"Friends who have eaten and trained at the same table are pitted against each other and go at it... until one of them loses his life. These are friends who had helped each other and shared dreams..."
- Momochi Zabuza, describing the Hidden Mist's academy graduation exam
Using a tree branch as a makeshift staff, a young girl slowly made her way over a battered wooden bridge. Her clothes were once blue, but were now too stained with dirt and blood to be described as any single color. It was hard to tell how much of it was hers, but the numerous bandages wrapped around her limbs indicated it was at least a fair amount. Stumbling, she took one step forward, then another, her long red ponytail hanging awkwardly. Despite her injuries, she did not lean on the guardrail but rather kept her left hand by one of several pouches at her waist, as if expecting to be attacked at any moment.
Under any other circumstance, somebody as badly injured as she was had no business walking anywhere. But the girl knew, and her enemy knew, that the only place that could be considered remotely safe was on the other side of that bridge. Just a few days ago, the entire forest arena - typically referred to as the Forest of Death, although that technically referred to a training ground in Konoha - had been "safe". Then, with each passing day, the safe zone shrunk, and those outside the boundaries died instantly to the intricately patterned seal on back of their necks. This seal served many purposes, but one of them was to act like an exploding tag that was automatically triggered if the subject was outside the safe zone. It wouldn't be long now until the side of the bridge she'd come from was a dead zone.
Teeth clenched, eyes shut to block out the pain, the girl took the final step over, and then collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She didn't look up as another figure approached with soft footsteps. Like her, it was young - perhaps 12 or 13 at the most. Unlike her, the figure was relatively clean and uninjured. It was a thin young boy with spiked hair, his clothing similar to the girl's. Despite his age, he looked worn down, like someone not used to happiness. But at this moment, he was smiling. Not a friendly smile, but a triumphant smile: the smile of someone who had won and was here to rub it in.
He stopped several feet away. "Terumi Mei," he said.
With an effort of will, Mei looked up to meet his gaze. She might have been half dead, but her green eyes were very much alive with hate. "Akuyo Shinji," she spat. "I had a hard time believing a worm like you would be here."
Shinji was still smiling. "You and everybody else had a hard time believing it. Do you believe now?" Suddenly, his smile dissolved as he flew into a rage. "Not one of you thought I'd be here! You all thought I was worthless, and barely worth feeding! And now, look at what's happened. Look what I've achieved that you haven't. All of you are dead, except for you, who is about to become dead, and I'll be a genin!"
"Yeah? And how did you accomplish that? You-" Mei's voice suddenly broke into a wet, choking cough. She had to spit out bloody saliva before continuing. "You're weak... all you did was hide and pick off the wounded. You got lucky, that's all. Someone like you will die in a year of missions at most, maybe two years. You've done nothing worth celebrating!" With a convulsive effort, she lurched to her feet and tried to make a hand seal with trembling fingers. It was a bad idea. She fell bonelessly back down into a crumpled, shivering heap.
Through the haze of pain, she could feel her head being lifted by the chin, forcing her to look into Shinji's face. Two pairs of eyes locked in mutual contempt. "Really? Well, I think this is worth celebrating. Wouldn't you agree?" He stared at Mei for a while, as if expecting some reaction, but the girl simply glared back impassively. "If you're going to do something, get on with it," she muttered, "you bastard, but stop gloating."
Shinji's smile faded. "You're lucky I'm not a sicko like one of the other ones," he said. "But fine. I'll stop gloating. It's time to get this over with." A kunai appeared in his hand. "I honestly don't like killing my fellow classmates. But I'm not above it either. Goodbye, Mei." He stabbed forward viciously, driving the kunai into her throat - and with a pop, Mei's throat dissolved into water, followed by the rest of her body. As the water clone dissolved, a few curiously inscribed scraps of paper floated to the surface-
The exploding tags were loud, but even louder was the boy's cry of agony. He clutched at the bloody, burnt stump that had been his right arm, his face white with shock. With a burst of thick smoke, a nearby rock dissolved and the Terumi Mei stepped out of it. She looked tired and hungry, and she was streaked and stained with blood, but she was real and she was alive. She didn't look angry, and her voice was casual, but it was obvious someone was about to die. "You're lucky you're not a sick pervert, then. It means I'll make this quick, even though I'd planned several ways to-"
"You bitch!" screamed Shinji, cutting her off. With a howl, he charged at Mei, armed with nothing but his fury.
Mei, who was armed with a kunai, channeled water chakra and threw it into his heart. The chakra burst from his heart like red rose thorns, cutting apart his internal organs with his own blood. Shinji was dead before he hit the ground.
For a single section of a single year of Hidden Mist Academy students, that was the end. For hundreds of future Hidden Mist ninja, it wasn't the end. It wasn't even the beginning. It was just one more bloody nightmare. One more Hunger Games...
The place is Kirigakure, the Village Hidden by Mist, and the time is several years into the reign of Yagura, the fourth Mizukage and jinchuuriki of the Sanbi. Despite never having participated in a great ninja world war, the village is no stranger to conflict. Many have pitted themselves against the village and as yet, all have been destroyed. Even the Kaguya clan, who wielded the legendary Shikotsumyaku bloodline limit, went down in ignominious defeat when they challenged the Hidden Mist. However, up to this age, the skills of their famed ninjas have always been directed against external enemies.
Kirigakure's military forces came with a price. Ultimately, each ninja was worth only the income they could bring in for the village minus the cost of feeding them. Years of famine had left the village on the verge of starvation. To be clearer, it left the civilians on the verge of starvation. The ruling class of the village - the ninjas - always had as much food as they needed. Many of them, but especially the youngest ninjas, reveled in their station and added insult to injury with fantastic abuses of power. Those who fought back quickly realized the cost of their efforts, even as others were rewarded with additional provisions for selling their children into the ninja system.
With Yagura's mysterious rise to power came a new Academy graduation exam: the Hunger Games. The village doesn't need an army of mediocre ninjas, he said. It had been proven, time and time again, that a single strong ninja was worth a dozen or two dozen lesser ninjas, and cost far less food to sustain. And those who failed to pass the Hunger Games were likely to meet the same fate on the battlefield not long afterward. From then onwards, the graduation exam would be a battle to the death in which many prospective students would take part. Of each group, only one would survive to be made genin, but what a difference there was between a newly-minted genin from the Hidden Mist and one from any other village in the world. The Hunger Games did not end with the famine that had excused its creation. Before long, Kirigakure became the most feared name in the ninja world, and their ninjas the most sought after by clients. Only a few outsiders knew the truth about the Bloody Mist, but many knew rumors...
A young woman, approaching the end of her teenage years, walked with confidence verging on arrogance down Kirigakure's streets. She was dressed like any other Mist ninja, with a gray flak jacket and a headband with the village's symbol, but her flowing flame-like hair betrayed her identity. She was Terumi Mei, a chuunin of the Hidden Mist, although by any reasonable standard she was jounin-level. Everyone, including herself, expected her to be made jounin in name any day now. It had been years since she first graduated from the Academy, and her performance in the Hunger Games had drawn the eyes of Kirigakure's leadership to her. She'd risen swiftly in both rank and prestige, and some even spoke of her as the Mizukage-to-be.
Once, at the very beginning, there was had been something nagging her. Most of her missions had been mundane, but others were left her with a dirty feeling: collections of protection money that bordered on extortion, assassinations, blackmail... She never contemplated them, but there was a faint uneasiness, a small voice saying that something wasn't right. But that voice had long ago been drowned out by the praise that had been heaped on her when she returned with success after success. Her tasks came easily to her now, without hesitation or regret. This was the way things had always been in the Hidden Mist for as long as she could remember. And as long as she remained on the fast track to power and glory, there was no reason to question how the village handled its business. No reason at all.
She didn't glare or intentionally cross paths with the civilians, but she felt some satisfaction from how they hurried to get out of her way as she passed through. That was natural too - the weak making way for the strong. The ninjas she passed didn't react as fearfully, but they knew who she was and showed the proper respect. Ninjas of the Hidden Mist, who grew up knowing they would have to kill their classmates, found it more difficult than most to make friends, but even so, those who had passed the Academy exam often found something in common. Although her fellow chuunin were not as talented as she was, they had her respect. After all, they too had survived the Hunger Games.
Before long, Mei arrived at her apartment, a relatively spacious affair located in the central district. She was afforded better lodgings than the genin, who were in turn better off than the civilians. Like a full belly, it was just another of the perks the village granted those who proved their usefulness. She had just returned from a rather pedestrian mission as a bodyguard, and was looking to take a nice nap and perhaps lounge about for a few days before starting on a new mission. Although the village always needed money, it understood the importance of letting its tools rest.
It was to her surprise, then, that when she opened the door, a familiar man, with his blue hair shaped like one big spike and a patch over his right eye, was sitting in the middle of her living room, watching her television.
"Oh. Nice to see you, Ao. How did you know I was coming here, and what are you waiting here for?" Without asking, Mei took a seat of her own.
The man sighed and neglected to answer her questions, but poured tea from a kettle for her. Mei felt like a guest in her own apartment, but knew better than to bitch about it. Ao had a rare gift of steamrolling someone in a conversation without making them feel bad about it. "Is that the way you speak to your senior jounin and your Hunger Games mentor? I swear, this generation of kids is out of control." Despite his words, there was some warmth to his tone and his mouth hid a faint smile. He was perhaps the only person in the world Mei could talk casually to, and vice versa. She trusted him. She wasn't sure if he trusted her or not; probably not. Out of a pouch, Ao produced a small envelope. "Speaking of the Hunger Games, I'm here to drop this off for you."
Mei took the envelope, opened it, pulled out and unfolded several pieces of paper. "Report to the central office for further instructions? This soon after I got back? And who's this kid?" She held up a card with a photo of a young boy with square glasses and a striped blue shirt for Ao to see. The boy didn't look like much of a ninja, but if he was one, he had an oddly shy expression. That wasn't a trait normally associated with Mist ninja. It did give him a cute appearance, though.
"That kid," replied Ao, "is Satoshi Chojuro, who is in group B of this year's Hunger Games. His mentor is Yashiro Teyaki, if you've heard of him. And if you look at the other infocard..." - he waited for Mei to fish out another photo, this one of a girl with a heart shaped face framed by silvery hair, blue eyes, and a fresh expression - "that's Kameyo Miyuki, and she is -your- tribute. You'll be responsible for her, but don't forget you are also responsible for the other tribute's training." Mei recognized Teyaki's name. He, like her, was a chuunin on the verge of promotion to jounin, although he was several years older than her. His age was typical for newly promoted jounin - Mei's was a rare exception. His skills laid primarily in genjutsu and medical ninjutsu. Mei was familiar, at least in part, with the skills, techniques, and signature tactics of almost every jounin and chuunin in the village, and many from the other ninja villages. After all, knowledge was power. There were innumerable jutsu that at first seemed overwhelming, but could be easily countered by someone who understood its mechanics and weaknesses. As for the tributes, Mei knew next to nothing about them. There was no point in becoming familiar with Academy students. Most of them died, anyway, so what was the point?
Her head tilted quizzically. "Huh. Why me, and why now?"
Ao sounded as if he was acting as some kind of official village spokesman. "Mei, although you're a very promising ninja, our duty isn't just to complete missions, but also to train the next generation who will serve the village. The fate of the Hidden Mist depends on this just as much as it does on the missions carried about by our current generation of ninjas. That's why your stint as a mentor is a rank A mission, your last mission before promotion to jounin. That is, if your tributes do well."
Mei looked at the photos again with new interest. They weren't just some random Academy students now. They were her ticket to the rank of jounin. She found herself grinning at the thought. "No sweat," she said. "With a mentor like me, how could anyone fail?" She turned to go, then hesitated. Ao saw his former student's head twist around to to look at him over her right shoulder, one vivid green eye staring unblinkingly. "Was this so important they needed you to personally deliver the message? Isn't this a bit below the station of the second in command of Kirigakure's hunter-nins?"
"I'm here..." his voice trailed off for just a moment. "I'm here to remind you that if you ever want to talk about how to be a mentor... any worries that crop up... about anything, come to me. I have experience that you don't, and it's not as easy as you think. It's not the same between when you risk your own life and when you're responsible for another's."
Mei bristled, an inexplicable anger igniting. "I'm a big girl now, not the uncertain, scared brat you might remember. I don't need an overprotective father figure looking over my shoulder. If I die someday, even tomorrow, it's my fault, not yours. If my tributes die, it's their fault, not mine. Besides, they don't have to win. They just need to last long enough for me to become jounin. That's all I'm responsible for!"
She stormed out before Ao could reply, slamming the door with a bang. The senior jounin remained in his seat, staring at where Mei had been. If someone had been there, they'd have noticed the absence of his customary cold, stoic expression. Now, something like a cross of regret and sadness was etched on his prematurely aged face. Mei hadn't been his only Hunger Games tribute. She'd just been the only one who survived.
Ao remained there, staring through the door and into the distance, into the past, long after she was gone.