At the top of the Central Tower, Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at the nine people standing sparsely below, and his temple throbbed.
They could not even scrape together ten.
The Sand Ninja had only Gaara's group of three. On Konoha's side were Neji and Tenten's group, plus Naruto's group, making nine in total.
Something had gone wrong with Naruto's memories. He had mixed up the dates and thought his group had arrived at the tower first.
The Shadow Clone had not activated Mind's Eye of the Kagura, so it had kept thinking they still needed seven more people to make up the numbers.
That was why, at the beginning, the Shadow Clone had directly told those who arrived afterward that only seven slots remained.
Later, the Shadow Clone finally realized that Gaara's group had been in the tower all along, so it turned around and talked both Hinata's and Ino's groups into leaving.
Shikamaru had never liked trouble to begin with, so he left without a word.
Ino was lovestruck, while Choji was thinking about food. Neither of them had much objection.
Kiba Inuzuka, who usually acted like everyone's boss, made a fuss for quite a while.
He had his heart set on becoming Hokage. How could he accept stopping here?
Naruto let him have a taste of the fist of love, and Shino later dragged him away with insects.
The Shadow Clone had originally expected more people to come looking for it to clear the test.
But in reality, without one-on-one preliminary matches, the teams had gone for each other's throats, and the fighting had been exceptionally brutal.
Even those Sound Ninja with quite a bit of screen time were eliminated under the joint assault of Neji's group of three.
The only teams that lasted until the end were Yakushi