Date: February 23rd, 13 years following the Kyuubi's attack
Time: 12:45 AM
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage of the Ninja village of Konoha sat at his desk, took a deep draw from his pipe while enjoying a rare moment of silence at the end of the day. A smile creased his age-lined face as he sensed a presence reach his office door. "Come in, Yaiba."
The simple wooden door swung open silently, admitting a man dressed in the standard uniform of the Konoha ANBU unit. His identity-protecting mask was fashioned to resemble the face of a turtle, a rare choice... But one that fit the young man underneath extremely well, given his equally rare ability.
The agent's uniform was slashed in several places and even the scabbard of his non-standard issue sword, worn at his hip, bore a number of deep gouges - one deep enough to allow one to see the glittering blade of the sword. Oddly, though, despite the severity of the cuts on the uniform, what flesh that was exposed was completely intact aside from a number of long healed scars.
The Hokage eyed the agent coolly. "The target?"
"Neutralized per the contract's request." The masked man responded. "He had a Doomsday contingency in effect; when his heart stopped, his facility imploded within seconds... Only someone with the ability to use the Second Hokage's teleportation jutsu or an absolute defense like myself could have survived."
Sarutobi nodded sourly. "Precisely as I suspected... Any collateral damage?"
"None beyond the destruction of the compound." The ANBU soldier answered, shaking his head. "I was able to evacuate what few slaves had survived until my arrival to eliminate the despot. I did manage one thing beyond the client's request..." His tone suggested that he was smiling.
"Yes?"
"While digging my way out of the rubble I found the bandit's treasure hoard. I stabilized the chamber it was in and burrowed out the rest of the way from there, leaving a direct route to the treasury. I've disguised the tunnel with a number of basalt rocks altered to resemble granite, so no one is likely to try messing with them for some time. If the client hurries, they can claim the prize; or we can do it ourselves, your choice, of course. I'd estimate the trove to be worth roughly 5% of our annual budget. I've marked the location on the map here." He handed a piece of paper to the Hokage.
The Hokage simply nodded as he accepted the paper. "I see." He paused. "Anything else to report?" The man shook his head. "Well then, I thank you for the hard work. I know how busy you've been with your other activities, so I promise I'll keep these special assignments few and far between."
Yaiba nodded, peeling the turtle mask off his face. "Thank you, Sarutobi-sensei." Okito Tanaka said. "Glad to be of service."
Sarutobi smiled at his long-time student and friend. "How are you enjoying being in charge of a group of fresh recruits?"
Tanaka gave the Hokage a wry smile. "I'm pretty certain that Korzo-sensei is laughing somewhere..." Hiruzen chuckled in agreement. "In any event, thanks for letting me keep an eye on Rook and Knight's son."
The Hokage nodded solemnly. "I remember the promise you made at the memorial service; that you would do anything necessary to help Takahashi become whatever he wanted to be. I know that you've kept a distant eye on him, just as I have, but since the time had come, it seemed this was the best solution."
Okito nodded, before taking on a pensive look. "Speaking of that, Hokage-sama... I wanted to apologize for the unprofessional way I reacted during the process of selecting my team. The Hata twins are turning out to be a better match for Takahashi than Naruto Uzumaki and Kimiko Itou would have been."
The Third smiled kindly. "I accept your apology, Okito, even though it isn't necessary." He took a deep puff of his pipe. "I understood your reasons at the time - you wanted to help others who were like you; they had no family while your family wasn't sure how to handle you when you were a child - a boy who could use chakra when the rest of your family couldn't."
"I swear, Sarutobi-sensei, you really need to start teaching Omniscience 101..." Tanaka said, shaking his head ruefully.
Sarutobi chuckled. "When you live as long as I have, my boy, it'll come naturally." He paused. "Oh, while I have you here..." He pulled out a scroll and glanced at it. "Team 11's first two D-rank missions for this morning."
Tanaka raised his hands in mock defeat. "Please tell me the Daimyo's wife's cat didn't get away again..."
The Hokage grinned. "He has gotten pretty good at it, given how young he is - most of her cats were at least 4 before they learned to escape and 6 before learning to get good at it. This new one's a bit of a handful, as Naruto learned while you were out of the village." He took another puff of his pipe. "No, I've got easier ones for your Genin..."
* * *
Miho Hyuuga was taking an early morning walk, enjoying the pre-dawn silence that hung over most of the village at this time of day. She was dressed in a comfortable, but proper (given the importance of her clan) street robe that was an electric purple in hue. Here and there a few of the stores were starting to open for the day. She carried a small satchel over her shoulder; the food vendors would have had enough preparation time when she was done to allow her to pick up the necessities for the next week or two.
"Excuse me, miss," A familiar voice asked from a side street as she passed. "If I go straight this way, will I be able to reach your heart?"
Miho shook her head and sighed, turning in the direction of the voice. "I think that's one of your better ones, Okito."
Okito Tanaka was dressed in his usual day uniform, with a small paper bag bearing the logo of his family's bakery. "I try..." He opened up the bag. "Bagel? Made fresh ten minutes ago. I've even got Beautyberry with a triple Currant mix." He pulled out a ring-shaped pastry that was a vibrant violet in hue.
"Ooh... And it's my favorite color, too." The female Jonin said, accepting the still warm bagel. She took a cautious bite. "Wow... It's sweet with a hint of the tartness from the currants. Naru-chan's outdone herself this time."
Okito smiled. "I'll pass that on to her. So, how is it going with your Genin?"
"Pretty good, I suppose, all things considered..." She said, chewing the bread product. "There was some initial friction when they were assigned, but putting them through the Yondaime's Gambit burned a lot of it away."
Tanaka gave an impressed whistle; he'd left on his mission pretty much after finishing his team's bell test and hadn't heard about Miho's test choice. "The Gambit? That's rather different... Yuuhi-chan help you do it?"
"Of course; I was never all that good at advanced Genjutsu techniques." Hyuuga answered. "But it worked fantastically, even if Inugami did manage to figure out what was going on before the planned finale... They still grind against each other a bit, but not as badly as they did that first day. How about you?"
Okito smiled, recalling the indirect observation of the fight as they'd approached the Academy. "Well, I haven't had much direct experience with them yet - Sarutobi-sensei needed to call on Yaiba for a special task that took me up to the Nation of Grass. But they did pass the bell test with flying colors - they found the logical loophole - you know the same one you and Clown-kun used when Hanzo-sensei trained you."
Miho Hyuuga smiled. "Hanzo-sensei... I wonder what he's up to nowadays. I haven't seen him since he retired and left the village." She looked at him. "Now I'm curious - who figured it out?"
"The better half of the Hata pair. It turns out that shy Motoko-chan is not one of those 'fluffy' kunoichi… She's got brains and common sense to back up her charms. She also seems to have the ability to read chakra emissions and get insights from them; rather uncommon outside of ninja pets and summons. She seems to be trying to make up for her brother's headlong-dash-through-life personality..."
He shuddered. "I'm just glad Might Gai was tapped for an instructor last year. Raiden reminds me about how Gai was when we were in the Academy and I could just imagine the destructive potential if the male Hata were to fall under his wing."
"Gai is rather unusual, that's for certain... But I must admit that he seems to be doing a decent job handling my other cousin, Neji."
Okito nodded. "Well, Neji was last year's #1, so it would be hard for Gai to screw that up." Miho gave him a sideways nod, conceding the point.
"I must admit, though, it's kind of interesting having the only active ninja siblings - and twins at that - on my team. But I should count my blessings that they didn't end up being like Fujin and Raijin..." He paused, remembering the bizarre antics of the Legendary Stupid Brothers before they ended up in rogue-nin lockdown. "Well, at least Motoko is - I'm going to hold judgment on Raiden for now. That boy's oven isn't running at optimum efficiency, if you follow my meaning."
Miho began to laugh. "I seem to remember Korzo-sensei saying the same thing to Hanzo-sensei about you when we were kids."
Tanaka gave her a wry grin. "I guess I walked into that one... And then there's Takahashi. If Motoko is the brains and heart of the team and Raiden is the brawn, Takahashi is the élan and finesse. When I ran the bell exercise for them, he actually used an Earth jutsu to alter the stone pillars I made with my own technique to trip me up. On top of that, he handles his Neko-nin partner almost as well as Tsume Inuzaka does Kuromaru; I mean, he gave Kyouran an incredibly difficult sequence of commands and the cub pulled it off perfectly."
A smile appeared on Okito's face. "They all still have some rough edges and Takahashi and Raiden will butt heads every now and again, but I'm seeing a bright future ahead of them. Now, I know I didn't ask you to keep an eye on them while I was gone, but did you hear if they had any issues while I was away?"
Miho's lips pursed in a moue as she thought about it. "Well, my team and I ran into Motoko Hata out on the 21st Training grounds a few weeks ago when we were having a training session that I made into a bit of a game to help them improve their skills with their elemental jutsu."
Tanaka whistled. "It's rather unusual for Genin to already be capable of Nature manipulation at such an early age... That was the part that surprised me the most about my students. Do you have any idea how efficient their conversions are?"
"Haruno and Itou seem to have about 20% efficiency, but in Kimiko's case, I think that it's deliberately kept at that level. Her jutsu is technically a water technique, but it converts chakra into kinetic energy designed to explode to disburse water and injure foes at the same time. Given the way the Mizugan works, it's a two-for-one attack; take out a foe AND increase the number of viewpoints they have available for use for their ocular jutsu."
Okito nodded. "Makes sense. And what about Inugami?"
The kunoichi shook her head ruefully. "Nearly 60%. But that's not really surprising; the chakra scalpels that the medic-nin uses are a practically a wind-based jutsu. And since Sho, like Asuma-san, has Wind natured chakra, it gives him a fairly significant leg up."
"Damn..." The male Jonin grunted in annoyance. "Now I'm starting to get irritated that he was sandbagging during his time in the Academy. He's sounding more and more like a match for Uchiha instead of one for Uzumaki, like his file suggested!"
"And yet his skills complement Haruno's and Itou's perfectly..." Miho Hyuuga pointed out. "Which means that Sarutobi-sensei wasn't fooled in the slightest. I'm still surprised he didn't make an issue out of it, like he normally would have. Don't you find that a bit odd?"
Tanaka nodded. "The Sandaime has always shown an unusual interest in the Inugami family's welfare, but that's not too surprising. Let's face it, their family has been a part of this village nearly as long as yours has - if not longer - but they've always been more behind-the-scenes since they're doctors rather than nobles. There was a Dr. Inugami when the villages that later became Konoha were first built, they were here when the Shodai Hokage rose to power and for every Hokage since, and they were here to patch us all up after the Yondaime sealed the Kyuubi and died in the process. They're as much a staple of Konoha as the Senju, Uchiha, and Hyuuga clans are; just not as numerous."
"True enough... And the Hokage always was too good at Shogi to reveal his strategy accidentally." Miho agreed. "Anyways, getting back to the original topic, Motoko was observing our training session without me realizing it - actually both Hata were watching at one point."
"A pair of Genin managed to spy on an Espionage-specialist Jonin - and a Hyuuga to boot - without getting caught?" Okito's jaw opened slightly. "How the hell did that happen?"
Miho gave him a wry smile. "I mistook what little chakra pulse they were giving off - they'd apparently been training before detecting my group and had worn themselves out - as an echo of my own bouncing off the hill we were standing beside at the time. Because of that, I didn't think to use my Byakugan to see what was there."
"Oh, well, that's understandable..." He admitted. "They do seem to have Lightning-element chakra. So, what happened next?"
"Yeah... About that..." The Hyuuga woman gave a graceless grimace. "The game got a little out of hand and well... Two of my Genin kind of... blew the top two feet off the hilltop Motoko was hiding behind."
"They did WHAT?" Okito said, snapping his head around in concern. "Is my Genin okay?"
"She's fine; I would have started with that if she'd been injured." Miho raised her finely manicured hands in a calm-down gesture. "Sho had also detected the twins and, fortunately, didn't make the same assumption I did. When Itou's and Haruno's techniques went awry, he summoned a wind barrier to slow the flight of the flying jutsu, but he apparently doesn't know any jutsu that would have allowed for a complete deflection. Motoko also helped by augmenting Sho's jutsu with her own, so she managed to get away without a scratch."
A soft whistle of admiration escaped the other Jonin. "That girl continues to impress me; it's true that a Lightning jutsu by itself will never beat a Wind one of equal strength, but for her to figure out exactly how strong Inugami's jutsu was and use one of equal strength to give it a power boost is absolutely incredible for a mere Genin! I can count on one hand the number of Genin I knew who could accomplish something like that - and they were all Uchiha."
Miho nodded. "Yes, I was impressed as well."
"Anything else I should know about?"
Miho paused. "Just one thing… It looks like Motoko Hata has a bit of a crush on Sho Inugami." Tanaka nodded, being aware of that thanks to Raiden. "I don't know if it's because he was the one who rescued her or what, but I do know that my student, for all his intelligence and ability to read a situation, isn't aware of that fact as of now. Even if he were, I'm still having a very hard time getting a read on him, so I don't know how he would react..."
Okito shook his head. "The rescue might have helped those feelings, but she jumped to his defense when her brother was talking negatively about him when we were talking after assignment. Her gift for being able to read chakra apparently also gives her insights as to the nature of the one who generates the pulse."
Hyuuga frowned. "An odd property. Not unheard of, but definitely not common."
Tanaka nodded. "Anyways, somewhere along the way, Sho apparently used his medical techniques to help Motoko-chan when she hurt herself and she got an incredibly detailed read on him..." He paused as he recalled something. "In fact, she actually knew that it was Inugami that day at the Academy because she sensed and recognized his pulse."
Now it was Miho's turn to whistle. "That's incredible... With a gift like that, she'd be perfect as an Anti-Espionage specialist. I mean, even the Byakugan gives off a faintly detectible chakra pulse when I try to look through walls and long distance, but her ability is completely internalized, so if she learns to mask her pulse while detecting others, she could get the drop on people with an almost disgusting ease."
Tanaka nodded. "That gift Motoko has is something else - I've never encountered anything like it." He glanced at his watch. "Well, as much as I'd like to continue, I've got to meet up with my team - we've got a mission today that Sarutobi-sensei gave me the orders for when I was giving him my report. They'll be waiting for me out at the 21st."
"I fully understand, Kame-san." Miho gave him a smile as she used her kidding nickname for him. Okito's ability to fashion plates of diamond at an instant's notice as an absolute defense had earned him the nickname of Turtle - the image that he'd chosen to use for his ANBU mask. She gave him a friendly wink as she finished the bagel off. "Thanks for the bagel - I'll see you later." She turned and walked off, her arms crossed behind her back as she began whistling an old tune.
Okito shook his head, grinning as he turned the other way to go fetch his Genin.
* * *
The three Genin of Team 11 were indeed waiting for their Jonin instructor over on the 21st Training ground. Takahashi was reclining against one of the steeper hills with a napping Kyouran curled up in a ball on his lap. The scarred young man was staring at the sky, listening to Motoko and Raiden Hata banter at each other, but keeping out of their conversation.
Raiden Hata, his short red/orange hair pulled up into an animalistic mane, was busy practicing his Taijutsu moves against a multiple limbed dummy to build up his muscle memory and strengthen his arms against the impact shock from blocking an attack. The young man's attacks were so ferocious that the dummy's arms were groaning from the hits.
"I'm still going to challenge Inugami to a fight the next time I get the chance, though. The ease with which he took out Haruno was amazing. I'm practically itching with excitement!" He declared as he finished an attack series.
"You know what," Motoko Hata, Raiden's twin sister and the elder of the two, shot back, clearly fed up with her brother's intractable nature. "Go right ahead and try. Just do it when I'm nowhere nearby - you'll be weaker but at least I won't feel every hit that you take and suffer the sensation of being bruised all over as if I were caught in a rock slide when it's over."
Raiden grinned as he started punching the dummy's core to toughen up his hands. "Deal. Any sign of our wayward teacher?"
His sister shook her head. "I'm not sensing his chakra yet, but if he hasn't molded enough to create a pulse, he could be behind me before I detect him."
Kyouran suddenly perked up from his catnap and gave off a soft meow/roar. "It seems he's nearby." Takahashi said. "Kyouran's caught his scent." The panther cub growled. "Oh. Correction, he's caught a new scent that wasn't there until a minute ago." The blonde ninja gave Motoko a grin. "He says he's smelling cooked fish."
Okito Tanaka appeared, dressed in his usual blue jumpsuit and brown Jonin equipment vest with Amakuni Kongosoha in a new looking scabbard at his hip. "Good morning, Team." He passed the bag of bagels to Motoko Hata as Kyouran climbed out of Takahashi's lap and began weaving around the Jonin's legs, giving a pity-inspiring meow.
"You shameless moocher." Takahashi said to the feline as he accepted the bag and began looking at the offerings.
Okito merely laughed. "It's all right - he smells what I brought for him." He reached into his vest and pulled out a small object wrapped in tinfoil. "I told my brother, the inventor of the family, about how Kyouran isn't supposed to have a lot bready-type foods and how I wanted to come up with something I could use to give him a treat. He took it as a challenge; after all, we're a bakery, so we don't really specialize in non-bread things and was curious about what we could do that involves our family's skills."
The teacher unwrapped the foil, revealing a golden brown disc-shaped object which he set on the ground by Kyouran. "I give you the Tanaka Bakery's first Tuna Pot Pie, especially altered for feline tastes with a small amount of toasted catnip mixed into the gravy." The panther cub pounced on the offering, devouring it in four quick bites before giving a roar of approval. "Glad you like it, Kyouran; Kei'll be excited at the expansion of our menu to cater to the ninja animals in the village."
He clapped his hands together. "So, Team 11, you were given a few weeks of vacation while I was called away on an urgent mission, so I hope you're ready to put your all into your first official mission as a ninja!"
"Woot!" Raiden cheered. "What's on the schedule, Sensei? Catch a foreign spy that's skulking about the Land of Fire? Stop a band of highway robbers?"
A wry smile crossed Okito's face. 'Apparently he didn't talk to any of the other Genin. It's almost disturbing how much fun this is going to be...'
Tanaka shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Raiden. The first would typically be an A- or B-rank mission and the second, assuming the bandits are 'Normals' - in other words, non-ninja - would be a C-rank mission.
"The Hokage has assigned us a D-rank mission, which is pretty much the best you can expect for the first few months as a Genin. Depending on how well you do, you could possibly see a C-rank in as little as four months." He frowned, recalling a bad memory. "The record was one mission, but that was an extremely rare case involving an Uchiha who had managed to graduate the Academy when he was seven years old, after his first year there."
All three Genin whistled in amazement. Five or six was the typical age that most students entered the Ninja Academy, with most graduating after six or seven years - like everyone comprising the current teams. But to be able to successfully pass the final exam after only a YEAR?! "Man... How come I've never heard of this guy?" Raiden asked. "He's got to be one awesome ninja!"
"Well for starters, this all happened when you were about two years old." Tanaka pointed out. "And, like I said before, he was an Uchiha."
"OH..." Raiden said, bowing his head in respect. The boisterous Hata twin jumped to the natural conclusion when someone mentioned the slaughtered clan of ninja. All dead - save for Sasuke Uchiha, their classmate and the only member of the class better at Taijutsu than Raiden himself. 'Unless I count Oni. It was really impressive how he handled Nakahito... I wonder if I'm actually #2 or not. I doubt he's better than Sasuke, though…'
Of the four ninja there, only Okito Tanaka - who'd been about 20 when Itachi Uchiha, one of the youngest ANBU captains, suddenly went rogue and killed everyone living in the Uchiha clan compound with the sole exception of his little brother, whom he put through severe psychological trauma by means of a Genjutsu the medical corps had been unfamiliar with - knew that there were, in fact, TWO full-blooded Uchiha still alive.
But Itachi had fled the village after his monumental crime and had not been seen since; it was unlikely that these students would ever know any more about him…
He shook his head, clearing it of the dark turn his thoughts had made. "In any event, Hokage-sama has given you a D-rank mission. Or more accurately, he's given you two D-rank missions that are closely related to each other, so as to give you credit for the weeks off because I was called away." Raiden perked up, but the other two were cautiously wary - apparently they HAD talked to some of the other Genin and heard about what they'd had to go through. "We've been assigned to clean the trash out of the river over by Training Zone 30 and repair the bridge that crosses it."
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Raiden's shout of disbelief was every bit as satisfying as Tanaka had expected it to be, feeling a bit guilty about how good it felt. "We're ninja, not carpenters or janitors!"
"Oh, I don't know about that..." Takahashi said, rubbing the scar on his face in an unconscious gesture of frustration that tugged at Okito's heart. Rook, Takahashi's father, had had the same habit when he'd been Okito's ANBU captain. "At least we don't need to haul the garbage out for burning like Ino's team had to."
"Or clean the bathhouses at the Hot Springs village and re-varnish the wood fences like Kimiko and Sho-kun's team did." Motoko added. "I had the same reaction when I was talking to Kimiko-chan, but she pointed something out to me: we use these missions to show that we're willing to follow orders and practice some of our skills in non-critical situations."
Tanaka raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Itou-san said that?"
Raiden snorted. "She's got to be quoting Oni Inugami... The Kimiko Itou I know doesn't use words like that."
His sister shrugged. "Could be… I honestly don't know. The point is that we're not the only ones having to do boring stuff like this. If we do well, they'll give us more interesting assignments."
The Jonin nodded in agreement, forcing the restless Hata twin to sigh in defeat. "Fine... I just hope the interesting ones start coming soon."
Okito smiled. "Well, Team 11, let's get to work."
* * *
Training Ground #30 was a park like area that was open to the general public when not in use by shinobi. Unfortunately, this meant that it tended to get messed up when the winds carried things away or when inconsiderate people just left their garbage strewn all over the place. There was a small stream or river - it was hard to say which designation was appropriate - that meandered throughout the park.
It was said that the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, and his brother, Tobirama - the Second Hokage - had spent weeks using their ninja talents to build up this zone and many others. The Shodai's gift had been a Kekkei Genkai that allowed him to use Wood element techniques, which was one of the main reasons Konoha was called 'The Village Hidden in the Leaves;' the Shodai had used his chakra to make nearly every tree in the forest surrounding the village. His younger brother, the Nidaime, lacked the ability to create wood, but was an undisputed master of Water techniques and was responsible for the myriad streams, rivers, waterfalls and other water features that kept the forest healthy and made Konoha one of the most beautiful of the hidden villages.
As Team 11 entered the park, they noticed a pair of ninja standing by a pile of wood, nails and other equipment. Both were about Okito-sensei's age and one wore the same do-rag/forehead protector that the Jonin leader of Team 11 wore while the other had a regular forehead protector and a bandage about an inch thick bisecting his face across the nose line. Both wore a green flak jacket, similar in cut to Tanaka-sensei's - an indicator that they were at least Chuunin level.
Okito Tanaka smiled broadly. "Well, well... Izumo Kamizuki and Kotetsu Hagane. What brings my old teammates out here?"
Izumo, the one with the do-rag, smiled at the Jonin. "We were ordered to carry the supplies you'll need for your mission out here. It's going to be the last grunt work they'll be making us do for the next few weeks - we were selected as assistants for the Chuunin Exams this year."
"That's great, guys!" Okito-sensei said. "Its tough work, but it'll start getting you noticed for possible elevation to Jonin."
"That assumes we want that, Tanaka-kun." Kotetsu pointed out. "We just want to do what we can to help the village."
"Anyways," Izumo followed up. "We've got boards, nails and paint for fixing the bridge plus bags and spiked poles to clear the river of trash. Later." He threw a salute before the two wandered off.
"Ano... Tanaka-sensei, what are the Chuunin exams for? I mean, I went to the competition the last time it was held here and was really impressed by the display of ninja skill, but I didn't really understand the point of it..." Motoko Hata asked the instructor, clearly curious. "I mean, why did everyone have to fight like that?"
Tanaka smiled. "As you know, you are all Genin, the lowest rank of active duty shinobi - Academy students don't count. The next step upwards is Chuunin or Middle Ninja, like Iruka-sensei and most of the Academy instructors are. Then you have the Tokubetsu Jonin - these are Chuunin that have Jonin-level skill in one area, but not enough that they could handle solo missions that Jonin are typically dispatched on. After that, you have Jonin, like me, who have a great deal of skill in every category and could handle alone a mission that would normally require a full team of Chuunin. Finally is one unofficial step higher than that: S-class. These are ninja that are the stuff of legends, like the Sannin or the Kages." The three, paying rapt attention to their sensei, nodded.
"Anyways, the Chuunin Exams are just that: an examination to see if a Genin has developed enough skill to qualify for a higher level of responsibility than they normally get. You typically need to undertake and successfully complete 8 or more D-rank missions in order to qualify to enter the Chuunin Exams. The exams are held twice a year in the Five Nations and are rotated between the various Hidden Villages - major and minor both."
"The competition is typically supervised by one or two of the Great Shadows: Hokage Sarutobi of Konoha, the Kazekage of the Sand Village in the Southwestern Desert, the Lady Mizukage of the Land of Water in the islands in the Southeastern Ocean, the Raikage of the Village of the Hidden Cloud, or the Tsuchikage of the Land of Earth to the Northwest."
"Anyways, the bulk of the Exam occurs weeks before the final competition that you saw, Motoko-chan, so that only the best applicants get to show off their skills."
"And the winner becomes a Chuunin, right?" Raiden asked, remembering the combats from the exam they'd watched together. "Winner takes all!"
Tanaka shook his head with a chuckle. "Not exactly, Raiden." The rambunctious teen seemed to be brought up short in shock. "Oh, sure, the final winner and his or her Village receive the bulk of the profits from the competition, but everyone who fights can potentially rank up… Or none of them do; see, in addition to the main referee, a set number of ninja and Kuge members from the competitor's home nation provide a formal evaluation to their Kage or whomever controls their village. Based on THOSE reports are Chuunin selected."
He glanced around conspiratorially. "I'm also going to let you in on a little secret. As you know, the Chuunin Exams will be happening in a little over four months." Okito paused for dramatic effect. "Because of that, there is a chance, depending on how well you guys do on the missions between now and then, that you could qualify to attempt the exams this year…"
"Really?!" Raiden asked, getting excited; visions of fighting in the Arena filling his mind.
The Diamond Turtle nodded. "You guys managed to impress me with how you beat the Bell test four weeks ago, so if we get through enough missions, I'd be willing to put your names in for consideration."
"Tanaka-sensei rules!" Raiden cheered. "Let's get to work, huh?"
'All he needed was a little bit of incentive... Just like I expected.' Okito thought to himself. "All right. Motoko, Raiden, why don't you start with getting the trash out of the river for, oh, say 100 meters in either direction of the bridge. Takahashi and I will evaluate the bridge for what needs repairing. Team 11, let's get to work!"
"Hai, Tanaka-sensei!" The Genin agreed before breaking ranks to get to work.
* * *
It took the better part of an hour for Takahashi, with the help of Okito-sensei and Kyouran, to identify all of the bad timbers on the bridge and begin removing the nails to replace the boards. The Hata twins had been trawling up and down both sides of the river, but had only picked up a fraction of the trash that Okito had been able to spot from the bridge. Tanaka had been preparing to chide the twins, but he noticed how Motoko seemed to memorize the location of what they were leaving behind. He wasn't sure what she was planning, but he was willing to give them a bit of time to let it play out.
There was a sudden wooden groan and snap, followed by a roar by Kyouran and the splash of something falling into the water. "Damn it!" Takahashi's voice shouted in annoyance. Okito's head snapped around to orient on the blonde Genin. Apparently the board he'd been standing on to give him leverage to extract the nails on a bad one had been a bit worse than originally believed. One of Takahashi's legs had broken through the timber and was dangling over the water on the underside of the bridge.
Before the Jonin could react to help Rook and Knight's son, the boy adjusted the position of his leg still on the bridge and stood up to extract his trapped foot. The Genin then took a quick moment to feel around his leg to check for injuries. Finding none, he dusted off his pant leg and grimaced down at the water.
Motoko Hata came running up, followed closely by her twin. "You okay?" She asked.
The blonde boy nodded glumly. "Yeah, but I dropped by hammer into the water." He looked over. "It's kinda deep and I don't feel like going for a swim."
Raiden grinned. "We'll take care of that, dude." He turned to his sister. "Are we ready, Momo?"
His twin sister nodded. "I think we've gotten all the non-magnetic stuff out of the water, yeah. You have your basket ready?"
He nodded, taking the woven container off his back, setting it in the water. He then cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. "Everyone out of the pool!"
Okito Tanaka looked at the twins in confusion. "What on earth are you doing?"
Raiden grinned at the teacher. "Something that only my sister and I can do." He raised his left hand. Motoko's right hand came up to join her brother's. To his intrigued surprise, their combined hands formed the Ram hand seal. "Let's do it, Nee-san!"
Motoko nodded. "Begin charging!" She ordered.
The air around the twins began to shimmer as they molded chakra, but it had a very unusual pulse to it. Tanaka's head tilted as he tried to pick the scene apart, but found that he couldn't quite figure out what was happening. Both twins were mixing a lot of chakra and focusing it on their combined seal, but he lost it from there.
Takahashi, who had gotten away from the bridge when Raiden shouted his order, leaned over to the teacher. "They're pooling their chakra together and then re-blending it to a purer form that is equal parts of each of them." He explained to the Jonin. "I've only seen them do it once before, but I gather that it's only because they're twins that they can do this."
'Very intriguing...' Okito thought. 'But it makes perfect sense... Being fraternal twins - or maybe some kind of new type of identical twin that's never been seen before, since they seem almost incomplete without the other - their body rhythms are in near-perfect synchronization with each other. Almost like they're one being with two bodies with two pools of chakra and are joining back into the single form...'
After a few seconds, the air became perfectly still. "Ninpo, Twin technique: Magnetic Attraction" The two said in unison, kneeling down to grasp the basket with their interwoven hands.
Motoko's loose right hand took on a purplish glow that was like a star in the night sky. "Positive!" She said, plunging her splayed hand into the water. An aura the same color as the glow of Motoko's hand moved in an expanding wave outwards, but was limited to the width of the river. Raiden then twisted his body at the waist to place his right hand on the base of the basket. "Negative!" He said, sliding his hand down the basket and into the water.
The action was instantaneous: the slow moving river/stream suddenly began to ripple and froth in the direction of the twins. As the Jonin and the blonde Genin watched, everything that had been in the water that the twins hadn't picked up was moving under its own power, opposite of the current of the river, to come to rest in the woven basket. The torrent of garbage eventually came to a halt and they pulled the basket upright, filled three quarters of the way up with trash.
Raiden's hand appeared from under the water, holding Takahashi's lost hammer. "Got it!"
Okito shook his head; impressed, but confused. "Okay... I'm seeing it, but not understanding it."
Motoko stood up, giving the teacher a delighted smile. "It's actually basic science, Sensei. First I give off a positive charge to everything in the water… It's stronger in the direction my hand is pointed than the opposite, but everything the water touches gets a charge. Everything that can hold an electromagnetic charge stores some of that electric pulse."
Raiden picked up. "Then I give off a stronger negative charge. Anything positively charged is drawn to the opposite charge in my hand, but gets stopped by the basket that I've spent the last hour giving a negative charge to keep the current from washing everything back out. We wait to make sure that we get everything that's coming, turn the basket up so the contents can't escape, and kill the charges."
He grinned at the Jonin. "You could say we've got a magnetic personality."
His twin sister rolled her eyes. "God, I wish you'd stop using that corny line every time we do this." She looked at the teacher. "In any event, we're only strong enough at the moment that it works in water, an excellent conductor of electricity. When we try it in the air, it's got a far shorter range. It also only works when we do it together, Raiden spent a week in the hospital with electrical burns the time he tried doing it on his own." Raiden gave his sister a sour look, but didn't say anything.
Tanaka nodded. "Still that's really impressive you two. Are there any other tricks like that you've got?"
Motoko nodded. "Two others. We can form a barrier that deflects anything metallic from passing through, but it weakens in strength equal to the speed and mass of the object being deflected, so it's only good for a few minutes at best, but those few minutes could potentially buy us all the time we need."
"And we've got an attack jutsu." Raiden continued. "It's Momo's Lightning Bolt technique, but supercharged by our combined chakra. Because of the extra juice, it can target multiple foes, but the range shortens when we do so. But we haven't practiced to see what happens if she tries powering her sword with it."
"Well, excuse me for being unwilling to risk blowing ourselves up, Onii-chan!" Motoko growled at her brother.
"Whoa, there." Tanaka said, raising a hand. "What do you mean by 'powering her sword'?"
Motoko reached behind her, drawing her sword from its sheath. "My grandparents gave me Haruichiban here when I graduated the Academy. It's made of the same high-quality chakra conducting metal as the family's heirloom blade. I, uh... Well, I saw what you did to your sword to wreck the kunai that my idiot brother threw at you and I tried to duplicate it."
'That couldn't have gone well...' Okito thought to himself. 'That's a Jonin level technique.' He nodded. "And what happened?"
"Something completely unexpected and awesome!" Raiden answered. "Show him, sis."
"But I don't want to ruin the scenery... This park is so beautiful." She said, trying to dissuade him.
Raiden sighed, jabbing his arm upwards. "Aim at the sky - there's nothing up there you can break. Now c'mon!"
His sister looked up at the sky as if asking for patience from a higher spirit. Then she sighed. "Okay, fine..." She took the blade in both her hands, forming the seals, but with a bit less difficulty than she'd had the week previously. She'd practiced at forming the seals around the handle, but had done so without chakra. "Lightning style, Lightning Arc jutsu." The blade began to glow with the stored electrical energy that Motoko lent it.
Okito blinked. "That's rather surprising, but not what I did."
The girl nodded. "I couldn't make it work without seals like you did. When I tried, the blade wouldn't hold the charge properly. I played around with it and ended up with this..." She glanced up, checking the sky for birds. Finding none, she gave Haruichiban a heavy swing, forming the same cutting shockwave that she'd gotten while practicing. It flashed off, quickly vanishing into the clear blue sky.
She started to turn to look at the Jonin, whose eyes had grown wide with surprise at the manifestation of a Chuunin-level jutsu from a Genin in her first month of duty, but all of a sudden, her vision went blurry and her sword dropped to the ground as she felt suddenly weak. "Oh, m..." Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she began to collapse.
"Motoko? Raiden?" The voices of Okito-sensei and Takahashi calling her and her brother's names were the last things that she heard before passing out.
* * *
The abrupt, near simultaneous collapse of the Hata twins came as an absolute surprise to the other two members of Team 11. Despite the unexpected nature of the event, Okito was able to catch Motoko before she landed on her sword while Takahashi was able to keep Raiden from braining himself on a rock. They laid the twins down on the grass while Takahashi checked Raiden's vitals.
"His pulse seems steady if I recall the medical basics coursework and he's still breathing..." Takahashi said, looking at Okito-sensei, who was doing the same with Motoko. "I don't get it; what happened to them?"
Okito, as a former ANBU, instantly recognized the symptoms. "Looks like a simple case of chakra exhaustion... Between their joint technique and Motoko showing us her new jutsu, she's taken herself to lower than healthy levels. She passed out because of that, but she should be fine in a little bit - a few minutes to a few hours, can't tell much more than that." He scratched his head through his headwear. "I'm not sure why Raiden's down, though... Very odd…"
Kyouran gave a concerned-sounding meow. Takahashi nodded. "Kyouran says that since Motoko can feel Raiden's pain, doesn't it make sense that it might work both ways?" Takahashi paused. "I could see that... Motoko's a gentler person, so she notices the pain, but Raiden's got the sensitivity of a rock, so he's not aware of the minor injuries, but something major, like her passing out, he can't disregard. But it's probably got to be forced - I've lost count the number of times Raiden was so bored he fell asleep in class, but Motoko was unaffected."
Tanaka-sensei nodded. "When you put it that way, it makes absolute sense. Apparently this connection is the downside of being able to pool their chakra for something other than a ritual jutsu."
"What's a ritual jutsu?"
"Ritual or collaboration jutsu are techniques that require more chakra than any one person alone could generate. By preparing a special area, you can use multiple people to funnel their power together. You typically see them with major summoning or sealing techniques. The down side is that every member of the group has to do things EXACTLY right for it to be completely successful. A minor error will only slightly weaken the total result, but a major one - like taking out one or more of the participants - could do anything from stopping the technique altogether to causing it to fail spectacularly." He grimaced at the memory of a few explosions that he hadn't had any right to survive, if not for his Kekkei Genkai. "I don't recommend being nearby if the latter happens."
Takahashi nodded. "Got it. So what exactly is their twin jutsu? An on-the-fly ritual jutsu?"
The Jonin frowned. "Honestly..? I've never seen anything quite like it before. It's somewhere in between a regular and a ritual technique, but I was never good at picking apart techniques: that was always Kakashi's gift."
"Who?"
"Team 7's Jonin. He was in ANBU like me and Miho-sensei from Team 11."
Takahashi nodded. "What about Asuma Sarutobi on Team 8?"
"The Hokage's son?" Okito asked before shaking his head. "No. Asuma-kun became one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja, the hand-selected ninja bodyguards - one from each conclave or Hidden Village in the country - for the Lord Daimyo of the Land of Fire himself. It's why he always wears that sash with the symbol for 'Fire' on it. It's an offense punishable by death to get caught wearing one of those without permission."
"There are other Hidden Villages in the Land of Fire?" Takahashi asked, surprised.
Tanaka nodded. "Of course. The Land of Fire covers a lot of territory. All ninja in the conclaves and sub-villages wear the Leaf headband, though, and all mission contracts are made through Konoha. If the mission is time-sensitive enough and there's a unit in one of the minor villages that could handle it, they'll send the order out via carrier hawk or telepathic long range transmission. The main point of them, however, is to have military might to act as a first line of defense against an attack by a foreign nation and get a report to Konoha for full mobilization. Most of the time, they're essentially retirement communities for the ninja of Konoha that are no longer fit for or desiring to be on active duty."
"I see."
"Any particular reason you asked about Asuma-sensei?" Tanaka asked, arching an eyebrow in curiosity.
Takahashi shrugged. "Just curious." Kyouran roared, causing a minor blush of embarrassment to appear on the blond Genin's face. "Oh, shut up you. I... Well, I kinda like Ino Yamanaka a lot."
"Inoichi Yamanaka's daughter?" Okito said with a smile. "He was a legend in the ANBU corps when I joined up. He trained Morino Ibiki, the current head of the Torture & Interrogation unit. Ibiki can get into your head, but Inoichi could get into your mind - literally; their clan specializes in Telepathic and Mental Manipulation jutsu. They're especially good at it if you're of the opposite sex - they rely on their physical charms to weaken your mental resistance."
The Genin mulled that over. "Well, I guess that explains why she's so interested in Sasuke Uchiha; not only does he have that whole bad-boy image going for him, but he seems to completely ignore her looks. She must see him as her ultimate foe - someone that she'd have to expend a lot of effort on to take his mind over."
"Could be. Inoichi was in a completely different division of ANBU than I was, so I knew of him, but I've never met him socially." He shook his head. "Anyways, you've got a mission to complete." The Jonin did a quick hand sequence. "Hijutsu: Diamond Golem Creation." Crystal-like growths began to erupt from Tanaka's hands, flowing like half-frozen water to the ground. As they touched the ground, they started to take the form of a humanoid figure about the same size as Takahashi. When they finally stopped, Okito's hands were on the shoulders of a less-than-perfect replica of the Genin, fashioned out of pure diamond, but glowing with an internal fire. The Takahashi golem's eyes lit up and it turned to look to Okito.
Tanaka-sensei pointed to the real Genin. "Follow the orders of the blonde ninja, exactly as he gives them, but do no more work than he does. Understood?" The figure nodded, but didn't speak a single word. It turned and walked to the Genin and then stopped silently, awaiting orders. "The golem will help you work until the others wake up. If you finish the bridge beforehand, we'll carry them with us to the Hokage's Manor."
Takahashi glanced at the soulless construct. "Well, at least he doesn't look exactly like me; that would be unnerving."
"Well, he's only meant for hard labor, so there wasn't much point in going full bore to get the features right and give it a masking layer of flesh. I also didn't give it much more than the mind of an eight year old; smart enough to take orders, but not enough for it to get rebellious." Okito pointed out. "It's just so you have an extra pair of hands for this job."
He paused, feeling reflective. Takahashi's parents had been Okito's mentors in ANBU and had played a major role in him becoming the ninja he was today. Their early death had left him with a debt he was unable to repay, so he had dedicated himself to seeing that Takahashi was taken care of. He knew a lot about the Genin and somehow felt obligated to tell the boy more than most Jonin would.
"I learned the Shadow Clone jutsu to make a physical copies of myself, but my Diamond Golems typically do the trick better. They have staying power than a Shadow Clone - you have to crack the shell to destroy one and it's damned hard to break chakra-infused diamond." Tanaka says with a smile. "The only trick is to give them enough chakra to remain functional without weakening myself too much in the process."
The boy looked at the golem. "What will happen when its job is done?"
Okito shrugged. "I'll disassemble it, like I have all the others."
Takahashi frowned. "That seems a bit unfair... You give it life, a purpose, and once it's done as you will, it's like it never existed."
Tanaka contemplated the boy's words for a few moments. "Hmm... I never quite thought of it that way before. On the other hand, however, things created by ninjutsu lack self-awareness. After all, clones and golems wouldn't be useful if they cared what happened to them - you wouldn't be able to rely on them." Takahashi nodded, conceding the point.
"My golems aren't all that different; they aren't self-sustaining. I mean I could always repower them with a fresh infusion chakra, but they just take up space otherwise. And if I leave them out in the open, someone would probably just haul them away and cut them up; the diamonds that my Kekkei Genkai allows me to create are chemically identical to the real thing, but I can grow them in sizes and shapes that natural forces can't duplicate."
A grim look of self-satisfaction crossed his lips. "As a matter of fact, I replaced the windows of my family's shop with sheets of diamond and used my Earth jutsu to replace the outer walls with the heaviest, densest rock the ground could support the weight of… The Tanaka Bakery is the one of the most fortified buildings in the city; its decor is just a lot better than the others."
The Genin paused. "Why? That seems a bit excessive…"
Okito smiled sadly. "You're too young to remember the Third Great Ninja War… All the nations – both the Major and Minor – were at war with each other. And since the Land of Fire was the biggest, you could never be sure if some group might be able to sneak into Konoha and unleash some sabotage."
"Oh…" Takahashi said, realizing that unlike his own, sometimes people had scars on their hearts and souls.
Okito sighed. "Fortunately with forces like the Sandaime, the Yellow Flash, and the Sannin, few threats ever got close to the Village. We've had peace for the better part of thirteen years - longer if you don't consider the Kyuubi's attack as a parting swing by one of the nations who thought Konoha and the Land of Fire didn't deserve to be called the 'winners.' But the Nine-Tailed Fox was always more a force of nature; I can't imagine anyone being able to direct it in such a way that there were NO signs of human interference."
Tanaka waved his hands dismissively. "Anyways, call me a bit paranoid, but there's an ill scent on the wind, if you catch my drift... The fact that we smell the rat and can't find it is doubly frustrating, but rather than sit idle, I'm doing what I can to protect what's important to me using all the skills that I've learned while serving Konoha as a ninja. And if the fears that the Hokage and I share are unfounded, then no real harm will have been done."
Takahashi nodded. "I can see that." He looked at the golem. "I'll loosen the boards and you'll pull them free. Once we remove all the bad ones, we'll start replacing them. Understood?" The golem nodded mutely. "Let's get to work." The two turned to resume repairs to the bridge.
* * *
It took Takahashi and the golem the better part of an hour and a half to finish the assigned maintenance for the bridge. The blonde Genin looked at his assistant and then turned to Okito-sensei. "Sensei? Is there any way you'd reconsider breaking this guy up? He's been pretty useful."
Tanaka frowned. "You realize he doesn't have a lot of power left; just enough to keep him functioning for maybe an hour or two."
"You said they'd become statues until re-infused with chakra. Does it have to be your chakra?"
"No. Anyone's chakra would do, but Earth-, Fire-, or Diamond-natured chakra - the three elements that I can command - would be more effective than say, Thunder, Water, or Wind chakra."
Takahashi smiled. "That's perfect, then; I'm Earth-natured."
Okito gave the boy an uncertain look. "Why would you want a mindless golem?"
The Genin's face went impassive. "Mainly, I feel sorry for him; despite what you said about him being unaware of his own existence. He's a lot like me: he's got no family, no past, and no future but the one he makes for himself. But he's the luckier one - he's not aware enough of how depressing it can be…"
It took every shred of control Tanaka had to keep his face impassive even as his heart ached for the child of his former mentors. "I thought you didn't remember your early childhood…"
The young man grimaced. "I don't. Every now and then I get these memory flashes that give me the worst headache you can imagine. So apparently I had an early childhood, but the memories are blocked or damaged for some reason..." He rubbed his scar. "Probably from whatever caused this - my earliest memory is being in the Hospital and the doctors saying that I was lucky to be alive. I sort of remember an explosion, which is why I don't care for explosive specialists, but that's pretty much it."
The blond Genin shrugged. "Anyways, I typically keep odd hours with Kyouran and his pride, so I figured he'd be handy to have around, so it at least feels like I have company, even if he won't be a great conversationalist."
Okito actually felt his heart break. Rook and Knight's son was a good ninja and had an outgoing personality, but despite that he felt so alone that he actually felt that having a mindless golem for company was an improvement on what he had?
Tanaka turned to the golem. "Come here." The diamond figure complied. The Jonin paused for a moment as he contemplated what he was about to do. Closing his eyes, he began to focus his technique on the golem in ways he'd never attempted before... He added impurities in the crystal structure to change the diamond from their normally clear color to give the golem a less utilitarian appearance, reshaped the facial features and expanded the cognitive centers.
The harsh orange light in the golem's eyes faded out, but returned a few seconds later, now a softer emerald green. It was still clearly not human, but its aesthetics had been drastically improved. It shook its head and looked up at Okito. "Confusion. Status?" It spoke in an inflectionless tone.
Takahashi blinked in surprise. "He talked!"
Okito nodded, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead; the work had been far more draining than he'd expected. "I've done what I can to give him some personality and improve its intelligence to more than just being able to follow orders, but this is the limit of what I can do. Animated diamond powered by chakra is a long way from human thought, but at least he can try to make conversation. He'll probably be capable of up to an eleven year old's level of intelligence, but, for right now, he can understand better than he can express himself."
"Status?" The golem repeated.
"You'll be okay." Okito answered. "I've given you some extra features."
The golem contemplated. "Understood. Task?"
The Jonin gestured to Takahashi. "You will listen to Takahashi here and obey him the way you do me."
"Understood. Compliance."
Okito looked over at Takahashi. "He's your responsibility now. I've also given him enough energy for a week or two of moderate operations. He won't be as fast or nimble as you are because of his weight and body structure, but he's a lot more durable. When he starts running low on power, you just place your hands on the golem, mold chakra and imagine pushing it from your core and out through your hands. Now, I'd suggest you send him to your apartment, we still need to report to the Hokage, after all."
The blonde Genin nodded. "Kyouran." The panther cub walked over to his human companion and hopped up on his shoulder. "Take the golem..." He paused. "I've got to come up with a name for him, I guess, don't I?" The black feline nodded in a rather human gesture that surprised Tanaka-sensei. "Anyways, take our new friend to the apartment." Kyouran roared in agreement.
He then walked up to the golem. "My name is Takahashi. This is Kyouran." The figure remained silent as the Genin gestured to the panther cub. "I'd like for you to follow Kyouran to my apartment and wait for me until I get there."
"Follow. Wait. Understood." The golem responded.
Takahashi frowned. "This might be a bit tougher than I expected..." The golem looked at him blankly, causing the Genin to sigh. "Okay, Kyouran, lead him home." The cat dropped to the ground, meow/roared at the golem and started to trot off. The diamond creation watched for a moment and then began to follow at the same speed the cat walked at. As Okito said, the golem's movement was rather rigid and, even muffled by the grass, each plodding step was surprisingly loud.
As it passed by Motoko Hata, she moaned softly. Okito and Takahashi quickly walked over to her. "Are you okay, Hata-san?" The Jonin asked.
"H-Hai…" She moaned, putting her hand up to her head. "Just a little light-headed."
"Light-headed?!" Raiden complained as he came to as well. "I feel like half my head's missing. What the hell happened?"
"The down side of your psychic bond with your twin." Okito Tanaka explained. "Apparently while Motoko feels your pain, you feel her fatigue."
"Huh?" The male asked dumbly.
"I used too much chakra, Rai…" Motoko said; putting the pieces together faster than her brother did. "I passed out and must have taken you with me."
Raiden grimaced. "Damn, that sucks!" He then pauses grinning. "Well, at least you can't complain that you get the short end of the twin bond anymore… Oww, my head…"
Motoko chuckled ruefully, feeling the same ache in her own skull. "I guess not…"
"Let's get the two of you home." Tanaka said.
"We're done?" Raiden asked, surprised. "What about the bridge?"
"I took care of it while you were out." Takahashi said, without going into details. "And the two of you got all the trash earlier."
Motoko Hata flushed. "I'm so sorry, 'Hashi…"
The scarred Genin shrugged. "You didn't know your limits, Momo-chan. Now you do. Nothing to be sorry about."
"Speaking of," Tanaka spoke up. "You two should consider your twin jutsu as an 'ace up your sleeve' type technique… It takes too long to power-up in a fight and clearly expends more energy than you intend to; the re-blending of your chakra is like not putting enough wet ingredients into your stand mixer – it's burning out the motor faster." He snorted. "And apparently I'm making bakery analogies now…"
A bark of laughter escaped Raiden, which caused the other two to join in. A successful mission all told…