Chương 37: The Calm Before the Storm
By the time that they had emerged from the underground base, the sun had just began its ascend in the eastern horizon.
The Anbu was eager to bring his wounded partner back home, but he still need to get Kiba and Hikari back to safety first. Not to mention, the girl's sudden appearance in that place had to be explained without drawing much suspicion.
Thus, he concocted a plan.
Forming a tiger hand sign, he activated Transformation Technique, changing his and his partner's appearance to resemble the ninja from Konoha's regular force. He also added a pair of fang-shaped red marks under their eyes.
After he was done with their disguise, the group moved toward the main road. They hadn't yet traveled that far before a girl's voice called out from above.
"Kiba!"
Leaping down from the treetop, a worried Hinata landed right in front of them, followed by Shino, Kurenai, and four Konoha Chuunin.
Before he could respond, Hinata had grabbed his wrists, pulling him a bit closer to her. She had activated her byakugan out of nowhere, using them to scan the flow of his chakra from head to toe. When she concluded that nothing had gone wrong with his body, her posture visibly relaxed.
"That's great, you're not hurt..."
The girl let out a relieved sigh.
"Um... Hinata?"
"Eh?"
Kiba was looking away from her, his cheeks flaring red. She finally remembered that she was still holding his hands. She quickly let go as her face started to boil up like a lobster.
"I-I-I w-was... I... I w-was j-just... hau-"
A gong sound echoed inside her head. After that, she fainted right then and there.
"Hinata?!?"
"Got her."
Kurenai casually caught her falling body, and then carried the girl in her arms. Her movement was so natural as if she was used to the situation.
"Uh... is she okay?" Hikari asked, although her tone wasn't indicating worries, just genuine confusion.
"Yes. It happens a lot, especially when she saw that kid... by the way, who are you?"
Kurenai tilted her head slightly as she scrutinized the brown-haired girl with a sword on her waist.
Ignoring her imploring gaze, Hikari replied with a straight face,
"My name is Hikari. I'm staying with the Inuzuka of Konoha."
"Oh?" The Jonin raised an eyebrow. "And what is a citizen of Konoha doing here in the middle of the woods, far from the village?"
"Pardon me, miss Kurenai..."
The Anbu raised his hand, drawing her attention toward him. She immediately noticed those red marks under his eyes, the distinctive feature of the Inuzuka clan.
Seeing that she had taken the bait, the Anbu continued.
"We're the ones who had asked her to come along to help us pick some specialized training tools for our ninja dogs. It should've been a quick trip to a nearby village, but we got ambushed by bandits and my friend got injured during the fight. Thankfully, we were helped by Kiba and a ninja wearing animal mask."
"That must be the Anbu from Atsushi's report..." Kurenai murmured. She then turned to the wild-haired boy. "Kiba, where did the Anbu go? What about the enemies?"
"The...the-Anbu-disappeared-after-taking-down-the-enemies."
He nervously blurted out the entire line that they had drilled into his brain in one go, prompting Hikari, Akamaru, and the Anbu to mentally facepalm.
"Kiba... are you okay...?"
"H-he's still shaken," the man in disguise quickly jumped between her and the boy. "Miss Kurenai, please help us to explain this to Lady Tsume. Just say you took the girl along or something. Actually... we're trying to replace some tools that we had broken in the training ground. If Lady Tsume got wind about it, she'll..."
He made a gesture of cutting his neck with his hand.
"..."
As much as Kurenai wanted to say that he was exaggerating, she couldn't rule out the possibility that they might really got cut into pieces with Fang Rotating Fang if that Tsume did found out...
"I... I can try, but..."
"Thank you very much!" He patted Kurenai's shoulders while giving her the widest smile that she had ever seen in her life. "Well then, it's really impolite of me, but I have to bring my friend to the hospital as fast as possible. Please excuse us!"
"Eh, wait-!"
Before she could stop them, the man had disappeared into the darkness, carrying the unconscious person on his back. The rest of the ninja just watched with blank stare, not sure on what they should do. They were reluctant to hold him back since it was involving a wounded ally.
...What just happened? She felt like she had been duped somehow...
"Whatever, the most important thing is that you're back with us."
When the signal from the insect that Shino had left with Kiba disappeared in the middle of the night, Kurenai had brought the group of Chuunin to sweep through the entire forest. She was about to give up hope when at dawn, Shino's insect suddenly responded again.
She was beside herself this entire time. Now that she had finally confirmed Kiba's safety, she felt her knees growing weaker from the sudden loss of tension. However, she tried her best to maintain a firm look on the outside.
"Let's go back. We still have to report the result of our mission to the assignment staff."
---
Somehow, everything was wrapped up without any major incident.
Tsume yelled at Hikari and Kiba for an entire day, berating the former for going out without telling her for three whole days, and the latter for overestimating his own abilities by getting involved with in the Anbu's mission.
As punishment, they had to take charge of cleaning up the kennels for the entire month.
Still, he was quite happy with his son's first successful C-ranked mission. They had a steak party that entire night in order to celebrate, although Tsume tried to cover it up by saying that she just made more than usual because she got a huge discount for the beef.
All in all, it could be said this mission was a huge success.
"But man, it's a shame that I can't tell anyone that I've helped an Anbu..." Kiba grumbled a week later.
Team Kurenai had returned to their usual D-rank missions. It seemed that the sudden downtime after experiencing such an intense fight like the ones in the secret base had made him disillusioned.
"You can't let anyone know about a secret mission, no? Just let it go. More importantly, I didn't even manage to get his name during the entire chaos," Hikari retorted with her own complain.
"It's normal to not know an Anbu's name. From what they told us in the academy, it's to protect their identity in case enemies wanted to take revenge against them. That's why they're all wearing those masks."
"No, no, not that kind of name..."
She wanted to know who he actually was before he was reincarnated. Was he just a random cultivator, or was he someone that she knew?
Because... the way that he talked had honestly reminded her with someone close to her in the past life. Then again, could it really be so?
"Nevermind," she shrugged. But then, she pointed at the thing that the boy was holding with a frown on her face. "Wipe a bit harder, that bowl is still dirty."
"Who cares!" Kiba groaned, "the dogs wouldn't be bothered with a few stains here and there anyway!"
Unfortunately for him, Kuromaru had decided to enter the kennel at that exact moment. When he heard what Kiba had just said, he walked away with a sadistic smirk hanging on his snout. No doubt he was going to relay those words back to Tsume.
"Ku-Kuromaruuuu! Waiiiit!"
"..."
A human groveling in front of a dog, how the mighty had fallen... Hikari didn't know what to feel as a fellow member of the same species...
Those kind of peaceful days passed by quickly as everyone settled back into their routines. Before long, summer had finally arrived, bringing clear weather and scorching sun with it.
---
The sky was especially restless that day.
Shadows flashed down the street as countless birds flickered above, moving busily from one end of the village to the other.
"Do you think that something is going to happen?" Akamaru whispered while being perched on top of Hikari's shoulder.
She was leisurely walking down the village with a bowl on her hand. The silken tofu inside wobbled slightly with each steps that she took.
"I guess so. Something always happen in this place as of late," the girl sighed. "More importantly, are you sure you don't have to accompany that brat?"
"They're in the middle of training right now, so I'm free to do what I want," the puppy replied while wagging his tail.
"How carefree... hmm?"
She turned her attention to the commotion down the road. A group of children were messing around noisily. Although she didn't recognize most of them, one boy stood out from the rest.
That yellow spiky hair and orange jacket... who else could that be but the resident troublemaker, Naruto?
He was talking with three other younger kids and a pink-haired girl in red sleeveless dress who looked around his age. That girl was actually the most quiet among the group, but when one of the younger kid made a gesture with his pinky finger, she suddenly threw a straight punch right onto Naruto's face, sending him flying until he crashed into a nearby fence.
""...""
Well, that escalated quickly.
"That's... that's actually a good punch..."
"Hmmhmm..." the puppy nodded slightly. "Think you can get her as your disciple, Huang'er...?"
While they were making jokes about the situation, the loudest kid among those three yelled at the pink-haired girl-
"How dare you do that to our leader, you ugly hag!"
-which then prompted another round of beating so fearsome that even Hikari and Akamaru had to turn their eyes away.
In the end, Naruto and that kid laid sprawled on the ground, bruised and defeated. Only then did the girl finally feel satisfied enough to walk away.
"Damn it... that ugly gigantic forehead... is she really a girl, bro?"
The kid muttered out loud, thinking that she couldn't hear him from this far.
Bad decision.
Her neck turned around in an eerie, choppy motion, sending shivers down their spine. She then proceeded to run back toward the group, prompting them to take flight to the other end of the street, where Hikari and Akamaru were standing.
"Eh? Ehh??"
The two ended up running alongside them.
"Why are we running?" Akamaru whimpered.
"If we don't, the tofu will get knocked away!" Hikari retorted in a panicked tone.
"Yo, puppy-stealing girl! Long time no see, ya'know! Eh, the puppy's here too..."
Naruto's swollen face popped up right beside her.
"...Can you guys just... forget that nickname ever existed...?" she groaned.
He was about to say something in return when the chase train was suddenly interrupted by the loud kid's yelp.
"Ouch!"
He fell to the ground with a soft thud while rubbing his forehead that throbbed after hitting something hard.
"Hey..."
When he looked up, he saw two figures glaring at him.
The person on the left was a girl with teal eyes and sandy-blonde hair tied into four pigtails. She was wearing a set of mesh armor under her purple dress.
The other one was a boy dressed in black full-body suit and a cowl covering his head. He was carrying a mysterious bulk the size of his own body behind him, which was entirely wrapped in bandage except for the messy, hair-like portion at the very top. A triangular pattern was painted over his face, complimenting his intimidating appearance.
Both the girl and the boy wore forehead protector, the former around her neck while the latter over his cowl, but the symbol on the plate was different from Naruto's.
The loud kid shuddered as the black-clothed boy stepped forward, his hands reaching out toward the kid's neck.
"...That hurts."
His lips curved up into a dangerous smile.
---
In the Hokage's chamber, the old Third sat on his throne as ninja responsible for educating the newer generation arrived one after another. Behind him stood a group of Anbu in charge of safeguarding the occasion. Among them was the man in the bear mask.
Aside from Chuunin and special Jonin holding teaching positions in the academy, there were also instructional Jonin commanders leading the teams of Genin standing before the crafty old Hokage.
His piercing gaze was especially directed at four Jonin commanders, who held that year's four rookie Genin teams under their watch.
"You've been assembled here for one reason. Although, it should've been obvious from the moment that you got my summon."
"It's already time for 'that', huh..."
A lazy grumble came from a masked man with silver-colored, spiky hair and a forehead protector tilted downward to cover his left eye. While his peers were quite anxious about the situation, he was the only one who was treating it like a hassle.
"Other villages already got the notifications, right? I've seen some of them roaming the downtown this morning," a special Jonin behind him commented.
Everyone in the room was already aware of it, that was why they were so concerned. After all, letting foreign elements inside their village for a long period of time would pose a serious security problem.
"When will it start?"
Someone had finally asked the one question burning in everyone's mind.
"In a week."
The Third suddenly declared, silencing the growing hubbub.
"I'll announce it properly later on."
Exhaling smoke out of his mouth, the old hound's wrinkled face held a mischievous smirk.
"On the first day of the seventh moon, the Chuunin selection exam shall commence."
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
RanixAurus
RanixAurus Sorry for the delay. Author was having a dilemma on what to write for this part. Like author knows what to write for the next part, but not this, so... yeah it's a bit confusing.
Two 'mysterious' figures had appeared in Konoha! Although... you guys already know who they are so it's not mysterious anymore... tch...
Let author know what you think so far. See you again really, really soon~
-Confused Author
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