Chapter 115: Second year exam (2)

- Listen up, guys! We have to follow everything according to what the teacher said if we want to arrive on time. That means no more fighting wild animals ****-Kun and you no longer rushing ahead without you waiting for us to catch up, Homura. (I hate this team! Why was I put together with those two weirdos that have no intention of working together!… Curse that baldy!… If only I was put on the same team as Sasuke-kun…instead it was that Inopig!!!) (Sakura)

Although Sakura said everything with a more or less amicable attitude, the two boys next to her almost paid her no mind.

Not because they knew of her real character, but because she wasn't assigned to be their leader or anything, which meant they didn't really have to follow her orders.

They simply had to stay together but they hardly cared about that part as well.

Homura just wanted to rush ahead and win, a sentiment that Sakura shared but she wasn't willing to let everyone in the dust if they couldn't keep up with him like Homura did.

-? (Homura?…she has no respect for me at all she didn't add a suffix to my name, I don't think that's because we're close for her to do drop it entirely. At least I call her by her family, but I guess I don't have a family name so… And why should I listen to her? She's not my superior. Though I guess I can put up with it for a short while.)

Homura heard none of her speech besides his name at the very end.

Showing his narcissistic tendencies.

- I go wherever my sword leads me…nor will I run from a challenge in front of my path. (Gekkou)

While Gekkou also seemed to not have paid attention either to the core issues of Sakura's speech or look towards Homura after her gave his answer.

- Why are you looking at me? ("I go wherever my sword leads me"?…what does that even mean? I swear this guy is just insane.)

-…Homura I challe-! (Gekkou)

- Stop! No.(Creep.)

-…. (Gekkou)

As weird as it may be, they couldn't really be called friends but Homura and Gekkou had a more or less normal relationship.

At least on the surface, they had a more or less cordial relationship.

Gekkou wanted to be strong, and due to that he often challenged those he had lost to in the past, not for revenge but for him not to embarrass his family name.

He seemed to think himself honor bound to do as much, even though most saw it more like a pain in the ass and avoided defeating him altogether if they could help it.

Though one of the few people that never gave him the time of the day was Homura who mostly ignored him or disappeared whenever he could.

Thus it was not uncommon for Gekkou to look around for Homura for a rematch on his days off.

Thankfully for Homura, he was a kid difficult to track down. Now more than ever because of his secret bunker.

- Listen up you two jerks! Like it or not we are a team this time around! Like it or not we have to work together. Understood?! - Said Sakura in a higher-pitched voice than usual.

Her inner thoughts were getting through the surface more than usual.

She was getting tired of Homura rushing ahead and Gekkou wasting time by trying to fend off every wild beast in their way, because of some weird sense of pride.

Sadly for her, her teammates this time around were very individualistic.

- ? A-are you talking to me?… (Why does she keep talking this much? This is getting annoying.)

-…I will as my sw-! (Gekkou)

- Grr!!! I am not playing around anymore!!! You two morons better get your act together, understood!!!? (Sakura)

Tired of having to repeat herself, Sakura yelled at her unruly classmates, if they were not going to take charge of the team; she was going to do as much.

She punched a tree and the tree cracked due to her overwhelming strength.

-Kuh!

Without even realizing both Homura and Gekkou stood up straight, as their spines reacted to Sakura's punch.

It was the first time they had seen her raise her voice so loud and seen her strength first hand, that both boys became afraid of her.

But it didn't take long for them to realize their mistake.

- My apologies…I will try to avoid unnecessary battles. -said Gekkou, in a slightly apologetic way, as he was in turmoil inside his mind.

Conflicted as to which battles he'd have to choose, in the future if it ever came to what he had promised.

-Tch! Fine, give me the map one more time. I will try to see if we can take a few shortcuts, to see if we can get back on track and not be the last team. (What the h*ll? How come she's that strong?…this is nonsense…)

Gekkou's weird fixation on battling against wild, ferocious animals while he could barely hold a candle to them was something that made the whole team waste a lot of time and get chased around by well-deserving pissed-off wild animals, thankfully, with the help of their ninja training they were always able to escape without nothing bad happening.

Though since Homura was much more agile and faster than the two people next to him, it became more or less his job to bail them out, at least when he wasn't going ahead of his teammates to try to find other teams, sadly, he had seen none of them so far.

- Here. You better not try to take us some weird paths again to get ahead. (Sakura)

- I know. (*sigh* All my classmates are weaklings that can't keep up with me when it comes to physical abilities. C, try to find the best routes to take on this map.)

-

Suddenly Homura started to see weird lines being formed on the map, there were a lot of areas they were supposed to avoid, but also things they had to collect along the way, so going just straight ahead was not a possibility and neither was missing all the elements present on their list.

They had a time limit and a list of materials to gather as they were meant to cross through the forest.

And in order to accomplish that much, all students were required to bring backpacks big enough to carry all the things they needed.

They started this exam early in the morning, and now it was already noon.

As they complete a task and arrive at a checkpoint on the map, they would meet a teacher who would send them in another wild goose chase, while making sure they were not severely injured.

Since there were so many teams and the nurse, seemed to always be at each checkpoint; Homura could not help but wonder if the nurse was using the shadow clone technique to always be present when they completed their assigned task after arriving at a checkpoint.

This made Homura want to activate his sharingan but due to fear and if his theory were to be true; it's likely he would get nothing out of it since shadow clones are practically indistinguishable from each other.

Even if he saw her chakra flow, it would be no different from her normal self.

He would likely need to see her perform the jutsu.

Which was a goddamn shame for Homura.

Being so close to learning a jutsu that would be essential for his training.

But there was nothing that he could do.

None of the scrolls he had gathered had the jutsu written on it, most of it was just fire jutsus.

Even though the Kage bunshin was a normal jutsu that seemingly every Konohagakure shinobi would use, since his variant, the multi-shadow clone jutsu was in the forbidden scroll, Homura had no other choice but to give up any hope of ever learning this jutsu; until Naruto masters it in the future.

- It's this way.

Homura pointed to his left, he was now seeing huge arrows indicating the path to follow from, C's shenanigans inside Homura's mind.

It was something he created, similar to a program inside his mind that gives him directions.

A very useful program for him, when it became clear that Homura's sense of direction was not one of his best qualities.

He could easily get lost since he is not one to pay too much attention to his surroundings.

However, he was the only one who could see those floating arrows indicating the path to follow, anyone else watching; would think it was weird as to how Homura who barely looked at the map for less than a minute was able to find the best course to take.

His being recognized as a genius was the only reason most people even listened to him, since his personality was not one of the greatest at least his abilities could be trusted in the eyes of most.

So Homura managed to convince his comrades that he was able to deduce the best path somehow, and the 3 of them started running, in order to make up for lost time.

They crossed a river and a path of trenches before having to stop again, not because they were tired, but because of personal reasons.

-….Gekkou, I thought we talked about this.

The young Gekkou clansman was facing a bear at least 3 times his size with a scar on his chest.

This was not very impressive when you consider that this world had giant animals and that Homura's group was composed of children that were either 8 or 9 years old.

However, the entire atmosphere of the bear and its stern face was enough to make any child panic especially since none of them could use any real powerful ninjutsu to attack such a creature.

The academy only taught them supplementary ninjutsu, which was mostly meant to help them to run away or trick their opponents.

It was obvious as to why they didn't teach them any combat-oriented since the very example of that being a bad idea was here.

Gekkou like the madman he was, was facing a large bear with a sword that was clearly forged for children, either that or it was a short blade.

Homura didn't know which one was true; he never cared to ask Gekkou anything more than wanting to borrow school supplies.

But now he wished that he knew more about his teammate so that he could convince him to not do anything more foolish since pointing his sword toward the bear only seemed to make the wild animal even angrier.

*GROWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

- This is different….I know this bear. (Gekkou)

-….What? Are you kidding me?

Homura couldn't fathom as to what Gekkou was referring to when he said that he knew the bear.

- 3 months ago, we fought each other and the match was left with both of our losses. So we both promised that the next we would meet…we would fight to the death. (Gekkou)

-…I-I see. (What? He speaks to bears now?…I guess it's not as strange as Kiba speaking to dogs…Akamaru definitely helps him cheat.)

Homura wanted to facepalm so hard, that his hand would have felt that it would get carved inside his skull but he ultimately couldn't do that.

He had to save face.

Especially since Haruno Sakura seemed to be trembling, gone was the girl who raised her voice an hour prior.

She had reverted back to a normal child.

It was a rather strange sight to witness.

Which dawned on him, that at the end of the day, they were all still children.

Not that he'd forget that, his classmates were quite rowdy, but at the end of the day, they were child soldiers in training.

Even if Sakura had drawn her weapon and had told Gekkou to run away a few minutes prior, she was still more or less a shinobi in training she was ready to fight.

Though it was quite clear that she would try to run away at any moment.

The only reason she didn't, was due to Gekkou still facing the wild animal with no intention of backing down, which is commendable for a boy his age and slightly insane; even through the eyes of a trained shinobi.

Which left Homura with no other alternative but to fight, if he wanted to escape with his team in one piece and not three body bags if anything went wrong.

So he had no choice but to go to his teammate's side.

- N-No Homura! (Sakura)

Sakura wanted to call Homura to come back but before she had a chance to he smiled at her and threw a piece of paper her way which she caught and read, which made her eyes go wild by what was written on it.

But before she could try to refute what she had read, Homura was already next to Gekkou and ready to dissuade him one last time.

- !? G-Go away Homura this a fight between two warriors, if I get your help I will never live down this kind of dishonor. Don't worry Homura, once I am done with this fight we can have our duel. (Gekkou)

-… I see then I am leav-Yaa!

- Gugh!!!! (Gekkou)

Before Homura left Gekkou's side and was about to turn around in one swift motion, he used both of his hands to hit Gekkou on the back of his head. Leaving everyone around who witnessed what had just transpired quite surprised, even the wild bear, which for one moment showed a shocked expression on his big round face.

Gekkou had just been hit and dropped to the ground. But impressively enough, he did not let go of his sword's handle.

Even when he got knocked out in one fell swoop.

But before anyone had time to process what had happened, Homura threw several shuriken which hit one of the bear's legs.

Using the chaos of the moment to get a clean hit.

GROWL!!!!!

The beast let out a loud growl of anguish as the pain of getting stabbed got to it, from the event, but Homura, who was used to this kind of setup; only used the opportunity to grab his teammate and run away.

- Haruno, run!!!

Homura yelled at a dumbfounded Sakura who was trying to process everything just happened, the paper only said for her to run as soon as he hit the target.

Since Homura failed to properly express his not so carefully planned plan to her.

Little did she know that the target was not the bear but her other classmate.

-R-Right! (Sakura)

Sakura began running ahead of Homura without turning back and just ran in a more or less straight line as she tried to avoid everything in her path.

Homura was close behind, but with Gekkou on his back, he could not pass by her.

So they kept running as the mad bear was chasing after them even with a slightly injured leg.

- (That wild animal is still chasing after us…if it was for the dumb ass on my back I could have escaped by now…I guess I have no other choice.)

Homura had wasted all the shuriken he had brought with him on his last attack, he originally planned to cripple both of the bear's legs. But he had no idea that its hide was so tough and one of his projectiles missed his other leg altogether.

So, seeing he had no other choice he threw Gekkou away to the side, on a bush nearby. Along with his and Gekkou's backpacks, and stopped himself from running and took out a kunai from his ninja tool pouch strapped to his left leg and another from his right leg.

He then took a fighting stance as he waited for the bear to catch up to him.

-(…I have to be careful and not miss my shot.)

The bear came running straight towards Homura and seemed to accelerate as he saw Homura was no longer moving.

It was unclear if in its current state of rage, it was able to fully form coherent thoughts but the truth remained that it intended to harm Homura as soon as possible.

-(…almost…)

Homura was watching the crazed bear run towards him while pushing everything in its path away, regardless of the danger.

Cementing to Homura to only move in order to make his move at the very last moment.

When the bear was only a few feet away from him and raised its paw to strike Homura down, Homura activated his sharingan.

His thick glasses hid that fact from any onlooker as Homura proceeded to avoid the strike aimed towards his head by dashing forward at the very last moments as time seemed to have slowed down, which he used to proceed to deliver a cross-shaped injury on the bear's right leg as Homura swung down both kunai in his hands.

The almost simultaneous attacks crossed paths right in the middle, damaging the incoming foe's leg.

*Growl*

The pain the bear felt was quite atrocious.

But nonetheless, it was far from enough to cut its leg off or to stop it from trying to swing his other arm toward Homura before he hit the ground.

So Homura who had the sharingan and C to help him see the trajectory of the bear's next attack knew what to expect.

- (I can see his weak points)

Homura then threw both kunai on his hand, one quite high and another quite low.

But he then kicked the projectile he threw quite low with his right leg, which made it go much faster than before, and stabbed the bear's other leg ligaments.

Causing blood to start flowing out from behind the creature's knee, where Homura had been stabbed.

Which made then the bear crouch as its attack missed Homura by a slight margin, as the creature got stabbed in the shoulder of the arm it was swinging around.

Making the bear fall to the ground this time for good.

Both of its legs were injured and refused to move, as it fell nearby Homura's previous location.

Thankfully, Homura was fine and deactivated his sharingan as he saw the bear fall to the ground, and could only let a small sigh of relief as he understood everything was over.

-*Sigh*(It's over now…)

But Homura was not the only one who had assisted Homura's feat, Sakura who was also ahead was able to watch what had just happened.

The entire thing was so fast, that she had no time to even call Homura's name, in order to urge him to keep running.

Instead, Homura had run towards the wild beast avoided its attack, and proceeded to defeat it, in a couple of well-handled strikes with pinpoint accuracy.

However, as she saw Homura going toward the defeated wild animal, she could only dread as to what would happen next.

It was normal for some students to hunt or had hunted prior with their parents or older siblings in order to give them more practice in the field, but it was usually only for animals that they would eat.

Killing for the sake of killing was something totally different, but seeing Homura's personality and the way he just moved it was normal for her to assume the worst.

- Homura, wait! (Sakura)

*GROWL*

-Huh!?

A confused Homura took out one his kunai that he used to stab the bear's leg before he looked toward Sakura since he heard his name before the bear started growling.

- (H-he's not going to kill it…but taking back his weapons instead?) (Sakura)

Sakura was stunned at what Homura was doing, instead of delivering the finishing blow he was just going towards the wild animal to recover his weapons…It was definitely not something she had thought would happen when she saw him stepping over the bear's back.

- What?

- Eh?!… Nothing, be careful. (What a weirdo…But I guess he's not all bad.) (Sakura)

- Huh?…sure. (What is she talking about?… These two morons wasting my g*ddamn time, I swear…if it wasn't for my poor grades in cooperation…I would have left both of them a long time ago.)

Homura removed all of his weapons that had been implanted into to bear's flesh, he contemplated going back to get some of his shurikens, but he didn't really need them since he still had a lot in reserve and had saved a lot by not buying any weapons for almost a year.

Due to his stash of stolen weapons, but the real reason, was simply that he didn't want to waste more time.

With Gekkou passing out and them already being behind schedule, the odds were not in their favor for them to be the first team to complete the entire ordeal.

So Homura picked back his stuff alongside his classmates and they went on their merry way.

Hoping that they would soon finish this entire assignment…except for Gekkou who was still knocked out by Homura's attack.

Chapter end