Well guys, I's back and still tranglin on an on. Now I've gotten some comments on how it's possible that Reiko is far too awsome to be a genin. This is true and I agree with you full-heartedly. He is a bit of a mary-sue. But this story is about him. I made him this way on purpose. I don't want to reveal too much, but I will say that the bigger they are the harder they fall.
READ ON, O' BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF MINE!
I dont own Naruto. Only Reiko. At this point I might consider a trade.
Reiko woke quite suddenly, as he always did when coming out of his self-induced sleepand went about fixing food for himself and Sakura. As he moved over Naruto however, he saw the boy's eyes slowly flutter open. His first reaction was to wake Sakura.
"Sakura, Naruto's awake!" Reiko said to her quite suddenly, shaking her shoulder gently as he did so.
"Ugh…what happened?" Naruto asked groggily as he got up. He sniffed the air a bit and suddenly bolted upright "Is that ramen I smell?"
"As a matter of fact, no." Reiko said, causing Naruto's head to sink instantly "But it is squirrel, and that's pretty good stuff too."
"What are you idiot's doing?" Sasuke suddenly asked with his eyes closed "Man…my neck hurts a lot…"
"Big bad Uchiha san, it seems you decided to join us in the land of the living!" Reiko said joyfully "I guess I'll have to get some more food."
Sakura was tearing up in happiness, and nobody showed any signs of trying to stop her. Reiko quietly slunk off to get some more food, leaving the three of them to talk amongst themselves and allow Sakura to relate the story of how they got away to both of them.
"And after that, Reiko kun carried all three of you here by himself." Sakura said to both Naruto and Sasuke as Reiko walked back up to the camp. "He killed one of the sound nin, got a complete set of scrolls, and put a genjutsu on the two remaining nins with his last remaining strength."
"Wow Reiko san, I didn't know you were that strong." Naruto said in wonderment to Reiko, who sat down next to him.
"I do what I have to when I have to." Reiko said with a smile as he began cooking the meat he had somehow procured "I'm just learned at taking opportunities."
"Thanks for saving us Reiko san." Sasuke said quietly as he took a drink of water, as was his style. For the sake of Sasuke's pride, Reiko pretended not to have heard him.
"Now, for our next order of business." Reiko said, through bites of squirrel and rabbit "We need to get to the tower in the center of the forest. Sakura chan, how many days do we have left?"
"We have about two days." Sakura said informatively "If we make good time, we should be able to make it."
"All right, I say we wait until about noon today and make a mad dash for it." Reiko said, taking another bite of squirrel.
"What about enemy shinobi and traps?" Sakura asked slightly worriedly "There are sure to be teams gathered around the tower waiting for anybody coming, and we're in no condition to fight."
"I don't know about either of you, but I'm just fine!" Naruto boasted loudly "Even if Reiko san did get us all the way here, there's no way any of you could match my stamina!"
"Idiot. It takes more than a single fit person to defeat a group of enemies." Sasuke said coolly "We'll have to sneak in as best we can without alerting anybody to our presence."
"When the word 'sneak' comes up, why do I automatically assume that I'm going to have a big part of this plan?" Reiko whined. There was no way he could possibly take anybody down with his chakra levels so low.
"Well…yeah…" Sasuke said as if it were perfectly obvious and Reiko was a moron for even thinking differently.
"I'm in no condition to fight or get into any sort of small skirmish." Reiko said to him extra slowly to make sure he could comprehend the sentence. "I used my mask to fend off a snake guy, thwarted a team of sound nin, and carried three people on my back for several miles. I'm spent."
"You seem fine to me Reiko san." Naruto said, a questioning look dominating his childlike features.
"…Well I'm not." Reiko retorted, letting himself sink down to a very immature level "I'm just pretending to be all right."
"Well you sure are talking a lot to not be okay…" Naruto continued suspiciously. If nothing else, you had to give him credit for not giving up.
"I'm only doing that because you keep asking questions and I can't sleep." Reiko shot back.
"You really do seem perfectly fine Reiko kun…" Sakura said quietly "Are you sure you're not okay?"
"Look…" Reiko said, finally getting fed up with all the questions "I have next to no chakra left, even after eating and having a good night's rest. I refuse to act as all of your crutch when I wouldn't even attempt to fight in a situation where I DIDN'T have other people's lives depending on me. I'll get to that tower, but I can't do a whole lot else."
"Well…that takes away a lot of our options." Sasuke said shortly, returning back to planning mode "We'll just have to make a dash for it and hope we make it, keeping a sharp eye out all the while."
"Now there's a good plan!" Naruto yelled optimistically. "I'm glad we're gonna stop sneaking around and go in directly!"
"We'll leave in a few hours." Reiko said, standing up "Hey Naruto, why don't you help me get some supplies before we leave."
"Uh…Okay…" Naruto said as he followed Reiko into the woods, though all the while he wondered why they were getting supplies when they were about to finish the exam.
"Okay Naruto, I've been thinking about something, and I need to speak." Reiko said, leaning against a tree as soon as they were out of earshot of Sakura and Sasuke. "Now this may sound funny coming from me, but I think that the Kyuubi was sealed in your navel when you were a baby, and that the demon's power manifests when you experience sever emotional stress."
"Uh…" Naruto said, at a complete loss. Reiko was weird and smart at the same time "That does sound like something you would say…you're a borderline psycho."
"But am I a smart, successful, correct psycho?" Reiko asked with a smile "Or a crummy, evil psycho with bad hygiene?"
"…If I was the retainer of the demon fox…would you be afraid of me?" Naruto asked quietly with his head low.
"Be afraid of you?" Reiko asked confusedly "Hell no I wouldn't be afraid of you! If anything, I would exploit you!"
"What!" Naruto exclaimed, "All the adults hate me and are afraid of me! Why aren't you like any of them?"
"Dude, you've seen what I see. I've got much scarier things in front of me as we speak." Reiko scoffed "Were you scared of me when I put on my mask?"
"Well…yeah…" Naruto answered truthfully "You were more of a demon than I ever was…You turned the world around you into hell…"
"Oh come on, it wasn't as bad as all that." Reiko said, rolling his eyes "At any rate, we'll need you to get us to the tower. You got the demon brudda."
"I'll keep that in mind…." Naruto said, scratching the back of his head "So what are we supposed to get out here."
"Nothing really, but I was going to get some medicinal herbs just in case we need them." Reiko said with a shrug, picking some leaves off what appeared to be the nearest bush.
"I didn't know you knew anything about medicinal plants." Naruto said as he started to help him.
"Yeah, Haku chan taught me all about them." Reiko said with a smile "It's basically all memorization. I prefer hacking things to pieces of course."
>>>>>
In an hour, they were already underway, flying through the trees at a grueling pace. Neither Sakura or Sasuke had suspected Naruto or Reiko of discussing anything, and were still in the dark about the Kyuubi demon. So far, they were about an hour away from the tower, and had about an hour left in the exam.
"All right Reiko san, even if you can't fight, we need you to keep an eye out for genjutsu traps." Sasuke said to Reiko, who was barely able to keep up with them.
"Okay. I can do that." Reiko said with a nod "So does that mean you want to know about the trap we're in right now?"
"We're in a trap and you didn't tell us!" Sasuke exclaimed, very much agitated that they had been caught and somebody knew about it.
"Well yeah. It's a simple trap that makes us walk around in circles." Reiko explained "Our enemy is probably hiding in the trees somewhere, waiting to strike us down."
No sooner had the words exited his mouth, they were under attack by what looked to be an army of rain nin. Upon closer inspection, it was the same rain nin they had spared back at the beginning of the exam. Everybody groaned a bit at that, especially Reiko, who muttered about how he should have killed him when he had the chance.
"Well, since I don't think you need me here, I'm going to use one of my favorite tactics." Reiko said with grin.
" KIRIKIERU NO JUTSU" Reiko announced as he put his hands into a single seal and his body turned into mist, which faded away shortly after.
"Stupid coward…" Sasuke muttered under his breath as he turned on his sharingan. As soon as he did though, his entire body started feeling like it was tearing itself apart.
"Sasuke kun, what's wrong?" Sakura exclaimed as she went over to his crumpled figure.
"They're all fakes…" Sasuke panted from his position on the ground. "The real enemies are hiding in the trees."
"KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU" Naruto yelled, creating a small army of shadow clones. Before anybody could do anything, the two forces collided, each side receiving and giving blows left and right.
Meanwhile, Reiko was sprinting off in the direction of the tower. Truthfully, he was very glad to not be involved in another fight, even if it did mean putting his teammates in jeapordy for it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something shining in the light momentarily. Letting curiosity get the better of him, he decided to go and see what it was.
"Hey kid." Zabuza said, reclined on a tree branch with his feet up as Reiko walked up "You think it was okay to leave your team back there?"
"I'm next to useless in my current condition." Reiko said to the assassin "I would have only weighed them down, so I left."
"That was a nice genjutsu imitation of the Kirikieru no jutsu that you did back there…And that pathetic Kirigakure…" Zabuza said haughtily "I would have thought you would be able to at least produce enough mist to cover yourself."
"Go to hell you god damned son of a bitch!" Reiko yelled at him "You know better than I do that most of my training has been swordplay."
"Watch your language." Haku said from behind him, making him jump at least three feet into the air.
"Haku chan…you scared me half to death." Reiko said, trying to slow his heartbeat down "But I assume you two have been watching the entire exam. Who was that snake guy?"
"That was a guy named Orochimaru." Zabuza explained "He's a missing nin as well, but before that, he was one of Konoha's three sannin."
"A sannin!" Reiko explained in disbelief "You mean to tell me that I fought one of the strongest shinobi ever!"
"It would seem that way." Haku said with a weak smile "But you did good all the same. At least he didn't kill you."
"You're telling me…" Reiko said as he sat down and ran a hand through his hair "But now I'm totally wiped. There's no way I could stand up in another fight."
"If that's the case, take this." Haku said, handing Reiko a small pill "We didn't want to help you, but there are going to be some semi-finals ahead, and we want you to win."
"You know that this would be considered cheating don't you?" Reiko said as he took the pill and quickly swallowed it "You don't come in to this exam and just give people soldier pills."
"We're missing nin…we don't have any qualms about cheating." Zabuza said from his comfortable seat "Now get your skinny ass to that tower. Your friends are already heading there."
"Zabuza sama, watch your language." Haku said slightly threateningly to Zabuza, who merely grunted in response and looked off into the distance.
"If that's the case, then I need to get going. I'll see you guys after I'm done with the semi-finals." Reiko said, bounding off through the trees toward the tower.
Reiko met Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke at the tower, just as they were getting there. They wouldn't have been able to go in, of course, but they were there, and that's all that mattered. Well, not really, but kind of…
They prepared themselves to go in, while Reiko just opened the door and walked in. They could almost swear he was doing it just to ruin the mood of the moment. Once inside, Reiko handed Naruto the scrolls, and he opened each of them.
"Congratulations." Said a voice that emerged from the explosion that opening the scrolls created "You have passed this portion of the chuunin exam!"
"Iruki sensei!" Naruto exclaimed, seeing his teacher standing before him "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate you personally." Iruka said with a smile "It's not a job a whole lot of people line up for so I got it pretty easily."
"So you're here to say congratulations and tell us about the chuunin's motto?" Reiko asked him with one eyebrow raised.
"Well…yeah…" Iruka said, scratching the back of his head "Do you already know the motto or something?"
"Well, I kinda just read that thing up there and filled in the blanks…It's not really all that hard to discern." Reiko said "It basically just means train your weaknesses and become stronger as a whole."
"I guess that takes care of my first job…" Iruka said slightly uncomfortably "I guess all I have to tell you after that is that there are going to be some semi-finals and wish you luck."
"Thank you Iruka sensei!" Naruto said, jumping up and hugging Iruka around the neck and then proceeding to bounce around everywhere yelling about how he passed. Because of the rather joyous situation, they decided not to hassle him this one time.
"Okay you four, go in there and fight your hardest!" Iruka said, guiding them to the small arena where they would be fighting.