Chapter 109 - Arc 7 - We're Ready Kakashi, The Chunin Exams Start Now! - Is this a plot? Why wasn't she informed!?

I tried writing this chapter with a bit more of a confident tone.
I think I've fallen too hard into using Sakura's rambly headspace and while I do think it has a cool effect, I would very much like to practice a more active movement. You can expect less monologue as we get deeper into the arc, and hopefully a more vivid idea of what's going on as well. I have a lot planned and would like to improve as a writer while I do it.

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Seated around absolutely no one of importance, - well not important to her, she’s sure their teams find them important - Sakura can’t help but notice a lot of small details about the room. The seats they were assigned couldn’t have been truly random for a lot of reasons. First of all, she’s near absolutely no one she knows, but Ino has a direct line of sight to her. One would think given how far away they are that at least one person would be tall enough to obstruct the view, but it’s perfect.

Naruto’s next to Hinata, someone who is guaranteed to help him so she doesn’t have to do anything, and Gaara’s placed on the exact opposite side of the room from her as if they were worried he’d disrupt everything if he got to bask in her glory. Even ignoring all of that, she can’t help but notice that almost every proctor has a direct line of sight to her, shorter people are placed strategically so they can see her. In fact, almost every short person in the entire room is used in some kind of design seemingly intentionally to ensure they can see her and Ino can too. Another ninja might shrug it off as coincidence, but she hasn’t spent most of her life playing games and sticking her face in a book to miss an obvious mathematical absurdity.

Either this is super rigged, or a setup so specific that if they picked seats again every second for the rest of her life, they wouldn’t come even close to anything similar. Merely knowing basic math makes her shake her head. Every instinct as a ninja tells her she’s a part in a cog of expectation, likely meant to ensure that all the rookie teams from Konoha pass. The reality is that if all nine of them pass, Konoha will look amazing, and she has the power to ensure that with this basic setup. Even if it is somehow pure randomness, as a loyal Konoha ninja she can’t pass this up. That she’s near no one means that no one can claim it was rigged even while they’re clearly rigging it around her, and having so many proctor eyes on her actually makes it look like it’s rigged against her, which works well for the village’s ability to deny they did anything at all.

For once it’s actually not her powers that are causing the absurdity, the Hokage is recognizing her test scores. He really meant it when he called her a scholarly genius. She could make a valid argument that her ability to analyze, deduce, and come up with answers from a variety of questions is second to no one she’s ever faced off against. With her abilities they don’t need to cheat off of anyone, or figure out anything crazy, all they need to do is ensure someone can transmit her genuine answers. Well, that’s her going theory, the other is that they’re worried she’s going to cause an incident in the middle of a written test, but that’s crazy. Past that, it’s possible that Ibiki might be genuinely mad at her for something, and is being mean.

"There are several important rules to this first test." The man in question prods the chalkboard with his white chalk, leaving a thick mark in his wake. "I will take no questions so listen well accordingly!" He's so damn dramatic… "The written test has ten problems, and every problem is worth one point. You can consider the amount of questions you can correctly answer as a pool of points you are allowed. Inversely, every question you attempt but get wrong is deducted from your score, meaning if you try every question and only get half of them right, you will finish with zero points. If you only try four and get every question right, you will have four points." That's different from what she would expect, but has her brain whirling in thought.

For starters, it means you should only try a question if you’re sure of it, or desperate. “The pass or fail will be calculated using the total of the three person team, and everyone who is caught cheating will immediately have two points deducted for each act. This means some may be deducted from the test without even being graded. This means they were caught cheating enough that the team score could not reach passing. Knowing that, those that get caught cheating will bring ruin to not just themselves, but their team. If you desire to become a Chunin, you should know that you should act like an exemplary ninja, and not bring down your allies.”

His glare turns hard on them, and his eyes are shadowed by the tilt of his head, “everyone will fail on your team if your score is zero points, this means that no matter how well your teammates do, if you fail completely you will ruin their chances. The Ninja world has no room for dead weights, if you cannot complete a basic test you will get them killed. They should find a new teammate before the next exam.”

“The test is an hour, and an additional question will be given in forty five minutes, begin!” Sakura’s brain begins racing as fast as possible, there’s a lot of rules given here and she needs to parse them all quickly, not just for their surface meaning but for the underneath.

Splitting them into three parts is easy. First, they need a certain amount of points to pass as a team and haven’t been given what that amount is. They should only try questions they are certain they can pass, which does mean she needs to to take a good look at the questions and - these are easy. Okay, good, that’s one problem solved. Sasuke should get a pretty okay score, and she’ll get full marks.

Second is that trying questions may reduce the score. Naruto won’t try unless Hinata helps, so she’ll keep an eye on him to see if she does, if she doesn’t she might have a plan. If she catches him trying without help though, she’ll go down there to knock him senseless. It’ll only be two points and she can sneak in a cheat while she’s at it so it won’t be worthless. Cheating from the wrong person not only costs two points for the cheat, but will also pretty much guarantee you fail due to the point loss for a wrong answer so you need to get all your answers from the right person in one go…

The third variable is that cheating costs two points, this means she’s expected to cheat and get caught. Getting away with it is free but she can work around that, the value of the trade is all that matters to her, she’s not going to try and work around the rules like an idiot. The purpose of making you lose points is simply to scare the shit out of you, no one reasonable is really going to fail due to such a small penalty but adding tension to a ninja test makes a lot of sense. No one who can’t hold up to pressure should have the opportunity to become a Chunin.

The average score required for any success in most tests is between sixty to seventy percent, even assuming they’re being strict because of the importance here, they probably only need twenty five. If she’s being generous and each team member is allowed one cheat, twenty four. If they’re actively trying to allow a lot of people to pass, and are just wondering who’ll crack under pressure, fifteen. Then there’s the possibility that they’ve already been given the answer. You cannot pass if one of your teammates has a score of zero, it might just be that simple, two people with perfect scores and one with zero is twenty, meaning you need twenty one points to pass. Twenty one is plenty generous, it’s not even an absurd rule, it just appears scary because of the way it’s presented to them. Ibiki is a scary man when he puts his mind to it.

The alternative to setting up a cheat trade to lose two points for all the other answers is to set up something that won’t get caught and allows for rigorous verification to avoid losing points from bad answers. The thing is, with so many proctors around you either need to recognize that you’re going to get caught, or have something truly astounding going on. She’s just not that dumb, and she lacks good skills for this so she’s not even going to try.

She knows Sasuke will not try anything he can’t answer, so the worst case scenario is that they do need twenty one, Hinata doesn’t help Naruto, and Naruto scores zero. Which means she can’t actually trust Hinata to help him and will need to keep a good observation of them. Damn-it! That would have been so nice! And cool for them, what better time to get close to him and make a friend for her? She feels a niggling sense of falling in her head, and unlike a Genjutsu she’s detected, her brain actively wants to let the mental effect in. Which means-

She’s suddenly looking at an entirely different paper. Sakura nods to herself. Through practice, Ino and her have developed a variation of the mind-transfer jutsu. It’s not perfect, but Ino realized with just how readily her brain gives her access that she could remove all the offensive power of the jutsu and create a version that uses way less chakra specifically for use on Sakura. From there, getting rid of the safety restrictions and turning it into a genuine swap was actually pretty easy. It turns out Yamanaka skills are actually incredibly flexible, and Ino’s probably a genius on her own.

It only took two real sessions of attempts before they could do it with only a headache after, which was a huge win. So here she is, staring at Ino’s test. A hint of annoyance comes over her at how quick this was. Ino couldn’t have waited until she finished her own test? Really? She gets to work immediately, filling out Ino’s answers. It’s not hard, and her bestie clearly trusts her so… She gets to work.

Scribbling quickly, she finds Ino’s team looks at her in confusion, and she gives them a cute wink. The proctor’s should ignore it, she’s not making a code or anything, and hey maybe they’ll get confused. She finds she’s giggling to herself as she finishes. Now back to her body… Any moment now. Anyyyy time now… Ino?

Okay, uh… that’s an issue. A look over at her own body reveals that Ino’s boredly looking at the clock. She’s probably waiting for some sign but impatience is her own undoing, which means she has to figure out a way to get her attention and swap back. She also can’t help but notice that Naruto isn’t doing anything down there, meaning Hinata is in fact, sucking at this.

Tick, tick, tick-

“Uhh…” Screw it. After another five minutes she stands up with the test and walks over- not to Ino. No, if she’s getting in trouble in Ino’s body, she’s making it count. Ino can accept eight points instead of ten to help team seven when Sakura’s doing her whole damn test. She watches her own body give her a confused look as she walks past her, waving with a devious grin using Ino’s features. It feels easier in her body, is there an actual muscle change from facial expressions? That’s not fair, was she muscularly predisposed to wear a resting bitch face?

She keeps walking down the steps with everyone watching, all the way to Naruto’s table. She can see a hundred looks at her, but the only one that matters is at the front. She shoots Ibiki a thumbs up and the man seems to very quickly contextualize, before she takes Naruto’s test right off his table, places Ino’s test, pats Hinata’s confused head as she passes and walks all the way back to her desk.

Ino doesn’t look very happy with her, but it’s her own damn fault. She sticks her tongue out as she gets back to filling out this new test. Pay attention next time bestie! At least she’s ensured Naruto has passed, which is really the only variable she couldn’t account for. Don’t worry Mr. Hokage, every one of them will pass, next time just tell her the assignment okay?