( 27 April- year 8 AK )
"I still disagree." Hana was whining.
"We can't do anything about it." I tried to make her drop the topic.
"They can't just make me compete without my ninkens!" She hissed.
"They do have a point though," Shin added. "It wouldn't be exactly fair if we were a team of six members would it?"
"We could have split," I argued. "Two teams, Hana with Beta and Gamma, Shin, Alpha, and I. Or even three pairs. Each of us with one of the Haimaru brothers."
"See?!" Hana answered. "There was another solution, this exam it's rigged, I tell ya..." And Shin answered, defending the understandable position of Iwa.
I sighed, tuning them out and taking in the sights. Iwa was very different from Konoha, obviously, but it wasn't something I had thought I would ever get to see.
Leaf and Rock nins had a... turbulent relationship. Meaning that if either hidden village could afford it, they would still be at war.
More than one reason explained this, but mainly, the Fourth Hokage made sure that whichever emotion any Iwa-nin could ever display toward a Leaf-nin would range only from disgust to deep-seeded hatred.
I had no doubt that Iwa threw a party that lasted at least a month after they heard of the Kyubi attack.
Even knowing all of that, there was no way I could deny Iwa had its kind of beauty. It was built on a mountain, and if not for the simple design and reddish stone (which explained the color of their uniforms), it could even remind me of Minas Tirith. There was no mistaking the Tsuchikage's Tower toppling it all.
The real strange thing, however, was that the only mountains I spotted in their land were around Iwagakure no Sato itself. The rest of the land was mostly barren, with many canyons or plateaus breaking the otherwise boring flat surface of the horizon.
That made me think that the mountains, which did not hide the Hidden Village, were either a red herring or a random line of defense. If I were the Tsuchikage I would have placed my village hidden deep underground, or at least in a disguised canyon.
But the fact that the mountains weren't following a line, thus pointing out that they weren't originated from the collision of two tectonic plates, kept nagging at the back of my mind. Then I remembered that at least three mountains were volcanoes.
Someone went all out with doton it seems. To me, it looked like the founders of Iwa found a way to rise volcanoes in the middle of nowhere, and then used the lava to shape the rest of the mountains.
Iwa is the bait in the center of a gigantic trap. I blinked. Looking around with big eyes.
"Guys," I called. And when my teammates turned towards me I shared my findings, making them whistle. Kakashi, who was walking ahead of us turned his head and briefly, eye smiled at me, before returning to give to his smut the attention it deserved.
The chunins escorting us through the maze that were the streets of the city glared at me. Touchy touchy.
Hana's right hand started darting through gestures almost faster than I could follow.
~Why Konoha Not Trap~ Shin took upon himself to answer, lowering the jug of sake from which he had been sipping, he gestured.
~When built Hashirama and Madara.~ he looked at our female teammate in a way that managed to convey how stupid it was to attack either of them so that Konohagakure no Sato didn't exactly need to stay hidden.
I butted in. ~Trees hide armies and traps. Among trunks, beneath roots, above branches.~ Hana nodded thoughtfully, satisfied by the answer.
"So, are we not talking about why we are here without Guy-sensei?" she asked.
"Daiki messed up." Shin drawled.
"That's not true." I protested. "Well, I did, but we were going to go with Kakashi before I messed up." I then corrected my previous statement.
After a while Hana went back into the fray: "And why are you living in a tent in the Uchiha' District?"
I rolled my eyes. "Because of reasons." She pouted. "Until someone finds out and calls him on it its fine, Hana-chan." Shin graciously defended me.
"Sensei knows." I quipped in. And while Shin rolled his eyes, expressing perfectly the 'Duh' he wanted to say, Hana was surprised.
"And he didn't tell you to leave?" She asked, frowning heavily.
I got it living on a land nobody uses only because the ones who did die less than two months before was disrespectful towards the dead.
But I was willing to bet that Sasuke's mother wouldn't have wanted her 8 years old son to live alone in what was a cemetery. And it was convenient being able to not pay rent. As a genin after all, I couldn't take up solo missions.
It's strange, the tongue lashing Guy sensei gave me made me think, a lot. I was not a child to be scolded, but after my first kills, sensei had been the one to put me back together.
He had been the one who taught me. Sure, he did it because of orders and because he was part of the giant war machine that the Elemental Nations were.
But it was also the only thing he had ever known. So with that prospect in mind, he went beyond his duty, to make sure I was sane, both in mind and body.
I was still unsure about what exactly had hit me about his speech. I got cocky, and tried to manipulate my Kage. I recalled. It was likely one of the big no-no things of this world. My Kage. I scoffed at the words.
Since when I belonged to Konoha? My friendships tied me to Shin, Hana and Guy. I felt a tiny bit of pity for Sasuke, along with a narrow twinge of guilt. But that was it. It seemed foolish to pretend that I cared about the prestige of my home country.
Most of my last plea to Kakashi had been true, I killed, hurt and risked myself for the village. I knew that my life was in the hands of those able to issue orders to me. And while it was true that I choose it of my own free will, it didn't change that my reason was becoming strong enough to be able to protect myself.
The thought of trying to find a way to go back to my world of origin never occurred to me, I hadn't much to go back to.
A world with chakra in it was far more interesting, and I enjoyed mastering new skills or honing the ones I already had. And from the end of the manga, I knew there were ways to travel to different dimensions. Which in itself was mindblowing.
Fuinjutsu was probably the only way through which I could accomplish it. However its inner workings were restricted to jonins. Sure, I could memorize a seal and replicate it, even the technique to burn a seal onto something wasn't hard to pick up. I had memorized storage and explosive seals. There weren't others I could access.
I did study the differences among the storage scrolls I managed to get my hands upon. There weren't many, and since seals were handwritten, I couldn't be sure the different squiggles weren't a quirk of the maker.
Even if I did find a storage seal that worked for water. That meant that I walked around with a lake on my shoulders. Being able to extract water from the air was something I wouldn't do out of training or necessity.
I sighed. I didn't have a purpose, but becoming strong was something that could keep me busy. So I wasn't desperate for a soul-shattering, mind-blowing revelation that would give me a 'main quest'.
Doing my own thing sounded pretty good. Even if I had to find a way to stop Obito from resurrecting Madara. That was a big bad threat looming at the horizon.
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