Tadam! I'm back again… well, still some exams are ahead of me, but I manage to write this chapter in breaks between studying. And I'm pretty satisfied with this one (and that rarely happens ').
Thanks to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter. To answer your questions:
Your story begins to give the impression of recent manga: by that I suppose you mean that the recent fights are taking quite long… well, no need to worry about it, coz they're about done (one will end in this chapter actually)… and making them this long was somewhat needed to I wanted to show that flashback with Ibuki and how strong Funbo is (along with some, other things)… the rest of the third exam shouldn't give you an impression on being stretched though… at least I hope so.
Is Orochimaru still alive: to answer simply: yeah, he's still alive… and for the time being that's all I'm saying in that manner, to not spoil anything.
With that behind, I believe all that's left for me to do is to get on with the show:
Chapter #40: It's All About the Scrolls
Title Page: simply Shino observing the ant-hill in the forest
"Dammit Yari, I told you to keep him on the leash!" Aisu yelled at her teammate as she stared at the helmet wearing shinobi while jumping from one tree branch onto another. "And you allowed him to go berserk at the first occasion!"
"Aisu-chan, we got the scroll we need…" reminded Kuri a little shyly... "And we're all fine… you don't need to raise your voice… Yamazaru is who he is and there's nothing we can do about it…"
"You meant WHAT he is, didn't ya?" corrected Kato with a tiny smirk.
"Lets just get out of this freaky forest…" ordered Aisu after a moment of silence. "Once Yamazaru gets carried away, there's no telling when he'll lose it again… but this time pay more attention, Yari…" with that she turned to the spearman.
Yari didn't reply. He just gave the helmet wearing ninja a worried look and continue to follow his teammates towards the tower.
----------
Funbo's stick smashed hard against Kai's face as the young assassin swung it back. At the very same moment Takaru, with his kunai ready, came close enough to attack the older gennin. The heir of the Tanken acted immediately and lunched his weapon right at Tsunade's son.
The scar-face boy jumped into the air, thus making one end of Funbo's stick come right beneath him, however the young assassin hit the end that he was still holding in his hand forward, thus making it hit Takaru's face as well while he was still in mid-air, unable to dodge.
Both young gennin felt to the ground, holding their faces. Kai had blood coming from his nose and Takaru seemed to had a bleeding lip. Funbo slowly stood up straight and smirked at his victory: "You guys sure have a will to fight…" he complimented them. "But you should understand there's no chance for you to defeat me…"
"Dammit, you're too full of yourself!" yelled the blonde as he pointed his finger at him. "We're not done yet!"
"But we are…" announced Hitomi, who just appeared beside the heir of the Tanken. "Sorry Funbo, but play time's over… we'll be heading to the tower…"
"And what's the point in doing that?" asked Takaru with a smirk. "You still have only one scroll…"
"You're wrong…" replied Akira calmly as he held up two scrolls. "I allowed myself to take yours a while ago…"
"What?" Tsunade's son's eyes widen as he looked at the place where the scroll they got at the beginning of the exam was, just to find that the scroll was gone. "That is our scroll! But when did he…?"
"Taki…" the white-eyed girl turned to her female teammate who was already performing a new set of hand seals and with the last symbol she called out: "Suiton: Tsunami Gekihatsu!" and in an instant another, tidal wave came right at the three, young gennin.
"A water jutsu?" Kai's eyes widen at the sight.
"That tidal wave from before…" Kumiko immediately understood. "That was her!"
As the water took the trio away, Taki slowly collapsed to the ground and didn't landed with her face in the mud only thanks to the fact that Horohoro grabbed her by the shoulder in time: "You shouldn't push it… that technique takes a lot of energy…" he reminded her.
"Couldn't be helped…" she replied with a weak smile as she fell on him. The blue-haired boy only sighed and lifted her. He gave Hitomi an accusing glare and then turned to Akira: "And you could've taken that scroll sooner, without waiting for the last moment…"
"Sorry, but that way there was no danger in failing to get it…" responded the other boy, with his eyes still closed. "Besides, it's not like I was going to stay behind…"
"Lets go…" Hitomi interrupted them in an ordering tone as she jumped onto a nearby tree branch. Funbo just stared at her for a moment and then followed her with a smirk on his face: "As friendly as every…" he thought to himself.
----------
Dekai picked up the scroll and shaken the sand that was all over it. He looked at the symbol and announced with no emotions in his voice: "Heaven… looks like we got what we need already…" and with that he turned to the girl with the gourd: "You didn't have to go that far though, Sabure…"
"Couldn't be help, those small fries practically asked for it…" responded Horamaru with a wide smile as he looked at the sand all around the area they stood, which was covered with blood. "They could've given us their scroll peacefully…"
"It's not like thinking about it will change anything…" noticed Karame as sand retreated back to Sabure's gourd. "Since we got the scroll we need, we can just head to the tower… Takai and his team are probably already there…"
"Whatever…" replied Hari as she went first in the direction the finish line was.
----------
Kusari jumped back just in time to avoid Reiji's axe that cut the air in the place his stomach was just a fracture of a second earlier. The chain users eyes widen in shock however as he felt his torso being ripped and a moment late blood shoot out from it. "Wha…?" was all the Leaf shinobi manage to say before he felt to his knees.
"What just happened?" Ibuki stopped halfway as she prepared her shuriken to throw it at the metal-nin. "Kusari sensed the attack perfectly… that blade didn't even touched him… so what's with that wound? It's almost as if he didn't dodge at all!"
The moment Kusari raised his head, he saw the huge axe coming right at his head again. Acting on instinct, he bended to his left and made his chain form a blockade. The blade stopped before his body once more, yet his right shoulder still got a new cut and sprayed his right cheek with his own blood a bit.
"What's going on?" the chain user asked himself as he stared in shock at the metal-nin. "He didn't touched me even once and yet I already got two, deep wounds…"
"You brats are really stupid…" announced Hogosha, who was laying on a huge root nearby. "Let me tell you a little secret: there's no point in you dodging Reiji's attacks, coz those can't be dodged… simple as that…"
"This is bullshit!" yelled Ibuki as she threw her shuriken right at the bald shinobi.
The axe user only smirked and swung his large weapon and right before the surprised eyes of the two, Konoha ninja, the shinobi stars bounced off in mid-air, as if they encounter some sort of an invisible barrier.
"How…" was all the young assassin could say as the metal-nin began laughing.
"And you call yourself a weapon mistress, even though you can see through a trick as simple as this?" Reiji managed to say while laughing. "Konoha standards are really low… here, I'll let you see it up close" and with that he swung his axe parallel to the ground in the direction Ibuki stood.
The young assassin instantly jumped to the right, but still her left side go cut by an invisible blade. She yelled in pain while collapsing to the ground. Kusari acted immediately: while Reiji was still looking at Ibuki, he aimed the sharp end of his chain at the bald shinobi's head and lunched it at his opponent.
The metal-nin reacted in the last second by bending his head left and deflecting the blade with his axe. As rage took over, he swung his weapon from the ground to the sky where Kusari stood just a second ago. The chain user jumped back, but still got his torso cut from belt to his left shoulder.
The young, Leaf shinobi collapsed to the ground, barely breathing. Ibuki, seeing this, slowly got back to her feet and panting heavily she picked out several kunai. "So this is it…" she announced with a weak smile as she stared at the metal-nin.
"Took you long enough to figure out…" replied Reiji simply.
"I never thought someone besides Tanken knew this skill…" she continued, ignoring his last comment. "Long forgotten art of the assassins… never thought I'd see anyone capable of using it… especially some who's only a little older then myself…"
"World is full of surprises…" responded the bald ninja as he aimed his blade at her once more. "Goodbye…" and with that he was about to drop his axe down, yet he froze halfway and after a short moment turned to the top of the trees. "I don't like spectators…"
Ibuki looked up as well and only then did she noticed a group of moon-nins, led by the young girl with long, blue hair and eyes in the same color. "Good thing then…" responded the boy with light, green hair, Tasuki. "Coz we're not planning to be the audience…"
And so another chapter is finished. Hope you enjoyed it.
What happened to Kai, Takaru and Kumiko? What are the moon-nins planning? What exactly is Reiji's ability? All the answers are coming soon!
And time for another jutsu encyclopedia:
Suiton: Tsunami Gekihatsu (Water Element: Tidal Wave Outburst) – technique used by Taki. A pretty powerful jutsu, that can be performed only near a water source. The user first sends his or hers chakra into the water and then, performing the right hand seals, uses it to form the water into a huge tsunami. The route of the tidal wave is completely controlled by the one who performed the technique, however it take a lot of chakra to make the jutsu work.
Choosing another character profile got me thinking as to who I should choose… there weren't any requests lately, so I decided to go with Horohoro as he's one of my favorite characters too:
Name: Horohoro
Name Origins: well, there isn't really much meaning behind his name, but 'horohoro' means 'by ones and twos'… as some of you probably noticed, he doesn't have a last name and as to why that is so, I'm not telling at this point of the story, sorry.
Age: currently 14 years old
Birth Date: 9th of October
Blood Type: AB
Height: 155,7 cm
Weight: 50,9 kg
Favorite food: nothing in particular… he does like ice cream a lot
Favorite color: white
Village: Konoha (Hidden Leaf)… but there's more to it then you think
Current rank: gennin
Team: team led by Shino; his teammates are: Hamano Taki, Hyuuga Hitomi, Tanken Funbo and Manako Akira
Bloodline limit: it's rumored he has one, however only the selected few know about it
Family: there's no information about his family, but it seems that his entire clan got wiped out
Techniques (used so far): none
First appearance: 27th chapter
And before I finish, here's another bonus info about three, other gennin teams created for this fic:
AME: the rain-nins were probably one of the hardest teams to think. I wanted to make them fit to their village, but at the same time I didn't want to make a bunch of umbrella users, who's only skill would be attacking with senbons. Theoretically Youji was the first one made (since she's a typical, Ame shinobi), though she wasn't named at first (more then that, she was supposed to be a guy when I first thought of her). Soon after Tsuino was created, but in the first idea I had about him, he didn't wore so many scars and his name was different… his abilities didn't change since the moment he appeared in my head. Next was Ryo… even though I like him, I'm not that proud of this one as he isn't that original… what I mean by that you'll see by yourselves (hopefully)… I didn't mixed his abilities so that they'd be more interesting and Naruto-like as at first they didn't fit into "Naruto" world too much. When it comes to Nazaa and Karei, I seriously have no idea from where those two came to my mind, they just seemed to appeared in there one day… their abilities aren't anything special in my opinion, but I grew to like them anyway (especially Nazaa when I worked on his background), so they stayed. And so the Rain team was made, maybe not my best team, but at least not as simple as Ame teams usually are.
TSUKI: the team that I'm quite proud of. Even though I'm a guy, it always annoyed me a bit that in the original "Naruto" kunoichi are rather weak (Tsunade and Temari are the only exceptions… even Deidara is a guy!), so I invented Hidden Moon Village (as it turned out, the made one for the anime too… at least that's what I heard) which is known for their kunoichi strength. The idea of Teela appeared almost instantly after I decided to make a team like that… once she was created, I was thinking about making all-girl team, but when it turned out the teams will have to be five-manned I dropped that idea for a single reason… which I won't tell at this point to not spoil something. Anyways, as I continued working on this team, Kumo and Nobu began to circle in my mind, though at first they were just stupid twins… later on I thought of a cool ability their clan could specialize in and so they stayed as Moon representatives. The last two were troublesome though… when it comes to Tenka and Tasuki, they both were inspired by a certain anime I saw way back. I figure… but in the end both turned out very different from the charas from that show (Tasuki practically become a totally different person)… even though I feel like I made many, better characters, I'm really found of the background I prepared for those two.
KANE: I have no idea from where the idea for such a team came, but once I invented Ibuki, the thought of making a team that'd specialize in weapons was really of my liking. Back then their village wasn't named though. Reiji was almost an instant leader: shinobi that'd use an axe seemed original to me and the ability I gave him easily became one of my favorite. Soon after him Hogosha came to the picture, though at first he was supposed to be Reiji's brother… after some consideration I dropped that idea for two reasons: they were nothing alike and there's this thing about the axe user's past that made it not right for him to have a sibling. As I worked on the background of the characters, I found it that there could be a character with some connection to Kusari, when I invented the chain master's brother… after some thinking Futatsu came to this world, along with his two swords. The last two were absent for a long time. Both Naginata and Sentou aren't anything special in my opinion and up till now I'm still treating them more as filler-ups. Oh well, nobody's perfect.
And that's really that for this time. Hope you enjoyed it.
Best wishes and until next time, hopefully.