"Alright. Enough chatter! You will all now draw lots and be assigned random seats, which you will occupy for the duration of the first round of the exam," Ibiki loudly announces, and almost every Genin in the room turns serious.
Everyone immediately forms a line as they quickly start to draw their assigned seat. It takes a few minutes before everyone gets their assigned seating and quickly moves towards their respective seat to start the exam.
Naruto was currently sitting on the table, and at his right side was Keimei, who had her attention focused on the proctor, and to his left side was Yayoi, who was occasionally staring at his face, eyes full of intent.
Naruto, of course, ignores Yayoi like a stranger ignoring the passerby and focuses his attention on the proctor, who seems to enjoy watching almost all Genin being tense.
Yayoi tried her best to focus on the exam, but after finally meeting Naruto once again, she couldn't help but look at him for the umpteenth time.
She tries her best to gather her courage to ask about his situation. Is he alright? Did he find a place to live? Did he eat properly all this time?
Many more questions had been on her mind after Naruto didn't return to their home after they graduated from the academy. She couldn't understand the reason why Naruto decided to leave.
...No, she understands everything; she can't just accept it.
Naruto has always been distant, and that's always been bothering her with the purpose of eliciting a reaction from him or better getting his attention.
This is why she always blames Naruto for the trouble she always makes, but no matter how severe the trouble she causes, Naruto ignores it with his indifferent expression.
In fact, throughout the entire time she observes him, he doesn't even bother defending himself, which only makes her want more to draw out his reaction.
Yet she didn't realize that what she and Menma had been doing all these years didn't provide the results they wished for but instead only alienated Naruto further from their family.
Yayoi tries her best to restore their relationship, but Naruto remains indifferent to her and their parents' efforts.
When trying to spend time together, he will always bring out excuses why he wouldn't join and sometimes doesn't even show himself.
When she felt she had gathered all her courage within her, Yayoi opened her mouth, but no words left it, as someone already decided to speak, and his voice resounded throughout the room.
"The first round of these exams will be a written exam consisting of ten questions," Ibiki said sternly as the Chunin lined up on either side of the room and proceeded to hand out papers to the genin.
"The rules of this exam are as follows: Rule 1: There are ten questions, with each question worth a point. Every question answered incorrectly is a point lost. Rule 2: Every cheating offense will result in a two-point deduction. Once the maximum of ten points has been expended, disqualification is the result. And Rule 3: Any participant found to have scored 0 points, by way of disqualification or otherwise, will fail along with their teammates," Ibiki said, with an uproar being the result.
"Silence!" he orders, to which the genin comply. "You will have one hour to complete the exam. The tenth question will be given verbally 45 minutes into the exam. Your time starts...now!"
Naruto stared at the piece of paper in front of him. His eyes scan the content of the paper, and his eyes flash a glint, and he touches his chin with one of his arms.
'Interesting... The questions in this test are not a Genin-level theory. In fact, even Chunin would struggle to answer some of these questions.
Naruto's eyes then scan the whole room and observe the Genin, Chunin, and proctor. After less than a moment his lip slightly curled upwards.
'I see, so that's the main purpose of this exam, huh?'
It was clear that the purpose behind the test wasn't to perfectly answer the questions. While one might be able to do it if they are knowledgeable, that wasn't the main purpose.
The main purpose was to test the Genins' information gathering and if the Genins can do it stealthily, as they can, especially under the watchful eyes of Chunins.
One might ask if the purpose of the 1st round of the Chunin Exams was to test everyone's information-gathering skills, then how can they gather the answers if they don't know them?
The answer is pretty simple: there are Chunins who disguised themselves as Genin, and they were the ones who had the correct answers for the test and were the main target of the Genin.
Naruto is currently in deep thought. Should he play along with others and come up with a method to gather information from the disguised Chunin or answer the test himself?
While the questions might be hard to answer for other Genins in the room, for Naruto it was completely easy, and stealing a candy from the baby might be slightly harder compared to answering the test.
After thinking for a few moments, Naruto decides to answer the test himself and not bother gathering information from others, as it will only waste his time and energy.
He'd rather answer the test quickly and take a small nap since he hadn't slept for the past 2 days.
After answering the test, Naruto flips the piece of paper before laying his head on the desk and closes his eyes, much to Yayoi's shock, who happens to glance in Naruto's direction.
Keimei slightly raises one of her eyebrows before refocusing her attention back on the task at hand.
While Naruto is taking a nap, Satsuki, on the other hand, is staring intently at Mito, who is a few rows ahead of her.
Satsuki's black eyes were already replaced with the Sharingan as she stared at Mito's hand with great intent, and a small smile appeared on her face.
'You always did spend so much time trying to master your theory. Maybe that's why you were never able to best me' Satsuki muses inwardly.
'...No, that's not it. In any case, you've turned out to be useful on this occasion, Mito Satsuki added inwardly as she effortlessly copied Mito's hand movements, filling her paper with answers.
Meanwhile, Hinata activates her Byakugan, which is perfect for this exam, as she can easily gather the answer to the question from other Genin.
She easily answered the question, and of course, she made sure she copied the correct answer since she didn't want to be the cause of their team failing in this round.
Hinata wasn't the only one who had an easier time, but Neji as well. Since they belong to the same clan, it wasn't a surprise to see the two of them use the same method of gathering information.
Neji saw everything within the room, and the first thing that caught his attention was Naruto for a very simple reason: the flow of chakra within his chakra network flowed too smoothly, unlike others.
In fact, it was the first time he saw it that it made him freeze for a moment before a frown appeared on his face.
'Just who is this person? 'Neji thought inwardly.
He tries to remember if he saw similar things to other people, but so far he couldn't remember anyone having a similar flow of their chakra.
After staring at Naruto for a few moments, Neji decides to focus on the exam but keeps Naruto's abnormality at the back of his mind. This abnormality truly intrigued him, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.
"Team 43: Fail!" yet another Chunin proctor's voice calls out.
"Team 37 failed!" another calls out.
One of the kunai flies closer to Naruto before landing behind him, much to the Genin's surprise, and his surprised expression turns unwilling before he stands up along with his teammates and leaves the room.
Ibiki watches on, his eyes narrowed for a few moments after staring at Naruto, who dares to sleep during the test.
'The guts of this person...' Ibuki thought as a frown appeared on his face, making it scarier than it already was.
Ibiki knows that there is something more to Naruto than at first glance, especially with the rumors floating around after Team 13 completed the A-rank mission.
So far, though, no one really knows if the rumors are true or not, but Ibiki knew that there was some truth to the rumors, and the first thing he noticed about the rumors was the fact that they were connected to Naruto.
This really caught his attention since Naruto was infamous for being the weakest in the rookie Genin.
While he didn't do any investigation of Naruto, seeing him personally, Ibiki started to doubt the information about him being the weakest of his batch.
As a seasoned ninja, his instinct is telling him how incredibly dangerous Naruto is, and this has made him alert, and his body is tensed, ready to make any move at the moment he notices.
'I wonder what surprise you will bring me in this exam, Naruto,' Ibiki thought inwardly, and his smile grew bigger, which slightly scared the nearby Genin to death.