Hey!
So I'm sorry I didn't posted anything last week, but I was busy with virtual lessons so yeah. I also wanted to tell you something else. So, I've been working in my drawing lately and I wanted to know what would you think of a fan manga about Gohan going to Konoha? Don't worry about the quality, I'll make sure it looks as if Kishimoto himself drew it.
Anyway, tell me what you think in the review section or via private message. And let's go on to chapter 8!
Explosions were seen from the village in the outskirts of the forest, making the villagers panic. Their leader was thinking of any possible way to stop any threat or destruction that could arrive to his village, he didn't want anyone to get hurt. He finally gathered a group of men and women that offered themselves to fight and took them to the entrance of the village. People evacuated the village, following the road that took to a nearby town.
Meanwhile, inside the forest, 4 Jounin level ninjas tried to avoid these explosions. Han, who just joined the other 3 because he needed help to escape from the 2 men that were trying to capture him, knew the area and therefore knew that there was a big but humble village close to the forest. Yuichi, the leader of the group and the mission, did not want to leave his group as he thought his teammates weren't really able to guide themselves correctly, but he still knew that, as a leader, he had to sacrifice himself to fight the aggressors off to give them a chance to escape and complete their mission successfully. Daichi, the second most experienced ninja of the group, thought that escaping would be useless and wanted to stop and fight, but he knew that Yuichi, mainly because of his resentment with the Uchiha, would leave him if he considered it necessary.
"I don't think we're losing them." Aoba nervously said as he started to fear for his life.
"We need to fight them." Daichi firmly said as he gave Yuichi a defiant glance.
Yuichi kept himself submerged in his own thoughts as he did not stop moving from branch to branch. The Uchiha's eyes filled with frustration and anger as he was ignored by his leader. Aoba's nerves started to increase as Han repeatedly looked behind him, where explosions continued to menace their lives. The mysterious masked ninja could see animals escaping desperately as they advanced in their way out of the forest, he felt really empathetic as he noticed their horror when explosions got close to them. The Senju finally got out of his train of thought as he made the decision.
"You have to continue escaping." Yuichi said before being interrupted by Daichi.
"Don't you see that we're about to get killed?!" The Uchiha yelled; making Yuichi raise his arm, beckoning him to make silence.
"I need you to tell the Hokage that I'm sorry." The Senju said as his blue cape showed how his speed decreased. "I'll fight them, you take Han to the village."
"What?" Aoba asked with clear shock in his face. "Aren't you the Hokage's personal guard?"
"That's why I need you to say sorry for me." The white-haired man explained as his cape finally stopped being moved by the wind, indicating that he'd stopped moving.
"Whatever." Daichi said as he beckoned both Aoba and Han to follow him, noticing Han's white coat of chakra.
"Run! They're coming!" Yuichi announced as he saw 2 figures getting closer and closer to them.
The three men quickly left the place, leaving the Senju to fight against the ninja from Akatsuki. Tobirama's grandson admired the explosions as they progressively approached him, threatening the life of the animals and his own. One final explosion took place right in front of him, making his cape move violently, as the blonde man and the ugly one found him.
"Oh, so you're alone." Deidara said as he gave Yuichi a smile equal to that of a maniac.
"This will be interesting." The ugly man said as he got several Kunai out with his two hands.
A drop of sweat went down the Senju's face as he got in his own fighting stance.
"Understood?" Anko asked as she finished explaining the rules for the second part of the exam.
Most of the Genin nodded, showing that they had heard the rules. Anko climbed back up into the fence as she saw this, showing a smile as she looked back at the group.
"Alright then, you shall now enter the Forest of Death." The purple-haired woman said, shifting her previous smile to a creepier one and inviting the genin to enter the forest.
The Genin proceeded to enter the dense and dark forest, letting their bodies be consumed by the darkness that existed inside it. The younger shinobi were mostly nervous and scared as they believed themselves not to be strong enough for such a test as the Chūnin Exams.
Team 7 was quite different, though. Normally, the whole Genin team would have the same feeling about this phase of the exam, which would be between confidence on themselves or direct fear or nervousness. In Kakashi's team, the contrast made it stand out from the other teams. While Sasuke and Naruto were confident on their abilities, Sakura was really unsure, nervous and even afraid of what could potentially happen. She knew that they would have to fight against ninjas who were stronger, more experienced or more intelligent than them; and she wasn't really sure if they would be able to overcome such a challenge.
Meanwhile, team 10 was searching for the scroll they were missing. Even though they were rookies, they were quite confident on their abilities, mainly because of Gohan's strength and Shikamaru's intelligence. They still had a little weakness, though, Ino was still tired and was still sore from her trying to follow Gohan's speed training. None of her teammates knew why she did such an unreasonable thing, but they still trusted her enough to know that she would have a good reason to do it. Chouji was just focused in surviving as he wanted to live to eat more chips.
Team 8, on the other side, was focused in keeping a formation that would assure them not to get attacked without them knowing. This plan was made by Kiba, who wouldn't just let his teammates get knocked out or killed, specially Hinata, who Kiba liked a lot. Shino knew perfectly that Kiba would abandon him if he had to choose between him and the Hyuga, but he didn't care as he was conscious that his abilities were superior to those of the Inuzuka and the Hyuga. Hinata didn't know about anything that was happening in his teammates' minds, but she was determined to become a Chunin in order to impress Naruto.
Guy's team was more experienced and they demonstrated this. They were calm and confident in their own abilities, yet they still didn't underestimate any opponent they had. Each member were individually good, each member had their own specialty, but they were even better as a team. Neji's style helped with the defensive aspect of their different strategies, while Lee's strength and speed defined the offensive part and, meanwhile, Tenten normally acted as support for both Neji and Lee. The Hyuga genius occasionally caused problems to the team, but Guy worked in his egoism for this exams, making him adapt better to team work, but his strong beliefs and ego persisted.
Team 5 relied mainly in Shiho's intelligence and plans. For this time, Shiho planned to get the scroll they were lacking and then avoid fighting until the end of the phase. She thought that with Yakumo's great genjutsu capacity, they would be able to easily trick another team into giving them their scroll or just directly losing it for team 5 to get it. Shiho had also planned to have Nobuyuki to use his abilities with the byakugan to fight offensively if it was needed, but as he was just able to use it in one eye, then the plan still depended on Yakumo.
Team 6 just didn't care about a plan, they decided to just improvise even though Masato didn't agree. As Ikue and Akko discussed about it, he just remained silent as he always did, not participating and not giving his opinion. Ikue knew that their opportunities of going through that phase were all on her and her black panther, Akemi. Masato already knew that Ikue thought she'd carry him and his cousin, Akko, but he just decided to ignore this thoughts and decided to help in every single chance he could. Akko just was ready to run as fast as she could and distract her opponents to then defeat them, just as she always did.
As Gohan was able to feel the energies around him, he was able to avoid the energies that were just too strong for his teammates to fight with. He knew he could easily defeat any of these energies, but he preferred to let his partners fight too and so he wouldn't take the risk of losing one of them. Ino, Shikamaru and Choji were weirded out at times as Gohan abruptly changed the direction he was going on, and as he was the one guiding the group, they followed him. Their surprise was bigger when he stopped moving at all, they did not need to see his face to know that something was wrong, making them be afraid. Gohan finally regained his composure and turned to look at them.
"I don't think we can avoid this one." He said with a serious tone, revealing what he was doing.
"What do you mean with avoiding?" Ino asked with a challenging voice. "So that's why we took those aggressive turns..."
"Why do you look so worried, though?" Choji asked as he scratched the back of his head. His face now showed concern as he continued to speak. "Aren't you supposed to be really strong?"
"Y-yeah, but I don't think I can protect you while I fight with someone this powerful." The saiyan explained as a drop of sweat ran down his face. The energy was getting closer and closer to the group as he spoke. "I normally can defeat someone like that without much effort, but protecting you from someone like that could make things harder."
"Is he really that strong?" Shikamaru asked as Ino's face showed a bit of anger. As she was about to speak up, the Nara raised his hand, beckoning her to keep silent.
"He can easily kill all of you together." He said, detecting that the energy was now behind him as soon as he stopped talking. "And he's here."
The saiyan abruptly turned back at the energy, quickly kicking it's head without even looking at it's face. He ordered his friends to run as he ran quickly to were that person had been sent with Gohan's kick. He was a bit confused, though, he noticed that said person was alone, which shouldn't even happen in the first place. This gave the saiyan more reasons not to trust this person. He also noticed at that moment that the energy changed to an evil one, making Gohan increase his power level a bit more.
As one final tree went down due to the person's body colliding against it, Gohan finally saw it. His face had one half of a woman's face and another of a snake-looking man. Both faces showed disgust at the strength of the kick they had received, then changing to a more serious and angry one as it got up. As the saiyan showed his confusion, the man finally took the woman's half from his face, revealing that his actual appearance was the one of the snake-looking man. This shocked Gohan as the presence made by his looks could be compared to the one of Frieza, who still occasionally appeared in the boy's nightmares.
The man noticed Gohan's face, smiling creepily in response. His tongue went out of his mouth, showing it's inhuman extension, and started licking the man's lips in a way of showing the pleasure received when people reacted like that at his presence. This weirded Gohan out even more and made the man burst out laughing. The saiyan finally got in his fighting stance as the man stopped laughing and raised his voice.
"Oh you don't want to fight me, kid." The man said as he licked his lips while showing his creepy smile.
Gohan quickly moved behind his back, giving him a punch strong enough to break the bones of someone as strong as Tien. The punch proved to be effective as the man was thrown away by this hit, but the saiyan kicked him back down as he did not want him to escape. Surprisingly, he was still alive and did not appear to have any broken bones. As the man got up, he cleaned the blood that had came out of his mouth due to some of his internal organs being instantly destroyed with Gohan's attack.
"How?" Orochimaru yelled angrily as he started to gesture some hand signs. Gohan instantly knew that the man was doing a jutsu. "How can a kid be so powerful?!"
As the boy approached the snake-looking man, a cloud of smoke appeared. The smoke made Gohan cough, making him not notice that the man had escaped. As soon as the smoke disappeared, he was able to notice that his energy had disappeared. His frustration wasn't enough to make him forget the fact that he had left his friends on their own. He ran with a 50% of his maximum speed, reaching them in no time. He was relieved when he saw his friends were safe and sound.
I hope you liked the chapter.
Have a nice quarantine and stay home!