Author's Notes: It's been a few days since the last time I posted and I apologize. This chapter's been written for a while, but I broke my foot this week and the pain medication has been making me sleep a lot. I'm not certain how soon the next chapter will be posted. No more than a couple of weeks, more than likely, but let me apologize for the lateness in advance for that one too.
At any rate, I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story so far. We're more than halfway done at this point so just stick around for a little while longer and I hope you'll be pleased. This series hasn't been particularly action-oriented lately, but that's going to change fairly soon. Also, a lot of the political stuff that's been in the backgroud is about to move to the foreground. And there will be angst, though hopefully it won't become overwhelming.
Chapter Fourteen: Cacophony
A week had passed since Suzu's confrontation with Renjiro and Iruka's discussion with the Hokage. Suzu had returned to Iruka's apartment after leaving the hotel and had waited there until he arrived. When he returned, she explained that she and Renjiro had a falling out and asked Iruka if he wouldn't mind if she stayed with him for a few days. Still smarting from his argument with Tsunade, and seeing the wounded look in Suzu's eyes, Iruka couldn't say no. After a day or two, Suzu seemed to calm down considerably, and by the end of the week she realized that she really did need to return to the hotel and her companions.
"Renjiro was right about them needing me," she sighed, and Iruka simply took her in his arms and told her he'd support whatever decision she made.
Eventually, Suzu returned to the rest of the Sound refugees and they welcomed her back with open arms. Relations with her former sensei were practically non-existent, however; she and Renjiro lived in the same series of rooms and went about their day-to-day lives, but did not directly interact save for a few necessary words here and there.
This went on for several days, until Renjiro received a summons from Konoha's Hokage that eventually required direct interaction with Suzu, as well as the rest of his team.
Renjiro, still shaken from Suzu's sudden departure and even more surprising return, stood outside the door to the Hokage's office bright and early the morning of the summons. He'd arrived almost immediately after receiving the message, though he knew full well that the Hokage hadn't expected him to respond so quickly. Renjiro was currently looking for reasons to avoid remaining in the same place as the rest of the refugees, however, so the Hokage's summons was an excellent excuse to get him out of the hotel. It did cross his mind that he might be waiting here a very long time if the Hokage had other business to attend to, but with current circumstances being as they were, Renjiro wasn't so sure he'd mind.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, the door to the Hokage's office opened a few moments later and, yawning, Tsunade waved him inside.
"I sent Shizune out for breakfast," she muttered, when Renjiro remarked upon her attendant's absence, and then directed him to a chair in front of her desk.
"I'm going to get right to the point," she said, as soon as he was seated. "It's still too early for me to worry about formalities, so please excuse me if I'm a little abrupt. As you know, my men have been training hard, the better to combat Orochimaru and his forces when the time comes to attack. I realize that you and your people have also been training for this eventuality. However, I thought it might be beneficial to both of us if our ninja could train together for once. Therefore I've set up a sort of mock-battle to test both our skills and determine our weak points."
"Mock-battle," Renjiro repeated, pretending that he couldn't see right through Tsunade's ploy at learning more about the refugees' abilities, "War games?"
"Exactly," Tsunade gave him a too bright smile.
"And when exactly would you like to hold these… war games?" Renjiro asked, arching an eyebrow.
"I've set aside one of our training fields three days from now. Do you think you and your people can be ready by then?"
"I don't see why not," Renjiro said, with a shrug. Then, when there was only silence from Tsunade, "Is there anything else you need from me, Hokage-sama?"
"Yes there is, now that you mention it," Tsunade gave him another of her brittle smiles, "I'd like it if you could give me a rundown of the various skill levels of your people, that way I can make sure to have a well-balanced team to challenge you."
"Very well," Renjiro said, sighing inwardly at this artifice, "My team will consist of one Jounin, myself, and four Chuunin. I would suggest the other team be made up of ninja of similar levels. I personally excel in taijutsu, so someone skilled in hand to hand combat would be a good match for me. Though the rest of my team are Chuunin, they possess varying levels of skill, thus it might be a good idea to have a wide range of skill levels on the opposing team. The youngest, Keiji, has been a Chuunin for less than two years, so someone else new to Chuunin-level experiences might be the best match for him. The two women, Eriko and Suzu, are both mid-range Chuunin, as far as ability levels go, though Suzu is a taijutsu specialist and Eriko is a medical specialist with some unique ninjutsu. Our remaining member, Juro, is skilled in a number of areas and is probably ready to be promoted to Jounin, so if you have another Chuunin who exceeds Chuunin levels, or a Jounin who has only recently been promoted, you might want to have them on the opposing team."
Tsunade nodded and scribbled something on a ledger as Renjiro talked, finally looking up when he finished. "I think all that can be arranged. Is there anything else you can think of that would help you prepare for this training exercise?"
"Let us know who are opponents are prior to the match, that way we can gain intelligence on them before engaging them in combat." It was a stretch, Renjiro knew, but if this were a real-life situation, his team wouldn't make a move without knowing as much as possible about those they were set to battle.
Surprisingly, however, Tsunade agreed with him. "I don't think that will be a problem, but be prepared for the other team to gather information on you as well."
"Understood, Hokage-sama."
"I'll be sending you a file later this afternoon with the names of the members of the opposing team. Thank you for taking the time to do this and for coming to see me."
"Certainly, Hokage-sama. It was my pleasure."
Once Renjiro had left her office, Tsunade pulled the book that contained all the current Konoha ninja registration forms from her bookshelf. Flipping through it, she decided to choose the Jounin member of Konoha's team first.
"Someone who's good at hand to hand combat," she muttered under her breath as she searched, then paused suddenly when she came across the registration form for Sarutobi Asuma. "Perfect," Tsunade smiled, and then looked up as Shizune bustled into her office, a breakfast tray balanced precariously on top of several ledgers. "Shizune, would you please send in Izumo and Kotetsu the moment they arrive? I've got a few files I need them to look up."
"Of course, Tsunade-sama," Shizune replied, and Tsunade was suddenly struck with another brilliant idea.
Izumo and Kotetsu. They were both mid-range Chuunin, and since they worked directly for her they would be more than willing to participate in her little experiment. Also, since they primarily did clerical work for her, it would be incredibly difficult for the other team to gather any sort of intelligence on their abilities.
Tsunade chuckled to herself and continued searching for the final two members to round out Konoha's team. She didn't have to look far, however, as the next form she came across was that of Nara Shikamaru.
'Well, Renjiro did ask for someone who didn't have much experience as a Chuunin,' Tsunade grinned, 'So what if they might get more than they bargained for with Shikamaru. All was fair in love and war, right? Especially in mock-war.'
Quite pleased with how her team was coming together, Tsunade continued searching for the final member to be the icing on the cake. Then, almost as if by the grace of god, she flipped to the page containing the registration form for the final perfect participant in her information gathering experiment.
'Oh this is going to be good,' Tsunade thought, this time grinning openly, 'I can't wait to see how this plays out.'
"They want us to participate in war games?" Juro said dubiously, when Renjiro finally called all the refugees together for a meeting.
"They're trying to discover out our capabilities, mostly," Renjiro sighed, tiredly, "But I do agree that it could be an excellent training experience."
"And we're allowed to gather information on the other team beforehand?" Suzu asked, sounding just as unsure as Juro.
"Yes, I argued for that particular point specifically," Renjiro replied.
"So who are the members of the other team," Eriko finally asked, and Renjiro pulled the file Tsunade had sent to the hotel out of its envelope.
"The Jounin on their team is Sarutobi Asuma," Renjiro began.
"He was one of the guys who came with us on the retrieval mission," said Juro, nodding to himself, "The one with the knives and the bad smoking habit, remember?"
The rest of the refugees nodded in response while Renjiro continued. "The lowest level Chuunin on their team is named Nara Shikamaru," he read, "Only recently promoted from Genin. Well, we shouldn't have much trouble with him, I'd suspect."
"The two mid-level Chuunin are Kamizuki Izumo and Hagane Kotetsu. I've never heard of them, but from what little information we've been given, I'd assume they're fairly well rounded. And the final member of the opposing team…" Renjiro flipped the page and blanched suddenly.
"Well, who is it?" Juro asked, puzzled by Renjiro's reaction.
Renjiro looked up from the file, and stared directly at Suzu.
"Umino Iruka."
Iruka couldn't believe Tsunade was making him do this. First she chewed him out about dating Suzu, then she asked him to spy on her, and now she wanted to put him in a situation where it was possible he could cause her physical harm. Iruka wondered if Tsunade secretly held a grudge against him that he didn't know about. Granted he'd been more than a little rude to her on a few occasions, but he was known for being, well… outspoken. Surely she didn't take it personally?
Iruka leaned against the railing of the balcony where Asuma had called a meeting and rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. Currently the bearded Jounin was reading over the various statistics his team had gathered about the opposing team. Although most of it was information Iruka already knew, he was bound to listen to Asuma, just in case someone had thrown in something that he hadn't already found out.
"The Jounin in their group, Miho Renjiro," Asuma read aloud, "Thirty-five years old. Taijutsu specialist. Possesses a special jutsu that allows him to create blades of pure chakra to attack his opponents. Used to be an advisor to the Kage of the Hidden Village of Sound. Formerly the sensei of Terada Juro and Arai Suzu."
"Terada Juro. High-level Chuunin, age twenty-two. Genjutsu specialist and possibly the most potentially powerful of their group. Will likely be promoted to Jounin shortly. He's clever, remarkably talented at illusions, and competent in both taijutsu and ninjutsu, so remain alert around this one."
"Arai Suzu. Mid-level Chuunin, age twenty-one." At that, Asuma looked up and grinned wolfishly at Iruka, "Been robbing the cradle a bit, have we, Iruka?"
Iruka just scowled at him.
"Suzu's another taijutsu specialist," Asuma continued, "She possesses a lesser form of Renjiro's "Spirit Blade" ability. She can channel chakra into actual weapons to increase their damage. She doesn't seem to have his chakra control or stamina, however, so if you can distract her, she may not be able to maintain her special jutsu."
"Nishio Eriko. Mid-level Chuunin, age twenty-six. Medical specialist. We weren't able to find out much else about her, unfortunately. Tsunade mentioned something about her possessing special jutsus, but we don't know what they are, so use extreme caution when dealing with her."
"Finally, Jo Keiji. Low level Chuunin, age nineteen. We don't know much about him either, but from what Iruka's told us we can assume he possesses some musical or sound-related jutsus, most likely illusion or emotion-oriented. He's the least experienced of the group and doesn't seem to work well with others, so if you can isolate him, do so. He should be pretty easy to take out without the rest of his team to back him up."
"Well that's about it," Asuma said, wrapping things up. "Tsunade expects us to meet at the training field tomorrow morning at dawn."
"Dawn?" groaned Shikamaru.
"Yes dawn, so everyone go home and relax and get a good night's sleep. I want to win this thing," Asuma gave them an almost feral grin.
With that, the team dispersed, and Iruka turned to walk slowly back to his apartment, muttering darkly under his breath the entire time. He hoped that he wouldn't have to face Suzu on the field of battle the following day, but knowing how his luck been running lately, he had a sinking feeling that it just might come down to that. Iruka hoped he'd make the right decision when the time came… whatever the right decision might be.