A door opens as the four people in front of it stand waiting. Three of the people have long hair in various colors while the other has a bald head covered by a bandana. The woman who answered the door greets the group and leads them to a small pond in the compound they are entering. They thank the woman before coming across an odd sight. William is sitting in a towel and the pond is shifting with a large number of shapes under its dark water. Manson rises from the sunny rock he was laying on to skitter over to yugao and chitter excitedly. Yugao squats and picks up the large scorpion as he regales her with tales of his day.
"Why are you naked?" Sam asks.
"It is a wash day. I have taken my dirty clothes and given them to the washers of my clan. What would I wear if my clothes were being washed?" William replies.
Ibiki ignores Sam as he rants about needing clothes for washing day. The bald man examines William's exposed flesh. Pale skin marred with hundreds of holes that bees crawl out of or into. Beetles swarm out of the holes and chitter for a moment before retreating into their host. William leans forward to point at something and ibiki spots a series of honeycombs in the flesh of his back. William is missing a large portion of flesh from his back and his vertebrae peek through the yellowish material that makes up the honeycombs. Larvae and honey are spotted in the combs, bees crawl across the combs and feed on honey or place/remove larvae. Ibiki drags his gaze down and spots the breeding area for the beatles. There is a mass of flesh missing from william's abdomen and there is a mass of beetles moving in that area. William is able to host two hives due to his high chakra reserves gained from training in the raikage's fighting style.
"What's washing your clothes?" Jake asks. His eyes are blood red from using his bloodline.
"Crabs. The mudcrab is a very delicate eater and thus my clan uses them for clothes. By allowing the mudcrabs access to our dirty clothes the mudcrabs will eat the filth and discard the clean clothes. The queen of the crabs then collects the clean clothes from the pond floor which is made of stone and brings them to me. Each clan family has their own pond for this." William explains.
"Wait. you give your dirty clothes to crabs and they clean them for you? No struggling with the washer? No fighting with the dryer so it doesn't shrink your clothes? No arguing with your landlord over the water bill?" Sam asks incredulously.
William nods and Sam pulls out a scroll that emits a large cloud of smoke to reveal a large pile of clothes. Sam cackles and tosses the clothes in the pond before sitting next to his friend. Ibiki looks at the youth with a raised brow and Sam shrugs.
"I was gonna hit the laundromat after we met with william. My washer crapped out." Sam explains.
Ibiki nods and gestures for Jake to sit with his friend. After the boy has sat, ibiki begins talking.
"Alright. Each of you have passed the preliminaries and are going to fight in the finals. More fights will happen than shown in the prelims due to the hokage deciding more fights will attract more customers. Thus your opponents will be shifted. Sam you're not fighting temari now, you're fighting neji hyuuga, temari is fighting shikamaru now. Jake, you'll be fighting naruto. William, your fight hasn't changed. Now. Sam, you should be fine, neji is a close combat specialist and you can just flood lava at him. Jake you will need to work on damage, naruto takes a beating and just shrugs it off. William, I don't know what to help you with. Your close combat is good and your insects fill the long range needs. Yugao could help you with some scythe practice but otherwise you're on your own. So. now that you three know what's coming up for the finals. What do you think you should do?" ibiki says to his team.
"I've been working on a version of the 128 hands technique for my bloodline. I have the theory down but I need practice. Can we get me a prisoner to use for that?" Jake asks.
"I'll see what I can do. Maybe we can get a medical ninja to join us. Then they can practice healing as you work on your skills. Next." ibiki responds.
"Do you know any ways to boost my heat? I can make the amounts i want but my lava isn't as hot as i want it.'' Sam asks.
"I'll ask Asuma for some fire training. I'm water natured and not a ninjutsu user that much. If your fire nature gets stronger than you should begin producing hotter lava." is the response from his teacher.
"I intend to work on several methods of achieving jutsus without hand signs or molding large amounts of chakra." william states.
Ibiki blinks in surprise and nods at this. If the kid can learn a fighting style from history books and use those same books to learn A class ninjutsu. He could probably find a way to cast jutsu without chakra. There is a loud chittering and the group turns to face the pond.
A four foot tall crab with a mottled gray shell crawls out of the water. It places a pile of clothes on the ground in front of it before retreating back to the water. The wet mass of clothes begin to writhe after a moment. The group watch as the clothes slide across the ground and up a tree before they are draped across a length of cord hanging between two trees.
"Okay what the fuck happened?" Sam asks.
"Ants. A colony of ants live next to the pond. The ants put their waste in the water and this feeds the crabs. The crabs pile their dead at the mouth of the nest and this feeds the ants. The ant queen of the hive has been taught to dry out clothes in exchange for continued protection from predators such as wasps used by a few members of my clan." William explains.
The group watches as spiders emerge from the trees. Large spiders the size of small dogs. The clothes are examined by the spiders and any tears are patched by web spun to fix the holes. The spiders chitter to each other and they quickly start spinning something. Minutes pass and a dress is placed on a large stone next to the trees. The spiders return to the leaves and William walks over to pick up the dress. It is a long white sheet that has no straps and will hang low on the shoulders while revealing a large amount of cleavage. William hands the dress to yugao and she looks confused.
"The spiders are very good tailors and they enjoy doing it. They spotted you and after repairing my clothes they decided to make you a dress. It's yours if you want and if you give me your preference in colors I can have it dyed." William tells her.
"Oh. thank you?" yugao says before calling her thanks to the trees. Loud chittering erupts and William smiles, well, his lips twitch upward but that's the aburame equivalent of a smile. William smiles and tells her that the spiders are happy to make more for her.
The group spends some more time chatting and discussing strategy before there is more chittering from the trees. Everyone turns to face the trees and they watch as the spiders skitter out and collect the clothes before they crawl down to the stone. Two piles are formed and the clothes are folded before being placed in their neat piles. The spiders chitter to each other and two seem to argue before a third spider crawls up and takes the object they were fighting over. The shirt is placed on the left pile before the two arguing spiders are hit by the third one. The spiders retreat to the trees after one of them causes a puff of smoke. A sack tied off with twine is collected from the smoke and the spiders return to the trees with their prize.
William chuckles as he walks to the right pile. He pulls on his clothes and places the rest in a hamper that is sitting by the door. Sam seals his clothes back up before he joins his team in walking to William's room.
The room looks like your average bedroom. A bed in the corner with a desk next to it and a dresser next to that, bookshelves line on wall, the centerpiece if you will is a large beehive hanging from the ceiling and in the corner right next to the door. Each person is investigated by the bees as they enter the room and Sam is soon sporting a second shirt of bees.
"Oh come on. Every Time!" Sam groans.
"You are warm. The bees like that." William explains as he puts away his clothes.
"Yeah. it's kinda cute honestly. You have a bunch of little fuzzy friends." jake comments.
Sam groans and starts shooing away the bees as ibiki chuckles. The scarred man may act like a hardass that has no emotions, but that's just for work. He has grown to care for his boys and even feel pride in them. Ibiki chuckles as he watches Sam struggle to gently remove the stubborn bees that don't wanna leave. Yeah. his boys will do fine in the exams, they have each other if things go wrong. Yugao giggles as the bees tickle her and they seem to laugh in return from their buzzing. Jake is dealing with a large number of bees trying to hide in his hair and groaning. William is speaking softly to the bees and his friends soon join him on the bed where he sits. The three boys all talk and laugh as their teachers watch.