| abstract | - Yuzume was frustrated that she had been so quickly separated from the other participants. This would only serve to make her mission more difficult. She could feel the seed-imbued mice who had somehow managed to make it up to the maze themselves as they traced along the walls, following each team from a distance. Whatever happened, she needed to make sure that she always knew where he was, as she could not afford to lose track of her target. It seemed, however, that the quickest way to reach that goal was to deal with the task in front of her. Yuzume quickly surveyed the presented challenge and, shaking her head, she scoffed. "What is this, a Chuunin Exam?" she complained to her partner, the blonde-haired boy whom she had taken earlier to be an idiot. In reality, however, she was carefully analyzing the entrance to the maze, taking in every detail in an attempt to discover any possible, hidden traps; and at the same time she was carefully monitoring her teammate in an attempt to determine his motives. There were three blocks of rock. Why was there three? Any shinobi with a modicum of talent in Earth Release techniques could have easily sufficed with two. Her brow furrowed pensively as she considered it. Folding her fingers together to form the signal for "Snake", Yuzume lifted the blocks of rock from the ground using a simple jutsu and floated them above the floorless pathway. She did not connect them together, instead leaping easily to the first, levitated block. It would be best to keep them separate, she had decided, in order to split up the potential targets. "Well, are you coming or not." she said to her partner, whom she did not trust. Nonetheless, if push-came-to-shove she could always use him as bait or a shield, so his presence was not entirely useless. She was in unfamiliar territory, afterall, and would take full advantage of any edge she was given. Yuzume continued to stabilize the blocks around her as the two of them balanced on the rock slabs. She expertly maneuvered the blocks to where one was in front of her at all times, and the boy on the one behind her. It might have seemed like suicide to turn her back to a potential enemy, but if she sensed a threat it was a simple manner to send the rock he was standing on plummeting to the bottom of the crevice, or to pin him between a literal rock and a hard wall. But he did not seem hostile. Taking that into consideration, Yuzume decided it would be beneficial to determine as much information as possible as she could about her designated "teammate" before the actual fighting began. "You are an Uchiha," she began, recalling the name the announcer had called out at the start of the preliminaries, "But I have not seen you in Konoha." That fact was somewhat troubling to her, as Root members had been trained to recognize all members of that particular clan. "Why is that?" "Duh." The gerbil still tucked under the collar of her jacket whispered, and Yuzume nearly lost her footing when she heard Ameshizu's reply, silently berating herself for asking such a careless question. "That is true," she laughed, although not pleasantly, "Konoha is a large village. Personally I'm never in-town myself, since my clan doesn't tend to associate with common shinobi," she said, making sure to accentuate the tone of disdain. "You can call me Yuzume, by the way." She leapt to the next block, and when Ameshizu did not respond, called over her shoulder, "Is there anything in particular you'd like to go by, Uchiha-san?" making an attempt to be polite. I need to get his guard down, she thought. "Her mood suddenly changed. Earlier, she was cocky - she scoffed at the arena and called it a Chūnin Exams. Now she's acting nice and she's asking me questions. Is she okay? Keeping quiet is definitely the way to go with this one." "Call me Tenchi, Yuzume-san." Yuzume read the instructions on the door in silence, and folded her arms as she thought. The rock beneath her feet bobbed up and down slowly in its suspended state, but she remained rigid and pensive. "I don't really think it matters if we trust each other or not, does it Tenchi-kun?” she began, "Regardless of our respective motives, we have a goal to reach," Yuzume jabbed her thumb in the direction of the middle door. "And the map indicates that the fastest way to reach that goal is through there." She smirked, "Unless you're going to chicken out on me, that is." In reality she was thinking quickly in order to sort out the best way to solve their current predicament. Her instincts were telling her to go for the center, as so far the challenges they had faced had been fairly straightforward. But there was always the possibility that the other two doors would lead to center of the maze, while the one in the middle was set as a trap. If that was the case it would be wise to use the clone technique in order to better their chances. She could force open the doors if necessary, and did not doubt that Ameshizu was capable of doing the same. Whoever had set this maze was toying with them, and she was not about to be made into their puppet. After her conjecture, Ameshizu would focus his gaze on the door - by which the irises of his eyes turn red, and glimmer with a glow of the same color. His pupils become lost within the center of a cross-like pattern, and the ring encircling this shape is the trademark of his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Instantly, he'd scan for any possible chakras heeding beneath each door, and strangely enough, he saw nothing. Ameshizu must have used his Sharingan to read the chakra levels, Yuzume surmised. While she was impressed by his mastery of his clan’s signature dojutsu despite the fact that he was most likely a year or two younger than she was, her true opinion was that it had perhaps been a premature display of skill. Drawing out an ace in the game’s first round, in other words. More troubling, however, was the apparent absence of any adversary beyond the doors. She did not doubt in the slightest that they would be attacked, and wondered what clever mechanism had been engineered to that purpose. Perhaps explosive tags had been set to detonate as soon as the door was opened. “If that’s the case then it shouldn’t matter which one we choose.” Yuzume stated carelessly, belying her inner suspicions. “Let’s go for it.” Instead of rushing the door head-on, however, she took the stone block that was floating behind both her and Ameshizu and raised it above their heads, controlling it by a quick succession of hand signals. Concentrating her chakra through her tightly-knit fingers, she urged the rock towards the door before suddenly propelling it forwards with enough force to split the slab of rock itself in two. It bore towards the crack of the middle door with immense speed and ferocity, and would no doubt create a sizeable hole upon impact. The door gave way with a shriek and swung back wildly on its hinges. Yuzume was surprised by how easy it had been. She assumed the door had been barred in some way, and had thus in the end used twice as much force as what was necessary. With that task accomplished, and when there was no result besides the cracking of pebbles as they fell from where the door had once stood into the abyss below, the two shinobi stepped from the floating blocks onto solid ground and surveyed their new surroundings: mainly consisting of more maze. Whilst looking around at the arena, Ameshizu - on a whim of common sense - took in the likeliest of possibilities should they walk through this strange maze without thought. Somewhere in the labyrinth, a Minotaur lurked (the enemy) and it too was alert, waiting patiently with a pitchfork at hand. The Uchiha's guard is now stronger than ever, and in his maintaining of a calm and analytical demeanor, he'd expect the worst to come. Sharingan activated, he looked straight into the maze and alerted Yuzume; "I would stay awake if I were you." He continued probing the area, and like a faint phantom, slight traces of chakra, from what seems to be from two other individuals at the end of the maze, grazed the corners of his eyes. Ameshizu was correct in guessing enemies were on the look-out as well. "Two people are on the opposite end of this puzzle." "You're absolutely correct about that my friend. Two people are on the opposite end of this puzzle, but you two won't be able to confront them." A voice can be heard. From the sky, what appeared to be a winged angel came down and touched the floor. Her wings were white like an angel's and her clothes were those of an angel. "Both of you select the middle one, good. Now then, I want you to tell me a statement. If it is true, both of you can't get through. If it is false, one of you can't get through but the other dies. Now then, tell me a statement." The winged angel said with a calm tone. Yuzume was more shocked by the appearance of the winged creature herself than her riddle. Tailed demons were one thing, but she had never seen wings on a human before. Perhaps she is some sort of Tengu, she thought, trying to rationalize what her own eyes had seen. Or a chimera... Yuzume nodded inwardly, there was no other possibility: that had to be the case. Or, well, something like that. With that inconvenient inconsistency set-aside for the time being, Yuzume turned her attention to the riddle at-hand. The only thing they had to provide was a statement. One that was neither true nor false. It was, in the end, a rather uncomplicated task. Her training in Root had given her the ability to see through any form of subterfuge, and to determine the truth in an instant. Still, she was inclined to blurt out a statement that was false, just to see if the threat was valid or not, but she quickly stifled the creeping sense of dare-deviledism. Besides, she needed to win points with Ameshizu, and if he was attacked on account of her being impetuous it would only serve to make things more difficult. Yuzume turned to the winged creature and smirked unpleasantly. “Well then, try this on for size:” she paused, as if drinking deeply from her own self-confidence, and then said: “Everything I say is a lie.” "Hehe, that's false. You most likely said something true once, but wait, what if your statement is true? It could be false or true...gah! I don't know. Fine, you win." The angel said, frustrated. The angel then left the area, leaving both participants to go to the battlefield at last. Ameshizu remained aloof as the angel left, and Yuzume's determination has proven itself to be of some use. He simply thought to himself, "Letting her mental illness carry out its course is really playing positively on my account." Of course, his blank stare leaves little room for the predictable. He gave off a fake smile, and he congratulated the Kunoichi. "Great job, Yuzume-san."
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