"Mm."
In the early morning, Kanna nodded. That was their greeting.
They'd spent the past few days like this. They rarely had a chance to see each other, and even when they did, they had nothing to say.
He summoned a Shadow Clone, and the two of them left the house together.
The exam room was covered by a crude genjutsu, which naturally had no effect on him.
Up to the third floor!
The moment he opened the door, everyone's eyes turned toward him. They all looked rather hostile.
The mood wasn't great.
"Hi~" Tenten tilted her head and greeted them.
"Shh—"
As he walked over, Shinmoku pulled down his hood, but everyone's gaze stayed fixed on him, as if they wanted to burn right through it.
"What happened? Why are you all so hostile toward me?"
"You don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Just a few days ago, Cloud Hidden put out a statement," Tenten explained. "They said there was a traitor among them who'd escaped after being surrounded by a group of jonin, including the Raikage. They put out a bounty and released a wanted poster... Guess who it was?"
"..."
Shinmoku froze, his eyes filled with confusion.
After a long pause, he said, "First of all, I'm a spy, not a rogue ninja.
"Second, I wasn't 'taken from behind.'"
"Oh~ Mm?"
Tenten's cheeks instantly flushed crimson as she realized what he meant. Everyone around them wore the same expression: What the hell are you talking about?
Shinmoku was thinking about something else.
It must have been Yugito's idea. Ninja villages generally wouldn't make this sort of thing public, since it would damage their dignity. Only the Raikage would agree to it. He was confident enough to do so.
All right, all right. They'd really gone this far?
"Actually," Shinmoku said again, "the only one who chased me was Yugito. We're pretty close..." He stopped himself just in time.
Everyone around them had pricked up their ears. When he finished, they all nodded in unspoken agreement.
So that was how it was.
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I won't lose to any of you! Got that?!"
A shout from the doorway drew everyone's attention.
He'd seen this scene before: nine rookie ninja gathered together, Kabuto Yakushi handing out Ninja Info Cards, and Naruto making a sweeping challenge to the room...
Next, some random extra should step in.
But the expected scene never happened. Someone he didn't recognize walked over.
"Hey!" he asked Kabuto Yakushi. "Do you have Uchiha Shinmoku in that pile of cards?"
"Uchiha?"
Uchiha Sasuke asked in surprise, then scanned the crowd. He spotted two people with distinctive auras in the corner, and they smiled and nodded at him.
The card enthusiast drew a card from his deck, pressed two fingers together, and infused it with chakra. A wanted poster appeared on the card.
"Uchiha Shinmoku. Specializes in Fire Release and possesses the Sharingan. Completed ten D-Rank Missions, three C-Rank Missions, and one B-Rank Mission. A-Rank and S-Rank records unknown. His information is incomplete because he's been missing for a long time."
"..."
Were they really talking about him right in front of him?
The sound of the door opening again cut their conversation short. Morino Ibiki walked up to the platform with his team of examiners.
They collected the application forms, handed out the number tags, and assigned seats.
He looked around. Hinata sat in front, with Naruto beside her.
The rules:
Each person starts with ten points. One point is deducted for each wrong answer. Caught cheating once, lose two points.
The first nine questions would be handed out at the start. The last question would be given when fifteen minutes remained. Teams whose average score was below the passing mark would be eliminated. If anyone scored zero, the whole team would be eliminated.
As for the questions, Shinmoku only knew how to solve one: the coded message.
Shinmoku rested his left fist against his cheek while twirling a pen in his right hand.
Morino Ibiki began watching him.
They'd never met, but Ibiki had received intelligence from him before, and it had always been accurate. He was curious about Shinmoku's methods for gathering information.
So being an internet celebrity in the Shinobi World isn't easy after all! Shinmoku thought.
He met Ibiki's eyes, then put down his pen.
He wasn't good at gathering this kind of intelligence. The only methods he could think of were copying with the Sharingan or using Water Release to create something like a mirror and reflect the answers.
He could try, but there was no need.
The goal was to test their ability to gather intelligence. The exam didn't matter, and neither did the score. As long as he didn't get caught, he'd be fine. Someone would provide the answers.
Suddenly, a faint glint of reflected light flashed by. Shinmoku raised his head and met Tenten's awkward gaze in the mirror.
Ibiki followed his gaze upward, and their eyes met in the mirror.
Tenten's body jolted, and a look of panic crossed her face.
"..."
"Mr. Ibiki," Shinmoku said, "you may not have a scorecard in your hand, but it's unnerving when you keep staring at me!"
His sudden voice drew the examiners' attention.
"Keep proctoring!" Ibiki barked.
He stopped watching Shinmoku and followed the thin wire to Tenten instead.
Grateful for Shinmoku's warning, Tenten shamelessly continued maneuvering the mirror. But as she searched for the correct answers, she suddenly noticed that one seat was empty.
She looked up. Kanna was sitting there as if nothing had happened.
"Where did she go?"
No! I can't let them notice anything's wrong!
Sweat beaded on her forehead as she continued what she was doing.
But Ibiki had already noticed something was off.
"Dispel!"
The girl in the seat vanished like an illusion. In her place appeared a figure behind Hinata. After copying the answers, she switched test papers with Shinmoku and returned to her seat.
"So that was it."
While he'd been watching Shinmoku, Shinmoku had been watching him too. After determining that Ibiki wasn't taking part in the proctoring, Shinmoku had passed the information along. He'd even made Ibiki think he was helping someone else out of a tight spot.
Uchiha Kanna had cast a genjutsu during the brief moment when the examiners were distracted... She'd fooled ten Chunin? No, Ibiki had to count too, as a Special Genin.
Honestly, she could have just activated her Sharingan and copied the movements. Was she conserving her visual prowess, or did she simply not want to go to the trouble? The Uchiha's thought processes were truly strange.
She was also incredibly capable.
There was no point in continuing to watch the two of them. They were just here to put on a show.
What happened next was more or less the same as Shinmoku remembered. Naruto ended the exam with a shout, then Mitaraishi Anko swooped in and announced that they would meet at the Forest of Death tomorrow morning.
As they left the exam room, Tenten hurried after them.
"Kanna—" She ran up to Kanna, braced her hands on her knees, and asked between gasps, "Are you free? Want to go shopping together?"
Kanna looked at Shinmoku.
"I'm not inviting him. It's a girls' date."
"She wants to make it up to you," Shinmoku said, spreading his hands. "Don't stay out too late, and be careful."
From spending time with Kanna, he'd gotten the impression that she was extremely closed off. Uchiha also tended to go to extremes, and he didn't know what else he could do to help.
Tenten seemed nice enough—lively and cheerful. If she could help, that would be all the better.
"I... All right."
In the end, Kanna accepted Tenten's invitation.