Even though the civilians in Konoha were having a normal, mundane day, the same thing couldn't be said for the shinobi.

After all, it was the first day of Chuunin selection exam.

Kiba had left the house at dawn. Yesterday, Kurenai had handed his team the form of application for the exam. While she didn't force them to attend if they didn't want to, Kiba definitely wouldn't miss this chance. His hot-blooded spirit wouldn't let him.

"He should be taking the first exam around this time," Hana murmured out loud while feeding treats to Haimaru brothers.

"Heheh, I got hearsay that the first examiner is going to be that sadistic bandana guy. Let's see if that idiot can pass his test. This gonna be fun! Bet he gonna get home crying," Tsume chuckled.

Hana just smiled at her remark.

"Don't say that, Mom. I know you're worried about Kiba, too."

"Tch, worrying about him is just a waste of time!"

Yet she still tapped her feet to the ground from time to time, clearly being anxious. Hana just shook her head helplessly.

Like mother like son...

"Lady Tsume? Big sister?"

Hikari sheepishly entered the kitchen.

"Hm? What is it? Looks like you want to ask me something," Tsume raised an eyebrow.

"Well... I'm asking your permission to leave Konoha for a while..."

As planned beforehand, she gave them a fake sob story about wanting to find out about her past. The journey was supposedly to find a trace of her long-lost family.

'Long-lost family... yeah, right, it was four-thousands years too late for that.'

Tsume's frown only got deeper the longer she listened.

"You crazy, girl? I know you're stronger than Kiba in taijutsu, but do you think that's enough? Little kids should stay home! Also, that geezer won't approve no matter what."

"Actually, he did."

"Huuuh?" "Eh?"

Tsume and Hana gave her a questioning glance. Not long after, the former shot her gaze toward the corner of their kitchen. Chakra burst out of her body, causing her fangs and nails to grow out.

"You dare to enter my house unannounced? Show yourself!"

A poof of smoke burst out. In its place stood a man in gray flak jacket and bear-faced mask. His smell was quite familiar for Tsume.

This person... if she remembered correctly, he was a member of Anbu division directly under supervision of the Hokage.

"Rest assured. The Third had agreed for miss Hikari's request. He had sent me to guard her during the journey."

'Guard', huh? If it was an Anbu, 'keeping her under watch' would describe the situation better.

She glared at the Anbu for a full minute before retracting back her chakra, her appearance returning back to normal.

"Good, very good. Now that you're older, you learned to plan behind my back, eh?"

"Ah, I..."

"I bet you've already packed up everything. Just scram! Get out of my sight!"

Tsume pointed at the door. Her stern expression didn't leave any chance to make excuses. In the end, Hikari could only timidly walked out.

"Oi."

Before her feet left the front door, Tsume's voice called out to her.

"I'm going to punish you later. So, be sure to come back alive."

Those words prompted a huge grin on the girl's face.

---

As they left the walls of Konoha, Hikari and Youen gave the village one last look before continuing their journey.

"Well, that was easy," she laughed.

What permission from the Hokage? It was all bull crap. Thankfully, Youen had a quite prestigious position within his organization, making the explanation even smoother than they had initially expected.

For the journey, Youen had forgone his Anbu attire, opting for a light blue robe instead. He also put down his bear mask, showing his handsome jade face to the world. Women who saw him on the road would turn their head in awe, unable to peel off their gaze from that worldly perfection.

"Someone is popular," Hikari giggled.

"Stop it, big brother... it's not like I wanted it in the first place!"

He was born like this, alright? What could he do?

"Yeah, yeah. So, little Mei, where should we go now?"

Getting out of Konoha was one thing. Actually finding a reincarnator was another problem altogether. The world was vastly large, and they were merely two poor cultivators who hadn't gotten past Qi Condensation stage. It would take years to cover all the grounds!

"Let's go south," Youen suggested.

"Reason?"

"During my mission in the north, I had spent quite a while going around towns and villages. I hadn't found any people from our realm as of yet. Perhaps we would be more lucky if we search the other way around."

Makes sense.

"Let's go south, then!"

She was about to walk away when she noticed that Youen was still staring at her.

"What is it?"

"Nothing. Just... you've gotten yourself a nice place, huh..."

She frowned.

"What's this all of the sudden?"

"No, it's just... those Inuzuka people seems kind. They're looking out for you, you know? Did you feel it?"

Of course she did. She wasn't a fool.

Hana was a gentle and kind person. Tsume, although rough and foul-mouthed, was a caring person who only wanted for her and Kiba to be safe. Even though she was basically a stranger, they had let her come into their life.

Like a family.

While she was enjoying it still, that warm feeling also made her afraid.

"Hehe... it seems that big brother finally has people to protect him. I'm glad," he said with a teasing smile. "Especially miss Tsume, she's like a mother to you, you know? That's how I see it."

"How should I know?" She harrumphed. "I grew up without anyone by my side. If anything, you should understand it better than me. At least you had parents-"

Damnit!

Hikari immediately shut her mouth. She knew she had messed up.

Youen's glare was filled with suffocating killing intent, replacing his beautiful, fairy-like appearance with that of a war god. His fists were clenching tighter and tighter to the point that his nails had begun to draw blood.

"Mei Mei!"

She clapped right in front of his face, waking him up from his stupor.

"Ah..."

He covered his face, feeling disappointed with himself. Thousands years of living as an immortal still wasn't able to clear her heart from those treacherous memories.

How shameful.

"Sorry..."

"Nevermind. It was my fault," Hikari sighed. "Though, I'm surprised that you managed to live normally in this new body."

"This man is an orphan. His parents died during a war a few years ago."

Youen showed a self-mocking smile.

"Is it bad that I feel relieved about it? I don't think I can control myself if I'm forced to call other people as my parents..."

"This is why drinking Five-Fragrance Tea is compulsory for reincarnation," Hikari shrugged. "Anyway, don't think too much about it. Let's just keep going."

"Right!"

He quickly bounced back to his cheerful self as they resumed their trek.

"It'll be problematic if we end up wasting years to search... how about we limit our search to a month's time?"

"Fine with me," Hikari nodded in agreement.

"Say, big brother, if we do meet a reincarnator... who'd you like to meet? It might be our past allies, you know~?"

The girl replied with a flat smile,

"Anyone is fine as long as it's not Xiao Dingding."

"..."

'Big brother... how much do you hate Dingding...?'

Carrying that question in mind, he followed the brown-haired girl down the southern road.

---

The first test for the current Chuunin exam was a written test consisting of nine theoretical questions and a special tenth question that would only be revealed forty-five minutes after the test had begun.

This format was the brainchild of Morino Ibiki, the head of Torture and Interrogation division. He had made all the questions himself, making sure that a mere Genin wouldn't be able to answer them perfectly.

Of course, there was still a possibility that a studious fellow could grasp the essence of the questions and reached the correct answer by pure wit alone, but he reckon that only one or two among these brats would be able to do so.

The point of the first test, after all, wasn't to gauge their theoretical intelligence, but their information gathering skill!

Two Chuunin-ranked examiners had been deployed as mock participants around the front seats and the back seats of the room, serving as targets for the participants to copy their answers from. While blatant cheating was punished, the examiners would turn a blind eye if the effort was at least considered passable when used in actual mission.

For example, that girl who was using a mirror on the ceiling to see other participants' answers. The examiners only noticed it halfway through the test, so it was considered good enough to pass.

That kid who was leaning his head too far off his desk, on the other hand, was definitely out!

Suddenly, a kunai was thrown toward the seat behind a certain boy wearing orange jacket. The blade struck right at the middle of the test paper.

"What was that for?!" The owner cried out.

"You messed up five times. Get out. Your teammates as well."

The first victim had fallen, serving as a warning for the rest of the participants.

At the moment, Kiba was truly calm. He drew blank for all the questions, but it didn't matter. After all, he got another set of eyes up there.

Perched up on his head, the white-furred ninja dog Akamaru laid down lazily, enjoying his afternoon nap. The examiners had noticed his presence, but decided to ignore it. After all, in real life scenario, having a dog around wouldn't be overly suspicious.

If the boy wanted to cheat like that, then go on.

"Akamaru, wake up. It's time to start our plan."

He stroked the puppy's head, giving the signal to start spying on other people's works.

However, after Akamaru had stirred awake, he decided to leap down to the table instead. After that, he began to meticulously read the exam questions.

"...?"

Kiba was confused. Hmm, maybe his partner was just curious. It was fine. They still got a lot of time to che-

Uh.

The dog grabbed a pencil with his mouth, and then used it to scribble something on the answer box.

"??!?!?!"

Kiba was super confused.

"Oi, Akamaru, stop playing around!"

He was about to pull him away from the table, but then his gaze fell upon the 'doodles' that the puppy had made.

Were...were those words and numbers that he saw? The dog... the dog could write?

Scratch, scratch, scratch... the puppy's head bobbed up and down as he filled the answer boxes one after another.

First question, second question, third...

Kiba was confusedly confused. Left slack-jawed, he could only stare blankly at his partner.

"Hey."

Before he realized it, an examiner had appeared right behind him. A finger was suddenly pressed on Akamaru's back, pouring through a trace amount of chakra.

'...Not a Transformation Technique...'

The examiner's first thought was that the dog was someone's transformation, but his strike just now didn't reveal anything. There was no trace of genjutsu either.

The dog... the dog was really writing the answers! Also... although a bit crude, they were more or less correct!

'This... I know the Inuzuka's ninja dogs are more advanced than the norm, but this... what the effing heck?'

At this rate, wouldn't the dog become the one who was attending the test? Should he pass the dog and fail the boy instead?

He sent a pleading look to Ibiki, asking for the boss's discretion.

'Please, tell me what to do! I'm scared!'

The wise and experienced special Jonin, Morino Ibiki. After expending his entire brain power trying to find a logical explanation for this peculiar phenomena, he... had decided to give up thinking.

"Ehch."

He just shrugged while making a weird noise.

"...Sorry for the intrusion. Continue what you're doing," the examiner murmured, and then flickered back to his seat on the side.

Fine... since the boss said to ignore it, he'll just ignore it! If you don't look at it then it'll go away, right? Right?!

While Kiba was roughly doing fine, another person was currently stuck in a terrible crisis.

Kankuro was trembling on his seat, his hands grabbing the test paper so hard they were getting crumpled.

"Explain the optimal composition of a hypothetical team for night raid. Assume that the target will be defended by twice the amount of manpower available for the team. If the opposing force is comprised of- aaah, damnit!"

He slammed his entire face onto the table, shocking the participants and examiners around him with the sudden noise.

A few seats from him, Temari was biting her lips.

'...That idiot... why hasn't he used karasu yet? He's supposed to tell me the answer after he got them!'

At least, that was the initial plan. Sadly, her expectation would only be met with disappointment.

In his past life, before he had become the Guardian of the Underworld, Ox-Head was a proud martial artist. However, he also had an ambition of becoming a respected court official, so he tried attending the national exam. During his lifetime, he had tried the exam twenty-third times across three dynasties.

Every single time, he consistently scored the lowest of the low. Even the examiners had partially given up whenever they saw his name on the list.

In other words, while his martial skill was considered godlike, his exam-taking ability was entirely hopeless. Horrendous. Abysmal.

"Why does it have to be a written exam?! I didn't have to take any back when the Jade Emperor offered me my current position! Why do I have to take it now of all time?! Just kill me! End this suffering!"

He groaned in his native tongue while smacking his face on the table again and again, his old mental trauma resurfacing with a vengeance.

"..."

The Chuunin-ranked examiners were watching with black lines covering their forehead. They had no idea how to evaluate this situation.

"Err... Sir Ibiki, should we take him out or...?"

Ibiki, who had spent his entire stash of thinking power earlier, merely narrowed his eyes at the black-clothed boy for a moment. After making sure that it wasn't some esoteric cheating method, just a bout of insanity, he decisively shook his head.

"Nah, it's fine. Let him stay."

If the boy was crazier than him, then he could be considered the normal one, right? Hmm, yes, the boy had to stay. He still needed the boy here to reassure him of his sanity.

"..."

The examiners suddenly felt that this particular exam was more tiring than usual...