Acquisition 2.5
"You ready?" Hisana asked, as Sasuke put the last of his shuriken in his weapons pouch. She, of course, had them sealed away. She'd decided on using the receptor-stamped shuriken - she could afford to live a little over small time stuff like this. She almost put a Raven on Mizuki's tail, but thought better of it. She had derailed any possibility of him coercing Naruto to steal the forbidden scroll, and in any case it wasn't like he had to act on his evilness
today. It would have been paranoid and absurd to follow him because events that couldn't possibly occur.
"I think so. It's weird to think that we're going to be real ninja after this... but
he was a genin at an age we were still civilians." Sasuke said, simmering.
"And the Sanin graduated at the age we will." Hisana replied, and Sasuke's eyes widened.
"Really? I'd have thought they graduated young." Sasuke said, looking genuinely surprised.
"Nope, standard graduation. So get going and graduate already - that blond maniac is probably running up and down the compound's walls waiting for us." Hisana said, and they got a move on. Most of the time, Sasuke was a well adjusted kid. Whenever he got reminded strongly of his brother, however, she could see the scars that would never fully heal.
Whilst Hisana had been exaggerating by a bit, she wasn't far off. Naruto was waiting for them by the gates, pacing around rapidly with nervous energy.
"Can you guys believe it, we're gonna graduate today! Finally, after all those years we get to show everyone how awesome we are, yeah!" Naruto said in his normal tone of voice, which was of course loud and sometimes annoying.
"Kai." Hisana said blithely, making the proper handsign. "No, it does appear to be our real graduation day and not a genjutsu. Somehow we have managed to pass all the grueling tests and dangerous situations that we have been confronted with on our journey, but we have managed to make it to the final exam; along with our entire class." Hisana said.
"Yeah - wait, that's more of your stupid sarcasm!" Naruto replied, only mildly offended.
+++++
The paper test was relatively easy even for normal prospective genin, and Hisana's extra six years of schooling allowed her to essentially breeze through it. Even Naruto had, with extensive coaching, managed to do pretty well on practice tests. If you were aiming for the top spot in the rankings, however, you needed perfect marks simply to compete.
After that was taijutsu, which saw her dismantle a poor genin here on a D-Rank mission to serve as a sparring partner. He'd taken it well though, and laughed where others might have gotten angry. She had probably been a little too severe in her demolishing of him, but there was that top ranking to think about.
Then it came time for throwing weapons. Iruka was supervising them on this test, and he had them all lined up to use one throwing station at a time, with a range of targets at different ranges. The further away the target you hit was, the more points you got. However, the penalty for not getting your weapon in the target zone on the dummy was severe enough to make you consider aiming for a closer target.
"This will be just like all your other throwing tests - ten shuriken, two kunai. You get three attempts, with only the highest scoring counting for your marks. Collect your weapons before you leave, and if you want to graduate sometime in the next decade, wait till the person in front of you is clear of the range!" Iruka said, like he always did. The man took his students' safety seriously. They were lined up by ranking, so Sasuke was first. He did very well, almost perfect in fact, on all three tries which led to much gasping and clapping on behalf of his female admirers.
Then it was Hisana's turn. She was going to show these brats a thing or two about how to take a ninja test.
She waited for Sasuke to collect his weapons, and then unsealed her own. She elected to throw her kunai first, so as to give her shuriken the atmosphere they deserved. Her two kunai hit two of the most distant targets right in the throat, a perfect shot. Then she unsealed her Shuriken.
"I've been practicing really hard to do this, so please pay attention everyone!" Hisana said, and turned around. The class was confused, and only grew more so as she threw her shuriken backwards. They zoomed across the range, hitting the most distant targets in places like the eyes, groin and throat, only to bounce off and start to hit every other target on their way back to the front like ten demented pinballs in a series of increasingly improbable bounces. After hitting every target save the nearest, they bounced up and over her classmates, coming back down to slam into the nearest target's chest; where the spelled out "Hisana".
"H-h-how...?" Iruka muttered, valiantly trying to calculate her score; with the rest of the class mirroring his expression. Hisana merrily went along to collect her weapons and walked onwards to the next stage of the testing, the extra credit section. A chunin who taught another class was administering this section, a woman with a tired looking face.
"Okay, you're up next Miss Uchiha. Whenever you're ready." The woman said, and Hisana nodded, then made the seal for the shadow clone jutsu. In a puff of smoke, a solid clone came into life next to her, waved and the instructor and then walked over to her and touched lightly on the arm. "Oh, a shadow clone? Very impressive, very impressive indeed. Well, you've only got the ninjutsu test to go now." The woman said, smiling at Hisana. She jogged on over to the classroom, and went inside. Iruka and Mizuki were waiting for her, with a table full of forehead protectors.
"The jutsu for this year's test is the clone jutsu. Please make three or more clones, and then you're done." Mizuki said, and Hisana created three sealess clones. She'd worked damn hard on getting that down so that she could use it sword in hand, and there was no way she wasn't going to show it off.
"Well done, Hisana. Please get your paperwork done over this week, then come back for team assignments! And, on, a personal note - congratulations on shattering the Academy throwing record. I don't think you'll ever tell me how you did it, but it might just have been the most impressive trick I've ever seen a student pull." Iruka said, smiling. Hisana merely bowed, picked up her headband, and moved onto the next room.
+++++
Naruto was ecstatic at graduating, and all three of them wanted to chat with their classmates before they went their separate ways for a week. Hisana flatly refused to tell anyone how she'd done her stunt with the shuriken, though Naruto and Sasuke must have worked it out. Sakura even managed to have a relatively normal conversation with Sasuke, in which he praised her Clerical Palm jutsu and she nearly fainted. She and another nervous looking student were pulled away by Mizuki who wanted to talk about "test irregularities" but Hisana wasn't worried for Sakura.
Then she felt the other students chakra spike and massively decline.
Shit shit shit shit. She'd assumed Naruto wasn't in a position to be manipulated by Mizuki, but she hadn't counted on him taking hostages. If he wanted to influence Naruto by taking one, Sakura was the easiest target by far. Hisana summoned her sword, attached it and it's scabbard to her side and took off at speed after the fading chakra signature, Naruto and Sasuke following her out of shock more than anything else.
The student who'd cheated on his test lay unconscious on the floor, bleeding from a head wound but alive. Hisana's mind instantly snapped into tactical gear - no time to think things out, no time to argue.
"Sasuke, alert Iruka and the other teachers, and guard the students whilst getting this guy to hospital. If they have it hand, come after us with reinforcements. Naruto, spiral search pattern for any other suspicious people with your clones, send one with Sasuke and follow along with me." Hisana said, and after a second the two boys sprung into action without complaint.
She herself sped off after the ever more distant chakra signatures of Sakura and Mizuki. Naruto clones were everywhere, and the boy himself was following after her. They jumped across the rooftops, but Mizuki was at least as fast as them and they were barely catching up. They passed no senior ninja, and Hisana was loathe to endanger genin rushing about as the alarm claxons began to sound. She merely signalled the sign for "EMERGENCY; MAKE WAY".
The two chakra signatures stopped a little bit outside the walls, in secluded clearing. A third, stronger one had joined them, and she and Naruto made it there in only a few minutes. She could feel a mass of chakra signatures racing towards them, perhaps two minutes out. Sasuke and Iruka were amongst them.
"Naruto, I need you to have a clone do the replacement jutsu with Sakura - then your primary responsibility is to get her home safe. Do you understand?" Hisana asked, and he nodded. "Good, because we have about no time left to do it - let's go." She said, and they along with a newly created clone leapt into the clearing. The clone swapped itself with Sakura, poofing in the process, but leaving her safe in Naruto's arms.
Mizuki looked pissed as hell, and the ninja standing near him was wearing a trenchcoat and carrying a huge katana. He looked to be around twenty, and had a large sealing scroll on his back.
"Seems like you succeed at drawing out the nine-tails brat a little too well, eh?" The mystery ninja said, but Mizuki merely growled. She could see his curse mark with her Sharingan, active as soon as they'd closed, and the tigerlike ripples were already spreading across his flesh. "I'll take the aberration and deal with it once and for all, you take the brat and get this back on track." The trenchcoat ninja said. He wore no headband, and beneath the coat she could see heavy metal armour.
She put her hands on her sword, and charged forward as Naruto summoned a horde of clones. The other ninja took the sealing scroll and rolled it out, seals extending from it a massive spiral pattern. He made to slam his hand down, but leapt backwards as Hisana exploded into an Iaido strike; unsheathing her sword as it glowed crimson with chakra flow. He managed to avoid the first strike, and made to leap forwards to complete the seal only to have Hisana swing three blades of wind his way.
The trenchcoated ninja drew his katana and leapt backwards, throwing kunai at Hisana. Able to easily see their paths with her Sharingan, she sidestepped them all save for one which she caught and threw back to him. The man had his shoulder nicked in a spurt of blood, and Hisana capitalised on his distraction by blinding him with a Sharingan genjutsu and landing an upwards slash across his torso.
Her wind-chakra enhanced blade cut through the thin steel of his armour, carving a bloody ruin out of his chest. He stumbled backwards, blind and dying, and threw one last, bloodied kunai at her as he cursed her.
"Fuck you, bitch!" As he cursed at her in english, to be precise. Hisana was so shocked that she continued moving like she was trained to, and beheaded him with a simple, mechanical stroke.
Then, of course, the seal activated off of the blood on the kunai; and what looked to be an entire army of ninja appeared in a blast of smoke.
[x] - Reinforcements are seconds out, all you have to do is survive. Defensive work until they get here.
[x] - You have enough chakra to go all out until reinforcements arrive. Use offensive ninjutsu to thin the horde and create a safe area.
Chakra: 42/50 (Shadow clones return most of their unspent chakra)
Final Hurricane Seal: 50/50
So yeah you guys probably should have followed Mizuki, but this scene is pretty badass so it's cool.
*sigh*
