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"I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells."
-Dr. Seuss
"The bell test?" Kaito asks.
"Uh-huh! All you have to do is take these bells from me. But you have to attack me with the intent to kill, or you'll never take them from me!" He sneers. "Whoever gets a bell passes. If you don't get a bell... You have to go back to the academy."
"Whaaat!" Kaito outrages. "I'm not going back there!"
"Well, you have to get a bell then! You have until this alarm clock goes off."
"Wait a minute. There's only two bells. One of us will have to go back to the academy?"
"If you don't get a bell, you go back to the academy." Our sensei confirms. "Good luck!" He does a massive, flying backflip and lands in the middle of the training field, in a wide-open clearing. We stand there.
"Go!" He shoos us away. I get out of there with a replacement and crouch on a log silently. I need a moment to think.
so, he said that we had to take the bells from him to pass, he didn't specifically say that we each must have a bell to pass. So, we only have to take the bells. Also, he said that our time is up when the clock goes off. Shifting my weight, I peer out through the leaves toward Yuri. Behind him, on a post, is a round, old-fashinoned clock. If I destroy the clock it won't be able to ring, meaning that we would have unlimited time. I can barely make out on the clock dial that the clock rings at 2:00. It's 8:00 now. If I throw a shuriken at the clock now, he can just catch it, so I need another way to destroy it. Yuri stands protectively in front of the clock, nonchalantly reading a brown magazine. He's holding his book up to his eyes so we can't see, but I bet his byakugan are activated. He knows where we are, and he knows that I'm going to destroy the clock. But should I try to do it anyway, to allow someone else to get an opening? Or maybe, that isn't important. He doesn't know about my chakra string jutsu. But since he's using the byakugan, he'll see my chakra strings clear as day. I might as well advertise my abilities on that magazine he's reading. What if, instead of using the chakra string jutsu to make the flight path of my kunai towards the clock unpredictable, I could literally just smash the clock into the ground.
I have an idea.
I decide it's worth giving up my position. I throw a kunai with a sealing tag towards the clock but purposely miss, and it hits the ground next to the post. Now I just need to use my chakra strings to knock the clock over onto the tag.
Unfortunately, Yuri has other plans. The Yuri that was holding the magazine burst into smoke, and suddenly he is standing on the branch beside me.
"Was that supposed to be an explosive tag? Rookie mistake. Don't mix up your tags. Try storing them in separate pouches."
'Bam!'
A devastating sidekick launches me through the air, and I fly towards a stream. I hold my index finger above my head and shoot a chakra string at a tree branch, which catches me before I fall in. I swing up and around the branch, landing on top. Nice save. That was lucky. I don't even hide my chakra, because against a jonin it's kinda pointless. Instead I spread my senses, searching for my other two teammates. Both are attempting to hide their chakra. One is doing a fairly good job, the other's attempt is laughable. I think I know which one is which. I close my eyes to get better control of my senses, and I feel their chakras moving closer together. The neatly-hidden chakra (Rei's) Suddenly flares. Was that a jutsu? He's nowhere near sensei. Or is sensei pretending to be Akio? Or maybe pretending to be Rei? Damn it! If I was paying attention to their chakras earlier, I would know. I return to the clearing and see sensei standing next to the clock. The edge of the clearing is far away from the clock on all sides, and there's no way I could knock over the clock without him noticing. I sense his chakra. It's the real him. But the one pretending to be Akio or Rei could just be a clone... Now I'm getting paranoid. If I try to knock over the clock with a chakra string, I would have surprise, given that he isn't focusing on me (He now has his byakugan off) and if Akio and Rei are actually fighting, he would be sensing their movements, not mine, right? To see if they were gonna make up and do some teamwork. I'm gonna take the chance that those are the real Akio and Rei, and if they aren't I can just try something else.
The hard part with chakra strings isn't weight or manipulation, it's distance, because of chakra dissipation. I hold out my hand towards the clock and close my eyes, trying to make a connection. The chakra snakes out of my palm, so thin it's almost invisible, just a slight shimmer in the air, and Yuri doesn't appear to notice. I can feel the cold, round side of the clock in my hand. Connection! Success! I twitch my hands, and the clock starts to vibrate. Harder, I try again. The clock begins to tip over, and Captain Yuri notices. He looks at it in surprise, but it's too late for him. It falls onto the tag. My eyes snap open and I bring my palms together, my index and middle fingers vertical on both of my hands and my others interlaced. "Fuin!"
That was a special one-way sealing tag to another dimension, created specially (and expensively) by the Akimichi Shinobi Market store. That thing isn't coming back. If he does manage to bring it back, it'll be a smoking pile of twisted metal.
"Oh, I see." He announces, connecting the dots. "Well, it appears we have a smart-ass in our midst. I did technically say that your time was up when the clock rings, not when the clock reaches the allotted time limit. Very clever." He gives a knowing smile towards the bushes I'm hiding in. He flips the page of his magazine. Over on the other side of the clearing, one chakra is unmasked. Either he's too tired to cloak it, or... He passed out or went to sleep. I rush around the arena from tree branch to tree branch, and I approach the chakra. i make sure it's Kaito. It's him, as far as I can tell.
"Kaito!" I hiss. "Kaito!" I shake his shoulders, and he rolls over.
"Sarah! You saved me!"
"Yep. What happened?"
"Rei put me in a genjutsu so he could get the bells for himself and then ran off towards the clearing. He's probably there by now! We have to stop him! I'm gonna make sure he goes back to the academy. A guy like that doesn't deserve to be on our team."
He bounces off the ground into a standing position and starts to run off towards the clearing.
"Wait!" I call after him. He stops and turns around. "What if that was just a transformed clone of our sensei, trying to provoke you?"
"I didn't think about that. But then where's the real Rei?"
"Right here. Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu." Came a low voice from behind us. The ground opens up below us, and I fall down into a hole. The dirt quickly encases me so that only my head is above the ground. I look over at Kaito. He's in the same position.
"Sorry, guys. I need to get one of those bells. I can't go back to the academy." And with that, Rei walks between us and jumps off toward the clearing.
"Rei! Get back here! I'm not done with you!" Kaito screams.
"Hey! Wait minute! Listen to me!" I shout, but it's futile.
Without even turning around, he walks between us, then jumps away toward the clearing.
"Hey, Kaito. He's going to fail, don't worry. This test is about teamwork. Remember his word choice when he said that 'we each had to take a bell' from him. All we have to do is hold the bell."
"That's stupid! There's no way that's right."
"Think about it. Have you ever seen a two person team?"
"Huh." He says, seeming to drift into thought. "So we need to go convince Rei and all attack Sensei together before the time limit is up. But first we need to get out of here!"
"I know how." There's a branch above me. I unseal a rope from my breast pocket, which I can barely reach, and worn my hand through the dirt to the surface. It's difficult, because the dirt moves when you do to hold you down. I can't just jump out.
I throw one end of the rope over the branch and keep hold of the other. One end is wrapped around the branch. With some effort, I pull myself up and out of the hole. Kaito seems to be impressed. Next, I pull him out. We run over to the clearing and wait in the bushes. Kaito stands away from Yuri-sensei, and he throws a hail of shuriken at Sensei.
Sensei pulls out a tanto and deflects them at perfect angles, so that they shoot back at him. He dodges them and runs toward Yuri. Yuri pulls out his newspaper and starts reading. Rei jumps on him, and Yuri simply sticks out his foot, which lands in the middle of Rei's stomach. The breath visibly leaves his body and he lands on the ground.
"Ooohhh. That must've sucked." Kaito comments.
Rei bounces back up and wipes his mouth, ready for another round.
"Rei! Get back here!"
"Rei! Get over here! Quit being an idiot!"
"Since when are you smarter than me? Need I remind you of your scores?" Rei yells back, forgetting about the fight for a moment.
'(Crack!)' A punch to the side of the head launches Rei through the air. He flips over in the air and lands on his feet, skidding across the ground from his momentum. He looks between Sensei, then us, then back to Sensei.
"I'll be back to finish this fight." Rei calls to Yuri-Sensei.
"Oooh, a coupon!" Sensei rips a page out of the magazine and slips it in his pocket.
We sit down on a patch of water by the river. "Are you guys hungry?" They nod.
"Here. Snacks." I toss them each a bag of chips.
"I guess having a fatass teammate isn't so bad."
I flip Rei off and the three of us sit down on a patch of moss.
"Okay, well if Rei's fight was any demonstration, we can't beat him if we fight him all together, no matter what we do."
Rei rolls his eyes. "What should we do instead, trap him?"
"We don't have the experience to actually trap him." I say.
"You guys are thinking about this wrong. We don't need to trap him, just the bells."
"That's true. Did anyone notice that the clock is gone?"
"What happened to it?" Asks Rei.
"What clock?" Kaito asks cluelessly. We give him exasperated looks.
" I destroyed the clock, so the alarm will never go off. We have all day, or until he fails us."
"Well? Let's get 'em then! If we show teamwork, he might even pass us even if we don't get the bells." Kaito says, knocking his fists together in excitement.
"What Jutsu do you guys know? I know Chakra String and Shadow Clone."
"Whoa, you can do Shadow Clones?"
"Mmhm."
"I know Headhunter. That's it."
"You, Kaito?"
"I know Water Bullet."
Rei scoffs. "No you don't."
"Well, I can almost do it." Kaito blushes, embarrassed.
I stand up and they follow me. We head towards the clearing.
"Hmm? What's this?" Yuri taunts.
"Those bells are as good as ours!"
"We'll see, won't we, Kaito?"
Captain Yuri flings a hail of shuriken and kunai at us. When they get close I hold up my hand. Chakra strings shoot from my palm and connect with the incoming projectiles. They stop in mid air. Wow. Nine at once. I didn't even know I could do that.
The thrown knives turn around in the air and shoot back towards the thrower. He blocks a few with his tanto, but most miss horribly.
"Nice trick." I make a small shadow clone army of fifteen, which takes almost a quarter of my chakra. Then, we attack, from all directions.
Rei, Kaito and I are lying on our backs on the ground, panting. It's cold out, so at least we're not sweating too hard. The sun is starting to speed towards the horizon, and a thick cloud cover almost obscures it's existence. I gasp in air, trying to circulate my remaining chakra through my body to fix the scratches and bruises. There's no way we could win.
"You guys done? I'm about ready for lunch." Sensei taunts. Kaito jumps to his feet.
"No way! We're gonna take those bells no matter-" He crumples to the ground, passed out for the second time today.
"Well then, judging by your conditions, I think I can say that you..."
don'tsayit don'tsayit don'tsayit
"Passed! Congratulations, the object of the test was teamwork. I was watching all of you the entire time. So... who likes barbeque?"
"Me! Me!" I gasp, sitting up straight. He smiles.
"Great, I'm glad. What's your favorite restaurant?"
"Ichiraku Ramen, although it isn't barbeque they do have barbeque ramen."
"How about we go there instead then."
"Thank you, Sensei!"
I DID IT! YES! MY NINJA CAREER BEGINS!