Obito-Sensei Chapter 11
The Chunin Exam
Obito leaned back in his chair, watching his teammate closely. Rin quirked her head, a faint smile on her lips. He'd always liked that expression, but right now he couldn't enjoy it like normal: something in his gut was churning
"The Chunin Exam, huh?" he said, and Rin rolled her eyes.
"It's every six months," she said. "Well, usually. You can't really be surprised."
Obito leaned forward, picking up his water. Rin had barged into his apartment and helped herself to his fridge, and now they were seated in his living room. When was the last time they'd been here together, he wondered? Months ago, maybe a year. Why was that?
"I'm not surprised it's here," Obito clarified. "I'm surprised you think my team's ready."
"They've already been on an S-ish ranked mission," Rin said with a laugh. "I've been watching you guys, you know." Obito almost choked on his water. Rin had been watching them? What exactly did she mean by that? "Naruto's already figured out the Rasengan, and Sasuke's well on his way, in addition to all his other Uchiha stuff. And Sakura's been working so hard on her kenjutsu; she's smart, and putting in her all." She took a sip of her beer. "If they won't be ready now, when will they be?" She tapped her forehead. "Sensei's always saying the only thing you're missing is confidence, Obito, and he's right. When you were a kid…"
"I was a kid." Obito was quiet, a little solemn. "I didn't understand what the world was like."
They both fell into a short silence. Invisible, choking dust filled the room, a long-gone gasp for air, a dull thud.
"It's going to be the safest exam in years," Rin said eventually. "Maybe ever. Sensei doesn't want anything going wrong at this one." She leaned back, looking out the window. "Cloud's still working on their weird chakra weapons, so they're not invited. I think they're the only one that's not, actually. That's how it is. It's all part of the game. " She glanced back at Obito. "They're not going to be in real danger."
"I know." Obito frowned. "I get it. I just…"
"I know," Rin said. "It's your decision to enter them in the end. I don't wanna push you into it. But it'd be good for them." She set her beer down, and stood up. "And for you."
"Where you headed?" Obito asked, and Rin smiled.
"Back to the hospital," she said. "Even if this is gonna be safe, it's still an Exam, you know? Surprising things happen all the time." She winked. "See you around."
She walked out the front door as if it were hers and not his, and Obito watched her go. He looked back to the beer she'd left.
"Ahh," he groaned, and leaned forward to toss the can in the trash.
'What's the worst that could happen?'
###
"The Chunin Exam?"
Sakura looked over, carefully sheathing her sword at her hip. Both the blade and the sheath had been a gift from Tenten, though Sakura had bought them with her own money: her training partner had helped her pick out something that fit her and was comfortable to wear.
It made her feel more real, like a proper ninja, to carry around a sword at her hip. She wasn't sure if that was immature or not, but Sakura enjoyed the feeling anyway.
Sasuke had asked the question, looking at a piece of paper that Obito had offered him. Naruto was beside him, scratching his head and picking burned hairs off of it; the both of them had been sparring as Sakura slid through her kata, flowing from one sword strike to another, and Sasuke had ended up catching some of Naruto's blond hair on fire with a small jutsu.
"Do you think we're ready, Obito… sensei?" Naruto asked, and Obito smirked at the quick correction.
"I'm not sure," he said, and Sakura walked over to join them, staring at the paper curiously. It was a sign-up form, she realized, for the next Chunin Exam. Were they that close already? She knew they were a regular thing, but for some reason hadn't even thought they were coming up so soon. The paper said January 1st, only a week and some away.
"But like with a lot of things about being a shinobi, there's only one way to find out." He looked around at them, his gaze lingering on Sakura. To her surprise, she didn't flinch back. After six months on the team, she could meet Obito's gaze without fear.
'You're stronger. You're figuring out what being a ninja means.'
How much of that voice was really her, she wondered? It always felt too ambitious, a little too resentful. She wasn't like that, was she? Sakura wasn't ambitious and didn't resent people. At least, she didn't think so.
But Sakura couldn't deny herself; she was stronger. The fact she could look her sensei in the eyes without feeling like she didn't belong was proof of that.
"You guys will be the ones entering," their sensei continued. "The decision's yours, even if I'm the one who turns the paper in." He crossed his arms. "So, what do you think?"
Sakura was sure that both her teammates would jump on the opportunity immediately and drag her into it. That was usually how it went, in her experience. But to her surprise, Naruto frowned and sat down, some of his hair still sizzling.
"I dunno," he said after a moment, and Sakura stared at him.
"Naruto, what do you mean?" she asked, and her teammate looked up at her in confusion. "I thought… you don't want to be a chunin?" Naruto was the ambitious one: Naruto was the one who had figured out the Rasengan in just a couple months.
"I do!" Naruto said. "I definitely do! But…"
"Ohhh," Sasuke said quietly. "You idiot. You don't wanna try unless you're gonna pass?"
"Hey!" Naruto shot to his feet. "There's nothing stupid about that!"
"Is that true, Naruto?" Obito asked, and Naruto shifted.
"Sorta. Sasuke's a dumbass, so he's not saying it right." Sasuke smirked, and Naruto sneered at him, Sakura watching the back and forth with amusement. "It's like, the Chunin Exam is a pretty big deal. I don't wanna be one of those guys who takes it like ten times, you know?" He looked around at his teammates. "If we're gonna do it, I wanna do it right, the first time."
"It's a good idea," Sasuke said with a small frown. "Even if we don't pass, it's one of the best opportunities to meet ninja from other villages." He looked to their sensei. "And you know that, right? That's why you brought this to us at all. It's our best chance to get stronger, and learn more."
Sasuke sighed. "But I get it. Honestly, I don't wanna fail either."
Obito frowned. "You can't let that hold you back. You'll fail sometimes, all of you," he said, and Sakura thought he sounded a little sad about that truth. "That's life. If you avoid failure, you'll never improve."
They pondered that for a second, and then Sakura stepped forward.
"Sensei." She wasn't really sure what she was going to say. "I think…"
What did she think? They were looking at her now. What if she didn't have anything to say?
"I think that first C-Rank… taught us all something," she finally decided, and both her teammates watched her with careful eyes. She was just stating the obvious, and they were wondering why. "I think, all of us, we didn't really know that being a ninja would be like… that."
Blood in her hair. It was hot. Sakura shoved the memory back down where it had come from.
"The world's big," she said. "And if you mess up, you'll die." She took a deep breath. "But the Chunin Exam's not like that, right? It's in the village."
"You're mostly right," Obito nodded. "This one is taking place here, in Konoha, and most of the villages there are minor or allies. Sand, Grass, River, Tea, Rain-"
"Rain?" Naruto quirked an eyebrow. "I thought… I didn't think Rain was either of those."
His eyes went wide. "Oh, shit!" He spun around. "Sakura, I forgot!"
Obito cuffed him on the back of the head for his profanity, and Naruto shot him a glare before looking back at her. "I forgot about your question!"
"My question?" Sakura asked, and Naruto spread his arms wide.
"Yeah! About my dad's teammates!"
Sakura blinked. Right! That had been weeks ago, the short snippet of conversation she'd heard in the Hokage's office. She'd completely forgotten about it afterwards: it had only been a passing interest.
"Your dad's teammates?" Obito asked with a questioning look. "None of them are around anymore." He frowned. "They're all…"
"Not…" Naruto waved him off. "Not his original team. I asked him about it; he wasn't talking about them, he was talking about some of his master's other students."
Obito's eyes went a little wide. "Oh, them."
"Them?" Sasuke and Sakura asked at the same time, and they looked at each other with amusement. Sasuke made a deferential gesture, and Sakura giggled. "Them?" she asked again, alone this time.
"Them," Obito confirmed dramatically, and Sasuke rolled his eyes. "Sensei was trained by the Toad Sage, Jiraiya. I trained with him as well, for a little while. Jiraiya-sensei had other students as well, a couple over the course of his life." He crossed his arms and sat down, and his students followed him. Their sensei was being really serious, Sakura thought. The feeling was in the air, like an invisible weight: he was telling them something important.
"There were three in particular, that he picked up in the Land of Rain during the Second War. That was where the Sannin got their name, you know: they fought the leader of Amegakure, Hanzo the Salamander, and they walked away," he said, and Naruto cocked his head.
"They didn't win?" he asked, and Obito laughed.
"Hanzo was an incredible shinobi," he explained. They were all leaning in now. This wasn't as scary as it should have been, Sakura thought. They'd already seen what the world had to offer. Right now, she was just consumed by curiosity. "Flee on sight, just like your dad. He could poison whole battlefields in an instant, and controlled exploding tags like they were alive. The way people told me when I was a kid, you didn't fight Hanzo, you started suffocating and then suddenly exploded."
He shrugged. "But the Sannin managed to stalemate him, and so he declared that they were worthy of being recognized and spread their name to all of the countries across the world. I guess he was kinda a megalomaniac, when I put it that way."
Sasuke chuckled. "It sounds that way," he said. "Maybe he wanted them to be famous so it wouldn't be bad for his reputation, not being able to kill them."
"Maybe!" Obito laughed. "Maybe. But I got sidetracked. The point is, Jiraiya-sensei picked up three orphans in Ame, and stayed behind to train them when the war was winding down. He was famous enough at that point to do that; so long as he stayed loyal, the village didn't care what he did with his time in a neutral country."
Their sensei frowned. "He told me once he thought they had potential; never figured out what he meant by that. But he was definitely right in a way, because those three kids grew up into pretty spectacular shinobi."
"They must have been!" Naruto cut in. "They took over the country!"
"Hey!" Obito said, and Naruto smirked at him. "I thought I was telling the story!"
"You're going too slow!" Naruto declared, and Obito fumed.
"I'm building it up!" he said, and Sakura couldn't help but laugh. "You've got no appreciation for that, Naruto! You can't just jump straight to the end!"
"Well, that's the important part, right?" Naruto asked. "Those three, Konan, Yahiko, and, uh…"
"Nagato," Obito grunted, and Naruto nodded his head sagely. "Konan, Yahiko, and Nagato. Do you know how they overthrew the country?"
The blond shrugged, and Obito shook his head in despair. Sakura, however, was wondering about something else.
"Naruto, you meant the village, right?" she asked, and her teammate gave her a confused look. "Not the country."
"No, he's right," their sensei said. "Though probably by accident." Naruto huffed, and Sakura leaned back, putting both her hands on the ground.
"They took over the entire country? All of the Land of Rain?" she asked, and Obito nodded. "What about… what happened to the government? The Daimyo?"
"Imprisoned," Obito said, and both Sakura and her teammates had to take a moment to consider that. You couldn't just… imprison the Daimyo. The villages worked together with their country's governments: they didn't have the manpower or means to actually govern the countries themselves, and no desire to take up that burden. Doing otherwise was…
"So that's the trouble they're making then," Sakura said, and Obito shrugged.
"That was a long time ago," he said "The Village Hidden in the Rain became the Nation of Rain over ten years ago… though everyone still just treats them like a village. It's an unusual situation, after all."
"Wow," Sakura said, not really sure what else to say.
Naruto frowned. "I wasn't asking the right questions," he muttered to himself. "Is that why I've never met dad's master?" he asked. "Cause of this?"
"Perceptive," Obito said, tapping his temple. "Yeah. Jiraiya-sensei isn't exactly an outcast, but because of those orphans he decided to train, another village is rising. Rain has even started calling their leader, Yahiko, the Amekage." He rested his head in one hand. Sakura had never heard this before: to her knowledge, only the five largest villages had leaders who declared themselves Kage. Minor ones like Grass, or what Rain was supposed to be, wouldn't claim that title: it would be way too presumptuous. "He couldn't have known, but people still blame him. That's just how it is, I guess."
"That's not fair," Sasuke said with a frown, and Obito pinned him with a glance.
"Things often aren't," he said, and Sakura could only watch helplessly as something passed unspoken between them.
"So, that's the answer to your question, Sakura," their sensei continued. "You were saying something else, before Naruto interrupted, weren't you?"
Naruto protested, and Sakura tried to remember where she'd been.
"I think we should sign up," she said after a moment. "That's where I was going with that. If we pass, that'll be amazing, and if we fail, we'll know how not to next time." She looked at both her teammates. "It can't be any worse than our C-Rank, right? I understand not wanting to do it more than once, but there's no real harm. I think we should go for it."
She'd always been prepared to fail, Sakura thought. In that respect, the Exam held no fear for her.
Naruto gave her a doubting look, but Sasuke spoke before he could.
"She's right," he said, looking at Obito. "Where do I sign?"
Naruto looked back and forth between the two of them, and sighed. "Alright," he said good-naturedly. "But if we're gonna do this, we're gonna win, right?"
"Without a doubt," Sasuke said, his conviction almost tangible, and Sakura found herself agreeing with him, to her surprise.
"I think we can," she said. "It's not a hundred percent, but I think we're ready, Naruto. We can do it."
"Together," Obito said. He passed the paper to Sasuke and pointed out a signature line, and pulled a pen from one of his pockets. He kept speaking as Sasuke scribbled down his consent. "If I know sensei at all, the Exam will be a test of teamwork more than anything else. If you guys can't work together, there's no way we'll pass."
"Well, that shouldn't be a problem then." Naruto grinned. "We just stick together, we pass, we become chunin, then, uh…" He scratched his head. "What do we do when we're chunin, Obito-sensei?"
"Well, you'll still be my team," Obito said. "You've gotta be under supervision at least a year, usually, before you can start taking missions on your own. That's barring circumstances, obviously. But you'll get some prestige, and make a little more money."
"Cool," Naruto said. "That sounds cool. I'm in."
They all signed the form. Sakura tried not to read the bits about not being held liable for dismemberment or death too closely. When they were done, Obito packed it into his back pocket and stood back up.
"I'll turn this in," he said. "As for you guys, if you're serious about passing, we should get training. The Chunin Exam attracts the best of the best, genin wise. It's a chance for all their villages to strut their stuff." He winked. "So show off, would you?"
###
Two days before the exam, foreign shinobi started entering the village.
Sakura and her teammates had been training together with Might Gai's team: Tenten and her teammates were determined to take the exam as well, and Gai was equally determined to punch Obito in the face at least once. Though it hadn't been why she was there, Sakura had been having enormous fun sparring with Tenten and then taking breaks to watch Obito dance around Gai. Sasuke and Neji had competed as well, but Neji had trounced Sasuke without much effort, leaving him on the ground with a bruised solar plexus. Sakura had expected that to discourage Sasuke, but it had been just the opposite. Since Neji had beaten him, he'd relentlessly challenged the older boy, apparently desperate to defeat it.
The Gentle Fist, the Hyuuga martial art, was beautiful to watch, Sakura thought. Even if Neji was using it to relentlessly beat one of her teammates up, the flowing motions and complete lack of wasted movements that the martial art incorporated were amazing. She wondered if it would have any use for her sword. At one point Naruto had stepped in as well, and Neji had been happy to fight him and Sasuke at the same time. The result had been the same: the both of them on the ground, groaning and gasping for air.
Sakura had never realized how glad she would be for Neji not to have any interest in defeating her, before that. Tenten had laughed when she'd told her.
"He's like that," she'd said, as if it were inescapable as gravity. Sakura's hair was pink, the sun rose and set, and Neji beat anyone who challenged him into a semi-liquid paste, regardless of who they were.
They were heading back to the center of the village, all eight of them, when they met their first foreign ninja.
He wasn't much to look at. The foreigner was a tall boy with pale hair and purple eyes; they nearly bumped into each other at a busy intersection filled with people heading every which way, and he looked down at Sakura, and then at all of the other ninja with her, taking in their hitai-ate. Sakura couldn't help but notice his own; it was attached to his hip, apparently woven into his long black pants, and it had three straight lines drawn vertically down it. She didn't recognize the symbol.
"Heyyy," the shinobi said. Sakura's teammates crossed their arms: both of the adults gave the boy a blank look. "I'm kinda lost. You know where I can get a drink around here?"
Obito raised an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. "A shinobi should be able to locate food on their own," he said dryly, and the boy grinned. His teeth were sharp and triangular, like a shark. Sakura had never seen teeth like that before in her life. She wondered if the boy had ever accidentally bitten his lip, or tongue.
"Rude," he said. "I didn't realize Konoha's shinobi were so inhospitable to guests." He fished beneath his shirt and withdrew a lanyard with a card on it. A visitation pass, Sakura saw after he stopped waving it around. It was a simple thing, something you could get at the gate if you were entering the village with a stranger; she'd only seen it once before. If this ninja was here for the Chunin Exams, which he almost certainly was, it made perfect sense for him to have one.
"Ah!" Lee stepped forward, all smiles. "You must be here to compete!" He gestured around. "There are many spectacular restaurants and shops in the village: perhaps one of them holds what you seek!"
The boy looked Lee up and down with an obvious expression of disbelief. "Jeez," he muttered. "Nevermind. I'm just gonna find something myself."
"Don't make any trouble," Neji said placidly as the shinobi stepped past them, and the boy sneered. "We'll be watching."
"Sure you will," the foreigner jeered. "Don't worry. I'm saving all my trouble for the Exam." Then he strode down the street, and was gone in the press of people before Sakura knew it.
"What a blowhard," Sasuke muttered.
"He was from the Nation of Rain," Gai said, watching the shinobi go with keen eyes. "I doubt he's truly lost." He glanced at Obito. "Do you reckon they are all such troublemakers?"
"He wasn't making any trouble," Obito said with a shrug. "Just wandering. I'm sure it's fine." He tilted his head up slightly. "And anyway, it looks like he's being watched."
He was right, Sakura realized. She only caught a flicker of movement from one rooftop to another, over a nearby alleyway, but it was enough to tell her that a shinobi had just repositioned, moving after the boy with shark teeth. Her sensei wasn't worried, and so she wasn't either, but it did make her curious. What about that ninja merited being monitored? Was the village keeping tabs on every foreigner who entered?
Well, it wasn't any of her business, in the end.
"C'mon," Obito said. "He had one idea right. We should get something to eat."
Team Seven said their goodbyes to Gai and his team and made their way down the street, into the depths of the village, and were soon lost in the mazes of buildings and masses of people.
###
The day of the Exam, Sakura arrived at the academy, where the first stage was being held. When she arrived, she wasn't surprised to find Sasuke and Obito there as well. Naruto was late, as usual.
"Morning." She was a little subdued in her greeting, and they gave her a nod in return. There were butterflies in her stomach. Signing up for the exam had been one thing; it actually being here was another. Had she been thinking straight? They'd only been genin for six months: all of the other competitors would have at least a year on them, surely.
Actually…
"Sensei," she asked as they waited in silence outside the gates of the Academy. "Did any other teams beside Tenten's enter the Exam? I never asked before."
"Hmmm, a couple," he said, scratching his chin. "I know that other than Gai, both Asuma and Kurenai have put their teams in the mix." He noticed her look of confusion. "That's Eight and Ten."
Eight: Hinata, Shino, and Kiba, and Ten: Shikamaru, Ino, and Choji. Sakura felt herself relax a little. They weren't going in alone. They wouldn't be the only new graduates there. At least they wouldn't look like overconfident idiots… or at least look like that alone.
"Hey!" Naruto ran up out of breath, and completely severed Sakura's train of thought. "Sorry, sorry! My dad made a big breakfast!"
"The… Hokage?" Sakura asked, and Naruto nodded.
"He's a really good cook!" he said with a grin. "Mom…" He wobbled his hand. "Not so much. Did I miss anything?"
"Not really, Naruto," their sensei said. "We were just standing here, staring at the door, waiting for you."
"Ahh, that was nice of you," Naruto said, either not detecting or not willing to acknowledge Obito's tone. "We heading in then?"
"Soon as I give you a little advice," Obito said, turning to regard them all. "Stick together. Don't treat this like the end of the world. It's just a test. Do your best, and we'll all be proud of you."
"Thank you for the wisdom," Sasuke said rather dryly, and Sakura giggled. Her fingers were drumming on the hilt of her sword, she realized. She was definitely nervous, but she couldn't deny there was an eagerness there as well. She wanted to get started. "Anything solid?"
"Nah." Obito shrugged. "You'll be fine. Good luck."
Without preamble or another parting word he vanished in a swirl of space and time, and left Team Seven alone in front of the Academy.
"Well…" Sakura said. "Should we head in?"
"Let's," Sasuke confirmed, and he took the lead, striding ahead towards the front door. He opened it without fear, and his teammates followed him. They were supposed to meet in room 302, the largest room in the building, and they took the familiar stairs as if it were any other days. There was a large congregation of shinobi on the second floor, arguing with two chunin; Sakura gave them a confused look as she passed them heading farther up the building, wondering what they were wasting time for.
She wondered if it was a trick; had they been given the wrong room? But when they reached the third floor and Sasuke stepped into 302, she became sure that wasn't the case.
The room was full of shinobi: well over a hundred, by Sakura's guess. 302 was the size of an auditorium and it had a high ceiling, so it didn't quite feel cramped, but it was definitely approaching it. Looking around, Sakura saw hitai-ate from a dozen different villages, as well as quite a few Konoha headbands. She caught a glimpse of Tenten and her team across the room, and waved: Tenten gave a distracted wave back, engrossed in conversation with Neji.
"Ah!" The quiet exclamation came from to her left, and Sakura turned towards it. "Sasuke? And Naruto and Sakura? You're here too?" Hinata Hyuuga, looking small but not afraid, stepped past a press of shinobi debating the finer points of knife-work with a smile. "I'm glad."
"Of course they're here!" Kiba was right behind her, shoving his way through the group Hinata had skirted and baring his fangs at one who tried to shove him back. "They'd look like a bunch of idiots if they weren't, wouldn't they?"
"That's not very nice, Kiba," Hinata frowned, and Sakura smiled.
"It's good to see you, Hinata," she said, and the Hyuuga smiled back. Her pale, empty eyes had scared Sakura a little when they'd first met, but after years of being classmates now she barely noticed them. "We heard Team Ten was here too: have you seen them?"
"They haven't arrived yet," Hinata said, fidgeting a little. Kiba laughed.
"Shikamaru must be holding them up. Or Choji." He nodded, one-hundred percent sure of his assessment. "They never were the fastest."
"What about Shino?" Naruto asked with a confused look. "Isn't he here with you?"
"I am." Naruto jumped, looking behind him. Shino had approached without a sound; none of them had noticed him approaching. "This promises to be an interesting exam. Why?" He gestured around. "Look at the number of villages: this must be unusual."
He was right, Sakura thought. There really were a lot of different villages here. Minor ones of every kind, including several she didn't recognize; she even caught a glimpse of a Stone hitai-ate, which surprised her. There were several different teams from Sunagakure as well, clustered in the corner.
They seemed to be keeping to themselves, more than anyone else. One of them, Sakura realized with a jolt, was staring at them as they chatted by the door. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the group, a large gourd strapped to his back.
The boy looked strange; like Hinata, he didn't have pupils, but his eyes weren't the milky white of the Bykugan. There were green, closer to teal, and their striking color was only accentuated by the thick bags beneath the shinobi's eyes and his lack of eyebrows. He had a red tattoo on his forehead as well, which only threw them further into contrast. He looked incredibly tired, Sakura thought, but he was still totally alert.
His eyes shifted, locking with her own, and Sakura realized he'd been looking to her right, to Naruto and Sasuke. They stared at each other for a moment, and Sakura felt rooted in place. She didn't know what was causing it, but the sensation of frozen time was eerily familiar.
It was just like it had been in the temple, she thought. That was it. When Hidan had leapt up on the wall and stared at them, ready to attack at the first sign of movement. That was what was happening. Sakura felt herself break into a cold sweat; her hand tightened around her sword.
Three, four, five seconds. Eventually, very deliberately, Sakura slowly dragged her gaze away, staring at the floor, and she felt the pressure fade.
"Sakura?" Hinata was the one who noticed; Naruto and Sasuke were busy arguing with Kiba about who would finish the Exam first, and Shino was watching the whole thing with his usual unreadable expression. "What's wrong?"
"That boy," she said quietly, and both teams hushed up at her tone. "He's staring at us."
"Hey!" Naruto demanded. "Who's staring at us?" He looked around. "That Sand creep?" He made a shooing motion, and to Sakura's horror, the boy with green eyes smiled. It wasn't an expression with any joy; he just showed his teeth, his cheeks wrinkling.
"Jeez," Sasuke said as the boy turned away and murmured something to a tall blonde girl besides him. "What a freak."
"He's not the only one," Hinata said timidly. "Watching, I mean. A couple teams have been watching you three since you arrived."
"Who?" Sasuke asked, and Hinata blushed, pointing discreetly around the room.
"That team, from Stone." She was right; two girls and one boy, all with pitch-black hair, all staring intently at Naruto. He stuck his tongue out at them and they turned away, whispering amongst themselves.
"And that team, from Amegakure." Hinata tilted her head, and Sakura followed the vector. To her surprise, she found she recognized one of the shinobi discreetly eyeing them.
"It's that boy," she said, and Sasuke nodded his head in agreement. "From the market."
The boy with shark teeth nodded at her, recognizing that she'd noticed his observation, and Sakura decided the only thing she could really do was nod back. Like everyone else in the room, he had two teammates with him. They were both seated at one of the many desks scattered throughout the room. One of them, an older boy with grey hair and large, round glasses, was peaceably chatting with a team from the Land of Rivers, gesturing widely and smiling guileless. He had a very friendly smile, Sakura thought, but it was impossible to know if it was genuine.
The other was a girl with sharp, beautiful features and warm brown eyes. Unlike her teammates, who had minimalistic brown clothes that didn't express much identity but were certainly warm and convenient, she wore a short haori over a pure white shirt and a long black skirt. Sakura had to admit the haori had an interesting and eye-catching design: it was dark black, but there were a series of asymmetrical red clouds woven into the material, covering the back and sleeves.
Like the boy from Sand, the girl from Rain caught Sakura's eye, but this time she didn't feel the need to run away. Instead, she smiled, and Sakura smiled back uncertainly.
"Wonder why they're watching us," Naruto said, his hands behind his head. Behind him, Team Ten slipped into the room, squabbling amongst themselves. Sakura waved at Ino, and the blonde girl gave her a dismissive one in turn as she continued to badger Shikamaru relentlessly.
"Uh, duh," Kiba smirked. He pointed at Naruto. "Hokage's son." Then to Sasuke. "Fancy Uchiha." Then last, to Sakura. "Pink hair," he finished, and Sakura resisted the urge to both roll her eyes and shrivel up a little. Was that all-
'Eyes front.'
Sakura turned in surprise at the words, just in time to watch over a dozen ninja materialize in a cloud of smoke at the front of the room. A moment later, she realized that she hadn't heard anything. The voice had rung through her head, but there hadn't been a sound accompanying it. In fact, she hadn't been the only one to turn: the whole room had at the same time, at the same not-sound.
The ninja were diverse: one of them was an Uchiha, two of them were Hyuuga, and all of the others were distinct, but the shinobi in front drew the most attention. He was a tall man with a strong, broad face, and had a golden ponytail that went down past his waist. He wore a flak jacket, and a red vest over it.
"Ah, crap," Ino muttered, coming up next to her. Sakura glanced back and forth between her classmate and the man at the front, and realized they had the same hair and similar eyes. They were definitely related.
"Good morning," the Yamanaka said, his voice deep and steady. It was the same voice Sakura and the rest of the room had heard in their head. "Since you all seem to be getting along so well, the Exam will now commence." He looked around the room, taking them all in instantly. "As I'm sure you're aware, there will be no fighting without permission from the proctors. You have already obeyed that admirably: I hope that will continue to be the case."
He began pacing, hands clasped behind his back and ponytail slightly swaying with the motion. "This exam will be divided into three distinct tests," he said, enunciating every word. His voice carried to the back of the room without effort. "I am Inoichi Yamanaka, and this first test will be under my purview." He came to a stop. "There are, throughout this and the neighboring building, thirty-four specially prepared rooms. It is not a coincidence that this is the same number of teams that are present here today."
They would each get their own room for the test? Sakura looked around, taking in the other ninja's reactions. Many were doing the same thing she was; some were telling jokes, and a few just stared ahead with a razor focus.
"Each of you will be sealed in one of those rooms," Inoichi said, and a murmur passed around the crowd. "You will be presented with an objective; accomplish it and depart the room, and you will pass the test." His eyes narrowed. "If you leave the room without accomplishing the objective, you will have abandoned the mission: you will be disqualified. If you fail to accomplish the objective, you will be disqualified." His eyes closed completely. "Do not think you'll be able to deceive me if you cannot accomplish the objective, because-"
'I. Will. Know.'
Sakura heard the voice again, and she was sure that everyone else did too. The man was speaking directly to their minds; was it a bluff, or could he really read them that easily? She decided she didn't want to find out.
"Easy," Sasuke muttered, and Sakura looked over to find him practically trembling with anticipation. He was excited; much more excited than her. The same, she saw, was true for Naruto. Her team was raring to go.
"Now, you all understand what is required of you," Inoichi said, raising his hand. He snapped his fingers, and the shinobi behind him fanned out, a couple creating clones: the space descended into organized chaos as the various teams were gathered up and herded out of various doors, towards their assigned rooms.
"Thus, the first test shall begin."