71

Gaara absently checked over the official Kazekage outfit while thinking about the day before. A small number of people back in Suna were likely to express concern over his lack of participation, but he suspected that most were going to be focused on the fact that Naruto had demonstrated that he was able to out-puppet Sasori during the match. Suna's own puppeteer corps had been dealt an incredible insult in the process and a number of people were going to be out for blood. Most of them proverbially, but there were likely to be unauthorized attempts to assassinate Naruto as well.

More concerning was that Naruto, who had no 'automatic defense', had brushed off the warnings about likely retaliation. Followed by producing a small vial, dumping it into his drink, and then pouring a couple drops of said drink out into a plant. By the end of the meal the plant was dead and Naruto was completely unharmed. It was either an incredible show that he'd prepared for, or he was essentially immune to powerful poisons. The latter felt more likely, given that Gaara had been immune to a lot of poisons when he'd been a jinchuriki, but anything strong enough to kill the plant that quickly might've at least caused a minor stomach upset.

The whole situation brought up the question of how much stronger someone was by virtue of being part tailed beast, instead of merely containing one, and the answer wasn't comforting as a leader of a village that no longer had any tailed beasts.

Ao sighed as his normal 'preparing to leave' routine of checking his surroundings with the byakugan once again failed due to every wall having protections against it. There were indications that residents could be keyed into the seals on their own buildings, and at least one Hyuga shopkeeper seemed to be able to see through the walls of their shop, but no such provisions existed for the hotel rooms. None of it would really help anyway, as having obstructions creating blind spots at all was disconcerting and meant that things could be hiding in any number of places.

"Are you thinking that I'm too old?" Mei asked as she stepped out of her room in her formal outfit.

"I'm annoyed that I can't check for threats," Ao quickly corrected.

"...right. You can't see through the walls. I still think that we can trust the local security though."

"Because if the Uzukage wanted you dead then you'd be dead?"

"Sadly, and I suspect that he's already taken."

That was a conversational trap that Ao wasn't falling for. "Are we meeting with any of the other groups or heading to the arena without them?"

There was a pause where he worried that she was going to connect it to her previous thoughts, but after a moment she sighed. "We'll see if anyone else is ready in the next few minutes, and hopefully someone at the desk will be able to tell us if we're the last ones down."

He nodded, and it wasn't long before they made it down to the lobby. There they found the Raikage waiting.

"Morning," the Raikage greeted. "I'm told that Nagato and Orochimaru left together earlier, but Gaara and Onoki are still here."

"And what of Shisui?" Mei asked.

"I assume he'll be arriving with Naruto, given that this is still officially a joint-hosted exam."

Ao moved over to Darui. "So how are you feeling after yesterday?"

Darui snorted. "...like I'm useless, but at least I'm just as useless as everyone else was. You'd need an army of your own to overcome his instant clone army."

"You hear about what Uzushio did to the Kiri loyalists?"

"Sorry, no."

"Hit them with a squirrel rush, each squirrel wearing a seal tag that removed the ability to control chakra. Not just seal it away, remove it completely, and it wiped out elemental bloodlines at the same time."

"...are all the old stories about the Uzumaki clan real? Because that sounds like one of them."

"I thought only Kiri had those."

"More like only Kiri believed them, I think."

Naruto stood up and moved forward, the other leaders remaining seated. After the previous day's match he was now on a 'first-name' basis with Onoki, plus Nagato and Orochimaru were even wearing their new shirts. The only other two from the day before wearing their shirts were Deidara and Kisame in the audience, and Sasori was the only one from the match not present due to feeling he had too many puppets to rebuild...or perhaps had too much focus on examining the replacement puppet to even notice what time it was.

"Welcome to day one of the finals of the Konohagakure and Uzushiogakure chunin exams," Naruto said. "For those watching from other nations, I'm told that we've received many questions and I'd like to assure you that even if all of your nation's genin are eliminated today then we'll still be broadcasting to your local venues. If they don't let you watch then complain to them."

Hinata had actually been very annoyed at all the questions but had only brought it up this morning. The information provided to the other nations was that they'd be able to watch the entire finals, regardless of who passed each round, and yet last week panicked questions had started streaming in from a number of establishments. Until then she'd handled all the communication with him only really helping with the installs and, in one case, fixing one of the connections that someone in Oto had broken while trying to examine how it all worked.

Orochimaru had been informed of that one yesterday afternoon and had looked pained at the idiocy when his people had already been told to leave things alone.

"Some of you may be familiar with Konoha's new exam arena and its changing environments," Naruto continued. "This one is similar. For rounds two, three, and four tomorrow all participants will fight in a single environment, but today we're doing things differently. Each genin was asked what environment they would prefer to fight in today. For each match, the preferred environment of the genin currently least likely to be promoted will be utilized, to possibly give them a better chance at victory and an additional chance to prove that they're ready for promotion. So that we aren't constantly changing the arena we've reordered the matches to group same-environment matches together."

There was murmuring about that, and some of the genin in the arena looked worried, but nobody yelled objections. Nodding, Naruto gestured over the group of genin. "As you might've guessed, all thirty-two genin here have already been partially evaluated. Those who lose their matches today may be promoted, and the final winner tomorrow may not be. Their overall performance throughout the entire exam, displayed attitude, adherence to the rules and standards for the exams, and results from any previous exams they participated in all factor into the decisions to be made. Unlike most exams, all of the eliminated genin from the previous two stages have also been evaluated, and recommendations for promotions have been prepared for several of them. In addition, all genin who impressed our medic-nin during the first stage were offered, and accepted, a medical chakra bloodline if they didn't already have one."

That seemed to surprise more people, including all the leaders other than Shisui. It seemed that none of the genin had reported that detail, or if they had then their sensei hadn't passed it along in time for the leaders to be informed.

Clearing the genin out of the arena and switching it to the first environment of the day, a rocky field preferred by the Iwa genin facing an Ame genin in the first match, only took a couple of minutes.

Hiashi hid a smirk as he watched Hanabi fidget while watching the fights, mostly because Himeki was latched onto him. The girl had been known to branch family members and a number of elders to have 'fixated' on Hanabi years ago, but under the branch family system hadn't been permitted to express that and the more controlling elders had ensured that it was kept secret. Recently it had come to light when the girl had applied to be Hanabi's personal assistant, something else that had been previously denied by the elders. It was denied again this time though, but because the clan's rules dictated that only a branch family member could be assigned to serve a non-branch family member in that fashion and on paper there wasn't a branch family anymore.

That didn't mean that the girl wasn't allowed to work near Hanabi though. 'Household' lessons with Natsu and Satomi had been arranged instead, and Satomi seemed especially happy that a 'little rabbit' was interested in Hanabi. Only minimal encouragement of a potential relationship was being done right now, mostly because of their age, but Himeki didn't seem to care about much more than Hanabi being Hanabi. Of course, he was also still somewhat in denial about having shifted to being male. Seven or eight failed attempts at shapeshifting to his original female body, giving up more quickly each time, but still in denial...and as of last week was hiding a picture of Himeki in his room.

The less-controlling elders were making favorable comparisons to Hiashi's own relationship with Satomi, how she'd pursued him, and his reactions to it.

A break in the fights to change to a different environment led to an uptick in discussion and he decided to see how much the kids had been paying attention to the matches themselves.

"So," he said, openly looking down at Hanabi and Himeki. "What do you think of the skill level shown so far?"

"I think most of those who lost their matches probably don't have much hope of promotion," Hanabi answered. "And if they picked the environment then they must've assumed that they were less likely to get the environment they picked."

"That does seem likely. Himeki, what about you?"

"Hanabi probably would have defeated a couple of them," Himeki half-whispered, reminding him of a younger Satomi...and of a younger Hinata. How much of it was her natural personality and how much of it was the observed 'timidness when not feeling challenged' of those with rabbit features was harder to tell.

"...probably," Hanabi hedged.

"Definitely," he retorted. "The only reason you haven't graduated and become a genin under the revised graduation rules is because you're focused on your puppet skills. Without that side of things you'd have graduated during the last cycle, and some of the genin here today must have barely passed the 'are you a genin' tests. Himeki here could probably have defeated at least two of them."

"I'm not that strong," Himeki said, sounding disappointed.

"Are you sure? Use your eyes and tell me how you compare to the genin."

Both of the kids seemed a little shocked, and activated their byakugan. If they focused on those closer to their own age then they'd see they were near the top ten, with most of those above them being Konoha/Uzu genin that had some of the same chakra and strength boosting advantages they had.

As a side bonus, getting them to activate their byakugan meant that they got to see the subtle yet incredibly impressive shift in the arena from solid to illusionary to solid again.

Onoki was happy that one of the two genin from Iwa had won their match, and she'd done so against one of Konoha's kunoichi. Nine matches in and it was looking like Konoha and Uzushio were going to be the only ones with more than two genin fighting tomorrow, but that honestly wasn't that surprising. They'd raised the quality of their forces significantly lately, but without it feeling as much like they were 'militarizing' like Kumo tended to.

Or perhaps it was only because it was working where Kumo's more extreme efforts seemed to accomplish little to nothing at best and backfire at worst.

"So," he said as Naruto was changing the arena setting. "We seem to have forgotten about your 'medical chakra bloodline' comment."

"Some of us figured that we'd get the details with the final packets," Orochimaru corrected.

"And some of us were already familiar with Konoha's ability to grant medical bloodlines," A added. "But simply hadn't expected it to be offered to the genin without checking with us first."

"There's an information packet for each of you stuck to the bottom of your chairs," Naruto said. "Details on the procedure for those of you that don't have it from previous interactions and on the genin that were and weren't offered it and why. I was just wondering how long it was going to take someone to ask about it."

Onoki blinked, then reached down and found that there was something attached there. Pulling it out he found that it was even labeled as being for Iwa. "Huh."

"You didn't assign seats," Mei noted as she looked at her own packet. "Beyond you and Shisui sitting in the middle."

"Technically I didn't even assign that," Naruto pointed out. Which was correct, as with three or more village leaders it was more like a tradition that the host sat close to the middle so that they weren't standing off to the side when they stood to speak.

"So you either predicted where we'd sit," Nagato said. "Or somehow got them onto the chairs after we picked our seats."

"Or he subtly influenced where we'd sit without us noticing him do so," A added. Which was a good point.

"I've just been reminded that the audience probably wants to eat lunch," Naruto said. "So we're breaking for that before the next matches. Any requests, or would you prefer to find restaurants on your own today?"

"You aren't going to tell us how you put the correct packets under their chairs," Konan said, frowning.

"Nope."

How the kid had pulled that off, out of all the various options, was going to annoy Onoki. He grumbled and got up, turning around before he froze. "...how long has my village's symbol been on this chair?"

The other leaders, including Shisui, jumped up and looked at their own chairs as well, but Naruto didn't seem inclined to explain. It was definitely a good trick, managing it without anyone including their bodyguards noticing, but it was worrying at the same time. Then again, he was also related to, and possibly got lessons from, those who had trapped his own chair in Iwa...

Naruto had needed to push his amusement off to Yoko, who had apparently creeped out a couple of skeevy merchants back in Konoha with her unexplained grinning. Rigging the chairs with seals that could read the chakra signatures of those who sat down in them and put the village symbols on the backs, plus relevant paperwork packets on the bottoms for those other than him and Shisui, had been relatively trivial for him. Shisui was obviously curious as to how it had been managed as well, but had simply gone with the flow and pretended it was expected.

Even better, it seemed that 'seals in the metal chair bases' was the only thing the group wasn't considering as potentially responsible. Admittedly, linked storage seals so that all six packets could end up under any of the eight chairs had been a little difficult to prepare properly, but making eight copies of the six packets so each chair had all of them felt like cheating. Triply so when he actually had sixteen chairs that were tied into a single identification matrix that could be changed in a room below the box.

All of them had stopped to stare at the again-blank chairs after they'd returned from getting lunch, before most of the group specifically chose a different seat. Onoki was the only one to pick the same seat that he'd used the first time, perhaps assuming that there was an expectation of changing seats and wanting to counteract it? They'd all checked for any indications under the chairs too, finding nothing there. Even Naruto ended up in a different seat thanks to Shisui grabbing the other side of the middle two this time.

Going through welcoming the audience back had only taken a minute, and then Naruto sat back down, hiding his smirk at the chairs all having village symbols on them again. "If you'd like to start reviewing the recommendations for promotions for those already eliminated then you'll find them under your seats."

This time even Shisui was obviously shocked, reaching down and finding a folder of his own.

"Now that's just showing off," Temari grumbled from where she was standing behind Gaara's seat.

"Managing that despite you all being on the lookout for something?" Naruto asked.

"Indeed," Ao agreed, likely even more baffled than the others because he'd apparently missed things changing despite having activated his implanted byakugan. Privacy seals that distracted the byakugan from noticing things in an area until attention was drawn there were quite useful, though trivial to overcome if you knew specific tricks the Hyuga clan had documented.

"It is a little baffling," Kimimaro said. "There was no indication that anything changed."

"Sorry I missed what he did," Darui said, though obviously aiming it more at A.

"At this point I'd be more surprised if you'd spotted it," A replied.

Sasuke nodded as Michi won his match, meaning that all three of their genin had made it through the first round. "That's all of them."

"Still not sure why you didn't think they were ready," Kiba commented.

"Because the exams are combat-focused and they aren't. I expected them to need another six months to a year with how they were focusing on all their other skills."

"...okay, that might be a good point, but they're doing fine. We ensured that they had a broader range of individual skills than most sensei seem to bother with and it's serving them well."

"True. Hinata-sensei and Naruto-sensei made it obvious how useful that is, for us and their own sensei."

"And now they've made it obvious to the entire continent with this style of exam. One-trick genin are at a significant disadvantage with this system, and one-trick teams are even worse. Ame's genin seemed to pick that up far better than Ame's jounin did too."

"Which was hilarious to watch."

Nagato found it interesting that one of Ame's eliminated genin was in the 'recommended for promotion' list in part because they'd told off the jounin sensei for interfering in 'building their own teams'. They'd then not made it to the finals due to the injuries they'd finished the second stage with, but even those had been acquired in defense of one of their teammates...who had already been defeated and was almost certainly not going to earn their own promotion.

"So," he said, putting the files back into the folder as Naruto was sitting down from the latest environment change. "It seems that a number of my jounin need some retraining of their own."

"Beyond those whose genin didn't make it past the initial genin testing?" A asked.

"Yes, though some of the problems admittedly stem from poor decisions in the procedures surrounding team creation."

"Your genin did a good job of rebuilding their teams," Naruto noted. "Covering a lot of holes that would've hindered them significantly in the first stage, though their lack of experience working together hindered them in the second stage."

"My genin didn't shuffle as much," Onoki noted. "But they still aimed to prevent single-focus teams, and I have to admit that those are the most likely to run into problems they can't solve in the field."

"I did a shuffling before sending teams," Mei admitted. "And at least one team that I split up decided to reassemble themselves and failed the first stage for it, demonstrating why I'd broken them up to begin with. Maybe they'll pay attention to the justifications in the future, and I note that none of them are in the 'recommended for promotion despite elimination' list."

"I find it personally amusing that my genin formed an all-female squad that's the only one that passed the second stage," Orochimaru admitted. "Of course, the kunoichi were all placed to provide some actual brains for their teams, despite the misogyny of their teammates, so I'm not actually surprised either."

"Kunoichi are regularly assumed to be 'lesser' for frankly stupid reasons."

"Anyone who worked with Tsunade would get idiocy driven out of them fairly quickly, as did anyone who worked with Kushina. I had the...displeasure of getting on both of their bad sides at different times, though luckily not for thinking that they were inferior."

Shisui nodded his agreement. "In the current generation we can add Hinata Hyuga to the list, and I'm reasonably confident in saying that Naruto's sister is the only one who could give him trouble in a fight if they ever had reason to meet in battle."

"Hinata has a decent shot too," Naruto protested.

"Hold up," Gaara said. "You have a sister? None of our reports on you mention her."

"She appeared out of nowhere and started taking care of the Uzumaki shrine," Orochimaru said. "Never did find out where she'd been hidden before then."

"I should hope not," Shisui said, grinning. "We'd have been a laughing stock if people had known where to find the jinchuriki of the nine-tailed fox before the fox was able to be killed off. Once it was she was able to be brought out of hiding. Don't think anyone expected her to decide to take care of the shrine at the time though..."

Nagato nearly choked at hearing that, but if they'd used Naruto's twin sister to hold the fox then it made the 'decoy seal' a lot more believable...

"So everyone has at least one genin fighting tomorrow," Naruto said after the feeds were cut and the audience was starting to leave. "Which hopefully means nobody ends up thinking that it's a waste to attend."

"The information gathered during this is going to more than make up for the dismal performance of my genin," Onoki retorted.

"They haven't been that bad," Kurotsuchi retorted.

Onoki's response was to hand her a sheet from his packet of information on eliminated genin. She blinked, glanced over it, and cringed. He nodded. "The only saving grace is that I couldn't send the best teams due to the Daimyo's stupid war."

"It's a very amusing training exercise," A commented. "And is giving an opportunity for teams to show off skills they normally hold back with. Stupid on the part of your Daimyo, admittedly, but still providing excellent opportunities."

"Sadly true. Almost tempted to let Deidara go try and blow the fool up, but I think the gradual humiliation is actually the better punishment."

"At least your villages had a decent pass rate," Gaara added. "Suna has made a very poor showing in this exam. We lost over half our sent genin before the chunin portion of the exams started."

Naruto nodded while the other leaders looked shocked at that. "Yeah. I think your group spent too much time looking for tricks that weren't there instead of just following directions, though a few just didn't have much chakra and couldn't handle a little pain."

"Come to think of it," Nagato said. "At least one team described it as 'excruciating' in their reports."

"We didn't actually dismantle the testing centers as we have no other use for them. If you want to give the pain-generating seals a try of your own then we can swing through one."

They all took him up on it, and all of them came out of the experience thinking that their genin that had complained it was too much were in need of significant additional training.

Orochimaru paused while eating dinner, putting down the summary reports on the previous-stages performance of the next day's participants. Then he needed to gesture for Kimimaro to stand down from where he'd been about to jump into action, before turning to look at the newcomer that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Good evening, Anko."

"Evening," Anko replied as she leaned against a nearby post.

"It seems you've improved your stealth significantly, but I was informed that you were being kept away. Presumably to avoid the temptation to try to kill me."

"I've read the files on how Danzo manipulated everyone, including outright lying to you about where he got 'prisoners'. Coupled with your current state? Don't think it would feel right, but I'm reserving the option for later."

That brought him up short. "What about my current state?"

"...you haven't noticed?"

"Lord Orochimaru has been occupied with various projects," Kimimaro commented. "And has never fully paid attention to the mental shifts that occur after taking over new hosts."

"I document quite a bit for comparison after each jump," Orochimaru corrected. "Even if I don't share that information with others."

"Except that your personality continues to shift over time and only 'resets' when you take a new host. Rarely does it impact your experimental methods, but those of us with regular interaction with you across your current and previous hosts have discussed the phenomenon in detail."

"Yeah, no," Anko said. "Granted, he's acting more...maternal than I'd expected, but I'm talking more that he's more human than I can recall him ever being since I met him. Less of the monster he turned himself into trying to become immortal, which I'm guessing is in part because a critical component of his former immortality experiments broke down when the moon was destroyed. He's also less twitchy than he used to be, like he no longer has to suppress the voices of his 'host' in his head, and probably has a third of the chakra he had when he was pretending to be Rasa."

This was an entire collection of problematic revelations. A series of mental flexes failed to allow him access to several abilities tied to his immortality, which was itself problematic. He'd known that the seal he placed on the 'Outer Path' statue had been broken when the statue was destroyed, and without him returning yearly the very first anchor in one of his Konoha labs would've failed on its own, but the Heaven seals should still be anchoring the technique.

...except that he'd not placed any recently. His last attempt had been the three in the Forest of Death, and those had all failed. The last three bearers in his own forces were dead or had become his current host body, leaving Anko's as the only 'active' one...

He paused there, eyes narrowing slightly. "Someone managed to remove your seal?"

"Years ago," Anko confirmed. "Found an incredible hickey remover and it worked wonders."

"Huh."

"Makes me think that the 'monster Orochimaru' is already dead, which is a bit of a disappointment. Either that or you're just a particularly good body double."

Fun. Apparently he needed to dig out his 'has something broken my immortality technique' checklist and run through it. If it was broken then he had to change a number of things...and some of the items on his checklist weren't valid anymore, because general snake summoning was on there but Anko had kicked him off the contract. The 'summoning Manda' pieces should suffice there though, but finding something suitable for starting the whole immortality process again with this body would be more complicated. The snake he'd started with originally had been an incredibly lucky find on the compatibility front, all things considered...

Hinata shook her head at Ino running around as a puppy after dinner. Naruto had been convinced to invite the two of them to stay with him in the Uzukage residence by Odoroki. Some of that was to provide additional monitoring for Ino, admittedly, but most of it was an attempt at matchmaking. For the most part they'd agreed to wait until after the exams and training with summon clans before deciding on relationships.

"So what are you working on?" Hinata asked Naruto.

"Iruka submitted some of his requests for academy training areas," he answered. "Most of them are just adjusting the designated underground training areas, but I think I need to set up an outdoor area for one of them. Because of that I'm trying to decide if it would actually be better to build an 'academy outpost' like the Forest of Inconvenience. Possibly one specifically for the physical side of things, having students alternate between theory weeks and 'stay in the outpost for physical training' weeks? I'd need to run it past him either way, but I figure that I should have a plan before I get back to him."

"...and you aren't waiting until after the exams are over for this?"

"One more day of fights, final paperwork that's ninety percent complete, and getting all the visitors out of here. None of it is going to be all that complicated."

"And what about keeping an eye on said visitors?"

He rolled his eyes. "Orochimaru has half-baked plans of slipping into the hospital after the matches tomorrow to see if his file is 'complete' and Anko is working with Karin on a surprise for him. I think they roped Kin in too? Otherwise nobody seems to be planning on causing trouble, but a few of the missing-nin keeping their heads down currently and a couple of the nobles that are more 'crime lord' than 'traditional noble' do have dedicated watcher clones."

"...what kind of surprise?"

"Didn't ask beyond ensuring that it would only trip if he was sneaking into places he wasn't supposed to be in or accessing records he wasn't cleared for. I'm not the one that has a problem with him and Karin is in charge of the hospital."

Hinata frowned, and directed one of her clones to go check with Karin anyway. Naruto might not care, but he and Karin were both of Uzumaki descent and had the traditional very different definitions of 'reasonable' compared to most people. Anko and Kin weren't exactly likely to be feeling too generous in regards to Orochimaru either, so there should ideally be a non-Uzumaki involved in planning that wasn't too angry with the man.

...even if Hinata was probably a poor choice due to the Forest of Death 'try to cut Naruto in two' incident. But she hoped that she was at least able to put that aside, partially because she could acknowledge that the reaction had been partially Naruto's fault for using his paperwork intent on Orochimaru in the first place. The rest of it was hoping that she'd not been too 'corrupted to Uzumaki thinking' when it came to retaliation, like she knew she'd been regarding security.

Though even Karin didn't seem to treat security as flippantly as Naruto did, so perhaps that was more a personal thing with him.