Chapter 61: The Test of Trust
Crouched high in the tree, Liumu watched the three genin below, a faint, inscrutable smile playing on his lips. As a shinobi, when formed into a team, the individual must place absolute, unshakable trust in their comrades. Liumu had never experienced the day-to-day team life of a standard genin, but he had witnessed that unity and trust firsthand when he saw Kakashi's bell test for Team 7.
The "answer" Liumu had spoken of was a complete fabrication. There was no answer. He hadn't given it to any of them.
What he was testing now was how these three would treat each other when faced with a situation where only one of them might hold the key to their success.
The dark-haired boy, Hechi, who had been so excited earlier, glanced left and right at his companions, then suddenly grinned. "Little Kin, it was you, wasn't it? Chunin Liumu told you the answer."
Little Kin was the only kunoichi in the trio. If there was any gender bias in the test, she was the most likely beneficiary.
"Me? No! Really, it wasn't me!" Kin protested hurriedly, then turned to her brown-haired companion. "I think it must be Matsushita. He talks the least. If Chunin Liumu wanted to give the answer to one of us, Matsushita would definitely be the best choice."
"Not me." The ninja named Matsushita offered a terse, direct denial.
"Hechi, maybe you're the thief crying 'stop thief'?" Kin turned back to Hechi, her voice cooler now. "If it's you, just hand over the answer. It's sweltering out here. Let's finish early and go home."
Liumu had given them only half a day. Before sunset, anyone without the "answer" would be eliminated.
Watching the sun sink lower in the sky, beads of sweat began to form on the temples of all three.
"It's not me, not you, and not Matsushita… so who could it be?" Hechi squinted, his earlier suspicion of Kin hardening into a cold glare. "We finally graduated from the Academy, got our ninja slots… I don't want to get sent home over some stupid two-option test."
His chakra began to stir, a subtle but unmistakable threat.
"What I'm sure of is that I don't know the answer. So the only possibilities left are you two." As he spoke, his hands began forming seals. "If you know it, hand it over. Then all three of us pass. If you don't say it now… I'll have to use force."
The seal completed.
"Hechi, stop!" Kin cried out.
Hechi was the strongest of the three, top of their class in the Academy's combat assessments. If he decided to use brute force to extract the answer, injuries were inevitable.
But her plea fell on deaf ears.
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
Sploosh! Sploosh! Sploosh!
Three walls of water erupted from the ground, forming a triangular prison trapping all three inside.
Hechi created a single clone. "No one's leaving now," he declared.
He and his clone lunged, one toward Kin, one toward Matsushita. His attacks were fast, powerful, a blend of fists and feet. Immediately, Kin and Matsushita were forced onto the defensive.
"Stop, Hechi! Doesn't this feel… wrong to you?" Kin shouted, parrying a blow.
"Wrong?" Hechi sneered, pressing his attack. "What's wrong is that the three of us could pass together, but one of you is hoarding the answer! Maybe Chunin Liumu set a rule for that person—if others find out, they're eliminated!"
"Kin, enough talking," Matsushita said, his voice low and tense as he stared down Hechi's clone. His usual quiet demeanor was gone, replaced by sharp focus. "Hechi had a temper before, but he wasn't unreasonable. Pushing us this hard… he's probably hiding something himself. He's the one with the secret he doesn't want to share."
Matsushita retreated rapidly until his back was against the water wall. His hands flew into a familiar pattern.
"Fire Release: Fireball Jutsu!"
Boom!
The water wall behind him shattered into steam. He grabbed Kin's arm and pulled her through the gap, putting distance between them and Hechi.
"He's strong," Matsushita muttered to Kin, "but if we work together, we might not lose. We'll force the information out of him."
Kin was torn. Both Hechi and Matsushita had been her close friends. Now, over a single test, they'd turned on each other. Forced to choose between them, she felt paralyzed.
After a long, agonizing moment, tears welled in her eyes.
"Why… why did it have to come to this?"
"So… it is you, then?" Hechi's voice cut through her despair.
Kin: "…?"
"Huh? Me?"
"That's right," Hechi pressed. "Chunin Liumu is in charge of our evaluation. He must have researched us beforehand. He knows Matsushita and I are extremely protective of you. If you say something, we won't question it. So, if he gave the answer to you, he'd be sure that once you started crying, we'd back down and stop asking. Therefore… you have the answer."
Matsushita nodded slowly, seeing the logic. Kin was the girl. Liumu probably assumed the two boys wouldn't aggressively interrogate her. It made sense.
Now, the triangle of suspicion was complete. Hechi's aggression, Matsushita's character shift, Kin's emotional vulnerability—each had a reason to doubt the others.
They stood in a tense three-way standoff, each seeing a potential liar in the other two.
The sun dipped below the horizon, leaving only the last, bloody streaks of twilight stretching across the sky. The deadline was upon them. They had to decide before Liumu reappeared.
Watching from above, Liumu closed his eyes and gave a slow, disappointed shake of his head.
In this twisted game of cat-and-mouse, there was no real culprit. Anyone could be the mouse, and anyone could be the cat. The very purpose of the test—team trust—had shattered the moment the first crack of doubt appeared between them. What was being crushed wasn't just their former friendship, but the foundational arrogance that assumed no one could be trusted.
Liumu stood up, ready to descend and announce their collective failure.
But at that moment, an unexpected scene unfolded on the training ground below.
(End of Chapter)
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