Sheeesh – it's been a while. Sorry about that! Life caught up with me and suddenly writing didn't seem all that important anymore. BUT – nearly 8 glorious weeks of no class lie before me and I intend to use them wisely. Especially now that I've scrapped the entire bullshit-chapter-42 that just wouldn't cooperate and wrote the entire thing new.
I think (hope) that the next one will be easier.
As a sorry/thank-you I've added a little extra at the end - because apparently we've hit 500 reviews!
On a (loosely) related note: the poll has established Hisana/Kakashi as the favorite pairing with a staggering 24%. Sasuke/Hisana comes in second with 17%. Remember, you can still vote.
But, without further ado, your chapter:)
Morning dawns bright and intense. The heat hasn't settled in yet, won't for at least a couple of hours. Right now the nightly cold is still driving goose bumps up civilian arms. But the nervous energy inside the arena is enough to heat up every ninja in the vicinity.
Hisana scuffs her shoes against the dusty ground. She's not ready.
She's not the only one.
Haru is a comforting presence at her back but she can sense him fidgeting even from here. Sora's tall frame in front of her blocks the proctor from their view, as if it could delay the inevitable. His face is unsettlingly blank. Hisana runs her thumb over the back of her bokken.
It's almost embarrassing. No, scratch that, it's absolutely embarrassing. She'd been so caught up in how to dumb down chakra infusion, that she overlooked something far more basic and far more logical: chakra coating.
It's not as if they've been doing it with kunai since the Academy. After all, a regular kunai can only fly so far before the impact dwindles down to all the force of a cotton ball. Infuse it with chakra and you can triple your reach. She's going to kill Kakashi; couldn't he just have said so?
"It is probably fortunate that you tried this on a living thing first," Kohaku-sensei noted that night. "Your eyes I can repair; if you had accidently burst your bokken … that is one thing I cannot repair."
She purposely did not comment on his backwards attitude about bodies and weapons. It's nothing she hadn't heard before.
Gripping the bokken tightly now she even almost gets it.
There are a quite a few familiar faces around, roughly half of them of Konoha. She recognizes Hanada's sullen face in the crowd, as well as a Hyuuga boy with a twitchy eye. Temari, down one bodyguard, seems to have lost the reckless fearlessness. Like this she appears more like the girl Hisana remembers from the manga – she's not sure if that's reassuring or worrying.
The proctor is a short, stocky man. His face is almost entirely obscured by traditional head garb and when he finally speaks it sounds rather muffled.
"Finally… the … ah, finals."
He coughs lengthily and whacks his tagelmust, which releases a sizable could of dust, before continuing in a much stronger voice.
"Yes. Without further ado … I, we, will decide the … the pairings."
There's no fancy tech to randomly pair people as she expected – instead he flicks his hands, presenting them with a row of thin wooden sticks, not much bigger than matchsticks.
"Come, come."
He beckons them with the sticks. Sora turns around to make a disbelieving face at them. She keeps forgetting in what a bad state Suna's economy currently is. The village and its citizens are proud, which means that everything is always clean and in good repair. But in moments like this it hits her like a brick to the face. Not for the first time her eyes trail over the spectators. No rich businessmen or nobility; the highest ranking functionary in the crowd is the Kazekage himself and a couple of his councilmen. How insulting it must be for him, she thinks. But then again, he will have expected it. The arena may be grand, but there's a notable lack of decorations, and festivities around the village are rather low-key.
She wonders how many village outsiders there were at the beginning. There'd been so many in the first few days, but they'd dwindled rapidly. The contestants are almost neatly divided into Suna and Konoha, with the exception of a short, bulky boy with an Iwa hitai-ate. Was Konoha simply more stubborn than the others? Or was their mere presence here already an overture of friendship towards their village? During the last task it must have been easy for Suna to simply rig a thing or two and get rid of any undesirable contestants.
Hisana gets pulled out of her thoughts when Sora moves towards the examiner. Her teammate picks a match with pointed fingers, as if afraid it might already be part of the battle and would explode any second. He unrolls a scrap of paper from it.
"Three," he announces with a frown.
Encouraged, Hanada stomps up to them. She jerks a match out of the examiner's hand and unrolls the paper almost greedily.
"Two," she breathes, stealing a strangely disappointed glance at Sora.
Temari's broad teammate claims the next match, and then leers down at the girl. "Two."
Hisana snatches her own match before Temari herself can take it.
"Four."
The Kazekage's daughter glares at her.
"One," she drawls, unrolling her paper, "Fitting – start off with a bang."
Hisana forces herself not to roll her eyes, mindful of Kohaku-sensei in the stands. Haru eyes the last matches with trepidation. Two of the three would pitch him against his teammates; he hesitates. Hisana elbows him.
"Go! It'll happen sooner or later anyway."
He grabs the left one, unrolls it and breathes a sigh of relief.
"One."
The last two snatch their matches before throwing wary looks around the contestants.
"Nice, nice," the examiner coughs, grabbing a piece of chalk before unveiling a rickety old blackboard. In big looping characters he writes down the matchup.
"Match 1: Sabaku no Temari vs. Sone Mitsuharu."
The chalk squeaks loudly enough to make everyone flinch.
"Match 2: Saito Gorou vs. Mami Hanada."
Another squeak.
"Match 3: Eguchi Sora vs. Mori Akiba."
This time everyone collectively covers their ears.
"Finally … the fourth and last match: Uchiha Hisana vs. Hyuuga Naoki. Interesting, very interesting. The first match begins tomorrow at sunrise."
Suna in the early morning hours is a whirlwind of activity. At half past five the sun rises, only slowly overcoming the frigid temperatures of the night. And for the next two and a half hours the entire populace of Suna appears to struggle to fit in as much physical labor as possible, before the temperatures climb back into unbearable territory. The whole process is then repeated at about eleven at night, an hour after the sun has set. And so, giddy with nerves, team 11 experiences for the first time Suna as only the natives know it.
A yawn forces its way out of Hisana's mouth; she feels exhausted, but there's already the scent of breakfast in the air and it makes her stomach growl embarrassingly. It is still fully dark out but in their team's usual food haunt an old lady is scraping eggs over a hot metal platter. They're treated to the customary unhappy look and grumble – 'damn Konoha ninjas' – but Hisana has learnt not to take it too seriously by now. The food is good, though spicy, and it's being cooked right in front of them; there's no way a grumpy Suna civilian can spit in it without anyone noticing.
Kohaku-sensei sinks into the seat next to her. He looks impeccable as always, but there is a steep line between his eyebrows that wasn't there when they left Konoha. Great, she thinks dimly, we've aged him prematurely.
On her other side Haru looks vaguely sick while Sora tries to force some eggs into him.
"Come on, just a little. If all fails you can at least throw up on her."
"I don't think throwing up will be a problem," the other boy mumbles.
Kohaku-sensei digs up a small bottle from his hip pouch and slides it along the table.
"Take two of these at least."
When Haru pops the lid and tips some into his hand they are bright blue rather than the muted red of the regulation soldier pills. "Hyuuga recipe," their sensei admits. "It is mostly carbohydrates, sugar and caffeine. Take them at the start of the match and then hurry. You will crash around midday."
"Isn't that sort of … doping?" Hisana ventures carefully. Her team turns to stare at her incredulously.
"Eh …" Sora starts awkwardly, "Not sure if you've noticed yet, but there's a lot of people around here with unfair advantages."
He very pointedly directs his eyes to Kohaku-sensei whose Byakugan appear almost blue in the dark. Point taken, she muses, thinking of her own opponent.
"To answer your question," Sensei adds, "any body or mind altering substance is allowed under the poison clause. Whether you turn this 'poison' against yourself or your opponent is your decision. I assure you every clan member you'll ever meet during an official match will have their own way of boosting their performance. I am sure the Uchiha have their own written down somewhere."
Might be worth looking into. Haru slides the pills into his breast pocket, still a little green around the gills.
"And what about us?" Sora whines. Kohaku-sensei gives him a stern look.
"We will see how you fare before your match."
Today the arena is a little more crowded than yesterday, but still not even half full. The Kazekage is still looking down at them from his seat of honor; for Temari's match the entire council is in attendance, probably sweating in their bulky dignitary robes.
Hisana and Sora have their stone-faced teammate tightly wedged between them, half worried he may faint, half afraid he might run. Ten minutes until sunrise; Haru's stomach growls uproariously and some of the other contestants throw him wild looks. He turns to them, spine rigid, eyes blank and they flinch away. Hisana chokes on a laugh. Kohaku-sensei breathes deeply and she wonders if he's secretly rolling his eyes.
"The pills?" he prompts, and Haru unwinds his arm from Sora to pat his breast pocket.
"Now would be a good time."
Haru fumbles them out of his pocket and places them strategically between his back teeth and cheek. Around them the chatter dies down when the examiner raises his arm. Above, the Kazekage rises from his seat.
"Today we are gathered to witness a rite of passage – a test of skill, strength, and will." He gestures grandly towards the contestants. "Today we will honor those who have put their minds and bodies through the toughest of trials to serve their villages. I trust we will see truly spectacular things and hope that you will find reassurance in the fact that these young people are the ones protecting and serving you. And also," his voice rises as he graces them with a mild smile, "I hope you are entertained. Welcome to the Suna Chuunin Exams."
He looks very much like Gaara this way, Hisana thinks, clapping absentmindedly.
A sharp whistle calls the first contestants down into the arena. To Hisana's surprise there's no need to give Haru a shove. He throws back his shoulders and slowly walks down the stairs. Sora gives her a look that's halfway caught between worry and astonishment.
Temari from her end drops down into the arena with a showy flourish. Good, Hisana thinks wryly. Get it all out of your system, so you can act a little less like a bitch next time.
The two ninja face each other. It makes for a vaguely funny picture; short, almost chubby Temari and slim, dainty Haru. But Hisana knows from own painful experience that those weedy arms pack quite a punch. The Kazekage's daughter throws out her chest and puts her hands on her hips, trying to play up any physical advantage she might have, but it makes her look no more intimidating, only bratty.
"First match of today!" the examiner calls, lifting his tagelmust to let his voice carry. "Sabaku no Temari of Suna!" – thunderous applause from the audience – "And Sone Mitsuharu of Konoha!"
Polite clapping. Hisana steps one foot onto the barrier and whistles loudly enough to make Kohaku-sensei scowl. Next to her Sora giggles like a school girl and belts out a silly whoop.
"Please take five steps apart," the examiner continues through the noise.
It almost looks like an old-fashioned duel as they march towards opposite ends of the arena. They face each other and then – a whistle. There's a fan strapped to Temari's side that's about as long as her forearm. It snaps into the girls hands with a flick of her wrist. For a moment Hisana expects Haru's blades to slide out of his sleeves, but they stay put. Instead he relaxes his stance, slides sideways and goes for an open handed style. That's right, she remembers, they're both wind nature. It'll either be two forces continually colliding head-first, or they'd have to outmaneuver each other.
And Haru is good at maneuvering. He's also deceptively shrewd and had Temari pegged for a hothead form the very first day. Just standing there, waiting, sends a twitch onto the blond's face that speaks of someone used to commanding respect – or at least obedience. Her first attack is rash and a product of impatience. With a grand wave of her fan a shower of senbon rains down on Haru who doesn't even bother stepping aside. Instead catches them in his long sleeves. When he shakes them out the mettle clatters to the floor in a heap.
It's a taunt, clearly, and it works like a charm.
Temari bursts into action. Her fan only produces small gales of wind but they're strong enough to surround them in a cloud of sand and dust. For a moment there's only confusion and the sound of hurried punches, before a futon jutsu blasts through the dust screen. It's been maybe two minutes, but Temari has gained a black eye and Haru's jacket is crooked. When the Suna-nin sends another gale his way he manages to angle right through it, but it shaves off a few strands of his hair that blow away with the wind. This time the stiletto blades do make an appearance. They shoot out at Temari but are immediately deflected by a second fan. She does make a striking figure like this, but there's an obvious skill gap there that comes with age and can't be bridged with theatrics.
Meanwhile Haru isn't deterred. His daggers keep shooting out like scorpion stingers; Hisana has never seen him do anything like that. And when Temari's confidence grows, sure that they're on equal footing, Haru spits a Futon: Daitoppa point blank at her face. She hits the ground with a quiet 'thud' and doesn't get back up again.
The audience is quiet except for scattered, uncomfortable murmurs when the examiner announces the winner. Only when the Kazekage himself starts to clap the applause gets louder. Haru walks up the stairs on shaky legs. He seems a little dazed and Sora's enthusiastic hug nearly topples him.
"Great job," she tells him earnestly, before sitting him down on a bench. Hisana wonders if the weak knees are from the fight or if he's already burnt through Kohaku-sensei's soldier pills.
"I think," he admits, "I'd like something to eat now."
9 random facts
1. Gai is far more accomplished in political games than Hisana thinks – he just thinks that a child should be a child for as long as possible, so he refuses to engage in them with her.
2. Baa-chan's teahouse is rather close to the hospital. There's a running gag going around among the regulars that this is on purpose; if you insult her cooking, you're going to need a medic A.S.A.P.
3. The bunker was in fact one of Orochimaru's former hideouts. Hisana's first dead end with the heavy metal door – was it used to keep people out, or in …?
4. Hisana works better under pressure. She still hasn't realized, and probably never will, that she's performed the Katon: Gokayku no Jutsu twice without seals in the bunker.
5. There is a grocery shop that Kohaku-sensei has stopped visiting, because the old lady owner keeps trying to set him up with her grandson. He's tried telling her several times that this is a fruitless endeavor, but she apparently keeps forgetting. He has the sneaking suspicion that the poor woman also knows Airi – and that she just hasn't realized yet that there are two of them.
6. Ito-sensei's elderly rat summon is called Ritsu.
7. Airi is about four minutes older than Kohaku.
8. The worst injury Hisana ever inflicted on Neji was a broken jaw. There was a moment of shocked silence, after which Hisana very hurriedly went to get Kohaku-sensei while Neji calmly sat down and waited for her to come back.
9. Most Hyuuga are aware of Hisana's visits – the branch house is rather glad that she takes the brunt of Neji's bad moods, so they keep her secret from the main house.