"First," Anko said, her voice made louder by chakra, "I want to congratulate you all for passing the second test!" She was standing on the stage, next to the Hokage. Behind them were all the Jōnin-sensei for the teams that had passed or hadn't, as well as Ibiki, probably because he was the proctor for the first test. At the end of the line, Hitomi noticed a man who could only be Gekko Hayate, with the deep shadows under his eyes and his weak cough. As for the Genin, they were standing in one line per team, eighteen in total, all satisfied to have come this far. Kabuto's team had arrived last, barely a few minutes before the end of the test, probably because they had combed through the forest in the hope of finding Sasuke and Naruto. The Yūhi girl was darkly glad that they had worked so hard for nothing.

"Hokage-sama will now share the modalities of the last test! Listen carefully, all of you. Hokage-sama, if you will…"

The man, fully dressed in ceremonial robes, nodded and stepped forwards. "Ahem. First, let me explain, in the clearest way possible, this exam's true goal. Did you think about the reason why the examen gathers Genin from the entire Alliance?"

A whisper ran through the crown and Hitomi couldn't help but roll her eyes, her tiny silhouette wisely hidden behind Sasuke's back. Yes, this was the perfect moment for one more serving of propaganda, just a flourish to decorate a test during which they could all have died. Joy. Exultation, even.

"If you think it's to strengthen the friendship bonds between our countries or improve the global level of our shinobi, I regret that you're wrong. We hold them as a miniature war."

"What does that mean?" Tenten asked.

"In our short history, we saw a long succession of conflicts happen between countries for domination. If we hold these exams the way we do, it's to spare our villages the cost of a useless war. That's the idea behind the Chūnin exams."

"That doesn't make any sense!" Naruto intervened, frowning.

The people that didn't know him much stared at him, bewildered to hear him speak so disrespectfully to his Hokage, but Hitomi and Sasuke only smiled, just like their close friends did. They all knew how close the child and elder were. Until he was adopted by Kurenai, Naruto had projected his need for a loving family on the man. Since Hitomi's mother had given him everything he could dream of in that field, Hiruzen had kept an eye on his former protégé, but he refrained from putting his nose in the Jōnin's business. He didn't want to have her angry at him again.

"Of course, the exam also serves the purpose of evaluating our ninjas, but it's primarily for their country's prestige that shinobi come here to fight at the risk of their life."

"The country's prestige?" Ino interjected.

"Yes. The daimyos of the Alliance's countries and the most eminent members of their government and court will spectate the last stage of the exam. They are our main employers, as you well know. Perhaps you even accomplished a mission for them in your short career. Besides, the leaders of various merchant guilds and high-ranking officials of other Hidden Villages will be there as well to see you fight."

Another whisper, nervous this time, ran through the room. Most of the Genin hadn't been there when Hitomi had explained what she knew of the exams, and she could almost physically feel Hinata's nervousness at the idea of fighting in front of such a crowd. For an unbelievable second, she wanted to run to her and hug her until her anxiety disappeared. Such impulses belonged to the past.

"How you perform will have an impact on many parameters in your respective countries. The missions will inevitably go to the strong countries in priority, while the weak countries will have a hard time finding contracts. By the same reasoning, a country that is certain of his military superiority could threaten its neighbours with weaker Hidden Villages. In other words, there will be consequences on foreign policy."

"What?" Kiba said. "We risk our lives for that?"

"A country is only as powerful as its village is, and a village is only as powerful as its shinobi are. As for the true power of a shinobi, it reveals itself in a fight where their life is at stake. That's why we come and watch you. That's why you have to shine. This exam only makes sense if you fight at the risk of your lives. Your predecessors fought, exactly like you, to become Chūnin and step closer to their dreams."

"But why do we say we're allied with the other countries, then?" Tenten asked.

"I thought I had been clear. Don't fool yourselves: this tradition maintains the balance between countries at the cost of lives. It's a form of alliance like any other, and it has maintained peace for years now."

And yet war wasn't so far behind. Hitomi saw it sometimes in Ensui's haunted eyes, in the way Kakashi's posture tensed in the rare occasions when he was taken by surprise, in a million other signs dispersed through the village like a powder trail. It was because war was still breathing down their necks that Danzō could exist, his rotten roots growing in the blood and memory of a terror that slowly strangled the old generation.

"Your dreams and your village's honour are at stake during this last stage of the exams," the Hokage concluded.

A whisper of approval ran through the crowd of Genin, carefully dodging the place where Hitomi was standing, stiff and bitter. She had to admit that the Hokage was a master in the art of spreading propaganda. He had probably learned tricks from his predecessors as well as Danzō, his old friend, and his two former teammates, both descending from noble families in the court of the Land of Fire. And the contestants were mostly children, young and so easy to impress. Manipulating them was barely harder than toying with the mind of first year students in the Academy – which the village did as well, of course.

"Well, time to talk about the next stage then."

As if he had been waiting for this signal, Gekko Hayate stepped forwards. Despite his frail, tired appearance, there was something dangerous about him, in the way he moved maybe, or in the focused gleam in his eyes, as if he didn't miss anything. "Forgive me for interrupting, Hokage-sama," he said as he knelt respectfully, "My name is Gekko Hayate. I've been designated as the referee for the matches."

"Good. I'll let you explain the next steps then." The Hokage stepped back and Hayate, after standing up, took his place at the centre of the stage. He was taller than Hitomi had imagined, as if the manga's drawing had been a relevant reference by any means. He watched the Genin gathered before him with dark, piercing eyes, as if he could guess their potential just by looking at them.

"Welcome to all of you," he started. "Before the third stage of the exam can begin, we have a detail to fix. Hm… It's the preliminary phase that grants access to the stage itself."

"Preliminaries?" Ino muttered next to Hitomi, looking gloomy.

"What?" Shikamaru snapped. "What's that about? Why can't we all get to the third stage?"

"Well, it seems that the first two stages have been too easy, which means there's a bit too many of you left. In such a case, the rules say preliminaries can be used to cut down on the number of contestants. As Hokage-sama said, numerous esteemed guests will spectate the tournament. We don't want them to sit there for hours on end."

The information obviously didn't sit well with Hitomi's peers, just as she had expected. Shikamaru was grumbling in his shadow of a beard – he'd have to learn how to shave very soon, no doubt about it – and she heard Tenten mutter something several ranks to her left. At least, the girl thought with a grim smile, her friends had been granted time to rest. They were all in good shape, as good as they could be so close after the debacle of violence the Forest of Death had been. They could fight. Each day, she had made sure to give chakra to the seal that blocked the Cursed Seal, fixing its ink when necessary as well, and she had done the same for Naruto's tampered jinchūriki seal.

"Now, those who feel they can't fight right now, and the ones who simply prefer to stop here, you have to decide right now. The preliminaries will start in a moment."

"Err… I abandon!" Kabuto's voice sounded loud and clear in the silence that united the other Genin. Hitomi slightly turned her head to watch him without looking like she was. He seemed at the end of his rope, leaves still stuck in his ponytail, his clothes torn in some places, scratches and cuts on his face and arms. Oh, he was good. She saw him exchange a brief look with the only person she had carefully ignored since Anko had gathered them in front of the stage. Orochimaru, disguised as an Otojin Jōnin. She didn't get how no one saw through it, especially the adults standing so close to him. Maybe they thought it would be too obvious. Hitomi didn't want anything more than to scream for her mother to step away from him.

"Yakushi Kabuto from Konoha, right?" Anko said, checking a list. "You can go."

The young man left the room, no one crying over his departure. Hitomi felt a fierce joy in the idea that he hadn't had an occasion to grow close to Naruto – that way, when his true allegiance would be unveiled, her brother wouldn't suffer.

"No one else?" Hayate called. "I forgot to say; you're going to fight in single combat. Raise your hand if you want to go."

Nobody moved. All were ready to fight, even Hitomi despite her criticism of the propaganda orchestrated by Hiruzen. She understood that propaganda was necessary, but she only had distaste for the way it was done here, without patience nor subtlety. That minor inconvenience didn't stop her from wanting to prove herself – but maybe not to the same people as her friends did. It was Kakashi, and the report he'd give Ensui, that mattered.

"Well, since you all decided to continue, let me explain the preliminaries. You will fight in single combat, in real fighting conditions. The winner moves to the third stage, the loser is eliminated. Since you're seventeen, it's going to be eight fights, and one lucky person will automatically advance to the third stage. No techniques or stratagems are out for these fights. They end when one of the two shinobi dies, passes out or admits defeat. If you don't wish to die, I heavily advise you to promptly acknowledge defeat. If I judge that the end of a fight is obvious, I can interrupt it, since we don't want a pile of corpses at the end of this. And now, to know where your destiny lays…"

In the noise of a well-maintained mechanism, a wooden panel between the two balconies that would later allow the Genin to watch the fights slid up to unveil a huge screen. Hitomi's heart missed a beat then quickened in her chest as she put a hand on her tantō's guard.

"Look at that screen. Two random names will appear for each fight. With no more delay, I call upon the first pair."

For a few seconds, the screen stayed blank and then, suddenly, two names appeared. Yūhi Hitomi vs. Nara Shikamaru. The two cousins' eyes met. He tensed, opened his lips – she was quicker. "I yield!"

"Hitomi!" Naruto yelled.

"No. I refuse to fight Shikamaru. I yield."

"Are you sure?" the proctor asked.

"Certain."

"Okay… You can go up with the others, both of you, in that case. The ones who are called now, you stay, and the others go up to the balconies. Your Jōnin-sensei will join you there soon."

The girl nodded, her expression sombre. In her mind, the voice groaned in unhappiness. It was one of the reasons she had forfeited. She wasn't sure she could control that new, terrifying power. Anyway, if she had fought against Shikamaru, she would have forced him to show the wide variety of his techniques. He could still have beaten her, if he had decided it was worth the effort; he was an excellent strategist, far better than she was. But when she fought seriously, she was clever, vicious, even with him. She preferred for him to keep his advantage for the tournament to come.

When she thought about it, she had to admit that that choice – she doubted it was as random as Hayate pretended it was – from the examiners made sense. The higher ups wanted to prepare a great show for their future guests. Few people knew the full extent of her skills, but it was public knowledge that she was part of the Nara clan and trained in their way – Shikaku, like all the other clan leaders, had to report such things to the village's archives.

The second fight popped on the screen. It would oppose, like in the canon, Sasuke and Yoroi, one of Orochimaru's plants in the exam and Kabuto's teammate. Hitomi didn't doubt the outcome of that fight for a moment. With his Cursed Seal limited and three days to rest, Sasuke wasn't too far from his top shape. His eyes were proud, full of determination. He stepped towards his opponent as all the other Genin went to the stairs, like Gekko Hayate had ordered them to.

Hitomi leaned against the railing, her features darkened by a feeling she didn't quite understand yet. She knew her choice had been the correct one, she had done it without the slightest hesitation, would do it a thousand times over if necessary. She wanted Shikamaru to get promoted. He stepped to her right, Naruto next to him, and Gaara leaned to her left. She closed her eyes for a moment, allowing her meridians to open and seek meagre comfort in the presence of her friends' chakra around her.

"Yo!" Kakashi greeted behind her.

"Sensei! See how far we got?"

"Of course, Naruto-kun and I'm very proud of you three. I heard you had it rough?"

Hitomi grumbled, still looking down. "Orochimaru. Fucking Orochimaru."

"Yeah, I heard… You're lucky you're still alive."

"He didn't want to kill us," Hitomi asserted, her voice hard and bitter. "If he'd wanted that, we'd be dead, all three of us, without a doubt. We couldn't do anything against him, he was too strong. We weren't… We couldn't… We weren't a match for him."

"If you'd been strong enough to resist a Sannin, Hitomi-chan, you'd have been promoted years ago, far before you were ready for all that implies."

She turned her head and met his eye. She understood what he meant by that – it had happened to him, and she knew, better than any of her friends, how heavy the consequences of his past were for him.

"Anyway… Do you know what he wanted? Did he say?"

"Sasuke. He wanted Sasuke, sensei. He marked him with a corporal seal that I… I don't understand much of this seal, but what I understood in the forest worried me, so I decided to add one of my own seals, a normal one of course, to block it. It's only temporary. He'll need you to do something more permanent about it."

"I see…"

"That's not all, sensei. He attacked Naruto too. He did something to his seal, something that deeply disturbs the flow of chakra in his body. I managed to limit the damage but, once again, it's temporary."

"I'll get him help for it then. What about you, Hitomi-chan? Are you okay?"

"I do not matter, sensei," she answered, her voice drier than she'd wanted it, as she looked down again.

Below, the fight had just started between Sasuke and Yoroi. The young Uchiha had used the classic opening move for his clan, the Great Fireball Technique. Hitomi couldn't remember one time, even in the canon, when that technique had actually done something – it was too slow, too easy to dodge – but couldn't deny it was intimidating. Even from where she stood, she noticed the sudden tension in Yoroi's posture.

The two fighters seemed to have equivalent speed, but Sasuke was clearly more aggressive, be it in his technique choices or the way he moved, his dodging always followed by brutal retaliations that often landed. Despite that, the slightest brush of Yoroi's hands on the young Uchiha was stealing a bit of his chakra, a low, determined and unfortunately very risky drain, thanks to the Cursed Seal. Sasuke had to land a decisive hit as soon as he could.

Despite the distance, Hitomi felt the Sharingan activating and let out an encouraging exclamation, followed by Naruto and, a moment later, the other Konohajin Genin. Now, Sasuke dodged Yoroi's jabs without getting even brushed against, but the strain on his chakra reserves was constant, even if it wasn't as demanding as it was for Kakashi, whose body hadn't been genetically adapted to dōjutsu before he received his transplantation.

Suddenly, he moved and something whistled through the air with a little mat sound to finish. Ninja wire war cutting the arena in half, the two extremities stuck in the walls by kunai. Before Yoroi could react, the Uchiha moved again, three times more, each time reducing his opponent's space a bit further. When Yoroi attempted to cut a wire, he was pushed away from it with a Fire Release technique, which forced him to stay in the centre of the little space he had left.

With a darkly satisfied smile, Hitomi relaxed against the railing. Sasuke had won. She could see a dozen of ways he could end that fight now and he, in the eye of the storm, could probably see an even larger array of possibilities. For the time being, the teenage boy was content enough with meticulously trapping his opponent, one wire after the other, until they formed a complex and unavoidable web. Only then did he put a hand on one of the wires, pouring his chakra inside. It turned to flames that were crawling towards Yoroi, growing fiercer and faster by the second.

"If I continue this technique, you'll be burned alive," the Uchiha stated. "Yield."

Despite the black sunglasses and all the fabric hiding his face, Yoroi's hatred was almost tangible. For several long seconds, he stayed there, glaring at Sasuke, until he realised the annoying brat in front of him wouldn't back down. "I yield," he growled.

The watching Genin cheered their friend's victory, Naruto undoubtedly leading. He was probably exalted to see his brother win without any difficulty; Hitomi didn't doubt that he'd win his own match too, when it would come. She was particularly satisfied by the fact that Sasuke had only shown a small part of his skills. He hadn't touched his sword, hadn't used genjutsu or even taijutsu. The medics went to fetch Yoroi, who had been cut in several places with the wire and burned when he hadn't dodged some techniques quickly enough.

Suddenly, Kakashi grabbed Hitomi's arm and, before she could react, she found herself down, next to her brother, the Jōnin's Shunshin having taken her in. She stumbled then grinned at Sasuke, so infinitely proud of him, as Hayate, Anko and Ibiki were unpinning the wires and kunai to prepare the arena for the next fight.

Medics stepped towards the young Uchiha, but Kakashi stopped them with a look. "He doesn't need your help right now. I'm his sensei, and I'm going to take care of him with his elder sister. If we have a problem, I'll send a clone to fetch you." Based on his hard tone, Hitomi understood he wasn't so fond of the medic corps. Was it because they reminded him too much of his former teammate? In his place, she would struggle just as much if each visit to the hospital reminded her of people she had lost. She put a hand on Sasuke's arm and pressed it gently, as if to make sure he was there, healthy, alive. When they left the room where the fights were occurring, Shino and Chōji had just been called for the next fight.

Kakashi took them underground, hopping down the stairs while the two teenagers almost had to run to keep up the pace, until they reached a deserted wide circular roomt. A smaller circle of pillars supported the ceiling, each a meter away from the wall and from each other. Torches were hanging on the walls between each pair of pillars; the teacher lighted them up with fire chakra, until the whole room benefited from an orange, steady light.

"Sasuke-kun," the sensei ordered, "go sit in the exact centre of the circle of pillars and take off your coat and shirt. Hitomi-chan, you stay with me. My peers would agree on the fact that you're far too young to learn the basis of corporal seals, but I think you can handle it and I'm not about to waste a perfect teaching opportunity with useless carefulness."

The girl nodded, her expression serious and enthusiastic at the same time. She was always eager to progress, and the possibilities opened by corporal seals made her dizzy. They had been considered an aberration for a long time, forbidden to all but the Seal Masters themselves because of the sheer danger they represented. The best of them, the ones that had made Hokage the Fourth look like an amateur, could, according to legend, kill with a brush of their fingertips, mixing corporal and contact seals in a macabre masterpiece.

Since then, necessity had made the law bend. The Masters had grown rarer and rarer, killed one by one in unending conflicts that had stretched their skills thin. The fact that their knowledge had survived time and massacres was a miracle. It wasn't without cause that the only country to have any active Seal Master at all was the Land of Fire, with Jiraiya. Tsunade was a more complicated affair.

"In general," Kakashi started in a self-assured voice, "corporal seals require blood. When it's not the case, then it's a special ink that you have to infuse with chakra and leave to mature for months before you can use it – not many people use that option, but you will always have at least a litter of that ink in your storage seals just in case blood isn't an option. For some seals, a mix of the two is necessary. As for the Evil Sealing Method, you use the blood of the drawer but, sometimes, just like for the Cursed Seal, the blood of the recipient is needed."

She nodded, her eyes already gleaming with avidity. Ensui had told Kakashi about that look, about the way it made something between his ribs clench, and the teacher had to admit that his elder was right. He had to hide Hitomi's talent with seals at all costs if he didn't want Danzō to appear one day in her room to kill her; or take her away if he still thought he could manipulate her, bend her, shape her.

The student, unaware of her sensei's worries, watched the way he sliced his palm open and folded his thumb, ring finger and pinkie on the wound to control the flow of blood. With his middle and index fingers, he started drawing the seal on Sasuke's torso and back. The boy sat perfectly still where he had been ordered to, the long strokes of blood running over his upper body then on the ground, to the pillars where Hitomi felt a strange force buzzing.

Drawing the seal took more than ten minutes, the Copy Nin working in silence as Hitomi memorised each and every one of his moves. Would she have the opportunity to work on this seal? It could still be useful, since Orochimaru wasn't going to drop dead the next minute. Her palms tingled with longing and she rubbed them against her obi, trying to muffle the feeling.

"Tomorrow, I'll come to see you with deer skin that has been prepared for you to practice a variety of corporal seals on them. You'll start with easier pieces, of course. You're very talented, but this one isn't for you quite yet. Besides, seeing that this field of fūinjutsu is dangerous in new hands, you will only be able to practice if I or Ensui-san are there to supervise and correct your mistakes. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sensei," she whispered with the faintest hint of disappointment.

She understood why he was taking such precautions, of course, but she was the student here, which meant she was allowed to pout. That didn't stop her from observing closely as Kakashi put the finishing touch on his seal, tracing beyond the pillars the external circle necessary to activate the seal. He hadn't used his Sharingan, and yet his circle was perfect. Hitomi wanted this level of mastery for herself. One day, she would have it, and far more beyond that.

"Are you ready, Sasuke? It's going to hurt. A lot."

The teenager groaned his understanding and the sensei formed several hand seals before slamming his other hand, the one that wasn't bleeding, against the seal. A shock of chakra and it activated. Long chains of characters retracting over the ground and his skin, leaving it painful and red. Sasuke clenched his teeth, but even that couldn't quite muffle his long moan of pain. His whole body was tense and hurting, until the moment Kakashi separated his hand from his shoulder, revealing the thin red chain that now surrounded the Cursed Seal. The characters weren't distinguishable anymore. It was an excellent compression work, far above anything Hitomi had used to create her Knockouts.

"If the curse tries to awaken, the seal will keep it restrained, but only as long as your will doesn't break. Your determination will allow it to hold strong enough to protect your mind against the effects of the Cursed Seal. If one day you stop believing in yourself, if your will flickers, the seal will break and the Curse will devour your mind."

The Uchiha heir barely had the time to nod before his eyes rolled in their orbits and he collapsed, unconscious. Hitomi immediately knelt next to him, checked his pulse then laid him as comfortably as she could on the ground, taking his coat to put it over his torso. She'd ask Kakashi to take him home, in his own bed, protected by the Nara guards who fiercely protected the clan lands, where he'd be sa…

"Hun hun.. I see seals no longer hold any secret for you two."

Pinching her lips together to swallow a curse, the girl jumped back on her feet, unsheathing her tantō, her face a mask of anger and determination. Her killing intent exploded in the room, thickening the air to the point of making it barely breathable – yet, Orochimaru, as he stepped in the light, didn't even seem to notice it. A rush of panic washed over her when she saw his face, his cruel eyes and avid smile. She remembered the terror and pain he had carved into her bones, her flesh, in the intimacy of her Library where no forgetfulness was allowed. She remembered, and hesitated between the desire to die and to kill, as if either of those options was even within her reach. Shaking, she forced herself to maintain her defensive stance despite the fear that creeped up inside her.