Will of Fire & Ice

by YakumoFujii3x3

While on a trip to investigate the chaos enveloping the Land of Water, Jiraiya comes across a small boy, the last of his clan. He takes him on as his apprentice and hands down to him the Will of Fire that has burned in Konoha since its founding. Minato and Nagato were both great ninja, destined for tragedy; as Jiraiya's student, will Haku follow their path or carve out his own?

6. The Burden of Risk

Team Ten slept deep and late, waking well after the break of dawn. Teams Seven and Eight both straggled in later that morning, a little more than an hour apart, while it turned out that Team Nine had already been at the tower for a full day.

Gaara's team was already there too, but nobody went near them, and it often seemed as if his own siblings wished they were somewhere else most of the time. 'Not surprising given what I've seen of him,' Haku thought. 'He's a lit explosive tag just waiting to go off.' Thankfully, Gaara did nothing beyond stare at Haku, killing intent leaking from him like a putrid miasma. It was enough to keep everyone on their toes however. 'If he snaps and lashes out here, it'll be difficult to avoid collateral damage,' Haku thought, analyzing the situation. 'The proctors would surely jump in though, so maybe it wouldn't be that bad.'

A bare hour before the three o'clock deadline the last team straggled in. It was Kabuto's team, and he looked strangely unharmed. Even his clothes were in mint condition, as if he had just been through a stroll in the park rather than taking a survival test in the Forest of Death. His partners were in good shape too, not as pristine as Kabuto, but better than most who had reached the tower. The fact that they arrived so late, made their condition all the odder. 'Something just doesn't add up with him, but I'm not sure what,' Haku thought in puzzlement. 'They didn't come into contact with any of my clones, so they couldn't have been up to anything too sinister. Still…I'm not going to let this rest. I'm going to keep my eye on him,' the young ninja resolved.

When three o'clock finally rolled by the Proctor popped into the lobby where they'd been directed to gather. The smoke was still wafting away when she said "Okay maggots, follow me!" in a chipper voice that in no way matched the manic grin on her face. Then she spun around and left through the back door.

With much shrugging of shoulders and grumbling, especially on the part of Shikamaru, the genin followed her. The door led to a long corridor that eventually terminated in a large open room. 'This doesn't bode well,' Haku thought, his eyes running over the room and what looked like platforms on high for viewing spectators. There was an electronic billboard at one end of the room and above the double door they'd just entered was a statue of a shinobi's hands set in a seal.

"It looks like an indoor arena," Shikamaru said with a grimace, putting Haku's concern into words.

"Does that mean we're going to have to fight?" Ino whispered.

"Probably." Haku answered, then put a hand on her shoulder and tried to put her mind at ease. "Don't worry about it though, it'll be safer with a jonin referee on hand than what went on in the Forest." That seemed to reassure her, 'but while that may be true, just because it's safer doesn't mean it's safe. If any of the rookies get paired up with Gaara there's a good chance they'll die before the jonin can do anything.' Mulling it over, he wondered 'do my orders extend to intervening in this kind of match? It would be sacrificing my chance at a promotion, but the mission comes first.' He nodded his head, making his decision. 'Yes, the mission comes first. Especially when the lives of comrades depend on its completion.'

Haku was roused from his thoughts when the Hokage emerged from a door set in the viewing platform on the left. He was followed by Jiraiya, the exam proctors and the jonin sensei of the six teams that had made it to the Tower. Haku and the rest of the genin turned to listen as Anko spoke up, addressing the crowd. "The Lord Hokage will now explain the third test. Listen carefully." Turning to the Hokage she respectfully asked, "If you'd please, Lord Hokage."

"Yes," the Third answered in a voice made gravely by decades of smoking. "But before I explain the third test, there is something that I'd like you all to know. It concerns the true reason behind this exam."

"I thought this was about selecting who becomes chunin." Ino whispered in confusion.

Haku had had all this explained to him by Jiraiya a few years ago, and like his master he could hardly approve of it. 'Sending children to fight and die in the place of adults is disgraceful…but it's just not that simple,' Haku despaired. 'Dozens may die here, but tens of thousands would die in the wars that these exams have prevented, including countless children, both shinobi and civilian.' He shook his head at the insanity of it all. 'Truly only the messiah of the Great Toad Sage's prophecy can heal this corrupt world.'

The Hokage continued, "Why do all the allied nations take their Chunin Exam together?" he asked rhetorically. "This exam's aim is supposedly to promote friendship among nations and to raise the quality of shinobi, but I don't want you to be confused by its true meaning." He paused, "It true purpose is to serve as a replacement for war among allied countries."

"What does that mean?" asked a Konoha kunoichi in a pink shirt, with her hair up in twin buns. Most of the other genin looked equally perplexed.

"If you look back in history, our current allies were enemies of ours, and of each other, who fought over who would rule this world," The Third explained, looking down at the small crowd with a grave expression on his face. "In order to prevent wasteful fighting and needless effusion of blood, the stage that these nations chose for battle was the Chunin Exams. That is their real origin."

"Why the hell do we have to do that crap?" Naruto burst out. "Isn't this thing for deciding who gets to be a chunin?"

The Hokage grinned, teeth clenched tightly around the long stem of his pipe. "It is a fact that this exam decides who is worthy of chunin rank. But if you look underneath the underneath, this exam has another side entirely. One where each nation's shinobi risk their own lives to protect their land's prestige."

"Prestige?" Ino asked, speaking loudly enough for the Hokage to hear.

"Yes. World leaders and many rich and influential individuals will be watching you fight in these exams. If a Hidden Village shows surprising strength or unexpected weakness, then they will gain or lose clients respectively and the standing of their nation will similarly rise or fall. In this way a Hidden Village can send a message to their potential enemies."

"Yeah, but why!?" Kiba loudly objected. "Why do we have to risk our lives in battle?"

'Not too smart this one,' Haku thought wryly. 'It's all there, in all of its naked brutality.'

The Hokage's visage took a grimmer turn, looking down upon them with an eagle eyed glare. "The strength of the country is synonymous with the strength of its village, and the strength of the village is synonymous with the strength of its shinobi. A true shinobi's strength is born only through life risking battle. This exam is a way to learn how strong other countries are, and to show off your own strength without resorting to skirmishes that could lead to full blown war. It only has meaning because lives are at stake." He lectured on, continuing in a serious tone. "That's why those that have come before you have fought in the Chunin Exam for this meaningful dream."

"But then why…do you says things like it being about friendship?" the girl in pink with the buns asked, bewilderment clear in her voice.

"I told you in the beginning," he replied, "I don't want you to confuse the purpose of this exam. Losing life and establishing balance… that is the true shape of friendship in the ninja world."

'Well that certainly took the wind out of their sails,' Haku thought as he looked over the younger genin, their faces full of dismay and disillusionment.

The Hokage's face grew even more intense, "Before the third exam begins I will tell you one more thing. This is not just a test. This is a life risking battle with your dreams and your country's prestige on the line."

'Shikamaru looks less than inspired by that,' Haku noticed with amusement, 'but Ino and some of the others are starting to feel the pressure.' Sweat was beading on her forehead, and she looked deep in thought over what she'd just heard.

"I get it." Naruto said, arms crossed and looking determined.

"I don't care what it's about," Gaara coldly interjected, "just tell us what this life risking battle entails."

"Yes," the Hokage replied. "I'd like to now explain the third exam, but…"

A skinny jonin flickered down to the floor before them. He had a sickly pallor to his face and his eyes were rimmed with dark bags that made it seem as if he hadn't slept in a week. He spoke up, "Actually…", before breaking off into a wracking cough.

Most of the genin looked at him with skepticism, likely wondering if he should have been in a hospital. Haku on the other hand had a different reaction, 'He can't be as sick as he looks,' he thought. 'He's probably trying to make people underestimate him. If he is sick, he's using chakra to reinforce his body and make himself mission capable.'

"I apologize Lord Hokage," the sick looking man said upon getting his cough under control. "From here on as the referee…will you please allow me, Hayate Gekkou, to take over."

The Hokage nodded his head, "By all means."

"Greetings, I am Hayate." He gave a rough wet cough, "Umm…Before the third test, there's something I want you to do. Umm…It's a preliminary for the third test, to decide who gets to participate in the main event."

"Preliminary?" Sakura asked in surprise.

"What's the point?" Shikamaru asked loudly, clearly annoyed that his premonition had been right. "Wasn't the Forest of Death enough? I thought the people who passed the second test got to take part in the third?"

"Umm…Because the first and second tests may have been too easy this year." Hayate answered glumly, ignoring the looks of outrage he got from his audience. "We have a bit too many people remaining."

"But sensei, there are only eighteen of us," Sakura objected, "why can't we all participate?"

"By chunin exam rules, when the number of competitors is over twelve we must have a preliminary round to reduce the number of contestants by half," Hayate explained. "As the Lord Hokage stated, there will be many important guests coming to watch the third test. Their time is valuable, and since some of the fights last a long time we are limited in the amount of participants we can allow to compete."

"No way." Sakura moaned, "that's so unfair."

"Well, that's life," Hayate said bluntly, pausing to giving a rasping cough. "Umm…So anyways…Those of you in bad shape…Those with injuries and such, who can't continue on, please step forward now. Otherwise, we will begin the preliminaries immediately."

There was a flurry of objections to that, the loudest of them from Kiba, but they quickly died down when Kabuto stepped forward, a sad smile on his face. "I've got some internal bleeding that needs looking at, I can't fight with it, so I need to quit."

"Umm…You're Kabuto Yakushi right?" Hayate asked, looking at a clipboard that doubtless held pictures with their names. "You can leave, the medical bay is back through that door. Just go down the hall and take the first left." He motioned with his head to a door set in the back of the room.

Haku eyed Kabuto suspiciously. 'Looks a little pale, but otherwise completely fine.'

"Uh…Does anyone else wish to bow out?" Hayate asked as he coughed into a hand. "You're going to be fighting one on one matches from now on if that helps. Just step forward or raise your hand." He looked over them with a seemingly apathetic gaze, but no one moved. "Guess no one else is retiring. Let's begin." He coughed, a damp, rattling cough. "Umm...This preliminary consists of simple one on one fights. You will fight as if you were actually in a real life confrontation. Umm…we have seventeen contestants, so someone's going to luck out and get a free pass."

"What!?" Naruto yelled in outrage.

"Umm…we'll, were going to have eight matches, with two genin chosen by random. The winners will qualify to compete in the third test. That'll leave one genin left over who'll get to advance without fighting." Hayate answered lethargically, looking like he was halfway to just keeling over. "Like I told pinky, life isn't fair."

Sakura scowled at that, while Ino laughed and then got that glare turned on her for good measure. Haku shook his head in amusement, a small smile on his face. Sometimes he wished he could have gone to the academy, been on a genin team and forged friendships and rivalries like a normal child. 'But then I wouldn't have spent the last eight years with Sensei, and his many flaws aside, I wouldn't give that up for the world.'

Hayate, droned on, pausing every so often to hack out a wheezing cough. "There are no rules, anything goes. The fight will continue on until one of you dies, gives up or is knocked unconscious. So, umm…if you don't want to die, then quickly admit your defeat." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "However…we don't want people to die pointlessly, so if I decide that a fight has been won…I'll jump in and end it. My decisions are final."

Hayate cocked his head and glanced up at the electronic scoreboard. "This is the thing that will determine your destiny. It will show two names, randomly selected to participate in each battle. Umm…this might be a bit sudden, but let's get on with it." He looked up at Mitarashi, "Announce the first names!" he called.

The tension was palpable as the small crowd of genin looked up at the flashing screen, as names scrolled by in a blur. They slowed, and then stopped at Uchiha Sasuke vs. Kankurō. The raven haired boy just smirked, while the ninja from Hidden Sand gave him a cruel looking grin.

"Do your best Sasuke!" Sakura and Ino chirped in chorus, precipitating another glaring contest between them.

"Don't you dare lose you bastard," Naruto said enthusiastically with a wide cheeky smile. "I want to meet you in the finals in front of everyone and prove I'm just as good a ninja as you!"

"Dream on dumbass." Sasuke snorted. But he added, "Don't you lose either. I'm looking forward to our next fight." The gratified look on Naruto's face indicated there was a lot more going on beneath the surface of that exchange then it appeared.

'I guess that means Naruto has finally gained Sasuke's acknowledgment.' Haku thought, 'Good for him, he deserves it.'

Hayate cut through the chatter with a loud hacking cough, and then started issuing instructions "Alright…let's begin the first match. Everyone except Sasuke and Kankurō, please move to the upper level."

Haku flickered to the upper level, and the rest of the genin followed more conventionally. He'd taken a good position in the center, where he could look down on the starting point and still have a good view of any part of the arena. 'Looks like these two are raring to go already,' Haku thought as he watched the two boys exchange words.

"Pretty confident aren't we?" Kankurō mocked.

Sasuke grunted, "Hn…I've had a rough week, so I'm going to finish this quick. If you don't want to die or get hurt bad, then quit." He certainly looked the part, despite three days worth of rest he was clearly nursing bruises and some nasty facial abrasions.

"Then I'll end this quick myself." Kankurō shot back, taking the wrapped up bundle off his back and setting it down dramatically with a thump.

'This kid doesn't seem to know how formidable the sharingan really is!' Haku realized. 'Sauske's going to be able to see his chakra strings.'

"Let's begin the first match" Hayate ordered casually.

Sasuke jumped back, red eyes whirling, a sly grin spreading across his face.

"He's seen it, this match is done." Haku pronounced with finality. Kankurō's sister snorted derisively at that from her place down towards the left wall, but the rookies that had gathered around him took him seriously.

"What do you mean?" Shikamaru asked skeptically, eyes narrowed as he focused on the goings on in the arena. Ino and Sakura surprisingly didn't comment, but a quick glance proved them riveted on the display, knuckles white as they clenched the railing.

"Just watch, it won't take long." Haku answered cryptically. 'Teasing these kids really is fun,' he thought as Shikarmaru grimaced at that answer. 'They can go far, but they really need to learn to see underneath the underneath.' His attention was drawn back to the arena.

"Can all you do is run away?" Kankurō taunted at Sasuke who'd withdrawn almost all the way to the back wall and stayed there.

"Why don't you come after me then?" Sasuke shot back with an arrogant smirk.

Kankurō snarled and let go of his bundle, which dropped to the floor as he rushed forward. Sasuke didn't move, staying still until the last moment. 'What's he doing…?' Haku wondered, amazed that Sasuke was cutting it so close.

Poof! There was a puff of smoke and Hayate was there! He desperately drew two kunai to deflect the blades emerging from Kankurō's, no, his puppet's palms! "He substituted with the proctor!" Haku gasped in surprise as his eyes flicked over to the middle of the arena where Hayate had been, and where the bundle which must be concealing the real Kankurō still was. The Sand ninja was jumping up, shedding the wrappings with a spin.

It was too late. A fireball was rolling from Sasuke's mouth. Not as big as the one's Haku had seen him use in the forest but big enough to set those twirling bandages aflame. Kankurō was out of them, diving towards the floor, rolling to put out the flames on his smoldering black suit. His puppet was rushing back to his aid, but Sasuke was all over him, landing on his back with a leaping axe kick as Kankurō jumped up to escape, sending him crashing back down to the floor where Sasuke placed a kunai at his neck.

"Winner, Uchiha Sasuke!" the proctor proclaimed with annoyance. Sasuke backed off with a smile dripping with superiority while Kankurō leveraged himself off the floor with a scowl.

"What! He cheated!" shouted his sister in annoyance, pointing at Hayate accusingly. "You assisted him!"

Hayate looked up her with a half formed frown and drooping eyes. "He simply substituted with the only convenient target in the arena," he replied, pausing to cough. "Umm…I just defended myself. Still, I don't want to be shish kabobed or set on fire or anything, so if anyone else does that they'll be disqualified."

"That's a complete load of shit!" the blond girl exclaimed, looking like she was just getting started. She quieted though when her sensei put a hand on her shoulder and whispered something into her ear. With the angle and his veil Haku couldn't tell what.

It wasn't long before the two contestants were up on the observation platform. The loser being comforted by his sister, while the winner was being fawned over. Naruto barely managed to get out "Nice job Sasuke," before being elbowed aside by Sakura and Ino, who themselves nearly came to blows. 'He looks like he'd rather be back down in the arena.' Haku grinned in amusement.

"Announce the second match!" Hayate called, and the attention of the crowd turned towards the scoreboard.

The digital screen flashed the next match, and Haku's grin slid off his face while his stomach sank like a rock. In garish neon yellow the names read 'Yuki Haku vs. Gaara'.

The young Sand shinobi flickered to the floor in a swirl of sand. "Get down here," he demanded, glaring up at his opponent with black rimmed eyes.

Haku took a deep breath and vaulted the balcony, jumping down to the floor below. He flinched on landing, bruised muscles aching from the beating he'd taken at the hands of his sensei's rogue teammate. 'This is going to be every bit as dangerous as that fight with Orochimaru, maybe more,' he thought. Gaara's massacre of the Rain ninja and the brief skirmish between him and the jinchuriki played through his head as he furiously went over his options.

'The terrain completely favors him as is, he can use his sand to corner me in this little box of an arena and bury me alive. There's really only one option, I pull this off and kill him in one shot or he'll crush me,' he thought grimly as they lined up across from each other. 'Killing him will probably have political consequences, but looking at those eyes, I doubt Gaara will accept a forfeit.' They were wild, glowing with a golden light as a maniacal grin started to spread across the red head's face. "There's no river to save you now," he taunted. "I'm going to bathe Mother in your blood."

Hayate lifted his arm, "Second Match of the preliminaries, begin!"

Haku bounded backwards to gain distance, hands flashing into the snake seal, 'Exploding Water Shockwave!' He vomited a crushing torrent of water, waves crashing against the walls of the arena with bone crushing force, filling it to the brim like a bathtub in what seemed the blink of an eye.

Gaara leapt high, just avoiding the crest of the crashing wave that cracked the stone where he'd stood. Spinning in the air he was enveloped by a massive shroud of sand that quickly morphed into a sphere that hovered above the settling waters. A small tendril broke loose, forming a glaring eye.

Haku rode the crashing waves as easily as a sailor would a deck in the calmest sea. He gave a small jerk of surprise at Gaara's gravity defying escape, but as the waters calmed underneath him he shouted "Not good enough!" One half seal later and the entire surface of the impromptu lake flash froze and great, thick spears of ice erupted from it, the ice stronger than steel with tips sharp as broken glass. They tore apart the floating orb in a spray of blood and sand. Splattered flesh and viscera dripping with wet clumps of red stained sand hung on spikes of ice five meters long.

Gaara didn't even have time to scream, but the agonized shriek of his sister as she screamed her brother's name was heartrending, cutting through all the other exclamations of shock and disgust from the watching crowd. 'I'm going to remember that scream for a long, long time,' Haku thought sadly turning to look up at Temari, her face wet with tears, her brother and jonin sensei next to her with their mouths agape in stunned surprise.

There was a thump behind him as Hayate jumped out on the ice, "The winner is," he started to say before cutting off.

Haku felt an unbelievable vile chakra surge into being behind him, a seething mass of hatred and bloodlust that eclipsed even that of Orochimaru in the Forest of Death. He whipped around to stare in horror at the bloodstained remnants of Gaara's dismembered corpse. The larger chunks had mostly slid down to the base of the spikes, but the spears themselves still shined crimson, sticky and wet. A roiling mass of golden chakra was welling up, struggling to take shape, the visage of a snarling tanuki's flickering in and out. "You bitch!" it screamed. "Dying hurts so fucking much! When I finally manage to claw myself out of hell I'm gonna hunt you down and tear you limb from limb you little bastard!"

The air seemed to crack behind it, tearing open unto a terrible nothingness, deep and black and unending. Just looking at it felt incredibly wrong, but Haku couldn't tear his eyes away. Shukaku was pulled shrieking into the void, golden claws tearing fiery rents in the air as it struggled to resist. "I'll kill you!" he howled, "I'll devour your living entrails! I'll," he was cut off abruptly as he was completely sucked into the void and the tear in reality snapped shut.

"What the hell was that!?" yelled Naruto. The rest of the genin wore various looks of stunned horror, while their jonin sensei's looked merely disturbed by the scene and concerned for their charges. Haku supposed witnessing the Nine Tails attack on the village inured one against a lesser creature like Shukaku. It looked like they'd all moved over to the genin's side of the room during his short battle, no doubt to put themselves in position to console their students over the outcome of this match, though he thought it likely they had expected a different outcome.

"That was Shukaku, the One Tailed Tanuki," Haku said dully, staring ahead at the blood splattered ice. That close to a chakra like that, feeling all of its rage and hate, was an experience he was still shaking off. "Senju Hashirama, the first Hokage, gifted it decades ago to Suna and now it has returned."

"Why would anyone even want it?" asked an appalled Sakura. Naruto flinched and looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. Haku wondered if any of the other genin noticed it; he didn't think so, all their eyes seemed focused on him. 'It's just one more piece of evidence that backs my theory on why the villagers hate the boy,' he thought. 'Though with the malevolent chakra I felt from him when he fought Orochimaru, the case is all but iron clad.'

'Still, that's neither here nor there.' Haku flicked his eyes up to the Hokage and Jiraiya, unsure whether to answer Sakura's question. The Hokage looked for a second as if he were going to speak, but Jiraiya placed a hand on his sensei's arm. The Hokage cocked an eyebrow at that and his mouth closed. A slight nod from his sensei gave Haku permission to speak what he knew.

Haku turned to face Sakura. "The sealing techniques left to the Hidden Leaf by the Uzumaki Clan of Hidden Eddy are far more powerful than those known by the Hidden Sand," he explained. Naruto gave a visible start at that news. "With them the Lord Hokage and Lord Jiraiya will be able to easily subdue the spirit once it reincorporates in a years' time and bind it into a child of their choosing." There were a few gasps at that in the crowd, and Naruto in particular looked like he was about to vomit, but Haku went on. "However, unlike poor Gaara, whoever they pick will be protected from the beast's influence by our superior seals and remain a sane and productive shinobi."

"Completely unacceptable!" Baki objected sharply, seeming to recover from his shock. "Shukaku must be returned to the Hidden Sand once he reappears. To do otherwise would completely upset the balance of power." Even the genin could read the threat underneath that. An uneasy tension settled over the room as the stakes rose far higher than who would become chunin and who would not.

"One accepts certain risks when one brings a jinchuriki to a Chunin Exam in a foreign nation." The Hokage said chidingly. "Their death is one of them, and now that that has come to pass the burden of risk shifts upon us."

"What do you mean?" Baki questioned, his rough voice filled with suspicious.

"Despite Haku's confidence in me, subduing and sealing a tailed demon is not so easy as he makes out. The death of Konoha jonin and ANBU operatives in such a battle is more likely than not. And having suffered such losses, how can we then sacrifice the advantage they died for?"

"While such losses would of course be highly regrettable," Baki said respectfully, "the fact remains that by the terms of the alliance treaty between us you must return the demon to the Hidden Sand. Perhaps we can provide you with assistance in subduing the beast and thus share that risk."

"The clause you speak of is in regards to aiding you if the demon is killed or stolen by a third party," the Hokage argued. "We've hardly stolen it, nor are we a third party, and in any case treaties can be renegotiated." Baki's face grew angrier with every word, but the Hokage went on. "I hear the Kazekage is deeply concerned by the fact that many citizens of the Wind Country are taking advantage of Konoha's lower prices. It's had a substantial effect on your finances. Surely an agreement could be worked out were we agree that Suna would have precedent in such cases."

"I highly doubt that will be an acceptable tradeoff," Baki sneered. "We will see what the Kazekage has to say to such an…offer." It was clear that he thought the prospect was dead on arrival.

"We should discuss this latter, in more detail and in privacy. Once this preliminary is finished I invite you to dinner at my estate. The most prominent members of the jonin council and the shinobi clans will be there," the Hokage offered politely.

Visibly forcing down his rage, Baki formally accepted. "It would be an honor Lord Hokage."

The Hokage nodded, "I will see you at seven then." Shifting to address Haku, he politely said "Thaw out this ice and drain the water, please. I'm sure everyone would like to finish this stage of the exam as soon as possible."

"As you command Lord Hokage." Haku answered, taking in the frozen room with a frown. 'This might take a while.'