Taizen stood as the medic-nin carried Naga through a door in the arena wall. "I wish good luck to both of you, Iruka-kun and Yukiko-san," she said quickly, "but I can't stay to watch your fight. I must be with my daughter." She tucked her hands into the wide sleeves of her lavender kimono, bowed, and swept out of the reserved section of the balcony. Her light steps were graceful but hurried.

Yukiko turned and looked speculatively at Iruka. She wasn't looking forward to fighting him, and he didn't seem enthusiastic about the match either. "I guess we should get down there," she said.

"Um. Yes."

Yukiko stood, winced slightly as her wounded thigh protested the movement, and started walking toward the stairs. Iruka fell in beside her.

"Hey, hey, Yukiko-neechan?" Naruto scrambled after her and tugged on her jacket; Yukiko stopped instantly and looked down at him. His round face was screwed up in a frown of deep concern, and his blue eyes were wide and worried. "If you're fighting Iruka-san, does that mean only one of you gets to be a chuunin?"

Yukiko knelt and laid her hand on his shoulder. "No, kid -- we can both pass the test and become chuunin. It doesn't matter which one of us wins, so long as we both show that we're smart and can fight well."

"Oh." Naruto relaxed, and grinned. "That's good. 'Cause I'm gonna cheer for you, but Iruka-san's my friend and it wouldn't be fair if you get to be a chuunin and he doesn't."

Yukiko ruffled his hair; he ducked out from under her hand with an air of wounded pride. "Kid, you're great, you know that? Don't ever change." It was amazing that Naruto cared about being fair after the way people like Tani Midori, his old guardian, had treated him. Yukiko didn't think she'd have half his faith in humanity, or his courage and resilience, if she were in his situation.

She couldn't do anything drastic to Iruka while Naruto was watching. She really hoped Iruka shared that feeling in reverse.

"Do you have any final advice, Kakashi-sensei?" Iruka asked as Yukiko stood again.

Kakashi shrugged and closed his eye. "Look underneath the underneath. Remember that you're teammates. And don't be idiots -- that's what most advice boils down to anyway."

Yukiko and Iruka sighed in unison. "Right," Yukiko said. "Bye, kid. Don't do anything too drastic to Kakashi-san while I'm gone." Naruto's slow grin and Kakashi's sudden alarm warmed her as she started down the stairs.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Yukiko hesitated at the doorway to the arena floor, trying to think of a strategy for fighting Iruka. She'd made tentative plans for facing the Mist-nin, the Grass-nin, and Naga's classmates, but she hadn't really considered what to do if she ended up facing Iruka or Naga. She hadn't wanted to consider that.

Naga would have been easy; she still had trouble breaking full genjutsu traps, and something simple would probably hold her long enough for Yukiko to knock her out. Iruka, though... She knew so many more of his old wounds to play on now, so many more of his insecurities. She could freeze him with guilt, torture him with self-doubt, wrack him with psychosomatic pain -- all the horrors she'd refrained from unleashing in her demonstration of skills, nearly two months ago. Genjutsu that deep and strong would drink her chakra like a desert drank water, but it would probably work. She could win.

But Iruka was her teammate. A ninja who turned on her teammate was lower than scum. And Naruto was watching.

Yukiko walked slowly to the center of the arena, trying to think of a way out. She really had no defense other than genjutsu. Her usable offense consisted of smoke bombs, flash bombs, explosive notes, kunai, and her uncertain aim. She couldn't drag Iruka's dead parents up in his mind -- bloody, broken, and putrefying -- to accuse and torment him. She couldn't parade illusions of Naruto, Naga, and herself before his eyes -- illusions tortured and murdered because of Iruka's imaginary failures. She couldn't make herself do that.

Even if she could, Iruka deserved to win more than she did. He would be a good teacher, the kind of teacher who cared about his students and taught them more than just rote lessons. He could teach kids compassion and understanding. He could teach them to be good people as well as good shinobi. He'd do a lot of good as a chuunin.

What good would she do? She'd be stuck leading missions, always out of town and snatching a day here or a week there to stay home and relax. She'd have to turn her building over to Yusuke.

She'd have to leave Naruto alone.

Yukiko closed her eyes and saw the kid curled up on her bed in her darkened room, moonlight splashing over his pale face, and hands clutching her jacket for comfort. She heard his voice, saying with complete disbelief, "There are people who'd want to help me?" She felt his arms hugging her like he was afraid she might turn to smoke and vanish if he didn't hold on as tightly as he could.

If being a chuunin meant losing her new family, then screw the exam.

Yes, she liked being a ninja, and she was proud of her skills -- she could admit that now -- but that didn't define her life. Naruto's voice echoed in her mind, high and determined, saying, "Wasn't being a ninja your dream?" and then, "I'm never gonna give up, not like you!"

"Dreams change, kid," Yukiko murmured as she opened her eyes and stepped away from Iruka, letting Hisen's voice wash over her ears like the meaningless babble of a stream. "Sometimes you don't give up -- you just find something more important."

"Begin!" Hisen dropped his hand and leaped for the walls. Iruka drew his kodachi and circled warily; Yukiko could feel him straining his senses, wondering if she'd already caught him in an illusion.

One last test, Yukiko thought, just to make sure this was what they both wanted. She drew a handful of flash bombs from the left pocket of her jacket and tossed them in a wide arc between herself and Iruka. Then she closed her eyes and wove her fingers through four seals. "Heart's Desire no Jutsu," she whispered, and opened her eyes.

Iruka blinked, and stood frozen as he stared at his parents and Sadako. They smiled and ducked out of sight again, as he turned back to his eager, fidgeting class. In the back of the room, Naruto grinned.

Yukiko drew a kunai and walked forward, concentrating as she whispered comfort and calm into Iruka's mind. In one part of her awareness, she watched his illusory world. In another, she saw a ghostly image of her own parents waiting at the door of her building. Her mother's sky blue hair was pulled into a high cascade, and a brilliant smile lit her father's broad face. Ame and Kasumi stood off to the side; Ame idly flipped her giant shuriken open and closed, while Kasumi leaned on her spear with half-closed eyes. Yukiko's cousins walked past on the left, and Uncle Yutaro nodded to her, his face for once empty of disapproval.

Naruto stood between her parents, clutching her mother's hand, bouncing on his toes, and beaming like a tiny piece of the sun come down to earth.

"It's a beautiful dream, Yukiko. Thank you," Iruka said. In the genjutsu classroom, he brought his hands together in the dispelling seal, and stilled the chakra flows she was manipulating. "Kai."

She threw her kunai. One kodachi flashed out and deflected the knife; it spun harmlessly to the side. Iruka raised his other sword and set his feet for an attack.

Yukiko lifted her empty hands. "I forfeit."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

There was a moment of confused silence in the arena, and then murmurs swept through the audience. Hisen appeared at Yukiko's side with raised eyebrows. "Forfeit?" he asked.

"Yes," Yukiko said clearly. "Iruka is my teammate, and his reasons for wanting to be a chuunin are more important than mine. I could fight him, but I won't use dark genjutsu on my friend, not when he isn't a danger to Konoha."

Iruka lowered his kodachi. "Yukiko, you don't have to do this. You've waited a lot longer for this than I have. I can try again next year."

Yukiko shook her head. "Don't bother, Iruka. You want to be a teacher a lot more than I want to be a run of the mill chuunin, and Konoha needs good teachers a lot more than it needs another illusionist." She turned to Hisen and said, "I forfeit. Iruka wins." Then she started back toward the stairs.

Hisen laid a hand on Iruka's shoulder when he tried to follow her. "Since you're not injured, you'll be in the next match. You might as well wait here while I decide who you'll face." Then he teleported out of the arena, presumably heading for the room where medic-nin were treating Shinkan and Kafunnokaze.

Iruka hesitated, and then hurried after Yukiko. He caught up to her as she opened the doorway to the staircase -- her thigh still ached, so she hadn't walked particularly fast. "Why?" he asked, speaking quietly and facing into the stairwell. That kept his voice from activating the arena's acoustic seals, carefully designed to carry voices anywhere from the center to the farthest seats, so that everyone could hear taunts exchanged during fights, and match jutsu names to their results.

Yukiko shrugged. "Before the first test, I told my Uncle Yutaro that I wasn't sure I wanted to be an active ninja, but I did want to prove that if I quit, I quit because I chose to, not because I wasn't good enough. I think I proved that."

She stopped fighting the smile that wanted to stretch out across her face. She'd helped her team through the first test. She'd stopped the 'assassin' in the gorge, all by herself. She'd used genjutsu against an Uchiha and she'd won. Yes, she'd made her point -- Uncle Yutaro probably wouldn't recognize that she'd won their argument, but Yukiko knew, and that was what really mattered.

"Well, yes, but why choose to quit?" Iruka asked, looking puzzled. "You like being a shinobi -- I know you do -- and Naruto looks up to you."

"Because Naruto looks up to me," Yukiko said. "Think about it. I'm his big sister now. How would he feel if I passed the exam, and had to spend weeks away on missions? What if I left and never came home? What if I died?" She reached over and tapped Iruka's chest. "You need to be a ninja to reach your dream. I don't. Besides," she added, "I like running an apartment building. It's not what I planned to do with my life, but I'd miss it if I had to stop."

That was actually true; she'd never expected to like taking over her parents' job, but somewhere along the line she'd realized that she was good at it. She could make a large building run smoothly, keep her tenants happy, develop good relations with other business people in Konoha -- and she'd miss doing that at least as much as she'd missed being an active ninja.

She was lucky. She had two ways to make a living, and she could afford to pick the one that let her have a family.

Iruka flushed and rubbed his scar. "I think you're underestimating yourself, but it's your choice. Good luck explaining all that to Naruto."

Yukiko groaned and slapped her forehead. Then she shook out her fingers and blew on the tingling spots where her knuckles had cracked against the metal plate of her forehead protector. "Right, thanks; I'll need some luck. Speaking of which, good luck to you in your next fight. Shinkan and Kafunnokaze are both strong, and they're smart."

"I know," Iruka said. He paused, scratched the base of his ponytail, and shifted his feet awkwardly. "Um. Will you give me your explosive notes, since you aren't fighting again?"

"Sure. Strings or adhesive?"

"Strings."

Yukiko fished a bundle of explosive notes from the front pocket of her pants. They were the kind that looked like cheap and flimsy luggage tags, with a scribbled seal on the back and a bit of string tied through a small hole at one end. Then she looked at Iruka's outfit, noted his lack of pockets, and paused. "Where will you put them?"

Iruka flushed a brilliant tomato red, snatched the tags from her hand, and tucked them into the waistband of his trousers. His eyes dared her to comment.

"You're lucky I'm not Naga or Kakashi," Yukiko said with a mischievous grin. "Break their legs and kick their butts, Iruka. Naruto and I will be cheering for you."

"Thanks, Yukiko. Um. And I think you'd be a great chuunin, even if you'd rather stay with Naruto and your building." Iruka smiled, and Yukiko wished for half a second that he were her age instead of a teenager. Then she smiled back, wryly, and slipped through the door.

Naruto was waiting at the top of the stairs, utter confusion on his face. "Hey, hey, are you okay, Yukiko-neechan?" he asked. "Why'd you give up? Iruka-san's cool, but you could've won! And you said you weren't gonna give up anymore!"

This was her little brother, and he believed in her. Yukiko let that thought warm her, and then she bent down and swept him into a hug; after a second of token struggle, he relaxed and let her carry him. "I didn't give up, kid. I just realized that I had more than one dream, and I picked the one I cared about more."

"You have another dream? What's that?" Naruto asked.

Yukiko dropped into a seat beside Kakashi and set Naruto down beside her. "...Family, kid. That's my other dream. I didn't want to hurt Iruka, and I don't want to leave you alone. So I forfeited. Besides," she added, "I didn't really give up. I've already proved that I could be a ninja if I wanted to. Right, Kakashi-san?"

Kakashi glanced up from his little orange book and shrugged. "You could be a decent shinobi. You three might even have passed my old sensei's evaluation after you graduated from the academy, and that's not something just anyone can do."

"See, kid?"

Naruto squirmed on his seat, face set in an expression of deep concentration. "So, so, you think I'm more important than being a ninja?" he asked after a minute.

"Yeah," Yukiko said softly. "Yeah, I do."

Silently, Naruto reached out and clutched her hand. Yukiko lifted him onto her lap and held him like he was the most precious thing in the world.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

After another two minutes, during which Iruka paced the arena floor, waves of noise rose and fell as the audience shifted and murmured, and Kakashi, Yukiko, and Naruto sat in companionable silence, Hisen appeared on the balcony and tapped a few buttons on the control panel.

"It's my decision, backed by the medic-nin, that Nagoyaka Kafunnokaze is more injured than Shinkan. Therefore, Shinkan will now face Umino Iruka in the semifinal match," he said in a loud voice as the two names in question flashed up on the announcement boards.

"Shinkan had burns and open blisters all over her hands," Yukiko said to Kakashi. "How is that less serious than a concussion?"

"We have salves and chakra techniques for fixing burns, and at the least they can be wrapped for protection. We still can't do much for concussions besides hand out painkillers and wait," Kakashi said. He snapped his book shut, tucked it into a pocket of his vest, and peered down into the arena.

Shinkan strode out from a ground-level door and headed for Iruka and Hisen's waiting figures. Her face was still red, but the color seemed more like a faint and fading sunburn than the vivid, parboiled look Aishou had left her with. Her hands were sheathed in soft white gloves, which were further secured with surgical tape; the bandages ran up her arms and under the loose sleeves of her muddy shirt. The hilts of her katana and kodachi gleamed oddly, as if she'd rubbed them with something to counter the slipperiness of her new gloves.

"Iruka-san's gonna win, right?" Naruto asked, tipping his head backwards to see Yukiko's face.

She shrugged. "I don't know, kid. He's good, and his kunai and shuriken give him an advantage at middle distance, but she's awfully fast. If Iruka can get off any fire jutsu, that might help, but Shinkan might have some ninjutsu up her sleeve as well."

"Oh. Well, I bet he wins," Naruto said firmly. "And then I'm gonna steal Kakashi-baka's stupid books and paint all over them, even if they are orange."

"It's good to set your goals high, brat," Kakashi said as he shifted a few inches away from Naruto's hands. "You won't ever reach them, but they make you try harder."

Naruto stuck his tongue out at Kakashi, and Yukiko -- after checking to make sure the kid was looking straight ahead and couldn't see her face -- copied him. Kakashi sighed, and she grinned at him.

Iruka and Shinkan bowed to each other, hands hovering near the hilts of their weapons; they each recognized a dangerous and intelligent opponent. Hisen dropped his hand. "Begin!"

A thick shroud of mist billowed out over the arena floor, filling nearly half the space between the high concrete walls.

Yukiko blinked. "I guess Shinkan does know some ninjutsu." Then a nasty thought struck her. "Mouten Junichi is her teammate, and he fights with his eyes closed. That would give him an advantage in the dark. She and Aishou must have a lot of practice at blind fighting."

"Mmm," agreed Kakashi, as he pushed his forehead-protector up to reveal his left eye and the old scar that bisected it. Three black commas whirled around his pupil, like specks of night in the blood-red iris of the Sharingan.

A muffled clash of metal rose from the concealing mist.

"Can you see what's going on?" Yukiko asked.

Kakashi walked to the railing, closed his right eye, and squinted down into the shifting grey cloud. "A bit. Samurai girl is keeping her mist jutsu active, and she's prowling around Iruka. She's more than fast enough to slip past his defenses when he can't see to block her. I think she's going for his arms -- disabling strikes."

"So, so, what's Iruka-san doing?" Naruto asked, wriggling impatiently on Yukiko's lap. "Mist stinks -- I want to see!"

"Running," Kakashi said blandly. "See?" He pointed at the edge of the mist, just as Iruka burst into the open with a diving roll. He bounced to his feet and took three steps backward, toward the wall.

"A classic standoff," Kakashi said. "She can't leave the mist, he can't enter, and neither can reach the other right now. I wonder what other tricks samurai girl has up her sleeve?"

Iruka sheathed his kodachi and fished several explosive notes out from his waistband. Then he tied them to the hilts of his kunai. Yukiko grinned. "I guess he listened to that advice you gave me a few weeks ago," she said to Kakashi.

"Very possibly," he said, not paying particular attention to her. He propped his chin on his hand and stared into the mist. "Oh, now this is interesting. She's... hmm... I think samurai girl is trying a genjutsu, but I can't tell what it's meant to do." His forehead drew downward in a frown of concentration, and the Sharingan spun faster. "I think it interacts with the mist... yes. It shapes images out of the mist, and probably also lets her throw her voice to any of the illusions."

Yukiko frowned. Huh. Once genjutsu started interacting with ninjutsu, it could be very hard to dispel through normal means, since it wasn't all in your head anymore. She couldn't pull off jutsu like that -- she couldn't create mist or smoke to manipulate -- but she knew the theory behind that type of illusion. "That's not good," she said. "Even if Iruka can throw his explosive tags, he'll probably end up aiming at bunshin instead of Shinkan."

Sure enough, when an image of Shinkan cautiously peered out of the fog, several yards away from Iruka, he hurled a tagged kunai toward her. The illusion tucked and rolled back into its cover, and the explosion spattered dirt in a harmless circle. Its heat drove the mist back for a second, but then the cloud swept back and consumed the dry smoke.

The mist surged a few feet toward Iruka, and another image stuck its head out. "You missed," it said with Shinkan's clear voice.

This time Iruka threw two kunai, one to either side of the illusion, but again he hit nothing but dirt and fog. After several seconds, the mist swept over the ragged gaps near its edge and reformed into the same impenetrable grey wall.

"What does he think he's doing?" Yukiko wondered. "Shinkan can't hold the mist forever, but he'll run out of explosive notes and kunai a long time before she'll run out of chakra."

"He's a strategist," Kakashi said, still peering into the mist. "He's testing a plan."

Yukiko waited for several seconds, and then said, "Well? What plan?"

Kakashi turned his head and favored her with a lazy wink. "Patience is a virtue for shinobi and civilians alike, Yukiko. If you practice it well enough, you might even be able to knock that into Naruto's skull."

Yukiko slapped her hand over Naruto's mouth, counted -- very fast -- to ten, and whispered into the kid's ear, "If you want to spill something on Kakashi-san's book during dinner tonight, I promise not to yell at you for disturbing Taizen-san's teahouse. Actually, I'll help you. I bet if we all work together, the way we did to dye his hair, we can pull that off. Nod if you agree."

Naruto bobbed his head furiously, and Yukiko pulled her hand away from his mouth. "You're cool, Yukiko-neechan," he said. "This is gonna be so funny! Hehehehe."

Kakashi stared suspiciously at them, but before he could make a comment, Iruka drew a handful of kunai and sprinted into the fog. Yukiko held her breath, hoping he wasn't crazy or trying a kamikaze move, and then flung her hand up to shade her eyes as fire blazed in the arena. Explosions scattered through Shinkan's mist, and a gout of fire billowed outward in a ring from where Iruka stood.

This time the mist didn't heal. Severed into ragged patches, cut off from its source in Shinkan's chakra, it began to dissipate into the hot afternoon air.

Iruka stood in a bare patch several yards in diameter; his hands were already snapping down from guiding the flames, snatching his last four kunai from his holster. At the far edge of his circle, Shinkan lowered her arms from their instinctive -- and useless -- guard in front of her face, and cursed.

She dove for the safety of her remaining mist, fingers already shaping seals, but in the second she took to react, Iruka threw his kunai. Two sank into her side and one sliced a glancing wound across her leg. Now the tattered mists began to gather, trying to smother Iruka and protect their mistress. Iruka took a deep breath, stepped into the thickening grey cloud, and set off the fire jutsu again.

Shinkan dove out from the fog, rolled under Iruka's flames and slashed at his legs with her katana. Yukiko winced, but Iruka leapt over the sword, tucked into an aerial roll, and landed with his kodachi drawn. He was bleeding from slices on his arms and shoulders, courtesy of Shinkan before he'd escaped her mist, but the cuts were shallow. Shinkan had a few similar wounds, but now she was favoring her right side, where his kunai had bitten deep, and her face was once again red and blistered.

"Iruka-san," Naruto said, in the tones of the deeply impressed, "is cool."

"Yeah, kid, I think he is," Yukiko agreed. "That was a pretty good plan." After getting scalded by Aishou, Shinkan was instinctively flinching from heat, and her hesitation had bought Iruka just enough time to strike. They seemed to be done with ninjutsu for the moment, and had moved on to close combat. All things being equal, they were probably an even match with their weapons -- Shinkan was faster but Iruka's kodachi were better for defense, while the length of her sword compensated for the length of his arms -- but now she was wounded, and that gave the advantage to him.

"Plan? That's not the point, Yukiko-neechan! He can make fire," Naruto clarified.

Ah, the logic of six-year-olds. Yukiko shook her head in amusement as Iruka slowly wore Shinkan down. "There's more to life than explosions, kid," she said. "Besides, plans are cool too. You should know that -- you make plans whenever you set traps and jokes."

"Yeah, yeah, but that's different. That's just stuff. When I go to the academy, I'm gonna learn about chakra, and I'm gonna make all sorts of 'splosions!"

"Konoha trembles in fear, brat," Kakashi said dryly. "Oh, look, samurai girl's knocked out. Iruka won. Shall we cheer now?"

"Yeah!" Naruto said, climbing off Yukiko's lap to stand upright on the seat beside her. "Yay Iruka-san! You kicked her butt! You're cool, and you're gonna be a chuunin, and we're gonna get dinner, and you're gonna be my teacher, and you're my friend, and I'm really happy you won!" He waved his hands wildly and grinned like a maniac.

Yukiko stifled a burst of laughter. Then she made the mistake of looking at Kakashi's raised eyebrow and had to bite her tongue, very firmly, to keep from collapsing in giggles and making Naruto think she didn't approve of his loud support for Iruka.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Omake: Naruto squirmed on his seat, face set in an expression of deep concentration. "So, so, you think I'm more important than being a ninja?" he asked after a minute.

"Yeah," Yukiko said softly. "Yeah, I do."

Naruto stared at her in disbelief. "That's so stupid! You're not my big sister anymore, not if you don't think being a ninja is the coolest thing ever!" He stuck out his tongue and then turned his back on her.

"Well, shit." Yukiko tapped Hisen on the shoulder. "Hey, can I call a do-over?"

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

To markami: I am aware that Orochimaru was not in his original body during Naruto's chuunin exam. However, the snake-like movement suits him and his natural appearance so well that I simply decided he figured out a way to transfer at least his original abilities from one body to the next. It strikes me as the sort of trick he'd be interested in developing, since he wants to know every ninja skill there is and he wouldn't want to give up any advantages he already had.

To various others: I cannot stress this enough, THIS IS AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE STORY! That means that Yukiko does not exist in canon, and her presence changes the world enough that "Apartment Manager" WILL NOT end up in the same place the manga started.

Please, please stop asking me about that.

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