Mind Games

Ando and Kazeki could not help marveling at Moriyue's luck. He had casually guessed the topic, and somehow he had actually guessed right?

Good grief, could Moriyue be the reincarnation of a luck god? With Moriyue around for next year's Chunin Exams, Kumogakure's pass rate might double. They had struck gold.

Thus, following the plan, the two of them began working on the fifty-point problem. Many of the surrounding ninja had yet to establish contact with their teammates, so the sound of their pens moving seemed especially harsh in the already noisy classroom.

"They picked their questions that quickly? Don't tell me they gave up and are just writing whatever..."

Questions arose in everyone's minds. When the examinees noticed that Kazeki and the others had begun answering, they all snickered in unspoken agreement.

Everyone knew that Kumogakure ninja generally excelled at Nintaijutsu and swordsmanship. While that gave them formidable combat strength, it also meant they were comparatively weak in abilities unrelated to fighting.

In Kumogakure, even medical ninja had to diligently study Nintaijutsu and swordsmanship. The duties of Kumogakure's medical ninja were not to save people either. On the battlefield, Kumogakure medical ninja were no different from ordinary ninja—they all had to fight on the front lines, completely disregarding Tsunade's principle that "medical ninja must not go to the battlefield."

They only retreated to treat other wounded after they had been injured all over and could no longer continue fighting. Therefore, it was no wonder the other examinees looked down on Kazeki and the others. Kumogakure, with its lack of sensory ninjutsu, had chosen a strategy and begun answering so quickly; nine times out of ten, they were just guessing.

Kazeki and Ando ignored the outside interference and focused on their answers, while Moriyue had nothing to do. The examinees were still fighting on their own, so he had no need to interfere yet.

Out of boredom, he glanced over the so-called "questions that anyone could answer as long as they weren't Naruto."

"m1 and m2 are Explosive Tag iron balls with masses of 50g and 100g respectively. They are threaded onto a smooth horizontal rod, spaced 21cm apart, and connected by a thin string. To make the Explosive Tag iron balls rotate in a horizontal plane around an axis at 600r/min without slipping, how far are the two balls from the center of rotation? What is the tension in the string?"

"..."

Moriyue turned the paper facedown on the desk. Dead memories began attacking him. Back in high school, he might still have had the confidence to solve this. Now, just looking at it gave him a headache.

"So ninja had to learn this stuff too? Spinning Explosive Tags? What kind of mad genius came up with this question?"

Moriyue slumped over the desk. One after another, the scratching of pens against paper rose around him as the other examinees began answering as well.

He might not know how to solve these questions, but that did not mean he could not put pressure on others. He had encountered plenty of this sort of thing during his high school exams.

You would be thinking that the questions were rather difficult and about to concentrate on solving them, only for someone else to start writing or hand in their paper. Some people would even hum a little tune leisurely. That invisible pressure could make someone get questions wrong that they should have answered correctly.

Moriyue was going to put pressure on the other examinees now. He propped his chin up with one hand and boredly spun a pen with the other. His knuckles and the tip of the pen occasionally tapped against the desk, producing a steady rhythm. The rhythmic, addictive sound pried open the examinees' ears and burrowed into their minds, making that cursed beat loop endlessly in their heads.

"Have you never had a song keep looping in your head during an exam? No? Well, now you have."

Moriyue's addictive tapping did not last long, but even after he stopped, the sound continued looping uncontrollably in the examinees' minds.

"Koo koo koo KIKI, koo koo koo KIKI, koo koo koo KIKI..."

Ajisai's mind was full of that addictive sound. She glanced at the culprit slumped over his desk, and an inexplicable anger rose within her.

"It's that guy we ran into that day. I thought I could gather some intelligence..." Ajisai frowned deeply, her fair, delicate fingers spreading slightly. Moriyue's interference was irritating, but she had still managed to finish her paper.

The surrounding examinees who had failed to contact their teammates were not so fortunate. They had chosen a question at random, hoping to get lucky. What if they passed?

But Moriyue's interference had utterly broken them. Damn it, all that remained in their heads was "Koo koo koo KIKI." How the hell were they supposed to answer anything?

"You brat..." Someone could not swallow his anger any longer and stood up, intending to teach Moriyue a lesson. But Moriyue was not about to let him have his way, and one sentence shut him up.

"Chief examiner, is violence allowed in the examination room? If it is, then everyone should start fighting."

The little TV screen that had gone dark lit up again, and Shikamaru reluctantly spoke.

"Fighting is prohibited during this exam. Violators will be disqualified..."

But those words clearly did not have a nightmarish effect. Shikamaru had only said fighting was not allowed; he had not said anything else was forbidden. In that case, they could do it openly.

"Over there! You do the third question, I'll do the second!"

"Can you hear me?! If you can, answer with a few sounds!"

"Pick the first question! I did the third one!"

The examinees all rushed to the walls. They were ninja without any communication skills, so they could only use the simplest method to notify their teammates.

For a time, the entire classroom was filled with shouting. Since the classroom was well soundproofed, the rooms next door could only hear faint, muffled noise.

On Moriyue's side, however, the noise kept echoing through the room as if it would fill the entire space. Even the sensory ninjutsu that had been working perfectly was disrupted. Unless they settled this situation, they could forget about answering the questions.

At this point, Neji could not continue working either. He tried to restore order to the examination room, but no one could hear him. The noise was too loud. Only an even louder sound could suppress the others.

With that in mind, he leaned close to Hinata and whispered something in her ear. Hinata obediently nodded and stood facing him. They activated their Byakugan at the same time, Chakra gathering in their palms. Gentle Fist formed in their hands. Raising their elbows and thrusting forward, they launched two invisible Chakra waves through the air at each other.

"Bang!" A sound like a massive explosion instantly overwhelmed everyone's clamor. Their ears rang, and everyone was startled by the sudden noise. They stopped shouting and turned toward Neji and Hinata.

Moriyue had covered his ears long ago. The show was about to begin.

"Everyone, I have a proposal that can allow us all to pass the exam."

Neji flicked his sleeve and stepped forward without hesitation, knocking on the thick wall before striking it four times in succession.

"Knock~ knock~ knock~ knock~"

After the sound rang out, Neji explained to everyone:

"As long as they are not idiots, they should be able to guess from our knocks that we will take the forty-point question. The two teammates on the other side only need to get thirty points."