Kasek: Uh, hiya. Hope you all enjoy this chapter. Yes, no witty comments. No, I am not Kasek's alien clone sent here to replace him while my masters torture him to death.

Disc.: I do not own Naruto, Zelda, or anything associated with the two.


Chapter 5: Second Exam: Canyon of Death!

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'DO I KNOW YOU?'?!? YOU'VE HUMILIATED US TWICE BEFORE, AND YOU DON'T EVEN REMEMBER?!?"

Naruto looked at the three white-jumpsuit, rebreather-thing-wearing Ame shinobi in front of him, each one with a slightly different face- one with both eyes covered, one with one eye covered, and one with brown Kakashi-hair and with both eyes visible. "Well, SooorrrRY! I can't remember every ninja I pummel!"

"WHAT WAS THAT?!?" The three shinobi started ranting and raving- not noticing that Naruto had already left.

The one who had both of his eyes uncovered looked around. "Where did that brat go? Whatever… this is certainly his unlucky day…"


Naruto quickly caught up with his teammates. "So, you guys both ready to go forward?"

Sheik lowered his head. "Well, I don't know about this…"

Naruto paled. "PLEASE tell me that you signed the forms."
Sheik 'eye-smiled'. "Of course I did! I'm just not sure we can make it through this, that's all!"

Naruto smiled. "Come on, you've got me! Plus, you two are no slouches yourselves! I think you're even better than when my team went through these!"

Hanabi snorted. "Like that's a comfort. You're barely any good now."
"I resent that! I got all the way to the third exam, and beat Neji to a pulp, too!"

Hanabi looked like she was about to go into shock- the first real emotions she'd shown since she discovered that Naruto had invented the Oiroke no Jutsu. "T-that was you? …Fine. You've gained a little respect back."

An examiner walked up to them. "Follow me." Team Impa didn't need to be told twice, so they quickly followed the examiner to their starting gate.

After the exam started, they were surprised at exactly how labyrinthine the 'Canyon of Death' really was. There were caves all over the place, which no doubt lead to other parts of the maze. There was something weird about the walls, too, because not even the Byakugan could see through them- Hanabi had tried. Sheik couldn't do anything about them either. After a while of just wandering about and finding no one, they were just about to give up when they heard a large explosion from up ahead. Hanabi almost fell over. "W-what was that?!?"

Naruto frowned. "Nothing good."

When they got to the corner, they backed up against the wall, and turned their heads around the corner to get a good view. Naruto was shocked at the sight of what was happening; Sheik and Hanabi were merely confused, as well as a little frightened.

The Mori team lay on the ground, obviously hurt, and two cloaked figures were standing in front of them. Their cloaks were black, with red clouds spaced out on them. The significantly shorter one stepped forward. "Is that all the latest generation of Mori shinobi has to offer? Pathetic."

Link got up and charged at him, only to get knocked back by an extremely strong gust of wind. Naruto was surprised; he didn't see the guy use any handsigns, and his (blue) hands were poking out from his sleeves, so Naruto would've noticed if he had done a jutsu. Was it simply elemental manipulation? If so, Naruto was definitely going to learn how to do that.

"I see you have the Kokiri Sword. Guess that means you're the latest heir of the great Kokiri clan, huh?"

Link gritted his teeth. "How do you know so much about our village?"

The man chuckled. "How? Simple…" He took off his straw hat, revealing his blue hair and extremely long purple hat (Naruto wondered how he had managed to fit that under the straw one.). Naruto noticed that it seemed awfully similar to the ones Link and Mido were wearing; Naruto wasn't too surprised to see his headband sewed into his hat, the Mori symbol scratched out. "I used to be a part of it."

Mido started to get up. "Who… who ARE you?"

"What's the point in telling you something when I'm just going to kill you anyways?" He slowly approached the three, but just as he raised his hand, he had to pull it back before a senbon could pierce it. "I see we have company." Everyone present turned towards where the needle had come from… only to see that nobody was there. "Hmm…? Where did they go?"


The Konohamaru Corps. were starting to get pretty tired. They hadn't seen anyone in the few hours that they'd been exploring, and they were just dying to get a scroll and finish this exam as fast as possible. After another minute, they all sat down to catch their breath. Moegi looked beat. "Where is everybody? We should've run into SOMEBODY by now…"

Udon nodded. "It's mathematically impossible for us to NOT have seen a trace of any other ninja. Where are they?"

Konohamaru looked up. "They couldn't have just disappeared… could they?" Just when he said that, a kunai landed in the middle of them. Looking up, they could hear the sounds of combat… barely. They all looked at each other, nodded, and ran all the way up the walls.

When they got to the top, they peeked over the edge. They wished that they hadn't; what they saw was their first taste of what it really meant to be a ninja. All over the place, the corpses of people they had seen earlier were lying all over the place. Even now, there were still two teams fighting: the triplets, all of whom were wielding some kind of and the Kemuri nin.

Nukumi stepped forward, her face bearing a blank expression. "If you want to live, you can either just hand over your Earth Scroll, or go away and let us scavenge around for one. There's bound to be one around here somewhere."

The red-clothed Suna-nin stepped forward. "Hey, now… that's my line."

The blue-one snorted. "Come on, Aveil, why don't we just get this over with? I'm itching for a fight."

Greenie chuckled. "There's no way you three can beat us. Our teamwork is perfect."

Kaijin sighed. "Even teamwork cannot defeat enemies that are greater than your entire team combined."

Aveil got mad. "HOW DARE YOU INSULT US?!?" She dashed towards the three Kemuri-nin, spear in hand. Nukumi sighed. "I've got these three."

Just as Aveil was about to pierce Nukumi with her spear, Nukumi calmly side-stepped the thrust, kicked it out of Aveil's hands, grabbed it, and hit Aveil in the back of the neck with the blunt end, knocking her out. She turned towards the other Suna-siblings. "Who's next?"

They both charged her at the same time, but just before they reached her, Oashisu (blue) jumped over her, while Yashiko (green) kept charging. Without even blinking, Nukumi thrust the blunt end of the spear upward into Oashisu's stomach, and then swung her at Yashiko, sending them both flying. As they got back up, Nukumi snorted. "If you want me to use the pointy end, just keep on coming." The two sisters looked at each other, nodded, and Yashiko stepped forwards. "Aveil's got the scroll on her. Take it and go!"

Kokuen sighed. "Could've saved yourselves a lot of trouble…" He walked over to her and opened her waist-bag. Removing the brown scroll from inside, he closed up the pack, picked her up, and heaved her towards her sisters. Konohamaru could only gawk at the distance she had been thrown. The two conscious sisters tried to catch Aveil, but all three of them fell to the ground. Kaijin snorted. "Get out of here, before we change our minds about sparing you." They nodded, and ran for it… but not before picking up a spare Heaven Scroll off one of the corpses.

Konohamaru started shaking. Those two were extremely strong… and it seemed like that Kaijin was their boss. He didn't even want to think about how strong he could be. He could've sworn that Kaijin glanced at him, and then he turned back to his teammates. "Come on… these corpses are starting to annoy me."

Nukumi sighed. "The exams didn't start too long ago. Someone pretty strong must've been here recently. They took all of the scrolls, too. Doesn't exactly look like Genin-level handiwork. Think there's an intruder?"

Kokuen snorted. "Probably. Should we go after them, or just get this stupid exercise done with?"

Kaijin closed his eyes. "I don't particularly feel like going after these guys, but I don't like the fact that they're interfering with these people's hopes and dreams. I say we go for it." With that, the three of them disappeared.

Konohamaru turned to his own teammates. "Wait, so they didn't kill any of these guys?"

Udon sniffed. "Looks like it."

Moegi looked worried. "What do we do from here?"

Konohamaru took another peek at the corpses. "…doesn't look like they have any scrolls on them. Those triplets have a Heaven scroll on them now; I say we go after them."

Udon nodded in agreement. "That'd be the logical thing to do…(sniff) Their boss is unconscious and disarmed, and their mental stability can't be too solid at the moment. With a well-planned, coordinated effort, we could probably take them out and get their scroll within a minute or two."

Moegi smiled. "I like the sound of that. Can we get down from here, now? My legs are killing me…"

Konohamaru looked down. It was a looooong way down. "I say we travel up top; it might make it easier to hunt down those girls."

Udon agreed. "Plus, it'll be easier on our chakra reserves than climbing all the way back down…(Sniff)"

Konohamaru pumped his fist in the air. "All right! Operation: Steal the Scroll from the Triplets is under way!"

Moegi and Udon sweatdropped. "Uh, Konohamaru, can't you come up with a better mission name?"

Konohamaru almost fell off the cliff. "Why?!? What's wrong with it, Moegi?"
Moegi coughed. "I don't know… it just seems kinda long-winded. I like Operation: Triple Threat better."

Udon sniffed. "I concur with Moegi."

Konohamaru 'hmph'd. "Fine, have it your way. Operation: Triple Threat is under way!"


Kasek: I'm gonna end it here…. Tell me if I got the colors right on Wind-guy (yes, even now I don't speak his name… weird, huh?) and Aveil. I don't remember what she wore. Hehe…

4 pages… well, review! Please? I need feedback here, peoples…

I seem to have lost my copy of Kitsu Kitsu no Mi 5. I'll have to redo it... not like I got far. Expect to see it out sometime soon... after I'm done reading Order of the Stick. Awesome comic. It gives me ideas.