eleven.
“This will be your final test.”
“As ones in the foundation, it is also your fate.”
“If both of you are still alive after three days, or if you attempt to leave the exam your lives will be forfeit. Do you understand?”
“Do not disappoint me.”
Danzo-sama flickers away leaving just the two of them in the clearing, the girls face each other. They were led here by Danzo-sama himself, far away from the normal training grounds and past the river, until the trees faded away into packed earth and rock faces. Ei could not feel the other trainees anymore, and she couldn’t see where Danzo-sama had gone. They were instructed to wear the uniform today and pack their supplies.
“Did you know this was the final test?” Ei asks the tense air.
“No.” Iyori pulls a single kunai from her pouch with one finger, looking at the hilt wrappings instead of Ei. She can’t sense a lie.
Ei hates herself for it, but she starts cataloging what she brought, and what she saw Iyori bring. She breathes deep, forcing her lungs to work and breath steady when all she wants is to run.
She knows Iyori brought the kunai with seals. Ei brought the chakra conductive wires.
“So then, this is goodbye.” Ei unsheathes the tanto from her back with shaking hands and opens her mind. Iyori’s chakra is blank, like a pool of undisturbed water. Iyori was never a sentimental type. She won’t try to plead or find a way to get out of the death match.
“It is,” Iyori says evenly.
A drop of water breaks the pond’s surface and Iyori moves first.
Ei has someone to return to, she has to live. Even so, she doesn’t want to raise a hand against Iyori. Iyori isn’t her friend, but she is a partner she spent two years living with.
Ei doesn’t want to hurt Iyori. Only one person can leave this exam though, and she has somewhere to be. So Ei shoved the emotions she was supposed to kill away and prepared herself.
“Doton, Doryūheki!” She slams her hands into the ground and presses her back against the wall that rises just as a stream of water with the force of river bashes against it.
In the few seconds that Ei has, she plans. Iyori favors ninjutsu and fuuinjutsu, and she will want to keep Ei from getting in for close combat. Ei doesn’t have the chakra reserves for a drawn-out battle against Iyori, who has more chakra to throw around and waste on flashy jutsu. She’ll have to go to the trees to trap Iyori in and get her into close quarters, but Iyori won’t give up the open space she has now. Ei will just have to force her.
The wall behind her cracks, Ei sheathes her tanto, coats herself in chakra, and sinks below the surface. With her hands pressed together and held in front of her she parts the dirt with the chakra cloak and swims through the rocks back towards the trees. The ground above her shudders with the impact of water bullets but none of them manage to hit Ei. She pushes herself faster in a zig-zag pattern when the dirt becomes heavier and sodden, evading Iyori’s attempts to rip her from the ground.
Iyori has a nasty counter to Ei’s Hiding in the Earth jutsu, which is to soak the ground until it becomes mud and then yank Ei out of the ground by trapping her in a bubble of dirty water. It’s a truly awful experience that happens rather often during training, and Ei really doesn’t want to drown in a ball of mud. Iyori only has her water nature, but she has such a large arsenal of jutsu and tags that if Ei let Iyori have the space to change the surroundings to her advantage she’d surely die. Ei pushes through the dirt deeper and faster quicker to avoid the water senbon now piercing the dirt, scraping her legs on stray rocks as she practically speeds though the soil.
That's where Iyori is at a disadvantage in this battle. Iyori won’t risk pushing Danzo-sama’s deadline and doesn’t want to risk giving Ei time to make her wire traps so Iyori has no choice but to give pursuit.
Ei pulls herself out of the ground, her hair came out of the short ponytail but she didn’t lose anything in the dirt. Iyori’s signature is rapidly approaching, so Ei starts layering small but very annoying genjutsu in the area around her. It doesn’t take much chakra because she isn't trying to make visual illusions but they all disrupt some minor brain function that makes spars very annoying. She isn’t trying to convince, just distract Iyori long enough to make her stumble. She starts with one that switches left and right, then one that convinces you that you’ve lost your toes, one that creates unease, one that says everything in front of you is closer than you think, one that says you are breathing too quickly, and one that says you are breathing too slowly. Ei uses genjutsu that are more like whispers and suggestions than anything else.
Ei hates Genjustu. It's just a bunch of lies, and it makes her feel slimy to use something as truthful as chakra to lie but Ei can’t afford to lose. She can’t.
She can’t afford to panic either, so she takes a deep breath and turns to face Iyori as she dashes into the clearing. Ei is standing on the ground floor watching warily as Iyori jumps down from the trees panting just a couple of feet away, close enough to hear the heaving breaths. Sweat drips down her brow and her eyes dart around the clearing before landing on Ei.
Jumps and flares of chakra interrupt the heartbeat of the forest as they face off.
Iyori gags and heaves a shaky ‘kai’ as she wipes spittle from her chin and draws her tanto.
“Bitch.” She spits out the word as she points the short blade at Ei, who draws her own sword with shaking hands once more. “Couldn’t you just let me kill you the easy way?” Her braids have loosened and the fly-away wisps of loose hair are plastered to her sweaty face.
The humid heat is starting to get to Ei too, she wore a fabric-backed mail shirt under the cropped uniform and the shade from the trees wasn’t doing much to dissipate the summer heat. She adjusts her grip on the hilt and spreads her feet into a wider stance, watching as Iyori mimics her stance.
“What? Got nothing to say?”
Ei has so much to say, so many words that are overfilling in her soul and threatening to burst out in a rush of waves. I’m sorry. I hate you. I love you. You were horrible to me. Thank you for being so kind. So many things she could say, but it wouldn’t be right for Ei to scream and cry when she's the one who's going to kill Iyori. She doesn’t get to say ‘thank you for being my partner’ when she is going to have to be the one who watches the light fade from her eyes. Instead, she presses her lips together, breathes deeply again, and moves her chakra into a cooling pattern. The birds are silent now, everything stands still with bated breath.
Iyori rushes forward when Ei replaces the broken genjutsu that causes left and right to switch.
Their swords clash, Iyori baring down on Ei with her stronger arms. At twelve years old, Iyori is much heavier than nine-year-old Ei and taller too. She easily overpowers Ei, pushing her back and spitting quick bullets at Ei. She manages to catch three blasts on her blade’s edge, but one hits the flat of the blade and shakes her down to her bones. Another bullet catches her shoulder and slices the sleeve and skin there open.
Doryūheki. Ei summons a wall of earth to avoid the hail of jutsu and catch her breath for a moment. No time to wrap her shoulder. Her breaths come too quickly, her hands that were too small to hold a sword trembling.
What can I do?
Iyori is gaining the space she needs and with it, confidence. Her jeering voice echoes the smugness ringing in her chakra. She thinks she’s winning, “Come on Ei, I’d thank you for making this easy but this is a pretty piss poor showing,” and she takes a step away from the voice in fear without thinking about it.
Think. Come on.
Ei can’t sink into the ground here, it’d be too easy for Iyori to yank her out again even with depleted chakra and there are too many roots in the way for Ei to escape quickly. Ei flexes her grip on her tanto again, her hands are sweaty and its making her grip loose. Her eyes flick around, trying to find something to her advantage.
“You couldn’t kill your emotions. That’s why you’re going to lose.” Iyori isn’t guilty or remorseful. Ei can’t bring herself to use the more lethal tactics she knows. Ei doesn’t know which of them is more wrong. She can’t make herself raise a hand against Iyori, even to free herself and find Naruto-chan, even though she knows Iyori won’t hesitate. Iyori is only stalling for time, Ei can see the chakra gathering in her stomach and can’t move.
Move.
Do something.
“You are just drowning in your emotions, aren’t you? What did Danzo-sama say! Bonds just drag you down! You won’t make it out of here because you couldn’t understand that its all temporary.” The sweaty auburn haired girl waves the hand not holding her sword in a grand gesture to the trees around them.
Ei hates her sight sometimes.
“There’s only the mission Ei, and my mission right now is to kill you.”
She hates it because it only shows her truth. The truth is that Iyori doesn’t care at all about killing Ei, and she can’t help but be hurt. She won’t cry about it because she always knew Iyori wasn’t her friend but Ei just hurts so much to see Iyori feel nothing. She hates her sensing sometimes because she can sense her own chakra cooling down and slowing. Survival instincts take over for her, and she lowers her sword.
Ei feels a calm chill come over her. It’s not fear, it’s just. Nothing.
She hates her name.
Before Iyori could finish the Dog sign, Ei forms the Dragon sign and slams her hands onto the dirt.
The spikes catch Iyori’s body, piercing her torso with a squelch. Iyori doesn’t wear the armored underlayers of the cropped Root uniform. She takes it with a grunt and cut-off scream. Her eyes are wide in disbelief and the aborted water jutsu runs out her mouth, becoming pink-tinted as it runs over her chin and drips onto the ground.
Ei stares ahead wide-eyed and for a moment there is silence.
She spits. “You bitch.” Iyori’s chest is heaving, desperately trying to draw in air into her ruined body. The insult breaks the silence and startles Ei so badly that she bites her tongue. “You just gonna leave me like this?” Her voice gurgles and hitches like a drain, desperate and pained.
“Oi, Ei.”
“Hey.”
Ei stares unseeing at the spike protruding from Iyori’s stomach. She did that. She won.
“Hey, Bug-eyes. Come and finish me off.” Iyori’s hand jolts like she wants to raise it and beckon Ei closer.
“Wh-”
“You won idiot, now finish me off. Don’t be lame and try to care about my last words, just kill me. Make sure you actually get the heart this time.” Short, cruel, and to the point. That was Iyori.
“Oh! Yes, I’m- I’m sor-” Ei cuts herself up, raising from her crouch quickly.
Ei makes herself look at Iyori’s face as she raises her sword. Iyori doesn’t close her eyes, doesn’t look at the tanto, she looks right at Ei. Ei inserts the tanto between her ribs and straight up into her heart, Iyori gasps slightly then slumps on the spike.
Ei still breathes evenly, her chakra is still. Her eyes are still stretched open painfully as she rummages through Iyori’s pouches for a scroll. She doesn’t stop to wonder why Iyori already had black-lined scrolls, just pushes Iyori off the spike and sets her on the paper.
She stares at the leaking body and the paper for much longer than necessary before remembering that the standard protocol is to burn the body but she really doesn’t want to. Ei summons the chakra from the deep well within and forces her earth chakra into the fire style to incinerate Iyori. Ei does not want to consider what it means so she decides to let her mind drift until she has need of it again. Once finished Ei scoots backward until her back hits a tree and stays there until she is greeted later by one of the Foundation two days later at the same time.
When she acknowledges the agent standing at the base of the giant tree she has been huddled in for two days she is dragged in a shunshin, a horrible experience that shakes whatever dust must have formed on her brain.
Foreign energy wraps around hers, and her entire field changes in an instant. She is sitting on rough, alive tree bark, then suddenly she is being held up by the hand on her upper arm over a stone floor. Ei thinks this is what being stuck in a jar and shaken aboutfeels like as the agent who brought her here kindly waited for her to stop gagging. The change isn’t a particularly nice one, the lively forest replaced by this structure is a very stark contrast.
She regains her composure quickly enough and then realizes three things all at once. 1. Danzo-sama is right there, behind her, how embarrassing. 2. This place is deep underground and covered in embedded chakra, very ominous. 3. Somehow, there is a Hashirama tree walking around here.
All three of these revelations are unpleasant and irrelevant at the moment, so Ei ignores all of them in favor of falling onto one knee and bowing to Danzo-sama in sync with the agent who brought her here. The room they are in is a very traditional looking place, shoji paneled walls and tatami mats with candles lighting up the room. The candles cast long shadows and red light on the white paper walls.
“Welcome to the Foundation, shinobi.”
On that day two years ago, Danzo-sama had very deliberately let his chakra loose. After that day she never saw anything more than what Danzo-sama let her see. He had a seal somewhere that blocked her from really seeing his chakra, in her mind he was just an unchanging mass of energy. It gave an uncanny sensation that she was talking to a tree, the signature was definitely there, and it was still a large amount of chakra, just diffused. Like frosted glass.
She stayed bowed, one knee on the ground with a fist on her sternum as Danzo-sama observed her. She dare not lift her head to see what sort of expression he made.
“What is the Foundation?” He asks.
“We are the will of Konoha, we have no names, no emotions, no futures, and no pasts. We protect Konoha’s tree unseen.” She parroted in monotone the oft-repeated phrase that instructors and trainees said any time anyone hesitated.
“Having completed your task of killing your emotions, your past, and your future, from this point on your designation is Ikaru. For now, your mission is to become a sensor worthy of my use.”
“Understood.” Ei’s- Ikaru’s, her training had covered more bases than the academy had, the instructors had said that the trainees were talented and had been hand-picked for the advanced training program that would bring them up to be Chunin level. For Ei, who had been set on becoming a genin and doing paperwork, becoming a Chunin level shinobi was something she didn’t think she could ever do, much less something she ever wanted.
“Hisako had thought you would make a good sensor, she claimed you could be a sensor to rival the Niidaime. If you can come close to my Sensei’s level, you would be of great use to the Foundation.”
Suddenly grateful that her bowed position would hide her expression, she forced herself not to flinch at what the man had said. So Hisako had been the one to bring her here. She hadn’t thought- no- she did think so. Everyone had been selected by their Matron, why would she be any different? Why would her matron care at all- right. No past, No future. Nothing. Ikaru forced herself to calm down, taking hold of her muscles and flexing the tenketsu points nestled behind her lungs to calm them.
Danzo-sama was speaking.
Ei-
Ikaru.
Ikaru was given a blank mask and quarters and told to be ready for training at 1700. She had been led to this room after waking up with a burnt tongue in a cuffed chair in a room smelling of cleaning supplies and old water. Her scrapes and cuts were healed, not that she had many. A thin and pale scar on her shoulder stood out to her among the yellow bruises coloring her skin. Given the multiple signatures near it this hallway was probably a section of living quarters.
She sat with her knees folded to her chest with her back against the wall on the bed made out of iron bars with a plain mattress and no sheets, staring at the blank mask on the desk. The offending piece of ceramic was next to her other pouches, she had taken the pouches from the body unthinkingly before she burned it. Except for the pile of bags on the desk, which was a simple table with drawers like a filing cabinet, the room was empty.
Just jutsu formed stone floor and stone walls, a raised bed off the floor, a desk, a chest of drawers.
Ikaru looked at the blank room and mentally shrugged. It was a room.
She left the lights off so she wouldn’t have to look at it. The room did have a lantern, which was bright and battery powered butIkaru didn't need light so there was no point in wasting it.
Shinobi aren’t supposed to have a past or a future, but Ei found herself missing the old boro-patched blankets she had for so long.
Shinobi aren’t supposed to have names or emotions, but as she stared at the mask still she thought about her designation. Danzo-sama was a shinobi, and he had a name. Maybe that’s one of the loose rules that you could ignore if you had a good enough excuse, she thought.
A tiny shiver went up her spine as someone walked past her door. It was locked, but it didn’t have any traps on it yet. She was going to have to get used to the people moving around here too.Ikaru had gotten used to long silences broken by birdsong and kunai thudding into targets. There was silence here too, but it was different.
There was a hum in the air, a shimmer. Ikaru could sense that they were underground, she checked when she got into the room, there weren’t any signatures other than people bright enough to be animals. There were definitely people, evenly spread around the tunnels and rooms. Usually alone, but there were some pairs here and there, and rooms with multiple shinobi that could be training rooms.
Her head ached, but Ikaru needed to know her surroundings. Not that she was sure that she was alone, she could address the three very worrying things she noticed upon arrival.
Number one being, Danzo-sama. She was no longer kneeling in front of him waiting for some sort of approval, but the tenseness of being watched, that pressure lingered in the tenketsu in her head. Her tongue was swollen and hurt when she swallowed. There was a seal on her tongue. Having someone's chakra on top of yours is very uncomfortable, but this wasn’t like a genjutsu that could be shaken away. Ikaru’s only way to describe it was to say it was like having a staple through her tongue. It hurt, that part was supposed to go away, butIkaru was a little worried about the permanent chakra invading her own. It was impossible to ignore, and definitely did not like being disturbed.
She tried to dispel it, and she was paralyzed. It froze her limbs and all she heard was ringing for a few blinding seconds. Or minutes? It might have been less than a second of agony, but her legs still felt too heavy, her head still ached 20 minutes later. Ikaru was hesitant to call Danzo-sama’s chakra gross, but it really was. It had been cleansed of its Fire nature, but the seal still rang of Danzo-sama and sat on top of her soul like a nasty layer of oil the river.
Well. That problem clearly couldn’t be addressed. Neither could the being underground problem be ‘fixed’.
It wasn’t a problem so much as just unsettling. Ikaru didn’t know how much sleep she’d be able to get while being surrounded by seals. It wasn’t pleasant to look at, like a crowd or a forest. Seals were embedded into the stone and dirt walls, Ikaru wouldn’t know exactly what they did until she could take a closer look. Ikaru was taught sealing basics by Danzo-sama, so she could figure out the intent behind seals, but any fuinjutsu beyond storage and containment seals were beyond her.
Revelation Number Three. She had many questions about that.
Somewhere on the other end of this facility, there was a Tree. Just. Walking around.
It was moving around, neutral, and very strong. The distinct male chakra pattern and sentient brightness that indicated intelligence were very confusing. His? His chakra was constantly shifting in ways not unlike branches dancing in the wind. It was so strange, it had the purity and the otherness of a Hashirama tree, but sadness too. Sadness may not be the right word, Ikaru thought as she closed her eyes and focused more on the strange spirit she found, maybe darkness? He wasn’t sad, not least not right now, but he wasn’t happy. Neutral may not be the right word for the man, because on a closer look, a much closer look that strained Ikaru’s senses, he did have a chakra nature. Two natures. Beautiful. Like a little sprout of grass in the sidewalk. A little patch of green.