Dynamic Updatto! Yeah, my grandma is feeling way better now and I just had this great deal of inspiration and so I'm updating ALL my fics this time around! Those of you guys, who read more then one of my fics, after reading this chapter, can go to the other fic they're reading to see 'what happened next'… and those who're reading only one are welcomed to check out my other fics, of course!
Thanks for all the warm words. It means a lot. As for questions and requests placed in your reviews:
Could you make the rating higher with more, graphic violence: I'll say it this way: probably I could as those who read my stories outside FF claimed I was good at describing dark scenes, however I never intended for this fic to be too brutal… I guess I just don't enjoy angst stories that much, sorry in this case I'm afraid things will stay the way they are… unless something on the level that you'll read in this chapter will be enough for you
I must say that for some reason I like this chapter, even though it really seems like a deja-vu of a certain event from the manga. Well, can't be helped and I hope you'll enjoy this anyway.
With that said, I believe the only thing left for me to do is to get on with the show:
Chapter #42: Konoha's Youth – part I
Title Page: the garden: Kumiko is planting carrots, Ibuki is sowing something in the background, Takaru is getting rid of weeds and Kai is dropping the apples from the apple tree straight into the bag held bellow by Kusari
"This is just unbelievable!" yelled Kogane as she grabbed her head. "It's only been two days and already we had to run for it five times! Why do we always get bad luck and people stronger then us find out our location!"
"It's not that hard being stronger then us…" stated Toku calmly. "I may know a way of how we can avoid being sensed so easily…" and with that he turned to Hanamaru, who was still carrying sleeping Rei on his back: "Use a shower at least once a month!" he yelled at the chubby gennin, for the first time losing his laid back attitude, but instantly regained it again and turned away from the stinky ninja.
"Wow, Toku shown emotions…" the blonde kunoichi looked at her teammate amazed and then turned the head to the right, where Kitsune stood. After few seconds of staring at each other, the girl burst out again: "If Takaru-kun was here, he'd know what to do! Why is it always me that gets unlucky!"
"Girls…" Kitsune sighed in his head and looked at the two scrolls they had now. "We were pretty lucky those genjutsu guys had little fighting skills… the smartest thing to do now is to head to the tower and wait until one team will try to break into it… that way, by following her tracks, we'll avoid possible traps… since it's been over a day, I bet there's already people who occupied the tower's surroundings…"
"What do you purpose, Kitsune?" Toku asked his friend as he walked closer to him. "Those rain-nin's we just lost might still be around here somewhere, moving blindly without a plan can turn out to be a disaster at this point…"
"Yeah, I know…" nodded the other boy. "The best thing we can do in the current situation…" but he was cut off by Rei, who suddenly woke up and placed her finger to her mouth with a loud 'ssssh'.
Her teammates instantly stopped, whatever they were doing and looked at the kunoichi, waiting for her explanation. "There's people fighting nearby…" she announced after a moment. "Two teams… one are those Ame shinobi we just ditched…"
"And the other?" demanded Toku as Rei felt silent.
"I don't know…" replied the kunoichi after a moment of hesitation. "The only thing Hishu said was… that they're not human…"
"So what do we do?" asked Hanamaru as he looked at his teammates. "Should we check it out?" but as he said so, Kitsune decided to speak: "Normally, by observing the fight, we could learn something about next exam possible opponents, but if those people scared Hishu so much, it also means that even going near the battlefield is dangerous…"
"Oh come on, people!" ordered Kogane as he prepared to jump onto the tree branch. "Takaru-kun would surely check it out… if those teams are fighting each other, they probably won't even sense our presence… that is if Hanamaru will keep the right distance…" and with that she gave the chubby gennin a dead glare right before disappearing in the tree tops.
"Something tells me we're gonna regret this…" sighed Toku as he followed the kunoichi.
"Girls…" Kitsune only repeated in his mind as he went right behind Hanamaru and Rei to the place Kogane took off to. Several meters away they all came to a stop and hid in the nearby bushes. As they stuck their heads out to see what was going on, they noticed the five rain-nins that were chasing them just a while ago, standing in front of the team led by Saiken.
"How unfortunate…" announced Fuma, a boy with spiky, black hair and red eyes with a scar of his left cheek, wearing a black cloak with his hood finally of his head. "We have to waste our time with such low-level shinobi… they're not even worth killing…"
"Can't be helped…" replied Bakara calmly. He was also a boy, yet his face was covered by a strange, skull-like mask, from behind which the Leaf gennin could only see that he was bold. He wore a black shirt with metal bracelets around his wrists and long, slightly baggy, black pants. "You made too much noise when you fought those grass-nins just a while back… this is practically your fault Fuma… not only did those Kusa shinobi didn't had any scroll, but we also run into those guys… fix your mistake…"
"So this is my fault?" the one called Fuma shoot back. "Kyuu could easily make us unspotted… blame him… I don't feel like wasting my energy on weaklings…"
"I'll handle this…" announced Saiken calmly, stepping out front.
"Saiken-kun, there's no need for…" began Raina, the only girl in the team, how had long, black hair and blue eyes. She wore a sleeveless top, which uncovered her hands, showing that her right hand was hidden under the metal glove with claws in stead of fingers, a black mini-skirt and high black boots. As she tried to continue, she was instantly cut of by the headgear wearing shinobi: "I'll handle this…" he repeated, sending shivers down the kunoichi's spine. The metal-glove girl backed away and the shadow-nins leader looked at the Ame ninjas.
"You alone wish to fight all five of us?" asked the Rain team leader with a smirk. "No wonder you're the only Kumori team that was send to this exam… shadow-nins are really stupid…"
"It's not stupidity…" replied Saiken calmly. "It's confidence…"
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"Here it comes!" yelled Kai as he threw down another apple, which was grabbed by Kumiko just before it hit the ground. "Is that enough already? There's tens of mosquitoes around those damn fruits and my skin is starting to get itchy!" announced the blonde.
"Yeah, I think this'll do for now…" replied the kunoichi as he placed the apple she just caught in the bag and the loudmouth gennin landed back on the ground, scratching his arm.
Takaru, who was observing the two from a nearby tree branch as a look out, smiled under his nose. And just then he sensed another presence nearby. Instantly he jumped down and drew his kunai, with his teammates following his tracks.
A second later Ibuki came out of the bushes, with Kusari having his hand wrapped round the kunoichi. The son of Tsunade prepared his knife to fire, but at the very same moment the young assassin threw him a death glare and called out: "Just try it, dumbass… You want me to kill you?"
"So it's you guys…" Takaru gave out a sigh of relief as Kumiko instantly ran towards the chain master to help Ibuki carrying him. "What ever happened to Kusari?"
"A little quarrel with metal-nins…" replied the young assassin a little tired as she placed the chain user under the tree and Kumiko began treating his wounds. "I bandages him and all, but I'm not a medic-nin or do I know much about medicine…"
"He lost a lot of blood…" announced the other kunoichi after a moment. "In his current condition moving is out of the question… he'll need at least two days to recover enough to move freely on his own, leave out the fact that it'll take much more to recover his typical reflex and endurance…"
"So you really care, Kumiko-chan!" Kusari said cheerfully and a second later got a smack on the head from the object of his adoration.
"Guess we'll be staying here today…" concluded Takaru simply.
"Kogane could prove useful in this situation…" stated Kumiko. "Takaru- maybe you'd just yell? If she'll hear it, I'm sure the trees would start coming down and she'd appear a second later…" she added with a smirk.
"That wasn't funny…" announced the son of Tsunade with an angry look on his face.
"Either way we'll require more food…" added the kunoichi as she looked at her blonde teammate: "Kai, get your butt up that tree again…"
"Oh man…" whined the loudmouth, but after seeing Kumiko's stare he shivered a bit and lowering his head, he headed towards the apple tree. But the moment he reached the trunk, his eyes shoot open and he reached for his kunai again. As he turned around, he noticed Takaru did the same thing. "You felt that too?" he asked his teammate.
"Yeah…" nodded the scar-face. "We have more visitors…"
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"You went a little overboard again, Saiken…" announced Kyuu, the last one of the shadow-nins, a blond boy with medium-length hair and green eyes, wearing the same clothes as Fuma, as he looked at the area the five rain-nins stood just a second ago: many trees were cut, some in half and even more had cut branches. Long slashes were visible on the ground and the most gruesome sight laid in the middle of that ruin: bodies of five, Ame shinobi with many cuts all over their bodies and their clothes covered in blood.
"We got the scroll, didn't we?" asked Fuma with a smile as he held out the earth scroll. "We can get to that damn tower and end this exam already… but before that… Saiken, may I take care of the… spectators?" and as he said so a psychotic smile appeared on his face.
"Leave it…" ordered Saiken simply as he began to walk away, his face showing no emotions at all. "Those brats… are of no importance to us…" and so his teammates followed him. Fuma gave just one, last, disappointed look at the bushes where the leaf-nins were hiding and then went on his way as well.
"They're of no importance to us… The nerve of that guy…" repeated Kogane, sweating. She tried to act tuff, yet was failing miserably at it. When she noticed no-one believe her, she dropped the idea and ask with a shaking voice: "Who… or what was that guy?"
"Hard to say…" replied Toku rather calmly, yet even he was sweating a bit. "That technique of his… I've never seen anything like that before… by performing it only once, he defeated all his opponents… with a single blow…"
"Well, it was pretty scary…" nodded Rei. She wasn't sweating, yet her body was shaking uncontrollably. "I see why Hishu was so scared now… he was right, that guy can't be human… without any sight of emotions, that headgear guy just killed all of them!"
"This troubles me though…" announced Hanamaru, who was sweating, shaking and breathing heavily, all at the same time. "Since they knew about us… why didn't they kill us? Where they afraid they wouldn't manage to?"
"That's not it…" Toku disagreed. "As much as it pains me to say so, at our current level, I believe that headgear guy alone was enough to bring us all down…"
"So why?" demanded Kogane.
"It may be just as that guy said…" began Kitsune. "At this point we present no danger… anyways, though I know nothing about those shadow-nins, that headgear guy… is a real monster…"
And this one is over. Hope you enjoyed it. Please leave me a review. It'd really mean a lot.
No jutsu encyclopedia this time around, but at least I can give you another character profile… this time of a character I really like, even though she does seem like a smaller version of Hinata:
Name: Igaku Mikka
Name origins: her clans name means 'medicine' or 'medical science'… I choose her the first name before even checking what it meant (I don't know, I just liked the name Mikka), but to all those interested, Mikka means 'third day' (of a month)… when I found that out I changed her birth date a bit
Age: currently 13 years old
Birth Date: 13th of July
Blood type: B
Height: 141,7 cm
Weight: 45,5 kg
Favorite food: a vegetarian… but she adores ramen (with no meat)
Village: Hidden Leaf (Konoha)
Current rank: gennin
Team: team led by Hinata; her teammates are: Inuzuka Tsume, Benda Kokoro, Hatake Senkou and Kobushi Galu
Bloodline limit: none
Family: there is very little information about her clan, there are rumors she's a close relative of Shizune
Techniques (used so far): none
First Appearance: 29th chapter
And that's that. Hope you enjoyed it and please leave a review when you're done.
Best wishes and until next time, hopefully.