Desire to Withdraw

"No way! I have to find a way to get through this exam!" Qi Shuang secretly made up his mind.

He had no idea what state he was currently in.

Had his soul crossed over to this place, or had he fallen into a dream?

If he was in a dream, dying during the exam would be no big deal. It would just count as a unique dream experience. But if his soul had crossed over to this place, being killed during the exam would mean truly dying!

Moreover, judging by the situation before him, the possibility of being killed during the exam was practically ninety-nine percent.

Therefore, he was determined to withdraw from this Ninja graduation exam.

Then, with a bitter look on his face, he tentatively said to the two Chunin Instructors, "Teacher, my head still feels really uncomfortable. Can I withdraw from this exam?"

"No!"

One of them immediately crushed his hopes and sternly added, "You can't even endure a little headache. What are you going to do as a ninja?"

"How will you go to the battlefield, defeat Konoha, and protect the Land of Water?"

"So it really is impossible..." Qi Shuang secretly sighed.

Although he knew that trying to withdraw at the last minute was practically impossible, he still couldn't help trying.

Seeing the child's "dejected" mood, another Ninja Teacher smiled, patted him on the shoulder, and gently said, "Xiao Lin, don't be afraid!"

"The path of a Kirigakure ninja lies ahead. As long as you give it your all and break through layer after layer of thick mist, it will eventually appear before your eyes!"

Hearing these words of encouragement, Qi Shuang suddenly felt a toothache coming on.

That Xiao Lin was the name of this body.

None of that was the point. The point was that he truly did not want to take that graduation exam where nine out of ten would die.

"Thank you, Teacher. I understand!"

He gave the teacher a "relieved" smile, but inwardly cursed repeatedly. You make it sound so easy. People die in the graduation exam!

I don't believe you weren't scared at all when you took the graduation exam back then!

Just then, a commotion came from the group of children nearby.

"Zabuza, what kind of look is that? Believe it or not, I'll gouge your eyes out during the exam!" A relatively burly child brought two companions and cornered a thin boy against the wall.

"Do you really have the strength to do that?" the cornered boy replied disdainfully.

The leader continued, "I know you're strong, but you're alone! We have three people!"

As he spoke, he wore a confident expression, while the two companions beside him also revealed amused smiles.

"Cheh!"

Zabuza shook his head and clicked his tongue. Then he curled his lip at the two companions behind the leader and said, "Even if you join forces to kill me, it won't be easy."

"When the time comes, to pass the graduation exam smoothly, do you think he'll choose to keep chasing me, or ambush the two defenseless idiots beside you?"

As he spoke, his teasing gaze swept back and forth between the three of them, his face full of mockery.

"Don't... don't listen to his nonsense... I wouldn't do that!" Seeing suspicion appear on his two companions' faces, the leader immediately spoke up in protest.

However, the more he explained, the more wary his two companions became.

During the graduation exam, choosing to attack an acquaintance one spent every day with was the easiest way to graduate successfully, and also the greatest test of human nature.

Every student who entered the Ninja Academy would hear their teacher mention that, in the previous class, an examinee had graduated by ambushing and killing his best friend.

Thus, they had understood this point long ago.

It was just that three years of companionship had weakened their vigilance toward each other. Now that Zabuza had brought it up at this critical moment, they suddenly realized that the person they should guard against most was their own best companion!

On the other side, Qi Shuang had not noticed what the several children were arguing about, but he had heard one name loud and clear: "Zabuza"!

Combined with the memories he had obtained from Xiao Lin, he immediately recognized that the child cornered against the wall yet still as calm as the clouds was named "Momochi Zabuza"!

I remember this guy killed all the examinees in his testing area during the graduation exam, right? Qi Shuang thought secretly, his brows already knitted together.

He had watched quite a bit of Naruto's story, so he remembered that Zabuza had graduated by killing all the examinees.

Because of this, Zabuza had earned the title "Demon of the Hidden Mist."

A man who seemed like a fiend from hell reborn—hence the name "Demon"!

"What's wrong? Does your head still hurt?" A teacher saw him frown and immediately asked with concern.

"Yeah! It does! It still hurts a little right now!" Hearing the teacher's concern, Qi Shuang took advantage of the situation and put on a pained expression.

He hoped to win the teacher's sympathy and get permission to withdraw from this Ninja graduation exam.

"Then you'll have to be extra careful! Because of your headache, you've become their best target!" The teacher glanced at the surrounding children and comforted him very "kindly."

"Damn it!" Qi Shuang cursed inwardly.

Feeling countless covetous gazes from all around him, he finally understood that pretending to be pitiful had not helped at all. Instead, it had drawn even more people eager to prey on him.

"Does your head still hurt now?" a teacher asked with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

"N-no, it doesn't hurt anymore!" Qi Shuang replied with a "determined" expression.

"Since it doesn't hurt anymore, hurry up and get ready! There are less than ten minutes before the official start!" the teacher "kindly" reminded him once again.

"Oh!"

Helpless, Qi Shuang could only cautiously retreat to the side beneath everyone's covetous stares.

After he had gone some distance away, one of the Ninja Teachers said to his companion from before, "He's just a child. Why did you scare him like that?"

"On the battlefield, who's going to care whether your head hurts? If you can't even endure this, you might as well die at the hands of your own people today! That way, you won't disgrace Kirigakure in the future!" the man replied expressionlessly.

"You..."

His companion shook his head and smiled bitterly.

On the other side, Qi Shuang retreated to the wall, his heart filled with frustration.

If Zabuza had not appeared, then with his half-baked abilities and his own wits, there might still have been a sliver of hope that he could outsmart this group of children under ten and fight a life-and-death battle against them.

But now that Zabuza had appeared, he had completely severed that last sliver of hope.

From the memories of this body, Qi Shuang learned that among the examinees in their batch, Zabuza was one of the strongest, and was widely known as a genius.

Originally, avoiding him during the exam would not have been a problem.

But as luck would have it, Zabuza was going to kill all the examinees this time. There was nowhere for him to escape!

Even if he wanted to hide, there was nowhere to hide.

He did not believe that, with his half-baked abilities, he could conceal himself from a ninja whose sensory abilities far surpassed those of ordinary people—let alone from an outstanding examinee like Zabuza!

"No! I have to withdraw from this exam, or I'm definitely going to die!" Qi Shuang bit his thumb and racked his brains for a solution.