Scroll 3: The Slow End of Exposition
"It has only been a month. Are you sure you are ready, Miss Uchiha? We do not doubt that it would be…easy for you to convince an old friend to vouch for you."
Mai held her chin up and ignored the blatant disregard her examiners held for Kakashi, a man she deeply admired and respected, having occasionally served under his captaincy during her time as an ANBU, and nodded.
"I am prepared."
She wasn't lying. It had been the most supreme of insults to be demoted to the rank of genin, and she did not doubt that it had been the village elders-long wary of her clan-that had demanded such a slight should she ever seek reinstatement. Kakashi, who had been standing quite casually leaning against a wall, took the suddenly available time to speak up.
"If I'm no longer needed, I have a genin team that I need to register for the chunin exam."
Mai nearly whipped around to face him incredulously, he certainly hadn't mentioned that when he had invited her over for tea and to chat about his students-mainly Sasuke's-progress, but managed to keep herself composed as a true shinobi would.
The council of elders all turned to face the man who had all but dismissed them so carelessly, and in such a bored tone.
"Hatake Kakashi. Are you so confident in your recommendation? Have you been training her, perhaps, and neglecting your charges?"
Mai bristled but the silver-haired jounin took it all in stride.
"Nope. Haven't trained her at all. I haven't even seen her fight. She came and asked me to recommend her, and she had that look on her face…"
He shrugged.
"If she says she's ready, she's ready."
His visible eye scrunched up in a cheerfully disconcerting manner.
"I don't think she'll disappoint."
The elder presiding over the council-and most assuredly the oldest person in the room, Mai thought, taking a closer look-puckered his ancient lips in distaste.
"Very well. You may go. Remember, though, that it was you who vouched for her without ascertaining whether or not she was actually prepared. Her failure will reflect on you."
Kakashi shot Mai a deadpan look that seemed to say, "please pass and save me unnecessary trouble," and proceeded to disappear in a whirlwind of leaves and a puff of smoke.
And thus Mai was left on her own with the council.
Elsewhere, Kakashi sighed. He really hoped Mai knew what she was getting into. But then…she had been ANBU quality, and she had served under him. She was a comrade, and though he would never have said that they were close, they were friends. There weren't many left of their generation-the generation of shinobi that had fought in the last war-and she was, as he was, a relic of that suffering.
She would be fine.
Hmmm…where to start, Kakashi wondered, eyeing a file of papers with obvious regret. Why had he decided to sign his students up for the chunin exam this year, again? Oh, right…
Could any of his fellow jounin teachers blame him? Did they have to put up with Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura on a daily basis? The answer to both questions was, of course, no, and Kakashi felt totally justified in his actions. He had faith in them as shinobi, they were improving by the day, but really, they were too much for any one, sane person to handle. Yeah.
"Your opponent will be Umino Iruka, a teacher from the academy who has agreed to test you."
Mai didn't nod at the council, but instead settled herself into her fighting stance, which was, had anyone there noticed, a stance particular to a certain former Leaf village shinobi. It looked mostly as if all she had done was tense her body, but in her experience, stances were unnecessary. All she needed was to find her center of gravity and she was ready.
Iruka bowed slightly.
"It is an honor to fight with you today, Uchiha-san."
Mai, though beginning to feel a little anxious from keeping her mind at a level of mission-level alert, smiled.
"Thank you for agreeing to test me, Umino-san."
She knew that, though the knowledge of her rank of ANBU was theoretically classified, he knew that she was at least an elite jounin and that that was his true reason for saying that, but she ignored it. Until her examination proved otherwise, he was her superior.
"Begin."
And thus, they fought. Or rather, they stood still until Iruka realized that she was waiting for him to make the first move and threw some kunai at her vitals. She dodged them and waited. Understanding her intention, he came at her directly, kunai in hand.
Mai did not even have to draw her fan. She used the steel enforced lining of her gloves to redirect the blows when they came near and viciously knocked Iruka back into the ground with a well-placed sweep of her leg. The chunin she was fighting used the momentum of her blow to right himself again and came at her with three shadow clones.
Mai ran right between two of the clones, whipped her fan off of her back, and used it as an axle on which turned as she kicked both, one in the back of the head, the other in the face and caused them both to disappear. The third she dispatched as she righted herself, swinging her fan in a violent arc and pegging him in the stomach.
And then it was over. What had apparently been a clone disappeared in a puff of smoke and a glimmer of jade was visible at Iruka's throat. Mai stood directly behind him, the sharp point of her hair pin poised at his jugular vein. The deeply colored jade marked that she clearly did not intend to kill, as it was in actuality meant solely to incapacitate an enemy by paralyzing their nervous system. Iruka held his breath and then blinked and chuckled as she helped him up.
"You did very well, Uchiha-san."
Mai smiled softly at him.
"Thank you, Umino-san."
He nodded a cheery, "it was nothing" and waited to be dismissed.
"Umino Iruka, the council thanks you for your time and cooperation. You are dismissed."
He bowed and left. Mai waited. The council turned their attention to the woman before them and then, holding up a hand as if to silence the hall, the presiding elder spoke.
"We do not accept you as a chunin of this village. Yes, you managed to defeat your opponent, but being a chunin is not solely about physical skill."
Mai felt as though she had been slapped in the face and straightened her back, about to respond when the doors to the chamber opened and the Hokage entered.
"Objection. Uchiha Mai has already passed the chunin exam, the jounin exam, and been certified as a special class jounin. She is a former ANBU. She has been evaluated and found to be in sound mind. These tests are solely to judge whether she has returned to the state of physical competency required for the rank of chunin and anything higher at our discretion."
The Hokage stood with a more humble sort of arrogance before the council than Mai did. The council man who had spoken covered his mouth with a fan, stepping aside when the village elders stood. Their expressions were far from pleasant.
"You are correct, Lord Hokage. In this case, then, not only do we elevate the Uchiha woman to the rank of chunin, but fully reinstate her to her previous position in the ANBU corps. Uchiha Mai, you are dismissed."
Mai stiffened and nodded thanks, and the Hokage watched her go with a blank look on his face. Intentional. That's what it had been. The council never had the intention of leaving the woman safely ensconced in her home, working inferior levels of missions.
They had counted on her testing as soon as possible to salvage her dignity. She wasn't yet of her former ANBU quality. Chunin quality certainly, but ANBU? This was wrong.
And thus it was that, after another month of stagnancy, Mai took up the mask again. A month was the longest the Hokage could manage to delay the impending mission, and she used her time wisely. A masked man crouched in the window of Mai and Sasuke's apartment.
"Uchiha-san, the Hokage requests your presence."
Mai nodded, already suited up, and slipped her mask over her face. The bird-painted porcelain was comforting, familiar, and somehow did absolutely nothing to quell the disquieting feeling of nervousness in her stomach.
"Understood."
She leapt out of the window without hesitation, although she felt as though keeping up with the ANBU's pace was more difficult than she remembered it to be. It was through sheer force of will that she made it to the Hokage's office precisely behind the man without seeming to be out of breath.
It had been a long time.
The mission seemed easy enough, but Mai was careful to stay alert, to not make the mistake of underestimating her task because a deceptively simple sounding briefing. She had to go to the Land of Water, to pick up a scroll from a Feudal Lord, and to return it safely, unopened. It was an ANBU level mission because there were others after the scroll, and the feudal lord was afraid to send it via an envoy, even a protected one. Arrangements were made for the precious scroll to be transported in the hands of a capable ninja.
Capable meaning able to complete an S-rank mission.
What Mai hadn't yet made up in brawn, she hadn't lost in brains, though, and she was confident in her cool, analytical ability to get her through the mission. She absolutely expected to be attacked, perhaps even before she arrived in the Land of Water, and decided to take extra precautions.
In the twenty minutes she was allotted before leaving, she opened up the small chest that had been given to her as a wedding gift by Mikoto-san, taking a moment to trace a finger lovingly over the worn artistry of the swallows flitting about the silhouette of a woman who hid behind a fan of monstrous proportions, framed by wind and flame. She gently brushed a finger over the kanji script opposite the woman, who was in the far right of the picture.
"She dances, she who is the passion of my soul."
With a wry grin and a rolling of her eyes, Mai fully opened the lid and revealed a collection of priceless hairpins. Some were hers, some were from the time of the First Hokage. There had been speculation before, about Mai's namesake and the possible reasons for her collection of hairpins and combs. The box had been handed down for generations, and it was no longer clear whether it was simply a relic of the former abundance in the clan or useful for a purpose. One she had chosen the appropriate colors, she pulled a on a single hairpin.
It was part of the box, designed to hide a false bottom from intruders. The average Uchiha shinobi, of course, would see through that, but the majority of shinobi were not Uchiha, so it was a moot point. She deftly chose the poisons she believed that she would need and his the miniscule vials of each potion into the base of each hairpin. All of them were fatal, and she carried the antidote of only one.
When she left, all she had was her provisions, her weapons, and her mask. She did not have any team members, and that was nonnegotiable because it was by order of the council.
She was, after all, one of the "old Uchiha," unlike Sasuke, who was the "new Uchiha." Mai had no idea why the council of elders had taken such a sudden, deep-running distrust and dislike of her, but they had, and quite frankly, accustomed as she had become to reporting only to the Hokage, she didn't care.
The road to the Land of Water was suspiciously, suspiciously quiet. Mai's senses were on high alert, and the lack of action was rattling her nerves. It was so quiet, and what made it worse was that it was a natural kind of quiet, not even the sort of quiet that might indicate a trap. Mai took a deep breath to calm herself and then decided to pick up the pace. It was her plan, after all, to arrive in the Land of Water as early as she possibly could so that she could leave ahead of schedule and perhaps throw off any conceivable pursuers.
With that thought in mind, she ran.
"Welcome, ninja-san! You have arrived so much earlier than expected! It is true then, what they say about the ninja of Konoha being timely. Please, come right this way."
Mai nodded, dipping her head lightly behind her porcelain mask-it disconcerted the servant, she knew-in an elegant fashion. It had been drilled into her in her youth, being the daughter of one of the oldest Uchiha bloodlines, and the fact that she was a shinobi did not necessarily mean that she needed to be an uncivilized brute as well.
The servant looked surprised at her grace.
"His Lordship has asked that you are invited to rest in the Main House for as long as you need before taking the scroll. He will present it to you before you leave."
Mai nodded.
"If it is convenient to his Lordship, I would stay this evening to recover myself, and be off early in the morning. It would be for the best, I think, and better in line for the scroll's protection."
The servant nodded briskly and went off to make arrangements, and Mai was shown to her room. She slept that night, fitfully, because her mind was still on high alert, but she slept. And the next morning, after a light breakfast of soldier pills-honestly, the richness of the food she was offered would have made her sick as she ran-she was presented the scroll.
It was actually a very small scroll, small enough that she could literally put it in her kunai holster. To be safe, though, and to follow what had once been ANBU protocol-she sealed it into another scroll and placed that in her pact.
It had been a rule during her previous time as an ANBU, back when there was war and all that mattered was the mission. It had been suggested by Itachi Uchiha, a safeguard against failure. There could be no failure. And if that meant that, to protect the village, no one got the scroll or whatever item of import sealed away, so be it. Not, of course, that this rule had been implemented much in the years she had been decommissioned, but it was familiar and it was the way that had been brutally ingrained in her. It was how she would always operate.
The first leg of the journey was fine. Absolutely fine. In fact, though she kept herself alert, she felt as if she had correctly anticipated that whoever was after the scroll would be severely thrown off by how early she left. She had practically killed herself running there, anyway. It was a just reward. Staying later would have been the incorrect option, as it would give the enemy more time to set up traps.
It was truly ironic, then, that after leaving her enemy in the dust behind her, she would face peril in a form entirely unrelated to her mission.
One moment, she was running, the next, she was jumping back to avoid a body being slammed with brutal, brutal force into the ground right at her feet. Blood was splattered everywhere, even on Mai, and the impact of the body (Male, likely of chunin or special jounin ability, 21-23 years of age, she noted quickly, mid-range fighter judging by weapons, water-base chakra, Hidden Mist) left a gaping crater in the ground.
Either way, she was in trouble. There was absolutely no evidence of a true struggle visible on the man, so she warily decided to assume that whatever killed him was inordinately powerful and easily capable of overcoming her.
All that matters is the mission. The mission above all else. These were mantras drummed into her head during the time that she earned the tattoo on her shoulder, and it was this that spurred her forward, faster than she could remember going in a long time. It seemed the close brush with danger was awakening her muscle memory, because the speed and precision with which she dodged the thing being brought down upon her and swung round the man's ankle to kick him in the head-the man was, apparently, a water clone-was highly reminiscent of a move she had used on a mission with Kakashi.
"Not bad! Not good enough, either, but not bad. You'll still die, though…"
The man's chakra was monstrous. Terrifying. Instead of attacking, though, Mai wheeled around towards the sound of the voice, and leapt backwards to dodge a blow that came seemingly out of nowhere. Whatever it was that had been swung in her direction was huge, oddly-shaped, and wrapped in bandages. She blinked, somewhere in the back of her mind a little bemused when she noticed that her opponent was blue.
He was wearing black robes with red clouds on them. She had been vaguely told of an organization of S-rank criminals called the Akatsuki. She was supposed to have been fully briefed, but the Hokage had ordered that she be granted reprieve of duty for a month so that she could train. Thus, she was generally in the dark. She had, though, thoroughly read through her bingo book, thank kami, and that knowledge was coming in handy. There was only one explanation for the oddly shaped sword and the blue skin.
Hoshigaki Kisame.
"Hey, it's rude to ignore people like that!"
He scowled at her when she again took off.
"Damn ANBU. So rude."
Mai was running as she felt his chakra suddenly spike and near her at an alarming pace. She pushed herself to go faster. But dammit, she thought, for such a huge guy, he was quick. And what was worse, she could tell without a doubt, he was playing with her.
Not far from her location, three Hidden Mist ninjas shrieked in sudden, awful synchronization as they were simultaneously skewered on a fallen comrade's sword. A raven-haired shinobi looked down at them expressionlessly before tilting his head just so in the direction where he felt his partner's chakra spike.
"Hn."
Without a backwards glance, he took off in hot pursuit.
Mai was in trouble. Really big trouble. She was, actually, surrounded by a number of water clones, all grinning, displaying sharpened teeth.
"Going somewhere?"
No, thought Mai, irritated, but she would most certainly like to be. She analyzed her situation quickly as she found her center in preparation for the inevitable fight. No, there was absolutely no possibility of escaping without a fight. No, she would not win the fight, and would at best hope that a surprise attack would give her the opportunity she needed to run off.
In accordance with ANBU protocol, when the last living-or sole, in Mai's case-operative was compromised in a way that put mission success "beyond redemption," the operative was to-in the event of a mission such as Mai's-do whatever necessary to ensure artifact being transported did not fall into enemy hands. She had already done this when she sealed it into the scroll. Once the artifact is safely out of range of the enemy's conceivable possession, the operative is free to do whatever necessary to survive. This procedure was solely reserved for situations that "were above the ninety-seventh percentile in regards to fatality."
In other words, only when death was a certainty.
Feeling that she had done the best she could, and knowing that even before that night, she wouldn't have been able to take down an enemy of this caliber, Mai drew her fan and lunged. She managed to take out two water clones before she felt another, powerful presence approaching. It seemed almost-she froze. Hoshigaki Kisame. Known to be traveling in the company of…She didn't have time to finish the thought because the bandaged sword coming down fast on her fan was halted and she heard a sickeningly familiar voice.
"Kisame. This is not a Mist shinobi."
Mai could hardly breathe. Anything else-anyone else, and she would have been fine.
But it wasn't "anyone else." It was him.
When the sword was removed from her immediate vicinity, she knew at once that even with her mask-maybe even in part because of her mask, he knew. He knew exactly who she was. Before her, as if shrouded in a halo of light from the sun behind his head, stood Itachi Uchiha. And as his eyes met hers-scarlet eyes ablaze with the pride of a bloodline and dark, disbelieving eyes, wide with recognition-it was almost as if nothing had changed. Almost.
Scroll 3/End.