Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for entertainment purposes, and I am making no profit off of this.
Two weeks until the Chunin exams.
I was right. Kakashi did was sending us off to die in Kumo. Well, not technically, Kakashi. He was under orders from the village, after all. He wasn't all too happy shipping us off to the Chunin exams, seeming rather unhappy when giving us the forms.
I guess he believed that we'd die off in Kumo. Daisuke and Ayano might, but I think I have a decent fighting chance. I've been getting good with the Reibi's shadow hands, and my pain tolerance has been going up considerably ever since I started training taking injuries.
I shivered. That training was horrifying, especially after… nevermind.
Anyways, we got handed the forms. Kakashi being reluctant to give us the forms made me question why he gave Team Seven the forms back in canon. Did he just not want to train them that much? I was under the impression that he would have been ecstatic to receive his sensei's son for a student. Maybe he just wanted to speed Naruto's promotion, and thought everything would be chill because the exams were in Konoha?
In any case, he handed us the forms. And you bet your ass that, death trap or not, I was going to the… wait a minute…
I wonder what would happen if I didn't sign my form? It would get me out of fighting, and perhaps extend my lifespan, but did any actually do that? That would certainly throw a wrench in Konoha's plans. Although, if I kept on refusing to sign the forms, then by the time Naruto and Sasuke graduated, Kakashi would be forcefully reassigned to their team.
Not that I wasn't going to sign the form, of course. This is a chance for Chunin rank. I get to escape the awkwardness of being teammates with Daisuke and Ayano! If they also ranked up to Chunin, great! More skilled shinobi is always a good thing. If they died, also great! I don't have to be teammates with these squeamish, inept excuses for shinobi anymore!
"This'll be a tough exam.I won't hold it against you if you don't want to go. There's a chance of death, especially high for you since you guys don't have much experience with being a ninja yet." Ah, Kakashi was trying to get us to back off. Nice guy, trying to prolong our survival.
"No worries, we'll breeze through this!" I said, with a grin containing slightly elongated and sharpened canines l. Don't ask. It was part of my pain tolerance training.
Shiver.
Daisuke and Ayano say nothing. The former being both uncomfortable, and slightly terrified of me, and the latter just being naturally that quiet.
"Is this a team evaluation, or is it an individual one?" Ayano asks Kakashi.
Kakashi frowns at her question, no doubt thinking that the lectures he gave us on the importance of teamwork had fallen on deaf ears. "Kumo doesn't care about teamwork as much as we do. But I expect you all to cooperate and support one another." He's trying to drill the Will of Fire crap into our heads, "You are a team. As such, if one of you isn't comfortable with going, I'll prevent you all from going."
I start at that. He's going to prevent us from going? Not on my watch. Screw the fact that he's just trying to keep us safe, I don't need safety. In fact, it'd be just fine if I were injured during the exams, considering the fact that injuries give me power ups. I want my promotion, and I'm going to get it.
"That's just fine, after all, as a team, we're going to do just fine. Right guys?" I exert just the right amount of killing intent so that it puts Daisuke and Ayano on edge, but isn't noticed by Kakashi.
Daisuke and Ayano freeze in terror and break out into a cold sweat. They seem a lot more terrified than I thought they'd be with the tiny amount of killing intent I'm putting out.
Kakashi tenses and makes a grab for his kunai pouch. His fingers only make it halfway before he stops and relaxes.
Oops. Might've made the killing intent a bit too strong. A slight prickling in my chest confirms that fact.
See, the Reibi has a special form of chakra called dark chakra. When dark chakra is wielded purely, it comes out black, like you'd expect, unlike the boring regular stuff, which comes out blue. Dark chakra is composed entirely out of negative emotions, hence why I can generate it off of pain.
This composition of negative emotions make for some pretty nasty killing intent. The pain in my chest generated dark chakra and I sent it out in the form of killing intent. Which is kind of weird when you think about it, because killing intent doesn't use chakra at all, just pure murderous desires. But hey, chakra shenanigans.
So, depending on how much dark chakra I put into my killing intent, I can make people piss their pants in terror.
Oh yeah, and while we're on the topic of the Reibi, let's stop for a minute and examine the pains I've been feeling. It's my body- or, perhaps the leech inside of me? Something like that? Maybe?- subconsciously trying to produce enough chakra to power my techniques. Ever wonder how it creates the pain?
It fucking makes a Kami damned tiny shadow hand inside of me to poke at my internal organs!
Not okay, Reibi!
Thump!
No, seriously! That's freaky as hell! I mean, if it keeps me alive during a fight, I'll take it, but… ew.
Not as freaky as my week training my pain tolerance, mind you, but still freaky. Just remembering the last week gave me shivers. It was awful. I was just trying-
A high pitched wail cut through my thoughts. Ayano and Daisuke were on the ground, and Kakashi was desperately trying to keep from killing me on instinct. His hands kept twitching around the place, and his feet shuffled around into various battle stances.
Another scream cut the air.
Why are people screaming?
This time, Ayano opened her mouth, but all that came out was a hoarse whisper, only an echo of the scream earlier.
No really, why was this happening?
Oh yeah, dark chakra. I guess remembering the freakiness of the source of my chakra pains, and remembering the absolutely horrific-
A nonsensical babble flowed from Daisuke's mouth.
-training only condensed more negative emotions into dark chakra, forcing it out to create even stronger killing intent. Whoops. Didn't mean to do that. I guess I kind of forgot that normal negative emotions would function to power up the dark chakra, considering that I normally just use pain to power myself up. It's just a way easier way to produce dark chakra, as the other method would be constantly thinking back to events which produce negative emotions. That's a lame and probably not very effective way of generating dark chakra, but I digress.
"Sorry guys, didn't mean to do that." I said sheepishly rubbing the back of my head. I only received blank looks in return.
They were even more terrified of me than before.
Good for them.
Sign the damn forms.
I hope you two die in Kumo.
"And then she punched me really hard!" Naruto pouted, "And then she walked over to Sasuke-teme and started talking to him instead!"
We sat at Ichiraku Ramen, the normal meeting place for us. Ayame and Teuchi were busying themselves behind the counter of the ramen stand.
"Of course Naruto." I absently said. Sasuke. That was someone I haven't thought too much about. Wait… damn it! I missed the Uchiha Massacre! That would've been the perfect time to grab myself some Sharingan.
Now that I think about it though, it was probably for the best that I missed it. The clan compound was probably swarming with ANBU, making it impossible for me to get in there.
"Sasuke-teme doesn't deserve her! He always just ignores her! I hope that I won't get put on a team with him! There's no way that would happen though. There's no way that an amazing ninja like me would get put with an idiot like him!"
"Naturally."
"Hey, speaking of teams, what's your team like, Seidome?"
"Hmm? My team? It's… uh… interesting." That's one way to put it, certainly. Between my bursts of psychopathy, Ayano's aloof nature, Daisuke's formerly cheerful, now dampened attitude, and just the awkwardness that permeated all of our meetings, it was certainly… interesting.
"It must be awesome going on missions! Did you save any princesses? Did you save any countries? C'mon!"
My lips twitched in amusement. Just wait 'til you start taking on D-Ranks Naruto. The only princess you'll be saving is fucking Tora.
"I escorted a bunch of merchants to Grass Country once."
"Lame!"
"It's also the mission where I learned the lightning hounds and the lightning disc thing I can do."
Naruto's eyes widen comically.
He's in for a shock when he starts doing the real low ranked missions.
I grinned.
It felt so good know that you're about to pass on the suffering to future shinobi.
"Oh yeah, I'm leaving at the end of this week."
"Really? Where!?"
"Kumo."
"Why!?"
I grinned at this, "I'm taking the Chunin exams."
"What! You've been a ninja for like, four months! How the hell are you taking the Chunin exams already?!"
"Trade secret." I smirked.
Naruto just pouted.
I threw my lightning discs at Kakashi's clone. I really wish I could control more than three of them at a time. The clone expertly weaved through all of them and ran towards me, kunai in hand.
There were only a few days until left until we leave for Kumo. Kakashi was trying to squeeze in as much training as possible. Right now, I was sparring with one of his clones.
The clone threw a kunai at me. No doubt, this was nowhere near the maximum speed he could throw the kunai. This is training, after all. Not repeated ass beating. Although sometimes I think the two terms could be used interchangeably.
I Kawarimi'd with the kunai, putting me significantly closer to the clone. I charged up a Chidori in my right hand and dashed at him. The Chidori burned my hand. I had removed some of the safety features that the Chidori had built in, so that I could get a more powerful jutsu, and more chakra for my money.
Then, I dashed at the Kakashi clone. The next upgrade I planned to do for the Chidori was to get rid of the built in speed limiter. The Chidori was essentially a mass of lightning chakra that pulled its user forwards. If it went as fast as it could, it could easily pull the user's arm off, which is why it had built in limiters. I'm not exactly planning on releasing all of the limiters. Just enough to have speed capable of dislocating my shoulder. I couldn't regenerate an arm, after all,
Yet. I couldn't regenerate an arm yet.
When I do obtain the ability to regenerate my limbs, you better bet your ass that I'm gonna release all of the Chidori's limiters. Just think about it! I'd wind up a Chidori, then it'd rip off my arm and turn into an arm-sized lightning missile!
It would be beautiful.
The clone's skillful counter of my Chidori interrupted my dreams of grandeur. He pulled an Itachi and caught my wrist, avoiding the Chidori. He hefted my body overhead, and slammed me to the ground.
Ha! Joke's on you! Pain makes jutsu easier for me. With enough dark chakra accumulated, I can start doing jutsu sealless. Only the weak ones for now, but I'll get there someday. The only offensive jutsu I have that I can use sealless are my lightning hounds.
With the Kakashi clone literally right next to me, there should've been no way that he could have dodged the hound. There were no hand signs to indicate for him that I was using a jutsu, but I forgot one crucial thing.
This is fucking Kakashi I fighting against, clone or not.
Kami damn it.
So, because it's fucking Kakashi, it's somehow able to react in time to Kawarimi with a log in the forest. My lightning hound angrily punches through the log. I maneuver the hound over to where Kakashi is jumping out from the forest.
The clone easily jumps over the hound and resumes its charges at me. It threw several shuriken in my direction which I ducked under. They impact against the trees behind me.
My lightning hound dissipates to free up my hands for another jutsu. Going through some hand signs, three Rat Tremor discs fly through the air, homing in on the clone's location.
The clone puts on a burst of speed. The discs collide into the ground, exploding harmlessly behind it. More shuriken are sent behind me, ending up as the other ones did, embedded into the trees behind me.
The clone charges at me once again. I smirk. It's finally close enough.
I wind up another Chidori. The clone looks mildly impressed. I had only learned the Chidori recently, after all. Going for hours using a third-rate, crappily formed Chidori while training for it is one thing, but using a proper Chidori twice in quick succession is an entirely different thing altogether.
I charge at the Kakashi clone with speed enhanced by the Chidori. The clone once again catches my wrist. The kunai in its other hand is thrust towards my stomach. I didn't bother to dodge the kunai. It pierced my stomach with little resistance.
The clone widens its eyes. Obviously, it expected me to dodge the kunai. Perfect. Everything is going as planned. With my left hand, the one not wielding the Chidori, I reach out behind me. My left hand spears itself on one of the shuriken embedded in the tree behind me. Those were the same shuriken that Kakashi himself threw while charging at me.
It's beautiful. The clone itself gave me all of the tools I needed to win. The kunai it shoved into my gut and the shuriken impaling my hand give me all of the pain that I need to get the dark chakra flowing. If I had done this a week prior, I would have been screaming my head off. Now, I just grit my teeth and winced. Pain tolerance training was no joke.
'Not that I ever want to go through that hell again,' I shivered.
I push the chakra I just generated into the Chidori in my hand. The Chidori crackles into a whole new level. The Chidori turned an unhealthy shade of grey, the dark chakra tainting the lightning. The Chidori's characteristic chirping birds noise becomes warbled. It less like cheerful chirping, and more like crows in a cemetery.
The empowered Chidori was enough to launch my hand through the clone's grip, rocketing forwards towards the clone's abdomen.
And yet, the clone was still able to react. Clearly, Kakashi isn't one of the village's elite shinobi for nothing. The clone Kawarimis with a log in the forest. The empowered Chidori plows through the log. It isn't slowed down at all by the log. It then rockets me across the clearing that we were fighting in. The grey Chidori pierces through a tree. Then through the tree behind that one. Then through the one behind that tree. In punctures through two more trees until finally colliding against a boulder. The powered up Chidori makes a huge crater on the side of the boulder. At least half of the boulder is blown up by the Chidori.
With that, he grey Chidori finally dissipates, the warbled, crow's cries fading away. I shakily stood up. The Chidori didn't just take the dark chakra I produced. It sucked up my entire reserves. Not just my reserves, I corrected in my head, also the potent extra dark chakra that I produced when I let the clone stab me and when I impaled myself.
My reserves were too low to even use my hounds. I grit my teeth. I had to activate my pain reflex again.
I had shut off my body's automatic response to chakra demand, for the most part at least. Sometimes I'd accidentally release my hold over the reaction. It's no use training to bring up my chakra reserves if I can never empty them, after all. This time, I reactivated the pain on purpose.
I tried to forget the fact that the pain stemmed from tiny little rubbery white hands inside of my body.
Satisfied that my chakra was regenerating, I shakily took a step forwards. My legs were still weak, but proved relatively steady. With dark chakra pumping throughout my system, I'd be able to move just fine in a minute.
Just then, the Kakashi clone stepped into my field of vision.
Aw, crap.
I didn't have enough chakra for another Chidori, and the Chidori is the only jutsu I have that's fast enough to maybe have some hope of catching him off guard. My chakra regenerated too slowly, even with the pain boost, to form another Chidori in time.
Well, let's go for the next best thing. Let's go Rat Tremor! I put my hands up for a hand sign, preparing to launch the Rat Tremor discs.
Well, I tried to put my hands into a hand sign. Turns out that my right hand is too badly burned from the grey Chidori and the Chidoris I used before it to really make a hand sign.
Even if I could use my right hand for a hand sign, I freaking impaled my left hand on a shuriken to generate dark chakra earlier. My left hand was useless too.
With both of my hands out of commission, things were looking rather grim. Thankfully, I had one more trick up my sleeve. The Reibi's shadow hands. I didn't want to use them. I still couldn't really control them that well. I wasn't proficient enough with them to be comfortable with using them in true combat. But since this was just a spar, I could at least give it a shot.
A Shadow Arm slowly slithered its way out of mouth, becoming an extension of my tongue. The hand shot towards the clone. It widened its eyes at the hand shooting towards it, but once it recognised the threat, it easily caught the arm's thrust.
See, here's the problem with my usage of the Shadow Arms. The arms were fast, faster than my Rat Tremors, but not quite as fast as the Chidori. The Chidori's a rather high standard though, so I'm not too concerned about that. The point is, the Shadow Arms a fast. The problem is, I'm bad at controlling the arms. I can make them shoot in a straight line, and that's about it.
My crappy control doesn't matter in this scenario, though. Not when everything is going exactly as I planned. I planned most of my moves to an extent. I couldn't predict the grey Chidori, but I did have contingencies to various circumstances.
I knew I would be fighting a clone, so I devised a backup plan based around that.\
My Shadow Arms could absorb chakra.
Well, sort of.
Through a manipulation of negative emotions, I'm totally calling chakra shenanigans on this one, they can absorb chakra from anyone they touch. They could then channel the chakra, now turned dark chakra, through themselves and power up their user.
I planned with all of this in mind. I was banking on the Kakashi clone being cocky. Instead of just dodging the arm like a normal person, the clone caught the arm.
Checkmate.
Clones can think for themselves, and as such, generate negative emotions. Through the manipulation of the negative emotions, the arm could suck up the clone's chakra.
The chakra forming the clone was sucked up into my Shadow Arm, dispelling the clone.
Take that Kakashi-sensei! I freaking won!
Against a clone of you that probably wasn't even going at a tenth of its maximum capacity. It was pretty visibly pulling its punches and slowing itself down to better match my level.
Still, I won.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to collapse on the ground and fall unconscious.
Chakra exhaustion is no joke.
A/N: Shadow arms are the rubbery white hands that the Reibi generates, in case you didn't read the wiki or just know that off the top of your head. I don't think I described them very well in the chapter.
I guess I'll start to respond to reviews down here.
MrTicklesMMM: Yeah, I kind of forgot about the fact that there's no way that an experiment of Orochimaru's wouldn't get a medical exam. Looking back on it though, I'm not sure how else to introduce the Reibi. If anyone's got a good idea for it, let me know in the reviews, and I'll rewrite it. Otherwise, stretch your suspension of disbelief a bit more to make some leeway for that mistake. Also, you mentioned the Genjutsu Seidome's eye is under. It's just a Henge variant. I was going to mention that in an earlier chapter, but I guess I just forgot to. I added it in though, so it's cool now. Thanks for reviewing and pointing out my mistakes!
Nandeenah: Yeah, I didn't know about the Reibi either until a week or two ago there was a note in an earlier chapter where I told you guys that I had to scour the wiki for a bit to find a suitable explanation for Seidome's stuff. I'm trying to use as much material as possible from the series, and maybe use some obscure stuff that you may have not heard of. The Reibi doesn't have a name that I know of, the wiki doesn't list one, but I might make one up later on. I'm not sure if I actually will though, considering I'm not planning for too much interaction between the Reibi and Seidome. That may change later on though, depending on how the story goes. Thanks for reviewing!
Alrighty, thanks for reading! Feedback is much appreciated, as always.