~~~
Naruto, Satsuki and Sakura looked right towards their side and saw Shikamaru and his team approach right towards them. Naruto raised an eyebrow just slightly.
"Oh, it's you," commented Naruto, now standing right in front of Team 10 and their members. Shikamaru shrugged and yawned right after it.
"Yeah, it's us. It seems we're all in the Chunin Exams." This caused Satsuki to raise an eyebrow of her very own. That one sentence sent a question right towards her head.
"What do you mean by 'we're a'?" Asked Satsuki, slightly narrowing her eyes at the lazy Nara that stood right in front of them all. The person who answered was not Shikamaru, but. . .
Choji?
"Yeah, the other rookies are here." Choji pointed right towards the other side. The team followed the finger and landed sight of an approaching Team 8.
"Oh, so that's what mean." They nodded. Kiba, Shino, and Hinata approached them, with Kiba being the most confident talker in their team leading them towards them.
"Yo!" Kiba waved, standing right infront of the other 6 rookie genin. Naruto nodded, slightly yawning right after. He scanned all around and saw that many people were looking at them interacting.
They seem to care about our conversation more than their own selves. Weird. Thought Naruto, turning his attention back to the group that he belonged with.
"Isn't it sad? Yu didn't pass the genin test that we were all put in." Naruto and Satsuki shrugged, not caring on the old news that they had just been told.
"Don't really care. He lacked perception, conviction, and skills in the shinobi arts." Many of them sweat-dropped at the words that had escaped Naruto's mouth.
"Naruto. Did I just sense jealousy?" Kiba asked, a cheeky smile appearing right on his face. Satsuki glared at him, exactly knowing where he was getting at.
Naruto furrowed his eyebrows.
"What is there to be jealous about? I do not follow." Kiba froze, suddenly seeing that his attempt to poke some fun out of Naruto had just failed considerably.
"Whatever. It doesn't even matter now." Kiba slightly huffed, knowing he shouldn't have tried doing something like joking about other's feelings.
Naruto certainly wouldn't get such a thing. It would only go right over his big brain.
Naruto heard silent footsteps coming right their way. He turned towards the direction of the said person and raised an eyebrow towards him.
"Turn it down, will you?" Everyone else's heads snapped right towards the man and saw that he was wearing glasses. Oh, so was he smart like Naruto? Or is it just something to make him look smart?
He also had grey hair.
"Who are you?" Shino asked, observing the man that had grey hair. The man gave them all a small smile at them.
"I am Yakushi Kabuto. I guess you can say that I am a veteran when it comes to the Chunin Exams." Naruto narrowed his eyes at the man right in front of him.
He looks old. Probably in his very late teens. Naruto thought, looking at Kabuto with his observing eyes. Kabuto then pulled out a deck of cards from his holster.
"I have acquired a large amount of information due to this being my 7th time participating." Some of the people in the Rookie 9had the sudden urge to just burst and say something out loud, but just chose not to.
"With these, I can give you the varying amount of information that I have collected in this room and past participants." They all nodded. Although Naruto was very skeptical about this.
And it seems like Satsuki very much had a few people in mind.
"Gaara of the Sand and. . . Ahihcu Naruto." He slightly narrowed his eyes at the raven that stood right next to him. Hm? Her motives interested Naruto greatly.
Many people heard this and listened very closely.
"Oh? So you have a few people in mind. You even know their names. That will make this much easier for me." Kabuto did some weird thingy with his arm.
Was it a trick? A magic trick? Or is it actually real? It's probably real.
"The first one is Gaara of the Sand." He showed them the card that he had gotten from the weird magic show thing he had just one right in front of them all.
"His attributes do not show due to him being a foreign ninja from different lands." His stats and skills were hidden and not there whatsoever. But the thing that was evident there was: The number and difficulty of the missions that he has done,
"This guy, Gaara. He is an anomaly in his very own right. 8 C-Rank missions in total and 1 B-Rank in total. This is very good for a genin his age." But this was not the only thing that he had to say.
"Oh? And it seems like in all the missions that he has done, Gaara has yet to be inflicted actual and physical damage to his own body." Everyone but Naruto widened their eyes at this news that was given to them.
"Now, Ahihcu Naruto." He slowly started to pull the card that had his own information from the deck of cards that he had brought right along with him.
"Sorry," said Naruto, appearing right behind Kabuto with the card that had his information in hand. "But my information if off-limits." Naruto looked down right at the card that he had just took.
He slightly widened his eyes.
He knows too much. Naruto thought, looking right behind and glancing at Kabuto for a brief moment.
He's way too suspicious. My information is classified and he somehow knows that I'm an Uchiha? Or is it the card itself? Probably. Naruto thought, looking right back at the card he now had in his own possession.
It had all the missions that he and his team took part in — even the A-Rank mission that went horribly wrong in the end.
Kabuto lightly chuckled at this, knowing he might have startled Naruto with the information.
"Haha. . . anyway. Here." Another card was placed right on the ground, showing the 5 Great Nations in all its glory. Green light started to rise up.
"These are the number of participants from the different villages." They all saw that Konoha had the most and that Oto had the least amount of participants in the end.
"As for Oto, you shouldn't be too wary of them — they're just a new village that has been recently founded by someone that I do not know of." This obviously the ears of the Oto-nins that were here.
"Zaku, Kin. Let's show that punk." They nodded, quickly disappearing into the endless crowds of people that were all around them. The guy leading the team was named: Dosu.
Dosu appeared right in front Kabuto, his arm shaking due to the power that he was building up. Dosu threw a punch right towards Kabuto; he dodged it easily.
But. . .
His glasses cracked and soon were in total pieces. Kabuto widened his eyes, falling down towards the floor that everyone was currently standing right on top of. His body was currently aching.
The 3 Oto-nins stood right in front of the fallen Kabuto.
"This is the power of Otogakure. You weakling." The person who had said this was Zaku. They were about to deal much more damage but someone intervened.
"Hm? Body modifications," said Naruto, appearing right behind Zaku and eyeing the tiny holes that were on his palm. The 3 widened their eyes, backing away slightly to avoid confrontation.
"How the hell did you get there?" Questioned Dozu, narrowing his free eye right at Naruto. He gazed at them with his bored and lazy eyes for a moment.
He raised an eyebrow.
"You're asking something trivial. The answer is obvious." Naruto appeared right behind them once again. They widened their eyes, looking at Naruto as he stood right next to Kabuto.
"You all are just weak," said Naruto, lightly yawning before making his way back to his team. Satsuki sighed, shaking her head at Naruto showing off way too much in just the span of 1 minute.
"Naruto, aren't you going to help Kabuto-san up?" Asked Sakura, looking right at Kabuto. Before Naruto could answer, he heard the fast footsteps of enemies coming right towards him.
Naruto sighed, turning around slowly.
Naruto dodged 3 simultaneous kicks from Dosu, Zaku, and Kin with way too much ease. Naruto took out one hand from his pockets and caught the arm of Zaku.
Zaku smirked devilishly.
"You fell for my trap!" He started to build up power through the arm that Naruto had caught, but to no avail. He widened his eyes at the failure of an attempt.
"I applied pressure around your arm so the power that you try and let it out won't work. You can try and persevere it, although it would most definitely cost you an arm." Zaku yanking his arm away.
Before anything else could happen, a cloud of smoke appeared in front of the whole room. Everyone's eyes went over to the said cloud of smoke and looked at it.
Intently.
"Shut the hell up!" A man with a scarred face yelled, immediately frightening everyone that was within his own sight. Alongside him was many chunins that looked like assistants.
A written test it is. Naruto thought, looking right towards the man that stood at the front of the entire class. The man glanced at each and every single one of them.
"I am Morino Ibiki — the proctor for the first test of the Chunin Exams." Everyone became even more tense than before. So this was the start of the real Chunin Exams.
Ibiki stood still for a split second before he started announcing what the first test was for this portion of the entire exam.
"As you can see, this environment is very closed off and secluded. This may also get you the answer on what the first test actually is." Everyone within close proximity stood silent to everything that was going on.
"Good. So you all do know how to shut up." Two of the assistant proctors stood right beside him and had papers being held right in her hands.
"We are doing a written test for the first portion of the Chunin Exams. Take a seat and we'll pass you the paper necessary for your eventual outcome in this first part." Everyone nodded, formerly going to their respective seats.
The air. . . Naruto thought, seeing the papers get passed around from one person to another. If it's anything like the things that Naruto and the others had endured, there must be a hidden message of some sorts.
Once the papers were passed around, Ibiki gained an satisfied nod to himself. They were listening better than he had originally thought they would.
"Now, I would like to discuss the ground rules for this test." He started using the chalk board that was right up for display. Everyone looked very closely.
"You all start right off with 10 points in total. If you get questions wrong, you lose a point. Once you lose all your points, you are done. But here's the catch. The 10th question will only be asked later on."
"Passing this test will be determined through your group points." People started to widen their eyes at this rare bit of news that was just given to them.
Ibiki looked right over to the side.
"These are the sentinels. If you get caught cheating, then you are out along with your other teammates." People widened their eyes at a drastic rate from this.
"Two points will be taken if you get caught." He glanced at them once more before continuing the set rules that have been made for this exam.
"You have one hour to complete the test. Starts!" Once they had heard this, people started to immediately scramble due to their own nervousness from all of this.
This was not the case for Naruto at all.
Naruto looked around with such intent. He had to observe everything that was surrounding him at the very moment. He then looked at the piece of paper right in front of him.
This is moderately easy to do. But something tells me that I'm supposed to not do that. Naruto thought, once again adverting his eyes away from the piece of paper that he had.
He narrowed his eyes, looking from every direction that could benefit him. But he did not look behind due to the fact that the sentinels could take it the wrong way and think he was cheating on the test.
Cheating? Naruto mused, moving his own gaze right towards the pencil that was right in his hands. He lightly tapped the pencil on the piece of paper that everyone was assigned to do.
Cheating.
Cheating.
Cheating.
Naruto repeated this exact word in his mind multiple and endless amounts of time. He noticed that Ibiki didn't really empathize the understanding of cheating.
But shouldn't he be doing that? It's obvious that people are going to cheat in the test. Naruto thought, already seeing people fail in hiding that they were cheating right in front of him.
God, they were such idiots.
Before Naruto could think anything else, his thoughts were interrupted by a sudden kunai flying right past him a blink of a damn eye. He raised an eyebrow, looking at the direction that the kunai was sent towards.
"Participant #24 — get out with your two other buddies. You have been caught cheating over 5 times." The particpant widened his eyes at this sudden turn of events.
"What?! There is no way I cheated! You're lying!" 2 sentinels came right behind him, dragging him away from the room that the rest of the participants were currently in.
The sentinel jut smirked at him. He was a rotten one for sure.
"Do not underestimate our ability to observe others. Sorry, but, you just failed to cut in." Naruto ignored this, knowing what he was saying was just the truth.
Cheating. Naruto thought once more, thinking about the things that revolved right around the word itself. It seemed like many people were cheating in the test right now.
Isn't cheating against the rules? No, wait. Naruto recalled back to the moments when Ibiki was explaining the written test and the validity of cheating in the said written test.
Now that I think about it, ibiki-san never said we couldn't cheat. He only said that we can't get caught cheating. Hence, we can cheat in the exam. Naruto thought, knowing what to exactly do in this type of situation.
Hokage-sama and Kakashi-sensei had advised me to use contact lenses that are azure to cover up the scarlet-crimson when I turn on my Sharingan. Naruto thought, thinking back on the time when they had recommended this to him.
Though he wondered why Kakashi has never done this.
In theory, people shouldn't be able to see me use my Sharingan while I cheat off of someone worthy. Naruto thought, glancing at a few people that sat right in front of him.
He noticed something off about him.
He seems to be cruising right along the test. While I can also do this, a lot of others can not. Naruto thought as he gazed at the pencil that was moving without even stopping for even a split second.
There. He should be a fine subject for me to experiment this on. Naruto thought, turning his 3-tomoe Sharingan to life. His eyes still retained its vibrant azure-blue.
Yes, this was what Naruto exactly needed.
Thanks for letting me leech right off of you, chunin-san. Naruto thought, knowing that the person that he was cheating right off of was chunin. Of course, he figured this out after he figured out the meaning of the said test.
This test is only fit for people who are chunin and above; they have much more knowledge in this type of things than regular genin like us. This was the simple answer and simple reality.
Many people noticed that Naruto was moving right along the test at a very fast rate.
Satsuki internally scoffed at this.
You figured it out. Though it's obvious you didn't even need to result to cheating; you did it anyway. Satsuki thought, looking at the test that she was almost done with.
What a troublesome guy. Shikamaru thought, answering the questions at such a phenomenal slow rate. God, Shikamaru was truly the embodiment of absolute laziness.
Alright, this should do it. Naruto thought, hearing many more participants and names get called out by the sentinels. Man, the sentinels certainly were ruthless to the genin individuals.
Naruto turned off his Sharingan. If he was being honest, Naruto didn't really think the use of contacts would actually be this useful for him to use.
But. . .
He was indeed wrong about that one.
Naruto looked at the chalk board right in front of him, seeing the rules that Ibiki had written right on the black board. This certainly was an exam that needed much intellect to survive.
"Alright! It is now time for us to move on to the final question!" Yelled Ibiki.
The room immediately went very tense to the point where any normal person/kid would just suffocate to their own absolute death.
Their eyes moved right towards Ibiki. This guy knew how to torture the minds of their opponents to the absolute tee. But Naruto was definitely not your normal person that inhabited the Earth.
"There are a few things that I want to say before we actually do the 10th question." Ibiki moved back and forth as he glanced at the students with his deadly and sharp eyes.
"First is, you can choose if you want to take this question or not." People widened their eye, wondering if Ibiki actually meant such a thing to them.
"Wait! What happens if we don't take the question?" Asked one of the sand siblings, Temari.
"It's simple; you fail alongside your team." People widened their eyes at such a thing. But Ibiki was here, living the dream with a smirk right on his own face.
"Then it would only make sense that people would take the question." Ibiki then gave out a devilish chuckle that escaped itself out of his own mouth.
"You see, if you were to take this question and get it wrong, you will be permanently banned from ever taking the Chunin Exams ever again." Everyone widened their eyes even more to this.
"What?! That's unbelievable! I've seen people fail and take the damn test multiple times." Ibiki slightly smirked at Kiba.
"Well, I guess he lucked out and you didn't. I'm the proctor for the first portion this year; my rules are set in stone." This was what Ibiki had responded with.
"So, what will you say? Chicken out? Or will you be brave enough to answer the question?" There was a little pause before the first person conceded.
"I chicken out," said the man, getting escorted out of the room alongside his own teammates. This also brought a massive change to the atmosphere all around them.
"I chicken out."
"I chicken out."
"I chicken out."
"I chicken out."
This was all what Naruto had heard for the past few minutes of thinking. He did not even show the slightest bit of worry to the outside world.
Ibiki noticed this.
"How about you? Will you chicken out?" Ibiki asked Naruto. He raised eyebrow, just wondering if the proctor talking to a participant is against the rules of the exams.
"What's there to be worrying about?"
"Failing," said Ibiki, responding to Naruto's question almost immediately after Naruto had asked the. . . said question. Naruto shrugged, not caring about such a thing.
"Hm? There are more things that I can worry about than just me failing." The room was listening to this conversation with much intent.
"Oh? And that is?"
"Letting an Ichiraku Ramen coupon expire." Most of the class dead-panned at such an answer. Oh, this conversation took an unexpected turn of events.
"Hm. I guess we differ in views on what we should worry about." Ibiki walked away and stood at the front of the classroom once more. He coughed once to catch their attention.
It seems that brat's words gave them a backbone. Ibiki thought, knowing that no one else was going to falter and chicken out of the exam anytime soon.
Ibiki looked right around the classroom just one more time before nodding his head.
It seems there are more genin passing this first part than I had expected. 78. Ibiki thought, looking towards the sentinels. They nodded right towards him.
Ibiki took a deep breath before saying,
"Well, congratulations. You pass the first test."
~~~
DONE! This shall be the end of the chapter for today. Damn. I had to delay the update for this chapter by a day. Here we are now. Sadge.
Anyway, this chapter was quite long — very long. This chapter has over 3600+ words in it. Haha. . . I thought I would only make it up to the 3000 mark and stop there.
Guess i was wrong.
Next chapter will be the start of the Forest of Death.
Anyway, this shall be it for now. You know the drill.
If you want, vote for this chapter. It is very much appreciated if you do so. But it is not needed.
But until next time.
CYA!