Chapter 113 - Arc 7 - We're Ready Kakashi, The Chunin Exams Start Now! - Quest Galore

(Be aware CH 112 came out shortly before this one, so you may have missed it. If this chapter starts weird for you, go back.)

It seems while researching this arc I screwed up the numbers and massively bloated the amount of people taking the exam. At one point Anko says like 70 passed Ibiki’s test, and I figured less passed because Naruto was less inspiring here. Turns out she meant students, as in only like 20 something teams. As so few people is stupid, I’ve elected to go with my plan.

Screw it, we’re releasing like 200 people into the FoD, it’ll be fun. It fits with my plans better if this is massive and bullshit anyway.

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The kids quickly asked Naruto a freaking interview of all things before disappearing. It seems they needed help with a school project, and she’s a little jealous they didn’t ask her.

Oh well, she has much bigger things to worry about right now. Like that Kabuto bastard standing around to the side not that far away looking smug and standing tall with clean silver hair and a treacherous pretty boy smile. It’s too bad he’s definitely evil, he could be an awesome streamer for her group. His teammates look creepy, both wearing masks and looking somewhat bulky in a way she wouldn’t expect of a bunch of teenage genin attempting to advance.

Meaning his team is one full of grown men, and they all scare her for different reasons. In all the confusion she forgot to report him as a spy, well, it’s more like she forgot she could. The only true avenue available to her would be to barge into the Hokage’s office and shout spy, and she is going to have to forgive herself for not remembering she can do that. The chance someone below the Hokage doesn’t know he’s a plant and might screw everything up if he happens to be a plant for Konoha is just too great.

Even right now, telling Anko is out of the question. In the best case scenario he’s a leaf plant and she knows and all she does is waste a little time, in almost every other scenario someone dies because she spoke up, and given Kabuto’s strength, it’s not him. She’s not exactly subtle so it’s probably her before she even gets the chance to talk.

But far more important than any of that, or even that Gaara is currently hugging her arm - he’s been pushing boundaries a lot and she’d complain if Ino wasn’t hugging her other arm and glaring at him - is the ridiculous amount of quests that are appearing in front of her.

[Quest Alert - The Lost Uzumaki

Description: An Uzumaki is here from Kusagakure, should you accept this quest you will get a tracker that shows their current condition and their location for the duration of the Chunin Exams.

Objective: 1/1 Karin Uzumaki is still alive and within the confines of Konoha at the end of the Exams.

Reward: A New Roommate]

[Quest Alert - Show off in front of Kabuto

Description: Kabuto isn’t something you can handle right now. Luckily, you don’t have to take him down, that’s someone else’s job. Ensure he sees you perform an otherworldly feat, drawing attention towards yourself.

Objective: 0/1 Otherworldly Feat Witnessed by Kabuto

Reward: ???]

[Quest Alert - The Rookie 9 And the Exams

Description: All 9 Rookies are taking the exam. Wouldn’t it be nice if you all made it together? At least some of you should.

Objective: 9/9 Rookies are still alive, 9/9 Rookies are still in the exam and haven’t been disqualified

Reward: +100 Reputation with all Konoha Ninja per Rookie that Passes, -100 Reputation with all Konoha Ninja per Rookie that dies]

[Essential Quest Alert - Avoid A Bad End, FoD

Description: The Forest of Death is a scary place, and there are monsters in there. Some of them look like humans but are actually snakes. Don’t get bitten, don’t let Sasuke get bitten, don’t die.

Objective: 0/3 Team 7 Members reach the Center Alive and 1/1 Sasuke is Unbitten

Reward: A Legendary Technique Scroll, A Legendary Item, Tazuna will win a Bet and bring Wave several hundred million Ryo

Failure Consequence: An Unavoidable Cataclysmic Path Begins and cannot be Undone

This Quest Cannot Be Denied]

She accepts all the quests quickly with a flicker of her eyes. She’s thankful that the system lets her accept the system without her fingers since her hands are taken by the two dummies attached to her like this isn’t a stressful exam! Nine triangles poof into existence instantly. They point down like little arrows above people’s heads, and there’s one for each member of the Rookie nine beside herself as well as someone in the distance. For most of them the floating indicator is green, but there’s one that’s distinctly yellow and her gaze latches onto it like the significant quest marker it is.

Following the arrow to the person below, she takes in a redheaded girl with glasses in a green jacket off to the side with her team. Her eyes are a bright red, and that catches Sakura’s attention more than anything. That shoulder length hair is cute, but Ino would likely complain that it’s too rugged and not cut well enough. She looks a little ragged in a way that Sakura could understand the meaning of through space and time.

That girl passed out standing up. Is she a gamer who forgot to sleep?

[Karin Uzumaki

Title: Kusagakure Genin [Refuge]

Danger Level: Harmless Medic

Narrative: After her mother’s death, Karin Uzumaki took up her job at a Kusagakure hospital. She is currently a noncombatant medical Genin here to support her team, a team that wants nothing to do with her. She hasn’t gotten rest in so long the exhaustion rivals Gaara’s.]

The system is being hamfisted today, which means the forest of death is probably a much bigger deal than she thinks it is. She wasn’t aware this test was going to be a big deal at all, she was expecting it to be over tomorrow or the next day and for everyone to share a laugh. That was dumb, this seems like a huge deal, and that essential quest scares the shit out of her. Deep breaths, Sakura, it’ll be okay. She hasn’t trained for nothing, and it seems even Tazuna believes in her given he’s going to bet a lot of money on her.

It’s right about then that she’s interrupted from her thoughts by the proctor starting to actually explain the exam. “It’s a consent form,” Anko holds in her hands a whole packet of papers, she assumes it’s one for each of them, but it wouldn’t be the first time the ninja program made her sign fifty to sixty things back to back. Joining the Academy was like that, though she thinks that was more to ensure that all applicants can read and write their names consistently. No reason to give someone that can’t sign their name a knife. “Before you can take part in the test you have to sign this.”

For some reason Naruto looks really frazzled over there, did she miss something? His cheek is steaming a little too, what’s up with that? Why does he have a steaming cut?

[Naruto is a little freaked out about a giant tongue]

That’s not particularly helpful.

“Why do we have to sign it?” Naruto asks, and Sakura can’t help but be relieved that Naruto’s not so frazzled he can’t ask stupid questions. She was worried there for a second.

“From this point on people are going to die, I need you to consent to that, or it’ll be my responsibility.” Anko’s smile looks so bright, but Sakura’s system informs her otherwise.

[Anko is a little freaked out about a giant tongue]

Well now she’s a little freaked out about a giant tongue and she didn’t even see it. She clearly missed something big and important and signs point towards it probably being a giant tongue.

In her defense, four quests, one of which promising cataclysmic unavoidable prophecy. Anko laughs with a sweet tone at her own words, but it’s a lie. Her system doesn’t tell her it’s a lie because Anko’s charm is high, she just has to infer that, and she’s happy she can do that pretty easily. Do social deductions like that count as Mind or Charm? Maybe they’re both, is that how she can grind both?

“Well, I’m going to start the explanation for the second exam.” Anko begins, her eyes flashing out at everyone around. “Sixty teams passed the second exam, that means there’s a hundred eighty of you here.” The quests have her a little freaked out, as does the misadventure in her mind this morning, so while there’s too many people to keep track of, she does casually try to sense the crowd while Anko talks. Maybe she can find this freaking giant tongue that messed with her teammate.

Necromancy’s got a lot of small uses like that. She feels her sense of self expand, feels the power of life and death in the area call out to her, and with a deep breath to center herself and an effort to grasp the universe in front of her - she gets absolutely nothing. Unfortunately, there is a tailed beast container hugging her arm, so she’s not even sure there are people here. Maybe if Naruto wasn’t standing right there too… It’s almost like rolling really badly in a game, she’s failing due to no fault of her own and it’s annoying. Dice rolls for important things are not a design she particularly likes, so having the feeling of them smack her in the face in real life is infuriating.

Now that she’s being blocked by him like pollen in a civilian’s sinuses, she can’t help but wonder why the Ichibi is so attached to her. Is that normal? The tailed beasts didn’t come up much in classes, so it’s one of those topics she’s lacking necessary information on. She knows it’s the Ichibi, otherwise known as Shukaku from her earlier scan but what that means is nothing to her. She should look into that before anyone realizes and rightfully calls her a bad friend. What if Gaara finds out she played games instead of researching his burden and doesn’t want anything to do with her?

“In a word, the limits of your survival will be challenged. First, I’ll give you step by step instruction on the terrain of this training field.” Anko holds up a map pretty much the moment a form lands in Sakura’s hand for her to sign. The map has a circle in the middle of it, and shows a river going through the forest.

“Training field number forty four is surrounded by forty four locked entrance gates, there are rivers and a forest and a tower in the middle. It’s about ten kilometers from each gate to the tower. In this confined area, you will go through a certain survival program. The contents of which are, point collection battle.” The special jonin gives a focused brown eyed gaze that manages to get a flicker of emotion out of Sakura despite knowing the intimidation is mostly an act from someone that likes her. She has a hard time even pretending to be really scared though, as she is currently squished between two very affectionate people from other teams.

“In the last test you were given a certain amount of points based on your scores, you were given extra points for the special question, and any points those from your village accrued before leaving because of the special question were also distributed freely. Because the special question was worth ten points, every team has at least thirty points.” She puts away the map in a manilla form fitting jacket, and pulls out a small black ball of all things. “Each point is represented by a ball that’s specially marked in a way only our proctors understand. You will be given the balls to hold onto, and how you distribute them amongst your team is up to you, but you are not allowed under any circumstances to put the balls in a seal. If you do, you will immediately fail the exam.”

So they’re expected to just carry around a ton of small balls? That sounds inconvenient, but being able to carry important items and escort them is probably an important test. It sounds like this is going to involve a lot of counting though, which she’s sure Naruto dreads. Sure enough he catches on a moment later and loudly groans.

“There are sixty teams, you have a hundred twenty hours, and you must arrive at the tower before the end of it with your entire team and thirty points per member. This means if you arrive at the tower with less than ninety balls, your team fails the exam.”

“Sixty teams, ninety points to pass, that’s five thousand four hundred for everyone to pass.” Sakura tallies up quickly. “The maximum number of points a single member could have brought into the exam is twenty, meaning a deficit of ten is added per person. This means one third of all people have to fail, because three times ten is thirty, which is a solid third of the team.” People seem to be focusing on her while she does the math, so she continues loud enough to be heard. “Since the whole team has to pass, that would imply that one third of teams will fail but it’s much worse than that even when you consider the extra balls given out from our villages because certain teams will have balls without passing and still go to the center, and some balls will be lost or destroyed since they can’t be stored for easy access. it can generously be concluded that it is likely only around half of the teams will pass, and that’s assuming no one intentionally starts sabotaging and destroying balls.”

The stares she gets are hyper focused, but - “someone passed the first exam on their own.” She hears someone maybe praise, maybe mock her but she’ll take it as praise either way.

“That sounds like it sucks.” Shikamaru is a very blunt person, “can we give up once we start if we want?”

“No, you’ll be spending all five days in the forest of death.” Anko answers him with a thick, almost sadistic grin, “I want to ensure you can make it the entire time. If you’d like to get out before five days, you have to show up at the tower with ninety points or get grievously injured.”

“Just like I thought…” Shikamaru sighs with crossed arms.

“Moving on, conditions of disqualification.” Anko continues, her gaze narrowing a little as if talking about something annoying. “If you cannot make it to the tower with ninety points or with all three members within the time limit, you will be collected by proctors and removed from the exams. If a team loses a member, or if it is deemed a member will die if they are not removed, a proctor will arrive with a medic-ninja to remove your team from the chunin exams. Third, and lastly, trying to counterfeit point balls or put point balls in sealing scrolls will result in immediate removal from the Konoha chunin exams for a period of three years, as well as a visit to interrogation to ensure your goal was not to mess with the exams. This was in the form you all just signed.”

“We can’t create fake balls even to trick other examinees?” It’s Sasuke of all people who asks.

“As only the proctors know how the balls are marked, there is no way to expect genin to decipher between fakes and real point balls. A test no one can pass is not a good test. No misdirection that requires creating physical point balls will be allowed. Clones and illusions are allowed, as long as you dispel them before you get to the tower.”

This sounds terrible. She’s not looking forward to this at all, how is she supposed to protect nine people? Her team’s is a given but six other rookies and that Karin girl? Worse off, three teams needing to pass means in the worst case scenario she might need to collect up to two hundred seventy point balls. If that happens she could be fighting almost the entire time they’re in there. “Hey Gaara.” She gets his attention, “over there there’s a redhead, you’re not to hurt her. Don’t hurt any of the rookie nine either, they’re the other genin that talked to us before the second exam.”

At least ensuring that Gaara doesn’t kill them should make her life easier. “Everyone else is fine?” Gaara asks her, and reluctantly, she nods.

“Uh, there’s another team too, maybe just don’t kill or permanently cripple anyone from Konoha, or the redhead? Is that too broad?” Ino lets her go just long enough for her to point at Karin, making sure he knows who she’s talking about. Ino seems to memorize the girl’s face, instantly internalizing her as important to Sakura for some reason without even bothering to ask why.

That’s totally too broad, there’s no way his nod of understanding means anything. Still, he gives her one, and that’ll have to do. She’s pretty sure they’ll be going in through different gates, so she’ll just have to trust that he won’t kill her friends.