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Chapter Thirty-Two
The next morning, Shisui gathered us before dawn and herded us to his house. We were all a bit thrown by the gesture. We'd all been to his house before, but even Yakumo had never been inside it. The few times Shisui had used us as alarm clocks he'd told us to ring the doorbell. Not that we'd ever actually had to wake him.
I guess he figured that he'd come to our houses, so turnabout was fair play.
Turnabout was no more than a cheap excuse.
Of the four of us, only Kato and Shisui found it within themselves to smile at this hour. Kato was ecstatic that he'd been out of bed when Shisui had come calling. Well, some of us worked part-time jobs. Was it worth gloating over?
I comforted myself with the reminder that I could already buy the chakra knives my twin liked to drool over.
Shisui opened his front door and watched us file in. "Make yourselves at home," he said happily.
Instantly, we were all on our guard for a catch. Kato and Yakumo glanced my way. I sighed. "Sasuke-san is still asleep. Let's not overstay our welcome."
If I lived in a house with Shisui, I'd probably never sleep. Shisui was far too big a proponent of "situational awareness," as he liked to call practical jokes. Sasuke must have been dead tired.
Sure enough, Sasuke only stirred when the smell of frying bacon was joined by the cloying tones of an alarm clock. The poor boy jumped when he noticed the extra people in his house. Shisui tossed some tomato slices into the frying pan to entice the younger Uchiha out of hiding.
"Good morning," Shisui all but sang when the dark, messy head poked cautiously around a doorway. "Come and have some breakfast."
Kato and Yakumo had claimed the kitchen table (it was covered in dented kunai and shuriken). I'd brushed a bar stool free of dust and perched at the counter. I liked the idea of watching Shisui cook, since his propensity for "teachable moments" never really inspired my confidence. He'd fried eggs with a kunai on one of our missions out of the village. Things had gone downhill from there.
Sasuke pulled a plate from a cupboard, took a few slices of bacon, dumped all of the tomatoes on his plate, and tried to head back to his room. Sadly for him, he'd stumbled into one of Shisui's teachable moments. "Sasuke-kuuun," Shisui drawled idly.
We watched with varying levels of interest as Sasuke's spine straightened involuntarily.
"Have a seat at the counter," Shisui continued. "You were just complaining that I don't train with you in the morning."
Here's a morning, and here's three training partners, the unspoken words finished.
Sasuke grumbled to himself and took the third bar stool, leaving an empty stool between himself and me. I kept my eyes on Shisui. Shisui smirked.
"Shut up," Sasuke muttered.
"Shut it," I hissed at the same time. We looked at each other. Sasuke looked away in favor of his precious tomatoes.
"Someone needs to eat these eggs," Shisui said, for all the world an oblivious cook. No one was fooled.
The first upside to the morning was that Kato and Sasuke decided to do some target practice together. This was a relief up until Kato winked at me. Did he still think that there was something between me and that Uchiha boy? . . . He probably didn't. Eh. I'm still not sorry for teasing him about Ino.
Yakumo and I opted to meditate, but not before Yakumo glanced at me and said, somewhat slyly, "He's kind of cute."
Meditating isn't supposed to apply toward premeditated murder. I'd have to pick up that mantra one day.
Sasuke left to bother his own team, and Shisui joined the three of us outside. "Okay, let's have it. Yakumo, you first. Would you like to take the exam?"
Yakumo pursed her lips and set her shoulders. "Yes, Shisui-sensei," she said. "I'd like to take it."
Great, and now we all knew what was going to happen.
"I'd like to take it, too," Kato chimed in.
Everyone looked at me.
I wavered.
I didn't want to take the exams when I knew what would happen. I also wanted to be promoted to chūnin in only a few months, because that would be noteworthy. But I wanted time to focus on my new techniques. On the other hand, Shisui thought I wasn't as good at genjutsu as I'd been at age six. I wanted to show him up!
Ultimately, I couldn't support their wishes. I couldn't stand against it, either. Majority vote. "Let's do it," I said with a pathetic amount of enthusiasm.
If one of us got promoted, would that person be moved to a different team? Because Team Twelve had finally started to grow on me. We were good at the antagonistic side of the team dynamic. The friendship aspect couldn't be far behind. We were bound to start leaning real team maneuvers soon. We'd have to start trusting each other.
I didn't want to lose that.
On the other hand, if Shisui thought my painstaking approach to genjutsu was unhealthy, it was time to showcase just how much I could do with it.
"Well," said Shisui. "Since you're all serious, I suppose I'll do the same thing." He looked each of us in the eye. "I won't hold back." But then, being Shisui, he laughed. "Well, I'll hold back less than I usually do. It's up to you how serious I'll get."
We didn't have long until the first exam began, but Shisui shoehorned in a few new tricks. If I were him, I would have drilled old concepts. We'd already established that Shisui was not me.
Shisui chuckled when he finally got around to having some one-on-one time with me. This point somehow took over six hours to reach. Kato and Yakumo had just waved goodbye as they'd headed off to grab a late lunch—free for the day, lucky them—and now Shisui was giving me a strange side-eye. "What?" I said.
He shook his head. "I didn't think you'd want to take the exams. What changed your mind?"
Oh, well, I kind of overheard you tell the Hokage that I'm slow, in one sense of the word, last night. Not my favorite memory.
Wait, what had I agreed to? The "Id" mentioned last night clearly had something to do with Yakumo, and since it was her secret to share—what if it wasn't even sealed away? What if that was a kekkei genkai or something, and it came out when she was stressed, and— Then get over it and learn how to beat it, I snapped at myself. A Chūnin Exam is stressful. The full-out invasion you're expecting will be much, much worse. If she's forced to control whatever it is, then so much the better. Supervision might save your life.
"Well," I replied, filtering through the least confidential of my thoughts, "both of them wanted to. Two-out-of-three wins a vote, and besides, Yakumo has been going through a lot. That she wanted to try made it harder to say no. So I figured I'd support them, instead. We're a team. We're supposed to think like one."
"You pick funny things to be stubborn about," Shisui said. "But just so you know, the team is made up of more than three people."
I raised my eyebrows in blatant skepticism, but he started walking in the direction of his house. I knew better than to bother to try to sneak away. He hadn't dismissed me. He still had something up his sleeve.
I caught up with him and huffed a little. "Did you put a genjutsu on me? Or if you're going to work on target practice again, I really don't think that the posts in your backyard will be any different than the ones in the forest. I'm certainly not going to wash the dishes from breakfast."
"I did not, I'd rather not, and I have a dishwasher," Shisui said. He watched the trees dance in the gentle afternoon breeze and kept his silent walking up.
"I, too, enjoy not listening to you speak," I muttered at a level that most people wouldn't hear. Shisui treated me to a sharp glance. "In favor of nature," I amended deceitfully.
Shisui and Sasuke lived in a small house on the very edge of the abandoned Uchiha clan compound. The clan compound had only had one entrance, but Shisui's cheerful disregard for tradition had made short work of that. Shisui's house had acquired its own gate. The Uchiha clan had only ever used the main gate for foot traffic, anyway, so it wasn't a great loss.
The location of the house and the second entrance meant that Sasuke would never have to see his first home again if he so chose. A house on the outskirts meant that he was literally next door to the clan training fields, and the forest practically overtook two of the residence's walls. It was probably the most mentally refreshing of any of the locations in the clan compound.
I bet Sasuke put up a fight moving out of the main house, though. Shisui had had his work cut out for him there.
Shisui let me into his house for the second time that day and led me into the kitchen again. He rummaged through the refrigerator and tossed a few onigiri at me. Okay, this was weird. . . . At least Sasuke wasn't home yet. I'd hate to be around the two Uchiha without the buffer of my teammates present.
"The wedding," Shisui started. "It's on the thirty-first?"
I blinked. "July thirty-first, yes. Next month. Thirty-four days from now."
Wow, I really didn't like the fact that he knew about my other life. He'd always been on top of my henges back during our days in Kiri, but this was a ton more personal. He also hadn't said anything since the time he'd first made his point about knowing that Suzume was me. Ah, our team's first day together. Such bliss.
"Will that be a problem?" Shisui asked.
I stared at him. I felt my lips twitch reflexively. I reined in the approaching hysterics. "Have you ever planned a wedding before? Around a chūnin exam?"
It was doable. Isami's and my mutual friend Megumi was going to be in charge of the day's events. Isami's old sealmaster had volunteered to "set the charges," as it were (the seals would be activated hours before the wedding guests arrived). I'd begged out of all but attending the ceremony and the subsequent reception.
The last few seals would only take a few hours of work. I'd have to attend several rehearsals and place every single seal on the morning of the ceremony, too. Overall, not all that much time. I still had four full days until the chūnin exam began. Of course, if it weren't for the exams, I'd still have a good two weeks. . . .
"I'll get what I can done during my free time," I summed it up for him. "The rest of it can wait until next month. It should be pretty smooth sailing once we even out the last few seals."
Shisui nodded with a glint of curiosity and a faceful of manly hesitation. "Are you excited?"
"I'm excited for it to be over," I said truthfully. "The biggest problem is that we don't know how many guests will be coming. It's a lot of people to impress." With our seals' reputation, we'd have more people visiting the village for the wedding than for the chūnin exam. Which would suit me just fine. Invasions came with scores of collateral damage. And weddings came with scores of uninvited guests . . . well, at least I knew that the village's security wouldn't let anyone who wasn't part of a genin team, possessed a tournament ticket, or had a wedding invitation inside. Besides. I told Isami that weddings weren't supposed to be publicity stunts! For once, she wouldn't budge.
"No doubt," Shisui agreed. "Which is why I'm going to be your date."
Um.
Um!
No!
"Absolutely not," I spluttered. "I don't have a date. Suzume doesn't have a date. No!"
Shisui's slow smile was the stuff of nightmares. In fact, I'd had those nightmares before. He had the same expression that my father always did when protecting me from some terrible threat. "And what happens when one of those foreign dignitaries decides that they like the finished product?"
I wasn't going to mention that the scroll from Suna meant that some version of this had already happened.
I glared. "My father will be right there next to the clone he's going to make of me. He'll keep me safe. If you want to protect someone, protect Isami and Sadao-kun. They're the ones who'll be disappearing for a while."
The problem was that Shisui was absolutely right. Yes, my father would move heaven and earth to save me. No, it wasn't a foolproof plan.
And I'd been informed of that fact several times over. (Had Daddy asked my sensei to be my personal guard? If so, I wouldn't have a choice.)
"I have a reputation," Shisui offered, "that would greatly reduce the number of possible threats. If you are seen with me, you'll be safer."
It was true. I wasn't, however, sold on the idea.
"If you're seen with me," I countered, "my father will change your safety." This was remarkably similar to a conversation in my distant past. The memory brought something else to mind. "You're an Uchiha," I said. "You must realize that Suzume is still associated with Itachi." Sensing dangerous waters, I pressed on. "Being seen with you would be an insult to my imagination."
"Precedent makes it believable."
I gaped at him. "If the public thought you were dating a missing nin, would you go on a date with her cousin? People notice those details. I've only barely regained their trust in Suzume. I am not shattering my reputation when dignitaries are around. All it would take would be one rumor that Suzume had a connection with Itachi, and then bam, no customers from other villages. They'd set their spy networks on me and find that Suzume doesn't exist, and how could that go wrong?"
Shisui had taken a few rice balls for himself out of the fridge, too, and now he opted to juggle them one-handed. "Look on the bright side. Perhaps I'm investigating your connection with Itachi. Or maybe I'll comfort you, instead."
My nose wrinkled. I treated him to an expression of sheer skepticism.
"By which I meant I'd just be 'Suzume's' friend and give you some closure about the whole business, yikes. Do you glare like that at everyone?"
"If you wanted to lend a shoulder, you could have done that five years ago," I said frostily. "I'm not going to be seen in public—or private—with an Uchiha. If you're being pressured to get married, I know several young ladies that you might actually like that are real people. But I am not opening myself up to the Uchiha gossip chain again. I'm your student in real life, anything more than that, no matter how fake, will not be happening. Now, can I go attend to wedding details? Because as enlightening as this conversation has been, I have a wedding and a chūnin exam to prepare for."
Shisui made the wise decision to not draw out a fight with a pre-teenage girl. "See you tomorrow," he said.
I'd twisted his intentions, but I had to admit he was right.
And I'd gone too far.
Still, I wasn't caving.
I rolled my eyes and left him to his dumb ideas.
.
On the twenty-sixth of June, Team Twelve decided to enter the Chūnin Selection Exams. On July first, after what felt to me like one night's worth of sleep, Team Twelve entered the first phase of the exam. It was rather anticlimactic. We waited until three teams had trickled into the testing room before starting our own journey to the building's third floor.
The exam room was filled with row after row of tables and chairs. I picked a table near the back wall and stole the seat closest to the wall. The other teams ignored us, which was about what I'd figured. They were comprised of young adults. Adults didn't associate with kids in these kinds of situations. Fortunately, the other teams were running through the usual last-minute threats and checklists. I turned to my own team, who'd taken the chairs on my left. "How are we doing?" I asked.
Yakumo ran a few fingers through the unbraided side of her hair. "I'm good," she said. "Do you think the whole room will fill up?"
In spite of my looming apprehension, one side of my mouth perked up. "Definitely," I said. "Most of them should arrive at quarter 'til. How about you, Kato?"
"You sure dragged us here early," he said blandly.
I shrugged.
My posse looked bored and kept up a quiet conversation as I stared at nothing in particular and dove into my part of our plan. I'd told them that I'd overheard a few of today's proctors snickering about an impossible test. I'd exaggerated a bit. While I'd overheard a bit of the exams' proceedings, I'd been too busy trying to finish my part of Isami's wedding early to go and eavesdrop for real. I was relying on my old stash of memories. They'd failed me before, but I didn't really think an entire exam structure would change. Konoha always started with a written test. The content of the test didn't bother me. Team Seven had passed one way or another.
We'd arrived early so that I could lay genjutsu on anyone I thought merited it, that was the plan. I had this leg of the exam. Yakumo had already laid a slight genjutsu on Kato and me to communicate with us if need be, and I'd laid one on her. She could relay things to Kato if the sibling bond failed us.
My real goal, though? Well, I knew that quite a few nasty people would be in here by the start of the exam. Most of them would walk out (bonus points if I spotted the ones planted here for that very reason). Many more were irrelevant. A few were my friends . . . and that left the rest to be mortal enemies. I'd have to choose carefully. I could only make so many chakra impressions before my memory became spotty.
As the time passed, Kato switched seats so that Yakumo was between him and me. He also saved three seats for Team Ten, since he rightly guessed that I'd want to talk to Shikamaru as soon he arrived.
I settled in and lost myself to what quickly sounded like a bloodthirsty horde. At about twenty 'til, Yakumo poked my shoulder. "What?" I asked. She didn't reply.
Oh, someone was talking to Kato.
Agh, that one guy was talking to Kato! The one with the ashy hair and large glasses, whose name escaped me at the moment— "Um, it's nice to meet you, Yakushi-san," Kato said politely.
"Please, call me Kabuto. I wouldn't want the son of the Copy Ninja to call me anything else."
"Kabuto-san," Kato agreed slowly. It seemed a few warning bells were chiming in the back of his head.
I had a whole symphony in mine. Wasn't this the man who'd resurrected people? Didn't he dabble in genetics with even more gusto than Orochimaru did? Oh, yes, I bet he was a real fan of the Copy Ninja. More like he was probably decoding Kato's DNA as they spoke!
"And you must be Wakana-san," the creepy man continued. His polite smile dropped the teeny, tiniest bit when he noticed that I wasn't as accommodating as my brother. Unfortunately, my flat stare didn't scare him off. "I've heard a lot about you, too."
So help you, Kana, you will not react.
Kabuto differed. "First in your class in the Academy tournament, student of the legendary Uchiha Shisui, and now entering your first chūnin exam as a rookie. There is more about you than meets the eye, Wakana-chan. And," he paused to modestly adjust his glasses, "I don't want to boast, but I know more about you than probably anyone else in the room."
The warm, fuzzy feeling in my stomach was similar to heart-stopping terror. I forced my heart out of my throat. I needed my throat to talk, not seize up from nerves when I needed to speak.
I dragged my eyes up to meet his and saw a tiny flash of triumph.
Okay, should I be more worried that it was there, or that I saw it? I'd been surprised to see Kabuto talking to Kato, but I remembered the man pretty well. He was an impeccable spy and therefore actor, enough that I think he'd had an identity crisis toward the end of his life. Hey, maybe I'd luck out and he'd be spying on Orochimaru instead of working for him! Yeah, right.
"Good thing you didn't boast," I said flatly, "because Kato is my twin brother and you are not."
Oh-ho, said his eyes, that's where you're wrong, little g—
"I bet I know more about you than anyone else in this room does, too," I cut in. "It's easy to say things without proof. It's also easy to listen to gossip."
Kabuto's eyes took on a calculating gleam. "And do you listen to gossip much?"
Abort! cried my brain. We're in a realm of hidden meanings. Abandon ship!
"I don't put much stock in hearsay," I said as dully as possible.
Get rid of him, the lovely note of caution continued.
Kabuto excused himself and headed to the front of the room. I shivered.
"Kana?" Kato questioned. "Are you doing all right?"
"Just thrown off. It's hard to concentrate."
"I figured," he muttered.
Between us, Yakumo snorted. "Your sister has a mean streak," she told Kato. "Does she ever use it on you?"
"Not like that."
I was relieved of the sly commentary when Shikamaru's team finally arrived and perched beside us. The nervous greetings quickly died to a pleasant nervous silence. Too bad the rest of the room couldn't take a hint.
I ran out of capacity for chakra impressions and decided I'd laid enough individual (really, they were more set on areas of the room) genjutsu for now. Naruto had shouted something when he'd come in. I'd bitten the bullet then and aimed the very lightest of my genjutsu arsenal at Kabuto during that moment. It hadn't been removed yet. That was probably bad.
Eh, you only live twice.
I wasn't the only one setting a scene here, for the record. A few other people had thrown up genjutsu. There were weird things stuck to the walls and some sort of black market deal going around under the tables. I have no idea how my father managed to suffer through this at age six. I usually liked dealing with people, and I just wanted to slap the noisier people and head home.
Who knew I'd be so happy when Morino Ibiki showed up and yelled at everyone to sit down and shut up?
"Kana," Kato whispered.
I shrugged. I was fine. I'd get over my history with Ibiki. Really, I was more concerned with the chūnin proctors who'd appeared with the man. One in particular stood out.
It's Mozuku! I haven't seen him in years. I wonder if he's still involved with Nao? Not that I'd ever matchmake my old babysitters. . . .
Once Ibiki had put us all in our place, he told us to come and grab a tile with a number on it. The first part of the exam would be a written test.
Yakumo glanced at Kato and me. "Between the three of us, we know everything, right?"
I quirked my lips into a semblance of reassurance. "I just hope I'll write legibly today."
Kato snorted.
My seat number put me near the back, and when the tests were distributed, I relaxed and began mine. Good thing the proctors had handed out pencils. The ninja race didn't make a habit of carrying writing implements. A shame, really. Isn't drafting an apologetic letter the next step after assassination?
When I felt like I'd written enough (give me a break, my side job is copying out seals by hand), I sat back to watch the room's exciting activities. Each genin, if I understood Ibiki right, had five chances to cheat badly, and more if the genin was sneaky. This was, naturally, super entertaining.
Well, until I heard a certain genin's sand collect right above my head. Ugh!
"What's the answer to question five?" Yakumo breathed softly. With a genjutsu already set, it was simple to project the image of my paper across her vision. "I'll pass it on," she whispered.
As if a test would be hard! I could hear twenty-odd people muttering through the equations. From the sounds of things, not many of the genin had found the "answer key" version of the test yet. I imagined once that started circling through the room, things would die down a bit. That was fine. I liked observing all of the shenanigans.
I listened to Kankuro manipulate a puppet.
I heard Hinata tell Naruto he could copy her answers.
I listened as Sakura muttered her way through the questions and answered each one perfectly.
I heard as team after team was kicked out for cheating, and I sat back, content to watch them leave. Less competition was always a good thing in my book.
At the forty-five minute mark, Ibiki addressed the room again. The test so far had had nine questions. The tenth question would be verbal. Oh, and anyone who answered the tenth question incorrectly would be banned from taking a chūnin exam again for life.
There was dead silence for one blessed moment before the protest began.
But that was that, said Ibiki. If we didn't accept the consequences, we were free to leave. He looked at me as he said that. I smiled tightly back. I'd made my choice. I wasn't leaving.
I knew Kato would never back down, and Yakumo is even more stubborn than he is. So we hunkered down through the storm of caving genin (the chūnin who'd provided the answer key test told Ibiki that this was impossible before storming out to cackle to himself) and waited for something to happen. And something did.
Naruto raised his hand.
I was genuinely horrified until I remembered that this was Naruto, and he would never back down from a challenge to his lifelong dream. Sure enough, he told Ibiki that.
And since everyone in the room was susceptible to Naruto's charismatic words, Ibiki had to pass everyone.
I know, I could hardly believe it myself. What happened to Ibiki's you've-failed-forever moral? Ibiki actually grinned and congratulated all of us genin! He even explained the nature of the test—not getting caught, persevering, continuing for the sake of one's comrades. Ninja warm fuzzies.
The tall, unforgiving man had almost finished his congratulatory spiel when Mitarashi Anko came barreling into the room. Blah, blah, I'll weed you out, blah blah, no mercy, follow me.
I gestured that my teammates should go with the crowd, but I hovered in the room until there were just a few proctors and Ibiki remaining.
Ibiki raised his eyebrows. "You again?"
I padded up to him. "My father says you're a sadist," I said by way of greeting.
He looked down at me. Ibiki usually wore a scarf over his head, but he'd removed it to give the roomful of genin an object lesson about the scars of torture. I was probably supposed to be staring at the top of his head.
Um, right, the man was six feet tall. Am I six feet tall? Only sometimes.
"My father's usually right," I continued. "But I know that you don't do things for no reason, and I know that Omezo-kun started working under you about four months ago. Not that long after you failed us as a team." Granted, I'd only found out by a complete coincidence—Ibiki didn't need to know that. "Imagine my surprise when I found that Toru, as well, has a job with a research branch."
"So?" Ibiki said.
"So I'm here to interrogate you," I finished.
He looked down at me some more. "And?"
I cocked my head. "You're the sadist, not me. I'm just going to wait for you to crack."
His impassive face cracked into a smirk. I grinned in triumph.
"You'll have to do better than that," he said.
"With all due respect, Ibiki-sensei," I replied, carefully picking through the words, "it's not my responsibility to change your mind. That's all on you. Besides," I added, "I'm only a genin. You're the one with the necessary experience."
Ibiki's expression darkened somewhat. "Anko won't make an exception for you," he said forebodingly.
Huh?
"Of course not," I said, frowning. Had he just implied that I expected Anko to let me pass her test in the exam? I had to be missing something there. For as much as I lie and manipulate, I really have quite a vendetta against cheating, bribery, and the whole gamut of dishonest tactics. I would think he of all people would see that in me. But just in case: "I would never let anyone make an exception," I said vehemently. "Cheating, bribery, and so on may be useful tactics in the professional world, but they're completely wrong on this kind of level. If I'm not good enough to be promoted, I don't want to find out by dying on a mission as my teammates fall around me."
"That would hardly be professional," he agreed dryly.
Great, he was making fun of my word choices. Was that a step up or a step down?
Maybe I shouldn't have criticized cheating when his whole test had been built around it.
I split my focus fully over to the chūnin exam participants for a second. It was funny hearing a crowd of big, tough genin follow meekly though corridors, stairways, and doors. They were still walking, and Anko's chūnin henchmen had already had a few private conversations about the Forest of Death (not that that mattered. I'd already patched my memory with facts a good week ago). The group was at the halfway point.
I'd expected them to do the old roof-hopping routine.
Still, I couldn't complain about the unanticipated window of opportunity.
Who wouldn't want to spend more conversation time with Ibiki, a labelled sadist whose decision last January had, as I'd felt at the time, ruined my life? Now granted, when he'd failed that team, it hadn't ruined my life. I don't think I could pick a sensei that I'd like more than Shisui, although at times, of course, he's about the worst sensei ever, and I did love being on a team with my own twin brother, something I'd assumed would never, ever happen. Even Yakumo wasn't as bad as I'd thought when I'd first met her. She was actually pretty funny in her own Yakumo way.
Ibiki had dealt me a hard blow. It had been rough at the time—for months, really—and it still ached at unexpected moments. Still, come what may, it had kept me humble and it had kept me on a team with my brother. And Shisui. And Yakumo. All of whom I liked with varying levels of affection.
"You'll be disqualified if you stay," Ibiki said.
I looked at him. "Sure," I agreed. "They haven't arrived yet, though. It won't take me long to get there."
"And when you show up late?"
I smiled. "It's a crowd of teenagers. No one wants to watch that. Besides, if you let one of the genin from Suna use the restroom, I don't think Anko-san will care if I come a bit late."
"You're very certain, aren't you."
The laugh came before I could stop it. I pressed on. "If I'm going to fail, I'd rather do that now than later. Failing has its benefits."
Ibiki's eyes narrowed.
Right. "I'll be waiting for your confession," I said.
"Then don't fail."
Aw, wasn't that warm and fuzzy. "You're too kind, Ibiki-sensei." I left the room and wasted no time setting out after the group of genin.
Behind me, Ibiki picked up my exam paper. "Hm. Correct, adequate . . . my hitai-ate does not have a heart on it. Hatake, you had better watch your step."
After one simple doodle?
I say one.
Perhaps it was good that I was running away from him.
At any rate, I kept running toward the next part of the chūnin exam.
Hey, what could possibly go wrong here?
Yeah. . . .
.
.
~Well. After my push to post on February 13th, the twins' birthday, didn't get to a completed rough draft . . . after I finally finished writing and crammed a good four hours of editing plus an author's note in today . . . that was when my computer thought I pressed the back button and lost half (correction: 3/4 - how?!*) of my edits. So originally I'd apologized for not yet taking the time to reply to reviews and said that when I have free time again, I would reply. Now, I think we'll have to settle with "you don't want a review reply from me right now." I'll reply! Just when I'm not upset about losing two hours' worth of this heart-to-heart stuff.
Oh, look, I can do puns about Valentine's Day without trying.
*Bigger correction: all of today's edits. Wow. Now I'm upset in several senses of the word. That's seventy-five bookmarked spots and about a thousand words of added sentences. Wow. This is pretty disheartening. Um, hey . . . after editing, I wasn't able to find a typo I know is still in here. It's a sentence with a missing word. Could one of you dear non-frustrated souls consider looking for it for me? (Edit: There! Five hours of editing compressed into forty minutes. My head hurts. Good thing I still remembered a good bit of it.)
I want to point out that I've saved this document many times today. Several times tonight. And yet the version I was left with was one from early afternoon. Even though it's been saved plenty of times since then. I was not aware that was possible.
Chronological anonymous review replies: dbdidb (Eh, compared to the anime, I think I'm doing pretty well with flashbacks and filler. Out of curiosity, if you think Shisui's conversation was just padding space, what do you consider action?), Guestalic (Woo, I finally did!), Guest (Hinata's a dear. I'll do my best about the exams), Guest pt 2 (Thanks for stopping by again to say so!), lanaday (It's interesting that you should say that. About 'Bloodless' - first, present tense is a more personal style. Second, thank you for the recommendation! There are a few conscious choices that Tavina has made differently from me - such as often sharing the narrator's thoughts outright, switching scenes pretty often, different ages and relationships with certain characters. But hey, it could be fun to compare and contrast, although I'd rather just enjoy it. Thank you for saying that you like my story even though you feel it's pretty emotionally distant. That's not the impression most reviewers have told me, so it's very interesting to me that you feel that way. One thing about depth in particular is that I do not constantly throw traumatic situations at my characters - only when the situation calls for it - so that may be part of why you haven't noticed much depth. The structure definitely needs work, especially back in the first part of the story. Thanks for being clear about your wish that I'll take your words without feeling hurt about them and use them to improve. I will certainly try my best! But like I've said, it's interesting that you feel there isn't much emotional depth or connection. I'm horribly emotional myself - all about depth and relationships - and I wouldn't have expected any less from my SI narration. Sorry for the long reply, but I wanted to be clear. :) Thanks for talking to me! Your review was very helpful.), Guest (Hello again! Those are some tempting ideas. I'll keep them in mind! I agree with you that the repercussions could go either way. I have a vague idea of what I want to do in the future, and your ideas are pretty accurate. And no problem, I love swapping ideas (: ), Big Fan (Well, you've found out half of the situation! I'll be silent for now about who exactly is in the exam. As for going back to Kiri, Kana and Kato are citizens and ninjas of Konoha, so they can't really change residency. But they can be stationed abroad. Hm), EmLights (Thank you for the encouragement. It's pretty nice when people check in on me), LilPea (Sorry for the long wait! I hope you liked this chapter. I'm not dead yet!) Thank you all so much for your thoughts!
I thought up some fun abbreviations using the first letters of the names of team members. Just like in RWBY. So.
Shisui, Kana, Kato, Yakumo: SYKK (psych!)
Gai, Neji, Tenten, Lee: GNTL (gentle)
Asuma, Shikamaru, Ino, Chōji: CAIS (case)
Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura . . . I couldn't resist going with this one: KSSN (heh heh)
Kurenai, Hinata, Kiba, Shino: KHKS (kicks)? Does anyone have a better suggestion for this one?
Let me know if you have any other fun team names - I'd love to see some more!
This chapter's bonus content is a brainstorm about canon Academy graduation dates and ways I could flesh the Academy out, especially attendance-wise. And now that you guys are updated, I'm going to go back and do a lightning-style edit. Keep me posted on anything you found interesting in the chapter, will you? Thanks! I wouldn't be writing without you guys to support me. (:
~2.14.18