Naruto: The New Sealmaster

A/N: Been away for a while, but this marks the start of the next part in this story. I will try not to repeat too much of canon, so I'll just summarise most things you will have read or seen before. But since it is unavoidable, you will see several scenes which you recognise.

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The examiner quickly stopped the sound of fighting. "There will be no fighting without permission of the examiner. And even with permission, killing your opponent will not be tolerated."

His eyes turned cold as he glared out at his audience. "The pigs that disobey me will fail immediately. Do I make myself clear?"

He did. And honestly Aoshi doubted he'd just fail those who disobeyed him. There would most likely be some other planned activity…

And so he started placing them in random locations around the room. Once he announced it would be a written test, many groaned. But none expressed their annoyance as clearly as Naruto who stood up and shouted in surprise. Aoshi was glad, however, that he got the place next to Hinata. She seemed to instantly try to calm him down and make sure he tried his best no matter what.

Good for them, Aoshi thought as he sat down and shared a glance with his teammates. All were rather confident in their abilities.

The rules were explained. Some rather fun rules really. It was a team performance, so no man could underperform. They could however cheat four times and get away with it as long as they answered everything right, which Aoshi felt rather sure he would. He had spent more time in the chunin section of the library than most konoha shinobi. He was most worried about Dai. He wasn't the smartest guy on the block. Neither was Kazuto but he had to read a lot of material considering he was trying to become a Sarutobi.

Aoshi would figure something out. "The exam will last for one hour. Begin!"

He started on his plan. The papers they were writing on were tough, not as thin as the chakra papers for example, but not as thick as some scrolls either. Aoshi did recognize that they were roughly twice as thick as the sealing tags he usually worked with. He got to work on his plan. Slowly but surely he extended a thin wind blade from his finger and led it around the piece of paper.

He made it look like it was just a tic from thinking, these people didn't know his tics. Once he got all the way around, he went further towards the centre. It wasn't a completely silent attempt, but certainly more silent than some. There was a sand eye floating above him, plenty of strings with mirrors being directed here and there and he swore he saw that blonde Yamanaka girl faint just now. His method was about as silent as the pens writing around him.

Eventually, he managed it. He separated the bottom of the paper from the top. Now, all he had to do was write his answers in a way that they came through the first layer and reached the second. He got to writing. Fifteen minutes later he had solved six of the nine questions on the paper and that was enough. He had to leave Dai some time to adjust the answers and give himself some time to pretend to go to the bathroom.

He separated the papers and quickly sealed the underlying paper into his ring. After folding it up several times of course.

The first team was eliminated. The idiot had thrown several kunai to the floor to get his plan to work. After that, team after team got eliminated until Aoshi saw his chance. The annoying puppet guy from suna wanted to go to the bathroom. "I'll also go, if you don't mind."

They let Aoshi join reluctantly and he soon saw through the puppet Guy's plan. The chunin escorting them was no chunin, he was just a puppet. When they got back, the examiner revealed that he knew about the puppet and would announce the tenth question soon.

On his way back to his seat, Aoshi left a tiny scroll with half of his own paper sealed inside it on Dai's bench. Luckily it was along the aisle.

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"First, for the tenth question. You have to decide if you want to take it." That caused a bit of outburst among the genin left in the room.

"If you choose not to, your points will be reduced to zero. You will fail alongside your team." More outbursts, but Aoshi knew that wasn't it. And then, as expected, came the rest. "If you choose to take it and answer incorrectly, that person will lose the right to take the chunin exam again."

Absolute outrage for a couple of seconds, but Morino didn't care in the slightest. He grinned at them. "I am giving you a way out. Those who aren't confident can take it next year."

Silence reigned over the room. "Then let's begin. Those who do not wish to take the tenth question, raise your hand."

Aoshi knew his team would gamble. They had nothing to lose, and neither did he. No matter how high their odds were, his team would all stay in it.

Other teams started giving up though. He recognized some teams here and there from his schooling. That's when he saw him. Among others, just sitting on a bench with a stone cold and lifeless expression was his old school bully. Shimura Tetsuo sat in the back row. Aoshi didn't know how to feel about this.

While teams around him gave up, Aoshi was deep in thought concerning this revelation. He hadn't seen him since Danzo promised he wouldn't be seen until he was strong enough to become a chunin. Danzo kept his word it seemed. Aoshi wanted to believe that Tetsuo had changed but somehow he doubted it.

A loud shout brought him back to the present. It was Naruto, of course. "Don't underestimate me! I will not run! I will take it! Even if I'm a genin forever I will become hokage anyway so I don't care."

Well he knew how to liven up the mood. Morino even asked once more but this time nobody else gave up. After a minute of staring he grinned again.

"Good decisions. Now to everyone still remaining. I congratulate you on passing the first test!"

Aoshi sighed. That WAS the tenth question. Mental manipulation at its finest, this Morino guy wasn't here to play. He went on to explain that the whole exam was filled with pressure and guilt. You wouldn't want to let your team down. That last question was just the epitome of that.

He then explained that we were supposed to cheat, which was rather obvious. Only a fool would miss something like that.

He took off the cloth that covered his head and Aoshi was met with a view of the burnt, scratched and terribly disfigured top of Morino's head. "At times, information is more important than your life. People risk their lives to get their hands on it."

He went on to finalise his point but according to Aoshi he had said enough. The truth struck home. Information gathering was very important and many people died because they weren't good enough at it. Or because a comrade was too bad at it.

He finally explained that the headstrong people who could lead despite being stuck in a terrible situation and ones who could make tough decisions, that's the kind of person he wanted to see as a chunin.

"I wish you luck." He ended it on, with a genuine smile. And then the window was blown up and in came a flying black ball.

The ball extended and out came the next interesting person. Her hair was purple and in a ponytail. She wore a fishnet top and a short skirt with a long coat on top of it. She exclaimed "You guys, this is no time to be celebrating!"

With a loud shout, pumped with enthusiasm, the woman spoke "I am the examiner for the second test, Mitarashi Anko. Now let's go! Follow me!"

Aoshi was familiar with her as well. She was friends with his aunt and was always rather obnoxious..but he did as commanded and gathered his things. Anko proclaimed she would halve the amount of people after her test and honestly Aoshi welcomed it. Too many people made it through after Naruto gave them confidence.

They followed after her and Aoshi caught up to Dai and Kazuto. They shared a grin at making it through the first test but nodded with a serious face a couple of seconds later. They had to remain cool for this upcoming challenge.

Soon they stood outside the forest. With an eerie grin on her face, Anko welcomed them. "Welcome to the stage for the second test, practice area 44. Also known as 'the Forest of death'."

Suddenly, probably out of boredom, Anko threw a kunai at the crowd. She clearly just intended to play around with Naruto. But then Aoshi felt it. Some weird person extended their tongue and gave back her kunai to her. That wasn't the weird part though, Aoshi felt the chakra. Kusagakure does NOT have someone with as large and wild chakra-pool as this! Something was clearly wrong there, maybe they sent a jounin to help their genin qualify. Aoshi made a decision in his head to steer clear of that one, and make sure he was done with the forest as soon as possible so he didn't end up in a situation where he was hunted down by that one..

He whispered to his comrades. "We are finishing this one quickly, you hear me?" They were both rather confused but nodded.

"Before we begin the second exam, there's something I have to hand out." and she lifted a hand filled with papers. "They're consent forms. Everyone has to sign one. We want all the details covered before the first deaths occur. Sign before you go in, so we can't be held liable." and then she gave off an innocent and cheerful smile. "You wouldn't want me to get in trouble, would you?"

Aoshi wasn't sure he liked this exam proctor.

"First I'll explain what the second exam entails, then you can sign the forms." And then she went on to explain the exam. She told them about the layout of the area first and then the specifics of the exam. It would be a survival test with fight to the death scenarios. They needed to collect one scroll of heaven and one scroll of earth to advance to the next test. Since each team would be starting with one randomly assigned scroll, at least half of the teams would get eliminated. The target for everyone was to bring both scrolls to the tower at the centre of the forest. The time limit would be five days, but Aoshi didn't want to spend the night in that forest. He was determined to pull through as soon as possible.

Then Anko went on to try and scare them, she was part of the torture and interrogation team after all. She told them about dangerous animals in there but that the people would be just as dangerous. You'd have to deal with exhaustion, starvation and many other problems since there was a scarcity of food and most wouldn't be able to sleep a good night's sleep.

She finished up by explaining the rules. You'd fail: If you don't do it in time, if you lose a team member, if you leave the forest, and finally you were forbidden to open the scrolls until you were inside the tower. That's it.

"We'll trade one scroll for every three consent forms. When you've got yours, choose the gate you want to start from. Everyone begin at the same time." A brief moment of silence and then Anko gave her final point. "One final piece of advice, Stay alive!"

Every team, one by one, went into the shack where you got the scroll. When it was time for their team, Aoshi was the one burdened with holding their scroll. They got a heaven's scroll. Not that it made much difference. They saw that the rookies all chose gates rather close to each other somewhere around 20. Since he didn't want to encounter them too much he figured either somewhere near 40 would be good but eventually they decided to go with gate 1. Simply because, why not?

Aoshi realised that the kusa team his brother had was in the gate next to them. Maybe they'd be easy pickings, but he wouldn't make any decisions until they were in the forest and he could scout their surroundings. They were so far away from Anko by now that they had no idea what she was saying, but the proctor at their gate watched the seconds on their clock. Eventually it was time. The gate opened and they ran through.

"Let's go a couple of hundred metres in and then scout the area!" Dai and Kazuto loudly shouted their acceptance of the order. And so it began.