"The reports were the interlopers came from this place," one of three figures said. "Are we sure about that this is truly the place?"
They moved a little out of the way and let the majority of the genin continue on past them. They each had forehead protectors of their own
"Three of those present match the descriptions the villagers provided," one of the other two said. "And that girl is suspicious."
"A clumsy child who uses chakra. We all saw that was fire, not pure energy," the third said doubtfully. "We must determine who she is in this next test. And if these are the shinobi that defeated that worthless woman, then we have found the prize, nowhere near the Land of Tea or other haunts of the Redeemed School and their allies."
"We have an eavesdropper," the first said, frowning and pointing.
"I'm impressed," a woman's voice said from the shadows nearby said. "But then, you are true chi-adepts, aren't you."
There was a taunting mode to the voice as a woman bearing a Kusagakure headband stepped into view. It was as if she knew easily how to hide if she so chose.
"Who are you chakra-spawn," one of them demanded, slipping into a fighting stance.
"It is better to ask who are you," she responded. "I have not seen Tanigakure shinobi before, though I have heard of it occasionally. Some backwoods village that no one's ever hired for a mission, isn't it?"
She smiled and licked her lips.
"Or perhaps just a chi-adepts backdoor into the Shinobi World," she chuckled, again with the condescending tone. "Let us talk again once we've both entered the next test."
And with that the woman vanished from sight, leaving the chi-adepts to catch up with the other testers. In his borrowed form, Orochimaru considered them as they cautiously left.
This complicated matters, but it could certainly be an interesting addition. He'd anticipated that there would be many individual plots involved in the Chunin exam with ninja from all over attending, and not just the Sand invasion he was encouraging. Or his own intentions to test Sasuke and cut off his support.
He had not considered the presence of chi-users, given their tendency to stay more or less uninvolved in shinobi affairs.
Orochimaru shook his head.
Chi was one of those things that it was hard to get a specimen for. And those specimens he had acquired had yielded up very little information in examination. Experiments involved in encouraging those born with an inherent talent for it had had less than usable results.
Especially he'd proven and reproven that it made the use of chakra terribly inefficient. Even if it was useful, it was heading down backwards down the road he'd taken already, probably far enough backwards that it was suicide for him to try.
Still, now that he was aware of it, it was another wild card for his use.
Which reminded him, he needed to have this stolen face on hand to present an easy way for that girl to get into the next test and set her out like a wind up noise-maker.
Ryoko stood up dizzily shaking her head clear and trying to dust away the several dog-paw prints that covered the back of her kimono. Kiba noted at least one footprint from a human as well and reached to hold her steady.
"Just a moment Ryoko-chan," he said. "Let me get it."
"H…hai, Inuzuka-san," she said nervously.
She said everything nervously, though, so there wasn't much to that. He took a couple of seconds to get the dirt off her back, or at least down to a pattern that one couldn't immediately identify as being from being trampled by a pack of wild dogs.
Really undisciplined civilian dogs.
The next time Team 8 pulled dog walking duty he'd be sure to give the lot of them a good talking to with Akumaru's help. After all, the Inuzuka dogs had known well enough not to trample people in their way. It was one thing to trample people in your way when you meant to, he'd done it enough times himself, but doing it without intent like that was just clumsy and gave dogs a bad reputation.
He stopped distracting himself and asked the question he wanted to ask.
"Would you have killed yourself if you had withdrawn from the exam?" Kiba asked. "Committed Hari-Kiri."
Ryoko swallowed and bit her lip nervously.
"Performed," she corrected and started to walk up the street at a good pace.
Kiba caught up with her easily enough.
"Why the hell would you do that?" he demanded.
"Because I w…w..would have dishonored my f…family with m.m.."
"Bull shit," Kiba snapped, cutting her off. "You're not going to dishonor Joseibi by wanting to make sure you're around to take care of her. That's just being a good sister."
Ryoko flushed and looked away, picking up her pace.
"Su…sumimasen, Inuzuka-san," she said. "Y…you cannot understand."
"Damn right I can't!" he snapped. "You can't tell me you'd make such a choi…"
"There is no choice," she interrupted quietly. "We are going to be t…t..tardy to this last test, Inuzuka-san if w..w..we…don't. Do not. Do not. Do. Not! Hurry."
That said she took off at a run up the sleep, only coming to a stop as she rejoined the mass of the ninja waiting for the next test and found her team. Kiba filtered into the crowd only shortly behind her, looking more than a little bit unsatisfied with things as he was cut off from following Ryoko by his own team.
Sakura watched the display with some trace of relief as it gave her something to think about rather than her own untenable situation. She hmphed and crossed her arms with narrowed eyes as she watched Kiba pursuing the outsider girl. He was obviously not learning the message. If this kept up, she was going to have to give the bully a lesson in how to treat girls herself.
Her ruminations on the punishment of a person she saw as a violent misogynist were cut short as a woman stepped forward with a bundle of waivers and a sharp look to her eyes.
"Wow! There's a lot of you!" she called out. "I'm going to have my work cut for me. Anyway, I have to pass these out. Waivers! From here on out, people die and I need your consent for that, otherwise…I'm responsible."
Anko swept her eyes over the crowd, trying to find the one that was out of place per Ibiki's warning. Like he said, it felt like her brain was passing over something obvious. That there was something there and she just couldn't spot it for being under her nose.
She half wanted to call Kakashi or Kurenai over to do a look over, but that it wasn't allowed for the jonin tutors to be involved in this stage of the exams.
"All right," she said. "Here's the deal…excuse me? Am I boring you?"
One of the Kusagakure ninja had started to wander off and she narrowed her eyes at the man darkly, a wide blood-thirsty smile under her eyes.
"I…I just needed to relieve myself," he said.
"Go ahead and go," Anko said, chuckling. "But don't blame me if you come back without the information you need to survive."
She turned back towards the others and put the man out of her concern. He was from the Village Hidden in the Grass, not her own village, what did she care if he sabotaged himself and his team.
The snake-woman thus didn't notice perhaps her one chance to see Sakura breaking away from the safety of the crowd and losing her genjutsu.
"This is the way it will work," she called out. "Every team is going to be given a scroll. It will either say Heaven or Earth on it. You need one of each scroll to pass this course."
"So at least half the teams will be eliminated," Sasuke noted idly, turning to look at Ryoko. "Where've you been?"
"Ano…there were dogs…and…" Ryoko started to say.
"Whatever," Sasuke said. "I don't need to know."
"Sumimasen," Ryoko said.
Naruto narrowed his eyes and glared at Sasuke.
"What are you talking to her like that for?" Naruto growled.
"Pay attention to the proctor," the Uchiha said firmly.
Shikamaru took in the rules and nodded, glancing toward his teammates.
"Five days to get to the tower at the center of the training ground," he noted quietly, looking toward his teammates. "What a pain."
"It is very dangerous in there," Hinata confirmed, eyes fixed on the forest and the veins of her byakugan visible to the two teammembers giving her some visual cover from the other teams to use the sight for some preliminary scouting.
Shino, however, was looking toward Kiba.
Kiba seemed still a little distracted and the bug wrangler frowned. He followed the line of his vision and saw the elder Saotome and narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. Now was not the time to be thinking about mating.
"This training ground is called the Forest of Death for a reason," Anko said. "Be on your guard."
Under normal circumstances, she'd have been a bit flirty with the way she gave that information, but given the situation with the imposter they had on hand she decided to give the information for the most part safe. She glanced over and saw the errant Kusagakure ninja returning to join his team and smirked at the shaky way the man took the death waiver.
The individuals were separating to consider their waivers.
Or at least most were, one girl walked right up to her and tried to hand it in.
"Ano…Mitarashi-sama," she said, holding out her waiver. "Here it is."
"Already?" Anko said blinking. "You're not going to think about it?"
"I..iie," Ryoko said, shaking her head. "I am already pr…prepared."
"You don't sound ready to die," Anko said, arching an eyebrow. "Besides, you turn these in with your teammembers."
"Oh," Ryoko said. "Su…sumimasen."
"You're the chi-adept," Anko said in sudden realization.
"H…hai," Ryoko said, bowing. "Ryoko Saotome of the…Ano…."
"Something wrong?" Anko asked.
"Kodachi-sama be…belongs to the…Redeemed School of Musabetsu Kakuto-Ryu," she explained. "I…I wonder if I should be calling myself as par..part of that school now instead of the Saotome-Ryu Musabetsu Kakuto-Ryu."
"I'm sure there's not that much a difference, kid," Anko said with a laugh as she reached out to ruffle the girl's hair. "Don't take things so seriously. You're twelve years old and about to go into a life-threatening forest filled with monsters and trained killers. Have some fun while it lasts."
With each description of peril and danger, the girl's eyes seemed to sparkle with greater enthusiasm.
"Hai! Mitarashi-sama!" she declared. "It shall be greatly enjoyable to face so many worthy opponents."
Anko blinked and stared at Ryoko at the sudden transformation and then laughed aloud.
"That's the spirit!" she declared. "Go forth and spill blood!"
"Hai!" Ryoko declared obediently, drawing several eyes her direction. "Hopefully it will not hurt my oppon..nents too much to…sp..spill their blood?"
Kiba stared over his form from where he stood and gaped at the conversation, the very loud conversation, between Ryoko and the proctor.
"I swear there's something about her," he muttered to himself. "Bipolar or something?"
Elsewhere, Naruto was wandering about as he stared at the waiver in front of him.
"All I have to do is sign my name," he said. "So why is this taking so long?"
He looked up and saw Hinata standing there and smiled as he waved over at her.
"Hey, Hinata," he called out.
"Oh, Naruto-kun," Hinata said nervously as the blonde-haired young man walked over to her.
"So, are you having trouble with this too?" he asked her.
"I just…" Hinata started to say.
"I mean, it's just signing my name," Naruto said loudly. "What's the big deal?"
"Well…" Hinata said.
"Anyway," Naruto said. "I've got to go back to where Sasuke and Ryoko are with this thing. I'll be waiting to see you at the tower thing, right Hinata?"
"Hai!" Hinata declared.
"See you, Hinata," Naruto said in a friendly, conversational tone as he walked off.
"Right," Hinata said, blushing. "See you…Naruto-kun."
The teams that accepted the challenge were given their scrolls and sent to one of forty-four gates around the outside of the circular training ground, each group waiting for a chance to show what they could do for the most part, though a few groups had darker, more specific concerns.
And with one of those was a girl who wasn't supposed to be there, bound tightly in a subtle but powerful genjutsu to keep on with her ill-conceived plan. Now she was imitating a dead man whom she had been allowed to defeat and unknowingly standing beside the devil that had enabled her to get this far as it was.
As the time was called out, she dived into the forest ahead, intent on getting well clear of the team she had infiltrated before they realized that she was an imposter.
She didn't get far.
No sooner was she out of sight of the gate and the proctor who was in the process of locking it behind the examinees, than the woman that appeared to be the head of the team practically teleported to her side and grabbed hold of her.
"Wh..what are you doing?" Sakura demanded of the woman as she struggled to free herself.
"Why, Sakura-chan," the "woman" responded. "Leaving so soon after everything I've done to help you get this far?"
The third member of the group came along emotionlessly and silently behind.
"Everything you …how do you know my name?" Sakura asked cautiously.
"Why, I've been keeping a close watch on you these past few days," he said. "You're going to do something for me."
"Wh…what?" Sakura asked. "Who are you?"
"To begin with…" the woman said as a small white serpent seemed to grow out of her hand.
Sakura snapped awake and looked around desperately, trying to remember just why she was so afraid. The fear virtually flooded throughout her, paralyzing in its intensity and fading only slowly, but she couldn't remember what had caused it. Likewise, her body ached, like she'd eaten bad food, and her back felt like something had torn strips into it.
Shaking and standing slowly, the pink-haired kunoichi took in several breaths until the fear subsided and she was left with just confusion as to where she was and how she had gotten there. A large portion of the last couple of days was just…fog to her.
She sort of remembered being turned away by the library, and lecturing Kiba about hitting defenseless girls was there. A lot of the rest was just a persistent fog until she woke up here.
"What am I doing here," she wondered, blinking.
At least it wasn't all that dark, given the amount of tree-coverage she'd have expected it to be almost as dark as night in this place.
She had been traveling for several minutes with no real direction in mind when she had the sudden feeling of being watched. Sakura paused for just a moment and put herself against a tree quietly, narrowing her eyes to scan through the darkness.
A trio of ninja landed within the edge of her vision, incautiously remaining out of the deeper shadows. Silently, they looked toward each other with gestures to split up and go around.
"Why are they after me?" Sakura thought nervously as she glanced about furiously looking for some advantage or escape route.
Quietly, she climbed up into the higher branches, eyes alert and feeling a tenseness all throughout her body that oddly didn't feel like fear at all. Sakura felt edgy, twitchy and uncomfortable, but she didn't have that paralyzing feeling. That age-old instinct to freeze and wait for opportunity, or the hope that a predator might choose another target, was missing.
Which wasn't to say that she didn't feel any sort of fear.
That terror she had woken up with still lingered, and started to join with a sort of confusion and psychological fear that had nothing to do with external threats and everything to do with her uncertainty over what was happening or had already happened to her.
The Takigakure shinobi started to close in on her, out maneuvering her attempts at avoiding attention and seeking escape.
"Come on out," one of them said. "If you have your team's scroll, you can hand it over and we'll be on our way. If not then you're nothing to us."
"Scroll?" Sakura repeated. "Wh..what is he talking about?"
She glanced up towards a brief sound and saw one of the ninja coming out of one of the shallow shadows and making his way down to her. Swallowing, Sakura ducked around the trunk of the tree she was in and stuck to the deepest shadows she could find, wondering just why they hadn't found her yet. Then she dropped down toward a lower branch, hoping to double back on herself and move out underneath her pursuers.
The pink-haired student landed on the branch at almost the exact time as the third Takigakure, a brown haired woman, did and for a moment, Sakura froze in motion.
"She's here! Over he-!"
Hot red blood sprayed over the scene.
"Juni!" shouted the other two Takigakure shinobi as they zeroed in on the scene.
Seconds later, Sakura sat pressed against the tree bark, staring at her blood soaked hands and arms and shaking visibly. The kunai she'd used discarded in the middle of the three Takigakure which bore similar, fixed staring expressions full of horror, but without any life to them as the kunai that had been used to end their life was stuck into tree branch between them.
One of them, the first, shifted weakly, baring some trace of life still, only to disrupt her precarious balance and slide off the tree branch in front of Sakura's face, crashing into several branches on the way down to land in a twisted mess.
"No. No. No," Sakura repeated, trying to ignore the radiating and warm sense of personal satisfaction that the more aggressive, internal part of her felt.
"Our first task," Sasuke said "has got to be to recover one of those scrolls. This early, the teams will be spreading out all over the training area hunting each other out."
"Hai," Ryoko said, nodding.
"Right, right," Naruto said. "So let's go find ."
He started to stand up and head out into the trees as Ryoko hesitantly raised her hand, index finger raised as if to make a point.
"Ano…" she said.
Sasuke took a more direct approach and reached out to grab the genin and pull him down.
"We have to think this through," the Uchiha snapped. "We can't just thrash about and hope we'll find someone."
"Ano…" Ryoko noted.
"But just sitting here and talking about it isn't going to do anything," Naruto responded.
"Would you keep your voice down, idiot?" Sasuke snapped, failing to take his own advice and irritably biting down on the end of the last word as he noticed it.
"Ano?" Ryoko asked again.
"What is it?" the Uchiha demanded as he turned to look at her.
Ryoko flinched away and hesitantly moved to answer.
"Spit it out," Sasuke snapped.
"Hey, hey, calm down, Sasuke," Naruto protested. "You'll get her flustered and then she'll burn something."
"I…I…I…" Ryoko stuttered.
"In any case, we should take to the trees," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes and setting aside Ryoko's stuttering attempt to say something. "Ryoko's best in the air and both of us like using odd terrain, so up high is best for us."
"Right," Naruto said. "So let's g…oh, wait, what were you going to say Ryoko-chan?"
"I was also going to s..suggest the trees," she said quietly.
"Right," Sasuke said, shaking his head. "Let's go."
"Just a second," Naruto said. "I have to go to the bath room."
Sasuke's head dropped as Ryoko stared at him.
"Uzumaki-san," she sighed.
He was behind the shrubbery for a few moments when Sasuke and Ryoko heard an incensed scream.
"What are you doing you barbaric brat!" a strange man's voice shouted as if through a receptor just moments before a resounding thud turned the harangue into a brief "Oof"
"Well you shouldn't be interrupting a guy taking a piss!" Naruto's voice returned.
Ryoko and Sasuke froze in their barely formed motions to go to Naruto's aid, the Uchiha's eyes narrowing as he gave an expressing huff.
"Uzumaki-san," Ryoko sighed.
And then both continued through the brush to find Naruto zipping up his pants as he stood over the unconscious form of an enemy ninja.
"The bastard tried to interrupt me answering the call of nature," Naruto grumbled. "So we heard," Sasuke noticed as he, very carefully, searched the fallen man to find no scroll. His eyes scanned the trees around and he smirked as he noticed something. "Lone scout. Let's get out of here."
"Uzumaki-san," Ryoko noted. "Be careful going off alone, you c…could be ambushed."
"I know, I know," Naruto said. "I'm being careful, believe it."
An extra Naruto watched the three continue off through the forest and smirked.
"All right, that worked!" he declared.
"Sshhh," another said, stepping out. "I think Sasuke-teme saw you."
"Yeah, yeah," a third noted. "They're getting out of sight you know."
The other two Narutos laughed nervously as the small squad of clones performed a momentary sequence of hand signs and, in a burst of smoke shifted into the appearance of small animals before leaping forward to shadow the original and his team.
The idea had first come to him when Kodachi had pulled something similar on them back at that cursed village. Sending her clone out to take the heat while she watched to see what would happen. At the time, Naruto had thought that pretty cowardly, so he'd reversed the roles. His original would serve as the bait, and his clones would watch and wait to see what happened.
It was a good thing he had, otherwise that idiot would have knocked him out.
What was it Kakashi-sensei had said about Kodachi at the time?
Calculus? Right, that's what this was, calculus.
He'd never realized that math would be so easy and useful.
Maybe it would have been better to realize that before the written test though.
Sasuke glanced toward Ryoko and Naruto sitting across from him as they planned contingencies. Behind them, he'd heard someone softly digging through the dirt and getting closer. He waited until he'd heard the crumbling of dirt as something was pushed through to listen to them before he started speaking to the other two.
Ryoko had a puzzled look on her face and was starting glance around, most likely feeling the attention through her chi awareness. The girl couldn't be counted on to keep secret and quiet though, so Sasuke had to distract her before she realized what was going on.
"Okay, if we're ever separated there's a chance someone might try to impersonate one of us," he said. "I'll bet that was what the idiot who tried to jump Naruto was doing."
Ryoko blinked and dutifully paid attention to Sasuke as he spoke, setting aside the developing awareness of their visitor.
As to Naruto and the trio of shadow clones that had been following them, Sasuke wasn't sure whether or not they'd noticed, but he'd kept pretty mum on his tactic so far, so the Uchiha wasn't concerned about him giving anything away…yet.
"So we'll set up a password," he said. "You ask say 'Ninja Song: Ninja Chance' and the response will be 'It is the chance to sneak up where a large number of enemies is making a scene. The quiet place has no secret hideout. It is important for a shinobi to know the right time, the time when an enemy is tired and drops his guard.' That's it."
"Hai, Uchiha-san," Ryoko said firmly.
"Umm, could you say it one more time?" Naruto asked.
"I said I'd only say it once," Sasuke reminded him.
"Yeah, but still, could you repeat it again?" Naruto asked.
"It was…" Ryoko started to open her mouth, but stopped and rose to her feet, bokken out.
"What is it?" Sasuke demanded.
A small shard of bark slashed between them, scratching a line across Naruto's cheek.
"What the?" Naruto asked, getting set himself and standing up.
All three of them stared in the direction the shard had come from and listened as a roaring sound slashed through the scene, tearing into the very earth they stood on and sending the three of them scattered throughout that section of forest.
Sasuke quickly recovered and placed himself along the path of the wind attack, waiting for whoever might have sent it. He snapped up to attention and turned to look behind him, seeing nothing for a moment.
"Ano….Sasuke? Is there something wrong?"
He glanced toward his side and blinked to see the Saotome standing mere inches away and staring cautiously into the trees.
"Wait," he said, jumping back away. "Ninja Song: Ninja Chance."
How the heck had she gotten in that close to him?
"Ano…ohh! Hai, Sasuke. 'It is the chance to sneak up where a large number of enemies is making a scene. The quiet place has no secret hideout. It is important for a shinobi to know the right time, the time when an enemy is tired and drops his guard.' Is..is that correct?"
"Good," Sasuke said, relaxing slightly.
"Sasuke!" another voice called out as the two turned to see Naruto coming in from another direction.
"Wait," Ryoko said, holding out her hand. "What is the password, Naruto?"
"To heck with the password!" Naruto shouted, pointing at the girl as Sasuke stepped out.
"Wh…what do you mean by that?" Ryoko asked.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes toward Ryoko as he stepped in behind her.
"He means that you aren't Ryoko," Sasuke snapped as he kicked out with a leg.
Ryoko dodged the attack from behind easily and rolled off to land several yards away from both ninja, a nervous, shy expression on her face.
"Ano…what did I do?" she asked nervously.
"You got around my trick with the password by impersonating someone you were certain had it," Sasuke said. "But you obviously haven't watched Ryoko too much. She'd never make demands like you did, even reasonable ones."
"And she avoids Sasuke-teme like he was the plague," Naruto noted.
"I was going to note that she doesn't use given names for anybody the same age as her or older," Sasuke said dryly.
"Whatever," Naruto said, dismissing Sasuke's comment. "You aren't Ryoko! So drop the act, imposter. Before we drop you!
"Hmm, you're not tired or letting your guard down then," the fake Ryoko said, a long tongue slipping out to lick her lips before erupting into a burst of smoke.
In the place of Ryoko stood a tall woman of Kusagakure, wearing a bamboo hat and with a thick, purple rope tired around her waist.
"This will be more fun than I thought," she noted with a slight cackle.
Ryoko came to a stop finally against the top of tree, slamming into it like a doll thrown against the wall by a child in a fit. She gasped before rolling into her fall and coming to her feet at the base of the tree where Naruto had impacted at what looked to be a much more uncomfortable position than her.
A moment later, Naruto landed a few yards away and she brightened.
"Uzumaki-san!" she declared happily. "I am glad to see that you are al..alright. Where is…"
"Hold it," Naruto said commandingly. "What's the password? Ninja Song: Ninja Chance?"
"Ano…? Ohh! H…hai, Uzumaki-san…uhhh…" Ryoko put a finger to her chin.
"Ha, you can't remember it can you?" Naruto asked. "Ha."
"Ano?" Ryoko said, face flushed. "'It is the chance to sneak up where a large number of enemies is making a scene. The quiet place has no secret hideout. It is important for a shinobi to know the right time, the time when an enemy is tired and drops his guard.' Is..is that correct?"
Naruto opened his mouth to answer and then frowned.
His plan to take up the easy part of the password had a flaw…he couldn't tell if the other side of it was right or not.
"Umm…"
His thoughts were stopped as a shadow started to pass over the pair of them. "We've got bigger problems," he declared.
"Ano…" Ryoko agreed.
Then the snake dived down into the attack, sending the two young fighters scattering to either side.
Ryoko watched the giant snake slam into the ground with wide eyes. Even if she had mastered the Ja Jinku no Hebi, this thing was quite a bit bigger than that footwork form was designed to practice with.
Across from her in mid-air, Naruto rolled over another attack from the snake and laughed victoriously, only to be wrapped up by the tail and vanish into a puff of smoke.
"Kage Bunshin?" she said. "Wh…when did he do that?"
Then her feet struck the tree branch and she ricocheted off of it before the snake's head could strike her again. Behind her, the branch she had bounced off of fragmented into a thousand pieces as the snake struck it. And then the tail came in behind her, an arch of chi following its wake that was born of the raw motion, but as undeniable as an avalanche.
Ryoko twisted about and let the tip slam downward into her outstretched hands and feet before pushing off and rocketing downward toward the forest floor, well ahead of the coils that had tried to follow up with taking her prisoner.
Below her, the head was rising up to catch her in its mouth.
Ryoko twisted in the air, wrapping more of the chi of her fall about her as she did so. The chi wanted to go forward and as she twisted it back the opposite way, that desire became even greater and greater. When she reached the head, she flinched as the mouth opened wide, but slammed downward into the beast with the force of a cannon ball, knocking its great head backward into a solid tree and knocking the serpent cold.
Reflexively, however, it swallowed as Ryoko tried to escape the slimy maw of its throat, and she was dragged further down.
"You want our scroll, don't you?" Naruto declared.
"Well, since you have the Heaven scroll," the woman said, taking out her earth scroll and bringing it up to her mouth.
She opened her jaw, stretching the mouth wide and pushing the scroll down inside of her with no perceptible discomfort and to the disgust of both the watching ninjas.
"So, let's continue our battle," she said. "Life or Death."
Naruto and Sasuke each readied their weapons as the Kusagakure ninja woman reached up toward her face. Instantly a wash of sickening fear washed over both Konoha ninja as images of their impending death flashed through their minds, carrying both downward.
Sasuke gasped and felt his stomach doing flips as he collapsed to his knees.
Was that genjutsu?
His thoughts rushed ahead as he decided immediately that it wasn't…that it was simply sheer blood lust radiating out from the woman.
He felt his hand shaking, wondering if they were even fighting something human.
"Naruto," he gasped, looking over towards the other shinobi.
The blonde was shaking in his boots, but still standing and a determined look on his face.
"Hah!" Naruto snapped shakily, trying to sound determined. "You think you're just going to scare us into quitting? I'm…I'm getting that scroll from you if I have ram my hand down your throat."
Sasuke gasped in shock. Hadn't Naruto just felt that wave of blood lust? Was he too stupid to realize how powerful this person had to be? Was he trying to get killed?
Slowly, Sasuke rose to his feet and struggled against the paralyzing fear in order to find some way to get away from this freaky Kusagakure ninja. He had other goals in mind that only he could complete. He couldn't allow himself to be destroyed, not here and now.
The woman smiled at them.
"And what do you plan to do?" the woman asked.
An orange blur erupted out of the bushes at her side, drawing the woman's attention that way as another Naruto charged in.
"I plan to kick your ass!" the new Naruto declared loudly.
The woman blinked in surprise as she dodged the attack and stepped calmly back away from the second Naruto's line of attack.
"Kage bunshin," she said casually as she dispersed the clone with a simple motion. "Most surprising. Most surprising indeed."
The woman turned toward the two frozen shinobi and noted that they had fled while she was distracted and looked up toward their path of escape.
Ryoko struggled in the slimy bowels of the snake pushing out and trying to climb her way out of it. She could feel the energies of the snake trying to eat through her own and once that was accomplished it would step easily for the acids of its digestive juices to destroy her.
She was going to die, not in battle against a strong worthy opponent, but as the dinner of an animal. And all she could do was struggle until she grew tired and gave up.
She'd failed.
She'd failed her team.
She'd failed her sister.
She'd failed her family honor.
Her eyes flashed orange.
Outside, the snake stirred as an uncomfortable warmth built within its belly. That discomfort grew to pain that quickly grew maddening. Smoke bore up from inside its mouth and in places along its body, spots of glowing orange seemed to emerge from the body of the giant serpent.
Soon after those first spots of orange appeared, they erupted into great devouring flames, that rushed painfully up the length of the snake.
"What the are you doing pulling me away from that?" Naruto demanded. "We should have attacked right then when the gen…"
"Quiet!" Sasuke snapped, looking back the way their enemy lay. "We can't fight this enemy as we are now."
Naruto pulled the other ninja's hand away from his mouth, growling.
"What the hell do you mean by th…Sasuke! Snake!" Naruto shouted, throwing out a kunai as he shouted.
It struck the snake but did little damage as the great beast dived down to shatter the branch the two had just been on.
They flew through the air landing lightly upon branches to either side of the snake. Sasuke watched as the serpent's head rose up to charge towards him. For a moment, he imagined the woman's face behind the snake and he reacted reflexively, biting down a scream to send a barrage of shuriken out and into the snake's mouth, watching them erupt out of the back of its head.
Sasuke, his eyes red with the Sharingan panted as he watched the snake slam down into the crook of a tree and its blood pouring down the bark. Across the field of battle, Naruto was doing likewise, though showing less fatigue as he wasn't yet using any heavy jutsu.
"Don't lower your guard for a second," the woman's voice said as she pushed her way out of the cracking skin of the did second. "Prey must always be tense and try to flee desperately when faced with a…."
The woman stopped as Naruto leaped in to the attack. Immediately her attention was on them again, slamming into Naruto so that the orange-clad ninja flew through the air and into a tree.
To burst into a cloud of smoke.
Sasuke gasped as he made the realization that his companion had been a kage bunshin the whole time and wondered where the real Naruto had fled to, or if he was with Ryoko, wherever she might be.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted, head pointed downwards. "Can anybody hear me?"
He swung entangled in a load of vines swinging one way and the other, wrapped up tightly and for the most part immobilized as he continued his pendulum imitation.
"I need some help getting down from here! Hey!"
His calls for help slowed down as images came suddenly of Ryoko and Sasuke in danger. He wasn't sure exactly how he'd seen them, he'd just knew, somehow that they were both fighting and in heavy trouble.
"Am I just going to swing here while they fight?" he demanded of himself as he pulled free one hand and brought it to the other.
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:23)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.