"There's nobody here," said Sasuke flatly.
Team 7 had finally arrived at the tower at the centre of the Forest of Death, with both scrolls in hand, only to discover that there was no ambush waiting for them; or at least, none that they could detect. Could it really be that after Sakura had hyped up her Collaboration Jutsu so much, they would have no one to try it on?
"Come out and show yourselves!" Naruto shouted, cupping his hands in front of his mouth. "Fight us, you cowards!"
But the only responses that Naruto would obtain were the cawing of a lone crow and the buzzing of cicadas.
"Welp, so much for that," said Sakura moodily. "Let's just go in and be done with this already. I need a shower..."
"We could stay here," said Naruto hopefully. "Wait for someone to come by and use it on them, ya know?"
Sakura and Sasuke ignored him, and they approached the tower. Based on what they could see, the base of the building seemed to be encircled with many double doors, and each one of these entrances were sealed with a tag reading 'open.'
"Wait, let me!" Naruto said excitedly.
Naruto rushed ahead of his two teammates, took a deep breath, and then pushed open one of the double doors, tearing the 'open' tag in the process. Turning around to grin at them, he then entered the tower. Sakura and Sasuke followed suit, and the members of Team 7 found themselves in an empty room, devoid of any decorations, save for a large scroll hanging from the wall opposing the door that they had just entered from.
"What are we supposed to do now?" said Naruto, glancing around, and yet still missing the large scroll right in front of him.
"If 'Heaven' is what you lack, enrich your knowledge and prepare to seize your chance," Sakura read from the scroll's inscriptions, "but if 'Earth' is what you lack, run the fields in search of an advantage… etc., etc., signed, the Third."
Naruto cocked his head in confusion. What the hell was all of that supposed to mean?
It was quite obvious that now was the time to open the scrolls; even if Naruto wasn't the best at reading comprehension, he should have guessed that the 'Heaven' and 'Earth' written on the wall scroll in bold had to have something to do with the heaven and earth scrolls they had been given.
Instead of wasting more time explaining things to him, Sakura retrieved both scrolls from their hiding place in between her breasts and tossed one to Sasuke.
"We'll open them on three," said Sasuke coolly, quietly noting to himself that the scroll was still pleasantly warm to the touch. "One— two— three!"
Sakura and Sasuke unfurled their respective scrolls, and Naruto leaned over their shoulder to take a peek.
"Person?" Naruto read, perplexed.
Suddenly, both of the scrolls began emitting copious amounts of white smoke.
"They're summoning scrolls!" Sasuke shouted, immediately recognizing them for what they were. "Sakura, drop it!"
Sakura and Sasuke both threw their scrolls away.
Knowing in advance who would be greeting them at the conclusion of the second exam, Sakura really hadn't needed to assume a fighting stance like her two fellow teammates, but since everyone was doing it, and she didn't want to feel left out, Sakura struck up a pose as well.
The man who would be coming to greet them was taking his sweet time teleporting over; perhaps he was only doing so on purpose for dramatic effect, but it was only making Sakura feel increasingly ridiculous, since she was still holding her martial arts pose. At last, the smoke gradually started clearing, and the silhouette of a man drew itself from within the smokescreen.
And finally, Iruka-sensei, their homeroom teacher from the ninja academy, stepped out of the smoke and into view.
"Yo!" Iruka called out to them. "Long time no see, eh?"
Question marks began popping up over both Naruto's and Sasuke's heads, and Sakura tried her best to look astonished.
"H-huh!?" Naruto blurted out. "Iruka-sensei? Why did you pop out of a Summoning Jutsu?"
"Everything was set up so that we Chūnin would greet you exam takers at the conclusion of the second exam," Iruka explained. "It just so happened that I got selected to be the one to explain things to you guys."
'Iruka's definitely lying,' Inner Sakura harrumphed. 'Otherwise, Asuma wouldn't have come out of that scroll we opened earlier. He's not even a Chūnin!'
It was a minuscule detail that Sakura couldn't have possibly remembered from watching the anime, but she had got one thing right. The Jōnin in charge of their three-man squad were supposed to be the ones meeting their disciples at this point, but Iruka had begged Anko, the organizer of the second exam, to let him be the one to meet Naruto and company instead of Kakashi.
Iruka, having known Naruto, the old Sakura and Sasuke since their childhood, had never believed them to be ready for the Chūnin exams so shortly after graduation, and so, he had wanted to let them down easy when they inevitably failed the exam. But contrary to his expectations, Team 7 had instead passed with flying colours, and Iruka had been left processing some difficult emotions. The problematic trio had grown into splendid shinobi without his noticing, and under another sensei's guidance, no less…
Ironically, despite never having taught anything to the new Sakura in person, Iruka had taught her more about being a shinobi than Kakashi ever had, through the old Sakura's handwritten notes.
"So, congratulations!" said Iruka, smiling warmly at his ex-students, happy for them despite believing himself to have failed to recognize their potential. "You've all passed the second exam! I wish I could treat you to some ramen at Ichiraku's to celebrate, but that will have to wait until later."
"What would have happened if we'd opened the scrolls ahead of time?" Sasuke asked Iruka.
Iruka looked at Sakura in surprise.
"You didn't tell them?" he said. "Your actions made a big splash with the exam committee."
Sakura blushed.
"Iruka-sensei would have tried to knock us out if we'd opened our scrolls in the forest," she explained. "Although, I don't think he would have managed to knock out any one of us, let alone all three of us at the same time…"
"I see you've grown a lot bolder, Sakura-chan," said Iruka with an icy smile on his face. "Did you learn how to act like that from Naruto?"
Sakura laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head with her left hand…