Landing in London

If this keeps me away much longer
I don't know what I would do
You've got to understand it's a hard life
That I'm going through

And when the night falls in around me
And I don't think I'll make it through
I'll use your light to guide the way
'Cause all I think about is you

Three Doors Down

After the death of the bird, it was as though Kasumi's fear evaporated. Killing the tiny creature had affected her in a way that the death of Umi-chan, the boy from the Academy exams, hadn't. If she had been pressed for a reason - "I'm going to explain in a moment, Naruto-kun, if you'll give me a chance" - it would be because Umi-chan had been about to kill her, whereas the little bird had only been unlucky in where it chose to perch that morning. Killing a harmless creature for that alone was wrong.

That didn't seem to bother either of Kasumi's teammates, though. The Mizokage's son, in particular, was positively jovial that he had passed the test.

"That is why you almost didn't pass," Anoshi-sensei said severely. "They do not want joy in killing. They want cold, unthinking competence. A shinobi is only a tool, and killing is what it is used for. Joy in that work will spoil the tool."

"Anoshi-sensei sounds like a bit of a tool."

"Shut up, idiot!"

The second test was a survival challenge for the teams…

"Like ours."

"Sakura, don't interrupt!"

"Shut up, idiot. You're the one that keeps interrupting."

"Then I won't go into much detail about the test itself, alright? Anyway…"

…with the point being to collect scrolls from other teams and make it to the finish point within three days. The high mountain terrain gave the shinobi from the Water Country a natural disadvantage, for compared to these soaring peaks the mountains of the Water Country were only big hills. Most of the teams had the disadvantage, in fact, the only exceptions being the candidates from the Hidden Cloud, the Hidden Rock and, to a lesser extent, the Hidden Leaf.

Kasumi did as she had been instructed, and worked hard to keep up and help her teammates in what small ways she could. When it came to the fights, though, she stayed to the side, fighting only to defend herself on the rare chance that one of the members of the opposite team thought to prove themselves by attacking a child who was obviously so much weaker.

The exception came during the evening of the second day. The three Water-nin's were very close to the finish point, but had yet to acquire the second scroll they needed. The sun was starting to disappear behind the peaks when they met a group of Rock-nin's. In the ensuing battle, the candidates from the Earth Country became trapped under a rock avalanche that the two boys from the Hidden Mist set off by slamming water into the hillside above them.

If they had asked Kasumi - which of course they didn't - she would have said she thought it was a stupid move. The other candidates could have been killed or - more to the point for her teammates - the scroll lost under the rocks. But over the last two days, Kasumi had begun to wonder if the two boys didn't want to kill the others they battled.

The Rock-style ninjas, defeated, handed over the scroll. They were close enough that they could make it to the finish point tonight, Kasumi knew, and be done a day early. Surely that would look good for her two teammates.

But even as she opened her mouth to suggest it, the Mizokage's son began a series of hand seals the Kasumi recognized. She would never bother with the jutsu herself - she could do something ten times as big with only three seals, although she would never tell her teammates that - but it was not one that should be used here, against these opponents. Trapped as they were under the rocks, the young candidates would be drowned by the flood of water summoned by the Water Explosion technique. Kasumi watched with growing horror as the other boy egged his friend on, eager to see "those cocky little bastards" drowned.

Anger and instinct took over in Kasumi, and within seconds both the boys were stuck as full of senbons as porcupines. The needles, aimed with pure murderous rage at the cruelty of the two boys, had struck home in a dozen lethal points.

While Kasumi was aghast at what she had just done, she let Ryuu direct her, unresisting, to pick up the two scrolls and both her comrades. They were heavy, but with her chakra to help lift their unconscious forms and the utter numbness that had taken hold of her, Kasumi wouldn't have noticed if they had weighed twice as much.

Anoshi-sensei was horrified when he met her at the finish point. Although the two boys were taken to the hospital immediately, and given all the best treatment that the medical ninjas of the Hidden Cloud had to offer, they both died that night, each within an hour of the other. In accordance with the laws of the Water Country, however, he did not say anything, and only watched in silence as Kasumi trained for and then entered the final matches.

The final matches were of little interest to Kasumi. She fought only to stay alive through them, and emerged a chuunin who was only of interest because she had, somehow, survived the exam.