A/N: So school started, and my first week back is hectic. But here is the new chapter, Chunin exam part one. Thank you guys for all the follows and favourites and reviews, I am so flattered by them! the next chapter will probably be out in a week, so stay tuned. Also, now that I have a consistent flow of the story, I promise that each chapter will not be shorter than 5000 words, and for the majority of times, it would probably be around 5500 - 6500 words per chapter.
Beta'd by the fantastic Alice J (AliceJ: Who is also awesome and fantastic and - *pushed into a well by a highly stressed author*)
Chapter 6 - Camaraderie
Two weeks passed in a flash when you were constantly training. I arrived at the village gates with Itachi, seeing another slightly older team already gathered at the gates.
"Maiko, Itachi, finally, I thought for once that the two perfect little shinobi overslept." Shun yelled at us and waved. I looked over, seeing the familiar sight of Shun's orange hair and Akira-sensei's sandy hair. However, I failed to recognize the sight of the silver haired jonin beside those two. No, I had a feeling I'd seen him somewhere, but it's so fleeting that I couldn't remember it at all.
"Shut up, Shun, we are right on time." I retorted, it's usually just me and Shun bickering, Itachi was too bored to join us.
"Manners, Maiko, we have company. Don't want to ruin your perfect lady image so soon." Shun pointed to his left toward the silver-haired stranger.
"I guess I should introduce you guys." Akira-sensei said as he turned toward the stranger, "Everyone, this is Jonin Hatake Kakashi, he will be accompany our team to the Sunagakure, he will be acting as a second instructor for Team six, as he was preparing to take on a genin team soon. Now the three of you can introduce yourself." I eyed the jonin - Hatake Kakashi, I couldn't read his emotions, nor his micro-facial expression. Lies, lies, lies, this whole thing reeked of lies. After four years with Akira-sensei, I could tell his micro-facial expression very well. When he was explaining, it wasn't natural, but there were no sign of coercion or numbness, which means he was doing it willingly.
"Yamanaka Shun, sensor." Shun was the first to start.
"Uchiha Itachi, long range." Itachi said.
"Uchiha Maiko, close combat." I have no idea why we were explaining our role, it's not like we were defined by it. But since both Shun and Itachi went with it, I might as well roll with it. A small part of me registered this as one of Shun's plot, he was cunningly smart, fooling people with his deceptive plans.
"Hatake Kakashi, please to meet you all. I will be acting kinda like teaching assistant to Akira-senpai, so if you have any questions, please feel free to ask." He said calmly. I still couldn't shake off the feeling that I've seen him from somewhere, maybe even just a back shadow.
"Well, plenty of time to get to know each other on the way. For now, let's depart, it's going to be a long journey." Akira-sensei stopped us as if he could sense the tension building in the air.
The journey into Suna would take at least a week for us Genins, so we set up tents during the night. Since we had five people in team six, us three genins were forced to share a tent while our two teachers shared the next one.
"Are you sure you had never heard of him? Kakashi of the Sharingan, ring any bells? The copy ninja Kakashi?" Shun looked at me unbelievably as we got ready to sleep for the day.
"Sharingan? That's interesting. But no, it doesn't ring any bell." I said to him nonchalantly.
"I heard his presence disappeared for a few years after the end of the Third Shinobi War. But even now his reputation is still memorable." Shun continued.
"Disappeared, huh, that sounds sketchy… I'm going out for a second, you guys sleep." I said to them as I went out of the tent. I really hated uncertainty, so there's something I needed to check.
We were still in the forest region of Fire Country, one could barely see the shine of moon past the thick leaves. How ironic, for such a land, with all the fighting it went through, never seemed to lose its serenity.
I quickly identified the target, the silver haired jonin was standing by the tree, looking bored as always. One of his eyes was hidden by his hitai-ate, it's safe to assume that it's his sharingan.
"Ah, can't sleep, Uchiha-kun? You should really rest before tomorrow's journey, we will be advancing into the desert soon." Kakashi looked at me perceptively.
"I just have a few questions about lightning ninjutsu, didn't you say that we could ask you questions anytime? Hatake-sensei." I spoke the last few words slowly as if mocking his pretense.
"Of course, ask away." He smiled tensely, and I gave him one of those innocent fake smiles. I'm sure he could see through it if his sharingan was not for show.
"I have trouble controlling the chakra I'm sending out in my jutsu. For example, I have a lightning jutsu that requires remote control, let's say I just want to paralyze someone, but I couldn't be sure that I won't kill him." I said perfectly calmly. It's not all bullshit, and I couldn't feel the strength of my lightning dragon once it left my palm.
"Ah, common problem. That's why we tried to contact and control our lightning jutsu rather than use it as a projectile. I would like to see your jutsu, but I'd assume that it would be flashy. So for now, you should try to practice by keeping it to your body and get used to the lightning chakra outage before you shoot them off. The more you use the jutsu, the more you should be able to feel the connection even if you are not in contact with it. But for now, I assume you want to use it by the time of the Chunin exam, the best way is to be sure of the chakra amount before hand so that you won't have to worry about it once it leaves your body." Kakashi of the Sharingan explained. I thought about it, everything he said seemed to make sense, well, theoretically speaking, it's not like I hadn't tried it before. But with the short time I was able to keep the lightning in my palm before letting it loose, the progress was slow.
"Well, thank you, Hatake-sensei, after all, we don't want to cause any accidental deaths, do we." I said with a innocent tone, honestly, I didn't know why I said that, it seemed like I was suggesting something. It's just that feeling I couldn't shake off, a subconscious feeling that I couldn't make sense of, I saw him before… in blood…
"No problem, I would like to see that Lightning jutsu of yours sometimes, after all, not everyone starts by learning the lightning nature ninjutsu." He said with perfect calmness. There wasn't any hint on his face (although I could only see an eye) that I could use to interpret meaning.
"You will, don't worry, team six will put on a show." I said quietly as I walked back to the tent, not sure if he heard that or not.
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
We arrived at Sunagakure just in time for the exam. Being one of the larger villages, the exam had a lot of participants. Most of them are from Suna, and the rest from Iwa, Kumo and Kiri. There were maybe one team each from some of the smaller villages such as Grass or Waterfall.
We all gathered in one of the major halls in the village. Our Jonin instructors left for their own gathering, leaving the genin students to finish the exam.
"Everyone, Listen! The first stage of the exam will begin right now." One of the Suna Proctor yelled from second floor. "In this stage, you will be tested on your skill in information gathering and interrogation." I narrowed my eyes at the mention of interrogation. Usually, the stage one of Chunin exam was paper tests, however, the village hosting it was allowed to determine their own method as long as it was approved by the other villages participating.
"You will enter the exam in teams of three, all of you will be given a list of information that describes the time, place and method of attack on one of the significant places in Sunagakure. The information will be different for each team." The Proctor explained.
"One member of each team will be the prisoner, who will be interrogated by another team, who in turn will hand one prisoner for that team to interrogate. No physical harm is allowed, or you will be disqualified. The other two will act as interrogators, and will have access to a pair of Chakra restraining handcuff." No physical harm, that meant the main way of interrogating will rely on psychological tactic, mind invasion and genjutsu.
"Each team will be given a paper to fill out the information gathered from the enemy team. You get one try to hand in the correct information. The session stops when one of the two teams hand in the information sheet, if the information is correct, then that team gets to pass and the other team will fail. If the information is incorrect, then both teams fails. If the time exceeds 30 minutes for both teams, both teams fails. Don't think about forgetting the information so you can't remember it, after your team hands in the information sheets, all of you will need to hand in a separate sheet one by one stating the original plan of your team, if you get it wrong, your team fails." The instructions are clear, basically, get the right information before the other team. All's fair except for physical harm, meaning there's no limit to psychological trauma.
"You have five minutes to discuss among yourselves and assign the role of prisoner and interrogators. After that, you will all line up to receive your attack plan." The proctor said before leaving the room. Immediately, the room was filled with whispers.
"Shun will be one of the interrogators, that's for sure. His mind invasion techniques are useful for this situation." I said immediately, Shun and Itachi nodded.
"Now we just have to determine which one of us will be the prisoner. Logically speaking, genjutsu will be the most likely method used for interrogation, and I have a higher tolerance for genjutsu than Mai." Itachi added.
"It's true that you have a better tolerance than me, but wouldn't you have a better chance at using genjutsu to find out the information? I can hold my own if that's what you are worried about. They might even underestimate me because of my age." I proposed, and both Shun and Itachi thought about it in silence.
"That may be true, but we might need your skill in facial cue analysis just in case genjutsu or mind invasion techniques won't work. Also, being underestimated is not a good thing in this situation, since your chakra will be sealed, they won't hold back if they think you are weak." Itachi analyzed, I thought about it and couldn't help agreeing to it. He might have had some thoughts about keeping me safe, but the case present itself clearly, he clearly will have more advantages than me being the prisoner.
"Then it's all set, Itachi will be the prisoner while Maiko and I will be the interrogator." Shun concluded.
Soon the discussion time was over, and team after team was send in the closed area to get their information. Our team went in the tent soon, and we received a piece of paper. We looked at it quickly and remember the details, Time: 1530, Place: Central Trading building, Method: bombing. Quickly, I burned the paper as soon as all of us remembered the details.
The next thing we know, we were placed in a small cell with a Iwa genin bound with Chakra-retraining handcuffs. There was a clock ticking behind him, and it showed exactly 29 minutes and 48 second left. I could only assume the situation was the same with Itachi and start the interrogation, the sooner we finish up here, the faster he could be freed.
'Maiko, can you hear me?' I heard Shun's voice in my head it must be his mind communication technique. 'Yes,' I sent the thought back to him, 'Please try the mind invasion technique.'
Quickly, he formed the special seal for mind invasion. He closed his eyes and stayed concentrated for a while. Then his body shook and he opened his eyes. 'His mind is strong, not as strong as yours, but still hard to penetrate. I could get partial information, but not all of it.'
I stared at the Iwa genin. He seemed fully awake now from the attempt by Shun. He stared at us with venomous eyes, and he spatted: "Try all you want, but you can't crack my mind!" really, agitate your interrogator so soon, he really did not know how to keep calm.
'Watch for my cue, and then do everything you can to get the method and time, I'll take care of the place.' I thought to Shun and he nodded. Quickly I activated my sharingan in a flash. I stared straight into the Iwa genin's eyes, letting my red eyes envelop his mind and body. His eyes turned dull at under the effect of my Vertigo Genjutsu. Shun moved immediately and moved his hand on his head and closed his eyes in concentration.
When he opened his eyes again, he looked tired and exhausted. He stepped away from the now conscious and furious Iwa genin. "Time is 0725, and method is mass destruction ninjutsu. I couldn't get the place." He whispered to me, I could tell he worked hard and used all he got, his forehead was full of sweat and he couldn't even keep up with the mind communication technique.
"Good job, I'll take it from here." I patted him on the shoulder and walked passed him toward the Iwa genin. I ignored his cursing and instead stared into his eyes. I put so much negative emotions into this jutsu that if I put anymore I would feel overwhelmed as well. Soon, the Iwa-nin's eyes widened in fear, I have no idea what he was seeing, but I could tell from his scream of terror that it was not something pleasant. This was my strongest genjutsu, the Hell Bind Genjutsu, It's hard to use and it requires eye contact at my level. Itachi would have done a better job, but since he's not here, mine would have to do.
I stopped the genjutsu after a minute. When the Iwa-nin was aware of the reality, I was sitting in front of him and staring into his eyes with my red sharingan intensely.
"Now that you know what I could make you feel, let's talk about it." I said calmly, letting the coldness of my voice sink in.
"Shut up, you can't do anything to me, or you will be disqualified." He retorted, but I could already see the slight trembling in his voice as well as the tensing of his neck muscles.
"There are more ways to break your mind than you could imagine without leaving a mark on your body. I mean I could just let you experience what you felt earlier some more." I smiled at him chillingly. I saw the spec of sweat gathering on his face. Good, now I knew his reaction, I should begin.
"Let's start easy, time, tell me the time." I said, staring coldly into his eyes. Shun already knew the time, but he didn't need to know that. "Is it morning?" I saw a slight tense in the muscle near his neck, telling me he was swallowing the saliva due to being nervous, but I continued, "Or is it afternoon?" His tense muscle relaxed a bit, and his mouth opened slightly. "Answer me!" I yelled, hey, I need to put on an act. He refused to say anything, so I gave him another icy smile. Tomoes spinning, soon, he was screaming again and hyperventilating due to the genjutsu. I didn't really need to do this, but I had to put on the impression that my main way of interrogation was genjutsu.
When he calmed down again, I stared at him again. "Let's try something else, how about places, tell me the place." Now I was getting into the main event. The reason why I ask Shun to focus on method and time was because there were so much more possible answers than places. The Proctor specifically said that the attacks are for significant places in Suna, and according to my research before I came to here, there really weren't that many. Besides, the attacking method was mass destruction ninjutsu, commonly, we wouldn't use that for stone sculptures or historical sites. Which meant, the place was more likely to be major buildings in the village with concentrated population, and that narrows the places down to Commercial Centre, Kazekage's office, Shinobi Operation Centre, and Academy.
"Places, I asked, unless you want to experience hell again." I said coldly, the Iwa-nin gave me a despised look, but he managed to whisper "Kazekage's office". I stared at his face, his eyes looked down for a second, and his fidgeting stopped, his lips tightened and closed off immediately. Liar, you are getting defensive. At least I could get rid of that option on my list.
"Really, you don't look certain, are you sure you are not getting it confused with other places, like Shinobi Operation center, they seemed to be quite similar." I asked harshly, noticing his pupil widened a bit, and his neck muscle tightened in an attempt to swallow his saliva. Jackpot.
"I swear, it's Kazekage's office, just stop the genjutsu." he said quickly, voice faster than before. Trying so hard to redirect my attention, I thought.
"You seemed awfully tough before, what changed your mind. You could be lying for all I know, it could be the Commercial Center, the Academy or even the Great Sand Dune for all I know." I asked, intentionally flared up my voice, but his muscles relaxed as I listed the places even if my voices sounded harsher, and that's all the confirmation I need.
"I'm not lying, I just want out!" He screamed one more time, faking the distress in his voice.
"Good try, but sorry." I said as his eyes widened, for one more time, I put him in the Hell Bind Genjutsu.
"It's Shinobi Operation Office, I'm sure of it." I said to Shun as the Iwa-genin was a bit preoccupied with illusions of suffering. Shun nodded to me as he filled out the sheets with the information we gathered. Then, I dispelled the genjutsu before pressing the alarm that suggest we finished interrogation.
One examiner opened the cell and looked inside, the Iwa-nin was a bit confused and unconcentrated, but otherwise, he seemed perfectly 'healthy'. There won't be any permanent damage, the effect wasn't that strong as I only put him through the genjutsu for a short period of time. Trust me when I say that mine was nothing compare to what Itachi could do, he was just a kinder person than me. The examiner looked at the timer, only 7 minutes and 43 second have passed, then he collected our information sheet before giving us each another to fill in our own information.
Shun and I wrote down the information quickly before the proctor lead us to a neutral room. Soon, the other two Iwa-nin and Itachi arrived in the room as well. The proctor ordered the return of all prisoners, and we obeyed. Itachi seemed fine, if anything, he seemed bored, just looking at the furious expression of the remaining two Iwa genins showed that they weren't happy with Itachi nor with the treatment of their slightly dazed teammate.
The proctor checked the information sheet we handed them with careful inspections and then opened up another file to compare the answers. After an unnecessarily long time, the proctor finally looked up.
"The Konoha team successfully obtained the information correctly, and thus they passed the first stage. The Iwa team failed and thus will be asked to leave the village. The Konoha team can return to their hotels and rest for the night. Please come to the village gates again tomorrow at 0700 to participate the second stage." The proctor said in an emotionless voice, and then we were escorted out of the facility.
We walked back to the hotel we were admitted in, and we found Akira-sensei and Hatake Kakashi in the lobbying, obviously waiting for us.
"Did you pass the interrogation? This exam seemed to be especially hard." Akira-sensei asked without a trace of worry in his voice.
"Of course sensei, have some faith in us." Shun said and Akira-sensei smiled at us.
"I assume you and Maiko were the interrogators?" Akira-sensei asked.
"Of course, I know how much you hate Maiko when she caught you making excuses. Besides, I think she broke our prisoner." Shun teased as Akira-sensei winced.
"I did not break him. All of his bones were still intact when I left him." I said innocently, obviously, we have different ideas about what "broken" meant. Akira-sensei sighed again, and Kakashi just stared at us like some strange specimens.
"Alright, I get it, you did your thing. Now, you guys should go rest, the second stage is tomorrow and you guys need to be full of energy." Akira-sensei suggested and we all nodded. The second stage was usually survival, so it would make sense for us to prepare ourselves by conserving energy. Quickly, we ate our meals and went back to the rooms
(◕ω◕✿)
Amazing enough, there seemed to be a man made training field just outside of the village that wasn't there a day ago. As much as I want to gape at the intricate designs of sand maze, I didn't want to look like a idiot.
Apparently, only 23 out of 52 teams managed to pass the first round, the exam was brutally shaving off people right from the start. Right now, all the genins were staring intensely at the proctor of the second exam as he explained the rules.
"Stage two will be based on survival games. Each team will be given a piece of paper as your identification. In order to pass, each team will have to acquire three piece of paper, one for each member. Only if you obtain the required paper and get out of the sand maze within a day, you are qualified for the third round." The proctor said as Suna-nins in charge of the exams handed each team a piece of paper with second stage seemed very straightforward, almost too simple compared to the first round. However, if each team only got one piece of paper, then at most there will be seven team passing.
"Now, the second stage starts." He said loudly as soon as every team had a piece of paper. Suddenly, the Suna-nins around us started forming hand seals, and before we knew it, we were swallowed up by waves of sands rising from the ground. Itachi and Shun reacted immediately, they grabbed my arm and stayed close to make sure we weren't separated in the sand. It's obvious that this is how we would be transported to the maze, so we won't find out the exit by retracing our steps. By the time the sand quiet down, we seemed to be underground, inside a sand cavern.
"What a flashy show they put on, trying to show their power to the other villages?" Shun said as we surround the area.
"That's none of our concern, can you sense anything, Shun?" Itachi asked, and Shun immediately closed his eyes and concentrated. After a while, he shook his head and said: "The sand maze seems to be blocking my sensor, but I can sense up to 50 meter in diameter, and there's no other team near us in that distance."
"So what's our plan, go find other teams and attack?" Shun asked, and I thought about it for a while,
"The real problem is how do we get out. Obviously, other teams will find us even if we don't move. But we do not know the exit to the sand maze." I analyzed. The Proctor said to collect three pieces of paper and get out, but we have no direction as to how to get out, which meant…
"The paper." Both Itachi and I said at the same time. Immediately, Itachi took out the piece of paper we were given, he held it out and let us observe it.
"It seemed to have some kind of seal on it. But it's incomplete, since the lines are cut off." Itachi said as he observed. The scribble of lines did not make any sense to me, since I didn't study fuinjutsu. However, it does make sense that the shape was incomplete, it was cut neatly in a straight line.
"Then we probably need to collect paper that complete this seal in order to get out. Looks like we can't just get any three papers" I said grimly, this was already getting harder, even if we manage to get two more piece that complete the seal, none of us knew anything about fuinjutsu except that it's fuinjutsu, so if we were required to do something about the seal, we would have nowhere to began.
"Either way, we need to start by getting the papers. This team needs a leader in charge, and I propose Itachi." I said. All three of us were capable shinobis, but if we were to attack multiple teams, we need a leader that could give uniform orders so we wouldn't fall apart.
Shun nodded at my suggestion and Itachi stared at me like I owed him one. "Fine, we will start by finding other teams, however, we only attack teams that are alone, and if I say we leave, we leave." Itachi said seriously, both Shun and I nodded. Quickly we got into the formation, with Shun in the middle, me at the front and Itachi at the back and we started adventuring into the sand maze.
It wasn't long before we met our first genin team. The team seemed to be from the Sunagakure itself, and the moment we sensed them, they seemed to sense us. They probably have a sensor on the team as well.
There was a moment of silence before the battle ensued. The Suna team had one support or medic by the look of it, as she stayed back when her teammates charged. Shun stayed in his position while he established the mental link with Itachi and I. Immediately we activated the sharingan.
The battle was quick, Itachi used his genjutsu to halt the opponents as I caught one in close combat. I could shameless say that I made quick work of him, after ten minutes, he was left paralyzed with a dislocated shoulder. Then I went to deal with the support sensor as Itachi was finishing up the other combat type shinobi. Surprisingly, she seemed to be very good at manipulating sand, probably due to her sensory through sand. Still I smiled and moved my body out of the way as Itachi sent a wave of water toward the girl. Her water soaked sand seemed to be dull and slow, and I quickly snatched her and locked her in a triangle choke hold. I didn't even need to remind him, as Shun quickly understood my action and he made the special seal of Yamanaka clan.
"Mind Body Switch Technique!" I let go of the hold as soon as Itachi caught Shun's limping body. The girl that was previously choking stood up and nodded to me. Without a word, 'she' reached into her pocket and fished out a piece of paper. 'She' threw the piece of paper to me before Shun's body was moving again. Quickly I grabbed the paper and hit the girl on the neck, effectively knocking her out.
"Let's go, it should be the one we don't have." I said to my team and we left quickly. When we arrived at a place rather far from the battlefield, I gave the piece of paper to Itachi to compare with the other one we got.
"It's different than the one we had, and it seemed to match up to it on one side. Now we just need to find the last one." Itachi said. Easier said than done, luck was really an issue here, only a one in three chance of getting it, under the condition we are able to beat the other team.
We wandered the area for another five hours, in the time period, we met another two team, one from Kumo and one from Grass. To say they were hostile was an understatement, they were like rabid dogs that attack anything on sight.
One thing I noticed was the arrogance from the Kumo genins, there were very confident of their skills, and they weren't joking. I twisted my body in a fraction of time to dodge the incoming flash of lightning. I was familiar with this jutsu, after all, I was almost killed by it during my kidnapping. Quickly I felt a wave a shuriken flying past me, chasing the three Kumo shinobi who had just dispersed. There were thin ninja wires tied to the end of it and I quickly formed the hand seals for Katon: Phoenix Sage Fire, blowing the fireballs onto the ninja wires. The fireballs followed the path that the shurikens made, one of the Kumo genin deflected the shurikens coming for him but failed to dodged the second wave of fireballs. He fell down from the sand dune with a scream; that's at least a second degree burn, if not a third degree.
I moved forward as the Kumo nin was distracted by their fallen comrade. I pulled out the tantō on my back and channelled lightning chakra over it. I had no idea what material Hyakki Yakō was made of, but it sure worked wonder for lightning chakra channeling. I quickly body flickered behind one of the kumo-nin - the girl who used the lightning jutsu earlier - and aimed for her right shoulder. She responded just in time to dodge my attack by side stepping to her left, turning around in the process. Quickly, I sweeped my leg toward her knee just before she could regain the balance. As she fell, my left hand locked around her neck and I pulled, bringing her body toward mine. She tried to get away, but before she could do anything, I jammed my lightning infused sword into her right shoulder blade, she gave out a yell before the paralysis jutsu took effect. I tied ninja wires around her limbs and body carefully before I drop her on the ground. With shinobi, you could never be too careful.
When I look back, Itachi was already done with the other guy before Shun took hold of him using Mind-body Switch technique. The guy under Shun's control walked towards the fallen shinobi suffering from the second-degree burn and pulled out the piece of paper. Itachi took the paper and restrained the two shinobi before Shun let go of the hold.
"This is not the one we were looking for, it's the same as the ones we got from the Suna-nin and the Grass-nin." Itachi said without emotion as I cursed silently. After all the hard work and a torn shirt from a lightning jutsu, we still keep getting the same piece of paper. We left the Kumo-nin alone and moved away. We were not so nice that we'd return the paper if they weren't what we need, the less competition the more chance of us advancing. Besides, having backups helped. Right now, Itachi had the paper #1 and a copy of paper #2 while both Shun and I had a copy of paper #2.
"We should rest and recover our chakra before continuing the search. We need to be more careful, the opponents are tough and they are years older than us. Their strength and stamina puts us at a disadvantage." Itachi said, and we all nodded. Shun kept the look out as Itachi and I recovered our chakra. After a while he would switch with one of us. Between the sharingan and sensory techniques, we kept each other alert in threat.
I had no idea if it was good luck or misfortune, but we were found by another team just as Itachi and Shun finished recovering. I caught a flash at the corner of my eyes. With the help of the sharingan I was able to follow the figure and shot out a Great Fireball toward it. I clearly saw the fireball and the human-like figure impact, yet I heard no scream nor release of Chakra for defense. Then I saw the most annoying thing I had ever encountered in my last nine years of life (The eighteen years before that was uncharted territory as everything was bad) - Puppets.
I found my close combat taijutsu style ineffective on puppets. Even though I kept on breaking their joints, they had no pain response and thus it did not hinder their movements. As long as their controllers attach them with chakra threads, they could ignore their dislocated joints and attack me with other parts. I cursed annoyingly as I hacked one of those puppets into pieces using lightning chakra infused blade and moved to dodge another one coming straight past my side. We had the luck of meeting a team clearly pulled out of puppets corps, and that's how we got locked into this annoying predicament.
'Aim for the controller and the chakra strings' Itachi's voice rang in my head through Shun's mind communication jutsu. 'Give me a distraction, Itachi, Shun, I want to try something' I asked them in my head and I got two positive responses.
Itachi moved before me as he pulled out a handful of shuriken using one hand and infused a breath of fire chakra onto the shuriken. Without any hesitation, he sent the flaming shurikens - known as Katon: Phoenix Sage Fire-Crimson Claw, an advanced form of Phoenix Sage Fire - towards the three puppet users. The puppet users moved their puppets hurriedly to block the incoming attack from Itachi; after his previous engagement with them, they learned to be wary of him.
Shun, catching the moment when one of the puppet user was concentrating on moving his puppets, formed the Yamanaka Seal and focused onto the unmoving puppeteer. "Mind Body Disturbance Technique" He whispered and let his chakra envelop the target. He couldn't control the target's body for long, as two seconds seemed to be his limit on normal targets. But that's enough for him to cause a distraction, as he took control over the puppet user's body and threw the puppets into the neighbouring puppets in a not so smooth motion.
As my teammates did their things, I performed the hand seal for Raiton: Rairyu no Mai in the background. After a string of hand seals, at the exact moment as Itachi's and Shun's distractions launched, I shot out three lightning Dragons from my palmed and willed them to accelerate toward the puppeteers. One of the lightning dragon hit a puppeteer dead on in a straight course, while the other two jumped to the side awkwardly. However, they probably thought it was another common lightning jutsu that acted like javelins. Using my sharingan, I saw their landing position as clear as day, and in a flash I changed the direction of the remaining two lightning dragon and hit both my targets, rendering both of them motionless on the ground.
"Gosh, Maiko, did you kill them?" Shun asked with shock as the smoke cleared, revealing three bodies lying on the sandy ground.
"No, they are probably just paralyzed. I've been practicing, and besides, my control was much better with just three lightning dragons. But we should still check for their heartbeats." I said uncertainly, receiving a glare from Shun.
We approached the fallen Suna-nins carefully, with kunais or swords in our hands, we checked to make sure they are knocked out and preferably not dead, that would really cause problems for us seeing we were currently in Sunagakure.
"They are still breathing, paralyze by the lightning and suffered some second-degree burn." Itachi said after checking the Suna-nins. I let out a breath and relaxed, it seemed that my control was lucky this time.
"Found it, our third piece!" Shun said excitedly as he pulled out a piece of paper from one of the puppet users' bags, "So what are we supposed to do with it?" He asked as he threw the paper to Itachi, who took out the other two piece from his pockets.
"I think it's just a space-time seal that allows transportation from one place to the next. Fuinjutsu is a complicated and uncommon art, the examiner wouldn't expect genins to know them very well. I believe it will transport us out as long as we fuse chakra into it." Itachi explained as we gather around him.
"Remember the examiner said that we need three, one for each of us, I think all of us need to grab a part of the paper and infuse our chakra in it in order for the seal to bring all of us back." I said. Itachi looked thoughtful for a second and nodded as well.
Quickly, we pieced the paper together into a square piece, now that the pieces were complete, I saw the artistically drawn picture forming an intricate circle. Silently, we all send our chakra into the paper at the same time, and the seal glowed bright before engulfing all three of us in the blinding light.
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