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Chapter Twenty-One
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We didn't see the Mizukage until the day of the first round of the Chūnin Exams, when she gave a public speech to all of the participants and spectators who had traveled to Kiri. Since this was one of the few public statements on Kiri's changing regime, the entire village went to watch.
Meanwhile, Daddy smuggled us into our mother's house. It was big—the Mizukage's office came with an entire round tower—but only one of the floors showed any signs of use. A lone picture frame hung on one of the walls: a faded photograph of a genin team that didn't even include Mei. A happy black-haired boy, a brooding blonde who was glaring at both of his teammates, and a third sporting a stained bandage over his eye. The photo looked too old to be her own genin team. None of the boys resembled her, either, so it was even more odd.
I'd have to make one of our decorative seals for her before we left. No parent should be destitute of a child's artwork.
Kato agreed with me in his own way, but he chose to throw kunai at her locked bedroom door. "I don't think that's very diplomatic," I commented. "Maybe you don't like her, but breaking into the bedroom isn't going to help."
"What, are you going to pick the lock?"
I rolled my eyes. "No. Sabotage isn—" I sidestepped a kunai and found myself on the floor, hands clamped around his wrists. "Kato, what—"
"Shut up!" he snarled. He smashed a knee into my side. I rolled on top and tried to be diplomatic. I was head butted before I could utter a word.
All of a sudden, I didn't care what the reason was. If I didn't concentrate on defending myself, I wouldn't stand a chance. So all the thoughts about uncharacteristically negligent fathers and raging brothers came after Daddy threw me down the hallway. Ha, Kato hit the wall. Serves him right.
Kato growled and launched himself up again, but this time he attacked thin air. "I hate you!" he shouted. He bounced off the wall with chakra and took several more fruitless swipes at nothing. It didn't take much imagination to figure out who the genjutsu was.
Daddy walked over to me. "Are you going to get up? You have a fight to finish." Odd words from a parent who hated conflict among his family (and rarely used the ninja arts).
I watched Kato warily. Now that I'd been on the receiving end of those punches, I somewhat pitied the air. "Is he fighting you?" I asked.
"No, he's fighting Mei."
I rubbed a growing bump on the side of my head. "So he's fighting you. That works out."
Daddy raised his eyebrows in keen confusion.
"Sure," I said. "Please, try to pretend that all of that wasn't wrong. I'm not dumb."
Daddy didn't break eye contact. I hesitated. There was something off about the heartbeat, though, and Daddy'd left us alone in the tower. "Nope," I decided. "You're not him. He would have broken eye contact." It was more than that, of course, but I wanted to see how many bruises I would get and if my scratches were bleeding.
They weren't. Just my pride. Kato and I still sparred with our tantō every evening, and my winning streak there had made me overconfident. I shouldn't have tried to talk to him. I should have tried to beat the snot out of him first. Not that that worked when I tried.
What to do when a benign brother erupted? He was past reasoning—especially now as he raged at an untouchable illusion of our mother. "Leave us alone!" he shouted at the thin air. How had it come to that? Outright attacking a woman he should respect. Trying his best to clobber his sister.
"I'll be in the kitchen," I said.
The parent identifying as Kakashi tagged along. "Your brother doesn't hate you."
I smiled (ouch. Now I was bleeding). "That self-same brother doesn't hate you, either. He probably hates Daddy for not telling him ahead of time. Change is rough." Besides, unlike the rest of us, Kato had never had an existential crisis. He didn't know what it was to have one moment ruin an entire future.
Mei caved and slipped out of her chakra disguise. "I know. Half of this village shares the same opinion." Her piercing green eyes clouded over. "I'm glad you, at least, can be diplomatic."
Um. HA! I'd been bitter, and I'd shared that misery freely. Kakashi should have stabbed me and been done with it. Anything Kato could do would be tame by comparison. Time to change the subject. "Did the speech work?"
She raised an amused eyebrow at me. "Speeches don't work, Kana. They introduce ideas and influence people's perception of them, but that's it. There's no sole factor. Not really."
"Then what did you mean to say?"
"I meant to say that my teams are going to slaughter anyone who thinks we've gone pacifist. I briefly considered adding that Academy dropout rates are higher than the casualty rate used to be. Instead, I welcomed a new generation to my village and wished them success as I warned a few of their escorts to back off. But they won't. I might have to pull in a favor from Kakashi."
Assassinations? "You don't know Daddy very well, do you."
The Mizukage's tone was laced with surprise. "Oh?"
"He'd never mention his missions to us like that, although he might spend more time out training." Which meant talking to his neglected friends at their monument. "He would never mention killing. The only time he talks about that is when he mumbles about Uchiha boys." Were it not for Daddy's reputation, one could almost picture him at a desk job. Almost.
("Stop dodging!" Kato snarled. A wall crumbled, but par for the course in a ninja household.)
Mei's eyes lit up. "You have an Uchiha? Those men are fiiiine. I don't think a girl in the Elemental Countries will forget the show they gave at my first chūnin exam, when. . . ." It looked like she hadn't changed much in five years. "Goodness," she said a few minutes later, "it's easy to forget how old you are. Wait a few years before you start anything serious. But still, killing is a part of our life. Your father shouldn't hide that. You need to be prepared."
"And that's why you two aren't happily married."
She didn't get upset and babble. But I don't think she understood, either. Where Daddy saw underneath the underneath and trusted the roots to grow, Mei gauged the plant's success by its growth. She would always confront and assess the results. Daddy was Daddy. He never really stopped assessing.
He of all people knew that childhood in a ninja village was fragile. While we had a training regimen, he wanted us to be happy. To have the childhood he'd lost.
We ate supper when Daddy reappeared. Kato sulked and refused to do anything. Unlike me, Kato was not mentally old. He was an appropriate age for tantrums. He was too smart to be manipulated out of it, though, so I stayed away from him and found other things to do.
Namely, the Chūnin Exams.
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Eleven teams advanced to the preliminaries. Six of them were Shisui's predictions. Two of them were mine and mine alone—and since Shisui had hogged all the good teams, there wasn't of a basis for all of his stupid teasing. I'd only picked three to his ten, after all.
The sole team from Iwa was, of course, his vote. Then there were three more teams from Kumo (a win for me), two from Suna (one of them was older, all female—they went by the "Sand Sisters"—and Shisui had snapped them up), and four from Kiri. The same four teams that Shisui had chosen, eerily enough. Finally, one Konoha team had managed to win my second prediction. Uchiha Eiko's team, interestingly enough. So much for the clan saying no. But I digress.
The preliminaries were open to any ninjas who wanted to watch and were skilled enough to avoid the odd stray jutsu. Kato and I weren't ninja, but it was our birthday . . . and Kakashi had won a Chūnin Exam at the age of six. He couldn't dissuade me out of this one. So he was perched somewhere in the top rows with Kato while I stood next to Shisui in the front. On Daddy's recommendation, I hadn't disguised myself. Shisui, on the other hand, had colored his mask to resemble Kiri's famous hunter-nin corps.
"Aw, just look at them," Shisui said. "They're more afraid of the audience than each other."
That wasn't surprising. The Mizukage was talking to Ao in one of the corners, and there were plenty of jōnin from all of the villages. Plenty of the eliminated teams had shown up to take notes for the future. There was nowhere near the crowd the final tournament would have, but these were the spectators that mattered.
The mob of genin on the floor fidgeted for a few minutes as more ninjas trickled in. Finally, a jōnin proctor holding a clipboard materialized and began to bark at them. "Here's how things are going to roll today," he started. He paused to smirk as they all turned to him. "Or did I mean heads? Anyway, you're all going to be put in random teams of three for an elimination round. You won't be paired with your own teammates. Since only eleven genin teams passed, the last team will fight three of the previous winners. Any questions?"
One of the Mist genin raised a hand. He looked normal enough, a redhead with an intelligent face. "We can win if our teammates are dead, right?"
The crowd of genin whispered to each other. Some were confused. Others wondered what would happen if both teams went down a person. A few of them caught on to the deeper side of the question. What happened when an enterprising genin decided to finish off his own team to eliminate later competition? Was there a safeguard for the non-murderous in the competition?
The proctor frowned. "Anyone who sabotages a member of his temporary team will be disqualified immediately. Other than that, whichever team is left standing wins. Now, let's get started. The first teams have ten seconds to get in place." He glanced at his clipboard, rattled off six names, and headed to the other side of the arena. There was a moment of silence.
Kiri's preliminaries were being held in the same wide tower stadium that would host the final tournament. The floor of the arena was metal. There was a large puddle of water on the closer side, but that was it. Presumably things would be fancier for the final tournament.
Three of the genin jumped to the arena's far side, landed, and shrugged. They were the first team. A Sand Sister, another Sand genin, and a boy from Kiri. From their weapons, they were all long-distance fighters. They could sit back and attack with ease.
The second team gathered in the middle and began to talk all at once. "Huh," I said.
Beside me, my portable Shisui device turned on. "Team Two will win."
"Great," I replied. "Why watch?"
A buzzer sounded, and the first team launched a flurry of puppets and a water dragon. One of the genin on the second team summoned a few fireballs. His companions followed through with their original plan of three seconds.
Team Two had spouted some interesting things in those first few seconds. Mr. Fireball had shouted, "This is gonna be a hot mess! Stay behind me and—"
The Iwa boy had said quickly, "I'm close-range and they're long-range. Cover me before they attack."
The female of this team, another of the so-called Sand Sisters, had replied, "Got it."
So before the long-range attacks could hit, the Suna girl summoned two puppets and guarded the Iwa boy with them. The Iwa boy had charged at Team One.
And then Team One was down, taken out by a rock-covered fist.
"See?" Shisui asked. I rolled my eyes. "If Akio hadn't moved immediately, the long-range team would have beaten them down."
The fireball genin whined at his fellow winners as the Sand Sister collected her damaged puppets. "How cold was that? I didn't have a chance. You guys are selfish."
The Suna girl glared. "Save your energy," the Iwa boy, Akio, replied blandly. They hopped back into the stands together, where they complimented each other's moves and parted on good terms.
"I get the next team," I told Shisui. He shrugged. We watched the medics carry off the unconscious genin.
Of the eleven teams that had qualified, five had little fan bases among the jōnin. The Sand Sisters, for instance, were an older team that specialized in immobilizing and killing. Their puppets were agile and pretty handy with poisons. Plus, they weren't unattractive, and to the average chūnin audience member, that meant a lot.
Then there was Konoha's team. Two of the boys who had crushes on my alias Suzume were in it, and they were decent. Or something. No one cared about them, because Uchiha Eiko was their teammate and she was apparently a "devil" of an Uchiha. Ruthless and determined.
Iwa had its sole entry, a nice all-around team that used earth jutsu and was rumored to have a few good tricks up their sleeves. Akio, the boy who had coated his fist in rock, was one of theirs. Hardly surprising that Iwa's representatives' abilities were still secret. They seemed to end fights quickly (which didn't mean lucky. It meant smart).
The last two worthwhile teams were Kiri's. One was a specialized team (for what, I hadn't yet heard) that was supposed to be just as clever as the Iwa team. The girl used bubbles, one of the boys was a summoner, and their leader used a very girly dancing style to fight. They were considered a good all-around team . . . weirdly. Even weirder, their team was nicknamed "Haiku." Supposedly, the reason was poetic justice.
Kiri's other team was built for tracking and assassination and was all-male. Two of them were budding hunter-nin, and the third was Hōzuki Mangetsu, who was the darling of the village. He was also the owner of the sword Hiramekarei and unofficially one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. Word on the street was his membership hinged on his performance in the Exam, but no one was worried.
The proctor announced the next fight. The first trio was a boy from my favorite Kumo team, the dancing fighter from team Haiku (Tsuki Hikaru), and some other Mist genin. Their opponents were the last of the Sand Sisters, the summoner from team Haiku, and a really short Kiri girl.
"Time's up," Shisui said as the buzzer sounded.
"Team One," I guessed. It seemed like it would be an even fight, as fights went.
My bodyguard nodded. "Then I'll go with Team Two, and loser has to shield us from the next water jutsu."
I pursed my lips. "I don't know. What if they don't regain consciousness before that happens?" Shisui laughed, catching the joke easily. But if my team lost, he wouldn't protect me from any non-lethal water jutsu for the rest of the day. So . . . time to vaguely consider cheating. Or at least make sure that his team didn't cheat over mine.
This time the genin knew what to expect. Team Kana each reported their abilities and let Hikaru the Kiri dancer take charge. They retreated at the sound of the buzzer and watched Team Shisui do the same thing. Jōnin all through the stadium agreed that Team Kana could have taken out the summoner right off the bat. But the tall, slouching dancer that led Team Kana did not want to ruin his friend's chance at being promoted.
Meanwhile, the Sand Sister on Team Shisui demanded a list of weaknesses from her new allies. "I'm not betraying Hikaru," the summoner said flatly, narrowing his eyes at the Suna genin.
"Fine, lose," she snarled. "Don't be so naïve."
The short girl murmured that the second Mist genin on Team Kana had twisted an ankle the day before, was a mid-range fighter like she herself, and was low on chakra.
"Good," nasty Sand Sister smiled. "You cover me and I'll poison him. And Sissy, you can be the distraction."
"It's Sahara," the Mist summoner muttered. He bit his thumb and three giant salamanders suddenly loomed over Team Kana. The Kumo boy lunged at them as the Kiri boy flashed through hand seals to counter a barrage of water missiles.
Shisui chuckled. "Looks like it's my loss."
It looked to me like Team Kana's loss . . . but Hikaru—who honestly looked nothing like a dancer—straightened and dipped into the closest thing to ballet I'd probably ever see again. He launched himself straight into the water barrage (the other Mist boy cleared a path nicely, since his own teammate had created them), spun midair to form a spherical shield around his body, and crashed down between Team Shisui's girls.
This was a move team Haiku's benched teammate called "that stupid girly bubble haha die, Suna nin," and when Hikaru didn't drop dead from a hail of poisoned senbon, the Sand Sister fled. Hikaru knocked out the Mist girl before the shield melted.
The summoner darted over and held his own against the really fast and graceful dance moves. Salamanders appeared and disappeared like fireflies.
Meanwhile, the Kumo kid dropped from either poison or a summon and the Mist boy threw a handful of jutsu at the Sand Sister. The Sand Sister launched more poison, which meant another dancing spherical shield from Hikaru and a water wall that sent droplets flying into my face.
It occurred to me that this fight was probably going to take a while, and that that poison cloud was wafting our way. The Mizukage was still talking to Ao, Shisui was in all appearances napping, and every single ninja ever was discussing strategy with his bestie. Who cared about the fight? I could learn much more by ignoring it.
"Welcome to the Chūnin Exams," Shisui said knowingly. "Once you know a bit, it's mostly pretty routine. If your father says anything's good, let me know, okay?"
I highly doubted that Shisui wasn't watching for rare jutsu to steal, but I nodded. The fight below us dragged on flashily, to the amusement of eccentric ninjas who had nothing better to do. And Team Kana won, just like Shisui had said.
Team Haiku's female member ended up paired with Mist's very favorite Mangetsu for the next fight, and they were nearly wiped out by their close-ranged opponents. In fact, someone kicked Mangetsu in the head and he collapsed into a puddle of water (I recognized that move. Even the lightning jutsu that immobilized him seemed familiar). The Haiku girl distracted everyone with bubbles, Mangetsu reformed, and they cleared out of there like no tomorrow. Within a minute, the remaining close-ranged team was showered by a veritable storm of jutsu. Ouch. Overkill, much?
The fourth match had a close, mid, and long-ranged team that was really, really well balanced . . . and on the other side of the board was Uchiha Eiko. "Ouch," said Shisui.
The audience waited to see if Eiko would leave her own teammate for last like the other competitors had. She took him out first. It was a stupid move, because she ended up in easy striking range of her opponents, but one of her new allies had some kind of feather clone thing that could basically teleport, and the fight didn't take long to end.
"Hm," Daddy told Kato. "If she wants a promotion, she probably shouldn't start by maiming her own teammate."
The peanut gallery objected. "But shouldn't she use what she knows to win?"
Daddy sighed.
There were only nine genin left that hadn't fought yet, and one of them had spent the last few minutes figuring out teams. There were still two boys from the hunter-nin squad, and only one of the Iwa squad had fought yet. The nine of them told each other a bit about their best ranges (or at least, what they wanted people to think was their best) and figured out a little hierarchy of team leaders. "And keep one thing in mind," their ringleader said. "Promotions have nothing to do with who wins. Being a chūnin is more about teamwork and resourcefulness."
It was a pretty speech, but none of them were interested in being friends. Six of them were called down for the next match. The remaining three huddled together. Most of the genin who'd been on winning teams and were thus in the pool for the last fight gathered at the far side. They all tried to speak over each other. Which turned into shouting.
I shifted, internally backtracking away from the squabble of young voices. But the noise only grew louder and harsher. Too loud. My head felt like it was shaking. I smacked Shisui, not wanting to talk. He turned. He poked me in the side in a completely unhelpful way. When I doubled over from the sensory overload, he teleported me up to Daddy. "I injected chakra, but it's not a genjutsu."
Daddy activated his Sharingan and reached for my shoulders. "Embrace the noise." Seriously?
"But—"
I released the killer grip I'd tried to put on my hearing, and with it the hint of chakra mimicry I'd been holding all day. The mad jumble of sharp voices stayed the same. People everywhere shouted . . . even Daddy, who flashed through hand seals at the speed of light. He put his hand on my head and the screaming—
Over six years ago, my sense of hearing had been the first to return. It had never left me. I relied on it.
But you know, if I could have picked a time and place to lose my hearing it would probably be at a chūnin exam, surrounded by strangers, and I'd definitely want the only three people I trusted to be wearing masks. Nope, nope, nope! I stood in silence for what felt like hours as Daddy checked my pulse and eventually pulled me onto his lap.
My ears felt like they'd been doused in my old world's anesthesia. It was an alien sensation to this world, where medical chakra was used to dull pain and every medic's chakra felt different. I couldn't feel anything from my ears at all. With my hearing gone, the rest of my senses lost their drive and faded to a queer whitish feeling.
Eventually, I remembered that I had some paper and a pencil in one of my pockets. I gave it to Daddy after asking what he'd done. Or at least, I think I asked. Speech is much more daunting when there's no frame of reference for it.
A last resort, Daddy wrote. I blocked your hearing and the chakra that amplifies it.
When I asked why he couldn't have just blocked the chakra by itself, he smiled his fake smile and wrote, You should watch this match. The Iwa girl uses genjutsu. You'll probably want to do the same thing she does one day.
The one match I would have loved? What was this, a cruel joke?
The Iwa girl was beaten by the Iwa boy's team before she could cast another genjutsu.
The last trio had the last Leaf genin, and Uchiha Eiko was one of the extra opponents. The Uchiha's team won.
As I saw Kato cheering, I asked Shisui to cart me out of the stadium before I threw up. Big whoop, chūnin exams. Big whoop, birthdays.
It struck me that at least I'd gotten to see my mother today without drawing any suspicion.
. . . Big whoop, suspicion.
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~Konoha/Leaf, Kiri/Mist, Suna/Sand, Kumo/Lightning, Iwa/Earth.
Yikes, it feels like I always end chapters the same way. Oh, well, I'll pretend it's a signature.
Hey, guys! I've been sick for three months. But I'm getting better. And I know that the fights were nothing special to read, but in my defense, I've been sick? No, we'll go with the fact that more fights are coming, and those ones will be more important. But this chapter stinks. Sorry.
Since I was originally planning to show the genjutsu fight, it'll have to make its way to the side story, Handling Hatake. I need to glare at Kakashi for a minute, because Kana's little hearing attack wouldn't have happened if he'd said the dialogue he was supposed to say, but nooo. Eh, it'll work out.
No anonymous reviewers? ',:( Wait, there is one! But the stats page wasn't showing you, huh. My thanks to Guest (You're quite welcome for the update!). And thanks go to my beta again, too. Thanks, darkhairedbabe! You're the darkhairedbest, especially when you're busy!
If you want to see the list of all the teams and fights in the preliminaries, there's a link to my diagram on my profile page. I wrote all the fights out, too, but that was done on paper. Lots of extra work that won't get shown. You know, I kinda wanna see some fan art of the shock of deafness or the glitter bombs that Ao and Shisui have met. Please don't take that as begging or anything—it's just a very true statement.
All of the genin team-ups (and most of the winners) were completely randomized. The remaining fights and winners have also been fed through a randomizer. By the way, some of the genin are nods to TheHiddenAngel, Eeirany, carsonthesage, and Plasmagorou for various reasons (and I'm just saying, but the 500th review is coming, and 555 is a really neat number, too).
This chapter's bonus content involves a look back on chapter one! And speaking of, chapter one has been updated. So go read it, check out Handling Hatake (there's crack!), and pester me to update my various fics as you await your bonus short. I respond well to crazy suggestions and ideas—and surprisingly, names of ships that I can drown in the ocean. Slowly.
Until next time!