"What a drag," Shikamaru muttered as he watched Toru's team enter.
Immediately, everyone in the room cast disdainful looks toward Team 11.
"You guys took forever," Naruto said, appearing beside his team.
Toru nodded.
"We had to talk to Yamato-sensei."
The loud voice of a girl made everyone look in her direction. With her arm draped over Kiba's shoulders stood a girl with a slightly masculine appearance and short brown hair, with a strand covering her right eye. She wore a sleeveless white shirt and black bandages wrapped around her arms. She also had two markings on her face similar to Kiba's.
That girl was Onikuma Enko.
"Hello, everyone! Hi!" she said, raising her other arm and smiling widely.
"There's a lot of losers in this place," Kiba said, looking at the small puppy sitting on top of his head.
Meanwhile...
"Hmm... This is getting boring. Good thing I brought some snacks," Chouji said, holding a bag of chips in his hands.
Little by little, the rookies began gathering in the same place. The next to appear was Hoki Hakuto, who was timidly hiding behind Shikamaru.
"There's too many people here... I don't think I can handle this, Shikamaru..." she said, shrinking behind him.
"Stop being such a coward, Hakuto. And quit clinging to me, it's a drag," Shikamaru spat, crossing his arms.
But that only made Hakuto hide even further behind Shikamaru.
'Everyone is different in their own way... I wonder if I'll be able to control myself,' Toru thought.
He didn't want to lose his mind again like he had that night, because it wouldn't just be dangerous for whoever stood in front of him, but for himself as well. Even when Rock Lee had tried to hit him earlier, Toru had felt like the same thing was about to happen.
That was why Lee had stopped, because he had realized that neither of them would have walked away unharmed if they had started fighting seriously.
"Are you okay, Toru-kun?" Hinata asked.
"Yeah. I think..."
To relax and distract himself from those thoughts, he looked around. It didn't take him long to find something that caught his attention.
The kid with the gourd, the mummy-looking guy, and the girl with the fan. There they were! The symbols on their clothes showed that they were from a distant and dangerous village.
Interrupting Toru's thoughts, a young man approached.
"Wow... What do we have here? Rookies fresh out of the Academy. That's surprising."
At that moment, the rookies all looked in the same direction.
Standing before them was a boy with silver hair. He wore round glasses that covered his eyes and a peculiar purple outfit.
"Who are you?" Naruto asked.
Mysterious and wearing a relaxed smile, the young man, who looked a few years older than the rookies, said:
"I'm Yakushi Kabuto. Nice to meet you. Just like you, I'm here for the Chunin Exams. Although this isn't my first time."
"So you're quite the veteran," Sakura commented.
"Yeah, something like that... Actually, this will be my seventh time here. I don't want to mess it up," Kabuto replied, scratching his head.
"So the rumors about this exam being extremely difficult were true," Kiba muttered.
That caught everyone's attention. Kabuto nodded.
"That's right. And it looks like this year will be even more difficult."
"Is it really that hard?" Chouji asked.
Kabuto adjusted his glasses, a mysterious gleam appearing in them.
"Yes... But I'm sure that with this, it won't be so difficult." He pulled out a few mysterious cards.
Everyone looked at the cards curiously before Naruto's voice rang out.
"What are those?"
Kabuto simply crouched down and placed one of the cards on the floor.
"These are information cards. They're very useful. I guess failing so many times wasn't all that bad." He spun the card with his finger.
Everyone watched closely until a small cloud of smoke covered the card and the information was revealed.
"These are the Five Great Shinobi Nations."
A map of the continent appeared on the card. Kabuto continued:
"As you can see, this card shows the number of people from each country who decided to participate in the Chunin Exams."
Kabuto pushed the card forward slightly so the rookies could get a better look.
"Most of them are from here, Konohagakure, but that doesn't mean the shinobi from the other nations are a bunch of pushovers. I suggest being careful around the shinobi from Amegakure. Because of the conditions in their village, you could say they're a little sensitive."
Adjusting his glasses, Kabuto raised his head to look at the rookies' faces.
A smile formed on his face.
"But I don't just have basic information. I also have information on some of the shinobi who are here."
Playing with the cards for a moment, Kabuto looked at Sasuke, who stepped forward.
"Then, if you have information on the shinobi participating in this exam, I'd like to know about two of them," Sasuke demanded.
"Hmm... Who do you want to know about?"
"Rock Lee and Gaara," Sasuke said with a serious expression.
Everyone looked at the Uchiha boy for a few moments before turning their attention back to Kabuto.
"So, Gaara and Rock Lee..."
Kabuto sighed as he pulled two cards from the deck.
"Here they are." His glasses gleamed as he placed one of the cards on the floor.
"Eh?"
"The first one: Rock Lee. It seems his Taijutsu has improved greatly over the last twelve months. He also has two interesting people as teammates. On top of that, he has an elite Jounin as his sensei."
'So in just twelve months...'
Sasuke clicked his tongue as he looked at the floor.
"Next: Gaara of Sunagakure. He's completed nearly all of his missions alone, and in every single one, he didn't receive so much as a scratch. He's a ninja to be feared..."
Kabuto looked at Sasuke, who had fallen silent.
Meanwhile, Toru could only think about Gaara. If he had managed to complete so many missions by himself, then his suspicions from the very beginning had been confirmed.
"And that's everything," Kabuto said, putting the cards back into his pocket.
"I don't think I can pass the exam, Shikamaru," Hakuto said, trying to hug Shikamaru, but Shikamaru only wanted to get away from her, since having her cling to him like a parasite was stressing him out.
"Hahaha! This is going to be fun!" Enko laughed, giving Kiba several hard slaps on the back.
"Wait! That hurts!" Kiba complained.
At the same time, Akamaru, Kiba's puppy, was biting Enko's arm.
"Hmm... This is going to be really difficult, so I need to eat as much as I can," Chouji commented, devouring the entire bag of chips.
"I guess I won't be showing any mercy," Ino said with a smile.
That made Sakura look at her maliciously.
"Your confidence is huge, just like your forehead," Sakura said.
"What did you say about my forehead? Have you even looked in a mirror? I guess you're so ugly that mirrors are afraid of you," Ino shot back, but their budding argument was interrupted by Naruto.
He raised his fist with a defiant smile and shouted:
"I'm going to beat all of you!"
That made everyone in the room cast murderous looks toward the rookies.
"Idiot! Are you trying to get us killed?!" Sakura shouted, wrapping her arms around Naruto's neck in a powerful headlock. Then she laughed nervously while looking at the other shinobi. "Sorry. This idiot didn't mean it. You know, he fell out of bed when he was a baby, so that explains why he's mentally challenged."
Hinata and Toru looked at each other.
"They're quite a show," Toru said.
"Yeah..."
However, something moved through the crowd, catching Toru's analytical gaze.
'Someone's coming...'
It didn't take long for those people to appear.
Toru quickly drew one of his daggers and blocked the kunai strike from one of the ninja who lunged at him. His fellow rookies looked at him in surprise, but soon turned their attention toward Kabuto, who hadn't been as fortunate as Toru. Blood was dripping from his arm.
"Take it easy, man. Are you really getting worked up over the words of a kid?" Kabuto said with a nervous smile.
"This is just a little punishment for a bunch of spoiled brats," that shinobi said.
Almost immediately, Kabuto fell to the ground, vomiting as if he had taken a powerful blow to the stomach.
The rookies watched this with different expressions on their faces, but they had to turn their attention back to Toru, who was still struggling against the kunai with his dagger.
"Seriously, you're pretty strong," the kunoichi said.
Remaining calm, Toru tried to reason with her.
"You can't do this. The exams haven't even started yet, and you're not allowed to start conflicts outside of them. Don't you think it's stupid to do this when you're not even from this village?"
The rookies watched Toru in silence. They knew he was good at Taijutsu precisely because he wasn't good at Ninjutsu, but seeing him stand up to a teenage shinobi from Otogakure as if it were nothing was surprising.
"Now you're next, brats," said the other shinobi, his face covered in bandages.
Everyone felt a chill at that moment, but they were saved by someone who spoke up.
"Hey... What do you think you're doing?"
It was the voice of an adult, making everyone turn their attention forward. He was one of Konohagakure's elite authorities, and just as Toru had said, starting conflicts wasn't a good idea, so the attackers from Otogakure immediately backed down.
"We're sorry. We're just a little nervous, that's all," said the one who appeared to be the leader of that group.
That made the man sigh before speaking.
"Return to your seats," he said, and everyone obeyed. Surrounded by shinobi dressed in tactical uniforms, he looked directly at the participants. "Listen up, maggots! I'll be the sensei conducting the first stage of the Chunin Exams. My name is Morino Ibiki, and from now on, consider me your worst nightmare."
A sinister smile formed on the man's face. Immediately, a chill ran through the bodies of most of the people present.
'So... this is where it begins,' Toru thought, already seated near the group of rookies.
"Good. Everyone, hand in your application forms. In return, you'll receive a number that will determine where you'll sit. Once we're done with that, we'll begin the Written Exam."
'I figured...'
It was only common sense to expect everything to begin with a sheet of paper. They couldn't jump straight into the action, but there had to be some kind of trick behind all of this as well, so Toru paid close attention and handed over his application form.
He was given a number. It was 25.
Toru looked over the seats until he found the one marked with number 25. Once seated, he looked at his teammates.
Ino had sat somewhere in the middle, while Hinata was near the front alongside Naruto.
Luckily for Toru, he had managed to get a seat behind everyone else.
'Looks like this won't be an easy test.'
He looked at the mysterious-looking shinobi, who were taking strategic positions so they could keep an eye on all the students.
"I hope you're ready..."
With a serious expression on his face, Ibiki looked at the shinobi before him.