In the first-floor lobby of the Ninja Academy building, the floor of mottled marble was covered with dusty footprints. The examinees who had advanced had split into countless little squads and scattered throughout the hall, anxiously waiting for the second phase of the exam to begin.
"Who the hell is dragging their feet this much?"
Karui clawed at her hair while grinding the toe of her sandal against the floor, leaving gray streaks across the polished marble.
No one had come down from upstairs for quite a while now. With the number of promoted examinees already gathered in the lobby, there could not have been many people left in the exam rooms above.
When the rooms had still been full, cheating had already been nearly impossible. Now that so few remained, cheating should have been even harder. At that point, they might as well just give up already instead of wasting everyone's time.
Omoi pulled two lollipops from his pocket and tossed one to his irritated friend before glancing toward the center of the hall.
The scattered examinees had unconsciously kept their distance from the girl seated there, leaving an unusually wide empty ring around her.
Her striking silver hair was a little less dazzling in the dimmer lobby light, but her features still seemed carved from luminous jade. With her eyes closed, Konome sat cross-legged in meditation on the marble floor. She did not look like an examinee waiting for the next round at all. She looked more like some kind of display sculpture placed in the center of the hall.
None of the surrounding candidates dared go near her. They could only remain in a loose circle around her, silently watching and admiring.
As he stared at that girl who looked holy enough to pass for a goddess, Omoi slowly sucked on the fruit-flavored lollipop, a trace of regret surfacing in his eyes.
Not regret because she was strong, but because they were destined to be enemies. And also because a genius like her was almost certainly doomed to fail this written exam and never make it to the next stage.
Finishing the test in five minutes really was impressive, but she had obviously missed the true point of the exam.
The absurdly difficult written test had been about gathering and transmitting intelligence. She had simply brute-forced it with raw intellect, and because of that, she had completely missed the real meaning of the test.
And the fact that her teammates still had not appeared only confirmed his guess.
The other examinees watching from the sidelines clearly thought the same. Beneath their admiration for her beauty, most were secretly gloating.
"Too clever for her own good."
Kurotsuchi stared at the girl in the center and shook her head regretfully. Superior intelligence had become a trap instead, pushing her straight into a dead end. Konome and her teammates were the perfect example.
"That's good for us."
Akatsuchi, standing beside her, felt the exact opposite.
He had actually already qualified for special jonin. Before being dragged here to take the Chunin Exams, he had been in seclusion, organizing everything he had learned and preparing for the jonin evaluation.
Then his teacher had pulled him out so he could protect his junior sister and, incidentally, come to Konoha to bully some kids.
But the moment he arrived, he had realized that this exam truly was just as their teacher had described. Every leading examinee from every village was dangerous. With his own strength, he was not even especially prominent among them.
And the most terrifying of all was the girl sitting in the middle of the floor with the word invincible practically written all over her face. Just one sweep of her gray eyes had made his entire body tense.
She was Konoha's standard-bearer for the younger generation, unquestionably a terrifying opponent. Judging just from her appearance, the rumors that she had killed an elite jonin might not have been exaggerated at all.
If she got dragged down by her teammates and failed to advance, there could not possibly be better news for them than that.
"What a pain."
Asuma Sarutobi's group was not the only one troubled. Shikamaru and the other Konoha rookies were worried too.
What had once been only a joint Chunin Exam between Sunagakure and Konoha had now ballooned into a grand shinobi coalition exam spanning the entire world. After expanding to this scale, even its political meaning had changed.
It no longer resembled a promotion exam. It had become a miniature reflection of international rivalry.
The most talented young shinobi from every village were competing head-to-head. The final rankings of this exam would effectively become a forecast of military strength decades into the future.
As the host village, Konoha could not afford to be overshadowed by the others. Konome was the source of confidence for all the Konoha examinees.
If she failed in the written exam, then that burden and pressure would fall squarely onto their shoulders.
So although they were technically her competitors, whether from a personal standpoint or from the standpoint of the village, they all wanted her to pass.
Footsteps suddenly echoed from the staircase.
Sasuke came down carrying his short sword, followed by several wilted-looking examinees. His expression was not as openly defeated as theirs, but the heaviness in his face was obvious enough that even Kiba, who usually missed every social cue, could tell.
Naruto was probably in trouble.
The few examinees trailing behind Sasuke left the building without looking back. Sasuke, meanwhile, walked over to Konome and stood quietly beside her, saying nothing for a long while.
At first he had assumed that, since Konome was one of the organizers of the exam, she probably knew the written questions in advance. But now it seemed she had not been involved in setting the paper after all.
Otherwise, there was no explanation for why she had handed in her paper immediately.
Like the other villages' examinees, he too had assumed that Konome's theoretical ability was simply too overwhelming, and that she had not anticipated how absurdly difficult the exam would be. That was why Naruto had ended up cornered.
Was this how Team 7's Chunin Exam ended?
Sasuke was unwilling to accept that.
If he could not even clear a mere Chunin Exam, how was he supposed to avenge himself on Itachi? How could a genin ever revive the Uchiha clan?
Damn it.
Sasuke cursed silently, bitter regret welling up inside him. He had pursued absolute, overwhelming strength to the point of obsession, but he had neglected softer skills like intelligence relay and information work.
Now that he was actually being tested, those neglected gaps had turned into fatal weaknesses.
He could not help glancing down at Konome.
All her information-gathering, intelligence relay, and tactical skills were top-tier. She had always covered for his and Naruto's shortcomings so well that they had never really been forced to confront them. But the moment they entered an exam without her direct help, all their weaknesses were exposed at once.
Had they relied on Konome too much all this time?
Staring at the girl sitting there like a goddess in repose, Sasuke gradually came to a realization.
He had awakened the three-tomoe Sharingan. After that, Konome had handed him the Kiba blades. His strength had risen rapidly, and so had his confidence. He had even ignored the free intelligence Kabuto had been offering on the other villages' examinees.
Only now, once he had been stripped of Konome's support, had he finally started thinking clearly.
The mood among Konoha's side turned gloomy. But the other villages' examinees were not exactly relaxed either. After so many eliminations, the atmosphere in the lobby became oppressively silent.
Then suddenly:
Bang.
The window on the south side of the lobby shattered with an explosive crash. Glass sprayed inward as a purple-haired kunoichi jumped through from outside.
Whoosh.
She landed in a dramatic crouch, striking what she clearly thought was a cool pose, surrounded by glittering shards of broken glass. In the sunlight, the filthy marble floor around her sparkled.
"This time, a lot of people passed!"
Anko Mitarashi, still wearing that same revealing outfit, lifted her head and looked around with satisfaction. The smile tugging at her lips was impossible to suppress.
She had been looking forward to this dramatic entrance for a long time. The pose, the line, the timing, all of it had been carefully planned out by her after many sleepless nights.
The only snag was that, because of the early submission rules, all the examinees had gathered downstairs, and the right window had actually been harder to find than she expected. She had even circled the building twice before locating a suitable one.
"This girl looks like an idiot."
Someone in the crowd muttered.
"Seriously. She had a perfectly good door and still squeezed through a narrow window instead. I think her stockings even got snagged."
"And what's this about a lot of people passing? Wasn't the cap fixed at one hundred?"
"And who is she, anyway?"
As the chatter spread through the crowd, the smile on Anko's face gradually stiffened. Even the lines she had prepared so carefully got stuck halfway out.
The disguised Orochimaru and Danzo, both lurking among the Grass shinobi, fell silent for a moment. Danzo looked at Orochimaru with a trace of mockery. Orochimaru awkwardly licked his lips, unwilling to admit that his own disciple was making a complete fool of herself.
"Silence."
A cold female voice echoed through the hall.
It was not loud, but it carried an authority that allowed no challenge.
Orochimaru and Danzo both instinctively shut up at once and turned toward the center of the hall, where Konome sat. Yet to their surprise, she had not spoken.
"Wait… that voice…"
Chojuro, Suigetsu, and the rest of the Kirigakure team immediately stiffened and turned in alarm toward the brightly lit entrance. The other villages' shinobi did the same.
Footsteps clicked crisply across the marble.
A flood of black-clad shinobi in dark robes entered the lobby, lining up in two diagonal rows like a pair of wings spreading open.
Between those pure black wings, a tall, mysterious figure in a black robe and crow mask strode forward in black high-heeled boots. She stepped into the lobby like the sovereign of some dark kingdom.
The hall fell into dead silence.
At the sight of the fear on the other villages' faces, Konoha's rookies swallowed hard as well. They still did not quite understand what was going on.
Only Sasuke, who knew the truth, could not help glancing at Konome. Yet she wore a grave, solemn expression, as though even she had been startled by Yatō's arrival.
She really can act.
Sasuke shook his head inwardly, suppressing a laugh, and looked again toward the dark king advancing through the hall.
Danzo's single eye bulged with fury.
That's my Root!
Seeing the force he had personally built now standing in perfect formation behind Yatō, he looked like a humiliated husband who had just discovered he had been thoroughly cuckolded.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, cast a mocking side glance at his old friend. But then he looked back toward Konome, standing motionless in the center of the hall, and his golden eyes narrowed.
Acting as both examiner and examinee?
No wonder she had been the first to leave the exam room.
In an instant, Orochimaru had guessed the truth. He could not help thinking that this little junior sister of his was even more outrageous than he was.
As the hall finally settled down, Yatō did not even bother looking at the thoroughly embarrassed Anko. She drew out a freshly printed list that still retained the warmth of the machine.
"Foxfire. Verify the number of examinees who passed the written test."
"Yes, ma'am."
Foxfire immediately bowed and began calling the roll from the list. There were eighty-five names in total. When the count was done, everyone who had passed was present, with six extra people mixed in.
Yatō's gaze slowly moved toward a cluster of six genin hiding nervously in a corner. Two Root shinobi shot out from the formation without hesitation and dragged the freeloaders out like trash.
Blood splashed across the marble along with the flash of white teeth, more violently eye-catching than the carefully arranged broken glass Anko had left all over the floor.
The sheer brutality of Root's methods made even Konoha's rookies shiver. At last they understood why the foreign shinobi had all become so obedient.
Without even glancing at the examinees who had become as meek as quails, Yatō announced the next rules in a cold voice:
"The second stage of the exam begins now.
All examinees will sign a liability waiver, submit to inspection, and then be led by Examiner Anko into Konoha's forbidden zone…"
She paused.
Then her voice dropped like a blade.
"Death Paradise."