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TGNH - Chapter 2
TGNH - Chapter 1
#26
Huh. Must have gotten eaten by the Hacker Bastard. Oh well. Here's a repost, then. Please, feel free to comment - it helps keep me motivated to work on more stuff!
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TEENAGE GENIN NINJA HEROES
chapter 1:
A Meeting, a Test, Some Gossip and a Revelation

APRIL, TWELFTH YEAR AFTER THE ATTACK OF THE KYUUBI
"Pft. Like a Jounin is going to fall for such an obvious trap."
And he didn't, simply by virtue of opening the door before he walked through it.
"HEY!" Naruto shouted. "What's the idea of wasting so much of our time and then not even having the decency to fall into my trap?!"
{Hah!} Sakura's Inner Self crowed. {He just incriminated himself! Whatta yutz!}
The Jounin blinked. "Trap?"
"That idiot set the eraser to fall out of the doorjam, sensei," Sakura said.
Their sensei crouched to pick up the fallen object, and the three students took the moment to evaluate him.
[Probably in his late teens or early twenties,] Sasuke decided. [Very young for a Jounin. Several inches taller than me, and heavier in proportion even without the bulk of his clothes. Wearing several layers like that - coat over flak jacket over shirt - he's almost certainly got something significant hidden all across his body. Seems to need his glasses, that's a weakness. Slower and more awkward than I'd expect from a Jounin, but still high Chuunin level.]
[It's a good thing he's a guy,] Sakura thought. [His hair... it's so long and so pretty. And he's young enough that I'd never have a chance to impress Sasuke-kun if he was a girl.]
[His eyes... aren't cold...] Naruto realized, and decided then and there that he'd do anything rather than dissapoint the second teacher to acknowledge him. Not that he had to let him -know- about it, of course.
The man studied the eraser in his hand for a moment, then frowned and tossed it casually into the tray under the blackboard, most of the way across the room. "Not funny." He took a deep breath, then held it for a moment as he looked at each of the three members of Genin Team 7 in turn.
Boy, sitting. Black hair, somewhat crested. Forehead protector in the usual place. Dark blue tunic, short sleeves, high collar. White shorts, sandals, and bracing wraps on calves and forearms.
Boy, standing. Short for his age, blonde hair, messy and sticking up all over the place. Bright orange jacket and pants, somewhat too large, with the cuffs rolled up and out of the way. Three whisker-like scars across each cheekbone, and the most arresting bright blue eyes.
Girl, standing. Dress, bright red, short-sleeved and close fitting, with a waist-height slit on either side for free movement. Dark blue bike shorts underneath for modesty. Forehead protector tied across the top of her head, to hold back a sheaf of long - and, apparently, natural - pink hair. Her eyes were nearly as unusual, a shade of aqua, midway between blue and green, he had never seen before.
He let his breath out in a rush, then smiled. "So! Who's for hibachi?"
* * * * *
"My name," he said across their table's grill, "is Nathan Baxter - Bakusuta Neshan, to phrase it a way you can pronounce. I'm eighteen years old, and a Jounin-level specialist in written seals and permanent effects."
Naruto scowled. "Huh?"
Sakura glared, and resisted the urge to smack him upside the head.
{Come on!} Inner Sakura howled. {You know you want to!}
Beating up her teammate definitely wouldn't impress their sensei... even if he -was- an idiot. "Naruto! We covered this only last month! A written seal is a way of controlling chakra and forming it into patterns away from your body! They're the reason curse seals and jutsu scrolls work!"
Neshan's carefully neutral face flashed into a broad, slightly goofy grin. "Bingo! You get a gold star, girl. That's exactly correct, and curse seals are only the start of it. There are probably some things that you can't do with them, but I haven't found one yet.
"Anyway, my hobbies are reading novels and doing research. I like teriyaki, my own cooking, and peace and quiet. I dislike people who act without thinking or hurt others for no good reason. My dream..." His smile turned quiet. "I wanna save the world."
The three kids blinked. He looked at Sakura, and his smile broadened back into a mischievious grin. "So, what about you, Pinky?"
"Pinky?!" she yelped. [How embarassing... and in front of Sasuke-kun, even worse.]
{'Least he's not talking about your forhead,} Inner Sakura commented 'helpfully.'
"I've got even worse ones waiting for the other two," the Jounin mock-confided, leaning forward slightly. "Don't take it too hard."
She sniffed, then said, "I'm Haruno Sakura. The thing I like is..." she blushed, and her eyes skittered involuntarily towards her dark-haired teammate. "... a certain person. My dream is to be with and marry him. The things I dislike - Thank you," she said to the chef as her plate arrived. "- are Naruto..." She made a face. "...and people who make fun of my forehead. My hobbies are taking care of my fish and..." She blushed again, and very carefully did -not- look at her crush.
After a second or two of awkward silence, Neshan looked at the crushed looking blond boy sitting to her left for a moment, then told the dark-haired one on her opposite side, "Okay, so, you next, Captain Parakeet."
[What's a parakeet?] Sakura and Naruto wondered.
"Hn. My name is Uchiha Sasuke. No likes, many dislikes. My d- no, dream isn't right. My ambition is to ressurect my clan and kill... a certain man."
"Uchiha Itachi."
Sasuke tensed, every muscle going visibly rigid. "Yes."
Neshan looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "We'll need to talk about this later."
"Hn."
"Okay. Your turn, Loudmouth."
"Loudmouth?! I'm not-" Naruto shouted, standing up and leaning on the counter.
"Standing up and bellowing in the middle of a restauraunt?" The older boy asked drily, before thanking the cook as his order was slid into place.
Naruto closed his mouth and plopped back down into his seat. "Hmph. Anyway, my name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like cup ramen! And Sakura-chan!"
Sakura shuddered, as though at a sudden chill.
"What I dislike is the three minutes it takes cup ramen to cook. My dream is to become Hokage, so that everyone in the village will have to acknowledge my existence!"
Neshan swallowed his mouthful of beef. "We'll start on that day after tomorrow, then. If you pass."
"What?!"
"But we already -did- pass!"
Naruto and Sakura exploded into protest, and Sasuke nodded to the chef as his food was delivered.
The jounin held out a hand, palm down, and tipped it side to side for a moment. "Yes and no. You passed the Academy exams, which determined whether or not you possessed the neccessary practical skills of a genin. What you still need to prove is that you have the required character traits."
Sakura blinked. "What traits?"
"Now, now... that would be telling."
"Can't you give us a hint?"
"I could, yes... If you were also willing to accept having the test's difficulty cranked about five, ten notches. If you know what you're supposed to be doing, I'm not going to be satisfied with your simply doing it - you'll have to -live- it, flesh and blood and skin and bone."
"So?! That's easy for a future Hokage! Whatsit, whatsit?!"
Neshan started to crack each joint of each of his fingers, one at a time. "Okay, that's one vote for. Sakura, Sasuke?"
Sakura nibbled at her lower lip. "Overnight... No. No, maybe if it was a week, but not just one night." {What?! What are you, a chicken?! Go for it, girl!}
"I don't need any shortcuts."
"Okay, so. 'No' it is, then. Training Ground Four, nine o'clock. Don't eat breakfast, you'll only lose it."
* * * * *
A stiff northerly breeze added a bit of bite to the late spring air and stirred the tops of the forest to rustling confusion.
"It's nearly 9:10. Is he -always- late?" Sakura asked plaintively.
"Unfortunately," said a voice behind her.
"Ya!" Naruto fell flat on his ass trying to turn around and jump away at the same time.
"Eep!" So did Sakura.
*skish!* Sasuke, on the other hand, managed it perfectly.
Neshan walked past them, winding a timer, which he then set on one of the three short, sturdy poles lined up at the edge of the field. "Okay. Two hours, fifty minutes." He turned around to face them and fished two small, round bells out of some inner pocket of his jacket. "Two bells. Get one, you pass the test. When the timer goes off, we break for lunch. If you don't have a bell by then, I tie you to a stump and steal your food. Hour later, you get to try again. Still don't have one by four, and it's back to the academy."
He tucked the bells out of sight again and looked at them seriously. "You're Genin. I'm a Jounin. If you don't go all out, you won't even have a hope."
[Two bells...] Sasuke thought. [Smart... the weakest fails, and the team is stronger.]
{Hell yeah, Seal Boy! I'm gonna kick your ass!} Inner Sakura snarled, eyes aflame. [There are only two bells, but...] Sakura mused back. "Sensei?"
"Yes?"
"If we get a bell in the first round... do we have to keep it the whole time, or can we give it back without forfeiting?"
He looked surprised - and impressed. "Clever girl... Yes, you may, although you may -not- give it to one of your teammates and have him also pass."
And that made it all clear. "Teamwork..." she murmured, under her breath.
"Any other questions?"
"Yeah!" Naruto yelled. "What if we get -both- bells?!"
Neshan looked pained. "Not so -loud-, please."
"Yeah, yeah. Well?"
"Planning sabotage? Deliberately ruining your teammate's chances is an instant fail."
"There are only two bells," Sasuke said. "Two people can succeed, yes, but only at the expense of the third."
"You heard Sakura's question, didn't you?" the Jounin snapped.
The last Uchiha finally showed an expression - frustration. "What does -that- have to do with anything?"
Sakura put a hand on his arm. "Sasuke-kun... If a person who got a bell in the first round gives it back before the second, he's already passed - but -both- of the others have a chance at a bell of their own. Theoretically, up to four people can pass."
"Hn." His face was composed, but humiliation brought a faint tinge of red to his cheeks.
"Are there any other questions? No? Then on five... four... three... two... one... BEGIN!"
The three Genin launched themselves away and vanished into the forest. He shrugged off his long specialist's trenchcoat and tossed it over the top of one of stumps - a flanking one, not the central one holding the timer. Then he jerked his left arm straight - producing an audible *crich* from the cartilage in that elbow - and rotated that wrist through a hundred and eighty degrees - giving a similar but deeper *gunch* from that shoulder - before tucking his braid down the collar of the linen shirt underneath his uniform flak jacket.
Then he turned, and walked after the crashing noises Naruto made as he moved through the underbrush.
* * * * *
"KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"
Neshan stopped dead.
Three of the clones erupted from the bushes on the uphill side of the trail. Two more dropped from the branches overhead, and a sixth lunged out from underneath what had - apparently - been a small, grass-covered hillock.
Bushes, center. Punch in the nose. Duck left, lay that elbow across that clone's temple. Right clone misses entirely and goes over the cliff; won't see -him- again. Airborne right grabs wrist, snag airborne left by the jacket. Pitch the first at the real one lunging out of cover and whip the other up, over, and down straight into the dirt.
All of them simultaneously *bamf!*ed away into a bank of smoke.
"-All- of them were...? A probe... and then..."
*BA-KOOOOOM*
One hundred square feet of forest path and undergrowth vanished in a pillar of flame and smoke as the carefully laid circle of explosion notes went off as one.
Thirty feet away, a small crater dished itself out of the earth and stone under the Jounin's feet as his arcing leap ended. His eyes flickered to either side, cateloging the various traps set around him and how they left a slowly narrowing wedge of 'free' space, pointing away from his previous position.
Another dozen clones erupted from the undergrowth and lunged to the attack. Most - eight - vanished in a single sweep of his naginata. Reverse the pole to catch one of the remaining ones with the butt, turn slightly, spinning the weapon to slam a clout across the temple of a second and let momentum carry it safely out of the way in the off hand while dropping an elbow across the head of the third - unexpected resistance, -that's- the real one and he's got a kunai out and's-
*dingledingle*
*WHAM* The sidekick exploded out without any sort of concious thought, catching the clone just under dead center in the chest and sending it crashing into the sturdy trunk of a nearby tree. The impact shattered bark in a ring taller than it was, and sent a rain of twigs and leaves rattling down out of the branches. One beat, two, and the Henge collapsed as Sakura dropped to the ground and, almost, her knees before struggling back upright, battered but game for more.
*dingleSCREEKdingBAM-WHAK* The kunai strike executed simultaneously with Naruto's grab for the bell had been intended as a distraction, so that the pain from the wound would break the Jounin's concentration enough to let him get free and disengage. Instead, however, it cut through vest and shirt before skittering aside from something underneath with a scream of metal-on-metal. Without that slight covering edge, the grab was just a fraction too slow to reach its goal before a retaliatory fist knocked him back several steps and straight into the spinning haft of the naginata. -That- impact sent him flying off to one side to fetch up hard agaist a snare trap.
"KATON: GOUKAKYUU NO JUTSU!" Sasuke's voice came from behind him, back towards the path. With trap fields laid to either side of him, the only direction open was towards the point of the triangle - where Sakura was waiting and ready.
*FOOOOOM*
He didn't move even a single muscle as the expanding ball of fire rolled over him.
All three students stared wide-eyed. [No way,] Naruto thought. [Damn bastard Sasuke's not tough enough to take out a Jounin that way.]
The flames cleared, and there he was, standing slightly singed but mostly intact in the center of a charred, twenty foot wide crater. "Ow."
"No way!" Sakura squeaked, and Naruto actually stopped trying to wriggle his way out of the trap (he hadn't been having much luck, anyway. Being inverted like that was throwing him off.) to stare in awe.
"All right, Sasuke," and his voice was soft and quiet, enough so that it should have vanished into the constant quiet noises of the forest, but the hard edge of it still reached their ears as clearly as though he had been leaning over their shoulders. "If that's the way you want to play the game..." and between one word and the next he had covered the entire distance between them in a flicker too quick to register as motion "...then let's rock the light fantastic."
*THUDhurk-krakBAM* The first blow was a punch, low and sharp and right where it would best disrupt Sasuke's breathing. The Genin collapsed halfway, gagging, until his face met a knee going the other direction and was knocked - with the rest of him following dutifully along - up and out, into the zone where the other leg's heel could impact with the greatest combined proportion of all available muscular, positional, and rotational energy.
The lights went out even before his body had hit the ground, but were brought abruptly back as his rag-doll tumble brought him up - hard - against an inconveniently protruding piece of deadfall. Even awake, however, all he could do was lie in place and try to assemble the world around him into a single, coherent piece - which would then, hopefully, stop -spinning- like that.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura almost choked on her fear - and horror. {The hell? What happened to the wiseass that bought us dinner last night?}
A single kunai snapped from its hidden pocket to the Jounin's right hand, flipped in place from a fighting to a throwing grip, froze a moment - then flicked to the other hand and twirled between those fingers, knocking aside that - relatively small - percentage of the barrage of incoming shuriken which would have threatened unprotected flesh rather than savaging vegetation or clattering off of hidden armor.
Naruto glared at him, face and demeanor, for once, entirely serious. "I won't let you hurt him. Even if he -is- a bastard."
The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that he was still hanging upside down by one leg.
A cocked eyebrow and a slightly sadistic smile. "Oh no?" The kunai rotated around his index finger into a throwing grip.
"Eep!" *thwipTHOCKslipthud* If Naruto hadn't twisted out of the way - bending himself almost double in the process - then he would have died. Instead, the flying dagger whipped through the space where his head had been and buried itself literally hilt-deep into the sapwood of the tree behind. The violent maneuver managed to do what none of his earlier efforts had accomplished, however, and dropped him firmly on his head as Sakura's knot finally slipped loose.
A reflex neuron in the back of Naruto's brain reached up and gave his adrenal glands a good hard yank. [Incoming!] He rolled to his right and kicked off, trying to get out of the way before-
Too late! The kick - with all of Neshan's airborne, armored mass behind it - wouldn't land across his temple like it must have been planned to (no, wait, he'd been upside-down, which would've put his... Itai! That just wasn't -fair-!) but it was still going to-
Pass straight through and leave the larger boy to crash gracelessly against the already-abused tree which had supported the snare trap.
"Ha!" Naruto crowed. "Bunshin no Jutsu! Now I'm gonna get ya!"
"...fuckin' -clones- playin' goddamn -mindgames- nothin' where it should be so it won't fuckin' -die-..." was the rough text of the stream of profanity growled into the leaf-covered loam of the forest floor. He pulled himself to hands and knees and glared murderously at the individual responsible. "I hate that fucking jutsu. I really do." He went from kneeling to crouching to an all out lunge in a fraction of second, legs and body fully extended to drive a speared right hand towards the Genin's stomach.
The target threw himself back, eyes wide in a combination of fear and triumph. [He's overextending! Not even a Jounin can-]
An instant before the strike came the closest it could have, sixty-four streams of pure chakra erupted from various points scattered across his body, spiraling up his legs and across his torso to wrap themselves in a vortex around his leading arm before concentrating down to a single point about two inches in front of his hand.
A point which promptly exploded, tearing a teardrop-shaped crater in the forest floor and throwing Naruto hundreds of feet in a single high arc that terminated deep in the bowels of some laurel-like clump of undergrowth.
Neshan snarled and followed.
[Okay, Sakura. Think! Think! He's coming! You're the only one still standing, you have to last long enough for one of the others to recover. Then you can tag-team him, slow him down enough that you'll be able to get away. But -how-?
[That's it!]
He knew she was hiding in the low bush, but ignored her. Finish the whiskered pain in the ass first, -then- deal with cotton-candy girl.
One gauntleted hand came up, lightning-fast, and batted the incoming kunai away while the other brought out one of his own and sent it blasting...
Straight through a cloud of smoke and a smallish, Y-shaped log.
"Replacement isn't enough!" he roared, and sent a second kunai at the soft 'crunch' of a light-footed body landing on dried leaves. When his eyes followed its path he had time to see her finished the last seal an instant before the flying knife would have hit - so short a time that the replacing log actually appeared -behind- it.
There was no betraying sound, this time, but his eyes still followed the motion as it led overhead and there she was, falling towards him, kunai looped over one finger and hands working the seals for a third swap. The change in angles slowed his response, just slightly, and he gritted his teeth as he followed the flicker away from his kunai striking -
That was the wrong sound. His eyes snapped back upwards. From the rip on the side of her dress, he had just barely missed (annoying, but he'd sacrificed some accuracy for the speed to hit her before she swapped - the motion he'd followed for that critical split second must have been a log or something she had either carried with her or planted ahead of time) and she had the kunai she'd been holding earlier raised and gripped firmly in both hands for an overhand strike with all her weight and falling inertia behind it.
And between the throw and his abortive tracking of the swap, he was badly out of position to meet that strike. He shifted one foot outward, twisted slightly -
She brought the blade down in a perfect textbook blow, not at the crown of the head, where the heavy bone of the skull might turn it, but down and in to hit the join between neck and shoulder, an area rich in soft tissue and large blood vessels, and almost certainly -not- covered by that armor of his if it wasn't visible under normal clothing.
The universe flickered around her, and it was all she could do to manage any sort of proper landing with her trajectory drastically altered and a screaming knot of agony wrapping itself around her ribs.
Somewhere outside her field of vision, a leaf crunched.
*crunch*
*crunch*
*crunch*
Slow and measured, steadily closer. She tried to move - her body would not. -Could- not, paralyzed by the bolts of pain shooting off of her ribs.
Sasuke's voice: "KATON: HOUSENKA NO JUTSU!"
Naruto's voice: "Sasuke, WATCH OUT!"
Gritting her teeth, she managed to raise the energy - and will - to turn her head to towards the sound of battle - just as it ended, with Neshan holding one elbow under Sasuke's armpit and that hand across the back of his neck, and the other arm holding a kunai ever-so-gently to the flutter of the main artery in his neck. Naruto stood only a few feet away, frozen in horror, with one arm still extended in the follow-through of a throw.
For a long, singing moment, everything was silent.
The kunai vanished, and the Jounin released his prisoner and stepped back. "You all pass."
Naruto wobbled, and fell flat on his face. "NANI?!"
"We didn't get the bells." Sasuke had one hand resting carefully against his throat.
"No," Neshan answered seriously. "But you did work together. You were willing to protect each other in the face of lethal opposition. You conceived and executed sucessful strategems under intense pressure. And you recognized and attempted to capitalize on the openings I gave you." He grinned. "This was never about the bells, remember?"
"...itatatatataiiii..."
"Sa- Oh, damn. I'm an idiot. Here, hold still..." He knelt and performed a quick series of seals, before brushing the blueish glow around his hands over the site of his earlier strike.
"You're a medic-nin, too?" Sasuke asked.
"Not hardly. Surgery, chemistry, anatomy, proper diagnosis... No. I know a few healing jutsu, and enough background to avoid making anything -worse-, but basically all I can do is first aid or simple things like, oh, fixing a cracked rib. How do you feel?" he asked Sakura.
"Better," she said softly. "You hit hard." {Bastard! I'll -get- you for this!}
He looked embarrassed. "Sorry. I wasn't prepared to get caught out like that. I... er... Anyway! Training! Tactics. That fight just now - what did you think of it? Things you noticed, questions, comments. Your mistakes, my mistakes. Naruto, you first."
"Ano..." The shortest Genin sat with both arms and legs crossed, brow furrowed in thought. "Where did you get the naginata? And where did it go?"
"Ah." He held out his right hand, then turned it, slightly, so that the back of the guantlet caught the light.
"Ahhh..." Sakura leaned forward to look at it closely. "I've seen that mark before... on a ninja scroll, I think."
"Exactly. It's a summoning seal, engraved into the plate of the armor itself. By channelling a small amount of chakra into it - like you would for, say, an explosion note - I can activate the seal and summon a specific, predetermined object to my hand."
"That jutsu you used on Naruto, what was it?" Sasuke asked.
"Shikouseibakuyaku no Jutsu."
"Seigoshibakka-what?" Naruto mumbled.
"It's supposed to be triggered by physical contact rather than just in close proximity to the target. Used right, it puts a very big hole through -anything-."
"But, you didn't use any seals," Sakura protested.
"-That- is seperate, and very difficult. I'd say that Sakura is the only one of you with the potential to learn it."
"But!" Naruto started to whine, until Neshan put a single upraised finger across his lips.
"Sshh! Rasengan is at least as good, and doesn't -ever- need any seals. I can help you learn that, instead, once you're farther along."
"But you don't know it yourself," Sasuke guessed.
"No. But that's not as much a problem as you'd think, since every person who learns it basically has to recreate it from scratch and theory -anyway-. And, Sasuke, don't worry. You'll get your own turn when it's time."
The dark-eyed Genin leaned forward. "When is that?"
"When you can activate Sharingan. In the meantime, back on task. Sakura!"
"Yes?"
"What was my biggest mistake in that fight?"
She furrowed her brow in thought. "I'd say... letting us pick the ground and timing?"
"Good, but no. Once an ambush has failed - been detected - it can become as or -more- dangerous for the attacker than the defender."
"You lost your temper. Twice," Sasuke said.
"And if I really -had- lost control, and done so in a real fight, that could well have been fatal. But any person's self-control must have limits, and occaisional failures are a fact of the shinobi's life."
Naruto laughed. "You fell for a basic Bunshin!"
Neshan's composure finally broke, slightly - he looked faintly embarrassed. "Well, yes. That kind of is-he-or-isn't-he doublethink is a real problem for me. Lost the only exam I ever failed because of a Kage Bunshin. But in a fight, there isn't time to be right all the time."
Sasuke went next. "You made assumptions about Sakura's strategy which, with a bit less luck on your part, could easily have given her an opening for a killing shot."
{HELL YEAH! SCORE!}
A grin. "No, I -was- tracking an actual replacement that time - it simply wasn't her being replaced. Which I never thought of, and so lost time identifying and reacting."
Two Genin stared at a blushing third. "Sakura-chan... sugoi..." Naruto breathed.
There was silence for a moment, then Sakura said, slowly, "If you had taken the time to fully neutralize Sasuke, he couldn't have come back to help me."
Their sensei grinned, fiercly. "Eee_xact_ly. I kept switching targets rather that following through on available openings - which was exactly what you were trying to force me to do.
"Now for something -less- fun.
"Sakura. Although it was justified -this- time, taking attacks you don't have to is very risky, and should be avoided whenever possible. More importantly, no matter -how- concerned you are about your teammates, -never- reveal your position unless there's something to gain. Understand?"
"Yes, Sensei."
"Naruto. First, don't attract attention you can't dodge. Second, time you spend gloating is time that could have been spent -useing- that advantage - and time that your enemy can use to recover or strike back. Got it?"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Sasuke. If the enemy does something you don't expect, don't hold still while you figure out what to do. Evade! Dodge!"
"Understood."
"Great! Now for the good news! Naruto, that bunshin swap was flawless. Well done."
The addressed laughed and put his hand behind his head. "What did you expect from a future Hokage?"
"Sasuke, your tai and ninjutsu are the best in the squad. Good work."
"Hn." A slight smile behind the tented hands.
"And Sakura..." he grinned and bowed to her - deeply. "Unless I'm greatly mistaken, that backpack trick of yours is the first genuinely original variation on Kawarimi no Jutsu in the last fifty years. It's probably going to become a part of the standard repetoire - and I intend to make sure everyone knows its yours."
"I... wow." {Hell YEAH!}
"In the meantime, we've got most of a day to kill. So. Training! We're going to improve your control over your chakra."
"What's so important about this 'sharka' stuff?" Naruto asked.
Sakura smacked him across the back of the head. "Baka! Chakra is what you use to power jutsu!"
Neshan gaped - eyes wide, jaw dropped. "I cannot believe he just said that."
"Eheheheh," Naruto smiled sheepishly. "I used to sleep through all the hard classes."
The Jounin had his hands against his temples, as though trying to massage away a headache. "Chakra is a mixture of physical energy pulled from your body's energy reserves and spiritual energy generated by your brain. The physical power, for lack of a better way of putting it, gives your chakra purchase on reality, allowing it to affect the real world in a way that pure spiritual energy never could. The spiritual component, first, allows you to control the almagalm's disposition with your mind rather than your nervous system, and second, acts as an amplifier for the physical component, letting it generate far greater effects than that amount of energy could otherwise account for."
"Huh?"
Neshan gave up, shook his head, and smiled. "Don't worry about it too much. All you really need to know is that chakra is generated by your body, that it can affect the physical world, and that you can control it either with your will or, for more complex effects like jutsu, by forming hand seals."
"We already do that," Sasuke said.
"If the degree of control could be likened to the sophistication of a weapon, all three of you are walking around with the equivalent of a chipped rock tied to a -stick-," was the wry reply. "But don't worry. Teaching you how to do better is -my- job, not the academy's. None of your peers will be any better, at this point."
"And the reason we -should- learn better," Sakura said, "is that the simpler, mental sort of control is neccessary to properly regulate the type and amount of chakra available for the hand seals to change and shape!" [Finally! I was never able to figure out what that book was talking about, before!] {Hell yeah! You go, girl!}
"Exactly!" Neshan beamed at the girl who was fast becoming his favorite student. "If the proper chakra balance isn't fed into the seals, then the jutsu will fail, even if the physical component was performed perfectly. By improving your control, you gain the ability to better fine-tune what you're feeding into the jutsu - allowing you to cut margins closer and preserve your extra chakra for later use... which, in turn, is directly responsible for your being able to use more and larger jutsu."
"So how do we improve our control?" Sasuke asked.
"Climb a tree."
A number of crickets chirped in the following silence.
"Whaaat?" Naruto howled, "How does -that- work?"
A chuckle. "By focusing a precise quantity of chakra into the soles of your feet, you can adhere to a vertical - or inverted - surface and thereby treat it as though it were the same as a horizontal one." He stood. "In other words, you can walk up walls." And, going to the nearest tree-trunk, he did so.
"No problem! I'll get to the top in no time!"
"It's harder than it sounds," the Jounin promised, with a dark smile. He hopped off the tree and down in front of his students. "Since concentration helps make it easier, I want you three to go to seperate parts of the forest until you can make it to the top of the tree. Use a kunai to mark your highest level for each attempt, so as to keep track of your progress. I'll come by and check up on you one at a time - it'll give us a chance to have those private conversations I promised.
"Well? What are you three waiting for? Chop chop!"
* * * * *
"Uchiha, why were you so reluctant to work with the others?"
The black-haired boy stuck his kunai in the dirt and collapsed to catch his breath. "Everything went by the plan."
The Jounin reached down and plucked something out of the inside of his student's sleeve. "Listening Note," he said, displaying the small slip of paper.
"You knew everything. The whole time," Sasuke breathed.
"Yes. Answer the question."
"I didn't need their help."
Neshan reached out and poked the younger boy in the belly, eliciting a sharp hiss as he hit a still-developing bruise. "Emperical evidence would beg to differ. Besides, working together was the whole -point-."
"Having other people distract me will only hold me back."
"Who on earth told you -that-?"
Sasuke looked away, glaring into the forest. "My brother."
"And you trust him? This man who killed your family, murdered your parents in front of your eyes, you trust his honesty? Hell, you trust his -judgement-?"
The Genin's head snapped around to let him stare in shock. "I..."
Neshan looked back gently. "When he was your age, your brother was already a Jounin. Even if he really, truly wanted to see you become strong enough to challenge him, -his- path isn't the same as -yours-. If you keep trying to become him, you'll never be able to move fast enough; never be able to close the gap."
Wrapped hands fisted, digging into the dirt and tearing grass out by the roots. "What else can I -do-?"
The older boy leaned back and looked at the sky, letting his breath out through his nose. "The Third is old. It's slowed him down. But at his best... do you think Itachi could have beaten him?"
"...No... I should ask him?"
"I'm sure he'd find the time if you did."
"Why not tell me youself?"
A grin. "I could give you -my- angle on it, which isn't neccessarily the same thing."
"Please."
"All right." He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "People have been trying for a long time to come up with the ideal traits of a soldier. There seem to be two main schools of thought; one of them you know already. The other, mine, is that a person with a healthy emotional life is going to display clearer judgement and, not having to fight through their own angst, show faster reaction times than someone who doesn't have a supportive family or reasonable surrogate. Having people to care about helps ensure that you'll keep a weather eye out on the eventual goal - protecting them, making them happy - rather than getting caught up in the distractions or problems of the moment. Also, the desire to return to them, or keep them from harm... can give you a deeper reserve of willpower that you'd never be able to tap otherwise..."
There was quiet for a while, while birds called and the canopy overhead whispered in the wind, then: "Thank you."
"De nada." Neshan stood, and offered a hand, grasped Sasuke's, and pulled him to his feet. "One last thing... A question you should think on. Is it more important than -you- be the one to kill your brother, or just that he be dead?"
* * * * *
Naruto fell out of the tree and landed flat on his ass.
"Chikusho!" He sat there a moment, then stood and yelled: "I hope you blow over and ROT!"
"Not for another century or so, probably," Neshan said from behind him, prompting a jump and a startled yelp. "But, if it'd make you feel better, we can use it as a target once we start on offensive techniques."
The Genin perked up at the thought. "Ano sa, ano sa, why not do it now?"
"I want to have you three settled in and working well together before we start in on any of the higher level stuff. Anyway, sit down. We need to talk." He gestured, and perforce Naruto sat.
"Oh, yeah! You said you'd help me become Hokage!"
"I di-? Oh, right. Last night. Yeah, okay..." He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "What do you think the Hokage does?"
"That's easy! He-" Naruto stopped mid-sentence, and squinted suspiciously at his teacher. "This is some kind of trap, isn't it!"
Neshan laughed - hard. "Bingo! Caught! Yes, it is. Because, I bet you were going to say something along the lines of 'He's the guy who gives everyone else orders,' right?"
The younger boy could have been used as a study model for art class: 'Vulpine Suspicion.' "And he protects Konoha."
A chuckle, and he reached out and ruffled his student's hair. "All right. Now, the thing you need to understand first," and he leaned forward abruptly and gave Naruto an entirely serious look, "is that both of those statements are true - so far as they go. But leaving the description at -that- would be like saying that the sun is in the sky, or that a ninja is someone who uses shuriken."
"But that's not what a ninja is at all!"
"Exactly - it's a truth so incomplete as to be actively deceptive. Saying that the Hokage gives orders and protects Konoha isn't -quite- that bad, since those two things -are- what he does, but... There's a saying in my homeland: 'The Devil's in the details.' The first detail -here- is that the Hokage gives orders -in order- to protect Konoha."
"Huh?"
The Jounin sighed, and tried a different approach. "Okay. Fast forward twenty, thirty years. You're the sixth Hokage. You're sitting in your office, doing boring paperwork. A messenger comes in and tells you that there's a squad of missing-nins attacking a village near the border to [waterfall country]. What do you do?"
Glare. "You're still trying to trap me."
"I'm trying to -show- you -why- you need to follow my advice, rather than just yelling at you to do what I say."
"Oh." He sat and scowled in thought for a minute, two. "I guess... I go out and stop the missing-nins. I have to - it's my job to protect Konoha, right?" He looked at his teacher's carefully neutral face. "Guess not."
"After you defeat the missing-nins, you return to Konohagakure... and find it in ruins. While you were gone, a demon wolf came out of the wilderness and killed everyone it could find." He paused a moment, then said, as gently as he could, "The point isn't to show you that you need to react one way or another to a given problem - it's to demonstrate that the world is a complicated place that doesn't reward those who rely on simple answers or flawed understandings... and to show that the lives - the hopes, dreams, and loves - of every single person in the Hidden Leaf rely on the Hokage making the right choice."
Naruto looked down and gritted his teeth. "You don't think I'm good enough to be Hokage." [But... he's right. If Konoha needs someone who'll make the right decisions... I'd just jump in, even I know that.]
"I think you could be."
"Nani?" He looked up, and if his eyes were suspiciously bright, then Neshan carefully failed to notice.
"I mean, yeah, you're hotheaded and rash - now. But you're not near as stupid as you act, so there's nothing stopping you from learning better. From learning everything you'd need to know, if you were willing to put in the effort." A slow, conspiratorial smile. "You don't strike me as someone who's afraid of hard work."
Naruto smiled. "'There are no shortcuts to becoming Hokage,' huh?"
"No. But..." he broke off, then started again, tenatively, "Can I offer some advice? On a personal matter."
"Nani? What are you talking about, Sensei?"
"Your teammates... Tell them about Kyuubi."
The Genin's head snapped up. "But..."
Neshan crouched and laid a hand on each of his student's shoulders. "If you do it now, then you can present it in a way that's favorable to -you-... rather than having an enemy try to turn it into a weapon to blackmail you or break the team with."
"What if they hate me?" His voice was quieter than a whisper.
"Then better to know -now-, rather than after you've become close to them."
Naruto hesitated, his mind chasing itself around in circles. Those two women watching him as the new academy graduates celebrated around them, and their cold, cold eyes. Sakura's blushing face as he sat next to her on the park bench, wearing Sasuke's form. Sasuke's slow, respectful nod as he volunteered to be the one to test their sensei's defenses - and provoke the heaviest retaliation - to clear the way for the Number One Rookie's attack. "...too late..."
The older boy nodded slowly, drew in a breath through his nose, then let it out in a huff. "All right. Your call." He stood to go. "Keep working on the tree climbing until dusk, then go home and get a good night's rest. I'll try and dig up a tactics manual for you to study by tomorrow morning. Same place, same time."
[Study? Aw, man...]
* * * * *
"So. You and Uchiha, huh?"
{-Hell- yeah! 'Till the end of time!}
"Yes, Sensei. I know it seems silly of me, but..." She blushed, and changed the subject. "Anyway, you said that you would be speaking to us about individualized training?"
"Uh huh." He took a seat on an outstretched tree root, facing towards her. She sat, also, and composed herself to listen. "Before we start, though, I'd like to plant a little bug in your ear for you to worry over."
"Yes?" [Huh?]
"Uchiha... Uchiha Itachi is one of the five most dangerous missing-nins in the world. Someone out to kill a man like that... What do you think that he'd be more interested in, a pretty face... or a strong kunoichi? An asset or an admirer? A lover... or a partner?" She opened her mouth to reply, and he held up a hand. "No, I don't need to know. It's private, not my business to butt into. Just think on it a few days.
"Anyway," he said next, after leaving her a moment to absorb the thought and set it aside, "Everyone has a natural chakra level, a reserve of power which may be increased by training or decreased by disuse. The vast majority of people, perhaps ninety-nine percent, naturally fall within a fairly narrow range, leaving differentiation mostly a matter of practice and developement. Some, like Sasuke, or Naruto in particular, have exceptionally large reserves, allowing them to access more powerful techniques, sooner and with greater safety.
"Others have naturally lower power levels. They are people who have to go through life dealing with the fact that, no matter what they do, they will always tire sooner. That they will always be limited in their choice of techniques. That they will -always- lose a battle of attrition. People like me. Or you."
"But, Sensei," she asked, "aren't you a Jounin?"
He nodded. "Yes. But, in terms of jutsu, I'm definitely the weakest one in the village. I achieve my effectiveness by maximising my own advantages - precision control of my chakra, native intelligence, and a certain variance from the usual viewpoint on most problems - and adjusting my battle tactics to either neutralise the enemy's jutsu or prevent them from ever becoming an issue.
"The tactics will work almost as well for -any- combination of abilities, so I'll be teaching them to all three of you. For the rest... your assumptions and background are a lot more conventional than mine, but you don't seem to share my tendancy to think strictly in straight lines, which should more than make up the difference. You actually have -more- chakra than I did at your age, your control is also considerably better, and you're at -least- as smart."
She quailed, slightly. "What? But, but, I'm not a genius or anything! Not like Sasuke-kun."
He smiled, and messed up her hair. "Genius is what you make of it, girl." She still didn't look reassured. "So! Sakura, what would you say is your greatest weakness?"
She didn't even have to think about it. "Taijutsu. I'm just not very strong, physically."
"All right." He grinned, as though at some private joke. "When the body is strengthened, its internal chakra flows are increased in turn. If it is trained in a particular -way-, then their -patterns- are also altered."
She nodded. "I remember. We learned that in the academy."
"Right. What you didn't learn, because the practical considerations make it moot, for most people, is that the reverse is also true. By altering your internal chakra flows, you can alter the function of your own body."
"Ninjutsu, right?"
"Broadly, yes. But that's not what I meant. A body-alteration ninjutsu is a chakra construct defined and executed in terms of a real body - that is, its internal logic is described by how it alters what is already there. It anchors itself to the natural chakra flows, but it does not actually -change- them. It simply... covers them, and when it is done they are left much as they were."
"Oh."
"When you alter the base flows, in contrast, you are changing the operation of your body - the redefining the unchanging constant upon which a ninjutsu would be based. You may increase the strength of your muscles and the resilience of your flesh - or -de-crease them, if you had reason to do so. Instead of using your body to guide a quantity of kinetic chakra, so that you -seem- stronger, you actually -become- so."
"Wow... But," some of his earlier words returned to mind and broke through her awe at the many possibilities unfolding from such an idea. "What did you mean about the 'practical considerations'?"
"The degree of alteration required is extremely subtle. Doing this consistently enough to be useful requires that your control of your chakra be -absolutely- -perfect-. I'm the only Jounin in the village right now who can do it in meditation, and there's -no one- who can do it in combat. ANBU can't. Sandaime-sama can't. Ninety-nine out of a hundred medic-nins - whose stock-in-trade -is- their chakra control - couldn't, even if they knew to."
Her eyes went very wide. "But... if you're telling me, then..."
He met her gaze - and grinned. "At the usual rate of improvement, five years to use it in a combat situation, or three in training. If you make control a special focus, one year combat, eight months training. If you drop everything else and train intensively, three months to fight... and two weeks to levels useful for training."
"If I can't use it in a real fight, what use is training with it?"
"When control is relaxed and the patterns revert, they do not do so all the way - their default position has been slightly altered in the direction of the enhancement, a little farther each time..."
"...so that each time I trained with altered chakra, I'd be a little stronger when I finished!" She leaned forward and bounced slightly. "Where do I start?"
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"Right, good, you've got this cold. Take a break, recover a bit. Running yourself -all- the way out of chakra won't do anything to improve your capacity. Hey Naruto! What'cha need?"
Sakura struggled to pull herself into a vaguely respectable sitting position, rather than just lying on the forest floor like what she felt like - a well beaten rug. She turned her head slightly, ignoring the audible grinding noise coming from inside her neck. "hi naruto..."
Konoha's most hyperactive ninja charged over to his crush's side. "Sakura-chan! What happened?!"
Neshan set a hand on his shoulder and pulled him gently away. "Don't worry. She just overdid the training a bit. She'll be fine."
"How did she overdo it," Sasuke asked from the edge of the clearing, "if you were right here?"
"I'm starting her on a different regimen from you two; hers goes faster if you run yourself -almost- all the way down." He leaned forward and murmured, so only Naruto could hear, "i guess you changed your mind?"
"Yeah..."
Sasuke sat facing the three already present, forming a rough circle. "Alright, Dobe. What did you need to talk to us about?"
Naruto looked down at the dirt just in front of his crossed legs, face shadowed and voice entirely serious. "Twelve years ago... the Yondaime Hokage defeated the Kyuubi, the nine-tailed demon fox... But... He didn't kill it."
"what?" Sakura said. "baka. of course he killed it. everyone knows that." {Damn straight!} [...ow... not so loud...]
"No. We kids were all told that it was killed, but it wasn't. It was sealed - locked away inside the bellybutton of a baby."
"If we weren't supposed to be told, how do you know?" Sasuke challenged.
"The final academy test... I failed it, remember? That night... Mizuki-sensei came to me and said that there was a traditional last chance for failing students. If I could get a certain scroll, and bring it to him, then he'd be able to pass me.
"I got it, and... showed it to Iruka-sensei. He said that that scroll... was actually a list of kinjutsu, forbidden techniques. That I'd be in a lot of trouble for taking it. Mizuki-sensei came then. He attacked Iruka-sensei. He wanted me to give him the scroll... Iruka-sensei said that he'd lied to me, to get me to steal the scroll for him. Mizuki-sensei said there was no point in my having the scroll, because... because..." Tears were rolling down his cheeks.
"he said that you were the fox's prison, naruto?" Sakura gave him a weak smile, and laid a comforting hand on his knee. [wow. this is big... who'd've thought that 'that naruto' was hiding something this important.]
"No. No, he said that, that I -was- the fox. That that was why all the adults in the village hated me. That that was why -Iruka-sensei- really hated me. That that was why... everyone always -would- hate me."
"Sensei," Sasuke said. "Is this true?"
"It is forbidden," Neshan said slowly, "for any adult to speak of the fate and disposition of the nine-tailed demon fox. But, there is a jutsu which produces a seal of the type described, and to the best of my knowledge it is the only way a being of the Kyuubi's power could be defeated out of the means available to the Fourth Hokage."
Sasuke and Sakura absorbed that for a moment. "oh."
Naruto's hands were fisted around the fabric of his pants, every line of his body screaming tension.
Sasuke snorted. "There is no way that the dead last ninja of our graduating class could be a demon as powerful as that."
Naruto's head snapped up. "Hey!" he yelped - but his eyes glowed.
"baka naruto. you're annoying... but that doesn't make you a monster."
Neshan met Naruto's eyes and mouthed 'I told you so.'
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"YO, BRAT!"
Neshan looked up from the array of papers spread across the table in front of him. "There's no need to shout, Anko-sempai. This is a library, after all."
Special Jounin Mitarashi Anko was usually willing to take any chance to tweak a stuffed shirt's nose, but there was no point being vulgar when there was only him around to see it. -He- got knotted up just because going all provocative stirred up feelings he trusted even less than the rest of his emotions, and that wasn't any fun. So she saved the effort and just flopped across the nearest free chair like some net-covered invertebrate. "Guess what!"
"You're going to flay Hyuuga Hiashi alive and dance through the streets of the village with his head on a spear and feathers in your hair, singing enka at the top of your lungs?"
"Nah. Don't want his blood on me; might be catching." She grinned, then leaned forward, bouncing slightly in her seat. "No, what happened today was... He talked to me!"
"A complete sentance this time, I take it?"
She rapped her knuckles across the crown of his head. "Of course, you twit. We were talkin' about the new batch of Genin. He wanted t' make sure I wasn't gonna eat one'v his precious students."
He chuckled and tucked a slip of scrap paper in the book to mark his place. "Be fair; you -do- come across as the type."
"Feh. Like they'd let me play shrink if it was true? Let alone -run- the damned loonie bin?"
"Because of course you're such a terribly modest and retiring person that no one has any problem at all retaining their dispassion and critical thinking skills."
The shot went home, and Anko slumped. "Yeah, maybe you're right. 'S just... why'd it have to be -him-?"
It was his turn to rap -her- on the head, and he duly leaned forwards and did so. "He was nervous because he didn't know you well enough to know better. Spend some time -talking- to him rather than stalking from afar and he'll calm down."
"But-"
"Ah-ah!" He interrupted her protest with a raised finger. "Was he as nervous when you were done talking as he was when you started?"
She thought for a moment, then looked relieved. "No. Not nearly."
"Well! There you are, then." He cast about for a subject to change to, before she could start in on her fantasy life - -again-. "Segueing from, how's your team look?"
She gave him a knowing sort of look, but played along. "If yer joking about dead Hyuugas then you know something already."
"Hina-chan, you mean? Yeah, she's a sweetie. Cute as a basket full of kittens. I tried to adopt her a couple of times when her class came here on field trip, give her a place to hide out away where her family couldn't hassle her. It didn't take, though, so there was only so much I could do. I knew you'd gotten her, but not who the rest of the team was."
"Inuzuka and Aburame. Know 'em?"
He nodded. "Vaguely. Kiba's a loudmouth; kinda hard to miss. Shino I've known a while - his big brother was on my genin team. Quiet kid, obsessive about bugs - even by -his- clan's generous standards."
"Thanks for the tip." She gave a little mock shudder. "I figure to get the boys workin' together to help out 'Hinata-imoto-chan' so's to boost her confidence. Between you'n me, her actual -skills-'re Chuunin grade already - or would be if she didn't flinch nine times outta ten. By the way, you talked to Ibiki yet?"
"Not today, why?"
"He latched onta me about dinnertime - I just pried him loose a couple minutes ago. It -seems-," and here she smirked, with a sort of inner delight at seeing the tables of fate justly turned, "that he's got a girl on his hands with some -real- interest'n kinks. He gave 'em his usual tour a' the dungeons, and from what he -didn't- say she was goin' real weak at the knees by the end of it. Wanted me to come up with a psychological excuse not to pass her."
He sniffed. "Surprising he'd see it that way, given what the rumor mill says about -him-. 'Her,' 'her...' he's got this generation's Ino-Shika-Chou, doesn't he?"
"That's them!" she chirped.
"'Her...' Skinny kid, platinum blonde, bossy as they come? Social butterfly type?"
She shrugged. "Dunno. Never met 'er. What about your three?"
"They're the next Legendary Three."
She raised her eyebrows. "No shit?"
He raised his right hand, palm out, and laid his left across his heart. "I shit you not. Sasuke's classic Uchiha across the board, right down to the obsessive tendancies. Real paragon of the type, too. Naruto, well, you know what I..." His speech dropped off into nothing as a look of dawning realization crossed his face. He grinned and jabbed a pointing finger in Anko's face. "PAY ME, SUCKER!"
Stare. "No way. Nobody's that strong. Nobody -human-."
"You know how this works!" he crowed. "He -is-, -exactly- in time with the seal's decay, -exactly- the same as what's leaking through!"
"But, but... does it gotta be -dango-?" she whined.
He blinked. "'Course not. You know I can't stand the stuff."
She sighed, visibly relieved. "No problem, then. Hey, what about the third?"
"Sakura?" Neshan tucked both hands behind his neck and smiled at the sealing. "She reminds me of me. Only better. Not as self-motivated, no great causes, but a lot more flexible thinker. Trust me," he turned his gaze back to her, and grinned. "They're gonna change the world."
And after that, conversation turned to lighter things, like work and business, and went on into the night.
"That was a week a' lunches, right?"
"A -month-, and you know it, Senpai!"
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp &nbsp TO BE CONTINUED...
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
Re: I just realized...
#27
Quote:
Konoha Genin teams have two boys and one girl. Always. Which means that it was actually Aburame-no-neesan who was killed.
Or Kabuto's a better actor than you think.---------------
Leo: (July 23 - Aug 22)
You'll feel a lot better with warm clothes on your back and food in your stomach, proving that cannibalism has a couple things going for it.
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"
Reply
Re: TGNH - Chapter 2
#28
BTW, Happerry, welcome to the forums!

-- Bob
---------
It's spelt "Frodo Baggins" but it's pronounced "Throat-wobbler Mangrove."
Reply
Re: TGNH - Chapter 2
#29
Thank You[Image: smile.gif]
Reply
A -Wierd- Thought
#30
This came to me and it won't go away. I'm writing it down here in hopes that it'll let me get to sleep if I do.
So: What City of Heroes Archetype is your favorite Ninja?
Team 7 (canon)
Kakashi - Ice/Energy Blaster
Naruto - Scrapper
Sasuke - Fire/Energy Blaster
Sakura - Scrapper
Team 7 (TGNH)
Neshan - Invulnerable Tanker
Naruto - Fire/Energy Blaster
Sasuke - Illusion/Kinetic Controller
Sakura - Martial Arts/Reflexes Scrapper
Rookie 9
Hinata - Scrapper
Kiba - Scrapper
Shino - Controller
Chouji - Tanker
Shikamaru - Dark/Dark Defender
Ino - Empath/Psychic Defender
Team Gai
Neji -
Lee - MA/Reflexes Scrapper
Tenten - Blaster
Sand Sibs
Gaara - Tank
Temari - Storm Defender
Kankuro - Controller
Legendary Three
Orochimaru - Controller
Tsunade - Strength/Regen Scrapper (Yes, I'm aware that this isn't actually legal. But it should be, dammit.)
Jiraiya - ...no clue
Ja, -n
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
TGN(Co)H
#31
I'm gonna have to be snarky here - and insist that canon Kyuubi-Flamin'-Naruto is a fire tanker. Who makes liberal use of Healing Flames.
Of course, he'd need the Phantom Army power from the Illusion Controller set, but...
...on the other hand, Fire/Energy Blaster is a scarily accurate depiction of canon Sasuke.
Neji and Hinata are Dark Melee scrappers. No. Really. Take away all the shadowy smoke billowing around from the Dark Melee attacks, and whadda ya got?
A set that gives you an attack power that involves punchin' the crap out of a opponent repeatedly, while reducin' their ability to hit you...a buncha drain powers, a buncha quasi-controller lockdown powers...Touch of Fear (fear, duh), Midnight Grasp (Immobilizes)...
And the Hyuugas have the Body Mastery epic power pool. Which gives, of course, Focused Accuracy - and for Neji's little ranged shockwave thingy in the later manga, Energy Torrent!
Okay, that's putting way too much thought into this.
Dunno what secondary they'd have, though. Super Reflexes for Hinata, sure, but I have no idea what fits Neji's Kaiten. Invulnerability? Mph.
-- Acyl
Reply
The hell with it.
#32
It's almost done and I'm sick of sitting on it.
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TEENAGE GENIN NINJA HEROES
chapter 3
A Loss, a Hero, an Enemy and a Bridge

JUNE, TWELFTH YEAR AFTER THE ATTACK OF THE KYUUBI
"AAARRRGH! -WHY- does he -do- these things?!" howled Haruno Sakura as she scrubbed futilely at the stained fabric of the shirt a friend had loaned her.
"I think it's mostly based on the theory that bad attention is better than no attention," Bakusuta Neshan, the Jounin assigned to teach her and her two teammates the basics of ninja fieldcraft, observed as he leaned over her hunched shoulders and tugged the fabric out of her grip.
"Eh?" she said, then flinched away from the splatter as he snapped the shirt dry with a quick flick of the wrist.
"Hare, rat, rat, ram, hare..." The mud imbedded in the delicately patterned silk shivered slightly, then lifted away to collect into a glistening orb that hovered in mid-air between his hands. "Most useful jutsu in the world. It works on hair, cloth, metal... anything."
"Sugoi. I'll have to remember that. And you're stalling."
"Well, yes. It's not really my place to tell; I've already said more than I should have." And that, she knew, was the end of it.
"Tease."
"It'll do you two good to talk about it." He flicked the sphere of mud out into the center of the stream. "Let's get back."
"Hai!"
They walked through the forest the short distance from the stream to the road, and Uzumaki Naruto, who still had streaks of mud buried in his hair from when his enraged female teammate had ground his head into the same puddle he'd knocked -her- into, looked up, wearing an uncharictaristically chastened look on his childish, be-whiskered face. "Sakura-chan?"
"What!?" she snapped.
"I'm sorry." He bowed his head and figited a little.
She gave him a cockeyed look. "Do you even realize what you're sorry -for-?"
He hesitated. "Aaaahhh... Making you unhappy?"
She shook her head in a sort of horrified wonder. "I didn't-" a hand rested on her shoulder cut her off, and she looked up at her teacher's face. "Sensei?"
"Wouldn't any other answer just mean the same thing, at the very bottom?"
She blinked at him and thought about it for a moment, then sighed and gave Naruto a small smile. "All right. But if you do that again I -won't- be held responsible for the consequences."
Uchiha Sasuke, that year's Number One Rookie and three time winner of the Konohagakure Ultimate Teen Heartthrob Award (Under 15 division), snorted. "Wonderful. Let's go, then."
"Right!" Naruto and Sakura said, grinning, as their charge, bridge architect Umida Tazuna yawned and heaved himself upright from where he's been resting on a tree root.
"Wait." Neshan held up a hand. "Sasuke, heavy dispel."
The last of the Uchiha blinked in confusion, then nodded. "Hai!" Four quick seals, then- "Oukai no Jutsu!"
Two men dropped from the branches overhead to land in the scruffy grass along the south margin of the road. "Heh heh... You're pretty good, Mr. Leaf," said the taller of the two to the Jounin, adjusting his Hidden Mist headband slightly. "But don't think-"
"Kids, sic 'em. I'll play backstop."
All three Genin reacted to the command instantly - Sasuke lunged for one of the Mist-nin, leading his attack with a kunai that had appeared almost magically in his hand, and Sakura literally seemed to teleport from a standing ready stance to a spinning kick more than twelve feet away, right next to the other. Naruto didn't charge immediately, instead taking a moment to generate an escorting squad of Kage Bunshin before he went on the attack.
Sasuke's target flinched back out of range, then dived to one side with the edged chain built into his guantlet flickering out and free in an arc directly towards Sakura. She avoided it with ease, but the two Mist-nin used her momentary disengagement to cut and run, dissapearing into the forest.
"Pursue," the command rapped out, and they did, with Naruto's clones swinging out in a wide arc to cover more ground.
There was silence for a moment, and then Neshan spun and threw a plum-sized sphere in a classic fastball pitch at an apparantly innocuous branch. A couple of feet before impact, the ball burst like a confetti firework, scattering bits of paper barely larger than a speck of dust in a pale cloud around the bough. An instant later, the first spark caught and grew into a shattering explosion that knocked the tree over and sent burning splinters showering across the forest floor.
"You -are- good, spotting my clone like that," said the deep voice thrown to just behind his ear. "But I can't say I know your name."
"Bakusuta Neshan. And you are?" His eyes tracked slowly across the undergrowth of the forest, looking, looking.
"Momoichi Zabuza, once of Hidden Mist... I know that name... what is Konoha's legendary sealing genius doing going on a pissant field mission like escorting an architect?"
Not over -there-, which meant... "I'm hardly -that- great. And I have to teach my team fieldwork -somehow-."
"No," and now the voice was no longer disguised, and coming from behind him... next to Tazuna. "I guess you're not."
All five of Neshan's array of thrown kunai blasted straight through the architect's body and buried themselves deep within the missing-nin's. Both corpses stood for a moment longer, then vanished, one into a puff of smoke and the other into a splash of water.
The younger man brought one hand up and the other down and both back just in time for the massive sword blow aimed at his back to slam into his naginata's interposed pole. A split second later, the butt of the polearm came up and right as he ducked and stepped and spun to the left, slamming the heavy metal pipe into where Zabuza's ribs would have been had the swordsman not pushed down and forward with both blade and feet, hopping high and a little back, out of reach.
"A naginata, huh? That's not a veryWHOA!" Neshan had kept turning as the older Jounin spoke, and added a quick step to the side as the weapon rotated in his grip, trading ends to lead with the razor-edged blade as he came back into striking range and sent it flicking out in a lightning strike that Zabuza barely twisted away from.
The Mist-nin backflipped twice, opening the range before he paused to reevaluate his opponent. For his part, the other simply brought the deceptively slender polearm back into its standard sloping ready position and cocked his head. "What's Gatou paying you, anyway? 'Cause, y'know, we Leaves aren't so terribly pleased with the current Mizukage's 'accidental target misidentification' policy." 'And if you don't piss us off,' went the unspoken part of the message, 'we might be persuaded to see fit to provide some free agent like yourself with the means to do something about that common goal.'
In the blur of combat there hadn't been time for them to take a good look at each other, but in the pause both of them did so. Neshan saw a rangy man of about six feet in height, greasy black hair with a scored Mist hitai-ite, pants and sleeveless shirt in dark blue with the gray mufflers which so many shinobi liked to hide things in on calves and forearms. He knew what Zabuza was seeing, too: a boy or young man in his late teens, with spectacles, Leaf headband, and dark hair pulled back in a knee-length braid, wearing dark grey pants and buttoned shirt under a forest-green high-collared trenchcoat.
"No," the taller of the two said regretfully, "I can't. This time I'm only working for the sake of my hostage to fate." He planted his sword - a massive, squared-off blade almost as long as he was, -without- the arm-length hilt - firmly in the ground and brought his hands together in the first of a blurringly quick series of seals.
Neshan was caught between sympathy for his foe's unexpected motivation and contempt for his choice of tactics, and firmly supressed both as he launched another array of kunai and followed the flying blades in.
Horizontal sweep - he knew that pattern - spinning up and around his back and down from overhead as Zabuza keeps backpedaling - Suiryuudan no Jutsu, the water dragon, and they -were- close enough to the stream for him to use that - lunging forward with the naginata pivoting against the ground towards Zabuza's face like a rake that'd just been stepped on - dragon, snake, rat, he's got seven more to go - then pivoting around the vertical weapon like a pole vaulter to slam both feet into his opponent's chest and knock the larger man flying.
He let the reaction from that impact carry him up and over and back to land on his feet, but by the time he was anchored again Zabuza had recovered and come too close to fight with such a large weapon. He dismissed it, and they exchanged blows for a period that could have been a minute or could have been only a few seconds, and in any event ended with them locked in an awkward grapple with Neshan in a half crouch, one hand trapped between that shoulder and his opponent's chest and the other held outstretched, without the leverage to fight back.
He twitched his wrist back, tapping that hand's fingertips against his opponent's chest, and as he did, sixty-four brilliant streams of chakra erupted from his primary tenketsu and arced up and around to the point of impact. For a fraction of a second - just long enough for the taller man to begin to smile triumphantly - nothing happened.
The ring-shaped secondary shockwave which propagated out perpendicular to the line of the blow was intense enough to scorch skin and set cloth to smoldering, but most of the attack's energy was absorbed carving an eighteen-inch hole through Zabuza's chest and scattering its former contents across a comet-shaped splatter mark fifty feet long. Even the tiny proportion of that force which transferred into the flesh around the hole was enough to knock the fresh corpse flying twice its own length.
"You talk too much," Neshan told the gristly tableau, and then went to find his team.
* * * * *
[J.L. vs. Demon Bros.]
Block right, jump over toe kick, block right, block left, grab-twist-yank and drop an elbow across the back of the skull, step back to keep from being splashed as the bunshin dissolves...
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura snapped from behind him. He turned slightly and glanced out of the corner of his eye as she slipped a blinding thrust past an enemy bunshin's guard and buried a kunai through its temple, then pulled the blade free and spun to slash another's throat open in almost the same motion. "I'll handle the bunshin. Just find the real ones!"
He nodded, then hesitated a moment, running through his options. Yes, that one would do.
"Sabikeibi no Jutsu," he said, and pulled his cupped palms apart. About a dozen tiny dancing motes of light fluttered up in front of him for a moment, then swirled and darted off into the underbrush.
He followed, and a flicker of orange to his right told him that Naruto had seen the Fireflies also. Leaves and branches tore at his face and then he was out in the open, and there was a gleam of metal heading straight towards him. He flipped over it and crouched on the vertical trunk of a tree, looking 'up' and across at one of the two brothers as the bladed chain he had thrown hissed and slithered along the ground as it was wound back up into its concealing guantlet.
"SUITON: GYOSHIBUKI NO JUTSU!" Naruto roared as he emerged from cover, spitting a spreading cluster of short, high-density jets of water as he came.

* * * * *
[Gai informs Hiashi of Neji's fight with Hinata; neither of them are at all pleased to have H. know about it.]
No ninja, no matter how skilled or powerful, could reach the rank of Jounin without first demonstrating both self-control, acting ability, -and- an ability to determine the correct response to a given situation - tactical -or- social. Thus, while the restrained dress and manner which Maito Gai had adopted for his visit to the Hyuuga estate might have shocked those who, like his students, knew only his efervescant public persona, they were actually quite well in line with the man behind the mask.
Or spandex, as the case may be.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Hyuuga-sama," he said, accepting the cup of tea his host had just poured.

* * * * *
"Ano sa, ano sa, is this the place?" Naruto asked, jerking his head at the largish house sitting on the border between sea and forest.
Sakura checked the slip of paper she had fished out of her pocket once they got to the edge of the town and nodded. "Should be. Let's check."
Neshan stepped forward and knocked. The woman who opened the door in response was tall and pretty without being beautiful - or she would have been, anyway, if fear and worry hadn't drawn her face so harshely taunt. "Yes?"
"Umida Tsunami?"
Her eyes flicked across their faces, darting from one hitae ite to another. She flinched.
The Jounin smiled gently, reassuringly. "Your father has contracted my team to deliver something to you."
His explanation of their mission - and his use of the present tense for the man not present - were enough of a relief that she had to lean gently against the doorframe to stay upright. "He's all right?"
"Sakura?"
The female Genin stepped forward and pulled out another piece of paper - this time, a small scroll, which she handed to the older woman. Tsunami's hands trembled as she opened it and began to read, but she didn't hesitate in the slightest.
Which meant that, all too quickly, her eyebrows went up in a puzzled frown. "'Person...?'"
*BAMF*
"Keeping your principal in a safe place for the trip and then summoning him using a jutsu at the final destination isn't a standard procedure," Neshan explained, "because it requires considerably more manpower. At the very least, you'll need one team to protect him and one more to deliver the scroll. On the other hand, Konohagakure is a high-security area anyway, and no one would look twice at another visitor to the capital of the Fire Country... especially if he wasn't even wearing his own face."
Tazuna chuckled as he pulled his daughter into a hug. "As super-wierd as it sounded when you explained it to me, I guess this plan of yours was a good idea after all."
The Jounin shrugged. "Maybe. But that last nukenin worries me - I was hoping to catch all four of them."
"Maybe so, but there's not much we can do about it now, is there?"
"Actually," Tsunami broke in, "There might be."
"Oh?" His eyebrows went up. "Do tell."
"Come inside," she said, and they did. Eventually, after tea had been served and Sakura had threatened Naruto into silence, she explained.
"In the last few days there have been a number of very confusing rumors going around - mostly to the effect that someone has killed Gatou and taken over his criminal contacts. I wouldn't mention it, except that the things that that devil-woman is supposed to do to people don't sound like they could come from anything but a ninja." She took a sip of tea. "One of the other things the rumors are consistent on is where she's been basing her operations - an old Kirigakure outpost in the swamps along the eastern coast of the island."
Neshan took a deep breath and nodded. "All right. Sakura and I will check it out in the morning, while Sasuke and Naruto stay with you, Umida-san."
The aging engineer simply nodded, and before the conversation could move on to other things, a voice interrupted from the bottom of the stairwell. "Who are these people?"
"Ah!" Tazuna stood, smiled, and gestured towards his guards. "These four are the super-skilled ninja who've been contracted to protect me while we finish the bridge. Ninja-san, this is my grandson, Inari."
The young boy standing at the foot of the stairs adjusted his fisherman's hat and walked over to stare up at Neshan, the oldest of the ninja and the obvious leader. "What kind of fool risks his life for nothing but money?" he sneered.
"Hey, you!" Naruto yelled, advancing towards the younger boy. "You should-"
Neshan laid a restraining hand on his student's shoulder. "A tyrant thrown down, a nation freed, thousands of lives bettered... That's a success worth dying for, I think."
"You're a moron!" The boy snapped, fists clenched at his sides. "You're just going to fail and get yourself killed!"
The ninja looked down at those furious eyes and shrugged. "Maybe. But nobody lives forever, and at least I'll die trying."
* * * * *
There was a quiet, almost subliminal noise in the background as they made their cautious way through the deserted headquarters, like an unnameable hybrid of dripping liquid and the thin keening of wind through open rafters. Despite its wooden construction, the building had old-fashioned torch nooks every dozen feet or so, but they were empty and cold, leaving jagged swathes of shadow to spiderweb their way across the walls and ceiling.
Sakura paused before opening the first door. "Sensei... I smell..."
"Yeah. Me too."
She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the coppery aftertaste that that scent brought to her mouth.
Then she opened the door, and was immediately occupied with avoiding the aftertaste of that morning's breakfast. She succeeded, barely, and Neshan simply closed his eyes sadly for a moment once he realized what he was looking at. A moment and a soft, sighing breath later, he opened them and closed the door behind him, leaving his student standing in the hallway and - to her relief - cutting off all view of that... pocket of hell.
[Dear gods, please, let me -never- understand how someone could use human skin to do...] her mind shied away from the image. In the back of her conciousness, another part of her mind clenched its metaphorical fists. {This bitch is fucking -dead-,} she vowed, and for once her more public half couldn't have agreed more.
She glanced away as the door opened. "Sensei... do we have to..."
"Yes. Anything we can learn is needed; no matter what we have to wade through."
She swallowed. "'A ninja is someone who does whatever it takes,'" she said, bouncing one of his favorite maxims back at him.
"Exactly." And with no further words needed, they moved calmly through, checking each room as they passed. Fortunately for Sakura's stomach, rooms like the first were rare - some of the others had old bloodstains spread across every surface, but for the most part there was nothing to indicate that people had ever been present.
"Well, at least the kitchen's normal."
"Take another look at what's on the spit."
"...-Thanks-, Sensei. That's -exactly- the image I needed to have in my head before dinnertime."
"You've been spending too much time around me. You're starting to pick up my sense of humor."
"At least we know that Gatou-san isn't a threat anymore."
"Granted, but do you really think that the psycho-bitch needs to get paid for this?"
"Point."
And then, at last, they came to a largeish room just off of the building's massive central chamber. Neshan paused outside of it, and raised one eyebrow in an unspoken question as he met his student's eyes. 'Do you feel it?'
She blinked, then closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment. Eventually, she opened them and shrugged. 'No, nothing.'
He opened the door. At the center of the squarish room was a plain wooden table a little more than waist high for an adult. It was slightly inclined, and had deep grooves running its length arranged for maximum drainage. Much of the table was crusted to a dark brick red, as was a broad circular swathe of the floor centered underneath the table's lower end. Thin streams of brighter red flowed slowly down the grooves to drip and splash in the tiny puddles underneath the ends of the gutters.
The person - the boy - lying naked on the table looked like an image out of a nightmare. Vast patches of his skin were either missing entirely or stretched and opened away from the flesh underneath by thin cords depending from the ceiling. More cords wrapped around the table and into and -through- his body, binding him tightly against the rough wood, and still others supported both the several still-living organs held in the air above his motionless body and the blood vessels that kept them as part of the whole.
For a moment, she thought that that nightmarish web of strings was nothing more than simple threat, but as she looked closer she realised that - from their appearance and -where- they penetrated into his body - they had almost certainly actually been woven from living connective tissue.
"What a horrible way to die," she murmured unconciously.
The boy on the table turned his head to look at her, and his eyes were clear and all too lucid amid the horrible scarring and desecrated flesh that had once been a human face. "...who..."
She ran. She turned and bolted and curled up in one of the farthest corners of the main chamber to hug her knees as close to her chest as she could manage and hyperventilate until either she passed out or that image burned into her soul went away.
Some time later - she would never be precisely sure how long - someone rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. Since she had unconciously picked up his chakra approaching, she didn't jump in fright, but instead only looked up into her Sensei's concerned eyes.
"Are you all right?"
She swallowed, then nodded convulsively.
"All right." And she stood when he beckoned, and then followed him back into That Room.
"his name is haku," Neshan said to her in an undertone as he began to divest himself of most of his usual ninja gear. "and what you could see of what that woman did to him is barely even the half of it. i've managed to get him stable enough to move without danger, but we're going to need to get him to a real hospital as soon as physically possible." He paused, hesitating. "don't let him see you."
Then he walked over to stand next to the bandaged form on the table and said, gently. "I'm sorry. This will hurt."
"...w..t..." Haku whispered.
The Jounin leaned closer. "Yes?"
"...where... going...?" he forced out.
"Konoha. You'll be welcome there."
A tear gathered at the corner of one eye, then dropped and started to trace its way through the pattern of those horrible scars. "...never... want...me..."
Neshan smiled. "Konoha was founded by a number of clans who had run from different countries, each for their own reasons. Some wanted to escape being used for others' agendas; others were tired of being persecuted, and still more saw a chance to gain greater power as part of a new nation rather than an old. Regardless, they all went into what was, at the time, an impenetrable jungle full of lethal plants and nin-beasts... and they were all dedicated to building a nation where people with Bloodline Limits like theirs could live as equals rather than tools or demons. Things've changed some since then, of course, but the Hidden Village of the Leaf still holds more Bloodlines than all the other nations put together." He leaned down and adjusted the bandage across Haku's forehead before picking him up in his arms with infinite gentleness. "You'll fit right in."
* * * * *
[gorepuppets kill Tazuna]
Sakura was nervous, and she didn't know why. Gatou was dead, his company was in disarray, and his pet psychopath hadn't shown her face in weeks. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that the maniac hadn't just packed up and left, but some fragment of her subconcious kept insisting that they hadn't seen the last of that twisted mind.
As time had gone by, Team 7 had settled on the routine of having Naruto - or rather, his obligatory retinue of shadow clones - do most of the watching while the other three members took shifts staying close to their principal. While the clones couldn't observe any better than their creator, they -could- be in as many as twelve places at once, making up in redundancy and proximity what they lacked in acuity. Naruto himself simply rested and studied most of the time, conserving his chakra to replace the guards when the energy supplies holding them together ran out.
The construction workers who actually had to labor on the bridge while the four ninja apparently sat around and did nothing had been surprisingly understanding. All but a very few of them had had experience in other professions, like fishing, which made up for long dry periods with bursts of intense activity, and the site's grapevine had comfortably absorbed the idea that ninja duties followed the same pattern.
"Oi, Boss!" one of the men clustered around the bottom of the newest piling shouted up at Tazuna. "When are we due for lunch?"
"Finish that, then take a half hour!" their superior bellowed back.

* * * * *
It was too similar to be a coincidence.
Sasuke's jaw clenched. This woman -knew- them, knew -him-, and had deliberately arranged her murder of their host's family to...
"She's changed their clothes," he told his teammates.
"Yeah, so?" Naruto asked. "It's just a Henge."
The dark-haired Genin didn't answer directly, instead simply crouching down to roll... Tsunami-san's corpse... over onto its front, ignoring the tacky, drying blood and dangling shreds of flesh.
"Kuso," the shorter of his teammates whispered, with an uncharacteristically pale expression.
"The Uchiha crest..." the third murmured, looking puzzled for a moment, then her eyes widened. "No! This is like..."
"That day. Yes."
"Sasuke..." she said, reaching out a hand, helplessly offering... neither of them was certain what.
He nodded to her, acknowledging and showing gratitude for the effort at the same time as he refused it, and said, "Lets look around. Maybe this... madwoman left something we can use."
And they did, spreading out to cover the entire house and its immediate grounds thoroughly.
"Well?" Sakura asked eventually, leaning over their sensei's shoulder to glance at the tracks he was examining.
"You know already. She's made it too obvious; she -wants- to be followed." He sighed and sat back on his heels. "Unfortunately, I don't see much else that we can do at this point."
Naruto snorted. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?!" And with that he was gone, and Sasuke close behind.
"Sakura."
She turned to look at her teacher, and that constant unease that had been dogging her was back again. She had never heard him sound that serious. "Hai, Sensei?"
"I... Haku told me about our enemy. I'd spare the three of you from this if I could - but I'm not strong enough to win this without you." He hesitated. "I... I'm sor-"
She cut him off. "It's all right. I understand about duty."
He nodded sadly, and then they followed her teammates.
* * * * *
"Looking for me, Sasuke-kun?"
Team 7 stopped in place and spun as a single body.
Sasuke knew, looking at last at the face of their enemy, that she must have been beautiful, once. She was tall, for a woman, almost exactly six feet, and if she hadn't looked so worn and starved then her long, powerful frame and lethal ninja's grace would have been outright riveting. As it was, even with the scars seaming her body and his knowledge of what she was capable of, she was still attractive. Her yukata-like dress had long, sweeping sleeves but was cut high across her thighs, and its brilliant red fabric was scattered with irregular patches of darker red, particular around the cuffs and the lower edges of the sleeves.
Her long, slightly feathery pink hair swept and tangled behind her in an unrestrained mass which was held back from her face by a Konoha hitae-ite across the top of her head. Its slightly tarnished surface had had a deep, straight score etched across its distinguishing sigil. Her eye sockets were badly scarred, and the organs occupying them had obviously been transplanted, since one of them gleamed with the deceptive white blankness of the Hyuuga Byakugan.
"Sharingan," he breathed, as he took in the other. And indeed it was, blood red, with three comma-shaped secondary pupils spinning slowly around the central fourth.
"Yours, even, Sasuke-kun" the apparition said, with a horrible parody of a giggle. "And the other gives -dear- Hina-chan another look at you at last, Naruto."
"H-hina-chan?" Naruto stuttered, transfixed as a songbird facing a snake.
"Hyuuga Hinata, Naruto," Their sensei said idly. "And no, we weren't, quite yet. We wanted to figure out what you wanted, first."
"I want you to suffer, of course. And then I want you to die. Your blood and your agony... I want to splash around like a little girl as it puddles at my feet. I want to bathe in it, caress it, impale myself on it, devour it."
Sasuke, despite all the years of effort he had invested in controlling his actions and emotions, flinched away from the thought. "Sakura...san... Why would you-"
She cut him off with a snarl. "Why? Why do you think, you condescending fucking ice-hearted traitor! Because you pushed me down, because you tried to break me, because you tried to -own- me, you and that fucking fox-bastard crashing around trying to sneak up behind me." She cocked her head and leaned forward with her hands braced on her knees and a secretive little smile on her face. "And you'll pay for it - pay in full, both of you and especially that cowardly little cunt beside you."
Their sensei stepped in to intervene. "Then I guess I'll have to stop you."
The Smile widened, hungry and eager. "Do you really think you can beat me?"
He gave a smile of his own. Being scared wouldn't accomplish anything, nor being angry. With those gone, he could appreciate the humor of the situation, black as it was. "Not unless you do something a lot dumber than I expect you to. But a draw isn't out of the question."
She laughed, and if they hadn't been able to see her eyes, then it would have seemed perfectly natural and human... which made it all the worse, of course. "Who do you think you're talking to?" She leaned forward again, and spoke in a mock-confidential tone. "I'm the perfect killer!"
*crich*
*gunch*
"I take a lot of killing."
TO BE CONTINUED...
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
The hell with it.
#33
Time travel? Well, that's one way of making an effective villain.
Poor Sakura, seeing such a fractured reflection of herself. Nobody should go through that ...
Makes for nice drama, though.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#34
Quote:
Poor Sakura, seeing such a fractured reflection of herself. Nobody should go through that...
No, certainly not - but I think she'll be the better for it. I think that all or almost all of Sakura's real problems stem from the same source - her willingness to conform, to try and live up to other people's expectations.
For example, she's a girl, and of course girls are supposed to be delicate and restrained, not fierce and agressive. So she locks her emotions away, suppresses them so thoroughly that she often doesn't even realize that she's doing it, and in the process she sabotages her own potential before it can even show itself - because her parents and teachers have, even if unconciously, told her that that's what she's supposed to do.
In short, I think that -every- member of Team 7 has essentially the same drive, the same indomitable will. The thing that really seperates Sakura is that, where Sasuke has been nurtured and Naruto's been provoked, she's been -smothered- every time she tried to reach for a ring, told to 'settle down and act more feminine.'
But the power's still there, and being confronted with an absolutely unimpeachable example of what could happen if she keeps living in her conditioned denial will prompt her to take a good, long, honest look at exactly -who- -she- -is-.
And, if nothing else, she's going to -know- that, if she has the will to try, she can be a hell of a lot more than the one that everyone always has to protect.
At the moment, my (highly nebulous) long term plans call for three major plot arcs, each involving one of the kids' struggle with their own personal monsters.
Guess who Sakura drew.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#35
Evil Sakura (start at Orochimaru at the character select screen and press select, up, left, down, left, right, left, up, and then select; sorry, bad joke): whoa.
And here I was, thinking it would be an Evil Tsunade...
The stolen Sharingan/Byakugan thing was a nice touch: it goes a long way to establish the rather-warped character of this supervillain-ish Sakura and just how far she will go. I wouldn't be surprised if she pulped poor Lee as well, back in her own time/ficton. Or re-crippled him.
Sakura meeting Evil Sakura: While it may be cruel for her to have to see a Super Nasty Evil version of herself, I doubt there'd be anything that'd more effectively shoo her away from that. Also: it'll probably give people who want to underestimate her a little pause.
And another thing that's occurred to me: suppose this gets out to the general Leaf populace. Might this put her in the same boat as Naruto as a victim of "shoo-shoo-get-away-from-me-demon" syndrome? There does seem to be a tendency to demonize people purely on the strength of potential to be dangerous there (Or maybe itll swing the other direction, for once, and shell contract a serious case of oh-god-dont-look-at-her-sideways-or-shell-kill-us-all syndrome?)
Evil Sakura vs. Sakura: Uh-oh. She'd better train.
Edit: fixed typos. Added bolding while I was at it for no particular reason. -----------------
Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, when he said, "I drank what?"
- Chris Knight, Real Genius Two great tastes that go great together!
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#36
Quote:
whoa.
YES! That's -exactly- the reaction I was hoping for.
Quote:
And here I was, thinking it would be an Evil Tsunade...
*blinkblink* Never thought of that one.
Quote:
The stolen Sharingan/Byakugan thing was a nice touch: it goes a long way to establish the rather-warped character of this supervillain-ish Sakura and just how far she will go. I wouldn't be surprised if she pulped poor Lee as well, back in her own time/ficton. Or re-crippled him.
Ficton is the correct guess.
The eyes were actually the very first part of her character to be developed - everything else grew from there.
I hadn't thought about what she'd think of Lee, actually - well, beyond 'everyone we'd recognize died horribly' - but yeah, you're right. She'd have provoked him and taunted him and kept fighting him, baiting him with false hope time and again until he -could not- go farther and then...
She never kills one of her 'projects' cleanly.
It's one of her weaknesses, actually - although, to be honest, she has precious few. Without external connections nor any goal beyond her own, um, lusts, she doesn't really have enough foresight to apply her power to best effect, and compared to other fighters at her level she's got noticable endurance issues, but there are maybe five other players of that grade in the world - ten, absolute tops - so you'd rarely notice it.
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Sakura meeting Evil Sakura: While it may be cruel for her to have to see a Super Nasty Evil version of herself, I doubt there'd be anything that'd more effectively shoo her away from that. Also: it'll probably give people who want to underestimate her a little pause.
With N. around to encourage her to be, um, confident and proactive, like a ninja, rather than passive, like a good little girl, she'd never have been unconfident enough to go down that road. Unlike the Devil in the Red Dress, she's been a full and -equal- member of Team 7 from the get-go, and she knows it.
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And another thing that's occurred to me: suppose this gets out to the general Leaf populace. Might this put her in the same boat as Naruto as a victim of "shoo-shoo-get-away-from-me-demon" syndrome? There does seem to be a tendency to demonize people purely on the strength of potential to be dangerous there (Or maybe itll swing the other direction, for once, and shell contract a serious case of oh-god-dont-look-at-her-sideways-or-shell-kill-us-all syndrome?)
Like Gaara? Either way, no, I'm not planning anything of the sort. As far as Konoha'll be concerned, they'll just be a promising young ninja and her S-Class Missing-nin namesake, rather than different executions of the same person.
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Evil Sakura vs. Sakura: Uh-oh. She'd better train.
Oh yeah. I can't wait to write -that- fight.
Speaking of which, I'd like to throw out a question for input: part of the battle that takes up most of the next chapter is going to be the Devil's use of Edo Tensei to pin the others down while she works on her chosen victim. Now, being who she is, you -know- that she's picking her puppets for maximum emotional damage... I've got Naruto and Sakura covered, and she doesn't -know- Neshan well enough to hit him good, but Sasuke's a puzzler. 'Cause, y'know, Weasel-breath ain't dead yet.
Help?
Ja, -n
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"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
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Re: The hell with it.
#37
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Now, being who she is, you -know- that she's picking her puppets for maximum emotional damage... I've got Naruto and Sakura covered, and she doesn't -know- Neshan well enough to hit him good, but Sasuke's a puzzler. 'Cause, y'know, Weasel-breath ain't dead yet.
Well, in this one doodad I'd been reading it had Orochimaru pitting Sasuke against a zombie of his father as "training", which was written as having put him a bit off his stride.
Thus, I imagine anything involving the other members of his family would shake him pretty good. It's their ghosts which seem to drive him, after all. -----------------
Self-realization. I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, when he said, "I drank what?"
- Chris Knight, Real Genius Two great tastes that go great together!
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#38
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Thus, I imagine anything involving the other members of his family would shake him pretty good. It's their ghosts which seem to drive him, after all.
True and true. Problem is, she's already playing the family card for one of the others, and one thing even her worst detractors have to admit is that the girl's -creative- if nothing else.
*rereads sentance* ...Boy, that comes out tangled when you think about who 'she' is supposed to be.
So anyway, I was sort of looking for something a little different, to build in a bit of variation.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#39
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"At least we know that Gatou-san isn't a threat anymore."

"Granted, but do you really think that the psycho-bitch needs to get paid for this?"
"... Yes."
"Eh?"
"She needs to be paid every tiniest fraction of what she's due for this, and interest besides."
"Ah."

It's occurred to me that a couple of Tom Petty songs fit Naruto well, Runnin' Down a Dream and I Won't Back Down. The music that started playing in my head for Genin Sakura vs. Hell Sakura, though, refuses identification.
You continue to present a unique take on the SI-from-the-beginning motif, and I'll be looking forward to more.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#40
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It's occurred to me that a couple of Tom Petty songs fit Naruto well, Runnin' Down a Dream and I Won't Back Down. The music that started playing in my head for Genin Sakura vs. Hell Sakura, though, refuses identification.
Damn. I'd like to know... do you have any clues to give us?
Hm. Hell Sakura. I like that.
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You continue to present a unique take on the SI-from-the-beginning motif, and I'll be looking forward to more.
Well, I'm glad to hear -that-, although personally I don't think I've done anything terribly creative yet. -Different-, I'll grant you, but Neshan's backstory is blatantly ripped off from Craig Reed's Bubblegum Avatar stuff - and, if I can ever remember to ask permission, it might well be officially so - and there's at least one other 'teach Team 7' take in Naruto fandom.
Anyway, I'm either going to force myself to finish the scenes I missed out of this or dive straight into the big fight at the start of Ch. 4, and either way it'll probably happen relatively soon, since that battle's been driving and gnawing to get out since before I even started this thing.
Oh, and music choices copy/pasted straight out of my arc notes (yes, I have a much too television-focused mind):
Neshan vs. The Devil in the Red Dress: Juno Reactor - Guilty
Sasuke's Battle Theme: Savatage - Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)
Sakura's Battle Theme: Runrig - Breaking the Chains
Naruto's Battle Theme: Niahm Parsons and the Loose Connections - Loosen Up
Hinata's Battle Theme: Nightwish - Moondance
Devil's Battle Theme: John Williams - Duel of the Fates

...N. doesn't have a theme because I've got no fucking clue for an instrumental that'd suit him.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#41
Nice. Keeping the principal in a secure area and then summoning when they reached the house. That's really clever.
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[J.L. vs. Demon Bros.]
Yooooo! The firey passions of youth fuel this excellent display of the Shining Emerald Village Known As the Hidden Leaf most valient asset, TEAMWORK! YOOOOO!
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The young boy standing at the foot of the stairs adjusted his fisherman's hat and walked over to stare up at Neshan, the oldest of the ninja and the obvious leader. "What kind of fool risks his life for nothing but money?" he sneered.
...Neshan laid a restraining hand on his student's shoulder. "A tyrant thrown down, a nation freed, thousands of lives bettered... That's a success worth dying for, I think."

Or alternatively "The fools who just kept your Grandfather alive from the attacks of elite shinobi from a village known for its visciousness you ingratful brat."
Sorry, but despite the sympathy his character was meant to evoke, Inari irritated the crap out of me both as a whiner and super brave kid.
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Her long, slightly feathery pink hair swept and tangled behind her in an unrestrained mass which was held back from her face by a Konoha hitae-ite across the top of her head. Its slightly tarnished surface had had a deep, straight score etched across its distinguishing sigil. Her eye sockets were badly scarred, and the organs occupying them had obviously been transplanted, since one of them gleamed with the deceptive white blankness of the Hyuuga Byakugan.
"Sharingan," he breathed
Oh Shits!

You know, I remember you mentioned that you follow the "Do the worst possible thing to your characters" philosophy of writing, but damn Nathan, I have to tip my hat. That is a seriously fucked up thing to do to Sakura. Both Hell Sakura and Our Sakura. Its still just sort of sinking in. If I were Sakura, this would seriously screw with my world view. She mentioned that what kind of person could do the monstrous things she saw in the headquarters. Well, she has an answer. HER. And while her time with Neshan has largely gotten rid of her need to validate herself through others approval, I can see her backsliding and obsessing about what her teammates think of her. I think that Naruto and Sasuke will instinctively can seperate Hell Sakura and Our Sakura, the groups acceptence of Kyuubi shows that. But how long will it take Sakura to figure that out?
And Neshan. Hell Sakura's a smart cookie, so she's gonna wonder who the hell this guy is and where Kakashi is. And she's gonna want those answers no, and won't be picky on how she gets them. You mention you are thinking about how Neshan can let the others get away at the sacrafice of himself. Well, what if she lets him stall her to get her hands on him?---------------
Leo: (July 23 - Aug 22)
You'll feel a lot better with warm clothes on your back and food in your stomach, proving that cannibalism has a couple things going for it.
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#42
w00t! The review I've been waiting for!
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Nice. Keeping the principal in a secure area and then summoning when they reached the house. That's really clever.
My initial thought was that he'd been henge'd into something insignificant, like a kunai or something. I'm not quite sure why I did it this way... scene just worked out that way, I guess.
Oh, and it's also in keeping with his specialty, which helps.
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Or alternatively "The fools who just kept your Grandfather alive from the attacks of elite shinobi from a village known for its visciousness you ingratful brat."
Well, yes. But I honestly can't see -any- version of myself going out and -saying- that.
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Oh Shits!
*does end zone dance*
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You know, I remember you mentioned that you follow the "Do the worst possible thing to your characters" philosophy of writing, but damn Nathan, I have to tip my hat. That is a seriously fucked up thing to do to Sakura. Both Hell Sakura and Our Sakura. Its still just sort of sinking in. If I were Sakura, this would seriously screw with my world view. She mentioned that what kind of person could do the monstrous things she saw in the headquarters. Well, she has an answer. HER. And while her time with Neshan has largely gotten rid of her need to validate herself through others approval, I can see her backsliding and obsessing about what her teammates think of her. I think that Naruto and Sasuke will instinctively can seperate Hell Sakura and Our Sakura, the groups acceptence of Kyuubi shows that. But how long will it take Sakura to figure that out?
Oooh. I hadn't thought of that. Well, not directly. I had known that the thing that Genin!Sakura would find most upsetting would be the fact that, given some of the comments Hell!Sakura drops during the fight, she can understand, intimately, -exactly- how she ended up where she is.
Which, of course, is why H!S made them in the first place. 'Cause, see, she's not really seeing G!S as a seperate person, let alone really -recognizing- how they differ. She's projecting her memories of what -she- was like at this stage onto G!S... and since they're everything that her concious mind hates about herself, she's sort of caught between destroying the Little Pink Cotton-Candy Bitch in the most utterly horrible painful way she can possibly imagine, and 'helping' her 'grow up and become a stronger person.'
I just realized that I understand the psychopath better than the normal girl. Eek.
So, anyway, at this point I don't really have a plan for how G!S is going to handle the aftermath... I'm sort of waiting for -her- to tell -me-.
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And Neshan. Hell Sakura's a smart cookie, so she's gonna wonder who the hell this guy is and where Kakashi is. And she's gonna want those answers now, and won't be picky on how she gets them. You mention you are thinking about how Neshan can let the others get away at the sacrafice of himself. Well, what if she lets him stall her to get her hands on him?
Hmmm. *jots down some notes*
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#43
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True and true. Problem is, she's already playing the family card for one of the others, and one thing even her worst detractors have to admit is that the girl's -creative- if nothing else.
How bout a modified version for Sasuke. She summons weak versions of the whole Uchiha clan, and stages a Dawn of the Dead remake, burying Sasuke in a groaning, monosyllabic pile of relatives.
---------------
Leo: (July 23 - Aug 22)
You'll feel a lot better with warm clothes on your back and food in your stomach, proving that cannibalism has a couple things going for it.
---
Jon
"And that must have caused my dad's brain to break in half, replaced by a purely mechanical engine of revenge!"
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#44
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Speaking of which, I'd like to throw out a question for input: part of the battle that takes up most of the next chapter is going to be the Devil's use of Edo Tensei to pin the others down while she works on her chosen victim. Now, being who she is, you -know- that she's picking her puppets for maximum emotional damage... I've got Naruto and Sakura covered, and she doesn't -know- Neshan well enough to hit him good, but Sasuke's a puzzler. 'Cause, y'know, Weasel-breath ain't dead yet.
Itachi being dead, and thus summonable like that, would probably fuck with Sasuke's head quite well, even without Itachi being in front of him. I've seen some fics that suggest that there was a cousin (Shushi? something like that) of about Itachi's age that was quite close to Itachi and Sasuke before the Massacre - Itachi's best friend or the like. And he'd probably have Sharingan. But I don't know how canon that is.
Hell, have Shushi Edo Tensei'd before hand and turn up under a henge as Itachi and trade spit with H!Sakura before fighting Sasuke. That would have some significant emotional fallout for Sasuke and Sakura.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#45
I think his name is Uchiha Shisui, though I might be wrong about that - I'm terrible with names. He's never actually shown in the canon, I think...just mentioned in scenes and dialogue. The first we hear of him is when a bunch of Uchiha question Itachi about Shisui's death, accusing him of murder.
He's described as like a (older) brother to Itachi. He's the guy Itachi killed to obtain the Mangekyo Sharingan.
...
And...jeez. Of all the things I was expecting this villain to be...evil Sakura? Now THERE'S a kick to the head...
...but so plausible, man. It...that's brilliant. It make so much sense.
I'm not sure why I so welcome the idea of Sakura flipping out and going psychopathic insane, though. But taking Sasuke's and Hinata's eyes? That's a stroke of genius.
Wonderful thematic and character ramifications. Very clever. Sneet.
-- Acyl
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#46
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He's described as like a (older) brother to Itachi. He's the guy Itachi killed to obtain the Mangekyo Sharingan.
*thinks a moment*
*lightbulb goes on*
Oh. Oh, wow. Oh -yes-!
I'll do -that-.
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And...jeez. Of all the things I was expecting this villain to be...evil Sakura? Now THERE'S a kick to the head...
*polishes a big steel mochi mallet labeled "Plot Hammer", whistling*
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I'm not sure why I so welcome the idea of Sakura flipping out and going psychopathic insane, though. But taking Sasuke's and Hinata's eyes? That's a stroke of genius.
*shrug* Again, it didn't really feel that way - like I said, she -started- with the eyes, and from there it was just a matter of asking what the worst possible place for her to have got them was.
That's really where she got most of her character... that and some casual research on real world serial killers... picking the worst of all possible possibilities.
Ja, -n
===========

===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
Geep!
#47
Let me reiterate what everyone else has:
Whoa. Hell!Sakura is da shiznit!
On another note, might I suggest "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop or Holst's Jupiter, Bringer of Joy for a theme song for Neshan-sensei? Maybe even Mercury, the Messenger also from "The Planets?"
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#48
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Damn. I'd like to know... do you have any clues to give us?

Hm. Hell Sakura. I like that.
(sketches a bow)Always happy to help. As for the music... It's Pray! by Apocalyptica, from Cult. Kaamos would serve almost as well, though. Crimson Tide - Deep Blue Sea is another I'd suggest as possible battle music, by Nightwish, and DragonForce's Black Fire for Itachi, and Duran Duran's Union of the Snake for Cockaroachimaru minions.
- CD
What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?

SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#49
Foxboy:
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Whoa. Hell!Sakura is da shiznit!
It gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to imagine the expressions on people's faces when that light finally dawns.
Quote:
On another note, might I suggest "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop or Holst's Jupiter, Bringer of Joy for a theme song for Neshan-sensei? Maybe even Mercury, the Messenger also from "The Planets?"
I wouldn't have thought to pick something so... heroic for him (and I barely have the nerve to now), but the connection to Jupiter is amusingly apropos on several levels. Thanks!
(Hmm... "Mars" in the IWATDP/Incarna thread, these two here... I'm sensing a pattern.)
Drogn:
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(sketches a bow)Always happy to help. As for the music... It's Pray! by Apocalyptica, from Cult. Kaamos would serve almost as well, though. Crimson Tide - Deep Blue Sea is another I'd suggest as possible battle music, by Nightwish, and DragonForce's Black Fire for Itachi, and Duran Duran's Union of the Snake for Cockaroachimaru minions.
Hmmm. *bustles off to the filesharer* Well, hitting Amazon's sample clips in the meantime, I'd say that Pray! would fit that interaction -real- well. Kaamos not so much - it strikes me as a bit slow for a battle theme, as is the Nightwish one... at least, if it's the song I'm thinking of. *Pray! download comes through* Oh. That's perfect. Especially since, by that point, neither of them has anything at all she wants to say to the other.
The other two I can't comment on... though it's an -utter- shame that that name for Snake-face doesn't work in Japanese. Heh.
Ja, -n
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===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
Reply
Re: The hell with it.
#50
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through* Oh. That's perfect. Especially since, by that point, neither of them has anything at all she wants to say to the other.
Mmmhmm. That's what I thought when it started playing in my head. Kaamos is unlikely to have been well represented by any 30sec sample they could have gotten - it starts off fairly slow, then picks up, and then picks up some more. It probably would do better for exploring somewhere spooky like Hell Sakura's lair.
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The other two I can't comment on... though it's an -utter- shame that that name for Snake-face doesn't work in Japanese. Heh.
Innit just? I've been dying to use that one for weeks.
- CD
ETA: My playlist progressed, and I have another perfect fit: Cake's Pretty Pink Ribbon is Hell Sakura's message to Genin Sakura - "Without the pretty pink ribbon, you'd end up just like me/without the pretty pink ribbon you'd burn these dying leaves"What, you think Samuel L. Jackson isn't going to survive the zombie apocalypse?
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
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