Hours Later, 11:00am
"OI!" I pound on the bathroom door, shaking it in it's frame. Okay so maybe I could have hit it less hard, but Sasuke has been in there for over an hour. "You ready yet?!"
"I am." The door sweeps open and a pristine Sasuke, finally dressed up in his mission gear and mask, confidently strides out.
"What took you so damn long?" I aggressively ask.
"Unlike some people," He puts emphasis on the word 'some' and glares at me, "I can't just roll out of bed and be ready to go."
"I'll have you know that I've been up for five hours already, thank you very much!"
"Yeah and only about ten minutes went into making sure you look presentable." He takes stock of my new addition to my arsenal. "And why on earth do you have that strapped to you?"
"Oh these?" I pat my new toys tenderly. "They're a gift from a spider. A very poisonous spider."
"Ah, so they did come through for you. Think they will work on Hiro?"
I shrug. "They should. In the end of the day he still has flesh and organs, it's just that the Jiongu surrounds them. He's still susceptible to poison it'll just be harder to get it into his system."
"Good. It would be a shame to see you lose to your beloved Hiro-chan." There's a tinge of playfulness in his voice.
"Oh Red, you poor poor boy." I say with my female voice and face. "Did you forget that today is a new day? I can take revenge again."
Sasuke stops mid step.
Good. "You know, I might have to apologize to Hiro and Lee for my brashness yesterday. After all," I flutter my eyelashes at him, "I'm spoken for already. It's just I was so disappointed that my dearly beloved didn't stand up for me and I let my emotions run wild."
Sasuke shudders with suppressed fear.
I think he needs just another little push, then I'll call it good. "Perhaps if one of them can best you I might consider them more worth my time. Could you imagine both Lee and Hiro bugging you for a contest? Constantly coming up with ridiculous challenges for you to take? All because you thought it was amusing to tease me?"
"I will cease my actions at once." He smartly barks out with a waver of fear in his voice.
I don my mask. "Good. Now let's get to the tournament field."
Alvarcus and Sasuke both leave, neither one of them noticed the shocked Orochimaru standing in the doorway to a conjoined room.
"I am very, very glad that I don't have a daughter." Orochimaru's fists are tightly clenched and in the absence of his students his bloodlust in unrestrained. He reeks of certain death. "There would be a trail of bodies like this world has never seen."
...
The Contestant Gazebo, 11:50am
"Would you look at that. We're the last ones here." I idly say out of the corner of my mouth to Sasuke.
"It isn't unlikely. We did only arrive ten minutes early."
"Yeah, but Eito has us here an hour early already. We're early to being early." I complain. "Isn't that just wonderful?"
Everyone from the first day is back at the gazebo, even those who got knocked out of the tournament. Hey, we have some of the best seats here. Might as well use them if you can.
Sasuke leads us over to the table with Hiro and Noboru at it again. I hate to admit it, but these two are the least problematic for us. Let's face it, the Konoha and Suna shinobi both hate us. Leiko has a serious bone to pick with me so there's no sitting by her. All that leaves us with is this spot.
"Green-chan, Red. Nice to see you both again!" Hiro chirps out once we sit down.
"Actually," Sasuke starts to say and I just know I'm not going to like this, "she's Midori now."
"Midori-chan?" Hiro experimentally tries out. "I like it! Why the change?"
"Orochimaru-sama was impressed with my display yesterday and he decided to give me a name. Hence, Midori." I calmly force myself to explain. It's really good that I came up with the idea that Sasuke and I need to earn our names, otherwise this random name change would be weird. Okay, it would be more weird.
"That has to be the strangest thing I've ever hear a shinobi village do." Leiko condescendingly says from her spot near her brother Yuri and Kiri friend Sachihiro. "Do they put all the gennin through that or just those like you?"
I turn towards Leiko. "It isn't a system used for all his gennin. It's only for those that he wants to be remade, it's a system of breaking down a person so completely and utterly that they accept a new name with open arms. Neither of us have had a name for years, we've been called colors, seasons, by our rolls, by our genders, by anything our senseis can think of except something that provides an identity."
"What, we're you that stupid?" Leiko scoffs at me.
"No, we were that good." A look of confusion falls over her face, it isn't just her's either. All the other gennin are attentively listening to me. They're getting a glimpse of how Otogakure functions from a first hand account. "We shined in our Academy, we out did everyone else. We caught the eye of Orochimaru-sama himself and he decided that we would be remade to better serve him. He squashed out our personalities, he removed our ties to our families, he severed any connections we had to anyone but him. He had our senseis mold and shape us into exactly what he wants us to be, and once we achieve that he graces us with a new name. One that we've earned."
Each gennin is riveted to my tale, no one is even considering interrupting me.
"Mock me if you wish. If you think me getting a new name is humorous then laugh at me. But know this: I have earned my Kage's respect. He recognizes my achievements and has deemed me worthy. Does your Kage feel the same way about you?"
The sad thing is, I'm not exactly lying to everyone here. Orochimaru does use that system. If he finds a promising shinobi, one that has too much free will or refuses to be chained down, he will put them through that system. He will break them then he will build them back up to his specifications.
He's even using a mild version of it on me. He's beyond violent with me, he constantly gives me grievous wounds that would kill a normal shinobi. He's trying to turn me into what I told him I was, a juggernaut. He's teaching me to shrug off insane amounts of damage and keep plowing forward until I achieve my goal.
It's working. It's working marvelously. Just look at how I handled the Root assassins. I lost limbs, I lost hearts, but I didn't stop moving forward. No matter what they did to try and slow me down I pressed forward with a single goal in mind.
"That's messed up." Tenten quietly says to herself, but with as quiet as it is everyone heard her. "Do you even remember the name your parents gave you?"
"... No. I don't." I somberly say. "It's been taken from me."
A sad silence falls over all of the gennin. Each and every one of them is looking at Sasuke and me with pity. This isn't how I expected this to go, but I'll work with it. If they pity us, they might hold back in our fights. It's mean, it's underhanded, it's despicable. But it's also effective.
Eventually pointless conversations resume, but Sasuke and I remain quiet. We're not among the carefree ranks of the other shinobi here. We're burdened, him with his desire to kill Itachi and me with trying to undermine Orochimaru.
After the rest of the hour is up, Eito casually strolls out to the middle of the field. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back for the second round of the Chunin Exams Tournament!"
The crowd roars as Eito swings an arm towards the contestants, or more specifically me and Hiro.
"Would Green of Otogakure and Hiro of Takigakure please come forward!"
"Well, it's time for our battle!" Hiro happily says. "Are you ready Midori-chan?"
I join him and we both walk out to Eito. "Yes."
...
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