AN:
Arc 3 part 3
Chapter Title: Deceased and Flowering
"Room 301, 301…" I said aloud as we walked into the building the Chuunin Exams first stage was held, I had ended up giving into Sasuke's pressure and decided that I'd put my lot in with them because I refused to sit idly by and potentially watch the murder of my team, and so here we were walking towards stage one.
there was a ruckus up ahead of students getting stuck by Chuunin, I think? That was how this went wasn't it?
"Hey come on let us in! we deserve to be here just as much as anyone else!" a girl yelled amongst the waves of voices all fighting to be heard and overpower the others.
"Tch what a crappy excuse for a Genjutsu, get out the way, we're here to win," Sasuke said cockily walking past the two standing in front of the door bumping into them, with Hinata and I in tow.
We walked on, as we tried to leave one of them went to kick Sasuke but I moved in the way blocking it, giving him an annoyed looked when Sasuke tried to fight back before we went onward, while Sasuke seemed bothered that I had kept him from a possible chance to show people up, to the next floor letting all the idiots pile up at the wrong door. I think some guy in green called after us but we decidedly continued ignoring him. As we were about to take the stairs up to the right floor, a person in green suddenly appeared in front of us.
"So you're the one of the great Uchiha I hear so much about!" he declared loudly making me wince.
"Yeah, what of it loser?" Sasuke glared at him taking in the awful clothing choice.
"I want to fight you right now! To prove that I'm better unless the Uchi-" before he could finish I thusly grabbed my teammate's hands and pushed on past the guy ignoring him as he followed us yelling something that I didn't catch.
He finally stopped when his team dragged him off when we finally entered room 301 like we were supposed to, man I just really didn't want to deal with that guy not right now anyway, there was a sound from behind us as the door opened into a room full of other Genin. Someone jumped on Sasuke nearly making him topple the moment we entered.
"Sasuke!" the Harpy sounded her song.
"Hey Shikamaru, Chouji, you guys mind collecting her?" I said as the two walked over getting a knowing smile and nod from the Deer boy.
"Sure," Shikamaru said lazily "Ino get off the guy, it's bad enough that you hound him like this normally." He said with his shoulders slouching.
"I haven't se-" before she could finish a loud blonde burst through the door cutting her off and making her move away as the door nearly slammed into her.
"Man! That was close, we were almost late!" Naruto yelled unaware of his surroundings and looked all over the room for something in particular.
"Yeah because of you!" the Sheep said back punching Naruto in the head, I frowned in her direction holding a bit of glare at her abusing the boy, I may not have liked Naruto that much, but I didn't want him to get hurt or anything.
"Hey, long time no see guys! Haven't seen you since the Wave mission!" Kiba said diverting attention.
"Yeah… man what's it been three or four months?" I couldn't quite remember, we got it a month or so after becoming Genin, I had talked to Kiba a little while we were there so I had gotten to know him enough that we were comfortable around one another.
"Something like that, hey so where's Shino and his team? Then we'd have a regular old reunion." Kiba asked and Akamaru barked in agreement. I couldn't help but mentally disagree considering my disinterest with partaking in hanging out with much of anyone until teams formed, it would be a reunion for them and not me, but maybe that's who he was talking about?
"I was here from the beginning, why didn't you notice me? Lack of perception." Shino stated weirdly as his teammates came over and got him to go to their seats. We chatted for a few minutes before a guy with grey hair and round glasses who was taller than all of us came over, there was something about the guy that set off all sorts of mental flags to me but I couldn't place it not until he spoke.
"Hey, could you guys be quieter? Oh! You must be the rooki-" he was cut off as I collapsed to my knees clutching my head as I let a short-pained scream though it was muted.
"I have now surpassed even Lord Orochimaru! I've perfected the Edo Tensei!" "These are Ninja Info cards, let me share with you." The young boy held onto the only thing keeping him tethered to his life and holding his normalcy, the rounded glasses of Nono Yakushi – his mother, the Nun at the Orphanage.
"What the Hell is wrong with him?!" I heard the spy say as Sasuke and Hinata tried to help me.
"Hey piss off, would you! We're trying to help him" I heard Sasuke say as the pain finally calmed.
"gods I fucking hate that!" I spat in English as I raised my head and stood. "Let's go take our seats now, I'm fine." I brushed the others off.
As we went and sat down there was a yell from the back of the class, "I'M NOT GONNA LOSE TO ANY OF YOU! BECAUSE I'M NARUTO UZUMAKI! YOU HEAR THAT!?" gods I hated loud people.
A faint tension built up among all the other Genin seemingly accepting Naruto's challenge, not too long after a team attacked Kabuto though he dodged their attacks, suddenly a tall guy with a bandana on and a trench coat showed up with if I could remember looked like possibly the entirety of Konoha's T&I. The trench coat dude started talking and scaring some people, but I stopped listening, I was focusing on wasting chakra, I didn't want to explode in the first section of this thing. He eventually started writing on the chalkboard at the front of the room with what I assumed were the rules. I didn't realize it at first but Sasuke and Hinata were seated several people away from me. Papers got handed around and then it was announced we should begin.
'This doesn't seem too difficult' I thought as I skimmed through the questions 'Oh! Fuck! Those sick fuckers! My one weakness! Explaining how I got a maths answer! This is bullshit! Fuck these people! I'll just draw on the back of the sheet then!' I flipped the page and began drawing away. I decided it would do me well to sing songs in my head to keep me sane for this short test.
Gods I missed my music from my old life, I missed it so much. this would go by much faster if I had it.
Though I suppose I loved metal music and cooking, that reminded me of something that I heard someone say about themselves doing the same things while in school. 'When I was in school I was into cooking and metal, I was an angry man, but I had to eat.' something to live by really.
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"Alright, that's enough! Times up! You lot of shit stacks ready for the Tenth question?!" The Trench coat guy said.
Man, I probably should've been paying attention earlier, that and actually done the exam, it might have helped, I'm sure the other two noticed I wasn't even doing it. I flipped the page back around to the answers and started doodling in the answer boxes as the T&I team made people shit themselves going on about accepting or rejecting the question, everyone got really loud after that, I hope Sasuke and Hinata figure this trick out. I mean I know I had the cheat of having read this forever ago but still, I feel like you should be smart enough not to take everything at face value.
Teams were falling out left and right, there had to be some Chuunin hiding among those to psych people outright? Like that would make the most sense, I looked around and noticed Naruto sitting next to Hinata freaking out, Sakura was as well. Kiba was handling himself and team 8 looked fine. Naruto started yelling about being the Hokage to hype himself by the sounds of it, I went back to drawing, the proctor had a laugh at what the blonde was shouting. Until he suddenly said-
"You lot just passed the first Exam!" A smirk crossed his face.
Another explosive outburst of people going off at Ibiki, he explained it to those of the uninitiated before he could finish though a Woman exploded through the wall into the class, she insulted us and thusly told everyone to get outside and follow her, man was I glad I brought my sword and pack, if we were going right into this then I made a good decision. I didn't bring my cooking stuff though because it was loud, and Sensei said if he found out I got us attacked because people could smell or hear it he'd ring me out. Whilst the idea was funny I didn't want to be the death of us, I brought some ANBU style bracers and leg armour with my pay from the Wave mission though, despite the fact that we were only there for the second half of the mission we each got the A-rank sized paycheck and let me tell you that is possibly the most money I've ever had, they gave us each twenty-five thousand Ryo. That was nuts.
Anko started explaining the Forest of Death portion to us, I'll be honest I was scared shitless at this point, not only was the trouser snake Sannin here to cradle rob Sasuke but, this place had enormous spiders and shit, I have a massive arachnophobia though at some point it extended to insects in general until in my defense bugs are god awful and look disgusting. At least spiders have a use in that they kill flies and stuff off.
When I took my attention off the Forest for a moment, I heard Naruto antagonizing the Jonin 'Oh! Eww, what the fuck! That chicks' tongue is long as fuck! Wait my god is that Orochimaru?!' This is sketch as hell, I don't think I want to be here anymore. Ugh Hinata and Sasuke better understand how much I love them to be staying here.
We straight up had to sign consent forms, what the fuck, Heaven and Earth Scrolls – cool. "One final piece of advice! Stay Alive!" the purple-haired woman spoke, she was pretty good looking, I mean she was nuts but decent looking. Ah, hormones, how I know this will be hell to go through again.
We got a Heaven scroll, I handed it to Hinata and told her to hide it in her hoodie, we took off into the dank, moist forest. We were running for maybe an hour- or well really it could have been four hours, but I couldn't tell because of how we were going about travel- before some team from Ame turned up. We stopped in the middle of an opening on the forest floor so that they would have nowhere to hide, that and it would make it easy to escape with smoke bombs and the Sub jutsu.
"Hand us your scroll!" One of them demanded holding a hand out to collect.
I rolled my eyes and threw shuriken at him, either he was really fucking stupid or it was a clone because he froze up… oh, a water clone, that's cool, I guess. As the clone burst, we took up our stances and readied ourselves for their assault, after a few minutes of waiting a barrage of water bullets hailed us from above, they were cut short by Sasuke's phoenix flower jutsu. The Ame-Nin dropped down to the ground with us and before one of them could act I swung my Nodachi full of chakra down on him. I fell back and began to vomit, that was the most viscera thing I'd ever done and seen, the kids' body was split in two from his right shoulder down across his torso to his hip. I was kicked in the face while I let the weight of my actions sink in by his teammate who was screaming a name, as my head impacted the dirt I let a pained noise, I saw Sasuke and Hinata take care of the other two in less gruesome ways, as I stood slowly I wiped my mouth and spat a few times trying to get rid of the taste. Sasuke threw me a bottle from one of the Ame-nin and I spent a minute washing the taste out of my mouth.
"I didn't think I'd ever see someone throw up on their opponent after cutting them in half," Sasuke said sounding almost a little impressed yet still entirely disgusted.
"Yeah well I don't think I ever expected to do that- hey your eyes are red? I thought you didn't have your Sharingan?" I replied and asked.
"I activated it in Wave" He replied shortly not expanding upon the issue. "Hey, these guys had an Earth scroll we can head to the tower."
We traveled for another couple of hours before suddenly a wave of the most gut-wrenching, horror inducing killer intent washed over the area as an enormous snake came crashing through the forest bringing down quite a few trees.
A woman was standing on top of it and did a huge wind jutsu that crashed through the tree we were next to – we were about to climb it so it was quickly abandoned, the woman laughed and spoke in a creepy as fuck voice.
"My dear Sasuke~ you were able to dodge that? This will be quite promising!" they announced before launching towards the Uchiha mouth open.
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My mind had gone blank and I forgot where I was for a while, the way the world moved was muted and subdued along with time at a near standstill grazing along as I watched an enormous snake barrel towards us taking out trees and almost taking us out.
This couldn't be real right?
could it?
Was that possible?
Should I have prepared for this?
Why was it we were to be bound to such a hellish fate.
Were we going to die here? I don't want to die. That- that's what terrifies me the most…
Was this Fates answer to my question or plea for her to give us a fair and just life? Is asking anything of a power the wrong thing to do? Or was this the just and fair outcome I had asked for? Will there be more times like this in my life? How much longer will we hang in free fall watching this beast fly towards us time frozen?
The world turned and spun putting us into perspective, I turned watching in horror as Hinata's small form slammed so hard into a tree branch that it destroyed it on impact, the part that hurt the most to see was the fact that the branch had to be thirty-odd centimeters thick, it had made a sickening crack and crunch while her gasped scream filled with pain blurted out. Sasuke was unconscious as his body crumpled under the pressure of the snake as my hand came out pulling him from it and the other reached for Hinata.
I tucked the two of them into my chest wrapping my arms around them as blood sprayed from my mouth when time resumed and I lost consciousness for a moment again.
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"What the FUCK is wrong with this snake freak?!" I screamed in English as an unconscious Sasuke was slumped over my shoulder dead to the world, Hinata was guiding us away with Orochimaru chasing us, or at the least, he was somewhere nearby playing around like he was actually having a hard time keeping up, though that was probably part of his plan to fuck with Sasuke.
"HAHAA! Run little Genin~ try your damned best to keep yourselves from me all you want!" a huge jutsu barrelled through the area and slammed Hinata and I into the tree we were jumping to from the branch we were on, there was a pained noise from both of us as I watched blood spray out from somewhere before the twenty-odd foot drop onto the dirt below.
I was winded, that was the first thing that I realized as I tried to drag myself off the ground and grab Sasukes body was covered with a few bruises and lacerations, there was blood as well but I wasn't sure if it was even his, Hinata made a noise nearby and I looked towards her to see cradling a bloodied hand and arm that definitely weren't facing the right direction, her entire shirt was soaked in blood but I couldn't see where it was coming from. I started to freak out as I crawled over to her dragging Sasuke's corpse, her breath was ragged and strained as her head wavered, I can't imagine the pain she was in right now with her arm like this.
"Fuck!" I said under my breath in English. Her hand was mangled while I'm pretty sure the arm was snapped in at least three places, I started pulling things out of my pack to use as a splint, I couldn't find a splint itself, but I had disinfectant with bandages as well as a salve, and I noticed a few sticks and large branches that could serve as it. I quickly got to work making sure Hinata was fine, I checked her for a concussion but, that's when I heard another howled laugh from the snake. I shivered slightly where I was at the sound of the trouser snake. I helped her open her hoodie and took it off her to use as a sling for her arm, her chest was bruised from what I could tell as I cleaned and wrapped her up the best I could with the short few minutes we had.
I dragged Hinata up as she whimpered from the pain, we started moving again with her being supported under my arm and Sasuke being dragged by his clothing, I had something I wanted to try – I started exerting all the chakra I could produce and began charging my body with it as I pulled Sasuke under my arm and took Hinata's good hand holding it tight linking our arms, I took off at a speed I'd never managed before – I flung us a few hundred or more meters in the first leap, I think Orochimaru stopped following us because he wasn't around or at least I couldn't make his presence out anywhere. When I finally collapsed into the dirt Hinata and I made an effort to try to set up a camp in a hollow tree, I took first watch since I was only vaguely Chakra exhausted and she had to deal with her hand and arm.
Nothing happened on my watch thankfully though I was sure it felt like somebody was watching me, Hinata wasn't bleeding when I turned it over to her so it was a start, we decided to do half an hour to an hour-long shifts after she demanded she take a shift because of how pale and awful looking I was at that point. When I was woken up it wasn't Hinata rousing me but rather a loud thundering sound and a scream of pain, I flung myself out of the tree to see Hinata trying to fend off three Oto-nin with one hand, her Byakugan was flaring and a thick visible coat of chakra on her good hand, all the while she had dried blood covering her as well as new dripping off her.
I don't think they were expecting me because the one that had just hit Hinata in the leg from what I could tell, had a very surprised look when my sword tore his arm from the socket in a flip and burst of chakra as my body was slung wildly then coming to a stop, the Oto-nin's teammates were wide-eyed as well, I stood with my already crimson haori covered in blood flowing behind me as I breathed heavily with my sword resting on my shoulder, I felt like I was going to collapse from all the chakra I'd used even if I recovered it fast that didn't mean it wasn't still putting a strain on me to keep going. A kunai hit me in the thigh bringing me to my knee before a sound rustled behind me.
For a moment that I got to glance at the people I realized that I didn't know these three, I was pretty sure they weren't the ones that attacked team 7 from what I remembered. These must've been another group that Orochi had sent as filler.
There was a shift behind us and Sasuke's black mop flew past us and turned the Oto-nin to mincemeat before us, he looked like he was feeling blissful, the creep of the black tattoos provided by the curse mark that was making a pulsating aura of dark chakra around him served to boast how powerful he looked like he was feeling.
"Hey, Sasuke what the heck is that crap creeping down your arm from your shoulder?!" I said alarmed also making him aware of his situation while trying to pour water over the kunai wound and bandage it.
He looked at his shoulder red eyes flaring with three tomoe in each "I feel powerful!" he said stepping towards the bodies admiring his handiwork, only to stomp the necks of the two he had just killed. Their necks snapped with an audible crack and squelch that was nothing less than disgusting as the life left their eyes, bodies becoming completely limp. He walked over to the one I had disarmed that was trying to crawl away and punched a hole through his chest with his newfound power.
"Leaf Whirlwind!" a voice shouted as a boy in green with orange leg warmers appeared in front of us not giving us a moment to even breathe before starting something, it took me a second to realize who it was – "I wish to challenge you Uchiha!" Lee announced pointing at the scowling boy. Nothing in this world could make our situation worse at this point unless the trouser snake resurfaced to try cradle rob Sasuke again.
I sighed as I moved from leaning on the scabbard of my Nodachi and walked forward ignoring the screaming my body was doing that had begun to haze my vision and make my strength wain, I was not about to deal with this fucking shit, I just didn't want to deal with this not while we were still recovering from Orochimaru. Hinata was ready to collapse by the looks of it as well. We just needed to get medical attention and get Sasuke to someone who could seal his curse mark.
"Yeah well-" I smashed my scabbard into Sasuke's neck knocking him unconscious letting the curse mark fade as his body hit the dirt with a thump.
Lee looked shocked and confused, not helped and emphasized by the fact that he caught sight of all the blood, our injuries, and the corpses. "Bowl cut if you need a scroll get it off them would you- we really can't be assed dealing with this shit, we just ran away from a Sannin riding a snake so I'm pretty close to just saying fuck it at this point and leaving the exam!" I pointed the Nodachi at the bodies then at him, I was far beyond giving a shit about a flak jacket I could buy at a Shinobi supply store.
I watched as he looked to me for a few minutes trying to discern something from my cold eyes, he decided after taking one last look at Sasuke and me that it wasn't worth it, then he walked over to the corpses and picked up a scroll finding that he must've already had it, then he left.
As Lee was taking off another person screeched as they entered the area "Hey what the hell did you attack Sasuke-kun for?!" the Hag crooned as though its existence was wanted or cared for, as though it were warranted an audience with our team, letting the dark thoughts fester as I turned to the girl playing ninja, the figurehead of a doll that stood with brittle confidence and morose soul of a child. Had she been so utterly borderline incompetent as to not want to save her poor Sasuke? Or had she just enjoyed the show and sat there watching and waiting for her moment to collect?
With the fiercest look I could possibly muster and all the anger I held at this point on display my head snapped to where she had landed "I swear upon all those that are named gods right here and now if you so much as speak 'Sasuke-kun!' in my vicinity before the exam is over I will Fucking butcher you!I promise you Girl that no one will miss you!" I snarled absolutely fed up with this crap, I just felt so angry and annoyed at all this shit we were dealing with, one after another out of the damned woodwork. Why the fuck did they all have to come to us? What the fuck was so damned important about us? Was it the Uchiha? Or maybe it's fate?!
Right after the pink one froze up with a terrified look that told me of her situation and mindset, she was frightened like a child robbed of their confidence when the adults couldn't protect her, Naruto and Kiba appeared "Hey! Hey Takezou! You can't talk to her like that!" the blonde said unfazed by my glare and current stance standing over my teammates and the bodies. Though he held the appearance of someone who had been slammed through a few trees and so did Kiba, all the while Sakura seemed as though she hadn't even entered combat yet.
"I'll be honest Naruto I don't care! and anything that could happen at this point couldn't make my day worse now there's a scroll on those bodies so if you need it to take it." I stated sheathing my sword and picking up Sasuke, I sighed heavily as his weight settled on my shoulder, I walked over to Hinata and she quietly nodded leading us off toward the tower.
AN: Y'know maybe he should just buy a flak jacket at this point and leave the exam.