83Chapter 13: Exams in Iwa
The reformed Team SDF walked slowly up the mountainous path.
Hana, stealing a glance towards her old students, decided to start up a conversation. "So you two, how was chuunin duty?"
The Inuzuka woman was never told about Naruto and Hanabi being in the ANBU. The Hokage had deemed that information way too important to be let out at the moment. Instead, she was told that they were promoted to chuunin, but were dropped back to genin so that they could act as guards for the various clan heirs that would be present. She had frowned, initially, when she heard this, but eventually she understood that they were the only two who could possibly do it. Everyone else was either way too old or way too notorious. Luckily, she hadn't any more questions and had faithfully agreed to this mission. After all, her brother would be there too, and it would be a good chance to see how well he did in a real combat situation.
On the other side of Naruto and Hanabi was Nii Madoka. The ex-Kumo genin was introduced to the Hokage a week before they had left. Naruto had convinced the elderly man to let her become a genin of Konoha, because she hated Kumo. The old man, who happened to be very soft-hearted at the sight of the teary girl, agreed immediately. The Sandaime told her that to best avoid any rumors of her getting back to Kumo, she should change her hair (both style and color) and her name. Madoka agreed without hesitation. She was registered as Uzumaki Madoka, older sister of Uzumaki Naruto, and her dirty blond hair was changed to a lighter color, making it look like the two were truly related.
Madoka was introduced to Hana as her third student, since Madoka needed a team, and Team SDF conveniently needed a member. Hana had begrudgingly took her on as a result.
Pretty soon, they came upon the gates of Iwa. Naruto having already been here once, was not as awed as the rest of his team, so he faked it so as to not arouse suspicion.
"It's huge..." Hana trailed off.
"Welcome to Iwa," the two gate guards chorused monotonously. "Passes please."
Hana handed the four passes to the guard who stuck his hand out, and the man quickly took them and scanned it over. When he was satisfied, he handed the passes back to Hana and bid them to enter the city.
"We hope you enjoy your stay," they chorused again.
Staring upon the village of Iwa, the blond ex-jounin reminisced about how she had gotten to that point.
After mastering the powers of the Nibi several months ago, Yugito had questioned Madoka's jounin sensei about her death. The sensei had told her that it was only after much thought that she realized that Madoka had supposedly "exploded" long before the exploding note from the Iwa nin had even ignited! This piece of information gave Yugito the courage to drag a kunai across her hitae-ate. After that, the blond woman snuck out of Kumo and slowly made her way southwest through various inhabitable lands towards Konoha, before heading northwest through Taki and into Tsuchi no Kuni. It would've been quicker had she gone just due west, but that would've just placed her first in barren and empty lands and eventually Oto, which was rumored to be extremely dangerous.
She noticed the arrival of three genin and their jounin sensei. Looking at the only boy on the team, she noticed that his headband bore the symbol of Konoha.
'What's a Konoha team doing here? No, it couldn't be another Chuunin Exam, could it? That would make my work a lot harder...'
Just wait for the exams to finish then, came the voice of the demon inside her.
'Good idea, Nibi-sama. I'll just do some reconnaissance until then.'
The voice of the Nibi spoke no more, as Yugito leapt down from her hiding spot and knocked out the two chuunin guards with a strong genjutsu. Both would wake up later having no recollection of what had just happened.
As the quartet of Konoha nin walk down the streets of Iwa, Naruto noticed that there were a lot of Iwa shinobi on the rooftops.
'For security purposes, no doubt,' he thought.
Not paying too much attention to where he was walking, he slightly bumped into a woman.
"Watch where you're going, you damn brat! You're lucky I don't press charges for assaulting a noble," the woman spun around and snarled.
Naruto apologized to the lady and continued onwards with his team, who had stopped to see what the commotion was about.
'What are the chances of that? Of all the people I could've bumped into, it was Chikara...'
The group soon made their way to the hotel for all foreign representatives. Checking in, it was decided that since there wasn't enough room for three women in a room, one of them would have to share with Naruto. Madoka volunteered, since she was the blond's "sister".
Once they were settled, they were told that the first exam would start in a week and that they would have that time to train, sightsee, or just relax.
"Welcome to all teams gathered here today," the Iwa chuunin announced in a fake cheery voice.
There were somewhere between fifty to sixty teams in attendance, and everyone had been standing around inside the massive stone chamber, awaiting instructions for the first part of the exam.
"Your first exam is to simply get yourselves to the location of the second exam. However, we won't be telling you where it is. Clues have been scattered around the village, and you'll need to find those and decipher them to locate the location. You have one week to both find clues and get yourselves to the destination. Killing other genin candidates in this first exam, injuring or killing any civilians, or damaging civilian buildings will result in an automatic disqualification, and you will be taken prisoner. If you're taken prisoner, your village will have to pay reparations to secure your freedom. No worries, your leaders have already signed up to this, so yes, it is legal. If they decide not to pay reparations for you...well then, I guess you'll be stuck working off whatever debts you may incur. The point of this exam is to test your analytical skills for solving a code, and your information gathering skills for finding hidden objects, secrets, and people. Now, good luck to you all, and may the best teams win!"
The majority of the teams left immediately in search for the clues, but the Iwa genin and the five Konoha teams lagged behind, albeit for different reasons.
"Hey, it's you two again!" Kiba shouted as he pointed a finger at Naruto and Hanabi.
"Yes, it's us. What of it?" Naruto replied.
"Where were you for the past three years? If you're still a genin, we should've seen you around the village some time!"
Naruto shrugged, not really interested in replying.
As they talked, the Iwa teams slowly trickled out.
"Yes, I am curious too, as to your whereabouts. Surely we would've seen you around the village over these few years," Shino stated.
"We were busy training," Hanabi answered this time.
"Training? Yeah, like for three whole years without doing anything else?" Kiba snorted disbelievingly.
Naruto again shrugged, before he finally left with Hanabi and Madoka.
Nine pairs of eyes stared intently as he and his team left the chamber.
"We can't let them win! Let's go, you bums!" Ino shouted at an attempt to motivate the lazy Nara and the eternally hungry Akimichi.
"C'mon! We'll be the first ones done, right guys?" Kiba shouted encouragingly as he bounded out the doorway.
The last team, Team 7, slowly made their way out. No member on the team made any shouts of encouragement as they left. The silence was finally broken by the third member of Team 7.
"Sasuke, you have a small penis."
A shrill scream of denial from the only female in the group echoed in the chamber.
As the new Team SDF walked through the streets, they were bombarded with shouts of festivity from the civilians. Among them were a group of Iwa nin, putting up a show for the populace. Two men, wearing the garb of a typical shinobi from Iwa, stood behind a third man, who was dressed up elegantly and finely, much like a noble. Across from these three men was a woman, accompanied by two maidens. From the way the man and the woman were moving towards each other, it was obvious to decent nin that these performers were trained professionals.
When the man and woman met, they started up an intricate dance.
Naruto watched carefully, as instincts told him to pay attention. He stared so intently that it took him a while before he realized that he was supposed to listen to the sounds their feet made when tapping the floor in a rhythmic way!
'Morse code!'
Unsealing a notepad and pen, he quickly transferred the dots and dashes he heard onto a piece of paper. After the two performers finished dancing, they paused to take a break.
During this time, Naruto tried to decipher the code. What came out was a bunch of gibberish.
He sighed in frustration and got up to leave, when the annoyed and curious faces of Madoka and Hanabi finally got his attention.
"I thought I had the code there," he informed them. "The sounds they made when they tapped their feet sounded a lot like the Morse code, but when I translated it, nothing came of it."
"Well, at least it was a good try," Madoka added uselessly. "Let's move on and see if we can find any other hints," she suggested.
Naruto acquiesced, and took one step away when the performers started up again.
There was a different dance this time. The tapping of the feet attracted Naruto's attention again, and he tried once more to copy and translate the dots and dashes.
"Again?" Madoka asked, slightly exasperated. She was about to continue when Naruto shushed her. She shut up immediately. She was, after all, only a servant to her master.
Naruto stared at the decoded message in his hand for a few seconds. "We got a clue," he stated.
Hanabi and Madoka crowded around him, trying to get a peek at the message.
45 genin, all bearing the proud symbol of Iwa, were gathered together in one of the training grounds that only Iwa shinobi knew about.
"The objective for us is to eliminate as many foreign genin as possible. We may not be allowed to kill them yet, but we sure as hell can stall them. Since one of us on each team already know the Dourou Domu (Earth Dome Prison), it will be simple for us to just capture the genin and suck their chakra dry. Remember, do not target your fellow Iwa genin. Understood?"
A round of nods were the reply.
"Alright, let's go out and eliminate the competition!"
Ino led the way through the crowds on the street, elbowing past the many civilians there, leaving Choji to apologize for her actions and Shikamaru to mutter "Troublesome."
"Faster, you bums!" she shouted when she noticed that the two were several yards behind her.
"Alright, alright, you troublesome woman!" Shikamaru mumbled.
"What was that?" Ino returned, waving her fist at him.
"...Nothing."
"Goo-" Ino was cut off when three Iwa genin appeared.
One of the genin placed his hands on the ground, shouted something, and Team 10 suddenly found that they were trapped in a sphere of earth.
"What is this?" she cried out.
"It's obvious. They're eliminating the competition," Shikamaru drawled.
"I thought that you couldn't kill the competition," Choji stated, confused.
"You can't. But I don't think these Iwa genin are planning on killing us. They're just making sure we don't succeed, which there isn't a rule about."
"What?! That's not fair!" Ino shouted angrily.
"Don't worry, you troublesome woman. It's not hard to break out of this technique. Choji, punch that side, right over there."
Choji did as asked, and using all his strength, he left a mighty dent. The dent quickly fixed itself.
"You won't be escaping," a muffled voice from Shikamaru's right stated.
"We will now, thanks to you," he replied. "Choji punch that side now," he commanded, pointing to his left.
Again, Choji did as Shikamaru said, and this time, the earth dome fell to pieces.
"You idiot!" a kunoichi yelled angrily at the one who had used the technique. "You gave away our position, and because of that, one of those Konoha genin figured out where to attack!" With a mighty punch, she slammed the boy face down into the dirt.
"Oww..." the boy mumbled, holding his head. "How bothersome."
The third genin on the other team just stood to the side, eating from a bag of chips. He was obviously the powerhouse of the team, given his immense stature and thick bulging arms.
"Hey, fatass, knock them out!" the girl snapped.
The third genin grunted and moved forward, finishing his bag of chips. With a mighty roar, he pulled his fist back and punched towards Shikamaru.
The Nara leapt to the side, just as Choji punched with equal power. Their fists met, and an explosion of force blew back the other four genin.
"Kage Mane no Jutsu," Shikamaru muttered, and his shadow suddenly touched the third genin's own shadow.
"What is this?" the larger boy said in bewilderment, as his body began to move without his permission.
Holding the seal, Shikamaru quickly said, "Choji beat him up real quick. I can't hold on much longer. This guy is strong!"
Nodding, Choji's arm expanded tenfold and began to pound on his opponent.
Of course, the other two Iwa genin weren't going to just let them do that.
"Doton: Doryou Dango!" The only girl on the other team pulled out a giant slab of rock and chucked it at Choji.
Shikamaru cried, "Watch out Choji, to your left!"
The Akimichi stopped his assault and turned his mighty fists towards the flying slab.
With a grunt, he slammed his huge fists into it, breaking off bits and pieces of the rock and sending it scattering everywhere.
A majority of the fragments flew back at the girl, knocking her off her feet and into the dark embrace of unconsciousness, leaving only the two boys left on the Iwa team.
"This is so bothersome," the first Iwa genin said, as he picked himself off his feet and unsheathed a knife.
"Using your knife already?" the third genin said as he himself reached behind his back and revealed two massive axes.
"Yeah, we need to take these guys out already, 'cause if we don't Elisha is going to kick our asses when she wakes up...oh man, this is too bothersome."
The giant Iwa genin nodded in agreement. Elisha was scary when she was angry.
"Doton: Yomi Numa!"
The earth beneath Team 10 suddenly turned into a massive swamp.
The Konoha genin's eyes widened, and Choji was the only one who did not manage to escape.
"Well, at least I managed to trap one," the genin with the axes rumbled. He swung his axes horizontally, aiming to cut the Akimichi in half.
Luckily, Choji was saved from a painful death thanks to Shikamaru's shadow, which managed to take control of the genin's arms. The Nara opened his fist, forcing the other genin to follow suit,and the axes fell into the swamp.
"My axes!"
Then, Shikamaru forced his shadow to connect with Choji and the rest of the genin's body, and the exertion of the technique doubled. Jumping up, he forced Choji to leap out of the swamp, and the Iwa genin in.
With two of the three Iwa genin useless, the one with knife sighed heavily.
"This sucks..."
His grip on the knife suddenly switched from a standard grip to a reverse grip, where the blade was parallel along his forearm. He dashed towards Shikamaru, who he deemed the biggest danger of the group and performed a number of quick slashes and stabs.
Shikamaru, luckily, only suffered several cuts, none too deep, and a small stab wound in his shoulder. He fell back, and Choji fell upon the Iwa genin with his massive fists.
When the other genin jumped backwards to regain his breath, Choji yelled, "Baika no Jutsu!" His entire body inflated, and he leapt up into the air, causing the genin's eyes to follow him.
"Oh shit," he muttered, just about to jump back to avoid the giant Akimichi.
Unfortunately, Ino took that brief moment to take control of his mind with the Shintenshin no Jutsu.
"Hurry up and finish this, Choji!" she yelled from inside the genin.
Just as Choji was about to hit him, Ino released the technique (since she didn't want the pleasure of feeling a giant fall on her), and gave back control to the Iwa genin.
The boy had only a second to stare at the massive ball before he was smashed into the ground.
Choji quickly released the technique, not wanting to kill the other boy.
"Oh, fuck," the Iwa genin muttered. "This hurts..."
As he was unable to do anything anymore for the moment, Shikamaru approached the only conscious enemy genin (the one stuck in the swamps), and beckoned Ino to come over.
"Ino, check his mind. See if his team has figured out the clues yet."
With a wordless seal, she quickly found herself immersed in the genin's mind. She found out that his name was Kuwabara.
Digging a little deeper, she discovered the memory of the meeting that all Iwa genin had a little while back.
Gasping, she returned to her own body.
"We're not the only ones they're targeting! Each Iwa team is going to take out one of the foreign teams!"
"What?!" Shikamaru asked, alarmed.
"Yeah, there's fifteen Iwa teams, and each one has been assigned another team..."
"We should go inform the others."
"Yeah, otherwise, they might be caught off guard!" Choji exclaimed in a worried voice.
"But first," Shikamaru interrupted. "Ino, did you find out any clues?"
"Yeah, they already know the location. I don't know how they figured it out so quick, but they did," she answered with a shrug. "The second exam is supposed to take place at..."
Team 8, being a team of information gatherers and trackers, easily found a clue. With the help of Hinata's Byakugan, they found a section of wall in an alley that was covered heavily with genjutsu. It took them close to an hour, but they eventually uncovered the many layers, revealing a gaping hole in the wall. Walking in cautiously, they found a message inscribed on the wall.
"Hah we did it!"
"Doton: Dourou Domu!" a voice from behind them shouted.
Immediately, the ground below them turned against them, encasing them in a solid ball of compact earth.
"W-what the hell is this?" Kiba demanded. "There's no attacking the other genin teams!"
"No," a voice replied dimly from the other side. "The rules stated no killing."
"Wh-" Kiba's outcry was cut off by Shino who placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
"He's right," the Aburame stated. "The rules were no killing. It never said anything about not attacking another team. It seems that Iwa is still an untrustworthy village," he said, pushing his black shades up with a finger.
That's when they felt the effects of the technique.
"Our chakra!" Kiba shouted in surprise.
Shino collapsed to a knee.
"You guys have no chance now," the Iwa genin on the outside taunted. "This technique absorbs your chakra and gives it to me!"
Using her already-on Byakugan, Hinata noticed that the chakra flowing into the opposite side of the wall was where it was weakest. "Kiba! Attack that side!" she cried, pointing at where the weakness was. "It's the weakest part of the technique!"
He nodded, and used his remaining chakra to smash into the wall. With his brute force and Akamaru's help, the wall quickly fell, causing the technique to fail.
"Damn!" the Iwa genin cursed.
However, any further protest was cut off as Shino's bugs swarmed over him, sucking him dry of the chakra he had just stolen from Team 8. The bloated bugs flew back to Shino and gave him his chakra back.
At that moment, Hinata's Byakugan shut off, due to the lack of chakra. She fell, currently unconscious.
"Take care of her. I will deal with the other two genin," Shino stated.
Kiba nodded worriedly.
Shino raised his arms, and from there, a mass of bugs flew at the remaining two Iwa genin.
"Mushi Dama (Insect Sphere)!" The swarm encompassed the two terrified genin and soon, screams of horror were emitted.
Having bugs cover every inch of your body can do that to you.
The bugs sucked away enough chakra to leave them unconscious, and when they finished, they returned to Shino.
"W-wow," Kiba gasped. "That was a nice one Shino!"
"Thank you," he monotonously replied.
Team 7, after leaving the chamber, was quickly stopped by the arrival of a lone Iwa genin. He was then joined by his two teammates.
"You idiot! Why did you jump down? We could've just used the Dourou Domu!" a kunoichi shouted.
"That's no fun," the first boy commented. "It's much more fun to fight them than to just trap them."
"Well, now that you ruined the element of surprise, we have no choice but to do it anyway. Fucking idiot," she muttered the last part.
"Who are you?" Sakura asked. In the three years past, her training had focused on mostly genjutsu, with a sparse amount of taijutsu and ninjutsu. Thus, even as she asked the question, she carefully weaved several layers of genjutsu around each of them.
Unluckily for her, the other team also had a genjutsu specialist.
"Genjutsu! Watch out!" the girl yelled suddenly, and her two teammates quickly dispelled the illusions.
"How rude," the second boy stated. "Attacking us while you ask a question? Hmph."
He placed his hand on the ground and pulled out a stone spear. "You will pay for that."
Springing forward, he swiped at the three Konoha genin, but it was futile, as the three jumped back.
"Katon: Goukakyuu." A wide flame blew out of Sasuke's mouth, spreading out over the area.
"Doton: Doryuu Heki!" The first boy created a wall of mud from his mouth, blocking the flames from hitting him and his teammates. When the wall subsided, the three Iwa nin were gone.
"Below!" Sasuke shouted, just in time as three pairs of hands burst out of the ground. He unleashed several kunai with exploding tags wrapped around it at the ground, blowing up the ground where the hands had appeared.
"You should watch out for collateral damage, Sasuke-kun," the third member of Team 7 stated blandly. "We wouldn't want you to be held for ransom, would we?"
"Shut up Sai!" the Uchiha snapped.
Sai, in response, created a group of tigers and lions out of ink, sending them to attack.
They were easily dispelled by the third genin's spear.
"Yahiko, go!"
The first genin, eager to attack, jumped up and released his strongest technique.
"Doton: Doryuudan!"
The massive earth dragon roared at Team 7, but all three of them smirked.
"Haha, your strongest versus my strongest. I wonder who will win?" Sasuke asked. He formed a few distinctive hand seals, and the sudden chirping of birds was heard by everyone nearby. "CHIDORI!"
He dashed forward, and plunged his lightning-encased hand through the dragon and straight at the genin who used the Doryuudan.
Just as he was about to impale the other boy, Sasuke veered away and plunged his hand into the ground.
"Lightning beats earth," he stated cockily.
The genin fainted. His close call with death had scared him so badly that he even wet his pants.
As this happened, more ink animals appeared and they had snuck up behind the genjutsu specialist. With a roar, they slashed her back, and she fell like her first teammate, unconscious due to the pain.
The remaining opponent growled. With a cry of vengeance, he dashed forward to try to stab Sai, but for some reason, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Sasuke glanced at Sakura.
"I put him under a genjutsu. I thought it would be a good idea, since his teammate isn't here to tell him that he's under one, and it might be possible for him to give us some information. Maybe he'll have some information that could help us."
The boy immediately started to talk.
"You forgot the clue? How foolish, Yahiko." He sighed. "How could you forget? Sensei only told us a little while ago."
The three Konoha genin shared a look. The Iwa team was cheating? Did this apply only to this particular team, or were all of the Iwa teams cheaters?
"The location of the second exam is..."
A/N: Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone!