"Here's your blindfold." The jonin said, passing Kiba the thin cloth.
The boy smiled, neatly wrapping it around his eyes with no complaints. Afterall, just because he was blindfolded didn't mean he didn't have eyes on the ground in Akamaru.
"Here's one for your dog too." The jonin added, quickly wrapping a mini-sized version of the same blindfold over the eyes of Akamaru.
The dog yelped in protest, while Kiba snarled.
"Ah, what?"
The jonin did not give him any response. The pay-rate for the exams was piss poor, so he could be forgiven for not wanting to get into a debate with an Inuzuka about the ethics of blindfolding a dog. The thing already had a better sense of smell than a human, it's not like it'd die if it couldn't see for five seconds. Besides, the collective attention of them was swiftly brought onto the squabble to their side.
"Ms. Hyuga you are holding up the process, please just put the blindfold on." Another jonin said, clearly bored out of her wits.
Hinata waved her hands in front of her face, attempting to smack the blindfold out of the woman's hands if she got too close. This was somewhat ineffective when you realized she was (ironically) unwilling to even look at the blindfold, turning her head away from the cloth like it was some disgustingly ugly monster. Due to this, the efficiency of her strikes constantly fluctuated between a certain hit if the woman got too close to a child-like flail that was striking nothing but air.
"I can't do it! Can't I just put my hands over my eyes?!" Hinata cried, nearly literally judging by the tears that were comically welling up in her eyes.
She was so strangely scared by the blindfold, that it had actually managed to temporarily stunt her stutter.
"We can't guarantee you won't peak so- "
"I won't!I promise, double promise, pinkie promise, I won't peak!"
Kiba who was purely observing the situation by sound due to his blindfold, heard a small tsk come from his side.
"How troublesome." The already blindfolded Shino murmured.
"Hinata, come on, you can just look through it anyway." Kiba said, genuinely confused as to why she was treating the act of "wearing a blindfold" as if it were a lethal injection.
"I just don't want to wear the blindfold okay?!"
"Need bathroom." Dosu squeaked, for what felt like the third time in the last five seconds.
The two jonin who were escorting his team had to bite down on their lips to keep the exasperated sigh from leaking out. Maybe his oddness was to be expected, considering the state these ninjas appeared to be in. Dosu had bandages covering his whole goddamn head (making the blindfold a slight bit unnecessary) and the boy next to him had a rusty metal breathing respirator stuck onto his face along with headgear and a tan yellow top. Kin was the only one who looked anything resembling normal, and even she had visible scars that cascaded down the banks of her knuckles.
"You can go to the bathroom when the stage stars. It shouldn't be that long now." One of the jonin grumbled.
Dosu nodded, though this term was used somewhat loosely.
"Nodded" implied that he was showing that he understood, when really everyone in the group knew that he was just going to start asking about the same thing in thirty seconds.
Around three Dosu bathroom questions later, the chunin reached the marked spot in the forest. They quickly sorted the blindfolded ninja into a horizontal line, sandals sinking into the stew of leaves and mud that ran across the forest flooring. It didn't help that Dosu was literally bouncing on his legs like a child, constantly uprooting mud droplets anywhere.
"You will be allowed to discard your blindfolds and begin the stage in ten seconds." One of the jonin said, he and his partner moving outward as to avoid the collateral of Dosu's wobbling.
"We'll count you down. Ten…" Both men chanted unanimously.
Normally in this situation, one's headspace would be more focused on the first moves they would make. Even the slightest slip up could lead to a fail. Hell, they didn't even know what the forest truly looked like. It could be smaller than expected, meaning you might run into another team early. With that in mind, how would you react with the scroll you'd been given? How could you know that these guys weren't collecting as many scrolls as they could as contingences? There was a lot of things you had to consider.
And Dosu was thinking of absolutely none of them. There was only one thought going through his head right now.
You fool's just signed your death warrant.
Even with the blindfold on, he could see. The crunching of the soil beneath their shoes, the material of their flak jackets squeaking as well, of course, the harmonized count down the two jonin were proceeding with. To Dosu, sound was no less of an integral sense than sight was. His ears heard everything, even the slightest step. He heard the prepared lurch of his respirator-wearing teammate and knew it was time to act.
"Zaku. Northwest, 335." He coordinated, tone a far cry from the dreamy dope he had previously sounded like.
Now, in a fair fight, Dosu doubted that even the three of them together would be able to take the jonin on. However, these two were so woefully off-guard that it made disposing of them far easier than he had expected. The boy with the yellow tan top pointed his arms out at one of the jonin in the exact coordinates Dosu had just said, before unleashing a large burst of what looked like wind. The jonin barely had time to react before he was ricocheted into the air like a ragdoll. He sailed backwards with a painful combination of distance and height, before his momentum was completely stopped when the back of his head smashed against a tree branch. His body limply spiraled to the ground, the process happening so fast that it was only when the sharp "bang" of his fall rang out that his partner realized something had happened.
"Hey, what the- "
The man reached for a kunai, attempting to jump backwards out of their range. However, Kin had already finished casting handsigns, releasing her genjutsu before he could even hope to successfully out-zone them. Suddenly, the lush nature scape that had surrounded him became pitch black, an infinitely-stretching abyss of nothingness. He could still see himself, but everything else was completely dark. Or so he thought. Flickers of images that he couldn't quite make out occasionally flashed into appearance for a second, before disappearing just as quickly as they came. Their dimensions were jagged, looking fuzzy and thin like a bundle of string that had somehow managed to unravel itself. The jonin braced, attempting to ready himself on-guard despite the distracting ringing that was plundering his eardrums at the moment.
Crunch.
The sound of soil squelching beneath his soles erupted from underneath him, far louder than it should've been. He looked down, being jolted with surprise as his eyes rested on the dirt beneath his feet. It wasn't completely visible, looking much like a small splotch of water color painting when put on the canvas of the pure darkness that surrounded him. It quickly was engulfed back into the darkness, but another step backwards yielded similar results.
Sound genjutsu. He thought to himself.
SREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-
An almost literally earsplitting wave of sound rang through the room. Erratic white cracks began to dance along the sides of the genjutsu abyss, frenzied and shaky due to the power of the noise. The jonin collapsed immediately, the nerves in his head being set ablaze by the flame of the sound. He writhed along the ground, dragging what he thought was his one of his hands up to his head to try and stop the involuntary shaking that was coursing through his body. It was far too loud and frantic for any human ear to take, jagged and twisted as it were the sonic equivalent to barbed wire. However, this barbed wire was being deposited directly into his mind.
He gripped on tightly to the sides of his head, fearing that if he didn't, his head would simply split in two. Any strategies he tried to come up with existed for no more than a second before the piercing agony of the sound rendered them no more than a drop in the ocean that was its cacophonous chorus of anguish. Only the most basic instincts of his training were able to roam freely in his mind and even then, it was a struggle.
The genjutsu was much too late in its activation process for him to repel it, if he'd known earlier, he'd most likely been able to mitigate it's effects by a substantial amount. For now, he only had one choice. While the feeling in his hands had long since gone away thanks to the constant barrage of his lucidity, he hoped he was still gripping onto his kunai. Slowly, he attempted to move his numb arm in hopes of slicing open the chakra pathways in his ears. It was nearly impossible. He didn't even know if he was moving his arm as much as he was just focusing every non-assaulted brain cell he had to try and hope he did. This was a sight that, in the quiet, resting reality of the forest, the sound ninja found quite amusing.
"He thinks he's moving his arm. Probably trying to sever his ear or something like that." Dozu said, in fluent Otsutsukish.
The reality of the situation was that the man's grasp on reality was so bad that all he was truly managing to do was edge his kunai-less hand further and further away from his face. Dosu's one eye watched with merciless glee, his lurching posture and intelligent tone of voice far away from that of the bizarrely eccentric dope he had seemed. The sound that was loud enough to break down the fortified mental defenses of a jonin was, in fact, no more than a faint hum from the metal gauntlet that lay under Dosu's wrist. Kin grunted, standing still with her hands pushed out in a seal.
"Dosu, this genjutsu uses a lot of chakra. I can't keep amplifying you for much longer."
"Wait. A few more seconds and he'll start pissing himself." Dosu said, sadistic gaze completely focused on the writhing man.
"You know he doesn't like it when you play with your food." Kin grunted once more.
This caught Dosu's attention. He looked up at her with a look that could only be described as crazed, before quickly striding towards the jonins body. With a loud thwack, he smashed his metallic gauntlet against the jonins skull with enough force to put a permeant dent in him. He looked back up at the two with the eye that was previously full of emotion now completely blank to even someone adept at emotional reading.
"My apologies Kin. I did not mean to waste time." He said, casually wiping the blood off his melody arm. "Now, Zaku, can you finish up please?"
The silent boy nodded, swiftly moving over to the chunin who'd been knocked out by the tree and taking aim. He had been left face down against the floor, blood knotting itself into his hair. Zaku didn't care which way it went, between the ground and his head, something had to give if he shot his sound burst downwards.
FWOOOOOOSH!
Kin flinched.
Dosu showed no interest, looking away from the sight like it was the most menial thing in the world. His interest was significantly more far away now, though still contained to the forest. He recalled the earlier events, specifically him hugging Naruto Uzumaki. Dosu was not a fool or a pig, he would not have touched a filthy beast-blood like that unless he absolutely had to. Luckily, it seemed that his courageous efforts had been rewarded as neither Naruto or the fools on his team had found the true purpose of the embrace. While clutching the boy, he had placed a small sealing tag on his back that could be released with a simple hand sign. Doing so would set forth a paper trail of chakra infused soundwaves, transmitted at a frequency undetectable by the human ear. However, Dosu's gauntlet was not just a substitute for it, but something greater.
Mere seconds after he set forth the sign, the holes in the Dosu's metallic arm wear began to whir, catching the signal. The closer they got to Team 7, the louder this signal would get.
The Sound boy traced a loving finger over the sleek silver plating, purring to himself.
"Oh, my melody arm, how I adore you- "
His eye quickly snapped awake, leader instinct taking mental priority over his fixations.
"Kin, Zaku. I've got their location. Hide the bodies of the pigs, fasten our heaven scroll and move quickly. If we take too long, sensei will be disappointed."
The two nodded, disposing of the jonins' bodies before rushing into the tree tops for fast movement. Dosu soon joined them, heading up the back of their formation though this was quickly swapped with Zaku. The sounds of his melody arm stayed fixated into his ears, leading the group through the treetops of the forest.
It was a marvelous time of year for a fox hunt, even if he was only a bonus in the grand scheme of things…
"Uh, it stinks here." Shikamaru grumbled to himself, the dry smell of pine and soil causing him to wrinkle his nose.
A bodily reaction of equal proportions occurred in Choji, although this was in the form of his stomach grumbling. The Akimichi boy rubbed his stomach, tongue running over his lips in an attempt to excavate the dust of the potato chips he'd eaten just before arriving at the forest.
"Man, I'm hungry. Are they gonna give us somethin' to eat or what?"
"They said we have to find our own food dummy, weren't you listening?" Ino snapped back, crouching down as she attempted to scout out the densely-packed woods in front of her.
"Ino, lock that scroll in tighter. It'll fall off if you keep it clipped loose like that." Shikamaru added, motioning to the earth scroll that she'd kept pinned onto the hem of her skirt.
Ino looked back at him and stuck her tongue out, with Shikamaru simply rolling his eyes in response. Team 10 had been started on higher ground than they'd expected. It wasn't a significant peak or anything like that, but when considering the plentiful fauna that surrounded them, it was a good idea to try and get back to flat footing. They could barely even see a meter away from themselves thanks to the bushes and the trees.
"You reckon they have barbeque in this place?" Choji asked, a slight glimmer coming to his eyes at the thought.
"No, why would they?" Shikamaru said back.
"She just said you have to find your own food, right?"
"She meant you have to kill it yourself."
The color drained from Choji's face. It was a full five seconds before he finally managed to speak, though his voice was soft when considering the usual boisterous voice he spoke in.
"…I ain't eating anything then." He said.
"We'll unless, you want to starve, you're gonna have to go vegan." Shikamaru mused.
"I ain't eating anything then." Choji barked back, resolve only hardened by what he'd just heard.
Not being able to stand two stubborn good for nothings on her team as opposed to just one, Ino snapped back to Choji with a glare.
"You just said you wanted barbeque, literally what's the difference between that and some meat from the forest?"
Choji paused.
"…It's different."
"How?"
"Ino, clip the scroll on tighter." Shikamaru interrupted.
"Shut up Shika, I've got more important things to do." She spat, returning back to attempting to scope out the area below.
Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders, stating awkwardly still for a minute before reaching into his pocket. What he brought out was a bundle of single cigarettes that he'd tied together with thread and a tiny match box. He untangled the string, gesturing one of the smokes over to Choji.
"You want one?" He asked.
Choji shook his head, recalling a lecture he'd got from his father about how smoking was pure evil and that if you had to smoke a cigarette to save your life, you should just die. He hadn't really taken the rant seriously, mostly because it had been brought on by him buying a pack of candy cigarettes, but he did realize that he would probably be grounded for a decade if his dad found out he'd even touched a smoke.
"Put those away Shikamaru." Ino said.
The way she was speaking was sudden and serious, a clear contrast to her usual whingy tone. It barley even sounded like her anymore, which caught Shikamaru cleanly off-guard.
"Come on Ino, it's just a smoke. Asuma smokes them all the time and he's fine."
"I asked you to put them away." Ino said again, not even turning to face him.
While he'd previously been flustered by her serious tone, Shikamaru's subconscious distain for being bossed around immediately kicked into gear.
"God, girls like you really are a drag. This is a thing adults do, you just don't get it." He explained.
This only served to make Ino mad. She rose to her feet with a controlling glare in her eye that Shikamaru hadn't seen since they were way younger. She reached out and ripped the bundle of cigarettes out of Shikamaru's hands. Following this, she threw them on the ground and stomped down against them hard, flecks of cigarette leaf filling out onto the dirt. Shikamaru looked down at the remains with surprise, before his angered gaze become hyper fixated upon her.
"What the actual fuck?! This is the most minor thing ever, why has it suddenly become problem number one for you?"
"Because I'm tired of people like you thinking you can do whatever you want because you're smart! Genin and people under sixteen years of age aren't allowed to smoke, that's the law!"
"Guy's…" Choji tried to calm the two down, but he may as well not have said anything at all with how enraptured the two were in their arguments.
"Yeah and the law is bullshit. You know the minimum age to fight in the war was thirteen, but apparently we can't smoke?"
"I don't make the fucking rules Shikamaru, they do!"
He looked over The Yamanaka girl, barley even recognizing what he was seeing. She was her usual drama-queen self no more than thirty seconds ago, how had she so suddenly transformed into an authoritarian anti-drug PSA.
"Okay hall-monitor, am I gonna have to ask permission to go get a drink of water next?" He snarled.
This, for some reason, looked like it actually offended Ino, to the point he felt a little bit bad for saying anything. But again, it didn't make sense! He'd called her a "fucking bitch" on numerous occasions and the most he'd ever got was some equally juvenile comeback. What had gotten her so shaken up now?
"Look, you just don't- "Ino tried to say something but quickly cut herself off.
A rustle in the bushes brought all three of the team's attention sideways, but none of them were fast enough to catch what was happening. A figure body-flickered past Ino, snatching the earth scroll from her belt. While the execution of the steal may have been slightly sloppy, it didn't matter because the scroll's clip had been so loose that even the lightest force was capable of sending it directly into the hands of Kabuto Yakushi.
He landed a good distance away from them, enough that they couldn't easily engage him in combat thanks to the trees in the way. The boy looked just as shocked as the trio that he had managed to snatch an exam scroll, but he recovered much quicker.
"Oh…Oh shit! I got it!" He cheered to himself, quickly getting back onto his feet and dashing off into the woods.
The sight of their exam's meal ticket running into an abyss of branches and leaves was enough to jolt all three Team 10 members to attention.
"That four-eyed fuck just stole our scroll!" Ino shrieked, quickly returning to her old self.
"C'mon, let's go after him" Choji yelled, beginning to sprint forward as fast as a person of his girth possibly could.
Ino quickly followed, with Shikamaru lazily trailing along behind her. If she'd just tightened the fucking clip…
Rock Lee found it hard to break into a sprint. He was not used to his eternal flames of youth being as constrained as they were now. He was not allowed to make any noise, or break out into a run like he wanted to. He had to stay quiet and still, as Neji had instructed.
The trio of ninja walked along the forest floor, Neji scouting from the back using his byakugan. While it was hard to accurately judge thanks to the expanse of trees that covered the sky, it was clear that the sun had fully retired for the evening and let the stars come out to play. Even with the dojutsu activated, he found it hard to see. Tenten headed up the front of their formation, holding a lit lantern that she'd sealed away in preparation for a five-day task. Even when she was dead silent though, the clinking of all the different tools and scrolls she'd packed with her was a dead giveaway that something was in the area. Neji would have asked her to discard some of them, but he knew that would only lead to a lecture about how she was poor and couldn't just abandon things willy-nilly. She'd probably get so worked up about it that it would cause more noise than leaving her tools behind would, so he chose to stay silent for the moment. That was, until he started to see the first glimpse of a stream up ahead.
"I see a stream fifty meters straight from here. We should try and set up shelter near it." Neji explained.
Tenten flashed a thumbs up back while Lee turned and nodded at him. After that, a dead silence began to rest through the lush vegetation of the forestry. The lanterns light weaved through the sprawling branches of the high-up trees, illuminating their old, sturdy wood for seconds at a time. Their sandals shuffled over the ground, kicking up through the piles of fallen leaves that had been littered over it. The chirping of the crickets began to hum through the air, though their subtle sound only made the area seem more isolated and alone. This was a deceptive feeling. However, the byakugan was a dojutsu capable of seeing nearly 360 degrees worth of its surroundings. Deception was not a feeling familiar to Neji Hyuga, and it stayed that way.
"Move." He ordered, rolling sideways.
SLASH!
Lee and Tenten barely had time to react when a flash of sparkling yellow lightning cut through the darkness of the sky. The bolt slammed down against where Neji had been standing, sending jolts of static coursing along the ground. Lee and Tenten both flipped backward to meet their teammate, as well as scout out a better view of their attackers. A girl with a tan skin knelt where Neji had just been standing, golden volts of electricity flickering from her skin. She looked up at the group, smiling a (quite literally) bright grin at them. Judging from the darkness of her skin, Neji assumed she may have been from one of the Iwa colonies that wasn't actually recognized by Iwa, hence why they took the chunin exams. The symbol on her headband was foreign to him, so he chose to believe this was the case.
Two ninjas appeared next to her (one with similar colored skin and one with lighter). Both were boys, the darker one with orange hair while the lighter one had black. The pair looked kind of dopey, and nowhere near as threatening as the girl (probably on account of the fact that they didn't have lightning radiating off of them). Neji scanned their pockets using his byakugan, trying to find their scroll. Unfortunately, they appeared to have a heaven whereas Team Guy had an earth, so it seemed that de-escalation was not in the cards for this encounter.
"You know which one has the scroll?" The black-haired boy whispered to the girl, who shook her head.
Neji immediately reached forth a snatched the earth scroll from Tenten's pocket and ran to the side, the electric girl quickly chasing after him in pursuit.
"Hey!" Tenten screamed, before realizing she should really be breathing a sigh of relief that Neji had essentially volunteered to fight the scariest one on his own.
With a battle cry, the black-haired boy ran charged towards Tenten with a kunai in hand. Before he could even really break out into a sprint though, Lee leaped forwards with a flying kick. The amount of momentum he managed to channel without even needing a run-up took the other boy by surprise, immediately halting his sprint in hopes of walking backwards and trying to beat Lee's distance. This became more and more of an impossibility as he flew through the sky, with the kick catching his foe flush on the chin and sending them both into the more tree-filled area that Team Guy had been trailing the side of.
This left only Tenten and the orange-haired boy on the path. Tenten stowed her lantern on the ground before filling her hand with a kunai and attempting to jump backward. The other boy's hands moved into seals, before he pointed them out into a connected double L shape.
"Wind release: reflecting gust barrier!"
The stretch of trees that Tenten had been attempting to jump back to suddenly became overtaken by a wall of fixed, unmoving wind. She collided against the sudden obstacle, ricocheting off onto the ground like a game of wallball. The boy cautiously backed into a guard stance, cautious of whether Tenten was going to respond quickly. Ironically, instantly trying to attack her may have also been a more cautious move than waiting her out, because when he gave her time to breath, he also gave her time to think and she thought just about as quickly as she talked.
She blinked.
Leaves. Lantern. Wind Wall.
There's approximately one meter between myself and the target. His posture is loose and jittery, clearly nervous. He's holding his kunai too far out, leaving the right side of his body completely open. Most likely not any more proficient in weapons usage than the average genin, if not less so.
Leaves. Lantern. Wind Wall.
He could use wind release, so he's probably attempting to zone me. Kunai combat is a no go for now. His hands are shaking, probably because he knows he's gonna cast hand signs when I move. If I roll back, he'll fire prematurely.
Leaves. Lantern. Wind Wall.
Okay, I've got it.
She blinked again.
Tenten leapt back up to her feat, grasping the lantern and cutting through its paper as to further expose its flame. She lurched forwards, baiting the boy into dispensing a wind release jutsu for a target that never even intended to step into its path in the first place. This blast of wind sent the plentiful leaves on the ground flying up into the air, enough so that it actually obscured the boy's view of Tenten. With a quick flick of her wrist, she chucked the lantern towards the leaf cluster, setting them ablaze. The beautiful sight of the leaves flying through the air quickly turned deadly, as their fanciful floating quickly became nulled by the sparks of flame. The boy ran sideways, ducking out of the way of the blazing flora, casting hand signs in an attempt to counteract Tentens next move.
The problem was, he didn't actually know where she was going as he was more so focused on escaping the fire leaves. Because of this, his mind subconsciously instructed itself to unleashes the wind shot as soon as he saw her. Turning his gaze to the side, he found her jumping upwards through the air. Not at him, just jumping up like you would see a child with a skipping rope doing. His mind at this point was so trigger happy, that it didn't even stop to think about how this was bad idea. Instead, he instantly shot the wind blast jutsu at her.
The rebound was immediate, as wind hit wind and it was reflected back at him. Tenten angled herself, hitting the wind wall with acute positioning and bouncing back towards him. The boy flew backwards, slamming into a nearby tree with enough force to force the breath out of him. Tenten landed a little bit away, though this wasn't unaccounted for. She rolled along the ground, slickly re-brandishing her kunai as she did so. The orange-haired boy was barely able to dodge when she leapt forwards, only just managing to get his cheek out of the way of her slash. The blade grazed along the wood of the tree, skinning the bark with its slice while the boy rolled to the side in hopes of making enough distance.
He tried to fumble through his hand signs, but not only did he mess them up, Tenten had predicted his move and chased after him like a heat seeking missile. She kicked at his hands, dismissing any hopes of him being able to get a jutsu off before beginning to slash away at him. The boy managed to take out his kunai in time to block most of her shots, but his posture was so defensive he had no hope of doing much else than guard and avoid. She was quick, effortlessly manipulating the kunai around her hand after every slice. There was far more power behind her swings than his counters as well, each of Tenten's hits pushing him back. He couldn't even hope to try and step out of his defensive stance, as she was far too fast and would surely hit him when even the smallest amount of fragility arose in his posture.
Reaching into her pocket, she retrieved a scroll. Skillfully using the tip of her unarmed hand to unlock it, the paper swirled to her side. The radiating wind of the gust barrier sent the paper flowing, rolling over itself like the ripple of a wave until, suddenly, it released a giant mallet into Tenten's hand. It was big, probably taller than Tenten herself and made out of complexly crafted wood. She threw her kunai to the side, needing both hands to properly wield the mallet. However, the throw was intentional, sending the kunai ricocheting from the gust barrier back towards the boy. He managed to deflect it with his own kunai, sparks sputtering from the metallic collision, only for the head of the mallet to come smashing into his legs.
Tenten practically scooped him off the ground with the force of her swing, sending him high up in the air before smashing him back down with another blow from the hammer. At the very least, the boy presumed the actual head of the mallet was hollow judging from the fact it hadn't torn a hole in his stomach, but this was a very small victory in the grand scheme of things. It got even smaller as he watched Tenten leap in the air with the mallet behind her, seemingly intent to try and flatten him. He only just managed to summersault backwards of the way, but little did he know that this was her attention already.
She pushed the stick of the mallet down into the head of it. With a small clicking sound, the head detached from the base, allowing her to kick the head along the ground at the boy. It scooted through the leaves, stopping near the feet of the now standing ninja. Before he could even hope to kick it away, Tenten reached into her pocket and retrieved a tiny piece of sealing paper that had been twisted into the shape of a dart. With that, she raised the stick of the mallet upwards, revealing the hollow ends at each of the tips. The paper seal was placed in the base of the stick like a blow dart, before Tenten exhaled through the pipe and shot it outwards with surprising force. It sailed through the air, before unraveling in on itself as it hit the genin boy directly above the nose.
A sudden rush of stillness washed over the boy. Despite the relatively minor impact of the paper dart, his whole body had become numb. He couldn't move his arms, legs and lest of all his facial features, where it felt like the numbness had spread from. Then he realized. She must've hit him with a paralysis seal! This meant he was done for. He didn't have particularly high chakra reserves in the first place and had already ran them down significantly with his wind jutsus (especially the barrier). This, coupled with the fact that Tenten was quite competent with seals for her age, ensured that he most likely was not breaking out of it in time to win.
But Tenten did not attack him. Instead, she simply waved to him with a guilty expression on her face.
"Sorry." She called out.
It was about now that he noticed the sizzling noise from his side.
BOOM!
The head of the mallet, which he'd forgotten about, suddenly exploded, sending smoke and frayed chunks of wood everywhere. The boy was sent flying high into the sky, flailing and thrashing before he made his eventual, painful descent. He landed hard upon the ground, the piles of leaves not doing much to shield the impact of the back of his head.
With her foe knocked out, it would've been expected for Tenten to celebrate somewhat but instead, she just looked on in sadness. It had taken her a month to get that mallet stick working right with the explosive tags. Now she had to build it all over again…
Lee and the black-haired boy crashed into the woods, both lucky not to have been badly scratched by the branches. The latter quickly kipped back up after hitting the ground, eyes gazing over the place in search of Lee, but finding nothing. The boy moved quickly, but not quickly enough to dodge this. He weaved his hands together, collapsing them in a seal.
"Fire Style-Ah!"
Any confidence in his tone disappeared as he saw it. A figure flickered towards him, faster than his eye could even hope to comprehend. All he could see was the black and white outline of the things body, vaguely humanoid in shape. Its arm hurtled towards him at an absolutely blistering speed, the sounds of the forest scape being completely overtaken by howling winds of the upcoming punch. This was no mere punch though, this was one so powerful and so fast, that the boy had no chance of even seeing its full glory before it caved his face in. It was a punch capable of knocking a man's jaw clean off, and then its sheer force evaporating the blood in the wake. This was the punch of god.
"Stop!"
Or not. The hand stopped a few inches from his face, stretched out into a halting palm. With its motion finally slowed, Lee's true dopey self was pushed front and center and the fear that came with the punch vanished.
"What is your name?" Lee asked, formal in his words despite the fact his palm was a fingers worth of length away from covering the other boys face.
"Shinso." The black-haired boy said.
"Very good."
Lee pulled his hand back before transitioning into his usual "left arm behind the back, angled right hand" stance.
"My name is Rock Lee and I must inform you that, in the fairness of our duel, I am incapable of using genjutsu or ninjutsu. I focus solely on taijutsu, so you will not need to worry about me using other techniques."
To think he'd been afraid of this dude just five seconds ago. Shinso nodded along, not quite knowing why Lee apparently wanted to have a dialogue instead of just fighting him. The eccentric boy's hand shot back out with a sideways-facing open palm, though his hardened expression didn't change.
"Okay, please shake my hand!"
Shinso did so, hand running over the tape of Lee's own. For a second, due to Lee's massively tight grip, he thought this had been a strategy but these fears quickly faltered after Lee retracted. It wasn't a trick.
"Now turn around!"
That definitely was though. Shinso lowered his gaze, fringe sharpening in time with his glare.
"I'm not doing that." He said.
"Please! In the interest of fairness, we will both take five paces outward before commencing our battle!" Lee cried.
Shinso looked over him, thoroughly weirded out by his behavior. It wasn't like he was going to trick him, that much was obvious at this point, but still, Shinso didn't particularly want to go back to back with him at this point. Well, he could do that…
Shinso walked forward, turning around in a show of good faith. Lee beamed, skipping over to the boy before swiveling around himself. The pairs backs touched together for a moment, before Lee loudly called out.
"Okay! We will now begin the paces. 1…"
Shinso and Lee took one step forward.
"2…"
Lee took another step forward. Shinso grabbed his kunai.
"3…"
Shinso darted at Lee's turned back, fully intending to jam the knife into it. However, before he could even hope to get in range undetected, Lee twisted around with enough speed to make Shinso question whether he'd even ever actually had his back turned. His cartoonishly simple eyes were wide with anger, a deep frown gracing his features.
"Dishonorable!" He screamed, thrusting out an attack to try and block the kunai.
It was as fast and speedy as his moves had been before, but Shinso couldn't help but smile. A kick? Really? He was essentially letting Shinso ground him for free. Hell, he wasn't even wearing shoes, he was wearing sandals! What the fuck was he thinking?!
CRACK!
Oh, that's what he was thinking.
With one swift thrust of his foot, Lee's kick shattered the kunai completely.
Chunks of metal fell through the air, scattering across the ground. Shinso stepped back, still grasping the (mostly) intact handle. Another kick from Lee connected hard with his hand, forcing him to drop it. In a matter of seconds, the tide of this "fight" (if you could even call it that) had shifted from a minor Shinso advantage, to a massive Lee one. Shinso continued walking backwards, ironically taking the paces Lee had wanted him to in the first place. He brough his hands in to try and cast a jutsu, only for Lee to slam his own fist into the boy's moving hand. As long as Lee was all in his face like this, Shinso had no chance of casting a jutsu.
He needed to try and make distance, a feat easier said than done when considering that Lee's striking was so adept that the smallest mistake would mean defeat. Hell, even a small victory would mean defeat, Lee was just too fast and, in contrast to his appearance, too tactically sound for Shinso to do anything more than walk back and pray Lee didn't knock him out. This strategy was only good for so long though thanks to the scenery. Shinso soon found himself backed against a tree, leaving nowhere to escape from Lee's constant assault of taijutsu. The leaf boy backed up for a split second, before rocketing forwards through the air with a double foot stomp.
He intended to flatten Shinso out against the base of the tree, but the commitment the attack required meant that this was not achieved. Using the small window of time Lee had taken to prep for the attack, Shinso rolled away. Lee's kick landed against the tree, cracking strips of bark off it like what happened when you pressed your fingers into a hard candy shell. Shinso, who had now backed away from the tree, began to weave hand signs in an attempt to get a fireball jutsu off. Lee cared little, leaping back of the tree before using his jumping momentum to grasp along the trunk of it and spin around its length. He rocketed forward with momentum, boot sharply colliding with Shinso's chest.
Shinso fell to the ground. He looked forwards, seeing Lee approaching once more and attempted to sweep kick his opponent off the ground. While this attack did connect, it's intended effects were negligible as Lee caught himself in a hand stand. He moved forward with little lost momentum, nearly as quick as he had been running normally. Now Shinso, who had tried to push himself back up to a standing position, was bombarded with kicks from Lee's upright feet, each one dropping him back down to the ground. Eventually, after landing shot after shot in his handstand position, Lee pushed his shoulders in and vaulted up into the air. He began spinning around like he'd just jumped off a diving board, flipping over and over and over again before finally, he let lose a cry of battle…
"Youth release- "
Even with his bruised-up face, Shinso raised an eyebrow.
"Leaf waterfall!"
That eyebrow was very nearly knocked off as Lee converted his copious amount of momentum into one head-splitting kick. His boot slammed into the back of Shinso's head, knocking the boy out colder than a snowstorm.
Upon landing, he brushed his slightly loose hair back into its traditional bowl-cut shape, seemingly more concerned with that then the person he'd just beaten up (in all fairness, this wouldn't have been the case if Shinso had just taken the god damn paces).There was not even a sweat drop on his face, quite literally having finished the other boy "without breaking a sweat". A sudden clinking sound drew his attention back to Shinso's body.
"Hm?" Lee exclaimed, before his eyes found the heaven scroll that had just rolled out of his foes pocket.
A bright smile broke out onto his face.
Neji ran forward, erratically darting from side to side across the forest path as the electric girl bounced through the trees. He could read every move she made with the byakugan, his movement coming whenever she started to weave hand signs favoring one side. While she had at first seemed to be enjoying the challenge, she now began to become frustrated at his seemingly psychic level of intuition.
"Hey, just give me that scroll and you won't have to run."
Neji ignored her words. While her proficiency in lightning release was more than impressive, her awful chakra control ensured that she was no threat. Every time she started casting a jutsu, she would waste a massive amount of chakra, even when she didn't end up using it. He didn't know how much she had in her reserves, but simply letting her gas herself out seemed to be a viable strategy for this fight. Neji wasn't just satisfied with having one though. He ran towards the stream he'd seen, knowing that she would have to be careful around water. They were almost there now, being only a few meters away from the pool by his estimation. Expectedly, the she was getting restless.
She leaped from a tree branch, weaving hand signs before sticking her three middle fingers out.
"Lightning release: thunder shot stingers!" She cried.
Bolts of golden electricity coursed through her fingers, before they shot out into three golden bullets of pure lightning. The bullets spiraled through the air at Neji, vapor trails of golden light coursing off their length. The boy sprinted forward, attempting outrun them but soon realized this was an impossibility.
With a sudden shift of his foot and grit of his teeth, Neji turned his body to face the stingers. However, he didn't just stop. Neji began to spin around on the spot, holding his arms out besides himself. Spirals of pure blue chakra began to swirl around with him, building up into a dome shaped shield the more he spun. When the bullets finally reached him, they too were sucked into the twisting vortex, adding glowing strands of yellow to the swirling blue dome. Upon completing the rotation, Neji quickly dispersed the chakra around him. His teeth became unclenched, a small sight of relief blowing through them.
That had always been his weakest point.
"Neat trick." The girl said, approaching him on land now.
She was more cautious than she had been before, realizing the reason Neji had run away was not because of fear. He had now parked just in front of the shore line for the stream. Two steps backward at his position would send him splashing into the pool.
"Now here's one of mine."
Okay, maybe she wasn't more cautious than before. Gold streaks of lightning began to course from the back of her body, coating practically all of her back-half in a thick aura of electricity. Immediately, Neji realized that this was a jutsu on a level far above her previous efforts. It was so bright that, even with the all-seeing power of the byakugan, Neji instinctively felt like squinting. However, judging by the sloppy flow that was pouring through her chakra points right now, she lacked even the basic understating of how to use this beyond a surface level.
Chakra points functioned, essentially, as the "veins" of chakra. Starting from your stomach, the chakra points twirled around in a pathway that allowed the chakra to stabilize as it was generated before moving out into the points in the arms, head, neck, etc. that allowed for it to be released. Chakra points were invisible to the naked eye, and so small that they were almost impossible to take advantage of without the aid of the byakugan. Neji, while incredibly proficient and precise for his age, still sometimes struggled to fully visualize the chakra network. His byakugan was not yet fully developed after all.
However, this didn't matter. As his enemy's lighting chakra ran through her pathways, he could see it all. The amount she was using was the equivalent of shining a torchlight onto them. Neji lurched into his traditional Hyuga stance, readying his palms.
"Lighting release: thunder carriage!" She screamed, boosting forward with the aid of a massive surge of chakra.
She was fast, there was no doubt about that but Neji wasn't worried. He stayed completely still, despite the crackling lighting and triumphant battle cry of the other girl. None of that mattered, in fact, he could barley see it all. Electricity surged around the air, frying the grass down below and illuminating the night better than a lantern ever could. She ran closer and closer. Neji did not move an inch. Even when she was only inch's away from him, he gave her no mind. This only pissed the other ninja off further, her arm cocking back in a static-ridden display of power. The electrical current that was pressing up against her arm had nearly enough force to break it, but she didn't care. All that force was going to be pressed against Neji's unflinching face soon enough.
She veered, back, sending bolts of pure power fluttering off into the night sky. Everything in her entire being was behind this punch. This one, powerful, electricity-coated punch.
Fwoosh.
And then there was nothing. She was now falling to her knees, Neji using naught but a single palm strike to dismiss her whole attack. He'd hit the chakra joint on her shoulder, completely dispersing the electrical chakra she'd been using for propulsion as well as the burst of it on her arm. She glided down, eyes reflecting the subtle rivets of the stream's ripples. It was beautiful, for about a second, before she realized what his true plan was. Electrical chakra required more energy to charge up and generate then almost any other nature type, which meant it also lingered in the chakra network for far longer. Even if it were to be forcibly switched off by the byakugan, it could possibly be reactivated…
Fwoosh.
Moving himself backward, Neji jabbed her shoulder once more, reigniting the electrical charge of her body just as she fell into the stream…
BZZZZZZZZZT!
A thundering current of electricity ran through the water, stinging the girl all over her body. Flashes of yellow bled into the deep blue of the rippling water, creating a saturated effect that Neji thought was quite pretty. It didn't really last long enough to admire though, the effects of the lightning release quickly disappearing as the girl bobbed back up to the surface. She was unconscious, but not dead luckily. There wasn't nearly enough electricity left in her body after the first palm strike to do that. Neji quickly dragged her body back onto land and laid her down against the floor. He had little care for her, but he wasn't cruel enough to just leave a person drowning in the water.
He looked upward to the forest lane they'd just battled through, with hope that Tenten and Lee had proven competent enough to handle the rest of her team. This had proven very tiresome and he didn't want to have to repeat his efforts.
...
…
…
Fwoosh!
"Yes, good job Akamaru!" Kiba shouted.
The dog jumped forward, catching a scaley grey fish in its mouth. The boy and his dog had positioned themselves on the edge of a nearby lake while Shino and Hinata sat cross-legged in the small shelter they had created. It was under a small cave they'd found near the river, the trio using their time to equip it with a fire and three sleeping bags (piles of leaves). It wasn't particularly big (if Hinata laid sideways across the length of its inside, she'd most likely touch the other side with her toes. She could not even try to do the same along the width without being scrunched up) but it was at least cozy.
"Shino, that's yours" Kiba alerted, throwing the boy the fish so he could put it on the fire.
Shino did no such thing and simply ate it raw, to the slight disgust of his teammates. He quickly noticed the dirty looks he was getting and responded in kind.
"It's more nutritious this way." He said quietly.
"Okay dude." Kiba replied, coming over to sit with the rest of his team near the fire.
He supposed he could give the boy the benefit of the doubt though, even if it was just common courtesy. Thanks to his bugs, Shino had immediately found them the location of the tower, meaning they already had a chance to save a huge amount of time they would spend simply looking for it. They only really needed to get an earth scroll to match their heaven scroll at this point.
"Hey, you reckon we can read it?" He said, motioning to said scroll.
"T-they told us n-not to." Hinata replied, munching on her own previously caught fish.
"Oh really? Bummer, it's probably got some real big secrets in there."
His tone was slightly disappointed, but quickly bounced back.
"Anyway, how are you guy's feeling about this stage?"
"It's fun." Shino said, using a word that neither of the other two would be willing to ascribe to the Forest of Death.
"I think i-it's okay, even if we h-haven't really done much." Hinata stated.
"What do you mean by that?" Kiba asked back.
"W-well. Aren't we meant to fight people and stuff?" She said back, receiving a loud laugh from the Inuzuka boy.
"Come on Hinata! No one gets into fights on the first day!"