"Kid, you realize you could be eliminated for this, right?"
Every head in the examination room turned toward Shigure.
There was no gratitude in their eyes—only disbelief.
He had somehow made the answers appear on everyone's test papers.
Openly. Boldly.
This guy was insane.
"Eliminated? Why would I be eliminated?" Shigure asked, voice calm, almost amused.
Ibiki's gaze hardened. "Aren't these answers your doing?" He gestured toward the sheets in front of the candidates.
"Who says it was me?" Shigure replied evenly. "Do you have any proof?"
A ripple of murmurs went through the room.
To speak to the examiner of the first test like that… either Shigure was fearless, or he had a death wish.
Ibiki's expression darkened further. The tension in the room thickened; many could sense trouble brewing.
But Shigure's posture didn't change. His eyes stayed locked on Ibiki, calm and unflinching.
The silence stretched.
Finally, Ibiki gave a short, humorless chuckle.
"No… no evidence."
He straightened and gave the other proctors a meaningful look. With a faint motion of his eyes, he signaled them to stand down.
Reluctantly, the Chūnin and Jōnin invigilators returned to their positions. There was nothing they could do—without proof, even the chief examiner couldn't touch this Genin.
The other candidates were stunned. Shigure had openly toyed with the head examiner and walked away untouched.
So this is what it means to have real skill… and guts.
And since Ibiki wasn't punishing him, no one was about to waste the opportunity—if the answers were right there for the taking, they'd be fools not to copy them.
Gaara's eyes narrowed as he watched Shigure.
"This one… he's worth something. I'll kill him. I must kill him."
Neji spared Shigure a brief glance before returning to his paper. He didn't need Shigure's answers—Tenten was already quietly passing them to him.
When the first exam ended, Ibiki had the proctors collect the test papers. Originally, his plan should have cut down a good portion of the genin. But thanks to Shigure's stunt, almost no one had been eliminated.
Only two candidates were removed—and that was because they'd been too impatient and tried to cheat before Shigure had finished his little trick. To spare them would have been unfair.
When Mitarashi Anko strode into the room, she glanced around at the remaining candidates and frowned.
The number was only three less than when the exam began.
Her brow furrowed.
"You haven't started yet?"
Ibiki replied dryly, "It's over."
Anko looked from him to the nearly full room. "Are you sure the exam's over?"
Ibiki only gave a helpless nod.
Anko's mouth twitched. This was not at all how she'd pictured things turning out. Now she'd have to shepherd an unusually large group into the Forest of Death.
She turned to the candidates, her voice laced with mock cheer.
"Alright! Everyone, follow me!"
Her tone hardened into a smirk. "And don't think you're lucky for making it to the second round. If anything, you're unlucky."
As the group moved toward the second exam site, Shigure could be seen dragging Naruto and Sasuke by the ankles—both of them fast asleep, limp as rag dolls. The sight drew puzzled stares from the other candidates.
What happened to his teammates?
When they reached the towering gates of the Forest of Death, Shigure stopped beneath a tree and patted Naruto and Sasuke on the shoulders.
"Alright, nap time's over. The second exam's about to start."
The two blinked awake. Naruto yawned and stretched lazily.
"Nothing happened, right? Shigure, if we got eliminated while I was asleep, I'm never talking to you again!"
Shigure didn't answer—because another Shigure was walking toward them from the direction of the exam group, dragging another Naruto and Sasuke along with him.
Anko froze, blinking.
"Hold on… why were there three of you sleeping here since morning? Are you also candidates?"
Heads turned. The other genin stared, eyes flicking between two identical Shigures, two identical Narutos, and two identical Sasukes.
"What the—? Am I seeing double?"
"Idiot, those are clones!"
"Clones?!"
Bang!
Shigure dispelled his Shadow Clone in a puff of smoke. Sasuke followed suit, his Lightning Clone dissolving into sparks, and Naruto's Shadow Clone burst apart as well.
The three duplicates vanished, leaving only the real Team 7 standing there as if nothing unusual had happened.
The exam hall fell silent.
They… they actually sent clones to take the first exam?
And not only that—Shigure's clone had used ninjutsu during the written test, right under Ibiki's nose, and had still passed.
Class 7's reputation had just gone from notable to unforgettable. In all the history of the genin exams, no one had ever pulled something like this off.
And apparently, they'd even reached the second exam site before the first round was over.
Anko planted her hands on her hips, glaring.
"You three… you didn't even take the real first exam! You think you can pass like this?"
Shigure smiled faintly.
"Shouldn't it be Ibiki-sensei who decides whether we passed? He didn't say we failed."
"But you—!" Anko stopped herself. If she said Ibiki had failed to recognize shadow clones, it would be an open insult. And knowing Ibiki, he'd probably insist he knew they were clones and had let them through anyway.
Instead, she asked, "Then how did you even find the entrance to the second exam? You got here before the first round even started!"
The question made the other candidates pause. None of them had thought about that.
Rock Lee and Neji, however, felt their faces burn. That meant the Shigure Lee had challenged earlier was just a clone. And Neji, a member of the Hyūga clan, hadn't even noticed.
Shigure's tone was casual.
"Isn't gathering intel a basic ninja skill? With a little chakra sensing, it's not hard to figure out where the second stage is."
His words were light, but to Anko, the boy in front of her felt less like a genin… and more like some kind of monster.
...
TN:
🔟 Pa-treon-com/LordMerlin
…
💎 100 Power Stones → +1 Bonus Chapter (68 more to go!)
⭐ 10 Reviews→ +1 Bonus Chapter (Just 3 more to go!)