Author's Note: Kon is not a character I'm yet used to. She's so... normal. :[ (Yes, that sounds weird, but it's TRUE)
On to the Chuunin Exams! And of course she's not going to make it. The other things she'll make happen, though...
It's like the book from Chobits: I'm walking around in a world of They, a city without any people like me. Nobody has my dark skin (which I considered light, back home), or my plain eyes; by some twist of nature they understand my Spanish, but they can't know the sierra-negra flame of pride in my heart, the pride of my heritage. Little old ladies tell me I'm exotic, sometimes even beautiful (definitely wasn't that back home), but what I want is to hear them tell me that I'm a good ambassador for my far-gone world. I want them to know where I came from; what I'm made of.
There was no question of whether I was going to the Chuunin Exams.
I wasn't- plain and simple.
I had just become a Genin, Gai quietly told me one day, behind the bushes where Neji couldn't hear to mock me any more (I'd been trying so hard, and yet-); his kids had been training for two years, and he still almost didn't want to give them up to the jaws of the test. There was no way I was ready for a Chuunin-level experience; I could barely turn a water-jutsu, and had to carry water bottles around because I could only control small amounts, not summon it; my endurance was still so low compared to the other kids', I was scared of heights all of the sudden (no shit, Sherlock), and my reflexes had gotten better but not good enough. There were bears, he said, and poisonous plants; his kids knew how to track and how to lay snare traps. I'd be killed if I stopped for even a minute, and I'd be killed if I didn't stop, because an exhausted kunoichi was a dead one, Gai said.
He didn't say it to be unkind; rather, Gai was looking out for me in the only way he could as a teacher. There's no question that I wasn't ready; I knew he was right.
… But another part of me just whispered, chingada to all of it. That was the angry wolf in me, fed by the long nights when I despaired about how weak I was instead of how lonely or far from my world I was. That fury grew in me like a fire tended by steady feeding, roaring lickets and new tendrils with every fall and disappointment, every word of Gai's that struck me like blows when I lay in the quiet dark.
That was the part of me that said: if you can't be on their level, if you can't protect them and fight by their side, then what on earth are you doing here, chica? Are you really just a floundering wannabee with no purpose in this place? That idea ate paths my brain; drove me bat-shit crazy-
Crazy enough to strike a devil's deal with the Hokage. I signed a waiver with blood from my thumb, the weight of what I was promising like a rock of the stuff coagulated in my stomach. I would participate in the Chuunin Exams by his mandate; I would have to complete team exercises by myself, with no one to help me. I would survive this or I would not, and my blood would not be on anyone's hands if (when) I got killed. He understood my desperation, my yearning for consequence and meaning in this place, just as he understood me that first day. I was so tired of lagging- it was time to make myself a name amongst Konoha's greatest generation, or die trying.
… Probably the latter, though.
First trial of the day: lying to Gai in order to get out of a 'Super Special Day of Individualized Training', and watching his whole persona crumble when I begged sick. Ibiki gave me a scary look, but acknowledged that the Hokage had 'especially' informed him of my situation and that Kurenai had bet fifty ryou that I would survive. She had a soft spot for underdogs, I guess.
Second trial: getting through the Forest alive. The quiz was- unbelievably- a piece of cake: nothing a little Algebra II with specialization in quadratics and a little elbow grease couldn't solve. (The other kids might have been my infinite superiors in Ninjutsu, but I could have creamed them on the SAT…Take that, Shinobi education system!).
And now loomed the Forest of Death Trial: leeches, unsafe water sources and killer Rain-nin- oh, my!
A plan was what saved me…even if it was an underhanded, nasty one bourne entirely of my experience memorizing the small details of manga series, and in two parts.
At the zenith of my fangirl obsession, I had adored Kabuto and filled entire notebooks with his visage. In person he was much more mousy, and very much personified the Evil Henchman look. I bore him no ill will for shattering my then-twelve-year-old heart – my soul now belonged to Lee, after all- and instead used him as he had… used me. Sort of. Here I impressed myself upon Orochimaru's fleet with the social retardation so typical of OCs.
"You want to look at my stat cards?"
"Yeah- only I need to look at all of the Konohagakure ninjas. I'll know them on sight. "
"Going to kill one of them especially?" the light-haired young man asked with a dapper incline of one eyebrow, as he swirled chakra through a handful of his trick cards.
"Not immediately- I like to play with my food first." I joked. "Umm, could you read the card out loud? That kid broke my glasses. When I get my hands on him…" I had Kabuto read several cards, just to be safe, and then put on a hormonal-dumb-Sakura act that had Kabuto shooing me away. Last thing I needed was to get anywhere near seeming like a threat that Orochimaru would want extinguished (Oh, how I would rue these words…)
But I found my guys: squad 38 of the Random Filler-Person Division of Konoha Shinobi. I codenamed them Tweedle, Dee, and Dum: they were plan A, if I received a Heaven scroll. Plan B was to repeat Plan A until I found someone with the right scroll, and then run like hell for the center of the Forest.
Strangely enough, this worked. Fate sure is fickle, isn't She?
There's something about the forest that lets you know that you don't belong there.
It could be all the shadows; whole worlds could be hiding in the dark clutches that you can't see. The canopy lets in the most minimal amount of light, dashing in your periphery and always seeming like a pursuing agent of death, a reaping angel following you on your foolish, human quest. You know that you're weaving between dangers by sheer probability; the stillness of the forest assures you of that. Nowhere can be so silent and yet so full of ominous whisperings, so mute and yet replete with dark intent. It's Minesweeper with real consequences; it's the constant discovery of new places where death can rain down on you, and the overwhelming helplessness you feel when the trees claw higher into the (lack of) sky than you can trace with your eyes. I fully believe now that the Forest of Death was once an Untouchable area of an ancient village, land where inexplicable evil lurks and the dying were sent. The American Indians used to call 'places where the four winds meet': the death above you is nothing compared to the death beneath, the malignant will supplied by participants of dark rituals with darker intentions.
They were right; I wasn't ready. Even when I wrapped myself in a barrier of kunai traps, I couldn't rest; that's where I learned that with one ear to the ground, you can eavesdrop on the tree-speak. The whole earth is like a conducting rod, the air and the ground interconnected; heaven and earth, an inexorable pair. The first night I lay completely still on the ground, stiff with fear and regret, listening to the water all around me- listening to the life of the trees and the halcyon babble of atoms.
As the sun rose, I lifted one hand and placed it square in a patch of rough, stubby grass; pulled, somehow, did something; and found my hand grow moist with condensation as the grass beneath my fingers withered. I had learned to draw water from a living object.
I could feel the phantom-fears dissipating, melting as the morning light soaked them. El ciello always brought me what I needed it seemed, with the rising of el sol.
My plan went off without a hitch, luckily. I had indeed received a Heaven scroll, and now it was a matter of tracking Tweedle, Dee, and Dum until their historic appearance. I had a narrow window of time to sweep in; ridiculously narrow, on top of not getting pummeled to death by another Chuunin-hopeful. My Henge had been steadily improving, so a chakra trick timed right could usually keep me under the enemy radar. Usually. We'll get to that.
Day Two passed slower than molasses going uphill in the winter; it was hot, the odor of my sweat attracted a puma that was twice the size of a Hybrid car, and I nearly lost Tweedle, Dee, and Dum trying to save my skin. Perserverance is a wonderful thing; so is deodorant. But my moment of glory finally arrived, refreshing me for the traumas to come.
Tweedle diddled off to find food for his compatriots; Dee and Dum, typically as raucous and prone to rude exclamations as any boy from my high school would have been, plopped down and began discussing the trials of the Exam: one of them had been attacked by a Sand-ninja while attempting to lay waste in a bush (quite literally, caught with his pants down), the other was sick from eating a fruit that had numbed his entire mouth for a day. They complained like old men for a while, before the Naruto-looking-one broke out their sacred scroll and suggested opening it, against the orders of Anko. We all know what happens next: a Chuunin appeared to club them senseless.
"You pipsqueak bastards better freeze," a deep voice rang through the reclining tree trunks.
Dee paused, his muddy fingers still clasping the fragile end of the rice paper; I still remember their eyes bugging out of their sockets when the Chuunin who had issued us our scrolls came striding into view. I knew they remembered him; I'd even made a rude jab at him when I was getting my own scroll, just to mimic his tone and complete the illusion.
"The hell!" 'Kotetsu' exclaimed, examining the situation. "Are you guys brain-damaged or something?" he brayed. "Didn't we tell you not to open those? Guess Konohagakure's really just slapping headbands on anyone with opposable thumbs now, ain't they?"
"H-How did you know-" Dum began, unconsciously scooching behind his teammate. Dee was paralyzed; he hadn't even blinked yet.
"What, you think we're dumb enough to trust you treacherous little hormone-sacks? We've got cameras everywhere, makin' sure that nobody's stupid enough to do something like this! Give me that thing!" 'Kotetsu' extended a tanned palm; I kept from snatching it from Dee's hand and glared into his green eyes. Victory was inches away.
Dee and Dum exchanged a horrified expression. "You guys see… everything?" one of them finally ventured.
"You don't even want to know the things I've caught people doing in here…" the man sighed ruefully, before blowing a few dark strands of hair from his eyes and steeling, again of Chuunin iron. "Okay, seriously. I'm supposed to take that scroll from you now and beat the hell outta you- it's just policy. But I think you guys have enough work to do. I gotta take the scroll or Anko'll give me crap, but I won't break your skulls this time. Do not make me come see you again. Got it?"
"Yes, sir-" Dee murmured, and automatically proferring the green roll.
"Thank you, sir-" Dum continued. Japanese kids- they're so polite and respectful. I let the male face of my Henge shift into a smirk with a masked meaning, and spat swiftly onto the ground. The smoke pellets that had been rotting the taste of ash in my mouth exploded; in the chaos I broke the Henge, and darted up into the safety of the all-encompassing canopy.
I'd like to say things got easier after this. I'd also like to have a million ryou and a remote control for my husband and children.
Now all I had to do was avoid the bloodthirsty killers who would certainly flatten me like a latke for my two scrolls (they were tucked into my sports bra, so I'd be sure to break loose all hell upon the person who snatched for them). I'd hoped to time my dash for the tower before the Rain ninja that trapped Naruto and his team would take up their offensive jutsu; my main concern as I tore through the ragged brush, thorns scraping my flesh, was looking for death, evidence of a snare trap, senbon ambush, or buried poison-spikes, besides giant centipedes.
What I wasn't looking out for was, of course, the most dangerous threat.
The tangled pig-path broke into a dirt-lined clearing; the trees were decreasing in size gradually, signifying one's proximity to the center of the Forest. Sunlight peeked through daringly, in dappled patches, shifting from beneath the scrubby leaves of a thorn-plum tree. The toss and rile of it's brush-like limbs drew my eyes away from the path for a split second; and in following the lust to look up, a drifting specter of blood-red suddenly dotted my periphery. I was never a praying person; but my mind was filled to bursting at that second, so jammed that I couldn't stop the natural reflex of flight, with appeals to any deity who happened to be out there; a million prayers sent out in the moment that my spine contracted with a fear older than that great, gnarled tree.
Sabaku no Gaara's eyes wandered up this new installation to his vision just as a predator's do: the copper itch in their ice-colored depths coolly assessed my now-still form, his mind somehow completely distant from the reactions I could see bubbling up behind that waxen face. The memory of sulfur-smell made me flinch; that was the starkness about him, and the first stab of anxiety when one met his gaze. There was no flippiant disguise for the bloodlust; it merely radiated in waves from his slumped form, surrounding him and cresting tens of feet into the air like black billows of acidic, death-scented smoke. Gaara was smaller than I had expected, and yet his arms were corded with the unholy knowledge I had seen in so many Shinobi children thusfar; resolve, fear manifest in muscle. And his stance- the stiffness of his stance, the hollow ache in his limbs was naked and exposed: Gaara had never been comfortable in his life. Everything of him spoke of a schitzoid, neverending episode that had chased him and worn this boy down to a twitchy, sleepless stump of humanity with black, necrotic trenches surrounding his bottomless eyes . It was easy to sense, even from as far away as I was, the terror and evil that lurked around him like a dark cloud; it was even easier to confuse him with the entity within, if you gave over to that fear.
… After this description, one might wonder why I then shouted, "Hey, Gaara!", and continued walking towards him. I think I was so scared that my brain just shut down, honestly; my body carried through on some kind of autopilot, knowing that it had to survive.
The distance between us had been swallowed by my strides to a mere, few feet before something within the redhead startled to life. Gaara jumped as if I had shocked him with static electricity, and the only sign of existence the sand gave was a fiendish rattle, like the warning of a snake, as something skirted, tasted my ankle. OH, SHIT.
"Woah, woah- calm down." I chatted to his unseeing, glazed gaze. "I'm on your side." He seemed to be madly staring through my leg, focusing on it as if he could salt my skin to taste by doing so. "Are Kankurou and Temari okay?" I drew him out, trying to compose my voice.
I couldn't show any fear; he could smell it, flowing through my veins with the hoarfrost that descends when the sun suddenly disappears. I was going to have to lie my way out of this…if I could…
Because if preShippuuden!Gaara was about to eat you, what would be running through your head?