ᴅᴇꜱᴛɪɴʏ ʀᴇʙɪʀᴛʜ|ⁿᵃʳᵘᵗᵒˣⁿᵃʳᵘᵏᵒ

The confession

"Listen up you maggots!" Ibiki shouted as the entire room fell silent, "The first part of the Chūnin Exams is the written exam. That's right; you heard me, the written exam — that means pen and paper, no fancy introductory sparring or some other nonsense. You will be given one hour to finish up 9 questions that will be given to you. I'll be giving you the 10th question myself after you have finished the first 9 questions, fifteen minutes before the one hour mark is up."

"The rules are quite simple," he continued. "Each team will be given a total starting point of 10. Each time you get caught, whether it's one of your teammates or yourself, your team's overall points will be reduced by 2. Once you lose all your points, you're automatically disqualified, your team included. And don't think you can fool us either — see these gentlemen behind me?"

He gestured behind him towards the assembly of chūnin. Once the genin nodded their assent, he continued. "They will act as your proctors as well, and will be on the lookout for any cheaters. Is that understood?!" he roared at the end, earning a loud chorus in return.

Nodding in satisfaction, Ibiki picked up a box from one of his aides before dropping it down on the table in front of him with a loud crash.

"Now that that's out of the way, each of you come up here to this box and pick up a number, which is where you will be sitting." He said, "Now... GET MOVING!"

At his shout, the assembled genin all scrambled into action, quickly getting up to the box to retrieve their numbers. None of them said anything, and only the sound of shuffling footsteps and chairs being pulled out of their desks were heard throughout the room. No one wanted to get on the man's bad side.

But for one Uzumaki Naruto, the scene before him was so familiar and nostalgic he had to fight the urge to laugh for no apparent reason. How many times had he fondly remembered the day he entered his first Chūnin Exams? How excited he had been when he could take another step forward on his way to become Hokage?

Those were the days, when everything was straightforward and clear...

Not like now, when you have an eon-old being of pure malice manipulating history as the world knew it from behind the scenes for centuries while still remaining hidden...

It didn't paint a pretty picture at all.

Naruto finally got his number, which put him in the middle of the room. Sitting down and preparing for the go ahead signal from Ibiki, he looked around to see who else was seated near him. To his surprise, Hinata sat to his left, smiling at him as she inclined her head politely.

Giving her a confident grin and a nod, he turned back to his own downturned paper just as he heard Ibiki's voice shout out.

"Okay, you may begin... now!"

Flipping open the paper on his desk, Naruto felt himself pale a little at the questions asked. It was just as hard as he remembered them to be — no normal genin could even answer a fifth of the questions, and he doubted even experienced chūnin could answer half of them, he added idly.

But, he reminded himself once more, he was no mere genin.

– Yo, Naruko-chan. – he said mentally, chuckling in mild amusement feeling the girl giving a start in surprise. – Sorry about that, should have warned you earlier... –

– You scared me there, Onii-chan. – she breathed out mentally. – So... how are you doing on your end? –

Naruko could imagine her brother shrugging his shoulders.

– It's as hard as I remembered them to be. – he said, looking around the distraught faces of the other genin as they too had found the questions to be ridiculously difficult. – Where are you? –