Chapter 5: The Written Exam Pt 2

Sakura's POV

It was absolute chaos right now.

Right after Kabuto had walked up to us, he told us all about the exams and about how this was his seventh time taking the exam.

Quite a loser if you ask me.

I had to hold myself back from laughing at the spirit's words.

He told us everything he knew about the exams over the course of his experience.

He even went into how many ninja from each village would be participating this year, giving us all this information through ninja info cards.

There were 51 teams participating in this years Chunin exams.

29 from Konoha, 10 from Suna, 7 from Ame, 2 from Kusa, 2 from Taki, and 1 from Oto.

He had information on each individual Genin participant, and was more than happy to show us them when Sasuke asked for specific information on some of them.

He gave us the basics of Rock Lee and Gaara no Subaku. Both are people who Sasuke wanted to challenge at some point in these exams.

But then Kabuto started talking bad about the other villages and how crappy they all were, especially the Sound ninja, causing one of the said sound ninja to attack him.

He had jumped from the table and took a swing at him, only for Kabuto to duck, successfully dodging the intended blow.

Kabuto had fallen to his knees however shortly after, throwing up everything in his stomach a second later.

Naruto had immediately ran over to inspect our supposed fallen comrade before turning towards the sound-nin that had attacked him.

"How, he dodged!" Shikamaru asked, slightly shocked at what he just saw.

How did he do that!?

He's from Otogakure isn't he? Perhaps he used sound?

Or vibrations?

Sound waves?

Either way, no one heard it, and it definitely effected him.

The attack had caused the whole room of ninja to jump up and prepare to attack or defend if they had to, but before anyone could do anything more the door busted open and a big man walked in, I recognized him immediately as one of the ninjas who interrogated me earlier in the week about Zabuza, Morino Ibiki.

"Alright you brats, that's enough fighting." He began in his booming voice, not that he was yelling, but his voice definitely traveled, especially in this silence. "Fighting in the first exam is strictly forbidden, any rule breakers will be disqualified, is that understood?" When no one responded he took it as a 'yes' and continued his speech. "Each of you will be drawing numbers from a bucket, you will sit in the seat according to the numbers that you draw. Once everyone is seated we can begin with the rules on the exam."

The tense Genin slowly dispersed but everyone was still on edge. One by one we all walked up to the group of Chunin that had appeared in puffs of smoke shortly after Ibiki's speech.

After picking numbers, everyone that we knew well enough was separated, for the most part. Naruto managed to get a seat next to Hinata, while Ino was sitting behind me. Once the last person got their seat Ibiki cleared his throat before sweeping his eyes over the occupants of the room. His eyes met mine for a second and he stared for a while before moving on.

"Alright everyone, listen up. I'm only going to explain the rules to this test once so pay attention." He walked up to the front of the room to stand in front of the chalk board while the rest of the Chunin took a seat at the random chairs that were placed around the room.

"There are three rules to this test, keep your papers faced down until I'm done explaining them. First rule; this test is a deduction based exam. You will start out with ten points, and there are ten questions, so it's one point for each question. If you get one wrong you then have nine points, you get five wrong you have five points, you get eight wrong, you have two left.

"Second rule, this is a team event, whether you pass or fail will depend on all three team members and your combined score, however, if even one of you fail, all three of you fail." Immediately protests were heard all over the room, complaining at the unfairness of the exam.

"Quit your whining. We're doing this for a reason, if you pay attention you might just learn something. Now then, the third rule is crucial. During this test if it appears as though your cheating, we deduct another two points from your score, meaning there's more than one way to lose than just getting the answer wrong. If you get caught enough times that you happen to lose all of your points, you and your team will be asked to leave. If you want to become a Chunin then you better act as if you already are. Now then, are there any questions?" No one said anything. "Then you have one hour to complete your exam, you may now begin."

The rustling of paper was heard as everyone flipped their test over to begin. As soon as I read the first question I was stumped.

What the actual fuck?

I thought as I looked over the other questions.

What kind of questions are these, there's no way a Genin can answer any of these questions! And I thought that there was supposed to be ten questions, the last one is missing! There's only nine! I guess that means they'll give it to us later.

I believe I can help you. So the first question is asking about weapon trajectory if another force was added to it, so...

The scroll began explaining things to me. His theories made complete sense too. I would have been able to figure it out on my own I'm sure, but it would have taken me much longer. Together with the scroll I was able to finish my nine questions in about twenty minutes, and because I never looked up from my paper even once I know I wont have any points deducted. Now it's all just up to Naruto and Sasuke.

Sasuke is a genius because of his clans teachings and refusing to let him fall behind in his studies. While Naruto isn't that smart his mother certainly instilled fear into his heart if he got anything less than a C on any of his tests or his homework, so I'm sure he's gotten at least one question right, so again, no need to worry there.

After a few minutes of thinking about my team and how they'd do on this test I felt a pull.

It was a pull on my mind.

Sakura, there seems to be an intruder in your mind, I believe it's from that girl behind you.

Ino, she's using her mind transfer jutsu.

Mind transfer? That wont do, I'm going to block her from entering your mind.

You can do that?

Of course, just wait and see.

And so I did. Soon the pull that I felt on my mind went away and I heard Ino gasp from behind me.

"What the hell?" I heard her mutter under her breath. I couldn't help but grin. A few seconds later she tried again but with the same result. "What on earth billboard brow." After a third failed attempt, the head of the man next to me hit his desk.

'Ino must have gone into his mind instead.' A second later he/Ino looked up confused as hell.

He/Ino looked at me while I was already looking back at them with a grin on my face. His/Ino's jaw dropped. I looked away before any of the proctors could say I was cheating and instead focused back to my team. I could feel the rage from next to me but chose to ignore it in favor of watching Ibiki who threw a Kunai knife on to a kids paper one row behind Naruto.

"That's number five. You've been caught cheating too many times, you and your team need to leave this exam." I watched as the kid stood up in rage and began complaining. It was useless though because in the end they still had to leave. Then it all just went down hill from there. One by one teams were disqualified, and the numbers got increasingly short.

When there was ten minutes before the hour was over, Ibiki stopped us.

"I'm sure you've all realized it by now, but the last question is missing. That's because there are new rules that come with this final question. That being said, if you chose to answer this question and get it wrong, your ninja career ends here. You will never be able to take this test again, and stay as a Gennin for the rest of your lives. However you may chose not to answer this question and try again next time with a different instructor. You all have 60 seconds to decide." Silence ensued after Ibiki finished explaining the final rule.

I was stumped. A Genin for the rest of my life? And what about Naruto whose ambition is to become the next Hokage, or Sasuke who wants to become the new Chief at the Uchiha Police Station? And what about me, I've just started my whole life and my whole future is riding on this one question, should I even go for it.

As I was contemplating this some occupants of the room rose their hands.

"Sorry guys, but I just can't do it. We can try again next time when the stakes aren't so high." He said, apologizing to this team mates who followed him out because they had to. Soon even more of them started to leave.

What were the guys going to do? What was I going to do? Were any of us going to raise our hands and try again in six months in a different country?

Why would you even think about leaving? Is this not exactly what you signed up for?

I froze at the scroll.

I mean, you are training to be a ninja aren't you? I wasn't aware that once you started a mission you can back out of it half way through when the stakes get to high. You should have been aware of such things from the very beginning. And besides, even of you do get this question wrong, does that mean that being a Genin forever means you have to stop training or stay as weak as what you and everyone else is probably thinking? By choosing to stay and answer this question means that you had the strength to see it through to the end even if it wasn't in your favor, you're already stronger mentally than those who had decided to leave.

Not long after the scroll explain himself and eased all my worries, Naruto had surprisingly raised his hand before slamming it back down, giving a speech about had it didn't matter if failing this question made him a Genin for life because no matter what would happen, he'd become the Hokage. His little speech put resolve in others around him. And while the scroll had already given me enough of a reason not to give up now, so did Naruto, that goof ball.

"Are you all sure, this is everyone's last chance, any one else want to raise their hand and leave?" Ibiki looked around the room before he seemed satisfied with everyone's stronger mentality thanks to Naruto's speech. Ibiki grinned before he continued. "Then that means there's only one thing left for me to do, which is to tell you, that everyone else still here, you all pass the first part of the Chunin exams." If I wasn't stumped before by the outrageous tenth question, then my ass was definitely rooted now.

What the absolute fuck?

After explaining everything about the written test and how the main point was to cheat and the difficulties we would be facing after becoming a Chunin he congratulated all of us before an explosion went off at the window and a figure appeared, pinning a banner behind her and proclaimed that if we were ready to proceed to the next exam to follow her.

It was her, the other one that had interrogated me about the land of waves mission. Anko Mitarashi.

"Anko, you're early. Again." At least she had the decency to look embarrassed. She then looked to the group of everyone that was left. Her eyes widened as she counted the numbers.

"28 teams Ibiki? You've gone soft." She said as she scoffed before stuffing her hands in her pockets.

"No, they're just a stronger batch of kids this year."

"No matter, by the time I'm done with you all there will be less than half of you all remaining. My name is Anko Mitarashi, and I will be the proctor for the second part of your exam."

Awe hell.