By the time Shino and Kiba had returned -- without the eyeball, which everyone conspicuously avoided inquiring about -- the older squads had all set out to explore Mist or had declined in favor of rest, and so the Rookie 15 set out from the barracks on their own. That is, if you ignored the pair of masked Mist nin conspicuously trailing them.

Since it was closest, the group took a casual stroll past the Mist Ninja Academy first. The target-practice logs and sparring fields were much as Hazou remembered them. As Noburi was regaling everyone with the story of being made to sleep on top of the upright logs during Hell Week, Hazou felt Akane slip her hand into his. He leaned his head over against hers, silently.

There were… a lot of memories attached to this place. So much time and effort put into making Momma proud, into making himself strong enough that he could help protect her and make her happy. So many days of shit-list duty for questioning instructors, for doing things in ways that were just better even when he was told not to, or for beating someone’s favored student in a spar. If it weren’t for this place, Momma and Poppa would never have become ninja and met and fallen in love and had him. Did that make it worth all the suffering it had caused to its students, and that its students had caused in the world? But ninja also gave humanity the ability to push back against the wilderness, so how did that weigh against--

Akane squeezed his hand, drawing him back to the present. The group was moving on. He smiled at her gratefully and squeezed back.

…​

The market street was, sadly, a lot less lively than he remembered. Many of the stalls were vacant at the moment, though most of those appeared to be closed for the day rather than shut down entirely.

Fortunately, old man Amatetsu’s Thousand-Yam Furnace was roaring, and Hazou led the group over. One of the ANBU stepping through the curtain across the doorway first, followed by a squawk of surprise from inside, and then pulled back the curtain across the door.

“Evening!” Hazou called to the walrus-looking man behind the counter as he stepped over the threshold.

“Er, hello, honored ninja sir! Sirs! Sirs and ma’ams!” the elderly man replied, looking frantically between Hazou, the silent ANBU who had taken up residence in one corner, and the increasingly large crowd of ninja piling into his shop. “I’m afraid I don’t have any dissidents to report,” he continued, “as the folks who patronize my shop have universally been citizens in good standing and supportive of the new Mizukage. ‘Specially me myself. Not that I’d imply I ever disagreed with the policies of the Fourth, may his spirit float on warm currents forever, where they might happen to have been different from those of the Fifth. No sirs, certainly not old Amatetsu. He’s as loyal as they come.”

After a couple uncomfortable seconds filled with many confused glances between the Leaf ninja, he asked, “Could I offer you folks some baked yams on this cold evening?”

“Yes, thank you, that would be excellent,” Hazou said in relief, and plopped down on a stool. “That’s all we were here for.”

“Oh! Oh, well, of course!” Amatetsu responded, equally relieved, as he turned around to start pulling yams from the oven.

Ino sat down on the other side of Hazou from Akane. “What exactly just happened?” she asked incredulously.

Hazou shrugged. “Amatetsu’s is popular, people come here all the time to hang out and talk. I guess sometimes ninja come in asking if he’s heard anything T&I would care about.”

She still looked confused. “That all makes sense, sure, but why was he so afraid?”

“He was probably just worried someone might have falsely reported him,” Noburi answered smoothly from Ino’s other side. “Happens sometimes, and sometimes takes a while to get cleared up. Mist doesn’t have your clan’s… gentler methods.”

As Ino’s expression slipped from confusion to concern, Amatetsu turned around with two trays heaped with steaming, perfectly baked yam-sticks, with divots all around the edges for sauces. “Here you all are!” he said, laying them down. “Oh, there are even more of you now! Goodness me, I’ll get another tray going.” He paused just as he began to turn back around, and very slowly brought his face uncomfortably close to Hazou’s.

“My eyes ain’t what they used to be,” he said incredulously, “but is that a Leaf headband???”

“Chuunin Exams, gramps,” one of the ANBU explained. Several of the genin jumped upon hearing the masked man’s graveley voice for the first time.

Amatetsu stood up rapidly and smacked a hand to his forehead. “Chuunin Exams! I knew I was forgetting somethin’! Well, let me get that other tray out for you -- eat up, the bill’s on your Kage after all!”

…​

Once they’d manage to drag Chouji away from a budding argument with Amatetsu about whether mint sauce or garlic was the superior yam condiment, Keiko took a turn leading the group around some of the clan compounds that were close enough as to not require too much running. Houzuki, Yuki, Terumi, Kurosawa… Hazou looked at his mother’s childhood home with disdain, resolving to make sure the clan elders that had caused his family so much strife would soon learn exactly how much they’d lost when they had chosen to try and look respectable over choosing to support their own blood.

The path leading back to the barracks -- it had been decided not to try snooping on the Mizukage Tower -- “happened” to pass by the house Hazou had grown up in. He’d been reluctant to go near it, in case it gave Mist an incentive to threaten his mom or otherwise mess with her, or in case he found out she was dead and his performance was compromised, or any of half a dozen reasons, but Noburi had shushed him as soon as he’d started listing them and insisted that at least going by the place was necessary.

And so Hazou found himself knocking on the door, not knowing who, if anyone would answer.

“Ello?” a small voice answered from inside. It sounded like a young girl’s.

“Uh, hi,” Hazou said confusedly to the still-closed door. “I’m looking for Kurosawa Hana?”

“Hmmm nope, bye!” the small voice replied.

“Emiko? Who is it?” a more muffled woman’s voice asked.

“Dunno!” Emiko answered happily. “Gone now!”

Hazou knocked again, somewhat more insistently. He could feel the stares of the group out on the street behind him.

This time the door opened, to reveal a fairly young woman with a toddler clinging to one leg. “Can I help you?” she asked guardedly, eyes darting to the large group out on the street.

“I’m looking for Kurosawa Hana”, Hazou said again. “She and I used to live here?”

The woman’s eyes widened, glancing quickly at his forehead protector. “Oh gosh, you’re her son, aren’t you?” she asked. Hazou nodded, and she continued. “We bought this house from her more than a year ago. At the time, she was staying with an old friend of hers, but she never gave us an address, and I’m afraid we haven’t been in contact since.”

“I… see,” Hazou responded, deflating somewhat. “Thank you, I’ll ask elsewhere then. I hope you and your daughter have a nice evening.”

“You as well,” she answered, closing the door.

-o-​

“Okay, so, what did we learn?” Hazou asked the group.

The whole of the Rookie 15 was spread around the various surfaces of Team Gai’s room, chosen because the Hidden Rock team in the room above them hadn’t yet returned. Neji and Hinata had wordlessly taken up the job of periodically activating their eyes to check for snooping.

Shino spoke up. “My allies found the lecture rooms at the Academy to be empty but clean. I feel this means we can neither rule out nor in a written exercise.”

“In contrast,” said Noburi, “the lack of modifications to the Academy training grounds makes it unlikely there will be simple skill tests, though that wasn’t super likely to begin with.”

“Any luck looking for documents?” Hazou asked, directing the question at the Hyuuga pair, who shook their heads. “Hm. Troublesome.”

Shikamaru grunted in a deeply offended tone from his splayed-out position on Noburi’s bed, which he had staked out immediately upon entering the room since it was close to the door and required fewer steps to reach.

“Surely the specifics do not matter that much?” Lee practically shouted. “We can prepare for everything, and be ready for it all! We are ninja of Hidden Leaf! The fires of our Youth will carry--”

The simultaneous glares and hushes from almost everyone at the mention of Youth halted his pep talk.

“I’m going to have to agree with him, however reluctantly,” said Ino. “Let’s talk through some generalities, since we lack specifics. Would one of you be willing to tell us more about the Mist clans, Gouketsu?”

-o-​

As sunset approached, the Leaf genin all assembled in front of the barracks, standing slightly separate from smaller groups from Sand, Rock, Cloud, and some of the Minors. Before the tension could rise too much, however, a quintet of ANBU appeared, and gestured that the groups should follow.

The procession moved through Mist’s main streets, lit by strings of lanterns and laden with an the evening fog that worked together to suffuse the whole journey with a warm glow, undercut somewhat by a persistent breeze.

Eventually the group arrived at the base of the Mizukage tower. The heads of each of the delegations were waiting there on raised stages, banners with the kanji of their homelands raised over each of them. The genin were directed to stand in formation in front of their leaders, facing the tower. A group of Mist genin stood at the base of the tower, lined by chuunin and jounin.

Everyone held their places for a moment, and then a door on the second floor of the tower opened up smoothly and silently. A hulking man in a white robe, with blue skin and brilliant, sharp teeth in strode out onto the balcony. “Welcome!” he boomed, in a voice somewhere between an enthusiastic party host and an over-enthusiastic drill sergeant. “I hope your travels to our beautiful village were pleasant! I, Hoshigaki Jiro, am most pleased to accept the candidates of the Thirty-First International Chuunin Exams! The Village Hidden in the Mist opens its arms to you all, in the hope that will one day be recognized as the beginning of a new era of peace, prosperity, and cooperation between nations, unmarred by the darkness of past animosities! Without further ado, allow me to introduce the leader of our beloved village!"

A figure in a similar robe, but wearing the blue hat of the Mizukage’s office stepped gracefully out from behind the fish-man with a grace that Hazou found disturbingly familiar. A deep blue sash constraining the robe around the waist allowed the figure’s feminine curves to show through. She stepped up on a raised platform at the front of the balcony to survey the assembled force of ninja and spread her arms wide.

"Honored guests of all nations, the Village Hidden in the Mists thanks you for joining us. Allow me to introduce myself. I am the Fifth Mizukage, Kurosawa Ren,” she stated, her words colliding with Hazou’s thoughts like falling boulders. “Let the games begin!”