I know how late I am, sorry. The exams just swallowed my free-time up.
Next chapter and last part of the second task of the chunin exam.
Kakashi had planned to wait for his genin-team at the exit of the Hattori ruins, in the wide field where the Hokage had decided to hold a congratulatory speech. Seeming to eager would ruin his reputation but he finally wanted to appease the urges that pushed him to make sure they were safe. If Pakkun could see him now would laugh his ass off. The copy-nin was worrying about his pups.
Sadly, but not surprisingly he had been called urgently before reaching the arena. He had gotten used over the years to the fact that he could be called on by the Hokage at any moment. Countless times he had been disturbed in the middle of the night, or on his way to buy groceries, training or performing any other activity because the Hokage had called for him for a reason or another. He was one of Konoha' s greatest specialists in ninjutsu, an anbu veteran, possessed the last sharingan of Konoha (until recently) and had several other unique and well sought-after skills.
In this case it was his nose and talent at analysis that were deemed useful. A small group of people were waiting for him in one of the small thickets growing around the Naka river, on the eastern part of the village. It was a peculiar kind of get-together: a young Inuzuka man, Tzume, the fearsome Inuzuka clan-head, the Hokage, two anbus, two medics from Investigation and four bodies.
Ah. That must be the reason he had been called.
"Are these the grass genin-team that went missing?" He asked foregoing any greetings.
The Hokage nodded gravely.
"Aki-kun here found them less than an hour ago when he trained his dogs."
"The pup told me, and I informed the Hokage.", Tzume explained shortly in her usual brash voice. Kakashi had learnt long ago not to dismiss the woman as a hotheaded and mindless brawler as to many shinobi tended to do. The woman was a very experienced kunoichi, who had been a jonin for more than twenty years and the head of one of Konoha' s rowdier clans for almost as long.
"Medic-san what have you found until now?"
A bald man with a crooked nose got up from where he had kneeled near one of the corpses.
"We don' t have any certain results yet but everything points to the fact that they died very shortly before they were discovered. Maybe a few hours, maybe less, certainly not more than half a day. Rigor mortis has only just begun to set in, self-digestion is still in its earlier stages and the amount of microorganism working on decomposition is still limited."
Kakashi frowned and saw that Tzume had caught his reaction. She threw him a long look and turned to the Hokage.
"I have to disagree Sandaime. There' s something wrong with these bodies. I ain't saying that they don' t look fresh. I fucking know what a fresh body looks like. She snorted. But I know how a dead body smells even better. And there' s something about these guys smell that' s strange. First you don't notice it but when you focus, the smell, it' s the smell of a man killed days ago. And I think Hatake there agrees with me."
Kakashi nodded.
"I' d say at least three days. Could be more."
The Hokage frowned and tapped his chin distractedly.
"This is very strange indeed. Anything else?"
Tzume crunched up her nose. And lowered herself to the ground. She took a moment to dissect the smell.
"There is something else", she added somewhat slowly. "But I ain' t sure about this. There is something...clean about their smell."
"Clean?"
"Yeah, the smell is just to...pure. I don' t know, I don' t understand how but they don' t smell like the forest, they don' t even smell like moisture or the smell of the ground."
The Hokage turned to him.
"Kakashi do you have a similar impression."
Kakashi shrugged then nodded hesitantly. It was quite elusive but there was a kind of artificiality in the corpses smell.
"Medic-san any ideas?"
The bald guy shook his head.
"There may be something", the other medic said.
She hadn't gotten up from her position next to one of the corpses and gestured them to approach. The little group gathered around her. She looked up directly at the Hokage with dark intelligent eyes scrunched up in concentration.
"Here, look at that boy's arm. Not here, on the inner side of his arm, almost on the level of his armpit. See there. She had to turn the arm somewhat awkwardly, but they could now see a very small discoloration on a part of his arm.
"It could be a number of other things but it's the placement that makes me think I may be right. This is the kind of place a skilled medic would choose to inject something into a body in the most unnoticeable way possible. Needles are made of very pure steel but some of the very fine ones are sometimes made of other more resistant metals, some are even chakra reinforced. In some rare cases these metals cause a small allergic reaction. A medic-expert who would want to avoid anyone from discovering he had injected a body with something wouldn't be able to prepare for such a case as it is rare and leaves only the smallest trace: a light circular discoloration. Also for the allergic reaction to appear the bodies had to have been alive at the time of the injection."
"Would you be able to find what they have been injected with?"
The medic sighed and rubbed at her face.
"Maybe, we haven' t run any in depth tests yet but if Inuzuka-san and Hatake-san are right we are dealing with a medic-expert who is able to disguise a three-day-old body as a fresh body, so I wouldn't get my hopes up."
Kakshi's mind was already working in overdrive trying to fit facts together that seemed to make little sense. A three-man cell of grass genin hadn't shown up at the beginning of the exam three days ago. The bodies were three days old. So, the three genin had been killed three days ago shortly before or after the beginning of the exam. Before their death they had been injected with something. Maybe it was what killed them, maybe it was to incapacitate them. Afterward a skilled medic-nin had worked on them to make it look like their death was recent. Why?
"This has to do with the exam, right?", Tzume muttered and an edge of worry crept into his voice. She had a son who took part in the exam, Kakashi remembered.
She was stating the obvious. The timing made it quite clear that all of this was tied to the exam. They couldn't be entirely sure of course... but it seemed more than likely. But why hide their original time of death. What happened three days ago that led the responsible ones to kill the grass-team and they didn't want them to know about. The beginning of the exam obviously, but what exactly. And then the strange smell and needle mark... Why abduct a genin team...
Probably to gain access to the exam as they had assumed. Orochimaru, or another enemy of them (but probably Orochimaru, his gut feeling told him) wanted to send a few high-level spies of his into the exam. Why abduct the grass team? Probably to impersonate them, which for someone like Orochimaru was easy. A high quality henge was the least effective jutsu of the many transforming jutsu's the man possessed. He may have abducted them days before the exam, maybe even before they reached Konoha. Which could explain the needle mark: an injection with any kind of substance to keep them under while his spies impersonated them. Living originals were usually a requirement for a lot of high level impersonating jutsus. Kakashi knew a few himself.
Now, why kill them? The answer came easily. It was obvious really. They had unknowingly caused the grass shinobies' death. Because of the seal they had placed on the Hattori ruins the infiltrators had never been able to enter the place! That made the still living grass-nins useless and they had been killed. To hide their failed attempt to enter the exam their time of death had been hidden.
Which meant...
The Hokage's grave voice rose in the clearing and he seemed to have come to the same conclusion.
"We have to act quickly but I ask you to remain calm. Someone probably tried to impersonate the grass shinobi and enter the exam. He failed as we had already taken some precautions with a seal that blocks any transformation. However..."
Kakashi didn't listen to the end of the sentence and was already sprinting of towards the Hattori ruins. He was putting every ounce of chakra he had into his feet, sprinting forward as quickly as he could. He could hear trees and branches splintering in his wake. He ran quicker. He had to arrive on time. Because if the impersonator had failed to enter the exam before, he would probably try to ambush the genin again the moment they left the ruins. And if his gut feeling was correct, as, sadly, it often was, then it may be his team that was targeted.
Cold dread settled in his stomach. And he felt a terrible sense of déjà-vu. It wasn't the first time he rushed to save a teammate, knowing he may very well he may be too late. He usually was.
Kakashi ran quicker.
He couldn't lose them too. He wouldn't add another three names to the list of people whose death he was responsible for. His fragile sanity had taken enough hits already and more times than not he felt like the guilt would choke him. What would happen if his genin team, for which he was responsible as their sensei, that he had sent into this exam died. They hadn't lived yet, not really, and he could picture their young and determined faces in his mind' s eye with the clarity only the sharingan allowed. How was it possible that he led them from one disaster to the next? First the debacle in Wave, now this. He couldn't fail them to.
He stopped thinking and concentrated all of his chakra and strength on running as quickly as possible to his team.
He felt Orochimarus presence long before he barged onto the yellowing fields just outside the Hattori ruins. So, the situation was even worse that he had dreaded. The snake-sannin himself had ambushed his team. When he arrived, he took in the body of the floor, the chunin, Iruka, bleeding out, Sakura near him, Sasuke before her, fear, no terror shining in red sharingan eyes, before all three of them: Naruto, blue eyes tinged red and rage etched onto his childish features. Orochimaru a few feet away, arms crossed, smiling lightly, several large snakes at his feet.
He saw the attack before he could reach them. A gigantic snake appeared around the Sanin and its tail wiped through the air and Naruto was thrown into a large tree and without a sound crumpled to the ground and laid motionless.
Desperation cursed through Kakashi' s veins and he fought to resist the instinct to rush to the boy's side. Instead he sprang in front of his two remaining students and lifted his forehead protector.
"Sakumo's brat and his nice gift. How good of you to join us. You have even more interesting pupils than I thought. They are foolish however, like their sensei I suppose. Do you honestly think you may beat me?"
He didn' t sound arrogant, his velvety voice seemed genuinely interested.
"Not really, Kakashi answered and rushed towards the sanin."
In a second he was caught by a smaller, thinner snake. His hand with kunai was still a foot away from his opponent's face. Orochimaru looked down at him.
"But you still try anyway. You care for them. You share with them a feeling of companionship. Did you ever realize how weak and vulnerable such a feeling makes you?"
A second later he thrust a kunai into the grey-haired man' s throat. The bunshin disappeared.
Three dogs buried their sharp teeth into Orochimaru' s summons. The snakes threw them of but in the flurry of movement the copy-nin was able to launch his own attacks. Several wind-blades struck the sanin's summons who was forced to send one back. When Orochimaru had to hurriedly duck under a well-aimed fire ball, thrown just after a water dragon he seemed to decide his opponent had to be taken more seriously. Other snakes were summoned. Thinner animals with very thin triangular faces.
"Nira, Shira, go after him."
It was Kakashi's turn to go on the defensive. The Sannin was keeping a distance, using powerful water jutsu's but the snakes were constantly on his heels and evading both took all of his agility and speed. He was forced to constantly rely on bunshins and substitution and the sharingan was tugging at his limits.
He tried a bolder move and ducked under a snake to get near to Orochimaru but was stopped by an earth wall. A sharp pain made him look down to his thigh were one of the snakes had managed to catch him. He jumped back and was able to throw the animal off.
"You have twenty seconds left before the poison ends this fight, copy-nin." Orochimaru's voice sounded bored or vaguely amused more than triumphant. He had never considered him a threat.
However, now Kakashi had nothing left to lose.
One, the finger signs came naturally to him. Blinding white light in his right hand, the chirping sound of screeching birds. Three, the earth wall crumbled, two meters and he would strike, Orochimaru turned around. Five. Pain in his left side. Bitten. Two steps, pain in his shoulder. Six, another snake coiling around his arm. Ten, he was stopped before his right hand touched the Sannin.
Orochimaru smirked, seeing the chidori flicker and disappear, a second later his eye widened.
Kakshi' s other hand was buried in his lower left side, the weak chidori hadn't allowed him to pierce more than the first few layers of skin after the protective armor the Sanin wore. After all, maintaining two chidori, one in each hand, was draining.
For the first time Orochimaru seemed furious. He was clutching the wound and Kakashi could feel his murderous intent like cold, acidic water on his skin. He really felt cold, it wasn't just an illusion. The poison was working, and he felt his head connecting with the ground without remembering how he fell down.
Orochimaru sidestepped him and approached Sasuke.
"Noga, swallow the Ushiha, I prefer to do this somewhere else. Other bothersome people are coming."
Kakashi tried to sit-up but his body was only a distant source of burning pain. He could still see and the scene he witnessed came straight from his nightmares. Orochimaru's big summon was rushing towards the Ushiha boy, who was rooted to the spot trying to protect the academy teacher and Sakura. Orochimaru would capture the boy and do who-knew-what with him. He had to...
A blur of orange erupted on the scene.
At the last moment Naruto threw himself in front of the Ushiha-boy and stopped the snake a few feet before he connected with his target. Blood was dripping heavily on the floor from where one of the fangs had caught the boy in the shoulder. His expression was of complete determination and his eyes were burning crimson.
"Snake-bastard I told you, you aren't allowed to touch my sensei, that goes for both of them. And neither are you allowed to touch my teammates, or you will regret it."
Kakashi felt unconsciousness overcome him and fought against it desperately. Naruto was growling at Orochimaru but the man was no longer playing around. He saw the snake-sannin about to attack, then look up and swear, jump back and shunshin away. It' s only when he recognized the silhouette of the Hokage that he let his eyes fall closed.
I will try to update regularly again but I'm a little bit down lately. It's probably the weather. Where I live it's getting cold and grey and it's been a week since there was one sunny day. Don't hesitate to leave a comment, it really lifts my mood.