p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Ch. 12.0 teaser/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Shino and Naruto were using a common technique among shinobi that most referred to as tree hopping, it was still relatively new to them. Shino was unsurprisingly doing better than Naruto as he was more advanced than Naruto with the tree walking skill that was the predecessor skill that tree hopping. Although considering that they only had to use that skill for a quick stick to a branch landing before kicking off with a burst of chakra for each leap, Naruto's lesser skill was good enough to keep up with Shino thanks to his excessive chakra. Granted any experienced Shinobi would have no trouble tracking the trail Naruto was leaving through the trees. They soon spied the edge of a small town. They dropped to the ground glanced at each other and each henged themselves into a pair of nondescript young men that appeared poor to match the rest of the people wandering around. They slowly wandered through the small town, taking mental notes of much of what was going on. Despite using their very non-descript henges, they noticed many people watching them. It was common problem with small towns, no matter how insignificant they may have looked, they were still outsiders. That on it's own made them stand out almost as much as if they had maintained their normal appearances as Ninja. They spared a glance to each other and knew it was time to make themselves scarce. After leaving and walking a short distance, until they rounded a curve in the trail, they quickly jumped into the branches of the trees over the trail. Only when completely hidden deep in the forest, high up in the leaves did they drop their disguises./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Sasuke growled softly to himself as he glared at the series of shallow slash marks that went up the trunk of the tree. He had originally thought this mission without Naruto would be a refreshing change. He was wrong, very wrong. Shikamaru was perfectly happy to never say anything to anyone in the squad. The quiet genin made things even worse when Kakashi asked him about his views on the stupid assessment fight. Sasuke couldn't help but snort softly when Shikamaru said he had been surprised at how well Naruto had done. Sakura loudly stating something about Naruto being an idiot stopped Shikamaru dead in his tracks. Their temporary squad mate actually looked at the two of them with literal open mouthed shock and an expression that clearly showed he thought they were such colossal idiots that physical brain damage was likely. For a moment it looked like he was actually on the verge of saying something when those half assed Demon Brothers attacked. Somehow the subject never came up again but the look on Nara's face still bothered Sasuke days later./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"A/N: Yep, once again, I'm not dead. Granted this year in particular has totally sucked but I'm reasonably certain that most everyone can say that. My apologies for the dopey little tease above. I've been trying to work through this chapter for literally years. Somewhere along the line I developed an intense distaste for the Wave Arc. I blame some rather painful fanfics set during the Wave Arc... I think. It was a rather long time ago and I really don't remember, I may be blocking them, lol./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Anywayz, life has changed a bit and I should now have a bit of free time here and there and I'm planning on devoting some of that towards this. I'll be fleshing out the bits and pieces I have for a complete chapter 12 over the next week or two or three. Hopefully I get that done just before the New Year. I've got about 18 to 20 pages written that take place after the Wave Arc for the Chunnin Exams. Although I've got a couple of versions of a few things so some of that will be discarded. We'll see in 2021./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Shino and Naruto were using a common technique among shinobi that most referred to as tree hopping, it was still relatively new to them. Shino was unsurprisingly doing better than Naruto as he was more advanced than Naruto with the tree walking skill that was the predecessor skill that tree hopping. Although considering that they only had to use that skill for a quick stick to a branch landing before kicking off with a burst of chakra for each leap, Naruto's lesser skill was good enough to keep up with Shino thanks to his excessive chakra. Granted any experienced Shinobi would have no trouble tracking the trail Naruto was leaving through the trees. They soon spied the edge of a small town. They dropped to the ground glanced at each other and each henged themselves into a pair of nondescript young men that appeared poor to match the rest of the people wandering around. They slowly wandered through the small town, taking mental notes of much of what was going on. Despite using their very non-descript henges, they noticed many people watching them. It was common problem with small towns, no matter how insignificant they may have looked, they were still outsiders. That on it's own made them stand out almost as much as if they had maintained their normal appearances as Ninja. They spared a glance to each other and knew it was time to make themselves scarce. After leaving and walking a short distance, until they rounded a curve in the trail, they quickly jumped into the branches of the trees over the trail. Only when completely hidden deep in the forest, high up in the leaves did they drop their disguises./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Sasuke growled softly to himself as he glared at the series of shallow slash marks that went up the trunk of the tree. He had originally thought this mission without Naruto would be a refreshing change. He was wrong, very wrong. Shikamaru was perfectly happy to never say anything to anyone in the squad. The quiet genin made things even worse when Kakashi asked him about his views on the stupid assessment fight. Sasuke couldn't help but snort softly when Shikamaru said he had been surprised at how well Naruto had done. Sakura loudly stating something about Naruto being an idiot stopped Shikamaru dead in his tracks. Their temporary squad mate actually looked at the two of them with literal open mouthed shock and an expression that clearly showed he thought they were such colossal idiots that physical brain damage was likely. For a moment it looked like he was actually on the verge of saying something when those half assed Demon Brothers attacked. Somehow the subject never came up again but the look on Nara's face still bothered Sasuke days later./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"A/N: Yep, once again, I'm not dead. Granted this year in particular has totally sucked but I'm reasonably certain that most everyone can say that. My apologies for the dopey little tease above. I've been trying to work through this chapter for literally years. Somewhere along the line I developed an intense distaste for the Wave Arc. I blame some rather painful fanfics set during the Wave Arc... I think. It was a rather long time ago and I really don't remember, I may be blocking them, lol./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"Anywayz, life has changed a bit and I should now have a bit of free time here and there and I'm planning on devoting some of that towards this. I'll be fleshing out the bits and pieces I have for a complete chapter 12 over the next week or two or three. Hopefully I get that done just before the New Year. I've got about 18 to 20 pages written that take place after the Wave Arc for the Chunnin Exams. Although I've got a couple of versions of a few things so some of that will be discarded. We'll see in 2021./p