Of Loyalty and Morals Chapter 4
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Chapter 4: The First Test
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“Why are we being sent to their academy building?” Kankuro grumbled as the Suna group made their way to where the officials had said that the first Chunin exam test was to be held.
“Probably because of all of the rookie Genin,” Vala said. “And I’d bet that this is a written exam, so they’d want to set the stage just right.”
“They generally have some sort of written exam,” Jonas said. “But, it doesn't always take place at the start of the exams.”
“For ours, it did,” Sam added.
“But there’s been other exams where they had some sort of team based task first and then they separated people out for a written exam,” Jonas pointed out.
“So this could be some sort of task to creep through and kill off all of the academy students?” Gaara asked.
“I thought that you had meditated last night,” Jack said with a groan.
“I did indeed lead Gaara through Kel’Noreem,” Teal’c replied.
“She was particularly unsettled, however,” Gaara said. “There’s something n the air that she doesn’t like.”
“Oh, great, something in the air that a demon doesn’t like,” Jack grumbled. “In any case, try to keep a lid on it while we’re taking the test. Unless we really do have to go through and kill kids, which then we’ll all fail.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen,” Daniel pointed out. “Konoha has a reputation to uphold, after all.”
“Well, that’s something, at least,” Jack said.
“We’ll walk you up,” George said. “Just remember, the test starts now.”
“Right,” Jack said. He stepped forward, leading the way into the building.
They made their way up the stairs, walking past all of the milling students. There was a large commotion in front of a room that was supposedly the room that the test was in. George and the other members of his team hung back, letting the other teams make the decision on where to go. That itself gave Jack a clue and he gave George a suspicious look as they went past the commotion up to another stairwell, where they bypassed a lot of students as they went up to the correct room.
There was a handful of Jounin waiting at the end of the corridor near the near the right room. “I guess we’ve got to leave you here,” George said.
“Acting in the stead of Toshiro?” Jack asked.
“Well, someone has to,” George said.
“Well, we’ll be seeing you,” Jack said. “It won’t be the same without you, T.”
“Indeed,” Teal’c said, clasping hands with Jack.
“Will miss you big guy,” Vala said, patting him on the shoulder as she passed him.
“Good luck,” Janet said as they entered the room.
George waited until the door closed before walking down the hallway to where the Jounin were waiting, deciding to wait until the rush had gone down before going through the school building once more.
“Aren’t you a little young to be Jounin instructors?” one of the Jounin waiting asked.
“We’re only Chunin,” George answered. “Their instructors are at the normal waiting place already.”
“How interesting,” the Jounin said, “that Chunin would be there to wish rookies luck instead of their instructors.”
“We’re close,” Janet answered, “and they know that their sensei’s wish them well.”
“So, do you think that your teammates will make it through?” the silver haired Jounin asked, proving that he was very observant.
“Indeed,” Teal’c said.
“As long as Team Tomo doesn’t mess things up,” George commented, being well experienced in how that team handled things.
“They haven’t blown things up in a while,” Janet said.
“Maybe they’re due for it, though,” George said.
“I am confident that they will pass,” Teal’c said. “As long as Honda Akio keeps an eye on Yua.”
“We’ll, we shall see,” George said, smiling at the looks on the Jounin teachers’ faces.
Just then a group of kids ran up the stairs and presented papers to their Jounin teachers. “Good thing you all came,” the silver haired Jounin said. “Since you can only take the exam if all three of your teammates take it with you.”
“What, why didn’t you tell that to us before?” the trio chorused, all of them clearly upset by the withheld information.
“You’d better get in there before they close the doors,” George commented, glancing at the time.
“Off you go,” the silver haired Jounin said as he herded his Genin team towards the doors.
The blond boy spluttered, but they were pushed through the doors. The other team followed afterwards and the doors slammed shut.
“And now the waiting game starts,” George commented.
“Indeed,” Teal’c said.
No other stragglers made up it from the commotion downstairs and, after a moment, George led his team back down the stairs. The Jounin watched them as they left the building, but George put it out of his mind. He and the rest of his team had some mischief to get up to while the others were taking their test.
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Once they made it into the room, the Suna Genin ignored the rest of the Genin and headed up the stairs. It seemed as though it were a simple wish to be seated, but in reality they wanted to get closer to the Oto Genin. Not that they thought that the Oto Nin would give away anything, but it was still a way to see what the Oto Nin were like.
Jack didn’t think much of them, to be honest; they really didn’t seem to be pleasant people. Then again, he knew that some countries liked their ninjas to be bloodthirsty people. Of course, Jack could already tell that he would be more focused on the Oto Genin than the Konoha Genin when the time came to attack. So far the Konoha Nin didn't seem to be the type to stab people in the back.
The Oto Genin were that type of people and they showed that by launching themselves at the Konoha Genin. Jack put one foot on a chair to launch himself after the Oto Nin, but they seemed aware of the attack and fended it off. Then the proctor for the exam entered and ended the possibility of any more attacks, even warning them that no fights were allowed during the exam.
“Turn in your applications, take one of these numbered tags, and sit where the number tells you to. Then we will pass out the papers for the written exam,” the proctor, Ibiki Morino, said. The Genin followed the instructions, some of them talking about the fact that it was a paper exam and others about the proctor’s first words.
“Were they this strict in the exam that you guys took?” Jack softly asked Sam as they filed down to the front of the room.
“No,” Sam said. “I have a feeling that the exams are completely new this time around.”
“Makes sense, given how this is Konoha,” Daniel said.
The Suna Genin finally reached the front of the room and picked out their numbers. They were spread out all throughout the room. Jack was seated in the very back, five seats away from where Gaara was seated in the corner. In the row ahead of them, more close to Gaara than Jack was Sam. In the next row, Cam and Jonas were just one seat apart from one another and Kankuro was further off from them. Daniel ended up sitting next to the blond kid that they had encountered during their first day at Konoha. That was the middle row and the next one down was where Vala was seated, by chance almost right in front of where Daniel was. Temari was closer to the front of the room, right in the middle of where the other two from that tumultuous meeting were seated.
“This first exam has a few important rules. I will not accept any questions, so listen carefully. First rule is that you all are given ten points at the start. The written exam consists of ten questions, and each one is worth one point. This test is a deduction based test. If you get one problem wrong, you will get one point deducted,” Morino told them, writing the same thing on the board. “If you get three problems wrong, your points will be reduced to seven. Second rule, the pass-fail decision will be decided by your team’s total points.” The proctor dealt with an interruption, telling them that there was a reason for that. “Now that you know, let’s move on to the next rule. If an examiner determines that you cheated or do something similar during the test, each action will cause you to lose two points. In other words, there will be people who will leave this test without their papers being graded. Those who try to cheat without thinking carefully will only hurt themselves. You all are trying to be Chunins, if you are a ninja, act like a first-rate one. Also, if anyone on the team gets a zero, everyone on that team will fail. The last problem will be given forty-five minutes after the exam begins. You have one hour for the exam. Begin!”
Jack stared at the man and wondered about the strange testing rules. “I’ve never had a test where you were allowed to cheat,” he murmured to himself. “Though, I’ve had several tests where I’ve cheated. I bet Daniel’s got this all figured out.”
Jack carefully looked around the room. After a while he saw that they could only cheat three times before they were kicked out. He kind of figured that the proctors would be then looking for two sorts of things. Blatant cheating by glancing at other people’s works or the flashy techniques that people used.
Jack looked down at the paper and actually read the test questions. “Gah, why does it have to be math,” he grumbled to himself. He picked up his pencil and started to work out the problem. After all, it was a simple geometry problem; it wasn’t like one had to be a geek in order to do them. But still, that’s why he had Carter on his team!
Gaara barely listened to the rules; the voice in his head was calling out to something in the room. Besides, they said that cheating was allowed three times if they caught you. He wasn't planning on being caught. He had been working on his sand eye technique for years and had managed to get it down to only costing just one percent of his sand. Unnoticed, his sand drifted up to the ceiling one or two grains at a time. They formed together into a small eye, which then looked down at the other Genin. He quickly picked out the plants in the room and wrote down the answers that he saw there. He then left his sand eye going, watching the rest of the exam.
Sam didn't bother to try and cheat after she saw the questions on the paper. The history ones she didn't bother with, but the math ones she could solve in her sleep. She didn’t even bother to write any of the equations out onto the paper as she solved it in her head and wrote down the words. She then turned the paper over and started working on a diagram that was giving her problems.
Cam grumbled at the questions, but started working out the math problem. He was more of an action guy, but he could still think back to the basics in stuff such as that. Besides, if nothing else than he could attempt to cheat his way through the other problems.
Jonas found that the test was very simple and he was able to recall the answers to almost all of the problems. Even the math problems were simple after what he worked on with the Naquariah reactors. Then again, he figured, not everyone had a near photographic memory.
Kankuro just sat there, waiting until the perfect moment to strike. He had the perfect plan for how to get his answers, but he wanted to allow the proctors to either relax and let more slip by or else wait until other test takers got nervous and started getting themselves failed by the droves.
Daniel felt sort of sorry for the blond sitting next to him, who was obviously having trouble getting a hold of the exam. The questions were too hard for him and he didn't seem to have caught all of the cheating references. Daniel admitted that the questions weren’t the sort of thing that a normal Genin would know. It was high level math, which he knew after all of the years of working with Sam, and obscure history questions. Daniel knew that, of his group, he and Jonas were the only ones who would have gotten the references to the questions in the test. In fact, Daniel knew this stuff so well that he knew that the test makers had gone to great lengths in order to make it as hard as it could be.
Daniel lightly hummed to himself as he wrote down an essay on the fact that they got wrong. Montaro had been the Fire Country’s sixth Daiyamo and he had been the one to go to war with the Daiyamo of Kumo over the immigration of tea.
Ahead of him, Vala was the only one who was trying to cheat. She had glanced through the test and dismissed most of the questions as useless. Of, sure, she probably could have answered at least one of them, but that wouldn't be the fun route. She kneeled in her seat and peered over at Daniel’s test paper. “Well, that’s no help at all.”
“That’s the first warning for cheating,” one of the proctors called out.
“But how can I be cheating if he isn't even writing about the questions on the exam?” Vala asked. She took his paper, handed him hers and moved to sit back down. “Here, use mine to continue your rant.”
“It’s an essay, actually,” Daniel said. He calmly accepted the test paper and continued right where he left off.
“That’s the second mark against you,” the proctor told Vala. He didn't even bother to say anything to Daniel, since he hadn't been the one cheating. Vala just shrugged at the proctor and settled back in her chair, fiddling with a knife in her boredom.
Temari grasped the concept of the rules after thinking about it and used her wind techniques to get the answers that she needed. It was rather easy to cheat, she though and she was never called on it. She was just finishing up when her middle brother made his move. She shook her head slightly as he left with the excuse of needing the bathroom. “Cutting it kind of close,” she murmured to herself. And indeed, her brother returned just before the instructor ended the exam.
“I will now give you the tenth question, since forty-five minutes have passed,” Morino called out. “But there is one special rule for this last question. First you will choose if you wish to take this question or not. If you chose not to take it, your points will be reduced to zero. The other rule is that if you take it and get it wrong, you will lose the privilege to take the Chunin exam forever.”
“What?” people exclaimed, all trying to explain just why that wasn’t possible.
“This year, I am the rule, which is why I have given you an option to not take the question,” the proctor said. “Now, let us begin. Those who will not take the question, raise your hand. After we confirm your numbers, we will have you leave.”
There was silence before slowly people started to leave the room. Jack snickered quietly to himself, knowing that the instructor was trying to intimidate them. Of course, the instructor had nothing on any of Goa’ulds that tried to intimidate him. He was confident that none of his team members, including Team Toshiro, would bend under the pressure. After all, they had all received the same sort of trial before and hadn’t given in then. And Team Baki wouldn’t think much about that kind of tactics. Gaara was determined not to fail and therefore the rest of his siblings were as well.
A little less than half of the room had been weeded out between those who had been caught blatantly cheating and those who caved under the pressure. It was easy to see who would follow soon afterwards as some of the rookies started to bend. Finally, the blond kid from before stood up and slammed his hand against his desk.
“I don't care if I fail or not, you can't stop me from becoming the Hokage,” the blond kid called out. “I’ll become Hokage thanks to my own hard work and I won't let anything stop me!”
“I will ask one more time. This choice will impact your life, if you want to quit now is the chance.” Morino said. He looked around and when no one else stood up he nodded his head. “Nice determination. Well then, for the first exam, everyone here passes.”
“What?” several people shouted out, staring at the proctor in outrage.
“What about the tenth question?” the pink haired girl asked.
“There is no tenth question,” the instructor said. “It was test to see who could stand up to the pressure. Being a ninja is not an easy thing and we need to know if you can stand up to the pressures of being tortured.” The man pulled off his Hitai-ate to reveal that the scars on his face continued on every surface of his skull. Jack shuddered, remembering his very own torture sessions. In some ways he wasn’t sure if being healed afterwards was better or worse, and then, of course, he had to add being deaged into the mix as well. “The point of the whole exam was to see how your information gathering and willpower held up, those who were willing to do anything to get the information and those who were willing to stick around when things got tough are those who pass onto the next exam.”
The window smashed open and glass flew everywhere as a woman entered and pinned a banner onto the wall. Jack reached for his weapon, ready to attack whoever was attacking them, but the woman only posed under the banner. Jack then read it to find out that it was naming the woman in front of them: Anko Mitarashi.
“Oi, what’s with this room?” Anko demanded. “This is way more than I expected.”
“What were you thinking, entering like that?” the instructor demanded.
“I was thinking that I would have a lot less people in this class room,” the woman replied. “Are you losing your edge?”
“Never mind that,” the instructor grumbled out. “I suppose they’re all yours.”
“I’ll cut them down to size,” Anko said. “I’m Anko Mitarashi, the second examiner. The next exam will take place tomorrow; your Jounin instructors will know where to meet.”
With that, the woman jumped back out of the window. The first instruction sighed. “You have a brief period of time before the exam starts; I suggest that you take advantage of it.”
“Yes, we did it,” Vala cheered, hopping up to sit on the top of Daniel’s desk.
“All right, let’s get moving," Jack said as he stood up and headed down the stairs. “After all, we’ve got to tell the others that we made it through this part.”
The Suna group gathered together before trouping out the door. The rest of the room emptied out, until the examiner was the only one left. Ibiki went through the room and picked up all of the left over exams.
“Well, this looks like a bit of a mess,” Kakashi commented.
Ibiki looked over to find the silver haired Jounin perched on the broken window sill. “What are you doing here? And what’s wrong with the door?”
“What door?” Kakashi asked. He hopped down off of the window sill. “How did the exam go?”
“Got a stubborn batch of Genin this time,” Ibiki said. “Helped out in part by one of yours.”
“Naruto?” Kakashi asked.
“Naruto,” Ibiki confirmed. “What do you want, Kakashi?”
“I met some people that got me very curious, and I was wondering whether I could look at a couple of exams,” Kakashi said.
“The Suna kids, right?” Ibiki asked. He set the papers down on the teacher’s desk and started paging through them, picking out the essays that he wanted.
“You got something off of them, as well?” Kakashi asked.
“You know how the whole point of this exam was to cheat?” Ibiki asked.
“Yeah,” Kakashi said.
“Some of them didn’t even bother to cheat, they could answer some of the questions on their own,” Ibiki said. “Granted, one of your Genin answered all of the questions, but you should see theirs.”
Kakashi accepted the tests from Ibiki and quickly read through them. In most of the exams, the math questions were the ones that were answered, but a couple of the Sand Genin answered the historical questions. In fact, one of them had written an entire essay over two exam papers about one of the obscure facts that were chosen. “What happened here?” Kakashi asked as he held up the one paper where Akio Honda had been crossed out and Yua written in over it. It seemed like the beginning of the essay written on Akio’s exam paper.
“Yua bluntly cheated,” Ibiki answered. “She was seated in front of her teammate and she simply took his paper after he had reached the end of it.”
“Well, that's one way of doing it,” Kakashi said, blinking in surprise.
“They’re unusual, but then it was your Genin who practically ruined the last question,” Ibiki said, giving Kakashi a glare.
“Oh, would you look at the time?” Kakashi said, not looking at the clock at all. “I’d better get going; I don't want to be late.” Kakashi jumped out of the window before Ibiki could stop him, the exam papers fluttering to the floor.
Ibiki grumbled to himself as he picked up the scattered papers. “Like he’s ever on time.”
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Chapter 5
Chapter 4: The First Test
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“Why are we being sent to their academy building?” Kankuro grumbled as the Suna group made their way to where the officials had said that the first Chunin exam test was to be held.
“Probably because of all of the rookie Genin,” Vala said. “And I’d bet that this is a written exam, so they’d want to set the stage just right.”
“They generally have some sort of written exam,” Jonas said. “But, it doesn't always take place at the start of the exams.”
“For ours, it did,” Sam added.
“But there’s been other exams where they had some sort of team based task first and then they separated people out for a written exam,” Jonas pointed out.
“So this could be some sort of task to creep through and kill off all of the academy students?” Gaara asked.
“I thought that you had meditated last night,” Jack said with a groan.
“I did indeed lead Gaara through Kel’Noreem,” Teal’c replied.
“She was particularly unsettled, however,” Gaara said. “There’s something n the air that she doesn’t like.”
“Oh, great, something in the air that a demon doesn’t like,” Jack grumbled. “In any case, try to keep a lid on it while we’re taking the test. Unless we really do have to go through and kill kids, which then we’ll all fail.”
“I don’t think that’ll happen,” Daniel pointed out. “Konoha has a reputation to uphold, after all.”
“Well, that’s something, at least,” Jack said.
“We’ll walk you up,” George said. “Just remember, the test starts now.”
“Right,” Jack said. He stepped forward, leading the way into the building.
They made their way up the stairs, walking past all of the milling students. There was a large commotion in front of a room that was supposedly the room that the test was in. George and the other members of his team hung back, letting the other teams make the decision on where to go. That itself gave Jack a clue and he gave George a suspicious look as they went past the commotion up to another stairwell, where they bypassed a lot of students as they went up to the correct room.
There was a handful of Jounin waiting at the end of the corridor near the near the right room. “I guess we’ve got to leave you here,” George said.
“Acting in the stead of Toshiro?” Jack asked.
“Well, someone has to,” George said.
“Well, we’ll be seeing you,” Jack said. “It won’t be the same without you, T.”
“Indeed,” Teal’c said, clasping hands with Jack.
“Will miss you big guy,” Vala said, patting him on the shoulder as she passed him.
“Good luck,” Janet said as they entered the room.
George waited until the door closed before walking down the hallway to where the Jounin were waiting, deciding to wait until the rush had gone down before going through the school building once more.
“Aren’t you a little young to be Jounin instructors?” one of the Jounin waiting asked.
“We’re only Chunin,” George answered. “Their instructors are at the normal waiting place already.”
“How interesting,” the Jounin said, “that Chunin would be there to wish rookies luck instead of their instructors.”
“We’re close,” Janet answered, “and they know that their sensei’s wish them well.”
“So, do you think that your teammates will make it through?” the silver haired Jounin asked, proving that he was very observant.
“Indeed,” Teal’c said.
“As long as Team Tomo doesn’t mess things up,” George commented, being well experienced in how that team handled things.
“They haven’t blown things up in a while,” Janet said.
“Maybe they’re due for it, though,” George said.
“I am confident that they will pass,” Teal’c said. “As long as Honda Akio keeps an eye on Yua.”
“We’ll, we shall see,” George said, smiling at the looks on the Jounin teachers’ faces.
Just then a group of kids ran up the stairs and presented papers to their Jounin teachers. “Good thing you all came,” the silver haired Jounin said. “Since you can only take the exam if all three of your teammates take it with you.”
“What, why didn’t you tell that to us before?” the trio chorused, all of them clearly upset by the withheld information.
“You’d better get in there before they close the doors,” George commented, glancing at the time.
“Off you go,” the silver haired Jounin said as he herded his Genin team towards the doors.
The blond boy spluttered, but they were pushed through the doors. The other team followed afterwards and the doors slammed shut.
“And now the waiting game starts,” George commented.
“Indeed,” Teal’c said.
No other stragglers made up it from the commotion downstairs and, after a moment, George led his team back down the stairs. The Jounin watched them as they left the building, but George put it out of his mind. He and the rest of his team had some mischief to get up to while the others were taking their test.
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Once they made it into the room, the Suna Genin ignored the rest of the Genin and headed up the stairs. It seemed as though it were a simple wish to be seated, but in reality they wanted to get closer to the Oto Genin. Not that they thought that the Oto Nin would give away anything, but it was still a way to see what the Oto Nin were like.
Jack didn’t think much of them, to be honest; they really didn’t seem to be pleasant people. Then again, he knew that some countries liked their ninjas to be bloodthirsty people. Of course, Jack could already tell that he would be more focused on the Oto Genin than the Konoha Genin when the time came to attack. So far the Konoha Nin didn't seem to be the type to stab people in the back.
The Oto Genin were that type of people and they showed that by launching themselves at the Konoha Genin. Jack put one foot on a chair to launch himself after the Oto Nin, but they seemed aware of the attack and fended it off. Then the proctor for the exam entered and ended the possibility of any more attacks, even warning them that no fights were allowed during the exam.
“Turn in your applications, take one of these numbered tags, and sit where the number tells you to. Then we will pass out the papers for the written exam,” the proctor, Ibiki Morino, said. The Genin followed the instructions, some of them talking about the fact that it was a paper exam and others about the proctor’s first words.
“Were they this strict in the exam that you guys took?” Jack softly asked Sam as they filed down to the front of the room.
“No,” Sam said. “I have a feeling that the exams are completely new this time around.”
“Makes sense, given how this is Konoha,” Daniel said.
The Suna Genin finally reached the front of the room and picked out their numbers. They were spread out all throughout the room. Jack was seated in the very back, five seats away from where Gaara was seated in the corner. In the row ahead of them, more close to Gaara than Jack was Sam. In the next row, Cam and Jonas were just one seat apart from one another and Kankuro was further off from them. Daniel ended up sitting next to the blond kid that they had encountered during their first day at Konoha. That was the middle row and the next one down was where Vala was seated, by chance almost right in front of where Daniel was. Temari was closer to the front of the room, right in the middle of where the other two from that tumultuous meeting were seated.
“This first exam has a few important rules. I will not accept any questions, so listen carefully. First rule is that you all are given ten points at the start. The written exam consists of ten questions, and each one is worth one point. This test is a deduction based test. If you get one problem wrong, you will get one point deducted,” Morino told them, writing the same thing on the board. “If you get three problems wrong, your points will be reduced to seven. Second rule, the pass-fail decision will be decided by your team’s total points.” The proctor dealt with an interruption, telling them that there was a reason for that. “Now that you know, let’s move on to the next rule. If an examiner determines that you cheated or do something similar during the test, each action will cause you to lose two points. In other words, there will be people who will leave this test without their papers being graded. Those who try to cheat without thinking carefully will only hurt themselves. You all are trying to be Chunins, if you are a ninja, act like a first-rate one. Also, if anyone on the team gets a zero, everyone on that team will fail. The last problem will be given forty-five minutes after the exam begins. You have one hour for the exam. Begin!”
Jack stared at the man and wondered about the strange testing rules. “I’ve never had a test where you were allowed to cheat,” he murmured to himself. “Though, I’ve had several tests where I’ve cheated. I bet Daniel’s got this all figured out.”
Jack carefully looked around the room. After a while he saw that they could only cheat three times before they were kicked out. He kind of figured that the proctors would be then looking for two sorts of things. Blatant cheating by glancing at other people’s works or the flashy techniques that people used.
Jack looked down at the paper and actually read the test questions. “Gah, why does it have to be math,” he grumbled to himself. He picked up his pencil and started to work out the problem. After all, it was a simple geometry problem; it wasn’t like one had to be a geek in order to do them. But still, that’s why he had Carter on his team!
Gaara barely listened to the rules; the voice in his head was calling out to something in the room. Besides, they said that cheating was allowed three times if they caught you. He wasn't planning on being caught. He had been working on his sand eye technique for years and had managed to get it down to only costing just one percent of his sand. Unnoticed, his sand drifted up to the ceiling one or two grains at a time. They formed together into a small eye, which then looked down at the other Genin. He quickly picked out the plants in the room and wrote down the answers that he saw there. He then left his sand eye going, watching the rest of the exam.
Sam didn't bother to try and cheat after she saw the questions on the paper. The history ones she didn't bother with, but the math ones she could solve in her sleep. She didn’t even bother to write any of the equations out onto the paper as she solved it in her head and wrote down the words. She then turned the paper over and started working on a diagram that was giving her problems.
Cam grumbled at the questions, but started working out the math problem. He was more of an action guy, but he could still think back to the basics in stuff such as that. Besides, if nothing else than he could attempt to cheat his way through the other problems.
Jonas found that the test was very simple and he was able to recall the answers to almost all of the problems. Even the math problems were simple after what he worked on with the Naquariah reactors. Then again, he figured, not everyone had a near photographic memory.
Kankuro just sat there, waiting until the perfect moment to strike. He had the perfect plan for how to get his answers, but he wanted to allow the proctors to either relax and let more slip by or else wait until other test takers got nervous and started getting themselves failed by the droves.
Daniel felt sort of sorry for the blond sitting next to him, who was obviously having trouble getting a hold of the exam. The questions were too hard for him and he didn't seem to have caught all of the cheating references. Daniel admitted that the questions weren’t the sort of thing that a normal Genin would know. It was high level math, which he knew after all of the years of working with Sam, and obscure history questions. Daniel knew that, of his group, he and Jonas were the only ones who would have gotten the references to the questions in the test. In fact, Daniel knew this stuff so well that he knew that the test makers had gone to great lengths in order to make it as hard as it could be.
Daniel lightly hummed to himself as he wrote down an essay on the fact that they got wrong. Montaro had been the Fire Country’s sixth Daiyamo and he had been the one to go to war with the Daiyamo of Kumo over the immigration of tea.
Ahead of him, Vala was the only one who was trying to cheat. She had glanced through the test and dismissed most of the questions as useless. Of, sure, she probably could have answered at least one of them, but that wouldn't be the fun route. She kneeled in her seat and peered over at Daniel’s test paper. “Well, that’s no help at all.”
“That’s the first warning for cheating,” one of the proctors called out.
“But how can I be cheating if he isn't even writing about the questions on the exam?” Vala asked. She took his paper, handed him hers and moved to sit back down. “Here, use mine to continue your rant.”
“It’s an essay, actually,” Daniel said. He calmly accepted the test paper and continued right where he left off.
“That’s the second mark against you,” the proctor told Vala. He didn't even bother to say anything to Daniel, since he hadn't been the one cheating. Vala just shrugged at the proctor and settled back in her chair, fiddling with a knife in her boredom.
Temari grasped the concept of the rules after thinking about it and used her wind techniques to get the answers that she needed. It was rather easy to cheat, she though and she was never called on it. She was just finishing up when her middle brother made his move. She shook her head slightly as he left with the excuse of needing the bathroom. “Cutting it kind of close,” she murmured to herself. And indeed, her brother returned just before the instructor ended the exam.
“I will now give you the tenth question, since forty-five minutes have passed,” Morino called out. “But there is one special rule for this last question. First you will choose if you wish to take this question or not. If you chose not to take it, your points will be reduced to zero. The other rule is that if you take it and get it wrong, you will lose the privilege to take the Chunin exam forever.”
“What?” people exclaimed, all trying to explain just why that wasn’t possible.
“This year, I am the rule, which is why I have given you an option to not take the question,” the proctor said. “Now, let us begin. Those who will not take the question, raise your hand. After we confirm your numbers, we will have you leave.”
There was silence before slowly people started to leave the room. Jack snickered quietly to himself, knowing that the instructor was trying to intimidate them. Of course, the instructor had nothing on any of Goa’ulds that tried to intimidate him. He was confident that none of his team members, including Team Toshiro, would bend under the pressure. After all, they had all received the same sort of trial before and hadn’t given in then. And Team Baki wouldn’t think much about that kind of tactics. Gaara was determined not to fail and therefore the rest of his siblings were as well.
A little less than half of the room had been weeded out between those who had been caught blatantly cheating and those who caved under the pressure. It was easy to see who would follow soon afterwards as some of the rookies started to bend. Finally, the blond kid from before stood up and slammed his hand against his desk.
“I don't care if I fail or not, you can't stop me from becoming the Hokage,” the blond kid called out. “I’ll become Hokage thanks to my own hard work and I won't let anything stop me!”
“I will ask one more time. This choice will impact your life, if you want to quit now is the chance.” Morino said. He looked around and when no one else stood up he nodded his head. “Nice determination. Well then, for the first exam, everyone here passes.”
“What?” several people shouted out, staring at the proctor in outrage.
“What about the tenth question?” the pink haired girl asked.
“There is no tenth question,” the instructor said. “It was test to see who could stand up to the pressure. Being a ninja is not an easy thing and we need to know if you can stand up to the pressures of being tortured.” The man pulled off his Hitai-ate to reveal that the scars on his face continued on every surface of his skull. Jack shuddered, remembering his very own torture sessions. In some ways he wasn’t sure if being healed afterwards was better or worse, and then, of course, he had to add being deaged into the mix as well. “The point of the whole exam was to see how your information gathering and willpower held up, those who were willing to do anything to get the information and those who were willing to stick around when things got tough are those who pass onto the next exam.”
The window smashed open and glass flew everywhere as a woman entered and pinned a banner onto the wall. Jack reached for his weapon, ready to attack whoever was attacking them, but the woman only posed under the banner. Jack then read it to find out that it was naming the woman in front of them: Anko Mitarashi.
“Oi, what’s with this room?” Anko demanded. “This is way more than I expected.”
“What were you thinking, entering like that?” the instructor demanded.
“I was thinking that I would have a lot less people in this class room,” the woman replied. “Are you losing your edge?”
“Never mind that,” the instructor grumbled out. “I suppose they’re all yours.”
“I’ll cut them down to size,” Anko said. “I’m Anko Mitarashi, the second examiner. The next exam will take place tomorrow; your Jounin instructors will know where to meet.”
With that, the woman jumped back out of the window. The first instruction sighed. “You have a brief period of time before the exam starts; I suggest that you take advantage of it.”
“Yes, we did it,” Vala cheered, hopping up to sit on the top of Daniel’s desk.
“All right, let’s get moving," Jack said as he stood up and headed down the stairs. “After all, we’ve got to tell the others that we made it through this part.”
The Suna group gathered together before trouping out the door. The rest of the room emptied out, until the examiner was the only one left. Ibiki went through the room and picked up all of the left over exams.
“Well, this looks like a bit of a mess,” Kakashi commented.
Ibiki looked over to find the silver haired Jounin perched on the broken window sill. “What are you doing here? And what’s wrong with the door?”
“What door?” Kakashi asked. He hopped down off of the window sill. “How did the exam go?”
“Got a stubborn batch of Genin this time,” Ibiki said. “Helped out in part by one of yours.”
“Naruto?” Kakashi asked.
“Naruto,” Ibiki confirmed. “What do you want, Kakashi?”
“I met some people that got me very curious, and I was wondering whether I could look at a couple of exams,” Kakashi said.
“The Suna kids, right?” Ibiki asked. He set the papers down on the teacher’s desk and started paging through them, picking out the essays that he wanted.
“You got something off of them, as well?” Kakashi asked.
“You know how the whole point of this exam was to cheat?” Ibiki asked.
“Yeah,” Kakashi said.
“Some of them didn’t even bother to cheat, they could answer some of the questions on their own,” Ibiki said. “Granted, one of your Genin answered all of the questions, but you should see theirs.”
Kakashi accepted the tests from Ibiki and quickly read through them. In most of the exams, the math questions were the ones that were answered, but a couple of the Sand Genin answered the historical questions. In fact, one of them had written an entire essay over two exam papers about one of the obscure facts that were chosen. “What happened here?” Kakashi asked as he held up the one paper where Akio Honda had been crossed out and Yua written in over it. It seemed like the beginning of the essay written on Akio’s exam paper.
“Yua bluntly cheated,” Ibiki answered. “She was seated in front of her teammate and she simply took his paper after he had reached the end of it.”
“Well, that's one way of doing it,” Kakashi said, blinking in surprise.
“They’re unusual, but then it was your Genin who practically ruined the last question,” Ibiki said, giving Kakashi a glare.
“Oh, would you look at the time?” Kakashi said, not looking at the clock at all. “I’d better get going; I don't want to be late.” Kakashi jumped out of the window before Ibiki could stop him, the exam papers fluttering to the floor.
Ibiki grumbled to himself as he picked up the scattered papers. “Like he’s ever on time.”
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Chapter 5