"Holy shit it's cold," Heiko grumbled as they stood at the base of Skybreak mountain, wind whipping around their insulated cloaks. The thick, specially treated fabric warded off most of the cold, but between the wind chill and the beginnings of a blizzard there was a lot of it to go around. Their singular samurai escort didn't seem to mind, but Heiko thought she could hear the faintest sound of chattering teeth from beneath his helmet.
"So why don't you use that technique you keep talking about to warm us up?" Shodo snapped back. She really really preferred warm fire country weather to this.
"Because my dear Shodo, I'm saving my chakra till when the test sta..." Heiko's reply was cut short by a bright blue flash from the clouds above them, the sign that the exam had begun.
"Well then, guess I'm using it," she said as she did a quick sequence of hand signs, some of them special ones for manipulating Yang chakra her father had taught her.
"Yang release: Soothing Aura," the name of Heiko's first original jutsu was stated abnormally calmly and was punctuated by her and her teammates beginning to glow with a soft light. Immediately they felt the cold fade away, as did any lingering soreness from training or the previous stage. Shodo also put her hand into a half ram seal, the obscurement seals flaring to life.
"Awesome we didn't explode! I call this technique a success, now let's get moving."
"Wait, we could have exploded?" Shodo yelled as the trio began their trip up the mountain, running atop the thick snowbanks.
"Maybe, but that's not important right now. Taka, get your scouting started," was the reply. Takanome nodded and summoned Kazehane, who had already been briefed on the plan.
"Are you okay to operate in these conditions Kazehane?" Takanome queried as the bird took in his surroundings, the blizzard having started to pick up.
"Do not fret, we hawks have developed techniques for flying and seeing in heavy precipitation. I will come report back if I spot anything," as he spoke, a bubble of swirling wind formed around him, deflecting the worst of the snow as he took off.
They continued like this for about an hour, Heiko musing about what a success her new technique was, the warmth staying even as the blizzard intensified. But something her father had said to her echoed in the back of her mind.
"Always remember Heiko, Yang release, more than any other shinobi discipline, is affected by your emotions. Yang chakra will grow in power with them, yes, but it also grows harder to control. If you use this new jutsu in a tense situation, you have to keep a level head or you will likely injure your teammates."
"Oh… Well I guess I'll try to keep an eye on that then…"
"Yes, but if you're in a life or death situation and you need the extra power, grab hold of whatever emotion you can find and let it rip."
Heiko was snapped out of her recollection by the sound of Kazehane diving back down.
"There is a team approaching from your left, about a kilometer out. I could not identify which village they came from, but they are closing in quite quickly and seem to be tracking you based on adjustments in their course."
"Thank you Kaze. We will deal with them, continue your watch," was Takanome's reply. The green hawk nodded and took flight back into the snowstorm. Takanome flipped his Byakugan on, his enhanced vision easily piercing through the blizzard, and quickly spotted the team.
It wasn't Team Ay or the bloodthirsty Mist team, much to his relief, instead being a Hidden Sand squad they hadn't encountered yet.
"Lethal or non-lethal?" Shodo asked when he reported this information. Heiko sighed and shook her head.
"It doesn't matter, we can't drag their bodies all the way to the top, and no one will come get them if we leave them unconscious. Maybe we had that liberty in the first stage, but now it is kill or be killed, got it?" Her teammates nodded, Shodo more hestitantly than Takanome.
"Look I don't like it either, but let's just make it as fast as possible okay?"
Whatever the Sand Nin were using to track Team 3, it wasn't very precise. A quick ambush beneath a crag was all the advantage they needed to eliminate their opponents with disturbing ease. Takanome shivered at the sickening squelch his wind-cloaked hand made as he withdrew it from the lead Sand Genin's back, the hole through his lung clearly visible. The boy gave a single wet cough, and then fell face first into the snow, crimson blood stark against the fresh snow. He pushed his feelings down, to be dealt with later, as did Heiko.
Shodo wasn't as prepared.
The auburn-haired girl just stared as her target made one last gurgle as the kunai lodged in his throat ended his life. Everything was totally silent for a moment, until the body toppled over into the snow. The moment the soft thump of the body hitting the ground rang out, Shodo burst into tears. She dropped to the ground on her knees, hand wrapped tightly around her thighs as she rocked back and forth.
"I can't keep going, I can't keep going, I can't…" she whispered over and over, eyes locked on the corpse in front of her. Heiko crouched next to the sealing expert, arm wrapped around her back.
"Shodo listen to me, I understand this fucking sucks, and it's really okay to feel this way, but we need to move. The top of the mountain is still three hours away and this blizzard is only getting worse. Their deaths will be even more meaningless if we die here too," she said, her tone soft, but with an undercurrent of steel.
"I…I just, I don't want to…" Shodo broke into a fresh batch of sobs, the trails of tears on her face beginning to freeze over in the cold. Heiko rubbed her back in small slow circles, and a few minutes passed until Shodo composed herself.
"Can we please at least bury them," she begged, eyes red and puffy, but still unmistakably holding absolute desperation.
"Yeah okay, Taka can you do it?"
"Do not worry, I will deal with it, take as long as you need." He moved the bodies into a line and covered them using a wind jutsu, and by the time Shodo had risen back to her feet,
and the only trace of their victims was the blood stained snow.
"Okay, let's just get this over and done with," Shodo said, her voice still shaky.
"Are you going to be alright if we have to combat anyone else?"
"I… don't know… But I'll do my best," her voice rallying at the end of the sentence.
"That's all we can ask," Heiko said. "Now let's get moving, I'm not sure how long I can hold this jutsu for."
The next few hours were uneventful, save for Kazehane's infrequent reports. The last one came in about half an hour before they would reach the summit. The hawk dived down to Team 3, looking far more hurried than he had on his previous reports.
"You need to start moving across the mountain, now!"
Team 3 didn't question this instruction, and as they took off Kazehane flew alongside them.
"I do not understand how, but there appears to be a lava flow heading down this side of the mountain," he explained.
"Is this mountain a volcano or something?" Heiko asked, nervously glancing uphill as a distant orange glow began to form.
"No, this mountain range was formed when the Sage of Six paths created the moon," Kazehane explained, "this area lacks the tectonic activity required to form volcanoes."
"Then how is th…" Shodo was cut off by Takanome's gasp.
"The Mist team!"
"Explain?"
"The two girls on the Mist team had something strange about their chakra. I didn't understand what it was then, but it has to be that they have Kekkei Genkai natures. A genin's fire style wouldn't be strong enough to melt a large volume of rock, and Samurai don't train in nature transformation, so lava style is the only explanation."
"Well that's good to know, but knowing why we are going to get melted in lava doesn't stop us from being melted in lava!"
"It's okay, the flow isn't too wide, we're almost out of it," Takanome assured Heiko as he checked again with his Byakugan. Sure enough they were out of harm's way, the slow moving flow still around a hundred meters away when they got to the edge of where it would reach.
That was when he spotted the second one.
A flow of equal size was coming down on the other side of them, boxing them in a strip of mountain that couldn't have been more than a hundred meters wide.
"Shit, we're trapped," Heiko mumbled when Takanome alerted them. "And let me guess, the Mist team is coming at us from uphill in said strip." Unsurprisingly, he picked out three now familiar chakra signatures speeding toward them.
"Kaze, thank you for your assistance, but I'm going to unsummon you now, I don't want you getting in harm's way."
"Thank you, I wish you luck in your upcoming battle." With a puff of smoke, the hawk disappeared and Team 3 turned to face the oncoming attackers.
Even with the strong winds impeding his aim, Takanome let fly a volley of arrows, each infused with his own chakra. The Mist team managed to barely dodge the projectiles that intercepted them about a hundred meters out from Team 3's position. However, Takanome's inbuilt timers on the arrows went off, detonating into a barrage of sharpened air.
The force wasn't as great as if he had used the technique himself, but it was still enough to deal light injuries to all of their adversaries. It didn't do too much to impede their approach though, and Takanome only had enough time to fire off one more volley before he had to engage in close range.
Their biggest problem became obvious immediately; the third member of the mist team was an Ice release user.
That they were fighting in the middle of a blizzard.
Just their luck.
When Mei Terumi had sensed the lone Hidden Leaf team was caught in their trap, she had taken the opportunity with relish. After all, Lord Third had requested that all Mist teams operate with maximum lethality when possible in the exams, and Team Yagura had taken that to heart. Plus, it would look great on their record if they managed to take out the only team representing an enemy village.
However, the last thing she had expected was for the damn Hyuga in their team to use a bloody bow. Sensei had mentioned that Ao always went on about how much better use he was putting his Byakugan to compared to its original owner. Evidently this Leaf genin had had a similar idea. Sure the arrows were avoidable at this range, but those blasts of wind were a pain in the ass, what with the multitude of tiny cuts that stung and oozed trickles of red blood. Despite what one might think, Mei hated getting blood on her clothes, unlike Zabuza, who was only truly happy if he was soaked in the stuff. Between that and the omnipresent cold, she was in a really shitty mood
So when they managed to get eyes on the Leaf genin, Mei was very much ready to make someone other than her bleed. Now what would make her feel better.
Mei engaged the Hyuga as Team Yagura had planned, her excellent midrange best suited to fighting a close range specialist. The various lava flows she had set up had dipped into her reserves significantly, but she still had a decent amount of chakra. Plus if she needed any help, Aya was currently in her element, literally and figuratively.
The Yuki clan member was surrounded in a spinning vortex of icicle shards, able to attack with far more power than usual due to the abundance of her element. After all, it was far easier to manipulate existing matter with techniques than generate it yourself using nature transformation. Sometimes Mei wondered what she would be able to do if she had a volcano on hand. All that pre-existing lava and noxious gas… oh my.
But that was beside the point. Right now there was a Hyuga rushing towards her at an alarming pace, and ever more alarming was the fact that his hands were definitely not glowing the usual blue that came from enhancing one's physical attacks with chakra.
It wasn't fair when other people got to use wacky new versions of nature transformation.
She couldn't use any gas attacks here, the strong winds making it just as likely that she would injure her teammates. They were quite friendly with each other by Mist standards, and she kind of needed them at the current moment. Mei wasn't so arrogant as to think she could take on three unknown enemies on her own. Although...
She refocused on reality as her opponent neared, the Leaf genin barely weaving out of the way of the attack. However, he followed that up not by approaching further, but by snapping his hand out with great speed, the manifested wind chakra surrounding his hand flaring up.
"Eight Trigrams Wind Style: Typhoon Palm!" His voice was clear, even over the howling wind of the blizzard, and a vortex of air sliced out towards her, much faster than the Vacuum Palm she had been expecting. Mei slid to the side, but the move had done its work, and the Hyuga was right on top of her, eyes blazing with focus and a little hint of righteous fury. Mei grinned as she swayed his first few hits, the slight shift in his stance indicating confidence that yes, now that he was in close range, the unbeatable Hyuga taijutsu would assure him victory. Especially with whatever this fancy wind style version was. Honestly it was a fair assumption. All the other villages taught their Genin that you dealt with a Hyuga from range, or you died. The number of close range techniques that could compete with the Gentle Fist could be counted on one hand.
Luckily for Mei, she happened to have just learnt one of those techniques.
"Vapour Style: Unrivalled Strength."
Her calm declaration was immediately followed by a rush of heat throughout her body as chakra morphed to steam and built up inside of her. White eyes widened as her opponent jumped back slightly, a burst of scalding gas flying out from Mei, the fresh snow on the ground melting in a neat ring around her feet.
"Come on Hyuga, afraid of someone who can hit harder than you?" she smiled, and threw a right hook that split the snowstorm asunder.
===
Takanome was surprised, worried, and more than a little scared. His new technique had worked just as he had planned, but what was not planned was for this girl to have not one, but two separate kekkei genkai natures. Takanome knew that life was anything but fair, but couldn't it have thrown him a bone just for once?
His teammates' battles weren't going much better, Heiko constantly dodging a veritable hailstorm of sharpened shards of ice and Shodo doing her very best to not get skewered by a sword.
Takanome muttered a few choice curses under his breath as he continued to evade the onslaught of his opponents strikes. And evasion was the only thing keeping him alive right now. Judging by the impact the mist ninja's attacks were having on their environment, he wasn't sure he would survive even a glancing blow.
But that didn't matter. He needed to figure out a way to beat his opponent and go help his teammates.
Of course he understood vaguely how this technique worked. His Byakugan could easily see the buildup of what he assumed was vapour style chakra within his opponents body. Evidently, she was using the pressure buildup to increase her strength, but how did that help him?
He took a risk on her next swing, completely focusing his attention on the tenketsu in her arm to the exclusion of everything else.
He watched as the pressure of the chakra built and built, until he was sure she was going to injure herself, before it exploded outwards in a blast of raw force. He did not want to think of what would happen if someone messed up this technique and couldn't release it properly.
Oh. Maybe he did actually…
He had an idea, but it was what many would describe as "really stupid".
As his opponent swung her arm in for another strike, the buildup having started already, rather than dodging back, Takanome moved forward. Weaving past the attack.
His hand shot out, aiming for a very specific tenketsu in his opponent's shoulder. A shock of relief swept through him as he struck it.
The pain followed a moment later.
A cursory glance downwards revealed the presence of a shard of polished obsidian lodged in his stomach, held in his opponent's other hand.
"Nice try Hyuga, but your gentle fist bullshit ain't gonna work on-" the mist Ninja stopped speaking as she realised that she couldn't turn off the flow of vapour chakra going into her arm.
And she couldn't release it either.
The third last thing Takanome heard before he passed out was Mei Terumi screaming as her arm exploded in an uncontrolled burst of steam.
The second last thing Takanome heard before he passed out was Shodo yelling his name.
The last thing Takanome heard before he passed out was the sound of someone being stabbed.