„Just to let you know, if this was an actual battlefield, this would be the least efficient timing to attack." Midare grumbled, stroking his forehead with his hand, frustrated at Naruto's hesitation to attack Kushina.
"I don't really feel like it, you know." Naruto squinted with his hands over his chest. "I mean I don't really feel like attacking my mom just because you told me to."
"You know, ya know?" Kushina mumbled the curious verbal tick of this blond young man who for some reason refused to eliminate her when prompted to do so by his team captain. "You have the same verbal tick as I do, you say you know when you're nervous, ya know."
"Yeah, because I think you're my mom, you know." Naruto pointed out. "Also, it's not just when I'm nervous. It's just about all the time, you know."
"Wait… What?" Kushina blushed like a tomato, covering her cheeks with her hands.
"It doesn't really matter now, you know. What matters is that I don't feel like attacking you, even if you don't feel any pain whatsoever." Naruto shrugged.
"You imbecile!" Midare roared out, "If you don't eliminate her, Minato will move her one space forward the next turn and she will be in a position to eliminate you! You'll be done for and I won't hesitate to eliminate that redhead friend of yours too – your team will be gone!"
"Okay…" Naruto shrugged. "If I get eliminated here, I'll just become Hokage without ever graduating and making it to chuunin, you know. That's never happened before but, now that I said it, I will do it. Never going back on my word is my ninja way, you know."
The square underneath Naruto's feet lit up with the eye-scratching shade of red. The young man had to cover up his eyes to prevent further discomfort. "Disobedience misplay." A bland and cybernetic-sounding voice declared, transferring the turn to Minato by having a green square light up underneath Minato's feet.
"Wait, that's now a factor!?" Midare dropped his altered Kasa hat on the ground and pulled on the light grey jumpsuit wrapping over the back of his head until he freed his head out of it and he could pull on his hair at last.
"You've made a grave error, Midare-san." Minato smiled with a soft expression. "In light of this new development, I would never have a mother attack her son, even if she would not have him for however many more years. Picking the right man or woman for the job is an integral part of a leader's responsibility and you have failed it by insisting Naruto did your dirty work despite his continuous refusal."
"You'll be lecturing me on strategy now, you shrimp!?" the captain of Team Black ground his teeth while raising his fist as if threatening to use it against Minato. "I am the strategist of Team Shigure, I will not be lectured by some brat!"
"I see now that you're a son of the old and rusted system. A system that orders a calf to eat a sheep or kill itself if it doesn't. What a terrible waste of both meat and milk…" Minato sighed. "Spyder-Wolf-san, advance a square forward."
"What are you doing? Why are you focusing on the left front?" Midare fussed. "You know that Sakura has any potential damage you can do on lockdown."
"Perhaps, but I will break this lockdown just to prove my point, now make your move, Midare-san." Minato replied with a stone-cold glare at the captain of the opposing team that made the leader of Team Black stumble back a pair of steps unwillingly."
"Mijin, step onto my space," Midare ordered. Minato focused his sight as he had not seen what would happen if two friendly pieces occupied a single space during the movement phase. The apparent result, after the emerald light show had concluded appeared to be that the two pieces simply traded places.
"Fleeing, Midare-san?" Minato taunted his opponent.
"I've come to realize that you've been quite clever in placing yourself into the leftmost corner – at the safest possible area. While it also renders you… Well… Cornered, if any notable pressure was to be applied on that side of the board, your position and the constant company of allied pieces renders putting such pressure quite difficult. I've decided to re-arrange my pieces a little bit, with all the recent developments in mind…" Midare grinned, having finally regained a sense of confidence after the recent blunders. Meiko looked over at Minato, wondering how their leader took that absolute stonewalling defense against his taunt. It did not appear from the outside that the boy fancied his opponent's sense of strategic forethought returning and substituting the loss of control and blind rage that had overtaken him earlier.
"Kotaro, step one space forward." Minato extended his hand, instructing his own teammate to take it even further into the vanguard, risking the integrity of his own team.
"He's an admirable little guy, isn't he?" Kiyomi's thoughts rung into Meiko's head.
"He's risking his own team, I'm not sure why but… If it's some attempt at bravado, it's misplaced." Meiko replied with a seed of worry rooted in her chest. She hated being an unremarkable piece, Minato had barely moved her and Meiko did not think she'd be all that useful if moved, honestly. "He has pawns for a reason, it's not necessary to place his own friends in danger while talking high and mighty about protecting everyone from being sacrificed."
"How unlike someone else we both know, huh?" Kiyomi chuckled, spreading waves of moderate glee. While the contents of her thoughts might have been taken as a bit on the offensive side, the vibes she spread with them were not really bitter at all. "In any case, what does it matter if he gets his team eliminated? Don't you think that the leader of this improvised version of shogi will have their team kicked to the boot anyway?"
"That's right!" Meiko's glare widened. "If Minato loses, his team will likely get eliminated anyway, that's the point of this stage, that means that his team is basically free pieces with no baggage to be moved around. If his team gets eliminated, or he is, the game will be over either way…"
"As I said… Remarkable kid." Kiyomi signaled on the mental link.
"He's Naruto's father, you know." Meiko smirked to herself.
"Well… I suppose his son takes a whole lot from his mother then…" Kiyomi cleared her throat while sending some more shady vibes back on the link.
"Heh, you've made a mistake in your childish persistence to break walls. You've placed your teammate right in Mujin's range, not only that but this Shino guy is also in my range!" Midare declared.
"Maybe so, but you would have to move Mujin first to use him, in which case he would no longer have Shino and Kotaro in his range." Minato pointed out in return.
Midare bit his tongue in frustration. What was even more frustrating – Mujin was absolutely useless in short-range because he had no close-range patterns for elimination. His cutting pattern laid two squares diagonally from his location as well as the square two squares ahead of him. The standard elimination pattern of the circle one square around one's own square was lost on this highly technical piece of the game.
"Naruto's clone, move in front of Ino." Midare instructed, moving one of Naruto's clone pieces to the left to protect Ino, or rather, to prepare and eliminate Shino next turn. It did not look like Minato could have prevented that elimination either but the captain of Team White did falter for a moment trying to come up with a way regardless.
"Hinata-san, please move one square forward." Minato instructed with a polite smile. "Let's hope that what you told me about your unique application of the Hyuuga Gentle Fist translates into this game as well."
Hinata nodded and stepped out in front, hoping that she would be able to protect her teammate if the need arose.
"What are you doing? You were in the process of breaking Midare's board lock on the left front. Why abandon that now?" Spyder-Wolf growled with a glare back at the team leader.
"I am protecting my pieces." Minato smiled.
"Shino is useless! You cannot move him. Nor can you attack with him!" Spyder-Wolf turned around, waving his six arms around with aggressive flails.
"Indeed it would be shameful to lose to such a poor strategist who drops his key strategies to protect useless pieces." Midare chuckled. "Now, Naruto's clone, go on and attack Shino! That should free Ino up to wreak long-range havoc on other pieces instead of soft-locking a very valuable piece. I assume that order you will obey?"
"You don't need to be such an asshole, you know." Naruto's clone squinted, mirroring the sour facial expression of the original and the other clone. A round, howling sphere formed in the boy's hand as he charged forward at Shino with it in hand. "Sorry, creepy bug guy, this is just a game anyway." He mumbled.
"What an interesting jutsu…" Minato noted to himself.
"Minato!" Spyder-Wolf roared, noticing that his team leader was lost in thought.
"Oh… Right… Hinata, let's see what those glowing orange pieces are all about!" Minato pointed at Hinata who truly had orange shades gleaming up in a radius of one square around her.
"Rasengan!" Naruto's clone roared out while Hinata's Byakugan flared up in her eyes and her arms began rotating around her, emitting a constant stream of chakra from her palms, so sharp and precise that it formed extremely thin and sharp blades of pure chakra. The bladed protected sphere formed an improvised barrier that blasted Naruto's clone away before he could drive his Rasengan into Shino and dispelled the clone.
"That was incredible, Hinata-san, I have never seen such an application of the Gentle Fist before." Minato smiled. "You have protected your teammate, very well done!"
"Y-Yes but… If it is all the same… I would like to… Not attack the real Naruto…" Hinata blushed and looked away. It was crystal clear that she thought she asked for too much but Minato just nodded.
"I will have that in mind," he replied.
"If you are ever in a position of power, you will doom your village." Spyder-Wolf smacked his forehead with one of his thick arms.
"Hey, Midare, you've lost a piece on your own turn." Shigure, a member of Midare's own team objected. "What is your problem?"
"Naruto's clones weren't pieces per se. Once they are all gone, I can have Naruto create more. Instead, we have moved a very valuable piece from being surrounded by her peers and closer to a pointless and dead piece as well as figured out her ability. It might have cost us an actual piece if we were to figure out under any other circumstances, an ability to protect a piece from elimination and eliminate the attacking piece one square away is a frightening ability to be certain." Midare replied with some semblance of cool and calculation back to his voice.
"Hey, hey… Doesn't that make her piece invincible? How are we supposed to attack her if she just blocks and eliminates anything one square away from her?" Baiu a fellow teammate of Midare and Shigure expressed his concern.
"You misunderstand her ability, Baiu." Midare smiled while gesturing with his hands. This strategic battlefield truly has drawn out the excitement, the worry and all the other aspects of this strategist, it exposed his true self, in a way, and it was becoming more and more apparent with each outburst of his – he truly cared about this game in more ways than just it being a test for his team to overcome. He liked it. "Hinata does not just block any attack, she can merely protect a teammate of hers if they would be eliminated one piece away from her. In many ways, her ability is not too different from Sakura's except Hinata can also eliminate the attacking piece if it is within her range of protection whereas Sakura merely protects a piece."
"Well, I suppose that is quite situational… At least we're not the only ones packed with situational pieces on the board…" Baiu gave Mujin a mean glare.
"Hey, it's not my fault, man. Your teammate placed me ahead to form his lock." Mujin shrugged off the guilt.
"He is not entirely wrong, although, in my defense, I was not aware of Mujin's exact attacking pattern." Midare replied. He also moved one square to his left, replacing himself with Baiu.
"Spyder-Wolf, move one square forward and eliminate Mujin," Minato ordered.
"Have you forgotten?" Midare taunted, "Sakura will protect him from elimination."
Just as Midare stated, when Spyder-Wolf charged forward, pummeling Mujin with brutal and stiff shots from his six arms, Midare activated Sakura's ability and protected Mujin from elimination.
"Sajin, you said you are capable of remarkable chakra enhancements to your physical abilities, let's see what that entails on the board." Midare addressed his leftmost corner piece. Minato was caught unaware when two whole squares in front of Sajin lit up with green light and sent the Sunagakure ninja in a dash toward Spyder-Wolf. "Very well, it appears my gamble has paid off, eliminate Spyder-Wolf!" Midare ordered.
As instructed, Sajin delivered a barrage of blows that burst with faint blue light upon impact where the pent up chakra channeled throughout Sajin's entire body escaped his pores. Just like that, Spyder-Wolf got eliminated.
"You fool! Why did you do that!?" Spyder-Wolf was about ready to step back on board, run-up to his team leader and beat him up senseless.
"I'm… I'm sorry, I thought he would move Mujin to the side to make him usable again, I did not think Sajin could move two whole squares…" Minato shook his head donning a sad and apologetic expression. He gripped a kunai in his own hand and took a fighting stance. "I am ready to rectify that mistake though, I am known as a swift fighter myself, let us see how far I can move."
Just like that, the entire row in front of Minato lit up green, the entire row diagonally and the entire row to his right. While the entirety of Team White was taken aback by this revelation, Meiko managed to regain some semblance of sense and warn her leader before he charged out to eliminate Sajin.
"Stop!" she yelled out. "You'll lose the game if you do that."
"I must eliminate Sajin-san, I owe it to Spyder-Wolf-san." Minato replied.
"If you do, you'll eliminate Sajin, sure, but Sakura will be able to eliminate you." Meiko pointed out. She was not the most talented of Shogi players, she barely knew the basic rules and she had no idea how most of the pieces even moved around but she had observed this game enough to see that much – most close-range pieces, including Sakura, attacked one square in the range around them, meaning Sakura would hit diagonally to her upper left and eliminate Minato if he exposed himself this way.
"She is right. You can still make it up to Spyder-Wolf, how? Protect Jean-D and protect yourself." Shino supported Meiko's warning.
Minato growled unintelligibly and then somehow managed to overpower the instinct to charge out and avenge his teammate. He looked at Kushina and the redhead looked back at him, the two nodded to each other.
"Kushina, move left and eliminate Ino-san." Minato instructed with a voice that still suggested some moderate struggle with his own instincts and budding responsibility as a leader to avenge his fallen pieces.
"You've got it, ya know!" Kushina pumped her fist in front of her and then took a lively step to the side, then smacked her palms together like before. A pair of golden chains erupted from underground, eliminating Ino, Naruto's third clone and the newbie to Team Phobos who replaced Stea, a cute young lady with banana-colored hair.
"Double elimination, are you kidding me!?" Midare pulled on his lower jaw with his hands. "And you're in range to eliminate her again!" he looked at Naruto. "Just make more clones and shove that howling chakra sphere into her face! She's wiped out almost all of our front row!"
"It's no use, Midare, let me take care of her." Shigure's lower lip twitched with a sense of cold, impending dread as he looked at Kushina with his only open eye while the other one remained blinded by a long scar, one of a pair stretching out from his lower chin to his eye. Even Kushina, a heated tomboy that she was, shivered when such a cool and death-inducing stare declared war on her.
"Okay, Shigure, shift places with Naruto." Midare shook his head, feeling the loss of control over the board while that accursed redhead remained on it.
"Sorry, momma's boy, taking you over." The scarred right side of Shigure's face lifted upward in a smirk-like arc as he stepped forward one square and took over the square where Naruto stood, shifting the unpredictable ninja back to his own spot in the back.
The squares to the left and right diagonally lit up in front of Shigure, as well as one two squares ahead of him. Just one square short in the range from where he could have eliminated Kushina.
"Oh well… There's always the next turn…" Shigure shrugged with the same smirk that made his target feel uneasy unless they were a monster on a similar caliber or even greater.
"Let me at him, Minato, ya know!" Kushina took a bold step forward with her fist clutched out in front of her. "I wanna go at him and pound his face up!"
"Settle down, Kushina, there's no way for you to eliminate him, next turn he'll move forward and take you out unless I move you out of the way. Even if you move forward yourself…" Minato stopped all of a sudden, realizing that Kushina may just have had a fighting chance.
"Come on, do it!" Kiba taunted his own team leader from the back row. "This duel between pieces is gonna be so hype that I wanna see it!" he could not hide his fangs behind his excited smirk.
"Fine, there might be hope for you to get in position but… You're too valuable to waste in some senseless duel between two pieces. This is a board game and there are more factors than just ambition to beat someone up. You've trusted me up to now to hold you back from your instinct to bully people, let me do so now too." Minato tried reasoning with his teammate some more.
"Damn it, you pale-skin pansy! Shut the hell up and let your future wife kick the shit out of that Amegakure dweeb!" Spyder-Wolf yelled out from off the board.
Minato sighed in defeat. He felt far too guilty with his misplay to blatantly ignore Kushina's wishes as well as those of Spyder-Wolf. Plus, Kushina was far too scary to deal with after the game if he denied her this request.
"Fine, Kushina, take a step forward." Minato instructed.
"Are you an idio…" Midare was about to taunt his opponent about the fact that Kushina had just entered Shigure's range but then he remembered that he still needed to move Shigure, which meant that if he moved Shigure, Kushina would remain out of his range. "Alright… This here is a duel then, Shigure against Kushina!"
The most impractical game within a game was now on!
Author's Note: And so the ninja board games continue... :)
Not sure if anyone is really as much into reading about ninja chess as I am writing about it but I really love board games and card games (expect a ninja children's card game arc at some point in the future) so this part of the arc is a bit of a treat. I guess I can get a bit too self-indulgent with it. Anyway, I guess some people might not like Minato (and more often - Midare to all of the peeps who didn't have to google Midare and who are in the Midare fan club) making misplays like that. Misplays are a part of board games, especially ones where you have just learned the rules by having a mean lady recite them on the screen once and where you just find out what your pieces can do when you're using them, requiring experimentation and the sort. Midare and Minato are both pretty clever but even pro board game enthusiasts make misplays during streams so it's all part of the character writing process.
Anyway, I suspect most might hate extended instances of board games and tournament arcs with hundreds of teams with complicated micro-management of which team's comprised of whom and who's eliminated and who's not and who's doing what at which stage but I really love that sort of stuff and I'm glad that I can once again write a Chuunin Exams arc with over a 100 of named characters and I can micromanage all of it, if I could write a fic without a plot, just people taking part in an endless tournament with infinite participants fighting one another and competing in challenges, trust me, I would!
Casual madness aside, hope whoever's still on the board likes this post, had a lot of fun putting the thing together, much love!