Wow, I actually managed to upload this that soon… I'm probably gonna fail my test that's on Monday, but since my family came to visit I can't concentrate on studying much anyway… hope God's gonna be on my side.
As usual I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed the previous chapter. It really means a lot. There wasn't any questions this time around (or I missed them), so nothing to answer really. However, I'd like to make two announcements. The first one is that it fic made it over 600 reviews! I'm truly happy with the score, especially since I didn't expected to reach such a number and definitely not so fast! Really, thanks everyone. And the next announcement brings the same joy for me.
THIS FIC HAS ALREADY BEEN UPDATING FOR A YEAR! I can't believe that it has already been twelve months since the first chapter appeared. Quite a few changes occurred during the time… jutsu encyclopedia, character profiles… now that I look back I'm pretty glad I've decided to submit this fic on this site. And what really makes me happy is the fact that some of you really lasted this whole year, reading and waiting for chapters. The only thing I regret that I wasn't able to upload more often. Thank you all for showing interest in this story and that I'll manage to keep you interested in it for longer.
As a request to you, maybe you guys would like to try out my other fic, "Those Who Inherit the Will of Fire" as it's pretty similar to this one.
And now all that's left to do, is start this chapter, I guess:
Chapter #39: Weapon Masters
Title Page: simply Kai sticking out his tongue with a kanji symbol for 'fire' pained on it
Sasuke landed in a wide garden with trees growing near the walls surrounding the large estate. He now stood on the rocky road that led straight to the entrance to the house on one side and towards the gates to the garden on the other.
He slowly walked inside and crossed the hallway. As he passed the kitchen, he heard a soft, woman's voice coming from it: "Sasuke-kun, is that you?" The ANBU turned around and came in the direction it came.
As he entered the kitchen, he saw a woman with long, pink hair and green eyes, dressed in short, black leg guards and red, sleeveless shirt. She wore her hitae-ate with the symbol of the leaf on top of her head: "I thought you said you'll come back sooner…" she announced.
"I'm sorry, but something came up…" replied Sasuke shortly as he gave the woman a kiss on the cheek. "You should know that in current situation all ANBU members are put in the alert… we may be standing on the edge of another war, Sakura-chan…"
"Yes, I'm aware of that…" nodded the woman sadly and got back to cutting tomatoes. "Will you at least find enough time to take Gouka from the Academy or should I do it myself?"
"Nah, Hokage-sama gave me the rest of the day off, so unless something unexpected will happen, I can do it…" he said, grabbing tomato as well. "Here, I'll help you with that…" he announced, smiling warmly to his wife. "And then I'm gonna make Homura train until she'll puke…" he joked.
"SASUKE-KUN!" Sakura yelled at her husband, yet after a moment smiled back at him.
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"Your ass is kicked!" yelled Kai as he charged with his fists ready at Funbo. The assassin only smirked and used both his hands to reach for senbons. Kumiko noticed that instantly and blocked his right hand, however she couldn't do a thing against his left one.
The charging blonde immediately noticed that the older shinobi's right hand went numb and decided to attack from the right, thus making it harder for Funbo to avoid the hit. Surprisingly however, the assassin only smirked and the second Kai was closed enough, he stuck the senbon held in his left hand into his right one and before everyone's eyes the right hand of the older gennin hit the loud mouth right in the face and got back to the way it was a second ago.
"What the…?" Kumiko's eyes widen at the sight. "But I'm still binding your hand…"
"Did you really suspected that against someone of my skills such jutsu will be effective?" asked Funbo mockingly. "You got me surprised there, but as long as you won't be able to immobilize both my hands at once, this technique will only lower my ability to move but 10 at best…"
"But how in the world did you moved your hand since Kumiko immobilized it?" demanded Takaru as he was still quite surprise to see the young assassin being able to perform any movement with his bind hand.
"It'd figure that the little miss would figure that much, since she's such a smarty pants and all…" stated Hitomi with a smirk as she had her bloodline limit activated.
"So are you gonna spit it out, dammit?" yelled Kai pissed.
"It's pretty simple…" replied Funbo calmly. "Since you're Ibuki's teammates, I suppose you're aware of the fact that the Tanken is a clan of assassins. Since that's the case, from birth we receive training not that different from that of an ANBU… you see, the art of assassination sometimes require for the killer to be able to kill someone with a single attack… that's why every Tanken knows human body perfectly…"
"Don't tell me that…" Kumiko's eyes widen even more as a wider smirk appeared on the young assassins face before he continued:
"It's exactly how you pictured it…" he announced. "It's simple anatomy… by attacking the right part of my body with precision, I can activate a certain nerve and thus make a single part of my body move uncontrollably… which is exactly what I just did…"
"Wait a minute…" now Takaru's eyes widen. "You mean to tell me that you struck that senbon into your own hand in order to make it move? But something like that would require Byakugan's precision and what's more I doubt that a single nerve would be able to make you move your entire hand…"
"of course I couldn't move my entire hand…" Funbo stopped him. "Actually, I didn't even controlled the move of my hand that much. The nerve I struck was responsible for my right shoulder. By attacking it, I made my right shoulder flip, which took the rest of my right hand with it… to put it simple, you've underestimated the strength of a weapon master…"
"That's why I always say that Funbo-kun is scary…" Taki left out a sigh as she looked at her teammate. "Just seeing how he fights sends chills down my spine…"
"True that out of all the participants he's the one I'd want to fight the least…" nodded Horohoro with no emotions showing on his face. "But he is of the Tanken after all…"
"Either way…" began Akira with his eyes still closed. "It'd seem that he found a way to get through that girl's trap… so what now, do we allow him to continue, Hitomi?"
"We've wasted enough time…" replied the white-eyed girl and then called to the stick user: "Funbo, you've got five, more minutes and then we'll coming down!"
"Five minutes?" repeated the young assassin. "Sounds like the right among…"
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Futatsu jumped back, thus avoiding all the shuriken that came right at him. As Ibuki landed on the ground, he charged right her. The young assassin dodged to her left as the metal-nin swung his right katana at her head. Coming into a sliding stop, the kunoichi picked out her own sword.
The next moment two blades clashed as Ibuki blocked another attack with her katana. Instantly Futatsu lunched his other sword with an intention to pierce through her stomach. Acting on instinct, the kunoichi jumped into the air and in the next second the metal-nin's other katana's blade was struck into the ground with Ibuki standing on it.
Without wasting a second the kunoichi picked out three shuriken from her hostel and threw them right at the metal-nin, who acted instantly and bended back, making the shinobi stars fly right above his face. However dodging the attack that way made him defenseless and that was all Ibuki needed.
Before he knew it, the Leaf shinobi propped her free hand (the one that wasn't holding the katana) on his stomach and jumping into the air, she felt the moment went she was flying in front of the metal-nin's face.
Instantly Futatsu received a powerful kick in the face and hit the ground with the back of his head hard. The young assassin landed just few meters away on her feet, with her face turned to the swordsman who was now slowly standing up.
"You little hag…" Futatsu cursed at her as he threw her a death glare. "You think that facing me alone you'll be able to strike me down?"
"Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't…" began Ibuki. "But you're forgetting one thing… I'm not facing you alone…" and the second she said so the metal-nin jumped into the air, thus avoiding the sharp end of Kusari's chain that was coming straight at his back.
"It'd seem that keeping this tornado required some concentration from you after all…" stated the chain user. "Luckily for me, you're not the one with slip attention… you won't escape both of us…"
"Futatsu seems to be losing…" noticed Hogosha. "Do we interfere, Reiji?" he turned to the bold shinobi, who didn't reply. He just kept watching the fight.
The swordsman landed on the ground and instantly charged right at Kusari. The leaf-nin didn't moved an inch though and in stead he made his chain form several rings around him, creating a strange-looking barrier.
"Do you honestly think something like that will protect you?" yelled Futatsu as he aimed at Kusari's head, but the instant he got close enough to the leaf-nin, the rings around the chain user widen and now few, metal lines came straight at the swordsman.
Running at the top speed, Futatsu didn't manage to stop in time and crushed against the barrier Kusari created around himself, receiving an impact on his face, right side and both his legs. As he clenched his teeth, Ibuki was already behind him, aiming to cut his back, but the moment she swung her katana, she noticed the metal-nin wasn't there.
"Where did he…?" she began but then looked to her left and noticed that it was the bold shinobi who took his teammate, saving his life.
"Reiji, there was no need for you to…" began Futatsu, but at that moment he received a powerful hit in the face from the hilt of the bold ninja's axe.
"You're pathetic…" announced Reiji. "I have enough wasting time on two brats, who doesn't even have the scroll… now I'll take care of them and you better not get in my way, otherwise you might end up dead…"
"Reiji-kun is gonna use his ability on those brats?" Naginata's eyes widen. "We should get to a safe distance then…"
"What happened to them?" asked Ibuki as she observed the metal-nins behavior. "It's almost as if they were scared of their own leader…"
"Looks like it…" nodded Kusari. "Whatever his abilities are, stay alert. Since it made those guys that worried, it's probably not good news for us…"
Reiji pointed the top of his axe at them and announced coldly: "Child's play over… now I'll show you what a true weapon master can do…"
And so ends this chapter. Hope you enjoyed it.
It's gonna be hard for me to update during the incoming three weeks, but I hope I'll manage to upload at least one chapter during that time. I can't promise anything though, coz I'll have tons of studying, which I won't be able to avoid. But, if everything goes well, in the middle of June I'll be free and perhaps I'll manage to submit quite a few chapters then. At least I'll be able to give it more time then I can now.
Once more no jutsu encyclopedia, but I do have another character profile for you guys. This time around it's one of my own favorites, Akira:
Name: Manako Akira
Name Origins: well, his first, 'akira', was chosen mostly because I just liked the way it sounded (after a while I couldn't even imagine for him to have a different name), but to those who are interested none the less, I can say that it can be translated as 'anchor'. As for his last name, 'manako' means 'eye'… some of you may figured out already why I called him that and to those who haven't, sorry but I'll be keeping this for later.
Age: currently 14 years old
Birth Date: 28th of February
Blood Type: B
Height: 155,1 cm
Weight: 51,2 kg
Favorite food: sushi
Favorite color: white
Village: not telling… okay, it's Konoha (Hidden Leaf), there, you're satisfied?
Current rank: gennin
Team: team led by Shino; his teammates are: Hamano Taki, Hyuuga Hitomi, Tanken Funbo and Horohoro
Bloodline limit: none
Family: he doesn't talk about his family much, however his good friends can say that he's leaving with his mother only as his father died during one of his missions
Techniques (used so far): none
First appearance: 27th chapter
And now, as a special bonus for the anniversary, I have decided to revive the bonus info about how the gennin teams participating in the Chuunin Exam were created. This time I'll make the profile of three of them (two Suna teams and the one from the Grass), leaving the rest for two, next chapters. And not far from now there will be another treat, but you'll have to wait for chapter 45 for that one, sorry.
SUNA (Temari): well, I knew that jounin instructors for the two, Suna teams will be Temari and Kankuro, so the only problem was to choose which will led which. I placed Temari as the leader of this due to one of the gennin in it, but that's all I'm saying for now. The first one to land in this team was certainly Tarakudo. It's not a big secret that his design was somewhat inspired by Dosu (one of the Sound gennin from the manga), but I had this idea for his abilities and decided that he'll be most suitable for a sand-nin even though I couldn't place a finger why. Right after him Torune joined and that's mostly for a special role I have for her to play… plus I liked the idea of the character overall. As weird as it may sound, the next one was Aoru. She was created shortly after Torune and that's probably because the two of them represent quite typical, Sand kunoichi. The only problem was that back then the teams were only three-manned, so she couldn't get 'under Temari's wings'. The moment it turned out it's gonna be five gennin per jounin, she became Tarakudo's and Torune's teammate. As for the other two, it took quite a while before they appeared in my head. Both of them landed in this team mostly due to the fact that Tarakudo was already in it (why that is so, I'm not telling right now). The idea of Honemaru appeared out of pure luck (it came to my head when I was reading the whole manga for the second time). The moment his idea popped in my head, I had his background ready and only one spot to fill. Even though Takai is somewhat the gennin leader of this group, he was created last. I had a lot of trouble with this one and to come clean you might say he's a mix of three or four characters from different manga (his character, abilities and everything, it's more of a mix). However I really liked the way he turned out and decided to place him as an unofficial leader of the team in stead of Tarakudo and now that I think about, it was a good choice.
SUNA (Kankuro): in this case it was also the kunoichi that were created first. Hari was created shortly after the kunoichi led by Temari. The idea of her came to my head as I read a certain manga (which I didn't like all the much to be honest) and figured that she can become an interesting character as I changed her character and background. And now I've grown quite found of her. I also knew, from the beginning, that I wanted at least one child of Gaara to be among Suna gennin, though at first it was supposed to be a boy. So before the teams became three-manned this one was Hari, Karame (I figured that a mummy would go perfectly with the team from the desert country) and Sabaku no Akumo (this can be translated as nightmare). When teams became five-manned, I had a lot of trouble with inventing two, more characters. I can't really remember how I came up with the idea of both Horamaru and Dekai, but to come clean I'll have to admit that at first they were just the filler-ups (and what's more Dekai at first was the girl!). As I worked on their background, I grew to like the two and that was also the time when I decided that it'll be better to make them both guys and that's how Akumo became Sabure… and it was a good change in my opinion, but why that is so I'll leave to myself if you don't mind.
KUSA: this one was one of the hardest for me to create. At first I couldn't really think of anyone who would fit in. The first one to come to my head was Taka, who was inspired by a character from a different manga (from which I took only his design) and he at first was the leader. Soon after Tokame came to my mind, also inspired by the character from the same manga. In this case I've changed his abilities to my liking (and I'm quite proud of them really) and decided he'll be the silent type. All that was left was the kunoichi. Before I could think of any, it turned out that the teams will have to be five-manned. And for some reason, at that time, I've decided that Taka is not suitable for the leader after all, however in this case I didn't really saw a girl on that position (there are some teams led by female gennin though… look at the moon-nins, Hari's team or even snow-nins). Soon Hizoku was born, slightly inspired by the other character from the same manga as Taka and Tokame. Nezumi was created shortly after, soon after the idea of Tsume and Miaka appeared… I guess I was just thinking that since there's a cat and dog, why not make a rat user as well… and it's pretty original to have a girl teaming up with an animal like that, don't you think? Last on was Tobane. At first I just used the first character that came to my head (I really liked the weapons I made for her though) as another filler-up. But as the background of Taka and Hizoku developed, I've decided that Tobane can be someone much more then a filler-up. In the end, the grass-nins became one of my favorite teams from all those participating in the exam.
And with this I believe I can end this anniversary chapter. Hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it.
Best wishes and until next time, hopefully.