Chapter 13
Ok guys, last ‘boring’ chapter before the Chuunin Exams. Enjoy the peace and quiet while it lasts.
Against all expectations, Inuzuka Shippo does manage to convince a bunch of inns that they’ve never wanted anything like they want to host foreign, possibly hostile ninjas.
“We can be convincing,” Hana insist, sounding just a little offended. “Just look at my mom. Sometimes you just have to be … motivated enough.” Nobody dares to ask what exactly motivated Shippo enough to ‘pull a small miracle out of his ass’ – though Anko had offered up several interesting theories.
“You know,” the woman says while Hisana is sorting both of their paper work, “I’m really looking forward to this now.”
“Of course you are – all you’ve got left to do is scare genin. I’m the one doing the boring administrative stuff.” Anko chortles shamelessly, as if it’s really Hisana’s own fault. Maybe it is, she thinks distractedly. She could be more forceful …
“Anko,” she tries, voice hard, “do your own damn paperwork.” The other woman laughs in her face. “Yeah,” Hisana admits grudingly, “I thought as much. Fuck you.”
In two days the first teams are supposed to arrive. Kiri, if she remembers correctly. Konoha is not as paranoid as Suna, so no patrol will be sent out to meet them. A more charitable person would call it ‘trust’; Hisana is about ninety percent sure it’s intimidation tactics, because there’s no way they won’t get hopelessly lost in the Konoha forest. Maybe some of them won’t even make it to the proper registration, which would cut competition by quite the percentage. Of course nobody said as much out loud, but after working with him for over six months Hisana has become a bit more familiar with the way Ibiki works. This has his name written all over it.
“Are you gonna play babysitter?” Anko squints down at her in genuine curiosity. Since Hisana isn’t an official proctor, she’s free to interact with the participants in other ways. For most of the volunteers that means shepherding them around Konoha for sightseeing, and making sure they don’t get into trouble. So maybe they are paranoid, but at least it looks like they’re being good hosts instead.
Hisana shrugs. “Maybe? I’m not really interested, but if Ibiki drafts me there’s not much I can do about it.” Anko makes an acquiescing noise. It’s hard to argue with that man. “But I’m not going to volunteer, if that’s what you mean.”
Whether or not she volunteers is of course of no real consequence. Fortunately there’s no babysitting involved, but she’s still assigned guard duty for the day. It’s a task usually beneath tokubetsu jounin, but with so many visitors coming and going at all hours some extra security has been deemed necessary. As if Orochimaru is going to walk through the front gate. Though, thinking about it, he’s currently wearing the guise of a jounin sensei and will therefore in fact be entering through the front gate.
The thought is as hilarious as it is depressing, especially because she remembers his disguise not being especially inspired – and still, nobody will recognize him. What a dark day for the Konoha Intelligence Department.
Fortunately for Hisana she’s stationed at the south gate, which means she’ll neither have to deal with the Suna siblings, nor with any Oto ninja. Unfortunately she does have to deal with Kiri. “Now,” she says for the second time, polite smile becoming increasingly fixed, “you can either unroll those scrolls, so we can check the seals, or I can relieve you of them.” The boy’s jounin teacher makes an offended noise, and to her right Hisana can practically hear Hagane Kotetsu roll his eyes.
She’s just about had it with this secretive, paranoid and most of all rule-breaking bunch. Every genin had to declare their weapons weeks before they were granted access to the village, and this guy obviously has two scrolls that he shouldn’t. She doesn’t care how hard he insists that they’re storage scrolls. Hisana is convinced they’re explosive seals, which have been explicitly forbidden inside the village.
“I check them or I sack them,” she tells him impatiently. Alternatively, a little voice whispers inside her head, I could also shove them up your ass. Nothing to muffle an explosion like a body. The little voice sounds remarkably like Anko; Hisana wonders if that should worry her. In any case, she’s not discussing this for another fifteen minutes, especially because he isn’t the first today.
“Asshat,” she still growls five minutes later as she tries to stack the scroll on top of an already sizable pile. It wobbles and then rolls back down to her feet.
“Patience isn’t really your strong point, is it?” her partner muses, a little entertained when she finally gives the stubborn scroll a kick.
“I am far beyond patience,” she informs him. “These people are driving me nuts.”
Other than the increasing strain on her nerves the job is thankfully boring. It does irk Hisana, somewhere deep down, that it’ll make her miss team 7’s little run-in with the Kazekage’s children, but at the same time she’s also shamefully glad that she won’t have to see Gaara this soon. It might have been useful to talk to Temari though. Then again, she can’t very well do Naruto’s job for him. He needs to confront Kankuro and leave some sort of first impression on them. Also, it will be tremendously amusing to see if Temari makes the connection between Sasuke and her.
That evening Naruto is practically fuming.
“Such jerks,” he gasps, as if still quite unable to believe that anyone would be so rude. Oh, the irony. Predictably he’s more appalled at Kankuro than Gaara, even though the rest of his team seems to have rightfully pegged the red-head as the bigger threat.
“They’re guests,” she reminds him gently, even if she’s inclined to agree. “Even if they behave like … well, Hyuuga.” Sakura snorts indelicately. Next to her Sasuke pointedly averts his gaze.
“Don’t let Kohaku-chan hear you say that,” Kakashi’s voice comes from behind, making Hisana jump from the bench so hard she nearly knocks her head into his chin. He dodges her neatly, and then takes the vacated seat. She glares at him; he smiles back unapologetically.
“Kohaku-senpai would know probably agree,” she grumbles. Not before giving her that hard, disappointed stare that makes her feel roughly four inches tall, but in the end he’d agree. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh nothing – I just felt like going and seeing my favorite people in the world.”
There’s a witty little quip being communicated here, she thinks as his eye crinkles impishly; one that goes neatly over most of team 7’s heads. For a moment Hisana entertains the foolish hope that she’s maybe reading too much into it his usual playful smile, but there’s an edge to it that clearly says ‘got you’. Great. They’ve officially reached a new stage in their relationship and Hisana isn’t sure if she likes it; now she can’t even berate him for his snark without looking like a lunatic.
“Aww Kaka-sensei, that’s so nice of you,” Naruto says, looking a little touched. Sasuke sighs deeply and very put upon.
“Dobe. Don’t be naïve. He’s here for Hisa-nee.” Naruto glares at him before fixing his eyes back onto his sensei’s face.
“But – Kakashi-sensei, you’ve still gotta train us! You promised us another super cool jutsu for the exam. And – and I think those strange ninja are really strong, so we need to train extra hard.” He looks pleased with his own reasoning. “So, you’re here to do that right? Train us more?” Kakashi favors him with a mildly approving look.
“No.” The blond’s expression falls almost comically. “But I guess,” he continues, seemingly oblivious to his exasperated students, “if I’m already here, I can show you a thing or two. But not before I talk to your nee-san. So … go and warm up or something. Shoo.” Hisana watches fondly as they leave, grumbling but mostly pleased. He is a good teacher; team 7 is very lucky.
“What is it?” she murmurs, once the children are mostly out of earshot. He wouldn’t play messenger boy for just anything. A frown tugs at his brow. “The Suna delegation has arrived,” he starts, sounding somewhat wary.
“Yeah, I heard. Naruto very nearly ran head-first into his death.” She hopes that the look she gives him adequately expresses just how she feels about that. He rubs his head.
“That boy. He met the Kazekage’s youngest?”
“And the oldest, and the middle child. As far as I know Kankuro tried to instigate a fight with the Third’s grandson. I’m not sure why they think picking on any Konoha kid is an acceptable pastime, but I’m actually angrier at their babysitter than them. Where the hell was the guy?”
“That’s the problem,” he grunts, looking as unhappy as she feels. “Nobody wants to start a fight with an unstable Jinchuuriki in the middle of the village, so he was probably watching but staying out of it. The Hokage’s grandson though … that was risky. Good thing that Naruto has such a reckless sense for justice.”
She can’t help but nod. It’s not nice to throw the brat under the bus, but he saved them a lot of trouble today. Even if it was Konohamaru, and even if it was only Kankuro who started the entire thing – picking a fight with the Kazekage’s eldest son would have been a political nightmare. “So what?” she prompts after a moment, “You wanted to know … if I’m ok with that?”
He chortles. “No. I know you’re better than that.” Despite the dismissive words Hisana can’t help but feel a little flattered. Praise from Kakashi is rare, even more so if it isn’t wrapped in some sort of insult. “No,” he repeats deliberately, “but I want to know how tempted you are to go up to them and start something. And I mean the truth.” She looks him in the eye, trying to gauge if the statement was supposed to end with ‘because I can arrange that’ or ‘because then I’ll put a leash on you’.
“On a scale of one to ten? Four,” she admits. “I want to hit someone, but I’ll be fine with seeing Sasuke hit someone for me. Fingers crossed he gets Gaara.”
Kakashi lifts a surprised brow at her.
“You want him to fight Gaara?”
“In a controlled environment, with his Sharingan activated and about a hundred pairs of jounin eyes on his opponent? Hell yes.” Her former teacher shakes his head, slowly, as if he can’t quite believe her.
“That’s good to know. And here I was worrying about how to restrain you if that happens.” He stuffs his hands into his pockets and makes to leave, eyes fixed on the path to training ground six, where his team is already waiting. He only takes a few steps before tacking on, “Oh yeah, Ibiki wants you in T&I in – oh, about half an hour ago.”
Hisana sputters at him, but he’s already gone, trailing leaves and a mild breeze.
Ibiki glares at her, letting any stupid ‘I got lost on the road of life’ die on her tongue.
“Sorry,” she finally settles on, trying for a little professionalism. “You know how he is.”
The older ninja pinches the bridge of his broad nose. For a moment it looks as if he wants to say something unkind about either or both of them, before he seems to think better of it and waves a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t matter. The first task is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, as you know. And we picked a number of younger chuunin and tokujou to oversee the task more intimately.” She’s aware. In fact, Hisana herself picked a few of her former classmates to plant among the contestants. “But after the confrontation between the Kazekage’s children and the Sandaime’s honored grandson I have decided to up the security.”
Hisana nods absentmindedly. No shock there either. Suna has shown itself aggressive and uncaring of politics. While strategically not necessarily a wise choice, the first task certainly poses a target should they try something, and Ibiki is a very careful man. She can already see where this conversation is going, and instead of doing the sensible thing and refusing, the only thing she can really say is, “I can’t do it alone.”
He smiles at her, short and grimly pleased. “You won’t be. Aburame Shizuha has been requesting a hand in it.”
‘How tempted are you to start something?’ he said. Hisana presses the heels of her hands into her eyes. No wonder he wanted to be sure. There’s no doubt in her mind that, if she’d answered in any other way, Kakashi would have conveniently forgotten to tell her about Ibiki. Insubordination is after all the very least of what her team leader has been accused.
The truth is, that in the quiet of her own company, she has absolutely no intention of engaging with the Suna siblings. There’s lingering affection for Temari, certainy, but not nearly enough to make her want to go anywhere near Gaara, preferably ever again. It’s been … a long time since her Chuunin Exams. Comparably, at least. She’s seen worse things by now than an uncontrolled, bloodthirsty monster – very controlled bloodthirsty monsters – and has made her peace terror and danger.
Really, she can only attribute her reluctance to see him to childhood trauma and the memory of helplessness; something she still doesn’t deal well with. And yet, Hisana can’t say for certain if it will stay that way when she really does meet him again. Because side by side with fear there’s also anger, rage even, for reducing her to this. Putting Gaara into a room with the people she loves most and making her watch is potentially a very bad idea.
Ibiki knows that. It’s been a sneaking suspicion before, but now she can’t help but think that he must know. Maybe he’s even counting on it, that when everyone else is frozen in shock, Hisana’s anger will be enough to move her forward and into the path of destruction. While the general populace may have forgotten, someone like Ibiki will remember the rumors after the Kyuubi’s attack: The only truly effective weapon against a Tailed Beast is the Sharingan. Hisana certainly remembers looking into the Ichibi’s eyes and trying to force her will on it. A weak Sharingan against the weakest of the chakra demons, contained by a child, but there you have it – it worked well enough to save her life.
It’s been two years since then and they must have both become stronger; there’s no guarantee that it’ll be enough this time. Hisana only hopes Ibiki isn’t overestimating her.
Shizuha taps her pen against the report. Six chuunin – Inuzuka, Hyuuga, Yamanaka, a Nara or two … She flicks the folder closed, impatient and agitated. Truth is, the specifics of the Exams don’t interest her very much. She’s not part of the organizational team and her only stake in this is cousin Shino. Volunteering at such a late stage for a supervisory position has more to do with her wayward friend than with any personal investment.
Carefully, meticulously, she removes her glasses to clean them with the edge of her shirt. It’s a nervous tick, not necessity, but the repetitive motions calm her pulse and keep the kikai from taking notice. It’s been … four weeks. Updates on her oldest friend’s well-being have been coming via Shiki’s bored and haphazard reports, the Nara stuck between pity and exasperation. “If you want to talk to her so badly, why don’t you go over there and kick her ass?”
But for all her brains and sharp eyes, there are things that Shiki just doesn’t get – mostly because Shizuha’s feelings follow no logical path that she can follow. They just are. It’s has to do with … pride maybe. She wants the Uchiha to come to her, the way she did before. Just one more time.
But the Nara is right. T&I is so far removed from everything else … she should have seen it coming right from the start; isolation is a regrettable side effect of her occupation. That doesn’t mean she has to roll over and take it. It might be time to remind some people that she still exists.