The glare that had been on Aoi's dissipated, as if made of mist. He regarded the room as a whole, though the shouts from his classmates in the back of the room did draw his eye. No answer was offered to the question posed at him, in fact Ibiki did the opposite and started to give more directions.

"Come forward and draw a number. This will determine the seat you will have for the written exam." It took a while for Naruto and the others to process this information, but soon Naruto's head was hung in defeat at the prospect. The genin in the room filed forward, drawing the numbers from the cylindrical box. Soon everyone was seated, but ten eyes kept glancing at Aoi in curiosity of why he was there.

The other proctors filtered into their seats on the sides of the room, but Aoi remained calmly next to Ibiki as the older man began to explain the test. Eventually the test had started and the room was dead silent. There were small movements and noises, and quickly locating each, Aoi could tell exactly who was cheating without fail. Next to him, Ibiki smirked slightly and leaned down.

"Some of them are actually pretty good at this." Responding to the near silent whisper, Aoi just nodded. "Do you think you have everyone's methods of cheating yet?" Again a nod. Ibiki sighed slightly at the boy, but gave in knowing that was just how Aoi was. Names began to be called out, and people began to leave the room as the other proctors caught them cheating.

It was near halfway through the test, when Ibiki leaned down again. "I want you to call out three methods of cheating for those who think that nobody has noticed." Aoi looked at Ibiki, and the question in his eyes made Ibiki smirk slightly. "You'll see."

Gathering breath, Aoi's mouth opened and he spoke three words that made a few pencils drop. "Mirror, puppet, and animals." Some people froze slightly, but when nothing else was said they continued with their test. The few people who were involved in these cheating methods cast a fearful look at Aoi, but continued their testing and cheating, albeit being more careful. Ibiki nodded slightly to himself.

Aoi turned to Ibiki, "I don't understand why you wanted me to do that." His whisper mimicked Ibiki's in the tone.

Ibiki scratched the back of his head before the somewhat stern gaze that was held in his eyes turned on Aoi. "I'll explain it after the test then." Aoi simply nodded and the test went on as normal. Though Aoi was rather perceptive, he failed to notice the tension in the room after he had said that. Everyone was on edge now, wary of the chunnin proctors once they realized Aoi had called out the cheating methods of people. From that point on, all of them were more careful, and because of that many of those who were about to be caught for the last time weren't.

The time for the final question finally came, and all the genin were tense in their seats. Some put up a facade of being relaxed and confident, but the tension was infectious. Ibiki's voice rang out in the silence of the room, explaining the question and taking a few questions along the way. When it came down to their choice, there was a lot of hesitation.

After a glance at Aoi, a hand rose. The team practically flew out the door. Once the initial person had risen their hand, the floodgates seemed to be fully opened. Soon there were barely thirty genin teams in room. Most of the teams had left in fear of remaining genin forever and, after Aoi's display, of the blue haired boy. Two more teams left. Naruto's hand shakily rose, and Aoi glanced in vague curiosity before the blond's hand slammed down loudly on the desk.

"Don't underestimate me! I will not run!" Everyone in the room looked at the blond in shock. "I'll take it! Even if I'm a genin forever!" Steel came into Naruto's eyes as he went on, looking Ibiki dead in the eye. "I'll will myself to become Hokage anyways, so I don't care! I am not afraid."

Ibiki's face was serious, deadly so. "I'll ask you again then. Remember that your life is riding on this decision." Aoi looked at the two as a whole, and vaguely saw the slightest hint of a smile in the shine of Ibiki's eye.

"I follow my unbending words, because that's my shinobi way." There were smirks all around, and Naruto himself was smiling slightly. The tense atmosphere that had settled over the room quickly dissipated. Ibiki glanced at the proctors lining the sides of the room. Nods from them signaled that they thought the same.

A small smirk grew on Ibiki's face. "To the 26 teams that remain..." audible gulps were heard around the room, "congratulations on passing the first test."

Then began a question and answer over the tenth 'question.' After Ibiki had shown the marred skin on his head, it was obvious that many now saw the importance of information. By the end of Ibiki's explanation, some people were smirking while others seemed to be a little fearful at the realization of what a chunnin really did.

"Well then," Ibiki smiled a little as he looked over the group of genins, "you've made it through the entrance. The first test of the chunnin selection exam is finished. I wish you luck."

Naruto jumped up and started cheering, and one or two of the other participants did the same. Everyone, except Ibiki and Aoi, were completely caught off guard when a crash resounded throughout the room as the window was broken. A banner was quickly thrown up, and a woman twisted to land in front of it. By now it was dead silent.

"This is no time to be celebrating!" Examiner for the second test, I am Mitarashi Anko! Now let's get going!" She was met with the stillness of the silence that hung in the room.

Ibiki stepped around the banner slightly, with Aoi peering out from behind his back. "Anko, bad timing." Rather stoically, Aoi nodded his head in slight agreement at Ibiki's words. A blush spread over the energetic woman's face.

Glancing the room over, the woman quickly regained her composure as she turned to face Ibiki and Aoi. "78? You really let 26 teams pass?" She smirked a little, "Perhaps you're getting soft Ibiki." The gentle jab made Ibiki smirk as well.

"There seem to be a lot of outstanding ones this year."

"Oh well, I'll cut them in half by the end of the second test." She smiled maliciously out over the room. "Follow me little genin, to The Forest of Death." She walked calmly out the door, and after a few mumbles, the participants of the test followed her.

Aoi and Ibiki, as well as the other chunnin proctors, stayed behind to clean up. Aoi and Ibiki began to gather the tests, while the others got a broom and began to sweep up Anko's mess. Ibiki turned to Aoi as the boy spoke.

"It's after the test now." Ibiki simply nodded, picking up tests again.

"So it is. You want to know why I had you call out the methods of some of the cheaters, correct?" Aoi nodded, and some of the remaining chunnin looked over in interest as well. "All for the sense of panic and anticipation throughout the room. I call it a mob mentality." Some of the more senior chunnin, who had known Ibiki for a while, nodded at this. "When you're in a crowd, you're less likely to think. This causes many to just go with the flow. The more people there are in the crowd, the faster panic and dissension will spread throughout them. I had you call out the methods so not as many people would be caught." Ibiki turned to the blue haired boy. "Once the first team had left, many others followed. It would have kept going for quiet a while if that blond, Uzumaki Naruto I believe, hadn't spoken up."

Some of the newer chunnin murmured at this, wondering how he had known so much about the human mind and people's mentalities. Aoi simply nodded and continued to collect papers. Ibiki soon came to Naruto's test, and paused in thought. By now, all the other chunnin had left and Ibiki and Aoi were left alone.

Aoi, who was done collecting the tests on his side, went over to Ibiki's side. "Why are you smiling?"

"I didn't expect someone to get through with a blank test."

Aoi held out the papers in his hand, and spoke as Ibiki took them. "He never picked up his pencil after writing his name."

Ibiki's eyes widened, surprised he hadn't noticed this himself. The smile on his face widened slightly as he looked at the boy. "You're excellent as a chunnin already." Glancing at the clock, Ibiki hurried to gather the remaining tests. "Let's get going."

"Sure thing, Ibiki-sensei," Aoi said monotonously as he followed the older man from the room.

_+_

While Naruto and team 7 were facing the forest of death, Aoi, along with some other chunnin and jonin, were trying to figure out what to do about the sudden revelation that Orochimaru was in Konoha. Many argued that they should stop the chunnin exams and hide Aoi away. The Hokage however, didn't agree with either of these things, and so the chunnin exams continued. Even though Aoi wasn't locked away, he certainly wasn't alone. He was always accompanied by two other chunnin, no matter where he went. The elders had argued that he have jonin protectors, but when they were told of Aoi's true strength by Inoichi and the Hokage, they let it slide.

Now Aoi stood on the left of Ibiki as the preliminary rounds for the third round were beginning to get underway. Team 7, as well as the other genin teams that knew Aoi, looked at the boy curiously. Seeing him at the first exam had been odd enough, but now here he was at the end of the second exam as well. When they went up to the stands to watch the preliminary matches, Naruto had been able to forcibly drag Aoi with them. Kakashi watched as Naruto tied Aoi to a pole, the latter boy just sitting there apathetically. Sakura joined the two.

"Aoi, what are you doing here? Why aren't you taking the chunnin exams like us!?" Naruto yelled in the boy's face.

"I already took the exams," Aoi said bluntly. The two quizzing him started in shock. Sasuke's fight was just getting underway below them.

"When did you take the chunnin exams!?" Naruto finally questioned again.

Aoi's expression didn't change, but his words held the slightest of sarcasm that made Naruto feel like an idiot. "Six months ago."

"But we had only just graduated the academy that day when the last chunnin exams finished." Sakura pointed out.

Kakashi stepped in then, trying to distract his genin. "Sasuke's fight isn't looking good, shouldn't you cheer him on?" The two turned, then ran up to the banister to cheer on said teammate. The jonin looked down at Aoi. "How much do you plan on telling them?"

"I haven't given more than I'm allowed to yet." Aoi looked up, and Kakashi would swear that a mischievous glint came into the blue haired boy's eye.

"Well now that they're watching the matches, it seems like you will get out of question and answer," Kakashi looked over at the two students who were avidly cheering, enthralled in Sasuke's match.

Aoi stood, the ropes falling loose, "I'll go back to Ibiki-sensei then."

"Why not stay here, I'm fairly sure your fake team won't mind either." The two looked over at the chunnin who had been around Aoi recently.

"Ibiki-sensei said he wanted me to sit in on a lesson of his though," Aoi didn't seem bothered by this, but Kakashi internally shuddered. A 'lesson' of Ibiki's would usually involve a criminal as well as the interrogation room.

"I'm sure that he does, you being his student and all..." Kakashi chuckled a little. "I guess you should get going then, before Ibiki-san accuses me of stealing you back."

"Then I'll get going, Kakashi-sensei." So saying, Aoi disappeared. There was a faint blur by Ibiki, before the two vanished together along with Aoi's so-called guards. Kakashi shook his head slightly, knowing that if he was nervous around Ibiki, soon he should be terrified of Aoi.

_+_

Contrary to Kakashi's guess, Ibiki's lesson didn't involve the interrogation room at all. There were prisoners though. Aoi walked by Ibiki's side as the two made their way through the Konoha strict correctional facility. Some of the prisoners would shrink back at Ibiki's presence, but some of the bolder inmates would send jeers their way. The two continued on until they reached the control room of the section they were currently in, the hall of murderers. These inmates weren't all shinobi, but they had all killed someone.

"What are we doing, Ibiki-sensei?" Aoi looked at the older man as his eyes roved over the screens. Finally, Ibiki's eyes stopped on one particular screen.

"We're learning about the mental state of murderers. Some will make excuses and plea to your sense of humanity, so we're going to visit those people." Ibiki looked down at the boy. "Any other questions?"

Aoi nodded his head. "Why are we visiting them?" His head tilted slightly to the side.

Ibiki smiled down at him. "Glad to see you have a curious brain." He said quietly, almost to himself. "You're visiting them so I can get a handle on what I need to teach you when dealing with people like this. If you're going to learn torture and interrogation, I want to know how you're going to go about it. Visiting these inmates will give me a good idea."

After taking this information in, Aoi's mouth opened in another question. "You aren't coming with me?"

"No," Ibiki looked back at the monitors. "I want you to go visit cell C-17." Looking at the screens, Aoi could see this room housed a little girl, no older than he was. Turning, Aoi left the room. He soon found and entered the cell.

The room was dead silent as the two faced each other. Sitting calmly in the corner, the girl took in Aoi for a moment before flinging herself at him. "Are you here to save me? Oh thank god!" She began to sob into Aoi's shoulder as he stood there unmoved. "I've been here four months already! They say I killed my entire family, but I didn't. They looked into my memories, and then lied that I enjoyed doing it!" The sobs intensified. "I don't know why they're doing this! I'm still grieving the loss of my two year old brother!"

Aoi stood still, not moving. The girls arms tightened around his body, and more tears flowed from the girl's eyes. "I don't believe you," Aoi finally said.

The girl recoiled as if struck. In the dim light of the cell, you could make out the glint of tears flowing down her face. "What... What do you mean you don't believe me? Why would I kill my own parents? My siblings? They're wrong! I didn't kill them!" Her face fell into her hands. "The last time I saw them was the morning of my older sister's entrance into the academy!"

"I don't believe you. Your tears are fake." Aoi's expression was blank as he regarded the sobbing girl.

The sobs stopped. "My tears are fake?" The girl looked up, a sick smile on her face. "Well of course they're fake!" Stopping herself, her head fell back into her hands. She tried to reconcile what she had said. "They only seem fake because I've already cried so much. How would you feel if your whole family was taken from you in a single night!?" There was silence through the room. "I saw that man kill them all."

"You're lying." The girl looked up, shook skillfully etched on her face. "You said you had last seen them in the morning, now you say you saw them killed at night. You are lying."

Realizing her mistake, the girl's expression faltered. An idea seemed to cross her mind. She stood up and made her way over to Aoi, stepping behind him while caressing his face. "So I killed them, but it really wasn't my fault. I only wanted to kill my little brother, but they all just got in the way. Isn't a bad girl more attractive though?" She leaned in over Aoi's shoulder. "You're kinda cute after all. Why don't we get out of here? Then we can be together." Aoi said nothing. "The silent type huh? Well I guess that's fine." There was a rustle of fabric from behind Aoi. "Don't say anything now."

She lunged forward, a screwdriver in her hand. No sooner had her foot left the ground in the motion than she was thrown across the room, landing hard against the wall. She slid down, now laying unconscious on her cot. There was a click behind Aoi, and he exited through the now unlocked door. He made his way to the control room he had been in previously with Ibiki.

"Good job Aoi." Ibiki looked the boy over. There wasn't a hair out of place, despite having flipped a roughly 135lb girl over his shoulder. "Let's get going, the preliminary rounds should almost be over."

"Did you decide what you need to teach me, Ibiki-sensei?" Aoi looked at Ibiki as they left the facility. The chunnin that constantly hovered around the boy joined them as they walked.

A silence stretched between the two. "Amongst many things, it's actually something you've been studying by yourself." The blue haired boy looked over in slight interest. The two chunnin, though they tried hard, couldn't hide their own curiosity. "I need to teach you emotions. Without them, it will be hard for you to manipulate other people in interrogations. Fear alone won't work."

Aoi took in the information with no more than a nod. They got to the building of the chunnin exams just as the last match was ending.

_+_

So what did ya'll think? I have to wonder how soon people caught on to Aoi being Ibiki's student... I mean I feel like the title was a huge hint. If you're just figuring this out because of the authors note, then you might be a little blind and oblivious to the obvious. Another question is if any of you knew before this that Aoi was a chunnin. Meh, I'll live without the knowledge, but if you would like to tell me that would be fun~!

I think it's been a while since I last updated, so sorry, but whatever, not like I can change the past. I would like to thank you lot though, who have been supporting me! I'm really happy, almost 1,000 reads in ten chapters! Not to mention likes and comments. I think I would have given up if you lot hadn't been so supportive.

Random question for anyone who wants to answer time!

What is the most insane/random dream you have ever had?

Until next time then! Like/comment/eat/sleep/add/fan/bathe-in-jello! The last one sounds kinda weird and fun, so if you do it let me know!

Song to the side is just something that has been stuck in my head recently.

-Nicky~