Pink Strings
There were a lot of things I expected after I died. Getting reincarnated into a world with crazy s-ranked ninja, giant energy mongers that can destroy a village in one attack and a few people who believe themselves gods, as the twin brother of arguably the worst Kunoichi to exist wasn't one of them. All I have to do is stay out of the academy and I'll be fine, right? Now, let's see if I can take one of the most overlooked mechanic and make it broken.
This is written when I have time over Halloween and a few days after. Note, that does not mean it will or has came out ON Halloween. Anything else to say… not that I can think of. I'll just start now then.
Chapter 2
I arrived at the training ground at 9. The others had arrived at 6, them thinking that's what he had said, due to a subtle genjutsu he had placed to make us think he had said 6 that I had seen through. I guess that was just a small test for us, although I doubt we'll notice his disappointment with them failing. Ninja are better than that after all.
When I got there, at 9, my sister was about to yell at me. I held up 3 fingers. One went down, 2. The next fell, 1. When the last lowered, at the same moment Kakashi-sensei arrived. Now she looked bewildered that I predicted his timing to the very second. I just sent a cheeky smile at her. She turned away. Blah blah blah, bell test, blah blah blah. Kakashi-sensei was the first to catch that I had changed clothes again. This time, I decided to dress as a butler from my original world. As sensei didn't comment, neither did the others. I tuned out all of what he said until, "You'll have to be prepared to kill me if you want to have a chance."
"But sensei, those weapons are dangerous!" my sister yelled. Everyone there heard the snort of laughter I couldn't contain.
"If we could hit him he doesn't deserve the title of jonin. Going by academy records, Sasuke has the best chance of getting a surprise hit in. If sensei holds back. Massively."
"Start." Before I could continue, both of the others had hidden. Me on the other hand, I just stood there. "You're a strange one, aren't you? Why aren't you hidden like your teammates?"
I snorted again. "You're an elite jonin. If I can tell where they are then it's impossible they're actually hidden from you." He just nodded. "Besides, while I already know the point of this test, I want to see how I match up."
Now he looked suspicious. "And how would you have know about something like that?"
A third snort. "Its amazing what people will let slip, even ninja, when asked by a cute little genin scared of their sensei. Gai-sensei, while strange, was nice and told me some things." He looked horrified at that before schooling his features. "Now lets start, we only have 3 hours."
When nodded, I shot towards him faster than he could have expected. Granted, I was only about the speed of a chunin, and he was a jonin, but it's still faster than what should be possible for any normal genin. When I was close, I made one of my chakra strings extend and try to cut him in half. I doubt he thought it dangerous to himself, but he still moved out of the way. That was a good thing, as that one string cut down a large portion of the forest like a knife through butter. Really, the only reason he could dodge it was because I didn't want to kill him. Normally my strings would be invisible, being made of chakra. Since I didn't want to kill him, and he hasn't started using his sharingan yet, I was using more chakra than normal to make them barely visible. But that's all sensei needed. He looked at me, surprise visible in his one visible eye. "You said to attack with intent to kill."
We started after a moment. I started making the strings go in and out of the visible spectrum. I was hoping to have him use the sharingan by the end of the hour. I had a few of the strings write out a note for each of my teammates, while at the same time we started the battle again. Now that he knew what they could actually do, Kakashi was a lot more careful around my strings. Not that it helped him much, I can control how they move just with my mind. Oh, look! A lightning dragon! I dragged it strait towards Kakashi, him releasing the technique just before it would have hit. I had some of the strings take a few of his kunai and made them stab him. After a while, he was littered with cuts and trapped in a cage, slowly getting smaller. He finally lifted his hitai-ate, revealing his sharingan, and I pulled the cage closed, shredding the log inside.. While he took the time to substitute himself with a log, I had one of my strings take the bells off of him. One bell, along with the note I wrote for Sasuke went to where he was hiding in the trees. The other went to my sister. And thus, we have passed the exam, not that anyone other than me knows.
"Those chakra strings of yours… I can honestly say I've never seen someone use them like that. You could make them extend or retract however you want. They were sharp enough to cut through steel," here he looked at several of his kunai, the ones I didn't take, which had been split in half when he threw them at me. "yet you could make them pick things up and use them. You can control all of them independently, even a hundred at once. You are pretty fast on your own, but those things are even faster. Add to that, you're not even tired, even though its been fifty minutes so far. You even made me resort to my sharingan. That's one terrifying technique. I thought you said Sasuke had the best chance of hitting me?"
"I said going by academy records. Deception is a Shinobi's best weapon, after all." I told him.
He nodded and covered his eye again. "Quite. I do have to leave and test the others, ja ne." with that he disappeared in a shushin.
I followed him until he reached my sister, watching as she was caught in his genjutsu. Something went wrong with the illusion, resulting in it, apparently from what she said, switching the injured from me to Sasuke. She dispelled it soon after that. He jumped down, quietly, and knocked her out. He left for Sasuke, and I followed. The fight between them was… disappointing. It went almost exactly like in the anime, save for Kakashi being a bit tired by the end due to fighting me earlier. After that, it was time to go back to the center of the training ground.
"Well, it looks like you all fail." He raised the bells, which choose that moment to turn into wood from the log he had substituted with earlier. Sasuke and Sakura held up the real bells. Sensei looked bemused.
"I took them off of you when I had you trapped. I have it to them, and had them allow you to test them. Wouldn't be very good if you didn't know what to teach us. I told you I knew the point of this."
"ok, so you all pass. Lunch is on the poles. I have to tell the Hokage about this." He mumbled the last part, and only I heard him.
XXXXX
When Kakashi entered the Hokage's , there was every other jonin sensei already there. 'Great, I have to report along with every other jonin. Add to that, I have to report how badly I failed with them in the room.' anyway, he started reading his book while the first six reported their teams failure.
"And how did your test go, Kakashi?" the Hokage asked of him. The others looked toward him as well.
"Team 7, passed." Kakashi drawled out lazily. Everyone in the room, save Kakashi and the Hokage, were surprised. Kakashi had never passed a team before today, so that should have been expected.
The Hokage smiled. "Go on." Kakashi mumbled something too low for the others to hear. "I can't hear you." The Hokage prodded.
"I said the golden eyed brat forced me to use my sharingan. He completed the test, alone, in the first hour. He set a trap within a trap, I had to substitute with a log in order to survive, and at the same time he took the bells from me and have them to the others!" he finished his rant.
"Wasn't he the dead last during the academy?" one of the others, Kurenai, asked.
Kakashi snorted. "I asked the same question. You know what he said? 'Deception is a Shinobi's best weapon.' really, who expects a genin, dead last at that, to best his jonin sensei? Its perfect, and I fell for a trap as deadly as the other. Deadlier, even. If I hadn't underestimated him, I wouldn't have been caught in the other." He lamented.
After that, they continued on with the reports. The last two teams had passed. And thus, the 66% failure rate was upheld for another year.
XXXXX
We, my team, are waiting by the gate. I wondered how this mission happened. My entire team hates teamwork exercises. They are a special kind of torture that should be restricted to the depths of Hell. Even worse is that were doing D-ranks on top of them. Painting a clients house is something that should be done by the client themselves, not ninja, never mind the fact I can finish one in fifteen minutes with my strings. Though, something strange happened the first time we went on the Capture Tora mission.
XXXXX
"Sasuke, I'm at point B."
"Sakura here, point C"
"Kakashi, point A."
"…"
I didn't say anything, too busy playing with the cat that had walked up to me. Yes, it was Tora, but I don't see why everyone thinks it's a demon, it's just a cute little kitty. I picked her up, purring up a storm, and that's how my team found me. They confirmed it as Tora, and we went back to the Hokage's office. It appears that when cats sleep, they turn into a liquid. I sadly handed Tora off to her owner, setting the new record for that mission at five minutes from the previous four hours and thirty two minutes. As in cannon, the Hokage was listing off other D-ranks for us, when Tora awoke and ran off again. The others quickly put their feet down, asking for a C-rank instead, due to them trying along the way to pet Tora and getting even more viciously scratched than others. I just stood there holding Tora again.
XXXXX
And that leads us to waiting by the gate for Kakashi to arrive. I don't remember how Sakura convinced me into arriving when Kakashi asked us to, yet here I am, waiting for the past three hours. There he is! And… there, I stole his book. Lets see how he likes that. He narrowed his eyes at me, but didn't do anything. I wonder what he likes about these books so much. I… I'm just going to give this back. We started on, no one saying anything due to my being shaken.
It took a while to arrive at the point where the ambush was set to occur, especially so given we were traveling at the sped of a civilian, a drunk one at that. It was disappointing, no matter how expected, that only me and sensei noticed the Shinobi hidden in the fake puddle. I caught his eye and informed him, non verbally, that I had noticed. He caught on and nodded, while we followed along with the rest until they jumped out.
"One down," one of the brothers said. I caught that one in my strings a second later, shearing through the chain connecting the two. The delay was due to the sudden shock of seeing sensei's fake corpse. I knew intellectually it was going to happen, but it was still rather jarring to see. I didn't capture the other one, knowing my teammates needed the experience and sensei would help if necessary. And apparently it was. While I knew what would happen, this only stopping for a second, they did not and if not for Kakashi jumping out and catching him they would be dead.
"The mist brothers, Gozu and Meizu, a pair of relatively low rand missing nin from Kirigakure, know for their use of teamwork, sneak attacks and poison. They're also normally seen contracted along with 'the demon of the bloody mist', Zabuza Momochi. Other than Kakashi-sensei, they wouldn't know us, so why are these two after a simple bridge builder?" I asked sweetly. Much too sweetly.
XXXXX
I finally finished this. It took me way longer than it should, but I just couldn't find any inspiration. If anyone would like to thank someone for this chapter finally getting finished, thank GrimTheReaperz1. It was his comment which had me completing this chapter. If he's reading this, I would like to say I liked that story as well, and while I thank you for your hope I doubt I can make up for the lack of chapters from that story. I don't personally think I'm that good. It was your comment in hoping for me to be able to fill the void that have me the final push to finish this chapter. Anyway, that's the end of this chapter and I hope that it won't take me as long to complete the next.