"So… we're a team, huh?" Rin began, frowning a little. "I can't believe I, of all people, did something like… well, that."
"You were angry and frustrated. It's just natural," Gohan commented, giving her an easy smile, "what Jiraiya-sensei was doing was probably designed to intentionally anger and frustrate us."
Rin nodded. "He most likely paid that woman at the brothel to try and seduce you. He also likely knew that I am a lightweight. Kakashi would've told him. And he probably knows you're a lightweight, too. He probably intended for us to be introduced to the so called 'three shinobi vices', alcohol, gambling and sex, first hand, only to give us a harsher lesson. Probably would've worked if the three of us weren't mature adults. Well, two of us, at least. Rozalin fell hook, line and sinker."
"Only because she was the only one of us who could've drank Sake without passing out. And she would've probably been fine if it weren't for the champagne… which I think might have just been another trap sent our way by Sensei, after he noticed that Rozalin was the only one affected by the alcohol," Gohan said, frowning a little. "What do you think?"
"You might be right. It seems I didn't give you enough credit, Gohan-san, you're surprising me at every turn," she said, amiably, smiling in his direction before she turned back forward. "Ah… I need to buy office supplies," Rin said, as they passed a store that sold exactly that. Probably had been reminded of it by seeing it in the first place. "Wait for me, it'll be just a minute."
Gohan smiled and gave her a nod of acceptance.
She returned the smile and darted into the store. Gohan could see a rather short line forming behind a very, very elderly woman, and he scratched the back of his neck as he felt a grin come up to his face. Rin had probably grossly underestimated how long this would take.
"Halt, foul fiend!" someone yelled, and Gohan blinked, turning to look at the yeller.
There was a blond young man with bulging muscles and long, silky looking hair. The young man, he was a boy really, was pointing his finger at Gohan, who looked around, a bit confused, before pointing at himself, nonverbally asking if he was the one the guy meant.
"Yes, you, fiend! You're the one who defiled our idols's purities! And for that, you must pay!" the guy continued, "hit it!" he added.
Gohan didn't even need to look. His arm snapped into movement of its own accord, and caught the incoming attack well before it hit. It was a round object, he noted, that had come from his left side, though he couldn't quite see who had thrown it, as the crowd was just too thick. The crowd was also making a circle around them and chanting "Fight Fight Fight", so Gohan supposed nobody would come to stop the madman attacking a Konoha shinobi. "I did what now?"
"You dare deny it!" the blond guy said, glaring at Gohan.
"I don't even know what you're talking about," Gohan said, lowering the hand with the spherical object, holding it in front of himself so he could look at it.
It was a paint bomb.
Which exploded as soon as he identified it. Probably a remote controlled bomb.
It exploded into a variety of colors, mostly purples and yellows. However, Gohan had turned his hand around the moment he'd identified it, and as such, most of its payload was directed to the ground, making a big and colorful mess right in front of Gohan. His hand hadn't even twitched, and he just looked somewhat confused. "Why would you do that?" the pink haired boy asked.
"Because you're stealing my future wives, that's why!" the man said, as if that explained anything. "And now you've fallen right into my trap!"
Gohan blinked as more bombs were thrown his way. However, now that he knew what they were, he was forced to explode them himself, crushing them in his hands, lest they actually end up dirtying everyone else. Quite a bit of paint splattered all over his pants, no longer the uniform red they were before, and he believed his boots were ruined from all the paint.
Soon, the barrage of paintballs ended, and something more interesting came around when an explosive tag wrapped around a small stone was thrown his way. His arm once more snapped into motion and, with a finger flick, he tossed it high into the sky, priming it to activate at the same time. His chakra was terrible at anything that required nature transformation, but it served very well for applications like these. The tag hadn't been active when thrown, which meant it was probably just a distraction.
And it was. While he was distracted minding the explosion, a paintball managed to sneak up on him. However, Gohan's instincts served true, and he ducked under it. He did, however, turn to watch it fly.
To smack right into Rin's hand, as her own reflexes protected her. Unfortunately, it exploded as soon as she caught it, drenching her and the storefront behind her in paint. Also, it happened to ruin the paper she'd just bought. And it might also ruin her clothes, depending on what kind of paint it was and what the clothes themselves were made of. Gohan couldn't be sure.
But, judging from the expression on Rin's face, she was not amused.
"Well, SOMEBODY is going to die," the rainbow colored Uchiha stated, her voice dangerously calm.
The crowd immediately pushed two boys, one blond and the other with purple hair, out into the open.
Rin cracked her fists as she advanced menacingly.
Both boys gulped. Gohan laughed and scratched the back of his neck with his dirty hand. Well, he would need a shower today anyway, so it didn't really bother him that much.
He wondered what his mother would make for dinner that night.
"Okay… Our operation didn't go so well… So, how did Operation Princess Seduction go?" the blond muscled youth, covered in bruises, asked his foppish comrade.
"Aha! Now yoo see, Tink is ze best!" the foppish blond replied.
"So your operation was successful?" Shinji asked.
"Of course!" the unharmed blond spoke. "I 'ave grown, 'ow you say, close wizz ze princess, oui!"
"Great! How did it go?" the muscle man asked.
"It went somezin' like zis…"
***
Rozalin was walking alone, through a dark and out of the way alley, when suddenly, she was accosted by no less than six ruffians, all of whom were wielding knives!
"Oh no! I am in danger! Woe is me, for I have no one to save me!"
"Fear not, fair maiden! It iz I, le 'ero of justice, protector of lovely maidens such as yoorself!" a charming voice that left no doubt to the handsomeness of its owner answered.
And then, a handsome man, so handsome that Rozalin's heart instantaneously began beating at a ridiculous pace, descended upon the ruffians, having leapt from a nearby rooftop, easily handling them all without breaking a sweat. And when he turned to face the fair maiden he'd rescued, he gave her a roguish smile that made her knees go weak. "Oh, take me, handsome savior! Your manliness has made me forget all about that awful defiler! Clean me from his filthiness with your powerful essence!"
"Certainly, mademoiselle! Tink iz 'ere to answer to yoor ev'ry need…"
"Oh, Tink! My hero!"
***
Tink giggled perversely, rubbing his hands together.
"That's absolute bullshit and you know it," Shinji said, glaring at Tink.
"Yeah! The Princess could handle six thugs, no problem!" the other one said, glaring at the fop.
"Zey were ninja zugs!" Tink replied. "Wizz ninja naives!"
"Knives, you speech impeded idiot!" Shinji exploded. "And your story was bullshit! Tell us the truth, or I'll make Sharpener punch it out of you!"
Tink quickly paled. "Ah, er— Well, ze truz iz…"
***
"You really have no idea who you are dealing with here, do you?" Rozalin asked, raising an eyebrow. "I am the daughter of the world famous Yellow Flash, scum!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, I'm the Daimyo, missy," the guy who seemed to lead the group said, scratching his beard. "You're walking alone in a dark alley. It's almost like you're asking for it."
The other two grinned lecherously. "She's a pretty little thing, ain't she?" one of them said.
"Fear not, fair maiden! It iz I, le 'ero of justice, protector of lovely maidens such as yourself!" a rather annoyingly high pitched voice rang through the air, from one of the rooftops.
Everyone's attention was caught by what appeared to be a speech impeded blond chipmunk that was perched, precariously, on the border of a rooftop.
"I'll save yo—" he got as far as that before his feet caught on the ridiculous cape he was wearing, and, without peripheral vision as a result of the mask that he wore, he couldn't see the pole right next to him he could've grabbed to steady himself. So he stumbled forward, going face down into the dumpster that was right under his perch.
"What… was that?" Rozalin asked.
"Heck if I know," one of the thugs said. "But we'll deal with that later… now, we got a prize to unwrap, don't we boys?" the lead thug asked.
"I will not sully my hands with scum such as yourselves. ANBU! Arrest these louts!"
"Hah! Those answer only to the Hokage, missy—" one of them started, only to drop unconscious to the ground.
The other two soon followed.
"Make sure that my father doesn't learn of what these scum attempted to do to me. I'd rather not worry him unnecessarily," Rozalin commanded, glaring at her ANBU escorts, who nodded wordlessly. "Thank you," she said, nodding at them in return, and continuing on her journey.
***
"Wait… if that's what really happened, then why don't you smell like trash?" Sharpener asked.
"I took a long shower before I came 'ere," Tink replied, crossing his arms. "Do yoo believe me an idiot?"
"Yes," Shinji said, glaring at him. "Okay, so yesterday's operations failed. But don't worry! There'll be more! Yes… Tink! I need your spies! We need to make a plan for when they take missions today! Tell me what you've got!"
"Oui," Tink replied. "Ze mission shedule for today… Give me an 'our or too,"
***
At a wide clearing in a forest known as Training Ground Baka, or 211, Team 13 had just gathered not too long ago, early in the morning. As their prior outfits had been ruined, both Rin and Gohan were wearing new clothes.
Gohan wore a purple gi, with brown boots that seemed almost wooden, but were just dark leather, as well as red armbands that matched the sash that kept his tunic and pants in place, while Rin wore an outfit that was seemingly identical to her previous one, except it was distinctly a one piece. A long sleeved minidress that had a small diamond shaped opening that showed a small part of her lower back. If he had to guess, Jiraiya would say that it was a tail hole, almost as if it were a cosplay version of the outfit Rin usually wore. The 'skirt' part of it was black, while the part that covered her torso was the same blue of her usual wear.
Both of them were wearing more practical footwear, though it was more noticeable with Rin, whose heels were now more akin to that of formal men's shoes than women's ones.
There was also the fact that her boots were clearly made of black leather, resistant, and were thigh high, giving quite a bit more protection than stockings would.
"This is beyond degrading. My interest in the peasantry's habits and pastimes only stretches so far, Jisan," Rozalin said, crossing her breasts and preventing them from bouncing with her every move with the added support. It also had the side effect of pushing them together. Jiraiya was happy that he'd had a hand in designing the outfit that Rozalin wore every day, as she really could pull it off like no one's business.
Switching out the bodysuit she usually wore for tights that only covererd her legs also allowed a great deal of her skin to be visible, as the dress ended where it supported her chest. Incidentally, it also was a pretty good way to tell that she wasn't wearing a bra.
"Ooh, yeah, hold that pose for a second hime-chan!" Jiraiya said with a lecherous grin on his face, pulling a sketchbook from… somewhere, and instantly beginning to draw a sketch of what his eyes were seeing.
Rozalin huffed, but complied nonetheless.
"…There's something disturbing about this exchange," Rin said, frowning.
"Really? I thought he just liked art," Gohan replied, looking at Rin, upside down as he was doing handstand pushups. Pushing himself off one finger, at that. Rin was, meanwhile, standing next to him in case he lost his balance, which was very likely given how tiny the point of contact was. She also made one or two passing comments about the activity.
Apparently, it was overkill and actually counter productive, given that it'd probably make his fingers clumsier than they'd be if he did something that lent itself better to finger agility rather than strength.
"Something like what?" Gohan had asked, genuinelly curious.
"Well," Jiraiya broke in, while his hands and eyes were still locked onto the sketch he was drawing of his goddaughter and student, "there are lots of things you can do. Piano or a similar instrument, cat's cradle, prestidigitation… There's a slew of other things that sound stupid and pointless, but which build hand eye coordination and finger agility. It's a bit pointless in your case, though. You'd be better off building finger strength so you don't break them when you punch, like you're doing now."
Rin nodded, "I can get away with it as well, because I don't use handsigns for my jutsu."
"Really?" Gohan asked.
"Yes," Rin said, nodding. "My specific style means that I can throw gems like they were paper tags loaded with jutsu, or raw elemental chakra depending on what I need."
"That sounds really cool," Gohan said, a smile on his face, "it would be really useful for me, since I can't use any elements."
"Speaking of which, why is that, exactly?" Rozalin asked, from the side.
"That's rude, hime-chan," Jiraiya scolded, though he still hadn't stopped putting in the details on his sketch. "Also, stay still, or I'm gonna mess this up."
"Ah… well, it's because I have an odd mutation on my chakra. It gives me a lot of chakra, but… My control over it is terrible as a result, and I can't actually convert it to any other form of chakra. I can't really use it to stick to trees or walk on water, either," he admitted, "my father discovered quite a few ways to use it anyway. It's a lot more potent than normal chakra… and a lot more explosive, too. It's very, very good at making things explode, in fact," Gohan explained, smiling a bit nostalgically. "It's also really hard to use, and it depends a lot more on my emotions than yours does."
"So it's a bloodline limit, then?" Rozalin asked.
"Not quite. Quite a few other people have similar mutations, and they're not of my bloodline or even cousins. It's just really rare," Gohan explained, "and so hard to use that the people who do have it tend to believe they're just born without the ability to use jutsu," Gohan explained.
"There are two others with this same mutation in this very village. One was your upperclassman, his name was Rock Lee, I believe, and the other is one of the village's Elite Jounin. His name is Maito Gai," Jiraiya informed. "Incidentally, I've outsourced your training to him, Gohan, so if you want to hate anybody over your workload, it's gotta be him."
"I think Maito Gai was trained by the same person who trained my father," Gohan said, "I think I might get training like what I used to do with father."
"Muten Roshi of Iwa, right? The turtle Sage?" Jiraiya asked.
"Isn't he the Jinchuuriki of the Four Tails?" Rin asked, remembering an old lesson from the academy, on the eight ninja to run away from really, really fast. "Why would he have trained a Konoha Shinobi?"
"He's an old friend," Jiraiya said, fondly. "We had some shared interests. He doesn't really care about the whole 'enemy nations' thing, he just wants to live in peace in his little island, having the most healthy and important kind of fun in the world," he said, shaking his head.
"Can I move, Jisan?" Rozalin asked.
"Hm… and done!" Jiraiya said, putting in the last line with a triumphant flourish. Then he turned the completed sketch around, for the team to see. "Here, what do you think?"
Rozalin frowned. "That wasn't the pose I was in," she said, a bit confused.
Indeed, it was not. While Rozalin was in a position that was only slightly provocative because of her plentiful assets, in Jiraiya's sketch she was leaning forward and presenting quite a bit more cleavage, smiling up a sultry smile at the viewer.
"Are my breasts really that big?" she asked, frowning and looking down, grabbing her chest as if she could judge it.
"Damn…" Rin said, a small but noticeable blush on her face. She quickly shook her head and slapped her cheeks. "And yes, your breasts really ARE that big!"
Gohan nodded, absently, though his face was at a cross between scandalized and intrigued.
"I guess it's just further proof of my genetic superiority," Rozalin said, shrugging.
"Eh. I've met your grandmothers, on both sides, and your mother. Genetics seems to have nothing to do with the size of those gazongas of yours, Hime-chan, since none of them was anywhere near your size," Jiraiya explained. "Both of your grandmothers were quite flat, even."
Rozalin looked a little confused.
"Anyway, now that I'm done with that, we'll get through this morning's exercises and then we're taking on our first mission. You know, if this was a few years ago, back when people graduated at thirteen, you'd be doing D ranks now," Jiraiya noted. "So be glad."
"We did enough D Ranks at the academy for a lifetime," Rin said.
Rozalin seemed to agree.
"Okay, let's get through the morning exercises. First, we'll run," Jiraiya started.
"Doesn't sound too bad…" Rin said.
"First it'll just be straight running in circles," Jiraiya stated.
And so, they all began running at a slow, sedate pace—intended to conserve energy. A good pace for a warm up exercise. Jiraiya led them while Team 13 fell into a short line behind him, each two paces behind each other, as they began spiraling so that they covered a wider circle each time they lapped around the training ground. Soon enough, the clearing ended, and they were starting to weave around the trees.
"Now, we'll zig zag around the trees," Jiraiya said. "Zig," he said, dodging to his left, followed by the team behind him. Dodging the tree had been easy. There was one about four steps in front, and they completed the 'Zag' by jumping to the right, a small leap clearing the distance of the thick tree trunk.
They continued weaving through trees in this manner for a full minute before Jiraiya began to pick up speed. Still, it didn't become complicated until after five minutes into the run, when Jiraiya began actively pressing the limits of their ability to effectively dodge through the trees. It didn't help that he seemed to be leading them to an ever more complicated and complex path as he did. It was becoming more and more difficult to follow after him as he picked up speed. Soon, he began to leap from tree to tree.
"No chakra," he called, "this is pure physical training," he explained, as they began to imitate his movements.
Indeed, they weren't supposed to stick to the tree bark with chakra, which made the exercise quite a bit more difficult. The training in tree hopping, however, was still quite useful. It helped that sometimes, ninja have to climb up to a roof without chakra, and thus should know how to pinball jump between walls.
However, even the pace that Jiraiya set with that would soon become very, very fast and hard to keep up with. It was less a matter of speed and more a matter of precision. It was difficult to keep pace with him when they were focused on an activity that they didn't often do and which they could screw up very easily.
Finally, however, Jiraiya seemed to kick it up one last notch as he began to forgo touching the ground entirely, instead leaping from tree to tree at a ridiculous pace.
They followed him admirably for as long as they could, but it was quite clear that he was very much far above them, as he quickly left them behind. Not twenty seconds after he disappeared from in front of Gohan, Jiraiya reappeared, grinning smugly.
"How's it, youngsters? Can't keep up with this old man?" Jiraiya asked, raising an eyebrow.
Slightly out of breath, but not really tired, the three looked at him with frowns on their faces. All of them were sweating, but it had more to do with the heat than their warm up itself. It was a light warm up, mostly due to the heat, but he still expected them to be a little more out of breath than this. "We're fine," Rin said, clearly speaking for her team, as all three of them straightened up with no issue.
"Okay, then. Let's return to the clearing. We'll stretch and I'll introduce you guys to a few chakra control exercises," Jiraiya said. His hands came together into a handsign, and they soon disappeared, along with the rest of him, with a rush of leaves and smoke.
Team 13 sighed in unison as they began to headback. They knew which direction they'd come from, but it was still basically a trek through the woods. Admittedly, they could easily keep up the same pace they'd been using before, and Jiraiya's merry chase hadn't taken them too far from the starting point, even when it became confusing.
He was there, grinning, and had a bag filled with what looked like unfilled water balloons. He put the bag down and regarded them all.
"Start with your stretches," he commanded, his sketchbook once more in his hands, as well as a pair of pencils and a smaller notebook. He threw it all up into the air, and then his hands met together in a cross shaped symbol, unlike the one he'd used for the body flicker. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu," he called, and two bursts of smoke heralded the apparition of a pair of clones. One of them swiftly caught a pencil and the sketchbook, while the other caught the notebook and the other pencil.
Both of them leaped a few feet back, though while the one with the sketchbook moved until he was standing directly in front of the line Team 13 had made as they began to stretch, the other simply sat down to take notes on the notebook.
"Now, I know two of you have water natures, so I brought this," the one that had to be the original said, pulling out a paper tag which he laid on the ground. He touched one of its corners with his wooden sandal, and it exploded into smoke, revealing dozens of water bottles. "What you're gonna do here is fairly simple—you're going to use the water in those bottles to fill up the water balloons. I take it you remember how to use your chakra to manipulate water, right?"
Rin and Rozalin nodded.
"Good. Now, if you can't fill up ALL the balloons, you will be punished. There's more than enough water to do it, but if you screw up too much…"
Gohan frowned. "What am I going to do, meanwhile?"
Jiraiya's grin never faded. "As soon as they've got a full balloon like this," he said, pulling a fool balloon from his vest. It'd clearly come from a seal stitched into the inner side of the vest, but it did make for a very cool effect regardless, "you're going to pop it with your chakra. Here's the kicker, though, you can't just make it explode. You have to channel your chakra outside your body until you displace the water inside, like this," he said, and the balloon resting on his palm began to deform, as the water inside began to spin, flattening it as its own centrifugal force turned it into a disk-like shape. A second disk like shape of chakra formed, and the balloon popped as the water tried to stretch the balloon in two different directions. It drenched Jiraiya's hand in water. "Though in your case, I'm going to bet it'll be easier to make a ball shape and then increase its size until the balloon pops," Jiraiya said, shrugging. "Whichever way you do it, it's irrelevant, so long as you do it without an explosion involved."
"If you can't manage to do it before you guys run out of Water Balloons, you will also be punished. So… in other words, don't screw up."
And so Team 13 set out to train.
There wasn't very much to say about the training, it wasn't a very exciting affair. Apart from cutting it a bit close, they made the training objectives, and Jiraiya clapped his appreciation of them.
Gohan was now quite wet, as he'd exploded quite a few water balloons, and he'd received a nasty glare or two from Rozalin and Rin when the explosions were violent and got them a little wet too.
"Very well, then, let's do some basic exercises, and then we'll run to the mission office to pick up a mission for the day," he said, as he threw himself to the ground. "We'll keep a steady pace. This isn't a power workout," Jiraiya pointed out, "but I still expect you to keep pace with me. My clones are watching and they'll know if you screw up or lie, so don't even try."
Jiraiya hadn't lied, and his pace was just about pushing the limits of what they could comfortably follow. The exercise itself wasn't all that complex. First perform a pushup, then make a small jump without raising your torso so you stood in a crouching position, followed by a jump directly upwards, stretching the body fully and straigthening up, fall into a crouch, perform another small jump to a pushup position, and repeat fifty times.
It was a very basic exercise, one that ninja were very familiar with, as they had to be able to be flexible when moving.
The second set of fifty, however, was a bit more complicated, as Jiraiya began to introduce different variations to the same formula, first by having them stretch one leg, then the other, and finally both, rather than just moving to and from the push up position, and then in the third set of fifty, he added having them perform a frontflip when they jumped, while still remaining perfectly in place. The last set had them doing all of this, as well as performing two one handed push ups, one with each arm, on each repetition, having to clap before they could switch hands.
At some point, the exercise became harder to perform right because of its complexity than how physically demanding it was.
And it showed, because they'd performed it wrong a few times each. Gohan had only done so three times, while Rozalin and Rin had both screwed up seven times each.
Their punishment was simple, they just had to sprint back and forth for seventeen minutes. Five seconds were added for every time that they misjudged the distance of twenty metres that they were supposed to sprint. In the end, they ran for almost twenty minutes in the end. They were punished as a team, rather than as individuals. Gohan didn't really mind, while Rozalin and Rin were busier trying to prove they were better than each other, consistently blaming the other for the fact that the team was to be punished, even though they seemed to screw up exactly the same amount of times each.
Gohan just took it all in stride, and seemed happy enough with the morning exercises.
"How are the weights?" Jiraiya asked, looking at the armbands and boots that his student wore.
"It's a bit more weight than I'm used to," Gohan confirmed, "but I think it should be okay."
"Good, tell me if we have to tweak them in any way. They're experimental, and we're using you as the guinea pig to test out the new gravity seals the Yondaime designed. If they start to fail or act weirdly, let me know. Remember to tell me the moment you feel something's off, if there's a catastrophic malfunction, they could crush your bones and turn you to paste, so…" Jiraiya gave the warning with a smile and a light, airy tone, but he still managed to convey it with full seriousness.
"You're wearing weights!?" Rin yelled, braking up the argument that she'd been having with Rozalin over who screwed up more.
"…How heavy?" Rozalin asked, seemingly somewhat impressed.
"Ah… I'm not really wearing 'weights', per se," Gohan said, "in truth, they're seals that simulate an increase in the gravity of the world around me by utilizing a special form of wind release to make it so the air around me is heavier, and has a thicker consistency."
"Which is why we weren't leaping on branches around the woods. Gohan would never be able to stand on those while wearing the gravity seals," Jiraiya explained. "Anyway, that was enough of a breather. Let's take this to the next level," Jiraiya commanded, a grin on his face as Rin looked somewhat annoyed when he looked her way, "with a little spar. You three versus me."
"Rules for the spar?" Gohan asked, voicing the other two's thoughts as well.
"Simple. Try not to maim each other or me accidentally. Other than that, anything goes," he said. "Everything from taijutsu," and at this, he took a step forward and punched Rin right in her face before she could react. Then he went through a series of handsigns and then put his hands in front of his face, blowing into them. Rin, who'd regained her bearings, was forced to put her hands on her skirt once it began fluttering in the wind Jiraiya had generated, showing the racy black underwear that she wore, "to ninjutsu," he added.
Rin scowled and produced a small gemstone, a ruby, from the seals stitched onto the inner sides of her dress' sleeves, which she flicked at Jiraiya while he was talking. Fortunately, Jiraiya's own actions had given her an excuse to bring her arms together to unseal a gem so she could disguise her actions until it was too late for the white haired man to dodge.
However, as soon as the gem exploded into a weak fire jutsu, she felt the world flickered and Rin's eyes widened when Gohan lowered his hands, looking somewhat surprised and betrayed at being attacked by his own teammate.
"To, of course, Genjutsu," Jiraiya said, his voice coming from directly behind Rin.
She reacted instantly and flung a pair of gemstones, a blue sapphire as well as a green emerald, behind herself.
However, when they exploded, the chakra they released combined and, instead of a separate strong wind and burst of water, they exploded into a shower of icy spikes. The spikes flew true, but they struck nothing, as they were swiftly dodged by the presence behind Rin.
"Maybe if you spent less time killing your teammates, you'd stand a chance, Uchiha-chan!" Gohan said, suddenly, before landing a powerful right hook to her face, as the genjutsu flickered out of existence, revealing a slightly singed Jiraiya grinning like a loon.
The two Kage Bunshin that had been formed before hand had discarded the implements they'd been using to take notes and draw, and quickly joined the fight.
Rin frowned when all three seemed to attack her at once. She brought her hands up and blocked the follow up to the original Jiraiya's punch, though it rattled the bones in her arm. It didn't surprise her that he was horrendously strong even when he was holding back immensely, given that she was even able to block the attack in the first place. However, she wouldn't be able to fend off two at once, and when a clone came in to support the original, she felt she was going to be bruised in the morning.
Except the attack never came, because Gohan had appeared almost as if by magic, and had delivererd a kick that might've been devastating if it'd hit, forcing the clone to block the attack and stop moving towards Rin, who had caught the original Jiraiya's own arm and was even now holding him still, as the man was clearly preparing to continue the combo through a most likely unorthodox method that she'd probably be unable to block as she wouldn't see it coming.
The second clone was free to attack Rin, however… until it pulled out a kunai and blocked three kunai with a wide swing, catching a fourth with his off hand and using it to block three more in a movement that was a squick as it was precise.
"You're gonna have to work harder if you want to hit me at a range, hime-chan!" the second clone yelled.
The spar of three versus three was on, and Rin frowned as she unsealed a paper tag instead of a gem from her sleeve, letting it fall to the ground directly in front of her. It was already primed anyway, so she wouldn't need to touch it.
While the gems were vastly better, they were also expensive, and so she'd have to do with the inferior tags. Well, in this situation, she'd have used the tag anyway. Because using anything stronger than the small explosion that tag caused to break a stalemate like the one she'd been in would've probably damaged her more than it did Jiraiya.
"Ooh, you've got some clever tricks, huh?" the original asked, grinning as he advanced towards her at a slow pace, while Rin leaped back, keeping her distance and continuing to unseal tags from her left sleeve to throw at Jiraiya.
She felt kinda silly rolling them up into small balls that resembled what her classmates would throw at each other during history class back at the academy, only to throw them at the third highest ranked ninja in the village instead of an academy student.
Melee was out of the question. While Gohan could hold his own in melee, she couldn't match Jiraiya even when he was holding back. However, her ranged approach wasn't quite working, as Jiraiya could easily dodge the tags she threw at him.
This wasn't going well.
Needless to say, it didn't go well for any member of the team. Gohan found himself overwhelmed when Jiraiya started adding ninjutsu into the mix, using earth barriers and blunt spikes to break Gohan's stances and put him off balance. Meanwhile, another clone was chasing Rozalin around, deflecting any and all projectiles Rozalin threw his way, while the blonde kept jumping back to avoid being dragged into melee range, much like Rin, though she seemed to be having better luck than Rin herself.
Rin was just wondering why Rozalin was carrying hundreds of kunai on her.
She knew the were going to be defeated soon, and she noticed that Rozalin was aware of this, as well. Both of them had matching grimaces.
However, when she had a moment to check on her male teammate, Rin was somewhat surprised to see a small smile on Gohan's face as he performed at a level he never had, back at the academy, trading blows with the Jiraiya Clone.
Well, at least one of them was having fun.
***
"How DID you get this info!?" Sharpener asked, looking at the mission schedule for that morning. It listed which missions had been reserved by which teams. It was standard practice for jounin to come in early to reserve a mission for their teams. Few were the jounin who waited until the last second and grabbed any mission from the pile. Few wanted to be saddled with the D Ranks that the academy students couldn't do on their own time.
"Ah, a gentleman, 'e doez not, 'ow you say? Oui, kiss and tell!" Tink said, smiling widely.
"It doesn't matter anyway! With this, we know where they'll be! We just need to prepare an ambush! We'll make that pink haired dweeb look like the dweeb he is, and when we sweep in and show our beloveds how manly we are, they'll surely fall for us, and not that dweeb!" Sharpener said, grinning widely. "Anyway, where's Shinji? He was supposed to bring the pictures today…"
Soon enough, Shinji came running into Sharpener's Basem—their secondary base. "You wouldn't believe the pictures I just got!" he said, a lecherous grin on his face and a malicious glint to his eyes as he opened the manly! purple purse that he carried around and threw a bunch of pictures in front of him, above the mission schedule diagram. All of them were of people in the hotsprings. Most of them, however, were very clearly focused on one thing and one thing only.
A pair of bikini clad babes that all three of them recognized.
"Ooh, so much material… Hey, I think I can see Rin-sama's cameltoe in this one!" Shinji said, pointing at one of the pictures, and bringing it up to the other two's attention.
Tink, meanwhile, instantly homed in on a picture where Rozalin was bending over to grab a towel, which had been taken from behind.
Sharpener, meanwhile, seemed focused on one that was taken from in front of both of them as they walked. He didn't even notice Gohan behind them, so focused was he on how perfectly framed their breasts were. The camera had such a high quality and resolution that it actually managed to catch the slight bump of their nipples.
"Sharpener, should I bring the cookies down now?" a mature, if effeminate, male voice rang from the upper floor.
"No dad, I'll be coming up for them and the milk in a minute!" Sharpener called.