(Asuma's Point of view)
This year chunnin exams is mostly similar to the one I had when did mine, except that in the 2nd phase of the Forest of Death it's going to be harder. Lately we integrated gorillas and monkeys to the habitat that got train on how to use tools as weapons. This Monkeys and Gorillas were used for training the elites of the Sword Academy program and we used the Forest of Death as a training ground to train and sharpen their swords skills.
So now the Forest of Death as increased in difficulty thanks to that, just imagine the place were Zorro from One Piece train on the island of Mihawk. We literally just kind of did that to upgrade the forest.
Because of that the Hokage as integrated proctors to observe and follow from afar to keep an eye on the students taking the exam since we don't want casualties and having the other villages blaming us. Death is still possible as long has its not involve with this trained Gorillas and Monkeys, since they know some basics of the SwordGod style, WaterGod style even some reaching up to Advance.
For that reason the Hokage dispatch also the New Root leader Ebisu since Danzo no longer is part of Konoha , to keep the students from dying from this Monkeys and Gorillas which some are armed with used swords, clubs and makeshift weapons. Only Anbu could keep them at bay since most of them got train by Anbu or by instructors of the Sword Academy and are quiet still tamed by them.
The 2nd exam started not long ago and I am keeping an eye out for my daughter's team, because they specialized on tracking I have to keep my distance by a lot. After all, my daughter's Mirai team as a Hyuga with Byakugan, Shino from the bug clan he could have bugs around the team keeping eye out for everyone. Kiba from the Inuzuka with his pet dog sniffing around and finally my daughter which is a sensor type ninja with a minimum of 100 meters to max of 500 meters radius sensing abilities.
Because of that I had to be creative and hide my presence using my Sage mode to conceal myself from them. At the moment I am in my Full Body Sage Mode using sage chakra to camouflage. Even if they are sensors they can't sense Sage chakra or Nature chakra since they need to train specifically for that. To make this more fun I even transform into one of the Monkeys that are now habituating on the Forest of Death.
So it won't be unusual having a Monkey being curious of these new intruders in the forest and just keeping out an eye out being just a curious George monkey. I did inform Ebisu of what I was doing and make my monkey fur be black as most of the one on the forest are either brown or slight grey. This way Anbu would be inform that It was me in disguise since it would be hard to keep track of Kusei's team which was all comprise of trackers.
The reason I choose to transform into Monkey instead of Gorilla was because I have been living among monkeys for 12+ years already training myself in Monkey Sage mode. So I know their mannerism an playful attitudes they got against strangers. I know how they smell and how their chakra network resembles which is pretty similar to humans so no much difference.
So while I was tracking them from afar and observing them, I notice they encounter some tigers and some monkeys. They tigers didn't gave them much problems but the monkeys did as they used rock throws to pressure them as the monkey timed their attacks as they manage to hit them hard. Some even graze their vitals. These monkeys were used at fighting ninjas since we used them to train the elites of the Sword Academy who were already in the Advance Swordsmanship of either SwordGod or WaterGod style. We used group tactics to pressure our students to extract their full potential under harsh circumstances.
The monkey's where also smart enough to pick up the moves of the students some managing to learn basic, to advance swordsmanship. We also provided used worn out weapons to them so they could input a real challenge to our students.
So after 10 to 15minutes of fighting the team of my daughter was getting worn out little by little. Since they got surrounded by about 7 monkeys who used rocks, tree branches and some with worn out clubs or daggers in hand.
They kept fighting for another 10 minutes, they were being pressure since even when the Hyuga girl started using her 8-trigram style the monkeys would always manage to evade on time either by a graze or being help by another monkey since they had impeccable team work. This monkeys also like to taunt their opponents since they even started to imitate her fighting style giving her a hard time since she would be rush by at least 3 monkeys at a time.
Kiba at this time interfere with his dog Akamaru, using their signature move Fang over Fang. Creating some vortex tornados and targeting the monkeys. Which for the first time they got some injuries but not severe ones. At this moment Shino never moved from his spot but notice he had release bugs everywhere since the start of the fight.
The bugs where draining the chakra of the monkeys slowly but surely. Mirai was in the defensive protecting Shino as he controls his bugs to attack. Since the monkeys notice that they were being drain by Shino the other 4 monkeys where trying to knock out Shino but Mirai would protect him by using Mud wall Jutsu and using her chakra knuckle blade she would start confronting the monkeys who had some used kunai and short sword on hand.
The monkeys where really nimble and started to get serious as they started synchronizing attacks pressuring and trying to find a opening as they also would try to surprise attack Shino.
This went back and forth till the monkeys decided to retreat noticing their chakra drop allot and their stamina was making them get sloppy. So one of the monkey yell "Uha!!!" and immediately all of them ran at insane speed jumping between the trees and bushes.
Kiba wanted to follow them to kill them all since they gave him such a hard time but Shino hold him back as team leader. Warning him that this was the monkeys turf and could bring them to an ambush since they look like they were pretty smart. Mirai follow also by warning them that if they did decide to follow it look like the monkeys actually join another group up ahead consisting of another 7 more. So it was good decision to just retreat and take another path while traveling.
I notice they didn't used that much ninjutsus since they most likely are trying to preserve their energies as they find a good food resource and also to find a team they can actually get their scroll needed to pass. Which this year was harder since the test was decided to collect 3 in total and not 2 like the previous exam. Consisting of the scrolls of [Mind], [Soul] and [Body]. Meaning they had to eliminate or defeat 2 teams with the respective scrolls to pass the 2nd exam.
Because of this this test had 14 days to be accomplished compared to the previous 5 day limit the 2nd exam used to have.
My daughter's team found a good hiding place where they could also gather some fruit, seeds and berries nearby a stream of water so they decided to camp there for today. I don't think they would encounter any problems since they all were sensors so I decided to check on my team. So I departed as I used my sensing skill to locate my team 10.
They were 1 hour away from my location, that's if I decided to just go walking but as a monkey swinging from tree to tree I got to them within 30 minutes. I saw they were camping near a cave I also saw Choji cooking some tiger meat, which I suspect were living on the cave before he killed them. Ino was playing with a baby tiger on her lap which seem sad and Shikamaru was sitting near a tree keeping a lookout as Choji ate and Ino take care of the baby tiger.
I notice also several thin wires around the area set up really cautiously some connected to explosive tags. Some to shurinken launchers and some other traps. Looks like these traps were set up by Shikamaru as precautious of an ambush.
Using my Golden Fiery Eyes I took a look to notice that Shikamaru had already 2 scrolls the [Mind], and [Body] Scrolls and they were missing only the [Soul] scroll to pass the exam. I wondered who they fight for the scroll since I would have loved to see their fights against another team.
Shikamaru noticed me, and threw at me a banana. I caught it as I acted like a normal monkey, but when I was about to eat it. I dropped it and rush out of the location as the banana exploded with a big boom. Looks like Shikamaru was aware the monkeys in this forest were dangerous and wanted to send a warning by perhaps killing this poor black fur monkey.
So I decided to leave them alone they were doing fine and were being cautious acting like professionals. At least Shikamaru was as he didn't have his lazy look at the moment.
While traveling back to my daughter's team, I got stopped by Ebisu who was wearing his Iconic black glasses. He knew how I look like a monkey and saw me so he stopped me to report to me that some unusual activities were happening since some of the Kumo shinobis that were participating on this exam may have been doing the same thing they did when I was a gennin at the time. Not only that but it look like some of the contestants may be here just to get of future competition and it look that was the reason why also Iwa for the first time like ever also sent some teams to participate this year.
He was also aware that hidden sand village send about 4 teams this year and they seem pretty powerful still not out of suspicion that may had similar goals as Iwa and Kumo. So he told me to check around to see and find any evidence of this happening. Since Ebisu was already busy with the task of keeping the monkeys and Gorillas at bay from killing the participants.
Focusing and extending my sensing skill to surround the forest I noticed a lot of teams with chakras above all Mid-Chunnin some bordering on Jounnin levels. Looks like this year all the villages send their best this year. At least that's what I hope since they could be actually already been Jounnin or chunnin being held back to participate on Konohas Chunnin exams to eliminate our war potential.
I just don't want it to repeat the same as it did for me on my chunnin exams. Was it 5 or 7 teams that got killed that year by the Kumo ninjas? It's been a long time. Either way I can't let that happen this year, especially on my watch!