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Two candidates ran into each other on the fourth day as they left the fourth checkpoint at dawn.
Number #16, Yaya Utamatsu.
Number #5, Igabi Kyusu.
Both of them had their masks on and faced each other cautiously. They subtly put a distance between each other where they felt comfortable enough to react if the other launched an attack. They had seen injured candidates stripped of their stamp papers and didn't want to suffer the same fate.
Utamatsu pulled a kunai from his pouch but raised his hands above his head. "I don't want any trouble, but if you want to go at it, I won't go down easy..." He had survived an ambush on the first day, but he thought himself lucky that he had escaped unscathed.
"Neither do I," Kyusu replied before pointing at the road leaving the town, "but we are going the same way, and frankly, I'm not thrilled about having a travel companion."
"Fair enough. Let's stagger our exits; fifteen minutes is enough. What do you think?" said Utamatsu with a shrug.
"Sounds good, but I want to leave later."
"That's fine with me. I'll go ahead first, but I want at least a kilometre's distance between us if you catch up because of a difference in pace."
Kyusu nodded and gestured for Utamatsu to leave first, who ran along the road while he took cover under a nearby building's shadow to wait out his fifteen minutes. He wanted to be second because he didn't want to have someone at his back, even if they were a safe distance away, as that could change at any moment—and he didn't want to risk it when he was so close to the final location.
He looked at the blue-orange sky. Assuming everything went well, he was to reach the final location around lunchtime. Even if the ANBU tried to pull something, which he absolutely expected, he didn't want to deal with the twist without some visibility.
———
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The sun had already set on the fourth day by the time Takuma arrived at the final location. It had been a long day. He started at the third checkpoint town at dawn, passed through the fourth checkpoint town at around noon, and finally reached his destination just before it turned dark.
It felt good that the past few days had all gone according to plan, and he had hit his targets without any problems. The entire task had been a long, tiring, but smooth journey. Despite his precautions of staying away from popular inns and boarding houses, using the water clone to get the stamps, and exercising caution while leaving the towns to dodge eyes, he had fully expected to run into other candidates, but to his welcome surprise, it had been an easy road.
He noticed the log cabin with the ANBU symbol painted on the side wall, illuminated by a gas lamp above it. He was at the right place. The lights inside the cabin were on, so he headed to the front door and knocked. The faint murmurs of conversation inside stopped. Takuma stepped back until his back touched the deck railing and gripped the kunai inside his weapon pouch when he heard footsteps from inside.
The door opened, and a masked woman stepped out. If not for the ANBU mask, the combination of casual tank top, hotpants, and not a single weapon on her body made it feel like she was answering the door to collect delivery rather than being part of the recruitment process.
"Oh, congratulations on getting here." She sounded lethargic as she closed the door behind her, stepped out barefoot and asked him to follow her to the gas lamp on the side wall.
Even though it looked like she was the most careless shinobi, Takuma's instinct told her that if he tried to headlock her from behind, she would be able to evade or attempt to turn it around on him.
"Everything looks fine," she said after looking at his stamp paper, "but you need one more stamp, and the person who has it is on the other side of the woods. It only takes ten minutes to cross, so go ahead and get it now."
"I can't go in the morning?"
"You sorta have to go now."
"Fine," said Takuma, choosing not to argue about it. He knew there would be some twist, and if he had to guess, something inside the forest would aim to eliminate him from the running.
"Be careful in there. It's night, and you don't want to... trip," said the ANBU-nin
"Got it," said Takuma before snatching the gas lantern off the nail from which it was hanging. "I hope you don't mind since, y'know... I don't want to trip."
"Not at all. Please help yourself," said the ANBU-nin with a smile in her voice.
"Thank you," said Takuma before heading inside the woods with the gas lantern.
———
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"We have another one heading inside."
Inside the woods, a group of six ANBU-nin sat around a small fire beneath an earthen half-done created by an Earth Release ninjutsu. It blocked light in one direction so it wouldn't alert the candidates even though they were given hints that something was waiting for them inside the woods.
"And here I thought all of them would be smart enough to time their arrival during the light hours," said the ANBU-nin codenamed Ant, the team leader for the duration of the task, as he sat up on his sleeping bag.
The group was stationed inside the woods as a final obstacle to the candidates before they got their final stamp and successfully completed their task.
"Let's move out," said Ant.
Moving through the woods at night was more challenging as there was no light. Until now, all the candidates had timed their arrival during the day in case there was a twist, which was the type of thinking they wanted to see in the candidates.
"Don't take it easy or go easy on him because it's night-time."
Their objective wasn't to eliminate the candidate at all costs, as that was detrimental to the assessment process. There was no sense in pushing the candidates to a point where they would be unable to participate afterwards, but they had to test them somehow, so the woods section of the task observed how long the candidates took to pass through it while protecting their stamp paper as a group of hostiles tried to keep them in the forest as long as possible.
The team restrained themselves to a level where getting out without entering a fight for life was possible.
"I see light," said one of the ANBU-nin.
An orange-yellow light travelled in the distance. It was the candidate.
"Don't lose track of him," Ant advised his team before giving the order to split up.
Ant skipped from branch to branch and was in range in ten seconds to start the combat situation. To the candidate's credit, he sensed them coming at a fair distance and immediately increased his sprints along with not only throwing zig-zags but also changing altitude by switching between grounds and trees.
He's bold, thought Ant. The candidate continued to carry a lantern. It had the advantage of illuminating his surroundings, decreasing the risk of taking a wrong step, thus increasing his ability to go fast in the uneven forest terrain. The same couldn't be said for the ANBU team, who still had to be careful, making them slower.
However, the lantern had a big disadvantage of constantly giving away their location. If it were an actual mission scenario where the candidate had to shake a tail, the lantern would've acted like a beacon, making it impossible.
An agent charged at the candidate from the side, who dodged the body check by digging his feet into the ground and stopping a step before the collision trajectory. He got going almost immediately afterwards but was stopped by a volley of shuriken at his feet. The previous agent made a grab for a backpack, but the candidate hastily turned his back away just as the fingertips brushed against the fabric.
The candidate tried to run away, but Ant jumped down before him, cutting off his path. The candidate didn't look deterred and threw a haymaker. Ant crossed his arms to block the strike, but his eyes almost popped out when he felt a monstrous force slam into his body and send him flying through a couple of trees.
The stoppage was enough time for the entire team to take position. They saw Ant blown away and adjusted their team strategy without a shared word. An agent unhesitantly entered melee range and was immediately put on the back foot in the face of the candidate's aggressiveness—but it was a planned ruse. As the two engaged in combat, a second agent rushed into the candidate's blind spot with a kunai.
The candidate was taken aback and dropped the lantern on the ground as he stumbled, twisting to face a knife fight with another agent behind him. And if that was not enough, a third agent came in with a sliding tackle, aiming to take out his legs. The lantern sat on the ground, illuminating the area. No one attempted to take or break it, as the agents didn't want to fight in the darkness.
The candidate acted decisively and jumped high to avoid the sliding tackle. As he was in the air, he weaved hands seals. The agents fell back, anticipating a ninjutsu and even prepared themselves for a counterattack. One of the agents threw a triplet of shuriken in an attempt to disrupt the ninjutsu, but the candidate showed excellent environmental awareness and body control as he turned his body in mid-air to use his backpack as a shield.
He landed on the ground and slammed his palms on the ground. The earth shook and jumped as a dome rose around him. The agents, who had been expecting an offensive ninjutsu, switched their actions when they saw a defensive ninjutsu. Two agents prepared to hit the dome from opposite directions, while the other got ready when the candidate appeared from within the doom. But before they could attack the dome, a screeching ball of harsh fire struck it. The top blew up before the fire stuck to the wall and melted the remaining structure.
Ant emerged from behind a shattered tree with smoke rising from his mouth and nose.
The candidate couldn't be allowed to have breathing room but because they weren't trying to kill, they needed to substitute the threat of lethality with constant pressure.
"Go in—"
Before Ant could complete his sentence, the light from the lantern dimmed as a thick fog filled their surroundings. Everyone on the team recognised the Hidden Mist Jutsu. It was already dark, but the thickening fog blocked out everything until they were completely blind to anything that wasn't present in their immediate vicinity.
"He's in the same position as us!" Ant yelled, reminding his team that the candidate couldn't see in the fog. However, that didn't change the fact that they had lost track of the candidate; if they didn't find him soon, they'd lose him.
Fortunately, they had a member who could counter the Hidden Mist Jutsu. A moment later, a strong gust of wind swept through the area, forcefully taking away the thick mist.
"I have eyes on the target!" yelled another member.
It took the team less than a minute before they had firmly caught up with the candidate, who had already passed the halfway mark—the majority of which was covered before the team had made contact with him. It was a little too far for Ant's preference, but the night had its advantages and disadvantages.
Clang. Clang!
Hmm? Ant heard a metallic sound echo through the forest. It sounded like two kunai striking against each other.
Clang. Clang!
Suddenly, he heard something cutting through the air and skipped down to a lower branch to avoid a shuriken zooming past him.
Two seconds later, two dim spots of light zoomed into their direction, and everyone immediately recognised the explosive tags and immediately dove away from them a moment before they exploded.
Ant felt the force brush him and switched to travelling on the ground as a safety precaution.
Clang. Clang!
He felt his chakra tremble when the suspiciously identical metallic sound entered his ears. Genjutsu! Ant hastily disrupted his chakra to break the genjutsu before it could take hold of him. The same couldn't be said about his teammates. He saw two of them trip and fall to the ground while the nearest to him stopped running and covered his ears while groaning painfully.
Ant slapped the man nearest to him on the back to disrupt his chakra. "Get the others free. I'm going ahead," he ordered before rushing towards the candidate.
He was already impressed by the candidate, but the test had to continue until they exited the forest or lost their stamp paper. Ant took the risk of picking up his speed and closed the gap between them until he was right behind the candidate and returned the favour by throwing an explosive tag tied to a kunai ahead of them.
The candidate halted and jumped back to clear out of the explosion radius. He stayed on his feet but remained uncharacteristically still and even seemed uncomfortable from his body language. Ant saw that as an opportunity to hold the candidate until his team caught up again and attacked him.
He emerged from a bush, swinging at the candidate with a kick, who barely stepped out of the way. Ant dipped both hands into pouches and launched a barrage of senbon and shuriken. The candidate did a perfect job deflecting and avoiding the weapons while closing the distance to enter melee range.
Taijutsu wasn't Ant's proficiency, and he had experienced the candidate's explosive force, so he didn't take any chances by engaging in a head-on fight—and took advantage of the terrain around them and ran between the trees, keeping the candidate chasing. When he realised that Ant wasn't willing to engage and tried to run away, he cast a Fire Release ninjutsu to shoot more than half a dozen small fireballs at the candidate. It was only a D-rank jutsu, lacking any real power, but it produced ten fireballs, which Ant masterfully aimed at and around the candidate to stop him from making a break for it.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the candidate's feet sunk in the shape of a square, throwing him off balance. It was an Earth Release ninjutsu; the rest of the team had caught up. An agent emerged from the darkness and struck the candidate from behind, sending him stumbling forward. Another agent entered combat and slammed his shoulder into the candidate's chest, sending him to the ground.
The candidate quickly got up and put his guard up, but he was already surrounded. An agent threw a chain, which rattled as it wrapped around the candidate's arm, who was taken off his feet when the agent pulled on the chain as hard as possible. To finish the team play, another agent descended from the canopy on top of the candidate, pinning him to the ground and pushing him into the dirt.
It was over.
All they had to do now was to find the stamp paper.
However, just as Ant breathed out and let his shoulder relax, the candidate turned into a mass of water, which splashed and spilt on the forest floor.
"Huh," uttered the agent who was holding the candidate down as he looked at his drenched clothes and hand dripping with water.
The team stood stunned for a few seconds as their brains processed what had happened.
"Water clone," said one of the agents proficient with Water Release ninjutsu. "It can only exist when the user is nearby. He has to be somewhere in the range!"
"Let's go!" Ant barked the order, and the team rushed towards the wood's exit, hoping they would catch him.
Alas, they were too late. They emerged from the forest to find the candidate sitting on a large rock, waiting for them. He stood up when he saw them and asked,
"This counts as a pass, right?"
Ant couldn't help but chuckle at the blase tone, as though everything that had just happened was par for the course. A water clone had baited him and his team, caught most of the team in a genjutsu, and almost gave them the slip—all the while, the real one strolled through the forest, keeping safely away from the combat. Even if they had found out about the clone much earlier, it wouldn't have changed the outcome because the distance between them would've been difficult to cover up before the candidate was out of the woods.
He could feel the mix of frustration, amusement, and begrudging respect coming from his men.
"Yes, that's a pass. Well done Thirteen."
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The link is in the synopsis!