Mahou Sensei Negima! Fan Fiction / Naruto Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Wait, did that happen before? ❯ Spoilers - They Pass ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 6: Spoilers - They Pass

Sleepily, Ryouga sat up. After rubbing his eyes, he looked around. "Ah. So this was the right place. Good morning, everyone." Yawning, he shrugged off his blanket and climbed out of his tent. He took a moment to look over his students, then turned his attention to Naruto. "Planning on roughing it all the way, eh? Considering just where we're camping, that's probably not the best idea. So just this once, I'll lend you my equipment. But in the future, if I say you should bring something, do yourself a favor and bring it." Naruto responded with a confused look. A look that Ryouga missed entirely as he began putting his camping gear back into his pack.

"But instructor, what will you use?" asked Negi. "Or did you bring extra food and sleeping bags in case someone forgot theirs?" Naruto's look of confusion changed to one of horror. And then his eyes went unfocused.

"I'm not going," Ryouga replied. "The truth is, I wasn't entirely honest with you when I told you we were going camping yesterday. You three are not actually genin yet. Every graduating academy student has to pass one final test before they become genin. In your case, that test is to survive for one week in the forest of death by yourselves. Now, this training ground is very dangerous. You'll have to work together if you want to have any hope of passing this test. That said, even if you all work together, you may still run into something you can't handle. If you do, throw one of these." At that point, Ryouga withdrew three kunai with seals drawn on the handles of them. "These kunai have seals on them that will summon me if you throw them. I'll be able to handle anything that shows up in that forest," he said, handing one to Sakura. "However, only use these in an emergency." He handed one to Naruto, whose eyes suddenly refocused on Ryouga, then the kunai. "If you use them you forfeit the test." With that, he handed the last one to Negi.

"Failing means that you'll have to go back to the academy for more training. So try to pass, okay." Having finished packing his camping gear up, he turned and lightly passed the full pack to Naruto. "Catch."

"Er, could you repea-ACK!" As Naruto caught the pack, he collapsed to the ground under the weight of its contents. 'The hell? Why is this so heavy?'

"Huh. Looks like you could use some strength training. ...Anyways, see you in a week." With that, Ryouga made a few handseals and vanished.

0o0o0

Deep within her underground base (that was not on the moon), Rita Repulsa grinned. Using her magic crystal ball, she had been spying on the Power Rangers, and had discovered something exploitable. "Finster! It seems that the Red Ranger has to stay in the Forest of Death for her genin test! Without the other rangers!"

"I see!" said Finster. "Without her allies, she should be vulnerable. And with only four members, the other rangers should be easier to defeat."

"It's better than that! She's with two other academy students! She can't even morph to defend herself!"

"Indeed? Shall I send out the putty patrol to take care of her?"

"Do it!"

"As you command." Turning, Finster pressed some magic clay into the molds, then pressed them shut. A moment later he withdrew several humanoid clay figures from them and placed them onto a tray. "Now into the monstermatic they go. Ten seconds should do it." With the spinning of a wheel and the pull of a switch, several gray, humanoid figures were ejected from the monster-making machine.

"Now go! Destroy the Red Ranger!"

0o0o0

Silently, Sakura, Negi, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto, and Naruto (it had taken four Narutos to move Ryouga's absurdly heavy pack at a halfway decent speed) trudged their way into the forest of death. Already they had been attacked by several of the forest animals. And forest plants, forest insects, and even the forest terrain. So far, Sakura had managed to kill most of them before they got close enough to do any damage. Nevertheless, at this point, even Naruto had realized that making a lot of unnecessary noise was a rather bad idea.

'Damn,' Sakura mentally swore. 'At this rate, we'll have to keep a constant guard while we sleep. And while Negi and me are both qualified, we've got Naruto with us. We'll have to keep at least two people on guard while the other sleeps if we don't want to get eaten by something while he's on guard. This week is going to suck. At least we'll be able to get him to use those shadow clones to gather stuff. Although Negi or me will have to sort through whatever he brings us to separate what's garbage from what's useful. On the plus side, at least he's keeping quiet, now. We haven't been attacked by anything for almost fifteen minutes, now.'

As if on cue, a team of putties suddenly dropped to the forest floor around them. Waving their arms, they started their garbled babbling.

'Oh crap! Oh crap! This is bad!' thought Sakura. 'If I was alone, I could take this many putties out by myself, easily. But with Negi and Naruto here, I can't morph without revealing my identity. And Naruto can't hold his own. He was dead last in class! And these things are being really loud. If we don't take them out fast, we'll have half the predators in the forest on top of us in minutes.' "Negi, protect Naruto. I'll take care of these things!" Or rather, that is what she would have said if she hadn't been preempted by a certain blond teammate.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (shadow clone technique)" To the left and right of Naruto, a pair of clones appeared. 'What the?' "I said, KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU (SHADOW CLONE TECHNIQUE)!" This time, roughly twenty clones appeared. 'That's better.'

As Sakura stared at Naruto in surprise, the clones rushed toward the putties. And promptly began vanishing in poofs of smoke as the putties defeated them.

'Ack! What's going on?' If Naruto had bothered to think about it, he would have realized that, being from the future where he was 16, he was used to fighting with longer limbs and being much faster and stronger than he presently was. He also might have realized that his muscle memory currently consisted of that of a badly trained academy student as opposed to that of the strongest genin in Konoha. Unfortunately, Naruto had not put any thought into this in the brief amount of time that had passed since his reality-warping, time-travelling incident. Consequently, he had not spent any time adjusting to his new form. So he also hadn't discovered that his chakra control was also shot thanks to his poorly-trained twelve-year-old body. All of which resulted in a rather one-sided fight for his clones. Fortunately, he wasn't by himself.

"POWER SWORD!" Sakura yelled, throwing herself into the fray and lashing out at the nearest putty with a sword that appeared seemingly from nowhere.

'Sagitta Magica: Series Lucis! (Magic Arrow: Light Series),' thought Negi as he blasted two nearby putties with what appeared to be lasers before spinning and striking a third with his staff.

'Why can't I hit anything?' wondered Naruto, more than a little panicked at his sudden lack of ability. As numerous clones' memories flooded into him, his eyes abruptly widened. Diving to the side, he barely managed to evade a very large tiger that lunged at him from behind. Having missed its target, it began mauling the nearest putty. "TIGER!" yelled Naruto.

"WHAT?" yelled Sakura, just before she too spotted the large feline. 'Crap! It's happening. We've got to get out of here, now!' "Negi, Naruto, get to the trees! Adult tigers don't climb them." Without waiting to see if they listened, Sakura launched herself at the nearest putty. Using its head as a stepping stool, she jumped again, this time grabbing a low hanging branch. Pulling herself up, she turned to check on her teammates. Just in time to see Naruto apparently defy physics and run straight up the side of a tree. For about five steps before he fell off and landed on his head.

"Ack!" Clutching his head in pain, Naruto rolled back to his feet. 'AAAAAUUUUGH! NOTHING'S WORKING!' The tiger, finished killing its putty, moved on to the next closest potential prey. Unfortunately for Naruto, that happened to be him. "AAAAAUUUUUGH! KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU (SHADOW CLONE TECHNIQUE)!" Five more Narutos poofed into existence, then ran in five different directions while the last one just stood there and screamed.

Sakura winced as the tiger pounced on the immobile, screaming Naruto. Fortunately, that Naruto vanished into a puff of smoke, revealing it to be a clone. A sudden yanking on her leg brought her attention back to her own predicament. The remaining putties, having decided to ignore Naruto and Negi, were now attempting to climb the tree after her. With a quick slash, the putty that had been pulling on her leg found itself short a hand. A kick later, and it also found itself on the ground. Digging into her ninja pouch, Sakura began peppering the putties with shuriken.

0o0o0

"Naruto!" a voice yelled.

Turning to look, Naruto found the source of the call to be the short guy. 'Negi. That was it.' More importantly, he was lowering a rope from up in a tree. Immediately, Naruto swerved toward the rope. Unfortunately, so did all his clones. Consequently, so did the tiger. "ACK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GO THAT WAY!" Realizing their mistake, the clones abruptly swerved away from the rope. Grabbing it, Naruto began frantically climbing for the relative safety of the trees.

As soon as Naruto reached the branch Negi was on, he dispelled his clones. As a result, the tiger turned its attention to the only potential prey in the immediate vicinity that was still on the ground: the remaining putties.

0o0o0

"NO!" shouted Rita. "That tiger is eating my putties! The Red Ranger is going to get away!"

"If only they were strong enough to fend off that beast," said Finster. "My queen, perhaps if you..."

"Ah! I see." Raising her magic staff, Rita looked into the magic crystal ball she had been viewing the battle with. "MAGIC WAND!" she cried, slamming the butt of the staff into the crystal ball. "MAKE MY PUTTIES GROW!"

0o0o0

Sakura's eyes widened in surprise as the remaining three putties suddenly began rapidly expanding. 'Oh crap! Diving out of the tree, she landed in a roll, immediately turning to face the growing putties and the tiger. However, as the putties enlarged, they quickly nullified the threat of the tiger, crushing it along with the tree she had just been in. 'We're still in the village! I have to morph and stop them, even if it means revealing my identity!' Raising her communicator to her face, Sakura began contacting Zordon. "Zordon, Rita's got three giant putties in the middle of the village!"

Unbeknownst to Sakura, Negi and Naruto were having similar thoughts. 'Oh no! Those clay golems are going to kill us! I have to stop them, even if it means exposing my magic!' "Ras Tel Ma Scir Magister (Negi's activation key for his magic)..."

'Oh crap! Those grey things got huge! Fox, gimme all the chakra you can spare!'

<No.>

'What? Why not?'

<Because it would be a waste of my powers. Just use that special kunai you got from your jounin instructor earlier. It should take care of the problem.>

'But then I'll fail!'

<And that's more important than possibly dying?>

'...Dammit.' Pulling the kunai from his pouch, Naruto threw it upward, toward the chest of the nearest giant putty. 'I really hope that explosive tag has enough power to take these things out.'

<Explosive tag?>

0o0o0

Ryouga was eating lunch. He had managed to cook up a stew from ingredients he'd managed to gather from around Konoha, and it had actually come out pretty decent. He glanced at his watch. 'Still two hours to go.'

While he had told his students their test was to camp out in the Forest of Death for a week, he had no intention of actually letting them do so. Secretly, he had arranged for Kurenai to cast a genjutsu over his students after she had finished testing her own group. The genjutsu would show them a situation in which they couldn't possibly hope to get out of without at least one of their teammates dying. If at least one of them threw their kunai, then the whole team would pass. However, if they tried to get out on their own by sacrificing their teammates, they would fail. And of course, if they threw the kunai early for something stupid, like a pack of Konoha jumping leeches, they would also fail. If it was for something serious... eh, he'd cross that bridge if it happened.

As if on cue, Ryouga suddenly found himself falling backwards from an immense clay structure into the forest of death.

0o0o0

"Contact the other power -"

"Veniant spiritus aeriales (Come, spirits of air)-"

A loud crashing noise interrupted Negi and Sakura, drawing their attention upwards. Just in time to see their instructor smash through the forest canopy, then slam into the ground. Sakura and Negi fell silent. Naruto did not.

"Oh crap! I think I just killed our instructor!" Naruto yelled. Negi just stared at him in horror, all attempts at spellcasting forgotten for the moment.

"Urg..." With a grunt, Ryouga started to get up.

"Ack! I mean, uh, Negi did it!"

"Hey!"

As he stood up, Ryouga took in the largest pair of feet he'd ever seen. Looking up, he realized that what he had initially mistaken for some sort of structure was actually a giant golem of some sort. And two more were standing behind it. 'Huh. These golems look kind of... mangled.' "Okay, that probably constitutes a real emergency. I guess you all pass." Turning, Ryouga faced the forest. "Hey, Kurenai! I thought I said to use genjutsu! Not earth golems. Also, you're like two hours ea-" Which was as far as he got before the nearest giant putty stepped on him.

Sakura and Negi resumed silently staring in horror. This time, Naruto joined them. However, before the putty could take another step, a green glow began emitting from underneath the putty's foot. "Perfect Shishi Hokodan!" At that, the putty vanished in a massive pillar of glowing green light. As the pillar vanished into the sky, Ryouga launched himself at the foot of the next putty. "RAAAH! Bakusai Tenketsu (Breaking Point)!" Said foot vanished in an explosion, and the putty toppled into the same spot the first had vanished at. Just in time for a gargantuan glowing green ball of sickly light to land on it, crushing it into the ground. Turning to the last putty, Ryouga cracked his knuckles.

"...Zordon?" Sakura said into her communicator. "Nevermind."

0o0o0

Rita watched her crystal ball with increasing frustration. Nevertheless, she remained silent as a single jounin demonstrated once again why she needed to take care of Konoha first if she wanted to have a legitimate shot of conquering the planet.

"My queen...?" Finster asked, uncertainly.

"...Finster... just... just get me some aspirin. I think I feel a headache coming on," Rita replied, rubbing her temples.