Turns out, having me on my own without a Sensei, was the best outcome that could have happened. I had gotten a lot done these past several months. The Chunin Exams were in five days. My long time goal of replicating my shadow bolt had finally been completed. I'd had to come clean to the Hokage that I was trying to create a new Jutsu in order to get his help on how to complete it. He had agreed to tell me what he knew if I showed him the Jutsu when I was done. I wasn't sure of his motives, but it was probably a combination of his own love of Jutsu, and being cautious.

Turns out it was rather easy to hurl my shadow bolt at something. While it was connected to the shadow realm, it couldn't leave my hand. So I had to sever the connection when it got to the size I wanted, and then coat the whole thing in more chakra to keep it stable until it reached its target. It was a horribly simplified explanation of how it worked, but I didn't quite have the words to describe it better, after all, chakra did most of the work for me. Overall it was more expensive in terms of resources than it was on Azeroth, but it was to be expected. I was nowhere near as good at using this jutsu with chakra as I was with mana.

The second milestone I'd achieved was to be able to summon my Inquisitor's Eye. After my success with Summoning Xorrion, it was much easier to do it again with something that wasn't sentient. As soon as I stopped feeding chakra into the Jutsu, the Eye would go back to its own dimension. Something about it not being a permanent creature I think made it easier to summon. On Azeroth, the spell had a cast time, and a channeling limitation, so you couldn't move while using the spell. Here, though, there was no cast time; and while there was also no channeling time, I still couldn't move. I would have total control over the eye once summoned, so I think my brain just couldn't handle controlling my body as well.

Being able to summon the eye made future missions much easier. I'd always be able to scout without anyone knowing, and with the defensive capabilities of Xorrion, I wouldn't be entirely vulnerable while using it. Another thing was that on Azeroth, using mana, I could only maintain the spell for about a minute before I would have to re-cast it again. Using chakra, and the new method I'd found of casting spells with it, I was able to keep it going for as long as I had chakra. The longer I kept it up, the more chakra it would consume. Being able to fly in Azeroth meant basically nothing, most people could fly with mounts, but here on this world, nobody could fly except for some old fogey in the Stone Village. While I can't fly, I can at least look into areas now that would require flight.

The last thing I'd managed to do was recreate my Curse of Exhaustion. Kind of. I'd had to learn Genjutsu to pull it off, as much as I hated it. It was the easiest skill I'd learned so far, since Genjutsu could already do something similar. Apparently because genjutsu falls under the broad category of Yin Release, the Nara clan could in theory be quite good at it, had they chosen to go that route instead of the whole shadow thing. Turns out all I had to do for the curse was to trick the nervous system of the target into thinking they were receiving the signals much later than they were.

This version of the curse had some limitations that the previous one did not. It was a genjutsu, so as such, could be dispelled by anyone. My hope was that because it was a more subtle genjutsu, it would be harder to tell if someone was affected by it. After all, I wasn't showing them anything fake, I was just making their actions slower and more sluggish. Would that be enough for someone to check if their friend was under a genjutsu? Would their chakra fluctuate enough for someone to tell in the first place? Only time would tell, and I haven't used it in combat yet. Another limitation was that it wouldn't work on anyone who was highly skilled in genjutsu.

I could probably also learn the crown control spell "fear" too, considering how easy it was to do the curse of exhaustion. That could wait though, the chunin exams were up soon, and I had to focus on them.

Since the Chunin Exams were being held in Konoha, there were a ton of new faces in the village. Some of whom I got really weird vibes from. Like a group of four ninja with headbands I'd never seen before. They had what looked like music notes on them. The one that looked like the leader had almost as much chakra as me; I needed to be careful of him just in case something unfortunate happened during the exams.

I was sure Naruto had accepted the invitation to the exam, but who knows he might not. I decided to find him and see if he'd buy me lunch. I mean what's one extra bowl when he eats twelve of them? I used that chakra technique that I created all those months ago that could only find Naruto due to my familiarity with his chakra.

Upon finding Naruto, I found myself enraged at what I saw. One of Naruto's friends was currently tied to a tree by a foreign Rain Ninja with a knife to her throat. He was talking some nonsense about there being strong ninjas in this village.

I activated chakra enhancement and appeared behind the guy.

"No, you'll let her go now, or you will die." I said coldly into his ear. My eyes doing their glowing thing.

"Kari, when did you get here?" Naruto asked. Looking surprised at my sudden appearance.

"Don't worry about it. So, you want to die? Or you want to let the girl go?" I asked again.

"Screw you brat, you're noth…" he started, but I cut him off with a punch to his throat. Couldn't kill him yet, we needed answers.

"Naruto, grab your friend and leave. I have business with this person" I said

"You sure? What about you?" he asked.

"Yes, now go, before more of them show up." I urged.

As he took off, I kicked the guy on the ground to "wake" him up.

"You can stop pretending now. What was that shit for?" I asked the dude.

"How did you know I wasn't serious?" he asked in a gravelly voice.

"It was too easy to sneak up on you. A real kidnapper wouldn't have been such an easy target" I said, still kind of angry.

"It was a test arranged by Kakashi. All Genin were supposed to be tested to see if they could hack it in the exams." he explained.

"And I just fucked up Naruto's. Shit. What about my test? Presumably they were all happening at the same time." I said.

"Since the Hokage himself said you were strong enough, there was no need to test you" he told me.

"Ugh, fine. Go continue Naruto's test and pretend like you got the better of me. Now. Before I really do kill you" I told him angrily. Not really angry at him, but myself for jumping to conclusions.

As I finished talking, he vanished, probably after Naruto. I decided to go find Kakashi. I found a spot in the trees where I wouldn't be discovered and summoned my Inquisitor's Eye. The eye was mainly black, just a floating eyeball with horns. It had no iris, just a red sclera with a vertical slitted pupil. With it now in my control, I took off to the sky in search of Kakashi. He had to be somewhere nearby if this was a test organized by him, he had to make sure no one actually got hurt for the moment.

Some time later, after the sun had set, I found him in time to find him talking to a copy of the Rain Ninja from before.

"Sooo, how did it go?" he asked

"They all passed. All ten genin are fit to be in the chunin exams." the ninja said.

"Ten? There are only 9 Genin that needed to be tested" Kakashi said in confusion.

"That was the plan, but the test for the orange haired kid got interrupted part way through by the tenth genin. She nearly killed me" the ninja said, and I could see his very small shiver.

"Why did she almost kill you? It should have just been a test" Kakashi asked with alarm.

"She thought the girl was really being kidnapped, she snuck up on me and had a Kunai to my throat. She threatened to kill me if I didn't let the girl go. I could tell she would have done it too after getting any info from me. Thankfully she realized something was up when I in her words 'was too easy to sneak up on'". The dude explained.

"But you aren't easy to sneak up on, was she bluffing?" Kakashi asked in surprise.

"No, I think she genuinely thought I had lowered my guard for the test" he said, shaking his head.

"And you didn't, did you?" Kakashi confirmed.

"No, it may have been a test, but a ninja should never let down their guard. That girl is scary" he said, with another small shiver. He then promptly turned into Iruka Sensei.

What the fuck?! I had almost killed Iruka? God dammit. Even someone as hardened to death as I was would have been majorly fucked up by killing someone like Iruka.

"You were right Kakashi, they have all gotten so strong. Especially Kari. I knew the Hokage had invited her to the exams personally, but damn, I didn't think she'd be so ruthless." Iruka said. He looked a little shell shocked. Like he'd had this certain image and it had been shattered.

"Yes, but the Chunin Exams are brutal. They can break anyone" he said.

Dispelling the Eye and returning to my body, Iruka's words made me think. Was I too ruthless? Honestly I had no idea, fighting in war after war had hardened me, made me callous. I had softened up a bit in these last twelve years, but old habits died hard. I also wasn't entirely sure being ruthless wasn't a good thing for a shinobi. I would have to be more mindful in the future. There is a time and place for being ruthless, but there are also certain times where mercy might be more warranted.

Five days later, we all met at the Academy. Naruto showed up first, and by the time I got there, a couple more students had arrived.

"Hey Kari, you okay? I'd heard that guy had gotten the better of you" Naruto asked concerned.

"Don't worry about it, it was a test anyway. Your friend was just fine the whole time" I told Naruto.

"What do you mean a test?" he asked

"You didn't think how odd it was that a kidnapper capable of entering the village was so easy to beat?" I said.

"Well now that you mention it…" he trailed off.

"Plus, the guy told me." I said with a grin.

"What? Why would he tell you?" he questioned incredulously.

"Because I had a Kunai to his throat?" I said like it was obvious.

"Who did you have a Kunai pointed at?" Sakura asked, coming up to us.

"Hey Sakura, you're late!" Naruto said.

"Yeah, sorry" she said, slightly subdued. Her test must have been hard on her. Knowing Kakashi, it was probably Sasuke dying or something.

"Let's go inside, or we'll be late" Sasuke of all people said. He was off too.

Upon getting to the door that we were told to meet at, there was a large crowd gathered. In front of the door were two young ninjas blocking the door. They seemed to be preventing people from entering. After being in this world for quite some time now Xorrion had surprisingly been able to learn to see people's chakra. He could do that with mana, so after thinking about it, I supposed it made sense. He had communicated that these two were under some sort of jutsu. He could see their chakra moving, but not what the patterns ment. Given time he'd probably be able to tell what jutsu someone was about to cast based on how their chakra moved.

I also didn't need Xorrion to see that the Sign on the door was also genjutsu'd to look like a different floor.

When I finally tuned into the conversion, one of the guys was talking down to the girl on the floor, who was holding her friend.

"Delicate little girls don't belong here, why don't you go home and play with your dolls?" he taunted.

My eye twitched, sexist little shit. I knew plenty of girls and women who could wipe this village off the map. I thought about slapping some sense into them, when they were interrupted by Sasuke walking up and opening his mouth.

"Nice speech, but get out of my way." he said, like that was really gonna get them to move.

"And release the Genjutsu" someone said.

There was a chorus of confused murmurs. Apparently none of these people had known this wasn't the third floor. But that genjutsu was so basic, these people wanted to be Chunin?

"So you could see through the basic Illusion. Let's see you deal with this!" one of the guys said, throwing a kick at Sasuke, who had prepared for it apparently and had prepared to block.

Without even really thinking about it, I had moved my shadow to stop the guy from connecting with Sasuke. At the same time, the kid that had been on the floor with the horrendous green outfit used a decent amount of speed to jump between them. His hand and my shadow stopping the fight at the same time. Though, my tactic would have still allowed Sasuke to kick the shithead in the face. Damn you Bowl Cut, I wanted to see that.

Seems the kids' actions covered up my own. Meh, whatever, I just wanted to see what would happen anyway.

"Hey lee! What happened to the plan? It was your idea to keep a low profile" a third person said, coming up to him. Probably his teammate.

Naruto was starting to fume as the others introduced themselves to each other, since it appeared most of them were interested in Sasuke. 'Why is it always about Sasuke?!' I could almost see in his eyes. Bowl Cut, now dubbed "Lee" was in almost the same state as Naruto after he had tried to hit on Sakura, and was promptly turned down.

As all this was happening, I saw the two guys from before slip into the doorway unnoticed. I made my way over, I still had a piece of my mind to give them.

"Hey, you two" I whispered after sneaking up behind them. They almost jumped a foot in the air. Causing them to lose control of their transformations. They turned back to the adult versions of themselves. Ah. So this whole thing was a test then. Still, I was gonna do what I'd come here to do.

"Wh-what do you want?" they asked.

"Next time I hear you two shit talking someone like that for who they are, I will castrate the both of you. Even if it was the other who said it" I declared with a sinister smile. I patted them both on the shoulder and walked out.

As I walked out i heard someone calling out to me

"What about you there? What's your name?" I heard.

I turned to see a Hyuga kid talking to me.

"Kari" I said. Recognising who he was. This was the shitface who was so mean to Hinata that she looked like a kicked puppy at all times.

"Last name?" he asked

"None that's your business," I replied coldly. Taking a page from Sasuke's book. I had heard him earlier when he was talking to Neji. Once again the girl with twin buns on her head behind him giggled at his expense.

"Let's go you guys" Sakura said, grabbing Naruto and Sasuke's hands. What am I? Chopped liver?

"Hey Sakura, where's my hand to hold?" I asked with a smirk.

"I only have two hands Kari" she said somewhat defensively

"Don't you know Sakura?" I asked

"What?"

"You're supposed to grow a third one for situations like this" I said, laughing at my own shitty joke. She just looked at me like I had told the world's worst (or best?) pun. Naruto at least smiled at my shitty joke.

After heading to the correct room this time, we met up with Kakashi standing out front.

"Well well, I'm glad you three are here. Now you can actually register for the Chunin Exam" he said.

"What do you mean 'actually register'? I thought we already did that" Sakura asked.

"Well you did, kind of. You see, only groups of three can participate in the Chunin exams, so if one of you had said no, then one of you would be able to participate this year. I wanted you all to take the exam of your own volition, not feel obligated to take it because your team was doing it" he explained.

"Wait a second, if there are only three people per team, why is Kari allowed to take them?" Naruto asked.

"Because she has permission from the Hokage. However, don't think it's special treatment. It will be very hard for her, since she is alone, where you guys have a team." he told us.

"So you mean, that if I hadn't shown up, these two wouldn't have been able to take the exam?" Sakura asked

"Yes, but that doesn't matter since you all showed up for the right reasons." he said, dismissing her concerns.

And with that, he opened the door for us to enter the room. The three immediately stopped dead in their tracks, with me bumping into Sasuke's back.

"What'd you stop for?" I asked, rubbing my nose.

"I had no idea there would be so many people here" Sakura said. Looking extremely nervous.

"Sasuke! I've missed you!" I heard a squeal from our side, and a wild Ino appeared, clinging to Sasuke.

Sasuke looked like he wanted to hate it, but couldn't hide the blush on his face when she did so. Ino was here, which meant Choji and Shika would be here too. I started looking around for my long lost brother. I haven't seen him in quite some time. I saw him and Choji standing in the corner of the room. Choji naturally eating some chips. I wish I had some chips right now.

"Hey bro" I said, sliding up next to them.

"Hey sis" he said looking over to Naruto as he started yelling something about stooges. I was focused on Choji's chips.

"Ehhhh pipsqueak, you aren't worth the time" Shika said.

"Hey choji" I whispered.

"Sup?" he asked.

"Can… Can I have some chips?" I asked. With a puppy dog look on my face.

"Sure, why not?" he said, handing me the rest of the bag before pulling out another for himself.

"Oh my god Choji, you're the best!" I said, eagerly digging into the chips. I wasn't sure why I suddenly had a craving for chips, but oh well. I looked up as I was stuffing my face.

"Wha?" I asked, with a mouth full of chips.

"I didn't know you liked chips" Sakura said.

"There's a lot of things about me you don't know" I said, waggling my eyebrows at her.

"Ugh" I heard a disgusted sigh from Shikamaru.

"Too much information, Sis" he said.

"Wait, you two are related?" Naruto asked

"Well duh" we said at the same time. With Ino laughing.

"Why do you think Choji gave her some of his chips? He doesn't share snacks with just anyone. Not even Ino" Shikamaru said.

"Well well, it looks like the gangs all back together" said a gruff voice from the side

We all looked over to see Shino, Hinata, and Kiba coming up to us. Hinata was already blushing at the sight of Naruto. If Naruto wasn't such a blockhead, Hinata could probably tell him how she felt by now.

"Ugh, you're here too" Shika and I said at the same time to Kiba. Apparently we both didn't really like him.

"It's really creepy when you two do that" Sakura said.

"You're creepy" we both said, mocking her.

"This is gonna be fun, at least for those of us who don't suck. Huh Sasuke?" Kiba continued.

"Hey Kiba, shut your mouth! You're the worst one here!" Naruto said.

"What'd you say you runt?! We're gonna blow you out of the water, we've been training our asses off" Kiba continued barking.

"Well what do you think we've been doing this whole time? Sitting here with our thumbs up our asses?" Naruto said, getting angrier.

"Hey you guys. You guys are making a lot of noise. It's not a good idea to make a spectacle of yourselves." a voice said.

"Who are you?" Sakura asked.

"Oh me? My name is Kabuto. The Forever Genin" Kabuto said.

"The Forever Genin?" I asked.

"A title I picked up, since I've failed the Chunin Exams seven times now" he said.

That was suspicious… How could you fail seven times? By all accounts, people die during these exams sometimes. They are meant to test, and to break you. They aren't fun, happy go lucky exams that you take on a whim. To take the test seven times; you must have an ulterior motive, after the third time most people would accept they aren't Chunin material.

"Cool, seven times? You must be an expert then and can give us all the good info" Naruto said.

"Expert? Yeah right, he's never passed. The Exam must be as hard as people say. I knew this was gonna be a drag." Shika said.

"Don't worry Shika, you'll be fine. You're one of the smartest people in the village, even if you don't want to show it" I said to him quietly.

"Maybe. But it's still gonna be a pain in the ass. Look who i've got for a team mate" he said looking at Ino.

"Ino will do fine, after all, our clans signature Ino-Shika-Cho formation makes your team a scary force to be reckoned with. You just need to figure out the best way you guys can work together, which you're good at" I said with a smile.

I was positive my brother would beat me to Jounin and I hoped he could tell how sincere I was. Out of everyone in the village, one of the people I wanted to fight least was Shikamaru. Not only because he's my brother, but because he's a scary tactician, even if he wouldn't show it to anyone. I knew.

"Hmm, maybe I can help you guys out. Here I have data cards on different ninja" Kabuto said, keeling down and pulling out a small case full of what looked like playing cards, but instead had a picture, and some information on various ninjas.

"These cards are infused with my chakra, so only I can see what's on them. The first one here is a map of the nations, showing how many ninja came from each village this year" he explained, pulling out a card and infusing it with some chakra to show said map.

"That's nice and all, but I want some info on specific people. You got any of that?" Sasuke said.

"Sure. Tell me anything you know about the person" he said.

"Gaara of the desert, and Rock Lee of the leaf" Sasuke told him.

"Hmmm, should be easy" he said before pulling out two cards and putting chakra into them.

"The first card is Rock lee. Year older than you, highly skilled in Taijutsu, no skill at all in Ninjutsu, and Genjutsu. 20 D rank missions, 11 C rank missions. His teammates are Tenten and Neji Hyuga." He said.

At the mention of her brother, I saw Hinata shrink a little. She had come out of her shell a lot, but was still firmly inside of it. I also didn't really like her brother, especially after meeting him briefly in the hallway downstairs. Moving to the next card, he went on.

"Gaara of the Desert. Most of his information is unknown. He's done an unknown number of D rank missions, 8 C rank missions and holy shit, he's done a B rank mission as a Genin without getting a scratch" Kabuto said, surprised.

"What have you got on me?" I asked.

"Hmmmm, let me see here" he pondered. Finding my card.\

"Kari Nara. Weaker Taijutsu, but outstanding Ninjutsu and unknown Genjutsu. 15 D rank missions, 5 C rank missions, and 1 B rank mission. Also without ever taking much damage. Unconfirmed attempts to create own jutsu, and has no teammates for unknown reasons" Kabuto said, whistling in a similar fashion to when he showed Gaara's card.

"Holy shit Sis, how did you do so many missions so quickly?" Shikamaru said.

"Perks of running solo. I don't have to wait for my team to recover between missions." I explained, shrugging. I didn't explain much, I could have done more, but I had to spend quite a lot of time mastering my planned skills.

"Also, you took almost no damage? How?" Sasuke said.

"Well I took some on the B rank, but that's a secret you might find out one day" I said, winking at him. He knew what B rank I was talking about, after all he had done the same mission.

Just then, Naruto had to open his big dumb mouth.

"Listen up! I'm gonna be Hokage one day and the future Hokage can't lose here! I'm gonna kick all your asses and become a Chunin. Believe it!" he boasted. Painting a target on all of our backs.

"Tell your boyfriend to shut up! He's gonna get us all killed!" Ino said to Sakura.

"He's not my boyfriend!" Sakura said.

"You're right, he's Kari's" Ino retorted.

"Hey he's not mine either. Last I heard, Ino, he was thinking about asking you out" I said, elbowing Naruto in the side with a smirk. Both Ino and Naruto had a mortified look on their faces, and I couldn't help it and started cackling so hard my sides hurt. Even Sakura had an amused look on her face. Shikamaru facepalmed.

In the middle of my laughter, the rest of them got quiet, and quieting down I looked around to see what they were concerned about. Turns out the whole room was glaring at us, not surprising I suppose, Naruto just called them all out. Sakura put Naruto in a headlock and started punching his head. She started making excuses related to Naruto's mental health in order to appease the other people in the room.

As Sakura was yelling at Naruto, I noticed movement in the crowd. Turns out those Sound Ninja I'd got a weird feeling from before were making a move. I wondered if I should stop them, or let it play out. I thought about not interfering when Xorrion noticed the dude's glove… or was it some sort of armor? As the guy moved, the air interacting with the glove behaved strangely. There was a strange ripple in the air, creating a sound that most people couldn't hear.

Instead of stopping the attack fully, as that would draw too much attention, I decided to destroy his gauntlet thing. One of his friends jumped into the air and half heartedly threw some kunai at Kabuto. As Kabuto jumped back, the bandaged one leapt forward, and I made my move.

Enhancing my arm with chakra, I grabbed a shuriken and threw it just hard enough that I figured the thing would crack; hopefully disrupting whatever the gauntlet did to the air. I had no idea what the sound wave would do to someone if it hit them, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. I tried to throw the Shuriken fast enough that in theory no one should have realized who'd thrown it. It met the guy's bracer right before he made his swing towards Kabuto.

I had expected the thing to crack just enough to disrupt its functionality, however apparently my arm was stronger than I anticipated and the gauntlet nearly shattered. The shuriken was still stuck in the guy's metal armband with its holes now connected with many cracks everywhere. The dude had swung at Kabuto with enough force to dislodge the shuriken and send it flying into a nearby wall, thankfully not hitting anyone. Much. It grazed Sasuke's duck butt.

Kabuto appeared to have it handled from here and he smirked, and pushed his glasses back up. No one had a chance to react to the sound of a shuriken striking metal, and said metal nearly coming apart until the guy finished his swing.

"Look at him, acting all tough" Shikamaru said.

"What the hell was that noise?" Sakura asked no one in particular.

"Someone threw a shuriken, and it nearly killed me" Sasuke said deadpan, pointing at the shuriken now stuck in the wall next to his head.

"Oh my god, Sasuke are you alright?" I asked, mocking Ino's sickeningly sweet tone she used when talking to him.

"Kari! That's my job! Get away from Sasuke!" Ino said, glaring at me for making fun of her.

"Yeah yeah, I honestly don't care much, and clearly neither is he. See how not panicked he is?" I asked, moving away from Sasuke.

While we were having our little spat, the Sound Ninja guy was looking at his gauntlet, and back to Kabuto in disbelief.

"How?" he asked.

"I did nothing, your aim just sucks" Kabuto said, pretending he did all the work.

"Impossible, you had to have done something, a shuriken doesn't just come flying out of nowhere." the dude said, but before he could continue, he was interrupted by an explosion of smoke at the front of the room near the chalkboard.

"Listen up you wet behind the ears brats! The Chunin Exams have begun. I am your proctor, and my name is Ibiki. From this moment forward, I am your worst nightmare." said a scar-faced guy standing on the stage with other shinobi behind him.