Orders

A Naruto Fanfic

Time: Chunin Exam Stage Two

Chapter Two: Orders Fulfilled

Zaku was bored, and as both of his teammates would attest to that was not a good thing. A bored Zaku meant headaches for all. "So what did you guy's think of the first test? That examiner? I didn't Konoha were such wimps." He sneered having thought Morino Ibiki's demonstration scars were lame. "I mean those scars, lame. Anyone who dropped out doesn't deserve to be chunin, same for those that thought the guy was intimidating."

"Arrrg. My god, Zaku, did you even read the bloody mission packet?" Kin growled as she rebounded off a tree while they headed deeper into the forest of the second exam. Dosu was guiding them using his built in, things, so the other two were free to bicker without much to worry about. "He was the head of Konoha's torture and interrogation unit. He WAS intimidating, you're just too thick for anything to get through your head!"

"Take that back little miss bells!" Zaku hissed, not because he really cared about the insult be because she had pulled down her eye lid and was sticking her tongue out at him. She was also showing off her skill at jumping through the tree branches. Backwards. It was a terrible blow to his pride. "It's not like getting his head cut up can come close to some of the stuff we put up with."

Kin blinked, and even Dosu turned his head to look at his companions. Zaku always got ticked if someone suggested disloyalty or bad mouthed their village leader and his experiments. He was so gung-ho and determined to prove that the time put into him and his arms was not a waste. He was not a failure.

This was the first time that the boy had ever hinted at pain and unhappiness with his lot. "These arms didn't come cheap, you know." He continued brushing off their curious gazes; or not noticing them. He wasn't very bright. "And I imagine whatever machine-man over there is hiding isn't too comfortable either. Course you got your own dirty secrets, right miss bells?"

They continued through the forest, Dosu hanging and left and they followed suit presumably to go after another team. They couldn't be sure who it was but they could try for the scroll; always better to have extras.

Zaku pondered on his own words. As much as he owed Orochimaru for getting him off the streets and teaching him to fight, it had hurt. For the first three months and during the operation, the thing had taken five days straight, his arms had felt like liquid fire and he only received the bare minimum of pain killer. Most of the time he had been strapped down to a bed to prevent him from hurting himself.

And for what? He blew air out of his arms at a high pressure but he was slow, his reaction times took too long to build the necessary chakra. He needed to be faster. He needed to be better to show he wasn't a waste.

Sometimes he envied Kin. He saw her washing her hands after the bandit fight to get blood and dust off, saw the track marks up her arm. Fourteen, looked like she was seventeen or eighteen. She was a successful run, proof that the right mixture of drugs could speed up growth and not permanently damage the body or leave weak hormone glands. Or something. Zaku wasn't sure of the technicalities.

Dosu was like him though. He was blended with machine during Orochimaru's metal phase when he tried to make better ninja by combining organic and inorganic matter into a true human weapon. Zaku wasn't sure how much of his team leader was alive and how much merely hung on. He wondered if he was even human, he rarely raised his voice or showed interest in anything but the mission.

"Hidden Grass."

Kin's voice dragged him out of his thoughts and he smiled in anticipation as his chakra worked to pull and compress air to be ready for a fight. "Think they have our scroll?"

Dosu arched an eyebrow. "Wouldn't know. We should avoid them and move back, our goal is Uchiha Sasuke, not finishing the test."

Zaku emitted a strangled whine. "But they are right there." He pointed to the two genin in face masks sitting in a shielded clearing. At Kin's direction the sound trio had dispelled the passive genjutsu that hid the grass genin from other eyes. Kin made a snide comment on how it would have been a good piece of work if not for the forgotten details. In a forest, absence of sound was as telling as a bright neon sign. "Can't we make a showing, at least?"

"After the mission. The sooner we complete it, the sooner you can go on your destruction spree." Dosu replied as they slid away from the hidden grass duo back into the trees.

It had taken longer than expected to locate the target, mostly from the prolonged battles they had to detour around, much to Zaku's displeasure. It taken everything he had not to jump into the fights and join in. One clearing had been tainted with gore, a sure sign of the Sand team's passage.

They found team seven holed up under the roots of tree, though only the girl was awake. Her eyelids were drooping and her limbs shook occasionally in exhaustion. If she was that bad off and on sentry duty the other two had to be near dead.

"This is too easy." Zaku grumbled, his fists clenching in irritation. "I'm going to have that pink bitch wake 'um up." He started forward but was once again stopped by Dosu's thick arm. The others single eye slid over to the other with a hard gleam.

"Appearances can be deceiving. See that?" His unencumbered arm pointed to a tiny glimmer in the grass. Grass that just happened to be a shade off from the surroundings. "Trap."

"She dug a pit, so what?"

"...while I am glad you noticed the obvious pit, I was pointing to the trip wire. Considering how well she answered the questions, her physical failings may hide a high intellect. My guess is this wire was placed to misdirect us from something else."

The other boy slumped and threw wistful glances at the as yet unaware kunoichi. "So what? We just sit here twiddling our thumbs?"

"I have a better idea. Kin? Could you catch us a squirrel or something?" Dosu asked mildly as he went through his ninja pouch searching for explosive notes. Kin smirked and hopped off twirling wire for a snare.

"What are going to do with a tree rat? It's not lunch yet." While he wasn't one to pass up a free meal, it was plainly inappropriate to stop everything and eat. Especially when the target was only a few yards away, unconscious, begging to be killed.

"You are an idiot."

To be honest, Zaku was hoping the plan wouldn't work and give him a chance to fight. He was happily surprised that it didn't. Of course Dosu, the annoying bastard that he was, just had to come up with not one but three contingency plans.

The first plan involved sending the squirrel out with an explosive note attached. Ideally it would make it close to the pink girl, Sa- something, and they would activate it and watch as all of team seven exploded into little bitty pieces. The simplest plan and most efficient but it didn't let him have any fun. Dosu was the one that was setting the explosive off anyway.

If that did not work the squirrel would at the least trigger the supposed matrix of traps, clearing the area so they could strike. Zaku could use his arms to lend strength to the explosion and maybe take out the two sleeping genin if the girl leapt to safety. Should that fail they would then jump in and take the approach of direct confrontation.

Amazingly enough, even through Dosu's lack of reaction suggested he expected it, the girl tossed a kunai and scared off the brown rodent before it even got to the first trap. A grin formed on the excited boys face as he jumped to his feet. Happy day! Now he could get some action.

Zaku crushed a stick under his foot and stepped out; Dosu coming up behind him menacingly. "Guess our little trick didn't work. Heh."

Sakura gulped and shifted backward. Zaku threw down a kunai carelessly and cut the trap wire. "Opps." He gave a slow haunting laugh at the look on the girl's face. She was terrified. "Did you actually think we wouldn't see that?"

Dosu took the lead but paused an inch away from the concealed pit. He leaned down and spoke with a practiced sneer in his voice, anyone who knew him would recognize it as false, but the Konoha brat wouldn't. He cleared the dry leaves and grass away in one motion assisted by his arm. "You call this a trap? The grass is a completely different shade from everything else. How the hell did you make it this far?"

"I-I'll admit that was pretty bad..." They detected an undertone of confidence from her. Did she actually have that much faith in her fighting skill? Or, more likely, had she just cracked from the stress of the exam. It wouldn't be the first time a genin lost it during the test. "But who said anything about those being the only ones!"

Faster than they thought possible she cut a string behind her, activating a trap out of sight. The rush of displaced air was their only warning and, luckily, it was coming from Dosu's side. The mechanical man detected a fraction earlier with his built in instruments and brought up a steel reinforced hand to block with.

Zaku laughed as the log that would have cracked a few ribs was reduced to splinters. "Any more tricks, girl? You're outnumbered, but as I'm the sporting type I'll let you wake your little friends. It's Sasuke we came for, anyway."

Fear crept into the girl as she backed up, retreating into the root burrow. "W-why do you want Sasuke-kun?! Do you know Orochimaru?!" Her green eyes flashed between the two Sound boys full of anxiety, her hands ready with kunai.

"Orochimaru?" Dosu asked aloud, curious. What would a lowly genin know of their mission? Why would she know of the mission? He squashed his questions and refocused on the plan. Zaku had just wanted to plow in, and in any other instance Dosu would have allowed the trigger happy boy to do so, but he didn't want to risk any chance of their quarry getting away. He had to die, and they were ninjas.

"Wake him up, bitch!" Zaku hollered as if trying to do it himself. "I want'a fight, damnit!"

The girl swallowed and seemingly snapped out of her shock, determination settling her nerves. "...I don't want to watch their backs anymore... I won't let you hurt Sasuke-kun!!!" She snarled like a feral animal and charged forward, triggering another trap that forced Zaku to take cover from a volley of small sharpened sticks.

The Konoha nin launched a round of kunai where he landed, to which Zaku responded with a snort as he blasted the blades back with a rush of air pressure. Chakra ran through his arms in a constant, intoxicating, stream. The girl switched out with a log, of which there were plenty in the forest, and appeared behind him with a fresh supply of shuriken mixed in with kunai. Zaku blasted them back, again.

"Quit playing around!" Dosu ordered as he walked toward the unconscious genin, his teammate was needlessly dragging the encounter out.

"Don't touch Sasuke-kun!" Sakura screamed hysterically as she stopped the hunched over boys advancement with a line of kunai.

"Is that all you can do, kawarimi and throw stuff?" Dosu asked derogatorily.

Sakura came at him from above with her leg extended in a textbook drop kick, as if in rebuttal, but it did her no good. Dosu stepped to the side to avoid her, caught the leg and squeezed. She screamed as he tossed her effortlessly back to his teammate. Through a haze of pain she twisted midair and brought a kunai to bear on Zaku.

He replied by blasting her with a mixture of air pressure and mental concussion waves; she expected it and kawarimid out just in time. However, instead of appearing close to Zaku she landed in an odd crouch between the two boys, hands bristling with glistening shuriken. Both of her targets made the connection. Poison!

The stars sliced through the air at the two boys with their liquid death, they assumed, and did not want to risk coming into contact with it. Zaku used his arms to change the direction of the shuriken back to Sakura, while Dosu responded in a similar manner with his own augmented arm. The kunoichi rolled away smoothly after releasing her weapons and used the replacement technique to retreat; her plan successful.

Too late the boys realized their mistake and dodged. A few of the shuriken collided and fell to the ground, but the majority continued their course. Still recovering from the earlier blast Zaku couldn't deflect the weapons and cursed as one grazed his upper arm close to the shoulder. Dosu blocked with his melody arm causing a sickening ringing to echo through the clearing.

The pink haired girl collided with Zaku, but had abandoned all pretense of attack in favor of covering her ears as her eyes watered. The Sound genin themselves were having a little trouble from the chaotic vibrations and stalled until Dosu regained control. "Bitch!" Zaku kicked Sakura's side as she whimpered, a trail of blood leaking from her covered ears. His stomach was queasy from the brief cacophony, and he blamed her.

"Leave the weakling alone, Zaku."

The boy looked up to see Kin next to their target, his head hanging limply by the hair in her hand. Blood was dripping from his neck and pooling on the ground.

The third plan was the backup. Kin would go around in a circle, staying hidden; to give the illusion that it was just the two of them. She would then sneak up while the Uchiha was unguarded and kill him thus completing the mission despite anything else that may happen like back-up arriving or a rival foreign team.

"Ahhhhh. I wanted to do it!" Zaku whined before giving the girl a final kick and jogging over to his teammate. His face was twisted into a pout and reminded Kin of an ugly puppy. "Can I at least kill the blonde?"

"Go ahead." She shrugged and tossed him the kunai she'd used to execute the comatose Uchiha.

Zaku fumbled and cut his fingers, but blamed the paralysis poison that had coated the shuriken. He crouched and jerked up the blonde head as Dosu kept watch, standing over the pink haired genin with one foot placed on her lower back. She stared at the Uchiha's head in horror, mumbling about genjutsu, tears streaming down her face as Zaku reached around to the distant jugular. "Stop! Please!"

Blue eyes began to peek open tiredly. "Oh good!" Zaku said happily. "Just in time to die!"

"Wha-?" Was all Naruto had time for as he felt his neck open up in a wide gash that cut from one side to the other. Blood sprayed out in shot bursts like a broken fountain and dyed his orange jumpsuit red. It died down to a slow frothing but Zaku held Naruto's head back nearly ripping it off. Sakura screamed again as she caught sight of the small spinal bones and passed out.

"You know.." Zaku commented as they left the battle ground. "When Orochimaru-sama ordered us to kill the Uchiha I was looking forward to a decent challenge, but slitting him and his friend's throat while they slept just felt kinda...anti-climactic, y'know?"

"Indeed, judging from the information we have on the Uchiha I was expecting a more difficult battle, but we are shinobi. We take what-so-ever advantage we're given."

Kin was running her fingers through her hair. "I'm more curious as to who they fought before we found them. He must of been strong, I checked the chakra coils on both, just in case, and they were seriously fucked up."

"Well... can we go fight those Grass nin now?"

Dosu rolled his eye. "You do realize you can't move your arm at this point?"

"That's never stopped me before!" Zaku replied with a smile as Kin put it in a sling. They didn't have any antidote with them, but they might find some on another team, and if they didn't surely it would wear off by the time they got to the tower?

END