Chapitre 299: CH_8.34 (299)
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———
.
"How are they doing?" Eisbar asked as he returned from his break. He was a fit middle-aged man of average height with light grey streaks all over his hair that well complemented his blacks, giving him a mature, charming salt-and-pepper look.
Six hours had gone by since they had locked the candidates in their rooms—rooms designed to make them uncomfortable. On top of that, being put under genjutsu only announced the start of the assessment. Being left alone for six hours would only drive them paranoid no matter how level-headed they could be.
"As expected, they're become quite restless," answered Swine.
Eisbar stepped closer to the monitors. Some candidates were pacing around their rooms, some stared into the cameras, and others fidgeted in their seats. None could relax as they were expecting the assessment to throw a task at them the moment they let their guards down, but they were all missing the point that being uptight for an extended period of time was just as detrimental.
The purpose of locking them in and going no-contact was partially to mentally beat them down and test to see how they handled it.
"Is... Is he sleeping?" Eisbar said, genuinely surprised when he saw a young man napping with his head on the table. He had a large afro of puffy, curly brown hair, a muscular build, and deeply tanned skin from staying outdoors under the sun. The cameras had no microphones, but the on-site staff could hear him snore when they passed his room.
"He has been like that for three hours now," said Lowe, handing Eisbar the candidate's profile. "Number #10, Chunin Sonaba Yazo."
"Is he in any way related to Jonin Sonaba Makina?" asked Eisbar.
"Her nephew."
The Sonaba family name had been attached to shinobi since the formation of the Hidden Leaf village, and the once civilian family had turned into a shinobi family where every single person in the next generation was a shinobi. They weren't anything special and only had produced two chunin before Sonaba Makina rose to the rank of an esteemed jonin.
Since then, the Sonaba family had exploded in popularity until it was known in the Hidden Leaf village even though the Sonaba family wasn't based there and called another city in the Land of Fire their home.
"A rogue hunter, huh. That's interesting," said Eisbar as he flipped through Sonaba Yazo's file. Rogue hunting was a trade open to anyone with the ability to capture the rogues and return them to the custody of the village that had declared them wanted. An adjacent field of bounty assassination also existed where anyone could target anyone else by putting a prize over their heads.
"Sonaba family are based near the Land of Rain border in Yogan City of the Natsu province," said Lowe.
"His choice of occupation makes sense, then."
The Land of Storms shared its boundaries with three of the five Great Shinobi Nations—the Land of Fire, the Land of Wind, and the Land of Earth. The country was known to be somewhat of a haven for rogues, as they could exist in the nation without the constant fear of being hunted by the Leaf, Sand, and Rock shinobi.
The Land of Storms was also the home to the Hidden Rain village, but the shinobi village mostly turned a blind eye to the rogues as long as they kept to a single region. While the rogues were a problem, the nation wasn't in a position to regulate them as it was locked in an intense civil war between the Hidden Rain village and the mercenary group known as the Akatsuki.
That turmoil had allowed the rogue activity to bloom and balloon in the nation and take root.
Due to its proximity to the border, the region near Yogan City saw heavy rogue activity. For that reason, there was a dense shinobi presence in the city of Yogan to hunt criminals and rogues who were either trying to leave or enter the nation.
"He'll fit well if he passes," said Eisbar. Rogue hunting was part of ANBU's responsibilities, and it was clear why Yazo was chosen as a candidate. He didn't know what to make of Yazo being so unbothered that he was sleeping for three hours, but he was one of the fastest people to break the genjutsu, so at least he wasn't incompetent.
"How did he react to the room?"
"He didn't like it and openly showed his displeasure to the camera but soon got over it."
"What about her?" Eisbar tapped the screen of another monitor. A young blonde woman had her legs up on the table as she leaned into her chair. She looked utterly bored and was listlessly staring at the ceiling.
"Number #3, Yamanaka Amami. She's a practitioner of her clan's hiden jutsu/hijutsu and has worked in T&I for the past two years. She has a near-perfect track record, no black spots in her history, and glowing recommendations from everyone we asked. She has even worked with us on a couple of cases during her tenure at T&I."
The ANBU collaborated with other departments across the Hidden Leaf for various reasons, including availing their services for ther ANBU's matters. While ANBU had agents more than capable of handling interrogations, some of the best information extractors were still under the employment of the Torture and Interrogation Department—which was why ANBU asked them to train their agents in the art of interrogation—and for that reason, when they encountered someone particularly adamant about keeping their mouth shut, they brought-in external interrogators to help.
ANBU maintained various two-way relationships. Using the information they collected through their spy system, they warned other departments; similarly, the other departments made ANBU aware when they found something strange.
After all, keeping the nation safe was a collaborative effort.
Eisbar sighed. "I don't want to fight with T&I about poaching again."
It had been a whole thing last time ANBU had taken someone from Torture and Interrogation—and this time, it was a Yamanaka; their clan's special jutsu made them extremely valuable in extracting information from people. Moreover, Torture and Interrogation's current head was a former ANBU-nin, Morino Ibiki, which was unfavourable because he knew how they worked.
He was sure to prevent talents from leaving his pool regardless of their history.
"She laughed when she saw the room and has since then ignored it completely," said Lowe.
"I guess it's not a surprise seeing that she's from T&I," said Eisbar before moving on to other candidates. "How are Takuma and Kojuro doing?"
"Number #7 has been using his Byakugan every twenty minutes to check his surroundings. He tries to hide it, but it's obvious that he's doing it. He had a visible reaction to the room initially, but I assume seeing into other's rooms made him realise that we are trying to unsettle them," Lowe replied, slightly peeved as the Byakugan rendered the rooms' tactics moot.
Lowe continued, "As for Number #13, excluding when he first entered the room, he hadn't looked into the camera in six hours. If he was affected, he's kept it under wraps... He walks for ten minutes every hour, but other than that, he stays seated, doing absolutely nothing. He was also the first to figure out that the weapons we gave them had something wrong with them."
Eisbar gazed at all of the monitors. All of them had something ANBU wanted. Any one of them could do the job decently well, but they didn't want decent—they wanted someone who could perform to their best under pressure. The purpose of the test was to stress test them and keep all those who didn't snap.
"In that case, it's been long enough. Let's start in earnest."
———
.
Takuma heard footsteps and the repeating sound of metal sliding against metal. His eyes went to the post-box slot on the doors, the only thing in the hallway that could produce such a sound. He got up and walked to the door, and sure enough, a package slid through it seconds later.
The package seemed to have a stack of paper inside and was sealed by a fuinjutsu tag. He released the seal and dumped its contents on the table—a thick stack of papers held together with a circular paper clip and two ball-point pens. The stack of paper was a long list of true-and-false statements and flipping to the last page showed that there were 578 questions.
The questions ranged from 'if his sleep was usually disturbed' to 'if he liked to tease animals' to 'if he got along with authority figures' to 'if he liked to dance.'
Takuma recognised this type of questionnaire but wondered about its purpose. Lying to make oneself look better was laughably easy with a quiz like this and the instructions on the first page said there were no pass-fail criteria for the test.
I shouldn't lie... completely, he said to himself as he thought about the cameras looking down on him. If the ANBU wanted them to answer the test, they must've considered they would lie and thus have ways to identify when a candidate was lying.
Takuma didn't really want ANBU to think of him as someone other than his true self and thus had no desire to lie on the test—but he didn't want them to know everything about him he flipped through the pages, he could tell that if he filled it honestly, they would have a considerably complete view of who he was.
So, after taking a moment, he picked up one of the pens and started filling in his answers.
———
.
The ANBU team sat in their base and studied the completed questionnaires to learn more about the candidates.
"Yeah, Number #1 lied so much it's funny," one of the staff chuckled.
"Oof, Number #7 has some deep-seated issues, alright," said another staff member reading Hyuga Kojuro's questionnaire. "He's not at all optimistic about life. I guess the rumour about all of the Hyuuga being miserable is true."
"Number #2 abhors pressure, and this is just a straight-up confession that he will crumble at the first sign of it."
Eisbar sat on the head of the table, unhurriedly flipping through a questionnaire himself. He judged each answer and compared it against answers to other questions to see if there was a natural correlation or if the candidate had lied.
The aim of the questionnaire was to find out more about the candidates—and to see how they saw themselves. However, that was not all there was to it. People had a natural tendency to lie to make themselves more likeable to others, so candidates were expected to use the questionnaire to paint a favourable image of themselves to the examiners.
Lying was an elegant and complicated art; part of the test was to see if they could do it convincingly. They wanted to see if the candidates could deceive them into thinking they were someone other than themselves. There would come a time in every ANBU-nin's career when they would need to pretend to be someone else, and having that skill was highly preferred in an agent.
Of course, the department would love to know the truth about who they were employed, but if a candidate had the ability to deceive experienced ANBU-nin, then they were sure to be good at their jobs. Lying too much wasn't a problem if one could do it convincingly, but almost everyone who lied a lot did it poorly, and thus, gave themselves up. Even though the questionnaire asked the candidates to be honest, not lying was also a problem because deception was part and parcel about a shinobi, let alone and ANBU-nin.
"Number #10 is either the most well-adjusted man in the world, or he's really good at lying," said Swine, his highly positive tone showing that he liked Sonaba Yazo as a candidate.
"As expected of a Yamanaka," Lowe sighed as he read Yamanaka Amami's questionnaire. "Number #3 is definitely familiar with the test's base version we modified. I can't find a single error in how she used the questions to create her impression—she even added just the right amount of embellishments to make it utterly believable... I think she's a strong candidate."
While everyone discussed the candidates they were reading about, Eisbar silently read Number #13, Takuma's questionnaire.
If he had to give his impression in one word, it would be— "Genuine."
Eisbar took a deep breath. He couldn't tell if Takuma was lying or not. The impression he got from the questionnaire was that of a living human being with his fair share of problems like everyone else who lived while dealing with them.
If Yamanaka Amami had lied perfectly to create a positive yet believable picture that would impress anyone other than the current group who were expecting and wanted the candidate to lie, then Takuma had lied to show some fundamental flaws at the risk of some people having a lower opinion of him.
In doing so, he had made the impression feel genuinely authentic.
"Ah," Eisbar uttered as he realised what else Takuma had done.
As he read the questionnaire, the impression he got was that of an utterly mundane person with nothing interesting to point out. He made it feel like there was nothing overly special about him, but also made it so there was nothing egregiously wrong with him either. It was as though he had designed it so that people would forget about it after they put it down.
That was risky because a candidate would want to impress them to raise their chances.
Eisbar's instinct and experience told him that Takuma blended truths, half-truths, and lies to hide something he didn't want them to know. However, he couldn't tell what Takuma was trying to hide or distinguish what part of the camouflage was genuine and which parts were false.
He looked at the monitor and saw Takuma walking around the room, hands behind his back, without a hint of worry in his demeanour.
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
Chapitre 300: CH_8.35 (300)
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón @
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The link is also in the synopsis
———
.
Three hours after the questionnaires were collected for evaluation, the candidates gathered in the hall on the ground floor. Takuma stood in the crowd wearing the provided 'Scars' mask; he was surprised when he was instructed to do so as he thought it was meant to mess with him—but everyone was now wearing a similar mask over the front of their balaclavas.
"You must be tired after sitting still for so long, so let's have you all stretch your legs," the gold-wearing ANBU addressed the crowd of candidates in a flat and almost uninterested voice. He wore a dark, full-body zip-up robe. Its hood cast a deep shadow over half of his face, making the jewellery adorning his hands the only noticeable feature. "For the next task, we want you to travel across the country in a certain amount of time..."
As he spoke, the staff distributed identical backpacks to the candidates.
"Unlike the written questionnaire, this is an elimination task. The passing criteria is to reach the final location by the decided-upon time. You can refer to the map and note inside the backpack for further details. That's all from my side. Your time has begun; you're free to leave."
The moment those words were uttered, the hall burst with activity. The candidates rifled through their backpacks for the aforementioned map, the note, and other resources they had been granted.
Takuma went to the corner of the room and sat down against the wall before going through the bag's contents at his own pace . As a collector of high-quality maps, Takuma owned a collection that covered a significant portion of the Land of Fire. He was lucky to live in a major national hotspot like Hidden Leaf Village, as he could even get maps of remote regions. He had by no means memorised them as there was too much but he recognised the area in the included map, which was barely serviceable but, to its credit, had enough information for anyone knowledgeable enough to chart a journey.
Multiple points were marked on the map, and according to the accompanying note, the candidates had to show their faces to the staff at the locations. That changed Takuma's understanding of the task. It was no longer about plotting the fastest course from point 'A' to point 'B', but plotting the fastest journey while hitting additional locations as well. He recognised that the ANBU-nin had barely given them any information about the task, and even the note was fairly minimal.
Was it because they were granting them freedom on how they wanted to complete the task, or was it because they wanted them to derive something from the limited information provided?
Takuma glanced up to see that some candidates were already leaving the building.
The note said they had five days to reach the final location, but as he glanced at the people leaving the building one after another, he could tell they were hurrying. Even though the passing criteria was reaching the location before the deadline with one more condition to be met, it was a fair assumption that the candidates would be ranked according to how quickly they reached the checkpoints and the final location.
And yet... he couldn't help but wonder what the motive behind this task was, especially after the last six hours.
So, Takuma decided not to compete in the race.
The passing criteria was reaching the final destination in five days while hitting all the checkpoints, and he would stick to that. The other candidates were his competition, but unless ANBU itself pitted him against them, he wouldn't participate or interfere.
Four days, he decided. He was giving himself a one-day safe cushion.
"Okay, let's start with leaving the village."
It was three in the afternoon, so a few hours of light remained. Like most of his travels, he would only move during the day and rest at night. He had sufficient bedding and a half-decent survival kit, so camping didn't seem like a problem. There was one field ration in the backpack, which meant the ANBU expected them to procure their meals after the first day. No money was included, which was fine because he could hunt—but he didn't want to hunt every day as it would take away from his four-day travel time.
However, all the checkpoints were in towns, meaning he could buy meals provided he had money.
All in all, Takuma didn't have anything he needed to do in the village, so after plotting the appropriate course using the map and his knowledge, he left the village and made the most of the daylight hours.
———
As the night arrived, over a hundred kilometres from the Hidden Leaf Village, a young man in his mid-twenties lay beside a small fire in a clearing. It hadn't even been an hour since the sky had turned completely dark, but he was getting ready to sleep so he could rise and set out at dawn.
Yaya Utamatsu had been a chunin for five years before ANBU invited him to participate in their recruitment process. His hometown was near the peaceful southern shores of the Land of Fire, but he had spent most of his career in the western part of the nation on the border of the Land of Rivers, a nation sandwiched between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind.
He had suffered through the Third Shinobi World War and had fought on the frontlines against the Hidden Sand shinobi as a greenhorn genin. What had been a war deployment had turned into a decade-old posting by his own choice. He missed his hometown in the south, but he had built himself a new life in the west and even laid roots by marrying the girl of his dreams.
The ANBU invitation had been unexpected. He didn't think they had their eyes on him, but he was flattered that they considered him. Ultimately, he decided to go because he was promised a posting in the Hidden Leaf village if he passed. He and his family lived in the biggest city in the west, but there was no place better than the Hidden Leaf village for a shinobi and their family.
Not only was he interested in ANBU's work, but it would afford his future children better prospects, shinobi or not.
He had arrived at the Hidden Leaf Village two days in advance to see what it was like. He had been there once before for one of the three Chunin Exams—two of which were held in other nations—and he had only explored the city as a tourist during that visit. This time around, he had a friend as a guide who showed him what it was like to live in the city as a resident.
It was more crowded than he expected, but that could be solved if he and his family chose to live further away from the city centre. Despite knowing he was in the hub for Leaf shinobi, he was still surprised by the sheer number of shinobi everywhere. While two days were not enough to truly get to know a place, he had a positive impression, which made him feel comfortable about moving his family if he managed to pass.
As Utamatsu stretched his arms, he imperceptibly glanced around the silent, dark woods before closing his eyes. Thirty minutes later, a figure silently sneaked toward Utamatsu's campsite. They approached him from behind so the campfire wouldn't cast a shadow in the wrong direction. The figure moved slowly with a kunai in hand; their target was not Utamatsu but the backpack beside his head.
As the figure grabbed the bag and pulled back, the campfire hissed like a blowtorch and released a blinding flash that stung the figure's eyes as they immediately tried to back away—but Utamatsu was ready; he was up on his feet in under a second and threw a spritz bomb into the figure's face.
A spritz bomb was a small package containing a chemical mixture that irritated the eyes, nose, and mouth. Evidently, the figure was an ANBU candidate; he was wearing the gear given to them by the ANBU. As the spritz bomb overwhelmed the senses, Utamatsu kicked the backpack out of his assailant's hand before sweeping the legs. He pushed aggressively, wanting to end it quickly because the alternative was a full-blown fight—something he wished to avoid as there was a risk of injury, which would, at the very least, mean a severe disadvantage in later assessments.
He closed the distance and kicked the man in his head as hard as possible, hoping that would do the trick. It didn't knock the man, and he even managed to hit him with a stray kick as he blindly flayed around.
It was dark, and the candidate couldn't see properly because of the spritz bomb, so Utamatsu stopped moving; it erased his presence and instantly panicked the candidate, who had just haphazardly gotten up on his feet. But it was too late, as Utamatsu finished weaving hand seals for a D-rank Fire Release jutsu that created a handball-sized orb of fire. The fire orb flew and exploded behind the candidate's head, and while it didn't do significant damage, it massively disoriented him and knocked him to the ground.
Utamatsu finished the job with a kick to the head to knock his assailant out.
"That was close," Utamatsu sighed as he grabbed his knees—not from exhaustion, but from the tension of being ambushed.
He wasn't as surprised because he knew the possibility existed when he saw the instructional note inside the backpack. There was a rule in there stating:
—Killing or maiming of candidates to eliminate competition is strictly prohibited and will lead to instant disqualification and subsequent legal proceedings —
It was a reasonable rule as they were all Hidden Leaf shinobi, and killing or permanently disabling their own would be detrimental to their nation. The rule, however, didn't prohibit inflicting recoverable injuries as a means to eliminate competition, and he was sure some candidates would try to use that as a way to thin the herd.
However, the next rule provided a much more reliable method to eliminate competition.
—The provided stamp paper must be stamped by the staff member at each checkpoint. Inability to produce a fully stamped stamp paper at the final location would result in disqualification —
Utamatsu looked at the unconscious man who had gone for his backpack in an attempt to destroy his stamp paper. He dragged the man to the campsite and strip-searched him to find a stamp paper, but unfortunately, the man was smart enough not to bring his stamp paper to the ambush in case things went wrong, which they did in this case.
He looked around the dark woods. The man wasn't wearing a backpack; it could only be somewhere nearby. If he could find it and destroy the stamp paper, he would eliminate one person from the competition. However, he didn't know if he would be able to find it easily if it was hidden—and he didn't want to spend more time near another candidate.
But he needed to punish the man for attacking him...so he broke the man's forearm bone in a clean fracture before tying the broken arm to a rigid piece of wood, substituting it as a makeshift splint. It wasn't a serious enough injury to do permanent damage, but it was more than enough to eliminate the man from further assessments.
He packed up his stuff and left the campsite with a sigh. His plans had now changed—he would travel continuously until dusk the next day, when he would find a secure place to rest safely. As Utamatsu got on the road, he thought about the 'stamp paper' rule. There was more nuance to it than stated. Losing the stamp paper didn't mean instant disqualification. According to the wording, they needed to produce 'a stamp paper'—it didn't need to be the stamp paper they found in their backpack.
Even if a candidate lost their stamp paper, they could simply steal someone else's stamp paper and produce that at the final location. Each destroyed stamp paper reduced the number of people who could pass. The candidates who passed completely depended on whether they had a completed stamp paper at the end. It was fair to assume that they would be ranked based on who arrived first—but even if they did not, completing the journey early was overall more beneficial. Things would only become more chaotic as the exam dragged on, with candidates who had lost their stamp papers hunting others who still had theirs.
Utamatsu wasn't aiming to be the first, but he was undoubtedly aiming to reach the final destination before people started feeling desperate.
.
———
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The link is in the synopsis!
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
109 Power
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