Chapter 55: A Great White Shark in the Goldfish Pond
The exam hall was dead silent. Only the scratch of pencil on paper.
Ibiki Morino, presiding as chief proctor, swept his cold gaze across the several hundred genin candidates in front of him.
Sakura took one glance at the test paper laid in front of her — material that was nowhere on the genin curriculum — and without hesitation picked up her pencil and burned through the entire thing at speed.
This stuff was kindergarten arithmetic to her.
She propped her cheek on one hand, twirled the pencil in her fingers, and let her gaze drift out the window.
A few rows back, Ino caught sight of Sakura's twirling pencil and her eyes lit up. With practiced speed, she discreetly formed a hand seal aimed at her best friend.
Mind Body Switch Technique!
The Yamanaka clan's signature technique. Project your consciousness into someone else's body and pilot it from the inside. Same family of skills as the Nara clan's shadow techniques — a Yin Release application.
The instant the technique connected, Sakura blinked.
She watched her own hands move without her permission, lifting the test paper off the desk, eyes flicking down the answers at high speed.
Oh — Ino's Mind Body Switch.
She had a clear sense that if she wanted to, she could shove Ino out of her body anytime.
Inner Sakura, huh?
Sakura remembered: in the original story, the early Sakura Haruno had a second personality named "Inner Sakura," and one of Inner Sakura's traits was apparently mental resistance to genjutsu and Mind Body Switch. In the canon Chūnin Exams, when Sakura faced Ino, Inner Sakura's existence had played a key role.
After a moment's thought, she let Ino keep piloting her body and copying. There would be plenty of opportunities later to test Mind Body Switch's effect on her properly. Right now, the exam was the priority.
Ino got what she needed and pulled out fast — she still had to do the same favor for Shikamaru and Chōji.
Time ticked by. A steady stream of candidates got booted from the hall for cheating sloppily.
In the final ten minutes, Naruto delivered his Way of the Shinobi declaration and lucked his way through to the next round.
Now came the second stage of the Chūnin Exams. The stage Sakura was treating with the most gravity.
The reason was simple: this was the stage where, in canon, Team Seven crossed paths with one of the legendary Three Sannin...
A figure exploded through the window into the classroom; in the same motion, two kunai pinned a massive banner across the front of the room.
ANKO MITARASHI!
"Idiot."
Ibiki Morino's silent internal critique was succinct.
"Idiot."
Sakura, looking at her own former ANBU Squad Seven subordinate, mentally echoed it word for word.
"Ta-daaa~~"
"I am the proctor for your second exam!"
"Anko Mitarashi-sama~~~"
The purple-haired woman threw her arms wide in front of the assembled candidates — and then her introduction faltered halfway through.
The reason was simple: among this crop of candidates, she had just spotted a very familiar pink-haired girl.
No way. What is she doing in the Chūnin Exams...
Anko's expression went somewhere distinctly weird.
This was like dropping a starving great white shark into a goldfish pond.
She shot a confused look at Ibiki.
Ibiki shrugged: don't ask me, I don't know either.
Ibiki Morino also recognized Sakura, but he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut and just do his job as chief proctor with appropriate seriousness.
As for the pink-haired ANBU squad captain among the candidates?
What ANBU squad captain?
That was a freshly-graduated genin, and Ibiki Morino was absolutely certain of it.
"Everyone!"
"With me!"
With one bright shout, Anko led the group out of the exam hall.
The Forest of Death
Anko surveyed the gaggle of barely-fledged genin (Sakura excluded) and launched into the rules of the second stage.
Seven days. Collect a pair of Heaven and Earth scrolls. Reach the central tower.
Once she'd finished the briefing, Anko started directing teams to their assigned entry gates.
Sakura had just turned toward Gate A4 when Anko, with shocking speed, slid in and slung an arm around her shoulders, bringing her mouth right up next to Sakura's ear.
"Hey! You girl-man, let go of Sakura!"
Naruto, watching this, immediately assumed the worst and jumped in.
"Naruto. I know her."
Sakura caught Anko's hand mid-motion as it reached for a kunai to throw at Naruto and shot him a flat look.
"Eh?"
Naruto blinked.
Anko flashed the blond gremlin a provocative grin, then leaned back into Sakura's ear and dropped her voice low.
"What's the situation? How are you in this thing?"
Her warm breath tickled Sakura's ear.
"Don't ask. For the next seven days, have Kakashi and Might Guy stationed here. Watch for my signal."
"If anything happens, support immediately."
Anko blinked at the request, vaguely thrown.
She had no idea what was prompting any of this, but she nodded.
Sakura's eyes had already tracked to a specific red-haired figure entering through one of the other gates. She gave Anko a small nudge.
"Don't worry about the why. Just do what I said. I'm going."
"Oi, hold on a sec —"
Anko had been hoping to catch up — vent a little about the relative dullness of normal-shinobi life now that Sakura wasn't her squad captain anymore.
But the pink one was already gone, hauling Naruto and Sasuke through Gate A4.
"Sakura-chan, who was that lady?"
"She had such a smug attitude!"
The instant they were inside the Forest of Death, Naruto pestered her with the question.
Sakura swept her eyes across the surrounding canopy and ignored Naruto's curiosity. She grabbed both boys by the wrist and took off in a specific direction.
"Don't worry about it for now. We need to find someone."
Naruto, bewildered, scratched the back of his head and just followed her lead.
Sasuke, brow furrowed, kept pace behind her.
He remembered the team from the Hidden Grass village. Their scroll, going off the briefing colors, was the same as Team Seven's — both Heaven scrolls.
Did Sakura have a grudge with Kusagakure? She wasn't even bothering with the scroll calculus. She was just going straight for them...
He couldn't think of any other reason.
Even so, he didn't push back on her call. He needed a real-stakes test of his current ability anyway, and the Grass team was as good a sparring partner as any.
The thought made him push his speed up another notch.
The pink-haired girl led the way, leaping branch to branch through the giant trees, with a small triumphant smile playing at the corner of her mouth.
Karin. You're mine.