god-awful bricks and more

"are you going to finished with your preparations for the chunin exams soon? Because I could really use that table" I called to Sai from our shared kitchen, of course, Sai never used it as he preferred to eat roots signature organizational meal of, 'moist sustenance brick'. The meal capable of giving the consumer all the proteins and calories they need to keep going, while simultaneously being wet and watery enough to keep you hydrated. It was also a true contender in the heated competition that seemed to be going on between the provision companies to make the most disgusting ration to date.

"I allowed you to use the table more than me while you were trying to achieve you new seal, now it is your turn to work on the floor" Sai said with his constant cheer.

"and I don't suppose I can use my missing leg to get the table anyways?" I asked hopefully, putting the salmon in the oven as I peeked over the kitchen half wall to look at his expression.

"no"

I shrugged at his short answer, expecting nothing less from him as I thought about what to do while I waited on the salmon to finish. I hobbled over to look at what Sai was working on through the cold fluorescent lights, curious about what animals he would create while we were in the chunin exams together.

"would you please leave, you are rather distracting" Sai said after a minute of me looking over his shoulder at his art.

"you know, just because we talked over how saying please can make requests seem less rude, doesn't mean that it still cant be hurtful" I said while I walked to lay down on our couch.

"I normally would not mind, however, based on how you acted previously when you were nervous about your surgery, you would have started to ask questions if I had not preemptively asked you to leave" he said, still pleasant in tone as always.

"I'm not nervous" I scoffed.

"based on all previously displayed patterns and all of our conversations about the mental state, you are. first you cook, then you clean up after your cooking, then you attempt to work on fuinjutsu, even though we both know that you cannot possibly create something useful in a single evening, and then lastly you attempt to initiate conversation. All of this is, of course, centered around not confronting the cause of your discomfort" he said.

"…I liked you better when you couldn't even slightly understand human behavioral patterns… okay, that's not true, but I liked you better when you didn't confront me with my own behavioral patterns" I said, eyes narrowed in the beginning before shrugging in acceptance at the end.

He was right though, I may lean slightly towards ignoring my own psychological problems instead of confronting them, that was definitely what I did back in… I should do something to make our lighting better, I mean honestly, it's bad enough that I haven't seen the sun in weeks, I am certainly not going to suffer under fluorescent lights when I can figure out a fuinjutsu alternative.

And so, I spent the night before the chunin exams painting a large calligram sun on our ceiling, ignoring the ever-intrusive thoughts of the inevitable confrontation with my friends the next day, and how exactly I planned to handle that without talking to them.

As we stood inside of Danzo's office and waited for him to address us, Sai and I made no movements, no gestures, nothing. We simply stood, waiting as we had been ordered too, I didn't know Sai's reasons exactly, but I could only assume that they were similar to my own.

"your roles in the exams will be to protect our other genin from elimination, the two of you will participate in the chunin exams as two-thirds of a team, your third teammate is not here as she is not important to the plan, and she has one assignment which is to allow your team to enter the exams and be decent enough for you to progress to the second round, after which she will leave. She was specifically picked to be up to genin standards for the purpose of lowering the average strength of your team, thus ensuring that no other villages expect foul play. Do you understand?" Danzo said.

"yes" we said in unison.

"You were already informed of the three stages in the exams, but to ensure that no foolish choices, like not reading the information packet, were made by either of you, you will now explain the two stages to me, and what your role is in them" Danzo said.

Sai immediately started to speak "the first portion of the test will be a written test on shinobi knowledge, however, it is inconsequential whether we answer correctly, so long as we stay, insisting to take the exams no matter what, we will be allowed through as per the standard rules. However, to avoid undue suspicion, we still need to attempt the test seriously"

As Sai finished his part of the explanation, I started my portion "the intricacies of the second test will be explained to us as we take it, but our secret role, funnily enough, won't be. Suffice to say that, according to the rules between hidden villages, all the participants of the exams will be unobserved during the second test, our assignment is to observe them anyways, with two primary directives. Firstly, is to ensure that no large-scale fuinjutsu seal is created in the testing area, an unlikely possibility, yet one we have to watch out for due to the disastrous consequences of any such seal of that size"

I took a deep breath for the part of our mission I was less enthusiastic about "the other directive is to protect the participants from Konoha, with protection priority being split into three categories. First priority is Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki, as they are both the last loyal member of a powerful bloodline. After them is Ino Yamanaka, Choji Akimichi, Shikamaru Nara, Shino Aburame and Kiba Inuzuka, they are all sole heirs to powerful clans, and as such more important than the last category. The last category is made up of Hinata Hyuga, also a clan heir but with a sister who is, by many accounts, more suited for the role of clan head than her, then there is Neji Hyuga, a talent, but nothing extraordinary enough to be placed at a higher rank. Then, at the lowest priority within the lowest priority, there is Sakura Haruno, Rock Lee, and Tenten, all of whom are, while talented, entirely replaceable" I said, trying to ignore what exactly I was doing as I simply droned out what I had been told to say.

When I finished, I looked expectantly at Danzo as I waited for his verdict. Finally, after looking to be in deep thought for a moment as he stared at me, one side of his mouth lifted slowly into a cold smirk, before settling down once more into an expressionless mask.

"Good to see that you understand your roles, now go to the stage of the first test. Anno, you are allowed to speak to your acquaintances if they initiate a conversation with you. But do remember that simply one of your orders bending, does not mean that the others are to be broken. After all you do remember what happens when you stray from the right path, do you not?" danzo said, locking his one cold eye with mine as he waited for me to answer.

"yes" was my final word before I left for the chunin exams.

Sai, the new girl, and I stood in front of the towering, for Konoha, exam building for me, well, it was significantly smaller than the water daimyo's palace. As I was about to walk into the building itself instead of simply standing outside of it, I suddenly noticed Kiba, Shino and Hinata standing in the entrance.

"Hey Sai" - I turned towards him - "team eight over there are, presumably, waiting for something, and I'm not sure whether it counts as 'initiating interaction' to walk by them when they'll obviously see me"

"It would not count, Danzo must be aware that your friends would make contact with you, and if your friends are worth anything at all as Shinobi, they would notice your presence. As such, I must assume that you even asking me is simply you trying to turn my loyalty into a tool for avoiding confrontation" Sai said.

"I feel like you're developing a bad habit of confronting me with my own subconscious reasoning, and I don't like it one bit" I grumbled as I led our way towards the entrance.

"So, new girl, what is your name?" I asked.

"Why do you need my name?" she questioned, wary of my intentions.

"Well, I don't NEED your name, I just need something to call you when they question me, so really, anything I can call you would be fine" I said, nodding towards my friends as I looked at the girl next to us. She was chosen to be the third team member by Danzo, so I doubted that she was incompetent, she lacked any visible weapons outside of the standard Shinobi tools and while her arms were toned, she wasn't nearly at the muscle definition that a taijutsu or kenjutsu specialist required. Combined with Sai's expertise in controlling the battlefield through his creatures, and that I was either in close combat or midrange, I assumed that the mahogany-haired girl was either a genjutsu or ninjutsu specialist.

"Hoshi Orio" she grunted, narrowing her eyes as at me briefly before returning to watching our surroundings, her eyes like two tiny black holes, constantly trying to drag all the information of the world in, trying to discover all the plots it made against her.

We were finally just about to enter the building when Kiba finally noticed that I was, well, there. "Anno?"

"Oh, hey Kiba, look, I know it's been a while, but, well, I have no real excuse, so let's just agree that the wonders of my personality need to be spread around, for example, to people like Hisho oreo" I said with a smile while presenting Hoshi with a bow as she glared at me once again, though far more justified this time.

"My name is Hoshi" she said.

"I knew that" I said.

"Look, Anno, while we do appreciate that you want to 'spread the wonders of your personality' or whatever, because yeah, sometimes your personality can become a bit concentrated. But we wanna put the group back together, and to do that we're gonna need you to, like, just take a single week, and stop disappearing for months on end, okay?" Kiba said, talking to me like I was a frightened animal that could run off at a moment's notice.

It wasn't like I wanted to stay away, but the fact was that when I disobeyed orders people close to me got hurt, Danzo said so himself, and he had ordered me not to see them.

Hinata must have seen the reluctance in my expression, causing her to join the conversation "Anno, we know we haven't been good enough to you, you keep disappearing and we don't help you with the things forcing you to disappear" - she looked at me with a pleading expression - "but please, we want to help you with your problems, but we can't if you won't let us… so please, let us try to be better, let us help you" she asked, her voice shaking at the end as her pale pupilless eyes were on the verge of tears.

"None of this is your fault, I made these choices to help you, to stop hurting you. Look, I want to see you more too, but I can't if it means you getting hurt, you see-" - I stopped to grimace slightly as the seal on my tongue stopped me from speaking, forcing me to come up with an alternative story - "I have this jonin sensei, he picked me up after I nearly got all of us killed, and, well, he realized what my problem is and ordered me not to see any of you, but, I think that will get better soon, but I- I just don't know" I said.

I turned to an unsmiling Sai "we should get going, shouldn't we?" I asked, starting to move away before Kiba suddenly interjected.

"what do you mean 'got us murdered' we all went there, and it was your plan that got us out, and your jonin sensei can't just tell you not to see us, you must have free days where you can do what you want, that's just the basic rules! And-" Kiba kept yelling, but I couldn't hear him anymore as I walked into the dark building, Sai and Hoshi walked behind me, both ready with their kunai as they stood at my back. They were prepared for what might happen inside.