{Konoha Academy, Konohagakure}
{2:43 PM, 1st July 13 Yrs ANB}
{3rd Person POV}
"What the heck are those?" Sakura asked as she stared at the cards, Sasuke now seemed a little interested in the cards.
"Ninja info cards." Kabuto chuckled. "They're chakra encoded and hold all the data I've acquired from my past 4 years taking part in the exams. They have everything, from information on the exams to the number of genin from each village to information on the other genin."
Kabuto looked quite proud of his cards from what Ren could gather, while the rest of the genins were focused on the cards, Ren tried to psychoanalyze Kabuto's actions.
'Maybe he wanted to gather information on me, that's why he tried to get me to join his team before. And that's why he's telling these things to the rest of the rookies, maybe he wants to spy on us?' Ren thought, though Kabuto's intentions were perfectly concealed so everything was just speculation.
"Among those cards, do you have some with information on some individuals?" Sasuke finally caved into the temptation and asked.
Kabuto nodded after showing everyone how the card works he spoke, "These are the number of people participating in the exams this year. I have data on most of the shinobi here but it is not perfect. Is there someone you are concerned about?"
"Yes, give me whatever information you have on Rock Lee from Konohagakure, Gaara from Sunagakure, and Ren from Konohagakure," Sasuke said, he wanted to know just about anything he could about them, the spar against Lee earlier broadened his horizon. Not to mention Gaara's crazy stealth, for someone with such obvious bloodlust he was surprisingly sneaky.
"Oh, you know their names? That makes it much easier," said Kabuto as he took out a card from the deck and spun it around on the ground with his chakra.
"Please show me" Sasuke spoke, his attention though was already focused on the blank card.
"First up is Rock Lee," Kabuto started. "He is one year older than you and he graduated a year before your group. His mission history is 20 D-ranks and 11 C-ranks. He has no talent for either ninjutsu or genjutsu, however, his taijutsu has shown extreme development during this last year. He was praised by his sensei as a skilled Genin, and this is his first time taking this exam. His teammates are Tenten and Hyuga Neji. His Jounin sensei is Might Gai. Last year he gained quite a lot of attention when he passed the graduation exams with a disability but didn't participate in the chunin exams."
...
'... okay so although the first part is not that suspicious, Konoha mission records are public knowledge and anyone can at least get access to the basic numbers, though how he was able to get access to the rest of Lee's file and his potential evaluation is a bit questionable.' Ren concluded as he stared at the card on the ground. All the information that Kabuto spoke was imprinted on the card along with a hexagonal graph that showed a heavy lean towards taijutsu with no genjutsu and ninjutsu capabilities.
'Still exposing Lee's weakness to genjutsu isn't a very comradery thing to do now is it,' Ren thought but the damage was done and not a lot of people heard them, though considering that they were in a room full of shinobi it was pretty much given that everybody should know about it.
Kabuto moved on to the next card and repeated his little ritual, "Next we have Sabaku no Gaara. He's also a year older than you and carries a large gourd on his back everywhere he goes. His mission history is an unknown amount of D-ranks, 9 C-ranks, and 1 B-rank. There is no documented data about his skills in any form of combat as he is from a different village but according to some rumors, till now in all his missions, Gaara has never been hit once. His teammates are Temari and Kankuro, and their Jounin-sensei is Baki..." Kabuto finished with a slight gulp.
The air around the rookies stilled as everyone started thinking about the mission record that Kabuto just shared with them, how was a genin team able to complete a B-rank mission uninjured seemed impossible to them. Ren stared at Gaara's data for a bit before he focused on Kabuto's actions, he wanted to stop Kabuto from revealing his information but then again the easiest information to cross-check would be his own.
...
Kabuto picked out the third card from his stack and placed it on the ground, "...and lastly we have Ren from Konoha," Kabuto looked up at Ren for a second before he continued, "Ren was in the same year as you, he graduated the academy earlier this year and was taken as an apprentice under Gekko Hayate. His mission history is 33 D-Ranks, 3 C-Ranks, 1 B-Rank, and O-one A-rank..." Kabuto stuttered and stopped, Ren could see the glances flickering all over his body increasing as Kabuto gulped again.
'He has quite good acting skills, isn't it obvious that since he was the one who put in the data he should know the number of missions I did? Especially since I should be one of the few genins who would have completed an A-Rank mission as a genin. He should have remembered that... what's the point of this overacting.' Ren stared at the sweat that was gathering at the end of Kabuto's eyebrows.
"...Anything else?" Sasuke asked, though his focus had already shifted to sizing Ren up. Ren stared back at the frowning Uchiha and simply shrugged in reply.
"...He is talented in Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, and Kenjutsu, with at least a couple Fire style Ninjutsu under his belt. His sensei, Hayate Gekko is one of the leading experts in Kenjutsu in Konoha so while there is no information about his Kenjutsu it should at least be at an acceptable level. He graduated from the Academy at the top of his class as the Rookie of the Year and was given special permission by Hokage-sama to participate in the exams as a solo." Kabuto spoke and then allowed every rookie to see the stat distribution.
Unlike Lee's stat distribution which was heavily unbalanced and Garra's whose skills are unknown, Ren's stat graph was equally balanced, with each of the skills likely honed to the extremes. Sasuke stared at the graph and the mission numbers, The only weakness he could see according to the data was genjutsu but even that was a huge unknown.
'If I have to fight Ren, I should try to use Sharingan: Genjutsu like Kakashi sensei taught, it should give me a small margin of error that I could use to my advantage...' Sasuke thought as he clenched his fist. If nothing else this minor information was worth listening to, he still stared at Ren's silent figure.
'I know the B-Rank mission, we were in on it too, it wasn't so dangerous but what about the A-Rank mission? When did that happen...' Sasuke thought.
"Why didn't you tell me you went on an A-Rank mission?" Ino broke the silence as she stared at Ren with her arms crossed.
Ren looked at her angry look and tried to placate that angry blond, "It wasn't an A-rank mission Ino-chan, it was a C-rank, C-rank..." Ren spoke trying his best to smile.
Kabuto interrupted their conversation as he placed another card on the ground, "There are 73 Konoha genins, 30 from Sunagakure, 21 from Amegakure, 15 from Kusagakure, 12 from Takigakure, and lastly 3 from Otogakure. Each and every one of them is an elite handpicked from their village to participate in the chunin exams. Except for Otogakure, it is a newly formed village that just sprung up a couple of years ago, this is their first time competing in the exams."
...
'So it's a new village, but why would a new village even dare to attack Konoha? This doesn't make sense...' Ren thought.
"Do you know where this Otogakure is located, Kabuto-san?" Ren asked, Kabuto stared at Ren for a minute then he spoke, "I'm not entirely sure but there were some rumors that it is situated in the Land of Rice and is endorsed by their Daimyo."
'Land of Rice, that's not far from Konoha...' Ren thought but then he sensed 3 people moving towards them.
...
'What are these idiots doing?'
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AN- Fist Exam in the next chap and Forset of Death right after!
Yooo! We Back? I'm scheduling the daily release for the next week at least!
P.S- Read 17 Chapters ahead at Pàtreon.com/Version_401.