Kakashi raised a hand to the small radio transmitter in his ear, tapped it once, and waved at the gate, eyes never seeming to leave his book. "Next person, start now."

Yukiko took a deep breath and eased the gate open, slipping into the field. Before the gate even started to swing shut behind her, she dashed to the side, sliding between a bush and the wall. She couldn't afford to be spotted at this step of the game.

She had two objectives: get the scroll, and find the most direct route through the traps and guards so she could show it to Naga. If her genjutsu failed during Iruka's turn, he'd probably get through on his own. That was why he was going before Naga; he was a test subject.

First she needed to find the scroll. Yukiko formed seals, concentrated, and whispered, "Chameleon no Jutsu." This wasn't full invisibility -- the skill needed to completely remove your own presence without disrupting anything else in the environment was at least jounin-level -- but it was the next best thing. The colors of her clothing merged with the underbrush, the sound of her breath faded into the breeze, and all signs of her presence tangled into the background of the field. Yukiko blended. It wasn't perfect -- the Sharingan could see through it in a heartbeat, anyone looking from far enough away wouldn't be affected, and it was only an area illusion so she couldn't whisper into the chuunin's minds -- but it should conceal her from anyone close enough to be dangerous. And she'd be going cautiously anyway, so nobody in the distance should notice her even without the Chameleon genjutsu.

Now to get the lay of the land.

Yukiko scanned the ground, then dashed silently from her bush to the nearest tree, skipping over a mine and a pothole positioned to snap the ankles of the unwary. She marked them in her memory for later. The tree itself seemed safe, its single noose buried so thinly under dead leaves that Yukiko wondered how anyone could miss it. Then she noticed the minor illusion hiding the explosive note set to stun anyone who tried climbing past the noose.

She grinned. Sneaky. But not sneaky enough.

Walking up the tree would make her too large a target, so Yukiko focused chakra into her hands and knees and crawled up instead. Her genjutsu wavered slightly, and she released the climbing jutsu as soon as she reached a high enough branch. She couldn't burn too much chakra on the test. She had to save enough to guide Naga through.

The tree offered a decent view of the test field, which was really more a small woodland than an open field. The academy needed pieces of different terrain for training children, and it was safer to keep them inside the village walls where the real dangers of the wild could be screened out. All Yukiko had to worry about here was her fellow humans.

The chuunin had cleaned up the debris of past explosions and the marks of previous fights quite well, not leaving any hints to reveal their traps. Two guards lurked ahead and to the side, one given away by a flash of sun on a forehead-protector, and the other betrayed by the overly-still leaves in his vicinity. He was trying too hard to be motionless.

Yukiko closed her eyes for a moment, constructing the superimposition genjutsu for later. She marked down the guards and the traps she'd avoided, fixing the image of the field into her memory the way she'd learned to remember the thousand and one details of her full-sensory illusions. This was easier in some ways -- she didn't have to fill in the background, since she wasn't changing it -- but it was hard to be sure her scale and proportion would match reality.

She opened her eyes and searched again. Where would they keep the scroll? Not along the walls -- they were too open. Probably not too high in the trees either. Would it be directly guarded, for better protection, or left alone to avoid drawing attention to its hiding place?

No way of knowing, really, but Yukiko didn't think it was with the two guards she'd spotted. She absently noted various traps nearby, marking them down in orange on her mental map, and crawled down to the lower branches of her tree. She wanted some height for better visibility, but if she went too high, the swaying branches would give her away as she moved; Chameleon couldn't cover anything too blatantly out of synch with her environment.

She gathered herself, ran along a branch, and cast herself into the air, diving, rolling, and jumping in an aerial obstacle course through the trees.

This branch to that branch to the next -- no, trap! -- twist in midair, grab for the trunk with a chakra-soaked hand, push off left -- to that branch to this branch -- dodge the noose, handspring over the jagged stump of a broken limb -- to this branch to that branch -- slide under the tripwire, mark the hanging log and flash bombs for later -- to that branch to this branch -- whoops, genjutsu! -- and tumble through the illusory tree and land, silently, in a crouch, kunai in her teeth and hands ready to shape seals.

Silence, save for the breeze rustling through the leaves. She was safe for the moment.

Yukiko slipped the kunai back into her holster and stood, sliding over to a nearby tree for shelter and scanning her position. She'd passed the two obvious guards, circling around the far side of the one with the glinting forehead-protector, and reached the heart of this tiny woodland. The air was thick with anticipation.

The scroll had to be nearby. Yukiko climbed partway up her new tree, buried herself in a thick tangle of leaves, and closed her eyes, reaching out to feel for chakra.

This was faster than a visual scan but it was dangerous; if she wasn't careful, if she didn't use the lightest possible touch, she could give away her own position as easily as she pinpointed her opponents. She spun her awareness feather-fine, thin as a spider web, and let her chakra drift outward through the trees. Two chuunin behind, where she'd already marked them. Four ahead: two mirroring the first two at the other side of the woodland, one at the gate, and one off to the side, near the ground and more tightly focused than the others... guarding something.

Yukiko snapped back to herself and opened her eyes. "Found you."

She set off through the trees again, more slowly than before but still fast enough to build momentum -- it was easier to make midair adjustments that way. Branch, trap, branch, branch, trunk, noose, tripwire, branch, branch, pressure plate, branch, genjutsu, trunk, branch, branch, and slow to a halt.

The guard was just up ahead, his chakra seeping slightly through the air though he was obviously trying to suppress it. Huh. The chuunin had to be getting tired, even if they switched off between runs. That was good. On the other hand, they had to have memorized all the good attack approaches by this point. That wasn't so good.

Yukiko checked her genjutsu, making sure it was still concealing her presence. That would help, but she needed to get the scroll without letting him notice or give an alarm. She'd either have to knock him out or put a really strong genjutsu on him.

She couldn't afford the chakra drain of a strong genjutsu.

Right. Knocking him out it was. Now, how to do that? Obviously not with ninjutsu. And since her taijutsu was, frankly, pathetic -- she did all right with inanimate objects like trees, but moving opponents were usually beyond her -- she'd have to get him on her first attack. Which meant she'd have to get very close without revealing her presence.

Huh.

Yukiko crept along her branch, drawing on all her skill at stealth and silence. The guard -- a lanky teen with spiky brown hair -- was perched in a nearby tree, scroll strapped across his chest, and shuriken hooked between his fingers for instant attacks. His head snapped around at a rustle, hand pulling back to throw, but it was only a squirrel. He relaxed and sank back into the shadows, dull green vest blending with the leaves.

Yukiko grinned to herself. She had a plan.

Three interminable minutes later, she was perched on a branch above and to the side of the guard, Chameleon still concealing her. She gauged the distance, braced herself, and raced through five seals as quickly as possible.

A noose on the guard's other side snapped tight, hauling a surprised young woman into the air by her ankles. The guard tensed, turned... and relaxed when he realized he was in no danger, rocking back on his heels in relief.

The hilt of Yukiko's kunai slammed into the base of his skull and her body knocked him to the ground, her weight pinning him even as his head spun. Another impact rocked his jaw, and a steady pressure over his nose and mouth ushered him quietly into darkness.

Yukiko counted out the seconds, keeping a close eye on the pulse jumping in the guard's throat; she wanted him unconscious, not dead. When she was sure he was out, she unstrapped the scroll from his vest, wound hasty loops of wire around his wrists and ankles, and dashed away, scrambling up into the trees and resuming her obstacle course toward the far gate, marking traps as she went.

The next two watchers were no more trouble than the first two, and Yukiko dropped safely from the trees near the wall, using scrub bushes to hide her passage. She peered through the leaves, getting her first good look at the gate guard. The tall, blonde woman slouched against the wall, looking bored, arms folded over her vest and her split green skirt clinging to her black tights... wait a second, that was her old classmate Hikari! Shit. Hikari was a taijutsu expert and had always been hard to fool with genjutsu. Yukiko knew better than to assume Chameleon would protect her.

She needed a distraction.

Well, the trick worked once; why not try it again? Yukiko eased forward until she was within sprinting distance of the gate, made sure the scroll was firmly strapped to her back under her jacket, and shaped her five seals again.

A twig cracked to Hikari's right. When she turned, a young woman in a brown windbreaker leaped from the bushes to her left, hurled a handful of shuriken as a distraction, and dashed toward the gate. Hikari whipped around to meet her, settling into a taijutsu stance and smirking. As the familiar-looking woman started forming seals, Hikari felt a sudden brush of fabric behind her. She snapped her hand backwards, but the jacket she grabbed only held for a second before it hung limp in her hand.

"You lose," her opponent said, and faded. Genjutsu. Hikari cursed, shaking the jacket at the vanished illusion.

Behind her, the gate swung shut.

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

Yukiko leaned against the wall, gulping for air. Hikari had almost caught her despite the two genjutsu; if Yukiko hadn't been wearing the scroll under her jacket, if she hadn't slid her arms free of the fabric, she would have been helpless. Hikari had sensed her despite the distraction and there was no way Yukiko could beat the other woman in a straight fight.

But she'd won!

Yukiko unhooked the belt holding the scroll to her back, and looked up. A table stood in front of the gate, staffed by several chuunin, one of whom waved her over. "You have the scroll? Good. I'll call in the others and we'll get your score written up. You can wait over there with the other genin." He pointed to a set of picnic tables under a stand of sakura trees, where the genin were gathered, some happy, some morose, some very banged up, and many nibbling at the refreshments provided on the tables.

Yukiko handed over the scroll and waited for Hikari to return her windbreaker. Her old classmate strode through the gate, scowling. "Ayakawa Yukiko. I should have known it was you hiding behind those illusions; you never did have the nerve to fight face-to-face. When did you decide to be a ninja again?"

"None of your business," Yukiko snapped. "My jacket?"

Hikari wadded the fabric into a ball and threw it toward Yukiko, who caught it, shook it out, and slipped it back on. She checked the pockets -- yes, the explosive notes, cord, and wire were undisturbed. Yukiko smiled at Hikari, making the other woman frown even more, and then wandered off toward the other genin, choosing an out of the way seat at the tables.

She had to be ready to start her genjutsu for Iruka and Naga, but she couldn't look like she was doing ninpou; even though the chuunin didn't seem to be paying attention to the genin, she didn't want to take any risks. The best thing, she decided, would be to act exhausted and pretend to sleep on crossed arms, letting her hair spread over them to cover any hand seals she made.

In all honesty, she was tired -- holding Chameleon that long, while also moving at high speed, dodging traps, and constructing a mental map, would wear anyone down. She wished she had half of Naruto's stamina; the kid never seemed to run out of energy.

Yukiko untied her hair, let her head drop to the table, and placed her fingers together as if summoning chakra. Slowly, carefully, she pushed her awareness across the test field, searching for the sense of Iruka's chakra, that warm, thick syrup, laced through with bubbles, which hid something empty and aching. There. She laced her fingers into a seal, focused as tightly as she could, and wrote the kanji for 'success' in bright orange, floating in front of his eyes.

His chakra lurched, then shuddered in a pattern that usually accompanied laughter.

Yukiko dropped the genjutsu before Iruka could draw Kakashi's attention and get them disqualified. Teenagers. No matter how good they were as ninja, they still had no self-control whatsoever.

Iruka's chakra flared, then, and Yukiko wove her hands through the seals for a full genjutsu, as if she were going to twist all of his senses. She wanted that extra control to help narrow her focus. Her mental map of the field snapped into place, all the traps she'd found marked in glowing orange. She painted in the four watchers, Hikari, and the scroll guard in less vivid color, in case they moved between tests. This genjutsu had two parts -- life-size coloring of whatever Iruka was facing, and a tiny map that hung in the corner of his eye pointing out where he should go. Just to make sure he got the point, she drew an X beside the scroll guard.

"Hurry up, Iruka," Yukiko muttered, fingers fixed in the last seal. "I don't know how long I can hold this."

The map was easy, but the main genjutsu -- the marked, glowing traps -- was taxing her chakra and concentration. She had to build the entire landscape of the field and make sure that it moved with him. It was as if she was covering the whole field in a thin genjutsu, but she had to do it all in Iruka's head, affecting nobody's vision but his.

She was going to need a lot of aspirin when this was over.

It seemed like forever before Iruka flared his chakra again and Yukiko snapped her fingers apart, releasing the genjutsu. She looked at the gate, but it was still shut and Iruka hadn't come through. Someone had caught him.

A weight slammed into the wall, rattling the gate in its frame. Yukiko winced; Iruka was fighting Hikari. She hoped he didn't lose too badly.

The gate swung wide a few seconds later, and Hikari led a dazed Iruka through, supporting him as he sheathed his kodachi . They bowed to each other, Iruka handed over the scroll, and Hikari pointed out the tables. Yukiko waved her hand, calling him over.

"Are you okay? How did it work?" she asked.

Iruka rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'll be fine. Don't try the main genjutsu on Naga -- it gave me a headache. Just use the map. Also, the scroll guard wasn't where you showed; he was on the other side of the woodland. Everything else was correct, but I think they move the scroll around to make cheating harder."

"That makes sense. And I'll be glad to drop the large genjutsu; it gives me a headache too!" Yukiko looked around. "I'm going to find Naga now. Tap me on the shoulder if anyone's watching too closely."

Iruka nodded, and Yukiko let her head drop back to her arms, blue-green hair pooling in a tiny tent over her hands. Fingers together, focus, ignore the pounding in her temples, and feel for Naga, find those layers of snakeskin and wariness, that hidden need. She formed a seal, tested the kanji, and smiled as Naga responded with a quiet swell of chakra.

"Did you jump when you saw the kanji?" Yukiko asked Iruka. "I'm pretty sure Naga didn't when I showed it to her just now."

"Um..."

"It doesn't matter if you were surprised. I'm just making small talk while-- oh, there she goes. Be quiet, please; I have to concentrate."

This time she painted nothing but the map, first showing Naga the overview of the field with five of the chuunin marked clearly and the scroll guard shown in an arc through the center of the woodland, accompanied by a question mark. Then she started writing in the air. 'Wait. I'll show you the path.'

Naga couldn't flare her chakra without attracting attention, but she managed to make it twitch almost exactly the same way she twitched her shoulder. Yukiko grinned. She expanded the map into a small scale replica of the view from the entrance gate and drew a path in purple, moving the viewpoint through the genjutsu as the line advanced. Traps lit up in orange as the purple line moved past them.

When she reached the area where the scroll guard had been, Yukiko let the line stop. 'The scroll guard moves. Find him, and take him out quietly.' Then the purple line resumed, snaking between the next two guards and dropping down to the ground near the exit gate. 'Watch for the last guard. Taijutsu expert,' Yukiko wrote.

She let the genjutsu lapse into the map, now with Naga's purple route weaving through the orange traps and guards. It was up to the girl; all Yukiko could do was hold the illusion and hope for the best.

Several minutes passed in silence, and then an explosion drifted over the wall. Iruka made a worried noise and Yukiko dropped her genjutsu, rubbing her temples to ease the pressure. "So much for being sneaky," she said. "I wonder if they give points for fighting your way out?"

"Probably. Kakashi-san did say we'd be judged on how far we got after we were noticed. And I nearly beat the gate guard; she was just a little too fast for me."

Yukiko grinned. "But not too fast for Naga, I bet."

"There is that," Iruka said, grinning back at her.

Several more explosions and a few bright flashes came from the field, and then the sounds of a brutal fight echoed just beyond the gate. Flesh smashed into flesh, and bodies slammed into the ground and the wall, accompanied by grunts and an occasional shout. Silence fell for a few tense seconds, and then Hikari flew through the gate and crashed into her fellow chuunin at the table, clearly unconscious.

Naga limped through after her, pants torn, knuckles bleeding, bangs stuck to her sweaty face, and golden eyes bright with righteous fury. "Can't beat a chuunin, can I? Take that!" She brandished the scroll at the other chuunin, who were staring in surprise. "Take this too. I win."

"Um, right," said the chuunin who'd taken the scroll from Yukiko. "Congratulations on making it through the field. Please... join your teammates over with the other genin." He pointed weakly toward the tables, where Yukiko and Iruka stood, waving.

Naga tossed him the scroll and limped over to her team. "The scroll person spotted me -- then I hit a tripwire while we were fighting. But I got the scroll and I got out!"

"I'm impressed that you beat Hikari," Yukiko said. "She's always been fast."

Naga snorted. "I'm faster." Then she caught Iruka's eyes. "You were right. I wouldn't have made it through without Yukiko's help. I didn't see the first two watchers, I would've walked right into some of the traps, and it took me a while to find the scroll person."

Iruka blushed. "Well, we are a team. I just wanted us all to do well."

"Don't put yourself down. It was a good plan."

Yukiko nodded. "Aside from the part where I ended up with a pounding headache, I agree completely. And Naga and I would never have thought of it. I think you should be our official leader from now on."

Iruka blushed harder. "But..."

"Go on, do it. You know strategy. I'm not a thinker and Yukiko only does little plans." Naga shot her cockeyed smile at Iruka. "Can't teach a class if you can't lead a team, right?"

"Okay," Iruka said reluctantly. "But if thing go wrong, I'm going to say 'I told you so.'"

Naga waved her hand. "Whatever. Now shut up -- I need to sleep."

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

The sun hung low on the horizon by the time the last genin trudged through the gate, accompanied by the six chuunin guards. One of the chuunin at the table started scribbling notes as the guards reported the test results, while Hikari, now awake and bandaged, tapped a radio transmitter in her ear.

Kakashi materialized in a swirl of leaves, looking over the shoulder of the note-taking chuunin. The genin perked up, hoping the results would be announced soon. Yukiko blinked away her daydreams when Iruka poked her in the shoulder, and watched, amused, as he tried to wake Naga from her nap. The girl shot her arm out, wrapped it bonelessly around his wrist, and pinned his hand away from her. Iruka frowned.

"Let me," Yukiko said, forming a seal.

Naga jerked upright, looking around wildly. "Fire? Where?"

"Nowhere. But we needed you to wake up and let go of Iruka's hand."

"Genjutsu's cheating," Naga muttered, but she retracted her arm and slouched in a more or less upright position. "They announced the results yet?"

Iruka shook his head. "Not yet, but soon. That's why we woke you."

Just then a loud whistle pierced the quiet chatter, drawing attention to Kakashi and the chuunin at the evaluation table. "Teams are ranked by the total score of all three members," Kakashi said as he sat sideways on the edge of the table. "Decisions are final, so don't come crying to me if you disagree with your ranking. The top twenty teams will continue to the second test, which starts at nine o'clock tomorrow at the mission center.

"One: Uchiha Akaro, Hyuuga Shiro, and Aburame Kuroko of Hidden Leaf. Two: Aishou, Shinkan, and Mouten Junichi of Hidden Mist. Three: Umino Iruka, Tonoike Naga, and Ayakawa Yukiko of Hidden Leaf. Four--"

Yukiko was no longer listening. "We came in third! I don't believe it."

Iruka looked stunned, and Naga almost literally glowed. "We did it," she whispered. "I did it. There is still honor in the clan." She leaned over the table and flung her arms around Yukiko and Iruka, stretching to embrace them. "Thank you!"

"Thank you too," Yukiko said, embarrassed. "You fought well; that obviously earned points." She patted Naga's arm tentatively. "...Would you like to come to dinner to celebrate, both of you? My treat."

Naga nodded, beaming. Iruka also agreed, managing not to blush too badly, and Yukiko led her teammates off to her favorite sushi restaurant. They had passed the first test. Granted, they still had a long way to go, but they'd been ranked third out of over fifty teams in a test that was aimed directly at one teammate's weaknesses.

Suddenly Yukiko had no worries about the second test at all.

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

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