Chapter 28: The Written Examination

"This is a bummer" Shikamaru said as he watched Toru and his team walk through the door.

At once, everyone in the room gave a dismissive look towards team 11.

"Took you guys long enough to get here" Naruto appeared next to his team, he had a smile on his face.

"Yes, we had to talk to Yamato-sensei" With an emotionless voice, Toru spoke.

But the loud voice of a girl made everyone look at a specific place.

"Hello everyone! Hello!" appearing behind Kiba, while wrapping her arm around the boy's neck, a brown-haired girl appeared, a lock of hair covered her right eye. The clothes she was wearing resembled the military uniform of the ninjas, only this one had slight modifications, such as the vest, which was replaced by a white blouse with black bandages wrapped around her arms. This girl's name is Onikuma Enko.

"There are a lot of losers in this place, aren't there, Akamaru?" said Kiba as he looked at the small puppy on top of his head.

This made Toru squint his eyes as a sigh escaped his lips.

"Hm... this is getting boring. Good thing I brought some snacks" With a bag of fried food in his hands, Chouji spoke as he threw the fried food inside his throat.

Slowly, the eleven rookies began to gather in the same place.

The next to appear was Hoki Hakuto, who was hiding behind Shikamaru.

"There are a lot of people here... I don't think I can resist this..." Hakuto said while trying not to look people in the eyes.

"Stop being such a coward, Hakuto. Ha~ this is annoying" While looking at the girl hiding behind him, Shikamaru spat out some words.

But this only made Hakuto bury himself deeper into Shikamaru's back.

(Everyone is different in their own way... I wonder if... I can control myself) Toru thought as he touched his head.

Since that day, in the fight against Yasu, Toru has been having strange dreams and visions.

Dreams where he sees a brown-haired man in a lab coat.

Since that day, Toru felt uncomfortable, he couldn't control his strength very well. Even when Rock Lee tried to hit him, he was trying his best not to attack him.

But when Rock Lee threw him into the air, Toru felt he had to defend himself.

That's why Rock Lee froze when he saw Toru's eyes.

"Are you okay, Toru-kun" Hinata said, bringing Toru back to reality.

"Yeah... It's nothing" With a sigh, Toru just scanned his surroundings.

It didn't take him long to find some people he was interested in.

The boy with the bottle, the guy with the mummy and the girl with the fan. They were all interesting to Toru, as he could sense that those ninjas in front of him are too dangerous.

"What do we have here? The eleven rookies, ninjas fresh out of the academy. That's amazing" A boy's voice was heard.

At that instant, the eleven rookies looked in one direction only.

In front of them, a silver-haired boy stood. He had round glasses covering his eyes and a somewhat peculiar outfit.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked, the boy was quick to put a smile on his face and answered:

"I'm Yakushi Kabuto, it's a pleasure. As you may know, I'm here for the Chunin exams. Mind you, it's not my first time" Kabuto spoke while looking at the kids in front of him.

"Hm... A full-fledged veteran" Sakura said.

"Yeah, something like that... the truth is this is my seventh time in the Chunin exams" Kabuto said as he scratched his head.

"So the rumors that this exam is extremely difficult were true" Said Kiba as he looked at the ninjas in front of him.

"Yeah, and it looks like this year will be the hardest" Closing his eyes as he let out sigh, Kabuto spoke.

"Is it really that hard?" Chouji asked, this made Kabuto's eyes sparkle dangerously before answering.

"Yes... but thanks to this, I'm sure it won't be that hard" Kabuto said as he pulled out some strange cards from his pocket.

Everyone looked at the cards curiously, before Naruto's voice was heard.

"What are they?" Naruto asked.

Kabuto simply bent down and placed one of the cards on the ground.

"These are ninja information cards, they are very useful. I guess having failed so many times turned out not to be so bad" Kabuto said as he twirled the card with his finger.

Everyone watched intently, until a small cloud of smoke covered the card and the information was revealed.

"These are the five great shinobi nations" Letting the card show, a map of the continent could be seen.

"As you can see, on this card is the number of people from each country who decided to come for the Chunin exams."

Kabuto pushed the card forward a little so that the rookies could see it.

"Most of them are from here, from Konoha. But that doesn't mean that ninja from other nations are wimps. I suggest you be careful with the rain ninja, you might say they are somewhat sensitive."

Adjusting his glasses, Kabuto raised his head to look at the faces of the rookies.

A smile formed on his face.

"But, not only do I have basic information, but also information on some of the ninja here" Fiddling with the cards a bit, Kabuto looked at Sasuke, who stepped forward.

"So, if you have the information of the ninja that will be in this exam, I would like to know about two of them" Sasuke spoke arrogantly while looking at Kabuto.

"Hm... Who do you want to know about" Kabuto said as he adjusted his glasses.

"Rock Lee and Gaara" With a serious expression on his face, Sasuke spoke. Everyone looked at the Uchiha clan boy for a few moments before turning their gaze on Kabuto.

"So Gaara and Rock Lee..."

The bespectacled boy sighed as he pulled two cards from the deck.

"Here they are" Kabuto's glasses glowed as he placed one of the cards on the ground.

"Huh?"

"The first one, Rock Lee. It looks like his Taijutsu has improved a lot these past twelve months. He also has two interesting people as his teammates. Plus he has an elite Jounin as his sensei" Kabuto said.

(So in just twelve months...) Sasuke clicked his tongue as he looked at the ground.

"Next. Gaara of the Hidden Sand Village. He has completed almost all of his missions solo. And in every single one of them I don't get a scratch. He's a ninja to be feared, so it seems" Kabuto looked at Sasuke, who had gone silent.

Meanwhile, Toru was only thinking about Gaara. If he had managed to complete so many missions by himself without receiving any scratches, then his suspicions were confirmed.

"And that would be that" Kabuto said as he put the cards in his pocket.

"I don't think I can pass the exam, Shikamaru" Hakuto said as he tried to hug Shikamaru.

But Shikamaru just wanted to break away from her as it was stressful to have Hakuto around.

"Hahahaha! This is going to be fun" Enko said while squeezing Kiba's neck.

"Wait you're going to break my neck!" Kiba said.

At the same time, Akamaru was biting Enko's arm, all this for that girl with mammoth strength to let go of her friend.

"Hm... this will be really hard, that's why I should eat as much as I can" Chouji said as he continued to spew food into his mouth.

"I guess I'll show no mercy" Crossing her arms, Ino spoke with a confident smile.

This caused Sakura to give her a mischievous look.

"Your confidence is very big, just like your forehead" Sakura said.

"What did you say about my forehead, haven't you seen yourself in the mirror? I guess you're so ugly that mirrors are afraid of you" With a vein in her forehead, Ino countered, but their verbal sparring was interrupted by Naruto's sudden shout.

"Ah, I'm going to beat them all!"

Raising his fist, Naruto shouted. There was a defiant smile on his face.

But all this made everyone in the place cast death glares at the rookies.

"You idiot! Do you want us to get killed?" Wrapping her arms around Naruto's neck and doing an armlock, Sakura spoke.

"Sorry, this fool didn't mean it. You know, he fell out of bed when he was a baby, so that justifies his mental retardation" Sakura said with a nervous smile on her face.

While that was happening, Hinata and Toru watched everything in silence.

(Someone is approaching...) Toru could feel someone moving quickly through the crowd.

It didn't take long for those entities to appear.

Toru quickly pulled out one of the daggers and parried the blow of one of the ninja who rushed to attack.

Kabuto was not as lucky, however, as one of them managed to do something strange to him.

"Calm down, buddy. are you getting emotional over the words of a child?" with a nervous smile, Kabuto spoke, but that ninja with the sound village symbol on his shield had something on his mind.

"This is just a little punishment to some brats for disrespecting their elders" Said the sound ninja.

Almost immediately, Kabuto fell to the ground, vomiting as if he had been hit hard in the stomach.

The rookies looked at this with different expressions on their faces.

But they also saw something that surprised them.

For Toru was grappling his dagger with the kunai of one of the attackers.

"Seriously, you are very strong" The kunoichi spoke.

"I don't think you should cause trouble if you're not in your village" With a poker expression on his face, Toru narrowed his eyes as he looked at the girl in front of him.

(How can that be...?) Ino was confused, Toru jumped to the defense right away.

She didn't have a chance to see him and she was sure that most of the rookies shared the same feelings.

They, who had known Toru for so long were surprised. They were confused, but still praised Toru's skill secretly.

"Now, go on you brats" The sound ninja, who had his face covered with bandages spoke.

Everyone felt a chill at that moment, but they were saved by someone speaking.

"Hey... What do you think you're doing?" A grown man's voice echoed in the room, causing everyone to return their gaze to the front.

"Sorry, we're just a little nervous, that's all" The sound ninja spoke.

This caused the man to sigh before speaking.

"Hm... return to your seats" He said, to which they all obeyed and sat down on the benches.

The man was surrounded by different mysteriously dressed ninjas.

"Listen you vermin! I will be the sensei conducting the first test of the Chunin exams. My name is Morino Ibiki and from now on, consider me your worst nightmare!"

A macabre smile formed on the man's mouth, immediately a shiver ran through the body of most people present.

(So, that's how it starts, huh...) Toru closed his eyes and tried to think.

"Okay, everyone turn in your application for admission, in return you will receive a number that will determine where you will be seated. When we're done with that, we'll start the written exam."

(I guessed it...)

Toru sighed and looked intently at the mysterious looking ninjas.

He had managed to deduce that the first thing on the exam would be a written test. Well, more than deducing it was just common sense.

Toru handed in his application for admission and was given a number.

The number was 25.

Toru looked at the seats until he found the one with the number 25.

Once he sat in his seat, Toru looked at his teammates.

Ino had sat in the middle of everything, while Hinata was in the front next to Naruto.

To Toru's luck, he was able to get a seat behind everyone.

(Looks like... it won't be an easy test).

Toru looked at the mysterious looking ninjas, who were taking strategic positions so they could observe all the students.

"I hope they are prepared..." With a serious expression on his face Ibiki looked at the shinobi in front of him.