Chapter – 28: Chakra Assessment

Sorry for the delay, had to rewrite this chapter. To make it up to you, I wrote a slightly bigger chapter. Enjoy!

- Silver

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[Rei POV]

There were already some kids waiting when I arrived at the testing ground where the Chakra assessment was being conducted.

A few seconds later, the same ninja that I met the other day when I came to register along with one more ninja in a chunin flak jacket, came with a writing pad and some papers on it. Probably the list of students, I made a guess.

Next, we were told to wait outside the testing ground and that we will be called one by one to get assessed. It should be in alphabetical order as my name was called towards the end of the line.

As soon as I entered, I saw the two ninjas standing opposite to me speaking with each other in low whispers and when they see me, one of them turns and says, "Hello, Uchiha Rei! I am Akiyama Masaki and this is Iwamoto Ezio. It's nice to meet you!"

"Hello, Masaki-sensei! Ezio-sensei!" I say with a short bow of respect.

"Hello, the Chakra assessment is done in two phases. The first round is required by all, which is to assess your chakra capacity. And the second is optional, to cast a jutsu of your choice. Although it is optional, if you can, I suggest you take this one too. The marks obtained will be huge with the second test," said Ezio-sensei with the same tone as an adult dangling a cookie in front of a child.

"Hai Ezio-sensei, but I only know one jutsu so…" I lower my head as if ashamed and my voice is so soft he could barely hear.

"That's already very good. Now, sit cross-legged and relax your body. We will assess how much chakra you have in a moment," says Masaki-sensei.

Nodding, I do as I am told and sit cross-legged on the ground. Masaki places his outstretched hand on my back and starts to inject his chakra into my chakra coils. Sneakily, he turns towards Ezio and nods while taking out a special paper seal. His tricks should have been enough to fool a normal Genin but I am not normal at all and I have even kept the A. I chip's scanner running all this time, so their tricks completely lost meaning. Usually, it will just be the sensei injecting chakra and getting a feel of how much chakra the student has, but because I am an Uchiha, they were using a special seal to sneakily measure my talent as well.

'A. I chip, scan that seal and approximate its usage!'

[Beep! Scanning… Complete!] [Beep! Unknown Seal, similarities: Chakra Extraction Seal 22%, Chakra Storage Seal 17%, …]

[Beep! Error! Insufficient information! Unable to approximate usage!]

'So, this seal is not just for extracting and storing chakra! It must also have seals to measure my talent! Even Tsunade didn't have any memories of it, is Hiruzen producing these seals himself?'

'A. I chip, analyze and save the seal. Name it Talent Analysis Seal!'

[Beep! Scanning… Analyzing … Done! Data on Talent Analysis Seal saved. Transfer?]

[Y/N]

'No, save it temporarily.'

[Beep! saved.]

Believing their shenanigans were successful in fooling me, Masaki stealthily places the seal on me while constantly reminding me to not lose focus.

"Don't get distracted, keep focusing on your chakra or you might get injured accidentally!"

Even if they are caught using the seal, because the students; especially Uchiha who consider Fuinjutsu to be inferior, have no knowledge of it and since it was made to look exactly like a normal chakra seal, they could say it is to help the students from major clans not have any accidents during the assessment and still get away with it while their talents would be known to the upper echelons of the village.

"Done!" says Masaki-sensei, "You already have top academy student level chakra, Good! you must have worked really hard."

Although he is outwardly praising me, I could see some points of disdain in his eyes. Grinning that my plan worked, I thanked them profusely.

"Now, you already have enough marks to get into Class 1-A, do you still want to perform any jutsus?" asks Ezio, he knows the mentality of the Uchiha, they will never let go of any opportunities to prove that they are superior to everyone else. I wanted to reject it right away, but wouldn't that be a total non-Uchiha thing to do?

"Hai sensei, I will perform 'Katon, Gokakyu no Jutsu'" I say appearing excited.

'Typical,' he thinks and says, "Okay, go ahead and cast it."

[Snake → Ram → Monkey → Boar → Horse → Tiger] [Katon • Gokakyu no Jutsu]

After I make the hand seals, I draw chakra from my mouth into my chest and immediately exhale it while bringing my hand to my mouth to control the jutsu. Both Masaki and Ezio see a stream of fire leave my mouth and turn into a large red ball of flames. It wasn't all that impressive as it sounds, and it wasn't that large too. This cast could only be considered as average.

"Very good! that was impressive. But I see it is still not perfect so don't slack off. Keep up the hard work and you will become a great shinobi in the future. Go to Class 1-A and wait for your homeroom teacher," says Masaki with a mysterious smile.

After I left, Masaki turns to Ezio who says, "What a waste of precious seal, he only has the talent for One tomoe!"

"Yeah, are the Uchiha turning worse these days?" says Masaki.

"Don't know, but our work is done. I will go and report to Hokage-sama," says Ezio and leaves too.

Back on my side, I think back to when I realized Hiruzen's plot two months ago. Initially, to avoid their snooping, I thought to send in a blood clone that is cast from the blood when I didn't start with the Seal of Ouroboros. That would still have my original chakra, right? But there is one little problem. Because I have no idea about what method the village would use to measure talent, it is risky using a clone. What if it included doing something that could cause the Blood clone jutsu to be undone? I would be in deep trouble if my body suddenly turns to blood in the middle of the assessment.

Although none among the Uchiha should know of the village's plot, they did go to the academy at some point. Therefore, I decided to act curious and ask some Genins what test they went through. The result was not surprising, they all said, the sensei will insert his chakra into our body to measure our chakra capacity for our age and we will be given points based on how large our reserves are. If it is just from the outside, the clones are no different than me, and not even byakugan could make out any differences, but if someone were to insert their chakra into the clone, they will notice it right away. Therefore, I had to let this idea go.

Since the blood clone idea is out, I started to think of other ways to achieve this and what I came up with was simple. I need a way to store my original chakra in a seal similar to Tsunade's that I can use whenever I want. Then just before the assessment, empty my own chakra using any jutsu like shadow clone and activate the seal. That will fill my chakra coils with old chakra and when they try to gather my chakra, what they extract would be my original chakra. I am still not at the level of chakra control to use the original version of the seal, still, it is enough to use an inferior watered-down version of it. One more thing is the seal cannot be on my forehead. That would be a dead giveaway.

After thinking to this point, I suddenly thought, if I am going to store chakra, why should I use mine? I have the talent to awaken two tomoe, what if I use someone else's whose talent doesn't even reach mine? Grinning evilly at how they will be ripped off in their own game, I started to look for some unfortunate soul with trash talent.

Back to the current time, still smiling at how they would have thought I had the talent to only awaken one tomoe, I walk towards class 1-A, my class for the next few years of my life.

'Academy life, here I come!'