"How do you plan to do this?" She murmurs into my ear. Wow. That's really distracting.
"I'm going to run fast enough that they can't catch us, and then we're going to win the task."
"I'm serious."
I sigh. "Yeah, me too."
...
Another shinobi announces their presence with a hail of shuriken that Samui dashes aside with expert blade strokes. He leaps out and lands right in front of us, running through hand seals. He's expecting me to try to dodge, thus giving him time to get off jutsu, which is understandable since there's nothing at all I can do to him in a direct fight with Samui on my back.
I charge forward and headbutt him so hard that I see stars.
I stumble a few steps, nearly tripping over the stunned genin, and shake my head to clear my senses. Another burst of wind chakra and a sharp twinge in my stomach later, and we're back tearing through the forest at full speed. Yeah, we can do this. It's going to take a lot of pain on my end, but we'll do it. Then Samui will meet back up with her teammates and maybe not hate Konoha so much anymore and I'll join my team and needle Sasuke forever about making me bail him out, and we'll pass the rest of the tasks and become chunin and-
A massive wall of earth tears up through the ground in a few feet in front of me, and I skid to a stop. I pivot on my heel and make to run off to the right, only for a Kumo kunoichi to land in my way, the tanto held out in from of her dashing any hopes of a repeat headbutt performance. I pivot again, but find the branches above somehow filled with foreign genin.
I spin in a slow circle, counting each one. Eleven. There are still eleven of them. Son of a bitch. I complete my circle, eyeing the wall of earth that had stopped me cold, and spot the twelfth standing atop it.
The Iwa kunoichi that had been arguing with Isamu earlier glares down at me, radiating loathing. "I told that jackass Isamu that we should have killed her as soon as she went down. I told him, but he didn't listen to me, and now another Iwa nin is dead. Four in total. All because of you."
She raises a hand and points to me. "Kill him. If you really think the Raikage will kill all of you over one girl, then you Kumo nin can try to take her back alive. We won't be pulling any punches against this leaf bastard, though." The few Iwa nin sitting up in the trees voice their agreement, pulling free weapons and building up jutsu and staring down at me with naked rage. The Kumo nin glance between each other for a moment, before acquiescing and turning their attention back to us.
Samui buries her head into my shoulder and sighs against my neck.
I bare my teeth up at the kunoichi atop the wall, defiance coursing through me. Like hell I'm going to fail here. Like hell I'm going to leave my teammates to rot and let my partner down after she got herself crippled fighting for me. Like hell I'm going to give up.
And like hell I'm going to let this rock bitch get what she wants.
The wind flows through my tenketsu and down to my feet as smooth and effortless as if I had channeled it through my hands, just like how Iruka-sensei said it would never be. The two strands pool on the outside of my soles, and begin swirling in a slow symphony.
I've spent enough time hammering myself with the basics. I've got a good enough grasp over my own chakra. I don't need to wait for Hatake or the old man or anyone else to pass me breadcrumbs on how to use it. I can do this by myself.
Think about what you could do with that kind of control over wind, Naruto. Think about all the things you could do with it that your teammates couldn't do with their chakra. Think, Naruto.
"Hey, before you kill me," I call, twisting the strands, setting them to spinning. "I'm curious."
The kunoichi scowls. "About what?"
I force my eyes not to cross as I spin the separate strands of wind faster and faster beneath my feet. "About how many of your relatives the Yondaime slaughtered in the war."
Disbelief flickers across each of the Iwa genin's faces, followed by a fury that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. The head kunoichi snarls. "You're going to regret that, you piece of trash."
"Probably," I mutter. I shrug the shoulder Samui's face is pressed against. "Hold on tighter." Then I inhale shakily, take my hands off her thighs, and slap them into the serpent seal.
Ninjutsu creation, as an art, is one of the most dangerous hobbies you can ever dabble in. It's twice as unstable as Genjutsu mutating, three times as potentially fatal than Kenjutsu experimenting, and fifty times more complex than Taijutsu mashing. The only thing that trumps it is Fuinjutsu fiddling, for obvious reasons.
It's risky, complicated, and almost always unnecessary. It's an art best left to the war monks and the shinobi hermits of the world, as an intimate knowledge of chakra is a must if you want to create a successful ninjutsu. That, and time. Lots and lots of time. To attempt to even just alter an existing jutsu on the fly and with little to no knowledge of advanced chakra theory would be worse than stupid. It would be suicidal.
"Wind Release: Breeze Step."
The genin from Iwa are already lunging at me with their weapons and jutsu of choice before I slap my hands together, and the genin from Kumo hurry to follow suit when I call out the name of my creation. They're all too late. The twin loops of chakra in my feet scream as the activation hand seal takes effect, and suddenly the wind is beneath me and the world blurs.
I find myself flying up over the top of the kunoichi's earth wall a split second later, touching down on a branch wider than I am and pushing off hard enough to shatter it into splinters. Samui gasps into my ear, tightening her legs around me and pressing herself harder into my back, clutching the tanto to my chest. A cacophony of shouts go up behind me, but I'm already shattering my next foothold with the gales beneath my feet.
A pair of Kumo and Iwa nin appear in front of me in twin Body Flickers while I'm in midair, each immediately belting out a string of hand seals. The first to finish digs into their weapons pouch and hurls a volley of shuriken coated and connected to one another by lightning chakra at me. I twist, throwing my hands- still held in the serpent seal- forward and buffeting the throwing stars with wind. It isn't enough to throw them off course, but the lightning fizzles out just in time for Samui to knock them away with the tanto.
The other genin finishes his hand seals right as I land on my next branch, roaring the name of his jutsu. "Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet!" And a heartbeat later a serpent almost as big as the trees around us roars in reply as it bursts free from the forest floor, arching up over its summoner and lunging at me with its maw opened wide.
I push off and the wind surges beneath me, carrying me up and over the dragon's snapping jaws. I touch down on top of its head and sprint forward along its back, jumping and spinning sideways to avoid another round of lightning shuriken. I leap higher and higher up into the treetops, hands locked into the serpent seal and chakra screaming beneath me. My stomach burns so hot that my drenched shirt and jumper begin to steam.
The other genin catch up with the first two and send jutsu of their own flying at me, but none of them come close to touching me. They all fall short or are dispersed by the Great Breakthroughs coming out of my feet. A couple Iwa nin try to chase after me, but they don't even have a chance. I break through the tree line moments later and soar up into the air. Once again, I find the forest laid out below me.
And to the north, in a tower jammed between a cluster of mountains, I find the second task.
...
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