Chapter 20, First Test

The days passed by quickly. It was not until the third day they actually saw some ninjas from unknown villages.

It seemed like it was a group from Yamigakure (Village hidden in darkness) and they were having an argument with some Konoha ninjas. Hikaru and Mirai decided to get closer and try to break it up, then they saw who was arguing.

Of course team 3 had something to do with this! Seeing it get more and more heated Hikaru jumped into action. He pulled Inosuke back from the argument

"What the hell are you doing?!" Inosuke yelled out at him but Hikaru ignored it and bowed to the ninjas from land of void. Mirai stepped forward and spoke "I'm sorry for whatever this guy said, he's just an idiot and not representative of our village. I hope you can forgive us."

The woman who seemed to be their leader was a black haired, extremely pale woman with nothing but gloom in her eyes. When you looked at her it felt like she sucked in all positive emotions and left you as an empty shell. Not a very pleasant woman.

After a few seconds, the woman clicked her tongue and waved at her team to follow her away.

The second they were gone Inosuke pulled himself out of Hikaru's grip. "What was that for? They were looking for a fight!"

At that moment Hyuuga Ko appeared and pushed Hikaru away further "Don't touch my students you disgusting little--" He didn't finish the statement but still made his feelings clear.

Sai appeared the next second behind Hikaru and put his hand on his shoulders. "My little genin here just saved yours from causing a fight with a potential ally. You might want to refrain from making statements like the one you almost made"

It was clear these two didn't see eye to eye on many things. There was obvious, if not hatred then, hostility between them. Something must have happened in the last few days. They were never friends but before today, Hikaru didn't see them as enemies.

"I think my students here would have managed it just fine without that one disgracing Inosuke here." Sai glared at him "Oh I beg to differ, but no matter. What's done is done."

Sai then looked down at Hikaru and Mirai "Let's get back to the others!" They both nodded and left with their sensei.

***********

It was finally time. Team 2 and 3 had gathered in Hikaru's room, which he made sure to keep clean for this reason, even if Tsukune made it difficult.

Rock Lee raised his voice and almost yelled at the enthusiastically "We'll take you there! Just do your best and make Konoha proud!" They all responded with a loud "Yes sensei!" and soon both teams were led to the test site.

It looked like their academy for children. When they got there they were met with a Suna ninja with a long list. He just looked at the group and told each individual which room they should go to. Apparently, all teams were split up to do the test in separate rooms.

Hikaru got to his room and took a look at the genin in there. Some of them were massive. One guy looked like a mountain of muscles so big they almost hid his face. 'How is someone like that a genin?!' Hikaru thought.

Others looked like small children. The guy sitting next to him looked like he was just 9 years old. He had blonde, almost white hair and crystal clear blue eyes. He looked innocent enough so Hikaru waved at him.

This seemed to make the boy happy as he waved back with a wide smile at Hikaru and then the examiner entered the room with a stack of papers.

"Hello! My name is Kankuro and I will be giving you your instructions for the first test." The room went completely silent.

"Okay. This will be a written test based on knowledge of your teammates." This seemed to shock many in the room, Hikaru included.

"There are 15 questions and you will receive them five at a time. In between each round, your papers will be quickly checked and if your team answered too differently you will fail."

Now people around the room started murmuring. Hikaru didn't really know anyone in here so he didn't have anyone to complain to.

"If we catch you cheating three times as a team, the entire team will fail. You have 10 minutes to answer each part. And it begins in 10 seconds. Any talking from that point on will count as cheating!"

Most of the people in the room shut up and straightened their backs, awaiting the start.

Soon the paper appeared in front of Hikaru. It was fairly strange questions really. Everything from 'Who in the team is most likely to abandon a mission because of personal opinion?' to 'Who in the team could eat a whole camel in the least amount of time?'

On the paper the names Hikaru, Mirai and Tsukune were written with a 1,2 and 3 in front of them respectively. Each question was to be answered with a number. While Hikaru was figuring it out Kankuro interrupted.

"Oh yes and also, if one person is depicted as too terrible to be a ninja by the answers. They risk failing as well." Now this caused some issues.

'What were they trying to test here? The questions themselves could be a test of team cohesion which is of course important but then why allow for cheating twice?' Hikaru was filled with thoughts.

Soon he just answered the questions so he'd have time to think afterwards. 'Tsukune would definitely eat that much..I'm probably the one to abandon a mission because I don't agree with someone. Mirai would probably be the one to first fall of exhaustion..' etc.

When he had answered the questions he looked at the clock. Answering only took around 30 seconds so why did they have 10 minutes?! and that's when it hit him.

They either want teams to know each other well enough to handle this or to be good enough to cheat without getting noticed one out of three times.

Hikaru could only hope the rest of his team just answered the questions. They should know each other well enough to get through this without cheating.