章節 33: Chapter 33: River Man
Another two months passed, and August was upon Konoha, which also meant the Chunin Exams were coming up in a week's time. Team 4 still hadn't made any good progress learning new nature releases, but they had grown in strength generally.
Shin gathered Team 4 once again for last minute preparations.
"Alright kids, hopefully, this is the last time we gather as a genin team. As you know, I've volunteered you for the Chunin Exams happening in a week. Today, I'd just like to talk to you."
The kids nodded, though a little confused, since meeting with Shin normally meant a day of muscle aching and brain splitting training.
"Talk about what, sensei?" Tetsu asked
"Well, I have no doubts that all three of you will become chunins in the exam. What I want to ask you is what your plans are."
The kids' heads turned, perplexed, though Kannin seemed to understand her words a little.
Warai asked, "What plans?"
"As chunin, you are officially mid-level shinobi, with greater responsibilities and dangers, but of course with greater power as well. What do you wish to do with your power?"
Tetsu and Warai understood her a little more this time.
Tetsu said, "At some point I'd like to become Hokage, like my relative is right now-"
"Not if I become Hokage first!" Warai interjected with a grin.
Kannin took a moment before answering, "I'm not fully sure, sensei. I just know that I would like to be able to protect my friends and family when they're in danger. My mom says there's gonna be another war, and I want all of you to survive it."
A solemn air hung for a bit after Kannin's words, with Tetsu and Warai nodding. Their parents and clans had already begun preparing for war since Sakumo died. Although they didn't like to acknowledge it, they knew they were probably going to be on the front lines when it broke out.
Kannin wasn't lying either. One might expect some sort of cynical egoism from someone mentally much older, but Kannin had found throughout these years here that he really did care about everyone around him--they weren't just figments of his imagination or one large delirium, but rather the real, actual world he found himself living in, and he had come to love that fact.
Shin said, "Good. I'm glad to hear none of you want something so frivolous as revenge or money or whatever else." Shin let the gravity weigh on them for another moment before inviting them to do some sparring.
Tetsu beat Kannin by the skin of his teeth, as Kannin couldn't unsheathe Koseki in time, Warai tied with Kannin, as she could easily evade his ninjutsu, but Koseki gave her problems. And Warai beat Tetsu since his taijutsu was pointless before her Sharingan.
Pleased with the results, Shin sent them home early before going home herself. There, in her apartment, she got her lunch out of the icebox and looked at the only picture adorning it. It was a team photo, with a man in his 20s with grey hair and bright blue eyes smiling behind three young shinobi: one girl with straight blue hair and a garish getup, one taller boy with short yellow hair, and one shorter boy with medium length green hair and a scar on his right cheek--all of them were smiling.
She gave a sad smile to the picture before going to her table and eating. She told herself that what she did today was for the kids' sakes, to clear their minds about their purpose in life and who they wanted to be when they were older; but deep down she knew it was really for her, to reassure her that everything would be okay, even after they became chunins.
Finishing her lunch, she went to the mission office to see if there were any to do on her own.
-
A week later, all the genins who wished to become chunins gathered at a special wing of the academy. Aside from Team 4, Kannin could see Kakashi in the crowd, along with a number of other Konoha genins he went to school with. He took a moment to find the rain-nin they had escorted, and found them toward the back.
Ame wasn't the only village that had sent teams to Konoha, though. Kannin saw forehead protectors from Amegakure, Kumogakure, Sunagakure, and Kusagakure. Altogether there were about 200 genins there.
Kannin was impressed. This was the largest gathering of shinobi he had seen in his life. He could also tell that it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. Many of the foreign shinobi seemed unhappy at having to visit the village of the villages they warred with only so many years previous to become chunin. Many of the Konoha-nin were of similar minds.
At exactly noon, they were invited into a large lecture hall for the written exam. Kannin was anxious that it would be something as intense as what Naruto had to go through in the manga. But it seemed like it was a fairly straightforward test. Just as he was about to start filling it in, he heard a familiar voice ring out from the front.
Appearing out of thin air, Minato shouted out, "Genins, please direct your attention to me. I'll be your proctor for this exam! The rules are simple, there are 10 questions on your paper, if you answer at least 5 of them correctly, you pass; if you get 2 or more wrong, you fail. And, on each paper, there is one question that, if you write anything down, anything at all, on that random question, you also fail!"
"WHAT!" a chorus of surprise erupted.
Kannin was inclined to agree with their surprise. What was Minato trying to get at with that? He looked down at his paper and was racked with indecision. There was a landmine on the paper, and if he stepped on it, he died, but if he didn't try at all he failed too. Why was Minato doing this?
A few minutes went by, with many genins leaving on their own out of fear or indecision, which made him think, 'Oh...He's assessing our resolve.'
Kannin looked around at the contestants again, seeing their stressed out faces and understood a little of what Minato was doing. He looked back at his paper, and began thinking about his answers.
每周推薦票狀態
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榜單 
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