Chapter 23

"We have to leave him!"

Ryoko whipped her head up, blinking at her fellow, aspiring gennin as though he'd just grown a second head. "What?"

"We can't carry him!" The boy explained. "We'll just tire ourselves out and we wont be able to-"

"We're not leaving him here!" She protested, cutting him off. "He's still alive!"

"Not for much longer!" Hachiba shouted back! Its just been a day, look at him! We've got to move fast and we can't do that if we-"

She stood up, silver grey hair whipping around her face as she all but snarled. "We're gonna carry this dumb ass back and I don't care if I've got to tie him to you, get me!?"

Hachiba opened his mouth moving to protest when he seemed to think better of it and closed his mouth.

Ryoko looked down, thinking. "We'll carry him in shifts. You go first I go next!"

"I'm not going-"

"You're going first! What do you think I'm stupid? I carry him first, tire myself out and you just haul ass when its your turn? You go first. I'll live up to my end!"

"You're not-"

"You can stay here and bitch with me and keep wasting time, you can try to run and we can fight, wasting even more time or you can do what I tell you and we can try to get the hell out of this! Long and short of it is we're not leaving the little bastard!"

-0-

Orochimaru watched, yellow eyes gleaming like jewels as the sun rose over the edge of the horizon.

"You wanted this."

He turned a little, looking at the woman-child in her Anbu uniform, the stark white mask glinting with the rays of the early morning.

"That's the purpose of the test. To see if they'll leave him to die." She concluded, her head tilting to the side. "I'm only not certain which outcome will cause them to succeed or fail."

The sannin smiled a little. "They should do what proper Konoha ninja should do. That's the only way to succeed."

"And Naruto? How will you judge him in his state?"

"He'll pass of course."

"You would take him as a student no matter what? That hardly seems fair."

"Life is fair?"

-0-

It was not, by any stretch of the immagination how she could have ever dreamed her Shinobi career would start!

She was feeling sicker than yesterday, her bones ached, she wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep again even as her stomach churned at the edge of nausea.

Every muscle felt little better than overcooked noodles, flimsy and weak as she forced them to push her along in ever shorter leaps across the trees.

And to think...she still had to carry him after Hachiba couldn't do it anymore.

She coughed, stopping in her run to lean against the trunk of a tree.

it sounded wet, she could almost taste the phlegm at the back of her throat as spittle specked the hand she'd used to cover her mouth.

Hachiba stopped ahead of her, his pasty skin and black ringed eyes serving to only let her imagine how bad she must have looked as well.

She was going to kill that snake bastard...

She looked up, coiling her muscles again before jumping off. "Keep going" Even speaking felt like it leached out the energy from her.

She tried to ignore the blood that had been mixed with the spit.

-0-

Are you seriously gonna let him have a team?"

Sarutobi sighed, it'd been the third time she'd asked in twice as many minutes. And the hundredth time since a week ago when her teammate, his student, first filed for the position.

"What do you want me to do exactly, Tsunade? Walk up to him and say – Yes well seeing as how you've signed all the appropriate paperwork and properly filled out all agreements clauses, guarantees and have proceed to do your due diligence well in time for the responsibility; I've decided to not grant this request despite the fact that I have no other reserve teachers on standby, simply because your motivations are iffy at best and I don't trust you. And this in this is primarily based on a simple hunch of having known you for the last twenty years. – How exactly do you view that as being anywhere near impartial as I'm supposed to be as Hokage."

"Oh come on! You and I both know Orochimaru is practically the anti-thesis to gennin instructor!

"He trained Anko."

"One student who he took on long trips to train in private without doing anything below C rank. Does not, a gennin instructor make."

"Maybe not, but we've always pressured him to interact with the villagers more. This time he'll have to with a large team."

"Yes. Because Orochimaru's people skills let him mingle oh so well. Do you remember the last time we managed to convince him to go to a festival?

Sarutobi nearly winced. That had been...interesting to say the very least.

"He can still train those students to be good, strong Shinobi that will serve the village well."

.

.

.

If you want to access advanced chapters, wait no more and subscribe to my Patreon, where you can buy books in completely downloadable PDF format.

🤩patreon.com/Shihao123🤩