She gets up in the morning at her usual time—when she hears the boiler room kick into action. It's right below her room. Then she eats leftover rice and adds miso paste to a cup of boiled water.
She decides to take the Academy entrance exam.
Honōka arrives on time, early enough to watch the other kids and their guardians sign up for the entrance exam. They're all recognizable as 'ninja folk'. She's worried she needs a parent's permission or signature—that would make sense—but there are several kids that are clearly signing up by themselves.
She approaches the desk and a ninja in a bulky green vest with rectangular glasses gestures for her to come forward.
"Are you here with a guardian?"
"No."
He pushes a stack of sheets her way.
"Do you need help filling these out?"
"No, thank you."
She takes them to an empty table and picks a fountain pen out of a cup. Mostly, it's a disclaimer. It's… well. The less said, the better she'll feel. Honōka knew going to a ninja academy wasn't going to be a walk in the park. She's entitled to a genin apartment though, should she need it, which is neat. She signs off on the document and brings it back to the man at the desk.
He looks it over, surprised approval curling on his lip. "Nice handwriting, kid." He takes up his pen, tapping it in a corner. "Let's see… Tsunemori Honō… or would it be Enka?"
Ack. She thought so. For whatever reason, Hiragana and Katakana are favored over Kanji. She's seen her brother spell their last name in Hiragana, and his first name, Ichimaru, in Katakana.
"Tsunemori Honōka is correct."
He writes it down at the top of her signed document.
"Do you like calligraphy, Honōka-kun?"
She considers.
"It's okay."
He laughs.
"Kind of boring, right?"
She nods.
He accepts her forms and puts them in a box with the others, then he gives her a slip of paper with her name (spelled how is common) and a number.
He points to a door. "Go on in and take seat number twenty-two."
She follows his direction and is ushered into a very large classroom by another man, also wearing a bulky green vest. There are three seats for each desk. Hers is the outside chair at the eighth desk, near the middle of the room.
She's feeling a bit nervous now. She knows how to read and write, but she knows next to nothing about ninja or being a shinobi.
A few short minutes later, the classroom is nearly full. A boy with goggles runs in panting and the two men in the bulky green vests follow behind, shutting and locking the door.
They hand out the written examination, face down and with the instruction to keep it that way until they say so. No one peeks—which is surprising. Everyone here is five years old, or thereabout. She can't remember if five-year-olds are supposed to be this well behaved.
"Turn your exams over. You may begin."
Everyone turns their exams over. Well. It is a different world.
She reads the entire exam before she answers a single question and is relieved to find it's mostly common sense… maybe. The math questions are simple. For the parts concerning this world's history she writes 'I don't know'.
The essay is hit or miss—it asks her what one thing she would change about their village if she could.
She considers and goes with universal education. Knowledge is power, and the more people in the village with a higher level of education would mean greater leaps and bounds in the village's infrastructure, as well as new innovations in existing trades and occupations. She finishes with 'This one change would encourage many changes, for the better.'.
The hour ends and the exams are collected, regardless of completion or not.
Next, they explain a simple exercise, dubbed the leaf sticking exercise. It's concentration practice.
The examiners hand out the leaves, and everyone tilts their head back to balance their leaf first. A few kids just stick it to their forehead, where it remains, as if glued.
Hers keeps slipping off, and the examiners are making rounds, tilting some heads up straight to see if it really sticks or not.
She thinks of tai chi, and how even in movement there is stillness. Her desk mate nudges her with a stray elbow and her leaf shoots (propelled?) halfway across the classroom. The examiner closest to her writes something on his clipboard and gives her a new leaf. Her cheeks feel hot.
They're only given about fifteen minutes to demonstrate their ability with the leaf sticking exercise, after which they are herded outside. She is unable to make the leaf stick in that time.
Another class of kids are just heading back to the classroom across from them. The year ahead, most likely.
Taijutsu is up next. Might Guy yells excitedly when the examiners announce it.
The examiners line them up before going around with padded targets, giving everyone a chance to punch, then kick it. Some kids go the extra mile and strike ferociously multiple times. Honōka punches hard and lands a solid kick. Better to just show that she knows how to make a single hit matter.
Guy is extra, extra.
Then they pair everyone off. Half the exam group goes to one examiner, and the other half to the second.
Guy gets paired up with a smaller boy with silver grey hair wearing a mask covering his face from the bridge of his nose down. She wonders if it's comfortable.
And she's worried for the smaller boy—until he flattens Guy in two strikes.
She pays attention to her own spar then. She's up against a boy with cool hair, who until just then was waiting for her to make the first move.
He doesn't seem to want to hit her all that bad, so she jūdō throws him. The examiner calls their match.
They switch up the pairs, and she ends up against the small boy. She bows to him.
The examiner says go and the boy charges at her—fast! She lifts her leg in a sharp axe kick and he catches it across his forearm and shoulder without flinching. He's not bracing his face.
Between one thought and the next, she jumps off, using the anchor point to pivot and nails him in the jaw with the side of her other foot.
She hits the ground on the flat of her back and is quickly up again. The boy recovers slower, picking himself up while holding his face, stunned.
The examiner with the glasses inserts himself between the two of them, calling their match. He moves onto another set of kids, and she offers her hand to the boy to help him up.
He eyes her hand warily, but takes it. He backs away after finding his feet and stubbornly does not rub his jaw.
The examiners announce the next part of the exam: ninjutsu. They ask the kids to perform one of three techniques—Henge no Jutsu, Kawarimi no Jutsu, or Bunshin no Jutsu.
She doesn't know the first thing about any of these techniques, but she's not the only one.
Guy attempts a bunshin, but nothing happens. The boy from before makes two identical clones appear. The examiner gets to her and she shakes her head.
Eventually, they get through the entire group and are brought back to the classroom, where they take their seats again.
"Alright! This is the last portion of the exam. Genjutsu!" the man with the glasses is very enthusiastic about this. Whether it's because it's the end or something else, Honōka wouldn't know. "We're going to cast a very general genjutsu on you all now. Those who are able may break the illusion using Genjutsu Kai. All this technique requires is for you to disrupt your flow of chakra. Anyone can do it if they try hard enough!"
The other examiner sighs out loud. "If you can't do it, but recognize that you're in a genjutsu, do your best to raise your hand. Half the battle is recognizing when you've been put under a genjutsu."
Then, he makes a series of complex gestures with his hands—seals—and most of the class goes doe eyed.
A few kids immediately raise their hands, index and middle fingers up, and either say 'kai' or just focus. Guy's head droops and he folds over his desk, mouth wide open. A few more kids raise their hands, still looking unfocused.
The examiners are writing on their clipboards again. Honōka scrunches her eyebrows together. She… can't tell if this is an illusion or not. Has anything changed?
They start from either side of the room, saying 'pass' or 'fail' to the kids one by one. Those who broke free pass—those who rose their hands also pass. Anyone still staring off into the distance or outright asleep fails. They have to tap those kids on the shoulder to break them out of it.
The examiner with the glasses gets to her and taps her on the shoulder. "Fail."
"Excuse me, what was the illusion?" she asks. It must have been something subtle, right? Maybe an extra student or something? Was she also looking around in a daze?
The examiner's lips turn down a smidgen, showing a touch of confusion.
"Well, it varies person by person—it should have been something comforting to you, something that would make you content to let your guard down. It's why some people fall asleep."
She frowns.
"Nothing changed though."
The examiners glance at each other. The entire group is out of the illusion now, and several kids are looking at her curiously.
The taller ninja shrugs and takes a stance in front of her. He makes deliberate eye contact that she struggles to keep as he makes two hand seals.
But nothing happens. She counts fifteen seconds before he asks her if there's anything.
"Nothing changed."
"Well, that's weird."
The examiners look at each other again.
"Pass?"
"Pass," the other agrees, "definitely pass."
That's a relief, considering she couldn't do anything for the ninjutsu aspect of the exam. It's all down to how well she did on the written exam, her taijutsu skills, and whatever this was.
They announce the exam is over, and that they will post the results in three days' time. Class will begin the week after—the second week of April.