"The locals might be wondering "Gee, I've never seen a giant cube around these parts" and you'd be right. This is something new, something that our guests from the other universe brought in." Musha joined in on Ibiki's briefing. "Inside this cube space is warped and time is bendable. This cube fits as many rooms as its master needs and each room is made as it is required to be made. We hope that you have some fun because this year's first stage will have to be extra brutal to compensate for not only multiple countries taking part but also multiple universes."
"That's right. This exam will not be messing around." Ibiki cut in. The man stood with his back stretched like the string of a violin and his hands placed by his sides. His abilities were a total mystery but the general aura of this man scared the juice right out even the people that have met him before. "More than half of you will be eliminated on the first stage alone."
"More than half? That's insane!" Meiko whistled with a confident smirk on her face as if it wasn't her that nearly failed the entirety of Team Hokage the last time on the first stage of the exams.
"Man, it's like Ibiki switched out with an evil twin or something…" Naruto's head sunk down, hanging without weight or substance beside his flabby arms.
"It's a psychological trick." Kiyomi declared. "During the last Chuunin Exams, an even greater majority was eliminated. Last time only one in ten teams made it through the first stage. And yet, because the examiner was not Morino Ibiki, he did not portray it anywhere near to the same effect."
This could only have meant one thing, right after the introductory speeches, the psychological games have already started. The kids and teens were already being screwed around with and the only way for this to stop was to either get oneself eliminated or to win the whole thing.
Ibiki lifted up his hand and extended it as if he was holding a large apple in it. To fill the space in his palm, a black and white cube materialized, larger than he had intended it to be, forcing the proctor to spread his grip wider. The cube was a miniature version of the entire structure – a lovely and neat structure comprised of black and white, dice-sized cubes and very glittery in its plastic texture. Despite not knowing what was so special about it, it already had a certain attractive power over the vast audience of observers.
"This is the prize. This is your Mind Coupon. This is what you will be after throughout the first stage." Ibiki raised his hand up to show the genin their goal.
"Now, it's not as easy as just raising your hands up and letting the thing form. In fact, you guys won't be able to manipulate the cube in any way whatsoever, except in the ways that the staff of the exams has made it able to be manipulated – that's to say you might be able to open some doors…" Musha explained before swiping the cube from Ibiki's clutch without even touching it. It was as if the air currents from her movement had snagged the prize for her.
"The cube is comprised of eight smaller cubes. You will be able to merge the ones you acquire into a greater whole, however, only all eight cubes comprise a complete Mind Coupon. You will acquire the pieces for your team's Coupon inside each of the near-infinite configuration of rooms, filled with an endless possibility of challenges. In each one, you will be competing with another team. Only be eliminating somebody else, will you be able to move on, kind of poetic, isn't it?" Ibiki smirked with the side of his face and within that same snap of a moment made everybody wish to never see this ghastly man smile again. His face looked like torture itself and seeing it smile made one believe that if they lowered their heads to look at themselves, they'd see their own skin dangling flayed down.
"So not only will this be a test, but we'll also be competing in it, you know?" Naruto dropped his jaw and Kiyomi looked surprised not to see his jaw foam from the stress the young man was under.
"Hmm, not good. Two of us aren't that great with tests…" Meiko chucked into her own fist. Unlike Naruto, the blacksmith had a sense of assurance in herself and the ability of the events around the Team Hokage to mold in a manner that could have generally been described as "okay".
"True. It could be worse, I'd rather not meet Orochimaru and his goons in a glorified quiz show…" Kiyomi expressed her frustration.
"After you complete eight challenges and win all of them in a row, then complete the cube, you can press it to any wall to leave through the building entrance. Any questions?" Musha wondered. A single hand cut through the line of faceless genin, it was mostly bandaged and belonged to a Hyuuga member with a beige shirt and long, black hair that he wore in a sort of loose ponytail.
"You've described the test as if it is something that would only eliminate half of us and yet we are required to win eight challenges in a row. The math does not add up…" the Hyuuga declared in a snobbish voice that assumed it had known better than the clanless ninja surpassing him in rank.
Musha and Ibiki both looked at each other, sharing a smile. "It is safe to say that the Cube will accommodate for that. You might soon understand that the configuration of rooms you enter in is not as random as initially believed. Only half of you or fewer will finish this test. Needless to say, if some of your team get injured in the process, however unlikely that possibility is in this manner of competition, the team will also be eliminated." Ibiki replied.
"I see…" the Hyuuga genin returned his curious hand back to the lock over his chest, satisfied with the answer.
"What are the mechanics of acquiring the Coupon parts? Will the teams be able to bet, say, two out of eight pieces?" a girl standing beside her Hyuuga teammate that had just asked a question also raised her own concerns.
"No. The team that fails a challenge will lose all of their pieces. In fact, you will not be able to give or take the cubes in any other manner other than winning or losing them so trying to steal them will be pointless." Musha explained.
"If all is clear, you are welcome to approach the wall behind us and enter the Cube at your own leisure. Rush through it or take your time, the decision is yours." Ibiki smiled once again, sending straight out chills down everyone's spines.
Prompted by Ibiki, some of the teams scattered whereas others stood tall and tried to think this through a bit more than not at all. A handful of genin with messy, curly and spiky dark hair, white bodysuits and rebreathers of some sort rushed right into the cube wall that split without much trouble to accommodate their elevated speed.
"So, what do we do? I'm leaving this part all up to you, you know…" Naruto hummed out with hesitation to approach this challenge. This was odd, given how much gusto he usually displayed, no matter how out of his league the match was.
"Yep, all up to you, leader…" Meiko smiled with a full grin while tapping Kiyomi's shoulder.
"The answer's easy, we soldier up and we move on. We keep moving on until we are in or we're out. Easy as that." Kiyomi made the call without hesitation. On one hand, maybe letting the first wave of challengers run into the gauntlet and get matched up was a favorable strategy, on the other, the losers may just have thought that way too, plus, some of them may have been frightened just like Naruto and hesitated to enter because they were scared of the mental testing ground rather than a physical one.
"Right behind you…" Naruto croaked. It was crystal clear he liked neither this test nor his leader's decision but he stuck to it and followed Kiyomi right up until the wall where a shout from the other side stopped Team Hokage in their tracks.
"Hey, Princess, be seeing you!" Lithia taunted Kiyomi from the other side of the room, yelling over a whole crowd of fired-up genin. It was not too long before similarly worded and minded taunts began hurling from all sides of the hall, the entrance stage was filled with children, after all. Kiyomi did not reply, she was beyond a petty rivalry with a clan that had since then become an asset and a partner to her clan.
Ironically enough, it was the actions of that very same clan's own people that prompted that partnership and the two clans bonded over the eradication of said common threat.
The cubes shuffled and bubbled, their plastic walls emit a pleasant rubbery sound when they parted ways and let the team through. On the other side stood a trio of their competitors and a stage on which the competition would be staged. At this point, nobody was surprised…
"Whaaa! How did you guys end up on that side, you know?! You entered the same side as us! Creepy, you know!" Naruto pointed his finger at the trio while yelling from the bottom of his lungs, pointing out the paradox of the bendable time and warped space.
At this point, few were surprised by how paradoxical this space behaved, just like with the competition of this round standing at the exact opposite side to the one where all the genin teams entered, as if they had received the same briefing that everyone did and then entered the exam from the other side.
Standing on the other side was a team donning the Getsugakure insignia atop of their headband protectors although it was not the attention-grabbing team from the particular Hidden Village. Kiyomi and Meiko both had brief flashes of seeing the team around their last Chuunin Exams, waiting around before the Forest of Death stage maybe.
"You three are… The Team Hokage?" a bright-haired young man, well in his later twenties, broad of shoulders and well-defined in his build raised an eyebrow. His peanut-colored hair was thick and messy though it was not for the lack of attempts at setting them in order, the mass of hair laid stricken back although that proved to be a poor mean of controlling its wild nature.
"Oh, you three know us?" Kiyomi wondered. It always a bad sign when the enemy had information or prior knowledge before the battle. In any case, they might have had something on her and Meiko but they'd have had nothing on Naruto.
"Only by reputation. You've garnered a lot of it and of the very notorious sort during the last Chuunin Exams." A woman of similar age to her teammate and a more syrup shade to her long hair that thinned out and ended in one, large curl bending backward at her own half-exposed back as her jacket only covered half her body, leaving the lower half that was protected only by a fishnet shirt unprotected.
"We've had a brief run-in with your teammate though," the third young man of grey hair that was shorter than lasting to his shoulders yet fell halfway over his face, obscuring a few notable scars that made his face look like a spring-plowed field.
"The one who did not drop the tendency to garner infamy around her." The strongman of the team who spoke first, one that had the stance and general vibe of being the leader of the Getsugakure team added.
"Well… She surely got herself promoted after that show in the finals, it's not like we counted on encountering her again, although she did embarrass us plenty back there…" the kunoichi of the Getsugakure team explained.
The wall of the room on the left turned out to be a monitor. A fact that became apparent once all the white cubes shuffled in with the black and began moving and sliding about fast enough for both their colors to grey out. One blinding flash later, the mug of Morino Ibiki on an alarming and less than flattering close-up appeared on the screen.
"Team Hokage of Konoha, comprised of Uzumaki Naruto of Universe Anatoly, Yamanaka Kiyomi and Wakizashi Meiko…" Morino's voice boomed although when the details of Meiko's made-up family name became clear, the kunoichi from the opposing team let out a cringe, she was joined in by the leader of the Getsugakure team who was doing his best to restrain his smile and stay respectful although failing in that grand notion in a spectacular manner as he looked as if he'd choke up any second now.
"And Team Eurydome of Getsugakure, comprised of Staeg Esteros, Harpalke Duhatie, and Iuteb Istritoi. You will clash in a battle of instinct and the depth of one's mind as well. In the center of the room, there is a stage. Once I end my explanation of the rules, you will have three hundred and sixty-one second to pick a teammate to participate in the challenge. The rules of engagement are – karaoke. Unlike the karaoke you know and love, this variant will actually be judging you on the quality of your performance, your timing and sense of rhythm as well as how well you've stuck to your song's lyrics. The lyrics will be made available for you to memorize once the timer starts, after that – it will be just what you see on the screen. The winner of the challenge will receive a piece of the Cube Coupon. Good luck."
Ibiki disappeared in a flash, just as he had suggested, a counter appeared on the screen, it ran behind a wall of text that spanned two columns on the screen. Kiyomi's eyes froze on the wall of text.
"What the hell!? I can't sing!" Naruto grabbed his lower jaw, trying to break it so that the less than sweet release of a buster jaw freed him from the responsibility of the impending challenge.
"Yell that a little bit louder, why won't you?" Meiko cheeked her teammate. She appeared in a chipper mood.
"This is stupid, you know!" Naruto entered the denial and conflict stage of the grief for his participation in the Chuunin Exams. "Why would ninja ever need singing skills on the field? In the three years I've been a ninja, I've never once sung on the battlefield, you know!"
"No. It's a perfect challenge for a team of ninja." Kiyomi nodded. Somehow, even though she knew Morino Ibiki was unlikely to have had a dominating say in creating this simple yet demanding challenge, she had come to respect the man a bit more because of the nature of the challenge. "From the team leader, it demands excellence of leadership – the knowledge of the abilities of one's own team to an almost intimate extent. Singing and musical skills are not the type of skills a leader would notice during training – it is something learned through kinship and common experiences together. Only true friends would know that sort of thing about one another."
"Chuunin are meant to lead a squad…" Naruto pressed his finger to his chin as he pondered with his eyes closed and his eyebrows wrinkling his face into the seriousness of contemplation.
"Exactly, plus, what you would need in a karaoke challenge: the sense of rhythm, the ability to memorize loads of information quickly, all of that are necessary skills to a ninja. What is a physical engagement if not a dance of rhythm and timing? What is a clash between two ninja if not an information-gathering exercise with the impromptu analysis of gathered information on stressful conditions? Many people equate the mockery of one's singing skills on stage as dying, in a battlefield, the possible death scenario is less of the social kind and more of the actual, permanent kind." Kiyomi explained why she adored this challenge.
"Are you three done yet?" Staeg, the leader of Team Eurydome inquired by pointing at the timer that was more than one third counted out. The man placed his well-trained fists on his hips as he posed his hunky body in front of the opposing team, standing tall and proud on the stage.
"We don't have much time!" Naruto hurried Kiyomi.
"Yes but… The memorization of the text is less important than selecting one of us with a good sense of rhythm and the skill of musical hearing. This is a karaoke challenge, the text will appear on the screen in snippets regardless, even though I doubt if the rhythm and the proper timing will be displayed. My only useful skills here are whatever timing skills I have from my taijutsu training. I'm afraid I should be only a desperation pick in this situation…" Kiyomi counted herself out.
"I'm out, you know, I'll never memorize or read those walls of text quick enough! I'm lost already!" Naruto wrapped his hands over his chest like a capricious child and nodded a pair of times.
"That works out just fine because Meiko is excellent at music anyway, isn't she? Music's your hobby, from what we've shared with each other over the years." Kiyomi looked at Meiko with marveling eyes.
"Yeah, I dabble…" Meiko shrugged. "The clangs of the hammer, the sizzling of heated steel in water, they're all instruments I play from time to time."
"You know, we would feel no satisfaction from winning by count-out. A true leader should take up responsibility for their team and tackle the difficult challenges ahead." Staeg postured at Team Hokage, trying to give them a lesson on how to ninja despite the fact that he took the stage for no other reason than the fact that he was the leader whereas Team Hokage had an actual musical prodigy that denied herself the exploration of her own talents take the stage.
Meiko did well. She was not accustomed to that sort of challenge, this was not the part of music she liked and that was apparent. She was no proper singer, even though she had untapped talent. It was evident that she liked composition and the finer details of the musical art, not obligatory and modernized challenge versions of the art. She did hold her own more than anyone might have asked from her, although, Kiyomi could not state that Meiko did better than her opponent.
"It's way too close…" Naruto pulled on his own golden hair.
"It is…" Kiyomi nodded. "This isn't good. Meiko's just fine but… I had hoped that she'd be more than just fine. Plus, who would have known that Staeg had a polka quite this fine?"
Ibiki's image flashed onscreen. Despite the adequate performance of both parties, given the conditions of only learning the song a few seconds before the performance and having no rhythmic aids throughout the singing competition whatsoever, leaving it up just to one's musical senses to stitch their performance together, the man looked disappointed in everyone and everything. Then again, perhaps it was just his natural, grumpy self?
"I can't tell which one of you did better. The calculations state that both of you stuck it to the rhythm about the same, Contestant Meiko had superior musical hearing and stuck it to the tune better whereas Contestant Staeg remembered all of the words of the song and lost not a single beat because of that." Morino Ibiki explained. "This is too close to leave to a call. This will require a second round, Contestants Meiko and Staeg are therefore banned from competing in the second round."
That was when the heavy hammer hit right in the head. If only it would have been merciful enough to finish Kiyomi off when it landed instead of leaving it up to her to work with what she had to work with now.
