Project Naruto: Shinobi X.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto world or characters. Those are the property of Masashi Kishimoto. The challenge I answer here is from devilzxknight86, with all due credit for the basic concept. Why does wisdom so often sound like madness?
Tenth Seal: Advance.
Kakashi looked up as Kurenai entered the room, a nervous Iruka behind her. After assisting with the 'condolence gift' for Ibiki, which consisted of a number of flowers that could be distilled to poisons and other drugs useful to a Torture and Interrogation specialist, Anko had left to get in place for her 'big entrance'. As she sat down she looked at the odds and bets scrawled on the blackboard at the end of the room.
"I thought it was my job to be late," Kakashi said quietly as Kurenai got out her coin purse.
Shaking her head, the red-eyed kunoichi replied. "Had to arrange for a condolence basket for Ibiki. The odds on my team passing any of the exams look slim."
The one-eyed jonin nodded. "Only a few people really know what he can do, and a lot of them have never seen Hinata as anything but weak. I've put a bit of money on both teams."
"So I see, my eternal rival," Gai said over Kakashi's shoulder as he sat on the other side of the copy-ninja. "Sasuke to reach the finals, but not make chunin. Isn't that a little unyouthful?"
Kakashi shook his head as Asuma took a seat next to Kurenai, and Shinshi sat beyond him. "Sasuke has the skills to be chunin, but he lacks the necessary attitude and maturity. He's too obsessed with revenge or his clan, and tunnel vision isn't a good trait in a ninja."
Kurenai called out her bet. "Fifty ryo that Team Eight makes chunin!" Silence reigned as the odds were furiously calculated and put up, and others began scrambling to cover the bet. As she sat down, she noticed the lack of clan heads in the room. "Hiashi said someone called for a CRA invocation, that must be why the clan heads aren't here," she muttered. "Any more on that?"
Asuma shook his head, but Shinshi spoke up. "Councillor Haruno brought it up," he said. "She apparently 'found' a reference to the Uzumaki clan, and realised that with only one member alive, the CRA 'had' to be enacted for the boy in the interests of 'Konoha', which means whoever the council can convince to bribe them."
"Aren't you a little cynical for your age?" Gai asked the youngest Gentleman. "Shouldn't you have a youthfully optimistic outlook as life decrees?"
Shinshi stared at the spandex clad ninja. "That was being optimistic," he deadpanned.
The room Naruto and his team found themselves in was heavily crowded, and as the other teams entered behind them, the doors closed. There were ninja from everywhere, but Naruto watched for those with a Konoha hitai-ate first. There were eight such teams nominated, he knew, and he could see all of them here, including his own, Sasuke's and Lee's teams. As they stood there, and killing intent began to rise and flow towards them, he saw Team Ten approaching. Chouji looked no different than his usual self, nor was Ino changed, but Shikamaru looked like someone had really put him through a wringer... twice.
"Hey guys," Naruto called out as they approached. "What happened to you, Shikamaru?"
The laid-back boy groaned. "Remember how I said once that hating someone is too troublesome?" he asked, and Naruto nodded. "I've changed my mind. I really hate Shinshi-sensei."
Dragging the story from him would have been like pulling teeth, so Naruto turned to a far easier source of information... Ino. "Shinshi-sensei decided that Asuma-sensei's training regime wasn't really pushing us very hard, so he increased it a bit, had us multitasking, more physical training and sparring, a few extra jutsu each so we weren't relying on our clans' techniques all the time, that sort of thing," she told him. "Then of course Shikamaru says it's all a drag and troublesome, and he'd rather just play shogi with Asuma. So Shinshi-sensei says 'Go ahead, play shogi... but you have to do everything else at the same time and you can't look at the board'. It took Shikamaru a few tries to start winning at shogi again, and he's been kind of upset with Shinshi-sensei ever since."
Hinata spoke quietly, but her stutter was a thing of the past now. "You seem to like him, Ino," she said, curious despite herself.
Ino giggled. "I'm not crushing on him or anything, but Shinshi-sensei has this... cool and villainous air about him. He said I wasn't active enough, and that I looked hungry. I told him I was on a diet, and he insisted I write it out for him. He looked it over and handed me a different one. When I complained about what it would do to my figure he just... smirked... and I felt this chill, and he said I'd just have to do more physical activity to keep my looks." She sighed, and not in a girlish, love-struck way. If anything she seemed exasperated. "He's all about results and methods. It's like he has a goal in mind for us, and if we fall over before we get there, he'll just prop us back up and tell us to keep going."
Chouji grunted as he put a chip in his mouth. "He's effective though."
Looking around, Naruto realised all twelve of Konoha's 'rookie' teams, those who were new to the Exams, were right there by the door, and attracting unwelcome attention from the other teams. A white-haired young man, around twenty if Naruto were any judge, slinked closer.
"Can you guys please not attract too much attention," he muttered. "I barely got through my first six tries at this, and I'd like to survive my seventh."
There was something familiar about him. He wore the Konoha hitai-ate, and a pair of glasses, but it wasn't his appearance that was nagging at Naruto. He was certain he'd remember in time, but did they have time? This stranger was still speaking, though.
"My name is Yakushi Kabuto," he finished up, even as Kiba took the bait.
"Six times, huh?" he whistled, which seemed to annoy the other shinobi. "Bet you know a lot about the Exams, then." His fishing for information was obvious, and the white-haired man smirked.
"Of course, I have no way of knowing how they're being judged this time, but I have acquired information on all the other contestants at this time," he mentioned. "I keep it all encoded on these handy ninja cards, and it requires my chakra to access it."
As he brought out the cards, Naruto leaned over to Shino. "How long does the chakra retain its signature when your kikaichu eat it?" he whispered. Shino placed two fingers against his left bicep. About twenty minutes, then. Naruto's eyes narrowed.
Sasuke was asking for information... well, asking would be the polite lie, he was more demanding it. "Tell me what you know about that one over there," he pointed at the redhead from Suna, "as well as Neji Hyuuga and Naruto Uzumaki."
"Oh, you make this too easy," Kabuto said as he set out his cards... and Naruto slashed his claws through them, retracting them swiftly enough that no-one... except those who knew he had them... could be sure what they'd seen. Even the startled Kabuto was looking at his shredded cards. That was years of work, gone in a second. He turned to the orange clad boy. "What did you do that for?" he snapped.
Naruto stared at him. It was his smell, he decided. This man smelled familiar, but from where? "If you think bringing those cards out in a room with so many ninja was a good idea, I can see why you failed six times. If any one of these ninja can siphon off your chakra, that information would be stolen. I'd like to know my enemies, too, but not at the cost of them knowing me." He turned back towards Shino and Hinata as the older shinobi stood, and began talking with them. Once the attention in the room had drifted away from him, he slid his hand from his pocket... revealing Kabuto's cards...
Hinata smiled, and Shino nodded. The kikaichu he'd seeded the other man with would keep tabs on his location, and deliver his chakra when they needed it.
When the cloud of smoke burst at the front of the room, a massive room now that Naruto thought about it, but still somewhat small for the large numbers of shinobi who had to be taking the examination, it revealed Morino Ibiki. The heavily scarred jonin wasted no time. "Each of you has been assigned a seating number, so I suggest you find your seat," he spoke resonantly, his voice cutting through any speaking taking place. As they did so, the genin took note that they were separated from their team-mates. "Now for the basic rules. Each of you has ten points. You lose two points if you are caught cheating. Zero points means you and your team fail. There are nine questions on each sheet. Getting an answer wrong loses you one point. At the end of the test, we reveal the tenth question. You have forty-five minutes. Begin!"
Naruto knew something was up. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what, but nevertheless, it was a good idea to be prepared. The questions on this test were incredibly advanced, he noted, almost too difficult for even chunin who'd failed to study hard enough. The point deduction for cheating was annoying... but, wait, it was for getting caught cheating, not the cheating itself, he realised. They wanted them to gather information, and that was Team Eight's speciality. A glance at Hinata told him she was using her Byakugan surreptitiously, and copying the answers of an accurate source... Haruno Sakura... so he listened for the way her pen sounded as she wrote. Shino had his kikaichu transmitting information in teams, tiny bugs that no-one noticed. Sasuke's sharingan allowed him something similar, and Naruto didn't doubt that others had their own methods to acquire the information. As the time slipped by, the deputy proctors began calling out numbers instead of simply tallying marks on their clipboards, removing those ninja who were insufficiently subtle.
One of the Suna ninja, Kankuro if he recalled correctly, raised his hand ad requested to use the bathroom, and was informed a proctor would accompany him. As he and the proctor who volunteered slipped past Naruto, he noticed that the proctor had no scent, and grinned. Did no-one think to count the proctors? Or was this simply one of the first four times he might have been caught and still remained?
By the time Kankuro had finished his business and returned, Ibiki had called the time. The test had only eliminated a handful of teams, there were still way too many. Hopefully the tenth question would bring the numbers down.
"Alright, then," he said, seizing the attention of the entire room. "Before we reveal the tenth question, you have a few more rules to learn. First, you can decline to hear the tenth question, at which point you and your entire team will score zero points and fail." There was a minor outburst at this. "Second," he continued, cutting through the noise, "if you do take the tenth question and get it wrong, you and your entire team not only fail, but you will be removed from duty as active shinobi, and banned from becoming such again." Shino saw his team-mates' eyes harden at that. They had no choice, and had to reach promotion, so they would push forwards regardless... so he would too.
As a few teams' nerves broke, they retreated from the room. The trickle gradually peeled away the numbers in the massive room, Until finally, no more than ninety shinobi remained in their seats. It could have been fewer, though, as Ibiki began speaking. "Excellent," he said, "those of you remaining here have chosen to go on knowing the consequences of failure, into an unknown situation. Seeded plants, you may withdraw." The equivalent of five teams of shinobi stood and waved at the proctors, and left the room. "Those of you remaining... pass."
Puzzled looks sprang up all over the room as Sakura asked the question on most of their minds. "But... what about the tenth question?"
Ibiki smiled evilly. "You already answered that," he said. The smile looked somewhat... no, downright sadistic on his face as he removed the bandana that obscured his scalp. The scars that liberally criss-crossed his scalp were a testament to the fortitude this man possessed. "As shinobi, you do not always have the luxury of knowing what you're getting into, but sometimes you will know that death, or a worse fate, are waiting for you if you fail. A shinobi doesn't get to pick and choose their missions, and those who would retreat rather than take their mission are worth nothing as ninja. Now..."
The window shattered as a bundled figure smashed through it, hurling kunai attached to the corners of a banner into the ceiling and floor. As the pretty woman struck her pose, another kunai in hand, the writing on the banner proclaimed her to be Mitarashi Anko, Proctor for the second exam. She wore a trenchcoat, a miniskirt and a lot of netting, besides her Konoha hitai-ate, and she called out as she stood there. "Tremble now, little genin, the second exam is nowhere near as sedate..." She paused, quickly counting, and whispered to Ibiki. "You're slipping, there's far too many of them. I guess I'll have to clean up for you... again." She turned to the staring genin as she began yelling once more. "All right you worms, you might actually make chunin... or at least survive the next exam. Follow me to training ground forty-four!" With that, she leaped from the window, leading the headlong rush towards the zone nicknamed the Forest of Death...
As Ibiki began picking up the test papers, Naruto cleared his throat. He and his team-mates stood before the Torture and Interrogation specialist, and they laid out the ninja information cards that Naruto had pilfered from Kabuto. Shino's kikaichu crawled on the cards, injecting them with the white-haired ninja's stolen chakra, causing the cards to bring out all their information.
Naruto spoke quickly, before Ibiki could. "Morino-sama," he said, smiling, "I think you should keep an eye on Yakushi Kabuto... No-one who failed that many times is that confident, and he seemed quite eager to share this information with the entire room... which would have included details about active duty Konoha shinobi. The cards require his chakra to activate, but that's no challenge for an Aburame to acquire." As the three genin turned to leave, Ibiki cleared his throat.
"I'll have this checked out," he said. "But two questions before you go. First, what raised your suspicions?"
Naruto shrugged. "I've never seen his face before, but he smells familiar. Given the way my past has gone, that's not a good thing. If I remember more, I'll let you know."
"Second question. How did the rest of the genin not notice you staying behind, especially in those orange outfits, that two of you are wearing?"
It was Hinata's turn to answer, before they hurried to catch up with the other genin. "Morino-sama, what colour is a tiger?"
The fence was at least twenty feet tall around Training Ground Forty-four. The very dangerous nature of the place made it one of Anko's favourite places in the world, despite the nickname, Forest of Death. As she explained this to the gathered genin, she spotted one of them, that Uzumaki Naruto that Kurenai spoke so well of, staring into the forest instead of paying attention.
A hurled kunai, intended to wake him up was deflected over his shoulder with a negligent slap, where it landed close to a group of ninja from Kusagakure. Naruto, however, inhaled deeply. "Hinata-chan," he said slowly as the Hyuuga girl glared at the proctor.
"Hai?" she replied, without pausing in her glaring.
"I like this place," he said. "It's... honest. Forest of Death. It's not hiding, it just is." He turned towards the jonin with purple hair. "You were saying?"
Anko assessed the boy. He had been paying attention, she now realised. He was just paying attention to more than just her speech. "The second exam is a survival mission, with a twist," she announced, "in that each team will be issued a scroll, marked as an Earth or Heaven Scroll. You will have five days to reach the tower within this training ground, against everything the Forest of Death can throw at you. However, it's not that simple. You have a couple of rules to follow if you want to succeed. First: you may not open the scrolls. You will not like what happens if you do, and then you will fail the test as well. Second: You cannot enter the tower unless you meet three conditions. You must get there within the five days, with both an Earth and a Heaven Scroll. You must have a full team, if one of you dies, then you fail. Other than that, have fun." She pointed to a number of tables with paperwork stacked on them. "Before you receive your scrolls in those covered booths over there, you have to fill out those waivers. They acknowledge that you are entering this test of your own free will, and that no-one can hold it against us if you die or something. You hand in three waivers, and you get one scroll. After that, I'll see you later."
Team Eight were the first team to grab their waivers and trade them in. Inside the covered booth, they received a Heaven scroll, and as they emerged they saw the purple-haired jonin frozen on the spot as she spoke curtly with a Grass-nin with an excessively long tongue... that was apparently prehensile, by the kunai she was delivering to the proctor. The genin glanced at their gate number, and raced to get there.
Inside the forest, Team Eight was more or less in their element. Between Naruto's ability to follow scents and Hinata's Byakugan, they could avoid most of the predators that would be a problem, and Shino's Kikaichu could scout on a level beyond what most could manage. Not even Naruto's shadow clones could match the numbers Shino had in his colony. Together, they began to set their plans...
By unspoken agreement, the Konoha teams were avoiding each other as targets. Team Nine had the good fortune to encounter an unlucky band of Amegakure ninja with a Heaven Scroll, before the Rain nin could set an ambush or battle plan. They then began a run for the tower, although Lee insisted they take some time to see how Sakura's team was managing...
Ino stepped back out of her target's mind. "They have an Earth Scroll," she told Shikamaru.
"Gah," he grunted. "Even with all the training Shinshi-sensei put us through, getting the right scroll is going to be such a drag... Chouji, can you make them go away?"
"BUBUN KAKUDAI NO JUTSU!" The Akamichi's arm suddenly became massive as Shikamaru jumped away, and the Kiri ninja stumbled as the Nara released them a fraction of a second before Chouji's arm hit, launching them out into the forest.
Ino held her hand above her eyes as she watched the other team disappear into the trees. "Okay, let's find another ambush to bust then, shall we?"
Kabuto glared at his team-mates. They were fools, but they were what he had. They and their 'sensei' were actually deep-cover agents, recruited by him for his master. The white-haired ninja was a little bothered by the loss of his cards. He'd been quite impressed by the skill it took to switch the cards he'd made for regular playing cards before Uzumaki destroyed them. There had only been two ninja close enough to manage the trick, and that Naruto... despite the rumours, Kabuto was certain the brat's only real talents lay in refusing to die when he should, and sl;eight-of-hand. Looking back at the hapless Takigakure team his companions had slaughtered for their scroll, he smiled. "I'm going to check on something," he called out. "I'll meet you at the tower in a few days."
Naruto stared down from his hiding place at the clearing filled with sand, blood and bodies. A quick glance to Hinata followed by her nod, and he knew she'd seen the same thing too. None of the Suna ninja had so much as lifted a finger against this Rain team. They didn't have to. Gaara's sand had done all the work, and the Rain ninja had died in a horrible way: buried alive and crushed by the sand. Gaara glared at the scroll they found...
"Earth, useless," he growled, and looked at the bodies as he threw the scroll aside. "Mother says they were not enough. She needs more blood... Come along."
To the hidden eyes of Team Eight, it seemed even Gaara's family was terrified of him...
Unnoticed, a swarm of Shino's insects recovered the scroll.
It was not his day, thought Kiba as he leaped, ran, dodged a giant snake, leaped some more, sprang from tree to tree and dodged the giant snake again. The rock he and Akamaru had answered nature's call on had turned out to be a massive snake... one that was not happy with how they'd woken it up, to say the least. He'd been running for the past ten minutes, and his stamina was starting to flag, and his sandal slipped as he hit the branch, toppling forwards while his partner fell back... into the snake's mouth.
Kiba's wordless howl of despair rang out through the trees, and he shut his eyes as the snake closed its jaws... which was a real pity, as he missed the two orange blurs that skipped through the branches, one slamming both her feet against the under side of the very branch he'd just fallen from as Hinata caught him before he fell very far, swinging him to the next branch down where Shino was waiting to catch him, as the other blur sprang into the very mouth of the giant snake to gather up the small white dog.
Naruto's wardrobe had needed some redesign after the mission to Nami no Kuni, and Kujaku Dansei had been quite proud of the outfit Naruto now wore, with the flaps and panels over the areas where Naruto could most easily manipulate his bones into protrusions: knees, elbows, shoulders, shoulder blades and a whole series along his spine. As the orange clad shinobi caught the ninja hound, preventing the small canine becoming an appetiser, he also pushed his chakra into those areas, and the bonemetal spikes and blades emerged, driving into the soft tissues of the snake's mouth, convincing it that this meal wasn't worth the trouble. As the oversized serpent re-opened its mouth, Naruto lashed out with his right hand, his claws extending, feeding his chakra into them to extend their reach and sharpness, and the claws broke through the snake's brain... whereupon the summoned creature vanished with a pop and a puff of smoke. Pulling in his spikes, Naruto hastily made a hand-sign, and several of his shadow clones caught him, throwing him to the branch where his team waited with Kiba.
"Kiba-san," Shino spoke quickly once the boy was reunited with his best friend, where's your team? Surely you three didn't split up."
Sasuke and Sakura glared at the Grass ninja as she stood there, her head at a slight angle. The fact that Kiba hadn't returned had the two worried, but Sakura had taken it as a godsend, and was discussing the limitations of the CRA with Sasuke, a subject he'd had little interest in until she told him of the lack of choice he'd have, until the stranger had entered their camp site. Now they stood ready to fight, but the sheer killing intent radiating from the other ninja had paralysed them. As things stood they were in trouble. This ninja was too much for them.
Sasuke pulled their Heaven Scroll from his equipment pouch, and held it up. "This is what you want, isn't it? I can tell when we're over-matched, it's yours if you let us go."
Sakura couldn't believe what she was hearing. Sasuke was giving up? "What are you doing, Sasuke?" she whispered. "We can't advance without that."
Sasuke spat to one side. "For such an intelligent girl, you can sure say stupid things," he growled. "We can't advance if we're dead, either, and there are other scrolls out there."
"Indeed," the other ninja said, stepping closer. "Like this one." She held up an Earth Scroll and continued to approach. "Not that I care, since my team is dead."
Sakura's eyes widened. "How... what happened to them?"
The Grass ninja shrugged. "They were in my way, so I killed them just to enjoy their screams. But even those were disappointing. Now I have you right where I want you..."
The fuuma shuriken that drove into the ground in front of the other ninja stopped her advance. Standing on the branches of the trees at the south end of the clearing were Team Eight, Kiba and Akamaru who was happily barking at the two Konoha genin.
Naruto spoke up. "I'd be careful about him, Sasuke, that guy smells of blood and snakes," he called out. "I'd trust him as far as I could spit him... and there's nothing that would convince me to put anything of Orochimaru's anywhere near my mouth."
The grass ninja began laughing with a mad intensity. "So the little experiment lived, after all. I was wondering if it was you, boy." With an even more sudden focus, the ninja's hands flickered to begin a summoning, as the Earth Scroll he held was flicked up to spin in the air, obviously intended to land back in the summoner's hand once he'd finished... but that wasn't what happened. As the scroll began its upward arc, the fuuma shuriken popped revealing itself to be a transformed shadow clone, who then sprang upward and drove a spiky knee into the face of the ninja before him, snatching the scroll from the air as he did, and hurling it to Sasuke before dispersing. The blood pouring from the victim's face obscured their vision as the clone vanished, and Naruto's cry of "Plan six: RTFA!" was followed by a number of shadow clones dog-piling the target ninja as the six genin fled.
They were not expecting the sound of tearing flesh behind them, nor did they dream that the infamous missing-nin was capable of stretching his neck so far, biting into the muscle of Sasuke's shoulder and injecting something there. As the head fell back and away, and Naruto's shadow clones began to disperse at a prodigious rate, Orochimaru laughed. "Should you live, Sasuke, you will need power for your vengeance... come to me and I can give it to you..."
Naruto and Kiba caught hold of Sasuke before he could fall as the Uchiha passed out, and all five conscious genin pushed themselves hard to reach the tower before something worse happened.
Reaching the tower was easier said than done, with a number of other teams lying in ambush, and the two teams were forced to take refuge in a massive hollowed tree. Laying Sasuke's fevered form down, they inspected the injury that the Snake-master had inflicted. There was a bite-mark, two half-circles of teeth had driven through the skin, and inside those marks were three comma-like marks arrayed against each other in a circular pattern. The skin about them was reddened, and black veins seemed to carry the taint of the mark deeper into Sasuke's body.
"That's... not good," Naruto said. "I know some basic sealing, but this thing is so far beyond what I know they're not even related." Hinata's use of her Byakugan had revealed the mark was forcing some kind of black chakra, a negative chakra, into Sasuke's system. By sealing some of his tenketsu around it, she'd slowed the advance, but things were definitely bad.
It was to the scene of Sasuke's unconscious form that the other two Konoha Teams reached this clearing. Each had managed to acquire the scrolls they needed, and all they needed to do was get to the tower... but that would not be as easy as it looked.
Kabuto reached the tree above the clearing. Taking note of the numbers, he shook his head. Too many for Otogakure no Sato's official team, he decided. A pity, he'd have loved to see what that curse-mark did to Sasuke...