Tests and a Trial

I was trapped.

In a room slightly wider than I was fully stretched out and with librarians were closing in from either side, I had no way of getting out unnoticed, and the only thing at my disposal were two tools made for grabbing books. I could hear their footsteps from the other side, maybe twelve seconds away from capturing me, and no matter how desperately I looked around, a solution, was nowhere in sight.

I even started to hear their conversations, as they closed in, with only nine seconds left I knew that the chances of me slipping out unnoticed were nonexistent unless my system-determined stealth skill of seventeen was actually amazing. Sadly, I held no doubt that amazing, wasn't the best verb for describing my stealth abilities. However, the worst part of this was that I could actually feel myself giving up, not in a conscious way, just that I was looking for a solution less and less the more seconds ticked by. It was horrible. My head fell back, looking up for a split second at the faraway ceiling before my eyes fell shut, and I was left standing there, waiting for the inevitable.

Then, an ember of hope ignited in the darkness of my shut eyes. And immediately, that ember ignited the fuel that was my self-loathing for willingly giving up, for accepting that there was no way out. My eyes opened and I was sure that if anyone was there to see my eyes at that moment, the only thing they would have seen was a blue inferno of desperate hope and determination.

The ceiling was indeed far away.

With four floors in total and a fifteen-meter-high building, each floor was around three and a half meters high, with the rest going to floors. So maybe, I could hide above them. With only 6 seconds to work with, I used all my intelligence enhanced thinking capacity to formulate a plan from my vague idea. Then I sprang into motion as fast as my dexterity score would allow and started climbing the shelves which made up the walls of my trap. With four seconds left, I reached the top of the shelves, I knew, however, that I would still easily get spotted, as such I grabbed a thick stack of books with one of my tools and placed the other between my feet.

Then with only two seconds left, I took a deep breath and gathered all the strength I could, and kicked off the wall with all the force I could. And in a feat of acrobatics I had never been close to accomplishing before, fueled by half by my dexterity and half by my desperation not to get caught. I managed to slip the tools two platforms in around a couple of books and pressed my feet together around the handle with everything I had. The only thing left to see was whether my constitution could endure until the librarians were done.

"Did the rest of you feel anything strange about this month's check? I thought I heard something once or twice" one of the old librarians said, looking at the rest of the librarians in curiosity, but with a notable edge in his voice, deep down he was clearly still a shinobi.

"Yes, sometimes I do but, while you might not get it yet being the youngest, at our age, our own mind sometimes just works against us," one of the oldest said, a deep sadness taking over the group.

I could feel my muscles slowly straining as they continued to talk amongst themselves, five minutes had already passed, and I was feeling the toll this was taking on my arms and legs already.

"I know what you mean, we just aren't as good as we used to be" another librarian spoke, a quiet, sad certainty in his voice as he walked away.

One finally left but it was not looking as if the others had any intention of following any time soon, the conversation slowly devolved into inane rumors and chatter, and I finally realized why this may very well be a greater challenge than any I had faced before.

"But today was different, I know It was, something was up, I think I saw something" the first speaker insisted.

"Because sight is your greatest attribute" one of them muttered sarcastically, clearly intending to be heard. And a cold feeling of dread which had slowly started to well up inside finally solidified.

My worst fear had come to pass, they were talking. And if there is one thing that all old people seem to have, it was an inexhaustible hunger for conversation. But there was no way out, so, I waited as sweat started accumulating on my body.

"You know what?" the youngest one said.

"What?" the oldest said with curiosity

"I've been thinking about picking up fuinjutsu, it just seems like an interesting subject" he happily said as he started to browse the shelves, looking for a beginner's guide.

And from that point, the conversation only dragged on, and as time went by slower and slower for every second that passed my arms and legs started to quiver with the strain of holding myself up.

"So, did the rest of you hear? I don't want to spread rumors or anything of the sort, but there is a rumor that you have to hear! Apparently, the Hokage's son's friend's clothes shop owner's second grandson once removed's girlfriend's sister's friend has a new crush" one whispered conspiratorially as the others sighed and said something about young love.

And the mindbogglingly boring conversation topics certainly didn't help with my boredom, but that also left me with a question. Why aren't they moving on to the jonin section? They moved between floors immediately before, so why are they suddenly just standing there, blathering about the Hokage's son's friend's favorite clothes shop owner's second grandson once removed's girlfriend's sister's friend and her new crush! They are old so they could just be taking a break but, well, something just seems off.

"Well, this was fun, but it seems that the twenty minutes it takes to check the Jonin section have gone by, so let's head back down to the others in the main hall" what is that supposed to mean? Check the jonin section? They just stayed here the whole time, what in the world is going on.

I was sweating profusely at this point, as I had essentially been doing the true version of the plank for twenty minutes. So, I was not completely surprised when one of the drops finally fell from my nose and landed on the floor. I was however surprised when one of the last two librarians noticed and looked at it intently, then started to slowly crane his head backward while speaking.

I felt fear and panic start to grip me as I finally allowed myself to think about what would happen if they caught me, because while I had ignored it previously, what I was doing could technically be counted as treason. And while I was pretty sure the Hokage wouldn't be too harsh on me, since he always seemed like such a nice grandfather figure on the show, I wasn't completely sure.

"Toshokanin, do you see this? I think there may be a leak in the ceiling" he said, moments away from seeing me.

"a leak that only dripped once in twenty minutes? Even if there is a leak it would be impossible to see if it's that small, besides, even if there was a leak it would have to go through the Jonin floor first, we should fix it there so it doesn't damage the floors of that place" Toshokanin said, clearly unconcerned with a leak that small. Thankfully he seemed to convince the other librarian as well as moments before he would see me, he shook his head and left, grumbling about having to fix the ceiling.

Then I used the last scraps of strength I had left in me and barely got to the floor without falling with a loud thud which would definitely have alerted the librarians no matter how old they were. But there was one thing that stuck out to me about their conversation. Why were they worried about the wooden floors of the jonin section and not the important books there? A nagging suspicion started to build in my mind.

I shook the feeling off and returned to focusing on what really mattered. Stealing the books which would give me the best foundation for fuinjutsu as possible as it would be quite a while before I would be able to enter again. And, you know finding some way to get out. That was slightly important too.

I immediately got to work, looking all the books over and grabbing the most promising ones, then going down to the Genin floor and finding a quiet spot to read there. As there was a good chance of anyone who might see me there believing that I was, in fact, a Genin. Then starting to desperately read for anything which might allow me to escape. There was nothing. Even after hours of reading, I couldn't find a way to escape, or, well, that wasn't exactly true, there were many things in the books that could help me escape. The problem was that I learned one thing above all else, and that was that fuinjutsu was about more than just calligraphy and that it was actually incredibly hard to the point of being a great annoyance to many shinobi who want to start learning. And that, you know, you needed something to channel your chakra through to activate the seal, and as it turns out chakra without a specific nature functions a lot like electricity, so it does not go through wood, and by extension, paper.

But how in the world am I going to get out without a stack of magic paper? If only I knew some simple jutsu that let me walk on walls... oh... I'm inside the place with every single jutsu in Konoha, and there was that tree walking jutsu Kakashi showed team seven.

I picked up all my new books and went to search for the tree walking exercise.

Minutes later I stood at the edge of the roof, tree walking exercise in hand as I looked over the details one last time. I could feel the ever-increasing nervousness inside of me, I didn't have a place to practice where I could be completely sure that I wouldn't be heard, and as such, I had the amazing opportunity to have my very first practice session be with a fall that would severely wound me, nothing permanent, not with healing jutsu, but certainly not pleasant.

I lifted my foot, ready to step off the edge.

"While I do think it would be interesting to see whether or not you would actually manage to succeed, I also feel that this farce has gone on for long enough, I will be taking you to the Hokage now, young Anno"

A chill ran down my spine as my high intelligence score allowed me to figure out what had happened and what my critical mistake this whole time had been in the span of a single second. And the very next second, I stood before a man I had only ever seen on a screen in two dimensions, or from far away.

"Ahh, just on time, now, I have always personally found that tea makes anything easier to stomach, especially hard conversations, in fact, so, would you like a cup?" he smiled at me, his crow's feet showing clearly.

I swallowed, grabbing my trusty mental stick and beating my nervousness away with it before responding as calmly and with as much confidence as I could "while I've always had more of a taste for elderflower cordial myself, I do remember some manners even with my limited upbringing, being from the orphanage and all, so even I know not to decline your host's gracious offer" I said, using the orphan card as fast as I could to take the initial edge off of this... hard conversation, as he called it.

He smiled at me with pity and sadness, letting me know that I had succeeded with my initial ploy before he responded to my statement "good to know that even with the sudden increase in orphans in recent years, the caretakers are still managing to instill some basic manners in most of you kids, although, with you, in particular, they probably should have focused more on instilling that stealing is wrong, don't you agree?" he spoke jovially, and with a quiet chuckle at the end.

"Yes well, it's not like they didn't try, I just happen to have the amazing ability to only hear what I want to hear, although, if we are both trying to be honest here, I'll have to tell you that my ability doesn't always work out well for me," I told him with a fair bit of self-irony.

"Yes, I would imagine that to be the case" he chuckled, letting the silence stretch for a moment before suddenly speaking "however, I think we have gotten a bit sidetracked, so, if you wouldn't mind, can I ask you a couple of questions to help me decide how to deal with our little problem," he asked with a comforting smile.

"I don't see why not," I said with a smile, purposefully injecting a bit of nervousness in it "this is certainly preferable to whatever other ways you have of getting information" I added on, taking a seemingly scared, but very calculated, look around the room, as if I was looking for torture specialists in every corner, trying to look like a scared child putting on a brave face, and, hopefully, making him pity me even more.

"Now, first things first, for how long have you been planning this... escapade, for?"

"Before I answer that, would you mind if I made a simple inquiry, by how much did I underestimate the security of the library?" I asked with a very real self-deprecating and bitter smile.

The Hokage chuckled before answering "I hope you can understand why I can't tell a simple academy student the details of such matters, especially one who was just caught breaking into the library, I hope it will suffice to say that you grossly underestimated the security of Konoha, to an almost insulting degree, might I add"

"So... you know exactly who participated, don't you?" I asked, hoping that they wouldn't know about Ino.

"as far as we can tell? Everyone from your group except young Shikamaru and young Choji.

"how-" I started asking with defeat settling over me

"-did we know that the young miss. Ino was involved?" he finished what I was just about to ask "while you were quite clever about that, about this whole ordeal, in fact, there is a standard protocol to check if anyone who becomes suddenly ill on the checking day was poisoned or not, that was where your whole plan started to fall apart, and young miss Ino is the only one you know well enough to be involved who could acquire such a thing"

"Ah"

"yes 'Ah' indeed, now, I have already gotten most of the answers I initially wanted from this conversation, so there are only two questions left to ask," he said with a kind smile.

"Of course," I smiled bitterly, the bitterness was only directed at myself, however.

"Now, for how long did you plan this?" he asked

"For a little over a month, which, thinking about it now, probably wasn't as long as we should have, in fact, we should have at least waited until Sakura got guard duty naturally" I concluded

"That is a very accurate deduction, now, you had already gotten past the librarians, so why didn't you even take a peek at the jonin section? Weren't you even curious in the slightest?" he asked with a curious stare as he waited for my answer.

"Why would I want to look at blank pages?" I answered simply, having figured out that the 'jonin section' in the library was a fake, it was probably also heavily trapped.

He smirked in a self-satisfied way, but why? Why is he satisfied? "So, you figured it out?" he asked, although he was clearly being rhetorical.

"I did, so... What now?"

"Now? It is time for your trial" he said with a tired, unwilling sigh as he dropped what I only now realized was a façade, the mask of a kind old grandfather being replaced with a Hokage made of steel.

"Anno no-family-name-known, you are hereby charged with treason against Konohagakure, you will be exiled and will have a lock placed upon any memories you have of Konohagakure. You will be placed in a farming village in the territory of the land of fire" he spoke, his eyes as hard and unbending as steel, before he continued in a softer voice "I apologize, however it is clearly stated in the law of Konoha that treason will only be punished in the way I just sentenced you"

My mind blanked for at least ten seconds before I suddenly thought faster than I'd ever done before as if I was trying to catch up to the ten seconds I missed. I never thought it would turn out like this, but now that it did, I scrambled desperately for a solution, anything that would allow me to stay with my friends, or just see them again at some point.

My mind snapped into focus, there was a very real chance that this wouldn't work, he could just have been curious, but it was the only thing I could do, and it wasn't like I would remember any of this if it didn't anyways.

"If..." my voice came out weakly and I suddenly noticed that my mouth had gone drier than Sunagakure. I swallowed the tea I had been drinking during our talk, put on my best and most confident 'nice try, but I see what you did and I'm already ten steps ahead' smirk before I spoke.

"If there is only one way to punish treason... why did you want to ask me questions about what I did?" I spoke, gaining more and more confidence along the way.

A satisfied smile grew on the old man's face, as he answered as if it was the most natural thing in the world "why? Well to see if you were suitable for the other option I was considering giving you, of course. you just passed the final test, by the way"

My confident expression immediately shattered as I broke into jubilant laughter, relief filling me "oh thank kami that worked! I was so scared for a second there" I said in between laughter.

"While I am happy that you are happy," he said with a smile, "I think you will want to hear about my offer before you start celebrating," he said, once more serious.

"Sure, go ahead," I said, calming down but still smiling.

"Strange things have been going on in Kirigakure for a while, very few people are entering nowadays, and even fewer exit. In fact, the only people we are confident to have exited in many years are the Mizukage's personal hunter-Nin. None of our strongest shinobi would be able to enter as they are far too well known, and the younger generations of Genin who are powerful enough are either too distinctive as is the case with Neji Hyūga, or... I'll-suited, for that type of mission, like rock lee. You have proven capable of planning, you have the ability to think on your feet, you can handle stressful situations, and, as you just proved, you can pick up on details and put them together. All of that combined leads me to believe that you will be able to make up for your lack of direct power, especially after learning some caution from what happened today. We need you to find out what is going on in Kirigakure. So, are you willing to take up the mantle of Konohagakure spy? To go on this mission, and continue, no matter what?" he asked, dead serious.

"I am" I responded solemnly. I knew that this would be a far more dangerous mission than anything I had faced before, which meant I had to start taking getting stronger seriously.

After a moment of silence, I spoke "oh, and you forgot to mention one reason why you want me to do it" still with a solemn look on my face

"Oh? And why is that?" he asked curiously

I spoke, still as solemn as I could get "because I shattered a record on my very first day in the academy"

AN: ok, so, for those who didn't notice, I have been trying out two styles of writing over the last 10 chapters, one more focused on comedy with the other being more serious but still with a bit of comedy. and I have discovered that I don't really have a preference. so you get to choose. comment on the one you want

mostly comedy

half-half

mostly more serious plot