A moment later, Sasuke and Sakura came running down the street and he could wave to them.
"We don't have a chance," said Sakura. "He's a jonin. He's had to find and dispatch enemy nin in the last war and in border skirmishes over the years. He'll be able to find us no matter where we go!"
Naruto blinked at that.
"There has to be a way otherwise there would be no test, unless..." Sasuke let the sentence dangle.
"Unless we're meant to lose it, or this is another lesson," mused Sakura. "So, we have to find some way of hiding."
The wind blew past them, seeming to linger as it brushed through Naruto's hair, then solidified into a form.
"What do you mean, Windy? Use the... oh," said Naruto, reaching into a pocket and drawing out a card. "I forgot about that."
Kakashi returned to the memorial stone, frowning under his mask. Okay. This isn't working. Naruto is capable of being sneaky, when he's motivated. He's just not usually motivated until he's pulling a prank. So, I guess I'm going to have to be a little more serious about this.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"
Ba-damf!
"Yo," said Pakkun, sitting atop Bull's head.
"I need you to track down three wayward students," said Kakashi.
"You took students? About time," said Pakkun.
"No, these are students I'm still planning on failing," corrected Kakashi.
"Oh? Whatever then," said Pakkun. "Well, let's get on it."
"Hmph. The kunoichi uses that Herbal Forest blend shampoo," said Bisuke.
"Well, she's got good taste then, it's a great shampoo. Leaves the fur nice and silky," said Pakkun.
"Got it," said Bisuke, running along the scent-line.
Kakashi followed his pack of ninken until they all abruptly stopped in the street. "What's wrong?"
"Scents end right here," said Pakkun as the rest of the pack scattered. "They might have used a shunshin or something. Hang on while we check."
"I got nada," said Bisuke after a few minutes.
"Same here," growled Urushi.
Akino used a forepaw to adjust his sunglasses. "Don't think it was a shunshin or they just covered their scent temporarily."
Uhei shook his head as he landed nearby.
Bull grunted as he returned, shaking his head once, then gave a very put-upon look when Pakkun clambered up onto his head again.
Shiba and Guruko both returned with negatives.
"So, does that mean you've got to report to the Hokage that you lost your students?" asked Pakkun.
"I'm not giving up just yet," said Kakashi. "They vanished right here?"
Pakkun went to a spot that didn't look all that different from the rest of the area. "Exactly here."
"I think I know how to get more details on what happened," said Kakashi. "Isn't that right, Hyuga-san?"
The girl hiding behind a shrub eeped.
Sasuke hadn't known what to expect when Naruto had pulled a card similar to the one he'd summoned that 'Windy' creature from out of his jacket. He certainly hadn't expected Naruto to flip it away from him, for the card to just hang there in midair for a moment, then expand into a doorway.
Whatever else he'd expected, he had not expected to step through that doorway and find out that the class clown/village idiot/lastplace loser had a secret castle.
Sakura had screeched when something had come flying up out of the darkness, but it had turned out to be Naruto's winged lizard pet.
This... was cool. Naruto obviously did have something to contribute to the team after all. With his 'Windy' summons - he could scout and get an overlay of potential battlesites. With this 'Door' card - he could provide a refuge to retreat to. With the little dragon creature he had... well, Sasuke wasn't sure what use the creature was but he was going to keep his mind open at this point.
"W-w-what?!" squeaked Sakura as apparently her mind was still trying to deal with the events.
"There's a lounge just around the corner, we can figure things out there," said Naruto as his little lizard-creature found a perch on his shoulder and settled there.
Sakura walked through the hallway, keeping an eye on the two guys on her team but also looking around and assessing things. She knew Naruto as the clown and jerk that kept asking her out when she already liked someone else and just would NOT take the answer of "no" at its face meaning. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd once answered "no, never, not in a million years" - only to be faced with the same question the next day.
So maybe some of it was just persistance and NOT just being too much of an idiot to understand that he was being rejected.
Sakura passed a painting and then stopped. Considered. Then took two steps back to look at the painting again.
A fish was moving around in the shallow water, nosing around a vase of some kind that was half-buried in the sediment at the bottom of some lake.
Sakura checked the back of the picture, and saw that it was a perfectly natural pictureframe. Sakura blinked and moved the picture back to its original position. A school of colorful fish swam by.
"Okayyyy," said Sakura, mainly to herself. Magic door, magic castle. Why not magic pictures?
Sakura chewed her lip for a moment, wondering if this was some sort of genjutsu, when she noticed Sasuke had stopped in front of another picture down the hallway.
Sasuke found the portrait on the wall to be quite intriguing. A man in armor of an unfamiliar design sat astride a horse, apparently addressing a group of similarly clad armored warriors. He guessed that they'd probably just ride THROUGH a simple fire-based jutsu but that throw enough explosive tags and the like into their midst and it would throw their ranks into disarray.
It was very detailed though, almost lifelike. His hand went up to touch the picture.
The picture began moving.
"FORM RANKS!" bellowed the armored warrior. "FORM RANKS!"
The monstrous forms downslope and across the field began scurrying into their own formations, having noticed the army coming in.
The city beyond that host was burning in places, occasionally lobbing a large chunk of stone at that army - but clearly a city besieged and in danger of falling.
"FORM RANKS YOU MAGGOTS!" declared a deformed humanoid creture, idly backhanding another such creature that seemed a bit slow to get out of its way. "FORM RANKS! PIKES IN FRONT! ARCHERS BEHIND!"
The man in the slightly more ornate armor in the arriving army frowned as he freed his weapon from a saddle-holster. "Eomer, take your eored down the left flank."
"Flank ready!"
"Gamling, follow the King's Banner down the center. Grimbold, take your company right after you pass the wall. Forth! And fear no darkness!"
Sasuke's hands reached out, took the picture from the wall, examined the back, and placed it back on the wall. He nodded and noticed the picture had stopped with an armored man riding past the host of human warriors.
"Uhm," said Naruto.
"Never mind," said Sasuke. "I don't think our new sensei will find us right away. And this is... interesting."
Sasuke noticed Sakura coming over and looking at him, then at the picture.
Sasuke reached out and touched the spot he had touched earlier.
"Arise," said the picture as it started moving again. "Arise, riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered, a sword-day! A red day ere the sun rises!"
Sasuke backed up, leaning against the blank section of wall that faced the painting. This was interesting.
"So you decided to show up, Kakashi? I'm surprised," said the Hokage. "So how is Team 7 doing?"
"Everything's fine," said Kakashi. "I'm just checking up on a few things before their test. I thought I'd go with the Bell Test, it's traditional after all."
"Ah yes, still - I hope that you'll give them the chance, they may just surprise you," said the Hokage.
"Well, they're already surprising me," admitted Kakashi.
"Oh really, how so?" asked the Hokage, giving his full attention to Kakashi.
Kakashi hesitated. "You... already know. Don't you?"
The Hokage smiled.
"So... Naruto has some new jutsu that allows him to open a door in midair," said Kakashi.
"It's a form of fuuinjutsu using cards," supplied the Hokage. "You met his parents. Are you that surprised that their son has some innate talent there?"
"Ah," said Kakashi. "Fuuinjutsu on a card then?"
"Who told you, if I might ask - since you obviously didn't read the classified files on Naruto yet," asked the Hokage.
"A little girl, Hyuga from the eyes, who was apparently hiding in the area they'd vanished from. She was a little upset over Naruto vanishing like that and I was able to get details from her after a little prodding," said Kakashi.
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(Posted Mon, 30 Apr 2012 18:04)
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