Miyo's Chunin Exams, part 1


Miyo

Naruto didn't think to give me any hints about the exams before he left. Not that I'd have taken hints anyway.

A couple days later, I went into the test building with my teammates. Katsuro looked around. "Not as many Leaf headbands this time. Not that I'm surprised, what with the upset this village has had recently."

"That only means we'll have to try harder to represent the Leaf!" Keitaro declared.

I ignored him. Or at least, I tried to ignore him. That exchange left me worried. Then I realized I might as well say something to them. "Okay, you two. I know the basics of how this part of the test is going to work, so for the end of this round, take your cues from me, got it?"

They both nodded, mystified.

Finally we went into the reality of the room I'd set up for my dolls to take their "Chunin Exam step one" in while I was watching Naruto.

And when we were sat down and given our papers, I fussed with my sleeves. Now that I knew the rules, I knew why Naruto hadn't been pulled out of the exams early. Of course – as long as he kept his points, it didn't matter how he went about getting his answers. This was an intelligence-gathering exercise.

I didn't know what the Osamus were going to do, but I always half-suspected that they had some kind of mind-sharing ability that gave them a collective intelligence equaling Sakura's intelligence. They'd be fine.

I just had to get the answers myself…

My hand encountered Little Gaara.

with someone who'd already gone through this test.


That's about how the test went. For the entire hour or so that I was sitting there, I was sitting there with Little Gaara balancing on my head, with one thread connected to him and supplying him with chakra, as I didn't know how much he would need for this trick now that there wasn't technically a Tailed Beast supplying him with excess energy from his original. He was doing a good job of acting: I held my head perfectly still, and he was only "upright" as much as his gourd on its own would let him, his head hanging. His sand was doing all the movement, learning the answers and forming onto my paper for me to copy with my pencil. Nine questions went like that…with one exception that I actually happened to know. The tenth question…it'll be given to us at the end of the testing?

Naruto and everyone else who went on to the next round had stayed in the room after the tenth question. Somehow, I wasn't sure that would be the best strategy this time. It all depended on the question.

I'd finished relatively quickly, and I had ten minutes left on the clock. Bored, I tipped my head further forward and let Little Gaara fall off my head. As he fell, he curled up and landed in my lap protected inside a small sand sphere. I hadn't wanted to just take him down because that would have tipped off the ninja lined up along the walls to what I'd done.


Finally, the teacher came back. "All right, listen up! A lot is riding on this final question. If you answer wrongly, you could end up in the worst circumstances of your life, or even die. Will you still answer it?"

A long, uncomfortable silence extended out. Then he added, "Oh, and there is no shame in choosing not to answer. Your team will get to try again to become a chunin next time."

After that announcement, I heard some shuffling of feet. Then a few teams stood up and left.

Keitaro and Katsuro were both fidgeting. I could hear them tapping their sandals in something resembling Morse code. It wasn't quite Morse code, it was their own "language," but I understood enough to get the gist.

"Why isn't she moving? Is she waiting for something?"

"Just be patient, bro; her plan will reveal itself soon enough."

I had just about figured out the basis of this question. It probably shuffled around for exactly what it was supposed to challenge, but this time the question was testing our resolve as ninja. And I had no intention of moving.

After a couple of minutes, while no more teams made any move to leave, he smiled at us. "You all pass!"

My teammates jumped out of their chairs and let out wild whoops of excitement. I rolled my eyes. What goofballs.

Then Anko came in and told us to show up outside the Forest of Death tomorrow. Go…figure.


That night, I finished sewing up Kai's older sibling and decided to try it out for talking to Naruto. I set off the jutsu, declaring the name I'd decided for it: "Distance Chat Jutsu!"

Naruto fell backwards with a happy remark, something about the only thing that would make the place he was better would be a bath, and then glared off to one side. Then he stood up again, snarling, "Not from you, pal!"

Okay...either he's not getting on with his squad leader, or...no, he usually holds respect for his squad leader, and he doesn't call them "pal." Not getting on very well with Sai, are you?

"Hey, um, Naruto? You up for a chat?"

I got to see him startle grandly. "Huh? Wha - sis?!"

Even though he couldn't see it, I couldn't help but grin. "Surprise! It's a new jutsu I came up with. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Oh yeah, it's cool!" Then he started looking around, almost confused. "Oh, uh, hey, um, Miyo's got a jutsu that lets her talk with another ninja long distance!"

"Oh, poor guy," I started hunting for my other dolls, "they're going to think you're crazy if I don't figure out how to include them in this. Hang on a stitch, I'll see if I can't stretch it a bit further..."

I heard Naruto relaying what I'd said while I hunted down the other dolls of his team. Then I ended the jutsu - not wanting to hurt Naruto by opening the zipper while the jutsu was still active - opened the back of the doll, inserted the other two chakra-thread-connected dolls into the back with Little Naruto and closed it up again. That pocket was now officially crowded. If this worked, I'd have to tell them to inform their captain the he'd be stuck out of the loop.

Sakura

I blinked at Naruto. "So Miyo can talk to people with her dolls?"

"Believe it!"

I glanced at Sai. "Not that you actually feel anything, but most ninja tend to react negatively to Miyo's weapons."

He shrugged, looking away. "I did tell her she needed a new strategy before we left the village."

"And?..."

"She used her jutsu to pull me over."

Naruto started laughing. "Good for her!"

I sort of agreed with Naruto. "Yeah, Miyo's tougher than she appears, and doesn't take kindly to her skills being insulted. A..."

Miyo

"Partyline Distance Chat Jutsu!"

I hadn't been sure what to expect, but evidently the person I'd be seeing would have direct connection to who was speaking, because the first figure that my large doll became was Sakura, and I caught her mid-sentence.

"...ninja only ever does that once."

Naruto

"A ninja only ever does what once?" Miyo's voice echoed through my head again. And going by the way Sakura jumped, and even Sai started looking around, they heard her too.

"Miyo! Hi! Um, I just said a ninja only ever mocks your jutsu to your face once."

"Ha ha, I wouldn't have expected Sai to bring up what I did to him - most guys wouldn't mention a girl getting the upper hand over them."

"So, sis, how's it going?"

"About what you'd expect. My team passed the first stage of the Chunin Exams."

"Hey, that's great!" Sakura cheered. "But, um, don't you need your sleep? The next phase of the Exams is a real doozy."

"I couldn't sleep. Partly because I needed to ask you guys something."

"We're listening," Sai prompted. I glared at him.

"Okay, um...the first time I'd used this jutsu, it was to talk to Sasuke a couple years back after he left the village."

"You spoke to Sasuke since he left the village?" Sakura interrupted.

"Yeah...without going into a whole ton of detail, I'd dared him to gather some information for me, but I didn't give him any way to get the info back to me once he found it. He said he'd do it, but, well..."

Sai finished the sentence. "But without any way to get the information to you, he's stuck."

A moment of silence. Then she apparently remembered we couldn't see her. "Mm-hmm. So basically, if you guys actually cross paths with Sasuke, could you mention me? Even if everything else goes south and you don't manage to bring him back, he might give you the information to bring back to me. And yes, Sai," Sai twitched when she said his name, "that means if it's you, you'd need to tell Sasuke that you know me."

Sakura had apparently gotten stuck on Sasuke. "You spoke...to Sasuke...since...he...left...and didn't say anything about it?!"

"Why would I? You were busy, I was busy, I just wanted to ask the killer squirrel one question and that was it. I didn't even know if the jutsu would work!"

Wait... "Killer squirrel?" I snickered. "Do you actually call Sasuke that?"

"Um...I've thought of him under that nickname. The full moniker is 'Sharingan killer squirrel.' I only called him that to his face - sort of - during my long-distance communication with him. I don't know what he thinks of it." She sounded embarrassed.

"The 'Sharingan' and the 'killer' I can understand," Sai said slowly, "but...squirrel?"

"That was when I'd noticed how often he perches in trees to look around. And I felt squirrels went better with the Leaf Village than birds did. Free-association game."

"Oh, I see. Do you often come up with nicknames for the people you know?"

"Rarely, actually. Something has to officially suggest itself to me before I actually use it. But we're getting off-topic. Will you three, if you actually cross paths with Sasuke, get the information from him? It's important to me."

"One more question," Sakura raised her hand like she was in class. "What is this information?"

Miyo was silent for a long minute. Suddenly, I figured I knew what it was. "You asked Sasuke about your brother, didn't you?"

Another beat of silence went by. Then, "Uh-huh."

I looked at Sai. "Miyo's brother Koga had gone out on some mission or other years ago and never came back. She, um..." Miyo probably wouldn't be happy with my spilling her story completely, so...better ad-lib a little... "found strong evidence that Orochimaru had something to do with her brother's disappearance."

"Close enough."

"I get it," Sakura spoke up again. "And since Sasuke's ended up really close to Orochimaru, he'd be in the best position to find out about Koga's fate!"

Sai suddenly spoke up. "All right."

"Huh?" I was confused.

"I will help Miyo obtain this information."

"Oh. Uh...okay. Yeah, me too!"

"Right!"

"Thanks, guys." For just a second, I felt her arms around me. Glancing around, I saw that Sakura and Sai were reacting like they were feeling the same thing. Then, without her making any move of letting go, I felt those ghost-arms just...fade away. She must have ended the jutsu without letting go.

"That was different." Sai rubbed his hand up and down one arm.

Sakura giggled. "You should try having her pick you up using her small doll-copy! It's like being held in the hand of a giantess!"

"I wonder what Sasuke found out..." I stared at the ceiling.