A.N.B.U.

Chapter Twenty Five : The Chunnin Exams (part 8)

TI wasn't much better than the ANBU break room... Everyone was betting on the chunnin exam, except interrogators betted a lot more carefully, profiling every candidate. Which also meant they took bets very seriously... In ANBU you betted on everything, including but not limited to the weather, and the outcome of a training scenario between the red and blue team...
TI only betted on people and the outcome of their choice. Today they were betting on the outcome of the Chunnin exam based on the result the genins got in the first part.
"Neh Fox, who are you betting on?
- I'm not... I know better than to make bets with you lot..."
Our young captain's answer was greeted with grunts and a few stray senbons...
"Do I even want to know what you're using as collateral for those bets?

- Mostly embarrassing dares from the red bowl... You can pick one to see" Morino knew how to get the younger nin's interest. Ishi handed him the bowl and the blue-eyed ANBU carefully took a neatly folded paper and slowly opened it... He cringed at the words: " go and simulate an invasion in the academy... Deal with the consequences like a whiny brat"
"I think you should add try not to die in the process," Kitsune said gravely.
"That was a given... People don't usually try to get killed, do they?
-I don't know but all of that seems like a bad idea...
- It's the point cutey, we're bored" answered Anki in a sing-song tone...
"Can you please not give our division more paperwork, Ibiki" Our fair-haired hero turned around to see an annoyed Dragon...
"We already have to deal with the fact we have Orochimaru planning an invasion. Please refrain from starting more trouble...
-Fine... We'll find something else to do to losers..."

Both starred off each other and then Ibiki took the bowl and turned it over on the table before telling everyone to pick out any dare that would bring more paperwork to everyone and change it by some dares Dragon wrote... Then when the dares were back in the bowl Dragon got some playing cards and everybody got ready to play... Kitsune groaned but took the cards and forced a smile even when he saw he was seated across from Ombre... Wait? Ombre, how had she bypassed the security? He shrugged and decided it wasn't his problem anymore and checked his cards... They all took dares to serve as chips. The TI/ANBU version of poker was made to cheat, start inter-squad fights, and get everyone thoroughly wasted... You got used to it... You bet dares you were ok with doing and the losers had to do all the ones he betted. It was a recipe for disaster but it was fun.

Kitsune had a lot of luck but he was playing very talented people, they all had different ways to play but they were all confident in their ability to win. He looked over to Ombre was groaning, she had protested about playing, saying she wasn't allowed to bet. She was still playing even though she kept giving Morino the stink eye... The ANBU captain looked over to his cards and cringed internally... He could keep on bluffing or he could go down before getting even more dares. He looked back up trying to gauge each of his adversaries only for Ishi to loudly say :
" Guys... I think Kitsu-chan is trying to see if he has any chance of making us believe he has anything...
- Ishi, I swear you're so dead
- No death threats please..." Dragon said half-heartedly...
Kitsune groaned and gave Ishi the ANBU equivalent of the finger... Which prompted Ishi to throw a Kunal straight to the captain's head, Kitsune dodged and the kunai ended meer centimeters away from Inoichi's feet. The mind reader glared and did a few hand signs, then the world went tumbling down.

The fight ended with Dragon giving everyone a hard beating, well I say everyone but Ombre seemed to curiously be perfectly fine. Kitsune glared towards Ishi and got back to his seat, looked at his cards, and loudly said :
"Fine, I'm giving up on this round...
- You sure Kitsu-chan ?" Ishi was still trying to restart the fight apparently... Kitsune shrugged and let his cards rest on the table... While they all kept playing he looked back to the event of this morning, where had he gone wrong? Kakashi thought of him as a traitor, sakura didn't even try to be nice anymore and Sasuke was getting even worse revenge-wise. The young nin had to agree he was failing, failing at keeping team 7 from breaking, come to think of it he was part of the problem. He tried to formulate a plan but kept ending up with the same conclusion: the team was doomed.

He was woken from his musings by Dragon loudly proclaiming his victory, everyone groaned and started opening their dares. That was followed by more groans and silent swears as everyone found they were gonna have a really filled night. Kitsune looked at his 3 dares and shivered, when it was his turn to turn them over and loudly proclaim what he was going to do this evening he couldn't help but feel the dread sink in
"I have 3 dares, as you can see" he was interrupted by Tonbo shouting about how it was discriminatory to assume everyone could see and that he was very disappointed the captain couldn't be nice. He was promptly gaged by Anko.
"As I was saying, I have 3 dares as you can all... As you can all imagine" As he said that he looked around to make sure he hadn't annoyed someone.
"The first one is to take the demon cat mission" Cue the sympathetic nods and head-shakes as everyone thought about what dares they could have gotten.
"The second one is..." He stopped and pointed a finger at Dragon accusingly, "You did this on purpose, you changed the dare when I wasn't looking, I swear!
- Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, got any proof ?" He said amused
"I call cheating..." Everyone burst out laughing and Kitsune begrudgingly read the dare aloud "The second one is to take academy guarding duty for a week while juggling with my long-term mission" Ombre looked up from her own dares and groaned loudly.
"I also call cheating but on Ibiki's part," She said coldly. Morino fell over laughing and all the while loudly proclaiming there was no proof. Ombre turned her paper over to show she had received the same dare phrased differently. Kitsune and Ombre looked at each other and silently vowed to give hell to the two-division heads.
"The third one is to do a prank on a high-ranking officer... Sadly I can't play it on you lot " The young nin said then he let a sadistic smile appear under his mask...

Somewhere in the village, Kakashi shivered and felt the need to migrate to Kumo. He shrugged it off and got back to training, wondering why he felt something was off about his youngest genin. Naruto was everything he was supposed to be, immature, headstrong, and a bad ninja. But it didn't ring so true, it seemed off. He couldn't put a finger on it. He tried to understand why he couldn't pinpoint the problem. He looked back to everything he knew about the young genin. He thought back about the way he had acted during the Chunnin exam. He had left his team in a hostile environment and had ended up fighting a giant snake with another team. He had read the report from gamma and evidently they had fought together well, a lot better than naruto had ever fought with Sakura or Sasuke. It all became clear... Uzumaki had been compromised and was secretly working for another village. Kakashi was about to take off to report this to TI but stopped. The Hokage was fond of the young genin, he would never believe his protege had been compromised... He decided he would get proof on his stud- the traitor and go to the Hokage with enough proof so Hiruzen-sama couldn't see it otherwise. He took off to his apartment to start making sure getting his thoughts in order.
"Uzumaki Naruto, your secret is dead" He whispered, like a promise to the moon.

~Luciolle24