AN: Hey, I decided to post this chapter now because I have no real interest in writing at the moment and all that, so I thought I might as well post a chapter before I go on a Hiatus until I find the want to continue.
My lack of interest is probably being propelled by this story at the moment, I say this because not too long ago I realized the other hundred-odd thousand words of the story that had been written out and formatted wasn't what I wanted from AVID and the longer I dwelled on it, the more I realized that AVID might have left me enjoying it more set in another village or even somewhere like Iron. Anyway, what ended up happening with all that extra stuff was that I deleted it so that I could rewrite it all and reformat the arcs to come, wherein I've realized I'm not enjoying writing as much as I used to. at the moment up to chapter 16 is done with around six or seven others that are leftovers from my deleting the old stuff, they're the bits of philosophical discussion and whatnot that I liked too much to ditch. I could post those four completed chapters but I'd rather wait to post anything more until I'm back into wanting to write again.
Arc 3 part 4
Chapter Title: Time and a half
we walked for another three and a half hours after our run-in with half our academy class making a hell of an effort to keep both Hinata and me conscious, but seeing as to how messed up she was right now and how I was feeling a lot like they were bruised it was certainly a journey in of itself. I wanted nothing more than for us to just keep walking and so that was mostly if not all of my plan at this point, it's not like there was anything else we could do if the proctors wanted to interfere then they would have already, not just with us either I mean Orochimaru in general because it's not like he hid himself all that well seeing as I could pick him out in a crowd. Surely that Anko woman realized, right? wasn't she like his student for a period of time?
Continuing on through the heavy forest though we eventually made it into this enormous clearing with a mile or two long valley of these gigantic trees with their roots stretching out and around the valley, there was a river that seemed to run through it. My thoughts were cut short when Hinata shot forward with a burst of energy I didn't think she had left in her, and before my eyes I watched the biggest centipede I'd ever seen get turned into blood and guts leaving its carapace exploded all over the place covering the three of us in its contents. She landed in a crouch panting heavily, eyes bulging with the Byakugan active, after a few moments she collapsed into the ground and I rushed forward the best I could, stumbling in the process and nearly ending up on my face.
"Fuck it! we ought to just rest here for the night," I said under my breath as I carried the both of my teammates to an overhang in one of the huge trees that had a relatively hollow under-area that you could crawl into after pushing past a few swaths of moss and smaller tree branches.
It took me longer than I would have liked to, but I checked their injuries as well as my own finding out that Sasuke had indeed bruised ribs while Hinata's were broken in a few places causing her to wake a few times while I was checking them and coughing up blood. It's not like I could stop internal bleeding, I wasn't such a smart person who learned the bare minimum medical jutsu, I wasn't some great apprentice chakra expert that could easily heal their injuries in mere moments. All I could do was sit there and watch everything unfold, as Sasuke would toss and turn occasionally making a noise or two while Hinata coughed up blood like I mentioned, while I wished that I had stuck with my gut and not entered this god's forsaken tournament with no reward. We wouldn't get anything other than a painful death or a violent beating and horrific scarring of a moment in our lives where we were chased and tried to fight one of the most powerful Ninja alive in this day and age, we were to act like that hadn't just happened five odd hours ago.
I fell asleep watching the entrance of our little hole in the ground, when I woke up it wasn't on my own or because of Hinata's coughing, but rather it was because my body found itself racked with pain, it seemed that DOMS or Delayed onset muscle soreness, had shown face and it was killing me. But it was a good thing though despite how painful it was to stretch, I moved over and tapped on Hinata's cheek trying to wake her only taking a moment before her eyes opened and were immediately filled with the obvious pain her body was still dealing with.
Another half-hour passed before we had enough energy to try heading towards the tower, Sasuke was still out like a light leaving him to be carried on my back still. When we were sure that what bleeding we had stopped or was patched up at the least we finally left.
[Scene Break]
"Time: Nineteen hours, thirty-three minutes," I said clocking us in as we entered the tower reading the timer on the wall.
"T-takezou…" Hinata said quietly "you didn't need to kill those Amegakure Ninja…" she said, she was referring to a team that tried to jump us as we got the tower but by that point, I had enough chakra to try my hardest at performing a fireball after slashing them up, their entrails and charred flesh were now painted across some trees.
"Yeah… I'm sorry about that… I-I just… I'll be honest Hinata this whole thing is getting to me… I don't know how much more of this I can do if this crap keeps happening." I said back just as quietly and solemnly with my eyes downcast.
"Nn…" Sasuke seemingly woke from where I had dropped him onto the floor.
"Nice to see your awake sleepyhead" I yawned out. "You had me worried I wasn't sure if I'd caused long-lasting brain damage or not," I said using my sword in its scabbard as a crutch after I earned a kunai in my calf again and an umbrella through my thigh.
"Where are we?" he grunted out, rubbing where I'd hit him.
"The tower in the Forest of Death" I answered. "Oh! Hinata you have the scrolls, right? pass them here please." She pulled them out of her hoodie and handed them to me.
I opened them at the same time "Hey Kids! It's been… A while…" Iruka started looking at my bloodied clothing and body, Sasuke and his beaten appearance and Hinata's splinted arm as well as the blood over her.
"Expecting someone… else…" I breathed out heavily trying to catch myself.
"I- Uh, anyway congratulations!" He said louder than I would have liked making me wince "I'm glad to see your all alive anyway, seeing as you've passed the second part of the Exam you can rest here until the section is over, you have to stay here for the duration there's rooms and such through there, good luck!" he pointed his thumb in the direction of a door before dispersing in a smoke cloud.
We dragged ourselves up the stairwell into a common area that had another staircase going up, but there was a door in the room that had bunks in it I went straight there and collapsed into a bed, I heard Sasuke say something about food or starving and I'm pretty sure Hinata went to see if there was a medic-Nin to fix her up. I slept really well, I'm not sure how long I was out for but when I got up Hinata was asleep and Sasuke was reading… my notebook from my bag. I'd be mad if I actually cared there isn't anything in there that could be confidential unless he suddenly learns English, so I decided to settle for catching him red-handed.
"Looking through my things while I'm asleep are we now?" I asked, seeing his head slowly turn towards me.
"No, it fell out of your pack after you collapsed onto the bunk… why is this stuff so specific? Towards Hinata and I." he asked with furrowed eyebrows.
"Oh, that? Well because I wrote it for you, I said back when we were assigned to the same team that I wanted to write a book and that happens to be part of it" I said flipping my hand side to side.
"Huh, I guess you writing all the time is starting to make more sense." He stated handing the book back to me.
The next two days passed in a flash with Team 8 showing up, then Team 7, Kabuto's team, the Oto team, and Team Gai but the Suna team had arrived like eighteen hours before us, We got called to an arena where they explained that there was a preliminary much to the dismay of the teams that arrived on the final day left with no time to rest unlike us, we were going to face off in the one on ones to make it into the final. The best part was honestly seeing Sensei, I went over to him immediately and damn near gave him a hug, but rather I asked if I could speak to him for a moment and ran the curse mark by him saying "Orochimaru attacked us in the forest and gave Sasuke some kind of mark that covers him in tattoos when he uses chakra."
"Alright I'll get someone to deal with it after his match," he said, as we looked back to said, Avenger who had just won his match, Sensei talked to Kakashi and then the man just up and kidnapped Sasuke.
I went back over to Hinata who was leaning against the rail next to Naruto "Sensei's gonna deal with you know what." I whispered to her, so she knew why the scarecrow kidnapped our teammate.
"Takezou Rakurai vs Kin Tsuchi!" Hayate said followed by a wet sounding cough. "Wish me luck!" I said hopping the rail landing in a crouch pulling my sword from my back, my knees ached in protest still sore despite adequate rest.
"Begin!"
My mind watched everything play out slowed down, as though time was dilated- it allowed for me to see all that she did without effort, I suppose all that fighting at such a high level with my aunt and using my chakra constantly slowed down my perception so that I could comprehend it, despite how unbelievably fast it might have played out in real-time.
Did she throw senbon with bells attached? Was she mentally challenged? Deficient maybe? What moron does that? Was she trying to distract me from the ninja wire?
She threw another set and a smirk crossed her face as I frowned and cut the wires with my sword. This was pretty sad. I'll be honest.
She got annoyed and started throwing volleys at me, most of which I deflected, I felt like something was wrong with this fight. Like it was slow and too easy. I decided to end it and flashed forward charged full of chakra, something similar to what I had done in the forest but without the intention of throwing myself a couple hundred meters, the best I could on my injured leg and cleaved her through with my sword, which wasn't my intention I had just meant to take her out in a tackle or get her arm, but instead, I threw up again… on her corpse man that wasn't really great huh? There was a resounding sound of disgust afterward, I think I saw Gaara smile, that was terrifying. My god.
My perception of time returned back to normal at that point as well, for a moment I thought I might empty my stomach's contents again when I caught sight of the flesh covered in the foul-smelling liquid, I had cleaved through her chest in an overhead diagonal strike that mostly bisected her leaving only a small part holding the body together. Everything about it was perfectly fine by Ninja standards, even if I was only a kid, even if this was just a game to show off the power of one's village, even if it meant killing kids from one another's villages that already had high tensions in.
"Gods Takezou…" I heard someone say but I didn't see who as there were other voices spouting about what I had done, I just shrugged and washed the taste out of my mouth with my water bottle as well as contemplate the sanctity of human life and why it was that I easily killed others without hesitation, even if I did throw up afterward. I was glad that I hadn't managed to get any on myself, even if the poor Medic-Nin that came out to collect the body had to deal with my emptied bowels.
[Scene Break]
Hinata's match got me pretty fucking mad. maybe it was the leftover feelings of resent and whatnot from the forest, but I was seething.
I don't like to become angry and often found it hard to get to such a state, but watching Hinata- with one functioning arm while her other was still broken in several places and her hand basically unusable- watching this girl who was like a sister to me, shit no, she was a sister to me. My parents saw her as a surrogate daughter and treated her and Sasuke like their own children when they were around.
So seeing this girl, fragile in confidence as she was, loving and caring as she was, sat there and took every single one of Neji's attacks, continuing to stand up after each time she was knocked down. It killed me and I knew my anger was reaching a fairly high peak because I had broken a large section of the railing under the pressure of my grip, and the chakra subconsciously being poured all through my body that was part of my keeping my Kekkei Genkai in check, though I had to do it, it wasn't helping the situation. The Girl was dead on her feet… WHY THE FUCK WEREN'T THEY DOING ANYTHING?!
A few of the teams around me at the time had actually stepped away backing off a meter or so, I didn't care, I was forced to watch her have her good arm broken, to watch more damage be done to her other arm, to watch her suffer and let out choked cries from all the pain racking her body every time it was hit, as more of her ribs were broken and blood sprayed the arena floor. I'm almost glad Sasuke had been taken away to be sealed for the time being because I know he and Hinata had gotten to become fairly good friends over our time together, and with his Uchiha blood there's no doubt in my mind his reaction might have led to attacking Neji.
I calmed somewhat if barely when Sensei loomed over me and said something putting his hand on me at the time, at the very least after he did that I wasn't sitting there about to jump down over the railing that had shattered and contorted, the metal twisted and broken.
It was only when she stopped getting up the final time, she laid there dead as a doornail blood pooling around her and Neji continued to spout off some complete utter bullshit about fate, that his final hit on Hinata ended the match- though he tried to continue- it was for naught though, as his Sensei stopped him as well as the proctor while I was already standing over my teammate with my sword drawn only hoping that he would be so stupid as to Kaiten the Jonin holding him back so that I could butcher him- so that I could carve that stupid fucking over achieving Hyuuga superiority out of his skull with those eyes and gut his poor carcass like a fucking fish.
But alas he came to a halt and turned to walk away at which point I was going to say something but Naruto came in out of nowhere and pledged to kick Neji's shit in, so I didn't say anything and just left with the medics that showed up. I stayed with Hinata as long as I could, in fact so long that I missed all the matches and who I was fighting in the final round.
[Scene Break]
From what Sensei said they pulled me for, I was supposed to fight Kankuro, while Sasuke had drawn Gaara, at least some things were sticking to the script I suppose. I spent a few days after the prelims in Hinata's Hospital room and trying to get into Sasukes, while I was on my way out of the main foyer of the hospital I heard and saw Naruto yelling while Kakashi sunk into his slouch trying to apologize to the staff for his outbursts. I walked over in an attempt to help Kakashi.
"Hey Kakashi-Sensei, Naruto, what's going on? Cause your kind of disturbing the doctors and nurses." I yawned coming to a stop next to them.
"The Nurse and Sensei won't let me go see that bastard Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, making us wince.
"I hadn't realized you were so close to Sasuke? I thought you two were still at one another?" I wasn't really sure how far their friendship had come seeing as they weren't on the same team.
"Yeah! Of course, we are!" He announced, "We've been friends since the Academy even if he's too stuck up to realize it!" he pumped his fist up into the air exaggerating his thoughts.
"So what about you Sensei? Or were you called here to get rid of Naruto for being a nuisance to the hospital?" I asked the man and he shrugged "Uh-huh, Well I'll be going I have the fight to train for and teammates to worry about, catch you both later!" I waved them as I walked out of the hospital.
I made my way to a Shinobi supply store I frequented for window shopping, also it was where I got the Samurai style bracers, I still had heaps of money left over from the A-rank pay so I wanted to look into getting some more stuff in preparation for the Final Exam.
I wanted to replace my old headband style Hitai-ate with a shinobi grade bandana, I also wanted to replace my mesh armour after it got mangled in the forest, there were some smaller things as well like Kunai and stuff too. I was kind of avoiding home in a way to because after I came home smelling like vomit and covered in the blood of which I explained wasn't my own Mum freaked out and made me spill my guts – metaphorically that is, if I had thrown up she might have kicked me outside while she cleaned up. Anyway yeah, so she knew about everything basically and Dad's thoughts on my first kill were more or less "You'll have to get used to it, and if you don't it won't get easier" not very good advice.
After getting the bandana and other stuff I headed to Aunty Ume's house, when I got there Uncle Toyo was arguing with her about… training?
"How's it going Aunty Ume, Uncle Toyo?" Their heads snapped to me.
Ume put her arm around my shoulders "Now that you're here Takezou, you can tell my little brother that you wanted to train with me in preparation for the final exam!" She said like a child finally getting their way.
"C'mon Ume, you've been training him since he was a kid, can't you let me do some stuff with him? I basically never get to see Nobuyuki's kid let alone ever see him train." Toyo said pleadingly.
"Err… wait so what's going on?" I asked them kinda lost.
"My older sister wants to take you away on a training trip for the month, for your match in the Chuunin Exam, but I finally got this month and the one after it off so I wanted to train with you and actually get to know my nephew, seeing as we don't see one another all that often anymore." He explained.
"That's easy then I want to go with Uncle Toyo," I said easily, Ume acted out being shot in the heart and feigned being distraught over it.
"Takezou how could you?! I thought we had something special then you go and throw it away when someone else presents an offer!" She said faking defeat "You're a monster!"
I laughed at her acting, it was funny when she did this stuff its why I liked hanging out with her, but like Toyo said we hadn't talked all that much and with a chance like this I wanted to take it immediately with how good an offer it was.
"Alright if that's the case we'll talk to your parents about it later today, and we'll probably leave in a few days' time." He said with a smile.
"Sweet I'm really looking forward to this then!" cause I was, I was half hoping he just spent the time teaching me Ninjutsu but it would probably be spent doing all sorts of endurance stuff and making sure I was prepared for fighting the puppet master that was Kankuro.
AN: Like I said at the top this is the last chapter for a while, not that it probably matters much considering I posted monthly anyway, but yeah.
On another note, though I hope Takezou's freakouts have come across properly and with the right build-up because I was unsure as to how they might come across, I liked them and thought they seemed fine and realistic enough within his developing character, but if you think otherwise or what have you, review and talk about it. I'm always willing to hold discussions should someone want one even if I'm going on hiatus for the time being.