Chapter 12
Disclaimer: I don't own NARUTO!
Author's note: I'm so sorry that it's taken me forever to get this chapter out! I've been caught up in babysitting, vacationing, reading other fanfictions, maplestorying, camping and drawing for my deviantart account. I will also now be posting the completion level of the next chapter on my profile.
XOXOXOXO
It was now 8:00 and Mayume had just gotten out of the hospital with a proper sling and was now walking home with her cousin. Again, her stomach growled and she could clearly see that Sasuke was getting annoyed. "Well your quick to anger aren't you?" she giggled at her own statement and got a dirty look from Sasuke in return. She sighed at her overly mature clan member "Well, since my company isn't wanted by you at the moment, I'm gonna go seek out Naruto nii-chan. He's probably at Ichiruka's. Later!" Sasuke watched as she hopped off towards her "brother's" favorite restaurant. 'She's so immature…'
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Mayume was glad to be away from her over-confident, self-absorbed, avenger of a cousin, but somehow she still missed his company as she had ever since she thought he had been killed. She sighed as she came into view of Ichiruka ramen and placed her friendly, smiling, happy-go-lucky face back on so that her orange-clad, joker of a "brother" wouldn't suspect that she had been very depressed a moment earlier.
"Naruto nii-chan!" she called out as she finally saw the oh-so-familiar orange of Naruto's jumpsuit. Mayume pulled back the paper curtains leading into the ramen stand and sat down on the right side of the Uzumaki boy, but when she looked over at him he was nowhere to be seen behind the pile of ramen bowls that formed a sort of wall between them.
"Huh? Mayume is that you? Where are you?" a few seconds later, Naruto's head had peered over the wall and was staring at the closest person that he had to a sister. "Sorry about this…um…" he pointed to the ramen bowls and just didn't know what to call them. "Wall? Mess? Hurricane?" Mayume just laughed and walked around to sit on the other side of him. "That's better! Now I can see whom I'm talking to!" she flashed a smile then turned to the Ichiruka owner "I'll have…5 miso ramen please…to start off with." With that, the owner went back to prepare the 5 dishes, shaking his head and mumbling something about 'Why me?' and 'two Narutos?'.
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An hour and 10 ramen bowls later (at least for the Uchiha girl), the two friends were resting their heads on the now bowl-free counter of the ramen place.
"So nii-chan, what do you think the next part of the exam will be like?" Mayume turned her head that was cradled in her good arm to face Naruto.
"I don't know but I bet ya it won't be any match for me!" Naruto gave a triumphant grin as if he'd already passed the whole exam. Suddenly his expression turned more serious, "How's your arm though? I heard you went to the hospital after the exam to get it put in a sling. I hope it's going to heal quickly so you don't have a handicap while fighting…"
With Naruto rambling on and Mayume listening to his deafening voice, neither of them noticed the figure quickly making their way towards them on the now dark street. A few seconds later they had grabbed Mayume's right hand and were dragging her off of her seat. "Ouch! Hey that hurt!" the Uchiha girl looked up into the eyes of her cousin as she attempted to get up off the floor with her one arm, but fell back down. "Hey cuz? What's the big idea? Me and Naruto were talking!"
"It's time to go, come on, we have to get some sleep so we'll do well tomorrow! I'm already gonna be slowed down by you two and Sakura enough as it is!" Naruto spun around to face his enemy-like teammate. "Hey! Mayume can make up her own mind Sasuke-teme!" The Uzumaki boy grabbed Mayume's hand and helped her up.
"Naruto, you would do well to get to sleep now too!" and with that, Sasuke tore his cousin's hand from Naruto's grip and dragged her home.
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It was now almost midnight and Mayume still hadn't been able to sleep. She lay on the couch tossing and turning under the sheets. She tried counting sheep, counting kunai being tossed; singing to herself and she even tried pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth and counting to 100. That almost worked until she heard a garbage can outside get knocked over which at that point she decided to raid the fridge for something to eat or drink because she was still hungry, if you can believe it.
She slowly got up with her mind set on reaching the fridge and checking if there was a bottle of clamato or at least tomato juice inside for her to drink. She opened the door and started rummaging through the shelves of refrigerated food and drink. When she picked up a glass jar of jam to get to the bottle of blood-red tomato juice behind it, the jar suddenly slipped from her hand.
CRASH
In and instant, there was glass and jam splattered on the cool tiles of the small kitchen and a kunai against Mayume's tan neck. "What are you doing up this late?" came the cold voice of Uchiha Sasuke from behind her. Being the extremely paranoid person that he was, he always had a kunai under his pillow in his hand, and he slept with one eye and ear open to his surroundings.
Mayume sighed and moved a bit to get into a comfortable standing position, which Sasuke took as a sign as her trying to attack him. His kunai against her throat drew a line of blood as he moved when she moved. She quickly put her hand to her throat, only to find her hand was bloodstained when she brought it back to look at. When the girl in front of him didn't poof and disappear or turn into someone else, Sasuke put his kunai down on the counter and started rummaging through the cupboards.
"What's the big idea? I was only trying to get a drink from the fridge and dropped the stupid jar by accident!" Sasuke stopped his rummaging for a moment then spoke, "Sorry! You can never be too careful. Enemies and other teams will want us eliminated before the next part of the exam begins." He pulled a small jar of ointment and a bandage out of the cupboard and handed it to his cousin before turning to head to the staircase. Walking carefully out of the kitchen, being careful not to step on any glass, he reached the stairs moments later. Before he went up, he stopped, and not even bothering to look at the bewildered girl standing in the middle of a jam and glass filled room, he bid her a goodnight and told her not to worry about the mess; he would clean it tomorrow.
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The next morning, the Uchiha cousins woke up at 6:00 in order to meet their sensei at the bridge. Well actually, Sasuke had to dump a bucket of ice-cold water on Mayume's head before she would get up. The day before, Kakashi had only told them to bring all of their weapons, some food and anything else they might bring for survival training, therefore, team 7 could only assume that the next part of the exam was test of survival. After washing up and dressing, Sasuke made a quick breakfast of porridge, fruit and bacon to get their strength and agility up. Mayume got out of the bathroom a few minutes later, after struggling for a while with getting her shirt on with her left arm in the stiff cast, then ate quickly. The 2 members of team 7 rushed out of the door and sped off towards the bridge.
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After a brief consultation with their Sensei on where the next stretch of the exam would take place, Team 7 had raced off to…THE FOREST OF DEATH! Once there, they settled down to wait for Anko the proctor. Mayume had a mischievous air about her, and she was itching to make Shino talk. She didn't know anything about him; his techniques, family, what his voice sounded like, what kind of underwear he wore on a regular bases, what his favorite colour was and other random things about his life.
"Hi…its Shino right?" the Uchiha girl walked up to the sunglass clad boy, "Are you excited about the next part of the exam?" Mayume's sweet smile faded into an annoyed look, as the Aburame ninja didn't answer, but just looked at her weirdly. She stomped of, more interested in finding out about the teammate of Hinata and Kiba then ever! She considered just asking Hinata about him, but what was the fun in that?
While she was pondering on the idea of how to get Shino to talk or at least make a noise, she was watching a centipede crawl up the tree in front of her. She involuntarily shivered as she looked at it…she was freaked out by bugs and hated them. Then it hit her, actually, it hit her so hard that when the idea shot into her head, she was knocked back and was left to lie on the ground stunned.
'If someone put a bug on me, I would scream until they got it off of me. Even a fake bug would do! I bet that Shino would do the same thing…or maybe not… but hopefully he will! It's a chance that I'm willing to take if it means hearing at lease one squeak come out of his mouth…' Mayume giggled and ran to where Konohomaru, Moegie and Udon were interviewing people for their school interview on…THE FOREST OF DEATH! Naruto was currently pouting and sitting on the floor with his arms and legs folded, not being interviewed.
Mayume crept up behind him then glomped him…but ended up jumping over him as he bent down to look at a blade of grass. When Naruto looked up again; he was staring at the now sprawled Mayume on the ground in front of himself. Mayume looked up at Naruto with a frown and spit some grass out of her mouth while getting up and dusting off her navy blue outfit of soil. "Hey Naruto…do you have any fake bugs?" She went and crouched down beside him and held out her right hand to receive it as he nodded his head 'yes'. When he placed the giant spider in her hand, it looked so real that she instantly dropped it and shivered.
She looked at it again then picked it up and tied it to a string so she could lower it onto the Aburame's back. She thanked Naruto and quickly hugged him and ran over to a tree that hung over Shino and masked her chakra. She climbed up to the closest branch and started lowering the fake spider so that it landed onto Shino's back. At first she didn't think that he had noticed it so Mayume made it squirm a bit on his back. Shino just stared at it and started to poke it till it fell off. He then looked up at Mayume with his emotionless face, and he made her shiver just like the centipede and even the fake spider which was now lying on the ground and being stepped on by random ninja that passed by.
'Oh shoot! He's gonna murder me or something now…whatamigonnado whatamigonnadowhatamigonnadowhatamigonnadowhatamigonnado?' She looked down at him again and noticed that he was now mingling with Hinata, Kiba and Akamaru. 'Phew that was a close call! Did he even noti…' she stopped in mid-sentence as she felt something crawling on her back with lots, and lots…and lots of legs. She started hyperventilating and slowly turned to look at the thing that was on her.
"OMG! OMG! There's a centipede on me! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!" She jumped to the ground and started running in circles, screaming, hoping that it would fly off of her back. Kiba looked to his right to stare at his crazy new friend then looked back at Shino, who had what seemed to be a small grin on his covered face, "Shino, did you put that bug on her?" Kiba looked at his teammate accusingly while Shino shook his head no while his grin widened.
XOXOXOXO
In the background Mayume noticed all of the ninja either staring at her or at Naruto, who seemed to be mimicking and making fun of something that Anko had just said to the crowd. Mayume didn't notice 1. the fact that Anko had just thrown a kunai at Naruto, and was licking his blood; 2. the creepy ass ninja that came up to Anko and returned her kunai; 3. that the centipede had in fact flown off of her back 5 minutes before, when she had first jumped down from the tree; and 4. the reddish coloured sand kunai that were coming towards her at an alarming speed.
A few moments later, Mayume was pinned to the tree that she had been running around a few seconds before, and then He came…yes He means Gaara. Now that Anko was done beating up Naruto, everyone's attention was on Mayume who was now being choked by Gaara's sand.
"What are you doing? We haven't even started the second part of the exam, and your bloodlust is extremely high! Drop her and save it for the forest." Gaara grunted in an annoyed matter as he called his sand back into his jar by Anko's orders. In the process of calling back his sand, Mayume's band-aid had come off of her neck, and the cut that Sasuke had given her last night had started to bleed again from the sharp grains of sand that had scratched at her neck.
Used to the bleeding by now, Mayume just wiped the blood off with her right hand then licked it. 'I'm gonna kill that guy!' she thought while still licking the crimson liquid off of her hand and making her way over to her group while Gaara walked in the opposite direction to sit in a tree above Kankuro.
Both Genin reached their teams at the same time then turned to face each other with deadly stares. Naruto and Sasuke also gave threatening glares in the direction of the sand siblings, and Naruto went a step further as to give a raspberry. At this Gaara's eye twitched and Naruto moved back a bit. All the while, Anko had been handing out the death consent forms so that she wouldn't be blamed for anyone's death.
Sakura grabbed 4 consent forms from Anko as she passed by the group and them to each of her teammates, giving a jealous look towards Sasuke and Mayume, still thinking that they were madly in love with each other. She of course couldn't of been more wrong.
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"Sasuke give it back! I can sign it by myself…it's my life that you're signing away here!" Sasuke had stolen Mayume's consent form because she was having problems signing away the remainder of her sad, sad life. "Give it back you ass or I'll purposely murder you when you're asleep!" Mayume kept jumping up to get it back, but since Sasuke was 5.6" and she was 5.0", there was a disadvantage for her, but luckily, her violent side took over.
PUNCH
Mayume's paper floated back into her hand as Sasuke let go of it in order to hold his red cheek. Naruto gave her a high five as she ran past him to sit on a rock and quickly sign her death warrant so that her cousin wouldn't kill her (how ironic is that?). While Mayume and everyone else signed their consent form, Anko was showing a map of the training area to all of the participants. After explaining the whole deal about the earth and heaven scrolls, and how each team had to reach the tower with both scrolls and all of their teammates, Anko called for everyone who was participating to line up with their team in front of the desk. They would then get either a heaven or earth scroll then make their way to their assigned gate.
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Half and hour later team 7 walked in past the black cloth covering the entrance so that onlookers wouldn't be able to see which scroll each team got. 2 minutes later, after the proctors had made sure that the people on team seven were the right people, team seven walked out from the black cloth, with their heaven scroll hidden within Sasuke's pack, and went towards their designated gate.
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Team Kurenai: gate 16
"WOOHOO! If it's survival skills that they want, we've got it made!" Saying that, Kiba turned to face his shy teammate Hinata and whispered, "Just don't go soft on us Hinata!"
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Team Gai: gate 41
Lee was just standing there with Neji and Tenten in his good guy pose with his face set in a determined look 'Gai-sensei! I will do my best!'.
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Team Asuma: gate 27
"A fight of survival? How troublesome…but if it's the only way… also it looks like Naruto's our target…they're the weakest!" Shikamaru smirked at his 2 teammates as they discussed what they would do once in the forest.
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The Sand Siblings: gate 6
'Oh man, I've got to watch out for enemy teams…but even worse…I have to spend 5 days in the forest with Gaara' Kankuro shivered at the thought of staying in the forest with his evil little brother.
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Team Sound: gate 20
Dosu stood in the middle of his teammates Zaku and Kin "Heh, heh the time has finally come guys to carry out our orders."
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Kabuto's team: 38
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Freaky grass team: gate 15
"We target the rookies first." One of the kusanin nins suggested. "Yes, it looks like we have a white card to pick them off one by one from here on in." the kusanin ninja that had returned anko's kunai to her licked his lips with his unnaturally long tongue and the thought of blood, "That should make our job a lot easier…"
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Team Kakashi: gate 12
At their gate, team 7 was discussing tactics to use. "I think that we should destroy the first enemy that we find and hope that they have an earth scroll. Then we make our way to the tower quickly before anyone has time to set up traps and ambushes that can stop us." Sasuke grinned smugly at his amazing plan.
"But what if it isn't an earth scroll? We could spend hours, most likely days trying to find the right scroll. We have just over a 50 chance of finding an earth scroll… besides; I think that we should gather food and find a river to follow to the tower. Don't you remember the map that Anko showed us? All of the rivers lead to the tower in the middle of the forest." Naruto nodded his head and smiled as he thought about Mayume's plan. "I agree with Mayume-chan! Believe it!" he yelled out after a few seconds of silence.
Sakura just shook her head and punched Naruto on the top of his head. "I think that Sasuke's plan is the greatest!" She screeched out as she attempted to throw her arms around Sasuke. Mayume just punched her in the arm and walked towards the gate as Anko's voice came onto the speakers "The gates will be opened in 30 seconds and you will be able to begin the 2nd part of the exam. Gook luck genins and remember…don't get killed!" as if on cue, the gates in front of team 7 opened and they ran inside the dark forest.
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This chapter was more about the development of the characters and their feelings and personalities towards eachother. A huge thank you to everyone who reviewed!