This year's Chunin Exam written test packed one hundred basic ninja knowledge questions and ten subjective essay prompts.
The difficulty was straight-up brutal—even by past standards.
For a regular genin, even if they knew most of the material cold, finishing the paper would still eat up at least an hour.
But in Shikage's eyes, these questions didn't even need thinking. He read them and the answers were just there.
So when he set his pen down, stood up early, and strolled straight out the door, almost every candidate in the room gaped like they'd been slapped.
—He finished that fast?
—Are we even taking the same damn test?
Feeling all those doubtful, disbelieving stares boring into his back, Shikage just flashed a lazy smile.
Right now he was way more interested in one thing: who was actually going to manage to copy his answers.
His paper wasn't going to be easy to "borrow."
...
The door clicked shut softly behind him.
The exam room dropped back into dead silence.
The candidates who'd been confident in their own knowledge suddenly felt their confidence crack. Breathing turned tense and shallow, sweat prickled on foreheads, and pens trembled in white-knuckled grips.
They started second-guessing every line they'd written.
Meanwhile, the ones who were completely lost had their eyes lighting up like kids who just spotted free candy. Their gazes kept flicking toward the now-empty desk where Shikage had been sitting.
Whether they thought he'd actually written real answers or just scribbled nonsense didn't matter.
A fully completed paper was sitting right there. Hard not to get ideas.
One guy sitting directly behind Shikage's old spot didn't even bother hiding his grin. From his angle, all he had to do was tilt his head a fraction and peek with his peripheral vision to see everything.
Except… there was nothing to see.
The entire answer sheet was covered in pitch-black shadow, like someone had spilled an entire bottle of ink across it.
—?
He rubbed his eyes and looked again.
Still nothing but blurry darkness.
—What the hell is this guy playing at?!
—He didn't write shit! And I thought he was supposed to be a genius!
The candidate behind him grumbled under his breath, clearly pissed.
His obvious frustration caught the proctor's eye. The examiner lifted his gaze and stared coldly.
"Candidate 36, cheating in plain sight."
"You're disqualified."
Candidate 36's eyes bulged. He started to stand up and explain—only to find his mouth locked shut by some invisible force.
At the same time, several cold-faced Konoha shinobi stepped out from the corners, lifted him without a word, and carried him straight out.
The swift, ruthless efficiency scared the hell out of ninety percent of the room.
A few sharper minds, watching the whole thing play out, finally pieced together the real point of this written test.
Cheating.
As long as you used clever, undetectable methods, you could pass.
No wonder the questions were so ridiculously hard.
No wonder someone had finished in record time.
Shikage was the planted "official answer key"!
They'd never expected anyone to actually solve it honestly.
This written test was really testing a shinobi's ninjutsu skill and information-gathering ability.
Once that clicked, the quiet room started to buzz with hidden movement.
Since Shikage was the only one who'd finished so far, almost everyone (except the few who still thought they could solve it themselves) zeroed in on Candidate 35's paper.
And they quickly noticed the problem.
Just like Candidate 36, they realized the entire answer sheet was blanketed by a layer of shadow. No words visible at all.
Unlike Candidate 36, though, they didn't assume he'd just doodled nonsense.
That obscuring shadow was clearly chakra Shikage had deliberately left behind.
All they had to do was break through that blurring barrier and the key to the next round would be theirs.
Shibuki scratched his head and looked away from his own paper. He didn't know a single answer.
The longer he stared, the worse his headache got.
Even though he hated the idea of relying on Shikage, the moment he remembered the guy might be the planted answer key, Shibuki quickly talked himself into it.
He gathered chakra in his palm and formed a small water mirror.
The reflection showed Shikage's desk perfectly.
But the surface only displayed more shadows.
—Nara Shikage, you bastard!
—They already set you up as the answer key and you're still screwing with us!
Shibuki snorted in annoyance, puffed out his chest, and suddenly spat out a thin water needle.
The needle was razor-fine, glinting faintly in the air.
It didn't look powerful, but Shibuki had total faith in his clan's secret Takigakure style.
Yet the water needle sank into the shadow like a drop in the ocean—zero ripple.
At first he thought he'd just missed.
After repeated attempts all failed the same way, he finally realized the seemingly thin shadow film was actually rock-solid.
With his current skill level, there was no chance he could break through without the proctors noticing.
Once he accepted that, Shibuki's face flushed red, then darkened with frustration, shock, disbelief, and pure defeat.
Watching Shibuki keep hitting a wall, Daimaru from Sunagakure let out a cold snort of disdain.
—Some little Takigakure punk. That's all he's got.
Hiding his hands under the desk, Daimaru quickly formed seals and whispered:
"Earth Style: Sand Dance."
Dust from the exam-room floor rose gently, drifting toward Shikage's paper.
His plan was clever—guide the grains into the grooves of the writing and read the answers through the pattern they formed.
Great idea in theory.
In practice, though, he discovered an invisible barrier on the paper that repelled every single grain.
No matter how precisely he controlled them, the particles veered off at the last instant.
The more he failed, the angrier he got.
And the angrier he got, the harder he tried.
"There's no way a measly Nara Shikage can stop Lord Daimaru!"
He refused to believe he couldn't crack one guy's test paper.
After countless attempts, he finally figured it out.
No matter how tough the shadow chakra was, without its owner actively maintaining it, the amount was finite.
All they had to do was wear it down completely and the answers would reveal themselves.
Daimaru's method clued everyone else in too.
What followed was a scene the Konoha proctors had never witnessed.
Eighty percent of the entire exam room was now secretly working together to "attack" one empty desk.
Maki glanced up at the bizarre sight, silently acknowledging how strong Shikage was, then lowered her head and kept working on her own paper.
—Konoha really is full of hidden tigers and crouching dragons.
Kabuto observed everything from the shadows, patiently waiting for the exact moment Shikage's residual chakra would finally run dry.
—A smart hunter only strikes at the most critical moment.
Natsu Hyūga and Hana Inuzuka were feeling something far more complicated.
Because they had just noticed their own draft papers were already completely filled with perfect answers.
They couldn't even remember when the solutions had appeared.
One moment they were struggling, the next… everything was just there.
If they wanted to, they could turn in perfect scores right now.
The two girls exchanged a quick glance, and both saw the same thought reflected in each other's eyes.
—Shikage has become even more outstanding than he was back at the Academy…