Shadows of the Past

As the second round of the Chunin Exam begins Squall, Siefer and Rinoa now stand on the other side of the balcony away from the two remaining Hiroku. Rinoa licks her lips as she prepares for her match with the shadow manipulating kunoichi. “This bitch is going down,” she promises Siefer. “No one talks shit about my teammates but me.”

As they face off Rinoa kneels beside Kelala and whispers into the puppy’s ear before standing to assume her fighting stance. Kelala then races across the field and back up the stairs to rejoin the others. “It’s just you and me bitch,” she tells the confused kunoichi. “I want the pleasure of beating your ass all to myself.”

Rinoa drops low and rolls along the ground for a few feet to avoid the shower of shuriken that Kari sent her way. Once she’s on all fours she charges the Hiroku and performs a series of hand seals before stepping to the left and blurring out of sight. Kari as only a second to search for her target before a crimson claw comes into view from her right side causing the girl to go on the defensive as the dog-nin tries to claw her to ribbons.

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“Didn’t you teach her any restraint?” Fei asks Raven as they watch the Inuzuka girl chase the Hiroku kunoichi around the field trying to claw her to death.

Raven just laughs as he watches Rinoa steer the other girl around the field. “Oh I did,” he smirks as he notices something the other Jounin over looked. “Just watch and you’ll see what she’s doing.”

It takes less then a minute for the others to realize what Raven’s referring to when Kari trips over one of the shuriken she had thrown at the beginning of the match. As the girl falls backwards Rinoa is on top of her in an instant with her claws firmly at the other girls throat. They dig in just deep enough to pierce the skin and draw a few droplets of blood but not deep enough to risk causing damage.

“Yield now or die bitch,” Rinoa snarls as she bears her fangs to the now terrified girl. Kari gives up and Rinoa smiles sweetly at her as she gets up. “If I ever hear about you bad mouthing my friends again I’ll kill you,” she tells her before skipping away happily to rejoin her team.

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“You know you’re insane right?” Siefer chuckles as he hands Kelala to her. Though he’ll never admit it out loud he really did enjoy watching Rinoa terrorize someone other then him and Squall. The moment was made all the sweeter by the fact that it had been Kari that was unfortunate enough to piss her off.

Rinoa just shrugs as she pets the puppy’s head. “So what baka?’ she asks him. “It’s not like the bitch didn’t have it coming,” she adds before looking at Squall, “You’re next.” Squall nods before he heads down to the field for his next match.

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Squall’s match is over quickly as his opponent’s speed proves too much for him to compete against. Though Raven is disappointed that his student lost so quickly he can’t help but grin at the skill of the Sand-nin that defeated him. “Looks like Suna has its own Lee-kun,” he comments.

“Hai,” Kankuro replies. “Kurino was never able to get the hang of Genjutsu or Ninjutsu but he always excelled at Taijutsu,” he tells them. “Gaara and Baki both worked with him on improving his already impressive abilities and you’ve seen the results.”

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Siefer enters the field as he glares at Keero from behind his sunglasses. “Let’s finish this,” he says as he assumes his stance. They begin their fight with such intensity that their blows echo throughout the arena. The two appear to be evenly matched in skill and power but Siefer can’t help smirking, as he knows that he has the match already won.

His time spent training with the others taught him several tricks that the other Hiroku boy could never have known about so as he allows Keero to slip under his guard with a palm thrust to his chest he turns his body to the side causing the other boy’s momentum to carry him past him as he brings his elbow up to collide with his opponent’s face.

Capitalizing on the opening Siefer twists his body back around and delivers a hard knee to the boy’s gut followed up by a chakra laced palm thrust to the base of Keero’s skull rendering the boy unconscious. Siefer doesn’t wait for the proctor’s ruling as he turns and walks away from the field leaving the other boy for the medics to deal with.

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Kurino’s match with Rinoa is fierce and fast paced as both Taijutsu experts demonstrate their hand-to-hand combat skills. In the end Kurino wins the bout only after Rinoa reaches her limit and withdraws. Siefer looks at the Genin that defeated both of his teammates and can’t help but wonder if he should just quit or actually try and fight the boy that dwarfs his own slight build.

In the end Siefer opts to fight and as the match begins he throws a smoke bomb at the ground below him and shadow walks to the safety of the trees around them. Shuriken begin to shower the field from all directions forcing the Sand-nin to continually dodge them.

“He’ll never win that way,” Kankuro tells the others. “Kurino is too fast for them to touch him.”

“He’s not trying to hit him,” Raven laughs. “He’s setting the stage.” As they watch four fifths of the shuriken begin to poof away in clouds of smoke at regular intervals around the confused Sand Genin who now cusses as cut after cut begin to popup all over his body as the smoke continues to rise. Soon black smoke begins to replace white as smoke bombs are set off in place of the star shaped weapons.

“I see you’ve taught him a few of your old tricks,” Fei laughs as he pats Raven on the back.

“I had to,” Raven replies. “It was the only way I could ever get him to show up for night practice,” he adds with a chuckle.

“What’s going on?” Temari asks them. “Where are the cuts coming from and what’s with all the smoke?”

“Siefer used the smoke from when the Shadow Weapon Reproduction ended to shadow walk around Kurino so he could attack without worrying about the other boy’s speed,” Raven tells them. Since the smoke from that doesn’t last for very long he then started using smoke bombs to maintain the cover.”

“You taught him this Raven-san?” Kankuro asks in amazement.

“Hai,” Raven nods. “It’s a trick I’ve been using since I was Siefer’s age,” he then looks at his former teacher. “Koga was the one that taught it to me when I graduated the Academy.” The match soon comes to an end when the proctor calls the medics over for Kurino before the boy losses too much blood. “Looks like you all owe my team dinner,” he laughs reminding them of their wager.

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A week later Raven smiles proudly at his team as he hands them each their new Chunin vests. While they all still have the ones the Hokage presented them the day before they put one the ones Raven gave them to match his own. “I’m very proud of all four of you,” he tells them. “You have proven that you truly deserve to be called shinobi.” He gives them all a salute that they in turn return with matching smiles. “Now come on we’ve got one more lunch to collect before Kankuro-san and his team return to Suna.”

It had taken everyone a few days to recover from the tournament and Fei had been the first to pay up on his debt though for obvious reasons his team had chosen not to attend. Temari’s had shown up with her yesterday and they had actually enjoyed talking with the Sand Chunin about their matches during the tournament and were actually looking forward to getting together again whenever their missions brought either team to the other’s village.

They all laugh as they head towards the restaurant that they are to meet the puppet master and his team at so that they can collect on the bet that Raven had made on their behalf. As they walk Raven watches his team while silently smiling to himself as they discuss what they’re going to eat this time and he finds himself actually glad that he was assigned to them.

‘They really are a great group that just needed an older brother more then a father figure like I had,’ he musses to himself. ‘All in all I think the future of Konoha is in good hands. I‘m almost willing to think about asking Hokage-sama for a new team once they‘re all promoted to Jounin.

A shrilling voice breaks him from his thoughts as he watches a very pissed off Rinoa chasing a laughing Squall and Siefer down the street towards the restaurant. ‘ALMOST.’

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A/N: Well there you have it another completed story in my Naruto Series. I hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I wish to give a special thank you to Botched who has been my biggest supporter and best reviewer. Your reviews and praise truly made this story well worth writing.

I also wish to give a HUGE THANK YOU to Naruto Tops for Beta-ing not only this story but also my others. Her help and support really made this series far better then it would have been if I had done it on my own. Unfortunately do to previous personal commitments she will no longer be able to Beta the remainder of the series.

I will continue to write the rest of the series on my own until I’m either finished or am able to find another Beta I can work with.