Once the exam papers were made public, Akaseki also discovered—
A score of 5.5 was rounded up to 6!
"Most people seemed to have gotten 5.5—if I'd known earlier, I wouldn't have needed to combine ninjutsu." Akaseki clicked his tongue.
Akaseki could have reached the passing line for the written test even without taking shortcuts.
"This is what's normal. Of the five solvable questions, only one was slightly easier. Demanding that everyone get two right was actually a bit beyond the scope," Ranwu said.
The Ino-Shika-Cho team stood nearby, and Shikaku added, "They probably didn't explain it beforehand to test everyone's mindset. If you can't keep calm and start changing your answers in a panic, you might fail even if you could have passed."
Akaseki: —
Akaseki glanced at Shikaku. —You sure do talk a lot, don't you?
"Akaseki, why is your paper so messy?" Choza asked, munching on chips as he pointed at Akaseki's paper wall.
"This is skill," Akaseki said matter-of-factly.
"Say—couldn't you just use the Sharingan to copy Minato's hand movements? Wasn't he seated right in front of you?" Inoichi Yamanaka asked doubtfully.
While the Sharingan could not see through things like the Byakugan and directly copy answers, it could detect minute movements. By watching someone's elbows from behind, one could tell what they were writing.
"Indeed. When Minato was solving the questions, he even deliberately avoided Wind Release and focused on Fire and Lightning," Shikaku said with a nod.
Minato had naturally done that on purpose. After all, Wind Release chakra transformation was what he excelled at most.
But since Akaseki had not mentioned "legitimate cheating" after the exam, Minato had not brought it up either—
Akaseki rolled his eyes. "Who told Shibi's second uncle to be the proctor? What if Root decided to target me?"