Desert Flower

First Exam

  Now a Genin, I tied my Konoha headband around my upper arm so that I wouldn't lose it and had it on display at the same time. The weight of it was like a constant reminder that I made it this far, and I was determined to go farther. Being grouped with two other Genin named Torino and Hiroki, I simply glanced at them as we waited for our Jonin instructor.

  Torino had bright eyes that were gleefully watching the door as he excitedly talked with Hiroki. The two of them had dark brown hair, but Hiroki had nearly black eyes in contrast to the other boy. I was shorter than them both, but I could at least keep up. I remembered their abilities with their Jutsus from classroom demonstrations, and I knew I had to be at least between or ahead of them both in power.

  When our Jonin finally arrived, she looked us over closely before brightly smiling and telling us to follow her. She introduced herself as Megumi before asking for each of us to introduce ourselves to her in turn. From there, we spent the following months training and doing D and a few C-ranked missions for practice.

  During one mission in particular, though, I seemed to finally draw the attention of our new sensei to myself and away from the two young and promising boys. I wasn't sure what exactly it was that made her really take a look at me, but it had to be during or around the time when we had to face another ninja on a C-ranked mission.

  Torino and Hiroki had fared rather well for being Genin themselves but were eventually knocked to the side. Megumi-sensei stood back, letting us fight as a form of development through experience. It was a way she rather enjoyed teaching. She'd beat us down to teach us how to stand and build us up to teach us how to fall. Being all that was left of us Genin, Megumi was waiting for me to fall as well before she stepped in, but she never had to.

  The second my eyes locked on the enemy and my hand wrapped around a kunai, it seemed the battle was set in my mind. Hands that felt as if they had long nails or even possibly claws, ran through my hair from the back of my neck and held the sides of my skull as whispers came from just above my face.

  'Achilles or calves, then a blow to the base of the skull.' And I obeyed, going with slicing the calves rather than the Achilles tendon. When the enemy ninja fell to their knees, eyes wide in fear and shock, I rammed the ring on my kunai into the back of his head, hitting at the base where it dipped. The shinobi went down, out cold as more whispers filled my ears. 'Dodge right.'

  Jumping, a shuriken landed in the dirt where I had been standing, and my eyes snapped up to see another ninja running at me. They had three more shurikens at the ready between their fingers, but the hands on the sides of my head didn't go away, and neither did the whispers.

  'Go in when he swings, then slice deep into his thigh and bury the kunai between his ribs.' Without even second-guessing it, I did as I was told. Dropping near the ground when the Shinobi threw the shurikens, I leapt to his opening and cut through the muscles across his thigh as I swung up. Immediately after, I planted my other palm firmly on the base of the kunai knife and jabbed it between his ribs as he registered the pain in his thigh.

  The blade went deep enough to impale his lung, and he went down while having trouble breathing and squirming on the ground to back away from me.

  'Cut the jugular.' The voice whispered as the grip on my skull grew slightly tighter. Pulling another kunai from the pouch on my right thigh, I stepped toward the fallen ninja. 'Cut the jugular.' The whispers repeated as I hesitated. Wouldn't that kill the shinobi? 'Cut the jugular.' And the hands tightened as I saw the blood coming from their wounds. 'Cut the jugular!' The whispers hissed as it felt as if the hands were pushing me toward the shinobi.