Hazou frowned and looked over at Noburi and Keiko, who nodded. The three of them backed away from crowd and threw down an Air Dome to stymie any unwanted eavesdroppers.

"This is itself probably an info gathering test, or at least an opportunity," Hazou said, one hand shielding his mouth. "I propose a temporary team split. I'll attempt to be chosen first, and report back if possible. Noburi makes info deals with other Leaf teams and anyone else he can get his tentacles on, Keiko works to process any info that becomes available and figure out the most likely scenarios, possibly collaborating with Shikamaru and sensors."

Keiko spoke up, mouth similarly hidden. "Hazou, be aware of the possibility that the exercise involves finding out your word from the proctor without them saying it, since depending on how liberal you wish to be with the interpretation of the parameters, that might count as a proctor knowing your word."

"Shit, that's a good point," groaned Noburi, looking slightly ridiculous with one hand guarding his mouth and the other massaging his forehead. "Once we finish this up I'll see if I can check whether Jiraiya knows anything."

"A fine idea," Keiko agreed. "Hazou, other specifics for plan consideration?"

"Three things. First, Keiko, one of your new summons is a stealth spec?"

"Correct. You would suggest having her tail a proctor? This seems sensible."

"Yeah. Specifically, tail whoever I go with in case I'm not allowed to come back. Second, what do you guys think of storage and explosive seal bribes if people need to be encouraged to cooperate with Noburi?"

"Fine by me," the other boy replied.

"Agreed," Keiko confirmed. "We should leverage that particular advantage whenever we can."

"Excellent. Last, after whatever proctor grabs me comes back, if you're still here start tapping out codes so I can find you and get in touch from underground. Check in with any new info, meeting point here, fallback at Amatetsu's, secondary fallback barracks?" Hazou asked.

"Check."/"Check!", they answered simultaneously.

Before he'd wormed his way to the front of the crowd, he heard Noburi calling his name and stopped to turn around.

"Jiraiya's pissed," Noburi mumbled once he was close enough. "They elected your aunt a while ago and have just been holding off on the announcement. He walked in expecting to be able to play a bunch of squabbling clans against each other and got hit with a united front behind a, quote, frigid body-puppetting diplo-bitch. Anyway, unfortunately he doesn't know the event schedule yet, but he doesn't think they'll fuck us for learning the word from the proctor - probably gonna draw it from a random assortment of envelopes or scraps of paper or something. He did ask me to remind you to avoid answering honestly if they casually ask you what your word was once you've learned it."

Hazou snorted. "Very funny. Thanks for the check-in." He turned and managed to step gracefully past slightly older and taller girl in a Hidden Rock headband to reach the front of the milling crowd of genin, and began trying to catch a proctor's eye.

It looked like there were a couple of other genin with a similar idea to his own. Some were standing conspicuously far out from the mob, others yawning and stretching with exaggerated motions or making themselves the center of boisterous conversations.

Hazou decided to sit back and see if he could pick out any hints on how to get picked. It soon became clear that proctors were avoiding ninja who were too blatant, but were definitely leaning toward people who were doing something besides standing around.

After a moment's contemplation, Hazou turned his back on the proctors and addressed the Rock girl he'd just passed. "Hi!" he said brightly, not permitting his smile to falter when she jumped in surprise. "I'm Gōketsu Hazou."

"And I'm… Suzuki Kimi," she answered hesitantly, her brows briefly knitting together.

"I'm sorry if I surprised you. I just sort of figured talking was better than waiting around to get picked, you know?"

"Mhm." 'Suzuki' had schooled her face into a calm mask.

Eyebrow Position 4 + Smirk 7: Amused Teasing "Why so tense?"

"Because I know what you're doing."

Eyebrow Position 3 + Laugh 11: Spontaneous Amusement "Yeah? That puts you one step ahead of me. Mind sharing?"

Her face flashed disgust. "You Leaf nin are ridiculous. You think I won't beat you into a pulp if you get all buddy-buddy with me? My village actually instills our ninja with discipline instead of letting them grow lazy on the fat of the land."

Hazou took a step back and raised his hands to a placating position. "Woah, okay, I apologize if I've offended you--"

"Yeah, go on, apologize!" She was shouting by now, and gesticulating wildly. A small bubble had opened up around them as people stepped back to watch. "Back down instead of standing up for yourself! Go back and whine to all the other softies about how I hurt your poor little feelings and--"

"Aaaand that's enough. You two, come with us," a woman on the sidelines said authoritatively. Hazou turned to look as a pair of Mist proctors walked into the burgeoning fight-ring.

Suzuki immediately went to attention, her expression calm once more. Hazou took slightly longer.

"You, follow Aoi here," the lead proctor said, gesturing from Suzuki to the other armband-wearing woman. "Boy, follow me."

Hazou nodded, doing his best to quiet his thumping heart. Getting into a fight before any of the real events started would not have boded well.

Just before she leapt up onto a nearby roof to follow her own proctor, Suzuki turned around and winked at him. "Good teamwork Gōketsu! No hard feelings?"

She didn't wait for a reply.