Hizashi looked down at his brother.
His face was blank, his posture perfect.
Inside he roiled.
So close—so, so close—to disaster.
The Head of their clan—
His twin brother—
He could feel his blood pumping, his heart thudding.
He could feel his every breath.
Twice, now.
Twice that his brother had stopped the sick sannin's machinations.
Twice.
It was time—
He felt his muscles tensing, felt his control break.
It was time to make the snake man pay.
.
Ibiki's chest ached.
He'd been fighting for too long, now, in the too-hot summer, with an opponent who blasted fire jutsus at every given opportunity.
He was soaked, soaked despite the fire steaming the sweat right off of him, and he ached, and it was hard to breathe, and something was wrong with one of his ribs, and he'd been on the defensive this whole time—
But he couldn't give up.
Wouldn't.
Not when there was a chance, yet, that he might succeed.
And for all that he was miserable, so was Hiroshi.
Hiroshi, unlike Ibiki, was trying to preserve his strength.
Hiroshi, unlike Ibiki, was up for promotion, needed to get as far as possible for as high a chance as possible.
Ibiki could risk going all-out here; Hiroshi couldn't.
And that's what had kept him alive so far.
But it hadn't given him many ideas on how to hit back.
Ibiki flung himself out of the way of more fire bullets, forcing his body into a roll as he pulled out another seal, began trying to lay a genjutsu over it without being spotted.
It didn't work.
Even the half-second he needed to be still to hide the paper was too long, and fireproof(ish) paper was still far too expensive, still priced for wartime—his seals were all on regular, very, very flammable paper, so if he didn't manage to hide his throw there was no way Hiroshi would let it get close enough.
Another fire jutsu, and Ibiki was on the run. He'd tried weapons—failed. Tried ninjutsu—so completely outmatched he felt kind of embarrassed to have even tried. Taijutsu was completely out because he'd have to take a fire jutsu to the face just to get in range, and genjutsus took time to set up, concentration, and Hiroshi was keeping him constantly on the run.
He knew if he just held on a little longer—he ducked, noticing the kunai at the very last second—then maybe, maybe—
And that's when he felt pain searing up his back.
Well, at least he'd gotten his opponent to expend a B-rank jutsu.
.
Uchiha Hono could feel the eyes on her.
None of them knew her secret—well, they knew she was pregnant, that much was obvious—but that wasn't why they were glaring at her.
Well, not quite glaring.
Maybe half a step down from glaring.
But she knew what they were thinking.
She knew why.
Hyuuga Hiashi was in the hospital, his branch-line brother and the elders were fighting over who was in charge, and none of that would've happened—in the view of the watching eyes—if the Uchiha had just stayed in Konoha.
Had just kept the whole of the cat contract in Konoha.
Instead animals were being treated with suspicion, pets were being abandoned, even killed, anxiety and fear were creeping in.
What would the next summoned spy look like?
Would they be spotted in time?
Objectively, Hono could admit—however reluctantly—that they might have a point.
The cat summons were, after all, divided between those Uchiha who still lived in Konoha and those who had moved to Uzu—double the territory to patrol, and the same number of summons to do the work.
On the other hand—
On the other hand, so many Uchiha had been killed.
Including cat-summoner Uchiha, for what that was worth.
They hadn't been adequately protected then, had they? Hadn't just had to deal with a little leaked information and a critically-injured Clan Head.
They'd had to deal with so, so many dead, from the Clan Head's wife down.
So many funerals.
So many parents, holding the favored toys of their children close, because they'd never again be able to hold their children.
And you didn't see them—
Hono stopped herself.
Took a breath, settled.
That was the thing, wasn't it?
There wasn't anybody to blame for the byoki.
They simply didn't know enough about it, why it showed up, how to stop it.
It wasn't fair, it wasn't easy, but—
Blame wasn't even an option.
Everyone had tried their best, people had sacrificed their lives to save others—
There was no one to blame, and so instead there was fear.
For Hyuuga Hiashi, however, there was someone to blame.
Orochimaru.
The snake sannin was, however, (hopefully) nowhere near Konoha, so they couldn't exactly watch him as he walked down the street.
And so they moved onto the next option: the Uchiha. Their summons, who were trained and dedicated to catching other summons.
Who should have caught the snake before it got to the documents, much less hurt the Hyuuga Head.
And so people watched.
Not wanting to blame, necessarily, because the pain of the byoki attack was still fresh and everyone knew the Uchiha suffered most, were outright targeted, but blaming anyway, because otherwise the option was fear, and there was too much fear already.
Hono kept walking.
Her doctor's appointment was in half an hour, and she didn't want to look as if she was in a rush, as if her pregnancy was as high-risk as multiple-bloodline pregnancies always were.
.
Ibiki winced beside his parents as Misaki got knocked out by one of the remaining Suna-nin, an expert in puppetry who had gotten out more-or-less unscathed (unlike his puppets, at least, so she likely ensured he wouldn't be making it that much further.)
"Just one of you left, now," Uncle Shin commented.
"He'll have to be soon—round three is almost over," Ibiki said.
And then—
Just as he'd suspected—
"Uchiha Sadao against Nohara Takashi."
"You know, it's really annoying that there are so many more Konoha-nin competing than anyone else," one of the other audience members commented.
Ibiki was too busy freaking out.
Nohara Takashi.
He remembered Takashi from school—he was very, very good.
Wanted to be a poisons expert, too, and was taught by a Yamanaka.
That… was not a good matchup.
Ibiki really wished he'd gone over poisons with Sadao more.
.
Everybody clustered around the radio.
It was a marvelous thing—the radio.
It was—
Hard to describe, exactly, what it felt like.
Hearing things.
From so far away.
It was grainy, it was true, and you had to focus to understand—
But it was intelligible.
It was the International Chuunin Exams, held in Konoha's Kaiso Port.
It was—
Karura glanced at her husband, Rasa.
"We're doing well," she commented.
He hummed.
Smiled.
His teeth just a bit too sharp.
"We are."
Karura… did not love Rasa.
But she thought he was good for the country, wanted their village to reach new heights instead of simply treading water.
He would be a good Kage, and so she would be his faithful wife.
Sometimes, though, she wondered what it would have been like if she hadn't caught his eye, if they hadn't been rushed into marriage because of his father's ailing health, if—
If she would have been in Kaiso right now.
How far she would have made it in the tournament.
There was a murmur of approval as the announcer described their victory, and then everyone quieted again as they waited for the next match-up to be announced.
"Konoha versus Konoha—Uchiha Sadao against Nohara Takashi."
"The Uchiha have been good too, this year," Rasa said. His eyes glinted. "I wonder how interested they'd be in a safer homeland."