The four days since Team Twelve had stepped through the massive gates of Sunagakure had been a blur of regulated routines and simmering anticipation.
The Konoha contingent, nearly sixty strong, had been assigned to a designated lodging sector within the sprawling, sand-colored city – a series of utilitarian, multi-story barracks that, while spartan, offered a defensible perimeter and a degree of isolation from the general populace.
Genma, along with the other Jonin and Chunin instructors, had drilled their teams relentlessly, focusing on adapting to the desert heat, conserving water, and understanding Suna's unique architectural layout.
Ryuu found Sunagakure an oppressive, alien environment.
The relentless sun, even in late autumn, beat down with a ferocity that made his carefully constructed layers feel like a furnace. The air was dry, filled with the constant, irritating grit of fine sand that seemed to penetrate everything.
His chakra felt… stifled here, the ambient moisture almost non-existent, his ice release requiring a far greater output of chakra to achieve even minor effects.
The sheer number of unfamiliar chakra signatures – Suna shinobi, Genin from other villages, even the distinctive, almost crystalline feel of Suna's puppet-users – was a constant, overwhelming barrage on his senses.
Izumi spent her time in quiet, focused meditation or in intense, silent sparring sessions with Renji, the pressure of representing her clan in this often-hostile village palpable in her every movement.
Renji, after his initial excitement, had become surprisingly focused, the sheer number of older, tougher-looking Genin seeming to temper his usual recklessness with a new layer of cautious determination.
Finally, on the fifth day, the summons came. The first stage of the Chunin Selection Exams would commence at noon in the Sunagakure Shinobi Academy.
The Suna Academy was a massive, imposing structure, its thick, sandstone walls seemingly carved directly from the surrounding cliffs.
The air inside was cool, almost unnervingly so after the scorching heat outside, the silence punctuated only by the nervous shuffling of hundreds of Genin.
Konoha. Suna. Kumo. Iwa. Taki. Kusa.
Even a few smaller, lesser-known villages. The sheer number of participants was staggering.
Team Twelve found themselves in a vast, amphitheater-like examination hall. Desks were arranged in neat rows, each one spaced precisely apart. The atmosphere was thick with tension.
Ryuu scanned the room, his senses already working, cataloging. Not too long after, a heavy silence fell as a figure stepped onto the proctor's platform.
It was a tall, gaunt Suna Jonin, his face almost entirely obscured by sand-cloth wraps, leaving only sharp, intelligent dark eyes visible. Large scrolls were strapped to his back.
"Welcome, Genin," his voice was dry, like the desert wind. "I am Sōseki, your proctor. Many of you believe you are ready. Most of you are wrong. A Chunin is more than a fighter. A Chunin is a leader, a strategist, an information gatherer. This first test… will determine if you possess even the most basic aptitude."
Suna Chunin distributed exam papers and small, sealed clay pots.
"One hour," Sōseki continued. "Ten questions. Tactical analysis, desert survival, diplomacy, poisons, herbs native to the Land of Wind, and the glorious history of Sunagakure."
Dry amusement. "However, the written exam is only one component. Inside the sealed clay pot is a live Sunagakure Scorpion – a juvenile Sand Devil. Small, fast. Sting: not lethal, but intensely painful, temporary paralysis for hours."
A wave of fear. Renji paled. Izumi's composure tightened.
Sōseki's thin, cruel smile was visible. "Primary objective is to answer questions. Secondary, critical objective is to do so without being stung when the time comes to interact with it. Until then, keep it sealed. If, during the final part of this test, a proctor observes a sting, or if a scorpion escapes its pot then and is not immediately and safely recaptured, your entire team is disqualified. Prematurely breaking the seal now, or harming your scorpion at any point, means immediate disqualification."
He let it sink in. This was classic Suna – psychological torment with a delayed, venomous payoff.
"There are methods to pacify a Sand Devil," Sōseki spoke. "A skilled shinobi might know them. A resourceful one might discover them. A foolish one… will suffer."
He glanced at a large hourglass. "Your hour for the written portion… begins now." He flipped it.
Ryuu stared at the pot.
He could hear faint, angry skittering from within. He pushed the thought of the creature aside for now, focusing first on the paper. Suna-centric history, desert survival, tactics, cryptography, general knowledge. He wrote calmly, methodically, crafting competent but not impossibly prodigious answers, leaving slight, plausible ambiguities.
The real challenge, for now, was ignoring the sealed pot. The proctors were vigilant. "Team Iwa, Squad 3, disqualified – tampering with pot seal!" one Suna Chunin barked. Around the room, Genin were visibly sweating, flinching at the sounds from their pots.
Ryuu focused on stillness. He rested his non-writing hand lightly on the desk, near the pot, not touching it, using his senses to gauge the vibrations indirectly through the wood.
He regulated his breathing, minimized his movements, trying to project an aura of calm he didn't entirely feel, hoping his lack of agitation might subtly influence the creature inside the sealed container. He knew scorpions were sensitive to ground vibrations. If he remained a statue, perhaps it would remain calm until the seal had to be broken.
He completed the first nine questions with fifteen minutes to spare. Izumi was extremely focused her pen moving steadily. Renji was a wreck, his paper already smudged, his eyes darting constantly to his pot.
Forty-five minutes in.
Sōseki's voice boomed once more.
"Pencils down. Now, for the tenth question." The air thrummed with dread. "There is no tenth question on your papers. Your final task is this. Carefully unseal your pots. Using only the materials on your desk – brush, ink, water, exam paper – you must write your name and the name of your village on the underside of your scorpion's tail stinger. You have fifteen minutes. Harming the scorpion, being stung, or allowing it to escape means immediate team failure. Begin!"
A collective gasp of horror. Then, chaos.
Pots were fumbled open. The air filled with angry hisses and panicked yelps.
"Team Kumo, Squad 2, STUNG! Disqualified!"
"Team Taki, Squad 1, scorpion loose! CONTAIN IT! ...Too late! Disqualified!"
Renji, face sheet-white, stared at his now-unsealed pot, the Sand Devil inside an angry black blur. Izumi, her Sharingan active, was already assessing hers, her movements incredibly precise as she reached for her brush.
Ryuu stared at his pot. The scorpion within was still, thanks to his sustained stillness during the written portion. But unsealing it and then attempting to write on its stinger? This required a different level of control.
He carefully, slowly, reached for the clay pot lid. His fingers, cool and steady, unsealed it with barely a whisper.
The Sand Devil lay at the bottom, curled and still, almost black against the pale clay. It was not dead, but deeply torpid, lulled by the prolonged lack of external vibration. But any sudden movement now, any scent of him, could rouse it.
He had very little time. Writing. The instruction was specific.
He dipped his brush in the ink – a thick, viscous Suna ink designed to resist the dry air. He needed to immobilize the stinger without harming the scorpion or getting stung. The underside.
That meant the scorpion would likely need to be on its back, or its tail perfectly arched and still. Both seemed impossible.
Then, an idea, simple, almost laughably so, yet requiring immense precision and steady nerves.
He wasn't a medical-nin, but he knew basic anatomy from Academy lessons – even for a scorpion. There had to be a pressure point, a nerve cluster, something to induce temporary paralysis or at least severe lethargy without internal chakra manipulation.
He recalled the diagrams from their desert survival lessons with Genma – Suna scorpions, their vulnerabilities. The small, almost imperceptible joint where the tail (metasoma) connected to the body (prosoma). A precise, non-damaging pressure there... could it work?
It was an insane risk. If he missed, or if the scorpion reacted, he'd be stung.
He took a strip torn from his exam paper, rolling it tightly between his fingers to create a stiff, narrow paper quill. He dipped the very tip in water, then barely touched it to the ink, not enough to make it legible, but enough to leave a mark. This wasn't about calligraphy; it was about fulfilling the letter of the instruction.
Holding his breath, he slowly introduced the tip of his writing brush – not the paper quill yet – into the pot. He didn't try to touch the scorpion. He used the stiff bristles of the dry brush to gently, ever so gently, nudge the scorpion's body, trying to coax it to arch its tail, to expose the underside of the stinger.
The scorpion twitched, agitated. Ryuu froze, his heart hammering. It settled.
He tried again, a microscopic nudge. The tail arched slightly, defensively. Not enough.
He needed it to feel secure, unthreatened from above.
With his free hand, he took another piece of his exam paper and very slowly, very carefully, began to lower it over the top of the pot, creating a false ceiling, a darker, enclosed space. Scorpions were nocturnal, preferred enclosed spaces.
Perhaps this would make it less defensive, less likely to strike upwards.
As the paper shadow fell over it, the scorpion seemed to calm fractionally, its tail relaxing a hair.
Now.
He maneuvered the stiff, ink-tipped paper quill with his other hand, his movements almost imperceptibly slow. He wasn't aiming for the stinger itself, but for that tiny, almost invisible joint at the very base of its tail. He needed to press, just firmly enough.
He made contact.
The scorpion shuddered violently, then went completely, unnervingly still. Its tail, which had been arched, drooped slightly, now limply extended.
Temporary motor paralysis. He hoped.
He didn't have much time. He quickly, but still with immense care, took his actual brush, properly inked. He found the now-limp stinger. The underside was tiny. He touched the brush to it, drawing a minuscule, barely legible " Yuki - Konoha" in the smallest characters he could manage.
It was more a smudge than writing, but the characters were there.
He withdrew the brush, his hand shaking now, the adrenaline threatening to overwhelm him. He quickly nudged the paper "lid" aside and resealed the pot with the original clay lid.
Done.
His chakra reserves were fine – he hadn't used any beyond basic physical control – but the mental strain, the sheer nerve required, left him feeling utterly drained. He let out a shuddering breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
He glanced at Izumi. She had managed to upend her pot onto her inkstone without the scorpion escaping, the creature now disoriented and stained with ink. She was using her brush, with what looked like minute applications of chakra to control its tip precisely, to gently guide the scorpion's actual stinger across her exam paper, leaving faint, ink tracks that, with a leap of imagination, formed the Uchiha fan and a Leaf. A truly Uchiha solution – high-risk, high-skill, and utterly audacious.
She gave Ryuu a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
Renji was in dire straits. His scorpion was loose, skittering frantically across his desk. He yelped as it lunged, its stinger narrowly missing his hand. He fumbled, trying to trap it under his overturned water pot, but only succeeded in knocking over his inkstone.
Black ink spread in a rapidly growing pool.
The scorpion, panicked by the commotion and the spreading liquid, darted towards the edge of the desk, about to escape onto the floor.
"Renji!" Izumi hissed, ready to intervene despite the rules.
But in that split second, Renji, fueled by sheer desperation, slammed his ink-smeared exam paper flat onto the desk, trapping the scorpion beneath it. The paper was now a black, twitching mess. He hadn't written on its stinger, but he had recaptured it using only his exam paper, without being stung himself, and it hadn't technically left his designated area. He quickly placed back inside the pot and sealed it.
It was a chaotic, ugly solution, but was it a fail?
Sōseki's voice finally cut through the remaining chaos. "Time!"
The hall was a wreck. Many Genin were nursing stings, their faces pale. Sōseki's proctors were efficiently removing the disqualified.
"Those of you who have successfully… inscribed your identities upon your designated Sand Devil," Sōseki said, his gaze lingering for a long moment.
"...Or have displayed truly exceptional resourcefulness in ensuring your target's… stationary cooperation," Sōseki finally continued, a note of dry, almost reluctant amusement in his voice that made Renji gulp, "and are not currently comatose or being eaten by your desk mate… remain. The rest of you have proven you lack the fundamental composure required of even the lowest Chunin. You are dismissed."
Ryuu felt a wave of profound relief. He had done it. And, miraculously, it seemed Renji, by some feat of panicked, messy luck, had scraped through as well. Izumi, too, was safe. Team Twelve was, against all odds, intact.
Fewer than twenty Genin remained standing, all looking various shades of pale and exhausted.
"You handful," Sōseki addressed the survivors, the predatory glint returning to his eyes.
"You have proven you possess a certain… tenacity. Attributes that might keep you alive. The second stage will determine if that tenacity translates into actual competence. It begins in two hours… in Training Area 74, more commonly known as the Demon Desert."
His smile was all teeth, a predator's grin. "Rest now. Hydrate. Pray to whatever pathetic gods you believe in. The desert is always hungry. And it has very little patience for those who merely survive by luck."
Ryuu barely registered leaving the examination hall. It was an odd experience to say the least.