As the dust continued to settle, Hazou heard mutterings and a low whistle or two from the MEW benches he'd pulled up before the bout. He looked to the side of the now-scarred field at the gathering of other Examinees. Mari-sensei had leveraged her position as the Hokage's wife to orchestrate an entire day full of chances to make connections in Konoha's upper echelons, not to mention the chance to set up alliances and non-aggression pacts for the early stages of the Exams. ("Of course it isn't against the rules", she had chided him when he asked. "It's expected - hell, they probably hit you with demerits if you didn't show favoritism to your own village.")

Kurenai raised an eyebrow at Mari-sensei before tossing over a bag of coins with a small shake of her head. "Won triple-or-nothing and still lost money, with how many tags that took."

Mari-sensei winked. "Oh, but the look on your face was so worth it." They both laughed.

The genin observing from the sidelines looked decidedly less amused. Hazou noticed Shikamaru frowning -- no prize for guessing what was going through his head -- and Lee was openly gaping. The rest looked somewhere between stoic and unnerved.

Hazou's attention was pulled back by Noburi's voice. "You were right," he said simply. Hazou nodded. He'd figured Noburi would be able to detect the Aburame bugs more easily than normal insects. No sense talking more about it anywhere near a Hyuuga though.

"Okay, Teams Goketsu and Kurenai clear the field and recover for your third bout," Mari-sensei called out. "Teams Asuma and Gai, you're up!"

Hazou made his way over to the benches and pulled out a canteen. The other fighters followed him, Team Kurenai moving more slowly and gingerly than his own teammates.

"Begin!" Gai shouted boisterously.

Lee took off like a shot toward the opposing team, whooping, with Tenten and Neji right behind him.

Shikamaru managed to jump backward, but Lee was too fast for Ino to avoid him. Choji made to step forward to try and intercept the older boy, only for Lee to blur forward and plant a barely-restrained horse kick into his gut and send him sprawling, rolling along the ground. Hazou winced, and tried to convince himself he'd imagined the crunching sound.

At the same time, Tenten flicked a cloud of shuriken almost casually toward Shikamaru's position, battering his entire body in precisely the right order to cause his limbs to spasm and give out just as he landed from his retreating leap. Shikamaru collapsed in a nerveless heap, scored all over with red welts that Hazou was sure would be nasty bruises before morning.

Finally, Neji closed in on Ino, like a chakra-dolphin that had caught the scent of some poor shark's blood. She tried to maintain her distance, tried to dance out of the way of his strike, but it was like she was moving through chilled molasses. Neji's arms blurred into a series of surgical jabs into Ino's torso and arms, culminating in an elbow-strike to her gut. She fell back, limp. His expression looked to Hazou like nothing so much as an academy instructor showing students the most mind-numbingly trivial kata in the book on the first day of classes.

Silence reigned for a few seconds, interrupted by Choji's retching.

"I think we can dispense with going best of three," Asuma said, concern evident in his voice as he approached his downed students.

"Iiiii'm gonna go see if they're okay," Noburi mumbled before standing up and jogging over as well.

"Well, that was certainly energetic," Mari-sensei observed neutrally as the losing team was checked over. "Up, next, third round of Goketsu vs Kurenai, no-defensive-seals-for-my-kids edition!"

"Wha- sensei! No defensive seals?" Hazou gasped.

"Yep! It made the fight boring last time. Pretend it's the end of a long survival exercise in the exams and you've run out."

"Do the survival exercises typically go for the week or so it would take for that to happen with the loadout Hazou has been proposing?" inquired Keiko sarcastically.

"Admittedly not," Mari-sensei answered with a shrug. "Now get in there!"

...​

Hinata wasn't nervous as she took her place across from Team Goketsu -- if they weren't allowed to use defensive seals, that would mean they needed to actually fight rather than try to turtle up. Since that hadn't been their first choice, it probably meant they were worse at it, as evidenced by the first round going well for her team when they'd managed to prevent the setup of the enemies' seal barrier.

Definitely not nervous, she reassured herself. No, there was certainly no way that the Goketsu might just fling offensive seals all over the battlefield, nor any way that could result in serious bodily harm.

She heard Yuhi-sensei shout "Fight!"

Things started happening very fast. The two boys on the enemy team sprinted forward to meet her and Kiba. Kiba and Hazou were fastest -- she watched as Kiba and Akamaru leapt forward, beginning to spin up into Fang Over Fang, hopefully he’d be able to take out Hazou quickly and then they could focus on--

Hazou slipped in between Kiba’s whirling limbs like they weren’t even there. Kiba was angled all wrong, attacking the place Hazou should have been but wasn’t. Hazou brought a brutal elbow strike down on Kiba’s throat just as he passed by, revolving in midair, and went to the ground with him, kunai to her teammate’s throat.

“Syrup Trap no Jutsu!”

Crap, she’d totally forgotten about Noburi! The shorter boy had stopped several paces back, and was rearing his head back to -- ew!

Hinata tried to divert course, to leap out of the way of the tidal wave of pale gray-lavender goop spewing from Noburi’s mouth and blotting out the sun, but it wasn’t any use - she got completely covered in the rapidly-hardening gunk, and she could hear Shino struggling with it behind her.

Speaking of Shino, an instant later a boiling cloud of his allies flooded past and around her toward the two Goketsu boys. Both leapt to the side, Noburi now holding a seal of some kind, but not fast enough; they were both at least partially caught. That was good, maybe they could turn this around, now she and Shino just needed to get out of this thrice-damned-- shit, Keiko just threw something!

WHUMP

The training tag might have knocked her off her feet if she hadn’t been stuck so thoroughly into place by Noburi’s technique. “Dead,” Keiko observed from the other end of the field with a note of utter finality, already pulling out her canteen and beginning to walk over to the benches.

“Yeah, I’ve gotta agree with her guys,” Yuhi-sensei said, smiling ruefully. “Goketsu, how long does that sticky stuff last?”

“Twenty minutes or so, ma’am,” Noburi responded, looking up briefly from his spot next to Kiba, already running a hand glowing with medical chakra over the other boy's neck. “Might be a little longer, I put a lot of juice into that one.”

Hinata sighed. At least that meant she wouldn’t have to try and wash it out.

...​

At that point Mari-sensei decided it was time for brunch. Noburi sat down at the place marked with his name near one end of the MEW dining table and stools Hazou had made (really, that justu was so useful), with Hinata at the table head to his right, Ino across from him, and a curiously empty spot to his left. He tried not to be jealous of Hazou sitting at the opposite table head, in the heir’s place. The fact that Mari had positioned him next to Ino and Hinata helped some.

“Hello everyone!”

Noburi recognized Akane’s voice and turned toward the path that led into the training ground. She was smiling brightly and waving, leading a pair of ninja -- one pink-haired girl, and one brown-haired guy with his forehead protector on a bandana over his whole head -- toward the assembled group.

Hazou stood up to greet them, and Akane practically bounced forward to tackle him in a hug. After a couple moments of borderline bone-breaking enthusiasm, she turned toward the table as a whole.

“I am sorry we couldn’t be here for the earlier sparring. I would like to introduce you all to Sakura Haruno and Haru Yamamoto, my teammates for the exams,” she said, gesturing. The other two bowed politely, smiling. All three of them found their places -- Sakura taking the empty spot just to Noburi’s left, between himself and Neji.

“Glad to meet you, Haruno,” Noburi said, putting on his most disarming smile. “Have you met Hyuuga and Yamanaka before?” he asked, gesturing

“I have! We were actually in the same graduating class,” Haruno replied, smiling warmly at Hinata and nodding… somewhat less warmly at Ino.

“Ah, I see! What was your team so busy with this morning?”

“Oh, some quick teambuilding exercises. None of us were originally grouped together, you see. My teammates were promoted in the last round of exams, Haru... lost... both of his over the last couple years, and, well, you know Akane’s story.”

“Both your teammates were promoted? Only a year out of the academy?” Noburi asked, astonished. “Did you attend too?”

Haruno nodded, her face growing serious. “Yes. I was placed on a team with the Uchiha heir and the son of the Fourth Hokage, and, well, they both lived up to those expectations. I… haven’t, really.”

Aha, a girl having an unwarranted crisis of conidence! Now that, he could deal with. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said playfully. “Even going to the Exams this soon after graduating says a lot about how talented you must be. Being selected to go again means the Hokage has a lot of confidence that you’ll help the village present a strong face to the other nations.”

Haruno’s face was rapidly reddening. As she opened her mouth to respond, though, Mari-sensei clapped for everyone’s attention. “Alright everyone, please flip your name placard over. You’ll find a storage seal on the bottom side -- I worked hard to prepare things I thought you’d each like, so please enjoy! After this, we’ll be drawing for 1v1 spars!”

Noburi caught the glances between all the members of Team Uplift at the mention of Mari-sensei preparing the food, but nevertheless gamely activated his assigned tag. A bento box materialized, and he popped it open to reveal the steaming hot contents. Upon seeing the sushi and shrimp tempura within, he joined in the general cry of “Itadakimasu!” around the table.

“Goketsu, if it’s not too forward,” Hinata asked, frowning, as she dug into her own meal, “why not simply have servants bring these out?”

“Hm?” Noburi inquired, mouth full.

“I just mean that, while the Hokage certainly has a reputation for sealcraft, surely this is… a bit extravagant. Similarly, the number of explosives you used during our first bout was frankly astounding. As neither storage seals nor explosives are particularly indicative of skill, it seems to mostly be a play to show off the Hokage’s wealth rather than his prowess. But I would expect Lord Fifth to be more subtle, so I’m confused.”

“Maybe you’re just more observant than other people,” Noburi suggested wryly.

She ate a piece of sushi wordlessly, staring at him.

He sighed. “Truth be told, it’s just that we haven’t had the time to vet and hire servants. That, and that between my brother, Uncle Kagome, and Jiraiya, we have more tags than we know what to do with most of the time. Better to use them to impress people than to kill them, we figure.”

“Sorry, your brother?” Hinata asked.

Noburi nodded. “Hazou’s a sealsmith. A freakishly good one, for someone our age. I thought everyone knew that? The Hokage announced it during our adoption speech, I’m pretty sure.”

“We were out of the city at the time, I’m afraid” Hinata responded. “We only got back within the last couple days.”

“Oh, then you haven’t heard!” Ino cut in. “Jiro and Sora are finally dating!”

“No!” Noburi exclaimed excitedly.

“Yes! They-- you don’t even know who I’m talking about.”

“Why should that stop me?” Noburi asked, shrugging as he brought another bit of crunchy squid to his mouth.

-o-​

This update covered the remainder of the day from Chapter 152. Other stuff that happened (because it’s getting late and I want to post this):

After lunch the group was split by “random draw” into pairs. Hazou was paired off with Akane, Noburi with Hinata, and Keiko with Tenten. Purely by coincidence. Observing other teams led to some interesting data. For example, Shino knows Hiding Like a Mole, and uses it to escape below-ground while his allies provide sensory information and let him fight anyone up top. Shikamaru uses a simple Doton technique called Practice Brick to raise up dirt walls and create areas of shadow for his family’s techniques. Everyone got together at the end of the day for dinner. The various sensei came over from their table to run everyone through verbal ‘tactical simulations’ and encourage group discussion about what might be the best course of action. They also told you guys about past exam events, including (but not limited to) team battles, written examinations, survival exercises for both individuals and teams, interrogation resistance, randomized team leadership, tactical simulations, stealth and infiltration, objective defense, and multi-team versions of a lot of the above. Noburi refilled Hazou, who was near-collapse after getting drained by Shino's bugs. Noburi also reported that Neji was helping make sure Team Asuma was okay by using his Byakugan to check for internal damage. Everyone generally agreed to avoid going after one another in the early events.