The Genjutsu Devil of Konoha

So after telling Mikoto why she wasn't ready to be a Chunin yet, and going to eat some food at the meat restaurant, dropping her off in front of her compound—

He sighed a bit. Hm, this could be considered a date. How nice. Once more, he felt the look of some Uchiha. He didn't mind them though, they couldn't really do shit to him—politically and literally. He could sense their strength, and they were, in fact, not a challenge for him.

It's not like they could make him "disappear." One, he was currently way too popular for that, as in the Hokage himself was keeping an eye on him personally. The Chunin exam was close, and if he were to vanish next to the Uchiha compound—which is the last place he was last seen—

And since he already told Yui where he would be, the Uchiha wouldn't have such a good time.

Hm. Geez, he hated politics. Oh well, he could use it in his favor. As things stood, he was still pretty important to Konoha—not as important as Nawaki or Kushina, but still important nonetheless.

Somewhere in the "important department," but not at the top... yet far away from the "disposable cannon fodder" department.

Well, time to get ready for this stupid Chunin exam. Shouldn't take him long in particular.

He will end this quickly.

Time skip.

As he entered the area, one thing he could notice was a lot of Genin. They all seemed to be lined up in silence. He saw a lot of headbands from a lot of different villages. A lot of headbands—some were from Amegakure, i.e., the Village Hidden in the Rain. Some were from the Land of Leaves, and so on.

He didn't notice many from any of the other great nations. Well, this was to be expected—they were, in fact, at war right now.

The mere fact that other shinobi were allowed in Konoha was a stretch. The Third just wanted to showcase Konoha's big Pp energy.

He saw a bunch of Genin... wait... wasn't that the Cloud Village headband? Since when were they allowed here? Hm, that sounded so wrong.

What he meant by that was—Konoha and them were at war. What purpose would they have in being here...? Something was off.

He also noticed the shit-eating grin on their faces. The kind of smirk that said, "We eat no-names like you for breakfast."

Well, who cares? The first part of the test was, like, a written test, where they needed to cheat. So he wasn't that worried about them in the slightest.

Even if someone were to bomb the written test, it only made up 20% of the final decision. After all, if the written test was everything, some people would never leave being Genin.

At the end of the day, strength was all that mattered. The written test was just there to look pretty, really. Or just to find out about hidden tacticians in their ranks—so on and so forth.

As he entered the actual room where the test would start, he could already hear whispers.

Some Genin from the Village Hidden in Bamboo were whispering behind their hands.

"Hey, look at that guy. He's not even with a team. He came alone."

"Must've been the dead weight. Probably lost his squad already."

"Easy points. We take him out in the next phase, we're practically guaranteed promotion."

Of course, their whispering wasn't quiet enough.

A few minutes later, a Jounin entered the room.

"Quiet!" The man's voice boomed across the classroom. All the restless students decided to shut the fuck up.

"This is the first part of the Chunin exam—the written exam. During this test, you will have to answer 30 questions."

"And don't you brats even think about cheating. If you're caught cheating for any of the questions, you and your whole team will be eliminated!"

Seijuro ignored the man's words—probably trying to intimidate anyway, without any backbone. That wasn't him.

The man's speech basically was:

No cheating... though you can cheat. Getting caught was where the problem arose.

Anyway, when the test papers were handed out, he glanced at them. Shouldn't be too hard—light work for him, really.

So after putting his name down, he began the test.

"Q7: How would you handle a hostage situation involving a comrade and enemy demands?"

A: "Utilize deception tactics to mislead the enemy regarding the hostage's value, while preparing a silent strike via substitution or Genjutsu-layered feint. Assume emotional manipulation and feigned cooperation. Infiltrate. Neutralize."

...Yeah, subtlety and manipulation were definitely his love language.

Seijuro continued to write a while more.

All of those shits were stuff he knew. He would fill out answer after answer, making sure he got everything correct, using slight Genjutsu from time to time to check his answers if need be.

He was very good at this—he had a light layer of Genjutsu over his paper, just in case anyone tried to copy his shit. They would get everything wrong.

Not his problem really. It's their problem for being stupid.

A/N...Chunin exam finna be short