no one said anything about kicking!
I'm dropping this story, but for the curious readers I will now give you a loose walkthrough of my plan for said story.
so... yeah, a lot of experienced readers probably aren't exactly surprised, after all, there has been quite the forest of red flags cropping up. like, for example, the shorter chapter lengths, the huge hiatus, and, most damning of all, the fact that I, essentially, said that I wouldn't drop the story right after I came back, all well-known and well-documented symptoms of a dying story.
but enough about that, here is the outline.
so, to start off with i want to establish what i tried to do up until now, namely that anno, in the beginning, just did what he wanted too, and while that initially wasn't too hurtful, he eventually screwed himself over by trying the heist. but he didn't learn, at least not completely this is to set up that he can handle himself getting hurt and that only when kyoko dies is he so wracked with guilt to a point that he refuses to think or speak her name that he starts to distrust himself. this problem is only worsened when Sakura successfully leads the wave mission, leading to him concluding that there is something wrong with him. danzo is more than willing to capitalize on this by sending a root member disguised as a kiri assassin to hurt anno's friend and gain support from the clan heads in his own warmongering, while also getting an extremely talented fuinjutsu specialist under his thumb. During the chunin exams hoshi is introduced, she is the third party to sai and Anno's "team" and comes in for one purpose, she will be ordered by danzo to leave and hide when they enter the forest of death. she doesn't and when Anno is totally outclassed in his fight with Orochimaru he accepts her help, but, since she was ordered to leave, he also bends, not breaks as he as far too scared to do that, danzo's orders, and as such Danzo orchestrates her death to keep anno scared of any of his own choices, more on that later.
after the exams danzo decides that they need intel on Orochimaru, for that purpose, he makes anno befriend Kimimaru to gain information on the inside. while Anno really is growing close with Kimimaru, he is simultaneously getting psychologically tortured by Danzo to wipe out the last free will he had shown in the chunin exams, this is done primarily by constantly confronting him with the grieving families of the people who died in the information war buildup to Konoha crush until he is finally broken completely when confronted with the cat anbu as he is forced to dissect Hayate Gekko's corpse in front of her, and he is finally so weighed down with guilt and fear of what him breaking orders could do that he will do anything he is told to.
this culminates in his darkest hour when he kills kimimaro, a friend he had grown to care about, even if not as much as the konoha nine, under orders from danzo.
Danzo, confident in Anno's absolute devotion, then sends him, sai, and others to Kiri to help the rebellion, with the support of the clan heads after their children were personally endangered, with the convenient lack of an homage leaving plenty of room to maneuver.
a problem then crops up, however, as the rebellion starts to constantly and rapidly boost Anno's confidence through his competence as a shinobi. Sai takes notice of this and starts giving more and more frequent reminders to him of his greatest failures for unknown reasons.
in the buildup to the final confrontation with the mizukage, high-profile members of the rebellion are told by Anno of the hate the water daimyo bears towards the mizukage, they then make contact to try and gain the daimyo's and by extension civilian population's support, but it is then revealed that the daimyo had planned it all out with the mizukage, sacrificing a what was to him a pawn for the chance to destroy konoha and get a foothold on the mainland as a destabilized land of fire is defenseless without a shinobi village. the whole meeting is then revealed to be a trap, and the mizukage and his army ambush the rebelions delegation, but through communication seals and transportation seals, not sure how yet, the rebellion army comes to the rescue and the finale battle of the war is waged where it all started for Anno, the capital of the land of water. stuff happens until eventually anno gets the opportunity to seal the mizukage's access to his tailed beast. but, just as that is happening the mizukage, in a desperate attempt to turn Anno against Konoha and the rebellion by proxy, reveals that it was, in fact, not gato who told him that anno was a spy, but Danzo. he tells him that since Danzo didn't know how big a secret it was, and that he had a root spy among Anno's servants who found out just how talented he was in fuinjutsu, he thought he could resque Anno from kiri shinobi, and then make him so grateful that he would join root, and a quick bout of emotional manipulation later would give him a fuinjutu master for his use only.
anno completes the sealing process, after which the enemy army is gathered in one biggroup in the central square. anno is caught up in his own thoughts thinking over his life after realizing that ever since he was ten and a half he has been dancing to someone else's fiddle, and that his entire world view of, "as long as i follow orders it will all be fine" was a carefully constructed lie, and that he now has no idea how to make decisions since neither, "do whatever i want" or "do whatever someone else want's" has worked. then he looks up and sees the huge crowd of civilians gathering around the plaza, the group of bound enemy shinobi in said plaza and mei making a passionate, heat-of-the-moment speech about cleaning out the filthy genocital manics who tried to kill anyone who was special, a speech which was clearly ramping up to a mass execution.
Anno then stops thinking about how to make his choices, and simply decides to do the right thing, even if it isn't the easiest or the best thing for him personally. so he decides that some of these enemy soldiers look quite young, as in genin age, and that maybe there was a large portion of the enemy army who were simply following orders to save civilian family and such. and so, he stands up against the new mizukage and the people he had fought with for over a year, an entire army of shinobi many of whom could kill him, and tells them that he wont let them become what they stood up against, that he won't let them kill all the people behind him when some probably didn't see battle before that very day. mei then, of course, beat's the shit out of him, after all, he has already spent all his items on the battle. mei eventually breaks his ribs, preventing him from flying, but even then he crawls between her and the people he fought moments ago. but it works. mei calms enough to see that they may not all be iredeamable, and that perhaps it would be a good idea to interogate them, and Anno thus concludes his character ark, learning that the only good way of making decisions is doing what makes the world a better place. but while he and mei are still good friends, the rest of the rebellion aren't as much on board, so he leaves with sai.
but sai is still mean to him, he is still mentioning how, even if Danzo sold him out, he was pretty stupid to bring Kyoko with him, and Anno comes to a realization. he makes his way to a huge cliff, and confronts sai with his suspicion. has Sai been ordered by Danzo to constantly undercut Anno's confidence to ensure his continued loyalty? sai guiltily confirms his suspicion, after which, betrayed and hurt, Anno goes on a monologue about how much he hates the shinobi world, how it only caused him pain up until this point, and how he has barely seen his friends in years, until he ominously says "I'm finally going to get ahead of them" and jumps off the cliff, his ribs still broken, and as Sai looks on with horror. but he didn't actually try to commit suicide, he simply faked his own death to get out of the shinobi world once and for all, and from then on he wandered the world simply using his fuinjutsu skills to help people and create wondrous items and places for people to explore for generations to come. leaving his identity of "Anno the Artificer" as an important figure in shinobi history for both his instrumental role in Kiri's history, and for being one of the most important relationships to many of Konoha's most important people, and an inspiration for fuinjutsu user's everywhere. while his new identity, that of the mythic wandering miracle crafter, became a legend to civilians all around the world, until he eventually even became a saying, "stumbling into the craftsman" being a saying for stumbling into incredible luck when you needed it the most.
he never did create the most powerful sword in the world, but after what happened in kiri, he never wanted too.
oh, and if anyone wants too, feel free to adobt this story, I'm done with it anyways.
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"So, where have you been?" Sakura asked, impatiently tapping her foot as she looked at me with an expression more welcoming than any she had ever had at one of our little reunions. Well, she was glaring at me, but it was still the more welcoming of the two we had, she just tended to be very angry whenever we reunited
"And your answer better not be stupid, or I'll punch you" she growled, her eyes staying in a narrow glare as they swept over my body, looking for injuries as if I was an accident-prone toddler. Huh. Maybe she was angrier than the first time, at least back then there were no threats.
"Well Sakura, if I had to pick a single place that I have been over the last month-"
"you're allowed to tell us more than one place"
"-then I would have to say that I've been inside my own soul, searching for who I really am" I finished confidently, with only a slightly nervous glance at my dearly beloved friends as they encircled me with my back against the wall.
I felt a sharp lance of pain in my remaining shin causing me to hop around, trying to find a way to massage my leg without sitting on the ground. "Aw! What in the world was that for!" I exclaimed.
"i thought I made it clear what would happen if you behaved like an idiot when we are trying to express concern for our friend who keeps disappearing" Sakura hissed out through gritted teeth.
"No, you said punch! No one said anything about kicking, I would be much more honest if I knew kicking was a possibility, especially with those pointy shoes of yours" - I protested profusely, before it slowly transitioned into a grumble - "Why are they pointy anyways"
"they are pointy because it makes it hurt more when she's kicking idiots who disappear for years without warning" Shikamaru sniped sarcastically.
"years is a bit of a hyperbole, it's only been what, twenty-two months since I disappeared for the first time? I even came back for a while" I said.
"You do know that most of us only got to see you for like three hours during your break from disappearing, right?" Naruto said, suddenly thinking it was the perfect time for a third, or if you count outside, fifth person to pile on.
"you had a month! honestly, most people get tired of me long before a month has passed" I defended.
"to be fair, he said most of us, like Shika Ino and I" Choji said.
"please, I stayed with Ino for days before the meeting" I said.
"he did? Why didn't you tell us?" Choji said, turning to a suddenly sweating Ino.
"well, after he disappeared, I just didn't see a reason to bring up unimportant details" Ino said, clearly and desperately trying to act flippant.
"What he is trying to ask is, why didn't you tell ALL of us immediately, maybe then Anno wouldn't have had time to come up with the meadow incident" Shikamaru asked.
Seeing my opportunity to escape, I immediately dropped to all fours and floated along the ground and out of the half-circle as the argument quickly escalated, even if it was a bit hurtful to hear Shikamaru pointing out how the meadow fiasco was my fault.
"you know, if this is some sort of premonition about how battles will be fought in the second part of the exams, I don't think I like it very much" I said smile.
"well then you shouldn't have let yourself get cornered like that, I'm certainly not going to stick my neck out for you when you let yourself get surrounded" Hoshi grunted.
"I would like to say that I would attempt to help you even in the event that you become surrounded by hostile combatants, although I do agree with the premise that you should avoid engaging with hostile forces alone" Sai said.
"they weren't hostile, they are simply angry enough to hurt me so long as it will get them the information they seek" I tried to defend.
"and how exactly isn't that hostile?" Hoshi drawled.
"well, they would presumably stop after I tell them, I can't tell them, as in we are physically incapable of it, which would inevitably lead to endless escalation of the violence against me, but theoretically speaking they would stop if I told them. Now them" - I pointed to the darkly glaring groups from Kiri - "THEY, are hostile" I said.
"I can only imagine that you've given them a perfectly reasonable reason to hate your guts, after all, you've been in the same city as them for a couple of days, that alone is almost a good enough reason to hate you" Hoshi said.
"honestly speaking, we've know each other for thirty minutes, what in the world did I do to make you hate me? I'm sure there are plenty of things I've done, mind you, but I would just like to know the specific one that sent you over the edge" I asked with a smile.
Hoshi narrowed her coal-black eyes at me, before turning away to study the other teams. "I have more important things to do then to explain to an idiot why I dislike him, like studying the enemy, something you should be doing too"
I sighed before complying, even if I was unsure of what exactly I could pick up on when they were all wearing loose clothes meant to hide any hint of their specialty. There were far too many teams to focus on each, as, even though most villages only entered their teams into the exams they themselves hosted, each great village had a retinue of 'allied' villages scattered throughout the many different lands. And while they were individually far too insignificant to be of any importance on a continental scale, together they made up a decent portion of any great villages middle tier forces. When combined with the teams from kiri and suna, the only other great villages to send in teams, it was simply too many to focus on, so I made the choice to simply focus on the ones who seemed dangerous, or who were focused on me.
Of course, there wasn't any real way of telling if someone was dangerous outside of their rank and battle. And since I was very sure that picking a fight with someone before the game even began was bad sportsmanship, and that everyone here inevitably had to, at the very least, pose as a genin or low-chunin, it was incredibly limited what I could observe with my eyes alone.
"I understand that we are 'studying the enemy' for, but what exactly am I supposed to be looking for? I mean, there's not much to really see" i asked.
"can you really not see that all of them are inspecting us? Just look at them, they're clearly all in on something" she muttered darkly
I looked around at the teams inspecting us, and while some definitely were glaring at us, there were a vast majority of nervous looks being passed about between teammates as they looked at us as if we were wild animals.
"Hoshi?"
"yes?" she asked, her eyes darting about with ever increasing speed.
"I think they're glaring at us, because you're glaring at them" I slowly explained.
"what? Don't you see the glares? how some of them are clearly nervous about the ambush? the glances?" she asked.
"oh, a lot of them, especially the three teams from kiri, certainly have reasons to glare, but while I do believe that some of them are planning to ambush us, I think a vast majority of them are simply nervous" I said.
"why the people from kiri specifically?" she asked as she turned her glare back to me.
As I was just about to dodge the question, I was luckily saved from having to do so when a huge man rose to the podium at the far end of the room. He coughed once to get everyone's attention, then started to speak in a voice filled with promises of pain for any who dared to ignore it.
"the first stage of the exams will begin now. In the exam room there is a desk, a pencil, and a piece of paper with nine questions on it. I hope that everyone can understand what we intend for you to do, if not, I won't bother to explain as you aren't ready to be here if I must explain. Cheating in any form will be met with immediate disqualification" that was all the man said before he went through the doors to the actual examination room.
The examination room was a huge auditorium with rows upon rows of seats and desks, each desk had an assigned participant, and a single piece of paper. Teams were purposefully scattered about the room, to prevent them from cheating as easily, of course we had been told beforehand that we were meant to cheat here, to test how good we were at gathering information. We had, luckily, also been told that as long as we refused to leave we could technically get through this part of the exams without answering a single question.
The problem for me with this test was that, well, I had no way of getting any sort of information whatsoever, at least not without preparation. I mean, could I create a link between two pencils so that when one wrote the other did the same thing? Yes, but I would need to get access to both pencils beforehand, and here we were ordered to use the pencils given out. Fuinjutsu as a whole honestly suffered from this problem, where, as long as you had the preparation time and necessary skill, it could be perfect for any occasion, but if you didn't, it was less than useful, as it only took your time midbattle when you tried to make a seal. For example, I would be very dead, very quickly if I got trapped with a stone golem, since all of my weapons were made to kill beings of flesh, but with proper preparation, it was quite possibly the easiest fight ever. I could simply make a device that sent out tremors at a very high frequency, of course, that would be quite chakra intensive… maybe I should make it a sequenced seal? That could work, first it would weaken the stone with tremors, then a directed explosion seal to break the softened barrier! That would be so effective, after all, many Shinobi with affinities towards elements less suited for defense like fire or lightning learn a defensive earth jutsu for emergencies, so if I could make something to counter the most commonly used element for defense, it would be way better than just an explosive tag. Maybe it could have a disc form? I can do a draft of the disc before I answer the questions, I have tons of time.
"put down your pencils, the test is over" the same voice from before rang out, making me realize that I got so caught up in making the first draft of my 'gate-breaker disc' that I completely ignored the test. I hurried to look at them so that I could at the very least pretend to be invested in this test, only to realize that A, I had doodled over most of the questions, and B, as it turned out getting expelled from the academy a year and a half before I was done did not give me any chance of answering correctly. Great, now everyone will think Konoha has warned their genin, the only thing that could make this worse was if anyone else did the same thing as me.
The man stood to the left as a board slowly lowered down from the ceiling to where he used to stand "the correct answers are on this board, if you have any wrong answers you have failed, anyone with a failure for a teammate will also leave. Failures can, however, be turned to opportunities by the right shinobi, as such any failures out there now have a single opportunity to answer a harder, more complex question then those previously. But be aware, that failing again can have disastrous consequences in the shinobi world" - suddenly, he swept his bandana-like foreheadprotector off his head, showing the horrific burn scars beneath. There was not a single spot on the crown of his head not covered in scar tissue, the most obvious were the burns, but there were also gashes, long and far too straight to be from combat, and even patches of weirdly uniform scar tissue… almost as if someone had slowly and carefully cut off a completely even layer of skin… the man had been skinned alive - "these are the consequences I received for my mistakes, and while your consequences will be a less… painful, reminder, there will be consequences. To be exact, anyone who shows themselves incapable of knowing their own limits will never take this exam again, and will stay a genin forever… if you chose the safe path, you can leave with your team now and come back next time"
As soon as the others who failed realized that they could simply chose to continue trying year after year, they quickly started to stream out of the room, their hurried steps screaming of shame. Everyone of my friends had apparently succeeded, which was a bit of a surprise, especially Naruto, since most cheating techniques required some measure of chakra control, and, well, Naruto had the exact same amount of control of his chakra as he had his appetite for ramen.
"HEY!" - oh right, Naruto has no way of passing, and all the unearned confidence to stick around anyways "if you think I'm a big enough loser to leave just because I couldn't answer any of your stupid questions, you're dead wrong, ya' hear me? IF YOU WANTED THAT KIND OF LOSER, TALK TO SASUKE, NOT ME!" Naruto yelled before sitting down to glare at the proctor.
Huh. Well, what are the odds that someone will think it's weird that two Konoha genin showed no fear over the fact that they never answered a single question.
Seconds later, when Naruto's speech had either inspired or shamed everyone else into staying, no matter how the proctor glared at them, he opened his mouth to speak.
"congratulations, all of you passed" he said, before walking off the stage and out a side door.
"uh, what? What's gonna happen now?" Kiba asked as he, along with everyone else, stared at the door the proctor just left through.
That is, until our collective attention was stolen when a woman with purple hair crashed through a window only to land in a roll and do a series of flips towards the podium.
"now? Now it's time to see what you're really made of, the name's Anko Mitarashi, and I'll be the proctor for the second part of the exams, where you will be taking a quick stroll through the forest of death" she said with a grin as she overlooked the collection of gob smacked faces in front of her.