Chūnin Exams (IV).

"My name is Kitsuchi," the man who greeted them at the gates introduced himself with a gruff voice. "Welcome to Iwagakure."

Itachi looked around, taking in the sight of the village. He had been in the Land of Earth before, but that was his first time visiting its hidden village and thus he was interested in seeing it first-hand. After all, it wasn't every day you visited the hidden village of one of the five major powers of the continent, especially not the one village with the strongest contempt towards your own home.

He must confess that the village was a bit of a letdown. The rocky mountain ranges that surrounded the village made the village a natural stronghold and he wasn't above admiring its defensive properties, but otherwise, there wasn't much to look at. The village itself was mostly built from the surrounding rock and stone, giving it a monotonous appearance through its lack of colour, and most buildings were shaped into the same tower-like structures. Even the Hokage Tower with its cone-shaped roof had a similar design. He thought the network of bridges that connected the buildings was somewhat impressive, though. Still, in his eyes, Konoha was much more beautiful and notably more diverse than Iwa. Itachi might just be biased, of course, but he was sure even most outsiders would agree with him.

They followed Kitsuchi to their residence, which turned out to be a small inn that would have no other guests than the three participating Konoha teams. The inn was located at the southernmost end of the village, with enough space between itself and the next buildings that it would have been possible to spar directly in front of it without bothering anybody. Not that they would do so; there were training grounds reserved for them, after all. If he would need to take a guess, he would say their placement was intentional to keep them away from the citizens and make it easier to observe them.

Due to safety reasons, it was normal for the hosting village to observe the Genin teams that visited their village. There was no reason to assume that Iwa was any different from Konoha in that aspect. Itachi could actually feel at least one set of eyes on him already; evidently, the shinobi who watched him falsely assumed that he hadn't the necessary skill to detect him, though to be fair, he would probably have missed them had he truly been seven years old.

"Well then," Tanaka-sensei said to his team once they finished inspecting their rooms. "The exams will not start for another two days and it's too late to get some training done today, so we can just as well use this opportunity to look around the village and find a place to eat."

Nobody argued with that, so the four of them headed off.

It became quite clear very soon that they weren't welcome in the village. While nobody outright told them so or insulted them to their faces, it was made apparent by all the glares that were sent their way. It wasn't a surprise, truly, with the conflict between Konoha and Iwa being the bloodiest during the last war.

The Third Shinobi World War started in form of many small skirmishes between the Five Great Shinobi Countries and their smaller neighbour nations that gradually increased with time until the flames of war spread over the entire continent. Alliances changed all the time, with only the fight between Konoha and Iwa being a constant. Kumogakure joined at Konoha's side in this conflict at first, only to betray them and join Iwa against Konoha later on. Then betrayed Iwa as well and for a short while it became a trilateral war before Kirigakure attacked the Land of Lightning and the troops from Kumo withdrew to defend their own lands.

Sunagakure, still weakened by an epidemic that had ended just three years before the official start of the war, didn't partake in it until two years later during the last third of the war when they joined Iwagakure against Konoha. This alliance lasted until three months before the end, which was when they betrayed Iwa and joined in an alliance with Konoha after it became apparent that they would most likely come out victorious. This was also around the time Kiri hatched out a plot to let loose the Three-Tails in Konoha.

Anyway, they walked through the village for some time in search of a relatively empty restaurant where they could eat in peace and not be glared at by a great number of people. At this point, all of them had nearly given up hope and they were on the verge of just turning around and returning to their accommodation to eat there when Anko spotted something.

"Hey, aren't that shinobi from Kumogakure?"

Indeed, when he turned around to look in the direction Anko pointed at, he could see a group of people, all of them wearing a head protector with the symbol of Kumogakure, entering a restaurant. There were twelve of them, nine Genin and three Jōnin instructors. It seemed that instead of spreading out and departing in separate groups as they had done, the teams of the Land of Lightning had decided to stay together.

A short glance inside the building showed that they weren't the only outsiders who had chosen this specific restaurant. Even with only the few seconds he had before the doors closed, he could see Genin teams from Takigakure and Kusagakure, and there were probably even more foreigners further inside.

"So," Yukio drawled with a lazy smile, his hands deep in his pockets. "I would say we found a good place to eat, don't you think so too?"

All of them nodded. After all, with so many other foreigners present, they wouldn't cause as much of a scene as they would elsewhere. This assumption was proven correct when they entered and, while still glared at, were ignored for the most part.

Itachi idly wondered how long it would take for one of the waiters to come and take their order, and how much longer they would need to wait for their food afterwards.

The best places, those from which you had nobody sitting in your back and from where you could easily keep an eye on the rest of the room, were already taken, but the owner had obviously taken shinobi into consideration when he decided to furnish the room as there was no place that would make a shinobi feel caught or trapped.

He threw a customary glance around the room while following his team, trusting them to choose an acceptable table when all his thoughts came to a stop.

He had been right when he thought that there must be more foreigners inside, and most guests indeed seemed to be from outside of Iwa, but it were the Shinobi from Kumo that truly caught his attention. Or, to be more precise, it was one of their Genin that made his breath hitch.

The kunoichi was about fourteen or fifteen years old, had long, blonde hair that was bound in a ponytail, and dark eyes. She wore a short-sleeved black and purple blouse and black pants, both of which were embroidered with what were obviously meant to be clouds on them, as well as purple, fingerless gloves. In addition to that, she also had bandages strapped around her arms and legs. Now that he saw her face, he instantly recognized her as Yugito Nii, the Jinchuriki of the Two-Tails.

While she had never been his official target during his time at Akatsuki, he had received all the information the organization had on all the different Jinchuriki just like every other member of the organization, so he could recognize her pretty easily even if she was younger now than on every picture he had seen of her.

It was a bold move to send on of their Jinchuriki to a Chūnin Exam so soon after the last war, but Itachi assumed they were betting on the fact that Iwagakure would be foolish to risk another war by attacking their Jinchuriki so soon after the last one.

Especially when Iwa had the most casualties in it compared to Kumo who had the least.

If he had to take a guess, he would say they sent her to get promoted now so that they could send her on more complex and dangerous missions later on, increasing her experience.

Kumo, different from Konoha, hadn't been forced to send young children to the frontlines as they had only one front to worry about during the majority of the war, allowing them to concentrate most of their troops there. From the files he had read on her, he knew that she had solely been on guard duty due to her young age, Jinchuriki or not, for all of the war, thus limiting her experience and as a result of that her worth to the village. Apparently, they wanted to change that now.

No matter who else the other villages had sent to these exams, he was completely sure that she would be the hardest competition of them all. After all, she was one of the very rare Jinchuriki that managed to control their Tailed Beasts. As far as he knew, Yugito Nii had undergone intensive training since a young age to allow her this mastery, though he had no idea how much process she had done at this age. He doubted she could control all of its Chakra already, but even a little bit would be more than enough to cause big problems to whoever was unlucky enough to face her. To be completely honest, he didn't think he would be able to do much in such a situation either. Not as he was now.

"Itachi, are you alright?"

He blinked before turning to the rest of his team. While it had been Anko who asked him, all three of them were looking at him questioningly. Probably one of them had asked him something and he hadn't noticed.

He gave them a small, apologetic smile. "I apologize, I must have been thinking too much. What did you say?"

Anko snorted. "Don't hurt yourself, alright? The last thing we need before the start of the exam is you breaking your head."

And with that, everything returned to normal and they enjoyed a not-so-tasty meal surrounded by people that would be their enemies in two days' time.