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Sea Battle

Ryuu followed Idate and fought to ignore his eye twitching, or the vein popping out of his forehead. Not only was the opponent already sailing across the bay, but they weren't because Idate had decided to intentionally run along the shoreline at the start of the race. Finally, Ryuu caught up to Idate as they passed a large hollow tree with a gap in the trunk. As they continued running, Ryuu sensed something shift in the air. He activated his Sharingan and the forest melted away to a cliff path with bamboo trees on the left and a fatal fall on the right. He glanced back and Fu nodded, letting him know she had seen through it too.

"Idate," Ryuu said. "What do you see right now?"

"A forest path," Idate said. "Why?"

"Because we're on a mountain pass," Ryuu said. "There's a cliff about two inches to your right."

He set his hand on Idate's shoulder, using his chakra to disrupt the genjutsu and Idate shouted in surprise, putting a little more distance between himself and the cliff's edge. A moment later, they turned a corner in the path, following the cliff path another few minutes before reaching a forest. A few minutes later, they reached a beach. There was a ship waiting, and Idate ran over to a house nearby, speaking with an elderly man that lived there before nodding to Ryuu and Fu. They all climbed onto the boat and Ryuu used a Wind Style, Breakthrough to fill the sails, shoving them out to sea and getting them moving.

"Care to explain why we're here?" Ryuu asked.

"When the gate opened, the clouds were moving toward us," Idate said as Ryuu and Fu worked the rigging, with some help from a couple of Ryuu's clones. "That meant that if we had gone that way, the wind would have slowed us down. However, here, the wind won't be as bad, and there's also a current that flows the way we want to go."

"I see," Ryuu nodded. "Smart. I can see why the Wasabi chose you."

"Thanks," Idate smiled. "You're not half bad yourself. Thanks for breaking that genjutsu earlier. That might have been nasty."

Ryuu nodded, he and Fu finishing their work and leaning against the railing beside Idate. "So, tell us your story."

"It's like you said," Idate said. "My brother, Ibiki, failed me and barred me from ever being a chunin. But then, there was a chunin, a ninja by the name of Aoi, who told me that there was a way I could make chunin without the test."

"Combat," Ryuu guessed.

"Even easier," Idate said. "He said there was a relic that was under heavy guard. If I could steal it, he said I'd be made chunin."

"Sounds like the time Mizuki convinced my friend Naruto to steal the First Hokage's Scroll of Sealing to be made a genin after he failed the graduation exam," Ryuu said.

"Well, that's more acceptable since he was a child," Idate said. "Aoi convinced me to steal the Second Hokage's Blade of the Thunder Spirit. It's a weapon with a vajra as a handle and a blade made of pure lightning style chakra that comes out of it. I believed Aoi, because he had been nice to me. So, I stole it. But then Aoi told me that he was leaving the village, going rogue. And that since I stole a prized treasure of the village, I would be arrested. So I ran. Eventually, I met Boss Jirocho when I tried to steal from him and he beat me for it. Then, he gave me a job and my knife as repayment."

"He's a good man," Ryuu said, looking around just in time to see the other ship coming. "Company."

He activated his Sharingan, his eyes easily picking out two shinobi, both wearing off-white full-body suits with breather masks identifying them as Hidden Rain shinobi, along with cloths over their eyes. One had a bandanna-style forehead protector and one eyehole cut in his cloth, and the other had his brown hair left messy, both eyes covered.

"Hidden Rain," Ryuu reported.

Suddenly, one of the two summoned a third, this one with even messier hair and both of his eyes exposed.

"Three of them," Ryuu said. "Full team."

"Can you handle them?" Idate asked.

"I'm not sensing much chakra from them so...yeah," Ryuu said. "Piece of cake."

Idate nodded as Ryuu climbed onto the railing of their ship, forming hand seals.

"Water Style, Exploding Water Shockwave!" Ryuu shouted before exhaling a massive flood of water, successfully forcing the other ship to turn, keeping it at a distance before turning it more, making it start to said away quickly. "There, that should piss them off pretty effectively."

"When did you learn that?" Fu asked.

"You're not there every time I train," Ryuu smiled, wiping some sweat from his forehead, just under his forehead protector. "That one's exhausting though."

"It bought us a few minutes though," Idate said as the other boat struggled to turn back toward them.

Suddenly, it began to rain. Ryuu smirked as clones began to climb over the sides of the ship. He began to raise his hand to grab his Tanto but stopped, staring at the thick black liquid soaking his hand.

"Oil," Ryuu snarled. "Fu, no fire."

Fu nodded and Ryuu switched to drawing a pair of kunai, darting forward and beginning to slash the clones, all of them falling away as water when hit.

"Not bad, not bad at all," Ryuu grinned. "That's actually a decent number of water clones."

"Look out!" Fu shouted.

Ryuu spun just as a flaming crossbow bolt stuck into the deck, igniting the oil instantly, flames racing over the deck. Ryuu swore, sprinting to Fu and Idate, grabbing them both and leaping into the air, Fu taking the hint and spreading her wings, flying high into the air, using the smoke as cover, then taking off toward the port, Ryuu holding a hand over Idate's mouth to keep him quiet.

"Short version, Fu can fly, we're going to win this race," Ryuu said.

Idate nodded and Ryuu uncovered his mouth.

"Fu, set us down just on shore," Ryuu said. "We can run from there."

Fu nodded, flying in silence until they reached land, setting them down on the rocks at the shore. She let her wings fade and sighed, sitting down and wiping her forehead.

"You okay?" Ryuu asked.

"The fire dried out my wings a little more than I expected," Fu said. "I'll be fine in a minute."

Ryuu nodded, also sitting down. "You might as well rest too, Idate. We've got a good lead, now."

Idate nodded, sitting down as well. They all settled in to rest for a few minutes, hoping it would be enough.

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