"You're from... last year's class, right?"
Kabuto looked the three over, his gaze lingering on Neji a bit longer. "Top of last year's class—Hyuga Neji, from the Hyuga clan!"
"Hyuga clan?"
"That's the same clan as Hinata."
Everyone looked at Hinata, but she didn't dare meet Neji's eyes.
"Brother Neji..."
"Brother?"
"He's Hinata's brother?"
"Yes, Neji is my cousin," Hinata said softly.
Neji finally noticed her and said coolly, "Miss Hinata, with your current level, do you really think it's necessary to take this exam?"
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"
Kiba couldn't take it when someone talked down to his teammate like that. But Neji didn't even seem to notice him.
"You all too. Except for that Naruto guy, you're all just here to fill the numbers. If you don't want to get crushed, you'd better quit now."
"What did you say?!"
Hearing that, everyone but Naruto glared angrily at Neji.
Hot-tempered Kiba even charged forward and threw a punch at him!
But Neji simply tilted his head and dodged, then gently pushed Kiba back with one hand.
Everyone was shocked by how easily he handled it.
Kiba wasn't the strongest, but he definitely wasn't weak either.
Yet Neji brushed him off like it was nothing!
"Heh."
Seeing how annoyed they were, yet completely helpless, Neji gave a cold laugh.
"That guy—Kabuto, right? I want to see the info card for him." Neji pointed at Naruto.
Naruto, huh?
Kabuto narrowed his eyes slightly and pushed up his glasses.
He had already noticed there was something different about Naruto.
Compared to the other new gen grads this year, this boy had a strange calmness to him—like nothing could shake him.
He didn't seem like he was trying to act mysterious—
it was more like he had a kind of quiet confidence in his own strength.
'Looks like the intel I gathered might not be completely right.'
Kabuto thought to himself as he pulled out Naruto's ninja info card.
"Uzumaki Naruto, this year's rookie. He was at the bottom of the class when he was in the academy... Sorry~"
As he said that, Kabuto scratched his head and gave Naruto a half-hearted apology, but Naruto only gave him a glance and ignored him.
A cold glint flashed in Kabuto's eyes, but he went on reading, "Mission record: 12 D-rank missions, 1 C-rank mission. His team leader is Konoha Jonin Hatake Kakashi."
"That's it?" Neji frowned when Kabuto didn't say anything more.
"Sorry, since they're rookies, I didn't expect them to join the Chunin Exams this time, so I didn't prepare much on them." Kabuto apologized politely.
Actually, the real reason was that Naruto had done so poorly in the academy that Kabuto never thought he was worth paying attention to.
His research on Naruto was only basic surface-level stuff.
But of course he couldn't say that—he was playing the role of a friendly senior, so it wouldn't be good to offend anyone.
"Tch, waste of time."
Neji gave Naruto a long look, then left with Rock Lee and Tenten.
Ino looked at the three of them walking away, clearly annoyed. "What a stuck-up guy. Kabuto-senpai, do you have a card on him too?"
"Just a sec~"
Kabuto nodded, then dug through his stack of ninja info cards and pulled out one with Neji's photo.
"Hyuga Neji. A genius from the Hyuga clan. He's one year older than you all and was the top graduate of last year's class.
Mission record: 20 D-rank missions, 11 C-rank missions. Team leader is Konoha Jonin Might Guy."
"Specializes in the Hyuga clan's taijutsu. Also has decent skills in other areas. Not good at genjutsu, but doesn't have any clear weaknesses either."
"Hmph, doesn't sound that amazing. We had top grads too, right, Sasuke-kun?" Ino took the chance to cling to Sasuke again.
Sasuke gave her a helpless look as she clung to his back.
Even though he agreed with what Ino said, he really didn't need her whispering it in his ear like that.
"Ino-pig! Get off of Sasuke right now!"
"Bleh! No way, Forehead Girl!"
"Ugh! You—!"
...
Out of the nine rookies, Ino and Sakura were the only ones messing around like this, completely forgetting where they were.
Just then, Kabuto pulled out another card and showed its contents.
"Konoha, Suna, Ame, Kusa, Taki, Oto... all of these villages sent strong genin to take part in this exam."
"But since the Sound Village is a small, newly formed village, there's barely any info about them."
"In any case, the other villages are all powerful and the ninjas they sent are also some of the best from their countries. So you need to be careful!"
Hearing such a bold and offensive statement, Naruto glanced at Kabuto.
Trying to stir things up on purpose—this wasn't how this guy usually acted.
Was he doing it just to make the Sound Village ninjas stand out a little?
The three Sound ninjas were actually working with Kabuto.
According to Orochimaru's plan,
Kabuto was supposed to blend into Team 7 and gather intel on Sasuke.
The three Sound ninjas were in charge of testing Sasuke's potential.
But now that Naruto was here, it was hard to say whether Orochimaru would even get the chance to give Sasuke the curse mark.
"Hearing all that really makes me feel kind of hopeless," Hinata said sadly.
"Don't say stuff like that at a time like this."
Naruto spoke up for the first time, "So-called elites from other countries are still just genin. Except for a few who are way above the genin level, the rest of us aren't that different."
Everyone looked at Naruto, clearly surprised that he would say something so comforting.
Ino walked up close to Naruto, her face just inches from his, full of doubt. "Hey, are you really Naruto? Why have you changed so much?"
Naruto took a step back and said calmly, "Do I have to act loud and careless all the time?"
"That's not what I mean." Ino kept going, "It's just... you've changed way too much, don't you think?"
She hadn't looked carefully before, but now that she gave Naruto a proper look, she realized—he was actually kinda good-looking?
His hair was pretty much the same style as Sasuke's, and his calm face gave off a similar vibe too.
Was he trying to copy Sasuke?
But can you really copy someone's vibe like that?
"Watch out!"
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