Miyo's Exam Ending


I'll give Little Gaara credit: the morning of the next phase of the Chunin Exams, he didn't wake me up in his usual manner of taking his sand to my arm like a knife. Instead he used his sand to pull the blankets off of me, lift me out of bed by my ankle, and drop me on the floor. Wonderfully considerate of him, to make sure not to make me bleed when I needed to be fighting fit.

As I got dressed, something occurred to me. Little Naruto picked up on the chakra of the Nine-Tailed Fox…Little Sasuke and Little Orochimaru no doubt pulled some of that snake's own energy…

I picked up Little Gaara. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

He cocked his head to the side.

"You used to get your chakra from Gaara's Tailed Beast, right?"

He nodded slowly.

"Well…where do you get your chakra now that the Akatsuki have stolen the Tailed Beast?"

After holding perfectly still for a minute, he tossed his gourd's cork and had his sand form words for me.

"A fraction of my chakra originally came from the Kazekage himself. That's still there, but now it equals half my strength, and the second half of my chakra, which had been the Tailed Beast's, comes from you. As a result, my abilities will not be as strong as they used to be."

"Oh. Well…thank you for telling me that."

Little Gaara's sand went back into his gourd, and I set him back on the dresser. Little Naruto came bouncing over, dragging…Little Neji.

I stared at him for a second. "You want me to bring Neji?"

He nodded.

"Sorry; I wasn't going to bring any ninja dolls with me this time. It just strikes me as cheating, and besides, I hadn't been able to use any of my dolls when I was in the first part of Stage Three anyway. I'll use my toys."

Thinking back, actually, I wasn't sure how I'd won that fight. I'd still been wearing my kimono thing, so I hadn't been using any of my just-threads techniques…

Oh yeah: I'd used his abilities against him, without using any actual jutsu of mine.

Back to the room, Little Naruto bobbed a nod and dragged Little Neji back to where I'd left him. Then he came running back over with the small copy of myself.

"Okay, that doll I'll bring." I plucked it up and dropped it into the sleeve of my newly-tailored sweatshirt, along with my sewing kit so that if I did get hurt I could heal myself. My mind wandered briefly to Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji, out on their mission. Then I looked at Little Naruto. "How's your original doing?"

He held out one little hand and wobbled it back and forth.

"So-so, huh? Well…that's to be expected, considering he felt that this mission of his was a junk mission."

I ran over to my toy chest and looked in. "Let's see…using the hedgehog is something I can only rarely do…using Sasha is a little awkward at times," though I still smiled at the memory of the fake Itachi dancing around like a mad fool trying to catch the cat, "and the snake is borderline-useless in outright combat." Then I grabbed Sasha and shoved her into my sleeve. "Might as well bring her; just because she's awkward doesn't mean I can't manage to use her. Okay, what else?"

Finally, I had everything ready, and I went to the door, ready for anything!

Anything, that is, except Neji being right outside the door ready to knock.

He looked as surprised as I felt, which meant he hadn't been using his Byakugan to look through the door.

"Hi." I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Hi. I…came to…escort you to the arena."

"Oh. Um…okay."

We walked in silence for a couple minutes. Then I spoke, finally deciding the silence was getting to me. "That thing you wanted to say to me two years ago…did it have anything to do with me or Gaara?"

He blinked at me. "What?"

"Or…did your reason for not telling me have something to do with me or Gaara?"

"Um…"

"Please note: I'm not asking you to tell me what it was you'd wanted to say. Now I'm just playing Twenty Questions trying to guess. At the moment, Cousin Gaara's my only guess."

"Cousin?"

"Yeah…since I realized he had a Tailed Beast inside him, I've referred to him as a cousin. Kind of a free-association game, because Naruto's got a Tailed Beast as well, and I call him Big Brother. And even now that Gaara's lost the Tailed Beast, I still call him cousin." I smiled. "I'm not sure what's more amusing: that I call the Kazekage a cousin, or that he calls me a cousin."

"He – really?"

"Really, and you're sounding a lot less like your usual self right now. So please, answer me straight: did either what you wanted to tell me, or your reason for not telling me, have to do with Gaara?"

After a minute of silence – and I was just starting to think that he wasn't going to answer me at all – he spoke. "It was…the…latter."

He didn't tell me whatever it was because of Cousin Gaara. Okay… "And I guess you need to adjust to the thought of Gaara not being an issue before you can tell me whatever it was, huh?"

Neji actually looked relieved at that. "Yes! Exactly! I need a bit more time to think."

"Okay, and now that I know that, my curiosity can stop running my brain ragged, and I can focus on the exams."

With that, we'd made it to the arena, and I joined the other competitors.


Neji

I wiped some sweat from my chin. She's extremely persistent, I'll give her that. I want to tell her, I really do, but every time I try to think of a good way to broach the subject, all the words disappear from my head!

Well…I'd better find my seat.

Once there, I settled back to wait. Miyo's match wasn't first, it was second, so I only barely paid attention to this match.


I paid more attention when Miyo and her opponent stepped out. The fight started slowly.

Somehow I wasn't surprised that she'd gotten her sweatshirt back. Though I wish she'd chosen the green sheet-thing, it really made her look like a nature spirit.

Where'd that thought come from?

The fight was started, and the first thing Miyo did was leap back towards one wall; then when she landed she crossed one ankle behind the other, her typical move for preparing to sit down.

"You think I'm going to let you do that?" her opponent flung a couple of kunai at her, pinning her sleeves to the wall behind her! "I know your strategies: you sit in the corner like a brat on timeout and throw your stupid toys at people. Well, you won't get the chance this time!" And he threw a third kunai straight for her chest!

My Byakugan activated, and I watched as the knife flew straight…and there was nothing I could do to stop it…

And it struck…

And her sweatshirt was pinned to the wall with nothing inside it!

Suddenly, wooden cables shot out of the ground around his feet and spiraled upwards around him, trapping him in a tight wood cocoon that only left his head free!

Thanks to my Byakugan, I suddenly saw what she'd done: she'd gone to ground with an Earth jutsu, and then combined Earth and Water jutsu to create those wood cables around the threads on her right arm!

A smile spread onto my face. My cunning little kunoichi…I didn't even know you'd mastered combining the jutsu types!

She climbed out of the ground practically right in front of him. "I hated to do that, Zao. I'd wanted to show our audience a bit more of what I could do. But you insulted me and then tried to kill me. That third kunai told me the best thing to do was to end the battle as quickly as possible. So, in case you hadn't figured this out: I made sure you couldn't make any hand signs or grab any of your weapons. I didn't break your hands – even if it's nothing less than you deserve, I'm not that cruel – but it'll take some time to get those wooden gloves off without damaging what's inside."

I studied the cocoon a bit more carefully. She did! She trapped his hands inside wooden gloves!

He started shouting a few more insults, and she glared. A second later, some more wood circled upwards and covered his mouth, silencing him.

Then the crowds started cheering, and Miyo jumped. Apparently, for all that she'd mentioned the audience, she'd partially forgotten that they were there. After looking around at them, she blushed and went to retrieve her sweatshirt from the wall as Zao, not taking her word for it, tried to move and fell over.

I caught myself watching Miyo's butt and turned to look up at Lady Hokage instead. I've really gotten it badly, haven't I?

I ended up fighting myself; I wanted to go down and talk to her. But…did she really need the distraction? Seeing me was likely to remind her of that blasted sort-of conversation we'd had two years ago, and she'd suddenly forget that she still had at least one battle to fight, and possibly even two.


Miyo

I didn't win the whole run; I wasn't really expecting to win the whole run, because my bag of competitive tricks just wasn't that big.

Still, I think my fight against the winner of today's Match 1 – his name was Aksahara or something like that – went on for almost five minutes, and there was very little lagging.

I don't have any clear memory of what we did, but eventually I dropped from sheer exhaustion.

It was Neji who jumped down and carried me out of the arena. "You were excellent, Miyo!"

I sent a thread, inserted it into Sasha who'd been dropped on the arena earlier in the fight, and made her follow us. "Yeah…"

Neji paused when he noticed I wasn't paying attention to him, and looked over his shoulder at the stuffed cat.

On a whim, I made Sasha stop, look up to make eye contact, and cock her head to the side.

Pressed against his chest the way I was, I felt him start shaking. When I looked at his profile, I saw that he was fighting to keep a smile off his face, and he wasn't exactly succeeding.

Then he looked forwards again and resumed walking.

I encouraged Sasha to take a couple of bounds to catch up, and then settled her back into walking right behind Neji's feet.

Then I actually heard something from Neji. It sounded like he was…trying not to laugh.

I held out until we got just inside the medical area, but then I just couldn't resist any longer. I whispered into his ear, "You've got a friend."

That did it. Neji started laughing. Hard. He was nearly doubling over with his laughter, and I was amazed he was still hanging onto me!

I started giggling a bit, too. "Neji…put me down before you hurt yourself!"

Neji staggered towards the cot, still laughing. When I glanced at his face, I saw his eyes were barely open.

His legs gave out around the time he'd gotten me over the cot, and I hit the mattress fairly hard…with Mister Perfect collapsing on top of me gasping for breath.

That would have been a perfectly enjoyable moment…except his landing on me introduced me to the unwelcome information that I'd gotten hurt a few times. "Ow…Neji, off!"

At least he managed to struggle off of me.

While he was working at calming down again, I sat up and pulled out my little doll. Pulling its clothes off, I inserted a button into its back and channeled some chakra into it.

Several small cuts formed on it, and some spots of fabric suddenly became thin. Cuts and scrapes; no fun dealing with scrapes. I pulled my travel-size sewing kit out of my other sleeve.

That got Neji's attention. "You were running around on the field with your sewing kit?"

"Of course; what if something happens and I get hurt?"

"I…never thought about that."

"Actually, since the chasing-Sasuke mission, all my dolls have gotten an upgrade," I mentioned absently as I carefully probed the doll. "Now they've all gotten actual internal structure, and tiny wooden puppet-skeletons inside them. I wanted to have an easier time mending internal injuries."

He stared at me. Then he stared at the mini-me in my hand with his Byakugan. "Such…intricate detail!"

"Thank you."

"You even gave her hands with working fingers!"

I smiled. "I'm really proud of those. In fact, I think the only dolls that haven't gotten the skeletal treatment are the Fourth Hokage…" my smile vanished. "Orochimaru and…maybe Sasuke, I can't remember if I worked him or not. I don't remember hearing anything snap when I fell on him to keep him from escaping my room, so probably not." Then I changed the subject. "Okay, I didn't get any broken bones, and none of my organs got damaged. Besides the cuts and scrapes, I've only got some weakening in the muscles of my left leg." I absently rubbed the spot. "I thought I noticed that."

"Are you sure you have enough chakra to mend yourself? You'd been going all-out…"

"Mmm…" I studied her. Then I looked up at him. "You weren't fighting. Could you lend me some of your chakra?"

I stopped him cold. It was kind of funny to see his face. He recovered quickly, though. "What should I do?"

I ditched my sweatshirt, keeping hold of mini-me, and extended a different thread to him. "You've channeled your chakra along threads before, right?"

"Yes…"

"Well then. All the threads of each band are connected to each other with shorter threads. You just need to send your chakra down this thread and over to the one connected to Little Miyo," I waved the doll. "I'll be telling it what to do once it gets there, don't worry about that."

He slowly took hold of the thread, and I had it twine loosely about his wrist before pulling my chakra back out of it. I noticed, though, that as I pulled back, Neji's chakra was following mine.

After a moment, I chose to disregard what he was doing and returned my attention to my doll's "injuries." A brief distraction came when Neji's chakra arrived at the doll, but then I got back to work, starting low and working upwards.

I absolutely hate how it feels doing this. Every jab of the needle was awful, and it left me feeling like I should have holes in my skin instead of the cuts and scrapes!

"Are you sure you can handle finishing?" Neji asked when I was about half-done.

"I…I must…" Healing myself took a great deal out of me, though, and I'd just been in battle! I started to push the needle down by the cut on my arm.

The pain caused me to sway, and I closed my eyes.

Suddenly, a boy's hands – Neji's hands – closed around mine, taking hold of Mini-Me and the needle! "Here, give me those. You're just worn out enough to where you'll probably black out completely if you try to finish on your own."

I blinked my eyes open and tried to focus on him. "But…but…"

"I've been observing your technique. And I'm a genius," an ironic look crossed his face, "I should be able to handle stitching up a doll."

I thought about that. Then I sighed and let go of the doll and needle, leaning back on the cot and closing my eyes again. "All that's really left is skin-deep. Just…don't touch the hands. I just let my hands get bandaged up to heal on their own."


Neji

I stopped channeling my chakra through the thread and watched as she let her own chakra recede. Then I shook the thread off my wrist and pulled her armband off. "I'll have an easier time if I do this."

"Mmhmm…"

I will admit…I wasn't entirely confident in my ability to do Miyo's jutsu. Her technique of working with scrapes, for instance, was just complex enough that I wasn't going to try to heal them at all.

I pulled the band onto my forearm. That's about where it would fit on me, and I wasn't going to try to force it onto my upper arm where she'd had it.

"Let's see…" I studied the loose thread that she'd had me using to let her borrow my chakra. "How did she do this..." I sent my chakra into the thread, had it grab the thread itself, and then pulled it back.

And the thread pulled back into the band.

"That's how."

Once that was done, I studied the doll. If the proportions were identical, all the "cuts" left were actually pretty minor. Still, it would be good if I knew how to tend to injuries using Miyo's method in case of an emergency.

Honestly, even if she hadn't told me her doll had been improved, I'd have noticed just by holding it in my hand: it felt heavier than I remembered her copy of me being, and it was a bit denser. The hands had also been improved: now they were a little flatter, and had definite, if rather blocky, fingers. Not to mention, her doll's feet now actually had little removable shoes, and the feet had defined shape.

It left me wondering: Little Naruto moved on his own…what had that doll's reaction been to such intense, ah, surgery?

But back to the work; I traced the needle carefully to a point next to a tear in one arm. Then I actually set the needle, making sure to only catch one layer of fabric.

Miyo flinched.

I paused. "Are you all right?"

"Don't stop."

So I continued. She flinched with every jab of the needle, and tensed when I pulled the chakra-infused thread through the fabric. I didn't know what it felt like when the thread was pulled, as I'd been unconscious when she'd healed me with this method.

When I finished, I ended the jutsu and looked over at her again.

She was just lying there with her eyes closed.

"Miyo?"

Her eyes flickered open slowly. "Mm…sorry, I think I blacked out for a second. So you're done?"

"Yes." I passed the doll back to her, and skewered the needle back into her sewing kit.

She puffed out a sigh and slowly sat up. "Ow."

"I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's cool." She swung her booted feet off the table and started re-dressing her doll. "I need to toughen up a bit more if I'm going to be a ninja and use my voodoo-healing on myself."

I watched as she pulled her monstrosity sweatshirt back over her head. "What does it feel like when the thread is pulled?"

She studied me. "Like a very thin snake is sliding just underneath my skin. It doesn't hurt, but it's not a pleasant feeling, either." She stood up.

And I had to leap to catch her as she fell forward. "Steady…"

"I'm fine." Threads extended from her left sleeve, picked up her stuffed cat from the floor, and reeled it back into the depths of her sleeve.

That reminded me I was still wearing her other armband on my forearm. I pulled it off. "Here."

She held her hand out to me, palm up, and I set the band into it…the memory of her giving me a small key and chain in the same manner never far from my mind. "Thank you." Her hand disappeared back into her sleeve and she set the ends of her sleeves together, presumably to get the armband back on.

I watched her for a moment. "…Miyo?"

"Hm?" She looked up at me. "What is it, Neji?"

I stared at her for a minute, trying to get the words out. Then I turned away. "I'll…tell you later."

"Oh. Okay."

I walked off, berating myself over losing my nerve. I could face down enemy ninjas with relative ease, but when it came to talking to Miyo…I suddenly felt a true kinship with Hinata and her inability to talk to Naruto.

Would I ever manage to tell her?