Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Living Behind a Mask ❯ Chunin Exams Part 1 ( Chapter 3 )

 

6:30am, Next Morning:

 

Team Seven met up outside the Academy and walked in. They pushed through a throng of other Chunin hopefuls to the front and stared at the specticle. Sasuke smirked.

 

“What kind of corny Genjutsu is this? This is floor 2. Move.”

 

The two people guarding room '301' smiled.

 

“Seems one team is up to scratch. Yup, this is a Genjutsu.”

 

The sign above the door swirled to reveal it was indeed 201. Sasuke gave his usual confident smirk.

 

“Naruto, Sakura. You both noticed it too, right?”

 

They both nodded. One of the Chuinin's guarding the door smiled.

 

“Then lets see if you notice this.”

 

The Chunin and Sasuke went to kick, however, Naruto charged in and grabbed the Chunin, hurling him against the wall with a look of pure rage on his face.

 

“Try that again, Teme, and I'll kill you.”

 

Everyone backed off as Team Seven walked past, up the next set of stairs to the third floor. When they were there, they heard a shout from behind them.

 

“Oi, you with the blonde hair. Wait.”

 

Naruto stopped and saw a green spandex wearing boy with a bowl cut and super eyebrows. The boy flipped over the railing and landed on the floor with them.

 

“I am Rock Lee. I would like to know who you are.”

 

“Naruto. Uzumaki Naruto.”

 

Lee smiled.

 

“Would you like to fight?”

 

Naruto stopped breathing. He turned around and continued walking. Lee had no clue what was going on.

 

“Are you running?”

 

Naruto stopped.

 

“If you value your life, then leave. If we fight, I may be unable to control myself. If that happens, I can garuntee your death.”

 

Sasuke nodded.

 

“I'd take his advice. I've seen what he can do. He's out of your league.”

 

Lee left to go back to his teammates while Team 7 walked up to the door to see Kakashi standing there. He smiled at them in that infuriatingly laid back fashion.

 

“Good to see you're all here. Since all three of you turned up, I can let you in.”

 

Sakura raised an eyebrow.

 

“What do you mean, Kakashi-Sensei?”

 

“If one of you had not come, I would have had to turn the other two away, as this can only be taken in three man cells. Since all three of you are here, you can go. I wish you luck.”

 

With that, they passed Kakashi and pushed open the door. What they saw they didn't expect. Over a hundred people staring at them. As they walked in the door, they heard a squeel as a shock of platinum blonde hair in purple clothing attached itself to Sasuke. Sasuke immedaitly growled.

 

“Get. Off. Me.”

 

Ino got off Sasuke as she saw the look on his face. She could tell he really didn't want to be bothered right now. The rest of Ino's team made their way over. They nodded at each other. However, the resident loud mouth of their year decided yelling would be a good idea.

 

“Yahoo! Found you!”

 

Kiba and his teammates Shino and Hinata stood behind him. Hinata was concerned at the look on her crush's face.

 

“N-Naruto-Kun? Are you alright?”

 

Naruto nodded his head slowly. At that point, a silver haired bespectacled man came over. He had a Konoha symbol on his forehead.

 

“You guys should probably be aware of your surroundings. Take a look around you.”

 

They did so, seeing that people were glaring at them with hatred. They turned back to Kabuto.

 

“Maybe I should give my cute underclassmen some information, then...”

 

Kabuto reached back into his bag and pulled out a stack of orange cards. He put the top one on the ground and began spinning it with his finger. He released a bit of Chakra and the blank card let off a small amount of smoke to reveal a three dimentional world map and bar graph. Kabuto looked up at them.

 

“Each country has sent participants to the Exams this year. This gives a breakdown of how many from each country are attending. The newest Village is the Village of Oto. They only have three entrants and they're a small village, so I don't have much information on them.”

 

At this point, Kabuto became aware of three people rushing out of the croud to attack him. One of them threw two kunais at him while another appeared right in front of him and struck at his face, however he missed. Kabuto smiled.

 

“You seemed to have missed.”

 

The bandaged guy smiled.

 

“Really?”

 

At that point, Kabuto's glasses cracked and he coughed up blood. Naruto's mind was still fresh with the scene of carnage back at the Wave, and he began quivering. 'Kinda like Tsunade when she first appears.' Sasuke turned to Naruto and pulled out a jar that the medical staff had given him in case Naruto relapsed again. The sound nins laughed.

 

“He suffers that much from seeing a bit of blood? What a weakling.”

 

Sasuke glared at him.

 

“I'm sure you've heard the rumours of the massacre at the Wave two weeks ago?”

 

They nodded.

 

“Naruto was there to witness it first hand. Trust me, the rumours don't do the massacre justice.”

 

The Sound nin with the head guard looked at Naruto.

 

“So, you survived that eh? You're lucky.”

 

Sasuke shook his head.

 

“Would you consider him lucky if he was the one who-”

 

Naruto cut him off.

 

“Sasuke, don't.”

 

Sasuke nodded and shut up. He decided to pop the top of the jar off and pulled one of the dark brown pellets out.

 

“Naruto, please eat this. It should lessen the backlash.”

 

Naruto ate it before finally calming himself after 20 or so seconds, slowly stopping his shivering. At that point, there was an explosion of smoke in the front of the room. Everyone turned to see the smoke clear, revealing a man in a black trench coat with a line of men and women in grey jumpsuits.

 

“Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm the Chunin Exam's first examiner, Morino Ibiki.”

 

Ibiki leveled his finger at the tree from Oto.

 

“You three from the Hidden Village of Oto! Don't think you can do anything you want before the exam. Do you want us to fail you already?”

 

The bandaged one turned to Ibiki.

 

“My appologies. I was excited since this was my first exam.”

 

Ibiki smirked as he surveyed the Genin in the room.

 

“This is a good chance to say this... You are not allowed to fight anyone without the permission of the examiners. If permission is given, depending on the situation, you may or may not be allowed to kill your opponent. Pigs who go against me will be failed immediately. Understood?”

 

The Genins didn't say a word, which Ibiki took as a yes. Ibiki smiled coldy at them.

 

“We will now begin the first test of the Chunin Exam. Turn in your applications and take one of these number tags. Sit where the number tells you. Then we will pass out papers for the written exam. The Chunin next to Ibiki put a stack of papers on the desk and started putting them face down. Once everyone had taken their place, Ibiki tapped the chalk on the board.

 

“This exam has several important rules. Listen up, because I'm only saying these once and I will not accept questions. First rule: You are all given 10 points at the start. Unlike regular tests, this test is a subtraction test. For each question you do not answer or answer incorrectly, you lose one point. Each question is worth one point and there are 10 questions. If you answer three incorrectly, you lose 3 points, leaving you with 7. Rule two: The pass-fail decision is determined by your team's total points.”

 

Sakura slammed her head on the desk and began protesting.

 

“Shut up! I said to not interfere! There is a reason for this, so shut up and listen. Now that you know about that rule, let's move on to the next one. If one of the examiers catches you doing any sort of suspicious activities like cheating, they will mark you down by two points. In other words, there will be those who are forced to leave this place before their tests are graded. Those who try to cheat without thinking carefully will only hurt themselves.”

 

One of the Chunin lowered his head to hide his sneer.

 

“We'll 'check' you at any time.”

 

“You are all trying to become Chunin. If you are a ninja, act like a first-rate one. Finally, if anyone in a team gets zero, they and their teammates will be failed immediately.”

 

People began muttering amongst themselves, but Ibiki quietened them.

 

“The last question will be given 45 minutes after the exam begins. You have one hour for this exam. BEGIN!”

 

Not a single student failed to comply. Naruto looked at the paper in amuzement.

 

'I can't answer a single damn one of these questions. These aren't even Chunin level questions. Kyubi? Any ideas?'

 

Naruto had only just recently started talking to Kyubi again after he appologised for his behavior in the Wave. Someohw, letting Kyubi control Naruto had opened a telepathic link of sorts that let them communicate without entering the subconcious mind.

 

'I may not understand the questions themselves, but I understand the idea the questions are trying to get across. Tap the signal for Sasuke to copy you.'

 

Naruto tapped his pencil on the table seven times, indicating Sasuke to use his Sharingan on Naruto. Sasuke immediately activated his Sharingan and copied Naruto's movements, which stopped at odd intervals before resuming. Sakura was fine answering the questions by herself, and they all finished at about the same time. Once they had finished, Naruto tapped the pencil on the table 3 times, indicating to watch each other's backs for cheating attempts. Naruto was the first one to notice one directed at Sakura from Ino, who had obviously been waiting for Sakura to finish. Naruto tapped once, indicating Sakura was under attack, so to speak. Sakura 'accidentally' dropped her pencil on the floor, leaning down just as Ino's projected mind would have struck her body. Since Sakura wasn't there, Ino's mind past her seat and shot out the window, not to return for several minutes. Sakura picked up her pencil and tapped once to indicate she was ok. There was only a minute left until the final question was given. When that minute was up, Ibiki addressed them.

 

“I will now give the 10th problem! Oh, but before that, there's one thing I must say... There will be a special rule for this last question.”

 

Just then, the door opened and Kankuro came back in.

 

“You're just in time. I trust your playing with dolls was benificial?”

 

Kankuro said nothing as he walked past his blonde haired team mate, expertly dropping a rolled up piece of paper onto her desk before he took his seat.

 

“I will now explain. This is... A hopless rule! The first part of that rule is whether you want to take the question or not.”

 

Temari called out to Ibiki.

 

“Choose not to take it? What if we decline?”

 

“Then I will reduce you and your teams points to zero, failing you immediately.”

 

This caused a stir in the Genin, which Ibiki promptly put a stop to.

 

“If you don't shut up, I'll fail you all right here and now. That was the first part of the rule. The second part is, if you decide to take it and answer it incorrectly, you will be refused entry to all future Chunin exams!”

 

Kiba pointed a finger at Ibiki.

 

“What kind of a stupid rule is that? There are those here who've failed before!”

 

Ibiki laughed coldly.

 

“Unfortunately for you, this is my first time as an examiner. The other times, the rules were diffierent. However, while you're in my exam, you will submit to my rules or get out. Those who are not confident in themselves, I have been kind enough to give the option of leaving with minimal consequesnces, and take the exam next year or the year after that.”

 

Ibiki let this sink in, before continuing.

 

“Let's begin. Those who do not feel confident, raise your hand. After we have confirmed your numbers, you will be required to leave.”

 

After about a minute, someone finally cracked and raised their hand. It was the guy right next to Naruto.

 

“I... I... I won't take it! I quit!”

 

“Number 50, fail. Number 130 and 111 fail along with him.”

 

This set off a chain reaction, with over a quarter of the remaining people's hands being raised. After a while, people stopped raising their hands. Ibiki looked over the rest. The rest of them either showed no emotions on their face, or they showed pure confidence. Ibiki realised this wasn't going to get any further, and so smiled at them.

 

“Well then the rest of you... PASS!”

 

People had no idea how to respond. Naturally, Sakura was the first to respond.

 

“Wait! What's the meaniing of this! What happened to the 10th question?”

 

Ibiki laughed light heartedly.

 

“There was no such thing to begin with. However, if you really want to believe there was a 10th question, I guess you could call the 'take or not take' decision the tenth question.”

 

Temari was next to question.

 

“Then the first nine questions were useless!”

 

Ibiki smiled.

 

“Were they? No, they served their purpose. The first nine questions tested your information gathering skills. First, this test's purpose lies in the first rule. Your pass-fail decision os based on your three person teams. By giving you that idea, we were placing a huge load of pressure onto each of you to not let your teams down. As the majority of you noticed almost straight away, these are not Genin level questions, and some of them are not even Chunin level questions. So the majority of people must have come to the conclusion that you had to cheat to get the answers!”

 

Naruto sighed and thought.

 

'I wonder if consulting a 4000 year old demon is considered cheating...'

 

“Therefore, this test was made with the idea in mind that each and every one of you were going to cheat. So we snuck two Chunins in who knew the answers to be the target of cheating. Naturally, those who cheated poorly were failed.”

 

At this point, Ibiki began undoing his hitai-ate which covered the top of his head. Naruto knew what was coming and looked away, stopping himself from relapsing. Everyone else looked at Ibiki in horror. Ibiki continued his explination.

 

“Why? Information can have a greater value than life sometimes, and in missions and battlefields, information is contested for with people's lives! The information that an enemy gets after being noticed by a third person will not entirely be accurate. Remember this. Getting incorrect information can cause great damahe to your teammates and your village. So we all made you gather information in the form of cheating. We kicked out those that were lacking in that field, that's what the first nine questions were about.”

 

Temari apparently still wasn't satisfied.

 

“Then what about the last question?”

 

“The 10th question is the main part of this test. Let me explain. The tenth question was a 'take or not take' choice. Needless to say, it was a painful two choice problem. Those who did not take it failed the entire exam along with their team. If you did take it and got it wrong, you had your right to take the Chunin exam permanently revoked. It was a very incincere problem. Let me put this problem into a real life situation. Let's assume that you have become Chunin. Your mission is to capture a secret document. The number of enemy ninja, their abilities and armarments are unknown, as well as the fact that the enemy ninja may have set traps for you. Now, will you accept this mission or not? Just because your life and the lives of your teammates are on the line, are you able to avoid dangerous missions? The answer is: NO! There are missions that will carry heavy risks that you will be unable to avoid. The ability to show your courage to your teammates when needed, and the ability to get through a bad situation. That is what we look for in a Chunin, a squad leader. Those who cannot bet their lives in a critical situation, those who give up when given the chance because there is a 'next year', and let their minds sway over an uncertain future, do not deserve the right to wear a Chunin jacket. That is what I believe. I am saying that those of you here who have chosen to take it have given the correct answer to the difficult 10th question. You will be able to deal with the difficulties a Chunin must face. You have broken through the entrance! Congratulations on passing the first test! I wish you all luck.”

 

At that point, a gaint black ball smashed through the window, before unfurling itself, with two kunai driving into the roof to reveal...

 

“Everyone! There's no time to be happy! I am the second examiner, Mitarashi Anko!”

 

Everyone looked at her as if she were an alien. Behind her, the black piece of cloth read 'The second examiner, Mitarashi Anko is here!' Anko wore a VERY short brown mini skirt with fishnet leggings that went half way down her thighs. She wore a beige trech coat and a fishnet shirt underneath that left practically nothing to the imaginaton. She wore metal greaves and black sandals. She had purple hair that was pulled back into a very Shikamaru like pinapple hair style.

 

“Let's go to the next exam! Follow me!”

 

Ibiki came out from behind the piece of cloth.

 

“Grasp the atmosphere before you barge in here.”

 

Anko looked over the remaining Genin.

 

“78 Genin? The first test was too soft this year, Ibiki.”

 

Ibiki shook his head.

 

“No, they're all exceptional Genin. This year's crop is something far out of the ordinary.”

 

Anko looked at them with a sadistic smile on her face.

 

“It doesn't matter. By the time I'm throught with them, less than half will remain. We will begin tomorrow. Ask your Jounin instructors about the rally point and time, as it won't be here. That is all. Dismissed.”

 

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