The blonde princess of the sand turned to meet Jin-Ryu, her pale blue eyes flashing with interest as he walked right up to them. "Yeah." She said, "I guess it's natural if they split<em>everyone</em>up."<br/><br/>She heaved her gourd on her back. Unfortunately with the cork in it, he couldn't tell whether it was full of salt or iron sand. She softly smiled, musing aloud, "If we meet on the field, we could end up fighting eachother... Wouldn't that be interesting?"<br/><br/>From what he gathered, he was talking to Airi, the iron sand sister... the one who seemed keen on making everything into a competition at the arcade. Thankfully Aimi or Niwa wasn't here... although, the Kirigakure kunoichi looked upon Jin-Ryu rather unusually. She bit her lip... she had shark's teeth, and gills on her cheeks! Even so, her crystaline blue eyes were rather striking and she was not unattractive. "Who is your friend?" She asked, bringing her finger up to her lips.<br/><br/>The boy next to her looked at Jin-Ryu with wide eyes and an alarmed expression on his face in silent warning.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Makoto brought one of her manipulator arms up to the top mounted camera and then swung it out in a mock salute, "You too, Yuki-kun!"<br/><br/>"O-okay." She murmured more quietly from within her puppet as he spoke more covertly to her. When he spoke to Naomi, she didn't smile or frown, or even change her expression at all. "I'm nothing special, really." She said, looking off to the side. It was the falsest of modesty.<br/><br/>The third member was fairly muscular, with rather sharp eyes. They darted to and fro as he scanned Yuki over.  He had black hair in a high ponytail, his bangs cut short. He had the standard assortment of ninja gear on him, a shuriken holster and a small sword strapped to his back, "This is Takeda Nishikoi." Makoto introduced, "He's not very talkative."<br/><br/>The young man shrugged.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>"Naomi-chan went off with some giant puppet girl." Himawari mused aloud, "And Hiro-kun went looking for his own team... Oh, I hope they both passed."<br/><br/>To anyone who knew the Nara clanswoman, there was no doubt. She was far from the main branch and its famed genius strategist... but that only meant she tried even harder. "I'm sure they did." Kurai said, softly scratching her cheek. Ichimaru scrunched his lips, "Well... it's not like<em>everyone</em>can pass."<br/><br/>Himawari shot a glance his way, her lips scrunched together and her big blue eyes extra big and extra blue. It practically seemed like he was about to make her cry!<br/><br/><hr/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">Kurai is with Himawari and Ichimaru. ;) I suppose it is a lot of characters to keep track of, I apologize.<br/><br/>Also, please save any replies to the first part of this post for IC 2. It's entirely optional, only there if you want to get in one last scene with your fellow genin before the second stage begins and it becomes a life and death situation. Everything that follows this spoiler tag will be continued here in the main thread.</div></div><br/><br/>An hour later... the score on the monitor finally settled at a stable 67.53% and exactly half of the room was despondent and drained of all motivation and zeal. The other half was perfectly fine.<br/><br/>The proctors entered the room, the head Jounin announcing in a loud voice, "Alright! We will hand your test scores back to you now. If you do not receive a test back that means you have failed the exam and will be disqualified." The proctors all lined up at the front of the room with a stack of papers in their hands. "You come up to the appropriate proctor in an orderly fashion and then go out the door to the staging grounds outside with your teammates. Mitsuo will handle genin with the surnames beginning with A through D, Sarada will have genin with the surnames E through K, Kiri will-"<br/><br/>Yuki, Jin-Ryu, and Azuki all went up to their corresponding proctors and received their tests back. 70%, all of them. "Good luck." Sarada whispered to Yuki with a wink as she handed him back his test.<br/><br/>They reunited outside at a staging ground where a gentle mist was starting to form around them. Kirigakure certainly lived up to its name. Waiting for them were all the proctors of the second stage. Jin-Ryu recognized Ruka while Azuki saw a woman that matched the description of Fuyō that she had heard about in the week prior. She also saw Mirai Sarutobi, a friend of Hanabi's and the daughter of a hero that died in the last war.<br/><br/>Once everyone had arrived, the Kirigakure woman in the center of the group of proctors announced herself, "My name is Misuno and I will be the proctor of the second stage of the Chūnin exams!" She had long wavy hair under and above her Kirigakure forehead protector, a beautiful face with blue eyes, pink lips, and bandages hanging loosely around her neck. She wore a green military-style coat over a crop top and pinstripe pants common to the mist.<br/><br/>"You passed the first stage but don't let it go to your head- that doesn't mean squat!" She commanded, "By design, half of you made it regardless of your actual performance on the test. Let me assure you, it's gonna get<strong>real</strong>from here on out! You could be hurt, you could be killed. This next stage will be a competition. You will each be given a scroll, either Heaven or Earth. You must not open this under any circumstances until the end of the exam. To pass, your team must have in your possession both a scroll of Heaven and Earth when you arrive at the tower in the center of the arena. You have five days to complete this task."