The Unsung Story of the Inconspicuous

A/N: And here we have the chapter in which Raiku loses at mercy and being discreet in general.

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


By the time Team Gai arrived, Raiku was what for her, passed as half naked.

She sat next to her teammates with a chair pulled away from the wall to face them, casually discussing the benefits of Daisukenojo and Ryuu coming up with a better nickname for her when they appeared. Her sleeves and shin wrappings were on a chair so they could dry- Ryuu's patience only extending so far. They ignored the quiet 'poof' sound and continued disagreeing with each other, right up until the team realised they could actually see her skin. It was scandalous, the reaction instantaneous. Tenten blinked in mild surprise, Neji… narrowed his eyes, so maybe it was in reaction to something else- it was hard to tell with that guy- and Lee choked.

'R-Raiku-chan!' Lee forced out, staring at her with wide eyes as the smoke around them began to dissipate. She froze, back tensing as they gaped at it. 'Why are you… you're half naked!'

'I'm fully dressed! Why does everyone always think that me showing my arms is nudity!?' she demanded incredulously. 'Do I exude indecency!?' She looked over her shoulder, shooting him a glare.

He sagged in relief. 'You still have your mask on- that's good!' He shot her a dazzling smile.

Her look turned poisonous. 'You have something to say about my face, Lee!?'

'No!' he denied instantly, taking a step back and not quite knowing why. 'Of course not!'

'It sounds like he does,' Daisukenojo gloated, leaning forward to watch the show. 'You've heard the theories about what's under the mask, right?'

'Theories?' she asked in a low voice, glowering at Lee. Lee cringed.

'I have no theories! I swear it to you!'

'Oh yes- the theories,' Ryuu said, eyes sparkling with malicious glee. 'They have bets, you know. I think Naruto started it.'

'They'll never know the truth,' Daisukenojo said, and the two nodded at each other sagely.

'The truth?' Lee asked, unaware they were trying to get him to dig his own grave. 'You know the truth of Raiku-chan's face!? Is it true what they say?'

'What do they say?' Raiku asked warily.

'They say that you're horribly disfigured,' Lee supplied promptly. Raiku let her head fall forward until it hit her knees as her teammates fell about themselves laughing, much to Lee's chagrin.

'That's nice, Lee,' she sighed. 'Now I'm going to curl into a ball and die of mortification.'

'It's… it's not that bad,' Daisukenojo forced out, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. 'You're not hideous, toaster… not completely…'

'You saw my face by accident!' she accused, leaping to her feet and making a threatening gesture. 'And I did it to save your lives! You could have died if I hadn't!'

'Yeah… the lightning probably ran away when it saw you!' Daisukenojo clutched his sides, trying desperately to contain himself.

Raiku growled, fists clenching and unclenching uselessly at her sides. The disfigurement rumour would have been spread by her family in an attempt to discourage people for taking her inhumanity as mystery and being suitably intrigued, but it still made her uncomfortable. Like it or not Raiku hadn't seen her own face clearly… ever, as mirrors were too easily broken and her family superstitious, so it was somewhat of a sore spot. Ugliness was beneficial, but she could hardly be 'horribly disfigured'… could she?

'Raiku-chan, there's an easy way to settle this!' Lee pointed out, blushing as he tried to be sneaky. Lee was many things, but scrupulously honest was usually one of them, and he was incredibly easily embarrassed. 'You could just… take the mask off.'

She felt eight pairs of eyes suddenly fix on her, and felt appropriately awkward. She twitched under their gaze, trying to avoid the waves of hostility being sent her way by the former mystery-nin.

'I think… I'd rather keep it on,' she said awkwardly. She pulled at it self-consciously, and resolved to never, ever show any skin again.

'I'm sure you're as lovely as the iconic figure of celestial lightning that your name is derived from!' Lee proclaimed, something dangerously close to tears brimming in his eyes.

Daisukenojo tried, he really did.

But in the end he couldn't hold it in. He started laughing again, burying his face in his arms, shoulders shaking with the force of it. 'Her name!' he managed, as Ryuu snickered with considerably more dignity. 'Her name!'

Raiku sighed, sitting down. 'It's really cold in here,' she muttered, having given up on stopping them completely. It could only help her, right? 'This exam better be over soon.'


When Team Kurenai arrived, it was the very, very early morning of the next day. They hadn't been allowed to leave- anyone who left could re-enter the forest, tip the scales. Raiku was happily curled into a seat with her blanket-that-was-not-technically-a-blanket-but-used-to-be-a-shuriken, her thin frame making it easy for her to fold up into a relatively small amount of space. The pale blue light of the moon spilled in through the small, high windows, casting everything in tones of dark blue and pitch black and giving the world that strange, detached caste.

The smoke appeared silently, no doubt out of consideration for the sleeping Genin on the part of the Chuunin sending the team, but the Genin being sent were hardly as considerate. The pearl-eyed Hinata stepped out silently and looked for a place to sit, keeping her taller, reclusive Aburame teammate close at hand. And then… there was the third member.

'Spastic!' Kiba greeted loudly, grinning as the smoke cleared enough for him to make out her form in the dark. 'Your team made it after all!'

Raiku jerked awake with a quiet sound of protest. 'You'd better not be talking to me,' she mumbled, burying her face into her blanketed knees.

'Whoa, someone's not very cheerful in the morning!' he said with deliberately high volume, making him at least six new enemies. Neji had of course woken up the second they'd arrived, and glowered at them. The moonlight shining off his pearly eyes was particularly terrifying, resembling nothing less than a nocturnal predator.

'I'm a morning person, but Ryuu's not, Inuzaka,' she grumbled, trying in vain to compress herself into invisibility. Kiba froze, finally picking up on why the room seemed so cold. Ryuu's bloodshot, infuriated gaze greeted him when he turned away, the red making the yellow appear sickly and the entire cast of his face demonic as he looked up at the fanged boy.

'Shut. Up.'

'Man, you need some sort of happy pill,' Kiba criticised.

Without hesitation or apparent provocation, Raiku picked up her blanket, drew it around her shoulders and moved over to sit next to Rock Lee in the dark where he sat sprawl across two chairs, shoving him over slightly and resting her back against his. Secure in the knowledge he wouldn't be able to touch her skin at this angle, she buried her face in her blanket and tried to ignore Kiba's yelps of pain or Akamaru's barks of protest.

'Raiku,' Hinata whispered across, tugging on her blanket lightly. Raiku cracked an eye open, instantly sending pale light across and into Hinata's eyes. If her status as a human flashlight was worthy of comment, no one felt obligated to do so.

'Yeah?' she whispered, rubbing an eye roughly with her palm.

'C-can you help K-Kiba, please?' she asked. 'I think R-Ryuu-san is suffocating him.'

Raiku dropped her head wearily. 'I moved away for a reason.'

'Please?' she asked tentatively.

Raiku opened her eye again, looking at Hinata. She sighed in resignation. 'Okay. Just stop looking at me like that,' she muttered.

She shuffled onto her feet in a way completely devoid of anything near grace and towards Ryuu, folding the blanket over her arm and stifling a yawn. 'Ryuu?' she asked sleepily, dragging one of her sleeves off and putting it to rest over the blanket.

'What?' Ryuu hissed across to her, yellow eyes flashing malevolently as Kiba struggled for air. She squinted in concentration. Her arm gave off a brief but intensely bright flash before the blue dragged itself back into her skin, leaving it with a faint hum. Ryuu gave a hoarse cry and covered his eyes, instantly releasing the technique Kiba suffered through. Kiba gasped for air, holding his chest.

'Thanks, spastic,' he panted heavily, blinking to clear the dark spots in his vision. Raiku nodded sleepily, shuffling over to Ryuu and dropping onto her knees beside him.

'Ryuu?' she mumbled, leaning to try and look into his eyes. 'Are you alright?'

'Don't… look at me,' he forced out between teeth gritted in pain.

Her brow wrinkled in concern. 'I'm sorry, Ryuu. Are you really angry with me?'

'You idiot,' he hissed, pressing his hand harder over his eyes. 'Your eyes… are like a torch.'

She winced and instantly closed her eyelids until only a sliver of blue could be seen, sending a pale stream of light out to hit his arm, broken by that line of shadow until it hit his hand. 'Is that better?' she whispered.

He cracked his eyes open, and nodded. 'I'm sorry,' she repeated. 'But you're never reasonable in the mornings, so I thought if I asked you'd just kill me.'

He nodded, covering his eyes again. 'Go back to sleep, Raiku.'

She nodded in return, getting to her feet with a yawn and shoving Lee back up into a sitting position, sitting with her back to him and squirming until she was comfortable. And yes, her shoulder blades were sticking into his back and yes; the static from her hair was making his shiny bowl cut slightly dishevelled, but Lee was nothing if not a gentleman and put up with it.

'R-Raiku?' Hinata whispered again, as the Aburame lifted three chairs from the wall and carried them to the other side of the room for their use. Raiku cracked an eye open again, sending another, gentler ray of light across as she started to fall asleep again and the light lessened accordingly.

'Thank you,' Hinata said softly, giving her a rare and beautiful smile. 'F-for helping me.'

'No problem,' Raiku whispered, closing her eyes again. 'Good deeds get forgotten first anyway... so you should repeat them as often as you can.'

'I won't forget,' Hinata promised her very, very quietly and with a certainty that any who knew the timid Hyuuga would be surprised at. Under her mask, Raiku's lips twitched upwards slightly.

'Yes you will. Everyone'll forget me…' she mumbled, trailing off as she fell further into sleep. 'I… have no fate.' It was true- Plots tended to disregard Gairanos, and as a result anyone who had one forgot them simply to make life easier. They stuck out, like a broken bottle in a room full of glasses, and the last thing a Plot wanted was for a Character to cut themselves on them when there were perfectly good other things for them to reach for. But Hinata didn't know that and so just turned away, and because Lee was a gentleman he simply pretended he didn't hear what wasn't for his ears anyway, and in the corner of the room a second pair of white eyes narrowed in suspicion.


Later than same day (not that there wasn't a large abundance of 'later' and a shortage of 'earlier'), the team from Sound arrived. And all hell broke loose. Or rather, it tried and tripped over itself.

Kin caught sight of the white haired girl still dozing, now sprawled rather comfortably across a chair that a normal person who be hard pressed to even sit comfortably in, legs thrown over the side and neck at a curious angle. She opened her mouth-

Ryuu fixed a bloodshot yellow eye on her, full of limitless rage and conveying images of unspeakable things.

She closed her mouth and glowered, turning away. 'Third rate girl like that isn't worth my time,' she muttered.

The three Sound-nin moved to the furthest end of the room.

Kiba poked the masked side of Raiku's face curiously, squatting next to her chair, grinning at her half-conscious efforts to turn away. 'Heavy sleeper, huh?'

'Don't poke her,' Daisukenojo warned from the scroll he brought with him everywhere, the Hatori name written on it in large letters.

He poked her again and she grumbled in her sleep petulantly. 'Why?'

'Don't poke her,' he repeated, not looking away from the writing.

Kiba jabbed her again. He promptly went slamming into the opposite wall so hard it cracked slightly under his weight, plaster flakes and dust fluttering down to turn his hair into a salt and pepper colour.

He blinked, sparks jumping off his scorched eyelashes.

Daisukenojo absently unfurled more of the scroll. 'I told you not to poke her.'

Raiku turned her head away, frowning slightly in her sleep.


When the Team Asuma arrived, it was the afternoon of the fourth day and Raiku was awake. She was also trying… and failing, to beat Kankuro at a game called 'mercy'.

'Mercy,' she whimpered, hands bent almost back onto her forearms. 'Mercy!'

Kankuro grinned, pressing harder. 'Who wins?'

'You win! Don't be such a jerk!'

He released her hands with an ominous cracking sound and started cracking his knuckles. 'Oh, you're damn right I win,' he grinned. 'So what do I get?'

'Nothing,' Kiba called over. 'Raiku gives up too easily for you to win anything, sucker!'

Raiku gave him a sheepish grin. Kankuro cursed. 'Again.' He reached for her gloved hands. Raiku whimpered in protest.

'So much for being the first team,' Shikamaru said dryly.

'Ha! Sakura's not here yet,' Ino said triumphantly, setting her hands on her hips.

He sighed, rolling his eyes, and went to wrangle them some seats.


Kabuto's team arrived in the night. They didn't speak to anyone. They didn't look at anyone. They sat against the wall and made it easy to be ignored.


On the morning of the fifth day, Team Kakashi scraped in by the skin of their teeth, arriving battered and beaten, to the sounds of heckling from Ino and catcalls from Kiba. Raiku inched back and away from the plot that reached for her.


Now they stood in an enormous, semicircular room, in their team lines before the Hokage and the assorted Jounin Captains of their teams. The room was circular and the walls shaped into a dome, ending in large windows that illuminated the room. One side was host to a massive sculpture of two hands and an assortment of blank black screens breaking up the grey-green tiles. The floor was obviously worn with numerous previous battles, and an elevated viewing balcony lining each side of the room told the story of previous Exams.

Yamada winked at them, grinning proudly. Ryuu didn't acknowledge it, standing at the front of the line- rather than exuding boredom, she'd realised a long time ago, when tired Ryuu instead exuded a palpable feeling of rage that came off him in almost visible waves of black intent.

She eyed him warily. She was really hoping she didn't have to fight him.

'First off!' Anko exclaimed from the right of the room, wearing microphone headset. 'Congratulations on passing the Second Exam!'

Raiku froze. Damn! She had! What had she been thinking?! Clearly, she hadn't been!

'We will now have an explanation of the Third Exam from Hokage-sama!' Anko announced. 'Everyone- listen well.' She turned and bowed her head in respect. 'Hokage-sama. Please do the honours.'

The Hokage stepped forward, the omnipresent pipe hanging out of his mouth, and coughed slightly. 'The Third Exam will begin. But before the explanation, there's one thing I want to make clear to all of you.'

Hinata edged away from Ryuu, and Raiku winced in sympathy. This wasn't going well already.

'It's about the true purpose of this exam,' Hokage continued. 'Why we need a Chuunin Exam. "To maintain good relations with the allied nations" and "heighten the level of the ninja"… Do not let these reasons deceive you.'

Plot device? Raiku pondered. The Chuunin Exams were clearly just a tool for the Plot.

'This "Exam", so to speak, is…' he stopped, removing his pipe and exhaling smoke. He looked at them for a while before he spoke again. 'The epitome of war between the allied nations.'

Tenten leaned out from behind the back. 'What do you mean?' she asked incredulously.

Raiku sighed. Again with the interruptions. Unbelievable.

'If we go back through history, the allied nations right now were neighbouring countries that have fought each other over and over again. To avoid wasting military power, these countries decided to choose a place to fight. That was the beginning of the Chuunin Selection Exams.'

Naruto gaped, taken aback. 'Why do we have to do that? We're not doing this to select Chuunins?'

Raiku tilted her head, considering it. Ah. It was clear.

'Yes,' the Hokage allowed. 'This Exam does select those who are worthy of that title. But, on the other hand, it's also a place where ninja fight and carry their country's dignity. In this Third Exam, feudal lords and famous people from various countries who may be powerful clients are invited here as guests. And feudal lords from countries with hidden villages and ninja leaders will see your battles. If there's a significant difference in power, the leading village will be flooded with jobs. If a country is seen as weak, the jobs will decrease. And at the same time, countries-,'

It was at this point, to Raiku, the words "country" and "countries" ceased to sound like words, and instead just became sounds.

'- are able to show how their village has grown and possesses excellent military power to adjacent countries. In other words, they can put foreign pressure on them.'

Kiba growled. 'So why do we have to fight with the risk of losing our lives?!'

'A country's power,' the Hokage said simply. 'Is the village's power. A village's power is the ninja's power. And a ninja's true strength is born in life or death battles.

'This Exam is also a place to show off the ninja power of one's country. Since this is an Exam where you fight with your life on the line, it has a meaning, and your predecessors have fought and dreamed of the Chuunin Exams because of it.'

Raiku had most definitely not dreamed of death. Her life was designed to be inherently devoid of meaning.

'But why do you say it's to promote good relations!?' Tenten exclaimed.

'I told you at the beginning not to get confused with that,' the Hokage deadpanned. 'The custom of shaving-,'

Raiku blinked. Shaving? No, he must have meant cultivating. Well, he was a little odd.

'-one's life and fighting to maintain balance… that is the good relation in the world of the ninja.'

She nodded, instantly at ease and level with what he was saying. It was like a Gairano theory, only bigger! Her entire life's philosophy fitted with that.

'This is a life or death battle for your dreams and your village's dignity.'

Naruto grinned smugly. 'Heh. I understand now.'

Gaara's expression was as hostile as ever. 'I don't care. Tell us the details of this life-or-death Exam.'

The Hokage nodded. 'Then I will now begin the explanation of the Third Exam, but…' he coughed.

Instantly a Jounin dropped from… somewhere into a respectful crouch before the Hokage, back to the rest of them. 'Excuse me, Hokage-sama,' he said in a low, smooth voice. 'I, Gekkou Hayate, the judge, will explain.'

'Please do.'

The Jounin raised himself into a standing position. 'Everyone. It is nice to meet you.' He turned to face the assembled Genin, coughing in a distinctly unhealthy way. 'Everyone, before we begin the Third Exam…' he broke off coughing again. Raiku stared at him oddly. 'There is something I want you to do…' When his coughs had, for the third time already, stopped, he smirked slightly. 'Fight in some preliminary matches to see who gets to advance to the Third Exam main battles.'

Raiku smiled a dazzling smile. Things were looking up after all.


A/N: Ahaha, Ryuu's rage is based off my own. You called it '9 o'clock', I call it 'go into an inhuman rage o'clock'.

Reviews:

Vampy: I love you man, but not that much. XD

envysXsin: Ah, faithful reviewer, you're welcome. Any requests, other than more of Daisukenojo being humiliated?

NobodyInParticular: Hello new reviewer! Ehe, I have reviewers... Sorry. I promise Gaara will have a bigger role later, becaue I love him too. Thank you for the compliments!

: Thank you, that flawed/tragic premise is going to be one of the Plots later on, and I'm glad you caught it. I worried I'd failed in giving that impression, so thank you for pointing it out.