Brainless and Unhappy / Kabuto Yakushi's Painful Mask

"They're dreaming!"

"You're all overlooking one problem." Just then, Gaara abruptly ended his meditation and spoke calmly.

"What problem?"

"If it really was Leaf Village's doing, why would they publicly reveal information about Leaf Village's own candidates? What would they gain from that?"

"These cards have to be recalled immediately. All of our Leaf Village intelligence has been leaked. What do we gain from that?" The two advisors, Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu, barged straight into the Hokage's office, clutching a pile of cards and looking furious.

Then they saw with their own eyes that Hiruzen, the Hokage himself, was also "tearing open packs." A mountain of discarded sealing scrolls lay beside him, a clear sign of just how engrossed he was.

"Ahem, you're here? What's wrong? Why are you so angry?" Hiruzen naturally slipped the cards into his sleeve, as if nothing had happened.

"All our intelligence has been leaked. Hiruzen, aren't you worried at all?"

"What is there to worry about? Haven't you seen that information on the other villages' ninja has been made public too?"

"That's true, but if they only revealed other people's information, wouldn't that benefit Leaf Village more?"

"Homura, don't be so short-sighted. This is only a Chunin exam. What matters is seeing the candidates demonstrate their abilities in every respect and judging whether they're qualified. It's not about helping Leaf Village's candidates gain an advantage. That would just be fooling ourselves."

"No, Hiruzen. This isn't an ordinary Chunin exam. It's a small-scale war! All I know is that the war hasn't even started, and our intelligence has already been leaked—and by one of our own!"

"Oh? Who are you talking about?"

A file was placed on Hiruzen's desk. The name Keiichi caught his eye.

"Heh, so it really was him. He never ceases to surprise me." Hiruzen smiled, a hint of admiration in his gaze.

Root had proactively sent him reports, so he knew all about Keiichi's recent activities. By the looks of it, the kid really was a natural at intelligence work. He'd done a better job than all those ninja spies.

No wonder Danzo had taken a liking to him. He certainly had a keen eye.

"You still don't understand how serious this is? He betrayed Leaf Village and sold its intelligence!"

"Heh, it's not that serious. During every Chunin exam, haven't the spies from various clans sold information about Leaf Village's candidates? If you're willing to pay, they're willing to sell! Can you honestly say your clan has never done anything similar?"

Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu looked awkward, unsure how to explain themselves.

"They're only the profiles of a few genin. They're hardly secrets. What matters is that these cards have boosted Leaf Village's reputation. That's the key." Hiruzen smiled as he spoke.

The reason he'd allowed these little cards to circulate in the market was that he'd clearly weighed the pros and cons.

Otherwise, he would have called Keiichi in for tea long ago.

And don't be fooled by how small these cards were. They'd brought Leaf Village a sizable sum in tax revenue.

Even Hiruzen was surprised by how appealing they were. Everyone seemed to be going crazy, throwing money at them. Was Keiichi some kind of business genius?

Brainless and Unhappy

"Keiichi! Keiichi again! I never want to see that face again. What a bad omen!"

"Exactly! This guy's polluting the card pool. I bet the odds of pulling him are higher than any other card—no contest!"

"Just an N-Rank Card, worth absolutely nothing. The person selling these scrolls is so damn greedy..."

Nearly everyone tearing open packs like mad had come to despise Keiichi. Whenever his face appeared, it usually meant the pack was a bust.

The key thing was that his potential was only N-Rank, and all his stats were garbage. The only one that was slightly higher was intelligence, but in the eyes of people who valued strength above all, that was the least important stat.

So nobody took Keiichi seriously. No one wanted to see his card come out and ruin their day.

If you looked, you could find Keiichi cards lying around on the streets of Leaf Village at any time. They'd all been discarded by people opening packs. Even the street sweepers couldn't stand them.

That's right. When Keiichi went all in, he even dared to sell information about himself!

To maintain his credibility, he'd revealed nearly all his own information, without faking a single detail.

Of course, the information boosted by the system was too advanced to show.

So, setting aside the system's boosts, it was only fair that he'd been rated N-Rank, right?

Keiichi was feeling pretty good about the fact that his name had suddenly become a hot topic in every corner of the village.

So what if people hated him? Any publicity was good publicity!

Let's see you resist opening a pack!

What's wrong with pulling me? I'm a warm-up card, okay? Maybe the next pack will have something good!

Although Keiichi had invented these cards and ought to be rolling in money given how popular they'd become, the truth was that he hadn't earned much. He only got ten percent of the profits. The collaborating ninja tool shops took most of the rest, and the major clans stood behind those shops.

Of course, Leaf Village got its share too. For every Ninja Star Scroll sold, the village collected five hundred ryo in sales tax. That was one of the reasons Hiruzen was happy to see them selling so well.

Everyone had gotten something out of it, so naturally no one was going to obstruct sales of the Ninja Star Scrolls. Some even quietly helped boost them. Keiichi understood all too well how to divide up the pie.

The Ninja Star Scrolls he'd sold to Naruto and the other two had only cost a thousand ryo per pack. They'd really been a "friends-and-family price."

He'd been learning Transparent Style from his teacher, Hayate, and had now reached the practical training stage. When he'd successfully turned invisible, the look on his teacher's face, jaw hanging open, had been a delight to remember.

What Keiichi hadn't expected was for Gekko Hayate to immediately try to drag him home and have him acknowledge his clan roots.

Having a ninja clan to back you had plenty of benefits, but it depended on the clan. Keiichi wasn't interested in a declining clan like the Hayate Clan.

There were differences between clans too. A family like the Hyuga Clan, with powerful members and far-reaching influence, was undeniably an elite clan.

As for the Hayate Clan, although they had a bloodline advantage, their numbers had dwindled for various reasons. They were lucky to have one or two members holding relatively important positions in Leaf Village. That was the standard for a low-ranking clan.

Some low-ranking clans had even dwindled to a single family line.

The gap between elite and low-ranking clans was enormous.

Of course, even being born into a low-ranking clan was far better than being a civilian. In the eyes of those from ninja clans, civilians barely counted as people. They were just cannon fodder.

After talking his way out of it and even using the rules of the Shinobi World as a shield, Keiichi finally got Gekko Hayate to let him off—for now. But from the look in his teacher's eyes, he clearly hadn't given up.

Keiichi wondered if his teacher was being petty and deliberately taking revenge on him. When he appeared outside the women's bathhouse with Hayate, he finally understood what "practical training" meant.

"Don't tell me you want to..."

"What's wrong? You've learned the Invisibility Technique. Wasn't your first thought to go appreciate the beauty of art?" Hayate said, as if it were only natural.

"No, no, I didn't! Don't make things up..." Keiichi hurriedly denied it three times.

"If you haven't even had that thought, are you really a man?"

"Of course I am!"

"Then why'd you say you hadn't thought of it?"

Under the force of Hayate's impeccable logic, Keiichi was defeated.

"Then at least let me mentally prepare myself first."

"Ahem... Here you go!"

He kicked Keiichi in the butt. Keiichi flew in an arc and plunged headfirst into the women's bathhouse. Piercing screams immediately rang out from inside.

"Ah, a failure. I guess his training wasn't good enough," Hayate sighed regretfully from outside.

When Keiichi, his face bruised and swollen, followed Hayate to the second women's bathhouse, he realized he couldn't go on like this. If he did, his reputation would be ruined.

The label of "wandering pervert" would be stuck to him for good.

So before Hayate could kick him, he immediately used the Invisibility Technique and went into the women's bathhouse on his own, like a hero marching to his death.

Ah, I've sacrificed so much for the sake of practicing my ninja technique!

Half an hour later, Keiichi came out with a red face. He waited until he reached an empty spot before dispelling the Invisibility Technique and letting out a long breath.

Sure enough, it really was a great place to train. Pressure made you improve!

One careless move and your reputation was ruined. Who else understood this kind of pressure, guys?!

To get better at the Invisibility Technique, I'll have to come back a few more times!

Teacher Hayate hadn't lied to me!

"Heh heh, Sasuke, look! I'm SSR-Rank!" Naruto proudly showed off the card in his hand to Sasuke, looking smug.

Keiichi really was a great buddy. He'd even ranked me SSR-Rank. I'll let bygones be bygones!

But what do you mean by giving me the title "Brainless"?

"Hmph, what's so great about that? I don't know what you're so happy about." Sasuke glanced at him, then held up his own card. It was SSR-Rank too.

Seeing that Naruto was SSR-Rank as well made Sasuke very unhappy. That was why people called him "Unhappy"!

"There's gotta be a mistake. How could you be SSR-Rank? You can't even beat me!"

Keiichi, we're through. How could you put Sasuke in the same rank as me?

"Idiot!" Sasuke couldn't be bothered with him and went back to studying the information about the other candidates on the cards.

Keiichi really hadn't lied to him. There were experts everywhere in this Chunin exam. There were nine opponents at his level alone!

But it didn't matter. He'd prove that he was the strongest!

"Sakura! What about you? You must be SSR-Rank too, right?"

"Heh..." Sakura gave a strained smile. In her heart, she wanted to beat Naruto and Keiichi to death.

He really was brainless, just like his name. He knew exactly which subject to bring up, didn't he!

Why was I the only one ranked R?!

Am I really that weak?!

And how dare you give Sasuke the title "Unhappy"? It's so awful.

Keiichi, you're dead. Just wait until you get hurt one day. I'll hit you with everything I've got!

The three of them had been busy these past few days. Following Sakura's plan, they went around trading their extra duplicate cards with other people. That way, they could expand their intelligence database without spending any money.

But there were a few cards whose information was incredibly hard to come by. They hadn't heard of anyone pulling them yet, and they were hot commodities on the market.

According to the spies' calculations, the odds of pulling those cards were probably less than one in ten thousand. There might even be only one in an entire batch.

When they saw those statistics, they nearly cursed the fellow who'd made the cards to death. If they'd known, why would they have spent so much money buying them? They'd thought they could collect them all in ten thousand packs!

They'd already opened thirty thousand packs, and they were still nowhere near collecting the full set.

What kind of marketing genius was this? How had they never thought of it before?

As time went by, July 1, the date of the Chunin exam, drew closer. Rather than dying down, people's enthusiasm for opening packs only grew.

Then those few "secret rares" began to appear one after another. Now only the final card remained unknown.

There was no point calculating the odds. Keiichi had never planned to release every card in the first place.

If someone completed the full set, sales of the Ninja Star Scrolls would inevitably plummet. He wanted to keep feeding cards to the market one at a time—that was the only way to maintain the current buying frenzy.

He'd been raking in money these past few days. He'd even felt tempted to make little cards for all the Jonin in the Shinobi World.

But that plan was only good for daydreaming. There was no way he could pull it off unless he wanted to face the endless pursuit of every ninja clan. At that point, even Hiruzen wouldn't be able to protect him.

Kabuto Yakushi's Painful Mask

With only one day left before the Chunin exam, someone finally pulled the last SSR card. That meant the full list of ten candidates with SSR-Rank potential had been made public.

Shikamaru Nara, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, Neji Hyuga, Shino Aburame, Rock Lee, Temari, Kankuro, Kabuto Yakushi, Gaara.

Leaf Village had seven ninja on the list, while Sunagakure had three. Not a single ninja from outside the Five Great Shinobi Villages had made the cut.

For that reason, many people were convinced that the Ninja Star Scrolls had to be a Leaf Village conspiracy, a cheap trick to boost the reputation of its own candidates and maintain an image of prosperity.

Hadn't they seen that Leaf Village candidates also made up most of the SR-Rank list? Did they really think everyone was blind?

The whole thing was far too crude. How could anyone explain why, apart from Kabuto Yakushi, nearly all the candidates with the most potential were fresh graduates? Were all those older, more experienced candidates useless?

Of course, some people thought there was nothing wrong with it. If someone had failed to become a Chunin for years on end, didn't that prove they lacked potential? But then that still didn't explain how a perpetual repeat student like Kabuto Yakushi had made the SSR-Rank list.

In any case, the list had everyone arguing. If they knew that it was just intelligence compiled by an obscure genin, they'd probably have drowned him in spit.

Of course, plenty of people were also waiting to see Leaf Village make a fool of itself. If it had hyped its ninja up so much, did they actually have the strength to back it up? The Chunin exam would reveal the truth. If they failed to deliver, everyone would laugh themselves silly.

Interestingly, when the final SSR card, named "[Sandstorm] Gaara," was pulled by an unknown nobody, the spies sprang into action and bought it for the astronomical price of five hundred thousand ryo.