The Contest Begins Anew

After resting for two days, Sasuke's team rejoined the exam. But those few days of delay had put them far behind.

By a small river.

Sasuke and Naruto were resting after spending the day gathering information. Before long, Sakura returned from Kakashi, who was supervising the exam, with an updated wanted list.

The wanted list was updated every day. Targets who had been successfully captured were crossed off to keep the teams from wasting unnecessary effort.

"Sasuke, here's the latest list."

Sakura handed him the updated wanted list, a trace of worry in her eyes.

Sasuke took it and glanced over the names. Seeing all the crosses on the list, his expression darkened until it looked like it might drip with gloom.

The exam had entered its second half, and fewer and fewer targets remained on the wanted list. Every crossed-out name meant another team had already captured that target. The delays of the past few days had put Sasuke's team more than a step behind!

Sasuke asked coldly, "How many points do we have now?"

"327," Sakura replied.

Sasuke looked at her. "Did you find out how many points the other teams have?"

Sakura nodded hesitantly. "I just asked Kakashi-sensei. As of this morning, Yakumo's team had 473 points, Neji's had 440, and Shikamaru's had 319."

"That's a huge difference."

Naruto scratched his head.

They were nearly 150 points behind Yakumo's team. It might seem like all they needed to catch up was to capture two rogue ninja at Jonin level, but there were only a handful of Jonin-level targets left on the list. Many had already escaped the Land of Hot Water, so capturing another Jonin-level target had become extremely difficult.

A Chunin-level target was worth only 10 to 20 points. They would have to capture eight to