A strange new life

3.17

The fight after mine was Gaara of the Desert versus Rock Lee.

I was very conflicted about this one. It was one of those moments in the original story that stayed with me for a long time. I never forgot this fight, it was still clear in my mind even after all those years. I wanted to kick Gai sensei in the nuts for giving a impressionable boy a suicide jutsu, but would I have done anything different? 

I couldn't say. Probably not.

With bated breath, I watched a hardworking boy fight against a monster. The fight went about the same as I remembered. After an initial probing, Rock Lee removed the weighted ankle bands, dropped them from atop the statue. The whole tower shook. Wind billowed. 

I cheered, couldn’t help it. I based my weight seals on Rock Lee’s after all. 

That was followed by Rock Lee’s taijutsu onslaught, the Lotus, the Gates. And the realization that even with that, it wasn’t enough. Rock Lee’s arm and leg got crushed by sand. Gai-sensei finally interfered with the fight to save his pupil. 

It was touching, the fight had been awesome. I was sure I would also copy a few of Rock Lee's attacks just because they were that cool. Not long after, the whole arena went silent at the medic-nin declaration regarding Rock Lee’s health. I didn’t react like the others to the notice that he might not ever be able to fight again. I knew Tsunade could heal him. And I made a promise that if fate disagreed on that one point, I’d hunt down Tsunade myself. Couldn't let the third coolest shinobi in Konoha down. 

I did feel bad for copying Rock Lee, basing my own improvement on traits that defined Rock Lee in the original story, but just a bit. Rock Lee was cool. 

Last match was Choji versus the last Ame shinobi. The match didn’t last long. Choji turned into a big ball, and ran all over the place. Amen-nin had no counter to that. It didn’t take long until Choji managed to crash against a wall with said shinobi between him and the wall. After being declared the winner, Choji was the one most surprised for actually winning his fight.

After all the cheering and celebration, eight of us stood in front of the old man again. 

Hayate took the stage once more. “Congratulations to those of you who won and are qualified to participate in the third phase of the exam. Although one of you isn’t here.” Hayate nodded, then turned to the Third Hokage. “Lord Hokage, they are all yours.”

Like always, Hiruzen took the chance to wax philosophy and politics at a bunch of children that had no maturity to understand half of the concepts he went on about. He couldn’t even make his speech interesting, his droning cadence the worst offender to all the impatient around. The details, however, were the same. One month break to give the important people time to arrive. During this time we could train, prepare, gather information and do all those important ninja stuff.

We finished by drawing lots for the tournament phase of the competition. I firmly believe the results were a set up. With how people from the same team were arranged to fight each other, be it in the first, or second round. I would fight the first match of the tournament. My opponent was Naruto. Sasuke would fight Gaara, Kankuro against Shino. Temari was an off seed and would fight the winner of Shikamaru versus Choji.

There were more questions asked, and explanations given. But nothing that stood out to me. In the end, we were show horses, and the Hokage urged us to put on a good show. I got it, old man. Formalities done, I grouped up with Naruto. He seemed a little sad to have to fight me in the first battle.

I gave him a one arm hug. Since when did I become so touchy-feely? “Win or lose doesn’t matter,” I croaked, despite the pain and tearing in my throat. I was starting to like this new voice. If I managed to lower the pitch just a bit, it would be sexy-husky instead of creepy-croaky. “We give our best, fight until we are satisfied.”

That cheered him up right away. “You bet!” Naruto hollered. “I’m gonna give it my all!” Naruto went to annoy someone else after his declaration. Probably Kiba, or Sakura. I wasn’t sure.

“Hinata-chan.” Sensei flickered by my side, watching with me Naruto running off. “Shall we go?”

I nodded. I followed sensei inside the tower, away from the commotion. We passed doors, climbed stairs, turned corridors. Not sure exactly where we were going, but at some point, Kakashi-sensei just opened one of the many doors. There was no marking or anything. I didn’t see what criteria he used to choose this one in particular.

The room we entered was a simple looking waiting room thing. There were cabinets near the walls, a few shelves, two sofas facing each other and a low table in the middle. The room had no windows. 

Kakashi closed the door, slapped a seal on the walls. Gestured me to sit down. Commanded after I did. “Genin 12612, Hinata. After action report.” 

I squirmed, couldn’t really help it. The man was doing it on purpose, there was no other explanation. Giddy-fangirl-chan took over. I let her, it was a lost cause.

I saluted. My threads wrote in my stead. “During the second phase of the chunin examination, team seven encountered an abnormal situation.” I tried my best to stay serious and not behave as excited as I felt. “We were chased by a strong shinobi, hidden under the guise of a Kusagakure shinobi.” I described Orochimaru’s disguised appearance. “I tried to take out the enemy by using explosions, which was unsuccessful, and proved to be the wrong choice. The blast was stronger than anticipated, it affected us more than the enemy and separated our group.”

Kakashi-sensei nodded. The man even had a notepad to take notes. Definitively on purpose.

“Enemy never fought us seriously. Summoned giant snakes to toy with us. Once we started getting a real edge against a giant snake, the enemy acted. Disable Naruto by applying an unknown seal to Naruto’s stomach.” Kakashi sensei blinked. The reaction was so small that if I wasn’t paying attention I would have missed it. Nice, he didn’t know everything. “Sasuke managed to burn the enemy's face. It was a mask of some sorts. After that, the man introduced himself as Orochimaru. Made a recruitment pitch to Sasuke, applied a seal to Sasuke by biting his neck. Took away my ability to move with a look.” I took a deep breath. “Under the disguise, the man’s eyes were white on white. Byakugan white.”

I saw Kakashi freeze, just for a moment. Huh, he also didn’t know that.

“Orochimaru tried to recruit me as well. Told me the village was keeping me in the dark. That the Third couldn’t help with the seals, only he could. After that, Orochimaru put me in some sort of genjutsu to ‘prove I’m worthy’, his own words.” Had I forgotten anything? No, the other bits Kakashi could infer by himself, I was pretty sure. Now the part that freaked me out.

“I was insensate for an unknown period of time. I have only vague impressions of fighting a battle while under pain, agony, and a timer to solve the fuinjutsu before it killed me. When I came back, we had been relocated by team ten. Sasuke was acting strange and fighting an Amegakure team by himself. He was stronger than before the fight by a huge margin. Tattoo marks covered most of his left arm and face.”

I stopped. Did I really want to write this next part? I knew Orochimaru was a lying fucker, and no way I had any intention to deflect to Otogakure to be his pet experiment and possible body replacement. In the end, it was a moot concern. I don’t think the events would be secret for long, not with team ten and team Gai reports.

“Is that all?” Sensei asked. I shook my head.

“The genjutsu led me to discover seals inside my body. I cracked the one on my throat that prevented me from speaking. I managed to suspend the one in my bones that is trying to kill me. Ino recounted the story of how team ten found us. According to her, the forest itself reacted like it was a part of me. I also noticed I heal fast. I injured my shoulder during the fight with Orochimaru. I didn’t even remember the injury when I woke up.”

Kakashi took fake notes, nodded for me to continue.

“During the exam, a Konoha’s shinobi by the name of Kabuto has tried to ingratiate himself to our team at every possible opportunity.” I would have never thought about this if I didn’t know Kabuto was a traitor. “Said shinobi claimed to have participated in the exam seven times. He had a comprehensive collection of information from all participant ninjas, Konoha’s or otherwise. During an altercation at the first exam with the Otogakure team, Kabuto behaved like he received a glancing blow from the Oto-nin, but he has more chakra than most jounin, Kakashi-sensei included. I didn’t have the opportunity to learn more about it.”

Kakashi had an intent look on his face. Time to finish this.

“Sunagakure shinobi Gaara of the Desert has amounts of chakra comparable to Naruto.” I didn’t think Gaara being the host of the one tail was a secret, or maybe it was. I’d drop that one on Kakashi and let him deal with the fallout.

Kakashi-sensei nodded. “Thank you for your report.”

I knew it was a mistake, but couldn’t help it. I blurted out. “Is it true?” A trickle of blood fell from my lips. I really needed to stop speaking.

Sensei put away his notebook, the one he’d been pretending to write his report on just to feed fan-girl-chan. He understood the question, even without context. “As you surmised, there are a number of seals inside your body: Bones, eyes, heart, throat.”

What? Heart? Eyes? Shit, shit, shit. My attention snapped back to sensei.

“Some among the council argued it was too risky to leave you alone, that you are an Orochimaru sleeper agent.” Ah, well, that explained things, didn’t it? “Your dreams about being Orochimaru didn’t help either.” Oof, shoot myself on the foot there. “The Third believes you are just an innocent girl caught in an unfortunate incident. He’s the reason no one ever bothered you.”

That just did it, didn’t it? For all my annoyance with the old man, I never doubted he was a nice old grandpa. Too soft to be Konoha’s leader, but the best grandpa out there. Now I had to prevent his death. No two ways about it.

I wrote to sensei, using my own hands. “And what do you think?” 

Kakashi fixed his eyes on me, answered immediately. His eyes turned into a crescent. “I know you love Konoha and would never do anything against it.” The smile faded from his face. “But that option might be forcefully taken away from you.”

Bless the man, he didn’t put me down. I might have tackle-hugged him and opened the floodgates. You can’t blame me. It felt good to know Kakashi didn’t think I was evil.