Red Riot - Chapter 33 - Interlude - Elemental view points (Patreon)

Minato Namikaze:- Genin of Konoha, applicant at the Hot Springs Chunin Exams.

Jiraiya:- the Toad Sannin. Known as a super pervert. Jonin of Konoha. Sensei to Minato and two others. 

Tsume Inuzuka:- Genin of Konoha, applicant at the Hot Springs Chunin Exams.

Mikoto Uchiha:- likes playing with fire. Infiltration specialist. Chunin of Konoha

Sayuki:- Genin of Kirigakure. Matsu’s second in command for the Civilian born shinobi. Applicant for the Hot Springs Chunin Exam.

Kito Yotsuki:- Member of the Yotsuki Clan of Kumo. Jonin of Kumo. information specialist/Taijutsu specialist. Has anger issues and lieks to punch down.

Matsu Uzumaki:- person of high interest to other Shinobi Villages. Recently promoted Jonin. Medical/Taijutsu/Ninjutsu/Sensory specialty (Not that other villages know about two of these!)

Akarui:- Tallest Kumo nin around. Jonin of Kumo. Able to look down on Jiraiya physically but not metaphorically. Errand boy for Ei.

Ei:- In command of the Kumo delegate for this Chunin Exams. Working on his gains in more ways than one. 

                                                              ___________

Minato Namikaze slipped into the room quietly. 

Despite it being a soundless entry his sensei still huffed in amusement from where he was sitting, paging through what appeared to be a novel. “You’re late kid, that’s not normal for you,” said Jiraiya. 

Minato let his gaze sweep over the room and that of his lounging sensei. The man hadn’t looked his way, nor had he so much as reacted. There were no reflective surfaces to reveal him that Jiraiya could see, just as Minato knew there was no sound. 

Unless there was and it was too quiet for Minato but not too quiet for his sensei.

Minato didn’t doubt that, considering the man was a Jonin. They had to have a lot better training at some of the sensory-enhancing jutsu than he did as a genin. 

Experience was a bit of a cheat like that. 

All of this he thought of and considered before discarding it as irrelevant as he adopted an apologetic expression. “Ah, sorry about that! Kushina has been really mad about not being allowed to come to the chunin exams. She knows I’m going to get a lead on her now. We ended up sparring.”

Jiraiya rolled slightly and gave Minato a side-eye. “You’re a bit too young to have a wife already,” he teased with a playful smirk.

Minato gave his sensei a bland smile in response. “She’s not. She’s a rival, and I consider her a dear friend, but I don’t think she sees it that way.”

“Hmmm playboy. With looks like yours, I’d have been swimming in girlfriends,” replied Jiraiya before he sat up properly. 

Minato shifted, and Jiraiya raised an eyebrow. “You’re wondering why your little girlfriend can’t come along as well, aren’t you?” 

Minato nodded. He hadn’t said anything about it, but the implication was there and again, his sensei was a Jonin. 

Jiraiya sighed and scratched at his backside shamelessly. “Urgh, you genius types make things too hard. I have to work too hard to make actual lessons for you! I suppose if I don’t tell you, you’re going to investigate it on your own, aren’t you?”

Minato didn’t reply, merely smiling blandly. 

Jiraiya sighed and gave Minato a searching look. “How have you been going with your lessons with Mito when I’m not around?” he asked. 

Minato frowned. What they were discussing was obviously linked to Mito in some manner. But how? 

Kushina and Mito were from the same clan… but was something else at play here? Minato had noticed that even when they were studying ninjutsu together, Mito and Kushina talked about certain things obliquely. Whenever Minato inquired about them, Mito would wave him off as it wasn’t for him to know, while Kushina would gain a smug look.

He had to admit it was equal parts annoying and amusing to see.

Not that he could tell Kushina that. She’d try and beat him up like she did the first time he appeared for training with the elder Uzumaki.

“I’ve been advancing well but I’m not at the same level as Kushina,” Minato admitted. 

Jiraiya merely grunted. “That’s to be expected. Kushina has been studying under Mito for a few years now. The fact that you can even parse anything is frankly a sign of your potential in the arts. No one just picks up fuinjutsu,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. 

Minato nodded, accepting the compliment as he waited for his sensei to steer the conversation towards answering his concern about Kushina. 

Jiraiya rubbed his chin and gave Minato another look over. “You’re what? Twelve now?”

“Yes, in a few months, I’ll be thirteen.”

Jiraiya nodded and drew out what appeared to be a BINGO book. “And you’ve completed fifty D rank missions, twelve C rank missions and even a B rank mission now, correct?”

Minato nodded, mentally filing away how oddly this conversation was progressing. 

Jiraiya flipped through the BINGO book until he reached the section for Kiri shinobi. “Kushina is not being allowed to attend the Chunin exams as she’ll be too much of a target. She’ll be too close to Kumo with their particular desires for powerful bloodlines. But the real threat we expect will come from Kiri.” 

Jiraiya paused on a page with a red-haired boy’s picture on display. Minato blinked, his mind already processing what he could read despite it being upside down. 

Matsu Uzumaki. 

Chunin of Kirigakure. 

Age eleven. 

Missions on record? One S rank. It was also noted that he’d been present during an ANBU raid to retrieve or deny a Hyuga kunoichi that had been captured, which he’d survived. 

His page included other particulars, such as a small list of completed missions that were attributed to him. 

Minato’s eyes widened on the last line that had been added in. 

Classified an A rank threat due to his ability to activate and utilise his chakra gates.

“Heh, thought that’d be your reaction,” Jiraiya chuckled causing Minato to glance up only to realise that his sensei had baited him with the book while pointedly watching his reaction. 

Minato hadn’t even noticed. He’d been too interested in the book. 

Jiraiya flicked his fingers small, signalling admonishment, and Minato bowed his head, acknowledging that he needed to keep his awareness instead of being drawn in.

His sensei stopped laughing. “Kind of crazy to encounter a kid that is stronger than you, no?”

Minato nodded seriously. “Is this accurate information?” he asked. 

Jiraiya sighed. “Yup, heard it from the snake’s mouth, you could say.”

It didn’t take Minato long to understand what that meant. “He survived a fight with Lord Orochimaru?” he gasped. 

Jiraiya grunted. “Yeah, he did.” He gave Minato a dirty look. “And what’s with this Lord business? He ain’t no lord from a clan. He’s like me, an orphan. We’re even the same rank!”

Minato coughed. “I suppose he just holds himself differently,” Minato said politely, pointedly not looking at how Jiraiya slouched when he sat most of the time or mentioning the numerous occasions that his sensei had been said to peep on the women in the local hot springs. 

Minato frowned. Was his sensei even going to be watching the exams with them going to the Land of Hotsprings?    

“Cheeky brat,” Jiraiya declared as he reached over and mussed up Minato’s blond locks. 

Minato grumbled at the action but let it happen to escape any other punishments that his sensei occasionally inflicted when he was annoyed with Minato or his teammates. 

Jiraiya tapped the book to get them back on topic. “This kid is a potential threat to Kushina as he has proven to be of Uzumaki descent with looks, deeds, and also his chakra potency.” 

When Minato raised an eyebrow, Jiraiya rolled his eyes. “Orochimaru got a good chance to observe him both during a short fight and during the recent negotiations held in Hot Springs shinobi village.”

“Negotiations?” Minato asked only for Jiraiya to flap his hand. “That’s above your level kid. Just trust that we have it hand but things are more complicated than they appear with Kiri and Kumo basically expected to have a heavy presence.”

Jiraiya winked at him. “We’ll have just as large a showing, but we’ll also have you, and I’d pit you against any genin-level shinobi and more than a few chunin comfortably.” 

Minato bowed his head at the praise even as his mind went to work on what Jiraiya had revealed to him. If Kumo, Kiri, and Konoha were all going to have equally large presences while negotiations had taken place, then it might be that the three nations were working together on this Chunin exam. That would certainly make it something. 

Minato considered the implications of that. It would also be quite a commendation for any shinobi to emerge victorious in such a large event. 

“Do we have any idea what the exams will be?” Minato asked. 

Jiraiya hummed. “I'm not really supposed to tell you,” he said, making a hand sign for ‘discrete, need-to-know’.

Minato replied with an acknowledgment. 

Jiraiya continued talking, “You can usually ask around though so it isn’t too much to tell you that there will be an information gathering or puzzle on the first test followed by a wilderness survival course. Now the only two sites of any note for that are the mega volcano that is outside the hidden Village of Hot Springs along with the Valley of Hell but the Valley is at least three days run at a chunin’s pace so they most likely won’t choose that. From there it’s a knockout tournament with you going one on one against another shinobi while nobles and shinobi of various nations watch on.”

“Hmmm, what is to be done should I encounter him?” Minato asked. 

Jiraiya shook his head. “Shouldn’t be any reason for you to. We all know he’s a Chunin as Kiri made a big deal of him when he first appeared in our BINGO book. They can’t use him for the exams,” Jiraiya said with a smirk. 

Minato nodded, his body relaxing slightly before tilting his head. “But Konoha is still going to restrict Kushina despite his not taking part?”

Jiraiya nodded. “It’s likely he’ll be there, and for what it’s worth to us we don’t have as much to gain sending her.”

“Couldn’t Kushina used to draw him to Kono—” Minato started to say only for Jiraiya to shake his head sadly. 

“Nope.” Jiraiya drew himself up with a deep sigh. “This kid is committed. We’ve interrogated some captured Kiri shinobi about him prior to Orochimaru’s encounter with him, and they all laugh when that kid is brought up. According to our intelligence, he is highly intelligent and has the favour of the Mizukage to an unheard-of degree. Some have even heard that he is trying to become Mizukage himself with the current Mizukage doing nothing about said rumour.”

Minato tilted his head. “So he’s like Kushina and I?”

Jiraiya snorted. “You’re a pair of cute kids dreaming big,” Jiraiya said while signing approval which drew a smile from Minato. 

Jiraiya locked eyes with Minato. “Matsu Uzumaki is dedicated and has grown up in Kirigakure not Konoha. Declaring your intentions like that could be seen as a threat which would mean you’d need to be struck down. Instead of that occuring Gengetsu is showing favour by staying his hand.” 

Jiraiya stabbed a finger at Minato’s chest. “Kiri is not Konoha kid. Remember that before assuming you share things with that kid.”

Minato nodded seriously. 

Jiraiya rubbed his forehead before continuing. “He has also had a hand in halting their worst practise to date with their graduation process.”

Minato tilted his head, not understanding the significance. 

Jiraiya pinched the bridge of his nose. “I forget sometimes that while you’re sharp you don’t know stuff like this.” He sighed and made an apology sign which Minato replied with acknowledged-accepted.

Jiraiya hummed. “Kirigakure’s process of graduation is not like Konoha’s Minato. It’s not a simple test of skills. In Kiri they pit you against your fellow students in a final demonstration.” 

Minato nodded, not seeing the issue with that.

Jiraiya pinched the bridge of his nose. “For the love of… Damn naive genius. It’s a fight to the death Minato.”

Minato inhaled and glanced down at the page with Matsu on it. Had he? “Wait. You said he stopped the normal graduation process?”  

“He did. Instead of fighting his fellow students, the intel we gathered states that this kid led a rebellion against his teachers.” 

Minato opened his mouth only to find he was unsure what to say about that. Was that better or worse? They were the ones making the young children fight but at the same time… to fight and slay one's teachers… Was that not a worse betrayal?

Minato found himself unsure. 

He made a mental note to meditate on this later. It was an intruging dilemma. What was right in this situation?

Minato let that issue drop and returned to another anomaly. “How is it that a boy younger than me has been able to open the chakra gates? I was always told that it took a master of Taijutsu to perform such a feat which is said to take decades of dedicated effort.”

Jiraiya relaxed and smiled. “No idea! But that’s a great question! Certainly has a lot of the Taijutsu specialists scratching their heads! If a kid can pick it up you’d think there must be a trick to it!” 

Jiraiya laughed. “Then again he might just be a bigger genius than you!” 

Minato chuckled. “I’m no genius sensei,” he demurred which caused the other man to snort and sign denial.

Minato accepted it and they moved on to talking about their trianing and how the others in Minato’s squad were doing. Minato had at first thought it rather odd that Jiraiya didn’t offer to talk with all his students at once but it hadn’t taken long for Minato to notice that he was treated differently. He was given harder tasks and drilled on leadership more often than the others.

It was good to have a sensei that believed in you. They continued their discussion in preparation for other scenarios that Minato and his teammates might encounter in Hot Springs and by the time they were done Minato felt more ready than ever!

                                                              ___________

Minato concluded that the Village Hidden in the Hot Springs was aptly named as he and other Konoha shinobi strode through the gates. 

The Mega Volcano, which had been reported as the likely stage for the Second Exam, loomed large in the background, but Minato spent most of his time looking around at the various structures. 

The houses were more brick than wood, and there seemed to be an underlying heat in the ground that Minato could pick up with each step.  

A myriad of different smells wafted on the breeze, and the Inuzuka of their contingent tilted their heads this way and that with their hounds, testing the scents. Around them, a small ring of Hot Spring Shinobi ‘guided’ them towards their lodging, which were, in truth, an entire district of hotels. 

The same was supposedly being offered to Kumo and Kiri with other nations having to ‘slum it’ outside the walls of the Village. 

The nobles, who had supposedly already arrived were given yet another district.

Jiraiya clapped Minato on the shoulder. “Right kid, this is where I’m going to leave you. Get to the exam grounds by five this afternoon,” he said while signalling ‘intel-gathering’ while making sure his body blocked anyone else from observing the hand sign.

Minato waved him off while others clicked their tongues about the ‘pervert’ slinking off. Minato didn’t raise any fuss. He knew his sensei was doing far more than just that. 

Minato and the other Genin taking part in the exam settled in for a simple fare for their lunch of rations. None dared to risk food poisoning or outright poisoning from ordering somehting from the locals just yet. 

While there had been shinobi in the village for a while now, there were still risks. Better to wait for more in-depth observations and watches to establish who was trustworthy and who would slip something into their meals for a ryo. 

When that was done most of the other Genin lay back and napped to recoup their energy. Only a few studied up. Most were pulling out shinobi guidebooks that listed off typical ‘rules’ for being a shinobi. 

Jiraiya had taken one look at Minato’s copy and thrown it away on him. 

Minato had still bought another, but now with a mindset of studying it as content others might adhere to that could be exploited or something to know and only apply in specific situations.

 Minato moved through the groups of people, knowing it was important to ‘feel out’ the vibe of his fellow test takers. Many of Jiraiya’s lessons had discussed what it meant to be a leader both a good one and a bad one.

Earning respect was one of the longer lessons that Minato had taken to heart. 

One such method was keeping up good relations with as many people as possible, and a simple word here and there was often enough to make a person’s impression positive. 

Minato approached the easiest target to start on a positive.

“Fuck off Minato!” barked Tsume Inuzuka as she adjusted the black puppy on her head.

The puppy yipped at Minato in stereo to its master.

Minato paused, having not expected that response when he’d approached Tsume. She was usually much more receptive and welcoming, if brash.

Tsume grinned at him, her fangs flashing in the light. “Heh! Got you! Kushina said to say that! I’ll tell her you looked like you got slapped by a fish! Hehehe!” she laughed as Minato sighed. 

“Of course she did,” he replied before adopting a grin of his own. “Oh and Tsume, go fuck yourself as well!” 

“Hahaha!” Tsume threw her head back and howled with laughter. When a few people nearby grumbled at her, she settled, only to perk up when someone else shouted at her to shut up.

“The fuck you say?” she challenged, baring her teeth. 

Minato left her to it, knowing he’d left his own good impression, albeit in a less-than-conventional way. 

He moved through the clans and civilians with ease until he reached the Hyuga, to whom he only gave a polite bow. They inclined their heads in response, which Minato counted as a win. He did note that almost all of them had their Byakugans active at the moment.

When he approached, the Aburame merely buzzed louder in greeting. He then handed out a pot of honey to revitalise their swarm, which earned a nod and a grunt as the pot vanished into one of the Aburame genin’s long sleeves.

When Minato made his way around to the Uchiha, he was observed coolly. He smiled at the highest-ranked shinobi and was awarded a nod back. He searched around for a moment, only for someone to tap him on the back.

“Looking for someone?” whispered Mikoto impishly. 

Minato grimaced knowing he’d been ‘got’. Around him, the other Uchiha exam takers grunted in satisfaction and looked away from him. 

“Heya Mikoto, did you find anything out while you were out and about?” he asked Kushina’s friend.

Mikoto eyed him thoughtfully. “Hmmmm and what makes you think I might have done such a thing?” 

“I kept an eye on you when we entered the gates only to lose you after that.”

“Maybe you just aren’t that good at watching people,” Mikoto teased, flashing her own eyes red in a declaration of superiority.

Minato nodded, conceding the point. “Did you find anything out about the other shinobi?”

Mikoto grinned and waved a slip of paper with the standard Konoha code. Minato reached for it only for Mikoto to twitch it out of his reach. “Hmmm nice try, but this took me some effort. You don’t get it just for asking nicely.” 

“What do you want?” he asked. 

“If you end up fighting my cousin end up fighting, you take a dive. No ifs and or buts, I know you’ve been developing tactics to defeat an Uchiha in a fight like this. They could win but they’d reveal more than it's worth so if you fight, you make a good show of it and take a dive.”

Minato considered the paper for a long moment before sighing. “Sorry, I can’t. Sensei has given me orders to win this. Comes from up high you know?” he said, tacking on the lie to his truth. 

Mikoto eyed him and shrugged. “Well your loss. I picked up some pretty good intel when I swung around the Kumo and Suna camp.”

“Not the Kiri or Iwa camps?” Minato asked. 

Mikoto grimaced. “ANBU tapped me on the shoulder to not get any closer to their district and tents. They’ve got it pretty well locked down from what I was told. I wasn’t allowed to get close enough to pull any tricks.”

“Huh,” Minato said. 

That was rather telling. Mikoto had undergone some specialised training for a while there as a stealth and subterfuge specialist. If ANBU were going out of their way to stop her approaching both Village lines, then someone in their contingents must be a threat.

Oh, wait, of course, they weren’t sure if Gengetsu Hozuki or Mu was here. That made sense. 

Minato held back a shudder as he realised that if the information about the two men was correct, they could be walking through their midst. 

Suddenly, the Hyuga’s decision to activate their Byakugan made much more sense. 

“Probably for the best,” Minato said, earning a nod from Mikoto. 

“Probably, yeah,” she replied. 

“Mikoto!” called another Uchiha, waving her to join them. Mikoto nodded and gave Minato a nod of farewell. 

Minato waved at her back and made his own way back to his pack, where he ran through a final preparation of supplies.   

When it was time to go, the entire contingent of Konoha shinobi departed as one. 

Minato glanced around, noting that there had to be almost three hundred genin here. If every one of the big Villages brought such numbers, there would surely be too many for the tests.

The Hot Springs shinobi hadn’t batted an eye, however, and as Minato advanced to the testing ground, he could see why. 

The first testing facility quickly revealed itself to be a vast, vast warehouse-like structure only there were numerous entrances. 

“Genin are to line up and be assigned a colour for which door you will enter. From there, you will be assigned a seating number! Do not lose this! If you lose this, you are out of the Chunin exams!” shouted a man on a podium.

The man then adopted a deferential pose. “Nobles and their retinues are to take the stairs behind me up to the mezzanine!”

“Mezzanine?” Minato heard more than a few of his fellows whisper among themselves. 

Minato took it in stride and collected his colour before finding that he needed to enter a door to the far right of the warehouse. He and others like him dropped down a ladder before advancing to another area where a person was handing out seating numbers. Minato noted that none of the seat numbers handed out were anywhere near each other. 

They were obviously taking this seriously by breaking up the various Villages instead of keeping them as blocs within the testing hall. 

Minato moved through the doors and found himself in a vast cavern with a huge network of overlapping walkways above what looked like a forest’s worth of wooden desks and chairs. 

Shinobi walked along the bottom of the walkways, looking straight down at anyone below them. 

Ah, those would be the proctors, then. That was how they were getting around the issue of so many test takers. They were giving the proctors an excellent position to observe.

Minato raised his line of sight and noted that numerous richly decked-out nobles were either lounging or walking atop the metal walkways. At their sides, shinobi sometimes jockeyed for position to talk to them.

A flash of grey hair caught Minato’s attention, and he spotted Jiraiya laughing it up with what looked to be a very rich man. Minato knew it wasn’t the Daimyo of Fire as he’d memorised all the top Fire Nation nobility. 

He was still dressed richly enough that Minato considered him a ‘Daimyo’, though he must be a foreign Daimyo.

Jiraiya made a show of ‘noticing’ that Minato had spotted him and pointed directly at Minato. 

Having spent months with him now, Minato could lip-read the man well enough to spot that Jiraiya was talking Minato up to the noble.

For gambling that was being run already?

Ah, that was how they got the nobles interested. Minato gave the room another look. It was clever. The building had been created to achieve multiple objectives. 

It held a huge number of test takers, allowed good tactical positions for the proctors, catered to nobility, drummed up interest, and lined the pockets of the host Village and nation. 

Minato approached his assigned seating and found himself sitting next to an Iwa shinobi to his left, while a Kiri shinobi was to his right, with only a metre and a half between their desks. 

In front and behind was a Kumo shinobi, and what appeared to be a Fang Shinobi was behind him. 

Minato was about to settle into his seat when he detected a shimmer of chakra over the chair. Ah, genjutsu.

Minato glanced around. Part of the test? Or an attempted trip up from a competitor?

Both the Iwa and Kumo nin observed him, while the Kiri nin ignored him. The Fang nin, however, was sitting without a care in the world. “When are they going to give us the tests already?” 

Minato frowned. Did the Fang shinobi really not see what was going on? He flexed his chakra and dispelled the genjutsu. 

His desk and chair were revealed to be in swapped-around positions from where they’d initially appeared. 

Around him the room shifted slightly, and various shinobi were revealed to be facing a different direction.

The Fang shinobi was sitting ontop of his desk. 

His slightly elevated and different orientation marked him out clearly. 

Ah, this was part of the test, then. Minato double-checked. Oddly, his chakra did shift once more, and this time, he stiffened, looking around for a difference. 

It took him a moment to catch sight of the small pot of something wafting above his desk that had the risk of dropping on him. Minato eyed it thoughtfully but sat down, keeping the small pot in mind in case it became relevant later.

He made several plans in his head while he waited and observed where other pots were located.

Interestingly, looking up had also revealed that another person was looking at him. 

Minato flicked his eyes towards the all too familiar shade of red and locked eyes with Matsu Uzumaki. 

Matsu merely gazed back languidly, his face and eyes giving nothing away as he observed Minato before he shifted to inspect someone else. 

Minato continued to observe the boy, and he noticed something: Matsu was wearing a Jonin vest of Kirigakure. Implications jumped to the forefront of Minato’s mind. 

In Konoha, only the Jonin with students were to attend. 

Did that mean Matsu had a team himself?

He somewhat wished that Mikoto had been able to join his team for the exams but as a chunin that wasn’t possible. She’d proven herself too able during a skirmish that broke out after the war and been promoted for saving the life of a VIP.

Minato considered the nearby Kiri shinobi. Who would it be if they existed?

Minato suddenly felt like this exam would be much more interesting than he’d anticipated. 

                                                              ___________

Sayuki sat, facing the correct direction. 

Around her, people were tapped on the shoulder and asked to depart, causing a significant portion of the hall to empty. When they realised the mistake that had been made, more than a few tried to raise an argument, only for a kunai to thunk into the ground next to them.

“SILENCE!” roared a Proctor with a large white coat from atop a stand that let him see a sizeable chunk of the assembled mass of shinobi. “FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE FAILED AT THE FIRST HURDLE! YOU MAY LEAVE! YOU HAVE REVEALED YOURSELVES AS LACKING!” 

The failures stalked out, and Sayuki fought the urge to glance around nervously to see if there were any familiar faces. 

She doubted there would be. 

So far, the intel that Matsu had given to everyone in the lead-up to the exams has been accurate. 

The land of Hot Springs was precisely as he’d described. The constant near shimmer of water vapour allowed her to relax slightly as a handful of her jutsu would be more viable than they might have if they’d been fighting in the desert. 

“FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT HAVE SHOWN THAT YOU CAN SEE THROUGH A BASIC ILLUSION, CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE THE HONOUR OF MAKING IT THROUGH TO THE FIRST ROUND PROPER! YOU WILL FIND THE EXAM PAPER ITSELF WITHIN THE DESK IN FRONT OF YOU! FEEL FOR THE SEAM OF WOOD AND OPEN YOUR DESK NOW!”

Sayuki clicked her tongue and pointedly didn’t look at the Hyuuga she’d been seated next to. 

The boy had been particularly smug when he’d sat down with his Byakugan already activated. It would make sense that he’d have already started reading the paper while breezing past the illusion. 

“YOU HAVE THIRTY MINUTES! EACH QUESTION YOU ANSWER CORRECTLY IS WORTH TWO POINTS! ANY WRONG ATTEMPT DEDUCTS A POINT FROM YOUR OVERALL SCORE! IF YOU ARE CAUGHT CHEATING EVEN ONCE! YOU WILL BE EXPELLED!” 

Sayuki’s breath hitched as the first ‘divergence’ from what Matsu had handed them for intel presented itself. 

In his notes, Matsu suggested that the proctors wanted people to cheat and would even grant participants the ability to be caught more than once. But that wasn’t the case here.

Sayuki paused. 

Or was it?

Was this perhaps another sign of favouritism that Konoha had slipped into the test? Their bloodlines and tricks would work well here, and with the Byakugan, Sharingan, sharper nose, and bugs, there was a lot of potential for them to cheat at information gathering without actually risking a failure. 

Around her, people started to grumble and groan as they read through the exam papers. 

Sayuki gave her paper a cursory glance. 

It contained advanced hypothetical scenarios, and specific calculus was required to calculate the answer. However, several factors were missing that needed to either be accounted for or worked out. 

The final question was left blank with a note that it would only be offered at the end with a minute left.

Another point Matsu had mentioned was highly likely to be included.

Hmmm, Sayuki tilted her head. She could answer two of these and secure her place. She wouldn’t have to cheat. 

But was that the best option?

She toyed with her pen in thought. When she sat down, she noted that she was in sight with roughly eight Kiri shinobi. Three of whom were part of the civilian collective. 

Only one of them she was confident in passing on their own merit. 

All three of them might look to her when they ‘lost their heads’ in the situation. It was, therefore, best to present herself as relaxed and aloof. That would make them stop and think.

While Matsu hadn’t accounted for the tighter exam conditions, he had mentioned that being able to ‘hold one’s nerve’ and to ‘support one’s teammates’ were going to be vital aspects of the exam with Konoha having their fingers all over it. 

So, instead of showing people she was intelligent by solving the questions and relaxing, perhaps it was better to be an example to the others. 

Sayuki set her brush aside and sat straight with a confident smile that she didn’t feel. She was putting a lot of faith in Matsu’s notes but he’d held up his end of the bargain… well nearly always.

Beside her, the Hyuuga glanced at her before scoffing, and he no doubt inspected her paper. Sayuki didn’t mind. She could feel more than just his eyes on him and instead started looking around the room. 

She watched the various shinobi interact with the nobles and caught the occasional snippet of conversation.

“—knows how to perform elemental jutsu which as a genin is impressive!” said one as he gestured towards a kid from Waterfall. 

Was that what a minor Village considered impressive? 

Another snippet of conversation came to her. “They work well in a team together. They will be a solid formation in the field with their teamwork. We’re calling them the Ino-Shika-Chou team!” laughed a particularly bombastic voice. 

It occurred to Sayuki that even if she wasn’t going to proceed further if she applied herself well here, she could gather a treasure trove of intelligence about various shinobi from across nearly the entirety of the Elemental nations. 

The way they’d created this exam worked well, but it also required keeping the nobles entertained, which was a slightly tougher task. 

So how did they do it? 

By treating the shinobi below like glorified horses at an auction. The shinobi above used the genin to drum up interest, and bets were exchanged about who would pass and who would fail. 

To drum up further interest, some shinobi shared information that otherwise wouldn’t have been mentioned to draw attention to their own candidates.

Matsu’s notes mentioned the nobility, but he didn’t mention them being part of the test like this.

“— can’t help my curiosity, but I have to ask, what is on their exam papers?” asked one noble, only for the rustle of papers being produced to announce to anyone with ears that the noble had been handed their test papers. 

Sayuki could feel various test takers' attention shifting from their fellows to that of the noble above. 

Ah, and the plot thickens. How delightful, she thought to herself sardonically.

A thunk of a kunai boomed out in the silence of straining ears. 

“Expelled,” declared a proctor and Sayuki spared a side eye to her right where a shinobi from the Land of Stars was clenching their fists in rage. 

Heh, temptation had struck, and while others were looking upward at the bait, this one had tried to peek at another’s exam. 

Only for it to be a trap. 

Were the nobility in on it? Or was it just something the proctors had accounted for?

Sayuki doubted many of the Kiri shinobi would fall for it. Too often, tricks like this with a trap waiting for unsuspecting civilian nins were used during the academy. 

Anyone that was caught here wasn’t suited to be chunin. 

As time continued to tick onwards, Sayuki fought against the urge to lift her pen and answer the two questions. 

The weight of people looking at her had increased as more and more thunks had rung out around her, eliminating the chaff and allowing more of her fellow shinobi to spot her. 

A few were trying to share notes with subtle handsigns, but only a few were getting away with it. 

“Sayuki? Psst! Do you know any of the answers?” whispered Sanae. 

While becoming an apprentice of the Seven Swordsmen unit, the girl was also rather gifted as a genjutsu user. Sayuki should have expected her to use the Voice projection illusion like this. Matsu mentioned it in front of others once during a group training session.

Sayuki rolled her shoulders and risked giving a sign to ‘hold-fast’. 

“...roger,” Sanae said before breaking the illusion before it could be detected.

The minutes continued to tick down and the thunk of kunai announcing various shinobi being expelled continued. 

Sayuki expected that there would only be a few hundred at most by the time this test was over and done with, where there had once been almost thousands of shinobi. 

It made sense that the restrictions were so tight. With so many exam takers, the proctors only wanted the best for display with the nobles. 

Laughter trickled down from the mezzanine above, and Sayuki grimaced. While Shinobi struggled for advancement, the nobles played their games.

“ALRIGHT! TIME FOR THE FINAL QUESTION! FOR THOSE WHO ARE WILLING TO TAKE IT, KNOW THAT THIS QUESTION IS WORTH ALL OF YOUR POINTS SO FAR! ANSWER IT CORRECTLY, AND YOU WILL PASS, BUT ANSWER IT INCORRECTLY, AND YOU WILL FAIL IMMEDIATELY! THIS IS AN ALL OR NOTHING QUESTION!”

Sayuki allowed herself a smirk as the people that had struggled to gather information argued at how that wasn’t fair. 

Heh, they were all in the same boat now. 

“IF YOU MERELY WANT TO MAINTAIN YOUR CURRENT SCORE, THEN I WOULD ASK YOU TO STAND, AND YOU WILL BE LEAD TO THE SIDE WHERE YOU CAN WAIT FOR THOSE THAT WILL PASS!”

A few people stood, and the proctor continued to bellow. 

“THOSE WILLING TO ATTEMPT IT WILL REMAIN SEATED!” A few people shifted, but most remained seated.

The proctor scoffed. “YOUR SCORE MAY BE WHAT DETERMINES IF YOU PASS OR FAIL ABOVE ANOTHER OF YOUR COMPETITORS!”

Sayuki continued to smirk as more and more people stood. When the Hyuuga next to her stood and cast a derisive sniff on his way past her Sayuki almost broke into giggles.

The poor fool. 

The room emptied with those not willing to risk failure from attempting and answering incorrectly exited. 

Once the flood of people had left, Sayuki saw that roughly two-thirds of the exam takers had been removed. 

People still in the room sat with baited breath and for half a second she began to doubt the intel that Matsu had fed her. 

Then the lead Proctor broke into a grin. “For those who have remained! Congratulations! You’ve proven that you have the nerve to risk it when—”

Sayuki ignored the rest of what was being said as he waffled on about the virtues that a shinobi was expected to have. Instead, she looked up, and sure enough, Matsu was there. 

He leaned over the railing and shot her a wink before turning and gesturing down at her to the noble who was with him. 

Sayuki shook her head in amusement, a sense of glee rising within her as she looked around and caught sight of no less than twenty familiar civilian-born shinobi from Kiri. 

All of them were part of Matsu’s group and Sayuki knew there had to be more she hadn’t spotted. 

This was an incredible start.

Time to see how the rest of Matsu’s intel fared when put to the test.

The volcano was obvious enough to cause concern to most shinobi of the mist, except Matsu had written an entire lesson and handed it out. 

The scroll was titled, “Expecting the unexpected - Always bring a fuma shuriken to a shuriken throwing contest - The art of escalation.” 

                                                              ___________

Kito Yotsuki, Jonin of Kumo clicked his tongue as beneath him the successful applicants moved towards the second round. He sniffed and almost gagged as the cloying scent of incense stuck in his nostrils.

He snorted in annoyance and cleared his nostrils while cycling his chakra in case the scent had been used to create an illusion. It might not have, but it was the people who didn’t have healthy habits who died young as shinobi.

Still, he supposed he had to give the organisers some serious props for realising that with over a thousand people undergoing the test, there would be some fairly horrible body odour wafting upwards where the precious nobles would be located. 

Sadly, it wasn’t the sort of incense that was said to disrupt bug users. The little Konoha Aburame and Iwa Kamizuru had their little bugs scuttling all over the place now. 

It had been rather amusing to watch more than a few contestants being bitten and harassed until they made too much of a fuss and were eliminated.

If the proctors had cared that there was almost always a perfect circle of empty seats around the various two clans they hadn’t said anything. 

Almost being the operative word. 

Kito shot one Kiri brat that had avoided the bites and stings of the other kids by absorbing and drowning the bugs within himself. Kito had to admit it was a clever use of the Hozuki’s water body jutsu, if a bit disgusting.

“Kito,” rumbled a deep voice. 

Kito stiffened and turned to find himself looking up into Akarui, a fellow Jonin of Kumo but one that towered over everyone. Rumours around the bar said that Akarui was born from a giantess and his father getting it on.

No one was going to dredge up the dead and ask them, so Akarui’s height was considered a freak aberration that was gossiped about when people were in their cups, and when Akarui wasn’t anywhere close. 

“Akarui,” Kiro said with a nod of greeting. 

“Ei wants people to report in on their observations, both for what happened down there and up here,” Akarui muttered while flashing a sign for priority targets query?

Kito nodded easily and moved away. Not every Jonin was going to report to Ei. Over half were sticking close to the various nobles of worth of their own nations while select shinobi made overtures and some deals. Kito had seen more than a few kunoichi and even some shinobi play up the seduction route while he’d patrolled the metal pathways.

He’d also spotted several of the targets that Ei had listed as worth watching.

Akarui led Kito to the district that Kumo had been able to claim for itself. He chuckled when he started to hear the various whining and excuses that the first-round failures were already making. 

Dumb kids were practically gifted the format as well as having the exam adjusted for them. 

The final question, at first glance, appeared somewhat like a Konoha favoured question, suggesting not to risk all your points. However, Kito knew that Ei and others had bargained with the Yugakage to make the question about seeing who’d put themselves out there and risk themselves and others for success. 

Kito shook his head. The brats had had the deck stacked in their favour, and they’d still failed. 

Kito entered a room and stood before a trio of other Jonin who were all seated. Only one of them moved and it was to curl  massive weight.

While ostensibly they held the same rank, Kito knew better than to voice such an argument. Instead, he dropped to his knee and bowed slightly. 

A clink of metal on metal rang out as Ei completed another rep, his arms hoisting a frankly ridiculous weight up into the air. 

“Twenty,” puffed Ei before changing arms. He glanced at Kito and grunted. “Report about the exams and your observations,” he said not wasting any time. 

“The exams are progressing as we expected. Most of the shinobi that advanced are from Kiri, Konoha, and Kumo, with our three groups making up the easy majority. Iwa got eight teams of shinboi through, while only three managed it from Suna. Hot Springs has five teams through but I expect they got fed the answers.”

Ei snorted derisively. 

Kito continued. “Waterfall has two teams, as does Star, Key… and there is a single team from Rain,” Kito announced. 

Ei paused in his reps and frowned. “Make sure the Rain shinobi don’t make it through the next round,” he said.  “We don’t want Hanzo leaving the Land of Rain, not that he’s likely to, but still,” Ei grunted before signalling for Kito to continue. 

Kito rattled off a handful of observations about those who had performed well during the exams and those who had done well but had been sabotaged by the Kumo Genin. 

Ei merely grunted. “And the Targets?” 

“Jiraiya is present, acting like a fool, but there is no sign of Tsunade or Orochimaru. Neither have known to have Genin teams, so there might not be reasons for them to attend. The same is true of Sakumo Hatake. None of the Seven Swordsmen are present as yet. Iwa has sent Onoki, but the man has remained firmly attached to the nobles from the Land of Rocks.”

Ei grunted, and Kito continued quickly. 

“I wasn’t able to get close to any of the other major groups to discern if there was anything odd about chakra levels or any tells from them that might reveal a Tailed Beast Host, but your final target of interest is here.”

Ei paused. “Go on.”

“Matsu Uzumaki is no longer a Chunin. He now bears the jacket of a Kiri Jonin and has been seen mingling with various nobles with an ease that speaks of his potential as a courtly influencer in the future. He might be drawn away from field combat.”

Ei sneered as he performed a final press with his weight. “Doubtful, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Kito bowed his head. “A Yotosuki never reveals their secrets willingly,” Kito stated proudly. 

His clan had numerous cases where their clansmen and women had died rather than reveal any intelligence to enemy shinobi. Sadly, sometimes, it wasn’t just a matter of defiance and grit.

Ei snorted. “Right willingly,” Ei said, catching the admission for what it was. “Because the fucking Yamanaka clan exists,” he growled before waving for Kito to continue.   

Kito nodded at the reminder and swallowed the bile. His clan was attempting to work on a counter to the Yamanaka, but it was slow going. Testing for one wasn’t something that could occur easily.

“Matsu displayed an interesting level of attention towards several genin but never identified any of specific interest. As far as I could discern, most of them weren’t Clan shinobi. The standouts were a Hozuki who evaded being expelled when the Aburame attempted to flush him out, a Terumi, and a Karatachi. The rest were all civilian-born shinobi as far as we could tell.” 

Kito shifted, and Ei shot him a look. “Something else you noticed?”

“Whenever he passed by Kaguya Genin they all nodded at him. It almost got a few of them expelled from the exams, but they kept doing it, and the proctors couldn’t discern anything being communicated. One, a kunoichi looked like she wanted to murder him.”

Ei snorted a laugh. “That ain’t unusual for them. They’re battle maniacs the lot of them. This runs counter to your earlier assessment of Matsu potentially being trained up as court flunky. Can’t be soft if he has the Kaguya’s respect,” Ei mused.

Ei nodded to himself. “Kid’s got skills. Orochimaru was practically all over him during the initial negotiations.”

Kito nodded, and Ei considered him. “Continue to observe him, but expand your observations to see who else apart from Konoha is giving him undue attention. How do the rest of Kiri’s Jonin treat him? Don’t try to be clever about it, by the way. He’s got sharp instincts,” Ei said cryptically. 

Kito nodded, understanding that Ei was warning him. He would be careful. 

Before he left, Ei set his weights down and picked up a small slip of paper that he looked dismissively at. “See if you can allow two Iwa teams through the second round. If it comes down to it, we can cull them in a preliminary match, but for now, make sure there’s at least eight of them.” 

Kito nodded, not asking why that was important but understanding that something else was at play with this exams. Not that it was unusual. Any time there was a gathering of shinobi there was typically a few murders, and at least some intelligence being ‘shared’ between nations to advance certain objectives or fake out certain groups. 

Kito departed quickly and was able to rejoin the noble party that was observing the second exam’s announcement. 

“—deep within the heart of the volcano there are multiple ‘hostages’ being held. Your task is to infiltrate these sites, secure a hostage without them being destroyed, and to return them safely to the base camp indicated by the tag on your hostage,” A Hot Springs ninja announced.  

Murmurs of excitement escaped several of the listening nobles, eager to witness the potential young shinobi in action, but Kito held back a snort. 

They weren’t going to see anything from down here. 

The nobles had forgotten that they would be pampered for the next three days while the second stage finished. None of them were going to set foot on the volcano where they’d be risking themselves. 

A flash of light shining in his eyes caught Kito’s attention, and he began signalling Ei’s instructions to the Genin who had signalled him. 

Guarantee Rain failure, secure advancement, minimise Iwa harassment. He signed back. 

The light's reflection stopped as though it had never been an instant later, signalling that the message had been received. 

The kid who’d done it made sure to scuff up the metal plate on his headband so it wouldn’t reveal him when he moved into the field. 

“—be split into various groups so you don’t all start fighting each other! No more than four teams will enter by any one gate! You will be assigned various gates to enter from randomly and will be required to survive for three days in a barren, and in some places, hostile environment!” declared the proctor.

Kito rolled his eyes. They’d done nothing but guarantee smaller bloodbaths would occur further up the slopes.

Kito eyed the Volcano. The intel they’d gathered stated that the volcano actually had a number of artificially cut ridgelines along with numerous magma pools that weren’t visible from this angle. 

The Hot Springs Proctor took a moment to grin at the various shinobi before looking up and locking eyes with a Konoha shinobi, then a Kiri shinobi, and finally Kito himself.

Kito stiffened. The Yugakage must have chaffed at the perceived slight of having the larger Villages dictate how things were going to go. It seemed he was about to ‘act out’.

“Also, it will not just be your fellow shinobi that you’re fighting but the environment itself,” the Proctor announced as he formed a handsign. 

Behind him a line of explosions went off that started a chain reaction, racing up the mountain. 

Kito hissed as he drew in a breath. A small landslide was set off revealing more lava that bubbled down the mountain like hot tears upon the slopes. 

The Proctor grinned. “At set intervals, other explosives will be detonated, causing tectonic shifts! Intel around when these explosions will occur and where will be given piecemeal to each team as they enter the field. Good luck!” the Proctor said.

Kito sniffed. He had to give it to the Hot Springs nin; that was a good addition. Now, there was not just the objective, but also actionable intelligence that would spur the various teams to fight with each other.

He’d be sure to compliment the man while dragging him into a dark alleyway later tonight and reminding the man of the pecking order.

“Oh! What a clever idea! I was afraid things were going to be boring but there’s going to be fireworks!” boomed a fat nobleman as others applauded. 

Kito held back a snarl. It was all fun and games to these people, but if any Genin found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, then there would be injuries galore with this exam.

Several other Jonin shot the Genin, moving away to their gates with worried looks. Kito noted that Jiraiya lingered the longest, but Matsu was standing quietly next to him. 

Kito shifted up close, positioning himself to overhear anything that might be said. 

“The blond one’s yours right? What odds are the nobles giving your team?” Matsu asked. 

Jiraiya huffed. “We’ve got pretty good odds, considering there are still some Uchiha and big name clans running around.” 

He tilted his head and gave Matsu a long considering look. “Which one were yours? It seems like you have a lot of kids that you’re watching over.”

Matsu turned, squaring up to Jiraiya and locking eyes with him. 

Kito considered the image rather humorous. Matsu was barely half Jiraiya’s height, but the smaller shinobi had an intensity about him that stopped it being too comical. 

“I have lots to look over,” Matsu declared cryptically before turning and walking back to where other Kiri nin were gathering.

Kito tracked who Matsu spoke with, only for a large hand to settle on his shoulder. 

Kito stiffened as Jiraiya leaned in. “Been getting kind of sick of you lurking around like a bad smell. You’re putting off the ladies. Find something else to do.” 

He squeezed tightly on Kito’s shoulder, and there was a sharp spike of pain that vanished a moment later as Jiraiya released him. 

The taller man swaggered off to a rich fire noble and bombastically shouted. “So! Now that the boring stuff is out of the way, who wants to play drinking games?” 

Kito swallowed and rolled his shoulder to return feeling to it. He’d need to have it looked over later in case Jiraiya had done something to it, but for now, he shifted targets and continued his observations. 

When most of the shinobi left Kito decided to shift his target for the evening and when the Proctor departed Kito slipped after him with barely anyone noticing. Those who did didn’t care to stop him.

Within a minute of leaving the observation deck the sound and lights faded into obscurity and it was all too easy to tackle the Proctor out of the sky as he leapt for his house. 

“Wha—” the man barely got to say anything before Kito chopped a hand over his throat. 

Kito slammed the man’s face into the ground and began stomping and kicking. His face morphed into that of a civilian to give the idiot Hot Springs nin more shame when he was incapable of recognising his assailant later. 

“Sto—” the man struggled to say, only for Kito to begin hammering into his face. When his face was almost pulped, and the only noises the man was making were rasping wheezes, Kito stood and spat on him. 

“Know your fucking place,” he snarled before vanishing in a shunshin, leaving the man to be found by his comrades and for them to learn some shame.

Kito returned to the Kumo district and reported to Ei, who didn’t so much as bat an eye at the blood on Kito’s knuckles. 

When he was done, Kito slipped into bed and slept like a babe.

                                                              ___________

By the time the sun was rising the next morning none of the nobles were back at the observation deck. They’d most likely drunk too much and were remaining in their rooms.

Kito knew that more than a few plots had been played out last night by various shinobi, but according to the nin that had attended Jiraiya had been the master of ceremonies who had controlled the party's ‘climate’.

The man seemed to simply click with various Nobles and their debaucherous ways all too easily. 

Kito rubbed along his knuckles, enjoying how raw they were after last night’s lesson had been given out. The warmth of validation rose through his chest at remembering how…

The Lead Proctor stepped to the front of the deck and smiled blandly at everyone.

Kito stared at the man. 

There wasn’t a mark on him. 

Kito pulsed his chakra. This had to be an illusion. Only nothing changed with the pulse of chakra.

 Kito considered flicking a senbon at the man to dispel any transformation or trickery used to hide that the main Proctor for this round had been beaten halfway into the grave. 

Only… the way the man’s eyes flicked around and lingered on people’s faces and their hands made Kito wonder. 

Could this be the same man who’d had his nose caved in?

Kito covered his own knuckles with a light illusion to hide the evidence. Shameful as it was to do so, it was still necessary.

When the Proctor’s eyes lingered on him, Kito narrowed his eyes in challenge.

What had happened after Kito left him? Did the Hot Springs Shinobi have some miracle cure? No, that didn’t make any sense. Why announce it here of all places instead of keeping it secret?

Something else must be in play. 

“That’s got to be cheating!” shouted someone, causing Kito to break from his thoughts to find the person. 

The kunoichi in question had a spy lens fully extended and was staring at something roughly halfway up the volcano’s slope. 

Kito extended his own and began searching for what was going on. 

It didn’t take long to find, and what he saw caused his mouth to hang open in shock.

A surging wave of water was snaking its way along the volcano, causing huge gouts of steam to billow out of it as it moved. 

Within the steam, Kito could just make out vague shapes. But… there were far too many of them for that to be a single team or even two teams working together.

When the snaking water reached a manmade water reservoir, Kito got a good look what was going on. 

It merely built on his astonishment as what appeared to be no less than forty kiri shinobi rode a torrent of water like some giant serpent. They replenished the watery serpent as they went past the reservoir, draining it wholesale as they passed it. 

Then, like a snake slipping into a tunnel after prey, the entire group swept into one of the caverns holding the ‘hostages’. 

They emerged minutes later with tied-up Hot Springs nin and their hostage mannequin held at the rear. 

They did it with perfect timing to avoid any of the explosions around the mountain, but Kito supposed that with the size of their group, they had more than enough actionable intel to know when they needed to be out of specific locations. 

It was absolute overkill and was like nothing Kito had ever seen.

It potentially could have occurred if Konoha nin found each other, but for Kiri shinobi to do something on this scale? Ludicrous. 

Kito pulsed his chakra once more in case someone was pulling a prank. 

Kito lowered his spyglass and turned towards the Head Proctor only to find Matsu Uzumaki leaning against the railing next to the man. 

The Head Proctor glanced at Matsu. 

Matsu glanced back and smiled in a friendly manner. 

Kito frowned. Something had happened between these two, but what? 

Was Kiri protecting the Proctor? Or was this one of Gengetsu’s sick plots at play? Kito would have to announce what had actually happened to Ei later in case Gengetsu was nearby and toying with them. 

Cold dread trickled down Kito’s spine at the thought of Gengetsu being nearby. 

The Head Proctor returned to searching the faces in front of him.

“Oi! Aren’t you going to expel those brats?” called a Star Shinobi ‘Jonin’ as the single team from Star was wiped aside by the flood of Kiri genin.

The Proctor glanced at her only to return to his fruitless search. “No,” the man said simply. 

A few people bristled at this but with the Proctor not stepping in there wasn’t anything they could do.

Kito and the others could only watch as those who lacked the good sense to avoid the mass of Kiri nin were often literally swept out of the competition.

Matsu gained a satisfied smile on his face and Kito caught Jiraiya hum to himself. “Huh, not a bad strategy.” the man nodded towards Matsu once before returning to attempting to seduce a blonde haired Kumo kunoichi.

When the ten teams presented themselves with their hostages, Kito could only shake his head in disgust. 

It was barely halfway into the second day, and Kiri had already claimed an overwhelming advantage going into the final exam with there being potentially only more of their shinobi yet to finish.

Kito prepared a report for Ei to pressure the Yugakage to set up a preliminary tournament to narrow the field. 

They absolutely had to drain some of Kiri’s prospects, or else they would have an almost insurmountable advantage, which the nobility would be sure to notice.

Kito gave the group a final look over and shook his head. What had gotten into the water if the civilian nin were this strong?

                                                              ___________

A.N. Thanks go to my patreons for your continued support!

So, for those that missed it. 

Kushina couldn’t be risked as an asset in a foreign nation’s Chunin exams. Especially not one in which Kumo and Kiri had their fingers all over. 

The exams had many people’s fingerprints on them, with various questions and correct answers catering to certain groups' mentalities. With a different wording, the final question could have gone to the people who chose not to risk everything rather than those who pushed on. 

The eye of the beholder and all that was valued. 

The Hot Springs Shinobi then did the most stereotypical thing they could by keeping the second survival exam to the Volcano, but they added elements from, let's call it, the second Hunger Games, where explosions ‘randomly’ went off, and groups could tell when some would go off as part of the intel they were given. 

Sadly, Matsu had a plan that nullified this by having the Civilian nin join forces while taking literally a lake’s worth of saltwater with them to allow them to be able to keep using water jutsu on the mountain, only they went even bigger and badder and did something blatant.

Kito punished the Head Proctor of Hot Springs only for someone to step in and heal the guy back to his feet. 

Hmmm, who could it have been to earn the Head Proctor’s favour?

It was obviously Matsu, and he did it to give Kiri— or more specifically the ‘civilian collective’— another edge as instead of people being able to protest it he killed any momentum before it could get going. 

There will obviously be some crazy fighting, but there will also be way, way more shinobi than there should be ‘passing’ the second exam, meaning that a preliminary exam will need to be held. 

There are also some politics at play, which I might highlight.

I want to try to keep things progressing without getting bogged down and stagnant, so I will probably spend a good deal of next month figuring out how to achieve that in the next chapter, but yeah. 

Also, if you missed it, no one wants Hanzo the Salamander to crash the party, but everyone wants Mu and Gengetsu to go with each other. 

Oh, and Mikoto is around testing people’s security as a ‘safe’ place to test her skills. Why do I mention that? 

No reason at all.

If there is something that might be interesting to see, then by all means throw some comments onto the chapter, and I will read them! Otherwise, thanks for reading and supporting me! 

Also! Apparently, Kushina’s abduction only occurs when she’s 13. She’s currently 12…ish, so that hasn’t happened yet. Also, with Mito still being alive, the 9 tails have not yet been transferred to Kushina. 

Also! The Yotsuki clan is a thing in Canon Naruto. They have a named character Sasuke tortures to extract information about where B is so Team Edgy Hawk can attack him. (Yes, I know they’re just Team Hawk) 

Next time on Red Riot! More child on child violence!... which is most of what Naruto is… huh.