A/N: So I have another chapter for you, and this chapter is so long I contemplated splitting it into two seperate chapters but to be perfectly honest I couldn't be bothered. So I have the first exam in one chapter, no big deal... ;P You meet some more candidates here and you'll see the interesting (if slightly boring) turn of events. But soon it'll be the second exam and into my forte, so don't fear... super-Snev is here! Thanks to my two reviewers (and one constant one - Almiaranger), you're all that keeps me going and if you were to stop I'd probably stop too. So no pressure... xD
"You may begin!" Asuma called through the dense crowd of candidates, the rules having just been announced and the first written exam sprung into session. All they had to do was not fail completely and somehow together muster up enough points as a team to pass it, simple. The only problem was that the questions did not exactly look simple.
"Calculate the area of shuriken A if shuriken B is twice the area of kunai A. However, while kunai A and kunai B are both the same shape unlike shuriken A and shuriken B, kunai A has three quarters of the area of kunai B," Kaida muttered under her breath in disbelief and as she scanned the question paper her eyes seemed to widen any more.
"This is so easy," murmured Mareo sarcastically while Chiko paled slightly as he read through the questions, which was quite a feat considering how pale he already was.
All eyes read the questions in awe as one to nine got worse and worse the more they read. There was a pause suddenly as the realisation of shock struck many of the candidates where they sat. This was... impossible! How were they expected to do anything like this under such pressure and at such a high level? Was this really what was required if you were to become a chunin?
Suddenly a hand struck the air, causing many genin around the owner of it to jump in surprise and the eagle eyed chunin stationed like hawks around the crop of candidates suddenly leapt and started dotting manically, as if someone had just tried to cheat in all of the minor havoc. They probably had.
"Yes?" Asuma asked the owner of the hand, raising a single eyebrow at the reaction of pure havoc caused by such a seemingly innocent gesture.
"I thought you said there were ten questions, so why are there only nine?" the uppity voice of none other than Masanori, Ayame's highly strung teammate called out.
"That's because we give you the tenth question fifteen minutes before the end, it's not that complicated. You should be able to understand it by now hopefully, yes?" Asuma sighed.
"Of course," snapped Masanori at the sniggering rippling through the room to his complete stress and anger. He then hurriedly dipped him head back down at his paper, leading many others to do so as well and the room once again sank into silence.
"Wait a second..." Kaida muttered; looking at the paper as thoughts whizzed around her head like fireworks. It was impossibly hard, too impossibly hard. There had to be some hidden reason to all of this, there had to be some secret purpose. Something about cheating, they seemed very centred around it. And what else than to see how well they could cheat? They didn't say they couldn't cheat exactly, just that they couldn't get caught. As she turned her head slowly to glance at her teammates she saw them doing exactly the same thing. The looks in their eyes were the same, full of knowledge and tactics. Very well then, she'd just had to come up with some ingenious way of getting the answers somehow.
She was struck out of her thoughts by a strange trick of the light glinting by her eyes. She shuddered slightly and looked up to see an odd glint in the air which she had grown all too familiar with through her time as a genin. Yes, there was no doubt about it. There was some sort of rainbow in the air. And unless Oki sensei had somehow crept into the room there was only one possible answer – Ayame. So she was right. And she wasn't the only person on the job, by the look of it. Or rather, smell. I sweet and rather overpowering smell wafted past her, reminding her deeply of freshly mown grass and the sweet flowers you'd find in meadows in the fresh springtime. She suddenly felt her eyes becoming heavy, heavy, heavy...
Kaida whacked her hand on the table desperately to snap herself out of the sort of trance she's somehow been put in. The sharp jolt of pain tugged her back into reality's grasp and when she jerked her head up again she could have sworn she saw a deep frown appear onto Masanori's face, of anger. Well then, it looked like someone else has been trying to get the answers, ad from her after all. She didn't know what kind of jutsu he had used on her, but it had almost worked if it wasn't for her sudden sense of purpose that overpowered her.
Well then, she was fed up of defending herself from these attacks, it was best if she was to go into the offensive mode and try and find out some information for herself. Kaida let her hands rest on her lap under the desk and out of view and, when she had checked no-one was looking at her with a hurried glance in all directions, let the chakra build up inside of her and unleashed a jutsu she had kept hidden for a while, she had been planning to use this beauty for later, but ah well, needs must and all.
"Water style – ice sheet jutsu," Kaida muttered quietly under her breath and let her chakra pump up through her body and flow into her mouth until it had her own mouth bulging with power.
Kaida exhaled a heavy breath of air, and while it didn't look like mush it was in essence a highly deadly jutsu just there in front of her with what looked like a wisp of freezing smoke. It drifted almost lazily until it finally settled over the boy in front's blank paper and then a crisp outer shell seemed to form around it. Barely noticeable unless you were looking for it or trained to see it, of course. And how would the chunin know? It wasn't like ice jutsu was common around the hidden leaf village. In fact she was the most recent student out of the academy to use it and the only current shinobi with such a power below johnin rank. There was a minor problem and that was the proctor might sense it, being the only johnin in the room. But he didn't look the sensory type, so no problems seemed to arise there.
The crisp layer of ice settled down on it, and then the boy in front started to write down on the paper in front of him. As the words settled onto his ice coated paper the very same words etched onto Kaida's as if by some mystical power. All she had to do was sit back and hope that the boy in front of her knew what he was doing and the rest of her team would be able to manage fine by themselves.
Mareo sighed reluctantly. It was obvious, what they were meant to do. It was obvious since the start – cheat. Well then, cheat he would. With yet another reluctant huff from his behalf and a quick glance in Chiko and Kaida's direction to check they were just about coping, he started devising a plan of his own. He actually was quite pleased to see Kaida had her ice sheet jutsu out although, while Chiko seemed to be writing, it didn't seem like he was entirely certain. Then again, Chiko was never really certain about anything.
With yet another reluctant sigh Mareo released his chakra from his hand in a sudden bolt of energy and shot it at the power box at the wall, causing it to suddenly burst into flames. A shriek of panic erupted across the room, genin leaping out of their seats in the air surrounding him in surprise, Mareo one of them. Kaida, knowing that this was such a totally uncharacteristic thing for him to do, immediately knew something was afoot. Chiko however, wasn't exactly paying attention as he seemed to genuinely be trying to do the paper.
The details of where he got it weren't exactly confirmed, but by the time he sat back down Mareo's paper was full of answers which happened to be exactly identical to the girl's next to him, and she hadn't be copying him at all, that was for definite. Somehow during the pandemonium Mareo had used it to copy her answers hurriedly and he settled down with a slight contented smirk on his face.
Chiko drew his pen across the line he had just drawn once more. Yes, that seemed just about right. Questions one to nine all seemed in good order, all he had had to do was rely on something he had picked up a while back in the academy, a little skill of his called photographic memory. He hadn't even worried in the slightest since the exam had started since he already knew both the questions and answers before. It wasn't his fault is Asuma had walked past him holding the answer paper before they even went in, and while a quick glance normally wouldn't have hurt anyone, Chiko's photographic memory ensured that everything would go smoothly. It wasn't like he cheated at all, was it? He didn't look at anyone else's answers, he had just followed Asuma as he entered the exam room with the papers, anyone else could have seen it except they wouldn't have. Chiko had this knack of knowing if something was important or not, and sorting it into little categories in his opinion. The only problem was that the tenth question actually hadn't been on the exam paper he had seen, so he had no idea about it all.
And all this time, as the clock had been ticking, names has been yelled out across the room and ninja group by ninja group had slowly been weeded out, until when the three rookies looked up they noticed there were only about half the candidates left, compared to the original hundred or so, that was saying something. Even Mareo jumped slightly when Asuma called out and he realised how many ninja had actually been caught cheating and sent out.
"Listen everyone, it's time for the tenth question," Asuma called, indicating to the clock which proved he was indeed right, "now before we start let me tell you – you may choose not to take the tenth question if you wish, in which case you will quit the chunin exam alongside your team and leave for this year only, you can come back and try again."
Murmurings echoed around the room quietly as they took in this information. Not take the tenth question? Who would choose to do that?
"- but if you fail the tenth question then a random one of your teammates will be banished from the ninja training course forever."
A gasp welled up throughout the room and suddenly yells and shrieks of protest erupted throughout.
"Anyone want to back down?" Asuma smiled, "it's okay, you can take the chunin exam later if you wish. A random one of your two teammates will be selected and they will be banished from the course, okay? So anyone want to withdraw?"
The three rookies all felt immensely sick at the same time, dizzy and positively nauseous. Would going forward condemn another teammate? Weren't they more important than becoming a chunin first time around?
"Yes!" a yell shrieked out across the room and, to the rookie's surprise, Ayame stood up with her hand held in the air, "I wish to withdraw. If that's the way it is then that's no ninja way of mine. I wish to become a chunin but I wish to become a ninja even more, and to have that taken away from any of my teammates isn't something I could stand. So that's it, I withdraw."
To everyone's surprised faces, three dense robe clad figures raised to their feet and, after showing a knowing look, nodded simultaneously.
"We, the ninja of the grass, wish to withdraw," one of them hissed in a voice which may well could have come from all three of them.
"Very well, if the two of you teams would like the step outside," Asuma sighed and then surveyed the room, "anyone else?"
"We three ninja from the village hidden in the waterfalls request to withdraw," three bold ninja leapt to their feet and said almost simultaneously, each with an identical scythe looking object pinned in a holster on their back.
"I wish to withdraw," sighed another ninja and all faces whipped around to face him. He had bright red hair shortcut which sat uncomfortable over his headband and two fellow hidden leaf ninja got up with a sigh and followed him out of the door reluctantly but without a word of anguish or hate or anything else.
"I think going is the best option for everyone," sighed a rather glassy eyed looking ninja from the village hidden in the mist, a smile playing across his plasticised features as two masked ninja silently skulked behind him, reluctant on his rather peaceful and tranquil look.
"Okay, anyone else?" Asuma questioned gently, scanning the remaining crowd of about thirty-five shinobi.
"Yes, I'd like to go too!" exclaimed a girl with bright yellow hair spiked around her hair in numerous plaits which seemed to entwine with each other creating spikes. She suddenly bounced out of her seat, a smile playing across her lips as if quitting was the best decision she had ever made. Two equally energetic but male copies of this girl jumped up too and charged out at a constant jog as she did.
"And I," a quiet girl whispered and two rather tough looking ninja glared at her from behind huge skiing goggles that seemed to mask their faces, flexing their muscles in anguish.
There was a quiet pause as the room turned unexpectedly quiet and everyone seemed to crane their neck, waiting for anyone else to withdraw. Yet not one squeak came and the room remained quiet, filed down to about thirty as twenty had just left.
"I-I... I'd like to leave," a tiny voice stammered as Chiko's hand shakily rose into the air, wavering slightly as did his voice. If looks could kill Kaida would have ensured his immediate death right at that very millisecond, but instead all she ensured was a quiet, if reluctant, following with Mareo sighing and dragging his feet as the three of them exited the room, all of that for nothing.
The moment the door slammed behind them Kaida exploded at a quivering Chiko while Mareo seemed to mutter in a dazed state 'I'm free, I'm free'.
"What did you think you were doing Chiko? We would have been fine; you know... why didn't you just leave it? Why couldn't you just have left it? Argh! I can't believe you, you stupid moron!"
"I wouldn't give him such a hard time if I were you," a blonde woman with a rather frightening smile gleamed in a rather frightening way which reminded all of the three young rookies of Oki sensei, her blonde hair arranged in four bunches around her head.
"Who are you and why should you care?" Kaida hissed angrily.
"I'm Temari, the proctor for the second exam, and I should care because he just got you worthless lot into the second exam."
"What!"
"I-I did?"
"So much for being free."