Seven reviews and over 20 on both favorites and follows on the first chapter. Y'all are amazing, and I didn't see much reason to screw around and not get this chapter out to you ASAP. It warms my little old lady heart to know there's some Naruino love alive and well in this community after all this time and as long as you guys keep this pace up? I'll keep these chapters cranked out as fast as humanly possible. Why not? I'm stuck in quarantine hell as it is lol.
Chapter 2: The Test Begins
Of the multiple training zones that surrounded the outskirts of the village, zone five was easily on of the most flexible in terms of exercises you could do. A large section of forest, and one of the smaller yet still formidable mountains lent themselves well to shinobi training. Kakashi had wondered where to begin, and after some thought he had the perfect way to test his new students. From the reports he was given access to once he selected them, all three of them were stubborn and brash in their own ways, Naruto sticking out especially. So, they needed a way to test their ability to put that aside and work together. And with that, he had it. The next morning, when the team arrived just outside the training zone, they were kept waiting for just a little bit longer than yesterday, but at least the excuse he gave was a little bit better, at least if you asked him. Smiling, despite the vicious verbal lashing Ino unleashed on him, he produced three things from his pockets. One was a small bundle of red cloths, folded into a triangle shape. The other were two bento boxes, still sealed up. "The exercise is simple. Make your way through the forest area and retrieve one of these two flags that will be situated atop the mountain peak. Through this exercise I plan to test your problem solving and combat capabilities." Ino raised a eyebrow.
"Okay, that seems straight forward enough. But what's with the bento boxes, sensei?"
"Ah, right. Well, you see, as an extra incentive to get you to hurry along and not take all day, only the two of you that manage to retrieve one of these flags will be given a box to eat. You'll have until the end of the day, sunset to be precise. If none of you can retrieve one of the flags, then you'll have to sit and watch while I eat both. And don't think you can just flop the challenge if things go south and then we can move on. We'll repeat this challenge every day until you succeed. And until you do that, you will not be going on any official missions. So, it's to your best interests to get this done as fast as possible and on your first attempt," he said. Kiba scowled.
"So, what exactly is supposed to be testing us here? The forest is big, sure, but it's not like there's anything nastier in there than a wolf or something," he said. Naruto hadn't considered that, but Kiba had a point. Sure, some wildlife might be in there, but even a first-year academy student didn't have to really worry about those. Kakashi however didn't seem phased by Kiba's sour tone. Or if he was, he certainly wasn't betraying any sort of look, not that you could easily tell with most of his face covered like it was.
"Give me some credit, would you? I'm going to be your opponent," he said simply, making a nervous laugh escape from Naruto's lips, while Ino gulped. "That's right. Just think of me as…the monster in the maze as it were. The test will officially begin when all three of you have entered the forest. From there, whatever happens and how long it takes, that's on you. Are you prepared?" The team exchanged a look and then each gave him a quick nod. Making a hand seal, Kakashi gave one last grin under his mask. "Very well. Then we can begin!" with that, he vanished into a puff of smoke. A moment passed before Naruto smirked. He wasn't going to wait! That food was as good as his, he could practically feel it. Without a word, he tucked his head and bolted for the tree line. Ino sighed angrily
"Naruto! Get back here, we need to think of a plan!" her shouts were ignored as the blond-haired boy disappeared from sight quickly. "Kiba, what on earth are we going to do with him?" Silence. When she looked, Kiba was also gone, in a completely different path than Naruto, but gone none the less. Ino let out a frustrated growl. "Damn it all…why did I have to get put on a team with these two knuckleheads?! A broom and mop would be better!" She snapped as she too ran into the trees. The light was instantly dimmed, the thick canopy of the forest blocking out most of the rays from the early afternoon sun. She ran straight through for a bit, before finally having to come to a halt when she sensed as though she was being watched. "Oh good…the two idiots take off, and I'm the first one found. If it wasn't for lousy luck, I wouldn't have any." As she searched the trees for Kakashi she noticed that the edges of her vision were starting to cloud. It was subtle at first, but soon her vision began to swim, and she was only faintly aware of a blurry shape on a tree branch nearby.
"I must admit, I'm somewhat disappointed. I would've expected someone from the Yamanaka family to be better equipped to deal with a genjutsu attack, but I suppose not everyone is cut from the same cloth in your family, are they?" Kakashi's somewhat mocking tone reached her, and though her senses were continuing to rebel against her, she felt a spike of anger inside at this and began to push back against the feeling. By now, her arms and legs had started to go numb, but she grit her teeth and continued pushing as hard as she could, eventually forming the proper hand seal to release herself. However, her vision had scarcely cleared before Kakashi was bearing down again, and this time after a brief struggle, she was restrained by an earth style technique that had her buried up to her shoulders. She could hardly move even her fingers and if she was annoyed now, she was utterly fuming. As Kakashi walked away to try and find the others, she heard several not so thinly veiled threats. Oddly enough, most of them seemed directed and Kiba and Naruto rather than himself. Ooh boy, this was certainly a fierce team, he could already tell.
It was much the same going with Kiba when he discovered him. Kiba fought like a wild beast, but his taijutsu relied far too much on Akamaru. Once he'd dealt with the ninja hound by summoning one of his own and he could divide and conquer, the fight didn't take too long. Rather than leave Kiba where he was however, he picked the dazed genin up, his hound doing the same to Akamaru by the nape of his neck and they made their way back to Ino who by now had nearly screamed herself hoarse trying to call for help. Her eyes widened when Kakashi dropped Kiba by her, and his hound did the same to Akamaru before vanishing with a poof. As Kiba regained his full consciousness, he paused, took in Ino's appearance, and backed away, freaking out a bit. "The hell happened to you?!" he said pointing from her, to Kakashi, then back again. "When you said survival test, I knew something was up, but holy hell, you don't think this is a little extreme?!" Ino's eye twitched and she scowled.
"I'm just buried, you moron he didn't chop me up or anything! And besides, you'd know that if you and Naruto hadn't ditched me and left me to go it alone!"
"How in the world was I supposed to know you'd get caught that easily?! At least I managed to put up a fight, you look like you don't even have a scratch on you!"
"Oh-ho, Mr. tough talk! Yeah, you really looked like you put up a fight when he dragged your unconscious carcass back here. If your so certain your better than me, how about you dig me out and then we can just find out ourselves right here and now? How's that sound dog breath?" she snapped. Kakashi, his eye widened a bit, slowly backed away, only faintly hearing Kiba's indignant response to that as he quickly made his way out of earshot from the bickering pair. He had to find Naruto before those two wound up killing one another. And it wasn't much harder than it was Kiba. Naruto's tracking skills being a slow as they were on all the tests made sense. He was about as subtle as a rhino, and Kakashi narrowed in on him quickly. He put up a small amount of resistance, his clones causing Kakashi a headache, but in the end, one on one, the outcome was pretty much inevitable. What was funny was, unlike Kiba who had been out of it on the way back to Ino, he didn't get that luxury with Naruto. His feet and hands bound, all Naruto could do was wiggle around like a worm on Kakashi's shoulder and by the time he got back, Ino was out of the ground and on the verge of throttling Kiba, her hand gripping his jacket tightly.
"Well, I see you two are still at it," Kakashi said, dropping Naruto on the ground. Kiba shook Ino's hand off and knelt down, cutting the ropes around Naruto's limbs, allowing him to move freely. "No offense, but its barely been over an hour and all three of you failed. Miserably."
"It was their fault for leaving!" Ino yelled
"What?! Look here you blonde-headed, boy-obsessed little-"
"Finish that sentence, I dare you!"
"What are you guys complaining about? I was the one tied up like a farm animal or something, and least that didn't happen to you!" Naruto threw in
"Shut up, Naruto!" Ino and Kiba both yelled, and now they were all trying to shout over one another and Kakashi ran a hand down his masked face. He'd encountered some stubborn shinobi in his day, but gods save him if this was what it was going to be like every time something didn't go entirely to plan for them. He tried to be patient, tried to let them fizzle out on their own, but after ten straight minutes of them overlapping one another in their attempt to be the loudest, he could take no more. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a kunai towards them. It didn't hit any of them, not that he'd been trying to, but the tool blurring past them and imbedding into a tree snapped them from their argument.
"That's quite enough, don't you think?" he said, his tone lowered, and his eye narrowed. Any protests they might have been angling for seemed to fade and they all looked in differing directions, guilt apparent on their features. Kakashi took a breath, mastering his own frustration before continuing. "Look. I understand that being taken down this fast is a frustrating experience. And I can appreciate a little bit of venting. But you all got a long way to go if you think screaming at one another is an appropriate response to this. The three of you are going to be going into the field eventually, and if you can't trust one another long enough to finish a training experiment, how in the world are you ever going to trust one another when your lives are on the line?" For the first time, none of them even tried to muster a reply. "Ino. Instead of screaming at Naruto and Kiba for splitting off, you should have calmly offered up what ever your alternative solution was. And Kiba and Naruto, do I even need to say it? You two going off on your own, not communicating, leaving the least combat capable person in a one-on-one scenario alone-no offense Ino-made the mission a failure before it even began. A rival squad of shinobi trying to kill you would've picked you off just as easily, if not even more so. You need to accentuate one another's strengths, not your weaknesses." Ino sighed softly, sharing a look with Naruto and then Kiba.
"He's right…. I'm sorry, guys," she mumbled.
"Yeah, me too," Naruto said
"Same here," Kiba said, scratching the back of his head, Akamaru whimpering a bit with his own little apology. He turned and looked at Kakashi. "Sensei, I know you said we already failed but…would it be alright if we try again? Like you said, it's only been about an hour, we still got plenty of time before sunset. We promise we'll work out something together," he added. Kakashi pretended to think about, not really objecting, but wanting to see their reactions before he shrugged.
"Fine. Remember I told you to pack something for a snack? I'll give you thirty minutes to eat what you brought and come up with a plan. I'll be waiting for you at the foot of the mountain beyond the woods. When you feel like you're ready, meet me there. Understood?" They nodded and disappeared in a blur. They all let out a sigh, sitting down in a circle, Akamaru curled up in the middle of them. Nobody seemed to know how to start the conversation off at first, so they busied themselves unpacking the small snacks they'd brought. Ino had chosen a couple little bags of a type of trail mix, Kiba some sort of dried meat, and Naruto perhaps unsurprisingly had opted for a couple of his favorite candy bars. Wasn't much, but he wanted to pack light, and if he couldn't have ramen of some type this was the next best thing.
"Well, let's start…" Ino said, crumping up the empty bags and stuffing them back into her pack. "Do you think it might be possible to sneak around wherever he'll be waiting and head up and grab the flags before he even knows what's going on? Kiba shook his head.
"The fact that he told us where'd he be exactly and that he'd be waiting for us makes me thing that the main path is a no go, and he'll probably have some type of trap waiting on any of the side routes that might be there. And anyway, if stealthy was still an option here, I doubt he'd have been so open with what he wanted us to do. No…I think the only way were getting those flags is if we barrel through him somehow. But even with the three of us, that's not going to be as simple as you might think. I don't know what he pulled on you two, but me and Akamaru tried a frontal assault, and he countered everything we thought would work without so much as a second thought."
"And my clone trick didn't work either. He just cloned himself and wore me down until he was able to capture me," Naruto said with a bit of a huff. Ino chuckled a bit before looking down at the ground. She picked a stick up from nearby and drew a rough image of the battleground they'd be working with.
"So, a frontal assault is iffy, but It's also the least complex of our options…and my transfer jutsu isn't a sure thing either. We'd have to hold him down somehow, and even if I did it, there's no guarantee that I could hold him long enough for you two to make it up there," she said. She noticed Naruto staring at her out of the corner of her eye and she frowned a bit. "What is it? Look, I know I might not be the most ideal for some knock down fight but I can still-"
"No, it's not that. I was…. just wondering what happens if you miss that jutsu of yours when you're trying to use it on someone?"
"Come to think of it, that's not a bad question. I thought something similar," Kiba said. Ino looked at them both in turn and shrugged.
"If I miss, my soul usually takes some time, but it always comes back into my body eventually. Sometimes in a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes. Nobody knows exactly how it happens, but if our souls just stayed gone if we missed, my clan would've died out ages ago," she said. "The truth is, it's a big reason why so many of the members of my clan work in the intelligence corps exclusively. A lot of our abilities aren't ideal for combat scenarios, or at least the basic stuff I know isn't. I didn't want that to be where I was stuck, though. I wanted to show that adhering to some stupid stereotype about where your clan is 'best suited' to be is just a stupid excuse to not try too hard," she said. "I've been trying to work on other forms of jutsu, but it's a pain in the neck.
"Hell yeah, I like that" Kiba smirked. He looked down at the shapes she'd drawn indicating who was who and his smirk fell away. "That said…if you're going to be out of commission if you miss, it's best not to try it, right? That'd just leave me and Naruto, and I don't know if we could make that work."
"I could always use a clone, right? Send it along to grab the flags while we distract him?"
"Nah, he'd just break away somehow or make a clone of his own." Ino chewed on her lip as Naruto and Kiba continued to go back and forth with some ideas before her eyes lit up. There was one way she could think of that she could use her mind transfer ability effectively and reliably. She cleared her throat, and they abruptly stopped, looking at her. "Ohhh boy, I know that look. You came up with something just now, didn't you Ino?" he said. She smiled and nodded. "Well come on now, don't keep us in suspense, woman," he said as he and Naruto turned towards her.
"Okay, so hear me out. I agree that if we try and sneak along one of the side routes up the mountain, we'd be tripping over ourselves, trying to find a way around the traps he probably has waiting. But I also agree that a frontal attack would be us just beating our head against the wall and crossing our fingers. BUT there is a way that we can be sneaky, and do a frontal attack to draw his attention," she said with a grin. The boys tilted their heads, not really understanding. "Naruto, those clones you make. They're not just illusions, right? Their actual extensions of your consciousness?" Naruto nodded. "Then I can use my mind transfer on them. I take control of the clone, and go up one of the side paths, while you and Kiba attack from the front and keep him busy. I'm good at spotting and disarming traps, all I'd need is the time to work my way through them without worrying about Kakashi-Sensei breathing down my neck."
"Not a bad idea, but won't he notice that you're not with us and catch on pretty quickly?" Kiba asked.
"Nope! See, Naruto's clones being solid, actual fighters is a big part of why this might work. He makes two clones. One for me to take control of, and he transforms the other into a copy of me. That way, Kakashi-Sensei thinks the three of us are fighting together, meanwhile I'm slipping up the side to grab the flags."
"Why do you have to use your mind transfer though? If Naruto is going to fake being you, why make an extra clone? You could just go on your own, right?" Ino blinked a few times before sighing, staring down at the ground with a glum look.
"Your right…jeez, I got ahead of myself. Thanks for reminding me, Kiba," she said with a chuckle.
"Ah, no worries, it's what being on a team is all about right? Anything one person can't think of, we just cover the gaps, right?" she looked and saw Naruto and him both smiling and she couldn't help but return it. Naruto clapped her on the back, laughing.
"Huh…y'know, I always thought you were kind of an airhead, Ino, but this plan is better than anything I could've come up with at least," Naruto said.
"Why thank you, I thought so myself-AIRHEAD?! Who the hell are you calling an airhead you little-"Kiba clapped his hand over her mouth, and sighed. Once Ino calmed down, they stood and with a deep breath, they headed out to, hopefully, put their plan into action.
And that is chapter two all wrapped up! Seriously, you guys have blown me away with the support on this fic so far. And if you keep it up, you got my word I'll keep these updates coming just as fast as my fingers can type lol. If you enjoyed it, review, follow, favorite and all that good stuff, and I will see you next time.
Till next time, fellow readers-
-Elise
