Arc Two, Chapter Three: Rookies Occupied

Aoi shuddered so badly she thought she shook her skin right off her bones. She slowly turned her hand and saw a blur of blue. This jerked her back to reality, and she zoomed in to see that Kaito had thrown his fist at Yoshio's face. Yoshio grabbed his wrist almost effortlessly, and swung it to the side; Kaito went tumbling off the branch and disappeared from her view.

Aoi jumped backwards and aimed her bow towards the ground between them. "Repelling Shot!" She shot an arrow that was thick with chakra towards the aimed spot. Yoshio stared at her as the arrow went near his feet. She smirked and observed her work.

The arrow crashed into the wood and flattened on its surface; it briefly glowed, then shot forward, rising to hit the genin's chest. He jerked his head and bent backwards, slamming his palms onto the fuzzy branch as the arrow missed him by a hair's breadth. Yoshio pushed off his feet and swung them over his head, landing in a crouching position. The arrow hit the trunk and launched off somewhere into the forest.

"Almost. But almost is never enough." His eyes were cold and dark, each time they caught each other's gaze Aoi felt as if spiders had crawled up her spine and ran wild across her body.

Aoi backflipped high into the air, mid-flip she drew the string back and poured her chakra into the bow. She waited as time seemed to freeze, her breaths louder and her heartbeat thundering in her chest. 'Time it this second.' a voice whispered silently in the back of her head.

Her vision flared a ghostly blue, and time seemed to slow down; she could see as Yoshio, no, her target crouched even lower to the ground, preparing to spring up in an attack that would surely hit Aoi. Aoi drew the string back as far as she could, and when she formed the projectile, a thick stream of chakra began making its way into her peripheral view, which was moving moderately fast even in the suspended time. She had but two seconds. A second. A millisecond.

She released the string and time seemed to resume at its natural pace, the world becoming the array of colors Aoi had grown used to. She could no longer see the other thing she had locked onto, for it was moving at almost imperceptible speeds. The arrow had long since left her bow, and had now connected with something she couldn't quite see, but knew exactly what it was. Her previously shot arrow was now flung off course by a blue blur. Aoi continued flipping until her feet landed on the trunk, where she whipped her head up to see Yoshio look up in incomprehensible surprise. His body had already rose from the branch, and the projectile had finally slammed dead center in his chest.

A bright glint lit up his white garments as something like a trigger went off, a large blue blue arrow growing from the small thing that was driving both her target and itself into the tree. Aoi had known what she had hit the moment she saw it.

She had hit the arrow that turned into a ball of chakra after connecting with something solid twice; the thing that had bounced all over the forest and that she knew was going to come back to their location in a matter of moments, for each time it hit something, that same thing propelled it to go even faster, and also making it stronger.

She had hit her Repelling Shot technique.

The arrow kept growing to full size with a chakra forcefield around it, growing to be as tall as Aoi, as it dug its way into the tree. Aoi knew that it wouldn't go through the huge tree, but the move was enough to seriously injure him, if it didn't kill him. Soon the technique died out, and Aoi realized that she had been breathing heavily. The technique took a fair amount of chakra, and focusing enough chakra so the bow wouldn't break from the strength of the arrow, and making sure that the arrow was strong and fast enough to send the Repelling Shot directly at Yoshio took more out of her than she thought it would have.

Aoi was so focused on Yoshio that she hadn't noticed her teammate Kaito climbing up a tree to her far right. Kaito looked all around until he spotted Aoi. Looking from the tree in front of Aoi to her, he grinned and chucked a thumb to his left. After a brief moment she understood what he had meant and nodded. Together they turned and jumped from branch to branch, away from their previous battle and towards their planned area.

. . .

Hibiki sighed and peered into the trees above before directing his gaze to the blonde.

"Aiko Seiken, was it? Are you aiding the Kirigakure-nin up there?"

Aiko looked at the three and sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just give me your scroll." He sighed again.

"What was that?" Jin glared. "Ne, what did he mean by that? He can't be dumb enough to challenge all three of us."

Hibiki blinked and said, "Here comes the other one."

And as he said, the bundle of leaves rustled frantically as a girl came floating down. She was holding a black japanese umbrella as she glided towards a high branch. She wore a midnight black dress, the skirt resembling somewhat of the umbrella she carried in her gloved hands. She had long blue hair, and despite her almost formal attire, she had black shinobi sandals.

"All of you are Konaha-nin, no?" She looked around, faking a child's innocence. "I'm taking that silence as a yes." She smiled.

Hibito saw her store chakra into the umbrella before she threw it in the air. A mad grin spread across her face. She made a hand seal and gleefully said, "Senbon Shower!"

The umbrella flew high into the air. Hibiki yelled, "Jin, guard!"

"Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation!" He released chakra from every tenketsu in his body and spun, a large rotating shield of chakra protecting him from the barrage of senbon, sending them scattering in all directions.

"Inner Ward." Jin clenched his right wrist and the orb pulsed, the color changing to a dust-like silver. He rose his hand to the sky, and a shield of the same color as his orb appeared above him and his teammate.

The senbon's rain, Hibiki thought, could be confused for actual rain at night. They needed to handle her quickly, or they might regret it later.

As soon as the umbrella stopped shooting the thin weapons, Hibiki stopped, dispelling the revolving shell of chakra. He climbed up the trunk of his tree, and after gathering chakra to the bottom of his feet, did a mighty jump. Pulling his arm back in a striking position, he searched her body for any signs of another attack. As he sailed toward her, he found it odd that she was calm, or how she didn't try to move or block. As a safety measure, he decided to use a move that would throw her off.

"Eight Trigrams, Vaccum Palm!" He shot chakra that was compressed in a vacuum shell from his palm and towards his enemy. At this her eyes widened, and she swung her umbrella in front of her as the tremendous force of the air slammed her off the branch and towards the ground. He quickly landed on said branch and jumped down to follow her.

"Eight Trigrams," He said as he sailed through the air, approaching her as she looked up in wild surprise, "Two Palm!" He violently thrust two fingers left hand into her right shoulder, and then did the same with his right hand into her left upper abdomen. She moaned from the pain "Four palm!" he hit two more times with unrelenting speed, and as she rose an arm to defend herself, he decided to go after that. He twisted mid air, getting on the inside of her arm's range, and continued the assault.

"Eight Palm!" He stabbed at her arm and shoulder four times, a gasp of pain escaping her lips. "Sixteeen Palm!" Fast and unrelenting, he slammed his fingertips all over her body. Just as he was going to continue, he sensed another presence. Twisting, he put his feet on her and kicked off, sending him out of his new enemy's range and her down to the ground.

Hibiki knew who it was before he even landed on the trunk. He wrapped his arm around the tree to keep himself upright.

"Why would you save her, Aiko?" Said ninja had jumped to another tree and glanced Hibiki's way.

"I was bored just waiting around." He shrugged. Hibiki looked down and saw a small cloud of dust on the ground. Kaori and Jin appeared by Hibiki's side."You two mainly focus on her," He pointed below, "I'll aide you two. My main focus will be on him, and if anyone should help me, it should be Jin."

"So I'm the only one who's focusing directly on her?" Kaori pointed at herself. "Just to clarify."

"Yes."

"Alrighty. Let's go, Jin." She jumped below.

"Careless much?" He sweatdropped, reluctantly going after her.

Hibiki locked gazes with Aiko.

"So you're going to fight me?" He scratched his head.

Hibiki uttered not a word before taking another start and leaping off the branch.

"Guess that's a yes." Aiko took the sword-sheathe and all-from the strap with one hand and held it up to Hibiki horizontally. "I won't even need to unsheathe my blade." He declared coolly.

. . .

Ren's foot had been caught in a hole in the ground that was produced from his wind technique. He cursed as the branches spiraled towards him. He struggled and yanked at his foot. How hadn't he noticed it before? This simple mistake would be the death of him.

He pulled harder and began to feel pain in his ankle. He ignored it and kept tugging, gripping his thigh with both of his hands and pulling with all of that he could muster. He looked towards the black sticks that heralded his death and swore as savagely as he could imagine. A flash of silver and a chain of papers a feet in front of him, and suddenly there was a mini explosion.

Ren stared wide-eyed before looking down to see Emi had gotten his foot out of the ground. Takehiro tackled him, lifted him up, and dashed away from the place, Emi on his right. Ren looked back and saw Taro. He was covered in dirt and his own black sand.

Taro rose both of his arms, and sand around him formed the large double sided spear that ran a hole right through a gigantic tree. When the sand had stopped, he grabbed the middle of the weapon and yanked it high over his head. Leaning back a tad bit, he chucked the spear far into the air. The spear pointed towards them as shot forward as if an invisible force propelled it.

"Turn around, idiots!" Ren screamed. He pushed off of Takehiro and rolled onto the ground. He tried to stand tall, but pain was fresh in his wound. He bent on one knee and made rapid handseals.

"Wind Cutter, Cyclone Gust!" He cross the back of his palms and drew them to his chest. Wind swirled around his body rapidly, causing his clothes to whip around frantically. He abruptly yanked his hands apart, and the wind left his body and flew to the spear.

The wind screeched as it came in contact with the spear. It screeched not in victory, but in pain. The strong and fierce wind was no match against the weight of the spear. At best the wind would throw the spear off target. And that was exactly what the technique did.

The spear sent a shockwave in the earth, causing a slight tremor. Ren panted and bent over, trying to catch his breath.

"Ren, come on. We need to retreat." Emi was now by his side.

"No. This is a fight. We're going to run from one kid?" He spat on the dirt in front of him and looked up. "Not even an army can take us down, remember?"

Emi blinked and looked towards Takehiro.

"He's right. The day we passed Shikamaru's test was the day we said it. And I have no intention to go back." Takehiro shrugged his shoulders and a sickle connected to a chain, a kusarigama he called it, slid out of his sleeve and into his palm. He grabbed the chain and began swinging the weighted end on his side, holding the sickle in his other hand with an iron grip.

Emi sighed and stood up. "I guess this would be a good chance to test some things out. You've got my back?"

"And you've got ours." The two boys answered.

She nodded, and for the first time in the whole exam, Emi grinned.

"Then let's get that scroll."

. . .

Aoi and Kaito regrouped at a stream of clear water that glimmered under the sun's presence. Aoi hadn't realized how fast time flew in the forest. The sun was already above them, and would in no time be out of sight, the moon claiming its dominance in the night. Aoi checked her surroundings before heading to the stream.

"Do you think it's clean?" Kaito asked curiously.

"If not, I don't want to find out. First things first, we need to find Hayato and find a camp."

"Great. Any ideas on how to find Hayato?"

"No, i was actually hoping you had an idea." She sighed. She looked at Kaito while he stared at the water, as if her were in a trance. He turned to her when she giggled.

"What?"

"You have a twig in your hair," She plucked the item protruding from his white hair out, "How didn't you notice?"

Kaito blushed slightly and looked down. "I don't know. After that ass threw me off the tree I had trouble getting back up. And when I finally had, you already finished him. How did you do it, anyway? There was, like, a crater in the sucker!"

Aoi shrugged. "It's complicated. A lot a stuff with chakra and such." Aoi felt a chill creep up her spine. Her head dropped down, and she spoke in a lower voice. "Kaito, someone's here."

Kaito blinked and sighed. "Not again..."

Aoi looked far in front of her and saw colors blend in that spot, forming a humanoid shape. She realized with a start that it was Yoshio.

"H-how!?"

Kaito stood. "It looks like Aoi can't finish you," he said, "So allow me to do the honors." Kaito looked at Aoi, and judging from the look on his face, Aoi could tell that he knew Aoi was in no position to fight.

Kaito looked back towards Yoshio and tightened his headband. Aoi surprised herself when she didn't try to stop him. She had enough faith in her teammate to see the future. And in that future, Kaito was not the loser.

. . .

Kaito looped his fingers through several shuriken in his pouch and in a fluid motion brought them out and threw them at Yoshio. He didn't even attempt to avoid as they pierced his body. The body simply fell back and lay motionless.

"Kaito, on the water!" Aoi pointed. Kaito followed her gaze and saw the same ninja standing on the water's surface. His eyes weren't on Kaito, they were on Aoi. Kaito saw Aoi shiver from his stare, so he protectively stood in front of her.

His eyes scanned Kaito, and a bored expression replaced his earlier one.

"Move." He commanded.

Kaito stepped on the water. "No thanks." He ran at his enemy, turning his head downwards to send a powerful stream of water into the river. Kaito flew into the air and twisted. He formed three handseals and screamed, "Water Style: Water Trumpet!" Kaito launched a large jet of water from his mouth and through his hand towards his target below. Yoshio was caught by surprise and had no time to dodge the technique, the force slamming his body under the water.

Kaito kept the jutsu running until he felt he had done enough, landing on the water soundly.

A hand clawed out of the water and slammed its palm on the surface. Yoshio's body rose from the water, and his glare was wicked and evil; but not without a hint of excitement.

"So you're willing to fight me?" He rose, cracking his neck. "Your funeral. Ninja Art," Yoshio made a tiger handseal, "Hidden Mist Jutsu!"

. . .

Hibiki slammed his palm into Aiko's weapon. Landing, he added more pressure and shoved Aiko back.

Smirking, Hibiki said, "Then I'll beat you using only my bare hands." Hibiki got into a stance.

"We've got us a battle, then."

Hibiki dashed at his peer, placing his hand sideways at his waist. He skidded to a stop just as he swung his left hand towards Aiko's side. The blonde turned to dodge and shoved his case into Hibiki's stomach, then yanked it up in an attempt to hit his chin. Hibiki lifted his chin and hovered in the air. He then jerked his chin upwards and backflipped to his feet.

Hibiki rose an eyebrow. "So you're not reliant on the sword?"

"I am using sword. Just an sheathed one. Aren't you going to use that technique of yours, with the eyes?"

"I would, but that wouldn't be only using my hands."

Aiko smirked at this. Aiko charged at Hibiki this time. He slammed his case on the ground and lifted off the ground. He swung off of it, and Hibiki immediately guarded as he flew at him, his feet slamming into his arms. Hibiki took this chance and grabbed Aiko's feet and tucked them under his armpit. He began spinning, faster and faster, and he let the blonde go, sending him flying towards the trunk. He hit the wood once, then rolled to a stop.

"You're not bad, either. Thought you were simply reliant on your dojutsu."

As Hibiki was about to respond, he heard Jin yell, "Hibiki, a little help!" Hibiki turned and saw the blue-haired girl floating with her umbrella. She began going higher, and Hibiki's eyes narrowed. He was sure he had sealed her pathway to her hands. That couldn't be the original.

He turned back to Aiko. He had his case slung over his shoulder, his arm hung around it with a bored expression on his face.

"The original escaped, and now that your teammates are free I've lost interest. I'll see you in the next stage. Right?" He added with a smirk. He crouched low to the ground, and shunshined away.

. . .

A thick mist sprang forth, rolling across the water and onto the land. Soon the whole area was covered in the mist. Kaito backed up, found Aoi, and helped her up. They stood back-to-back against their dangerous foe.

"I can't sense him." Aoi whispered. Kaito nodded as if she could see him in the fog. Kaito thought he could hear the mist itself move, rustling along the grass, selfishly draining the water to use it as fuel for itself. The mist seemed to besiege them and go on forever. Kaito was restless but decided against charging at nothing. Aoi needed him, he knew.

'I want to finish you, female," Yoshio's voice seemed to hiss from every direction, near and far, as Kaito felt Aoi tense, "And then you, water user."

"Mind coming out? It would make things so much easier than trying to sneak up on us." Kaito said foolhardy.

"You should know by now that you have no chance against me. If I could appear behind female, what makes you think that I can't do the same to you?"

"Kaito, be careful. His stealth skills are on a different scale. It's like he disappears from the face of the earth. The only reason I caught him with that move is because he stood right in front of me." Aoi said in a low voice.

Kaito chuckled.

"Why are you laughing?"

"Because I couldn't care less. If he were standing a hundred yards I'd still hit him." Kaito smiled.

Aoi went quiet.

Kaito waited for something, anything, to happen in the fog. For something to stir, for something to shake, for something to blink—

Aoi shoved Kaito to the ground as a blade swung overhead, slicing a strand off of Kaito's hair. The blade turned, poised to strike downwards. Kaito's body moved on its on; suddenly he was on top of Aoi, the blade running clear through his stomach. Aoi stared at him with wide eyes.

"Kaito..?"