blank canvas

in the back of his throat he sighs. "our cover..." yes, their mission was to handle a goliath with high potential for another to awaken within the area. or at least that is the cover for that as well.

13s speaks in a way that confuses his chips. a type e isn't supposed to sound that way. "yes, but what that real target is, i'm not quite sure. i've dealt with a lot," androids, machines, even his own, "but this configuration."

The flight unit drops him off a few feet away from 7B, and hops off in a manner that is only visually similar to a Scanner's nonchalance. "We need to deal with the goliath first, either way."

7B has a lot of questions, he notes. Even between models, the variation on personality types remains. He shrugs, "I can lift the restrictions by entering the right mode. Just like how you can unlock your hacking capabilities in a pinch."

The fool had not checked in for several weeks at this point. If he had been collecting any information that was of genuine value, then it might have been a cause for greater concern, might have been reason for direct action of greater urgency, but such as it was the last months prior to his silence it had become apparent that the best that this simple Konoha nin - not even a Jounin, no specialty, barely a Chuunin - was of too little consequence to bring value.

Sasori knew the paths through the village that led to the man’s flat because the man had told him, without being prompted, something that was rather a poor quality for a spy if not for the fact that he revealed such mundane information and with such a ready smile that one might have been convinced he was skilled at making friends and connections.

It wasn’t untrue, but it was not true in the ways that mattered.

He was an idiot, and his own village acknowledged it with the loud silence of the worthless missions they sent him on, understanding that any real danger would snuff out the life that these Leaf nin found so precious.

Sasori had no such compunctions, following the path through the village in his own time, waiting for the sun to set and the sky to paint itself in deepest inky black before he perched himself just beneath the zig-zagging ladder upward. There was the briefest moment of contemplation, as though he were considering whether or not to lug Hiruko’s body up the steps one by one until he found his mark - 

And then, as though a decision being made, there was a hiss as he released a valve on Hiruko’s left arm, and shot a single senbon out into the waiting darkness, where another heartbeat waited for him.

Sai follows him anyway. His intentions didn't matter so much as the result, and if he one day learned something he should not, he could not be trusted to keep quiet- and that meant that he had to disappear.

It would have been better for it to happen on a mission. Easier then, for questions to go unasked. Also, it wouldn't have been difficult to do it quickly. But, unfortunately for him, the missions he completed were nothing short of completely safe, which was to say, a death on them would almost certainly indicate foul play.

So Sai follows him home. He isn't alone. Something comes creeping up the steps, and he has no need to defend the man abandoned by the shadows that protect the village. But, he also isn't supposed to allow another to take his target.

A senbon flies out, and he steps out as asked. It's only polite, unlike the other shinobi, who was still skulking about under a heavy cloak and false face.

instead, he knows, those hawks take to ground.

sasuke stands in the heart of the field—the eye of the storm—and tips his face up toward the sky as if in its defiance. the hideout and his sickly master are some distance behind him, out of sight, out of mind. rainwater permeates his clothes, drips down his pale cheeks, and bounds from the sharp line of his jaw. like this, he looks like he's run straight out of sense. and maybe he has. where animals and people retreat wisely into their homes to seek shelter, the last uchiha is out here doing the opposite, braving the heavy rainfall like there's something to gain from it. except, only he knows better.

it's not the rain that he cares for but the lightning. channeling the energy around him surging in the atmosphere, he raises his hand, then drives it down in a cutting motion. he leaves no room for doubt, where his fangs should go, which throat it should mangle - what man it will one day strike dead in a single, decisive moment. with a tree as his target, he calls for the heavens. he gives its wrath a name: " kirin— "

—only to find his call unanswered. the tree remains intact. the clouds spark brightly, but by no act of sasuke's. strange, he thinks of that result. in theory, all the external elements are in place. by every calculation, there should be success to show for it. there's more than enough electricity to feed his coveted scale of destruction ... so, why?

" . . . . " he closes his eyes, in seeming contemplation; in seeming lack of awareness for the presence concealed at the fringes of the clearing.

Not even the rain can veil him from the Sharigan.

The target calls out a name, and he waits for the result. In the distance, lightning strikes, illuminating the area, revealing those eyes are-

Shut.

Sai moves.

Circling behind, footsteps fading into the sound of rain- he draws a kunai in hand and wire in the other, cautious of the electricity that they draw. Ultimately, this is what he is familiar with. Not the circles of conversation, accusatory and confusing, or the bright lights of a village at peace. Lightning flashes again, closer, blinding white leading to deeper shadows.

“Sai”, she says, her voice covered by the rustling of the leaves. “She is not one we can take lightly, though, if we are smart about this, I believe we should be able to take her down.“ Tsunade keeps eyeing the proctor, “something about the way she carries herself makes me wanna hit her.“

The moments before a battle are always scariest. It is the only time where you can truly contextualize the situation in front of you. There will be blood spilt. That is a fact. Something unavoidable in combat. A lump still hangs in Tsunade’s throat. Her stomach knots, a force tugging at her very core. Though, despite this, her hands move in well practiced motion, preparing her jutsu. Perhaps she will always feel this aversion, perhaps there will always be this lump in her throat. Yet, her hands will always move, her feet will always stride.

Finishing her Bunshin, a clone of her apperates, and with the completion of hand signs, she seemless looses three senbons, sailing towards the proctor. “Sai, now!“

(To be fair, there aren't many that Sai spends time speaking with. Most of them are dead before they can say anything.)

But-

At the same time-

He’s thinking the same thing.

“Yes, ma’am.”

With her showing at the first exam, Sai decides to take on a more supportive role, else he’d end up in the way of that destructive fist. Hands forming his own sigil, he releases them at the same time she calls.

It isn’t as good as anything the proctors have shown so far, that’s for sure, since he’s no master at genjutsu nor does he intend to be. But everything is a tool and has its place at the right moment- including weaknesses.

Oh, and it seemed his paintings had found their spots for an ambush as well. The first trigger- just short enough that the proctor would not have enough time to notice (after all- it was important to rely on reflex as a shinobi, and she, being a skilled member of ANBU, would not lack that training), was an illusion guiding her attention back to herself.

The jutsu she releases blows out dangerously, clearing the area of his own traps, laid in the briefest of moments that she had allowed. Still, they last just long enough for three sets of teeth to sink into her flesh- one after the other, before they did what paper did best:

Lost in thought, a sudden weight presses on her shoulder, and a playful tail hitting against the back of her head. The smug smirk on the cat's face taunted her, challenging her to try remove it from its perch. Tsunade was never one to back down from a challenge.

With what supposed to be a gentle push, turned into a forceful shove, sending the cat sailing through the air, impacting Sai at his center mass. A look of horror with a hint of guilt stains her face, "Ah... My bad, I didn't think the cat was that light..."

Before she can apologize further, her vision blurs, melding the colors of green and light, and shifting them to tones of red and darkness. Hearing the voices chatter and laugh, Tsunade takes a position of readiness, putting up her fists in front of her.

"Be prepared now Sai, their tricks are bound to become more malicious."

Or maybe she was willingly ignorant for the same reason she had for attending this exam in the first place. Sai thinks that maybe they could stop trying so hard, because neither of them were genin- but he doesn't say so out loud in front of the proctors.

That would just invite trouble.

But. Genjutsu again? Really? Are they supposed to play along or not?

Either way, given the setup of the area, he figures that it will become important soon- they wouldn't go through all the trouble with the themeing otherwise, no? Unless they were just that sort of people.

(Though, with what he's learned about their personalities, he guesses that it might not entirely impossible for it to simply be a personal preference. That's why it was important to seperate those quirks from missions.)

(Or so he guesses.)

(He doesn't have any.)

A thumb pushes open his scroll, and with practiced ease he creates four rats- one of which is immedieately destroyed by the cat, bursting into a splash of ink that stains her face. Her owner seems pleased, even though Sai doesn't know why, and he spots the ANBU marking on her shoulder.

That seemed careless of her, but alright.

Either way, there is a sound of a harp and the Genjutsu returns, and he and the Hokage are left back in the forest. Despite her claims of malice, Sai didn't recognize any. Maybe that was his inexperience, he didn't know.

"Hokage-sama… We should just wait here." To emphasize his point, Sai sits down. "No point in exhausting ourselves against an illusion."

Or, at least, he can think of no other better partner in the task of staying alive than her— as long as her performance in their first test was not indicative of what was to come. But his task remained simple and simple it was to keep an eye on her when they both participated in the test they did not need to put stock in.

(The mission remained the same, after all.)

Practically ignoring the pointed jab of the jounin, Sai nods towards the summit.

"The faster we get there, the better."

Deftly, he leaps onto a branch, scanning the area for traps. Some, scattered about, and more that he didn't catch, he guesses, but finding a path forward was all that mattered.

From a cat that skirts by your feet you hear an almost impressed giggle. "Aww, as expected of Hound's student~"

There are many jutsu that make use of animals, or the shape of them. Sai uses some of his own, and so he doesn't startle at the cat's voice, but rather the fact that it had come upon him unawares.

(... But, he isn't anyone's student. Perhaps the cat has him mixed with someone else.)

It sounds like the proctor's voice, though, and if this test was anything like the previous two, then she certainly had more control over the terrain around him than he would like. Better to not get on her bad side, then. He crouches slightly and scratches the top of the cat's head.

The Cat purrs in satisfaction, scratching it's head against your hand before disappearing in a poof of smoke, yet you noticed nothing unusual about it.

Oh. That's too bad.

There may be a less obvious way.

The ladder feels too obvious, sitting there and waiting for an idiot to use it. That won't be Sakura. If she did jump, what would happen? She runs to the edge, about to leap, but the darkness stops her.

(Then there must be another exit nearby.)

Sai glances around the lounge again, and this time, the light above the shelves catches his eye. A quick vault on top of the desks, and-

The window was frosted, making it difficult to see what was outside from within- and more fortunately, vice versa. Slipping on top of the adjacent shelves is easy enough, as is opening it just slightly for a snake to slip through.

Nothing reacts.

This side was unguarded. He pushes the window further open slowly, then slides out silently, landing on the ground with a practiced thud.

She looks around. There's a ladder left folded up, and chain link fence surrounding the perimeter. She touches her hand to it, and it jitters a little in protest, but otherwise, it's quiet enough.

There must be a way out of here. Going back in there means getting caught, and for all that happened in the last trial, Sakura will not fail again. The pocket is stashed underneath her waistband, tight and snug and out of sight.

(As a member of ROOT, he has to be doubly careful.)

A step forward is taken immediately back, sensing before realizing that something was off- Sai darts backward into the lounge again as he realizes the proctor hadn't fully cleared the area. The careless mistake is remedied with three other sources of noise, sending his painted mice back out with only the goal of covering his escape.

Yet in his obliviousness he fails to spot the ANBU standard trap before it triggers, launching him backwards out the window at a velocity just short of terminal for a jounin of his physique. One thing one must understand about ANBU is that grudges tend to last a long time, and yet none of the pranks that result from it have grown to be anything more than harmless yet.

The way down might be longer than he'd expected. The ground looked closer from indoors, but now he realizes he is falling from the third floor. When Kakashi makes his landing, he's first greeted by the familiar sounds of the night: leaves rustling, creatures shuffling unseen, and the comforting presence of a village asleep all around him. Then, from a shadowed corner, he hears a rattling, rueful laugh. Komorebi steps out into the moonlight, not for a better look, but to show Kakashi she isn't smiling. Then again, that's nothing new around him. "This side of the building's got no cover," she says, hands behind her ramrod-straight back. "I expected one of the younger ones to go such a risky route. My humble little test too boring for you, Kakashi?"

"Maa~ Komorebi-san, surely there's no hard feelings between us right?." Please don't be mad, please don't be mad, quick Kakashi think! The last time he'd hung around ANBU despite the displeasure of Boar-san he'd heard some interesting rumours about her and the only one of them that was able to cook anything decent. "Ne, how has things been with ANBU who cook-- Higanbana!"

Please don't stab me.

It doesn't look like a classroom, this time. A lounge? Sai finds a quiet corner to roll out his scroll more completely. If his guess is correct, she'll be circling back to her starting location to repeat the route.

Slowly, calmly his gaze turns towards the window, to the almost phantasmal trees that sway beyond it in the cool breeze of mid-spring's waning moon. A few uneasy steps is all it takes, one foot infront of the other as he moves towards the handle, paying little care to the all too familiar glint of razor-thin wire attached to it as the hand is twisted and pressed outwards, allowing moonlight and cool breeze to fall upon his features at cost to the sleeve that now lies torn and mangled.

The trap is familiar, an old favourite and yet all it makes him think of is years prior. He'd recognised the classroom of course, recognised the door lacking in duster, the lack of varied expressions and yet all it does is make him want to sigh. "Team Seven is cursed you know!" The boisterous laughter of a boy resounds in his ears, the memory of ease dropped conversations from the rooftops what feels like a lifetime ago.

"Based on my first impression, I’d have to say… I hate you!" Oh, how easily he'd lied that day, more amused by ingenuity and stunned by resemblance to know what to do with himself. He'd never been the emotional type, not openly, yet forcing himself to speak had been all too necessary, plans revised and discarded in hopes of guiding a legacy he'd been so unprepared to manage. Yet now, all he can do is shake his head and discard the sleeve as he turns towards the all too familiar door.

There's a door- closed, unlike the others that lead to the halls and classrooms (easier to see someone coming, but harder to hide from, he notes- an advantage and disadvantage for both sides). Based on his position, he doubts it was the exit- it could hardly be that easy- but maybe it would have something useful inside.

It's opened unceremoniously. Mops and brooms and buckets, kept together in a precarious pile by some indifferent hand, fall apart upon losing their best support. Sai doesn't need to check if the proctor heard- she most certainly had.

So he does what is the most natural thing to do- he ducks into the closet, grabbing a few of the fallen mops with one hand and, with the other, shuts the door behind him.

In darkness, time distorts, the longer you spend submerged the longer a night can feel. That is, of course, why he himself preferred to work during the night, when the creeping shadows made you all the more likely to feel jumpy, to stay alert. And yet as he reads the message before him, he cannot help but subconsciously lift the protector above the scarred features, letting the room dye itself red before him.

It is in the dark that he feels most comfortable, able to use the implanted Kekkai Genkai without the constant nagging headache as he spins before settling on the podium. He remembers a mission once, a deaddrop in a school where the information was left in the most and least obvious space. With a cheery little hum he walks, a look of mirth as he reaches inside on instinct before pulling three of the more useful tools available.

"Maa~ Komorebi-san seems to be recreating one of the last war's more standard missions." There's a dangerous tilt to his voice, as if she's stumbling down memory lane just a little too much before he begins to move back towards the two members of Team Kakashi. "Concealment pouches, they won't hide the scrolls completely, but they're too useful to pass up." A nod, slipping his own inside the vest before holding them out towards the duo that await.

"Any suggestions?"

Escape Points: 2

(Surely Kakashi would have noticed by now, either way. Though maybe he was in on it.)

Sai didn't need to pass the Chunin exam, though. Neither did Sakura. Nor Kakashi. Was there anyone who was still a Genin present, or were all of them going through the motions?

(Training was training.)

He accepts the concealment pouch silently, slipping his own scroll into it with practiced ease. Information retrieval was far more in his line of experience than whatever came prior, and so he doesn't see the need to stick around with the others for too long- as long as this was the primary mission, it be was more important to have at least one copy of the information escape- then to not be caught at all.

(Or 'escape', he supposes. It was an exam, not an actual mission.)

Either way- it's easier to go unnoticed when alone. Sai spends a moment listening for the proctor's movements before slipping away in the opposite direction.

(Surely they wouldn't follow him. It'll be too conspicuous.)

Battered, bruised, and thrown. The Hokage lies limp on the side of the battle field, rot and stink pooling at her base, like scavengers ready for a feast. Her worn body struggles to respond. Maybe the years are finally catching up to her. Maybe, just maybe, it is finally time to rest.

Yet still, a cruel savior looms.

With the plunge of the needle, her body stills, saliva pooling, understanding that any minute movement could cause irreversible damage. Her eyes dart to the Akatsuki, coldly looking at her in disgust. Looking down at her. The revulsion. The gall. The disrespect. All of it became fuel. Fuel that lit her gaze ablaze.

It was wise a choice to retreat, because in his wake, three senbons graze his cloak, striking the golden streaks on the dragon. Yet still, her chilling gaze remains trained on the Akatsuki, her expression unresponsive to the anger her eyes displayed.

"If you ever touch me again, I will shatter you. You hear me?" her voice, echoing across the cavern.

Finally shifting her gaze towards the dragon, she stands, straightening her back.

The scent of someone being granted the grace to close their eyes before their death, or the last breath that you knew was coming. His victims had not been able to make their peace with their upcoming demise- but it came, nonetheless, heavy and overwhelming.

Familiar in all the wrong ways, Sai chokes, but it's too late- though it seemed like a waste, he takes out another antidote, and plunges it into his forearm.

(If the rest of the exam is like this, he should have worked a little harder to buy some more equipment.)

With every flake they chip off, the old azure of the dragon seems to return. The way he recovers from the antidote is not lost on him, and with the singular focus that was all he knew, Sai reapproaches.

Upon closer glance, it is obvious what the issue was- the sickly grey-green from where the gold stains its skin were so out of place on the canvas it placed itself on. It reminded him of when he didn't wait for ink to dry before he painted another layer, or when his palm smudged the lines between his chalks. Brilliant blue muddied by the stinging of gold and he thinks (he wonders) what it was like to be so full of color.

His survival is methodical. Practiced, prepared. If he fails, he falls. How long had this dragon struggled, despite failing to have the tools? Sai recognizes it, in the way he remembers it in the eyes of those he fights- and in its echo his own pale skin seems all the more lackluster.

One last needle, plunged into its skin. The gold is the one that screams now, a death cry- hissing, sliding off its host in a movement Sai recognizes as defeat. The dragon roars and returns home, leaving him blinking at the space where it once stood; he tries to recall the colors seen just moments before, but he can tell- even now- they were slipping away.

His eyes look back up at it, glistening spots reminiscent of ichor stand out as if calling to him. If the Hokage falls, then she simply does. That said, he aims more carefully this time.

Sai doesn't think there is much he would learn from their bickering. The dragon continues to move, and their proctor says something that tells Sai that talking to him would also be a waste of time, and so- better to keep moving.

And keep moving he does, carefully slipping past the rest of his team and the notice of the dragon, then making his way up to its back. If it lashed out with its tail to attack, its unlikely that it would be more dangerous on its back as anywhere else in the cave.

Akatsuki might have unlimited kunai, or they might just not care, but Sai must take good care of his equipment. Doesn't matter if he can aim (He can, everyone here can. None of them are genin.) - why not just go to the source? A chip of the gold causes it to pool against his skin, a burning sensation that he glances at.

(Some sort of acid, maybe? Something poisonous, certainly. Would explain the death of the area and the way the dragon itself seemed to be hurt by it.)

Does he need to tell everyone else anything? Surely they've already figured it out. Feels like a poor decision to reveal his position on the dragon's back, if it hadn't already noticed.

They couldn't do much here anyways so he refuses to count it as a loss. It's better to focus on what is here... and that is the Hokage and a focused young man.

"Your ire is uselessly spent on us." At least at the moment. She need not know of his own weaknesses now, just that being here serves none of them in the slightest.

When he goes to breath in still musty air, a tremor beginds throughout the cavern. His head cants up and the length of journey they must take grows exponentially. What may have been glitters of sunlight to the bare eye falls from the roof it was attached to and reveal itself to be no such freedom.

"Watch yourselves!" Suteki warns, and you can hear the thump of his staff slamming against whatever ground he finds himself on above you.

The guide's voice comes from above and as he steadies his feet such that he won't fall, he turns to look towards the enter of the space. "There are much more important matters to bother with."

A tree of ore and azure stands where nothing quite should. To whose benefit does it grow?

The moss is not the texture he imagines- neither springy nor soft, but something similar- a mimicry of another form of life, when all that is present is death. It pulls at him, tugging him towards the earth where he would doubtless not rise again.

That is, of course, not what he had been commanded to do, so slowly Sai pushes himself to his feet, the slime of whatever the moss has fed on clinging to him. He doesn't like how drowsy he feels because of it and so he reaches for his small stash of antidote.

(Needing it so soon felt like an ominous sign, but he couldn't very well eat one when he was dead.)

Then, he does his best to wipe off as much of that still clung to him, just in case. And if a little gets on the members of the Akatsuki, it wasn't intentional (though Lady Hokage, he deliberately avoids).

Fully cleaned, Sai decides that there isn't many places worse to be standing than here, and, ignoring all the hostility and the strange team he had found himself in (it was a traditional four man team, if he thinks about it), starts walking toward the tree.

Slipped was not, perhaps, the best word for how the world broke around them, fragmented like glass, its shards scattering and refracting all around them. If the sensation was something he could still experience, he might have found it dizzying, but he remained just as disdainful as ever when his feet landed on firm soil and felt the press of stone against his shoulders. 

His feet. His shoulders. 

Sasori stiffened, as much as he could creeping through the choking earth until four bodies emerged in a cavern of immense size. His expression sharpened, fury drawing skin taut over his polished skeleton, and he cast a seeking glance around. 

Where was Hiruko? 

If it had been any comfort that Itachi was there as well, it was quashed by the coil of disgust at the flaxen head of the lady Hokage emerging under the sunlight. His eyes traced upward, hoping to find the pattern of footprints of their alleged guide, then down, to the greenery sprouting up from the cavern floor. 

No, not sprouting. 

It was not actively growing, no life to be found here. He knelt, dragged fingertips through a nearby bed of moss, and grunted, but said nothing. 

Security had been lax, he had known it from the start- otherwise how had so many non-genin snuck into the exam not as a proctor but an examinee? Proof of haste or incompetence, Sai couldn't say yet.

And one such culprit, or so he would guess, was the Lady Hokage herself. But out in the open like this, Sai neither wanted to reveal his missing abilities nor show what they were to the two nukenin, so instead he relies on the baser but no less important senses.

The cloying musk and the scent of something sweet promises that he will find it difficult to recognize anything else through smell, and sight was naturally obscured by the strange darkness that broke the scenery. Not particularly eager to disturb the lichen more than necessary, Sai slows until he finds himself further away from the rest, listening carefully for the customary disturbance of small animals- the fluttering wings of birds or the buzz of insects… and finds nothing.

This place was dead, then. Good thing he bought that antidote last week.

Turning, he quickly accounts for the rest of his unit before preparing to head back. One, two, and… He frowns.

The most unfamiliar face among them is the one missing from the ranks. An unmasked member of the Anbu, perhaps, judging solely from his uncanny silence and general behavior, as well as his concerning absence now.

Without his enhanced sight, Neji sweeps his gaze along the horizon. The sage had come out to fight them, but could it be that the man had gone to investigate their enemy’s headquarters without reporting to the team?

“Wait a little,” he tells the rest of the team, “I’ll go find where he’s gone to.”

With that, he heads off, walking until he reaches an unnatural opening in a cave, covered with now-broken seals.

In his investigation of the sage's den, Sai only had time to confirm that, no, he was not on his list of targets to eliminate before the sounds of someone following cause him to slip the book back into his bag and turn towards the entrance.

Too late to pretend he had not slipped off, and not keen on failing his mission, Sai decides it might be better to try and distract the other shinobi with another investigation while he continued his own.

"Yes, I'm here," Therefore, it is still important to keep the appearances of teamwork up- and thus, he should respond amicably. "Have you finished restraining the sage?"