Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Legend of Explosive Youth! ❯ Wave Hello pt 3 ( Chapter 11 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: dialNforNinja 
The conclusion of Chapter Six. An even more famous sword!
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Martial Arts / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 05.28.2008 | Pages: 4 | Words: 7.4K | Visits: 525 | Status: Work In Progress
The conclusion of Chapter Six. An even more famous sword!
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Martial Arts / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 05.28.2008 | Pages: 4 | Words: 7.4K | Visits: 525 | Status: Work In Progress
txy06c.txt
The canopy snapped closed again as Aoi folowed, lunging with the sharpened tip of his umbrella even as his opponent reset himself and flipped the massive zanbatou up in a quick parry. Metal reinforced bamboo was no match for one of the Tenken and the chakra-reinforced edge of Kubikiri Houchou slashed it easily into uselessness. A follow up backswing knocked the teal-haired man down in turn but did no meaningful damage, skittering off the purplish barrier of the armor's chakra shield.
The Rain-nin chuckled as he rose, wiping away a thin blood trail from a split lip. "So, you want to see my sword," he taunted. "Since yours is so impressive, I suppose I'll have to comply." He unhooked a small, dull metal cylinder from his side, one end equipped with a pair of metal claws supporting a ring aligned with the grip. He fed some chakra into it and with a crackling hiss a brilliant golden blade sprang into being, a delicately tapered leaf shape as long as a man's arm that crawled with tiny lightning bolts.
"This is the famous 'Raijin Sword' used by the Nidaime Hokage," Aoi boasted. "A blade that can cut through anything, even my bonds to Konoha, and serving as a ticket to Hidden Rain after that... While you, the famous Devil of the Mist, have gone soft and joined with those Leaf weaklings!"
At that, the slender Rain jounin leapt to the attack, unable to simply cut through Kubikiri Houcho's interposed mass despite his claims but delivering a debilitating shock through the metal each time the two met. Despite his inferior strength and swordsmanship the Rain-nin was still protected from return blows by the armor's barrier.
With Haku's added help Rikou was faring better against the Rain genin team, the two standing back to back across Tazuna's crouching form. The teenage boy's needles were no more effective against the maddeningly durable mist clones than her own attacks, but just having someone to take over half of the circle was a vast relief for the girl. More importantly, the young missing-nin had considerably more battle experience than the Leaf kunoichi, and it was only a few minutes before he saw through the Rain-nins' technique.
"Rikou-sama," he explained quietly, "The bunshin truly are harmless... the enemy is hiding underground and attacking from their shadows." Proving his words, a handful of senbon stabbed into Two-eyes' outstretched arm, poised for an attempt to hamstring her in the shadow of his clone's kick.
"I see, I see!" the girl exclaimed. "Too bad I don't have any earth-type moves to attack someone underground. They'd probably damage the bridge anyway."
"Well, it's not my strong area either," the effeminate boy admitted, "but knowing what to look for their attacks become easy to counter." This time it was No-eyes who demonstrated, barely dodging an incapacitating nerve cluster hit and getting a sharp reminder to train his speed as a consolation prize.
An instant later the Rain genin was tossed into the air by Lee's rising kick as the two boys finally arrived, the thick stream of fire from Naruto's 'Kaen' slicing through the mist clones from above. They dissipated at last as he landed beside the defending duo. Following the stunned Rain-nin up in a Kage Buyo, Lee spun in place to deliver a punishing kick to his side, transferred momentum letting him reverse and repeat the move on the other side before catching No-eyes by one arm and pulling him into position for half a dozen quick jabs, then finishing off with a stomp kick just as he landed which transferred all of the considerable energy of the Leaf-nin's fall into his opponent's rib cage. A non-ninja would certainly have been killed and even with all the reinforcing chakra the boy could bring to bear there was still the wet crunch of breaking bone as Lee landed on him, followed by a coughing spurt of blood from his mouth where the rebreather mask had broken loose from its straps.
Even as their opponents were cut down by one and a horde of kage bunshin formed an outer ring of defense, a pained bellow from further down the bridge made Haku's head snap around. Aoi had finally gotten inside Zabuza's defense, his lighter, faster weapon and ability to ignore return strikes having compensated for what would normally have been vastly outmatched ability. The actual hit was a flesh wound at best, all but blocked by the bigger man's zanbatou, but the small contact it had made with his ribs was plenty to transfer the power it was molded from into the missing nin's body. Zabuza was jerking and twitching in a halo of lightning.
Suddenly the younger ex-Mist was beside them, grabbing Aoi's extended arm and pulling him into a shoulder throw away from the boy's beloved mentor. He quickly summoned a heavy mist with 'kirigakure,' not wanting to expend the chakra needed to pull water all the way from the ocean far below for his strongest but most demanding bloodline limit technique. "Aoi-san," he said coldly, as the Rain jounin recovered. "When I was a child... because people with advanced bloodlines were hated in Water Country, my father killed my mother when he discovered she held one... and I killed him in return. Without a home and hounded as a monster, I ran and hid among the alleys, a useless thing no more than trash. Zabuza-sama discovered me in that place, and allowed me to have a purpose by becoming his tool... and to protect Zabuza-sama I can even cut out my gentle heart with a blade, and become a true ninja. For hurting Zabuza-sama, I'll kill you!"
While he'd drawn attention by talking, Haku had been setting up his technique, bringing out more and more mist and letting it condense into puddles on the roadbed. Judging it sufficient he formed the neccessary hand seals and announced, "Hijutsu: Makyou Hyoshou no jutsu!" A cage of ice sheets rose around the wary Rain-nin, and presently Haku appeared within the mirrored surfaces. "Within this prison, my speed is beyond compare," the teen announced. "You can neither dodge nor counter... all that remains is death."
Gatou hadn't missed the defeat of the Rain genin either, and was displeased by the way the battle seemed to be turning. "Forget those nobodies!" he ordered his army of goons, still surrounding Tazuna's work crew. "Get the old man and those damn ninja brats! They can't kill all of you, and I'll pay double to any man that brings me one of their heads!" Hesitant at irst, the lure of double pay and their huge numerical advantage brought them around soon enough, and with a roar of bloodthirsty battle cries the thuggish 'samurai' charged.
Very much not wanting to get surrounded like that Rikou, Naruto, and Lee moved to a better position, the bunshin covering while the real genin helped Tazuna up and half-escorted half-carried him over to the crane, quickly pushing him into the cab. Arranging themselves against the side with the only door they reorganised just in time to meet the mercenary assault and renewed attacks from the last two Rain genin as the last of the kage bunshin poofed out of existence.
No fools they, they'd resumed their pattern of only rising out of the stone and mortar of the bridge to attack from shadow, using the mercenaries as cover the same as they had their mist bunshin earlier.
Naruto formed the point of the trio's wedge, and after knocking back the first attacker to tangle in the legs of the closest behind him, whipped through a few handseals. "Katon: Hiyoroi no jutsu!" the blond announced, breathing a small plume of flames that spiralled around himself and then spread to become a burning aura that left his clothes untouched but but added an extra punch to hand to hand attacks, as well as cushioning incoming blows and making the less determined among the thronging mob back off some. He was tempted to try out his new skills with the chopper blade, but didn't want to actually kill anyone - the same reason he hadn't used 'Kunai Kage Bunshin' or 'Bunshin Daibakuha.'
Lee and Rikou had no such benefit but with the slab-sided crane on one side and team mates at the other and their backs they managed well enough. Grimly all three set about using disabling strikes, breaking bones or causing flesh wounds that would cut down the number of enemies able to fight as quickly as possible, but their own injuries also began to add up.
Unfortunately Haku had not been paying his usual level of attention to Zabuza's battle between the distance involved and the need to deal with the immediate opponents he had been facing, and before that he'd been inside the dome made earlier curing Gai. The shoulder throw, making use of soft arts, had not engaged the barrier either, so he had no warning of its existence until his senbon simply bounced away from the target.
Aoi laughed cruelly. "Dodge? Dodge what? As for a counter attack..." He reignited the Raijin no Ken and slashed at the nearest ice wall, Haku's image flickering out as air heated by the solid bar of electricity melted through as if it was no more than soft cheese. The upper half of the mirror fell and shattered, the super cold ice breaking along jagged edges that made still more cuts and scrapes even through his jumpsuit and kimono as Haku was knocked out of the back of the broken mirror, a wide burn mark across his chest that welled with blood from the slice at its center.
The rest of the ice prison quickly followed suit without a flow of chakra to sustain it against gravity, callapsing into ruin around the one-time Leaf while he laughed all the harder. The thin chunks of ice didn't even stagger him as the barrier shrugged them aside.
"Trusting other people... believing in other people," he told the long haired teen as he picked his way through the shards until he was close enough to deliver a kick that flipped Haku onto his back and knocked off the cracked hunter-nin mask. "This is where such idiotic things lead. What was it you said? Cut out your heart with a blade..." He jabbed the tip of the blade into the gash it had left on Haku's body from the mirror, making the boy convulse with the electrical discharge. "... Sounds good!" He raised the Raijin no Ken for a killing blow.
Before it could land his arm was grabbed again, this time by Zabuza. The slash in the side of his chest had bled until the stain reached halfway down to his knee and his muscles were still too weak from electrocution to wield Kubikiri Houcho, but he had easily enough strength to squeeze the nerve cluster at the wrist and make Aoi's hand flop open uselessly, then throw the Rain jounin away from his apprentice. "The trouble with guys like you," he said, kneeling painfully to retreive the powerful artefact, "is that you think that strength is about yourself."
The Devil of the Mist pulled himself quickly back upright, stowing the deactivated sword's hilt in his waistband so he could form a quick series of hand seals. "Suiton: Suijinheki!" A spinning wall of water formed around Zabuza and Haku, deflecting the poisoned neddles Aoi had thrown from where he landed on the railing of the bridge. "There's really only one thing I agree with the Leaf about," he continued conversationally, "but it's the thing that made all the difference in this case. You see, Aoi..." Another flight of senbon was batted aside as he ignited the chakra sword and brought it around in a blingly fast defensive combination. "... I beleive... I've taught Haku to beleive... that true strength comes when a ninja has something to protect!"
A feint, a lunge, and the purple barrier shattered like cgalss. The yin yang plug on his left shoulder fixture followed suit as the seals inside overloaded and burst, and then it was the bishonen Rain-nin who was screaming and shuddering, impaled on the blade of the sword he used to cut away his oath to protect Konohagakure. His teal hair stood on end and his eyes rolled back in his head as little bolts of lightning dance between his teeth, then the muscle spasms twisted him to one side. The blade of Raijin no Ken burned its way out as he fell, just too low to open the major blood vessels of the liver or kidneys and allow a quick death through blood loss, then he fell over the side of the bridge and into the waves below.
At least as badly off from their battle of attrition as the Leaf genin, Aoi's team decided to cut their losses after seeing their sensei fall. They quickly gathered up No-eyes and made their own break over the railing, laying him in the bottom of one of the small boats the mercenaries had arrived in and rowing toward the limply floating jounin.
"COWARDS!!" Gatou screamed after them, literally hopping with fury over the turn of events. "I'LL BILL YOUR WORTHLESS VILLAGE FOR EVERY YEN I PAID YOU! And YOU!" Turning toward the group at the crane, he pointed at his hired thugs. Seeing the ninja flee, the mercenaries had backed off as well - a wide semicircle of groaning or unconscious men lay around the three genin, and though bloodied none of the kids looked like they were on their last legs. "YOU IDIOTS! JUST KILL THEM, ALREADY! How hard is it to kill three stupid brats!?" The Crane's engine rattled to life with a hiss of steam and clash of gears, but he paid it no mind, swinging his finger back and forth between where Zabusa was digging Haku out of the ice that had trapped his legs and the wary genin inside the ring of samurai. "Even if you ninja bastards escape, I'll put a price on your heads so high you won't know a minutes peace without assasins coming to claim the bounty! I'll have you killed, and every man you know, and put the women to work in brothels! I'll-"
Whatever else he may have meant to do would have to be left up to their imagination, as the heavy beam Tazuna had picked up with the crane came crashing down on the short little crime lord's head, snapping his neck instantly and leaving him pulped under its massive weight. "You'll go to meet the demons in hell, where you belong," the architect eulogised, barely audible over the hiss of escaping pressure as he closed the damper on the firebox and opened the relief valves to shut the heavy machine down again. With a shudder, he slowly sat down on the engineer's stool and stared down at his two hands. He'd used them to protect his country, his grandson, and those cute kids who'd fought and bled for him, but he still wished he had a bottle of sake right now. A big one.
An ugly mutter began to build among the remaining samurai, who'd just seen their meal ticket turned into worm food. Each man's complaints, threats and boasts driving the confidence and anger of the others, they worked themselves back up toward finishing off the battle-weary ninja and then ransacking the village to make up for their missing pay... at least until the all but forgotten dome of ice shattered, the Handsome Green Beast freeing himself with a cry of "Konoha Daisenpuu!"
The return of a second adult ninja to the battlefield, freshly rested and advancing on their position clustered around his students with a serious look, tipped the scales in favor of just making a break for the town and taking what they could as they passed through. Then the villagers arrived as well, waving shovels and pitchforks and the occasional real weapon here and there, Inari and Tsunami in the lead. One thug decided to turn and run, and that was all it took. Within moments the whole crowd had run for the wide rope ladder down to their boats, leaving only those unconscious or too injured to move behind to face the locals and eventually the Wave Daimyo's judgement.
---=- + -=---
The rest of the day was spent recovering, and cleaning up the building site turned battlefield since it was littered with poison coated needles, damaged or abandoned weapons, and blood spots as well as Gatou's grisly remains. Tazuna got himself most thoroughly drunk, and Gai resolved to have a talk with the man later to help him deal with what he'd done once he sobered up. The village as a whole had something of a festival atmosphere with their opressor dethroned, one that only calmed rather than fading away in the next two weeks as the bridge was finally finished. By popular acclamation, the ninja would be the first ones to cross the completed span.
Standing with their group as one last load of gravel was tamped down into the ramp at the Fire Country end, Tazuna commented, "You know... this bridge still needs a name. Like 'The Super-Awesome Bridge Tazuna Built,' or 'Bridge of Heroic Ninja Defenders of Youthful Spirit...' or maybe 'Bridge of the Springtime of Youth' so it stands for everyone's bright future."
Giving his best Nice Guy Pose Gai agreed, "Truly an excellent name for such a splendid bridge, Tazuna-san! It shines with the passionate spirit that was invested in every stone." Turning to his brother in law and their students, he exhorted them, "Let us return to Konoha with all speed, so my cute genin can prepare for the upcoming Chuunin Selection Exam! As your sensei promised last time, Team Explosive Youth will be allowed to enter, to prove your passionate spirits before all of the shinobi nations!"
The usual cries of excitement and eagerness in the face of a new challenge met his announcement, and the proud jounin had to dry his eyes before pointing dramatically in the direction of Konoha. "Team Explosive Youth! HASSHIN!" he commanded, bounding away into the trees with his subordinates. Zabuza and Haku shared one last pained look before following, not wanting to get too far behind when their reception would depend greatly on Gai vouching for them, even with the return of the Raijin Sword to help buy a welcome.
---=- + -=---
A few days later, Shikanenai looked sideways at the blond genin beside him. The boy seemed uncharacteristically nervous as they approached the Archives. "You're quiet," he said flatly.
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Eh... do we have to go to the Archives?"
"Well..." Shikanenai drawled, stretching out the word sarcastically, "It'd be like going into the chuunin Exam with one hand in an unbreakable cast, preventing you from forming seals. But no, I don't suppose that we -have- to go to the Archives. Why?"
"Hey!" came a call from one of the chuunin guarding the Archives' doors. "Get out of here, brat - you know you're not allowed here!"
Shikanenai rolled his eyes. "That why?"
Naruto nodded his head, slowing to a halt. "Yeah, that stiff-necked prick in charge said I couldn't go in. Ever." He slowed, then blinked as he realised Shikanenai hadn't.
"Didn't I go to the Academy with you?" the Nara clansman called to the chuunin at the door waving casually.
The man frowned and then squinted at Shikanenai. "Nara Shikanenai!" he said in surprise. "I haven't seen you in years - where've you been?"
"Ah, you know, out and about," the lanky chuunin replied and casually crossed his fist against the surprised man's chin, catapulting him backwards into the doors with a loud boom.
"What the- ?" the pink haired chuunin blurted, more surprised than hurt. Then he broke off, realising that he couldn't move and that Shikanenai was holding his hands in the final seal of the Nara's tradmark jutsu. "Shikanenai?" he asked uncertainly. "What are you doing?"
"Stomp him," Shikanenai told Naruto.
"What?" the genin said incredulously, eyes wide.
"You're a genin, I'm a chunin," Shikanenai said flatly. "This is an order. Knock him out. Now."
"Hey wai-" the pinned man managed to say before Naruto kicked him in the side of the head, silencing him.
"Good lad," Shikanenai said and pushed on the door, swinging it slowly open. Inside, it was dark and full of shadows, a far cry from the bright and sunny streets of Konohagakure. "Man," he muttered, "This place hasn't changed one bit."
Two shapes darted through the high stacks of scrolls, kunai gleaming in their hands. Shikanenai's shadow, clearly visible in the long rectangle of light that streamed through the door behind him, flicked to one side and there were simultaneous crashes as the two guards responding to the door opening suddenly found that their limbs weren't moving.
"Them too," Shikanenai ordered flatly.
Naruto hesitated. "No," he said. "Not unless you tell me why you want me to attack Konoha-nin."
A thin smile crossed Shikanenai's face. "Good," he said softly, and released the jutsu that was pinning the pair. "Following orders is required of a ninja, but not blindly. Of course, questioning orders in mid-battle is unwise, but the circumstances merited it. Well done."
The guards were on their feet now and had been joined by half a dozen other ninja, half of them staff, the other half obviously simply shinobi who had been in the Archives and responded to the intrusion. An older man with the characteristic white eyes of the Hyuuga shouldered his way through the loose ring that had formed around the pair.
"What is the meaning of this!" he demanded. "Who are you and why do you bring that menace here!"
Shikanenai smirked. "This is just a test of your security," he said casually. "This was not a real attack. If this was a real attack then you would be explaining to Hokage-sama why A CHUUNIN AND A GENIN JUST WALTZED STRAIGHT THROUGH YOUR SECURITY!" he bellowed suddenly. "You!" he ordered one of the genin who'd come out of the stacks. "Fetch that idiot Haruno Shima from outside. And you!" he continued, glancing at the other guards - "Get the rest of the Archive staff up here."
"Stop!" shouted the Hyuuga. "You are in no position to give orders here - take him into custody," he ordered. "Both of them in fact."
The Nara cracked his knuckles as Naruto looked around with a worried expression on his face. "You are not brushing this under the carpet," Shikanenai said silkily. "Your security here is paper thin. Until you satisfy the Hokage that you can be entrusted with the Archives again it is you who are in no position to give orders, Aramaki."
Responding more to the certainty of Shikanenai's words than to their content, the ninja scattered through the library, leaving Hyuuga Aramaki to glare at Shikanenai in frustration. "Nara..." he hissed. "You're that useless cousin of Shikaku's."
Shikanenai simply grinned and wheeled on the groggy Chunin who staggered into the Archives through the door he'd been supposedly guarding. "Shima, you were an idiot at the Academy and you're an idiot now! How you passed the Chunin Exam I will never know! Have you never heard of the henge jutsu!? A ninja you've not seen in years just turns up and you let him pin you for a genin to beat up on! What were you thinking!? Were you thinking at all!? And besides that you hold a kunai like a pansy! Are you limp-wristed or something?"
Leaving the chunin gaping, Shikanenai returned his attention to Aramaki. "And where is the reaction force!? Why aren't ANBU swooping down to aid the defense of the Archives? I've been here five minutes and not a peep! You didn't send for them, did you? Did you? No, of course you didn't! Are you sure that no one's made off with half the collection while you weren't looking? As far as I can tell you might as well have been asleep for the last two years - a team from one of the other villages could have romped through here and grabbed all our confidential files and you'd probably not even have noticed!"
---=- + -=---
"Are you really doing a security check?" Naruto asked once the two of them were ensouced in one of the private reading rooms on the upper floor of the Archives.
"Why of course I am, Naruto," Shikanenai assured him with a wink. He scribbled a note on a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it up for Naruto to see.
'I wasn't until I saw how paper-thin the protection was' the note read.
"But won't -" Naruto said and then broke off as the Nara clansman grabbed his mouth and pushed it shut.
"From now on," he said, "I will only allow you to communicate me in two ways: writing," he passed Naruto a notepad and pen, "and hand signals."
"But I don't KNOW hand signals!" Naruto protested.
Shikanenai put his little fingers into his ears. "I can't hear you," he said brightly.
Naruto scribbled on the note pad.
'DON'T KNOW HAND SIGNS!!'
"Well I guess this is your chance to learn," Shikanenai replied after reading the note.
---=- + -=---
That evening, a still disgruntled Hyuuga Aramaki was standing at attention in front of his boss's desk as the Special Jounin chewed him out over the incident.
"What on -earth- makes you think you can get away with treating a genin that way? Our job is to -support- people, remember?" Neshan demanded, voice cold and taut with controlled anger.
His own temper badly frayed, the older yet lower ranked man protested, "I saw and SEE no possible justification for allowing a demon access to our village's knowledge - which it is my job to defend!"
"The way you did today?" The Special Jounin pushed the glasses up on his nose and smiled sweetly. "...Let's drop the pretense. The question of Archive access does -not- fall under your authority. You -will- provide all visitors with the full access and support to which their ranks or authorization papers entitle them. If there is a conflict, then I am specifically ordering you to bring it to my attention. Clear?"
"A demon can't HAVE rank!" the Hyuuga sputtered, reddening as his trained poise fractured under the weight of outraged prejudice.
"No, but Uzumaki's hardly a demon, is he?" Neshan countered.
"But-!"
"Oi - which of us is the sealing specialist here, anyway? It's solid, it's secure - the monster can't touch him... and we owe him better." The younger man's body language was a clear warning that the issue was closed and any further argument would be met with dire consequences.
Surly and obstinate to the last, Aramaki still knew better than to push it, not when he'd already been already skirting the boundaries of Sandaime's law. "...yes, sir," he reluctantly aknowledged. Even if he couldn't eject -that thing- if it wanted access, he could damned well make sure it had to obey every -letter- of the regulations.
*I'll whip those slackers on my security force into shape with razor wire if that's what it takes, but another incident like today's inspection will NOT occur,* he swore silently as he left the small, work-cluttered room.
---=- + -=---
(Would you like to know more?)
================================================================
A quick note on continuity - as a general rule, I'll only be using the manga, because almost everything from the anime that isn't directly taken from the manga sucks unremittingly. The first movie and the basic situation from Jump Festa 2004 (the Hidden Waterfall mission) are rare exceptions, along with a one-off filler post chuunin exam and a variation on Anko's backstory as revealed in the mission where Isaribi appeared, since they fit with what I'd already planned. Aoi's situation is the only other major filler material I plan to use, though I haven't yet decided whether to cover the Tea Country race in any detail. I have an really GOOD aftermath type scene, but might alter the set up to fit another original arc ala Search For Gero-Sennin. Expunging the stupid from the Tea Race arc would be about the same difficulty as writing something original anyway. Aoi appears in the last post-Tsunade/pre-Sasuke-the-Defective filler episodes s4 ep102 - s5 ep106, his genin team are the Rain nin Team 7 and Kabuto encounter in the Forest of Death just before the end of that part of the Chuunin Exam. How exactly that works when he's a traitor to the Leaf is of course unexplained in the filler episodes, but here he's obviously in no shape to attend even if he wasn't Persona Non Grata and a substitute sensei will be accompanying them.
Sasuke-the-Defective - oops, I mean, "defector." As with Tenten, I dislike traitors, and have therefore found little to like about the canon plot since Tsunade returned to Konoha. Hence fanfic, where reality is malleable to -my- will.
Drakensis created the character of Shikanenai in the message board discussions of the story, based on Nara family traits and more than a bit of Read Or Die (which I highly reccomend.) He predates the appearance of a paper-using Akatsuki member in the manga by about two and a half years. Of course, as a chuunin, his paper jutsu are no where near as crazily powerful as hers. Originally his profile had him nicknamed 'Nobegame' after the type of paper he prefers to use, but subsequent development in a spin-off series from the message board did away with that; close friends just drop the 'Shika.' If I get permission and get this fic to the appropriate (post-Godaime recruitment) point, that spin off "The (team) Seven Substitutes," will appear as a side story to this one, and the post-TtSS versions of 'Nenai, Neshan, and Katsu will carry on from there.
For more detail about the Demon Brothers and their wierd ninjutsu, read Teenage Genin Ninja Heroes by Valles, aka Nathan Baxter/Baksuta Neshan. I didn't need them, since the kids already faced their first combat, but needed to dispose of them somehow and I REALLY dislike traitors. In Nathan's fic, the canon Team Seven are under his character's instruction and meet that version of the Onikyodai at the usual time, and have to overcome them themselves. Because he was integral to the conception of this herd of plotbunnies and I needed someone to deal with Tenten in her missing year, he got a spot in the second-line cast of this one. Compared to me he wins at both drama and humor, so seriously, check it out even though it's unfinished and only hosted on fanfiction . net to the best of my knowledge.
Ouki Gundan - great+tree army - in the spirit of the Sexy no Jutsu, Naruto makes a bunch of clones who turn into normal forest creatures to scout or attack enemies by surprise. One of a number of special tactics developed by the team to take advantange of the skill, though because the transformation requires a constant expenditure of chakra it is limited in duration and those with sensitive detection skills will notice the animals' behavior and chakra output as being unusual. Against genin or chuunin level opponents it's quite handy, and even stronger ninja still face the constraint of avoiding the clones if they don't want to be spotted.
senbon - acupuncture needles, also used as throwing weapons by medic and hunter-nin. Haku's ranged weapon of choice.
Kubikiri Houchou - neck-cutting cleaver (as in the squared off kitchen knives)
Rikou shoving back Zabuza's sword - It's all about the leverage, baby. The blade alone is a bit longer than he is tall, call it seven feet plus three more of handle. Even if he has the widest possible grip on that handle, with Tazuna's neck out near the end and her pushing near the tip the pivot point is his closest hand, meaning she has a mechanical advantage of better than two to one. Further, he's holding it still, not pressing further, while Rikou has the momentum of her motion forward, two hands working in the same direction instead of one prying against the other, and can angle her body to add its weight and the strength of her legs to the intitial shove and to hold against the increased force Zabuza applies before giving up. And, of course, he doesn't want to go through family just for money, or a worthless bug like Gatou.
In this revision of backstory, if Keiunko hadn't been sent as the messenger to Konoha and met Gai he'd still have failed his coup attempt a few weeks later because she'd have geen in the Mizukage's office to give a report, and her instictive move to get between her kage and harm's way would have stayed his first blow. After that, even though the Mizukage is nowhere near the level of Sarutobi, he's still too strong even for Zabuza without the advantage of surprise. (And if you disagree about Sandaime-sama's strength, consider that he fought three ninja with legendary power to a standstill, killing two outright and giving the third what would have been career-ending injury, when they were all in peak physical condition and his own body was diminished by advanced age and years in a desk job with only minimal time to maintain his skills. There's a reason he was called "A God among Ninja," and it's not a kind smile or an unfaded interest in the opposite sex. Though certain of his female contemporaries might have had something to say about the latter, back in the day.)
Zabuza may seem unreasonably idealistic compared to other depictions of him, but 1) he really got very little canon exposure and other fanfic is immaterial, 2) Haku had to get it from somewhere, and 3) I had to make him sympathetic enough for it to be plausible for Gai and later the Hokage and Council to accept the situations I want to present. Also... I really do see him as another almost-Naruto-who-didn't-make-it, someone who tried to live as a ninja without compromising his ideals but couldn't pull it off similar to the way Gaara is a demon vessel who was consumed by the hate foisted on him at every turn. Is it scary that I tend to identify more with the villains (not just these two) than the heroes, or just sad?
poutburst - this was actually a typo, but I kind of like it. It fits.
Kiri no Tenken - Heavenly Sword of (the) Mist, basically the style of the Seven Swordsmen. Don't worry, Naruto's not going to turn into a Zabuza clone now, and his blade is really too small and doesn't have the right kind of handle to make full use of the style. He will pick up enough to get started though, and then develop it into his own (more one handed) style that includes a fair amount of wind-element use since that's his natural affinity as well what the cutter is designed to produce. Unlike a chakra fang it doesn't channel and manifest whatever the user is best at, it only produces wind-type effects - which means if the user sucks at Wind, it would be next to useless as a weapon, while for someone like Gomaru or Naruto whose primary type is wind it becomes extremely deadly since it makes it much easier to channel and direct into the patterns for jutsu similarly to Temari's fan, allowing many attacks to be used without needing seals.
Jou Rasenbou - Poison(ed) Rain (of) Needle(s), a technique Aoi uses in the anime.
Ninpo: Oboro Bunshin - ninja magic: mist clone - though no more able to attack than a normal bunshin, they have just enough physical structure to avoid being disrupted by a single hit.
Soranaki Hasaki - false or crocodile tears; feigned sadness + edge of a blade
Usuba Kusanoha no Parasol - thin (blade) + blade of grass; parasol is a western term derived from french for a lady's frilly sun-shade, generally too lacy and delicate to withstand use as an actual umbrella. It even sounds prissy, hence why I didn't look up a japanese word for similar devices.
Kuchiura - determining a speaker's true or hidden meaning - in this case, "Kuchiyura fifty one" means the fifty first year of the rule of a daimyo named Kuchiura, presumably the one who didn't get fooled and assassinated by Hasaki-hime. In other words, not only is Zabuza dissing Aoi for fighting with an umbrella like a girly noblewoman, he's comparing him to a famous historical failure as well.
"So, you want to see my sword," (Aoi) taunted - wink wink, nudge nudge. Watching those episodes, one kind of gets the impression he 'ain't quite right.' In more than one way, actually, the jerk is definately a sociopath as well.
Raijin - the god of lightning
Hijutsu: Makyou Hyoshou - secret skill: demonic ice mirrors
Hiyoroi no Jutsu - "fire+armor skill" - forms a shell of flaming chakra around the user, making it painful to attack barehanded, useless to bind them with ropes or cloth, and provides a bit of a cushioning effect to reduce the impact of weapons. The chakra manipulation is only moderately difficult, high genin level, but it requires so much chakra to use for any length of time that it is normally considered a chuunin level technique at a minimum. Naruto, of course, has no problem with supplying mass quantities of chakra - generally quite the opposite.
Suiton: Suijinheki - Water release: water (???) wall - I think the bit of translation I'm missing is "spinning" or something along those lines.
Konoha Daisenpuu - of the leaf + big whirlwind kick
Tazuna's crane - it's half visible when the team enters Wave on the boat, but not there for the final battle in the manga... I decided to keep it, because it was useful. As for how it can possibly be got started so fast with a steam engine - the crew got the coal going in the firebox before the goons arrived to round them up, so it was heating up all along. The engine in the little boat they arrived in used a so called 'flash plant,' a coil of tubing in an oil flame that has water pumped in constantly on one end and the engine on the other, so it starts producing steam at useable pressure essentially instantly. This requires a slightly larger arrangement than the anacronistic modern outboard in the manga, but not too much so to be unworkable.
This version of the setting has hand-built steam engines as the pinnacle of conventional technology - the 'televisions' and 'radios' that appear here and there are actually seal-based (as in fuinjutsu, not hand seals) and run on chakra. Power lines are all ovr the place because raiton energy is the easiest way to transfer chakra from one place to the other and can be generated artificially then converted wih a seal pattern into whatever form is needed for the rest of the device.
As mentioned before, Shima is the younger brother of Haruno Rin from chapter four. (chapters six and seven on MediaMiner, with its puny 50kb size limit) Though he makes a less than glorious showing here, as a general rule he is a fairly competent ninja, and the chuunin-level Haruno bloodline ability to perform any known ninjutsu by having their inner self make the hand seals would have easily dealt with the shadow capture if he hadn't been so surprised - for one thing, since people caught in it can still talk, they can still breathe fire, and most other ninjutsu have even less gestural requirements aside from the seals themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Omake: Cutting room floor? I'll cut you!
(With apologies in advance for stereotypical macho posturing and excessive profanity)
As the two samurai stepped onto the deck surrounding their target's house, the one in the hat complained, "What about that boar, huh? What the hell was up with that? All you had to do was fuckin' cut its throat, man, but no, you had to flip out and turn it into sausage patties. Then you went and slashed up a shitload of trees on to of that!"
The tatooed one growled, "Shut up, fool. I'll cut you."
"Yeah yeah, cut this, cut that, cut you... the only time you don't talk about cutting shit up is when you're actually doing it. Did your mom let you run wild with scissors as a kid or something?"
"Damn it, I told you to shut up. I don't care how pissed Gatou will get, I seriously will cut you if you don't shut the fuck up."
"That's it, isn't it?" the hat guy continued doggedly. "I bet that's what happened to your eye, you were running around with a pair of fuckin' scissors and tripped, and it gave you this fucked up fixation on cutting things. Why do I hang out with you again?"
"GrrrAAAH!" the eye patch wearing mercenary shouted in frustration, slashing apart the door of Tazuna's house. Surprised, Tsunami turned from the table inside, where she'd been shredding a cabbage into thin slices to go in the soup pot. The edge of her great grandmother's favorite kitchen knife glinted in the morning light, honed narrow and wickedly sharp from four generations of careful use. "Damn, what a sweet piece," he muttered. "I'd like to cut something up with -that-..."
His partner facepalmed, sighing, "Focus, dammit, focus. Get the bitch, then get turned on over her oh-so-sexy knife. Fuckin' freak."
END OF LINE
The canopy snapped closed again as Aoi folowed, lunging with the sharpened tip of his umbrella even as his opponent reset himself and flipped the massive zanbatou up in a quick parry. Metal reinforced bamboo was no match for one of the Tenken and the chakra-reinforced edge of Kubikiri Houchou slashed it easily into uselessness. A follow up backswing knocked the teal-haired man down in turn but did no meaningful damage, skittering off the purplish barrier of the armor's chakra shield.
The Rain-nin chuckled as he rose, wiping away a thin blood trail from a split lip. "So, you want to see my sword," he taunted. "Since yours is so impressive, I suppose I'll have to comply." He unhooked a small, dull metal cylinder from his side, one end equipped with a pair of metal claws supporting a ring aligned with the grip. He fed some chakra into it and with a crackling hiss a brilliant golden blade sprang into being, a delicately tapered leaf shape as long as a man's arm that crawled with tiny lightning bolts.
"This is the famous 'Raijin Sword' used by the Nidaime Hokage," Aoi boasted. "A blade that can cut through anything, even my bonds to Konoha, and serving as a ticket to Hidden Rain after that... While you, the famous Devil of the Mist, have gone soft and joined with those Leaf weaklings!"
At that, the slender Rain jounin leapt to the attack, unable to simply cut through Kubikiri Houcho's interposed mass despite his claims but delivering a debilitating shock through the metal each time the two met. Despite his inferior strength and swordsmanship the Rain-nin was still protected from return blows by the armor's barrier.
With Haku's added help Rikou was faring better against the Rain genin team, the two standing back to back across Tazuna's crouching form. The teenage boy's needles were no more effective against the maddeningly durable mist clones than her own attacks, but just having someone to take over half of the circle was a vast relief for the girl. More importantly, the young missing-nin had considerably more battle experience than the Leaf kunoichi, and it was only a few minutes before he saw through the Rain-nins' technique.
"Rikou-sama," he explained quietly, "The bunshin truly are harmless... the enemy is hiding underground and attacking from their shadows." Proving his words, a handful of senbon stabbed into Two-eyes' outstretched arm, poised for an attempt to hamstring her in the shadow of his clone's kick.
"I see, I see!" the girl exclaimed. "Too bad I don't have any earth-type moves to attack someone underground. They'd probably damage the bridge anyway."
"Well, it's not my strong area either," the effeminate boy admitted, "but knowing what to look for their attacks become easy to counter." This time it was No-eyes who demonstrated, barely dodging an incapacitating nerve cluster hit and getting a sharp reminder to train his speed as a consolation prize.
An instant later the Rain genin was tossed into the air by Lee's rising kick as the two boys finally arrived, the thick stream of fire from Naruto's 'Kaen' slicing through the mist clones from above. They dissipated at last as he landed beside the defending duo. Following the stunned Rain-nin up in a Kage Buyo, Lee spun in place to deliver a punishing kick to his side, transferred momentum letting him reverse and repeat the move on the other side before catching No-eyes by one arm and pulling him into position for half a dozen quick jabs, then finishing off with a stomp kick just as he landed which transferred all of the considerable energy of the Leaf-nin's fall into his opponent's rib cage. A non-ninja would certainly have been killed and even with all the reinforcing chakra the boy could bring to bear there was still the wet crunch of breaking bone as Lee landed on him, followed by a coughing spurt of blood from his mouth where the rebreather mask had broken loose from its straps.
Even as their opponents were cut down by one and a horde of kage bunshin formed an outer ring of defense, a pained bellow from further down the bridge made Haku's head snap around. Aoi had finally gotten inside Zabuza's defense, his lighter, faster weapon and ability to ignore return strikes having compensated for what would normally have been vastly outmatched ability. The actual hit was a flesh wound at best, all but blocked by the bigger man's zanbatou, but the small contact it had made with his ribs was plenty to transfer the power it was molded from into the missing nin's body. Zabuza was jerking and twitching in a halo of lightning.
Suddenly the younger ex-Mist was beside them, grabbing Aoi's extended arm and pulling him into a shoulder throw away from the boy's beloved mentor. He quickly summoned a heavy mist with 'kirigakure,' not wanting to expend the chakra needed to pull water all the way from the ocean far below for his strongest but most demanding bloodline limit technique. "Aoi-san," he said coldly, as the Rain jounin recovered. "When I was a child... because people with advanced bloodlines were hated in Water Country, my father killed my mother when he discovered she held one... and I killed him in return. Without a home and hounded as a monster, I ran and hid among the alleys, a useless thing no more than trash. Zabuza-sama discovered me in that place, and allowed me to have a purpose by becoming his tool... and to protect Zabuza-sama I can even cut out my gentle heart with a blade, and become a true ninja. For hurting Zabuza-sama, I'll kill you!"
While he'd drawn attention by talking, Haku had been setting up his technique, bringing out more and more mist and letting it condense into puddles on the roadbed. Judging it sufficient he formed the neccessary hand seals and announced, "Hijutsu: Makyou Hyoshou no jutsu!" A cage of ice sheets rose around the wary Rain-nin, and presently Haku appeared within the mirrored surfaces. "Within this prison, my speed is beyond compare," the teen announced. "You can neither dodge nor counter... all that remains is death."
Gatou hadn't missed the defeat of the Rain genin either, and was displeased by the way the battle seemed to be turning. "Forget those nobodies!" he ordered his army of goons, still surrounding Tazuna's work crew. "Get the old man and those damn ninja brats! They can't kill all of you, and I'll pay double to any man that brings me one of their heads!" Hesitant at irst, the lure of double pay and their huge numerical advantage brought them around soon enough, and with a roar of bloodthirsty battle cries the thuggish 'samurai' charged.
Very much not wanting to get surrounded like that Rikou, Naruto, and Lee moved to a better position, the bunshin covering while the real genin helped Tazuna up and half-escorted half-carried him over to the crane, quickly pushing him into the cab. Arranging themselves against the side with the only door they reorganised just in time to meet the mercenary assault and renewed attacks from the last two Rain genin as the last of the kage bunshin poofed out of existence.
No fools they, they'd resumed their pattern of only rising out of the stone and mortar of the bridge to attack from shadow, using the mercenaries as cover the same as they had their mist bunshin earlier.
Naruto formed the point of the trio's wedge, and after knocking back the first attacker to tangle in the legs of the closest behind him, whipped through a few handseals. "Katon: Hiyoroi no jutsu!" the blond announced, breathing a small plume of flames that spiralled around himself and then spread to become a burning aura that left his clothes untouched but but added an extra punch to hand to hand attacks, as well as cushioning incoming blows and making the less determined among the thronging mob back off some. He was tempted to try out his new skills with the chopper blade, but didn't want to actually kill anyone - the same reason he hadn't used 'Kunai Kage Bunshin' or 'Bunshin Daibakuha.'
Lee and Rikou had no such benefit but with the slab-sided crane on one side and team mates at the other and their backs they managed well enough. Grimly all three set about using disabling strikes, breaking bones or causing flesh wounds that would cut down the number of enemies able to fight as quickly as possible, but their own injuries also began to add up.
Unfortunately Haku had not been paying his usual level of attention to Zabuza's battle between the distance involved and the need to deal with the immediate opponents he had been facing, and before that he'd been inside the dome made earlier curing Gai. The shoulder throw, making use of soft arts, had not engaged the barrier either, so he had no warning of its existence until his senbon simply bounced away from the target.
Aoi laughed cruelly. "Dodge? Dodge what? As for a counter attack..." He reignited the Raijin no Ken and slashed at the nearest ice wall, Haku's image flickering out as air heated by the solid bar of electricity melted through as if it was no more than soft cheese. The upper half of the mirror fell and shattered, the super cold ice breaking along jagged edges that made still more cuts and scrapes even through his jumpsuit and kimono as Haku was knocked out of the back of the broken mirror, a wide burn mark across his chest that welled with blood from the slice at its center.
The rest of the ice prison quickly followed suit without a flow of chakra to sustain it against gravity, callapsing into ruin around the one-time Leaf while he laughed all the harder. The thin chunks of ice didn't even stagger him as the barrier shrugged them aside.
"Trusting other people... believing in other people," he told the long haired teen as he picked his way through the shards until he was close enough to deliver a kick that flipped Haku onto his back and knocked off the cracked hunter-nin mask. "This is where such idiotic things lead. What was it you said? Cut out your heart with a blade..." He jabbed the tip of the blade into the gash it had left on Haku's body from the mirror, making the boy convulse with the electrical discharge. "... Sounds good!" He raised the Raijin no Ken for a killing blow.
Before it could land his arm was grabbed again, this time by Zabuza. The slash in the side of his chest had bled until the stain reached halfway down to his knee and his muscles were still too weak from electrocution to wield Kubikiri Houcho, but he had easily enough strength to squeeze the nerve cluster at the wrist and make Aoi's hand flop open uselessly, then throw the Rain jounin away from his apprentice. "The trouble with guys like you," he said, kneeling painfully to retreive the powerful artefact, "is that you think that strength is about yourself."
The Devil of the Mist pulled himself quickly back upright, stowing the deactivated sword's hilt in his waistband so he could form a quick series of hand seals. "Suiton: Suijinheki!" A spinning wall of water formed around Zabuza and Haku, deflecting the poisoned neddles Aoi had thrown from where he landed on the railing of the bridge. "There's really only one thing I agree with the Leaf about," he continued conversationally, "but it's the thing that made all the difference in this case. You see, Aoi..." Another flight of senbon was batted aside as he ignited the chakra sword and brought it around in a blingly fast defensive combination. "... I beleive... I've taught Haku to beleive... that true strength comes when a ninja has something to protect!"
A feint, a lunge, and the purple barrier shattered like cgalss. The yin yang plug on his left shoulder fixture followed suit as the seals inside overloaded and burst, and then it was the bishonen Rain-nin who was screaming and shuddering, impaled on the blade of the sword he used to cut away his oath to protect Konohagakure. His teal hair stood on end and his eyes rolled back in his head as little bolts of lightning dance between his teeth, then the muscle spasms twisted him to one side. The blade of Raijin no Ken burned its way out as he fell, just too low to open the major blood vessels of the liver or kidneys and allow a quick death through blood loss, then he fell over the side of the bridge and into the waves below.
At least as badly off from their battle of attrition as the Leaf genin, Aoi's team decided to cut their losses after seeing their sensei fall. They quickly gathered up No-eyes and made their own break over the railing, laying him in the bottom of one of the small boats the mercenaries had arrived in and rowing toward the limply floating jounin.
"COWARDS!!" Gatou screamed after them, literally hopping with fury over the turn of events. "I'LL BILL YOUR WORTHLESS VILLAGE FOR EVERY YEN I PAID YOU! And YOU!" Turning toward the group at the crane, he pointed at his hired thugs. Seeing the ninja flee, the mercenaries had backed off as well - a wide semicircle of groaning or unconscious men lay around the three genin, and though bloodied none of the kids looked like they were on their last legs. "YOU IDIOTS! JUST KILL THEM, ALREADY! How hard is it to kill three stupid brats!?" The Crane's engine rattled to life with a hiss of steam and clash of gears, but he paid it no mind, swinging his finger back and forth between where Zabusa was digging Haku out of the ice that had trapped his legs and the wary genin inside the ring of samurai. "Even if you ninja bastards escape, I'll put a price on your heads so high you won't know a minutes peace without assasins coming to claim the bounty! I'll have you killed, and every man you know, and put the women to work in brothels! I'll-"
Whatever else he may have meant to do would have to be left up to their imagination, as the heavy beam Tazuna had picked up with the crane came crashing down on the short little crime lord's head, snapping his neck instantly and leaving him pulped under its massive weight. "You'll go to meet the demons in hell, where you belong," the architect eulogised, barely audible over the hiss of escaping pressure as he closed the damper on the firebox and opened the relief valves to shut the heavy machine down again. With a shudder, he slowly sat down on the engineer's stool and stared down at his two hands. He'd used them to protect his country, his grandson, and those cute kids who'd fought and bled for him, but he still wished he had a bottle of sake right now. A big one.
An ugly mutter began to build among the remaining samurai, who'd just seen their meal ticket turned into worm food. Each man's complaints, threats and boasts driving the confidence and anger of the others, they worked themselves back up toward finishing off the battle-weary ninja and then ransacking the village to make up for their missing pay... at least until the all but forgotten dome of ice shattered, the Handsome Green Beast freeing himself with a cry of "Konoha Daisenpuu!"
The return of a second adult ninja to the battlefield, freshly rested and advancing on their position clustered around his students with a serious look, tipped the scales in favor of just making a break for the town and taking what they could as they passed through. Then the villagers arrived as well, waving shovels and pitchforks and the occasional real weapon here and there, Inari and Tsunami in the lead. One thug decided to turn and run, and that was all it took. Within moments the whole crowd had run for the wide rope ladder down to their boats, leaving only those unconscious or too injured to move behind to face the locals and eventually the Wave Daimyo's judgement.
---=- + -=---
The rest of the day was spent recovering, and cleaning up the building site turned battlefield since it was littered with poison coated needles, damaged or abandoned weapons, and blood spots as well as Gatou's grisly remains. Tazuna got himself most thoroughly drunk, and Gai resolved to have a talk with the man later to help him deal with what he'd done once he sobered up. The village as a whole had something of a festival atmosphere with their opressor dethroned, one that only calmed rather than fading away in the next two weeks as the bridge was finally finished. By popular acclamation, the ninja would be the first ones to cross the completed span.
Standing with their group as one last load of gravel was tamped down into the ramp at the Fire Country end, Tazuna commented, "You know... this bridge still needs a name. Like 'The Super-Awesome Bridge Tazuna Built,' or 'Bridge of Heroic Ninja Defenders of Youthful Spirit...' or maybe 'Bridge of the Springtime of Youth' so it stands for everyone's bright future."
Giving his best Nice Guy Pose Gai agreed, "Truly an excellent name for such a splendid bridge, Tazuna-san! It shines with the passionate spirit that was invested in every stone." Turning to his brother in law and their students, he exhorted them, "Let us return to Konoha with all speed, so my cute genin can prepare for the upcoming Chuunin Selection Exam! As your sensei promised last time, Team Explosive Youth will be allowed to enter, to prove your passionate spirits before all of the shinobi nations!"
The usual cries of excitement and eagerness in the face of a new challenge met his announcement, and the proud jounin had to dry his eyes before pointing dramatically in the direction of Konoha. "Team Explosive Youth! HASSHIN!" he commanded, bounding away into the trees with his subordinates. Zabuza and Haku shared one last pained look before following, not wanting to get too far behind when their reception would depend greatly on Gai vouching for them, even with the return of the Raijin Sword to help buy a welcome.
---=- + -=---
A few days later, Shikanenai looked sideways at the blond genin beside him. The boy seemed uncharacteristically nervous as they approached the Archives. "You're quiet," he said flatly.
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Eh... do we have to go to the Archives?"
"Well..." Shikanenai drawled, stretching out the word sarcastically, "It'd be like going into the chuunin Exam with one hand in an unbreakable cast, preventing you from forming seals. But no, I don't suppose that we -have- to go to the Archives. Why?"
"Hey!" came a call from one of the chuunin guarding the Archives' doors. "Get out of here, brat - you know you're not allowed here!"
Shikanenai rolled his eyes. "That why?"
Naruto nodded his head, slowing to a halt. "Yeah, that stiff-necked prick in charge said I couldn't go in. Ever." He slowed, then blinked as he realised Shikanenai hadn't.
"Didn't I go to the Academy with you?" the Nara clansman called to the chuunin at the door waving casually.
The man frowned and then squinted at Shikanenai. "Nara Shikanenai!" he said in surprise. "I haven't seen you in years - where've you been?"
"Ah, you know, out and about," the lanky chuunin replied and casually crossed his fist against the surprised man's chin, catapulting him backwards into the doors with a loud boom.
"What the- ?" the pink haired chuunin blurted, more surprised than hurt. Then he broke off, realising that he couldn't move and that Shikanenai was holding his hands in the final seal of the Nara's tradmark jutsu. "Shikanenai?" he asked uncertainly. "What are you doing?"
"Stomp him," Shikanenai told Naruto.
"What?" the genin said incredulously, eyes wide.
"You're a genin, I'm a chunin," Shikanenai said flatly. "This is an order. Knock him out. Now."
"Hey wai-" the pinned man managed to say before Naruto kicked him in the side of the head, silencing him.
"Good lad," Shikanenai said and pushed on the door, swinging it slowly open. Inside, it was dark and full of shadows, a far cry from the bright and sunny streets of Konohagakure. "Man," he muttered, "This place hasn't changed one bit."
Two shapes darted through the high stacks of scrolls, kunai gleaming in their hands. Shikanenai's shadow, clearly visible in the long rectangle of light that streamed through the door behind him, flicked to one side and there were simultaneous crashes as the two guards responding to the door opening suddenly found that their limbs weren't moving.
"Them too," Shikanenai ordered flatly.
Naruto hesitated. "No," he said. "Not unless you tell me why you want me to attack Konoha-nin."
A thin smile crossed Shikanenai's face. "Good," he said softly, and released the jutsu that was pinning the pair. "Following orders is required of a ninja, but not blindly. Of course, questioning orders in mid-battle is unwise, but the circumstances merited it. Well done."
The guards were on their feet now and had been joined by half a dozen other ninja, half of them staff, the other half obviously simply shinobi who had been in the Archives and responded to the intrusion. An older man with the characteristic white eyes of the Hyuuga shouldered his way through the loose ring that had formed around the pair.
"What is the meaning of this!" he demanded. "Who are you and why do you bring that menace here!"
Shikanenai smirked. "This is just a test of your security," he said casually. "This was not a real attack. If this was a real attack then you would be explaining to Hokage-sama why A CHUUNIN AND A GENIN JUST WALTZED STRAIGHT THROUGH YOUR SECURITY!" he bellowed suddenly. "You!" he ordered one of the genin who'd come out of the stacks. "Fetch that idiot Haruno Shima from outside. And you!" he continued, glancing at the other guards - "Get the rest of the Archive staff up here."
"Stop!" shouted the Hyuuga. "You are in no position to give orders here - take him into custody," he ordered. "Both of them in fact."
The Nara cracked his knuckles as Naruto looked around with a worried expression on his face. "You are not brushing this under the carpet," Shikanenai said silkily. "Your security here is paper thin. Until you satisfy the Hokage that you can be entrusted with the Archives again it is you who are in no position to give orders, Aramaki."
Responding more to the certainty of Shikanenai's words than to their content, the ninja scattered through the library, leaving Hyuuga Aramaki to glare at Shikanenai in frustration. "Nara..." he hissed. "You're that useless cousin of Shikaku's."
Shikanenai simply grinned and wheeled on the groggy Chunin who staggered into the Archives through the door he'd been supposedly guarding. "Shima, you were an idiot at the Academy and you're an idiot now! How you passed the Chunin Exam I will never know! Have you never heard of the henge jutsu!? A ninja you've not seen in years just turns up and you let him pin you for a genin to beat up on! What were you thinking!? Were you thinking at all!? And besides that you hold a kunai like a pansy! Are you limp-wristed or something?"
Leaving the chunin gaping, Shikanenai returned his attention to Aramaki. "And where is the reaction force!? Why aren't ANBU swooping down to aid the defense of the Archives? I've been here five minutes and not a peep! You didn't send for them, did you? Did you? No, of course you didn't! Are you sure that no one's made off with half the collection while you weren't looking? As far as I can tell you might as well have been asleep for the last two years - a team from one of the other villages could have romped through here and grabbed all our confidential files and you'd probably not even have noticed!"
---=- + -=---
"Are you really doing a security check?" Naruto asked once the two of them were ensouced in one of the private reading rooms on the upper floor of the Archives.
"Why of course I am, Naruto," Shikanenai assured him with a wink. He scribbled a note on a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it up for Naruto to see.
'I wasn't until I saw how paper-thin the protection was' the note read.
"But won't -" Naruto said and then broke off as the Nara clansman grabbed his mouth and pushed it shut.
"From now on," he said, "I will only allow you to communicate me in two ways: writing," he passed Naruto a notepad and pen, "and hand signals."
"But I don't KNOW hand signals!" Naruto protested.
Shikanenai put his little fingers into his ears. "I can't hear you," he said brightly.
Naruto scribbled on the note pad.
'DON'T KNOW HAND SIGNS!!'
"Well I guess this is your chance to learn," Shikanenai replied after reading the note.
---=- + -=---
That evening, a still disgruntled Hyuuga Aramaki was standing at attention in front of his boss's desk as the Special Jounin chewed him out over the incident.
"What on -earth- makes you think you can get away with treating a genin that way? Our job is to -support- people, remember?" Neshan demanded, voice cold and taut with controlled anger.
His own temper badly frayed, the older yet lower ranked man protested, "I saw and SEE no possible justification for allowing a demon access to our village's knowledge - which it is my job to defend!"
"The way you did today?" The Special Jounin pushed the glasses up on his nose and smiled sweetly. "...Let's drop the pretense. The question of Archive access does -not- fall under your authority. You -will- provide all visitors with the full access and support to which their ranks or authorization papers entitle them. If there is a conflict, then I am specifically ordering you to bring it to my attention. Clear?"
"A demon can't HAVE rank!" the Hyuuga sputtered, reddening as his trained poise fractured under the weight of outraged prejudice.
"No, but Uzumaki's hardly a demon, is he?" Neshan countered.
"But-!"
"Oi - which of us is the sealing specialist here, anyway? It's solid, it's secure - the monster can't touch him... and we owe him better." The younger man's body language was a clear warning that the issue was closed and any further argument would be met with dire consequences.
Surly and obstinate to the last, Aramaki still knew better than to push it, not when he'd already been already skirting the boundaries of Sandaime's law. "...yes, sir," he reluctantly aknowledged. Even if he couldn't eject -that thing- if it wanted access, he could damned well make sure it had to obey every -letter- of the regulations.
*I'll whip those slackers on my security force into shape with razor wire if that's what it takes, but another incident like today's inspection will NOT occur,* he swore silently as he left the small, work-cluttered room.
---=- + -=---
(Would you like to know more?)
================================================================
A quick note on continuity - as a general rule, I'll only be using the manga, because almost everything from the anime that isn't directly taken from the manga sucks unremittingly. The first movie and the basic situation from Jump Festa 2004 (the Hidden Waterfall mission) are rare exceptions, along with a one-off filler post chuunin exam and a variation on Anko's backstory as revealed in the mission where Isaribi appeared, since they fit with what I'd already planned. Aoi's situation is the only other major filler material I plan to use, though I haven't yet decided whether to cover the Tea Country race in any detail. I have an really GOOD aftermath type scene, but might alter the set up to fit another original arc ala Search For Gero-Sennin. Expunging the stupid from the Tea Race arc would be about the same difficulty as writing something original anyway. Aoi appears in the last post-Tsunade/pre-Sasuke-the-Defective filler episodes s4 ep102 - s5 ep106, his genin team are the Rain nin Team 7 and Kabuto encounter in the Forest of Death just before the end of that part of the Chuunin Exam. How exactly that works when he's a traitor to the Leaf is of course unexplained in the filler episodes, but here he's obviously in no shape to attend even if he wasn't Persona Non Grata and a substitute sensei will be accompanying them.
Sasuke-the-Defective - oops, I mean, "defector." As with Tenten, I dislike traitors, and have therefore found little to like about the canon plot since Tsunade returned to Konoha. Hence fanfic, where reality is malleable to -my- will.
Drakensis created the character of Shikanenai in the message board discussions of the story, based on Nara family traits and more than a bit of Read Or Die (which I highly reccomend.) He predates the appearance of a paper-using Akatsuki member in the manga by about two and a half years. Of course, as a chuunin, his paper jutsu are no where near as crazily powerful as hers. Originally his profile had him nicknamed 'Nobegame' after the type of paper he prefers to use, but subsequent development in a spin-off series from the message board did away with that; close friends just drop the 'Shika.' If I get permission and get this fic to the appropriate (post-Godaime recruitment) point, that spin off "The (team) Seven Substitutes," will appear as a side story to this one, and the post-TtSS versions of 'Nenai, Neshan, and Katsu will carry on from there.
For more detail about the Demon Brothers and their wierd ninjutsu, read Teenage Genin Ninja Heroes by Valles, aka Nathan Baxter/Baksuta Neshan. I didn't need them, since the kids already faced their first combat, but needed to dispose of them somehow and I REALLY dislike traitors. In Nathan's fic, the canon Team Seven are under his character's instruction and meet that version of the Onikyodai at the usual time, and have to overcome them themselves. Because he was integral to the conception of this herd of plotbunnies and I needed someone to deal with Tenten in her missing year, he got a spot in the second-line cast of this one. Compared to me he wins at both drama and humor, so seriously, check it out even though it's unfinished and only hosted on fanfiction . net to the best of my knowledge.
Ouki Gundan - great+tree army - in the spirit of the Sexy no Jutsu, Naruto makes a bunch of clones who turn into normal forest creatures to scout or attack enemies by surprise. One of a number of special tactics developed by the team to take advantange of the skill, though because the transformation requires a constant expenditure of chakra it is limited in duration and those with sensitive detection skills will notice the animals' behavior and chakra output as being unusual. Against genin or chuunin level opponents it's quite handy, and even stronger ninja still face the constraint of avoiding the clones if they don't want to be spotted.
senbon - acupuncture needles, also used as throwing weapons by medic and hunter-nin. Haku's ranged weapon of choice.
Kubikiri Houchou - neck-cutting cleaver (as in the squared off kitchen knives)
Rikou shoving back Zabuza's sword - It's all about the leverage, baby. The blade alone is a bit longer than he is tall, call it seven feet plus three more of handle. Even if he has the widest possible grip on that handle, with Tazuna's neck out near the end and her pushing near the tip the pivot point is his closest hand, meaning she has a mechanical advantage of better than two to one. Further, he's holding it still, not pressing further, while Rikou has the momentum of her motion forward, two hands working in the same direction instead of one prying against the other, and can angle her body to add its weight and the strength of her legs to the intitial shove and to hold against the increased force Zabuza applies before giving up. And, of course, he doesn't want to go through family just for money, or a worthless bug like Gatou.
In this revision of backstory, if Keiunko hadn't been sent as the messenger to Konoha and met Gai he'd still have failed his coup attempt a few weeks later because she'd have geen in the Mizukage's office to give a report, and her instictive move to get between her kage and harm's way would have stayed his first blow. After that, even though the Mizukage is nowhere near the level of Sarutobi, he's still too strong even for Zabuza without the advantage of surprise. (And if you disagree about Sandaime-sama's strength, consider that he fought three ninja with legendary power to a standstill, killing two outright and giving the third what would have been career-ending injury, when they were all in peak physical condition and his own body was diminished by advanced age and years in a desk job with only minimal time to maintain his skills. There's a reason he was called "A God among Ninja," and it's not a kind smile or an unfaded interest in the opposite sex. Though certain of his female contemporaries might have had something to say about the latter, back in the day.)
Zabuza may seem unreasonably idealistic compared to other depictions of him, but 1) he really got very little canon exposure and other fanfic is immaterial, 2) Haku had to get it from somewhere, and 3) I had to make him sympathetic enough for it to be plausible for Gai and later the Hokage and Council to accept the situations I want to present. Also... I really do see him as another almost-Naruto-who-didn't-make-it, someone who tried to live as a ninja without compromising his ideals but couldn't pull it off similar to the way Gaara is a demon vessel who was consumed by the hate foisted on him at every turn. Is it scary that I tend to identify more with the villains (not just these two) than the heroes, or just sad?
poutburst - this was actually a typo, but I kind of like it. It fits.
Kiri no Tenken - Heavenly Sword of (the) Mist, basically the style of the Seven Swordsmen. Don't worry, Naruto's not going to turn into a Zabuza clone now, and his blade is really too small and doesn't have the right kind of handle to make full use of the style. He will pick up enough to get started though, and then develop it into his own (more one handed) style that includes a fair amount of wind-element use since that's his natural affinity as well what the cutter is designed to produce. Unlike a chakra fang it doesn't channel and manifest whatever the user is best at, it only produces wind-type effects - which means if the user sucks at Wind, it would be next to useless as a weapon, while for someone like Gomaru or Naruto whose primary type is wind it becomes extremely deadly since it makes it much easier to channel and direct into the patterns for jutsu similarly to Temari's fan, allowing many attacks to be used without needing seals.
Jou Rasenbou - Poison(ed) Rain (of) Needle(s), a technique Aoi uses in the anime.
Ninpo: Oboro Bunshin - ninja magic: mist clone - though no more able to attack than a normal bunshin, they have just enough physical structure to avoid being disrupted by a single hit.
Soranaki Hasaki - false or crocodile tears; feigned sadness + edge of a blade
Usuba Kusanoha no Parasol - thin (blade) + blade of grass; parasol is a western term derived from french for a lady's frilly sun-shade, generally too lacy and delicate to withstand use as an actual umbrella. It even sounds prissy, hence why I didn't look up a japanese word for similar devices.
Kuchiura - determining a speaker's true or hidden meaning - in this case, "Kuchiyura fifty one" means the fifty first year of the rule of a daimyo named Kuchiura, presumably the one who didn't get fooled and assassinated by Hasaki-hime. In other words, not only is Zabuza dissing Aoi for fighting with an umbrella like a girly noblewoman, he's comparing him to a famous historical failure as well.
"So, you want to see my sword," (Aoi) taunted - wink wink, nudge nudge. Watching those episodes, one kind of gets the impression he 'ain't quite right.' In more than one way, actually, the jerk is definately a sociopath as well.
Raijin - the god of lightning
Hijutsu: Makyou Hyoshou - secret skill: demonic ice mirrors
Hiyoroi no Jutsu - "fire+armor skill" - forms a shell of flaming chakra around the user, making it painful to attack barehanded, useless to bind them with ropes or cloth, and provides a bit of a cushioning effect to reduce the impact of weapons. The chakra manipulation is only moderately difficult, high genin level, but it requires so much chakra to use for any length of time that it is normally considered a chuunin level technique at a minimum. Naruto, of course, has no problem with supplying mass quantities of chakra - generally quite the opposite.
Suiton: Suijinheki - Water release: water (???) wall - I think the bit of translation I'm missing is "spinning" or something along those lines.
Konoha Daisenpuu - of the leaf + big whirlwind kick
Tazuna's crane - it's half visible when the team enters Wave on the boat, but not there for the final battle in the manga... I decided to keep it, because it was useful. As for how it can possibly be got started so fast with a steam engine - the crew got the coal going in the firebox before the goons arrived to round them up, so it was heating up all along. The engine in the little boat they arrived in used a so called 'flash plant,' a coil of tubing in an oil flame that has water pumped in constantly on one end and the engine on the other, so it starts producing steam at useable pressure essentially instantly. This requires a slightly larger arrangement than the anacronistic modern outboard in the manga, but not too much so to be unworkable.
This version of the setting has hand-built steam engines as the pinnacle of conventional technology - the 'televisions' and 'radios' that appear here and there are actually seal-based (as in fuinjutsu, not hand seals) and run on chakra. Power lines are all ovr the place because raiton energy is the easiest way to transfer chakra from one place to the other and can be generated artificially then converted wih a seal pattern into whatever form is needed for the rest of the device.
As mentioned before, Shima is the younger brother of Haruno Rin from chapter four. (chapters six and seven on MediaMiner, with its puny 50kb size limit) Though he makes a less than glorious showing here, as a general rule he is a fairly competent ninja, and the chuunin-level Haruno bloodline ability to perform any known ninjutsu by having their inner self make the hand seals would have easily dealt with the shadow capture if he hadn't been so surprised - for one thing, since people caught in it can still talk, they can still breathe fire, and most other ninjutsu have even less gestural requirements aside from the seals themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Omake: Cutting room floor? I'll cut you!
(With apologies in advance for stereotypical macho posturing and excessive profanity)
As the two samurai stepped onto the deck surrounding their target's house, the one in the hat complained, "What about that boar, huh? What the hell was up with that? All you had to do was fuckin' cut its throat, man, but no, you had to flip out and turn it into sausage patties. Then you went and slashed up a shitload of trees on to of that!"
The tatooed one growled, "Shut up, fool. I'll cut you."
"Yeah yeah, cut this, cut that, cut you... the only time you don't talk about cutting shit up is when you're actually doing it. Did your mom let you run wild with scissors as a kid or something?"
"Damn it, I told you to shut up. I don't care how pissed Gatou will get, I seriously will cut you if you don't shut the fuck up."
"That's it, isn't it?" the hat guy continued doggedly. "I bet that's what happened to your eye, you were running around with a pair of fuckin' scissors and tripped, and it gave you this fucked up fixation on cutting things. Why do I hang out with you again?"
"GrrrAAAH!" the eye patch wearing mercenary shouted in frustration, slashing apart the door of Tazuna's house. Surprised, Tsunami turned from the table inside, where she'd been shredding a cabbage into thin slices to go in the soup pot. The edge of her great grandmother's favorite kitchen knife glinted in the morning light, honed narrow and wickedly sharp from four generations of careful use. "Damn, what a sweet piece," he muttered. "I'd like to cut something up with -that-..."
His partner facepalmed, sighing, "Focus, dammit, focus. Get the bitch, then get turned on over her oh-so-sexy knife. Fuckin' freak."
END OF LINE