Notice: I do not own Naruto, and make no claims of copyright on the
characters who are not my property. Original characters, however, are mine.
Author's Notes: And now, the Chuunin exam begins! I've done my best to both be original and keep things in the spirit of the actual exam that occurred in Naruto. This chapter and subsequent chapters are going to be kind of long, but they sort of have to be, so hopefully its okay.
Anyways, thanks to reviewers, and hope you enjoy this! New commentators encouraged!
Within Stone Halls
"Pay close attention as I explain what is about to happen." The examiner, Kiri, began. "You will not be given any extra time to digest the rules or question the examiners." She said in her energetic and quick voice. "This is how it works, two teams in this room aren't genins at all, but chuunins, you genin have to figure out which one of those teams it is and then submit your answer to one of the examiners by writing it down on their form."
Two teams of chuunins? Neji was already beginning to consider the options, who it might be, but Kiri was far from done.
"That's the objective, but here are the rules. First, all members of a team must submit their answer at the same time, but each one will sign a different form. If the answers a team gives are different, then they fail."
So, we all have to have the same answers, but why wouldn't we all agree on the best choice? Neji wondered.
Kiri quickly made the purpose of the prior rule apparent. "While this is going on any team that is noted to reveal what they decide to another team will have their entire team disqualified immediately. There are no second chances."
We can't reveal what we decide, but any team can spy on us and not be punished. Neji recognized it immediately. Any team that talks or discusses their choices could easily give up the answer to another team, who can reduce their risk by spying on someone. We can't communicate openly!
"You will have thirty minutes to determine who the masquerading chuunins are. The examiners are coming around to give each team numbers that you will wear front and back. Those are the designations we will use."
"Is that all?" A nameless ninja barked from Neji's left, apparently impatient.
"No! Idiot!" Kiri turned and shouted at him. "Listen when I'm talking to you. Here's the rest of it. You can all move around and do whatever you want in this room, but fighting is not permitted. Anyone who fights, attacks, or threatens another team will be ejected from this exam and tossed out of the village to face the blizzards. Do I make myself clear?" The genin cringed and nodded. "Good." Kiri paused, and here voice lost all seriousness, becoming quite happy and personable. "Oh, if you turn the exam in and get the choice wrong you will be disqualified from the exam, but if you turn in the exam and your answers don't match the rest of your team's you'll never be allowed to take the chuunin exam here in Stone ever again. If you aren't confident that you'll have the same answers, when the thirty minutes are up you will have one minute to decide not to submit them and leave the exam on your own." She smiled at them all. "Okay, the clock on the wall is the arbiter, when the second hand strikes twelve...begin!"
Neji's mind leapt forward, categorizing everything the examiner had said. Obviously, just like the last exam the purpose of this exam is somewhat masked. I doubt they really care about whether or not we discover who the chuunins are. They are trying to measure something with how the test is set up. Let's see. Neji thought about it for a moment, and then had it figured out. Cheating is freely allowed, and those who are cheated on are the ones who loose, so they are trying to test our skills at operating secretly. Also, they insist that we have the same answers, or we'll be forbidden to ever take the exam here again. This woman's not like Ibiki, she's said it from the beginning, to let us stew in it. With the restriction on communication it will be impossible to be sure what teammates will write down. We have to trust them absolutely. Neji didn't like that realization. It instantly infected him with a knawing doubt. Do I trust them? He wondered. Never mind. He told himself. Decide that later; figure out who the chuunins are now.
"Shiren, Gosain." He looked at his companions. "Do you have ways to investigate this?"
They both nodded. "Alright then." Neji told them. "Fifteen minutes to figure out who it is."
They other two nodded again. Gosain stood up immediately, and turned to the ninja next to him. "I'm Kabure Gosain." He told the boy, a Stone ninja, and bowed.
The other ninja hesitantly bowed back. Gosain stuck out his hand, and didn't even wait more than a second before moving to the next ninja over as the youth stuck his own hand out hesitantly. He then repeated the process with the next ninja down.
Clever, Gosain. Neji noted. You're trying to measure their reactions and responses, to see if they act as a chuunin would or a Genin would. He noticed that Gosain started wandering randomly and varied his approach routine. You must figure that if you put them off balance you can tell if they're a chuunin or not. Knowing that Gosain had working with many chuunin, Neji decided that the Cloud Ninja was using an effective strategy.
Shiren did something rather different. She stood in the center of the room, pulled seven shuriken, and started to juggle them. This drew some dark looks at the examiners, but she didn't throw any of them, just juggled them. After a few moments though, she secretly snatched the seventh shuriken out of the air and held it in her left hand. Her movement was so fast and assured Neji was certain very few people caught it, but it wasn't as fast as Shiren could have moved. She's predicting a chuunin would notice, and they probably would if they were paying attention. Then Shiren started to motion with the shuriken secretly, as if to throw, though she didn't throw all the while continuing to juggle. She's looking for the very slightest reaction. Neji decided. Any chuunin who notices will make some tiny movement; even knowing it's a ruse, since the reflex is ingrained. Shiren is sharp enough to catch that tiny moment of reflex.
So, the other two members of his team had chosen strategies that seemed likely to work, or at least to eliminate many contenders, and Neji knew that they would not bother with everyone. The number of potential chuunin here is quite small. Neji immediately began his own process to narrow it down. He immediately eliminated all the Waterfall ninja from his consideration, they had arrived as a group, and he knew there had been twenty-one beforehand. Likewise he didn't bother with the lightning ninja, relying on Gosain or Shiren to recognize anyone secreted among their number. The Byakugan emerged silently on his face, and Neji took in the Grass and Rain ninja, looking at those he recognized from before first, and eliminating them from possible consideration. Then he began to look deeply at those ninja, at the mist and sand ninja, and most importantly at the Stone ninja. The Grass, Rain, Sand and Mist contingents are two small to secrete someone in, the ninja from those villages would have a huge advantage, and none of them are using Henge to change their appearance. So, it must be the Stone ninja. Neji began to examine the chakra of those grubby mountain ninja as they moved about the room, conducting their own searches. A chuunin will have a certain amount of chakra at the minimum. Many of these will not have enough; they couldn't be chuunin, that's the first step to eliminate them.
Neji reduced the number of candidates from eighty-one to fifteen in a matter of seconds, simply based on the chakra they possessed. Five teams, well, hmm... Carefully he considered what to do next. He considered several things he might examine, motion, chakra control, alertness, and discarded a number of them in turn. He did look at chakra control in three of the five teams that moved about, and was able to eliminate one of them simply because the genin could not probably barely make jutsus work with such a level of control, and one of his teammates was hardly better. They were powerful, but unfocused, not chuunin. Still, that left four teams. Two of them will be chuunins, I'm certain of that, but what would reveal them? They should be young, and not particularly high ranking, with no major distinctive marks, which probably eliminates one of the teams, which seems to be an older group of genin, but that could be a trick. Still, there should be something I can see.
Then Neji had an inspiration. They are not wearing chuunin uniforms, but they should be used to doing so. The heavy winter uniforms worn here would leave distinctive patterns on the flesh, I wonder if they show them? Clothing was not an effective barrier to the Byakugan, not at Neji's level of sight, he could see into the flesh and the chakra circulatory system, and not patterns of resistance, and where they didn't line up with the clothes these ninja were wearing, but with the outlines of a chuunin uniform. He looked, and he saw.
Yes, that team of two women and one man, all three wearing the same rock gray and circulating quietly, they have the marks of chuunin uniforms. As for the older team, well, Neji was surprised, but they had a characteristic pattern that revealed clearly the back sword-harnesses they usually wore. ANBU! Neji was surprised. I didn't expect them to put three ANBU in here. I bet I'm the only one to notice. Shiren and Gosain's methods won't discern ninja of that caliber. So, the two teams bit was a trick then, you don't expect anyone to put the ANBU team's number. Still, Neji memorized both numbers, the more obvious Chuunin were team 38, and the ANBU were team 29. I'll need to put down 38, since that's what Shiren and Gosain will determine.
That conclusion came easily, but it sowed doubt within Neji's mind, a doubt that would be suddenly reinforced by a hurled kunai.
"You!" An examiner's voice spoke. "Get out, you're done here!" The chuunin gestured at one of the Rain ninja.
"What?" The cruel faced genin said through a breathmask. "What for?"
"Another team found out what you were telling your fellows, so get moving." The examiner answered.
"How can you say that-"He began to protest, but a barehanded slap knocked him to the ground with a sickening thud.
"Didn't I say you'd be failed immediately if you failed to follow instructions." Kiri looked at the prone chuunin, who obviously had a broken nose and perhaps more damage. "You've just failed on two counts, so pack up your teammates and get lost, kay?" She smiled with viscous happiness.
Five minutes had passed.
Neji watched the Rain ninja leave, getting dragged off by his disappointed teammates. He was the first, but not the last.
Already knowing the answer, Neji did his best to chart Shiren and Gosain's progress in their own endeavors. The two switched information-gathering techniques a few times, Gosain took to making viscous handshakes and crushing eye contact, while Shiren watched the progress of several other teams for a bit before going back to another ranged routine. They seemed to be proceeding through the Stone ninja swiftly enough. The dragon ninja also observed the two teams of chuunin, both the more apparent false ones and the ANBU. The targets were simply being mysterious, muttering nonsense to other teams that didn't really seem to be leading anywhere and gave the appearance of a team with weak information gathering skills. But the ANBU...They're trying to make teams fail! The older ninja were going out of their way to surreptitiously give other teams away by making them vulnerable to being overheard, or listening in on their conversations. Neji made a note of that. We can't try to communicate at all when the ANBU are around.
"My, boy, you haven't spoke to anyone at all yet, or even moved at all." A voice spoke from above Neji, the examiner, Kiri.
Of course, he could see her, his Byakugan revealed her perfectly, but he didn't feel it necessary to make that apparent. Still, he did not look up. "Each ninja is allowed his own methods I presume?"
"Awfully confident aren't you." She replied from above, letting Neji stare at her legs. "Well that's fine, Team 58, just make sure you know what your decision is going to be."
Before the fifteen minutes were up, out of fifty-eight teams, five had been thrown out. Neji knew that the process of throwing them out had only just begun. They will start talking to each other now, and then the numbers will really drop.
Gosain came back first, but Shiren followed only seconds on his heels. Both Cloud ninja looked nervous, and they gave Neji strange looks. For indeed, he hadn't moved a muscle during the whole fifteen minutes, though other ninja had walked up to him, spoken to him, even flashed weapons in front of his face. It was most disconcerting, a statue of a ninja with extraordinarily disturbing eyes sitting in the middle of the hall.
Gosain and Shiren sat in front of Neji.
"So, I'm..." Gosain began.
Neji held up a hand for silence immediately, ignoring the angry look on the older ninja's face. Sorry Gosain, Neji thought inwardly. We can't do anything until those ANBU move further away.
They waited a long two minutes. Then Neji spoke again, as quietly as possible. "Sorry, but things are not as they seem." He told the other two. "I need you to do exactly as I say. Find a way to indicate your findings, but no speech, no written words, nothing that can be seen."
They nodded, and looked at each other, then looked back at Neji.
Gosain put a hand to his chest, and Neji followed the movement. Then the chains beneath the ninja's flak jacket moved.
One by one Gosain placed a tiny bit of chakra through his pole and down the chain. One after another a link of chain would shake, a tiny motion, one that didn't ruffle his chest at all, to Shiren, or any other ninja, it appeared that nothing was happening.
Neji saw those links shake with his Byakugan, thirty-eight different shakes of the chain. He nodded.
"You! You're done!" A kunai flew over Neji's head, to land in front of the nearest ninja behind him, a stone ninja. It was not alone. Even as Gosain and Shiren settled their shaken nerves, examiners threw out another five teams in less than a minute.
Ten minutes to go.
Neji turned his head toward Shiren, a tiny movement. She reached into her shuriken pouch, a soft smile on her face.
Neji's vision saw behind Shiren's head, Kiri had turned her gaze their way.
His hand descended on Shiren's instantly, holding it in place. He shook his head. "It appears we are being too closely watched." He looked into her midnight eyes. "You did determine it?" He asked.
She nodded, the barest hint of a motion, and her smiled faded to a hollow one, dark and displeased. She was angry at being thwarted.
"So what do we do then?" Gosain hissed.
"We have confidence in each other's abilities. That's all we can do. Do you accept that?" He asked them both.
Shiren was the first to nod, openly; she didn't hold back her assurance. "I'm sure you're right Neji." She said softly. Neji found the vote of confidence tremendously strengthening. He tapped her hand, which he was still holding, in thanks and then let go.
"Fine." Gosain said, his voice was gruff and bitter, but he agreed, he knew there wasn't any other choice. "But what about you?"
Indeed, what do I think? Neji thought hard, abandoning even the Byakugan for a moment. He was absolutely certain of his choice, he knew he had discovered the teams; everything he saw in the past fifteen minutes had only confirmed it. Gosain has the right number, he was able to show me, and he wouldn't betray us and write the wrong one, Xi told me that much, there's too much riding for him on this exam, and its not his way to ever back down from a challenge like this. Shiren though, Shiren...Neji was troubled. He knew Gosain had the right number, but he would have to trust Shiren. It all depended on her, and she was the one least able to perform this task. Did she succeed? I don't know, I can't read her movements easily. It was not something Neji was used to, extending his trust to another, for a long time he had resisted it, considering only those who had a fate to equal him worth depending on. I'm not the same I was then. He knew, but he still couldn't decide easily.
Neji spent a long few minutes sitting there, even as the examiners threw out another seven team, and the deadline approached. Forty-one teams left. I can't back down. Neji knew that for sure. But should I make Shiren try to tell me, should I try to tell her? He looked up at Kiri with his own true eyes for the first time. He looked into her eyes, eyes like an eagle's looking for blood on the snow. No, he couldn't do that. He had to trust Shiren. Then, I will, Neji resolved.
"Ah." Neji told the two finally, but it was to Shiren he was speaking. "You're my team."
The lady cloud ninja gave him a warm smile at that moment, and Neji was taken aback, but his mind instantly focused back in the present when Kiri's voice rang out over the room.
"Time's up!" She said, and then went on without pausing. "You have one minute to get in line in front of an examiner. Keep in mind, if your numbers don't agree you can't take the exam here again, and I highly doubt that any jounin will sponsor you anywhere else, since you obviously can't work with a team if you can't come up with the same answers in such a simple situation."
"You're bluffing!" A grass ninja shouted. "They tried this same trick in Konoha!"
"Bluffing?" Kiri seemed taken aback, but she smiled at the young ninja. "I'm not bluffing. I gave the exam four years ago, and those genin who tried to out fox me like that are still genin. A ninja who can't work with a team is fit only to take orders. This isn't the leaf, which bends in the wind, this is Stone, and we are absolute." Her voice was completely serious during speech, rock hard and lacking any of the cloying tones she'd used before.
She's serious, totally serious. Neji hesitated for a moment, but he remembered Shiren's smile at him. No, I can't doubt her like this. The internal reply was instantaneous, he thought that, and he also realized a moment later that he didn't doubt her, indeed he felt horrid for even having imagined it. What sort of teammate am I?
For a few seconds nobody moved, but then a quivering lightning ninja stood and walked toward the door. "I withdraw." He said in trembling tones.
Kiri nodded, and the floodgates were opened. It took some courage to proclaim that you didn't trust your teammates so openly as the lone one, but it didn't take any courage to follow another ninja.
Everyone else stood and began to line up in front of the examiners. Neji's team stood behind a trio of Cloud ninja.
The first two wrote down their numbers of the sheets they were given simply, but the third hesitated as he bent over the desk, his eyes darting to those covered forms that had already been accepted, his hand shook, and then he dropped the pen. "I can't do it." He muttered, looking helplessly at his comrades.
The examiner had to vault over the desk to prevent him from being throttled by them. "Enough," He said sternly, holding the two ninja to the floor. "He's made his decision, so get out of here."
That examiner escorted them out, and another took his place.
Calmly Gosain, and then Shiren went forward and wrote down the numbers of the team they suspected as chuunins. After each wrote the chuunin placed the paper in a sealed box, so that no one could catch a glimpse. Then Neji stepped up to the desk. The examiner had the simple paper laid out in front, with only three lines on it, name, team, chuunin suspect they read. Neji calmly filled in his name and team number. He moved to add the number thirty-eight to the page.
"Are you sure you want to do that, Draci Neji?" Kiri's cloying voice sounded in his right ear. "This is your last chance."
Neji didn't bother to turn his head. "Don't overestimate yourself, examiner." He said.
Neji placed the pen down, and calmly wrote in the number 29 in clear script, so that both the chuunin in front of him, and Kiri next to him, could see it. Their eyes went wide, and then cruel, but he hadn't lifted the pen away. Calmly, Neji crossed over the mark and wrote 38 down in its place. He put the pen down and handed the paper to the examiner.
When he turned around Kiri was looking at him with a cold expression, her eyes scanning his face, evaluating him. "You're not what I expected Dragon Ninja." She said softly, so only he could hear. "Apologies for harassing you."
Neji nodded, and turned back to his teammates.
"Alright, everyone who's still here, sit down and get back in a circle! Move! Move!" Kiri shouted.
The genin scrambled to obey.
They made a much smaller circle, there were far fewer teams remaining.
A moment of silence passed, the only sound was that of the examiners shuffling papers. Then one of them came over to Kiri and spoke into her ear. Her expression grew grim. "Teams Five and Seventeen. Stand up and get the hell out of this village! You're numbers don't match each other." Team five was a team of Sand ninja, and they looked at the examiner with killing in their eyes. She stared straight back at them. They got up slowly, and walked imperiously out the door, never once glancing at each other. Team Nineteen consisted of three rookie ninja from Rain who looked devastated; they slowly slinked toward the door. "Oh change your damn ways and try Konoha," Kiri laughed at them. "Don't drag this out any longer than it has to be."
When they were gone she moved into the center of the circle. "The rest of you pass!" She announced.
There was a cry of surprise from several stone ninja and one of the cloud teams. The rest were silent.
"About what you expected it seems?" Kiri laughed. "Goes to show that only veterans come to play in the snow. However, don't think I'm discounting your answers; we looked at what teams were put down, and all of you answered with numbers we deemed correct, even if you didn't get the chuunin. Teams Thirty-Eight and Twenty-Nine, stand up and be recognized!" Kiri commanded.
The two teams of actually chuunin rose to their feet. "Hi" one of the members of team thirty-eight said.
"Twenty-nine? Impossible!" A Waterfall ninja shouted. "Those guys couldn't be chuunins."
"You're right, they're not normal chuunin, these guys are ANBU." Kiri explained. "Their purpose is to be un-findable, so that there's actually only one team of real chuunin you can detect. They also try to expose one team's discoveries to the eyes of others, making it easier on you. The actual Chuunin also make sure that their status is recognizable. Normally you would have to get the right answer, since it really isn't that hard, one in three of you should easily have the observation skills to either detect which team is which or steal the information from the other teams. The challenge in my exam is trusting your team members." Kiri laughed again. "Ninja have to operate in secret, unable to communicate in methods that can be detected, and they must trust each other absolutely. That's the twin aspects of this exam, to measure your ability to get information across while being monitored, and to see if you trust your teammates to know your thoughts and act as one."
"So why didn't our answers matter this time?" Again the question came from the Waterfall ninja.
"They did." Kiri laughed again. "I just chose to allow Team Fifty-Eight as an alternative choice, since they seem too suspicious. All of you either wrote down thirty-eight or fifty-eight."
Damn! Neji thought. Everyone is looking at us! We've just been pinpointed as one of the most dangerous teams. I was hoping to avoid this kind of attention. He met the stares stoically, without much reaction. Well, it seems we just acquired a handicap for the Second Exam.
While the others stared at him, Neji stared at the rest. Twenty-two teams remain. One team from Mist, two teams from Grass, a team from Rain, a team from Sand, three teams from Cloud, six teams from Stone, and...and...all seven teams from Waterfall? What?
Neji felt Shiren and Gosain stiffen beside him as they noticed the same thing. Not a single team dropped out? What's going on with them? Neji grimaced, and he felt anger rise. Those Waterfall ninja have managed to pull some trick, and I'm sure it doesn't end here.
Kiri stepped out of the circle then. "This concludes the First portion of the chuunin exam, she said in mock seriousness." She gestured at the chuunin examiners. "Somebody let the Second Examiner in already, he's impatient."
Author's Notes: And now, the Chuunin exam begins! I've done my best to both be original and keep things in the spirit of the actual exam that occurred in Naruto. This chapter and subsequent chapters are going to be kind of long, but they sort of have to be, so hopefully its okay.
Anyways, thanks to reviewers, and hope you enjoy this! New commentators encouraged!
Within Stone Halls
"Pay close attention as I explain what is about to happen." The examiner, Kiri, began. "You will not be given any extra time to digest the rules or question the examiners." She said in her energetic and quick voice. "This is how it works, two teams in this room aren't genins at all, but chuunins, you genin have to figure out which one of those teams it is and then submit your answer to one of the examiners by writing it down on their form."
Two teams of chuunins? Neji was already beginning to consider the options, who it might be, but Kiri was far from done.
"That's the objective, but here are the rules. First, all members of a team must submit their answer at the same time, but each one will sign a different form. If the answers a team gives are different, then they fail."
So, we all have to have the same answers, but why wouldn't we all agree on the best choice? Neji wondered.
Kiri quickly made the purpose of the prior rule apparent. "While this is going on any team that is noted to reveal what they decide to another team will have their entire team disqualified immediately. There are no second chances."
We can't reveal what we decide, but any team can spy on us and not be punished. Neji recognized it immediately. Any team that talks or discusses their choices could easily give up the answer to another team, who can reduce their risk by spying on someone. We can't communicate openly!
"You will have thirty minutes to determine who the masquerading chuunins are. The examiners are coming around to give each team numbers that you will wear front and back. Those are the designations we will use."
"Is that all?" A nameless ninja barked from Neji's left, apparently impatient.
"No! Idiot!" Kiri turned and shouted at him. "Listen when I'm talking to you. Here's the rest of it. You can all move around and do whatever you want in this room, but fighting is not permitted. Anyone who fights, attacks, or threatens another team will be ejected from this exam and tossed out of the village to face the blizzards. Do I make myself clear?" The genin cringed and nodded. "Good." Kiri paused, and here voice lost all seriousness, becoming quite happy and personable. "Oh, if you turn the exam in and get the choice wrong you will be disqualified from the exam, but if you turn in the exam and your answers don't match the rest of your team's you'll never be allowed to take the chuunin exam here in Stone ever again. If you aren't confident that you'll have the same answers, when the thirty minutes are up you will have one minute to decide not to submit them and leave the exam on your own." She smiled at them all. "Okay, the clock on the wall is the arbiter, when the second hand strikes twelve...begin!"
Neji's mind leapt forward, categorizing everything the examiner had said. Obviously, just like the last exam the purpose of this exam is somewhat masked. I doubt they really care about whether or not we discover who the chuunins are. They are trying to measure something with how the test is set up. Let's see. Neji thought about it for a moment, and then had it figured out. Cheating is freely allowed, and those who are cheated on are the ones who loose, so they are trying to test our skills at operating secretly. Also, they insist that we have the same answers, or we'll be forbidden to ever take the exam here again. This woman's not like Ibiki, she's said it from the beginning, to let us stew in it. With the restriction on communication it will be impossible to be sure what teammates will write down. We have to trust them absolutely. Neji didn't like that realization. It instantly infected him with a knawing doubt. Do I trust them? He wondered. Never mind. He told himself. Decide that later; figure out who the chuunins are now.
"Shiren, Gosain." He looked at his companions. "Do you have ways to investigate this?"
They both nodded. "Alright then." Neji told them. "Fifteen minutes to figure out who it is."
They other two nodded again. Gosain stood up immediately, and turned to the ninja next to him. "I'm Kabure Gosain." He told the boy, a Stone ninja, and bowed.
The other ninja hesitantly bowed back. Gosain stuck out his hand, and didn't even wait more than a second before moving to the next ninja over as the youth stuck his own hand out hesitantly. He then repeated the process with the next ninja down.
Clever, Gosain. Neji noted. You're trying to measure their reactions and responses, to see if they act as a chuunin would or a Genin would. He noticed that Gosain started wandering randomly and varied his approach routine. You must figure that if you put them off balance you can tell if they're a chuunin or not. Knowing that Gosain had working with many chuunin, Neji decided that the Cloud Ninja was using an effective strategy.
Shiren did something rather different. She stood in the center of the room, pulled seven shuriken, and started to juggle them. This drew some dark looks at the examiners, but she didn't throw any of them, just juggled them. After a few moments though, she secretly snatched the seventh shuriken out of the air and held it in her left hand. Her movement was so fast and assured Neji was certain very few people caught it, but it wasn't as fast as Shiren could have moved. She's predicting a chuunin would notice, and they probably would if they were paying attention. Then Shiren started to motion with the shuriken secretly, as if to throw, though she didn't throw all the while continuing to juggle. She's looking for the very slightest reaction. Neji decided. Any chuunin who notices will make some tiny movement; even knowing it's a ruse, since the reflex is ingrained. Shiren is sharp enough to catch that tiny moment of reflex.
So, the other two members of his team had chosen strategies that seemed likely to work, or at least to eliminate many contenders, and Neji knew that they would not bother with everyone. The number of potential chuunin here is quite small. Neji immediately began his own process to narrow it down. He immediately eliminated all the Waterfall ninja from his consideration, they had arrived as a group, and he knew there had been twenty-one beforehand. Likewise he didn't bother with the lightning ninja, relying on Gosain or Shiren to recognize anyone secreted among their number. The Byakugan emerged silently on his face, and Neji took in the Grass and Rain ninja, looking at those he recognized from before first, and eliminating them from possible consideration. Then he began to look deeply at those ninja, at the mist and sand ninja, and most importantly at the Stone ninja. The Grass, Rain, Sand and Mist contingents are two small to secrete someone in, the ninja from those villages would have a huge advantage, and none of them are using Henge to change their appearance. So, it must be the Stone ninja. Neji began to examine the chakra of those grubby mountain ninja as they moved about the room, conducting their own searches. A chuunin will have a certain amount of chakra at the minimum. Many of these will not have enough; they couldn't be chuunin, that's the first step to eliminate them.
Neji reduced the number of candidates from eighty-one to fifteen in a matter of seconds, simply based on the chakra they possessed. Five teams, well, hmm... Carefully he considered what to do next. He considered several things he might examine, motion, chakra control, alertness, and discarded a number of them in turn. He did look at chakra control in three of the five teams that moved about, and was able to eliminate one of them simply because the genin could not probably barely make jutsus work with such a level of control, and one of his teammates was hardly better. They were powerful, but unfocused, not chuunin. Still, that left four teams. Two of them will be chuunins, I'm certain of that, but what would reveal them? They should be young, and not particularly high ranking, with no major distinctive marks, which probably eliminates one of the teams, which seems to be an older group of genin, but that could be a trick. Still, there should be something I can see.
Then Neji had an inspiration. They are not wearing chuunin uniforms, but they should be used to doing so. The heavy winter uniforms worn here would leave distinctive patterns on the flesh, I wonder if they show them? Clothing was not an effective barrier to the Byakugan, not at Neji's level of sight, he could see into the flesh and the chakra circulatory system, and not patterns of resistance, and where they didn't line up with the clothes these ninja were wearing, but with the outlines of a chuunin uniform. He looked, and he saw.
Yes, that team of two women and one man, all three wearing the same rock gray and circulating quietly, they have the marks of chuunin uniforms. As for the older team, well, Neji was surprised, but they had a characteristic pattern that revealed clearly the back sword-harnesses they usually wore. ANBU! Neji was surprised. I didn't expect them to put three ANBU in here. I bet I'm the only one to notice. Shiren and Gosain's methods won't discern ninja of that caliber. So, the two teams bit was a trick then, you don't expect anyone to put the ANBU team's number. Still, Neji memorized both numbers, the more obvious Chuunin were team 38, and the ANBU were team 29. I'll need to put down 38, since that's what Shiren and Gosain will determine.
That conclusion came easily, but it sowed doubt within Neji's mind, a doubt that would be suddenly reinforced by a hurled kunai.
"You!" An examiner's voice spoke. "Get out, you're done here!" The chuunin gestured at one of the Rain ninja.
"What?" The cruel faced genin said through a breathmask. "What for?"
"Another team found out what you were telling your fellows, so get moving." The examiner answered.
"How can you say that-"He began to protest, but a barehanded slap knocked him to the ground with a sickening thud.
"Didn't I say you'd be failed immediately if you failed to follow instructions." Kiri looked at the prone chuunin, who obviously had a broken nose and perhaps more damage. "You've just failed on two counts, so pack up your teammates and get lost, kay?" She smiled with viscous happiness.
Five minutes had passed.
Neji watched the Rain ninja leave, getting dragged off by his disappointed teammates. He was the first, but not the last.
Already knowing the answer, Neji did his best to chart Shiren and Gosain's progress in their own endeavors. The two switched information-gathering techniques a few times, Gosain took to making viscous handshakes and crushing eye contact, while Shiren watched the progress of several other teams for a bit before going back to another ranged routine. They seemed to be proceeding through the Stone ninja swiftly enough. The dragon ninja also observed the two teams of chuunin, both the more apparent false ones and the ANBU. The targets were simply being mysterious, muttering nonsense to other teams that didn't really seem to be leading anywhere and gave the appearance of a team with weak information gathering skills. But the ANBU...They're trying to make teams fail! The older ninja were going out of their way to surreptitiously give other teams away by making them vulnerable to being overheard, or listening in on their conversations. Neji made a note of that. We can't try to communicate at all when the ANBU are around.
"My, boy, you haven't spoke to anyone at all yet, or even moved at all." A voice spoke from above Neji, the examiner, Kiri.
Of course, he could see her, his Byakugan revealed her perfectly, but he didn't feel it necessary to make that apparent. Still, he did not look up. "Each ninja is allowed his own methods I presume?"
"Awfully confident aren't you." She replied from above, letting Neji stare at her legs. "Well that's fine, Team 58, just make sure you know what your decision is going to be."
Before the fifteen minutes were up, out of fifty-eight teams, five had been thrown out. Neji knew that the process of throwing them out had only just begun. They will start talking to each other now, and then the numbers will really drop.
Gosain came back first, but Shiren followed only seconds on his heels. Both Cloud ninja looked nervous, and they gave Neji strange looks. For indeed, he hadn't moved a muscle during the whole fifteen minutes, though other ninja had walked up to him, spoken to him, even flashed weapons in front of his face. It was most disconcerting, a statue of a ninja with extraordinarily disturbing eyes sitting in the middle of the hall.
Gosain and Shiren sat in front of Neji.
"So, I'm..." Gosain began.
Neji held up a hand for silence immediately, ignoring the angry look on the older ninja's face. Sorry Gosain, Neji thought inwardly. We can't do anything until those ANBU move further away.
They waited a long two minutes. Then Neji spoke again, as quietly as possible. "Sorry, but things are not as they seem." He told the other two. "I need you to do exactly as I say. Find a way to indicate your findings, but no speech, no written words, nothing that can be seen."
They nodded, and looked at each other, then looked back at Neji.
Gosain put a hand to his chest, and Neji followed the movement. Then the chains beneath the ninja's flak jacket moved.
One by one Gosain placed a tiny bit of chakra through his pole and down the chain. One after another a link of chain would shake, a tiny motion, one that didn't ruffle his chest at all, to Shiren, or any other ninja, it appeared that nothing was happening.
Neji saw those links shake with his Byakugan, thirty-eight different shakes of the chain. He nodded.
"You! You're done!" A kunai flew over Neji's head, to land in front of the nearest ninja behind him, a stone ninja. It was not alone. Even as Gosain and Shiren settled their shaken nerves, examiners threw out another five teams in less than a minute.
Ten minutes to go.
Neji turned his head toward Shiren, a tiny movement. She reached into her shuriken pouch, a soft smile on her face.
Neji's vision saw behind Shiren's head, Kiri had turned her gaze their way.
His hand descended on Shiren's instantly, holding it in place. He shook his head. "It appears we are being too closely watched." He looked into her midnight eyes. "You did determine it?" He asked.
She nodded, the barest hint of a motion, and her smiled faded to a hollow one, dark and displeased. She was angry at being thwarted.
"So what do we do then?" Gosain hissed.
"We have confidence in each other's abilities. That's all we can do. Do you accept that?" He asked them both.
Shiren was the first to nod, openly; she didn't hold back her assurance. "I'm sure you're right Neji." She said softly. Neji found the vote of confidence tremendously strengthening. He tapped her hand, which he was still holding, in thanks and then let go.
"Fine." Gosain said, his voice was gruff and bitter, but he agreed, he knew there wasn't any other choice. "But what about you?"
Indeed, what do I think? Neji thought hard, abandoning even the Byakugan for a moment. He was absolutely certain of his choice, he knew he had discovered the teams; everything he saw in the past fifteen minutes had only confirmed it. Gosain has the right number, he was able to show me, and he wouldn't betray us and write the wrong one, Xi told me that much, there's too much riding for him on this exam, and its not his way to ever back down from a challenge like this. Shiren though, Shiren...Neji was troubled. He knew Gosain had the right number, but he would have to trust Shiren. It all depended on her, and she was the one least able to perform this task. Did she succeed? I don't know, I can't read her movements easily. It was not something Neji was used to, extending his trust to another, for a long time he had resisted it, considering only those who had a fate to equal him worth depending on. I'm not the same I was then. He knew, but he still couldn't decide easily.
Neji spent a long few minutes sitting there, even as the examiners threw out another seven team, and the deadline approached. Forty-one teams left. I can't back down. Neji knew that for sure. But should I make Shiren try to tell me, should I try to tell her? He looked up at Kiri with his own true eyes for the first time. He looked into her eyes, eyes like an eagle's looking for blood on the snow. No, he couldn't do that. He had to trust Shiren. Then, I will, Neji resolved.
"Ah." Neji told the two finally, but it was to Shiren he was speaking. "You're my team."
The lady cloud ninja gave him a warm smile at that moment, and Neji was taken aback, but his mind instantly focused back in the present when Kiri's voice rang out over the room.
"Time's up!" She said, and then went on without pausing. "You have one minute to get in line in front of an examiner. Keep in mind, if your numbers don't agree you can't take the exam here again, and I highly doubt that any jounin will sponsor you anywhere else, since you obviously can't work with a team if you can't come up with the same answers in such a simple situation."
"You're bluffing!" A grass ninja shouted. "They tried this same trick in Konoha!"
"Bluffing?" Kiri seemed taken aback, but she smiled at the young ninja. "I'm not bluffing. I gave the exam four years ago, and those genin who tried to out fox me like that are still genin. A ninja who can't work with a team is fit only to take orders. This isn't the leaf, which bends in the wind, this is Stone, and we are absolute." Her voice was completely serious during speech, rock hard and lacking any of the cloying tones she'd used before.
She's serious, totally serious. Neji hesitated for a moment, but he remembered Shiren's smile at him. No, I can't doubt her like this. The internal reply was instantaneous, he thought that, and he also realized a moment later that he didn't doubt her, indeed he felt horrid for even having imagined it. What sort of teammate am I?
For a few seconds nobody moved, but then a quivering lightning ninja stood and walked toward the door. "I withdraw." He said in trembling tones.
Kiri nodded, and the floodgates were opened. It took some courage to proclaim that you didn't trust your teammates so openly as the lone one, but it didn't take any courage to follow another ninja.
Everyone else stood and began to line up in front of the examiners. Neji's team stood behind a trio of Cloud ninja.
The first two wrote down their numbers of the sheets they were given simply, but the third hesitated as he bent over the desk, his eyes darting to those covered forms that had already been accepted, his hand shook, and then he dropped the pen. "I can't do it." He muttered, looking helplessly at his comrades.
The examiner had to vault over the desk to prevent him from being throttled by them. "Enough," He said sternly, holding the two ninja to the floor. "He's made his decision, so get out of here."
That examiner escorted them out, and another took his place.
Calmly Gosain, and then Shiren went forward and wrote down the numbers of the team they suspected as chuunins. After each wrote the chuunin placed the paper in a sealed box, so that no one could catch a glimpse. Then Neji stepped up to the desk. The examiner had the simple paper laid out in front, with only three lines on it, name, team, chuunin suspect they read. Neji calmly filled in his name and team number. He moved to add the number thirty-eight to the page.
"Are you sure you want to do that, Draci Neji?" Kiri's cloying voice sounded in his right ear. "This is your last chance."
Neji didn't bother to turn his head. "Don't overestimate yourself, examiner." He said.
Neji placed the pen down, and calmly wrote in the number 29 in clear script, so that both the chuunin in front of him, and Kiri next to him, could see it. Their eyes went wide, and then cruel, but he hadn't lifted the pen away. Calmly, Neji crossed over the mark and wrote 38 down in its place. He put the pen down and handed the paper to the examiner.
When he turned around Kiri was looking at him with a cold expression, her eyes scanning his face, evaluating him. "You're not what I expected Dragon Ninja." She said softly, so only he could hear. "Apologies for harassing you."
Neji nodded, and turned back to his teammates.
"Alright, everyone who's still here, sit down and get back in a circle! Move! Move!" Kiri shouted.
The genin scrambled to obey.
They made a much smaller circle, there were far fewer teams remaining.
A moment of silence passed, the only sound was that of the examiners shuffling papers. Then one of them came over to Kiri and spoke into her ear. Her expression grew grim. "Teams Five and Seventeen. Stand up and get the hell out of this village! You're numbers don't match each other." Team five was a team of Sand ninja, and they looked at the examiner with killing in their eyes. She stared straight back at them. They got up slowly, and walked imperiously out the door, never once glancing at each other. Team Nineteen consisted of three rookie ninja from Rain who looked devastated; they slowly slinked toward the door. "Oh change your damn ways and try Konoha," Kiri laughed at them. "Don't drag this out any longer than it has to be."
When they were gone she moved into the center of the circle. "The rest of you pass!" She announced.
There was a cry of surprise from several stone ninja and one of the cloud teams. The rest were silent.
"About what you expected it seems?" Kiri laughed. "Goes to show that only veterans come to play in the snow. However, don't think I'm discounting your answers; we looked at what teams were put down, and all of you answered with numbers we deemed correct, even if you didn't get the chuunin. Teams Thirty-Eight and Twenty-Nine, stand up and be recognized!" Kiri commanded.
The two teams of actually chuunin rose to their feet. "Hi" one of the members of team thirty-eight said.
"Twenty-nine? Impossible!" A Waterfall ninja shouted. "Those guys couldn't be chuunins."
"You're right, they're not normal chuunin, these guys are ANBU." Kiri explained. "Their purpose is to be un-findable, so that there's actually only one team of real chuunin you can detect. They also try to expose one team's discoveries to the eyes of others, making it easier on you. The actual Chuunin also make sure that their status is recognizable. Normally you would have to get the right answer, since it really isn't that hard, one in three of you should easily have the observation skills to either detect which team is which or steal the information from the other teams. The challenge in my exam is trusting your team members." Kiri laughed again. "Ninja have to operate in secret, unable to communicate in methods that can be detected, and they must trust each other absolutely. That's the twin aspects of this exam, to measure your ability to get information across while being monitored, and to see if you trust your teammates to know your thoughts and act as one."
"So why didn't our answers matter this time?" Again the question came from the Waterfall ninja.
"They did." Kiri laughed again. "I just chose to allow Team Fifty-Eight as an alternative choice, since they seem too suspicious. All of you either wrote down thirty-eight or fifty-eight."
Damn! Neji thought. Everyone is looking at us! We've just been pinpointed as one of the most dangerous teams. I was hoping to avoid this kind of attention. He met the stares stoically, without much reaction. Well, it seems we just acquired a handicap for the Second Exam.
While the others stared at him, Neji stared at the rest. Twenty-two teams remain. One team from Mist, two teams from Grass, a team from Rain, a team from Sand, three teams from Cloud, six teams from Stone, and...and...all seven teams from Waterfall? What?
Neji felt Shiren and Gosain stiffen beside him as they noticed the same thing. Not a single team dropped out? What's going on with them? Neji grimaced, and he felt anger rise. Those Waterfall ninja have managed to pull some trick, and I'm sure it doesn't end here.
Kiri stepped out of the circle then. "This concludes the First portion of the chuunin exam, she said in mock seriousness." She gestured at the chuunin examiners. "Somebody let the Second Examiner in already, he's impatient."