Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor am I affiliated in any way with it, other than being a fan. Those rights belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I do own the OC's and any techniques and weapons I add to the story.
A/N: Now it is time for the second part of the exams, I hope you all are ready to see some heads get knocked together!
Chapter 49: The Labyrinth
"Huh, 42 teams exactly eh?" Kankuro mused as looked over the teams in the building once the sun set. "Guess we gave too many people the code phrase, but we wanted to be sure that there would be enough who knew it for teams to pass based on ability rather than just bad luck on not encountering someone. Oh well, you are all Temari's problem now, so it will be her job to weed out the weaklings in these exams!"
"Alright listen up!" Temari shouted, drawing attention from the anime tear weeping, plaster casted body she was dragging along with her (A/N: No prizes for guessing who the poor fella in there is) to her. "We will be doing a survival portion of the exam tomorrow morning. I expect you to be at training ground 13 at 6 AM sharp tomorrow!"
"Yeah, can't wait to bust some heads tomorrow!" Akari said loudly enough to earn her some attention from the other genin in the room, and causing Daisuke to clap a hand over her mouth.
"You want to make an enemy of every other genin in the room?" the young Uchiha deadpanned, before they headed back to the hotel room, where Sasuke was waiting for them.
….
"Man, they have us wait until around 9 to go home and then they expect us to get up before 6 to go to the training grounds?" Kin was muttering to herself when they got back to their own hotel. "How are we supposed to get enough sleep after all that?"
"Oh shut up," Zabuza said, putting down the magazine he had been reading. "It is not that rare for shinobi to have to do a lot of their work on only a little sleep. Deal with it."
"So Zabuza-Sensei, what have you been up to today?" Genyumaru asked as Haku sat down to examine his senbon in preparation for the next day.
"Oh, I actually ran into the teachers of two of the other teams from Konoha," Zabuza smirked. "And got some blackmail material on one of them," he said as he took out several pictures he had taken, all of them of Sakura giving Sasuke a lot of pain, one of the same scene Shikamaru witnessed with Sasuke being buried headfirst into the ground, and another one of Sakura holding Sasuke by one leg and using him as a weapon to settle some score with a nearby building.
"I didn't realize blackmail was your style, Zabuza-Sensei," Haku chuckled.
"No it isn't, but I bet Naruto will pay some good ryo for the pictures so he could use them."
…..
Naruto suddenly felt giddy as he was infusing some chakra into the scales Alex's hydra had shed. "I suddenly feel that if I save my ryo, five of my birthdays are going to come at once," he said as he continued his task.
Apparently, the Animal Path actually required the Rinnegan user to use Yin-Yang Style chakra on something organic to basically "cultivate" a creature for the Rinnegan user to use. As the newly made organism grew, chakra receiver rods were to be implanted to speed the process up, as well as control the bodies made. It was also possible to give the grown organism actual life rather than have it be brain-dead and follow orders, but it was very risky to actually create souls with that jutsu. In fact, it was that final action that had killed the Rikudou Sennin rather than old age, though he was certainly tolled by that as well, when he had given nine personalities to the Bijuu he had made after splitting the Jyuubi's chakra into nine parts and creating the moon to seal the Jyuubi's body.
Reviving the dead was easier, because all you were doing was healing damage to a body, restarting it, and calling an already existing soul to it. Still daunting, but far more realistic than creating a soul from will and chakra alone.
At any rate, once the organism was done growing, only the Rinnegan user that had created it could summon it, and one other cool thing was that these summons did not "go" anywhere when they were dismissed, they simply popped out of existence until called upon again, and it did not matter what dimension you were in, you could still call upon them. Naruto focused for a moment before a dark orange metal rod materialized in his hand.
The Creation of All Things ability actually came somewhat easy for him, since it involved creating things with your will, and very few had a willpower that could match Naruto's. A few of his limitations were the fact that he had to be careful about creating thinking beings, because again, that would not only drain his reserves close to dry, but his life force would also be tapped as well, and he had to have at least a basic understanding of how something worked. Because he had dealt with Nagato's chakra receiver rods before, and read a little on the same general things in this dimension. He even figured out how to make them come out any color he wanted, instead of black. Felix had shaken his head and muttered, "figures," when he first saw Naruto make an orange rod.
When you were actually creating a creature, you still had to understand a bit about how its body works, though that is much easier if you simply channel the chakra into genetic material, since DNA held the "blueprint" of the body, hence the fact Naruto was currently cultivating hydra scales into an organism. He had also added some of Alex's blood to the creature he was growing, in order to add his Kekkei Genkai to it, one of the things that could be done with Animal Path. If this worked the way Naruto wanted it to, he would have a many headed giant serpent with acidic blood that it could control in the same way as a Chihanshu could, and would regenerate two heads every time one was removed.
He was in fact already halfway done with another of his summons, a dragon he was cultivating from Vargon's scales, and some blood given by Felix, the end result hopefully being a dragon that could use any elemental breath, not just a single one it was born with. Naruto stuck a rod in the piece of flesh that looked similar to an embryo, before turning to the half grown dragon.
"Two more days before you're done," he said to the form. I wonder what else I could make to make old Nagato eat his heart out?"
…..
"Hey Duck-Butt Sensei, we're back!" Akari shouted as her team entered the hotel room in a different building than Zabuza's team was.
When they heard a simple "hnn" in response, Daisuke said, "We'd better stock some provisions, there is no telling what amount of time the survival portion of the test is going to be set in."
"Way ahead of you," Akari said as she pulled out a scroll and unsealed a cooler large enough for two people to fit in. "Since I can't eat ramen all the time, I made sure that I had a few of my Wood Clones go shopping for us before the stores closed down for the night. And I brought this baby from Konoha and put a bunch of water in the freezer, so we could have plenty of ice to keep some provisions cool for a while, so we don't have to eat nasty ration bars either."
"I hear you, those things belong in the T&I department, if they fed those to prisoners, we'd have all the intel we could ever need," Daisuke shuddered. "I swear, the day I find the civilian who designed those for shinobi, I will get a hundred bars and force feed them to him."
"And if it's a woman?" Kiyoshi asked.
"I'm very equality-minded, so yes, her as well (A/N: I borrowed that joke from a Halo book)."
"Hey, where the hell is all of my ice?" Akari asked in irritation as she found the freezer empty.
"I kind of used it," Sasuke groaned from the room. "I am currently covering all the parts of my body that hurt right now."
"I made enough to cover your entire body!" Akari shouted as she went into the room. Sure enough, there was Sasuke, buried under a lot of ice.
"Exactly," Sasuke muttered as he got into a sitting position, looking like a walking bruise. "I-."
"Hold that thought," Akari said as she left the room. Daisuke and Kiyoshi instantly took out ryo bills, having heard that Sasuke had gotten himself beat up. Akari also took some of hers out too.
"He got carried away training," Daisuke bet.
"He got into a fight with another jonin, or some equivalent number of lower ranks," Kiyoshi wagered.
"You're both wrong, he likely pissed off Sakura somehow," Akari gambled. They all shook on the bets, and they went into Sasuke's room. "So what were you saying Sensei?" Akari asked.
Sasuke sighed as he said, "Sakura was not very happy that I left for the exams without her and she made that quite clear." Sasuke then sweat dropped as he saw Daisuke and Kiyoshi hand Akari their money.
"Guess I had better put more water in the freezer," Akari said with a satisfied giggle. "In the meantime, you two seal away anything that will keep on its own in these," she handed them a bunch of scrolls.
"Got it," Daisuke replied. He held them in his arms and asked, "Got enough for a month long trip or something?" Then one of the scrolls fell out of his arms and caused Akari to trip. Instantly, Daisuke dropped the ones he was holding and managed to catch her by wrapping an arm around her before she could crash to the ground. "You all right?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said as she fully settled back onto her feet. Their eyes met for a second before they blushed a bit and quickly returned to their tasks.
…
"Good job," Gaara was telling Matsuri as she started sealing provisions for her team for the next part of the exam.
"On what, Gaara-Sensei?" Matsuri asked.
"Getting past the first part of the exam," Gaara replied. "I hope you make chunin, so I no longer have to fill the shoes of your sensei."
Matsuri looked hurt for a moment before she asked, "Are you trying to get rid of me?"
"Not at all. In fact, the reason I have not gotten closer to you is because it is considered… unprofessional for a sensei and student to have feelings for one another, even if they are close to the same age. I want to be able to show my feelings for you without raising a few eyebrows."
"I see, but since when did you care about what the main populace thought?"
"Since I had a Bijuu sealed within me and had to fight so hard to gain the respect I now have. I do not wish to give the villagers reason to mistrust me again. It would also harm your reputation if we were to start going out while we were supposed to have a student-teacher relationship and nothing more."
"Yeah, you're probably right. So I had better make the rank then, haven't I?"
"Do not worry, I know you have it in you."
…
"Oh yeah, I cannot wait to be a chunin!" Konohamaru exclaimed happily, irritating his pink haired sensei. "I'm going to take one giant step towards my goal of being Hokage, and I will impress Akari!"
"Why's that important to ya?" Udon asked, and Konohamaru went a little pink.
"Ah, well, she is one of my rivals and my pranking partner, so I honestly want her to admire me," he replied a little bashfully.
"Ahhhh, I think someone's got a crush," Moegi said, causing Sakura to snigger and Konohamaru to face fault.
"No I don't have a crush on her, what, are you stupid?! She's the younger sister of the guy who taught me most of what I know! That's just gross!" Konohamaru frantically said in denial. It was pretty obvious he was just trying to save face, and that he really did have feelings for her. But that was suddenly not the immediate issue as the hapless Sarutobi felt Sakura's killing intent.
"What was that, Brat?" she asked, cracking her knuckles as she approached the scared shitless boy. "Are you saying that I did not teach you all that much?"
"Uh, um, I er, said "guy" who taught me the most, nothing about "girls," eh heh heh," Konohamaru managed to say. Swing and a miss.
The boy began screaming as Sakura pummeled him, and Udon and Moegi were suddenly nowhere to be found (smart kids).
…
"Is everyone here?" Temari asked the teams next morning outside of training grounds 13 at 5:55. "Good, since we have all 42 teams, let me go over the rules for this exam! First, you see behind me training grounds 13, also called, The Labyrinth."
The teams looked at the solid wall that enclosed the training grounds. Shikamaru then said, "Yep, what is in there is a rather-,"
"Say troublesome and I'll make sure you suffer so bad you will think what I did to you yesterday was a relaxing massage," Temari threatened, causing all of the genin to sweat drop and Konohamaru to wince in sympathy for the Nara.
"Alright fine. As you all likely guessed is in there is a rather bothersome maze about twice the size of another particular training grounds the Forest of Death, which is rather famous in Konoha."
Temari twitched at the "bothersome" statement, but decided to let it slide. "There are 50 entrances to the Labyrinth, and each team will be going into a different one. Your mission: To get to the building in the center of the maze, built next to an oasis. Here's the catch though. You need to have these." She pulled out three scrolls, one with the kanji for rain, another having the kanji for sun, and the final one being of sand. "Originally, we were going to do just two different scrolls, the same as is usually done, but when this many teams pass, we add a third scroll."
"So how do we get the scrolls then?" one of the genin asked.
"Easy. There are 42 teams here, so that, divided by three, is 14. So that means we will be randomly giving 14 teams a sand scroll, 14 a sun scroll, and the remaining 14 a rain scroll. That means that you will have to take scrolls from each other in there before you make it to the center. So at most, fourteen teams will pass." She proceeded to explain the rest of the rules to the teams, which were similar to the ones in the same exam in Konoha. She also warned them that the top of the maze was shielded by a barrier jutsu, so that any attempt to travel the mave from atop the twenty foot walls would be ill-advised. "Also, we will be giving you seven sets of these, "Temari continued as she showed them six stacks of paper. "Each piece of paper is one sixth of the map, so that means there will be seven maps in all for you. These are not needed to pass the exam like the scrolls are, but they are also important if you want to navigate the maze effectively.
"Any questions?" she finished. When none were forthcoming, the materials were handed out, the forms were signed, and each team was moved to a different entrance.
"Odd," Shikamaru muttered as he looked at the assorted teams. "There seem to be about 11 Iwa teams in this part of the exams, even more than Suna's ten. Did they collaborate on something to get through the first exam? This could be troublesome."
….
"Looks like we got a southern portion of the map while we are going in through a northern entrance," Akari mused as she and her teammates looked intently at the map. From what they could tell, there were several narrow corridors that only one person at a time could go through, and a few others that were much wider. "So we will have to have other ways to navigate, at least for now."
"Yo," Shikamaru said as he appeared in a shunshin.
"Hey, what are you doing here you lazy bum?" Akari asked.
"Just thought I would let you guys know, there seem to be quite a few Iwa nin in these exams, and I don't think I need to tell you guys why that would worry me," the Nara said, and Akari, Daisuke and Kiyoshi nodded.
"We'll be careful," Daisuke promised as a large bell went off and the gate to the Labyrinth opened, allowing the three genin to dash into the setting for the second exam.
Omake: Top three NaruHina moments Isaac ruined #2
"And here we are," Naruto said one night as he and Hinata were enjoying a starlit stroll on the wall of the Yoshoryuu's clan compound. "One of the most clear nights you will ever find."
"Hopefully Isaac is asleep by now," Hinata said, and Naruto shuddered.
"I know, he just seems to love to mess with us. And he seems to have some kind of ninth sense on when we are alone together."
"What are seven and eight?"
"You don't want to know," Naruto deadpanned and Hinata giggled. That was before a glop of bird poop landed on her shoulder.
"Just great," Naruto moaned. "The one time we are safe from Isaac, the bird bother us," he muttered as he took a rag from his pocket and wiped the excretion off of her as she shuddered in disgust. And then more bird poop rained down on them.
"Eek!" Hinata shrieked as Naruto hastily took off his jacket and use i sort of cover to shield him and Hinata.
"What the hell!?" Naruto demanded as he looked up to see a lot of birds blotting out the sky, all of them aiming to poop on them.
"Kami, I love Animation Seals," Isaac said, and the two turned to see him sitting on the edge of the wall, taking photos of their predicament. Naruto seethed as he realized what Isaac was talking about. An Animation seal was something you used on anything that resembled a living creature, and it turned that item into actual flesh and blood, though they were just like robots that just did whatever you programmed into the seal instead of an actual living creature with a soul. It was obvious what Isaac had done.
"You know, next date, you two should go out for dinner. Might I recommend the Duck a l'o SPLAT? Or maybe some Chicken Bombs?" he laughed at his own wit.
"Oh that's a great idea," Naruto snarled. "And for the entertainment, we can have a Rasengan shoved up the ass of a stupid Triclops!"
"Were are you gonna get… Waaaaaiiiiiiit a miiiiiinnnuuuuutteee…" Isaac trailed off as he saw Naruto form a Rasengan, before the barely sane man ran for it.
A/N: Yeah, next chapter, we get to see some major ass kicking! (Grabs popcorn and starts to eat it, before looking at Naruto, who was seemingly waiting for something)… What? No I ain't gonna share! If you want popcorn for when Akari, Daisuke, and Kiyoshi bust those Iwa moron's thick skulls open, then go get your own! Mine! MINE!
(Naruto glares darkly before taking out a kunai) Really, because after all the ungodly times you made me fight Drakmus and have such dark plans to have me fight other ungodly powerful OC's, a little popcorn is too much to ask? Fine, guess it's time I paid you back for the time you had Drakmus BREAK MY FREAKING BACK OVER HIS FREAKING KNEE!
…Eh-heh, you do realize I was just joking, right Naruto? And in my defense, you did heal from that right away…Naruto? Oh, dear Kami, please put the kunai down, you can have the popcorn! (Screams in pain for the next five minutes as Naruto beats the living hell out of me. Audience sweat drops)
(Comes back on stage in similar state to Shikamaru and Sasuke) Good golly, I should remove one of the other Animal Path summons idea I had for him for that… (What was that?!) Er, I mean I am going to make it up to you by giving you another ridiculously powerful summon creature! (That's what I thought!)
Please Read and Review! I need something to help me recover from that ill advised bout with the main character!
