Occasionally I caught glimpses of some of the other ninjas in the village. It was amazing to see that so many of them were just children. Between twelve year's old and about fifteen, certainly no older than Ed and Al were before… I left. It had amazed me that, at twelve, Ed had made the decision to join the military despite the fact that, should a war come up, he would have to fight. And war was never an unlikely thing. I suppose it wasn't quite the same here, because these children were raised in this lifestyle, but as an outsider the idea still amazed me. I had joined the army at 19 after my mother was done schooling me and I'd run out of books in my father's study. There were no public schools in Central, so kids had to rely on their families to educate them, or try to educate themselves. I'd always been attracted to the military way of life, not only because it was my father's way of life but because it was the only path I could take to deal in intelligence. As a kid growing up I'd wanted to be a spy, and given the chance, who could pass up something that was like their childhood dream? Even if in reality the dream included a lot more paperwork and less sneaking around in dangerous places than childhood fantasies took into account. These kids here though, they skipped the step in between. There was no dreaming of being something else when you grew up… you just were. It was a hard concept to grasp.
For the most part I was removed from the exams. I was left to study on my own when Sarutobi had to leave to oversee anything having to do with them, and I could tell that something was starting to bother him more. Something about the way some of the visitors in the village were moving about seemed to show that something was being planned, and I could tell this was bothering Sarutobi too. It was hard for me to find anything else out however, being as hidden from the rest of the village as I was. The first week of the trials passed without event though, and those that were not eliminated were given a month to train for the next part of the trials - a set of individual battles, judged by the nobles themselves. During this month Sarutobi began to intensify my training, and I knew that something was amiss. He was obviously preparing me for something, and I couldn't help but start to suspect the ninjas from the Sound and Sand of some sort of underhanded planning, and I'm afraid I might have given Hayate the same idea. I thought for a while that they were planning ways to cheat in the trials. The guard in the village was almost always up, and though I had never had occasion to witness an event like this in the village before, I could tell that the vigilance was not natural. People were feeling threatened and acting uncomfortable around each other. Most of the special jounin were often sent out to guard the village and keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. I couldn't help but worry about Hayate when he was sent out, because he was still sick as much as he'd rather not admit it.
And the inevitable happened. I cursed myself for being right when I found out. I'd almost seen it coming, but not soon enough. And I hadn't followed him, wasn't able to do anything to save him. They found him the next morning on the roof. He'd obviously heard too much, and when he went to do something about it, they stopped him. Permanently. It reminded me so much of my own death. I'd only known Hayate for a bit more than a month, but it affected me more than I could have imagined. Despite being a soldier, despite living with people who made fighting their life, no one close to me had ever died. At least, no one as close to me as Hayate had been. I feel like I'm glossing over his death, like I should put more weight to it, but I just don't know how. Even now I hate to talk about it. I can imagine Genma would disappear rather quickly too, if you ever mentioned it to him. It was a greater blow when they asked him to take his place overseeing the exams. It was almost symbolic that he did, but he imagined that someone among the other village leaders, one of those that had been conspiring against the leaf, had had a hand in it. That they were in a way mocking him; spiting him.
Soon after Hayate's death, Sarutobi decided that it was time to initiate me into the Anbu. Things were beginning to change quickly. He said that I wouldn't have to worry about taking the actual chuunin exams, because they were for showing off those in the village that the Lords wanted to see. I was not a part of any famous Konoha clan, and therefore not of any interest to them. We had already decided that I wouldn't be doing any work directly for anyone outside of the village. I was sent out on some basic reconnaissance missions to get comfortable with the work. I'm afraid I might have been a little sloppy at first, letting people see me and making it too obvious that I was searching for something. I hadn't yet learned how to conceal my chakra perfectly, and I was still somewhat in shock over what had happened. Genma spent most of his time in his apartment, and I spent most of mine in Hayate's. I had inherited it, in a way, and decided to make the most of it. Without Hayate, time at Genma's house wasn't quite the same. I still visited, but never stayed for as long as before. Inevitably, the conversation turned to sad nostalgia, and all I could do was to try to comfort Genma the best I could. It wasn't the same though, and we slowly grew apart.
I'm getting ahead of myself, though. So much of this happened at the same time that it's hard to keep it all straight in the form of a story. In the field, I quickly learned how to gather information without being noticed. It was easy for me to fall into the guise of the anonymous spy, combing the woods for any information that would do the village good. If nothing else, it kept my mind off of other things. For the rest of the month I pretty much lost myself entirely in my work. I worked myself constantly, to the point where I was too exhausted to think about anything that had happened in the last two months and my old life existed only in a small corner of my subconscious. I blocked it out of my mind entirely.
My first real mission though, was guarding the final round of the chuunin exams. Though I was originally supposed to continue scouting the outskirts of the village for any movements from the Sand and Sound ninjas we'd observed leaving their villages earlier, Sarutobi decided that he'd like to keep me close-by. He seemed almost superstitious about the final round of the exams, constantly nitpicking and worrying over the smallest details. There were only eight Anbu stationed in the arena. It would seem that there were far too few of us to get anything under control if things went wrong, but unfortunately we couldn't afford to spare any more for guards, and we couldn't make it look like we suspected that things were being planned behind our backs. We all hoped that nothing would go wrong, and if it did that the genin, who were unusually strong that year, would be able to do something to help. If things went wrong, we'd assumed that they would start outside the arena, using the festivities as a distraction to get the best of us.
For the longest time I wondered how Sarutobi didn't notice that the Kazekage – the head of the Wind village – wasn't himself. I was terrified of any ninja that could pull off a genjutsu so thorough that not even the best ninja in our village could detect it. Then, I realized what he had done. Everyone here does it. Sarutobi had trained Orochimaru himself… and we can recognize people by the feel of their chakra. We tend to ignore the presence of familiar chakra, or at least let it fade into the background. The real Kazekage and Orochimaru both fit into that category. If anyone else but his sensei had been the Hokage, I doubt he ever would have been able to get so close. It was a truly evil plan. And when his minions sealed the two of them behind a barrier to fight alone, the only thing my squad could do was watch. I'm sure Sarutobi knew it was coming, and had resigned himself to the fight in many ways long ago. It seemed to go on for months, though in reality it was probably no more than fifteen minutes. All I could do was stand and watch. We were useless, in the end. Battles went on outside in the village, but we stayed watching, almost frozen. There was nothing we could do, but we watched anyway, hoping for some sort of opening so we could bring the battle to an end. In the end, he died nobly. Maybe he planned it that way. He'd always had a quixotic side, and probably wanted to die in a way that would prove to the village that he wasn't weak. Everyone was glad that he had managed to disable the one seen as biggest threat to Konoha, but I still find it hard to believe that he's through with us. Considering his connections, and his ability to convince others to go against us, we are far from out of the woods. I don't doubt that he'll find a way around his inability to use his arms. Heaven forbid they ever discover how to make automail here.
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"I'm sorry; I'm going to have to stop here. This was only a few weeks ago, so the memories are pretty fresh. I can catch you up on the last bits in the morning."
Roy didn't break eye contact with Hughes and just nodded. He was never the type to openly commiserate, but Hughes knew he'd tuck what he'd learned away somewhere deep in his mind for later. He'd been paying attention this time. He always knew when to, somehow. Roy stretched and leaned back on the couch with a sigh, returning to his usual nonchalant façade.
"Wow, it's not even light out yet. It must be what, 2 in the morning? I'm impressed."
"I'll sleep out here on the couch; you can have the bed again. I'll be up early tomorrow, but I'll wait until you're awake to do my errands. You should see the village properly."
"How kind of you." Roy was not quite sarcastic. "But I'll be fine on the couch, I'm not injured anymore."
"No, I insist. Sleep in the real bed. You'll regret asking for the couch once I take the bed back."
"What? You're not going to get me a bed?" Roy pretended to look hurt.
"Not when there's a perfectly good couch."
"But you just said it's not perfectly good…"
"What, do you want to share the bed?"
Roy picked up one of the throw pillows and threw it at Hughes' head. "I'm going to sleep. See you in the morning."
He wandered into the bedroom and threw most of the clothes left on the bed onto the floor. He'd intended to stare at the ceiling and try to sort out the events of the day, but exhaustion soon overtook him. Everything from the last few days blurred together into a strange slideshow of images that weaved it way through is dreams. Outside in the living room Hughes lay on the couch listening to Roy. Once he was certain the other man was asleep, he stretched out on the couch and curled up with the pillow. If life could come up with anything weirder to throw at him, he'd like to see it.