The reunion in the tower

Naruto soon found the way back downstairs to the lobby where he found the three girls chatting. However, when he approached them, their chatter died down as they all looked at him. "Well, that was an extensive backrub, wasn't it?", Ino commented with a frown. Even if she didn't suspect him of fucking Kurenai-sensei anymore, she was still jealous.

"Well, I...", Naruto began, trying to explain himself when, thankfully, he received an unexpected rescue.

"Yo!", a voice called out and as Team 7 turned to see, Shikamaru and Kiba entered the lobby. Overjoyed to see his friends in good shape, he went over to greet them. As they had told them before, they had found a second scroll and had arrived in the first night.

"Where's Sasuke?", Sakura asked, noting the obvious absence of the Uchiha.

"Our sensei is taking care of him. He's been pretty much asleep ever since we got here...", Shikamaru explained. "We don't really know what's wrong with him, but sensei seemed serious. Well, as much as I can tell from what little I can see of his face...", he added, saying something strange which the others couldn't make sense of, but that wasn't too important to them right now.

Shikamaru then turned and chatted a little with Ino and Sakura, but Naruto was a little distracted as Kiba approached and sniffed the air around him for a moment before grinning wildly. "Ooh, I didn't know your Tenten-chan was here already...", the dog boy commented and nudged his buddy into the sides.

Naruto sweatdropped a bit. Of course, he might've fooled his own nose or Inos, but there was no fooling Kibas sharp senses. The only thing he could do was laugh it off, even when

"Hey, what are you doing here?", Tentens voice called out to them. The kunoichi had just entered the room, her team, consisting of Neji and Rock Lee, behind her. Her face showed genuine surprise.

While Naruto turned to her, he heard a light thud behind him, which no doubt originated from Kibas jaw hitting the floor.

"Well, what does it look like? We're waiting for you guys to finally show up, of course!", Ino said smugly, not completely without pride of course. Truth be told, they only just got here an hour ago, but they didn't need to know that.

While Tenten joined Sakura, Ino and Kin in their smalltalk, the faces of Neji and Lee spelled out genuine surprise, but only the greenclad boy voiced it. "Oooh, Naruto-kun has already arrived? I see... that should teach me not to judge him just by his looks and behavior!", Lee uttered, sounding so psyched as if he just had a revelation of epic proportions.

'Was that supposed to be an insult?', Naruto pondered for a moment before deciding it was probably more like a compliment from Lee. Then again, before he could even mull over it, he heard footsteps. They came from the entrance, and he wasn't the only one who heard them. All heads turned to see who would enter

A fourth group entered the room. As it turned out, it was Team 8, consisting of Akimichi Chouji, Aburame Shino and Hyuuga Hinata. They were greeted cheerfully by the rest of her peers, who were all glad to see the last team arrive safe and sound.

He looked especially long at his girlfriend Hinata, but she did approach her cousin Neji first. "Oh, h-hello Neji-san...", Hinata said, falling into her nervous stutter again as she bowed politely before Neji, who merely scoffed at this.

Although Naruto was befuddled at their behavior, he decided that it was probably something having to do with them being part of the same clan and it being an issue within that clan. So he paid not much mind to it, aside from being mildly annoyed by Nejis rude response to Hinatas proper greeting.

But there was a fact that was much more joyful than that. "So we've all made it here! That's awesome!", he cheered as, in fact, all his friends were gathered around here. Some looked in a better shape than others, but none seemed seriously injured.

The atmosphere, despite all that, was lively, as they began chatting among themselves about their past experiences. Ino in particular was interested in how they got their scrolls, while Naruto soon had Tenten latched onto his arms. The brunette cooed into his ear how she had missed him, how she had always thought of him during the test and how glad she was to see him again.

All the while, Naruto still felt a befuddled glare from Kiba on his back. He suspected the dog boy would unfortunately be smart enough to figure out sooner or later...

But again, the group was interrupted as a pair of unknown voices approached them. In came Temari and Kankuro, so immersed in their talk that they initially didn't even notice the group of Leaf ninja in the room. "And I'm telling you, counting on Gaara is the stupidest thing they could ever...", the Sand-nin with the mummy strapped onto his back argued with his sister before realizing that they were not alone.

What followed was an odd moment of silence. The Konoha-nin did not know what to make of them, and Kankuro and Temari seemed frozen stiff for some reason. Again, it was Naruto who broke the silence. "Oh, Temari-chan, you're here, too?", Naruto asked the sand-haired girl.

The look of uncertainty on Temaris face slowly vanished and was covered up by a smug look, like the one she usually wore. "Of course. We made it here within five hours. They told us we broke some sort of record, too.", she told them nonchalantly with a shrug of her shoulders.

Needless to say, the Konoha-nins gaped at them. "Five hours? That's really fast! How did you do that?", Shikamaru asked, suspicious at that figure. After all, it took them five hours to even get towards the tower...

"Well...", Temari began and looked off to the side a bit. The memory of the team that had run into them was still haunting her. She was only grateful that they had the scroll they needed so there was no need for Gaara to keep wandering through the forest. But her worries, she knew, could be interpreted as weakness if she dwelled on it too long. "We're just good, can't you tell?", she bragged, overplaying her gruesome memories with confidence.

There was a knock at the opened door, so once more, the attention of the group shifted towards the entrance...

"You are all the Genin who arrived today, right?", a Special Jounin with sunglasses asked the group. After they confirmed this by nodding in unison, the man continued. "Since the exam will not continue until tomorrow, please follow me so I will lead you to your rooms where you will be staying for the night.", he announced and led the way.

Having ****, the Genin followed the man, up some flight of stairs. Naruto noticed that it was exactly the opposite wing from the one where Kurenai-sensei was staying. The group was led towards a hallway with many doors on each side, obviously meant to house the participants here.

Before the rooms were assigned, the Special Jounin turned around and adressed the gathered crowd. "The exam will continue at noon tomorrow, so be ready then and return to the lobby at that time, or you will be automatically disqualified!", he told them and then began to open the door to the first unoccupied room.

The rooms, as it turned out, were complete with three beds for each teammember, and each team was assigned to one room. The first one in the hallway was given to Team 7, so Ino, Sakura and Kin already entered quickly, eager to see how their place for the night was like.

Temari, who had been following the group along with her brother, opened the door to the room next to the one of Narutos team. "That means you're in the room next to us. Well, tough break, I guess...", she said, cracking a wry smile.

"What do you mean by that?", Naruto asked but received no answer as Temari and Kankuro quickly entered their room.

"Weird...", Naruto muttered before he too was about to go after his team and into the room as he was pulled back by Tenten.

"Naruto-kun, Hinata-chan and I will see to it that we'll crash by your room as soon as we can get away from our teams. Then we can, you know, push some beds together... so you better not get it on before we're there. That clear?", she whispered to him, promising him a very good night. But, remembering Kurenais advice, it also meant a lot of opportunities to train for him as well...

"Alright, got it, Tenten-chan.", Naruto whispered in response and watched his girlfriend wink at him before joining up with her team.

As he entered, he saw that they all had three nice beds, spacious enough and comfy-looking. Ino and Sakura were naturally overjoyed, only Kin looked a bit forlorn. "There are only three beds... I-... I don't want to go back to my team.", she stuttered and already began sobbing a bit as she knew that this would be the only way for her to get to sleep in a real bed.

"Don't you worry, we'll work this out. Besides, we're supposed to keep guard on you, so there's no way you're gonna escape us.", Ino explained warmly, calming Kin down somewhat. Naruto was rather surprised at that, what had happened between the girls when he had been with Kurenai-sensei? Well, at least it was a change for the better...

Meanwhile, Sakura had gotten up from the bed she had claimed and opened the door that led to another room. What was behind that door made the girls squeal in joy. "Ooh, we even have a bathroom.", Sakura cooed. As she turned back to the assembled people, she looked around awkwardly for a bit. "Umm, Kin-chan, why don't you go take a shower first?", she finally suggested.

Naruto and Ino were a little curious as to why Sakura had given Kin permission to first, especially after Sakura had complained that a nice hot shower would be the first thing she'd do after she got out of the forest.

Kin too was a little surprised, but a shower was still a shower, so she quickly disappeared into the bathroom.

Sakura listened for a moment, and when the unmistakable sound of running water was heard, she sighed and turned to her friends. Now, finally it was only the three of them and she could do what she had longed to do for more than a day now. "Naruto, Ino, I wanted to talk to you... well, it's sort of important to me, so...", she began, fidgeting a little as she went over the words in her head...