Rose Chronicles: Thorns
Chapter Thirteen: The Second Exam - Day One
The night before the second exam was set to begin, Hana called a team meeting to discuss what needed to be done in preparation. Hana informed them that the next test would be a survival exercise, but didn't know if any other element was involved or how long it would last. She suspected a week at the most, and only two or three days at least. So they would need to gather enough provisions to last them a week. Lucky for them, there was a little store near the inn where they could buy the things they needed. After they had stocked up on supplies, Hana stored them away in a scroll so they could avoid looking too conspicuous.
They all went to bed early that night- at around 9:30 P.M.- and they were up and ready to go at around 7 A.M. the next morning. This gave them about an hour to locate the site of the exam. They were among the first few to arrive; apparently they weren't the only ones who considered arriving early for this. So they waited, sitting against one of the large rocks that dotted the area. Asuka had started to doze off; she wasn't much of an early riser.
When 8 A.M. finally rolled around, and the rest of the candidates had gathered around and caught a glimpse of the area, many of them became unsettled. Hana snickered; this was nothing compared to the forests surrounding Otogakure. This was a contained area. Other than the people traversing it, what could possibly be so bad about it?
When Anko, the proctor, saw how uneasy they all were, she couldn't help smirking. She was going to have a lot of fun with this group.
"Scared? Well, you should be. This place is full of things that could kill you if you're not careful; poisonous plants, giant bugs and blood-thirsty beasts to name a few." she stated.
Her smirk grew wider.
"Soon enough, you'll find out why it's called the 'Forest of Death'."
If she was trying to intimidate them even further, then it was certainly working. Well...on most of them.
The annoying blonde-haired kid from the day before wasn't intimidated by her. In fact, he started to openly mock her.
"Oh, please; I'm not scared of any dumb old forest!" he shouted.
Suddenly, a kunai whizzed by his head and cut his cheek. Hana, who had been standing fairly close by, was startled by the incoming weapon and moved out of the way pretty quickly.
Further proof that this woman was completely off her rocker.
As Hana moved back to her spot, she noticed a genin from Kusagakure standing nearby. They had a very familiar air about them. Their hair and clothing style were very similar to…
Wait...could it be…?
No way. What reason would he have for being here?
But her suspicions grew when they returned the kunai to Anko. With their tongue. Orochimaru was the only person that Hana knew who could do something like...that.
As the genin passed by Hana, their eyes met for a brief moment, and they gave her a smirk before continuing on. Very odd, indeed.
"Alright, back to business."
Anko began to explain the ins and outs of the exam. They had five days to collect both halves of a set of scrolls; one heaven and one earth scroll. She held up both so everyone could see what they looked like. After that, they had to bring both scrolls to a tower in the center of the forest; all within the five day time limit. Only then could the scrolls be opened; under no circumstances were they to be opened before then.
'This is starting to sound like one of our retrieval missions.' Hana thought.
They had been assigned missions with a similar pretense in the past. Now they just had to add an extra element of survival into the mix. It didn't seem like a big deal to Hana. But, then again, there was always the possibility that something could go wrong. She needed to be careful and not get too confident.
"Oh, and before you all go rushing into the forest, we need you to sign these release forms. This way we won't be held responsible if anything happens to you in there." Anko said, holding up a stack of papers.
Geez, talk about blunt. From the way she spoke, Hana was able to make the assumption that she didn't what happened to them during the exam. It didn't matter if they were native to Konoha or not. To be fair though, that assumption was based on her own personal bias towards the village. That grudge wasn't going away, even after a decade had passed.
As Hana and her team were reading over the release forms, Hana kept glancing back at the Kusagakure genin that she had seen earlier. She just couldn't figure out why they seemed so familiar, and it was driving her crazy. It was making it really hard for her to focus.
She elbowed Mamoru in the side a couple of times to get his attention.
"Hey, Mamoru, stop readin' for a second, would ya?"
"Hm?"
Mamoru looked up from his paper and turned his attention to his teammate.
"What's up? Is something wrong?"
Hana made a subtle gesture towards to Kusa genin.
"Does that guy over there look familiar to you? I swear I've seen 'em somewhere before. Just can't put my finger on it."
Mamoru took a good look at the Kusa-nin. Some of their features looked familiar to him as well; notably the clothes and the hair.
"His clothes are similar to Orochimaru-sama's. Same with the hair."
"Yeah, I noticed that, too. He looks a lot like Orochimaru, doesn't he?"
Mamoru shrugged.
"I guess. They'd look more alike if Orochimaru-sama was, ya know, normal."
Hana covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. Orochimaru did have a rather...abnormal appearance. The similarities between the two must have been coincidental.
"I might be overthinking this a little."
"Clearly. It's probably just a coincidence."
"Yeah. Could be."
Still, something about them didn't sit right with Hana. The look they gave her earlier...she had seen it before. She was all too familiar with that knowing smirk.
She shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts and went right back to reading her form. Once they all had finished reading the forms and had signed them, they went over to the tent to receive their scroll. They handed over their forms and they were given a scroll- an earth scroll- in exchange.
Hana took the scroll and placed it in her bag for safe keeping. They began walking to their assigned gate, and, as they were walking, Asuka sidled up to Hana and nudged her arm with her elbow.
Hana gave her a very unamused side glance.
"What's the problem?" she asked.
Asuka, ignoring the dirty look she had received, leaned over and whispered in Hana's ear.
"I don't wanna alarm you or anything, but there were a couple of guys from Takigakure staring at you earlier."
Hana stopped dead in her tracks. She hadn't noticed anyone staring at her; she had been preoccupied with other matters. Her eyes went wide and she could feel her chest tightening. A serious chill crawled up her spine. Needless to say, she was seriously and thoroughly creeped out.
Asuka sighed and shook her head.
"I had a feeling you'd react that way. Look, don't worry about it; maybe they thought you were cute or something. Besides, we might not even see them during the rest of the exam. So just relax, would ya?"
Easier said than done. Asuka never had anyone leer at her menacingly before, but Hana certainly had. Yahiro would give her that look whenever he was angry with her; which, in all honesty, happened quite frequently. So now she was trying to figure out what she could have possibly done to make those guys mad. She had never spoken to them. So why were they looking at her like that.
Hana shook her head to try and shake off the paranoia. It was probably nothing, and her nerves were just getting to her.
Yeah, that was it. Just nerves.
"You gonna be alright?" Asuka questioned, a bit concerned about her teammate.
Hana nodded as she took off her headband to wipe the sweat from her forehead.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. That...just brought up a memory that I'd really like to forget." she muttered.
"Oh…! S-sorry about that…" Asuka replied.
Asuka knew very little about Hana's past, but she knew that certain things could set her off and possibly cause her to melt down. She tried her best to watch what she said, but there were times when she would forget and slip up. Like today.
She was going to have to be more careful, especially during the remainder of the exams.
Hana shook her head again before putting her headband back on.
"It's not your fault. That's just the way my mind is. Can't really help it." she stated.
Hana had long since resigned herself to that fact. There were mental scars that were never going to heal completely due to the trauma she suffered as a child. She tried her best to keep it all bottled up, but there was only so much that she could do. It wasn't Asuka's fault; not at all.
The three remained silent as they waited for the gates to open. They were all nervous, and a little impatient. Time seemed to tick by ever so slowly.
Anko kept a close eye on her stopwatch, and when it hit zero, she smirked.
"Alright, open the gates! The second exam begins...NOW!"
The sentinels opened the gates and all of the teams rushed through and into the dark forest. They all had one goal in mind; gather the scrolls and be the first ones to the tower.
The three Oto genin moved quickly through the trees in search of a safe place to set up camp. Once they found a place, then they would discuss their game plan for completing this exam.
They stopped in a secluded place not far from a source of water; they could faintly hear running water from where they were standing. Hana gave the place a once over before turning to her teammates.
"What do you think? Should we set up camp here?" she asked.
Mamoru and Asuka looked around for a moment and nodded in agreement.
After spending a few minute familiarizing themselves with their surroundings, they gathered around to discuss their game plan.
"So, if there aren't any objections, I'll hold on to the scroll." Hana stated.
Neither teammate had any objections, so the moved on to the next order of business.
"How should we go about looking for the other scroll?" Mamoru asked.
Hana stood up and stretched out her arms.
"I think we should scout out the other teams and see which one has the heaven scroll. Probably a weaker team that we can pick off easily." she replied.
Mamoru and Asuka stood up as well, ready to go off and begin their search.
"So I guess we should start now and meet back here later?" Asuka questioned.
Hana gave it some thought, but it didn't take long for her to make a decision. In her mind, she believed it was the best move for them.
"Yeah, I think we should. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can finish. We'll meet back here in three hours. Got it?" she stated.
"Got it!" the others replied in unison.
Asuka and Mamoru leapt into the trees and began their mission, leaving Hana alone in the clearing. However...even though she was clearly alone, she felt like someone was watching her. Watching every move she made like a predator on the hunt.
The unease crept up Hana's spine like a spider.
Whoever had their eyes on her...wasn't human.