The eager Genin teams made quick time to the large forested area outside of Konoha's walls. Many teams ran like their lives depended on it, making the journey in less than five minutes while the more confidant squads made a steady pace making the trip in ten minutes without exhausting themselves with a mad dash.
Akari, Taki and Azuko deliberately held to the back of the fast moving column of prospective Chūnin, eyes out their competition.
Near them were a Team from Kirikakure and well as Suna and Kumo, and Iwa team remained just within their line of sight while Yin's team stayed in the middle of them. Their gaze swept lift and right as they observed each and every team near them. They all radiated control and power.
Akari looked sidelong at the team from Kirigakure to their left. It was clear that their leader was the Kunoichi at their head; she was tall, nearly six foot dressed in a flowing glittering sea blue kimono with gold trimmings and bat sleeves that trailed behind her. Her team mates were dressed in standard Kiri attire, each carrying a Katana across their back.
The Suna team head of them were dressed in the usual Suna clothing designed to ward off the heat and keep them cool. One had something almost as big as himself on his back covered in bandages, while the other's both had short bows, an odd choice of weapon to be sure.
The Kumo team to their right ran in a single line, being led by a powerfully build young man. Unlike his two team mates the young man wore arm guards; thick heavy strips of metal that came from his elbows to over the back of his hands, linked to each finger were a set of heavy spikes. If Akari had to guess he was a close combat type.
The Iwa team in front of them seemed very rank and file, all three team members wearing standard village mission gear. Finally there was Yins team just a head.
They all wore the same clothing; although something that was a new addition was the short blades they carried on their backs, all short maybe eighteen inches long, hardly a sword but a deadly weapon to be sure. Each one – like everything else the three Yoru Nin carried – was jet black to go with their attire.
Akari guessed they weren't for show.
As they all reached the large fenced off forest the exam applicants began to make their way around as they looked for the next exam proctor.
From above, the proctor of the next exam watched them a small smile touching his usually dull features. He pulled out a scroll and some ink and began drawing.
"Time to see who actually has a pair." He said to himself.
After a few minutes they reached a small outpost that stood in front of the fence and the Genin gathered around it, waiting for the second stage to begin.
They waited and waited and as the sun sank over the hills, covering the world in darkness. There was the sound of roaring broke out all around them and the teams pulled together and faced out as dozens of Lion's just seemed to appear around them, large beasts standing well above them, angry snarling faces glared at the Genin before them.
The thick inky black lines that captured their image shook and quivered with the beast's movements.
There were eighteen of them in total, all stepping around them slowly, drawing the Genin shoulder to shoulder as they braced for the attack that was to come.
Most readied their weapons; others gathered their Chakra ready to fight. The Proctor watched them all with a look of disinterest and boredom. "Oh dear, don't any of them have a pair?" He asked allowed, "This lot all seem to have no dicks."
In the fading light only the Yorugakure teams still had a perfect picture of the world around them. Yin inclined his head to the shadowy figure sitting on the small wooden outpost.
"That guy's probably the jutsu caster." He said softly to Hina and Makabi. "When I make a move take him." He told them.
His two team mates nodded and to their left Akari got ready to run. She couldn't see who they were talking about, but they at least had a plan.
She turned to Taki and Azuko. "They seem to have spotted the jutsu caster." She whispered, pointing to Yin and his team. "They're planning to take them out. When they move, we move."
"Since when were you the one calling the shots?" Azuko hissed at her angrily.
"Since no one else seemed to be doing anything else." She spat back, "So you can either sit here and be useless, or, you can join in."
Azuko's face went red with rage but he complied, getting ready to move.
Yin made the hand seals and took a deep breath as his team mates backed up a bit so they wouldn't be caught in the jutsu.
"Ranton: No Taifū haretsu!"
He mixed his Chakra natures together within himself as he let out a powerful blast of swirling winds and rain. The giant Lion recoiled in the wind before exploding in a black wave of ink; blow away by Yin's jutsu.
The moment holding the other Genin back seemed to vanish as half a dozen of the other Lions were obliterated a moment later by other attacks from the crowed of Chūnin applicants.
Makabi and Hina moved in, Azuko and the others close on their tail.
The proctor dew another set of Lions on the scroll before him and made a one handed seal.
"Ninpo: Chōjū Giga."
One after the other the Lions jumped out of the scroll growing to a size much smaller than the others but still big and hulking creatures.
Hina and Makabi tried to attack them but they were much faster than the others and pinned the two of them down.
Akari came in low, ducking under one of the Lion's that was pouncing for her as she ran her windmill shuriken through the Lion's holding Hina and Makabi down.
The jutsu caster quickly sent out another wave of creatures birds this time to swarm around the attacking Genin.
Akari focused her Chakra in her legs as she made a hand seal. Come on. She said to herself as she made her move.
She covered the remaining distance in a heartbeat bringing both shuriken at the caster.
He smiled as she came in and drew the short sword on his back, stopping both shuriken dead.
Akari grunted as she tried to follow through but the man's arms had locked tight. He directed his smile at her as he dropped the jutsu causing the remaining drawing's to turn to ink. The Genin all looked at him as the jutsu drop and Sai picked out the teams he expected to make it to the tower with both scrolls.
Seems we might have a preliminary round this year. He said to himself.
"Well it seems I was wrong." He said directing his smile to the assembled Genin. "It looks like you lot might actually have something between your legs after all."
Akari's face reddened as she pressed harder against him. "Metaphorically speaking of course." He said to her. "Though at least you seem to have more balls than the rest of them."
He pushed Akari back with a casual extension of his arm as he dropped down in front of the Genin applicants indicating for her to join up with her squad.
"Hello everyone." He said. "My name is Sai and I will be your proctor for the second part of the Chūnin exams."
A murmur spread through the assembled Genin as they all took stock of their newest proctor. Like Tokoni the man before them seemed perfectly assured of himself, even bored by the Genin before him.
"What the hell was all that about." One of the Suna Nin called out, the one with a thing on his back.
"What was what?" Sai asked him, seemingly genuine in his question.
"Why did you attack us?" He asked again.
Sai tilted his head to one side. "I'd hardly call it an attack, they barely even touched you." He replied. "As far as my reason goes, I just wanted to know which of the teams here actually had a dick." He said casually.
The Suna Nin growled in frustration and looked away, clearly not liking the answer he was given. Three other exam proctors exited the small outpost Sai had been sitting on, each one with a stack of papers.
"Okay, I need you all to fill out these consent forms before we start the second exam." Sai said as the other three proctors handed the stacks of paper to the Genin closes to them and instructed them all to pass them along.
As they all began reading over the consent forms the Kiri Kunoichi frowned looking at Sai. "Just what the hell is this Exam?" She asked as she read through the list of things Konoha was not liable for during the exam. Most of which being incredibly gruesome deaths.
"I was getting to that." Sai said. He reached into the small back pack and pulled out two pairs of scrolls. One blue with the kanji for heaven while the other was yellow with the kanji for earth, the two in his other had were black and white and read life and death respectively.
"I don't like long explanations so I'll just get strait to the point." He said holding two scroll's in each hand. "After you have filled out your consent forms each team will be given one of these scrolls. Your objective it so reach the tower in the centre of the forest with either a Heaven and Earth scroll or a Life and Death scroll." He told them.
"You are not to look at the content of these scrolls under any circumstances until all three members of your team have reached the tower and you have one of the pairs of scrolls. Other than that anything goes."
"That's it?" The Kumo Nin with the arm guards asked.
Sai nodded. "That's it." He confirmed. "You have a total of four and a half days to complete this objective. Any team that finishes will be accommodated in the tower until time runs out on the fifth day."
"What will we do for food?" Another Ninja asked.
Sai only shrugged. "It's a forest; find some, if you're any sort of capable you'll be smart enough to know what not to eat. Though fair warning, training ground 44 is also known as The Forest of Death, a name it was given for very good reasons. So don't think that the only danger is those other teams.
"After you've been given your scroll you will be escorted to one of the 44 entrance gates around the perimeter, you're cleared for entry at exactly 21:00 hours."
The other teams nodded as they began lining up to hand in their consent forms and begin the exams. Sai watched them go, noting the teams he though had the best chance of passing the exams.
This is certainly going to be interesting. Sai thought to himself as he sat on top of the outpost, with nothing pressing to do he began to draw in his sketchbook, an abstract swirl of colours, yellow, blue and black.
Akari and the others stood outside the 16th gate, it was 6:57 now, not long before they were to begin the second stage of the Chūnin exams.
"So what's the plan?" Taki asked as they waited. Akari looked at her.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
Taki sighed and Azuko growled at her. "We need a plan of attack." Taki began. "It's not like they're going to be leaving additional scrolls in the forest for us to pick up. We need a plan to figure out which of the other teams has a Death scroll and how best to get it from them with as little trouble as possible."
"She's right." Azuko chipped in. "We shouldn't go picking fights for no gain; we need to confirm which team has the scroll we need without them finding out." He said.
Akari shrugged. "I guess," She said nonchalantly.
"You guess?" Azuko snapped, "This isn't the time for guessing, we need actual strategy!"
"And have you thought of one?" Akari asked pointedly.
Azuko opened and closed his mouth several times before Akari spoke again. "Didn't think so," She said dryly. "While I agree we need a plan, there isn't all that much we can actually plan, we don't know which team has which scroll or which gate they're using, for all we know the closes team with a Death scroll is twenty kilometres away at the other end of the forest. The best we can do, hell all we can do is try each team we come across until we get a pair of scrolls and hit the tower."
Azuko wanted to say something to her, but found that she was right. Not knowing who had what or where they were meant that they could strategies all they wanted to but at the end of the day they knew too little to actually implement an actual strategy until they had done some looking around.
The exam proctor waiting at their gate looked at his watch and got ready to open the gate. The three Genin stopped their minor squabble as they looked at the gate, ready to move.
Bang on 7:00pm he unlocked the gate and the wire fence gate sprang open like it was spring loaded. Without a word between them the three Genin burst into the forest, taking the higher road among the tree branches as they made their way deeper into the forest of death.
"Okay so we know what to do." Taki said. "How do we do it?"
"Leave that to me." Azuko said as he jumped down to the forest floor. He made a Doton hand seal and put his hands to the ground.
"Doton: Shindō kanchi!" He flooded the ground with his Chakra as, the nerve endings in his hands heightened he was able to feel the movement of everything within the Forest of Death. Relying solely on vibrations across a twenty kilometre circle it took Azuko a few minutes to ascertain which vibrations belonged to other teams and which belonged to the various creatures that inhabited the forest.
"Closest team is a mile west north west of here at a bearing just shy of ten." He told his team mates as he stood up again.
"How many other teams are within five kilometres of our current position?" Akari asked Azuko.
He thought for a moment before answering. "Roughly seven, possibly six or eight by now,"
Akari nodded, "Okay then, do we want the one closest to us or should we try another target?" She asked.
"I say we at least observe the closes team to us," Taki said, "If we're so close to one another then it's highly likely that they know our whereabouts' as well."
Akari nodded in agreement and at a two to one majority there was little Azuko would be able to do about it. He nodded his consent and the three Genin made for the location of the closest team.
After a few minutes they paused as Azuko used his jutsu again to feel their location. Not needing as larger area as before Azuko was able to locate the team they were tracking in under a minute.
"They're at eleven o'clock heading towards the centre of the forest." He told them.
"Should we get ahead and ambush them?" Taki asked.
Akari shrugged. "It might be just as advantageous to tail them for a day or so." She said. "They might fight another team giving us a better chance of getting a Death scroll."
"Not an option." Azuko said as he stood up, pulling out his kama, "They're bearing down on us as we speak." Akari and Taki shared a glance as they readied themselves.
Taki prepared two handfuls of Shuriken while Akari flipping out her windmill shuriken, bringing both of them up to maximum rotation.
Azuko kept streaming his Chakra into the ground through his feat as his gaze shifted left and right, tracing the movements of their would-be attackers with his Shindō kanchi.
"They're splitting up." Azuko told them. "Akari one's taking our right, you're on rear guard. Taki take the left flank. They're about fifty meters out." He said in a hurried voice. His heart was racing as he felt a small bead of sweat run down the side of his head.
His blood coursed through his veins like lightning and he couldn't help but smile with excitement.
"Twenty five metres…fifteen meters."
By now Akari could hear them coming clear as day, Taki could too.
"They've stopped." Azuko said in a soft voice. "Eight meters past the tree to your right Akari, seven meters out from the one on your left Taki."
"And you?" Akari asked.
"Nin meters," Azuko answered.
"Why did they stop?" Taki asked.
"Cause they know we know they're coming." Akari said. "They're debating whether a head on fight is worth it. I say we give them one anyway."
"Fore once I agree with you." Azuko said. "We can hardly get away from them as is. So let's show them what we can do."
They all nodded ready to pounce when their attackers made their move, diving out of the tree line all around them to attack. Each met their own foe and paused.
"Good to see you again." Akari said to Yin as they locked blades.
"Likewise," Yin said with a grin.
There was a tense moment as the two teams stood face to face with one another, weapons locked.
A kunai hit the ground in between them, followed by a dozen more.
"Paper bombs!" Makabi shouted as he saw them.
Without thought the teams pulled away from the paper bombs as they went off, even more tagged kunai followed them as they made their escape.
As the fire raged, the attacker triggered a powerful futon jutsu sending both teams and the flames of the explosion hurtling across the Forest of Death.
Sup Friendlies?
A nice cliff hanger to leave the story on for the time being. As you may have guessed this is going to be the nest three of so chapters as the teams try to recover and engage their mystery attacker, who really isn't that mysterious.
I might even throw in a filler chapter about the other more important teams later on to make sure they all have the appropriate integration into the story, but if that happens it will be a rather short chapter, closely followed by an actually chapter.
Jutsu used were.
"Ranton: Taifu basuto = Storm style: Typhoon's rapture."
"Ninpo: Choju giga = Ninja art: super beast imitating drawing."
"Doton: Shindo knachi = Earth style: tremoursense."
All in all I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Until next time I wish you all the best.
Yours truly.
Nicolai Grey.