This is a very short fic concerning those wonderful and brave ninja of Chapter 512 page 10. Just a bit of light hearted fun concerning the backbone of the ninja world, without whom the main cast would be pointless. Truly, this goes out to all those nameless (and occasionally named) background characters throughout the Naruto Series, proving that even the fodder have lives. Just to cover, I do not own these characters or this series, I am not sure if anything I write here will even be margainly accurate to these characters.
On the Sidelines of War
In the Land of Lightning, the Shinobi Alliance was working hard to set up for the upcoming battles. Ninja from all over were getting to know each other and work together. In particular, due to initiatives set up by their respective leaders, many of the ninja and samurai were being rotated in mixed six man groups in order to increase cohesion between the groups. One such group were currently on their break.
"Earth Style: Gojira Jutsu!" yelled a small young man with short black hair from from Iwa as he performed hand seals and stuck out his tongue at his opponent. From the ground in front of him rose a large stone behemoth that resembled a certain famous amphibian which gnashed its teeth before charging. The boy's opponent was a man from Kiri with long white hair, a face mask and creases under his eyes. He carried a katana and ran a hand along it as the monster charged.
"Too naïve Kaiju. Water Style: Hymn Blade." The Mist ninja flew past the stone beast before it fell apart, neatly sliced into eight parts. The young Iwa ninja's jaw dropped as he couldn't believe his creation had failed.
"Ah, ah, no way! How, how did ya do it Yuugiri? How did you beat my ultimate creation?" The younger ninja demanded as he pounded feebly on Yuugiri's chest while he sheathed his sword.
"Easy Dummy." came a voice behind Kaiju as he turned to see a brown haired woman from Suna with black tattoos across her face approach them. "You focus on too much raw power, your technique has no speed or even defence. You count on it being rock to make it invincible, and it fails when Yuugiri can literally use water to cut it apart." she explained simply as Kaiju's face became more twisted with anger.
"I, I knew that! I didn't need you to explain that to me Nakasu!" he pouted before storming off to take a seat by the side of their small arena.
"Yeah, whatever. Yuugiri, I got next." She said brightly, taking a fighting stance.
"Fine, if you insist." He said dully. Running his hand across his blade again, his technique could actually be seen in action. The sheath of his blade was filled with water and every time he replaced it the blade was coated in it. While not too good for the sword, Yuugiri wasn't so concerned as he instead focused his chakra into vibrating the water on the blade and pushing it to the edge of the weapon. The vibrations made the katana give out a low humming, leading to the techniques name of 'Hymn Blade' and Yuugiri's own title of "The Mist's Singing Sword". Nakasu on the other hand stood ready. Her arms were covered in the dry, dusty dirt of her homeland as she didn't seem the type to be concerned with getting a little messy. As the two took their positions, they both quickly charged. After passing one another, Yuugiri sheathed his sword before turning to leave the arena.
"Wh, what happened?" Kaiju demanded, looking to see where either of the two could of possibly been damaged. It was then he saw that Yuugiri's sleeve had been torn wide open and his arm was bleding, although only from a graze. "What happened, how did she do that? She's a taijutsu user!" Kaiju raged much to Nakasu's annoyance until the older ninja silenced him.
"She doesn't wear that dirt out of lazyness or lack of concern. She focuses chakra through it, with so little, its no good for defence, but there's just enough to make it highly abrasive. Making a single punch like being dragged along a rock wall." The Mist ninja explained expertly as he sat down to tend his arm. The Iwa youngster was once again stunned as the last of their present group rose to take the stage. She was a nervous looking Konoha ninja with bright golden hair.
"Please go easy on me." she asked as she approached.
"Geez would you relax Kinpaku. It's just sparring. How will we ever beat Akatsuki if people like you and Kaiju don't shape up." Nakasu complained as she took her stance. When they started, Nakasu rushed forward, but the instant her fist connected with Kinpaku's chest, the entire kunoichi shattered and fell apart in a flurry of leaves. "Huh? Leaf clone? Damn it!" Nakasu spun around just in time for a kunai to be held to her chest. The nervous looking ninja had won that round as she won all of them, with trickery and fatal standing. Nakasu groaned.
Before anything could be said further on the sparring, the last two members of their squad appeared. One was a broad nosed Kumo ninja with black hair swept to one side and a beard that seemed to be slowly conquering his face while the other appeared to be just a regular samurai which the group had learned to distinguish only by his heavy way of breathing through his helmet which led to constant jokes at his expense.
"Hey you lot. I thought I told you to quit sparring in the camp. It's distracting and you could hurt somebody." The Kumo ninja scolded them, with Kinpaku and Kaiju shrinking away while Nakasu shrugged and Yuugiri just ignored him.
"Yeah yeah Tenka, just cause you and Aian there have to run around doin' everybody's grunt work, doesn't mean you have to make us feel lousy too." Nakasu said bitterly as the Kumo shinobi's beard stood on end.
"Hey young lady, listen here, I am the senior of this unit and what I say, goes, got it?" he bellowed as he came closer, Aian right behind him. As the samurai passed, Kaiju quickly downed a rice bun as he and Kinpaku saluted. While Tenka went to bicker on with Nakasu, Aian stopped to turn and look at the pair.
"What're you two doing?" he asked quizzically, being junior to Kinpaku in terms of rank and salutes typically not being used in any of the ninja Military he knew of.
"Saluting Sir." Kinpaku said, a sweat drop rolling down her cheek. The Samurai looked around, well aware of the bad humour the ninja made at his expense.
"Yeah, well I don't know what your angle is this time, but cut it out, okay?" he said before turning to leave.
"Yes Sir Lord Vader." Kaiju said with his mouth half-full before he and Kinpaku burst into a fit of giggling. Aian sighed before turning to stare at the pair. Kaiju caught his eye before he suddenly stopped laughing and started to cough before falling over and grabbing his throat. Kinpaku let out a small shriek as the junior of their team started turning blue.
"Oh no, you really do have Force Powers!" she panicked and backed away from Aian as he sped over to them.
"No I don't, he's choking on that stupid rice bun!" Aian said frantically as he started smacking Kaiju on the back to dislodge the food from his team mate's wind pipe.
Meanwhile, Tenka and Nakasu had started arguing with one another while Yuugiri simply sat emptying the water from his sheathe and drying his sword.
"I'm older than your Kage for crying out loud, you should show your elders more respect!" Tenka yelled.
"I'm older than the Kazekage! It doesn't change the fact that he's great and you're a broken down, middle aged jonin with an ex-wife, oh wait, sorry, TWO ex-wives now." Nakasu jeered at him.
"That's a low blow Girly and you better be prepared to pay for it."
"Gladly, do you take Ryou, or do you still exchange in Koban?" she laughed at him.
"Why you little, that's it! Lightning Style: Hundred Thunderclaps!" A large boom like thunder rolled through the camp as the team was scattered from the shock wave of the attack. Thankfully, no one had been injured, if anything it had knocked the rice bun from Kaiju's throat and nothing had been damaged. However, the entire team was put on clean up duty until they learned that in the ninja chain of command, it didn't matter who was senior, just that they were all the Kages' lackeys.
AN: Okay, there it is. Hope someone can gleam some form of enjoyment from this. Whether it was through my self designed ninjutsu (Quite proud of 'em myself) or the characters or the poor, very blatantly bad jokes, I hope no one feels the wasted five minutes of their lives reading this. Please review if there was a joke you didn't get, if you liked it, or even if you didn't. I could always use constructive criticism. 'Til next time. ^_^