Has He Yin arrived too?
Hada Ichiba slowly lifted his gaze away from the second floor. As the footsteps came to a stop, his eyes returned to the platform beneath the sculpture of hands forming seals before him.
At this moment, the nine teams where he stood had shed their previous scattered arrangement and lined up in neat rows. Everyone's attention had also shifted away from him, and like him, they were looking ahead.
Ahead of them, on the small platform beneath the sculpture, stood eight Konoha ninja arranged in an outward-facing fan formation. At the very center of the platform, behind the middle of the eight—at the narrow end of the fan—stood an elderly man wearing the Hokage's hat.
It was the Third Hokage.
Behind the Third Hokage stood another row of eight ninja. From left to right were He Yin of Kusagakure, Sound Village's mysterious supervising Jonin, Baki of Sunagakure, Kurenai Yuhi, Might Guy, Kakashi, Asuma, and Fujiwara Itsuka of Konoha.
Clearly, the third stage of the Chunin Exams was about to begin.
Huh? Don't these Hidden Rain guys have a supervising Jonin?
As his gaze settled, that thought crossed Hada Ichiba's mind.
At a glance, it was obvious that those standing behind the Third Hokage were the supervising Jonin of every team that had passed the second exam. Their own team's supervising Jonin, He Yin; the suspected Orochimaru serving as the supervising Jonin of the Sound Village team; and the Konoha Jonin behind them could all be matched to their respective teams. Only the team of men in Hidden Rain hats to his right had no corresponding Jonin. In other words, Hidden Rain had no supervising Jonin present.
That is awfully suspicious...
Noticing this, Hada Ichiba's brow furrowed slightly again.
Anything unusual was bound to be suspicious.