Chapter 19: Fight or Flight
…
Karin's presence in the village could only mean one thing. The Chunin Exams were due to start any day now. I kept waiting for Kakashi to drop the bomb on us, but the days crept by with no mention of it at all. Haku trained with Ebisu, even taking a few D-rank missions, while Kakashi trained Naruto and Sasuke. As for me, I received a notification that my application for the Full Medic Exam had been approved and that I was scheduled to take it in a week.
While I was fairly confident with what I knew, my experience in Wave was a stark reminder that there were areas of medicine that I had neglected in my studies, so I spent the days leading up to the exam in deep study, using my Sharingan to memorize every single medical text I could get my hands on. I even took advantage of the Shadow Clone jutsu to increase my study time and checked out large stacks of medical texts to study at home after hours.
It was only the day before the exam that Kakashi finally gave us the news: he'd nominated us for the Chunin Exam.
Naruto cheered, and even Sasuke gave a small smirk of anticipation.
"Of course, this is just a nomination," said Kakashi. "Whether or not you decide to take the exam is up to you. Those who wish to take it should sign those papers and turn them in at room 301 at 4pm tomorrow."
Tomorrow?
Oh, that was perfect!
"Um, Kakashi-sensei, there's a problem with the dates," I mumbled. "The Medic Exam begins tomorrow too, and it lasts for three days…"
I didn't really consider the overlap to be a problem at all, more like an unexpected bonus since it provided a ready-made excuse for me to skip the Chunin Exam. And Kakashi hadn't said explicitly that we needed to accept as a team, so Sasuke and Naruto wouldn't feel the need to pressure me into accepting.
"As a member of Team 7, you deserve an opportunity to decide which exam you would prefer to take," said Kakashi with an eye-smile.
Perfect.
"It's always been my dream to be a medic," I said, handing the paper back. "The Chunin Exam happens every six months, right? Can I try again then?"
"Of course," said Kakashi, taking the permission slip and tucking it into an inner pocket. "Okay, that's all for today. Later."
And he vanished in a burst of body flicker. Huh. Weird. With my refusal, he should have broken the news to Sasuke and Naruto that they wouldn't be participating either. Maybe he was trying to prevent them from pressuring me into it? Still, it was a little cruel to give them false hope.
Well, at any rate, that problem was solved.
…Or at least that's what I thought until I arrived home ten minutes later to find Haku contemplating a Chunin Exam permission slip.
"Welcome home, Sasuke-sama, Kiyo-sama," he said with a smile.
"That's for the Chunin Exam?" Sasuke asked, peering over Haku's shoulder.
"Ebisu-sensei nominated me," said Haku. "He says that I am more than skilled enough for the exam, and there may be an opening."
My blood ran cold.
But it made perfect sense, didn't it? The Chunin Exam was literally designed to monitor and contain foreign ninja. Not to mention it was the perfect testing ground to gauge Haku's abilities and display his strength to other villages. If Haku failed, it was proof that he wasn't a threat to the village. If he died, then he wasn't a threat to anyone. If he succeeded, then the Hokage looked benevolent for offering him opportunities for advancement.
Haku had already proven that he wasn't a threat to Sasuke and Naruto, so they were the perfect teammates. The only problem was that the exam was done in teams of three. To make it work, the Hokage just needed to get rid of me for a few days.
Was the Medic Exam usually scheduled at the same time as the Chunin Exam?
No, it wasn't.
I had to do something. If I agreed to attend the exam, Haku would be left out since he wouldn't have a team. I could intentionally fail the first test easily enough by raising my hand for the 10th question.
Oh, wait…
A heavy lump of dread lodged in the pit of my stomach.
Kakashi had taken my permission slip. And he hadn't told Naruto and Sasuke that they wouldn't be participating. He must have known about Haku. Had he already anticipated that I would want to take the exam to keep Haku out of danger?
But it was just a nomination, right? What if I talked him out of it?
"The exam will have powerful ninja from all over the Elemental Nations," I said. "It will be really dangerous."
Haku considered the paper and nodded.
"Yes, it will give me a chance to test my abilities without the need for killing," he said brightly. "I cannot be a useful tool of the Uchiha clan if I am weak."
"You're not a tool," I said. "Don't you want to pursue your own dream instead?"
For a brief moment, something like pain passed across Haku's face.
"I have no dream," he said. "Not yet. And until I find one, I can only do what I have always done. And that is to be a tool for the one who will have me. If I cannot be of use to you, I have nothing. I am nothing."
Haku slid out of his chair and knelt on the floor.
"Please allow me to take part in the Chunin Exam," he said.
No!
I opened my mouth, but Sasuke beat me to it.
"Sure," said Sasuke easily. "I want the chance to fight you, Haku. If we meet in battle, don't hold back."
Nooooooooooooooo!
"As you wish, Sasuke-sama," said Haku. "Please forgive me, Kiyo-sama. I know you wish to protect me, but this is the path I wish to take."
He had no idea where that path would lead.
Orochimaru.
Kabuto.
Gaara.
But I couldn't tell him any of that. It was supposed to be a simple exam for genin, not a staging ground for S-ranked ninja to prepare for war. Any attempt to deter him would sound like paranoid raving, and he'd already received permission from Sasuke, so my arguments were moot anyway.
I unhooked my medic pack, a new one since I'd given my first to Karin, and I held it out.
"Please take this," I said, as if it would matter against someone like Orochimaru. "I'll be sad if you're hurt, so don't be afraid to run away if things get bad, okay?"
Haku took the medic pack.
"Thank you, Kiyo-sama," he said.
I nodded, unable to speak, before retreating to my room.
…
The first day of the Full Medic Exam was easy enough. There were various written assessments including multiple choice tests, short answers, and essays. The chemistry, anatomy, and chakra sections were straight out of the textbooks. The unit on common diseases and treatments was probably the hardest part of the written exam, but although it took a bit of extra analysis, I still felt confident in all of my answers.
That evening Sasuke and Haku returned home in high spirits having passed the first exam. They filled me in on the events of the afternoon, which went exactly as I expected between the hallway genjutsu, the fight between Sasuke and Lee, and the confrontation with the Sound ninja. The actual test turned out a little different, though, with Haku figuring out the true nature of the test and using his mirrors and speed to both locate the answers and pass them on to Naruto.
It was a clever application of his jutsu and further proof that Haku was far beyond the level of a genin. Of course, this particular exam was filled with many similar prodigies and was more dangerous because of it. The only 'safe' part of the exam was now over. Everything from this point forward would be a battle for survival.
The next morning, I gave Sasuke an extra-long hug before heading to the hospital. I was starkly aware that he would soon fight Orochimaru and receive his curse mark. I had to believe that he would survive, that everything would work out just fine. But I couldn't dispel the knot of lingering dread and the knife-edge of guilt I felt for letting him go.
I wanted to scream at him to run, run, run and never look back. But that wouldn't help him. Sasuke, for all his talent, was still just a genin. He wouldn't be able to evade Orochimaru for long. Konoha was still the closest thing he had to safety, and it was the only place he'd be able to receive treatment for the curse mark.
With great effort, I pushed aside my fears and focused on the lab portion of the medic exam where we were put in a room and told to synthesize ten different medicines. This portion was open-book, so the real test was around time management and knowledge of the equipment. I was already familiar with most of the machines, glassware, and instruments thanks to my time in the Uchiha clinic, but I still spent a sweat-inducing amount of time trying to figure out an unfamiliar spectrometer. I managed to produce the medicines just in time, though I didn't have the chance to test for purity on the last one.
That night, I lay awake, wondering if Sasuke, Naruto, and Haku would survive the night.
The next morning was the final day of the Full Medic Exam, and it was dedicated to practical healing. The participants were each assigned a cadaver marked with seals to mimic life-functions. It was supposed to take eight hours, but thanks to my 100% pure medical chakra, I was able to breeze through it in thirty minutes, a feat that baffled my examiner even as he told me I was free to go.
As I walked out of the testing center, I was surprised to see Kakashi leaning against a fence and reading his book. When I approached, he looked up and gave me an eye-smile.
"Done already?" he asked. "How did it go?"
"Ah, it was okay," I said cautiously. "Were you waiting for me?"
He was, obviously, but that wasn't really a Kakashi thing to do. He usually made other people wait for him. The fact that he was here already meant that he'd been prepared to wait for me all day if I hadn't finished early.
Kakashi snapped his book closed and began walking down the street. I fell into step beside him as we meandered toward our usual training ground.
"Sasuke and Naruto will be busy with the exam for the next few days, so I thought we could do a bit of one-on-one training," he said easily.
That made sense. It was a perfectly plausible explanation. But it still felt off somehow. I squinted at him, but he was an elite jounin and gave nothing away.
"Did something happen?" I asked. I didn't need to. I knew. "Is Nii-chan alright?"
"I'm sure he'll be fine," said Kakashi. "But there has been a development with the situation surrounding the exam. I'll be looking after you until it's been resolved."
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat.
"…Oh," I mumbled.
Kakashi rubbed the back of his neck.
"It's not the person you're thinking," he said. I looked up in surprise. How did Kakashi…? "It's a former Konoha ninja by the name of Orochimaru."
I blinked in confusion, but then it clicked.
Kakashi thought I was worried about Itachi.
"He targeted Sasuke in the Forest of Death," Kakashi continued. "It seems he might be interested in the Sharingan, which is why I'll be training you. We'll need to work on building up your stamina and speed. Have you ever heard of using the body flicker in combat?"
Well, I had a cousin who was known as 'Shisui of the Body Flicker', who occasionally used his talent to show off and play tricks on me, so…
"Yes," I said.
Technically all ninja already knew the Body Flicker since it was an integral part of the replacement jutsu, which was one of the Academy standard techniques. But that was a very limited D-rank application of a much more versatile skill. There were people like Shisui, the Raikage, and Minato who could use it to give themselves unmatched speed.
"Great!" said Kakashi, clapping his hands. "In the field, a medic's most important role is to avoid injury. You'll need to know how to escape from a more powerful enemy."
True…but was that it?
Teaching me combat applications for the body flicker was…fair. But it also wasn't. Learning the body flicker wouldn't save me from Orochimaru unless I had someone like Kakashi to distract him while I ran away. And it sounded like that was the plan.
Sure, there were methods of using the body flicker as an offensive technique. Shisui had turned it into something of legend, but he was also a close-range fighter with a Mangekyo Sharingan. The Raikage and Minato were…well, Kage. People didn't generally specialize in speed unless they had something else to back it up. Like taijutsu. Getting somewhere faster wasn't very useful if you couldn't do anything when you arrived.
And my taijutsu was abysmal.
Worse than Naruto's.
Besides that, Shisui had never really explained how his body flicker clone technique was done. The basic technique was simply using chakra to enhance muscles and move really fast, but he had perfected it to resemble Haku's mirror trick without the limitation of the mirrors. The fact that he could mimic a blood limit user's strongest attack using only a basic technique was incredible.
…And something I was unlikely to replicate in a few days from a teacher that probably didn't know how to do it at that level either.
I needed something else.
Something more.
"Did the Fourth Hokage ever show you how to perform the Hiraishin?" I asked.
Kakashi had been right to suggest a movement skill for me to learn, but while body flicker would undoubtedly be useful, Minato's technique was both much more advanced and much more likely to guarantee escape since not even a Sanin could keep up with literal teleportation.
Kakashi scratched his chin over his mask.
"That's an S-rank space-time ninjutsu," he cautioned. "It's only been fully mastered by two people: the Second and Fourth Hokages."
That wasn't a no!
"But you have seen it, right?" I asked.
Kakashi shrugged.
"It is not something that can be copied by the Sharingan," he said. I deflated a bit. But, yeah, the Sharingan couldn't copy everything, even though it came close. And if Kakashi could use it, he would. It was such a fantastically useful technique that no one would pass it up. "Although…there might be someone here who can help you."
Kakashi took a side alley, moving away from our normal training field.
"Who?" I asked. "I thought you said that only the Second and Fourth Hokages had mastered it."
Kakashi gave me an eye-smile as we arrived at a private training field where three men were sparing.
"Fully mastered," Kakashi corrected as he raised his hand in greeting. "Yo, Genma!"
The three men stopped sparring as we ambled over to meet them.
"Kakashi, what brings you here?" said the man wearing a bandana. As he spoke, he placed a senbon between his teeth and regarded me with curiosity. "Is this one of your genin? Isn't she a little young? I thought the Hokage set the minimum graduation age to 12 a few years ago."
"I am twelve," I objected.
Genma's bemused expression was worth my momentary embarrassment.
"This is Uchiha Kiyo," said Kakashi, placing his hand on my head. "Kiyo, these are Shiranui Genma, Namiashi Raido, and Tatami Iwashi. They're the Fourth Hokage's elite guards, and together, they're able to perform the Hiraishin."
Genma laughed.
"So another hopeful genin here to have their spirit crushed?" he asked with a grin. "Sorry, kid, but the Sharingan won't help you with this particular jutsu. Plenty of Uchiha have tried. Plenty of non-Uchiha too, but the only people to fully master the jutsu were the Second and Fourth Hokages. Even the three of us need to work together to perform it, and we're all special jounin."
"Ah, yes, that's what Kakashi-sensei was telling me," I said, flushing red. Maybe it was just a little bit arrogant for me to think that I could master such a jutsu. "I'd still like to give it a try…if that's alright?"
I didn't want to waste their time, but I wasn't about to pass up a chance to see it in action either.
"Sure, why not?" said Genma, which was a pretty cavalier attitude to have for such a powerful technique.
Then again, a demonstration wouldn't matter much if no one else ever managed to learn it. It was probably easier to just show trainees the difficulty of the jutsu rather than try to talk them out of it.
"The Hiraishin jutsu is composed of two parts: the jutsu formula and the activation technique," said Genma, his voice shifting into the easy cadence of a practiced spiel.
He knelt and pressed his palm flat against the ground. His chakra twisted, and I activated my Sharingan in time to see him plant the formula. When he raised his hand, the kanjis for "Endurance Love of Sword" were printed on the dirt in raw chakra.
"The user marks a target with a jutsu formula and uses a dimensional void to teleport to the location of the formula," Genma continued. "This is the Fourth Hokage's formula. And this is the one developed by the Second Hokage."
He placed his hand down again and this time planted a formula displaying two concentric circles with branching lines.
"There is no limit to the number of formulas a user can apply and there is no known limit to the distance that can be traveled," said Genma. "The Second Hokage used a technique called the Hiraishin Slash. He would teleport to his opponent and perform a sudden, unexpected attack. The Fourth Hokage developed a variation called Hiraishin: Guiding Thunder which creates a barrier in front of the caster and redirects the attack to a different location."
I nodded. That was a good summation of what I already knew.
"We are able to perform a cooperative version of the Hiraishin: Guiding Thunder jutsu," said Genma, and the three men surrounded me, placing their hands together in seals of confrontation. "We are able to teleport ourselves and anything contained within the confines of this ring to any Hiraishin jutsu formula. Are you ready for your demonstration?"
I focused my chakra sense on all three of them, concentrating on exactly how their chakra felt and moved.
"Yes, I'm ready," I said.
As one, Genma, Raido, and Iwashi activated the technique. Their chakra blended seamlessly, Raido providing the power and infusing it through all four of us while Genma folded the chakra into a nearly incomprehensible form and Iwashi shaped a barrier to contain it.
The world shifted and suddenly we were standing in an unfamiliar training field. On the ground at my feet was a three-pronged kunai with Minato's jutsu formula. Huh, so it was pure shape-transformation. It didn't rely on hand signs or chakra natures at all. So that's why it couldn't be copied with the Sharingan. And what a shape-transformation it was! I'd practiced chakra control exercises since I was a child, but this was on an entirely different level.
"Oh, wow, you shaped you chakra into a…a…!" I said, trying to wrap my head around it. A tesseract? No, what was the spherical version of a tesseract? A Hypersphere. Yes, that.
Oh! The concentric circles with the branching lines!
And suddenly I felt silly for not realizing it sooner.
Tobirama had drawn it right there in plain sight.
"Each formula is a point on the hypersphere and connects to every other point," I said aloud, trying to order my whirling thoughts into something coherent, my mind buzzing with the sheer impossibility of it all. "And a hypersphere has infinite points allowing for infinite jutsu formulas to be created!"
But that didn't help with how the shape was formed, but then I realized that I was thinking of chakra in entirely the wrong way. While most jutsu focused on taking chakra and making something physical out of it, chakra was fundamentally energy and shared more in common with photons than particles. If I thought about it like bending light and waves, that made it easier to picture how it could be manipulated in higher dimensions.
"It's related to the fundamental principles behind barriers and storage scrolls, isn't it?" I asked. Huh, maybe that's where Tobirama got the idea to tie the target location to a formula. It was a bit like a summoning contract, actually, with the formula acting as the summoner.
"You're familiar with the science behind storage seals?" Genma asked, his brow raised. "Well, that's usually the first step in learning the jutsu, so you'll have a head-start at least."
Not just a head-start. The shape transformation was at least 1000x more difficult than any storage scroll, but having felt Genma perform it, I thought that maybe I might be able to manage it.
Maybe.
Oh, I had to try this.
First things first, I needed to create a jutsu formula. Since the exact shape of the jutsu formula didn't really matter, I could tweak it into something that made intuitive sense to me. I raised my hand and planted the formula on my palm by molding my chakra into a hypersphere, just as Genma had done. The formula appeared as a pair of concentric circles with the kanji for 'Light' in the center to represent the Hiraishin's similarity to photons. I imagined that Minato probably had his own reasons for using his chosen words, though I couldn't even begin to fathom what those reasons might have been.
I then picked up a stone from the ground in my other hand and infused it with chakra before molding my chakra into the same hypersphere shape. Since I was only trying to teleport a single object, I didn't need the barrier Iwashi had made, so that was one less step to worry about.
The stone vanished from one hand and reappeared in the other, right on top of my jutsu formula.
When I looked up, it was to see Genma, Raido, and Iwashi staring at me with utter bafflement. The senbon fell from between Genma's teeth.
"So, like that?" I asked.
"Dammit, Kakashi," Raido muttered under his breath.
And I suddenly wondered if they would have been so quick to provide a demonstration if they thought I might actually learn it. Probably not.
"Okay, I'm gonna stop you right there," said Genma, crouching down to my level. He fished through his pack and pulled out…an apple? "It looks like you've figured out the shape transformation. But there's more to it than that. I too am able to make the shape, but you'll notice that I can't perform the jutsu alone. Because when I try, this happens…"
Genma infused his chakra into the apple and performed the Hiraishin. The apple appeared beside Minato's kunai. I frowned.
"But, it worked?" I asked, staring at the apple.
Genma gave me a wry look and went to pick it up.
It dissolved into mush at his touch.
"Oh," I said.
"Yep," said Genma. "If your chakra is not perfectly infused in the object you're teleporting, it will be torn apart on a cellular level."
So even the tiniest mistake would likely be fatal.
It was a good thing I'd decided to start by teleporting a stone rather than, you know, myself.
I shuddered, and Genma laughed.
"Don't worry," he said, clapping his hand on my shoulder. "The stone made it in one piece, so your control must be pretty good already."
I nodded.
"I have 100% control," I said.
That was likely the greatest limiting factor for who could perform the jutsu since 100% control was so rare outside of medical ninjutsu and genjutsu specialists.
"Let's test it out, then," said Genma, producing a second apple from his bag and handing it to me.
I took it and carefully infused it with my chakra before performing the Hiraishin. It appeared in my other hand looking perfectly normal, but when I squeezed it, dozens of small tears appeared in the skin.
Iwashi whistled.
"Not bad," said Raido.
"We'll start you off with water balloons," said Genma. "When you can teleport a soap bubble without bursting it, we'll know you're ready to move onto living subjects like fish. After that, you'll be free to attempt it on yourself and others."
And with that, they surrounded me to Hiraishin us all back to the original training field where Kakashi was still waiting. Genma immediately approached Kakashi and threw his arm around Kakashi's shoulder. Genma's grin was fixed, and he was bleeding Killing Intent, but Kakashi didn't seem bothered by it, not even when Genma leaned in close to mutter something.
"Did she really?" Kakashi asked, sounding delighted. "Well, she is my student, after all."
Genma's expression became positively murderous.
Yeah, there was absolutely no way they would have shown me this jutsu if they thought I would actually learn it. It was probably a Forbidden Jutsu, and it was definitely not something meant to be handed down to a genin.
But now that I knew it, they couldn't take it back.
I turned to Iwashi.
"So…um, do you have any water balloons?"
…
A/N: Kiyo finally gets her first OP jutsu! I'm trying to keep her overall power level in line with Sasuke and Naruto, so this powerup should be roughly equal to Sasuke's curse mark and Naruto's toad summons.
