Kuro’s gaze wandered, nding iably on Naruto. The boy stood out like a fme in the darkness—loud, bright, and impossible to ignore. He wasn’t scribbling or fidgeting anymore. He wasn’t gng nervously at the door or sed-guessing his p the room. Naruto sat still and steady, his face set with a resolve that was almost too big for his small frame. His fists were unched now, resting on his desk, but there was a quiet strength in the way he held himself.
*This kid,* Kuro thought, his usual smug amusement repced with something quieter. Naruto was an anomaly, a wild card. He didn’t fit into the boxes most petitors could be sorted into—genius, strategist, weakling, follower. No, Naruto was something else entirely: a force of nature that refused to bow to the rules of the game. *Whehing says he should give up, he doubles down. It’s like he doesn’t know how to quit.*
Kuro’s smile faded as a ptive look crossed his face. This wasn’t just stubbornness—it was something deeper. That kind of resolve couldn’t be faked or taught. It came from a pce of raw defiance, fed in the fires of failure and loneliness.
*And that,* Kuro realized, *is what sets him apart.*
Ibiki finally moved, his boots thudding heavily against the wooden floor as he stepped toward the ter of the room. The sound drew every eye, freezing the faint fidgeting and whispered breaths of the remaining partits. He loomed there for a moment, arms crossed over his broad chest, his scarred face giving nothing away.
“The final question,” Ibiki said, his voice low and gravelly, yet loud enough to carry through the silence, “will decide your fate.”
A collective shiver seemed to pass through the room. Kuro saw it in the way students stiffened, some gripping their pencils tighter, others casting sidelong g their teammates, searg for reassurahey wouldn’t find.
Naruto, though—Naruto didn’t flinch. He didn’t blink. If anything, the fire in his eyes seemed to burn brighter.
Kuro leaned forward, his chair settling bato all fs with a soft thud. His gaze stayed fixed on the blond boy, a spark of curiosity glinting in his dark eyes.
-----
Xero watched him, searg for something—doubt, hesitation, *anything*—but there was none. Kuro’s calm in the face of this psychological storm was infuriatingly steady, like a mountain unmoved by the winds howling around it.
*What’s he so sure about?* Xero thought bitterly, his gaze narrowing. It wasn’t as though Kuro had the answers. No one did. This wasn’t about strategy or skill anymore—it was about nerve. And Kuro? Kuro seemed to have it in abundance, as though the threat of failure meant nothing to him.
Xero’s fingers stopped drumming, curling into fists against the desk. That quiet voice at the back of his mind—*the ohat told him to quit before he embarrassed himself, to leave while he still could*—grew louder now, an insistent whisper that picked at the cracks in his resolve.
*What are you even doing here? You’re not like them. You’re not smart like Reika. You don’t have Naruto’s insane resolve or Kuro’s ice-cold posure.*
The door smmed again, and Xero’s head snapped up. Another petitor had cracked—this time a girl who looked close to tears. She didn’t eve Ibiki’s eyes as she left, her footsteps fast and desperate, as though fleeing a battlefield she had no ce of surviving.
Xero swallowed hard, the knot in his throat tightening. He slouched deeper in his chair, trying to look as apathetic as ever, but he couldn’t stop his leg from boung beh the desk. *Why am I even here?*
His gaze flickered to Naruto then, two rows over, and what he saw startled him. Naruto sat up straight, his arms resting calmly on his desk. His test paper was still bnk—Xero had seen him scribble aimlessly for most of the exam—but there was no shame in his posture, no doubt in his eyes. The idiot actually looked... proud. Determined. Like nothing Ibiki could say or do would make him budge.
It made no sense. How could someone who clearly didn’t have the answers *still* be so sure of himself? Naruto didn’t look like a boy on the brink of failure—he looked like a boy who’d already decided he’d won.
And then there was Kuro, who met Xero’s gaze suddenly, as though he’d felt the weight of the stare. His smirk was gone now, repced with something quieter and unreadable—an expression that told Xero, *You already know what you o do.*
For a moment, Xero froze, caught between the urge to stand up and walk out and the stubborn pull that anchored him to his seat. He realized, in that instant, that this wasn’t about answers or even the final question. This was about whether or not he would let fear decide his fate.
Ibiki’s voice rumbled through the room, his words slow and deliberate, eae nding like a hammer on a fragile surface. “Those of you still here have chosen to face the final question. But let me remind you o time: failure here means you will *never* be allowed to take the in Exams again.”
Xero’s chest tightened, and his palms began to sweat. His mind screamed at him to move, to stand up and leave while there was still time. But then, as if on instinct, he straightened up in his chair.
*You’ve run from things before,* he thought. *From tests. From challenges. From people who said you weren’t good enough. Where did that ever get you?*
His jaw tightened as the voi his head—the ohat urged him to quit—began to fade.
*No more.*
He stole o g Kuro, who gave him the slightest of nods, as if aowledging his decision. Then he looked at Naruto again, whose fidence burned like a signal fre in the dark room. It wasn’t just his stubbornness—it was his refusal to let doubt cim him.
Xero let out a slow breath, the tension leaving his shoulders. *I’m staying.*