Disclaimer: All Characters are the property of their respective creators and anyone who owns the rights of usage (i.e., many people who are not, in point of fact, me). I don't claim any rights to them, and i'm not making any money here, so please don't sue me ^_^;...
~Eimii
"...Kabuto, you mentioned that the Leaf, Sand, Rain, Grass, Waterfall, and Sound had candidates here, but where is that girl from?" Tilting his chin casually, Sasuke darted a glance across the room. "The one with a leaf on her forehead protector."
"A leaf?" The white-haired gennin cracked a wry smirk as he turned to look, though he seemed slightly distracted. "Why Uchiha-kun, don't you know the symbol of your own village?"
Snorting, Sasuke quirked the corners of his mouth downward. "It's different, I've never seen it before. The redhead; she's been looking this way for a while."
"You don't say?" Kabuto's voice was amused as his gaze passed over Naruto and Sakura; the loud blonde boy had earned them the attention of the entire room, and Sakura was showing him how much she appreciated it with a big hug that just happened to look like a headlock.
The smile on his face faded, however, when his eyes found the girl that Sasuke was talking about. She was easy to spot; her hair was indeed quite red, but more importantly, Kabuto didn't recognize the village mark on her forehead protector either. She was walking their way now, practically oozing confidence with every haughty step.
"Would you mind repeating that, little boy?" The redhead demanded, hands on her hips as she glared down at the struggling, orange-clad gennin.
Finally shaking Sakura off, Naruto stomped up to the girl, immediately deciding that he didn't like her tone one bit. It was a little awkward, as he was several inches shorter than her, but he glared defiantly into the challenging blue eyes of the smirking devil. "I said that I, Uzumaki Naruto, won't lose to any of you bastards! And that includes crazy girls who don't hear so well!"
Despite the fact that he was shouting right into her face, the redhead didn't flinch. "Oh, I heard you right the first time, I was just wondering if you were really stupid enough to say it again," she replied, turning and flipping her hair, incidentally catching Naruto in the face with it before she took a few steps away.
Oh, he's just that kind of idiot, Sakura mused ruefully, as the animosity directed their way increased another notch. But now she too was curious, and since the girl wasn't taking an aggressive stance, the others seemed ready to wait and see what she did. "So what does it matter to you what the idiot says? What village are you from, anyhow?"
Now it was Sakura's turn to be sized up, and she suddenly felt rather self-conscious. The other girl was probably a few years older than they were, and she had a much nicer figure than Sakura could lay claim to. Someday, dammit... Hey, don't look at me like that, bitch! Standing a little taller but not giving voice to the insults roaring in her ears, Sakura returned the girl's incredulous look with one of her own.
"Humph, fine. Since you kids don't seem smart enough to know when you're getting way out of your league, I'll say this just once!" Leaping to the top of a nearby table, the redhead posed almost exactly like Naruto had, though if anything she seemed even more arrogant. "I am The Great Genius Ninja Souryuu Asuka Langely, from the Village of the Hidden Angel, and if any of you losers can't remember those names by the time this test is over, it'll be because you died before you got the chance to be defeated by me personally!"
"... One of yours?" Raising his one uncovered eyebrow, Kakashi regarded the dark haired woman standing on the other side of the examination room doorway. Her head guard bore the odd insignia of the Village of the Hidden Angel, and she was clad in a crisp, gold-trimmed black uniform jacket and a matching skirt; probably full dress regalia in her country. She was about his age and, if she wasn't using any disguise jutsu, quite beautiful.
Not bothering to hide the chagrinned expression on her face, the foreign kunoichi crossed her arms and gave him a once-over. She appeared pleased by what she saw, but unimpressed. "I wouldn't wish her on anyone else..." she drawled, sarcasm and affection mixing freely in her voice. Turning to the door again, she gave him her own sideways, one-eyed glance. "I don't know about your boy, but Asuka isn't one to back down. They'll break it up before it gets ugly, right?"
Oho, Kakashi thought, sharp as well... or well informed. They hadn't exchanged more than nods earlier, and he didn't think he'd reacted outwardly to Naruto's proclamation, but she'd pegged him all the same. The corner of the leaf ninja's good eye crinkled with humor at being found out. "As a rule, no fighting is permitted unless it's part of the exam. The examiners will step in, if they need to."
"I see..." The woman lowered her head thoughtfully, again not bothering to hide the trace of worry that crept into her face. Kakashi thought it was kind of refreshing, actually. Foreign ninja tended to be so guarded when they came to the Village of the Hidden Leaf. Whether out of an attept to hide their insecurity in the face of the Leaf's prosperity, or for some darker purpose, they wore their insincerity on their sleeves.
"The examiners do their job," he offered, from one soldier to another. "The applicants that get in trouble are the ones that don't belong here." If she was offended by his blunt manner, she didn't show it. Still, Kakashi didn't feel like making a bad impression on the attractive newcomer. "We don't need to stay here. There's a waiting room, or you could just sit with us locals I suppose; nothing much to do until the exam's over..." Completely blase once again, he paused as if he'd forgotten something. "Oh, Hatake Kakashi, by the way."
"Katsuragi Misato," she replied with as little ceremony, and suddenly Kakashi felt as though the brunette looked a bit out of sorts in her pressed, formal uniform. Relaxing subtly in countless small ways, she released an almost-sigh and turned away from the door. "A drink would be nice, I think. Lead on..."
Switching the scene displayed on his viewing sphere to the preparations going on at the Forest of Death, the third Hokage observed the skilled, careful motions of his subordinates with only half a mind. 'Village of the Hidden Angel,' eh? A frown creased his age and weather-worn face. Already so many things to be preoccupied with this exam period, and another just had to crop up. Two new villages in as many months. This does not bode well...
His gaze strayed to the small stack of scrolls sitting neatly at one end of his desk; intelligence reports. He'd read each of them several times already, and had thus far found precious little to assuage his feeling of unease. Two villages without countries. Two handfuls of wild cards in that Kabuto boy's deck.
The Village of the Hidden Sound had appeared first, two months earlier, and still not much was known about them. They were close by, established within the borders of neighboring of country but as yet unaffiliated with the rulers of that small, impoverished land. He'd met their representatives only once, when they'd applied for membership in the regional alliance.
That had been a superficially polite meeting, though he could see from the start that there would be little love lost between the two villages. The Sound were ruthless opportunists, and they had some agenda they intended to further by coming here, though it was unclear what their goal was. They guarded their hand closely, and even the Leaf's special espionage squads had been unable penetrate the Village of the Hidden Sound. None had been captured yet, but further action could prove costly.
The Village of the Hidden Angel seemed less of an immediate threat, but even more of an enigma. Shinobi claiming to be from that village had appeared in the Wave Country a month ago, wooing the guard duty contract on the Great Naruto Bridge away from the Leaf. Investigations conducted by the Leaf ninja that had been replaced led to another island in that very same southeastern archipelago. This island didn't appear on any maps anywhere, even in the Wave Country; it was as if it had simply risen out of the sea. It was apparently called Tokyo-3, though intelligence indicated that citizens seemed to use that name interchangeably for both the island and the city built upon it.
Perhaps that wasn't surprising. The city was the island, or very nearly so. Even 'city' felt inadequate to describe the sprawling metropolis that had sprung up there seemingly overnight. Guarded on all sides by a ring of mountains that kept out the sea, the entire island of Tokyo-3 was dominated by a single, great urban jungle, more complex and fantastic in scale than anything he'd ever imagined possible.
He hadn't been able to believe the drawings when he'd first seen them. There had to be more miles of paved roads in Tokyo-3 than in the whole of the Fire Country combined, woven in a complex grid of buildings, some that they could identify, most of which puzzled them still, culminating in a grand, gleaming citadel at the center of the city. Square pillars of stone, metal and glass clawed at the sky as if in defiance of Heaven. Such structures shouldn't have been possible, yet the agents they'd sent claimed to have climbed them.
In light of its sheer size, the city's population seemed almost absurdly tiny. Agents had estimated that no more than 200,000 people lived there, which would make it easily the greatest city in existence, but Tokyo-3 looked as though it had been built to house ten times that number. Entire sections of the city lay fallow, waiting to be put to use. Perhaps an indicator as to why this was so, other sections were under heavy repair, showing the scars of some unknown cataclysm. City blocks larger than the Village of the Hidden Leaf appeared to have been devastated and abandoned.
Gathering intelligence on the city of Tokyo-3 was relatively easy; the place was so huge that ten thousand ninja wouldn't have been able to effectively patrol it. Information regarding the 'Village of the Hidden Angel' had been more difficult to come by, however. None of the citizenry ever spoke of it, and the name appeared in no publication that they'd seen, even though the village had to be somewhere within city limits.
The symbol for it did appear in a few places, but in association with some semi-governmental organization known as 'NERV,' leading them to believe that the two were one in the same. This theory became even more credible when they tried to locate NERV's offices. They were apparently in someplace called the 'geofront,' but all entrances to this area showed the city for what it was: a fortress. Claustrophobic, easily guarded corridors led to entrances with complex electronic security, patrolled by highly trained shinobi in large numbers.
Fearing for the safety of their mission, the Leaf's ninja had not attempted to investigate further. On this occasion however, they were unlucky; they'd been intercepted on their way out of the city. Rather than being detained, however, their pictures and notes had been confiscated and replaced by an official missive from 'Commander Fuyutsuki Kozo' of the 'Village of the Hidden Angel.'
It was another petition for entrance into the regional alliance, and while the Hokage could appreciate how cordially and diplomatically the situation had been handled, he'd still felt great trepidation in accepting. The sudden appearance of Tokyo-3 was a truly disquieting mystery. Moreover, the Commander had been rather insistent that they be allowed to show their good faith by participating in Chuunin Exam, but there hadn't been time for either village to arrange a formal delegation.
In the end, both applications had been accepted. A single gennin team and jounin instructor had arrived from each village, quietly and without incident in both cases. He hadn't been expecting problems this early anyway; if anything was going to happen, it would happen during the exam itself. Taking a long draw from his pipe to ease his nerves a bit, the third Hokage returned his attention to the examination room, where things were finally getting under way.
I can't answer any of these...
Taking one more look just to make sure, Shinji sighed and slumped to rest his chin on the heel of his hand. Well, so much for that, he mused, his lips turning up at the corners in a small, relieved smile. He began idly twirling his pencil over his thumb as the tension he'd been feeling practically melted away. The revelation that he could fail this assignment without any terrible mortal repercussions was a novel and entirely agreeable sensation, the Third decided.
They'd just been ordered to take the exam, after all. It hadn't been required that they pass it. And if they failed out in this unexpected written section, then they wouldn't have to deal with the fighting that he feared would play a major part later. Asuka would be angry he supposed, after all that bluster in the beginning, but considering how poor she was at kanji, Shinji wondered if even the 'genius' Second Child would be able to answer these questions.
Being struck by a fit of morbid curiosity, he tilted his head to glance in her direction. Asuka was peering right back at him, her blue eyes piercing and her brow furrowed with impatience. She held his gaze for just the barest moment, her pencil spinning in perfect unison with his own, and suddenly he felt a jolt, as if he had just snapped awake from a light sleep. Uh-oh. Breaking eye contact quickly, Shinji hunched over to his test paper as his arm began moving of its own accord.
Across the room, Asuka's hand moved in sync as she began to write. 'Alright, Third Child, lets go over these from the top. These people use too many stupid kanji.'
Looking at the note that his hand had written in the margin of his exam, Shinji frowned and wrote below it, 'Asuka, that's cheating. What if we get caught?' Not that it mattered to him if they failed, but Shinji was somewhat proud to say that he'd never once cheated on a test, and he didn't feel like breaking that streak over something he cared so little about.
'We won't get caught!' the redhead scribbled back angrily. 'Besides, it's so obvious that this exam is set up so that we have to cheat to pass. Don't tell me you didn't realize that, baka-Shinji?'
He hadn't really considered that option, but now that he though of how hard the questions were, and how the rules were set up, it made a lot of sense. Logically, getting caught cheating should mean automatic failure, but here they'd let it slide up to four times, assuming you cheated well enough to find the right answers to all of the first nine questions. So that was the trick of it, then; cheating well, like 'proud ninja.'
While he'd been considering this, Asuka had continued writing. 'I guess I shouldn't have expected so much. It's just fortunate for you and Wondergirl that you have such an intelligent and perceptive individual as myself to do your thinking for you. Now then, stop wasting time and start translating the first question into English...'
Twenty minutes later they'd managed to figure out five of the questions between them, and it didn't appear that they'd been caught. 'Alright, that's probably enough; go hook up with Wondergirl and make sure she gets them,' Asuka commanded, not bothering to explain how he was supposed to contact Rei, considering that the blue-haired girl was three rows behind them.
Asuka would definitely kill him later if he didn't try, though. As the redhead broke the link, he began going over his options. Hmm, it's too hard to synchronize without eye contact unless she knows I'm trying. But how to get her attention? Hand signals? No, too obvious. Maybe I could take off my head protector and put it on backwards, or something. A sigh of resignation escaped his lips. This would be a lot easier if we'd planned something out in advance...
Then the decision was almost taken out of his hands. Shinji nearly died of a heart attack when the examinee next to him became the first to be sacked. The young pilot-cum-ninja felt his heart leap into his throat as a kunai imbedded itself in the table just a few feet away, and for a moment he was just as stunned as the boy the examiners had made an example of.
As his eyes traced the gleaming edge of the blade, however, he was suddenly struck by feeling halfway between inspiration and horror. Oh... I guess I could do that, he mused despondently, as a plan of action formed. He'd come to dread these chilling epiphanies. Unlike Asuka, he almost never liked the nasty things he found hiding in the dark recesses of his subconscious.
It didn't help that a lot of the ninja tricks he knew seemed to be genjutsu, and thus on the sneaky, underhanded side. Asuka gave him hell every time he remembered one of them, teasing him about how 'Shinji the Hero' was becoming so 'unheroic.' It never stopped her from calling for his backup when it made her look good in exercises, though.
Apparently her 'trust' had not been misplaced; this had to be one of the most disturbing techniques he'd remembered yet, but it would get the job done if it worked. Putting his hand under the table as the shell-shocked boy to the right of him stood, Shinji placed the edge of his thumbnail against the pad of his index finger. Channeling a tiny bit of chakra into his fingers, he slid them against each other quickly, as if he were snapping or lighting a match.
Unnoticed, a few droplets of claret splattered on the other teen's pant-leg just before he turned to leave. Shinji winced from the sting of the cut he'd just given himself, but quickly placed his hands together and began a series of seals. Doukishiki ninpou: ketsumu no jutsu! His hands were smeared crimson by the end, but the blood evaporated into a red mist that dissipated quickly when he released his chakra. The stains on the boy's pants faded as well. Please remember, Ayanami; I don't want to force this...
Staring at her blank paper, Rei diligently analyzed the cipher sequence in the first problem again. More than the other questions, it was primarily a logic exercise, and therefore the easiest one to solve using refinement of theory through repetition... theoretically. This was her third look at the problem and success continued to elude her, leading her to believe that the key to the cipher was a long string, possibly with embedded instructions.
In order for the question to be fair then, the key would have to be based on some predictable, replicable leap in reasoning. Leaps in reasoning were not her strong point, however. Reaching another dead end, the First Child released small sigh and began working on the second problem again. It did not appear that she would pass the exam. She was not uncomfortable with that prospect, but failure would be counterproductive to their stated mission objectives of getting exposure and observing the natives.
This made failure the least acceptable scenario, so maximizing her chances of success became her primary objective. The exact chance of success was still difficult to determine, however, as both the cutoff score and the final question had yet to be announced. Briefly, her thoughts turned to her fellow pilots. Success or failure of a team in this exercise hinged upon each member of the team passing individually, and she wondered how the Second and Third Children were faring.
The Second had statistically the highest change of answering at least one of the questions correctly. Her college education had translated into a verifiably deeper knowledge of subjects pertinent to their new environment, though the Second's knowledge was also markedly less accessible than her own.
Ikari, on the other hand, had the lowest chance of success in her assessment. He displayed an intuitive understanding of basic principles that surpassed either of theirs, but his will to delve that intuition was lacking. It would also avail him little if he could not support it with the correct information. All of the questions depended on situational knowledge to some extent.
As the first group of failures trudged down the aisle, barely acknowledged by the albino girl, a familiar scent tickled her nose in their passing. Blood, she noted immediately, except that wasn't quite right; the differences made it seem even more striking. It had the unmistakable tang of LCL, something that she should not have sensed here, and moreover...
It smells like Ikari.
Blinking, she looked up from her paper to find the Third Child. He sat across from her on a bench, bathed in the yellow light of sunset as the vista of Tokyo-3 sped by in the window behind him. He was wearing his school uniform again, rather than the modified black plugsuit and utility vest that they'd each been issued for their mission.
Glancing down, Rei found that she too was wearing her school uniform. A small dog was sitting on the bench next to her, looking as confused as she felt. Turning again to her fellow pilot, she gave him a quizzical stare. "Ikari, why are we on the train?"
The boy before her looked a bit sheepish then, breaking eye contact before answering. "Um... we're not. I'm using a jutsu on you to show you this."
Looking around more critically this time, the red-eyed girl recalled what she'd been thinking about just before she'd arrived. "A sense-triggered genjutsu. You have not used this technique before. You should report to Doctor Akagi after the exam."
"Ah, yeah..." Shinji seemed a little thrown by her frank statement. "About the exam-"
"Does time pass here?"
"Eh? I'm not sure."
"Then we should return quickly," Rei concluded. "Our primary concern at the moment is the exam." Her tone was firm and decided, but not demanding. Pilot Ikari was designated as the ranking gennin on their team; the mission took precedence, but he was her superior officer in the Major's absence.
With a sigh, Shinji looked her in the eye again, and his face hardened into a flat mask of resignation. "Ayanami, Asuka thinks this part of the exam is designed to test how effectively we can cheat. I'm here to give you the answers we've gotten so far."
Rei peered at him measuringly for a moment. "This is Pilot Souryuu's assessment?"
"Yes."
"And you concur?"
"...I do," he nodded slowly.
"Then we should begin immediately," she agreed, returning the nod.
"Alright, but first-" Standing, Shinji looked down at the dog. It backed away, growling a warning. "Let's see what I can do about this little guy." He reached out his hand, careful to keep it out of striking range, then released a sigh of relief. "Whew; I think I can make him forget."
"You should exercise greater caution when performing unfamiliar jutsu in the future," Rei observed clinically.
"Yeah," Shinji agreed, looking a little embarrassed as he made the dog vanish. "At least I didn't catch one of the examiners or something..."
"-Psst, Akamaru!" Not getting any response from his partner, Kiba glanced around to see if anyone was looking his way. Reaching into his sleeve, he pulled out a phial of pungent smelling salts, uncapping it for just a moment behind his cupped palm. Crinkling his nose, he wafted a whiff of the vapors up to the puppy perched on his head. "Akamaru!" he whispered again, urgently.
He got a response this time, as the dog snuffled and shook awake, covering his nose with his paws. Akamaru yipped a confused complaint.
"Hey, you had me worried there for a sec; what happened?" A hesitant series of grunts and growls followed. "Blood?" Frowning, Kiba looked around suspiciously. "Well, try not to get distracted anymore. We need to try and get a few more answers. Ready? Okay, number four this time..."
What is that baka doing? Ignoring the antics of the boy and his dog behind her, Asuka peered sharply at Shinji out of the corner of her eye. The Third Child had gone back to sitting low in his seat with his head in his hand. He'd just been staring into space for the last minute or so, twirling his pencil inanely.
She was about to try and synchronize with him again when the pencil stopped spinning over his thumb. Catching it in his fist, he met her searching gaze with an affirming one of his own. Done already? You better not have screwed up, baka-Shinji.
Despite these thoughts, she felt herself breathing a little easier. Now that they each had at least five answers, she could concentrate on trying to find the answers to the other questions. Looking away from Shinji, she scanned the room for likely targets. I will be a chuunin, even if I have to drag those two along every step of the way...