"You're first-timers for the Chūnin Exams, right? I'm Kabuto Yakushi."
The silver-haired Konoha genin took the initiative to greet them. "Everyone's on edge before the exam starts. Making this much noise is an easy way to draw their anger."
Seeing how inexperienced these rookie ninja looked, Kabuto Yakushi decided to share some of the intelligence he had collected, giving them a clearer idea of what the Chūnin Exams were really like.
"First of all..."
He took out a card and infused it with chakra.
A miniature map of the ninja world immediately appeared, with a row of numbers displayed beneath it.
[Suna 30 Ame 21 Kusa 15 Taki 12 Konoha 72 Oto 3]
"There are a total of 153 candidates participating in this Chūnin Exam. The numbers show how many participants each village has."
When Naruto saw the number 153, he scratched his head.
"Then doesn't that mean I have to lead half of them through the exam?!!!"
Inuzuka Kiba burst out laughing and mocked him. "You? Lead half the candidates to pass? Hahahaha! Are you sure you wouldn't just lead everyone straight to failure instead?"
Realizing this was tied to an S-rank mission, Sasuke, who rarely spoke to Kiba at all, actually snapped back, "Shut your mouth, Kiba!"
Being scolded by the usually aloof Uchiha heir was rare. Kiba curled his lips and stayed quiet.
Since when did he get this close to Naruto?!
"That's impossible," Kabuto said calmly after hearing them. "There's no way that many candidates will pass this exam."
"!!!"
Having his S-rank mission casually labeled impossible by Kabuto-senpai, Naruto immediately demanded to know why.
"Because every first round of the Chūnin Exams eliminates at least two-thirds of the candidates," Kabuto explained. "I suspect that eliminating people is the 'task' assigned to this round's chief examiner."
"Task?!"
Eliminating candidates as the task?!
Naruto's face turned pale. "No wonder it's classified as an S-rank mission, dattebayo!!"
Kabuto froze for a moment. "S-rank mission?"
Sasuke immediately clamped a hand over Naruto's mouth. "Idiot, don't let that slip!"
"Do you have any information on that Suna ninja named Gaara?" Sasuke quickly changed the subject.
"If you know the name, that makes things easy." Kabuto Yakushi pulled out Gaara's intel card. "Mission record: nine C-rank missions, one B-rank mission. And the B-rank was completed solo?"
Sasuke was stunned. When they faced Zabuza and Haku, their entire class had taken part, and they still ended up injured.
What kind of person could complete a B-rank mission alone?
"There's nothing else?" Naruto pressed. "Like what kind of ramen that guy likes or something?"
Kabuto Yakushi: "...."
"He's a rookie ninja from another country. Other than this, there's no additional information."
"And besides," he added helplessly, "even if there were, who would bother collecting something as useless as a ninja's favorite ramen flavor?"
"So he's a rookie from this year too, just like us." Sasuke's fighting spirit was already surging. He couldn't wait to test the abilities he'd recently honed under Madara and see how he stacked up against Gaara.
Kabuto added, "There's one more thing. Rumor has it that Gaara completes every mission without a single scratch."
Unscathed?!!
Is that really something a genin can pull off? He'd probably have no trouble being a top-tier chūnin already.
Seeing Sasuke set his sights on a new opponent, coupled with his recent awakening and the special treatment he'd been getting from the old ancestor, Naruto suddenly felt a strong sense of crisis. At this rate, wasn't he about to be left far behind?
His lowered head made Sakura think he was scared, and she was just about to comfort him when—
"I'm Naruto Uzumaki! The man who'll lead all of you through this exam! You'd better remember that!"
"Pfft—"
Outside the exam hall, Minato Namikaze curved his lips into a smile. Naruto's lively, over-the-top declaration was exactly like Kushina when she was young.
Inside the hall, Naruto's words drew no shortage of hostile looks.
As fellow rookies, Shikamaru and the others found it a massive pain. Gaara, standing among the crowd, silently watched Naruto Uzumaki acting like a clown. Temari, on the other hand, summed it up with a single thought: a barking dog doesn't bite.
No matter how much Sakura wanted to take it back now, words once spoken were like water poured out, impossible to retrieve.
All the examinees stared at this group of Konoha genin, their expressions dark and unfriendly, the air thick with the threat of a fight.
"..."
"..."
The tension only grew heavier.
Sakura, Hinata, Ino, and the others were extremely nervous. Shikamaru just felt it was troublesome, while Naruto and Sasuke were both in the mood of fighting if it came to that.
Just then, the proctor team led by Ibiki Morino appeared, breaking the deadlock.
"No fighting without a proctor's permission! Even with an instructor's approval, lethal attacks are strictly forbidden! Any violators will be immediately disqualified!"
The oppressive authority he carried made all the candidates rein themselves in at once.
After that, the proctors handed out exam cards, seated everyone according to their numbers, and distributed the test papers.
Sakura and Sasuke, who had been planning to help Naruto cheat if things got desperate, were completely dumbfounded. Their last fallback plan had just been cut off.
Naruto was nervous beyond belief. Not only did he have to pass himself, he also had to lead half the candidates through!
Wasn't this forcing him into a corner?!
"N- Naruto-kun, p- please do your best..." A soft, delicate voice cheered on the person she liked.
But for Naruto, who treated everyone as a friend, it bounced right off him. He didn't feel it at all.
"There are two rules to this exam," Ibiki announced. "First, there are ten questions. Each wrong answer deducts one point. Each instance of crude cheating discovered deducts two points. Accumulate three deductions and you're disqualified. Second, scores are calculated by three-man teams. However, if anyone on a team scores zero, the entire team is eliminated!"
After explaining the rules, Ibiki declared:
"Begin!"
Serious-looking proctors sat all around them. No matter the world, an exam hall like this exerted invisible pressure, making everyone's heart instinctively tense up.
Sasuke and Sakura glanced worriedly in Naruto's direction.
When they first heard about team scoring, they'd planned to help Naruto pad his score as much as possible. But that rule about one person scoring zero eliminating the whole team was clearly designed to bully idiots like Naruto, wasn't it?!
Leading more than half the people through the exam?!
Don't joke around.
They'd already be burning incense in gratitude if the three of them managed to pass at all, thanks to Iruka-sensei and Minato-sama's hard work these past months!
Naruto's face turned pale as he swallowed hard and opened the exam paper.
He was numb. Completely numb.
The first question...
[Cipher Translation]
Naruto: "..."
The very first question wasn't even covered in the review material!!
The second question...
[Calculate the maximum throwing range of a shuriken based on the given conditions]
Naruto: "...."
M-maybe I'll just look at the third question...
Sasuke and Sakura quickly skimmed through the entire paper. Sakura slapped her broad forehead, already worrying on Naruto's behalf. Sasuke thought grimly, This test is way too hard. How is that idiot dead last supposed to answer any of this?!
Almost immediately, Naruto felt an oppressive pressure coming from where Sasuke and Sakura were seated.
He was so anxious he was on the verge of tears!
These questions looked like something even Sasuke might struggle with, right?!!!
At the same time, after receiving the test paper himself, Minato Namikaze couldn't help but cover his face.
For the first time in his life, as the parent of a chūnin exam candidate, he truly began to worry about his son.
Someone in the exam hall raised a question. "Wait, there are only nine questions?"
"The exam lasts one hour. The final question will be announced fifteen minutes before the end."
After the initial confusion passed, the examinees finally pieced together the unspoken rule hidden in Ibiki's words. As long as you used "ninja methods" to cheat, you wouldn't lose any points.
In an instant, the entire exam hall turned into what felt like an open-book test.
Ino Yamanaka used her clan's secret technique, the Mind Body Switch Technique, to peek at Sakura's paper. She then passed the answers to her teammates, Shikamaru and Chōji, using the same method.
Neji Hyūga and Hinata Hyūga had the Byakugan. Once activated, no one could stop them from cheating. They could even choose the best paper among all the examinees and copy directly from it.
Shino Aburame and Inuzuka Kiba relied on insects and dogs to help them cheat.
Tenten used wires to control reflective mirrors on the ceiling, sending answers to Lee.
Sakura didn't need any help at all. She could answer the questions herself. After all, she was an honor student.
Sasuke had the Sharingan. All he needed was someone to copy movements from. If possible, he even wished his Sharingan could control others, like making that idiot dead last answer the exam for him. Unfortunately...
"N-Naruto-kun..."
Hinata cautiously revealed her own answer sheet.
Just as Naruto was about to sneak a glance, a kunai suddenly streaked past his eyes and slammed into another examinee's desk.
"Seats 23, 43, and 27! Disqualified!"
"Seats 17, 21, and 33! Disqualified!"
"......"
Cold sweat poured down Naruto's back. He hurriedly refused Hinata's kindness.
If only he had the Sharingan.
He regretted it so deeply that he might as well have been crying tears of blood, cursing himself for never paying proper attention in Iruka-sensei's classes when he was younger.
Staring at his completely blank paper, Naruto felt his chest tighten. If he scored zero, it wouldn't just drag Sakura and Sasuke down with him. That rare S-rank mission would also end in total failure.
He didn't want the mission to fail. Not now. Not ever. But what could he do?!
There were only fifteen minutes left, and he hadn't answered a single question.
"Fifteen minutes remaining," Ibiki announced. "Before I reveal the final question, I'll explain the rules surrounding it."
"Rules?"
Ibiki gave a cold, ominous smile. "First, you must choose whether or not to attempt the tenth question."
"If you give up, your entire team will lose qualification for this exam," he continued. "But if you choose to continue and fail to answer it correctly..."
He deliberately dragged out the pause.
"Your entire team will be permanently barred from ever taking the Chūnin Exams again."
The exam hall instantly exploded into chaos.
But once the initial uproar died down, many candidates, crushed by the pressure of permanent disqualification, chose to withdraw without even knowing what the tenth question was.
One voice after another declared forfeiture. Groups of examinees filed out of the hall.
This invisible pressure only grew heavier for those who remained. At the same time, it offered them an easy excuse to back out.
So many people have already given up. Maybe I should raise my hand too.
Naruto watched as the number of examinees dropped from the original 153 to fewer than 90.
And it was still going down.
If this kept up, that S-rank mission would be impossible to complete!
Did that mean waiting for the next Chūnin Exam?
No. If they all passed this time and became chūnin, then that S-rank mission would never have a chance to be completed at all!
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were frantic. Sakura even began to think that if they chose to continue and failed here, they would never become chūnin. That S-rank mission would be forever out of reach.
Naruto was the Fourth Hokage's son. Sasuke was the last survivor of the Uchiha clan. If it was hard for either of them to raise their hands, then she would do it herself—
Sakura struggled against her fear. Her index finger trembled as her hand slowly began to rise...
But Naruto was faster.
He shot his hand up first, then slammed it down hard on the desk.
"Don't underestimate us! We won't run away at the last moment! Especially me, dattebayo!"
"!!!!"
Naruto?!
His sudden action completely stunned Minato Namikaze, who had been silently waiting outside the exam hall.
The boy's clear, unwavering voice echoed out from within the room.
"I promised Mom and Dad! I'll stick to my dreams! Even if I stay a genin for my whole life! I'll complete S-rank, SS-rank, even SSS-rank missions! And I'll become the greatest Hokage!!!"
Outside the doors, Minato Namikaze clenched his fists tightly.
That feeling. The kind that could lift everyone's spirits in a moment of crisis. It stirred something deep in his heart, something he couldn't put into words.
At that moment, he completely ignored the fact that Naruto had just publicly revealed he knew who his parents were. All he felt was pride. Pride in Naruto's courage and his declaration.
"..."
Inside the exam hall, everyone, including Ibiki, felt the atmosphere shift.
Sasuke thought back to the Land of Waves. Just like then, Naruto's words and actions swept away the fear and gloom hanging over the room.
The remaining examinees were carried along by that momentum, facing what came next with renewed courage.
"I'll ask you one last time! This is a decision that stakes your entire future! If you want to give up, now is the time!"
This time, Ibiki's words failed to put even the slightest pressure on anyone.
Konoha's number one interrogation master…
Had been completely outplayed by Konoha's number one unpredictable ninja!
Looking at the confident expressions on the faces of every remaining examinee, Ibiki already knew it.
This time, his task had failed.
He hadn't managed to cut the number of candidates down to less than one-third like he usually did.
"Seventy-eight people…" Ibiki muttered. "That's far more than I expected. In that case, I announce—"
"Everyone still seated here…"
"Has passed!!!"
Outside the exam hall, Minato Namikaze showed a smile that said, just as expected.
Inside the room, everyone was dumbfounded.
The most stunned of all was Naruto Uzumaki, who had somehow, without even realizing it, completed an S-rank mission.
Sasuke's eyes went wide. "That mission… it actually got completed?!"
"And just by Naruto alone?!" Sakura had a bead of cold sweat roll down her broad forehead. Was this ridiculous luck, or was it simply because the one doing the mission was Naruto?!
An S-rank mission…
Completed just like that?!!
And an S-rank mission, no less…