Chapter 27
"Life is full of tests, the ones you face after school just go a little differently than the ones you're used to. I still think the universe is totally cheating me with that though."
"You have all your shuriken and kunai? They're all sharp? You have your canteen too, right?"
"Masaru, calm down," Sasuke huffed, rolling his eyes as he zipped his weapons pouch shut. "You're worrying too much. I'll be fine."
"Sorry," Masaru apologized, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish look. "It's just... The Chuunin Exams can be really dangerous. People die in them." Sasuke's expression softened a bit at the reminder and he sighed.
"Yeah, well, I won't. I have stuff to do before I die, and I'm not leaving you alone." He spoke a bit brusquely but Masaru smiled slightly at his words, dipping his head in gratitude. Sasuke strapped the pouch to his leg and the pair left the apartment in companionable silence.
Their paths veered almost instantly once they stepped outside, Sasuke nodding at him as he turned away. "I'll see you later, okay?"
"Right. Good luck!" Masaru nodded back and turned to head the other way, and only when they'd left each other's line of sight did the black-haired Uchiha allow a small smirk to slip through.
Neither of them heard the soft click of a camera shutter from a nearby rooftop, a shadowy figure watching them part ways before swiftly disappearing.
Phase one of the Chuunin Exams passed with minimal events of note. Sakura had only slight trouble answering on her own but got enough correct to meet the stated minimum, and Sasuke just copied answers with his Sharingan. Naruto almost gave up at the final question but decided against it at the last minute, and so Team Seven got ushered to the next phase.
Which brought them to the latest dilemma.
Stars shined in Sakura's eyes as she trailed behind the proctor, a woman wearing a fishnet top and short skirt with only a trench coat preserving her modesty. "Anko-sama, you have to sign your Bingo Book page for me!" she squealed, almost skipping next to the woman. "I've been wanting it for ages!"
"You went through the trouble of digging up a Bingo Book entry on me?" she asked, grinning down at Sakura. "Man, that's awesome! Hell yeah I'll sign it, as long as you buy me dango afterwards!"
"It's a deal!" Sakura agreed with an enthusiastic nod, and Anko grinned and plopped her hand on the genin's head, ruffling her pink hair.
"Sweet! I'm holding you to it, got it?" Sakura beamed up at her, totally uncaring how messy her hair looked now.
"This is kinda freaky to watch," Naruto mumbled to Sasuke, and the Uchiha grunted with a small nod. Seeing Sakura act like a fangirl for someone other than him left him strangely unsettled. Resisting a shudder, he quickly turned his attention to the other examinees, idly scoping the competition.
Surprisingly the entire Rookie Nine showed up, along with a team from a year ahead that reminded Sasuke of Masaru's traumatized muttering about the horrors of the color green. He wondered briefly about how the rest of his graduating class had developed, but he had admittedly low expectations. He knew for a fact Team Seven's training had ramped up more than the norm due to Wave, Masaru's teacher Gaku had commented as much after he somehow got roped into Team Seven's team dinners.
Aside from them, two teams in particular stood out.
First, the team from Suna. Masaru had told him a bit more about the Sand Siblings in private, and after meeting them himself, Sasuke found himself agreeing with his cousin's sentiments. Something about the youngest, Gaara, felt heavily off. Even his own, older siblings seemed to defer to him, their generally cocky attitudes faltering whenever he so much as glanced their way, something Sasuke probably wouldn't have noticed had Masaru not planted the seeds in his mind.
Next, the team from Oto. They drew attention to themselves in a rather pointed way, and the fact that Oto had only recently been formed left him uneasy. According to Sakura, the village had no known specialties or produced any famous shinobi yet, so they had no idea what to expect out of the Sound ninja. The trio had been particularly rough and loud, shamelessly shoving and threatening Kabuto before Ibiki showed up.
On that note, Yakushi Kabuto himself also caught his attention. The bespectacled man had approached the Rookie Nine alone and openly shared the information cards he'd collected on the other contestants. Sasuke vaguely recalled his name from Masaru's stories about his missions, so after asking about Gaara and Neji, on a whim he'd then inquired about his cousin's name.
"Uchiha Masaru, age thirteen," he'd recited. "He's completed a good chunk of D-ranks, three of which I also participated in, as well as a single C-rank escort quite recently. Overall his physical ability seems to be slightly above average, though he has yet to encounter an actual combat situation, so the available data on his actual skill is limited. Interestingly though, he's actually deaf in his right ear due to a childhood injury."
Naturally Sasuke had known abut Masaru's partial deafness after seeing his ear bandaged up, but most of the Rookie Nine had voiced great surprise at that particular revelation. Their reactions made him suddenly realize just how few people actually knew about it; it didn't hinder Masaru enough to be particularly noticeable, and he generally kept to himself so it rarely came up in conversation.
Sasuke supposed Kabuto could have found out during one of their missions, but the fact he specifically took note of it seemed kind of strange.
His eyes narrowed as he watched the silver-haired man talk to his team, his hand reaching into his pocket to run his thumb over the omamori. He had no particular feelings about Kabuto making a card on Sasuke himself, but he did not like the idea of someone cataloguing one of Masaru's weaknesses like that.
His fingers curled around the homemade talisman, his jaw clenching. Masaru was the only family he had left, and he would be damned if he let anything happen to him.
"Hey, Uncle Obito. Sorry I haven't come by as much, I've been kinda busy."
Masaru smiled sheepishly as he crouched in front of Obito's grave, wiping down the stone with a damp cloth. Since becoming a genin he hadn't been able to visit the grave as often as he used to, and a lot of dirt had accumulated since the last visit. He felt slightly guilty for leaving his uncle alone for so long, even if the grave might be empty. Sometimes he swore he could feel Obito's presence listening to him.
Even now, he felt that warm tingle of someone watching him, making him smile faintly. Wringing the dirty cloth over the grass, he dipped it in the bucket again and continued wiping the slab, talking all the while.
"A lot's happened since my last visit. Last week I went on my first C-rank mission, we had to help escort some of the genin from Suna who're in town for the Chuunin Exams. Sasuke's taking the Chuunin Exams today, too. Gaku-sensei gave me the week off because he has to help guard." That particular piece of news had been a bit surprising to Masaru, and even now his mind flashed back to the previous day.
"As you've probably already figured out, I'm actually part of ANBU," Gaku told him at the end of their training session, mouth ghosting into a smile as he folded his arms. "I can't share all the details, but I've been asked to provide an extra security detail during the second phase of the Chuunin Exams. I have... skills, that will be very useful there if something happens."
"That's very vague and unhelpful," Masaru noted dryly, and Gaku sighed.
"I have to be, for now. Once the exams are over, maybe I'll tell you about it though. On that note, we'll be pretty busy between the second and third phase. Just think of this week as a rest period."
"I still don't know what he means by being busy, but it sounds ominous," he groaned, shaking his head. "I'm kinda scared to find out... Anyways, it's kinda weird not having anything to do. I went to the training grounds this morning before I remembered he gave me the day off." He laughed sheepishly at his small slip, and his chuckles soon tapered off, his features softening into a small, melancholic smile.
"...I showed it to Kakashi. My Sharingan, I mean. I finally figured out he was your teammate. I talked to him about you. He didn't say much, I think it hurts him to think about you because he really misses you. Kinda like..." Masaru trailed off, his gaze sliding down the rows of graves to a trio of familiar tombstones.
Kinda like how mom felt about dad, his mind finished for him.
As he looked towards the graves a flash of purple caught his eye, giving him pause. Setting down the rag, Masaru slowly rose to his feet and wandered over, feeling slightly on edge. Violet asters and bluebells rested in front of his mother's grave in a small bouquet tied together with a white string, the petals dried and wilted but the color still rather vibrant. His sister's grave had another bouquet, this one containing purple hyacinths. As he drew closer a flash of red caught his eye at the grave on the other side of his father's, making him falter.
A single camellia lay before a small tombstone, once vivid red petals darkened to an almost brown. Approaching it slowly, Masaru crouched and picked up the dried flower, glancing at the grave curiously. Most Uchiha graves had only the name of the deceased and no dates, the clan choosing to record relevant dates in the family register, and this one proved no different.
"Uchiha Tsubaki," he read aloud, frowning at the unfamiliar name. His eyes flitted to the withered camellia in his hand, the dried petals reminding him of blood. A small shudder coursed through his body, and he let it fall back into the grass.
"Oho, so someone still visits these graves after all."
The sudden entrance of a new voice startled him and Masaru whirled in surprise to see a man with long white hair pulled into a bushy ponytail stood several rows away, a bouquet of white anemones and strange blossoms that seemed to resemble a bird clutched to his chest. Nodding at Masaru in acknowledgment, the stranger resumed walking and stopped next to the boy, setting the bouquet in front of his mother's grave.
Masaru studied the man's face as he looked at the tombstone with a sad smile, noting the long red lines trailing down from his eyes. A sudden jolt of deja vu assaulted him and he abruptly recognized the man from back in the Hokage's office two days ago, staring at his mother's map. Blinking, he looked at the man with renewed curiosity, and soon enough the stranger's eyes slowly slid over to Masaru.
"Hey there," he greeted, nodding at Masaru. "I saw you back in sensei's office, but I don't think we got introduced. The name's Jiraiya."
"Jiraiya," Masaru repeated carefully, as if testing it. Something about his face still felt familiar, tugging at the fringes of his memories. "Um... have we met? Before that?"
"A couple times," the man confirmed, smirking faintly. "Surprised you remembered it, the last time you would've been two or three. Your mom had a neighbor cart you and your sister off pretty fast, so we only saw each other for a couple minutes. It's nice to finally meet you all grown up. Ryoko-chan talked about you a lot in her letters, I just wish I could've met your sister, too."
"...Yeah." Masaru slowly nodded, frowning as he looked at the wilted purple hyacinths on Akari's grave. Regret, some voice told him. Purple hyacinths meant regret. He didn't know where he'd heard it, but it certainly seemed fitting with the melancholic smile the man wore.
Rising to his feet, he turned to face Jiraiya and dipped into a respectful bow. "Thank you for thinking of my family, Jiraiya-san," he murmured, and he meant it. Few people ever seemed to think about Akari or Ryoko, instead just focusing on him as the sole survivor of his small family.
He didn't see Jiraiya's smile fade, his face growing somber as he glanced to the two graves. "No need to thank me," he muttered. "Really." Masaru frowned and raised his head with a quizzical look, but by that point Jiraiya had already plastered on another smile. "Hey, I just had an idea. Do you have anything planned for today?"
"Um, no...?"
"Perfect!" Jiraiya grinned and placed his hands on Masaru's shoulders, an almost mischievous twinkle in his eye. "In that case, I'm going to pass on a little jutsu!"
Finding and taking down their first team had been startlingly easy. A brief distraction by a horde of transformed clones, a quick flick of a shuriken laced with weak paralytics followed by a light genjutsu fueled by the Sharingan to cause some slight disorientation, and Team Seven managed to easily subdue a team of unsuspecting Waterfall genin.
"Tch, it's the same scroll we have," Sasuke declared after rifling through their bags, tossing the pilfered scroll atop the piled heap of unconscious foreign teens. Sakura sighed in frustration, running a hand through her hair.
"Dang it, what a waste of poison," she muttered glumly, disappointed to have wasted her work. She could only make so many doses of the paralytics and poisons after all, what with her limited budget and even more limited access to decent ingredients. Acquiring higher-quality and more potent ingredients simply involved too many permits for a genin, Kakashi had to buy a couple of them for her.
Sakura took a moment to quietly mourn the waste, and then added irritably, "And Naruto, get rid of those clones already or at least shut them up!" She glared at the small cluster of clones currently hopping around the edge of the clearing hooting and grunting like monkeys, each one naked save for clusters of leaves covering their most sensitive bits and big red noses. Jungle clowns certainly worked as a good distraction, but once they'd taken down the enemy it just got on her nerves.
The clones all dispersed with a poof, Naruto grumbling irritably under his breath about finding it pretty funny, but his teammates appeared satisfied by the newfound quiet. "We're moving on," Sasuke declared, and his teammates followed in rather satisfied silence. Not even five minutes had passed since they'd first sighted the other team, and the speed and ease of their takedown left them feeling suitably empowered.
If only the high could last...
"Katon: Grand Fireball Jutsu!"
Masaru's cheeks puffed outwards as he blew a large fireball, the sphere rapidly expanding to a diameter of several meters. Jiraiya watched with a keen eye as it hovered above the lake for a few seconds before dissipating, the Uchiha boy sighing tiredly before turning to face him. "I don't get why you want me to show you that," he mumbled. "It's one of my clan's specialties, but..."
"I just needed to gauge your proficiency with katon jutsu," Jiraiya assured him smoothly, not missing a beat. "Tell me, what do you know about your mom's career?"
Masaru frowned slightly at the question, glancing away. "Not much," he admitted quietly. "I know that she knew a lot about fuinjutsu and the Sharingan, and she had ninneko summons, but she had books on so many subjects I can't really get a sense of anything else. She never really talked about it."
"In that case, do you know what they called her?" When Masaru shook his head, Jiraiya let a small smirk show. "The Bloody Sunburst."
"The... Bloody Sunburst?" The name seemed to surprise the boy, his face growing contemplative as his eyes flitted to the ground again, and—Jiraiya paused. For a second he saw a small girl standing in his place, face somber and dark eyes carrying an unfathomable weight. Just as quick as it appeared the vision vanished, and his mouth pressed into a firm line as he studied the boy with an even more critical eye.
"Something on your mind, kid?" he asked, and Masaru blinked before shaking his head.
"N-no, I just... remembered something. That's all." Jiraiya eyed him curiously, but after a few moments of thought he decided not to press it.
"Alright then. Back to the point, she got that nickname from her signature katon technique, 'Seven-Beam Sunburst,' which left a scorched pattern in the earth that looked like a bunch of beams radiating from her position. Not gonna lie, it's probably one of the deadliest katon jutsu I've ever seen."
Ryoko's Seven-Beam Sunburst had merited Ryoko a great deal of respect from both friend and foe alike. Even now Jiraiya could clearly envision the Uchiha kunoichi slamming her hands to the ground, rows of fire rippling from her position in seven directions. Avoiding it proved harder than one would expect, as the rows fanned out and grew in intensity as they surged further away from her at ridiculous speeds, until they merged together to form a large, blazing ring of white flame.
It only lasted a few seconds before the flames totally dissipated, but the technique had a unique destructive nature that spared not even allies. Even if someone managed to muster the necessary speeds to outrun the flames, the sheer intensity of their heat alone could still cause mild burns. Ryoko had to plaster her own body with seals to ward against the heat, and even then the technique still required a minimum radius of three meters for her to use it safely. How she managed to develop it without killing herself in the process still eluded him.
Masaru watched Jiraiya with a contemplative look, his head tilting thoughtfully. "Are you going to teach it to me?"
"Unfortunately, no," he told the boy. "She never taught it to me, and besides that, it's way above your pay grade. Not to mention I don't actually have that much time. But, while it was definitely her most famous one, it wasn't her favorite."
Flashing through a series of hand seals, Jiraiya parted his hands and blew on them lightly. Blue flames flickered into existence around his right fist, shimmering and wavering with chakra as they conformed to the shape of his hand. Masaru's eyes widened and his Sharingan unconsciously activated, studying the fire closely.
"That fire is full of more chakra than normal katon jutsu," he mused aloud, clearly awestruck, and Jiraiya nodded with a smug grin.
"Good eye, kid. This is Foxfire, a special fire jutsu Ryoko invented." As he spoke he unclenched his fist and flexed his fingers, the flames stretching around them like claws. "Foxfire is unique in that it has a more corporeal form than most fire due to the extra heavy infusion of chakra. That gives the user a bit more room for control over the flames than usual, so they can be a bit more creative with it."
Spinning around, he swiped his hand in the direction of a nearby tree and a part of the flames shot out like needles, striking the trunk and leaving claw-like gauges in the bark. Black marks appeared as the gashes visibly smoldered around the edges, the smell of charred wood drifting their way, but the tree didn't catch fire like Masaru expected.
"As you can see, not only can you throw it like weapons, but with enough practice you can control the heat and density of the flames, making it possible to punch or scratch someone without actually setting them on fire."
"Woah," Masaru whispered, studying the tree with awe. Turning to Jiraiya, he asked, "How does it work?" The Sannin smirked smugly at the eager spark in the child's eyes, letting the flames dissolve as he explained.
"Well Masaru, there are many components in this jutsu, but the two most important ones are strong chakra control and fast reflexes. See, this is technically a combination of both nature transformation and shape transformation, which can be pretty tricky to pull off together. Shaping your chakra is a pretty advanced form of chakra control, and adding a nature transformation on top of that can be damn near impossible sometimes. Even the Fourth Hokage had been unable to combine them in one of his creations.
"But luckily for us," he said, flashing through the hand seals once more, "Ryoko-chan came up with a little shortcut, at least for fire." Cupping his hands around his mouth, Jiraiya blew a small fireball only a few inches in diameter, allowing it to swirl around for a few seconds so Masaru could study it before releasing the jutsu. It dissolved almost instantly, and he lowered his hands. "That was a specialized version of your clan's fireball, and it is the secret to Foxfire."
"And Mom taught it to you?" Masaru asked, sounding surprised. Not that Jiraiya could blame him; the Uchiha usually tended to be pretty stingy with revealing their family's techniques. Ironic given they tended to steal others' jutsu so easily with the Sharingan.
"Eventually," he allowed. "It's a bit different from your clan's standard Grand Fireball, so it's not exactly a 'clan secret,' more of a 'Ryoko secret.' Using it is the first step to performing Foxfire. While it's hard to do both nature and shape transformations at once, it's infinitely easier to manipulate and shape a preexisting element than to add a nature transformation while shaping it."
"Like that water dragon Kakashi used," Masaru said slowly, remembering Team Seven's story about his fight with Zabuza, and Jiraiya grinned.
"Now you're getting it. That jutsu borrows water from nearby bodies of water, so he only has to infuse it with his chakra so he can shape it. While normally it's best to use naturally occurring variants, in this case Ryoko found a loophole. Once you release the jutsu, the fireball is technically independent of your body and chakra system, at which point you can 'snag' it and re-infuse it with your chakra. That's where the fast reflexes come in," Jiraiya added. "It's small so it only lasts a few seconds."
"That's why you blew on your fist, right?" Masaru realized. "To get it in contact with your chakra before it could fade?" Jiraiya nodded, offering him an appreciative smile. Fast read, this kid. Geniuses could be boring to teach compared to more creative students, but it saved him some time.
"Yep, that's right," he confirmed, "but it'll be a while before you can do that. Blowing it directly on your fist runs a risk of burning yourself if you don't have enough practice, so to start you'll have to blow into the air and quickly infuse it with chakra by swiping through it with . It took Ryoko a good year of training before she had the reflexes necessary to safely pull that off. And it took another three months to use it without fireproofed gloves—which, of course, I'll provide," he added with an ever-gracious and only slightly smug smile.
"So with that said," he continued, "We'll start off with just making the fireball. This one is different from the regular one because it's a lot smaller, but it's also more densely packed so the flames are more intense than normal, so it requires a bitt more control to pull off correctly. You'll probably end up burning yourself a little before you get the hang of it, but if you're okay with that, we can begin whenever you're ready."
Masaru responded to Jiraiya with a vigorous nod, his face filling with an earnest determination. "I'm ready."
As Jiraiya looked at him he saw a flash of a small dark-haired girl in his place once more, her black eyes smoldering with deep resolve as she glared up at him defiantly, and the old man couldn't help but smile at the nostalgia the memories brought.
Several hours had passed since the start of the second phase, and a good chunk of the Leaf shinobi involved with this year's exam had convened in a small wooden structure near Training Ground 44 which had been specially erected to serve as a base of operations. Various proctors and chuunin milled about the room discussing security measures, while the three jounin sensei in charge of the Rookie Nine eyed a map showing a basic layout of the Forest of Death.
"So if the kids run into any trouble, they just have to pump their chakra into those little trinkets and their location will show up on that map, huh?" Asuma mused, reaching for a cigarette. Kurenai slapped his hand away before he could put it in his mouth, shooting him a dark look.
"Don't smoke inside," she scolded, and turned back to the map with a sigh. "I hope the kids don't end up needing it. I made sure to tell them to use it if they get into serious trouble and don't think they can pass in one piece, but knowing Kiba he probably wouldn't use it anyway."
"I wouldn't be surprised if my team never used it at all," Kakashi commented with a sigh. "I probably shouldn't have told them that it may get them disqualified. They're all pretty bull-headed so I can't imagine them using it, even if two of them were half-dead." Sakura, maybe, since she had taken the role of the level-headed member of the team, but Naruto and Sasuke? Never. It would hurt their prides too much. He shook his head in mild frustration, and Asuma offered him a small smirk.
"You think so, huh? Well, I probably won't have that problem with my team. Ino might complain, but Shikamaru wouldn't listen to her and just use it anyway, and Chouji always follows his lead."
Bragging about a team's willingness to call for help during the Chuunin Exams seemed strange, but none of the jounin thought on it too much. After Jiraiya deciphered the mechanics of the seal, the Hokage ordered him to prepare a map of the Forest of Death to use in the second stage of the Chuunin Exams. Due to the still-sensitive nature of the seal's existence they chose to use only the pre-prepared seals Ryoko had made for the Rookie Nine, who, as the newest genin, would be the most likely to need it.
The three newest jounin sensei would have entered their teams anyway, but the ability for their students to signal for help certainly made the decision easier.
"I still don't really like it," Genma muttered, tipping his chair back as he listened in on their conversation. "While I get it makes it safer and all that, the whole point of the second phase is to prove teams can survive on an actual mission without a jounin to save them. Having a way to call for help if it gets too hard kinda defeats the purpose."
"It does a bit," Asuma agreed, "But given everything that's happened lately, I think it's a good precaution." As he spoke everyone's gazes slid to Kakashi, who chose to ignore them and stare at the map in heavy silence.
A watered-down version of the events in Wave had been released to a select group of jounin and high-ranking officials, explaining about a masked man kidnapping him after he collapsed from chakra exhaustion before ultimately releasing him. They carefully omitted his tampering with Kakashi's Sharingan, but released enough information to confirm the man expressed a strong interest in the doujutsu. The event had sparked a renewed paranoia among Konoha's officials, and so they had even more security measures in place than usual for their star Uchiha's first Chuunin Exam.
ANBU agents had been stationed at various points throughout the forest, many of them trusted members of his own Team Ro, but even so Kakashi felt a mild tug of anxiety in his chest. The masked man had expressed a strong familiarity with Kakashi and Konoha in general, and as it stood he had no idea of the man's actual abilities. Depending on what he knew and what skills he possessed, he might be able to sneak past their defenses—or even just simply walk through the gates.
They didn't know his face, so he could easily slip in by joining one of the teams visiting for the Chuunin Exams. Konoha couldn't exactly run detailed background checks on all the entrants without risking an international incident, after all. The thought of the man possibly walking in the Forest right now made Kakashi's stomach churn. If he decided to target them this time...
A firm hand pressed on his shoulder and he turned in slight surprise to see Gai standing behind him, flashing a sparkling grin. "Don't worry, my Cool and Youthful Eternal Rival! I am certain your team shall be perfectly fine!" The booming reassurances eased his nerves just a little, and Kakashi nodded and started to reply when the door suddenly slammed open, a chuunin bursting in with a frantic look on his face.
"Everyone! Three faceless corpses have been found and identified as a team from Kusa! Anko-sama has ordered an alert to be sent to all ANBU stationed in the forest to begin searching and has already entered the forest in pursuit!"
Pandemonium instantly broke out at the news, one of the proctors scrambling to grab the radio set and alert the ANBU units while the handful of ANBU waiting on standby flickered away to enter the forest. "Shit, someone infiltrated the test?" Asuma growled, getting to his feet. Kakashi rose as well, shooting Gai a pointed look.
"They'll be fine, eh?" he repeated under his breath, and the spandex-wearing beast's grin grew weaker.
"Don't be too harsh on him," Genma interjected, already in the process of collecting his gear to head out. "Right now all we know is that someone killed a team and infiltrated the exams. That doesn't instantly mean they're after your genin."
"The chances might be higher than you think," Kurenai murmured gravely, catching their attention, and the others turned to find her staring at the map. A single bead of colored light shined brightly deep in the forest, and Kakashi felt his blood run cold as he recognized the distinct pink hue and the glowing kanji for 'Strength' floating next to it.
