‘Now will he finally take these tests seriously?’ Miki wondered to herself, watching as Jun continually dodged a rain of shuriken and kunai.

When one of the blades just barely missed, taking off a strand of his hair, the boy simply burst out laughing. Skidding to a stop a few feet from where the kunai buried itself in the wall, he held up his uneven hair, amazement coloring his expression.

“That was close.”

She sighed, covering her face with one hand. Even in a life and death situation, Jun wouldn’t get serious. It was a wonder that he’d made it this far at all.

Saichi’s lips twisted up, a grim amusement flickering across his face. Within moment’s he’d launched himself across the shattered floor, easily avoiding catching his foot in a crack as he deftly drew out the other blade that had been sheathed till this point. Jun’s eyes narrowed, then his expression loosened as that carefree look he typically wore appeared. The second that the other boy came within reach, he ducked and swept out a foot. Everyone watching simply stared at him in amazement as the anticipated move came, Saichi’s mind one-step slower than Jun’s movements.

The poison doused blade harmlessly swept through the air where Jun’s head had been. At the same time, Jun’s foot connected with the boy’s knee, sending him stumbling backwards, a sharp pain flashing through the limb. Jun’s expression never changed, that bright smile staying in place as he switched from his crouched position into a standing one, thrusting his hand out palm first towards his exposed shoulder. Saichi swiftly twisted his arm around Jun’s, jerking the boy towards him. Without as much as flinching, Jun used the momentum to send his foot crashing into the other boy’s side, sending him flying head over heels across the torn up concrete.

“Is that really him?” Tenten questioned, eyes wide. “He’s… not losing.”

“Miki,” Kakashi muttered and she nodded, just as surprised as everyone else.

“Perhaps he’s really decided to show us what he can do.”

“Is that a good thing?”

She hesitated.

“He hasn’t lost control in a long time. It should be fine.”

A hiss of pain escaped Jun’s lips as Saichi pulled himself to his feet, giving a small shake of his head to clear it. Jun’s eyes flickered down to the leg he’d used to send the other genin flying and was surprised to a red gash crossing his thigh, red slowly soaking into the material surrounding it. The pain didn’t match the wound, if anything, it burned. Saichi simply grinned, retrieving his now crimson toned blade from where it’d scattered across the floor.

“I said that you shouldn’t let the blades touch you,” he commented.

Miki clenched her hands tighter around the railing, resisting the urge to jump down deal with the injury then and there. Instead, she watched as Jun straightened himself and began signing. The other boy started towards him, launching yet another volley of kunai and shuriken, most of which Jun managed to avoid. She flinched, however, upon realizing just exactly how many were torn through his clothing and skin by the time Saichi froze in place, staring at something none of them could see.

“Silent Illusion: Vine Dance,” Jun announced, his smile barely hiding the pain that was obviously coursing through his body. Patches of skin around the scratches covering his body seemed to have turned a bright shade of pink, yet the boy hadn’t reacted beyond lightly flexing one of his arms and favoring his leg as he focused on the jutsu. “I hope you like plants. I’ve got a whole lot where those came from.”

Saichi stumbled back, attempting to avoid the large, green vines that had seem to suddenly sprout from the torn concrete, his eyes wide and startled. While he mentally knew that it had to have been genjutsu, his mind couldn’t completely dismiss the very real looking vines as they clamped down on his ankles and- despite his struggles- seemed to wrap their way firmly around him as they climbed his body. Shutting his eyes, the boy managed to force his fingers together and speak the needed word, some faint part of him realizing that in any other situation, he might have been caught up.

The jutsu didn’t feel like it belonged to a twelve year-old.

“Release.”

Jun cursed lightly under his breath, but seemed otherwise unconcerned about the escape. Perhaps because during the course of Saichi’s struggle with the genjutsu, he’d closed the distance between them and had leisurely drawn a kunai from his pouch. As he struck forward, however, Saichi caught his arm with a hand and side-stepped the attack, sending Jun stumbling past him. With the barest hint of a frown, Jun found himself struggling to keep his balance, the poison coursing through his system making his limbs much less responsive than since their first exchange. Only moments after finding his footing, he brought up the kunai in his hand to block the boy’s incoming blade, stopping it inches from his face. Saichi’d used the moments between Jun’s attack and his catching his footing in order to seize his two knifes from where they’d dropped during the genjutsu.

For a moment, the two boys were at a standstill. Neither one able to force the other’s weapon away from their own.

“You don’t look so well,” Saichi commented.

“You don’t look that good yourself,” Jun retorted, then cocked his head. “Oh, sorry, that’s your usual look, isn’t it?”

The Getsugakure shinobi chuckled, snaking his other hand up and thrusting it towards Jun’s gut. As he jolted backwards, the blade ripped through his shirt and flesh, leaving a crimson line traveling up his chest. Jun’s foot caught on one of the upturned concrete slabs behind him and when combined with the sudden rush of pain, he crashed backwards onto the hard ground. His head slammed against the concrete and he was momentarily stunned, head spinning, before he shook it, as if that would clear his already clouded thoughts.

Saichi took a step forward, then froze. Jun’s breaths seemed labored, his hands shoving against the ground to push himself up, yet the word around them twisted as if a genjutsu had been used. Saichi stumbled backwards, eyes shifting from place to place as upturned slabs seemed to melt into strange, liquid like puddles. A wave of uneasiness swept through the audience as the majority of them saw what the moon shinobi was seeing.

As Jun managed to get his balance, he winced, bringing one hand up to his shoulder. Miki’s hands gripped the railing so tightly that the skin over her knuckles turned white. Next to her, Kakashi visibly tensed.

“Miki.”

“Not yet, he’ll get it under control. That seal isn’t broken, we’d know.”

Drops of liquid rose from the concrete puddles and Jun gripped his shoulder tighter, focusing on the scene in front of him. Eyes narrowed, he watched, but otherwise did nothing. The drops stretched, forming needle like structures.

“Miki,” Kakashi muttered again.

Even the third seemed slightly tense at this point.

“That’s just genjutsu, isn’t it?” Sakura asked, a frightened edge to her voice. “Why can we see it?”

“It is,” Kakashi replied, ignoring the second part of her question. “Very strong, unfocused, genjutsu.”

The needles angled towards the moon-nin and he backed up once again, as if that could do something about the matter. A single needle broke away and shot past Saichi, who raised slowly raised a hand to his cheek when the sting registered in his mind. As he pulled it away, he stared at his hand for a moment, unable to believe what he saw.

It was genjutsu, but blood was smeared across his hand. Was he wrong in thinking that this was another illusion?

At that same moment, Miki leaped up onto the railing, hands clenched into fists at her sides.

“Jun!”

Startled, the boy tore his gaze away from the shinobi up to where Miki stood. A confused expression crossed his face and the genjutsu fell away, the arena suddenly shifted back to normal. When he looked back where had been before, and caught sight of the other boy’s expression, realization crossed his own.

Despite the disappearance of the jutsu, a thin cut was still visible on Saichi’s face.

“Oh… I got serious, didn’t I? Sorry about that.”

Disbelief colored the expressions of most people in the room. Jun simply grinned, reaching up to rub the back of his neck with one hand as a chuckle escaped him. At the same time, there was a barely noticeable tremble to his body.

“Let’s just forget that happened, alright?”

No one reacted right away and Jun sighed, dropping his hand and drawing a kunai from his pouch. Sweat had begun to break out on his brow, the trembling obvious when he held the kunai out in front of him.

“Let’s finish this.”

Jolting into action, Saichi reflexively pulled his own kunai out and used it to slash through a second vial, this time no reaction occurring when it splashed across his hand. His face was pale, but determined.

“Of course.”

The boys sprung towards each other, Jun’s movements obviously slightly slower than the other’s. At the same time, not once did his opponent’s kunai managed to push past his guard, if anything the other boy seemed to be getting more gashes along his skin the longer they exchanged blows.

The end came when Jun’s foot sudden crashed into his gut, sending Saichi skidding backwards along the ground. Jun’s kunai slipped from his grip as he slid his hands from sign into sign.

“Silent Illusion: Vine Dance.”

This time, when the vines seemed to curl around his body and hold him in place, Saichi couldn’t seem to get the sense about himself to break the illusion. Within moments, his struggling in place had stopped as the vines completely enclosed his body. Saichi’s eyes seeming to go glassy from the audience’s view, his entire form going limp on the ground. Hayate joined the two boys, checked the Getsugakure-nin, then declared it Jun’s win.

Miki was in the arena in an instant, catching Jun as the boy’s legs gave out beneath him.

“Ha, think that was good enough?” he muttered.

As the excitement of the match died away, his fight against the poison surging through his veins suddenly seemed pointless. The heat rolling of his body was unbelievable and as Miki called out for the medical-nin, Jun simply chuckled, letting his eyes slid shut.

“Bet everyone thinks I’m badass now.”

“Jun…”

“Hm… lecture me later. I’m gonna pass out, ‘kay?”

She sighed, cradling the boy in her arms until the medical-nin arrived, lifting him onto a stretcher. Meanwhile, a Getsugakure shinobi knelt down next to Saichi, releasing him from the genjutsu.

“Fine,” she replied. “But I doubt anyone will be happy about what you did.”

“Screw them. I won, didn’t I?”

“... yeah. You did.”

_______________________________

When Kazue had been declared free to go only about two hours after arriving, she instantly grabbed her things and made her way towards the hospital exit. It wouldn’t have taken that long for her to be given permission to leave if it hadn’t been for the fact her mother had been on call. The woman had insisted on doing a thorough checkup to make sure that nothing was missed. Kazue just reached the entryway when she paused, a familiar face walking in the front. As their eyes met, the boy gave a faint, amused smirk.

“I thought we’d meet again, although the hospital wasn’t the setting I had in mind.”

She frowned thoughtfully, glancing him over.

“... you didn’t look hurt that badly,” she informed him. “Why are you here?”

The expression on his face grew slightly.

“I wonder… what are you doing here?”

She wrinkled her nose, the memory rather pathetic, even to her. Deciding there was very little chance that he would have heard what had happened, she crossed her arms and prepared what she deemed a rather appropriate amount of embellishment.

“Noriaki and I fought in the chuunin exam and he beat me in the end,” Kazue informed him. “It was a rather even and exhausting fight, so I was brought in to be checked out.”

“Even?”

“... for the most part.”

“I see.”

For a moment, they both stood there, looking at each other. Then he started into action, walking away from the doorway and towards the hall, only pausing to glance back her.

“So you didn’t qualify for the third exam?”

She shook her head, a harsh feeling of disappointment crashing through her at the reminder.

“I didn’t.”

“I see.”

Then, he simply waved a hand in goodbye over his shoulder and turned his attention back to the hall. She watched him go, then shook her head, shoved her hands in her pockets, and headed out the front door. Whatever he was there to do, it wasn’t like it was any of her business.

__________________________________________________

The final exams were set to take place a month from the completion of the preliminaries, not that it meant much to her beyond that neither one of her teammates were free to practice with. Jun, as far as she was aware, was under observation at the hospital for several days following the exam, apparently to ensure that there were no complications following the extraction of the poison. When she’d asked about how long he’d be there, however, she’d been brushed off and had the subject changed.

It was strange, but most things were when it came to Jun. Even his aunt seemed uneasy about it all when Kazue stopped her on the street to ask how he was doing.

Noriaki on the other hand had been spirited away by Miki, who had decided that since he’d displayed none of his sword skills in the preliminaries, it was important that he be prepared to use them in the third test. Apparently she saw it as his trump card. It wasn’t surprising, seeing as she was the one who had taught him the skills in the first place, boasting that her position as Hayate’s sibling had given her a large background in swordplay that most people didn’t have the chance for. When he wasn’t being thoroughly beat by Miki, he was being instructed by elder members of their clan- either way he wasn’t an option for a training partner.

Needless to say, Kazue was bored. When she wasn’t visiting Lee or Jun in the hospital, she was running through training drills at the training grounds, falling into an old habit of hers that she’d only stopped when Noriaki had complained. She’d practice her kunai and shuriken throwing until the blisters that had begun to form on her hands broke and then she’d practice her limited jutsu skills.

The fact that she’d been bested by Noriaki was a sore point, even if she’d known from the moment his name appeared on that board that there was little chance for any other result. No matter the circumstances, she’d been defeated and disqualified from the third exam. She’d caught the looks a few of her clan members had given her, the ones that said they’d have preferred that her brother was the one who’d ended received the bloodline limit, not her, an ordinary shinobi.

It was after one of these training sessions when she was walking home when it happened. The sound of her brother and Hikari bickering reached her ears and she paused, turning to see what the idiots were doing. A short distance down a street off of the one she’d been walking along, the two adults, as well as Kurenai, were hiding inside a shop-stall, their body-language similar to spying children, although Hisoka was obviously bugging Hikari to relay everything their targets were doing and Kurenai seemed to be wondering how in the world she got roped into this mess.

When Kazue followed their line-of-sight to discover who they were spying on, she wasn’t all that surprised to discover Miki and Kakashi standing outside of a shop, Miki explaining something with a slight smile and Kakashi simply wearing his usual, even, almost bored looking expression. It would change every now and then, as if she’d said something that amused or caught his attention, but would return to the even expression seconds after it’d changed.

Coming to a decision about the matter, she joined the three shinobi, placing her hands on her hips as she did.

“What are you doing?”

All three jumped, a guilty expression crossing Hikari’s face, while Hisoka and Kurenai simply looked amused over being caught.

“Talking,” Hikari supplied.

“Spying,” Hisoka replied honestly.

“Investigating,” Kurenai claimed.

Kazue gestured towards were Miki and Kakashi were still standing.

“Investigating them?” she questioned.

Even Kurenai looked sheepish then.

“Kazue, since you’re here, you’re going to have to do,” Hisoka announced. “We’d be too suspicious looking!”

She simply raised a brow towards him, not caring that he wouldn’t see her skeptical expression.

“Oh?”

“You’re going to help us with our plan,” he continued. “Mission: Mikashi!”

“.... what?”

“His plan,” Hikari corrected.

“I’m just an innocent bystander,” Kurenai added.

Somehow, Kazue doubted that the two girls were telling the truth. She was fully aware of how much her brother’s friends had with throwing Miki and Kakashi into situations, like the one she had a feeling she was about to have a hand in creating.

She opened her mouth to refuse, then paused, remembering that she had nothing better to do. With a sigh, she waved a hand in his direction, indicating for him to continue.

“What do I do?”

_______________________________

“Miki-sensei, Kakashi-sensei!”

Only partly surprised, the two jounin turned to face Kazue as she called for their attention. Coming to a stop beside them, she offered the brightest smile she could without seeming suspicious.

“Kazue-chan,” Miki greeted and Kakashi nodded, adding his own greeting onto the statement.

“I’m finding everyone and letting them know, Hikari and Hisoka have decided to host a get together at the barbecue place to celebrate the results of the first part of the Chuunin exams,” she informed them, pulling up the lines she’d been fed. “They said they felt left out that you guys didn’t invite them last time, but decided to be nice and fork up the money this time.”

Kakashi and Miki exchanged equally skeptical expressions.

“Really?”

“Is that why they’ve been following us?”

Kazue blanched.

“Um… well…” she sputtered, then sighed. “I think they’re bored. You know how strange they can be. Niisan is a few kunai short of a weapons pouch, to be honest.”

Miki’s lips twisted up as Kakashi sighed, casting a glance in the direction they’d last noticed the other adults being in.

“When is it?” Miki asked, deciding to leave the matter be for now.

“Tonight, at eight.”

“... it doesn’t sound that bad, does it, Kakashi?” she questioned, turning her attention to him.

“... as long as you don’t drink. I have to get to bed at a decent time tonight, Sasuke and I are heading out in the morning.”

“If she drinks you won’t get to bed at a decent time…?” Kazue questioned, looking startled.

Miki snickered and Kakashi’s face slowly turned a faint shade of red.

“... I’d have to drag her home. That’s what I meant.”

“Sure. I don’t want to have that image stuck in my head, so I’m just going to believe you.”

With that, Kazue turned a heel and started back down the street, discreetly giving the spying adults a thumbs up as she did.

__________________________________

Miki watched the sizzling meet, her amusement growing by the moment.

“They’re not coming, are they?” she questioned.

Kakashi sighed, settling his head on one hand across the table from her. His eyes were focused on the meet as well, as if it could give him the answers for why their friends insisted on pulling tricks like this. He supposed it wasn’t as bad as the time they “accidentally” lost the keys to a practice room in the academy that “accidentally” got locked with them inside. That trick hadn’t been repeated, seeing as none of their friends felt like forking out the money to pay for the door to get replaced again after Kakashi simply knocked it down.

“No doubt they’re watching from somewhere,” he replied, his tone bored.

Miki frowned as she considered this. A second later she held up a finger, indicating she had a idea that he needed to pay attention to what she was about to say.

“If they’re so interested in what we’re doing, why don’t we have some fun?”

He cocked a brow.

“Go on.”

__________________________________

From their vantage point across the street, the group watched impatiently to see if their plan would bear any fruit. A few more members had been picked up over the course of the day, and as a villager was walking by, they could only stop and stare for a moment at the sight before continuing on. Guy, Kurenai, Asuma, Hisoka, Hikari, Kazue, Sakura, Tenten, Ino, and Lee, all of them were huddled behind the cloth cutting off view of the inside of one of the ramen shops boarding the street.

While they couldn’t hear anything, they could see as Miki started discussing something with Kakashi, who suddenly looked slightly more interested in the meeting than before. After a moment, he straightened up and must have made a comment, because Miki’s smile grew. A second later she picked up a piece of meat from the grill between them and started to eat, Kakashi simply watching.

All of the peeping group seemed to freeze in place as he suddenly leaned forward when she put down her chopsticks and brushed his thumb across the edge of Miki’s mouth, most likely wiping away something from the meal. The woman’s face flushed a bright shade of red, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, she reached out a hand, never pulling her eyes from Kakashi’s, as she tugged the curtain over the window shut.

The group could only stare as the shadows seemed to get closer to each other. A minute passed, then the shadows settled back in their seats.

“Did they just…?” Sakura began, eyes wide.

“What? What just happened?” Hisoka demanded.

“I can’t believe it!” Ino announced, just as shocked as Sakura.

“Then don’t,” a cheerful voice told her and she froze, along with about everyone else in the group.

“Did you really think we didn’t notice?” Kakashi questioned, standing behind Miki with a curious expression on his face.

“You were rather obvious,” she added.

“So there was no…” Sakura began, trailing off.

“Nope.”

________________________

When Kazue eventually made it home that evening, she was surprised to discover Noriaki waiting outside of her house.

"Nori-kun?"

Her cousin frowned upon spotting her, then gestured for her to follow him as he stepped past her and started further into the Asari compound.

"Come on, the elders have been waiting."

A/N: So, this last bit, if you couldn't tell, was just for fun! I thought you guys could use a bit of a break from all the action before I jumped head on into the rest of everything! Hope you enjoyed!