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Kodomo Namida	By : Turtlenoise Category: -Misc Anime > General Views: 1499 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
The Second Exam begins and so does all the action and canon-typical violence.
Chapter Four: The Second Exam, Part I
Kimi was calmly posted up for Ayumu and Daisuke to take turns signing their consent forms on her back, keeping herself busy by staring over at Sakura and Ino squabbling not too far away. "I'm glad we're not like that, Ayumu-sempai," she commented offhandedly.
Ayumu wasn't sparing the girls much attention at all. She was looking at the main entrance to the 44th Battle Training Zone – the so called "Forest of Death". Unlike most battle zones, the string of chained-up gates was immediately choked by woods. The threshold conceived a strangely powerful drop off in sunlight, casted shadows at the tree line seeming more like plates of black glass than anything natural. Kimi couldn't guess what thoughts ransacked Ayumu's head as she studied the setting to their second exam and mulled over last evening's last brainstorming session.
"Sakura-chan and Ino-chan are annoying," she said at length. "They used to call me a little lesbian and Namida a flat-chested monster. We just stopped interacting with them after we left the academy. That's why getting out and being exposed to the bigger world around you is so important."
"Thank kami for that," he huffed. "I had to pull Namicchi off Sakura-chan once, and she came up with a fistful of hair." He fell horribly short from suppressing his grin. Kimi thought Sakura must have overheard, because she shot them a withering glare. Kimi hadn't spent a long amount of time in the same class as the Rookie 9, and didn't know them all well, but sometimes the reputation proceeded the person.
Ayumu switched to staring at a Kusa kunoichi who she'd seen earlier, squinting suspiciously as Daisuke gave Kimi a turn to sign her form on his back. She slapped the paper down and began to viciously scribble her signature on the dotted line like it was payback for making her team bitch or something. "Did you even read that through?" Daisuke asked incredulously.
With bravado, she declared, "There are no consent forms in life!"
Ayumu chuckled, took their paperwork to go exchange for the scroll, and returned with the Heaven one. Whatever troubles Ayumu contemplated, she wasn't going to ruin the jovial mood by voicing them. Everything that needed to be discussed was already discussed, and the group had come up with a pretty solid plan of action.
"Listen up! All the teams have received their scrolls," Anko announced. "Everyone is to go to your gate and wait there. When the gates open, the test is on!"
The training grounds of Konoha combined into an immense system that took up too much wildly mileage to ever properly manage. That was why it gave the impression of a far more lenient guard than, say, sneaking anywhere one wasn't supposed to be in Yama. One's ability to access any given Konoha training ground largely depended on their rank, but Team 13 didn't follow rules lightly. The zones were divided from ones for academy students, in the early tens, to ones for ANBU and Root, in the seventies and eighties.
Team 13 spent most of their time in the twenties as most genin did. They were all fairly basic cookie cutters of each other – some stands of trees, some obstacle courses, and a lot of empty fields with aiming equipment such as targets, posts, and sacks tied up by ropes and wires. It was not like the place where Itachi and Namida had trained, which had been some private woods not far from the old Uchiha complex. None of these were strictly "battle zones".
Battle zones were reserved for training grounds dedicated to simulations, and only really open to chuunin and above. Higher ranks had these as well as normal training grounds. At the chuunin rank, one would be welcomed into zones of more interesting and intense geography. Namida had loved getting access to those areas. They came with hills and plateau, rivers and waterfalls. Battle zones were extremer for sparring and combat purposes. One could train privately and in small groups, or they could sign up for larger events – war and mission mockups and battle royals. Occasionally, such events were also organized for fun, such as capture the flag, king of the hill, or paint ball (with a plethora of weapons converted to color-releasing agents, ranging from smoke bombs to exploding tags).
Jounin-level training fields hosted these trials also, though not as often. Given the disproportional chuunin-to-jounin ratio, they could only work on a much smaller scale unless they included chuunin. More often than not, they did. For example, there was a fairly popular battle collaboration usually held in the 45th Battle Training Zone known as the Tournament of Blood – and weren't Konoha nin a bit theatrical with their nicknames? When genin were also invited to participate in such events, it was a rarer occurrence and usually saved for a type of field day or picnic, which may or may not also involve academy students. Those were more communal and festive.
The jounin training fields had all the diversity of the chuunin-level ones, but they were well known for the few that had dry, arid deserts and cliffs. It was useful for exercising one's survival skills, considering the traps programmed into the fields (as opposed to the natural dangers of the Forest of Death). It was good practice for trips to the Land of Wind's wastelands. Missions sent to aid and partner with the Sand Village or sent through their territory as a journey's leg had only increased in recent years since Suna had been pulling ahead in Konoha's pool of strong allies.
Kuro would sneak Namida into the zones exclusive to jounin, which mainly consisted of districts forty-six to fifty-eight. What started out as training and early preparation for her testing, at least a year and half in the making, had grown to include hiking and camping. Some of the grounds were so large, they could trek a whole day out into the elevated forests and make camp at night, perfectly in the middle of nowhere and far from the outside world.
Kuro, in turn, was often snuck into fields specifically for ANBU operatives by Kakashi, who still somehow had access. They could guess that the permanent tattoo and the unyielding respect Kakashi had accumulated helped. Frequently, the squad leaders would get together to train, and they had access to a large number of zones for that purpose. But if the battle-hardened adults felt like sneaking into the ANBU grounds for kicks and giggles, it was usually for a late-night excursion to a wooden, lake-side alcove of the 67th Zone (the "Widower's Valleys") to get drunk and have a good time.
The Forest of Death was one of the largest and most dangerous, hence its moniker. There was a surplus of rare and even dangerous flora, and all manner of predatory and wild fauna – the leaches, tigers, and bears. It was said to be home to hordes of monstrous, venomous, and gargantuan creatures.
"As expected," Daisuke muttered as they skimmed the canopy. It was more precarious up there, with skinnier branches and weaker perches, then down in the understory where there would surely be more congestion. That only meant limiting their pace and Team 13 were not concerned with speed so early on as long as they obtained the stronger vantage point. "The beginning's always a fuckin' train wreck."
Team 13 could see for themselves how dense the terrain was, so much so that one could be forgiven for assuming it had abruptly changed from day to night. It reeked of damp wood and blood. The forest was a confused tangle of brown and green shades around them and a long drop into darkness below. Even at such an altitude so close to the actual sun, the thinning chutes of light never survived far before being smacked or assimilated by billowingly large blankets of encompassing shadows.
"Well, everyone's in such close proximity," Kimi agreed, trying to hide her tension. Daisuke and Ayumu didn't seem bothered, as the team of three hopped from tree to tree. It was true that Kuro had snuck them in a few times to let them try it out. That practice had been made more difficult when news of Konoha hosting the exam first broke out. It was accompanied by the usual growing concerns of other villages over home-team advantage – made only weightier with Yama's presence – and came to a head in a panic over cheating. Of all things. Like Team 13 would cheat.
Considering the monsters the other villages had up their sleeves, Kimi hardly felt bad. It was a funny thought, when she reminisced what she had been like only a few short years ago upon initially graduating from the academy. So pure and righteous and naïve.
Even with that heads-up, she still found the area unfamiliarly strange and menacing. There were so many moving parts – roaming, sentient wildlife and humidity-cresting breezes – that could explain away every rustle of leaves and snap of a twig. But the problem was that even the most organic of sounds could easily be considered signs of an oncoming assault, and to block them out would be a fool's last move. It was this constantly vigilant guard that had Kimi so strung out and pinched with nerves. There was so much cover provided that, as much as it sheltered them, it hindered them.
It must have been an easy choice for those who decided this would be their arena of contest. Immediate natural obstacles, as opposed to an open field where the teams would meet for the first time on equal ground, made the 44th Battle Training Zone a playground for the bloodthirsty and the sly. There was little fairness in real life and none for a squad leader, such as chuunin, taking their kohai out on missions.
"This is the time that most teams are attacked," Ayumu said. "We should slow our pace and hang back."
No sooner had she said that did a kunai whistle through the air, and Ayumu abruptly cut to a full stop and ducked under it. It pinned into the branch before her, and she looked toward the direction from which it came. Some overzealous Taki nin had decided to attack like that? She could seem them morphing out of the trees behind them, giving away their position. It could only lend proof to the manic fervor instigated by commencement's adrenaline, and Ayumu was not impressed by sloppiness. She grabbed the weapon by its hooped end, twisted it free, and pivoted to her four o'clock. Above her shoulders, Daisuke and Kimi waited on alert, but as soon as Ayumu had grabbed the kunai, it triggered a wire.
Four consecutively activated exploding tags later, the Taki genin scanned the area for Team 13. "Where are they…?" Looking from one branch to the next, the one who spoke could see no bodies knotted in the trees – nothing but three red, matted splashes on the trunks and leaves.
"All that blood… they must have been incinerated!"
"As if something like that could have dissolved bodies, baka," the third one hissed.
The first one's eyes suddenly widened. The smoke was gone. The blood was gone. He was turning back toward the epicenter of the detonation when he found Ayumu on the tree branch right in front of him. Her genjutsu was dispelled when her hands parted – bird sign released, arms crossed, and weight exchanged from one hip to the other. Kimi, leaning over to be seen from behind her, raised her fists and smiled. Four crumpled up papers fell from her uncurling fingers.
"Let's make this quick," Ayumu spoke innocently. "What scroll do you got?"
They were attacked once more after that before the initial hysteria died down. Both teams were taken care of but, frustratingly, neither had an earth scroll. Team 13 had let the first one go and told them to scram. Still acting tough, it was out of the Taki's mutual desire for conserving time instead of wasting it that they took off without further incident. The second one was more annoying, and Team 13 could dispatch of them quick enough to make stealing their scroll a worthwhile endeavor – less competition if the others couldn't scramble to find not one but two scrolls quickly enough within the ticking time period.
Into the next day, they scouted or encountered a few more teams with heaven scrolls identical to their own, not counting the ones they were attacked by but who had fled when they discovered Team 13 was a bit out of their league. It was a rare blessing, but Team 13 hadn't had the chance to check their scrolls if they decided to pursue and lost them. It was improbable, how little luck they had.
Only once in that interval did they find an earth scroll, and it belonged to the Sand Siblings. Namida and Kuro had, on separate occasions, warned them against engaging. Kuro had been vague, but Namida straight up told them about how the boy had a demon sealed inside him. She didn't know for certain if he was a homicidal as he appeared, but he was not someone even she would willingly mess with. Namida turning down a fight was not something the genin took lightly, but Team 13 still took the opportunity to do some mild stalking. They were easily discouraged after witnessing Gaara of the Desert absolutely murder the next team that came along and took the initiative to attack.
It was later that day they finally found another team with an earth scroll. More precisely, they were found.
Team 13 was travelling at their usual pace when Ayumu motioned for them to stop. There were different variants – ones where they immediately seized up and waited with baited breath, and ones where they broke off into different formations. For this instance, use to the drill, they hit the ground like they were about to make camp. In the middle of the day. Natural. They could have been taking a break, Kimi supposed.
Daisuke went underground with a Headhunter jutsu, and Ayumu flitted back up into the trees. Not exactly playing long into the ploy, the sudden movement in different direction was designed to confuse anyone who might have had visual on them, and one of the reasons Ayumu came down with them only to go back up instead of just staying in high ground. They left a very irate Kimi behind as bait.
The new competition almost immediately confronted her and were just as quickly dispelled in wet splashes when Daisuke attacked from below. Water clones. Daisuke cursed when a pale hand ruptured the surface of packed dirt beneath him and grabbed his ankle. In that moment, he realized his underground track had been followed and, in the future, he had better stop being lazy and seal the damn earth back up after him.
Daisuke hadn't expected to see the crescent-shaped symbol on the headband glaring up at him. It caught the light from a surprisingly deep-reaching shaft of sunlight, mocking him. He hadn't expected to see a Yama nin with an earth style jutsu, either. The boy suddenly let go and he slumped forward, still rooted in the soil. Daisuke could imagine, by the way he twitched and muttered, that Ayumu got him with a genjutsu.
Daisuke was just peeling his feet out of the thicket he was almost dragged into – and sinking a few strong inches more when some weakly supported soil collapsed in a bit of aftershock from the guy's aborted assault – when Ayumu was pitched to the ground by an attack he hadn't seen. Daisuke pounced free and started reeling back when her attacker followed and stopped beside his teammate. "Tsk, that wasn't pretty rude."
Ayumu got back up and frowned, getting her first good look. She recognized the Aisugan before she recognized the boy. But she belatedly recalled his name – Kodomo Kenshin, one of Namida's many cousins. Ayumu wiped some dirt off her cheek, smudging it more than clearing it. "You're saying such things in a place like this?"
Daisuke even vaguely recognized the half-conscious boy from early academy days – Goro. Remembering who was who and from which clan came like second nature after so many formative years spent being taught to identify the charitable and pious families from heathen ones, and the fair families from deadly ones.
All those were old and powerful clans that Daisuke's parents thought any self-respecting heir should know, and he could not immediately recognize the one to which their female teammate belonged. She appeared with a flash of hand signs. The jutsu caused purple-hued crystals to grow, shard by snappishly unfolding shard, at Kimi's feet and pin her. She pulled out a kunai and aimed it at Kimi, the hand holding it poised and prepared in an area above her opposite shoulder.
"Make one more move, and I throw this pointy object in between the kid's eyes… That a more suitable thing to say for a place like this?"
"Whoa there," Daisuke called. "… Relax."
Kenshin juggled Goro's shoulder with his foot, frowning. "Such a silly mistake, Goro-kun, and from such a weak ploy at that," he chided. Kenshin turned back to them and held out his hand. "I'm not like that idiot, so I'll make this easier on you guys. Give me your scroll," he demanded.
"Y'know, I thought Namida-chan was an asshole, but I guess it runs in the family."
Daisuke threw a barrage of sebon, which gave the appearance of greater numbers thanks to a genjutsu of Ayumu's. They hit the female's hand and forearm with precision and threw off her cast, allowing Kimi the leeway to dodge her projectile. After a few sharp hand signs and taking a knee, Daisuke folded his hands and smashed them into the ground. The combination of Earth and Lightning chakra skimmed the soil until it hit the ground beneath the girl's feet. The sharp electricity shot up her legs and one particularly powerful lick spun into her stomach, forcing her off her feet and high up into the understory.
While Ayumu took the distraction and threw a kunai at Kenshin, Daisuke flicked up to chase the enemy down with a follow-up attack. Again, Ayumu's genjutsu made the weapons seem to multiply. While the hidden kunai had been dodged swiftly enough to avoid any real damage, it left a cut and a trail of blood running down Kenshin's cheek. He glared at Ayumu, his blue eyes glowing. The water of nearby puddles from an earlier rain, the main reason they were all so dirty, began to rise.
Ayumu slammed into the ground, rolled a few times, and skidded to a stop beside Daisuke with a huff. The field and ground layers, soft and soaked, were easily split into a disastrous state of ribbons. They had made a mess of their surrounding area and if any squads happened across them, they would have surely either kept running or laid in wait to see if the victor came out scathed enough to make easy pickings.
Entire trees had been toppled over and uprooted in the bedlam once Daisuke tapped into more Earth jutsu for various shields and weapons to counteract the team's excellence over ice and water chakra, as proficient with those as Suna nin were with wind release and Konoha nin were with fire. Daisuke's ninjutsu expertise laying in his jack-of-all-trades style, it gave them an edge in that they were prepared against any variety of techniques their enemy could have in their arsenal. It was a decent guard against the unpredictable, but the Yama nin held a predictable advantage over those specific elements.
"He's only a rookie but he's fast. Nami-chan would be the only one to match him in speed." Ayumu always missed their taijutsu expert and, in times like these, the feeling was only intensified. "Not a fair match for Kimi-chan."
Even Kimi, objectively their quickest – who had ripped off and crumpled up four exploding tags in the time it took Ayumu to blink twice when she almost pulled the wired kunai of the Taki nin earlier – had lost a lot of blood due to a surprise attack by Goro once he came to. She had been largely thrown out of the way by her teammates to avoid exasperating her wounded abdomen. Daisuke had tried healing, but there was simply not enough time between dodging without forfeiting all the defensive responsibility unfairly to Ayumu.
"We can't beat the Aisugan by ourselves," Ayumu grumbled under her breath.
Daisuke didn't seem bothered. Catching his winded breath and having been laid out flat two seconds proceeding Ayumu, he looked more like he was ready to sunbathe or take a snooze with his crossed ankles and folded hands over his sternum. "I think it's a good group thinking exercise. If we could beat the ever-living shit out of Nami-chan, how would we accomplish that?"
Like lightning, Daisuke kipped up to block Kenshin's oncoming punch with his forearms. As it wasn't the most graceful maneuver, it hurt. It also drove Daisuke back, digging toes scraping the surface of the ground in his momentary struggle to root himself. Kenshin tailed him with fleeting footwork and flying kicks. After two consecutive kicks had Daisuke nearly doubling over, he managed to regain his bearings quickly enough to avoid Kenshin's following swings. Unfortunately, after that he was felled by an ice patch, of all things. Daisuke's knees hit the impromptu and slippery rink and he slid further back, faintly turning as he failed in his bid to immediately stand back up.
"God damn it…!"
Kenshin was on him again, a heel-kick from above shattering the ice where Daisuke's head would have been had he not tried, again, to throw himself up to his feet.
Despite the weak follow-through, his statement filled Ayumu with a pleasing thrum of determination. She raced over, picking up an abandoned kunai from the floor on her way, and intercepted Kenshin. With far more poise than Daisuke, the ice didn't bother her standing in the slightest. If anything, it made her movements more fluid and elegant than the clumsier genin could have managed on dry land, lacking as she was in the taijutsu department. She managed to fare against his next few attacks and exchange blows, holding her own better than Daisuke had been. Kenshin finally got her with a strong forward kick off the ice, which shattered at once. The fractals began to collapse in on themselves and form a kaleidoscope bulge. It thinned as it snaked its way up Kenshin's spine. He advanced on Ayumu and Fumi, like a spider, dropped down on Daisuke.
Kimi came back to, world tilted and blurry. But she saw Kenshin approaching her teammate farther in their gutted clearing and latched onto his image. She made to stand once again. Kenshin eyed Daisuke, who landed a meter away with an aggressive Fumi at his heels, before turning to Ayumu. "You were the servant girl of Namida-chan," he recalled, his serpentine ice pointing toward her head. He chuckled. "A servant playing dress up. What a dream you must have been living. Well, consider me your wake-up call."
"I consider you a prick."
He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her up until she had to use her tired arms on which to lean, weight on her uninjured hip and legs folded underneath her. "You think you could be a kunoichi. You think she, sickly waif that she is, could be a kunoichi?"
"Don't fucking touch her!" Daisuke screamed, overtaken by a snap of protective, knee-jerk anger. Fumi kicked him roughly in the gut. He went to grab her ankle, but a few sudden shuriken from above reminded him that Goro still prowled somewhere up in the trees.
"I haven't seen my cousin in nearly five years, now. Tell me, has she gotten the Aisugan yet?"
Ayumu twisted to spit on the ground at his feet. He threw her back. Daisuke got back up and even accomplished shoving Fumi away with unruly force, but his feet were suddenly frozen to the ground with ice and he nearly toppled over. Kenshin stomped on Ayumu's chest to put an end to her struggling, then dropped down to sit on her. With sudden and insincere patience, he reached down to touch her cheek. When Ayumu's hands rose in protest – to swat him away and form hand seals – he grabbed them and held them down, interlocking fingers and digging her knuckles into the dirt. When he let go, both her hands were pinned by ice above her head, growing by the opal fragment.
"Maybe we could meet in a real situation sometime," Kenshin sneered. "You should bring Namida-chan, then. I'm sure Junichi-sensei would love to see her."
"…Sensei?" They turned to see Kimi standing quietly behind them, not looking particularly threatening. Her feet were barely shoulder-width apart, legs like a bird's. She was shaking and holding her stomach as blood continued to seep through her shirt and fingers.
Daisuke looked back from her haunting visage to Kenshin, horrified. "Junichi is jounin?" He hadn't been wearing the standard jounin outfit the day of the first exam, when Team 13 encountered Team 19…
Kenshin laughed. "He'll be ready to be our Koorikage soon enough."
"Namida will be our next leader. Once Jomei is dead." It was not often Kimi heard that name brought up but, when it was, (particularly with Daisuke) it was with untold amounts of malice.
"What a disrespectful way to talk." Fumi, hands on her hips, kicked his head.
"Bitch!"
"What a shame. A Nakamura beat by a girl," she cooed, shaking her head. "What would Hiei-san say if he could see you now? What would your father say? Kami rest their sweet souls."
"Fuck you! I'm nowhere near finished!"
"Maybe we should just kill you now, then?" Kenshin asked, his ice tail curling around Ayumu's neck.
"Don't – !"
"Daisuke-kun…"
Goro had a kunai to Kimi's throat, Daisuke could see when he looked over, prompted but dreaded by the scared note of her voice. "Let… Let her go!"
"Ask nicely," Fumi giggled.
"Please! Don't hurt them, please!" Kenshin's tail squeezed Ayumu's neck, becoming waterier but no less mighty, as if Daisuke's begging was what egged him on. Ayumu lifted her chin, breathing heavy but brave-faced and growing whiter by the second.
"We're not supposed to use unnecessary deadly force," Ayumu reasoned. She sounded choked, and rightfully so.
"Who would care if you died? Anyone important? Who could stop me?" She felt his hot breath against her cheeks.
There was a standing beat.
Suddenly, the coil and the ice immobilizing Ayumu's hands began to melt in earnest. The process, which actually didn't take much time at all, seemed elongated with how she slowly smirked up at him and tauntingly wiggled her rapidly freed fingers, and by how Kenshin's disbelief seemed to stall his reaction. "…What?"
It didn't stop there. All the ice began to melt, and then all the water began to evaporate. The others looked fine, but Kenshin could feel it begin to dry his very flesh. His skin wrinkled, and he reached up to touch his face, shocked and confused. He pulled his hand away and inspected the way it withered, then became ash scattered to the wind.
The genjutsu was released when Ayumu separated her hands. They had never been frozen in place to begin with, but instead revealed themselves to be folded into a neat sign between their chests. And she had only broken the seal in order to ram her palm up into his jaw. Kenshin's teeth smashed together, and he violently bit his tongue. She ran her skull into his and he reeled back.
When Kenshin touched her cheek, and Ayumu's hands rose in protest, to swat him away… That must have been when she cast her genjutsu…
Kimi jerked an arm away from Goro in a wild fit, rotated as she grabbed his wrist, and tossed him over her shoulder. He bounced back and swung the kunai toward her face. In a split-second decision, she grabbed the old, worn demon shuriken off her back. It unfolded as she hefted it up over her shoulder and slashed it down on Goro's. At the same time, a fire pellet from Daisuke hit Goro's back, only spurring him into her.
Daisuke used another pellet to free one leg from the ice just in time to surprise-kick an attacking Fumi in her center. He comically almost fell over when he couldn't pivot properly on his still-trapped standing leg, but quickly freed himself with two more pellets by the time she threw herself at him again. With a double palm strike, proper stance, and an exertion of chakra, Fumi was sent flying back.
He grinned and turned back to his teammates. Ayumu had Kenshin in another genjutsu that seemed to be short-circuiting his nervous system and breaking up his mind's ability to connect with his body. It proved no match for even Ayumu's subpar taijutsu. It would not take him long to realize it was another genjutsu, even as Ayumu toyed with her new-found advantage, so they had to take the opportunity to escape…
Daisuke looked over at Kimi. She was staring at the demon shuriken she held, lodged deep in the collarbone of Goro. There was a lot of blood on his part, a keen look of horror on Kimi's, and what might have been the early stages of shock for the both of them.
"…Oh shit."
Before they left, Daisuke returned to a nearly incapacitated Kenshin, who was rapidly coming to. He patted down his person momentarily before coming up with an earth scroll. "Of course, someone like Kenshin wouldn't trust his teammates to hold it." Daisuke then grabbed Kenshin's necklace and yanked it off, easily snapping the chain. He held it up for Ayumu to inspect the crystal, Kodomo-crest pedant. "A present for Nami-chan, or a trophy for us?" Ayumu, a shaken Kimi glued responsibly to her side, managed to smile.
Ayumu had quite the comprehensive understanding of Namida's weak points –take away water and take away body. The latter had not completely immobilized Kenshin, but his taijutsu ability had been severely disabled, muscles jerking sporadically and feeding his fear and confusion. The timing she used could not have been been more appropriate either – the first while Kenshin was monologuing and distracted by the celebration of a key winning point. Namida would argue that she didn't monologue, but she couldn't deny that she did spend a disproportional amount of time talking and she was prone to becoming overconfident when she had the upper hand. The second would not have worked so well had it been Namida instead of Kenshin. Kenshin, like many others, was susceptible to another genjutsu more quickly following the effects of succumbing to a first. Namida was nothing if not more alert following an attack, unless it was particularly debilitating.
They covered a lot of ground before Ayumu decided it was a safe enough distance and location to rest. She had not wanted to push them so far and for so long with an injured party, but such precautions were necessary with the probability of an enraged Kodomo on their tails. Hopefully, Kenshin and Fumi would be too worried over Goro's wellbeing to give chase, and that gave Team 13 the time they needed to lick their own wounds.
"Wow," Ayumu breathed, breaking the morose silence like a spell. "That could have gone… better. At least we got an earth scroll out of it?"
Kimi looked up from her bloody hands, slack-eyed. Daisuke turned to the younger girl with the utmost seriousness. "Kimi-chan, they gave us no choice," he told her. "You did well."
Ayumu stood up. "I'll scout," she intoned. "See to Kimi-chans's wounds, Medic-san."
Ayumu left them to their devices and Daisuke maneuvered the drenched and tattered hem of Kimi's shirt for better vision, doing his own scouting for a balance between dragging it over the half-clotted pool and peeling skin by rolling it up. He carefully explained what he was doing at each step until his hands began to glow over her stomach and apply the pressure they had only been able to haphazardly supply before with the slapstick binding of available gauze, something which also took some time and effort to safely unravel.
"You know fire jutsu," Kimi wheezed, poking at conversation.
"Don't talk," he muttered in concentration, brow knotted and beading one droplet of sweat after another.
"Namida-senpai taught you, didn't she? She knows a bunch of fire jutsu... I've seen her cast Fireball and even Fire Dragon… In an effort to spite the Kodomo?" She winced and tried to readjust her position, but Daisuke held her down firmly.
"Stay still!" He sighed before he gave in. Better to parley, engage and distract her, than to allow her to squirm disruptively. "I have a very large array of ninjutsu. I am our expert, after all," he explained. "But Namida has helped me with fire. It is a finicky element, something I particularly had trouble mastering. It's not her natural affinity, either, but you'd be surprised at what she can accomplish out of sheer stubbornness."
"I used her old demon shuriken when I struck him," she muttered. Daisuke's attention returned briefly to the weapon. Instead of its usual spot on Kimi's back, he had held onto it while he and Ayumu supported her relocation. It laid farther up the branch, nearly forgotten and largely abandoned. It was caked with what was, by now, dried blood. Certain areas Namida had taped were beginning to look a little frayed. Daisuke had been able to run his thumb across the old scratches from years ago as they traveled, recalling how almost each one had been put there. He was sure Namida would be able to do so with much more accuracy. Demon shuriken were expensive, after all, and Namida had cherished the weapon religiously and sharpened it daily once she received it as a present herself. She maintained that gifted weapons were special and powerful in their own right. "The one she gave me… I… I killed him. Am I gonna be in trouble?"
"You didn't kill him," he bickered. "It wasn't that bad. Besides, he gave you no choice," he repeated. "I mean, look at what he did to you? Bet he wouldn't have felt half as bad. Sick bastards seemed to enjoy it way too much, if you ask me. And you won't get into trouble. This hell has no rules."
"Is a six-hour sleep schedule realistic for you guys?" Namida had asked, by way of initiating their planning session over tea the night before the second exam began.
"Each shift switched off on the two-hour mark and each person getting a turn," Ayumu mused. "With twenty-hours each day to move, that's a huge window to make it to the finish line and account for not only skirmishes and the extraction of the other scroll but also any unforeseen disadvantages thrown our way. It's ideal." Being shinobi, four hours a night was doable for a five-day period of time. "And it won't even be that bad with soldier pills, no?"
There were certain rations chuunin and above were able to procure from Konoha's medical nin and they were free to dish them out to their underlings, though decorum dictated it was used for more extreme circumstances. They were not impossible for genin to acquire if they knew where to look, or for higher ranks to attain more than their apportioned allotment out of pocket. Namida, like an addict, had a stash. Soldier pills were not as addictive as one might assume, but she did like to be prepared. And the occasional "recreation" use, if one could call it that, was saved for when she really got into a training session and wanted to stretch it out, or on solo missions she wanted to finish quickly. It wasn't the best for her health, but they guessed the results spoke for themselves on how well Namida had found a balance between self-destruction and success… for now. Namida was a ticking time bomb in that respect.
"Could you do it without soldier pills?"
"But we have soldier pills?"
"Humor me. It's good to measure in those terms and know what you're capable of. Of course, you will have soldier pills, but anything can happen."
Ayumu nodded and thought it over briefly, eyes flicking from Daisuke to Kimi and back again. "Aa, I'm pretty sure we could."
"Good, you don't want to mistime yourselves. And you can always reevaluate daily and adjust accordingly. Always give the injured more time to sleep. Even if you must play it safe, if one must guard the incapacitated while the other scouts – very carefully – to make up for lost time. Scouting can be your best hope."
"What if both teammates are incapacitated, Namida-sempai?" Kimi asked.
Namida rubbed her face and turned to Kuro. "Wanna cover that one, boss?"
Kuro sighed. "I'm sure you already have a basic rundown, Kimi-chan, but there are several things to be aware of in a situation like that. Never position yourself anywhere near the open…"
Sakura's hair, freshly hacked, fell to the ground in heaps. The last of the wayward strands hadn't even come to a fluttering halt before she was on the spurned, livened attack against the enemy Oto nin. Sasuke and Naruto were still unconscious after their fight with Orochimaru. Poor Rock Lee had saved them and now lay knocked out, his ears bleeding from the sound attack.
Things took a brighter turn with the assistance of Team 10, but they were still novices and these opponents were more experienced. Their jutsu failed them, one by one, and eventually the Oto nin were so sure of their victory that they revealed the real reason they partook in the exams – they weren't there for the scrolls or the promotions. They were there for Sasuke, and that filled Sakura with dread.
Something felt off. Chakra laced the air – dark, malignant, violet. It radiated off Sasuke, sporting a facially pinched look like a nightmare and tense with pain.
Zaku was intent on sacrificing his female teammate in an attack meant to take out Ino, because she had Kin in a jutsu that required the blonde to put her own life on the line should anything harm the victim. He shot out a spiral of pressurize air toward Kin, but when it hit her, she vanished. It was not with the resounding smoke of a clone being popped. The dissolve of her body made Zaku quickly catch on and form a ram seal. "Kai!"
The genjutsu dispelled and a brunette was attacking him with a kunai. He just barely managed to dodge her and she fell back to her blue haired teammate, who had tackled Kin to the ground to avoid Zaku's ninjutsu. He looked up, head previously ducked and clearly expecting the worst, and glared at the Konoha nin. "Can you guys not take care of yourselves for five days?" The redhead beside him still held a complicated hand sign before she decided it had run its course and let go. Kimi took her place beside her, gauze peeking out from under her ragged shirt.
"How long have you guys been here?" Shikamaru asked, glancing back toward Team 13.
"Long enough."
"We would've intervened sooner," Daisuke added, "but shakushijōgi-san over there wouldn't let me."
"Oi," Ayumu called indignantly, "we had to survey the scene first, baka!"
Kimi gave a small smile. "And this is much more dramatic, no?"
Daisuke narrowed his eyes. "You've been spending too much time with Nami-chan, if you think that way."
That was when Neji and Ten-Ten showed up in the tree line behind Team 13, enraged at the sight of their fallen comrade. Clearly, both senior genin squads were holding back at the natural barrier.
"Well, are you going to stay up there all day? Or are you going to come down here and do something about it?" Dosu asked. He might not have thought much of a bunch of Konoha rookies, but the numbers were quickly stacking against their favor, and his nervousness showed in agitation.
"Actually," Neji called smugly, "it looks like it might have been taken out of my hands."
Next time: The Second Exam comes to a close, Namida makes an impromptu appearance, and a certain someone is engaged in combat
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Kodomo Namida