Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Suna Chunin Exams Arc: One
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
"So that was why Muta-nii was so upset when he got home." I'm sitting with Hisae in one of the kikaichu houses on the Aburame compound.
While the kikaichu did live in host bodies most of them lived in the 'hive' commonly known as the kikaichu houses inside the compound. Tending to the hives is a big part of the job for Aburame Clan members pre-Academy, and many of them still did so well into their shinobi career.
Muta tells me that he finds it therapeutic.
Hisae is the unofficial keeper of this particular part of the hive, where light didn't reach except through very thin windows. New larvae are kept in trays and fed thrice daily, which is incidentally what she is doing right now. I stay on the outside, because that many bugs did tend to make me mildly uncomfortable. I have nothing against bugs, but I am self aware enough to realize when I am not comfortable.
"Yes, I imagine that the concussion didn't help his perception of the event." I offer.
Hisae hums and the adult kikaichu chirp in response. "I don't know if I want to become a shinobi, Hana-neesan."
The statement catches me by surprise. "Why is that?"
She shrugs and splashes chakra-enhanced water onto the bottom of an empty tray and then scoops handfuls of larvae onto the food supply. The thought of doing it myself made me cringe slightly, but she doesn't seem to have noticed. "I don't think that I'd like to kill anyone, and I'm not as strong as Muta-nii." I
consider her words. They spoke to me, because I had had the same doubts when deciding to become a shinobi. It was only that I couldn't afford the luxury of not being one that had pushed me towards the Academy at all. "You should choose what you think is best, Hisae-chan." At least one of us should get to choose without a threat hanging over our heads. She turns to look at me through her opaque glasses and I continue. "It's a hard choice you're making. No one should have the power to make it for you."
She nods and pulls out the next tray. "Thank you, Hana-neesan." The line of her shoulders is looser now, and I realize that we're closer in age than I thought. She's only two years younger than me. And then, do the Aburame feel as though their children ought to be shinobi? Is that why she's so tense about the whole affair?
Hisae rinses her hands and comes to sit with me out on the steps. "Hana-neesan." She says, her gaze fixed on some far off, distant point. "I'm glad you're on Muta-nii's team." She sighs. "I don't think there will be anyone like you in my Academy class-" What? A soul from another dimension? Sorry Hisae-chan, you're out of luck on that one. "-and I don't want someone who thinks bugs are weird on my team, you know?"
"I think if that's what you're concerned about, you should consider going." I pause for a moment to organize my thoughts. "You might be pleasantly surprised, and if not, you weren't going to the Academy for them anyway, and you wouldn't be a shinobi for their opinion of you, you'd be a shinobi for yourself."
She nods, and we rise to walk down to her house for dinner.
"Hah!" I've finally landed a hit on Toku after over fifteen minutes of intense back and forth. He's probably still the best of us at pure taijutsu even though Muta and I aren't bad. We both had partners to focus on and work with after all. Toku spent most of his time sparring with various Hyuga clan members when we weren't in team training, so it is to be expected.
Unfortunately for me and my elation, I'd been unconsciously mimicking his jyuken posture during that particular strike. Since I don't know anything about the chakra portion of Jyuken and I hadn't really been supplementing my own muscles with all that much chakra, I'd basically just slapped him across the face. It probably hurt about as much as being slapped with a fish.
He blinks, and just flat out stops for a full moment as if trying to figure out if being slapped is supposed to hurt. Knowing Hyugas it probably did most of the time. I lunge forward as he's still distracted and punch him in the stomach. One of Sensei's greatest maxims, Toku. Hit the enemy when you have an opening. It doesn't matter how the opening occurs. Take advantage of it.
"She did break past your defenses that time, otouto." Koma-senpai, who'd been watching our fight from the sidelines to give pointers later stands smiling over Toku who is still attempting to catch his breath.
"Hrggh, Hana, never again." Toku pants with his hands on his knees. "I thought I was safe from the punches of doom."
A peal of laughter rings out through the yard and we turn to see Haya-senpai demurely covering her smile with a wide kimono sleeve. "Come in for refreshments, please." She gestures towards sweets on the low table underneath the overhang and moves to pick up the scroll she'd been reading. Hyuga Haya isn't a front line specialist, in fact, for a Hyuga, she's downright not combat oriented at all as a medic who specialized in treating organ failure.
Her twin though, the eighteen year old Koma, I suspect to be in ANBU.
Hyuga Koma is the pride and joy of his immediate family, although not the favorite of his clan, because that honor isn't reserved for branch clan children, but none of them actually mentioned what he did. He never wore short sleeves even during particularly humid summer days and kept really irregular hours for someone who isn't at least a well respected jonin.
Whether or not he's in ANBU though, Koma-senpai is probably better adjusted than eighty five percent of the shinobi forces in general.
We're sitting by the table consuming mochi while Haya-senpai reads aloud from her medical text regarding the chakra network within the human liver, when Sensei comes to call. "Well, the exams are happening in Suna this time around." He says as he places the papers on the table. "I needn't remind you both that it's a team effort, or it's nothing."
I take a moment to mentally thank Sensei for not being a troll.
"What did Muta say about it?" Toku asks as he pulls the forms across the table and hands me one. I scan it while listening to Sensei. It seems like a normal consent form and all for a ninja.
"Muta is here to tell you about what he says about it." Muta deadpans and jabs Toku in the shoulder. "Those famous all seeing eyes don't seem to see things right in front of them."
I sigh. "Toku, do you really think Sensei wants us to commit by ourselves and then tell each other about it later?"
Toku rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest. "Well, in my defense, I'm stupid because I just got the stuffing punched out of me."
I stick my tongue out at him. "It's your fault for being overcome with wonder at a non-Hyuga slap."
We rib each other good naturedly for a little while more before deciding to meet for team practice tomorrow with a decision.
That evening, Kaa-san and I sit down at the kitchen table, and I slide the form over to her. "Sensei thinks we're ready." I say nothing more. If Kaa-san didn't want me to go, then I wouldn't be going. But for Itachi, I think. If I do go, I must make chunin. If I do go, I have to become better than I am right now. I made him a promise.
"Well, if you have to go sometime in the next few years, Suna would be the best place for that besides Konoha." Kaa-san muses. "And Konoha comes up in rotation in another two years. I don't think you want to wait that long."
I nod. Another two years would make me ten, with just over three years until the massacre occurred. I want to know why Uchiha Fugaku planned a coup the first time around. To do that I had to be close to him. In fact, it's highly problematic that I'm not older.
"I want to go." I say, and I see Kaa-san swallow, hard.
"Promise me that if you think you might die at any point, that you'll forfeit the match, Hana." She looks me in the eye and I'm struck once more by how much she loves me, unflinchingly and without question. Is Itachi more important than Kaa-san?
"I promise, Kaa-san. I'll be as safe as I can." I've made a decision, but I don't really know what it is.
We fill out the form together, and I set it aside, underneath my weapons pouch and trudge down the hallway to my bedroom.
That night, I lie on my bed with the Triplets all around me like three fluffy blankets. Fairly soon we would have to do something like this on the floor, because they wouldn't all fit on the bed any longer.
My head is cushioned by Ichi's stomach, and I've got San and Ni's furry paws underneath my hands. I tap them absentmindedly as I hum under my breath.
"We're going to the chunin exams." I say, and I feel their excitement humming in my own soul as well.
"We're good." Ichi comments, and I hmm.
"We are."
"You thought about the Uchiha boy a lot." San comments and I raise my head to look at him.
"Are you sad that it happens?"
Ni huffs. "The Uchiha boy smells like rust and steel. He's not what you look for when you think of home."
I roll his words over in my mind. Not what you look for when you think of home. "I don't think I want to make my home with him." I say at last, and I almost feel Ni's aching relief. I want to change his destiny, not live with him forever.
"That's good." Ichi says. "Both of your teammates would make better homes."
I stare at him with bemused fondness. "Are you suggesting that I think about finding a human partner?"
Ichi growls and walks around so he can flop down on my stomach. "No."
"We're your partners!" Ni and San bark, frantically trying to figure out how to phrase their own articulations about how much I mean to them, and I can only hope to understand the whirlwind of sound and smells and touches, the smell of food in the morning, a hand trailing through their fur, a childish giggle, wrestling in the summer sun, the taste of lemon candy, sweat and determination and blood and kin and matched chakra and soul.
"Of course you are." I say, and pull them both down for a very fuzzy doggie pile. "That'll never change." It soothes them a bit, and the bombardment of various emotions suddenly comes to a standstill.
"So your team isn't going to this chunin exam?" Itachi and I are taking a walk down the river, and the Triplets had been encircling me so much that he had to walk about an arm's length away.
When I'd greeted him that morning, he'd been confused, but at this point in the day he seemed to just accept it at face value.
"No." He has his hands in his pockets, and looks bitterly disappointed, which only really showed in the tiny frown and a deepening of the lines on his face. "Temma and Shinko aren't ready. Their chances of survival would be low if they went." Unspoken goes the fact that Itachi himself would probably have little problem with surviving a chunin exam.
"I'm sure they'll be ready soon." I say, because he is so clearly concerned about their welfare, but I don't want to dwell on what I have and what he does not. "How is Sasuke?"
Itachi brightens up at this. "He's able to play hide and seek very well now, and I've started to teach him to read." Then his face falls again. "Tou-san doesn't spend enough time with him." And then, further still, and he goes very quiet. "I don't think I've ever thought Tou-san was wrong before, but I don't like how he doesn't spend time with Sasuke." And yet again, I don't understand the enigma that is Uchiha Fugaku.
Back when he'd come to pick his children up after the Kyuubi Incident he'd been concerned for Izumi despite not knowing her well, but now spending time with his own younger son is a hassle to him. He'd been determined to make sure that as many civilians survived October tenth as possible, loyal to the village to a fault, but five years from now he'd plan a coup that would force his elder son to kill him and their entire extended family.
Uchiha Fugaku made no sense the first time I'd met him as a character and he made even less sense as a real person.
"I'm sorry." I say to Itachi, because what else can I say? I'm as confused about your father as you are, and possibly more so because I understand nothing about his motives and his actions that will lead to his early demise at your hands? Yes, I'm sure that will go over very very well.
We don't have much time to discuss anything in the month afterwards. I spend most of my time in team training, and less than a month later, Team Six plus En-sensei is on the road to Suna.
Nothing prepared me for the temperature disparities between night and day in a desert. Fire Country's weather in general, is mild and not prone to extremes. Here in the desert however, temperatures soared in the daytime and plummeted at night.
And then, there is the sand. Sand got everywhere during our trek towards Suna proper. It chafed between my foot and my open toed sandal. It got into my hair and frequently into my eyes. The Triplets whined that it got into their noses and hurt terribly. I ate it with our sealed ration bars, because obviously plastic wouldn't stop sand. I felt as though I breathed it in and it rattled around in my lungs with every breath I took.
In short, before we even got to Suna, I am already sick and tired of the situation, and it made me rude and snappy with everyone else.
"Welcome to Sunagakure no Sato." I look at the floor instead of the fourth Kazekage which is perfectly fine, because at this point he'd already done terrible things. Gaara had been born already. And while he might only be three years old, I had no intention of meeting him at all. "You are given free reign to roam the village's commercial and residential neighborhoods." Unspoken goes the acknowledgement that we will keep out of trouble and stay away from the actual shinobi of Suna. "We hope you have a pleasant stay."
En-sensei bows. "Thank you, Kazekage-sama." The other team leaders, all eight of them, do the same. "Thank you, Kazekage-sama."
We turn and disperse as other Suna shinobi begin to explain where we would be staying.
The village is nothing like home. Every building is some sort of tan or beige blending in perfectly with the surrounding sand dunes, but lacking all of the bright intensity of a Konoha street. There were also fewer civilians on the street to begin with, even in the commercial district.
Suna is the smallest of the five great villages, and it shows in their infrastructure.
"So, what are we trying?" Toku slings an arm over my shoulder, and disrupts my uncharitable thoughts regarding the Kazekage, what he did to his own son, and the profusive amount of sand that is, in fact, still everywhere.
"Hmmm?" I ask, and look over at Muta who clarifies.
"We were thinking of eating something we wouldn't find in Konoha." He inclines his head in my direction. "Do you have any suggestions?"
"I don't think I'll mind much of anything." I say, and it's true enough. I'd eaten everything from pig's feet to cow stomach, to fried bugs in my past life, and the Inuzuka aren't picky eaters as a whole.
"Nothing with too many legs." Sensei looks fairly green even without those dark green smudges he deemed makeup. "The last time I was here Shikaku wanted to eat centipede." We all three of us look at each other, and Toku whispers.
"Byakugan." The veins on his forehead bulged as he scanned the surrounding area.
"Let's eat something that'll make Sensei very sad." Muta suggests. "Just make sure that it has at least six legs."
We end up in a booth on the side of the street that Toku looked incredibly pleased by. "Hehe. There are even food that doesn't have any legs here, Sensei."
En-sensei looks at us with mild displeasure. "You were all so respectful the first day we met, what went wrong?"
Muta snorts, and Toku and I both look at him with evident concern. "You introduced us to Kiho-baachan, Sensei." He says finally after he'd gotten his shaking shoulders under control. "That was the beginning of the end for you."
Sensei turns to the waitress who is in fact, looking around our table with mild concern. "I'll take the snake, thank you." He then glares at the rest of us. "And my lovely students here will all have some variation of your scorpion special."
We burst out giggling, because it's exactly what sensei doesn't want to eat: fried arachnids skewered on a stick like shish kebabs.
A.N. People do in fact eat snake and scorpion in different parts of the world. For Suna, I considered that they were in a desert, so those two items would probably not be seen as 'weird' or a delicacy as they would in an area with more water and fewer of the pests.
Thanks for reviewing Whitefang001 and Snidekick. It's nice to know that other people like the character development, and as for whether or not Itachi's life will change, all I can say is that it will, good and bad.
And thank you to everyone who favorited and followed last chapter. There were so many of you, I feel fabulous.
~Tavina
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