"Are you kidding me! These rules are ridiculous!" One examinee finally snapped and shot to his feet, his face flushed red.
"Exactly! What if we get it wrong? Our lives will be ruined!"
"I... I quit!" a trembling voice rang out, breaking the stalemate. A ninja wearing a Kusagakure forehead protector stood up. His teammates tried to hold him back, but he shook them off in despair. "I can't gamble with my future!"
Once the first person quit, a second followed, then a third.
"Sorry, everyone. Let's come back next year."
"Damn it! Why would they ask a question like this!"
Chairs scraped back one after another as team after team chose to withdraw and trudged out of the classroom, heads hanging. The once-crowded examination room emptied at a visible pace.
Sakura Haruno's face was deathly pale. She looked nervously at Sasuke and Naruto, her palms slick with cold sweat. Naruto Uzumaki, however, was unusually relaxed, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. He even yawned.
"Hey, Naruto, you..." Sakura could hardly believe her eyes.
Naruto winked at her and lowered his voice, looking smug. "What's there to be scared of? I filled in every answer on my paper! Right, Sasuke?"
Sasuke Uchiha glanced at him without saying a word, but the faint curve of his lips clearly confirmed it. Just moments earlier, he had activated his two-tomoe Sharingan-not to peek at anyone's answers, but to connect a chakra thread so fine it was almost imperceptible to Naruto's pen. As if controlling a puppet, he had perfectly "copied" his own answers onto Naruto's exam paper.
As far as Naruto was concerned, victory was already in the bag. He couldn't understand what everyone else was afraid of. Unlike in the original story, he didn't stand up and