A/N: It should be fairly clear by now that Naruto is a bit unhappy with his village. Right now he's a bit too distracted to deal with the situation properly, the second stage being his immediate priority, but surely the Prankster King of a previous life has a plan, right?
No spoilers on the Naru-Ino shipping. You'll just have to see how it plays out. I'll answer questions from the previous chapter in my next update. Promise.
Until then, Chunin Exams Second Stage, shall we? Let's.
~Siva'a-tasi
~III~
Chapter 37: Enter the Chunin Exams – Part II
~ Previously on No More ~
Anko entered the former command tower at the center of her favorite training ground just before midnight. By the gods, she hated paperwork! How anyone could stand being the Hokage for that reason alone was beyond her, powerful dictator status be damned, but she'd managed to file the necessary forms and prepped the waivers for tomorrow's kick off with the Genin roaches.
Only five days to go and she'd be off the hook and able to enjoy some downtime before the finals. At least those promised to be exciting this time around.
'A few quick seals, a little chakra,' she hummed to herself while slapping a palm over two particular engravings near the entrance, a door popping open with a soft 'click.' Slipping in quickly, she waited for the obligatory three-count while it closed after a short delay.
Couldn't allow any unwanted shadows to slip in after her, now could she?
Bypassing the lower floors, she darted up the curving stairwell to the seventh floor cursing softly for every level past the fifth; with so many competitors this year, they needed to plan for extra teams in the worst-case scenario. Her job this year was to reduce the seventy-two remaining teams down to fifteen or less and that was going to take some seriously underhanded shinobi shit to accomplish. Good thing that she was a seriously underhanded kunoichi; never send a man to do a job that could be done better by a woman.
Stopping at the eighth floor (after getting clearance by the four ANBU members guarding the entrance to the Command Suite), her grin turned feral as she entered the late-night briefing for a shadow clone of her Kage, her boss (Ibiki), her Jounin Commander, and a handful of specially invited people coordinating the pending war effort.
Oh, she couldn't wait to see the looks on their snotty faces when she unleashed this one on them!
~III~
~ Early Morning in an Abandoned Slums District Training Ground ~
A bit of normalcy can be therapeutic when uncertainty has crept into our lives. Humans tend to be creatures of habit by nature. Wake up, go to work, spend time with the family – if applicable, and maybe scrounge a bit of time for ourselves somewhere near the end of the day. Shinobi are no different even if their in-between-milestone habits tend to be a bit more extreme than you or me.
These are the comfortable routines that make life's little foibles bearable. As we age and mature, extra bits of routine creep in when we build families or add friends and regular associates enriching that routine by just that little bit more. In the end, though, it's still a minor fluctuation in a larger pattern that breeds comfort, that necessary predictability stating, "All is well in my world and I can face those irritating little challenges that life is going to throw at me today!"
That was precisely what a certain blue-eyed Genin was hoping to carve out for himself at six in the morning the day of the second stage of the Chunin Exams while being surrounded by hundreds of copies of himself. Showered, fed, armed and decked in his standard gear, the anxious Genin was standing in the center of the field attempting to take his Shadow Clone mastery to that "next level."
Something he learned during his first life was that the Shadow Clone kinjutsu he'd mastered waiting for Mizuki wasn't the true technique penned by past Hokages of the Leaf. Looking back without shame at the way he was, he could honestly admit to the "him of today" that Lady Luck played a greater part in his startlingly successful shinobi career than should have ever of been possible. Why?
He never learned it because he didn't learn to read, not properly anyway until Jiraiya discovered his greatest weakness and secretly taught him how on that three-year training trip.
And oh, how letting another human being, even one as supportive as the man that became his greatest friend, teacher, and ally during his first blundering through the elemental nations, wounded him. Pride is a horrible vice for anyone but throw in Uzumaki genetics and you have a mentally crippling handicap evoking all measure of idiocy in situations that could have been mitigated or all-together avoided had he been able to swallow that horrible mountain and ask for help.
It's amazing what indescribable levels of self-induced pain can do for a soul destined to either repeat or repair the mistakes of their life. Pain makes for an effective teacher.
So, into that pressure cooker of a graduation scenario fumbled the functionally illiterate Naruto Uzumaki. Unable to actually read and comprehend the instructions on the Scroll of Seals, he missed any of the helpful information – including a full explanation of all the hand seals and chakra theory involved in its use – that would have greatly reduced the mental blockades keeping him behind his contemporaries. Like he'd done with his schoolwork, like he'd done with the basic three jutsus required to graduate, he sourced out the few kanji he'd picked up listening to others and following along in school then blindly filled in the rest.
Not a great person with the book stuff, he used the sketchy hand seal lesson he'd half-ass remembered and brute-forced his chakra into doing what he thought it should have done when using the jutsu. Those pesky bits of Kyūbi's youki floating around in his chakra helped cover up his mistakes and filled in the blanks he wasn't even aware he possessed in his shoddy execution. In the end, he was provided with a functional clone and a way to mass-produce them by the thousands unbeknownst to people that would later stand and gawk at his facility with the technique.
Now that his ability to learn was no longer impaired, Naruto went back to the drawing board during his second life and learned the actual techniques he'd fudged the first time around only to learn some humbling facts about his facility with jutsu. Before where he could (and still could with his bastardized version of the Shadow Clone) spam thousands of them, that number, unfortunately, dropped by a factor of one-third when he used the correct version of the technique.
Disappointing? Certainly, but not the end of the world. Still being able to produce over a thousand Chunin-level clones (when he was a Kage) without youki was still a respectable accomplishment. Throw in the fact that his clones maintained enough chakra and skill to use either version of the technique and he still remained a one-man Shinobi army. So, all was not completely lost and that brings us to what he was doing in his old abandoned training ground before the village was up and about.
He was training his clones in how to delegate.
Using the traditional jutsu, he produced five honest to goodness clones, each with a specific purpose. All of them immediately used his adaptation of the technique and produced five hundred clones apiece. They'd only live somewhere between six to eight hours but that was more than enough for what he needed and what he needed was for each lead clone to absorb and process the memories of their junior clones so that he could in turn assimilate the lead clones one at a time. He wanted to see if delegation would help ease the more strenuous mental strain of the original jutsu, something that knocked him flat the first time he used the true technique.
The first batch would revisit the beginner and intermediate Floating Leaf Taijutsu style he would use during the exam. The second would practice his Tetsuken style with and without his punch knives. The third batch was to break up into five groups of one hundred and run through the five elemental varieties of jutsus he'd mastered for the exams. The fourth batch would run their nature chakra dry practicing with Hestia's Falna blessing. The fifth batch had the most important job of all; two-hundred and fifty were going to work on manifesting a solid chakra chain with their left hand while the other half would focus on the right.
In the end, he would see how the session affected his group leaders and, if it worked, he'd use the method moving forward so he wouldn't get blindsided during his physical training with clones dispelling at odd moments.
It was an attempt at normalcy in a time when his life was anything but normal, his eyes periodically wandering back to the entrance of the unkempt training zone looking for a certain blond ponytail and the pretty ice-blue eyes that came with it. Knowing that she wouldn't be making an appearance, his eyes narrowed in frustration as his attention returned to the army of clones being run through their paces.
Despite his best effort, normalcy eluded him, and, in the end, he decided that he was looking forward to taking out his newfound frustration on a certain team of Genin in the Forest of Death.
That would make him feel all better. He hoped.
~III~
~ The Next (Same) Morning at Training Ground 44 ~
Early mornings were no stranger to Naruto Uzumaki especially since this one started out four hours before the test was supposed to start. Camped out high in the boughs of a sturdy tree near their designated meeting spot, he had plenty of time to observe not only the ANBU stationed around every entrance to the next exam site but the teams planning to arrive early so they could do the same thing.
The Kusa teams seemed over-eager, their enthusiasm exceeded only by the Iwa teams that beat them by almost forty-five minutes. Without the cloying anger of the entire exam group masking their presence, Kyūbi had a much easier time picking up their hostile feelings, even if they couldn't see him in his perch.
He was going to have to be very careful this week.
With ten minutes to go, teams began to show up in droves. Of particular interest was a group of Kiri Genin consisting of two swordsmen and a kunoichi with overlong sleeves. He wasn't interested in both males and their mouths filled with teeth filed to points. To be precise, he wasn't interested in the bespectacled boy with the overlarge weapon wrapped in bandages. No, what caught his attention was the pale boy carrying Zabuza's cleaver blade strapped to his back and the promise he'd made to Haku because of it.
If the male carrying it was who he remembered, it would mean taking a life in order to retrieve it. More sighing and brief international incident implications aside, his thoughts were forcefully taken off-course by the smell of dango, sake, and snake leather. As the second proctor made herself known, skimpy mesh bodysuit and all, he found his teammates in the group nervously looking around and decided to make himself known. He'd deal with the Kijin no Sairai when the time was right.
"I thought you were going to back out on us," Ino groused snapping him out of his darker thoughts.
"And I thought you'd be groping your superhero by now," he returned equally snarky right before folding his arms across his chest and turning his back to her. He was saved from further argument by Anko kicking off the day's events.
"Listen up kiddies, 'cause I ain't repeatin' none of this once it's said." She waited patiently while the murmuring died down, which wasn't a simple thing since most of it came from hormonal males hoping her trench would fly open with a sturdy breeze. 'Ah, the wonders of chakra anchors.'
"To start off with, I'm Anko Mitarashi your second proctor." She ignored the childish tittering. "Before we go any further," one hand waved on two Chunin bearing stacks of forms, "you need to sign these." She smiled as the snickering petered out to leave behind confused faces.
"Hey! We already filled out applications to take the exams!"
Anko's chuckle wasn't a warm thing. "Good, otherwise I'd think you're in the wrong spot, sporT!" Her tone and enunciation of the last syllable left the boy blushing in embarrassment. "Besides, these aren't applications."
Another voice near the front where the Chunin started their deliveries piped up with, "Death waivers?!"
"You got it, munchkin." The near-naked Tokujo shot the excited informer the dreaded two-handed pistol finger salute. "There's a real possibility you'll die during this phase and I'm not going to be responsible for your ineptitude. Suck less and you'll live longer." While Anko's folded arms across her well-cushioned chest would normally catch lots of wandering eyes, she had nothing to worry about as every pair (except Naruto's) was trying to burn a hole through the sheets in their hot little hands.
"Well… I'm not signing nothing!" one adventurous Genin from Frost Country blurted out.
"Good!" Anko paused while they all looked up at her in confusion. "If you're not going to sign, then drop your paperwork off at that tent right over there," she paused to turn and indicate a small tent with a table, chairs and several boxes on the far side of it, "and get your tails back to your hotel. I'm not wasting my breath explaining anything until this very important step is completed. If you're not signing, you're not taking this part – or any other part – of the exams."
She waited for a "Five Count."
"You have ten minutes to decide. Those of you that aren't lining up prettily with your signed forms at that tent had better be walking otherwise our ANBU," she nodded to the silent figures lining the gates of the fenced-off forest, "will help motivate your morning constitutional."
Many were standing there with frustrated looks on their faces as they deliberated. Some simply slammed their empty form on the table provided, including the frustrated Genin from Frost, and stormed off in the general direction of Konoha proper, their unhappy-looking teammates trailing in their wake.
Anko smiled again making the remaining Genin shiver. "Good, that's five less teams to babysit and we haven't even got to the fun stuff yet." She glanced around once last time to see if anyone else appeared ready to bolt before pushing on to the true terror. Those remaining were too busy scribbling and she took that to mean it was game on from there on out.
With that, Anko sauntered off to speak with the folks setting up the curtain around the proctor tent, her eyes shooting a lingering glance to the spiky-haired blond on Team Asuma.
~III~
~ Hokage Command Center, Training Ground 44 ~
Near the center of Training Ground Forty-Four, exam dignitaries were wrapping up their tour of the facility and making their way to the executive viewing lounge set aside for their comfort. It was a cozy if pleasant affair involving sunken couches, plenty of serving attendants, and large panel screens depicting different areas of the forest. It was in very stark contrast to the harsh jungle environment in which their Genin were going to be competing, and possibly dying, for the next five days, the sights being transmitted through the four curved displays covering large swaths of wall space indicating there were threats beyond the camera ranges besides the bloodthirsty Genin or two.
"Hiruzen-kun," Sarutobi looked up at his daimyo with a smile despite being twenty-plus years his senior, "you've mentioned before why the animals in this particular training ground are more dangerous than the normal sort but I seem to have misplaced that lesson."
Hiruzen smiled knowing where this was going, his eyes raking over the half dozen daimyos from smaller countries staring wide-eyed at one of the screens depicting a large jungle cat the size of a small horse. Bowing before he made his way over to the group, of which he now had their full attention, he couldn't help a gentle smile for the daimyos of the other larger countries trying not to be caught eavesdropping over the shoulder the Golden Flame of Hi no Kuni.
"Would you mind sharing that lesson with us now to help set the scene, so to speak?"
"It would be my honor, Omo-sama." Hiruzen assumed a pensive stance as he gathered his thoughts, his small plate of finger foods finding its way into the hands of a passing attendant while he flew through a half-dozen hand seals.
[Ninpou: Genjutsu Tsūshin!]
The room dimmed slightly as everyone froze mid-conversation, the light fading everywhere except around Hiruzen. "Forgive me this minor bit of theatrics and stageplay. This makes the telling of the story more entertaining if you will."
The floor fell away to the startled gasps of the room's participants, except for the Fire Daimyo who had seen this particular trick before and found it to be one of his favorites. He considered the Hokage a masterful storyteller.
Suddenly the room brightened, and the ground rushed up to meet them all with a shuddering thump, several staggering despite having moved not an inch. The entire group found themselves on a lush plain of knee-high grass, the sky fading towards evening as a cool breeze blew easterly across hair and robes alike. One of the observers turned to inquire as to where they were before an earth-trembling roar split the night sky whipping all of their heads around to the most fear-inducing sight; Madara Uchiha was astride the head of the great Kyūbi no Youko waging war against the Shodaime Hokage.
The flashes of jutsu produced explosions and waves of heat that seemed so real. The stray lightning bolts, some slashing through the chests of some of the observers before striking a nearby tree were painfully bright. Worst of all, the anger and power of the great demon made some of the stunned audience quake in their place before Hiruzen's mellow voice pulled them back to semi-reality.
It was an illusion of epic proportions.
"Our story begins with the first great rendering of the land, the epic battle that forged the Valley of the End located in northern Hi no Kuni. Here we find two of Konoha's mightiest shinobi waged in epic battle…" Like the master storyteller he was, Hiruzen had the attention of everyone in the lounge ten seconds into his academic rendition on how demonic youki eventually led to the development of chakra mutations and Training Ground Forty-Four.
~III~
Back with the Exam Contestants…
"Time's up, roaches!" Anko looked gleeful at the disgruntled faces glaring back at her, which only made them glare more. "Part two of your exam is a timed survival exercise."
The collective groaning began.
"SHADDUP MAGGOTS!" Silence reigned as a truly horrific wave of KI washed over the collective. "Once you pass through these gates, most of you will have five days to gather two scrolls and hightail it to the Command Tower in the center of this training area."
Several faces blinked in mild surprise. That didn't sound too difficult.
"Most of you will start off with at least one of the two scrolls you need already in your hot little hands." She could see them beginning to relax, their thoughts scrolling across their faces like an open billboard.
"This is where it gets interesting people." Several hopeful faces started to fall flat in anticipation as this crazy woman had a skewed idea of what was considered interesting. "One-third of you will start off with both scrolls but you can't head to the tower before seventy-two hours have expired. This is for the remaining contestants to get a shot at a complete set of scrolls. Those who get a full set are completely random, plus they'll be paired up with another Genin team chosen randomly from the pile and both teams must make it to the tower intact."
Naruto could hear lots of voices around him complaining about how that would suck. The teams starting out with both scrolls would have targets painted on their backs with little to no chance for rest during the first three days. That is until Kiba's big mouth opened up…
"Hnh, that doesn't sound so terrible if you're competent. Bring it on!"
His smile vanished once a kunai whizzed past his head thunking into a tree directly behind him. He reached up to touch his burning face and discovered that his fingers came away bloody.
"Phew! Yeah, I'll pass on seeing what your blood tastes like, Poochie." Anko, who had disappeared from her central briefing spot, slowly walked from behind him back to her position. "I recommend a flea bath once this part of the exam is over, mutt."
Kiba growled at her back, his eyes snapping up from her shapely backside after her observations on his personal hygiene, mentally adding her name to his list.
"Where was I?" She mentally marked her spot and mumbled quickly through a brief review. "Oh yeah, one-third of you will get both scrolls but can't go straight to the…" Her voice got stronger again. "Another third of you will only get one scroll and, of that third, they will be evenly split between a Heaven," one of her Chunin helpers held up the light blue item, "and an Earth Scroll." The second helper waved the brown one. "No matter how you slice it, you need both to get into the tower."
"For the remaining third of you, you ain't getting' SQUAT!" Blank faces with plate-sized eyes stared back in shock.
"That's right kiddies! You start off with zilch-ola and need to find both scrolls if you want a chance to continue on to the final exam. For the second and third groups trying to get a matched set of scrolls, you don't have a minimum time limit to stay in the forest but you will be out of it in five days one way or another and that brings me to the important rules you need to know."
"One," one finger shot up on her right hand, "all of you will spend five days in this forest unless your friends take your group out somehow. For those of you forced to scavenge for a pair of scrolls, you can head straight to the tower once you have 'em. For those of you starting with a matched set and managing to hang on to them for the first three days, you can head to the tower at hour seventy-two plus one second, which means the rest of you really can't afford to play around."
Naruto shot a quick glance over to Choji and noted the panic on the boy's face.
"Two," she held up another finger, "I shouldn't have to tell you NOT to open the scrolls before you get to the tower. If I have to explain to you about being trustworthy, then you shouldn't even be here. For those of you that feel you're above the Shinobi Rules of Conduct, you're going to learn the hard way that you ain't." She leveled a harsh glare across the group of nervous-looking hopefuls.
"Three," another finger shot up, "killing is allowed here. That's why you needed to sign those waivers and why we have the Chunin Exam Rules and Exceptions to Military Conduct in place. Once you have three signed waivers, take your team up to the proctor table and receive your scroll and assignment. Your entire team must reach the tower alive at some point in the next five days. Note I make no conditions on your physical readiness when you get there so long as all members of your team are alive."
She dropped her hand placing both on her hips. "None of you will know which teams have which scroll, or scrolls if any. You won't know if you're paired up with another team until they show up at a pre-designated join up you'll be provided with when you get your scroll and no, you cannot kill the team members you are paired up with; if you are paired with another team, regardless of which village they are from, and you show up at the tower without them, you will be disqualified from the exams. End of story!" Her eyes became amber gems.
"Today's enemy could be tomorrow's alliance and you won't always get to choose how that comes about so suck it up and be the professionals your villages expect you to be!"
"If we have to stay in there for five days, what are we supposed to do about food?" Choji's voice sounded borderline hysteric.
"You're shinobi. Figure it out!" Anko responded bluntly forcing the big-boned fella's face to plummet with despair.
"I expect everyone here to have their assignments and be lined up at a gate in the next thirty minutes. Get the lead out!" And with that declaration, Anko Mitarashi stormed off to watch the Genin scramble, plot, and scheme.
In the back of the Genin gaggle, a certain snake summoner's eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out why Konoha was changing up the rules of this stage and what it would mean to his plans if he couldn't have sadistic fun with some of the… younger contestants. This was definitely not covered in Kabuto's brief last night…
~III~
After five days of traveling to Konoha with this fool undersecretary from the Lightning Daimyo's international affairs office, followed by another four days dodging his never-ending grope attempts once inside Konoha's walls, Samui was finally getting some peace and quiet hanging out with the Nadeshiko and Yuki rulers. It was discovered purely by accident as she'd been hiding in the far corner of the observation room during the first phase of the exam when the two foreign leaders stood nearby ogling and giggling about one of the Genin taking the test below. By the time she'd worked up enough courage to introduce herself to the powerful female figures (which made her feel proud of her gender), her weaselly travel partner located her hiding in the corner and glided across the observation deck to resume ogling her slightly too tight kimono.
It's not her fault the thing fit two years ago, which was the last time she had a need to wear it. It's not like she enjoyed showing off her bountiful cleavage for perverts everywhere. Clothes just didn't fit properly for women built like her.
At any rate, he found her.
Then he found the equally buxom Nadeshiko Daimyo and got distracted. Unfortunately for the overambitious Undersecretary, he mistook her for a handmaiden to the infinitely more famous Spring Daimyo, grabbed her very shapely rear, then promptly got himself stomped into the floor by the very affronted, and highly-skilled, A-ranked kunoichi. Samui couldn't help the smile on her face for that entire day, and every day after, as she became the best of friends with the two women that would, she hoped, be her drinking buddies for the rest of the exams.
That hopeful feeling lasted until they shared the little giggling secret that brought them together: Genin Naruto Uzumaki.
At first, she couldn't place him despite that niggling sensation at the back of her mind that he should be familiar to her. His hair color was unique even in her hidden village where everyone had either sandy blond or lighter shades of coloring. He didn't speak much, at least not that she could tell right away but that changed once they all flopped down into the comfy chairs (thankfully no one had assigned seating so she snuggled in between her new friends) and she could plug into the cameras, complete with super sensitive sound sensors, to pick up the subtle conversations below.
It was his voice in the test auditorium that jogged her memory and dropped her stomach almost to the floor as she tried to figure out how to warn her Raikage about the crapstorm he was about to walk into for the final phase of the exam.
Now that they were in the tower for the second phase, she was dreading more and more the horrific mission her team took to wipe out the last civilian members of Kumo's Clan Namikaze.
~III~
Shuffling through the line like cattle wasn't too bad provided he ignored the mob of stares directed at his back and kept Shika between him and Ino. It left him free to mull over the changes to the exam, changes that he couldn't necessarily take the blame for even after all of the alterations brought on by his jumpers.
Ahead of him, he could see the brilliant red hair of his purported cousin, a slender creature dressed in standard Kusa attire. They'd be together soon enough, he knew, but the waiting was making him edgy. She needed to hold out until he could get to her and extricate her from the exam. 'What the hell?' He blinked, then waited another few minutes as the line shuffled forward another few paces, just to be sure.
'Yup, that bastard from the other night keeps looking back at me. I'm looking forward to wringing his slimy neck today.' Sure enough, the one identified in her file as "Shigeri" kept turning around to shoot snide looks his way. Maybe the idiot would seek them out? One could hope so.
The line shuffled forward another few paces.
"Naruto," Shika whispered next to him.
"Yeah Nara?"
Shikamaru winced at the cold response. "Can we count on you in there?"
The blond snorted. "You picked a helluva time to find out, didn't cha?" He could feel the Nara's glare turn to bore into his profile but didn't turn to meet it.
"I'm serious, Uzumaki."
They shuffled forward another few paces and, when they stopped, he turned to meet his stare. "I guess you're about to find out, aren't you?"
It took a second for his teammates to catch up to him once the line moved again stunned as they were. Before they realized it, the curtain was slamming shut behind them and the two Chunin helpers behind the desk, who were laughing and joking ten seconds before, got suddenly very serious. One-handed a Heaven scroll to the Nara team lead. The other handed a plain scroll to Naruto with a nod, while Anko rolled out the map she'd been using to point out things to the teams stepping behind the curtain.
Naruto shoved the scroll into his spare thigh holster slot and turned his attention to the map.
"Listen up you three. You're one of the lucky ones." Her finger jabbed a location marked "F" on the map, a spot roughly three kilometers inside the southeastern gate (Gate Eighteen). "Your rendezvous is the koi pond. Your half of the password is on this sheet. Memorize it and scorch it after. Any questions?"
Shikamaru scoffed and bit off a really bitter, "Troublesome," for their part but didn't complain otherwise.
Anko got unusually serious before turning to Naruto. "Be careful in there. We've done all we can to keep things under control. The rest is up to you."
Ino, Anko, and Naruto ignored the narrowed eyebrows on Team Asuma's official leader before all associated paperwork vanished and the curtain opened. With nothing left to do, they hustled out of the tent and waited for final instructions.
~III~
"Are you finished, Zaku?"
The spiky-haired youth sporting the happuri head gear broke his mental battle of wills with an annoyed "tsk" (he was willing the duck-haired Konoha puke to spontaneously combust with his mind) and turned to face his female teammate on Team Dosu. If the nasty curl to his lip was any indication, he was not at all pleased with her interrupting his psychic efforts to slay their target in order to inquire about the status of his waiver.
Still sneering in her face, he leaned forward to pass his form off to their team leader bypassing her outstretched hand, an action producing a snicker from their heavily wrapped team lead.
Kin's face scrunched up into a "You're Such a Prick" reply and took the forms from Dosu before looking them over herself. They were both dicks but neither was going to make sure everything was in order so that left her. If she had her way, they'd both die horribly on this mission and she'd never have to listen to them berate and insult her again, her mind absently considering if she could trade information to Konoha in exchange for sanctuary.
Hell, she'd bang that blond one if that's what it took – he just oozed "bad boy" charisma.
That thought, however, passed with a shudder as she imagined the gory death she'd suffer at the hands of Lord Orochimaru once he caught up to her. It would seem that she was stuck between an operating table and a cold grave with no visible way of escape. Gritting her teeth with resolve, the three of them found themselves in the dark but cozy proctor's table looking anxiously for a scroll that never appeared.
"Damnit all," Zaku grumbled under his breath.
"Do not worry, Abumi," their fearless leader crowed. "We'll make our own luck today."
Zaku grinned like a psychopath and Kin rolled her eyes hoping it would all end soon. They had an Uchiha to kill after all.
~III~
"Alright kiddies, gather 'round." More shuffling ensued. "There are sections of this training ground reserved only for Jounin and ANBU training, therefore, you'll only be using the bottom half of the training area. There will be ANBU stationed throughout the forest to redirect you, at sword point if necessary, to keep you in the recognized field of play so that something nastier than you can handle doesn't make a snack out of you.
"Since there are more teams than gates, we'll be releasing you into the forest in waves, each wave spread out by fifteen minutes. Don't dawdle or your nearest competitor may run your sorry butts over."
She didn't seem all that concerned for their well-being and those listening close enough picked up on that fact rather quickly.
"Gimme one row of teams starting right here with Genin assigned to Gate Twelve and running fifteen-deep. The rest of you file in behind them and wait your turn." The Chunin began herding Genin teams until four rows of fifteen teams were lined up in the grass.
"Okay, you've been lined up by your gate assignments. First group, go stand by your gate and wait for the signal to start."
The anticipation was growing and, for those waiting their chance to enter, it only got worse once the horn blared and the gates flew open. Team Asuma was in the second wave and Naruto had seen his cousin entering with the first wave somewhere to his left in the rows. In that same first group, he saw Team Seven headed for Gate Twenty-Five if he'd counted correctly. Once his team assumed their spot, his eyes flickered over once to catch the honeyed orbs of Mitarashi and they locked for several minutes.
The spell was broken once she yelled for the next wave to head out and, before he knew it, the horn was once again sending another group of young people to their deaths. Team Asuma immediately took to the trees once they cleared the gate and vanished into the heavy foliage without a trace.
Five minutes in, Shikamaru called a halt to their high-speed dash through the trees. Clustering near the trunk, he pulled out the slip with their half of a password, memorized it, then pushed chakra into it setting it aflame once his energy reacted with the self-destruct seal at the bottom of the paper per standard procedure.
"I need you on point, Naruto. Our meet up should be in…" he glanced around to get his bearings, "that direction for another three kilometers."
Naruto nodded but, before he sped off, molded an obscene amount of chakra bringing six copies of himself into being. Before Shika could ask what was going on, the six blonds dashed off, three to the west and three to the east. Naruto then jumped off into the direction Shikamaru indicated without a word.
"What the-," the angry Nara began only to be cut off by Ino's heavy sigh.
"Let it go, Shika. He's actually doing what we're supposed to be taking care of so, so long as he doesn't bolt on us, everything is going according to plan."
Deep in his gut, Shikamaru didn't think it would be so cut and dry.
Several minutes of focused tree hopping later found Team Asuma dropping to the forest floor just shy of a small lake. With the tree line several dozen meters behind them, they had a commanding view of the-.
Shikamaru, Ino, and Naruto scattered as a wave of sand smashed into the lakeshore. Regrouping nearer to the treeline, Naruto set down with himself crouched between the threat and his squad right as an ominous voice growled out, "Are you here to validate my existence?"
~III~
Shigeri muttered out another half-hearted curse as he swatted at yet another damnable mosquito. "By the gods, I'd kill just for twenty CC's of bug spray."
Hari snickered but didn't comment.
"Shut it you!"
Karin tried to drown them out but the inevitable happened after yet another flustered slap of sweaty palm to flesh.
"Karin! I'm dying here. Gimme a quick hit!"
The red-eyed kunoichi sucked in a deep breath of air and counted quickly backwards from five before answering. "That's not what it's for, Shigeri! I'm not your damn hundred Ryo med dispenser!"
(A/N: I use both Ryo and Ryu as currency in my story. A Ryo is the modern-day equivalent to the Yen. A Ryu is the dominant currency standard roughly equal to the Euro.)
She kept stomping off into the forest trying to ignore his aggravating bluster, her eyes focused on the warm glow of chakra speeding her way in a handy three-ply travel pack. 'He's using clones again, mmmmmm, and they're brimming with warm chakra.'
Her pleasant daydream was interrupted by a rough hand grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around harshly.
"I'm sure Zōsui would love to hear about how you weren't pulling your weight in here." His sneer was full of self-satisfaction and condescension, but she refused to yield.
"When you get a real injury," she slapped him in the chest with a less-than-girly effort to keep up appearances, "then and only then will I let you paw me for your next fix, junkie! Put on your big-boy pants and suck it up. It's just a bug bite!"
Shigeri's face was gradually turning a shade of red to match her hair as she spoke.
"Listen here, whore! You'll-." His remaining comment was cut off by the sound of screams in the distance. It was fairly impressive, Karin thought, how the two of them leaped between the threat and their valuable medic. Any other time and she carried less worth than a pack mule in their eyes.
Suddenly, her [Mind's Eye of the Kagura] latched on to something that made her smile and she altered her direction just a bit to the north without another word.
"Oi! Where do you think you're going? Don't you hear that?!" Shigeri bellowed.
'Of course, I hear that.' Instead, she smiled over her shoulder and kept walking calmly along as if she'd completely missed the horrible death being inflicted upon someone in the not-too-distant treeline. "You want to get out of here sooner rather than later, right?"
Shigeri's body twitched once again, briefly, as another scream got cut off with a wet gurgle, but his eyes never left her slender back as she sauntered off. With a huff, he turned to his smaller teammate and nodded in her fading direction.
"C'mon, let's go before something makes her scream like that poor soul."
The two of them dashed through the heavy underbrush trying to catch up to the bright red beacon that made up their kunoichi's hair, a flash of red always just ahead of their hurrying footsteps.
"Oi! Wait up!"
No answer so they picked up the pace just as another flash of red vanished behind another unnaturally thick tree.
"Oi! I said-." Both of them stuttered to a halt as they came into a small clearing with a den-like cave near the far end. Shigeri's mouth suddenly felt very dry, however, as the two honey bear cubs, both the size of a large man, perked up and met their very surprised faces. Shigeri's eyes flickered around the disturbingly unobstructed clearing and snarled softly to himself something about duplicitous bitches that should have been put down like their harlot mothers.
That comment earned him a sharp pain in the back, one that exploded through his stomach producing first a shocked reaction followed by a blood-curdling scream. Hari, the poor soul, tore his eyes away from the now bawling cubs as they fled into the cave that most likely served as their home during the winter and focused on his bleeding (and still screaming) teammate.
Right as he recognized the source of the bigger boy's pain, a glowing kunai of gold tied to a chain made of similar material (was that chakra?), another one pierced through his leg pinning him to the ground. Soon his cries joined Shigeri's as the two bled out on the forest floor. They didn't need to worry about bleeding to death, however, as an earth rumbling roar drew their attention (briefly) from their own pain and back towards the cave entrance where another honey bear, a much bigger honey bear, was rearing to its hind legs and blotting out the tree-filtered sunlight.
This time they put a bit more heart into their terrified screaming right up until the bear ripped out their throats for threatening her cubs.
With a satisfied grunt and near orgasmic look on her face, Karin Uzumaki allowed her chains to vanish once Hari's screams died off and prepared to leap off through the lower branches in the direction that she could feel her cousin's clones. She had a family to reunite with after all.
Removing her Kusa Hitai-ate, she sliced open her palm before wrapping her hand with the rapidly reddening cloth. Once she was certain there was enough blood in the garment, she tossed it down to the bears feasting on the remains of her former team before leaping away into the forest, the soothing green glow surrounding her injured palm making the last pain she ever felt as a result of Kusa a thing of the past.
~III~
Hisahito was puttering around their makeshift camp setting things to order, humming as he went. Obviously, this was not to the liking of one of his teammates.
"Hey, keep it down, Creeper! You wanna bring the whole forest down on us tonight?"
"Hey, hey, let him alone, Akio," the other chuckled out. "You know those stink bombs of his will keep the animals away from us." The Genin named Akio didn't seem to buy it though.
"And just how do you know they'll work this time, Benji-kun? Huh? You saw the size of those tigers we had to sneak around. What if his stink bags aren't strong enough this time, eh?!"
Benjiro glanced to his worked-up teammate and shook his head in pity. It looked like Hito-kun would need to make his "special tea" again to calm down Akio enough for them all to get a little peace tonight. He tried once more anyway to make peace.
"C'mon, the guy hasn't failed us yet. Just relax and we'll see how the first few hours go before we set our watches." Akio didn't seem like he was completely sold so Benjiro opened his mouth to try to seal the deal.
"Oh, I think Akio is on to something there, 'Benji-kun'." All three boys snapped their eyes up to the treeline at the sound of the extra voice in their campsite, but Hisahito dumped his current project as he sprung off to retrieve his kit set aside over by his bedroll.
Akio wasted no time drawing a kunai and rushing the newcomer, his hope being either to kill the fool or win time for his teammates to do their thing – they were all very familiar with the blond Genin from Konoha but this burly kid with the red swirls on his cheeks posed a mystery. The padded armor he wore plus the heavy mallet on his shoulder less so.
Akio frowned and began picking up the pace hoping to lure out the rest of the anxious bastard's team.
"Watch for elephants!" he cried out much to the obvious confusion to the Genin blocking his latest lunge with the lower half of the hammer's handle. Smug bastard didn't grunt or appear to strain at all. While the target was trying to make heads or tails of his cryptic code phrase, Hisahito began coating several hollow-tipped senbon even as his eyes started strafing the nearest copse of trees.
The code was second nature for Kusa Genin, a reference to the really tall elephant grass that grew on Kusa's open plains, meaning grass tall enough to hide enemies not wanting to be found. Akio was letting them know that he thought the boy's team was out there waiting for a chance to pounce so Benjiro and Hisahito took to shielding each other's backs, literally. As the smaller poisoner moved backwards to bump back-first into his teammate, he instead backed into a kunai tip that shot through the back of his throat and out through his Adam's Apple, the pink-haired figure delivering it rising up silently from the earth to catch the boy unaware.
"HITOOOO!" Benjiro turned just in time to meet the kunai thrust from yet a third bastard wearing the Konoha sigil. "I'll kill you for that!" he gritted out, his rage taking over finally as the kunoichi casually wiped the blood from her weapon on the battle kimono of his unmoving comrade.
"One fight at a time." The comment snapped the enraged Genin's head around to come face-to-smirk with the Uchiha prodigy of the Leaf.
~III~