Kuro stretched zily, his back arg just enough to release the tension in his shoulders. He wasn’t worried. He khe rules of this game better than most: Observe. Adapt. Survive. He hadn’t e into this exam to prove he was the smartest—only the smartest *enough*.

  A loud *thump* jolted the room as Ibiki’s hand smmed onto another desk, his roar cutting through the silence.

  “You’re OUT!”

  The unlucky student all but bolted out of his seat, his face pale as he staggered toward the door. The heavy tension that followed weighed on the remaining partits like lead.

  Kuro suppressed a yawn, pretending to jot something onto his paper as a proctor passed by. He wasn’t worried about passing this phase—not when he uood exactly what Ibiki was looking for. *It’s not about the answers,* Kuro thought, stealing an the petitors still fighting for their futures. *It’s about seeing who cracks under pressure.*

  As the clock ticked down and the remaining students fell into a hushed silence, Kuro allowed himself one final, fleeting smirk.

  *Let the weak fall.*

  ---

  Naruto’s fists ched tightly beh the desk, his nails digging into his palms. He wasn’t even aware of the quiet ache spreading through his fingers. All he could feel was the steady pulse of his heart, each thud a challenge, a reminder: *I’m still here.*

  The questions stared back at him, cruel and unmoving. Mog him. Numbers and symbols swirled together like a tornado, taunting him with their impossibility. In another lifetime, perhaps he could’ve ughed it off, kicked his feet up, and decred it all stupid with that loud, brazen voice of his. But not this time. Not here. Not wheakes were so high.

  Ibiki’s presence was a mountain of pressure, casting an ominous shadow over everyone. Another petitor was yanked from their seat with the force of a storm, their disqualification a loud decration of failure. The sound of their footsteps dragging toward the door cut through the room like a knife, sharper than any kunai.

  Naruto swallowed hard, his throat dry. His vision tuhe room blurring at its edges. Doubt started its slow crawl into his thoughts like an unwele invader. *What if I really don’t belong here? What if I’m not good enough?*

  Then, like a spark in the darkness, ahought rose to meet it.

  *I won’t quit. No matter what.*

  It was like hearing Iruka-sensei’s voi his mind, the memory of that first moment someone had believed in him. It was like seeing the faces of every person who’d told him he couldn’t—every sneer, every whispered insult. It was the fire that had carried him through every fight, every failure.

  Naruto sat up straighter, his spine rigid, his shoulders squared. The weight pressing down on him didn’t lessen—it never would—but now he met it head-on. His blue eyes burned with a fierce light, the kind that refused to be extinguished no matter how much doubt or despair threateo smother it. He wasn’t going to be the oo walk out of that door. He wasn’t going to crack.

  Kuro, from his seat, couldn’t help but notice the sudden ge in the blond boy. Naruto wasn’t fidgeting anymore, wasn’t darting frantices at his bnk paper. Instead, he looked resolute, his jaw set, his stare fixed firmly on the exam as though daring it to beat him.

  “Cssiaruto,” Kuro murmured to himself, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. The kind of smirk that appeared when you saw someoubbornly defying every rule of logic, yet somehow, you just *khey’d e out on top.

  Kuro’s gaze lingered a moment longer. He had seen this kind of stubborn resolve in Naruto before, and every time, it was as if the boy’s willpower alohe world to his favor. It was absurd. It was reckless. It was *Naruto.*

  Around the room, others noticed it too. Some students sneered quietly, unimpressed by Naruto’s apparent ck of effort. Others frowned in fusion, w how someoh no answers could look so… fident. Reika gnced back briefly, a small crease f between her brows as if trying to decipher the enigma that was Naruto Uzumaki.

  Meanwhile, Ibiki Morino, as unyielding as a stone monolith, observed the room with that same pierg gaze. His sharp eyes nded on Naruto and lingered for a moment lohan they had on anyone else. Ibiki’s expression didn’t ge, but something flickered in his dark eyes—curiosity, perhaps.

  Naruto, oblivious to it all, stared straight ahead. *They take away my answers, but they ’t take away my resolve,* he thought.

  His pencil was still unmoving, his test sheet still bnk. But that didn’t matter. Because while others in the room worried about *how* they would pass, Naruto’s focus was unshakably simple: *I’ll endure. I’ll keep going, no matter what.*

  Ibiki turned his gaze to the unfortunate didate, his boots thudding as he walked, but Kuro kept his eyes on Naruto a moment lohe smirk lingering on his lips.

  “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that,” he muttered quietly, just loud enough for himself to hear.

  For Naruto, though, there was no pn, no trick up his sleeve. There was only that fire burning in his chest—the same fire that had carried him through loneliness, ridicule, and every impossible challenge life had thrown at him so far.

  *They think I’ll crack,* he thought, his lips curling faintly into a grin. *They’ll see.*

  The clock ticked on, but Naruto didn’t flinch. In a room filled with calcuted strategies, silent codes, and stolen gnces, his unshakable resolve burned brighter than ever. It wasn’t a method. It wasn’t a pn.

  It was just *him.* ------The room seemed to shrink as Ibiki’s words lingered, a heavy weight pressing down on every shoulder. The scraping of chairs echoed like a cruel drumbeat, oer another. Some petitors couldn’t take it—the uainty, the risk of being barred forever. Their resolve cracked like gss uhe sheer pressure of the unknown.

  The door opened and closed repeatedly, each *thud* louder tha. Dreams were unraveling before everyone’s eyes, spilling onto the floor like discarded paper. For those who remained seated, the sounds of retreating footsteps were both a relief and a warning: *Get out while you .*