Chapter 108 - Arc 7 - We're Ready Kakashi, The Chunin Exams Start Now! - Ibiki arrives just in time, they're saved!

There are so many onlooking eyes that clearly want to test them, or maybe just beat them senseless, that she isn’t sure she’s going to manage to stop Gaara from mulching large parts of the exam. She’s sure the pure bloodlust he put forward when trying to rip Kabuto apart is a big part of why it feels like a thousand daggers are aimed directly towards them, but it’s probably also that same bloodlust which has stopped things from becoming a brawl within the first breath. No one wants to start a fight they’re not sure they can win, especially not when the end result is that someone ends up smeared along the walls like a new wallpaper.

Well, saying no one would take that risk without knowing is probably untrue, but anyone like that would likely have died by now if they were willing to jump to their demise so easily so it’s safe to say that the odds someone like that is here are low. Not zero, just, she doesn’t have to account for statistical anomalies like that in her general thoughts. Kakashi’s right, you can deduce some lessons were learned by your enemy by the very fact that they’re still around.

Her hand lands on her sword and she takes a stance the moment she’s on her feet. Being on the floor from tackling Gaara was not her preferred place to be when the entire room looked at her, but it’s fine now, no one moved. She readies herself to get slashing if people charge her, but inwardly hopes - among twisting spirals of anxiety - that no one does, mostly for Naruto’s sake. There’s a little fear of being overwhelmed and torn apart but with two protective Jinchuriki by her side, the worry is somewhat understandably muted.

The hope is, holding a blade and staring out at them with her glowing red eyes and maliciously toothy smile should intimidate people long enough for her to get away from this free. There’s no way they’re not being watched, and the village obviously doesn’t want something crazy happening, which means…

Any second now, it has to happen-

“Silence, Degenerates!” She sighs in relief when a puff of smoke suddenly engulfs the area at the front of the room and draws all eyes there and away from her.

If things had gone another minute, who knows, but she could cry at the appearance of the enemy, er, allies, this Chunin exam is hosted here so the proctors are allies. She actually recognizes the man who appears at the front of the room in front of a chalkboard, Ibiki Morino. He’s backed by a group of very professional looking leaf ninja with military-esque outfits inspired by a game maybe? She’s just not sure, well the games had to get the idea from somewhere. Is there somewhere that uses outfits like that regularly? Do they? She wasn’t paying a particularly large amount of attention back when they went over the ninja wars in class, and even if she was paying attention it wouldn’t have been to anyone’s outfits. Ino would know, but she won’t remember to ask her. Oh well, that’s one mystery never to be solved. Her whimsical mind creates a lot of those, she’s used to it. The trick is to forget quickly so she doesn’t find herself lying awake at night wondering.

She swallows her disappointment, and instead gets inspired while staring at all those freaking pockets on their outfits. They’re everywhere! A woman needs pockets like those!

As if to intentionally stand out, the proctor - Ibiki - is wearing a coat that makes her see stars. Black and sleek with huge pockets that she could probably fit her whole Switch into, she finds herself gawking at just how cool it is. The coat leads the eyes up to his collar, and from there his scarred and burnt face. His disfigured features are incredibly striking and tell of the misery he’s been through for Konoha, and while they’re not remarkable for her anymore, she can tell without looking at anyone else what the general consensus is. Ibiki stands there with his sliced up face and intimidating stature, more scars than fresh skin, and he holds himself with confident pride at every battle scar. If given the chance to go back in time, Ibiki would do it all again and would glare at anyone who dared to feel pity for him.

She sees him every Saturday on her way to meet Ino - or she did back when it was mandatory, now if she’s lucky she never has to go there again regardless of Ino’s earlier enthusiasm - but when she first met him she was terrified; of the medical standards that led to a face that messed up.

They have the ability to fix a face like it’s nothing, there’s really no reason he should be scarred up like that unless there was a point where village resources were spread so thin they couldn’t do anything at all for cosmetics. Injuries like that are a lot harder to fix once they’re healed, and he probably chose not to invest the time and care into it at that point because it makes his job easier, but damn was the implication that there was that big of an issue in the first place somewhat world shaking for her. Ninjas are the most important asset a village has, their appearance is very important too because a damaged ninja implies mistakes and weakness. To allow someone as important as Ibiki to be permanently damaged and to let it stay for so long that going back and fixing it is basically out of the question, has so much terrifying implication behind it that she was genuinely shaken.

It shook her up so much she took a class on the ninja wars to really figure all that out, and the implications were horrifying. The world she’d been led to believe via teacher narrative was proven false in an instant. Sure, she always had a feeling that the Academy’s propaganda about the leaf being the bestest foreverest in history and nothing really ever threatened them was an exaggeration meant for school children, but she never thought it was a straight up lie. To the Academy’s credit, it didn’t explicitly deny the trials the Leaf has gone through. They went over the wars just like they should have, but they were always taught from the perspective of victors that were never truly worried about losing. They would win, they always won, and the losses were merely everyday incidents that were sad but were quickly moved on from.

Classes actually meant for adults did not sugar coat it. Kakashi’s seen hell. Ibiki’s seen hell. More people in their contacts list died than lived, and for the first time, she understood and felt bad for Kakashi. Up until she asked him to teach her something and he showed up two hours late with ice cream and asked why she was waiting around when it wasn’t normal training time, having completely forgotten her request in the first place and stumbled across her by chance. She felt a lot less bad for him then.

Still, the harrowing reality is that if events like that happened once, they can happen again. The leaf being strong and powerful and unending has always been a foundation of her life and education, and the brutal nature taught to her was in her perception something that everyone was taught. The basic idea being that sacrifice is needed to keep the leaf strong and that sacrifice should be made by the village’s enemies whenever possible.

If nothing else, his face made her take a great look at what she knows and realize she’s taken a lot of things for granted. She’s vowed to ensure Wave is never in a situation like that if she can do anything at all to stop it. She’ll discover new mechanics and bend the rules and destroy everything in front of her for a single person if it means such events never have to happen again. Wave is hers, Konoha is hers - although by a different definition of the word hers - and the people are precious to her.

She’s not heartless, she’s proactive and pragmatic, she will not allow her people to suffer that way ever again, even if it means finding the options menu and activating peaceful mode.

Despite the way he’s shaken her in the past, seeing Ibiki now is comforting. A familiar face, even one pretending to be a cool badass like he is now, sets her at ease. Ibiki will not let the entire chunin exam nominee pool charge her and Gaara on a whim; Naruto is saved from having to watch a massacre, and the person in charge of their test is a friend.

“I’m Ibiki Morino, Proctor for the first test of the Chunin exam.” She has to try her hardest not to wave at the man, but she does pull it off. Even she has some tact, that'd be way too much. Friends don’t undermine their friend’s attempts to look cool by lacking self control, friends do their best to support awesome moments and attempts. Sakura pulls off a shiver of fright and points dramatically at his head as if her world is shattered. She hopes he appreciates it, her mouth is even held open in mock horror. She sees his lip twitch up ever so slightly, and hopes no one else noticed it.

“There will be no battles, competitions, or otherwise without the proctor’s say so.” His eyes are right on her and Gaara, and she gets the feeling they’re in trouble. She tries to disappear behind Gaara. This doesn’t work very well, they are both very similar sizes and she’s in armor while he is not which means she’s actually bigger than him. She’s been exposed and the proctor has his gaze focused on her, what does she even do about that!? “Even if you get permission, actions that could lead to the death of an opponent will not be permitted.”

Why is he piercing Gaara to get to her with his gaze? She’s not crazy! There’s so many more dangerous people here and he knows she means well! Maybe it’s not what she thinks and he has some other reason for focusing on her? “Any pig that screws with me will be disqualified immediately. Got it?” His gaze finally leaves her to roll over the entire crowd, getting collective gasps out of them. The weight of his efforts is tremendous, she can feel the entire room shaking from all the unsteady feet.

So if no one is allowed to kill, why does everyone talk about this exam like it’s a death fest? Does he just mean for this part of the exam, or? Has she been lied to? She feels like she’s been lied to. She hates being lied to. Someone’s lied, either right now or before, and she can’t help but cross her arms and puff out her cheeks in indignant annoyance. What’s a girl have to do to get a straight answer? Why is no one honest with her? That pretest nonsense from Kakashi was so mean! Why would he lie to her like that too? The test really was at the time he specified, he tricked her! Too many adults lying to her recently for sure.

There will be a reckoning. She will get vengeance for the lies!

“This exam looks to be easy.” She hears from someone in the crowd, and she’s a little too distracted right now to look. It’s very uncharacteristic of the standards she has set for herself, and she’ll apologize to herself later during self care. For now, she’s glaring at Ibiki because he’s probably lying to her! “Now then, we will start the first test of the Chunin Exam. Turn in your applications, take one of these numbers, and sit in the seat matching that number. After that we will hand out the papers for the written test.”

Naruto begins to scream, and she’s pretty sure she gets why. Any real test should be on keyboard, paper is so old and weird for a test mainly meant for teenagers. She’d scream too if she wasn’t so annoyed. She might scream anyway.

She opens her mouth-

And finds Sasuke’s hand lands on her chin and pushes her mouth shut. “Bad Sakura.” Sasuke says coolly, shaking his head at her. Naruto got to do it, why can’t she? That’s so unfair! She kicks her foot against the floor and pouts at him, he’s so mean to her. Why does everyone single her out these days? It didn’t used to be like that. It used to be that she faded into a crowd and no one even knew her name but Ino.

“But…” She reaches out and pokes Sasuke’s cheek, “there, now I touched you without permission.” The boy shakes his head at her, and Gaara helpfully reaches over and pokes him too. He’s so wholesome, that’s it, it’s official, she loves every moment with Gaara.