Hatake Kakashi didn't have much to live for, and he doubted attending the same school his dead father used to oversee would change that. He only enrolled in the Advanced Nurturing Highschool to find out what drove his father to commit suicide.
Meanw...
Towards the end of the first day of the exam, an unexpected development came from the Monkey group.
'The test has now ended for the Monkey group. Those in the Monkey group are no longer required to participate any further. Please do not disturb the other students,' the email from the school read, making Kakashi surprised.
He'd known all along that there was a pattern to the exam. His plan was to take a closer look at it now, after the first class meeting. However, clearly, someone had been faster in figuring the pattern out.
Kakashi had no idea which students belonged to the Monkey group, but he'd written all group assignments into his notebook, so he could check later. It was still possible that whoever had ended the test for the Monkey group had guessed wrong, but Kakashi didn't think anyone was dumb enough to risk that.
His brows furrowed as he looked down at the list of groups and the students that belonged to them sorted alphabetically. There had to be a pattern of sorts...
The exam included the zodiac signs of Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig, sorted by their order. Twelve zodiac signs for twelve groups.
Now, Kakashi had to think. In what ways could the school possibly assign the VIPs?
It could be with the properties of the zodiac themselves and the relations between them. For example, if he took a chinese zodiac relations chart, he could for example assume that one group's VIP would not be from the same class as the VIP of a group that conflicted with the zodiac in question. If he decided to be even bolder, he could say that not even the allies and secret friends of one zodiac group could have VIPs from the same class.
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He could for example take his group, Dragon. If he knew that the VIP was from Class A, then he could say based on the Chinese zodiac chart that another VIP from Class A was probably not in the Monkey or Rat groups, nor in the Rooster group. Similarly, he could 100% exclude the Dog group. That would leave him with 7 more groups.
The school could've decided the VIPs like that - if he assumed that the test was fair and all classes had the same amount of VIPs, then there were three VIPs per class, which meant a class could lose 150 points just by the other classes guessing their VIPs before the end of the exam.
Still, that didn't leave Kakashi with any answers. Even if he hypothetically knew that the school decided the class the VIP belonged to in every respective group, he still wouldn't get which student of the three to four students from one class in each group was the VIP. Not to mention he didn't even know the identity of any VIP at all.
There had to be a system more intricate than the one he'd come up with so far. One that likely complemented his zodiac relations idea, and allowed the students to figure out who the VIPs were by figuring that system out.
Then, an idea hit him. The Chinese zodiac signs came in order. One he'd already written down earlier. What if this order was also a factor in choosing the VIPs?
