Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, the characters, concepts, names and related indicia. They are copyright (c) Masashi Kishimoto. I still don't get the point of those disclaimer things.
Rikou fiddled anxiously with her pencil as the examiner for the first part of the chuunin exam explained what was expected of the group of gennin for the written test. She was zoned out almost completely, vaguely hearing a few word such as 'cheating' and 'begin with ten points,' but they didn't register.
This was her second chuunin exam, her second year as a gennin, possibly one of the best, but the other members on her team were stronger than her, she guessed. In front of her and to the left sat Hikari Ken, in his ever-present white trenchcoat. He was thirteen, like her, and specialized in genjutsu. He had silvery hair that he kept loosely tied back in a ponytail.
In her same row and to her right sat their team leader, and most powerful by far, Unkai Kirema, an elite gennin at the age of fourteen. He wore a light blue trenchcoat with dark blue flames licking up from the bottom edge, and had shocking blue hair. He was strong in every aspect of ninpou, but preferred taijutsu and always carried a pair of nekotes in his trenchcoat pocket, hidden away just in case.
Rikou was the youngest on her team, a few months younger than Ken having been born in November, and was either weaker or equally matched in power with him. To match her team-mates style, she also wore a long black trenchcoat to match her short black hair. Everything about her seemed quiet and dark, her hair, clothing, even her weapons, but some colour was brought into her life by the fact that her eyes were shocking turquiose-green, almost like twin jewels. Together, her, Ken and Kirema made up team two along with their Jounin-sensei, Kanzu.
Her mind sanpped back to reality as the examiner, Ibiki, answere one of the last questions and said "Begin!"
She flipped over her paper, scanning the questions quickly, pausing on the last question, question ten. 'Wait for the examiner to give you the question in fourty-five minutes.' I wonder what that's supposed to mean, she thought, moving back up to question one.
The questions were fairly hard, problem solving, cryptograms, math problems, all at about a jounin level, but Rikou was not stupid. In fact, she was quite smart. Very smart. By the ten minute mark, she was already half-way through the exam.
Her pencil moved quickly across the page as she leaned forwards, hiding her answers from anyone who might be cheating off her paper. After completing question nine, she quickly scanned the page a few times to check for mistakes, before flipping it over, face down on the table.
A few heads turned towards her as she did this, and she looked up at the shocked expressions of some of the closer genning. Looking up at the clack, she saw why. It was only twenty minutes into the test. I suppose that means I'll have to sit around and do nothing for twnty-five minutes then, she thought, placing her hands in her lap and sitting perfectly still.
She watched silently as more and more gennin were rooted out for cheating, some yelling at the examiners or arguing against them. The numbers being removed were slowly growing as the clock reched the thirty-minute mark. One of the boys in front of her looked like he was having a mental breakdown, grabbing his hair and banging his head on the table. She recognized him as Naruto, one of the first-year gennins.
Ten minutes to go, she thought, looking back up at the clock. Looking back towards Ken, she saw him glance back at her and grin, he had finished the test. She looked over to Kirema, who was already leaning back casually with his paper flipped over. Good, she thought, sighing and resting her chin on her arms on top of the table. At least we'll pass the first part this year.
"Times up," called the examiner. "Put down your pencils and get ready for question ten."
There was an overall rusling as gennin either dropped their pencils, or hurried to try to finish a last question. Rikou lifted her head slightly to look up at the examiner, who was standing at the front of the room again.
"Now," began th examiner, " I'm going to warn you beforehand about the tenth question. If you choose not to answer it, you will fail the exam, but you will be able to participate in the next chuunin exam. However, should you choose to answer the question and get it wrong, you wil never be allowed to participate in a chuunin exam ever again. So basically, if you choose to answer and answer incorrectly, you will remain a gennin forever."
Rikou paused, thinking. Can they really do that? I mean, it's just a question... She looked back to the front of the room as another group of gennins left. She looked up at the examiner's face, he was a special jounin in charge of torture and interrogations. Tortue and interrogations... She glanced at him again, her mind working hard as she came to a conclusion. She had briefly been councilled by him after she had been rescued from torture, but had to be taken to a more experienced torture specialist to help her deal with the mental trauma of toture, and she remebered him using something like this to build her confidence. He's bluffing. He must specialize in mental torture and mind games to extract information. That won't work on me, I was stuck in a torture room for an entire year. I've already overcome those types of tricks.
She looked down at Ken, who was looking at Kirema. She glanced over at Kirema, who shrugged at Ken and turned to her, making to raise his hand. She shook her head, making a small hand signal that told him to stop. He stared at her in confusion for a moment, before leaning back casually, not caring. In front of her, Naruto stood slowly, raising his hand. But it wasn't to forfeit, it was to point at the examiner. What is this guy doing? She thought, fiddling with her pencil in silence. Which was broken a few seconds later by the loud blonde.
"I don't care what the consequences are! If I don't do this, then I'll never get to be Hokage! Just hurry up and give us the question!" He yelled at the examiner. Rikou's first thoughts were, he's going to be disqualified and kicked out, but she was mildly suprised when the rest of the gennin that had been about to forfeit lowered their hands, looking up at Naruto.
"If I can't answer this question now, then that means that I don't have it in me to be the best! So just give me the question!"
Geez, this guy is so loud, she thought, putting her pencil back on the desk. Anyone who had thought of leaving before had their spirits raised by the boy's loud speech, and had decided to stay. The examiner smiled, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Well, then..." he said, smiling up at the remaining gennin. "Congradulations on passing the first part of the exam."
There was a moment of stunned silence, before Naruto burst out again. "What? What about the question, huh?"
Ibiki smiled again. "There was no question. Sometimes, a shinobi is forced to make sacrifices, stepping into the unknown in order to fufil a mission. You have to learn to take chances in life, otherwise you'll get nowhere.
"But this test was not only for testing your decision making, but for your information gathering as well. In reality, getting caught while gathering information is not an option. This," Ibiki lifted his hat up slightly, before removing it completely. This is what happens if you get caught. The enemy will torture information out of you."
On his bald scap were several burn marks, scars, and circles where screws had appereently been drivin into his skull after some peiod of torture. That's nothing, thought Rikou. The marks that she bore from years of torure burned across her back, chest, neck and arms at the sight of Ibiki's own scars and she shifted uncomfortably.
"I was fortunate enough to be experienced with torture before I recieved these for being caught. Others are not. Even now, there is one in this room who I know has already experienced a year of torture every day at the age of twelve. She was not so fortunate, but she managed to survive it."
She shifted uncomfortably as she felt the eyes of Ken and Kirema fall upon her when Ibiki described her. Her team mates knew of what had happened, but they had never seen the marks or heard in detail of what had really happened. All they knew was that her last team had been killed and she was captured on what was supposed to have been a C ranked mission, she had been 'questioned' for a year, and then the sand had found her and brought her back to Konoha.
Remembering this caused her to glance in the direction of her rescuer as Ibiki went on about the test. Kankuro had insisted to his team mates that they let him save her before continuing back to the Sand. His brother, who scared her completely, had been in a good mood and said nothing of it, and his sister, Temari, had agreed to help him as long as it didn't take too long.
At the time, she had not been wearing her forehead protector, and so, not knowing which village she had come from since she had passed out, they had brought her back to the Sand to revive her. She eventually remembered her Village, and Kankuro had escorted her back.
Over that period of time, she had become good friends with the Sand-nin, and by now they were fairly close to eachother. He would write to her often, and she was glad he had been selected to participate in this year's exam. She hadn't actually spoken to him for two a year now.
She tore her gaze away from Kankuro as she heard glass shattering and turned her eyes towards one of the windows just as a brown and black blur spun into view, landing gracefully at the front of the room.
A moment later, she saw a jounin kunoichi standing in front of a large black banner that read 'Chuunin Exam: Part 2- Forest of Death!" with three exclaimation marks after it. Before she could figure out what was going on, the kunoichi began speaking.
"What is this? Aren't you done the exam? Why are there so many left?"
Ibiki closed his eyes for a moment before answering. "There were many outstanding ones this time," he said calmly. The second examiner sighed and turned back to the remaining gennin.
"My name is Mitarishi Anko and I am the examiner for the second part of the chuunin exam! Don't worry, by the time I'm done with you, I'll have cut your numbers in half. Follow me!"
There was an overal rustling as the gennin stood. Rikou sat for a moment, allowing the large crowd to dissapate slightly more before standing herself. We don't even get a break between the first and secon parts? That's cruel, she thought, pocketing the pencil. As she slowly stood, she headr a sof jingling. Inside of her trenchcoat, she carried two sickle-shaped weapons called kama's which were attatched to eachother by a length of long chain that she kept wrapped loosely around her body.
"That was easy. I thought the exam was supposed to be difficult," said Ken, falling into step beside her. Kirema joined them, cutting in between her and Ken and taking his usual position in the center.
"Yeah, and did you see that guy's scars? It didn't look like he had a fun time with those," he said as they walked outside and followed the group of gennin towards the Forest of Death. Rikou rubbed her left arm absent-mindedly, all of this talk about torture causing her scars to burn again.
"I wonder what the next part is going to be," she said quietly. The three gennin walked in silence the rest of the way, their trenchcoats blown back slightly in the almost noexistant breeze. The gates of the Forest of Death loomed up before them, their tops lined with barbed wire, making it look like a prison.
Their team was the last to arrive, joining the crowd of gennin at the back. Rikou couln't see or hear anything, being the shortest on her team, and she guessed neither could Ken. Kirema craned his neck in order to look over a particularly tall gennin from the Rain in front of him.
"I can't see a thing," whispered Rikou to Ken, standing on her tip toes, which didn't help in the least.
"Me neither. Hey, Kirema, we can't see, so you'll have to tell us when she's done talking," he said, leaning back against a tree.
"Fine," said Kirema, still shifting to find the best place to view Anko from.
Rikou leaned back against the tree as well, sliding to the ground and moving into a sitting position as she surveyed the other gennin teams.
There were gennin from the Sound, a new country, the Grass, the Rain, and one team from the Sand. She spotted Kanuro off on the other side of the crow and stood.
"I'll be right back," she said quietly to Ken, leaving before he could warn her about anything. She carefully picked her way around the perimeter of the crowd, avoiding touching any of the other gennin in case she might anger them in any way.
As she neared the Sand gennin, she accidently bumped one of the Sounds, and he spun around, glaring at her.
"What the hell is your problem, bitch?" He hissed, pulling out a kunai and grabbing her arm.
But before she could fight back, a black blur came between her and the Sound-nin, forcing him to release her wrist.
"Watch it, asshole," hissed Kankuro. Rikou smiled slightly as the Sound-nin scowled and turned back to the examiner. Kankuro turned around, facing her and smiling slightly, closing his eyes.
"Be careful, these guys don't care if they get into trouble, they'll hurt you just for fun," he said.
"Kankuro! I haven't seen you for so long. So you're here with Temari and Gaara?"
Kankuro shifted slightly, as if he was trying to hide something. "Yeah, unfortunately. I'm glad I can see you again. How's your new team?"
Rikou turned her head back towards where Ken and Kirema were. "They're alright, I guess. I wish I could just stay with you in the Sand though. But I think there's too much sun there, I'd get sick all the time."
The atmosphere of the crowd suddenly changed as talking broke out among the gennin. The examiner had apperently ceased talking and the group began to move to the side. She heard someone call her name, sounding like Kirema.
"I should go," she whispered. Kankuro reached forward and pulled her into a hug, kissing her neck once before she turned and left, waving goodbye.
She made her way against the flow of gennin, managing to avoid touching anyone and making her way back to Kirema. She silently followed them along with the other gennin to the left.
"What are we doing?" she asked Kirema.
"Basically, we have three days to get to the center of the forest. We are going to be givin a scroll, either heaven or earth scroll, and we have to steal to opposite from another group. We can only pass if we make it to the center with both scrolls and all team members."
Rikou turned her green eyes towards him. "'With all team members'?"
Kirema nodded. "There will be deaths in this part of the exam."
"What? Ah..." Rikou let her gaze drop. This would mean pain, the one thing she feared completely. She had a very low pain threshold after being tortured. She was scared, she didn't want to feel that again.
They entered a cloth-covered booth where two jounin sat with sheets of paper in front of them and a pile of scrolls. They gave each of them a piece of paper, and Rikou scanned it. It was a contract that said if she signed, they would not be responsible for death. She swallowed hard and sighed her name at the bottom in her small, neat handwriting, Gekkou Rikou.
A moment later, a scroll was shoved in her face. She took it, reading the outside which read 'Heaven' and placed it on the inside of her black trenchcoat, following the other two out the door and back into the sunlight.
"We're at gate four," stated Kirema, moving to the left, towards their gate. A jounin guard stood at the gate, waiting for them. There was a fifteen-minute waiting period as the teams moved to thier gates, and team two, her team, used it to ready themselves.
Rikou reached inside her trenchcoat and pulled out one of her kama's, pulling hard and letting the long chain slide out with the other kama attatched to that end. She slung it across her shoulders, loosely wrapping it around her arms.
Kirema plunged a hand into either of his pockets, which was followed by a slight jingling before his hand re-emerged, armed with his pair of nekotes glinting in the sun.
Ken reached inside his trenchcoat, untying something before removing a sheathed katana from around his waist. He sluung the straps over his right shoulder, strapping the sword across his back and checking it's condition by momentarily unsheathing it and examining the blade.
A moment later, a faroff whistle blew and the jounin guarding their gate unlocked it, opening the chain-link fence. Rikou hurried in after her two team mates.