Konoha had several gaming houses, though not casino-type ones—rather, establishments where people could go to play shogi, Go, and similar games.
Shikaku, the head of the Nara clan, liked to use the Transformation Technique to visit these places and look for people to play with when he was bored, since players tended to avoid him due to his reputation as an intellectual.
What was curious was that today, while the first stage of the Chunin Exams was being held in the village, he came across someone who—if he was not mistaken—was Kumo's main representative, playing a few rounds of shogi.
Chad, Kumo's Dodomeki.
Wasn't he worried about his genin?
He was even drinking while playing!
Coincidentally, his match ended with his opponent's defeat, and Chad looked around, searching for a new rival. Shikaku took the still-warm seat, intending to play and observe him up close.
"If you want to play, you should at least drop the transformation," Chad commented with a yawn. "What you're doing is bad manners."
Shikaku's eye twitched. He was a jōnin and hadn't even opened his mouth yet, but the other party had already noticed his disguise. Still, it was clear that pretending otherwise would only expose him further.
Pufff!
"Oh, so it's the Nara patriarch," Chad simply nodded, admitting that he recognized him. "How curious. I thought you'd be paying attention to the Chunin Exams instead of coming to places like this."
They both arranged the pieces on the board, and with a gesture of his hand, Chad ceded the first move to Shikaku.
"I was about to say the same to you," Shikaku said as he moved the first piece. "Aren't you worried that your students or the genin from your village might run into trouble?"
As for paying attention to the exam, Shikaku wasn't worried. This was Konoha, and jōnin were closely supervising the examinees. His son wouldn't be in danger during the written test.
"If genin can't even pass such a simple first stage, it's better for them to go back and prepare for another year," Chad said, moving his own piece.
"You don't include your students in that?" Shikaku noticed the omission and pointed it out as he made another move.
"They'll pass." Chad took a long drink from the small barrel beside him, which gave off a sweet aroma Shikaku didn't recognize.
He glanced at the board for a moment and made his own move.
"You're very confident," Shikaku said, furrowing his brow as the match progressed. He hadn't expected someone from Kumo—known more for muscles than minds—to have such a sharp intellect.
What bothered him most was that, aside from general information and public reputation, the village knew very little about Chad's true capabilities.
He knew for a fact that Koharu Utatane's efforts—the current head of the village's Medical Department—to obtain and assimilate Kumo's medical advances brought by this man had been largely fruitless.
He still remembered the shouting in the Hokage's office.
They only obtained partial or false information, while many spies sent to Kumo for that purpose never returned. Even when posing as patients, the details gleaned from observing the hospital were scarce and superficial, with no access to the most critical areas.
"They're my students. If I don't trust them and what I've taught them, then what's the point of being a teacher?" Chad moved another piece in an apparently casual manner, causing sweat to form on Shikaku's forehead as he focused intently on the board.
"Trust is good, but too much of it is called arrogance," Shikaku said, placing a piece hesitantly. The current movement combinations were becoming troublesome.
Still, he was confident that in eight more moves, he could win.
"Only people who are capable enough can afford to be arrogant." Chad drank again from his sweet anise liquor and, without even looking at the board, advanced a piece a single square with his finger. "Oh. Looks like I won."
Shikaku stared at the board in disbelief, his mind replaying the last few moves.
"You should practice more. You're using strategies from thirty years ago—they're far too predictable," Chad said as he glanced at the clock on the opposite wall and stood up, stretching his muscles and cracking his bones. "Well, the first part is already over. I'll go take a look at the second stage. Which way is the Forest of Death?"
Shikaku pointed east without taking his eyes off the board.
"Thanks." Chad waved goodbye as he left.
Only after he was gone did Shikaku come back to himself and rub his forehead.
"He doesn't know where the Forest of Death is? How funny! I wouldn't be surprised if he had a complete map of the village in his head," he muttered, shaking his head. "For Kumo to have produced someone like that… it's troublesome."
Shikaku didn't even need to think to understand why Chad ignored the first test but not the second. While the written exam was basically a way to test mentality, the scroll-stealing phase in the Forest of Death lasted three days, and death was a recurring occurrence.
As someone from another village, it was normal for him to be wary of that part—especially since bodies sometimes "mysteriously" disappeared.
"I did well placing our brats at a quieter entrance," he thought, sighing in relief at his foresight.
Whether it was Suna or Kumo, they were all grouped on the opposite side of the gates, while the weaker teams were placed near Konoha's genin.
After all, if Konoha's genin failed, it wasn't a problem—but they definitely didn't want them to die.
"Should I go check on things?" he asked himself. "I wanted to spend some quality time with Yoshino, but she's far too nervous about the exam."
If he didn't keep his wife up to date on the exam and on how Shikamaru was doing, he would definitely end up sleeping on the couch.
…
Isaribi and Guren walked calmly toward the Forest of Death, following Anko, while Ororomoi trailed behind them in embarrassed silence—they had almost failed the tenth question because of him!
Only after leaving did he realize that Konoha had no authority to ban him from taking the Chunin Exams forever. After all, he was a ninja from Kumo!
If it weren't for Isaribi, Guren would have beaten him mercilessly for falling into such an obvious trap… and he wouldn't even have been able to complain. He knew his role was to support the squad; as long as he didn't cause trouble, that was enough.
But he had almost done exactly that!
Fortunately, after Anko's explanation, Ororomoi sighed in relief. Under the stated conditions, Guren could vent her anger on other teams, and he would be spared.
For now.
Once inside the forest, Ororomoi remained silent as he followed his teammates, but he noticed their behavior was strange. They weren't searching for traps, nor for traces of other teams to obtain scrolls—they were simply moving as fast as he could keep up toward the central tower.
"Shouldn't we be looking for an Earth Scroll?" he couldn't help asking after an hour of running through the trees. "We won't pass if we don't have the complement to our Heaven Scroll."
"We already have them." Isaribi reached into her chest and pulled out two scrolls, each marked respectively with "Heaven" and "Earth."
Ororomoi unconsciously reached into his tool pouch—the Heaven Scroll they had received and that he had been guarding was still there!
"Sensei somehow knew what the follow-up test in the forest would be. He found where they were keeping the scrolls they handed out earlier, made identical copies, and swapped them using a clone," Isaribi explained with a laugh as she put the real scrolls away again. "Yours or the others', almost everyone has fake scrolls with blank interiors."
Ororomoi raised both eyebrows in surprise.
"Everyone?" he asked, bewildered. "What about our teammates from Kumo?"
"If only Kumo passed the stage, the culprit would be far too obvious, so they have fakes too—though they were warned and ordered to prioritize survival," Guren replied without stopping. "Sensei only left a very small number of real ones, and they're all Earth Scrolls!"
And without a matching pair, the test couldn't be cleared…
Moreover, teams couldn't look inside the scrolls without being disqualified. By the time they reached the tower, it would already be too late to do anything.
"What if they ask where we got our scrolls?"
"We say we found them on the ground next to a pool of blood shortly after entering. We don't know anything else," Guren said mockingly. "As far as we're concerned, someone spread and mixed fake scrolls among the real ones and burned a bunch of Heaven Scrolls to reduce the number of teams passing this test. We just got lucky!"
Ororomoi's eye twitched uncontrollably.
Wasn't the plan a bit too blatant?
There were still many teams left—if only a single team passed the second test…
Anyone would see that something had gone wrong!
But no matter the situation, Konoha would be blamed for not being skilled enough to prevent it, so it was fine.
"Oh, that reminds me… before entering the tower, we need to 'fix ourselves up' a bit." Guren looked at Ororomoi with a smile that made his hair stand on end. "So, do you prefer a broken arm or a broken leg?"
Ororomoi turned pale at her words.
"Wouldn't some scratches and stains be enough?!"
"There will be jōnin acting as judges, so we need to put on a good show~" Isaribi reminded him. "Don't worry—sensei will heal you in no time once we reach the tower! And we have experience breaking bones; I assure you it'll be a clean fracture."
Ororomoi suddenly felt that joining this squad—even if only temporarily for the exam—was no longer such a great honor!
He didn't even dare ask why they had so much experience in such a specific skill…
"Can I at least take a painkiller first?" he asked quietly, resigning himself to his fate.
Just because he was a ninja didn't mean he was immune to pain.
"Of course—in fact, that's even better!" Isaribi clapped, nodding at how committed Ororomoi was to the act. "Unconscious, fractured, and drugged—it's perfect!"
"Wait, what did you just—?"
BAM!
Ororomoi nearly smashed into the ground from high up in the branches if it hadn't been for Isaribi catching him at the last second.
"Guren!" Isaribi scolded her. "You were supposed to do it on the ground and near the tower! Near it!"
"Ah, right…" Guren realized she'd jumped the gun, but she simply couldn't help it—she was still pissed at Ororomoi for almost costing them the first test.
"Well, you knocked him out, so I'll break the bone and you carry him."
"Why do you get to do the fun part?!"
"I'm not the one who knocked him unconscious too early."
"...Damn it." Guren couldn't deny that.
Her only consolation was that since Ororomoi was only twelve years old and fairly skinny by Kumo standards, he barely weighed anything.
That made the five-hour journey much more bearable.