaara119