Chapter 14: First Stage!
The moment Ibiki Morino finished ordering everyone to their assigned seats, the classroom erupted into movement as over a hundred genin began searching for the numbers written on the desks. Naruto remained where he was for a few seconds and watched the large group spread throughout the classroom before glancing down at the small card he had been handed. His assigned seat was located in the third row from the bottom near the middle of the academy deck, which Naruto was perfectly fine with since it gave him a good view of most of the room without placing him directly in front of the examiners. Slipping the card into his pocket, Naruto made his way through the crowded aisle while several genin continued glancing in his direction after hearing the information Kabuto had revealed about him earlier.
Naruto ignored most of the attention as he reached his assigned desk and immediately noticed that two of the three seats were already occupied. Sitting on the right side of the desk was Hinata Hyuga, who Naruto recognized from Team 8, while the seat on the left was occupied by a boy wearing the forehead protector of the Hidden Grass Village. Naruto had seen the Grass shinobi around the room earlier but did not know anything about him beyond his village. The boy appeared calm at first glance, but Naruto noticed the way his fingers repeatedly tapped against his thigh underneath the desk and the slight tension in his shoulders, making it obvious that he was just as nervous as quite a few of the other genin in the classroom.
Hinata was doing a considerably worse job of hiding hers. The Hyuga girl's hands were folded tightly together on top of the desk as she stared down at them, and Naruto could see a slight tremble running through her fingers. She looked up when Naruto stopped beside the desk, and her pale eyes widened when she realized who had been assigned to sit beside her.
"Hey, Hinata," Naruto greeted as he gave her a warm smile before taking the middle seat.
"H-hello, Naruto," Hinata replied softly as a small blush appeared across her cheeks. She quickly looked down at the desk again while trying to get her nerves under control, causing Naruto to raise an eyebrow before giving her a reassuring smile.
"You'll be fine," Naruto said as he leaned back slightly in his seat. "Whatever this test is, you made it this far, so don't start worrying before it even begins."
"T-thank you," Hinata replied as she looked back towards him, his words seeming to calm her slightly.
Naruto nodded before turning his attention towards the front of the classroom. Ibiki Morino stood in front of the assembled genin with his arms crossed over his chest and an expression that made it look as though he was already disappointed in every person sitting in front of him. Naruto had heard the man's name before but had never actually met him. From what little information Naruto knew, Ibiki worked in Konoha's Intelligence Division and specialized in interrogation, which explained why several of the Leaf genin looked considerably more nervous after realizing who had been placed in charge of the first stage.
"An interrogator running a written exam," Naruto thought as he studied the large scarred man standing in front of them. "Yeah, I'm sure this is going to be completely normal."
The rest of the genin gradually found their assigned seats, resulting in the room slowly becoming quieter as everyone waited for the exam to begin. Naruto briefly glanced around and located several people he recognized. Ino was sitting several rows ahead and slightly to the right with a genin from the Rain Village on one side and someone from the Grass Village on the other. Shikamaru was farther towards the left side of the room and already looked bored enough to fall asleep, while Choji sat much closer to the front with an uncomfortable expression on his face. Team 7 had also been scattered throughout the classroom, with Sasuke sitting near one of the windows, Sakura several rows ahead of him, and Sai somewhere closer to the center. Gaara sat near the back of the classroom and appeared completely uninterested in everyone around him, while Temari and Kankuro had similarly been separated from their brother.
The doors to the classroom suddenly slid open, getting everyone's attention as a group of Leaf shinobi entered the room. Naruto counted twenty Chunin as they walked inside, each wearing the standard Leaf flak jacket and carrying a clipboard underneath one arm. None of them spoke as they spread out behind Ibiki, forming a straight line while staring across the room at the assembled genin. Their arrival immediately caused several whispered conversations to begin throughout the classroom.
"Quiet," Ibiki commanded without raising his voice very much, yet the single word was enough to silence almost the entire room. He waited several seconds before slowly looking across the rows of genin, his eyes lingering on a few of them as though he was trying to make someone uncomfortable. "I am Ibiki Morino, and I will be your proctor for the first stage of the Chunin Exams."
Naruto rested his forearms on the desk as he listened closely.
"The first stage will be a written examination," Ibiki continued, causing several surprised and disappointed reactions to spread throughout the room. "You will have one hour to complete the exam."
"A written test?!" Kiba's voice suddenly called out from somewhere behind Naruto, causing several people to chuckle while one of the Chunin examiners immediately looked in his direction.
"Problem, Inuzuka?" Ibiki asked as his eyes narrowed towards him.
"Nope," Kiba quickly replied, causing a few more quiet laughs to spread through the room.
Ibiki continued glaring at him for another second before returning his attention to everyone else.
"You will each begin the examination with ten points," Ibiki explained while one of the Chunin behind him held up a test paper for everyone to see. "There are nine questions currently listed on your examination paper. Each time one of the proctors determines that you are cheating, two points will be deducted from your score."
Several genin immediately began looking around the classroom after hearing the word cheating, while Naruto's eyes narrowed slightly as he continued listening.
"You will not be given warnings," Ibiki continued. "The proctors stationed throughout this classroom will be watching every one of you. If you are caught cheating five times, your score will be reduced to zero, and you will be disqualified from the first stage."
The Grass genin sitting beside Naruto shifted slightly in his seat before glancing towards the twenty Chunin still standing behind Ibiki.
"And there's another rule," Ibiki said as a small, unpleasant smile appeared on his face. "This examination will be graded by team."
That caused a much louder reaction than his previous rule.
"What?!" Sakura shouted from somewhere near the front of the classroom.
"You heard me," Ibiki replied as he looked towards her. "If one member of your team is disqualified for cheating, the entire team will be disqualified along with them."
"That's ridiculous!" another genin complained from the opposite side of the classroom.
"Then fail," Ibiki replied immediately, causing the room to fall silent. "A Chunin is expected to operate as part of a squad. Your mistakes do not only affect you. A bad decision can get your teammates injured or killed, so if any of you are incapable of understanding that, then you have no business becoming Chunin."
Naruto glanced towards Hinata and noticed that she looked even more nervous than before. Team 8 was spread throughout the room, meaning one mistake from any of them could eliminate all three. Naruto, on the other hand, was in the unusual position of being the only member of his team participating in the exam, meaning he only had himself to worry about.
"Guess being a one-man team finally has one advantage," Naruto thought before returning his attention towards Ibiki.
"The answers themselves will be scored normally," Ibiki continued. "However, understand that how you conduct yourselves during this examination matters just as much as what you write on the paper. You are being evaluated from the moment this test begins."
Naruto's eyes narrowed again at that statement.
There was something about the rules that immediately felt wrong to him. If this were simply a normal written examination, there would be no reason to create an entire system around catching people cheating. A normal academy instructor would simply disqualify someone the moment they were caught copying answers, yet Ibiki was specifically allowing them to be caught multiple times while deducting only two points each time. It was almost as if they expected people to cheat.
"Five chances before you're removed," Naruto thought while tapping one finger lightly against the desk. "That's way too generous if the goal is actually stopping people from cheating."
Ibiki continued explaining several smaller rules, informing everyone that they were not allowed to communicate openly with one another once the examination began and that leaving their seat without permission would result in disqualification. The twenty Chunin standing behind him would serve as the observers for the test, and every decision regarding whether someone had cheated would be made by them. Complaining about an examiner's ruling would accomplish nothing.
Naruto glanced briefly towards the twenty Chunin again.
There were exactly twenty of them for a classroom full of genin, far more than Naruto thought would be necessary for a basic written examination. Each one also looked considerably more alert than an ordinary test proctor should have been, their eyes constantly moving throughout the classroom as though they were already studying the examinees.
"So either they're expecting everyone in here to cheat, or they want us to," Naruto concluded as a small smirk threatened to form on his face.
One of the Chunin began moving between the desks and handing out the examination papers, causing Naruto to push his thoughts aside for the moment. When the paper reached him, Naruto accepted it and placed it face down on his desk as instructed. Hinata did the same beside him while the Grass genin took a slow breath before placing his hands flat on either side of his paper.
Once every genin had received an examination sheet, Ibiki looked towards the Chunin standing behind him.
"Take your positions."
The twenty proctors immediately separated into two groups of ten before moving along both sides of the classroom. Some stood near the walls while others positioned themselves throughout the aisles, giving them clear views of nearly every desk in the room. Naruto followed them with his eyes for a few seconds before returning his attention to the paper sitting face down in front of him.
Ibiki allowed the silence to stretch for several seconds as he stood at the front of the classroom, making sure every genin was looking towards him.
"You have one hour," Ibiki said as his eyes slowly moved across the room one final time. "Remember the rules because I will not repeat them once the examination begins."
Several genin swallowed nervously while others leaned forward in anticipation. Hinata took another quiet breath beside Naruto as she tried to calm herself, causing Naruto to glance towards her one final time and give her another reassuring smile.
Ibiki looked towards the clock hanging along the classroom wall before raising his hand.
"Begin."
The sound of over a hundred examination papers being flipped over filled the classroom at once. Naruto flipped his examination paper over the moment Ibiki gave the order to begin before picking up the pencil sitting beside it and immediately reading through the first question. His eyes moved across the page for several seconds before his eyebrows slowly began to rise, only for them to rise even further as he moved onto the second question and then the third, with each question somehow becoming considerably more complicated than the one before it.
The first question involved decoding a long string of information before determining the most efficient route for a shinobi team to travel through hostile territory based on patrol patterns, terrain, and the amount of supplies they were carrying. Naruto could probably work through it given enough time, especially after all the lessons Tsunade and Shizune had forced him through growing up, but it was considerably more complicated than anything he would expect an academy graduate to know. The second question involved advanced projectile calculations that required determining the exact trajectory of a kunai after accounting for distance, elevation, and wind speed, while another asked about the likelihood of an enemy shinobi discovering a reconnaissance team based on several different variables. Naruto continued reading until he reached the ninth question before leaning back slightly in his seat with an amused expression on his face.
"There is no way in hell the average genin is supposed to know this stuff," Naruto thought before glancing towards Hinata from the corner of his eye and finding the Hyuga girl staring at her own paper with wide eyes as she nervously held her pencil above the page. The Grass genin sitting on Naruto's other side was doing a better job of hiding his reaction, though Naruto noticed that he had yet to write anything beyond his name and identification number.
Looking back down at his own examination paper, Naruto tapped the end of his pencil against the desk as he thought back to the rules Ibiki had explained before the exam began. Every participant started with ten points; every time someone was caught cheating, they lost two points, and getting caught five times meant disqualification, with the entire team being eliminated if one member managed to lose all ten of their points. That was what had bothered Naruto from the beginning, since there was no reason to give someone five opportunities to cheat if the entire purpose of the exam was to stop them from doing it.
"If they actually wanted to stop us from cheating, they would throw us out the first time we got caught," Naruto thought as his eyes briefly moved towards one of the Chunin examiners standing along the wall before returning to the questions in front of him. "Instead, they're giving everyone five chances while giving a room full of genin questions most of them can't answer, so the answers obviously aren't the real test."
A small smirk slowly appeared on Naruto's face as everything about the examination began making considerably more sense. They were not being tested on their ability to solve advanced mathematics or understand information that most genin had never been taught. They were being tested on their ability to obtain information without getting caught, something a shinobi would constantly have to do while on missions whenever they needed information they did not possess. The correct answers were useful, but Naruto was becoming increasingly certain that Ibiki was far more interested in how they obtained those answers than what they actually wrote on the paper.
"They want us to cheat," Naruto thought as he lowered his pencil towards the examination paper and pretended to begin working through the first problem while his eyes slowly moved throughout the classroom. "Well, that changes things."
Naruto kept his head lowered as though he was concentrating on the question while studying the room from underneath his bangs. Some of the genin had already begun attempting to cheat in the most obvious ways imaginable, with one boy several rows ahead repeatedly turning his head to look at the paper beside him while another was trying to glance backward whenever one of the examiners turned away. Naruto could already tell neither of them was going to last particularly long, though several others were being considerably more creative. He noticed a Sand genin manipulating what appeared to be a tiny floating eye made from sand while one of the Leaf genin had an insect crawling along the underside of a nearby desk, and there were probably several other techniques being used that Naruto could not immediately detect.
The examiners had to know techniques like that would be used, yet none of them were stopping the examination, which only confirmed Naruto's theory further. All Naruto needed to do now was figure out how he was going to steal the answers without any of the twenty Chunin realizing what he was doing.
His eyes briefly moved across the classroom before settling on the wooden desk in front of him and then the wooden floor beneath his feet, causing his smirk to return as an idea began forming in his head. Large portions of the academy classroom were made from wood, which meant Naruto already had a way to gather the information he needed without having to look at another person's examination paper.
Naruto placed his left forearm casually on top of the desk while keeping the pencil in his right hand before slowly allowing a tiny amount of chakra to leave his body and enter the wood beneath his arm. There was no visible change to the desk as his chakra spread through it, with Naruto intentionally keeping the amount small enough that even someone actively sensing for chakra would probably assume he was simply channeling a little chakra through his body. Instead of flooding the desk with Wood Release chakra and causing roots to burst out everywhere like he normally would, Naruto carefully pushed a thread of chakra through the wooden desk before sending it down one of the legs and into the floor beneath him.
A strand of wood thinner than sewing thread formed inside the floorboard before splitting once it moved farther away from Naruto, with two strands quickly becoming four before Naruto carefully divided them again until eight nearly invisible strands were moving through the existing wood beneath the classroom. His eyes narrowed slightly as he concentrated on controlling each one separately, causing a small smirk to appear on his face when he realized just how useful Yamato's recent training had become.
"Guess all that bullshit with Yamato actually came in handy," Naruto thought as he continued writing meaningless calculations on his examination paper while directing each strand towards a different section of the classroom. If he had attempted something like this two months earlier, Naruto probably would have grown a root thick enough to break through half the floor, but after spending so much time working on controlling multiple separate roots and limiting the amount of chakra he used, the eight strands remained completely hidden inside the wood.
Naruto did not immediately send them towards random genin since most of the people in the classroom probably had no idea what the answers were either. Instead, he continued watching while pretending to work through the questions, and within several minutes a pattern began to emerge. Some genin were staring at their papers in complete confusion while others were desperately looking around for answers, but a handful had begun writing almost immediately after the exam started.
Sakura was one of them, which did not particularly surprise Naruto since whatever he thought about her personality, the girl had always been academically intelligent. Shikamaru was another, though the Nara looked so bored while answering the questions that Naruto briefly wondered if he might fall asleep halfway through the examination. There were also several genin Naruto did not recognize who were writing far too confidently for people taking a test this difficult, causing Naruto's eyes to narrow slightly as he watched them.
"Those have to be the plants," Naruto thought as he selected three of them. "If everyone taking the exam actually didn't know the answers, there wouldn't be anything for us to steal, so Ibiki had to put people in here who already know them."
One of the people Naruto selected sat several rows below him near the left side of the room, another sat close to the front, while the third was almost directly across from Sasuke. Naruto quietly directed three of the wooden strands towards their desks while leaving the others spread throughout the floor in case he needed them later. Once each strand reached its target, Naruto moved the Wood Release chakra upward through the wooden legs and into the desks themselves before allowing the threads to spread underneath the surface until they rested directly beneath the examination papers.
Naruto closed his eyes for less than a second as he concentrated on the nearest thread, immediately feeling the faint vibrations created every time the person's pencil moved across the paper. Every movement created a tiny amount of pressure against the wooden desk, and with Naruto's chakra running directly through the wood beneath the examination paper, he could feel every stroke being made above it. The sensation was strange at first and took him several seconds to properly understand, but once he focused on the movements, Naruto began slowly reproducing them with his own pencil.
"Okay... that's weird," Naruto thought as the other person's pencil moved down, across, and then curved while Naruto carefully repeated the same movement on his own examination paper. Because the wooden thread was directly beneath the paper, Naruto did not need to see what was being written and only needed to copy the pattern of pressure moving across the desk. Every time the other examinee's pencil changed direction, Naruto felt it through the Wood Release chakra before repeating the movement himself.
Within a few minutes, Naruto had copied the first answer and briefly checked the calculations before a grin threatened to appear on his face when he realized the answer actually made sense.
"Well, that's convenient," Naruto thought before moving on to the second question while continuing to maintain the other strands. Using three separate sources allowed him to compare information rather than blindly trusting one person, with Naruto using an answer whenever two of his targets produced the same result while waiting for the third whenever their answers differed.
"Number seventy-four," one of the examiners suddenly called out, causing several genin around the classroom to freeze while Naruto continued writing. The Chunin standing near the upper rows lowered the clipboard in his hand before looking towards a nervous Rain genin. "Five infractions. You and your teammates are disqualified. Leave the classroom."
"What?!" the Rain genin shouted as he shot to his feet. "You've got to be kidding me!"
"Number seventy-four, eighty-one, and thirty-three," the examiner continued without caring about the boy's protest. "All three of you are out." Two other genin elsewhere in the room immediately looked horrified after hearing their numbers called, with one quickly shooting to his feet.
"But I didn't even do anything!" the second Rain genin complained.
"Your teammate did," the Chunin replied before pointing towards the door. "Leave."
The three Rain genin reluctantly gathered their belongings before walking out of the classroom, with the first boy glaring angrily towards the floor while his teammates looked ready to kill him. The doors slid shut behind them a few seconds later, causing the classroom to become noticeably quieter while Naruto could practically feel the tension rising around him.
Hinata's hand trembled slightly beside him as she continued staring at her paper, causing Naruto to briefly glance towards her and notice that several answers were already written down. He wondered if she had used her Byakugan but decided not to look too closely since if she had figured out the purpose of the examination, drawing attention towards whatever she was doing would only make things harder for her. Naruto returned his attention to his own paper as another five minutes passed before one of the examiners near the right wall raised his clipboard.
"Number nineteen. Five infractions. Your team is disqualified."
Three more genin stood from their seats before another examiner called out several numbers only a few minutes later, resulting in another team being eliminated. The same thing continued throughout the classroom as more genin were caught for the fifth time, with each announcement making the remaining participants considerably more nervous. Several genin who had been attempting obvious methods of cheating stopped entirely after seeing what happened, while others became increasingly desperate as they realized they had answered almost nothing.
Naruto continued writing calmly as his wooden network remained hidden inside the floor and desks. He had already completed five questions by the time one of the Chunin began walking down the aisle beside him, causing Naruto to feel the man's approach through the wood long before the examiner reached his desk. Naruto immediately stopped receiving information through the nearest thread while continuing to work through one of the calculations he had already copied, never looking up as the examiner slowed slightly beside his desk.
The Chunin remained there for several seconds before eventually continuing down the aisle, causing Naruto to wait until the man was several desks away before reconnecting his attention to the wooden strands.
"One... two... three," Naruto counted mentally as the examiner moved farther away before he resumed copying, keeping his expression completely neutral as his pencil once again began moving across the examination paper.
By the thirty-minute mark, Naruto had seven answers written down while the Grass genin beside him had also managed to fill several spaces, though Naruto noticed sweat beginning to form along the boy's forehead. Whatever method the Grass shinobi was using clearly required considerably more effort than Naruto's, but he had managed to avoid being removed so far.
"Number one hundred and six," another Chunin suddenly announced from farther down the classroom, causing several heads to turn in his direction. "Five infractions. You and your team are disqualified."
"Damn it!" a girl from the Hidden Waterfall Village shouted as she slammed her pencil onto the desk. Two of her teammates farther down the classroom immediately groaned after hearing her number before all three stood and made their way towards the door.
Naruto's eyes briefly followed them before returning to his examination paper. The number of genin remaining in the classroom had dropped considerably since the examination began, with entire sections now containing empty seats where teams had been removed. The repeated sound of the classroom doors opening and closing had become almost routine, though every elimination seemed to make the genin who remained increasingly nervous.
Naruto finished the eighth question before moving on to the ninth, only to find that it took considerably longer when two of his sources produced different calculations. Rather than immediately choosing one, Naruto waited for the third while examining the question himself, eventually noticing an obvious mistake in one of the formulas that allowed him to eliminate that answer before the final source even finished.
"Thought so," Naruto thought as he felt the third person's pencil moving through the wooden desk and confirming which answer was correct. He copied the final calculation before allowing the wooden strands to slowly withdraw from the other desks, pulling his chakra back through the existing wood until the thin strands merged harmlessly into the floorboards beneath his own desk.
Naruto leaned back slightly as he looked down at his examination paper and found all nine questions answered. Whether every answer was perfectly correct, he honestly did not know, but he also did not particularly care since the entire point had been gathering the information without getting caught. Unless one of the examiners suddenly decided to tear apart the academy floor looking for nearly invisible strands of wood, Naruto was fairly certain he had accomplished exactly what Ibiki wanted from them.
His eyes briefly moved towards the clock hanging on the wall, showing that forty-five minutes had passed and only fifteen remained. Around the classroom, several genin were still desperately trying to finish their papers while others had apparently given up and simply sat staring ahead. Hinata looked considerably calmer than she had at the beginning of the examination, though Naruto noticed she still occasionally glanced around whenever one of the Chunin began moving through the aisles.
"That wasn't too bad," Naruto thought as he placed his pencil down beside his paper and folded his hands together on top of the desk.
A few seconds later, Ibiki cleared his throat loudly from the front of the classroom. The moment Ibiki cleared his throat, every remaining genin in the classroom immediately turned their attention towards the scarred man standing at the front of the room. Naruto remained sitting calmly between Hinata and the Grass genin as he watched Ibiki slowly look across the classroom, taking in every nervous expression in front of him before a small, almost unpleasant smile appeared on his face.
"It is now time for the tenth question," Ibiki announced, causing the tension in the classroom to increase almost immediately as several genin sat up straighter in their seats. "Before I give it to you, there are a few additional rules you need to understand."
Naruto narrowed his eyes slightly as he leaned back against his seat while keeping his attention fixed on Ibiki.
"Of course there are," Naruto thought as he waited for the older man to continue.
"First, every one of you has a choice," Ibiki continued as he slowly began walking across the front of the classroom. "You can choose to answer the tenth question, or you can choose to withdraw from the examination right now." Several genin immediately began whispering amongst themselves after hearing that, before the Chunin stationed around the classroom silenced them with sharp looks. "If you choose to withdraw, you and every member of your team will fail the first stage. However, you will be permitted to take the Chunin Exams again at a later date."
Naruto could already see several people beginning to relax after hearing that, though the feeling disappeared almost immediately when Ibiki stopped walking and turned back towards them.
"If you choose to remain and answer the tenth question, there is another condition," Ibiki said, his voice becoming considerably more serious. "If you answer the tenth question incorrectly, you will lose the right to ever take the Chunin Exams again."
The room immediately erupted after hearing Ibiki's announcement, with several genin shouting in disbelief while others turned towards their teammates with horrified expressions on their faces.
"What?!"
"You can't do that!"
"Ever?!"
"Quiet!" one of the Chunin examiners shouted, causing the room to slowly settle down again while Ibiki remained standing at the front without reacting to any of the protests.
"You heard me correctly," Ibiki said once everyone had quieted down. "If you remain and answer the tenth question incorrectly, you will remain a genin for the rest of your shinobi career. You will never be permitted to take the Chunin Exams again."
"That's insane!" Kiba shouted from somewhere farther back in the classroom. "What if someone already took the exams before?"
"Then they were lucky enough not to have me as their proctor," Ibiki replied without hesitation, causing Kiba's expression to darken. "The rules for this examination are mine, and if you don't like them, you're free to leave."
A heavy silence settled over the room after that as Naruto glanced around and watched several genin begin looking towards their teammates. The Grass shinobi sitting beside him had completely stopped pretending to be calm, with sweat now running down the side of his face while his fingers tightened around the edge of the desk. Hinata looked nervous as well, though she remained in her seat and did not make any movement towards withdrawing.
"Think carefully before making your decision," Ibiki said as he slowly began walking between the front rows. "One wrong answer could end your chance of ever becoming a Chunin. Some of you may be confident now, but ask yourselves whether you're willing to gamble your entire future on a question you haven't even heard yet." He stopped beside one of the desks before looking down at the genin sitting there. "You could leave right now, train for another year and return stronger. There is no shame in recognizing when you're not ready, or you can stay, hear the question, and risk throwing away every opportunity you might have had."
Naruto's eyes narrowed slightly as he listened to the older man press the point harder and harder.
"He's trying way too hard to make people quit," Naruto thought as he continued watching Ibiki.
A genin from the Hidden Rain slowly raised his hand.
"I... withdraw."
"Your teammates are eliminated with you," Ibiki immediately replied as he looked towards the boy.
The Rain genin hesitated for several seconds before lowering his head.
"I understand."
Two other genin elsewhere in the classroom groaned before standing from their seats, with one glaring angrily towards the teammate who had just eliminated them. The three gathered their belongings and left the classroom before the doors slid shut behind them, but Ibiki did not give the remaining participants much time to recover.
"Anyone else?"
Another hand went up.
Then another.
Within minutes, teams were being removed one after another as the pressure began breaking down some of the less confident genin. Some withdrew immediately while others argued quietly with their teammates before eventually raising their hands, and every time another team left, the room became even quieter as the empty seats around them served as a constant reminder of what everyone else was risking.
Naruto remained still as he watched them go. He understood why they were afraid since becoming a Chunin was an important step for any shinobi, and being told one mistake could permanently take that away would be enough to make most genin hesitate. Naruto simply could not bring himself to believe that was actually what Ibiki intended.
"If this was really about one question, he would've just given it to us instead of spending ten minutes trying to scare everyone out of the room," Naruto thought as he watched another team leave. "He's testing something else."
Ibiki's eyes moved throughout the classroom before eventually settling on Naruto. The interrogation specialist had noticed the Senju heir almost immediately when the exam began, with Naruto not being caught cheating once despite completing the first nine questions and remaining considerably calmer than most of the genin around him. Ibiki also knew exactly who the boy was and understood the effect Naruto's presence had on many of the younger Leaf genin, causing him to decide that if Naruto folded under the pressure and withdrew, there was a very real possibility several of the remaining participants would follow him.
"Naruto Senju," Ibiki called out as he stopped directly in front of Naruto's row.
Naruto raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah?"
"You've only been a genin for a few months," Ibiki said as he stared directly at him. "You already have an A-Rank mission on your record, you've attracted attention from villages across the Elemental Nations, and you're carrying the name of one of the most famous clans in shinobi history. You have considerably more to lose than most people sitting in this room." Several genin turned towards Naruto after hearing that, but Naruto remained silent as Ibiki continued. "Think carefully. If you stay and fail the tenth question, that's it. No second chance. No future Chunin Exam. You remain a genin permanently. Are you really willing to throw away everything you've built because you're too proud to quit?"
The classroom became completely silent as Naruto stared at Ibiki for several seconds before slowly leaning back in his seat.
"I'm not quitting."
"Then maybe you don't understand what I'm telling you," Ibiki replied as his eyes narrowed.
"I understand perfectly."
"Do you?" Ibiki asked as he crossed his arms. "You're willing to risk your entire future over a question you haven't even heard?"
"Yeah, I am," Naruto replied, causing several genin around him to turn their full attention towards him. "Because if I quit every time someone tells me I might fail, then I shouldn't be taking this exam in the first place."
Ibiki remained silent as Naruto's expression became more serious.
"My clan produced some of the strongest shinobi who ever lived. Hashirama Senju helped create this village, Tobirama Senju became the Second Hokage and my grandmother spent her entire life becoming one of the greatest medical ninja in history," Naruto continued as his eyes remained fixed on Ibiki. "I've spent my entire life hearing about what the Senju before me accomplished, and I'm not planning on spending the rest of mine hiding behind their names. I want to surpass them. Not just Hashirama or Tobirama. All of them. I want to become stronger than every Senju who came before me and build something they would actually be proud of, and I can't do that if I run away the moment I don't know what's waiting for me."
Naruto leaned forward slightly while the room remained completely silent around him.
"So if the tenth question can really end my chances of ever becoming a Chunin, then give it to me," Naruto said with a determined expression on his face. "I'll take my chances."
For several seconds, nobody said anything as Ibiki continued staring towards Naruto. He had expected the boy to be confident, but what he had not expected was for Naruto's answer to have the complete opposite effect from what he wanted. Several genin who had been visibly considering withdrawing slowly lowered their hands, while a Leaf genin near the front straightened in his seat, and another from the Hidden Waterfall stopped whispering nervously to his teammate. Hinata looked towards Naruto with wide eyes before a small smile appeared on her face, while even the Grass genin beside him seemed to steady himself after hearing Naruto speak.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered from across the room, though a small smirk appeared on his face.
Ino smiled proudly from her seat while Ibiki looked around the classroom and immediately realized he had lost the moment. Instead of making the weaker genin doubt themselves, Naruto had given them something to rally behind, causing Ibiki to let out a quiet breath before returning to the front of the classroom.
"This is your final opportunity," Ibiki announced as he turned towards the remaining candidates. "Anyone who wants to withdraw, raise your hand now."
Ibiki looked around the room one final time and waited to see if anyone would move, but even after nearly twenty seconds had passed, not a single genin raised their hand.
A low chuckle escaped him.
"Very well. Congratulations. Every one of you remaining in this room has passed the first stage of the Chunin Exams."
Naruto blinked in surprise as he stared towards the older man, having expected some kind of final question rather than being told they had already passed.
"What?" Naruto thought.
Sakura was the first person to react as she suddenly jumped to her feet.
"What do you mean we passed?!" she shouted. "What about the tenth question?!"
"That was the tenth question," Ibiki replied with a smirk, immediately causing confusion to spread throughout the classroom.
Ibiki reached behind his head and slowly untied the forehead protector wrapped around it before pulling it away, revealing the heavily scarred skin underneath. Burn marks covered portions of his scalp while several puncture wounds and other old injuries were visible across his head, immediately earning shocked gasps from a large number of the genin.
"This is what can happen when information gathering goes wrong," Ibiki explained as he looked across the room. "A shinobi on a mission will rarely know everything waiting for them. You may be ordered to infiltrate enemy territory, retrieve information, or make a decision without knowing whether you'll survive the consequences. The first nine questions tested whether you could gather information without being caught. The questions were intentionally beyond what most genin could reasonably answer, which meant you had to recognize that you needed information from somewhere else. The Chunin positioned among you with the correct answers existed for that exact reason."
"Knew it," Naruto thought as a small smirk appeared on his face.
"The tenth question tested something more important," Ibiki continued. "You had no idea what the question would be or whether you could answer it. All you knew was that failure supposedly carried a serious consequence, and every one of you had to decide whether you were willing to face that uncertainty. A Chunin cannot abandon a mission simply because they don't know what comes next. There will be situations where your lives and the lives of your teammates depend on your willingness to move forward despite incomplete information. Those who stayed demonstrated that resolve."
Ibiki's eyes briefly moved towards Naruto before he wrapped the forehead protector around his head once more and tied it securely into place.
"That's why you passed."
Several genin immediately began talking amongst themselves as the tension that had filled the classroom finally began to disappear, only for the sound of shattering glass to suddenly fill the room when something large and black crashed through one of the classroom windows. Nearly every genin immediately jumped or reached for a weapon, including Naruto, whose hand was already moving towards his sword as the large black object began unraveling itself in the middle of the classroom.
Two kunai shot upward from the center of the object and buried themselves into the ceiling before a large banner dropped behind them, completely blocking Ibiki from view.
SECOND STAGE PROCTOR: ANKO MITARASHI
Standing directly in front of the banner was a woman wearing a mesh bodysuit beneath a tan coat, striking an exaggerated pose with one arm extended towards the room, and an excited grin spread across her face.
"I'm Anko Mitarashi, your second-stage proctor!" Anko announced loudly. "Congratulations on making it this far, but don't start celebrating yet! The fun part begins now, so all of you get up and follow me!"
Every genin in the classroom simply sat there and stared at her with bewildered expressions on their faces, causing Naruto to slowly lower his hand away from his sword while wondering what exactly had just happened.
"What the hell?" Naruto thought as Anko continued holding the pose.
After several awkward seconds, one side of the banner shifted before Ibiki's head slowly appeared from behind it.
"You're early again, Anko."
An embarrassed blush immediately appeared across Anko's face.
"I knew that."
Ibiki continued staring at her without saying anything, causing Anko to quickly lower her arm and look around the classroom before her eyes suddenly narrowed as she began counting the genin still remaining.
"Wait a second. Twenty-six teams?!" Anko exclaimed before turning sharply towards Ibiki. "You let twenty-six teams through?"
"They passed," Ibiki replied with a shrug from behind the banner.
"You're getting soft."
Several veins seemed to appear on Ibiki's forehead, though Anko completely ignored him as she turned back towards the remaining genin with a grin that quickly became almost predatory.
"Well, that's fine. I'll cut that number in half during the second stage," Anko said, immediately causing a few of the genin to look nervous again.
"Now this sounds more interesting," Naruto thought as a smirk appeared on his face.
"Everyone still standing, follow me to Training Ground Forty-Four," Anko ordered as she pointed dramatically towards the classroom doors. "That's where the second stage of the Chunin Exams will begin."
**Chapter End**