When Shinku woke up, he quickly stood, doing a few exercises to get rid of any stiffness, before looking up. Now that he thought about it how was he supposed to get out of here? He didn’t have an earth technique he could use to get that out of the way… Guess he’ll have to destroy it. Boar, Ram, Snake, Horse, Dragon ‘Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder’. Though he couldn’t see, he pointed his hands upwards toward the entrance, a powerful stream of electricity spawning from them and tipping through the rock, destroying it. Shinku dodged through the falling debris as he jumped up from wall to wall, his sharingan activated to help him out and in only two seconds he had jumped out the hole and once more stepped on outside ground.

“Wha-? What’s happening?!” He heard a familiar voice.

“Is it an enemy attack?!” He heard an even more familiar voice.

It was still dark outside. He had gone to sleep really early so he woke up during the middle of the night, he supposed. That being said, with the sharingan, although he couldn’t see better in the dark, he could better make out what he could see in it. He turned towards the voices, towards the tree hollow he had noted a perfect hiding spot for a team of three, only to see three faces he knew.

“Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura. Wow. What a coincidence.”

“Huh? Shinkumaru-kun?” Sakura called out surprised, while holding a kunai. He nodded, Naruto releasing a sigh of relief and stopped laying on the ground covering his head, while Sasuke relaxed his stance. “What were you doing there?”

“What… I was sleeping? Unlike you lucky ones, I don’t have anyone to watch my back while I take a snooze so I had to make that.”

“Ah, right. You’re competing by yourself, after all.” She nodded.

“So? How was day one? You guys get a scroll?”

Sasuke shook his head “We did get attacked once, but the guy got away. We haven’t lost our scroll, but we haven’t taken one either. And you?”

“Yeah. I already got my set. I luckily got attacked by some grass ninja in the first ten-twenty minutes. One of them actually gave me quite a bit of trouble. Looked almost like a woman, long black hair, and was like a snake. Barely beat him honestly.”

“You? Barely? Are you trying to be modest again?” Sasuke retorted

“No. This time I’m serious.” Shinku’s eyes narrowed into a serious expression “That guy was serious trouble. If anyone else in the exam’d fought him I’m not sure they would’ve survived.”

“W-Was it really that bad?” Sakura questioned in disbelief

“That guy was like me. At least jonin-level. To put it into perspective, he was comparable to Kakashi-san or that Zabuza guy you faced.”

“B-But you defeated him didn’t you? In that case…”

“”Are you stronger than Kakashi-sensei”?” Shinku asked, predicting what she would say next, Sakura nodding. The other two seemed caught up in the conversation, wondering the same, most likely. Shinku scratched the back of his head.

“Kakashi-san is probably more skilled, powerful and experienced than me. The third one is a definite. By far. I did some research on him after learning he was your team’s teacher and he had a sharingan. He apparently became jonin at our age, graduating the academy at an age before we even entered it.”

“No way! But then…” Sakura almost started to speculate before Shinku interrupted

“Putting that aside! Even then I have two or three big advantages over Kakashi-san that could let me win against him. One.” He put up one finger. “Compared to me Kakashi-san should use up several times more chakra in order to use his sharingan. Two.” He put up a second. “My chakra pool is monstrously large and I can’t ever imagine myself running out of chakra, fighting him, while he very much can. Three.” A third finger “I’m not actually sure about this one, since I don’t know what Kakashi-san’s skill in the area is, but Jonin usually have two chakra natures mastered. Assuming Kakashi-san has three, being stronger than just any jonin. I can use all five no problem.”

“No way! You’ve mastered all elemental natures?!” Sakura cried out.

“Is it that impressive…?” Naruto asked causing Shinku to relax some. This goof always broke the serious atmospheres in the best ways. Sakura knocked him over the head while Sasuke shook his head and started explaining to Naruto about elemental natures, Sasuke distancing himself and walking over to Shinku.

“By the way what scroll do you three have?” Shinku asked, causing Sasuke to raise an eyebrow.

“Jeez relax a bit, Sasuke…” Shinku took out his two scrolls from the pack and threw them at Sasuke, who, while surprised, still managed to catch them. “See? I have both, no transformations or anything. Even if I AM a fake” Shinku rolled his eyes. “I’d have no reason to take yours. And if I just wanted to take it for the sake of reducing the number of teams, I wouldn’t need to approach you like this or ask you what scroll you guys have.” He explained. Sasuke looking at the scrolls and nodding, throwing them back, only for Shinku to deposit them back in his pack.

“Heaven.” Sasuke said simply. ‘Damn. I should’ve taken that Earth scroll. Well. Hindsight is 20/20.’

“See? That wasn’t too hard was it? Jeez. You mistrust me too much. You’ll hurt my feelings, you know.”

“Who’s the one who taught me to trust nothing, doubt everything?”

“Heheh… Yeah okay. You got me there.” He scratched the back of his head. “Do you have any sort of plan?”

“No. Our team lacks any real sensory abilities so it’s hard to gather information.”

“I see. I guess that’s a weakness I share as well. I should work on correcting that. Anyway. Unless you’re desperate, you should stay away from the vicinity of the tower. There’s probably people who’ll have set traps to intercept people who’re heading there to finish and get scrolls easy.”

“Yeah. I got it. What about you? You have your scrolls so will you be heading to the tower?”

“Mmm… I’m wondering about that. I probably will. I thought yesterday that I’d be wasting fun by heading straight there, but… Anybody that would be on my level would have probably finished by now.”

“Right…”

“Well. Anyway. Sorry for interrupting you while you were probably sleeping. You should go back to that and get ready for tomorrow. I’ll head on my way.”

“Yeah… Good luck.”

“Hmm?” Shinku thought he misheard. Did he- Did he just hear Sasuke break character and wish him good luck? He never thought he would see the day. He smiled. “Yeah. Thanks. You too. See you at the tower.” He said before jumping away. He kept his speed reasonably slow as he jumped between trees. Just enough to appear fast for a genin, but not anything more.

He had hunting to do and today he was using himself as bait. The fact that he was being watched while he was talking to team seven was by no means a secret to him. It probably wasn’t one for Sasuke too, though he probably wasn’t sure who they were aiming for. Of course. If he left alone and gave them a chance to pursue after he showed off his scrolls, they would go for him. And he indeed felt them on his tail. He might not have any sort of sensor ability, but he did have a keen sense for being watched, a side effect of being stalked by ANBU since he was young.

Of course he wasn’t just blindly letting them follow him. He would get the drop on them while they thought they were undetected. And the technique he was going to use was one that had become a personal favorite of his. Jumping down from a tree to where should have been a blind spot for his enemy, surrounded by undergrowth, he created four clones and scattered them, three into the surrounding bushes, while one proceeded running forward. He himself hid underground. As his pursuers passed the area, the clones suddenly sprouted from the surrounding foliage and struck, all three, punching them in the face at the same time, jumping at them to hold them down. Though as they did, one of them pointed a hand at them and with a piercing sound all three clones poofed, disappearing. That guy was the most dangerous in a three versus one fight as he could support the other two from range. Shinku didn’t know the girl’s ability, but this guy’s one was dangerous enough that he decided to prioritize him.

Shinku’s hand left the earth, grabbing onto the guy’s ankle and dragging him down under while Shinku jumped out from behind him. The moment the two remaining ninja were distracted, the clone who had previously run away jumped on the kunoichi from behind tackling her to the ground, and putting her in a hold. The last one, the guy wrapped up completely in bandages tried to attack the clone holding the girl down, but the real Shinku got in his way. Not seeing another outcome, the sound ninja swung his right arm at Shinku. Unfortunately for him, Shinku didn’t even need his Sharingan to see that attack coming. He’d seen this guy’s attack when he’d attacked Kabuto before the exam started. It was an attack that hurt you even if you dodged it. Considering the other guy’s ability and where these people came from, the ability probably had to do with sound. But then. What if it didn’t hit?

Shinku put up his left arm and blocked the hit, a piercing noise emitting from the amplifier on the guy’s arm, though what it did is make Shinku melt into mud.

“Substitution?!” the sound-nin called out, looking around for the real one until he looked up and saw him falling towards him and meeting his now-crimson eyes. The ninja hit Shinku in the gut as he was falling towards him, the amplifier sending out its sound and directing it to Shinku using chakra. Shinku screamed in pain as the sound ninja smirked behind his bandages and fell unconscious. Or… so it seemed, but he suddenly disappeared, the sound ninja-feeling something hit his chin from below so hard, he went flying. Before the ninja had any time to realize he’d been affected by a genjutsu, everything went dark.

“Jeez. Even genin are no joke in this exam. I guess you guys are chunin candidates so that makes sense. I’m guessing if I was fighting chunin it would be just as difficult if not more.” Shinku spoke out loud, as he ignored the two others screaming while uselessly struggling. His clone could snap the girl’s neck at any moment, but… Shinku didn’t like killing people needlessly. He walked over to the girl and gave her a hook to the chin, knocking her unconscious. Then did the same for the guy.

“Now then.” He went through their packs and found a heaven scroll. “Ugh. And here I thought I would give it to Sasuke. He doesn’t really need this does he. Well… there’s no telling what might happen actually. I’ll give it to him anyway.” Now then what to do with these three? Shinku felt these guys were more dangerous than the Taki ninja he’d just left lying around yesterday. He was tired then and might not have made the best decision anyway.

He didn’t want them coming after him again… but if he left them just tied up here they’d just die… ‘Alright.’ He nodded and created three shadow clones in addition to the one already there. He gave the scroll to that one and asked him to deliver it to Sasuke. The rest would take care of the sound team by throwing them out of the forest. As for him. After he grabbed the supply of metal wire from the girl's pack, could never have enough of that. It was about time to head to the tower.