Chapter 18: The First Stage
Shoryu had seen many wonders in his young life: his home high beyond the clouds, the hatching of a dragon egg, a legendary firework display and a village nestled at the bottom of a glacier. These things paled in comparison to the sight that greeted him once he stepped out onto the upper deck of the ship.
The longboat, and nine others by its side, lay static on a giant pink sheet that wriggled uncomfortably, sweating some disgusting white foam across its length that engulfed the base of each ship. Red, fleshy walls could be seen miles away on either side that stretched up like a cavern and formed a glistening wet bowl above them. Dangling from that bowl in the sky was what appeared to be an incredible blood-red bell that swayed to and fro like an impatient pendulum.
Gasps of shock resounded around deck as Shoryu pushed his way over to the railings. Looking behind him, two sets of great white squares lay a mile or so behind, bashing together as sunlight peered through their gaps. Right away he theorised what had gone on, but this ghastly scene at the ship's flank confirmed without any doubt where they were: the mouth of the Island Turtle.
"Kazuya," he said, "For once I really hope you've spiked my drink."
"Not today Shoryu, but I'll be sure to write that one down." Kazuya stared unblinkingly at the teeth in the faraway distance and then back along the head of the ship, where the lightless cavern of the turtle's throat awaited them.
The voice of the eldest Jonin suddenly continued, still amplified by a microphone. "Alright, everyone make your way off the ship!"
Mass hysteria broke out as the ninja clambered overboard before landing on the bouncy pink ground of the turtle's tongue. Every step produced a frothing volume of saliva to drown the feet of the Genin, meaning they had to remain still to avoid getting their feet soaking wet before the test even begun.
A whole five minutes passed before all two thousand students stood on the pillow-soft ground. Many female Genin and even a few males had to be coaxed into leaving the ships, and once they set foot on the fleshy surface they began to wail and cry about how disgusting this country's Chunin Exams were. Often the first test of a Chunin Exam was a written test; it seemed tame compared to this.
As a small chunk of the fairer sex exploded into tears around her Ayako remained surprisingly calm in spite of the situation; in fact Shoryu seemed to have a harder time coping with this than she did. She was as still and as bold as Kazuya; it worried the boy.
"How does this not freak you out?" Shoryu asked. He lifted his feet up and down, watching them sink twelve inches before coming back up with a fresh coat of drool.
"Don't get me wrong, this is gross," said Ayako. "But it's not the end of the world. It's necessary to pass the first test – you know a ninja must be able to survive in any situation."
"Any situation? How often are we going to find ourselves in the mouth of a giant turtle?" cried the boy.
"Keep it together Shoryu." Kazuya suddenly drew his ancestor's sword and dropped into stance. "Remember, we have to be on guard for everything."
Shoryu groaned and gripped the hilts of his blades. Around him the teams began to form up, until the only people who remained on the boats were the Jonin who would only see twenty of them again at the finals. They gave one last wave to the parties on their deck before another voice of a ship's Jonin rang clear and loud throughout the mouth of the turtle, echoing across the cavernous walls.
"Let the first test. . ."
Hang on, wondered Shoryu. Now that he'd finally calmed down he allowed his analytical eyes to dart around the cavern – something didn't quite add up. Each of the ten longboats was stuck deep in five feet of turtle tongue. Those ships are stuck here. How do they plan on escaping?
"BEGIN!" roared the voice.
Upon the ninja's final words Shoryu's answer presented itself. He heard the distant rushing of water and put two and two together in a matter of seconds. As he turned towards the blackened fissure of the turtle's throat a great mass of water burst forth from it, sweeping towards them across the length of the tongue.
"Ayako!" he cried.
"Shading Jutsu: Yellow!" With three hand signs and a simple clap of her hands Ayako conjured up the glassy yellow barrier and placed it firmly between Squad Thirteen and the now-gaping open mouth of the turtle. Four seconds later a waist high wave of water gushed over them. Its force knocked almost everyone off their feet, carrying the ten longboats and a hundred students with it right along the tongue and out towards the mouth.
Instead of joining them though, Squad Thirteen crashed headlong into Ayako's barrier. It cracked slightly under their weight before another dose of yellow from its conjurer reinforced the solid wall. When the tsunami had finally subsided the ships were well on their way out of the mouth; what most students didn't see was the giant bucket of krill and shrimp one of the boats left on its way out.
Here the first test really begun.
After noticing the bucket Shoryu knew their time was short. He slipped his hand quick as he dared into his backpack and withdrew a length of metal wire, unravelling it and tying it in a hasty knot around his wrist.
"Quickly!" He tossed the roll of wire to Ayako, who had also noticed what was about to happen and tied herself into the loop without thinking twice. She then gave it to Kazuya; he hadn't seen the bucket yet, but Shoryu's judgement was good enough for him now. He wrapped the wire around his arm and pulled it tight before severing it with the double-edged sword.
Around them multi-coloured jets, familiar elements and swiftly executed hand signs snapped together as the individual teams began to think of a way to stay as a group after the inevitable happened. Only a few of them had settled on Shoryu's idea, and many more just glanced around, confused as to the intentions of the other ninja.
Squad Thirteen finished tying themselves together just in time to witness the walls caving in towards each other; giant constricting muscles and the trembling of that dangling bell-like tonsil in the sky could mean only one thing. Since the bucket of shrimp looked like a tasty morsel, the Island Turtle decided to swallow them whole.
A force stronger than any Shoryu had ever felt before punched the wind out of young ninja and knocked him off his feet spinning faster than a Jonin's shuriken. Like the flush of an enormous drain the void of the turtle's throat claimed almost two thousand ninja before any realised what had happened; they fell flailing into the depths of darkness faster than speeds they ever thought possible.
The ninja who hadn't managed to bind themselves to their teammates were separated from them in the blink of an eye; nothing they could do now in this giant tumble dryer would guide them back to their comrades. Many that had managed to tie themselves together were subjected to an even worse pain than solitude. Shoryu's wrist suddenly pulled him in a completely new direction with such a force that he thought his hand might tear off in that instant. Ayako had gone one way and Kazuya another, and the sharp steel wire that held them together suddenly bounced them back into one another.
In a tangled heap Squad Thirteen fell through the darkness until they hit what felt like a near-vertical waterslide. Bodily fluids leaked down into their new claustrophobic chamber, forming a river over what felt like the same fleshy material as the turtle's tongue. The air in Shoryu's face began to ripple his skin as they hastened to even faster speeds, and the waterfall that crashed around his ears soaked his clothes at what appeared to be sub-zero temperatures thanks to the incredible speed.
With the surroundings of a lightless cavern, not a single detail could be seen as he hurtled through the depths, but somehow a hand managed to latch onto his wrist and stop the agonising pain that ruled it. From just one touch he knew the hand was Ayako's, and in her other hand at the head of the slide must've been Kazuya.
"Somebody slow us down!" he called over the deafening fury of the waterfall.
"Ice Style: Frozen Wall!" He heard Kazuya chant. The whipping chill of their climbing speeds suddenly became much colder as Shoryu found his legs encased in a freezer. Struggling as hard as he could would do nothing; from the thighs down he was trapped in temperatures so cold that his legs began to go numb. Add that to the fact that their speed had actually increased and his heart rate was sent soaring well into triple digits.
Trapped in the darkness Shoryu plummeted until a few moments later when his first sign of hope appeared. A familiar globe of reddish, radiant light was suddenly created ahead of him. From the crimson rays Ayako's determined expression was illuminated; she worked quickly on smearing the light over several kunai knives from her pockets before throwing them to the corners of their icy prison.
Total darkness consumed the team for just one more second until a loud clap reverberated off the walls.
"Shading Jutsu: Red Snare!"
Upon her command the four kunai lit up like roman candles, sizzling away with a venomous hiss and brightening the sewer-like tunnel for all to see. Around them the throbbing muscles and man-sized veins wriggled around as they went deeper and deeper into the turtle itself. Behind them Shoryu could clearly see at least another ten students who'd fallen down this particular steep channel; they tumbled down without any plan, and most of them had lost their teammates the moment the Island Turtle decided to swallow them.
As Squad Thirteen passed by a flailing ninja, the shinobi made a grab for their makeshift boat only to find that his hand slipped away from it. That reminded Shoryu, what was this contraption Kazuya made? It had been far too dark to see when he first conjured it, but now that Ayako's candles lit up the stage the true horror of the samurai's creation became clear.
In a single file Squad Thirteen were firmly encased within a ten foot long bed of solid ice, still joined together by their left wrists.
"Kazuya this is ice!" complained Ayako, pointing out the obvious flaw in the samurai's idea; he didn't seem to mind though, in fact Kazuya was the only one who seemed to be enjoying the experience.
"Yeah? So what?" he called back.
"So we've sped up you idiot!" Shoryu had gone from highly anxious to out of his mind. He knew that if they hit something solid at these speeds they'd just become an unsightly stain on the inner walls of the Island Turtle; he didn't doubt that Ayako and Kazuya knew it too, but what bothered him most was that they didn't seem to mind so much.
"At least we're in control now!" Kazuya shouted. "Get ready there's a dip coming!"
Kazuya's warning was hardly useful, because as soon as Shoryu received the message his stomach flipped over and his heart stopped completely. The drop they'd been sent down curved out into a level plane faster than Shoryu could process before ascending back into a high incline. Now that the vertigo was gone Shoryu finally became accustomed to the fact that he was pretty much riding the worst roller coaster of all time.
He couldn't help but laugh after noticing how wrong he'd been; behind him, the ninja that hadn't gained enough speed decelerated into a stop behind them, thrashing around and trying to find something to climb on before they went over backwards down the slide they'd briefly ascended. Riding on ice meant that Squad Thirteen lost little traction and continued to climb the rise. They still slowed down, but at a considerably slower rate; Shoryu reckoned they had another thirty seconds at least before they stopped completely.
Ayako threw another set of kunai to bring more light to the cavern. "Any more bright ideas before we start falling?"
"If we're lucky we'll reach the top before we run out of speed," said Kazuya. "But once we're there I doubt we'll stay on high ground for very long."
Shoryu shivered; the idea of falling like that again made him queasy just to consider it. Determined to avoid such a drop, he cast his mind back to what the Jonin had said earlier. The first stage requires you to get safely to the surface. It seemed so obvious when he stopped to think about it, but in all the commotion the wise elder's words had completely skipped his mind.
That must've been the point of this phase; it wasn't just to check whether they could survive in any environment, it was also made to test their resourcefulness and whether they could recall major details under pressure.
"We need to look for an opening somewhere!" he said. "Once we reach the top of this hill there should be a way to get to the surface in sight! Ayako, be ready to light everything up when we get there!"
Ayako nodded, but part of Shoryu's plan contained a fatal flaw. They were still encased in ice. "And if we see an opening how are we supposed to reach it? We can't jump with our legs in this thing, and the moment we get out of it we'll just slip back down the river!"
"Leave it to me," muttered Kazuya.
Shoryu had no idea what kind of trick his samurai teammate had up his sleeve, but if anything he trusted Kazuya more than anyone. Shoryu didn't have any kind of secret jutsu for this situation and he knew Ayako's basic powers didn't have anything that would help either – Kazuya's abilities on the other hand encompassed a wide range of practical applications. Nothing would've surprised him.
Another unbearable ten seconds passed; the speed of the ice block had slowed dramatically, and looking behind him Shoryu noticed that the steep incline they'd just conquered began to look more and more welcoming, like the gaping jaws of a shark looming closer. For one heart stopping moment he thought they'd stopped and closed his eyes, preparing himself for a change of direction.
To his utmost pleasure the change never came; their road smoothed out once again into an unusually flat twist of the turtle's guttural, prompting Ayako to fill her hands with a giant ball of colour and use up more than a whole quarter of her red scroll.
"Shading Jutsu: Scatter Flare!"
Like a rapidly blooming flower countless bursts of red energy jetted from Ayako's palms in a display of crimson fireworks equally beautiful to those Shoryu had witnessed at Kateri. They lit up the tubular tunnel of the Island Turtle, revealing the glistening stream and the curved, dripping wet walls of muscle that stretched ahead as far as the eye could see. After that it was only a matter of seconds before she saw the opening.
"There!" she cried, directing the explosive flares towards a patch of the close ceiling where a clearly visible stretch of thinner, pinkish membrane lay.
"Alright everyone, remember what it was like to scale the Glacial Drop!" commanded the samurai. It wasn't a question; he was quite literally asking them to recall one particular sensation on command as he wove together at least a dozen hand signs. Suddenly the block of ice disappeared from underneath Shoryu's feet, and just when he thought the current of the water slide would sweep him away Kazuya slapped his hands the ground.
"Ice Style: Liquid Freeze!"
Beneath Squad Thirteen the rapids immediately stopped as a cool palette of ice spread out from Kazuya's hands, engulfing everything around him save for the thin tissue upon the roof. Blood, spit, sweat, gastric acid and other bodily fluids that made up the stream were all liquid based; freezing them was a simple matter to Kazuya, although it required him to keep his hands pressed to the ground at all times.
If he released his jutsu then the incoming stream just beyond his range would flow over and thaw the river in a heartbeat, so he remained as still as a rock whilst Shoryu and Ayako began to readjust themselves to walking on ice.
"Get up there," he ordered, keeping his eyes closed to maintain focus. "Throw me a rope down once you get through."
"Sure thing." With his right hand Shoryu drew his primary sword and severed the wire that held the three of them together, knowing that if he forgot about it then they could easily drag Kazuya out of his jutsu. Making haste the two ninja ran up the pipe's walls and to the ceiling, directing chakra into their feet as they inspected the salmon coloured oval, transparent under Ayako's steady sphere of light.
Without hesitation Shoryu plunged his sword into it and cut around the edges. He cringed as the inch-thick peel of tissue flat-packed to the icy ground before he clambered through the opening. Another feeling of vertigo claimed him; transferring from walking upside down to standing the right way up was never something he'd ever used to, but he shook it off and helped his teammate through.
From Ayako's pack a handy length of thin, strong rope was then retrieved and thrown back into the chasm, landing by Kazuya's feet. As soon as he released the jutsu the tirade of vile water bowled towards him in a great wave, and yet by the time it reached him he was already long gone, hauled up through the opening after grabbing the rope.
Light from Ayako's few remaining kunai and a brief firework display lit up the room they now inhabited to reveal a sight far grander and more welcoming than the sickening scene of a turtle's innards. They'd reached the inside of the turtle's shell, a smooth, hollow hall of unblemished beige that stretched for miles in every direction with no ending in sight.
Pink patches of membrane like the one they'd just passed through littered the ground every twenty paces or so; the silhouettes of half a dozen teams in Ayako's low light could be seen climbing out and taking in the incredible view. There were no chambers or individual rooms, just a vast plane of flat land and a roof that curled up into a high bowl, just as they expected the inside of a turtle shell would.
Like the openings on the ground, the high roof was broken here and there by gnarly brown fingers; they wired their way across the ceiling in all directions, spreading out from individual central points like a thunderbolt. It took Shoryu a few moments to realise exactly what they were: roots.
Of course – the island had its own ecosystem; trees and grass grew naturally from the surface, fed by nutrients provided by the turtle's shell. Those roots would lead up to trees of their own back in the open air, and that would be their ticket out. Only one problem remained.
"How the hell are we supposed to get up there?" muttered Ayako, voicing the opinions of all who saw it that day.
At their lowest points the roots were forty five metres up in the air, hardly a jumping distance. The shell would continue in all directions for miles upon miles; and even if they did manage to find one of the sides, walking up it would be another story. Since the trees would only grow on the top of the shell, if they walked up one of the rims it could take them hours to find another root, and walking on walls was hardly something they could keep up for that long.
Shoryu made a brief tally in his head of the tools and abilities they each possessed. To his dismay none of them had powers that would grant them short-term flight or advanced jumping. Ayako's yellow barriers wouldn't be able to support three people to make a staircase of sorts and his own wind jutsu couldn't carry them that far. Kazuya might have been able to fashion something by making a rising pillar of ice, although then again forty five metres was a long way – it wasn't a distance the samurai could comfortably reach, and Shoryu supposed they'd need his chakra to get through the tree.
His hand crept behind his back and he pulled out the first thing that came to mind – his windmill shuriken. The boy flipped it open and spun it absently around his fingers as he began to ponder.
"You know the one thousand eight hundred students who don't pass this stage?" mused Ayako. "How do you think they get out of here? They won't all die will they? That Jonin said that only twenty die."
Kazuya wondered for a moment before a grin spread across his face. He replied, "The turtle only eats fish so I doubt it could properly digest a human – a few clothes will probably be scorched away and they might have light burns for a while, but after that I imagine they'll go through a. . ." He searched for the phrase to put his theory delicately. "A less glamorous exit," was the wording he settled on.
Ayako's expression was blank for a second or two before the horrific reality of Kazuya's statement became clear. She shook her head fiercely. "That's disgusting; no wonder people who fail this test never retake it! We'd better think of something – I hate to sound like a killjoy but I am not leaving this exam in turtle crap."
"None of us plan on doing that, just let me think," said Shoryu. His gaze wandered over to the other groups who seemed to be just as lost as they were. Kazuya closed his eyes and stood firm in the darkness whereas Ayako distantly twiddled with the length of rope they'd used to pull him out. Shoryu looked to the rope, and then back to the shuriken in his hand before his mind went haywire in calculation.
The roof was forty five metres high; Ayako's length of fine rope was thirty, and so were the bundles he and Kazuya both had stashed away in their packs. Three thirties made ninety metres – twice the distance of Squad Thirteen to the roof and the perfect length for a rappelling line. Clearly this was one of the many methods intended for the exam; Shoryu was only happy he'd been so quick to figure it out.
"Alright give me your ropes," he said, slinging off his pack and locating his own. Ayako handed him the green, fine measure and Kazuya did the same after a little shuffling around in his bag. After a few tries he managed to thread his own rope through the finger hole of his windmill shuriken like a sewing needle, and following that it was just a matter of tying the other two ropes to either end of his to create a single ninety metre rope with a windmill shuriken at its dead-centre.
"Ahh, I get it now," observed Ayako, quietly clapping him.
Kazuya however still looked puzzled. "I'm not sure I understand."
"Just watch and you'll see," said Shoryu.
As confident as he was from creating such a genius idea, the throw was still one of the most awkward Shoryu had ever made. Forty five metres was a long enough distance on its own, not to mention he'd never had to throw a shuriken up before and there was the annoyance that he didn't have a finger slot in which to hold it anymore.
Nevertheless, Shoryu's aim was true. After a short run the boy hurled the windmill shuriken straight up towards the roof; for once the four-bladed star's path was a straight line with the absence of wind down in the shell. A slow flight took place before the weapon stuck firm into one of the thicker roots above them, followed by its opposing lengths of fine rope dropping limply to the ground. Pulling one side down would make the other rise – it was a simple enough idea.
"You mean to pull each other up using that?" asked Kazuya. "It won't hold; as soon as we put our weight on it your shuriken will come down on top of u-"
"Blue!" cried Ayako. A clap that resonated across the shell signalled the birth of a clear blue javelin of chakra, one that shot straight up into the air and skewered Shoryu's shuriken deeper into the root, securely locking it into place.
Shoryu then marched over to the two ropes and tugged hard before jumping up and dangling his entire weight on them. No matter how much he pulled the shuriken never moved an inch.
"Beautiful – not a bad makeshift line if I do say so myself," he noted.
"You're welcome," said Ayako.
"Hang on, you're forgetting something." Ever the pessimist, Kazuya joined Shoryu and demonstrated the contraption he'd created by tugging on one side at a time. "Pull on one of them and the other rises."
Shoryu grinned and slapped Kazuya on the back. "That's the general idea."
"So to get up, a person grabs hold of one rope and the others pull on the second one down here. If that's the case, then whoever goes last won't have a spotter to help them out – they'd have to make it up on their own."
Shoryu nodded his head. "I thought about that."
"I'll go last if you want," volunteered the samurai.
"No way. Sure, you're easily the most capable, but we'll need your freezing to smash our way through that tree at the top. You've already used enough energy by now and whoever climbs that thing on their own should be exhausted by the time they get to the top."
"I'll be able to do both," assured Kazuya.
"I'm not saying you can't, we just can't afford to take any chances. You should go first." Shoryu looked back up at the height and deemed it safe enough. He'd managed worse in his training after all. "I'll go last."
Finally Kazuya nodded in reluctance and took his place by beginning to tie one of the ropes around his belt. Shoryu's reasoning was solid and so he deferred to the boy's judgement, though apparently Ayako didn't feel the same way.
"Hang on," she said, placing her hands across her hips. "Who says you get to go last?"
Shoryu looked to Kazuya to support. None was to be found – he just shrugged and left it to the ninja to reply by himself. "Erm. . ." he staggered. "Don't you think it's the best idea?"
"Enlighten me." Ayako wouldn't budge, forcing Shoryu to reveal his views for all to see.
"Well. . . I mean, I'd have a much easier time of it - it's a well-known fact that males have more upper body strength than females," he explained.
"That's right," said the girl. She paused for a moment before suddenly slapping Shoryu upside his head. "But you're not dealing with just 'some girl' here! You're dealing with the next Raikage!"
Shoryu nursed his head and shrank back in fear. "Don't you think you're overreacting? We don't have time to decide who gets to risk their lives here! I didn't say-"
"Exactly, you didn't say anything. You just assumed that because I'm a girl I couldn't do it! I'll pull you up second; let me go last and save your chivalry for someone who needs it."
With a great sigh Shoryu looked back up to the ceiling. For him the climb would be a struggle; for her it would no doubt become an ordeal. Maybe if he'd just offered to go last instead of automatically putting himself there he might not have been in this situation. It was too late to go back now though; if only he'd worded his plan better.
"Are you sure?" he said, still staring at the ceiling. "It's a long way."
"Do I have to hit you again?"
"Fine, fine," resolved Shoryu.
Satisfied, Ayako approached the second rope. Between the two of them, hoisting up Kazuya all the way to the ceiling was no trouble at all. With their combined strength they heaved him a full three yards from every pull until he reached the roof in little time. The samurai dangled up there for a few moments before swinging his feet up and planting them on the roof, using one of the roots for support as he found the balance of chakra necessary to walk on the ceiling.
Once he found it Kazuya undid the rope around his waist and began to thread it back through the locked shuriken. As the two lengths became level again and brushed the ground Shoryu gave Ayako one last glimpse.
"Are yo-"
"-Shoryu." Ayako bared a fist in warning.
"Fair enough!"
Pulling up Shoryu was another matter altogether. He knew for a fact that he had at least thirty pounds on her, but with her mind made up the girl was left to hoist him up all by herself. Every wrench was a struggle – even from up high Shoryu could see the toll it took on her as those slim arms supported weight they shouldn't have been able to carry. It was a much slower process, but to her credit he finally arrived by Kazuya's side upon the roof after taking a few seconds to get acquainted with ceiling walking.
Shoryu looped the knot of his shuriken again to prep Ayako's ascent, ensuring that both ropes remained fixed no matter how much pressure was applied. Down below he could see she was already sweating; leaning over with her hands on her thighs she took slow, deep breaths to steady herself.
"Kazuya." Shoryu ducked his way under a root and pointed to the centre from where they sprung – the entry point for the tree. "Start freezing that when you get a minute. If you turn them into blocks of ice we shouldn't have any problem smashing through with our swords."
"Sure thing," answered Kazuya, casually pulling off hand signs as he trekked across the ceiling.
"Take as much time as you need down there!" Shoryu then echoed down.
Kazuya's string of seals was cut off by his palm slapping his forehead. "You just keep digging a deeper hole don't you?" he mumbled.
The boy cocked an eyebrow; he'd been sincere in his advice, although the way he said it was ambiguous to say the least – Ayako seemed to think he was patronising her.
"What's that? 'Take as much time as you need'? You think I need a break?" she demanded. "Alright that's it! I'm gonna come up there and kick your ass!"
Another sigh escaped Shoryu as the already weary Ayako leapt up onto the rope and began to climb. Determination governed her expression; she put one hand in front of the other over and over again, and every time she pulled herself up by another half-step it became harder and harder to climb. Regardless of the pain she persevered as her arms and shoulders began to sorely cramp.
By the time she reached the halfway point it looked as though someone was stabbing daggers into the corners of her collarbone. She did her best to hide it by replacing the look of agony with one of resolve, pushing herself higher with the expression of an angry bee. The physical trauma however was impossible to hide. Her arms shook like those of a century-old man reaching for his cane, sending tiny tremors along her body that hindered her progress even further.
Despite all this her scaling of the rope was solid. Three quarters of the way up and she still carried on climbing. From the bottom to the top the ascent was the equivalent height of eight storeys of a building. If Ayako fell now she'd die for sure, and neither Shoryu nor Kazuya would be able to save her if that happened. Spurred on by the thought of death if she failed Ayako continued; above her Shoryu reached out his hand as she inched closer and closer, though by the time she could reach him something completely unforeseen changed the game.
Beside her the limp, unused side rope was suddenly severed. A kunai streaked right through it and buried itself in a solid root only three inches right of Kazuya's head. Looking up, Shoryu's fearful expression confirmed to Ayako that they were under attack. With a muffled sound of pain she fed the rope through her arms and clutched it tight in the crevice of her elbow, giving her both hands needed to clap and swing around.
"Yellow!" she cried.
The barrier whirred into existence just in time to stop a sudden storm of projectiles. Shuriken, kunai and senbon bounced from the transparent wall, and it only took a second for Ayako to realise that without it she and Shoryu would've ended up with more than a few holes in them.
Looking through the glassy, half-broken barrier allowed the team a yellow-tinted look at their assailants. Of course; it could be no one else – Kouta Renazawa was joined not far away by his two mysterious Mist counterparts, Norio and Suzume Oyama. The competitive second stage hadn't even begun yet and they were already trying to kill Squad Thirteen. A single lapse of concentration at these heights would send them crashing to their doom.
"Kazuya!" cried Shoryu. "Speed it up!"
Kazuya didn't need to be told; he was already ditching his slow-spreading freeze work and easing into three familiar hand signs. "Ice Style: Cryo Blast Stream!"
Tearing, cracking hisses echoed around the shell as Kazuya blasted the tree's base with all the chakra he could spare. More projectiles pelted at the barrier as Ayako reinforced it, but the problem was obvious: to cast the barrier she needed both hands in order to clap, yet climbing the rope also required both of them. If things continued like this she'd just simply hang there helplessly until one of them broke through.
Deciding that her life was more important than her chakra, Ayako used the brief moments in which Kouta's squad retrieved another projectile to dissipate the barrier and shimmy her way up. Once she heard the distant whizz of shuriken blitzing towards them she stopped again and conjured up the yellow. This happened at least six times; the breaks in the enemy team's attacks were so short that she only managed to ascend a few inches every time they paused to reload, but progress was progress.
Drained of almost all energy and chakra, a long minute passed before Ayako was within arm's length of the top. She tucked the rope under her elbow once more and clapped the yellow to life just in time to deflect another tirade of shuriken. Looking up showed that Shoryu was in reach, and just when she grabbed the rope again for a final heave her stomach sank into a pit.
She'd turned off the shield too early; a final kunai knife from the last shower whizzed over her head and cut the rope she clung to, like it was no tougher than wet paper. With her heart in her throat Ayako plunged, crying out and making desperate grabs for anything that would stop her falling to her doom. She closed her eyes and prepared for the worst right up until a hand reached down and snatched her from the jaws of death.
"Gotcha!"
Shoryu, still fixed to the ceiling and upside-down on his tiptoes, had caught her left hand as she fell. Looking down Ayako saw the terrifying scene of what would happen if the boy dropped her. A moment later and the sound of Kazuya burying his sword into the frozen base of the tree crashed out like the simultaneous shattering of a thousand mirrors. Shards of ice rained down from the opening and clattered to the ground as a shower of gleaming diamonds.
Natural light – the kind Shoryu never thought he'd see again, poured into the turtle's shell like a heavenly spotlight. Squad Thirteen's gaze though, was now firmly fixed on the enemy team down below. Each of them spun a triad of shuriken around their fingers, yet for some reason they made no effort to attack.
"What are they waiting for?" asked Kazuya.
"Don't move," Shoryu ordered, glancing from the samurai to his right and then down to the kunoichi hanging from his right hand. "They're waiting for us to head for the opening – the moment our backs are turned they'll make their move."
"So what do we do?" hissed Ayako, unnerved with being suspended like fish bait by one hand over forty five metres of open air.
Shoryu narrowed his eyes, leering towards the smug expression of Kouta Renazawa. "Attack back whilst we still have the chance; it's the last thing they'd expect and it'll give us an opportunity to move," he said under his breath. "But the two of us can't make hand signs like this – Kazuya, it's up to you."
"About that." The Kazuya looked down at his hands before coolly replying, "I'm pretty much all out of chakra. Seriously I might be able to stick to this ceiling for another fifteen seconds at best."
"You're telling us this NOW?" Shoryu screamed, falling into hysterics yet again. "And sound more WORRIED! We're about to DIE!"
In spite of his deductions though, Shoryu was wrong about one thing. Whilst it was true that he couldn't form hand signs with one hand clasped around Ayako's, the aspiring Raikage could attack with one hand. The Shading Jutsu was already active; she didn't require any more hand signs, only a hard, flat impact of organic matter to ignite the colour. Since clapping her palms together was impossible in her situation Ayako knew she'd have to improvise.
Without a word the girl shaded a giant mass of red into her free right hand; almost half of the whole crimson scroll would be used up in just one attack, making the swirling chakra ball close to a full metre in diameter.
"Wait, what are you doing?" asked Shoryu.
Ayako grinned and winked. "I need to spark up the colour. Don't drop me!"
"What do you-"
Too late. Shoryu's query was cut short as Ayako reached up her hand landed a powerful slap across his cheek. The colour surged to life and trembled in her hand, threatening to explode if she didn't throw it right away. Luckily she'd already aimed right down at the three students who'd tried and failed to end her life.
"Shading Jutsu: Scatter Flare!"
Fireworks erupted with a heavy recoil from Ayako's palm as a sea of whizzing red sparks blasted away at the ground. The three below separated, rolling, blocking and sidestepping what reds they could see before being struck by those they couldn't.
"Now!" she cried.
The ground of the turtle's shell was completely illuminated by the blinding display of the Scatter Flare, and as Kouta and Suzume withdrew from the attack the perfect moment to escape had arrived. Kazuya heaved himself into the tree's opening without thinking twice and Shoryu used all his strength to sling Ayako there after a final shout of effort.
Following his two comrades Shoryu scrambled over to the shattered base of the tree. When he began to make his way through however, the sharp stab of two blades suddenly surged across his left arm. Twin shuriken had hit him – one slashed by his bicep and the other rooted itself in his triceps with a splash of blood. It was hardly anything life threatening; Shoryu knew this, yet the sudden pain caused him to lose focus and disrupted the flow of chakra to his feet.
He would've been killed for sure if it weren't for Ayako and Kazuya reaching down and seizing him by an arm each. Together they pulled him up into the sunlight and out of harm's reach. Once clear the three collapsed to the warm grass in a mixture of pain and fatigue. Finally they were safe – half an hour in the belly of the turtle felt the longest day of their lives.
A whole five minutes passed before Shoryu sat up and pulled the shuriken from his arm. A small river of blood leaked from it and onto the grass as he chomped his lip in agony, stopping it eventually with a bandage from his pack that he pulled to with his teeth.
Now that a little chakra had been recovered Kazuya took it upon himself to seal the hole they'd emerged from with a boulder of ice so thick that even if Kouta's team did follow them, it would take them hours to break through.
Shoryu got back to his feet; to Kazuya's amusement it wasn't the shuriken wound that he nursed, it was the blush-coloured cheek where Ayako had struck him. It was as if his mental wounds were far more severe than the physical. "Did you have slap me that hard?" he checked.
"Nope," confessed the girl, smiling sweetly. "But you deserved it." With the back of her hand she mopped her wet brow and let out a sigh, defeated. "And that was just the first test. . ."
"At least took on the bright side," offered Shoryu.
Kazuya turned. "We're exhausted, fed up and we've got a crazy squad of ninja after us. I'm not seeing a bright side – care to enlighten us?"
The grinning Shoryu eventually replied, "Whatever happens after now, at least we didn't go out through the 'less glamorous' exit."
.
Author's Notes:
Hi again! So Squad Thirteen braved the innards of the Island Turtle and have finally made it to land, nearly being killed in the process and almost ending up as turtle crap. Fun times! Originally I thought about doing a written exam like the one we know, but I figured it would be way too obvious. I wanted to do something different, and I don't imagine that reading a written exam would be most thrilling.
Ayako was badass in this chapter! Or stubborn and arrogant, depending on how you look at it. Either way she's been far more prominent recently than she had been in the past and it's something I want to make regular.
Aside from pointing out how much of a massive dick Kouta and his crew are, there really isn't much to say about this chapter itself. It was just really fun to write and I had a great time thinking it up, but there's one thing that I do have to mention. . .
I have a bone to pick with the Naruto series. If you're not up to date then you might want to stop reading here because there are –SPOILERS- regarding the latest chapters of manga. . . And strong language.
Alright, basically these last two chapters seem to have revealed that the big villain is in fact not Madara Uchiha, but someone else entirely. Madara's body has been appeared on the battlefield in the opposing army, revived by Edo Tensei and controlled by Kabuto whilst the guy behind the mask who we thought was Madara heads in a different direction. . . Which causes a problem for me because I already stated earlier on in the fic that Madara Uchiha was the main enemy two hundred years ago!
Well thanks a lot Kishimoto. I expected you might call me or even take me out to dinner before you decided to bend me over and fuck me! XD Ehh I'm just kidding, it should be fine really. I only mentioned Madara once so maybe when the real villain gets revealed I'll just go back and change it. . . Still an inconvenience though; stupid Naruto and its messed up plotlines :/ I guess there are plenty of other fanfics that have suffered from this twist far worse than I have, but that's what you get for writing for an ongoing show I suppose.