So what's the plan, Uzumaki? I clench my fists, raging in silence at myself. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, and Samui is going to fail because she helped me bail my teammates out at her own expense and I couldn't do the same for her.
...
Maybe… Maybe I should leave her with them. Isamu, the apparent leader of the group, already said that she wasn't going to be killed. And if she 'comes to her senses' before the end of the task they may even bring her into the group and give her a new partner to pass with.
They wouldn't even need to give her an extra scroll- she already has one of the Honor scrolls we looted from the Iwa ambush along with our original Loyalty scroll.
I could go off and look for another straggler like me to pass with, or even beat down an Iwa nin and take their partner. Something like that. It might not even be breaking the rules. The proctors hadn't said you had to pass with your original partner, after all. Maybe Samui and all the other Kumo nin are right and they do want us to mix and match partners. Besides, even if it is against the rules, it's a shinobi exam. Rule breaking is to be expected, right?
Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash.
I snarl, fisting my hair in my hands. Too many ifs and coulds. I can't count on them accepting Samui or even having someone to pair her with if she tries to switch sides. And if she doesn't switch sides and holds out for me to pick her up while I search for a new partner, what does that make me? Worse than trash.
There's Sakura and Sasuke to think about, too. If I fail they'll have to go through the rest of the exams sans a teammate, dealing with the same crap that put me in this situation in the first place. There's no way in hell I'm letting that happen.
I look up at the top of the cliff again, at the gap in guards that I had noted and discarded as soon as I had arrived here. Then I trace the waterfall down the cliff face, into the pool at the bottom, and through the river to my right. I clench my eyes shut, bracing myself for the cold.
"I hate the Chunin Exams."
The water hits me harder than every single one of the kicks that Suna kunoichi threw at me combined, nearly knocking the breath out of me then and there. I reach forward, fighting against the current pushing me back, and kick forward with a burst of chakra. I swim up the river to the waterfall, keeping my head below the water the whole way despite my protesting lungs for fear of being spotted.
When I can feel the stuff pounding down on my head from above I kick up. As soon as I break through the surface the waterfall tries to force me back down, but I force some wind up through my head so the water parts over me. I breathe deeply and force my body to stop shaking quite so hard against the cold.
When I've caught my breath, I reach into my soaked weapons pouches and pull out two double-bladed kunai. Now for the fun part.
I push through the fall until I'm flush against the cliff face and sink my kunai into it. I do the same for the other kunai, and then let myself hang. When the blades hold strong I brace my feet against the slickness of the cliff and begin to climb.
Water roars down past me and batters the dome of wind chakra above me. I ascend, one foot and one kunai after the other, and hope to god that nobody suddenly takes an interest in the waterfall and sees the shinobi climbing up it.
An eternity seems to pass, just me and the waterfall and the cold. I begin to think that I'm not making any progress at all, that by the time I make it to the top it'll be daytime and they'll be long gone. I give up on stopping my teeth from rattling after the first few minutes. When my kunai hits nothing but the air I'm projecting above me, I almost can't believe it.
I clamber up, shoving even harder with my chakra at the current ahead of me as I top the waterfall. I fumble with my weapons pouches with numb fingers for a moment, fail to open them, and in the next moment let my blades slip through my fingers back down the river. Then I start swimming against the current, down the river.
I emerge far, far down the river and heave myself up onto solid ground. I sit there for a long while, shudders wracking my body, struggling to dry myself off with my chakra. Sometime later, when I can finally begin to feel my hands and feet again, I push myself to my feet. I throw a quick glance around to make sure nobody snuck up on me while I was thawing, and then I melt into the trees.
Back in the Academy, my classmates always used to boggle at my ability to pass the stealth tests that everyone else would fail. They couldn't wrap their heads around me evading Iruka-sensei's notice when he seemed to have a sixth sense about everyone else. Even Sasuke couldn't go the whole mile without being caught. And though I wouldn't admit it for all the ramen in the world, I didn't have a clue either. Not until Iruka-sensei's final lesson on the art of flying under the radar.
The truth is that while stealth is all well and good when you're trying to avoid civilians, at a certain level it's almost impossible to avoid the detection of a shinobi. There only a very select few with the skills in chakra detection to be branded as Sensors, but there are a lot more who can do it well enough to pick out a sloppy Academy student at close range.
It's a skill that can be picked up as a rookie genin, or never at all; a sixth sense of sorts, that allows a shinobi to root out all but the most skilled of assassins if honed properly. It makes sneaking up on shinobi a hellish endeavor, since every application of chakra runs the risk of setting them off if they're looking for it.
Every application of regular chakra, that is.
Turns out that regular chakra and elemental chakra are two very different things when it comes to chakra detection. The former can be detected with the right training by most shinobi, while the latter can only be picked up by the elite- Sensors. That means that unless I screw up the technical sneaking, or I try to sneak up on a rare brand of shinobi, I can't be sixth sense'd. I'm invisible.
So I creep through the trees and the night, allowing the sounds of my wind to be overwhelmed by the roar of the waterfall, and drift inside their camp like the ghost that I am.
The first guard I come upon has their back to me, looking out over the clearing at the bottom of the waterfall. Their white vest and gray clothing marks them as a Kumo nin. I ease out from behind my cover, cutting off my wind as I move up behind them.
I lash my arm around their neck, and when they tense up to yell I heave back with all my strength. Their shout dies to a pained wheeze, and they scrabble at my arm in desperation. I grit my teeth and tighten my grip until their hands fall and they go limp in my arms.
I drag them behind the tree I just crept out from behind and lower them to the ground, pressing two fingers to their throat. When I feel the steady beat of a pulse I back away from them and clamber up into the treetops.
I'm not going to be able to pick them all off like this. There are several of them that are within sight of each other, as well as some of the shinobi not on guard. Plus, there has to be a rotation of some sort, which means I'm working on a time limit. What this all boils down to is me neutralizing as many as I can and running like hell from whoever's left once I get Samui.
Not the greatest plan, which is why I didn't give it much thought when they first set up camp. Sad to say, it's the best I've got right now.
The shinobi I just took out was the closest to the waterfall on Samui's side, and the next guard I come upon is second in line. It's a shinobi from Iwa, and they're facing the forest instead of the clearing. I thread my way through the branches until I'm sitting above their head, pull a kunai out of my weapons pouch, and drop.
They aren't anywhere near as idle as I'm hoping, cursing and rolling to the side as soon as I let go. I shove myself to the side along with him in a hasty burst of wind, and fall down right on top of him. He jerks, another curse on his lips, and braces his legs underneath him to jump up and headbutt me. I stab my kunai into his temple, and he crumples.
Two down… More to go.
...
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