*Chapter 20*: Chapter Eighteen: Under Pressure
Chapter Eighteen: Under Pressure
"Hospital rules. No exceptions."
Sasuke looked at the medic-nin incredulously. "You've got to be kidding."
Sasuke and several medic-nin were facing off in the receiving room against a doctor, two nurses, and an orderly standing by the gurney on which Sasuke had been lying two minutes before. The stand-off, with Sasuke still leaking somewhat from underneath all the bandages, began when the orderly informed him that he would need to disarm during admittance.
Sasuke was simultaneously amused and horrified. "I am a member of the most prominent and feared team in the current Chuunin Exam. The team they've handicapped since the moment we handed in our applications five days ago. I don't have a solid count on the casualties, but I'm willing to bet that in the second exam we inflicted twice the number of casualties of all the other teams combined because they were encouraged by the conditions of the exam to come after us. And, to top it all off, I am the LAST Uchiha in Konoha. And you seriously want me to voluntarily disarm?"
The doctor and the older of the two nurses exchanged a long suffering look. The doctor looked back at Sasuke. "All of that is precisely WHY we want you to disarm… most especially your anxiety."
Sasuke looked unconvinced. The doctor elaborated. "Look, the hospital is guarded and patrolled night and day by ANBU, both inside and out. You are a genin. If THEY cannot handle an intruder, what on earth do you think you can do while you are so banged up you're hospitalized? We will be able to treat our patients more effectively and smoothly if we don't have to worry about which ones are armed and might fly off the handle. And before you start insisting that you aren't going to fly off the handle, please remember this: many of our shinobi patients are very jumpy and are admitted after terribly dangerous missions where constant strain and brutal injury are still fresh in their minds.
"We've lost nurses, and even a couple of doctors, to shinobi waking up under flashbacks while they were un-armed. What kind of a mess do you think an injured and shell-shocked chuunin could wreak with a small bundle of explosive notes? You should be grateful that hospital rules don't require you to be constantly sedated while you are here."
The doctor took a deep breath, then let it out in a frustrated sigh. He ran a hand through greasy, thinning hair, and Sasuke could see the exhaustion in his eyes. "Look, kid. I understand your position. You are in one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, during your most vulnerable point in your career. But I am tired, I am cranky, and I've spent the last twenty-two hours straight patching up your handiwork. Between all the glass shrapnel, drowning victims, poisons, and other weird shit that's been showing up this time around, I am out of patience so make up your damed mind. And for fuck's sake, do it fast, because you are making a mess out of my floor." The doctor turned and stalked off, audibly cursing the day he chose to practice medicine in a shinobi village.
Sasuke looked at the orderly and nurses, who looked back at him expectantly. Finally, Sasuke scowled and capitulated resentfully. He pulled off his tool bag, set it in the small fold-out case. Then he began pulling out the various weapons and tools he'd hidden on his body in case of losing the tool bag, including several dozen shuriken, five full spools of varying gauge wire, several bags of barbed stem eye-hooks, eight smoke bombs, two hooked mesh nets, a collapsible saw, thirty feet of cord, a half dozen knives, fourteen throwing senbon, and various minor knickknacks. The medic-nin were gaining expressions implicative of increasing degrees of being impressed: he was a walking arsenal. He was carrying as many weapons as the average jonin, and even casual examination showed that most of the reusable tools had seen use. But then, he was an Uchiha. And when you thought about what he was teamed up with, a certain degree of preparedness made a sort of sense. Jinchuuriki were known for their volatility, and one never knew when he might snap and turn on his comrades.
It took several minutes, but finally, Sasuke took out a fukimibari from inside his right cheek where it rested along his gumline, looked at it for a long moment, and dropped it into the case. He scowled at the hospital staff. "Can we please get on with this?"
The medic-nin and nurses nodded, and the orderly lowered the gurney so he could comfortably get back on it, before he was carted off to toxicology.
There was a brief but absolutely silent struggle as a nurse was pulled into a janitorial closet.
The ANBU on duty would later testify under Ibiki's more vigorous ministrations that he had seen nothing, knew nothing, about both this and what came subsequently. While it was, perhaps, a rather harsh fashion by which to pursue truth, the fact remained that the Medical Incident occurred on his watch, in his zone of responsibility, without him ever learning it had happened until after it was already over. He was permitted to live and to resume his position — an extremely benevolent gesture on the part of ANBU command — mostly due to the mitigating circumstance that Orochimaru was later confirmed to have been personally responsible for both the death of the nurse and the Uchiha's curse. Since protocol for such a lapse in attentiveness was criminal prosecution under Court Martial for gross dereliction of duty and criminal negligence, it was a very light sentencing indeed. He was even reinstated with no formal reprimand.
The interrogation, itself, had somewhat longer lasting effects, as even though medic-nin were eventually able to
regenerate his eyelids and teeth, they were never able to regrow his finger and toenails. Ibiki was an artist, after all.
Cleanup after Choji and Naruto's match was more complicated. Caltrops, broken tile, blood, and the like were swept aside and, in the case of tiles, replaced. The damage to the walls was left alone, although Hayate wondered if there would be a tower left standing after the other jinchuuriki's fight. Although the one who had done the most damage was that damned Akimichi kid; like father, like son. Hayate muttered darkly to himself about villages showing off this year.
The next match was posted.
Subaku no Kankuro. Akado Yoroi.
Yoroi cursed the luck. He knew that Kankuro was part of the invasion. He'd taken pains to find out more about the plan from Kabuto and Orochimaru, and requisitioned dossier on their abilities, for the purposes of not screwing anything up. He also knew that Kankuro's part to play was fairly important. Just as well that idiot Tsurugi didn't make it to the third exam, Yoroi thought to himself. Knowing him he'd have just rushed right in, much like he did when he got himself filleted.
In order for the plans to come off smoothly, Kankuro would need to be somewhere near Gaara when the invasion began — meaning, in the waiting area when the signal came to attack — which, in turn, meant that Kankuro had to win this match.
Yoroi detested the idea of throwing the fight; he hungered to suck someone's chakra dry and watch them flop helplessly as their body lost the ability to keep itself alive. It was so rare that he got to cut loose, after all, being their team was actually a sleeper cell, and the need for keeping a low profile. It was a choice between two bad options, but one of them would maintain their plans most effectively... so there really wasn't much to be indecisive about. For the sake of the mission, his duty was clear.
As the two of them faced off, Yoroi grimaced under his mask in distaste before clearing his throat to get Hayate's attention. "Examiner Gekko-san?"
"Ummm... Yes?" asked Hayate, raising an eyebrow.
"He's gonna run away," Kankuro commented scornfully with a smirk. "He's shaking like the- I mean... a... leaf."
Yoroi took a step forward, his blood singing at the thought of being called a coward. "What did you just say you lipstickwearing felch monkey?"
Kankuro's eyes narrowed dangerously as he stepped forward chest to chest with Yoroi. "Call me that again, you masked little chicken-shit."
"HOLD IT!" snapped Hayate, forcefully parting them and taking up a place in the middle. "Uhhh, either of you attacks in any fashion before I start the match you will be disqualified." Hayate looked back at Yoroi. "(cough) Yoroi-san, you had something to say?"
Yoroi took one look at Kankuro's smirking face and thought of the mission resting in this idiot's hands. Fuck this; he'll ruin the whole mission. "Yeah. Just make sure the medical staff has a toe-tag ready cause this fucker's headed for the morgue."
Kankuro's smirk turned even nastier. "Well, someone is, at any rate."
"Ummm... I take it," said Hayate dryly, "that neither of you has any objections?"
Hayate's light cough did nothing to mask their response. "None." "Oh, not at all." "Begin!"
Kankuro led the fight with a vicious swing that promised to take off any extremity it made contact with. Yoroi slipped the punch and drove an open palm into Kankuro's face, hand wreathed in dark, hungry chakra. Kankuro's head flopped backwards in his grip lifelessly, bonelessly, but Yoroi's reaction was one of surprise. There's almost no chakra to pull!
Kankuro's head may have been lifeless but the rest of him was quite mobile, and Yoroi, holding onto the head in the fashion he was, made himself a stationary target. Kankuro's second punch was a devastating left cross that apparently came from somewhere in the vicinity of Amagakure, picking up speed the whole trip. Yoroi's right cheek imploded with a meaty, wet crunching sound, and teeth and bits of bone tore through his lips and gums. Yoroi staggered but remained standing, his grip still solid, as his mind processed the information he'd already received with what had happened in the fight, putting two and two together and cursing himself for not seeing it sooner in his anger. This sort of thing was the reason you studied an enemy. Ignoring the numb sensation that was spreading through his face — numbness from the absence of still connected nerves rather than the absence of damage — he twisted his wrist, popping off the doll's head and slamming it down as hard as he could manage on the bundle on "Kankuro's" back. The head shattered, wood and hair and sharpened bits of metal flying as the doll dropped the bundle, which came unraveled to reveal the puppet-master himself.
Kankuro put a shaking hand to the top of his head and pulled it back, staring in numb horror at the bloodied needle he came back with. The smashed remains of Karasu's head lay on the floor as Yoroi suddenly got the message his shattered face was sending, and fell to one knee with a gurgling, muffled — but agonized — scream.
Kankuro knew the rules of battle. The one who needed plastic surgery still won if his opponent was dead.
Kankuro had no intentions of going out alone.
The poison was a fast acting one. He had about forty five seconds before he lost consciousness, and another minute before he was dead. With no warning, Karasu's forearm folded backwards and shot a poison gas bomb directly into the ground at their feet.
Hayate leaped backwards, recognizing the threat for what it was, but Yoroi had no chance, as he was wallowing in shock from the massive damage Karasu's fist had inflicted. The smoke cleared in a few seconds, with the medic-nin rushing forward to the two unconscious boys, one from shock combined with the gas, the other from the effects of his own poisoned needles. The medic-nin both administered wide spectrum general antidotes, slowing the progress of the poison long enough that they could get them to ICU where the poisons could be completely countered and removed.
It would be a week before the two were out of ICU. Kankuro would be present for the third exam, but only as a spectator. Yoroi went into a coma from the combination of cerebral edema and shock; in spite of the best efforts of the doctors in the shinobi wing of the hospital, he never came back out.
At least their match had been easy to clean up after.
The curse mark was a nasty piece of work. Each one was unique according to the talents, affinities, and bloodlines of the bearer. It was adaptive; so much so as to seem almost sentient and, with unhesitating speed, it would fight off any attempts that one made to eradicate it, entwining itself in one's very chakra and digging in, adapting to any tactics used against it. It was one reason Orochimaru had learned so many abilities to use the mark effectively. Once he'd acquired it, he'd discovered there was effectively no way to be rid of it.
Kakashi finished drawing the last figure on Naruto's skin. The blond had been drifting in and out of coherency for most of the procedure. Finally, Kakashi released the stretched lines of chakra energy, watching them coil up and draw in the characters he'd etched in his own blood on Naruto's skin. Each character was a circuit, a conduit for chakra energy to twist the effects of the curse mark back upon itself, mutating and fooling the mark into adapting to fight only itself. So long as the willpower of the curse mark's victim was strong, and refused the siren's call of the power the mark offered, the mark could be sealed away indefinitely.
The process of sealing was painful. Naruto's eyes went wide and his fugue vanished as the seal hissed and smoked. Hinata watched, wincing as she saw the pain etched on his face, but she made no move, uttered no sounds, as she'd promised Kakashi in exchange for being allowed to stay in Naruto's presence, the only support she would be able to give him, for now. The Hyuuga heiress shuddered as Naruto gave one last grunt of pain, then sagged as the last of the twisting script had condensed into a circular pattern around the trio of crescent marks. Kakashi lifted his hand and took a deep breath. "It's done."
Hinata ran forward to check on the blond and Kakashi watched. Naruto seemed confused by Hinata's attempts to comfort him, but she offered no explanation or excuse. She simply knelt next to him, alternately checking his shoulder and looking into his eyes with concern… and a small blush.
Kakashi watched, remembering echoes of Rin... and gave a disconsolate sigh for the past. If he knew then what he knew now, would he have brushed her aside the way he had?
After a moment, Kakashi was forced to admit he probably would have. There had been a war on, and Kakashi always put duty ahead of his own wishes. To his own disgust he couldn't even pretend he might have done otherwise, and hated himself all over again as he remembered the last time he saw her, the pain in her eyes as he rebuffed her for the last time. And it finally stuck.
I truly am a damned soul, he thought to himself, and felt himself sink lower as he saw Naruto's complete lack of response to Hinata's honest emotion and wish for him to be happy. "And I've dragged him down with me."
"Kakashi-sensei?" asked Hinata, hearing him say something and turning to face him.
And as he looked at her innocent face, Kakashi felt his disgust all over again as he knew he couldn't bring himself to admit it. "Nothing, Hyuuga-san. Nothing important."
Hayate coughed before giving a sigh of exasperation as he watched the medic-nin cart off Kankuro and Yoroi. Is it too much to ask for a fight that ends without the intervention of the medical staff? he asked himself.
The next match posted on the display, and Hayate groaned, as all hope of a clean fight went out the window. Kami above and below. A cat-fight. This is going to be messy, even by today's standards.
Subaku no Temari. Haruno Sakura.
Temari watched in shock as her teammate and brother was carted off the arena floor by the medic-nin. For the plan, this was extremely bad. The only way it could be worse, in fact, was if Gaara were to lose his match. But then, the only risk of that would be if he were to have faced the last Uchiha or the Uzumaki jinchuuriki. And both of them had already fought. Neither one had put any serious effort into their match, either being handicapped or else handicapping themself. And apparently, from the way the jinchuuriki had fallen over after his match, he had been sick, somehow. Gaara had never been sick a day in his life, as far as she knew. Was that a property all jinchuuriki shared or something unique to Shukaku? She didn't know.
The motion from the board caught her eyes, and she stared with horror at the next match. Then her eyes went to the girl who stood up, looking at her momentarily, before she smiled, cheerfully. It was her. The girl who had begged Uzumaki not to hurt her boyfriend. The one who had confronted her in the village on the Suna team's first day in the village. The one Uzumaki was obviously in love with.
Moments later, Temari found herself walking down to the arena floor feeling worse and worse as the girl chattered cheerfully about inconsequential topics. She couldn't bring herself to be rude and leave her there, not when she was a friend of Naruto's.
As they faced off, Sakura began speaking slightly louder. "Nice weapon. New?"
Temari nodded, not trusting her voice.
"Looks like a Koemi weapon," Sakura surmised. "In fact, I'd even say it was a piece done by Takeru, second best in their whole clan, after Oyaji Tatsu himself! You must have made an impression on them!"
Temari felt her joints lock up as the intensity of Sakura's words hit her. The fact that Naruto had given her a gift from a master in a clan of renowned weapon-smiths...
Hayate was watching the byplay with fascination.
"Hmmm," said the 'Hokage' — actually a kage bunshin of Kakashi concealed by a henge — with a quirked glance.
"You see it too, eh?" murmured Gai with his trademark grin.
"Hayate's entranced," commented Kurenai.
"This might be the awakening of a great potential," the shadow clone said with a nod.
Sakura had no bloodlines. She had no great strength. She had no massive chakra reserves, or powerful ninjutsu. In fact, all she really had was her precise chakra control and her brains.
It was true, however, that her brain was a powerful weapon in its own right. Had she been paired with someone stronger, she might have been overwhelmed, might have fallen behind in their shadows and felt engulfed by their presence so that she never really bothered to improve herself at all until much later. But teamed up with her best friend, learning to respect, then finally care for, Choji, a boy nobody else ever noticed, wanting to do her best to protect them both and match them, Haruno Sakura wound up putting that formidable mind to work. And nowhere is talent for thought more useful than in the Art of genjutsu.
The genjutsu she was using was very low level, a type that required very little chakra but very steady concentration, control and focus. It also required a great deal of time to keep the trickle going long enough to have its effect, to grain by grain add enough emotional weight until the target was crushed underneath it. Originally developed by the Yamanaka family for interrogations, they named it 'the Pressure', and it was a favorite technique of Morino Ibiki, although his use of it was refined so heavily it was almost a distinct technique in its own right.
While useful, it was originally believed to have no real combat applications, no use beyond interrogation, until Haruno Sakura managed to catch a target in the middle of town with Team Ten. The mission parameters had been to catch the target unawares and without revealing themselves to the enemy or to the innocents in the area, as the target was believed to have some sleeper allies in the village he was hiding out in. Sakura had laid 'the pressure' on him with the jutsu while distracting him with conversation, and within a few minutes had built up the guilt so high that he broke, turning himself in to the authorities, without Team Ten ever having to lift a finger.
Sakura was much better at it now, and could inflict a variety of emotions, but she always felt most comfortable with guilt. And when she saw the look in the Suna kunoichi's eyes as she stood up, she had her answer: this Suna girl was perfect, a free ride into the finals. She was already feeling guilt over something, all she had to do was layer a genjutsu, appear just to be conversational while she set up the flow and started dropping those grains of sand, until the pressure was enough for her to break. She gave Choji a brief smile as he wished her luck, and started counting the grains off.
Hayate assessed the Haruno girl. She was apparently trying some sort of a mind game. Sakura had obviously struck a nerve when she mentioned the weapon, the Suna-nin was almost paralyzed by Sakura as the Konoha kunoichi spoke.
"A weapon like that… Why, you couldn't buy it. A daimyo wouldn't get anywhere trying to commission a work like that. It would only find its way into the hands of the worthy!" chattered Sakura, seemingly oblivious. "They only make weapons like that for people to whom they owe a life debt or something similar. You must have done something special for them! What was it? Did you save someone's life? Oh, I know! You performed a service of great value to their whole clan! That's why they chose you as so deserving of that weapon, right?"
Temari was shaking under the weight of the guilt. As Sakura spoke, she felt the real impact of what kind of a gift Naruto had made to her... all for ruining her weapon when she and her team had been in the wrong. To replace a weapon she'd lost fighting an unworthy battle to defend a teammate who was bullying little kids.
"But... if it was nothing like that... then maybe you... didn't deserve it, huh? Maybe you just piggy-backed on someone else's work. Maybe it shouldn't belong to you at all. Maybe it more deservingly belongs to someone who was kind to you that you took advantage of; took advantage of him, took from him; took away something from him that you shouldn't have had and you don't deserve it!"
Temari shook herself, tears streaming from her eyes as she formed the ram seal and shouted, "KAI!"
The genjutsu shattered.
Hayate blinked in surprise as the image of Sakura cheerfully browbeating the Suna girl was replaced by Sakura, holding the sign of the ox, and chanting, "Guilt... guilt..."
"Haruno Sakura: Disqualified!" he snapped. "Forfeiture through violation of pre-emptive attacks!"
Sakura released her hands and cursed, gritting her teeth. In front of her, still streaming tears, Temari was growing a look of pure rage at the Haruno girl, ready to draw her new weapon and end the little bitch — match be damned; friend of Naruto be damned. She was ready to gut the little cunt and wipe her sandals on the little tramp's liver.
"Get lost you little whore before I kill you," Temari snarled. Sakura, recognizing that in a straight up fight the Suna girl would probably slaughter her, decided to vacate the arena floor, and though she wasn't running, she was moving at a pace faster than a walk.
The jonin in the balcony nodded amongst one another at Sakura's performance. That she had maintained two genjutsu at once was impressive. That she'd managed to snare Hayate without him having a clue in one of them was astounding.
"She will bear watching," noted Gai. "She almost won that match."
"Yes. She cheated beautifully. …just like a shinobi," Kurenai agreed with a smile.
Because that was the rule that applied, not merely to the first exam, but to the entire thing: if you're going to cheat, do it well enough not to be caught. That was how to be a shinobi.
Asuma gave a smile of his own as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it; other jonin's disapproving stares be damned. "So... was it good for you guys?"
Kurenai snorted, casting Asuma a sidelong glance. "Typical male. Leave the woman to do all the work and then try to take the credit after."
"Psh," Anko said disdainfully. "This ought to be a fight to keep us on the edge of our seats."
The instructors all turned their heads to look at the board.
Yakushi Kabuto. Hyuuga Neji.
"What's Kabuto's record?" asked the clone-Hokage.
"Mediocre," Yamato, flipping through several pages on a clipboard, summed up his notes. "Several D rank missions, two C rank. Unremarkable as an operative, subsidizes his shinobi income with hospital work. Fairly average, tried the exam six times before this one, last two he dropped out before the Third exam. It appears that he finally worked up the courage to give it a real shot this time." "Hmm…" grunted the Hokage absently.
"Interesting," said Yamato suddenly.
"What?" the Hokage prompted.
"Yakushi Kabuto was a captured nin child from the battle at Kikyu pass. Claimed by a medic-nin who said the kid survived on the field," Yamato replied. "He's shown no remarkable ability since then... but..."
"But this type of test is the sort that always brings the best of one's potential to the fore," finished the Hokage.
Kabuto and Neji faced off against one another. Neji had activated his byakugan. "Interesting," commented Neji, unconsciously and unknowingly echoing Yamato's word. "Your elevated heart rate and accelerated perspiration indicate your anxiety, while your smirk shows confidence as you look at me. Your posture is weighted forward with your balance on your toes, indicating you are prepared and eager to fight me. You are afraid... but not of me. And this despite the fact that your eyes state that you know exactly who I am. So the question... Yakushi-san is... who are you really afraid of?"
"It doesn't really matter," Kabuto said flippantly, a deadly glint shining in his eyes. His killing intent was rising. "He isn't here to save you."
Hayate cleared his throat, looking between them. "Ummm... I assume you two have no objections?"
The two genin shook their heads, never losing sight of each other's stare.
Hayate coughed, and said, "Begin!" End Chapter Eighteen
-AN: Another one down. Hope it was worth the wait. I spent three and a half hours non-stop typing just to get this finished.
I know I am going to be drawing flak from the Sakura haters and probably the Sakura fans for a) pairing up Sakura and Choji, b) for actually giving her an ABILITY, c) her different attitude towards the Exam rather than reluctance, or d) any combination of the above, including possibly all of them.
To all of you, I say: If she passed her exam, then she had some potential to be more than she was portrayed as in the manga. Which Shipuuden, of course, corroborates. And Sakura fights Ino rather viciously in the canon exam, even if she doesn't use any impressive techniques. I personally think that Kishi just didn't want to think anything interesting up for her, and paired her off with Ino so the two of them could slap fight at each other without one of the contestants getting killed.
Kankuro versus Yoroi: Yoroi is an aggressive hothead. He's also devoted to the mission. I tried to set up the scene keeping both of these things in mind, and assemble a conflict in his feelings for these two disparate factors. I rather liked the way it came out, as well, since dodging Tsurugi wasn't well managed in canon. I figured that Kankuro's confidence would keep him from dodging here, especially if he had no clue that his enemy knew where he really was.
Ah, well… I had a whole list of things I was thinking of saying but I'm finishing this at 4am my time. I'm wiped out, so forgive me, but my commentary is done.
Ja mata.
-AXENOME