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Chapter Twenty-Six
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Daddy woke me the next morning by playing dodge-the-kunai out the kitchen window with one of the dogs as he fried bacon and cracked eggs into a halfhearted attempt at an omelette. "How's my little genin?" he asked.
Oh, right, that was why he was home. He must have gotten some time off from his crazy busy schedule. Seriously, why had I just signed up for this profession when I knew what a killer it was?
The dog in the backyard whined, upset that its game had been paused. "Hush, you," Daddy told it. "Bring them inside and I'll throw them again." He cracked another egg into the pan, hissed, and picked out the fragment of shell. Good. I didn't think jokes about extra calcium were very funny. "So, which jōnin are you saddling? I had a stakeout earlier and didn't catch up on the gossip."
Life didn't get much earlier than five in the morning, did it? "Morino-san," I replied. I stuck my tongue out at my reflection in the bathroom mirror.
I didn't see Kakashi's reaction, but the short pause was telling enough. He poked at the bacon, inciting a new round of ecstatic sizzling. "I'll pray for your soul."
"Thanks, Dad."
He froze. I wandered into the kitchen to set the table and headed out to do my morning regimen of stretches and so on. Kato woke up in time for breakfast and we finished our exercises together like we always did. As usual, it struck me that maaaybe we would score higher on our physical tests if we didn't use up energy in the morning. Someone might have been sneakily keeping us back in school. Or preparing us for the death trap of our upcoming career. Life is full of possibilities.
At precisely 5:43 AM (clocks are pretty easy to listen to), I settled down on a park bench with some knitting needles to scope out my team's meeting place. The rooftop Ibiki had described was two buildings away, but since he'd told us to meet him at 6:15 on the dot, I'd decided I would wait here until then. There was no need to arrive early when he'd implied that we shouldn't. Who was I to go against clear orders? Well, when they suited me.
My disguise of a kind old lady nearly backfired when an older man took it upon himself to sit beside me with a lengthy story of how he, too, liked to feed pigeons when he first woke up in the morning. I tried to fend him off with pictures of my "darling grandchildren, oh, and here's my newest grandson with my dear husband," but he refused to be deterred. Thankfully, I managed to escape without murdering him with one of my knitting needles.
. . . It's a sad thing to escape to Ibiki.
Said jōnin was already waiting with my two new teammates, and he didn't look pleased. Great. At least his heart rate was normal. Not that that meant anything.
Henge long since dropped, I filed up to my place in the team menagerie just as the nearest bell tower struck quarter past. Perfect. I'd escaped the old man and made it here on time. Mission accomplished.
The vibe radiating from my new sensei said that I was sorely mistaken.
When Iruka had first given Ibiki's name, my imagination had gone a bit wild. What I'd pictured was a hybrid of a coach and a drill sergeant shouting to drop and give him a few thousand. Considering our interaction yesterday had been limited to a time and a location, I could still be right.
My new teammates were understandably too chicken to greet me, so I waved to them before the Defcon could drop any lower. "Hi," I said. "Good morning, Sensei."
I was now self-established as The Girl. Also, I'd officially spoken to Ibiki-sensei for the first time, which put me well in the lead for the position of most polite teammate.
Instead of greeting us, Ibiki chose to stare us down. Boy. No one on this team knew how to break oppressive silences, did they? I should have stayed on the park bench with my knitting. Speaking of which, stuffing yarn into my weapons pouch wasn't a great idea. Let's hope that wouldn't come back to bite me. Who am I kidding? Of course the second we'd have to attack our new sensei, I'd have to sort my way through a half-finished glove and a large ball of pink yarn to get to my senbon—on second thought, anything in my pouch could be a last resort.
Come to think of it, in a fight with a jōnin, I'm pretty sure any move I'll make will be a last resort.
Ibiki didn't look like he cared to expound on yesterday's expanse of words ("Here. Six-fifteen tomorrow morning."). I considered asking for the traditional names, likes, dislikes, and goals nonsense myself, but self-preservation won out. Ibiki could handle it.
After all, the basic psyche evaluation was part of the paperwork he'd have to turn in whether he passed or failed us. It was one of the few requirements for the genin team test.
While Ibiki considered which words would terrify us the most, I glanced at the other members of my team. Toru, the popular brunette who had talked to me yesterday, and Omezo, a boy I knew nothing about.
Omezo looked sensible. He had short black hair and a serious face that was much pastier than the rest of his olive skin. He wasn't as tall as Toru was, but unlike Toru, Omezo was coping with stress by subtly flexing his hands into the basic hand seal shapes. That was a useful habit. I should borrow it. Except I wouldn't be able to use it in public.
Omezo was pretty nondescript in appearance. I didn't have a clue about his personality or abilities. Or rather, I didn't have any proof about them. He couldn't be outgoing. From the silence he'd met me with when I'd said hi to him yesterday, he was either a deep thinker or very rude.
Meanwhile, Toru was distinctive enough that I remembered him. It's hard not to listen when the girls in the next classroom oversing a boy's praises incessantly, and sadly, Toru was hardly the only popular boy in the Academy. There were three others at the moment. Each of them was an equal plague on my ears. Toru's fans weren't as shrill as, say, Sasuke's, but these things have a bad habit of evening out.
Toru was everything a pre-adolescent girl could want. Tall, dark-haired, long-lashed, long-limbed. In my humble opinion, he looked like a young boy who should eat more vegetables. Still, he kept his grades up and usually managed to be more thoughtful towards others than the average popular kid.
Toru's eyes were directed at the ground and he was trembling slightly. Hm. From what I knew of Toru, he wasn't one to be intimidated. But then— Intimidation, thy name is Ibiki.
Our tall, scarred sensei glared down at me. "Introduce me to your teammates," he said. Or he would have, had the "said" not been more of a command, and "command" a simplification of "death threat." Unfortunately, I forgot to grace him with the proper deer-in-the-headlights expression thanks to my errant mind's new rabbit trail (how would Ibiki propose? So much for being intimidated).
Ibiki knew who all of us were. I did not. I hadn't exchanged anything personal with them yesterday, since Ibiki hadn't led us in the usual team introduction. I should have taken the initiative. Too late now! Time to wing it and hope I wouldn't have to guess.
"This is Adachi Toru-kun," I started, nodding at Toru with confidence that would turn into lying through my teeth if I were questioned much further. "And this is Obata Omezo-kun."
Ibiki didn't look satisfied. Well, then. How much could I afford to make up? What did Ibiki know in the first place? Definitely that Toru had graduated on time and gotten the highest male score. Omezo had also been on-track, but he'd never bothered talking to me. Of the three, I knew Toru the most, but Ibiki wasn't far behind.
"Toru-kun's favorite restaurant is the shabu-shabu restaurant two blocks east of his home," I said, hoping that Toru could do the same with Omezo. "He was second in hand-to-hand combat, but he's always scored the highest on tests. He's left-handed. He wants to marry a cool ninja wife and start a new clan. One day, he wants to meet my father." It was surprising what preteens shared among themselves.
Toru wondered how I'd known that when I'd never shown any interest in talking to him and was rarely around him, but he was still too cowed by our sensei's presence to speak out loud. This was no longer understandable. Ibiki was intimidating. Big deal, guys!
I finished scrounging around in my memory and finished with the rather sweet, "He doesn't like it when people make girls cry."
I mean, I get that Sasuke was the heartthrob of the upcoming graduating class, but Toru actually somewhat deserved to be. Either that or he had a bunch of older sisters who'd drilled this conduct into him. Ha, who knew what would happen to Kato with a few more years of my influence? All I had to go on was the past, but. . . .
"And you," Ibiki said, rounding on the two boys. It was comical how scared they appeared to be. In retrospect, he was threatening us with nearly every kind of nonverbal threat there was. I should have paid attention and cared.
I was nervous, too. I was just better at hiding it by this point. That, and the detail that even though Ibiki intimidated me, I had this annoying preconception that since I'd recognized him from my earlier life, I knew all of his tricks. I didn't. I knew I didn't, and while I could read some of his thoughts, I certainly couldn't read his mind. Unlike him, who could do both of those literally. Unless that was a Yamanaka clan thing.
While I had a stupid feeling that I knew Ibiki, and I did know Toru to an extent, I didn't know my other teammate at all. So it came as a surprise when Omezo turned calculating eyes on me and answered Ibiki. "Hatake Wakana thinks she's above everyone," he said shrewdly, "including you, Ibiki-sensei."
My opinion of a neutral party had never done an about-face so quickly.
And then there was the little matter of the fact that he'd been right . . . in a way.
"She doesn't have any friends and she holds herself back in classes," the boy continued. "Even though she rarely loses spars and handles weapons like the Copy Ninja used to, she pretends that she can't aim to save her life. Disgusting." His tone had steadily gone downhill to match his words. I believed him—he didn't like me. But even though he believed most of his own words, I heard what his body was saying, and he was lying through his teeth.
"Hatake wants to be like her father one day. She doesn't want anyone to know it." We'd reached a point where I was much more interested than hurt by his words, but he chose to stop there. Good, I guess. The poor boy already had Ibiki's attention—I doubt he wanted me to get intimidating as well.
Toru, who'd always defended girls who were being degraded (I wonder why he had a fan club?), completely forgot that Ibiki was the scariest thing since sliced bread and glared Omezo down. Brave soul. "You better hope Kana-chan doesn't cry!" he hissed.
Great, now I was tempted to slap both of them.
A few seconds ago, I'd felt like I was opening a new package of paper to craft into seals, or maybe staring down a large truck with a soapy rag and a bucket. I could deal with attitude problems. I could be persistent and work through this task if I were careful enough.
Suddenly, Ibiki's unchanging attitude hit home.
And for a second, I wondered.
Toru was still angry, but he wisely moved on to describe Omezo in a less confrontational manner. Omezo, for his part, listened passively.
Omezo was a rather mediocre student in all areas except traps and keeping a low profile—the latter, sadly, had never been possible for me. His father had been one of my various teachers. Omezo enjoyed completing tasks ahead of time and disliked . . . me, because Toru didn't know his old classmate very well. Or wasn't willing to lie through his teeth to Ibiki. (I can't deny the sentiment of that. I'd only just barely avoided making up my description of Toru.)
Toru's disdainful attitude melted away under our new sensei's encouraging mood. Omezo glanced at me, apparently to gauge his influence on my morale.
Our sensei chose that moment to disappear.
I snorted.
Toru growled something offensive.
Omezo, at least, just blinked.
Basically, if this had been an emergency, we'd all be dead. Good, it wasn't and we weren't, and I didn't care. I was the one who could track and locate, after all. And not just by hearing. Henges were far from the only thing I could do.
Toru's mental state all but jumped up and danced a jig at Ibiki's sudden absence. He wasn't stupid enough to act that way, though. "Where'd he go?" he asked. "Should we follow him?"
I considered. Since I probably had the best grasp of Ibiki's whereabouts, there were a few considerations we would—
"I think that was a clone," Omezo replied. "I don't have the sensing skills to find him. We should make a plan. What kinds of jutsu do you know, Toru-kun?"
"Everything except the Body Bind one, but they only covered that once," said Toru. "Did they cover it in your class?"
Omezo nodded. "It won't help us find him, though. How about you, Hatake?"
Rudeness, much?
Well, we were a team now, terrifying as it was to trust near-strangers. No wonder Daddy had failed so many potential teams. Sharing my life wasn't exactly as simple as I'd always expected. "They glossed over jutsu in the summer class, and I didn't learn most of the ones you were taught this year." Not that I hadn't listened to the hand seals and accompanying instructions, of course. My notebooks weren't filled with doodles. "My father taught me how to track," I supplied, watching Omezo with the same curiosity he was affording me.
"That's not going to help if it was a clone," Toru said. "Can you locate him with a tracking jutsu?"
That wasn't the question. If they'd just stop talking and let me think for a minute, they could make as many plans as they wanted. I just needed to process all of the things running through my head. It was a downside of my hearing. For all that the ability and its chakra were similar to the Sharingan, I didn't get the perk of enhanced mental processing.
Or so I imagined at this point in time. It wasn't true, of course. My hearing sped up my mental capacity just as much as the Sharingan did. I just didn't realize the difference between sight and the multi-spatial dimension that is sound. The Hyūga clan, on the other hand . . . eh, they're pretty opinionated. As far as I'm concerned, their brains don't have to compensate very much for the Byakūgan, and the whole superiority debate is pointless drivel that shouldn't be allowed to grace the air. Today, however, all I knew was that my mind was thinking of too much at once.
Why had Ibiki simply told us yesterday where and when to meet? He'd meant for us to get to know each other. We hadn't. He definitely knew that. Why, then, disappear again? Were we supposed to band together and find him before some unmentioned deadline? Oh, no doubt. There had to be something past that. Where there clues? Hints? Threats? I couldn't locate him, so I knew I had to be missing something.
I mean, really. After the graduation test, I wasn't about to miss another genjutsu.
"When did Ibiki-sensei get here?" I asked. What? I'd been occupied with my friendly old man. I couldn't be aware of everything.
"Ten after," Omezo replied. "I got here at the top of the hour. Toru-kun was two minutes early."
Toru spluttered and butted in indignantly. "Yeah, well I would have gotten here earlier if this little kid hadn't run right out of his house when I walked by! He was really hard to catch."
Omezo rolled his eyes. "So what? You got here on time. Hatake barely got here at all."
Wait a sec. "Obata-san," (I figured I may as well try to get on Omezo's good side) "did you talk to anyone this morning?"
Omezo barely let me finish. "No."
Well that was a quick answer. He was lying. Fine, I'd explain.
"An old man came up to me this morning and practically offered marriage before I managed to leave. I barely made it here in time. If something similar happened to Toru-kun, and especially to all three of us, then we should start there." At their odd looks, I shrugged. "Bad things come in threes."
That was a cross-cultural statement and they ignored it. Omezo blinked. "Did you say 'offered marriage'?"
"Why, did I use archaic words?" After all this time and study, had I really messed up the language? No, I couldn't have. Sadao had only proposed to Isami a month ago, and I'd been both watching from the sidelines and forced to sit through and give a lifetime's worth of retellings. I'd used the right words.
My teammates looked down at me like I was still an adorable toddler. I wasn't, for the record. Whatever.
Toru shook his head. "I guess that's weirder than the kid telling me he'd like me to attend his funeral." Huh!
Um, no, Toru, the little kid definitely won this one. Old widowers were allowed to be lonely. Kids weren't allowed to be very much at all, and I should know.
Marriage, death . . . if there had indeed been three conversations, the last subject wasn't a great mystery. When I mentioned that, Omezo repented.
Sure enough, an old man had run into Omezo and talked about childbirth. Omezo had run off without replying.
So, an old man had mentioned birth to Omezo, a different old man had waxed on about marital bliss to me, and a little boy had joked about funerals to Toru. Well. How fun.
Instead of attempting to locate Ibiki, we decided to follow the clues. The consensus was that we'd head to various cemeteries and look for funerals (the kid had asked Toru to come and was the odd one out age-wise). Omezo wanted to stick together since we didn't know what we would find. When I mentioned I'd be able to come the second they told me to because—he shot me down. Omezo didn't hate me. He just hated my privileged life and the way his father had worshipped me. Omezo's words, not mine.
There were no funerals at six-thirty in the morning. Surprise. Eh, frankly, the fact we'd reached a consensus at all spoke eons for our newly-developing teamwork.
I passed the time by asking probing personal questions. My teammates responded in kind, and by the time we'd exhausted our knowledge of cemeteries, we knew each other and our database of abilities pretty well. We were also frustrated.
Believe me, if I'd known that after all this time, I wouldn't be able to locate Ibiki—!
The last cemetery we headed to was the Memorial Stone. I knew it well because I'd visited it often over the years (although not so much recently). I'd wanted to go there first. When we arrived, Toru and Omezo both found a relative's name on the stone. Toru's mother. Omezo's uncle. No wonder we'd come here last.
Once again, we found no indication of any clues. No names were swapped, there were no other visitors, and as I expected, there was no trace of Ibiki. Argh!
While Toru and Omezo paid their respects to their respective family members, I considered punching one of the less-occupied spaces of the rock. We'd accomplished nothing! . . . Naturally, this was the moment I noticed something. A name, to be specific. The name given to me by the old man who'd bothered me as I fed the pigeons.
"Guys," I said as my stomach churned in alarm.
Since I was the only one who remembered my morning partner's name—the boys thought poorly of this because being polite had almost made me late, but earliness isn't always a good thing—Toru and Omezo gave me the honor of our next move. They were adamant that I should touch the plaque.
I didn't work with genjutsu seals for seven years to just reach out and touch traps! Dumb kids.
"Fine," I snapped at my reckless teammates. "This won't get us anywhere."
Nothing really happened. We were all convinced that we heard a loud bang, assumed a formation, and were trapped in one of Ibiki's interrogation jutsu by a shadowy figure, but that turned out to be a genjutsu. Unfortunately, the instant I broke free, Ibiki caught me in a tougher one before I could rescue my teammates. He smirked. I decided to bide my time.
My hearing's always done weird things with genjutsu, so while I heard the jutsu's background groans and screams, I couldn't hear Ibiki's voice. Instead, I heard my teammates. It wasn't much of an upgrade.
"Failed? But we found the clues! Kana-chan figured it out, and we all came here and found the name!"
"Sensei, you can't fail us. We have the Copy Ninja's daughter on our team. Toru is the best of our year and I believe my own aptitude should fit your purposes well."
"We'll work harder, Ibiki-sensei, I promise!"
"Did we truly fail your test? Is this another test?"
I blinked at Ibiki as he tightened the illusionary cords around me to keep me from breaking out again. The cords were neat—they were literally his chakra wrapping around my system in a way that I couldn't touch his chakra. The chakra felt foreign enough that it hurt, which was weird. Human chakra isn't harmful by nature. Was he doing something to his chakra? Was the pain from his chakra, or because my vision said I was being squeezed by ninja wire?
Whatever effect he was going for was probably ruined when I started mimicking his chakra. I figured I'd learn what he'd done to create that feeling. I didn't realize that the jutsu was designed to become progressively more and more intrusive to the victim's chakra system as time went on. It was a high level genjutsu that Ibiki had adapted for his one-on-one style of feeling the pain with the victim. This was a really useful habit that most genjutsu masters shied from.
Anyway, Ibiki hadn't snared me in some sissy E-ranked technique. He'd all but pinned me down in a jutsu where results went both ways.
So when my chakra began morphing to match his, his heroically upped the poisonous aspect, but my chakra simply matched his again . . . and that was why Ibiki released us all and jumped back to recover from his own jutsu. Unlike me, he hadn't been mimicking. Ouch!
Omezo and Toru had been hit by chakra backlash, too, but they either didn't notice or didn't care in light of their genjutsu experiences. "We failed," they breathed, faces alight with horror.
"Nonsense," I replied. "You were in a genjutsu. It was a lie. We broke out of it. We're good. It was just a mind game. Give me a second to check on my chakra and you'll see."
I knew I was right, of course.
I had checked most of the names in the previous cemeteries. I would have noticed if the name had been there. Retrospect has a strong memory.
Ibiki had hidden himself until I'd touched the plaque. We'd solved our puzzle.
Perhaps the other names had been in the other cemeteries, but we had found Ibiki, and I'd accidentally beaten him back. We were golden.
"Wrong," Ibiki-sensei said. He approached us once more. "Do you think that you were good enough to become a genin?"
I'm so glad I didn't answer.
"People say you're a prodigy, Wakana. Do you really think that's more than just a meaningless word? Description is not reality."
I eyed him mutely, waiting for the background noises and the Killer Intent that had come with his earlier jutsu. I wavered. Why can't I feel a genjutsu?
"In the ninja world, prodigies are useless trash. Sometimes," he glared at me, "they even hinder their own allies."
He eyed us all with disgust. "This team is over." And then he left.
We stared at each other. We were shocked. We waited for him to come back and tell us it had been a test. After a while, we accused each other. They left. I didn't. I couldn't.
At sunset, Daddy came to pay his respects to his old team while I huddled in one of the surrounding trees.
He apologized for not spending more time with them recently. He'd been busy. He'd even been overbooked enough that he hadn't managed to be reliably late for the past few days. But hey, he was here now. Time to catch up.
Had he mentioned his children recently? Undoubtedly. They were easy to talk about, at least to his old team. The only thing that came easier than bragging was the warm, proud feeling that constantly bubbled in his chest. Or burned. Stagnated. Something.
In short, the most critical guy ever still topped the charts in unconditional love. And so on and so forth, and while it turned out that yes, I really had failed my genin team test, I listened to my father and pressed on. I went back to the Academy and continued with my classmates. Everyone there knew that I'd taken the exam early, passed it, and was right back where I'd started. We were allowed three tries until our class graduated. I was simply the most well-known kid to fail. It was humiliating, but I got over it.
The real issue was the little bump in the road that was every teacher in the Academy encouraging me to try again.
Because hey, there was another graduation coming up.
And like I'd predicted a while ago, this time, I didn't have the option of not taking the exam.
So much for absolutely not under any circumstances graduating with the Rookie Nine.
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~Public review replying time! Or, ah, Q&A time.
Goldregen: I want to know more about Shisui and Sasuke! Are they living together? How was their relationship before the massacre?
I don't think they knew each other by more than sight before the massacre. Shisui knew who his best friend's little brother was, of course, and a bit about him. Sasuke wouldn't have run into Shisui much. The first question should be addressed in the story before too long.
And Kakashi and Terumi's backstory. I want to know how that happened!
Guess we'll just have to wait and see! Until that day, though, the backstory involves being undercover.
Kikiji: To the Hokage: Is he training Kana to be his successor or some kind of leader?
Hiruzen: "No, I believe a certain blonde boy has expressed an interest in becoming Hokage. In fact, my efforts with Wakana actually accomplish a different purpose."
Silimaira: Well, that was helpful.
To Sasuke: What was the strangest thing your brother did 'recently'? (AKA after Kana began to henge as Itachi and before the massacre)? (To Silimaira: Was the 'Itachi' in his answer Itachi!Kana or the real Itachi?)
Pre-massacre Sasuke: "Yesterday I saw him stabbing dango with a kunai."
Silimaira: Take a wild stab.
Post-massacre Sasuke: "I have no brother."
Shisui: "I could share a story or two. It's not like those two were subtle. Especially when he asked her to masquerade as him for a week. Honestly, he could have asked me. I'm reliable."
To Itachi: What were your first impressions/thoughts/reactions when you found out about Kana henging as you? (What were your feelings about your henged interactions with Kana/Suzume afterwards?)
Itachi: "The level of the henge was impressive, more so when I discovered who she was. My first thoughts were what any older sibling's would be upon realizing that their younger sibling talked to an imposter earlier in the day. Once I determined that her motive was harmless - which was simple when she was younger than Sasuke himself - it was easy to communicate with her via Sasuke. She managed her side of that game very neatly.
"Kana was very young. A girl as young as she did not need ninja males attracted to her in any way. I . . . warned the most untrustworthy of them away. When she spent time with some of them with the probable intent of learning jutsu, I made my actions a bit less subtle. I was protecting a young, innocent friend from harm. While I trust her with Sasuke and in some critical situations, I do not trust her to be able to defend herself. Those are my feelings."
thejunestone: This is a question for you- What kind of fanart do you enjoy the most? Title fanart (people make you fan-covers), scene fanart (people draw a scene from the story), chibi fanart, or something else?
I think I'd personally be the most interested in scenes, but anything else would be a close second. Covers, chibis - it all sounds pretty neat!
Whoa, that would be awesome. Plus, there's an upcoming team. Just saying.
Fabulous: Does/would Itachi be willing to think of Wakana in a romantic way? (Or does he, that would be a question too)
...coming from the guy who killed off the clan medic, the only way to save Kana if the whole chakra thing hadn't stabilized on its own...
Itachi: "I'm not in a position to consider romantic possibilities with anyone. I also choose not to consider it. I believe Kakashi-san would be extremely opposed. Perhaps if -"
Same for Wakana.
Wakana: "Um, meeehbe. But that's hardly relevant, and he's what, eight years older? I doubt he'll ever look past that, or the bigger problem of killing his clan and being branded a traitor."
Papakashi: "NO. Not my little girl. NO!"
Mizu25: Wasn't expecting Kana to have that genjutsu clone test pulled on her, truth be told. What purpose did it serve? An assessment of her skills considering she's been faking being a seal ninja for a while now, or something?
It was an assessment of how much she could sense and figure out. It was a test of her "hearing" and skill with genjutsus and henges, not so much to do with seals. Basically an aptitude test on a higher level.
lizyeh2000: Since Ibiki is head of T&I will he become suspicious of Wakana since he's like Mad Eye Moony, just wondering since Wakana is reborn?
Ibiki: "It's my responsibility to be suspicious of everyone. While Hatake's daughter has shown abnormal maturity, there have been no hints of animosity toward the village or contact with foreign agents. She's never responded to the deal's she's been offered as her older disguise. There have been . . . extenuating circumstances, but those are because of familial ties. With the somewhat surprising number of attempts made on Hatake's children's lives, her maturity is not shocking. The henges are a sign of potential, not a threat. Her constant instinct to disguise herself is very promising - she needs survival instincts.
"Even her friendship with Itachi shows good signs. She formed a bond with someone strong enough to protect her. Itachi's returning the friendship is more unusual. She must have reminded him of his brother. As far as I'm concerned, Wakana is unusually smart and perceptive. She's idealistic. Her instincts might keep her safe, but the village hasn't protected an asset this long just to let her die."
giant salamander: For Kato: "How do you feel about your school life? Who are your closest friends? What do you spend your time doing while your sister is out of the house? How would you describe your relationship with your sister? And last but not least, please tell me your likes, dislikes and dreams for the future!"
Kato: "I enjoy learning and becoming stronger. I want to become a great ninja one day, but when I watched the chūnin exam, I realized that I need to master everything before I become a genin. Kana's my closest friend. I have plenty of friends in my class at the Academy, too. I usually practice with my chakra or do homework. Um, we're twins? She's always been there to help me, and I'll protect her. My friends say that it's weird how little we fight, but we've been through a lot together, and it's stupid to fight with your precious people. I'm the one who's always had her back, even when Daddy didn't know she could talk."
"Um . . . I like ninjutsu. I don't like my mother. I want to become stronger and protect my precious people. And find a way to use Chidori without a Sharingan."
For Ao: "What is your honest opinion on the Mizukage's children?"
Ao: "The Mizukage doesn't have children. She'd have to be married to -"
*angry shouts in the background*
"Ah, Mei-sama, I -"
And lastly, for Mei: "How are you dealing with political opposition (because surely there must be some)?"
Mei: "The political situation is nowhere near as touchy as it was when I first became Mizukage. There are still bitter feelings about my sudden rise to power, but I had enough allies that it went smoothly. The Hokage sent several of his ANBU to aid the transition behind the scenes. Allying closely with Konoha has, of course, changed our relationship with other villages. For the most part, my own village is content. I've made changes to the regime Yagura set in place and our village has been relatively peaceful for several years. Now that I'm secure and my village has stabilized, I can focus my attention elsewhere."
Yukionna13: I was thinking about the difficulty of genin tests. Was Kana's just more difficult or are they just really challenging those kids so much?
Kana's written test was more difficult. Fortunately for her, it wasn't graded the same as the normal test.
Also, I kinda want to see who wanted to be Kana's jounin instructor. Was there a special way to assign them or did they just pick straws xD?
The Hokage is in charge of assembling the teams.
Allejen: Did they give her the chunin written exam instead of the genin one?
One of the versions of it, yes. It wasn't graded the same.
Kikiji: To Sasuke: What do you know about Suzume (and the rumors about her and your brother)?
Sasuke: "Rumors are not true unless there is proof. Since Niisan hasn't spent any less time with me recently, and I know his schedule is busy, there is no girlfriend. I normally wouldn't listen to rumors, but since the Akatsuki gag tags are popular at school, some of the girls have been talking about one of the sealers and evidently she's been seen with my brother once or twice. When I asked him about it, he said it was for an offensive seal she was designing. I could care less about a sealer. The only suspicious part is that lately, Niisan has been talking about red hair - but he always goes on to tease me!"
To Silimaira: What exactly, is the scope of Kana's skills with seals? She was good enough to be scouted yet she was only able to create all of those seals with the help of Isami, right?
If Kana's been scouted, Isami definitely has too. Kana isn't capable of inventing seals. Isami's the one who's had the training for seal work - Kana just comes up with the ideas. Of course, Kana plays a big role in the seals they make. While Isami does most of the work and knows the rules of seal making, Kana helps troubleshoot. Basically, Kana asks what's impossible and either comes up with a loophole or figures out a new angle. It's a think-out-loud relationship. Isami knows a lot by this point, but she doesn't have the come-at-it-from-a-new-angle ability. And Kana doesn't know the rules and doesn't care to learn them. The seals wouldn't happen without equal input.
Early on, they deciphered a genjutsu seal together, and that's how they've managed to make their seals. When word spreads about seals that look just like exploding tags but do different things - well, you want that person on your side. Imagine if you could sell tags like these to your enemies without them knowing! This is why ninjas tend to buy seals from people they trust, and besides, Konoha isn't going to let Kana's seals be sold to all and sundry. Speaking of selling, though. Kana is able to write seals like a machine - and seals require perfection. If I had to pick one of them, I'd definitely go for the one that's written out thousands and thousands of seals. She might not be able to invent new ones by herself, but she's got to have a bunch of them memorized, right?
Doesn't that sound like a fun job to have. :P
Toreh: You gave Kana Ibiki?
Ibiki: "I believe you meant that the other way around."
~Thanks for all the questions, guys! I didn't realize how long they'd take to answer. Heh. But the real surprise? Ibiki is near-impossible for me to write. Blame him for the absolutely horrible rough draft, rewrite, and final polishing rewrite. Ugh, now I'm glad I chose to take this route with the plot. Some of you were ecstatic about having Ibiki as a teacher, and yes, you can share your disappointment, but I for one am pretty happy he won't be in charge of most of the action in this story now.
Butbutbut, why did Ibiki fail them? It's not explained! That's right. It isn't, and that's frustrating on all levels. His reasons will come out in the future. But for now, we're limited to Kana's point of view. She'll find out one day, and until then, this is one of those frustrating moments in life. I'm sure we can all think of a similar unresolved experience. It stinks. But life works that way sometimes.
If it helps, this plot twist is about a year old. I didn't throw it in just to toy with you guys, although that certainly may have happened along the way. There are many cliches in the world of SI/OC fics, and failure is rare as things go. I'm sure several of you can name a fic where the main character fails the genin test, but I can't. I can definitely name a bunch of fics where the main character graduates with the canon kids, though.
So, how are we gonna pull this one off? It's been planned for a while, too. You might like it, you might not.
My thanks to the anonymous reviewers, in chronological order: Guest (Heh, let it never be said that I forgo sassiness), Fabulous (Never met a ship that couldn't be sunk . . . ahem. Basically yes, though. Denial), Guest (Hm, fun! Perhaps I'll write something for the side story. Of course, in a world like this, that situation could easily crop up one day as you said), Guest (Um, those comments definitely do not appear on this website. Yes, this is a written work. "Voice" and "narrative" do not imply an audio format. "Narrated" would, though), Enma (basically, yes), and Guest (woo!).
I revised chapter 2, by the way. I put a scene back in there that I apparently accidentally cut. Whoops!
See you next time! Oh, and I kind of started another SI-type fic with Itachi. This one covers the adult years of a girl who married him and had a bunch of kids. There's a link to a picture in my profile. If you're upset that there's no romance in KK (at least not yet), mosey on over. Tell me which direction you think I should go with it.
Thanks for enduring the uber long wait! Let me know your thoughts. :)
Posted 2/2/16.