31 The Test (Finale)

Mizuki and Anko walked across the field towards the forest. After continuing their slow walk for about five minutes, they found Idate collapsed on the ground, still unconscious from the genjutsu placed on him.

Mizuki and Anko looked to one another as they let out a depressed sigh. They both just wanted to go back to sleeping in class, why did they have to put up with Idate.

They took a seat on the ground as they both began to funnel their chakra into him in order to break the genjutsu.

________________________________________________________________________________________

(POV Idate)

Idate: <Groans>

Idate: "What happened"

He glanced around only to see his two teammates looking at him, as if observing a chess board for the best possible move to make.

Anko: "You got caught under a genjutsu, we just snapped you out of it"

Idate: "Alright, thanks but why would you do that? I mean, only two of us can pass after all"

I must have imagined this, but Mizuki's face twitched slightly. As if he was a great challenge that was incredibly challenging to triumph over.

Mizuki: "We need to work as a team to beat him. Even if only two of us can pass it is the only way to get the bells. Basically we will all work together and we determine who gets the bells later."

As much as I hated to admit it, there was no way I could beat the sensei on my own, so I could only nod in acceptance.

Mizuki: "Good. So here's the plan"

________________________________________________________________________________________

*15 Minutes Later*

As Orochimaru was reading through notes on his research, he quickly sidestepped to the right as several shuriken embedded themselves in the ground at his previous position.

Orochimaru: "Oh? Round Two I see."

Anko and Mizuki rushed in circles around Orochimaru, throwing kunai and shuriken at his position as they orbited him.

Meanwhilst, Orochimaru was dodging every single attack effortlessly, bobbing and weaving through the sea of oncoming projectiles.

This appeared to do little to discourage them though, as they quickly switched tactics upon realizing that they were getting nowhere.

Mizuki rushed towards Orochimaru, deciding to turn the situation into close quarters combat, whilst Anko continued to throw projectiles towards the two of them.

Mizuki opened by jumping into the air and coming down by smashing the ground with an axe kick.

Mizuki: {Leaf Drop}

As Mizuki's foot sank into his head though, the shape of his body slowly contorted until it became a pile of mud which collapsed in on itself.

Orochimaru quickly approached Mizuki as his guard dropped, although the genin quickly made his mistake as he turned around and blocked the blow that his sensei hit him with.

Mizuki used the momentum from the hit to spin around and try to execute a low kick to his sensei.

Mizuki: {Leaf Gale}

Not to be outdone, Orochimaru leapt over the sweep and tried to aim a kick at Mizuki's head.

However, he was forced to change his plan as a kunai hurled towards him from Anko.

He ducked to the side, just enough in order to evade the kunai, although just as it was only a couple of feet away from him, something surprising happened.

In a puff of white smoke, the seemingly inanimate kunai revealed itself to be Idate, lunging towards Orochimaru with his fist outstretched.

Surprised, Orochimaru focused his full attention on Idate for a split moment.

A decision he would come to regret as he felt a tug at his hips as Mizuki was only milliseconds away from grabbing both bells.

Realizing what was about to happen, Orochimaru decided it was time to get slightly more serious.

Up until that point, he had been severely limiting himself by only using basic substitution jutsu and one offensive jutsu.

Orochimaru quickly weaved a hand sign with one hand as he threw a kunai towards Anko.

Orochimaru: {Temporary Paralysis Jutsu}

Mizuki and Idate both froze, losing all control they had over their bodies. With Mizuki remaining completely still and Idate starting to fall as gravity did it's work.

Orochimaru casually rotated as he swung himself around a full 360 degrees in a powerful kick, which sent. Mizuki flying and Idate crashing towards the ground.

Whilst midair, Mizuki was able to rotate his body and focus the chakra to his feet and one of his hands to break his fall.

As he landed, he skidded back another few feet before stopping, coincidently right at Anko's side.

Orochimaru glanced between his three pupils before nodding.

Orochimaru: "I hereby declare that you have passed, welcome to the shinobi world."

Idate: "Eh?"

Orochimaru: "This entire test was designed to test your teamwork and skill, which you have adequately shown."

Idate still in shock, simply did not respond.

Orochimaru sighed as he realized he was not getting through to his student.

Orochimaru: "Regardless, we will reconvene here in two days. now I have to go."

As he said that, he simply calmly walked down the path until he was eventually out of site. Although his thoughts were not entirely, a true rarity for Orochimaru.

Orochimaru: {I still cannot believe that they came up with such a strategy as genin. Such ruthlessness. Truly Unexpected. This batch of Genin will indeed be very interesting.}

As he said that his mind flashed back to when he was fighting Idate and Mizuki. In particular, focusing on when Idate undid his transformation.

What surprised Orochimaru was not that the kunai was Idate, he could tell that nearly immediately.

What surprised him, was that around his ankle, was a paper tag.

A shrapnel bomb.

________________________________________________________________________________________ (POV Mizuki)

{Thank God the strategy worked}

Although Orochimaru told them to focus on teamwork for the exam, Mizuki could read between the lines.

Whilst that was certainly important, it would only mean that he would become one of Orochimaru's students for a whilst before mysteriously "vanishing" and becoming one of his test subjects.

Like what happened to Anko in the anime.

Mizuki clenched his fists as he had the thought.

There was no way in hell he would let her suffer that here.

Regardless, with his sign of ruthlessness, Mizuki was able to make Orochimaru interested in him. At least enough so that he would not be turned into a test subject yet.

As of the moral issue of strapping a bomb to his teammate's ankle, Mizuki honestly couldn't care less.

One thing that he hated to admit, is that his Old Boss wasn't 100% useless as he had taught Mizuki a valuable lesson.

The importance of ruthlessness.

Mizuki knew that he wasn't a good person.

The only reason he wanted to be a ninja was to have fun and hang out with his friends, both of which were dreams of his for his entire life.

He had no noble goal of becoming hokage or saving the world, He just wanted an adventure with people who he cared about.

With that being said, the people he had met across his time in the Academy were the closest thing he had to family in either life.

He was a lonely loser in his past life with basically no friends. But not this time. He had friends, comrades.

And he was more than willing to sacrifice anything and everything for them.

Regardless of the cost.