He has done a lot of propaganda

"No wonder sensei appointed someone like him. He is different," Orochimaru thought and then smiled to himself. "It will be fun. I love to play with younglings."

Aoto didn't go after this slimy piece of shit at the moment, and he would have his fun time with him later.

Aoto went on to explain the rules of the round: each team would go through the forest, and each team would be given a scroll, namely one of the two heaven and earth scrolls. Nobody knew which team had which scroll, but in order to get to the tower where the next round would be held, they would need both scrolls.

It would ensure a 50% elimination rate, which was the minimum. There might be teams who would go for multiple scrolls. While announcing this, he also looked around and noticed some familiar faces.

Karin.

Kurotsuchi.

And some familiar faces which he had seen in the 4th Great Ninja War. He was glad to see these young faces on their journey to the top. Aoto waved his hands, and the scrolls appeared near the teams, floating. This small move made everyone a bit awestruck by the examiner, but those who were capable of sensing couldn't help but be even more surprised.

There was no movement of chakra at all. Even Orochimaru didn't expect this kind of move from the examiner.

"Sensei. What kind of medicine did you feed this kid?"

"Now... Let the games begin," Aoto declared, and all of the teams made a run for the forest from different entrances. Aoto watched them all flock away with all the strength these genins had in their legs. As the last genin vanished, Shikuro, Unohana, and Urahara appeared behind him.

"So I was right about the man. There is something wrong about him," Shikuro said as he remembered how this guy gave him the creeps.

"Shikuro, don't go after him. You are not his match. Not yet," Aoto reminded him.

"Who is he?"

"One of the three legendary Sannin," Aoto replied.

"Huh... Orochimaru..." Shikuro shuddered a bit at the name. The general public might not know, but he had a perfect idea of what kind of monster Orochimaru was.

"We definitely need to tell the Kages about this," Shikuro said.

"No need. We will use him to get rid of some of the pests of Konoha," Unohana said. She was still very much irritated about what had gone down before with her and Naruto. Though the elders were punished heavily, that didn't mean she had forgotten. She and others needed to clean the waters.

Shikuro wanted to protest, but he didn't know how to. He could only hope that the innocents wouldn't get hurt for what was about to happen. Orochimaru being here meant that he had come with an agenda, and he didn't know what.

Nobody spoke more, and they vanished from their places, disappearing into the gloomy forest like smoke into darkness. Aoto walked away and came to the monitoring room. Due to technological advancement, much better than the ones in the actual story, the actual 'playground' was filled with motion sensors and cameras, which were well connected with the central room. This would ensure that there was no kind of foul play here.

So everyone would get a live update of what was going on everywhere. That didn't mean there were no blind spots, but shinobi attacks often resulted in destruction all around. Thus, one would find their location very fast if there were huge out-of-hand attacks. Additionally, Aoto knew what was going to happen, so he would only need to keep an eye on the Sound ninjas and the Iwagakure ninjas. They were the random factor, and Aoto still didn't know what the old man wanted.

Iwagakure was known for its involvement with the Akatsuki to carry out terrorist attacks, so he didn't know what this old man was out for. But he did keep his awareness at the top and would jump at any opportunity.

He wasn't alone in the observation room. There were others too whom he personally knew, like Ibiki, Choja, and even Inoichi. But this time, he was the head examiner.

"Welcome to your first official mission inside Konoha," Choja said when Aoto walked in.

"Hahahah... I hope I'm not being called to this kind of situation too often," Aoto joked.

"We hope so too," Choja said. Aoto and the rest took their seats and started their observation. The cameras followed, and the struggles of the students had already started. The Iwagakure had taken the lead in the number of scrolls being acquired. They were efficient, fast, and brutal.

Each one of them took the whole round very seriously.

"That old man did as much propaganda as possible for these young genins to be motivated to such a degree," Ibiki said as he analyzed these young ones. As they were watching the show, Aoto noticed Gaara's team approaching a team about whom Aoto knew.

Gaara's team, as usual, had been brutal, to say the least. He attacked the other team without any hesitation. One of the three died almost instantly with Gaara's attack. The other two were horrified and made a run for it, leaving the scroll out of fear. Gaara didn't seem to care and went for the other two, even though they had received the scroll.

The other two were a male and a female. The male could easily see that the sand was creeping up on him just like it did with the other male. He was a coward and also an asshole. In order to save himself, he pushed the female towards the fast-flowing sand.

The female screamed as she didn't expect this betrayal at the last second. She cursed her teammate, but there was nothing to be done as she was falling towards the sand pretty fast and knew her demise was imminent from the monster.

She curled up a bit in fear as she was falling down, expecting an impact, but that impact never came. She opened her eyes only to see herself in an observation room.

----

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