Important definitions for this chapter!
Nakago: the handle or hilt of a sword.
Saya: scabbard (sheath) of a sword.
Shin gunto: very slightly curved sword of the Imperial Japanese Army with a metal saya, produced from the 1930s to the end of World War II in 1945.
Tsurugi: a straight two edged sword that was produced prior to the 10th century, and without differential hardening or folding.
Haji's tsurugi: 35cm (15 in) wide and 155 cm (61 in) long, with a black line through the middle and spread out teeth along the edges of both sides. It is wider at the hilt, the edges curving inward and reducing the total width by two inches around the middle of blade, before resuming straight edges. It narrows again slightly at the tip to end in a straight point finished by the black line running through the entire length of the blade. If you want to see an image of it, type 'Dissidia first tsurugi' in google images and it should show up. There's two versions of it, so just remember that it's NOT the one with the diagonal cut at the tip, there's actually a sort of hollow in at the point of it, you'll understand when you see it. : P Once you find the right type of tsurugi, picture it with a much, MUCH larger blade and you'll have it! : D Here's a link to an image, but since I'm not sure it's gonna work I'm still giving you a way to find it yourself! ^_^ Just take out the spaces and you'll have it! : P
images. wikia finalfantasy/images/archive/5/5d/20110218052441!
Nodachi: very large and heavy sword with lengths up to 120-150 cm (47-59 in) for use in field battles. Worn across the back.
Kuroichi's Early Nodachi: heavy sword with a blade thinner at the hilt and wider at the tip. The tip of the blade is cut diagonally. Length of 139 cm (54.7 in) and width of 7cm (2.7 in) at the base, and 11 cm (4.3 in) at its widest point before the tip's diagonal cut.
Chapter 2: The Unknown
"Team 14 - am I right? Hatake's rookies."
The ninja in front of them smiled at them.
"Yeah," Seito replied, trying to keep the mistrust out of his voice.
"What's our test?" Kama interrupted eagerly.
The ninja threw her an amused glance. "You'll see. Girls this way please." And he pointed at the door to his right.
"What? Why?" Kama looked indignant. Ookami barked.
The ninja's pleasant smile vanished, and he fixed her with a less than cordial glare. He nodded to the door on his right again, then crossed his arms and said, "It's your choice. Either you go through that door, Inuzuka Kama, and Uzumaki Seito and Nara Sebaakki go through the other one - or you don't. And reap the consequences."
"Why should we do it?" Seito asked coldly. The ninja looked at him. "Why do we have to separate?"
The ninja said, "Either do it, or don't. It's your choice. But there is a different outcome for each of the two choices. So choose well. Remember; girls to the left, boys to the right." Then his hands moved and he disappeared in a flurry of chakra and leaves.
"We're not leaving you behind," Seito said to Kama once he was gone.
"Then what? We'll all be disqualified? That won't be much use to any of us. If we have to split up, then I don't mind. I have Ookami." She patted her familiar's head and looked up, meeting the Uzumaki's troubled eyes. "I can take care of myself, Sei. Don't worry about-"
"I know that," Seito interrupted with an impatient wave of his hand. "I'm not worried about you - I know you're more than capable of holding your own." He paused and turned to the two doors. "That's not the problem, is it?" He looked at Seba, and was pleased to see the Nara's lips twitching in an approving smile. Seito looked back to Kama. "We're a team," he said gravely. "We don't split up. It's as simple as that. There's no way we're leaving anyone behind." Again, he paused, and his eyes switched back to Seba. "We either do this together, or not at all. Understood?"
"But-"
Seito shook his head. "Not 'but', Kama. We do this together, or we don't. And, remember what Ya said? 'The only fixed requirement is that each team is treated as a whole.' Don't fool yourself. We're not leaving you - or anyone - behind. They have no right to separate us, and if what Ya said is correct, then they shouldn't even be trying to in the first place."
Kama looked startled for a second, then she said, "You think they're setting us up?"
"I think they're testing us. And you're not going anywhere without us. We're a team, and we work together. We either move forward as a whole, or we step back."
The Inuzuka seemed to understand, and she nodded determinedly. She crouched low, and Ookami jumped onto her shoulders. She was about to stand back up when suddenly she stopped, a striken look on her face. She leaned forward, bringing her face closer to the ground, sniffed, then looked back up at them, an odd expression on her face. "Seba-san," she said, "this floor isn't metal, is it?"
The Nara smiled approvingly. He nodded, then pointed to the floor. "Did you not wonder where the leaves came from when the Jounin used Shunshin no Jutsu?"
Seito whirled around, suddenly remembering the leaves that had been flying around when the shinobi had disappeared. He crouched, blinked, and then he saw it - the metallic ground juxtaposed on a leafy forest floor. He spun on his heels, still crouching. "You saw this as soon as we got here, didn't you?" That weird smile Seba had been sporting suddenly made a whole lot more sense.
"I saw," the other boy confirmed. Then he lifted his arm and made a sweeping motion around them. "But think more carefully, Seito-kun. The illusion would have been revealed instantly had we tried to open any of the doors. It is there for a reason. Yes, we are currently in a wood behind the Konoha Exam Hall. But we are also in a metal corridor that was carefully designed to fool us with its reality, up until the moment when we crossed the threshold of those doors and thus failed the first part of the exam." Sebaakki turned on himself and pointed back to where they'd come from; the dark corridor didn't change its appearance as Seito stared at it. "The forest begins right here; and our test has only just truly begun. If crossing these doors meant failing this test, and if it also meant breaking this carefully crafted illusion and discovering the woods, then we must live within the illusion. Act as though it were real. The second part of the test lies within this genjutsu; the forest means 'fail'; the illusion means that we can still keep going."
Seito honestly had to admire Seba for deducting that on his own.
"So we can't break the genjutsu," Kama mused aloud, standing now. "But if going through a door will reveal it, what else can we do? We can't go back - that would mean giving up. So what now?"
The answer flashed before Seito's eyes, and he whispered, as though to himself, "A genjutsu within a genjutsu." Again, Seba nodded. Of course he'd seen it.
"What do you mean?" Kama sounded unsure, and he couldn't blame her. He'd found the answer himself, but even then he was having difficulties grasping the concept. 'A genjutsu within a genjutsu'... He hadn't known it was possible, and yet now that they'd all recognized the first, more obvious illusion, he could sense a second layer of chakra, a second illusion, crafted down onto the second one, but he was at a loss to explain it. He looked to Seba helplessly, silently begging him to explain what HE couldn't.
The Nara's lips twitched upwards at the look on Seito's face, his equivalent of a barked laugh.
"I will explain." He stepped forward and waved a hand in front of the wall between the two doors. Nothing happened. "This wall," Seba began, "is part of the first genjutsu, yet nothing happens when we attempt to see through it while bearing in mind that same first genjutsu. That is because it has been anchored into reality by a SECOND genjutsu - an illusion that is part of the first genjutsu instead of being directly applied to the reality beyond it. This second use of chakra onto chakra weighs down the first illusion, if you like, and makes it more real. If you tried to walk through this wall to reveal the illusion, you'd walk straight into solid metal."
He knocked on the surface to illustrate his point, and instead of going straight through it as it would have through one of the doors or any of the other walls, his hand landed on a hard surface. The sound of his knuckles reverberated for a short second, then was cut short as the vibration reached the fictious doors on each side of it, having no more solid material to travel through.
"How is that even possible?" Kama whispered, her eyes bulging. She'd never had any profound love for the use of genjutsu.
Seba explained, "Our parents' generation and the ones before that based their genjutsu on their victim's chakra, thus making it possible for that genjutsu to be spotted and broken without direct access to the origin ninja of the genjutsu. It also meant that the illusion was not real in the strict sense of the term - nobody could actually see it but the centre point of the jutsu - the victim. It is the case with this room - it is based on our chakra. This here," and he pointed at the wall he'd just knocked on, "is based on the USER'S chakra - and thus, the illusion is much more stable, and is both visible and tangible to everyone. As a result, it is also impossible to break it besides by somehow incapacitating or distracting the ninja, and also incredibly hard to see. The only inconvenient for a genjutsu user is that it uses up the ninja's chakra instead of the victim's." He paused and nodded back to the corridor they'd come from. "That is what Kuroichi Hyuuga and the Sand girl were doing. They were using their own chakra, which is why it was so hard for you to see through it. I managed because it is my area of expertise, and the shinobi at the Gate saw Hyuuga-san because his generation are currently being educated in relation to these techniques. It has only been around for a few years. The older ninjas do not know about it unless they willingly undertake up-to-date education.
"Thus, we have two challenges here. Number One, and though you may not have realized it yet, the first illusion is using up OUR chakra. We cannot block it's access to our reserves as that would break the illusion, and thus automatically cause us to fail the exam. This means that if we're not fast enough, we'll most likely of exertion and empty chakra and stamina reserves, or be forced to give up.
"Number Two; the ninja who threw the second genjutsu does not have inexhaustible reserves. When he or she runs out of chakra, we will have lost. That means that, no matter what happens, we have to hurry. Either WE run out, or HE runs out. We have a time limit, but we have no idea where that limit lies. It could be anywhere between five minutes and two hours, depending on ours and the ninja's chakra reserves and the importance of the two genjutsu."
"Then what are we doing here talking?" Kama asked, trying hard to take it all in yet eager to move. "We have to find what that second genjutsu's for, don't we?"
"Yes, Kama-chan, we do indeed. Come here."
Seba stepped away from the wall and beckoned the girl and her wolf over to it. The Inuzuka obliged. Once she was facing the wall, she blinked. Then she looked up to Seba's face, three inches above hers. Her face scrunched up for half a second, and suddenly she was laughing, her entire upper body thrown back as her chest heaved and heaved and she laughed with her mouth wide open, in a wild, formidable explosion of joy.
Seba, slightly disconcerted, raised his eyebrows and threw a questioning glance at Seito. That was a bad idea; seeing Seba surprised was so rare a feat that the Uzumaki also burst into laughter, bent in two at waist and slapping his knees, his voice joining the Inuzuka's as the Nara and Ookami stared bemusedly at them. The wolf cub barked, and his companion crouched, laughter interrupted. Then she looked back up at the other boy, and her face softened.
"I just realized," she started, standing, clutching Ookami to her chest as though to protect herself, cheeks redenning slightly, "that if it wasn't for you, we would have failed this test."
The look on Seba's face was priceless. He was startled and surprised to say the least, staring at the girl's face as though he'd never seen her before. Seito would have gone straight back to laughing if it hadn't been for Kama's tone of voice. Like she was making a confidence. He couldn't see her face from where he was, but Seba's was enough of an indication as to what was going through their heads. Up until now, he'd never realized it, but there was something between these two - something that had matured over the years. They'd grown up together, knew each other better than anyone else in their group; it didn't matter that they were only eleven years old - his mother, Hinata, had already been in love with his father at eleven years old, and they'd ended up getting married and having a son! Nearly twenty years later they were still together and hopelessly in love - and if that didn't mean anything then he didn't know what did.
Seito found himself desperately hoping that his two friends could find solace in each other.
The moment passed as Ookami barked again, and Seba blinked and whispered, "Thank you, Kama-dono. Really."
The Inuzuka nodded briefly, keeping her eyes down as her face turned a bright shade of red. She turned to face the wall - the second genjutsu - and lifted her head to look at it. The colour slipped from her face slowly as she considered her options, concentrating on and analyzing the wall opposite her. She let the wolf cub down to the floor, then raised a hand and placed her palm vertically, less than an inch from the wall. Seito understood what she was doing. If she got too close to a part of the wall that wasn't impregnated with the second genjutsu, the illusion would break. They had to determine where the second genjutsu began and where the first stopped, and the Kama had always been better than him at sensing chakra, thanks to her overdeveloped Inuzuka senses. Seba could have done it, but Seito had a feeling that the taller boy was playing the teacher again, not wanting to do all the work for them.
"What are you sensing?" the Uzumaki asked eagerly.
"I think - I think the second genjutsu starts here, about a third up the height of the wall." She cocked her head to the side and said, "From what I can feel, it's a - a sort of tube, a passage. It extends way past this wall. There's something behind it, maybe another room, made from the same chakra type - by the same ninja." She closed her eyes and breathed in. "This close to the wall, I can't smell the forest anymore, like I did when I was crouching. It's smells more REAL - like metal and cold." Kama turned back to them, a triumphant grin on her face. "It's this way!"
Then she turned back to the wall, waved a confident hand over the space that she had determined was the second genjutsu, and instantly a black, rectangular hole appeared, stretching over the second half of the wall, a sort of conduct that led way out from where they where. Kama braced her hands on the edge of the open tube, careful not to touch the part of the wall a few inches below the edge that was not part of the second genjutsu, lifted herself up swiftly and vertically using the strength in her hands, arms and abdominal muscles, her feet kicked up in the air, and used the momentum of her spin to propel herself upwards, let go of the edge, and land back on her feet. The tube held, confirming Seba's words that it was indeed more real than a regular genjutsu.
Seba moved in and repeated Kama's moves, quickly followed by Seito, and soon enough all three of them were moving forward in a half crouching position, even though there was actually enough space for them to stand fully upright, alert for any tricks and traps that might have been laid for them.
Not a minute of completely silent progression later and they were in front of a dead end. Kama stopped first and called a halt, crouching on the ground to press her ear against the cold metal and run her fingertips along the edges were it met the tube, checking for sounds and for air passage. The two boys fell silent behind her, falling down on one knee and bracing just the tips of their fingers to the floor.
Seconds later, Kama drew back a few steps, reached into a pouch on her jacket, and took out a smaller exploding pouch. She set it on the ground gently, then reached into another pouch and took out a piece of rope about as long as her leg. She used her kunai to cut it in two, gave one half to Seba and kept the other half. Then she straightened, ripped a length of cloth from her black shirt, and wrapped it carefully around the exploding pouch. She picked up her piece of rope, tied it around a handle protruding from the far left side of the dead end, and motioned for Seba to imitate her on his side, which he did. She then gave her end of the rope to Seito, picked up the exploding pouch, set it against the bottom of the dead end, fiddled with it for a few seconds, and threw herself back as it exploded with a barely audible pop, catching both ropes on either side of her in front of the others' straining hands to make sure they wouldn't let go in surprise as the whole weight of the dis-articulated wall fell on them to hold up. They didn't; they were trained for these kinds of situations.
Still, Seito turned on Kama and nearly shouted, but restrained himself to a strained whisper just in time, "You could have warned us!"
Kama grinned up at him from the floor. "It wouldn't have been as fun!"
For his part, Seba was analyzing her work. "The cloth on the exploding pouch was to muffle the sounds of the explosion," he whispered, a tinge of admiration in his voice. "And the ropes were to stop the wall from falling and creating a racket." He turned to her and smiled. "Good thinking, Kama-chan."
She ducked her head and scrambled upward, muttering a shy "Thanks" that was brashly uncharacteristic of her. Seito nearly rolled his eyes, but instead moved forward with Seba, both of them keeping their ropes fully extended as they closed in on the wall and caught the handles on either of their sides. In perfect synchronisation, they lifted it and slid out of the passage using only their feet, landing on hard ground on the other side, their senses confirming that this was not another illusion. They waited for Kama to step out, then replaced the portion of wall, in a precarious balance state that in the case of an infiltration would have sufficed for them to do what they needed to do, and wouldn't have budged until somebody actually walked up to it and touched it.
They were in a closed off room, with no windows and a single door in front of them, the only light filtering through the space under it, and the door the only exit besides the tube behind them.
"This way, then," Seito muttered, and took the lead as they stepped carefully towards the door. He took a kunai and a shuriken out at the ready, then peeped through the keyhole of the door and nearly laughed out loud. They were on the other side - the teams that had been called forward before them. He could see Ya and Unaga lounging on a sort of fountain in the middle of a large, circular room directly in his line of sight. He couldn't see the rest of the room, but he supposed that this was it then.
He opened the door.
Instantly shouts erupted, the lights of the corbelled glass-roof blinding all three of them after the darkness of the tube and room as they moved in, Seito walking deliberately, Kama and Seba more warily, not knowing what to expect and somewhat surprised by his sudden lack of stealth. He felt more than he saw Ya throw her arms around him, shouting delightedly into his ear as though she hadn't seen him in years, then Unaga's comforting weight replacing hers, a strong arm hugging his shoulders as the two boys moved in close to each other.
He barely had time to say a word before the shadow of the instructor fell over them. The tall man was sporting a pleasant smile, eyes twinkling as he witnessed the happy reunion. There was a scar running across his right eye and cheek, his features were doted in tiny crevices as though he'd burst too many moles on his face when he was younger. His hair was spiked in a dark tuft, not quite black, more like dark blue, and he had a companionable face, the kind that made you feel as though it could be trusted with almost anything. In fact, he reminded him a lot of someone, though he couldn't quite pinpoint who. Seito smiled hesitantly back at him.
"Well done, Team 14. We barely heard you coming in at all!" The man smiled brilliantly, hands clasped behind his back as he loomed over them. "Uzumaki Seito, Inuzuka Kama and Nara Sebaakki, congratulations on passing the first part of this exam!"
"Really?!" Kama sounded delighted.
The man looked amused as he nodded and said, "Really! Now follow me, we have only a single team to wait for now."
Seito looked around as they walked to the centre of the room, close to the fountain. He saw Hido, Takira and Kino there, the Sound triplets, jumping around as per usual, a Mist team of two boys and one girl that he hadn't noticed before, the Hyuuga twins and their team partner Tsuko Sarutobi, Asuma Sarutobi's son. In a corner of the room, isolated from the others, he saw Setsudan Itan and Demashi Kimiko, lounging against the wall as though they owned the place. Again, he couldn't see Kuroichi, but judging from the space that the two had left between them, he guessed that she was there. He looked to Seba, who confirmed his thoughts with a nod when their eyes met over Kama and Ya's heads.
He realized that Unaga still had a hold of his hand as he met the boy's questioning eyes and raised eyebrows beside him. Seito shook his head to silently express that he would talk to him later; there were too many walls listening just now. The Rock nodded and looked ahead. "Do you know who he is?" he said quietly.
Seito glanced sideways at his best friend. "Who?"
The black-haired boy inclined his head, dipping his chin into his neck to indicate the man. "The instructor. His name is Sarutobi Konohamaru. The scar on his eye... Rumour says he got it against a missing-nin in the middle of the desert in the Wind country. The man summoned a lion, and since Sarutobi had no chakra left, he fought the thing bare handed, with only his weapons. He slew it, and then he caught the Sand guy off guard and slashed his throat with a thrown kunai." Unaga paused, watching as the ninja spoke to the Sound triplets. "He crawled all the way back to Konoha - couldn't stop in Suna since he wasn't on an official mission. He hadn't even planned to meet that missing-nin. He wasn't prepared for it." He turned to the Uzumaki, gaze infinitely penetrating. "Seito... Your father... He... Konohamaru was named by the Third Hokage after the village. He was the Third Hokage's grandson, an orphan, and up until he met your father he was nothing. He was brash and naïve, and then eleven year old Uzumaki Naruto came along and taught him that there was no shortcut to becoming Hokage. He taught him to never give up, to follow his ninja's way no matter what. If it wasn't for your father...Konohamaru would not be who he is today."
Seito didn't know what to answer to that. He'd known about Sarutobi Konohamaru. That is, he'd known about the little boy who'd taken his father's goggles for himself and had elevated Uzumaki Naruto as an example he should follow. His father had never said anything about what Konohamaru had become. Yet here it seemed that the little boy had grown to be a man, and a legend amongst Konoha ninja. The fact that HE had never heard of him up until now was most likely due to the fact that he was the Sixth Hokage's son; most people were reluctant to mention anything that had trait to Uzumaki Naruto's lonely and tormented childhood.
Seito looked up, and it was only then that he noticed the pair of goggles clasped around the ninja's neck and resting against the nape of it. And he realized with a start who it was that this man resembled; Sarutobi Asuma, the Third's son and Konohamaru's uncle.
So Sarutobi Konohamaru was the first instructor of his Chuunin exam. A man who was somehow connected to his father's dark past - a past that he'd rarely glimpsed outside of the few anecdotes his parents and friends' parents had provided them with. He wasn't sure whether or not that was a coincidence, or whether it was supposed to mean something.
The Sixth Hokage's son gulped. They'd find out soon enough.
"What was that?" he heard Kama say behind him.
He turned to her and saw that she was looking up, her eyebrows drawn together as her eyes searched the ceiling.
"What's wrong?"
Her eyes fell to him, dark and worried. "I heard something," she whispered, and he didn't doubt her for a second.
Seito turned away, and his eyes silently measured the distance he'd have to cross. Instantly, he let go of Unaga's hand. He tensed, lunged, and started running, picking up speed as he hurtled closer and closer to the wall. He jumped, focused chakra to his feet, and landed on the wall, crouching forward with his arms behind him for balance. A millisecond more, and he was running again, parallel to the wall; then he pushed himself off, executed a long, drawn-out back flip, and another fraction of a second saw him poised on the headpoint of the fountain statue depicting the First Hokage.
On the ground, Konohamaru had come closer to the group of friends, but was keeping silent, observing the youngster from where he was. He too had felt the disturbance in the air, the slight movement betrayed only by the vibration that had reached his ear drum, that the Inuzuka girl had caught. He watched as his childhood idol's only son cocked his head to one side and the other, angling his ears in such a way as to catch the most sounds, the rest of his body rock still, blue eyes piercing and alert. Waited to see what he would do.
Then he sensed it again. He turned his head ever so slightly, in the direction of the last Gate, the one that the last team were supposed to come through. If they'd passed, they should be here any second now. Which meant that the sound was probably them.
He waved in the Uzumaki's direction to catch his attention, then shook his head and put a finger to his lips, simultaneously telling everyone in the room to be quiet, their attention rapt on their silent exchange. He motioned for the boy to come back, and a second later the blond was landing on the ground with a stealth and discretion that would have rendered a lot of people jealous. Konohamaru would have smiled if not for the imminent appearance of the last team.
He motioned for them all to sit on the fountain. A short while later and Rock, Inuzuka, Uzumaki, Uchiha, Hyuuga, Nara, Morini, Akimichi, Aburame, and the Hyuuga twins and his uncle's son, Tsuko Sarutobi, were sitting on the steps, with the Hichi Sound triplets closing in on them warily. He hadn't expected Kimiko and Itan to join them, so he was surprised when they did, sitting on his left side where there was nobody yet. He glimpsed the Hyuuga's genjutsu as she sat close to him, and this time he DID smile, his eyes slipping helplessly over the space where he knew she was sitting as though repelled by an inverted magnet. There was something about that girl... She was definitely more than she was letting on. She reminded him of someone, but he wasn't sure exactly who. He had a feeling that once he found out, he wouldn't like it at all.
Then the Mist team joined them, and he realized something else.
Five Leaf, one Mist, one Sound. Which meant two things.
First, that the other countries seriously needed to up their terrain training.
And second, that he knew who the last team was.
He stood. He knew the vibrations in the air. They were coming from every side at once, and he couldn't see them. He could only wait - and for a moment that was ALL he could do.
Then the air stirred behind him. He whirled around, whipped out the shin gunto from the metal scabbard at his belt, propelled his chakra straight into the blade, and blocked - in extremis. The blade of water formed by the dark-haired teen in front of him had clashed against his, stopped only by the chakra in his sword. If he hadn't had the reflex to inject his chakra into the shin gunto, the water sword would have sailed straight through it and slashed a bloody line across his chest.
Konohamaru spun on his heels, pulling the shin gunto upwards and sideways to send the water blade off course, and stopped the shadow blade that had lunged at his back as soon as he'd turned it to parry the water blade. He felt his shin gunto giving in, and increased his flow of chakra, gritting his teeth against the strain. The shadow blade's nakago was leaking, floating darkness pooling in the air where a hand should have been, to form the vague and ever-changing shape of a man - a round, shining skull, scarred skin and blank eyes staring him down in cold-blooded fury. Again, Sarutobi made a sweeping movement, swinging the blade in a circular movement over his head to lash out at both the moving shadow in front of him and the water blade behind him - then he turned, to his right, and he saw her.
A moving figure, flicking in and out of reality, running so fast that he could hardly follow her course.
Right, left, right, left - appearing and disappearing like someone clicking an on/off button repeatedly - in a zig-zag pattern along the line that led - straight to him.
He had just enough time to lift his blade as the silhouette reached him and lashed out at him, a tsurugi the width of his chest and the length of his body thrown against his thin shin gunto with a force that nearly sent him tumbling backwards. If he'd found it hard to hold up against the shadow blade, it was no comparison to this.
The girl wielding the blade was with the other two - the water and the shadow - and the leader of their team, it seemed. She had flowing red hair, as violent and aggressive as flames and framing her contorted features. The tsurugi was longer and larger than she was and yet she wielded it as though it weighed nothing, with the mastery of someone who had been born with a blade in their hands. It struck him then that she wasn't using any chakra in her assault - that it was through sheer and pure, unadultered strength that she was gaining on him, pushing him back inexorably. He felt his knees buckle, felt his chakra running out as it was sucked right into the girl's black and grey blade - no regular tsurugi at all, but a sword enhanced to suck the chakra out of unsuspecting victims.
It wasn't possible that she was only a Genin; the thought flitted across his mind, a sudden realization that had no impact on him as he focused all his energy and concentration on the girl. Yes, he knew who she was and who her team were. Their reputation had easily reached Konoha.
Haji Shingai-Yoru, the girl with the speed of wind and the anger of the world inside her eyes; Kira Kuromo, the boy of water, the boy that nobody had ever touched barr from his two teammates; and Uen Akaaka, the boy born of shadows who'd burnt half his face to shreds with his own ninjutsu when he was a child. They were vessels of raw power, unrefined fury, beings as far from humanity as was possible to stray. The bald boy's cold fury and impassive demeanour reminded him of the Kazekage when he was younger; Gaara of the Sand, vessel to the One Tail - the boy who never slept - the boy who'd killed because he could.
And the girl - there were not enough words in the world to describe what he felt as he looked straight into her bottomless blue eyes, iris black-rimmed and penetrating as though she could see into his very soul. Even facing that lion and the missing-nin all those years ago he hadn't felt so helpless, so utterly DEFENCELESS, as she pushed him into the ground as though she could make him disappear into it, her entire body pulsating in anger, fury and pure POWER.
Her weight was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, and in front of him, impossibly, DEFENDING him, hands raised over her head and nodachi pointed downward beside her face in the last phase of a deflecting strike, left leg out extended to the side under the angled blade and the other bent forward, stood Kuroichi Hyuuga.
On his right, Demashi Kimiko, crouching in the fountain's basin, hands buried under the clear water and glowing with chakra as she kept Kira Kuromo's water under control, the boy's shape outlined in the air by flying and moving droplets of water.
On his left, Setsudan Itan, standing with his hands poised against the shadow boy's chest, chakra crackling under his fingers and flashing inside the whirling darkness like lightning in black, storm-laden clouds.
In front of him, the Sand girl lunged forward, slashing down with incredible strength, attempting to catch Kuroichi off guard and over-power her. But the Hyuuga Leaf orphan was alert, and she let the tsurugi slide harmlessly against her nodachi's smooth blade, flipped it to the side, twisted, swirled, jumped in towards the base of the other sword, and the redhead's tsurugi went flying from her grip.
REALLY?
Konohamaru was staring with his jaw hanging low.
He was a trained Jounin. He was over twenty-five years old. He had fought a lion bare-handed and nearly lost an eye to it. And these kids - an eleven year old and a thirteen year old - were making him pass for a harmless puppy.
REALLY?
"Back off," Kuroichi hissed at the girl. He could only see her back and the saya of her nodachi strapped around it, but that was more than enough to realize that she was furious. Her voice was literally DRIPPING with fury, and directed at the now-unarmed Sand Genin. She took a step forward, the tip of her sword pointed upwards in a two-handed grip close to her stomach, pushing the red-headed Sand back inch by inch. "This is MY village," she snarled, "and these are MY people. You lift a single hand on them outside of the exam's boundaries, and you're dead meat."
Konohamaru pushed himself up slowly, wondering what the hell was going on. This was supposed to be the first part of a Chuunin exam, and some of the students were proving stronger than him!
He steadied himself and took a step forward, taking comfort in the fact that he was taller than most of the students except for Hido Morini's team. The thirteen year old Kuroichi reached his chin, and when he dropped a hand on her shoulder, he had to admire the fact that she didn't flinch. She'd heard him coming, it seemed, even focused as she was on the Sand girl. Her two teammates were not even watching, confident and boundlessly trusting as they were, focused on their own battles and sure of the fact that their leader would do what she had to.
"Kuroichi," he said softly. He didn't know what the girl was like, didn't know how she would react to being spoken to by a teacher. He'd heard of her, as had all of the ninjas of Konoha, but he'd never been this close to her in the past. He knew she'd never deigned to speak in public before; when the Academy's teachers spoke to her, she'd simply turned her head the other way. He supposed that she spoke to Kimiko and Itan, but even that had yet to be proved. As far as he was concerned, he'd never heard the sound of her voice before. Their sensei, Sataido Rochiru, had once told him that she was a brilliant student, but that he'd never heard nor seen her speak.
In truth, Hyuuga Kuroichi was a complex character. She was not reluctant to obey her elders; she was respectful and cold, straight in her boots and dutiful. She never overdid anything, performed only the necessary moves to overthrow her opponents, never showed off her strength or intelligence. She kept to herself, yet was never seen alone; when she WAS glimpsed by anyone, it was never without one or the other of her two partners, and she was always training. She had an impeccable taijutsu technique which she used in conjunction with her Gentle Fist Hyuuga and Byakugan heritage, and a preference for fire jutsu; the rumour was that one of her parents had been an Uchiha. She DID look like one, barr her eyes; that impossible mane of spiky jet black hair was unmistakable.
Until now, nobody had ever seen her showing any other emotion than indifference. Even when fighting during missions she remained calm and composed at all times, effective and fast but never, NEVER emotional.
Yet here Konohamaru was, his hand on her shoulder feeling her entire body quivering in barely contained rage. She HAD emotions after all; they were just buried so far within her that it took a threat to 'her people' to wrench her out of her bounds.
"Kuroichi," he repeated, calmly, measured, then stopped. He didn't know what to say. Wasn't sure if there was anything to be said. It was possible that she'd just saved his life. And if she had, what could he say about it? He didn't think she'd care if he tried to thank her. So he waited for her to make the first move.
Eventually, with the Jounin's hand still light on her shoulder, she straightened. In a gesture none of them understood, she slid her index finger along the blade of her nodachi, from the base to the wider tip. Then she raised her arms and slid the sword back into the saya slung across her back, and turned her back on the Sand girl, shrugging Konohamaru's hand off in the same movement.
She walked up to where Kira Kuromo and Demashi Kimiko still remained inside the fountain basin, stood for a few seconds staring at the water boy, who by now, thanks to Demashi's chakra, looked more human than water. Just stood there, staring straight into his liquid eyes as though they were having a silent conversation. Then she turned away, and behind her the white haired, red-streaked ninja rose, hands dripping gently as she stepped out of the water after her team leader. Her feet were completely dry. And despite the fact that there was nobody holding him back anymore, the water boy did not move - just as the defeated Sand girl had remained rooted to the spot that Kuroichi had backed her to.
Now the Hyuuga was beside Itan and Akaaka. The storm was still raging within the bald boy's body, and for the first time his shadow-like lips curved into a hissing, animalistic snarl, directed straight at the Leaf orphan standing on his right.
The black-haired girl's hand moved.
She raised it slowly, like a child trying not to scare a tiny creature away. Like a young girl about to pick a flowerhead from its stem.
Her index and her middle finger hovered over the shadow's forehead.
On cue, the clouds ceased their whirling. The shadow boy - Uen - watched, his eyes fixed on her hand. Itan's lightning chakra still flashed inside him, but slowly his own clouds became subdued, as though the storm had reached its strongest lashing and was now receding.
Kuroichi's fingers slid down his face, gently, never quite touching the skin, tracing the curve of the bulbous forehead, the peak of the round, cherub nose, the full lips. She stopped there, hovering over the boy's lips like a bee over the heart of a flower. So close that it was impossible now to make out whether she was touching him or not.
She drew her hand back to her chest, and the boy slumped forward, following the backward movement of her fingers like a puppet pulled by a string held in her fingers, and suddenly he was solid again, all trace of the raging storm that had been his body gone as though it had never been there. Itan caught him by the shoulders, and the bald boy's head fell over the other's shoulder, his body collapsing into the redhead's like a stone pulled downward by gravity.
There was movement behind Konohamaru, and he was suddenly incredibly aware that, hypnotised by Kuroichi's movement, he had turned his back on the Sand girl. She was moving now, and though he didn't turn to watch her he knew that she was moving to where Setsudan, Demashi, Kuroichi and Akaaka were standing. In seconds she was there, and she took her partner's weight from the other redhead's arms, pulling his back against her chest and sliding her arms around him gently. His eyes were closed, and his head fell back against her shoulder, chest raising and falling so gently that it was hard to notice it.
Haji knelt. Never once did she glance at Kuroichi, Demashi and Setsudan as they stood in front of her, hands down by their sides. Then another figure was standing behind her; a boy with hair so dark it was coral-green.
The two teams, Leaf and Sand, stood opposite each other, complete now. United by ties that those watching could not fathom.
It struck Konohamaru as odd, in that moment, that the instructor for the next part of the exam had not arrived yet. But then he realized with a smile that the Sand team's arrival had been only minutes before at most. HE felt as though a lifetime had passed.
