(1st of July, year 55 AK)
Yuta's group walked past the crowd and walked to the stairs leading to the higher floors. They are supposed to submit their application forms, that Shisui gave them a couple days before, to the cabinet on the third floor of the Academy.
As they were walking up the stairs, Yuta's eyes suddenly widened a bit, and the next instant his expression returned to normal, as he thought, 'A genjutsu, huh... Now that I think about it, I remember something like that from the original story, although I didn't think they would reuse same tricks over and over for multiple years like that...'
Yuta naturally easily noticed a genjutsu that was being cast over the area through the tiny inconsistencies on details of what he sees, and the next instant he was already easily looking through it.
It was just a simple illusion, one of those that is being cast over the object or an area to fool the perception of people walking through it. It was mainly used to make people stumble and walk in circles, similar to Yuta's Sly Mind genjutsu that Shisui had taught him a long time ago, low-level genjutsu that Yuta instantly dismissed from his mind as something insignificant. In his understanding only totally incompetent Genins could be possibly fooled by something of this level.
Yuta didn't even say anything and didn't even check on his teammates, Itachi and Hikari, since he didn't think even for a second that one of them could be fooled by something like that, not even Hikari. Yuta would've been seriously pissed and would've gladly put Hikari through hell with his genjutsu if she were to allow herself to be caught in something this low-level just to teach her a lesson, or so he thought.
And it turns out that they indeed weren't fooled, as all three of them without missing a bit, walked past the second-floor entrance that was disguised by a genjutsu as the third floor, Yuta heard some commotion from there but didn't paid it any mind as he and his teammates walked up the stairs to the real third floor.
'Sigh, judging by the sound coming from the second floor, there were quite a number of "ninjas" who were being caught in this genjutsu...' Yuta thought in bewilderment.
'They used something like that in the original story too, but wasn't Neji Hyuga was also there in the scene? Did he also get caught in something like that? No, most likely he and his squad just walked in there to check what it was all about...'
Yuta couldn't believe even for a second that Neji, who had the Byakugan and a deemed genius of his generation at that point, would be so easily caught in a genjutsu of this level.
Yuta's group soon arrived at the particular room's entrance on the third floor and entered it. It was a spacious classroom that had wide desks with seats, designed for up to two hundred people at once. There were close to a hundred ninjas already there as Yuta entered.
'So far everything goes as I remember from the original story. They don't have any creativity at all, reusing the same exam procedure over and over...' Yuta thought. Then he glanced back at the countless cold eyes in the room that was looking down at Yuta and his group with contempt. The youngest person there seem to be older than Yuta by at least six years. Not that Yuta paid any mind to those glares.
"Seems we are a bit early." Yuta commented as they walked into the room and occupied a desk in the corner and waited, ignoring the cold stares.
Shortly after, more and more people started coming in. Yuta observed everyone calmly and assessed everyone's chakra with his chakra senses, the result was about just what he expected.
The people that gathered here had their chakra mostly in the range from 8G to 15G, with rare exceptions that had more chakra than that, but even they didn't have more than 25G.
'Seems that there is no one special this time...' Yuta concluded as the group of Kohoha's formally dressed ninjas suddenly came in, they looked quite intimidating, 'This must be our examiners.' Yuta thought.
"I'm Yosuke Yamanaka, the proctor of the first phase of the Chunin Exams." The middle-aged man with blond hair said in a harsh and no-bullshit tone as he walked to the front of the room. The rest of the ninjas that came with him, about ten of them, walked to the side of the room where a set of chairs stood without any desks, facing the center of the room.
'No Ibiki then, figures, he should be around fifteen right now.' Yuta thought.
"Hand over your application forms and receive the number that indicates where you will be seating." Yosuke said and the people in the room formed a line to do just that, there was about one hundred fifty participants in the room.
After a minute or two everyone is already seating at their designated places.
Yuta looked at his number, it was 33, he looked around, he was in the middle of the classroom, Itachi was on his far left and slightly further in front, and Hikari was far behind him.
'I wonder how this will go. I'm a bit excited, after all, who wouldn't, it's a Chunin Exam, it's almost like I've stepped into the original story and it came alive... Oh, wait... What am I even thinking? I was already inside the story for many years by now...' Yuta was casually thinking about nothing of importance while waiting for the exam to start.
Yosuke looked over the room and continued, "This is a written test. You have to answer ten questions." He said as someone distributed the sheets to the participants, "Each question worth one point. If someone scores zero, he is disqualified along with his whole squad. You participate as teams, whether your team passes or not will depend on a total score of all team members. And one more thing, these experienced ninjas..." He gestured to the side where a dozen Konoha's ninjas were seating on the chairs that are facing the center of the room, "... are here to watch you closely, if you were caught cheating, your score will be deducted by two points, if you caught five times, you are disqualified. You have one hour to answer the questions. Time starts now."
'Hm, this is different from what I remember, it's like a simplified version of the original exam. Well, there is no Ibiki, so it's understandable that there is no special tenth question...' Yuta thought as he looked down and started reading the questions on the sheet of paper on the desk in front of him.
Someone in the room raised their hand and asked hastily, "Wait a minute, why are we being tested as teams? This is not fair! that means that if even one of my team members scores zero or is being caught cheating then I'm out as well?"
"Silence!" Yosuke said loudly, "I'm not answering questions!"
The person who asked the question hurriedly lowered his hand and didn't say anything else.
'Interesting...' Yuta thought as he read one question after another, 'Deciphering encoded messages, solving advanced mathematical problems, these questions are two levels above anything that was taught in the Academy... I will probably be able to calculate the answers for the two or three of them in the one hour's time, and that is only if I understood the questions correctly...'
...
'Well, I expected something like that.' Yuta thought with a sigh, 'There are a couple ways how I could handle this test. One is through time-traveling and preparing the answers in advance, I should be able to solve all ten questions if I'll have a couple more hours to calculate the results and to browse some books in the Academy's library. But that is boring.'
'I could also try my best and solve the few questions I could, I might even use my mindscape with how the time flows differently inside of it to, but where is fun in that? The entire point of this exam is not about academical knowledge to begin with...' Yuta thought with a slight smile as he started to carefully observe his surroundings to figure out who has the answers.
During the next five minutes Yuta noticed seven people in the classroom who were actively writing something in their sheets, Itachi was one of them.
'Well, I just could communicate with Itachi through a genjutsu, he wouldn't mind me copying his answers... No, this would be way too easy...' Yuta thought as he switched his attention to the other six people with answers.
Normally Yuta would've done just that without putting much thought into it, but today he felt a bit excited about the whole Chunin Exam thing, so he wanted to have some fun and to solve the test by himself.
'Let me think here, how could I cheat and get access to their answers... The obvious way for me is to use genjutsu. In the original story everyone was using all sorts of jutsus to cheat, and there were no punishments, so it should be fine to target someone here with a genjutsu, I suppose...' Yuta thought as he was observing the six people with answers that he had chosen as his potential targets, as his mouth unintentionally curved in a slight and a bit sinister smile...
--- AN ---
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