Mahou Sensei Negima! Fan Fiction / Naruto Fan Fiction / Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Wait, did that happen before? ❯ In Which Kurenai is Absolutely Livid ( Chapter 7 )

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

Chapter 7: In Which Kurenai is Absolutely Livid

Turning back from the remains of the giant golems he had just finished destroying, Ryouga faced his team. Or rather, faced where he thought they were. After looking around for a few seconds, he spotted them, then actually turned in the right direction.

"Congratulations. Starting today, you are now all genin." Ryouga was met with silence and confused, wide-eyed stares. "...Er, aren't you happy? Or at least wondering why you didn't fail even though you threw that kunai?"

"How come you aren't dead?" Naruto asked bluntly. "That big gray thing stepped on you!"

"So? It wasn't that heavy; just a few hundred tons." Ryouga looked confused at the question. However, nobody bothered to clarify, and after a few moments of awkward silence, Ryouga continued. "Anyways, meet me at training ground three at 8 A.M. tomorrow morning. I'll test your abilities, then we can go on our first mission together. Right now, I've got some paperwork to file." Turning, Ryouga walked over to his pack, picked it up, and started heading deeper into the forest. Then he paused. Almost as an afterthought, he turned to face the group again. "Oh, right. You'll want to hold on to this," he said, passing a kunai with a summoning seal on it to Naruto. It was the same kunai that had been used to summon him only moments beforehand. "Don't lose yours either, you two." At that, Ryouga disappeared deeper into the forest.

"...Isn't that the wrong way?"

0o0o0

Aftermath: Naruto

Naruto looked around, verifying once again that nobody else was currently using the training ground. His status as the sole ninja in the area confirmed, he walked over to the nearest training post. "RASENGAN!"

Stepping back, he looked over his work with a frown. The training post appeared to be completely untouched. "DAMMIT! RASENGAN!" yelled Naruto, repeating his previous effort with a similar result. "RASENGAN!" Again, the training post appeared undamaged. "RASENGAN RASENGAN RASENGAN!!! Grrr!" With a growl, Naruto focused all the chakra he could into both of his hands, then shoved them together, began spinning them around each other, and tried again. "RASENGAN!"

This time, an extremely shallow spiraling groove cut its way into the training post. "AAAUUGH!" Dammit! This is so shallow that I wouldn't even notice it if I wasn't looking for it! If it's that way, then...! "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Several clones appeared around Naruto. With a growl, Naruto dispelled the extras. Then he and the sole remaining clone shoved their hands together and began focusing their chakra. "RASENGAN!"

This time, the spiral of grooves was more easily noticeable, having been focused into a smaller area. But it was still just a spiral of grooves, as opposed to the gaping hole the actual Rasengan would leave. 'Damn! Why can't I do the Rasengan? Even trying it with a clone isn't working! It's like I'm fresh out of the academy again with no control over my chakra! ...Oh hell.'

Turning, Naruto charged toward a nearby stream and attempted to water walk. Seconds later, a thoroughly soaked Naruto ran at the nearest tree, then ran up the side of it. For all of six steps before falling off, and landing on his head. 'Shit! It IS like I'm fresh out of the academy with no control over my chakra!' thought Naruto, clutching his head in pain. 'I can't use the Rasengan, I don't have good control over how many clones I summon, I doubt I can still use wind chakra, and attempting to go into sage mode will probably turn me into a frog statue. And to top it all off, I'm slower, weaker, and have shorter limbs than I'm used to!'

After a few seconds of rubbing his head, Naruto got back up. 'Alright, if it's like that...' Pulling out a kunai, Naruto charged back up the side of the tree.

0o0o0

Aftermath: Sakura

After leaving their respective tests, the rangers met up at the command center, a secret base outside of Konoha that was normally only accessible via teleportation. Which, coincidentally, was exactly how they accessed it.

"Now that we're all here, let's go ahead and get this out of the way," said Tenten, looking at the other rangers. "Who passed?"

Three hands went up. Sakura's, Ino's, and Yahiko's. Everyone looked at Kiba. An awkward silence ensued. "My team didn't make it," he stated flatly.

"...Don't worry," Tenten said, just a little too hesitantly to actually be reassuring. "You'll get another shot in a few months. Not every genin makes it on their first try. And now that you know the test is about teamwork, you'll be better prepared."

"Wait, the test was about teamwork? What the hell?" asked Kiba, clearly frustrated.

"Er, what did you think it was about?" asked Ino.

"Combat skills! We were supposed to beat down our jounin instructor and take some bells from him. Whoever got the bells, passed. But there were only two bells, so we got in a fight with each other to see who got to try to get them. After I beat Hinata until she started crying, he told us we failed. How were we supposed to know that was a test about teamwork! He pitted us against each other!"

More awkward silence ensued. And then Yahiko started snickering, which was immediately met with a glare from Kiba. "I'm sorry. It's just-" snerk, "you attacked your teammates during a test of teamwork?!" At this point he burst out laughing.

"Hey! It's not funny!"

"It is! It is so funny!"

"Yeah? Well... shut up!"

0o0o0

Aftermath: Negi

Back at his apartment, Negi recorded a message for his cousin, Nekane, informing her of his success at finally becoming a genin. Living alone, nobody interrupted him, and he was able to record his message without disturbance.

0o0o0

Aftermath: Ryouga

Hibiki Ryouga was lost. After giving his team tomorrow's assignment, he had left, intending to head to the Hokage Tower to file the paperwork for his new team. Except he hadn't made it to the Hokage Tower. Instead, he'd gone deeper into the Forest of Death, then somehow come out in a desert after a few hours. After wandering about for another hour, he'd realized that the Hokage Monument, which could be seen from almost anywhere in Konoha, was nowhere in sight, despite the fact that his view was unobstructed for miles.

Cursing, Ryouga had used Hiraishin no Jutsu to return to his apartment. He had then spent 15 minutes trying to find the front door. After successfully exiting his apartment, he had looked around until he'd spotted the Hokage Tower. Then, he'd taken to the roofs and cut the straightest path he could toward the Tower.

It had taken him another hour to actually get to the Hokage's office once he had entered the tower, and, paperwork in tow, he had Hiraishin no Jutsu'd his way back to his apartment. Only afterword did it occur to him that he probably could have just filled out the paperwork in another room in the tower. Mentally berating himself, Ryouga began filling out the paperwork to register his new team of genin students. As he filled it out, he couldn't shake the feeling that he had forgotten to do something.

0o0o0

Aftermath: Kurenai

Yuuhi Kurenai was absolutely livid. Ryouga had asked her to place his team under a genjutsu as part of his genin team's final test once she was done testing her own team. She had assumed that, like anyone possessing any ability for forethought whatsoever, Ryouga would make arrangements to actually make this possible. She had been wrong.

Instead, Ryouga had sent them into the forest of death under the pretense that their final test was a survival test. The forest of death was absolutely gigantic, had low visibility, and was filled with dangerous flora and fauna. Which meant that said genin team could be pretty much anywhere in it by this point. Unfortunately, Ryouga had failed to include a method for monitoring them in his preparations. All he had given them were kunai with a summoning jutsu placed on them, as well as the symbol for a landing point for his Hiraishin no Jutsu. If Ryouga had actually been present, she would have had the option of having him teleport over to his team while transformed, then send up some sort of signal so that she could locate them. However, Ryouga was not present and had not thought to give her one of the summoning kunai. And if she couldn't find the team, they probably wouldn't use their kunai. Which meant that they were going to be almost as impossible to find as Ryouga himself. So now Kurenai was hunting a team of genin that were probably somewhere in the forest of death. Assuming, of course, that Ryouga had actually been able to find them to give them their test to begin with (which was probably a bad assumption to make, now that she thought about it). And since Ryouga hadn't told her who his genin team consisted of, she couldn't just look for one of them at their home to see if the test had been assigned or not. The smart thing to do would be to get the team roster from Iruka, look up who was on Ryouga's team, locate the address of one of them, then see if they were home. 'Yes. That's what I'll do. So what if they're out here somewhere. If they aren't, I'm wasting my time. And if they are, I'll only be gone for maybe an hour. Leaving a team of fresh academy graduates unattended in the Forest of Death. But even if something happened, they could just summon Ryouga. Which they would assume would mean failing their test, so they wouldn't do it unless they realized they were absolutely screwed. Which would probably be too late, if anything actually did happen. ...Dammit. I hate you, Ryouga.' Gritting her teeth, Kurenai resumed her search.

Technique Index

Rasengan - Spiraling Sphere: A technique originally developed by the fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato. The Rasengan forms a rapidly spinning sphere of chakra in the palm of the user's hand. This sphere can drill through most materials and causes severe internal damage when used against humans. However, the Rasengan is an incomplete technique, meant to eventually be infused with elemental chakra to form a new technique. However, Minato died before completing it. As such, while Minato created the Rasengan, the technique wasn't completed until over a decade and a half later by Naruto. Or at least, that's how things used to be. Now, the completed technique does not exist outside of memories of a nonexistent timeline.

Kage Bunshin no Jutsu - Shadow Clone Technique: This technique creates solid, autonomous copies of the user, and is Naruto's signature technique. Said clones are capable of using ninjutsu, but dispel after taking light amounts of damage. Any memories accumulated by the clones are returned to the user of the technique when they dispel.

Hiriashin no Jutsu - Flying Thundergod Technique: This technique teleports the user to the location of a certain symbol. Anywhere these symbols are, the user can instantly transport themselves to, regardless of distance. It was originally lost with the death of the fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato. However, Ryouga was able to reverse-engineer the technique from an inferior version that still existed within Konoha. Ryouga now uses this to get to his apartment.