"I'm Ibiki Morino, proctor of the first stage of the Chunin Exam."
The crowd of Genin turned to stare at him in silence and he pointed his finger at the back of the group.
"You! Genin from the Sound Village! No doing as you please before the Exam! Unless you want to be failed before we've even begun?"
Team Dosu turned to look at the scarred man, and Dosu cleared his throat slightly.
"Sorry. It's our first time taking the Exams, so we flipped out... despite ourselves."
"Hmph." Ibiki chuckled slightly and he lowered his arm. "This is a good opportunity, so I'll say this now: There will be no battles, competitions, and the like without the permission of the proctors! And, even if you do get permission, actions that could lead to the death of an opponent will not be permitted."
Ibiki's eyes narrowed as he looked over the entire group and his expression darkened. "Any pig that screws with me will be disqualified immediately. Got it?!"
Most of the Genin furrowed their brows and met the intense look with one of their own, remaining silent.
Zaku smirked slightly and crossed his arms. "This Exam looks like it's going to be too easy."
The proctors chuckled to themselves and the corners of their mouths twitched in smirks as they watched the haughty Genin.
"Now then," Ibiki continued. "We will finally start the first test of the Chunin Exam. Turn in your applications now, take one of these number cards in exchange," He held up a small with the bold number one on it for them to see. "And then, sit in the seat corresponding with that number. After you've done that, we will hand out the paper for the written test."
"Written...?" Naruto repeated under his breath. "Paper...? Paper...?"
Kotetsu held up a stack of papers with a smirk, giving them a little shake as the candidates looked at him.
"A p-paper test?!" Naruto's stammered and his eyes widened, his face paling slightly.
After every candidate had turned in their application and sat, the tests were placed in front of each of them with the backs up. Once the room quieted, the proctor's assistance all sat in chairs on either side of the room with a clipboard and watched the candidates carefully.
Naruto gulped at his seat as he looked around the room and made a face. "Everyone's seats are all scattered... what should I do?" He gulped again and clutched at his head.
"He's deflating..." Sakura watched Naruto clutch his head and rest his forehead on the desk, then she smiled to herself as she sat two rows behind him. "It's the worst type of test for Naruto..." She laughed quietly under her breath.
"Naruto..." Hinata mumbled quietly and looked at him as she sat to his right.
"Huh?" He sat up slightly to look at her. "Oh, you're Hinata. Since when were you...?"
She blushed faintly and averted her eyes for a moment and looked back to him. "L-Let's both do our best."
"Yeah." Naruto smiled back at her and her blush deepened. "I didn't notice her there at all until she spoke up... she has no presence at all..."
Ibiki picked up a piece of chalk and tapped the blackboard with it, making a small dot.
"There are several important rules to this first test." He began. "I will take no questions, so listen well accordingly!"
"Rules" Sakura looked up at him and furrowed her brows. "No questions will be taken?"
"First, we have the first rule." Ibiki turned to the board and began to write. "You are given ten points each from the start! The written test has ten problems in all! Each problem is worth one point. And, this test is a point deduction system." He turned around and rested on hand on his hip as he looked out at the classroom. "You are deducted one point for each problem you get wrong!"
"So," He continued. "If you get three wrong, you'll have seven points."
"And if I get ten wrong, I'll have zero points..." Naruto held his chin and squinted in thought, then nodded to himself.
"Which brings us to the second rule." Ibiki narrowed his eyes slightly. "Passing or failing will be determined by the total points of the three-man squads."
A collective gasp filled the room and each of the team's expressions shifted in surprise or arrogance.
Sakura's eyes widened and she hit her head on the desk and clenched her fists. She looked back up quickly at the proctor.
"W-Wait a minute! What do you mean... total points of the teams?"
"Shut up!" Ibiki narrowed his eyes. "There's a perfectly good reason for this! So just shut up and listen!"
"Reason?" Sakura pressed her lips together, her forehead throbbing slightly as she settled back into her seat.
"If you've got it, here's the most important next rule! Those who are deemed by the sentinels as having committed an act of cheating or something similar to that... will have two points deducted for each act."
Ibiki smirked and several candidates glanced at the Chunin sitting on either side of the room along the walls.
"What...?" The boy next to Sakura blinked and made a face.
"Huh?" Sakura blinked slowly.
"In other words..." Ibiki added. "There may be those who will be dismissed during the test without waiting for test grading."
Other Genin looked around in silence and Sakura furrowed her brows.
"This means they're deducting points from other things beside the written test problems."
"Know that those who commit awkward cheating... will only bring ruin upon yourselves."
Kotetsu narrowed his eyes at a candidate that watched him and then smirked. "I'll check you anytime."
Several Genin gulped and looked at Kotetsu.
"If you aspire to become a Chunin at all, know that Shinobi should act like exemplary Shinobi." Ibiki crossed his arms.
Sakura rested her chin on her hands and her elbows on the desk. "Relax...! Naruto aside, Sasuke and I are okay. Even if Naruto gets zero points, if we can cover that..."
"And, in the event that one person on the team gets zero points..." Ibiki stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat. "Everyone on that team will fail!"
"What?!" Sasuke's eyes widened and he froze in his seat.
"What?!" Sakura screwed up her face in a combination of shock, disgust, and anger.
"Oh no..." Naruto gulped and paled, a bead of sweat already forming on his brow as his stomach turned. "I feel two menacing stares..."
"N-Naruto?" Hinata looked at his pained expression and frowned slightly.
"By the way, the last problem will be given forty-five minutes after the start of the test." All eyes turned to Ibiki. "The time for the test is one hour."
He glanced up at the clock and watched the second hand ticking. It sat at twelve, and he looked out at the Genin.
"Begin!"
Their eyes widened and everyone quickly picked up their pencils, turned their papers over, and began to work. The sound of graphite on paper filled the otherwise silent room and Sakura stared down at the paper and swallowed.
"Could it be... that the fat is really on the fire now...?" She glanced at the back of Naruto's head and furrowed her brows. "Naruto...! Just don't get zero points!"
"Tch." Sasuke narrowed his eyes and glanced over at where Naruto sat on the other side of the room, clutching his head. "That Naruto isn't getting jitters from the get-go, is he?"
"This is so bad..." Naruto gulped, shutting his eyes tightly as he clutched his head. He chuckled to himself. "As if! I know I've cleared many obstacles like this before..." He held up the paper in his hands. "At times like this, one should look at all the problems without feeling pressed or making a fuss! And then, with the utmost effort, I should tackle the problems that look the easiest to understand!"
He began to read over the questions while grinning to himself.
"Let's see, the first problem... is a code text. Eh... Excellent, I say!"
He sat with a grin, holding his pencil over the paper for a while, before blinking.
"Nevermind. Next one. Let's see... the second problem..."
"The parabola B in the diagram illustrates the greatest possible distance Enemy Ninja A can through his Shuriken from a tree seven meters high..." Sasuke read the second problem in his head and furrowed his brows. "Predict and answer the Enemy Ninja's character inferred from the Ellipse this Shuriken forms, and also answer the longest firing range in battle on flat ground, and explain your basis."
"T-This is an... integrated problem based on predictions of uncertain conditions and dynamic energy analysis application!" Sakura looked up from her paper back at Naruto. "There's no way he can solve this! I mean... hardly anyone but me can solve this problem!"
"Uh... next!" Naruto skipped the second question and looked over the third.
"These other problems..." Sakura reviewed the other questions. "Are nothing but difficult ones."
Naruto's grin fell and his expression fell and darkened.
"Hmph." Sasuke finished reviewing the last question and smirked to himself. "I see... I don't understand a single one of these problems..."
Naruto clutched his head tightly and squeezed his eyes shut as they watered. "Oh, man! This is so bad! For real! For real! What should I do? What should I do? What should I do?!"
Hinata looked at Naruto from the corner of her eye.
"If about ten of all fifty-one teams are able to pass this, it will be bad if I didn't stretch myself and get a considerable amount of points." Sakura moved a piece of her hair out of her face. "It's like a system inviting cheating... I hope Sasuke and Naruto won't panic and try to cheat." She smiled slightly and looked forward at the blond. "It's okay... Naruto's not that much of an idiot. I know that..."
"Don't panic..." Naruto gritted his teeth and clutched the pencil tightly in his hand and stared down at his paper. "For now, all there is to do is be very, very cautious... and cheat without being found out!"
Ibiki paced slowly in the front of the room and turned slightly to glance at Naruto, who sat idle. Naruto paled and smacked himself in the head.
"No! No! I can't! That's no good! I can't tread on such thin ice!"
Sasuke glanced over at the sentinels on the side of the room. "At any rate, this elaborate fuss... it's like a trick assuming that we're going to cheat. They probably check with that paper..."
One of the men scribbled something on his clipboard and Sasuke narrowed his eyes.
"Somebody got nailed." He turned back to his test. "Cheating deducts two points... a two-point deduction, huh? Ordinarily, it'd be a failure the moment the cheating was discovered..." His eyes widened suddenly and remembered Ibiki's words.
"Know that those who commit awkward cheating... will only bring ruin upon yourselves... Shinobi should act like exemplary Shinobi."
Sasuke clenched his jaw. "I see. So that's how it is. This isn't just an achievement test! The real aim is... a test to see the ability for intensive information collection with the full use of deception and concealment techniques. 'Shinobi should read the double bluff,' huh? In other words... the true intention of the proctor is... if you're going to cheat, not 'awkward cheating,' but like 'exemplary Shinobi' to not get caught."
Sasuke glanced up at the board where Ibiki's three rules were still written.
"Viewed in this light, the extraordinariness of the point deduction system, the lenience of only deducting two points for each discovery of cheating makes sense. In other words... what's being tested is how we can gather the correct answers without having our cheating discovered by the proctors or by the ones being cheated on." He glanced back over at Naruto. "Realize it quickly, Naruto! It'll turn into a fatal mistake! Realize it!"
Naruto trembled in his seat with his legs shaking uncontrollably as sweat dripped down his pale face and he stared blankly ahead.
"T-This is bad..."
"If the purpose of this test is seeing the ability to gather information... then, there should be someone in this classroom somewhere..." Sasuke looked around the room and furrowed his brows. "Who knows the answers to all the problems..."
Gaara held his hand over his paper and a small amount of sand gathered beneath.
Kankuro glanced over to look at where Gaara sat, then looked away. "Soo, Gaara has also started, eh..." He closed his eyes and let out a short breath. "Hmph... I'm counting on you, Crow."
Along the wall where the other proctors sat was a false proctor, wearing the clothes and matching Leaf headband as the others. It turned its head as if checking the students.
Akamaru sat on top of Kiba's head and looked around at those around them, then softly barked a few times. Kiba chuckled to himself and started to write as he whispered. "Woo hoo. Good boy, Akamaru! Next is problem four."
Dosu sat with his eyes closed and listened carefully to the candidate writing steadily in the seat behind him. "Judging from this rhythm... the stroke order... and the number of strokes... I see." Keeping his eyes closed, he brought his pencil down to the paper and imitated the writing exactly on his own test.
A fly sat on a table, overlooking the writing of a candidate from carefully. After a few moments, the boy noticed the insect and waved it away and it flew off and perched on the tip of Shino's extended finger.
"Okay. Please tell me." He stared down at the small insect carefully and it flew above his paper, circling above it in a pattern. "Eight, is it?"
Tenten glanced upward at a group of mirrors held on the ceiling with Kunai and adjusted the angles with wires tied around her fingers as she filled in the answers reflected. "Lee, if you can see it, wear your headband!"
Lee glanced up from his blank paper to see the mirror that reflected Kiba's test, and he removed his headband from around his waist and wore it at his forehead as a signal, then began to fill in the sheet.
Naruto gripped his hair tightly and rested his head on the desk, sweating continuously as he trembled and glared at the paper before him. "Time is rapidly going by! Oh, man! I'm afraid all there is left to do is cheat...!" He sighed and rested his chin in his hand and opened his eyes. "But if I'm discovered, it'll be trouble for Sakura and Sasuke..." He gritted his teeth. "But on the other hand, if I get zero points... Sasuke and Sakura will be my companions in failure..."
"N-Naruto..." Hinata whispered and looked over at him.
He blinked and looked over at her and she blushed as his eyes fell on her.
"I'll show you... my test." She whispered.
"Huh?" He blinked again and sat up. "What is Hinata saying...? Why would she do such a thing for me?" His brows furrowed slightly. "Could it be...? Some kind of trick? But... I don't think Hinata is one to do something like that..." He looked down at his paper and made a face. "But... she might've been coaxed into it by Kiba and that other guy on her team..."
"Hinata, let me ask you one thing." Naruto whispered and looked at her from the corner of his eye. "Why would you show me?"
She blushed and balled her hand and trembled slightly. "I... uh... actually..." She gulped and looked at him. "I... don't want you to have to leave at this stage..."
"Huh?"
"I mean..." Her blush deepened and she gulped again. "You see... the nine of us are the only rookies... and I have many anxieties about what's to come, so...!"
Naruto smiled at her and nodded slightly as he whispered back, chuckling quietly under his breath. "Now I get it. I was kind of strangely suspicious of you at first."
"Anyhow, this is crazy lucky, I say!" Naruto grinned to himself and turned away from her. "Thank goodness I ended up next to Hinata..."
Hinata looked away from Naruto and shifted her paper so that he could see. Naruto continued to grin as he tilted his head slightly to peek.
A Kunai shot from the front of the room, narrowly missing Naruto's face as it pierced the test of the boy behind him and lodged into the desk. The boy leaned back with his eyes and mouth open in shock and all eyes around them turned to look at the Kunai.
Naruto paled slightly and trembled as a bead of sweat rolled down his brow. "W-W-What was that? I was about to turn..."
The boy gulped and stared wide-eyed at the knife in front of him and then stood to look at Kotetsu.
"W-What was that for, s-sir?!"
Kotetsu smirked and crossed his arms. "You made five mistakes. You fail!"
The boy's eyes widened. "N-No way..."
Ibiki pointed at the boy and narrowed his eyes.
"His two buddies, both of you get out of the classroom right now."
Two others stood up slowly, staring down as they sighed and slowly walked to the door and left. Naruto gulped and remained fixed in place, gulping and relaxed slightly as the boy followed his teammates out and the door closed behind them.
"Number twenty-three fails!" Another proctor called out, and Naruto's eyes widened.
"Numbers forty-three and twenty-seven fail!" Another added.
They stood and quietly left the room, though one had to be dragged out, shouting loudly in protest as the proctors removed him.
"Hey, hey!" Another boy slammed his hand on the desk and gritted his teeth. "Do you have proof that I cheated five whole times?! Really, how efficiently are you guys properly checking this number of people...?"
A proctor with bandages wrapped around his head pinned the boy against the wall suddenly with his elbow and smirked.
"Hey, listen up." The proctor narrowed his gaze at the Genin, who swallowed and kept quiet. "Even among us Chunin, we're elites who were selected for this Exam specifically. We don't even overlook you blinking a single time." He lowered his arm, freeing the boy, and stuck his hand into his pocket. "In a manner of speaking, this strength is the proof."
The majority of the classroom stared at the commotion, not daring to speak or move. Naruto trembled and stared at the Genin as he slid down the wall, disheartened and wholly defeated. Hinata frowned slightly and looked at him.
"Naruto?" She whispered. "Hurry up and look..."
Naruto looked down at her paper and his eyes widened as he heard the sound of a pencil writing quickly. He looked to see Izumo out of the corner of his eye, writing something down quickly on his clipboard. Once he was finished, he smirked and met Naruto's eyes.
Naruto gulped and turned to quickly focus on his paper as his hands started to tremble again. He smiled weakly and glanced at Hinata from the corner of his eyes and whispered.
"Hinata, you don't get it... do you?"
"H-Huh?"
Naruto smiled and pointed at himself with the pencil. "An awesome Ninja like me won't cheat. Believe it!"
"N-Naruto..." She paused and glanced at his blank test. "B-But..."
"Also, if something went wrong..." Naruto's smile faded and his expression became serious. "You'd be in a hot spot for helping me, right?
Hinata's eyes widened and she blushed. "N-Naruto..." She blinked and quickly looked back at her paper, her face flushing deeper. "S-Sorry... I did something uncalled for..."
"Heh..." Naruto chuckled and turned his eyes back down to the test. "Nah, it's okay." He turned his face away from her, his eyes watering as he made a face. "I went and acted big... what am I going to do now? I'm extremely stupid."
Sakura glanced up at the clock and leaned closer to her paper, turning her eyes to the last problems and began to solve them.
Neji closed his eyes briefly and exhaled and opened them again. "Byakugan!" He looked through the boy in front of him at the completed test, and then began to copy down the answers.
Sasuke furrowed his brows and activated his Sharingan and focused one the person in front of him who was steadily writing. "I'll just copy all of his movements!" Sasuke smirked as his hand moved on its own. "My hand is moving fluently... I hit the jackpot straight away with this guy."
Ino smirked faintly and looked at where Sakura sat several rows ahead. "Sakura, it looks like you're done already, huh? I'm acknowledging that your smarts are as exceptional as your forehead is wide. SO, you should thank me." She held up a hand sign and narrowed her eyes. "Thank me for getting to be the target of this Jutsu. Ninja Art! Mind Transfer Jutsu!" She formed a second hand sign and pointed it at Sakura.
Sakura's body slumped for a moment, and then sat up with a grin as Ino had taken control.
"So, Ino started using that Jutsu..." Shikamaru sighed softly with his chin resting in his hand.
"There's no countering that Jutsu of Ino's..." Choji glanced over at her limp body and narrowed his eyes.
"Sakura, I let myself move into your mind for just a little bit." Ino, as Sakura smirked, then held up the paper to review and memorize each of the answers. "Then, I can pass these answers to Choji."
"Number fifty-nine fails!" A proctor chuckled as he announced it.
"Number thirty-three and nine!" Another called out.
Kabuto narrowed his eyes and watched the failed Genin leave the room, almost squinting without his glasses. "This is the thirteenth group to fail already."
"Number forty-one fails."
"Number thirty-five and sixty-two... fail!"
"No way!" A boy complained before being escorted out of the room with his teammates
Gaara continued to gather a small amount of sand in his palm, forming a small orb, and he reached over with his right hand to cover his left eye.
"That brat... he just coolly proceeds through this chaos without moving an eyelash." Ibiki stood at the front of the room with his hands in the pocket of his coat and narrowed his gaze at the red-haired Suna Genin and then smirked. "Very well done considering he's new.
The ball of sand in Gaara's hand shifted in appearance to become an eye. After a moment, it looked around the room and its vision became clear.
"The optic nerves are connected... the third eye opens."
Gaara squeezed the eye and is became sand, then scattered into the air in a radius around him
"Ugh!" A Leaf Genin rubbed his eyes and dropped his pencil as sand irritated his eyes. "There's something in my eyes... Damn it! It won't come out!"
The sand reformed into an eyeball over the nearly completed test and looked from question-to-question as the boy was distracted.
With his free hand, Gaara picked up his pencil and began to write down the answers onto his own test.
"Excuse me." Kankuro raised his hand after glancing over at Gaara.
"What is it?" A proctor crossed his arms to look at him.
"I need to go to the restroom." Kankuro lowered his arm and shrugged slightly.
The proctor sighed and stood, then beckoned Kankuro over. He placed a set of handcuffs on the boy and another proctor tied the end of a thin rope to the cuffs.
"I will accompany you to the bathroom."
"I see..." Kankuro forced a sheepish smile and obediently followed him out of the room.
Gaara set down his pencil and opened his left eye and watched Kankuro being led out of the room.
"Ah..." Kankuro chuckled as he relieved himself as his escort stood on the other side of the wall in the bathroom. "Those proctors are nothing special! They don't even realize that there's an extra in their ranks... don't you agree... Crow?"
Parts of the proctor's face crumbled like sand and cracked to reveal a portion of the puppet's true face. Kankuro smirked as he looked over at it, then washed his hands and was escorted back into the room.
Naruto gulped and stared up at the clock on the wall as the second hand continued to tick rapidly. "Forty minutes hand passed since the test started... only twenty minutes left now... huh?" He glanced down and furrowed his brows. "Since it's come to this, it's the last problem to be given forty-five minutes after the start of the test. All there's left to do is bet on this. Believe it."
He glanced back at the clock and gulped again.
"Everything depends on the tenth question..."