Chapter 53

Orochimaru's finger tapped against the steel, hand grasping it to try and bend the weapon. It didn't.

"An odd choice." He muttered. "Most children wish for swords."

"Yeah well I ain't most children" Ryoko shot back with air quotations. "That and I got a wind affinity. What's best for that than...this!"

Her choice was something akin to the Fuma Shuriken four large blades in a cross pattern. Except that, rather than four blades it was more akin to two double headed volgues with a ring in the center for the spinning motion.

He gripped the weapon in his hand tinkering for a moment before he dis-attached them to show off twin volgues. Whoever came up with this had certainly been...eccentric.

"I would have no idea how to teach you to use this." He confessed. "In truth. It'd be completely impractical without your wind element."

"But I do have a wind element and with that, the weapon's unpredictability outweighs its awkwardness. No one will know how to fight against it." She reasoned. "Its free style!" She grinned.

Orochimaru's lip curled. He didn't like it personally. He'd seen others fight with Fuma Shuriken as a distraction, a way to buy time or confuse. Not win a battle. The weapon was meant for mid range combat. It was too awkward for close range and too heavy for long range, unless you were Tsunade and could hurl the thing across a village.

In his experience, discipline with sparse seasoning of surprise maneuvers won a battle. Not, on the fly unpredictability. Especially when one had no more surprises left in their arsenal.

But Ryoko's independence and quote-unquote wild behavior was not something he was going to be able to quash out. If he didn't do this for her now she'd just do it herself later and get herself injured in the process. At least this way he could make sure she didn't cut open an artery in her thigh or something when practicing.

The steel was excellent. He could always say that about Iwa, they had the best forges in the elemental nations. Only one that surpassed them was Kiri with its legendary blades, but those weapons were custom made and unique for their Anbu. Iwa could mass produce better steel overall.

This piece could channel chakra as which was vital for the wind element...and was adding to its price tag.

It was expensive. Almost prohibitively so.

Still his team had their weapons stolen and had set a new record. As a reward for that last bit he'd been willing to buy them new shuriken, kunai, wire, tags and ONE choice of another weapon.

Quite frankly he expected them all to simply go for swords.

Naruto had declined and so had Kyofu. Ryoko was the only one who took him up on the offer and she was buying something he'd never seen before let alone fought or knew how to teach her how to use.

Why couldn't these children just be predictable?

"This is robbery!" The shout was almost a deafening roar that echoed through the store!

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow handing Ryoko her strange choice of weapon back before he began to make his way towards the counter.

Naruto was standing there. Glaring at the man for all he was worth. Kyofu was not far behind. Where Naruto's glare, on his cherubic face could be called cute by some, hers was just menacing.

The store manager was glaring back at them and Orochimaru when the sannin came into view.

"Is there a problem." The pale man drawled.

"He's charging us three times the price tag for all of these!" It was Kyofu that answered. "These things don't cost nearly half this in Konoha."

"Well we ain't in Konoha leaf!" The man barked back. "If you people can't afford my goods maybe you should head out back to that charity case you call a village!"

The three gennin looked ready to do some harm, especially Naruto who looked about ready to jump over the counter before the Sannin's hand on his shoulder held him back.

Orochimaru patted him on the arm, smiling with a placid calm that set the boy's teeth on edge. "Kyofu, Ryoko., please place your equipment on the counter so he can tally up a price for us."

The three gennin looked at eachother before the two girls marched up, setting down their chosen assortment of kunai and shuriken along with Ryoko's custom Fuuma Shuriken.

The man began racking up the price tag on his register, whole minutes passing with nothing but the grinding and pinging of edited sums.

Finally, the final price tag was set. Nearly three thousand yen. An absurd final price even with Ryoko's choice of weapon that could have accounted for triple the money for the amount of kunai and shuriken they'd each bought combined.

Orochimaru cleared his throat.

The man started speaking. "Now you listen here-"

The snake promptly ignored him, marching around the counter as the man kept on ranting.

With a start the three gennin easily realized what was going on.

Genjutsu.

The snake hadn't taught them anything on the art, save for how to detect and dispell it, claiming it was the most difficult but also the most dangerous and they could see why that last part held true as it was displayed right before them.

The store clerk was doing a tremendous job of throwing verbose insults at thin air.

The serpent printed out the receipt, marched back around the counter, tossed each of them their weapons and took more weapons from the counter, then began to march out with the three following behind him.

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