Hazō hesitated outside the marquee exit. There was one more thing he could do to increase Operation Hot, Drunk and Anonymous's odds of success—no, two things—and they had to be done
now. He stepped back in.
"Hinata," he addressed Team Kurenai's probably-leader without preamble, "I have a deal to offer you. I'll explain the plan so you can be prepared for what's about to happen. In return, I'd like Inuzuka and Aburame to donate some chakra to us, and for you to use the Byakugan to help me plot a safe route to tunnel to the hollow space behind the entrance stairs of the mansion."
Hinata took only a second to think. "No. As a counter-offer—"
"Never mind. I don't have time to haggle." He headed away, towards Keiko.
"The plan, and I redistribute your team's chakra however you want," Noburi said quickly. "In return for you using the Byakugan once now, and then one more time to tell us the outcome."
Hazō whirled on Noburi in shock. He couldn't just unilaterally make decisions for the group like that!
"Dude, she's the only reason you were conscious enough to
come up with the plan," Noburi said. "How about it, Hinata? Final offer."
Hinata glanced back at her teammates. "No commission on the chakra."
"…Done."
Hinata didn't waste any time. A few seconds of Byakugan later, she crouched on the ground, sweeping an area clean to draw a basic map. As she wrote, Hazō talked.
"Akane has a ninjutsu that can raise or lower temperature in an area for a while." There was a sharp intake of breath from someone, but he was too busy memorizing the map to see who was so surprised. "We've used it on everywhere except outside the mansion entrance to corral everyone in. I'm going to use a seal to spray alcoholic mist over the area to get everyone drunk so they make bad decisions."
Inuzuka snorted with laughter.
"Thanks for the map, Hinata." Hazō stood up sharply. Even now, the crowd might already be dispersing, or somebody else might have found a more destructive way to exploit the situation. He strode over to Keiko, then, as an afterthought, beckoned Nara over as well.
"We'll need a cover story for when the proctors come calling," he explained. "We noticed the heat—not difficult—assumed it was an attack, or preparation for an attack, and decided to band together for safety. Keiko and Akane know where and in what order Elemental Mastery was used, and between you two you can figure out plausible logistics of how we all met up and picked this location if the proctors ask. If they get here while I'm out, I'm scouting out the area, otherwise I was here all along. Any issues with that?"
Keiko and Nara exchanged looks.
"Thank you, Hazō," Keiko said in a perfectly neutral voice, "for this cunning and insightful plan. Truly I am shamed by our collective inability to reach such heights of intrigue without your guidance."
"I really must learn how she does that," Nara muttered to himself.
Hazō threw up his arms in semi-mock despair and walked away.
But as he emerged almost precisely at his target location a little while later (after briefly using the mansion floor for course correction), he was forced to admit that Noburi's bargain had been a good call. Trees and other convenient markers aside, he shuddered to think what would have happened if he'd slammed into all that stone at top speed (Hyūga guessed it to be an aborted attempt at an outdoor bath) and the impact dispelled his disguise.
Instead, everything was perfect. He was practically invisible (unless by some unimaginable chance somebody fell down), the tipserator was ready to fire, and apparently he'd made it just in time.
"A real man wouldn't fear a little heat!" a woman's voice declared. "I'm not going to let myself be herded like a helpless sheep!"
From the shuffling of countless pairs of ankles, Hazō got a distinct sense that the crowd was at risk of at least partial disintegration.
Now or never.
Hazō moved forward so he could aim the tipserator over people's heads rather than at their feet, and pulsed his chakra to activate. A vast cloud of intoxicating mist spewed forth from the seal.
As he waited one final second to confirm that the tipserator had properly covered the area, a voice on the other side of the crowd bellowed, "We're under attack! Quick, into the mansion!"
Hazō slid into the lawn like an otter sliding into the water. There was barely enough chakra in his coils to power the technique, but he forced it through and clamped down on the resultant shaking of his muscles and the taste of puke in the back of his throat as his body rebelled at what he was doing to it. Instead he turned and swam through the dirt in his best Hyūga-assisted estimate of the direction to where the rest of SuperTeam Leaf waited.
He scouted around until he found the cluster of roots that signalled the presence of the hedge maze and then, very cautiously, stuck his head up out of the dirt just far enough that he could see. It took a couple attempts to find the edge of the maze, but eventually he managed it.
He saw with relief that not only were Keiko, Noburi, and the others inside the marquee, but there were no proctors around. He still chose to stay underground until he could come up near them; no point in coming up early and being spotted running across the lawn.
"You guys won't believe this—" he began.
"Be quiet," Nara snapped. Hazō blinked. Nara was not his normal apathetic and sardonic self. His eyes were focused, and there was an unusual immediacy to his voice.
There was a second's pause.
"I apologise," Nara said more normally. "You interrupted Hinata as she was about to settle a bet between myself and your sister, whose unexpected powers of negotiation have led to me staking more hours on the outcome than may perhaps have been wise."
"Sorry," Hazō said. "Please continue."
Hinata nodded. Hazō noted that her Byakugan was already off.
"I'll start again for Hazō's benefit. Perhaps twenty people used chakra-assisted movement or escape ninjutsu to leave the crowd within the first few seconds. Half a dozen more used defensive ninjutsu, of whom half were instantly taken down by the proctors. Then things got interesting. Some people at the back of the crowd started running to take cover in the mansion, or possibly to hide behind the proctors. Some people at the front of the crowd started running
away from the mansion, presumably because they saw that it was the source of the mist. And a lot of people in the middle stood in place, either because they were pretending to be confused civilians, or because they
were confused civilians. In the chaos, a total of about twenty people got exposed by having their disguises popped or by having to use ninja-level evasion to avoid having their disguises popped. Oh, and a few tried to use the confusion where the crowd was thickest to pop people's disguises, but got detected and arrested by the proctors, for a total of seven or eight between the victims and the perpetrators."
Those were strangely vague estimates for somebody who was supposed to see all and know all. Then again, Hazō reflected, it wasn't like they were all taking turns. He doubted he'd have done half as well if he'd had an aerial view of all that happening at the same time, and most of the people whose disguises popped had probably put them back on at once in vain hope of getting away with it.
More importantly…
"What about the civilians?" he asked.
"What about them?"
"Did anyone get hurt?" Hazō's objective had been to get everyone drunk, not provoke a battle royale. Though on reflection, he'd unleashed an unidentifiable AOE effect on a nervous, overheating crowd of people, most of whom couldn't see what was going on.
"No fatalities, if that's what you're asking," Hyūga said matter-of-factly. "Nobody is getting sent back to their village."
"Returning to the bet," Nara said. "More than twenty-five percent exposed or disqualified?"
"I think so."
Nara gave an honest-to-goodness smirk.
Keiko slumped in her deck chair. "Nara, the humiliation of defeat and the price I must soon pay for it are as gnat stings next to the agony of knowing that I failed because I overestimated human intelligence."
"Fascinating," said an unfamiliar voice.
Hazō turned around slowly. Oh, potential crap.
"Four Leaf teams, coincidentally together while everyone else is caught in a trap outside," the proctor drawled. The tall, gaunt man, looking not unlike a more muscular Kagome-sensei, had the gleefully ominous air of a chakra hippopotamus emerging from the depths on sensing a fragile human intruder in its territory. Given nobody had sensed him approach, the comparison was doubly apt. "Taking bets on the outcome, even… almost as if they knew in advance it was going to happen."
Oh, very definitely confirmed crap.
"Let me guess," the man went on. "You noticed the heat going up, decided it was a threat, and rather than immediately taking shelter, you went through this entire event area, found your allies from the Second Event, and decided to hide out here, coincidentally as far away from the mansion entrance as you could get. With iced drinks handy. And taking bets on how many people would show intelligence in a crisis situation. The tension is palpable.
"Say," he gave a slow, leisurely smile, "is that saké I smell?"
Wait, what? Hazō
knew he hadn't been caught in the tipserator blast.
But the proctor wasn't even looking at him. Was it a bluff, or…
They'd used the back of the marquee to mix the tipserator.
"Did you bring your own? Or should I be checking the kitchens? Can't have a party like this run out of alcohol early, now can we?"
Hazō fought to stay calm. There was no physical evidence. At least not anywhere the proctor could find without searching through sixteen people's worth of storage scrolls. Of course, the tipserator scroll was directly in his seal pouch—he really should have eaten the thing—but the odds of a proctor having enough sealing training to recognise its function at a glance were minute.
"Saké?" Hyūga asked curiously as Hazō flailed to come up with a plausible explanation. "What does saké have to do with anything? We've all had to drink a bit to keep up appearances—it can't be against the rules.
"I don't know what you're accusing us of, but I think the only thing we might be guilty of is bad taste. When the noise started outside, I decided to use the Byakugan to see what was going on, and then I suppose we found it funny enough to start making bets. I mean, you have to admit, seeing all those genin running around like headless chickens while the civilians stayed calm was very entertaining."
An involuntary smile tugged at the corner of the proctor's mouth.
"Ah, whatever," he decided after a second. "Like a bunch of Leaf bleeding hearts and traitorous cowards would have the guts to pull something like this off anyway."
Inuzuka growled, but Aburame put a calming hand on his shoulder.
The proctor's eyes glittered. "An Inuzuka, right? How about you show me your word half? Or did you leave it for safekeeping with that flea-bitten, mangy mutt of yours?"
Kiba shoved Shino's hand off and started to rise—
Only to be interrupted by Hinata moving between him and the proctor. "Hazō," she said, "did you ever get around to asking your aunt, the Mizukage, about standards of professionalism for exam invigilation?"
"No, Hinata," Hazō said just as smoothly. "I'll be sure to do so next time she invites me and my stepfather for dinner." He made a show of memorising the proctor's face.
"One foot wrong, Leaf alliance," the man said grimly. "One toe."
Then he turned around and left without even waiting for Inuzuka's word half.
A few seconds later, Hazō looked outside to confirm that he was actually gone.
"Nice one, Hinata," Noburi grinned. "That was way too close."
"They'll be watching us now," Hinata said. "More than before, I mean." She smiled. "I'll have to make sure I'm watching them back."
"Now that we're alone again—Hinata, please make sure we're alone again—I wanted to talk about general strategies for cooperation," Hazō said. "I think we can all agree that the better all Leaf teams do, the better Leaf looks, meaning it's in our interest to try to get each other's points as high as possible."
"I think Leaf is doing well enough already," Hinata said. "You are in first place. I'm a Hyūga at a spot-the-disguised-ninja event. And I'd guess that Ino-Shika-Chō don't need any assistance either."
Shikamaru nodded without further comment.
"
We wouldn't object to cooperation," Haruno said.
Yamamoto gave a meaningful cough.
"Yes, I know you despise every last thing about them. And Akane, I know your boyfriend just spilled the beans about your unique super-ninjutsu without asking you for permission. But we need every advantage, so suck it up."
Hazō looked at Akane warily. She didn't look back.
"Nobody's stopping you from cooperating," Hyūga said. "But speaking for Team Kurenai, our main objective right now is to keep a low profile, and there really isn't all that much you can offer us."
"If we don't do well, we weaken Jiraiya's position in the negotiations," Hazō objected.
"If you do too well, it will actively hurt our cause," Hyūga said. "The Chūnin Exam is supposed to show off the quality of each village's genin training. The Mizukage will point out that you got all your education from Mist, and then from a Mist jōnin, and only spent a few months in Leaf."
"We still prove that Leaf has good chūnin candidates
now. And besides, our performance matters back home. If we fail here, it's going to look terrible for Jiraiya as Hokage."
Hyūga was silent for a very long moment.
"Hazō," she said gently, "all of us here are deeply loyal to the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and to its institutions, including the institution of the Hokage. It's our responsibility to make Leaf's power apparent to the outside world by doing the best we can here at the exams, and that responsibility transcends the needs of clans or individuals."
Hazō stared at her, aghast. "You don't want Jiraiya to keep the hat."
"That isn't my decision to make," Hinata said calmly. "In either direction. I do like you, and I personally want you to succeed, but I'm not going to lose sight of my duty for the sake of interfering with Leaf's internal politics."
Hazō looked to Nara for help.
"As far as Ino-Shika-Chō is concerned," Nara said, "the Hokage has been chosen, and supporting his rule
is part of our duty. Destabilising his position at home will destabilise Leaf's position abroad. Even if an alternative candidate were twice as worthy, we would back Jiraiya until Leaf's geopolitical status was secure, which could take months or even years."
"He's only an interim leader," Hyūga reminded him.
"And when his leadership becomes a matter of choice rather than necessity, the heads of our clans will determine whether it should continue. Until then, it is neither for us nor for you to undermine it."
"So you're prepared to cooperate?" Hazō asked.
"After a fashion. I am prepared to trade you information on favourable terms, and there are a number of teams I think all of us should know, and spread as far as possible. On the other hand, unless you make a truly extraordinary case, we have no interest in the kind of cloak-and-dagger mischief you are doubtless already planning as a follow-through for your alcohol plan. As Hinata says, maintaining an overwhelming advantage is preferable to taking risks in order to pursue marginal gains."
The various members of Teams Asuma, Kurenai and Gōketsu exchanged meaningful looks as they prepared to make a final decision, weighing their relative rankings and resources, high-level political objectives and potentially game-changing special abilities.
"Haru," Haruno said lightly in the background, "I think I finally understand what it's like to be you."
-o-
You have earned 1 XP.
-o-
After some discussion, the teams agreed to a limited trade. Shikamaru filled in the blanks on all the teams from the Oyabun's dossier, plus Team Downfall (he rolled his eyes at the name) and a few others he speculated to be top teams. He already knew everything your team knew due to earlier trades, but offered a total of 100 roles. They include the ones known to you, and probably others you will soon hear due to the disaster outside. They also include all the other Leaf teams, with whom he encouraged you to share the list in the name of greater Leaf dominance.
Team Kurenai is not interested in further cooperation for the remainder of the event. Team Asuma isn't either, but will consider especially good offers. Sakura has bullied Team Clanless into being willing to cooperate on any reasonable plan.
Part 4 of the action plan has not yet been implemented.
-o-
What do you do?
Voting closes on Saturday 30th of June, 9 am New York Time.
