Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, never will, don't even want to. I'm kinda tired though so I would like to sleep for 16 hours straight, I told you I was sick in the last chapter. I thought I would be able to do stuff fine, but nope my tonsils had to be removed as an adult, I had some complications and yeah I was down for the count for a while. I wanted to put something up though even if I'm feeling meh, so hopefully it's somewhat decent, maybe I'll rewrite it later. I don't know what it is but it somehow feels like the chapter isn't correct.
"Listen up you brats it's time for trap training! Lesson number one, don't get caught by a trap!" Oh no really? You wouldn't say!
"Number two, an obvious trap is often used as a trap for a different more hidden trap! Never try to dismantle an obvious trap, go far around them. Except of course if the enemy anticipated this and laid traps in those paths. In short, don't get caught!" Best advice ever…
"Lesson number three, use poisons and small things like spikes covered in them. Large traps are often too obvious, smaller ones hidden by the environment itself are by far the deadliest."
"Lesson number four, make traps strike from the blind spots. Also, don't let traps give any indication that they're sprung. Use things often found in the environment as the trigger, a simple stick being moved is enough to make another stick impale your target from behind." Nasty but effective, wait, you're talking to children! You're telling them to impale others?!
"The final lesson is putting traps in trees as well. Shinobi almost never stick to the ground in a chase, put traps in trees to force them to be wary of them. A shinobi that's forced to move on the ground is a lot slower than one that can use the trees."
"A good strategy when being chased is not to cover some tracks. Make it look like you've tried to cover them but failed, then place some colourless poison in the print. When the enemy touches the print to feel how long ago it's been made they will slowly become poisoned and slowed down. It won't be enough to kill them, but any time gained is precious in an escape."
"Be resourceful, traps with mechanics are sometimes too hard to set up in a chase. Use bags of poison gas for instance. Tiny caltrops laced with poison are also very useful while on the run." She sure loves her poisons, damn that's scary! I get that they're useful and all but still, that's just nasty!
"But Sensei, what about the traps that are left after a chase, won't they harm others?!" Of course they will, but escaping is far more important than thinking about others!
"They will. Poisons usually last about one day in the open air before they're not effective anymore. Mechanical traps however stay until they're triggered. Often a large storm or heavy rain will ruin them, but some will indeed kill innocent animals or even humans. But! Escaping and surviving is your number one priority."
It's a harsh world Naruko, you don't have time to worry about others. Staying alive is hard enough as it is especially for a shinobi, the average career doesn't last that long you know.
"I will be giving you mild poisons to use for the coming days. I will be teaching you how to make them yourself during the coming year, poisons are a basic tool for shinobi. We don't fight fair keep that in mind. Baldy" Hey she uses my nickname as well! "and the others will know that they're out of the game once they're hit with enough poison. You win if you incapacitate all of them or survive for three days." She tossed us a small bag full of vials and descriptions on how to use them, maybe she wasn't that bad? No, don't get caught off-guard Tora, she's a devil!
Proven by the fact that Newby suddenly slumped to the ground and became slightly purple combined with trouble breathing… "Don't trust anything someone just throws at you Newby, didn't you learn anything?!"
Stutter began healing him, his normal colour came back and his breathing returned to normal. The bitch poisoned the cover of the bag! We moved the vials to a separate bag and prepared to begin our training, I was not looking forward to the coming days that's for sure.
"Your training begins when my Kunai hits the floor, you have a one-hour lead." Instead of throwing the damn thing up like any normal person would in the situation she just straight out let it drop from her hand… Damn I hate her.
We ran towards the forest entrance as if our lives depended on it and in some way it did. This was practice, if it was a real situation we would have a big problem.
We halted after ten minutes of running to discuss our game plan, as much was possible though. Most of it would be running and not dying. Naruko spoke up first "I'll be taking the lead dattebanya!"
Newby however was not in favour of this, at all… the look in his eyes suddenly changed as well as the air around him. This was it, wasn't it, his other personality? He gave off an air that didn't allow an argument, one that just screamed his leadership, one that did not care in the least about others… in other words, he became a total dick…
"No, not happening. I'm taking the lead instead, Naruko and Hinata you two are stronger than me by far but you're far less experienced when it comes to surviving in the wild." True enough but still, you're the Newby, we're the pro's damnit!
"We have limited time, we're going to make a lot of caltrops first. Naruko, gather any useful sticks you can find and cut them until they have sharp edges on both sides. Hinata you have senbon correct?"
She nodded in confirmation, good girl. "Cut them in half and spike any tree branch thick enough for support. Cover them with a bit of dirt so they're less noticeable."
"We will be making a massive amount of traps from the beginning, make them wary of their movements right away. Even if we use a lot less later on they will still halt in their movement. Naruko will use her clones to help with both traps, we have twenty minutes before we move on."
"I'm going to cover the earth with spikes, get moving"
Yuuro began grinning as he came up with a plan. "Hinata, cover the tree branches as planned. We will make them take a different route, make them think it's safe and plant a few poisoned traps."
"I will make such a large number of caltrops that my clones can take them and spread out to throw them everywhere."
Newby nodded his head "Good, I'll remove our tracks with earth manipulation. Hinata you will use your eyes to check for pursuers"
"If we see that they're gaining on us we will Kawarimi with Naruko's clones and suddenly change direction. Let's begin!"
We took the entire twenty minutes to place traps on the whole area and continued doing this as we moved in our escape. A good trick of the Shadow clones is that they clone any item that the original is holding. They're not extremely useful as they're fake and will burst on contact, but if they're mixed in with the real caltrops then the amount looks a lot larger than it actually is!
We ran until fifty minutes were spend, a chasm appeared to our left which led to a river in the distance. It seemed like the logical route to take and therefore made for the perfect set-up. A large part of an escape is playing mind games, will we follow the logical path or take an alternative route? The good part of shadow clones is that they can make it look like we've used a few separate paths.
"Naruko, nine clones" tss ordering us around…
Naruko summoned nine clones and made them Henge so they had the same weight and prints as the original group.
"We're splitting up in four groups. Three groups will move in separate directions while our main group follows in the exact footprints of the one going down the chasm. We will split up at the cave in the distance and dig ourselves an escape with my earth manipulation. Clones, you will go on for one hour and set up traps wherever you can, make them a lot more elaborate than the ones before. We won't be giving you poison so use spikes and triggers instead."
"Hai!" the three groups of clones immediately did as were told and we followed suit in the footprints of the one going down the chasm. We reached the river and saw the cave in the distance about twenty metres to our right on the other side. We stopped on top of a large rock.
"Give us a hand, throw each of us towards the solid rock near the cave so we won't leave any footprints."
Newby was thrown first and landed right at the desired location. Though he did fall to the ground as he held his legs, I think he might've sprained something? Not that that's a problem.
Naruko was holding on to me and we gracefully landed next to Newby "You okay Yuuto?"
"Yeah… I sprained my ankle, it's not broken though." Good, that would've been a problem… although you would've deserved it.
"We're catching Hinata, we can't have her getting hurt as well. She will heal you in a bit"
Sure to her word we caught Stutter, who then proceeded to heal the Newby. After which we entered the cave while being careful not to cause any disturbances or leave an indication that we were here. The cave opened up in a few different directions which caused us to stop for a bit, which route to take?
"Hinata, can you tell which route is the best option?"
"No… they're really long. I can't see the end of them."
"Same here"
Naruko sighed "Give me a minute, I'll have to do this carefully so they won't notice." She tapped into the Kyuubi's chakra and grew slightly feral in appearance, her cat-ears grew a bit larger and she closed her eyes to listen more carefully to the surroundings.
"There's a source of water in the middle one, it's faint though. But it's our best bet, it could lead to a resting place."
Her appearance turned back to normal as he took charge yet again "We're going. Stick to the walls and ceiling of the cave so we have less chance of leaving prints." We ran up the walls and ran at top speed for well over an hour, damn this cave was long! The path was beautiful though, it wasn't just a barren cave but eventually opened up to a larger path that had a small ecosystem inside of it.
Some plants and bushes littered the floor and you could see the air becoming damp, the only reason could be a waterfall somewhere in the distance.
The path finally opened up to a large open cavern with a river running through. A deer was drinking from the river signalling that it was safe to drink from, it seemed like a good spot to rest.
"A-are we going to…kill it?" Stutter didn't seem to like the idea, come to think of it, these three have never killed before. At least Stutter and Naruko haven't, I don't know about Newby.
"Sorry Hinata, we need to eat something if we want to hold out…" although Naruko seemed equally reluctant, they're still far to innocent…
Newby however was clearly different "I'll do it" he went towards the deer and held out his hand in a friendly gesture. The deer began sniffing it, after a while he began stroking it and slowly walked away from the river. The poor deer followed and had no idea what was about to happen… Newby was smart, he didn't want to contaminate the water in any way.
Newby dug a small hole in the ground and led the deer towards it. He sat down to which the deer followed suit, he had a way with animals, it must be because of his connection to Nature. The animals sense that he's one with it just like they are.
A bit of sadness could be seen in his eyes, he struck the deer on its head to knock it unconscious. "I'm sorry" Afterwards he slit the throat and held it above the hole to make sure the blood wouldn't cover the floor or leave too much of a smell. Ten minutes later and the deer stopped bleeding, he covered the hole with earth.
"Naruko, Hinata gather some dry firewood. I'll prepare the meat." Poor Naruko and Stutter were slightly pale and simply nodded as they went on their way. Newby waited until they were gone and took out a knife that was obviously used often, it even had a slight red tint.
He cut apart the deer for any useful meat and laid them next to him. He took out a sealing scroll and sealed most of it away only leaving four pieces which could be easily cooked. His next action was far more interesting though, he carefully took apart the deer's bones and began sharpening them into spikes!
He didn't leave a single bone that could be used, even the small ones were taken and sharpened as he waited for Naruko and Stutter to return. He's really used to the life outside, having him will give us a big advantage.
"We're…back…" they slightly stopped mid-sentence when they saw the scene. Stutter even having to cover her mouth. "Don't throw up, I've avoided making any real scent spread so far." He's indeed far harsher and a lot less emotional than usual.
"Hn…" a meek nod was all the answer he was getting. They really have to get used to this. "Do you have the wood?"
"We do"
"Put it in a pile next to the waterfall, don't let it get wet by the splashing water. We want the scent to be weakened by the moisture in the air. Immediately start the fire and make it a bit bigger than usual."
They began the fire, the meat was roasting above it and we sat down for a well-deserved rest. "Yuuto…why did…why did you say sorry when you killed the deer?"
He sighed slightly and looked at us still with a lack of emotions, only sadness could be slightly seen in his eyes. "Because I find killing animals to be a sad part of life. I'll only kill one when I really need to, otherwise it's a crime against nature… people that kill animals without necessity are just beasts themselves."
"But aren't animals beasts as well?"
A bit of anger could be heard in his voice "No, only some. Humans however are mostly despicable. Tell me Naruko, you have the Kyuubi inside of you, did those villagers in your past seem human to you?" …he's right, they're far worse… it seems like he's had similar problems with humans if he thinks like this, and I agree with him.
Naruko slightly stuttered as she relived the trauma of her past "N-No…but…"
"No Naruko, there is no but… A beast is something that chooses to be vicious. Animals are sometimes born like that, it's in their nature, they are pure even if they are sometimes vicious with the rare exception… Humans however often choose to be vicious, they chose what they did, they're full of lies and deceit."
"I love animals, so I'll feel bad about killing them."
"…What about humans…killing them I mean…"
He had a debating look "I don't care about those unless they're pure hearted" so he dislikes humans that much, I wonder why he's even friendly with Naruko and the others… but this is his other personality talking, his normal one has more emotions. It seems like this one wasn't made purely by his contact with chakra, this one was made by a trauma, a very deep one at that…
"Why? They're also alive, killing is awful Dattebanya!"
"You're a shinobi, killing others is what we do. But we'll talk about this some other time, we don't have any time now."
Newby held out his hand to Naruko "Give me the bag and some senbon, I'm going to prepare them in advance." A nice way to divert the subject.
He took a few senbon and a tranquilizing poison to begin coating them. He laid them on a small piece of cloth to make sure they would stay good. "I'm going to trap the entrance, you can stay here and eat."
He got up and moved a metre away before suddenly striking one senbon in our direction!
"Got you, sensei."
Shady suddenly appeared where he struck the senbon and smiled "Indeed you did, how long did you know?"
"Since the start, I wasn't sure but I felt something a few times. We didn't sit next to the waterfall for the smell to dissipate, I did it to see where your breath would disturb the moisture in the air."
"Clever, I didn't think anything of it when you wanted to trap the entrance. I must say, you've done a good job so far with all the traps. The others won't be having it easy to catch up."
"You signalled them?"
He nodded and smiled yet again "Only the general direction." He took out a small vial himself and drank it "Well then, I'm out of the game. I will still be following you to judge your progress though. Also…can I have some meat?"
No you can't, it's ours!
So he'd been following us from the very start, not cool Shady… there goes our advantage. We'll have to move quickly in order to keep them from catching us, we've beaten one so far though thanks to Newby!
"Sure sensei, but we'll have to go soon or they'll catch up."
"No need, I'll signal them to wait for ten minutes. Perks of being the one with the seals, I'm not going to let them take that meat away from me…"
We sat down for food and slightly relaxed knowing we had a bit of time.
"So, sensei. Any advice?"
"Hm? Not really, you did well in making multiple trails and making traps with and without poison. There's no way of knowing which are poisoned and which aren't so they'll have to be careful with all of them. Your choice of going to the cave was a bit obvious though, even with the mind-games there was a high chance you would do this. Your best bet would've been to follow the river and not enter the cave."
"But aren't we too easily seen in that chasm?"
"Maybe, but there won't be anything holding you back while you run. It would increase your speed tremendously, if they made the wrong choice and entered the cave while you ran with the river then you would have gained a lot of time."
"What about our choice of going down this path? You couldn't have known we were going to choose this one, right?"
He shook his head "You're mistaken, we know this area a lot better than any of you. We know that Naruko is a jinchuriki and can heighten her hearing to find this waterfall, we also know where it leads to. An enemy pursuing you will almost always know the area better than you, keep that in mind."
Wait, did he say where it leads to? Which must mean… "Miauw"
"You want us to go back?"
"Miauw"
"He said where it leads to… you mean they're waiting for us!" a slight smirk came upon Shady's face which confirmed my suspicion "Miauw"
"Hinata, Naruko, check if there's any cave near ours. We're going to see if we can tunnel our way through!"
Thanks for the hint Shady, we would've been caught otherwise. Now to check what we're going to do from here on out.
"There's one connected to ours if we tunnel for about 7 metres. It's near the wall to our right"
Naruko summoned some clones "Tunnel to the other cave and lay some traps down. We're going back."
"Back? Why?" A confused Stutter didn't realise why… shame.
"They'll try and look for us if we take too long, digging would cost us way too much time to make it far, but they'll still want to check because it's the least obvious route we'll take. Instead we're going to go back and take one of the different paths. We'll have to hope that there's no-one waiting for us at that opening."
"Miauw"
"Good idea, Clone 1, use your camouflage and check if there's someone waiting for us. Dispel to report back. Go full speed!"
"Got it!"
"If there's someone waiting we'll storm right through them or incapacitate them with poison. Which types do we have left?"
Hinata checked the bag "Quite a few, tranquilizers five vials and sleeping powder two."
"We'll try and make the one waiting for us fall asleep, that is if there's someone waiting for us. Sleeping powder is odourless and colourless, even if it doesn't make him fall asleep he'll still be weakened."
"How do you know it's a he? What about Tou-sensei?"
"Nah, she'll want the best possible chance to grab my tail. She'll wait until we're tired, just like Baldy wants to see our progress as much as possible. So it'll be Seito for sure dattebanya!"
Which means we have a chance to beat him!
"We'll have to be serious when fighting him. Don't stall or try to enjoy yourself, go for the kill and finish him as quickly as possible before the others catch up." Woah, that's quite brutal to say as a kid!
"But… Yuuto"
Newby however shook his head "We can't give them an opening, we still have two and a half days to go after this… if we don't go all out from the start we'll lose on the first day" True enough…
The analytical Yuuto we've seen so far is indeed better at such situations although he's a bit rough around the edges. His lack of emotions is a bit concerning though… would he even care if someone got injured to accomplish something?
We ran back the way we came at a casual speed meanwhile preparing the bags of sleeping powder "My clone just dispelled, Seito-sensei's indeed waiting for us… but… he prepared a trap"
They're trapping us?! That's not the way it should be!
"What kind of trap Naruko?"
"There's lightning all over the cave, there's not even enough room to move… also sensei said Hi…"
That's it, I'm done with him… first he's a damn pervert and now he thinks he can toy with me?! "Miauw"
"Huh? Tora-chan?"
I've got this! "Miauw" leave this to me, I'll show him that he's messed with the wrong cat!
"You've got it? You mean…"
"Miauw" yep, good guess
"You're going to spring the trap for us, but Tora-chan, that'll hurt!"
I don't care! Stutter will heal me afterwards and Kami no that I'm going to let him continue antagonizing me!
"Okay…Hinata you can heal him afterwards. If Tora-chan is going to do that then I'll take it seriously as well, not trying to sound arrogant and all but please let me handle him"
Oh damn she's serious, she really does not like me getting hurt… fine with me. Naruko and Tora to the rescue!
"We should stick as a team, if we…"
"I'm sorry Yuuto but you'll only get in my way at the current level. Even Hinata isn't strong enough to support me yet… you'll see, just trust me." Her bad-ass form is nothing to scoff at indeed, this'll be fun, for us… not for the pervert.
We approached the opening in the cave with the pervert standing there in the distance smiling at us like he's nice and all… that smile's going to be gone soon…
"So many traps…" Stutter had her eyes on and apparently saw more than we anticipated, not that it mattered, yet it will hurt like a bitch but it's worth it.
Let's do this "Miauw" I jumped on Naruko's shoulder and prepared for what was to come, we casually walked towards him.
"You're finally here, didn't expect us to trap you, did you?" No we didn't… but it doesn't matter, you're royally screwed!
"Miauw" Hit me up!
Naruko let some lightning release from her shoulder and began coating me in a small layer of it, it hurt a bit and felt like a million bites over and over but that didn't matter. What mattered was the effect it had… Naruko, your turn "Miauw" I jumped from her shoulder onto the ground and waited for Naruko to finish preparations.
Five clones popped up next to her each with a small bag in their hands "Fuuton: Great Breakthrough!" a large cloud of sleeping gas filled the entire cave, why would we do this now you might ask? Wouldn't we be affected?
Pervert held his breath and grinned, he knew what we had in mind. Five clones, something Naruko shouldn't be able to handle with her shields unless…
All six Naruko grew feral, their tails and ears lengthened, sharp teeth formed, some fur on her arms and elongated whiskers and claws. But she wasn't done yet… a red chakra started leaking from each of them which only increased her catgirl like appearance, even the claws on her feet were now extremely sharp and she had the patented Cheshire cat grin on her face.
"Buddha's Protection" a shield formed around each of them and linked with the chakra, she's able to summon six tails so far but sadly her body could only handle one, so she chose to split up the six tails with clones! Six linked shields with a Bijuu's worth of chakra to spend, pervert's done for! The lightning traps were still a problem though, for her at least… for me they were a pain, literally…
I jumped towards the middle of the cave opening and spiked my chakra, the lightning on my fur reached outwards and triggered every trap in the entire cave. A massive torrent of lightning rushed towards me which would kill any normal person or cat…
All the lightning hit me and damn did it hurt! I was burned to a crisp and blackened instantly, my fur and flesh were burned right off and some limbs were destroyed… But I told you I was immortal, truly immortal…
The destroyed parts just reappeared as if nothing happened, you could also say they regenerated but it was at such a speed that it was truly insane. This only happened in life threatening damage, otherwise this healing factor didn't seem to care… I couldn't be permanently injured in any sort of way. It still hurt though!
I fell to the ground with burning pain all over and saw the shocked face of the pervert as he didn't anticipate this in any possible way. He even slightly gasped and breathed in a bit of the gas, this wouldn't take effect instantly but will dampen his strength over time.
Naruko instantly took this chance and flashed from her spot to attack the pervert, six massive red claws soared towards him from every side! The big problem with her using the Kyuubi's chakra is that her camouflage Jutsu isn't good enough yet to compensate for it, she's clearly visible… and by clearly I mean she's flashing all over the place and you have no idea where the Kami she is.
Her speed had increased Two-fold by the increased strength! But Pervert wasn't one of the Twelve for nothing, he was an elite…
The claws pierced his body only for it to turn into a sudden flash of lightning which shot towards all directions hoping that it would hit something. So he wasn't even there to begin with?
"Raiton: Spider Web" the entire ground got covered in a thick web of lightning "Raiton: Pillars of Lightning" which turned into thousands of thin spikes that shot up and covered the entire cave! Holy crap he's even stronger than I thought, this is some insane Raiton control!
All six Naruko's blocked the attack with their shields, once they were hit however all the other beams changed direction and instantly shot towards them! The shields continued blocking the attack until they were eventually each penetrated by a single beam… the beam latched on to each of the Naruko's? They didn't actually do any damage?
"Beacon placed" the remaining beams converged and turned into Pervert! He actually shortly turned into lightning himself! He grinned at Naruko "Now is where it gets interesting"
He held out his hands "Raiton: Lightning Bolts" and shot one from each of his fingers!
Naruko awakened from her short shock and flashed away continuously, the bolts however were somehow following her and changed direction again and again!
They're homing in on her, the Beacons placed on her made any attack made by him follow her… that's just cheating! "Miauw!"
"Got it!" she did as I commanded and began attacking him instead of continuing to dodge, dodging would have no use and would only take more energy… Attacking however gave him less chance to cause problems. I hope…
The six Naruko's took distance and aimed at Pervert "Raiton: Lightning Bolt" only for it to blow up right in their hands! "You thought it only attracted my lightning Jutsu? Still naïve Naruko-chan! Ah!" Stupid pervert, continue talking!
"Tss, my bad Dattebanya" Close combat it is "Miauw"
So no Paralysis claw or any other lightning Jutsu, that's kind of a weakness for her…but Wind chakra does beat Lightning chakra so that's fine…
"Raiton: Continuous Discharge" Crap…
Naruko's claws shot at him from a distance and continued to follow him as he moved due to the wind chakra used in them, just one hit was needed!
Pervert however continued to dodge them even if he didn't find it easy. No, it wasn't easy, he was slightly sweating and had a serious expression as he struggled not to breathe in the gas which as all around him.
Naruko had the advantage with her speed and Wind claws which come from a distance, Pervert however was no pushover… his mastery of lightning was superb. More and more lightning discharged from him and streaked towards the Narukos as they attacked him while dodging. She had to dodge more attacks by the second, ten lightning bolts still following her plus the discharge closing in, it was only a matter of time…
"Fuuton: Great Breakthrough!" which Naruko knew, she enclosed Pervert and fired a powerful gust of air from all sides leaving him with no place to escape. "Fuuton: Wind Barrier!" and tried blocking the inescapable lightning closing in with both of her barrier and shields.
A shield which divides the damage done to all other shields is just useless if you hit all of them at once… She decided to trade attacks and hope her shields would hold out until the sleeping gas takes effect. Once that happens we win!
"Raiton: Lightning Armour, Raiton: Lightning Balls"
Numerous balls of lightning began floating around the pervert as his body lit up with it as well. His lightning armour was so strong that it completely blocked the incoming bursts of air although with the price of him becoming slightly out of breath from the continuous fighting.
The balls of lightning shot towards every Naruko leaving her with little to no room to escape as she was finally able to shunshin away again. She dodges countless bolts and balls until finally "Raiton: Disperse, Lightning bolts"
Every ball of lightning split up into three separate bolts of lightning which shot towards each Naruko, leaving her with no room to escape… Even with her insane speed it's near impossible to dodge this much lightning, lightning is one of the fastest elements, if not the fastest after all…
Even with the Kyuubi's chakra strengthening her, the shields to protect her and Wind chakra cancelling the Lightning it wasn't enough… Pervert was an elite while Naruko was Low Jonin, maybe Mid Jonin with the Kyuubi's chakra added, that plus her lack in experience made far too large a difference.
"You lose Naruko-chan!" she fell to the ground with lightning still crackling around her and struggled to get up. Pervert walked up to her and helped her up with a smile "You've become better though."
The sick pervert, helping a little girl up after you've just beaten her down, disgusting especially with that sick smile of yours… if only I could get up and give him a good scratch between the legs…
He let down his lightning armour as he helped her… "Chakra Barrage" which opened up a chance for Newby to dishonestly shoot over a hundred chakra balls towards his back!
"That's not very nice Yuuto-kun"
"There's no nice in a fight Sensei" Newby forced him to dodge backwards as ball after ball nearly hit him when his defence was down "Welcoming Approach: Hundred Armed Kannon" which gave Stutter the opportunity to strike him from the back.
He dropped down straight away unable to move even a single muscle except for talking… "Not cool…"
"We win Dattebanya!" Barely though, you used six tails and we had to resort to dirty tactics in order to win, and this was the weakest of the ones after us!
"A splendid fight, great work on catching Seito off-guard you two" tss Baldy's here already? We're screwed… "You've gained one hour to escape. Good luck" if it weren't for that one rule which I totally didn't forget about.
Newby walked up to Naruko as she was laying on the floor "Naruko can you still move?" she struggled to get up as her wounds were almost already fully healed, the pain obviously still remaining as seen from her expression.
"Hn…but damn does it hurt Dattebanya! I lost! Aaarrgghh!" Which hurts, your injuries or your pride? "Miauw"
"Tora-chan! Ah, Tora-chan, you okay?!" finally they see me lying on the ground! Screw them, how could they not have noticed me being in agonizing pain?! Does being charred look freaking normal to you?!
"Hinata-chan can you heal her?" She'd better! Stutter walked up to me with a slight apologetic frown "Sorry Tora-chan" and began the healing…
Really, her healing was amazing, far better than that green chakra crap those medics use…I think… it's just sooo warm! It's like a nice warm blanket wraps up around you until you're back to normal, you'd almost want to get injured just to feel it, almost.
It took a few minutes until I was fully recovered and stood up, I saw Naruko had also recovered and walked up to her before jumping on her shoulder. I need rest… I might be immortal but it still takes a toll on me.
She gentle stroked my fur before Newby dared interrupt us as if we had something important to do…
"Good you're both up, we're leaving." And jumped away towards the cave's entrance as we followed suit. He's going to get it when we're done with this damn survival crap.
Wait, where are we actually going? I'm a tad sleepy… Ah, it's the river, why again?
"We're taking the most obvious route, we have less than an hour so keep up." The most obvious route, isn't that kind of stupid?
"Huh, why?"
"Because I have no idea what they're going to expect. We might as well take the quick road and hope for the best. Honestly, from the first half of the day I've come to a conclusion"
"We're basically done for. We can't win, only hold out for so long. Like Sensei said we have less experience with the area and far less experience with tactics and how to approach the situation. They'll catch up, it's only a matter of when."
So what're we going to do, it's just waiting for our loss
Stutter however was the obvious genius out of all of us, this time at least "H-How about…we dig a hole and just hide?"
We came to a sudden halt and just stared at her…freaking genius, why run when you can just hide in a deep ditch?!
"…Naruko, summon some clones and make them move in three groups. I'm going to dig a hole…" we're actually going to do this?!
"Are you serious?"
Newby shrugged "Might as well, nothing to lose, right?"
And that was just what we did…Newby dug a small hole that became quite deep before we entered. He covered the top with earth "Hinata could you give us some light?" to which she provided that.
"Isn't it kinda obvious you've dug a hole here? I mean the earth is disturbed, right?"
"I tried to make it look normal so it's our best bet." He continued digging and I began thinking about the miraculous thing that is Jutsu… where is all that earth vanishing to?! He's been digging and the earth is just vanishing, it's not above us that's for sure!
Especially after what seemed like an hour, he somehow made a damn hole in the ground that was a few metres wide! "I think we're safe here, they shouldn't be able to sense us here. Right, sensei?"
Nobody?! No-one is even suspicious how in Kami's name that worked?! Come to think of it, how do most Jutsu even work as they do?
Shady appeared which I couldn't care less about just about now "…I guess so, who in their right mind makes a ten-metre-deep hole during an escape…" freaking right!
"So we're in the clear, we could just stay here for the remainder of our time then?"
Not gonna happen! Plus there's the fact about needing air, it's kind of important you know?
"Miauw"
"Tora-chan's right, we need air… how about we wait for a few hours and then go back to the cave? Just hang out there and hope they won't return. Maybe set up an insane amount of traps in case they do, you said they would find us anyway so why not try to win with a trap?"
So no running, lots of naps and a nice waterfall to relax next to with a fire. Done, I'm in.
A couple of hours later, at least I think so… kind of hard to make out the time when you're underground… we hadn't been found yet as Baldy and the other useless piece of air weren't here. It seemed that digging a hole was indeed such a ludicrous idea that they didn't even think about it, stutter did though, does that make her a genius or a dumbass?
We dug back up and found the sky to be pitch black, it was night time, we'd been in a hole for that long?! Carefully making our way back towards the cave we didn't notice anything off, no Baldy or Bitch to be seen anywhere, good so far.
The same went for the cave, we entered, saw the wreckage of the previous battle and just went on towards the waterfall. We arrived at our destination and saw that the fire had been used by someone other than us, it was out but still slightly smouldering even with the waterfall nearby.
"We just missed them? Luckyyy Dattebanya!" maybe it had something to do with her luck or maybe not, I didn't care…
"Ssshh be quiet Naruko, if they just left it means they might still be around, let's just be quiet and hang out in silence for a while."
And that's what we did for one whole boring hour, at least I think it was an hour… night time and all… wait just a damn minute why hasn't anybody ever made a damn clock seal yet?! We have Jutsu that make stuff mysteriously disappear, you're able to shoot freaking fire and tornado's but we have no way to tell the time in such a situation?! Messed up… so messed up…
After the hour we finally decided to begin a fire, Newby decided to place the fire at a new location. One where the light it produced wouldn't illuminate the cavern enough to signal we were here. We checked from every entrance and found out that it was near impossible to notice, but just in case we still made some earth walls…
And by 'we' I mean Newby because screw him.
Shady being our teacher sat down next to us without any camouflage and just lightly laughed "They're running around like headless chicken and you're all just chilling next to a fire, priceless!"
"Sensei?"
"Perks of having the seals, shouldn't have said that though. Ah well, let's feast!" he opened a scroll with all sorts of food and didn't seem to care about the survival part of the mission. They still had to be warmed up though but he'd won points in my book. He's passable, even if barely.
We, and I mean I, gorged ourselves with food until we couldn't move any longer and damn did I deserve that after my electrocution! We had a small conversation about what to do from now on and decided on one simple plan…
Trap the everliving shit out of this cavern. And I mean serious traps, not even a small spot would be left untouched and Newby wanted to make all of them potentially deadly… he's still messed up in the head if you ask me, that second personality of him seems to only have a few things.
Rational thinking, planning and being calculating with actions. Which basically meant fight or flight to the extreme and last but not least the negative emotions like anger and sadness. Although his other personality also has sadness but a lot less, it seems things like these trigger the switch. At least that's what he's saying… yep, this side actually knows he has a split personality.
"So… Yuuto, how come you're so different dattebanya?"
"Hm? I thought we told you already, I have a split personality"
"…for real? You mean the you now isn't Yuuto?"
He shook his head though "We're both Yuuto. It's just that I control all the rational thinking and stressful situations, while the other is the wimp that acts like a shy baby."
"So you're the dick Yuuto?" yep!
"You could say that" Ah fack off you're not even mad at her calling you a dick? "Although I prefer you call me the rational one. But I'm still Yuuto, it's just that I know the other Yuuto exists, while he doesn't know about me."
Shady was closely listening in as well as this was his student, the one he wanted personally train a lot "And why are you telling us this? I seem to remember you hating humans, that's something I wouldn't have expected with you wanting to become Hokage and all"
Newby shrugged "Because I accept that I'm stuck with you. That and the fact that all of you are obviously damaged goods just like me, especially you Naruko. I'm kind of curious why you've not come to hate humanity though as our pasts are similar, how is it that one such as you can be so upbeat?"
"…similar past? You mean…the villagers they?"
"Beat me up each and every day after they were done with you. That is until a certain event happened"
Now this was getting just wrong, I understand Naruko even if those villagers were maniacs, but I could still understand… but him? What'd he do?
"Not to mention that I don't have your ridiculous healing factor, why'd you think I moved to the forest. It wasn't because I liked it there more that's for sure, at first though. Now it's my home and it will always stay like that."
Shady took over the questioning as he wanted to know more "So your split personality wasn't because of your chakra. Tell me, what was the reason?"
The look in Newby's eyes grew all the more serious and I could feel the hate and intent to kill radiate from him. He took off his shirt and even I gasped in horror at the sight, brutal scars and a deformed torso and back, it was so horrible, even someone used to the most brutal wars wouldn't have this!
"Because those mongrels one day decided to torture me for fun! They cut me apart and left me to die in the fucking forest because of something that isn't even my fault!
"Which is?"
"Tss you really can't stop asking, can you? Fine, you know that in the last war there were plenty of prisoners taken that were never returned. Guess which ones are the most hated in Konoha?"
"Iwa… you can't be serious, they did that to you because one of your parents is from Iwa?!" Holy shit, I knew those villagers were scum, but this? They're just taking their hate out on a kid!
Newby nodded "Because one of the scum shinobi that took care of the captives raped my mother, killed her after she gave birth to me and finally dumped me into the orphanage claiming that I was an orphan… and guess what my precious father did afterwards? He gave me these scars as a final reminder while he told me the fun story"
Shady and the others, including me radiated killing intent at this point as we heard his tale, no wonder Newby was fucked up! No wonder he has two personalities, his childhood was even worse than Naruko's!
"He got locked up, didn't he?!"
"Nope, the lovely council decided that almost murdering an Iwa orphan isn't a crime. He got a light slap on the hand and that's it"
"Then why do you want to become Hokage?! You really want to help that scum village dattebanya?!" even Naruko seems to have come to hate the village somewhat which is amazing as she is forgiveness itself…
"So I can execute the entire damn council."
"…And if you can't become Hokage?"
He smirked "Then I guess Konoha may have to disappear of the map?" hot damn he's actually serious… that's just capital treason thinking right there, and he's saying it next to one of the Twelve!
Shady however didn't seem to mind? He even gave him a slight hug of sorts, you know one that guys do to each other. No, Shady didn't mind at all and neither did I after what they did to Naruko and Stutter.
The conversation slowly died out after the less than pleasant topic as we went to get some sleep. I'm sure both Naruko and Stutter have much to think about… especially Stutter, she still loved the village somewhat, I imagine this team isn't going to stay friendly to its home…
We woke up at the start of the second day, light filled the cavern and Baldy or Bitch still weren't in sight. Lucky us, we began our plan of trapping the crap out of this cavern! Naruko summoned clones and gathered a bunch of wood, Newby made spikes everywhere except for one small trail which we could still use to move and Stutter shaped the wood into numerous traps.
We had time so we could make them a little more intricate than the usual caltrop or spike… lucky for us that Naruko loves traps. Some of them were downright brutal though, such as the spike trap inside small holes that were covered up with a layer of dirt, one wrong step and your foot had spikes all in it, just nasty… Just like the Bitch said, the most effective traps are often the simplest. The worst though was still made by Newby.
"Naruko, Hinata, do either of you have explosive tags?" they were used often even as Genin so the answers was obviously yes.
"A few? Isn't that a bit too lethal… I mean that could really hurt them, right?" Depends on how you use them?
"I'm going to put them in small holes and cover them up again, so it won't kill, maybe hurt them quite a bit but that's about it. They're Elite Jonin, they'll be fine"
"Then how're you going to trigger them, don't they need chakra in order to light?"
Aaaaah I get it! He can put chakra into the ground with his nature manipulation, he can make them explode from a distance!
The amount of traps grew numerous, simple spikes sticking out of the ground either made of earth or wood. Senbon that would shoot from the air when some of the traps were triggered, explosive tags that would cause a rockfall and many more. The most genius part? They were interlinked, if a particular one was triggered then all others that could shoot would as well, leaving no room to escape! At least that was the idea.
Even if they failed there were still many pitfall traps with spikes everywhere so yeah, it was pretty much messed up. Then there was the final fortress, we actually made a small stone fortress out of stone walls from which we could shoot attacks at anyone trying to pass the traps. It wasn't grand and glorious, but it would suffice, it was actually quite cosy with a fire to keep us warm and some blankets to hang out!
Now we just had to wait…
"They're in sight! Yuuto-kun, get some blue balls!" pfft okay she did that on purpose, how can you not slightly laugh at that.
"…I'll act as if I didn't hear that" he did prepare them though.
"They don't seem to know we're here, they're walking casually as if they're tired of searching"
Newby smirked "Even better, let's try and surprise them. Although… does anyone know some basic Genjutsu to place over the cavern?"
Nope… "Senseeeiiiii" cute cat eyes could work though…
"Ah screw it, I'm up for it… see it as convincing your enemy to switch sides with food, which is also a tactic" No it isn't, you brought the food… he placed the Genjutsu though which made everything seem just about normal, traps and Genjutsu make a nasty pair!
"Target Chiriku-sensei, I've got a plan for her in case she manages to get close"
We didn't have to wait long until they arrived obviously not suspecting anything by the way they acted, one of them being extremely agitated by the other's constant bitching.
"Where are those fucking brats! I want the tail damnit we've been looking for more than a day! They can't be that good, it's like they freaking vanished!" Click and Boom!
The entire ground underneath them exploded into shards that shot towards them, meanwhile triggering all the other traps as a multitude of senbon and spikes shot towards them from all directions!
"Buddha's Protection!" Baldy tried protecting the two of them until a few beads purple beads exploded against the shield making a poison haze cover the area around them. They were forced to move and block any incoming projectile as they began struggling with all the traps littering the ground trying to trip them tangle up their feet, more like impale but okay…
"Fucking brats! I'm going to get you for this! Naruko, get your tail over here! Your ass belongs to me!" She tried jumping towards us and Newby began firing his blue balls towards her, she'd gone mad however and either ignored them, destroyed them or dodged them as well as the traps on the ground didn't seem to affect her in her rage.
"Let her go, focus on Sensei first!" we shot every attack we had at Baldy… the amount of attacks was just unreal with a whole day's of preparation we had, he was pretty much screwed as the poisoned attacks piled up and slowly managed to penetrate his defences. He just couldn't get close, every time he had some footing the ground underneath it exploded and made him stumble, it seemed like we were winning!
Bitch however was closing in fast! Naruko acted as if she wasn't there and continued to attack Baldy, but she said she had a plan so I'm not worried, Naruko with a plan should be fine… although she lost earlier but hey, this is different… I think?
Naruko grinned as she noticed Bitch appearing behind her with a grin on her face ready to pounce at the prized tail. She acted surprised and caught off-guard as the latter went to grab it…
A large burst of lightning flashed as Bitch screamed in utter pain! She'd grabbed the tail! But apparently Naruko'd been charging it with so much lightning chakra that it was just a death-trap, it was obvious she would go for the tail, so why not let her and get rid of her?
Bitch was lying on the ground, twitching and burned black as he still tried holding on to the precious tail only for it to escape her grasp, victory! I did give her a scratch though as a reminder not to mess with my property, even if we were kind of busy with Baldy I still had time for that, obviously…
Baldy was breathing raggedly as the numerous small wounds piled up. The dust settled and attacks stopped as we looked at him with a grin, he didn't really seem entertained though.
"Kazuma you helped them!"
"That I did! They bribed me, that's also part of the shinobi life Chiriku!" You just wanted to see him get beaten, didn't you?
He suddenly burst with red energy as thousands of arms together with an extremely angry face that screamed murder appeared behind him "Then I won't hold back, get ready! Kannon's Rage: Infinite Armed Murder!" Wait what?! Since when was that a thing?!
Even Shady began sweating slightly as a red hot angry Baldy slowly walked our way, we resumed our assault but his fists just shot anything back at us! He just wasn't stoppable, this was madness!
He approached us "Miauw"
"Wait, sensei! We have one hour! Wait!"
"Oh no you don't, just wait there to get your ass beaten you brats! You make me run around the entire forest with that cranky annoying woman while you're sitting here relaxing with food and comfort?!" Yep he was pissed off… "You're all dead, every last one of you!" Spoken like a true monk…
Let's just skip over the rest shall we? He got to us, Naruko initiated her six separate tailed form, tried to assault him from every side and made some new craters in the cavern walls…with her body being the projectile… we shot all we could at him and still got our asses handed to us as the shots were reflected by his fists and last but not least Stutter tried her own version on him hoping she couldn't be hurt by Baldy's attack…
Which was kind of true, except for the part where he used his own arms as well and slapped her to the side, he seemed to have forgotten about me though so hooray?
And this ladies and gentlemen is the difference between A-rank and S-rank… one is strong while the other is just brutal, the difference is immense.
I tried to casually sneak away hoping that he wouldn't pay attention "Oh no you don't! Don't think you're getting away, if it wasn't for the Madam I would've skinned you alive! Therefore, the only suitable replacement is…"
He just didn't! The fucker, how dare he do this humiliation to me! It was indeed the dreaded Cone of Shame… the worst thing imaginable, I'd rather be skinned alive than suffer through this! Luckily no-one else was conscious to pay attention to it, for now…
I hope the chapter was okay-ish… the part with Yuuto's background may have been a bit rushed but I thought it would be better to do it earlier than later. A large part of his past is still not revealed though, but now you at least have a bit of an idea what he'll be like and how he'll change the team for the best… or worst. But yep what do you expect if you just about torture both Naruko and another child, they're gonna be pissed off… Hopefully you've seen that an Elite Jonin isn't weak, even with sleeping gas he destroyed Naruko in her tailed form.