Disclaimer: Still don't own it.
Chapter 4: Fighting Spirit
The young ninja glanced around at each other nervously. Tatemichi had heard stories of the Forest of Death from Shikamaru and Kurenai. He knew that the place was home to giant centipedes, blood-sucking leeches, and a variety of poisonous plants. Not to mention the other teams that would also be making their way through the wilderness.
"Hidden deep in the forest," Neji began to explain, "are three stations that the Exam staff have set up. Your job will be to find one of these stations and defend it for three days. Please note that there are only three stations, and four teams remaining. This means that only three teams will continue on to the third part of the Exam. This is to eliminate the need for preliminaries, which have proved quite troublesome-if I may be allowed to borrow a phrase-in the past." He held out four cards, face-down. "Each team, please send one member up to draw a card. That will tell you which gate you'll start at." Tatemichi stepped forward and selected a card, which informed him that his team would be starting at Gate 3.
"When does the test start?" the Rain genin Sakamoto asked.
"You'll enter the forest in three days," Neji responded.
"So, the way I see it," Noriki explained, "there are three challenges to this test. First, we have to find one of the stations. With only three of them in a huge forest, that won't be easy. Second, if another team has gotten there before us, we'll have to displace them. Third, if we successfully capture the station, we have to defend it until the end of the test."
"Part of that last challenge is endurance," Yamamoto pointed out. "We should bring enough food and water with us to last three days, so that one person doesn't have to go off looking for food and leaving only two to defend the station."
"It seems like this is also partly a test of trap-disarming and trap-making skills. I mean, if we find a station that's already occupied, the other team might have set up traps around it. And when we take control of a station, we should do the same."
The three of them sat huddled together at the Ichiraku ramen stand, trying to work out a plan for passing the Second Exam. "Finding a station shouldn't be too hard, with Matsu's nose on our side," Noriki pointed out. "I think we should start designing some traps to put up once we've secured it..."
Nervously, Team 7 stood outside their designated gate. They couldn't see any of the other teams, nor could they see Neji. His voice had come through the loudspeaker above the gate, telling them to take up their position and wait for the gate to open.
"You guys ready?" Tatemichi asked.
Noriki nodded wordlessly, and Yamamoto gave a confident, "Yes!" Matsu barked and lowered his head, prepared to take off running as soon as the gate opened.
The loudspeaker crackled with static. "The second part of the Chuunin Exam begins...now!"
The gate swung open, and the three teammates ducked inside.
The trees in the Forest of Death were huge and ancient, with foliage so thick that it blocked out most of the sunlight. The rich, dark soil was covered with a mat of fallen leaves, and birdsong echoed from all around. Once in a while, the sounds of something large crashing through the underbrush could be heard in the distance.
"Okay, Matsu, lead the way!" Yamamoto urged, and the little dog took a few steps forward, sniffing the ground tentatively. After a few minutes, he gave a decisive bark and dashed off between a couple of boulders.
The group sped through the forest, keeping a keen watch out for enemies. They crossed a small stream, and took a detour around a thicket of brambles with poisoned thorns. Eventually, they came to a clearing surrounded by a ring of white birches.
"Look at that!" Tatemichi exclaimed, pointing to the trees.
"Look at what?" asked Noriki. "They're trees."
"Look at the branches. This isn't a ring of trees, it's one giant tree with a whole bunch of trunks." Noriki and Yamamoto looked closer, and saw that Tatemichi was right. The branches of each tree were growing into those of the trees on either side of it. "They might have been separate trees once, but they've grown into each other."
"Whoa," Yamamoto said, grinning. "Well, we definitely found the coolest station."
"How can you know that, when we haven't seen any of the others?" asked Noriki, but even he was obviously impressed.
A small lean-to stood in the exact center of the clearing, with a flag bearing Konoha's symbol perched jauntily on its roof. After stowing their backpacks inside, Yamamoto and Tatemichi began setting up traps, while Noriki gathered firewood.
The first night passed uneventfully. When it got dark, the trio built a fire and sat around it, eating the rations they'd brought with them. At night, they kept watch in shifts, with those who weren't on watch sleeping in the lean-to.
In early afternoon of the second day, Matsu began to growl. "What is it, boy? Is someone coming?" Matsu barked three times, and turned towards one side of the clearing. "Three people, coming from the west," Yamamoto informed her teammates. "It must be one of the other teams."
"Get ready!" Tatemichi formed the seal used for shadow jutsu and waited, body tense. Which team would it be? Mist, Rain, or their fellow Konoha students?
A flurry of kunai sailed through the intertwined branches at the edge of the clearing. Noriki leapt forward with a kunai of his own in his hand, and knocked all of the flying blades away. Their unseen attackers unleashed another volley. Noriki parried this one too, but one kunai had a smoke bomb attached. A cloud of smoke surrounded the team. Tatemichi heard Yamamoto call from somewhere off to his left, "Wind Element: Clearing Breeze Technique!" It was a low-level jutsu designed for dissipating clouds of smoke or poison gas, and it did its job. A sudden breeze wafted away the smoke, revealing the three members of the Mist team charging into the clearing.
Noriki grinned as Narita, the one who'd complained about the First Exam being a pencil-and-paper test, stepped on a tripwire. Shuriken flew from the traps set in the branches of the trees, heading straight for him. To Noriki's suprise, Narita didn't even try to knock them away, and all of them hit their mark. There was a puff of smoke, and Narita disappeared-a bunshin.
Suga and Uozumi set off traps as well, but they too turned out to be just clones. They sent bunshin in first to get rid of the traps, Noriki thought with grudging admiration.
Now the real Mist team appeared, being careful to enter the clearing through the same paths their bunshin had taken. Suga hurled a small canister into the air above Noriki's head. "Noriki-san, get down!" Tatemichi shouted.
The canister burst...but what was inside wasn't an explosive powder or poison gas. It was plain, ordinary water. "Huh?" Noriki was confused, having expected something much more dangerous. But then Suga formed a set of handseals, and the water that had spilled all over Noriki began to congeal into chains that bound him in place.
"Shit!" Yamamoto cursed, quickly forming seals of her own. "Earth Element: Gaia's Grasp!" The ground around Noriki's feet rose up and formed itself into several small hands, which tore off the chains.
"That's impossible!" Uozumi explained. "Those chains are as tough as iron!"
"But they're still made of water, and water element is weak against earth," Tatemichi explained.
"Heh, that's true," Narita said with a smirk. "But let's see what you do with this. Secret Technique: Advancing Storm!" He held both his hands out, and a swirling wind emanated from one. A lightning bolt shot from the other and mingled with the wind to create a vortex that spun towards Tatemichi's team.
"What the hell is that?" Noriki exclaimed. "That Secret Technique is really two techniques being cast at once, with the seals for each being done with just one hand. How can that be?"
"It must be some kind of Advanced Bloodline," Yamamoto said. "Matsu! Get ready for the Human-Beast Transformation!" Matsu yipped, and changed into an exact duplicate of Yamamoto. "Now, Combination Technique: Great Water Shield!" The two Yamamotos stood to either side of the oncoming maelstrom, and a wall of water formed between them. Narita's technique slammed into the wall with amazing force. The ground shook, and water sprayed everywhere.
The Great Water Shield protected Tatemichi's team from being cut or electrocuted, but the force of the colliding jutsu still knocked everyone off their feet. Tatemichi hit the ground with one shoulder, rolled, and sent his shadow across the ground towards Narita. He too had been thrown to the ground, and wasn't able to react in time. He tried to stand, only to find himself pinned in place by Tatemichi's shadow-binding. "How did she manage to produce a water jutsu of that level without a water source?" he asked through gritted teeth.
Tatemichi grinned. "It's a combination jutsu. Matsu may be small, but he's got a lot of chakra, and they pooled their energy together to create the water. Oh, and they both took soldier pills while everything was hidden by your smoke bomb. A tip for the future: remember that smoke bombs cut off your line of sight as well as your enemy's."
"Hey," said Uozumi. "Where's the other one? The other girl?" Sure enough, Yamamoto was getting to her feet a short distance away from Tatemichi, but Matsu was nowhere to be seen. The question of his whereabouts was soon answered as a pair of hands reached up from the ground behind Uozumi, grabbed her ankles, and pulled her down until only her head was above ground. Matsu surfaced a few feet away.
"Nice job, Yamamoto-chan," Tatemichi praised.
"What do you mean, 'Yamamoto-chan'?" Uozumi asked, clearly confused. "Yamamoto-chan's right...over...there..." Understanding dawned on her face as "Yamamoto" transformed back into Matsu. "You used the chaos caused by the impact of the two jutsu to escape underground and left Matsu in your place."
Now only Suga remained. He raised his hands to form seals. "You made a mistake using a water jutsu to block Narita-san's Advancing Storm," he gloated. "Now I don't even need to use the water I brought with me to bind you all."
"I wouldn't try that if I were you," Noriki interjected, pointing to Suga's arms. Suga looked down, and his eyes widened in horror as he saw the exploding tags stuck to his wrists. "When...when did you plant those?"
"Does it matter?" Noriki asked. "The point is, all three of you are at our mercy now. Why don't you guys just get out of here and find another station for yourselves?"
The three Mist genin exchanged glances. After a tense few moments, Narita nodded. "We give you our word, if you let us go without hurting us, we won't attack you."
"...Okay," Yamamoto said, and yanked Uozumi out of the ground.
Tatemichi released the Shadow Bind on Narita, suppressing a sigh of relief. That kid's strong; I don't know how much longer I would have been able to hold him.
"What about these?" Suga asked, shaking his hands at Team 7.
"They'll fall off on their own once you get a short distance away from the station," Noriki told him. After checking each other over for injuries, the Mist team left the clearing.
"Noriki-san," Tatemichi asked, "when did you manage to plant those exploding tags on him?"
Noriki winked. "What exploding tags? That was just a genjutsu."
The third day passed quietly, although Tatemichi's team was alert and nervous. There was a constant light drizzle of rain, which didn't help anyone's mood-not only was it annoying, but the cloud cover meant that the shadows in the clearing were dim, which would put Tatemichi at a disadvantage if he had to fight. Luckily, neither the Rain team nor their fellow Leaf genin appeared.
At sunset, there was a puff of smoke, and the Konoha symbol on the flag that adorned the lean-to was replaced by writing in bold block letters.
To the Victorious Team:
I am so proud of my former student for being asked to proctor this part of our illustrioius Chuunin Exam. And so, I have asked to be allowed to deliver the official messages to those who have passed. You have showcased the brilliant flame of your youth for all to see, and I give you my heartfelt congratulations! But it is not over yet! You will have three days to rest after this arduous Exam, at which point you will face the third and final stage of this great challenge! Do not let the flames in your heart waver! Leave the Forest, rest and recover, and proceed to the Exam Stadium at noon three days from now. Best of luck to all of you!
Sincerely,
Maito Gai
Slowly, all three members of Team 7 broke into wide grins. "We did it! We passed the Second Exam! We passed!" The three human members of the team hugged each other while Matsu leaped around them, barking joyfully.
Yes, we passed, Tatemichi thought. But the Third Exam is single combat. Those Mist kids are tough, we don't know much of anything about the Rain team, and I don't want to fight other Leaf shinobi! Will I be able to win without the help of my teammates?
A/N: Phew, writing fight scenes involving more than two characters is hard!
Next chapter, Asuma's son really gets his time to shine.
Reviews are always welcome!