23. Uzumaki Probation Part Two

With Naruto's Group

After securing Ruiga's body, (As the one to kill him, Kairin would be getting fifty percent more than the others of his bounty money) Kairin, Tayuya, and Naruto's supervising clone escorted Kikusuke back to the others. And if Kikusuke thought that Karin was scary, he was near pants wetting levels of fear when Naruto finished hearing Karin's report.

"Flower jutsu?!" Naruto asked with narrowed eyes as he stalked towards the man with anger in his eyes. Grabbing Kikusuke's shirt and yanking him down to his eye level, he continued "You went after an unknown assailant on your own with something as pathetic as flower jutsu?! How idiotic and/or suicidal can you get?!"

"It's a perfectly viable line of ninjutsu that has been passed down in my family for generations." Kikusuke said with righteous indignation even as he started sweating bullets at the look in Naruto's eyes.

"And if you had used said line of ninjutsu in a support role I would have just waved it off as you being eccentric, but you didn't, you were stupid enough to use it as your go to line of offense in one on one combat and because of that, my teammate had to save your sorry ass from a sure-death trap." Naruto actually started radiating a little bit of his Presence making it feel like there was a storm cloud on ground level as he continued "We were hired to protect EVERYONE in this group, including you, and I will not have this mission fail because you decide to go play the hero and get eternal glory by defeating all of your oh so cleverly hidden charge's enemies single handedly with an esoteric jutsu passed down your family line from generation to generation like some kind of fairy tale character, am I clear?" Everyone in the group of travelers including the other Leaf nin flinched when they 'heard' a lightning bolt crack around them at the end of his sentence.

"Clear." Kikusuke all but whimpered in fear as he looked into the multi-colored shifting eyes of the Leaf team leader.

"Glad to hear it, now, you three start talking." Naruto said lightly pushing the man back to his partner and their charge. Naruto's Presence filling everyone with the sense that a massive storm was mere moments from going down on their heads had the three instantly talking, the thought of hiding anything from him never even crossing their minds.

When they had finished speaking, Naruto pinched his nose and said "So let me get this straight, your real name is actually Kikujou," he pointed ad Kikusuke before moving to the other guard and said "and you're in fact named Yurinojou, and finally, you are only pretending to be a male and are in fact the Land of Green's princess Haruna, who wasn't in the palace by dent of having been a political prisoner until only recently." Here he pointed at the fake male between them as he continued "When you heard rumors that the land might be under attack when you had returned home you guys joined this caravan to try and sneak out of the country. Does that about sum it up?" At the three's scared nods, Naruto's Presence gave one last rumble making everyone flinch before he reigned it all back in with a sigh and said "This is why I hate civilian escort missions, there's always drama, always."

Turning from the three, he focused on his cousin and said "Kairin, any unwanted guests coming to crash the party?"

Kairin closed her eyes and concentrated to extend her focus as far as she could and said "Nothing yet, wait, someone just entered my range, they're not bothering to be subtle either, not with the speed they're going down the road. ETA's ten minutes and I'm picking up Lightning chakra from them so it's most likely Jiga."

"Oh good, I was worried about getting bored while we waited for the next guy to come." Tayuya said while cracking her knuckles.

Naruto's eyes flicked towards her specifically for a second before he focused on both of them and said in a serious tone of voice "I'm fairly confident in the answer to this question, but it must be asked regardless. Given your gear, can you handle a magnetics using enemy?"

His tone made Tayuya hold back from her instant response and the two took a quick minute to rapidly sign at each other in the Hidden Sound's hand sign code before Kairin gave a nod and turned back as she said "We believe we have a workable plan, yes."

Naruto gave an answering nod then said "Then you two have a go."

The two redheads saluted him, one a little more mockingly than the other before they took off again, one of his clones once more tailing them to observe and if necessary, rescue the two.

Kairin and Tayuya traveled back down the road for a couple of minutes, moving fast to get as much distance from the caravan as possible in that time before they stopped and set up their chosen battle field. While Tayuya began setting up a large area of effect Genjutsu Kairin began applying multiple sets of an electricity attraction seal to the trees. Then it was all a matter of waiting for their opponent to fall into their trap as they watched from in the trees.

Within The Genjutsu

Jiga was quickly making his way to his target, supremely confident in his ability and so not even bothering to be subtle. His worthless younger brother had not reported in and so had obviously failed and therefore it fell onto him to complete the mission. That was alright though, it just meant there was a bigger share for himself. In fact, maybe when this was all over, he'd 'finish the job' as it was and take Renga out of the picture as well, that way he could have ALL of the spoils for himself.

He was drawn out of his thoughts when the ground erupted right in front of him as twelve Earth Golems about twelve feet high rapidly formed and he quickly jumped back as he said under his breath to himself "Ch, well this is annoying, plenty of enemies, but no metal to magnetize." Pulling out his Kusarigama, he began channeling Lightning natured chakra through it while spinning it and called out to his unknown assailant "You're going to have to do better than pathetic golem jutsu to beat me!" Lashing out with his kusarigama, he easily sliced through the golems thanks to the elemental chakra in it and they crumbled to the ground. But before he could take action to find his actual ninja opponent, even more Earth Golems rose from the ground and started to come towards him causing him to let out a frustrated tsk as he prepared for a long fight.

Back With The Others

Thirty minutes after the two kunoichi and their 'examiner' had left, the merchant group found a good place to stop for the night. They had finished arranging their tents just as the sun started to go down and Naruto's clones had formed a perimeter that they would hold until the two female Uzumakis came and made their own for him to examine. The original Naruto was currently sitting against a tree working on a sealing project occupying his eyes and hands while his ears listened to the conversations going around the campsite.

A certain lowly said comment of "As long as the royal line is kept safe any casualties are acceptable." from Haruna had him frowning as he said "You know, it's that kind of attitude that has you recorded in the history books as the bad kind of ruler."

He didn't need to look up to know the princess and her escorts had stiffened at his comment, or to see the severe frown on her face as she asked "You're eavesdropping on us?!"

"We are Shinobi, it's kind of what we do. Isn't that right Haku?" Naruto asked as he made a calculated stroke on his sealing paper before removing one five inches to the right that was now unneeded with the new arrangement.

"Since I have been partnered with you we have had ten missions that have required covert information gathering in some form or another. Before that, I have taken part in roughly two hundred and twenty such missions." Haku answered diplomatically from where he was entertaining Momiji by making various ice sculptures in the shapes she asked for.

"But you're supposed to be protecting this group, not spying on us!" Haruna said indignantly.

"And if your little wannabe samurai hadn't been monumentally stupid in going to face an unknown number of enemies on his own then I wouldn't have to spy on you people to ensure you don't have any further ideas of idiocy making that job harder." Naruto easily countered as he made two more marks, one on the top, and one on the bottom before finally glancing up and said "But my point still stands Your Highness, a ruler who does not care for their people cannot be expected to do what is best for said subjects."

Haruna gave a small swallow at the look in the blonde's eyes even as she silently gave him a hard stare in turn.

Back In The Genjutsu

Jiga was panting quite a bit. For the last thirty minutes, he had been fighting nothing but Earth constructs of all kinds between Earth Golem squadrons, Mud Bullets, Stone Bullets, Stone Spikes, and even an Earth Dragon or two. His lightning chakra augmented kusarigama made quick work of it all of course, but he had only been able to tag his assailant one time in order to draw him in close and the blue haired bastard had substituted when he was being pulled in leaving Jiga with nothing but an Iwa shinobi's forehead protector and having to deal with one of said Earth Dragons. And no matter how many times he had tried to get out of the engagement zone, he was ALWAYS forced back into the fight's starting point. In short, he was getting tired. Tired of this so-called fight, tired of the fact that his opponent never reacted to his taunts, and just tired in general as his opponent slowly but steadily wore him down.

If the fight had taken place in one of the nearby rocky foothills he could have flattened the whole area, the sneaky bastard with it, but this forested area had almost NO metals in the ground and what WAS there was barely enough to fill one of those artist toys that use magnetic metal shavings. Probably the worst part of all of this was the fact that the guy attacking him hadn't used a single kunai or shuriken so he didn't even have the satisfaction of being able to send his weapons back at him several times faster than they threw said weapons. As yet another group of Earth constructs formed around him, Jiga gritted his teeth and once more started swinging his weapon.

With Tayuya and Kairin

Kairin barely twitched as electricity once more shot off of Jiga's kusarigama and into one of the electricity attraction seals. It had been a rather common occurrence over the last thirty minutes and so had been something she had rather quickly gotten used to. Glancing over at where Tayuya was still playing, she frowned at sensing her fellow redhead's chakra levels pass the halfway point before focusing back on Jiga. Fortunately for the two, Jiga's own chakra levels were now much lower than Tayuya's, the big guy's reserves no where near being able to compete with an Uzumaki's vitality. Kairin gave it another half a minute before the magnetics user was in the chakra exhaustion red zone and she could safely play her part in their plan.

Sure enough, roughly twenty five seconds later, the kusarigama released one last, much less impressive burst of electricity and Jiga staggered. In a flash Kairin had senbon needles in his shoulders making him drop the weapon. The pain of the strikes broke him out of the Genjutsu but before he could even realize this she was right next to him putting three needles into his neck and he immediately dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes as he entered a death like state.

Tayuya gave a deep sigh as she finally stopped playing and rasped out "Finally, that fat ass lasted far too long." Unsealing a water skin, she took three greedy pulls from it before she continued in a much better sounding voice "Damn magnetic bull shit ability, if the asshole had been a regular ninja we could have turned him into a pin cushion half an hour ago."

Placing the body in a stasis scroll rather than the same body scroll as his brother, Kairin nodded before she adjusted her glasses and said "It was rather tedious waiting for him to run out of chakra. Still, hopefully the people in T&I can get something useful from him."

Bending down, the medic picked up the dropped kusarigama and studied it for a moment. Seeing this, Tayuya grinned and said "Thinking about using your spoils of war?"

Kairin hummed before she sealed it in another scroll and said "Maybe, could be useful having a medium to long range weapon that isn't a small needle. I'll have to see if there's anyone who can teach me when we get back home."

"I'd recommend Tenten Higurashi." Naruto's clone said as he dropped down out of the tree where he had watched the whole thing.

"Isn't she just a Genin though?" Kairin asked as she began collecting her seals, having remembered seeing her at the most recent Chunnin exams.

"She actually made Chunnin, and just because she's young doesn't stop her from being one of if not THE best weapons mistresses in the village." The clone said easily.

Kairin gave a hum at that even as the small group began making their way to the others. The two girls still had to set up a proper perimeter after all.

END

Author's Notes: Update Schedule is posted on my profile.

Also, for those of you who only follow my stories and not me as an author, there's a very important poll on my profile dealing with said schedule that will be taken down on 12/28/18 so click the link at the top of the page and cast your vote please.

Also, ytygr was kind enough to provide a little bit of info on burns in his/her review so have a read:

Sorry I was reading reviews to decide if I wanted to read this fic and some guest made a comment about burns (a comment for ch 12) and 1st being the worst, which is wrong (I looked it up)so if you feel so inclined here are the facts that you can post to inform the ignorant!

SKIN INJURIES

The most common injury to the skin is burns. An estimated 130,000 individuals are hospitalized annually in the United States due to burn injuries. Many burns are small and will heal completely on their own if kept free from infection. Many different rating scales for burn injury exist, however, the most common are: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns.

First (1st) degree burns are superficial burns and can be quite painful but are generally not considered life threatening. An example would be a sunburn. First degree burns involve only the epidermis.

Second (2nd) degree burns or partial thickness burns are more severe and will involve the epidermis and the dermis. The healing of 2nd degree burns is dependent on how deeply the dermis is burned. If the epidermal cells that are found surrounding the hair follicles and skin glands are not damaged, then they will regenerate and grow a new epithelial (skin) covering. If the dermis is burned deeply enough to destroy its internal structures, then new epithelium will not regenerate and grafting may be required.

Third (3rd) degree burns or full thickness burns destroy both the epidermis and dermis and may affect deeper tissues such as fat and muscle and connect tissues. Most 3rd degree burns will need grafting to replace the lost dermis and epidermis.

Other injuries to the skin which require grafting can be caused by trauma, abrasions, frostbite, infection, ulcers, and auto-immune diseases.