I Don't Own Naruto, Any Other Anime/Manga or Its Characters.
All Characters Appearing In This Work Are Fictitious. Any Resemblance To Real Persons, Living Or Dead Is Purely Coincidental.
Soon the Genin teams were assembled in a room in Kumogakure, waiting for the first stage of examinations to start.
Konohamaru approached the registration desk, announcing who they were and handing over the necessary paperwork. He wasn't nervous and if he kept telling himself that he might start to believe it.
The two Chunin behind the desk seemed bored with their job and as one checked their paperwork the other pulled out a piece of paper from an empty coffee can."Your team is now number eighteen, don't forget it. Now go on in," he said as he gestured towards the double doors to his side.
The Konohamaru corps blinked simultaneously at the bureaucratic way they had been handled. This was the Chunin Exam; shouldn't it be more official or at least meaningful? Udon was the first to recover and pulled his two friends to the doors.
"Remember we agreed not to draw any attention to ourselves." He gave a meaningful glance at Konohamaru, who didn't understand why.
After their paperwork was completed the Genin were pointed to a room where the first stage of examinations would take place.
Opening the twin doors a wave of heat and noise hit them. A quick glance around the room showed that it was packed with chunin hopefuls. Every single one of them seemed to be older than them by several years. The ones closest to the doors turned to get a look at their new competition curiously as if measuring their worth.
A moment later there was a loud bang and a poof of smoke from the ceiling. It slowly dissipated to reveal several ninja hanging from the ceiling. The only one not wearing a mask spoke in a booming voice, "the first stage of your exam has begun. My name is Tenchi and I shall be overseeing your exams. You are to follow my rules, anyone who does not will fail this exam." He paused to let that sink in.
"Now," he began in a quieter tone. "You were all given a number when you registered, and those numbers correspond to a cubicle along these walls," he gestured to encompass the room," get to yours."
There was a scurry of movement and the Konohamaru core was almost the last to find their assigned cubicle. It had a large number eighteen over but it had taken them a while to cross the room. The three of them could easily stand shoulder to shoulder in it although for some of the older participants was probably cramped. On either side were wooden panels cutting them off from their neighbours.
The Examiner Tenchi dropped from the ceiling and continued his speech. "This exam is designed to test your occupation skills. As Chunin you will be expected to have the ability to size up an opponent. So, I have planted four teams of fake Genin and it is your job to find two of them without leaving your cubicle or talking to any other teams. We are handing out papers now write down your answers on it"
His last sentence was almost drowned out by a cacophony of shouts and complaints Konohamaru's voice among them. The Examiner stood there for a minute allowing the insults and complaints be hurled at him before booming out, "Did I mention you have ten minutes and it starts now."
That cut off most of the complaints and sent Konohamaru mind racing. From their cubicle they could see the other end of the room and a little more than half of the cubicles to their right. On the left side they could only see those closest to them. How exactly could you find a fake Genin anyways? Genjutsu, no that was too simple besides, a quick test showed that wasn't the case. Maybe their hitai-ate? No, they couldn't see them from this distance.
He glanced over at his teammates hoping they had some sort of idea, but Moegi was looking at him for ideas. Udon looked like he was concentrating; he had his eyes closed like he was working out a complicated math problem in his head, so it was best not to disturb him.
"Any ideas Moegi?" Konohamaru asked quietly.
"No, maybe we can switch our paper with another team when we get them."
He thought about that for a minute, but without knowing how they would collect them he couldn't see a way of doing it. Besides if they switched papers with someone who also had no idea what the correct answer was, it wouldn't help them. Any hope of switching papers was dashed as soon as he received theirs. It only had two blank lines large enough for a number to be written on each. There was a faded eighteen in the corner which eliminated the possibility of switching papers.
Minutes went by and the Examiner called out, "one minute left." Konohamaru was about to just guess when Udon grab the paper out of his hand and quickly wrote down four numbers. He was about to ask how he knew when the Examiner called out, "Time's up. Your papers will be collected in a minute and no talking even among your teammates until I say otherwise."
Konohamaru suddenly wished he was telepathic so he could get the information out of Udon. The papers were collected by Tenchi's assistant and brought to him in the centre of the room. "If I call out your team's number leave through that door and follow any instructions given to you."
The man slowly and methodically began flipping through the papers occasionally calling out a number in no chronological order. Four, twenty-one, seven every time he finished with a paper he dropped it to the floor like it was trash. He was dropping more papers than he was calling out but whether the people being told to leave had passed or failed was unknown.
Moegi was chewing on her nails, a nervous habit she hadn't done in months. He tried to take solace in the fact that Udon seemed calm, but his friend probably won't make a noise if he was on fire.
"Eighteen," the Examiner's voice emotionless giving no hint of the fate he was sending them to. Part of Konohamaru wanted to demand an answer here and now but Moegi turned to him for support so he gave her a confident grin. It was a very long walk across the room; he could feel everybody's eyes on the three of them. A Chunin held the door open for them, pointing them outside.
As soon as they stepped outside a cold wind took their breath away and Konohamaru realized he had broken into a sweat while in the building. Another Chunin pointed them to where the other Genin were mulling around. There seemed to be a Chunin leaning against a post watching the group. Nobody spoke but every time another team came out they were scrutinized as if they held secret information.
Eventually teams stopped coming out and the fear he had been feeling started to turn to anger. Why couldn't they just tell them if they had passed or failed? They had to have passed, right? So why drag it out like this.
Finally, there was a puff of smoke and Tenchi appeared on the post, his assistants in front of him like they were an honour guard. Somebody shouted, "What the hell is going on."
Tenchi almost gave him a sympathetic look, "you were so close team twenty-two, but you broke my rules go back to the barracks and collect your things along with the rest of the failures."
"What?" The guy, who was presumably from team twenty-two and was probably in his late teens, charged the Examiner shouting. He was brought down by one of his assistants.
"Since you didn't get it, I'll explain it to you. The first part of the exam was to test how observant you were and if you could extract information from that. The second part of this exam was to test your ability to follow orders in a stressful situation. I told you not to speak and you spoke. Now if you wonder why this is so important you've never waited twenty hours to spring an ambush. Now get out of here." Tenchi turned to the rest of them, "Now if you will all follow me we can start the next stage of the exam. Oh and you can talk to each other now."
Konohamaru and Moegi didn't know how they had passed so they went to either side of Udon, "So how'd you figure it out?"
"Oh, it was simple. From where we stood we couldn't possibly see all four fakes because if we could than somebody on the opposite end of the room couldn't. So, I started to think what it would look like if we were in another cubicle.
"There was only one cubicle there that could be seen from all angles, but if you were standing in that cubicle you could see only one of your counterparts. Once I figured that out, it was easy to conclude that there were fakes along each wall in the same position."
Konohamaru thought for a minute before asking, "How does that have anything to do with being a ninja?" Udon straightened his glasses before answering, "Well if you think of the fakes as enemies. All we had to do was find their blind spots." "Remind me never to call you a geek or nerd ever again Udon," said Konohamaru, awestruck by his teammates analytical ability.
"I'll remember you said that," said Udon jokingly. Looking around Moegi saw that the other two Genin teams from Konoha had also made it through the first stage.
"Congratulations you have made it to the second stage of the Chunin Exams. From this point on there is a possibility you could die." Said the examiner, before pausing a moment to let the words sink in. He then continued with, "You will be given a scroll. Its colour will either be green, red or blue. In order to pass this stage you will need all three scrolls of different colours and all your teammates must be alive."
He pointed behind himself at a distant hill where a large orange flag stood fluttering above the trees. "Now for your destination, on the other side of that mountain there is a small town. It used to be a coal mining town, but the mine played out years ago and it's now abandoned. In the centre of the town there is the headman's house which also used to be the corporate headquarters. The building is surrounded by a wall and it has four gates.
"The scrolls you collected will determine what gate you may enter through. If you have all three in your possession you may enter through any gate. As for rules there aren't any except for the ones I've mentioned. Now the only dangerous things out there will be yourselves and the weather. The cold can easily kill you if you're not prepared for it. To add to the challenge the government will be experimenting with the weather so expect anything. You have three days."
After this announcement each of the Genin were given a form to sign that said:
'I _do not hold Kumogakure accountable for any injury, loss of limbs, frostbite, death or any other outcome of participating in this exam.' Signing the bottom a Genin shoved it back at one of his teammates behind him.
Konohamaru looked at the paper and signed it eagerly.
"Cocky little twerps aren't you? We'll probably be pulling your frozen body out of a snow bank," one of the Chunin muttered under his breath.
"Now this is how we will proceed: each Genin team will head in a different direction any direction you take is fine."
"However there are only four gates that lead to the end of the forest and into the abandoned village and they are situated at the four nautical points north, south, east, and west. When the red flare goes up you will all head into the forest? Is that understood," said one of the Kumogakure Jonin.
General agreements such as yeah, yes, hai, met his ears.
Suddenly a red flare shot into the sky signalling the start of the second round.
"Good luck to you all and May Kami be with you," said the Kumo Jonin.
The Genin were all gone in a blink of an eye.
Sometime later, things had been going well for the Konoha ninja. All three Genin teams had acquired all three scrolls necessary to pass and go to the village plus one extra if they needed to bargain a scroll away to a stronger opponent.
When the Genin from Konoha had met up in the middle of the forest they had all acquired their necessary scrolls, however to stay alive and cut down on competition the Genin team had decided to work together until this stage was over.
So far it was working well with six teams taken down so far. They all headed north to finish the test and had reached the abandoned village when suddenly a huge snake, other large animals and some huge insects blocked their path. The three Genin teams braced themselves for combat …
A/N: will the Konoha Genin reach the finish line or will they meet their death in the Forest Of Death and what of the wild animals blocking their path find out next time on the next segment of the Chunin exams. I took this chapter from the Author: Top with his permission and made it mine with a few adjustments.