"I'm really proud of you guys, somehow you've managed to avoid elimination without me," Kiyomi smiled while leaning at Naruto who, knowing full-well that this portrayed niceness of his team leader couldn't have led to anything positive for him, looked wary.
"You're lucky that the staff didn't count your fainting as "getting hurt" and we didn't get eliminated because of it." Meiko crossed her arms.
"Why would they, nothing got hurt…" Kiyomi shrugged with a healthy blush to her cheeks, stemming from the background that caused her blackout.
"Except your pride and your rep as a team leader, you know," Naruto squinted at the blonde. "I've never even seen Sexy Jutsu working on any girls, I didn't even modify it in any way. It did give me some ideas though…"
"Now who's the perverted one!" Kiyomi flared firestorms from her mad eyes back at Naruto, the two clashed glares. Meiko sighed. Somehow she had managed to not get into the middle of their team's little feud despite usually being the most out of the loop and vigorous of the bunch she found herself in.
"What a ripoff that last challenge… So much time wasted, so many people lost over just one cube…" Kiyomi extended her hand, allowing three cubes to form in her hand, playfully rotating around one another in harmony as if some supernatural force dictated their default, floaty behavior. Once the Yamanaka closed her fist, the cubes dispersed into a blizzard of smaller, dust-sized cubes.
"That's how all challenges are going to work. No matter how many cubes we or any other team has, we can only gain one." Meiko sighed while looking up and at a curious collection of glass containers with freaky mannequins inside. Whatever this scene from a horror movie was, it would be the essential ingredient of their next challenge.
All eight of the mannequins were standing in different, wild poses inside glass cages. The rightmost one was a tall and plump humanoid figure with reptilian head and slithering tongue, a ground-reaching bunch of red-hair that was going absolutely berserk without much input from her mistress and at least six visible arms while malformed faces stretched all over the reptilian woman's body. The woman donned a dress that refused to cover her upper front, not that it was any cause for that much embarrassment as the woman's chest appeared elevated though lacked any profound sexual features to it, manifesting itself a pair of lifeless lumps without the usual elegance and flair of the feminine forms.
The second one was perhaps genderless, its entire body was that of a stiff cobra snake with vague humanoid shapes and extended hands making up the creature's neck ribs. Instead of the impressive ribbon that the king of venomous snakes would have possessed, a pair of gaunt and half-rotten hands extended from the side with cloth tissue for sleeves torn, burnt up and dirty frozen in mid-motion.
The third one stood as an ordinary, attractive woman up until her neck, from which point on her face refused to obtain any signature features of an ordinary human, opting instead for a round and oversized mouth and teeth too moldy, noxious and few to nibble on its desired food category, the only category that frightening nightmare-fuel such as those plastic entities could have eaten.
The fourth was one with normal facial features for once, sadly, those features were located all across its core as it was missing its head. Instead of a loincloth to cover up the plastic and non-existent extremities, there were long and greasy strands of hair that were on the wrong body area to be categorized as "facial hair" even if their purpose likely matched that of a beard. As if these curious features weren't enough, the fourth mannequin also had its mouth shaped into an unnatural and content smile with lines of teeth that meshed about as well with one another as teeth pulled from entirely different men and women might have for they were of different colors, age, health and some of the teeth did not belong in their present location given the basic knowledge of human anatomy.
The appearance of the fifth threat, if that was indeed what these entities were, could not have been made out because of the massive amount of mold present in the area, covering the entire glass cage in black taint except for the vague traces of a skull, similarly molded and present on a stand of unrecognizable nature inside the glass cage.
The sixth one was almost as blurry and hard to read into, except for the fact that his glass cage was perfectly clear and despite being made of plastic, like its peers, and put together with screws, tightening the pieces together, he was dyed or molded to be about as tough to perceive for his entire body was of shade of black that almost reminded the observer of a different color the more time they spent staring and trying to make something out of it. Its head was the most perceivable thing about it and it looked like an ancient, golden helmet, complete with a hole-filled visor.
The seventh one would have appeared human, had it not been for the fact that he was hunched over and his body twisted upward from the waist up by full one-eighty degrees and stared up at the glassy ceiling of his glass cage. The rather ordinary clothes that this particular mannequin wore were torn where the anything but ordinary bodily distortion had taken the figure.
The eight one was a man. A man of no particular special features except for the hair that was messy and unkempt however not outside the realm of possibility for an actual, untidy individual to adopt. His face was not the most pleasant to look at, due to lack of maintenance and yet it was not unusual in the sense that it did not appear like something out of somebody's worst kind of trip, like its peers. The eight one looked like a mannequin the designer of which specifically chose it to be unattractive and ill-fit to show off new and fashionable clothes.
Not that the rest fit that purpose either…
"So… What's with this freakshow, you know?" Naruto pouted while giving the third mannequin a case of a mean-eye.
"Hmm, this couldn't possibly be just about besting these puppets. These tests are meant to be more of the mental variety and not about one's combat ability." Kiyomi scratched the back of her head. For some reason her absence during the last challenge and her failure during the first one made her want to stand out in the current one.
"Puppets? Is that what these are?" Meiko gave each of them a curious eye, trying to turn and twist her head in various, sometimes even painful-looking, angles to better comprehend the possible artistic messages that were meant to be taken but judging from her hearty sigh and sad eyes after that venture – she got nothing out of her visual quest for enlightenment.
The wall behind Team Hokage flickered and opened up, allowing another team to enter not too long after them.
"Huh? You guys?" Naruto leaned forward, possibly because of weakness in his belly area after seeing all too familiar shapes in the not too distant range from him entering from the other room.
"It's funny how randomness works out sometimes, huh?" Kiba snickered, rubbing his nose with the middle of his index finger. Akamaru, easily half the young man's size barked beside his partner. Sometimes he just did that for no apparent reason, as if just trying to prove like it was taking part in the conversation which, of course, he wasn't, due to his canine upbringing.
"Wait… You're the same Kiba, Hinata, and Shino from the chess game, right? You're wearing the same clothes, you know." Naruto scratched his chin before smacking his forehead a bunch of times for all this thinking of alternate timelines and when exactly these particular versions might have hailed from confused him.
"Indeed. Why? Because there are only one version of each of us from every particular timeline. There are multiple Shino here but each of them is different. How? There is, for example, only one of Shino from the Konoha-Sunagakure Joint Chuunin Exams." Shino pondered both to himself as well as those interested enough to hear what he was saying out loud.
"Yes… Unlike Naruto-kun… There can only be two different versions of us," Hinata added, "We've only taken a pair of Chuunin Exams after all."
"Heh, although… Who knows when this Naruto's from, he might have been still on his training trip with Jiraiya or he might have been from ten years ahead and still a wee-bit genin…" Kiba taunted Naruto with a friendly gesture with his hands, depicting just the exact amount of "wee-bit genin" that Naruto was with his fingers.
Before Naruto could deliver his anger-driven retort, the image on the screen flashed and Morino Ibiki's face appeared on it in full close-up mode. Despite questionable video quality, the sheer closeness of the camera taking the picture portrayed the man so well that even Meiko might have transformed into him replicating every scar and every blemish he had.
"Welcome, Team Kurenai of Konohagakure, Team Hokage of Konohagakure. Welcome to your next challenge – The Who-Dun-Did-It-N-Who-Dun-Doin'-It," Morino declared the name of the challenge, which was a unique feature of the challenge all of its own, with only a slight hint at the embarrassment of speaking such buffoonery out loud.
"The engineer of this challenge was a flamboyant personality, why? Because not only did they name their masterpiece but they also did so very badly." Shino noted as a gleam of light reflected off of his shades.
"Yeah, but not in the "Oh, it's so very bad" kind of way, more in a "it seemed right when it was written down to a very specific kind of person but not when other people are reading it out loud" kind of way…" Kiba agreed with his teammate.
"The name does, however, give a few ideas as to what the challenge is." Kiyomi noticed. "We will have to pick the correct one out of these eight, right?"
"Correct," Ibiki nodded. "In these glass cages, you have eight remarkable puppets. They are entirely artificial and masterminded by the Master Cube around you. It is up to you to pick a figure, taking turns, the team that picks the right one moves on, the loser team is eliminated."
"There is no way that you are telling us everything. Why? Because the staff would never leave it up to a game of chance to decide over the contestant teams." Shino said.
"Right again," Ibiki confirmed, "Every time you will pick the wrong puppet, the lights will go out and the killer puppet will strike, eliminating a random person in the room."
"Eliminating?" Meiko took a step forward. Her eyes looked worried and rightfully so.
"That's the "it" in "Who dun did it", isn't it?" Ibiki smirked. "One of these puppets is a killer, you need to press the button on the panel by its glass cage to incinerate it. Eliminate the killer puppet and move on to the next round, simple as that. Oh, and one more thing, if either team has two out of three members killed, they are eliminated from the challenge as well."
The screen flashing and flickering with Ibiki's face shut down and despite there being six people, not counting Akamaru, in that room, both Team Hokage and Team Kurenai looked like they've never felt more alone and exposed.
"One thing's for certain," Kiyomi closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. "They're not killing us for real. I wonder if the killer puppet will even lay a finger on us."
"Th-That's a relief…" Hinata breathed out easier, speaking in a weak and high-pitched voice. "I was wondering the same thing. If both of us think that way… Maybe that's the case…"
"Yeah… This just isn't that kind of a challenge," Meiko nodded in agreement. "They went out of their way to sanitize that chess game from violence as much as possible. These challenges are tests of the way we think. The tests of strength, toughness and combat ability will come later."
"So then… How do we pick them? Ibiki said this wouldn't be a game of chance but… From the way I see it, it kind of is." Kiba shrugged while sharing a look with Akamaru who barked in response.
"I see… Naruto, would you please pick one puppet and incinerate it, completely at random?" Kiyomi instructed her teammate who just crossed his arms and squinted at the blonde with suspicion.
"W-Wait a second…" Hinata butt two of her fingers against one another. "W-Why are you going first?"
Kiba and Shino looked at Hinata for a good handful of seconds before Shino turned to Kiyomi. His expression was impossible to perceive from the way he was hiding his eyes underneath those shades and his lower jaw behind the high collar of his jacket.
"You should forgive us but we are in agreement with Hinata, why? Because she is rarely confrontational, meaning that when she does choose to confront somebody, it is for good reason." Shino elaborated.
"Fine. It makes no difference who chooses first. The ones being killed will be random either way. The only thing that matters is picking the right puppet, that's the only way to the next challenge." Kiyomi shrugged.
The Yamanaka closed her eyes and focused, establishing a mental link between her teammates. This was essential, given how she needed to relay what she knew in case she was the one getting the short straw and the killer puppet decided to snap her neck first.
"The key is in the clues that the killer leaves behind," the Yamanaka heiress relayed to Naruto and Meiko. "These puppets have very distinctive, unnatural features. The only way this would not be a game of chance would be if the killer puppet kills in a way only it can, using varied methods on each kills. After a few kills, even an idiot should be able to narrow it down."
"I see… That's why they've established the two-strikes-you're-out rule. If you can't figure it out by then, you shouldn't proceed further either way." Meiko nodded a couple of times in affirmation. Given how she did not speak at all while doing so, the three must have looked quite odd to Team Kurenai, however, Team Hokage was lucky that their opponents were focused on the puppets, having chosen to go at it first.
"Hmmm… So not only does this game not favor luck but also goes out of the way to eliminate the concept of getting lucky or any hopes on relying on sheer luck altogether, you know…" Naruto relayed on the mental link while rubbing his chin. As usual per unfamiliar users of the mental link, he tended to exaggerate his thoughts and focus too hard on them, resulting in it appearing as if he yelled them out from the bottom of his lungs.
Regardless, Naruto's current use of the mental link was leagues ahead of how it was the first time he was introduced to it. It was just that he was a tad slower than usual in getting the hang of it.
"Do you wish to go first?" Shino looked at Hinata.
"M-Me!? No!" Hinata shook her head.
"Yeah… I guess asking you to choose from eight different puppets and probably spell out doom for someone is a bit much, huh?" Kiba snickered while patting his teammate on the back. Hinata blushed and shriveled down with an embarrassed smile. The three weren't through thick and thin just yet, however, it felt like they knew each other and were ready to complement each other's skills and cover for their shortcomings perfectly.
"Alright, I'll go!" Kiba pointed at himself with his thumb while waltzing to the glasses and beginning to examine them a bit closer. "Let's see… The normal dude does stand out from the rest but… Nah, that's way too obvious… Or then maybe… That's what they want you to think!"
Akamaru barked and nudged on Kiba's hip, having none of his hesitation. If even Kiba, the rash beatstick of the team had trouble narrowing his options and settling on a choice, Shino was cruel to even suggest Hinata be the one to choose.
"Let's see about this one… Just don't like the look of you, buddy…" Kiba extended his hand above a comically large red button with the kanji symbol for "Fire". Inside the glass cage, he was about to incinerate lurked the plump, reptilian avatar of feminine violence with a torn dress. The Inuzuka pressed the button, unleashing a violent stream of rising flames that superheated the glass to a state of ruby-red. Once the flames went out, there was only a cloud of crystal dust left of both the glass cage and the puppet once located within.
"Leave it to Kiba to just choose the very first figure, you know…" Naruto snickered out loud.
"It doesn't matter that much which he'll choose. The odds of nailing it with the very first shot without any clues guiding you are slim." Kiyomi relayed on the mental link when the room began dimming and the chilling noise of sliding glass unleashed all of the puppets from their cages. With the last remaining rays of artificial light in the room, everyone present had the chance to gander at the static puppets about to claim their next victim.
A loud grunt made Kiyomi's heart try to break free from her chest due to how suddenly it went up in volume but it also soothed her the moment later. If it was not her screaming, that meant that she would stay for the next round and have the chance to examine the clues on the victim's body. Then, just as gradually as it went out, the light started returning to the room as the white cubes comprising the pattern of the room lit up.
With the return of light to the equation, Team Hokage and Team Kurenai were introduced to the brand new factor in their problem – a body of Shino lying on the ground, his hood pulled down, exposing his hair, the left half of his shades slipped up, exposing a blank stare to the ceiling that was no longer bothered by the light.
"Shino!" Hinata gasped, covering up her mouth.
"Murders… Murders most foul…" Meiko mumbled to herself with crossed arms as she tried to find even a hint of a clue as to which one of the puppets that now stood back inside their re-shut glass cages had done this, quoting something only she was familiar with even though she wasn't too far off with that quote.
Kiyomi walked up to the corpse and kneeled by it. She checked up on his wrists, rolling back Shino's jacket, checked under his collar, having to pull back some of his coat and then peek under all the clothes he wore. The clues were slim. Just about anyone of those puppets could have killed him in a way that only announced of itself in a tilt of shades and a few signs of physical struggle.
What was there that Kiyomi was not seeing? She has to find that essential clue if she was to move her team ahead. After sitting out the last round and collapsing the round before, the Yamanaka heiress was not about to just flunk this round too, especially that now she was the most intelligent and experienced ninja on her team and since she was supposed to be the most useful in this round of the Exams.