"Think hard on this one, Midare." Shigure vexed his teammate with a comment. "It's not that I'm worried about the survival of our team, it's just that I don't want to lose to some tomboy girl."
"Tough man, ya know, walks out into a duel and then cries to his teammate about how unfair it is!" Kushina leaned forward with her arms placed behind her and her heavy fists weighing her entire body down with her head forced to serve as the balancing counterweight of her pose.
"We both know very well that was not what I was intending with that comment. It's just that facing off with you on a board game field is less than my desired way of taking you out, then again, it is the only one where there might be any intrigue and entertainment at all so it'll do." Shigure was quit with his wit even if his manner of speaking was a tad slow and on the cool and intimidating side.
"Shigure, switch places with Doma on the right." Midare instructed and his teammate moved with full trust behind Midare's strategy. Shigure moved in a most curious manner, he was slow, sluggish even, yet he appeared to have utter confidence in every half-assed motion he made. Kushina followed Shigure with her eyes without speaking up which, judging by Kotaro's expression of surprise, was new to her.
Minato raised his eyebrow in confusion, it took him a moment of tranquility before he realized that Shigure did not, in fact, walk into elimination range and that he had made the same mistake that Midare made previously by forgetting the mandatory movement phase that must have preceded an elimination. What he did do, however, was trap Minato.
There was now absolutely no way of moving Kushina without placing her in Shigure's range, which, obviously, was not all that, however, with so many other pieces all over the board and so tightly grouped on the right side, it would have been too complicated to try and predict all the possible switches in positions and all the possible elimination patterns that might come into play.
"Well? Aren't you going to chase Shigure?" Midare smiled at Minato, peeking at the opposing team leader over the shoulder of Sakura and Mujin all queued up in front of him.
Over the duration of his brief examination of the battlefield, Minato glanced at Sen, a girl from Team Shira of Sunagakure from another universe who stood behind Shigure. The team leader likely tried sizing her up, try and guess what sort of abilities she possessed. Sen was a fairly tall and slender young lady with a messy ponytail and strings of hair branching out of it in all directions. All that Minato could have possibly taken from this basic examination was that the Sunagakure kunoichi was no taijutsu expert.
"You shouldn't worry about the other pieces." Midare smirked with an almost vermin-like chuckle following it. "Shigure is the only one I will be using until your girlfriend is out of the picture."
"She's… Not…!" Minato raised his voice to object before Meiko's voice, of all possible voices, calmed him down.
"He's riling you up, he's trying to force you to make a mistake." Meiko tried helping her team leader. She may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed but she's been in enough battlefield tangos to know where this one was leading.
"As I was trying to say before you agitated me with your baseless assumptions…" Minato closed his eyes and sunk his nose. "I think that it is exactly what I should be worrying about. That's because you're misleading what this duel means. Whereas I am using it for the purpose I have expressed – to have Kushina settle her differences with Shigure-san, you are using their duel to set up the board more to your liking. Now, after the game's heating up, you've noticed a few mistakes in your positions and you're using your own teammate as a ploy to reposition them. Am I correct?"
"Who knows?" Midare shrugged. "Make your move."
"Very well. Kushina, move one square to your left." Minato instructed.
"That's the exact opposite to where the enemy is, ya know!" Kushina complained.
"It is, it is also where you will be in a position to eliminate two enemies next move, unless, of course, Midare avoids it somehow." Minato nodded.
Midare laughed out, breaking up hard and proper. "What an opponent. Why bother asking if you will have your actions ask the very same question?"
"His actions?" Baiu wondered from a square to the right from Midare's square, looking at the board from Minato's perspective.
"Yes. Can't you see? Minato is trying to guide me into revealing my grand plan to him. If I move Shigure to pursue and take on Kushina, I will express my utmost honesty and devotion to the Shigure versus Kushina duel. If I go out of my way to protect the other pieces, Minato will know that I am merely setting the board up and don't care about the duel whatsoever. Such brashness and intellect… I'd have never guessed looking at such a snobby-looking brat." Midare shook his head, his grin never leaving his face. It just showed how much Minato's move entranced Midare still.
"No way, I ain't movin' there, ya know!" Kushina's eyes whited out before her slithering hair hid the face of the young woman in shade and her eyes began gleaming red from a most bizarre and, frankly, a tad illogical way of light hitting her face. She pressed her knuckles onto her sides. "I want to take on that guy and cave his face in, not waltz around the place."
"Wow…" Kiyomi smacked her face.
"Like mother, like son, I guess…" Meiko mumbled to herself.
"Disobedience misplay!" the cybernetic voice blared out again, lighting up the square underneath Kushina red. Kushina looked down and then back up at Shigure, on the other side of the battlefield, blushing in an embarrassment of what she had done.
"K-Kushina! No!" Minato yelled out with a glazed expression as if his teammate would actually die if the following attack hit. The Red-Hot Habanero may have been more on the outraging side than one to stop and examine her situation, that was what Minato and Kotaro were for, either way, had she taken more time to examine the battlefield, she'd have realized that she was as good as eliminated.
"Shigure, switch with Doma again and eliminate Kushina, you asked and your leader will provide…" Midare ordered but not without wasting a perfect opportunity to gloat.
"Don't give yourself too much credit now, it wasn't your achievement that the kid's so stupid." Shigure flipped the toothpick in his mouth, switching to a drier side of the mouthpiece before switching back with Doma and throwing out the three large rods he had on his back into the air.
The trio of rods shred out and spread their tops, revealing themselves to be umbrellas. The umbrellas positioned themselves exactly above the squares where Shigure's elimination pattern was. Minato tried busting through his square and dash to Kushina, his eyes were changed from their usual coolness, they were so blanked out in stress and shock that his pupils seemed to have completely whited out from where Meiko was watching them, then again, she did see Kushina's eyes shoot out red from them just a moment earlier…
"Senbon Shower!" Shigure smirked while snapping his fingers and having all of the umbrellas skewer the squares beneath them with needles that seemed four times the length of a toothpick and, possibly, twice thicker, all while being made of fine steel meant to be used by ninja in combat.
"My answer to your folly, Minato, is that you get nothing – you have no idea what my plans are and you get to see your precious teammate bite it off my field. If I could eliminate the twerp twice over how much trouble she caused me, I would, trust me." Midare nodded at Shigure with acknowledgment before turning back to the board.
Minato stood there still shocked and lifeless, had it not been for the fact he was on his own two feet, of course. His hands trembled once or twice, maybe it was seeing his treasured teammate supposedly die in battle, as the simulation suggested, maybe it was an easily avoidable loss of an invaluable asset that eliminated so many of his opponent's pieces that distressed him, maybe a little bit of both.
"Kiba-san, switch places with Meiko-san." He muttered, almost just under his nose but due to the deafening silence around the side of the board, the entirety of Team White that felt it for their agitated leader heard his orders.
"You sure about that? The blacksmith sister does have rocket boots so she's likely capable of moving multiple spaces at once." Kiba showed his fangs but in a no way off-setting way.
"I will not be disobeyed again." Minato sulked, spreading a frightening amount of presence and some authoritative intent that seemed not at all alike to the Killing Intent, yet seemed very Intent-like. The young man then lifted his face up and looked at Kushina with a smile.
"Sorry you got eliminated, I'll make this up for you." He said.
"Minato… I'm so so… I mean… You better, ya know!" Kushina was about to apologize to her team leader and her teammate, overflowing with regret but then she mirrored his near-instant recuperation and clenched her fist up in front of her face with a feisty smirk.
Kiba walked one square forward, exchanging his position with Meiko. The squares in the range of three squares ahead and to each side: left, right and back, lit up under Kiba's feet. That was some impressive elimination range but it also placed Kiba as a sort of suicidal figure. He had awesome ability to eliminate other pieces but he had limited mobility potential making him capable of diving deep within enemy lines but not too great of getting himself out of there.
"Shigure, move one square towards me." Midare instructed his new key piece.
"He's aiming for Shino and Hinata, why? Is he not aware that Hinata can protect a figure?" Minato mumbled to himself, scratching his chin. "Oh…" A realization hit him all of a sudden.
"Figured something out, captain?" Senka Sazanami looked at Minato with an inquisitive glare.
"Yeah, how to break Sakura-san's lock, maybe even how to win." Minato nodded with a polite smile. "I must admit, Midare-san is quite clever, had he not figured it out first and betrayed his intentions, I'd have not figured it out at all…"
"Portorigus-san, move one square forward." Minato looked at the neglected close-range piece at the right end of his board. The overly trained and defined for his age young man with a bandaged lump of iron on his back stepped forward and looked onward at the board he was about to enter into.
"Shigure, one step forward," Midare ordered and Shigure obeyed.
"Kotaro, one step to the right." Minato smiled, Midare's eyebrows tilted upward. "That's right, Midare-san, I still noticed that you're looking for a perfect chance to use Sajin to eliminate Kotaro. Ever since eliminating Spyder-Wolf-san he was in a position to do so but you did not do it because pieces that move multiple squares are rare and if you used it to eliminate Kotaro, you'd have left him open for my own elimination. An elimination that would also leave me quite safe in my own side of the board too so it would be a bad trade on your part."
"Sajin is hardly the focus here, you fool!" Midare raised his fist up in irritation. "Shigure, one step forward and eliminate Hinata and Shino!"
"Aye, aye, cap," Shigure smirked, making a smug expression with his one-eyed face as he stepped forward and tossed a pair of umbrellas into the air again. "Senbon Shower!" he roared out, causing the spinning and airborne umbrellas to spray large and quite deadly needles from their embrace.
"Hinata-san, please protect Shino," Minato asked with a grim tone to his voice.
"Oh, so you already know what will happen?" Midare smirked.
The needles showering Shino bounced off but the ones heading for Hinata hit their mark, eliminating her from the board. Minato appeared stricken by this development but it was clear to anyone observing the team leader that he has been aware of this goal of Midare's from the beginning and yet he allowed it to happen, meaning he had a hidden ace of his own tucked somewhere.
"I don't get it, why did Hinata get eliminated?" Kiba raised his eyebrow, showing his fangs as he spoke.
"A piece with protective properties can only protect another piece but not themselves. It can protect multiple allies but not an ally and themselves. There is no way that Sakura from the enemy team could be able to heal herself and prevent her own elimination, there cannot be invulnerable pieces in this game. Everyone's purpose is one they can provide to their team, not in how powerful they are individually." Portorigus of Team Rutile explained with a polite tone from Kiba's right.
"Shino-san, move one square forward and eliminate Baiu-san and Mijin-san," Minato revealed an ace of his own, one that Midare appeared to be objecting to.
"What are you talking about, Shino can't mo…" Midare was about to object before the creepier member of Team Kurenai verily desiring payback for the elimination of his valued teammate who had protected him in this game already when he was down and almost out proved the leader of Team Black wrong. "Ino…"
"That's right, Ino-san is no longer on the board, which means there is no reason for Shino-san to remain stunned. He had been free for a while now and you've failed to notice because you'd have written him off as a useless piece ever since your haphazard elimination attempt." Minato scolded his opponent for his approach to battle strategy.
"Tsk. I can't even punch him in the face either… My elimination pattern is a bit too complex for this." Shigure growled while he stood on Shino right. Any other piece with a simple elimination pattern of one square around them would have done the deed but now Shino was left to his own again.
"Even more, Midare-san, this mistake did not just cost you these two pieces – it cost you the whole game. Right now Shino-san is in position to threaten your survival next turn, meaning you must move out of his way. If you do, however, you will lose Sakura-san too, because of the very same way of breaking protection loops that you've shown me." Minato pointed at Midare's position on the board. The leader of Team Black let himself ponder for a little while about the best following cause of action.
"Come on, Midare-san, you can still save so many teams. Just surrender now and all these teams on your board will stay in the exam. Any failures they will suffer will be because of their own shortcomings, not because they were sacrificed by a capricious leader in a human board game that robs them of any agency." Minato tried reasoning with his opponent.
"As if I'd ever do that," Midare showed his teeth as both an expression of his fury as well as a sign of defiance. He moved to the leftmost corner of his side of the board, leaving Sakura for elimination. "You talked a big talk about being a better person, a bigger leader. Let's see what all that talk is worth now, shall we? If you take Shino down this path, you'll eliminate Sakura and Team Asuma at the same time, then, I will have Mujin eliminate Shino too. You'll be sacrificing a piece for the sake of meaningless bloodlust, for the eradication of a team from the exams in, as you put it, a human board game that robs them of any agency."
Minato began to shrivel up. He looked over the board, wondering for any better way to let this play out. It was true that if he moved Shino and had him break Sakura's lock by eliminating her and removing Team Asuma from the exams, he'd also doom Shino and do exactly what he said he'd never do – use a ninja in his own command as a sacrificial piece for a better board. This was exactly what the game of shogi was meant to be like…
"You're right. Ahead of me lies a difficult choice. One that true leaders in the battlefield need to make. Eliminating a team from the board is akin to the genocide of a clan, removal of something unique and bound together from the equation and to do that I need to send my own man to die." Minato replied, looking down. It did not take a grand psychologist to read into his expression and realize that he hated everything about this idea. Let alone the fact that he'd only have Kiba from Team Kurenai left, a piece that was defined by how amazing it was for sacrificial, all-in plays. Letting Shino get eliminated this way would mean that Kiba was as good as useless without sending him to get eliminated too.
"Kiba, move one square to the left and eliminate Shigure," Minato ordered. Shino was so taken aback by what he was as a necessary move not being made that he looked back at the man he studied since the Ninja Academy days as the Fourth Hokage.
Kiba hopped a square to the left, accompanied by his canine companion and then leaped onto Akamaru's back. The two erupted into a pair of rotating jets that spiraled one around the other and smashed right into Shigure's square. This was not just an elimination move, it also placed Kiba and Akamaru onto the square where they've eliminated the enemy which was a fairly unique feature of this figure.
"Tsk… Midare…" Shigure growled as an intense shine warped him off the board, next to his Team Black comrades.
"Hmph… I guess at the end of the day, you didn't have the balls to make the tough choices, still, we all sort of expected you to be able to do what's necessary, despite your childish talk." Midare smirked and postured high and mighty as if he stood over his opponent and carried a tremendous advantage over him. In fact, after Kushina's rampages and Shino's display, he was quite a few pieces down and cornered, yet still pressed to continue this exercise in futility.
"You say that Minato doesn't have what it takes but actually he has something every leader could use a bit more of – he's true to his word. He said he wouldn't treat us as sacrificial pieces in his plans and he didn't, no matter how convenient it would have been for him short-term!" Kiba gestured with his pointy claws at his team leader. Naruto on the opposite side of the board nodded, looking at the young man he not too long ago found out to be his father with pride he had never really felt before.
Knowing that the man was amazing because everybody said so and because he was the Fourth Hokage was one thing, finding out exactly why he was so amazing and seeing how he would come to achieve all the heights he'd reach in the future was a whole different thing entirely.