Opening - Haruka Kanata by Asian Kung-Fu Generation
Anko was sprinting through the Forest of Death at her absolute top speed, using Substitution Jutsu to teleport whenever a suitable target like a log appeared on her path. She'd heard Jiraiya claiming his two Genin students had developed a Substitution that could be used on a thrown kunai as it flew, but according to him, it required a doujutsu to use properly. For all her skill as a Tokubetsu Jounin and Orochimaru's former student, she couldn't emulate that jutsu.
She'd been trying periodically, but she just couldn't focus her eyes properly on the kunai she'd decided to throw. A simple twitch of her gaze brought about by the blurring motion around herself and the kunai was all it took. The jutsu failed to find its target, and did nothing. On the plus side, a miss didn't take any of her precious chakra, which she would need every drop of if she meant to defeat Orochimaru.
After a few moments of thought, it occured to her that she could throw a shuriken at a tree limb, in such a way that it struck the top of the limb. Substituting with that would put her in a standing position on top of the targeted limb, and from there she could continue the chain of tree-leaping, drawing another shuriken, and Substituting again. It was, after all, one of the least chakra-draining ninjutsu a shinobi could use, which meant it wouldn't drain her reserves before she attacked Orochimaru.
The Snake Sannin's chakra was active, and he wasn't running anymore, which made it easier for Anko to track him, but she flinched at the thought of why he'd stop running. She'd passed Sasuke Uchiha and his team during her pursuit, and knew for a fact the boy already bore a Cursed Seal of Heaven identical to her own. There'd been no sign of Naruto Uzumaki, but she'd personally witnessed footage of Orochimaru marking him. So why, then, was Orochimaru not moving, but expending chakra?
These woods were full of Chuunin-level or lower Genin, and that just wasn't enough to warrant Orichimaru actually fighting. Two dozen fully-prepared Chuunin might keep a Sannin occupied for just under a minute, so who or what was he fighting here? And was it a threat to Anko? Was he holding back? Was he being careful, fighting a third student he planned to mark with his juinjutsu?
Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha. The Rinnegan and Sharingan. Alright, I get why he'd target those two. He wants to learn every ninjutsu, and those doujutsu will help him do it, but... what then? If he's after a third Genin, why? Last I checked, a human body has only two eye sockets, and if he wanted a Byakugan, wouldn't he have targeted Hinata Hyuuga right after he took out Naruto? Sure, Neji has it too, but why go to the trouble of tracking him down? Not to mention the Caged Bird Seal. Even he'd have trouble breaking through a seal like that.
Anko scowled, and drew another shuriken. Maybe he knows I'm coming. He's just throwing out chakra to draw me in... Ah, screw it. I'm just gonna have to find out anyway; guessing won't do me any good.
X
Naruto and Hinata each drew a kunai, since Kiba was racing far ahead of them with his Hellhound Flame Armor. Akamaru wasn't currently merged with him, but the boost in strength and speed from his chakra cloak alone was enough that he outpaced his two teammates.
Naruto glanced down at the seal on the yellow hilt of his kunai, a beacon for use with his father's legendary Flying Thunder God Jutsu. Having finally begun learning the intricate art of fuinjutsu, Naruto was all the more amazed that his father had managed to write such a complex effect into such a small seal. Not for the first time, he thought silently, space-time ninjutsu is awesome.
He threw his kunai, and Hinata did the same with her own, ordinary blade, both clasping their hands together in seals and declaring, "Substitution Jutsu!" I wish I had've finished that jutsu I was working on before the exam started, Naruto grumbled silently. I miss my sword already, and it'd be a great weapon against Orochimaru, since I already know I can beat him with proper kenjutsu. I don't stand a chance with ninjutsu. But if I'd had that jutsu... It wouldn't be a problem at all...
"Naruto-kun?" Hinata glanced over at him. "Is something wrong? You've been so quiet..."
"I'm okay, Hina-chan. I'm just thinking, that's all." he glanced up at the night sky through the trees. "Gaara might be fighting Orochimaru right now, trying to get rid of my Cursed Seal. He's got no idea I'm already healed, and he probably needs our help."
"It's a good thing we're headed right for him, then," Kiba observed ahead of them. "Hey, did I tell you guys I have a bridge named after me?"
"Huh?" Naruto replied without thinking.
"Yep. Tazuna's grandson Inari came up with the name; the Oukami Kiba Bridge. See, I told him about how humans are like wolves, and we have alpha males and submissive omegas and stuff. At the time, he didn't believe me, but according to his big speech when the bridge was done, he saw a ninja girl blow by him at 'like Mach Two' and came up with the idea that 'anyone can be an alpha wolf.'" Hinata blinked at that. "He told me later, that this happened maybe two minutes after I beat the crap out of two of Gatou's mooks right in front of him. He rallied the entire Land of Waves into an army and marched 'em to the bridge to fight Gatou."
Kiba chuckled, and added, "That much I actually saw. The kid had a crossbow, and now that I think about it, where the hell did he get a crossbow? So anyway, after Wave killed Gatou and his mercs with help from Zabuza and Haku, Tazuna finished the bridge, and Inari gave this huge speech about courage and how 'no one wolf can ever hope to conquer the rest of the pack.' Then he offered up his name for the bridge, and Wave liked it. Cool, huh?"
"Yeah, that is pretty cool," Naruto admitted. "So, what happened with Zabuza and Haku, anyway?"
"After they were done slaughtering Gatou's army, they left. They were both pretty beat up, I even stabbed Zabuza with a kunai, but Haku seemed okay, and we know he has some kind of medic-nin training since we met him looking for healing herbs. So I guess Haku would've been able to heal that stab wound, since Zabuza told me I hadn't struck his vitals..." Kiba sighed loudly. "Ah, forget it. They're missing-nin, and even if they're alive it's not like we'll be seeing them again."
The fire-wreathed young Genin sniffed audibly. "We're getting close. I can smell Gaara, and the sand in his gourd. It's a stronger scent, like it's outside of the gourd now... Does he use it for some kind of jutsu? They do call him Gaara of the Sand Waterfall..."
"He must be fighting Orochimaru," Naruto growled. "Gaara has his team with him, and if we get there in time we might be able to chase off Orochimaru together. Hinata, you've got a heavy advantage; he's weakest at close range. Use your Gentle Fist to disable his chakra network; neutralize his ninjutsu advantage. I'll shoot some Wind Release Jutsu at him, but Kiba, what'll you do?"
"I'm pretty good at taijutsu, and if I go deeper into Hellhound Mode, I can use this chakra cloak to stop blades. It kinda interferes with normal taijutsu, though. Anyway, I'll go mid-range and use fire jutsu."
"All right. So, how long can you maintain that Fire Release aura, anyway?"
"I'd say my limit's about fifteen minutes straight in Baskerville Mode, but that's not because I run out of chakra. Both the fire cloak and my fusion with Akamaru haven't been perfected yet, so I have to take breaks, or both parts of the jutsu just fail. Sometimes it knocks me out, other times I just turn back to normal. As for chakra drain, I'd say two fifteen-minute sessions with a five-minute break in between will drain me dry. But the second level halves that time; I might be able to keep it up for seven minutes."
"That's not too bad... if we can keep up with Orochimaru for seven minutes, there'll definitely be someone who picks up on his chakra signature. They'll send backup for us, or at least I hope so." Naruto readied a kunai for his next Substitution, and Hinata followed suit quickly. "If not, there's six of us, including two Jinchuuriki, and two Great Doujutsu users. I'm sure we'll at least be able to figure out a way to escape Orochimaru." he threw his kunai, formed a hand seal, and called, "Substitution Jutsu."
"Substitution Jutsu," Hinata repeated, and teleported ahead as he did. Both of them reappeared over open air, and had to land on a lower tree limb before jumping back up to Kiba's height. Naruto activated his Rinnegan and began sprinting on all fours as Kiba was doing. He gained a bit of speed from this, to his surprise, and Hinata pumped a bit of chakra into her legs to increase their strength and match his pace.
X
Gaara supressed the urge to aim a psychotic grin at Orochimaru, who had stopped running and was facing them. The tree all four shinobi were perched in was likely the biggest any of the three Sand Siblings had ever seen; its trunk was easily twenty feet thick if not more. The Sannin stood facing them, with his back to the trunk and his arms reasting passively at his sides. "Well, you three have followed me halfway across this forest, and it's beginning to annoy me," Orochimaru said with a grin and not even the slightest hint of annoyance in his tone. "What exactly do you want?"
"Remove the Cursed Seal you placed on Naruto Uzumaki's neck."
"Oh, you're still on about that, hm? That seal is as unbreakable to me as it is to him," Orochimaru declared, still smiling. "The only possible way to remove it is to completely drain it of the chakra stored within, and it draws in and converts natural energy whenever it's drained of existing chakra. It does so fast enough to replenish chakra as it's used, in fact most people would die from overusing it before they could ever drain it dry. I suppose if Naruto-kun could somehow treat the chakra of the Cursed Seal as a seperate entity and fight it as a normal opponent... but even then, he'd still need the chakra of his Kyuubi to overpower the seal directly, and he proved to me when we fought that he's incapable of using it."
"So you're saying... you can't remove the seal?" Gaara growled. Kankurou and Temari visibly flinched away from the killing intent Gaara was emitting, and even Orochimaru's eyes widened slightly. It wasn't ordinary killing intent, filled with hate, sadistic anticipation, or even a sense of duty from a shinobi with a mission, instead it sent a message something along the lines of you are an ant, a minor annoyance that I, a boot, will step on because it is convenient for me.
"If you can't remove it, I'll just kill you. That should destroy it, and if not, at least you won't be able to use it." Gaara uncrossed his arms from over his chest, and behind him his gourd dissolved into yet more sand that pooled around his feet, ready to attack.
Orochimaru grinned. "I must say, your determination is respectable, for a Genin. But why are you here?"
Gaara made no response, but he did blink at the sound of Mother's voice. Yes, my son. Why are you here? Killing this man will prove our existence fiercely, but you don't seem concerned with that. So why? He made no response, and that seemed to annoy Mother. Her tone shifted to match: Answer me, boy. Why do you forsake my guidance? Still, he gave no reply. Shukaku finally roared, YOU LITTLE BRAT! ANSWER! ANSWER TO MY WHIM!
Gaara flinched. "M-Mother?" he whispered aloud, and his brother and sister each glanced his way. What's wrong with you, Mother? Is... is Shukaku hurting your mind too?
Shukaku was startled by that accusation, and decided to tread carefully. I... I'm sorry, child. Perhaps you're right, I don't know what came over me.
It's all right, Mother. Gaara steeled himself again, and glared at Orochimaru. We won't let ourselves be controlled by that monster any more.
This disturbed the Bijuu even more. What do you mean? Controlled? Do you really think the Sand Demon has been...?
I suppose we'll find out whether it's true, when I receive the Eight Trigrams Seal from Naruto. "Kankurou, get Crow ready. Don't bother with your usual baiting trick; just attack him. Temari, hide yourself in the trees until you get a chance to use the Wind Scythe Jutsu. I'll fight him head-on with my sand; that should provide an opening for one of you."
"Uh... okay..." Kankurou was the first to agree. Gaara... you're actually trying to work with us as a team... I don't understand this at all... he slid the bundle of white bandages, his real body, off his puppet's back, and set it down horizontally on the tree limb they were perched on. Then he dissolved the disguise of chakra-altered sand that covered his puppet, and moved Crow to attack. Gaara's sand accompanied the high-quality ninja puppet in its attack.
Orochimaru watched the heavily armed puppet and wave of sand approach, making no move to escape. The automaton rattled loudly as it made its attack, and Orochimaru casually swatted aside its poisoned blades with Kusanagi, then jumped to a higher branch to avoid Gaara's sand. He dropped his sword and made a single hand seal, just before Crow began spitting poisoned darts at the Sannin. "Wind Release: Erasing Wind Jutsu." the projectiles were scattered harmlessly.
"Lightning Release: Thunderclap Jutsu." a single lightning bolt lashed out from Orochimaru's right hand, and Gaara's sand caught it. A section of his sand was melted into glowing orange, boiling liquid glass. All three Genin flinched and covered their ears when the real attack struck: a deafening clap of thunder that drew blood from their ears. Orochimaru's hand seals didn't slow down, and he added, "Fire Release: Fire Clone Jutsu." five identical copies of the Sannin appeared at his sides, and stalked forward. "Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Jutsu."
Gaara's eyes widened, and he leapt into the air, desperate to dodge this new attack. The dragon tried to curve upward and follow him, but missed low. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough," Gaara called with a tone of urgency, and aimed his palms downward. A gust of wind tore at the top of the liquid dragon, destabilizing and destroying it while also pushing Gaara up to the next available tree limb.
"Ah, I thought so," Orochimaru noted. "That sand you use must be kept as a dry powder. Wetting it or melting it into glass moves it out of your control, doesn't it? Likewise if you yourself get wet, hm? Fortunately for you, most Konoha shinobi use Earth Release and... well, do Fire Release jutsu melt your sand as well as Lightning?"
Gaara's eyes narrowed, and he directed a tendril of sand toward one of Orochimaru's clones, detonating it violently. The flames ignited the trees nearby, but the sand was left unharmed, and Gaara retracted it. "Does that answer your question?" he rasped angrily.
"Wind Scythe Jutsu!" Temari roared, and a blast of wind ripped apart the tree limbs that had obscured her until then. Orochimaru silently used the Substitution Jutsu to switch places with one of his Fire Clones, which was obliterated by the attack.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Serpent Jutsu." a thin stream of yellow, crackling energy shot out of Orochimaru's right index finger, taking the form of a snake. It flew toward an exposed Temari, but was cut off by a wall of sand that was melted into glass on contact. Temari's eyes widened behind it, but she seized the oppurtunity and concealed herself in the trees, just before the floating wall of liquid glass that obscured her slowly fell apart. "Hm... so you can exert some control over glass. Interesting."
Let me fight him, Mother told him firmly. I have more chakra than you; I can kill him.
Gaara ignored her, once again. There was a growing suspicion in the back of his mind, too terrible for him to put into words, too terrible for him to face. That quiet, timid voice asked him, no matter how much he wanted to ignore the thought, how do you know she's really your mother?
He disregarded that thought, and gathered his sand for another attack. Kankurou's puppet once again lunged at Orochimaru, with its mechanisms clacking loudly. Orochimaru turned to face the sound, and formed a few quick hand seals. "Fire Release: Grand Fireball Jutsu." With his hands still clasped together in the Tiger hand seal, Orochimaru breathed out a plume of orange flame that consumed Crow and further ignited the forest.
Enough of this, growled a low, monstrous voice in Gaara's mind, one he had never heard before. Immediately, he realized it was Shukaku. I'm going to take control of your body, and I'm going to kill this man. Gaara screamed in sudden agony, and buried himself in sand, instantly drawing Kankurou and Temari's attention. Orochimaru sneered, and extended his right hand, aiming it at a distracted Temari and declaring, "Striking Shadow Snakes."
Temari turned in time to see six snakes extend out of Orochimaru's sleeve, and her eyes widened in disbelief. How does he know where I'm hiding? she asked herself, and made a desperate attempt to dodge, but failed. One snake's snout hit her fan, and knocked it from her hand. The other five coiled around her and pulled her violently back to Orochimaru, who raised his left hand and fired a similar attack at Crow. The Sannin crushed Kankurou's puppet into pieces, and Temari winced, realizing how easily he could do the same to her.
Instead, Orochimaru merely reeled her in and gently placed the edge of his sword at her throat. "I'm going to kill you," he informed her, "When both of your brothers are watching." One of the snakes holding her flicked out its tongue, brushing her shoulder, and she flinched. "Hm. Did you snakes smell through their tongues? They're mostly incapable of taste, but this one here..." Orochimaru stroked the serpent's spine gently, "...tells me you smell quite appealing."
Kankurou, meanwhile, had freed himself from the bundle of white wrapping he'd been covered in, and was reaching for a kunai. "Let her go, you sick freak."
"First of all, no." Orochimaru directed a snake to swat aside the kunai Kankurou threw, then entangled him as he'd done with Temari. "Shadow Venom Jutsu." from each of his sleeves, a snake with black scales like obsidian emerged, flicking out their tongues. "Second, I'm not a 'sick freak.' It was this snake here, which claimed your sister smells delicious, and I'm certain he'd take offense to being called a 'sick freak,' but unfortunately he's not one of the two snakes present which possess venom, so he's not the one who gets to kill you."
Orochimaru grinned at their looks of horror. "Yes, that's right." one black snake coiled around each Sand Sibling's neck, and bared their fangs. "These two here. Once Gaara emerges from that sand, I'll treat him to the sight of his only remaining family dying. Oh yes, I should mention that... I killed the Fourth Kazekage this morning."
The sphere of sand surrounding Gaara collapsed, and the snakes lunged forward to kill their prey.
They hit two thin plates of floating sand, which they choked on.
"No..." Gaara's voice growled slowly. "...I won't let you tell me what to do, I won't listen to you."
His entire upper body was covered in a thick construct of hardened sand, which bore deep blue, swirling marks, with animal arms ten feet long, and a canine head of sand. A single giant racoon's tail extended from the base of his spine, and his gourd was apparently gone. "I'll listen to Mother, but not you, demon. Never you."
He shuddered as the Ichibi assaulted him mentally, but didn't bother replying further. The half-transformed Jinchuuriki leapt forward to the next suitable tree limb, and directed a dozen thin blades of sand to slice through the necks of each snake, starting with the black, venomous ones. Orochimaru's grin vanished, as Kankurou and Temari were released from his grasp. "Hide in the trees, retreat," Gaara ordered, and his siblings did. "Now," the Jinchuuriki trained his gaze on Orochimaru, "I'll kill you. I'll enjoy it, yes, but we'll have to make this quick."
How? Orochimaru's eyes narrowed. Suna's data told me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Gaara of the Sand Waterfall doesn't have enough control over Shukaku to think rationally in this state. He shouldn't have been able to think about saving his brother and sister. In fact, he should be completely berserk right now, but he looks more sane than he did before this transformation. He scowled. It's time I started treating these three as a valid threat.
The Sannin bit his left thumb, drawing blood, and bared the snake tattoo on his right arm to wipe the blood down it. "Summoning Jutsu!" A colossal crimson snake appeared in a plume of white smoke between Orochimaru and Gaara. "Kigachi, maim this creature, but leave it alive," the Sannin ordered. The snake lunged forward obediently.
"STOP!"
Orochimaru and Gaara both directed their attention to the newly-arrived Anko, who bared her own summoning tattoo, and snarled, "Kigachi, get the hell out of here! This is between two snake summoners!"
Kigachi sighed. "Ah, I see," he said sadly in a deep, rasping voice. He turned back to Orochimaru, and recited, "When two summoners of the same species do battle, both have the right to invoke this law, which will allow both summoners to banish each other's summons without spending chakra and with no resistance from the summon. This is to prevent infighting and casualties in our clan. Only the clan head, in this case Manda-sama, can remove this seal from the battle, but to do so he must choose one of you to side with. I'm afraid Manda-sama isn't the type to do that. He cares naught for either of you."
Kigachi vanished the way he'd appeared, in a puff of chakra-laced smoke. Orochimaru sighed, and addressed Anko, "You do realize you have no chance of beating me now, yes? If you had've summoned Manda, and promised him a hundred sacrifices..." he tsked. "Anko-chan, I thought I'd trained you better."
"Shut up," she fired back. "I'm gonna be the one to kill you, not Manda. And I don't exactly have a hundred human sacrifices to hand him."
"Hm," Orochimaru hummed. "Well, at wish I could say it was interesting, seeing you after all these years, Anko-chan, but frankly I'm disappointed in you." he locked eyes with her, and she realized what was coming only a moment too late. "Cursed Seal of Heaven."
She screamed, even as she fell unconscious from the unexpected torture. Her Cursed Seal, after years of laying dormant, surged to life and burned her as it spread over her neck.
Gaara watched her fall, landing in the branches of another, much smaller tree below. Even through she was unconscious, her body continued to convulse from the spreading Cursed Seal. "Another juinjutsu," Gaara observed. "So you know this woman."
"I trained her myself," Orochimaru replied. "Though not as well as I'd thought, it seems."
Gaara made no reply; he simply leapt forward. The partially manifested form of Shukaku trailed a fine mist of sand as Gaara moved. "You said... you killed the Fourth Kazekage this morning?"
Orochimaru retreated to a further-away branch once Gaara got too close. "That's right."
"I wanted to do that," Gaara snarled. "Killing that man would be both revenge and further proof of my existence. He was mine!" The Suna Jinchuuriki began attacking, and Orochimaru blocked the limbs of sand with a hastily recovered Kusanagi. Orochimaru's three remaining clones all lunged at Gaara's flanks, while the real one distanced himself from the Jinchuuriki.
Gaara's left sand arm swatted aside one clone, his tail impaled a second, and his right hand caught and crushed the third. All three exploded, and Gaara's false head of sand turned its gaze back to the real Sannin. It bared its teeth in a feral grin, and growled, "Don't run away, snake. Don't bore me with a chase!" he punched his right sand arm forward, and it stretched out, reaching for Orochimaru, who dodged, but said nothing. "I've only just started to enjoy this battle!"
Ah... it seems his control over the Ichibi has faltered. Orochimaru silently began a new sequence of hand seals. "Lightning Release: Heaven Arrow Jutsu!" Ten shafts of yellow light, each two feet long, shot out of Orochimaru's ten fingers to stab into Gaara's sand body. The sand surrounding the points of impact was melted into glass, and Gaara let it fall free of his false body. He smoothed over the craters in the sand, leaving him with a slightly smaller sand body, and snarled at Orochimaru.
Before the Jinchuuriki could move, however, someone else shot past him in a black blur. After a moment, Gaara recognized Hinata, and her voice shouting fiercely, "Two, Four, Eight, Sixteen Palms!" her hands slammed into Orochimaru in a blur of carefully aimed movement. Then, she put distance between herself and Orochimaru's Kusanagi, leaping to a midway point between him and Gaara.
"Hellhound Mode. Level Two." Gaara'se real eyes widened inside the sand construct as he felt a wave of intense heat wash over him, enough to warm him even through the deep, cool sand. He created a Third Eye of sand and aimed it backward, glimpsing the head of a fire-wreathed dog emerge through the foliage. Judging from the head alone, the creature had to be at least fifteen feet tall. Its fur, under the flames, was white, and its eyes were shimmering yellow. Then, two more identical heads appeared on either side of the first, and all three gave a roar in stereo:
"Cerberus!"
The monster emerged fully, through branches and leaves that it burned as it passed. Kiba, in this new form, perched with surprising agility on a relatively thin tree limb, which caught fire under his paws. "Fire Release," he growled, and smoke began to pour forth from all three of his mouths. "Ash Pile Burning!"
"We got your back, Gaara, believe it!"
"...Uzumaki?" his Third Eye looked upward, spotting Naruto in one of the tallest trees. His hands were already making seals.
"Rasengan!" Hinata drew Gaara's attention once more by throwing her most powerful jutsu at Orochimaru, who dodged it.
"Wind Release: Wind Scythe Jutsu!" Temari joined in, forcing her fully-opened fan through the air to launch her signature jutsu at the Sannin. Kankurou silently reattached his chakra strings to Crow's broken but still bladed limbs, and resumed fighting Orochimaru as well.
Kiba's ash cloud floated forward through the air, and Orochimaru began retreating. He glanced up and trained his gaze on Naruto's neck. He broke the Cursed Seal! The snake realized, but could do nothing with his fury. "Wind Release!" the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki grinned spitefully down at his foe, and finished his seal sequence. "Drilling Air Bullet!"
"Dual Rasengan!" Hinata cried, throwing two more Spiralling Spheres alongside Naruto's attack.
"Grand Fireball Jutsu!" Kiba added.
"Wind Scythe Jutsu!"
Gaara understood what they were doing, and dissolved his entire sand body into a single flow that he directed toward Orochimaru. "Sand Coffin," he rasped calmly, as Shukaku's influence had mostly receded.
"I've had enough of this," Orochimaru muttered unhappily, and slammed his palm down onto the branch he was perched on, as the collection of powerful attacks closed in. "Summoning Jutsu!" Kigachi appeared once more, surprised and disoriented. While his master fled, the crimson snake was struck by all six attacks, including both of Hinata's Rasengan. He was cut by wind, ripped apart by swirling chakra, burned by chakra-laced fire, cut by more wind, and crushed from all sides by sand, not that Orochimaru knew or cared. The Sannin was already gone.
Gaara's sand reformed into his gourd, and he dispassionately watched the snake's mangled corpse fall to the ground far below. Naruto leapt down to the same branch Gaara stood on, and beamed in the fleeing Orochimaru's general direction. "Hey, Gaara!" he greeted happily, and reached into his weapons pouch. Gaara glanced down at it, wondering idly if Naruto was drawing a kunai. If so, his sand shield would stop it, but the blond boy produced four scrolls, two Heaven and two Earth. Gaara's eyes widened very slightly.
"Yeah, I gotta pay you back for giving us an extra scroll, and coming out here to fight a Sannin for me, ya know?" Naruto handed one of each type of scroll to his fellow Jinchuuriki, who hesitated to take them. "What? Don't tell me you thought I'd just forget that happened? Thanks, by the way. You did that for me and my team, and you didn't have to, so thanks."
Gaara made up his mind, and took the scrolls. "You've broken your juinjutsu without help," he observed. "I came out here for nothing."
"You tried to save me. It doesn't matter that I managed to save myself first." Naruto glanced down. "Is that... the exam proctor? Anko?"
Gaara nodded slightly. "Yes. she tried to fight Orochimaru, but he activated a juinjutsu that she already had."
"Then we need to take her with us to the tower. Whoever's waiting for us there can get her to a medic-nin." Naruto looked around, spotting Kiba once again in his normal human form, without his fire shroud. "Hey, does anyone here have a summoning contract? We're gonna need some way to carry Anko!"
Temari blinked in surprise, and glanced down at the incapacitated Anko. "I have a contract," she spoke up.
"Great!" Naruto replied enthusiastically. "We need you to summon something to carry Anko. I don't think anyone here can just carry her all the way to the tower."
Temari nodded, and swung her fan. "Summoning Jutsu!" In a cloud of white smoke, a giant black-and-white weasel leapt into existence, armed with a scythe. One of the creature's eyes was covered by an eye patch. "Kamatari," Temari ordered, "We need you to carry that woman and follow us." she pointed to Anko.
"Simple enough," Kamatari replied, and leapt down to Anko's side.
Kiba finished supressing the various fires in the area, and Hinata gave up on tracking Orochimaru with her Byakugan. Naruto leapt away to where Kankurou was gathering the fragments of Crow. "So, this was a ninja puppet, right? Can I help you put him back together?"
Kankurou gave a single, sad laugh. "Thanks kid, but no. You'd just end up breaking him more. Ninja puppets are complex machines, and repairing them isn't easy. This'll take me days to fix, and I have to do it by myself."
X
"So." Kiba looked around the interior of the tower at sunrise. "...the hell do we do now?"
Naruto shrugged. "Open the scrolls?"
"That might not be wise," Gaara observed solemnly. "If it turns out to be the wrong course of action, we'll be disqualified."
"Do we wait here until the end of the fifth day, then?" Temari asked rhetorically. Meanwhile, Kamatari set Anko down and vanished in a cloud of white smoke.
"If we do that, and that's a mistake too, then we fail the exam, right?" Kankurou questioned. "I mean, Anko did say we're supposed to bring the scrolls to the tower, which we did, and we'd be disqualified if we didn't reach the tower, but here we are."
"Anko-sensei should wake up over the next four days. If we're still here by then, I'm sure she'll pass us. We rescued her from a fricken Sannin," Kiba commented.
"We won't be here for four days," Hinata replied. All eyes turned to where she was standing, reading an inscription on the far wall. "We're supposed to open the scrolls now," she said with confidence. "I looked inside them with my Byakugan, there's a summoning seal on them. Well, half of one on each. Together, they should summon a random Konoha Chuunin."
"Ah, that's pretty smart," Naruto mused. "If a Chuunin randomly finds themselves in front of a Genin in the forest, they'd be kinda angry, right? And they'd probably have orders to disqualify that Genin team. No peeking, ya know?" he paused. "And looking inside the scrolls with your Byakugan was genius, Hinata."
"If your theory turns out to be correct," Gaara noted, "then she cheated."
Naruto froze. "G-Gaara? You wouldn't..."
"I see no reason to rat you out," the other Jinchuuriki replied. "I mean to face you in battle, at some point during this exam, and I can't do that if you're disqualified."
"Thank you, Gaara-kun," Hinata replied sincerely. Despite his efforts to supress the reaction, Gaara's eyes widened at her tone. Hinata returned to where the other five Genin were standing. "So, is everyone ready?"
Naruto produced Team Eight's pair of scrolls, and crouched to set them on the floor. "I'm all set." Kiba nodded at the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki's words. Gaara silently revealed his own set of scrolls, and laid them on the floor as Naruto had done. "All right, let's do this," the last Uzumaki excitedly declared, and peeled open the seals on the Heaven and Earth Scrolls.
"If we are disqualified here," Gaara growled to Naruto, "I'll still fight you outside of the exam."
Naruto simply grinned as he pulled open the two scrolls, revealing the fuinjutsu on both. His smile faltered briefly when he saw just how basic his own seals were, by comparison. In the split second before the seals triggered, he resolved himself to actually finish that project with the first chance he got.
The scrolls he was crouched over exploded into a fine, white powdery smoke. A surprised Iruka Umino was revealed when the smoke faded, and he looked down at the Genin who had summoned him. "N-Naruto?"
"Iruka-sensei!" the black-clad shinobi greeted with a broad smile, and hugged his former teacher.
He turned to glance over at the other Chuunin, and added, "Mizuki-sensei!"
Mizuki made eye contact with Naruto, and the younger ninja was suprised by the subtle hint of distaste and hate in his elder's eyes. It was masked, of course, by a friendly smile, but this only made it more disturbing. "Yo, Naruto-kun," Mizuki greeted, and although his efforts to hide it were entensive, Naruto could sense the same disgust in Mizuki's voice. "I haven't seen you since you graduated, but I heard you've been training under the Sannin Jiraiya."
Naruto looked away, and just barely managed to keep himself from shuddering. Mizuki-sensei? What happened to you? He forced a smile, and asked, "So Iruka-sensei, this means we passed the second test, right?"
"That's right, Naruto." Iruka beamed, then glanced past the group of Genin. "Is that Anko-chan?" he asked, wide-eyed, and passed through the group in a hurry. "Anko?"
"She fought Orochimaru," Naruto explained, repeating the story Gaara had relayed to him. "He activated her Cursed Seal, but he didn't actually attack her." In the back of his mind, though, Naruto was wondering incredulously, Did Iruka-sensei just say... Anko-chan?
"Her Cursed Seal," Iruka repeated. "Damn it..." he crouched over the unconscious higher-ranked ninja, and gently laid a hand on her neck, just above the seal. "The Curse Sealing Method is working again," he noted, and brushed his fingers down, directly over the seal. "You said Orochimaru didn't attack her, but these bruises..."
"She fell unconscious when the juinjutsu triggered," Gaara explained. "We were all standing in one of the tallest trees, and she fell into the canopy of a smaller one."
"I see," Iruka replied absently, and frowned. "Anko-chan..."
"Iruka," Mizuki spoke up, "I'll take her to the medics, don't worry." he glanced toward Gaara. "You three go with Iruka. I was supposed to accompany you out of the forest, but Iruka can take all six of you, and that'll leave me to carry Mitarashi-san directly to a healer."
Iruka sighed, and nodded without turning to face Mizuki. "All right. Take care of her," he replied, then turned back to the six Genin. "The rest of you come with me. You've passed the second test, and the third one doesn't start for another four days." he smiled, and despite his obvious unease, it wasn't a false smile. "You six are lucky. You get a nice long break before the next test."
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