The Exam Begins

Several days later.

Konoha's specially designated examination hall was already packed with people.

The flags of the Five Great Ninja Villages fluttered along the edges of the grounds, signaling that this Joint Chunin Exams was no ordinary event.

The air was thick with excitement, nervousness, and the smell of gunpowder.

Genin from the various villages gathered in clearly divided groups, sizing one another up with wary, combative looks.

Orochimaru stood near the middle of Konoha's formation, with the loud Jiraiya and the distinctly displeased Tsunade beside him.

He calmly surveyed the sea of people. By his estimate, at least two or three hundred young ninja from all over had gathered here.

This is... quite the spectacle.

Orochimaru smiled. Aside from wartime, this was probably the only place one could see so many ninja gathered together.

His gaze swept slowly across the crowd, quickly locking onto the figures worth watching.

Among the Sand ninja, the one who seemed to be leading them was the red-haired boy he'd seen on the street.

Unlike a few days ago, today he carried a bulky, irregularly shaped object on his back, wrapped in thick cloth. It stood nearly as tall as a person.

That kind of weight was no ordinary ninja tool.

A puppet?

Orochimaru understood.

With that appearance and that puppet, he really did look like the father of the future Sasori of the Red Sands.

Interesting.

His gaze shifted to Kirigakure's formation, where several figures stood out.

Most wore cold expressions and exuded an icy air that warned others to stay away. More importantly, each had a different-looking, enormous blade slung across their back.

Some were as broad as doors, others as thin as needles, while still others were covered in vicious-looking barbs.

The Seven Ninja Swordsmen... The people might be different, but those distinctive blades were unmistakable.

Every one of them looked like a tough opponent.

The leader among the Kumogakure ninja was a tall man. Most unusual was his hair: half snow-white, half grass-green, as though it had been split clean down the middle.

He had dark skin and a sharp gaze, along with some of the ruggedness and domineering presence typical of ninja from the Land of Lightning.

For now, there was nothing in particular to make of him.

Among the Iwagakure ninja, the most conspicuous was a boy with striking yellow hair. He had an arrogant look, his arms folded across his chest, as if he thought the whole world revolved around him.

Still, Orochimaru knew very well that since the Five Great Ninja Villages were holding the exams together, each village would have sent its own elite—the ones meant to display their village's strength and intimidate other nations.

Turning his gaze back to Konoha, he spotted quite a few familiar faces.

The most conspicuous was a boy in a bright green, skin-tight outfit, with thick, bushy eyebrows. He looked a few years older than Orochimaru.

At that moment, he was striking a strange pose toward the sky, muttering about "youth" and "passion" and how he had to become a Chunin.

That unmistakable outfit... Could that be Might Duy?

Orochimaru watched him for a moment.

Not far from Might Duy, a boy with striking white, spiky hair quietly polished the short sword in his hands, his expression focused.

Hatake Sakumo.

Konoha's prodigy, the future White Fang of the Leaf.

He had come too.

Besides them, the Uchiha Clan's characteristic haughty expressions, the Hyuga Clan's pure-white eyes, and young members of the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi Clans were all present in the crowd.

By comparison, Konoha really did have an abundance of talent.

Just as Orochimaru was observing the crowd on his own, a figure appeared on the raised platform at the center of the grounds with the Body Flicker Technique.

The newcomer was an elite jonin wearing a Konoha Headband and a green flak jacket. His expression was stern.

"Silence!"

The jonin's voice, amplified with Chakra, carried clearly across the entire examination hall.

The noisy crowd quickly quieted, and everyone's gaze turned toward the platform.

"Now, I will announce the rules for the first exam!"

"You will have ninety minutes to answer the questions on this test."

"Each question is worth a different number of points, depending on its difficulty."

"Once the exam is over, the one hundred candidates with the highest total scores will qualify for the next round!"

The jonin's gaze swept over the densely packed crowd below, his voice devoid of emotion.

"Whoa!"

The moment he said this, the entire training ground erupted.

"What? One hundred?!"

"Are you kidding? There must be two or three hundred people here!"

"So that means at least half of us will be eliminated?!"

Cries of surprise, protest, and sharp intakes of breath rose one after another.

Many candidates turned deathly pale, cold sweat beading on their foreheads.

Tsunade furrowed her brows. The elimination rate had clearly surprised her, too.

What concerned her even more was that, if they wanted to eliminate that many candidates, the questions couldn't possibly be easy.

If that was the case, she and Orochimaru would be fine, but Jiraiya would be completely done for, wouldn't he?

"Silence!"

The jonin on the platform barked again, his voice carrying unquestionable authority.

He waited for the commotion to die down before adding coldly:

"I must remind you of one thing."

"Don't disgrace yourselves by trying any of those clumsy cheating tricks."

"If you're caught, it won't matter which village you're from. You'll be disqualified immediately, and your team jonin will be informed!"

The jonin's gaze was as sharp as an eagle's, as if he could see into everyone's thoughts.

His words made many candidates who had been considering cheating stiffen. The little schemes they'd just begun to hatch vanished at once.

But some ninja who trusted in their own abilities—or in their clever methods—wore thoughtful expressions.

"Clumsy cheating tricks..."

At that, Orochimaru shook his head slightly.

In other words, this written exam was just like the one Naruto Uzumaki had taken.

It tested a ninja's ability to gather and analyze information under a set of rules, and even to use those rules to their advantage.

The unspoken message behind "no clumsy cheating" was that more sophisticated "methods" might be tolerated, or even encouraged.

After all, battles in the ninja world were always a contest of information as much as strength.

If that was the case...

Thinking this, Orochimaru looked at Jiraiya beside him.

The boy had gone pale, cold sweat on his forehead. Clearly, he hadn't grasped the true nature of this exam.

"Heh. If you can't answer the questions, just put these on when the time comes..."

Seeing this, Orochimaru smiled, then pulled two earrings that looked like ornaments from his pocket and handed them to Jiraiya and Tsunade.

"Uh..."

Jiraiya froze, not yet having time to ask what they were.

At the jonin's command, the Konoha Chunin who had been standing by began directing candidates from each village to their designated exam areas according to their numbers, where they took their seats.

Before long, thick test papers were handed out to every candidate.

As they looked at the questions, the air seemed to freeze.

Only the soft rustle of turning pages and the candidates' uneven breathing could be heard.

Seeing this, the Chief Examiner Jonin smiled. He glanced at the timer in his hand, then abruptly raised his head.

"The first exam—"

"Begins!"