The Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous

A/N: Yet again there is no beta for this chapter, unsurprisingly since this is the second in a day I've put up for you people. In this chapter Raiku gets hit on and subdued.

However, congratulations!

If you're reading this you have successfully made it to the beginning of some sort of recognisable- and interesting- plot! The Chuunin Exams! You've hung in there long enough to reach the actual content!

I'll give you some, I promise. You know I'm good for it!

I do not own Naruto or any of its characters or affiliates.


Raiku bit the skin between thumb and pointer finger to stop herself from openly giggling in relieved glee. This was too perfect!

Upon the paper in front of her was a series of questions so difficult she would have had no chance of answering even if she wanted to pass!

The relief bubbled up inside her and created giddiness, and her shoulders shook with repressed laughter.

The sound of pencils scratching industriously on paper was music to her ears.

She couldn't pass! Ever, from the looks of it! Again, the thought idly occurred to her that there was something wrong with her priorities. She settled back in her chair and folded her arms behind her head, preparing to relax through the exams.

She hazarded a glance over to Ryuu and found him… deep in concentration?

Her right arm slowly made its way down onto the page. She watched in utmost horror as it picked up a pencil. This was especially offensive for someone who was left handed. Ibiki had said he'd punish anyone caught cheating, and as he was the head of the ANBU Interrogation and Torture squad, this was no laughing matter!

There was abruptly an answer that looked correct on her page. She shot Ryuu a hateful glare as her hand was left to its own devices again.

This was not good. He was very determined to pass, clearly. He must have used one of his more subtle techniques to get a look at someone's answers, she assumed. She rubbed out the answer the second he looked back to his own page, hiding it with her arm and pretending to write.

"If this person throws this kunai-," she stopped reading mid-sentence and let her head fall forwards onto the desk. This was going to be a maths question.

Screw that. She'd fail under her own power.

Her shoulder itched suddenly, and she reached a hand up to scratch it irritably, pulling her hand away to find grains of… sand? Sand on her glove?

She forced back a groan at the thought; if there was sand in her clothes it would melt upon contact with her skin and fuse to the fabric when she took it off. Sand! Of all the horrible things in the world it just had to be sand! She hated sand, though she'd never felt any particular enmity towards it until right this second. She absently started to pour the grains from hand to hand, flicking them back into place when they- quite rudely and for some reason not all that inconspicuously- tried to escape.

She poured it onto her desk and started playing noughts and crosses with it.

Something slammed into the desk next to her elbow and her hand instinctively slammed down to hide her distraction. She closed her eyes and cringed as the sand became gooey and far, far hotter than it should have. A thin tendril of smoke escaped between her fingers as the desk panicked and the sand apologised hysterically for melting so unexpectedly.

She opened her eyes to look at the offending spot to find a thin steel ruler, connecting to an examiner's arm, connecting unsurprisingly to a shoulder, neck, and a head. A head with a face with bandages stretching across… the… nose?

Her eyes widened in surprise when the examiner gave her a familiar roguish wink, grinning. His grin spread at the absolutely scandalised look on her face. How old was he?! He was closer to twenty than ten, and not because he was approaching it!

'Eyes on your paper,' he said smugly. Jaw dropped, she managed to give him a look that combined scandal, horror and disbelief. He moved past with a distinctly jaunty spring in his step, and she moved her hand from the desk slowly. Sand was now glass, cooling rapidly once separated from her hand.

And now her glove had melted glass on it. She bit back yet another groan, trying in futility to flick some of it off her. Sand… who brought sand into an exam room anyway?

A kunai slammed with impossible speed onto the paper of the man next to her, provoking a chorus of mild screams as it flew past. The shinobi stood, shaking in fear and anticipation. 'What... what was that about?' he asked, wide-eyed.

The man with the bandages smirked coldly. 'Five strikes and you're out. You just failed the exam.'

'What?' the young man demanded, stumbling back until the backs of his knees hit the seat. 'It can't be!'

'You and your teammates will leave the room immediately,' the examiner continued on ruthlessly, raising a hand to point at him, making sure there could be no ambiguity about the offender. Raiku stared up at the unfortunate cheater, eyes almost as wide as his. It was clear he was being made an example of, so that anyone else cheating would be frightened and make mistakes, allowing themselves to be caught.

She looked hastily at her own paper, relieved to see Ryuu hadn't used her own arm to answer any more questions while she wasn't looking, and looked back up.

Grudgingly, two other shinobi stood with tense frames and expressions, moving into the aisles and towards the door while the offender simply stood in shock for a moment before following, arms limp at his sides.

'Candidate number twenty three- fail,' another grey-clad examiner barked.

'Numbers twenty seven and forty three- fail!' yet another added.

One of the cheaters attempted to stay at his desk and was immediately seized by two almost lightning-fast examiners, who proceeded to drag him out the doors, screaming and protesting the entire way.

'No!' another shouted, slamming his hand onto his desk as he stood. 'There's no way! Who says I cheated five times? Where's your proof!?'

Raiku winced, sliding down to make herself less conspicuous and less likely to be bled on. No one was meant to contradict Ibiki's squad. Ever. But this shinobi wore a Sand forehead-protector, so he couldn't know that…

A Konoha-nin at the front of the room with almost as little of his face showing as hers smirked, his exposed mouth bearing a sadistic hint that the bandages over his eyes would otherwise have hidden as the accused recklessly continued on. 'How can you keep track of all of us!?' he demanded, the telltale nervous sweat breaking out on his forehead as something in his brain quietly mentioned that this was a really, really bad idea… 'You got the wrong guy!' he exclaimed in addition, eyes narrowing. 'How do you know I wasn't just-,'

The covered examiner moved so quickly Raiku checked his skin for exposed sparks, moving the angry young man free of his seat and slamming him into a wall in less than a second, elbow pressed into his trachea and the other hand stuck with infuriating casualness in his pocket. 'Sorry, friend,' he said, smirking in a way that told everyone he wasn't actually sorry at all. 'But we were chosen for this examination because we don't make mistakes like that. You don't even-,' his arm pressed tighter into the struggling man's neck, 'blink without us knowing about it. We're the best, and you're history.'

He dropped his arm to let the gasping man slide to the ground, tucking the hand back in his pocket. 'Now get out. Oh, and take your teammates with you,' he added, smirk growing.

Raiku was sincerely glad she hadn't been cheating. The bandaged man was watching her like a hawk in a way that made it seem like he was daring her to do something just so he could drag her out, and she swallowed hard. This was not good. This was very, very not good.

'Fifty nine- fail.'

'Numbers thirty three and nine- fail!'

The calling of offenders had begun with full force, interrupting the exam every few minutes with knowing smirks and combat-ready tenseness as the examiners prepared to physically remove those that resisted.

Raiku was even gladder she didn't want to pass. She'd have to cheat in order to do so, and it was clear she wouldn't have stood a chance.

'Number forty one! Fail!'

'Thirty five and sixty two- fail.'

She was beginning to be able to pick the examiner by how he gleefully dismissed someone. The words were pretty much the same, but where the sadistic emphasis lay on the sentence was pretty telling.

There was a yelp and a crash as someone hesitated to leave. She found herself wanting to test their awareness by sending the bandaged and inappropriately flirtatious man a rude gesture, but figured that would be an instant expulsion. And if they tried to force her out, oh no, that part of her would like that at all.

She looked down at her test and silently freaked out, trying desperately to rub out the answers that had appeared there. At the side of the room, the bandaged man broke into equally silent laughter.

Why can't I just fail this in peace!?

It shouldn't be this hard to fail something, especially not on purpose! She'd failed plenty of times by accident, surely this was meant to be easier!

The crosshairs of the universe aligned…

'Well,' Ibiki announced. 'Looks like we've already dropped the incompetent ones.' Instantly every pencil paused, some mid-letter, except for hers which was steadily congealing in the glass she'd thrown it into. Beseechingly the tiny drop of glass oozed towards her as it quickly solidified. She winced as a particularly powerful image of a drop of glass forming hands and saying 'mama' occurred to her. The glass had been molten in her grip, as it was simply melted sand. It was burnt into the table in an imprint of the centre of her palm when Ibiki took up position at the front of the room, scarred face split with a grin. She stared at the man who'd seen fit to bestow upon her a set of razor wires at the age of five, and smiled nervously.

'I will now give the problem… since forty five minutes have already passed. I will now give the tenth question!' he said, raising his voice to make sure he was heard- even though he knew damn well everybody would listen to him as though their lives depended on it. 'Yes,' he added slowly, smirking to himself. She knew that look! She'd seen it shortly before he'd hung her by her ankles over a river!

She sunk further down in her seat.

'But, before that, there is one thing I must tell you. There will be one special rule for this last question.'

There was a trick in here somewhere; she knew it instantly. He had that look, that look that screamed "mindfuck!" and granted, he wore it most of the time, but since he was wearing it when talking about conditions it made it a certainty.

She narrowed her eyes.

Someone came in through the doors and Ibiki simply smirked, giving a brief sound of amusement. 'You're lucky,' he informed the Sand-nin, who had returned just in time. 'Your puppet show didn't have to go to waste.' The boy's face creased in anger, the strange purple marks making it seem somehow surreal, as though his face were in fact the mask. Ibiki shrugged. 'Oh well. Sit down.'

He waited until the order was obeyed, and took a step forward, placing his hands in the pockets of that ominous black trenchcoat. 'I will now explain,' he said again.

'This is… a hopeless scenario,' he said, eyes sliding over to pin her with his gaze. She brightened. Things were looking up!

'First,' he said, turning from the window to face them. 'You are going to choose if you take the tenth problem or not.'

Raiku grinned evilly, taking care not to let it reach her eyes. She tensed to stand and walk- run, screaming- out of the room, and found she couldn't move.

Ryuu's head was bowed in concentration again. She paled, eyes unwillingly dragging back to Ibiki, who was being interrupted and questioned by yet another Sand-nin. A beautiful blonde girl with stubborn dark eyes and a mesh shirt vanishing into a purple one clenched her fists. Her hair was bound into four coarse ponytails, the Sand forehead protector around her neck. 'Choose? So what happens if we don't take the tenth problem!?'

Ibiki smirked. 'If you choose not to take it… your points will be reduced to zero. In other words- you will fail. Your two other teammates will fail along with you.'

Raiku strained as hard as she could to try and escape her chair. Yes! That was exactly what she wanted! Failure, sweet, sweet failure! Whispers and questions broke out at this announcement, but for Raiku, who still couldn't move. She managed to drag her gaze to Ryuu, who was staring at her with his eyes narrowed, hands in that goddamn seal under the desk. She tried to convey through telepathy that she was going to murder him in the most horrible way she could think of, but failed.

'And here is the other condition,' Ibiki continued. 'If you choose to take it and you get it wrong…' His eyes hardened. 'You will lose the privilege to take the Chuunin Exam forever!' The room immediately fell into stunned silence.

Yes!

Raiku tried to lunge to her feet and felt something that felt… very, tragically important in her body twinge alarmingly as the air around her simply refused to budge.

Kiba lunged to his feet and she was immediately envious, though not of what he did next. He point at Ibiki, glowering. 'What kind of dumb rule is that!?' he demanded. 'There are people here who have taken the Chuunin Exam in the past!' The dog on his head barked for some reason. Probably in agreement, but she didn't speak dog.

Ibiki gave a low chuckle.

She winced. Oh, chuckling. He was having fun, which meant there was a big, big trick here.

'You were unlucky,' he informed Kiba, face darkening with sadistic glee. 'This year I make the rules. That is why I gave you the option of quitting. Those who are not confident can choose not to take it, and take the exam next year, or the year after that.' He chuckled again, and gathering that chuckling meant something very, very bad, the rest of the room winced with her this time.

'Let us begin,' he said darkly. 'Those who will not be taking the tenth question, raise your hands. After we confirm your numbers, we will have you leave.'

At this announcement, the room's atmosphere increased in tension exponentially. Raiku's eyes slid helplessly to her teammate, who wasn't having any of that quitting crap. His yellow eyes remained calmly levelled at Ibiki, arms resting casually in his lap to allow his hands to form the seal. Daisukenojo was sweating and slightly pale, but staring almost as intently as Ryuu, apparently unwilling to sacrifice even a year of his time as a genin.

A hand slowly raised. The rest of the genin raised with it, showing a pale, nervous man. 'I… I quit!' he forced out, screwing his eyes shut as if expecting punishment. 'I can't take it!'

'Number fifty…' a lazy examiner's voice drawled. 'Fail. Number one hundred and thirty and one hundred and eleven fail with him.' It was the other 'genin' who had blocked the fake door, whose only indication of amusement was the glint in his otherwise bored eyes. He was looking at her too- what the hell was wrong with these people!? They knew she knew Ibiki, that was the only solution.

'I'm sorry Gennai, Inaho,' the quitter said weakly, hanging his head in shame, fists clenching helplessly at his sides as two almost identically dressed genin gracefully stood.

'Me too!' another exclaimed desperately, surging to his feet as though he were afraid of losing the opportunity. As if these two failures gave them courage, yet more hands were raised, and a steady flow of people left the room almost empty compared to its previous, bustling state.

Raiku made a low keening sound, largely ignored.

And then the unthinkable happened.

Uzumaki Naruto… raised his hand

She could have cried with relief. Yes, she thought to herself. Quit, Naruto! Save me!

He slammed it onto the table, and she cringed. 'Screw you!' he growled, and she watched the Plot shift triumphantly. 'I'm not going to run away! I'll take this problem!'

Why, she wondered darkly, wishing she had her arms free so she could electrocute him to death, did he raise his hand if he wasn't going to quit? Did he enjoy teasing her?

'Even if I fail and stay a Genin forever,' he said, voice gradually rising in volume as his voice became even more determined. 'I'll find a way to become the Hokage no matter what anyway!' He rose to his feet, hands planted firmly on the desk. 'I'm not scared!'

Well, she thought to herself, fuming. That made one of them.

Ibiki stared at him impassively as he sank back into his seat, that display of inspirational courage evidently tiring even while earning him admiring looks. 'I will ask one more time,' Ibiki said. 'This is a choice that will impact upon your life- if you want to quit, now's your chance.'

Raiku didn't bother trying to struggle this time, it was clearly hopeless.

'I'm not going to take back my words,' Naruto said, smirking at Ibiki, sort of like a glass of water would smirk at the ocean. 'That's my way of the ninja.'

Pride and courage raced through the classroom, carried on the back of a Plot Device.

Ibiki stepped forward to face the newly inspired group of Genin, eyes scanning their faces before he finally spoke. 'Nice determination. Then, for the First Exam, everyone here…' he broke into a grin. 'Passes!'

Raiku, finally free, gave a silent wail of protest and buried her face in her arms while everyone else stiffened in shock.

'What's the meaning of that!?' Sakura demanded disbelievingly, standing. 'We pass already? What about the tenth question!?'

'It was a TRICK,' Raiku groaned, shoulders shaking with repressed sobs. Everyone probably assumed it was relief. 'It was a mindgame! I'm doomed! Equaliser-food!'

Her words were ignored by the room at large. Ibiki laughed, either at Sakura's shock or Raiku's horror. 'There was no such thing to begin with!' he said gleefully. 'Or you can call the two-choice question the tenth question!'

'What?' Sakura asked, eyes widening.

'Hey!' the blonde Sand-nin exclaimed, not rising from her seat. 'So what were those previous nine problems!? It was all a waste!'

'It was false hope, that's what it was,' Raiku muttered to herself tearfully.

'No it's not,' Ibiki said smugly. 'Those nine problems accomplished their purpose: to test the information gathering skills of the individual.'

The Sand-nin frowned in question.

'The first purpose of the test lies in the first rule, since your pass-fail decision is based on your three man teams. Because of that each Genin was placed under unprecedented amounts of pressure to not be a nuisance to their team. But these test problems cannot be solved by Genins. So most of the people here must have come to the conclusion "I have to cheat to get points".'

She caught Ryuu nodding in her peripheral vision and wished him pain. Endless pain.

'In other words, this exam assumed everyone was going to cheat. So we snuck in two Chuunins who knew the answers to be the targets of cheating.'

Naruto laughed loudly and awkwardly, putting his arms behind his head. 'It was so obvious!' he lied in an obvious way. 'It would have been weird not to notice it, right Hinata?'

In fact, she wished Ryuu almost as much pain as she was now wishing Naruto.

'But,' Ibiki shrugged carelessly. 'Those who cheated like a fool failed, of course.' He reached up, untying his forehead protector. 'And why? Information can have a greater value that life at times, and in missions and on the battlefield information is contested with the lives of people!'

His previously covered scalp was a horrific mess of scars, used to illustrate his point. The majority of the Genin recoiled in shock and horror. Raiku tilted her head. Burns, lacerations, coiled twists- torture marks.

'The information,' Ibiki went on as he put the bandanna back on to everyone's supreme relief, 'that an enemy gets after being noticed by a third person will not necessarily be accurate. So remember this- getting incorrect information can cause great damage to your teammates and village,' he warned. 'So we made you get information in the form of cheating, and kicked out those lacking in that field. That's what happened.'

The Sand-nin clearly either had Views on this sort of manipulation or was just pissed off. 'But I still can't agree to that kind of question!' she stated.

'But this kind question was the main question in the First Exam,' he pointed out coolly.

'What do you mean?' Sakura asked. Raiku shot her a vile glare, lifting her head slightly. She was dragging this on by asking questions he was already intending to answer!

'Let me explain,' he said predictably. 'The tenth question was a "take or take not" choice. Needless to say, it was a painful two-choice problem,' he held up two fingers to illustrate his point. 'Those who did not take it failed with their teams. If you chose to take it and could not answer it, your right to take the exam would have been taken away forever. It was an insincere problem.'

"Insincere"? she questioned dubiously within the relatively safe confines of her mind.

'How about this two-choice problem?' he asked mildly, beginning to pace at the front of the classroom. 'Let's assume you have become Chuunin, and your mission is to secure a secret document. The number of enemy ninja, their locations and armaments are unknown. There may be enemy traps set up. Will you accept this mission, or not? Just because the lives of your teammates and your life may be in danger, are you able to avoid dangerous missions? The answer is… No. There are missions with heavy risks that cannot be avoided. The ability to show courage to your teammates-,'

Well, she'd failed.

'- when needed and the ability to get through a bad situation- that is what we look for in a Chuunin and squad leader.'

Why was she here, again?

'Those who cannot bet their fates in a critical situation, those who give up when given the chance because there is a next year,' he said, lip curling in derision, 'and let their minds sway over an uncertain future, fools who barely carry determination like that don't deserve to be Chuunin.'

Her eyes narrowed. She wouldn't let some guilt-striking words make her forget that she had a job to do. The family came before the team, and came before being a shinobi.

'So what I am saying is that those of you who chose to remain gave the right answer to the tenth question. You can deal with the difficulties you will face. You have broken through the entrance. The First Exam of the Chuunin Selection ends now. I wish you luck.'

Naruto exploded out of his chair with a cry of joy, and Raiku fought to urge to lunge out of her own to strangle her teammate.

A window exploded. Despite her overpowering urge to absolutely destroy her teammate, Raiku looked up. With a fluid movement a large dark red piece of fabric was suspended by kunai between floor and ceiling, white writing scrawled across it.

'Everyone!' the pretty, purple haired woman who'd so abruptly arrived exclaimed, seemingly at ease despite only wearing a mesh shirt and undone jacket on her torso and shin guards and short skirt on her lower half. 'Now is no time to be happy!'

'"Second Examiner Mitarashi Anko is here"…?' Raiku read on the fabric with a dubious expression. 'I am the Second Examiner Mitarashi Anko!' the woman announced, as though it wasn't emblazoned behind her. 'Let's go to the next exam! Follow me!' Anko yelled, punching the air.

Stunned silence.

Ibiki took a half-step from out behind the fabric. 'Grasp the atmosphere,' he instructed Anko, deadpan.

Anko flushed, shooting him a glare before glancing out at the shocked Genin. 'Eighty one?' she asked, shooting him another, more questioning look. 'Ibiki, you let twenty seven teams pass? The First Exam must have been too soft!'

Ibiki was unfazed. 'It looks like there are a lot of excellent students this time.'

Anko snorted. 'Well, I'm going to make more than half of the teams fail in the Second Exam!' She smirked. 'I'm getting quite excited. I'll explain the details tomorrow. We'll go somewhere else, so ask your Jounin leader about the rally point and time. That is all- dismissed!'

Instantly Naruto led the way out to meet the assorted Jounin teachers, the Genin piling haphazardly towards the exit. Raiku sighed and stood, stretching her arms above her head. 'C'mon,' Ryuu said, jerking his head towards the doors.

'Coming,' she nodded. She blinked when her foot stuck to the floor. She looked down to see sand piled up around the offending appendage, and growled. 'Sand! Again with the sand!' she muttered under her breath, crouching to brush some of it off and only mildly surprised when it didn't move.

'Come on, toaster!' Daisukenojo called impatiently from the door. She straightened and waved dismissively.

'I'll catch up!'

She looked around as her teammates vanished from view, convinced this was some sort of malicious trick. Her eyes fell on the impatient Sand-nin who had been so questioning earlier, leaning against the desk with a large, strange black contraption on her back. She was staring at her with narrowed eyes, identical ones doing the same set in the purple-painted face next to her. The Sand-nin with purple markings was wearing a curiously feline hat and loose bodysuit, and seated next to them was…

She tilted her head. 'Mystery-nin?' she mumbled under her breath, squinting to see him better. There was no question it was him, of course, but she was so desperate to be wrong that she double-checked before saying anything. She brightened with genuine pleasure, relieved that the trick was being done to catch her attention. Or that's what she sincerely hoped it was for.

She sent him a cheerful wave. 'Hey! It's good to see you again!'

The boy in the cat hat crossed his arms across his chest, narrowing his eyes even further. She rallied her enthusiasm with herculean effort. 'Are you going to tell me your name this time?' she asked curiously.

'Gaara… do you know this girl?' the girl asked, giving her a cold stare.

Raiku winced, and the cat hat boy smirked at her discomfort. She couldn't quite understand why he was keeping her here if he wasn't going to talk to her. The boy with the blank green eyes looked at her for a while. 'You survived the trip through the storm,' his purple-y companion said, voice flippant. 'How?' It was a demand, not a real inquiry.

She shrugged. 'We used our skills to our advantage, I guess. We argue a lot, but we're actually a pretty good team,' she said modestly.

The sand tightened around her ankle, and she flinched when it seeped inside the wrappings to touch her skin to melt into glass.

The red-haired boy tilted his head, narrowing blackened eyes.

'Let's go, Kankuro, Gaara,' the girl sniffed, dismissing her with a flick of her head. Raiku felt her blood surge, unbidden, hair rising to float free of gravity.

'Gairano,' Ibiki muttered from the front of the classroom.

Of course he would know, she reprimanded herself for her surprise. He wouldn't tolerate a secret, even a Gairano one. She looked at him over her shoulder and nodded in understanding, forcing it back inside her skin and raising a hand to smooth her hair down as much as it would allow her.

She gave a tense bow. 'It was nice to see you again, Sand-nin,' she said tersely, trying in vain to get herself to relax. 'I'm sorry you didn't like my answers to your questions. I hope to be able to speak with you in a setting I won't be made fun of in.'

With a firm stamp of her free foot the sand turned to transparent sludge, allowing her to make her triumphant, if slightly gooey way outside.

The redhead named 'Gaara' had yet to speak to her.


A/N: Ah, Gaara. You terrify her so much.

Reviews:

Anonymous(envysXsin): We have an accord. And in your defence, those rice cookers are treacherous little things. I can only put him in so many embarassing situations in a period of time, but every character will be in more, I guarantee it. I update... incredibly quickly, so if I were you I'd put an alert on it so that when I put two up in one day you'll know about it. Also- is this chapter long enough for you?