As the various genin put away their scrolls, they were all agreed that they never wanted to travel like that again, even if it was efficient. Naruto and Sasuke groaned to their teams that, no, it just wasn't something that a person got used to. Not that any of the teams were aware of their friends doing the exact same thing in another part of the forest of death, and not that they really had all that much time to dwell on it.
They had other teams to steal from after all, and many of them were quickly realising that just because they had been dropped deep in, having not needed to waste the energy required to get them to this point, Fukurou hadn't really done them the best of favours. Nearly all of them were thinking along the lines of "Why did she have to drop us here?"
The sand siblings found their targets quickly, Ame nin in sand-coloured body suits and with masks on their faces. Rather, they stepped on them without bothering to be delicate. No one so weak and foolish defeated Gaara unless he was playing particularly nice, and this exam wasn't about playing nice. They were the only ones who had a perfectly easy time.
Team 2 were dropped near some Taki nin who seemed to be in a particularly bad mood, and challenged their ability to break out of genjutsu. Teams 7 and 9 both found themselves pitted against shinobi from Konoha, a difficult moral decision, but one they were forced to make quickly. Team 8 fought against Iwa nin, whose heads were as hard as the rocks they lived among.
They left their various opponents imprisoned, severely wounded, in one case dead – Iwa nin apparently weren't so good at swallowing what Akamaru gave them to eat.
"I still say that was disgusting," Sasuke told Kiba.
Kiba smirked. "Akamaru is free to dump it where he likes," he defended. "It's his own fault for inhaling."
"Lets just get to the tower," Shino insisted, leading the way through the trees, guided by his bugs.
~oOo~
The sensei waited in the tower for their genin, Anko and Asuma waiting with them. The former to give them their last instructions of her part of the exam, the latter to oversee the next proceeding. His genin team hadn't made it past the bells test, but he was still a qualified jounin, and so he was taking advantage of the chance to talk to Kurenai for a while.
Anko rolled her eyes, wandering past Asuma and Kurenai to talk to Gai, Kakashi and Fukurou.
"Think those two are a couple?" she asked, jerking her thumb at them.
"They do flirt rather obviously," Fukurou answered, wearing a crooked smile, once more forcing herself to move on from what wrenched at her heart – so she was still getting over the killing curse bit, leave be – as she had long taught herself to do now. The civilian slogan 'always smile, you'll mean it more often' she had chanced to see one day while walking through London had become a good philosophy for her ever since.
"Though I expect they think they're being subtle, and I'll bet money that if they aren't a couple already, then they haven't figured out the other is flirting back," she added, looking over at them and back.
"Of course, they wouldn't admit to anything if you asked them outright anyway," Anko said with a sigh and a shrug.
"They're a pair," Kakashi interjected. "Have been for a while is my understanding, they just don't talk about it."
Gai nodded, a frown on his face. "They treat their relationship as one of 'friends with benefits', afraid that if they say the words 'partner' or 'love' that it will end. It is most un-youthful."
"Not like the love Itachi had been displaying for Anko, eh Fukurou?" Kakashi asked, draping his arm contentedly around the Uchiha family head's lovely waist.
Anko blushed and froze up.
"Hn," she agreed. "I've pounded it into him that he's to be a gentleman, and if he wants to court anybody he's to do it properly. Of course the way he was making eyes over just the thought of Anko at breakfast this morning, I wouldn't be surprised if he started looking for a ring soon," Fukurou answered, chuckling and leaning into him. It felt good to be able to laugh and tease so soon after... that, even if it was slightly forced.
"You... you don't disapprove?" Anko asked tentatively. She may not like authority figures, and certainly didn't go in for public displays of respect, but that didn't mean that she didn't feel at least a little tentative when she was around heads of clans. Particularly if she was interested in joining that clan.
Fukurou laughed outright. "If you make him happy, and he makes you happy, then why should I? Of course, I expect you to come to dinner some time soon, it wouldn't be completely proper if you didn't," the head of the Uchiha clan answered the girl, grinning hugely.
Anko's blush deepened, but there was a shy smile on her face, quite unlike her usual brash one.
"Thank you, I would like that."
Fukurou nodded in finality. "Good. Itachi-chan needs someone who can beat away his silly fangirls, and I'm a bit busy keeping Kakashi's away lately to be able to do a proper job of it."
"Ah, my eternal rival, burning with youthful love! I am so proud of you!" Gai wept, thankfully not too loudly.
The genin began to arrive, and Kakashi was never more glad to see them.
~oOo~
"This is not good," Fukurou said as she listened to Asuma explain what was going on and saw the first match up that was being displayed on the screen in the centre of the tower. There had apparently been too many genin passing the second examination, and now most if not all of the genin would be facing off against their friends, preventing people they cared about from being able to continue.
It was Tenten against Temari.
Though the two girls didn't really know each other very well, they had come to reach a mutual respect fairly quickly, and Fukurou was sure they would have made great friends if given the chance. Now they had to fight, and as good as Tenten was with her weapons, that wouldn't do her any good if she couldn't get the weapons to touch Temari, whose fan just knocked them all out of the way.
"Sorry sweetie," Temari told her opponent as she nearly broke her back over her fan. "Nothing personal. I'll take you out to a spa or something once you're all healed up."
"Yeah, nothing personal," Tenten agreed weakly as Temari was declared the winner. "I'll hold you to that," she added, meaning the spa. "After getting pounded by you, I need it."
Temari laughed gently and helped the other girl back out of the fighting zone and over to where some medic-nin were waiting to attend to the genin who had become injured in the fight.
The second match was Sasuke against Shikamaru.
Fukurou was torn, as she adored both the boys and wished neither of them hurt. One, her brother, the precious baby of the family. The other her only male genin. She could only be silent as she watched. If she had cheered either on, or dared to hope for one over the other, she would have felt as though she were betraying her love for the other.
Shikamaru won, and as she looked at them, she was proud to see him carrying Sasuke up to the medic-nins, ignoring the way his own body was protesting movement, let alone supporting the weight of another. It had truly been a very close fight.
"I wonder if Fukurou-sensei will forgive me for beating you up."
"I wonder if she'll forgive me for not fighting harder."
She could only be proud of both of them, and would tell them both so, later.
Lee fought Gaara impressively, but he was ultimately pulverised.
"I hope he will be alright," the redhead said as the boy was wheeled away by the medic-nins. "I didn't actually hit him very hard."
"He'll be alright Gaara-san," Fukurou said gently, laying an arm around his shoulders. "It was his own techniques that hurt him so much. They made him powerful, but at a great price."
Gaara nodded.
"I will visit him in the hospital perhaps."
Fukurou nodded and turned to watch Shino fight against Kankuro.
It quickly became apparent that, when bugs got into joints and actually ate at the strings of chakra, Kankuro's puppets weren't quite so effective. They were clever things, and he had great skill with them, but against Shino's tiny bugs they had a couple of flaws. Kankuro was consoled that it seemed to only be against trained tiny stuff – like bugs – that he was weak, and he asked Shino to never let his bugs use his puppets as a hive or nest.
"They prefer to nest in living people, rather than false ones," Shino answered.
"That's just a bit creepy," Kankuro said, eyeing the bug that had just disappeared down behind the other boy's collar.
Sakura and Ino fought each other, and it looked like Ino was going to win when she got into Sakura's head with her family technique, but Sakura had managed to throw her out and withdrew a senbon from her holster. Fukurou was both surprised and pleased with her student as she threw the large needle, just as Haku and Shizune had taught her, into the flesh just above Ino's collarbone.
Ino had just been getting up from being thrown back into her own mind when the needle hit, and she went down again and started humming a nursery tune.
"There's a hallucinogen on the needle," Sakura said with a small smile. "Ino-pig just thinks she's four again," she added, going to collect her friend and carry her off.
"Sakura-chan! Do you like my singing?" Ino asked.
"Hai, and thank you for the hair ribbon you gave me," she answered.
"It's one of my favourites, but I think it suits you better."
Chouji chuckled as he watched his team mate, reduced so far within her mind at that moment. Then his name appeared on the screen, opposite Neji's.
"This is gonna hurt," he muttered as he went down to the fighting arena.
Neji was the only one of his team to win their fight, but Chouji, despite knowing that it would hurt, had put up a good fight and made Neji sweat for his win. It was an impressive effort, and the fight received awed applause when it was over.
Hinata fought next, her opponent was Naruto.
Fukurou swallowed, Sakura standing next to her nervously.
"She said when we became a team that she liked Naruto," Sakura whispered. "Do you think she'll be able to put that aside for long enough to fight him?"
"I don't know Sakura-chan," and again she didn't know if she hoped the little Hyuuga would be able to overcome her own concerns, or that Naruto would be able to defeat her and be able to continue to prove himself to the village.
It was almost a draw, but two voices yelled one name at the last moment, and one of the genin fighting was able to keep their feet after the two hard strikes that had been exchanged.
Hinata walked back to the platform, surprised to have won, and surprised to see Kiba coming towards her, checking over her injuries and turning to Sakura, who was right behind him, stepping aside so that she could do something.
"You yelled my name," she said in awe, looking between the two.
Kiba smiled, showing his fangs.
"Well, the two of you were both going down, and I didn't like the idea of you hitting your pretty head. Naruto, I'm sure, has already taken several hits to his head," Kiba answered.
"Th-thank you," Hinata stammered, blushing slightly at the way he was smiling.
Sakura chuckled quietly. "Konoha to Hinata-chan," she called gently, grabbing the other girls attention. "You need some sleep, and a general slow healing. I've started the healing, but I think the rest of it, and the sleep, is going to wait a bit, isn't it?"
Hinata smiled.
"Thank you Sakura-chan."
There were some fights of other genin, members of teams from Kumo, Kiri and Taki fighting each other, before Kiba's fight, the final fight, against the last member of the team from Kiri. Unsurprisingly, the Mist nin started by filling the room with mist. It didn't bother the dog nin and his companion though. They sniffed him out and attacked him from behind, ignoring the various bunshin trying to intimidate him by their numbers while pinning him down. With his opponent knocked out, the mist cleared and Kiba stood grinning.
"Well, I guess we're through as well," he said, squatting beside the prone form of his foe and scratching Akamaru's back jovially.
~oOo~
The dinner at the Uchiha estate that night was very much a party. Tsunade had decided to supply some sake for the drinkers among the adults as well, which meant Anko was literally in Itachi's lap with even less inhibition than usual, and Ibiki was wearing his Kami-awful drinking shirt again.
"No flying if you want to drink," Fukurou warned everybody seriously.
The sand siblings, curious about how Konoha nin flew, soon learned and Temari was up among them on her fan in no time, while Haku had Kankuro as a pillion. Gaara decided to remain on the ground, despite Fukurou offering him the same.
Turning from the boy, Fukurou was surprised to see Sakura sitting beside Shino on the edge of the garden and asking about his bugs, but considering she had been studying with the slug sanin, maybe not so surprising...
Kiba and Hinata were playing broom-tag – a game that had been invented or innovated by her genin. They would chase each other on their broomsticks, and to tag they had to do a barrel roll around whoever they were chasing, tapping them lightly on the back between their shoulder-blades. First they had to catch up with them though, and with Hinata flying, that was quite a feat. The way Temari and Shikamaru were playing the same game though seemed more like flirting every time one of them crossed above the other and ducked underneath before speeding off, smiling.
"This is really quite nice," Nara Shikaku said, his arm around his own wife, for once silent, as they sat on the porch together, not far from Shino and Sakura, watching the genin who were flying around or talking, and the older shinobi sharing pleasant conversation and smiling in good company.
"It is a good environment for the young ones," agreed Temura-sama, who was sitting with Mrs Haruno on a bench in the garden near the other parents.
"I wonder if the environment at home is as good, for some of them," commented Chouza, head of the Akimichi clan, glancing pointedly at Neji.
"All the more reason for them to appreciate the haven Uchiha Fukurou-sama has opened up to them," Shikaku said firmly to his friend and team mate. "She even lets my son read from her library and plays go with him when he has completed his physical training for the day, I cannot think badly of her."
"Even if she brought shinobi from Mist into our village?" asked Yamanaka Inoichi, the third member of the old "Ino-Shika-Cho" team that had almost been recreated again in this generation, and head of his own small clan, like his friends and team mates.
"It is not so troublesome to be their friends as it would be if we met them in the battlefield and they were our enemies," Nara answered, seriously.
"Haku is a good student to me, and very loyal to those who have shown him kindness, like Zabuza-san who first took him in, and now Fukurou-san who has given them both a permanent and caring home," Tamura-sama said, adding his two-ryu worth.
Inuzuka Tsume and her older daughter Hana joined the other parents who were watching their children and abruptly changed the topic of the conversation.
"Did you hear that the genin from Kimi and Taki dropped out of the final round? They didn't like the idea of fighting the winners from the preliminary round," she said, clearly proud of her son for making it.
~oOo~
By the time the matches were being decided, only eight genin had not dropped out. Four matches, then another two where the winners of the previous battles fought each other, with only a little over a week to prepare, and they would be fighting their friends. A final round to discover the strongest genin of the year would only occur if the contestants wished it. It would serve no true purpose really.