Let's start this from the beginning

Grand Assembly

- Part 2 -

"Deceptions and Truths"

IV

Hinata had recognised very quickly that the situation they had found themselves in was dire–and that was putting it mildly.

If she wanted to be blunt about it, she would probably call it outright hopeless. Being outnumbered by enemies who were level-headed enough to play it safe instead of rushing in high on the thought of an already guaranteed victory was one of the worst things that could have happened to them. At least if they were more reckless, she and her team might have found an opportunity to break through their ranks and escape. That was impossible as things were now, however.

It hadn't taken her long to realize what their only chance out of this was, either. It was simple, after all: if their opponents were too clever to give them an opening, they had to create one by force.

Hinata hated that it sounded almost arrogant, but she was convinced she could pull that off if she really wanted to. She had spent the time leading up to the Chūnin Exams training more than ever before. Aside from regular team exercises, she had trained a lot with her family whenever she found the time, and she regularly joined Lee during his exercises as well. Rarely for more than his warm-ups as that alone was more than enough to make her require a break, but still! Sometimes, she even joined him, Neji, and Tenten when they trained with Guy-sensei.

Long story short, she had been very busy recently and improved a lot, and more importantly, she had also learned a technique during that time which might just be enough to turn the tide of this battle.

The reason she hesitated was that while she had learned it, she hadn't mastered it yet. Doing so without anyone else finding out about it while living in a compound that housed hundreds of people with the Byakugan was just as hard as it sounded. The consequences should she try to use it and fail, well…

Calling the result ugly would be an understatement.

As it turned out, Kiba wasn't so hesitant about using his hidden trump card.

Her Byakugan allowed her to keep an eye on the entire battlefield at all times. Thus, she had naturally noticed her teammate taking a step back when the opportunity arose instead of pursuing his retreating opponent like he usually would have. Hinata didn't think much of it at first. In all likelihood, he merely needed a second to breathe. It was only when she saw him swallow a pill, followed by an explosive increase of his charka, that she understood what had happened, and by then, the energy bursting from his body had already flung her away.

She managed to push herself off her hands and jump back to her feet instead of crashing head-first into the ground, and she saw that Shino had managed to do the same to her right as well, albeit less gracefully due to his injury. That didn't matter, though. Kiba's transformation was much more important right now.

Her teammate had gained half a head in size and much more than that in muscle mass. His jacket and shirt had been ripped apart by that growth, and what little remained of his pants was barely enough to cover his modesty. It was not enough to hide the white fur growing all over his body, however, with it being the thickest on his back and upper chest. His hands, feet, and face had undergone the most dramatic changes, though:

The former two looked more beast-like than human, consisting of large claws that gleamed in the little moonlight that managed to penetrate the canopy above, while the latter was contorted into an angry, animalistic growl, his canine double their normal size and the red markings on his cheeks now reaching all the way up to his ears.

It made for quite the sinister sight, and Hinata had barely enough time to truly take it in with wide eyes before he suddenly vanished.

She couldn't follow his movements at all, barely registering more than a blur in his wake, but the scream of one of the Iwa-nins when he was punched through the air with a tremendous 'boom' gave his location away easily enough.

There had been a lull in the fighting after Kiba's transformation, their enemies having evidently been just as surprised by the turn of events as Hinata and Shino, but that attack was enough to pull everyone out of their stupor. Not that it did their opponents much good, mind you; the first one who reacted and tried to attack Kiba was thrown away just like her comrade earlier before she could finish whatever jutsu she was trying to use and took the unlucky guy who happened to stand in her trajectory away with her.

Hinata didn't move, though. "Shino," she said, her voice sounding rough even to her own ears. "Did you know about that?"

"No," came the expected reply as he stepped forward to stand next to her, his eyes never leaving the fight that now didn't seem to involve them anymore–at least not for the moment. Shino then opened his mouth again, but no tone escaped him. The same happened a second and even a third time, at which point Shino seemed to give up on whatever he wanted to say and simply shook his head with another muttered, "I didn't know about that, no."

"I see…"

Even those short few moments had been enough for Kiba to beat two more of their opponents.

She couldn't blame her teammate and friend for not telling them about the ace up his sleeve considering neither she nor Shino had said anything about theirs either, but watching him berserk across the battlefield and routing increasingly more panicking enemies made a part of her think it would have been more responsible if they had talked about their trump cards ahead of the exams. Unfortunately, that realization came far too late to be of much use.

Hinata felt a strange, almost unnatural calm come over her, and when she saw Kiba strike a frightened-looking girl who was about to give up the fight and run away with so much force that the stone shattered as she crashed into a rock formation, she came to a decision.

"Go get Akamaru," she told Shino, for once uncaring that it was usually he who gave the commands. "I will go after Kiba."

She didn't wait for him to reply before pushing herself off the ground, her previous fatigue all but forgotten.

Following the path of destruction wasn't hard. Trees the width of the Hokage Tower and several times its size had fallen to the ground, rock formations were shattered, and large craters littered the ground; there was no mistaking where Kiba and their enemies were heading, nor did it take long for her to catch up to them.

The sight that greeted her was the exact opposite of what it had been when the three of them were the ones running away:

The four remaining Genin, two from Iwa and two from Taki, were desperately doing everything in their power to stay alive. Most of their success at that could be attributed to the Iwa-nins, one of which was the mole summoner from earlier while the other was the boy who could control that liquid metal. The former had summoned another beast, too. The animal in question was smaller than the ones earlier and had a brighter fur, but it was its chakra signature that made it clear that it was much stronger than its kin had been.

And yet it was no match for Kiba. The summon and the two Iwa-nins were just barely fast enough to react to his attacks, enough so to defend themselves but not enough to actively counterattack, and it was only thanks to their unique abilities that they managed to hold out at all. It was obvious in which way the wind was blowing, though.

Kiba was little more than a blur, most attacks either missing him by a large margin or being blown away with ease. Ancient trees of enormous size standing in his way, water torrents flying straight into his path, and earth walls springing into existence before him; nothing could stop Kiba or even just slow him down for more than a second. All it took was a single punch to brush off everything that got into his way.

Most projectiles and attacks never even came close to hitting him without him having to actively try to dodge, too. It was simply impossible to accurately predict where he would be a moment later–partly because of his speed, but also partly because he didn't seem to follow any sort of logic. He ran solely on instincts, and projectiles that did come close by sheer luck were batted aside with the same ease with which she would swat at a fly. The only thing that could make him briefly pause were those liquid metal constructs, but even that wasn't good for little more than to annoy him somewhat.

However, Hinata noticed more than that. Kiba's attacks were fast and strong, yes, and indeed faster and stronger than anything she had ever seen him do. She had seen Lee train without his weights once, and while she didn't think Kiba wasn't quite that fast, it was definitely close enough to be absolutely terrifying, doubly so because she knew Lee had to train excessively to endure the strain that came with such speed. Whatever technique Kiba had used might have improved his physics, but there was no telling if that would be enough. He hadn't suffered any internal injuries yet as far as she could tell, but the strain of his technique was still there all the same, and whatever injuries he had would probably not be apparent until after his transformation reverted itself when he eventually ran out of chakra.

The thought of what exactly those injuries could be made shivers run down Hinata's spine.

Also, as if the way he acted hadn't already given it away, the way Kiba moved made it clear that he wasn't in control of his action. As fast and strong as it was, his movements lacked the natural, animalistic grace all Inuzuka seemed to inherit. His movements were brutal and swift, but also simple and amateurish. They were not at all like those she had seen him train. No, this wasn't the teammate she knew, not at all.

And yet it really was obvious that this fight wasn't going to end with anything but Kiba's total victory, and Hinata could see the moment the two Taki-nins realized that as well.

It was probably no surprise when they decided to cut their losses and flee, taking advantage of the fact that Kiba was focusing on their two comrades from Iwa at the moment, but that didn't stop her from feeling a surge of disgust at how easily they were abandoning their teammates. Nevertheless, she let them be, continuing instead to focus on what was truly important.

Namely, her own teammate.

Without their allies throwing attacks at Kiba from afar that might not have hurt but at least momentarily distracted him, the two Iwa-nins were growing more frantically by the second, and once she was close enough, Hinata saw no reason to stay out of the fight any longer.

Gathering chakra in her right palm, she pushed, aiming a Vacuum Palm right where the mole summoner was set to land in his retreat a moment later.

She had only meant to distract him, but the attack hit him head-on. The boy didn't even have the time to be surprised before her attack smashed into his side and threw him against a nearby tree. He was out cold in an instant.

His teammate and summon noticed, of course, but there was nothing they could do.

Without their teammate's support and caught off-guard by the sudden turn of events, the two stood little chance against Kiba's relentless advance, and it was the mole who suffered for it first. All it took was a backhand strike as he passed the animal that made it disperse on the spot before it could do as much as scream.

The last standing opponent did only a little better. There was no one left who could cover his retreat, so he had to stand his ground, and he did just that. He formed a metal barrier in front of himself just in time before Kiba's fist would have hit him in the face. For a moment, it even looked like it could stop the attack. Then, however, cracks formed on its surface, and a second later, it shattered as his fist smashed through it and into the Iwa-nin's chest.

The impact of his body created a large crater on the ground, and thanks to her Byakugan, Hinata didn't even have to wait for the dust to settle to see that he certainly wouldn't get up any time soon.

It was an almost anticlimactic end to the fight. Even though Hinata knew that real battles rarely lasted longer than a few minutes and didn't often include flashy techniques, the quick and efficient way this one had ended, especially in view of how hopeless things had seemed only a few minutes earlier, was just surreal. In any other situation, she would even have felt bad for their opponents for how brutally they had been put down.

If she was being honest, though, Hinata couldn't bring herself to care much about anyone right now when her teammate– no, her friend was clearly still out of his mind. Right now, she didn't care about them or even the exams; all that mattered was getting their Kiba back.

Kiba, who now stood only a few meters in front of her with a somewhat confused expression on his contorted face as if he had no idea what to do now that all the obvious enemies were taken care of.

"Kiba," she said softly, trying to emulate the soothing voice of her mother she barely remembered from the times she had awoken in the middle of the night from nightmares when she was still young. "Are you hurt?"

His only reaction was a narrowing of his eyes and an unsure shake of his head.

Hinata made to take another step towards him, but his growl–more confused than angry, but still–stopped her in her tracks.

"Don't you recognize me? It's me, Hinata. You know me, don't you?"

Another shake of his head, but when she made another attempt at approaching him, there was no negative reaction, encouraging her further.

"The fight is over," Hinata said as she slowly but surely got closer to him. "You won, so why don't you take a break and rest for a moment?"

She was almost in arm's reach already, and when he made no move to attack her or run away, she crossed the final distance and softly laid a hand on his shoulder. The heat emitting from his skin almost made her recoil, but even though she thought it might actually burn her if she kept it there for too long, she forced herself to remain relaxed and with a calming smile on her face. "See, everything is okay. There's no need to keep fighting."

If Kiba's body wasn't so deformed and his touch didn't hurt, she would have found it kind of cute how much he leaned into her hand.

However, while he seemed to relax, his physical transformation didn't come undone. A closer look with her Byakugan also showed why:

Rather than slowing down, the rate with which his charka was increasing was only growing, and it was particularly active in his brain and stomach. More precisely, where the Gates of Opening, Healing, and View were located respectively. Hinata had learned a bit about the various inner gates during her training with Lee and his team, even more so than they realized, so she could confidently say that Kiba hadn't opened any of them. Whatever he had done did increase their chakra recovery rates, though, and that at a dramatic pace. It probably had something to do with the pill he had taken earlier, she assumed. There had to be some kind of time limit to how long the effect could hold, but there was no way to know how long that would be, and even her limited medical expertise was sufficient to tell her that whatever side-effect the technique had would only be worse the longer it was active.

Consequently, it had to stop sooner rather than later, and if it didn't stop naturally, it had to made to stop manually.

Hinata waited until Kiba closed his eyes with a low hum, ignoring the heat on her palm and around her wrist where he had grabbed her. Gently, yes, apparently careful not to hurt her despite his current mental state, but the heat was just that hot. Then, she struck.

His eyes shot open in pain and betrayal, but a handful of lightning-fast strikes had already closed several of his key tenketsu and weakened him to the point where his legs couldn't hold his own weight any longer. The grip on her wrist briefly tightened, however, painfully so, but she didn't let that stop her even as she let out a pained whimper when something in her wrist snapped.

A second later, Kiba's hold on her fell limp as his eyes rolled back into his head and his unconscious body hit the ground.

Hinata immediately took an instinctive step back, muscles tensed in preparation for… anything, really. It was only when her downed teammate slowly started to revert back to his previous, normal form that she allowed herself to relax. A quick check-up with her Byakugan confirmed that closing his tenketsu had been enough to stop whatever effect his pill had put into motion.

All her strength and whatever calmness had overcome her earlier left Hinata all at once as she dropped to the ground beside him, Byakugan deactivated and her throbbing right hand pressed to her chest. "Oh, thank goodness..."

"Hinata!" Shino exclaimed as he landed next to her, Akamaru cradled in his uninjured arm and with a makeshift bandage around the other to stop the bleeding. "Are you alright?" Then, with a look at their other teammate, he added, "What about Kiba?"

"He will be fine, I think," she replied with what she hoped but didn't honestly believe was a convincing smile, watching as he put Akamaru down who then limped over to his unconscious partner with a soft whine. "He's very low on charka, but I don't think he's really hurt. He will wake up after some rest." Hopefully, she added inside her head.

Shino didn't relax as he kneeled down to take a closer look at her wrist, which she reluctantly allowed. "And what about you?"

"It's not too bad." The wince that followed when he applied some pressure to it probably wasn't very convincing, but she ignored that. "It should heal by itself within a week or so. Sooner if we can find a healer."

It went unsaid how unlikely that possibility was. Naturally, Shino picked up on that as well.

"Which means neither of us will be in any condition to fight for a while." With a look as Kiba, he added, "None of us will, even if he wakes up soon."

Hinata merely nodded. That's somewhat of a problem, isn't it?

"Did Kiba–"

"It was an accident," she immediately interrupted him, knowing where his question was heading.

"So–"

"It was an accident, Shino."

Her voice was a bit more biting than she would have liked, but she forced the embarrassed flush that threatened to heat up her cheeks down, not willing to budge on this. If Kiba heard he had hurt her, even if it was just an accident that happened while he wasn't in control…

Needlessly to say, that wouldn't end well.

Fortunately, Shino took the hint and didn't push the question any further. Instead, he changed the topic:

"We should find a shelter where we can rest. Remaining here in the open won't do us any good."

She agreed easily enough and thus rose back to her feet with a groan, trying to ignore the way her legs felt like pudding underneath her. It was then that she realized they might have another problem, and judging by the look on Shino's face, he had made the same connection she did:

Kiba was unconscious and Akamaru was in no condition to travel at anything faster than a limp, meaning they would both have to be carried, whereas she and Shino were not only exhausted, but had just one good arm each.

Almost simultaneously, the both of them sighed.

Shisui blinked as the memories of his shadow clone plopped into his mind. It took him a few seconds to make sense of them and truly understand what had happened, an unfortunate side-effect of having shadow clones run along for too long, but when he did, his lips quirked upwards into a relieved smile. Well, at least things seemed to have worked out for Itachi's team. I was almost worried there for a hot second.

He found it honestly ridiculous that the Tsuchikage had sent a bunch of sensor types along with his village's Genin for the sole purpose of hunting other teams after all the concessions Konoha had already given him ahead of the exams. A strategy like this wouldn't have had the slightest chance of success during any other Chūnin Exams ever, at least not without completely ruining your own reputation in the process, so it was pretty bold that he exploited Konoha's goodwill like this. More temperamental villages might have outright killed his Genin for such a thing and then blame it on the nature of the exams.

At least these kids are only beginners, he thought. They could still be fooled, even if only by elite shinobi. If they were better trained and more experienced, well… There was a reason why sensors were such a pain to deal with. It took all the skills a talented ANBU had to offer to trick even a moderately talented one, but doing the same to an experienced sensor was all but impossible.

But then again, Shisui had to admit that the Tsuchikage most likely only dared to act like this because he knew he could get away with it. There was no denying that he would benefit greatly if his plans worked out as intended, too. If he could manage to fill most of the final slots of Konoha's Chūnin Exams with Genin from his village, well, that would send quite the message to the rest of the continent considering the ongoing cold war between the two of them.

It was just too bad that the Sandaime had taken preparations of his own.

I wonder what kind of face that grumpy old man will make when he hears that half of his Genin have been demolished by only one Konoha team, he thought amused, mentally summoning an image of the Tsuchikage fuming in his office. Especially when they tell him that most of it was the work of only one of our Genin.

Shisui had no idea what technique it was the Inuzuka had used, but it had certainly been a hell of a jutsu. He would have to speak with Itachi about it later and complain that his friend hadn't told him about it beforehand. One would think he would have bragged about it before today, but no, apparently not.

Shisui didn't turn around when he felt the arrival of one of his subordinates behind him. "Report."

"The Nara, Akimichi, and Yamanaka heirs are all in stable condition, Captain. None of their injuries has been very severe to begin with and they will make a full recovery soon enough."

Oh, would you look at that! More good news! Why can't things always go so swimmingly?

Keeping a more professional appearance to the outside, he asked cooly, "And what's the general status of the exams?"

"Three teams have reached the central building so far," the kneeling ANBU behind him replied promptly. "One from Konoha, one from Suna, and one from Kumo."

"Which Konoha team exactly?"

"Team 4, Captain."

He nodded, satisfied with that. So Haku's team has advanced to the next stage, then. That's good. Sandaime-sama will be happy about that. "Continue."

"The Iwa team containing the Tsuchikage's granddaughter still remains outside the tower to block the way for others, but they seem to start getting impatient. We estimate they will enter the building within a day as well.

"So far, a total of twenty teams have been eliminated, seven of which are from Konoha. That leaves us with five cells from our villages and a total of sixteen active teams in the exams. Two of our five cells are the ones selected to represent Konoha in the finals. The remaining three teams are the special squads that have been specially ordered to participate by Hokage-sama. They are currently working overtime to keep the remaining members of the Iwa-Taki Alliance away from Teams 7 and 8, in coordination with our other teams on the ground. So far, no one has noticed any of our interferences."

That was good news as well. Shisui and the ANBU squads that had been put under his command for the duration of his tenure as proctor of the second stage had tried to keep their meddling to a minimum, limiting themselves mostly to leading enemy teams astray when they came too close to one of the cells they had been ordered to look out for or leading allied teams to help each other when things looked dire like when they had subtly led Team 10 to help Team 7 without their knowledge, and he preferred to keep it that way. Things might turn ugly if they had to resolve to more direct methods.

The three special teams Sandaime-sama had made join the exams were godsent in that regard. They consisted of children that had been rescued from Danzō's sick organization, making them the perfect age to participate without attracting unwanted attention. From what Shisui understood, the teens in question had been young enough to not have been subjected to the worst of Danzō's methods yet while simultaneously having been there long enough to still reap some of the benefits. Compared to their other, older peers who had been rescued as well, they were quite fortunate, having even been able to join the academy relatively quickly–albeit be it in a special 'advanced class' under close supervision. They had been essential in remaining mostly in control of the course of the exam.

The ANBU continued, "Other than the two aforementioned Konoha cells, the only selected teams that haven't arrived at the central building yet are the ones from Kiri and Iwa. However, as the latter is still camping in front of it and set to enter soon as previously mentioned, we expect no further problems from that front. Another team is currently shadowing the former to make sure they succeed as well. They already obtained both scrolls they need, so it's only a matter of having them reach the tower."

"Well done," Shisui said. "Tell the three special squads to make sure none of the remaining teams reaches the tower once all the relevant parties have entered."

"Understood, Captain."

At least that part of his mission was pretty much guaranteed to work out just fine. All five great nations would have one of their hand-picked teams reach the finals, just as agreed upon, allowing Sandaime-sama to enact the next step of his plan–a plan Shisui hadn't been told about but which he could easily guess.

There was one more thing, though…

"Based on your lack of initiative, can I assume that there has been no sighting of our other objective?"

"No, Sir. The Forest appears to be clean."

"Very well. Dismissed."

The ANBU vanished in a puff of white smoke.

The fact that there had been no sighting was technically a good thing, but instead of easing his nerves, it made him feel only all that much more uneasy.

For some reason, the Hokage had indicated that there might be a risk of Orochimaru somehow intervening in the exams. In fact, Shisui had been chosen as the overseer of the second stage at least partly because he was one of the few shinobi in the village deemed strong enough to fight the rouge Sannin should he show his sneaky face. The man's intelligence and cunning were well-known, however, and there was probably a reason why the Hokage felt the threat of him to be relevant enough to warn the security detail of his possible appearance at the exams, so the lack of any sighting only made Shisui feel that they were failing to find him rather than that he wasn't here at all.

They had been told to keep an eye out for Orochimaru's known subordinates as well, particularly some silver-haired teen with glasses whose name was unknown and of whom they only had a composite sketch rather than a photo, but so far, there had been no sighting of those either.

With how much importance was attached to this year's Chūnin Exams, they couldn't afford to have anyone ruin them, and even less so when the person in question was a former Konoha-nin. Not with what kind of high-ranking guests they expected to entertain in the village very soon. With that in mind, all these uncertainties made Shisui very, very uncomfortable.

As nice as it was to always be among the first to know about new developments, and as good as the pay that came with a higher position was, Shisui felt that the responsibilities and worries that came with his rank would age him long before his time.

Nothing I can do about any of that now, though, he ultimately decided with a sigh. I can worry about those things once this exam is over. Or better yet, have others worry about it and just be ready to kick some ass if things blow up in our faces.

That was what he did best, after all.

As much fun as it was to write this part, I'm glad it's over. Let me tell you, writing fight scenes with lots of people or from an outside perspective is a pain!

As always, please leave a comment and tell me what you think!