"No way."
Akira picked her head up and looked at Yuhi, who was staring straight ahead of them.
"Look, it's the center building!"
Somaru and Akira both snapped their heads around to look across the clearing. There, peeking through the trees still some ways away was indeed the center building.
"We're so close, we can make it before nightfall!"
The sun had slowly began to set on the team as they had been walking. But in the last rays of sunshine, they were almost there.
With a burst of energy, the three of them jumped into the trees and started making their way towards the building. Akira didn't sense anyone else around them, much to her relief. None of them were in fighting condition at the moment.
They crossed over a small creek in the air, then landed in a clearing just outside the building. They walked around the building until they found the set of doors with the number four on it. They pushed them open and crossed the threshold.
Inside it was warm and the walls danced with warm torchlight from above. The setting sun behind them cast their shadows long across the floor. It was a single room, with a tall ceiling and another door at the back of it. Above the door, a long tapestry on the back wall with faded writing on it waved in the slight breeze that was let in from the open doors behind them.
"Now what?" Yuhi asked quietly.
"Let's open the scrolls." Akira said.
Somaru gave her a strange look. "Why?"
"That's what the tapestry says. Heaven and earth together lead the way forward for the path of the shinobi. I think we have to open them."
She pulled their original heaven scroll out of her pouch, and Somaru pulled out his earth scroll that he had fought Teku for. Yuhi watched anxiously as they pulled them open. She gasped when they fully opened them.
Akira and Somaru both jumped and then glared at her. "Sorry! Sorry." She exclaimed, raising her hands up in front of her chest in surrender.
They looked back down at the scrolls. "They're empty," Somaru said, confused.
Akira frowned. All that for an empty scroll?
A puff of smoke appeared beside them. All three genin jumped and drew kunai, expecting another attack. But the person that stepped out of the smoke was none other than their sensei.
"Isamu sensei!"
Akira, Yuhi, and Somaru lowered their weapons in relief upon seeing their jonin sensei.
"Great job you guys! You have passed the second part of the chunin exams! I'm proud of you!" Isamu smiled brightly at all of them.
"What happens now sensei?" Yuhi asked.
"Now, you guys rest until the other teams show up. There's so few of you, I expect it won't take the full five days for the rest of them to arrive. Especially since you took out two of the sand shinobi teams."
Somaru's jaw dropped. "How did you–"
"Did you think we weren't monitoring you guys? We have to watch how the exams go to evaluate you, you know." Isamu chided.
Somaru blushed and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, right."
"You all did great work out there. Now come on, let's get you to your rooms so you can rest okay?"
They followed Isamu through the door at the back of the room, which opened up into a circular hallway that they assumed span the whole building. They turned left, and walked down the hallway for a bit, then turned right down another hallway. This one ended in a staircase, which they climbed to find themselves in a much more open hallway with rooms lining each side.
They stopped at the beginning of the hallway. Isamu turned to face them. "Girls on the right, boys on the left." He said with a smile. Then he continued his way on down the hallway.
Akira, Somaru, and Yuhi took one look at each other, then each choose a room and disappeared. All three of them were exhausted, Akira especially. She had drained her chakra more than she had in a while.
The room was small, but not uncomfortably so. There was a bed in the corner, a desk opposite of it, and a bathroom off to the right. Akira immediately made her way for the shower, stripping off her dirty and bloody clothes as she went. She dropped them on the tile floor and turned the water on up to hot. She stepped inside without waiting for the water to warm up.
The wound on her shoulder stung under the water. Akira hissed in pain as the water hit it, rubbing it gently with her hands. Fresh blood oozed out of the cut, running down her arm and dripping off into the drain below. It stained the pooling water red at her feet.
Akira stood there, watched blood drip into the water. She remembered seeing Teku's blood dripping down the rock in the same manner as hers did now. Akira saw her parents blood spray in the moonlight.
She slammed her fist into the wall in front of her, bringing herself out of the flashback, breathing heavily. She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her head, letting the water fall onto the back of it and down either side of her face. Akira bit her lip so hard she drew droplets of blood out of the cracked skin.
There was a knock on the door to the bathroom.
"Akira?" It was Yuhi. Akira realized she hadn't locked the door to her room. "Are you okay? I heard a bang."
Akira was still breathing heavily. "I'm fine, Yuhi."
Yuhi didn't say anything for a second. "Akira, can I come in?"
Akira didn't respond. Yuhi took her silence as an affirmation and entered the bathroom.
"What happened?" She asked. She stayed on the other side of the curtain.
"Nothing."
"Was it the blood?"
Akira didn't answer for a moment. "Yeah."
"Finish showering and I'll help you bandage it."
Akira did as instructed, and washed herself quickly with the soap that was in there. It was some generic kind, it didn't smell like the soap her mother would buy her so she didn't like it. She rinsed, then turned the water off, trying to avoid the sight of the blood still dripping down her arm.
She reached out for a towel, which Yuhi handed to her. She dried her legs then wrapped it around her shoulders and pulled the curtain open.
Yuhi was giving her a concerned look. She was still in her dirty clothes, the bandage on her shoulder stained brown. She had a medical kit in one hand, and a robe in the other. She gave Akira a soft smile.
"Put this on." She handed her the robe and turned away.
Akira set the robe down on the counter and finished drying herself off, successfully smearing blood all over her shoulder and the towel. She dropped the towel on the ground and pulled on the robe, leaving her left arm exposed so that Yuhi could bandage it. She sat down on the toilet lid.
"I'm good."
Yuhi turned back around and set the medical kit on the counter. She opened it and started pulling out the items she would need to clean Akira's shoulder.
Akira looked away as Yuhi got to work, biting her tongue at the stinging caused by the antiseptic wash Yuhi used.
"How did you know?"
"About what?" Yuhi mused.
"The blood."
Yuhi paused for a second before continuing. "We're teammates Akira, I've seen how you react around blood. I don't know why, but I know you don't like it. I was coming into your room to offer to bandage your shoulder anyways, and then I heard a bang."
Akira sighed. "I punched the wall." Yuhi had been right outside the door. There was no use hiding it.
"Why?"
Akira didn't answer. Yuhi finished cleaned the would and started to apply a pressure wrap to it.
"You know, one of us should really learn some medical ninjutsu." Yuhi mused.
"Hmpf, yeah, probably."
Yuhi smiled a bit. "I was thinking about doing that actually. Every team needs a medic, right? I've always had good chakra control, and I've been interested in it for a while now."
Akira turned her head to look at her teammate. Yuhi seemed serious. "If that's what you want to do then go for it, that sounds great."
Yuhi nodded. It would be good to have a medic on the team. "After the chunin exams I think I will start training at the hospital."
She finished applying the pressure wrap to Akira's shoulder. "There ya go. Just be careful okay?"
"Thank you, Yuhi."
Yuhi stood and started gathering up her supplies. "No problem!"
Akira motioned to Yuhi's shoulder. "Will you need help with yours?"
Yuhi blushed. "Uh, I was actually going to see if maybe Somaru could help me with it." She nervously rubbed the back of her neck.
Akira raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Don't let him tangle the bandage around his own hand."
She turned a darker shade of red. "I won't. I'll see you later!"
Yuhi left the bathroom. Akira heard the door to her room shut. She was alone again.
Akira slowly made her way back into her room, first going to the door and making sure to lock it this time. She didn't want anymore unplanned visitors. She turned back to her room and leaned against the door. She set her head back against the wood and closed her eyes.
The sight of Teku flailing on top of the spire filled her mind again. She clenched her jaws together, gritting her teeth at the memory. He was an enemy. He was going to kill Somaru.
But did she really have a right to kill him? She had to...right?
Akira pushed off of the door and crossed the room to the bed. She laid down on it, and wrapped herself in the thin comforter, laying on her right side with the wall to her back. Her wet hair quickly began to soak the pillow cover underneath her head. She shivered. The room suddenly felt much colder than it had before.
+++
Akira slept fitfully, waking every once in a while from nightmares that plagued her subconscious. Flashes of blood flying through the air, dripping down rock. Teku glaring at her. Cursing her in his death. Her parents screaming.
She sat upwards in bed, a particularly bad nightmare leaving her feeling clammy and cold. Akira was breathing heavily, trying to shake the images from her mind. She put her face in her hands and bit her bottom lip hard. This is real. I'm real. I'm alive.
Akira sat there for a moment until she had collected herself. Then she threw the covers off of her and stood. She crossed the room to the bathroom and picked up her dirty clothes. She stripped the robe off of her and got dressed, ignoring the blood stains that darkened the fabric and made it crusty. Akira left the robe lying in a heap on the floor next to her bloody towel and made her way out of the room.
She turned right and followed the hallway that Isamu had walked down after greeting them. The hallway was dark, the lights dimmed for the night. The doors she passed looked like mere shadows. She couldn't sense anyone else behind them. Her team still seemed to be the only one that had finished so far.
The hallway turned right at the end, and Akira followed it. She passed more doors, ones that she assumed led to more dormitories. At the end of the hall, it opened up into bigger room. This room was better lit, and had several long tables with benches lining them. There was a counter on one side that held a few different baskets and some cereal dispensers. A tiny refrigerator sat in the corner of the counter. On the opposite side of the room there was a buffet counter, with room behind it for people cooking to put more into the pans. There was no one behind the counter though.
Akira made her way over to the counter with baskets, her stomach growling. She hadn't eaten anything since yesterday morning. The snacks that she had brought with her into the forest she had given to Somaru, who had lost his during his fight with Teku.
Upon reaching the counter, she took note of the bagels that were spread on a platter wrapped in plastic, and the fruit piled high in the baskets. She took an apple off the top of the pile and continued on her way.
She crossed to the other side of the room where another hallway was. She stepped into the darkness and stopped for a second. This one was much darker than the other hallway. She pressed her back to the wall and stared into the darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust. After a few moments they had, and she saw that this hallway was similar to the one on the other side of the cafeteria.
Akira used her sensory ability to search for any shinobi within the hallway. She found none. So she pushed off the wall and continued down it.
At the end of it there was a staircase that led upwards on the right, and one that led down on the left. Akira went up. She reached a platform that was on a second level above a large room. The room was sparsely lit, but she could still make out the details. The platform she was on surrounded almost the whole rectangular room, covering three sides with stairs leading down at the far wall. At the base of the stairs was a platform that spanned the entire length of the wall. The ceiling was vaulted high in the air, with windows towards the top of it.
Akira swung over the railing and landed on the floor of the room. The concrete floor was dusty, as if it hadn't been used in a while. She suspected that this was used for preliminary rounds in between exams.
She stuffed her apple in her mouth, biting down to hold it in place. Then she leaped upwards, jumping from wall to wall until she had reached one of the windows. There was no glass pane in it, so she slipped out of it and used her chakra to walk up the side of the building. She passed a room with several monitors in it, and sensed a few shinobi in there. That must have been the monitoring room for the exam.
Akira continued upwards until she had reached the top of the building. She sat on the rounded rooftop, watching the moon slowly sink towards the horizon. She took her apple out of her mouth and started to eat it.
She stayed that way until the sun started to rise in the east. Her thoughts wandered freely, her chest hurting with the weight of the life she had taken and the lives of those she loved who had died. She hugged her knees and set her chin down on top of them, staring at the ground far below her.
Was it really her call to kill someone? A spray of blood flashed across her field of vision. Why had she made the spire so sharp? She could have made it blunt and sent Teku flying instead. Blood dripped down the rock. There were other ways to accomplish their goal. She didn't need to kill him. She regretted killing him. Teku's angry eyes glared at her in the darkness.
Akira dug her fingernails into her arms. The sharp pain that followed distracted her, bringing her away from the visions. What's done was done. She couldn't afford to keep dwelling on it. She knew that. She would never make it as a shinobi if she let every death get to her.
A rustling below her pulled her attention away from herself. Down on the ground, a team of three genin were making their way out of the forest.
"There it is!" One of them said excitedly.
"Thank god. I feel like I'm going to drop from exhaustion."
They started to cross the grass. They made it about halfway before they were met by another team.
The two teams shared a brief exchange, quiet enough that Akira could barely hear the words passed between them. Then suddenly, the new group leapt at the original one.
The six shinobi exchanged blows in quick succession. A fireball erupted from one of them, no doubt a jutsu aimed at their enemy. Akira watched as the attackers skimpered out of the way of it. The original shinobi group threw a series of kunai with paper bombs attached, followed by smoke bombs. They took off running towards the building, desperate to find the correct door. They disappeared out of view around the building.
The attacking shinobi left the clearing, heads down in defeat. They had been unsuccessful in their attack. Evidently they only had one scroll, as they were headed back into the trees. That, or they didn't have a scroll at all anymore.
Akira sighed. That had not been nearly as exciting as she had hoped it would be. And that seemed to be the case in the days following. She couldn't train like she normally did, being confined to the compound. She would take turns sparring with Somaru and Yuhi in the large open room she had found, but it never lasted long. After the second group had shown up that night, the last sand group came in their doors the next day. But after that, the forest was quiet.
The last three days of waiting were agonizingly boring. Akira used her free time to work on her chakra control, sitting cross legged on the walls and ceiling of her room while meditating. She did pushups, situps and squats in her room, forcing herself to do as many as she could before she dropped from her muscles giving out. Her shoulder healed slowly, still irritating her every once in a while.
Finally, in the evening of the fifth day the proctor called them all to the open room in the center of the building. The three genin teams that had made it to the building with their scrolls lined up in front of the platform. Two leaf teams, and one sand.
"Congratulations, you have passed the second exam. This is a great achievement that I hope you will take with you in your future. The lessons learned in this exam are more important than anything you learned in the academy, and we expect you to treat them as such. Now, Lord Third Hokage will explain the third and final part of the chunin exams."
The burly proctor took a step back, and Lord Third stepped forward, his hat tilted down. He slowly lifted his eyes to gaze out at all of them fondly.
"Congratulations to you all. You have succeeded in making your way through the forest of death, and thus to the final rounds of this chunin exam." His eyes lingered on Akira for just a second longer than everyone else. "The final exam will take place one month from now, in the arena. There, you will participate in a tournament style series of one-on-one matches, with myself, and members of our chunin examination team watching. As well as the feudal lord. You will be judged on your skills as a shinobi. However, just because you win a match does not mean you will rise to the rank of chunin."
A couple of the genin gasped softly. They could win and still not be promoted?
Lord Third smiled slyly. "Regardless of whether you win or lose your match, you will still be considered for the rank of chunin. But that does not guarantee that everyone will succeed in achieving it. These matches are a chance to show off your skills and prove yourself worthy of the rank."
This would be interesting. Akira wondered who she would be fighting first. But there were nine genin who had made it to the final rounds. One of them would get a by in the first round of battles.
"Now, we will pass around this box. You are to draw a number from within. It will determine the order in which the matches are set."
A chunin holding a wooden box walked around to each genin, pausing long enough for them to reach their hand in and pull out a slip of paper holding a number. When he reached Akira, there were only a couple numbers left. She reached in and pulled out her paper. She opened it carefully. Seven.
"Alright, now that you have each drawn your number, the bracket will be set. Please come to the front of the room and supply your name and number to Mako, who will be your proctor for the third exam. After that you are free to leave."
They lined up single file to do as they were told. Afterwards, Akira, Yuhi, and Somaru quickly made their way out of the building and into the clearing. There was a path of lights now through the forest, and they followed it silently. Akira couldn't help but feel relieved once they finally went back through the gates at the forest's edge.
"So we have a whole month to train? Who's going to train us? Will we be a group or individually?" Somaru asked.
"You ask us as if we know." Yuhi snapped at him. "We don't even know who we are fighting yet."
"No, but we will get to see the bracket tomorrow."
They made their way towards the village under the setting sun. Once they reached the gates, they parted ways. Akira towards her apartment on the far side of the marketplace, and Yuhi and Somaru towards their houses in a neighborhood nearby.
She walked with her hands in her pockets and head down, aware of the eyes following her as she went. Whispers from people nearby caught her attention.
"Did you hear? She was the only one to kill someone during the second exam."
"Really? But she's only a child."
"They said she's the strongest of her class."
"I can't wait for the third exam to see her throw the boys around."
Akira couldn't help but smirk at that last comment. She couldn't wait for that either. She wanted to prove them all wrong. That she wasn't just some child to be underestimated. She may only be nine, but she knew what she was doing. She was strong. But she was the only one to kill someone?
She reached her apartment building and climbed the stairs to her apartment. She pulled out her key and unlocked the door.
"I'm home," she said softly to the empty apartment. She kicked off her sandals at the door and entered her apartment. Her kitchen was dark and quiet. She passed through it to her room, where she stripped off her dirty clothes and grabbed a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt. She went to the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. Afterwards, she climbed into bed and fell asleep quickly.