I want to go home.
The wind roars around me, tearing through my flimsy orange jacket like it's nothing and burrowing into my bones. Flakes of snow whirl in the air, stinging my face and obscuring my vision. My ears went numb hours ago.
I want to go home I want to go home I want to go home.
It's so cold. Colder than any winter Konoha has ever gone through. And it's supposed to be summer!
If I'd known it was going to be this cold I wouldn't have brushed off Hatake's suggestion to buy a cloak. I'd have bought two. Why did I think this stupid jacket would ever be enough?
"Kakashi-sensei! I see it!" Sakura calls, and I'd smile if I could feel my face. I look up, squinting through the snow, and I see it too.
The Three Wolves. A trio of enormous mountains jutting outward in the shape of three wolves' mouths. And in the middle of them, the heart of the Land of Iron.
"Yosh! I will race you there, Kakashi! Last one to arrive must spend the entirety of the Chunin Exams walking on their elbows!" Gai bellows, disappearing in a blur of speed and leaving a cloud of snow in his wake. I watch, bewildered, as he tears off down the mountain we're currently traversing and towards the Three Wolves.
Hatake lowers his book, glancing at me in confusion. "Did he say something?"
Lee takes up the call of youthful duty in the next instant, challenging Neji to a similar duel with similar results, as he speeds off and Neji continues to glare at the surrounding elements as if they've personally offended him. In that regard, at least, we're of the same mind.
When we finally, finally make it to the Three Wolves, we find Gai and Lee panting in front of a closed gate with twin grins on their faces. The gate, built between two of the three mountains surrounding the village, is a good thirty feet high and ten feet wide. It looks to be made of stone, with all sorts of illustrations of samurai and swords and that sort of thing carved into it.
Atop it stand three samurai in heavy armor, staring down at us with wary looks.
"State your purpose here, shinobi!" The one in the middle shouts down. Gai straightens up, pointing at the foreign warriors.
"I have already told you, Samurai-san-"
"Not you!" The samurai booms. "I've heard quite enough of your nonsense!"
"Oh, Gai," Hatake sighs. He steps forward, raising a hand in greeting. "Genin Teams 7 and 9 of Konohagakure reporting for this year's Chunin Exams, Samurai-san."
The head samurai turns his head, saying something to the samurai on his right, who promptly moves back out of our sight. Minutes pass, Hatake waiting with a patient look in his eye, and the samurai reappears. A few more words are exchanged, and the head samurai nods. An echoing groan fills the air as the gates are heaved open.
"Proceed!" His voice drifts down, and we walk forward into another world.
My hands, which had been furiously rubbing at my frozen body in an attempt to produce friction, drop to my sides. I boggle as the temperature shifts, rising from spine-chilling to something my jacket can actually handle. The wind is gone, barely even audible as the gate closes behind us, and only a few errant flakes of snow from the blizzard outside drift down from the gap between the Three Wolves.
Then there's the village itself, sprawled out before us. It's more than I could have ever imagined.
It's bigger than Konoha. There are twice as many buildings, twice as many landmarks, and I'd be willing to bet twice as many people. As I look upon the massive stone constructs scattered throughout the village, rising high above the line of buildings, I realize a hidden village isn't even in the same league as it. It looks like a capital.
"This place is huge," Sakura breathes.
Hatake nods. "It's the largest militaristic civilization in all the Elemental Nations."
I whistle. "I guess that explains why no one has ever picked a fight with them."
Hatake chuckles, pocketing his book. "The samurai here are a force to be reckoned with, to be sure."
He turns back to the gates, and a moment later the samurai that waved us through lands in a heavy crouch in front of us. He stands up, dusting off his plate-armored legs, and bows. He doesn't get far because he's armored up like a brick house, but I guess it's the thought that counts.
"Thank you for your patience," he says formally. "I will escort you to where you'll be lodging for the duration of the exams." With that said he strides past us, armor clanging rhythmically with each step, and- Wait. Wait just a damn second.
Does he have four swords?
I reach up and clasp the hilt of my tanto, feeling thoroughly insecure all of a sudden.
He leads us to our hotel, in the process passing through what looks to be this place's market district, and man was I right about the population here. There have to be over a thousand people packed into that area alone, which is fine because the market itself is almost three times as big as the one in Konoha, but I'm still baffled by the time we arrive at the entrance to the place.
The building itself is as gray and practical and boring as most of the other architecture I've seen so far, but at least on the inside it's warm. Not just in atmosphere, either. As soon as I step through the door a wall of blissful heat wraps me up in a soothing hug, and I sigh in relief.
Our samurai companion walks up to the front desk, grabbing the receptionist's attention and gesturing at us. "Two rooms for the teams from Konoha."
The receptionist's face lights up. "Perfect! I was wondering when they'd get here."
The samurai nods and after wishing us good luck, walks out the door, back to his post. The receptionist, a tall, thin man who looks to be around Iruka-sensei's age hurries out from behind his desk and waves for us to follow him down the hall to the right of his desk.
"I've been waiting for the Konoha teams to get here for days," he babbles excitedly as he leads us up a flight of steps. "All the other teams we're accommodating here arrived about a week ago, you know, and I couldn't wait to see what Konoha was bringing to the table this year."
We go up two more flights of steps before he takes us down another hallway, this one with far fewer rooms than the floors below it. "I'm so excited for the Chunin Exams this year. I've gone to every single one except for the last one because of the terrible hours I had to work for my last job, so I've been all wound up about it since the first teams arrived."
I watch in bemusement as the man prattles on and on about the exams and his love for them. My teammates and Team 9 look to be equally as thrown, while Gai and Hatake just seem amused. He's beginning to regale us with tales of the first exam that he ever went to when a door opens up at the end of the hall, and a team of shinobi step out.
Everything seems to freeze for a moment as our respective groups catch sight of each other. Even the receptionist falls silent, glancing back at us uncertainly. Then the team continues forward, until we're face to face, and I can make out the hourglass symbols on the headbands they're wearing. A Suna team.
They look pretty weird, now that I get a good look at them. Their sensei stands just a bit taller than Hatake, wearing the standard jonin flak jacket and a black shirt and pants, and his head and half his face are covered by a bizarre cross between a turban and a veil.
The one girl of the team is about a head taller than me, and is rocking a quadruple ponytail. Yes, a quadruple ponytail. She's wearing a fishnet undershirt with a gray battle dress overtop it and a red sash tied around her waist. She has a massive slab of what looks like metal slung across her back, which I can't even think of a purpose for, and for some reason she has fishnet covering the bottom half of one of her legs and the top half of the other.
The boy in the middle is my height, with spiky red hair and bright green eyes. He's wearing a black shirt and pants, a fishnet shirt underneath, and a white sash slung diagonally across his chest. And on his back, secured to his body with a leather harness, is a gourd that's almost as big as he is.
Finally, there's the last boy, who looks to be a little taller than Sasuke, and is wearing… A cat suit and purple makeup?
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