Chapter 7 – Team 11: A Test of Bells

Date: January 23rd, 13 years following the Kyuubi's attack

Time: 9:15 AM

As the sun finally rose over the outer wall of the village the next morning, the three Genin on Team 11 sat huddled together on the damp grass trying to keep warm. They'd arrived at 6:30 AM as ordered...

It was now past nine and Tanaka-sensei was nowhere to be seen.

Raiden's stomach gave off a gurgling growl of hunger. "Oh, man... This sucks! Where the hell is he? I want to get this training done so it's safe for us to eat."

"Quit whining." Takahashi, who was watching Motoko pet the half-conscious Kyouran, ordered. "Your sister and I are likely no less hungry, but listening to you gripe about it every 10 minutes isn't going to help. In fact, it's starting to annoy me. Now shut up or I'm going to kick your ass."

Hata snorted, rolling his eyes. "Please. I'm a better fighter than you except when you go into that animalistic frenzy of yours. Like the time because of that ass Renjiku - you know; the one whose skull you broke in three places before beating up the instructor, me, and half of the Taijutsu class before Ino Yamanaka showed up and calmed you down."

Motoko frowned at her younger brother. "You really need to be more polite, Nii-chan." Takahashi, who'd turned gloomy at the Hata brother's words, grinned at the 'proper' insult.

Raiden grimaced. "Look, sis, I know you're the older one of us, but don't call me that... It completely ruins my image."

His twin sister giggled for a few seconds, but it quickly trailed off. "He's here." She announced, turning to look at a nearby hill. A few seconds later, Okito Tanaka walked up over the horizon line right where Motoko had indicated. Team 11 rose to their feet to await their teacher's orders.

Tanaka-sensei looked much the way he had the previous day, but instead of carrying a bag of baked goods, instead he wore a sheathed blade tucked yojimbo-style into a belt that he'd added to his uniform. "Sorry for my tardiness; the oven at the bakery had some problems this morning, so I needed to help out."

"Can we get this started?" Raiden Hata demanded as his stomach growled even louder than before. "I'm really hungry."

Okito grinned at his student. "Certainly."

He held up two simple brass bells on their own strings. "We're going to play a game of capture the flag. The three of you will have to try and get these from me." He made a couple of quick seals and stomped on the ground, causing a trio of stone pillars to erupt from the ground. "However, come noon, anyone not touching a bell by the end of the two hour time limit will be tied to one of these pylons…" He grinned impishly. "And I get their lunch."

"WHAT?!" Raiden shouted in shock. "But that means at least one of us is going to be tied up! And I'm already starving!"

Tanaka-sensei nodded. "That was the point in making you skip breakfast, Raiden; to give you some motivation in getting the bell. Anyways, after lunch, we will resume if the two bells haven't been claimed. But…" He paused, his face losing his good humor. "If by sunset you don't have a bell in your hands..." He trailed off and gave a wicked grin. "I'm going to send you back to the Academy for Remedial Education."

The faces of all three Genin dropped. "But that's not fair!" Raiden Hata complained.

"We passed all the tests, didn't we?" Motoko asked, confused.

Takahashi nodded, but his voice remained calmer than the twins' "And you want us to take something from you? Even three-to-one, we don't stand a chance against a Jonin…"

Okito's gaze cooled in disapproval of their attitudes. "You think I'm being unfair, but what I am doing is no different from what you're going to experience as a ninja… There will be times that you will find yourself facing a superior foe - physically, tactically, or, worst, both - with a mission to complete. In those situations, the enemy will not roll over for you. And when fighting a war..." He shook his head. "Well, I can only hope that you won't EVER have to face one of those."

"However, unlike some of my fellows, I'm going to give you two hints: one, you've got to come at me with all that you've got - fight me as if you're willing to kill me. Don't worry; you can't." Okito said with a sly grin. "Two, focus on the mission: as a ninja, there will be times that you will lose friends in the course of a mission. It's sad when it happens, but the mission might mean more than any one of our lives."

Okito turned away as the kids looked downcast. "I'm going to count to 5. When I reach five, we'll begin." Tanaka-sensei took a long, slow step. "One..." He paused for a minute and then took another step. "Two..." The Genin looked each other, but no one said anything. "Three..."

Raiden, who'd been getting antsy with excitement, grabbed a kunai and threw it at the teacher. Before the weapon reached Tanaka, however, he spun around and there was a glittering slash of light that intersected the kunai.

"I didn't get to five yet, Raiden." Okito chided his student as the deflected kunai landed at the student's feet. In his hands rested a sword that shined oddly and lacked the silvery-gray color of regular steel - instead, it was transparent and had a number of odd facets that gleamed in the morning light. Unlike a regular katana, both sides of the blade were honed with a cutting edge.

"Nice sword." Raiden said. "But it's nothing special." Motoko, noticing something her twin hadn't, smacked him on the back of the head. "Oww! What was that for?" He demanded as he rubbed where she'd hit him.

She pointed at Kyouran, who, at Raiden's feet, had picked up the deflected kunai. The hardened steel of the throwing dagger's blade had been split in half down to the handle's wrappings like so much butter. "Nothing special, Nii-chan?"

"Holy crap!" Raiden exclaimed. He looked at the teacher's weapon. "That was pure steel; what on..."

"This is Amakuni Kongosoha." Tanaka explained. "It's a diamond blade that has been honed down to a point the width of an atom. I can also channel my chakra through this weapon; when I do so, my partner here can cut through just about everything known to man. Only another chakra-empowered weapon can resist being split in two."

Takahashi looked intrigued. "How do you make a blade out of diamond? Most are so small..." He winced, clutching his scar. "A diamond... blade?" A groan of pain escaped him.

"Are you okay?" Motoko asked the third member of their team. Kyouran also let off a feline call of concern as he put his front paws on his human's knee.

As quickly as it started, the pain apparently abated as his hand returned to his side. "Yeah... Just had a headache come on all of a sudden; I thought I'd seen a weapon like that before, but I guess I imagined it." The young man said he scratched the panther's head.

'That's right...' Tanaka thought wistfully. 'Rook and Knight were the ones that recommended I make Amakuni Kongosoha and helped me with the early work. He must have seen me or the failed versions that I gave them for their own use.' He sheathed his blade. "To answer your question, Takahashi-kun, my family line has a rare ability - a Kekkei Genkai."

"Like the Hyuuga and Uchiha clans." Takahashi said, naming the families with the most well-known bloodline abilities in Konoha.

"Correct." Okito agreed. "However, unlike those clans, whose Kekkei Genkai results in an advanced ocular jutsu, mine unlocks the ability to blend elemental chakra together to form a new element, much like the Shodai Hokage. But where the First was able to make Wood by combining Water and Earth, I make Diamond through the combination of Earth and Fire." He pulled back the collar of his shirt, revealing a layer of diamond scales that formed before their very eyes and clung to him like a second skin. Nothing the three Genin carried would be capable of penetrating it. "Now I assume you have a healthy respect for what I can do, yes?"

Raiden nodded his head dumbly. "Hai, Okito-sensei."

"Good. Now, obviously, I won't be going all-out against you, I'll only do the minimum necessary to make this a challenge. If you plan it right, you will be able to succeed. You have 2 hours, starting... NOW!"

The Genin of Team 11 sprang into action.

* * *

An hour and ten minutes later, Okito, who was leaning against one of the pillars he was actually looking forward to tying one of his students to, broke into a smile. The three newbies were doing a fairly decent job of approaching him while looking for an opening to get the bells, which were now fastened to his belt. They had had two previous attempts that stalled out shortly after they started - usually with Raiden getting a bit too excited to focus clearly.

'They seem to have developed a real plan this time. I wonder...'

There was suddenly a loud crack, like the crash of thunder. Okito frowned as he looked up; it was a clear day… That would mean… He then felt an odd shifting sensation reverberate through his legs. Dropping his gaze to the ground, he noticed what appeared to be a seismic wave driving a bubble of earth towards him. With a thought, he formed a diamond kunai in his hands and hurled it, adding some chakra into the blade to disrupt the earth jutsu technique.

As the kunai struck the bubble of dirt, however, instead of collapsing sedately as it should have, it instead revealed a pocket of crackling air. The air pocket expanded rapidly once free from its earthly prison, detonating in the Jonin's face with the sound of a lightning strike. The loud concussive boom roared across the hilltop, momentarily stunning Okito, who hadn't anticipated a sonic attack from the ground!

Tanaka took an unsteady step forward; the explosion had left him deafened and was affecting his inner ear. As he moved, a thin bolt of chakra-formed lighting arced towards him from a nearby tree where he'd spotted Motoko Hata a few moments before. The lightning element was molded surprisingly well; the girl's skill - based on her ninja record – was better than expected. It probably wouldn't hurt more than a nasty electric shock, but it would definitely leave him incapacitated for a few minutes.

He took a leap backwards to dodge the strike, only to trip over a stone bar that extended between two of the pylons he'd formed for the punishment phase. The bar was not part of his original creation and was placed at shin height, causing him to fall over onto his rear. As he landed on the ground, he felt a tug at his belt before a jingling black blur dashed over to the three Genin, who had finally revealed themselves.

Okito just lay there for a few moments in surprise.

Then he began to laugh as he sat up. "Well done, you three." He clapped his hands, applauding their actions. "You came up with a strategy, implemented it, and won your prize as a result. A fluke victory against a Jonin, even if it was mostly luck is still an excellent job! So, now the question is who's going to face the penalty?"

"No one." Takahashi said, claiming the bells from Kyouran, passing them both to Motoko, who was standing between him and Raiden.

Okito shook his head. "Two bells, three students. Someone gets left out."

Takahashi shook his head back. "I'm sorry, Sensei, but you're wrong."

Motoko held up her hands, showing that she had a bell in each. She then took Takahashi's right and her brother's left hand in each of hers. "You said that whoever wasn't TOUCHING a bell at lunchtime would get tied up and anyone not HOLDING a bell at the end of the day would be sent back." Motoko Hata finished. "But as you see, all three of us are touching a bell; Takahashi and I both noticed you never said that there could be the only one person holding it."

Tanaka-sensei frowned. "Is that your final answer?" He asked with stern disapproval in his voice. Motoko Hata flinched momentarily at the tone of his voice, but she and the others stood their ground. "Then I guess I have no choice… You pass!" Okito said with a smile.

At his announcement, Takahashi pumped his fist once and Motoko Hata let off a laugh of joyful relief. Her brother, on the other hand, was a bit more vocal. "All right!" Raiden shouted, letting go of his sister's arm and running over to his bento box. "Lunch time!"

Okito looked at Motoko. "He's not a heavy thinker, is he?" The female half of the Hata twins, along with Takahashi and Kyouran all shook their heads.

"Oh, come on, we won, didn't we?" Raiden complained.

"Only because the others spotted the logical loophole in the mission briefing…" Tanaka said, staring him down. "If they hadn't, I'm betting you'd be tied to the pillar at the moment." Raiden glowered at him, but Okito ignored him. "What was the point of today's exercise? Or to be more precise, what was I looking for?"

"How should I know that?"

"Thank you for making my point, Raiden." Tanaka-sensei looked at the other two. "Any guesses?"

"You wanted to see if we could form a cohesive team." Takahashi said. The Hata twins looked at him, confused. "Remember what Iruka-sensei said during the meeting yesterday?"

"I remember Haruno saying he was going to kill Oni..." Raiden said. "…And the fact that I stepped in to help stop him. I was expecting him to resist a bit more than he did..."

Motoko sighed, dropping her gaze to the ground. "If he weren't like this all the time, I'd say he's punch drunk..." She looked at Okito. "Iruka said that we were being assigned to make sure each team was about the same in terms of overall strength." She paused as the pieces fell into place. "Because it's the actions of the whole team that matter rather than the individuals that make up the team!"

Okito nodded. "Precisely. Don't worry too much about it, though; very few Genin actually understand the purpose of the task until after it's over. You have successfully passed the final test and will be available for active duty immediately!" He paused. "Well, normally…"

"Normally?" Raiden asked, looking like someone who had the rug pulled out from under him. "What next..? A musical number?"

Tanaka snorted at the boy's despondency. "Nothing off the sort, Raiden. Normally we'd sign up for missions immediately, but I received a message this morning that I'm needed for a special assignment temporarily, so you three..." Kyouran growled at the Jonin, causing a smile to appear on Tanaka's face, "Sorry, you FOUR get a few weeks' leave while I'm out of the village. While I'm gone, I'd like for you to take time to get to really know each other's capabilities and keep training both individually and as a group in the meantime. Understood?"

"Yes, Sensei!" Team 11 agreed in unison.

Okito nodded. Things were definitely going to be interesting; that was certain. Raiden Hata raised his hand. "Yes, Raiden?"

"So... Can we eat now? I'm freakin' starvin'!" His words elicited laughter from everyone there.