Event GENIN EXAM: The Descent

[Sand Event]

Location: Old Sandworm Tunnels (Sector 4)
The air beneath the dunes of Wind Country was heavy, stale, and smelled of ancient earth and rusted iron. The Old Sandworm Tunnels were a sprawling, subterranean labyrinth carved centuries ago by beasts the size of mountains. Here in Sector 4—an unmapped, forgotten stretch far from the safety of the village's mechanized tracks—the darkness was absolute, oppressive, and thick enough to choke on. The only illumination came from the faint, sickly glow of emergency luminescence lamps strung up haphazardly along the jagged, claw-carved rock walls.

Just twenty-four hours prior, a crisp, formal letter had been delivered by Academy instructors to the homes and dormitories of the village's aspiring shinobi. The notice was deceptively mundane:

As the participants navigated the dimly lit path toward the rendezvous coordinates, their footsteps were swallowed by the sheer, cavernous expanse of the tunnels. Since there was only one tunnel to that location, the participants would likely see each other before reaching the spot. When they finally arrived at the designated staging ground, a wide, circular cavern that split into several branching, pitch-black tunnels.

There was only a single Academy Instructor.

Standing with his arms crossed over his flak jacket, the instructor looked entirely unbothered by the unsettling quiet of the deep earth. He waited until the murmurs of the gathered youth died down, his cold gaze sweeping over the crowd.

​

"Welcome," the instructor's voice echoed, devoid of any warmth. "Today is the Genin Promotion Exam."

He uncrossed his arms, pacing slowly before the jagged mouths of the unmapped tunnels behind him.

"The village doesn't need shinobi who only know how to read textbooks. We need survivors. So, here are your parameters. Deep within this maze is an extraction point leading to safety. Hidden throughout these tunnels are Commendation Tokens."
The instructor paused, letting the silence hang heavily in the cold air.

"To pass this exam, you must reach the extraction point. But more importantly, you must present ONE Commendation Token upon arrival. If you cross that finish line empty-handed, you fail. Do whatever it takes to secure one. There are no teams today. There are no friends. Out here in the dark, it is every man for themselves."

A grim smirk crossed the instructor's face. He offered a mock, two-fingered salute. "Good luck. Try not to die."

Before anyone could ask a single question or raise a complaint, the instructor vanished in a sharp POOF of white smoke. A Shadow Clone.

For a split second, the cavern was dead silent.

Then there was a snap, and suddenly the sound of the earth moving erupted. As the dust began to settle, the grim reality of their situation would become clear. The path home was gone, buried under impossible tons of rubble.

The only way out was forward, into the pitch-black maw of Sector 4. The Exam had begun.

---

OOC:
Students: You do not have to have 2 completed classes to enter; you just need to have started 2 classes.

You have 10 days to enter the thread.
After the first round starts:
72 hours to post within each round.

Upon entering, please link classes and missions you have done/started.

• Genin Exams:
  - minimum 4 posts and 1,200 words
  - Event Rewards equal to C-Rank a modded Mission at double word count for x1.5 Rewards or ¥37,500 and 82 ASP

Some may be promoted to Chuunin. If they also meet the requirements for the Chuunin Rank and perform remarkably well during this exam.

Chuunin requirements:

• Must be Genin
• Complete 2 C Rank Missions.
  • These Missions can be Modded or Self-Modded Team Missions or Modded Solo Missions.
• Complete 1 B Rank Mission.
  • This Mission can be Modded or Self-Modded Team Missions or Modded Solo Missions.
• Complete 1 [Class] thread
  • The character must be a "Student" in this class.
• Request a Chuunin Exam upon completing previously listed requirements.
  • Chuunin Exams can either be a fully modded thread or a solo post/thread of 800 words detailing your character's exam.
  • If the player fails their exam the player must wait 2 OoC weeks before requesting a new exam.
  • The player must wait at least 2 OoC weeks since the completion of their Genin Exam before requesting their Chuunin Exam.
• Any Genin that reaches S Rank (OOC) will be automatically ranked up to Chūnin
  
  
• Chūnin Exams:
  - minimum 6 posts and 1,800 words
  - Event Rewards equal to B-Rank a modded Mission at double word count for x1.5 Rewards or ¥45,000 and 97 ASP

​

---

There is a map. As you explore, new parts will be uncovered. Each square is equal to 5 meters. In every round, you have 10 AP, and moving 10 meters costs 1 AP. If you have abilities, Bloodlines, etc. that improve movement (+dodge), it only costs 0.5 AP to move 10 meters. This includes buffing jutsu.

 

[Yoru]

The situation that we found ourselves in was less than ideal as the path that we had taken to get to our destination had been sealed off. But, we had our assignment from the instructor that had been here a few moments earlier. It was a rather simple one as we needed to make it from where we stood at the moment to an extraction point while having a token in our possession. A visual of what the token looked like had not been given likely as part of the examination requirements to make us use all of our skills and abilities at our disposal in order to prove to ourselves that we were capable of doing this. The knowledge of needing a token and being told it was every person for themself begged a question of how many of these tokens were available and if we would need to fight among ourselves to get one.

For now, we were all on the same level, but the first question that all of us would need to make is deciding which path to choose as there were three available and none of them seemed to offer any advantages or disadvantages as they were all pitch-black. I knew some people would wait for others to make a decision first and others would go headlong into one of them, but it was likely not a sprint to the finish. There would be surprises down any path that we chose as we were being tested on if we were ready to become Genin of the village or if we needed more time as students to ripen and grow ready to be picked.

Being honest with myself, I knew that I was not on the higher percentile of the people here and likely in the middle - the average - of the group. Some of the others would easily pass this with their knowledge and skills, but I was not going to give up as some of us grew quickly and then stopped progressing while others took time to grow and then had a steady progression. I was not sure where I was exactly at this point in time as I had a decent amount of control of my chakra I believed and I had acquired some techniques to help in the exam, but I knew there was a vast fountain of knowledge out there to grab from still. This was not to say that I was not confident in myself, but I was being realistic with myself. If I didn't pass, it was not the end of the world as Mama and Papa would not be disappointed and they would tell me to try again when I was ready.

But for now, I would fold my arms and wait to see what the others did. I could anticipate some would be lone wolves in this examination and others would likely team up given the chance. This was our test to prove we were ready and I believed there was more than what the instructor provided us that they were going to be watching for.

[OOC: No actions yet. Waiting]

 

[Goro]

Goro walked through the tapering neck of the access tunnel with his head down and his shoulders hunched low. He wore an oversized and heavy-duty traveler’s cloak that

was far too large for his twelve-year-old frame. The thick and sand-colored fabric swallowed his torso as it draped down past his knees to effectively mask the odd angles of his four extra limbs. To any other student glancing his way in the dim light he looked like a broad-shouldered and solitary boy with only two arms buried deep in his pockets. He preferred this because after the disaster at the fighting grounds and the sting of Shinda’s advice he didn't want to be a curiosity or a teammate. He just wanted to be a shadow that moved through the stone without being noticed.

The air in Sector 4 was heavy and stale. It carried the scent of ancient earth and rusted iron which was a metallic tang that most people found nauseating but Goro found grounding. It was the familiar smell of the deep hive where he’d spent his life. As he reached the wide and circular cavern of the staging ground he positioned himself at the very edge of the flickering luminescence lamps. He stayed away from the clusters of whispering students who were still trying to form last-minute alliances because he had no interest in their desperate chatter.

His red eyes remained fixed on the Academy Instructor standing in the center of the plaza. Every word the man spoke felt like it was stripping away the progress Goro thought he’d made over the last few weeks.

"There are no teams today. There are no friends."

Goro’s jaw tightened beneath the high collar of his cloak. A week ago those words would've felt like a prison sentence but today they felt like a permission slip from the village itself. He thought about the way Shinda had looked at him with pity disguised as a thumbs up and the way the Tsuchigumo elders used to measure his worth in kilos and meters. If the village wanted a survivor instead of a friend then he could certainly provide that. He was built for this kind of isolation. Under the heavy cloak his four hidden arms shifted restlessly against his ribs while their muscles coiled with a nervous and jagged energy.

When the instructor’s clone vanished and the earth began to scream Goro didn't move a muscle. He watched with a flat and emotionless expression as the ceiling at the far end of the cavern buckled under the weight of the dunes above. Tons of rock and debris slammed down to seal the only path back to the surface in a violent explosion of dust and noise. The snap of the world closing shut didn't frighten him because it simply confirmed what he already knew to be true. There was no going back to the way things were before the mission and the fighting grounds.

As the dust settled and the other students began to scramble toward the various dark maws of the branching tunnels Goro took a single and steady breath of the stagnant air. He adjusted the heavy folds of his cloak to ensure his extra limbs were still concealed from the eyes of his peers. He wasn't going to show his hand or his true nature until he was forced to do so by the darkness.

I’m not holding back today, he thought while his gaze turned toward the pitch-black opening of the nearest unmapped sector. I’m going to show them all.

He stepped forward and his boots clicked rhythmically against the cold stone. He had a long way to go and an entire labyrinth of darkness to claim as his own. He ignored the panicked shouts of the others and began his descent into the crawl where the rules of the surface no longer applied.

[OOC: Goro reporting for his Genin Exam]

 

[Tsuchigumo Maya]

The air in the Old Sandworm Tunnels was suffocating. It smelled of ancient, rusted iron and stagnant earth—a harsh contrast to the fragrant, incense-laced air of the Silken Hollow she was used to. Maya hugged her arms tightly against her chest, her small fingers gripping the expensive, soft fabric of her tunic. It did nothing to ward off the subterranean chill that seemed to seep directly into her bones.

As she arrived at the wide, circular staging ground, her immediate instinct was to hide. The cavern was filled with the echoing murmurs of other aspiring shinobi, their voices bouncing off the jagged, claw-carved walls. Maya kept her jade-green eyes cast downward, navigating the uneven floor until she reached the absolute periphery of the cavern. She pressed her back against the rough stone wall, as far away from the sickly glow of the luminescence lamps as possible, desperately trying to make her fragile, 4'8" frame look even smaller.

She listened to the Academy Instructor from the shadows. His voice was entirely devoid of warmth, and every word he spoke felt like a heavy stone dropping into Maya's stomach.

“There are no teams today. There are no friends. Out here in the dark, it is every man for themselves.”

Maya’s breath hitched. A cold knot of pure panic tightened in her chest. She wasn't a survivor. She didn't have the killer instinct her clan so ruthlessly prized, nor the terrifying, effortless bravery she now knew her twin sister possessed. How was she supposed to fight these people for a Token that she didn't even know what it looked like?

Before she could process the sheer impossibility of the task, the instructor vanished in a puff of white smoke. A heartbeat later, the earth screamed.

Maya let out a sharp, terrified gasp, squeezing her eyes shut and throwing her hands over her ears as tons of rock and debris violently collapsed the entrance tunnel. The shockwave rattled her teeth, and a thick cloud of choking dust washed over the cavern. When the deafening roar finally ceased, Maya slowly opened her eyes, coughing into her sleeve. The path home was completely buried. They were sealed in the dark.

Her legs felt like lead, utterly refusing to carry her forward. While the reality of their situation snapped the rest of the cavern into motion, Maya remained perfectly still, practically glued to the rock wall at her back. She simply watched.

Through the settling dust, she took in the chaotic reactions of the other students. Several of kids around the cavern were already panicking. She watched as some huddled together in tight, whispering circles, their eyes darting with paranoid energy as they desperately tried to forge last-minute alliances despite the instructor's explicit warnings.

Others seemed much calmer, far more prepared for the cruelty of the shinobi world than she was. Not too far away, she noticed a girl with her arms folded across her chest, standing her ground and silently analyzing the branching paths and the panicked crowd around him. She didn't look eager to rush into the dark, but she didn't look terrified, either.

Then, her jade eyes caught movement near the edge of the light. A boy wearing a traveler’s cloak so heavy and oversized that it swallowed his entire torso. He didn't speak to anyone, didn't look back at the collapsed rubble, and completely ignored the students' desperate chatter as they tried to form teams. With rhythmic, clicking steps, he simply walked away from the light and vanished into the pitch-black maw of the nearest unmapped sector.

Maya swallowed hard, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs. They were already moving. The exam had begun. But as she stared into the absolute darkness of the three branching tunnels, she couldn't bring herself to take that first step. Not yet. She needed to catch her breath, to find some tiny spark of courage, as she stood alone in the back, out of sight, away from the crowd.

[Topic entered, no actions yet]

Linked Classes:

• https://ninpocho.com/threads/outsider-training-class.70106/#post-397472
• https://ninpocho.com/threads/ninjutsu-is-your-friend-class.70061/page-2#post-396607

 

[Sabishii]

The time had come. The stage was set. This was the hour of progression. The moment of forward thinking. The point from which Sabishii and Yuka would begin to plot their paths to the future. The amount of pressure anyone would feel on a day like today would be something that could potentially make diamonds out of those willing to take up the task. To walk in fear would be a detriment to anyone who had any hope of blazing a trail for themselves... or for anyone to come behind them. For Sabishii he didnt care about those to come after him. He was here. He was now. Yuka was here. She was the future. Her goals were Sabishii's and Sabishii's were her's. The splattering of that crimson liquid to come... would fuel their darkness. Together.

Sabishii was someone that masked his ambitions now. He wanted knowledge. He wanted the ability to work fluidly without anyone taking a second look at him. To allow him to be anywhere without being questioned. That would take a while to accomplish, but he wanted to play the long game. One day though, he would make his move and there would be no turning back. With the body of the Hyuuga that he'd killed hidden away in a scroll he would have to decidedly make that move sooner if things got to heated, but he'd thought he'd covered his basis... for now...

Now in the early hours of the morning, around 0300 hours, he and Yuka had been planning and plotting just before coming here. And their plans were solidified by the prospect that the vast amount of students would be working for the expressed vision of solo graduation. Not for Yuka and Sabishii, they were a unit. They worked together and planned together. They were near symbiotic working without much need to talk between the two of them. This would be their advantage. Sabishii felt like there may be others to team up after the start but Yuka wanted to be around Sabishii because of his usefulness to her. And Sabishii wanted to stay in her good graces because she was the only thing in this life that he had left to cling to... after his parents died. She was the first person that bonded with him to such a degree.

It was... a good feeling. The lad would not allow anyone to take that away from him.

As they would pace themselves to the tunnel systems. 'Sector Four?' Sabishii would think, as he looked for signs of their direct positioning. He'd strain his new eye a bit to follow the chakra patterns until he found several he recognized. Goro was there. Two more that he didnt know but had larger chakra presence than some of the others... and many more that were converging on the point. The huge chakra systems seemed to be sitting on high. Watching down on their positions... 'Spectators?' He would nod looking to Yuka and whispering to her, "...They are watching us..." he would motion with his head up to the high point, but he was unsure if she would be able to see. Once they would get into the clearing, Sabishii would release the byakugan from behind his eyepatch before anyone would notice the veins.

Best keep that hidden for now.

The sounds of his boots hitting the rocky floors would make him aware that his movements would be able to be noticed if he wasnt being careful. That would be something to take into account depending on what they were looking for in this exam. This was no written test. This would be to test their abilities. Their thought process. Their strength. Their ability to move in the face of uncertainty. All of which Sabishii would take into account... his brain was whirling with the amount of possibilities and trying to come up with a plan for each potential contingency. He was no Batman, but he was a kid that wanted to use every bit of knowledge he had to progress himself forward, to push Yuka forward into her goals.

Or was he constantly overthinking?

Alas, he would stop before the entrance, looking to Goro from his position, purposefully moving further away from his... friend as to not get him caught up in the potential spoils of Yuka and his plans. Something in him wanting to keep Goro out of this if he could... he didnt know why but he intentionally saw the boy and moved away from his position. He knew Goro was strong. That strength was something the Tired boy would respect. From behind a tired eye he'd scan Goro and would lower his head with a frown. Taking in the smells, and distant sounds he would make a note of everything that would change from here to the end.

Placing his hands in his pockets as he stopped, Sabishii's hands would silently take note of his equipment. In his belt, he had some things he could use, his bladed polearm strapped to his back with a side pouch and a leg pouch carrying scrolls and other things. He also has some seals under his sleeve he would be using just in case they ran into genjutsu users, or ninjutsu he couldnt disrupt with his current repitoire of jutsu. Lifting his nose, he would take in everything with a deep huff.

Now, the announcements of what was to come...

'Collect the coins. And escape. Easy.' he'd think as he'd lok to Yuka then back to Goro from afar before watching the clone poof. '...No friends?' he'd shake his head at the thought before lifting his collar to adjust his respirator. It was quite the contrary. In the darkness, it was good to have someone watching your back. They would both need to obtain a coin before venturing out of this dungeon, and they would. So the plan would be simple enough... and this would lead them to have to spill some blood to get to where they would need to be. He'd await Yuka's signal before going into action... but everything was set.

It was almost time...

[Exam Entered w/ Yuka from previous topic]
[No Actions yet]

 

[Hokkyoku Yuka]

The tunnels were a place that was too tight, too cramped for Yuka. The Hokkyoku preferred the open sky, the vast desert, and freedom to move. Even in the widest areas, it still felt suffocating. Yuka didn't let it bother her too much. She'd have her outlet soon enough, something to balance this feeling in her gut as she walked.

She was following Sabishii's lead. His eye was useful for seeing chakra and navigating the tunnels. She knew he'd become strong from the moment she met him and saw his ghosts. Death followed him; it was something the sands craved. She had always been drawn to violence; she never questioned why, never asked if she was different. She felt no guilt for who she was. Sabishii accepted her and never tried to change her. Never questioned her. Yuka's father was the same way; he had always given Yuka whatever she wanted -if it was possible. Her mother, on the other hand... Yuka hated how her mother looked at her, how she tried to gently direct Yuka in a different direction. Yuka saw Sabishii as someone who was like her. His goals lined up with his, and she never had to explain herself to him. Nor did he have to explain to her.

"...They are watching us..."

That sentence snapped Yuka out of her thoughts. She glanced at Sabishii, then around at the tunnel walls. She couldn't sense anything, but she trusted him. "Good," Yuka replied as she walked next to Sabishii. Her tan cloak hid most of her silhouette. It hid the respirator on her neck. She had the hood up over her head. She knew what she lacked, Sabishii had.

It didn't take long for them to arrive in the larger section of the cave, sector 4. The rusted signs showed how little this area was actually used. There was a group already here. Whispering.

The instructor's voice cut through the damp air, outlining the brutal parameters of their exam. No teams today. There are no friends. Out here in the dark, it is every man for themselves. Beneath the cover of her respirator and hood, Yuka practically smiled. The village wanted survivors. They wanted ruthlessness. It was a language she already spoke fluently.

When the instructor vanished, and the entrance collapsed behind them in a deafening, violent roar of stone and dust, Yuka merely narrowed her eyes against the debris. The trap was sprung. As the thick cloud of dirt began to settle, she surveyed the chaotic staging ground. Panic was a scent as distinct as iron in the air, rolling off the other students in waves.

Her gaze caught on a familiar, cloaked figure separating himself from the edge of the light. Goro. He was shrouded in heavy fabric, hiding those grotesque extra limbs he possessed. Yuka felt her upper lip curl in instinctive disgust. He was an absolute freak of nature, an abomination that made her skin crawl just looking at him. Sabishii subtly shifted his positioning, moving them further away from the multi-armed boy. Yuka followed without a word. She agreed; let the bug wander off into the dark. They had better things to focus on.

She swept her attention over the rest of the cavern. Most of them were scrambling, whispering desperately to form the very alliances the instructor had just condemned. A girl not too far off stood silently, arms crossed, watching the crowd and doing nothing. Unremarkable. Just another body in the dark.

But then Yuka’s eyes landed on the back of the cavern. Another girl was pressed hard against the jagged stone wall, completely paralyzed by fear, looking as though she might shatter if someone so much as breathed on her. Prey.

Do whatever it takes to secure one, the instructor had said about the tokens. He hadn't said they couldn't pry them from the cold, dead fingers of their peers. In fact, he had all but invited it.

The familiar, intoxicating thrill of violence began to coil tightly in Yuka's stomach, pushing away the claustrophobia of the tunnels. She kept her posture relaxed, her hands resting near her sides, but her muscles were primed like a coiled spring. She didn't need to ask Sabishii what the plan was. They needed a token, and the darkness ahead was the perfect place to hunt for one. She kept her silence, waiting for his signal to move, ready to carve a path through whoever—or whatever—got in their way.

[Exam Entered w/ Sabishii from previous topic]
[No Actions yet]

Linked classes:

• https://ninpocho.com/threads/histor...ooted-in-blood-class.70115/page-2#post-396889
• https://ninpocho.com/threads/taijutsu-101-augmented-armaments-class.69897/

 

[Kyouketsu Shinda]

His footsteps echoed softly through the tunnels, each step put forward seemingly felt heavier than the last. He could hear the slight noise of other candidates drifting faintly from somewhere ahead, the restless movement of people who possibly still believed this moment was anything special or different. Shinda felt none of it, as his emotions and thoughts were far away from where his body and present, were. His lips had been sealed shut, thin lines of Goro’s chakra thread pulled tight across them in careful stitches. Talking felt pointless lately, as silence had undertaken a new meaning within the boy's mind. His red eyes stayed on the stone floor as he walked. Thoughts moved through his head like heavy clouds as questions about strength and purpose occupied his mind.

The tunnel eventually opened into the staging chamber where the candidates gathered. When Shinda stepped out of the tunnel quietly, he noticed quite a few faces were people he had classes with and people who had seen him fight. He didn’t acknowledge them. His red eyes instead passed over the room without stopping, with a facial expression that was dull and distant. The thin chakra threads stitching his lips shut feeling even more tout as his gaze passed over Goro. Instead of joining the others in the chamber, Shinda kept toward the back of the room and the back of the group. He leaned back against the cold stone wall, arms hanging loosely at his sides. From here he could see everyone without needing to stand among them. While the instructor spoke, his red eyes fixed on the jagged tunnel mouths behind the man.

There are no teams today. There are no friends.

Shinda didn’t look at any of them, not even the ones he knew as his gaze stayed hyper focused on the tunnels. Dark, silent, patient, they looked less like paths and more like open mouths waiting to swallow whoever stepped inside. Every person would be for themselves. The phrase didn’t carry a sting the way it seemed to for others. Still, one thought drifted through the quiet part of his mind, completely uninvited. Which path would be his path?

His fingers curled slightly at his sides before relaxing again as his thoughts and conviction collided. This moment of thought passed quickly and with a decision made on what course of action would be taken. The instructor finished speaking, and the silence in the cavern grew heavy as everyone waited for the exam to truly begin. Shinda remained motionless at the back of the group, posture calm, eyes steady.

Only one of them passing truly mattered, everything else would simply be after-thoughts. Cogs within the greater machines ultimate design. These thoughts forced his lips to curl along its edges, pulling at the sewn threads slightly. A ghoulish smile of silence....

[WC: 471]
[Topic Entered]
[No actions yet]

 

[Chikamatsu Suisen]

There was something deeply ironic about a kid who'd recently survived a chakra-eating slime monster in the Crystal Mines being scared of a dark tunnel.

Suisen wasn't scared.

...Okay, he was maybe a little scared.

The Old Sandworm Tunnels were a different kind of dark than the mines. The mines had their crystal glow, their weird purple pulse, their very-much-alive ooze monsters to keep things interesting. This place just had nothing. The kind of nothing that pressed against your eyeballs and made your brain start inventing shapes in the pitch black. The emergency lamps strung along the jagged walls did basically nothing except create shadows that moved in directions shadows weren't supposed to move.

The blonde homunculus stood near the back of the assembled crowd, hands stuffed in his hoodie pocket, crimson eyes scanning the cavern with the kind of focused attention that didn't usually show on his face. Nobody who'd known him longer than five minutes would recognize this expression. It was the one he wore when he was actually thinking.

The instructor's voice bounced off the carved stone walls, sharp and efficient. No teams. No friends. One Commendation Token. Reach the extraction point or fail.

Suisen's jaw worked silently for a moment.

No teams. Every man for themselves.

He filed all of his dad's imaginary lectures away under "problems for later" and refocused.

The clone poofed. The ceiling came down.

Suisen didn't flinch at the roar of the collapse, he'd heard scarier things recently, like a gelatinous predator the size of a small house launching itself down a tunnel, but he felt the finality of it settle in his chest. That was it, then. No going back. Just the dark and whatever was living in it.

His eyes moved through the crowd. He spotted the heavy traveler's cloak immediately. The white braid. The careful posture of someone trying to take up exactly as much space as necessary and not a single inch more.

Goro.

Suisen's mouth quirked sideways. Out of everyone in this village, somehow he kept ending up near the six-armed kid. The Crystal Mines. Class. Now here. He wasn't sure if that was the universe being funny or just statistically inevitable given that they were apparently both the type of people who showed up to dangerous places without fully thinking it through first.

He watched Goro disappear into the nearest dark tunnel without hesitation. No ceremony, no checking if anyone was following. Just gone.

Suisen looked at the three branching tunnels.

Then he looked at where Goro had vanished.

The instructor had said no teams. No friends. Every man for themselves.

The instructor had also immediately left via shadow clone and was probably not down here personally to enforce anything.

"Technically," Suisen reasoned quietly to himself making air-quotes as he spoke, already moving, "two people independently going the same direction isn't a team. That's just... a coincidence. A statistical overlap... Completely different thing."

He followed Goro into the tunnel.

It took about thirty seconds of jogging through the dark before he caught the silhouette of the cloak ahead. Suisen kept his footsteps deliberately audible, last time he'd snuck in a tunnel it had involved a crystalline ooze and a lot of screaming, and pulled up alongside him with a grin that was probably invisible in the dark but felt important to maintain regardless.

"Hey. So. Funny running into you here."

He matched Goro's pace, hands still in his hoodie pocket, crimson eyes adjusting slowly to the dark.

"I know the boss man said no teams," Suisen continued, his voice dropped low and genuinely conspiratorial rather than its usual broadcast volume. "But like... you and I have already survived one genuinely horrible underground situation together. Which I feel like statistically makes us better odds than going solo. Plus, last time we split up you almost got eaten. Or I almost got eaten. I can't remember, I know someone was almost slime lunch... Anyways, the point is someone almost got eaten and it went better when we weren't separated."

A beat.

"I still owe you meat buns too. So really this is just me protecting my debt."

He glanced sideways at the six-armed boy, the grin dropping just slightly into something more honest.

"What do you say? Not a team. Just... two chill guys. Five feet apart. Walking the same direction. Watching each other's backs, casually."

[OOC: Suisen entering his Genin Exam!
Linked classes:

• Gotta Be Cool Headed [Class]
• Taijutsu 101: Augmented Armaments [CLASS]

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