“Tousaki!” the ANBU commander called, beckoning from the sidelines.

Ryouma jogged over obediently, as a proctor came out to bury the former pig with an earth jutsu and set up the field for the next candidate. The commander handed her clipboard to an assistant and clasped her hands at the small of her back, muscled shoulders set straight as an iron bar. Her mask was a hawk, white and red; her dark eyes glittered dangerously up at him from the shadowed eye-holes. “You’d registered the Internal Organs Melt Technique on your application form. A-ranked, mid-range. What was that?”

“Human Body Destruction Technique, ma’am,” Ryouma said promptly. “B-rank, close range.”

Great explanation there, Tousaki. Let’s tell her exactly what she already knows. She’d seen him step up and slap a hand glowing with putrid chakra to the hanging carcass; she’d read probably every detail of every original combat jutsu in his file. The hawk mask hid all expressions, but the tilt of her head said impatience.

He bit his tongue, took a precious few second to think. “The Naizou Tokasu requires a lot of chakra. Ten times as much as the Nikutai Hakai. I didn’t know if it was chakra I’d need, later. I thought it’d be better to show a lower-ranked jutsu—even if it’s just a variant of one anybody who’s worked with me has already seen—than wipe myself out halfway through the trial.” He couldn’t resist adding helpfully, “Strategic thinking, ma’am.”

“Just so,” the commander said, dry as bone. “Your strategic thinking didn’t have anything to do with Hatake Kakashi watching with his Sharingan open, did it?”

Ryouma opened his mouth, closed it, and stood silent, hands curled at his sides.

“I thought as much,” the commander said.

She reached out a hand; her assistant slapped the clipboard into it. “Nakashima’s up next,” he said.

The commander flipped a page and said, without glancing up, “You’re dismissed, Tousaki. Wash your hands.” She turned away.

On the field, Nakashima Hideo was gathering water from the misty air for his ice arrow technique. Ryouma trudged around the sidelines instead and found a proctor willing to share a thin stream of water from his canteen. Soap would have to wait. He went back beneath the trees, where Fukui Ayane raised her eyebrows at him and indicated the dry spot on a bed of pine needles beside her.

The last time he’d seen her they’d both been very drunk, and mostly naked.

He shook his head, and dropped down by Hatake instead. “You can keep breathing,” he said.