章節 97: Chapter 11
Taro regarded the Preliminary Eliminations with a bored expression. He didn't have a clue why there was a prelim round. Only five of twenty-two teams finished the Forest of Death exam. Surely the rich civilians, Lords, and ninjas could stand to watch 15 competitors demonstrate their skills.
Taro looked over the genin standing below him. The Grass team, the Sand team, an odd bunch from Sound, and two teams from Konoha. By the way the Hidden Leaf members looked, they were surprised so few Leaf teams finished. Apparently three rookie teams had been entered and none of them acquired both scrolls. Indeed, one of the teams had suffered a fatality, an Akimichi.
The speeches and posturing ended. Taro was only interested a single time in the proceedings.
A Konoha genin, silver haired and in glasses, a geek of the highest order, excused himself from the prelims. As he walked out of the venue, Taro eyes followed him and assessed his physical condition. There was nothing wrong with him, nothing at all.
Interesting.
A few dozen spy-capacity micropuppets flew from a storage compartment and made their new home in the genin's hair and clothing. This person merited more observation.
Someone with the stones to lie to the Hokage about his physical condition was either crazy…or up to something.
The matches began. Taro watched to see what the current standard of genin was. There were some interesting developments, but most of it was fairly low level.
The best match was a rather flashy battle between a lithe Leaf genin and that red headed monster from Sand, Naruto felt a chakra signature surge momentarily. It was one he didn't like. It was suppressed quickly, but Taro was designed to detect things like that.
Orochimaru was in the room. The present battle had excited or enraged him.
Taro swept his eyes across the room. He felt it again when the red headed freak almost crushed the Leaf genin. There. There, he was the Sound's team sensei. Or at least hiding out in his form. Bad, very bad news.
Taro's eyes remained fixed on the battles, but Naruto inside him was keeping an eye on the 'Sound jounin.'
Then something came down the chakra strings attached to the silver haired genin.
Kabuto was also speaking with…Orochimaru. All of Naruto's attention went into listening in via his spying micropuppets.
"You dropped out again, Kabuto?" the Sannin asked. The smile on his face looked cruel.
"I need to remain unsuspected for some while yet. Then I can reveal more…of who I really am."
"Fine. Please work with our allies to set everything into motion. I expect our allies to have plenty of legitimate reasons to be in and out of the Leaf."
"My observations," Kabuto said, "are that our ace in the hole will perform as expected. I followed him around before the tournament started. The Leaf will be in for a treat."
"I will let you on your way, then. One final thing: see what you can learn about the jounin from Grass. He has a rather large, interfering nose. He might need to learn a lesson. Information, first, though."
"Yes, my Lord."
The pair parted and Naruto lost himself in thought. He followed Kabuto on his viewing screen, but the 'genin' went nowhere else of interest.
The collaborator, Kabuto, had information that Naruto wanted for himself. The 'genin' didn't know it yet, but his life was forfeit.
Taro paid half a mind to the rest of the exhibition, but he couldn't keep Orochimaru out of his thoughts. The hints were there. But Taro did not know the when and where, the fine details. He really needed a better source of information on the man.
Taro stood impassive until the prelims were over and the final round draws were done. He collected his three genin, all successful in passing into the finals. It was expected.
"Come," Taro said. "We will be leaving the village now. We're not training in such a place as this for the next month."
Relief washed over their faces. None of them had ever been in such a dangerous place as this village before. Orochimaru struck twice; that red headed kid was a menace. It was tough being on guard all the time.
In the preparations for leaving, none of his genin noticed Taro's creation of a half dozen Shadow Clones which promptly henged into other forms. They had a task to complete.
As Taro took his students for a last dinner before departing Konoha for a month, the Shadow Clones approached to where the 'genin' Kabuto was speaking in hushed, rushed tones. The spy micropuppets captured everything said…and now it was time to capture Kabuto himself.
Naruto needed to know what this interesting person knew.
The Shadow Clones formed up thick chakra strings. Two of them coordinated their strike.
Kabuto walked away from his meeting and turned down a darkened street when he felt foreign chakra enter his body. Within a second, he lost all control of his muscles and began to fall.
Just as quickly he felt something holding him up.
It was the Shadow Clones doing it, of course. One of the two Shadow Clones wielding chakra strings had penetrated Kabuto's spinal cord with chakra…and temporarily disrupted the transmission of nerve information at the C5 vertebra. When the technique was released, Kabuto's spinal cord would be undamaged…so long as Naruto wished that to happen.
The other clone quickly deployed chakra strings to Kabuto's hands, legs, and major joints to keep him from slumping over like a worthless drunk.
The other Shadow Clones hung back in case anything unexpected happened.
Kabuto 'walked' to a darkened training ground. The first test of the Puppet Master technique was a success. In theory, it should work every time…but it was always in practice that things went wrong.
One of the Shadow Clones rifled through Kabuto's belongings and found a blank scroll. The Clone traced out a complex sealing array and then placed Kabuto's forehead to the scroll. An application of chakra later…and Kabuto was gone, leaving only the scroll.
All the Shadow Clones save for the one clutching the scroll dismissed themselves. That Clone walked slowly toward the village gate. He waited outside the village for nearly an hour before Taro plucked the rather valuable scroll from the Shadow Clone.
That Clone then returned inside the village and began its primary duty: espionage.
As Naruto thought about the storage scroll in his hand, he wondered just how things had gotten that bad, that wrong in his former home. Spies walking everywhere; S-ranked ninja popping in and out. Taro needed a better handle on the place and what the Snake Sannin was planning. He needed accurate information.
Too bad this 'genin' Kabuto lay in the way. It would be most unpleasant for him if he chose to be difficult.
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"Number Four, do you want your sculptures back?" Number Three asked.
"Hold onto them until the end of this tournament. Better you have something in reserve."
They had traveled through the night and only begun talking once they hit the Grass Country border.
"Are we taking missions while we're back in Grass?" Number One asked.
Taro shook his head. "No. You are on training leave for the next month. I am going to help each of you to create at least one new original technique…plus I am going to ensure that you have the techniques and information necessary to handle your opponents. We have a Hyuuga, a jinchuuriki, and some type of bizarre medical experiment…attaching sound-making machines to a human body. It's rather…distasteful."
Naruto spent the rest of the run back to the village explaining what he knew of the Byakugan, what he knew of the bijuu and those humans unfortunate enough to imprison them, and his hypotheses about Orochimaru and the Hidden Sound Village.
His students were less than impressed…and were openly debating whether they should return to Konoha at all. Number Three was visibly upset at having to fight a jinchuuriki.
"Stop it. Number Three already has the beginning of a technique to deal with Gaara. We'll need to get your steam even hotter…."
"What will that do, Number Four?"
"We will increase the pressure exerted by your air affinity to increase the temperature of your steam. If we get it right, your superheated steam will be able to penetrate even sand armor, I'd expect. The red head's 'ultimate defense' is not perfect."
The genin were not convinced. Taro led his students to his apartment and offered them tea.
"Let me explain. Every technique, no matter how imposing, has flaws. So long as a ninja is aware of the flaws, he or she can adapt or compensate for them. But this jinchuuriki has no other techniques we've seen other than his sand. His body is thin and weak; he does not exercise. I'd doubt he even has a taijutsu style. He's relied upon a single style of ninja art…which we will be picking apart and destroying theoretically during our training period…and then for real in one month."
Number Three looked a little less pale, but he wasn't fully convinced. "Fine, perhaps I can use a steam attack against him. But how do I use it while protecting myself from his sand?"
Taro nodded. It was an excellent question. "You have realized the weakness of your steam. It's powerful offensively, but offers little defensive protection. Sometimes it is necessary to pair techniques together in order to minimize weaknesses. Can you think of something that would stop sand?"
Number One nodded. "A water technique of some sort. Something that would soak the sand."
Number Two nodded. "Or wind. Something that flings back whatever sand approaches you."
"Okay. Okay, I get it. This isn't a death sentence," Number Three said.
"No. Number Three will win his battle if I have anything to do with it. You will be ready, I promise."
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Naruto gave his genin the morning off to recuperate from their vicious training cycles of the previous day.
He'd worked up a bit of technique using his wind affinity to mimic Gaara's sand-wielding ability. From what he'd heard of Orochimaru and Kabuto's conversation, Gaara was involved in all of this. He wanted his students prepared to deal with him.
He'd blasted Number Three with it for hours…and forced Numbers One and Two to take an hour each.
He'd helped Number Two with a vicious new technique…vicious and non-lethal. She had Hyuuga Neji to deal with and Taro didn't especially want her to kill him. Almost everything in Number 2's quiver was lethal and messy.
Number One had to go against that medical experiment from Sound. He was working on a genjutsu that inflicted pain proportional to whatever the ensnared thought they were inflicting.
They were all becoming excited about their upcoming matches, even Number Three. Their change in attitude, almost as much as the beating they'd received in training yesterday, earned them a day off.
There was also the fact that Naruto was excited to finally sit down to 'talk' to Kabuto.
He made the journey to the largest of his boltholes in Grass Country. He'd long since turned it into his laboratory. He had a room for distilling poisons. He had a room for copies of the jutsu scrolls he'd collected and stolen. Two rooms held various experiments with different micropuppets and his stick of tools and supplies to create them. He now needed to make a new room for his newest acquisition.
It only took an hour to carve it with a rather useful Earth technique. He fashioned a rather substantial door and hung it. Naruto, still inside his Taro puppet, walked inside.
He pulled out a special storage scroll and set it on the floor. He unraveled a hundred chakra strings and made ready to unseal the scroll's contents.
He pumped chakra into the sealed scroll. A confused, immobilized 'genin' appeared on the stone floor. Taro's chakra strings pressed up against Kabuto's spinal cord again, keeping him immobile.
Taro had spent a few hours preparing a restraining device he wanted to test out on this 'genin.'
Kabuto finally roused from his enforced stupor. "Where am I?"
"Somewhere very safe," Taro said. "You'll be my guest now, 'genin' of Konoha…or are you infiltrator from Sound?"
Kabuto's face tensed.
"How are you doing this? Keeping me frozen?"
"I'm not about to start giving away my secrets, am I? I would like to talk about Orochimaru and his plans for the Chuunin Selection Exam."
"I'm not telling you anything," Kabuto spat.
"You will, little 'genin,' you will if you ever expect to eat."
"I would rather die."
Taro smiled. "Let me fit you up with your…restraints."
Taro pulled out long strips of something. They didn't look like paper or cloth. They had extensive and tiny seals all over their surface. He affixed one strip to Kabuto's neck…where it promptly dissolved into the man's neck, leaving only the seals partially visible. Taro stripped the rest of Kabuto's clothing and wound the strange strips all over his torso, his arms, and his legs. Only after the last strip was applied to Kabuto's body did Taro apply chakra to the seals now permanently tattooed on his body.
Taro stepped back and threw a lightweight sheet over the naked genin's body. Then he withdrew the chakra strings keeping Kabuto paralyzed.
Kabuto started to move and then he leapt at Taro. Taro smacked him across the small room. When Kabuto hit the solid stone, he flopped over and stopped moving.
"Let me be clear. You will never mold chakra again so long as you fight me. You will never mold chakra again if you ever lie to me. With a thought these seals can activate. You have five hundred exploding seals etched inside your body now, Kabuto."
A horror stricken Kabuto raised his head up from the floor. "How could you do that? How was it possible?"
"A lot of hard work. Now, you will tell me what you know of Orochimaru's plans. Be fast about it and I will find you some lunch."
Kabuto didn't like his chances. He had turned on Sasori when Orochimaru offered a better deal. Now this unknown quantity was offering a terrible deal, but it was better than being utterly destroyed. The threatened five hundred exploding seals would do more damage to his body than his self-regenerative abilities would heal.
"I have worked with him for a few years but I've only ever met with him a handful of times…."
"No. Let's start with what you know of his attack on Konoha."
Kabuto's head dipped toward the stone floor. "I only know enough to complete my role. I was to ensure that Uchiha Sasuke made it out of the Forest alive…even if he failed to make it into the finals. I was to layer a genjutsu over the audience at the Finals once that Gaara kid begins his fight…."
Naruto felt sicker and sicker the more he heard of this plot. Kabuto gave over a lot of information, but he didn't seem to possess the full plan. This would all be very…problematic.
Naruto needed to finish his Puppet Clone technique. He needed it in his repertoire if things went as badly as he feared.
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As Taro returned with his students a day before the Finals, everyone was in good spirits. They had plans, and backup plans, and had been working on improvisation skills.
Taro expected some terrible things to happen in the next day or two. He hadn't passed on his knowledge of the exact details of what was supposed to happen, but he had done everything to prepare them to survive. Trial by fire for everyone involved.
The four showed up the morning of the Finals. Taro led them through final stretching and sparred with all three of them at the same time.
The first two matches went as expected. The medical experiment had but one technique. Number One trapped the kid in a genjutsu within seconds. The boy proceeded to attack and attack. His mind was so overwhelmed with redirected pain that the genin's nose began to bleed and he eventually fell over onto the ground, convulsing.
Every genin needed to be able to dispel a genjutsu. It was a basic requirement for field operations.
The feared Hyuuga had a wider range of attacks, but he was a short-distance fighter only. Number Two preferred medium and long range attacks. She took a bloody ten minutes to demolish the 'pride of the Hyuuga.' He put up a good fight, but he was completely outclassed.
The third match, the jinchuuriki versus Number Three, began as expected. The weak red head deployed his sand and didn't even move around the field of combat.
Number Three used a high-level water technique to soak a good portion of the sand. Then he went to stage two: an A-, bordering on S-rank technique for superheating and focusing a beam of steam. His use of the technique pierced right through Gaara's remaining sand and his sand armor. It created a hole straight through Gaara's shoulder which began to weep, then gush blood.
The red headed genin lost it then. And all hell broke loose in the arena.
The bad thing which was going to happen…had just started.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票