So yeah, I'm back... After quite a while hehe.
Anyways, like always, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and also remember to leave your opinion in the review section.
Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ nor do I own Naruto, all the credits go to Akira Toriyama (DB, DBZ, DBS) and Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, Boruto).
Light entered the room through the big window that let the Hokage observe the village he was entitled to protect, the village he loved so much despite it's several flaws. His glance was positioned towards this window, turning his back on the ANBU that were currently in his office. The old Hokage turned back, letting his hands fall from his back, and sat down in his chair. He checked on some documents he'd just ask some ANBU to bring him and finally turned his gaze at the soldiers. This documents had the exact date when the village was attacked by the Kyubi and it showed the confirmed deaths of that tragic day.
"Were you succesful in your mission?" The Hokage asked in a calm tone as his gaze went back to the documents. He was frantically searching for something in it.
The ANBU turned to look at each other as they discussed, through their eyes, who would answer the Third's question. After a couple of seconds of weird looks, the youngest one of them decided to speak. "Yes, sir, we were able to enter the suspect's house." Hiruzen stopped moving his finger as it was going down the papers he was checking.
"Did you find anything worth of mentioning?" The old man continued moving his finger through the list of names.
Once again, the ANBU started to give looks between each other to choose the one who would continue speaking. This time, these looks stopped earlier than the last time as the youngest one answered again. "No, sir, he was free from any suspicious objects."
As the Hokage raised his head and opened his mouth, another ANBU spoke up. "There was a lot of books and scrolls, one of them was a forbidden one about space-time jutsu."
"Space-time jutsu, you say?" The Hokage raised his eyebrow as he doubted there even existed a scroll about such techniques. He kept his finger in the paper he was examining as he questioned them with his gaze. "Does a scroll of such kind exist?"
The mask of the ANBU member hid his face as his eyes widened, showing his pure shock. The other ANBU members were surprised too, but not to the extent of the one who had spoken up. "Don't tell me there is no record of a scroll of such kind..."
The Hokage gave the papers one last look before taking his hands up, gathering them and holding his head with them. "That category hardly even exists. The quantity of times where such jutsus have been seen do not reach the two digits."
The youngest of the ANBU got one of his hands to his chin and started to theorize in his head. A couple of minutes of silence gave him the time to obtain a convincing idea. "What if the scroll is fake? Maybe someone external to the village got it in."
Hiruzen played with his beard as he got into his own thoughts, finally finding that it was a plausible scenario, and finally nodding as a form of showing his approval to the young one. "To confirm it, you shall go back to the boy's house. You should not have any trouble with it as he's currently participating in the exams."
The ANBU nodded before leaving the office so quickly that a normal person would not notice. The Third was obviously capable of seeing them leave, he did not need a Sharingan or a Byakugan to have an exceptional vision. The known as God of Shinobi had spent some part of his life exercising his eyes and that training maintained throughout the years, even now that he was starting to grow older at a faster rate.
Hiruzen finally turned his gaze back to the paper and continued reading through the people with a second name that began with N. He went back over and over, as if he was trying to convince himself of something he didn't really wanted to confirm. As he wasn't able to find him there, he continued reading carefully through the rest of the list, drops of sweat going down his face. His hand got away from the paper, trembling, directly to wipe the sweat that was coming out of his forehead. So it is true, I did not find Minato's body that day. How could I have forgotten that? Did I order an immediate search mission to find his body? Could I have been irresponsible and stupid enough to let the enemy have the body of a Hokage?
Many questions went through his mind, some were answered and some others directly had no answer, or at least he could not give one. He remembered ordering a search for the Fourth's body, but did not remember the outcome of it. He supposed they'd failed because of the records saying that this body was never found, but why would it just disappear? Could it be that Jiraiya was right...? The old Hokage now thought about Jiraiya's words in their last meeting.
"You can never assume a Hokage is dead when the body is missing." Hiruzen wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it seemed to him for a regular human being to survive a direct fight against a tailed-beast. "I know him and I know how strong he is! He is not the one who just dies fighting against a little fox!" The Third Hokage was now laughing, but not because of the ridiculous part of it, but because maybe Jiraiya has a good point on believing Minato is alive. "You crazy bastard."
The forest was more silent than they would've expected. They believed that there being so many shinobi, lots of noises would be made, either from punches, kicks, explosions, screams and much more things. Team 5 had just previously heard a strong noise, the one of an impact against several trees. The young Genin were curious about it, naturally, but they never expected to end up being as threatened as they were. In front of them, a snake-like looking man smiled creepily at Nobuyuki.
The young Hyuuga was absolutely horrified at the sight of Orochimaru, who slowly moved towards him. The darkness of the forest didn't help a lot when fighting was needed, and this was one of those times. Nobuyuki activated his Byakugan in one of his eyes, the only one he could activate it in. Orochimaru quickly dashed to the boy's side, bending down to reach his ear.
"Hello, half blood." The boy's eyes widened as his fear made him paralyze. His friends were shocked too, but they snapped out of it quickly so they could stay alive.
Yakumo tried to use a Genjutsu against the snake-like looking man, but it proved useless and the man, who noticed it, kicked her away. Shiho, the only one standing had to quickly think of something. She got her hand on her weapons bag, but the hand of that scary snake man grabbed her, punched her several times in the stomach and, finally, threw her away.
As a hit against a tree could be heard, Nobuyuki turned to his friends. She found Yakumo laying down in the floor, unconscious, and Shiho laying against a tree, blood coming out of her mouth. The Hyuuga's eyes started to drop tears out of fear of losing his life. For some reason, the man was just laughing as he looked at him, but it didn't really matter to him as it gave him enough time to react. He charged against the snake man, throwing several kunai at him.
"Earth style: Rock Slide!" Five rocks were raised from the floor, quickly moved above Orochimaru and thrown down.
The snake man avoided them with little to no effort and, once again, laughed at the kid. Nobuyuki started gesturing hand signs once again, this time keeping silence. The boy suddenly disappeared and Orochimaru started looking for him as if it was a game. The Hyuuga appeared behind the man, quickly stabbing him with 6 kunai.
"Oh, that's new." Orochimaru said as his neck turned inhumanly to check on the kunai in his back.
Nobuyuki moved back, taking some distance from the man. The boy was now trembling due to the man's creepy but amazing ability of moving and twisting his body.
"Come on, kid, show me your true power." Orochimaru was getting a bit bored now, he wanted to do this quickly.
"What power?" The kid started to take some steps backwards as he spoke.
"Oh, I know how to get it out." Orochimaru dashed towards the boy, reaching him in no time. He nailed a kunai in the boy's arm and kicked him down. Orochimaru kicked him again, throwing him away against another tree. The man's foot now stepped on the kid's head as he laughed maniacally. "Don't you get it? You're going to die!" He kicked the kid again, but this time in the abdomen. "Your friends are going to die!" He kicked the kid once again, but stronger.
As the kid thought of his friends dying, he got a weird feeling inside him, as if something physical was changing. Orochimaru said something before his left eye started to tingle. He was curious about it, because he just has always been able to use his Byakugan in his right eye. Then, it hit him, it didn't feel like the Byakugan, it felt different.
"Yes! Finally!" Orochimaru yelled, kicking the boy's face as he spoke. "You finally awakened the sharingan!"
The... sharingan...? Nobuyuki thought as he rested down in the floor after being hit by the man.
"Now I'll... take you... as m... bod..." Orochimaru finally collapsed down to the floor. His internal organs had been absolutely crushed by Gohan in his previous fight, and now the blood loss caused by Nobuyuki's kunai had caused his body to collapse.
The Hyuuga noticed this and took the chance to escape as he was perfectly conscious of how superior this man was compared to himself. He stood up and quickly went to check on his friends, finding that they were still alive. Making a great effort, he grabbed both of the girls and took them with him, far away from the monster they had just fought against.
The sound of leaves dancing at the pace of wind was heard along with the sound of shinobi fighting and screaming, it truly was a scary landscape for the youngest Genin. In the case of team 8, they had avoided every fight they could as Hinata was truly scared and they couldn't really afford having a fight against three other shinobi without the Hyuuga. Kiba was just thinking of the well being of his teammates when he took the decision of avoiding unnecessary battles even though he had been excited for the battles he'd have at the start of the exams. Shino was starting to get mad because of Hinata's uselessness, he got infuriated at the fact that they wouldn't even fight, what they needed to do to actually go to the next phase of the exams, because of the weak Hinata.
Shino looked down at Kiba's need to protect Hinata, because when he talked about protecting 'his teammates' he actually meant Hinata. The bug expert knew he needed to confront Kiba about his stupid behavior, because at that pace, they were going to get eliminated just in the second phase. Hinata, on the other hand, couldn't stop blaming herself for being so useless, she had noticed Shino's anger and if she had to be honest, she understood him. The Hyuuga's eyes had been close to tears three times since the second phase started, and that didn't really helped her reputation as heir of the main branch of the clan.
The heir of the Hyuuga had always been really shy and soft compared to her cousin and sister, she had always felt inferior to both of them, always weaker and a shame for her family. Neji never had a good relationship with the girl, but she still tried to be as kind as she could; this was mainly because of her not really knowing what made the prodigy of the Byakugan hate her so much. At least Hanabi had always been a strong and supportive younger sister, a great friend for Hinata. She also couldn't help but think of Naruto, that sweet, blonde kid that had always helped her so much ever since they were little kids.
Hinata sighed as she continued moving through the branches of the forest alongside her teammates, she had decided to try and be brave for once in her life, for Naruto. The blonde boy went through her mind once more before being snapped out of her thoughts by Kiba, who announced that he'd seen a group of Genin nearby. Shino sighed in annoyance as he thought they were about to avoid another fight, but as he was about to confront the Inuzuka for this, the heir of the Hyuuga clan spoke up.
"L-let's fight!" Hinata hesitated for a couple of seconds before continuing. "It's not like we'll achieve anything if we keep fighting like this."
Shino's face remained emotionless, but he was really impressed by the girl he just had thought of as useless and weak. Kiba's face denoted concern and disapproval at first, but it quickly changed to a wide smile as he was also surprise about the Hyuuga's statement. The Inuzuka beckoned his teammates to follow him as he started to plan a strategy.
As they reached a tree that was just behind of where the other teams had stopped, Kiba turned to his partners to explain the plan. Shino wanted to go really straight forward, but he figured that the most intelligent decision would be to hear and follow his friend's instructions. Hinata was perfectly conscious that the plan might exclude her a little, but she was still determined to give her best to accomplish whatever task she needed.
"Alright, so I figured that all of us have great offensive potential, but we need to adapt ourselves to different roles." Kiba made some gestures as he explained so it would be easier to understand. To Shino, this gave the Inuzuka the image of being a good leader, or at least a good teacher. "After briefly analyzing each of your abilities, I decided to have myself and Akamaru as the main force of attack with Shino acting as a support. You, Hinata, will help us with defense by blocking the attacks we're not able to block and by helping us with the third member of the opposing team." Both the bug expert and the Byakugan user nodded in understanding, making Kiba smile pridefully as he was able to perfectly explain his plan to his teammates. "Another thing: we'll all enter the fight from different directions, Shino from behind, Hinata from either the left or right, and Akamaru and I will attack them directly."
"Why didn't you specify in which direction Hinata should attack?" Shino quickly made his question as Kiba stopped talking.
"Because it doesn't really matter where she attacks from, what we need is her to enter right after both of us." His hand gestures had really been helping Hinata as she didn't know that much about war tactics and strategies. "To take them by surprise, you know."
Both Shino and Hinata nodded one more time before dashing through the branches to their respective places. Before going down, Kiba broke one of the branches of the tree he was in purposefully, which scared his dog at first, but as Kiba explained it to it, Akamaru calmed down.
This sound made the other three ninjas aware that someone was there, getting them nervous and helping Kiba achieve the objective he had when doing that. Both the Inuzuka and his dog went down from the tree and quickly charged against the three opposing shinobi, being able to connect several hits before Shino's entrance. The bug expert quickly unleashed a swarm of parasites over one of the shinobi, leaving him unable to fight. Kiba continued fighting against the other two Genin, but as Akamaru attacked one of them, it was a shadow clone. Behind him, the original ninja was about to nail a kunai in the dog trainer's neck; Hinata made a quick and strong entrance, her Byakugan already active, and with just one hit disabled the opponent's arm, giving Kiba the opportunity to give him a finishing blow.
Shino's bugs had already left one of the ninjas unconscious as Akamaru, along with Kiba, attacked the remaining enemy. Hinata found a sky scroll in the bag of one of the Genin, although her trembling hands made it difficult for her to grab it. The bug expert went back to Hinata and extended his hand towards her, getting his teammate to give him the scroll, to which Shino nodded in gratefulness. The dog trainer had defeated the remaining ninja some time ago, but he just wanted to admire her face without her noticing as he thought it would be uncomfortable. Kiba had already accepted the Hyuuga's love for Naruto, it had been hard at first, but he had to let her decide for herself.
"Great job!" Kiba said as he went back to his friends, giving them a big smile.
"Yeah, whatever." Shino said as he hid the scroll inside his jacket. Hinata smiled back at Kiba, making him blush as Akamaru gave him a confused expression.
That was the chapter! I hope you liked it! And if you didn't, feel free to leave your constructive criticism in the review section, as I really appreciate feedback. And if you liked it, I would also appreciate reading your opinion through the reviews.
Anyway, I hope you have a nice day, and see you later!