AN: I do not own the Naruto concept. Everything original you see is either mine or someone who will be acknowledged at the end of the chapter.
Outside Kusagakure...
"That was all your fault. That mission would have gone perfectly if you hadn't gone to the right but gone to the left like you were supposed to!" shouted an unknown male voice.
"No, you were supposed to go to the left; I was supposed to go to the right!" replied another male voice, using the same tone as the first.
"Will you two stop it, the mission was successfully completed. There is no need to fight, it really doesn't matter," interjected a rather annoyed female voice.
"Tell that to Takema-sensei. He was the one that took the defected kunai, wasn't he?" The second voice said accusingly.
"Well I can't well tell Takema-sensei that right now or ever for that matter," said the female voice, still sounding rather pissed.
"WHY NOT?" The two males' voices exclaimed.
"You two are numb-skulls. For two shinobi, neither of you have very good senses. Takema-sensei is death."
The last few words shocked the two males to the core. Takema-sensei, their sensei is dead and it's all their fault. The owner of the first voice sank to his knees. It was his fault, he had moved the wrong way and he knew it. He just would never admit that to his team, let alone the male next to him. After about fifteen seconds he heard afore-mentioned male jump off, quickly followed by the female.
"Aren't you coming? I know you heard him leave."
He didn't respond, he just sat there on his knees, looking despondently down at the ground.
He'll get over it ... eventually. He just needs some time, they both do. The female thought as she jumped away.
It's my fault, it's my fault, it's my fault. That's what's going through the minds of both the males as they responded in their different ways.
After another minute of sitting in the same position, the first male got up and ran after his team-mates. At this, their Takema-sensei was left alone in the clearing.
After five minutes of running and jumping, the first male caught up to the second, at a series of huge, grassy hills. They stood opposite, on top of a hill each.
"So you finally made it, Koshi-baka." The second male sneered.
"Wouldn't miss it, Shokei-teme." The first male, now identified as Koshi, vehemently replied.
The two stood facing off for another minute. The wind, strangely enough, blew from two directions, from behind Koshi and Shokei. The gusts from behind Koshi blew leaves from the forest towards the boys. The breeze from behind Shokei picked up loose blades of grass. Like shields meeting swords.
Ever being one to make the first move, Shokei ran forward and sent his right fist spearing at Koshi's left side followed up by a left hook and to finish up a low, sweeping leg.
Koshi caught the spear-fist with one hand, deflected the hook with the back of his other hand then jumped high over the leg, jerking Shokei off-balance for a second. Shokei used the momentum of Koshi's jump to do a hand spring, intending to bring his heel up into Koshi's chin in mid-air.
That upward heel was defected and while Shokei was slightly off-guard in mid-air, Koshi threw a hard punch into Shokei's stomach. Shokei was winded and flew off, but not before he delivered a kick to Koshi's mid-riff, so Koshi was sent flying as well.
Shokei went smashing into a tree, breaking it in half and Koshi went bouncing through the grassy plain. Both shinobi were dirty and had leaves and grass in their hair and clothing.
Fifteen minutes later...
Since the fight began, these two genin team-mates traded blow for blow. Neither could get the upper hand on the other. Every punch sent had one come back in return. Even in ninjutsu, neither could gain an edge.
Just like in their first exchange, Shokei went flying into a tree and Koshi went bouncing along.
Oblivious to both the fighters, they had gathered an audience. The Kusa Feudal Lord's assistant was there, as well as many other shinobi from Kusa as well as one or two from other villages, particularly Konoha as they were close to the Fire country border.
At this point in the fight there was another glaring competition as the shinobi regained their breath and charged up for their finishers.
Elsewhere in the forest...
"Shokei! Koshi!" This was the call of the female team-mate of the two boys fighting, as she woke up.
As she regained her bearings, she sensed the battle that is taking place and ran for her life towards the flaring chakra.
Five minutes later...
Finally the two boys were ready to proceed, when someone burst out of the forest at high speed.
"Samei-chan," The two boys muttered followed by something incoherent.
So she's finally woken up. Great now she's going to interrupt this fight. Koshi thought.
Flashback
After two minutes of running, he had caught up to Samei but she didn't know he was there yet.
She'll just get in the road, a little voice in the back of Koshi's head whispered. Knock her out, it urged. So he did.
He silently jumped up behind her, quickly hand-chopped her neck and she went limp. He caught her and set her at the base of a tree without breaking his running pace.
End Flashback
Before she could even interfere, Koshi and Shokei launched their jutsus.
"KAZANGAN," called out Shokei.
"FUNPATSU," shouted Koshi.
Shokei shot his right hand out at Koshi like a punch and Koshi did the same … the only confusing thing was they were ten metres apart.
The unasked questions of the audience were quickly answered when Shokei's hand turned to lava and shot at Koshi and Koshi's hand turned to water and shot at Shokei.
They both caught the other's 'punch' with their left hands which turned to lava and water for Shokei and Koshi respectively.
"They've completed those jutsu," Samei stated in complete and utter awe. She had heard of these two jutsu but had yet to see them.
Apparently Samei spoke too soon when the jutsus retracted and the boys collapsed.
Shokei had third degree burns to both his arms and Koshi's arm seemed like they had no bones, in fact all bone, muscle and other tissue in his arms had turned jelly-like.
They were quickly carried back to Kusagakure for medical treatment.
Ten weeks later...
Both Koshi and Shokei have been newly released from hospital with slings on both arms.
They were standing just outside the doors to the hospital, glaring at each other, when Samei jumped down from out of nowhere.
"Finally you two are out..." she was saying when she noticed the expressions on the boys' faces'.
"Bakas. Will you two cut it out? You've just got out of hospital and I don't want to have to put you both back there."
"Whatever." Both boys muttered, and attempted to jump off, only succeeding in falling flat on their faces.
A large sweat drop grew on the back of Samei's head.
Both boys stood up and walked away as dignifiedly as possible.
The sweat drop on the back of Samei's head just grew larger.
Takema-sensei, please forgive Koshi and Shokei for their behaviour. I know they blame themselves for your death but just can't admit it so they take it out on each other. Boys, they are so infuriating at times, thought Samei.
Seventeen years later...
In fifteen years, Shokei, Koshi and Samei have become Jounin. As they grew in rank, Koshi's and Shokei's rivalry and hatred of each other grew.
Over the years, they fought each other many times, between 37 to 45 times.
Eastern Gate of Kusagakure...
Shokei has just returned from a mission as a lone ANBU. His mission was a success but the use of a water jutsu on one of his Kazangan arms forced him to make the trip back with one stone arm.
Five minutes later, Western Gate of Kusa...
Koshi returned from his mission with his Jounin team. He has slight scalding on his arms but it isn't that serious. The rest of his team only has scratches and bruises. They even brought back an enemy body to study.
Koshi and two of his team-mates are ordered to take the body to the morgue, while the remaining two members of the team go to the Grass Feudal Lord to hand-in a mission report.
After dropping the body at the morgue, they walked out to go to their post-mission meal. On their way out, Koshi bumped into someone walking towards the morgue.
"Sorry miss. Are you alright?" He asked, helping her up.
She looked up into his face and recognised it instantly.
"Koshi-kun?" she stuttered.
Koshi blinked three or four times.
"Samei-chan?"
"Koshi-kun, how are you? I thought you weren't going to be back for a week?" All of this came out of Samei's mouth in one breath.
"Just a second. Hey mates, I'll meet up with you later," Koshi quickly yelled to his team-mates.
They scowled. They were very superstitious and their usual post-mission routine was already broken and now Koshi wasn't going to the post-mission meal. Still scowling they walked off.
"So why are you here?" Koshi asked.
"Shokei just got back and he's injured," came Samei's reply.
"And you're going to the morgue? He hasn't be killed, has he? Because I wanted to kill him," enquired Koshi as innocently as possible.
Scowling at the last sentence, Samei replied, "I got called to come down because there is an enemy body to study."
"Ah the one my team just brought in. It's one freaking piece of shit, that Mist-nin." (Koshi)
"Oh, ok." (Samei)
"I'd better get going, my team is very superstitious …" (Koshi)
Before he could finish there was a loud crash on the other side of the morgue doors. Koshi and Samei rushed in. Inside the 'dead' Mist-nin had seemingly come back to life and was killing the morgue staff.
Upstairs...
Shokei also heard the crash from the morgue. Knowing that Samei had just left to go down there, he raced out of the room, disregarding the fact that one of his arms was stone.
Back at the morgue...
Analysing the situation instantaneously, Koshi dragged Samei back through the door they had just entered through.
"Why are we leaving? We have to save those staff."
"It took my whole five man team to take him down the first time. Now there are only two of us."
"But we can't do just nothing!"
"Look, we'll get back-up soon. I'm sure my team heard the crash, if not other shinobi in the area. Then we'll take him down. Until then we wait."
"NO! WE HAVE TO HOLD HIM NOW! We can't wait for the back-up. By the time they get here the entire morgue staff will be dead." Samei shouted as she broke out of Koshi's grip and rushed into the morgue.
Koshi raced in after her, entering just in time to see Samei attack and was forced to join in so Samei wouldn't be killed.
In no time both Koshi and Samei were on the defensive. At least they did manage to distract the Mist-nin in time to save three of the morgue staff.
After they had been fighting for multiple minutes, Shokei busts through the door and joins the fight.
"So, my prey has come to me," the Mist-nin coos.
Even a lone ANBU like Shokei was put on the defensive quickly, his stone arm not helping at all.
He was getting pissed off at the Mist-nin.
"That's it. KAZANGAN," roared Shokei.
Koshi, who was losing his patience too, cried, "FUNPATSU."
The Mist-nin dodged both jutsu, which missed each other and hit the walls opposite them.
Without hesitation, the Mist-nin launched an assault on the semi-defenceless Shokei. The Mist-nin's hand seemed to be shrouded in a glowing mist.
"Watch out for that hand. It'll pierce your armour," Koshi, who had seen the attack before, warned Shokei and Samei.
With his Kazangan arm extended and with Koshi's Funpatsu arm out as well, Shokei didn't have the time or room to react to the attack.
Samei, however, did. She moved in front of Shokei and prepared to deflect the attack and knock the Mist-nin back.
However the Mist-nin had other plans. At the last second he redirected his attack, plunging the hand through Samei's sternum.
The Mist-nin removed his hand and stepped back so that Samei's blood wouldn't spurt all over him.
Samei fell backwards, a surprised look on her face and a hole in her chest. Kazangan deactivated, Shokei caught her before she hit the ground.
After deactivating Funpatsu, Koshi was at his side in a flash but there was nothing either of them could do for Samei.
Shokei lay Samei softly down on the ground. They both stood up and looked down at her body.
As they looked down at their teammate's body both their eyes glowed, Shokei's red and Koshi's blue.
The Mist-nin, seeing their eyes, threw many kunai with explosive tags at both the shinobi and the ceiling behind him.
The kunai thrown at Koshi and Shokei didn't even make it half way before missiles of lava and water intercepted them.
The kunai aimed at the ceiling made contact and exploded, creating a large hole.
Once the smoke clears, none of the three shinobi are anywhere within spitting distance of the morgue, though the doors were swinging.
Upstairs, on the roof...
The Mist-nin, after making his "getaway", ran straight up to the roof to complete the final leg of his escape.
As soon as he arrived, he was propelled into a ventilation box by a blast of water.
He looked to where the blast came from and there was Koshi and Shokei, standing on the edge of the roof.
Their appearances had changed some, due to aggravated use of their jutsu.
Shokei's hair looked like it is on fire, all his skin was a maroon-red and his eyes had a fiery look to them.
Koshi's hair seemed to be wet and flowed down behind him, his skin had turned blue and his eyes looked like falling water.
This is not good, thought the Mist-nin, their jutsus have evolved.
Panicking, the Mist-nin jumped away, only for one of his legs to be caught by a giant hand of lava, bringing the Mist-nin crashing down onto the roof.
The Mist-nin had third-degree burns to his leg where Shokei's Kazangan hand had caught him.
Before the Mist-nin could recover, he was hit in the chest by a fist of water, giving him water burns.
The Mist-nin was thrown through another ventilation box, bounced along the roof, flew off the side into the wall of another building, fell out of the crater in the wall head first unconscious.
On top of the hospital roof, Koshi and Shokei walked to the edge of the roof that the Mist-nin had bounced over and looked down after the Mist-nin. Both of the shinobi shushined away, after the Mist-nin, who was falling between the buildings.
As the three fell next to each other, Koshi and Shokei the right way up and the Mist-nin upside-down, the Mist-nin managed to recover from the blows and brung a roadhouse kick down on Koshi and swung a fist towards Shokei.
Koshi, having less time to react, managed to get his arms in the way of the kick. Though as he has the Funpatsu activated the kick sliced straight through his arms.
The kick, after slicing through his arms, hit Koshi's chest, sending him into a wall, where we turned into water and slid down.
Shokei caught the fist thrown at him by the Mist-nin and burnt it to a crisp.
This is when they hit the ground.
Neither shinobi had been ready for the impact, though it affected the Mist-nin more than Shokei.
The Mist-nin, who was three-quarters of the way between being upside-down and right-side-up with a burnt leg and a crispy hand, crumpled to the ground, where he seemed to slip in and out of consciousness.
Shokei, on the other hand, unwounded, landed on his feet. He walked over to the Mist-nin to deal the final blow.
The Mist-nin gained full consciousness when Shokei was preparing the blow that would end the fight. In one last, desperate attempt, the Mist-nin struck out with a glowing hand (the uninjured one of course).
This strike cut both Shokei's legs off at the knee.
The Mist-nin hissed in pain as his hand cut through lava, being burnt as it went through.
Shokei's legs melted down to lava as they were cut off. Without his legs under him, he fell straight to the ground.
Taking this opportunity, the Mist-nin, with a burnt leg, a water-burnt chest and two crispy hands, got up and jumped away.
Shokei sent a fist after the Mist-nin but his chakra was too depleted and the fist didn't even get halfway before it retracted and turned back to normal. His legs reformed as he was lying in the lava puddle that was his legs. He slipped, uninjured, out of consciousness due to chakra depletion.
Koshi, who had just reformed at the base of the wall, also tried to catch the Mist-nin but the reformation took too much out of him.
Two days later...
Both Koshi and Shokei have been unconscious since the fight with the Mist-nin. They both sweated profusely during their sleeps.
The doctors could find nothing physically wrong with them. Their chakra levels had returned to normal and they were uninjured. Yet they remained unconscious.
At 5:36:49pm...
It was exactly 48 hours since Samei took the enhanced hand to the chest.
Koshi and Shokei suddenly woke up. Their thoughts were exactly the same; maybe it was all a dream. Though judging by their current location it wasn't.
They both were automatically released from the hospital. There was nothing wrong with them, so why what would have been the point of keeping them?
Though if the doctors had any say, Koshi and Shokei would've had spent an overnight stay but the two would hear nothing of it.
To depart, they both went up to the roof, which had been newly repaired. They met up there and had a long glaring competition, before sliding into battle stances.
Their academy sensei, who had come to see if they were ok, interrupted their pre-fight ritual.
To say the least, she was furious. She started berating both boys for their foolishness.
"Imagine what Samei and Takema would say if they saw you two now!"
At this both men straightened up fully, glared at each other once more, and jumped away.
Five days later...
"Kusa Lord! Have you seen Shokei or Koshi? I haven't seen them anywhere!" A voice rang out through Feudal Lord's mansion.
"I'm sorry, Maseda. They haven't come in for any missions lately," the voice of the Kusa Lord answered calmly.
"They, sir, haven't been seen since that day at the hospital. That was five days ago," Maseda replied.
"Calm down Maseda. I'm sure they'll turn up somewhere," the Kusa Lord reassured.
"But Kusa Lord, neither of them have been at their apartments. Koshi hasn't been seen by his team. He hasn't been to the springs or the bookstore. Shokei hasn't been in the ANBU quarters. He hasn't made an appearance at the tracks. That and neither have been to Takema's or Samei's graves," Maseda continued rapidly.
"Ok. This is quite unfortunate. I'm sorry, but two more days and I'll have to list them as nuke-nin," the Kusa Lord sadly replied.
Elsewhere...
"Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu."
Suddenly, 50 Koshis were standing on a river.
"Ok," the real Koshi yelled, "This side is Team 1 and this side is Team 2. Team 1 block this river. Team 2 get to work building BAKUFUGAKURE at the bottom of the waterfall."
All the mizu bunshins jumped off to work, while the real Koshi sat down on the bank, unrolled many scrolls and started designing a very complex seal.
Same time, elsewhere...
"Yougan Bunshin no Jutsu."
50 Shokeis can out of the lava to stand on top of it.
"Ok, first block the mouth of the volcano and then build YOUGANGAKURE right there," the real Shokei yelled, pointing at a spot halfway up the volcano.
The lava clones blocked the volcano and built while the real Shokei sat down and unrolled two rather large scrolls to design a complex seal.
...
Two days after the creation of Bakufugakure and Yougangakure, two pages came out in the Grasses bingo book. One read Minatsu Shokei, the other read Sutora Koshi.
Jutsu List:
Name: Kazangan no jutsu (Lava jutsu) [Usually just called the Kazangan without the 'no jutsu' part]
Type: Ninjutsu
Rank: S-Class
Effect: This jutsu turns the user's limbs into lava for a time. The limbs can do things limbs usually can as there are no bones, no muscles, no tendons, nothing but lava. The limbs do retain their shape and looks, until the effects of the jutsu become obvious. This could be through the limb stretching further than usual, the limb twisting usually and the likes.
Advantages/Disadvantages: If used for too long or without enough experience, this jutsu can cause major damage to the user. It has adverse effects where the lava comes into contact with water (if enough water, the lava can be turned to stone, thus the limb can be turned to stone) {this effect continues when the jutsu deactivates, a.k.a. the limb remains as stone} [this is reversible though]. If a lava limb is separated from the user and the jutsu deactivates, it is like an amputation, the user would have a foreshortened limb, and the limb would just be a puddle of lava on the ground (this is reversible though). As the limbs are lava (semi-liquid, semi-solid) they cannot stop physical attacks (punches, kicks, etc) like normal limbs can, but the enemy will be burnt while attacking. It is easier for the user to block some jutsu as there are no nerves in the limbs so the user doesn't feel anything from the limbs while the jutsu is active.
Name: Funpatsu no jutsu (Spurt Jutsu) [Usually just called the Funpatsu without the 'no jutsu' part]
Type: Ninjutsu
Rank: S-Class
Effect: This jutsu turns the user's limbs into water for a time. The limbs can do things limbs usually can as there are no bones, no muscles, no tendons, nothing but water. The limbs do retain their shape and looks, that is until the effects of the jutsu become obvious. This could be through the limb stretching further than usual, the limb twisting usually and the likes.
Advantages/Disadvantages: If used for too long or without enough experience, this jutsu can cause major damage to the user. It has adverse effects where the water comes into contact with fire (if the fire is hot enough, the water can evaporate, thus the limb can be turned to water vapour) {this effect continues when the jutsu deactivates, a.k.a. the limb remains as water vapour} [this is reversible though]. If a water limb is separated from the user and the jutsu deactivates, it is like an amputation, the user would have a foreshortened limb, and the limb would just be a puddle of water on the ground (this is reversible though). As the limbs are water (liquid) they cannot stop physical attacks (punches, kicks, etc) like normal limbs can. It is easier for the user to block some jutsu as there are no nerves in the limbs so the user doesn't feel anything from the limbs while the jutsu is active.
Coming up next: Chapter 1: Enter Teams Waterfall and Lava