"About time those needles did something," I mutter to myself, jumping off towards another platform jutting out several feet in front of and above me.
Halfway up something snags on my foot, and I hear a wire snap.
...
I twist around in midair, shinobi instincts screaming at me to dodge, and shove myself away from the wall and the platforms with a burst of wind right as a tile snaps off the wall and a flurry of kunai fill the space where I broke the trip wire. I quickly yank a kunai of my own out of my weapons pouch and deflect several of them that I can't dodge, and then turn my attention to not plummeting to the floor.
The proctor appears above me, spinning and lashing out with a dropkick at my chest. I cross my arms and shove wind through them, pushing up at him and down at me. The heel of his foot hits me, and instead of caving my chest in the kick just cracks a few of my ribs and sends me rocketing to the stone tiled floor.
I manage to right myself and slow my descent with some hasty applications of the breeze, and hit the ground rolling. I jump to my feet, avoiding another dropkick from the chunin and landing on a low hanging platform. I glance around the nearby slabs of stone, searching for more traps.
"Trap setting falls under the Genjutsu category," I murmur. "Don't tell me-" The proctor appears above me and I dodge, forgoing the platforms and retreating back down to the floor.
I tense up and ready myself for another round of dancing, but all of the sudden he stops chasing me. He stands on the platform and eyes me speculatively. "You've figured out the second part of this test," he says, confirming the fear churning in my gut. He starts flitting through hand seals and I curse, turning and bounding towards the nearest platform.
I make it up three platform levels before the proctor swirls into being in front of me in a Body Flicker, hands locked in the rat seal. I jerk, pivoting to jump to another platform, but I'm far too late.
"Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique."
My whole body tenses as soon as I hear the name of the technique. Iruka-sensei never went in-depth with Genjutsu, due to the ridiculous complexity of it, but he did warn us about the really dangerous ones. He focused mostly on one set in particular. The Demonic Illusions. They're one of the most vicious collection of Genjutsu in the world, capable of paralyzing, inducing comas, and simulating the feeling of burning alive.
There's even one, called the Hell Viewing Technique, which can tear the deepest and darkest fears from your heart and suffocate you with them.
I cringe, locking my hands into the Ram seal and praying to the Sage and all six of his paths that the dispelling technique Iruka-sensei taught us will work. I wait for the illusion take hold, a hundred percent sure that I'll know when it does.
But instead of a swirl of leaves or the agonized cries of my wounded team or even the death rattle of the old man, I feel twin pinpricks of cold lance through my eyelids and burrow into my eyes. They dig into my head, reaching down my spine, and I tear at the wind in my core. It roars through my tenketsu and out of me in a howling cyclone, ripping the twin tendrils of cold out of my head.
I blink rapidly, my eyes aching with phantom pain, and focus on the proctor. His hands are still held in the rat seal, and an expression of surprise sits in place of the stoic mask he's been wearing since I walked in the room.
I don't bother thinking about the implications of what I've just done, or the connection it has to that girl with the moon headband. Instead I lunge forward and slam a clenched fist into the proctor. He turns his rat seal into a block and intercepts it, but I'm not trying to do damage to him. Instead I pull at the wind still rushing around me and push it all at him. He's sent flying off the platform, and I move on to the next platform.
I throw a hand out in front of me and send a pressure burst of wind rocketing forward along the path to the next platform. Another wire snaps and a stream of fire spews from a hole in the wall the size of a kunai's loop. I push off the platform beneath me and arch high over it, cutting the flow of my chakra around me despite the sudden jarring pressure so that it doesn't catch on the trap and spread back to me. I land on the next platform and keep going.
I continue to ascend with short bursts of wind clearing the way for me. I'm just two platforms away from the exit when the proctor appears in front of me in another Body Flicker, swinging a vicious haymaker at my head.
I duck under it, spin, and plant one foot firmly on the stone. I lash out with my other in an axekick, and when he reaches up to grab it I slap my hands together in the serpent seal and detonate the loop of chakra swirling at the end of it.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough.
The jutsu hits the chunin square in the chest, picking him up and throwing him up and away at a steep angle. He slams into the ceiling, cracking the stone, and is held there as the jutsu runs its course. When it finally dissipates he falls to the ground, just barely managing to land in a sloppy crouch and not flat on his back. He makes no move to pursue me further.
I drop my leg and stand up shakily, rubbing at the leg I used to brace myself. My stabbed leg. That might not have been the best idea.
I settle my weight back on it, hissing, but it holds beneath me. I spare one last glance down at the proctor, up on one knee but making no move to rise further, and jump up to the next platform. I make it up the final platform without any more issues, the traps on this side of the room all dispelled. I touch down on the top platform, shaking my good leg out, and push the door open.
I enter into a room about the same size as the one where the first proctor was waiting for us in, but furnished with a couple couches and a small refrigerator. I look to my left and see two other doors set in the wall, labelled Genjutsu and Taijutsu respectively.
I turn back to the room, and raise a hand at the first proctor, lounging on one of the couches with a stick of pocky in his mouth. "Done."
"Not a bad time," he says, nodding. He points at the fridge. "There's some food in there if you're hungry. You're going to have to wait for your teammates to finish up, so you can grab a seat and relax for a bit."
As soon as the suggestion leaves his mouth I'm hit with a wave of hunger that almost knocks me off my feet. God, I haven't eaten anything in days. Not since Samui and I caught those fish. I practically dive for the fridge, cracking it open and sifting through its contents. I pull out two prepared bentos and a few bottles of water, ignoring the sweets and small snack foods. Then I retreat to a comfy looking light blue couch and dig into my loot.
"That's it, right?" I ask a little while later, after I've ravaged the contents of the first bento. "I'm done with the task? No more extra stuff?"
"When I get your results from your proctor, yes," he says, crunching down on his pocky.
"Uh, yeah. About that…"
My awkward explanation is cut off as the door on the far left slams open and Sakura flies bodily into the room, twisting and landing in a vertical crouch on the wall. Sasuke shoots through the same door a beat later, skidding across the floor past me. The two of them stay rooted in each of their spots for a few long seconds, just trying to catch their breath. I watch as they scan the room, both stopping on me.
I grin. "You guys made it!"
Sakura slumps in relief and drops to the floor. Sasuke closes his eyes, and when he opens them again the twin tomoe that had been spinning furiously in each eye have been replaced with solid black.
"There you are," The proctor says, sliding his box of sweets into a pocket of his chunin vest and standing up from his seat. He grabs a clipboard off the armrest and turns to the open Genjutsu door just as two more proctors walk through it into the room. "How'd they do?"
One of the proctors, sporting a long blonde ponytail and brown eyes so dark they almost look like an Uchiha's, smirks. "The Uchiha is solid," she says. "Proficient in Ninjutsu and highly skilled in Taijutsu. Pass." The first proctor makes a note on his clipboard and looks at the other proctor.
Sakura's proctor is a tall man with wild black hair and a stern jaw, and he puts it to full use with his scowl. "The girl needs work," he grunts, and my breath freezes in my throat. "Her Taijutsu is barely passable, and she doesn't seem to know any Ninjutsu besides Konoha's Academy Three." His expression sours further, and Sasuke's proctor giggles. "However, her skill with Fuinjutsu manages to make up for it, if only just. Pass."
I let the breath go, relaxing back into my seat, and the first proctor makes another mark on his clipboard. "That's those two taken care of. Now all we need is Taiki's decision. Would one of you mind getting him? I've got no idea what he's doing in there."
Before either of my teammates' proctors can volunteer, however, as if on yet another silent cue my proctor appears in the middle of the room in a Body Flicker.
He stands, just hunched enough to be noticeable, one hand clutching his right side. His face is carefully blank, but there's a small tightness around his eyes that gives away the pain he's feeling. He bows his head to me and then turns to address the first proctor.
"Chunin candidate displayed extreme skill in detecting and dispelling Genjutsu, as well as jonin-level wind manipulation that he integrated into his Taijutsu style to great effect. Pass." He bows, expression tightening even more. "If you'll excuse me." And then he disappears in one last Body Flicker out of the room.
Sasuke's proctor whistles. The first proctor raises an eyebrow at me.
"Not bad, kid," He says again. He makes one last mark on his clipboard and nods. "Alright, you three are good. Congratulations. Now, do you understand what the point of that task was besides the skill test, or am I going to have to explain it to you?"
"Yeah, I think we got it," I grumble, setting my second bento aside and stretching. "You guys are pricks and hit us with the opposite of what you said you would because shinobi never do anything straight." Sasuke 'Hn's in agreement.
"Nope!" Sasuke's proctor says cheerfully.
"We didn't actually switch the challenges for all the teams," The first proctor says. Sasuke glares murder at him.
"What do you mean? Why not?" Sakura asks. I just stare at him in bewilderment.
"Because the point of this test wasn't to screw a bunch of the competitors over for no reason whatsoever," The first proctor says, rolling his eyes. "What we wanted you to do was consider the possibility that there was something more going on than what was on the surface, and to plan for that accordingly.
"The decision to give you the challenge you picked or the two that you didn't was a coin flip, because we wanted to give you an idea of what a fight in real life will be like. On a battlefield you've got a fifty percent chance of going up against a shinobi that you're suited to fight, and that's if you're lucky. No amount of planning is going to net you a perfect encounter, and you need to be prepared for that."
He waves his clipboard. "Of course, none of that matters if you're proficient with all three of the main shinobi arts, but as genin that's pretty rare. Which is another lesson in and of itself. Being a well-rounded shinobi is almost always better than being a specialized one. It means you'll always have a fighting chance no matter which arts your opponent throws at you."
He pauses. "Is that everything?" He asks the other proctors. Sakura's proctor nods and Sasuke's hums in agreement. "Alright, good. You three are good to go, then. Head out that way," he says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the single unassuming door on the opposite side of the room from the labelled doors.
I push up from my seat and walk over to my teammates, slapping Sasuke on the shoulder and giving Sakura a high five. Sasuke pushes the door open, revealing a dimly lit hallway. I look back at the proctors as my teammates move in.
"We just follow this hallway, then? Where does it lead to?"
The first proctor crunches on another stick of pocky and smirks at me. "The third task."
...
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