| Choose Your Blade |
[Jun. 9th, 2013|07:17 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 15]
The first day of the ANBU trials started before dawn.
Fifty kilometers, run in an hour. Most of them came in under that, of course—they were jounin—but there was no rest or water before the slim, iron-grey ANBU commander barked an order and masked veterans dropped out of the trees for bare-handed sparring, no chakra allowed. Jutsu came later, as a grey drizzle veiled the risen sun. Timed kawarimi, distance translocation, area-effect genjutsu, shadow clones. Another round of sparring, with blades this time. And then a panting moment of blessed rest, dropping down onto the sparse patches of dry ground under the trees while one candidate after another demonstrated their special jutsu on the muddy field under the ANBU commander's masked and merciless gaze.
Tousaki Ryouma had a cut on one shoulder and mud in his hair. He didn't think the cut was bad; it hurt to lift his arm, but everything still worked, which was all he really needed. Probably. There might be weightlifting next.
He sealed his palm to the tear in his sleeve and rolled his shoulder, testingly. Pain stabbed red and white, but the warm seep into muddy fabric didn't break into a surge. The cut felt long but shallow; a short sword glancing off the padded shoulder of his flak vest as he turned and ducked, slicing into the meat of his upper arm instead of his neck.
He'd only had a single kunai, like all the other candidates. He hadn't actually drawn blood, but that frog-masked veteran would be limping for a week.
( Probably, Ryouma decided, he could allow himself to be smug. ) |
|
|
| Field of Daggers |
[Jun. 9th, 2013|08:06 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 15, immediately following Choose Your Blade.]
Raidou wished ANBU’s commitment to drama involved less translocation. Space-time jutsu tended to give him a nosebleed.
It took a moment for the candidates to finish filtering away; a few hung back, lingering on the scorched training field. Raidou could understand that impulse. His Trials had been three years ago, but he still remembered the vibrating impatience to get to the second stage—and the tiny bit of terror that said, oh god don’t fuck up.
He was pretty sure he’d never looked that baby-faced, though.
When the last candidate left, he stepped down from the ridgeline of ANBU’s HQ’s roof, crouching on the edge. Rain dripped from the bottom of his mask.
The HQ was built behind the Hokage’s monument, surrounded by the ANBU-only training fields. They shared space with T&I and the barracks, plus a few other buildings. From here, he had a prime view of the whole village, framed through the spikes of Yondaime’s stony hair. A prime view of the other ANBU, too; most of them were clustered below, scattered around the buildings and in the woods.
( Booted feet stepped forward on his left. ) |
|
|
| Run, Rabbit, Run |
[Jun. 9th, 2013|08:59 pm] |
[Takes place Yondaime Year 5, April 16, the morning after Field of Daggers.]
Kakashi visited the Heroes’ Stone on the morning of the second trial.
It had stopped raining; the air was cold and clean, and Obito had zero useful advice to offer. Kakashi left a single flower at the foot of the stone, mostly to annoy him.
Dawn was still a distant possibility when he arrived at the hidden training field behind the Hokage’s monument. The commander wasn’t there yet. Kakashi slipped in behind the loose knot of sleepy-eyed candidates. Today, most of them had thought to bundle up in oiled rain-cloaks over their uniforms. All of them had visible weapons — slung swords, kunai, shuriken. One woman had a giant folded fan strapped to her back.
( It took Ryouma less than four seconds to find him. ) |
|
|
| Gone to Ground |
[Jun. 9th, 2013|10:26 pm] |
[Takes place in the early morning hours of Yondaime Year 5, April 17, the morning after Run, Rabbit, Run]
Genma was glad he’d taken that soldier pill the night before. The intensive debriefing they’d just concluded was easily as exhausting as the originally planned night of chasing ANBU candidates would have been. And in many ways a good deal more harrowing, given the stakes involved.
He and Raidou had gone over the incident—every step they’d taken, every interaction they’d had with the dead traitor Akiyama and the two injured candidates—while the Hokage listened grave-faced. Yondaime-sama and Commander Sagara didn’t stay in the debriefing long; they had defenses to muster and an investigation in the field to conduct before the snake sannin’s trail went cold, if there really even was a connection to Orochimaru. But if there was, it was a threat no one dared take lightly.
( Vice-commander Kuroda and a pair of calm debriefer-interrogators from Intel had taken over when the commander and Hokage left. ) |
|
|