Disclaimer: The primary events and most of the characters belong to Mishashi Kishimoto and Shonin Jump comics, the rest of it is my particular brand of insanity. If you want it, PM me and offer a citation.

One with the show! Sorry bout the delay.

~! #$%^&*()_+

The return trip to Konoha from the snowy Tibetan Land of Iron was much less eventful than the trip there. After receiving our payment and my nights encounter with the psychotic second in command of the Akatsuki we began our trek to the gates of the geothermally heated city. Once we were past the noticeable guards and racing across the snowy peaks of the mountainous region I stopped the group and explained what had happened, and what I had been trying to do.

Needless to say, my two team mates thought I was an idiot and told me so. Loudly and at length. Gai on the other hand was oddly quiet. Instead of berating me or going on some strange spiel about the power of youth he summoned a gigantic forty food tall tortoise and had us all climb aboard. Once the entire team was safely ensconced on the ledge of the shell where the tortoise' leg would rest should it decide to clam up and hide the world distorted and we vanished with a puff of smoke.

Traveling by summoned creature is actually something from this new world I'm vaguely familiar with. As the overgrown turtle, Shijin, warped space and time to get us from the mountains of the Iron country to the ridges surrounding sea of leaves valley in which Konoha was hidden, the world shifted around us like a water color portrait someone had thrown into a fountain. It lasted for less than a second before reality snapped back into place and I could seen the Hokage monument in the distance, but the feeling had been one I knew.

It was the same sequence of insanity that occurred when I came here from my dorm room on earth.

The pursuit of summons would be my way out.

Unfortunately that meant I would need to advance and take part in the upcoming Chunin Exam... Hella damn it.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Minato stared at me, base confusion and irritation in his gaze as we finished our report. "You really can't leave well enough alone, can you?" he asked eventually.

I shrugged. "No, not really. Used to cause me all sorts of trouble back home too, though I have to admit, it was never quite on this level. Chakra certainly does make a difference in the amount of impact a persona can have during a given time frame."

The man leaned forward on his desk, elbows scattering the small piles of paperwork he'd yet to finish despite his use of clones, forefingers massaging each temple. "Assume for a moment that I believe you, as I have for your previous intelligence drops, and you had your reported meeting with Uzumaki Nagato of the Rinnengan, what's to stop me from locking you up in a cell in T&I, both for your safety and that of the villages and throwing away the key?" At these words a dozen ANBU appeared from the ceiling silent and motionless, waiting for their Hokage to decide whether or not to act on his threat.

"Perhaps the fact that my work is too valuable to you to risk that I might refuse to continue working while confined, or perhaps the very real probability that I'll be out within the hour and it scares you to imagine what I might be able to do in the hands of another village?" I replied, frowning.

Minato offered one eye with a glare. "The first is a valid concern, but you honestly believe you could escape if we didn't want you to?"

I shrugged. "You're not the only one who'd devised methods of teleportation." I replied smirking.

"And how do you intend to get around the chakra suppressing cuffs?" He challenged, a smirk growing on his own lips.

So that was his game. Minato was faced with a catch 22. Let me run free, even under supervision, I'd continue causing problems for him, one way or another. Lock me up and he risked loosing the benefits I provided the village by routinely introducing ideas and justsu that made sweeping changes in the village and beyond. Further if he locked me up and I escaped he'd face an even worse issue of the possibility I'd go work for one of his kage rivals, either in the village or out of it. Killing me offered the same loss of resource and torture has always been an unreliable half-method. Given the flow of the conversation he was likely going to instate a much increased guard and spend his time milking me for all I was worth. "The cuffs only stop buildup in the tenketsu in the hands. It's a deal breaker for shinobi who rely on hand seals, but even excluding freaks like me, numerous jhonin who channel through other means and most Hyuuga could break out of them with little issue."

"Ofuda" he countered. "Chakra binding seals all over your body."

I noticed one of the ANBU was now writing the conversation down, doubtless this was going to set up a storm in the fire nation prison system, local T&I and beyond.

"They require a certain level of chakra in the victim to bind to. Suppress your energy production internally or by not eating and they fall right off. Also they only suppress the tenketsu near where they're placed." I extended one of my chakra strings from my knee and lit it up with enough chakra to be easily visible. "You'd need to wrap me up like a mummy and keep the paper dry so the seals don't break. On top of that, I'm familiar with seals, including used in chakra suppression. A small bloodstain and the seal looses efficiency. Some blood in the wrong place would even stop it working altogether. A little blood in the right place and it becomes a chakra enhancing seal."

"A chakra leaching seal engraved into the floor of your cell and chakra binding seals etched onto chains holding you in place." The blond shot back, grinning now. I'm not entirely sure if he was enjoying the mental exercise or just having fun imagining ways to make me suffer, but this one made me pause to think.

"For the suppressing chains to work you'd need there to be chakra in them and they'd need to be chakra conductive metal as well. That's a lot of expense go to go even for me. Combining that with the chakra leach on the floor one of them would have to give. Either you loose the suppressors and hope the seal on the floor is enough to keep me down, or you forget the leach and hope that I can't teleport in any of my clones." I looked at him and matched his smirk "Either way I loose mobility and you loose and asset; you make a mistake and I escape, you loose even more."

"Not if I get Jiraiya-sensei to lock you up in a toad genjutsu where you're back home and employed by a research firm."

"You're assuming you can get Jiraiya to come back from his vacation and do it." I countered. "Sides, all genjutsu I know of depend on the knowledge and imagination of the caster. Does Jiraiya even know anything about my world? I doubt the stories I've given boss Jiro are enough for him to create something believable and you've already told me what you intend to do so the Genjustu's already lost its edge as an interrogation technique."

"So how would you do it then?" he asked leaning back in his chair. "If you were tasked to lock someone like you up and keep them working for the village?"

My eyes glazed over and I grinned at the first idea that came to mind. "A harem of sexy Yamanaka SCS interrogators." I said promptly.

Several of the ANBU failed to suppress snorts of laughter and Minaito pinched the bridge of his nose. "What?" I whined "It would so totally work! Aside from that you don't honestly believe I'd tell you any better methods I could think of to trap myself!"

"And I expect you leave yourself loopholes to escape through if you did, yes." Minato sighed. He looked over at sensei. "Gai, you're going to teach hunter team tanuki how you tell Grey-kun apart from his clones. They'll be following your team from now on."

Aw shit. I hang my head. I just can't catch a break can I? Ah well, at least he'll be dead in a couple of months. Considering everything that happened in canon the old man will be much easier to pull stuff over on and if Kushina survives, well, she actually approves if most of the things I've been doing.

~! #$%^&*()_+

We're given the next three weeks to prepare for the Chunin Exams in Kiri before starting our journey. I've tried arguing it with just about everybody, but Minato is pretty adamant that I not be in Konoha during the Kyuubi attack. I can't really fathom why, but Gai and Jiro both insist that he's working quietly with the clans to get evacuation shelters of some sort set up for the event. How he can keep something to disappear over a hundred thousand junior soldiers and civilians in a matter of minutes and not alert every blabbermouth in the village is anyone's guess, but the lot of them seem confident and apparently none of them trust me with the details.

And yes, I do recognize the Irony of that statement, considering all of the sensitive information I've been handing out willy-nilly to anyone I think might use it to cause chaos.

The funny part about all of this is that I know exactly what Minato is planning. ...Or at least I know what he's been planning in the vicinity of his wife Kushina, which I'm pretty sure is everything. The clone she wears as a memento of her clan, the 'gift' I gave her during my last mission is a wonderful tool in this case, like a hidden camera and microphone set nestled right between those wonderful creamy breasts of hers. 34D by the way, it was 31C until a couple of months ago apparently, but her breasts have swollen some as they prepare for nursing.

NOT IMPORTANT.

The problem I have is actually this... He plans to pretty much do it exactly the same way as last time. He's going to face Tobi in one on one combat, and the village is going to fight Kurama. Just like last time. The difference, the way this idiot intends to change everything, is that he's going to use the battle to try and get through to his old student, build shelters beneath the village to hide all of the civilians in (these will be useful in Pain's attack too as he believes that will still happen, as likely will Orochimaru's little stunt even if its with a different leader) while Sarutobi and Jiraiya, along with a small hand picked army, will deal with Kurama. This is after all the guy who thought a brilliant strategy for ending the last war was to fill a battle field with open portals and and then kill absolutely everyone.

And he doesn't want me there because he thinks I'll throw a big ass wrench in everything.

Frankly I think the guy's an idiot.

Except for that last assumption, that's right on the money. Far simpler would be to stop Tobi in the birthing chamber before he can unleash Kurama in the first place. Most of Obito's speed and ALL of his evasion abilities that make him dangerous come from space-time manipulation. Space-time barriers aren't exactly difficult things for a sealing expert like myself, Jiro, Jariya or Minato to write and they're well researched given how many high level shinobi are fond of summons. Those same summons are either our work to begin with or something that really pisses us off, so knowing how to block them come part in parcel with knowing how to craft summoning circles at all.

Regardless! The next three weeks pass relatively slowly with no major events to speak of. Makoto, Kana an I are doing a lot of cross training with the applications of chakra strings, my training on the five elements progresses slowly and the Kikubari are constantly asking me for updates on their swords. There are really only two events of note that happens during these three weeks and those are the deaths of my clones in the mountain country. I still haven't managed to find the hidden star village, but someone is hunting down my clones and dispatching them without me being able to see who they are. Does this mean the anime's Hoshigakure is real and their ninja are just that good? Has Nagato decided he needs more information and is eating my clones when I'm not looking? Or is there a third player out there? Needless to say I'm getting less and less enthused at this entire situation.

The day we set out though things get really interesting, really fast. Mitarashi Anko, apprentice to the Legendary Orochimaru no Sannin is waiting for us at the gate. Anko is, at this point 14, wearing a chunin flack jacket with the specialist patch and only JUST developing that killer figure that's made her so famous in the fan-base. She's also unmarked and furious with me.

As much as I like her, I've never really understood Anko's character. When she's first introduced she's the cool but crazy examiner and chunin specialist (or special jonin, whichever you prefer) who runs the second exam and has problems with her teacher. She's used to introduce the cursed seal of heaven and just before the point I last read to before coming here, was used as a checkov's gun to revive and redeem Orochimaru who had pulled a voldemort and placed an earlier version of himself into her shoulder. Sadly, beyond that and a filler arc to give her some background she never really did anything else for the series.

The story behind Mitarashi Anko is that she was an orphan from... some war? The third was too recent and the first and second great wars were too long ago despite being pretty much back to back. Regardless, she was a prodigy in the ninja arts despite having no clan and no bloodline to speak of. After shooting through the academy she was handpicked by Orochimaru to be part of the team of gennin students he took on and she swiftly became his apprentice. She passed her chunin exams at the age of ten, became a specialist at twelve and then was given her cursed seal at fourteen where she was the only one of her team mates and seven other promising young shinobi to survive.

And then... she just stopped.

Admittedly it's not all that uncommon for child stars, both in the academic and acting communities, to burn out and end up a minor talents nobody remembers or even just become regular adults but its also fairly common for the skill and intelligence that got them noticed in the first place to continue well into adulthood. Most of our scientists who are actually responsible for making... anything really, started out as child prodigies even if it took them years to get in a position to be useful. Nicola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Oppenheimer, Einstein, Pulitzer and Hurst. Hell, even the Wright brothers were making bicycles when they were kids and their dad was a freaking preacher.

So what happened to Anko? Why would the upbeat orphan with a hunger that shines in her eyes as it does now have just completely stagnated after being given that mark? Was it the perceived betrayal of the man who believed in her, or the mark itself? Kishimoto in on of his interviews suggests that she was in love with Orochimaru before he used her as a test subject, it would certainly explain the fury in her expression as she looks at me now, but would that be enough to put her in a 13 year funk? She seemed so upbeat in the manga and anime when she appeared, so I honestly just don't get it.

I don't even see her move as a brace of four kunai and five snakes fly towards vital points on my body, but thankfully my clones do. As each of the nine projectiles halt themselves in midair the small girl with the promise of being a bombshell stalks up to me.

"WHAT! THE! HELL!" she demands, putting her face in mine.

She's currently wearing a burgundy T-shirt with a cat on it and khaki shorts over what looks to be a fishnet body suit. Her breasts are small, only A cup at the moment, if that, but then I'm not one to perv on kids so maybe I'm misjudging. She is wearing a heavy flack jacket after all and a lot of tomboys bind their breasts, though that doesn't quite seem her style.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?" I ask.

She growls in my face. "What did Orochimaru-sama ever do to you huh? Every since you told Blondie about Sensei's mildly shady experiments the old monkey's been breathing down his neck and beating him up whenever we start to get anywhere with our research!"

I shrugged. "Kidnapping, bloodline theft, vivisection, unauthorized dissection, using civilians as test subjects for things I'm pretty sure they'd never volunteer for for love or money..." I rattles off on one finger after another. "Frankly it felt safer to toss snakeface to the wind and have him mad at me than let him continue running loose. It's his own damn fault he decided to desecrate the First Hokage's body. Between you and me, I wasn't particularly keen on seeing how long it'd take him to drag me down to his lab to 'learn my secrets'."

Anko however didn't back down in the face of logic like most before her had done. I'd hoped Nagato was just an aberration, driven psychotic by his various traumas and not thinking rationally when I'd met him, but apparently not. Without even going for seals the purple haired tomboy breaths in and blows a big ass fireball right in my face. Her inhalation is long enough for me to weave a mask of chakra strings in front of my face to shield the blast as I duck, but I'd probably still have been fried if she'd taken the time to properly form and power the jutsu rather than do it quick and dirty.

"We were helping people, you asshole!" she shouted as the fireball died. "The Village needs another mokuton user and do you really think crazy blood freaks like Juugo have it easy?! Most developing bloodlines kill their hosts! Not everyone's as lucky as the bloody Uchiha, Kikubari and Hyuuga! We were advancing medical knowledge by decades before you interfered!"

"Uhuh..." I drawl, activating the control seal for the eight gates. "And what about when he starts experimenting on you?" I asked. "The way I hear it his success rate is rather low and he doesn't like asking." I countered, remembering that it was Juugo's blood that he used to make his cursed seals and finally achieve sage mode, something in which he'd lagged behind Jiraiya.

"He wouldn't do that!" she hissed. "Besides, who says I wouldn't volunteer?" That brought me up short. According to what little canon information there is on her character Anko chose to leave Orochimaru after he placed the seal on her and nine others, leaving her the only survivor. Orochimaru also then changed her memories of her time with him, including the idea that he'd been the one to abandon her, not the other way around. But what if she had volunteered and then backed off at the trauma of having the other nine, who might very well have been her friends, die? I'd never actually considered that... If the kids were indeed both volunteers, and worse her friends, and they still died under the hand of the man she trusted and possibly loved that could explain the burnout, the sadistic behavior, her drive to punish traitors for the next 20 years instead of advancing her own skills...

given all that, why isn't she down with Ibiki right now, being pumped for information on her master? Unless the old monkey wants to handle the entire situation in house? Possible, I suppose, but then why hasn't Kabuto come as well to express his pleasure at the death and possible torture of Danzou, or some level of irritation at my messing with Orochimaru? I'm not exactly subtle, as evidenced by Anko being here, and the kid is a super spy.

Maybe I'll just ask?

"So... what are you doing here anyways? Surely you wouldn't have waited months since my messing with snakeface's plans to seek me out, so you've got to have some other reason for being here?"

"That's Orochimaru-sama to you, prick." The purple haired kunoichi huffed and turned away slightly. "I'm on special assignment for old man Sarutobi." she replied, gesturing toward the gate where a trio of genin stood talking to the rest of my team. "My team-mates are up for another chance at chunin and the third and fourth Hokage's both want Tenzou field tested."

I looked over at the three of them again and sure enough one of the kids was showing off with a small tree in his hands, its roots wrapped around his fist as the trunk and branches grew and contorted to the oohs and aahs of my female team-mates. No doubt she's also being sent to bring Orochimaru's secret bases back under official alignment with the village in some manner I mused. I wonder if he's picked up Suigetsu yet or if he was supposed to do that later. The guy looked to be Sasuke's age, but considering 18-30 look pretty much the same... I shrugged it off.

"So..." I asked "you're standing sub for Orochimaru while your team works on advancement. Think you can avoid killing me for the next six weeks?"

She gives me a dirty look. "We're not allowed to kill you, no one is. Kage's orders." She begins to walk away and then looks over her shoulder at me and grins. "They never said anything against roughing you up though."

Fuck. My life. I'm going to need to summon guards if I'm going to get any sleep for the next two weeks.

~! #$%^&*()_+

As we stood there at the gate arguing several other teams began to trickle in to join us. Most of them I recognized from clans around Konoha, but there was usually a civilian on each team. Some were purely clan children whilst others had two or even three new-bloods on their roster, but on the average one out of every three people here was from a civilian family. Thus is the power of Konoha I guess. According to my research, which is likely biased now that I think about it, civilians joining the shinobi forces is rather rare in the other four main villages and vastly dominant among the smaller countries villages. Konoha stands at the bridge of that gap, having almost as many civilians going into gennin teams as we do clan raised or bloodline carriers.

What I personally found most interesting about that was how it shows in chakra training bleeding back out into the civilian population around the fire nation. Many of the towns and villages I've stationed myself in to trade have a failed Konoha Academy graduate living within them and the cities have small communities for failed students who pushed past that and found jobs with their skills. Shinobi training, even at its most basic, includes strength and speed enhancement through the use of chakra. As I noted earlier, even a gennin is expected to be able to handle a band of highwaymen or street thugs solo. This uncommon strength, speed, coordination and basic knowledge of chakra exercises allow them to pursue a wide variety of jobs over their untrained peers. Blacksmiths, laborers, enforcers, farm hands, mail runners... It was actually a bit of a jarring surprise to find that the shinobi mail service from the anime was alive and real. Made from a gathering of failed gennin going back nearly fifty years they've taught themselves their own techniques above and beyond what is offered by the Senju's Academy system and is the biggest employer of the many who couldn't pass their exams like Naruto of the original comic. They're also a major shipping company, known for their speed and reliable deliveries.

I've snuck a pair of my clones into the business in the last week to share my knowledge of seals and take advantage of their contacts and delivery network.

By the time everyone had gathered at the gates and we were ready to take off there were eight full teams and their sensei besides me and Gai. Not nearly so ridiculous as the hundred and three teams from Konoha that applied to Naruto's chunin exam, but considering this was a foray into foreign territory and the exams themselves were still new... It wasn't bad.

Heh, I wonder how many of them are even going to get to the second task.

Hell, are we?

I look at my team mates. Kikubari Kana has taken the exams twice herself, making it to the finals her second time, before being taken out harshly in the first round. Kaminari Makoto is 17 and has been taking the exam since it was implemented. That she still hasn't been advanced by this, Konoha's own earlier private exams nor gained a battlefield advancement for her participation in the tail end of the third war are distressing, but no more so than my own complete lack of experience. I know something of what to expect, granted, but whether or not that will be enough is up to debate. Three main tests is the formula both of my team mates offered me, which jibes with what is shown in the manga. The first test is an information gathering exercise. It always changes, but the core point remains. The second is a team based survival exercise, nearly always involving combat with other teams in an open arena of some sort, though that aspect often changes as does the nature of the objective within the arena. The final test, held a month later is one on one bloodsport. Sometimes the champions will be made to fight a monster native to the land, or an accomplished chunin from the hosting village, other times it's like in the manga where you face off against the other contestants.

Rules about when you're allowed to quit and how you're scored are about as mercurial as the villages themselves.

Regardless, this little sport of theirs has a 97% fail rate and a 13% death rate already and its only been around five years. As a replacement for war where the death toll is usually around fifty percent or actual gladiator matches where 50% means the other side just sat there and died it's not that bad... but that the Hokage considers this to be safe is worrisome. Though considering the alternative is to face an S-ranked hormonal teenager with a grudge and his pet fighting dog who chews on mountains instead of milk-bones I guess I can sort of see his point.

But then, who said I ever intended to be there in the first place? Odin, I love clones...

Regardless, there are now 37 of us in this party and everyone's making ready to depart. I finish my slow walk over to where my team mates are talking and we join the stream of leaping ninja, flying through the trees toward the east.

~! #$%^&*()_+

The trip down was indeed as bad as I'd predicted. Anko took every opportunity to give me hell for having turned in Orochimaru for his experiments and growing disloyalty. My clones were required to deal with snakes slithering into my tent, the ground trying to eat the 'me' who slept there, a variety of non-deadly poisons in my food and random shuriken and kunai that would make their way towards my team as we traveled. It was all low key and obviously not meant to kill me so most of the party treated it like a joke and asked me if I'd stood her up for a date or left too early the next morning. My protests that I wasn't a pedophile went either unheard or were used to further their own amusement at the situation. Kana and Makoto were sympathetic after I'd filled them in on the why's of what was going on, but Gai just laughed and said it was good training in situational awareness.

Bastard.

Moving as we are at nearly 70 miles an hour the trees and mountains of Konoha clear out quickly and give way to the sparse trees and rolling hills and rivers of the fire countries primary farmland. The lack of trees slows us somewhat to an average of 60 mph (most of us are only gennin after all) and we lope along like deer, taking charka enhanced leaps and bounds for five to six hours a day. Due to the bounty of food in this area towns and small cities are a regular occurrence and so meals are easy acquire as are accommodations each night. We don't have much trouble until we reach the sea. Since most of the group is gennin more than half of us don't know water walking and we're forced to rent a boat large enough to hold us. We make good time regardless under a combination of water jutsu being used to push the boar along at high speeds, oars pulled 12 to a side by people who can punch boulders to gravel and several of the jonin sensei teaching those of us who use water walking how to move the chakra supporting our weight to allow us to skate over the water instead of merely standing atop it. All in all the trip that should have taken a week or two by sea ends shortly before dinner on the second day.

We spend the night in the water country port of Kyoto. The morning sees us meeting our escort of masked and squinty eyed Mist Shinobi who make a thorough check of our traveling papers and identities before we set off again.

The land of water, as we travel through it, is a deeply wet place. A strange and perhaps rather stupidly obvious thing to say, but I had originally assumed it was simply named thus because it was an Island. Instead, it's like a cross between Vietnam and Scottland. In the morning it's foggy, then it clears up for a few hours, maybe, rains in the afternoon, and then has more mist at night. And it's not even proper rain or fog banks either, it can be sunny for most of the day in one area, and five feet away or split along some unknowable line it's changing randomly between pouring down buckets, drizzling and misty.

Aside from forest fruits and animals one of the few things that really grows here is Rice. Rice farming, either by hand of by machine, requires large tracts of still, open water in which to plant the reeds, or grass as I've sometime heard it called or large quantities of rain. This country is skilled in both. The other primary means of agriculture is, unsurprisingly, fisheries. While a large island about a quarter the size of Australia, most of the populous houses itself on the coast where shipping and shelter fish friendly coves are abundant rather than in the deep jungles.

As we traveled through the land of Mist, once more traveling by tree hopping because of its convenience, it was easy to... loose... clones along the way. Mid hop, one of them would occasionally turn into a bird or forest animal I'd seen earlier and disappear into the nearby villages. I think our guide suspected something, because he kept looking back at me, eyes narrowed through his mask, but since neither I nor any of my clones have been attacked or killed... well. It was in this way that I was able to actually learn things about the land of water.

The entire continent and surrounding islands, large and small, are densely forested, moving from jungle in the south to temperate in by the time you get to the norther edge with a mix of alpine as you get closer to the center of the continent. The source of the mists, aside from the heat and sweating of the foliage, is the volcano in the center of the continent. The entire Island is actually on top of one massive lava bubble and a series of underground rivers feed hot lakes and steam vents all across the interior landmass. Despite this heat, as you get closer to the summit of the island it does indeed get colder and yet fails to become any less misty. As such the center, for nearly a hundred miles diameter is covered in a thick layer of snow for most of the year. The interior clans keep mostly to the lakes and rivers which they fish for food and the civilians use for trade. The rivers between each of the lakes, moving out from the heated pools and flowing out across the continent. Are all highly developed, unlike your normal rainforest, and are more akin to canals than rivers. Occasionally I see gennin teams moving through them with dredging or construction equipment too, so they're well maintained.

The geography isn't the only interesting thing I learned though. The land here is ripe with bloodline users, which makes sense given that there are mentions of wars in the country having been fought almost entirely around them in the manga. There are clans that deal in Lava, others in Acid, the Yuki in the center form ice justu whilst others use 'boil' or 'blaze'. The area has been recently shaken up by the near genocide of the Royal Kaguya clan which has ties going back to the sage of six paths and more specifically his mother who is viewed as a goddess of some sort. Supposedly there were some survivors of the clan who fled, but this is only the tip of the iceburg.

In Konoha, they tell us that the Senju and the Uchiha were the first to go about uniting the warring Shinobi clans into a single hidden village and that the other lands followed their lead because of the strength the Senju and their conquered allies showed the world united. This however is only a partial truth. In the land of water there have been dozens of ninja villages and over a hundred wars spanning several hundred years as opposed to the sixty seven years of Konoha's current reign and four wars. Clans here have been trying to establish a singular village literally since Hangoromo himself died and often several clans went about their unification diplomacy by hook, crook and kunai at the same time. These two, three or even as many as five factions at one time, would clash, their leading clans unwilling to be subordinate to the other and almost inevitably coming to blows which would end in large bloody battles. The loosing village would then split and scatter back to their individual clan fortresses where they or new leaders would start the cycle all over again. Kirigakure was finally founded seventy years ago by the Kaguya Jinchuriki Kassumi when she used the two tailed Sanbi cloak to cow the leaders of the three competing villages into agreeing that it was in their best interests to join her new village, an upstart fourth faction. Between their fear at her sheer power, skill and brutality, the other three factions agreed to the compact because it meant that their two competitors 'lost'.

Each and every one of these wars featured the bloodline positive members of their clans heavily, depending on them as shock-troops used to mow through the gathered armies of civilian militia and lesser common ninja. Understandably, this led to the current sociopolitical opinion that Bloodline users are omens of death and harbingers of destruction. With the death of the Kaguya and the transfer of the Sanbi to the Mizukage Yagura war is once again brewing on the horizon and villages and parents are being completely unreasonable in regards to their bloodline members. The Yuki clan in particular is having troubles with angry mobs of civilians and lesser shinobi causing many of the bloodline users to go into hiding. Judging by the time period and civil unrest Haku is likely to be born soon. Of all of the Naruto characters, she is the one I most felt sorry for.

Yes, yes I know, Haku was canonically supposed to be a gender confused gay boy, so sayeth the writer, but, well, things change and a cassandra does not reality make. There have been several things so far that are outright wrong and my presence keeps changing things further. It's just as likely something I do in the next four weeks will end up causing Haku to not even be born as it is for causality to allow him to cleave to the same plot as last time.

Regardless, the country is currently a powder keg set to go nuclear. And they're holding a Chunin exam right in the middle of it. Word around the villages I've managed to sneak into is that the reason for the Water Lord insisting on the Exam is that it will force the villages internal politics to go on hold until heads cool off due to the need to appear strong and united in front of the other villages. It's not a bad plan all in all, but I think I remember a flashback scene in the manga to this exam. It's the one where the ravaged Kaguya clan attack the village and die in a wave of blood whilst Orochimaru makes off with Kimimaro, the last blood user in the clan. The event which starts the Great Purge and eventual revolution under Terumi Mei.

My collective internally debate the merits of positioning ourselves to steal... er... save, the bloodline users from their aggressors in the near-ish future and come out on the side that it's 'for the good'. If nothing else it'll allow me better ground with which to start my own village of researchers or bargain with Konoha for... special favors. Like dropping my contract for a new blood clan or two. Konoha loves bloodline users after all.

We arrive in Chikiri late the night before the exams are due to begin. Pretty much just in time. Through the night mists I can make out the architecture as we rush through the streets, our escorts twitchy and anxious. It's a strange cross between modern metropolitan and Mayan step pyramids with some golden age Babylon thrown in for good measure. The buildings are hewn, or perhaps blown via bloodline jutsu, from volcanic rock and formed into fantastic shapes. There are plants everywhere. You can hardly cross a roof or terrace without running into a few vines, bushes or even grass. Moss covers most outer structures and the blocks of stone look like they're held together with lichen.

Despite this, many of the apartment towers and terraced temples are composed and supported by open air pillared areas where the stone is literally smooth as glass and polished till it's reflective. Something I hadn't thought was possible with Volcanic rock aside from Obsidian. Speaking of obsidian, the volcanic glass apparently comes in dozens of different shades beyond black. There's this pale jade, an eery navy blue, clay red, royal purple, a sort of burnt yellow and even ash gray. Where there aren't plants, the glass is used to make murals and mosaics that would doubtlessly be destroyed in the first sign of open conflict. That it all looks so... perfect... is a testament to how powerful the Kaguya used to be, that they could create and maintain a peace so powerful that their art stood the test of three world wars and a dozen insurrections. Shinobi battles in this world of superpowers are incredibly damaging to the environment and infrastructure meaning that things never get really old in this world before some feuding nin comes along and destroys it by accident; a situation that causes historical art and national landmarks to be a source of incredible pride and wealth.

The apartment we bed down in has rented up out the entire floor which is cool, but since the other villages attending the Exams are on the floors directly above and below us numerous of our group of forty have troubles getting to sleep. We eventually manage it after I set an example by setting a trio of clones as sentinel. Scary right? Me, an example to follow.

~! #$%^&*()_+

The next morning our first challenge consists of breakfast. At some point during the night all of our rations have disappeared and food appeared in the cupboards and Icebox. Gai reminds us that the exam started the moment we entered the village last night so without stating such it seems we've already failed test one, protect the food. Test two, decide what is edible and what might be poisoned goes a bit faster. Makoto has the bright idea to go with the fruit and check the hides for puncture marks before eating, but Kana can apparently hear poisons. Don't freaking ask me how, but it works. Best I can figure it's like testing a fruit for freshness, if its the wrong consistency then its bad, but that didn't sound at all like she explained so, what the hell.

The third test involves finding the testing center. The information packet we were given when we arrived contains a haiku instead of a map. We don't even bother trying to solve it, just following Kana's ears. Large numbers of gennin and chunin level chakra songs going towards one place in particular? Tally ho!

When we arrive we find the exam room at the top of this enormous pyramid in the center of the city. There's a couple of Genjutsu on the way, showing people going in other doors and hiding those who continue on, but my chakra eating seals, Matoto's armor and Kana's ears allow us to pass by fairly easily. By noon, when the 'first' exam is supposed to start only six of the eight teams from Konoha have made it. Already not the best showing, but Anko's team is here with Tenzou and so are most of the bloodline users.

The test, as it were, begins with each team going into a small closet. Then the lights turn out and a small gas bomb goes off in front of our faces. When we wake up the three of us are slumped in the closet room and between us is a piece of paper. Makoto grabs it and unfolds the note.

"We have replaced one of your team members with an examiner. Work among yourselves and determine who is the imposter."

We look at each other and laugh. I pull up my sleeves and show off my tattoos, which start glowing. The chakra consuming energy strings come out and take a small sample of each of their chakra. Kana just taps her ears. "The two of you sound exactly the same as I remember. Grey-san?"

I nod. "Your chakra tastes as I remember too, and Makoto, china dolls?"

Makoto blushes and ignores my shattering of her tomboy image. "It's obviously a trust exercise, designed to see if we know each other or will tear each other apart in suspicion. I wonder if this is the entire first test or just the first salvo?"

The door opens and a Jonin wrapped in bandages glares at us. "Congrats, you're the first to pass. Get the fuck in the other room."

We do so, fighting to keep from laughing the entire way. Over the next hour more teams slowly filter into the room. Some of them look scratched up or bruised and we end up missing another team. We're the only primarily civilian group left from Konoha. When everyone that's coming walks in through the door Kana whispers to us "They've cut the number or participants down by 2 in five already. Is that supposed to happen? Last time I took this it was only 1 in 8 before the paper test."

"That's where you'll find Kiri is different, brat." There was a puff of smoke and the source of the voice revealed itself in the middle of the room. It was a tall figure in full, futuristic looking dive armor complete with a visor and rebreather. "Before each of you is a letter telling you of the location and time of the second test. You will have until a specified time tomorrow to break the cypher the letter is encrypted with and arrive at the location. If you are caught collaborating with your sensei in any way, you will be disqualified. If you fail to show up, you will be disqualified. If you loose a team mate to poison or injury between now and when you enter the gate, you will be disqualified. If you are caught sealing another teams note of cypher, you will be disqualified, rather easily actually because your entry numbers and sensei's name are part of the cypher. Good luck and get out."

Everybody got up and began to head towards the doors when the man spoke again, his synthesized voice called out again. "Oh, and I've been told to inform you of one more thing. The teams that didn't make it this far? They're being given a second chance. If they can get your cypher and show up to your gate? We know who did and didn't pass this part, they can take your place, no penalty. Happy hunting."

~! #$%^&*()_+

Sorry bout not having the promised action this chapter. I swear, the next two have fights, lots of them! It's just I've been spending far too long trying to pound out this chapter and yall deserve an update.