Naruto : Wind of Catastrophe

"Yes, Sakura?" Hatake asks, lowering his somehow empty glass of water down to the table.

"Why didn't any of the other jonin nominate their teams?"

...

Sasuke and I both turn expectant looks on Hatake. It had been easy enough to pass it off as the other jonin being pansies back in the old man's office when the opportunity was dangling in front of me, but now that I think about it it does seem pretty weird that every jonin sensei in Konoha besides Hatake and Gai was too scared to enter their team. Are the exams really that rough? They can't be, can they? Else how would there be as many chunin running around as there are?

Hatake sighs. "You have to understand, back when the exams were held in the hidden villages, there was a certain unofficial rule that everyone followed. It was that if you're not on good terms with the village hosting the Chunin Exams, you don't send any teams to compete. Or at least a very small amount.

"If you were a Konoha shinobi and you found yourself in Kumo, being judged by Kumo shinobi, you were almost never promoted. One way or another, you failed. Sometimes, you did worse than that. So the Kage only sent teams to allies or neutral villages, and that was that."

He waves his menu in a little circle. "The transition to the Land of Iron was supposed to make this practice unnecessary, among other things. Unfortunately, it's only magnified the problem. It's impossible to avoid rivals or flat out enemies clashing now, because nobody can afford to skip an exam. Instead, candidates have resorted to more brutal methods."

"How do you mean?" Sakura asks, voice soft.

Hatake grimaces, letting the menu drop. "Konoha sent twelve teams to the last Chunin Exams," he explains. "Only two made it to the final tournament. Of the ten that failed, three were wiped out and five suffered individual losses. One of the two teams that made it to the tournament washed out in the first round, and the other was crushed in the second.

"Konoha has many enemies, and they all relish in every chance they get to prove their dominance over us in the exams. The last exams were the worst for us. We lost half of the genin that we sent, and suffered an even worse blow to our reputation as a result of it." He inclines his head to Sakura. "That is why we were the only teams to volunteer."

The three of us stare at him in utter silence.

Our waiter sweeps in, passing out plates of mouth-watering steak, dumplings, rice balls, and sushi. He bows and is gone again a moment later. I don't even reach for my chopsticks.

Hatake takes up his napkin and tucks it into his flak jacket, plucking his chopsticks up and snapping them with his thumb and index. He looks at us. "Eat. You'll need the energy later."

Almost reluctantly, we pick up our utensils and start picking away at our meals. We eat in tense silence, our minds on Hatake's words. The dumpling don't taste nearly as good as they would have a few minutes ago. By the time our waiter comes around for his final pass, dropping the check off, I'm about ready to burst. But Hatake speaks up before I can blow.

"I know that you three have it in you to succeed. Each of you is strong, and together you're an incredible team," he says, looking me in the eye. "I would never have considered signing you up for something like this if I didn't think you'd do well.

"However." He glances between us. "If any of you decide you're not ready, I won't say a word. You don't have to worry about holding your teammates back- you heard Hokage-sama. A three man team isn't required." He reaches into his pockets and pulls out a wad of bills, peeling the necessary amount off and dropping them on the table.

"You have the whole rest of the day to decide. We'll meet for training tomorrow, same time, same place." He stands up, looking back at me. "For what it's worth, I'll be with you three every step of the way, whatever you choose." Then he turns and walks out of the restaurant, leaving us to our thoughts.

...

"Oh yeah? Me too." I fall into step beside her, and a few minutes later we walk into the massive red building that is the Konoha library. Sakura makes a beeline for the shinobi history section, one of the smaller sections in the genin clearance level of the library. I start making my rounds.

Every time I get back from a mission, and every few days besides, I stop by the Academy to see if they have that scroll Sakura mentioned back on the day we graduated from the Academy. I end up sweeping through the sections of the library on Fuinjutsu, Bijuu, and finish at History. I haven't found it yet, but I always find a scroll or two to hold me over until my next visit.

Today is no different. I comb through Fuinjutsu and Bijuu, and on a whim take a detour through Ninjutsu and Genjutsu when both come up short. Sakura never did mention where in the library she found the scroll, after all. No luck, though.

The doubt that it's even this library she was talking about in the first place hits me again, but it really doesn't make sense for it to be anywhere else. I've already checked the Academy library, and since you can't check anything out of there I'm positive she didn't get it from there. It would make even less sense for it to be in the civilian section of the library, too, since the Uzumaki clan seems to be so obscure it's barely talked about in shinobi circles.

Maybe I'll just ask the old man about it. It wouldn't surprise me if he knows where every scroll in Konoha is.

Finally, I find myself in the History section, glancing through titles I've passed dozens of times before. This section isn't all that popular.

I collapse at one of the designated reading tables across from Sakura with a grunt, who looks to be absorbed in whatever it is she's reading. I squint at the upside down title at the edge of the unfurled scroll, cocking my head to the side.

History of the Chunin Exams.

Ah.

"Anything useful in there?" I whisper. For some reason, the chunin supervisors of this particular section of the library are even more anal about silence than usual.

Sakura frowns. "Not yet. So far it's only talking about the previous style of exams that Kakashi-sensei told us about." She glances up at me. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Nah. Whoever has that scroll you told me about it still hasn't returned it."

"Scroll?" She asks, confused.

"Yeah, you know. The one with the Uzumaki stuff. You mentioned something about Yokai techniques, I think."

She blinks, her expression shifting into something I can't quite read. "The Uzumaki Yokai jutsu?" I nod. "How long have you been looking for it?"

"Since you told me about it," I say, drumming my fingers against the table in frustration. "I usually check every few days."

"I..." She hesitates for some reason. I look up from my drumming, raising an eyebrow. "I could tell you more about them myself, if you want."

"Really?" I ask, a grin pulling at my lips. "That'd be awesome!" A kunai sinks into the edge of the table beside me, courtesy of the chunin on deck. I chuckle nervously. "That'd be awesome," I repeat at a much lower level.

Sakura giggles, turning back to her scroll. "Why do you want to know about the other techniques, anyway? You haven't mastered the Heavenly Chains yet, have you?"

I scratch the back of my head. "I haven't even gotten started on that. It's not really the techniques themselves I'm after, though.

I mean, it'll be cool to hear about them, but it's not like I'll be running into more of them anytime soon. Well, the old man might have more of them holded up in that library of his. Wouldn't surprise me." I shake my head, purging the thought. Even if he does have more of my clan's super-secret techniques, he won't just give them to me if I ask. The only reason he gave me the Heavenly Chains was because I held up our deal.

Which... is kind of unfair? But I bet he has a good reason for it. He always does.

"Anyway, I mostly just want to get to know my clan a little better." Sakura's hand, tracing across the scroll, stills.

"My parents died back when I was a baby. Or they might have abandoned me, I guess. Either way I don't know anything about them, and I barely know anything about the rest of my family. It just sort of bothers me, you know? There are no public records of them, so I don't even know their names. It's like they don't exist."

I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Sorry, you probably don't care about any of that."

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