9 Chapter 9: Chunin I

27 April- year 8 AK

"I still disagree." Hana was whining.

"We can't do anything about it." I tried to make her drop the topic.

"They can't just make me compete without my ninkens!" She hissed.

"They do have a point though," Shin added. "It wouldn't be exactly fair if we were a team of six members would it?"

"We could have split," I argued. "Two teams, Hana with Beta and Gamma, Shin, Alpha, and I. Or even three pairs. Each of us with one of the Haimaru brothers."

"See?!" Hana answered. "There was another solution, this exam it's rigged, I tell ya..." And Shin answered, defending the understandable position of Iwa.

I sighed, tuning them out and taking in the sights. Iwa was very different from Konoha, obviously, but it wasn't something I had thought I would ever get to see. Leaf and Rock nins had a... turbulent relationship. Meaning that if either hidden village could afford it, they would still be at war.

More than one reason explained this, but mainly, the Fourth Hokage made sure that whichever emotion any Iwa-nin could ever display toward a Leaf-nin would range only from disgust to deep-seeded hatred.

I had no doubt that Iwa threw a party that lasted at least a month after they heard of the Kyubi attack.

Even knowing all of that, there was no way I could deny Iwa had its kind of beauty. It was built on a mountain, and if not for the simple design and reddish stone (which explained the color of their uniforms), it could even remind me of Minas Tirith. There was no mistaking the Tsuchikage's Tower toppling it all. The real strange thing, however, was that the only mountains I spotted in their land were around Iwagakure no Sato itself. The rest of the land was mostly barren, with many canyons or plateaus breaking the otherwise boring flat surface of the horizon. That made me think that the mountains, which did not hide the Hidden Village, were either a red herring or a random line of defense. If I were the Tsuchikage I would have placed my village hidden deep underground, or at least in a disguised canyon. But the fact that the mountains weren't following a line, thus pointing out that they weren't originated from the collision of two tectonic plates, kept nagging at the back of my mind. Then I remembered that at least three mountains were volcanoes.

Someone went all out with doton it seems. To me, it looked like the founders of Iwa found a way to rise volcanoes in the middle of nowhere, and then used the lava to shape the rest of the mountains.

Iwa is the bait in the center of a gigantic trap. I blinked. Looking around with big eyes.

"Guys," I called. And when my teammates turned towards me I shared my findings, making them whistle. Kakashi, who was walking ahead of us turned his head and briefly, eye smiled at me, before returning to give to his smut the attention it deserved. The chunins escorting us through the maze that were the streets of the city glared at me. Touchy touchy.

Hana's right hand started darting through gestures almost faster than I could follow.

~Why Konoha Not Trap~ Shin took upon himself to answer, lowering the jug of sake from which he had been sipping, he gestured.

~When built Hashirama and Madara.~ he looked at our female teammate in a way that managed to convey how stupid it was to attack either of them so that Konohagakure no Sato didn't exactly need to stay hidden.

I butted in. ~Trees hide armies and traps. Among trunks, beneath roots, above branches.~ Hana nodded thoughtfully, satisfied by the answer. "So, are we not talking about why we are here without Guy-sensei?" she asked.

"Daiki messed up." Shin drawled.

"That's not true." I protested. "Well, I did, but we were going to go with Kakashi before I messed up." I then corrected my previous statement.

After a while Hana went back into the fray: "And why are you living in a tent in the Uchiha' District?"

I rolled my eyes. "Because of reasons." She pouted. "Until someone finds out and calls him on it its fine, Hana-chan." Shin graciously defended me.

"Sensei knows." I quipped in. And while Shin rolled his eyes, expressing perfectly the 'Duh' he wanted to say, Hana was surprised.

"And he didn't tell you to leave?" She asked, frowning heavily.

I got it living on a land nobody uses only because the ones who did die less than two months before was disrespectful towards the dead. But I was willing to bet that Sasuke's mother wouldn't have wanted her 8 years old son to live alone in what was a cemetery. And it was convenient being able to not pay rent. As a genin after all, I couldn't take up solo missions.

It's strange, the tongue lashing Guy sensei gave me made me think, a lot. I was not a child to be scolded, but after my first kills, sensei had been the one to put me back together. He had been the one who taught me. Sure, he did it because of orders and because he was part of the giant war machine that the Elemental Nations were. But it was also the only thing he had ever known. So with that prospect in mind, he went beyond his duty, to make sure I was sane, both in mind and body.

I was still unsure about what exactly had hit me about his speech. I got cocky, and tried to manipulate my Kage. I recalled. It was likely one of the big no-no things of this world. My Kage. I scoffed at the words.

Since when I belonged to Konoha? My friendships tied me to Shin, Hana and Guy. I felt a tiny bit of pity for Sasuke, along with a narrow twinge of guilt. But that was it. It seemed foolish to pretend that I cared about the prestige of my home country.

Most of my last plea to Kakashi had been true, I killed, hurt and risked myself for the village. I knew that my life was in the hands of those able to issue orders to me. And while it was true that I choose it of my own free will, it didn't change that my reason was becoming strong enough to be able to protect myself.

The thought of trying to find a way to go back to my world of origin never occurred to me, I hadn't much to go back to.

A world with chakra in it was far more interesting, and I enjoyed mastering new skills or honing the ones I already had. And from the end of the manga, I knew there were ways to travel to different dimensions. Which in itself was mindblowing. Fuinjutsu was probably the only way through which I could accomplish it. However its inner workings were restricted to jonins. Sure, I could memorize a seal and replicate it, even the technique to burn a seal onto something wasn't hard to pick up. I had memorized storage and explosive seals. There weren't others I could access.

I did study the differences among the storage scrolls I managed to get my hands upon. There weren't many, and since seals were handwritten, I couldn't be sure the different squiggles weren't a quirk of the maker. Even if I did find a storage seal that worked for water. That meant that I walked around with a lake on my shoulders. Being able to extract water from the air was something I wouldn't do out of training or necessity.

I sighed. I didn't have a purpose, but becoming strong was something that could keep me busy. So I wasn't desperate for a soul-shattering, mind-blowing revelation that would give me a 'main quest'. Doing my own thing sounded pretty good. Even if I had to find a way to stop Obito from resurrecting Madara. That was a big bad threat looming at the horizon.

"Oi, oi." Hana snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Are you even there?"

I looked at her, honestly not knowing what she wanted. "What?"

"She asked you why sensei hadn't you leave the Uchiha compound." Shin came in my rescue.

"Oh." I forgot she was questioning me. "Because I explained my reasons."

"Which are..?" Hana asked.

"The ones I'm not telling you." I flippantly concluded. Worsening her pout. She is so different from the other Inuzuka.

"Maa maa, children, we're here." Kakashi stopped Hana from going on a rampage.

We entered in a great hall where a lot of other genin teams were already waiting. I narrowed my eyes.

"Hatake-san, I swear that if we are late because..."

"And now that Konoha nins had deemed us worthy of their presence." A jonin in an Iwa uniform interrupted me, and I noticed that Kakashi had vanished from where he had been standing. Son of a bitch. I repeated in my head.

"We can begin." The Iwa jonin went ahead.

"The exam will be threefold. The first stage is about to begin. One member from every team will come here and pick a random number." He waited for a second. "Now."

I exchanged a look with my teammates, and seeing that they were acting shy all of a sudden, I rolled my eyes and went ahead.

There are a lot of teams. I noticed again. I didn't exactly remember how many people attended, Or will attend. I corrected myself in the safety of my mind, the chunin exams in Konoha, but I knew that everyone could be squeezed into a classroom, even if a big one. That was not the case.

I placed my hand into an urn and extracted a white rubber ball. The number seven gleaming in black over it. Wasn't it a lucky number?

When every team had a number, the proctor went ahead.

"There were two balls for each number. The one who picked up the number will be given a secret and become a prisoner. The other two members of his team will have to obtain said secret from the other genin who picked the same number. The secret is necessary to rescue your companion. While the one... questioned, will have to keep it secret. To pass the first stage a team must not only not divulge the secret, but also obtain it. Questions?"

A kunoichi from Suna raised her hand, she, like me, belonged to the group that extracted the numbers. "What are the two doing the questioning allowed to do?"

The proctor didn't miss a beat: "What are you willing to do for your village?"

Many of us gulped, and for a second, I was worried.

Then I thought about what I knew about the first stage of the exam. In the manga, it had been a giant trick. So I just have to free myself? I started to plan.

"So we are allowed to kill the prisoner?" An Iwa shinobi from the bigger group asked, looking at me with a... hungry gleam in his eyes. Fucking Iwa.

Then I exchanged a look with Hana and Shin. What would I be willing to do for my village?

I was relieved to be the one questioned. I sure as hell wasn't going to torture any of the hopeful chunins around me.

I looked around, taking in the general age of the genins. There were some younger and some older than me, on the older side there was a kunoichi from Kumo with sharp features that reminded me of someone... probably a filler character.

So how do I free myself? I started plotting possible solutions.

They separated us and an Iwa chunin led me to my 'prison cell'. It was a square cube carved out from the rock. It was lit by a torch behind the single wooden chair. "Sit." He ordered me. Then he tied me, without being too rough, to the chair.

Hands far from each other behind the backrest, my hips, and legs tightly immobilized too. "The other two will come in a minute after I leave the room. Your secret is 'Dawn'." He tonelessly said. Uh, I guess the Tsuchikage picked the more level headed to deal with Konoha. It's... almost kind of him.

Then my eyes narrowed. He didn't say in a minute, he said a minute after I've left. Exactly one minute. Why not 'will be here shortly'?

I nodded thankfully to the Iwa chunin, who had seen fit gagging me too. It's not like I can bite through the ninja wire.

I blinked. Well Hana could. Sensible precaution. I had a minute to organize the counter trap. Firstly I examinated my gag.

Well shit. It wasn't a gag, it was a slip of paper, and since I couldn't feel my chakra I deduced that not only it kept my mouth shut, but was also a chakra inhibitor. It wasn't that it stopped the flow of chakra, it simply made me unaware of it, and thusly unable to manipulate it.

Jutsus had two components, the chakra, the control, which was a mesh between your understanding of what you were trying to accomplish and how finely you could 'tune' the movement of your chakra. Hand seals worked a bit in the middle of the two. The more you had of one, the less you needed the other, but hand seals stabilized greatly the more lengthy processes that manipulated chakra. My chakra control was sublime, if not on par with Tsunade perfect one. I had enough chakra to perform the Kage Bunshin, and I trained extensively with it. Only, I had never done it without handseals before, and based on my experience, I would need several weeks of work to learn how to do it. I had an easier time with suiton, but there were no tricks with kinjutsu.

So, preparing myself to take a beating passively? Or whichever torture kids were capable of. Then I thought about Itachi. Better not play it with 'I can endure it.'

I forced myself to realize that kids in this world were closer to mindless soldiers than anything else. At least some veterans had seen enough shit to start questioning themselves.

I had roughly another thirty seconds to come up with something. And not being able to access my chakra was quickly sending me towards mindless fear. In all the shit I've been put through, I always had with me the comforting presence of my chakra. It came with the knowledge that, if needed, I could try something. I bit my tongue in frustration, feeling the spike of pain and the metallic taste of blood.

In my haste, I bit too deep and now there was a lot of blood in my mouth. Disgusting.

But it managed to calm me down. Somewhat. I slowed down my breathing, hoping that I would be able to spit out the blood soon. I didn't want to swallow it, it would make me puke. And with the seal on my mouth I would have to swallow it...

STOP THINKING ABOUT IT! I mentally screamed at myself. I forcibly changed the direction of my thoughts.

They can't kill me if they want to pass. But they could cripple me. Bloody fucking hell I would cripple an enemy.

Then I paused, running through the stuff I was able to do. Well there are always the gates. Thay simply change the amount of chakra that can flow through my body, the third is probably enough to shred the seal.

With that backup plan, I finally managed to relax. I had a way out.

Mind games first, then. I decided when a kunoichi and a shinobi entered the room.

Kiri kunoichi. 13. 160 cm. 48kg. No distinctive signs. Pale blond, dark brown eyes. Likely support role.

Kiri shinobi. 15. 175cm. 70kg. A scar across the nose. Slight discoloration of the left iris, possible trauma. Brown hair, brown eyes. No taijutsu or kenjutsu user. Ninjutsu or Genjutsu.

They slammed the door behind themselves. Seriously? This should be intimidating?

Then I remembered that to become genin in Kiri they had to kill a classmate and my hopes to bullshit my way through the situation I was in dimmed.

Then he punched me on the cheek. My head slammed on the side, and my vision went out of focus. "When they explained the task I couldn't believe our luck."

He started conversationally the girl, who with an uncaring twitch of the wrist unleashed a kunai that slashed open my other cheek.

"You see, my father is in the Torture and Interrogation department." She went on.

"So I shared what I knew, but Hano, here, is a natural. And while we both enjoy this kind of game, we really need to be quick. So, we are going to ask only once, and you are going to tell us."

'The or else torture will start for real' went unsaid.

The shinobi, Hano, my mind provided, grabbed the edge of the seal and ripped it off.

Immediately, I felt again my chakra running through my coils and started molding it in my mouth. I looked at them, managing to plaster a bored expression on my face.

The talking won't work. I decided.

"So." The girl asked. "What's the secret?"

The shinobi walked forward cracking his knuckles, with a creepy grin on his face. He really would have preferred if I refused to tell them. At least for a while, I could tell from the way his pupils were widening at the prospect of beating down a tied up prisoner.

I raised an eyebrow and kept discretely molding my chakra. It was something done with so little waste that even a sensor would have needed to check twice to be sure I was doing something.

I tensed my muscles, but even then the punch that landed on my stomach made me wheeze through my nose. I couldn't open my mouth until I was ready.

Two minutes had passed, I wanted to keep the Gates a secret, but I was going to reach the end of my rope pretty soon.

Hano hit me again, and four minutes after they had entered I still had to open my mouth once.

Only, they thought it was because I choose the 'indestructible' approach. I was ready.

I slowly nodded and grumbled something in my throat.

"Did you broke his jaw?" the girl asked her companion, who shrugged unapologetically. I distractedly wondered if he was some kind of idiot with a sadist streak a mile wide. And there was no way around it, I wanted him dead. I inhaled deeply through the nose and acted. I'll feel sad later.

The Suiton: Teppodama at its simplest, allows the user to spit a ball of water of different dimensions, based on the quantity of chakra you poured in it, at high speed. The whole point of it was that said ball of water hit like a ton of bricks. That was not what I did. When I saw an opening I spat a thin, high-pressure jet of... bloodied water since I was manipulating the water in my blood.

The thin, reddish line sawed through Hano, following the direction in which I was moving my head. The kunoichi reacted fast enough to be merely clipped by it, but she did something with her chakra that turned the cutting edge of my attack into a blunt force. She was thrown against the wall, hit her head, and slumped forward, unconscious.

In the same way, I could feel the drops of water I had laced with my chakra a month before, I felt my jet of bloodied water shredding through cloth, chainmail, skin, muscle and bone, digging into the rock of the room, before slamming against the kunoichi.

I blinked. "Well that was... kind of underwhelming." I murmured, before directing medical chakra through the tenketsu on my palate, carefully healing my tongue.

I let my mind take a step back from the gore in front of me and closed my eyes, choosing to focus on something else.

I had tried to separate the water from the rest of the blood. But controlling such manipulation with the limited number of tenketsus in my mouth was another kettle of fish. The real question was why the blood in my mouth didn't start clotting when I fed it chakra. The only different thing was from my other experiments with blood had been performing them in my hands. So maybe the presence of air induced in the blood a different way to react when fed chakra. I am an idiot. I didn't need to separate the water from the blood.

I couldn't infuse chakra into my blood before turning it into water natured one since the blood would immediately try to clot (since it was outside of my veins). That was how I manipulated water without hand seals. But blood already was laced with my chakra, I simply needed to change it into water natured one. And that had been what I did in my haste.

I should thank Hano in the next life. I grimaced. He was a sadistic bastard, but it was around my age, and was truly his fault?

Can I fault him for adapting to the only kind of life this world teaches? I asked myself.

The answer was no. And even if I could argue that removing sadists in the position of letting loose with their instinct was more or less like removing cancer, it didn't change the fact that I killed another kid.

I gathered my chakra very carefully at the tips of my right hand, calling forth a chakra scalpel. As slowly as I could, I closed my hand, bringing the scalpel over the ninja wire.

It was something that I had chosen not to do before because cutting too deep could have meant wounding my self. More specifically cutting my veins and tendons. Which was something that required hours to heal. And hurts like a bitch, thank you very much.

After having freed my right hand, the rest was easy.

I rose from my seat rolling my shoulders and doing my best to ignore both the view (I could see his spine) and the smell of the shinobi that I had butchered (blood and shit, death smells like blood and shit).

I left the room not caring a bit about the strange looks I got from the chunin who was patrolling that section of the corridor.

In front of my door there was another, still with the number seven on it. I walked forward and was about to knock when it opened, Shin walking out with a furrowed brow, Hana biting her lower lip nervously.

Both their expression turned into one of surprise, before flicking in the most coordinated manner I'd ever witnessed through worry (probably for me), shame (for having taken so much time that I had to free myself?), and relief.

I was willing to bet that while Hana felt honestly relieved after seeing me safe and sound, Shin was only happy that he had less work to do.

I couldn't resist. I looked at them and in the most patronizing tone I was capable of I asked: "What took you so long?"