The Written Exam

Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Kakumei – Arc 3: Naruto Next Generation

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Chapter 72 – The Written Exam

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Flash forward to the first day of the International Chunin Selection Exam. The genin teams from around the world have all come to the place for the first part of this event. This step, being a written assessment, takes place in Sunagakure.

There are 3 large rooms in the building. Participants are randomly sent to one of these rooms with their teams, but are not allowed to choose their seat, nor are they allowed to speak. They're sorted by their first names in alphabetical order, from the first to last row of seats.

Once all the candidates are at their seats, the exam proctors reunite with assisting guards in front of the rooms. There is Sai Yamanaka, a special agent from Konoha, along with Kira Arashi, archivist of Kumo and wife of the Raikage, and Tsubai Minamoto, member of Kiri's intel division. They are the 3 supervisors who will oversee the written exam, each helped by 2 assisting guards.

The three of them, after greeting each other, draw straws together from the hand of Atsui, a Kumo-nin among the guards, to determine the room they will be affected to. Sai draws the shortest, meaning he'll go for room 1. Kira got the second shortest, and Tsubai drew the longest.

Seeing the embarrassed look on Sai's expressive face in reaction to his draw, Tsubai bends over a bit to see inside of room 1, to know what could be the source of the Konoha-nin's trouble. There, he notices Boruto Hyuga, the son of the Hokage. After remembering a recent discussion between his wife and Ino Yamanaka about their children, he finds out what's wrong.

"Looks like you'll have to keep an eye on your daughter, Sai." says the Minamoto, to Kira's surprise.

"Hm? Is that allowed?" says the Kumo archivist, as she checks room 2 to make sure her daughter Aoki isn't in it.

"Why not? And don't worry about your kid. She's in my room." answers Tsubai to Kira, reassuring her, before looking back at Sai. "If Inoue had gotten in my room, her mind tricks wouldn't have helped her for the last question."

"It won't work on me either." responds Sai confidently. "I may not be resistant or immune to mind related jutsu like you, Tsubai, but I know these too well to fall for it."

Tsubai makes an intrigued face, curious about Sai's strategy. Kira, worried about the candidates she'll have to look after, gazes through the door frame and recognizes only one.

"I see the Kazekage's son in my room… but no one else I know." she comments.

"Shall we begin?" asks Kotetsu Hagane, one of Sai's assisting guards, to the three proctors to get their focus back on the task.

Sai quietly nods and steps forward to his room. Tsubai shrugs his shoulders and goes for his room. Kira looks at her two assistants and waves her hand, telling them to follow her. All three get in their respective classrooms, close the door behind the two guards, and go to sit at their desk in front of the class, back to a board on which only a few words are written: "No violence allowed". In each room, the proctors ask for silence, before authorizing the candidates to flip the sheets in front of them and start the assessment.

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Each room is an amphitheater with about 300 seats, and each is nearly or completely full. In room 1, Boruto Hyuga sits on the first row. Inoue and Izuna are closer to the middle, 3 seats away from each other on the same row. In the same room, Metal Lee and Namonaki from Team 14 (Anko's team) sit in the middle row. Rebekka Tabiki, the 3rd member of the squad, is closer to the room's back.

Inoue tries not to care about her father being the proctor and concentrates on the test. The first 10 exercises are simple knowledge and reaction questions. 5 of these are about some of the basics that the kids from Konoha learned during their last academy year. The 5 followings are about mission case studies, and mobilize knowledge that they should have acquired during their genin missions.

The Yamanaka girl, having spent the last weeks before the beginning of the exam studying for this kind of task, calmly takes on the assessment. And so do Izuna, Boruto, and all the other spotlighted participants in the other rooms.

Trouble comes when, about an hour and half later, when there is only 30 minutes left, the fastest and smartest kids in the room first reach the 11th and last question, that has nothing to do with the rest of the paper. When he sees heads rising from the desks and confused faces of hundreds of young ninjas, Sai teases them with a little smile as he understands well what they all just found out.

In the middle row, Metal Lee and Namonaki look at each other, hoping to find some relief in their teammate's eyes. Unfortunately, both are as deceived and unprepared for this question as the other. It requires the use of either high stealth skills, or accurate intel gathering methods, which their team can't do at all. And as if this wasn't enough stress already, a note next to the question says: "Right answer to this question is mandatory".

Rebekka Tabiki, in the back of the room, reads the question at last. She looks down at Sai, the proctor, and then gazes at her two teammates, who don't seem to know what to do either. Not much insightful, she makes a bland face to appear careless and leans back on her seat. She puts her feet on the table and rocks in her chair to pass time, hiding her disappointment in herself and trying to accept her failure.

The 11th question for all the candidates in all 3 rooms is the same: "What color is the bandage around the proctor's kunai handle?". Violence is not allowed, added to the fact that they have no idea where the proctors are carrying weapons. Spying and intel gathering jutsus seem to be the only reliable answer to pass this test.

Some students, quick to think of a plan, already guessed that this test truly requires only one person in each room to be able to get this information from the proctor. The students who achieve this will then need communication skills to transmit the answer to at least their teammates. Then, the more minds in the room have the answer, the easier it will be for the others to steal it.

Boruto, after seeing the question, looks up to the proctor and thinks. He first wonders how his father, the 7th Hokage, would have gotten over this… He would probably have used Jiton (Magnet release) to bring the kunai to him, since it is a metallic object… Fortunately, Boruto has a way more reliable solution to this test, and puts it to use.

Byakugan

Using his Dojutsu, he easily finds the only kunai in Sai's weapon pocket wrapped around his thigh. But unfortunately, the lack of light in the pocket keeps him from identifying the color of the bandage with his X-ray vision. But that's not all. He also notices an odd circular seal on the ground that Sai is standing in. A bit frustrated, he looks behind to see his teammates. Inoue who notices him decides to start a discussion on the situation.

Shindenshin no Jutsu

Using her clan's signature skill, she connects her minds with Izuna and Boruto's, allowing the three of them to communicate.

"Do you boys have a plan?" she asks them.

"Nope. At least I found the kunai with my Byakugan, but I'm unable to see its colors." answers Boruto.

"… Inoue, I think you'll have to take control over your dad's body to reveal the weapon." suggests Izuna.

"Sorry, but I already tried that." she responds. "He didn't move at all, or didn't even notice me trying, but something seems to just keep my jutsu from reaching him…"

"Of course, that has to be it!" exclaims Boruto in his mind.

"You noticed something?" asks Izuna.

"He's standing on a thing." says Boruto. "A circular shape that looks like a seal."

"Oh no… A counter jutsu." sadly guesses Inoue. "I should have known he'd bring it here. It completely blocks any Yin based jutsu from being used on a target inside the circle."

Izuna makes a disappointed face and looks around to see if anyone else found a way to get the answer. Maybe, if someone did, he could use his Sharingan to copy the person's hand movements as it writes down the answer. But sadly, everybody else in the room is just as embarrassed as them.

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In room 2, the candidates also come to this question. Here, Shinki, Gaara's son, is with his teammates Mira Fuhatsu and Shakiro Araya. Team Mizuno from Kiri, including Teru Uchiha, Mio (Mizuno's daughter) and Mariko Uchida are there too. Kaza Kamizuru, the prodigy of Iwa, is in the same room with the twin brothers Genki and Abachi Shintaro. Lastly, sitting in the middle row, at the right end, is Kawaki from Hikarigakure.

This last one is silently watching around to analyze the other ninjas. In the proctor's back, he shortly notices a floating eye that seems to be made of sand. He immediately guesses where it comes from and looks to Shinki, who he sees holding his eye with two fingers. The Suna-nin is using the Daisan no Me (Third Eye) jutsu that he learned from his father to try and see where the kunai could be hidden. After dispelling his jutsu, he looks at Shakiro sitting right next to him.

Without saying a word, he draws sand letters on the ground, using the sand he carries in a little bag at his belt. This way, he explains a strategy to his friend, to which Shakiro complies and nods to show his agreement. Shinki nods back and pulls a grain of iron sand from behind the metal plate of his headband. He infuses this grain with his Jiton chakra and sends it flying through the air to reach Kira, the proctor.

Kira, resting her eyes while using her sensory abilities, feels the chakra approaching, but also senses Shakiro's chakra string that he attached to the grain. Assuming that he'll try to reach for her weapon pocket with this string, she waits until it comes close enough. When it does, she promptly opens her eyes and catches on the string to stop its progress. Shakiro makes a startled face, but is glad. She stopped his string, but she didn't anticipate it also being bathed in Shinki's Jiton chakra. Now that she made physical contact with it, the chakra spreads through her and her clothes. Ready to proceed, Shinki gets to the last part of his plan.

Jiton – Jakuho no Sojin

He inherently magnetizes the proctor lady and the kunai she wields in her pocket and then pulls the weapon out to bring it all the way to him very rapidly. He catches the tool, wrapped in a tissue that was dragged along. Kira, seeing the successful plan of the Kazekage's son, gently smiles, and calmly goes walking to him to get the kunai back, which Shinki gladly accepts, after taking a look under the wrapped veil to see the answer to the question.

He gives her the kunai, wrapped in the tissue again, to prevent any other genin from profiting from his success. Kira takes it and simply returns to the office. Before writing the answer to the question down, Shinki uses sand letters to transmit it to Shakiro, next to him, and Mira Fuhatsu who's closer to the middle of the room. He shortly draws the characters to spell "Yellow".

The Suna team's achievement leads to a chain reaction of few teams using skills to copy their answer. Teru Uchiha, who sits on the row behind Shakiro and Shinki, simply uses his Sharingan to reproduce their moves and write down the same answer as them. He then looks down at his teammates to see how they make their way through it. Since their names both start with an M, they're very close to Mira Fuhatsu, and use Suiton as mirrors to reflect the Suna-nin's sheet and see her answer.

At the same moment, a bee that was flying through the room alone, above the participants' heads, lands on Kaza Kamizuru's shoulder. As in harmony with the insect's mind, Kaza gets the answer it saw while flying over Shakiro and Shinki's papers. She then sends the bee to her teammates who let it wield their pencil leads, that they took out from their pens, to write the answer on their sheets.

Meanwhile, Kawaki raises his hand and holds his turtle neck up to hide his face's left side and his eye by covering it, pretending to be bored. Once in the right position, a mark on the back of his hand, a red triangular seal, turns to white and spreads red marking down his arm, to under his cloak. On his face, a few of these markings appear emerging from his neck, and veins on his left cheek inflate.

Byakugan

He looks briefly towards Shinki before turning off his seal power and Dojutsu and returning to normal. He then writes the correct answer on his sheet. Once done with his paper, he looks around to see Mikitaka, the mercenary that serves as his teammates, and Iwabe Yogu, a ninja from Hikari that he selected to accompany him. Thinking of a way to give them the solution, he looks at the tattoo on his right shoulder, the one shaped like the mitsudomoe symbol in his leader's right eye. He closes his eyes and speaks in his mind.

"Oshio?" he calls, waiting for an answer.

"Did you really need to copy down from another person's sheet?" responds the leader's voice in his mind.

"I could have used the other eye power that the Shojo seal gives me, but my goal is to keep my abilities secret." explains Kawaki. "Anyway, I have the right answer. Did you implant my teammates with a white rod too?"

"Of course I did. All my most valuable subordinates carry my mark. You want me to transmit the solution to them?" supposes Oshio.

"Give it to anyone you want to, but not too many." answers the brown haired man. "It could raise suspicions."

"… As you wish." says Oshio, before proceeding to make his voice be heard in a selection of ninjas across the room. "Also, I used my eye prowess to figure out the answers in the two other rooms. Should I give the answer to a few of them as well?"

"Really? How did you do that?" asks Kawaki, pleasantly surprised by his friend's efficiency.

"A simple and precise use of my left eye's Space-time ability," he explains. "None of the people in these rooms can sense my chakra, and so no one could feel it happening."

"Impressive…" says Kawaki, "Do as you like then, but again, just a bunch of them."

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In the third classroom, Aoki (Darui's daughter) is sitting in the front row. Her teammate Ru is closer to the back, and Yukai is on the last row. Minaa Nii's genin team is also there. Yurui is on Yukai's right, a few seats away, while Tarui and Toroi are a few rows forward.

From Kiri, Takeshi's team, excluding himself, is in this same room. Yukiko is sitting right next to Yukai. Kaori is in the middle row. And Jinbei, another genin who failed the last chunin exam in the third part against Takeshi, is a few seats on her left.

In front of the class, Tsubai Minamoto is sitting with his legs resting on the desk. He's playing with a random pencil that he spins in his fingers. In his inner-world, Kasha makes an astonished face for a second before calming down.

"For a moment I thought that the thing you were playing with was the kunai you had to hide." she says.

"Ouch… I'm glad I'm not that damn stupid." answers Tsubai. "Chojuro would have killed me."

"Pff… Bullshit!" exclaims Daikoku. "We would beat this four-eyes' ass good if we had to."

"Get down to earth bro! He's the damn Mizukage and the strongest of Kiri's swordsmen." Tsubai argues.

"And? I'm the damn Ghost of time, mightiest of the Daitengu's children!" he adds, confidently.

"Don't care if we're stronger than him or not. It's a matter of respect." Tsubai explains. "We can't fight the Mizukage, he's technically our boss… Whatever! If I really made such a dumb mistake, I would have fixed it with a good ol' time pause and erased everyone's memory."

Willing to end the discussion, the Minamoto looks around the room and sees the sad faces of the young ninjas. They're all looking at the menacing 2 meters tall long black haired proctor hesitatingly. Yukai, who took his time on the questions, just now reached the 11th.

"Hmm… I didn't see that coming…" he thinks, worriedly.

Kaori, seeing that there is only ten minutes left, tries a diplomatic approach and raises her hand to speak.

"Minamoto-sensei." she says. "Could you show us the weapon you carry?"

At this absurd, but worth the try, attempt, Tsubai mockingly laughs a bit, and points his hand to the board behind him.

"Weapons are forbidden." he simply says, to bring silence back to the room. "And speaking aloud also should be, young lady."

Looking through the rows, seeing everyone sleeping, thinking, or looking around, he now notices a few ninjas of Hikari suddenly taking their pencils and papers again to answer the last question, after Oshio secretly gave them the solution. Confused by this, Tsubai wonders how they could have gotten the kunai's color out of him. Just to be sure, he checks to see if he still has it on him.

Not following the ninja's usual equipment code, he isn't wearing a weapon pocket, and simply laid the projectile in his mantle's pocket. He looks down and widely opens it to see the kunai still laying there. At this moment, he hears a popping sound behind him, and hurries to hide the kunai back deep in his jacket.

He turns around and doesn't see the source of it, but he understands that one of the students must have seen the kunai and gotten the answer. In his mind, Daikoku reacts.

"That was stupid."

"Not that serious." says Kasha, to reassure her host. "Goal isn't to stop them from passing."

"Yeah… He isn't the first to get it anyway." answers Tsubai who looks around to see who wrote it.

On the front row, Aoki recognized the sound of a rubber bubble popping, and looks to the back of the room to see Yurui who opens his eyes and snidely smiles. He used a bubble as a seeing and sensing orb to keep an eye on the proctor and saw the kunai's blue handle. The Kumo-nin notes the answer down and then looks at his two teammates, Toroi and Tarui, looking at him and waiting for a sign of the answer.

Yukiko, who sits close to Yurui, sees him sneakily and very shortly points at the blue tattoo on his cheek. Assuming it is a clue, and lacking ideas, she writes it down too. Yukai, who sits next to her, sees Toroi and Tarui taking their papers and writing after looking up. Guessing that Yurui must be showing the answer, he hurries to look at him.

"Crap, too slow…" he thinks, as Yurui is now just looking around innocently. Starting to feel embarrassed he gazes through the room and, a bit late, notices Aoki looking at him. She was waiting for him to see her, to send a message only through her faithful but doubtful gaze. The solution is now spreading through the room, and Yukai is the only one of their team able to collect it. She counts on him, and already took note of a way for him, that she tries to tell.

She discreetly nods to Yukai's side, to show him a kunoichi of Suna using an eye power to snatch the answer from Toroi's paper. Yukai looks at the Suna girl next to him and follows her gaze to know where she is looking. He realizes where she's looking at and stares back at her to see why.

This young woman of Suna is called Yome Horikawa, and is from a family that has a unique Dojutsu called the Tomegan, a visual power that allows her to use her pupils like a telescope and zoom in in her field of view. The image she sees is then reflected on her iris.

Paying close attention, Yukai manages to see the detailed reflection of Toroi's sheet in the girl's eye, but too late again. She takes her eyes off the paper and writes down the answer, which she carefully hides away.

Aoki, seeing her friend's failure, sighs, and starts to seriously worry. She's about to fail a second Chunin exam by not even passing the first step. Yukai, feeling guilty of his lack of attention, stressfully searches for a way out of this. Next to him, Yukiko who stole the answer from Yurui is worried about her teammates to whom she has no way of passing a message. She looks at Toroi and Tarui, satisfied with their sheets and tries to figure out a way.

After analyzing the two of them carefully, she whispers an idea to her own self, that she however doesn't know how to exploit.

"The boy's glasses…?" she quietly says, which grabs Yukai's attention. He looks at her, and then at Toroi, who's looking at his sheet. Yukai almost jumps off his seat and hurries to use this clue.

Koton – Hakko (Light Release – Emission)

Using the unique Kekkei Genkai he was born with in a totally different way than the tengu Tentoki would, he amplifies the intensity of the light reflected on Toroi's glasses, causing them to emit this light and project an image on the wall over the board.

"Whhoooow!" exclaims Toroi who almost falls off his seat when he's suddenly blinded by this light and sees his glasses serve as a projector.

Tsubai, to prevent this excessive leak from breaking the assessment's results, quickly uses Meiton to spread a full black screen on the wall that doesn't reflect any light and fully absorbs it, hiding the image. However, some of the most attentive people in the room still got to see the message. Daikoku speaks to Tsubai, after feeling the light being absorbed by their darkness.

"Is that Koton?" he exclaims.

"Seems like… I didn't know there were humans capable of using it." answers the Minamoto.

In the room, Yukai looks at Yukiko next to him who's face lights up in relief as she sees her two teammates being among the few who got the message and the answer. He then looks down and sees Ru and Aoki also writing the answer down. Aoki then turns around and sees too many people having profited from Yukai's effort. She makes a facepalm, thinking about how this will change the outcome of the first part and possibly overcrowd the second part.

Yukai makes an awkward face, acting like this wasn't voluntary, but is really hiding away his satisfaction of having been able to help the girl sitting next to him, and some other fellow young ninjas in the room. A bit late, after a short moment of self-satisfaction, he lets out a loud gasp as he realizes that he completely forgot to look at the answer he himself displayed.

Already foreseeing himself heading back to Kumo as a loser, he notices Yukiko, the girl next to him, kindly leaving her sheet aside for him to see. Having heard his loud gasp and worries, she wants to help him, as a way to thank him for giving the answer off to her friends. Yukai stares at the sheet, then at the girl. He makes sure none of the guards are seeing him and copies the answer from her, gladly smiling and thinking of thanking her back later.

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Only five minutes left in room 1, and Team 1 still didn't find the answer. Izuna looks at Boruto and waits for him to get them out of here. The Hokage's son, looking around the room, sees a ninja from Hikari make a happy face and rapidly grab his sheet and pen to write something down. Seeing an occasion, he activates his Byakugan again and sees the answer written down.

He discreetly smiles, finally off his worries, and calmly writes the solution down, which Izuna sees him do. The Uchiha nods, and looks at Inoue, since they now need her to establish a connection between their minds again. But the Yamanaka is worriedly looking to the back of the room. Izuna, curious, follows her gaze and sees Rebekka, acting unbothered and bored, rocking her chair with her legs on the table.

Inoue, however, knows her former classmate well enough to know that she is just forcing herself to hide her feelings, and is in reality in despair, out of options, maybe having already given up. Izuna gazes through the rest of the room where he sees Metal Lee scratching his head out of stress, and Namonaki staring at the ceiling with dead eyes. A lot of other ninjas are as panicked as them.

A bit frustrated by Inoue's worries, he lets her altruism spread to his mind and makes a decision. He has an idea that he isn't sure will not disqualify him, but if it can relieve his teammate, he's ready to take the risk. He stands up in his seat and walks to the middle corridor of the room. As he does this, he passes in Inoue's back and quietly whispers to her.

"I'll create an opening for you."

Inoue makes a surprised face, but stands still, not to be suspicious. Sai slightly raises an eyebrow and looks at the Uchiha walking, unauthorized, to the middle of the room and down closer to him.

"Hey, you! Go back to your seat now!" exclaims Kotetsu, bringing everyone's attention to Izuna.

The young ninja doesn't listen and stops a few rows away from Sai who's still standing at his desk. The proctor tries to guess Izuna's intention. Did he decide to get the answer by force? There isn't much time left, and he could be sacrificing for the others. But in such a scenario, if the proctor really ends up hurt, it would simply disqualify him and get the guards implied before the kunai can be revealed.

He doesn't believe it at first, and stands still, but starts to worry when Izuna fiercely clenches his right fist and gathers chakra in it. Turning this chakra into his affinity, he heats his hand up and lights it on a bright fire. Having chosen the right moment to take action, the genin is alone in front of the proctor while the guards are in the back of the room, too far away to stop him from hitting.

Sai readies his mind and position for an eventual attack, even though he still hardly believes that Izuna would waste his first attempt at a chunin exam like this. The young Uchiha slowly bends his knees, and, after a little hesitation, starts to rush forward to Sai, ready to strike.

At the very first step, Sai readies to receive the attack, but senses the intense heat and raw power enclosed in the boy's fist, who only took a single step and is only raising his hand now. Certain that this attack would be fatal if correctly landed, Sai leaps away from its trajectory, and to his surprise sees the Uchiha promptly stopping his progress. He did not realize that he just fell in Izuna's trap, before he feels his mind and body being overtaken as he is forced to sleep.

Shintenshin no jutsu

In the very short moment before he loses consciousness, he understands everything. Inoue, who was standing ready to take action at her seat, was waiting for him to step out of the counter jutsu seal on the ground and become vulnerable to her mind control. In his mind, he proudly smiles and admits defeat.

Kotetsu and Izumo who just leaped over the student desks to get to the middle of the room, land behind Izuna who turns off his jutsu and calmly goes back to his seat, under their confused eyes. In front of the room, Sai jumps up to stand on the front desk before all the candidates' flabbergasted looks. Inoue, in control of the body, reaches for Sai's weapon pocket, grabs the kunai by the blade and proudly raises it up above her head to show the red bandage on the handle to everyone.

Rebekka, spectating like everyone else, is as confused as the others, until she notices Izuna holding Inoue's sleeping body's shoulders, ready to wake her up as quickly as possible. She understands what this plan was about, and loudly laughs out. Boruto sees her reaction, from the first row, and can't contain his own grins. He laughs, more quietly along with her while everyone hurries to get its sheet to take notes.

This is how the first part of the International Chunin Exam comes to an end, with an unexpectedly high success rate. However, just as Aoki foresaw, this will certainly cause a revision of the second part, to sort out the participants before the third and final part.

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End of Chapter 72 – Next Chapter: On to the Next