For a moment, Kakashi really thought Ryouma was going to take the vice-commander’s subtle opening, and get his neck broken for it.

The vice-commander thought so, too. When Ryouma stayed at rest, it took the older man three full heartbeats to twitch his fingers away from his ninjato.

The red thrum in the air faded a little.

Kakashi unfolded from his half-crouch, letting gathered chakra ease back from his fingertips, and cleared his throat. “Was there something you wanted, sir?”

The vice-commander gave him a narrow look through the eyeholes of the mask. “If your conversation hadn’t kept you so distracted, Hatake, you might have noticed the demonstrations are winding up. Report to the center of the field with the other candidates. And you, Tousaki.”

The final candidate was still braiding earth and water, creating living ropes of black mud that swallowed and drowned his straw targets. Tarry pools littered the ground, dusted with grass stems. Kakashi looked back at the vice-commander.

“Did I stutter, Hatake?”

Kakashi was fond of his tongue. “Nossir.”

“Tousaki, did you hear me stutter?”

The faint flex of tendons in Ryouma’s neck suggested murder, but he said, “Nossir.”

“Well, then,” the vice-commander said.

The candidate—Hanzo, Kakashi thought—gave them a black glare when they infringed on his splattered bubble of personal space, but the vice-commander was right, the pattern-dance ended barely a few moments later, leaving Kakashi and Ryouma liberally sprinkled in another layer of sticky mud. The rest of the candidates were ordered to join them, arrayed in a ragged cluster of weary shinobi.

In perfect silence, the watchful ANBU circled them.

Kakashi recognized a few masks. That blue boar with stylized tusks had guarded Minato-sensei last month. That wildcat with the shrapnel marks scattered over her bare shoulder had been on wall duty a year ago; Maito Gai had tried to challenge her to a one-lap race. He’d lost. Most of the Hokage’s soldiers looked younger. That red-and-white panda looked almost the same height and weight as Kakashi, cut lean, barely done filling out, with his hair in a high blond-streaked horsetail.

Of course, that guy on the right, with the single crescent moon cutting down through the blank ceramic face, looked like someone had carved him out of solid, scarred maple.

The commander stepped forward.

“Your village thanks you for your service,” she said. “Some of you have performed adequately today. Some of you need to reevaluate your career aims. You—”

She pointed at the glass-butterfly ninja, who straightened sharply.

“Step forward.”