The Genin Exhibitions were the talk of the town for the month until the day they arrived. Everything in Konoha was turned up to eleven as. Everyone tried to put their best foot forward to prepare for the visiting villages. Even my Hyuga cousins had not been left out of the excitement. Visiting the compound to pick up a scroll on tenets control showed me that they were already working on painting the entire thing again. Insane. Especially considering they did a repaint every two years, and the last hadn't even been up to a year ago. It went to show just how seriously everyone was taking this.
I couldn't judge them. Was I not much the same? My ninjutsu and taijutsu were polished to perfection. The seals I'd held off on implementing into my arrows until I was more than good enough to do them myself were completed post-haste. They were unable to do everything I wanted, but they could do enough. The major remaining project was a seal for the bow itself. A seal that would turn it from an exceptionally well-crafted bow to a ninja weapon on the level of the Swords of the Mist, or even the Raijin no ken. Speaking of the Raijin no ken, Uncle had even been kind enough to allow me to study the weapon. A marked change after months of holding back and insisting that if I wanted to build anything similar, I should design the matrix on my own. It was clear that the pressure of the exhibition was getting to even him, at the very least it was making him much more helpful than usual.
On the other hand, Hatake Sakumo seemed to have decided that he didn't give a rat's arse about what was coming or when he was coming. He'd done his duty of notifying us that it was happening and that we'd automatically been registered by the Hokage's own recommendation, and went back to business as usual. We'd already taken our mission for the month, so that meant we spent our time training now. "Sensei, can you help me with this?" I heard Uzume's voice from the other end of the clearing and chuckled.
She'd caught the bug like nothing else. All her training was geared to winning the Exhibition in whatever way she could. Already bored with my last, I leaned away from the scroll I was bent over and turned my attention to her. Her fist crackled with lightning-natured chakra as she attempted to channel it into her Gunbai, of all things, but the wood just seemed to accept the chakra and do nothing with it. Chakra flow. Interesting technique. I'd dabbled with it a bit for my arrows after remembering what Killer Bee could do with a pencil and lightning release in the anime. Unfortunately, it seemed that either wind release worked differently, or there was something I was missing. The chakra flowing into the arrows cut out almost immediately I fired them from my bow. Good for an initial boost in speed, but nothing more.
It was the whole reason I wanted to study the Raijin No Ken. Maybe if I could channel lightning natured chakra instead, then it would work better. So far, there had been no luck with deciphering my Uncle's sealing technique, but I had hope that it would come together sooner rather than later. On the other end of the clearing, Toshiro balanced upside down on the stream with a single finger as he sought to sharpen his chakra control to a knife's edge. It would improve his genjutsu definitely, but I wasn't sure that was the best use of his time.
To be completely honest, I wasn't the biggest fan of genjutsu as an art. Sure, it was powerful now, but I knew what was coming. Otsutsuki did not fall for genjutsu. That was why every spare minute not shoved into fuinjutsu practice was spent working on my taijutsu. I had to make sure it was the one skill I never neglected. But that was beside the point, I turned to the clone beside me and noted that he was weaving seals almost nonstop. That was another thing that came with the upcoming exhibition. The shadow clone jutsu. I was already using it as a training aide, and it had doubled the speed at which I could work on certain skills. One clone worked on ninjutsu in the training ground. Another clone worked on fuinjutsu with Grandmother back at home, and I spent all my time either doing physical training and taijutsu or trying to puzzle out new jutsu in my mind. The former was because it was the only thing I couldn't get a clone to do for me, and the latter because it was one aspect of ninja training that I legitimately enjoyed.
Presently, the scroll on chakra control through every tenketsu was proving to be less helpful than expected. That was generous. It was mostly useless to me. It wasn't the fault of anyone in particular, however. Who could have foreseen someone born with one of the Hyuga kekkei genkai but not the other? Definitely not the author of this particular scroll. He placed a lot of emphasis on using the byakugan to monitor the flow of chakra through the tenketsu. The Byakugan that I didn't quite have. Fun times were ahead of me. Especially since I couldn't see any other way to figure out Kakuzu's Doton: Domu before the exams.
"Maybe focus on something else for the moment and come back with a fresh head." A voice said from my side, leaning over the scroll. I hastily snapped it shut and turned to the intruder with a scowl. My eyes met my sensei's and I just sighed before standing up. He was right. I'd gain nothing from banging my head against the problem over and over again.
"Taijutsu spar?" I asked him, trying to work out some of my frustrations, and he answered with a snap kick to my head that I barely moved out of the way of.
XXXXXX
Perhaps this had been a better idea than he'd given the Higher-ups credit for. A massive stadium on the outskirts of the village. He would probably throw up if he got to see the bill that this thing had taken. But each seat had sold for tens of thousands of yen. Each seat was filled now. Tickets had sold so quickly that civilians who wanted to attend had been forced to buy them for even higher prices from resellers. Scalpers, Shorirama, referred to them as. Of course, he had a name for them. He was one of them. His student had made about five hundred thousand yen from 'scalping'. Of course, the Hokage had made him return the money once he found out about it. Word on the street was that his Killing Intent could have been felt for miles beyond the Senju Compound when he found out. But that only went to show how much demand had existed for something like this.
Genin from all five of the major villages and several minor ones stood in the middle of the field, being stared at and pointed out by the spectators. As a Jounin-sensei, he'd received a free ticket to sit among the spectators, and here he could get a real pulse for what was being felt. Firstly, the more physically distinctive a shinobi was, the more attention they received. That meant that most of the attention was going to Konoha genin. Even from the merchants that hailed from other villages. But for every rule, there was an exception. Shorirama with his dark hair and eyes drew more attention than any other. Perhaps it was the choice of outfit.
He'd almost facepalmed once he first saw it. The boy had a death wish, and he seemed intent on committing suicide by enemy shinobi. There was no chance that his chosen armour had been coincidental. Old-fashioned Senju armour from the warring states period in the same blood-red his Grandfather had favoured. It looked comical on his Twelve year old frame, but it was clear that he would grow into it in time. The giant scroll on his back did even more to highlight just where he had taken his inspiration from. His face was sharper, more noble in appearance, and his body was more lithe, but for all anyone could see at first glance, he was Hashirama writ small. And almost as if not to be outdone, his teammate had decided to don a similar outfit. The Gunbai strapped to her back did her no favours in denying the resemblance.
Stood next to each other as they were, he'd heard more than one foreign shinobi whisper, 'Hashirama and Madara' on catching sight of the both of them. The fact that the duo had never fought in the First Great Shinobi War had done little to lessen their foreign renown. And now, for better or for worse, his students were going to be regarded as the second coming of Konoha's legendary founding duo.
"Ladies and Gentlemen in Attendance." A voice rang across the arena. A familiar voice. Jiraiya, he placed it, once he had a look at the Commentator's box. Jiraiya stood there with his customary wide smile, next to a wizened old man. The armour he wore marked him as a Samurai of Tetsu no Kuni. He could see the strategy. Jiraiya was there to provide commentary biased towards Konoha, while the Samurai offered a neutral counterpoint. It was clearly an overture to keep the guests from taking offence. The Hokage had truly thought of everything. And Sakumo knew that even with the Samurai being a counterparty, the civilians would still be more swayed by Jiraiya's words. His boisterous voice and charming tone had that ability.
"Welcome to the First-Ever Great Genin Exhibition. We have Shinobi from all the best villages, and even Iwa here with us" The last part of the sentence received jeers from one section of the crowd, but they all took it with good humour as intended. Sakumo's eyes searched through the genin, counting the numbers that came from each village with a discerning eye.
"Three tasks. With each task taking place in this very arena….."
"Each task will be a surprise for our dear lovely genin taking part in this exhibition, so you can be sure to see the adaptability and genius of our genuine n full display." He said, getting murmurs from the crowd as they anxiously waited for the commencement of the tasks. The murmurs turned into gasps of surprise as two massive screens were unveiled at each end of the arena.
"Konoha's sealing corps has crafted a device to ensure that you get to view every second of action from the comfort of your seats without straining your necks. Through groundbreaking algorithms and self matrixes that hurt my head to think of, these screens are going to use small receptors following each team to ensure that we get to see what they're all up to". His words excited the civilians, but the shinobi began to whisper quietly. Sakumo resisted the urge to smile. Whatever plans the foreigners had were going to be thoroughly derailed by the fact that they'd have eyes on their genin for every step of the process. His fear that this would be used as an opportunity to kill off Konoha's genin in a series of 'accidents' was thoroughly quelled. No shinobi worth their salt would do something so underhanded in front of civilians. One way or another, they all went to the effort of pretending to be upstanding and honourable fellows to their civilian clientele.
Small devices, golden with wings that moved as quickly as a hummingbird's, flew across the arena, attaching themselves to each genin team. Like magic, the screens came to life, showing the smiling or scowling or doing nothing at all faces of the various genin. Shorirama waved at his device and his team's screen grew to cover most of the screen, with the smaller screens being relegated to the side.
"Of course, the view will shift over time to give you the best view of the most action" Jiraiya said.
"An impressive device" His taciturn Samurai companion commented.
"Indeed. Konoha's sealing team is one of the best in the world, after all."
"Moving on to the first task, my companion, Lord Yoroi Musha of Tetsu no Kuni, will introduce the first test."
"The first task is a maze. In a few seconds, the maze will form, covering most of the arena. Around the maze will be clues that you must solve to know the right route to follow. All wrong routes are trapped to high heaven. Only the correct route will be free from traps. The first fifteen teams to make it out of the maze will make it to the next stage." He delivered his words with a sharp tone that amplified their impact. Even the genin began to worriedly whisper to themselves.
"Of course, any combat is prohibited within the maze. The use of ninjutsu to destroy or affect the maze in any way is also prohibited. Either of which will get you disqualified immediately. We're watching" At that, he cut off. Then, the ground around the platform the genin stood on began to vibrate.
All around them, walls began to rise from the ground. The civilians gasped at watching the maze form before their eyes. Sakumo knew that it much have been the work of dozens of Earth release masters working in concert towards a single goal. But even that, it was impressive that the maze was being formed in real time. Noticing the pattern in which the maze rose, he changed that impression. The maze had already been formed. It was probably built and kept underground. Now, they just had to lift it back up. Not a small task, by any means, but still less impressive than building a new maze from scratch.
"Above each entrance to the maze lies a number. There are Ninety entrances for the Ninety teams enrolled in the exams. Move to the one that matches your registration number" His team moved to the Forty-Seventh entrance as he watched Shorirama trade barbs with his Uchiha friend, Uzume's cousin, before the boy left to join his team. Those two were more suited to the Hashirama and Madara comparisons. Shorirama and Uzume could scarcely spend an hour in each other's presence before starting up a fight.
"Now begin" Jiraiya's voice sounded out, and each team ran in. He turned to the screen to get a view of his team, the maze was covered from the top, probably to prevent any genius from deciding to jump over the whole thing.
XXXXXX- SENJU SHORIRAMA
He'd known about the screens ahead of time. He'd even come up with the idea to model the receptors after golden snitches. Tobirama had given the assignment to Grandmother some months ago, and when she struggled to find a good form factor for the receptor devices, I'd drawn her a diagram of a golden snitch, and the rest was history. It was perfect. Their spherical bodies meant that they could contain a surprisingly long fuinjutsu script both within and outside their bodies. The matrix itself was a work of art on the level of the great weapons out there. Certainly, more complex than the Raijin no Ken. The power to attack itself to a genin's chakra signature, to power wings and follow said genin around, to power visual receptors that functioned on the same wavelength as the human eye, and then to transmit everything to the screens.
Comparatively, the screens were simple. More complicated than anything he could make, but still simpler than the receptors. The screens took data from the receptors and displayed it. That wasn't hard. The hard part was designing a matrix that would decide which feed was the most interesting and magnifying that while relegating the rest to a smaller view. It functioned a bit like the computers he knew in his previous life. He'd always thought that fuinjutsu was a plot like programming, and the matrix behind the screens was the clearest example of that similarity. It was trained on a few signs of what would make good content, and it was trained to prioritise them based on a fixed list, but also taught that when two scenes were equally interesting, it would prioritise the one with a visible konoha headband. When both had that, it would basically flip a coin and randomly decide.
The horn went off and both he and his teammates walked into the maze. He noted that it was covered from the outside world with an impressive level of isolations. The screams of the crowd had died out as they walked in. Even the light from outside did not reach them in the labyrinth. Instead, it was lit by strange crystals in the walls. Their first obstacle was the fact that there were two paths waiting for them after they walked in. Toshiro began rifling through his pockets for a notepad. Most likely to decode the obvious cryptograph. Uzume had walked forward to look into each path with her Sharingan. Probably trying to tell which route was trapped with her enhanced eyesight.
He let out a fake cough to get their attention. "This test will be easy. Easy for me, at least" He bragged, he knew he was bragging as he squatted down and placed his palm on the ground. The rules said they weren't allowed to use ninjutsu to affect the walls in any way. They said nothing about using chakra to feel them out.
"What are you doing?" Toshiro asked.
"This entire maze was made with ninjutsu, so it'll be a bit harder, but one of the more advanced applications of Earth natured affinity training is the ability to sense earthen formations. I'm using that skill to build a map of the maze in my head and find which route led to the exit." He said to them.
"So this test will favour Iwa Shinobi?" Uzume asked with a hand on her Gunbai. Combat wasn't permitted in this test, but both of his teammates were clearly on edge. Sakumo had instilled a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on whom you asked) level of paranoia in them.
"This skill is something most chunin won't even be familiar with. If it favours any Iwa genin, then they'd be a prodigy who wouldn't have had any difficulty with the test, regardless of what it was." He replied, assuaging her concerns that their home village had chosen to pander to another.
"Got it" he said.
"Follow me" He then said to the both of them, getting an affirmative response from Toshiro and a begrudging nod from Uzume as he stared at her until she replied. Her usual bullshit wasn't going to be accepted here. She'd got better, for sure. A year of being in the same team with them and training with them meant that a lot of the original aggressiveness had died out quickly. She wasn't what he'd describe as a friend, but they were definitely on the level of friendly acquaintances. With Toshiro, she'd spun up a more genuine friendship than the working relationship they shared. He couldn't have cared less, with not having the time or patience for what he saw as self-entitled bullshit.
They followed his mental map to a tee. Even as they heard traps going off across the maze, nothing affected them as they moved through the completely untrapped route. Another thing he'd noted as he plotted out the map of the maze was that all the trapped routes did eventually lead to exits, but they were so circuitous that it would take at least thrice the time to cover those routes. A determined and skilled enough shinobi could do it, but it wouldn't be easy. He figured that this test would probably be the one that got him the least attention, almost in direct apposition to the orders he'd received to show the world that Konoha's next generation as strong as their predecessors and warn off the other villages from considering war, but he figured finishing this test first would go a long way in projecting that image. Not as long a way as walking through all the traps like some inevitable and indomitable god, but that would be stupid.
His job wasn't to show that Konoha shinobi had more strength than wits. Probably the opposite, as he thought of it. They came across a section of the maze with five paths and a riddle scrawled atop it. Reading the riddle, he cracked a smile; "I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?" He loved riddles. They walked into the fourth path, and he noted that every step they took audibly echoed to their ears.
Echo. That was the answer to the riddle. He could just imagine how much time another team would have had to spend on getting through a challenge like that. He looked at the surrounding walls. What others would have mistaken for scratches, he correctly identified as a sealing matrix. A familiar sealing matrix. The same one his mother's clan used for their personal rooms to prevent their byakugan wielders from getting too peaky. He turned his thoughts from his mother. He could not afford a distraction right now. They walked forwards and came face to face with another team walking in the exact opposite direction.
The Iwa team had three shinobi; a wider boy years older who looked muscular enough to crush Toshiro's head in his grip, a lithe girl with sleeves that went past her hands and covered view of her fingers, and a third boy with auburn hair parted off to the side and a wicked smirk on his face. Both his team and theirs kept careful watch of each other as they made sure to pass each other by with as large a margin as possible. Nobody wanted to risk a fight breaking out that would get all of them tossed out of the labyrinth. When they'd finally passed each other, he made a point of not turning to watch them leave.
Uzume had more than enough paranoia for the three of them, as she watched them carefully with blood-red eyes until they rounded the corner.
"The Senju boy didn't look all that. His Uchiha teammate is much more scary" They heard a voice he suspected belonged to the red haired boy come from the corner the Iwa nin had just rounded. Uzume visibly preened at the unintended compliment as he chuckled. He had no need for looking menacing or intimidating. Smaller animals puffed themselves up to look bigger and meaner than they actually were. He was no small animal. He had no need to intimidate with his appearance, he'd let his strength do that for him.
The next fork in the road had two paths. There was a complex equation scrawled above the route that he didn't even bother reading once he saw the saw just how many variables it had. He led his team left, and they followed. They hadn't come across a single trap. He knew Uzume kept a watchful eye out, and that both he and Toshiro were keeping track of their surroundings in their own ways. Him through Earth natured chakra, and Toshiro through his newly discovered affinity for chakra sensing.
The path led to another path that led to a massive room with doors on every side. The puzzle was etched into the ground. He smiled and went to a path a few paths away from the one that they'd come in through. As they walked through, he noted another team come out from another one of the paths. A team in traditional cloud attire. The only one in the team that caught his attention was a boy even younger than they were with long bi-coloured hair (half green half white). It was notable enough that he was sure he'd seen that particular combination in the anime before. The path they walked through led to another intersection, and that led to another, until they finally quite literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. He slowed down to draw a seal near the exit as a bit of a gift for whoever came after them.
The labyrinth had been lit with luminous crystals, but that did not compare with the sunlight that beamed in from outside. He walked out of the labyrinth first to roars from the crowd. "Smile and wave, boys" He said to his teammates with a bright smile on his face.
"The first team to complete the first test is Team Forty-Seven from Konoha: Senju Shorirama, Uchiha Uzume, and Takehada Toshiro" Jiraiya's familiar voice rang across the stadium.
A/N: Stage One done. Now to set the stage for exam two. The next three chapters are up on patreon same username as up here, so feel free to check it out if you want to support my journey, but don't stress if you can't. Everything will come up here in its own timeWhen he saw Shori stop to scrawl down that seal, he'd known that there was nothing good that would come of it. At least, they were done with the exam. He was proven right when the next team to approach the final tunnel stepped over the seal. It was only Shikahime's observant nature that allowed her to notice the glow on the floor before the seal went off. She activated her shadow jutsu and somehow used it to toss both her teammates out of the tunnel while she sank into the ground. She surfaced outside the tunnel a few seconds later, but no one had any attention to give her. All the attention was on the destroyed exit. Shori's seal had caused the tunnel to implode in on itself, so everyone within the mail was essentially sealed within by the stone that made up the path. Rather, all the attention flickered between the exit and Shori's brightly smiling face.
He wanted to shrink in on itself as the screen magnified their own feed. His skin looked pasty white on the large display. It was clear that he wanted to be anywhere but here. Uzume glowered right at the receptor. Her glare shot from the screen in a way that showed her clear disdain for everyone watching. Shori, on the other hand, smiled and waved. He was smiling. A bright smile that made it clear he wasn't concerned with the shouts of him being a cheater that came from certain parts of the crowd. Toshiro was beginning to fear that the field would be overrun by pissed of spectators when the commentator's voice rang out.
"A brilliant tactic from the Konoha Team. Sealing up the entrance to prevent others from making their way through easily" The samurai said with an approving hum, making it clear that nothing Shori had done was against the rules.
"Even better, he used fuinjutsu, which was never mentioned in the rules, and waited until he was more than done with the exam before allowing his trap to take effect. A brilliant tactic, indeed. But let us not hesitate to give it up for the second team to pass this stage, Team Sixty-Six from Konoha; Yamanaka Inoken, Nara Shikahime, and Akimichi Choni." Jiraiya's words put paid to the whispers as everyone moved to applauding Shikahime's team. Even better, the screen decided to show a replay of them escaping the trap.
XXXXX
At the end of the day, it took an hour for someone to finally complete the maze again. It was the team they'd passed from Iwa. They made it to the sealed exit, like multiple other teams had. But instead of taking it as a dead end like the other teams had, the muscular one moved forward to examine the site of the cave in. He exchanged words with his teammates, and then they walked backwards before the one with red hair made a single hand-seal- the tiger seal. Instead of a fireball, he breathed out multiple small balls of lava(?). They slammed into the cave-in and shot through. The blockage on the exit was lifted, and they walked through.
The fourth team to pass was Izuku's. Only the fourth by a technicality because it seems they had run into Uraume's team at some point in the maze and then chosen to work together to complete the rest of it. Uraume stepped backwards to allow Izuku step through first. Toshiro noted that all four of the genin teams to have graduated with him had been in the top five.
The next team had the boy with bi-coloured hair that Shori had been staring at for a while. He noticed him watching their feed even before they got to the exit. Subsequently, teams started to pass through at a steady rate.
All in all, the first stage had taken close to three hours from start to end. Shori's prank had definitely lengthened the task beyond all expectations.
"Now that we have our first fourteen teams, we can end the task," Jiraiya's voice rang out before the max began to open up. Those still within it were visibly disappointed to find that they had lost and been disqualified. In one fell swoop, they'd gone from hundreds to fourteen teams.
"I hope you all got your fill of the calmer task. From now, we'll be diving right into the action" Jiraiya said, and the ground began to vibrate again.
All the genin who passed had been returned to the central platform, while everyone else was made to evacuate the field. Toshiro noted that apart from his genin class, one other team had passed from Konoha. One team each had passed from both Kumo and Iwa. Two teams had passed from Suna. Shockingly, three teams had passed from Kiri. One team had passed from the hidden waterfall village, and the last two teams had come from the Land of Hot Water, and the Land of Grass respectively. All five major villages were represented, but Konoha had the majority.
He watched as the field shifted. Two hills began to rise from the surrounding earth with flags on them; one red and one green.
"For the second task, we have a new game to play. This one involving all fourteen teams in plain view of you, the viewing audience. It's called King of the flags. As you can see, there are two hills and two flags in the playfield. Your task is simple. Every team is to work on their own to complete one of two objectives — Either take the hill or take the flag. Taking the hill means having the only people on the peak of the hill be members of one's team. For every 30 seconds that a team holds the hill, they get twenty points. If the hill is in contention, meaning that the people on the hill are members of more than one team, then the points are shared between the teams equally. As for the flags, the rule involving the flags is simple. Taking the flag means having possession of the flag at the end of the stage. Each flag is worth 200 points. The top five teams at the end will move on to the final stage of this exhibition." He said, going on a long spell that I tried my best to keep track of. It reminded me of two games from my past, and it also told me that Grandmother Mito had more of a role in designing these than she let on.
I'd told her about King of the Hill and Capture the Flag before. In fact, it was a game she enjoyed playing with me- with figurines of course-we had these cool puppets powered by fuinjutsu that could move in all sorts of ways. I guess designing this test like this was supposed to give me some sort of advantage.
"Just to clarify, the flags are not to be removed from their poles, and they must not be hidden at all during the task. Does everyone understand the rules?" He didn't wait for an answer.
"Good. You have three minutes to strategise among yourselves." Jiraiya finally said, and shut off the feed from his mic. The crowd's buzzing gnawed at me as they chattered about the undoubtedly exciting task to themselves.
I turned to both Uzume and Toshiro and began to make signs at them.
'Focus on the flags?' I asked first.
'Negative. That's what most of them will be thinking as well. Having to keep it openly displayed means we'd sooner end up in a situation like whoever gets the Hill, without the benefit of the high ground' Uzume replied, signing furiously.
I thought over her words and nodded. It provided one advantage over the hill; mobility. But at the end of the day, we'd have to fight off everyone who wasn't going to scrap over the hills. I tried to come up with a plan, but literally the only other option was scrapping it for the top of the Hill. I knew that was the option Uzume preferred. Both because she was that type of person, and she literally just signed it at us.
'We'd have to fight at least half the people here by ourselves. And we have to make sure they don't stay on the hill in any large numbers because splitting those points would be terrible.' I signed back. She wanted to sign something back before Toshiro stepped between us. Uzume was no longer antagonistic with me- not as much as she used to be, but we were still far from friends. Teammates maybe, but not friends.
'I have an idea' His fingers said for him.
'How long will it take you to make a barrier that rejects outsiders? How long can you keep it up for?' Both questions were addressed to me.
'Since I already know the script for an excellent one, it'll probably take about three minutes with clones. And as for keeping it up, I can go for hours if it isn't being assaulted. Under heavy assault, maybe 30 minutes, but I'd be dead on my feet afterwards.' I said to him. Being a quarter Senju and a quarter Uzumaki meant I had chakra reserves that put some Jounin to shame. I wasn't Naruto, by any means. At about six shadow clones, I was tapped out. But I wasn't lacking when it came to reserves.
'Good. My idea is this. Uzume and I buy you the time to make the barrier and once you can get it up, we chill at the top of the hill.' He signed. It was a good idea, I thought. Better than whatever I had. I signed that to both of them, and Uzume signed her willingness soon after. She'd get to fight to her heart's content, so it probably soothed the battle lust in her Uchiha blood. I slapped myself at that thought. I was slipping up more and more. The more time I spent in the clan compound, reading scrolls from previous clan heads, and talking to Granduncle, the more anti-Uchiha propaganda was shoved down my throat. It was a subtle and insidious thing. Like how Senju Benimaru, the seventeenth clan head had written that Uchiha had a natural lust for battle — ignoring that we Senju enjoyed fighting just as much as they did. We started half the conflict between our clans, after all. He even ignored Senju Kenpachi who loved to fight so much that he came close to ending the entire Uchiha Clan, but allowed the survivors to leave simply because he wanted them to get stronger and present him with a good fight.
My thoughts were knocked out of my head, as someone walked towards us. Izuku. He had both his teammates behind him. I smiled at him, and he smiled back.
"I saw your plan. We want in." He said. He wasn't talking to me. He was talking to Toshiro. And my ever affable teammate turned to him with a sharp smile on his face- "Fuck off" I choked. I actually choked on air and had to bend over. I missed the next part of the interaction.
"We could just as easily ruin the entire plan if we wanted to. Let us in. Besides, if you want to cover Mr. Seal Master over there, then the two of you won't be enough" he said.
"Hold on, how did you even know our plan?" I cut in before Toshiro could reply.
He flashed his sharingan for a second, and I almost facepalmed. Of course.
"The point is, we want in. We have the numbers to help you make this thing work" He said, still talking to Toshiro.
"Fine. But you'll do precisely as I say."
"Sure thing, Captain" He said with a sincere smile on his face.
"Now that I'm in on this, I say you should probably stop assuming you're the only ones who speak Anbu code. I saw Uraume peeking at you guys earlier with her eyes, and Shikahime's gaze hasn't left your team since you started your little strategising session" He said.
I wanted to sink into the floor, embarrassed at making such a rookie mistake. I'd defaulted to standard operations protocol for missions, not computing that we were surrounded by Konoha nin here. If anyone spoke the code in our year group, then Shikahime, Izuku, and Uraume, would be my first guesses outside of my team.
"Do you think they'll come for us?" I asked him.
"Only a fool would try to fight both you and Uzume-chan working together. They'll probably work around you guys. But if they get the chance, I doubt they'd hesitate." I nodded at his words.
"Good. Now, let's complete the plan" He said, switching over to English. I smiled at the confused faces around us. Teaching the language to Izuku so we could plan pranks and pretending that I'd come up with it was reaping dividends even now.
When he and Izuku hd completed the plan, he turned to his teammates and told them, "Just follow my lead when the buzzer rings. It's going to be a bit like Formation 7, but you'll notice the twist when it happens". Toshiro nodded with a shrug, but Hume looked between Izuku and me for a few tense seconds. Almost like she was deciding whether it would be a good idea to play ball or not. Finally, she signalled her capitulation with a slow nod. I gave her one back, thankful. I wasn't an idiot — this plan would be noticeably more difficult without her cooperating. She was easily one of the strongest genin here, after all.
I turned to Izuku's team and watched him communicate with both Kizuru and Omoikane. Watching that reminded me that I hadn't seen much of the Kurama heir lately. Omoikane and I were more distant friends so it was understandable that we didn't see as often, but Kizuru was one of my best. I walked forward, moving past Izuku once he was done and placed a hand on Kizuru's shoulder to catch his attention. He looked up at me, startled. I smiled to calm him down, but that didn't work as well as it should have. He still blushed in embarrassment and stepped backwards.
"How have you been, Kizuru? We missed you at the last gathering." I said to him, silently asking the question.
"I've been lovely, Shori. I had lessons with some clan elders that couldn't really be skipped. Maybe you'll get to see what I learned in the next stage" he said with a smile that I returned.
Of course our conversation was brought to a quick end by the sound of the buzzer. I turned to the screen and found that it was beginning a countdown. Seven seconds left.
"We'll catch up once this is over. I promise" I said, and turned to face the hill we'd chosen to die on.
The one to the left, which had a higher proximity of foreign shinobi close to it, and crucially had neither of the two foreign teams that had caught my attention.
"Sharp" I muttered to myself as I prepared to jet off. The screen counted down to 1 and then there was the sound of a horn. I smiled as I disappeared in a body flicker that took me right to the base of the hill. I quickly began to climb, ignoring most of the obstacles, and noting their presence when both Uzume and Izuku appeared behind me in short order. I crested the top of the hill first. Uzume followed shortly after. Toshiro and Izuku mounted it at the same time. I turned in a swift movement and formed a seal. The next body to jump over was riddled with air bullets. The water clone splattered to the floor, and the Mizu genin with the rebreather jumped right up immediately afterwards, tossing a bunch of shurinken my way. I transitioned from the bird seal to the snake seal and a mud wall caught the projectiles before they hit me.
She was forced to end her attack as Uzume dove right at her and kicked her back towards the ground. She landed on the hill, and they began to engage in furious taijutsu. One of her teammates crested the hill next, but they found Izuku waiting for them with flashing red eyes. The next people to complete the journey were Kizuru and Omoikane. I nodded at them and got to work.
First things first, I took my scroll of my back and unrolled it. Much like the scroll my grandfather had carried, this was a complicated sealing matrix that basically stored a bunch of shit. I tapped one of the seals, seemingly at random and funnelled my chakra into it.
After a massive puff of chakra smoke, I found myself holding a massive sealing brush with an ink-or next to me. I smiled and dipped the brush into the ink and began to paint the ground with my seals. I was no stranger to barrier techniques. No one who had spent years under an Uzumaki sealing master could claim to be unfamiliar with barriers. I knew I was more conversant than most. I knew multiple barriers that would serve our purposes. I also knew a few that would be even easier to set up. I could always set up something like the Four Violet Flames Formation with a few shadow clones, but there was every chance I'd run out of chakra trying to keep such a powerful seal active throughout the task.
A Suna shinobi appeared in my blindspot with a blade thrust at my neck. I ignored the attack and watched them turn their blade on themself and stab it into their own stomach. Uzume appeared soon after and kicked him down the hill. I nodded at Kizuru with a smile and sent my thanks to Uzume with a nod. The former smiled back, but the latter merely grunted.
"Get that seal done. We're under a lot of pressure." She said before disappearing towards another Suna genin. Part of my wanted to study the Suna wind release in action, but I couldn't spare the focus. This wasn't a seal I had mastered. I couldn't draw it with my eyes closed So I very much had to remain focused on every brush stroke. Especially since I was drawing directly on the stone surface of the hill top.
When I completed the seal, I turned to the flag beside me and whistled to draw attention to myself. I picked up the flagpole, and holding it like a javelin, I tossed it right in the direction of the platform we'd come from. A few shinobi broke off to chase the flag, and both teams had an easier time shoving everyone off the hill. Once I was sure only our teams remained, I slammed my palm on the seal and poured my chakra into it. After that, I began to weave seals at a furious pace: Ram → Hare → Snake → Dragon → Rat → Ox → Tiger → Hare → Snake → Dragon → Rat → Ox → Tiger → Snake → Tiger → Ox → Snake → Tiger → Hare → Horse → Dragon → Rat → Snake → Tiger → Snake → Rat → Ox → Tiger → Hare → Snake. "Barrier Gate Five Seals Technique: Castle Closing Eight Gates" I pronounced.
Five gates rose around us. That was stage one. They then began to spread out red energy in the form of a barrier that linked all of them.
"Well, that was a success" I said with a smile.
And then my shadow bulged before a head rose out of it. A head that was quickly followed by a set of hands. If the head hadn't had a very recognisable pineapple hairstyle, then I would have smashed it into the ground Shikahime rose out of my shadow with a smile on her face.
"That was a superb plan" She said.
I could tell Uzume wanted to either punch her in the face or roast her to death with a Great Fireball, so I stepped in to stand in front of my cousin. "What are you doing, Shikahime?" I asked her, voice stern.
"What do you think? I noticed that plan of yours and decided I wanted in" She said.
"This doesn't work with three teams, Shika. The split isn't profitable like that" I pointed out.
She smiled. "Not necessarily. I just have to be in the top five teams to make it out of this mess. Choni and Inoken are outside this nifty barrier, working to get points for us any way they can. This is just insurance."
"Well, your insurance seems to be ruining things for us" Izuku butted in.
"Consider it revenge for my cute little cousin almost killing us at the end of the first task"
"I apologised for that already. I had no real way to know that you'd be the ones to make it first. And I had every confidence that anyone in our year group would have been able to escape that with ease" I said. I'd played much worse pranks on the class as a whole during our time at the academy.
"Well, I accepted your apology. This is just payback. We're even now" She said.
I turned towards the scoreboard, noticing that our teams were nowhere near the top 5, receiving six and a half points every thirty seconds would add up to about 130 points for the 10-minute task, but that was assuming we had the whole 10 minutes. The seal had taken me two minutes and some change to put up. That meant we lost some points from that period as a result of having so many teams around.
Calculating it, I figured we'd have about 110 points at the whole task if nothing changed. On the other hill, both the Kumo and Iwa teams were duking it out with a reckless abandon. The kind of abandon that spurred something in me. That hill's flag was currently in the possession of the Kumo team, but they were under consistent pressure from the Iwa team. None of the other teams were even choosing to contest that particular hill. Beyond those wasting their energy against my barrier, the rest were fighting over the other flag for those two hundred points.
It was a tense standoff as all seven of us stared at each other in the barrier. After a minute, even the Mizu nin had abandoned trying to break the barrier to try their hands at acquiring the flag.
The fight between the Iwa and Kumo teams remained at a consistent hot point. Every eye was on the exchange. The free for all that had begun on the stage for the other flag was also another source of tension. From the way things looked, at least one Kusa genin had been killed. A Suna genin with some affinity with poisons had incapacitated a whole Kiri team, and the remaining Kiri team was teaming up to launch some devastating combo jutsu to wear down the Suna group. Choni and Inoken weren't easy to find, but I was sure they were waiting and biding their time to snatch that flag at the last moment. It was the kind of thing they'd do. I'd love to see how it would pan out though, since it was clear that Uraume's team was winning the free for all as it stood now.
I'd always wondered what a Hyuga who took ninjutsu seriously would look like, and Uraume was showing me that. Her wind ninjutsu were punishing. Kuro was a whirlwind as he and Shiro swept through the approaching horde with devastating taijutsu. They never let themselves get bogged down for too long, and they used both the beast-man and man-beast transformations to great effect. The boy you were fighting could become a dog at any second and vice versa. They were almost singlehandedly displaying the power of Konoha's rich tekkie genkai arsenal. Shiba was the one placed in charge of physically keeping hold of the flag, and he was doing that with ease. Whoever managed to make it past either of his teammates would find themself swallowed in a storm of insects. Not just any insects, but bugs bred with a special taste for flesh. One Taki genin had forfeited after having his arm eating down to the bone as he tried to fight through Shiba's cloud.
Everyone had given him a wide berth since then.
Another minute passed, and I made up my mind. The barrier would consume way less chakra than predicted since no one was even bothering to attack it. I crossed my fingers, and a clone appeared in a puff of smoke. He sat down in seiza to focus on maintaining and altering the barrier as I needed.
"I'm leaving." I told my teammates. They'd both clearly been doing the same calculations as me so Toshiro nodded while Uzume stepped up to join me. If there was anyone who understood my battle lust, it would be her. If there was anyone who would support my actions, it would be her.
The barrier shifted to make a small gap that I wasted no time passing through. I ignored Izuku and Kizuru as they joined Uzume and I in crossing the barrier. For this, it would be every team for themselves.
"I assume you know what we'll be hunting" I said, turning to her.
Her smile was sharp. We jumped off the hill as one.
A/N; Chaos is a ladder. It's also a cage- and a shark-infested pond, and a million other things because that's how chaos works. The next three chapters are up on patreon, but don't stress if you can't. Everything will come up here in its own time..Our intrusion in the battle between the Kumo and Iwa teams started with a bang. A great fireball jutsu powered up with a Great breakthrough crashed into the middle of the battlefield and both teams operated long before the jutsu landed. The shockwave did send one of the Kumo nin flying into the air, but he was caught in time by one of his fellows. The rest watched with suspicious eyes as the both of us landed between them. Uzume was to my back. I felt her glee at her position, faced by a group of Iwa shinobi. I stared at the Kumo team with a smile on my face.
I clapped my hands and the earth vibrated for a second. They were wise enough to move out of the way of the spikes that rose out of the ground where they had been standing, but that had been part of my plan. It forced them to split up. No longer a single unimpeachable front, I went for the willowy boy-he seemed the weakest of the bunch. He reacted to my approach in time, and put a hand on the blade at his waist and unsheathed it in a swift motion — laido.
It was the wrong reaction, however. Sakumo wielded a blade as well, and did it with a variety of styles. I'd been in this situation a hundred times before, and I knew just how to react. I ducked under the blade with a burst of speed and stepped into his space, removing the reach advantage the blade gave, and not giving him the time or space to bring his blade back around. My first attack was a shot on his lungs. Two fingers with chakra shaped like a dagger stabbed into his body in eight simple movements. By the time I was done, he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
I turned and flipped through two seals before breathing out a veritable wind storm. The wind chakra tore apart the lightning jutsu sent at me before I flipped through another set of seals. My two remaining adversaries were forced to dodge out of the way of my air bullets.
I heard Uzume's laughter and found myself smiling against my will. A wide smile that refused to go down, no matter how much I tried to be serious in the face of the moment. Her joy was infectious. I weaved another set of seals, spitting out two mud balls to slow down my opponent's as they ran at me.
This time, I went after the one with the bicoloured hair. Familiar or not, he'd be going down. He wielded his blade better than his teammate. His movements were sharper, and he was much smarter about it. Every step I took into his guard was matched by a similar step backwards. It was almost like a dance, until I was forced to duck to prevent his teammate from beheading me from behind. She'd finally dodged around the part of the battlefield marred with mud. Both of their blades suddenly flashed with lightning release, momentarily blinding me. In an instant, they executed the second part of the deadly combination- both blades sinking into my skin.
Skin that browned before forming a hard mud that maintained a hold on their blades. I rose from the ground a fair bit away and smiled as I slammed my hands on the ground. "Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld" I screamed. Mr. Bi-colour hair had jumped out of the way from the moment he realised he wasn't able to remove his blade from the clone. His teammate wasted precious seconds trying to free her blade. It made all the difference as she was submerged all the way up to her neck in the dark mud.
And then there was one.
XXXXXXXX
One thing he had learned from having the prodigies of both clans on his team was that the Uchiha and Senju were not as different as they liked to pretend themselves to be. They were two sides of the same coin, for sure. Shorirama generally had a more personable energy than Uzume, but that did not take anything away from the similarities that existed between them. For one, their bloodlust. From the second, his Senju student had ;looked over at the fight between the Kumo and Iwa teams, he could tell the thoughts that ran in his mind; "I want in on that". What separated Shori from Uzume was that Uzume would be much more direct with her thinking and honest with herself. She was eager to join the fight because they were strong. Shorirama would come up with a million reasons to explain why he was going to be doing what he would be doing.
The end result was still the same. They left poor Toshiro to hold down the fort in that barrier of theirs and jumped right to join the fight. They'd probably get points taken off for that when it came to the secondary objective of these exams, but if he was being honest with himself, he was perfectly fine with that. They weren't ready to fly the nest. Not until they could actually work together.
When they managed top engage their targets without getting in each other's way, he was ashamed to say he felt some pride at that. It was a sign of the progress that they'd managed to make in a year, but he could already see how their approach was flawed. Not even flawed because they failed to strategise properly. That would have been an entirely different beast to deal with, but it was flawed because they knew the right thing to do but never considered it because it would require them working together. Taking on organised teams each was stupid. A better approach would have been attacking all six at the same time as a group of two. Separating them in such a way that some Iwa nin ended up with some Kumo nin, and then taking advantage of the chaos inherent in that. And that was only if they were too impatient to just let them fight it out between themselves and take the prize when they were exhausted.
This plan of facing two composed teams at the same time was more risky. Not too risky, clearly. He internally amended his thoughts as he saw Shori begin combat with the Kumo team. It was a clear situation of him being a superior fighter to them, and also their teamwork being terrible. He'd probably have had a harder time if he had to fight them one by one. Sakumo knew how much sense it made, however. Kumo only operated in two-man teams. It was clear that they were being hampered by the introduction of a third teammate who did not fit in with the dynamic.
He decided the battle was practically over as he watched the second teammate get taken down by Shori's jutsu, but that proved to be inaccurate. With a chirping sound, the girl caught in his swamp of the underworld jutsu erupted from the ground with a hand on her blade. She and the younger teenage with dual coloured hair faced down Shori, wary looks on their faces.
On the other hand, Uzume was having a less fruitful timer against the Iwa team. She was yet to be rebuffed as she dove from Shinobi to shinobi. The one with red hair fought her off with smooth command over an interesting form of lava release. The other was one he'd been briefed on. Kitsuchi. The son of the Tsuchikage himself. He used earth release with almost as much skill as Shorirama but manifested differently. Where Shori used his talent to learn as many jutsu as possible and apply each of them in unique ways, Kitsuchi was more focused on learning a few jutsu and being able to apply them in unique ways. He could raise walls with stomps of his feet, and use those same cues to turn said walls into spikes that he sent flying at Sakumo's student.
Only Uzume's masterful use of the lightning flow with her gunbai allowed her to fight off his offensive. The third teammate kept running through seals and scowling as no effect appeared. Sakumo's guess was that she was some sort of genjutsu specialist. The Sharingan and being on the same team as both Toshiro and Shorirama made it highly unlikely that there would be a genin out there capable of ensnaring Uzume in their genjutsu. The Iwa girl would probably have an easier time going after Shori with her genjutsu. He had the Hyuga preternatural chakra control that made him highly resistant to genjutsu, but he definitely wasn't immune. Not even close.
With a swing of her gunbai, Uzume sent two stone spears flying into the distance and dove right at the genjutsu girl with the weapon raised high. She back-pedalled, trying to retreat from the smiling Uchiha. She dodged the girl's swing, was forced to duck underneath, and eat a kick to her face for her troubles. A wall rose between Uzume and her target, but she would not be denied. With a heave-ho, she sliced through the wall, and continued her approach. Her war fan arched down to deal the final blow, but the red head substituted with his teammate.
Uzume dove backwards and barely managed to dodge out of the way of the flood of lava sent her way. Back at square one, she gritted her teeth and lifted the war fan again.
Shori weaved seals at a rapid pace, only just managing to keep the duo of Kumo nin away from him with rapid ninjutsu. He'd abandoned the use of earth release after they proved more than willing to slice through whatever he sent with lightning natured chakra flow. It was almost ridiculous how chakra flow was an advanced technique reserved for the more experienced Chunin, but there were three genin on the rooftop displaying familiarity with the technique. He'd never seen Shori use it, but he was almost certain he could. Especially since Uzume had shown proficiency with the technique.
The Kumo duo dove at him, but were forced to dodge out of the way of a stream of air bullets. They were careful to prevent themselves from being separated after their first teammate had been taken down.
As both fights began anew, the buzzer sounded off. One minute more. Almost immediately, the Kumo nin lost all interest in Shori and made at the Iwa position. Uzume jumped to the side to prevent being caught between both teams.
I unsealed my bow. Uzume looked at me like she couldn't believe it. I just smiled at her. This was the moment. The time to prove everyone wrong. To show them exactly what I knew. I bent my back and aimed my arrow to the heavens. Breathe in. Breathe Out…. I loosed the arrow with my breath. It sailed in the air a few metres before sharply banking downwards. One thing I'd learned early on in life was that I did not have the wood release. Of course, I knew it. The clan checked. I had the right affinity, but I could just not grasp the formula for forming wood release. Whenever I tried, I'd just end up forming mud. Dirty mud. Useless mud. Whatever notes my Grandfather had left on the matter had been unclear and only two steps away from useless. I was sure the only reason why Tobirama had never got on his arse to make better notes was the fact that they all thought he had at least a century in him when he'd died.
The only reason the notes were just two steps from useless and not entirely so was because of what they meant for my arrows. The wood in each arrow was made from Hashirama trees. I held the largest private collection in trust for the Senju clan at this point (buying shit with clan funds did tend to have that effect—even if I was buying the land from my own Granduncle). His notes had 'taught' me how to interact with the chakra he'd left behind in each of his creations. I couldn't do anything too impressive with them, but controlling the flow of an arrow telekinetically within certain limits was easy. And so the arrow defied physics and dropped on my enemies like a meteor.
The second benefit of learning to interact with my Grandfather's chakra appeared then. With the right set of seals, and the right amount of chakra control, I could cast jutsu through the arrows at distance. I snapped my fingers and one arrow became dozens. The Kumo and Iwa nin, previously on the edge of fighting again, scattered to avoid the attack. The Tsuchikage's grandson slammed his palms on the ground and formed a dome of earth to protect both himself and the flag from my attack.
Game. Set. Match. I thought to myself as I snapped my fingers once more. The arrows, already airborne, glowed with blue chakra as I activated rudimentary wind natured chakra flow on a 'few' of them. The few set to hit his dome. Perhaps it was the shouted warning from his teammate, or maybe it was something from his own senses, but I felt Kitsuchi hurriedly use a substitution jutsu to escape the death trap he'd made for himself. My arrows tore through the dome and much of the surrounding landscape.
In the face of awestruck opponents, I substituted with one of my arrows-eating the chakra feedback with nothing but a grimace, and grabbed a hold of the flag. The Horn blared one final time at the exact same time as I lifted the flag for all to see. The flag, red as the armour I wore. The reaction was instant. If there was one thing that could get civilians fired up, It was ninja magic that happened too quickly for them to truly understand but slowly enough for them to tell themselves that they did. They chanted my name. Not my first name — that would have been a tall ask, but my last name. "Senju, Senju, Senju" Their voices screamed to the heavens. Not just the Konoha civilians, even. I could see some who had accused me of cheating after that prank at the end of the first stage joining others in screaming my name. It was a heady feeling, I could not deny. And I stood there, enjoying it.
There was someone by my side. I turned to see Uzume looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "Don't let it get to your head, silly boy. They scream your name now, but they'll scream even louder to see you lose your head later" She said. I nodded at her. We turned as one and began to make our way back to Toshiro.
Jiraiya was saying something. I couldn't pick out the words, but I could see the display on the board.
Team Shorirama- 389 points
Team Kitsuchi- 218 points
Team B- 210 points
Team Uraume- 200 points
Team Izuku- 174 points
Izuku's team only had a few points above Shikahime's. Clearly a result of her points only beginning to count after she showed herself on the hill, while Izuku's team had been there much longer. It was also interesting to note that Uraume had won the battle royale for the flag on the field. It was something I had never actually seen coming. I knew she was strong. Her entire team was respectably strong for a team of Genin, but I wouldn't have thought open combat to be a specialty of theirs.
Toshiro noticed where my attention was when he joined Uzume and I. I smiled as he handed my scroll to me and began to speak. "Uraume's team was a massive surprise in that they managed to keep hold of the flag for so long. They did lose it to Choni and Inoken for a bit. And then Kizuru and Izuku stole it from those two. Izuku had the time of his life fighting off all comers, while Kizuru kept it hidden with genjutsu. They actually looked to be about to win the whole thing, and then Uraume was able to lead her teammates through Kizuru's genjutsu while Izuku was occupied with fighting everyone else. Three-against-one, he never stood a chance. The buzzer rang immediately subsequently, and Uraume just began to twirl and created this dome of chakra barrier around herself and the flag. No one could get close until the event was over.
I nodded at his explanation. "I've never seen you use your arrows like that" He said to me. "Of course, I have a few tricks up my sleeves." I said in reply.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, an urgent statement from the Kage Box" Jiraiya's voice rang out louder than before, and sent a hush through the crowd.
I could spot my Granduncle's hat, but little else with how far away I was. He walked forward, to the edge of the box. I applauded the fact that he was bold enough to have his back to four of the strongest shinobi in the entire world. But if I was being honest with myself, I knew as surely as I knew anything that there was no way my Granduncle would have the real him in that kill box. It was probably a shadow clone. The real him would be close, but not in that kind of position.
"Genin of the Elemental Nations. You have been more than exemplary today. Phenomenal. Amazing. Spectacular. Superb. There are a million and one appellations I could bestow upon you all, and each of them would be equally fitting. Needless to say, you have all done your countries proud. Raise your shoulders high for that fact alone. You have all done me proud as well. From my Grandson and Heir to Jodi Siwa of Kusagakure- each of you has shown me that the faith my brother held in the upcoming generations was not misplaced. I underestimated you all in my planning. I expected this to be an event that could be crammed into a single day. Credit to you all for proving an old man like me wrong. I was wrong. The day already goes late, and after the passionate exhibition we've seen, I dare say most of you would be more than exhausted" He paused at that, and I would have sworn his attention was on me for that second. He was right, though. Between the barrier and the stunt with the arrows, I was mostly tapped out.
"Because of that, I proposed an idea to my fellow Kage. One they were more than willing to accept. The event will be paused for today, and resume in the morning tomorrow with the third and final stage- a tournament. To make it up to you for taking even more of your time, my fellow Kage have agreed to my other proposal. Whosoever emerges as the Victor from tomorrow's tournament will have begun the day as a genin but ended it as a Chunin. Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to the Chunin Exams. Genin, may the odds be ever in your favour" he said. The excitement was tangible. I would struggle to cut it with a kunai if I tried-it was so thick. He returned to his seat to rapturous applause, and all around me were whispers and murmured conversations.
I turned to my teammates, about to say something.
"Save it. See you tomorrow, Silly Boy" Uzume disappeared in a shunshin. I smiled fondly, and followed her lead.
Granduncle had been right. It was getting late. Already early evening, I was eager to get home and find myself something to eat.
There wasn't much training I could do with how tired I was, and how late the day was already getting. That meant I returned home plain ing to have a quick dinner and go to bed. Hopefully, waking up earlier tomorrow would give me time to strategise against my probable opponents for the tournament. I went to the Academy with eight of the other participants, and had spent some time fighting another three. The Iwa team were the ones I knew the least about, but I'd still got the chance to see them fight in their grand duel with the Kumo team during the second test. I knew red hair had lava, the big one could use Earth release almost as well as I could, and the last one was their genjutsu specialist. That was enough to make a very basic plan against each of them that would develop into something more complex as the fights went on, and I got to see more and more from them.
"Welcome back, Shorirama-sama" I waved the Hyuga orderly aside as I walked in to begin working on my Dinner. Cooking was a bobby from my old life, and I'd quickly learned that the best food I'd be getting in this house was what I made myself. My mother had an all Hyuga household as part of her marriage agreement, and for some reason, the Hyuga seemed to prefer their food being as bland as their personalities.
"Your mother wants to see you" I heard one of them say, and turned abruptly. It couldn't be me that she was talking to, but the words were clearly addressed to me.
"Who?" Surely, I'd misheard.
"Your mother, the Lady Hinori-sama. She has asked to see you" She clarified, but the words still made no sense to me. No sense at all.
"You must be mistaken," I said, turning away.
"She clearly made her intentions known to me. She asked that I have you sent up to her room the moment you returned." She said again.
"Swear it. Swear it on your life" I demanded.
"I swear"
I turned away from the kitchen, appetite fleeing as quickly as a Toshiro's composure in the face of a beautiful woman. My House was one of the largest in the Senju Compound. It was a wide duplex that spanned a massive amount of land. It was built in the traditional Senju style out of wood that resonated with me whenever I placed my fingers on it. Hashirama had built it himself. The ground floor held the servant quarters and kitchens, while the top floor was where the family was supposed to reside.
My mother had the whole East Wing to herself. An art room, a music room, a library, and massive bedrooms to ensure that everything she possibly needed was within the home for her. I stayed in the West Wing. There were seven bedrooms in the West Wing. I stayed in the same one I'd always stayed in. One of the other rooms used to belong to my nanny, but I'd outgrown having one once I joined the academy. So the rest of the Wing was empty. The truth was, beyond the staff, the House was mostly empty most of the time. The staff that I didn't know as well as I probably should have.
It wasn't entirely my fault since Mother had them switched out every year or so and I only really came here to sleep. The rest of my time was spent in either Grandma Mito's place, or the Clan Library. Not to talk of the time spent on missions or training.
On getting upstairs, I moved right to the East Wing. Left, Right, Left… I never paid such close attention to my feet before. Did I always walk so loudly? It felt like every step I took on the wooden floorboards creaked. I couldn't even apply chakra to my feet to deaden the sounds like I instinctively would. Mother was chakra sensitive to an extreme level.
"I am in here. Come on in" I heard her voice from the art room, and walked in to find her bent over staring at a painting. It was of a red sun, overlooking the village. Leaning to the side to look out the window in front of the easel showed that it was how the village presently looked in the sunset. Beyond the colour of the sun, of course.
Walking closer, I could notice a few differences. For one, some buildings were missing. Either missing, or replaced with something else. It seemed almost random. For a few seconds, at least. Before I noticed what all those buildings had in common. The Hokage tower was replaced with a playground. The academy was gone. It was just another generic flat building. The Barracks were also missing. Same with the village armoury. She'd removed everything that identified Konoha as a shinobi village.
"It is good to see you so well, Mother" I said when I noticed the silence between us had grown awkward. She hummed in reply. When I feared that this was going to turn into one of those, she spoke again.
"I saw your performance at the Exhibition" She started.
"Indeed? I wasn't aware that you left home" I replied. I hadn't seen her in the crowd either. Sure, I hadn't been paying that much attention, but something told me I would have noticed the Hyuga Princess' presence if she'd shown up. Mother would be the centre of attention in any building she walked into. There would have been too many people staring at her in the stadium for me not to notice.
She pointed behind me, and I noted a screen on the wall. It looked like a television from my past life. I walked forward and noticed it was covered in seals.
"Your Grandmother dropped this off this morning. She was very insistent that we watch your performance together. Would not take no for an answer" She said, and I swallowed a chuckle. That sounded precisely like Mito.
"I hope you enjoyed the show, then" I said.
"You have grown strong. Much stronger than either your father and I were at your age. Your Grandmother says you remind her of her husband sometimes" She replied, and I resisted the urge to preen at the praise. I wasn't a pre-teen. I was above this. But somehow, it seemed like I wasn't. Against my will, I felt warmth bloom in my chest. I detested the control this woman had over me.
"Thank you" I said with a bow. To not acknowledge the compliment would have been rude. When in doubt, lean on Hyuga etiquette training to get through things.
"Quit"
What? "Quit what?"
"Being a shinobi. I saw it with my own eyes today. You are strong, you will be one of the strongest in your prime, but that is not a good thing. Strength invites challenge. It was your father's strength that made Iwa send a kill squad after him, even when the war was basically already over. It was your Grandfather's strength that had assassin after assassin sent after him until his body could just no longer keep up…. Hold on, where are you going? Come back here, Shorirama. I am your mother. I command you to come back here..."
Her voice was drowned out as I slammed the door to the house behind me.
XXXXX
He wanted to say he had a tough night of sleeping. That his mother's words kept him up thinking about what she said and what she wanted. But that would have been a lie. He slept like a baby. The second he'd arrived at Grandmother Mito's place and gone up to his room, he'd lost consciousness from the moment his head hit the table. In fact, he had to be woken up to have dinner because no one could sleep in Grandmother's place and dare skip a meal. It was anathema to her, the very suggestion. And so, half asleep, he'd been forced to sit through dinner with his Cousin and their shared Grandmother.
He'd even been so tired that he'd been unable to tease Tsunade about the reason she'd been spending more and more time at their Grandmother's place. Those were regrets of yesterday, however. This was a new day. A new day for him to etch his name on the history books.It made him sometimes wonder why was the way he was. His mother's words had not affected him all through the night, but they were the first thing he thought of on waking up. He'd enrolled at the Shinobi academy and trained his head off to ensure his survival in the wars to come, but was that really necessary? Did he really need to bother about things like that? His mother was right, in a way. He could retire right now and become a civilian. The Senju clan had resources aplenty that would see him live in luxury for the rest of his days. As for being sent out in war, he was sure that Tobirama would not be so cruel as to send his civilian nephew off to war. Hiruzen definitely wasn't going to do that with the head of the Senju clan.
Literally, all his problems would be solved if he quit now. And then he closed his eyes and the thought of a red moon brought him back to reality. In canon, Naruto and Sasuke had done a good job of dealing with that, but so many things had come down to luck in the end. What was the guarantee that Kakashi would exist in this universe? Or what was the guarantee that he'd be the same kind of person? There was none. There were so many things that could go wrong. So many ways that Naruto and Sasuke could fail to exist. Did my presence mean that Mito would live for a bit longer and then Kushina won't be called from Uzushiogakure in time to be teammates with Minato? Did my presence mean that Sakumo would not meet his wife? Maybe even being a sensei to my team had butterflied the man into being a better father to his son. So Kakashi would be less of an asshole, and so Obito would never die — meaning no Kakashi of the Sharingan and no Sensei for Team 7.
I realised it then as I stood up. It was too late. Much too late. Too late for second thoughts and too late for me to reconsider my path. Onwards and upwards, it had to be. And today was step 1. I made the decision then to ignore whatever words Hinori Hyuga had for me. My mother had died on the same day as my father.
I walked out of the room to go down for breakfast and shockingly found the table already set and full.
"You woke up quite late, didn't you, Cousin?" Tsunade asked as I sat down.
"And you're still here, Cousin. I wonder why. Is your mum still throwing up all through the night?" I asked with a snicker.
"Enough, Children. Shori, eat up. You have a day ahead of you," Mito cut in, and I nodded before digging into the healthy breakfast spread arrayed before me. There was so much variety that the meal was more reminiscent of a feast than just a simple breakfast for three. We all had healthy appetites, however. Grandmother said it was the Uzumaki blood that flowed through our veins, but part of me was certain she just used it as an excuse to be a glutton.
After finishing breakfast, I wasted no time heading back to my room to put on my armour. Grandmother had commissioned it for me the second she'd found out about the exams, and it was a masterpiece. Only a true master of fuinjutsu would be able to decipher all the seals on the armour. Even I had issues with them. I couldn't quite figure out the matrix that made wearing the armour feel as comfortable and light as wearing silk.
There were also seals that made the armour much sturdier than it would have otherwise been. That didn't even include the multiple, complex storage seals along the armour's frame that held surprises for anyone who wasn't vigilant enough.
---- —
"Five teams qualified, but only 14 genin will be moving on to the final round. We regret to inform you that Inasa of Kumogakure perished from his wounds at the hospital last night. Please remember him in your prayers tonight. Moving on, with 14 genin, the first round of the tournament will have seven one-on-one fights. That will create a quarterfinal round where one genin chosen at random will have to fight twice to secure their slot in the semi-final round." Jiraiya announced as the Final Round was about to begin. I blinked at his words. The only Kumo genin who was missing from the lineup was the one that I'd taken down during the Second Round. I didn't kill him. I couldn't have. I wasn't aiming to kill, only to disable. Surely, the Hospital should have been more than well-equipped enough to deal with the injuries dealt.
"The rules for this round are simple: both parties will fight until one either forfeits or is unable to continue. Death, immobilisation with no visible escape prospects, or unconsciousness all qualify as situations where the referee can declare a candidate unfit to continue," Yoroi spoke next in his simple tone before leaning backwards.
"Now, if you would turn your attention to the screen, our first fight is about to be drawn," Jiraiya said.
The screen flipped through names at high speed, very reminiscent of those casino machines. It finally began to slow down after close to a minute. The names became more visible until it stopped at two names- Takehada Toshiro vs. Cee" The female teammate of the genin I'd apparently killed in the previous round looked towards where I and my team stood with a sharp smile on her face. Oops.
"Would everyone except the chosen candidates take a step back and return to the waiting area?" The referee asked, appearing behind us suddenly. It was only at that moment that I actually realised who'd been chosen to referee this thing. My Cousin's second roommate. In all his pale-faced and yellow-eyed snaky glory.
"Be careful, Toshiro. She's out for blood," I whispered to him before I joined everyone else in moving towards the waiting area.
A/N; That's the chapter, ey? How's it vibing? The next three chapters are up on patreon so feel free to check it out if you want to support my journey, but don't stress if you can't. Everything will come up here in its own time.