"So, who was that?" Azumi asked, jabbing a thumb at the blonde Kana had just spoke with.

"That's Naruto, we met in the Land of Waves on seperate missions." Kana replied.

"Is he always so... Depressing?" Azumi asked.

"No, actually he was the most cheerful of his team." Kana frowned.

"What a happy bunch." Azumi snorted.

"I don't know what happened to make him like this..." Kana sighed.

"I don't know either, but we have to focus on the exams now." Haku said softly.

"Yeah, you're right." Kana nodded, sadly glancing at Naruto.

Teams continued to chat, and all the Konoha genin except Naruto gathered around an older Konoha genin. He was much taller than them with fair skin, dark eyes, gray hair, and round glasses. He wore a blue headband with Konohagakure's symbol on it around his forehead.

Kana's ears could just pick up on their conversation, and she could hear him giving away the stats of someone she had never met named Gaara. A few more names were dropped, but only one caught her by surprise.

"Kana."

The white haired boy raised an eyebrow.

"Last name?" He prompted.

"No idea, but she's the girl in the back with white hair." Sasuke replied.

Kana turned away as the horde of Konoha genin looked her way. They didn't even hide their obvious staring. Didn't they know that was rude? Kakazu, Pein and Konan made sure she was well mannered.

"Ah, yes," The boy smiled. "I do have a card for her, but since I didn't know her name I titled it under 'unknown.'"

He reached into the small box and picked up a card, placing it between his fingers. Kana reacted quickly, not sure how much he knew about her. A chakra string arched over their heads and attached itself to the card. Kana yanked the string and the card flew towards her. The genin watched as the card seemingly flew into Kana's hand, and sighed when she ripped it in two.

Mentally, she reminded herself to thank Sasori when she got home.

The blank pieces of the card fluttered to the ground and scattered on the floor at her feet. Kana continued to watch the commotion from her seat, focussing all her attention on her hearing so she could hear what they were saying. A boy wrapped from head to toe in bandages stood on his desk, yelling out to the taller Konoha genin so loud that Kana didn't need enhanced hearing.

"Put this on your cards!" He exclaimed. "All of the Otogakure genin will make chunin!"

"We'll see..." The teen mumbled in response.

The Otogakure genin sneered from underneath all his bandages and jumped to attack the gray-haired boy. He quickly ducked under the boy who lunged at him and smirked in victory, however that didn't last long. He hunched over and lost his breakfast, making Kana cringe when the smell drifted over to her.

Before any other kind of fighting could take place, a tall imposing man walked in, his scarred hands slipping into the pockets of his black trench coat. His face was also horribly scarred, the scars running all the way up his face and disappearing under his black Konoha bandana.

"Pipe down!" He barked, silencing the room. "Oto genin, do you want to fail right now?"

"No, sir." He replied, quietly sitting down.

"Then no fighting without the permission of myself or another proctor." The man grumbled. "My name is Ibiki Morino, and I'm going to be your proctor and worst nightmare for the first part of the exam; the written test."

"W-written?" Naruto asks, paling more than it was thought to be possible.

"That's right," Ibiki grinned sadistically. "Bring me your forms and then take a seat in your assigned seats, from there I will explain the rules."

Slowly, everyone handed in their forms and trickled into their assigned seats, getting comfortable. Haku, Azumi and Kana all wished each other luck before splitting up. Kana ended up sitting with a Sunagakure girl she didn't know on her right, and a male Konoha genin she didn't know, although he seemed awfully familiar somehow.

"You all will have forty minutes to complete the first nine questions, then after the forty minute mark, you will receive your tenth question." Ibiki explained boredly. "If you are caught cheating, two points will be deducted, meaning if you're caught cheating five times then you and your team fail."

Hushed whispers went around the room, as people nervously talked. Many genin went stark white, and some looked about ready to panic.

Chunin walked around the room and placed test papers and pencils in front of each participant, being sure to tell them to not flip over the paper until Ibiki says to. Since almost everyone in the room seemed scared of him, everyone obeyed.

Kana twirled her pencil in boredom, glancing again at her neighbours. The girl from Suna seemed bored, and awfully confident and relaxed. The older boy was idly tapping the table in irregular rhythms. Some were long, other's short, some spacatto. At first it seemed like just a nervous knack of his, or a song melody that he was tapping to. But as she focused, she recognized what he was doing.

It was morse code, and he had been spelling out the same thing to get her attention.

K-A-N-E-K-I

One of the many things she had been taught by Pein and Itachi was morse code. At first she thought it was stupid, saying things like, "when will I ever not be able to speak?" But it was proving to come in handy.

Kana tapped back a quickly reply, then drawing a question mark on the table.

Y-E-S-?

The boy smiled to himself, then drumming his fingers along the desk again and drawing the end symbol.

H-E-L-P-?

Kana smiled at his offer, quickly giving him her reply.

O-K

After that, there was no reply from Kaneki, but Kana figured that she would get his help when the time came. Her eyes wandered the room as the chunin finished up with passing out the test. She locked eyes with Haku and gave him a thumbs up and a grin, mouthing the words, "good luck." Haku smiled and waved back, reciprocating the words to her.

"When I say you can begin, flip over your test and start." Ibiki said, pausing as if he wanted to build suspense. "You have forty minutes, begin."

Tests were aggressively flipped over, and a few select people had already begun confidently writing out the answers. Others sad in silence, most likely trying to find a way to pass without being caught cheating.

Kaneki started writing once the test had begun, but he wasn't filling out the test, instead he was writing a note.

'Cheat off me, but make a few mistakes.' The note read.

Kana began filling out her test, much slower than Kaneki, and putting some obviously wrong answers. There were mathematical questions, history questions, and even some shinobi ethics questions. She kept an eye on the time and cheated carefully, being sure that she wasn't going to be caught.

People were being kicked out left and right, Ibiki showed no mercy. But the rest of Kana's team were calm and collected, most likely cheating in their own way. A small compact sat on Haku's desk, and he pretended to do makeup. Azumi looked like she wad finished, as she was busy polishing her blade, but upon closer inspection, Kana could see her angling the blade and looking at the reflection.

Time slowly ticked by, and soon, the silence was rudely broken by the proctor.

"Pencils down!" Ibiki roared. "It's time for the tenth question!"

Everyone was raptly listening to Ibiki, waiting for him to go on.

"You may chose to take the question."

"What?" The Suna girl on Kana's right exclaimed.

"Let me finish," Ibiki grunted. "If you don't choose to take the question then you and you're team are welcome to try again next time."

"Then we'll take the question!" She yelled out again.

Ibiki's face twitched in annoyance. "But if you choose to take the question and get it wrong, then you and your team will be barred from taking the Chunin Exams ever again."

The room erupted into chaos.

"What?! You can't do that! There are teams that have taken the exam already here!"

"I wasn't a proctor then," Ibiki smirks. "But I am now, and I make the rules. If you chose to not take the question, your team fails with you, and you're welcome to take the exam next year. Now, raise your hand if you'd like to drop out."

At first, no one moved. But as people slowly began to raise their hands, other teams followed suit.

"I'm out!"

"Me too!"

"I'm not getting stuck as a genin!"

Kana's team held strong, none of them were moving. Each of them had their reasons for wanting a promotion, and some grumpy Konoha shinobi wasn't stopping them. Kana looked around the room, watching as teams trickled out the door, but she almost froze when someone familiar was raising their hand.

Naruto Uzumaki.

A/N

It's summer! No more exams woot woot! Hope I made this chapter interesting enough for y'all. Some fanfictions make this part really boring and also stick really closely to canon. Well screw canon, this is a fanfiction afterall.