Whoopee!
The Chunnin exams arrived and Hitomi helped her teammates through the first exam with her Sharingan and Byakugan, passing them the answers by some well placed strings. Shikamaru arched an eyebrow at her as she exited the hall with her team. She smiled back secretively. They received an Earth scroll for their second exam. Anko Mitarashi was not here to host the exams though she would be watching with Orochimaru during the final exam. Akane took over her proctor duties. She was much more active, eager to burn off all her pregnancy weight. Sanagi was being babysat by the Akatsuki today because Kakashi was in the Lightning Country with Team Seven for the Jounin exams.
'Depart!' Akane barked out.
Hitomi and her team darted into the forest, scouring the area as they moved, making sure not to collide with any other team. They climbed a high tree and waited, Hitomi scanned the area using her Byakugan, quickly locating a team from the Rock Village, protecting their Heaven scroll by creating copies of it and hiding it with each member.
'Rock Village nins, two hundred metres south, three minutes.' She intoned.
'Ambush?' Masaru suggested quietly, tucking his arm bindings into his bag.
'I don't like revealing our abilities so soon but there's no other option. I can't tell which is the real scroll.' She said, furrowing her brow.
'Not true. They have to rest sometime. I can knock them out quietly with my silent sleeper jutsu. They won't even realize what hit them because their brains are already shutting down for sleep.' Daisuke said, bringing out his flute. 'They'll have someone on watch but you can just cast a genjutsu on that one, Hitomi.'
Hitomi grinned and nodded. Sometimes, his plans were so simple they were genius. Moving swiftly, they surrounded the team and waited for the opportune moment to strike. As the sun began to set, the team of Rock Village ninjas yawned. A boy with tan skin took the first watch. Team Prodigy put their plan into action. Daisuke lifted the flute to his lips and at the exact moment the first note left the instrument, Hitomi cast her genjutsu. The boy fell to the ground, out cold. The other two were completely still, as if they were dead.
Wasting no time, Masaru leaped down and snaked threads of chakra around each scroll, using a Revelation Spell, forcing all scrolls but one to return to their original form. He tucked away the scroll and the team started moving towards the tower immediately, desperately wanting to get out of the forest. They ran the entire night, finally walking in the tower gates at dawn, laughing wordlessly through their tired states.
'They're going to wake up and freak out!' Hitomi chuckled, gasping.
Daisuke nodded fervently, panting and laughing in between. Genma poofed into existence and gave them an amused expression, playing with his senbon. He passed them, telling them that they still had four days before the continuation of the exams, advising them to rest. They entered a room and each flopped on the bed, asleep within seconds.
The remaining four days were filled with excited training, enforced by Hitomi and relaxing moments, enforced by their senseis. They entered the arena and listened to the words of the proctor, Temari. They went up to their place, looking around at those who had made it this far while scanning the area for potential opponents. Immediately, Team Prodigy noticed the long haired girl that approached her team trailing behind.
'Who would've thought runts like you three would be able to get in Akatsuki? They must've lowered their standard.' Miko asked snidely, the boys behind her snickering. She was the bully girl from the Academy.
Inoichi and Shikaku watched quietly. Hitomi raised a fine brow. 'What's it to you?'
'As glad as I am you removed your freaky self from the Academy and revealed another two freaks, even I wouldn't have gone so far as to betray the village.' She spat, looking disgusted at their red and black cloaks.
'In case you haven't heard, Akatsuki is allied with Konoha now.' Hitomi said, irritated, hiding it well. Daisuke and Masaru kept expressionless but paid attention in case their leader snapped.
'Don't try to redeem yourself, weakling.'
Hitomi's eyes activated in anger, she advanced a step. Daisuke and Masaru stood worriedly. But Hitomi held herself back. 'I'm far from weak. Now beat it, I'll deal with you later if we get matched up.'
And with that Hitomi turned and walked back to her senseis, sitting at their feet and watching the matches, taking note of their fighting styles. She noticed the tan boy from the Rock Village her team had stolen the scroll from. It was impressive that they had made it. Unfortunately, Hitomi wasn't paired up with Miko. She was instead put up against a young girl from the Rain Village. The kunoichi bowed respectfully, knowing the strength of the Akatsuki. How could she not? Pein was the leader of Ame after all.
Hitomi smiled and bowed as well. The girl's jutsu was to rain down senbon, which was useless in the face of Rotation. She fought hard but Hitomi won easily. The same was said for Daisuke, he merely had to play a simple melody, slicing up his opponent. Masaru didn't even get a chance to fight. His opponent took one look at the glowing tattoos and forfeited the match. Masaru sighed as Daisuke laughed at his bad luck. Hitomi smacked her hand to her face in exasperation.
They were the only team to have all three members win their matches. One of Miko's teammates broke an arm and cracked a few ribs and Temari had to stop the match before he got killed. Miko fought last and gave Hitomi a proud look before proceeding to beat up her opponent. Her jutsu was impressive. The ground shook and broke, messing up the arena badly. Earth Release…
Again, Temari stopped Miko from killing the Cloud ninja, whipping out her fan and blowing her out of the way. She picked up the injured boy and handed him over to paramedics, shooting Miko a glare. Miko brushed it off, returning to her team. Hitomi didn't recognize her sensei but he was pretty pissed off at her. She didn't even bother. Secretly, Hitomi knew that what she had done was foolish because now everyone knew her earth jutsu.
Temari stepped up and called the remaining ninjas down, making them pick from the box. Hitomi hid a smile, seeing her paired against Miko. Miko grinned to herself too. Daisuke was to face a girl from the Sound Village. She looked at him and blushed slightly, waving to him. He adopted a shocked look as Masaru nudged him jokingly. Hitomi brought their attention to Masaru's opponent, the tanned boy from the Rock Village.
After they were dismissed, Inoichi and Shikaku congratulated them and reminded them to plan out their month long training wisely. Suddenly the tanned boy approached, looking serene and friendly. Masaru turned to face him curiously. The boy looked first at Hitomi and it didn't go unnoticed by the two boys on Team Prodigy.
'Hey, you're the team that took our scroll right? That was really sneaky.' He complimented with a smile. Daisuke blinked.
'How did you know?' Hitomi asked, amused.
'Your friend there with the music didn't quite manage to get my teammates at the same time. The girl on our team picked it up but she couldn't resist the sound.' He grinned, shrugging. Was that pink on his cheeks? Daisuke scratched his head awkwardly while Masaru just watched for more confirmation.
The tan boy laughed joyously. 'Oh, my bad, I forgot, the name's Tsuyosa. I just wanted to tell you I'm looking forward to our match!' He directed at Masaru, extending his hand.
Masaru shook his hand, slightly surprised at the Tsuyosa's behavior. 'Masaru, same here.'
His team called back to him and he ran off, leaving Daisuke and Masaru looking at his back semi-suspiciously. 'He seems nice.' Hitomi commented. Both boys blinked wordlessly. She sighed and dragged them out, a craving for ramen starting up.
Team Prodigy had split in several different directions for their training. Daisuke was going to split two weeks for Akatsuki and the Sound Village and Masaru was splitting his time between Akatsuki and some secret Kasai place that no one seemed to know about. But no one had more split time than Hitomi. She had big plans and not all was made aware to her senseis and mother.
She had sweet talked Neji and Tenten into helping her with a Hyuga style jutsu theory, she couldn't ask Hiashi because he'd forbid her from learning it. But that was only week one. Another week would be spent in the Uchiha compound where Tobi, Itachi, Sasuke and Akane were going to be advancing her skills. And the two remaining weeks were the big secret. She still had to find someone that could help her. She had become inspired while watching Shikaku and Shikamaru spar together, eyes following the shadow's movements. She had done a lot of research just to come up with the theory, she was still missing the method.
She knocked on Sasori and Deidara's door and the blonde Iwa ninja answered, admitting her inside. Sasori was imbibing a puppet's weapons with poison, Hitomi recognized it as the one with her eyes. Sasori looked back and smiled, looking slightly suspicious. Deidara flopped onto the bed, clay spread all around him.
'What did you want to ask?' Sasori questioned quietly, focused on the puppet.
'How is it done? Body transformation? Are both of yours the same?' She asked bluntly. Sasori turned away from him work, giving her his entire attention. Deidara stared at her with such shock. She blushed slightly.
'No they're not. My transformation was very complex and took many years before I managed to replace my body parts with puppet parts and years after that to create a chakra network through the wood that would be similar to my human body.' Sasori answered, eyes unblinking. Hitomi nodded understanding, she faced Deidara expectantly.
'My hand mouths took a couple of days at best and the one on my chest took double the time, un. It's there by surgery and wasn't my whole body like Danna, un. And I only connected nerves not created a chakra network. I think it's different for everyone, un.' Deidara said thoughtfully.
'What are you planning?' Sasori demanded, eyeing her. She bit her lip.
'I had this theory but I need help on how to do it. There are too few people with the knowledge.' She answered. Deidara's blue eyes blinked twice.
'Body Transformation Jutsu is kinjutsu, un. You know… forbidden, un.' Deidara murmured in his clipped Iwa accent.
'Yeah…' She muttered slowly, looking down at her feet adorably, nibbling in her lip as she shifted cutely. There was a long silence as Deidara and Sasori fought against their adorable little fellow Akatsuki member.
'Pein.' Sasori said, losing. He turned back to his puppet. Deidara glared daggers at him.
Hitomi kissed his wooden cheek in thanks, making the two men sigh in defeat as she swept out of the room. She snuck past Rin and Konan who were tickling her little brother, making him giggle in joy. She entered Pein's room. He looked up at her from his scroll, waiting for her to say something, his pierced face indifferent.
'Sasori said you might be able to help me with a certain jutsu, Pein-sama.' She whispered silently. He arched and eyebrow but there was a guarded sparkle in his eye.
After lots of explanations and pleading, Hitomi finally got herself a new teacher. She passed him a scroll which he opened the instant she left, allowing himself to smile at the genius of her jutsu. Not even the Nara clan had a shadow jutsu like this one. No doubt they will want it… if she succeeds… But then again, Pein was helping her so she probably would.