[Hanabi's so cute]
[Little hand raised, red cord wrapped, bell jingling—oh my~]
[Lady Hanabi's about to start trouble again, isn't she?]
The broadcast contained a lot of content, so there was a slight delay from real time.
After Hanabi had been waving her hand around for a while, the test papers were distributed, and Sasuke looked down at his. He couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"I see. These questions—I don't understand a single one."
After scanning the paper, Sasuke immediately realized he couldn't answer any of the questions.
"So, the thing Hanabi gave us…"
Hanabi had slipped something to the two of them earlier, all secretive about it.
Connecting that to the current situation, Sasuke understood at once what it was.
Sasuke brushed his hand across the paper's surface. Instantly, the blank test transformed into a fully completed sheet.
"Just as I thought."
That swipe had actually layered Hanabi's prepared sheet over the original test, and then he'd slid the blank original out from underneath.
[Holy crap, she actually stole the test in advance]
[A perfect answer sheet, just like that]
[So why did Hanabi raise her hand earlier?]
[Honestly I'm more worried about Naruto—I'm scared he won't figure it out even with the sheet right there]
[Lmao, that's our protagonist for you]
[Come on, Naruto, notice it already!]
"Naruto, you'd better pick up on this…"
Hanabi had only hinted at it—she'd never explicitly said that what she'd given them was a complete answer sheet.
[So why didn't Hanabi just tell them outright?]
[With Naruto's personality, spelling it out would be the real disaster. Getting caught would be way worse]
[I feel like Hanabi just wants to watch the chaos unfold]
[Where's Naruto's mom? Somebody save him!]
The camera cut back to Naruto.
"Hey, hey, Demon Fox—you got any ideas?"
Naruto was panicking.
Just as Sasuke had feared, Naruto had completely failed to notice that he already had a complete answer sheet with him.
Hanabi had dropped hints, but Naruto was firmly in "I have no idea what you said but I'll pretend I do" mode.
Yet Kushina didn't respond.
"That person…"
In truth, the moment they'd entered the exam hall, Kushina's attention had been drawn to a Grass-nin girl sitting in the corner.
More precisely, it was the girl's chakra.
Naruto had been training his sensing abilities lately. While there hadn't been much visible change in the boy himself, Kushina knew his actual progress was enormous—because she could also strengthen her own perception through that connection.
And so, that red-haired woman with the strange bite marks on her body gave Kushina a subtle feeling that was at once familiar and strangely foreign.
"It's over, it's over…" Naruto was still clutching his head.
Meanwhile, Sasuke—now in possession of the perfect answer sheet—had begun thinking: "The real point of this exam isn't the content itself, just like Hanabi said before. So in reality, this test is… a test of intelligence gathering."
Sasuke understood.
Hanabi had seen through it from the very beginning.
"When it comes to intelligence, Hanabi is unbeatable. So before the exam even started, her cheating was already over."
And just as Sasuke had deduced, the other ninja were starting to make their moves.
Gaara of the Sand used his sand to form a Third Eye.
Dosu of the Sound relied on eavesdropping to cheat.
Shino Aburame deployed his insects as little drones.
The cheating methods were as creative as they were varied.
Some of the less skilled ninja were caught immediately—three strikes and out.
But then, Hanabi raised her hand again.
"Hm?"
Sasuke looked up.
What was Hanabi doing now?
"What's going on? Is there another situation?"
Sasuke's heart sank.
But Hanabi's next words nearly sent him face-first into the desk.
"Teacher, I'm reporting someone for cheating!"
[Hanabi, I never expected this from you!]
[A snitch! My girl is a snitch!]
[I can't, I'm dying over here]
[Called it—the little sis was gonna start something]
[Lmao, that line just spiked my blood pressure]
[Oh my god—one scene is everyone pulling out their secret techniques, and the next scene is "Teacher, I'd like to report someone"]
[What kind of galaxy-brain move is this?]
Forget the audience—even head proctor Ibiki Morino was barely keeping it together.
"Is that what you were trying to say earlier?"
So the hand-raising before had been about this?
Forget Hanabi for a moment.
The other examinees couldn't hold it in either.
On the Stage's feed, the screen split into quick cuts of several people's reactions.
Every ninja who'd been cheating had frozen solid.
"That's right, Proctor. I simply wanted to ask whether examinees are allowed to report others for cheating. But since you didn't answer, I had no choice but to use my own judgment."
Hanabi smiled.
"Cheating behavior will be monitored by the proctors. Examinees do not need to take matters into their own hands."
Ibiki was unamused.
"I'm talking about cheating that the proctors haven't spotted."
Hanabi played dumb.
"…" Ibiki, on the other hand, understood perfectly.
This was a probe.
Not a probe of the proctor—a probe of the Chūnin Exams themselves.
Infuriating as it was, now that he understood what she was doing, Ibiki's estimation of Hanabi went up a notch.
"I see—while everyone else is gathering intelligence on the test questions, she's already gathering intelligence on the exam itself. No, not gathering—if she already knows this much, then it's an even deeper probe."
But Ibiki still shut it down: "The Chūnin here are the elite of the elite. They don't need help from examinees."
"But what if I spot cheating that the proctors haven't noticed? What then?" Hanabi pressed.
"I see—so the goal is to eliminate the other students?"
Ibiki saw through it.
That was obviously not allowed.
"If you're caught interfering with other examinees, your team will also have points deducted. You're all examinees here. Just follow the rules."
What she said wasn't entirely unreasonable. But as Konoha's chief interrogator, he wasn't about to be rattled by a student.
"So even if we discover cheating, we're not allowed to intervene?" Hanabi tilted her head. Then, as if a lightbulb had gone off: "I see. I understand now. I'll make sure not to cause any trouble for the proctors."
Sasuke had already grasped Ibiki's implicit message.
Crude cheating was forbidden—in other words, you just had to cheat without getting caught.
And he understood what Hanabi was saying, too:
"In other words, as long as the proctors don't notice… it's fine, right?"
Everyone else, though, was losing their minds.
—Wait, was she hinting at something just now?!
And judging by how the head proctor wasn't pressing the issue, it seemed like he'd tacitly approved it?
Well, sure—if it goes unnoticed, there's no proof.
"…" Ibiki fell silent.
He had genuinely never seen anything like this.
[Boomerang lmaooo]
[God-tier boomerang]
[How does this even boomerang?]
[Seriously, just rename this show "Boomerang's Path" already—the whole thing is nothing but boomerangs]