3. Find the Watermelon Seeds-
The twelve walked towards the entrance of the Hidden Village of Fruits and stared at the odd looking gate. It had two watermelons on the left and right sides. Between the watermelons was the name of the village. The Cupcake Village asked the Fruit Village to give their Genins a test.
The twelve ninjas walked towards the gate with puzzled looks on their faces.
"What are we supposed to do?" asked Shizu.
A voice started talking from the gate. "Hello Cupcake ninjas," the voice said. "Each of you stand on one of the raised pedestals. The ninjas listened and did what they were told. "Okay, time to start your scavenger hunt. I will now divide you into partners. The partnerships are Kakashi and Musashi, Shizu and Genta, Tetsuma and Chouko, Maasaki and Daichi, Reiko and Marumi, and Hayoto and Jin. The ninjas walked towards their partners. "Your objective is to obtain a watermelon seed. There are many different ways to get one, so be prepared for anything."
"You will now get sent into an illusionary dimension with your partner where you will search for the watermelon seeds. It was the Kappukage's order that you may not get into the village without finding the seeds", said the Fruit ninja. "Don't die."
The 4 teams weren't very surprised when they heard this. Each of them disappeared on pairs into their illusionary dimension.
Kakashi and Musashi were sent to a forest, something they were tired of seeing after their hours in the Forest of Death.
"I don't want to be in another forest!" yelled Musashi. "Don't complain," Kakashi replied as he kicked Musashi in his right shin. "OW!" he yelled. "You're supposed to think happy thoughts," said Kakashi.
Out of nowhere a giant flaming bush came out. It was two times as tall as the two ninjas. It had a watermelon seed stuck on the top of it. "What the hell," said Musashi.
The bush shot fire out of its mouth and Kakashi and Musashi dodged at the last minute. Another burst of fire was released burning the front of Musashi's hair. Kakashi rushed for the top of the bush, but had to fall to the right at the last second because another burst of flame was released.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball!" yelled Musashi as he aimed for the right of the bush. He used the technique again, this time aiming for the left of the bush. This created a giant fire that scared the bush into staying in one spot. Kakashi jumped for the watermelon seed again, managing to get the seed. He kicked off the top of the bush, propelling himself out of the ring of fire that was surrounded the bush. The illusion disappeared and the two were back at the entrance of the Fruit Village.
Meanwhile, Shizu and Genta were in their own illusionary world. It was also a forest with dozens of floating platforms in the sky, each about 20 feet apart, height-wise, and on the top platform, was the watermelon seed.
"They're so many platforms," Shizu said. "That'll take forever to finish. It'll take at least two hours."
"I know, but we have to do the evil challenge," Genta replied back.
The duo started their ascent of the platforms. After about 15 platforms, they stopped from exhaustion. As the two looked up, it seemed as more platforms are created. After another second, another platform appeared.
"Crap," Shizu said. "More platforms are being created. We got to hurry. I hate P.E."
"Fine," replied Genta grudgingly as he jumped up to the next platform.
1 hour later…
"I hate this," Shizu said for the 82nd time.
"We're almost there," Genta said.
Another hour later…
"We've finally reached the damn top!" yelled Shizu as she grabbed the watermelon seed on the platform, but she slipped on the top platform and fell to the ground. "Water Release: Water Flow!" she yelled slowing her fall because of the water she was releasing, but she still hit the ground pretty hard. "OW!" she yelled as she hit the ground." After a couple of seconds of recovery she said, "I'm okay." The two were then transported to the entrance of the Fruit Village.
Tetsuma and Chouko were sent to their world, a barren wasteland with a lot of dead trees. "So what do we do?" questioned Tetsuma.
"What do you think, we obviously try to find the watermelon seed," replied Chouko.
They walked a couple steps before the dead trees started to shake.
"Crap," said Tetsuma.
The trees continued to shake and they stood up with their branches pointed towards the siblings like a zombie. The two pulled out their notebooks from their jacket pockets and prepared their pencil. Their pencils shone with light and they started to draw.
"Eagle!" yelled Tetsuma as he raised his notebook towards the zombie trees, causing an eagle to shoot out of his notebook. The eagle pierced through the trees that were closing in on the two. He jumped on top of the closest tree and landed a couple feet away.
"Bow and arrow!" she yelled releasing her weapon. She loaded the arrow, shot the arrow and said, "Arrow Rain!" This caused her arrow to multiply ripping though the incoming trees.
This continued for a while and they finally decimated the army of trees and Chouko found a golden gem on the ground. She was examining the gem when suddenly, person rose from the corpses, so se put the gem in her pocket. "Hi, that was part one of your test," said the person. "I'm a Fruit ninja and you two are one of the more talented ninjas so we decided to give you a two part test. You also get to take a test where at least one of you must pass with 80!" The siblings were given their 10 question test and the Fruit ninja snapped his fingers creating two wooden desks and chairs. They sat down and started the test.
Question 1 was: 12.2232x + 1726232y29302939 and x291.29, what is the value of y? The other questions were the same type of problems, but with different numbers. The two stared at the problem for a couple of seconds before they started.
5 minutes later…
"Done!" yelled the siblings simultaneously and they gave their tests to the Fruit ninja
"Are you sure you don't want to check your answers?"
"We already did," they replied.
The Fruit ninja checked over their answers using his answer key and wrote their scores on their test with a red pen. He gave it back to them with the scores written on them. "Chouko, you got a 90 and Tetsuma, you got a disappointing 40," said the Fruit ninja.
"WHAT?!?!" yelled Tetsuma. "This can't be! It's impossible! You must have graded wrong! Did you mess up correcting!?!? Are you sure the answer key is right?!?!" He grabbed the answer key and checked it over.
"It doesn't matter," said Chouko as she stole the answer key away from Tetsuma. "I passed and we got the watermelon seed. That's all that matters."
"WHY?!?!" Tetsuma yelled as the Fruit ninja gave them the watermelon seed. When they go back, he sat down and hugged his knees while waiting for the others to finish.
"It's okay Tetsuma," Kakashi said. "You have to be happy! Think of this as something that will make you work harder in the future."
"NO!!!" Tetsuma yelled back. "I'm a failure."
Maasaki and Daichi were walking at a slow pace through their forest.
"I'm bored," said Daichi.
"That's nice," replied Maasaki.
"Why don't you ever talk?" questioned Daichi.
"I don't like to talk about it," he replied.
"See," Daichi said. "You never talk."
"What do you have against it?" he questioned again. "Or do you just like keeping quiet."
"Let's drop the subject."
Daichi continued questioning and Maasaki continued to ignore him. The questions brought back Maasaki's memories of his childhood, the event that caused him to subconsciously not like talking.
He was 5 years old and a war between the Cupcake Village and the Samurai Village. The samurai invaded the Cupcake Village and one of the attacking samurais was inside of Maasaki's house. His father had died protecting the village from the invading ninjas leaving only him and his mother left. Being only 5 years old, he didn't understand the situation too well. Maasaki and his mother were hiding in their basement behind many boxes when the samurai went down to search. Maasaki didn't fully understand that their lives were at stake so he said, "Kaa-san, what's happening?" This alerted the samurai and he found them and killed his mother. The Kappukage found the samurai ninja in the basement and killed him, saving Maasaki, but he was too late and Maasaki's mother had died. He ended up in the orphanage and from that point on, he talked only when necessary.
He was stain daydreaming until Daichi yelled, "Maasaki, there's a giant stag beetle eating a watermelon!" The bug was spat out the seeds and one of the seeds it spat out was a watermelon seed, but it spit it out behind it so they wound have to kill it first.
"Thunder Release: Thunder Spark!" yelled Daichi. He fired the electricity at the beetle's face, but the destroyed part turned into a swarm of ladybugs that attacked the two causing multiple cuts that started bleeding. Even without its head, the stag beetle continued to walk towards the two trying to attack.
"White Laser," said Maasaki. He fired at the bug and cut it in half with one accurately aimed swipe causing another burst of ladybugs to attack, causing more blood to drip from their scars on their faces. The last attack caused the stag beetle to become motionless though. The two walked past the giant bug's corpse and picked up the watermelon seed. The two were sent back to the village entrance. A ladybug had followed them from the alternate dimension, and it flew of Maasaki's shoulder onto Musashi's shoulder. Musashi looked at his right shoulder and started to panic.
"AHHHHHH!" he yelled. "It's a ladybug! Get it off me! AHHHHHH!" He then started to shoot fire everywhere before the ladybug flew away. He tripped in the end falling on his face.
Meanwhile, Reiko and Marumi were inside a forest and after 2 hours of watching, they reached a temple with a sign. On the sign, it read: Inside of this temple is a obstacle course and at the end of this obstacle course is the watermelon seed you seek.
"Okay Rei Rei, let's go into the temple," said Marumi cheerfully.
"Rei Rei?" she questioned.
"Yeah! It's my nickname for you!
"Don't call me that," Reiko replied angrily.
"But it's a cool name!"
"I give up."
The two entered the temple and upon entry, arrows shot out of the walls from both the left and the right. They jumped up at the last moment, but Reiko and Marumi were both shot in their right ankles. They were now limping something that they would cause their deaths if they continued on with the challenge. They managed to remove the arrow after a lot a pain. Reiko turned around and she noticed the temple door closed. They were stuck.
"We have to continue," Reiko said sadly. "If we don't get moving, we're going to die of starvation."
"This is great!" said Marumi enthusiastically. "We can spend more quality time together!"
"Great," said Reiko sarcastically.
They continued through the temple limping because of their wounded ankles and reached a hallway where swords were swinging back and forth, one in the back of another.
"We'll live," said Marumi.
They made a mash dash past the swords using as much speed as they possibly could, trying to not let their wounds slow him down. At the last sword, Reiko suddenly tripped on a crack in the ground and fell forward and would have had her nose chopped off if Marumi didn't pull her back. Marumi then pushed Reiko past the last sword and ran past it herself.
"Thanks," Reiko said.
"No problem," Marumi replied.
They reached the last chamber of the temple and saw the pedestal that had a watermelon seed on it, but it was at the end of a giant pit. The distance between the two ledges was great, even for a ninja.
"On 3 we run," said Marumi.
Reiko nodded and they counted, "One, two, three!" they yelled. The two girls started to dash and once they reached the ledge, they jumped and Reiko made it to the other side, but Marumi slipped. At the last moment, Reiko reached down and grabbed Marumi's hand. This brought back painful memories though. Her mother had died the same way. Her father tried to push her mother off a cliff and Reiko tried to save her. She was unsuccessful because she was only 6 years old and her mother died. Her father then committed suicide causing her to end up in an orphanage, the same one that Maasaki went to. This painful memory caused Reiko's hand to start slipping forcing her to lean over the edge more. This also caused her wound to get scraped on the floor as she also started to get dragged off the cliff. As the event dragged on, it became harder to pull Marumi up. The memories were flooding back, but using the last of her strength, she pulled Marumi to the top of the cliff.
"We're even now," Reiko said as she grabbed the watermelon seed.
Hayoto and Jin were walking in the forest towards the tower they had seen from the moment they entered the alternate dimension.
"So Jin, what do you like to do in your spare time?" questioned Hayoto.
"I don't know," replied Jin.
That was all the conversation they had during their 20 mile walk to the tower. After a two hour walk, they finally reached the tower and saw the sign in front of it. It read: Inside of this tower, there is a gate. Once you touch this gate, I will start reciting riddles and you will have to answer them. You objective is to answer one riddle right. If you get a riddle wrong, a wolf beast will appear so don't get any wrong. Have fun.
"Okay, let's go inside," said Jin.
"Wait, I'm not done reading," said Hayoto.
5 minutes later…
"I'm done," said Hayoto. "Let's go."
They entered the temple and Jin touched the gate.
"What is 2+2?" asked the gate.
"4!" yelled Jin.
"No," the gate replied. "It's an expression. I never asked what it equals."
Out of the gate came a giant wolf beast, big as Hayoto and Jin combined. Seeing the giant wolf sent a shiver down Hayoto's spine. "Triple Kage Bunshin!" yelled Jin. The three clones he summoned then jumped onto the wolf. "Exploding Replication!" shouted Jin. This caused the clones that latched on to the wolf to explode, causing blood to splatter on their jackets.
The wolf was not dead yet so Hayoto yelled, "Kasshoku Drill!" throwing Kasshoku at the wolf, piercing through the wolf's heart and killing it. The wolf's corpse then disappeared in a flash of light.
"Next riddle," said the gate once the wolf was killed. "How many legs does a dog have?"
"4!" yelled Hayoto.
"No," replied the gate. "It might have lost its leg when it was attacked by a cat."
Another wolf was created, but it was quickly dispatched by Jin's combination of Triple Kage Bunshin and Exploding Replication.
"If you turn on a lamp, is it plugged into an outlet?" asked the gate.
"Yes!" yelled Hayoto and Jin thinking how a lamp could work without electricity.
"No, that's wrong," replied the gate. "A lamp can be operated by batteries."
Another wolf was created, but it was crushed by the giant rock Hayoto created using his Earth Release: Rock Strike.
"How many letters are in the alphabet?" asked the gate.
"Twenty…" said Hayoto before Jin covered Hayoto's mouth.
"11" said Jin confidently (11 letters are in the words: "the alphabet").
"You finally pass," said the gate. The gate suddenly opened and Jin ran toward the raised platform that had the watermelon seed and grabbed it, transporting the two back into the entrance of the Fruit Village.
"Looks like everyone is done," said the Fruit ninja that guarded the entrance. "Put your watermelon seeds into the empty spots in the watermelon in the gate of the village. The twelve Genin places the six seeds they had found into the 6 holes in the gate, into the six spots where watermelon seeds should be since the watermelon that was on the gate was a slice of a watermelon. The door magically opened and the ninjas stepped inside.