56: Motto

Motto

Reaching the tower, team Jiraiya picked a door and entered.1

From start to finish, they had taken a mere eighty minutes to arrive. Looking around, they noticed a message written on a massive board in front of them.

"Without heaven… What does this mean…? There seem to be missing words."

Nozomi couldn't figure it out. Behind her, Minato smiled and took out two of the scrolls they had collected.

"Maybe we should open these to find out?"

Nodding, Nozomi helped him out as they both opened one of the two scrolls.

Once they did, Minato immediately recognized a summoning seal.

"Move out!"

Reacting quickly, the three of them jumped away, stopping at a safe distance and leaving the scrolls on the floor.

With a puff of smoke, a person appeared.

"Jiraiya-sensei!"

Seeing him, Minato rejoiced. For a second, he thought they'd have to fight some kind of beast or something.

"What's up! Hehe, so you guys already passed. Let me tell you something; you're the fastest team ever to complete the second round of the Chūnin exams!"

Jiraiya smiled in glee. His students had exceeded his expectations so much that he felt like he hadn't assessed them correctly. They were honestly out of this world.

Even his team's record was beaten by a large margin.

"What…? Does that mean we were the first ones?"

Nozomi jumped in happiness.

Giving them a look over, Jiraiya noticed that they were completely uninjured. Even their clothes looked the same as when he left them before the first round.

Still in disbelief, he decided to ask about it.

"Did you guys not run into other teams? How did you get both scrolls?"

"We ran into two teams, and easily beat the crap out of them. Here are the other scrolls, take a look."

Smiling, Jun took out the other scroll and showed them to Jiraiya, who couldn't believe what he was hearing. Were they even Genin? He was their teacher, yet he couldn't see through them.

"Anyways… You three have officially passed the second round, congratulations. Now, you may be wondering, what does that message on the board mean?"

Seeing their interested faces, Jiraiya continued.

"It's the motto of a Chūnin… The 'heaven' in this paragraph represents the human mind, while the 'earth' represents the body. If you lack heaven, seek wisdom, and be prepared."

"If you lack earth, run in fields, seek advantages… If you have both, you can succeed in the most dangerous missions. You three are a prime example of that. I couldn't be prouder of you."

Jiraiya wasn't exaggerating his words. These three were like meteors. The speed at which they improved was monumental. In a month and a half, they'd become this strong already.

"Then… What about the missing word?"

Minato pointed at the board, curious. Seeing this, Jiraiya got serious and showed them the scrolls one more time.

"The 'person' character from the scrolls goes there. The last sentence says: These rules will guide a person's extremes. The supposed three survival days were meant to test the participant's ability to become a Chūnin… You guys blasted right through it."

Sighing, Jiraiya continued. With their speed, he had to wonder if they weren't Chūnin in disguise.

"Once you reach that rank, you'll become a team captain. That means that you will have the responsibility of guiding a team. Whether they die or not depends on your decisions."

Hearing Jiaraiya's words, Nozomi and Minato were taken aback as they quickly nodded. They had never heard Jiraiya speak so seriously.

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