Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_300: (Sparta!?)

Three hours after the questionnaires were collected for evaluation, the candidates gathered in the hall on the ground floor. Takuma stood in the crowd, wearing the 'Scars' mask; he was surprised when he was instructed to wear it as he thought it was placed in the room only to mess with him—but everyone was now wearing a hard, front mask over their balaclavas.

"All of you must be tired after sitting so long," the gold-wearing ANBU addressed the crowd of candidates in a flat and almost uninterested voice. He wore a full-body zipped-up robe and had his drawn hood cast a deep shadow over half of his, making his jewellery the only noticeable feature. "Let's have you all stretch your legs... For the next task, we want you to travel across the country in a certain amount of time..."

As he spoke, the staff distributed identical backpacks to the candidates.

"Unlike the written questionnaire, this is an elimination task. The passing criteria is to reach the final location under the allocated team. You can refer to the map and note inside the backpack for further details... That is all from my side. Your time has begun; you're free to leave."

The moment those words were uttered, the hall burst with activity. The candidates rifled through their backpacks for the aforementioned map, the note, and other resources they had been granted.

Takuma went to the corner of the room and sat down against the wall before going through the bag's contents. As a collector of high-quality maps, Takuma owned a collection that covered a significant portion of the Land of Fire that had been charted. He was lucky to live in a major nation hotspot like Hidden Leaf Village, as he could even get maps of faraway regions. By no means did he have the maps he owned memorised as that was simply too much information; he recognised the area in the included map, which was barely serviceable but, to its credit, had enough information for anyone knowledgeable enough to chart a journey.

Multiple points were marked on the map, and according to the accompanying note, the candidates had to show their faces to the staff at the locations.

That changed Takuma's understanding of the task. It was no longer plotting the fastest course from point '0' to point '5', but plotting the fastest journey while hitting additional locations. He recognised that the ANBU-nin had barely given them any information about the task, and even the note was fairly minimal. Was it because they were granting them freedom on how they wanted to complete the task, or was it because they wanted them to derive something from the limited information provided?

Takuma glanced up to see that some candidates were already leaving the building.

The note said they had five days to reach the final location, which was more than enough time to reach it comfortably. But as he glanced at the people leaving the building one after another, he could tell they were hurrying. Even though the passing criteria was reaching the location before the deadline with one more condition to be met, it was a fair assumption that the candidates would be ranked according to how quickly they reached the checkpoints and the final location.

And yet... as he gazed at the note with barely a few points printed on it and looked back at the day he had just had it, he couldn't help but wonder what the motive behind this task was.

Takuma decided not to compete in the race.

The passing criteria were reaching the final destination in five days while hitting all the checkpoints, and he would stick to that. The other candidates were his competition, but unless ANBU itself pitted him against them, he wouldn't participate or interfere.

Four days, he decided. He was giving himself a one-day safe cushion.

"Okay, let's start with leaving the village."

It was three in the afternoon, so a few hours of light remained. Like most of his travels, he would only move during the day and rest at night. He had sufficient bedding and a half-decent survival kit, so camping didn't seem like a problem. There was one field ration in the backpack, which meant the ANBU expected them to procure their meals after the first day. No money was included, which was fine because he could hunt—but he didn't want to hunt every day as it would take away from his travel time, which was tighter because of his four-day goal. However, all the checkpoints were towns, meaning he could buy meals there if he could get money.

All in all, he didn't have anything he needed to do in the village, so after plotting the appropriate course using the map and his knowledge, he left the village and made the most of the daylight hours.

———
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As the night arrived, over a hundred kilometres from the Hidden Leaf Village, a young man in his mid-twenties lay beside a small fire in a clearing. It hadn't been an hour since the sky had turned completely dark, but he was getting ready to sleep so he could rise and set out at dawn.

Yaya Utamatsu had been a chunin for five years before ANBU invited him to participate in their recruitment process. His hometown was near the peaceful southern shores of the Land of Fire, but he had spent most of his career in the western part of the nation on the Land of River border, a nation sandwiched between them and the Land of Wind.

He had suffered through the Third Shinobi World War and had fought on the frontlines against the Hidden Sand shinobi when he was a green genin. What had been a war deployment had turned into a decade-old posting by his own choice. He missed his hometown in the South, but he had built himself a new life in the West and even laid roots by marrying the girl of his dreams.

The ANBU invitation had been unexpected. He didn't think they had their eyes on him, but he was flattered that they considered him and decided to go as one of the things they promised him was a posting in the Hidden Leaf village. He and his family lived in the biggest city in the West, but there was no place better than the Hidden Leaf village for a shinobi and their family.

Not only was he interested in ANBU's work, but it was also better for his family.

He had arrived at the Hidden Leaf Village two days in advance to see what it was like. He had been there once previously for one of three Chunin Exams of his life—two of which were held in other nations—and he had only explored the city as a tourist during that visit. This time around, he had a friend as a guide who showed him what it was like to live in the city as a resident.

It was more crowded than he expected, but that could be solved if he and his family chose to live further away from the city centre. Despite knowing he was in the hub for Leaf shinobi, he was still surprised by the sheer number of shinobi everywhere.

While two days were not enough to get to know a place, he had a positive impression, which made him feel comfortable about moving his family if he managed to pass.

As Utamatsu stretched his arms, he imperceptibly glanced around the silent, dark woods before closing his eyes.

Thirty minutes later, a figure silently sneaked toward Utamatsu's campsite. They approached him from behind so the campfire wouldn't cast a shadow in the wrong direction. The figure moved slowly with a kunai in hand; their target was not Utamatsu but the backpack beside his head. As the figure grabbed the bag and pulled back, the campfire hissed like a blowtorch and turned into a blinding flash that stung the figure's eyes as they immediately tried to back away—but Utamatsu was ready; he was up on his feet under a second and threw a spritz bomb into the figure's face.

A spritz bomb was a small package containing a chemical mixture that irritated the eyes, nose, and mouth.

The figure was a candidate; he was wearing the gear given to them by the ANBU. As the spritz bomb overwhelmed the senses, Utamatsu kicked the backpack out of his assailant's hand before sweeping the legs. He pushed aggressively, wanting to end it quickly because the alternative was a full-blown fight—something he wished to avoid as there was a risk of injury, which would, at the very least, mean a severe disadvantage in the assessments.

He closed the distance and kicked the man in his head as hard as possible, hoping that would do the trick. It didn't knock the man, and he even managed to hit him with a stray kick as he blindly flayed around.

It was dark, and the candidate couldn't see properly because of the spritz bomb, so Utamatsu stopped moving; it erased his presence and instantly panicked the candidate, who had just haphazardly gotten up on his feet.

But it was too late, as Utamatsu finished weaving hand seals for a D-rank Fire Release jutsu that created a handball-sized orb of fire. The fire orb flew and exploded behind the candidate's head, and while it didn't do significant damage, it massively disoriented him and knocked him to the ground.

Utamatsu finished the job by nailing the temple with a spinning kick that knocked his assailant out.

"That was close," Utamatsu sighed as he grabbed his knees—not from exhaustion, but from the tension of being attacked.

He wasn't as surprised because he knew the possibility existed when he saw the instructional note inside the backpack. There was a rule in there stating:

—Killing or maiming of candidates to eliminate competition is strictly prohibited and would lead to instant disqualification and subsequent legal proceedings —

It was a reasonable rule as all of them were fellow Hidden Leaf shinobi, and killing or permanently disabling their own would be detrimental to their nation. The rule, however, didn't prohibit inflicting recoverable injuries as a means to eliminate competition, and he was sure some candidates would try to use that as a way to thin the heard.

However, the next rule provided a much more reliable method to eliminate competition.

—The provided stamp paper must be stamped by the staff member at each checkpoint. Inability to produce a fully stamped stamp paper at the final location would result in disqualification —

Utamatsu looked at the unconscious man who had gone for his backpack in an attempt to destroy his stamp paper. He dragged the man to the campsite and strip-searched him to find a stamp paper, but unfortunately, the man was smart enough not to bring his stamp paper to the ambush in case things went wrong, which they did in this case.

He looked around the dark woods. The man wasn't wearing a backpack; it could only be somewhere nearby. If he could find it and destroy the stamp paper, he would eliminate one person from the competition. However, he didn't know if he would be able to find it easily if it was hidden—and he didn't want to spend more time near another candidate.

But he needed to punish the man for attacking him...so he broke the man's forearm bone in a clean fracture before tying the broken arm to a rigid piece of wood, substituting it as a makeshift splint. It wasn't a serious enough injury to do permanent damage, but it was more than enough to eliminate the man from the running.

He packed up his stuff and left the campsite with a sigh. His plans had now changed—he would travel continuously until dusk the next day, when he would find a secure place to rest safely.

As Utamatsu got on the road, he thought about the 'stamp paper' rule. There was more nuance to it than what was stated. Losing the stamp paper didn't mean automatic/instant disqualification. According to the wording, they needed to produce 'a stamp paper'—it didn't need to be the stamp paper they found in their backpack. Even if a candidate lost their stamp paper, they could simply steal someone else's stamp paper and produce that at the final location.

Each destroyed stamp paper reduced the number of people who could pass. The candidates who passed completely depended on whether they had a completed stamp paper at the end,

It was a fair assumption that ANBU would rank them based on who arrived first—but even if they did not, completing the journey early was overall more beneficial because the time closer to the deadline was sure to be chaotic, with candidates who had lost their stamp papers hunting others who still had the ticket they needed to pass.

Utamatsu wasn't aiming to be the first, but he was undoubtedly aiming to reach the final destination before people started feeling desperate.

———

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A/N:

— Reach the final location before 5 days

— Get the stamp paper stamped at the checkpoints

— You need the completed stamp paper at the final location to pass

— Don't kill or maim

(—The stamp paper you submit doesn't need to be yours—)