The Entrance Exam!

{Konoha Academy, Konohagakure}

...

It was for a brief moment, but my thoughts froze as I stared at the stack of papers. I read the words and understood that the paper was just a simple test, but I couldn't move. The pencil lying on the desk and the papers hidden by a genjutsu were a sudden and stark reminder that I was not in a lawful world anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that I have transmigrated into the elemental nations. Transmigration was a crude concept, but after five days, I understood where I stood. As soon as I arrived, I came face to face with the dreadful aura of the Nine-Tails and a tailed beast bomb, so it was clear to me how helpless I was against real power in this new life.

Getting access to chakra changed that. Being able to manipulate the reality around me by training and growing stronger was a novel concept that had been like a drug that I consumed. With delusions of grandeur and something akin to fake confidence, I had set my targets to the heights of Itachi Uchiha, a generational prodigy.

This small altercation that seemed so innocent was a sharp wake-up call. I looked up at the chunin, who was also staring at me for some reason. I didn't duck my eyes as I stared at him, trying to match his face with anyone in the series, but both the name and the face pointed to the same thing.

'He's just a chunin, a nameless chunin who was not even capable of being canon fodder in front of Madara and Obito. He could have hidden a bunch of spikes on my chair, and I wouldn't have noticed anything. If he wants, he could end my life on a whim.' 

The thought was disturbing, and after staring at the chunin, I turned my head and looked back at the pencil lying innocently on the table. Another moment passed before I moved. My hand curled around the pencil as I pulled the paper close with the other one. I stared at the paper, reading the very first line. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

...

'''Kohaku Uchiha''' 

I wrote at the top of the paper and then began reading the questions. They were unsurprisingly easy for me as I breezed through the common knowledge section and some language portions, in which I struggled a bit. This portion also had questions about the village and the clans, though a question about the specialty of the Shimura clan's work for the village did stump me.

'I can't exactly write ROOT here now, can I?' After contemplating the question for a bit, I moved on. The rest of the questions were similar, such as who the noble clans of Konoha were and what kind of services they provided.

With my knowledge of the original series and the amount of knowledge my predecessor had gained during his short stint as a brooding Uchiha, I was able to answer all of the questions except for the one mentioning Danzo's clan. 

The test was followed by a section on basic arithmetic and even some common knowledge about the Hokage and the foundation of the village. It ended with a section on reasoning skills, puzzles, and pattern recognition.

This was the part of the test that had the most questions and took a while to work through. I was able to solve all of the reasoning questions except one, as the pattern really didn't make sense. No matter how I tried to look at it, I even went as far as to twist the paper to the side and upside down, but the convoluted spiral didn't work.

It bothered me that I wasn't able to figure it out, especially since that test is supposed to be designed for 5-year-olds. There was a special question at the end of the exam that asked if I noticed if I was under the influence of a genjutsu. And if I did, when was the genjutsu cast?

...

"...Time's up, everyone, put your pencils down." the unassuming chunin spoke as his eyes lingered on everyone, "stand up and follow me."

His instructions were clear, and although I was a little reluctant, I had already banged my head several times against the last question with nothing to show for it. I was the one sitting on the aisle seat. Since both Izumi and Itachi were waiting for me to move, I decided to ignore the question for now.

The class quickly erupted into controlled chaos as everyone followed along. The clan kids were huddled together, and even I fell into the same pattern. We likely would have ended up walking in silence all the way, but it seemed like Izumi had enough of our brooding.

"How was it? How many questions did you guys didn't know..." She asked. I was walking behind her and couldn't see her face, so I wasn't really sure if I should answer, even if she did use the plural noun when addressing us.

"...I wasn't able to solve the last three sealing questions," Itachi replied after a bit, provoking a groan from Izumi.

'Wait, that last pattern was a seal, and even the couple of questions before that?' I thought to myself. I was able to solve, hopefully, correctly, the penultimate two questions based on concepts of normal visual reasoning. It was just the last one that I had trouble with.

"Yeah, Mom even warned me that they would ask some of the basics of the shinobi arts. I was just expecting more Ninjutsu and Taijutsu-related questions to be on there. Even the first test with the genjutsu applied to the papers and pencils, did you notice when the genjutsu was cast?" Izumi asked, which got my attention. It was a question that I would very much like to know.

"When our names were called..." Itachi spoke, and I paused, my mind already calculating the time I was in the illusion, "...it was very subtle sound-based Genjutsu. I didn't notice it until I was in the class and staring at my desk. Our sensei must be skilled in Genjutsu."

I bit my lips to stop myself from asking the question, how did he notice? Did something just seem blatantly wrong to him? Was it intuition or something else? If I trained, would I gain these instincts, or would I always have to be ready and mindful of my surroundings to notice any sudden change?

I looked away, trying to hide the expression of frustration that was showing on my face as Izumi turned to look at me. Her eyes scanned me with worry before she hesitated and looked forward. I took a moment to regain my composure as we arrived at the other end of the hallway and through it into a training ground.

There was ample space around the ground, a ring at one corner of the area, and a few training wooden posts, 5 to be exact. The type Rock Lee was shown hammering in the show. There were a bunch of targets at another corner and, finally, a bunch of trees providing shade for what I could only assume was the resting area. 

Our group followed the chunin as we arrived under this shade. He looked at everyone and asked, "Who among you has received training from your clan or someone else in the shinobi arts."

The question was apparently not surprising, as almost two-thirds of the class raised their hands. I didn't even have to turn around to see as I knew both Itachi and Izumi would have raised their hands as well. I had gone through Kohaku's memories, and he really wasn't trained by the clan.

'Now I do wonder why I was allowed to take part in these exams. Was it just to fill up numbers?'

The games they played amongst themselves had some form of body conditioning built in but nothing related to actual shinobi arts.

"And who among you already has access to your chakra," the chunin asked. I took a sigh of relief and raised my hand. My situation was a little unlikely as the chunin once again stared at me for a moment before he nodded to the rest of the class.

"All those who have received some form of formal training follow me to the taijutsu ring and then target practice. For those who haven't, you will do laps around the ground following me," the chunin spoke before his hand went through a series of hand seals. A bunch of rocks rose up from the ground and quickly merged among themselves, transforming into a clone of the chunin.

"Let's begin," the rock clone said as he motioned for us to follow. I broke up from the small group consisting of Itachi and Izumi and jogged to follow behind the clone. I don't know how I knew, but I could feel a couple of pairs of eyes following me.

...

The nature of the test abundantly became clear as I stopped thinking about my unfortunate situation and focused on keeping my breathing even. My eyes traced the clan kids as they displayed an impressive array of taijutsu skills as they fought among themselves. Itachi, though, was still an outlier as he fought against multiple opponents, dismantling them each time with apparent ease.

When that happened, I had to concentrate on my own group, as the gulf of power between me and someone like Itachi else was quite clear. As I looked at everyone, I noticed that my group had thinned out a lot. While there had been 14 of us at the beginning, only 6 remained.

'By the looks of it and the way the girl beside me was huffing, she wouldn't last long.'

...

'And neither will I,' I thought.

My right leg had started pulsing with pain a few moments ago, and since there was quite some time left, I knew it wouldn't last long. The bruising and sprain had lessened a lot, and I had even lost the debuff from the status screen before coming to the exams, but the way my leg flared with every step, I didn't know how long I would last.

'Focus. Ignore the pain, and just focus on putting one step in front of the other... one more step... one more step... one more...'

...

The other group had likely moved onto target practice as I concentrated only on the laps. Having spent the last five days in constant meditation and a haze of chakra control allowed me to focus on the task at hand quite easily, ignoring everything else. I slipped into a state of intense focus. The pain and throbbing had faded away as I only focused on looking at the spiral on the chunin's back.

...

I don't know how I survived, but I noticed that I was running slower. At least the rock clone had steadily declined during the trek, which likely was the only reason I had managed to follow. As the spiral came closer, a sudden shout broke me out of my trance, and my vision blurred for a moment, "Enough!"

There was a command in the clone's voice as he looked at me with a frown on his face. I noticed the direction of his gaze, and as I looked down at my leg, I noticed that my black pant was stained with blood. It wasn't much, but the blood was dripping down my leg onto the ground. I wanted to speak but then thee suppressed pain hit me harder than ever, I stumbled.

I managed to stabilize myself before I felt a strong grip on my shoulder. 

"Haaahhh... Haaahhhh... Haaahhh~" I panted, each breath deep and shaky as I took a moment to collect myself. Adjusting my footing, I leaned back and turned to look at everyone who was staring at me. I looked at the rock clone from the corner of my eyes and asked, "Are they done with the target practice?"

'Huh, that's a little unexpected.' I thought. I had already realized that the focus I was able to achieve in the past few days was unnatural. In my past life, I wasn't the most studious one, and I definitely wasn't able to hold my concentration for this long.

'Chakra, let's chalk it up to chakra and move on for now...'

"Yes," came the stern reply. I nodded and took a step forward. I didn't stumble, although a sharp spike of pain did cause me to wince.

"Don't overdo it... were you injured in the attack?" the clone asked.

"Hai!" I replied. He stared at me, but when he didn't respond, I started walking. My legs cramped as I walked back. I heard a sound behind me, and when I turned to look back, the clone had already dissolved into a pile of rocks.

I paused before I arrived back among the rest of the gathered students. There were several eyes on me, but not enough to make me nervous. I was about to join the non-training group when the chunin stopped me.

"Uchiha Kohaku, join the group that has had shinobi training..." The instruction came, and I obliged. I was much more comfortable in this setting, allowing Itachi to steal all the limelight. I used him as a shield and slipped behind Izumi.

"Are you okay?" Izumi whispered, concern evident on her face. 

I stared at the genuine concern for a moment and nodded, "Hai."

She didn't seem convinced, but before she could say anything more, the chunin addressed them, "Those who do not have access to their chakra, your exam is done for the day. The results will be posted on the board outside the registration desk in two hours."

There was a murmur of disappointment and even some sniffling as the kids followed his instruction, and another rock clone appeared, instructing and gathering the kids to leave the training ground. A couple of them started crying at the possibility of failing to get into the Elite class.

'I kind of forgot that everyone here is just 5-6 years old. I know the mentality of everyone in this world is different, but still seeing this is a bit bizarre.' The kids didn't behave like one until now when a few broke down. The mess was soon cleared up as the chunin took a step forward, gathering attention with a simple movement.

"My name is Mizuno Ko. You can call me Ko-sensei once you pass the next test. Behind you is a tree with plenty of fallen leaves lying on the ground. I want you to grab these leaves and perform the Leaf Concentration exercise. Anyone who manages to hold the leaf onto their forehead for more than 10s would pass this next test." The chunin instructed. 

Just like last time, everyone moved as soon as he finished giving instructions. The kids, likely trained by their clans, simply followed his commands as they each bent down to pick a leaf. As I followed to do the same, I realized that my body was showing signs of stiffness due to excessive overdraw of stamina.

I froze for a moment before forcing past the stiffness. I sat down in the same spot I was standing in. The effort to find a space of my own was a bit beyond me at the moment. I grabbed onto a leaf, and after looking at it for a moment, I placed it on my forehead and concentrated. Like a switch that was flipped, I felt the leaf stuck onto my forehead as I let it go.

The Tenketsu that was present on the forehead was one of the 73 I had found and awoken, and my chakra control had surged past 17.5% due to the contribution of efforts in finding these tenketsu. This was my primary and initial source of chakra control, but it was the Leaf Concentration Exercise that gave me hope for a better path. I opened my status screen with a thought and stared at the new number.

...

[Chakra: 214/214 {E-}]

[Chakra Regen: 5.5 Chakra/min {D}]

[Chakra Control: 21.92%{ D-}]

...

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AN- I'll explain the surge in chakra control in the next chapter and conclude the entrance exam in that as well. It looks like I stretched the exam longer than I was expecting it to be.