Difficult trials!
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"Please here me out before you leave" said Bakorio and Pakkun frowned slightly as he put some distance between the two of them and hid behind Kakashi…
"Bakorio, care to explain what's going on and what's this gate of hell you speak of? And how does it relate to Pakkun?" Asked Kakashi curiously seeing the frown on his summon's face…
Bakorio nodded at him and said "Kakashi, your little summon is no ordinary ninja dog, it's actually similar to Orochimaru's summon Manda or Jiraiya's summon Gamabunta… He's from a sacred ground that for some reason is protecting the gate of hell"
Kakashi's eyes widened in surprise and he couldn't help but stare at his summon "is that true Pakkun?" but Pakkun only remained silent as he stared at Bakorio warily and the latter calmly said.
"If you are wondering why I know all of this, the reason is simple, I actually learned this from the white snake sage"
Pakkun finally couldn't hold back his anger anymore and said "What's that damn worm running his mouth for and interfering with our business, he should know that it's forbidden to tell about our existence so easily!"
Bakorio shrugged and said "I don't know, nor do I care about his intentions, my only reason for finding more about your race is that I want to learn your clan's sage arts, I'm not interested in interfering with any duty you might have"
Kakashi's eyes widened again as he asked "You actually come from beasts with sage arts?" Pakkun remained silent before he reluctantly nodded as Bakorio quickly followed and said "If possible, relate my intentions to your sages, and I would be grateful if they agree to my request…"
"I will, but don't have high hopes, we rarely teach humans…" said Pakkun before he disappeared into a puff of smoke..;
"It seems like you didn't know about this… doesn't your Hatake clan use these dogs a lot?" asked Bakorio curiously and Kakashi simply shook his head and said
"Not any one of our clan members can summon a dog like Pakkun, they have to be the most talented member of their generation… my father used to also have a summon similar to Pakkun, but I never thought they actually came from sage beasts"
"Who knows, maybe there are certain conditions before they reveal this information, after all, these sage beasts have rigorous selection criteria to teach their sage arts to outsiders like me" said Bakorio, and Kakashi nodded in understanding
"Anyways, I will leave for now, let me know if they reply" said Bakorio but Kakashi suddenly stopped him and asked "What if they don't accept?"
Hearing this, Bakorio simply shrugged and smiled "Then I will just visit them with a few friends and see if we can talk it out"
Kakashi felt his spine tingling thinking about Bakorio's 'friends' and what they could do and he couldn't help but think 'Hopefully, everything will go peacefully' before he shook his head and went to find Guy to have a spar with him…
***
After leaving Kakashi's house, Bakorio made his way to the Sarutobi compound to visit none other than Hiruzen himself…
After stopping in front of the big house that belonged to Hiruzen, Bakorio calmly knocked on the door and the voice of an old man soon came from inside "Coming"
Bakorio waited patiently until Hiruzen opened the door for him and he noticed how surprised he seemed when staring at his appearance 'This kid more and more reminds me of Madara…' he thought before he said "Bakorio-kun, what brought you here"
"Let's talk inside old man" said Bakorio and Hiruzen calmly nodded before he took out his pipe and begin smoking and waited for Bakorio to explain his visit…
"Do you know that your summon Enma is a member of a sage clan?" asked Bakorio directly which surprised Hiruzen slightly who asked "Where did you hear that?"
"It seems you knew…" muttered Bakorio before he explained what he wanted to Hiruzen who said "Hmm, you want to learn their sage arts huh… Well, it's not impossible but it's not easy as well"
"What do you mean?" asked Bakorio and Hiruzen calmly said "It's better if I let Enma explain it to you"
Bakorio nodded and watched as a huge monkey suddenly appeared in front of them, it was the monkey king Enma!
"Mm, Hiruzen, did you invite me for a drink again?" said Enma with a grin but he was surprised when he noticed Bakorio presence and said "Yo, Uchiha brat, you are here"
Bakorio nodded at him with a smile, they met during their fight with Danzo after all and fought together so they can be considered acquaintances…
"Enma, Bakorio-kun wants to learn sage arts at the mountain of flowers and fruit, can you please explain to him how you guys select your sages?"
Enma was slightly surprised before he said "Well kid you are indeed talented, but there are a few things you need to understand…"
Bakorio calmly nodded "Please enlighten me" before Bakorio threw him a bottle of sake that appeared from out of nowhere
Enma caught it in the air with a grin and said "I'm liking you more and more kid, now then let me explain to you how our sacred ground works."
Enma paused to take a sip of his drink before he said "First of all, there are four tribes in our sacred grounds, each with their own sage and monkey king. I'm the monkey king of the stone monkey tribe, the other three are the red monkey tribe, the four-eared monkey tribe, and the long-armed monkey tribe.To learn our sage arts, you will have to pass through four trials, one set by each tribe"
Enma paused here to take another sip and Bakorio calmly asked as he digested this information "What do these trials consist of?"
Enma observed Bakorio slightly before he said "Kid, you shouldn't waste your time, even Hiruzen after all of his years of trying still failed every time during these trials…"
'At least they don't seem to be risky' Thought Bakorio before he smiled slightly and said "Well, I'm no Hiruzen" prompting the former Hokage to say "I can hear you know?" but Bakorio simply chuckled at him…
"Fine then brat, each trial is different than the other, the red monkey tribe trial is the trial of life and death, it's the first trial you will have to go through and it's going to test your survival ability when deprived of all your powers!
The second trial is that of the tribe of the long-armed monkeys, this trial will test your will, and resolve by tasking you with climbing the mountain of flowers and fruits without any of your powers while also shrinking you into a form as small as that of an ant!
The third trial is that of the tribe of the four eared monkeys, In this trial, you will have to face a mirror image of yourself that has all your abilities and can even grow stronger during your fight!
The fourth and final trial is that of my stone monkey tribe, and this one will test your wisdom as it requires you to showcase the ability to merge at least three chakra natures without relying on any Kekkei Genkai! and also has a verbal test..."
Bakorio's eyes kept widening in shock the more he listened to Enma talking and he couldn't help but think 'Is he serious?' but seeing how Hiruzen was smirking at him coldly and enjoying his predicament, he felt that this was far from being a simple joke…
This… was the reason no one was able to learn the sage arts of the monkeys, even someone as talented as Hiruzen could only pass two trials!
Bakorio left the Sarutobi compound while deep in thought…
'I didn't expect the trials to be so difficult… and these are just the trial, we haven't even talked about training the sage arts, but if there are such high requirements… It could only mean that the difficulty of training them will be sky high…'
Bakorio couldn't help but shake his head and decided to walk to his last destination, which was none other than Guy who was the only person he knew that had a turtle summon…
Locating Guy wasn't hard, he just had to ask the people around the area he usually trained in if they saw a green creep recently and he was easily led to him…
He was in a training ground sparing with none other than Kakashi...