So much had happened, but in actual time, not much had passed since the exam started.
Apart from Naruto's fight with Orochimaru taking a fairly long stretch, the rest hadn't eaten up much time at all.
When Team 7 first came in, they'd quickly made it to Hanabi's base camp—but they'd only stayed there for about ten or so minutes.
Then came three fights. Hanabi's ended early; Sasuke's and Naruto's ran roughly in parallel, except Naruto's dragged on a little longer—maybe ten-plus minutes.
Add in the tangle and back-and-forth with the Grass-nin and it was still only just over half an hour total.
"Right now I—" Sasuke was about to say something, but Hanabi cut him off. "Talk at the tower. It isn't safe to say anything here, and we might leak information."
"Mn." Thinking of the possible Uchiha still out there, Sasuke didn't want to spread the news either.
On the surface Hanabi said they'd talk at the tower; in reality, she probably wanted to keep the news buried until after the exam.
That unconscious woman was an unknown too.
And behind Konoha, who knew—maybe there was some shadowy hand pulling strings…
Hanabi tilted her head.
She didn't know what Sasuke was brooding so intensely over, but the priority right now was getting to the tower.
"It's three thirty in the afternoon. One hour since the exam started," Hanabi said. "We're eight kilometers—about five miles—from the central tower. Let's move."
[Eight kilometers in half an hour, that's nothing for ninja, right]
[I thought they were going to fight for the full five days and squeeze in at the last minute of the last hour of the last day]
[Stop trotting out twenty-year-old tropes already]
[If we can call it from a mile off, just skip it]
[Don't underestimate eight kilometers. The teams that got insta-killed by venomous bugs and beasts earlier definitely have opinions]
[And Team 7 is even carrying someone]
[Lol, this is Hanabi's backyard. She trains here daily. Not making it in half an hour would be the actual problem]
A half-hour forced march really was nothing.
The scroll Hanabi had pinched from Gaara meant they didn't even have to fight anyone for one.
"By the way, Stage. Earlier—did that count as Naruto having a highlight moment?" On the way, Hanabi took the chance to ask the Stage.
[Counts. But not fully.]
"Ara?"
Hanabi had asked only on a whim, since the one fighting Orochimaru was Kushina, not Naruto himself.
She hadn't expected it could still "count" as a highlight at all.
[The highlight performance does not conform to the client's specifications, but achieved the projected outcome.]
Hanabi turned it over in her head.
—In other words: the maneuver had been a little odd in execution, but the final "result" had hit the intended "effect."
So the set had been thrown off-script too?
[Client requests escalation.]
[Bonus rewards will be settled after the Chunin Exam concludes.]
"Sure enough, the planned script still has its uses."
Soon, Team 7 reached the central tower. They hadn't met a single obstacle the whole way.
As for the Taki-nin trio that should've ambushed Team 7… oh, apologies—they didn't pass the first exam.
"This way."
Hanabi led the two over to a doorway.
"Put Karin down here. There's a back entrance, and we'll go around to deal with the examiner from the other side."
"Hanabi, how come you know this place so well?" Naruto stared at her like she was strolling into her own house.
"I mean, you haven't quietly come here a bunch of times, have you?" Sasuke asked.
"Mn, it's pretty comfortable resting here. It's an exercise ground, so no one's stationed here permanently."
In the Forest of Death, with Byakugan you could do whatever you wanted.
But for an ordinary Chunin, getting through this place "without injury" wasn't easy, so nobody lived here.
"What about that woman?" Sasuke meant Karin.
"She's a Kusagakure ninja—but in practice she's used as a disposable resource. And Naruto says she might be a relative of his, so I'm going to help her out a bit."
Kusagakure was wasting heaven's gift. A perfectly good member of the Uzumaki clan, used as a walking blood bag, pumped until she dried up.
The textbook case of being handed a cheat code and not knowing what to do with it.
A classic of stupid-plus-evil.
"What happens to her after that?" Naruto asked.
"Ah, no problem. I had a friend come over briefly; she'll take Karin out… mn, it might be a bit before she gets here."
Because the "token" was on Hikari's person, Hanabi could feel what was happening on her end.
After getting her cover blown and being knocked over by Hanabi's exploding doll, Hikari had lost half her clothes. Her body could regenerate, but Zhuixia had no effect on things like clothes, so Hikari was currently changing.
Leaving Karin to rest for the moment, with a shadow clone watching over her, the three of them entered the tower.
In front of the entrance were the maxims written by the Third.
"'Without heaven, then know wisdom…' the heck does that mean?"
Naruto couldn't quite read it.
"Anyway."
Hanabi took out the Heaven and Earth Scrolls.
"Wait, isn't that scroll supposed to stay closed?" Naruto asked.
"Idiot. What the Third's words are saying is that we should open the scroll now." Sasuke had recovered physically, but the mental toll was still heavy; he couldn't be bothered to move much.
Hanabi opened the scrolls, and white smoke immediately billowed out.
"It's a Summoning Jutsu."
Hanabi dropped the scrolls straight onto the floor.
"BANG!"
Umino Iruka was summoned out of them.
"Iruka-sensei!" Seeing Iruka, Naruto cried out at once.
"Ara, ara, didn't expect you to clear so soon." Iruka stood before the three of them, hands on his hips. "It's been a while."
"Iruka-sensei, what are you doing here?!" Naruto rushed over with a noisy yelp.
"To welcome the examinees, of course. It just 'happened' to be you."
When he said "happened," Iruka caught Hanabi's faint, knowing smile.
It wasn't by chance at all. Iruka had specifically taken on Team 7—as long as Team 7 cleared, the Chunin summoned to greet them would inevitably be Umino Iruka.
Iruka pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. "Only an hour and a half. That's incredible—a new record."
"Hehe~" Naruto looked smug.
"Well, this has to be Hanabi's doing." Iruka had seen through it instantly. "I don't know the details, but you know this place pretty well, don't you, Hanabi? Back when the venue was set as the Forest of Death, I had a feeling already."
[Lol, anyone with eyes knows this is Hanabi's backyard]
[Hanabi: Fam, the closed-book exam is open-book just for me—who even gets this feeling]
[Woke up one day and the shinobi world had regressed ten thousand years. Now, armed with open-book test-taking techniques, I begin my invincible life in the ninja world]
[So you're the great literary author?]
[Hanabi: Information is a ninja's life. Wait, what, the test site is at my house? That's not how information is supposed to be delivered]
The exam ground hadn't chosen Hanabi's training spot—Hanabi had chosen the predetermined exam ground as her training spot.
Reverse cause and effect, sow confusion in the hearts of men. Hanabi played it like a fiddle.