The four of them walked out of the classroom side by side.
Sakura patted her chest, still looking shaken.
"Naruto, seriously... when you suddenly stood up back there, you nearly scared me to death!"
"Come on, come on-" Naruto scratched his head, chuckling. "That's just because I'm smart! I knew something was fishy right from the start!"
"I barely even touched my pen, and I already knew there was something wrong with that exam!" Naruto grew smugger as he spoke. "That's what you call-intuition!"
"You call that intuition?" Sakura pressed a hand to her forehead. "You just couldn't answer any of the questions..."
"Huh?" Sasuke snorted without even lifting his eyelids.
"If you couldn't answer them, then you couldn't answer them. What are you going on about, dead last?"
"What did you say?!"
"The truth."
The two traded barbs as they walked, making a noisy racket.
Hayashi and Sakura exchanged a glance, and neither could help laughing.
In a sense, Naruto really had understood this exam better than anyone else there.
-He had passed with a blank paper. How could he not have "understood" it?
Not far away, the Ino-Shika-Cho trio followed the group at a moderate distance.
Watching the four figures ahead bickering and fooling around, Shikamaru couldn't help sighing.
"Man..."
Ino immediately leaned over.
"What? What is it? Wasn't the first exam pretty easy? What are you sighing about?"
"Easy?" Shikamaru lifted his chin, pointing at the blond figure ahead.
"If you thought it was easy, go thank Naruto."
"What do you mean?" Ino blinked. "What does this have to do with Naruto?"
"The rules for that last question were obviously a bluff," Shikamaru said. "It was just a matter of who got scared first."
"But even knowing that, who would dare take that gamble while sitting