65

"Welcome to Uzushiogakure," Naruto said to the arena full of teams from all over the Elemental Nations. Only two smaller countries hadn't sent at least one team after being invited. "But as of right now, I cannot welcome you to the joint chunin exams. Before we can do that, first you must individually prove that you are worthy of the rank of genin. Only after you have proven that you are worthy of genin will you be given access to the forms to apply for entry into the chunin exams themselves as part of three-member teams representing a single village. Whether those teams are the same ones you arrived in will be up to you. We don't care if you're assembling teams from the pieces of others that managed to prove they're genin or simply feel that your team compositions need adjusting, and your sensei and villages have no say in things beyond whether an alliance allows members of one village to act as members of another."

Konoha and Uzushio weren't the only set of villages present that had an agreement like that. There was a full list available, including those that needed sensei sign-off and those that didn't. Every set of forms would be checked as appropriate, but it felt unlikely that anyone would try to submit things incorrectly. That would be cross-village cooperation in a manner that was essentially unheard of without alliances in place.

"To begin with," Naruto continued after the frantic concerned whispers died down. "Each of you needs to travel to one of the six testing centers on the village maps. There you will be assigned individual testing rooms for your first three tests. If you pass them, you will be told where to go afterwards. Please note that you have to have your chunin exam entry forms submitted by twenty-one hundred today, and have six total tests to prove that you're genin before then. In addition, the testing centers for the first three tests close in three hours." He paused, looking over the arena. "And yet you're all still just standing here. Get going!"

The genin panicked and moved for the exits, but a number of their sensei looked annoyed or insulted and headed his way. Luckily he had explanatory pamphlets ready to go, including a mention that this was partially for liability reasons as they didn't know the standards for genin in other villages. That even the Konoha and Uzushio teams in the crowd were being put through this would also help smooth things over.

Or if it didn't help smooth things over then at least remove one of the only justifications they could use to pull out now that they were already here.

Kitsuchi looked at the pamphlet he'd been given explaining why Uzushio was testing the genin to prove that they were worthy of being genin. As much as it annoyed him to have the quality of Iwa's genin challenged, the reasoning made sense. Every village had their own standards for graduation, exceptions to those standards were frequently made for any number of reasons, and those who made it to genin could suffer injuries or slack off in training and in theory no longer be capable of acting as a genin on their own. This wasn't even testing to Uzushiogakure's standards for genin, just to a minimum level that it was likely most of the big five's academy students could reach before being ready for graduation. Or at least those who had functioning academies could reach, anyway.

The primary point of contention in the testing phase was the 'field experience that all genin should have before being sent to a chunin exam', which wasn't detailed in the pamphlet. No questions about it had been answered either, but there were precious few things you could test in bulk that would apply. And none of the ones discussed amongst the various sensei felt right.

That was also the last thing that would be tested before the genin would be given access to the forms needed to actually apply for the chunin exam itself. When it came to the forms, and if Kitsuchi was being honest with himself, he felt that more villages needed to implement this 'make the genin do some paperwork' system. Too many chunin fell apart for months to a couple of years when they suddenly had to deal with paperwork on their own without a jounin handling it for them.

Now, after the testing phase came the other major point of contention. Allowing the genin to decide on their own teams, instead of staying in their assigned squads? Granted, allowing on the fly assembling of teams from those who passed was almost a courtesy when doing this kind of pre-testing, but it felt like the sensei should be making that decision. The genin had been teamed up the way they were for a number of reasons and just...discarding that, on their own whims?

This had the makings of an utter disaster, but he had to admit that he was curious if any of the genin would form teams that were honestly more balanced and effective than their assigned ones.

Hinata was sitting at the front desk of one of the testing centers, her clones spread throughout the building and two of the others. Naruto had only revealed some of what was going to happen this morning, so as to keep the surprise intact for when the genin got started on things. He'd also kept the revelations to today only.

In the in-village testing centers, they were officially handling half of the tests. Signs put up first thing this morning indicated that once an individual had their room number they had exactly five minutes to make it into the testing room or they were disqualified and had to make an attempt at a different testing center. What wasn't said was that the doors to the individual testing rooms only opened if the chakra meters built into them determined that you had a minimum amount of chakra, which was itself the first test.

Naruto claimed to have calibrated the doors to need enough chakra to use the replacement technique fifteen times in a row without suffering chakra exhaustion, and he'd apparently tested it with twelve academy students back in Konoha. One of whom was Hanabi.

Even with that reasonably simple requirement there were a few genin failing to open their doors. Her clones could see the chakra meter output from inside the rooms and were permitted to make a judgment if the meter was near enough to the 'opens for the genin' mark. So far, none of those failing to open the doors were anywhere close, which was abysmal from a standards point of view.

Once inside the testing room, the second test was that each genin had to retrieve a copy of their written exam from a tray in the corner. Approaching the corner would put you into range of a pain-generating seal that had supposedly also been calibrated with academy students back in Konoha. The closer you got to the tray the more the seal affected you. There was nothing stopping alternative methods of retrieving the paper, such as using a chakra thread, but if genin didn't have something to write with and didn't think to grab one of the pencils in the cup next to the tray of blank tests then they'd have to go back into the seal.

A minority of genin were giving up before they even got to the tray, completely unable to handle the pain that as far as Hinata had been able to tell was no worse than being stabbed in the shoulder by a single kunai. In fact, being stabbed in the shoulder was probably worse. Then there was one kunoichi who had made it through the pain, obtained an exam, found out she needed a pencil and the seal she thought had one didn't, broke down in tears, and then pulled herself together to brave the trek to the corner to get a pencil.

This gave the impression that the girl was at least slightly coddled, but determined to not let that hold her back.

The actual exam itself was focused on basic knowledge that all shinobi should know. It wasn't even covering basic theory, just practical items. Field navigation, identifying the standardized international border markers, requirements for openly crossing into another country, the definitions of several terms used when purchasing basic supplies. Several of the items didn't even come up in Konoha's academy, but only when you did your first border patrol or border crossing in a general sense.

It was mildly amusing how relieved a few of the genin were at how simple the test was, as well as how confused a few were that obviously expected something far more difficult. At the same time, a small number of genin were failing the simple examination. Those sheets were being kept to show their sensei at the end of the day to help explain why the genin were being kept out of things.

Tadireo sighed in relief at having passed the first three tests, even if he was sure that there had been something hidden in the written exam and wasn't actually certain what was so special about getting into the testing room within five minutes. Beyond perhaps there having been a simple genjutsu he'd seen through without even noticing it, perhaps? The building map had been very straightforward and the door hadn't even been locked, even if the handle had stuck a little at first. Really, the only part of the first three tests that had felt reasonably 'test-like' at all was braving the effect that induced pain to get your written test and pencil.

Shaking his head, because he was sure that there were still genin not making it through, he went downstairs to the desk because he'd been told that the jounin there would validate his passing and send him on to the next location.

"Congratulations on making it this far," the kunoichi said as she collected and seemingly ignored the contents of the paper he'd been given upstairs. She then handed him a small token that he noted had his village symbol and his personal registration number on it. "You will need to take this to the training grounds. Show it to the guard at gate five and she'll let you pass, but you have only forty-five minutes to make the journey and there's a distance to travel. Don't forget to check the map at the gate."

Fuck, that sounded like he was going to have to travel at speed to get there in time.

Ino hadn't expected her ability to spam clones to be seen as an asset even though she was still struggling to regain some semblance of proper chakra control, but because it was she was still able to help out with the exam and see what was going on. She'd volunteered for monitoring gate five, the entrance to the training grounds, and the area between the two. Most of the genin showing up were already frazzled, from confusion over the first tests and not having been told that their forty-five minutes started when she cleared them to pass through the gate. Penalizing the test of their ability to move across the island based on a backlog of people in front of them at the gate wouldn't have been fair.

Correcting them wasn't being done though, because putting a little more urgency into the mix wasn't bad either.

"So," Anko said to Ino's clone at the training ground entrance gate. "How many genin are getting lost traveling in a reasonably straight line?"

"About twenty percent of them," Ino replied.

"...seriously?"

"Yeah. It's honestly pathetic, and the real me has needed to send out more clones to follow the ones getting lost."

"Did someone genjutsu the path?"

"Not that I can see? I think the genin are stupidly assuming that the obvious path is a lie. Then they try to see underneath something that isn't there, don't find something else, make things up in their heads, and get lost."

"And here I thought that the whole deal today was too straightforward."

A couple of genin arrived, had their tokens checked, and were sent to the next building before the conversation could continue. Ino looked back out at the path leading to the training grounds. "Seems a bit weird that a fully bricked path with benches, lights, and the occasional sign indicating where things are would be so confusing to the genin though. So far only three genin took the wrong branch of the path right at the start and headed for the fishing cove, and they were at least able to follow the path until they realized their mistake and backtracked. The most recent of those three should arrive in a couple of minutes."

"Huh. What about the few that keep coming in from the side of the path?"

"I think they're assuming that the path is trapped and are shadowing it from the sides."

"...didn't Naruto warn us that he trapped the areas around the path?"

"Yep."

"So anyone overthinking things and being proactive in avoiding assumed problems is getting to run a gauntlet of traps, while those that take things at face value and follow the path aren't having issues at all."

"That appears to be the case."

"I can't decide if this is Naruto being several steps ahead of everyone in deviousness or him actually trying to be straightforward."

Ino snorted. "The map at gate five highlights the trapped zones to either side of the path if you pay attention to the legend, though it claims that the traps are to help keep animals away from the path."

"Huh."

"Haven't needed to drag anyone to a medic-nin yet, as the traps do seem to be geared towards animals, but it might only be a matter of time."

Anko shook her head. "Still don't know if this is intentionally straightforward or if he expected this and only made it look straightforward on the surface."

"I think he's treating the whole thing as a lesson that sometimes things are exactly what they seem to be and that looking underneath the underneath type behavior needs to include an assumption that there might not be something there to find."

"...oh. Oh. That's...deviously subtle. I definitely approve."

Orini was concerned that she might've missed something significant, but couldn't figure out what it might be. The time limits so far were obviously to instill a sense of urgency, but in the case of traveling down this path also likely to be partially ensuring that they could move faster than civilians. Without taking frequent breaks, possibly, despite the path having regular benches to rest on. But she'd have expected the path to be trapped in some way, to test their observation skills, yet hadn't spotted anything.

Maybe the benches themselves were trapped in some way?

Admittedly, she wasn't on the path, but next to it after confirming that there were traps in the areas marked as such on the map. This was partially because she was more used to spotting things on grass and dirt but mostly because she didn't like how her chakra interacted with the bricks. Too much fire nature in them that her water nature didn't appreciate. Thus, it was entirely possible that the brick path was trapped and she just hadn't noticed due to not being on it. Making it so that they merely needed to not be on the path itself was...subtle, if that was the case, but effective. On a mission you never used the civilian paths if you didn't want to be seen moving around.

Despite moving more slowly due to constantly being on the lookout for traps, she still made it to the end of the path with plenty of time to spare. The same kunoichi that had let her out at the first gate let her in at this one though, making her wonder if the almost perfectly straight path had somehow curved clear back around. But the walls here were different, and the stuff behind the walls was nothing like the city that she'd left. Which could mean the kunoichi had a twin, one or both were disguised to look the same, or they had a solid clone option that worked over larger distances than anything Orini had personal experience with.

"You will be tested on two different skills," Tenten said to the first group of genin that had made it to the training grounds. So far she didn't need clones, but would create a couple to run multiple groups when more genin started showing up. "We will start with thrown weapons, and then if you fail that or wish to attempt things anyway, kenjutsu. Only one of the two skills needs to be passed to continue to the final test as it's considered acceptable for genin to focus on one or the other."

She was one of the few that knew that testing basic weapon usage was going to be involved ahead of time, because Naruto had approached her about it weeks ago. Followed by working with her to come up with a repeatable and fair test for genin that didn't go into either of their personal overachieving territories. Somewhat expectedly, this involved zombies, because of course it involved zombies. They were an incredibly versatile, acceptable, and disposable target option.

Lining the group of genin up at the target range, she first brought up the static non-zombie targets. "Stage one, stand behind the line and choose your thrown weapon of choice. You need to hit inside of the target circle with at least five of ten thrown weapons and can stop as soon as you have at least five inside of the circle."

Leaving it at fifty percent felt insulting to her, but Naruto had insisted that this had to be a minimum standard and not an obvious attempt to exclude large numbers of candidates. That Konoha's academy would demand more accuracy at this range to graduate didn't matter because they weren't running on Konoha's standards, and pointing out that some of the minor villages needed to be a little more lax in their requirements just because of their small candidate pools had helped reduce her annoyance. A little.

Most of the genin were getting their five hits with several throws to spare, but a couple with swords strapped to their backs only got three or four hits. They were split off before Tenten continued. She then dismissed the stationary targets and activated the target zombies. "Stage two. Every other station, you have twenty-five throws to take out five zombies. You can stop after the fifth zombie is taken out."

The first stage had been accuracy, now this was adding in power. Still very low standards for the level of zombie, doubly so since the grouping meant that missing your intended target might still take out a zombie behind them. That allowed several genin to do better than they probably could've with one zombie at a time, but this was also targeting a simulation of a group of bandits. As such, most of the genin were finishing quickly, with only one not succeeding in taking out five zombies.

"Does anyone who passed the thrown weapons test wish to move onto the kenjutsu test?" Tenten asked, and got no takers. Nodding, she gestured for the genin that had passed to move off to the side, then changed the zombie seal mode. The previous zombies dissolved, then new ones holding various weapons formed. "Okay you three. Pick a station, prepare your weapons of choice, and when I call to start move in to engage at close range. You have to take out ten zombies each before I call time."

The three genin all lined up, but the one who hadn't passed the second stage of the throwing exam only had kunai held for close combat. She'd disqualify him based on that alone if it was up to her, but the rules she was following allowed it. Instead she double-checked her stopwatch, then started them. To her surprise, the genin with the pair of kunai was the first one to take out ten zombies, actually taking out fifteen before backing off. Following him was the kunoichi with a tanto, who took out her ten and then two more on the way out of her group of zombies. Last was the genin with a katana, who took out exactly ten zombies with only a few seconds left.

"Congratulations," Tenten said. "All of you have passed. Give me a moment to mark down your slips and then you can continue to the final test."

Daiyaki hadn't expected to be insulted by being made to prove he could throw kunai, at least until he'd seen someone else fail to. At that point he grudgingly admitted that the test had merit. Having the second stage be taking out zombies had been a bit of a surprise, but he'd also heard about Konoha's zombie-filled exam. At that point he was happy that he'd not decided to use something lighter, because shuriken and senbon were far less likely to score a 'kill' than kunai were.

Watching the 'idling around' zombies be replaced with 'fight back' zombies for those who needed to prove their close-combat kenjutsu was another thing entirely. He was certain that the zombies were more skilled than some of the 'kenjutsu specialist' chunin back in Suna. At the same time, they weren't so strong as to eliminate any of the genin, just serving as an alternate demonstration of having some skill with a weapon.

It really felt like something important had been missed, because absolutely nothing up to this point had any obvious trick or deception. Even if Chitaru complained about hitting a dozen traps when shadowing the path at a distance to get out here.

Anko accepted the slip from the genin, confirmed that Tenten had passed the boy, and loaded up his profile in the computer. Pictures of his teammates came up, and she used the control seals at the desk to prepare a non-zombie 'zombie' in one of the examination rooms. The monitor showing that room showed that things appeared to be ready a moment later, the 'zombie' sitting there at the table appearing to read a book, so she looked back up at the genin. "You've got five minutes to kill your target in room eight, then head to the end of the hallway to exit."

"...to what?" the genin asked.

"Kill your target in room eight. Clock's ticking."

She watched as he headed down the hall to the right, then called in the next genin. A kunoichi this time, slip was accepted, passing Tenten's test was confirmed, teammates loaded. The rest of her team looked like they might be family, with her being the odd one out. Huh. Whatever. Prep a room, confirm it's ready on the monitor. "You've got five minutes to kill your target in room twenty-two, then head to the end of the hallway to exit."

The girl flinched. "...kill?"

"Did I stutter? Five minutes, room twenty-two."

Gulping, the girl looked at the signs and headed down the hall to the left.

Anko idly noted that one of the previous genin hadn't gone through with killing his target and had thus failed the test before calling in the next genin.

Nokumi shuddered as she backed out of the examination room. She'd expected to be fighting a clone, but had instead gotten what looked like a civilian relative of Akene and Tomao. One that didn't seem to care that she was there beyond a dismissive look at her, right up until she was stabbing him. Even then she'd expected to have it turn out to be someone's disguised clone, but the body just...collapsed.

Once the door was shut she practically ran down the hall, passing another genin, finding that there was a station at the end where she was stopped. The shinobi there congratulated her for passing and provided her with the entry forms she needed for the chunin exams and the information on where to go to submit them.

Only when she was outside did she force herself to stop thinking about what she'd just done and consider that, appearance of the target aside, the final test was just as straightforward as the rest had been. There had been no deceptions, no obvious tricks, just instructions to follow and incredibly basic skills tested. Surely there had to have been something else missed? Some other trick that she'd stumbled through without realizing it? Even the no-risk missions back home had some ulterior motive.

...was the entire point that there hadn't been anything hidden? Almost everything had been timed, so those who spent too long looking for the hidden element would've run out their clocks...

She took her time returning to the main village, running into no traps on the path back again despite being distracted with her musings. They'd need to see who passed before they could decide how they were teaming up anyway.

Naruto found it interesting that only nine teams had bothered to try to meet up for the trip to the training grounds, ignoring that they'd been told that this was an individual pass or fail situation. Those nine had been noted, including for having the foresight to arrange a meeting point ahead of time. As far as he could tell, most of the others had simply not wanted to waste time waiting in case their teammates had already left before them or were concerned about how long their teammates might take behind them.

That was particularly important for those whose teammates did not pass, of course.

He was also a little surprised that they'd made it through all the genin by a little after lunch, even if the last few were taking more time to return from the training grounds. Some of that was having eliminated over half the genin by the end of things, of course.

A little over one in ten didn't make it through the first three tests, mostly split between the chakra meters in the doors and the pain seal. The smaller villages were a little more likely to have their genin not have done much international traveling as well, causing them problems with the written exam. Two villages that had sent one team only hadn't had any members make it past the pain seal, and one new village hadn't made it past the doors at all.

Then they'd lost around twenty percent of those left on the trip from Uzushiogakure to the Training Grounds. Most of those were genin that had decided the clearly marked path was a trick and gotten lost, but there were several that just didn't have the stamina to make the trip in the time allotted. Three genin had even been collected by Ino while napping on benches. After pictures were taken, of course.

They'd lost another just over one in ten to the weapon testing, though Tenten was a little annoyed at what she'd had to allow to be 'passing'. Her biggest gripe was having to let those with only kunai take the 'kenjutsu' test, but a couple of villages had complained that their genin hadn't been allowed to use their wide-area techniques instead. Naruto had already responded that those techniques weren't suitable if there were allies, civilians, or outright hostages present, which was enough to shut most of the jounin up.

The final test had been the largest eliminator, over one in four genin not being able to go through with the kill. Many of those gave off the impression that they'd never dealt a killing blow in their lives, which was more understandable in the minor villages. Others hadn't been able to stand attacking what looked like a potential comrade, or perhaps weren't cut out for assassination instead of feeling that it was in self defense. Strangely, none of the jounin had complained to him about that test, or the comparatively dismal pass rate on it.

But now the genin were into the 'team building' stage, and most of the smaller villages were completely out of the running due to a lack of alliances and not having enough passing genin to assemble full teams. For most, that was because they'd not sent many genin to begin with. Amegakure and Otogakure were the only two minor villages to have enough genin to continue, and in the former's case it was in part due to sending the most teams after the combination of Konoha and Uzushio.

The end result was looking to be a little more total initial participants than Naruto's first and only exam as a participant.

As for the genin restructuring teams, Ame was the exception to the general rule of 'only when filling gaps'. Their genin were commonly teamed up in 'similar specialties' groupings and seemed to have decided that was going to be a liability in the actual exams, instead shifting to form more balanced teams even if they weren't used to working together. To the chagrin of their sensei that had been yelled at by one of the genin for objecting before Naruto was able to step in to tell the sensei to leave the genin alone. That genin had been given a marking for showing proper initiative and leadership skills for the outburst though.

Kiri and Suna had the added problem of having a 'spare genin' each, which meant that the genin had to decide who was being left behind. Naruto had personally stepped in several times to tell sensei off for trying to make decisions for the genin on that front, to the obvious amusement of the genin. In both cases, the eliminated genin ended up being the ones that chose who was going to stay out of things, and in neither case was it the genin the sensei wanted to see held back.

All told, the entire pre-exams dance finished four hours ahead of the deadline, the last team passing their completed forms in before going to get dinner. Nobody had screwed up their paperwork either, which felt impressive on its own, and Naruto had clones drop off the entry packets with each team's designated leader an hour later. Full write-ups for the sensei on the per-genin results of the testing were also delivered, with recommendations for how to work to correct the problems each of the genin had. Included were copies of a small book on traveling the Elemental Nations for any sensei who had a genin fail the written exam, alongside the exam sheets for those genin.

Most of the sensei that got a copy of the book looked personally embarrassed about it.