Time slipped quietly by. Konoha had not been this lively in a long time.
The Joint Chunin Ninja Exams thus began.
During the first round, the written exam, Shinji went nowhere. Other than eating and sleeping, all he did was beat up Hidan.
Don't ask why Hidan was getting beaten up. If you asked, the answer was that there was nothing else to do, so he might as well beat him up.
As a result, Hidan went to beat up Tobi after getting beaten himself. Yet every time, Tobi screamed miserably while Hidan was the one who actually suffered.
This left Hidan thoroughly frustrated.
So he went looking for trouble with Hozuki Mangetsu for no particular reason.
Hozuki Mangetsu refused to indulge him, and the two had a fierce fight.
One possessed immortality, and the other knew the Hydrification Technique, so neither had to worry about killing the other.
But the problem was that, although the outcome was the same, the process was completely different!
Every fight ended in a draw. Then Hidan went back covered in blood, while Hozuki Mangetsu raised a glass of water with a pale face and gulped it down...
This left Hidan speechless.
Why was he always the one getting hurt?
Soon, the results of the first written exam came out.
Half of the 170 participants were eliminated outright...
"...I thought we might be done for this time. Naruto didn't know a thing and handed in a blank paper. Luckily, the last question tested team unity, and that idiot Naruto stumbled his way through."
Sasuke rambled on to Shinji, complaining about what had happened during the written exam. He never realized why, despite his usual cold aloofness, he always felt a sense of closeness when facing Shinji and was willing to tell him so many