The written examination was, objectively speaking, trivially easy.
Naruto sat at his assigned desk, pencil moving across the paper with mechanical precision, filling in answers without any need for contemplation. The questions covered advanced topics—cryptography, tactical analysis, intelligence gathering theory, chakra physics—subjects that most genin would never have encountered in standard Academy curriculum.
But Naruto was not a standard Academy student.
During the years of abuse, when sleep had abandoned him and the nights stretched endlessly, he had filled the empty hours with study. Books borrowed from the library before they learned to refuse him. Scrolls stolen from training grounds when no one was watching. Anything that might make him stronger, smarter, more capable of surviving in a world that wanted him dead.
He had memorized treatises on military strategy written by the Second Hokage. Had absorbed textbooks on chakra theory that were meant for advanced chuunin. Had studied cryptographic methods, interrogation techniques, poison identification, medical fundamentals—anything and everything that might prove useful.
The examination before him was drawing from all of these subjects.
And he knew every answer.
Question One: Decode the following cipher and identify the tactical implications of the message.
Child's play. The cipher was a basic substitution variant, the message revealing an ambush pattern. Naruto wrote out both the decoded text and a three-point analysis of the tactical response in under a minute.
Question Two: A team is pinned down by enemy forces with superior numbers. Calculate the optimal retreat vector given the following terrain parameters.
Simple geometry combined with basic tactical doctrine. The answer required integrating elevation data, sight lines, and chakra expenditure calculations. Naruto completed it in ninety seconds.
Question Three through Nine followed similar patterns—increasingly complex problems that required knowledge most genin simply didn't possess. Naruto answered each one with the same mechanical efficiency, his pencil never hesitating, his expression never changing.
As he worked, he observed the room with peripheral awareness.
The examination's true purpose was obvious—the questions were designed to be nearly impossible without cheating. The proctors stationed throughout the room were clearly meant to catch those who gathered intelligence clumsily. The entire exercise was a test of information acquisition under pressure.
Most teams had figured this out. He could see the subtle signs of cheating throughout the room—Hinata's Byakugan barely visible behind her bangs, Satsuki's Sharingan spinning lazily, Ino's consciousness briefly departing her body to possess other examinees.
But some hadn't been subtle enough.
"Team 23, you're disqualified! Take your pathetic excuse for espionage and get out!"
"Team 47, caught! All three of you, out!"
"Team 15—did you really think we wouldn't notice hand signals that obvious? Disqualified!"
The proctor's voice—Morino Ibiki, the scarred head of Torture and Interrogation—rang out periodically as teams were eliminated. Each announcement was accompanied by the shuffle of defeated genin leaving the room, their exam dreams ended by carelessness.
Naruto found their failure mildly contemptible.
Not because cheating was wrong—it was clearly the intended solution for most participants. But because getting caught was inexcusable. They were supposed to be ninja. Stealth and deception were fundamental skills. If they couldn't gather intelligence without detection in a controlled environment, they would die the moment they faced real opposition.
He finished the ninth question in just under twenty minutes, then set his pencil down and waited.
The examination continued for three hours.
Naruto spent most of that time in still observation, watching teams rise and fall around him. He noted which intelligence-gathering methods proved effective (sensory techniques, insect-based reconnaissance, mirror-clone coordination) and which led to elimination (obvious physical movement, unmasked doujutsu use, overly frequent glances at neighbors).
He also monitored his six devoted followers.
Sakura had answered most questions through pure knowledge—her academic excellence serving her well. What she couldn't answer, she had apparently obtained through carefully timed bathroom breaks that allowed her to "accidentally" glimpse other papers.
Satsuki's Sharingan made the entire exercise trivial. She had simply copied the movements of a skilled examinee several rows ahead, reproducing their answers with perfect accuracy.
Ino had used her clan's mind-transfer technique sparingly, possessing examinees only long enough to extract key information before returning to her own body. Her movements were smooth, practiced—clearly she had anticipated this type of challenge.
Hinata's Byakugan allowed her to see through walls, bodies, and paper alike. She had completed her exam within the first hour and spent the remaining time watching Naruto with that familiar devoted intensity.
Tenten had employed a mirror system—tiny reflective surfaces positioned on her weapons that allowed her to see papers at oblique angles. Crude but effective.
Temari had used wind manipulation to create subtle currents that shifted papers into readable positions. Her technique was refined enough that the proctors never noticed.
All six had passed.
All six had their eyes fixed on him whenever they thought he wasn't looking.
When the three hours finally elapsed, Ibiki called for pencils down and began collecting papers. His scarred face remained impassive as he moved through the room, but Naruto noticed the way his eyes lingered on certain examinees—those he had identified as particularly skilled or particularly suspicious.
When he reached Naruto's desk, he paused.
"Uzumaki."
"Yes."
Ibiki picked up Naruto's paper, his eyes scanning the answers with professional speed. His expression, usually so carefully controlled, flickered with something approaching surprise.
"You answered every question."
"Yes."
"Correctly."
"I assume so."
Ibiki's scarred face studied him with renewed intensity. "In the entire history of these examinations, only two people have ever achieved a perfect score on this test. Uchiha Itachi and Namikaze Minato."
The room, which had been filling with anxious murmurs, went suddenly quiet. Every eye turned toward Naruto.
"Both of them went on to become legends," Ibiki continued. "Itachi was a prodigy who graduated the Academy at seven and achieved ANBU captain at thirteen. Minato became the Fourth Hokage and is considered the greatest ninja Konoha has ever produced."
He set Naruto's paper down with deliberate care.
"And you've just matched their scores. As a first-time genin."
Naruto observed the proctor's reaction without any particular feeling about it. "The questions were straightforward if you had studied the relevant material."
"Material that isn't taught in the Academy. Material that most chuunin don't know." Ibiki's voice carried a new note—something between suspicion and respect. "Where did you learn this?"
"Books. Scrolls. Whatever I could find during the years I spent alone." Naruto's flat voice carried no pride, no boasting. Just statement of fact. "Sleep was difficult. Study filled the hours."
Something shifted in Ibiki's expression—a flash of understanding, perhaps, or recognition of what Naruto was implying without saying directly. The head of Torture and Interrogation was well aware of how the village had treated its jinchuuriki.
"I see." He moved on without further comment, but Naruto noted the way his posture had changed—a subtle increase in respect, or at least acknowledgment.
The tenth question was announced.
Ibiki explained the rules with theatrical gravity—accept the question and risk permanent genin status if you failed, or withdraw and try again next year with your team intact. The psychological pressure was obvious, designed to eliminate those who lacked conviction.
Teams dropped out. Nervous genin raised their hands and fled, unwilling to risk eternal failure for themselves or their teammates.
Naruto didn't move.
He didn't care about permanent genin status. Didn't care about the risks. Didn't care about anything beyond the simple fact that withdrawal required more effort than remaining seated.
When it was over—when Ibiki revealed that accepting the question was the test itself—Naruto felt nothing about the revelation. It was consistent with the examination's theme of testing conviction under pressure. Predictable, in retrospect.
Seventy-eight genin remained.
Twenty-six teams.
The room had settled into a tense quiet, waiting for whatever came next, when the windows exploded inward.
Glass shattered across the examination room as a figure burst through, trailing a massive banner that unfurled to display bold lettering:
"THE SEXY AND SINGLE SECOND EXAMINER—MITARASHI ANKO!"
The woman who landed at the front of the room was... not what anyone expected.
Naruto's analytical mind processed her appearance with the same clinical detachment he applied to everything, but even his empty cognition stuttered slightly at what he observed.
Mitarashi Anko was transformed.
He recognized her from intelligence files—Orochimaru's former student, special jonin, proctor for the second phase of the Chuunin Exams. The files had described a fit, attractive woman in her mid-twenties with purple hair and a penchant for provocative behavior.
The woman before him exceeded that description by several orders of magnitude.
Her figure was... immense. Her chest rivaled the legendary proportions attributed to Tsunade of the Sannin—massive, gravity-defying, barely contained by a mesh bodysuit that seemed to strain against forces physics couldn't explain. Her tan trench coat hung open, doing nothing to conceal curves that made even Tenten's exaggerated dimensions seem modest.
Her waist was impossibly narrow. Her hips flared dramatically. Her legs went on forever beneath an already short skirt that had apparently been modified to accommodate her new proportions.
And her eyes—those brown eyes that should have been scanning the room with professional assessment—were fixed directly on Naruto with an expression he recognized immediately.
Adoration. Obsession. Devotion.
Another affected subject.
The seventh.
"What the—" Anko's professional demeanor cracked the moment she spotted him. Her carefully prepared speech about the Forest of Death died on her lips. Her body moved without apparent conscious decision, crossing the distance between them with predatory grace.
"It's you," she breathed. "I've been... I couldn't stop thinking... ever since yesterday, I..."
She didn't finish the sentence.
Instead, she grabbed Naruto and pulled him into an embrace that buried his face directly between her enormous breasts.
The room went completely silent.
Naruto found himself surrounded by warm, soft flesh that pressed against him from all directions. The mesh of her bodysuit was rough against his skin, but the curves beneath it were impossibly pliant. He could hear her heartbeat—rapid, excited, devoted—through the massive mounds that engulfed him.
"I don't know why," Anko was saying, her voice thick with confused emotion. "I woke up yesterday and you were all I could think about. I tried to focus on work, on preparing for the exam, but everything kept coming back to you. Your face. Your name. This overwhelming need to find you, to be near you, to..."
She trailed off, apparently realizing what she was doing.
She did not release him.
"This is inappropriate," she murmured, even as her arms tightened around him. "I'm a proctor. You're an examinee. I should be professional. I should..."
Her grip tightened further.
"I can't let go. Why can't I let go?"
Naruto, his face still pressed between her breasts, observed the situation with his usual clinical detachment. The phenomenon had claimed another subject—this time an adult, a jonin-level ninja, someone with no prior connection to him whatsoever.
The pattern was accelerating.
Around them, the room had erupted into chaos.
The six previously affected girls had risen from their seats, their expressions ranging from murderous (Satsuki, Ino) to coldly furious (Sakura, Tenten) to quietly dangerous (Hinata, Temari). They converged on Anko's position with synchronized precision, forming a circle around the embracing pair.
"Release him," Satsuki said, her voice carrying killing intent that made nearby genin flinch. "Now."
"He doesn't belong to you," Ino added, her hands forming the beginning of a mind-transfer seal. "You don't get to just grab him."
"W-We were here first," Hinata said, her Byakugan activating with visible aggression. "Back away from Naruto-kun."
Temari's fan was already in her hands. "I don't care if you're a proctor. Touch him again and I'll—"
"Ladies, ladies." Anko's voice had shifted, some of her natural confidence returning even as she maintained her grip on Naruto. "I understand the territorial instinct. Believe me, I do. But there's plenty of Naruto-kun to go around, isn't there?"
"No," all six girls said simultaneously.
"There isn't," Sakura clarified. "He's ours. All of ours. The arrangement is already complicated enough without adding more variables."
"Variables?" Anko's laugh was slightly unhinged. "That's what you call it? This feeling—this overwhelming, all-consuming need to be near him—you think that's just a 'variable'?"
"We think it's a phenomenon with unknown origin and consistent manifestation across multiple subjects," Naruto said, his voice muffled by Anko's chest. "You're the seventh affected individual. Your symptoms match the established pattern—physical transformation, psychological fixation, inability to recognize the changes as abnormal."
Anko pulled back just enough to look down at him, confusion evident in her devoted expression.
"Transformation? What transformation?"
"Your physical proportions have expanded significantly beyond normal human parameters. Your chest alone exceeds documented biological limits by a factor of approximately three. Your waist-to-hip ratio suggests skeletal modifications that should be physically impossible."
Anko looked down at herself, as if noticing her body for the first time.
"I've always been like this," she said slowly. "Haven't I?"
"No. According to intelligence files, your previous measurements were within normal ranges for a fit adult female. Your current proportions are comparable to exaggerated artistic depictions rather than actual human anatomy."
"But I... I don't remember changing..." Her brow furrowed with confusion. "This is how I've always..."
"The perceptual filter is consistent across all affected subjects. You cannot recognize the changes because the phenomenon prevents recognition."
Ibiki had been watching this exchange with an expression that mixed professional concern with personal bewilderment. He stepped forward now, his scarred face carefully neutral.
"Anko. You're supposed to be briefing the examinees on the second phase."
"I know." Anko's arms remained wrapped around Naruto. "I just... I need a moment."
"You need to do your job."
"I know!" Her voice cracked slightly. "I know, Ibiki. But you don't understand. This feeling—I can't just ignore it. He's... he's everything. I don't know why, I don't know how, but he's everything."
Ibiki's eyes moved to Naruto, still trapped in Anko's embrace, apparently unmoved by the situation.
"You seem remarkably calm about this."
"Emotional reactions require emotional capacity. I don't possess that capacity."
"So I've heard." Ibiki's voice was dry. "The reports about you are... extensive."
"I imagine they are."
"They also mention the... unusual devotion you seem to inspire in certain individuals." His gaze swept across the six other girls, all of whom were still radiating hostility toward Anko. "I'd assumed that was exaggeration."
"It's not. The phenomenon is real and apparently spreading. Anko is the seventh confirmed subject. There may be others I haven't identified."
"And you have no idea what's causing it?"
"Theories only. Nothing confirmed."
Ibiki absorbed this information with professional calm. Whatever conclusions he reached, he kept them to himself.
"Anko. Release the examinee and do your job. We can discuss... whatever this is... after the second phase."
For a moment, it seemed like Anko would refuse. Her arms tightened around Naruto, her body pressing against him with possessive intensity.
Then, with visible effort, she let go.
"Fine." Her voice was strained. "But we're talking about this later, Naruto-kun. All of us." Her eyes moved across the six other devoted girls. "We need to figure out how to make this work."
"Make what work?" Ino demanded.
"Sharing him. Obviously." Anko's smile was sharp, predatory. "You didn't think I was going to just walk away, did you? I don't know what's happening to me, but I know what I feel. And I'm not giving it up."
The six girls exchanged glances—that silent communication they had developed over weeks of shared devotion. Whatever they decided, it wasn't agreement.
But it wasn't open warfare either.
"We'll discuss it," Sakura said finally. "Later. After the exams."
"Looking forward to it." Anko turned to address the room, her professional demeanor snapping back into place despite the obvious effort it required. "Alright, maggots! Listen up! The second phase of the Chuunin Exams will take place in Training Ground 44, also known as the Forest of Death!"
She launched into her briefing—rules, objectives, the deadly nature of the training ground—but her eyes kept drifting back to Naruto throughout.
The six other girls maintained their protective formation around him, their hostility toward the new addition barely concealed.
Naruto observed all of this with empty detachment.
Seven now. The phenomenon was accelerating, spreading to individuals with no prior connection to him, affecting adults as well as teenagers. Whatever was causing it showed no signs of stopping.
He should probably care about that.
He didn't.
He simply filed the information away and prepared for the next phase of the examination.
The Forest of Death awaited.
And with it, whatever challenges Orochimaru had prepared.
Naruto would face them the same way he faced everything.
Empty.
Efficient.
Utterly without feeling.