The record recitations were scheduled for the afternoon.
It was an unfriendly time. The rice balls had just settled in their stomachs, the sun slanted beneath the eaves, and the stone slabs in the courtyard had been warmed by sunlight. Kiyo sat for a while, his eyelids beginning to droop, until Morita Yu lightly tapped him with a procedure sheet.
"Don't sleep."
Kiyo opened his eyes. "I was reciting the entrance to a dream."
"That isn't part of the assessment."
"They can add it later."
Che took out his three sheets of paper: the copied notice, Mine's note, and his self-record. The corners had rubbed against his bag the whole way and were no longer neat. His wrist guard was loose, but he did not adjust it again. Moving it too much would look guilty, but leaving it alone itched. So he simply let it itch.
The record recitation was not about memorizing everything word for word. The chief examiner would draw one training record and have the children explain the order in which things happened, what they had seen at the time, and which judgments had been added later. They could consult their own papers, but they could not make things up on the spot. Two teachers sat nearby to take notes—one from the ninja academy, one assisting from the Konoha Police Force. Shuhei sat with the Police Force.
When Kiyo spotted Shuhei, he whispered, "The paper-noise guy himself is here."
Morita Yu said, "Don't give people names like that."
"Then should I call him Teacher Paper Noise?"
"Definitely not."
The first group of children recited their white-line training. Some mixed up "seeing" with "stepping on," and the teachers made them start over. Others recited too smoothly, then could not answer which parts they had remembered afterward. By the