Sakura's day was just beginning as she walked down the street toward the hospital. It got brighter as she saw Sasuke coming down the street ahead of her.
She smiled brightly and waved as she approached.
"Hey, Sasuke-Kun!" she called out dancing up to him and smiling.
The handsome young ninja glowered at her as she approached in that cool, loner manner he had that had first attracted her and so many other girls. It was so cool they way he stood alone and didn't let anybody tell him what to do or how to act.
"Do you think you could help me with some training later on?" she asked hopefully.
"Why would I want to do that?" Sasuke asked bluntly.
Somewhat deflated by the boy's attitude, Sakura nevertheless forged ahead.
"Because you're good at a lot of jutsu and I thought you could…" she said, trying to hold onto her cheerful demeanor.
"Thought what, that I'd teach a pathetic loser who's not even a full genin?" Sasuke asked point blank. "I've got things to do."
He walked off, still in that affected cool manner he had and leaving Sakura behind him in his wake, staring and speechless.
"I like the hospital here," Ryoko said pleasantly as she walked through the lobby toward the street with Joseibi the next day. "They do not ask so many questions."
"Yeah, like ninja are more prone to frequent injury or something," Joseibi noted with characteristic sarcasm.
Ryoko paused as she considered that and nodded her head somewhat begrudgingly, almost the equivalent of a comeback from the elder Saotome.
They were almost out the door when Ryoko found herself faced with a small furry assailant. Unprepared for the wet tongue attack, the black-haired, bespectacled girl tumbled backwards to the lobby floor, wide-eyed and panicked.
"Waaa!"
"Hey, Saotome," a smirking sharp-fanged boy said as he pushed forward. "Good to see no permanent damage was done. Akamaru's happy to see you too."
"I..I see," Ryoko stammered, struggling to sit up and deflect the enthusiastic dog.
"I'm sorry, Ryoko-chan," Hinata said quietly. "Are you all right?"
"Hai," Ryoko said as she stood up and started to dust herself off and smooth her clothes out.
She hadn't gotten far on that when she was almost sent tumbling again due to the hearty slap on her back.
"Ah, she can take it," Naruto declared happily.
"Shouldn't you be prepared for stuff like that?" Joseibi asked as Ryoko tried to regain her normal posture and half-dignity.
"I am not keeping any of you from necessary errands, am I?" Ryoko asked hesitantly, ignoring her younger sister.
"Kurenai-sensai was called in to a meeting," Hinata explained.
"So was Kakashi," Naruto added as he looked about the hospital grounds. "So we've probably got all
day."
He sighed and shook his head, no sign of Sakura anywhere. He'd been hoping that he'd get to see her since she was apprenticing with the medical ninja until there was another team wanting a third ninja.
"Yeah," Kiba noted. "A whole day to do with whatever we want."
"Then perhaps it would be a good time for a rematch?" Ryoko asked.
"Yeah," Kiba noted. "Now would be a goo…wait, wha?"
"Wai!" Ryoko squealed happily as she started to look about for the nearest good sparring ground. "Imouto-chan please stay here and wait, I shall be right back."
"Isn't this how she got into the hospital in the first place," Kiba asked nobody in particular.
Joseibi shook her head and sighed before chasing after her elder sister.
"Onesan," the little blonde said shaking her head. "Rest for a day or two first!"
Kiba thought about turning around and going in the other direction, even started to do so, and then caught sight of Hinata and Naruto, both of him seemed to be staring at him with an expression that seemed to broadcast a shocked realization that he was about to duck out on the girl's challenge.
As if he were about to stand her up for a date or something after getting her worked up.
Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Kiba took off following Joseibi.
"Hey, Kit, wait up," he called out.
Meanwhile the thoughts running through Naruto and Hinata's heads had rather little to do with what Kiba's guilty imagination had convinced him of.
Naruto was still fuming that Sakura was nowhere to be seen and Hinata was slowly realizing that there were a lot fewer people around her and Naruto than there had originally been. The growing look of mixed wonder and dawning terror as she looked hopefully toward Kiba, not really sure what she was hoping.
Then Kiba went running off after the Saotomes and she was alone with Naruto.
"Well, that was short," Naruto noted. "Hey, Hinata, think we got time for some ramen before they start another match?"
And Hinata tipped backwards, eyes rolling back into her head.
"Hinata?" Naruto gasped moving to catch before she hit the ground hard. "Hinata-chan, are you okay?"
The commotion attracted some attention from the hospital and quickly some adults were standing over the girl, calming down as they realized she just had a fainting spell, and Naruto was off to the side watching with a sort of worried nervousness.
The drama was momentarily derailed as Naruto noted a rather strange looking rock behind him: a perfectly square rock with eyeholes, to be precise.
Sasuke watched from well beyond the established safe-distance he'd found where the chi-sorceress could not detect him. At the moment, it didn't look like the woman was doing much, just sitting there calmly with her nearly ever-present assistant.
With each breath she let chi flow downward into her and outward in cool, even ripples. Everything about her seemed restful and calm, like a solitary slow-running pool of clean and cool water.
The woman took a deep breath and stood up evenly in the field, her assistant following the motion with closed eyes, and then came what Sasuke was looking for.
It came in a matter of breaths, yin flowing out and yang flowing as the flavor of the energy within the woman changed drastically from the cool stream of calm water into a surging focus of heat touched by an erratic pulse that shifted violently about her chi channels.
Heart beat, breaths, tiny muscle movements, Sasuke took note of them all as the woman tensed each of her muscles, ready for instant motion even as she merely stood there, hands still in front of her. The Uchiha heir and newly awakened sharingan focused entirely on the Black Rose and the changes within her system, not looking at all toward the woman's apprentice.
As such he failed to note that the erratic bursts present in the older woman's yang were not present in the younger.
Then something took his eyes away from the chi-adepts practicing. Glancing over his shoulder, he frowned as he saw a trio of ninja walking down the road half a mile away from his position. They were dressed oddly by Leaf standards, and, as one happened to turn his direction, he realized that they foreigners.
He frowned, what were foreign ninja doing in the village?
The Uchiha genius turned away from the subject of reconnaissance and left to investigate this strangeness, irritated that his national duty should interrupt his personal projects.
Soon after he left, Kodachi exhaled forcefully, rushing the majority of the yang out and replacing it, rather slowly in the nice sunny day, with yin. Leaving the remaining yang only vaguely perceptible in the stronger flow of yin.
"Mistress, are you okay?" Motya asked as the meditation came to an end.
Somewhat perfunctorily, the woman dismissed the younger girl's concern with a silent wave. An irritated and arrogant cast was held to the woman's demeanor for a time, but faded slowly as the yin continued to fill her. After some time, the woman once again waved to the younger girl, and rose her thumbs up with a much more friendly attitude.
"Your yang still is tainted, Mistress?" she asked.
Kodachi nodded with a sigh and shook her head. What should she expect given that she'd had to interrupt her cleansing exercises for six years? When she had such a perfect motivation for pursuing the quick and easy route of the Old School?
It would be so easy to give in and take the shortcuts, seek revenge rather justice. Fight out of her own pain and loss, driven by hatred rather than fighting for her family's lives and carried by love.
So easy to be like her brother and give up the battle in favor of the power.
She looked at Motya and cut her hand across sharply in a gesture she'd made several times before to the girl.
"You may not hold the rank of Master, but you remain my Mistress," Motya said with a smile as she had many times before.
And as she had done many times, Kodachi reached out to ruffle her hair, then frowned as she looked toward the side.
"Mistress Kodachi," a voice said. "The Hokage requests your presence for an announcement."
The woman frowned for a moment and then nodded, bowing politely before turning slightly toward Motya.
"Mistress Kodachi would be most pleased to attend to the Hokage's wishes," Motya said before clearing her throat and laughing shrilly.
Kiba was quickly able to catch up with Joseibi, looking to her for a moment with a friendly smile.
"Hey, Kit," he said. "You got her scent?"
"Umm," Joseibi said as she tried to do that.
"Okay," Kiba added without waiting. "I'll go catch up with her and tell her to wait up then, keep up, all right?"
"But…" Joseibi noted as the older boy and his dog charged on ahead of her. "Err, right."
He was soon out of sight, leaving Joseibi behind to try and use her half-trained nose to follow up behind him. She came to where he'd turned and found no sight of the ninja or his dog. Rolling her eyes she looked around to see where Ryoko might spot a good sparring ground and moved in that direction around a corner.
Running smack into the side of weirdo dressed in black pajamas with garish face paint, not like anybody she knew in the village.
"Hey Brat, that hurt," the young man said.
Konohamaru watched Hinata curiously as they walked away from the hospital and the nurses that had helped revive Hinata after her faint. Some of them gave the purple-haired girl some odd knowing winks and smiles as they left. The girl was strange, just as Naruto had said once, how she was so quiet and the way she stared.
Weird.
Naruto on the other hand seemed to take it into stride and not act like the odd behavior was anything out of the ordinary.
"Really, Boss," Konohamaru said. "You've gotten really cold recently."
"Yeah, you said that," Naruto said, rolling his eyes.
"You said you'd play ninja with us today," the young ninja-student protested.
"You said that too," Naruto responded, rolling his eyes. The younger Leaf resident crossed his arms and stared with a grimace. "Yeah, yeah, first we gotta watch out for a friend of ours."
"Who's that?" Konohamaru asked.
"He said 'ours'" Hinata thought quietly to herself with a flush.
Anything else that might have come was stopped as they turned a corner to find Joseibi Saotome being held off her feet by a ninja two or three years older than they were with a rather hostile expression on his face. Next to him was a somewhat older teenaged ninja watching on with a disapproving look on her face.
"What the hell do think you're doing?" Naruto demanded as he pressed forward, rolling up his sleeve.
Behind him, moving somewhat more hesitantly, was Hinata, readying herself hesitantly for a battle.
"I'm just teaching this little runt a lesson," the black-garbed face-painted ninja said turning toward them.
"I said I was sorry," the cursed blonde said with something less than sincerity. "So put me down, all right?"
"Look you, " the stranger snapped bitterly, interrupted in his speech as he moved to intercept Naruto's fist and shove the energetic ninja to the ground.
Almost immediately, Hinata was standing in front of where Naruto had fallen, standing in stance for the start of a fight.
"We're not here for this, Kankuro," the older blonde said tightly. "Quit getting us into trouble."
"These midgits started it," the other snapped, "and this one's getting her lesson."
He launched his fist out at Joseibi, who was in that moment dropping her façade of bravery and wincing in anticipation of being hit.
The fist never touched her and instead fell limply to his side, soon followed by the other arm, which released the young Saotome. He stared from that phenomena to the reason for it, the Hyuuga who'd just pulled back into her stance from that quick, simple attack.
"All right, Hinata!" Naruto shouted as he stood up and came to her side, pulling Joseibi behind him. "That was awesome!"
Joseibi stepped back and huddled into a small target behind the older Konoha shinobi.
Hinata flushed slightly, but remained focused on the two ninja in front of her.
The other strange-ninja snarled as she brought up her fan and unfurled it.
"Now you've done it," the fan-toting girl said with a narrowed pair of eyes.
"Stop it," a cold voice said, bringing the fan-girl to a stop as she looked up to see a young red-haired man looking down on them from his perch, hanging upside down from the tree. "This isn't what we're here for."
"But they attacked Kankuro," the girl said.
"Shut up," the boy said, dark circles standing out around his eyes implying that he had not had much sleep for a long while. "I'll kill you."
Naruto and Hinata both could feel the waves of killer intent radiating downward from the young boy.
Wincing, the blonde closed her fan again and put it behind her back.
"We're sorry," she said, looking briefly toward the Konoha ninja and back up to the red-head, "really sorry."
"Yeah," Kankuro said, sweating as he tried to get feeling back in his arms so he could pick up the wrapped bundle that had fallen off his back
The red head disappeared from his upside down perch and landed beside the other two strange ninja and emotionlessly picked up the fallen piece of equipment, thrusting it at the oldest of the three, the girl. Then the red-head turned toward the purple haired girl that had incapacitated his brother, he noted the characteristic violet, pupil-less eyes.
"A Hyuuga," he said, glancing again toward Kankuro and back to her. "What is your name, girl?"
"Uh…Hi…Hinata," she said nervously.
"Hinata of the Hyuga clan," he responded, "I see."
Quietly he turned away from her and started to walk away.
"Hey," Naruto called out. "What about me?"
"Not interested," the red-head said simply.
"You forgot to give your own name," another cold voice said, the owner smirking as he seemed to appear from nowhere standing behind the red-headed foreigner.
The foreign ninja turned his head slow to glance over his shoulder, even as his elder brother and sister looked at the Konoha ninja that had suddenly appeared in their midst. Though the sister looked more than a little flush rather than upset as she took in Sasuke's handsome appearance.
"Sasuke," Naruto growled quietly under his breath. "Damn show off."
"Gaara of the Desert," the redhead said simply. "And you?"
"Sasuke Uchiha," the smug looking genin said simply, keeping his back to Gaara.
Gaara nodded with a sour expression and then continued walking down the street, gesturing for the other two to follow. The Konoha shinobi watched them leave and waited until they were out of sight to release a held breath. Only Sasuke seemed unconcerned with watching them leave.
"Their head-protectors are from Sumagakure," Hinata noted. "What are foreign ninja doing in town?"
"Umm," Joseibi said. "Can we not mention this to Onesan? Another thing like this and she'll get paranoid."
"Get paranoid?" Sasuke repeated with an arched eyebrow.
"You've all been assembled for one reason," the Hokage said to the gathered ninja. "And it should be obvious from the members here."
The thought carried through most of those present: the chunin exam.
Things progressed from there until it was time for candidates to be presented.
Two of the jonin in charge of new genin teams presented their students as candidates, to the shock of some of those present, until Kakashi stepped forward.
"The Kakashi-led Team 7, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki," Kakashi said. "Under the name of Hatake Kakashi, I nominate them to take the chunin selection exam. However, we have a…complication."
"Ryoko Saotome," Hokage said. "Yes, a resident but not a ninja, yet a definite member of her team. I am aware of the situation and there has already been some discussion on this point."
He gestured toward an entrance into the room as a woman with long, black hair was led into the room and shown to a seat by the young girl at her side.
Kakashi nodded in respect as she entered.
The others present, many of whom weren't yet aware of who or what the blind woman exactly was, looked on in a bit of confusion. Silently the woman patted her assistant on the shoulder and waited as her words were spoken through the younger one.
"This woman is a member of the same school of fighting of which Ryoko is also a student," the Hokage explained. "I believe she has a rank somewhat equivalent to a special jonin in our own system. She has assured me that there is no conflict in her own schools rules to block her participation. Is that not so?"
The dark-haired woman patted her assistant lightly and nodded.
"Indeed, Hokage-sama," Mokya said nervously. "My mistress notes that Ryoko has promised an exchange of service for service and a promise of such nature is held in high regard by our school. In addition, it is against the way of the school to turn down a worthy challenge."
"As for our own laws," the Hokage said. "All the villages have, in the past, sponsored outsiders in the exams."
Especially when trying to gather useful new skills more permanently into the village, was the unspoken thought crossing most of the minds that heard that explanation.
"The chunin exam is as much a display of our power for the merchants and other nations," the Hokage continued. "For the moment that should include Ryoko Saotome, she shall be given the opportunity to compete with her team."
Kakashi nodded satisfaction at that.
Only Iruka still had any protest and it was based on the age of the contestants, a complaint that was quickly argued down by Kakashi and issues moved on toward matters of security.
Kiba and Ryoko landed from another exchange in their rematch. Once again, Kiba and Akamaru were finding themselves forced toward more and more desperate actions by Ryoko's superior understanding of hand to hand combat.
This time, in the middle of town, fang over fang was definitely out. Even if he wasn't worried about clocking Ryoko again, something he wasn't sure would be possible.
Occasionally, they'd land apart for a moment to catch their breaths and wonder where the rest of their group was, and then the fight would start again, the moment passing in the blink of an eye. They were atop a large roof-top, out of the sight of most of the pedestrians below and even most of the ninja, though likely they were giving an ANBU or two a show of young warriors basically at play.
On one such momentary break, Ryoko turned to look toward the street and then leaped back into the fight again. She was still half-way looking that way as rose up, and turned her face toward the approach of her opponent. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of a tall figure with red-hair tightly done up in a bun and carrying a wrapped bundle on the back.
The image blazoned itself on her eye and she quickly turned her head back to see if it had been real, but the angle was wrong now.
Besides she was unconscious in the next second anyway.
Sakura had taken to the roofs for the moment to avoid people's eyes for the time being as she tried to process her recent conversation with Sasuke. He couldn't have meant what he said to her, could he. This or the other time when he'd defended her beratement of Naruto.
"Pathetic loser," she repeated. "It wasn't my fault my teammates weren't able to pass the test."
She stopped in her rather shallow introspection and saw what looked like that scaredy cat outsider getting clocked clean by Kiba Inuzuka.
Gasping in shock at the site, Sakura rushed out to catch the senseless girl before she landed in a decidedly bad angle. Not having actually seen Ryoko's full skill in battle, Sakura turned an aghast expression on Kiba, ignoring his own somewhat ragged and bruised appearance.
"What are you thinking striking out at a defenseless girl like that?" Sakura demanded as Kiba came to her side.
"I didn't think I'd actually hit her," Kiba noted quickly in his own defense, supported by a quick bark from Akumaru as the dog came up beside his partner.
"What do you mean you didn't think you'd hit her?" Sakura said as she started applying her lessons in first aid. "You're a ninja right?"
"Yes, but…" Kiba tried to protest.
"And she's not a ninja, right?" Sakura snapped.
"Yeah, but…" Kiba continued.
"Seriously, wasn't she just in the hospital yesterday for a concussion and dislocated shoulder?" Sakura demanded. "Was that your fault as well?"
"Well, I didn't…" Kiba tried to explain.
"You're just a brutal bully aren't you?" Sakura snapped. "Now, I'm taking her back to hospital and I'll be keeping an eye on you."
Her finger waggled threateningly at Kiba before she stooped down to carefully take the small unconscious Saotome onto her back and then leaped forward. In her wake Kiba was still sputtering.
"But I was losing," he said weakly before turning to look toward Akumaru. "How did I beat her this time?"
Akumaru whined in confusion with a canine shrug.
Meanwhile Sakura carried the unconscious girl forward swiftly and landed in front of the hospital to the side.
It was only as she did so that it occurred to her that she was carrying a rival for Sasuke's affections to the hospital. She hesitated a moment outside the door, considering that and feeling dark thoughts creep into the back of her mind.
Thoughts of just leaving the girl where she was and going, after all the injury was not great, why should she put herself out.
There were, perhaps, darker thoughts working to make themselves conscious, but Sakura's basic gentle nature kept those forced away.
Then the hospital staff was there and it the dark thoughts fled away now that there was no opportunity to do anything.
Ryoko woke up later and found herself staring at the ceiling of the hospital again.
"Ano…" she said quietly.
That had been an odd dream.
"Oh good," the nurse in the room said. "Now, when we discharge you this time, we expect you to wait at least a few days before coming back."
"Back?" Ryoko said confused.
"Yes," the nurse said. "We let you out this morning and you were back by the afternoon, unconscious again. The medical ninja will have quite a lot to say to you about activity after a recent concussion."
Sitting up in confusion, Ryoko looked around and tried to figure out what had happened and how she had managed to lose that spar so completely. That and the feeling that there was something she needed to remember, something important that had been driven out by that last hit.
Sakura watched from outside the room, feeling more than a little guilty at what was running through her head only moments before the hospital's medical ninja had taken the girl into the building. She'd never let her rivalry with Ino take her to such thoughts, so why now with this outsider girl?
She crossed her arms and then stalked away, trying not to think about it.
"Okay, Ryoko leaving the hospital, take two," Naruto said shaking his head.
It was just him this time, with Kiba and Hinata meeting with their jonin and Joseibi in school. Sasuke should have been there to make getting to their own meeting with Kakashi on time together that much easier, but Sasuke was doing his own thing recently.
At least, this time they got out and to where they were going with no incident. They even had some time to grab some food on the way, Naruto's treat despite Ryoko's protests that she didn't want to be coddled, she didn't make mention of her normal plan to steal the food fair and square anyway.
Nor did she realize that the guilt was for nearly letting Joseibi get hurt the day before, an event that the younger Saotome still insisted not reach her sister's ears.
"You're late," Sasuke noted when they finally met at the bridge they were to meet Kakashi at.
"G…gomen na..nasai," Ryoko said swiftly.
"Oh cut it out, Ryoko-chan," Naruto said. "We're not late an Sasuke-teme knows it."
Sasuke snorted bitterly and the three set about waiting for Kakashi to make his normal appearance. Ryoko taking her normal seiza on the hard rock of the bridge to the complete and repeated bafflement of her teammates.
Predictably it was sometime after Naruto started shouting out about how stupid it was that their mentor couldn't be there on time.
"Sorry," Kakashi said coolly as he entered. "I got lost on the road of life."
"Could you quit lying like that and just tell us what the mission is?" Naruto demanded. "Are we planting a garden."
"Not today, no," Kakashi said. "Today I'm just going to tell you that I've nominated the three of you for the chunin selection exam."
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:23)
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