Another victim

"Starting here, the other side of Thunder Warrior Valley is where your next exam will take place."

"Take a good look at the scrolls in your hands. There are two kinds, Heaven and Earth, and each team has received only one. Once you reach the next stop, only teams possessing both scrolls will qualify for the third exam."

The dark-skinned ninja shouted, "You have seven days. If you still haven't arrived within seven days, we'll consider you to have withdrawn from these Chunin Exams!"

"Did... everyone understand?"

"Understood!"

"Understood!"

"Understood!"

The starting order for the second exam was decided by drawing lots.

Liumu Squad set out in sixteenth place, half an hour after the exam began. But the moment the three entered the valley, Suiguang pulled them into the shadow of a huge boulder.

"What are you doing?"

Liumu looked at the cautious Suiguang and asked in bewilderment.

"Are you stupid?"

As soon as they entered the hiding spot, Suiguang began rapidly forming hand seals, then said to Liumu, "Did you hear what that Jonin just said?"

"Each team has only one scroll, but qualifying for the third exam requires both Heaven and Earth. What do you think he meant by that?"

"Steal them!" Kakashi immediately whispered beside him.

"Exactly!" Suiguang confirmed. Quietly sensing the movements around them, he told Kakashi and Liumu, "Our team isn't strong. Setting out so recklessly is bound to make us a target for plenty of teams, so I plan to..."

"Avoid their initial onslaught, let them fight each other, and reap the rewards?"

"Holy shit!"

Hearing Kakashi's words, Liumu immediately grinned. "Are you two doing a comedy routine, taking turns like that? And you rattled off three idioms in a row."

Kakashi: ...

Suiguang: ???

"A comedy routine? What's that?" Suiguang looked blankly at Liumu.

"Uh... well..." Liumu gave a vague laugh and replied, "It's a classic traditional art, involving swindling, deceiving... oh, no, that's not right, it's..."

"We can talk about that later!"

Before Liumu could finish muttering, Suiguang interrupted him. "What do you two think?"

Kakashi quietly furrowed his brow at the question.

Suiguang wasn't wrong. With himself, Liumu, and Suiguang, who wasn't good at actual combat, their team really wasn't strong. Moreover, if the examiners wanted the participating teams to fight over scrolls, just as Suiguang had said, their team would undoubtedly face challenges from quite a few people.

But if their team could lie low until the end and focus on taking down another team that possessed an Earth Scroll, or even one that already possessed both Heaven and Earth Scrolls, that would minimize the risk.

Liumu looked at Kakashi's conflicted expression, his eyes full of disdain.

Turning to Suiguang, he said, "You're overcomplicating things. If you ask me, we should just head straight for the finish. Stealing scrolls or whatever can wait. Besides, isn't it just an Earth Scroll? We can set up an ambush before the finish and steal one then."

"Besides, Konoha has seven teams this time. Maybe someone will remember we're from the same village and give..."

Just then, before Liumu could finish, Suiguang suddenly frowned, stepped forward, and clapped a hand over Liumu's mouth.

At the same time, he wrote on the ground, "Keep quiet. Someone's coming, and they're moving very slowly."

As a Sensory Ninja, Suiguang had immediately extended his senses upon arriving here. Barring anything unexpected, the team he sensed now should have been the group that entered the valley right after Liumu Squad.

"Where?"

Liumu asked aloud.

"Four o'clock, less than thirty meters away."

"Got it."

Seeing that the team was so close, Liumu immediately stood and said to Kakashi and Suiguang, "Come on. Let's ask them which scroll their team has."

Suiguang: ???

Kakashi: ???

While the two were still staring in surprise, Liumu had already shot off ahead on his own.

"Stu..." Watching Liumu's retreating back, Suiguang ultimately swallowed the curse that had risen to his lips.

"What do we do?" Suiguang turned to Kakashi and asked.

Kakashi didn't know much about Liumu to begin with, but he understood that Liumu was by no means reckless. Since he had chosen to do this, he surely had his own ideas.

So, faced with Suiguang's question, Kakashi nodded. "Follow him. Whoever we're facing, we're a team now, after all."

Following the direction Suiguang had indicated, Liumu spotted the team's figures in less than a minute.

Seeing their Iwagakure forehead protectors, Liumu immediately jumped in front of the three and asked with a charming smile, "So you're friends from Iwagakure. Do you have an Earth Scroll? If so, I'd like to borrow it."

The Iwagakure ninja: ???

Liumu's sudden appearance immediately put the three Iwagakure ninja on guard.

"It's you!"

The only female among the Iwagakure ninja seemed to recognize Liumu and sneered, "I wondered who it was. So it's the idiot who handed his answers to everyone else during the Written Exam."

Liumu: ???

Hearing this, Liumu studied her face. After confirming that he had no impression of her, he asked, "You know me? Were you in the same exam room as me? Did you copy my answers, then?"

A faint smile appeared on her face. "Why wouldn't I? I was sitting ahead of you on your left. Didn't you recognize me?"

"Sorry, ugly things generally don't leave much of an impression on me!"

"You!"

The kunoichi was furious. As a woman, even one only in her teens, she cared a great deal about her looks.

Liumu hadn't used any ninjutsu, but his words had dealt her a heavy blow.

Just then, a burly man beside the kunoichi stepped forward. His face expressionless, he looked at the forehead protector on Liumu's arm and demanded sternly, "You're a Konoha ninja?"

The six-year-old Liumu was as tiny as an ant before this man. If physique alone determined superiority, this man would undoubtedly take first place.

The enmity between Iwagakure and Konoha went back a long way and could no longer be explained in a few simple words. Although everyone had tacitly maintained the current peace since the Second Shinobi World War, no one could really say when the next war would come.

With him being a member of Konoha, the Iwagakure ninja naturally felt hatred toward him.

"That's right." Liumu displayed his forehead protector and said to him, "You still haven't answered my question. Which do you have, a Heaven Scroll or an Earth Scroll?"