Naruto Alternate: Kirigakure

Vol 1 Chapter 1 From a Single Spark, A Great Fire

     Mei Terumi was nine years old again, the first day she could enter the Kirigakure Academy. Her parents were so proud of her that day, if only they had known what would happen. They came so close to waving goodbye to her for the last time. They had known many things had changed after the Fourth Mizukage, but she didn't think even they had appreciated just how much they had changed. Their village became known as the Village of the Bloody Mist for the very thing she faced getting into the academy. The tests before that were nothing compared to what she faced then. She stood across from another hopeful at the opening ceremony. She wasn't sure then why they were facing each other rather than the head teacher, each of the other hopefuls were all doing the same.

     Misa Shoda, the name was burned into her mind since that day. Academy students studied in pairs even from the start. Each pair was expected to do everything together, study, train and even eat together. This formed a bond between them as passing or failing depended on working together. That is until the Genin exam. It would be the last time she faced Misa again, they had been told only half passed the Genin exam, and the students had wondered what that meant. Was the test so difficult? they dared to dream how the questions would be, what feat they would be required to perform. They had heard that passing the Konohagakure exam was simple enough, just create a substantial clone. How much harder could it be? They couldn't really prepare for it, it was forbidden to reveal the test.

     So on that day, Mei stood across from Misa, waiting for the instructions. "Kill the student in front of you."

     They had all paused at the instruction. Nobody moved for a full minute, only later did she find out, that was not uncommon. One team dropped their weapons and refused to do so. The instructors asked if they wanted to fail the exam and thus be expelled from the Academy. They both nodded unable to bring arms against one another. What happened next was so fast nobody saw it coming. One moment the two were looking at each other with tears in their eyes, having failed to get through the exam they had studied so hard to make it to. The next, they were gone, a short sword impaled from their backs, their last sight still of each other.

     "Kill the student in front of you, or fail and die."

     Then the bloodshed began, friend fighting friend. Students who had become almost like a brother or a sister died at each other's kunai, or sword. With tears in her eyes, she removed her Kunai from the chest of her best friend, and sister in studies. Mei was certain before her strike she saw her life flash before her eyes, she could almost feel Misa's blade enter her ending her short life, but it missed. At that moment Misa closed her eyes turning her blade in the last moment. Mei held onto her friend, her only words "Why... Why." crying out to the universe at the cruelty of the situation.

     Her words echoed by the other students and in that echo a voice spoke, "To harden you, to make you strong enough to give everything you have to protect our village. To die for our village, to kill the closest person to you to complete your mission if need be."

     For the next fifteen years, she saw this replay over and over again as her mind sought rest, the night before had been the last peaceful night she had ever known. She had wanted to scream aloud they were destroying themselves not making themselves harder, but her friend Suiren Itami always brought her back from the brink, arguably saving her life. For fifteen long years, she bore the weight, death after death watching as students filed into the Academy, not knowing what they would face at the end. The Chunin exams were just as bad, Genin who had been broken by bloodthirsty missions broke in an arena where nothing was held back. They would finally disband exams the year that one Genin killed one hundred students. That was only one year after she had become a Genin, still, the Chunin exams for the village were held, separate from the other great Villages.