As we set up camp for the night, I thank Kami that the combination of an overexcited Kiba and the pace of a Tsunade that won't wait up for "chakra cripples" has tired Lee out. Well, relatively speaking anyway. There were times during our early missions when I had to stop Neji from closing Lee's tenketsu points just so he would stop moving and go to sleep. But as much as everyone is excited about our promotions, Shikako's kidnapping and our lack of real response to it means everyone is still tense and injecting a dose of Lee into that is just a terrible idea.
Not that anyone thinks hell wasn't raised but Kakashi-sensei and Kurenai-sensei laid it out plainly enough. Quite frankly, even if Shikako was taken, how would our response differ? Konoha would certainly want go to war over it, if nothing else than because A they can't afford not to respond to having a ninja taken by a minor village and B she is the Jonin Commander and Nara Clan head's daughter. But Hidden Stone wouldn't take kindly to that and the situation with Cloud is tense enough that a two front war is at least a possiblity. A two front war that would likely be fought alone. As strong as Gaara is, Sand can't go into war without a Kazekage. And Mist is just getting out of a civil war of it's own, making it unlikely it enters the fight at all.
Yeah, injecting a hyperactive poster boy for "Beat up your enemies! Who cares how strong they are; you work hard and are passionate!", into a group of ninja frustrated with how little they can do to protect their own is not a wise move.
Not that they don't have plenty to be proud of. There is a reason the Raikage wanted everyone gone, after all. Kiba and Choji's fight was about as great as you could get without them killing each other or destroying the stands, and Ino did much better against Lee than I thought she would. Sauske showed off everything his eyes allowed him to do, Hinata was a freaking star, and Lee and Neji put on a great fight like always. And Shikako, freaking Shikako. I was waiting for her to pull something like her fight with Gaara off. Not to that level, maybe, but her time was coming. I think people unconsciously underestimate her due to her clan. They'll assume she's smart of course, but there isn't really much record of Nara's doing jutsu outside of their shadow s, and Nara is as synonymous with "lazy" as it is with "smart". But when Shikako saw there wasn't a sealing textbook, she wrote her own. And got one of the Sannin to proofread it. Shikako pulling off ridiculous stunts with seals has just been a question of when, not if, if you ask me.
The thing is though, I don't think that I get that promotion without the Raikage's whinging. I mean, sure there were a couple of genin from the smaller villages that got promoted after a first round exit, but they have the full, undivided power of a village behind them and its not like the big 5 probably cared too much to mount a strenuous objection. At least, not after stress and paranoia got ratcheted up to extreme after those supposedly former Grass shinobi tried to take Shikako.
Yet, what did I show? I was able to avoid that Sugizai's homing lightning jutsu in the first round but didn't do anything exemplary. Compared to Shikako and her City of Pillars that seemed to be as full of explosions as of rock, I was worse than pedestrian. And my fight with Haku was one big lesson on why I shouldn't have been promoted. Not because I lost, but because I could, should have won.
Haku is fast, don't get me wrong, but if there is one thing Lee is good at, it's being an impossible-to-hit moving target. A sideswipe of the trachea, a kunai piercing the chest, the fight could have been over relatively quickly. For all that Haku showed himself to be a powerhouse in the final rounds when he had water to work with, I was essentially his worst matchup outside of Gaara if he didn't have water. His speed and almost 360 awareness due to his ice mirror teleport couldn't compare to Lee and the Byakugan, and that storage seal Shikako pushed me to make meant I could match him, kunai for senbon until he eventually ran out of chakra making them.
But I lost. Because I didn't try to kill him. I herded, corralled, and harassed him, but without a heavy hitting move to finish the job, it was ultimately pointless. Which brings up the obvious question: why? There's a Chunin nominally there to stop competitors from dying, and Tsunade, if no one else, would be able to keep him alive. Why would I refuse to try to kill in an instance where it's perfectly safe and advantageous for me to do so?
Part of it is that killing…it's not…nice. That isn't the right word, but I can't really say there aren't situations where killing a specific person would be moral, or good. Not as a kunoichi, anyway. But, outside of complete psychopaths, I think every ninja has this aversion to murder. They use justifications to get around it: '"The Hokage ordered it to be done" "It's for the safety of the village." "They were going to kill me if I didn't kill them first."' But I don't know anyone who enjoys that aspect of the job. I'm sure I wouldn't last long preaching an anti-killing message outside of the Hokage Tower, but Konoha being the "nice" village isn't all PR. But that's beside the point. If I'm honest with myself, it's not about having some sort of vague moral high ground. It's about control.
Killing is violent. Not just in the very obvious sense, but in its very nature. The subjugation of another, to the point that you decide whether or not they die, to hold in your hands their very existence; I can't think of anything more severe, more extreme, more violent than that. And that's why I won't kill. In looking to control others to such an nth degree, you necessarily lose control of yourself. Everything not useful to ending another person's life is shut down, stuffed to the side, so it doesn't get in the way. When I try to kill someone. I am not Tenten; I am that ninja's potential killer. It's a process so traumatic that the two major problems ninja have, outside of staying alive, are reconciling yourself with the thing you become when you kill, and keeping from sliding down too far and losing yourself completely. I...I can't and won't let myself go like that.
That's quite a weakness for someone who supposed to be a trained killer. I suppose I've had a need for control since I was a kid. Since there was an orphanage matron, with a heart in the right place, but surrounded by too many kids to handle herself, and too many adults more willing to pay for safeguarding the village's walls rather than for its future. Since there were parents, stricken by evidently enough grief to persecute an innocent boy, but not enough to adopt one of many the other children left behind. Since there was an academy, providing structure, a safe haven, and goals and heroes to strive for.
That's why I got into fortune-telling in the first place, primarily in outrage that some leaves or a deck of cards could overpower what I was going to do with my life. Then, as a desperate hope I could use it to take advantage of the future. Eventually, that led me to investigating and mysteries, a chance to vicariously live a life where I would have control over what happens through brainpower and determination. A life where there was an answer and you had the pieces to figure it out.
The fact that my teammates act as huge warning signs on this front hardly helps matters. It's completely understandable that Lee sees Gai-sensei as a father figure. Heck, I'll eat my scrolls if they aren't related somehow. But as much as he might enjoy it, his life is not his own. Outside of a crush on Sakura, asking Lee what he wants won't get you anything other than another spiel of his dream to be a splendid taijutsu specialist or a yelled declaration that you and him must spar or train, because Gai-sensei hasn't told him to want anything else.
As a fellow orphan, I can see having how a surrogate father one can dump all responsibilities onto might be attractive. But, it's to the point that Lee is a one-note character that is somehow in real life. Granted, we were able to take advantage of this in the second round, but for all that this profession is supposed age people quickly, Lee seems to have regressed. For all that people may view my outrage at Gai-sensei's and Lee's antics as a comedy act, a part of this is genuinely unhealthy. It's much easier to laugh at Lee running around like an overexcited puppy when you don't have to think about the fact that that he is simultaneously a kid who has had almost no one to depend upon and an full-fledged adult responsible for himself in the eyes of the village.
But for all that Lee lets himself go so he doesn't have to worry about control, Neji regimented himself so much that his desire for control ended up controlling him. Again, he's fully justified in forming his emotional shields, however unnecessarily harsh he was because of them. But locking himself behind a bland face and cold eyes ended up leaving him almost as lonely as his lack of parents. The fact that he didn't actually interact with anyone has only compounded the problem as he has gotten older. I mean, sure Lee's failures meant almost no one interacted with him in the academy on a significant level, but no one wanted to interact with Neji. That he legitimately believed he couldn't have control only multiplied his frustrations until he nearly killed his adoring cousin for daring to exist and not being able to kill a jonin at the age of three.
The bright side, I suppose, is that Neji has been getting better since the Sauske Retrieval mission. I mean, Naruto defeating him helped kick him of his fate spiel to some degree, but I think it would have been more effective if it was less clean. Naruto knew Neji's biases going in, and outsmarted him because of that. Neji thought, on some level, that it was an error of judgement on his part rather than a declaration against fate. But after the retrieval mission, after Naruto, and perhaps more importantly Hinata, showing how strong they were, and Naruto throwing it in his face that other people have suffered too and haven't given up, he's grown by leaps and bound emotionally.
But yeah, I'll admit that my desire for control is controlling me enough that I don't want to kill. So, I'll just a have to be such a kickass kunoichi that that doesn't matter. It's not like Tsunade-hime kills after all Herding opponents with thrown weapons works great with Neji and Lee, but I need to strengthen my solo skills. Outside of finding the Bashosen in a pile of rubble in the middle of a battlefield, there is a certain level of opponent past which I can't win one on one with my current skills. I'll improve with my melee weapons, but I need something that packs more punch, or at least hits in a better area. Maybe if I can get to that kunoichi study group, I can find an anatomy textbook that lists non-vital weak points and train more with senbon...