At this moment, the examiner for the written test also walked in. Seeing Obito and the other two still huddled together whispering, he said sternly, "Why haven't you sat down at your seats yet!"
The three of them could only nod, open their registration forms, find the corresponding number on them, and scattered to different seats.
Obviously, the written test was designed to prevent teammates from exchanging information with each other, so the members of each team were separated and spaced far apart.
After that, two more teams arrived one after another, and all the candidates in the exam room were in place.
Once the time arrived, the examiner distributed the test papers and announced the start of the exam.
Obito looked at the questions on the test paper and vaguely felt a sense of familiarity.
Last time, he basically couldn't answer these questions. If Rin hadn't thrown him a cheat sheet, he might not have even passed the written test.
But this time, even though there were some questions beyond the standard curriculum, he still answered fluently.
Now that it was wartime, the difficulty of the written test hadn't been raised to the exaggerated level of peacetime, so before long, Obito had finished answering all the questions.
He observed his surroundings and discovered quite a few signs of cheating.
Obviously, although the questions weren't very difficult, many candidates in the room still couldn't answer them all and could only copy others' answers.
However, intelligence gathering was also one of the essential qualities of a ninja, so for clever cheating methods, the examiners turned a blind eye.
As for clumsy cheating, of course, those caught were disqualified from the Chunin Exam.
At this moment, Kakashi suddenly stood up and submitted his test paper early.
Obito couldn't help but snort, 'This guy is still as smug as before.'
He secretly glanced at Rin and found that she was also answering fluently, 'There shouldn't be any problems.'
So he also stood up, handed in the test early, and left the exam room with Kakashi.
Kakashi wasn't surprised at all that Obito could finish so quickly, and just asked, "Last Chunin Exam, Konoha didn't co-host it with Kirigakure, right?"
Obito said, "Yeah, last time we held it ourselves. This time, maybe because of the incident with the Hokage Building being bombed and Kumogakure getting driven off early by Sunagakure, Konoha is feeling the pressure and wants to win over an ally?"
Kakashi nodded, "Didn't you say Kirigakure later also joined the siege on Konoha? Do you think this time things might ease up a little?"
Obito thought for a while, "Actually, the only one Konoha can trust is itself. The wars from the other four major nations against Konoha, if you think about it, they were all sort of accidental, but why did these accidents all happen so coincidentally?"
"Because… Konoha occupies the most fertile land in the ninja world, but its strength isn't strong enough, and geographically, it's surrounded by the other four major countries. Once one of them initiates an attack, the others will very naturally and tacitly join in."
Kakashi nodded. This time, because of Obito, he wasn't too afraid of the upcoming war, but recalling what Obito said about Konoha being attacked one after another by the other four ninja villages, he could still feel how precarious Konoha had been at that time.
The two continued discussing the matter, covering more details, and the written exam session ended.
Rin and the other candidates gradually came out and joined up with Kakashi and Obito.
Obito asked with concern, "Rin, how was the test?"
Rin smiled and said, "No problem at all. The questions were very easy. I actually finished early too, just didn't want to show off like you guys."
Speaking of this, Rin lowered her voice, "When you two handed in your test papers early, you caught a lot of people's attention. Not just Konoha's ninjas, but also those Kirigakure ones."
"They might give our team some special treatment in the next round of the exam."
Obito and Kakashi didn't care much about this kind of thing. Kakashi said lazily, "Ah, yeah, I noticed when I handed in the paper. Some people clearly didn't like me. But so what? Our team is so strong, even if they all come at us together, they won't win."
Obito also nodded, "Maybe some of these people will grow into powerful ninjas in the future, but right now, they're all still too green."
Rin smiled, "You guys… you're getting too full of yourselves. That's not a good thing."
"Whatever, let's go eat something and wait for the written exam results."
Just like that, the three left the exam room and only returned in the afternoon when the test results were posted.
Unsurprisingly, all of them passed with top scores.
Rin noticed a few of the Kirigakure ninjas' results and couldn't help but say, "Aside from that future Mizukage Terumi Mei, the other Kirigakure ninjas didn't do too well? They just barely passed."
Obito seemed to think of something and reminded, "That's normal. Kirigakure is currently enforcing the Blood Mist policy, focusing on real combat. Graduates are required to kill a teammate to officially graduate."
After a pause, he continued, "Take Zabuza, for example. He killed every other candidate in his class. So, even if he's not that strong right now, we still need to be cautious."
"Ninjas who survive that kind of environment are not the same as Konoha ninjas who grow up in peace."
Rin and Kakashi immediately felt a chill run down their spines.
Rin couldn't help but say, "There's actually something like that? You have to kill a teammate just to graduate. That's way too… cruel, isn't it?"
Kakashi narrowed his eyes. Even in those darkest days after his father died, he still thought that Kirigakure's policy was a bit too extreme.
He sighed, "I didn't expect that the Zabuza who later died by my hand was a true cold-blooded executioner."
"Just for a graduation test, he killed all the other students. That's… how many people did he kill?"
But Obito shook his head, "Kakashi, actually, you're wrong. Although I don't know Zabuza very well, from the things he's done, I can tell. He's not cold-blooded. On the contrary, he's full of passion."
"Whether it was assassinating the Fourth Mizukage during the coup or killing all the classmates during graduation, it was all his form of rebellion. A fierce, unwilling rebellion to change the status quo!"
Rin pondered for a while, then realized, "That's true. Even if Kirigakure is enforcing the Blood Mist policy you mentioned, if only one student survives each year… that price is a bit too high."
"Maybe after what happened, Kirigakure will reflect and make a change."
Obito nodded, "Yeah, Zabuza's actions did make many high-ups in Kirigakure realize the problem. If… the Blood Mist policy wasn't man-made, maybe it could really change."
"Man-made?", Rin and Kakashi were a little surprised.
Kakashi asked, "This Blood Mist policy, was it a conspiracy?"
Obito smiled bitterly, "Yeah, it was a conspiracy. Although Kirigakure itself promotes survival of the fittest, they weren't insane enough to go this far."
After a pause, Obito said, "It was Madara. He used his Sharingan genjutsu to control the Third Mizukage, manipulating him into enforcing the Blood Mist policy. And it was precisely because Madara controlled the Mizukage that he could instruct Kirigakure… to plant the Three-Tails inside you, Rin."
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