Kozan's Chuunin Exam pt 1

Spoiler:

http://naruto-role-play-rpg.forumotion.com/t27871-chuunin-exam-pt-1

That morning, Kozan was tired. He had been going to that training center quite a bit lately, to do those missions that would get him to chunin. He felt that he wasn't just racing against time, but also against other ninja. Even though Ashur was his friend, he didn't like the idea of being beaten by him. That winged kid wasn't someone to be underestimated (as fluffy headed as he was). Kozan had witnessed his power in their trip to the mountains, and was not happy with how he managed to match up. That, of course, being not at all.
He didn't have the same proficiency with chakra that Ashur did. The boy could use his own feathers as piercing daggers or as media for explosions. What did Kozan have? Just Nightblood and a couple of other less adequate swords. He had to admit that Nightblood itself was a masterwork of a sword, but if he was to be better than Ashur, he would need a lot more than just the blade. He'd actually need to sweat and bleed in order to get good with chakra. He doubted that he'd ever be as good as his friend, but he could try.
At any rate, that was his goal in life at the moment. He had attained power through the use of his aunt's requip, and had also gained some mastery over the blade. While he certainly would not stop trying to get better at using such things, he knew that he'd need to focus on ninjutsu next. He had been told that he didn't have the capacity for it... that he wouldn't be up to the task... fucking bullshit. All those nay sayers could go run in the fires of hell. Who were they to impose fake limits on him? How annoying.
What he did know, though, was that his elemental affinity was lightning, just like Misaki's had been. This had formerly been a point of guilt for him, but no longer. He didn't need things like that holding him back from his true goal of power. Conscience... compassion... these sorts of things were for the weak and stupid of the world. He couldn't see how people with such feelings could get far in life, even though they did. He denied that, and thus, deemed such people to be weak even if they were not. Kozan's fault, such as it was.
At any rate, there he was, getting ready to go to the first part of the chunin exams. He had heard stories from other villages about their first little chunin exams portion, usually a paper test. However, he had heard nothing about such a thing here. Indeed, he had received no instructions on what to bring, of course. Things such as various pencils, documentation, or whatever. This led him to believe that this was NOT a paper test, and that something else was in store for him. Interestingly enough, it was being held in the same building that all of his pre-exam tasks had been held in. Perhaps there was more to the place than he had first imagined.
On his way there, he caught sight of a few others coming from the direction of said building. Some looked rather elated, while some looked confused. Still others looked haggard and depressed, while others merely had a rather blank expression. Huh... tests could have such an emotional effect on people? It seemed even more unlikely, as a result, that this was a paper test. Steeling his nerves, Kozan kept going, wondering what the testing administration could possibly have come up for him.
He reached the building, its magnitude deceptive of the compartmentalization and focus that lay within. Kozan didn't know much about architecture and civil engineering, but the building still made him feel a bit inadequate... not a good feeling. Best to get inside quickly and stop thinking about things like that. He was among the very best of Kumo's genin, and sought to further himself by whatever means necessary. Something was bugging him about that. How far, exactly, was he willing to go? ... Was he willing to sacrifice his own well-being? Certainly. He had already done some of that in giving of himself to the Raikage for his experimental treatment.
However, was he willing to sacrifice others? Well, yes, certainly. Using someone else to get what he needed was even easier than giving of himself to do the same thing. Better someone else's blood in the place of his own. Had the Jason Goka kid at the gates tried anything, he would not have hesitated to use the guards nearby as meatshields in case anything went wrong. Their lives meant nothing to him, and they were stepping-stones to his final goal of ultimate, unbeatable power. He was sure that the raikage had used people like that before, and was satisfied with that assumption.
He entered the building and had a seat, the well-crafted back of the chair seeming to ensure his comfort while the push seat slowly and inexorably squeezed the stress out of him. Ah... that was the ticket. After a few seconds, he didn't feel quite so stressed and drowsy anymore. Truly amazing, he thought. Was the word for that again... the term for comfort arts and study? Ergonomics, right. The chair was pretty damn ergonomic. He waited for a few more minutes, musing about this and that, until his named was called.
He walked up to the desk, ready for anything the lady there looked a little pale, but still somewhat staunch. How odd. He didn't know as much about skin pigmentation as some more specialized ninja did (hint, hint) but knew that it was just a little abnormal.
"Fill out this clipboard, please."
Oh, so there was the paperwork he had been expecting. Oh well, at least they had some kind of systemization in place. To not have any at all would be disturbing indeed. He sat down and began to fill out the various fields.
He was done in no time, having all the information he needed readily available in his mind.
It was in this case that he needed to wait only another thirty seconds before he was called forward.

"Alright, dear. Your personalized exam is ready. Go ahead; right through that door." Weird, hadn't that door been in a different place last time? Oh well, his memory wasn't perfect. For all he knew, it had been in the same spot the whole time. Rolling his eyes (while NOT facing that lady at the counter, as she was probably a ninja as well), he walked through the door, and into a dark room.
Yeah, it was REALLY dark. From what little he could see before the door shut behind him, the floor had these weird white tiles. Then, as the door closed with a hissing noise, he was bathed in darkness. How inconvenient. One second passed... then two, then three. In all, five seconds had passed before a group of the tiles in the center of the room began to glow slightly. A soft white pale glow, not harsh at all to the eyes. Inviting and warm... Kozan began to walk toward them.
- Have a seat.-
A voice spoke to him, in a similar way that Nightblood did. How... curious. Kozan sat down on the floor in a formal position, legs beneath him. Closing his eyes, he awaited what might happen next...
And that was when he felt the cold flesh around his neck. His eyes shot open, but the rest of his body wouldn't move. What... what was this test?
"My...... dear nephew..."
He opened his mouth, but the words (at first) couldn't quite come. The fear shooting through him was unrealistically high, like nothing he had ever felt before. This had to be...

"Aunt Misaki..."

What was she doing here? She was dead... right? But that would explain why her flesh felt so.... clammy... and DEAD. Was there such a thing as a zombie? But then again, zombies couldn't talk... at this point, Kozan's brain stopped trying to rationalize the being behind him. And the moment he did that... he was able to turn his head.

Behind him was Aunt Misaki herself, with that cruel smile that he unknowingly wore himself at times. The uniform and the hat... all there, just as he had remembered. There was that familiar air of frostly coldness too... but wasn't it a bit exaggerated? Whatever.

"You've been a bad boy... haven't you?"

With that, he felt a sharp pain in his left arm. Her fingernails? He had heard that she was a sadist, but this was really weird. Then against, wasn't this sensuality what sadism was all about? Gritting his teeth, he growled back.

"Shut up, bitch. I dunno what you're talking about, so fuck off."

The comment seemed to have made the apparition... happier? Who knew what went on in that woman's... no, that monster's sick, twisted mind. Well, Kozan hadn't yet realized that it was similar to his, but whatever.

"You've been.... a FILTHY TRAITOR."

Whaat...???

Kozan wasn't any traitor to Kumo. He'd been a faithful shinobi, performing the missions required of him and taking out whatever spies might happen to try and get within its walls. So why was she angry? The coldness of her corpse-like body was weighing down on him more and more now. It felt like a figurative hunk of meat was pressing down on his shoulders. A hunk of meat that had happened to be sitting in a refrigerator for days on end. Rotten and frigid, as it happened to be.

Then it came to him; that epiphany. She was referring to him as a traitor... to Kumo. But not his Kumo.... hers. The old Kumo. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to shut out the sight of her horrifying form. No... he wasn't that kind of person, was he? To turn his back on family-

Yes... yes he was. He slowly opened his eyes as the second realization of the test came to him. He'd already cast aside petty things like his family inheritance, all except for his abilities, which he considered to be taken for himself. Yes... those abilities couldn't belong to someone who was dead. Since as far as he knew, he was the most direct relative of Misaki, these abilities.... belonged to HIM. HE was the master of all he had, including his newly acquired doujutsu and symbiote. Then... why was she here? Interesting... especially considering how she was questioning his loyalty to something that he should not.

When he thought about that, he shrugged, and the corpse-like form of his aunt seemed to fall off of him, like some garment cast aside from his back. Good, it looked like she had faded away somehow. But ...what did this have to do with a test of his ability? As far as he could tell, nothing skill-wise had happened during that engagement at all. All it had taken was for him to accept, one final time, that he had rejected his family for the sake of higher things: his village, sure. But most of all, power. If he had remained under the heel of his mother and aunt, would he be as good as he was now? Most likely not. He'd made it here entirely on his own merit. Even Nightblood would be nothing if he had not drawn it from the different dimension.

Well then... he was certainly in a better frame of mind. As if to reflect this, the outer ring of lit tiles around him changed, slowly dimming until they went dark entirely. Now, there were only about two equivalent sections of tile left. Three... challenges? Then was that apparition of his aunt generated by the test, and meant to determine the color of his loyalty? Yes, that must be it. In that case, he'd have to focus more for the coming two challenges. If they got that personal, then he might be caught off guard.

Then again, the vision that was now forming before him... was more confusing than what he had expected. Was this..a vision of an armory? Not just any old armory but a seemingly infinite on, stretching on a single wall from left to right as far as he could see. Kozan stood, and began to walk along said wall, examining the various equipment that was now before him. Did his requip look like this, maybe? It would make sense. There was even a space missing where Nightblood might have once been. Indeed, this place looked... beautiful.

But was he willing to empty this place for power's sake? He looked at the armory... all these weapons here... no doubt whoever had originally forged them had meant for them to be works of art or something, right? Well... it didn't matter. Just like his doujutsu, he'd taken these weapons for himself. He'd use them as tools to kill, not as little pretty hunks of metal. Turning his back on it, he heard a great crashing sound as the armory emptied itself. Hah, how pathetic. This power was his to control, and it was impossible for anyone to take it from him.

Well, that was easy. But as it turned out, it was just a lull, the quiet before the storm, as it were. The last thing that appeared before him wasn't something that he expected the proctors to know about... Ashur.

Looking down, he saw a katana in his hand. What was he supposed to do with this? Looking at the figment of Ashur before him, he suddenly realized. He was supposed to choose... between power and a friend. His mouth twitched, then formed into a smile. What kind of sick joke was this? Was was this test?

He took a cautious step forward, then thought about it. What... what was he doing? Power had been the most important thing to him, even more than the people around him. But what about friends? As far as he'd known so far, he'd only made one friend, that being Ashur. Despite their differences, they'd got along surprisingly well. Then again, Ashur didn't know everything about him and his past, even though he had shown Ashur his abilities. Yes... that was right, he'd shown Ashur the power of Nightblood, his trump card that he'd used against those two spies from before.

Well, he hadn't exactly shown him his requip either, had he? Also, at that time, he hadn't yet acquired his doujutsu, so it wasn't like he could have shown him that. Friends should be open with each other, he had heard it said. But so, too, was it not true that friends should be allowed to keep certain things from each other? Things that might damage the other person? Or was that just another silly ethical thing that humans had created to cover their own weaknesses? Hell if he knew. But regardless of these , he still considered Ashur a friend.

Was that his error? Did he need to cast aside friendships for the sake of power? What exactly was this test asking of him? He thought back to what he had learned before. Ashur had shown him a book once, full of weird facts about famous ninja of history. Some had intentionally chosen the path of hate and loneliness in search of some higher abilities, something stronger with which to use on others and to ensure their own survival. But survival... was that all that mattered in life? He guessed that the only way out of this was to make a choice.

He took another step forward. What would Aunt Misaki have said? The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that that was the way. That is, once he thought about it, he'd do the complete opposite of what she'd do if she were in his place. After all, had she not once been in a similar situation, tested for her loyalties and abilities? Almost certainly, since she had become the Raikage. Every strong person had to start somewhere (that "somewhere" usually being the ninja academy). Then again, hadn't she been with Kurisu before she had become the leader? Whatever, it wasn't like he knew.

Now, she would most likely advise some kind of crazy painful thing. Yeah, she was a weird one, already. Many called her Kumogakure's greatest sado-masochist, which was certainly true. The world's greatest? Maybe, maybe not. He hadn't known her, really. All the information he had from her was from his own distant observations or from second hand sources; that is, nothing really direct. Only things he had gotten through the words of others, whether or not they corroborated the things he had assumed from his aforementioned distant observations. As such, he could really call her a stranger after all.

Yes, she'd definitely want to kill him, and perhaps even use Ashur's corpse for... kinky things. She'd most likely approve of what he had done to Sync, and of his "leg collecting" habit that he had gotten into. Even that one guy he had killed... these were all anti-social things that she would have probably smiled at him for. But... he wasn't seeking approval from his elders, and definitely not from Aunt Misaki. No, here the "rebellious Kozan" came in. He didn't need the expectations of the dead and gone. He was his own person... and he chose friendship.

He dropped the figment katana, and returned to his seated position on the ground. Just like that, the genjutsu that he had apparently been in evaporated, leaving Kozan with a shocked feeling, like he had just fallen a great distance without suffering harm. It was... unusual, to say the least. Taking a sharp breath in, his eyes shot open. Well then.... that had been the test. The room around him was now dimly lit, and he could see that it was a nondescript chamber. Standing up shakily, he smiled slightly: it was over.

[3000/3000 WC, mission complete, requesting appropriate rewards and:
7 stats
3000/3000 to Kenseigan lvl 2]

Finally finished. bump