Chapter 36: In Which Nothing Important to the Plot Happens. Really.
"Guh," grunted Naruto as he tried to sit up, only to immediately find his movement restricted by a layer of fabric covering, his neck throbbing with pain, and something warm inside his jacket. For a moment, he debated just staying where he was and abandoning the apparently painful world of the conscious for a few more minutes, but the moment passed and he decided to actually open his eyes and make sure a vampire wasn't eating him or something. Naruto's eyes cracked open.
The good news was that there was no vampire and no new-found proof that they weren't just fictional monsters in this world. The bad news was that someone seemed to have tied him and Negi together using the remains of the tent that had unfortunately been destroyed when he bravely fended off the bear. And Negi had somehow ended up with his head inside Naruto's jacket.
"Well look who's awake," said a voice as Naruto began struggling to free himself from the remains of the tent and disentangle himself from his red-headed teammate. "Welcome back to the waking world."
"Wha?" grunted Naruto intelligently. "Who said that?"
"It's me, Chamo," replied the voice, which Naruto was starting to realize was coming from somewhere in the tangled mess of him, Negi, and the tent. "And now that you're awake, WOULD YOU PLEASE GET OFF ME!"
"Oops! Sorry!" Quickly, Naruto rolled onto his other side, prompting a squeak of pain from the ermine as Naruto rolled the wrong direction and instead shifted more of his weight on top of him.
"Other way! Other way!" yelled the ermine. Naruto quickly rolled the other direction, prompting another squeak of pain before Naruto actually managed to get off of him. "Thanks," grunted Chamo flatly. Quickly, the ermine freed himself from the tent's remains.
As soon as the ermine was free, Naruto resumed his struggle to work himself free of the mess. Being much larger than the ermine, it wasn't quite as easy for him, but he managed. For a moment, Naruto stared at the remains of the tent (in which Negi was still cocooned). Then he looked around.
"Hey. Where's Ryouga and Sakura?"
"Beats me," said Chamo.
Negi shifted in the remains of the tent.
Naruto looked about uncertainly, then moved his hands into his most used hand-seal "I'm going to look for Sakura. KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!" Several dozen shadow clones poofed into existence, then scatted in multiple directions.
"Not gonna even try for Ryouga, huh?" asked Chamo.
"Are you nuts? He could be anywhere on the planet by now."
0o0o0
Ryouga examined the desert surrounding him. The howling winds sounded like the screams of the damned, and every once in a while, he could swear he saw flickers of movement from the corners of his eyes. However, whenever he looked for the source of it, nothing was there. Shrugging this off, he instead stayed focused on matters of more immediate relevance to his situation. Which way was east again?
0o0o0
Slowly, Kiba slid open the door. Just a crack. Just enough to peek inside and check on the status of his foe.
The man in question stood facing a chalkboard, his back to the rest of the room. The sound of a piece of chalk repeatedly striking the board could be heard as the man wrote something. All the while he droned away about something that was probably ninja related, but without context sounded like complaining about the economy. Kiba grinned.
Iruka seems to be completely absorbed by his lesson. At this rate, I might be able to sneak back to my desk without being caught. Swiftly, Kiba slid the door open and slipped into the room. Having taken the time to lubricate the tracks with oil, it slid open without a sound, and Kiba entered unnoticed by Iruka. Several other students noticed him, but they weren't the ones he was trying to go unnoticed by. As long as they didn't rat him out to Iruka, Kiba didn't care whether they saw him enter or not.
Keeping an eye on his teacher, Kiba finally reached his desk. And Iruka hadn't spotted him. Letting out a sigh of relief, he reached for his chair. Suddenly, a loud scraping noise came from the seat next to his as Hyuuga Hinata slid her chair back. She then bent down to pick up the pencil she'd dropped under the table she was seated at.
Kiba stared at her in horror. Slowly, his eyes slid back to the front of the room, where Iruka stood, wearing a blatantly fake smile. "Hello Kiba," said the instructor. "How nice of you to join us, oh," Iruka paused and made a big production of checking his watch, "twenty-seven minutes after you left to use the restroom."
"I... really had to go?" said Kiba uncertainly.
"For almost half an hour?" asked Iruka rhetorically.
"...Yes," said Kiba.
"See me after class for detention," said Iruka, turning back to the chalkboard.
"Dammit," grunted Kiba.
"And again tomorrow for swearing in class."
0o0o0
As Tenten returned to the clearing she and her team had been training at, the first glimpse she got of her teammates was that of a green blur flying toward her teammate, Hyuuga Neji. Panic surged through Tenten, and her hand moved toward her morpher, only to change directions toward her equipment pouch at the last second. "Neji, look-" Neji's right arm shot forward into the green blur as he twisted to the side, and the blur crashed to the ground behind him, where it resolved itself into Lee. "...out," Tenten finished lamely. Of course he's not being attacked by the Green Ranger. It's just Lee challenging him again. Sighing in relief, Tenten slipped the shuriken she had been preparing to throw back into her pouch.
Since she had joined Team Gai, her other teammate, Rock Lee, had challenged Neji to a fight almost every single day. For over a year. And though Lee had improved tremendously in that time, the outcome was always the same. Neji won, usually with ease. But something seemed different today.
In an instant, Lee was back on his feet. There was a blur of motion Tenten couldn't quite follow with her eyes, and Lee was gone. "Holy cow. When did Lee get so fast?"
Tenten didn't realize she had spoken out loud until her sensei, Might Gai, answered. "Lee has been steadily working his way up to this level of speed for a long time. He merely wears weights most of the time, even when he's training." Gai grimaced. "And that's why he's going to lose this fight."
A green blur shot toward Neji from behind, but Neji casually sidestepped Lee's kick and delivered an almost delicate looking palm thrust as it passed by. Lee crashed to the ground in a painful looking roll, only to regain control at some point and use the momentum to return to his feet. For a second, Lee wobbled unsteadily.
"Give up, Lee," said Neji. "You've never beaten me before, and you aren't going to now."
"I have never fought you without my weights before," announced Lee. "This time, things will be different!" He then abruptly vanished. There was a streak of green between where he'd been standing and where Neji was standing, the sound of flesh meeting flesh, and suddenly Lee was standing before Neji, gasping in pain. A single arm was extended forward, clenched tightly into a fist. His weight was shifted forward, as if he had just thrown a haymaker and overextended. Indeed, he wouldn't be standing at all if his weight weren't being supported by Neji's left elbow, which was currently driven deep into Lee's solar plexus.
"No they won't," Neji replied. He then withdrew his elbow, and Lee collapsed to the ground, dry heaving. Neji snorted disdainfully. "Whether or not you discard your weights matters not. This is the difference between a genius and... well, you. No matter how fast you become, no matter where you attack from, no matter how you attack, you can never escape these eyes. And if you can't do that, you can't hope to defeat me. As long as I have these eyes, you will never surpass me. That is your fate." As he spoke, Neji slowly walked around Lee, apparently leaving.
After a moment, Lee stopped dry heaving, and determination filled his eyes. Lee started to climb back to his feet, looking back toward Neji. Simultaneously, Neji spun around and lunged at Lee, his right hand blurring into a series of strikes at the base of Lee's spine. Lee collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut.
"I've just sealed the tenketsu along the base of your spine. You'll be lucky if you're even walking within the next ten minutes." Neji turned around. "This fight is over," he declared. And then he left.
Tenten absently realized her mouth was hanging open. Lee had been moving like the Green Ranger. And Neji had dispatched him anyway, and made it look easy. He hadn't even used any of the special techniques of the Hyuuga clan.
"The Byakugan is indeed a difficult obstacle to surmount," said Gai, referring to the special eyes of the Hyuuga clan. "But that isn't why Lee lost." Gai paused. "Well, that's not the only reason Lee lost, anyway."
"What?" asked Tenten.
"No, Lee defeated himself," said Gai philosophically, continuing his sudden exposition. "Because he always trains with his weights on, he isn't used to fighting without them. He couldn't keep up with his own movements. Neji, on the other hand, not only had full control over himself, but also never lost track of Lee during the fight. From there, it was just a matter of timing his strikes to hit Lee as he rushed past."
"And Lee was moving too fast to realize what Neji was doing," realized Tenten.
"Exactly."
"Hmm," said Tenten. "That gives me an idea."
0o0o0
In a burst of black, Ino arrived in a small clearing in a forest, having chosen to teleport there instead of where her team was actually staying in order to avoid any uncomfortable questions from her teammates in regards to her arrival. So of course, Shikamaru was sitting there, staring up at the sky. For a moment, Ino stared at him in horror. Shikamaru stared back, his expression failing to change from its usual bored look. Neither of them said anything. And then Shikamaru leaned back and resumed looking at the sky.
Shock and outrage warred within Ino. "Aren't.. aren't you going to ask how I did that?" she asked.
"Too troublesome," Shikamaru responded, continuing to stare at the sky.
Ino glared at him, but bit down the urge to chew him out on his laziness and left without saying anything. At least Chouji and Kurenai hadn't seen anything. Hopefully Shikamaru would keep his mouth shut and neither of them would find out.
0o0o0
"You know, I don't think anyone ever thanked you for driving off that bear, " mentioned Chamo casually.
"Well yeah," Naruto replied from his spot on the grass next to the tent wrappings that still housed Negi. "I destroyed the tent in the process."
"So what?" asked Chamo.
"So now we have to sleep without one, that's what, " Naruto retorted.
"Better than being bear chow."
"Yeah, but anyone in the tent could have driven it off."
"Not me, " said Chamo. "That thing might have been small potatoes for you big bad ninjas, but to me it might as well have been Godzilla."
"Who?" asked Naruto.
"...You're joking." Naruto gave the ermine a clueless look. "...You're not joking, " said Chamo, placing a paw against his head. "Just what the heck are they teaching ninjas in ninja school these days?"
"Hey!" said Naruto. "That's not fair to Iruka! I don't know stuff because I slept in class a lot!"
"And you somehow slept through all the Godzilla lessons. Just what is this world coming to?" Chamo shook his head in mock sadness as Naruto started to look legitimately guilty for sleeping through his lessons on this Godzilla guy. He would have to look him up when he got back to the village. If he remembered. Maybe. "Anyways, I just wanted to thank you from keeping the bear from eating me, " said Chamo. "So yeah. Thanks for that."
From beneath the wrapped remains of the tent fabric, a no longer unconscious Negi smiled.
"Aha! There you guys are."
And just like that, the smile was gone. Immediately, Negi closed his eyes and began snoring as Sakura approached the group.
Sakura frowned. "Where's Ryouga."
"Beats me," Naruto replied. "I kind of thought he was with you. How the heck did you get past all those clones I sent looking for you, anyway?"
Sakura flinched, then faked a look of confusion. "Clones? What clones?"
Negi's snoring abruptly cut off in a snort, then started back up again a second later when Sakura looked at him.
Naruto growled in frustration, then raised his hands to cancel the jutsu. "Those guys better not have been goofing off for the past twenty minutes or so."
"Whatever," said Sakura in poorly faked dismissive manner, drawing a certain kunai with a seal attached to it.
0o0o0
"Seventy three," yelled Yahiko as he swung a shinai over his head. The boy stood alone at a training ground near the archery field performing the same strike over and over. His team had finished their missions for the day, and there wasn't any planned meeting with the other rangers until Sakura and Ino got back from their missions. "Seventy four. Seventy five. Seventy six. Seventy sev-AAAUUGH!" Yahiko accidentally swung his shinai too close to his head, and the bamboo practice blade lightly bumped the sizable goose egg protruding from the top of his skull. Yelling in pain, Yahiko dropped the shinai and clutched his head in pain. "DAMN YOU, GREEN RANGER! WHOEVER YOU ARE!"
0o0o0
Kiba sat with his head on his table as Iruka droned on and on about the importance of teamwork. He let out a frustrated groan. He'd heard this lesson before, and he was incredibly bored. He understood the importance of it, but Iruka could make even history lessons about great battles sound boring. Letting out another groan, Kiba let his eyes wander around the room. Eventually, they came to a rest on Hinata, who was actually taking notes, much to his confusion. "You're taking notes?" asked Kiba.
Hinata glared at him, and shushed him. "Stop talking to me and pay attention to the lecture."
"Why?" asked a baffled Kiba. "I've already heard this lesson before. We both have."
"Well clearly somebody didn't learn it well enough the first time around," snarled Hinata.
Kiba blinked. Was Hinata acting... snippy? "Sounds like someone's PMSing," Kiba teased.
"Yes," growled Hinata, looking increasingly angry.
"Oh." Kiba fell silent. That... hadn't been the response he'd been looking for, and now he didn't know what to say. Searching for a change of topic, he noticed a white bandanna tied around Hinata's head. "Say, what's with that bandanna you're wearing today? Trying to change your look?"
The effect was instant and devastating. Hinata looked at Kiba like he had just murdered her dog in front of her. Tears were actually gathering visibly at the corners of her eyes. "Please stop talking to me," she said. Hinata then turned back to her notes, deliberately avoiding looking at Kiba.
Kiba stared at her for a few more seconds before turning back to his desk and scowling. What the heck was that about?