Chapter 295: Girl Terumi Mei
"That's weird. Minato sensei is late today. Did he oversleep?" Obito muttered when he rushed to the training ground and found only Rin and Kakashi waiting.
"Do you think Minato sensei is like you?" Kakashi looked at Obito with a flat stare. Obito had arrived right on the dot himself, and he still had the nerve to complain.
"As if you've never been late, Kakashi." Obito clenched a fist, refusing to back down.
"I have been late," Kakashi replied calmly, "but nowhere near as often as you."
He admitted it without embarrassment. Sometimes insomnia messed up his schedule and he would arrive a little behind. But that happened maybe once a year. Obito being late was so routine it had become part of his personality.
"How dare you slander my good name out of thin air!" Obito's eyes widened. Then he threw his hands up. "What late? I was helping people. How can helping others be called being late?"
"Being late is failing to arrive at the agreed time," Kakashi said in one sentence, ending the argument.
"Alright, alright." Rin stepped between them with a helpless smile. "Minato sensei must have had something important come up. He's so fast, he might show up any second."
Rin trusted him enough to know he was not the type to sleep through a meeting.
Whoosh.
Almost as if replying to her, Minato appeared in front of them in a yellow flash.
"Sorry, I'm a little late," he said, apology flickering across his face before his usual warm smile returned. "Do you want to take the Chunin Exams? I recommended you. If you do, fill these out."
He drew out three application forms.
Rin had guessed right. Minato had just come from the Hokage Building, sorting out qualifications for the exams.
"The Chunin Exams? So we can get promoted to Chunin?" Obito's eyes lit up. "Yes, yes, yes!"
Even if Kakashi was already ahead of him, Obito still hated the fact that Kakashi's rank was higher. On missions, that meant Obito would always be a step below him.
"It's a qualification, not a promotion," Minato clarified quickly, worried Obito might think signing the paper made him Chunin on the spot. "You still have to pass."
Still, Minato already knew their strength. Obito's team was more than capable of clearing the exam.
"Hehe. I'll definitely pass." Obito was full of confidence. He had already beaten several enemy Chunin during missions.
Kakashi stared at the three forms with a faint frown. Logically, two should have been enough. He pointed at them. "Sensei, am I taking it too?"
"Kakashi, aren't you already Chunin?" Obito grabbed the sheet with his photo and started complaining. "You can still take it? What, if you pass three times in a row you become Jonin or something?"
Kakashi went silent. Even if someone asked him, he would not know.
"Kakashi does need to participate," Minato answered seriously, "but passing again won't make you Jonin. Jonin promotion is granted only by the Hokage."
He continued, "Your team is special in more than one way. That's why you're being allowed to enter together."
The Chunin Exams were set to start on July first. Obito and Rin had only graduated in mid March. That meant they were fresh Genin, barely a month and a half into real service.
Normally, Genin did not enter the exams until they had at least a year of missions behind them. Most waited three years.
Some wanted to take it earlier but could not. The exams had requirements for time served and team mission records.
Obito's team qualified because of the high level missions they completed during their internship. An S rank mission carried a heavy weight. Add Minato's recommendation, and the short career requirement could be waived.
But the Chunin Exams required team participation. With Obito and Rin so newly graduated, and with a few other complications, Hiruzen finally approved Kakashi, a Chunin, joining them so they could enter as a full squad.
Kakashi nodded and took his form.
The application felt strangely familiar. Taking the Chunin Exams again as a Chunin was a new kind of awkward.
Ever since leaving his old formal team, his life had gotten steadily weirder. First he ended up in a squad with Ninja School kids. Then mission after mission turned bizarre. Now he was about to take a Chunin Exam he had already passed.
"Kakashi, don't you dare drag us down just because you're already Chunin," Obito warned after filling his form.
He suddenly realized Kakashi had nothing to lose if he slacked off. Obito and Rin, on the other hand, would be stuck at Genin.
"Instead of worrying about me, worry about yourself." Kakashi lifted his eyes, disdain not hidden at all. "The first round is a written test. Fail that, and you're out."
That was the confidence of someone who had never scored below perfect.
"Wait, the first round is written?" Obito's face went pale like he had just met a real enemy. He stopped caring about Kakashi's stare and leaned in. "How do you pass?"
In other words, give me the cheat code.
"It depends. The rules change every time." Kakashi shook his head.
The exams were held twice a year, and even those in the same year could differ. His old experience was not guaranteed to help.
"But the minimum is usually around sixty points, if you want a number," he added.
Obito's expression turned even more serious. Sixty might as well have been a mountain.
"Just review properly. You'll be fine," Minato said with a calm, encouraging smile.
Obito could only grumble in his heart. That was because Minato had not seen him at his worst. Back in school he had scored in the single digits. His grades climbed a bit in fourth year thanks to Mugetsu's tutoring, then sank again once he stopped studying theory as much.
Luckily, Obito had a backup plan. If he did not trust his own head, he trusted the all knowing Sage Mugetsu. When in doubt, ask Mugetsu later.
…
Maybe Hiruzen wanted Mugetsu's record to look even cleaner, because Mugetsu was holding a ridiculous number of roles for this Chunin Exams.
He was in charge of writing the first round test. He was also the chief examiner for the second round. On top of that, he had several nominal posts that required no real work.
It sounded like a lot, but most of it was light enough for shadow clones to handle. Overall, it stayed within Mugetsu's acceptable workload.
If it ever became too much, he would refuse on the spot. Time was better spent on sealing technique and medical study than on paperwork for Hiruzen.
"This is such a pain," Jiraiya complained as they walked toward Konoha's main gate. "It's wartime and they still want to invite other villages. Couldn't they just hold it themselves? And why am I the one greeting them?"
Mugetsu only smiled. Complaining about top level decisions in public was not exactly wise.
"Hosting a Chunin Exams like this during war proves Konoha's strength to the daimyo and our clients," Homura explained as he slowed his steps. "Even among the Five Great Villages, we are the strongest."
The leadership had debated whether to hold an open exam. Because the war was going smoothly, they chose to invite other villages as usual.
It would let everyone watching see Konoha's power firsthand.
First they invited the surrounding small villages, ensuring those neighbors stayed firmly aligned with Konoha during wartime.
As for major villages, they chose the Hidden Mist. Konoha was confident, not arrogant. They were not going to invite an enemy into their own village in the middle of a war.
Sunagakure was not fighting Konoha, but their Kazekage had vanished and they were locked in heavy combat with Kumogakure. Konoha decided not to disturb them. That left the Hidden Mist, the only major village currently out of the war.
Only inviting small villages would look like bullying. Even if Konoha dominated, it would not prove much.
"Hiruzen values you enough to have you here," Koharu said to Jiraiya, her tone sharp. "Don't waste it."
As Hiruzen's old teammate, she could read his intentions. She knew exactly who Hiruzen hoped to push toward Hokage.
"The wind today is really lively," Jiraiya said, suddenly fascinated by the weather.
He understood Hiruzen's hopes, but he had no desire for the hat. He only wanted the war to end so he could go back to traveling the world.
Both advisors looked at him like he was iron that refused to be forged.
When they reached the gate, their expressions changed to polite smiles as the Hidden Mist team approached.
Only the Hidden Mist received a formal greeting. The smaller villages would present identification and enter on their own.
Mugetsu stayed quietly among the group, observing the arriving team while using the Appraisal Technique on each of them.
[Name: Genshi]
[Chakra: 74000]
[Skills: Water Release Chakra Nature Transformation (Mastered), Hidden Mist Technique (Mastered), Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique (Mastered)...]
An old man holding a snake shaped wooden staff, somewhere around sixty five to seventy. His stats were impressive. Mugetsu guessed he was an elder level figure.
Still, at that age, raw stats did not equal battlefield dominance. Mugetsu doubted Genshi could beat the current Danzo in a real fight. Time always took its profit.
Mugetsu spotted other familiar faces in the crowd, though none of them had grown into their future selves yet.
[Name: Mei Terumi]
[Chakra: 4000]
[Potential: S]
[Skills: Water Release Chakra Nature Transformation (Proficient: 2200/3000), Lava Release (Proficient: 1000/3000), Boil Release (Proficient)...]
The future Fifth Mizukage, famous for both charisma and power, was for now a flat chested red haired girl around Kakashi's age. Even so, the talent was obvious. Anyone who could later block Madara's fire with water was never going to be ordinary, and her stats proved it.
[Name: Zabuza Momochi]
[Chakra: 3600]
[Skills: Water Release Chakra Nature Transformation (Proficient: 900/3000), Hidden Mist Technique (Proficient)...]
Because he had debuted early in history, Zabuza's future reputation would be terrifying. He had once forced the Sixth Hokage, the Indra reincarnation, and the Asura reincarnation into a desperate corner on his own.
Right now he was still a kid, about Kakashi's age, but already wore that same cold aura. Bandages wrapped the lower half of his face, and his eyes looked like he disliked the entire world.
[Name: Kisame Hoshigaki]
[Chakra: 7000]
[Skills: Water Release Chakra Nature Transformation (Proficient: 2400/3000), Water Release: Water Prison Technique (Proficient), Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique (Proficient)...]
Kisame did not look the same age as Kakashi. Mugetsu guessed he was two or three years older, keeping the estimate conservative because Kisame's features were so distinct already.
"But these stats do not look like Genin at all," Mugetsu thought while studying the number.
That chakra level alone rivaled some ordinary Jonin. His proficiency was lower than a true veteran's, but not by much.
"Is the Hidden Mist trying to stir trouble? Was this in the original story?" Mugetsu kept turning the question over.
There was little canon detail about this period. He knew the Hidden Mist would later clash with Konoha in the war, but he did not remember whether their participation in these exams was supposed to happen, or if it was his butterfly effect in motion.
He could not pin down the plot, but their presence made one thing clear. Judging by the overall strength of the Hidden Mist team, they likely planned to outshine Konoha in the exams.
Still, even with strong Genin, this group was not capable of provoking chaos inside Konoha. Hiruzen would not need to lift a finger. Jiraiya alone could wipe them out if it came to that.
Mugetsu could only call it coincidence. In another year, Mei and the others might have been enough to pressure Konoha's candidates. But this year, his own disciples were entering as well, and he was right here, watching closely.
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