Vicious Calm
Chapter 3- For Whom The Bell Tolls, Hell's Bells, [Insert Bell Based Pun Here]
Good lord I haven't been here for a while.
It's really dusty; then again I'm surprised you used your brain at all even when you were writing this drivel.
I wish I didn't, then you wouldn't exist.
Cat-chan I found this :) [Cat-chan-uh-Catilleon takes Protectorate of Menoth army book from the small white rabbit's mouth]
I've wondering where this was.
What is that? Oh lord, don't tell me your back into Warhammer.
No this is Warmachine. Still too poor for Warhammer.
It's still a table top wargaming thing isn't it?
Well… yes. But this is totally different.
How?
It's got wizards and steampunk giant robots _
…
Yeah, that about sums up the basics of it.
It really shouldn't.
And yet it does, 'sides it's nowhere near as weird as Malifaux. The whole idea is that there's a bunch of countries whose main military force are giant steam driven robots called Warjacks and in order for them to be controlled powerful wizards called Warcasters mess their minds with the artificial brains in the Warjacks to control them and supply them with ability boosting magic.
Ability boosting magic?
Extra attacks, special attacks, moving faster, more dice to hit and wound. That sort of thing.
Sounds really geeky.
[Cat and Childness each raise eyebrow]
Oh right, not a deterrent for you. But it's still wargaming you are going to spend all of your money.
It's smaller scale so I don't have to shell out for giant armies that cover a third of the floorspace. That's expensive and dangerous.
I get expensive easily enough but I don't see how it's dangerous.
I heard about this guy who had a whole legion of Goblin Spearmen set out of the floor. All of them with their spears pointed up. He fell over and landed on his back right on top of the miniatures.
[Silent scream]
Apparently he had to wait till the wounds started to scab over before they could be removed.
Cool *U*
Not the word I would use.
I would.
You're a really twisted individual at times.
You're only getting this now? Anyway let's get on with the show.
"Urghh. I feel like I'm going to be sick." Sakura moaned on her hands and knees. Her stomach backed up her statement as it made some really bad noises.
Sasuke stared at his psychopathic teammate in unconcealed disgust. Which was a little presumptuous, the girl hadn't even started puking her guts up... yet.
"I told her she shouldn't have eaten so much at breakfast." Nagi sighed with her hands behind her head. Kyuyo thought that comment was a little strange coming from the girl who weighed approximately half as much as her pink haired friend and yet had eaten more than twice the amount of food when the two had breakfast that morning.
Breakfast was Sakura's treat and by Sakura's treat of course I mean the treat of which ever poor sap she had pickpocketed earlier that morning.
"Sorry guys, looks like I won't be able to treat you to barbecue like I promised for passing the team test. Some bastard stole my wallet." Asuma Sarutobi informed his newly minted genin team while he smoked a cigarette. After promising to take them out after the three did so well on the genin test he felt kind of guilty. Actually they did shit all and knew it, at least Shikamaru knew it, hell if he cared though, but if he didn't pass the second generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho team the current generation of the team would kill him. Besides Asuma had the sneaking suspicion that having his wallet, with his pay check for the week in it, stolen would still have probably been cheaper than treating an Akimichi to food.
Ino only shrugged at the news. She wasn't planning to eat anything at the barbecue anyway not after sticking to her new diet for so long.
Shikamaru looked like he didn't even register the news as the dark haired boy continued to lie on the ground and watch the clouds. At least he would have if they were outside. As it was Shikamaru was lying on the floor of the teahouse they were in apparently attempting to unlock latent X-Ray vision as he stared up at the ceiling.
As for Choji...
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
... he took the news better than anyone expected.
Sasuke couldn't help but think about the appalling irony of the situation. How he hated irony. Which considering his life could be considered ironic in itself.
Understand now why he hates it.
"Nagi." Sakura said weakly. "Go get the blue labelled bottle of pills from my bag." Sakura pointed to the full to bursting satchel that lay a few feet away from her. A few feet which, in her current state, might well have been in Iwa for all the pink haired girl could do.
Nagi saluted cutely, at least Kyuyo thought it was cute, and walked over to the book bag which weighed about as much as she did.
Sasuke visibly flinched as Nagi undid, with some difficulty, the collection of clips, straps and Nagi-proof locks (which were like child-proof locks for children with superhuman strength) that made sure the multitude of dangerous items contained in the bag would indeed remain contained in the bag. After being on the receiving end of so many of Sakura's attacks the last Uchiha had become well aquatinted with that particular bag and the horrors it contained.
Drugs, toxins, poisons in every form and state imaginable, all manner of dark concoctions and soluble powders were held in that bag. Sakura's entire collection of chemicals and the required tools, plants and chemicals needed to kill, paralyse and otherwise incapacitate.
It also contained an entire field medic's kit and another set of tools and ingredients for brewing the antidotes to any one of Sakura's poisons (she used to only have one set of equipment used for both the poisons and the antidotes but alas Sakura never washed the set very well between uses and found that poisons with traces of the antidote and antidote with poison in it weren't very effective) for whatever reason though those sets of equipment didn't come out nearly as much. Particularly the antidotes for some reason. Odd. Well not really.
Oblivious to the dangers contained in the bag, dangers which were probably intensified by the fact that Nagi felt the need to shake ever bottle of pills to hear it rattle, the blonde girl eventually found what she was looking for. Or... at least she found what she thought she was looking for.
"Here you go Sakura." Nagi chirped and handed her friend a pill bottle with a red label and three black coloured skull and cross bone marks on it.
In Sakura's addled state it took her all of three seconds to realize the difference in the label on the bottle and the label of what she actually asked for. At which point the girl had already lifted a single crimson coloured pill to her lips. A pill which she, along with the rest of the bottle, quickly threw away with a yelp.
"Ah! Why did you throw it at me!" Sasuke yelled jumping away from the poisonous pills.
"What do you think?" Sakura stopped panicking about what she had almost ingested to scoff at Sasuke in a dead monotone. Thankfully after a few more seconds Sakura had calmed down enough to realise the fear and panic had made the queasy feeling go away. Scientifically impossible perhaps but it just goes to show that there always light after the darkness.
"I don't know what you guys are so concerned about. Sakura's candy always tastes really goooood~." Nagi moaned blissfully as she put a piece of 'candy' into her mouth and rolled it around in her cheek.
And, in keeping with the previous metaphor, after the brilliant flash of light... darkness comes back fast.
"Naaaagiiiii-chaaan!" Sakura screamed and tackled the blonde girl to the ground. "Spit out the pill for the love of god. Spit it out!" The pink haired girl cried torrents of anime tears as she violently shook her friend in a desperate attempt to remove the deadly toxin from her mouth.
It only served to lodge the pill in her oesophagus. "C...can't...breathe... goodbye...Sakura-cha..." With her final breath it was all over.
THE END
Thank you for reading till the end.
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'Oww! How did that one hit me she wasn't even facing in my direction?' Sasuke thought rubbing the eye that the spit covered poison pill had impacted in. Wait... "Crap I've got to go wash this out." Sasuke ran off in search of water to drain any poison, and spit, from his eye socket.
Realistically, seeing as how the poison was in pill form, it was most likely made to only be dangerous through ingestion. Still... best to not take any chances where Sakura and Nagi are involved. In anything. Iruka still checks for tampering in his breakfast cereal daily.
With the pill having been dislodged from Nagi's windpipe via one Sakura powered (who in their right mind would even give this girl training weights) smack on the back. Now Nagi was gasping for precious air...
"Nagi just because something is brightly coloured doesn't mean it's not toxic. In fact in nature brightly coloured is just another word for toxic. You remember the blue and black frog incident? Nagi are you listening to me. Look me in the eyes missy! Don't poke your tongue at me!"
...while Sakura scolded Nagi like she was a child that had just found the keys to the medicine cabinet. Which when you think about it, in essence, isn't really that much of an inaccuracy.
"All right then do you understand why you must eat things when you don't know what they are Nagi-chan?" Sakura looked down at the blonde girl who was scratching her pouting face in embarrassment.
"Yeessss Sakuraaaaa." Nagi replied lazily rolling her head around.
Sakura sighed. "Good enough just be careful I don't want to have to pump your stomach again."
"Me either. It tickled my spleen (1)." Nagi said nodding her head as if that was the entire point of this conversation.
"Anyway I'm going to find teme and... help him..."
"You mean torture him."
"Yes. Yes I do. So you'll need to wait here for Cyclops-sensei. Here is a manga and a lollipop. Have fun and don't burn down the forest." Sakura passed Nagi a copy of Deadman Wonderland (2) and a watermelon lollipop before running off in the same direction Sasuke did. Making sure to grab her grey satchel and do up the straps.
Once she was out of sight Nagi looked at the lollipop and manga she had be given. Placing the manga to one side Nagi held the lollipop and, taking careful consideration and aim, pitched it at a nearby bird. Smiling in satisfaction at the 'squawk' that signified a direct hit.
"Ten points." Nagi said as she removed a handful of crimson coloured pills from one of the pockets on her flak jacket. "Sakura's candy always tastes the best." Taking one of the poisonous pills Nagi tossed it in the air and caught it in her mouth like a piece of popcorn.
A crack could be heard as the pill was crushed between her teeth. Nagi let out another blissful moan as her jinchuriku boosted sense of taste detected the myriad of normally scentless and tasteless poisons mixed into a single pill. "Arsenic as the base... traces of cyanide... urashiol for mouth and throat irritation and... artificial sweetener for masking... I think Saccharin... no... Aspartame. Mmmm tangy." Being a Jinchuriku really does have its advantages. Among the enhanced senses and chakra boosts there is the ever useful immunity to any natural or unnatural poisons, viruses, allergens and/or toxins. Which comes in particularly handy in this circumstance when you consider that Sakura's idea of poison is pretty much the definition of overkill concentrated into a chemical form. For note this fic does not condone the recreational consumption of highly dangerous and extremely concentrated chemicals. Even if it did your own common sense should deter you from trying.
In case anyone was wondering what Kyuyo was doing while all of this happened? Well... he had already long ago fainted as the sounds of the outside world, in particular Nagi's moans of 'candy' induced bliss, echoed out from the seal.
The quality of demons in the ninja world is really lacking.
"Nagi-chan~..."
Honestly I don't know whether it's laughable or just plain sad.
"He he he. Pass the sharigan eyeball soup please...zzzzz."
Well... that's certainly an improvement.
Kakashi was having difficulty picking just which part of the scene he had just witnessed to tell his psychiatrist first. After he got one of course... or more once one had moved to Konoha... or at least within ten kilometres of this or any ninja village.
You'd think they'd be psychiatrists beating down the village gates to get in with all the business opportunities present in a hidden village. Sadly though there aren't that many psychiatrists that are quite so masochistic. The fact was that the few psychiatrists who had set up shop in Lightning Country, back when the hidden villages were first being established, soon had to be treated by the same people they went to university with.
The last mental health professional in Konoha had to be pursued, or kidnapped if you want to get technical, by the Sandaime during his first term. That man, following a major mental breakdown, was considered a pioneer and a legend in the Torture & Interrogation Division.
His eldest son, Morino Ibiki, followed in his footsteps with gusto.
Never the less point the point still stood that Konoha needed a psychiatric ward. Particularly when the next generation of ninja were looking to be far worse than the current generation was. Which was really saying some things and none of it was anything good.
With the events of yesterday Kakashi thought it would be a good idea to arrive early, which meant he was only two and a half hours late, still considering who it was that news alone would have been enough to send many a skilled ninja into cardiac arrest. He arrived just in time to see his sensei's daughter attempt to ingest a multitude of deadly poisons packed into a pill. Now he was watching her pop the deadly poison like the candy she seemed to think it was.
'I heard that jinchuriki was immune to disease so it makes sense their immune to poison. That doesn't explain though why she would enjoy it so much.' Kakashi thought trying to remember the last time he had heard a girl make those sounds. 'It has been one hell of a dry spell for me hasn't it... WHAT THE HELL! How did I get on this train of thought from sensei's daughter eating poison? What is wrong with me?'
As Kakashi went through his most current mental list of just what was wrong with him in order to make sure there were no new additions that needed to be added. This was an exercise he made sure to at least once a month. Twice on October. October was never a good month for him, even before the Kyubi attack.
Some might consider an exercise like this fairly odd for a ninja of his standing. Those people generally didn't know that ninjas of his standing were by and large out of their freaking minds. It was something that Kakashi had long since accepted and had figured that if he was going to be insane he might as well keep track of just how insane.
Better to keep the process gradual and stable rather than not realising until you wake up one morning and put on a green jumpsuit and orange leg warmers.
"You're weird sensei."
'True.' The one eyed jounin agreed before adding 'hearing voices' to his ever growing mental list.
'Wait a minute. That voice sounded a bit too real.' Kakashi thought.
"Sensei I've been wondering if ninja's spend so much time hanging upside down. Then are there any techniques to stop all the blood from rushing to your head? Just seems like something that would come up y'know." Nagi said hanging upside down from the branch directly above the one Kakashi was situated.
"..."
"Sensei?"
"How could you possibly know where I was?" Kakashi said more than a little shocked that he could be discovered by a genin so easily. Does she posses some kekki genki or hidden technique that no one knew about.
"Your moodiness was pissing off the kami in this tree." Nagi answered instantly. Her strange answer was made stranger by the way her right hand moved up and down like it was patting something invisible.
Kakashi blinked and blinked again before he came to a decision.
"Nagi!" Kakashi shouted placing his hands dramatically on Nagi's shoulders. Which was itself a impressive feat due to the fact that Kakashi had to quickly and dexterously move onto, and under, the same branch which Nagi was hanging from in just under a few seconds. "I swear that I'll make those who corrupted you pay. I'll make sure you turn into a well adjusted girl that sensei would have been proud of."
"Sensei." Nagi said with sparkles in her eyes. 'Actually I have no idea was sensei's talking about but this is always so cool when they do it in sports manga. So what the hell.'
The two remained in that position for a while longer until...
"Sensei why is there blood running down your face." Nagi said pointing at the thick trail of crimson liquid coming from under Kakashi's face mask.
"... Well... That thing about a technique to stop blood rushing to your head... Is actually a pretty good idea... Urghhhh..." Replied a very pale Kakashi right before he passed out and fell from the tree.
"You're late!" Nagi cried pointing at Sakura and, a very haggard and sickly looking, Sasuke.
The two genin sweatdropped, really only Sakura sweatdropped, Sasuke was still suffering the symptoms of a fever, the after effects of whatever Sakura had done to him, looking over to their cyclopean sensei who was reading the same manga Nagi had been given.
"This is really violent." Kakashi said turning the page.
"I know. Isn't it great!" Nagi chirped.
Kakashi 'hmm'ed to himself. 'My task may be more difficult than I thought.'
"A bit of a teacher's pet isn't she." Sasuke commented once his core body temperature had stopped fluctuating between boiling hot and freezing cold.
"Making fun of someone for being nice to other is the sign of a despicable and pathetic person." Sakura said sneering at Sasuke. "Do everyone a favour and die in a hole." The pinkette declared before walking off to join her blonde friend.
"..." Sasuke sighed. "I really need someone on my side."
Unknown to the raven haired avenger a fox was laughing at him right now.
... I think.
One moment readers.
"Nagi-chan~..."
My mistake he's still sleeping.
Well anyway we should leave before his sleep talking gets disturbing.
"Mmmmhhhhh. Shodaime sushiii..."
...Never mind.
"Whoever doesn't get a bell will be sent back to the ninja academy." Kakashi said darkly. The jounin sensei had just finished explaining the basis of the bell test to the three genin. The test was pretty much the same as it always was two bells, three genin, three box lunches and an alarm clock. The only difference was that due to all the time taken up by the earlier shenanigans the time limit at midday now gave the three ninja considerably less time than was usual.
At the mention of what happens to who doesn't get a bell the thoughts of the three students were... less than team building.
'This is perfect. If I can get the two bells for Nagi-chan and me I won't have to worry about that teme.' Was Sakura's thoughts and they were accompanied by an evil giggle that sent shivers down the spines of the two males in hearing distance.
'I can deal with the blonde midget at least. Her intelligence isn't high enough to plot anything devious. I just have to make sure that pink haired devil doesn't get a bell.' Were Sasuke's thoughts accompanied by his ever present sneer.
As for Nagi. 'Zzzzzz... huh! Ah I zoned out halfway through. Kyuyo-kun did you hear what was happening.'
'Zzzzzzz...'
'Well it is an excellent time of the day for a nap. I'll let him rest a bit. Now then what was my problem again...?' She actually forget. Not kidding. 'Ah right! I have no idea what's going on! Then again that always seems to be my problem.' Shaking her head Nagi attempted to get back to the problem at hand. 'All right let's just go over what I heard, there were bells, that can't be anything important, box lunches, an alarm clock... Ah that's gotta be it!'
THAWCK!
Kakashi, Sasuke and even Sakura stared in shock at the kunai that had just impacted into the glass face of the alarm clock. The kunai which Nagi had just thrown without any warning or, indeed, reason. At least Sasuke and Sakura thought Kakashi was shocked. It was rather difficult to tell underneath all his face coverings.
It was a good thing then that the two S-named genin had not shared their thoughts or it would have been slightly embarrassing. Seeing as how Kakashi was actually very nonplussed about the projectile weapon impacting in to his clock.
"Yeah. You're not the first person to try that." Kakashi said lazily, drawing two raised eyebrows and a 'damn' from his Sasuke, Sakura and Nagi respectively, the jounin sensei reached behind him and removed an exact replica of the recently destroyed alarm clock. Otherwise known as a Ninja Quality Testing Grade Alarm Clock... TM(3).
Konoha, keeping the bulk alarm clock warehouses in business for over forty years.
Winding the key on the back of the clock Kakashi placed the new working clock on the log next to the old broken clock. An action which allowed Kakashi to get a closer look at the broken clock and the kunai that stuck out of it. More importantly he also got a look at the paper tag which had somehow hung unnoticed from the end of the kunai until this very moment.
Quickly knocking the broken alarm clock, and attached kunai, with speed halfway between fright and honed reflexes. The clock made it out of the clearing and into the trees before the explosive tag hanging off the kunai denoted. Conveniently the explosion hurt no humans or animals. With the exception of one rather infamous drunk passed out in a nearby bush. His alcohol soaked body was reduced to ash rather quickly. Other than that, absolutely no problem.
"Well... I'll admit that was the first time I have ever had someone use an explosive tag. Most people have more respect for the lives of themselves and others." Kakashi said looking at a certain blonde haired girl who was looking far too pleased with herself.
"Wait!" Sasuke yelled looking fairly annoyed. "Am I the only one who is wondering why that tag took so long to go off?"
"And am I the only one who is wondering why Nagi wasted an explosive tag on a clock when we could have used it on the teme?" Was Sakura's comment. It probably would have probably made more of an impact if not for the fact that she had to shout it from across the clearing due to the pink haired girl having already expected the use of explosions from her blonde friend and thus had retreated to a safer, much further away, position.
Nagi turned to Sasuke, causing her to stop the little victory dance she was performing mid spin, and gave the black haired avenger a joyful thumbs up and a radiant smile before answering his question with simply...
"Pointless comedy."
[Insert one rather painful face vault here]
"All right I'm sorry to interrupt but all these shenanigans really are cutting in our schedule (4) so if you three don't mind we need to... start?" Kakashi's, rather ironic, rant about messing up an important schedule was caught short as he looked up to see all three of his students gone. Leaving only an imprint of Sasuke's face in the ground and a pile of books resting on a log. "That's just rude." The jounin sensei said simply before pulling out his little orange book.
If he had been a little less engrossed in his book Kakashi might have noticed that his blonde student coming back.
"Sorry sensei, forgot my books." Nagi chirped, though Kakashi neither noticed nor reacted to it, before returning the books, which appeared to be the same hardcore porn books she had yesterday, to... whatever subspace she seemed to be keeping them in. "Kyuyo-kun was right I really have to be more careful with my hammer space." Nagi said and disappeared back into the shadows leaving behind only a swirl of wind and a wisp of mist.
'I'll admit that could have gone better.' Sasuke thought with a deep sigh. Which seeing as how he was buried up to his neck in dirt, and one rock which was pocking his back uncomfortably, made for a rather comical sight. 'Even so... why did that bastard sensei have to bury me next to the pink haired witch!'
"Stop your annoying ass sighing. I'm trying to think over here!" Said pink haired witch yelled not three feet away from Sasuke and stuck in a remarkably similar predicament. That is buried from her neck down in solid ground.
The events that lead up to this point are actually remarkably simple. It started when Sasuke challenged Kakashi to a fight.
The fight that followed, if it could really be counted as such, was disastrous, or humorous depending on how much of a sadist you are. Every attack Sasuke pulled was countered with no more than the effort it required for Kakashi to move a single hand.
It was only when Kakashi had to pluck a senbon needle out of the air that the jounin had to pay attention.
The pink witch joined the battle and that was the end.
That was how Sasuke saw it, the bare bones of the events. Kakashi saw something similar but, oh so much worse.
It was true that Kakashi was becoming rather bored with the whole test even if the test had so far lasted little more than an hour.
Sasuke was the first genin to go on the offensive. Willing to give a sign of respect to the Uchihas Kakashi had gone so far as to put his orange bound book away. In end it just went to show why Kakashi never gives the benefit of the doubt to anyone.
Though Sasuke was certainly skilled for a genin he made that fact painfully obvious as the boy clearly underestimated the difference in their ranks.
In the end Kakashi decided the give the Uchiha a few more minutes until he completed humiliated the raven haired boy. Until then Kakashi simply went back into his mind and the mental reconstruction of the Icha Icha series he had compiled.
The jounin made it through about a paragraph and half before he was forced to prevent the sharp, and most likely poisoned, senbon needle from embedding itself into his neck muscles. This momentary distraction allowed Sasuke time to run through the hand seals for his strongest jutsu.
"Katon: Great Fireball Jutsu."
From the Uchiha's mouth powerful spherical gout of fire burst forth and engulfed where the jounin sensei stood. Meanwhile Kakashi watched from a safe distance away in the trees.
Though you would be hard pressed to notice from the indifferent expression of boredom on his face Kakashi was rather impressed. Not just that Sasuke could use a chakra intensive fire jutsu or that Sasuke could hide her presence so well while using a sneak attack (it took the jounin all of half a minute to locate the tree she was concealed in). What he was impressed of most of all was that the two could combine their skills without any prior planning to give him a slight scare.
'Perhaps there is hope for this team after all.' Kakashi thought pleased.
His hopeful mood lasted for all of two seconds until several paper packets, which released copious amounts of red coloured smoke, were launched onto the battlefield.
The cloud of crimson smoke, which made Kakashi's skin feel like it was on fire as soon as it made contact with his skin, was clearly designed to smoke him out of hiding. Kakashi didn't have any real problem with that, they were ninjas after all. In the ninja world dirty tricks weren't just encouraged they were a valid battle tactic.
The real concern was the fact that the smoking packets had been launched right at Sasuke's feat, that was enough to give the one-eyed jounin a fairly good indication of what was about to happen.
With nothing better to do than spring Sakura's trap Kakashi jumped out of the tree he had hidden himself in before the plume of burning smoke completely engulfed the tree's branches.
He immediately had to use substitution to avoid the hail of senbon that flew at him.
If Kakashi has looked backwards he would have thanked his decision to use substitution rather than trying to block the needles as the toxin that coated the needles ate through the log he used at a rapid rate.
Making sure to land on the side of the clearing that had be spared a thick covering of the red irritant smoke. The same space that Sakura's hiding place was located in and were Sasuke had fled once his eyes felt like they were melting.
By now Sakura should know that he knew where she was. All Kakashi had to do was wait for the kunoichi to reveal herself and the real fight could begin. Hopeful this fight would be less detrimental to Kakashi's faith in humanity.
The jounin wasn't disappointed, except, as time would prove, in regards to the faith in humanity part, as the pink haired genin stood appeared with needles between her fingers and a black gasmask hanging from her neck.
The pinkette's sudden appearance seemed to spark a combination of primal fear and ferocious tendencies in Sasuke as years of horrific memories involving needles. Immediately Sasuke was sent to a flurry of hand seals.
Sakura, who unlike most sane people required no external stimuli to spark her ferocious tendencies, reaching into her bag and removed a glass vial filled with fine powder. Popping the cork with one hand and raised the gasmask to her mouth with the other (Kakashi had no doubt that if the mask wasn't covering it then he would have seen a vicious grin on her face). The bluish white powder held within the vial was scattered to the winds and like a toxic starting shot the fight was on.
Sadly that's where we get to the losing faith in humanity portion of the story or at the very least losing faith in the team dynamic. If the fight between Sasuke and Kakashi was sad, this fight was just plain disturbing. The two genin launched technique after technique, dirty trick after dirty trick intent on taking out not only Kakashi but their fellow teammates.
The jounin was fairly certain that the two genin had forgotten all about the bells. Once they reached the point that both genin had forgotten about Kakashi and focused solely on maiming and killing each other. Kakashi decided to end it trapped them both up to their necks in the ground with his Earth Release: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique in the hope that they'd talk out their differences. That or kill them both by exposure. At this point Kakashi wasn't sure he cared anymore.
It was only when the jounin was walking away to find a quite place to read did Kakashi think to ask the question.
"Where's Nagi-chan?"
"So where's Kakashi-sensei now?" If one were to walk in the current scene they would best be able to describe it as a short girl talking to a tree.
If a person with the ability to see spirits were to walk in on the scene they would describe it as a short girl talking to a ghostly white blob attached to a tree.
A slight but important difference.
Nagi was currently conversing with one of the many nameless tree dwelling kami that existed in Konoha's surrounding forest. The kami in question looked to be little more than a translucent white composed of complex spiralling pattern with black eyes defined vaguely in the space in between the spirals. Hardly the strongest divine being Nagi knew, but if there were two things the tree dwellers did well it was watch and chat. Combined with the heavy tree coverage of Konoha resulted in an extensive network of immaterial spies. An invaluable resource for sure and thanks to this network of divine beings Nagi not only had a complete account of the battle that happened half a kilometre away. She had within a few minutes and from several different angles.
"Sakura-chan really has some issues to work out." Nagi sighed. Nagi was the kind of person that didn't see why everyone couldn't just get along with everyone else. Which was ironic when you consider just how versed the young girl was in the techniques of death and destruction.
If it was up to her Nagi would have simply rushed the jounin at the first given opportunity, but Kyuyo, who had just recently woken up, told her to hold back and watch the fight. Trusting the fox demon above all else Nagi heeded his advice and brook away from Sakura while she was busy plotting.
Now that the battle was over Nagi wanted to go help her teammates, in a rare show of camaraderie in the one day the team had been active, but even she understood that the two needed a chance to cool off.
For now Nagi was readying her own plan. She still had no idea was she was planning for or what the actual ultimate goal of this test was supposed to be but since the destroying the clock yielding no results Nagi moved onto the next idea on her list. Destroy the examiner.
Kyuyo wholeheartedly agreed with this idea and gave the blonde a mental good luck pat.
'Is it a genjutsu.' Kakashi thought reaching the last of his possibilities list for the cause of his current situation. Which really should have been the first on his list, especially considering that previous; apparently more likely explanations included alien mind control and supernatural pirates. It was probably stranger that Kakashi had pre-planned contingency plans for both of these occurrences.
For about half an hour now Kakashi had the feeling that he was getting forced down a single path through the trees. Every time Kakashi tried to go anywhere but the given route or stopped the jounin would be nudged along by some invisible force.
Sometimes gently, most of the time though, not so much.
Now that Kakashi had finished going through his mental list of likely possibilities he proceeded to go through the list of his students, though he doubted they would be his students for much longer, to determine who might be responsible for this genjutsu. He rejected alien and pirate interference for the moment as the summoning scrolls for those two were high level.
Running down his list he immediately eliminated Nagi as the culprit.
For all the girls trickster image and devious creativity Kakashi knew that jinchuriku never possessed the kind of minimalistic chakra control necessary for genjutsu. A fact that was backed up by her grades at the academy.
Even if the girl could draw on the Kyubi's power it wouldn't do much good. Despite the kitsune reputation as tricksters Kakashi remembered the attack. The Kyubi no Yoko held little more than cosmetic similarities to the legendary spirits, the demon was pure power and little more.
Sasuke was next down. The Uchiha's were skilled illusionists and even more skilled illusion breakers. Like most of the clans though they relied far too much on kekki genkai or specialist clan techniques. In the case of the Uchiha it was their infamous Sharigan of which Sasuke showed no signs of unlocking.
Sakura was a possibility, after everything that happened yesterday Kakashi thought it would be a good idea to get some dirt- obtain information valuable to the teaching of his students. Yes, let's go with that.
Anyway moving past the fact that a skilled jounin was scared of a little girl, admittedly he wouldn't be the first, or last for that matter. According to Kurenai, who prior to team selection had done extensive research on all the genin candidates, as opposed to everyone else, Kakashi included, who just winged it, Sakura possessed a small but highly controlled pool of chakra. Perfect for genjutsu... or medical chakra but if Kurenai had her way Konoha would be a village of illusion specialists. Still it was flawed by the fact that Sakura spent most of time training as a poison specialist, as far as Kakashi knew she had never shown much interest in the illusionary arts.
This left the only possible explanation as... alien mind control.
With Kakashi's... colourful imagination going into overdrive he almost didn't notice that he had run out of tree branches to jump on.
With only a minor stumble Kakashi recovered and landed on the rocky surface of the clearing. Looking around Kakashi saw that he was on the banks of sparkling dark blue river. Judging from the dark colour the river was fairly deep but it was also very narrow so even without water walking any respectable ninja would have much of a problem crossing to the other side. A human would have had to swim, but then again humanity's overrated.
'I'm surprised that there's a river like this on the training grounds.' Kakashi thought staring at the crystal clear water. The area would have made for a great swimming hole were it not for the fact that it was in a designated training grounds. It was pretty impressive that the place was still intact. With countless ninja tossing around elemental jutsu areas like this were lost to terraforming on a daily basis.
"Not that matters at the moment; the greater concern is what led me here." Kakashi said out loud. "If it was you then genjutsu can be pretty much ruled out."
Falling silently from the branches of a tree behind Kakashi a blonde girl landed on all fours.
"Who needs genjutsu when you've got friends in divine places?" Nagi smiled cryptically before launching forward with surprising speed.
Kakashi barely had a chance to properly defend himself before the small girl hit him with the force of a cannonball and took the full force of the attack to his forearm. Nagi dug a small fist into his flesh making the jounin grit his teeth in pain; the attack wasn't graceful but the sheer force behind the attack more than made up for that. If Kakashi was normal he'd be nursing a broken arm right now. Fortunately this is the ninja world where everyone knows that normality only gets you killed.
Unfortunately for Nagi in the ninja world physics came into play at the most inopportune moments, in this case mass vs force. As much larger individual Kakashi was easily able to get a hold on the small girl and toss her clean over the river.
Flipping in mid-air Nagi once again landed on all fours, glaring at Kakashi from the opposite bank of the river.
"Not bad. Your strength is nothing sort of inhuman, but keep in mind that aerial attacks tend to have stability issues, especially if you don't have the size to back it up." Lectured Kakashi as he reached for a kunai.
Unbeknownst to him, Kakshi had just trod on a landmine.
At the 'size' comment Nagi's smile quickly became feral as her mind turned the statement of a simple fact into a myriad of cruel and creative insults. Wether Kakashi meant any insults or not was unimportant, it all it mattered was that retaliation was in order.
Raising on hand from the ground Nagi formed a one handed Tora seal and said three simple words.
"Hidden Mist Jutsu."
At her command a cloud of white mist formed from the moisture within the riverbank's cool air. Foggy whiteness quickly blanketed both sides of the riverbank, effectively removing any traces of vision for anyone in the general vicinity. To a man that possessed a sharigan though this posed little problem, though Kakashi was a bit too prideful to use his trump card in a battle with a genin. Even in regards to a genin like Nagi who had already proven that she was not one to be underestimated.
Honestly Kakashi was more concerned with the myriad of questions the use of this technique. Such as the notable example...
'What the hell does my sensei's cute and innocent daughter (Good lord he's already been infected with Nagi's Aura of Adorableness) know the signature jutsu of Kirigakure. And for that matter why do I get that feeling that this had to do with the bastard that corrupted her?'
"Eight choices. Liver, lungs, spine, clavicle vein, neck vein, brain, kidneys, heart. Which one should I go after sensei?" Nagi's voice sounded out from all directions, managing to sound both terrifyingly creepy and ridiculously cute at the same time.
'Yep this definitely has to do with the corruption.' Was Kakashi's thought before he had to quickly dodge a very large and very sharp piece of iron that attempted a live autopsy featuring his chest. 'Mental note, kill the bastard behind this.'
"Aachoo! Damn Grass Country, always gives me allergies. Fucking hay fever and these damn bandages don't help all I should just switch back to the surgical mask." Cursed a bare-chested man bearing a scratched hitai-ate, a massive sword and bandages wrapped around his lower face.
He also had the bloody severed head of a travelling merchant in his hands but that wasn't a usual accessory for this man. Not to say it was something that he never had, what with his line of work and all, just that a severed head wasn't something that he regularly went seeking out.
Actually, with his line of work seeking out heads to sever was probably a fairly regular practice. Never mind then.
"To be fair you are the one who insisted on the path Zabuza." Commented a... boy, yes? Yes that's right, a very feminine looking boy wearing clothes that absolutely nothing to help with the gender ambiguity.
Zabuza scoffed and tossed away the recently decapitated head before going to loot the head's previously attached body. "If we had taken any other route we wouldn't have made it in time to celebrate Nagi's graduation." The ex-Seven Swordsman eventually said in a way that made it should like it was painful to speak.
Haku had a small smile at this, after making sure Zabuza was looking the other way, the ice user was well aware that his master's soft spot lay in one small blonde. A soft spot that Zabuza would only admit through gritted teeth after making sure that everyone around him was either gone or, preferably, lying in a pool of their own blood with their heads having been drop kicked out of the general area.
'Zabuza, you're so tsundere when it comes to Nagi-chan.'
"Still it was worth it to see Nagi happy like that, even if the gifts cost us the rest of our emergency funds." Haku mused with Zabuza responding with a grunt as he bounced the bloodstained, and disappointedly light, coin purse of the merchant in his palm. A respond that Haku, based almost solely on the fact that Zabuza had yet to complain about the lost funds, translated as a rather long winded speech containing all of the affection of a dotting uncle.
Instead Zabuza had simply stated 'we need a job' and went in the direction of the Land of Waves, having heard about some business man they could likely leech money off of.
Gabo, or something.
"Zabuza."
"What."
"Where do you suppose Kyuyo got that cat anyway."
"I really don't want to think about it."
Kakashi dodged the rapid spin and lunge combo Nagi unleashed. His sharigan having been revealed and working on taking in as much information as possible. The silver haired jounin having already discarding his flimsy pride in favour of keeping his internal organs as internal as possible.
Once he could see in the blanketing mist Kakashi was downright shocked at the sight that welcomed him.
That is his smallest student, not just now but in fact the smallest student he has ever taught instructed gave helpful advice to fine jerked around, was effortlessly carrying a zanbatou blade a foot wide and long enough that it was probably taller than her.
Aesthetically the blade was little more than a massive iron rectangle with its sides sharpened to a razor's edge. It was only the end of the blade curving into a cheese knife-esque end complete with a hole cut out for no readily apparent reason, other than perhaps to save on building materials, hinted to any actual design sense. The long handle attached to the blade, and currently held in a single petite hand, was wrapped with frayed black bandages for both grip and effect.
What was perhaps most frightening about blade was the well worn look it had. Which was, in any weapon, generally taken as a bad sign by the person/s said weapon was wielded against.
As strange as the zanbatou was in the young girl's grip it was by no means stranger than the way she wielded it. With her... less than stellar stature using a traditional zanbatou stance would have been awkward at best and impossible, if not dangerous, at worst.
Instead the girl had adopted her own informal technique. Remaining on all fours, really all threes as at least one hand had to hold the sword, so she kept her centre of gravity and balance close to the ground. Then having the blade held diagonally across her back Nagi could alternate between sweeping spins of the razor sharp edge and lightning fast stabs and lunges that could as much crush you and cut you. Utilizing the massive reach and powerful impact of her zanbatou Nagi, true to her word, targeted the weakest points of the human anatomy. Aiming to sever limbs, skewer organs and inevitably decapitate her targets.
It was brutal, chaotic and inhuman.
In other words the style fit Nagi like a glove.
Dodging an unexpected side slash as Nagi switched hands in an impressive and near deadly display of ambidexterity. Kakashi wondered to himself if any of his students actually remembered the purpose of this test.
All the while the bells at his belt chimed forgotten.
"..."
"..."
'By Izanagi this is boring.' Sasuke thought slumping his head down onto the ground. Due to his situation he didn't have to slump very far, a small and pointless mercy.
The two archenemies now teammates had long since run out of creative insults and comebacks to sling at each other. More recently they had run out of uncreative insults.
Since neither ninja had any intention of playing nice and talking their issues over in a calm and dignified fashion, the clearing cum prison cum premature grave has descended into silence and the horror of ellipses.
At this point Sasuke didn't care if it was Orochimaru itself that came to help, he wanted out of the goddamn ground.
"Heeeey! Sakura-chan! Teme-kun!"
"Nagi-chan!" Sakura called out happily.
'... Shit.' Was Sasuke's only thought.
"Raiton: Web of the Lightning Spider." Kakashi called out after a small flurry of handseals, utilising a trap jutsu he had stolen (he was man enough to admit it) from a Kumo hermit during his chunin days.
With the reality alternating announcement ching that was a jutsu activation sound several blue bolts of electricity was sent outwards from Kakashi's hands. The crackling bolts weaved themselves into the geometric pattern that was a spider's web. Catching the Nagi's zanbatou mid lunge.
The web glowed a brighter shade of blue as mass of sharpened metal struck, sending thousands upon thousands of volts of electricity down the metal blade and into its wielder.
The wielder in question jumped back with a yelp and shook herself before proceeding to paw at her now frizzy blonde hair. Other than a bad hair day and pleasant tingling in her muscles Nagi was left otherwise unharmed by the attack.
'Alright Level 6 jutsu didn't work. Moving up to Level 7.' Kakashi thought, already moving into his next sequence of hand seals.
Some elaboration might be in order.
Due to the fact that Nagi was his sensei's daughter, even if she had become corrupted by an unknown force, and as noted Kakashi was quickly becoming infected by the Aura of Adorableness that Nagi naturally radiated, Kakashi was determined not to kill, maim or otherwise injure Nagi.
Despite that Kakashi still had to finish this... actually Kakashi had, like everyone else that day, had completely forgotten what he was supposed to be finishing or indeed doing, but by Izanagi, and more importantly his pay check, he was going to do it.
It would have been infinitely easier if his genjutsu did more than make her slightly woozy.
Nagi seemed to dilute the effectiveness of most techniques. She shook off Raiton like lightning was static electricity, jumped over Doton, was remarkably skilled in countering Suiton, weathered his Futon and as for Katon... well that just made her happy.
Kakashi didn't even want to try Taijutsu for one very long, very sharp and, hopefully, very obvious reason.
Realising that any normal knockout jutsu would just irritate her, but knowing that he couldn't skip straight to a high powered technique and risk killing her. Kakashi instead had to steadily increase the power of his jutsus until he found something that worked.
So far... bumpkiss, and Nagi wasn't making things any easier.
"Maple Wind!" Nagi called out suddenly, having had returned her hair to its properly styled mess, and sent a torrent of wind straight at Kakashi.
Instinctively breaking his series of hand seals to dodge to the side, clearly not quickly enough as Kakashi took a glancing blow on his uncovered fingertips of his left hand. Pushing past the pain of his now scorched fingertips, like any good ninja would, Kakashi returned to his hand seals. His task now twice at difficult.
Having an arsenal of Futon and Suiton jutsu comparable to a chunin at the least was one thing, being able to superheat the wind and water elements of her techniques to scorching and scalding temperatures was just unfair.
Unfortunately for Kakashi the odds were soon to become a lot more stacked against him.
"Come on. Come on. Boss will be mad if you're late." Called out a blonde figure as she leaped from tree branch to tree branch.
"Right Nagi-chan." Sakura chimed in an almost practiced response following a few branches behind the girl.
"All right, now if I remember correctly we have to take the left righ-"
WHOOMP!
The voice of the blonde figure were cut off as her head impacted with a branch, it of cries of pain though there was only the surprisingly sickening sound of boiling jelly raspberry jelly to be specific, not so much in terms of sound but rather in terms of visuals. So to sum this long winded and utterly confusing explanation 'boiling raspberry jelly' could pretty much sum up the sight of the Aura Clone reforming itself.
'I'd say this can't get any stupider, but I'd just be proven wrong.' Sasuke thought calling upon his emergency reserves of pessimism, having previously exhausted most of it during his time stuck in the ground.
So far he had been out of the ground for little more than a few minutes and Sasuke was pretty sure he would be better off in the ground.
'Still at least I'm safe from the pink haired witch, at least until this joke of a test is over.' Sasuke thought catching said pink haired witch openly glaring at him whenever Nagi's Aura Clone wasn't paying attention. Which was a lot of the time, clearly the clones retained the personality, intelligence and general mindset of their creator for better or for worse.
The clone had come with a very simple ultimatum for the two genin. Work together to finish the test or stay in the hole until they both became museum exhibits. It had worked and more importantly Sasuke had learned the valuable lesson that Nagi was a dangerous little girl.
Now the three where headed to where Nagi, the original, was keeping Kakashi occupied with Nagi, the clone, in the lead.
WHOOMP!
Sadly Nagi's, the clone's, though likely the original's as well, level of spacial awareness combined with the sheer number of low hanging tree branches made for slow going.
"Okay we're here." Nagi spoke with a surprising level of restraint and softness, which made both Sakura and Sasuke move into more serious states of mind. Even if both genin were thinking about the best place to hide the other's corpse. "All right, I'll disperse so Nagi knows you guys are here." The clone finished before she began to melt into a pool of maple red chakra.
"Hey wait what are we supposed. Do you have a plan at all?" Sasuke said, in a voice a bit louder than was likely safe this close to a ninja battle, he wouldn't get an answer though as the clone had already dissolved into a thick puddle of chakra which was currently being soaked up by the tree branch.
That technique is really just wrong on a lot of levels.
"What the hell is the plan?" Sasuke cried once again in vain. In vain because not only had the clone melted but Sakura had already disappeared, presumably into the fray of battle.
Sasuke sighed deeply; he almost couldn't believe that he was the sane one in this team. Fortunately he was beginning to get used to the weirdness, at least in life and death situations such as this one, and readied some shuriken and ninja wire before jumping into the fray.
'They could have at least told where all the fog came from.' Was the Uchiha's last though before he entered into battle.
"Alright Nagi if you stop trying to lop off my head I'll... give you a box of dango." Kakashi said before narrowly dodging a giant blade. "Two boxes of dango?" He said with uncertain tone of voice before side stepping to avoid a thrust to his gut. "Two boxes of dango laced with arsenic."
This offer actually Nagi halt her relentless assault for a moment. After all poison was the ultimate spice, at least in her mind, plus it meant no one could steal her food without suffering the consequences.
Kakashi quickly took advantage of the young girl's lapse to put as much distance between him and the blonde swords-girl.
As the battle between Kakashi and Nagi continued the jounin's plan for ending this with, mostly, non violent methods were beginning to show its problems more and more.
The problem with fighting Nagi with any technique was that she was far too unpredictable. Her attacks followed no logical rhythm or flow. Defending was hard enough, trying to do that while find holes in her own defence was akin to locating a joker in a deck of cards while the cards were still being shuffled.
Which was why he was forced to resort to petty tricks, as opposed to the dirty tricks he was taught.
Never the less Kakashi was confident that he could win this fight. Which was the point the senbon hit him in the back of the neck.
The attack sent him stumbling, wether from the sudden surprise or from whatever chemical was undoubtedly coursing through his blood stream he wasn't sure, what he did know is that he almost stumbled directly into the edge of Nagi's blade. Apparently she had chosen now to slash at Kakashi's gut.
Only his trained reflexes allowed him to flip over the razor sharp blade ending in a perfect landing. The only problem was that once the jounin had landed the world kept spinning. Whatever toxin he had been hit with was potent stuff, made worse by the fact that he hadn't a chance to remove the needle from the back of his neck. Neither would he have a chance for a while as he had to quickly barrel roll out of the way of an attack from behind.
He managed to dodge the multitude of shuriken by a hairs breadth... wait shuriken.
"Shiiiit!" Kakashi slurred as he just barely missed being chopped in half from behind by Nagi's massive blade.
Kakashi only got a glimpse of a smirking Nagi Uzumaki and a smirking Sasuke Uchiha before he was brought to flurry of melee combat. Kakashi knew right then he was fighting a losing battle. As the seconds went back, as the toxin in his bloodstream continued to spread, Kakashi continued to lose milliseconds off his reaction time. Bringing him closer and closer to turning the near misses of Nagi's chaotic bladework into direct hits. Coupled work with the added threat of Sasuke attempting to toss shuriken into the base of his spine and it all pointed towards Kakashi losing a limb.
Still something strange happened during those increasingly hazy moments, to most people there that day it wouldn't change much. It wouldn't change the outcome of the battle and the single person it would affect would push it from his mind.
Regardless the event was the start of something and it started with Kakashi being too whacked out on toxins to know what he was doing.
To this end Kakashi started to forget that he was fighting genins and let loose his favoured technique for culling high level chunins.
"Katon: Flash Burn!" Kakashi called out sending what was effectively a massive and incredibly fast stream of blazing hot fire at the first blurred object he saw that resembled a person.
Fast, efficient and deadly. Flash Burn was a simple but powerful jutsu designed to render its target into blackened carbon before said target had a chance to react
In this case it was Sasuke who became the target of the barely controlled burn (5) and he definitely didn't have a chance to react.
Luckily for him the only person only his team with a shred of teamwork in her small body, in fact she came pre-packaged with near unconditional camaraderie, and even better for Sasuke she was considerably faster than he was.
The last Uchiha was knocked away from the blade and too the ground before he had a chance to register the fact that the girl he loathed by association to the pink haired witch, had just taken a deadly attack for him.
Kakashi, still unsure what he had just done, barely got a chance to remove the senbon still embedded in the back of his neck before a kunai was held to the front of his neck.
"Hello sensei?" Said a feminine voice sweetly.
"Mom?"
"...Sakura." The feminine voice said with more than a little hint of exasperation.
"Ahhhhh right. I completely know who that is." Kakashi said distracted by a pretty, and quite possibly hallucinated, bird.
"Luckily for you this particular type of deliriant(6) is quick to work and quicker to wear off." Sakura said removing a good handful of senbon that she had embedded, unnoticed, into various points on his body. "After all I fully intend to kill you myself for sticking me in the ground next to that teme." The pink haired girl growled through gritted teeth indicating said teme with a wave of free wave, by free I mean holding a hypodermic needle of backup poison.
This also had the added effect of breaking Sasuke out of his shock induced stupor. "Wha- what you bit- wait that's not important your best friend was just engulfed in flames.
Sakura shrugged, which for obvious safety reason you probably do while holding a sharp implement up to the neck of an unstable drugged person unless you wanted them to die, so naturally it was a fairly exaggerated shrug she did. "It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last." The pink haired girl said to a confused Sasuke.
"What can I say? Fireproofing is an acquired and very useful skill." A happy blonde said as she walked out of the strong burning bonfire the attack left behind. The girl apparently knew that the combat had run was over and had sealed her giant weapon away in the smaller, but still pretty big, scroll attached to the back of her flak jacket.
Sasuke could only mumble scared and confused before he simply pushed the entire event from his mind for the sake of his increasingly fragile sanity.
Sakura openly laughed at his obvious mental suffering before quickly returning her attention to her soon to be victim of a jounin sensei. "Well then Cyclops-sensei we've only know a little while but I already grown to both respect you and more majorly utterly loathe you for your ability to torment people."
"Does it feel like we're forgetting something?" Sasuke questioned.
"Post kill ramen." Nagi said without any hint of joking, as though she actually knew what the point of this entire exercise was.
Sakura only grinned evilly and angled her kunai to tear out Kakashi's throat. "Sayonara sen-"
BRING!BRING!BRING!
"Damn it who the hell's interrupting my unnecessarily dramatic kill."
"I still think it could be more unnecessarily dramatic," Nagi mused, "you know brass fire torchs, sacrificial alter, large four poster bed with inbuilt chains. Hinata suggested that last one when I asked her about rituals, apparently she even ordered one. She said I could come play on it but I have to wear black underwear and not tell Sakura... on second thoughts forget I said that. I want to jump on the big bed." Fortunately, or unfortunately, no-one heard Nagi's incriminating ramblings over the sound of the alarm clock. Even so only one recently sobered jounin actually bothered to remember what it meant.
As I said it was only a matter of time until Kakashi would be defeated, unfortunately for the genin none of them bothered to pay attention to the clock.
"Well now it looks like we've all learned an important lesson here." Kakashi said radily disarming Sakura and putting her in a head hold.
"Use a longer lasting deliriant."Sakura gasped between shallow breaths.
"Nope, don't waste your time on schienagins and trying to kill your teammates." Kakashi said levelling a glare at the genin before his eyes morphed into a sudden eye smile. "But don't worry. I'm willing to give you all a second chance. But first let's eat."
"Fuck my life." Sasuke bemoaned as he slumped against the ropes which tightly bound him to a log.
"I agree, fuck your life. Preferably with a sharp iron stick." Agreed Sakura who was tied to the other side of the log and pulling against the ropes. She didn't have any hope of escaping but she had noticed that since they were tied to the same log with the same length of rope, anytime she pulled from her side Sasuke was painfully pulled into the log by the bonds.
"I'm pretty comfortable myself." Nagi commented being the only genin in the general vicinity not currently tied to something.
"Good to hear," Kakashi said and for once in his life he was being flippant. Elsewhere Maito Gai was trying on a suit; admittedly it was a purple one that he intended to use in a Joker cosplay (7). "Now what we're going to do is quite simple. I'm going to give you all a second chance to pass the test but first we need punish the two people who are apparently almost incapable of understanding the point of this test."
"What and the blonde midget did?" Sasuke said with indignation, which was sad, he was doing so well at not acting like asshole. At least for a little while there.
"Yes Sasuke she did! Because unlike you two Nagi not only realised that she'd need help in achieving an impossible task she was the only one here today who actually showed no trace of animosity to any of her teammates. Meanwhile you two were trying to kill each other at any given opportunity. It feels like if I even take the time to explain just what this test was about I'd just end up wasting everyone's time."
"If you hadn't interfered I would have had him." Sakura said with confidence.
"And while you were fighting with him Sakura Nagi would have been left alone fighting enemies who would not hesitate to kill her given even a second's opportunity."
Sakura had nothing to say to that, in fact the mere mention of Nagi dying seemed to have sent her into some internal moment of panic and terror.
Surprisingly Nagi had nothing to say to this either. She trained by sparing against Kyuyo not to mention Oji and Ani-san, all of which were skilled ninjas that could probably crush her if they wanted and did not insist on treating her like a porcelain doll (though admittedly one dipped in liquid asbestos) a fact that irritated her to no end. Nagi was a girl who knew her limits if only so she knew where to push them. Still that wasn't Nagi's main query at the moment, she was more curious about what exactly she did right. She only followed Kyuyo's advice and did whatever seemed right at the time, such as jumping in front of a massive gout of fire to push Sasuke out of it, people made such a big deal out of nothing sometimes.
Still on the bright side Nagi's point of introspection allowed her to sidestep Kakashi's rather numerous comments about just how soul crushing this entire morning had proved and thus conveniently started listening to the good parts.
"And so that is why legal issues prevent me from dolling out decent punishments to anyone below chunin rank and why you will instead by tied to post to a post while Nagi eats lunch in front of you."
"Sensei, you do know that Sakura has already eaten today." Sasuke said unable to muster up the enthusiasm for an insult, unlike Nagi he wasn't able to tune out Kakashi's criticism and thus his sense of self importance had taken a sound and rather vicious beating.
"Actually yes I do. Which is why I've arranged another punishment for Sakura." Kakashi declared.
"What would that be?" Sakura asked with considerable trepidation, her ideas for decent punishments (i.e. those whose use on genins was considered a war crime even during times of peace) were really really... well awesome except when they would be used on her.
As what for what he actually had planned. "Your punishment... is to be tied to the same log as Sasuke." Actually pretty harsh when you consider this girls character.
"You crafty bastard."
"Plus it saves me from locating a clearing with two conveniently placed tree stumps."
"Couldn't you just cut down two trees and make one." Sasuke asked.
"Well seeing as how I already helped destroy that river we were fighting at recently I'd rather not contribute to deforestation as well."
"Good call." Nagi said, with all the tree dwelling kami she knew Nagi liked to avoid destroying trees whenever possible. An odd reason perhaps for ones ecologic views but whatever works for ya.
"Well then, now would generally be the time I give the lunchboxes to Nagi and tell her not to get you two any. However someone detonated the lunches." Kakashi looked over to Nagi.
"What I had to be thorough in my elimination of possible targets." Nagi defended.
"I won't ask. Is it all right if you wait here while I go get some takeout."
"Nah it's all right, I brought my own." Nagi declared pulling a pair of homemade bento from the ever convenient, and apparently ever present, comedic hammer space.
"Well that all works out well then." Kakashi said, he did love it when an inconvenient plot hole created by a pointless joke was resolved so quickly. "If you need me I'll be catching up on my reading. Don't let them eat anything or there will be consequences."
"Sensei, why is your face all shadowy like that."
"Dramatic Reveal genjutsu, just roll with it."
"It wasn't really a reveal but okay, have fun!" Nagi said before walking over to sit by the log which her two teammates remained tied to.
Kakashi turned around and prepared for a shunshin, he didn't even make it through half of the required handsign before Nagi was offering to handfeed her homemade bento to both her teammates.
Kakashi probably would have cried at the sight of basic human decorum, had he not tripped in shock and face planted the ground.
"I am here to report that Team 7 has passed the genin exam." Kakashi said standing in the Hokage's office.
"So all three showed teamwork and loyalty to their team-mates." The ancient and wise Sandaime Hokage queried taking a deep pull of his antique cherry oak pipe.
"Nope. In fact I'm considering disposing of two of them and putting the third into some sort of deprogramming."
The ancient and wise Sandaime Hokage nearly choked to death on his antique cherry oak pipe. Once he had retained his composure, and the ever vital use of his lungs, Sarutobi attempted to get more information about the situation.
"Did any of the genin get the bells?" He asked and was rewarded with a look of non-comprehension on the features of one of his most trusted jounin.
"I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." Kakashi said simply, though something about the worried look in his eyes directed at him served to piss the Sandaime off immensely. "Well I'll come by with my new Team tomorrow from their next mission. Anything that comes with the risk of immolation would be great."
Kakashi shunshined away with an eye smile leaving the Hokage to wish his plan to get Konoha a proper psychiatric ward had worked out properly. Don't get him wrong he liked the improvements in the field of torture but it did seem like a psychiatrist would be more valuable at times.
Sighing deeply Sarutobi looked down to the form in front of him, it was a basic outline of the testing procedure used for Team 7 and the bottom of the page, like many other similar forms he had filled out recently, the paper contained one simple question and two concise answers.
Did the team fulfil all components for passing the test?
Yes
No
After looking at the question for a good hour Sarutobi dipped his pen in a bottle of ink and added a third answer to the question and put a cross next to it.
Did the team fulfil all components for passing the test?
Yes
No
I have no idea X
After answering it Sarutobi filled the paper into his outbox and took the night off.
So do you actually have an excuse for not writing anything for six months?
I was sorta of hoping you wouldn't bring that up.
It's what I'm here for twit.
Well... you see...uh [Looks around for an escape] shit happened.
...
It was a lot of shit to be fair, one after the after.
Such as.
Well I got a job you know that?
Yes.
Yeah well that absorbed my life for a good while then it all sort of fell apart. First I got sick. Then I got injured. Then I fired. Now here we are.
That doesn't sound like much.
Well there was all fluid filling my lungs and crippling pain caused by moving for a little while. Spending my recovery time playing Portal 2 and Tales of Monkey Island didn't help much in terms of anti-procrastination. Plus my mind played a prominent factor.
Mind? There's a laugh.
Quite you, you see a large problem lies in the way I plan a story and/or the lack thereof. You see I basically plan out the story in randomised points in the plot. This results in several large blocks of plot at the beginning, middle and end. Unfortunately I don't always plan the connecting points between these blocks and thus I'm left with entire points where I have no idea what I'm doing. This entire chapter is one such point. Pretty everything written here was done on the spot.
In other words you're an idiot with a faulty brain who can't plan anything properly. Which is why any readers who still cared enough, had to wait months for this drivel of a chapter.
Pretty much. Still I have a peace offering for everyone who has read this story.
That would be?
Art.
Art?
Next to writing, it is my primary creative skill.
Which is useful since you have no practical skills.
Harsh. Never the less for anyone interested I've set up a link in my account page for a picture of Kyuyo and Nagi.
At last a use for that Deviant-Art account you made out of boredom.
It all comes full circle. Well then, I think that's about it I hope nobody wants to hurt me too much.
If any does I can give you his home address.
He will too. We'll then jamata and since I have a general idea of what I'm doing next chapter it hopefully won't take too long.
Next time has 90% more Zabuza. Yay giant swords :)
(1)- Spleen, it really is the funniest organ there is. I don't have a clue why, it just is.
(2)- Look it up. It's awesome.
(3)- I feel so Monkey Island.
(4)- You know when I misspelt this word in Word and used spellcheck the first option to come up was actually sexual instead of schedule. I never knew a computer program could be so much of a perv.
(5)- Hmm Controlled Burn... good god I'm seeing TF2 achievements everywhere. Damn you Valve. You and your little hats too!
(6)- It's effectively a category of hallucinogen that induces a state similar to delirium. That's right Kakashi was drugged, it was bound to happen eventually.
(7)- I'll let that image float around in your heads.