chapter 4
Hi hi, sorry for the delay. But here's a double-long Special Chapter: The Exam Begins! First Test!
--Chapter Four--
The thick fog cleared as they reached port on the island that housed the hidden village of Mist. There was no dock; only a sea of poles rising out of the water like the remains of enormous wharf. Some poles were tipped in red paint, others faded blue and green. The examiner tied the boat to the farthest pole, and stepped nimbly onto the pole, balancing on the small surface. With no pause, he leapt from it as securely as a Konoha ninja leaps from branch to branch, charting a zigzag course from poles to clifftop.
"That's just silly," Sakura said into the silence of his wake; then blushed as she felt her teammates' gazes. She hadn't realized she was about to speak out loud. She backpedalled. "It's only that... with an area that small, you need to concentrate chakra in your feet to go across it. Why go to the effort to make a path like that? You may as well anchor the boat and walk across the water."
Asuma was following the Mist jounin with his eyes. "The poles mark out a grid," he said, never turning. "A real Mist ninja will have memorized the pattern. There may only be one safe path."
Ino blanched. "They must not get invaded much," she said.
"Not necessarily." Asuma took a drag on his cigarette. "Hostile jounin might be hit with one of the charges if they didn't know about them, it's true. But no matter; these are well known. They were erected by the village to keep final-year academy students in." He turned, and snorted tobacco smoke. "Sakura, you should know what I'm talking about."
"Y-yes," Sakura managed to say, as Ino and Chouji stared her down. Even Kurenai's team was watching, now. "When we met Zabuza, he told us—the academy students fight for the privilege to become genins, in Hidden Mist. It's a fight to the death."
"They don't let them leave?" Ino shook her head in disgust.
Sakura stared nervously down at the water. The seas seemed to be curdling around the prow of the small boat, eager. Her own reflection leered up at her from the surface.
"I wouldn't leave," Kiba said, and a grin stretched nearly ear to ear. Akamaru barked.
"Me neither!" added Chouji, not to be outdone.
Ino raised her eyebrow at Sakura. "Boys."
"All right, enough. " Asuma jumped nimbly up onto the first pole. "Just follow me. Kurenai, you?" With a flick of his head toward the path.
Kurenai nodded assurance.
"They lay sea mines for their own students?" Ino was still scowling. "What kind of people are these guys? Jeez..."
At the top of the cliff, the mist cleared suddenly, revealing a crowd of thirty genins. Mist, Grass, Sand; even three each from Stone and Rain. All were silent under the examiners' grin; Sakura and the others from Konoha edged toward the rest, keeping a slight distance.
The man with the blind dog eyes grinned as the last of them, Kiba, reached the summit. Kiba was yammering away at Akamaru, but trailed off abruptly at the examiner's grimace. His teeth were pointed, like an animal's.
"Well," he said, as Kiba shuffled into the crowd, "Let's begin."
A hand raised above the crowd.
The examiner's grin faded into a sneer. "Yes?" he said.
"Sir! We haven't registered yet!" Lee piped into the still, damp air.
Sakura slapped a hand to her forehead.
The corners of the examiner's mouth twitched. "Young man," he drawled, "you seem to be under the misapprehension that I care who you are. If you survive the first two tasks, I am sure someone will have apprised me as to your name."
His words hit the crowd like a change in wind; low murmurs began rising from the gathered genin. Sakura gripped her arms about herself. Only the Mist genin—and the three Sands, she noted without surprise—were unmoved.
"See here," Asuma said, raising his voice over the muttering crowd. "This may not be my home, but these children are under my charge..."
"Children?" the examiner interrupted, with a sneer. "You brought children here? Your mistake, Konoha. I'm fairly certain this is intended to be a test for shinobi. Not children."
The Mist genin were beginning to jeer now. Sakura edged closer to Ino, then looked up as she felt warmth against her back. Lee was behind her, thick eyebrows firmly set.
"That was probably a mistake," Chouji commented under his breath.
"Jounin, if you would please come this way?" The blindfolded woman , voice cold as marble, raised an arm, indicating a path through the trees. "We must have a fair examination."
"Konoha had their turn," said the dog-eyed man, unmoving. "It is ours now. You will get your chance again. Perhaps you should have let your children wait, so they could play at chuunin exam in their own sandboxes?"
Asuma dropped his cigarette and ground it into the muck, but said nothing. Kurenai took his arm.
Gai was scowling. "We'll see who the children are, and who's a man," he said. "My Lee will show them what a man is. Right, Lee?"
"Yosh!"
"All right, Gai," Asuma clapped him on the back. "Let Lee show them himself, right? We won't get in the way."
As the jounin left the clearing, Sakura fixed her eyes on the glowing ember of Asuma's cigarette butt, trying not to tremble. Not even on missions had she felt so chilled without hearing what she was to face; and that in the full light of day. Only the examiner remained among the genin, and the grin on his face was more menacing than ever.
"I don't care who you are," he reiterated. "I don't care if you are combat specialists, illusion specialists, assassins, women, even little Konoha children." The corner of his lip twitched. "The dead do not matter to me. And, little genin, you are dead."
Sakura felt Ino stiffen beside her; Lee go into a crouch. Her own senses were wire-sharp. This was not a chuunin exam, then. This was a trap. No wonder her nerves had been screaming at her—no wonder—Asuma and Kurenai! They—
"Dead, until you have passed through the first two examinations. Then you will have earned the right to be alive to me."
Sakura's heart throbbed into life in her chest. Not a trap, then. Just the examiner scaring them. No need to tremble as she was. Asuma's cigarette butt had gone out.
The examiner was holding up a bit of scroll; as Sakura regained enough control of her breath to look forward again, he rolled it away.
"What you have just seen is a map of the traps and mines laid in Frogsmere at our southern border," he said, tapping the scroll into his vest. "That is the proving ground for our second examination, the team practical."
"Could you hold that up again, sir?" It was a Grass genin this time, standing at trembling attention, who withered under the examiner's glare. "I... I m-m-mi..."
"A ninja must be alert in the face of danger!" the examiner snapped; then his face grew mild again. "But this is only the first examination. I'll give you a second chance. In fact, why don't I give all of you a second chance?" He reached into his vest.
"This is pointless showmanship," whispered a voice—Shino's. "Why does he play this game?"
Sakura turned back to the examiner, and the quaking Grass genin in front of him, with new eyes. A show to scare them... was that the exam?
The map scroll was still wound. "I am going to place this map on a table," he said, tapping it against his arm, "in the small house in the next clearing. There are no windows. I will wait inside with it for the next hour. Those of you who would like to see the map are welcome to try to copy it—or steal it, if you must be so heavy-handed; but for every time you are caught trying, your team will be docked one point. For every member disabled while caught in the act, your team will be docked two points. You start at five points per team. My two fellow examiners will be watching you from outside the hut to ensure that you don't collaborate with other teams from your villages. We begin in one half hour, when the bell rings; please assure that you have all your materials and strategies prepared by then. The bell will ring again at the end of the appointed time."
Sakura blinked. "It's the same as last year's," she said.
"What do you mean? Last time was a written!" Chouji eyed the bottom of a bag of snacks. Kurenai's and Gai's teams had fanned away, and the others were dispersing.
"I mean, it's a test of our information-gathering abilities," she said. "Last time it was disguised as a written; this time, it's overt. I guess there are only so many things to test for..." But her stomach was falling. The same skills, but there was no second option this year; she gained nothing for all the studying she had done.
"We're in trouble," she and Ino said at the same time; turned to face one another, then turned back again. Chouji had gone crosseyed.
"Chouji's no good with this sort of thing," Ino said, "And Sakura-chan, no offense..."
"I know, " Sakura crossed her arms. "Ino, you're really our only member with infiltration skills. But, won't he notice a mind replacement? Even if you could get line of sight to perform it?"
Chouji was frowning. "We start at six points, right?" He began counting on his fingers, laboriously. "And there's a deduction for getting caught, but... if we don't do anything, we don't subtract at all. So we pass!"
"But we don't have the map, dolt," Ino rolled her eyes. "And we get dead in the marshland. Or, stay 'dead', whatever..."
"Kiba's team can get it easily, through Byakugan or Shino's insects," Sakura furrowed her brow. "And Neji, obviously. If only I could just look at it for a while..."
"I could blast a hole in the wall," Chouji offered.
"Takh..." Ino rolled her eyes again. "How obvious can you get? Are you trying to get us eliminated?"
"No, no!" Sakura put her hand to her mouth. "You're forgetting. It's deductions for getting caught, not elimination for getting caught."
"So why not get caught big," Chouji nodded, then grinned.
Sakura shook her head, smiling. That's what you got for hanging out too much for geniuses; a little bit had to stick.
oooooOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo
The clearing was only a dozen meters across, but painfully barren; the hut was tiny, merely a small outpost station, and entirely exposed. A difficult proposition indeed. Lurking several meters into the forest with her team, Sakura wished that the mist had followed them onto its eponymous terrain. She had run quietly up the trunk of a small pine, but there was no discernable movement; either the Mist jounin were nowhere nearby at the moment, or so skilled that it would make no difference what they did.
Sakura glanced at Ino, who gave the preapproved sign, although sweat was dripping across her face; it would be close enough. Only just, but close enough. Chouji would have to take a long run at the hut from their position; Sakura would take position to watch their backs, and get out if necessary. They could not afford three captures.
She nodded, preparing to gain distance and cover, but a hand gesture from Ino stopped her. A light fog was drifting across from the west, slowly, but almost purposively.
Sakura stood poised to run, considering. Should they rethink the operation, have Chouji approach under cover from the mist? Would it be worth the risk of being caught on the way to the new staging ground?
As she thought, there was a bright flash from the leading edge of the mist; in its wake, the day was as bright as before, and a very young Mist genin crouched in the spot where the fog had been, clutching a bleeding shoulder. Wire glinted across the clearing, catching him by the foot; he cried out as he was jerked down and away. Sakura heard the bone of his shoulder dislocate as he hit the bare rock, and grit her teeth in sympathy. Ino was sitting ramrod straight. Chouji scowled, and there was a fierceness there that Sakura rarely saw in his face; the still slightly lean cant of his jaw accentuated it. Everything about him said: now.
Sakura nodded assent, leaping silently into the bushes. Now, while one of the jounin was occupied; never mind the lack of consideration for the limbs of the examinees. This was hidden Mist. They would get what they had come for. Before she had gained ten meters, Chouji roared through the clearing, cutting a sightline through the foliage with his passing. There, he was on the rock, he was spinning traps in his wake—the wire was flashing out for him, but he was barrelling through—
No! Sakura clutched the branch she leaned against. Chouji was bearing to the side, only slightly, but dangerously. He was going to hit to the side of what they had planned; it would be out of the sightline. Now she could see Ino, too, ruining her own cover by shifting position, trying to adjust. It was too late. There was no back-up plan. Chouji rammed into the building, falling out of the doubleweight technique; there was a curse from the hut—she couldn't see! She wanted so badly to see it—had he caught them? --and Ino went limp.
The blindfold woman was on the hut in a flash, and she heard Chouji cry out sharply, then nothing. Ino was still limp, collapsed—that was a good thing, wasn't it? Sakura's muscles strained to help her, but she wouldn't, not until the last minute. Ino had to get a good look. Theycould not afford to lose the points of Sakura's own capture. Just one moment more...
Ino abruptly coughed, then shuddered. Sakura's body needed no further stimulus. She was down, reaching down to sling her friend's body expertly over her own shoulders, and racing away. Had they been seen?
"Paper," Ino gasped. "Quick. My memory... if I don't..."
Sakura stopped, pulling her kunai front to guard them, and set Ino down. Not waiting for Sakura to fish out the scroll she had set aside, Ino immediately began to trace figures in the soil, her hand trembling. Sakura stared at them, memorizing. There was a noise along the streambanks...
Sakura jumped into cover and pulled the leaves around her as the third Mist Jounin materialized from the stream. He stepped quickly forward to knock the still weakened Ino a blow to the solar plexus.
"Disabled," he said . "Should have gone on to the safe zone." He pulled himself up, and surreptitiously nudged Ino's prostate form with his toe, giving only a cursory glance at the surroundings. Sakura's throat clenched hard—but he only wiped the half-finished map out of the dust, and set off at a run along the top of the stream. His feet made no splashes against the water's surface.
When her hands would obey her again, Sakura finished pulling the blank scroll from her pack, quickly scribbling down what she could remember of the map. As she wrote, the bell began to ring again; she reached the end of what she could remember of what Ino had drawn, then shook Ino's shoulder. This having no effect, she summoned her concentration and applied a focused stream of chakra to her friend's head—carefully—Ino's eyes flickered.
Sakura thrust the paper at her. "We have to hurry back. Anything else? Is that all?"
Ino shook her head, groggy. "That's all I had time for. The angle was bad, I couldn't get him right away—and part of the map was blocked by the debris from Chouji." She pulled herself to a crouch. "Sorry."
Sakura bit off a curse; then helped Ino up. "Back to the safe zone," she said. "At least we passed for now."
As they shuffled back to the cliffs where they had first alit, ragtag bunches of genin filtered in through the trees, many already smudged and exhausted, others fresh as they had never been. Sakura saw Kurenai's team, Kiba looking as smug as if he and Akamaru had just felled an Akatsuki; Gai's team had made it intact, too, and the three Sands. The team from Rain were gone.
"I'll take that," a whisper spoke at her ear; before Sakura had time to turn, the blank-eyed examiner had whisked away the scroll, placing it in a pile with several others.
"Sakura-san! Sakura-san!" This was Lee, running up to her, his face worried. "Did you do all right?"
She managed a quick reassuring smile—even the Reassuring Guy thumbs-up—before the examiner shoved Lee back toward his teammates. He hadn't protected her today; in this chuunin exam, it occurred to her, it was up to her own team to protect her. Let Lee worry about himself, not waste it on her. He wouldn't be able to worry about her in the next test, anyway. Sakura glanced at Ino, now recovered, but rubbing her bruised stomach region. Chouji wasn't even there. These, then-- were they truly the limit of what she had to protect her?
"All right then," the examiner tapped the pile of maps. "One last choice, for those of you who remain. If you would like, you may withdraw from our examination at this point, and retake it under friendlier conditions." He grinned. "Or take your own map—and your own chances—into Frogmere swamp with you tomorrow morning. More about the second test I will not say."
Sakura frowned worriedly at the stacked scrolls. Their own half-completed, third-hand map... was it worth continuing? A vision of Sasuke, crying in anguish as the snake bit down—of herself beaten and fading at the hands of the Sound-nin—washed over her. She felt like laughing, suddenly, and had no idea why.
One of the Grass teams stood forward—they looked very young—and walked away from the clearing. The examiner's lip twitched.
"Sakura..." Ino whispered. "We don't even know what shape Chouji's in. Maybe we should..."
"No," Sakura hissed back, biting off the visions in her own mind. Her inner laughter played at the corners of her mouth now; Ino pouted, confused. "Ino, think of it... no Orochimaru, no Sound-nin—it's like Shino said. A bit of showmanship, right? This year can't possibly anything like as bad as last year!"
"Ladies?" the examiner cut in on her. "A whispered conference? A lack of nerves, perhaps?"
"Excuse me, sir," Ino said, pulling herself straight. "No, sir. We'll be continuing tomorrow."
The examiner held up the paper, Sakura's scrawled crosses and circles strewn across it wily-nilly. "With this?" he raised an eyebrow. A few genins snickered. "Your funeral, kunoichi."
Sakura looked at her friend and smiled. Lee was cheering behind them.
"You have until tomorrow morning to reconsider," The examiner said, returning the scroll to the pile. "You'll get your maps back then. Those who have teammates in the infirmary, take the second left fork along the high trail there. I must say, meeting all of you has been the most dubious of pleasures."
As he turned away from them, Lee's voice piped up once again. "Sir! Where are the team leaders staying?"
"You again?" The examiner frowned. "It's none of your concern."
"We aren't going to meet with them?" It was Kiba who spoke this time.
"What kind of examination lets the students crib answers from the teachers?" The examiner sneered. "I'm done with the lot of you. Eat and sleep as you see fit. Town is to the right fork of the high path. Or sleep with the beasts for all I care." With that, he flung his hands wide, and droplets flew from his fingertips—droplets that carried his fingertips with them, and his arms, his whole form dissolving into a fine mist that receded into nothing.
"That must be the jutsu we saw the kid trying earlier," Ino whispered. "I wonder if this man is his team leader?"
Poor kid, thought Sakura. She looked down, trying to see if she could find the remains of Asuma's cigarette butt; but the dirt of the clearing had been swept clean.
NEXT CHAPTER: The Infirmary. A message is sent to Godaime Hokage. The Second Examination Begins.