It only took Sano two more attempts at making explosion tags before she remembered that she still had the 10% chakra sealing tag on. After quickly looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody would notice, she hastily removed the tag and shoved it into her bag.
That could have been bad…
Explosion tags were not simple tools you messed around with. Make a mistake and at best you get a dud. At worst, you blow yourself up. Koji’s missing arm and leg were a good example of what could happen if you created explosive tags without caution. The next few tags were made more easily thanks to her chakra returning to its baseline. She didn’t need to wrestle it for control against the chakra seals any longer, which increased her speed and eased the strain of her focus.
After an hour, she felt like her chakra was dipping into the ‘unsafe’ territory and took a small break. If Koji came and complained about her taking a break, then he could complain all he wanted to uncle Jogan when the shift was over. Jiraya, her books, and everything she had learned during her time alive had stressed the dangers of what she was doing. She wasn’t going to rush ahead and put both herself and those in the garage at danger due to recklessness.
She grabbed a small bag of dried fish chips from her bag and pulled down her facemask to snack during her break, watching the others in the garage work as her chakra regenerated. She could have meditated, but believe or not, meditation also took mental focus. It was best that she relaxed normally and saved her focus for making tags.
The group manning the forge, as best as she could tell, didn’t use any chakra during the smithing of ninja tools. For some reason, she had thought that they’d use some secret ninja-forging technique to make special weapons… In hindsight, it was kinda a silly thought. They were here making the standard issue kunai and shuriken for the village ninja, not custom made tools! They would hide their secret ninja forging techniques for the special stuff, surely.
The two teens sharpening the finished tools also didn’t use any ninja magic, only elbow grease, skill, and time. One of them must have sensed her gaze as she watched on, as he locked eyes with her for a moment before nodding and getting back to work. Instead of sharpening a kunai, he dipped a starkly clean cloth into a clay pot filled with some sort of oil, then ran the cloth along a finished kunai.
By time she finished her snack and was feeling much better chakra wise, he had moved onto wrapping a thin bandage looking wrap around the handle for a grip.
The next two hours, along with another break in between, went by as she churned out explosive tags as safely as she could. Her fingers were still clean as could be, not having any ink spray from exactly where she wanted. If someone making seals or tags got ink on their hands during the creation process, they were not long for the world. That was the kind of slop that got you killed.
It was right at the third hour when she was preparing to take another break that Koji returned to check on her. His eyes took in her immaculate workstation and the small pile of five tags tucked off to the side—her ‘unsure’ pile. “Any trouble?”
‘No.’ She signed once she was sure that he could see her hands. ‘I took breaks. That is okay?’
Koji continued his inspection, looking through several of her completed tags. “You do what you need to do. As long as the work gets done in a reasonable timeframe, I won’t complain.” He tapped his one good hand onto her stack of completed tags. “These are solid and you’re making good time. Do another hour and then you can head on home. Show up after class everyday. If you don’t have class, then you take the day off.”
‘Okay.’ She signed before taking out her bento-box. She popped open the lid, revealing her rice, roasted salmon, and tiny side of vegetables. It was a simple dinner, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t tasty or filling.
After eating, she finished up the last hour of her work, cleaned her workstation, then took her ‘maybe’ pile into the safety room to blow some of them up! She knew how to activate the tag, as she made them. The whirlpool marking in the center was the activation trigger. Pulse a bit of chakra inside and its ‘fuse’ begins. The fuse wasn’t any sort of carefully timed thing either. The timing of the explosion was solely based on the failure cascade of the seals themselves.
Sano grabbed a rock, but after a few seconds of debating on sticking the paper to the rock… she realized she didn’t actually know how to do it. Sticking things to herself was fairly simple. Sticking objects onto other objects once it left her sense of touch wasn’t something she dabbled in.
Not wanting to throw the flimsy bit of paper and have it suddenly flutter right back at her, she hopped the stone safety wall and laid the explosive tag right in the center of the blast room. With a quick poke, she pulsed the activation whirlpool then hurriedly hauled herself over to safety. As soon as her butt bounced on the floor, the room rattling boom blasted outwards, sending tiny pebbles zooming right overhead and lighting the room a bright orange for a quarter of a second.
Rising up, Sano peeked her equally bright orange eyes over the lip of the safety wall. Just like the explosion at the start of the day, all that was left in the center of the boom room was a blackened circle. Judging that her other tags would probably be fine, she only blew up one more… for testing purposes only—Definitely not just for fun…
Heh…
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Tanaka-sensei’s chalk raked across the blackboard as he wrote out the hand seals for the jutsu they’d be practicing today. Sano’s bleary eyes blinked as she did her best to write down some notes and tips Tanaka had provided.
After returning home last night, not wanting to be put behind in her training due to working at the Supply Depot, she’d done her usual several hour long training in the empty training field like usual—this time with one of her new chakra suppressing seals. Training with the seals on was… different. She could do most of the same things as usual, not feeling physically weaker during her taijutsu practice, but ninjutsu slipped through her fingers.
After frustratingly failing using jutsu with even the weakest of the chakra suppressant seals, she eventually called it quits around midnight, having fallen asleep even later than that when she arrived home.
All in all… she was tired today.
“Sano Aburame. Show us what you can do.” Tanaka-sensei called out with a smile as his final swipe across the blackboard resounded around the room.
Sano got up from her seat and stood beside Tanaka, her eyes taking in the handseals written on the board for a final time even though she was confident she could recite them in her sleep. Today, they were practicing the Henge-No-Jutsu, or the Transformation Jutsu. Unlike the clone jutsu, this jutsu transformed the caster into another person or object, using visualization.
At first, Sano had high hopes for the jutsu. Theoretically, you could turn yourself into a sword and become hard as steel to tank a devastating blow. Sadly, while you could turn yourself into a sword, your durability didn’t change past that of your normal body. It had something to do with the physical chakra a person had, although the specifics were often glossed over in class.
The transformation jutsu was often used for infiltration, or at least that is what they’ve been learning it for. You could, with proper casting and a solid image, transform yourself into another person—disguising yourself. This is what they were focusing on today.
Under Tanaka’s and her classmates watchful eyes, Sano blasted through the Dog -> Boar -> Ram hand seals faster than any of her peers could do and mentally called out, ‘Henge-No-Jutsu!’
Her classmates watched on with curious gazes as the chakra smoke sank to the ground by her feet. Unlike her normal state of being, Sano was now much taller, eyes able to match Tanaka-sensei as a peer.
“And who are you?” Tanaka-sensei asked with a proud smile as his eyes roamed over her new form, inspecting it for any errors.
Sadly, even as a new person, she wasn’t able to speak. ‘Kisaragi. He was the iyro-nin who helped me in the hospital.’ She signed.
Not to be mean to Kisaragi, but her former nurse wasn’t a stand-out when it came to appearances. He had simple if slightly spikey brown hair, a fair complexion, warm-brown eyes, and a pleasant smile. Kisaragi could blend in nearly anywhere and not grab too much attention. She chose the appearance he had when they always saw each other, copying his white lab-coat, shoes, tan pants, and all.
“Very good! But you forgot about the minor details, such as his name-tag and the lettering stitched into the coat. Right now, they’re just squiggles. Although, the physical characteristics of the man appear solid! Can you open the lab-coat?” Tanaka-sensei asked.
Sano tried to open the lab-coat by undoing the little ribbon belt that wrapped around the waistline, but it wouldn’t budge. She then peeled back the necklike, peering down the front of her shirt to find that underneath her transformed clothes, she was an inhuman white styrofoam-esque body. She gave Tanaka-sensei a guilty look as she leaned over to show him what she found.
Tanaka-sensei peered down her shirt, which is something no teacher should ever do, and nodded at the findings. “Common mistake, Sano-chan. Still very good for a first attempt. Next, Riba Nara!”
Sano let go of the transformation, poofing into a cloud of smoke as her vision abruptly shot down to her normal height, then passed the Nara girl on her way back to her seat.
Surprisingly, she was actually quite good at the Henge-No-Jutsu! While not the best in the class, she was firmly in the top three students for the jutsu. The worst was Kenji Kurosaki, the boy who had poked fun at Murakuma Kurama during the first day of sparring. The boy had turned into a… blob of limbs and panicked as he didn’t have a mouth. Sensei had to bonk the poor kid on the head to knock him unconscious to forcefully end the transformation.
At least the blob of flesh was cartoonish looking and not more viscerally life-like. That would have scarred the classroom.
After one more round of attempts from each person in the class, with roughly the same results, Tanaka-sensei led everyone out to the sparring field for their daily taijutsu practice. Normally, their small class of fourteen took turns against one another. Today, another class was waiting for them at their normal sparring spot.
Were they doing interclass spars? She thought, lining up in a neat line across from the other class, following the lead of her classmates.
Tanaka-sensei took his place at the head of the line, standing across from what must be a different teacher. The other teacher was also friendly in appearance, with sandy tan hair tied back in a tight bun. He looked to be in his late teens or very early twenties. This new teacher let Tanaka take the lead.
“Yesterday, you all got a chance to use ninja-tools and jutsu in your spars.” Tanaka-sensei’s eyes roamed over the gathered students, making sure they were listening. “Yet, you have always sparred with your own class. You’ve grown accustomed to them and know their fighting styles well. Today, we’re having a little competition!”
Tanaka and the other teacher walked off across the small field they often used for spars and took their spots as judges or arbiters. “Class versus class! A gauntlet! One by one, by your order of choosing, you will enter the ring and spar as normal. Unlike standard sparring, the winner of the spar will remain. The one who lost the spar, will leave the field, and a classmate will take his place. The winners will spar until they lose.”
“You will be able to use any tools or supplies you’ve brought today, as well as any jutsu you have learned.” The other sensei continued on from where Tanaka left off. “Remember! This is for learning and bettering yourself against unknown foes. There is no reward for being the winning class and no punishment for the losing one. You will all stop when either myself or Tanaka say so.”
“You have one minute before we begin. Choose your starting classmates!” He finished with a yell and a smile. Instantly, both classes broke their lines to huddle up in conversation.
Sano was a little late to the party, having to shove herself a bit to enter the huddle of her class to listen in on the plan. Obviously, she wasn’t going to make the plan, as communication was key for leading and planning, especially in a time crunch.
“I say we alternate from strong to weak. Start off with someone strong, beat our opponent, then have them soften up the next person for a weaker classmate.” Riba Nara immediately offered her side of things, and Sano agreed with that plan. They didn’t have time to flesh out something solid, but anything was better than nothing.
“I say we hit them hard and fast. Send our strongest first and win before—” Kazuya Uchiha flashed her a disgusted look, not bothering to hide it at all. “Our weaker classmates end up costing us.”
While normally a pre-teen saying mean things didn’t hurt her feelings, the fact that nearly all of her classmates didn’t speak up for her or even look put off by the comment hit her hard. She knew she wasn’t good, but to be looked down on and disparaged was painful. Murakumo looked slightly offended by the comment, but didn’t speak up—not that she expected him too. The Akimichi, Joji, the one that sat next to her in their classes cringed at the comment. He at least knew that wasn’t a nice thing to say.
Everyone else took it at face value.
With a stitching pain in her heart, Sano backed up from the huddle. She wasn’t even able to defend herself or put in any meaningful advice, not that any of them wanted it. So, her time was wasted there. Instead, she focused on what she could do to help herself and her team. Sano made her way over to Tanaka while digging into her thigh-holster, obviously catching his attention.
She pulled out some of her practice explosive tags she made during her free period. They were nothing dangerous, having been made with normal ink, but they looked real. She handed one out to Tanaka-sensei, who took it without a worry in the world. ‘I make explosive tags for the Supply Depot. These are practice ones. They won’t explode.’
Tanaka-sensei looked over the tag for only a moment, before smiling and handing it back. “That’s a very useful skill to have. I’m sure you’ll be popular after the academy if you can make seals like this without your team having to pay for them. Thank you for the warning.” He winked at her, knowing that she was going to be using them in her spar.
“Time’s up! Classes, send in your firsts!” Tanaka shouted as he passed her fake explosive seals back to her.
Sano wandered back to her class, and thankfully Murakumo waved her over to explain the plan. “We’re following Riba’s plan. We didn’t specify an order, though.”
As Murakumo finished filling her in, Kazuya Uchiha strode forward with confidence in spite of his young age. To his credit, even though he was sort of an asshole, he’s earned some of his swagger. The kid was the best in taijutsu in their class and would put any human on Earth in their place without breaking a sweat.
From the other class, a girl with short and spiky platinum blonde hair ran onto the field. She wore a light jacket and kept her midriff exposed, revealing muscles much too defined for someone who hadn’t even hit puberty yet. If a girl looked like this on Earth, she might have assumed child abuse or someone forcing her into exercise.
Well… she supposed that all these kids were being abused in some sort of way, seeing as they were child soldiers.
“Kazuya Uchiha versus Yui Gengan! Begin!”
Contrary to their entire class's expectations, instead of Kazuya dashing in to strike, the boy nimbly hopped back to the edge of the field as his hands ran through signs for a jutsu. Yesterday, Kazuya hadn’t even bothered to do anything special with jutsu or ninja tools, instead opting to beat them all into submission like all the other sparring sessions. The boy wasn’t fast with the hand seals, but he wasn’t necessarily slow either. Sano made out every single one. Rat, Tiger, Dog, Ox, Rabbit, and then Tiger again.
“Katon: Hosenka-No-Jutsu!” (Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique)
Kazuya raised his hand to his mouth in what Sano would call an ‘OK’ sign, took a deep breath, then blasted out small fist-sized bullets of fire in rapid succession. This was the first time she’d ever seen someone use an elemental jutsu, and it was practically machine gun fireballs!
She wanted to do that.
Yui, obviously not willing to be hit by the barrage of fire, deftly twisted and turned her body as she snaked forward with unnatural grace, body low to the ground in a weird run with kunai in hand. When the fireballs impacted the ground behind her, they burst into tiny explosions, creating pock-marks in the earth, sending bits of dirt across her in a spray of debris.
Before Yui even reached Kazuya, she flicked her wrist, sending her held kunai soaring forward, catching Kazuya off guard. Thankfully, Kazuya hadn’t wasted time after his jutsu, readying his own kunai. He used it to deflect the thrown projectile in a sharp clang of metal.
Then, they were upon each other.
Contrary to expectations, Yui Gengan was a formidable taijutsu fighter. Kazuya looked to be on the backfoot, as he couldn’t retreat as he’d previously jumped back to the boundary of the field to cast his fire jutsu. Swift fists, twisting necks to dodge by the narrowest of margins… this was a fight.
Yui was smaller than Kazuya, but was obviously matched in strength. Yui practically hugged Kazuya by how close they were to each other, not even leaving a foot-wide gap between their bodies. Kazuya’s special taijutsu fighting style seemed adept at redirecting blows, but Yui didn’t seem to care, keeping up the pressure in a relentless barrage of punches and kicks.
Suddenly, within the blink of an eye, Yui disengaged with a single-foot bounce back, doing a fucking backflip and throwing out several Shuriken at the apex of her jump. It wasn’t immediately obvious to her, but Kazuya seemed to realize he’d been caught flatfooted. His wide eyes traced the trajectories in less than a second, and whether he was too late, slow, scared, or just unprepared, he took a step back to avoid them all, stepping out of bounds.
The five shuriken struck the ground, sinking into the earth, revealing that no matter where he’d tried to escape, he would have been hit by at least one. His only path to avoid them all was to step back out of bounds, which he unfortunately did.
“Yui Gengan wins!” The other class’s teacher shouted. “You have ten seconds to send in your next participant.”
Everyone in their class exchanged shocked looks at Kazuya’s loss. The boy himself looked to be in actual shock as well, numbly sitting in the dirt right outside the ring. It was clear that if Kazuya couldn’t beat Yui, then the rest of them didn’t stand much of a chance either. Sano knew that if this girl got close to her, that she’d lose within seconds.
“Well…” One of the girls in her class started awkwardly. Her name was Satsuki, if she recalled correctly. “We were doing strong to weak right? We sent in our strongest, now we send in the weakest… right?”
Everyone’s eyes traveled to Sano, who matched their looks with disbelief. They were all scared, that much was obvious. But her? They knew she was probably going to lose and were sending her off to the wolves! Yui didn’t even look that winded from the short but aggressive bout.
“Times up. You have three seconds longer before you forfeit.” Tanaka-sensei stated. He looked at their class with understanding. “In battle, you don’t get to choose who you fight.”
Someone pushed her from behind, sending her stumbling forward. She turned around to glare at the perpetrator, but couldn’t tell who it was as everyone looked at her like a sacrificial lamb. The other class even laughed…
“Yui Gengan versus Sano Aburame! Take your places.” Tanaka-sensei announced it prematurely. She turned to look at him. He must have known that this wasn’t her choice at all. Sensei wasn’t blind, he knew exactly what was happening.
Fine… If they want me to fight, then I will fight. Sano thought, putting on her gameface as she entered the ring.
“Be aware, Gengan.” Tanaka-sensei spoke as she settled into place. “Sano cannot speak. She will not be able to verbally give up if she loses.”
Yui took that warning to heart, nodding her acceptance as she pulled forth another kunai to hold at the ready. Sano adopted her bastardized Karin Kazuki stance and waited for the match to begin.
Both classes quieted down as silence stretched over the area like a thick blanket. Yui’s stance was what most people in the academy used, and Sano didn’t recall any clans named Gengan. She must be a non-clan kid using the Konoha taijutsu style, but adapted to her own uses. It was very subtly different, with how close she got to Kazuya, after all.
“Begin!” Both teachers called out, the spar beginning.
Taking a play from Kazuya’s playbook, Sano immediately began weaving her hands for a jutsu. Yet, instead of a lengthy spread of hand seals, her single Tiger sign was finished before Yui could even take a single step.
‘Genjutsu: Shibari!’ (Genjutsu: Binding) Sano mentally screamed. This was her Paralysis Genjutsu she learned from Jiraya. She’d only used it once in the past on Jiraya himself, but it was one of the very few cards she had to play. She focused fully on the lines of chakra spreading outwards like grasping vines towards Yui’s head as their eyes met, hoping that this was her get out of jail free card.
As her chakra slunk into Yui, Sano sensed Yui’s chakra fighting back against her intrusion by instinct alone. If she pushed too hard, Yui would notice and actively fight back; If she didn’t push hard enough, then her innate subconscious defence would overwhelm her attempt. She wormed her chakra through Yui’s Tenketsu points in a flash of focus, then carefully subverted her senses.
Yui took a single step before freezing in place, body already lowered into her weird sprinting pose. Nearly instantly, Sano’s control over the Genjutsu began to slip as Yui began fighting actively back against her mentally, clearly aware now that she was in a Genjutsu. Thankfully, Yui seemed in just as much trouble as she herself had been against Jiraya. If she was taught how to break Genjutsu, which she probably had been, then she knew that nearly all the easy ways out were off the table.
Sano ran forward as she pulled out one of her fake explosive tags while fighting the mental battle of control over the Genjutsu at the same time. While she’d heard about Genjutsu being difficult, with nobody in the village really being a master of it, experiencing it first-hand in battle really put it into perspective. It was not just using your chakra to achieve an effect which you had to know how to do, you also had to fight at the same time, react to the reactions of your Genjutsu target’s chakra as soon as they changed anything, and pay attention to your surroundings.
She ran as quickly as she dared as she juggled so many things at once, her focus straining, and then slapped the explosive tag onto Yui’s forehead…
Sadly, in her haste, she had forgotten that she didn’t know how to stick tags to people yet… It fluttered down to the ground at their feet, Yui’s eyes followed the lazy descent of it as her body refused to move.
Sano slowly backed away to ‘clear the blast zone’ as she fought the steadily increasingly panicked chakra of Yui. The panic actually made it easier to fight against, which felt odd.
“Sano Aburame wins!” Tanaka-sensei shouted aloud for all to hear. He then stalked forward and placed a hand on Yui’s neck. Sano felt the mental bitch slap of Tanaka-sensei’s chakra forcefully ending the Genjutsu on Yui just before the girl fell forward as her body became hers once more. He had sent a burst of chakra into Yui to forcefully dispel the genjutsu. It was taught in class, but this was the first real application of it she’d seen.
No wonder nobody focuses on Genjutsu… the counter for it is common knowledge and it’s already very difficult to begin with.
Tanaka gave her a proud smile then turned to the other class. “You have ten seconds to select the next entry!”
Crap.