Kakashi & the Kunoichi from Thunder Country

Blanket Disclaimer applicable to all chapters: I do not own "Naruto" which is a creation by Masashi Kishimoto, though I wished I owned Kakashi as my love slave! I do not make any money off any of the stories I write using Naruto characters. I do own my original characters Otori Rikako, her parents, and teammates.

PART II STRATEGY AND TACTICS (continued)


2.6 Nominations for the Chuunin Selection Exams

It was my fault. I should have been with them.

Obito: It was unexpected.

I should have expected the unexpected. I should have been prepared. I was lulled into complacency again. I'm such an idiot!

Obito: If only the sharingan were truly capable of foresight. Everyone has hindsight. If we all had foresight no one would make mistakes, but then no one would learn from their mistakes.

Since when did you become so wise?

Obito: Since you started talking to yourself…

.

It was regretful that his genins had to see death up close so soon. But Kakashi was baptized in blood by the time he was six. Sometimes it was better sooner than later. They will become stronger, more motivated this way, he rationalized to assuage his guilt. His genins recovered from their experience with seemingly little side effects, but each underwent a change after the C mission. Takeo finally made more of an effort to be stronger and was even willing to train with Kenji on their time off from official training sessions. Kenji took Kakashi more seriously, realizing his experience could account for something, and trained doubly hard (if that were possible) with the intent of learning to fight multiple opponents simultaneously. But the mission seemed to have the opposite effect on the girl. She was uncharacteristically inattentive during his lectures and disinterested in training and seemed to be constantly thinking of something else.

If she’s having problems dealing with what happened on the mission, hopefully she’ll talk to her parents about it. Unfortunately, there’s no shinobi shrink on staff at the hospital... And it was not his job. Kakashi was uncomfortable with such situations. He never knew quite what to say. If I were more like Iruka... He's like a father to Naruto. If it weren't for him, Naruto wouldn't be who he is now. If only I had been closer to Sasuke... But it just wasn't in his nature, and she already had a father. What she needed was a mentor to set an example of what it was to be a shinobi. A shinobi was a tool of the state, remaining stoic, viewing death as nothing more than an unpleasant part of the job description.

Kakashi thought back to his first genins Naruto and Sakura, who always wore their hearts on their sleeves. After the death of Zabuza and Haku, and the near death of Sasuke, they were visibly shaken but realized then what it meant to be a shinobi. Naruto, as resilient as ever, swore to follow his own path. But not everyone was that resilient.

To his relief, Rikako did not look to him for solace or advice but independently tried to resolve her own personal issues. But her curiosity remained the same. And now that she knew about his sharingan, so did the rest of the team. The questions were endless. Before, when they asked why he covered up his left eye, he would just shrug and say he thought he looked cooler that way. Now they demanded to know where he got it, did it have special abilities, why was it red with black dots, and more. Kakashi casually explained he picked it up on one of his missions years ago and it allowed him to see things in greater detail, which allowed him to copy his opponents’ techniques. Luckily it was the latter part that interested his team and he did not have to defend his most precious memory.

-...-...-...-...-...-...-

Soon it was that time of year again. The chuunin selection exams were coming up and it was Konoha’s turn to host again.

Kakashi thought about his current team and the perils they would face during the exams. Some participants came back with serious injuries, either physical or mental. But many participants did not come back alive, or at all. His team would be rookies amongst more experienced, more dangerous opponents. Were they ready? Should he nominate them? Last time around he didn’t hesitate. Sasuke and Naruto were strong and could compensate for Sakura’s weakness. He had been worried about her, but she had grown more than he thought. This team was strong enough, but Kakashi was now older and wiser and he was the one who was different, more cautious, after everything that had happened in the past.

He re-evaluated his team. They were a more defensive team than his other one. Or rather Takeo and Rikako were not the type to attack first, but to stay back and evaluate the situation. Those two were smart enough to recognize and run away from a death situation, dragging Kenji with them if they had to. That was important.

Takeo’s traps and barriers were defensive techniques and worked well with Kenji’s offensive techniques. And the girl was sort of a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none. She could set traps, though not as well as her teammate, and help with barrier techniques. And though she was not physically strong, she had a respectable number of ninjutsu techniques at hand. Though their execution was adequate, they were not that powerful. She had as much chakra as Sasuke, and as good chakra control as Sakura, so why wasn't she producing more powerful attacks? Kakashi felt she was holding back, and was training less enthusiastically since the C mission. Well, if she takes this exam, she can’t hold back when everyone else is coming at them at full steam in the second exam. It would be a good lesson for all of them.

And they were able to hold off three experienced shinobis for nearly five minutes. Not bad at all. They were a well-rounded team so they should have a fair chance of making it to the finals, and a good chance of surviving, which was most important. Yes, he would nominate them without reservations.

-…-…-…-…-…-

The eagle made its seasonal flight to round up the shinobi senseis to meet and nominate their teams for the chuunin selection exams. This time around, Kakashi nominated his rookie genin team and so did Gai. The other rookie teams elected to pass.

It has been three years since rookies were nominated. Everyone paused to look at Iruka, waiting for a protest. Why is everyone looking at me? He turned red and shifted his feet uncomfortably but said nothing. He had learned his lesson, the jounin senseis knew best.

Gai normally did not believe in nominating rookies. But after Kakashi's success with his first team, and knowing that Kakashi was likely to nominate his current team, Gai felt obligated to nominate his rookie team. Gai then said to Kakashi, “I normally wouldn’t nominate rookies, but this year I have the top rookie genin and two other very strong genins, all with great individual techniques. They’re even better as a team. They’ve already completed several C missions. And they have a super hard working attitude! All three should make chuunin on their first try! Ah, the exuberance of youth, keeps us young don’t you think? So how’s your team Kakashi?”

“Umm, were you speaking to me?” The gray haired jounin turned his head to give Gai his apathetic lazy-eyed look.

“Argghh! You did it to me again! Why do you insist on acquiring avant-garde actions!” Gai grabbed his hair and continued his tirade while the other jounins finished their nominations, ignoring his usual crazy antics. My team will crush yours! Gai swore to himself.

-…-…-…-…-…-

“ ;Sorry I’m late, but I have a surprise for you,” Kakashi smiled down at his genins from the top of the gate. “I just nominated you all for the upcoming chuunin selection exams. Here are the applications. Drop them off on Friday by 3PM.” He didn’t pretend that it was an individual choice. Having someone on the team with an ex-shinobi parent really put a damper on his fun. The veteran shinobi jumped to the ground, which suddenly gave way to reveal a large spiked pit. The spikes shot up, but he had expertly somersaulted away to safer ground. His punishment for being twenty minutes late.

‘Yes!” yelled the larger boy as he grabbed his form from Kakashi, “I’ve been waiting for this.” He instantly forgave his sensei for being late yet again.

Rikako took her application silently and started reading it immediately, looking for the fine print.

Kakashi had to walk over and hand Takeo his application. He accepted it unenthusiastically. “I thought we’d be genins and stick to C and D missions for a while longer. That last C mission was just too much,” he sighed.

“Oh, well,” Kakashi scratched his head, “that really should’ve been a B or A mission. Umm, sorry about that.”

“Excuse me, Kakashi sensei, but wasn’t that mission reclassified as a B or A mission? If it was, shouldn’t we be paid more?” asked the girl astutely.

“Yeah, well, problem with that…the client refused to pay extra. He said that the contract did not include such unexpected events and our actions were unauthorized.” Kakashi shrugged. “Stuff like that happens every so often. Not much you can do about it. We were lucky we weren't charged with destruction of the docks and ruining the shipments of peaches, rice and potatoes.”

The team had recovered the other illegal artifacts hidden in the importations with Pakkun's help, but they were returned to Water Country in exchange for goodwill, no reward.

Kenji frowned and suggested, “How about we go rough up the client? Get him to cough up some more cash.”

“Only missing-nins work that way. Though it’s very tempting…we’re supposed to be…honorable, right?” the girl laughed for perhaps the first time since the horror of the last mission.

“Yes, well, if you guys pass this, you will be assigned and paid for B missions.”

“’If’ is such a pessimistic word. ‘When’ we pass is much more encouraging,“ Rikako now smiled confidently as the light returned to her dark eyes.

-…-…-…-…-…-

2.7 The Chuunin Exam 1

Rikako looked around the room and counted the number of genins and then she calculated the number of teams. Strange, a number not divisible by three, a remainder of two. Did I miscount? She counted again, but it was the same. Well, someone must be late or sick. There were a fair number of non-Leaf teams and teams with much older members. One guy with a mustache and glasses looked to be over forty. A genin at forty? How pathetic! I’d throw myself off a cliff if I were so untalented…

-…-…-…-…-

Ibiki was feeling…lazy this year. It had been 3 years and 6 exams since he had been an examiner. Countries and examiners were rotated so that the same genins retaking the tests would not have an advantage. He didn’t have time to come up with anything new, so he decided to reuse the test strategy from three years ago, but with some different questions. Torturing shinobi wannabes was more fun than real interrogations. He liked to watch their confused faces as they squirmed and sweated. Nothing like the feeling of control and power.

He gave his standard speech in his most terrorizing voice. “Each of you starts with 10 points… The test has 10 questions, each worth one point… It’s a deduction based test which means 1 point will be deducted for each wrong answer… The pass/fail decision is determined by your team’s total points… If an examiner determines someone cheated, each action is a 2 point deduction…If anyone gets a zero, the entire team will fail…Start!”

Rikako looked at the questions. They’re hard, but not impossible if you have a good grasp of higher mathematics, good language skills, and biology-physics-chemistry knowledge. I can figure out most of these questions with some effort. Takeo should be able to answer 1 or 2 if he tries hard enough, that’s a big ‘if.’ But math and analytical thinking are Kenji’s weaknesses. There is a good chance that he won’t be able to answer any of them, and if he can’t, we all fail. And yet, something is fishy...the questions are hard, way too hard, I doubt if most jounin can answer them! And allowing us to cheat up to a maximum of five times doesn’t make any sense at all…

Takeo looked at the questions. Crap, these are hard. I can answer maybe a few of them, but all I need is to answer 1 or 2 and that should be enough, Rikako should get most of them. If we don’t make the cut, it will be Kenji’s fault and not mine. There’s always next year, and the year after that, and…

Kenji felt a headache coming on, as if a low pressure system were rolling in. The more he looked at the questions, the worse his headache became. I just need to answer one. He scanned the questions. A cipher, shit I suck at those…next, a math problem with lots of variables requiring simultaneous equations and trigonometry… fuck, even worse… next, a foreign language? What the fuck? Next, a chemistry question…don't know shit about atoms… next...Finally he picked the one that looked the easiest. A logic problem. I hate those but it might be doable.

A few weeks ago, Rikako was reading "Shinobi Brain Teasers" while waiting for their sensei. Kenji took a quick look at her book and complained about logic questions being impossible. "Actually, they're quite easy. There's no real math or numbers involved. And they're all basically the same. You just need to prepare a grid and fill it in..."

A grid...I can do that...he read the problem slowly again and again:

For six shinobis, determine what village each is from, their favorite weapon, and best jutsu.

Shinobis: Shinobi A, Shinobi B, Shinobi C, Shinobi D, Shinobi E, Shinobi F

Village: Leaf, Sand, Sound, Mist, Rain, Grass

Favorite Weapons: Kunai, Shuriken, Senbon, Explosive notes, Sword, Nunchucks

Best jutsu: Bunshin, Henge, Kawarimi, Hypnosis, Taijutsu, Water walking

Shinobi A is from Grass and dislikes using Kawarimi and Taijutsu.

The shinobi from Sound is best at Water walking, and his favorite weapon is not a Kunai or a Shuriken.

Shinobi C is not from Mist and Shinobi F doesn't like Taijutsu.

The shinobi good in Taijutsu is not from Sand.

The shinobi whose favorite weapon is Senbon is not good in using Bunshin.

Shinobi B's favorite weapon is the Explosive notes. He is not from Rain and he doesn't like Henge or Water walking.

The Nunchucks is the favorite of the shinobi who is good at Kawarimi, but this shinobi is not from Sand.

Shinobi E does not use a Sword.

The Mist shinobi’s favorite weapon is Senbon. He is not Shinobi D or Shinobi E.

Shinobi D uses Hypnosis. He doesn't use a Sword or Shuriken.

Damn, Takeo and Rikako can answer these types of questions. But I refuse to be the weakest link! His headache was getting worse, but he started to fill in the grid. It took him nearly the entire allotted time, but he was fairly confident it was all correct.

.

Ibiki made his usual threat before giving out the final question. “…Whoever decides to take the tenth question must answer it correctly to pass. Failure means staying a genin forever!” I just love this part! Ha! Those shocked faces, classic!

Rikako was confident she could handle the final question, which she suspected was not really necessary.

Takeo was not confident, but he figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. If he had to be a genin forever, that was fine. It just wasn’t meant to be.

Kenji was frantic, he was barely able to answer one question. He didn’t want to stay a genin forever and disappoint his family and his teammates. His headache came back. Kenji took a deep breath and tried to calm down. What did Rikako always say? ‘Nothing is as it appears, everything is a test.’ I thought she was just plain paranoid! It doesn’t make sense, why give 9 questions and then make everything depend on the 10th? The answer came to him like a light switch suddenly turning on. The challenge wasn’t the question, the challenge was the acceptance of the challenge!

-...-...-...-...-...-

Ah, another good pruning, Ibiki thought in satisfaction as he picked up the papers. There were some with unintelligible scribbles, some with several correct answers, many with just one or two correct answers, several stained with sweat, and one neatly written completely filled out with minimal erasing and… completely correct. Impossible! No one has ever answered all nine questions correctly before without resorting to cheating. Otori Rikako…is she the daughter of the old Anbu medic? I knew her father when I was just starting out on the Anbu. And people think I’m scary, they’ve never met the Mad Medic. He had noticed she was one of the few whose eyes never wavered from her paper, a look of total concentration. The last genin who came close to a perfect score without cheating was Haruno Sakura, also on Kakashi’s team. She had missed one question written in a foreign language. (The Yamanaka girl had used her clan's mind powers to copy her answers and give them to her teammates. It was obvious from the way their answers were exactly the same. He could always tell who copied from whom.) Ibiki had made the new questions just a bit harder because of that. Even though the questions ultimately didn’t count, it made him feel superior. Not that it’s really impossible, but to answer all the questions in such a short amount of time is truly impressive. She’s one to watch for…just hope she has a better temper than her father…worse bedside manner ever…

-...-...-...-...-...-

Author's Notes: Ok, I didn’t have a particularly imaginative idea to pass the first exam so I tried to make up for it with the logic problem. Try it, it’s fun! I'll post the answer in a separate chapter. If Ibiki's comments (and later comments coming up) make my OC seem like a Mary Sue, just wait till part 4 when parts of the story are retold from Rikako's POV.

2.8 The Chuunin Exam 2

The next day, the genins who passed the first exam gathered by the Forest of Death for the second exam. Not too many left this year, Anko thought in satisfaction. Let's see, I'm pretty sure we've restocked the leeches, bugs, and predators...threw in a few new exotic snake species, my little pets…

She proceeded to explain the rules of the second exam. “Each team gets a scroll, either heaven or earth. You must get the complementary scroll from another team and reach the tower in the middle of the forest... Each team will be assigned an entry gate position, 10 km away from the tower. You have 5 days to reach the tower with all your team members alive… Anything goes, so be prepared… As for food, live off the land, just watch out for the poisonous plants and bugs, and some big predators… Sign these consent forms and exchange them for your scroll at that tent...”

As the other genins reviewed the consent forms, Rikako thought furiously and looked at all the teams around them.

"Some of these guys look very dangerous," Takeo remarked as a guy with scars, bandages, and a big sword walked by.

"We'll just have to fight back twice as hard," Kenji replied confidently.

Their teammate shook her head. "Fighting should always be the last resort. There's usually another way." She dropped her voice and whispered to Takeo, “Can you make a couple of decoy scrolls good enough to fool someone?”

Takeo nodded, “Yes, the scrolls we have for our notes are the same color. I just need some paper, ink, and a brush to duplicate the calligraphy.” She nodded back, and he quickly ran off. Rikako now turned her attention to her remaining teammate. "Go around and get a feel for the guys from other villages," she ordered. He nodded and moved to obey. Then she looked around and saw her old classmate, Shigeru, the boy whose hand she hurt during the first week at the academy. She walked over to the tall towheaded boy while formulating her plan.

“Shigeru-kun,” she smiled and bowed, “I am glad to see that you have made it this far.”

“Rikako-chan,” he smiled back at her, “I see spending an extra year at the academy hasn’t deterred you at all. How have you been?”

“Good, good, we can catch up later. Right now I have a proposition for you. How would you like a 95 percent guarantee of passing the second exam?”

“95 percent? That’s very good. What do you have in mind? It’s not cheating is it? Even if it is, I’ll consider it. I hear many genins don’t make it out alive.”

“I propose an alliance.”

“An alliance?”

“Yes, the other teams will be expecting one on one fights. If we band together, with another team, there will be 9 against 3 during a fight. The odds will be vastly in our favor.”

“Great idea Rikako-chan! I knew it would be coming from you. You were always the thinker. We could have been on the same team together if you...”

“We need another team. There’s Gai’s rookie genin team. I know them. They’re strong, but cocky. They won’t feel they need help. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Hmm, Asuma’s team is pretty cool. You remember Tomoyo, Seto, and Takeshi?”

“Yes, good choice,” she nodded.

“All right, let me just discuss this with my teammates first. I’m sure they’ll agree...”

But the other team and Shigeru’s teammates had their reservations.

“What if we get into a fight on our way to the rendezvous point? Our entrances may be far apart,” pointed out Seto, a thin boy with brown hair that nearly covered his eyes.

“Good point, in that case, if you die then we won’t wait for you. If you win and get the scroll that you need, then you’re no longer under any obligation. Just remember that even if you get the scroll you need, you still have to make it to the tower and there’s always safety in numbers.”

“Isn’t this exam a test of our survival skills? Won’t we be losing the benefit of experience if we pass this easily?” asked Touya, boy with flame red hair who thought, Know-it-all-bitch, I remember you from the academy…

“The second exam is just an obstacle to the third exam. You can always go camping some other time.” Rikako was trying hard not to be caustic but she was losing her patience. “Besides, you’ll see enough action even if we proceed with our plan. These traps may only delay the enemy so there will still be fighting.” Fight all you want you blood thirsty bastards, just agree already, we’re wasting time!

Finally, the teams approved of the strategy. After all, fighting and testing your strength was nice, but the whole point was to get to the finals where they could really show off their skills. And by working together in a temporary alliance they would be familiar with each other’s strengths and weaknesses when the finals came. The three teams received their starting positions and planned their rendezvous.

On the way to their gate Kenji asked, “Are you sure we can trust them?”

“Sure enough, if they try to betray us, we’ll give them a counterfeit scroll,” replied the little kunoichi confidently.

-…-…-…-…-…-

At the rendezvous -

“We’ll mix up our teams, one member from each team. Team A will monitor trap A, Team B will monitor Trap B, Team C acts as the scouts, decoys and messengers. I’ll be on Team C, with the fastest runners from each of the other teams. Okay, that’s Takeshi, and Seto. At least one strongest member at each trap. Shigeru you’re with Takeo and Anzu at trap A. Tomoyo, Kenji, and Touya at Trap B. There are 15 teams spread out over 44 gates, if they’re spread out evenly, that’s an area of about 3 gates per team. They will all be headed toward the tower, but if we put our traps too close to the tower, they will be more wary. Instead, we can set up an ambush and lure them to the traps. They won’t be expecting a 3 on 1 fight.”

Before dawn, Rikako and her mixed team began to scout for potential victims. They had already used half a day getting to the rendezvous point and working on the traps. There were likely teams who already had a set of scrolls. “Remember the plan, I’ll show myself and they’ll follow me. You guys cover me. If they need a scroll they’ll follow. Of course there might be some teams who will follow us just to fight even if they already have two scrolls. We have to be more careful with guys like that.”

They soon spied a Rain team. Rikako acted as the bait, showing herself to them, then running away. As expected, the enemy followed, but they were suspicious of an ambush and traps.

First it appeared their prey disappeared from sight. Confused, the rain genins stopped and carefully approached. “Trip wire,” observed one, “a trap.” But right before they stepped over the trip wire, they noticed an almost invisible chakra thread. Only the morning mist had rendered it barely visible. "Another trap, let's pass this area via the trees." But as they neared the trees, hidden chakra threads under the foliage activated and roots suddenly emerged from the ground, entangling and ensnaring the three. They tried to cut away the hardened roots, but then they had to block the kunais and shurikens thrown at them from above. The roots wound their way around their bodies and constricted until they passed out.

“Whew,” Takeo muttered, “I was hoping they’d trip the wire. That took a lot more chakra.”

“But it worked, didn’t it?” said Anzu, a tall well developed girl who was able to control plants with chakra.

Takeo had designed the traps with input from the other genins. Each trap was backed up by another trap and another plan. When the Rain genins avoided the trip wire and chakra thread which activated physical traps, they went to plan B. The tingle in the chakra threads camouflaged by the foliage let them know where the enemies were and where to force chakra into the ground. Anzu was then able to manipulate the roots to great effect with Takeo’s chakra added to hers. The third member of their party threw the kunais and shurikens to prevent the enemy from escaping.

-…-…-…-…-

The ambushes worked smoothly and within the day the three teams had all the necessary scrolls and hurried together toward the tower. Rikako and Anzu scouted ahead for enemy traps and ambushes.

“How lucky is that, 2 teams, and exactly the scrolls we needed! You’re the best Rikako-chan!" Kenji gushed as the nine genins rushed toward the tower, leaping from tree to tree.

“Yeah, and no one got hurt!” Takeo was happy because he didn’t have to fight.

“That was too easy. I sort of wished we had an all out fight,” laughed the larger boy.

“I wonder if anyone has done this before,” mused Takeo who was trying hard to keep up with his overly enthusiastic teammate.

“Probably not, we’re all supposed to be competitors. But Rikako-chan has always been good at analyzing problems. I’m glad she approached us,” said Shigeru, “or we could’ve ended up like Gai’s team!”

Gai’s team already had 2 scrolls but wanted an extra scroll for insurance. They were strong, and the alliance team had to resort to all the back up plans, but the exploding traps were also infused with paralysis gas, and in a 3 to 1 fight, they had little chance and were finally overcome.

-…-…-…-…-…-

The exam proctors were watching the teams via the cameras installed throughout the tower. They noted that Kakashi's, Asuma's, and Kurenai’s teams had made it to the tower at the exact same time.

“Strange, it seems they’ve been working together,” said Kotetsu while scratching his spikey black hair.

“Yes, I saw Otori Rikako approach the other 2 teams before they started. She must have made an alliance with them. Is that legal?” asked Izumo, his ever present partner.

Kotetsu shrugged, “Well, there’s nothing in the rules against it as far as I know.”

“This isn’t fair to the stronger teams. Gai’s team was the favorite. Not all these genins deserve to have a chance at being chuunin,” Izumo shook his head in disapproval.

“Well, sometimes being smart and lucky is better than being strong. It’ll be interesting to see how they do in the finals....”

-…-…-…-…-

Author’s Notes: I like Gai but since I am a Kakashi fan, Gai will always lose to Kakashi! Please forgive my unoriginal naming of minor OCs, they’re just named after whatever anime chars I can think of. Only my main OCs get more consideration.

2.9 Battle Training

There were originally 34 teams taking the first chuunin exam. Then 15 teams taking the second chuunin exam. Now there were only 4 teams taking the final exam, the 3 Leaf alliance teams and 1 team from Thunder Country’s Hidden Cloud Village. After the match-ups, they were given a month to prepare. Rikako had drawn a Cloud shinobi. She was concerned as she was hoping for one of the other Leaf genins. She knew them and their strengths and weaknesses. The Cloud shinobis were foreign to her.

Kakashi informed her that he’d be training with the boys. “Rikako-chan, I’m sorry I won’t be training you for the finals. As you know, Takeo and Kenji need more help. Their strengths and weaknesses are complementary so it makes sense for them to train together. I’ve spoken to your father. He can train you just as well. You’re already very strong, I know you’ll do fine.”

Rikako was not happy with this arrangement, but she knew protesting would solve nothing. She bowed deeply while saying “Well, Kakashi sensei, although I am sincerely disappointed, I’m sure your judgment is sound. I hope to meet your expectations and will train diligently with my father on a regular basis. I’m sure this will work out for the best. I will be able to spend more time training with my father since we live together and I won’t have to worry about him being late.”

Kakashi thought, She sure likes to take digs at me, but I can’t blame her for being upset. It does seem like I’m neglecting her, but she doesn’t need anyone to train her. She just needs a bunch of scrolls with high level jutsus and she can figure out what to do by herself. Maybe her father will be a better motivator.

-…-…-…-…-

After a few days of testing her abilities, her father brought out the summoning contract. They had been training in their backyard, despite Rika’s protests that they were ruining her garden. “I wasn’t sure you’d be ready for this, but I’m proud of you having passed the first two exams so easily. The third part will be the true test of your abilities. You may need an Ace up your sleeve.” He bit his thumb and summoned a giant eagle which flapped its wings and let out a loud shriek, much to Rika’s horror (she stayed inside the house). “You need to concentrate your chakra when you do this. The more chakra, the larger the bird. To vary the type of bird, use different chakra ratios.”

Rikako was delighted. This is something different than a regular justsu, but biting your thumb all the time, is just too…unsanitary, gross and painful. Instead she cut her palm with a kunai. Mental note, need something like a ring or bracelet with a sharp edge, kunais are also unsanitary…maybe I should carry around a pack of lancets… She signed her name in blood as was required, and pressed her palm onto the scroll, leaving behind a bloody print to seal the contract.

She had seen her father use birds to deliver messages and medicine though she had never seen him perform the summoning before. He did not want her to be a shinobi and only grudgingly taught her a few jutsus when she was in the academy. But now he seemed to warm up to the idea and was actually proud of his talented little daughter.

On her first try she summoned a lovely green macaw. By the end of the month she was able to summon an eagle about human size. Still not one large enough to carry her weight, but her father was nevertheless impressed.

Birds are so much better than smelly dogs or slimy slugs or scary snakes or ugly toads, she thought. Birds are good for transportation, aerial surveillance, and they have very sharp eyes. Rikako preferred to summon smaller birds like canaries, nightingales and parrots just to listen to their songs and to converse. Once, while in a particularly bad mood, she summoned a large vulture with evil eyes that horrified her father and nearly gave her mom an aneurysm.

Otori also taught her weapons and target training, and techniques to improve her taijutsu. Of her skills, he noted they could use the most improvement. What has Kakashi been doing with his genins? She has the potential to be much better than this! That lazy slacker…At least her ninjustsu is quite good and she even knows a bit of genjutsu…

“Why don’t you try this…this… or this…” Otori took out weapon after weapon from his collection.

His daughter methodically evaluated each one. “I don’t like swords. They’re heavy and clumsy... I don’t like projectile weapons where you can run out of ammunition… These staffs are too long... Nunchucks take too much dexterity to use accurately…” But amongst his collection she finally found her favorite weapon – a metallic telescoping staff that converted to a double headed spear and which she could twirl like a baton. It retracted to a short rod barely two feet in length that could be easily strapped on her back or at her waist. At full extension, it was nearly six feet. Despite its size, it was no heavier than a regular sword.

“Sometimes seals and justus are not enough. You should always have a physical weapon ready. Shurikens don’t normally kill. Kunais can, but they’re usually thrown or for very close combat. As a woman, you’ll be at a disadvantage since you don’t have the reach or the strength of a man. You can use your chakra to extend your reach and strength, but there will be times when you’ve depleted your chakra. This will help even things.”

“I don’t plan to kill anyone, and I don’t want to.” She shuddered as the blood and brain splattered results of the C mission came to mind.

“Sometimes you have to.” Unfortunate, but unavoidable, she really should just be a village doctor.

“I’ve been working with the senbon, like the needles you used for acupuncture. I’m pretty good now. I can paralyze my opponents instead of killing them.”

“Well, those require a lot more accuracy. This staff can be used in defense as well.” He twirled the staff quickly and its circular motion acted like a shield.

Rikako was visibly impressed and realized she needed the staff, not so much for attack but for defense. With it she was able to deflect shurikens, kunais, and other physical weapons. By forcing chakra into it, she was able to deflect some ninjutsu attacks as well. But her father was right. Her petite size meant she had a shorter reach than average. She found the staff’s changeable length to be an important asset.

She also found a few other interesting items in a box long hidden away in storage: a bracelet that hid a spool of strong wire, a ring which opened to dispense poison, earrings that were actually flash bombs. There were all sorts of jewelry and accessories normally meant for kunoichi. I wonder if there’s something about dear old dad I should know…

2.10 The Chuunin Exam 3

A month later it was time for the finals. Kakashi arrived late as usual to the stadium, but in time before his genins’ turns. He made the mistake of entering the same area as Gai and the further mistake of nodding in greeting. Gai ran over with his usual alacrity.

“I see you finally made it, rival Kakashi. I’ll be keeping my eyes on your genins, to see what sort of tricks you taught them to defeat my team in the last exam.”

“Hmm, tricks? I didn’t teach them any particular tricks to use against your team.”

“You must have! My genins said your team must have used kage bunshin. There were more than 3 of them! You know that’s a forbidden jutsu. Just because Naruto learned it…”

“It wasn’t kage bunshin. It was another trick my team came up with by themselves. I told you they would leave your team in the dust.”

“No you didn’t! You didn’t say anything this time! That was your other genin team!”

“Oh? Is that right? Well, I guess I forgot to say it again,” Kakashi shrugged.

“You must tell me the trick! My team needs to get stronger!”

“You know a shinobi can’t reveal his secrets.” Kakashi learned during his training with the boys how they passed the second exam. He was impressed but disappointed at the same time. An alliance was a smart idea. After all, to be a lord or a kage you need to be able to form alliances, to be able to read people and decided whom to trust or not to trust. But he had wanted to test their strength.

Gai gave him a look somewhere between desperation and wanting to kill him. Kakashi sighed, “I don’t know the particulars, but if you really want to know, maybe you can get it out of my genins.” There, that will keep him off my back.

Any further discussion was interrupted by the announcement for the next fight.

-…-…-…-

Rikako’s battle outfit consisted of her usual wear, a black long sleeve T-shirt, but now covered by a short brown kimono with green trim, handcrafted by her mother to her specifications for altered sleeves. The right sleeve was fitted like a normal loose shirt sleeve while the left was longer and wider, like a kimono sleeve, just enough to hide her hands while performing seals. No one will see or copy my seals this way, she reasoned. If Kakashi-sensei has an eye like that, there might be others with similar abilities.

The Cloud shinobi wore bandages and a gauze veil covering his face and was dressed in loose fitting light gray robes. Rikako waited calmly for him to make the first move after the examiner signaled the start of their match. His first jutsu was a cloud cover, and the field became obscured. Alarmed at the loss of visibility, the little kunoichi threw a smoke bomb to hide her retreat behind the trees.

The Cloud shinobi laughed, the usual villainous laugh, and said, “There’s nowhere to run and I don’t need to see you to attack you.” He started a complex seal and the entire field became statically charged, as if a thunder cloud came down from the heavens. Lightning started to crackle all around. Even Genma decided to take cover.

From a distance, Rikako attacked with a number of fireballs, hoping to disrupt his seal sequence, but the cloud shinobi avoided them easily and finished his seals. Then she appeared suddenly on top of him sending out more fireballs, but he countered with a lightning bolt, striking her directly. The figure crumbled to dust. It was an earth clone!

The Cloud shinobi laughed derisively. “Hiding and attacking with clones are signs of cowardice and weakness. Soon my chakra cloud will consume your chakra.”

He sure likes to talk, overconfidence is always a weakness, Rikako thought as she started several seal sequences, one after another...

She attacked the cloud shinobi directly with her staff at full extension. The cloud shinobi smiled. That staff is metallic. She’s not very smart. That weapon will attract the lightning and she’ll end up getting fried. He sent a lightning bolt at her while she was in mid-air. She twisted her body to avoid the attack, but fell to the ground. The Cloud shinobi quickly sent another lightning bolt, a stronger one. Time to end this, he thought. This time, it hit her staff directly. The figure holding it crumbled to dust, but the staff was left standing in the ground. Suddenly, the Cloud shinobi started to convulse and he clutched at his heart.

:

“…the Cloud shinobis use lightning attacks, which are very strong, but hard to control, and can backfire on the user since there are conductive materials all around us…” her father had advised. Rikako sequentially performed the seals for an earth runnel and water stream. She attacked the cloud shinobi directly to draw his attention away from the approaching water. She avoided his first lightning attack, stuck the staff into the ground where the runnel started, and then used the replacement technique and earth clone. The second lightning bolt hit her staff but she was already gone behind the trees, protected by an earth tomb. The electricity was drawn into the staff down to the water and conducted over to the Cloud shinobi. Although he was immune to the statically charged chakra cloud, he was not immune to the effects of thousands of volts of electricity.

Rikako soon sensed the fight was over and came out from her earth tomb. The chakra cloud was already dissipating. The Cloud shinobi was on the ground writhing in pain. She quickly ran over and checked his pulse and pupils. His heart was in arrhythmia and was going into cardiac arrest. “Medic!” she cried and performed a stasis seal to stabilize his condition. Then she placed her hand on his chest, sending regular jolts of chakra to his heart, trying to force a regular rhythm.

“Very nicely done, rival Kakashi, I see you have a smart one on your team. Still, her speed could be better. If she were on my team…”

“Hmm? Did you just say something?” Kakashi asked nonchalantly even though he heard everything Gai just said.

“You...You! You’re right next to me! How could you possibly not hear what I said? I know you purposely pursue such revolutionary attitudes to thwart me!

Kakashi shrugged as he watched the Cloud genin being carried off the field by the medics. The fight was obviously over and the petite kunoichi was declared the winner. That was good, but still not her true strength. Well, we’ll see what happens in the next round.

-…-…-…-…-

The Hokage and other judges discussed the performance of Kakashi’s little genin. She’s wary and patient. Waits for her opponent to make the first move. You can feel her gauging her opponent, testing him, discovering his strengths and weakness, before developing a strategy. She takes in consideration her surroundings. She has good offense and defense tactics. A good range of jutsus, though not a lot of power. She’s persistent and determined, yet shows concern for a fallen enemy.

Pass!


-…-…-End of Part 2-...-…-


Author’s Notes: There would be another 3 rounds in the finals, which I won’t be writing anytime soon if ever (takes me forever to come up with a decent idea for an action scene). Suffice to say that Rikako passes but was not the final winner. I’m thinking she makes it into the quarter finals and that’s it. Kishimoto is a GOD when it comes to action, strategy and techniques! (All bow to Kishimoto...)

Next up Part 3: An Old Shinobi Adage - this is where the “romance” comes in and my favorite part to write. Stay tuned for plot twists!