A pair of higher ranked Konohagakure staff ninja were standing beyond the northern gate. There was a moment when Mana's eyes had to get used to the brighter gloom of a simple Fire Country forest and the deforested areas where the roads were made. In this case, a small dirty zigzag that lead further into the main road, which headed west, towards the Land of Wind and many smaller pleasure towns in between Land of Fire and Land of Wind.
"Huh, there are no other genin around", Kiyomi wondered loudly while looking around, pondering why the area outside was so empty.
"Each team that has completed the exam and exited through the gate has done so at their own time, some of them did so days ago. It'd have been strenuous to keep all of them here just so the underdogs could hear the same thing they've heard", one of the cloaked yet unhooded ninja noted.
A long braided, brown haired kunoichi walked up to the two Jinchuuriki placing her hand on their shoulders. "You two OK"? I'll have your supervisors brought here at once", she asked.
A group of four cloaked ninja positioned themselves behind Daidao and Nanaba until their "supervisors" would arrive as the shortest baldy of the staff ninja stood out in front before listening in and muttering something to the little microphone he had positioned by the ear-set he was wearing. A raspy and unclear husk was all that could be heard from the other end so it was tough, if not impossible, to tell exactly what the conversation was about.
"Alright, Team Hokage and Team Hawthorn, you appear to have completed the exam successfully, congratulations", the baldy nodded as he addressed the handful of teams.
"This is not it just yet, Sugemi and Meiko will be joining us soon. They've been left behind to deal with some unpleasant business", Daidao's voicebox matched the unclear rasp, which came out from the bald ninja's ear-set.
"I see, then maybe it would be better to wait for at least a good twenty minutes longer before we explain what comes next", the baldy nodded.
What transpired after was an uncomfortable and awkward stance as both the staff ninja and the genin just stood around, looking at each other, before glaring back at the northern gate and wondering if Sugemi and Meiko would even be back. It barely even took five good minutes after the pause was given thought that the two walked through the gate, slightly beaten up and bruised, even more than they were before Team Hokage and Team Hawthorn were encouraged to leave them behind.
"Well, now that everyone is here", the baldy cleared his throat before addressing the squad again, "Do not worry, the next stage of the exam will not take place immediately. It was initially a thought for our consideration but once we saw more eliminations than it was predicted, with some teams eliminating plenty people they had no obligation to eliminate and the natural conditions of Training Grounds No. 44 eliminating its own fair share of contestants, it was quickly reconsidered".
Sugemi laughed out loud before rubbing the back of his head relieved, "Ha, that's great, I used the Second Gate in there so we'd have been in a pinch if I had to fight again right afterwards", he let his weariness go down to being just another joking matter.
"Did Spyder-Wolf have some unseen weapon up his sleeve that you needed to resort to such measures"? Daidao wondered, as the Nara's revelation appeared to hit a chord with the Jinchuuriki.
"Nah, I kind of did it just to look cool for the manga panel, when that episode inevitably makes it to my story"! Sugemi laughed out, rubbing his own nose in shame.
"Imbecile", Daidao crossed his hands around his chest. "It appears that me teaching you more about the effects of the Gates on your body had no effect on your mindset about using them".
"Oh, come on, Daidao, none of us are going to live forever", Nanaba smiled before leaning over to Sugemi's side, "I bet it looked pretty cool".
"It didn't look like anything to me, I could barely even see it", Meiko pouted, crossing her arms in disappointment as well as she figured she'd have offered the technique more attention had she known about its nature and the fact that it'd be used.
"By any means, would you know what the next round is going to be like"? Kiyomi wondered, addressing the staff ninja.
"I was just about to get to that, before I was interrupted", the baldy nodded before stroking his greying black beard with his fingers. "The next stage of the exam will take place in 7 days from when the last contestant leaves that forest. From what is known to us, that'll most likely be either today or tomorrow, given how far the exam has advanced up to now. You will be contacted with further details once the second stage officially ends. It'll take place in the sports hall of Konoha High."
"Hmmm… So the people who left first will have more time to recover and train in preparation", Mana realized.
"That's right, they are the top dogs, after all. Good performance needs to be rewarded with higher chance of completing the exam", the aging man agreed before proceeding, "Seeing how right now there are confirmed more than forty eight eliminations and more than half of the genin that entered this forest have been eliminated, there'll be two more stages. The specifics of the next stage will remain a secret, however. That will be all, you are now dismissed".
"Actually there's one more thing Team Hokage may want to know", the braided brown hair kunoichi interrupted. Mana's heart started jumping multiple beats, realizing that it was likely related to her knockout. She would have liked to be eliminated differently, not just be told about it right after helping her team through the gate…
"Your sensei, Lady Fifth waited here for a while wanting to congratulate you but she said she got bored just sitting around and went away, that was two days ago. You may want to know that you'll need to contact her if you wish to make a training schedule with her, she doesn't appear to have any plans nor has she left any messages for you three".
"Sounds about right", Kiyomi rubbed her temples, she was well used to Chestnut Hanasaku's inadequacy as a mentor figure and the leader of the team.
"I suppose our next course is the Konohagakure hospital then. All of us have wounds, which will require a more skilled look". Mana sighed. The emotion was not a sigh of disappointment in the team leader, more like a sigh of relief that the exam was over.
"Yeah, then we can hit a place to eat, I'm starving"! Meiko cheered out, all wounds she may have suffered in the Forest of Death appeared to fade away whenever the prospect of good food came into picture.
Just as the Team Hokage trio gathered together, said their temporary farewells to Team Hawthorn and exchanged gratitude for help and cooperation, started walking away to enter the main road, leading back to the village, Mana felt something gnawing at her chest. Something bitter and painful, something she had to shed away or else she would never feel the same ever again. It would either eat her up alive or, one day, just stop hurting altogether, changing who she was as a person fundamentally where nothing of similar note ever hurt again.
"I… I can't go on", she muttered before rushing up to the cloaked staff ninja and repeating what she said again, this time to their curious faces.
"Do you wish to withdraw from the competition"? A more muscular and rough around the edges shinobi raised an eyebrow, lacking the capacity to believe what he was hearing right now.
"No, no such thing, but I can't be allowed to continue. I want to go on but I can't – I was eliminated but you missed it", Mana shook on her feet as she admitted it, little by little, the gnawing sensation in her chest which moved further down with every passing second began to calm and fade away, the more she spoke about what troubled her.
"If we missed it – you're in the clear", the baldy cut it short.
"B-But… I got encased in crystal and… Just a bit before I ate a food pill and my chakra was slowly growing, resulting in me being knocked out but my chakra appearing to be just fine to the sensors to the south. I was knocked out", Mana explained it in more detail.
"If you weren't eliminated, you aren't eliminated now." The braided lady repeated what the baldy said before just in different words.
"There were at least two teams that used continuous medical ninjutsu techniques to keep their knocked out members from being eliminated, one of them even inquired about it after the exam. As long as their chakra signatures never hit the elimination spot – they're in the clear", the stronger looking staff ninja added.
"Ninja are supposed to go underneath the underneath. Oftentimes finding holes in the system and tricking it is more important than being straight. Don't play your luck and pull the mean fate lady by her hair, kid. You're in the clear, don't piss me off and make me repeat it", the baldy smiled kindly before switching to a more annoyed face as he turned to watch the gate for any incoming ninja that desired to complete the exam.
"Let's go, Mana, you heard what they said", Kiyomi softly uttered close to Mana's ear.
"B-But I stole things and cheated… I shouldn't be moving on ahead", Mana pouted as she felt disappointed by the fact that she wasn't eliminated or punished in any way. Less training time, restriction from using any medical facilities, anything would have been fine than nothing.
"You're trying to rank up as a ninja – killers, cheaters and thieves are the people that move on, as long as they do it with the village's blessing", Kiyomi pulled on Mana's shoulder harder, making the wound on the other side of the magician's body resonate with painful impulses that made her twitch and grunt in pain.
"Now let's go to a medical facility, then we're going to Yakiniku Q and I'm treating"! Meiko shot her fist up into the air, jumping up in excitement.
"Do you have any money, please don't tell me you had money on you but not any medical supplies"? Kiyomi suspiciously looked at the blacksmith who then shyly rubbed her snotty nose.
"Nope, I have none"! She then admitted, "Kind of figured that the prospect of me treating would make you guys more cooperative with going out to eat, then – once I tell you I don't have any money, you'd just pay up because it'd be too late".
"I can't believe Mana felt bad about something she has ever done, you're the real supervillain"! Kiyomi cringed into her fist before jumping up on Meiko's shoulders and beginning to bash at the blacksmith's head playfully.
"The Forest of Death stage is now over", was all that Mana could think about as she looked at her playfully fighting teammates and smiled innocently, feeling the looming threat of the tests yet ahead but, for the moment, still happy about how far they've all come together.
Mana had expected the Konohagakure Hospital to be more crowded than it usually was. After all, the second stage of the Chuunin Exams had just concluded so plenty teams must have needed medical attention, both extensive and otherwise. Contrary to that belief, the hospital appeared to be just as occupied as it would have been any other day. The three girls parted ways in the endless corridors of the hospital as the receptionist signed them up to different rooms for their examination.
Not too much later, a young woman wearing the standard chuunin flak jacket and a white coat entered with a bunch of files in her hand, signalling for all waiting for check-ups to enter. Before Mana got there, there were a pair of people waiting with minor injuries. One of them appeared to have a possibly broken arm, judging from the worker's uniform he must have been a builder or an interior decorator of some sorts, it was something that Mystical Palm session would have quickly solved. Then there was the token old lady, the likes of which constantly rubbed around medical establishments for the sole purpose of being bored of retirement.
It may have seemed cruel to attribute the old lady to that archetype so soon but she didn't appear to have anything too bad going on with her and she was rather talkative and cheerful. The only person she actively avoided striking a conversation with was Mana, it may have had something to do with the fact that the magician looked like she had returned from an active war zone – covered with bruises, scratches and lousy field first aid bandaging.
Once Mana's turn came, she entered the room. The young medical ninja was quick to examine her wounds, scribbling a bunch of stuff onto the sheet of paper before handing Mana a handful of documents for the rooms she had to visit. One of them was a pharmacy for the medical food pills to aid her recovery, another one had a changing shift of medical ninja perform Mystical Palm jutsu treatments meanwhile yet another one was for Diagnosis Jutsu scans as some areas of the girl's body seemed suspicious for the medical kunoichi. She apparently did not perform any medical work herself, merely used her experience to better manage the hospital's staff and grant every villager the aid they needed. After all – if a medical ninja working their Mystical Palm ran out of chakra too early when a larger disaster struck, the consequences would be severe…
Once all the healthcare business was taken care of – something that spanned well into the later evening, Mana found Meiko and Kiyomi sitting downstairs and dangling their feet lazily in the waiting room with Meiko crunching a bunch of lollipops in a, admittedly, not too optimal way to consume the candy.
"Wow, you must've been pretty busted up, huh"? The Yamanaka smiled seeing Mana descending the stairs. She was not too far off the mark, it wasn't the severity of Mana's injuries that took this long to treat but rather the number of them. The broken arm, specifically, was a rather painful treatment as healing bone was always some of the most troublesome treatments.
"I didn't think they handed out lollipops to people your age, Meiko", Mana quickly diverted the subject, feeling a bit uncomfortable talking about the fake-out medical disaster that could've been that ended up being just a false alarm. One trouble with ninja was that they could have walked for an entire day with their vital organs busted and some of them may not have even realized it until they were actually in their dying breaths. Such was not uncommon in the world of ninja, people that could endure a very varied amount of beatings, depending on how strong and competent at chakra managing they were.
"I asked the four-eyes pretty nicely and he gave me a handful of lollipops"! Meiko smiled with strangely coloured mouth.
"Well done, you", Kiyomi stroke Meiko's hair with the redhead possibly not even realizing she was being cheeked by her teammate.
"I figured you'd be the last one to finish your business here, didn't you even go say hi to Eiju"? Mana smiled, teasing her friend.
"The Quack? Nah, my heart is eternally bound to Meiko now", Kiyomi pouted before elbowing Meiko in the back, something that the blacksmith took as an invitation to throw held back punches each other's ways, something that could not and did not end in Kiyomi's favour.
"Ummm… Okay…" Mana looked at the exit awkwardly.
"So, what now? What are you guys going to do to prepare for the next stage"? Meiko wondered with Kiyomi's head still placed in a tough headlock and with the future Yamanaka heir choking out with each passing moment.
"I don't really know. These past trials my sensory abilities would have been pretty useful. We would have taken no time at all to find Hokage-sensei during the test or any team we wanted in the forest. If only I would have had polish and control over them... My skillset is not one that requires training of speed or strength, those things are irrelevant to me. Likely I'll just try and master my sensory abilities and try to sharpen one particular ninjutsu I've been working on", the magician recalled her rough use of very unrefined lightning technique back when Team Phobos of Getsugakure attacked her.
"I know what I'm going to do, I'm gonna ask Sugemi to teach me the Gates", Meiko grinned with a shy smile as somehow admitting her week training goals made her ashamed for whatever reason.
"You don't need to be taught the gates by a special person, it's not rocket science, you know", Kiyomi squinted back at her friend before realizing she had not shared anything with the team yet. "My training is a secret, I'm going to head to the Yamanaka resort to train with the clan elders. It'll probably be a huge drag but you know what they say about pressure and diamonds…"
"What"? Meiko curiously looked at her friend, wondering if perhaps almost beheading her with the headlock caused some damage to the blood flow to the Yamanaka's brain.
"I mean… I don't really remember, but it's about pressure, diamonds and it applies to the current situation rather nicely", Kiyomi pondered before shrugging.
"Hey, Mana, you planning on doing any shows in the meantime, like the magic kind"? Meiko wondered all of a sudden.
"I do, actually. I'll be pretty busy but I'll manage putting one show up halfway through the week", the magician nodded. "Why"?
"I don't know, seeing you work out there, I just kind of wanna check out your shows, see maybe I get inspired for some new techniques or gadgets", the blacksmith smiled.
"It'll be an honor performing in front of you, although if you're interested in ideas for gadgets, you may try talking to my father. I do recall you being somewhat of a fan of his"? Mana suggested.
"Oh, that's right, you're Konoha's Great Trapster's daughter. I completely forgot that over all those wish granting boxes and everyone around trying to kick the shit out of us"! Meiko remembered all of a sudden.
"Alright then, it seems that Team Hokage is all set and has its training planned ahead. Let's get out there and work our asses off"! Kiyomi cheered on as the trio of girls stood up and walked out of the Konohagakure Hospital tired as all living hells yet healthy and ready to tackle the world in front of them… In the morning, at the very least.
