Author's Note: How's the story so far? I'd love to hear whatever you guys have to say about it ^^;; Hopefully everything is making sense, too orz.
"It's really time for them again?" Ino asked with a surprised yet exhausted look. Asuma-sensei nodded happily as he held three sheets of paper in his hands. "Man, I almost don't wanna go because of what happened during the last Chuunin Exams." She shuddered a bit, but took one of the forms anyway.
"Won't it be easier now since you've already done it once?" I asked, scanning the sheet. It asked for the usual stuff like our name and birthday, date of graduation from the Academy, so on and so forth. "I don't see a problem in taking it again."
"Maybe it'll be a bit different this time, though." Chouji pointing out, already halfway down the form. "I mean, there must be dozens of genin who retake the test. They can't make it the same, can they?"
We all looked at each other and shrugged. Whatever it was, Asuma-sensei believed we were ready for it, or he wouldn't be giving us the forms. "The Exams are two weeks from now, in Kumogakure. We leave in two days." He mentioned before waving goodbye. "That's all for today. Meet back tomorrow!"
Kumogakure, as in the village that declared war against mine? Swell. I suppose it shouldn't be a problem as long as I don't use my Youkugan recklessly, though if I remembered correctly, Tsunade-sama mentioned that it wasn't the village I had to worry about, but rather, their rogues. Still, it was probably safer for me to not use my kekkei genkai at all while I was in the area. I pushed away the thought for now and went back to filling out the form. Once I was done, I slipped the pen into my pocket and looked at the others. "What happened during the last Chuunin Exams?" I questioned with a raised brow.
My teammates fell silent for a moment and the air seemed to grow heavy. I immediately remembered the apparent sensitivity about the Exams when they were brought up on our last mission, so I quickly tried to change the subject.
"You guys don't need to say anything if you don't wanna." I reassured while eyeing them nervously.
"No, we should tell you." Ino responded with a bittersweet smile. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to insist that it was all right, but she had already begun to explain it. "It's not like it's a secret or anything. It's just… A sad memory, I guess."
As she continued, she looked towards the Hokage Monument with the faces of the five Hokage carved into it. "During the last Chuunin Exams, this man named Orochimaru attacked our village. Us genin don't really know the details, but in the end… the Third Hokage sacrificed his life to save the village."
There was a brief moment of silence and I stared up at the carvings as well. My eyes settled on the Third's for a moment as I tried to imagine the sort of man he was. Despite being nearby when the incident probably happened, I heard nothing about it. Now that I thought about it, my knowledge of the Hidden Villages was pretty limited. I've never even heard of the attack on Konoha.
"That Orochimaru also attacked Naruto's team during the second test." Chouji added with a frown. "He's probably one of Konoha's strongest enemies."
At a loss of words, I simply nodded once and stood in silence until finally, Ino broke it with a shaky laugh. "Hey, let's not get depressed about it. We have these upcoming Exams to worry about now, right?" She spoke with a grin and held up her registration form. "Let's start working hard from now on so we can kick some ass!"
Chouji and I nodded in agreement and with that, the mood was lifted. The two of them went off on their separate ways, but I stayed in the training field to work on my genjutsu and taijutsu fora bit, as well as some of the ninjutsu I've learned. I wondered if I would be okay in the Exams without any elemental ninjutsu but hey, I've got some decent genjutsu up my sleeve. I decided I'd be just fine.
I approached one of the training posts and let out a deep breath before sending a combo of strikes against it. After a series of punches and kicks, I slid around the post and jumped up, kicking it from the side, then from the other as I twisted my body in the air. I repeated the same pattern several times before flipping back and threw weapons at it until I was out. I got them back as I caught my breath, noting that my aim was getting much better and my hits were a lot stronger now.
It was when I started to practice some simple genjutsu that I sensed something in the trees. I glanced over but didn't react just yet to see if something was really there or if I'm just going crazy. "Senju." I opened my eyes, using the genjutsu on a passing butterfly and trapped it in the fist of one of the hands. I wasn't using the Youkugan, so in reality, the butterfly was simply stuck in the air.
As I released the genjutsu, the presence from the trees became more noticeable. With a slight frown, I looked towards the area the presence was coming from and waited silently. Moments past and I got a little irritated, so I called out to the space. "Your presence is starting to annoy me." I spoke indifferently to show that I was bothered, but not necessarily angry at whoever it was. "If you're not going to show yourself, leave."
"A-Ano..."
A pang of guilt struck me when I heard that familiar timid voice.
"Oh, Hinata-san." I noted with a more welcoming expression. I was definitely feeling guilty right about then. "Is there something wrong?"
Now poking out from behind the trees, I saw her face turn red as she poked her fingers together. "N-No...W-well, u-u-uhm..." As usual, she stuttered and refused to make eye contact. I waited patiently for her to form a sentence. "S-Since the Ch-Chuunin Exams are c-c-coming up, Ino-chan and S-Sakura-chan thought that w-we should r-relax a little bit in the hot s-springs..."
She now smiled gently at me, the rest of her body no longer hidden by the tree. I was hesitant to go, but I already felt bad about accidentally yelling at her just now. Although there were a number of reasons why I wanted to decline the offer, I decided I could overcome those reasons with a trick or two.
"Alright." I answered, immediately seeing relief in her eyes. Am I that scary, or is this a natural reaction for Hinata-san? I told myself it was the latter, for my own sake. "When did they want to go?"
"T-Tonight...after dinner, around e-eight."
"That's fine. I'll try not to be late." I smiled faintly. Hopefully she could tell that I was doing so through my eyes. I didn't want to make her any more nervous around me, after all. "Thanks for the invitation."
The timid Hyuuga left with a slight bow of her head. I still had time to kill so until then, I continued polishing off my genjutsu and later on worked on my taijutsu.
"So this is a hot springs, eh?" I murmured while approaching the building. The other kunoichi had already arrived and seemed excited to go. Having been in the Hot Springs country for a while, I at least knew how they worked. Surprisingly enough, however, I've never actually been in one before. "Looks relaxing."
"How in the world did you never bathe in one after spending an entire year in the Hot Springs Country?" Sakura asked as we entered the building, still in a bit of disbelief.
I shrugged. "I guess I was more concerned about stealing food rather than bathes. The rivers were fine, anyway."
There was a brief moment of silence before Tenten broke it with a sheepish laugh. "W-Well, it's never too late for a first time, aha!"
With that said, the five of us went into the women's bath and got ready to enter. I noticed that the others were throwing glances towards me every now and then, though I wasn't sure why. Since there were some other people in the bath as well, we were a little separated from each other and I found myself the furthest away from the others. A young woman stood in between me and the other kunoichi, so I assumed they were just making sure I was alright. Meanwhile, I made sure to hide my face as I got changed. Once I was done, I headed off to the bath, as I was the first one ready.
As I opened the door, a large cloud of steam rose immediately clouded my vision. Unaccustomed to the humidity, I coughed a few times and took in a few deep breaths to adjust myself to the new air. I soon made my way in the bath as carefully as possible. Soon, the other kunoichi entered as well and immediately made their way over to where I was.
"A~h! This is the best way to relax before the Exams." Sakura sighed while sinking into the water. "But what the hell is with this steam?! I can't see your face at all, Riku!"
"Eh, just mine?" I asked with a slight tilt of my head, though it was all the better for me. "I can't really see any of yours, either. Does this mean that there's something wrong with the bath?"
"Well, it's not normal, but there's nothing really wrong." Tenten-san commented, though I'm almost certain I heard her mutter something along the lines of something being unfair under her breath. I'm not quite sure what she meant by it though.
The five of us sat in the bath for several minutes while chatting about a variety of things. They would tell me about the types of genin they fought last year, such as Sabaku no Gaara and his siblings, as well as the Sound shinobi. They also told me about the proctors, such as Morino Ibiki and Mitarashi Anko, who both sounded like interesting jounin as well. It seemed like we'd be in the same boat, more or less, since it's a new exam in another village, but I could at least expect the unexpected when it comes to these Exams.
After a few more minutes of sitting in the incredibly steamy water, we decided to get out before we got dizzy. Out of habit, the first thing I did when I reached my basket was to switch the towel I used to cover my face with my mask. As I glanced over my shoulder to locate the others, I furrowed my brows in confusion as they seemed to be a little disappointed about something.
"Did we get out too early? We could bathe for a little longer if you wanna."
"A-Ah, no, it's o-okay, R-Riku-chan...!" Hinata-san reassured with a meek smile, though I couldn't help but shake the feeling that there was something else to those looks. Deciding to shrug it off, I turned around, only to hear a faint gasp come from the Hyuuga.
"Is there something wrong?" I inquired, turning around almost immediately as I wrapped a towel around myself.
The others seemed to notice whatever it was Hinata-san noticed and immediately came over, now wrapped in towels as well. "There's something on your back." Ino stated while pressing gently in between my shoulder blades. "It's like a spiral."
Confused and a little concerned, I tried to crane my head back to see it, but to no avail. "I was never aware of this. I know I have a scar, but this spiral mark is a first."
Did this have something to do with my past? Maybe it was put there by my clan for some reason. An identification mark, maybe? Maybe I got it for an entirely different reason. I didn't want to start thinking too deeply into it, since it probably wasn't a big deal, anyway. Still, I couldn't recall any sort of spirals from any of the books I've read about my clan, so it still worried me a little bit.
"Does it hurt?" Tenten-san asked while gently poking at it, but stopped when I shook my head. "Hm... Maybe it's some sort of seal. Hopefully not anything like Sasuke's, though..." Her voice trailed off and the other kunoichi grew a little more concerned as well.
"Tell us if you feel anything weird on your back, alright?" Sakura spoke with a soft smile, and I nodded in return.
We dried up and got out pretty quickly out of that. It was getting late and Ino and I were leaving tomorrow morning for Kumo, so we wanted to get a good night's rest. The teams were departing at different times so we didn't have to travel as one giant group, and our team was the first to depart. The others would be departing tomorrow as well, but at different intervals.
I thanked the others for taking me to the hot springs and we parted ways after that. It really was relaxing, the hot springs, but the marking on my back still puzzled me. I only recalled the basics of my life when I saw the ruins of my village. I know who my mother was and I know a bit of what my village looked like. I can't recall the faces of my other relatives, however, nor do I remember any friends that I may or may not have had. This marking on my back, however, is something that I've never even read about, which is what puzzled me.
Still, it shouldn't be anything too serious. At most, it must be some identification mark of some sort, or perhaps even just a very strange birth mark.
Thanks for reading ^^
