Let's start this from the beginning
Chūnin Exams
III
The proctor of the first stage was the same man that had greeted them when they had arrived in Iwa; Kitsuchi, the son of the current Tsuchikage.
Currently, every Genin that was to participate in the exams was standing in the centre of one of Iwa's training grounds. Itachi had used this opportunity to count the number of them and compare the result to the number he and the other Genin from Konoha had gathered since their arrival, so he knew that there were altogether 49 teams with a total of 147 people in the exams. There were three teams from Konoha, nine teams from Suna, three teams from Kumo, two teams from Kusa, two teams from Taki, one team from Ame, and a total of twenty-nine teams from Iwa itself.
"Okay, listen closely, because I will not repeat myself," Kitsuchi started, speaking loud enough to reach even those standing far away from him. "My name is Kitsuchi and I will be your protector for the duration of the first exam. I don't accept questions, so don't even try.
This exam will be held on the training grounds 16 to 42. All of you will be lead to a random position in this area by one of our Chūnin. Every team will get a scroll with a number between 1 and 49 written on it; your task is to return to this clearing with a scroll that has an even number. The rules are as follows:
You're not allowed to open the scroll to look at which number you have. In fact, if you open any scroll, be it your own or the one of another team, you will be disqualified.
If you're caught exchanging scrolls with another team, you will be disqualified. Also, if you attack another team and are caught by one of the Chūnin patrolling the area, you will be disqualified as well.
You're not allowed to team up with other teams.
You're not allowed to possess more than one scroll at any given time.
You have three hours to finish this exam. If you're not here by the time the exam is over, you will not pass even if you own a scroll with an even number. That's it, now please follow your assigned Chūnin."
Having finished what he wanted to say, the man turned around and began to walk away from the clearing, ignoring the confused and angry calls of those Genin who found this test too unfair or unfeasible.
Shortly afterwards, an Iwa Chūnin appeared and motioned them to follow him before leading them to their assigned position.
"Well," Yukio said a few seconds after the foreign shinobi had left them. "That sounds annoying. Any ideas?"
This exam was surprisingly similar to one of the more common first exams they held in Konoha, Itachi thought. The written exam that was supposed to force the participants to cheat without being noticed was meant to bring the Genins to think outside the box, to prove their information gathering and stealth skills. This exam, as far as he could see, had a similar approach; they were supposed to break the rules to solve this exam, and the real obstacle was to do so without being caught. Of course, it also tested their problem-solving abilities by imposing that many rules. There was no way to solve this exam without cheating, but if you were creative, you could come out on top of this.
"You two understand the real purpose of this exam, do you?" Anko asked rhetorically.
Yukio snorted. "Of course; cheat, but don't get caught while doing so."
"Good. Itachi, tell your crows to fly around and look for other people. They are to caw when they find an Iwa Chūnin and then circle above them, and only circle above them without making a sound if they find another Genin team."
He nodded and did as he was told, deciding to let his team take the lead for now. He had already a pretty good idea of how to get through this exam, but it would be good for Anko and Yukio to manage it on their own as well. Not that he thought that would be too hard for them considering how they instantly looked through the rules and started to take measures against them.
"Alright," Anko continued. "Now we need to have a plan for how we are gonna find out which scroll has which number. Simply opening them seems a bit too risky."
"There are probably seals on them that summon an instructor if opened," Yukio agreed. "I heard from one of my cousins that they do that back in Konoha, so Iwa likely does it as well."
"I guess we could force other teams to open their scroll," Anko mused with furrowed brows. "But that's pretty risky as well. If an instructor is summoned and sees their condition while we're close by, it would become apparent that we cheated. It wouldn't be real proof, but they might decide that it's enough to disqualify us."
"If we manage to destroy the ribbon that keeps the scroll together during the fight and then quickly retreat, it might appear as if they opened it themselves," Yukio said without sounding very convinced.
"Maybe, but then there is the risk that the instructor takes the scroll with him when he disqualifies the team…" Suddenly she brightened up. "Itachi, you can make other teams open their scroll by casting a Genjutsu on them, right?"
He smiled, satisfied with how fast they have come to that conclusion. "That shouldn't be much of a problem. I doubt there are many participants in this exam that would be able to notice when I catch them in a Genjutsu from some hidden position. As long as we avoid those that are attentive enough to stay alert of their senses even when they're not in a confrontation, we should be fine." He certainly planned to avoid Yugito Nii specifically at all costs.
"Great," Yukio smiled. "Then let's go!"
While the number of training-grounds that were assigned for this exam was pretty high, the grounds themselves didn't tend to be very big –a far cry from the Forest of Death for sure. So, while there was more than enough space to avoid people, you could always feel some chakra signatures at the edge of your senses. As it was a fair assumption that many teams would try to hide their presence, it was also very likely that there were always several teams close that they didn't know about.
Fortunately, his crows did a good job at scouting the area. It wasn't the same as having a Hyūga or even an Inuzuka or Aburame on your team, but it did the job just fine.
For a while, they simply tried to get away from any instructor that might watch them. That turned out to be harder than they initially thought, however, as every time they got away from one, another appeared. In the end, they needed nearly an entire hour to get away from any watchful eyes, only to find that they were suddenly close to not only one but six teams. None of them seemed to have noticed them yet, or if they did they simply chose to ignore them, but the problem stayed the same; there was the danger that another team would interfere with them if they executed their plan right now. It would be a lot of bad luck if that happened, for the likelihood that they would even notice that something was going on was close to zero, but it was a probability they couldn't ignore.
Well, at least none of these teams includes the Jinchūriki, he thought. She could still be close if she hid her presence and somehow avoided the eyes of his crows, of course, but the ones he could feel were way too weak to be her.
"Shall we risk it?" Yukio asked.
Anko gave him a wide smile, anticipation clear in her eyes. "Looks like fun," she said before turning toward him. "As long as you're ready?"
"We need to do this before another instructor finds us," he agreed. "So let's do it now that we have the chance.
"Right," she nodded. "Who knows how long we need to get away from them the next time? There is still the time limit to think about."
Yukio opened his mouth to add something, but a loud explosion interrupted him when he was just about to speak. All three of them jumped around and looked towards where the noise had come from, watching a big cloud of smoke rising to the sky.
"Damn," Anko cursed with a low whistle. "Whatever technique did that must have some real punch behind it. Look at the size of the cloud!"
"How risky to pull something like that off when fighting is prohibited," Yukio said. "Every instructor in the area will head over to see what's going on."
Itachi tilted his head in consideration before addressing his two teammates. "That might actually be their intention; one person attracts the attention of all the instructors while their teammates use the commotion to attack another team undetected."
"Smart," Yukio commented with the barest hint of admiration. "But they're not the only ones who can use this opportunity."
"The other teams are heading away from the explosion," Anko said, talking about the six teams that were in their area. "I say we should target the one that was the closest. That way, there will be no other team that accidentally interrupts us as they run away."
He and Yukio nodded in agreement and a second later, the three of them were rushing towards their target while cautiously making sure not to run into anyone else.
"They will probably be more alert now," he spoke up. "That means it would be much harder to catch them unaware with a Genjutsu."
He could still do it, of course, but it would require more chakra to use a sufficient powerful technique from far away, especially from out of sight.
Yukio narrowed his eyes. "They don't feel especially strong. I would say they're somewhere in the middle field strength-wise compared to the other teams. We should be able to take them."
"Rushing in and overwhelming them before they can react," Anko said with a chuckle. "Just as I like it. Formation six sounds good to you, boys?"
"Hai!"
"Hai!"
They needed only a few minutes before they found a more or less even area with enough boulders and rocks for their plan that laid directly on the path of their targets. Yukio instantly went to the right, hiding in a gap between two big boulders, while Anko went to the left and crotched low to hide in the shadow of a big rock. He, on the other hand, went quickly through the necessary hand seals to perform the Moguragakure no Jutsu (Hiding Like a Mole Technique) and vanished beneath the ground.
It was less than a minute after they had successfully hidden themselves that their prey arrived.
He used the vibrations of her steps to position herself so that they would walk right over him and waited until the first two passed him before pushing his hands through the surface to grab the third one's ankles, thus inciting his team's attack.
The Genin whose ankles he had grabbed fell face-first to the ground, the sudden noise making his teammates stop and turn around with surprised squeaks. Not stopping there, he pulled again, pulling his victim –a boy with an Iwa symbol on his forehead protector- into the ground until only his head peered out.
One of the boy's teammates, a girl, screamed bloody murder at him while raising her hands to use hand seals, but she was interrupted by half a dozen kunai before she could do anything. Neither she nor her last remaining teammate had enough time to do much more than take a few steps back before the smoke bombs attached to the weapons exploded, filling their sight with purple smoke.
The first one who managed to get out of the cloud of smoke was the boy, who then instantly found himself blown away by a flying boulder that came from Yukio's direction.
The girl, who was the last remaining member of her team that wasn't taken out yet, walked out a few seconds later, her eyes instantly going wide when she came face to face with Anko.
"If that didn't work like a charm, then I don't know either," she said casually instead of attacking, choosing to just stand there with one hand on her hip and a wide smile on her face. "Damn, I love it when a plan plays out perfectly like this!"
"You-" the girl started before a coughing fit interrupted her no doubt creative insult.
"Don't bother," Anko said, satisfaction thick in her voice. "I mixed some paralytic poison into my smoke bombs, you see. You don't need to worry, it's nothing lethal, but don't expect to do anything other than lying in your bed for the rest of the week. Honestly, how careless of you to breath that stuff in."
The girl managed to glare at her for a few moments before she finally succumbed to unconsciousness.
"Well," Yukio said as the two of them appeared besides Anko, "that worked out even better than expected. Can't say I thought this would go as smoothly as it did, but I'm not complaining."
Of course, the moment he finished his sentence was exactly the moment the loud cawing of a crow alerted them to the presence of new people.
Neither of them bothered to turn around when their instincts suddenly screamed at them to get away before jumping out of the way of the wave of mud that would have buried them alive had they been a little bit slower.
Fortunately, the three people that arrived on the scene were no instructors, meaning they would not be disqualified. Unfortunately, they were now forced to fight another team. That was bad not only because the additional attention could lead an instructor to them, but also because they hadn't had the advantage of surprise on their side this time.
He trusted his team, of course, and they were definitively much stronger than the average Genin team, but it was always dangerous to underestimate an enemy. Also, the fact that they managed to get this close to them without being noticed meant that they weren't average either.
It made sense that they managed to get closer to them unnoticed during the short fight as their attention was elsewhere during that time, but neither he nor his teammates, not even his crows, had known they were close be even before that. They had chosen to attack this team because there hadn't been any other team close by that could bother them, after all. This meant that these newcomers were either exceptionally fast or somehow managed to successfully hide themselves.
Even so, he was confident that they could handle them. The question was whether or not they could do so quick enough to avoid and incoming instructors, as well as without wasting so much chakra that they would have problems during the second exam that would start as soon as the first one was over.
It would be really annoying if they were forced to retreat without a scroll.
This new team, which considered of Genin from Iwa just like the last one, didn't give them any time to reform. They had just managed to avoid their last attack as the second, a combination of one water and one earth technique from two of their enemies respectably, was already on its way. Unfortunately, unlike the first time, her team didn't manage to escape in the same direction, effectively cutting them off from each other as she and Yukio jumped to the right while Itachi jumped to the left.
She cursed under her breath. "We need a plan!"
Her teammate didn't immediately reply, too busy defending himself from his opponent -a girl with a katana in her hands- to do more than block and dodge her attacks to do anything else. Not that she had any right to complain as she herself had her own enemy to deal with.
Of course it's I who gets the bulky dude that doesn't even blink when I hit him, she complained in her mind. While she couldn't outright overwhelm him, it would be obvious for every observer that she was the superior fighter. The problem was that none of her hits and kicks did more than momentarily slowing him down.
Half the time he didn't even bother stopping her attack, simply bulldozing forward and thus forcing her to retreat backwards. The only attacks he blocked were the slashes of her kunai, which was a shame because she had doused them in poison as she did with all her weapons and even a persistent enemy like this one would succumb to it in a matter of minutes.
"Anko!" Yukio screamed once he managed to gain some space to breathe. "Combination two!"
A small smirk appeared on her face as she called her agreement while simultaneously dodging another devastating kick that would have broken her neck had it connected with her head as intended.
Their enemies wouldn't just sit back and wait to be defeated by whatever strategy they came up with, especially not when they were forced to scream at each other to be heard and thus giving away that they had a plan in the first place, so it didn't come entirely as a surprise when both their attacker suddenly stopped their offensive and jumped back. Even knowing that, she was still unbalanced when her foe, who until that point hadn't backed down even once, did just disappear. Expecting to hit resistance, she kicked with as much power as she could, so when there was no resistance at all, she barely managed to stop herself from tripping over.
"Anko, look out!"
Alerted by Yukio's cry, she jerked her head around, just in time to see the Genin she had fought till now opening a scroll and the resulting explosion of white smoke as dozens of shuriken and kunai were summoned.
Scrolls could hold an ungodly number of weapons, which made it all the more surprising that the amount that flew towards her was more or less manageable. Even with the short delay in her reaction, she was more than capable to dodge the knives with relative ease. Unfortunately, busy as she was, she had no time to wonder why there weren't as many weapons flying towards her as there could be.
The reason became apparent when the Yukio's former foe suddenly threw several kunai of her own into the fray. That wouldn't have been a problem if she threw them directly at her as the few additional weapons wouldn't make such a big difference in the great scheme of things, but she didn't; rather, she aimed her kunai at the already flying projectiles, changing their curse and thus making dodging suddenly almost impossible.
Then she noticed the explosion tags.
She instinctively pulled her arms up to protect herself from the incoming explosion as much as she could, knowing she wouldn't be fast enough to escape it even if she tried, while also ignoring the many small cuts she suffered. The tags were far enough away to not be lethal, she thought, but they would probably still do enough damage to kick her out of the exams. She didn't want it to be true, didn't want to accept that all her hard work until this moment would have been useless if she lost to some slightly above average Genin of all things, only to be pulled out of it when the ground beneath her cracked.
A moment later, an earth pillar pushed her towards the sky and out of reach of the explosion that followed hardly two seconds later.
"Anko, now!"
She didn't allow herself more than a heartbeat to thank Yukio in the privacy of her mind for saving her before she fell back into fighting mode, concentrating fully on the ongoing confrontation rather than on how close that had been.
She went through the necessary hand seals as fast as she could:
"Katon: Ryūka no Jutsu!" (Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique)
"Doton: Doro Hōshi!" (Earth Release: Mud Spore)
Her fire technique collided with the mud river which in turn was filled with several small containers of easily flammable oils, setting the entire river of mud on fire. Surprised as they were at suddenly being on the defensive, their two enemies barely managed it to avoid being hit by jumping into the air. They were so focused on avoiding the flames, however, that they didn't notice the two presences that appeared behind them, meaning there was nothing they could do to avoid the two kicks that sent their heads crashing against each other.
A few seconds later, she and Yukio stood above the two limps forms on the ground while trying to catch their breaths.
"We have no time to rest," she said, still breathing harder than she would like. "We need to see if Itachi-"
"Good job you two." Anko and Yukio jumped around, already falling into a fighting stance and prepared to defend themselves, only to find their aforementioned teammate calmly standing there with the third Iwa Genin standing at his side, his eyes glazed over. "As you can see, I have managed to cast a Genjutsu on him. Mission success."
She blinked, still surprised by the turn of events before she realized that he had probably watched them fight for a while now.
Oh, that little piece of shit!