Takuma's chin rested on his palms with his fingers cupping his face; his right foot had grown a mind of its own and wouldn't stop fidgeting. His stomach also didn't seem to be doing well from all the gurgling he was hearing from inside.
He restlessly looked around the noisy classroom that matched his nervous energy. His classmates sat in groups around the room, huddled together, discussing among themselves. Only he sat alone in the corner. He wondered what they were talking about and if it could come up in the graduation test that was about to happen.
Time had passed in the blink of an eye, and it had already been over seven months since he had found himself in the fictional world, inhabiting an unknown orphan's body. The seven months were the most challenging times he had ever lived through. Everything from the looming threat of becoming a shinobi with no skills to survive to the immediate financial situation had him look at things he had never done before. His sense of priorities had revised more in these months than in all the years he had lived in his previous life.
"Akimichi Hideaki."
The classroom door slid upon with a rattle; Kibe peeked in and called for the next student in line.
The bulky Akimichi stood up from his desk, where already-eaten packaged food wrappers had piled up. The usually taciturn Hideaki, who rarely showed exaggerated expression on his chubby face, looked visibly unsettled. The back of his red samue was drenched in sweat. Even more shocking was the unopened bag of chips in Hideaki's hands— as long as there was something in his hands, he was eating it, and seeing that the bag remained sealed illustrated how Hideaki was feeling.
Takuma rubbed the side of his palm, stained with blue ink marks. The pen-and-paper part of the theoretical portion was already done first thing in the morning. His performance hadn't been satisfactory. The plan from the start had been to correctly attempt fifty percent of the paper as that was the passing grade for the test. He wanted to at least pass the test on his first attempt and improve in the subsequent attempts.
Takuma clenches his right hand tightly, digging his trimmed nails into the flesh. He had attempted fifty percent of the paper as planned, but those attempts weren't correct. Coming out of the examination hall, Takuma knew how many of his attempts were correct— his answers weren't enough to get him a passing grade.
'I should've focused more on history and tactics,' he thought with regret. His approach to exam preparation was to focus on his strengths and practice them enough to easily answer any related question. The efforts bore fruit; Takuma responded to math, physics, and finance questions with ease. But he had been horrible at tactics and strategy— half of the questions he didn't even know how to answer, the ones he knew he couldn't see through to a final answer. It didn't help that the topics he had learned from Maruboshi were too different from what came in the test. What hurt the most was history, which he considered to be a moderate strength— the questions that came were from topics he had strategically chosen to set aside in order to manage time in preparation. The questions from his strengths didn't have enough weightage in the question sheet to get him to pass. And he knew he hadn't done well enough in other topics to bridge the gap.
The viva-voce was yet to be conducted. Takuma prayed to the fates that the invigilator would ask easy questions, or better, those he knew the answer to.
Every other minute or three, Kibe would step through the door and call for one student. With every student left, the classroom became emptier as those who left didn't return, which displeased all. If the people who went for the test returned, those yet to be called could've calmed their nerves by hearing the account of those already tested.
"Takuma."
He stood up in a rush upon hearing his name. If his chair wasn't a long bench bolted to the floor, Takuma would've knocked it back. He gathered his belongings into the pouches on his person and scuttled out of the room.
Outside the classroom, Kibe led him across the corridor to the testing hall.
"The invigilators will first test your bukijutsu (weapon skills), then ask you to demonstrate ninjutsu, followed by a taijutsu spar, and end it with something of their choice," Kibe said, breaking the silence.
"Spar against whom?" asked Takuma.
"One of the invigilators."
Takuma narrowed his eyes. He had assumed and preferred that it would be one of his classmates so that he could adjust his plan going into the fight in accordance with their fighting style.
"The invigilators are senior chunin. The aim of the spar isn't to beat them but to show them the full breadth of your skill," said Kibe.
Takuma nodded. He had figured out that much.
The pair reached the testing hall, which Takuma recognized to be an auditorium hall. It was used when the academy needed a large space indoors. He hadn't been inside because their class never needed it, but he knew it was used for the graduation ceremony.
Kibe put his hand on the handle slit in the door but didn't open it right away. He looked at Takuma and asked, "How many of the academy three can you do?"
Takuma was taken aback at the sudden question. Kibe had never expressed any interest in him in any form, making surprise the natural reaction in the situation.
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"If you can do all three and your paper is decent, even if you do badly in everything else, there's a real chance you could pass. Pass in this and improve in the next two attempts. You did Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone Jutsu) that day; can you do the other two as well?"
Since the day Takuma had performed the Bunshin no Jutsu in class, Kibe hadn't called him up again. Takuma knew Kibe had long given up on him, and it made him wonder why he was bringing this up now.
'Is he feeling a late sense of responsibility?' Takuma thought— or was it guilt that Kibe was feeling?
Whatever it was, Takuma didn't care. His attention was caught by something else Kibe had said. '— pass in this and improve in the next two attempts—' Did that mean that the final result was an aggregate of the three attempts like he suspected? That didn't bode well for Takuma. After all, he hadn't done decently in his paper; neither could he pull off all academy three.
Takuma pursed his lips and shook his head.
"You—" Kibe sighed and shook his head to himself. "Alright... Just remember to be polite and follow whatever they say to the word." He opened the door and ushered Takuma in.
The auditorium hall had wooden flooring with a raised stage on one end that had large velvety-blue curtains framing it.
The hall had been cleared out for the purpose of today. The floor had seemingly been divided into regions with shinobi in the standard Leaf shinobi gear of green flak jacket over blue interacting with Takuma's classmates. All the shinobi had a clipboard in their hand, making them invigilators. Looking up, there was a corridor with railings that crossed three sides of the hall sans the wall above the stage. The corridor had similarly dressed shinobi looking down at the testing process. These shinobi didn't have clipboards in their hands.
Were they looking out for attempts at cheating? Takuma thought for a moment before walking to the shinobi waving a hand in his direction.
"Are you Takuma?" asked the invigilator. He had buzz-cut hair and a large beard that looked like it had been groomed to give it the proper shape and texture.
The man then asked for id when Takuma nodded. Takuma presented his academy id-card which the man studied along with Takuma for half a minute before returning it.
"Alright, now that's out of the way, I'll be testing your bukijutsu. What all weapons can you use?"
"... Kunai, shuriken, and senbon," said Takuma, feeling something was off about the framing of the question.
"Anything else?"
Takum was taken aback. Was he expected to learn how to wield more weapons? Did that carry some importance? "No," he said. Thinking about that was useless when he didn't have enough mastery of the basic three.
"You see the targets there," the invigilator pointed at the circular bullseye around them. Some were bound to the walls, others sat on the stands, "Hit them with kunai and shuriken. As for senbon... throw them at me."
Takuma curled his brow, but the invigilator didn't seem to be jesting. Kibe's reminder of the invigilators being chunin flashed through Takuma's mind, making him return a nod. He wasn't going to hurt a chunin with his skill.
The invigilator pointed to a nearby table populated with weapons and told him to use those. Takuma counted the number of targets and picked the same number of kunai and shuriken along with four senbon. The table also had swords, daggers, nunchucks, chained weapons, knuckle-based arms, bo-staffs, and various other choices. The variety of weapons present told him the answer to his previous question.
"Hmm?" Takuma observed the weapons in his hands. The weight on them was off; they were either too light or heavy from the standard issue synonymous with every weaponsmith in the Leaf village. A couple kunai that weighed correctly had an off-balance. He glanced at the invigilator and found the man observing him.
Takuma put the weapons into his pouches. Switching them wasn't an option as the kunai had a special wrapping on the handle, the shurikens were engraved, and the senbon had a bronze sheen on them.
"Start," said the invigilator.
Thwip! A kunai struck the farthest target on the wall, missing the red center by a couple centimeters.
Takuma didn't need to cheat by switching.
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! One-by-one, all targets had kunai and shuriken sticking out of them.
Faulty weapons weren't a problem to him. All of his personal cache of weapons were bought from scrap boxes full of defective and damaged pieces. Broken tips, chipped edges, bent blades. He had practiced hours upon hours using weapons that had problems. A perfectly weighted and balanced shuriken was predictable; it allowed the user to know exactly how it would react when thrown; faulty weapons would deviate based on their defect. He had simply learned to detect the defect, predict the deviation, and adjust his form.
The result was every throw of his hitting the target. Yes, he missed the bullseyes on most of his throws and had thrown every weapon one at a time. But he wasn't going to pull something beyond his skill to impress the invigilator— that was just inviting failure.
The invigilator scribbled down something on his clipboard. "That leaves senbon," he said.
Takuma threw the four faulty senbon towards the invigilator. The bearded man dodged one, caught another, and made the back of his clipboard become the target of the remaining two.
"I will ask again, can you wield another weapon?"
Takuma shook his head.
"Alright, we are done here." The weapons invigilator looked at Takuma and said, "I hope by the next attempt, you will increase your accuracy more. If you're missing the center here, you will miss the target completely in the field where a dozen things are making aiming difficult for you." He plucked a senbon from his clipboard, "With senbons, you need to target vitals that can be damaged by a thin needle, or you need to study my posture and target places that will be difficult for me to evade or block."
Takuma held back a groan. The advice about accuracy was nothing new, but the senbon part made him want to poke his eyes out with them. He had simply thrown them toward his face and chest without thought— it absolutely made sense to target vitals, but he had been practicing on round target boards or painted circles on trees that he had let the importance of anatomy slip his mind.
This was going to affect his grade. But it was too late to change things, thus the mention of the next attempt.
"You can continue to the next part of the test."