The closer the start date of the Chuunin Senbatsu Shiken drew nearer, the more guests from ordinary people and teams applying to participate from various villages appeared in Konoha. The earliest competitors showed up two weeks before the scheduled date, and were not only checking out the local sights, but also trying to spy on the training grounds to find out the capabilities of our teams.
Despite the assigned Anbu observers, this practice was not suppressed - in preparation for the exam, all means are good, including espionage. And such vanilla conditions with no imminent danger in case of failure, allowed all the Genin to gain quite valuable experience of action and counteraction, especially when the observers could be drawn in advance.
In fact, I organized for the girls a real training on detection, raising their skills, but after a few days I had to abandon all classes at the team's assigned training ground - there were too many curious people, and before you could drive one away, another one would appear.
And, unlike other teams, which attracted curiosity evenly from different rival teams, mine were mostly people from Kumogakure and Kusagakure. It was clear about the former, but the latter surprised me, as they had taken note of me during the last war, even though I hadn't crossed paths with them.
In any case, the classes were moved to the personal training ground in the clan quarter, moreover, the main training was finished and I taught all three students to use the seals that I planned to give them at their disposal for the exam, as well as possible tactics of use.
I preferred to do things on my own, but Mito-chan's training had taught me not only how to create fuin, but also how to use them in any situation, so now the knowledge I'd gained was useful for getting into the heads of the three kunoichi.
Considering that the main trump card was better not to shine even in the absence of observers nearby - no one had canceled the abilities of dojutsu yet, as well as more down-to-earth methods of long-range observation - the move of classes was timely. Especially since the construction of the stadium was finished, as was the issuance of simple but well-paid missions, so they could focus on training.
Naturally, I was not going to leave the foreign competitors without attention, so to speak, returning the favor. Thanks to my connections, I managed to get the full list of registered participants for the chunin exam from the Hokage's office - nine teams from Kumogakure no Sato, twelve teams from Sunagakure no Sato, four teams from Kusagakure no Sato, two from Ishigakure no Sato, three from Takigakure no Sato, and two teams from Amegakure no Sato.
That's a total of thirty-two visiting teams versus exactly thirty-two teams from Konoha. We had everyone who fell under the requirements apply, even if they had been studying with mentors for less than a year.
Since the teams from different villages arrived at once, with little overlap between them, the kage bunshins assigned to monitor them not only had the opportunity to evaluate the genin for reserves, weapons, and aptitude for the elements, but also their mentors. The rule of "strong mentors have strong mentees" was almost always true in its essence, as was what such a mentor could teach the team.
Most of the jonin mentors I'd never met or knew purely from my pages in Bingo's book, but a few types I'd already encountered in person had caught my eye: a Chunin from Kusa I'd met during the start of the war, who had matured and had a new rank, and a dark-skinned, blond Ai, who had clan kids under him that even at first glance looked like serious rivals.
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