There honestly wasn't much to do at the tower for the teams that arrived early.
In fact, it quickly became clear that Konoha hadn't prepared at all for anyone to arrive quite so quickly.
Sure, the tower was staffed and all, but beyond rooms for sleeping and resting in, food and drink, as well as bathrooms and a bath, there was nothing at all.
Karin couldn't help but complain; who made such a huge tower and didn't use it?
Because yes, it was clear to her that the tower served no real purpose.
In fact, she couldn't figure out why they had bothered making it in the first place. Surely it wasn't just a place for Chūnin Exams to finish?
That would be beyond wasteful.
But what purpose could it ever have served?
It was, after all, in the middle of a giant forest filled with traps, not really a place many people would go.
So, why?
"You cheated!" Tōji accused as he lost another game of cards against Kankurō.
"Is that so? Then why don't you prove it?" the puppet user said with a smug voice, one that clearly screamed guilty, but it needed proof; unless it could be proven, it was useless.
Something Tōji knew, but hated all the same.
Worse, he had also been cheating as much as he could get away with, and still lost.
Indeed, when it came to shinobi playing games like this, chance played no role at all.
It was a competition of who could cheat the most and get away with it.
"Boys," Temari said, rolling her eyes as she sat across from Naho and played another card game.
Though that one was far fairer.
In fact, it was a game Karin had taught her, after she had learned it from Kaguya.
Two players would each have cards representing famous shinobi, such as the Kage and other legends, really a Bingo Book's worth of entries.
From Tokubetsu Jōnin all the way to the First Hokage himself.
Players would take turns going first and put a card on the table; the other person would then play a card representing someone who was stronger than the card of their opponent.
Or they could sacrifice a weak card to deal with one of the opponent's strongest cards.
Since both players had the same cards, it was all about skill, knowing when to sacrifice and when not to.
"What do you mean the Third Hokage beats the Third Kazekage? He is the strongest Kazekage in history!" Temari said, banging on the table in protest as Naho was about to claim the two cards.
Naho just shrugged. "Ask Karin-sama; she made the rules," she said helplessly.
Temari turned toward Karin, who sighed. "I didn't make the rules, Kaguya did, but the short end of it is that the Kazekage is strongest in dealing with large numbers of shinobi less powerful than him, but struggles more against those on his own level."
She didn't mention that that included even the current Kazekage.
There was nothing really wrong with that, but it was the truth, which meant the Kazekage were not that valuable a card in the game.
Something Temari couldn't accept, which led her to lose quite a few decent cards.
She complained a little at hearing that explanation, but in the end, she had nothing better to do than play, so even if she thought it was stupid, she still played along.
Just like Tōji continued to play against Kankurō despite getting his ass kicked.
There wasn't anything better to do.
Training wasn't really an option, and they weren't allowed to leave the tower, so unless they had brought along entertainment, they were out of luck.
And naturally, as proper shinobi, they hadn't brought anything along.
If not for Karin always carrying around all kinds of things in her sealing scrolls, they would all be sitting and staring at one another until their eyes dried out.
Though Gaara and Karin were still doing that.
While the other four were playing games, Gaara wasn't really a games kind of guy, and his siblings were far too afraid of him to dare play, because they feared winning would get him mad.
So none dared to play against him, well, other than Karin herself.
But... just like how Gaara had problems when it came to playing games like this, so too did Karin.
She hated losing, and if she did lose... she would flip the table and beat whoever was beating her until they admitted defeat.
So by now, neither Naho nor Tōji dared to play against her anymore.
So, she and Gaara were just sitting and glaring at one another across the table.
Honestly, it was starting to get on Shigure Renga's nerves, but he didn't dare say anything to Karin, and the other Jōnin didn't seem to care.
It seemed that Suna's shinobi didn't care much for their own.
Well, not for Gaara at least.
Still, even Baki was getting nervous; the air was filled with pressure, and while he wasn't the target of it, the two kids were far from normal.
He knew it was his job to make sure Gaara didn't do anything stupid, but even he didn't dare get between them.
Thankfully, while the tension was so thick even the Sword of Kusanagi wouldn't be able to cut through it, the two monstrous Genin seemed content just sitting there glaring at one another.
Though Karin wasn't merely glaring at Gaara, she was also using her impressive sensor abilities to keep herself informed about what was happening around them.
Though she was sitting there, her awareness was hardly limited to a single room.
It wasn't until the second day that she noticed another team approaching the tower, though they didn't enter.
Clearly, they either didn't have a set of both scrolls yet, or they wanted to try to eliminate a few extra teams.
Both were equally likely, as the team was setting up traps outside the tower, clearly hoping to catch some prey.
Karin derived most of her entertainment from watching the teams running around outside through her sensing.
More and more teams reached the range at which she could detect them, which included none other than Orochimaru, who had entered the tower itself, but wasn't making himself known.
Instead, he was playing a game of cat and mouse with a force of Konoha ANBU who were clearly fully aware that he was somewhere in Konoha.
It was pretty fun, and she really wished she could be there in person and see the expression of everyone as Orochimaru had more than once met up with the very people he was hunting, and seemed to offer them advice or something.
It was impossible for Karin to know what was being said, but she could at least somewhat detect their movements inside the tower, due to them being so close to her.
So she had seen Orochimaru pointing around, and watched as the ANBU rushed off to where he had pointed.
Only for nothing to be there when they arrived.
And when the ANBU returned, Orochimaru was gone.
It was quite the funny game, and Karin knew for a fact that no one outside of herself was aware that Orochimaru was the one playing with the Konoha shinobi.
Even the Suna shinobi were fooled, thinking it was nothing but a Konoha problem, one they were happy to watch.
It wasn't until the third day that another team finally entered the tower, a Konoha team.
She counted a Hyūga, based on the way she felt his chakra move, which reminded her of the Byakugan.
The other two, well, one was a kunoichi and the other was... strange.
It was pretty strong, but also felt... crippled?
She couldn't really put words to it, but it was the person who had fought against Sasuke back before the first test.
From what she had picked up around the place, that guy should be a taijutsu specialist, a student of Konoha's Might Guy.
The person who Kaguya had said was the most dangerous in all of Konoha, and someone even she didn't dare fight against.
Karin was looking forward to meeting him, which shouldn't be too hard, since he was now inside the tower too.
Though his chakra didn't seem all that impressive... so she couldn't figure out why Kaguya seemed so impressed with him.
She had to ask about it sometime soon.
The next team to enter the tower was the one that had been waiting outside, who had now gathered a full set of scrolls and was ready to leave.
It was a Konoha team, not surprising, since they didn't have much of a chance of making it to the third round, which was almost always fully dominated by the great villages.
But the Konoha team had also found a scroll, meaning they had attacked another team and won, or at least one of them had.
And from the fact that they didn't seem to be injured, it seemed they had won rather cleanly.
Not a bad performance.
At least better than her own team.
She had to admit that no matter how much she disliked Gaara, she also found a kindred spirit in him.
Both of them had to carry their teams, though Gaara still had a halfway competent team, even if they were nowhere near his level.
Indeed, the strong were destined to be lonely.
Time continued to pass, and to ensure nothing happened, the teams of Suna and Ame remained together, which was mostly due to Karin and Gaara, who, despite being Genin on paper, were largely in charge of their teams.
For Karin's team, she was in fact in charge, and for Gaara's, well, his teacher, Baki, just didn't dare get in a fight with him over something minor, so he didn't say anything.
Soon enough, the fifth day came around, and the final team managed to enter the tower before the deadline. As to whether more teams were still running around out there?
Karin didn't know, but even if there were, it was too late now.
"Alright, time to get on with things; the exam is finally over," Baki said, getting up and stretching.
This caught the attention of all the Genin, who were excited to finally get on with things.
"Yeah, quite a few teams passed, so I wonder if there will be some extra task to cut the final number down," Karin said as she quickly did a mental count of the number of exam takers in the tower.
Seven full teams, which meant twenty-one Genin, or people pretending to be Genin.
That felt like far too many for a third task; surely the noble guests who would come to watch the show would get bored of that many fights.
Not to mention, a lot of Genin here mostly passed due to teamwork.
Which was all good and well, but hardly something that played a role in the final exam.
So, what was Konoha going to do?
(End of chapter)
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