“So the last question was part of the test too?”
Tenten and Wasa had both been freed, but the tail end of Kakashi’s questioning had left them a little curious.
“That’s right, though I imagine Chiba already saw through it.”
Kakashi pulled out his book, settling back into his usual languid air.
“I had a rough idea.”
Chiba nodded.
“Sensei Kakashi’s point was probably meant to drive home how important teamwork is.
Our coordination was already solid enough, though, so all you had left was to recycle the same tired trick over and over.”
“Ahem.
Ahem!”
Kakashi coughed repeatedly, sounding faintly indignant.
“This is a genuinely difficult test, you know.
Very few teams ever pass it.”
“That may be true, but I doubt any real test has a guaranteed-death checkpoint built into it.
If you didn’t intend to let us through, you’d have said so from the start.”
Chiba laid out his reasoning plainly.
Kakashi went quiet.
This kid works backward from the answer to reconstruct the logic behind it?
Not an easy one to fool, then.
“So we actually passed?”
“Yes!”
Tenten and Wasa were, understandably, far more invested in their status as genin than in the finer points of the debate.
Still.
Kakashi wasn’t quite ready to concede.
“You called my approach a tired trick.
Got something better in mind, do you?”
“If it were up to me, I’d have said there were only two spots available, so I’d be running a timed test, and afterward each of you would rate how the other two performed in combat.
Whoever ranks in the top two by vote gets the spot.”
Chiba said with a faint smile.
Tenten and Wasa’s expressions froze.
If it had gone that way—
“That’s not fair either.
Run it that way and hardly any team would stay intact—not even the legendary Ino-Shika-Chō trio would survive that.”
Wasa muttered.
Kakashi rubbed at his hair, exasperated.
“It’s possible, though.
All they’d have to do is vote for each other.”
Tenten hesitated, then asked, “Would kids actually do that?”
“Rare, for kids your age.
Though some teams are broken from the start, and just fighting over bells doesn’t expose that.
Sometimes you need something more drastic.”
Chiba said, unbothered.
“Hey, you’re the same age as us.
Why does ‘kids your age’ come out of your mouth so naturally?”
Tenten shot him a sideways glare.
“Ah.
Slip of the tongue.”
“All right, none of you have eaten today, have you?
To make up for it, I’ll take you all out for yakiniku—whatever you want, my treat.”
Kakashi said with an easy smile.
“Really?
You’re not messing with us again, are you?”
Wasa eyed him with open suspicion.
Kakashi’s credibility with the two of them had by now dropped well into negative numbers—nothing out of his mouth was worth taking at face value.
“I don’t believe it.
You’re probably going to make us pay in the end!”
Tenten looked him up and down.
“Ha, how could I do that?
You two should place a little trust in your own sensei once in a while.
Anyway—Guy, come out!
We’re all going to eat!”
Kakashi called out loudly.
Before long, Might Guy emerged from a distance with his own squad in tow.
Lee and Mayumi looked thoroughly starstruck, crowding around Chiba the moment they arrived.
Neji’s expression, by contrast, was a lot more complicated.
He’d assumed until now that Chiba was little more than a bookworm, someone whose actual ability couldn’t possibly match his own.
But now.
Neji simply watched Chiba in silence, unsure what to say, and settled for standing off to the side, cold and quiet, observing.
“Hey, hey, hey, Kakashi, you said you’d treat everyone, but they’ve been starving all day—isn’t this a little much?”
“Don’t sweat the details.”
“How can I not sweat the details, that’s my money we’re talking about!
I should have known, you had this planned from the start.
Lost to you again!”
Guy hopped around, indignant.
Kakashi’s expression didn’t shift an inch.
Under the mask, he was almost certainly wearing the flattest, most unbothered face imaginable.
Otherwise Guy’s reaction would only have escalated further.
He knew Guy far too well.
Chiba glanced over at Lee and Mayumi—one bursting with excitement, the other visibly curious.
And Neji—
Had a hand over his face, looking distinctly exasperated.
“Sensei Guy’s just like this.
He’s a genuinely good person, though, and his taijutsu is excellent.
He can’t teach the Gentle Fist, no, but that doesn’t mean you have to build your whole style around it either.”
“Huh?”
Neji turned, startled, his expression flickering with something between surprise and offense.
“That’s none of your concern.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who’d stay hung up over test scores.
Fair enough, your call.”
Chiba said with a small smile, then fell into step behind the others heading off ahead.
Guy’s treating everyone.
Wonder what to get.
Neji frowned slightly.
That guy seemed to genuinely enjoy lecturing people, and he handed off his own techniques without a second thought—none of the usual clan instinct to guard family secrets at all.
Strange.
Genuinely strange.
He turned it over in his mind, still unable to make sense of Chiba’s way of thinking, and by the time he snapped out of it, the rest of the group had already walked well ahead.
“Neji, catch up!”
Lee’s voice called back to him.
“I heard you.”
Neji answered flatly, and grudgingly quickened his pace to follow.
The Hokage’s office.
“Ha ha ha ha, Kakashi really put in the effort this time, and in the end the bell still got taken right out of his hands.
Rough day for him.”
Hiruzen laughed heartily.
“Lord Hokage, I’m not sure that’s quite so funny, and you should mind your health besides.”
Shikaku scratched his head.
“Fair enough.
Ahem.” Hiruzen settled himself, turning serious.
“Setting that aside—what’s your read on the three of them?”
“Strong.
Chiba goes without saying—tactics, judgment, raw ability, all top-tier.
His only real gap is a lack of field experience, nothing more.
Tenten’s command of ninja tools is exceptional.” Shikaku’s tone stayed grave.
“As for Tsukihikari Wasa—weren’t you originally planning to bring her into ANBU for training?”
“Mm.
Under Hayate’s original plan, yes, she was meant to be brought into ANBU once she’d matured a little more.
But I’ve had second thoughts.
She’s introverted, but she also genuinely loves talking with friends—she’s a child drawn toward the light, at heart.”
Hiruzen drew deeply on his pipe.
“ANBU isn’t the right place for her.
So I persuaded Hayate to let her train under Kakashi and Chiba instead, with the choice ultimately left to her down the line.
Seems like the better outcome, doesn’t it?”
“It does.
This girl—”
Shikaku glanced at the crystal ball, where Wasa chattered away happily with Mayumi and Tenten, laughing without a trace of the guarded, withdrawn manner she usually showed around others.
Not a girl suited to ANBU at all.
That Kakashi had struggled this much against the three of them said everything about where their ability actually stood—already at full genin standard, and arguably past it.
Some chūnin might not even be a match for them as things stood.
Give it another year.
Add one more member to round out their team of three, and they’d have a squad more than capable of holding their own.
Hiruzen’s assessment seemed genuinely sound.
“I agree with your call there.
And even if they don’t manage the chūnin exam this year, I don’t think it matters much—pairing them with one seasoned elite chūnin would be more than enough to round the team out properly.”
“Oh?
You rate them that highly?”
Hiruzen sounded a little surprised.
An elite chūnin, backing them up—that implied something significant.
In Shikaku’s estimation, within a year the three of them would be capable of holding their own at full chūnin level, without dragging the team down at all.
“I trust Kakashi.
And I trust Chiba.”