Chapter 6: Knock Down or Fail (Second Half Comeback)
Half an hour later, Yin and Tsuzuku woke up. They rested against trees with their bandaged bodies. Xin wasn't by their side, as both started reaching full consciousness of their surroundings. Yin tried to get up but fell over.
"I'm too tired and hungry to even get up..."
"Yeah, me too. Where's Xin? Does that mean that Sage guy ate him! Oh my God, does that mean we failed. I worked too hard to just go and start all over now! I was so close too... Damn that black, shadowy, mean monster! We're just kids, so why not go a little easier on us. I mean not too easy to the point where there's no challenge. Just enough so we can hold our own, you know? I swear..." She paused as she saw Xin walking over to them with bags of food.
"I thought you guys would be hungry...," he said shyly.
"Hell yeah, I'm starving. Yin's too, right?"
"Yeah..., thanks...," he answered curtly as he grabbed of food to eat from. Yin's expressing didn't seem too happy though. He seemed more isolated than he usually is with the group. "I failed. After all that training with mehster too. I have shamed him and all his teachings..."
All of them sat at that spot and ate. It was a pretty quiet lunch, except for Tsuzuku's occasional outbursts. Xin was half-listening and nodding to her comments, because he was worried whether or not if they could pass the second time. Yin was completely zoned out to the conversation. He realized that failure is tough to deal with, but he will just to have work harder and train more, so there won't be a repeat. Tsuzuku finally changed the topic to the test again to clear things up for herself and Yin.
"We didn't fail though..., we have till end of the day...," Xin said.
"What? Why didn't you say so? Right after this, we should jump in again. Maybe if we are lucky, that Sage guy will be off-guard or something. And if that happens, I can tackle him down hard to the ground with all of my strength. He'll be sorry for messing with me!"
Yin was also happy with the news. He was beaming with hope again, but hid it very well. He wasn't sure how this second half could be any different from the first though. He gave his all without holding back, and it wasn't even close at getting the job done. Maybe this was all impossible for him to complete the mission..., right now.
Xin interrupted Tsuzuku's boasting and Yin's self-doubt moment. He didn't want them to mess up like last time. "Guys..., uh, I think we need to change our approach...," he told them shyly.
"What do you mean, Xin-kun?" Tsuzuku asked curiously. Yin also started to pay attention to his teammate.
"Well..., we can try to work together... I mean, if we set out a basic team strategy, maybe we can knock him down...," he suggested unconfidently.
"Oh, I'm all for that! I'm just not so sure about the guy next to me..." She secretly pointed to Yin, who remained silent.
He finally spoke up and gave his opinion. "Since we're stuck as a team, we might as well try to win this thing as a team. I'm in..."
Tsuzuku cheered, while Xin smiled. He found some way to help his team and that satisfied him very much. He wasn't good in taijutsu like Tsuzuku or in long-ranged attacks like Yin, but he managed to aid the team in some way.
"So, what are your ideas on the strategy?" Yin asked Xin.
"Maybe if we jump on him all at once, he'll tip over!" Tsuzuku suggested.
"That's assuming he isn't durable in his defensive stance, which I'm pretty sure he is. Or he won't be able to knock us away before we touch him. There's also the predicament where he can just dodge to the side and slice us. He can also...," Yin started.
"Fine, I got the point...," she grumbled. She crossed her arms and remained silent.
"Well, I got an idea," Xin said.
After a while, Sage came back to the area in the training grounds they were located in. "Are we gonna finish this thing or what?"
"Calm down..., the kids can take a break as long as they wish...," Shikamaru replied in an annoyed tone.
"Tell them brats just to give up. They can't knock me down with a century worth of time, let alone less than 7 hours..."
"We're ready!" Tsuzuku shouted out loud.
"How troublesome..., I was just planning to go home and eat some food then come back. Well, whatever... Go ahead and start."
Tsuzuku and Yin immediately jumped out of sight and into the trees. Xin, however, didn't seem prepared as the rest. He was very shaky and looked into Sage's eyes with tremendous trepidation.
"Easy knockout, right here. Shika, just look and see the power of a champ," he boasted. He ran forward and raised his axe up high. He slashed diagonally downward right at the white-haired boy, as the image faded away.
"Another fucking illusion?" he shouted in rage. Before he lifted his axe up from the ground, 3 kunais came at Sage. He quickly shielded himself from the weapons with his axe.
Apparently, there were wires attached to the kunais, and they wrapped around the axe. "What the hell is this?" He was about to pull his axe hard to gain control of his weapon, but another interruption came along.
Tsuzuku dashed forward and prepared to punch him hard. Sage released grip on the axe and jumped to the side to dodge the heavy blow. She continued to strike him to create distance between himself and the weapon. The shadow monster noticed what she was doing and knocked her back with one arm. Tsuzuku rolled on the ground but immediately rebounded to her feet.
"Plan Disarm-Shadow-Bastard complete!" said Yin. He pulled his wires, from behind the trees, but the weapon didn't budge. He continued with more effort, but to no luck.
"How can this guy carry such a heavy weapon..., with one hand too!" he exclaimed. Yin jumped out to where the axe was, and set up a trap around it. He quickly set up extra wires by attaching it to the ground with needles. He also put on explosive tags on the wires, so trying to get in close contact to the weapon was instant death.
"Hmph, you think without that axe, I'm totally helpless?" he started. His hands soon mutated into sharp blades. "These work just as fine."
He saw Tsuzuku closest to him. Sage ran to her and started punching with the blades stuck out. She managed to dodge some, but the rest, she wasn't so fortunate. She was getting cut up all over
"I have to slow him down a bit," whispered Yin.
He took out some needles from his pockets and aimed them all at Sage. One each hit his forearms, and one each hit his knees very accurately. The monster temporarily bent over, giving Tsuzuku enough time to retreat.
"I guess it's time to start the final stage of our plan," Tsuzuku said with a smirk as she held over her newly cut wounds.
Out of the trees, Xin landed beside her. "Let's do this then!" he told her in a more confident voice. They both ran forward, toward the opponent to launch their final set of attacks they discussed about to knock this guy down.
Sage was about to get into a defensive stance, but he noticed at the corner of his eye that Yin just threw several shurikens at him, aimed low near the knee area.
He jumped up high onto a tree branch to avoid the weapons. Xin and Tsuzuku continued to dash toward Sage. Yin tossed a smoke bomb once they reached the base of the tree, to cover his teammates' presence.
Suddenly, two Tsuzukus jumped up from the cloud of smoke, and each climbed the tree to the left and the right of the tree Sage was on. They jumped back and forth trying to attack Sage. He, however, dodged their attacks for a while by moving around cautiously on the branch he stood on. At one point, he punched one of the Tsuzukus, but his blade went straight through her. The illusion faded away, and Sage immediately turned around to attack the other one.
"Kawarimi no Jutsu!" she shouted as a log replaced her body. The blade pierced through the log, sticking to his arm. Before the monster can shake it off, three kunais came from Yin and hit the log. They pierced through the log half-way and were basically attached to it.
"Ha, you missed!" Before he can boast any longer, he noticed one kunai had an explosive tag attached to it. He immediately transformed his other hand back to normal (it was still a blade, remember?) and pulled out the piece of log from the blade and threw it way high up. It went up and went back down to the ground without any explosion of any kind.
"What the hell?" he said as he stared at the piece of wood on the ground, expecting it to explode at any time.
While he was distracted, Tsuzuku, who was right under him, jumped up and hit the branch hard with all her force once the smoke faded away. It broke off from the tree, and Sage fell to the ground unexpectedly.
THUD!
Sage was lying on his back in the dirt. Tsuzuku jumped up and down at the joy of finally completing the test. Xin jumped out of the trees with a wide smile. Yin gave a small grin before he fell on his knees from exhaustion.
"Congrats, you guys are now 'real' genins. I'm real proud to be the sensei for all three of you. Tsuzuku showed excellent display of power and durability. Yin was amazing in accuracy of long-ranged attacks and deceit for his age. And Xin did pretty well overall. A person your age using basic jutsus in such perfect situations shows that you are a natural. You used genjutsu illusions several times to throw off the enemy. You also used Henge no Jutsu to disguise yourself as your comrade to fool Sage (the two Tsuzukus attacking him was Xin and an illusion). Well done, Team 14!"
Tsuzuku was about to start go on and on to express her joy at this moment, but Sage got back up to his feet, and he wasn't one happy summon.
"Fucking brats! I'm gonna kill them all!"
"SHADOW PRISON!" Shikamaru shouted as he performed complicated handseals. Shadow bars rose from the ground all around Sage, trapping him into an area of a cage.
"I'll just break out of this bitch!" he yelled. He was about to punch the bars before Shikamaru stopped him with his words.
"Fine, but we both know that upon contact with it, you'll be dragged into an illusion of your version of hell. A never-ending nightmare till I see fit...," he warned.
"I'll..., I'll go underground and escape then!"
"Who's to say that the prison doesn't have bars under there..."
"Pfft, I'm getting real sick of you, Shika!" He made himself puff into thin air and went back to where he was from, along with his axe, disarming all the traps around it. The "Shadow Prison" disappeared slowly as Shikamaru walked away.
"H-how do we know it won't just come back to kill us?" Xin hesitated
"Don't worry! For him to go to this world and back, it takes a lot of energy. With the ultimate battle you guys just had with him added onto that, it'll be at least a day before he comes back. And although Sage is a pain in the ass, he doesn't keep grudges long, unless you really irritate him. And oh yeah, meet here tomorrow at 12, so Team 14 can officially start doing missions..."
Yin slowly got back up to his feet and started walking toward to the others. "So..., I guess you guys aren't too bad for teammates. See you tomorrow..." he commented as he walked in the direction of his home.
"What a great way to end the day! That was an amazing comeback, don't you think? The star player was, of course, me. You heard what Shikamaru-sensei said to me? He knows I'm gonna be great one day, and...," Tsuzuku began,
Uh, I have to go home. Bye!" Xin said as he ran away from her with the energy he had left.
Tsuzuku saw that everyone left and sighed. "Yep, me and team 14 are going to be legendary one day. World, watch out, the best is about to be BORN!"
Author's Note: For anybody who reads this fic, please start reviewing. You'll help fuel the author (that's me) to keep going on with the story and maybe even take part on improving the story. Regardless if you're a member or not, fan of the chapter/story or not, if you took time to read a selection, please take time to review each chapter you read and give me some opinions of what you thought. Thank You!
Also, for anybody who didn't notice, I added a prelude to replace chapter 1, chapter 1 to replace chapter 2 and so forth. It shows the future for this team to hook in more readers and hopefully more stable reviewers. Check it out also if you haven't already.