Chapter 36: The Jonin Exam

On our way back to Konoha, we finished our plan for the Jonin Exam. The test itself was given only semi-infrequently, and when it was, it tended to be a big deal. The gap between chunin and jonin was pretty huge, and gave enough prestige, position, and financial gains that the competition was fierce. With the recent draw-down of the war in Water Country there was a return of numerous now-experienced veterans. As a result hundreds of chunin were competing for testing slots, and hundreds more genin were participating as it was now much harder to receive field promotions.

The jonin test that year, like most years, consisted of three main sections. The first was individual exams. Part of this was testing knowledge in required subjects such as Konoha's laws and operating regulations. Part was getting a record of acknowledged skills, especially in the basics of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. And part of the individual exams were optional tests in less common subjects; these tests covered everything from interrogation techniques to swordplay. These optional tests were frequently used to obtain special jonin (also known as tokubetsu jonin or tokujo) status.

The second section consisted of war-games. We expected to be pitted against other jonin and chunin teams in everything from escape and evasion to hostage retrieval to full on simulated combat. In some parts of the exam we may be alone, others as a team, and sometimes as a small part of a larger military unit. For larger war-games, actual serving jonin often took higher positions in the command hierarchy to see how they performed and test out experimental strategies. This was by far the most dangerous section of the exams; it was widely known that the acceptable temporary casualty ratio was somewhere in the vicinity of five to ten percent of the examinees. Even with care being taken, everyone going into it knew there would be deaths and crippling injuries.

The last section of the exam was interviews and a final promotion board. The point of these was to go over the service record, get answers for any inconsistencies, and hand down a final recommendation to the Hokage. Examinees could expect either their original jonin sensei (in our case Jiraiya) or their primary commanding officer to be one of the members of the board.

The board could recommend staying as a chunin, in which they would typically say what the chunin should work on. It could recommend promotion to tokujo, and list specific qualifications, as well as what to do to be further promoted. It could, finally, recommend promotion to full jonin, as well as possible departments or mission profiles to be assigned to.

Tokujo were sort of like warrant officers in a modern Earth military. They were typically either subject matter experts and administrators who weren’t in the combat command track, or individuals who were nearly but not quite up to serving as a jonin. Most combat track individuals ended up being promoted to tokujo instead of full jonin due to some combination of a weakness in their combat style, lack of sufficiently well-rounded experience, lack of previous command opportunities, political issues, perceptions of unreliability due to youth, etc. Only about one quarter of jonin were directly promoted from chunin.

I was hoping to be among their number, but I could see it going either way between full jonin or just tokujo. On the one hand, I did have my command over my squad. We performed well on missions, and were individually powerful; I was easily strong enough personally. On the other hand, we hadn’t been part of the war; this meant that while we had a lot of peacekeeping type missions (a plus), we lacked the battlefield experience that some other competitors had (a significant minus). I was relatively young too.

To confuse things further, I was still at least theoretically part of a nation foreign to Konoha, and held high rank there. That said, due to the alliance and my consulship I was politically important, and had a lot of sway. Things were pretty close without the international political angle; had I been I part of a small but important Konoha clan it could have gone either way. Ultimately, whether I was appointed or not would be a political move.

The Hokage could have had the board approve me, and agreed with their recommendation. That would have shown a desire on Konoha’s part to have a close working relationship with Uzushiogakure. He could have had them disapprove me, and yet promoted me anyways. That would have show a dedication on his part to our alliance, and how much he valued it, while putting me on notice that I was enjoying a relatively decent time as a ninja only under his forbearance. Those two were, in my mind, the likeliest scenarios.

Less likely, he could have had the board approve me but disapproved my promotion. That would have demonstrated significant ire on his part, and make my position very shaky in Konoha; everyone would know he disapproved, since ninja gossiped like fishmongers. It also would have likely negatively affected relations between our two governments. Or, he could have had the board disapprove me and agreed with their recommendation. Still a bit of frosting between relations, a bit of putting me on notice, but less so than countermanding the board to not promote me would have been.

The biggest problem though with the jonin exams was that it gave away many of one’s best tricks. While I was specialized as a strategic-class destructive combatant, that was one of the very worst specializations to be known for; it attracted assassins like flies to rotting meat. I wanted to emphasize my combat capabilities, but come off as a generally well-rounded but elite prospect. Part of that was that I didn't want my team to be assigned to heavy-combat operations; I much preferred the semi-independent troubleshooter jobs we generally took.

The first decision we made was which individual tests we would take, and what capabilities we'd reveal. I wasn't capable of sitting the specialist exams for genjutsu or taijutsu. Both focused on not just personal achievement, but in furthering the theory and discovering new and better techniques to teach basic and intermediate practitioners. My personal taijutsu, though exceedingly deadly, relied on use of chakra-chains and chakra-scribing seals on contact. My genjutsu, though actually deadly, was totally incapable of the subtle uses that needed to be demonstrated. The true value of a genjutsu master was not on the battlefield, but in the parlors and dining halls, subtly manipulating opinion and emotion to gather secrets and obtain preferential deals. Both would stand me in good stead as part of my general combat skills tests, but neither were applicable to any potential tokujo status.

While I might have been able to take the ninjutsu exam, and my personal chakra expansion techniques would likely have gotten me a promotion on their own, I had no desire to share those with anyone outside of possibly my family. Displaying my wide-scale ninjutsu was also off the table; it would have gotten around. Similarly, I couldn't take the sealer's exam since any sealing work I did had to happen under the aegis of my Uzushiogakure identity.

There were two combat-oriented specialist exams I could take: Swordsmanship and Battlefield Presence. I was a capable swordsman, and was finally large enough and strong enough to actually match and defeat other swordsmen worth that title. While I was expected to eventually take students or apprentices, that wasn't actually required; unlike the basics of ninjutsu, taijutsu, basic ninja tools and genjutsu, swordsmanship was its own, specialist skill that was based more on battlefield usage than on theory and furthering the art.

As for Battlefield Presence, well, I was capable of shutting down everyone within range after only a few months practice; I'd since spent six years refining my technique until I could do everything from making myself project a weak SEP (Someone Else's Problem) field, whip a crowd into a frenzy or pacify them in a moment, or make myself so dreadful that my enemies just shut down. My projection of the Death Experience was strong enough that it could kill those with weaker chakra systems because the sympathetic resonance convinced them that they were, in fact, dead.

Apart from those, I was also taking the “Diplomatic (focus: Noble)” test. I was fairly sure I'd make a good showing, and there was always a need for noble-ranked individuals capable of diplomatic missions since ninja tended to lack social status compared to the samurai caste.

Sachiko had signed up for the Genjutsu, Poison and Court Intrigue specialist exams. While her genjutsu and poison might not be quite up to the level of, say, an Uchiha or Orochimaru respectively, her skills were more than strong enough to support her focus in Court Intrigue. Since she and Yasu were permanently part of my team due to laws concerning retainers, foreign dignitaries and Konohagakure generally not wanting to piss me off, this would help keep us positioned to take non-combat or low-combat operations in nice places rather than lengthy patrols or search and destroy missions against enemy ninja.

Yasu finished us off with taking the Stealth, Trapping, and Tracking exams. His stealth was truly impressive, and he was capable of the urban aggressive investigation modules. He was skilled enough with his traps to keep them well positioned and hid, and his capabilities were significantly enhanced by using advanced Uzushiogakure seals. As a tracker, he was middling-skilled. His chakra sensing was strong, and he had a type of limited psychometric technique that allowed him to trace chakra trails in the right circumstances. That said, he lacked the wide-range scent and physical evidence scanning capability of the Aburame's insects or the Inuzuka's nose.

After I got a look at the competition, I anticipated that I would make jonin, and that Sachiko and Yasu had fair chances. We were all sufficiently skilled in taijutsu to at least keep up in combat, though we tended to focus a bit more on using weapons and combat multipliers like chakra-flow, poisons and seals. I'd made sure that we were all at least above average for jutsu, and everyone knew at least a few utility, defense and offense techniques using Water and Wind techniques. We could all do at least some genjutsu. As a trump card, we had my seal-armor, and Sachiko and Yasu's full Body-Seals, including the Cyclone-seals. That said, we wouldn't be demonstrating any of those beyond the lowest level of the armor or body-seal systems.

If anything, I might have actually harmed Sachiko and Yasu’s chances. They couldn't be deployed without me, so there was less incentive to promote them. As a group, we weren't experienced enough or trustworthy enough to be a full unit of jonin taking absolutely top-tier independent missions, and I wasn't experienced enough to command such a group. Nor had we gone through the military track that might see us getting assigned as the Auxiliary Ninja Command Group for one of the Fire Daimyo's Legions.

A high-level group of a jonin and two tokujo, on the other hand, was a bit more believable as a final squad makeup. And then in a few years, as we continued maturing and growing, we might become one of those extremely rare elite jonin squads.

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The compulsory section of the individual exams went about as I expected. I limited my jutsu demonstrations to A-rank, but showed off my full mastery of wind and water jutsu by using minimal chakra and exquisite control. It was a careful balance. I wanted to be strong enough to be fearsome, but not so strong that I was a priority target. A few years more, and I knew I'd be a monster so powerful that people would be afraid of targeting me, strong enough that none but the greatest might hope to challenge me; I wanted to avoid the stage where skilled but not legendary assassins were dispatched against me and that was actually a threat.

My Presence exam was pretty amusing. I showed off the breadth and depth of the effects that I could create; most others with that kind of interest in emotional manipulation skills were capable of genjutsu that I simply wasn't. Instead, I used my Presence for all of those applications. While I was “merely” the equal of the top contemporary generals and leaders when it came to wide-scale morale-boosting and speech-emphasizing, I was among the most advanced ever for subtle use of Presence.

I was truly unmatched when it came to aggressive Killing Intent; even at a fraction of its full strength, my Death Experience knocked the most susceptible of my examiners into a day-long coma. This was partially due to the short distance and partially due to not being in a fight-to-the-death situation which tended to raise Will-to-Live. The chief examiner for that section told me that I would certainly be receiving at least tokujo for that alone.

My Court Diplomacy test similarly went well. It was very unusual for a Konohagakure ninja to be a noble or even a samurai; my status meant that I was fairly uniquely suited to dealing with certain traditionalist lords as well as ceremonially important roles in negotiations that required a representative of a certain minimum status. I knew the typical behavioral patterns and customs, and while I was a lord of Whirlpool, I was still clearly a lord. Being a bit more of a traditionalist himself, the examiner didn't actually say straight out what his recommendation would be, but still conveyed in the double-speak of courtly phrases that I had done well.

But by far and away my most interesting exam was in swordsmanship.