"All right, forty-five minutes are up. Now I'll announce the tenth question."
Ibiki Morino suddenly spoke, and the examinees looked up at him with grim expressions.
Were there only fifteen minutes left until the exam ended?
"First, you must choose whether or not to answer the tenth question."
Whether or not to answer? What did that mean?
Temari lacked the cheating methods her two younger brothers possessed. She had only finished because Kankuro had passed her a copy of the answers after cheating himself.
Under the crushing pressure Ibiki Morino had deliberately created, she lost her composure and blurted out a question.
"We get to choose? Then what happens if we choose not to answer the tenth question?"
Ibiki Morino answered her in a calm voice.
"If an examinee chooses not to answer the tenth question, they immediately receive zero points and fail. Their two teammates will also be eliminated."
A wave of murmurs swept through the exam room.
"Furthermore..."
Ibiki's voice rang out again. It was quiet, yet it struck everyone's taut nerves like a heavy hammer. "There is one more rule."
More?
The examinees' hearts lurched again, and they held their breath.
Ibiki swept his gaze over every pale face before announcing the final rule:
"If you choose to answer..."
He deliberately drew out his words.
"...but fail to answer correctly..."
The brief pause drove their fear to its peak.
"...then you will be permanently barred from taking the Chunin Ninja Exams!"
Permanently barred!
It was like the final toll of a funeral bell.
With a buzz in their ears, many examinees' minds went blank.
Choose not to answer, and you got zero while your teammates were eliminated.
Choose to answer and get it wrong, and you could forget about ever becoming a Chunin!
*How was this a