21Haruka spent hours in the library for the better part of the following two days, not leaving for anything other than food or sleep. Even that only because Jubei kept turning back into his annoying, furry self to remind her. The little tanuki spent most of his time pretending to be some inanimate object or other, mainly that leather bracelet he'd turned into to escape Naruto. Apparently staying in the human realm cost summons chakra and once it ran out they just poofed back into their own dimension, whether they wanted to or not. And Jubei really didn't want to go back. He didn't explain why, but he did beg her for some chakra every few days. Haruka relented on the condition that he make himself useful while he was using her as a personal battery.
Jubei didn't know anything about seals himself, but he was a very sneaky little thing, so she had him break into Orochimaru's old lab to look for any research that might have been left behind. She was not prepared for the mountains of papers she found when she got back to her flat.
According to Jubei the lab had been sealed shut, but looked almost untouched otherwise. He spent hours trying to get the stench of decomposing bodies out of his fur after getting everything that might be useful.
Haruka read a book about human decomposition the next day and learned that it could take years, especially in a cool cellar environment. She did not learn why someone would leave the corpses of children to rot and valuable research behind. Orochimaru was a sick bastard. His experiments were completely inhuman, but the way he had conducted his research didn't make the knowledge he'd gained any less valuable. Not to mention that leaving the lab like that was a gigantic security risk.
Had ANBU just gotten her out that first day and simply never come back? And what about the other children? Haruka didn't remember how many there should have been, she'd cared too little and her mind had been too hazy at the time, but from what Jubei said it sounded as if she was the only one that didn't die down there.
The rest of her week off was spent looking through and creating coded copies of Orochimaru's research, then having Jubei put the originals back where he'd found them. It turned out that the snake had had at least one more lab somewhere in Konoha. He also used to be a jonin sensei and had branded one of his students, Mitarashi Anko, with something called Cursed Seal of Heaven. The thing was supposed to grant greater physical capabilities and an increase in chakra levels through the use of senjutsu. Of course since it had been created by Orochimaru it wasn't just named cursed seal, it was actual juinjutsu.
Regular sealing techniques, fuinjutsu, were used to create storage scrolls or explosive tags and the like. Juinjutsu was a special form of sealing though, with the express purpose of gaining some form of control or influence over a living creature. At least that was the way Haruka had understood it. Cursed seals were generally forbidden, accordingly the books on fuinjutsu she'd read so far only vaguely mentioned their existence.
The possibility of powering seals with natural chakra seemed incredibly useful, but Orochimaru's seals had a high mortality rate. His research notes were also incredibly vague, more like absentminded observations he'd had while working on something else. If she ever wanted to create a fuinjutsu version of the seal she'd probably have to start from scratch, but it was an idea to keep in mind. Being able to use an outside source of chakra without the drawbacks of a cursed seal could be incredibly useful.
The rest of the documents were exclusively about the failed experiments Orochimaru had conducted on the other children in that lab. Not a single one even mentioned Haruka, neither by name nor subject number. It was as if he'd expected to be found out and took everything important with him. If she hadn't met Danzo earlier she might have thought someone from Konoha had taken the useful papers, but they had no reason to leave everything else behind and Danzo clearly didn't even know how well she could sense chakra, let alone what else Orochimaru's modifications had done to her. It wasn't a secret that she had better than average sensing abilities, but only very few knew just how much she could sense. If Danzo had been aware he would have avoided meeting her, for she had no doubt that whatever he had done to his right eye and arm was anything but legal and he wouldn't have trusted her with even that much.
***
When the week was up Team 7 met in front of the mission office. The genin did anyway. Kakashi, to no ones surprise, took his sweet time showing up. While they waited Haruka finished her latest sealing book. The things were almost useless. The theory was easy enough to understand. Seals were combined out of a set of symbols that represented instructions. A completed seal could be compressed into a few or even a single symbol, and in essence all any seal did was manipulate chakra. The only problem was that none of the books explained how that whole process worked, why a symbol meant what it did and which symbols existed. It read as if the authors had written about a language they didn't actually understand. They could explain who spoke it, what it sounded like and which concepts it could express, maybe even a few grammatical quirks, but they had no idea how to use it themselves.
While Haruka frowned over her book the boys were busy ignoring each other very pointedly. They usually had some weird rivalry going, in which Sasuke pretended to be better than anyone, but was secretly thinking of Naruto as serious competition, and Naruto pretended he couldn't stand Sasuke while secretly admiring his skill. She had no idea if something had happened during the last week to destroy the sense of camaraderie they had had in Wave or if it was simply being back in Konoha, but she'd stay out of it as long as it didn't fuck up their teamwork when it counted.
Kakashi finally showed up three hours after the appointed meeting time, claiming he'd gotten lost. Sasuke only glared at him in response and even Naruto's complaints were half-hearted. That changed however when Kakashi looked up mere minutes later, declared he'd forgotten to hand a report in and then vanished. Haruka had seen the bird, and even if she didn't know what exactly it meant, she knew Kakashi hadn't simply abandoned them for no reason. The same couldn't be said for her two teammates though. She had no idea if that kind of information was classified, so to distract them without giving anything away she suggested they go get some food and then train on their own.
They didn't get very far before a box that was painted like a rock started to follow them. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at Haruka and then glanced at Naruto who was shouting at the thing. They both decided it was probably safer to watch the spectacle unfold from a distance and retreated into a nearby tree.
"What kind of rock is square and has two holes?" Naruto bellowed. The box shivered in response and then three children came crawling out. All of them were wearing goggles and Sasuke started to snicker when they declared they were copying Naruto's old look.
They were pestering Naruto about playing ninja with them when Sakura showed up asking why a ninja would play ninja. She seemed pretty disheartened when she arrived. That quickly turned into annoyance though when Naruto insinuated she was his girlfriend.
"Not a chance!" She shouted and hit him so hard he rolled across the floor and smashed into a nearby wooden fence.
"Is she serious?" Haruka asked. Sai was of the opinion that Sakura was practically useless as a ninja, but that had been quite the punch. Sasuke didn't get the chance to answer, too distracted by the pandemonium that broke lose when one of the kids called the pink haired girl an ugly bitch.
Both Naruto and the kid took quite the beating and when it was all over they just had to make a parting comment that had Sakura chasing after them again. In his panic to get away the kid, who was apparently the Hokage's grandson Konohamaru, ran straight into a foreign shinobi.
"One would think someone like him would be able to take care of himself or at least have a bodyguard," Haruka commented. "Should we interfere?"
"Let's watch for now. I'd like to know why two Suna shinobi are in our village," Sasuke told her.
"They look like genin, so chunin exams I'd wager. It's Konoha's turn."
"That hurt," one of the Suna nin said, as if he'd actually been injured by the collision with an eight year old. He wore a full body suit that was loose to the point of being baggy and completely black, with a circle on the front that was half red, half yellow and rimmed in white. He also carried a bandaged, lumpy shape on his back and wore a hood with cat ears—for some reason. His face was painted with purple marks that reminded Haruka of kabuki and emphasized the grim expression his features were set in.
"I bet Cat Boy is a puppeteer," she said to Sasuke, who pointed at the other Suna nin, a kunoichi with sandy blond hair gathered into four pigtails, and replied: "Long range wind user judging by that massive fan on her back."
He was likely right, Suna was known well for it's wind nature users and puppeteers, so these two were like a walking stereotype. The kunoichi's light purple, off-the-shoulder dress posed quite the contrast to her teammate's choice in garment, but their expressions matched well.
"That hurt you little piece of shit," the boy insisted and lifted Konohamaru to eye level, by grabbing the overly long scarf around the kid's neck. The kunoichi didn't seem too happy with his action and Naruto certainly wasn't. The blond yelled at him to let his friend go, but Cat Boy didn't listen. So of course Naruto's next course of action was an all out attack.
"What was that?" Sasuke asked when the blond landed flat on his face only seconds later, to the amusement of the Suna shinobi. "Not even that idiot is clumsy enough to fall over his own feet."
"He didn't. The puppeteer used a chakra string like a tripwire," Haruka explained. She hadn't even known that was possible. The string would have to be solid in order to do that. She could form her solid chakra claws, but holding chakra in that state got more difficult the further away from her body it was.
Naruto wasn't deterred by his little fall, even if he didn't know what had caused it. He just kept yelling at Cat Boy. Haruka and Sasuke watched them squabble for a while, but the Uchiha had apparently had enough when Cat Boy prepared to strike Konohamaru. He used a small stone—where had he even gotten that?—like a shuriken. It flew true, hitting the back of Cat Boy's hand and effectively stopping his attack.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura screamed in delight and then glared at Haruka. Sasuke completely ignored the pink haired girl and told the Suna nin to get lost. Sakura was apparently immune to the treatment., she practically had hearts in her eyes. Naruto on the other hand looked like someone had just ruined his day.
"Newcomer at our six," Haruka whispered when she sensed someone approaching. His chakra was massive, like Naruto's but somehow twisted. It made her skin crawl.
Cat Boy had just taken the lumpy, bandaged thing from his back and demanded Sasuke come down to fight him when the newcomer spoke up.
"Kankuro, stop it," he said with no inflection whatsoever. It was like she'd imagine the voice of a corpse might sound like. Both of his, probably, teammates froze up instantly. The boy himself was standing upside down on a tree branch, arms crossed and looking like there was absolutely nothing he could possible care less about than the current situation. His pale green eyes were rimmed in black, both contrasting with his flaming red hair and the kanji for love on his forehead.
"Listen, they started it and—" Cat Boy, no Kankuro, tried to apologize, suddenly very nervous. He got interrupted by the newcomer though, who stared at him with dead eyes.
"Shut up or I'll kill you," he intoned. No threat in his voice at all, he was merely stating a fact, and then without even batting an eye he apologized to Sasuke and told his teammates that they were leaving. Sasuke moved down from his tree only a second after the redhead did.
"Hey you, what's your name?" He asked. The blond girl was suddenly blushing, asking if he meant her. Haruka started to laugh.
"What's with the fangirls?" She raised an eyebrow at Sasuke and then turned to the Suna team. "Not you, Panda Eyes."
Sasuke glared at her for a second, and so did Panda Eyes.
"My name is Gaara of the Desert. And yours?"
"Uchiha Sasuke."
They actually had a little stare down before Naruto butted in, shouting his name and declaring he'd be Hokage one day. He was very excited right up until Gaara told him he wasn't interested and then left without another word.
***
Kakashi found them on their usual training ground a few hours later. He handed each of them a form for the chunin exams, explaining that they had to fill it out and turn it in by four in the afternoon of the next day if they wanted to compete. Naruto didn't even let him finish the sentence before he jumped at Kakashi, declaring his undying love and admiration. Or at least that was what he tried to do. In reality Kakashi vanished into thin air before the blond even reached him and Naruto landed face first in the dirt.