Things were softer in the day, more than they expected them to be. The dark thrill of the night had fallen off their skin, the glow of it making appetites stronger, making muscles tired, and aspirations weak. Only a few teams had gotten scrolls the night before, and many more had lost them, and some of them…well, they no longer had hearts, or minds, or bodies to speak with. The forest of death had drunk its fill, in blood of those dead and of those injured. The forest was sated, for now, decided it would let the day be a kinder than the night, if only by a little bit.
All the while, the woven strands of reality pulsed, each new decision and mistake and move and look and breath a new storied path. The new day brought a soft quiet to the strands, though it wouldn't last long.
As morning came, Neji only grew angrier. They had been in this forest for thirteen hours, yet they had accomplished nothing besides a lot of running and a lot of hiding out. It was no one's fault, he knew, but he was still pissed.
TenTen walked up beside him, stretching out her sore arms. Behind them, Lee was doing his morning ritual, a workout routine to recover from the hard, damp night they had all spent in the cave.
"Do you think we'll have any luck today?" TenTen asked, looking at the dense forest ahead of them.
Neji looked out at the bright sunlight, the way it opened and exposed everything in the forest. Lee popped up and joined them.
"Everyone is probably hiding out, now that it's daytime," Neji said bitterly. His eyes flashed, veins around them appearing, a sudden harshness to his pupils. His Byakugan was activated, "but I have an idea."
He looked out at the forest, the whole of it pulsing and revealing itself to him in completely new ways. He was determined to make this day count.
The nigh before, in the long dark of the forest, disaster had struck. They had been tracking another team, whose chakras looked weak and unfocused. They hadn't been tracking them for long, just thirty minutes or so, and they were waiting for the team to rest before they attacked. Neji imagined it all, could see, with his eyes, just how easy this team would be to defeat. Since it was so dark when they entered the forest, they relied on Neji's eyes – buoyed by chakras and movement and everything else, the night of the forest still too dark, the moon not yet high enough in the sky.
But he hadn't seen the nest fast enough, his eyes so focused on the team below them – the target—that the mass of swollen, bubbling chakra directly in front of him didn't register until it was too late.
Rock Lee, Neji, and TenTen hit the giant nest at full speed, ripping through it and falling below, crashing into the very team they were tracking. For a moment, everyone was shocked; the Leaf Village team confused by what had suddenly thrown them off the path and the Mist ninjas shocked by what they perceived as a sudden attack. This confusion barely lasted a second, before they all heard it, an ominous buzzing, a flurry of shadows raining down in the darkness, and what looked like infinite pairs of white glowing eyes. Just at the moment, the moon rose high enough between the branches, casting light on the hundreds of insects heading their way.
They looked like a cross between a wasp and a spider. Black bodies with eight spindly legs and a mass of white eyes, bulbous on their faces. But they each had a sharp stinger at the end of their bodies, and a pair of wings, moving rapidly. Most terrifying was their size, each of them as big as cats, larger than any insect any of the ninjas had ever seen. They shook the air with their buzzing. Neji saw these insects a little more deeply. A concentration of chakra in their abdomens, with lines spreading throughout their bodies, powering them forward.
"What the fuck!" one of the Mist ninjas yelled. He sprinted away, his teammates following. A mass of the insects broke off, heading after them at a rapid speed. Neji, Rock Lee, and TenTen barely had time to hear the screams of the other team before they had to act.
Neji spun around, his chakra pushing out and away from him, a whole shield of it. He heard the chinks as the insects tried to attack him, the force of his chakra repelling them away from him with brute force. This was the Revolving Heaven Jutsu, and as long and Neji kept spinning, nothing could touch him.
At the same moment, TenTen was pulling out one of her scrolls, the one that summoned hundreds of kunai. With a quick drop of her blood, they appeared and TenTen shot them out in rapid succession, hitting the insects straight in the stomach. They fell to the ground in a sharp motion, twitching on the ground.
Beside them, Rock Lee moved faster than either of them, hitting the bugs out of the air with powerful hits and kicks, spinning to dodge one here and hitting another one there. He didn't have the same technique as his teammates, but with his sheer speed, he was knocking out twice the amount as they did.
For a few minutes, it seemed like they were holding their ground, each of them avoiding the heavy stings of the insects, with only a few close calls. The only issue was that there were just so many of them, and they kept coming. The demolished remnants of their nest spread among ten or so trees and all three of them had a feeling they had only just encountered the first wave.
It was Neji who eased off first, ending his spinning, moving quickly and landing hits on their chakra centers instead, the force of it making them fall dead in the air. TenTen slowed her pull of weapons, realizing she'd need to summon more soon if she continued at this rate. And Lee's speed was decreasing, his energy wearing.
It was TenTen who remembered the rough map that had been provided for them. Most of the forest was a series of dense trees, a dark river, and streams breaking off from it. But there were some cliffs along the edges of the map, with dark markers that, to her, looked like caves. It's possible that other teams were already waiting in these caves, but they could risk it. There was no way they could stand their ground here much longer.
"Follow me!" TenTen yelled, loud enough for both her teammates to hear, "I know where we can find shelter."
Although both Neji and Rock Lee were hesitant to leave, remembering how quickly the insects had caught up with the other team, but they trusted TenTen. She dove into the woods and they followed after her, a flurry of the insects on their trails.
As they jumped from tree to tree and branch to branch, the incessant buzzing bit at their eyes and occasionally they had to jump into the defensive again, TenTen releasing a few weapons or Rock Lee a few hits or Neji spinning on the wide branches of a tree, sending a flurry of them back with the Revolving Heaven Jutsu. But after a few minutes they came across the cliff face.
"There!" TenTen shouted and pointed to the open face of a cave, shadowy in the dull moonlight. She sent a shuriken over her shoulder as she said this; it landed in the gut of the bug closest to her.
Neji pushed back a few that were gaining on him with some strategic hits and then glanced at where TenTen was pointed. With his enhanced vision, she saw what he meant, a cave in the side of the cliff-face, but it didn't look promising. His eyes showed him how small it was, its opening wide and open, which would still leave them defenseless.
Lee appeared, knocking away a few of the insects that nearly landed their stingers into Neji's shoulder. Neji took the quick second of Lee's defense to scan the cliffside, and saw it, another cave further up, his eyes telling him this one was deeper and wider, with something that looked like a covering.
"No, there!" he yelled, pointing toward the newer cave. His teammates followed his finger and jumped toward it without hesitation. They were in the cave in seconds, fighting off the insects that followed them into its mouth. Closer up, Neji saw the covering he had perceived earlier, a boulder just inside the cave wall, that looked like it could be pushed in front of the opening, almost as if it had been designed for that exact purpose.
"Back up!" he yelled and began to spin. His teammates jumped from dodge as he spun into another round of the Revolving Heaven Jutsu. The onslaught of insects pouring into the opening were shoved back, giving them seconds of time.
Neji paused and ran toward the boulder, pushing at it. Lee and TenTen joined him and in moments, it was closing in on the opening, sealing them in. A few of the insects had managed to get in with them but TenTen was quick, sending out shuriken that pierced their bellies, dropping them to the ground.
The cave was dark as hell once they closed the entrance, and no one could see anything, but Neji. All they could hear the incessant buzzing just outside the cave, growing louder and louder by the second, as the whole swarm caught up.
They stood in the dark, panting and tired, hearts calming down after the encounter. As the moments passed, their eyes adjusted to the dark, just slightly, and then, slowly and suddenly, the cave was lit, by what looked like blurry blue lights inside the wall. With the glow of these sudden blue lights they could see the range of the cave, spreading back around ten feet and only slightly further in width. It was cool and damp in the cave, and somewhere far off, they heard what sounded like dripping.
"What is this?" TenTen asked, looking at the light blue glow of the walls and then the same surprise registering on her teammates faces.
"Glow worms, I think," Lee said, a smile lighting up his face. Guy had told them about him once, but he had never pictured them this beautiful. It was a delight, after the chase they just had.
TenTen shivered, "Ugh, more bugs."
"They won't hurt us," Lee said, still in awe of them.
Neji was already thinking ahead, looking at the last of the insects that TenTen had killed, their twitching bodies on the far side of the cave floor. His Byakugan showed their chakra waning as they died. He deactivated his eyes and looked at them in normal sight, their blood spilling out just as milky and white as their eyes.
TenTen noticed Neji's curiosity and came over herself. Outside, the flurry of buzzing continued.
"What do you think those are?" TenTen asked, using a spare kunai to turn one of the dead insects over.
"Probably just one of the many creatures that live in the forest," Neji said, "The proctor did warn us."
"Yeah, but I just assumed that it would be animals I already knew, not things like this," TenTen said, backing away from them. Her heart rate was only just calming down and she didn't want to look at those things any longer than she was required to.
"Well," Neji said seriously, "the ninja world is bigger than we think."
After a moment, they settled in – or the best they could in a cold, damp cave, lit up by glow worms. The buzzing persisted outside as they made a plan to leave as soon as it stopped. Only it didn't stop and eventually, the repetitive sound wore them all to sleep.
When Neji woke before the other two, there was no noise outside the entrance. He pushed back the boulder to the brightness of dawn and the annoyance that came with it. But then his teammates were awake and getting ready, all of them standing at the mouth of the cave. And Neji knew exactly where they could find a scroll.
It was an easy path to follow, the dead husks of the insects creating a trail for them to follow back to the original attack. While their journey to the caves had taken what seemed like forever the night before, it took them mere minutes to get back to where the nest was. High in the tree above them, the nest was less ruined than it was the night before, the insects buzzing around it, repairing the damage.
TenTen shuddered, "Why'd do you bring us back here?"
She was weary. The insects seemed too busy in their nest, and besides, her team was on the ground, far from them, but it still didn't mean they would attack.
"Because I'm curious," Neji said. He activated his eyes and saw it, just beyond the trees where the other team had run. He pushed ahead, to the spot his vision focused on. TenTen and Lee followed.
What they saw wasn't pretty. The team they had planned to sneak up on was dead, but they hardly looked human anymore. Their bodies were swollen and bloated, deep marks in their skin dripping with white pus, marks of where the insects had gotten them. Despite dying only hours before, they already smelled of rot, a gag-inducing stench. They all felt their stomachs turn.
But Neji saw what he wanted; saw whose backpack it was in. Holding his breath, he reached into the backpack of the body closest to him, careful not to get any pus on him, and felt his hands close around it – the scroll.
He pulled out and backed away, a smile on his face. It certainly wasn't the fight he imagined for it, but the way he saw it, his team was smart enough to defend themselves against and hide from the insects, the Mist ninjas weren't. That meant his team deserved to reap the rewards.
"That's really not honorable, Neji," Rock Lee said. His stomach was turning, not just at the sight of the bodies, but at the idea that Neji would so easily steal something off their bodies. It was a shame that they had died, and that Neji was using their death to his advantages like this, it didn't sit well with Rock Lee. He wanted to prove himself during this exam, but not like this.
Neji shot Lee a tense look, "This isn't a test of honor, Lee. It's a test of skill and survival."
"But what skill are we demonstrating by stealing their scroll? By not leaving them to rest?" Lee asked, the unease in his stomach still there. He didn't want any part in not leaving the dead in peace.
Neji gritted his teeth. Lee was always like this, so hung up on honor and work and all these other values that sure, made him stronger, but annoyed Neji to no end. Not all ninjas got the opportunity to be honorable. Besides, Neji knew that even those who called themselves the most honorable, who called themselves noble clans, where those who committed the most dishonorable acts.
"It shows that we were more skillful than them in escaping. As far as I'm concerned, it means we're entitled to this scroll," Neji explained. He didn't have time for Lee's foolishness.
Lee bristled. He knew Neji well enough to know how he thought, knew exactly how bitter Neji was about his fate. Rightfully so, Lee thought. But that didn't mean he was allowed to ignore the rules of decency.
"It doesn't matter," Lee said, "It's still not decent or right to do this."
TenTen was nervous, had heard discussions like this before, knew just how tense it could get when Neji and Lee butted heads about their values.
"Come on guys, is this really worth discussing right now?" TenTen asked, hoping they would call it off.
For the first time, Neji noticed the kanji on the scroll – a Heaven scroll. The only use this would serve them would be in stopping another team from retrieving it. A wave of anger pushed through him.
"It's useless anyway," Neji spat, "We already have a Heaven scroll, we need an Earth scroll."
"Good," Lee said, challenge in his eyes, "Then we actually have a chance to succeed in an honorable way."
Neji, already angry, couldn't deal with this admission, "You always prefer the difficult way, don't you?"
"What does that mean?" Lee asked, though he already knew what Neji was implying.
Neji leveled his eyes at Rock Lee, "Just that you pride yourself too much on working through difficult circumstances. Have you ever thought that maybe things are difficult because they're not meant to be?"
"Neji, don't—" TenTen began, but Neji interrupted.
"Like being a ninja. You think it makes you better than you've somehow managed to accomplish it despite challenges. You think that makes you more honorable. But I say it doesn't, I say it just means you're wasting your time. You'll never be as good as me. It's better to just resign yourself to your fate."
"Neji!" TenTen yelled, shocked by how harsh it was. She knew Neji had his hang ups, knew that he found Lee's endless optimism and hard work exhausting sometimes. But in the last year and a half of being teammates, despite how much he and Lee butted heads, he had never said something like that.
Lee was quiet for a moment, thinking about what Neji said. He knew he should feel more hurt by it, knew that his teammate's lack of respect for him should destroy him – but it didn't. Instead, Lee just felt bad for Neji, felt bad that he was so resigned to accept things as is. Neji was born with talent and genius, a natural ability that Lee sometimes felt himself bursting with jealousy over. But Neji was so full of spite, so angry about his position, that he would never use his strength to push past the boundaries that life had laid out for him. So, Lee felt bad for him, felt bad that his teammate would never be willing to put in the effort needed to break the fate that he felt sealed him.
But maybe Lee could show him how.
"If you want to think that, you can," Lee said after a few moments, his voice calm, "But I know what I'm capable of. And I know there are ways to get through this challenge in an honorable way."
"Not by your standards, I'm sure," Neji said, remembering how Lee insisted on being good too often. How mission after mission he was reminding them to take the high road, only trapping enemies where he could have killed him, thinking he was better because he figured out a way to fight, and fight fairly, despite lacking in any sense of useable chakra. But the ninja world wasn't fair, and they couldn't fight fair. Lee needed to accept that.
"Then I'll prove it to you," Lee said, his voice adamant and hopeful. Maybe this challenge would be the place to make Neji see reason, "I'll find an Earth scroll for us. On my own."
Neji did nothing to hide his rolling eyes, "You know the rules, if one of us is incapacitated, the entire team is out. All of us will fail."
"That's because you assume I'll be incapacitated," Lee said, "but I won't."
Neji was angry again, venom in his voice, "I won't have you be the reason I fail."
"Unfortunately, although we're a team, we're also individuals," Lee said, "I'm making an individual choice that may have consequences for the whole team, but I believe in myself even if you don't."
"Fine," Neji said bitterly, "Go off on your own. And when you're the reason we fail, you'll have to live that that."
Lee nodded. He knew he was promising a lot, knew that he would rather stay together, find a way to work as a team. But he also knew that Neji needed to learn that things were possible, even in the most adverse of circumstances.
TenTen looked between the two of them, knew that this separation meant she'd have to choose which one she went with. The thing is, she saw both sides, knew both their histories and ideals and hopes. She saw merit in both, and even though they didn't see it very often, knew the ways that they overlapped. And she wished, so deeply, that they could understand how similarly unfailing they both were in their beliefs. It didn't matter though, because she had to choose.
She turned toward Lee, a sad look on her face, "I'm going with Neji. The Chunnin Exam are too important. We have to do what is necessary to pass, even when you don't like it."
Lee's face fell only for a moment, but he recovered. Her lack of faith in him hurt more than Neji's ever would.
"But here," she said, turning to Neji and gesturing to the Heaven scroll he had retrieved from the dead mist ninjas, "give me that."
Neji looked hesitant, didn't want to let it go. It could be an advantage to them, having a spare scroll. But TenTen had chosen to come with him, and they could easily find the Earth scroll they needed. He handed the scroll to her and she put it in Lee's hands.
"This way it's fair," she said, hoping this would make amends to Lee for her choosing Neji. "Let's each take a Heaven scroll and agree to meet back, near the Tower, on the final night, okay?"
Lee nodded, seeing the sense in TenTen's plan. Neji huffed and nodded too.
Within a few moments, Lee was gone, disappearing into the trees, and Neji and TenTen were headed in the opposite direction.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura had been running for most of the night. Each time they found themselves pausing to take a breath, or settling in anyway, they heard it – a soft whisper, with a hiss behind it, a stirring in the trees, a dark shadow moving through the moonlight. They never saw the snake again, the one that had surprised them earlier, but hints of it followed them all night.
At one point, Naruto couldn't stand it anymore and stood his ground.
"Just attack us!" he shouted into the dark night. He was exhausted and tired of running and still didn't understand why Sasuke had pulled them away from that other team, from their chance of getting another scroll. Ahead of Naruto by a few branches, Sakura and Sasuke hesitated.
Sasuke was still overwhelmed with feeling, with the carnal fear buried inside of him. They had been running for hours, but he still couldn't shake it. He hated every second of it, this loss of control, the loss of his sense that he could handle whatever was thrown at him. And here Naruto was, being an idiot, only increasing Sasuke's unease.
"Come on!" Naruto shouted, when his earlier shout was met with nothing. The latter was met with a faint hiss, the soft slithering along the branches, the flash of shadows darker than the trees.
It was Sakura who saw the eerie glow of the snake's eyes, the first hint that it wasn't just their imagination of its monstrosity following them.
"Naruto!" Sakura yelled as she jumped forward. She yanked at Naruto, pulling him from the tree, and behind them, in the dark, they heard a menacing snap. The massive branch Naruto had just been standing on thundered to the ground, the rough shards of it left behind, as if it had been ripped in half by something huge.
When they landed beside Sasuke, Naruto resisted Sakura's pull, his exhaustion and irritation present in his voice, "What the hell Sakura! We need to stop whatever is after us!"
"The sun is coming up," Sasuke said, nodding around him. He was right, a shallow gold starting to light up the trees. As the light increased, they looked around them, looking for hints for the beast that had stalked them all night. Other than the broken branch, there was nothing. The hissing and slithering sound had stopped; there was no hint of its glowing eyes, no sign to show them that the things they had heard throughout the night, the thing they had been running from, had been there at all.
"What the hell," Naruto growled. As the sun light up more of the forest, there were less and less signs of it having been there.
"We all heard it," Sakura said, confusion and worry in her voice.
Sasuke shook his head. He was exhausted and scared and felt nothing like himself. He felt like a little kid – soft and shriveled and scared.
"It's mind games, or something," Sasuke mumbled, "The forest played a trick on us."
"But the snake existed!" Naruto yelled, "We all saw it at first. And then we heard it too. How do you explain what happened to that branch?"
Sasuke shook his head, too frustrated to answer.
Sakura looked between her teammates, trying to figure out what to do. Naruto was disgruntled and angry, sneering at the both of them. Sasuke…well she couldn't explain Sasuke. For as long as she had known him, Sasuke had always been cool and confident and a little gloomy; it was this exact combination of attributes that made Sakura attracted to him, like a mystery she wanted to figure out. But she had never seen this look on his face before, like he was lost or trapped or broken in some way. She could tell he was trying to mask it, but it wasn't really working. And she just wanted to do whatever she could to help him.
"Let's try to find someplace to rest," Sakura said.
"We can't rest," Sasuke said, "Not now, not in the open of the day."
"We'll find someplace to hide then," Sakura insisted.
Sasuke shook his head and Sakura sighed. She looked toward Naruto.
He shrugged his shoulders, clearly disgruntled and uncaring, "I guess Sasuke's right. Anyone could sneak up on us."
Sakura closed her eyes, frustrated and tired herself. She knew they were right, but part of her didn't care. Neither of her teammates were acting like themselves right now and she was too exhausted herself to deal with it. They all needed rest, they needed to bring the balance back to their dynamic and she didn't care about their petty excuses.
"No," Sakura said sternly, "We all need the rest, or we won't survive the next four days. We can care about other teams and finding a scroll after."
She shot a serious look at Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto was irritated, but surprised – Sakura had spoken to him that sternly plenty of times, but never to Sasuke, never addressing them both. Sasuke was surprised too, hadn't expected Sakura to be the one to step up when he was out of it. Then again, there was a lot about Sakura that surprised him.
She saw that she had caught their attention, "Come on, we're finding some place to hide."
She dove into the woods and both her teammates followed after her, each of their minds scattered and distant for different reasons. I didn't take long for them to come across a cliff face, a few caves at different levels. Sakura jumped to the highest one; Naruto and Sasuke followed.
The cave was cool and damp, but overall, it was big enough to accommodate all of them, deep and wide. The light from the fully risen sun poured into the mouth of it, casting light on some shrunken, shriveled creature near the entrance.
Naruto took a closer look, saw that they looked some type of insect, shuriken in their stomachs, sticky white stuff oozing out of the wounds. He tried not to gag.
"Gross," he mumbled.
"Someone's probably been here," Sasuke said, realizing it was probably a good shelter, if other ninjas had thought so.
"I think it's by design, meant to be a shelter," Sakura said. She gestured toward the boulder beside the opening, realizing that if they pushed it in front of the opening, it would disguise them perfectly. "Help me."
Naruto grumbled. He was exhausted and hungry and confused. He hadn't imagined the forest being like this at all, had thought it would be more fighting and adventure and less running from shadows in the dark. He was annoyed how apathetic Sasuke was being and how bossy Sakura was being. Sasuke looked at Naruto and glared, too annoyed with his own inner crisis to care about what Naruto was going through. The pit of fear boiling in his stomach was easing, had been since they forest started to light up and the ghost of the snake had stopped haunting them. But it still wasn't fast enough for his liking.
"Come on," he said and helped Sakura. Naruto joined them and, in a moment, the cave was covered and dark.
Each of them settled into a different part of the cave, Naruto toward the back and Sasuke and Sakura on either side. The dark only lasted a moment before the cave was glowing, veins of dull blue light decorating the cave walls.
"They're glow warms," Sakura said, remembering when her father used to take her to see them, in the caves on the other side of the village. For the first time since she entered the forest, Sakura felt a sense of calm come over her – and the pure state of exhaustion too. She was nodding off within minutes of pointing out the glow warms.
Sasuke and Naruto didn't say anything about the glowworms, each of them stewing in their own worries. However, it wasn't long before the warm blue pulse of the worms eased them into sleep themselves, the team split, but not broken – not yet.
Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji eventually stopped running, this time feeling final, like they would finally settle. None of them really said anything, the horror of what they had witnessed running through them. They needed the rest, needed to push what they had seen back to the dark recesses of their mind. They agreed that one of them would take watch while the other two slept, switching off every two hours.
By mid-morning, they were as rested as they expected they would get sleeping on the hard ground and exposed to the forest. They sat beside each other, eating some berries that Chouji had foraged for them. He was the first one to break the silence.
"That Sand ninja was terrifying," Chouji said, feeling the relief of the tension lift. Now they would have to deal with the weight of what they saw, but at least the moment had started.
"I just can't believe he killed them so brutally," Ino said, remembering the scattering of blood, the way he and his teammates just seemed to expect it, knew to grab the umbrellas. With a sick twist in her gut she realized it was because they were used to it, because that guy, Gaara, had done it before.
"He enjoyed it," Shikamaru said, disbelief in his voice, remembering the dark, hungry look in Gaara's eyes right before his sand crushed those rain ninjas.
"What I don't get is why the other two didn't stop him, they just stood there," Ino said.
"They did stop him though," Shikamaru said, remembering the pleading look on the girl's face when she had convinced Gaara not to come after them. And he knew her name now –Temari. "He knew we were there. He was going to come after us and there was nothing we could've done to stop it if he did. But the other two stopped him."
"I know," Ino said, remembering the sureness that she was going to die in that moment, that it was going to end. The other two had stopped him from that, at least. "But before that, they just stood there."
"Well, they were terrified of him," Chouji said, remembering the open fear on the girl's face, the resigned defeat on the other guy's face.
"He threatened them too, don't forget that," Shikamaru added.
"Yeah, his own siblings," Chouji said, still not wrapping his mind around how callously Gaara had told his teammates he would kill them. Teammates that weren't just teammates either, but his siblings. Chouji shuddered at the thought.
"Yeah," Ino said, seeing the situation with new eyes, imaging if Chouji and Shikamaru had threatened her so easily, "that's messed up."
None of them had siblings, but they felt close enough to each other, felt deep of enough connection that they'd consider each other siblings. And that pure hatred in Gaara's eyes, the way he had looked at the other two with such utter disdain. None of them could ever imagine looking at each other like that.
Shikamaru wondered even more deeply than his other two teammates. He wondered about Temari, about what it had been like for her, to have brothers like hers as her siblings, to have one of them spew hatred at her so easily. Again, he couldn't figure out why he had such worry stirring inside of him for this Sand Village girl, but he couldn't get thoughts of her out of his mind. It was frustrating and too much, just like everything about this challenge was too much, troublesome and annoying. He just wanted it to be done.
But at least they had a scroll, and it would be over soon.
As soon as he thought this, he heard it, a subtle movement in the trees ahead of them. Chouji and Ino heard it too and jumped up, kunais at the ready. There was a careful shuffling in the bushes ahead and three familiar faces walked out, kunais in their hands and tension in their eyes – Kiba, Hinata, and Shino.
Somehow, between the preparation of the trap and the shuffling of the supplies within the bag into their pouches, Shino, Kiba, and Hinata had lost their map. While they had intended to get to the tower as quickly as they could, without the map, it was harder than it looked. The forest was dense, full of trees and outlets of water that all looked alike. Kiba, Shino, and Hinata were tracker ninjas, they knew they should be better than this. But the exhaustion of the long night of set up was getting to them. They needed to rest before they would be useful again.
But then they accidentally stumbled upon some familiar faces. The tension in the air was immediate. Each team frozen, but ready, if the other team attacked.
Hinata didn't want to attack them, these people she somewhat considered friends. And they didn't need to, they had the scrolls they needed. But maybe Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji didn't.
Hinata looked back and forth to her teammates, knew they wouldn't like that she was about to do. But it was the only way to find out. She slowly eased her kunai back into her pouch. Shikamaru tensed as she watched her hands. Hinata's didn't strike him as the member of this team who would attack first, but he had to be prepared. But then she saw what she was pulling out and felt a small bit of relief.
Hinata held out their Heaven and Earth scrolls, each of them firmly in one of her hands.
"Hinata, what are you doing?" Kiba growled, keeping his eyes on Shikamaru, Chouji, and Ino. He didn't trust them, no matter how far they went back in the academy.
Hinata nodded her head at him and turned back to the opposing team, "We already have both scrolls, so we're not here to attack you."
Shikamaru let out a breath and nodded to Ino. She pulled their two scrolls out of her pouch.
"We have ours two," she said, flashing them at Kiba, Hinata, and Shino.
"Then there's no reason of us to fight" Chouji said, his voice hopeful.
Hinata nodded her head and put their scrolls back into her pouch. Just as quickly as the situation became tense, it relaxed. Ino put away the scrolls and her weapons. Shikamaru sighed and sat back down. Chouji gave the others a little lopsided smile. Hinata returned his smile, just as gently. Kiba shook his head but relaxed anyway. Shino appreciated the calculated risk Hinata took.
"So how did you get your scroll? It's barely been a day," Ino asked.
"What," Kiba said, his voice cocky, "You don't think we're good enough to get a scroll so quickly?"
Ino rolled her eyes, suddenly remembering how obnoxious Kiba could be. He was second just behind Naruto, in her opinion anyway.
"No, I was just curious," her voice dripping with sass.
Kiba broke out into a smile and told the story. How they had used Shino's slug knowledge to build a trap and lure another team in. He embellished the story here and there, making it seem like a much more exciting venture than it was. Hinata and Shino let him do it, knew he was best as telling their stories.
"Did you just leave them there to die?" Chouji asked, horrified by the idea that there were slugs in this forest whose slime could kill him.
"We were gonna, but Hinata convinced us otherwise," his voice both teasing and appreciative at the same time.
"There's no need for senseless killing," Hinata said softly.
Shikamaru smirked a little, had forgotten just how sweet Hinata could be. But at the mention of senseless killing, he remembered Gaara, remembered how Temari and the other guy, her other brother, he assumed, said they already had enough scrolls. There was no reason he needed to kill the Rain ninjas, he just wanted to. Ino and Chouji's minds were clouded over with the same thoughts.
"We got our scrolls off a Rain ninja team," Shikamaru said.
"It was pretty easy, actually," Chouji said, remembering that it only took them five minutes or so.
Ino scoffed, "Yeah, easy for both of you because I did all the heavy lifting."
Shikamaru and Chouji chuckled, both knowing Ino would be reminding them of that for a long time.
"But what happened afterward, after we got the scroll, it was a lot scarier," Shikamaru said.
They told the story then, each taking their own turn to describe the way Gaara had killed the Rain ninjas, the way he had enjoyed it, they way his teammates had begged him not to keep doing it. Unlike Kiba's story, there were no embellishments, or no way to make themselves out as heroes, just the honest and dark fear of the situation.
"Woah, that's fucked," Kiba said, after listening to the whole thing.
"The girl was so nice to me, though," Hinata said, her voice soft.
"What?" Shikamaru asked, confused but curious about what Hinata might have to say about Temari.
"It was just for a moment," Hinata said, "While we were picking up supplies for this. She was nice to me then. I guess it just didn't seem like she was the person to stand aside and watch something happen, like you said."
Hinata remembered it, the kindness the girl had shown her in the line. But she had to remember that was just a moment, and moments didn't make people.
"Well, she was scared," Shikamaru said, his voice oddly defensive. He had no idea why he wanted to defend this girl, just that he did.
Ino gave Shikamaru a weird look, "It was scary for all of us."
"It sounds like they've moved on to the tower, though," Shino said, speaking for the first time since the teams converged.
"That was our plan too," Kiba said, "to head to the tower today. But we probably need to rest first. We haven't slept at all."
"You could probably sleep in shifts, that's what we did," Chouji said, wanting to offer advice where he could.
"We lost our map though," Hinata said, heat burning her face, "That's another reason we haven't found the tower yet."
While they spoke, an idea was brewing in Shikamaru's mind. Obviously neither teams wanted to fight each, and because they both had the scrolls needed, there was no reason to. But there was something else too. Seeing familiar faces had put Shikamaru at ease, just a little, erasing some of the horror of what he had seen the night before. He could sense the same thing in his teammates, an ease that they hadn't felt since entering the forest.
"Maybe you could use ours?" Shikamaru said. Everyone looked at him, confused by the proposition.
"We were going to try to head to the tower today too. And who knows, maybe the Sand Ninjas weren't the scariest thing in the forest. The more people we have working together, the better, I think," he explained.
Hinata felt a warm rush push through her, "I think that would be nice, we can watch each other's backs."
Kiba and Shino didn't agree as heartily as Hinata, but it made sense to them. They nodded at Shikamaru. Ino and Chouji felt the same, that if Shikamaru thought it was a good idea, they did too.
"Oh, what a sweet sentiment," a voice said, deep and teasing.
All six of them looked up, at the hulking ninja who had somehow snuck up on them, two of his teammates, just as big and terrifying looking, flanking his sides. All of them wore Stone Village headbands and were decked out with weapons and eager grins.
Team 10 and Team 8 looked at each other, each of them clutching their kunai and getting ready to put that proposed team-up to work.
Kabuto was annoyed, though he was quite good at not showing it. Frankly, he wished more thought had been put into the choice, more observation and tests. Wasn't that the point of his little introduction, the little show so they would trust him, so they wouldn't think he was associated with the Sound Village in anyway?
All nine of them had potential, Kabuto knew the stats. He was the one who did the research, who built their profiles, who created a worthy crop of candidates for his boss – the 16th generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho formation whose intuition at working together was better than any of the generations that came before them, the heir to the Hyuga clan, who had some hidden strengths despite her clan rejecting her. The only son of the current generation of the Inuzuka clan. A member of the Aburame clan whose logic and cunning matched Kabuto's own. A kunoichi with one the highest IQs of any current genin. The last remaining member of the Uchiha clan. The boy who hid the nine-tailed fox inside of him. Of course, his boss had told him that Naruto Uzumaki was already out of consideration from the start, too many people would be crossed if they attempted to take the beast.
After Kabuto had met them and laid out their circumstance, the plan was to spend the five days watching and observing, to make an informed decision at the end. But his boss was jumping the gun, and even though he didn't know who was chosen yet, he had his suspicions. After all, Orichimaru really liked his rare treasures.
Somewhere across the arena, the three Sound ninjas had just defeated another team. These they left injured and defenseless, easily bagging their scroll while leaving their bruised and broken bodies behind.
"Do you think we've done enough yet?" Kin, the girl of the team asked. Her pack was heavy with all their scrolls – two Earth scrolls and now, two Heaven scrolls.
Zaku shrugged his shoulders, "Our orders were to have fun and whittle down the competition, I'd say we're accomplishing that. Though I'd wish we knew the next steps already. That meeting was bullshit this morning."
"Don't you dare question him," Dosu said angrily.
Zaku put his hands up, his expression mocking and voice sarcastic, "I would never mock our fearless leader, he who is so wise and powerful."
There was a sudden rush in the air and Zaku was slammed into the tree behind him, as if an invisible force had shoved him. Dosu glared at him as Zaku recovered.
"You fucker," Zaku said, his voice tense. He stood up and looked ready for a fight.
"Boys," Kin said, the casualness in her voice indicating just how often this happened, "Is this really worth fighting about?"
Zaku let out a sigh. Kin of was right. He was tired and knew, even though he didn't want to admit it, that picking a fight with Dosu would only get him hurt.
Dosu, on the other hand, looked at both of them seriously, "It will always be worth fighting about. Orichimaru saved all of us. He gave us new life and meaning and a mission. We're to follow it no matter how trivial you think it is."
He turned then and dove into the forest, the weight of his words sinking into his two teammates, remembering the times they had been young and scared and lost and alone. Orichimaru had been their savior. Dosu was right. They would do whatever was needed to make his mission successful.
Back in the village, the Sand Siblings were returning to their rooms. They were instructed to rest until the end of the second portion of the exam – on advantage of finishing early.
When they reached the tower, they opened their scrolls and in a puff of smoke, there was Baki, staring coldly at them.
"You weren't supposed to finish yet," he said, his voice sharp.
Gaara shot him a glare that made him fumble a little bit, but he held his ground.
"Yeah well, we got tired and had already accomplished the mission, twice over, so…" Kankuro said with a shrug.
"We have allies who were expecting us to stay in the whole time," Baki said tensely, his voice dropping to a low whisper.
"That's Rasa's priority, not ours," Temari said, glaring at him, "Besides, we're not really needed until the final rounds, right?"
Baki opened his mouth to say something but closed it. She was right. The plan didn't involve them until the end, when it all came together. But still, showing up for their allies was expected even if they were not yet deployed within the plans.
"Are you going to move out of our way?" Gaara said darkly.
It startled Baki and he moved, making way for the Sand Siblings to leave, to spend a few days resting while everyone else still fought. Gaara spent the days wondering the Leaf Village, something inside of him sick with a curious fascination, about the bright, merry place this was – about how they could crush it. Kankuro slept, restless sleep, filled with nightmares of bloody rain and Gaara crushing him. He woke up in a cold sweat again and again, wishing for different siblings.
Temari walked to one of the darker corners of the Leaf Village, where the buildings were run down and old, where the people look tired and haggard, where it lacked all the brightness and shine of the other parts of the village. This was her only chance, and she had to take it.
The herbalist was exactly where she said she would be, crouched in the corner of a dark alley. Money and words were exchanged quickly, a crushed brown bag in Temari's hands.
She reached in, pulled out the vial, the bloodred liquid inside sticky and thick.
"Be careful girl, I've warned you of what it can do," the old woman said.
"I know," Temari said as a bright smile lit up her whole face and happiness bubbled inside of her. The first hint of genuine hope she had felt in years.
Two more days passed, so quickly that everyone left in the forest hardly noticed.
Team 8 and Team 10 found out they could work together well, even if in very different styles. The team that attacked them was defeated in minutes and so was another team, that came after them. They tried to make their way to the tower, but things kept cropping up. Another team blocking their path, a fearsome creature emerging from the dark and chasing them to the farthest reaches away from the tower, and a brief hour-long stint of sickness from some ill-foraged plants. It was if some force were keeping them in, blocking their passageway to the tower. As if Fate had other plans for them.
Just as they found their path blocked for the tower so did Neji and TenTen. Despite his enhanced vision, it took them a whole other day before they found another team. Despite an easy fight, it was worthless. The other team's scroll had been stolen already, and there was nothing they could give them. Meanwhile, Lee ran into the same luck. He couldn't find another team, but he did find a few more hidden creatures, great beasts that he saved some more innocent animals from.
Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto rested, but by the second night, they were still out of sorts – as if the dark visions of the snake on their first night had thrown their dynamic out of balance indefinitely. Naruto stayed grumpy, could not shake this boiling feeling of anger and resentment inside of him. Sasuke was not frightened anymore, but he felt a hurried sense of unease, a horrid feeling that something dark would happen at any second. And Sakura felt torn, between wanting to survive, between wanting to take care of her teammates, to want for this all to be over. They stumbled over each other and through the lines that Fate had arranged for them, the restless path of the next few days leading them to what would come next.
Everyone was hiding, had learned, through the first night and day, that this forest was full of more nightmares and death they could imagine. If the first night was an all-out battle, a fierce marker of what they could do to each other, the following days were a mark of how quickly they learned survival is often synonymous with invisibility, with quiet, with not starting any action. But this silence was fleeting, the quiet stitches of Fate and Chance and the other forces weaving together a tapestry that would bring them so much more.
Take a breath, the real fight is about to begin.