First Phase
Satomi watched in awe as a Tokebetsu Jonin walked into the room. He introduced himself as Ibiki and the commanding officer of the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force. He told them about their written test, while giving out rules such as minus one point for a wrong answer and minus two for cheating as people handed out the test.
Satomi took the test and looked at the first question. Decipher a code... should be easy enough. She worked at the right-hand answer side, using letters, numbers, symbols, shapes, repeating things over and over, trying to figure out some pattern until the right-hand-side become nothing short of a black mess. There was simply no answer to this question. There couldn't be. Maybe some questions had answered, and some didn't... after all, you'd have to flunk the entire thing to fail.
She looked down her paper, trying to figure out which ones might have answers, and which wouldn't. No matter how she looked at it, however, none of them seemed like they would have answered. They all looked too complicated and precise, without any sort of leeway to let someone as stupid as her solve the problems.
She closed her eyes in defeat. How was she ever supposed to figure it out...? She heard something in the back of her mind... Makoto, her squad leader, saying something...
"I'm not training with you anymore," she had said over a bowl of ramen. "I think I can do better by myself. Besides, I'm looking for my own sensei - someone who can work with me personally."
"Well, that's too bad," Makoto said as he paid for both of their breakfasts. "You know, you were one of the smartest in your class. And we'll miss you. Even Katsu, even though he may tease."
The smartest one, huh? Then how is either Shin or Katsu going to pass? Heck, how any of them going to pass?
She jumped as a kunai flew right past her onto her neighbor's paper. "Group number 12, you're out"
Cheating... that's it. She had to cheat without getting caught. But how...
She could sense chakra. She looked around her for someone who knew what they were doing. Shin was a few seats away, writing quickly and occasionally glancing up at her. Of course, he had his bugs to help him. She closed her eyes, and tried to sense the chakra in Shin's hand. At first she couldn't feel his chakra among all the others, but as she began to focus and explore the familiarity of his chakra, she was able to focus on the movements of his hand. Focusing as best as she could, she copied the movements of his hand with her own.
After a couple of questions, she relaxed and put her spinning head on the desk. It was only a few questions she needed to pass, she didn't need to copy the whole thing.
Besides, she didn't think she could do any more, her head pounding and her thoughts becoming scrambled. Various images from the night before each began demanding her attention - Keisuke laughing into his tea the night before, Naruto throwing his shoe at Sasuke, Sasuke glaring at her, and, the image her muddled mind settled on, Kurama sitting on her. She could feel his weight on her, slowly growing larger. It began to crush her chest, making it harder and harder to breathe. The weight began to be characterized by angry faces - Naruto's, Sasuke's, and... and Keisuke's...
She woke up with a start. Looking around at some of the empty chairs in the room, she began to wonder if one of her teammates had lost while she was asleep. Looking over to where she knew Shin was sitting, she saw him looking at her with a relieved smile. She smiled back.
Ibiki stood up. "And now, I am going to reveal the final question. However, with this question, the rules change. If you choose to stay and listen to the question, and get it right - you go on. If you choose to stay and get it wrong, you'll never be able to take the chunin exam again - ever. You'll stay a genin, doing D and C rank missions for the rest of your life. You can choose to not risk it, but if you decide on that, you and your teamautomatically fail the entire test and thus, the entire exam. Anyone who decides to not hear the final question may now raise their hand."
Never take the Chunin exam again...? Satomi felt her stomach twist into a nervous knot. Her hands began twitching, begging her to raise one of them and save her from almost certain failure. If the written questions were impossible, what is this one going to be like...?
She closed her eyes, desperately trying to make a decision. She thought of her sensei... and his disappointed gaze when he found out she had bowed out. "If there was a way around the other questions," Keisuke would have said, "There would be a way around the last questions. You would have just needed to find it."
She opened her eyes with new-found determination. She will not back down because she was afraid for herself.
But, what about...
She looked down to where Shin was sitting. He was hiding his fingers just inside his jacket. She smiled as she recalled him doing the same thing whenever Iruka had called on him to answer a question, or whenever a bully had threatened to beat him up. It was what he normally did when he was nervous or scared.
However...
Even from a distance, she could see the silent determination in his jaw. He would not back down on this. She shouldn't ruin his fun, now should she?
She smiled and relaxed, despite the many squads who chose to be exempted and were ushered out of the room. Her team could answer this, no problem.
"Is that all?" Ibiki asked the teams who were left after a few minutes of no one choosing raising their hand. When no one answered, he gave a small, crooked smile. "Well, it looks like we have a decent crop this year. Congratulations, you all pass."
Satomi gaped in exasperation. She passed? There was no tenth question? She looked down at Shin again, who was grinning wildly.
There was no tenth question. They had passed. They could take the Chunin exams next year, or any of the years following. They would move on.
They were safe.
Satomi grinned in ecstasy while she listened to Ibiki give his reasoning. He talked about the importance of being able to gain information and espionage, and the quick decisions shinobi have to make in the heat of the moment.
She was ready to move on.
