[NonEarlyBird] Chapters 156.3, 157.1, 157.2 -- Marked for Death

These are short, so I'm lumping them together.

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Chapter 156.3: Information Gathering

Kurosawa Ren, the Fifth Mizukage of the Village Hidden in the Mist, smiled. There were far too many teeth showing for Hazō's comfort.

"At this point, it is traditional for the host Kage to announce what the events will be," she said, her voice carrying to the back of the crowd with the ease of a trained orator. "This year we're going to try something a little different.

"There are two core functions to the ninja life: combat and information gathering. Of these, information gathering is the more important. Combat is straightforward—you and your enemy meet, you battle. Espionage, assassination, sabotage—in all but the simplest missions, the most essential job is to find out what you need, where to apply it, and when to do so in order to achieve maximum impact with minimum risk.

"The first event in this year's Exams will be an ongoing test of your information-gathering skills. The number and nature of the events will not be announced in advance, nor will their location or start time. Your job is to figure out where to be and when. At the end of each event everyone except the first-place finishers will be informed of the minimum amount of time before the next event. If you are told that the minimum time is twenty-four hours then you can be confident that you have at least that much time to learn what you need to know. You might have more, but you will not have less. I will tell you now that you have at least an hour before the start of the second event." She paused, waiting while the disgruntled and alarmed murmurs went through the crowd.

"The final event, of course, is an exception to the rule. It will be the traditional single-elimination combat tournament, held in the arena on the east edge of the village. In order to give the audience time to arrive, the date and time of the tournament will be announced forty-eight hours in advance.

"There is a second part to this event: operational security. All of you have secret techniques, secret tactics, or military and state secrets of your village. Perhaps the most important ability for a ninja is the ability to not reveal that which must be kept hidden. In a moment, proctors will begin taking you aside in order to give you a secret word. No one aside from you will know that word. If any proctor learns the secret word of a contestant, that contestant immediately fails the first event. Proctors are Mist ANBU and will be wearing green armbands at all times so they can be identified.

She paused to survey them one more time, clearly enjoying the disheartened and frustrated expressions worn by most of the contestants. After a moment she clapped her hands decisively. "Thank you for your attention and now, without further ado, let us begin!" She vanished back into the Tower and ANBU with green armbands moved forward to chivvy the genin into a tight and easily-managed group.

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Note: Another chapter by the inimitable and sadly absent OliWhail. He still pops into QM chat occasionally, but we haven't seen him around the quest in ages.

Chapter 157.1: Sometimes Split the Party

Hazō frowned and looked over at Noburi and Keiko, who nodded. The three of them backed away from the crowd and threw down an Air Dome to stymie any unwanted eavesdroppers.

"This is itself probably an info gathering test, or at least an opportunity," Hazō said, one hand shielding his mouth. "I propose a temporary team split. I'll attempt to be chosen first, and report back if possible. Noburi makes info deals with other Leaf teams and anyone else he can get his tentacles on, Keiko works to process any info that becomes available and figure out the most likely scenarios, possibly collaborating with Shikamaru and sensors."

Keiko spoke up, mouth similarly hidden. "Hazō, be aware of the possibility that the exercise involves finding out your word from the proctor without them saying it, since depending on how liberal you wish to be with the interpretation of the parameters, that might count as a proctor knowing your word."

"Shit, that's a good point," groaned Noburi, looking slightly ridiculous with one hand guarding his mouth and the other massaging his forehead. "Once we finish this up I'll see if I can check whether Jiraiya knows anything."

"A fine idea," Keiko agreed. "Hazō, other specifics for plan consideration?"

"Three things. First, Keiko, one of your new summons is a stealth spec?"

"Correct. You would suggest having her tail a proctor? This seems sensible."

"Yeah. Specifically, tail whoever I go with in case I'm not allowed to come back. Second, what do you guys think of storage and explosive seal bribes if people need to be encouraged to cooperate with Noburi?"

"Fine by me," the other boy replied.

"Agreed," Keiko confirmed. "We should leverage that particular advantage whenever we can."

"Excellent. Last, after whatever proctor grabs me comes back, if you're still here start tapping out codes so I can find you and get in touch from underground. Check in with any new info, meeting point here, fallback at Amatetsu's, secondary fallback barracks?" Hazō asked.

"Check."/"Check!", they answered simultaneously.

Before he'd wormed his way to the front of the crowd, he heard Noburi calling his name and stopped to turn around.

"Jiraiya's pissed," Noburi mumbled once he was close enough. "They elected your aunt a while ago and have just been holding off on the announcement. He walked in expecting to be able to play a bunch of squabbling clans against each other and got hit with a united front behind a, quote, frigid body-puppetting diplo-bitch. Anyway, unfortunately he doesn't know the event schedule yet, but he doesn't think they'll fuck us for learning the word from the proctor - probably gonna draw it from a random assortment of envelopes or scraps of paper or something. He did ask me to remind you to avoid answering honestly if they casually ask you what your word was once you've learned it."

Hazō snorted. "Very funny. Thanks for the check-in." He turned and managed to step gracefully past slightly older and taller girl in a Hidden Rock headband to reach the front of the milling crowd of genin, and began trying to catch a proctor's eye.

It looked like there were a couple of other genin with a similar idea to his own. Some were standing conspicuously far out from the mob, others yawning and stretching with exaggerated motions or making themselves the center of boisterous conversations.

Hazō decided to sit back and see if he could pick out any hints on how to get picked. It soon became clear that proctors were avoiding ninja who were too blatant, but were definitely leaning toward people who were doing something besides standing around.

After a moment's contemplation, Hazō turned his back on the proctors and addressed the Rock girl he'd just passed. "Hi!" he said brightly, not permitting his smile to falter when she jumped in surprise. "I'm Gōketsu Hazō."

"And I'm… Suzuki Kimi," she answered hesitantly, her brows briefly knitting together.

"I'm sorry if I surprised you. I just sort of figured talking was better than waiting around to get picked, you know?"

"Mhm." 'Suzuki' had schooled her face into a calm mask.

Eyebrow Position 4 + Smirk 7: Amused Teasing "Why so tense?"

"Because I know what you're doing."

Eyebrow Position 3 + Laugh 11: Spontaneous Amusement "Yeah? That puts you one step ahead of me. Mind sharing?"

Her face flashed disgust. "You Leaf nin are ridiculous. You think I won't beat you into a pulp if you get all buddy-buddy with me? My village actually instills our ninja with discipline instead of letting them grow lazy on the fat of the land."

Hazō took a step back and raised his hands to a placating position. "Woah, okay, I apologize if I've offended you—"

"Yeah, go on, apologize!" She was shouting by now, and gesticulating wildly. A small bubble had opened up around them as people stepped back to watch. "Back down instead of standing up for yourself! Go back and whine to all the other softies about how I hurt your poor little feelings and—"

"Aaaand that's enough. You two, come with us," a woman on the sidelines said authoritatively. Hazō turned to look as a pair of Mist proctors walked into the burgeoning fight-ring.

Suzuki immediately went to attention, her expression calm once more. Hazō took slightly longer.

"You, follow Aoi here," the lead proctor said, gesturing from Suzuki to the other armband-wearing woman. "Boy, follow me."

Hazō nodded, doing his best to quiet his thumping heart. Getting into a fight before any of the real events started would not have boded well.

Just before she leapt up onto a nearby roof to follow her own proctor, Suzuki turned around and winked at him. "Good teamwork Gōketsu! No hard feelings?"

She didn't wait for a reply.

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Note: Another OliWhail chapter.

Chapter 157.2: Tear Apart, Bring Together

"Please demonstrate that you are not henged," the proctor who'd escorted Hazō out to the edge of the city and introduced herself as Izumi, ordered calmly.

Hazō pulled a kunai and pricked his finger, showing her the droplet of blood.

"Thank you."

She made a mark on a sheet of paper and offered it to him alongside a pen and small ink pad. "Please mark your right thumbprint here and sign your name."

Hazō did so, wordlessly, next to a slot marked 'Competitor 23'.

"Excellent. Now, to get you your secret word. Plea—"

"Wait!" Hazō shouted. "Have to make sure the area is secure!"

The proctor raised one eyebrow and nodded.

Hazō pulled up a bolus of chakra. "Living Roots Technique!" he called out, and began walking around the small plaza he'd been lead to. Along the way he dropped a pair of Air Dome seals, and activated them once he'd completed the circuit.

"What seals are those?" Izumi asked.

"They're to muffle the sound. Right, okay, what's my word?"

"You actually come up with your own." She pulled out a sheet of paper stamped with a complex pattern and a '23' in both upper corners. "Write out the kanji, then tear the paper in half so that it can't be read but will match when the halves are paired. You will be periodically asked to demonstrate that you still have access to your half by proctors, and if you fail to produce it, you will automatically be considered to have failed the first event.

"At any point, you can turn in a half-sheet to a proctor and be immediately escorted to the starting location for the next event — not your team, you personally. If you take advantage of this, you will not be allowed to leave the area until that event begins."

She proffered the paper, this time with a different inkwell and a clean brush. Hazō blinked a couple times and took them, then set them on the ground.

Once he'd scribed his preferred word ('Perfection') and folded the paper over in the dim red light of a Party Trick under an Earth Dome he entered via Hiding Like a Mole (to the apparent amusement of Izumi), Hazō tore the paper down the center and handed half over.

She took it, placed it into a cloth sack along with the remainder of his paperwork, and withdrew a seal from one of her jacket pockets. "This is a modified storage seal," she said, "made to only store and unstore once before ceasing its function. It will be unstored at the final verification of your success in the first task." A moment later, the bag was gone.

"Alright, now, for our records, what was your word?" she asked casually.

Hazō didn't respond, aside from snorting, as he deactivated and picked up the air dome tags.

"Heh, good job kid. I had one person fall for that earlier. Right, now follow me - there's a holding area for—"

"Wait," a voice from a nearby rooftop commanded. Hazō would have recognized it anywhere.

Kurosawa Hana leapt down to the ground with preternatural grace. "My son and I have a lot of catching up to do, Nakano. I'd appreciate some time alone with him," she stated simply.

"Kurosawa! This is highly irregular, I'm afraid I can't let you interfere with—"

"Get. Out. Of. My. Way." Both Hazō and Izumi flinched backward. Killing intent was suddenly rolling off of Hana in waves. "You will let me hold my son again, or you will learn how your own spine tastes."

"Nakano, stand down," a steely voice commanded from the shadows. Out stepped Kurosawa Ren in her full regalia. "My sister has no information that might interfere with young Hazō's participation. Go fetch another participant."

"MA'AM! YES MA'AM!" Izumi shouted, going to rigid attention and bowing before leaping off.

"You didn't need to follow me, Ren," Hana said coolly.

"Of course I did, you ran out of my office like a fire-cat out of the Yuki compound. Good thing I did too, burying the paperwork created by a mysteriously-dead chūnin at the start of the Exams would have been a pain," Ren responded calmly, raising a single perfectly-sculpted eyebrow.

"Fine, whatever. Now leave, or my answer becomes a giant middle finger," Hana said, turning away from her sister, who simply nodded and turned to go.

Hazō and his mother faced each other across the plaza. Hana looked like she'd aged far more than the year and a half they'd been separated - parts of her hair were gray or thinning, her face was lined and her eyes surrounded by dark circles.

But she was alive. Alive, and here.

"Momma!" he cried out, and started rushing toward her, before he'd really noticed what he was doing.

She blurred toward him so fast she must have been burning chakra, wrapping him up in her arms so tightly Hazō was sure she was intending never to let him go again. He was pretty sure he didn't want her to. "Hazō! My Hazō, oh my sweet little cricket, you're alive, you're okay, you're alive…"

She stopped speaking, her chest beginning to shake. Hazō realized she was starting to sob. He squeezed her tighter.

"I promised you I'd come back to you, didn't I Momma?" he asked. "The Chaos Monster has been defeated again."