CH258- Failure
Zabuza stumbled out of the cell with a mouth half full of sand. He spat and groaned as he shuffled through the sand pouring out of the cell, Pakura smirked down at him.
“Almost had you there, you're rather astute for someone so stubborn.” she said in a way that sounded like a compliment.
Zabuza wondered how she could even smile at him. Talk so casually after putting him one question away from being buried in sand. He glared but didn't say anything as he dived for the water bottles beside her chair.
“Zabuza! You finally made it out.” Zabuza winced at the word finally as Utakata dragged him into a hug.
“Oh, good to see you made it out too.” Zabuza groaned, pulling himself free of his teammate. Mangetsu remained standing where he was, his eyes were hollow and his cheeks were as dusty as his but when he looked over at Zabuza there still was an air of superiority, “When did you get out?”
“I got out first, Mangetsu made it about two questions ago?” Utakata happily answered for both of them. “We passed!”
“You did.” Pakura interrupted, the heat wafting from her mere closeness made Zabuza certain she was the reason the sand was so hot. “Now get out! Others still need to decide their fates.”
She pointed down the corridor where a stairway shuttered out of the wall. A room with a single genin team revealed itself, they grinned and waved.
Zabuza recognized them as the one genin team that hadn’t returned as sand zombies and by the knowing grins on their faces he’d bet they got an earful of Team 3’s performance.
Great. Another opportunity to scout. Zabuza hated that one team had gotten insight they hadn’t, especially on theirs. Mangetsu seemed to realize this while Utakata remained cordially oblivious.
“Hello, we wondered what happened to you guys!” Utakata greeted as Team 3 hurried away from Pakura.
The door shuddered shut behind, leaving Team 3 with the first team to pass the first exam. Zabuza recognized them instantly, he’d spent a fair bit of the previous day spying on them after all.
Team Takigakure. The Hidden Waterfall, one of many minor villages yet the only one consistently proving their strength. Zabuza scanned their faces, he’d managed to trace their every step for nearly an hour before the one on the left insisted they go do something else.
Kaito was a youth of average build, lean jaw and sharp green eyes. He’d been the only one Zabuza had bothered to keep named in his head. His other teammates, tough-guy and blaster, linger between the row of pews in the room. Each of them were shrewd enough to be wary of Utakata’s open mouth introduction and took their time sharing names.
Zabuza preferred his. Prior to accepting Kaito’s name Zabuza designated him as shifty. Hindsight told him that Kaito must’ve had some kind of enhanced sensory abilities or have received training in espionage, but even now he had an uneasy twitch to him.
They let Utakata do most of the talking after introductions, Zabuza was content to learn from their conversations on what the next exam would be. It was easy enough to conclude it would be a team battle but the rules, environment and proctors would define it more.
According to tough-guy, they’d individually taken the chuunin exams before now and the rules changed each time. The previous chuunin exams never prepared you for the next as much as it did your missions.
A terror soaked scream tore across the hall. All heads whipped at the door that wouldn’t open until another team passed. Blaster chuckled, his feet raised up on a pew as he shook his head.
He was the only Zabuza suspected of powerful Ninjutsu, whatever it may be there was a subtle air of self assuredness around Blaster that earned him the name.
Utakata quickly exhausted their patience and the Takigakure team took to the other side of the room. He too sat quietly, there was little conversation to be had between the desperate screams of pain and surrender.
Of team 3 only Utakata came out looking unscathed. The only thing that kept Zabuza and Mangetsu from furiously itching at the swelling sting and bite wounds pockmarked across their cheeks, feet and hands was the presence of team Takigakure. That and the liberty to use the water tanks arranged in the room.
It took an hour before a third team walked in. It was one of the Suna teams and not long after the singular Iwa team strutted in looking a little more bathed in sand than any of them were.
Mangetsu and Utakata tensed but Zabuza saw in there was no aggression in Dogan’s eyes, least of all his body language. He took his team far from either Team 3 and the Suna team until they were basically buddies with the team from Takigakure.
Finally, a Kiri team was chosen. It was difficult to tell at first which one but the sound of Maita scolding Tamura and dismissing their deadweight kunoichi was all too familiar after weeks in their company.
Pakura put them through the same ‘last chance to quit’ test and they passed, though Zabuza attributed that largely to Maita’s influence on the team. As always, their weakest link wavered once she came face to face with the reasons behind those waivers she blindly signed. It was too late to take anything back now and once their cell doors slammed shut Team 3 eagerly listened to their performance, some of the questions were easy to catch through the walls, an affordance Suna took into consideration when arranging the exam surely.
An opportunity to learn from others' failures. Some questions from his own exam repeated, many others didn’t, but it hardly mattered— what they in the winners room waited to hear was either relative silence or screams.
There was only one terror filled voice crying out for mercy, relief and embarrassingly, Maita.
Zabuza shared a look with his teammates, a soft wince on each of their faces. He smirked at Mangetsu, “I guess you won’t have to deal with Maita in the next exam.”
Surprisingly Utakata sighed as he leaned back and said something shrewdly out of character. “It’s a good thing, he’d have been coming for our team because of his clan grudge. This way we can concentrate on working with Team 5 to win the next exam.”
Zabuza eyed him in a new light. He’d known Utakata was far from green but he never thought he’d have strategic thoughts towards those he considered allies. The two-faced Jinchuriki caught Zabuza’s look and merely smirked in response, though that was wiped away the instant team 8’s kunoichi screamed.
“I surrender!”