[IC] Naruto Gaiden: The Will Of Fire!! (AU)

[Alan Hawke]

~ Training Field - The Village Hidden In The Leaves ~

The wind carried the leaf through the air and gracefully lowered it onto the surface of the pond, creating rings of distortion in the previously still water. Akio Senju had been silent as he stood next to the pond, watching the leaf as it made it's elegant descent. Once it had finally landed delicately on the surface of the pond, Akio turned around and faced the team of teenagers that stood in front of him. This amount wasn't just any team, it was his team--well, except for one of them. First, the three that were apart of his team, named Team 2, were Hayashi Uchiha, Arashi Uchiha and Seth Chikyu. Team 2 was one of the rare teams that had more than one Uchiha on it, and ironically a Senju--the Uchiha's rival clan--was chosen out of all the other people in the village. Akio didn't have anything against his two Uchiha students, in fact, he had just the opposite feeling for them; he thought those two students would become extraordinary powerful and influential unlike anybody else. His former master and current Hokage, Itachi Uchiha, taught him the philosophy that just because two clans have a feud, doesn't mean it's individuals have to feel the same way about another individual from the opposite clan.

The non-Uchiha on the team, Seth Chikyu, on the other hand... was a bit of a punch-first-ask-questions-later type of kid. Akio always scolded him that this would one day prove to be his downfall, but deep down he thought that Seth would change the Shinobi world one day. During the Pain Invasion, the Asura path was pursuing Seth and Akio sacrificed his life for him to let him get away for that very reason. Seth, due to the fact Akio forced him to get out of sight, did not witness his mentor's death. Thus Seth does not know that Akio actually died and had to be revived. He believed in Seth as if he were his own child--of course he would never tell him he thought that highly of him, because then Seth would get even more arrogant than he already was. Lastly was the Rin Hyuga, who wasn't a member of Team 2 but her sensei was out of the village so Akio figured that she could use some training as well. She was apart of the Hyuga's primary branch, which Akio heard had bred some pretty impressive shinobi. While he didn't know much about Rin besides that, he could tell right off the bat that she could kick ass and take some names without her Byakugan even active.

"Alright. You all can pretty much guess why I led you all here to the training field." Akio began to speak, his voice dripping with complete and utter boredom. "But just in case you all lost a few IQ points over the past few weeks, I'll enlighten you all." He said sarcastically with a slight smile, "We're here to preform a teamwork exercise, one that we should have done when we were first put together--but, I totally forgot to actually do with you guys. So we're doing it now, after what was probably the most dangerous moment in Konoha history: The Pain Invasion." The young man reached into his pocket and pulled out four small bells and held them outwards towards the four shinobi standing in front of him. "You all will work together to acquire these bells from my possession. The key to this exercise is teamwork, I cannot stress that enough. I will allow you all to use all the skills in your arsenal to take these bells from me. Genjutsu, Sharingan, Byakugan, whatever. There is only one catch..."

Akio closed his eyes and smirked--the reason he was standing so still was because he gathering natural energy in order to use Sage Mode. Red markings and an encircled dot of the same color materialized under his eyes and on his forehead respectively as his eyes turned yellow with black pupils. "I will be using Senjutsu." He attached the four small bells on his waist and slammed his right fist into his opposite palm in a taunting manner and--instead of his signature monotone voice--shouted arrogantly at the four teenagers in front of him.

"Alright! Bring it on kids!!"

---

~ The Five Kage Summit - The Land of Iron ~

The five Kage sat in a meeting hall, each of them with their respective Kage hats on the desk in front of them. The five Kage were: Itachi Uchiha, the fifth Hokage. A, the fourth Raikage. Gaara of the Sand, the fifth Kazekage. Mei Terumi, the fifth Mizukage. And lastly, Onoki, the third Tsuchikage. This was the first Kage Summit in decades, which meant there was a massive threat that needed serious addressing. They had been meeting for hours, discussing the Akatsuki and how they had taken interest in the tailed beast--including Gaara as well. Gaara shared with the others that the Akatsuki were extracting the tailed beast from the Jinchurki, effectively killing the Jinchurki. A brought up that the masked man going by the name Hashirama had attacked his village in an attempt to capture his adoptive brother and Eight Tails Jinchurki B. It was at this moment Itachi told the other Kage that Nagato said that the true leader of the Akatsuki was in fact the masked man.

The five Kage sat in silence for a few moments, attempting to wrap their heads around what exactly was going on. They were all looking at their hats in front of them as if the familiar color of the hat would give them an idea, Itachi was the first to look away from his hat--and that's when he saw him first. The masked man suddenly appeared out of thin air using some sort of space-time jutsu with his arms folded, almost as if he had confidence that nobody would attack him. Almost by instinct, Itachi activated his Mangekyou Sharingan--which was first activated from the death of his mother from an illness years ago--and used Amatersu on the masked man. He knew this was pure arrogance, but if there was a chance to stop this terrorist organization once and for all right here right now, he had to take the oppurninity. But the flames hadn't hit their target--but instead a thick piece of wood that spruted from the ground instead... wood was a signature use of ninjutsu from Hashirama Senju, which meant one thing: Whoever this man was, he had Hashirama's jutsu. The masked man stood next to the thick piece of wood as Itachi deactivated the flames, bringing relief to his eyes. Now, everybody in the room was aware of the masked man's precense and was watching him cautiously, careful not to take their eyes off of him. The Kage, their advisors, and their bodyguards all glared at him with their full attention and ready to fight.

"Do I have your attention now, Kage?" The masked man asked, his voice hoarse and threatening at the same time. Silence fell over the room, nobody saying a word. "I'll take that as a yes... you all have been cautious of the Akatsuki for a very long time but have done nothing until now. It only took the extraction of seven of the nine tailed beast for you all to convene a summit." He continued, his uncovered left eye darting over to the Kazekage, Gaara, reminding him that he had extracted the One-Tailed beast from him. "Allow me to get this through all of your thick skulls, I personally assure you all that I will extract the eighth and ninth tail from B and Naruto. And yes, I know the Jinchurki well. I have studied those two very well. Such childish Shinobi-"

"Enough!" The Raikage shouted as he smashed the desk in front of him in anger, "Who the hell are you?" The masked man let out a chuckle and looked at the wood next to him, "I thought it was obvious by now, Raikage. Perhaps you should ask the Hokage, after all--based on the way he's looking at me right now, he knows exactly who I am. Isn't that right, Itachi?" Itachi's fists clenched tightly as he glared at the masked man, only two people could use wood-style jutsu: An ANBU named Yamato--who was standing right next to Itachi right this very second as his bodyguard--and the rival of First Hokage Madara Uchiha. "Hashirama Senju." Itachi spoke, coming to the cold realization of how it all fits. Senju DNA gives one a strong lifeforce, hence the reason he's still alive which proves his a Senju, and he's using wood release which is a kekkai genkai only usable by Hashirama and Yamato. "That name means nothing to me. Call me whatever you like, Tobi, Hashirama, whatever pleases you."

After a brief pause, Itachi spoke up again--this time with a question: "Why are you extracting the tailed beast?" Tobi smiled under his mask, "For the Eye of the Moon plan of course. I will create a world in which everybody is in that of a Tsukuyomi for eternity. Trapped in an endless dream--there will be no more wars, no more bloodshed, only peace and happiness. All I need is for you all to hand over the Eight and Nine tails jinchurki in order to-"

As if the Kage all shared one mind, they all spoke simultaneously spoke: "No."

Tobi then clenched his fists in anger, "Fine--then you all give me no choice! I hereby declare war on you all! The Fourth Great Ninja War!"

[Rex]

Seth stood there with his fellow team mates. He was instructed to meet Akio, but not told why. He had assumed it was some sort of training exercise. Since it was so early in the morning he didn’t have time to make breakfast since he almost didn’t make it. So instead he stopped by a local store and picked up a few candy bars. He also stopped at the store to pick up cigarettes. The problem was he was under age and knew the shop keep wouldn’t sell him the tobacco. However, Seth was a master at his craft of stealing both tobacco and booze. He got the old man behind the counter talking and while his back was turned he stuffed a pack of cigarettes in his pocket. After he paid for the candy bars he reveled in his accomplishment. He had already smoked two on the way here and as Akio was explaining the exercise he pulled a third cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lit it.

While Akio continued to explain he looked around at his team mates. Two members of the Uchiha clan. He sighed and a white puff of smoke flew from his mouth. He didn’t hate the clan, but it was the simple fact that he knew if you were paired with one of them. You were basically helping them save the whole village, at least in his mind. Many people in the village saw the Uchiha clan as the strongest and Seth couldn’t disagree with that. However, it was almost always what people talked about when he described his team.

He then noticed a spectator, a woman from the Hyuga clan. He simply sighed again and mumbled to himself, “I’m surrounded by Kekkai Genkai. Great.” It felt like he was in a world of Kekkai Genkai and he was the odd man out since he had none. This is why he pushed his body most of the time. He knew having a Kekkai Genkai was a major advantage to have, but he also knew that if he got stronger. He could overpower anyone with one.

When Akio was finished and told them how he would be fighting, a smile formed on Seth’s face. He know how powerful Akio was. Hell, he took on one of the pains and came back without a scratch. The only problem with Akio was he was a downer. He yelled at Seth every time he decided to do something stupid or reckless. The only good part he liked about Akio is the fact that he never ratted out Seth to his mother. Seth knew what fear was, it came in the form of his mother calling him by his full name. A shiver went down his spine as he remembered the last time. Seth simply took the cigarette from his mouth and tapped the red ash from its end to the ground before placing back in his mouth.

[NanoFreakV2]

As Rin stood there she was only partially paying attention to Akio instead her mind pondering on what her other team members were doing. Her sensei was off on some other mission and so was the rest of her team, each on a solo missions. She wasn’t particularly happy being the only one not to receive a mission.
Nonetheless she was going to put this free time to good use, by training, which is also one of the reasons she accepted to train with team 2. She knew Itachi wouldn’t leave anyone in his place if he knew that person didn’t have what it takes to watch over the village, so there was no doubt he had skill and she was intrigued about Akio’s usage of a training method mainly employed by Kakashi sensei. As far as she’d heard, only the most recent team under Kakashi had passed the bell test. All before them had failed. Rin hoped Akio’s version would be as rigorous as Kakashi’s, considering that she wanted to test the limit of her abilities.

She smirked as Akio informed them he was going to use Senjutsu. “That’s not really a catch.” She said to herself. But she knew it wasn’t going to be easy. She had done her homework on Senjutus and knew to what extent it enhances a user’s abilities, however she was also aware of its main weakness. You have to remain still to gather nature chakra. Based on that she already planned out her general strategy. Use Taijutsu to keep Akio on the move while conserving her own chakra, and only start using Jutsu once he is unable to maintain his sage mode any longer. Rin also knew hiding was not an option for Akio as she could track him down with her Byakugan. Only problem was, she didn’t know the exact amount of time Akio would be able to maintain his sage mode and also what tactics and Jutsu Team 2 would use so she couldn’t plan accordingly. For now she decided she’d just wait for one of the others to attack first and follow it up with one of her own.

[King Kindred]

The events of the invasion rocked all of Konoha. It was where everyone was put to the test and pushed to their own limits. Many people died, but they were soon revived thanks to Naruto, the hero of the village. He had nothing against him, but he felt like with guys like that there wasn't much hope for those like him and his team to truly shine. He was sure that some people thought that there was no point in trying anymore if they were going to continue to be overshadowed by him. He wondered if that was partly how Sasuke felt. He was the Hokage's younger brother, but he still behind his teammate when it came to power.

Arashi felt the same way sometimes. He was the son of Shisui Uchiha and the godson of the Fifth Hokage. His mother was also from the Senju clan. With all that behind him you'd think that he would be destined for greatness. He was still young, but the amount of effort that it'd take to surpass them now was overwhelming. He still didn't let it hold him back though. He was going to get stronger and he was going to make a name for himself. He didn't want to be known simply by the people that raised and taught him. He wanted to be a legend. One told for many generations.

He lost his train of thought when their sensei started speaking. He looked around at the three around him and wondered how this training exercise was going to go. He eyed the four bells that their sensei was holding. This was a modified version of the original test. From what he was told there were supposed to be less bells than there were students. It immediately made sense to him why teamwork was still needed for that. It took Arashi a minute this time to understand why they still needed to use teamwork to gain the balls. Even if one of them were able to gain a bell on their own it didn't mean the others would be able to get one and it'd probably be considered a failure for the whole team.

Then it was revealed that their sensei would be using senjutsu. That definitely made it harder for them. Teamwork was definitely needed. No one else seemed to want to start things off so he decided to be the first one. He closed his eyes and a small breath escaped through his lips. When he opened them his normal eyes were now crimson red with two tomoes surrounding his pupils. He didn't know much about what the girl from the Hyuuga clan could do so adding her to team strategy would be difficult. Maybe they'd catch the flow as things went on. Right now he couldn't worry about that.

Arashi didn't want to immediately use a lot of his chakra so he'd go with taijutsu for the jump. He reached into his holster and pulled out two single kunai. He twirled them around the index fingers of both of his hands before clenching and holding them tightly. He had secretly slipped out a smoke bomb from the holster as well and hid it in his right hand. He didn't know the extents of senjutsu, but he'd surely find out during this fight.

He dropped the smoke bomb and waited for it to explode and encompass them in smoke before moving forward to attack. His plan was to do an uppercut slash with his right kunai while keeping his left kunai prepared for a counterattack.

[Alan Hawke]

Nice use of the smoke. Akio said to himself internally, complimenting Arashi's use of his tools. However, Akio's use of senjutsu allowed him to sense Arashi's presence; while it wasn't crystal clear when it came to one's exact location, it provided him with a rough estimate on where he was in the smoke. He closed his eyes for a brief moment to focus on sensing for his chakra when suddenly--Akio's eyes shot open and his left hand had completely engulfed Arashi's right wrist. He used the Uchiha's own momentum against him and pulled him downwards into the dirt on his right side. He then rushed forward towards the other three teenagers with a sly smirk before coming to a sudden halt and putting his hands out in front of him in order to quickly preform a three hand seals. The ox, monkey, and bird.

"Sage Art: Water Style: Massive Water Dragon Jutsu!" Akio shouted as a massive amount of water from the pond next to him shaped into a gigantic dragon, easily twice the size of an average water dragon. He had learned from Itachi that one could easily shorten the hand seals in order to prepare a jutsu, it just depends on one's chakra control--and being in Sage Mode did help a bit... "Alright--heads up!! I used this jutsu on Pain himself!" Akio yelled tauntingly with a sly grin. The massive water dragon then proceeded to make it's way directly in the direction of Rin, Seth, and Hayashi. While he made sure to keep the jutsu non-lethal, he did however make sure it'd pack one hell of a punch if they didn't dodge in time. But Akio was making one mistake at this moment--he was leaving his back completely open to Arashi.

[Rex]

Seth watched as Arashi dropped his smoke bomb to get a better attack advantage on Akio. He hated the fact that an Uchiha had made the first move instead of Seth irritated him. Because he wanted to make the first move and show off how much stronger he got and because it was an Uchiha. He didn’t let on how much he envied the Uchiha clan. That fact that they could do no wrong in anyone’s eyes enraged him.

When he saw Akio use Arashi momentum against him. a smile formed on Seth’s face as he said, “Nice.” Seth then saw Akio create the massive water dragon and his smile grew. He spat out his cigarette and boasted, “Don’t think you’re the only one with wicked creatures!” Seth started to quickly create hand signs before he punched the ground.

“Earth Style: Rock Viper justu,” the earth behind Seth exploded as the rock formed a Cobra behind him. the earth cobra rocketed towards the massive dragon. The only flaw in Seth’s strategy: he used what he considered his most powerful justu since it used nearly all of his chakra to create and control.

[Javier]

As Akio explained everything, Hayashi smiled; this is where they'd get a chance to test their skill, and the mention of Senjutsu made it better. There were two other boys with him, Arashi (an Uchiha like him) and Seth (a Senju). Hayashi personally didn't mind having another Uchiha but Seth bothered him, he could tell that Seth wasn't exactly happy about being with two Uchiha. A girl was there, too, she was a Hyuuga who Hayashi didn't know a lot about, other than the fact that her sensei was somewhere else so she was assigned to be with Akio's team.

Before anything else could happen, Akio gave the green light to go for the bells and the test began. Hayashi's eyes quickly swirling into the familiar red color of the Sharingan with two tomoe around his pupil. Arashi quickly led the offensive, throwing down a smoke bomb, but being tossed aside by Akio. Suddenly, a massive water dragon appeared, summoned by Akio, which looked rather menacing. This didn't seem to affect Seth, who used his own Rock Viper. Hayashi quickly coordinated his own plan, hoping it would work in conjunction with Seth's jutsu.

Hayashi summoned a Shadow Clone and had it go to the side, while Hayashi started a chain of jutsus, that, if unsuccessful, would leave him rather tired but he deemed it worth a shot. "Fire Style: Fire Ball Jutsu", Hayashi put his hand to his mouth and spit out the raging fire towards Akio. It was obvious that, if Akio didn't dodge it, the water dragon could destroy the fireball, and Hayashi was hoping that either way, an opening might open for him. The boy quickly jumped to the side and waited to see what would happen with the chain he had started, and began formulating a back up plan with limited options, due to the amount of chakra invested into the attack he threw out.

[Alan Hawke]

Right off the bat with powerful Jutsu, I'm liking this.

The Water Dragon collided with the Rock Viper with an impact that caused both of the chakra constructs to explode, causing a drizzle of water and rock for a few brief moments over the training field. Akio smirked yet again, Nice usage of that technique, Seth. He said to himself internally, continuing his internal monologue. The temporary Hokage quickly saw the fireball headed straight towards him, it was too close for him to dodge--which meant he had to act fast. He preformed a few hand seals at an unnatural speed in order to use this technique.

"Sage Art: Earth Style: Mud Wall!" A wall of well packed together rock and mud shot out the ground at rocket speed, defending him from the massive ball of flames that was less than a second away from impacting the mud wall. With a thunderous explosion, the fireball exploded and created deep cracks throughout the wall--severely weakening the wall. An average mud wall would have collapsed at the strength of the fireball jutsu, but thanks to adding senjutsu within the mix, it allowed the mud wall to withstand the pressure that an average one could not. They're getting better, while I wouldn't call this the best teamwork... it's decent. He stood behind the mud wall and began punching the rocks that were apart of the wall, sending rock shards flying towards Hayashi, Hayashi's shadow clone, Seth, and Rin.

[Rex]

Seth smiled as he watched the battle unfold. He wasn’t too shocked Akio was able to take out their Jutsus so quickly. After all, this was the same person who took on one of the Pains in the war. Seth could feel his arm tremble, but it wasn’t from fear. It was from excitement. I think it’s time to show Akio something I’ve been working on. Seth thought before he rapidly created hand signs. He punched the ground again, but this time nothing happened. In an instant Seth bolted towards Akio. He readied himself for a fist fight with Akio. This is going to be good, who would ever suspect them to come from the ground.

“Alright! Now this is what I’m talking about. A real fight!” Seth yelled as he ran towards Akio. he dodged and weaved through the Rocks and Mud flung towards him. He could feel the Jutsu underneath him as it swam through the rocks and dirt. Seth slammed his right foot on the ground and pulled back his fist Ready to strike. In that moment he screamed, “Now! Earth Style: Rock Biter Jutsu” Seth smiled as a Bull Shark made of rock and dirt burst from the ground behind Akio. Its mouth filled with rocks, shaped as shark teeth. Didn’t see that coming did you? Seth thought, not realizing the shark jumped out of the ground in front of Arashi. Seth had totally forgotten this was a team exercise and had goon of the rail to just attack Akio without thinking, as he usually did in battles. He was exhausting all his chakra to make the rock creatures, not conserving for a long fight.

[NanoFreakV2]

Since the Byakugan used little to no chakra Rin would use it whenever it could provide an advantage. And this was one of those cases. “Byakugan!” The veins near her temples leading to her eyes bulged and soon enough she was observing the attack through the smoke.
She intended to maneuver to the left but was rather stunned when the water dragon was brought forth. Her eyes widened at its sheer size as it approached. She huffed out forcefully as she jumped to action and dodged to the left of the group as Seth’s Rock Viper collided with the Water Dragon. In mid dodge she quickly created a shadow clone behind her and threw a scroll she had with her to the shadow clone. In the blink of an eye, before Rin even touched the ground again amidst her dodge, the shadow clone caught the scroll, removed a tag attached to the scroll and then placed the tag on Rin's back keeping the scroll and then moving off into the woods using successive body flicker techniques.

Rin realized with this caliber of Jutsu being used this early she would be forced to expend atleast some chakra to defend herself against the wave of attacks.

As Akio sent the rocks that formerly composed the mud wall towards Rin she further maneuvered to the left and was slowly starting to face his back. Assuming the dodge was succesful she then took out a pair of shuriken. “Lighting style: Infusion!” The shuriken began expelling bolts of electricity being now infused with lightning natured chakra, making it even harder to defend against them as even close proximity to them would hurt the target. She then threw them at Akio aiming for the strings holding the bells. As the shuriken approached so did she intending to strike Akio’s legs with her own just after the presumed shuriken hits, hopefully timing it with Seth's attack and using that instant to catch at least one if not all of the bells.

Even though she knew Akio was unlikely to actually hurt her if he countered she took this fight very seriously as she usually did. She was dead set on fighting as if her life depended on it, so she had her escape strategy already planned out. The shadow clone was now observing from the woods with its byakugan active. If the attack were to fail the clone would use Rin’s signature technique to get her out of there. The Self Summoning technique. At moment’s notice the clone could summon Rin to its location via the scroll and the tag which was placed on Rin earlier.

[Weird Tales]

Izu didn't like having to stay in Konoha while his master was off with the Mizukage at the summit of the five kages. They wanted him to stay with the leaf and also monitor the village in case they had some hidden involvement in this whole mess. He had nothing really to do, but walk around looking at the village and he wasn't impressed. It didn't have the darker and more ominous look of the mist village and Izu didn't think much of what type of shinobi that this place created. His walking eventually brought him to the training field where he saw a session going and his interests peaked.

Upon closer inspection he noticed that two of the leaf ninja where Uchiha and he grinned amused at the sight. Two Uchiha on one squad, talk about trying to look overpowered. No matter he would school them both on how to be proper ninja if he ever fought them. He also saw noticed a girl who was a member of the famed Hyuga clan, that would be an interesting fight and there also seemed to be a boy who didn't like he was from any popular clan. When the fight started Izu rooted for the Chunin that wasn't from a famous clan.

"Come on blonde! Show those two Uchiha whose a proper ninja!" he shouted and wanted really badly to join on the training session. He didn't like the Uchiha, everyone revered them like they were gods and called them the greatest shinobi, to Izu it was bullshit and he would show everyone that even the greatest clans can be defeated and knocked down from their mountain of the reverence. He walked closer to the battle going on to get a better look and took mental notes on the combatants. He was surprised to a shinobi with the power to use Senjutsu and Izu wanted to fight the Jonin to see what he was made of. He also was rather amused at seeing a leaf shinobi use water techniques, maybe a real Mist Shinobi would show him how to do it properly.

[Javier]

Hayashi quickly jumped out of the way, dodging the attacks thrown at him but his clone wasn't so lucky; it took the full force of the attack and quickly dissipated. With the clone gone, any chance of there being another plan was out the window, but Hayashi had begun the chain and now he had to finish it. The fireball was stopped by the wall, but it didn't take the wall down which wasn't surprising, considering Akio was a strong ninja. The Hyuuga girl then went on to use her own attack at Akio in the form of electric shuriken and then she went for his legs. That's when Hayashi got a plan, he could coordinate his attack with her to try and take Akio down and get those bells to complete the challenge.

"Summoning Jutsu" Hayashi did the hand signs and then hit the ground, which caused a toad three times the size of a person to appear. The toad was similar to Naruto's toad in his fight against Pain and looked very real; Hayashi doesn't actually know summoning but he does know how to summon fakes and that's exactly what this toad was. Hayashi emptied a small pack into the toad's mouth and then sent it towards Akio. Just as the toad approached, Hayashi positioned himself on the opposite side of the Hyuuga girl and waited for the right moment. That moment came when the contents of what was emptied into the toad's stomach exploded into a cloud of smoke since Hayashi put three smoke bombs in its mouth.

As the smoke engulfed the area, "This is it, now or never" said Hayashi to himself, as he dove for Akio's head just as the girl dove for his legs, moving around Seth's rock creature. If both hit at the same time then Akio could be thrown to the ground, not only that, but Hayashi put a special treat into his attack. The boy had used a Genjutsu that made it so that if his right palm came into contact with a target's upper body, they'd fall asleep, only problem was that Hayashi expended a lot of chakra and he was unsure as to how long the sleep would hold Akio if it even connected with him but it was worth a shot.

[King Kindred]

Arashi expected to be countered. The difference between the two was too great for him to even come remotely close to actually catching their sensei off guard at that point. He was pushed to the ground and turned around to try and get a better look at the situation as it began to unfold. Their sensei started off his attack with a powerful Water Dragon jutsu, but it was countered by Seth's Earth Viper technique. They were already using big attacks right off the bat. If they kept going like this they'd be out of chakra before they knew it. You'd expect them to be able to adjust to the situation and plan accordingly. They couldn't think that they could beat their Senjutsu mode sensei like this right off the bat, could they?

He sat there on the ground analyzing the situation carefully. He didn't want to jump in and screw everything up. Arashi knew that he had to work harder to be seen as close to their level. He was a genin and they were all Chuunin. He had essentially been the odd one out in this squad. He had joined the squad later after their original third member had died. He was just an extra in the genin graduating class. He guessed that they figured the son of Shisui Uchiha would be fine in a group with two shinobi who were both three years his senior. That didn't matter much now. They were part of the same squad and they were part of this training exercise.

Things started to get more interesting as they continued to use up their chakra to try and defeat Akio sensei. Arashi had found an opening that he planned on using, but he didn't feel like getting himself in the line of fire. This seemed more like a competition to him than a team effort. The seemingly final assault caused Arashi to jump back. Was Seth even paying attention at this point? His bull shark made out of the Earth came out right in front of him. A few centimeters backwards and Arashi's feet would have been shark bait.

He stood up looking at the guy who was cheering on Seth and telling him to show the Uchiha who was essentially better. Why did people always try to pit them against other people? He didn't have the time to worry about that now. He was going to finish this training exercise. While Akio was hopefully distracted by the onslaught of attacks Arashi summoned a crow clone of himself. He didn't yell the attack out loud. He never understood that when you were trying to catch someone off guard.

He was glad that the crow clone used less chakra than the Shadow Clones that the others employed. It allowed him to use more jutsu. Of course this clone was a distraction and back up plan for when things didn't work out. Next on his jutsu list was something very useful. Especially for this fight here. Rat, Boar, Tiger. As soon as he completed it the sound of poofing smoke could be heard behind Akio. When the smoke cleared a massive amount of crows were in the wake. It was the Scattering Thousand Crows technique. Arashi coupled that with a henge to make himself appear as one of the crows and leaving only his crow clone waiting behind the group of crows. He made the clone pretend that it was directing the crows to Akio and when they swarmed a lot of them were trying to distract him by getting in his face and biting all over his body. The rest were trying to go for the bells and that included Arashi Uchiha. All he needed was to grab them with his beak and it would have been game over.

[Alan Hawke]

"Release." Akio said quietly as he sat high in a tree several meters away from the attack, causing his mud clone that was being attacked by the teenagers to collapse back into it's initial state dirt and rock. Prior to beginning the challenge, he had created a mud clone in order to deceive the teenagers into wasting their initial assault on it while he sat in a tree gathering natural energy for himself and his mud clone. Of course because the mud clone had ceased, all of it's natural energy went directly back to Akio like a waterfall. He slowly stood up on the tree and let out a loud booming laugh throughout the forest, loud enough to be heard by the team. He cracked his neck tauntingly as he entered Sage Mode. "Oh come on you four, you thought I'd let you get these that easy? While I will say that you four's strategy of all attacking at once was flawless, you should have noticed that it was far too slow to be me. I mean, come on now, I wouldn't have to resort to using a sage art variant of a mud wall to stop a fireball jutsu."

"Since I can see you all are somewhat tired, I'll give you all a handicap..." He looked far into the distance at Izu, "You there!" He shouted, getting his attention, "Help this team out. They could use the help against me." He pulled out a kunai from it's holster and held it with the blade pointing down, "Because now you're about to fight me at full strength with Sage Mode active for at least ten minutes."

Another Akio mud clone on the other side of the forest spurted out of the ground and delivered a surprise underground uppercut to Rin's shadow clone, "Shoulda checked below!" He then entered a taijutsu stance, ready to face the clone with all of it's hand-to-hand combat expertise.

[Rex]

Seth’s eyes widened then the mud clone disappeared. He skidded on the ground before he rolled under the shark as it slammed into the ground behind him and crumbled. He stood up and turned towards where Akio was and smiled. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but he hadn’t expected this. He sighed as he stood up and took out another cigarette from his pocket and lit it. This is getting interesting. Since I used most all my chakra, I’m going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Seth thought

When he heard Akio talk about a handicap, Seth exploded, “Handicap! Screw that, I don’t need any handicap. Maybe the rest of them do, but don’t pool me with them!” Seth quickly took out two Kunai and rushed towards Akio. I’ll show you I don’t need my jutsu to be the strongest. I’ll fight you hand to hand if I have to! Seth though. He wasn’t thinking and didn’t think of working together with the others. His stubborn, hot hotheadedness was his ultimate down fall. With cigarette still in his mouth he attacked Akio. It seemed he lost all thought of the bells and was simply trying to show off his strength. He Swung the Kunai at Akio and was ready to follow up with a kick to the stomach if he missed his first strike.

[Weird Tales]

Izu chuckled as the leaf shinobi struggled against their stronger opponent and he wished that he could have a shot at the jonin. His wishes were granted when he saw Akio pause in the training exercise and then turn to face him. After hearing the leaf ninja's words, his excitement levels rose and he now had a chance to educate the leaf shinobi on how proper ninjas did things. He quickly rushed over to the group of shinobi and gave a grin. Izu laughed when Seth said screw this to having help in defeating his opponent, Blonde had a brash ego the size of a tailed beast. Izu could be foolish too, but his training with the mist shinobi had taught him to show little mercy and to attack savagely giving no quarter and to use cunning to his advantage in battle.

"My name is Izu Korumoto of the mist! I will not hold back and I will try to make you feel as much pain as possible to take you down leaf shinobi" he said with a smile to Akio. He then saw Seth go on his attack and Izu rolled his eyes at the chunin's idiocy. Blonde was looking to get his ass kicked, Izu thought to himself and he activated his bloodline technique. Red slime began to ooze out of his hands and around them like some sticky goo. He gave a smile at Akio and then went on the attack.

"Ninja art: Savage Slime spear!" he shouted and then shot out his right palm. A tendril of blood red slime rocketed out of his hand and flew straight towards the Senju jonin. The tip of the tendril was as hard as solid rock and as sharp as any blade. He had it poised to impale Akio's right bicep and then have it ensnare and sting him with its jellyfish like properties, finally he would then have it wrench him down onto the ground with enough force break and dislocate his arm. Izu knew that the jonin's sage mode would be a difficult obstacle to overcome, but he wasn't going to let this shinobi demoralize him and get to him like he did with Seth.

"I'm going to poke a lot of holes in you Leaf ninja!" he shouted with a malicious smile.

[NanoFreakV2]

Rin grunted as she slid through a mass of falling dirt that previously made up a clone of Akio just before Seth and barely managed to avoid his rock biter jutsu. “Of course.” She whispered to herself as she stood up looking in the direction from which the shout came. Even though Akio was obscured by the woods her byakugan had no issues locating him. At this point she was thankful her initial plan worked out. Both the shadow clone and lightning based jutsu used very little of her chakra reserve. She had failed to notice the real Akio with her byakugan amidst the chaos of combat. But she knew that mistake would not be made twice as she now focused at least some of her attention on watching the forest constantly. She scanned it for other shadow clones or to see if this was another shadow clone. She compared both ‘Akio’s’ chakra levels to see if there was any difference which would be indicative of which was the real one and which was the clone. She also checked underground for more clones and she also took note of one of the Akios who was attacking her shadow clone. She immediately dispelled it rather than leaving it to fight the other clone, intending to further conserve chakra.

As Seth recklessly rushed forward to attack Akio, Rin could do nothing but grin at his hotheadedness and rush towards Akio in his shadow. She considered using him as distraction for another of her attacks but as the Kirigakure shinobi took the lead Rin realized he would provide a far better distraction. She took position on a tree to the left of Akio as the savage slime was about to hit and threw another series of, this time, regular shuriken. She would then use the body flicker technique to move to Akio’s right and attack at the same moment her own shuriken would hit. She also would make sure to attack at such an angle that if Akio would dodge her taijutsu attack her shuriken wouldn’t hit her instead.

[Alan Hawke]

"Shit!" Akio swore under his breath, quickly realizing that he had no choice, their simultaneous attack had left no other way out... Akio leapt high into the air, causing chaos to unfold as everybody would now hit each other instead of himself. However, now that he was in the air--he was very limited to what he could do due to the fact he was primarily an earth and water style user. But he had a plan for everything, and being in the air was no exception.

Once he got several hundred meters in the air thanks to his powerful chakra jump, he preformed a front flip using his momentum and began a dive back towards the ground. He began enhancing his strength immensely with chakra and once he was meters away from the ground, prepared his attack--he violently crashed his chakra enhanced fist into the grass, causing the dirt underneath it to shoot upwards and becoming visible. He was planning on directly hitting any of the teenagers, he hit the ground hard enough to the point where some of dirt would actually become loose and cause the students to sink as the ground beneath them collapsed.

He stood up straight as the dust from the attack was all throughout the training field, and was facing away from the teenagers, Akio proceeded removed his flak jacket and threw it aside. "Just slows me down." Akio muttered to himself aloud. He turned back around and send his chakra directly to his hands, showing that this was the part where he began using his enhanced strength on them. While he would be surely holding back and be sure not to break any bones, he'd also be sure to knock the wind out of them if his taijutsu connected. He looked at the teenagers and shouted, "Now I must say, I did like your all's attempt there. Especially Rin's! She used strategy, but kids, the problem is..." Akio then pointed to his temple, "You aren't communicating with one another! Tell each other your plans! Come up with one grand scheme against me! Now, this will be the last time I'll give you all a chance to correct your assault before I stop holding back! Again!!"