21 Chapter 21: The Second Stage

15 April- year 13 AK

TEAM 10

The day started well enough, sunny, the air completely lost the chill of winter, and team 10 survived 'the best' that Daiki-sensei had promised to give them 9 months before. More than that, each genin of team 10 was acutely aware of how far they had come, and, trained by their sensei in how to figure out possible threats with a glance, each of them also knew that they were a jellyfish in a shark tank.

The detail which had really worried them, was that their former classmates, with the possible exception of Sasuke and Shino (the second only because was actually unreadable), looked like a tasty kind of goldfish. Shikamaru carefully looked around from behind half-lidded eyes that screamed 'bored' to the ones who had enough experience or training to see. It was an intimidation tactic as good as any, even if from the smirk of the pink-eyed kunoichi he could tell that his bluff didn't work on everyone.

Choji absolutely blank expression had only unnerved their former classmates, who were clearly underqualified for the exam, while Ino carefree acting had only made people edgy anytime she shifted closer to them. Maybe because every time her chakra fluctuated savagely a genin went crazy going on a killing spree. But it happened at the strangest times, even when nobody killed anyone, so none could pin a single kill on team 10, even if, from some of the surprised and wary glances Shikamaru was spotting, they didn't fool everyone.

Whatever plan Shikamaru had, he had known that instigating the first conflict was akin to toppling a bucket filled to the brim.

Likely filled with shit.

Team 10 started it, the other sensible genins soon following their lead. After all, Ibiki forbade people from attacking the others, but he first had to find out who was manipulating who.

Konoha had lost several teams, among the ones left, mostly due to luck, there were the rookie nine, along with team 3, the one under the leadership of their sensei's sensei, and the one with the freakish grey-haired guy who just rubbed Shikamaru the wrong way.

There were several teams left from Suna, but everyone was looking out for the red-haired menace. Which kind of idiot tattooed 'love' on their forehead anyway?

The genins left the First Stage well either shell shocked, bloodthirsty, or disgusted by the bloodbath.

While they were being herded towards the following Stage by the... sexy and single... Mitarashi Anko, Shikamaru made an accurate headcount: From the 107 teams, they were down to 62. There were many minor villages that he didn't even recognize. But he could count 9 Konoha teams, 13 Kumo, 7 Iwa, 10 Suna, 2 Ame, 1 Kusa, 1 Oto, 2 Taki, and among the minor ones he recognized only thanks to an old story, 1 team from Hoshigakure no Sato.

His prodigal mind abandoned the effort of giving a name to each symbol he didn't immediately recognize when the team reached the stage from which the proctor started to explain what they had to do.

But he wasn't listening, not really. He, like Ino and Choji, was looking transfixed at the giant, lurking forest they were about to enter, again. The training ground 44.

"I hate you, Daiki-sensei." the three genins of team 10 chorused.

17 April- year 13 AK

Natural energy circulated all throughout the world, but it was imperceptible. Why?

Because any living being was part of the natural chakra present everywhere. Every bug, every blade of grass, every bacteria, somehow, every single living being contributed infinitesimally to the vast and incommensurable energy that permeated the world. The air and earth were filled to the brim with it.

If that meant that the world itself was alive, or just that the sacred tree from which chakra came from was part of a bigger scheme, I had no idea.

In order to use senjutsu, one must first learn to sense the natural energy in their surroundings and draw it into their body, which required becoming "one with nature" by remaining perfectly still. Why?

Because life is movement, simple as that. Because time is the measure upon which reality based itself, time was the measure of change, life was change, change was movement, which meant heat and thusly energy.

Every cell breathing, every synapse in your brain firing, every single beat of your heart. Stilling any part of that would have normally meant death.

That was were chakra entered the fray. Since chakra was, under every perspective, life force, it kept the body in a sort of stasis, and the practitioner staying perfectly still could perceive the world only through his chakra, which wasn't exactly still, but assumed a more quiescent feel.

However, being still, meant being 'dead'. A such, one could, by contrast, perceive the natural energy around him.

Becoming an actual sage meant not only drawing in some of the energy, but dilute it with one's own quiescent chakra in a ratio that did not turn you into stone and that was still enough to 'tinge' your chakra with 'life'.

Why did it turn you into stone? My best guess was that it forced a form of fossilization.

Senchakra cannot be absorbed 'drop by drop', there aren't unit measures for chakra, but to diluite enough even the smallest quantity of Natural Energy one needed a lot of chakra. So not everyone could do it.

Luckily enough, with my gates forcibly enlarging my coils during my development, I had enough chakra, with scary-good chakra control.

It took me all the spare time I had during my last year with the guardians, but I had managed it. It required me to keep open 5 gates, but it wasn't something that required a lot of effort on my part. Sadly, opening another gate when already in Sage mode was not something I was willing to experiment with.

Perceive ninja, or even civilians, was trivial while being in 'Sage Mode'.

That was why I was standing, eyes closed and arms crossed, on the top of the tower in the middle of the training ground 44.

I could feel my team springing their ambush on 6 unsuspecting genins.

I distractedly perceived how Shikamaru had covered their surroundings with paper bombs. I noticed how Kurenai's team managed to avoid any confrontation thanks to a combination of their tracking skills. I enjoyed Lee's shouts of youth while he hit like a battering ram unsuspecting teams spotted by Neji. I felt how Gaara kept cutting through trees and humans alike. I recognized Kurotsuchi's team crashing against another, and I felt Omoi seriously slashing his way with his teammates across Hoshigakure's team.

More importantly, I felt Kabuto running circles around Team 7, disposing summarily of everyone who had caught up with the beacon that Naruto was.

I wanted to destroy the gray-haired fucker, but he was doing his job wonderfully, and I was waiting for the bigger fish. I didn't know if Orochimaru still planned to invade Konoha, but five days without supervision in training ground 44 were a juicy window of opportunity.

So, I had been standing still for the past two days, not that I minded, time is something that affects the living, and until I started moving, I was in a trance. The best part? Only another Sage could pick up what I was doing, and I didn't feel Jiraya roaming around.

Sure, he could have prepared some fuinjutsu shit to hide, but why not confronting me then? I would have asked another sage what the fuck he was doing in my village.

I was focusing my attention around Sasuke when I felt it, a ripple, and suddenly he was there. His chakra was cloaked, but such a terrifying speed in crossing the forest was telling, as well as his bloodlust, evident even in the little of his chakra that I could feel.

In the way, I perceived the world, among fireflies a bonfire had been lit.

Orochimaru.

I inhaled, resuming my breathing and opening my eyes. My heart thundered once and began pumping. I couldn't see myself, but I knew that markings had developed on my face, thick black bands running vertically over my eyes and converging from my cheekbones on my chin.

I had returned to being properly alive in the space of a half-second, I knew that anyone proficient enough could feel me. Sages were not 'subtle'. I felt the Sandaime's chakra stir in answer to mine, and the sudden wariness of Orochimaru's.

I distractedly took notice of the roof crackling behind my sandals, the branches tearing while I shot through them in a straight line towards my target.

I could distinguish each barb on the bottom side of every single leaf, with sight and touch both, my nose picking up the scents of dozens of genins as I crossed the canopy among them, my presence not even recognizable as a confusing blur.

The ground collapsed under my right foot as I landed in the clearing, the cracks still spreading while I pummeled forward my left foot slamming on the torso of the Snake sannin and flinging him through undergrowth and trees alike.

From the top of the tower to one of the outskirts, I had needed 4 seconds to reach my target.

I touched the ground and appeared for a single second in front of three no longer scared-shitless genins, before pursuing the target, following the path his flying body had drawn into the forest.

I did not relent, I reached him again just as he had recovered his balance.

I closed in, my right open palm thrust trying to hit again his torso. I was ready to fight a body with his strange modification, but it was of little matter what kind of tricks he had, nothing could shield him from the amount of abuse my blows could inflict.

He had already figured out that a direct confrontation would see my raw strength dwarfing his, so he leaned out of the blow with an unnatural twisting of his spine, my arm going wide and leaving myself open for a counter-attack.

The senchakra moving around me like an armor however, did more than simply glance him, once again plowing him through the training ground 44.

There hadn't been words on my part, and only a wordless enraged hiss from my target, the only sounds had been the dry thud of meat against meat, on a soundtrack of shattering wood.

I never really appreciated the threats given before a fight, I loved bantering as much as everyone, and wit was such a rare thing, but talking while you were risking your life seemed only stupid.

Orochimaru rose 4 Tsuchi bunshins from the ground while he was still flying, I followed, uncaring. My right hand shot forward and slammed the first face-first against the second, I kicked away the head from the third and enjoyed the surprise of the fourth when the kunai that he tried to plunge in my armpit broke against my toughened skin before slamming my left elbow through its skull.

Once again I appeared less than ten meters from him, but he was ready for me, a white, double-edged Jian gleaming in his right hand. Even if my skin could no longer be marred by normal attacks, I wasn't exactly eager to test it against the Kusanagi itself.

He stood straight, the sword pointing toward me while he studied me with a tilted head. Very pale skin, golden eyes with slitted pupils, purple markings around his eyes and fang-like teeth. Pronounced cheekbones and straight waist-length black hair with some locks covering and framing his face or to his shoulders. He was him alright.

I noticed his shredded skin laying behind him and didn't hide my grin.

"Ah..." he hissed "I know you..."

Four seconds for me to reach him, one for my first kick, two for our second interaction, five for me to deal with the bushings and reach him again. I tuned him out, freaking people with chit chat was my thing, not his.

The Hokage had likely felt me raising the alarm 12 seconds before, I could feel him enclosing. I also knew that, the more people butted in, the more opportunities he had to escape. Again, talking would only be detrimental to me, I had absolutely 0 experience in dealing with S-rank ninjas, and I was acutely aware that training and preparation were all well and dandy until they suddenly weren't. So, while determined, I was also wary.

I flicked a hail of shurikens at him and blurred through hand seals: "Suiton: Hahonryū!" (Tearing Torrent)

I collected the humidity from the air, my vast reserves of chakra easily multiplying the insignificant mass of water into something truly terrifying, the water spiraled in my hand which fired at a high speed towards Orochimaru, taking everything in front of me with it.

An earth wall rose from the ground, but I had overpowered the jutsu too much to be denied.

I felt him move underground and twisted, the Kusanagi slashing where my throat had been until a moment before.

He had burst from the ground behind me, and he kept me at a distance, forbidding me from engaging in an honest taijutsu confrontation, where we both knew I held the advantage.

The blade suddenly elongated, trying to skewer me, while the ground under my feet tried to become unsteady under the influence of the sannin. I slammed forcefully my chakra in the ground, gaining control while twisting my torso sideways, my armored left forearm countering the flat of the blade while my right hand rushed forward palm open and fuuton chakra coursing through my pathways and exploding from my palm' tenketsus.

The air between us exploded and sent him back, his feet dragging into the dirt.

Another nine seconds had passed.

"Such a foolish boy." an old voice heavy sounded through the clearing that our brief scuffle had created. Out of nowhere, a black staff speared into my opponent, taking advantage of the brief lapse in his balance and focus both.

The Sandaime Hokage had arrived, and I could feel a dozen or so Anbus waiting for an opening among the branches.

"Sensei..." Orochimaru hissed, his chakra churning and readying to do something.

I shot forward once more, a mizudama the size of a small horse opening the way followed by a Suiton: Zessenzan that cut through a boulder that Orochimaru somehow threw at me. Once more I engaged in close combat, knee thrust hitting the shin of the sannin's leg raised in a kick and fracturing his tibia.

Finally. Grim satisfaction filling me, I moved forward, another thick high pressured jet of water cutting Orochimaru at his waist.

He emerged from his mouth without a scratch, a fireball leaving his lips less than a foot from my face, I hastily retreated spitting another Mizudama and shaping a Mizu Bunshin out of the following vapor.

Somewhat we were still in the same positions as before, Orochimaru once more with the Kusanagi in his hands staring us down.

"What do you search here, you foolish child?" The Kami no Shinobi asked, appearing at my side once more.

Orochimaru smiled sweetly and was about to answer when I cut him off: "It won't really matter once he's dead, will it?"

I really disliked pointless chat during a battle. I noticed the yellow eyes of my opponent narrowing slightly.

"Not liking being interrupted, do you?" I smiled. I disliked pointless chat, riling up the enemy to throw him off balance was anything but.

"Besides, you're not extremely brilliant, attacking team 7." I went on, bending slightly my knees, as I was about to jump.

"So either the Uzumaki or the Uchiha... Oh? The Uchiha then." I feigned to have read some answers on his face.

His face was perfectly blank, even his pupils didn't widen, and his chakra was... coiled, like he was about to strike when suddenly his body crumbled into the dirt and his presence vanished from my senses.

I blinked, sensing all the living beings around me. He was gone.

I stomped down, hard, imploding the ground and causing fissures: "That's why talking during a fight is stupid!"

"Daiki-kun." the Sandaime had caught up in time to assist to my outburst.

"I believe there is going to be a debrief?" I drawled, doing nothing to hide my annoyance at the thought.

TEAM 10

Choji was ready to fall from the branches above, Ino was well hidden among the bushes and enveloped by her cloaking technique, her experience with it enough to make sure that not a wisp of chakra could be perceived.

Oh, Choji was masking his chakra too, like Shikamaru, but neither was just as good as her.

The once lazy Nara had littered the entire area in front of the building with disguised holes through which his shadow could sneak around and hid on the downside of a branch that sprouted from a trunk at roughly five meters of height. Team 10 made mean ambushes, considering that paper bombs had been strategically placed since day one to herd teams in their waiting maws.

When the booms started, the three genins knew that they were about to implement their plan, Ino would be the one spearheading the attack. By proxy, Shikamaru would follow and Choji was to cut the loose ends. It was as simple as effective, and even if they didn't manage to overcome all the enemies with the carefully laid ambush, team 10's members felt that they would more than likely remove at least two members out of three of any incoming team.

"I call bullshit, how the fuck can Konoha have such a big ass training ground? I mean it's easily ten square kilometers isn't it?" A whining shinobi alerted team 10 that whoever activated the paper bombs was incoming.

"Shhh!" A whisper cut off the voice "Those paper bombs were some kind of trap and you worry about the dimensions of this place?"

"Cut him some slack, he's the one who pulled us out of that shit after all." another shinobi said.

"Even taijutsu specialist have their uses, I suppose. But seriously, just who places five paper bombs on each branch?" a fourth voice teased.

If the three Konoha genins had been listening to each other thoughts, they would have marveled at how much their curses differentiated. But again, Daiki-sensei had been thorough.

Still, the plan Ino was the one calling the shots, even if they were dealing with 2 teams instead of 1.

Ino observed the shinobi treading forward carefully, wary of other paper bombs. His measured steps gave her all the time she needed for her aim to be true. Even with her lips moving to name the technique, no sound escaped from her position, it was a testament both to her familiarity with her clan's most famous technique and her skill with the camouflaging Daiki-sensei had made her learn so many moths before.

The taijutsu specialist blinked and kept walking forward, leading the two Suna teams fully in the clearing. He kept his wary demeanor, but brought a hand in front of himself, using his body to hide it from the others and signaled to Choji that Ino had succeeded.

The genins reached the gate and started reading the poem written by the Hokage to try and figure out their clue about what to do with the scrolls they had collected when the first of the group moved.

A second later, his teammates were laying one dead, the other with a kunai embedded in the forearm he managed to rise to defend himself.

The taijutsu specialist shot forward and finished the job exploiting the staggering thought processes of his teammate, who was trying to reconcile the sight of the kunoichi on his team being killed by its third member.

While a kunai was slipping between his ribs the kunoichi from the other team yelled: "It's like the first stage!"

The Nara Clan's technique ran on the side of the trunk, taking advantage of the natural shadows of the forest and latched for half a second on the Suna shinobi who was carrying a terrifying-looking puppet, stilling it for the second necessary for Ino to close in on the next target, by proxy.

The only Suna kunoichi still alive tried to ensnare the shinobi under the Yamanaka's control when Choji fell on her back like a ton of bricks, pummeling her into the ground, while the Suna shinobi slashing a tanto in his direction was forced to disengage to protect himself from a hail of shuriken, courtesy of Shikamaru, only to be clipped by the taijutsu specialist, who went on barreling into the puppeteer.

Choji heard a gasp and noticed Ino rolling out of her hiding position, a hand pressed against her bleeding side. The other holding a knife, and there was a steely determination printed on her face.

A partial expansion later and a grunt of effort on Shikamaru's side, the two remaining shinobi were lying in a bloodied mess on the forest floor.

The conflict lasted less than 30 seconds. "Sensei would have been proud." the Akimichi said, just before Shikamaru fell from his hiding position, exhausted by having held still two distinct shinobis, and Ino crumbled on the ground, her breath hissing through her teeth while the blood kept running from the wound on her side.

"But it could also have gone better." He grumbled, quickly looking for the earth scroll among the Suna teams.