Even though the Exams were still multiple months away, Kaisuki was extremely stressed. Sakura had been making huge improvements. Naruto had become a powerhouse. Sasuke had changed up his entire fighting style and had become deadlier than a whirlwind of shuriken. The day of her return, Kakashi had brought her to the training grounds and had her and her teammates observe the dynamics of the fighting and jutsu styles they were working on.
She was amazed by the speed of their progression. Kakashi had said a lot of that had to do with how close to the bottom they were starting at. If Kaisuki couldn't get onto the training fields and start making the same fast gains, she would fall behind. At the rate she was going, she was going to be so far behind she'd probably end up being a burden to the team. Would the whole team have to withdraw if she did? How was she supposed to catch up when she was already starting from less than zero, having dropped out of the Academy so early on? She couldn't afford to be resting for so long, she was...
"Hello, Khrai to Kai? Yer really just gonna keep ignorin' me?" She felt a pinch on the back of her neck and swatted at it absently before she even recognized that it had been from internal stimuli as opposed to external.
"Yea?" The Yurei replied out loud, watching the steam rise out of the teapot. She had hardly registered what Khrai even said. "Any sign of Saeka?"
"Aye," the Elf responded and immediately, Kaisuki perked up. The dry sarcasm in the Elf's next statement was crisp and clear, though her accent thickened with her annoyance. "Y'ella to yerself t'en, eh?"
Kaisuki smiled at the wall sheepishly. "Sorry. I was lost in thought..."
"More like lost in yer anxiety." Khrai snorted. Something about her tone seemed somewhat somber. "Anyway, 'ow's the tea? Izumi's still sleepin' but Saeka wants you."
"I think it's almost done, maybe a few more minutes of boiling. I can turn it off and leave it alone. It should cook itself for the last couple minutes without the burner." Kaisuki lidded the pot and turned the burner down. Her house smelled weird every time she had to brew more, but this brew would be combined with a special flour and condensed into a hundred pills by Izumi's skilled hands and two a day were all she needed.
The irou-nin had meant it when she said she could treat Kaisuki's pain. The first day the Yurei had tried the new medication, she had cried from relief. They could make it as a liquid and as a pill, depending on the available resources, and it was extremely effective at both erasing the pain and reducing inflammation from the use of Saeka's chakra. It was genuinely a life-saving medication. She had finally been able to sleep the past few nights.
"You're very lucky that I was pulled here. As in, life or death lucky. Don't ever forget how reckless you were with this poor child's body, Khrai."
After trying four different concoctions and not finding a solution, all the while Kaisuki's pain worsened to the point that she couldn't pilot her own body because she didn't have the tolerance, Izumi had exploded on Khrai. It was the last thing the two of them had the energy for before they stopped coming out to the spotlight at all. By then Kaisuki was already spending almost all her time sleeping in her own subconscious.
In the end, Saeka was left alone in the external world, silently cooking the recipes Izumi had written down ahead of time, bearing the pain on her own.
"How are you... do you not feel it?"
"Of course I feel it," she'd replied, angry and hurt by the insinuation. "I've just... had worse."
A few days later, Saeka made the first part of the new medication - the tea brew - and ingested it on their behalf. The pain eased, finally, and Saeka disappeared to rest, and wasn't seen for a couple of weeks.
During all of this, Sasuke had gotten sick. By the time Kaisuki was fully back in action, he was very sick. She went to see him once she was at one hundred percent, and...
She turned off the stove top, taking off the lid to stir a little. Well, the rest, as they say, was history. History that made her angry to think about. Why his mood and personality was so impossibly unstable, to the point that he could be her best friend one day and spew hatred at her the next, was beyond her. It was infuriating and hurtful and frankly, she almost wanted to just give up interacting with him at all. She was tired of him hurting her, seemingly without remorse and almost always without apology.
Kaisuki walked over to her couch and sat down once she was satisfied with the situation on the stove top. Leaned back and comfortable, she closed her eyes. Once her body was settled, she turned inward, stepping out of the reign and into the white spotlight. She followed the lit trail, noticing that it curved off to the left. Khrai hadn't mentioned where to go to talk to Saeka. Were they in Itachi's room again? She started walking down the trail, pushing herself towards Saeka's presence. A blink later, she was pulling open a sliding door and stepping into - she'd guessed right - Itachi's room, in the Uchiha Estate, before everything.
The real Uchiha wasn't there, of course. It was just a space in her mind, built from many memories and strong emotions. Itachi's wasn't the only room but, when Saeka was involved, that was often where they ended up.
"'Hey there," she greeted. Saeka's pink, malformed Sharingan looked up at her. The girl still hadn't explained anything about that.
"Hi, Kaisuki," Saeka replied quietly. "I asked Khrai to let me talk to you alone first."
Kaisuki sat down with her on the floor, a curious smile on her face. "Is everything okay?" She asked.
Saeka curled into herself, her shoulders hanging forward, her knees already pressed against her chest. Her hands lay with her fingers splayed over her knees, talons carefully aligned with her shin. Her head dropped forward as well. Kaisuki's curious smile was quickly replaced with a worried frown and a wrinkled brow.
When she curled up that way, Saeka truly looked tiny. So small, especially in comparison to Khrai but even in comparison to herself. The youngest spirit would never get older or bigger. She might mature a bit over time but she would always be a tormented eleven year old.
The silence stretched for a few seconds before Saeka finally mustered up the courage to speak. She took a deep breath and the words came tumbling out of her mouth: "There's a dangerous person here, and he's... he's planning something bad." She began softly. "Something really bad is going to happen during the exams." Kaisuki felt her stomach drop.
"What do you mean by plans?" The Host asked for clarification.
Saeka looked up at her from where she'd been staring at the ground. "He's... he's possessed a lot of people in the village. The citizens, I mean. He's building up an army..."
"He"? An Army? Possessed citizens? Kaisuki's throat was tight and she couldn't speak for a moment, so Saeka continued. The sadness and pain in her eyes were hard to look at. "He's ... he's after Sasuke."
That time, Kaisuki's heart stuttered in her chest and her mouth dropped open. "Who is ... 'he'? Can you tell me anything?"
Saeka broke eye contact with Kaisuki, shame etched into her expression. "He... he's my creator."
That immediately explained why she had been so terrified to admit it. Kaisuki's hands balled up into fists in her lap and sucked a lip into her mouth to chew on it briefly. "So he's planning a large scale attack, then, to get his hands on Sasuke?"
Saeka seemed to shrink into herself even more. "Yes, I'm pretty sure..."
There was another stiff silence between them before Saeka spoke again, her voice broken by tears and sobs that were rapidly rising in her. "I don't want him to know I'm... here." She hiccuped. The despair in her voice was terrifying for even Kaisuki. She had been afraid of Saeka and her power for a long time, but to think that there was someone she was afraid of? The same person who had killed her, experimented on her... grown her in a lab?
Her heart was racing but it wasn't with fear. "Then we'll make sure he doesn't know you're here." A chill seemed to settle in her chest as she replied to Saeka. She wouldn't admit it right in that moment, but she wanted to kill whoever that man was and she barely knew anything about it.
"Yea," Saeka sniffled quietly. "But-...
"No buts," Kaisuki interrupted, gently finger-combing the girl's thick, wild hair. "As long as we're all mindful of one another..."
"We can protect each other," Saeka finished her sentence for her. Izumi had a lot of great points even when Saeka and Kaisuki didn't want to hear them.
Kaisuki nodded, smiling again. "Exactly. See, if you and I listen to the old people we know, we just might learn something between the two of us." She joked lightheartedly. Saeka sniffled again but nodded in agreement.
The youngest spirit didn't look fully reassured but there wasn't much Kaisuki could do about it. She didn't have to ask anyone to know that Saeka would be afraid until she wasn't afraid anymore. Maybe she wouldn't be able to do that within Kaisuki's lifespan. Getting over that kind of pain took a long, long time and a lot of self-esteem building. Hopefully the girl would become more confident over time but, at least for now, the only thing Kaisuki could do was keep her word and survive the Exams.
"It's gonna be okay, Saeka," Kaisuki spoke soothingly to her, still petting her head. "We'll make it be okay."
At any rate, the Yurei couldn't deny that she was equally terrified of the upcoming exams for more reasons than just her lagging behind in training.
.
Khrai continued to be mostly absent, only appearing once in a while with her two cents or a bit of advice or a reminder of some kind. After Kaisuki's conversation with Saeka, the youngest had also been quiet and uninterested in being around anyone. Riding out the pain for as long as she had, had really taken a lot out of her, on top of the effort and stress she endured to warn Kaisuki about the danger that was heading their way. Hopefully Saeka would be doing a lot better by the Exams.
It seemed like everyone was going through it. She was almost worried they wouldn't survive to see the Exams.
The first three weeks of "training for the Chuunin Exams" had mostly consisted of bed rest for Kaisuki. She hadn't expected to be out of action for so long. Even though Sasuke had gotten sick as well, he had still been training through it and somehow improving all the way. It made her feel guilty for resting, though Izumi had been in her ear consistently about the importance of not making her condition worse.
Kaisuki had barely seen Sakura because the girl was consistently working on and off the training grounds, with and without their mentor, to improve her own skill set. She had shown them during the last meeting how proficient she'd gotten at irou-ninjutsu and genjutsu casting. Naruto had made enormous strides as well in his strategizing and chakra control, but more than anything he'd gotten a lot stronger, physically, by making kage bunshins to fight. Kakashi picked up the skill from watching Naruto and, to up the anti, he would occasionally cast his own clone for Naruto to fight however he wanted. The blond was working a lot harder than he probably realized, simply because he was having so much fun with it.
She hoped she didn't end up dragging her team down. She had a lot of work to do. They still had two months left until the Exams but... would that really be enough time? Especially if she was forced to keep taking rest days?
"Something really bad is going to happen during the exams..."
In the reign, Izumi was diligently making medicine. "Hey, Izumi," she greeted.
The medic smiled on the outside. "Welcome back. How is Saeka?" She spoke aloud, not at all anxious about being heard.
"I think she's doing alright. She's still tired though, I think." Kaisuki answered her promptly. "How are you doing?"
"A little tired myself," Izumi admitted. "Your body is still showing signs of fatigue, so tomorrow..."
"Do we have to do another rest day? I'm going to be sleeping until the Exams without getting a chance to train properly..." Kaisuki interrupted her unhappily.
The look Izumi gave her felt patronizing and it upset Kaisuki immediately. She knew that Izumi was right about needing rest, but that didn't change the fact that there was a time limit for how much relaxing she could do! She frowned at the white bricks at their feet.
"If we don't recover fully, we'll be worse for wear and won't improve anyway," Izumi chided gently. "Your body is still delicate, Kaisuki. You just don't realize it because the pain medication is working."
She huffed. "Okay. Fine," she conceded, unable to disguise her frustration. Was there anything she could do to train while she was on bed rest? "Would it be alright if I just practiced my chakra control without doing anything strenuous with it?"
Izumi hummed thoughtfully before she smiled and nodded approvingly. "Yes, I think that's fine. No casting actual jutsu, but it would be good to practice moving your chakra around in your body."
Kaisuki nodded, disappointed in her own body. "I'm gonna chill in the kotatsu room then. Just... let me know when you're done."
"Of course," the irou-nin replied.
...
"It's been over a decade since the last time Konoha hosted the exams," Kakashi told his students. He'd taken it upon himself to explain the progression of the exam to the them ahead of time. They were only a few more days out at that point. "A lot of the people who will come to this village in the next couple of days before the exams will be the students. Some of these people have been Genin for a lot longer than you. Don't underestimate anyone."
The four of them responded with some variation of acknowledgment, from Sakura's attentive "yes sir" to Sasuke's dull "mmhmm".
"Moving on," Kakashi continued. "Since it's now relevant, Sasuke, Naruto, Kaisuki."
Sakura and Naruto perked up with immediate interest. The other two remained stoic and still, Sasuke maintaining a scowl for no good reason and Kaisuki aggressively destroying her lips with her teeth.
"All of your legal documents within the village have been altered to ensure that your identities remain a secret. This has been the case since you were all children." Kakashi reached into his pocket and produced four cards. He handed the first to Sakura, then Kaisuki, then Naruto, and then Sasuke. "These are your ID cards for the Exams. Until the Exams are over, these are your only form of identification. Remove your regular ID from your wallets and use these instead for now. Yes, your names are completely different on these IDs and that's intentional." Kakashi told them, his tone serious and his gaze unwavering. "Commit those names to your memory and don't ever give someone from outside the village your real name. You too, Sakura, don't forget to use the fake names during the Exams. Sasuke, you can't wear the Uchiha crest during the Exams, either."
He watched Sasuke's eyes dart up to look him in the face, insult clear in his widened eyes, but the boy bit his tongue and said nothing.
"The only time you should pull this card out from now on, is when a Jounin or higher-ranked member of the village asks for it," Kakashi concluded. "Show it but don't hand it over, ever."
He hated that he was being forced to enroll them in those god's forsaken Exams.
Sasuke was now looking at his ID with a somber, unhappy look in his eyes. He had already grown up with all his documents stating "Uchiwa" instead of Uchiha, but the names on their fake IDs were intentionally chosen to be as far from their real names as possible. Kakashi understood that the boy hated that he couldn't be proud of his name and lineage, and he didn't blame him. If it were up to Kakashi, he wouldn't have let them do the Exams until he felt they were strong enough that it didn't matter if anyone knew their names.
It wasn't fair to any of them.
"They decided to change our whole names?" Kaisuki asked, visibly annoyed with the card she was staring at. "That seems excessive to me."
"Yea," Kakashi answered a bit coolly, realizing quickly that he couldn't keep his bitter fury about the entire situation repressed. "There's a big concern about spy activity around the Exams, so the Hokage is pulling out all the stops to protect our national security."
"If he's that worried, why doesn't he just tell us not to go?" Sasuke muttered to himself.
I'm wondering the same thing, Sasuke.
"I fully agree with you, Sasuke," the Jounin responded with a heavy sigh. "The old man has his reasons, but I'll admit that I doubt those reasons are worth dog shit."
He cleared his throat loudly. "Don't tell anyone I said that."
"You're secret is safe with us, sensei," Sakura reassured him.
He nodded at her. "I appreciate that," he returned. "Alright. That's all I wanted to tell you today. Please be extra careful walking around in the evening and early mornings from here on out. Don't go out after it's dark, I'm sure you all understand."
Kakashi scanned their faces once more before he announced, "You're all dismissed."
.
That evening, as always, Sasuke walked through his house, methodically closing the curtains on every single window and making sure every lock was latched. He would turn on every single light as he traveled through the house a few minutes before the sun was fully set. He couldn't stand being in the dark. The shadows always seemed to move around in his apartment and being in the dark just reminded him of the massacre, of Itachi's genjutsu.
Aside from those usual thoughts and fears, Kakashi's warning about going out at night had left him with a stomachache from anxiety.
He turned on the bedroom light before the dark room had a chance to make him spiral into a panic attack. Nothing was out of place. Everything was where he had left it. He strode up to the window and closed the curtains. He crossed the room and opened the closet door and turned the light on in there as well. Nothing out of place. Everything where it was supposed to be.
Before his mind could start pondering other places someone could hide, he left the bedroom and made his way back downstairs. He concentrated on fixing himself something – anything – to eat with the tea he was making. But he really felt too sick with anxiety to eat. He'd have some tea first, that was fine. He could eat in a little while.
He poured himself a cup and walked over to the dining room table, his eye skating across the floor absently. But when he brought his hand up to place the cup on the table, he paused. There was already a cup sitting there. He didn't remember having any tea earlier, though. Or rather, he remembered having tea in the morning but he'd washed it and put it away, hadn't he?
Sasuke put the fresh cup down and lifted the other one, taking a tentative sip. It was cold and over-sweetened. He made a face as he spit back into the cup, unable to even swallow with so much sugar in it. He had never drunk his tea with sugar; he hated sweet things. He slowly put the cold cup back down on the table, confused and anxious. Hs heart was already racing. Had he forgotten that he'd made it? That didn't make sense though, because he would never put sugar in his tea. The only other possibility was...
His throat felt tight. Was someone in here? Is someone still in here?!
"Itachi always liked sweet things..."
Sasuke barely registered his own body as he did another walk-through of the apartment. He blinked and found himself in the living room area at the top of the stairs, all the lights already on. He scanned everything, looking for anything out of place. Anything he didn't remember moving, using, or doing. He opened the door to the coat closet. Nothing. There was nothing out of place in the bedroom when he checked it again.
He found himself pausing in front of the door to the bathroom. Something felt off, here. Like there was some part of him telling him not to open the door. He didn't know why the door was closed. He usually kept everything open when he was home. The light wasn't even on but he could've sworn he'd checked the bathroom already.
He turned the doorknob and stuck his hand in first, finding the light switch before he hyper-focused on the darkness of the room. The light flickered on and he pushed the door open.
It was steamy inside. As if someone had just taken a shower. He immediately reached up and ran his hand over his head, freezing up when he felt the dampness in his hair. What? He hadn't showered when he got back, had he? He didn't remember showering.
Am I in danger?
The lump in his throat was threatening to choke him. Should he turn himself in? Should he report to Kakashi? Should he keep it to himself for now? Was there a reasonable explanation for it?
There was a knock on his front door and he jumped. He wasn't expecting company. He strode through the house quickly, trying to quell the tremor in his shoulders. He was stuck somewhere in his thoughts even as he opened the door.
"Can I help you?" He asked before even registering who was at the door.
A semi-familiar mask greeted him. "Uchiha Sasuke?"
"I-... y-yes?" He replied shakily. It had been only four days since ANBU had showed up at his door last. The timing of their arrival was immediately raising terrifying questions in his mind.
"There's been an incident, regarding your brother. You're under obligation to report to..."
He knew what the words meant. His mind was buzzing and he couldn't really process anything, but he knew what it meant. It was the same every time they showed up, starting all the way back when he was a child, shortly after the massacre. The weight of his brother's actions always seemed to find a way to land upon his shoulders and his alone.
"Itachi's done something and they're going to pry around in your mind to make sure you don't know anything about it."
I wish he'd just die so I could live in peace...
"I-I understand..." he managed to say, stepping back so he could shove his feet into his shoes. His heart was hammering away in his throat. He didn't know anything but what had just happened with his memory gaps (if it was his memory) made it hard for him to pretend their visit was unwarranted. Maybe someone had broken into his apartment and being taken by ANBU would protect him, whether they knew it or not. Or maybe Itachi was somehow messing with his memory remotely, but was that even possible? He was certain it wasn't.
Was he actually a sleeper cell...?
…
Team Plus Ultra had made incredible strides in the couple of months leading up the Exams. Sasuke was finding it more and more difficult to pretend his teammates were beneath him. They were all growing at an impressive enough rate that, at times, he felt like he was the one falling behind.
Sakura's chakra manipulation had surpassed Sasuke's and even Kakashi's. She could cast genjutsu within a range of a hundred meters, though her use of illusions was limited compared to what Sasuke could do with his natural talent. All the same, she was far better at dispelling it than any of the other Genin on the team.
Sakura had also developed a technique she'd started calling "chakra transferring", something she'd suggested to Kakashi herself and had spent over a month perfecting with Naruto and Kaisuki as her siphons. The two of them would train to the point of near chakra exhaustion and Sakura would refill their chakra levels to the point that they could get up and move around freely again. Her ability to micromanage her chakra made her a completely different kind of threat on the field. Most would probably overlook her but she maintained her own threat level. On top of all that, she had picked up irou-ninjutsu on her own time and had brought her progress to Kakashi just a week prior, during a team meeting, and already she was able to fully repair a clean fracture and close deep wounds. She had simply gone to their mentor for confirmation of her skill and a few pointers that only an experience Jounin could provide.
The truly terrifying thing about Sakura was that she was able to pick it all up so quickly. She was interested in those topics and skills – genjutsu casting and dispelling, irou-ninjutsu and herbology, chakra sharing and siphoning – and it took her only a few days at most to become adept. A week or two later, she was close to mastering each. Sakura was not a fighter; she was support and, on a team full of monstrously powerful Genin, her support skills were far beyond anything Kakashi had seen in a Genin since the wars – according to the man himself, anyway. She taught herself to do sutures and close wounds by hurting herself and then repairing the tissue. Her desire to keep her skin smooth and clear was upheld by her impressive skill and determination to do it perfectly.
Naruto, on the other hand, had developed a method of using his overfilled chakra reservoirs that allowed him to use explosive amounts of speed and strength. He had mastered his use of the kage bunshin in a fight and could do battle as a frighteningly fast team of ten powerhouses. He was excellent as a distraction, noisemaker, and force of brute strength when needed. He couldn't master the micromanaging that Sakura could, but he had become exceptional at chakra bursts. He had practiced with Saeka, who had a similarly huge amount of chakra, as she was an expert at that particular use of chakra. Saeka's speed wasn't a natural born gift, apparently; she was simply that good at infusing her legs with chakra and using bursts of that energy to propel herself at inhuman speeds.
Naruto, ever the chakra-overloaded idiot, figured out how to do much the same on his own before going to Saeka for further advice. He could activate his entire body and the power and speed he could accomplish with it was incredible. His movements could still be sloppy when he was stressed in battle but he made up for it with his impressive stamina and the brute force he could put behind his attacks. To practice fighting as a deadly force on his own, Kakashi had him casting twenty kage bunshin, separating into teams of ten, and fighting himself until one side or the other won or was exhausted. The power he could unleash against his clones was far beyond what most average humans could survive without some kind of defensive maneuver or shield. By the time the Exams were upon them, Naruto was a deadly subjugation force all on his own.
Sasuke had gone the entirely opposite route of his orange-clad teammate. Kakashi had asked each of them directly: "What do you want to be able to do with your own power?" Sasuke had opted for stealth and battling in the shadows. He didn't speak it out loud to his teacher, of course, but he had a feeling his mentor knew that what Sasuke really wanted to improve was his ability to hide. Kakashi probably saw it as an opportunity to grow a skilled reconnaissance and assassination master, but perhaps he also recognized that Sasuke just wanted to be certain that if he was ever in danger, he could hide and not be found.
So that was what he and Kakashi practiced, with Kaisuki and Saeka's help as well. The very first part of the training was simple as couple be; Sasuke learned to conceal his chakra to the greatest possible extent. Sakura practiced this with him and he was endlessly annoyed that she was able to grasp it quicker.
However, with Saeka's guidance and efforts to help Sasuke visualize the way his chakra was perceived by others, he was soon able to bottle his chakra so tightly that even Saeka couldn't easily recognize it as a human chakra source. It was something he could only hold for a few minutes at a time at first (it sort of felt like holding his breath), but he continued to practice as often as possible. He went so far as to use the skill passively, until it was something that came as naturally to him as walking and could be done for hours at a time.
The concealment was only part of it, of course. Kakashi - a former ANBU himself – trained Sasuke extensively about the senbon needles and how to throw them, which areas he should aim for to cause which effect – death, the appearance of death, a simple loss of consciousness – and they worked together with Naruto's kage bunshins to perfect the aim and timing of those throws on a moving target. Having managed to work out some kind of weird friendship with his team, Sasuke felt a little bad for using Naruto's kage bunshin as target practice but... as Kakashi had said, there truly is no better target practice for dealing with humans, besides humans.
Out of everyone, Sasuke felt like the things he had perfected were... sort of underwhelming compared to his teammates, but he refused to overthink about it. It wasn't about becoming a skilled assassin to him. He didn't even really know if he wanted to be a Shinobi at all, a thought that regularly had him questioning everything he'd been doing since his family was taken from him. He just didn't want to be found by certain people, so he wanted to be good at hiding and enabling his own escape. He didn't care for going on missions or serving the village. He just wanted to be able to disappear if and when he wanted to.
Kakashi wanted him to expand his range of fire-based ninjutsu as well, so he returned to his roots for the last couple of weeks and practiced the many variations of fire jutsu. The grand fireball was one he'd mastered long ago but, as his sensei had told him, there were many, many ways to expel flames that were much more useful and precise than the grand fireball. He'd practiced those grand fireballs so much as a child, bringing that heat up became nearly second nature to him so adjusting his chakra usage and even the manner of shooting those flames wasn't a complex feat to him.
Sasuke felt like Kakashi had been watching him extremely closely the whole time. It seemed like his sensei was always close to him, no matter which of his teammates the masked man was working with at any given time. They all practiced in the same training field together and there was lots of space between them, but every time Sasuke looked over to see what his team was doing, he always seemed to find Kakashi looking back at him.
Kaisuki had made a lot of her own progress, even if it didn't really seem like it to Sasuke. Apparently, she was trying to learn and perfect a series of specialized skills that only Yurei needed and only Yurei could do. Izumi had explained to all of them during one of their team dinners that Kaisuki should have been learning to communicate, cooperate, and coordinate with her "Guests" since the day Saeka was awakened. It was a tragedy what had happened to Kaisuki's family but it was an even greater horror to Izumi was that no one had been able to take Kaisuki aside to teach her how to exist as a Yurei. She had none of the skills that she should've learned through childhood, in addition to missing the majority of the public Shinobi education that was supposed to be available (and mandated for certain clans) to all children in the village.
Still, watching Kaisuki exhaust herself and collapse almost daily seemed a bit backwards.
Sasuke frowned at her back as they were walking through the crowds to the opening ceremony for the Exams. He didn't have the guts to tell her to her face that he didn't think she was making any progress, though he also didn't exactly have any idea what her progress was supposed to look like. He was second-guessing whether she'd be functional as a teammate at all. She always overdid it in training but her "others" kept insisting that her fatigue was necessary to build her chakra reservoirs (something normally done in school) and to build her body's resistance to damage from the intruding chakras of the other spirits in her body.
He understood it to an extent and he supposed that, considering how much Kaisuki had missed, it was likely that she really did have to cram for these Exams. At the same time, though...
She's too much of a liability.
"How can she be trusted as a teammate when she's almost killed you so many times?"
Saeka had attacked him multiple times since she'd first appeared. Kaisuki could apologize all she wanted but it wasn't like he didn't see the hostility Saeka still had towards him. Even when they were training together, there was always something cold and dismissive about the way Saeka interacted with him. Like she disliked him on a fundamental level. He could imagine it was probably related to all the fights he'd had with Kaisuki over the years, the hurtful things he'd said to her... but she'd been just as mean to him during those arguments! Wasn't that unfair? Not that he expected a wild card like Saeka to care about fairness but he felt like he needed to keep an eye on her just to make sure she didn't stab him in the back.
"She always looks at you so coldly..."
He didn't feel like he could talk to anyone about it either. He'd brought it up to Kakashi before but his mentor had only given him a strange look when he'd explained the way she looked at him and told him that Saeka hadn't been cold to him like that since he'd joined the team. Even when he tried to talk to his own mentor about it, the man seemed to think he was making it up or something.
The rest of his team was always going to defend Kaisuki and her mess so he didn't even bother bringing it up to them. He'd mentioned it in vague passing to Sakura and even she had given him a strange, confused look and denied ever seeing Saeka treat him like that. He had been on the team before Kaisuki and yet he felt like he was the one being pushed to the side, regardless of how many times Sakura, Kakashi, and even Kaisuki assured him of his place on the team.
He couldn't not be on guard around Kaisuki. He couldn't trust her because of Saeka. He didn't feel comfortable even talking to Kaisuki most of the time because of Saeka. He was always worried about setting the girl off. Even when they'd fight in the past, the sight of Kaisuki's red eyes flashing to Saeka's memorable hot pink ones brought a specific kind of terror in his chest that he couldn't disclose to anyone.
"Even now, no one believes you. No one cares about you."
He had been staring at Kaisuki's back for a while. His eyes drifted to the scarf, tied around her waist as it always was. It was something Itachi had given her when they were very little. He had intentionally gotten rid of every reminder of his older brother but Kaisuki stubbornly hung on to that scarf, even going so far as to openly wear it.
She's so obvious about still supporting Itachi.
"Yet you're the one being treated like a spy or a criminal."
The ceremony was only a formality ahead of the actual exams, a mandated opportunity for the Genin and their mentors to size up competition. Each team would receive a scroll detailing when and where they would go for the start of the Exams, what gear they were expected to bring, and further directions for the Jounin mentors. He didn't want to go. He'd been tempted to just say he was sick and stay home. The attendance of the Exams felt utterly pointless but Kakashi had reminded them all the night before that mandatory meant they didn't have a choice unless they were actively dying.
.
The ceremony (if it could be called that) was exclusively a long, drawn-out speech by the Hokage. He congratulated everyone for showing up, went over a few house rules for the village of Konoha, and followed it all up with an elaborate pep talk that literally no one was interested in. Kaisuki stood in line with the others, her eyes vacant as she fully ignored what was going on in favor of chatting with the Guests in her mind. She wished she could go to sleep but she didn't want to torment her spirits by making someone else sit in for her.
Saeka stood attentively in the spotlight, directing the eyes of the body to look at every individual, studying them and their chakra with a mixture of curiosity and caution. Kaisuki still had the youngest spirit's warning about impending danger swirling around in her head. She couldn't help being anxious but she continuously reminded herself that she could trust her own and her Guest's judgment and knowledge. She wasn't alone.
While Saeka peered around the crowd and mostly ignored what the Hokage was saying, the rest of them sat or stood back from reigns, outside of the white spotlight but close enough that they could still be alerted if something changed.
"I suspect that the real danger Kakashi's been fretting about will involve the survival section of the exams." Izumi hypothesized, sipping at a cup of tea she had brought from her own memory.
"Aye, t'at makes t'e most sense," was the grunt of a reply that Khrai offered. "How d'ya feel about it, Kai? I haven' asked ya yet. Are ye feelin' confident?" The Elf questioned the Host, a single eyebrow cocked.
Kaisuki looked at her hands, scarred and blistered from training. She knew they had made huge progress. Kakashi had told her how impressed he was with her drive and discipline as well as the fruits of her labor. "I … I think I'm afraid of the worst." Kaisuki admitted, her eyebrows coming together just slightly. She wanted to be confident in the results of her training but she still felt left behind by the massive improvements in the rest of her team. "Saeka and I have been really on-point the last few days so I... I want to say I'm confident but I think I'm still scared..."
Khrai smiled, though it always looked like a snarky smirk. "Aye, I hear ya on t'at. Don't worry about it; you'll be able to feel t'at confidence once ye've-..."
Saeka gasped in shock, attracted their attention. A split second later, Kaisuki was back in control of her body and Saeka had pulled away. The Yurei held still, blinking a couple of times before focusing on the spot where Saeka had been staring. Kaisuki's eyebrows came together. No one looked unusual, she didn't sense anything off – though, she also wasn't a sensory type. Her ability to read and comprehend Saeka's chakra sense was non-existence. She could feel that Saeka was sensing something, but she couldn't translate the information.
"T'at's Itachi, ain't it?" Khrai acknowledged with surprise. Kaisuki whipped around internally to look at the Elf, who gazed back at her with a blank expression. "I know ya can't tell, but... it is him, ain't it?"
Saeka was still there beside them with a tempest of emotion in her eyes. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, slowly shaking her head. Confusion, curiosity, and caution were all reflected in her pink eyes and still expression. She may be able to control her facial expressions but her chakra behavior was always a giveaway.
She knew without having to ask what was about to happen; Saeka took several steps back and then disappeared into the darkness of their inner landscape. Her presence completely vanished with her and Kaisuki couldn't help the disappointed sigh she made out loud.
Saeka had been good about not hiding in her "storms" in the back of their mind for a couple of months, as they been training for the Exams. Usually, she only ran off when she extremely angry or afraid of something. Was it really only Itachi she had picked up on?
Khrai was stilling sitting beside Izumi, just out of the light of the spotlight. The bright eyes of the Elf were gazing at Kaisuki's own with a seriousness that the Yurei didn't know how to interpret. Had Khrai come to a similar conclusion? Honestly, she hoped it was just Itachi but, at the same time, Kaisuki knew better than to have such high hopes.
She felt something touch her shoulder on the outside and she quickly pulled herself out of her own head and into the external reality around her.
"Kaisuki?" Kakashi's hand was on her shoulder as she refocused her attention.
She took a few seconds to settle. "Is it over?" She asked, still blinking her dry eyes. How on earth did Saeka keep her eyes open so long? Did the girl forget they had eyelids for blinking?
"Is it... no, no," Kakashi hissed pinching her shoulder lightly. "Gods, pay attention a little at least. They're going to call us up to get our scroll soon. You'll all follow me up to get it."
"Oh, okay... are we leaving after, then?" Kaisuki prodded, unable to disguise her boredom.
Kakashi let out a sign that she felt was precisely expressing her own feeling of boredom at the length and pointlessness of the ceremony. "Just, follow my lead. Okay?"
The Yurei huffed. Due to the fact that there were four of them instead of the typical three, Kakashi was standing right next to Kaisuki. Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke were standing behind them in a side-by-side line. Other Genin stood with their back straight, chests puffed up in a row of three, directly behind their Jounin instructors. Kaisuki didn't have to guess to know why she was the one standing next to their mentor: she knew Kakashi just didn't want her to be completely checked out for the entire ceremony.
Kaisuki glanced back at her teammates, offering a weary smile as she informed them: "We should be getting called up soon."
Naruto blinked a few times at her. "Yea?" He clearly hadn't actually heard the announcement either. At least she wasn't the only one struggling to stay present. "Thank the gods, I think my brain is gonna leak out of my ears."
"Quiet down," Sakura hissed, elbowing him gently. "You're being disruptive." Speaking to Kaisuki in a much quieter voice, she implored, "Can you ask Kakashi-sensei if we'll be leaving in the next half hour? I-..." She wiggled her knees a little and Kaisuki understood right away.
"Sensei," she whispered to Kakashi when she turned back around. "How soon do you think we can sneak out?"
Her sensei let out another long-suffering sigh, reaching up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. Maybe they were all in the same boat of extreme boredom. "Let's see," he turned slightly to direct his voice to the three Genin behind him. "Once we get the scroll, we're expected to hang around and mingle with the others, size up competition, I think there's food... but we can leave straight from the stage if you want."
Naruto and Sakura enthusiastically nodded at that suggestion. "Okay. Just follow my lead and pretend you care about this part for a little longer."
Sasuke had been oddly quiet, so Kaisuki looked over her other shoulder to check in with him. Naruto was still in her field of vision, but now Sasuke was as well. He met her gaze evenly and for some reason that surprised her. There were dark shadows under his eyes and his face was paler that morning than usual, so he probably hadn't slept well or something. However, something about the slow and deliberate way he stared at her before diverting his gaze felt strange.
"I guess we're all spacin' t'e fuck out," Khrai quipped. It took some effort not to grin at the joke. She found herself smiling at Sasuke though he wasn't looking at her anymore. In her peripheral, Naruto glanced towards his teammate as well with a single cocked eyebrow. He elbowed his teammate a little, but Sasuke's only reaction was to elbow him back – much harder.
Naruto grunted a little loudly and Sakura shushed him again. The Jounin instructor of the team beside them let out an annoyed sigh that attracted the attention of two other teams around them. Next thing Kaisuki knew, when she looked away from her teammates' antics, three teams worth of Genin and Jounin were all staring at them. Her stomach sank, their gazes triggering a slew of memories from childhood.
People have always looked at me like that.
She felt her shoulders hunching forward as she cringed away from the hostile attention. Her palms were getting sweaty.
The Jounin instructor beside them was from another country judging by their attire. He snapped quietly enough that it wouldn't be disturbing to others: "Your students are distracting and disruptive, Hatake Kakashi. How did you convince anyone you could train anything besides your filthy mutts?"
Kaisuki felt Khrai "stand up". It was a rush of agitation and tension, a tingling burn in her hands and around her heart. The heavy presence of Khrai's fury was hard to ignore, and though Kaisuki kept her gaze outward, she pulled inward just enough to be able to see Khrai in her periphery. The woman's face was tense, the corner of her upper lip twitching up in disgust towards the object of her aggravation. Her eyes were bright with anger that seemed to be coming from more than just the present moment. At least Kaisuki wasn't the only one being dragged into the past by their surroundings.
"Khrai, don't say anything." Izumi's smooth command came from behind them, where she was still sitting just outside of awareness, though her undivided attention was on the outside world. "Though I admit, it's taking a lot for me to not say anything myself."
There was a hint of menace in her tone that couldn't be mistaken for anything else.
"Aye, I get it, ye don't 'ave ta tell me. I'm just memorizin' his face fer later." The Elf imparted threateningly. There was no reply from Izumi and Kaisuki could feel Khrai withdrawing, just slightly, until Kaisuki herself was no longer within "arm's reach" of the Elf.
"Believe me, I don't know either," Kakashi's lazy, disinterested reaction visibly aggravated the Jounin who'd addressed him. "You can say I'm the worst Jounin instructor you've ever seen, if you feel that way."
It was imperative that none of her Guests tried to speak or move to take over. Only a few months ago, her eyes would've been changing colors, her Guest's energy spilling into her own. It would have been a giveaway to her identity. It was only because of their collective efforts that Kaisuki had gotten to a point where she wasn't so easily hijacked by her Guest's emotions. It had taken a lot of work, especially a lot of internal work. Communication, mutual respect, and understanding one another was one of the foundations of a Yurei's ability to function while carrying vengeful spirits. Izumi would later inform her that they had avoided an international incident thanks to all the work they'd collectively put in.
"Yurei are a rarity" was something Kakashi had repeated to her over the months they'd been training. He had told her that if she couldn't put a lid on the chakra mingling, eye color changes, and establish some level of emotional regulation among herself and her spirits, he would have to pull her individually out of the exams and that would likely affect the whole team's participation. He had been no-nonsense about her training from the moment she started and he made sure she understood just how dangerous it was for her to be recognized as a Yurei by foreigners.
So, Kaisuki learned to better control the flow of chakra in her body enough to prevent her chakra from stirring and her eyes from changing, no matter how upset the Guest within her were. Since they'd done so much work on building their trust and respect of one another, she didn't have to worry so much about them taking over and acting out on their own volition.
It was hard on her focus at times but, as Kakashi had iterated and Izumi had reiterated: Khrai and Saeka needed to learn to stay out of the way so Kaisuki could learn how her own body worked. They needed to be able to force themselves to just stay out of it.
Kakashi had egged them all on for weeks, letting up occasionally so they could cool off only to jump right back down their collective throat. The man was an excellent teacher and after he and Izumi had a long heart-to-heart about the facts of Kaisuki's condition, he had sided with Izumi on her opinion that Saeka and Khrai needed to not interfere in Kaisuki's growth as a Shinobi and get themselves under control. It seemed to have worked in the sense that Khrai and Saeka became more conscious of their own effect on Kaisuki's functionality in the real world and that newfound awareness gave them both the motivation to be more mindful of their own emotions and behaviors.
"Team Plus Ultra," the Hokage finally called for them. Kakashi signaled them inconspicuously and the Genin followed after him, filing themselves into a single row. There were two ANBU guards standing on the corners of the stage, looking out for any danger ... though their presence wasn't exactly reassuring to Kaisuki anymore. Kakashi walked up to the Hokage and received the scroll in question, his Genin students at attention. Despite their disinterest and fatigue, they knew how to feign attentive seriousness for the sake of their instructor's reputation. Kakashi hadn't asked them to do such a thing but after being called out by one of the Jounin mentors just moments ago, they had all silently agreed to act the part. The Hokage shook Kakashi's hand firmly, that strange smile that made Kaisuki uncomfortable plastered across his face again.
"Are you confident, Kakashi?" The old man asked quietly as he gripped their Jounin Instructor's hand in a firm shake. "Your students certainly have a much different presence than I remember."
Their Jounin mentor's expression didn't change at all from the deadpan stare he'd held for the entire ceremony. "I don't approve of you using them as bait, Sarutobi," he quietly seethed, refusing to answer the Hokage's question at all.
On a dime, Kakashi feigned a smile and waved at the crowd while his students bowed just slightly at the Hokage, their expressions ranging from Sasuke's dismissive stare to Naruto's excited grin. Then, Kakashi beckoned them and they walked off the stage in single-file behind their instructor.
There was supposed to be a kind of mixer for the students to network with one another or size up their competition, with snacks and drinks galore, but none of their team members were particularly interested. Perhaps some would say that their decision was disrespectful or poor, that it would've given them a great opportunity for reconnaissance on their opposition, but Kaisuki personally felt that trying to mix with those people wouldn't have been safe or ideal for any of them.
It was safer for Team Plus Ultra to keep their distance and their mouths shut. Other Genin knowing nothing of their background, skill set, and personalities would be a greater advantage to them than any gossip or diplomatic chatting. Any Genin who thought Kaisuki and her team might be a pushover based on their outward behavior at the ceremony or who their mentor was, would be in for a big surprise. It was safer that way.
Kakashi skillfully led them out from under the tent they had walked into straight off the stage, waving and smiling at people who waved and smiled at him. He somehow managed to pretend through the entire tent that they weren't just escaping the crowd, refusing to be stopped by anyone for more than a few seconds. A few of his Jounin cohorts waved to him but he ensured that they were out of sight before they could catch up.
They briskly made it out the other side and didn't slow down, instead breaking into a light jog and escaping the throngs of people hovering just outside the tent.
