Genkaku (Naruto fanfic)

Chapter 23: Academic integrity

"Twenty eight..." Shizuka mumbled as she looked for her assigned seat somewhere in the middle of the room. Finally finding it, she nervously plopped down at the desk, smiling as she noticed she was sat next to an equally nervous Chouji.

The boy looked a little pale at the prospect of a written test as he had steadily ranked in the bottom half of the class during his academy years. Shizuka on the other hand had straight up missed years of theory from the academy.

Shikamaru was sat directly behind her, while an unknown Sound ninja sat on her other side. She quickly scanned the room to locate her teammates, finding a panicking Naruto sat close to the front next to a blushing Hinata. Her cousin was off to her right, a few rows behind her with his arms crossed in front of him appearing completely calm.

"I won't be answering any questions during the exam, so you guys better listen closely." The proctor, an intimidating man with scars running criss cross over his face, spoke loudly. "The written part of the exam is conducted on a point reduction system. You will al begin with ten points and one point will be deducted for every wrong answer. Teams will pass or fail based on the combined scores of all members of their squad."

Shizuka let her forehead bonk against the desk in despair. They were so screwed. She was sure Naruto had never not ranked last for any written exam in his life. Looking off to the side, she already saw Sasuke glaring daggers at the blonde in the front. It was a combined score though. Sasuke was pretty smart as far as she was aware and she wasn't dumb either. Maybe they could pull it off.

"Surely, you have all noticed the chunin sitting at each row. They are here to watch for any signs of cheating. For every incident of cheating they spot, two points will be subtracted. I'm warning you now, their eyes are incredibly sharp. If they catch you cheating five times, you will be disqualified immediately."

She let her gaze drift to the uniformed woman sitting at the end of her row, the rather pretty redhead smiled sharply as she nodded at the staring contestants.

"Lastly, if a candidate receives a zero on their test, the entire team fails."

The sound of metal clunking on wood resonated again as Shizuka thunked her head on the desk once more. They were so gonna fail. Lifting her head from the desk she looked at the ceiling, praying for any god out there to gift Naruto with a stroke of genius luck.

"The tenth and final question won't be given until fifteen minutes before the end of this exam." The proctor stated. "You will have one hour to finish your test. Begin."

The sound of paper fluttered around the room as dozens of genin simultaneously turned over their test sheets. She scanned over the first question, eyes narrowing at the complicated cypher they had to decrypt. Were they ever taught how to do that? Maybe before she started the academy?

Discarding the question for now, she looked at the next question... and the next as a pit of despair made itself nice and comfy in her stomach. These questions were hard. Her gaze surreptiously flitted around the room, quickly finding most of the candidates stumped.

Was this really chunin level? Surely not, she had skimmed through some theory books before the exam and none of this was in there. So then what? She looked at the chunin thoughtfully for a bit until the woman winked at her. Okay then.

Two points were subtracted when you were caught cheating... Why not disqualify them immediately? Unless-

Her eyes widened in realization. Of course. They were meant to cheat. This written test was just a way to test their information gathering skills. But how was she going to do that? Sure she could put a genjutsu on the chunin but her neighbors also didn't have the answers.