...
"Your ramen is as good as ever old man. I ought to come here more often." I said with a smile as I put down a pair of chopsticks. In front of me was multiple empty bowls stacked on top of each other. To my right was a satisfied looking TenTen.
"Often? You come here every week! What do you mean by often?" Teuchi said with a laugh as he collected some of the bowls before going in the back to clean them. "Anyways, it's getting a bit late. My daughter should be here in a bit so I'll wash these for her shift. Don't cause any trouble you two."
Hearing the sound of running water, I turned towards TenTen who was in a unique state. She was staring at a bowl of ramen with an almost dazed look.
Letting out a sigh, I tapped the desk in front of me a bit before slowly turning my chair towards her. "You alright there? You don't look so hot."
Snapping out of her daze, she looked towards me with an almost offended look. "You're acting like you don't already know what's wrong with me? You where there with me dumbass."
Blinking a bit, I just stared at her while trying to figure out some words to say. But I just couldn't find the right words.
'Perhaps all the training I've done has made me socially awkward?'
Giving up on brainstorming, I opened mouth to speak. "I- err....", I closed my lips before apologizing. "Apologizes towards my wording there. I just can't really find a 'right' way to talk about this subject with you."
TenTen looked at me for a long while before shaking her head. "Lee, I already know the dangers of being a kunoichi. I'm not ignorant and nor did I think my life as a shinobi would be easy. I... just didn't think I'd run into those things so soon."
"So you decided to flood a whole entire training ground just to blow off steam?" I asked while chuckling. "You didn't do that when our employer got killed from old age now did you?"
Immediately putting her head on the desk, she let out an annoyed groan. "Oh don't remind me! I still feel cheated! We carried him all that way for him to just up and die on us."
"We didn't even get paid for it either." I piped in earning another groan. "But the way his tongue fell out his mouth was pretty funny wasn't it?"
Immediately, her body stiffened before a light giggle escaped from her mouth. Then her giggle turned into a full blown laughter causing some of the villagers outside to avoid the ramen shop.
Soon after a while of laughter, she closed her eyes to calm herself as a smile was present on her face. When she opened them, she got up and turned to leave the shop.
"Thank you a lot Lee." She said with a almost evil chuckle before moving the shops curtains and leaving.
'Your welcome?' I thought to myself as I saw the old man come out from the back. He froze a bit when he noticed TenTen's absence.
"Something wrong old man? Did the 6 years of tax evasion finally catch up to you?"
"....."
"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked as sweat started to fall down my face. "Wait a minute....."
Turning towards where TenTen was recently seated, I looked over towards the 3 tall towers of ramen with a dark look.
'She dine and dashed on me!'
*slap*
Hearing the sound of the old man's hand hitting the table. I looked towards him holding out his hand and almost felt like crying.
With a shaky voice, I decided to ask for the total amount. "H-how much I-is it?"
With a look of regret and pity, he slowly sounded out the cost for 'my' food. "It's going to come out at 10,000."
"Oh, I see." I said in a nonchalant as I reached into my pocket and grabbed a small bag. And with a almost dead smile, I unzipped it before dumping everything onto the table.
"See you old man." And with the same smile, I exited the flaps of the store under the old mans gaze.
'That's a quarter pay of a C-Rank mission gone TenTen!'
.....
(1 week)
Standing in front of a tree, I took a stance before raising my arm and made a fist. As I looked towards where I wanted to hit, I raised my index finger before focusing all the energy in my body to said finger.
And with a extremely quick motion, my finger not only found itself to the tree but inside it! Happy at my success, I slowly brought my index out and left a smoking hole inside it.
Realizing that I could use soru, I've been trying my hardest to see which of the six powers could work in this world.
Turning towards another tree, I focused all the energy in my body to my leg before swiftly kicking the air. An air blade the size of a humans waist shot towards the tree before hitting it. Walking up the tree, I let out a satisfied smile as I saw an indent roughly halfway through the tree.
'I'd say I was about 20 meters or so away. Usually a normal kick would do the trick so it didn't lose too much power I guess."
I can say without a doubt that my technique still needs work. With the heavenly breathes, the six powers will see an explosive increase in power. I could also use chakra strengthening in tandem with rankyaku and shigan to increase their explosiveness.
'And if I where to try out Geppo with strengthing.' Smiling from ear to ear, I felt immense satisfaction at my arsenal increasing immensely in its options.
Oh yeah, tekkai is difficult but doable. But it can at most block a kunai or sword. I seriously doubt it could ever block Asuma's chakra kunai though. And it definitely can't block a fireball or lightning strike. But I guess this means I have a better chance to survive when TenTen's angry.
As for paper body however..... I can't figure out how to use it for the life of me. I know Orochimaru can do a similar thing with his body. Honestly, it may not be possible to use it in this world.
*fwoosh*
Tilting my head to the side, a kunai flew by me before planting itself in the ground. Upon noticing that a paper bomb was attached to it, I quickly kicked it high into the air.
*boom*
As the explosion went off, I quickly used soru to arrive behind the one who threw it and grabbed the back of their neck gently. "Now what was that for TenTen?"
*poof*
'God damn substitution. She already used it before I arrived.' I thought bitterly before immediately using soru to escape said location. Immediately, a big explosion erupted from under the ground I was just standing on throwing up many tons of dirt into the air. 'That's a lot of explosive tags.... is she really trying to kill me today?'
*multiple whistles break around Lee*
'Oh here comes the first volley of many.' Looking at the tsunami of weapons quickly closing all of my exit routes off. I looked up towards the sky with a frown. 'It seems the only way out is up. Knowing TenTen, she's got something nasty up there too.'
Quickly stomping the ground with chakra strengthening, more of the training grounds earth broke apart giving me room to jump down into it. Taking the opportunity, I quickly jumped inside as the many weapons met above me and clashed together. Any excess kunai, swords, or shuriken that fell inside was easily taken care of using iron body.
Once hell had passed over, I swiftly leaped out of the crack I made inside the earth and was met by a field of weaponry. The only issue however was how eerily silent it was.
*fwish*
Yet again dodging a flurry of weaponry using soru, I raised an eyebrow as the missed flurry suddenly changed direction. 'Seems that chakra string training has started to show some results. Now how should I deal with this? Oh I got it!'
Using soru, I blitzed towards the direction the initial flurry came from only to find TenTen to be no where in sight. 'She should be fully focused on the flurry behind me. Moving while controlling this many strings is a bit too much even for some Jonnin puppet masters. I doubt she could that so she must've already planned this all out.'
*click*
A sound echoed from the ground underneath me before it rapidly opened up reveal a pit! Not expecting a mechanical pitfall to be installed, I used Geppo in panic earning a moan of anguish from behind me.
"You've learned more crap Lee?" Neji said in an irritated tone while also earning a retort from me.
"And we're teaming up on me now?" I asked with a frown earning a quiet chuckle from Neji. A flurry of shuriken flew at me from a tree above him towards me.
Using tekkai, I brushed them all off as Neji appeared in front of me. 'Soru! Who taught you that!'
'...'
'It was me wasn't it?'
Predicting a flurry of fist to come towards me, I immediately threw a fast kick towards Neji and threw out a weak air blade to taunt him. Using the kick, I launched off the ground with a couple flips before using geppo to avoid another flurry of weapons.
But before I could land, Neji's hands shot out of the ground earning yet another pair of geppo's to avoid both him and TenTen's weaponry. 'Ironic, the prodigy of the Hyuga is crawling through the dirt.'
*fwoosh*
'Neji's using air palm from the ground now to keep me up here. TenTen's weaponry is also starting to form some sort of maze.' Observing their tactics, I let out a frown as a huge shadow suddenly appeared on the ground covering the entire training grounds. 'Well looks like they won.'
Looking up, I saw a literal cloud of blades, weights, and tools falling towards me. And with Neji in the ground, my earlier tactic won't work. I'm afraid I'll have to the use the gates today.....
Letting myself fall, I began to quickly gather my chakra and push through the gates one by one. From the first gate to the second gate, nothing much happened. I did feel a little bit of my fatigue from training go away though.
Once I hit the third gate however, a tiny bit of the air distorted. 'This should be a enough..... errr.... I'll make sure.' Opening the fourth gate, the air around me distorted from the heat and chakra emitting from my body. Now this should be enough.'
Now powered up, I used soru with geppo to throw myself at a speed faster than what Neji's byakugan can keep up with. And with a usage of leaf hurricane and rankakyu, a spherical shape of wind was densely formed around me before exploding into a terrifyingly powerful gust of wind.
All of TenTen's weapons that was in the air was either shredded or bent under the powerful winds produced by this single kick. The winds where even powerful enough to reach the ground causing a miniature tornado to form an throw a weapon or two before disappearing.
And with a now clear sky and relatively safe ground to land on without being impaled on by a spear. I landed while still in the fourth gate before deactivating. Their was a bit of pain in the leg I kicked with but it should be fine by tomorrow.
Neji's head then popped out of the ground like a mole showing his now neutral almost bored look. "By your own terms. We won yes?"
All that earned out of me was an eye roll. "What do you think? I said using the gates was off limits. You forced it out of me so you win."
TenTen finally jumped out of the one of the trees with her hair-buns a bit wild. The wind from earlier had loosened them up a bit.
"So your paying for my dinner yes?" She asked earning a glare from me. Upon receiving said look, she looked away while trying to hold in her laughter. "Ha-... I mean... pfft...."
Seeing her struggling not to start a laughing fit, I decided to just ask. "Now why exactly are you two messing with my training? You do know I only accept spars on the weekends without missions correct?"
"Because I told them too of course! hahaha!" Might guys voice suddenly sounded out causing me and the others to jump in suprise. Guy Sensei had somehow managed to sneak by our noses and was standing DIRECTLY in the middle of us all. "It's was all a matter to see how far you've all gotten. And I've got to say, your youth is almost blinding!"
Guy then gave us all a thumbs up and showed us a blinding smile. "So I'm going to enroll you all in the Chunnin Exams!"
"Alright!" I yelled in the same manner as guy earning a blank stare from Neji and TenTen. 'What? Not my fault I'm in a team of anti-socials. Or does nobody like youth??? Either one is saddening....'
....