Laying down on the ground and looking up at the dark ceiling, Naruto wondered whether the sun had set yet. While his internal clock told him that it was likely around six in the evening, it'd probably been thrown off an hour or two since they'd traveled to Wind country. Truthfully speaking, he couldn't wait for this test to be over, so they could return to the surface. Before going to sleep, he usually liked watching the sunset from his window. Not being able to see the sky was unsettling.
He had just been about to drift to sleep when suddenly, a voice spoke up near his head.
"Hey, Naruto," whispered Rai. "You awake?"
His eyes snapped open, instantly alert. Despite the glow of light from the moss, it was dark enough that all he could make of Rai was a vague body outline. "What is it?"
"...I just wanted to know...what'd you do to Mayu?"
He'd never heard Rai speaking in such a serious tone before; somewhat alarmed, he asked, "What do you mean?"
There was a pause. "You wouldn't know it, but I've known her my whole life, so I know...Once she decides something, it's pretty much impossible to change her mind." Another pause. "Mayu didn't like you, did you know that?"
"I had an inkling," Naruto said drily.
"Actually, everyone I know hates you for some reason, so I figured you must've done something really bad - " Rai abruptly broke off when Mayu shifted. For a moment, it was silent; and then her soft, steady breathing resumed. He cleared his throat. "Anyways...do you remember that day when we had to fill out our birthdays in a calendar at the Academy?"
"What about it?"
"That's when I realized that, well." Rai hesitated. "I guess you already know that you were born on the day of the Nine-tails attack. I was really young so I barely remember it, but my parents were killed on that day. And it's stupid, but...you kinda look like a fox with your whiskers, so it used to give me the creeps."
Naruto blinked, taken aback despite himself. The Nine-tails. He had once wondered as well whether he was an orphan because of that attack. But for some reason, he'd never even considered it as a possible link to the reason behind his ostracisation.
His head beginning to throb, he massaged his temples, and as such, he almost missed Rai's following words.
"Still, you know...whatever anyone else says, we definitely wouldn't have made it this far without you. And," Rai added in a grudging tone, "I don't know what you did, but I think even Mayu kinda likes you now."
With that, Naruto heard Rai rise to his feet and he walked a distance away.
All was silent, except for the sound of steady breathing. Naruto lay still. He wondered why Rai had told him this, and what it was that he wanted from him. He opened his mouth, but couldn't think of anything to say, so he kept quiet.
Since they had put out the fire, it was cold in the cave.
But it also felt just a bit warm. Probably due to the heat emitting from the moss, he thought to himself.
...
When Naruto opened his eyes, he was momentarily disoriented by the glowing blue lights around him before he remembered where he was. They were somewhere deep under Sunagakure, in the midst of the maze of the second test.
They had figured out how to get water, food, and had found shelter for the night. Now, they would have to decide how to fulfill the second set of requirements of the exam: Obtaining another team's number plate while protecting their own.
As he grew more alert, he was shaken out of his thoughts when his nose picked up the aroma of roasting meat wafted through the air. His stomach growled, and he got up, sniffing the air.
Turning around, he saw Mayu sitting beside a small makeshift campfire; from the looks of it, she had prepared breakfast as they slept. Much of the color in her face had returned, and judging from the small smile on her face, she certainly felt better. She was currently turning several stone sticks skewered through meat and what looked like yellow vegetables over the flickering fire.
Naruto sat down on the ground besides Rai, who gave him a nod but otherwise – to his relief – made no indication of the conversation they had shared the previous night. Instead, sharing identical looks of gratitude as Mayu offered them their portions, they dug in. It was quiet for several minutes as they ate, watching the shadow of their fire dancing on the moss-covered walls.
Finally, Rai spoke up. "Now that we're rested and all," He viciously tore a chunk of meat off of his stick, "Ish shtime to shake outh some rootkies, yeah?"
Mayu frowned. "That's disgusting."
Rolling his eyes, Rai began to chew even more noisily than before.
Ignoring them, Naruto decided to dive straight into business. "It's been about thirteen hours since the test began, leaving us with just under 110 hours. We can either wait for the last two days, or strike fast and finish early. If we wait it out, it's likely that we'll get our choose of the pickings among the weaker teams still remaining."
"But the ones who still haven't passed at that point might be more desperate...more dangerous," Mayu pointed out, her pink face tinged with worry. "And on top of capturing another plate, we also have to start thinking about reaching the surface, right...?" Trailing off, she turned to Naruto searchingly.
It hadn't escaped his notice how Mayu had begun to speak up in their discussions; it was a welcome change to the wall he'd once felt like he was talking at.
"Desperation breeds desperate measures," he said. "So we should try and finish this quickly and early. And like you said" – Mayu's face brightened – "it'll be best to start mapping out the maze while keeping an eye out for enemy teams and booby traps. Every time the tunnels diverge, we'll mark the path we took, and if we come across it again we'll take the other path."
Sweeping sand over their campfire, they quickly concealed all signs of their overnight presence. Working under the assumption that Neji would have used his Byakugan to choose the best possible route, they then left the blue cavern through the same tunnel Naruto had seen the rookies go through the day before.
As the dimly lit pathway rapidly decreased in diameter, they were forced to walk closer together. Naruto felt Mayu shudder, and picked up their pace. Soon, however, they stopped, as the tunnel forked into two different paths: One widened out and sloped upwards, while the other narrowed and sloped downwards.
"So...which one will it be?" said Rai, eyeing the two paths. Mayu wordlessly edged towards the wider path, making her preference obvious. "Yeah, but...that's exactly what they'd expect us to take, right?"
Without responding, Naruto positioned himself directly in the middle of the fork and closed his eyes. He raised both of his arms – and then a moment later, opened his eyes. He began to head down the wider path, and motioned for his teammates to follow him.
"I can feel a slight breeze coming from this path," he explained when he saw the questioning looks on their faces. "The air from the other side is still, so it's likely a dead end."
They shared bemused looks but trusted his judgment.
However, while they navigated through the tunnels of the underground maze, they were forced to resort to a wide variety of tactics. Mayu sent out her bluebirds ahead of them, and they provided a constant stream of information, which, though limited, was helpful in sketching out their mental map of the caves.
Rai kept a sharp eye out for signs of fights and scuffles as well as keeping track of which tunnels they had already went down. Meanwhile, when Naruto wasn't able to discern any difference between the wind currents of a split in the pathway, he sent out a shadow clone down one while they walked down the other.
After several hours, during which they made fast progress, Naruto suddenly came to a halt and winced. One of the shadow clones he had sent out twenty minutes ago had just fallen into a pit full of fat larvae before promptly dissipating. Shivering at the sensation of crawling all over his body, he narrowly almost missed the extra shadow that flickered behind them.
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