87

"Welcome to the pre-exams," Naruto said to the gathered teams of genin, their sensei gathered behind the groups from each village. "For those who have been living under proverbial rocks, Uzushiogakure does not necessarily trust genin standards. While all of the villages present here have gotten copies of our standards, we still wish to ensure that there shouldn't be major problems in testing. As such, the first thing we test is if you should qualify as being at least genin level. If any of you had already been tested in the previous five years and passed then you would get a free pass on this exam's testing, but we have no returning genin that passed last time present today."

There were looks of determination on many of the faces of the genin, and a couple of villages looked like they collectively wanted to prove that they had what it took this time after abysmal performances last time. Naruto let them sit for a moment, then continued. "Unlike last time, we are broadcasting highlights of the testing and not limiting participation. Anyone who can get to the island and reach a written exam point before they close after the first four hours can see if they have what it takes, or perhaps just evaluate the process for themselves. The only exceptions are those directly involved in running the testing and the leadership of Uzushio, for hopefully obvious reasons. Passing the testing, even if you are not yet a shinobi, will earn you a pass on genin phase testing in our exams for the next five years. Those who wish to claim one may also collect an honorary Uzushio forehead protector."

He pulled such a forehead protector out of his pocket. It was bronze instead of steel, and the Uzushio spiral was flanked with markers that read 'honorary genin'.

"Note that making it through this phase without being registered does not allow you to continue into the chunin exams to follow," Naruto said after a moment. "The existing registration numbers for the chunin exams are part of the forms that need to be submitted by the end of the day. That said, signs with full details are now up at each map point in this area of the island. For those not already on the island, our registration desks will let those traveling here from the public transit stations through this morning." A quick look across the group was followed by checking his watch. "The genin-checking phase officially starts in two minutes, but I apparently started talking too early. I'll let everyone go now anyway."

With things officially in motion, Naruto headed off to work on a couple of minor personal projects while his clones kept an eye on things. The next couple of days were going to be filled with meetings for him, after all.

Shisui had decided that he could trust Naruto's judgment on the genin testing, on top of that he'd get enough feedback from the jounin obviously going through it in order to see how hard it was. He was probably the only village leader present other than Naruto not trying things for themselves though, even Mifune giving things a shot. Instead, he'd gone back to the arrivals area to watch as people arrived from all over the continent. This included, but was definitely not limited to, off-duty genin and at least two entire classes of academy students from Konoha.

He suspected that some of the academy students would do better than the genin that had been skipped for this exam cycle, but that might just be the kick that the genin needed to take their training more seriously.

"Interesting choice Naruto made with this one," Jiraiya said as he leaned against the wall next to Shisui.

"Giving civilians a better idea of what Uzushio considers to be minimum genin level might actually improve opinions of shinobi in general," Shisui replied. "Showing more than just the final fights will then help for chunin level, and the decoupling of 'trust level' and 'rank' allows for more focus on combat skills instead of expecting everyone who can fight to be able to do things like lead a team."

"Yeah, in hindsight that was a horrible precedent for the village to set. At the same time, I suspect that it'll be a problem the first time that the best choice for leading a team is obviously less combat-skilled than the rest."

"Except that Uzu already does that, reportedly with no problems."

The spymaster blinked a couple of times. "What?"

"Missions that have nothing to do with combat skills don't need a fighter in charge, though they might have one assigned for security reasons. Someone good at leading and talking to clients doesn't need to be combat-skilled on a non-combat mission, such as seal maintenance. The shinobi that's good with seals may not be highly combat-rated either, and the shinobi assigned for their combat skills is likely to only be on the mission for security. Provided that the genin with leadership skills defers properly to each team member as appropriate for their skills, a must in any good leader anyway, there isn't actually any real interpersonal conflict."

"...several reports from my network make a lot more sense now that you've brought that up. Not to mention that I could see a lot of elite jounin being perfectly happy to let a genin deal with idiot clients."

"Something we already knew happens with some teams when a genin is better at client interaction than their sensei is and the sensei realizes it. Uzu has just made it official practice instead of unofficial by having official qualifications for things like leadership and negotiations. Their 'assigned' genin teams just happen to require basic leadership and teaching qualifications for the sensei, so from the outside those teams look 'normal'."

"But a hell of a lot more effective."

"Entirely intentionally, but yes."

Konohamaru was waiting at one of the written exam buildings, wanting to prove that he had the skills to be a genin already alongside the rest of his class...or at least find the first point that he failed and had a place to focus his training on before he went through Konoha's graduation exam. There was no concern about people making fun of him for his monkey features here either, because this exam building had essentially been 'claimed' by Konoha for the time being.

The first step was using chakra meters, signs on the walls explaining the benefits to a minimum level of chakra. More chakra meant passive damage resistance, better stamina, and faster passive healing. Other signs explained the symbols on the chakra meters, including elemental chakra affinities, and what everyone should be doing at this stage of things. It was all very well done, and if you couldn't read the signs then you probably didn't deserve to be a genin.

What he hadn't expected was for some of the girls training to be shrine maidens to be here, and so far only one had been turned away due to not having enough chakra. None of them had more chakra than the actual genin or academy students, but it was more than he'd expected. They were also the only ones with a 'light chakra' affinity of some kind, though it was weak. Even the one that had been turned away had that, just not enough chakra to hit the minimum level on the meter.

Eventually his turn came, and he easily proved that he had plenty of chakra. A room number was given to him, and he double-checked the stairwell signs to ensure that he could get to the assigned room from his chosen stairwell. It didn't look like you had to worry about that in this building, but there were a lot of places in Konoha where not all stairwells could reach all floors for various reasons.

Shibuki had decided to go through the testing in part because he wanted to prove that he could at least manage that much after pushing for increased skills in his own people. He'd cringed at how low his chakra was compared to a couple of Uzushio genin, and had been taken by surprise with the pain-generating seal, but was a little insulted at the bulk of the paper exam itself. The only parts he thought were an actual challenge were the ones directly relating to international travel and relations, as most 'small village' genin were less likely to operate outside of their country's borders.

Everyone had gotten the lesson that if you were sending genin to another country then you filled them in on those details though. Uzushio's last exam had proven that quite nicely.

Flipping through the test and letting the proctor grade it had been quick enough, and then he'd been told to head to a specific gate. A 'travel to the next test area' run, fully expected, though he wondered if this time it would be an untrapped path like had been the case last time or if there would actually be obstacles.

...he suspected it was going to be untrapped, because 'got unlucky and caught in a trap with nobody to free them' was far more likely to cause annoyance with a home village if used as justification for a rejection compared to 'could not traverse a clearly-marked path'.

Ruri sat down with her test and pencil, happy that the chairs here were all designed with tails in mind as she pushed her chakra a little to make the pain from the corner go away. She wanted to prove to her mama that she'd been paying attention to her lessons even if she'd been told it was okay to not be ready at her age. Another pulse of her chakra was used to try and remove any illusions from the paper, just in case, before she did as she'd been taught and read everything on the test before even writing her name down. There were no tricks like 'ignore everything else...' on this one, so she carefully wrote her name and started going through the questions.

The first few questions were about basic camping, though she had to think about a couple of them because mama or Guren usually handled those bits. Cleaning and storing weapons was something she had to do to keep her equipment pouch in order, but remembering the words for a couple of answers was harder. Border markers had her struggling a little to remember what she'd seen when they'd passed through border stations, not helped by mama liking to bypass those most of the time.

She didn't know how to answer two questions, and hoped that wasn't going to be enough to fail her as she got up and handed the test to the dog-featured proctor lady. Waiting for the test to be corrected had her fidgeting, not helped by suppressing an urge to run around with the 'zoomies'.

"You just barely passed," the proctor lady said with a smile. "Go down to the main desk to get your instructions for the next task."

"Thank you," Ruri said, holding onto herself as she left the room, but as soon as the door was shut behind her she gave in and sprinted up a wall and down the hall on the ceiling to avoid the others coming from the stairwell.

A had decided to go through with the 'genin testing' after telling his jounin to all do so as well, if only so that they'd know what their genin had to be able to accomplish to be seen as genin here. While disseminating those orders he'd also noticed that those passing the first part of the testing were being sent in multiple directions afterwards, meaning you couldn't necessarily trust that following someone else was the right thing to do.

Smart, that, especially with it seemingly being 'send them to the furthest gate from the testing building they started in' so that they almost certainly would cross paths with others.

His own chakra testing showed no surprises, even if only two days ago his elemental affinities would've been quite different. The pain-generation seal had been as expected, and the written exam felt useless but he suspected it was going to give some of Kumo's genin trouble anyway. The trip to his departure gate and a quick jog down a straight-line well-marked stone-paved path was without incident...beyond spotting what he hoped were civilians resting on the benches.

Things had gone a little wrong for him with the kunai and shuriken testing. He'd not thrown any in quite a while, preferring to get up close and personal with his opponents, and he nearly didn't get enough into the smaller-than-expected target to pass. That would've been embarrassing, though he could've just pulled out a sword and gone that route.

Hanabi had arrived to find a line of others waiting to test their kunai and shuriken skills, though he could attempt to use a sword immediately. Well, if he had a sword and had practiced with it, anyway. Himeki showed up not long afterwards, though wasn't immediately behind him in line. For probably-good reasons those registered for the chunin exams were being given priority, but that wasn't slowing down the rest of them that much.

Though where the shrine maiden girls had learned to throw kunai was a bit of a mystery. Was Yoko training them in basic self-defense? They weren't as good as most of the academy students, and horrible compared to the actual genin registered for the exams, but they were at least hitting the targets.

When his turn came up he had no problem putting kunai and shuriken into a target and got a pass, then continued on to the next station. Their sensei had promised extra credit based on how far in the process you got, with a reward for anyone who was able to claim an honorary genin forehead protector. A few of his classmates had already failed out though, a couple that had likely never really traveled bombing out on the written exam due to the scaling of the questions about border markers and interacting with border guards.

Onoki was taking his time going through the 'genin testing', allowing the kids to run through things ahead of him. He was honestly astonished that anyone had failed the 'pain inducing seal' component, though suspected that it was more effective if you had less chakra. Then again, if you had less chakra you were more likely to get injured and have to deal with larger amounts of pain, so even that was probably field-accurate.

The actual written exam had felt insulting as well, yet covered things that genin obviously should know. Of course, he'd personally ensured that some of the border items were added to general 'this will be taught' lists after finding out how many of Iwa's genin hadn't known some of them in the previous round of Uzushio running an exam. They'd caught a bunch of chunin unaware of them too, for that matter, and might've found jounin in need of lessons had the rage over the lack of knowledge in chunin not spurred the jounin to read up on things before testing could be expanded to include them.

Traveling across well-defined terrain, such as would be used by civilians, was obviously not strenuous. That it was timed was simply a stamina check, and if most civilians couldn't manage it he'd be surprised. Watching as those in line in front of him went through throwing kunai and shuriken, while a few genin demonstrated sword skills against zombie enemies in the next field over, was a little enlightening though. There were civilians, not even academy students, that had made it this far and were waiting on their attempt at throwing weapons. He even recognized one particular merchant's son in the mix.

Luckily for the egos of those with actual training, most of the civilians were lucky if their attempts at throwing weapons landed near the target. They were also either poorly emulating what they saw those actually trained doing or treating the kunai and shuriken as though they might treat something like an axe being thrown. Anyone beaten in accuracy by the shrine maidens was definitely getting teased though.

When he was finally called forward his performance was less a matter of proper form and more a lifetime of being a shinobi. Anyone who felt that he'd made things look 'too easy' could deal with it. Besides, none of his village's genin or hopefuls were present at this point, so he wasn't going to demoralize them.

Kiyori was incredibly nervous as she waited patiently in line, wondering how much of the testing Yoko was going to find out about. They'd had 'defending the shrine' added to the 'taking care of the shrine' lessons, especially important if they wanted to try to run a shrine in a less-protected location. Those had started as basic hand-to-hand self-defense, but hiding weapons on themselves and using those weapons had been added eventually.

They didn't need to be 'kunoichi' good, merely able to defend against wild animals and a few bandits, but that didn't mean that those chosen to receive the training hadn't done their best. Being able to walk on walls certainly made cleaning easier too.

"Kiyori?" the man at the desk asked when she made it to the front of the line.

"Yes," Kiyori replied.

"Civilian shrine maiden. Seems that you lot have been doing quite well, but I'm not sure how far the others have gotten. You're passing through room seventeen, follow the signs you find on the other side to continue. Two minutes to get to the room, five to get through it once you open the door."

She nodded, checked the signs, and headed down the correct hallway. Room seventeen was reasonably close, and better than sixty-two that had been given to the person before her. Stopping before the door, she nervously double-checked herself. After confirming that everything was in place, she took a couple of deep breaths, then opened the door and stepped into the room.

Finding a fucking bear growling at her was not what she'd expected.

It took a moment to realize that the bear wasn't coming at her, and she tried the 'break illusions' trick that Yoko had taught them to see if it was a fake. That changed nothing, but the moment of concentration let her notice that the bear was...guarding the other door?

How the hell did they train bears to guard doors?

She noted that the door she'd come in through was now closed and had no handle on the inside, making the door the bear was guarding the only way back out of the room. Frowning, she attempted to use the tricks Yoko had taught for calming animals down, releasing her 'inner peace'...and got zero reaction, as though the bear wasn't real. Frown deepening, she produced a kunai and approached the bear, getting close enough for it to swipe at her. She got the kunai in the way, and it was knocked clear out of her hand.

As the bear wasn't moving away from the exit door, retrieving the kunai wasn't a problem, but now it was obvious that the bear was real enough to hurt her while being fake enough to not be able to be calmed normally. Gulping, she looked down at the kunai before sighing. Looking at the bear, she could tell that she wasn't getting past it while it was mobile, and she had no way to pin it down. Since it was almost certainly fake...

It took three attempts to get a kunai in the bear's skull. The first missed and stuck in the wall, the second was struck out of the air by the bear, and the third struck it through the eye. That one went deep enough to kill it, and she carefully retrieved the other two kunai as she only had a few to begin with. The one in the bear's skull was too much trouble, and possibly too much danger, to remove. With that done, she got the door behind the bear open and slipped through, finding that the far side had no handles for getting back into the room. The signs directed her back to the center of the building, likely the area just behind the first desk she'd been sent to the room from.

"Good job," the girl at the desk said. A moment later a slot in the wall deposited...the kunai that had been left in the bear? "You'll probably want to keep that. One last task for you, and then you're done."

...that wasn't the end? Now what were they going to subject her to?

Orochimaru had noted Ruri failing to get enough hits on target during the kunai and shuriken throwing test and wasn't surprised. She was great for her age, but needed more growth to get proper power and distance in her throws at a minimum. Maybe some more practice there instead of in medical techniques as well? Failing was going to motivate her either way.

The clone that had been following her the entire time collected her and reassured her that it wasn't a problem that she wasn't ready to be a genin yet. Doubly so since she'd done better than four of Oto's actual genin, which was going to be embarrassing when the genin figured that out. And painful for them when they went through some retraining later.

Guren might handle some of that, or Orochimaru might handle it herself. That was yet to be decided.

For now, the rest of the testing needed to be evaluated, so she pressed on. Being told to pass through a room was interesting and implied an obstacle to doing so, but what that obstacle was going to be wasn't clear from the directions given. Finding the correct door was trivial, and finding a snarling bear had her jumping in shock. An annoying aspect of being part-chipmunk that she'd not yet gotten control over.

It took a moment to realize that the bear felt slightly wrong, and another to realize that this was yet another improvement to the 'zombie seal'. She really had to see if Naruto would share some of his notes on his improvements to it someday. But for now she had to get past the bear to the door behind it. Stepping forward allowed her to catch the bear's attempt at clawing her, and a slight twist let her throw the bear into the door she'd just entered through. It seemed to be properly strength-calibrated to wild bears not found in places like the Forest of Death, meaning that it was definitely within the realm of expecting genin to deal with it.

With it out of the way, she had no trouble stepping through the exit door and heading down the hall. She'd seen others leaving with flags and assumed that there was still at least one more task to go.

Himeki gulped as she stared at the tower she'd been sent to after killing the hopefully-fake bear. It was hexagonal at the base, every other side having subtle handholds for climbing. No visible doors, and she couldn't see through the ground or the tower itself due to privacy seals so she wasn't sure if there were doors just underground and a ladder or something inside of it. Her task was to swap the flag she'd been given for the same-numbered one on the top of this tower.

Having an aversion to significant heights like she did was definitely not going to help. Hanabi had never really had that problem, and had lost whatever remained of it when becoming part-cat, but being part-rabbit added a liking of being on the ground. Gulping, she circled the tower to examine it more closely. The obvious solution for climbing up were the three sides with handholds, and three people were already working on that here.

A shrine maiden...but not one she recognized, so probably one from Uzushio instead of Konoha, arrived a moment later with her own flag. She circled the tower, then started walking up one of the smooth sides. Himeki felt a little stupid for not considering surface-sticking and moved to one of the other two. Walking was going to take far too long for her nerves, so she prepared chakra in her hands and feet before scampering up the side of the tower.

She had to catch her breath and not look over the edge once she was up, but then she focused on the flags and found the one she had to swap out. Doing so only took a moment, and then she swung herself back over the edge and 'slid' down the tower while doing her best to ignore how high up she was.

"Seven across both villages failed to make it to the bear," Odoroki commented.

"Not bad for non-kunoichi shrine maidens," Yoko said. "And only three failed at the bear, with all that passed the bear making it up and down the tower with no issues."

"...you only lost one in total though, due to chakra requirements of all things."

"I warned her that she wasn't ready, but she wanted to try anyway."

"Does Konoha have any official kunoichi in training that you think are going to go the shrine maiden route instead of the kunoichi route?"

"A couple of academy students seem to like the idea of running a shrine more than they like the idea of running around on missions, and a couple of genin are considering making the switch as well."

"And of course you're already aware that Uzu's different way of handling things has me struggling to find anyone like that."

"You're missing a couple of potentially useful things though."

Odoroki blinked, then looked at the likely-clone of her daughter. "I am?"

"Do you really think that the village won't foot the bill for keeping full kunoichi running shrines in 'trouble spots'? It would allow for better-secured shrines and an obvious place for teams to slip in and out of areas through, plus could be useful as part of the village's intelligence network."

"Ooooh."

Finding and filling out the forms to start preparing for that was going to need to happen. Actually, getting all the shrines to be joint Konoha and Uzushio 'outpost' locations might not be a horrible idea either. Maybe a shrine phone network to connect them too, independent of the other networks?

Mei looked over at her genin that had passed Uzushio's testing, the headband she'd claimed as proof of going through things already in her things, and frowned. "They don't seem to be scrambling to form teams, even those with a teammate that didn't make the cut."

"That's because they don't need to yet," Gaara replied.

She turned to the Kazekage. "Oh?"

"Naruto has thrown out the traditional spirit of the agreements behind the exams and gone straight to the letter of them. Teams are only specified as required for sponsoring potentials and for the team combat stage. Everyone has interpreted that as 'the exam is team-based until the finals' until now, but he's decided that chunin should be able to stand alone before the finals and is putting them through the first stage as individuals. Those who make it through that will then form teams for the team combat stage."

Mei blinked a couple of times. "That was not in any of the paperwork I saw."

"One of my jounin asked a proctor after seeing the forms the genin are being given and got a pamphlet explaining things. I have them double-checking the references against copies of the treaties, but don't think that they'll find any contradictions."

"Huh."

"...there's also another catch. The pamphlet claims that the treaties don't actually specify that the team combat stage teams be made from a single village or allied villages, that stipulation only seemingly applying to teams at the sponsoring stage, so the genin will be allowed to form teams across villages."

"That at least makes sense. It's rare, but not unheard of, to send mixed groups out for any number of reasons. Proving you can work amicably with the shinobi of other villages for the good of a mission is a good thing. I disqualified a team that couldn't handle working with a couple of Land of Hot Water shinobi on a recent mission."

"Interesting. That detail was one that my jounin was most annoyed about."

"Are you sure they should be a jounin?"

"Not really, no, but they were promoted by my father and haven't done anything stupid enough to warrant a forced demotion yet."

That was a nice thing about Kiri, the conditions under which she'd taken over as Mizukage meant that she'd not inherited any rankings and had been able to personally review everything. Naruto being the Uzukage hadn't even gotten that full benefit when reforming Uzushio because he'd inherited rankings from Konoha, though it was likely that he at least only agreed to transfer people over that he felt had earned their ranks.

Hinata looked over the summary sheets, finding the seemingly last-minute decision on Naruto's part to only have teams reformed for the second stage a bit weird. But his reasoning was sound, Uzushio's standards needing individuals to qualify and not teams, and he was right that none of the treaties disallowed it. If he could've he probably would've abolished 'teams' for the duration in general, but had to run with the letter of the agreements even if he tore out and disregarded the spirit of them.

It was blatantly obvious that, despite informing the proctors of the change in plans only that morning, the plans had been in place far longer. All of the paperwork had been updated weeks ago and the entire first stage of things had been set up for individual participation.

The allowing of non-shinobi in the 'genin testing' was another matter entirely though. They'd lost about one in ten actual genin to the testing, skewed heavily towards the smaller villages but with no village left unscathed. Academy students and equivalents from all the major and several minor villages had proven that they at least had the minimum skills and knowledge, equalling the number of actual genin that had passed. And then there were the civilians that had either already been on the island or made it through that morning.

Having most of the shrine maidens in Konoha and Uzushio make it through to claiming a forehead protector had been noticed, but a lot of non-shinobi civilians had made a great showing for various reasons. Naruto had needed to whip up more forehead protectors in the middle of things too, because he'd underestimated how many of the actual shinobi would want one as proof of going through everything. Only Uzu shinobi had skipped the thing, basically, and the non-shinobi from all over the continent were known to be wearing them to show off.