Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters. I do own Kumi, though.

Warning: child abuse and bullying (mostly mentions of it), some dark themes, too much fluffiness sometimes, DRAMA!, unbeta'ed. A real rollercoaster (or, at least, it's supposed to be).

Author's note:

(Quite a few things to say today guys!)

FIRST OF ALL: I'm sorry it took so long to post another chapter, guys. I posted one in All Things: Side Stories, but didn't manage to gather enthusiasm to finish this one. My personal life has been kind of horrible lately - and by kind of I mean much, and by lately I mean the last couple of years, mind you. Life at my house is some fucked up shit and some days I just want to sit down and cry, so, yeah, there are times when the last thing on my mind is writing.

I hope you guys can be patient and bear with me in this aspect. My personal problems are probably the reason all my fanfics have turned into this dark, twisty mess. Oh, well. If you people manage to wait for the next chapter without getting angry with my lateness, I'll be very grateful.

SECOND: Despite how discouraged I've been feeling, I told myself that I would sit down and write a damn chapter because you've been waiting since January (I think?). Yesterday, 19th, was my birthday and I wanted to post a chapter as celebration thingy. Well, I'm late by a day, but the chapter is here. So, Happy birthday to me (kinda)!

FINALLY: I created a poll. It's not related to any of my fanfics, but I needed help naming the main character of a (possible) future fic, so if you guys take one minute to vote on which one you prefer, I'd be grateful.

Thanks for reading this ass long note! Have a good reading!

(Strictly Team One minus teacher chapter. Wow. No fretting Minato, no smirking Shikaku, no loudmouth Kushina. I wonder if you are even going to like it at all. Brownie points for the fight scene, I guess? Eh.)

All Things Are Difficult Before They Are Easy

By Amaryllis D. Namikaze

Chapter XVI:

The Technique

"Whether you have the body, dead is dead."

- Levi, Shingeki no Kyojin

I was not panicking (again).

My team and I were about to enter a training ground scary enough to be called the Forest of Death, but I was absolutely calm. We were ten minutes away from starting the most important test of our life - until then, at least - but there was no one else more tranquil than I was at this moment.

Like I said, I wasn't having a panic attack whatsoever.

"Wow, Kumi-chan is turning blue," Ren said, sounding curious and excited all the same.

Chitarō hit him on the arm, "He's pale, you dunce, not blue."

"That bad, huh? Should we give him a pep talk or something?"

I shook my head at their antics, aware they were doing it for my benefit. In a way, it worked - I could feel my chest rising steadily as I reminded myself of their presence. I wasn't going to enter Genins' worst nightmare alone. We were doing this together.

Ren bent his knees a little to talk to me eye-to-eye, smiling softly at my tensed lips. If anybody else had done this - bending to speak to short, frail Kumi and I wasn't entering the pity zone at all - I'd probably feel slightly irritated. Ren, however, was one of my best friends. He teased me all the time about everything, but would never deliberately mock me.

"Hey," he greeted, as if we hadn't been speaking to each other for a few minutes already.

"Hi," I said back, equally quiet.

"Why are you so nervous? You were in total control a couple of hours ago. You kicked ass," Ren admitted in a chuckle.

Chitarō snorted beside us, his hands deep in his pockets much like his brother did.

I glanced around, trying to think of a reasonable enough answer.

"It's just... When you are in a classroom, with no real danger around us, it's ok to fail. I was modifying a seal and it's one of my best areas, yeah, but that's not why I was calm. I kept thinking, in the back of my mind, that if I failed... Well, you guys would be fine. Disappointed. Sad. But not hurt. Or dead."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Ren gestured with his hands and his exaggerated movements made a little laugh escape its way up my throat. "Who said anything about dying? We're gonna kick ass today. Just like you did all by yourself earlier. Right now," he put his hand on my right shoulder, "You're like Captain Kickass. You're in charge of teaching us how to kick ass."

Chitarō rolled his eyes, "The nice thing about Ren is that you can count on him for synonyms."

Unsurprisingly, my next breath came a little easier. And as Ren and Chitarō started to bicker as usual, I found that my laugh could pass through my lips without being painfully panicked.

The second part of the Chūnin Exam was pretty much like what I remembered from the Naruto series. We had to survive on this huge forest for five days while protecting our responsibility and retrieving the enemy's one. All in all, it sounded reasonable - well, for a ninja exam, I mean.

The only weird, difficult part was what our responsibility entailed. It was a living being. More specifically, a baby rabbit. And let me tell you one thing: when you're the middle of the scariest forest you've ever seen, trying not to die and worry about your teammates dying, the last thing you want to be responsible for is baby. Any type of baby, for that matter.

"He's so cute, though," Ren commented, when Chitarō promptly complained about our new responsibility. Or client. Who knew.

"Dude, the gates opened five minutes ago and we officially have to make sure this... bunny doesn't die," Chitarō sounded exasperated. "And we'll have to kill another team's rabbit. It is way too troublesome."

I had to agree with Chita on that. Rabbits weren't my most beloved thing in the world. I loved all kinds of felines and some birds. Rabbits were above arachnids on my favorite animals list, but everything was above arachnids. However this didn't mean that I wanted to kill any rabbits. Even better, I didn't want to kill a living being simply because of test. But any seasoned ninja would say that killing was an essential part of being a shinobi and one should not hesitate, blah, blah, blah.

I wasn't ready to kill. Period. I knew how it felt to die. The feeling of laying on the ground, half dazed, half in pain, drunkenly wondering what had just happened. And the fact that I even remembered feeling somewhat glad for these feelings didn't make it better, because I liked my life now and didn't feel like dying anymore.

"Kumi?" Chitarō called me and I turned my head in his direction. "Can you expand your chakra field as we travel? Ten meters in front of us and five behind should be enough."

I nodded in agreement. Sakumo-sensei had advised me a few months before about training my sensing ability. Many shinobi had it, but most stopped practicing it when they entered their comfort zone. I followed his advice and trained with Minato once or twice a week.

In a way, Minato and I should never be able to train sensor abilities together. My older brother was stuck in a problem where he couldn't sense anyone who wasn't touching the ground - hopping from tree to tree, or even just staying still on a higher place, was the same as not being there. I could, on the other hand, sense anyone in my field, which was significantly smaller than Minato's entire ground area.

I let the - pretty metaphoric - chakra cloak around myself disperse, snaking its way around thick branches and dark leaves, making me acutely aware of everything close. There were more birds on the trees than I thought, as they were surprisingly silent for such melodic animal. One feline to our right and a... hare? four meteres behind us.

"Clear for now," I murmured, focusing on the feel of my field. Unlike my quite poor stamina, my concentration paired well enough with my good chakra control. I could maintain my energy field up for a little under an hour, before tiredness started to seep into my bones.

Ren and Chitarō exchanged a look, before glancing around the clearing we were. The tower would be easy enough to find - Ren could mind transfer into a bird and get us an upper view. The problem would be encountering a team with an alive bunny.

I observed our own baby rabbit on Ren's arms. He was unexpectedly calm with us, not finding the scenery strange or anything. Maybe the proctors had been kind enough to doze them with tranquilizers (and I didn't really believe in such a kindness). My blond friend was the one holding it mainly due to Chitarō's speacialty. I was too busy focusing on my chakra field to hold our responsibility while hopping from branch to branch, not to mention that should a fighting situation arise, I'd need both my hands to make hand-seals. Chitarō would also be too busy engaging our enemies with his katana. As Ren was our Genjutsu (which utilized few hand-seals) and long-range weaponry guy, it made utmost sense that the rabbit would stay with him.

Chita stopped his brief observation of our surroundings and bended his knees in preparation for a high jump.

"You guys ready?"

"Yes."

"Yep."

We silently hopped onto a tree branch, somewhat gracefully managing to stay glued with chakra to the wood, and started the second part of our exam.

If only our responsibilities were scrolls.

The first day was boring - and this coming from the person who mostly despised meaningless fights. We conserved our energy, resting when necessary and not abusing of my sensing abilities, but there had been nothing to be worried about.

We stopped to rest when a hollowed tree came into our vision. It had foliage in front of it, so it was pretty much a perfect hiding spot. The only disadvantage was the lack of a nearby river, but we'd have to make do with our water canteens.

"Let's rest for six hours," Chitarō said, having already made a general plan of what we'd do while inside this forest. "One of us keeps watch for a couple hours and then can sleep four."

"Well, I don't mind being the first one," Ren promptly said, putting the bunny down between a few rocks. The baby rabbit hopped from its spot some meters, before deciding to sleep. "I'm starving and won't be able to sleep with an empty stomach in the end."

Chitarō rolled his eyes when Ren took his choice of (camp/survival) food out of his pouch.

"Did you seriously bring a package of nattō and one of senbei as a form of nutrition?"

Ren made an offended expression, "Hey, nattō is delicious! And senbei is a good plate-ish spoon."

I let out a small laugh at that. Nattō was one of the most horrible foods in existence - also known as fermented soybeans. Senbei were fine enough, a type of rice crackers good with tea but nothing more. Ren was the only person I knew that was able to put nattō over senbei and not only eat it, but love it.

"It's frankly disgusting," Chitarō mumbled, settling down to rest. I smiled at him, finding it funny. His brother and he absolutely detested nattō. I simply wouldn't choose it in a restaurant or dinner table.

I walked over to Ren, who had decided to sat near the entrance. Fishing a pre-made seal out of my pouch, I gave it to him. My best friend took it without thinking, thanking me.

"It's a sensor seal," I told him by the way of an explanation.

"Like the one you did earlier today?" He questioned. I had briefly said to my teammates what the seal I used in the first part of the exam did.

"More or less. I modified a sensor seal to create an identifying seal." Seeing his frown, I kept going, "An identifying seal that specifically targeted poisons and such. A sensor seal works with chakra and heartbeats, depending on the complexity of the drawing. Apply your chakra in this symbol," I pointed at it, "each ten minutes and you should be ok. The after-effect lasts for awhile."

Ren nodded, "Thanks. Easier than opening my senses, that's for sure."

I smiled.

"I think so too." It had been one of the reasons for training sensing and even taking my time to learn how to draw a sensor seal after all.

I laid down close to the sleeping bunny, just in case he decided to hop off somewhere else. My nerves had been so jumpy today that my brain was overworked. I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.

I woke up milliseconds before a hand reached out to shake my arm. My chakra cloak by now naturally clung to me, alerting me of too close presences. I opened my eyes to find Chitarō smirking at me, as if he could see my tenseness before I had confirmed it was really him.

I hadn't noticed how paranoid Sakumo-sensei's training had made us until now. It was half scary, half impressive.

"It's your turn to keep watch," he said, though I had already concluded this. I nodded, observing his body lazily settle down once again. Despite his obvious lethargy, I could picture his attentive eyes wandering around during his turn to stay awake.

Bunny was still sleeping when I checked before walking to the entrance. Thank God he was still a baby - had it been a grown rabbit, we most likely would have a harder time controlling him.

I took a ration bar out of my pouch, eating it with a grimace. They were nutritive enough to keep a seasoned ninja satiated for an entire day, but tasted like fried nuts smashed together with sand and a tasteless, sticky sauce.

"Can't be worse than Ren's senbei and nattō combination," I told myself, taking another bite.

As a way of conserving my energy, I stuck to the usage of my sensor seal. Once in a while I pushed chakra onto it, checking for our surroundings. I didn't expect enemies close to us as there was no river nearby and most teams wouldn't choose a water-less spot to hide for the night, thus I was rightfully surprised when three heartbeats were caught on my seal.

"Chitarō, Ren," I called in a whisper, throwing a pebble at each of them. My teammates woke up with a start, gathering their things within ten seconds. I gave them enough time to strap their pouches on their hips and we moved out of the hollowed tree.

Our plan - in case we encountered a wandering team close to us - was simple. The person on watch would be the one leading and the other two would fall back in case something was missed. Team formations had been drilled so much into us that as soon as the vanguard entered a position the other two would automatically know the next step. Sakumo-sensei had said that a perfect First Response Team was able to communicate with no words.

I opened my hearing sense to the minimal sound, trusting my chakra field to find the position of the enemy team. I wasn't able to sense their nature affinity with my sensor ability, though I had heard that experience shinobi could, but I knew enough to notice how weak their presence was. Probably weapon or hand-to-hand specialists then.

My mind raced for a plan as soon as I saw them. I had practiced against Shikaku how to think fast on my feet. He said not analyze too much or too little - to plan as I saw it, otherwise I'd just be stuck on what to do like always. I saw two girls with their hands wrapped with bandages and a boy with a chokutō strapped to his back. My body automatically jumped toward the weapon user while Ren and Chitarō followed my silent instruction to deal with the other ones.

As the Ninjutsu specialist of my team with the element of surprise on my side, it made for me to go against the Kenjutsu specialist. My hands blurred into hand-seals before my feet reached the ground under us.

The ashy-blond-haired girl of the other team was the first one to notice us, but it was too late by then. My fingers found their final position and I opened my mouth to release a large gust of air.

"Fūton: Shinkuhā (Vacuum Blast)!"

The three of them were caught on the enormous windy wave that followed, but the boy was the one most injured by the invisible cuts. Ren took advantage of the dark-haired girl's confusion and threw a barrage of shuriken at her. Chitarō ran forward, slashing the blonde with his katana in a wide arc.

I concentrated on the heavily-breathing boy in front of me. I could tell by his bulging, scarred arms that Kenjutsu had been beaten into him, so I took a jump back and prepared for another Ninjutsu attack. Most techniques of the same affinity used similar hand-seals, which made practicing their speed easy. I flew through another set of hand-seals before the boy had even reached me.

"Fūton: Kazekiri no Jutsu (Wind Cutter)," I said, bringing my index fingers together, pointing them at the boy as one would do with an arrow.

The invisible slash was deeper this time, cutting into the enemy's stomach with vengeance. He tumbled back in obvious pain. Wind release was one of the most brutal affinities. It seemed harmless by definition, but was sharp and quick, not to mention discreet. It was easier to avoid a water whip than a wind blast.

I cracked my fingers, trying to get the stiff feeling out of my hands. The Wind Cutter technique released chakra from the tip of my index fingers, always leaving them rigid. Most techniques that conducted chakra from the hands did that, but you got used to it with time.

Ren had already finished with the dark-haired girl and managed to keep her quiet by trapping her in an illusion. I glanced at Chita, finding his body ducking a spinning kick. The ashy-blond was obviously the best in her team, for despite the gash on her shoulder and thigh, she still kept on going without giving up.

I formed the ox seal, followed by the dragon. This technique was one of the easiest ones and not very powerful, so many people avoided using it. I found it useful as an assassination method, though. With my index and middle fingers directed towards the blonde, I quickly made my chakra run as fast as possible through me, releasing it as lightning.

"Raiton: Raiha no Jutsu (Lightning Blades)!" A electric current shot through the very tips of my fingers, snapping towards the unsuspecting girl. I hadn't made my chakra as effective as possible, not aiming to kill her, but it still reached her neck with a crack and instantly made her fall unconscious like a broken puppet whose strings had been cut.

Chitarō turned in my direction, "Thanks. She was annoying with her kick-and-punch katas."

I smiled in agreement. Some Taijutsu specialists could be quite irritating when you were a weapon user. Well, from what I could see - Kenjutsu really wasn't my thing. Really. My weaponry was restricted to kunai and shuriken.

"Found their rabbit," Ren announced cheerfully, taking a scroll out of the dark-haired girl's pouch. She was still staring without seeing, which made me conclude that she was trapped inside the illusion and would be for awhile. Ren wasn't as good as Chitarō in Ken or Taijutsu, nor did he care for Ninjutsu like I did, but he could maintain many Genjutsu techniques with no hand-seals.

I went closer, observing the closed scroll. Ren was right. A storage scroll, I realized by the marking holding it closed. I could make one with a blank scroll, but had decided against it for this exam. Most storage seals could hold objects, food and water perfectly, but few - modified ones - managed to keep living beings well. A corpse, ok, but living, breathing beings? They rarely came out breathing.

"What do we do?" Ren questioned, holding the bunny the scruff.

Chitarō, who had been busy tying a rope around the enemy team to hold them in case they woke up, came closer to us.

"I could chop its head off," he suggested, not sounding disturbed by his own suggestion.

"Leave it to me," I found myself saying, though I was in no hurry to kill anything. It simply seemed cruel to kill it with a weapon. "I'll send a lighting blade through its brain. It'll be quicker."

They nodded, understanding my need for no cruelty. We were ninja, but an emotionless shinobi would only end up dead. Sometimes, feeling scared and desperate was the best way out of a situation.

"Raiton: Raiha no Jutsu (Lightning Blades)," I murmured as if in respect. A snapping sound and the bunny died without struggling. His tiny body merely went limp in Ren's arms and I relaxed.

Definitely an assassination technique, I told myself, cracking my stiff fingers.

"I'll mind transfer to a bird and find the direction of the tower. Take care of my body," Ren told us, sitting down and concentrating.

"It's still night, so we should take advantage of it. Most teams will be resting for now, especially since it's the first to second day. They aren't desperate yet. We'll fine," Chita concluded, mostly talking to himself. He liked to voice his plans like that and I let him.

I put the dead baby rabbit in the storage scroll it was before, relieved with its disappearance. As I gathered our own responsibility from Ren's arms, I almost could imagine not having killed a living being.

It wasn't the first thing killed by my hands. I had been on C-ranked missions outside of Konoha. If we wanted to eat meat instead of horrible ration bars, we had to snap some animal necks. I hadn't, however, murdered a human as of yet. I knew it would be different. Small mammals or birds struggled if they saw us coming or felt pain for a few minutes, yes, but they were inconsequential to our lives in a way. They were born, reproduced and died.

Humans had families. They had relatives who cared about them and memories of happy times. They'd see our faces moments before dying and register it as an assassin's face. Their death would be different, though the action itself would be the same. I would, perhaps, use my lightning blades and send an electric current to their brain. And like broken dolls, they'd never get up again.

I wondered if all of them would feel much like I did when I died. Overwhelmed by the pain, confused by their surrounding with a vague satisfaction for the end. If they would think, just as I did while lying down on my own blood puddle, that their cause of death wasn't all that ugly and their injuries and problems weren't, after all, so bad. I wondered if I was the only sick fuck who thought all that when dying.