Kaito watched from afar, the shadow clone stood up as the other clones dispersed. Hinoka and Tanaka, the teammates of the poor bastard were crying.
"I guess he finally told them, huh. It's better than living with false hope."
"They were very close to each other, almost like a family. It's best that we don't talk to them for a while and give them space." Satoru's clone said while walking up the original body.
"I see, what now? Should we head to the tower?" Kaito asked standing up and walking towards the sleeping Chosuke.
"I have the memories of almost a hundred clones, who performed complex surgeries for hours. Once I disperse myself the original one will go unconscious or even fall into coma, I'll be dead weight for the rest of the exam." The clone said, the original woke up as the clone dispersed himself.
Kaito watched Satoru hold his head in pain when suddenly he was knocked out cold. Kaito then woke the sleeping Chosuke and told him everything.
---
"You guys don't have any reason to worry anymore. Soma's condition is completely stable..." Satoru became tensed as he continued."...although it might take months for him to recover and he will definitely be disabled for the rest of his life."
"Thank god! At this point we don't care..." Tanaka hugged Satoru before pulling himself back and rushing to hug Soma. "...we are grateful that you saved him."
"He...is fruity, isn't he?" Satoru asked the redhead. "Yeah, Tanaka and Soma came as a package deal when my team was made."
"By the way, you said you will tell me your name when we will meet again. If my memory serves me right then this is our second meeting." Satoru asked
"Hinoka, Hinoka Uzumaki. What's your name?"
"Satoru." "Full name?"
"Don't know."
Satoru walked away from Hinoka and returned to Kaito, planning to tell him to stay away from that team.
---
"You guys lost your badges didn't you? How do you guys plan on completing the exam with only two members?" Kaito asked Hinoka, who just shrugged her shoulders.
"Here, take these then we have extra." Chosuke said taking out five badges and giving them to Hinoka.
"How the hell do you have five extra badges? And why are you giving it to us?" Hinoka asked, confused by their generosity.
"You should ask Satoru, he was the one who found those badges. Hey, you have one member down and so do we, we should team up. We wil be safer this way!" Chosuke said.
Before Kaito could refuse, Tanaka spoke up. "Sure! That's a great idea. We can protect both Satoru and Soma."
---
With that, the two teams began heading towards the tower again. The moon made a beautiful crescent in the sky, but no one gave a fuck.
The two teams used the cover of the night to rush ahead towards the tower, ignoring their stamina with the hopes of reaching their destination while everyone else were resting.
The teams neared the tower and saw what they didn't expect!
Hinoka sensed that the tower was surrounded by several teams of genins. People were camping around the tower's four entries, hoping to find a prey to steal from.
Kaito and Chosuke noticed that, people of same countries camped together while keeping their distance from other country's ninjas.
"What the hell is going on over there? Why aren't they attacking each other right now?" Chosuke asked, observing the crowd.
"It seems like Satoru's actions came back to bite us. Maybe we shouldn't have killed the clown." Kaito replied.
"YOU GUYS KILLED THE CLOWN?! What were you thinking?" Hinoka looked at the konoha duo, confusion evident in her expression.
"It was Satoru who killed the clown not us, he said it will reduce the competition. Satoru fed the clown to a carnivorous creature, making all the badges of that clown become unavailable." Kaito explained, disturbed by seeing the consequences of Satoru's actions.
"When did he do it? We had fight someone to get that badges and why do even have an entire extra set of badges which included that clown's badge?"
"Satoru did it on the very first day, I don't know how he got the extra badges, though." Chosike said, Kaito silently observed the tower while giving Chosuke a side eye.
"OH MY GOD!" Tanaka gasped
"Enough talking, we need a plan on how to deal with this. Any ideas?" Kaito said.
"I'll go and observe this place up close. I sense my friends, they could help us or at least tell us what's going on." Hinoka said, what towards the tower.
Chosuke watched her leave and the turned to Tanaka. "Are you going to let her go by herself? This guy won't run away if you stop looking at him."
"Y-yeah, you're right. please watch over him while i'm gone." Tanaka said as he stood up and ran to catch up to her.
"Hey, Kaito." "What?"
"Should we hide this guy and say he actually ran away while we weren't looking?" Chosuke had a mischievous smile as he looked at Kaito.
"Behave yourself, Chosuke." Kaito said as he looked away.
---
Hinoka walked towards the camp of konoha-tea-uzushio ninjas. She saw several people looking at her varily-some even with hostility. She looked around to spot some people she recognized.
Hinoka walked towards her friend Yui, who was surprised to see her. "What is happening here? Why are there so many people here...just sitting around, as if they are waiting for someone?" Hinoka said as she swatted off a bee which about to sting her.
"They are...they all either lost their badges or don't have enough badges to pass through. We are hoping someone from our nation comes with extra badges so we can pass. Do you? Do you...have badges, I mean?" Yui asked asked she looked at her helpless friends and comrades in the distance.
'If I tell her that I lost my badges then she will make us stay here, but if I say I do have the badges...maybe multiple teams might gang up on us and take our badges. Our five badges will probably complete several team's sets.'
Hinoka was about to explain in a way that would solve it but Tanaka caught up to her and replied on her behalf.
"Yeah! Our badges were stolen from us by those kumo ninjas. But, a konoha team helped us get all five badges back! Can you believe it? They were really help..." Tanaka was about to explain but Hinoka grabbed Tanaka's Hand and jolt him enought to stop him.
"Hey, guys...that's nice to hear but, I think my team is calling me. i'll meet you guys later, sound good?" Yui said as she walked away.
Hinoka sensed that she was panicking as well as nervous. She turned to Tanak and slapped him.
"Do you have any idea what you have just done? All these people...they aren't refugees. They...they are scavengers. You leaked that we have not only have a full set but that we have contact with another team with a full set." Hinoka said calmly as she observed her surroundings while leading Tanaka out of the camps.
"Why do you think they are some kind of scavengers, huh? They are our friends! They would never do something like this!" Tanaka countered while shaking off her hand.
"Okay, let's assume that we aren't attacked by people of our village ninjas and the konoha and Tea ninjas which which were also there watching us don't attack us...which is a load of bullshit. Do you really think other nations will spare us?
The mist shinobis can dissolve in fucking water, IN FUCKING WATER! There is a river near our camp. The suna can use bees communicate and there were bees around us. The kumo have jutsu to enhance their hearing. The iwa can use puppets to transmit information.
Do you understand how fucked we are? We are already compromised!" Hinoka said, as she talked her tone changed from cautious to panicked.
"I'm sor.." Tanaka said but was interrupted. "Hide! We are being followed." Kaito said making both Hinoka and Tanaka hide in the trees.
"There are several teams following you guys. What did you both do?" Kaito said as he observed the several teams roaming around searching for them.
"They found out we have badges, it was accidental." Hinoka said, as she side eyed Tanaka.
"I'm sorry... I didn't know! And what are you doing here? You left Soma all alone with that guy?" Tanaka asked Kaito who ignored him.
"A day ago or a little earlier, there was a war like situation happening here. All of these started attacking each other with the intention of killing." Kaito looked at the massive area which was destroyed by orochimaru and Naka's fight
Kaito continued "...the anbu had no choice but to place a cease-fire rule in a radius around the tower. Those people you saw were in that zone. Now that we left that place, we aren't in the safe zone and they'll try to kill us."
"We should lose these people following us and regroup with your friend. We need to escape quickly so Soma doesn't die." Hinoka said as she used her sensory jutsu.
---
Chosuke sat beside the unconscious Satoru and Soma. He munched on his food as he saw Hinoka and Kaito rushing towards him and Tanaka followed behind.
Chosuke quickly stood up and reidies himself. Kaito quickly lifted Satoru, "Quick! We have to leave people are following us. We have to escape." Kaito said as the two teams began escaping their followers.
"What's going on?"
"Keep running! And take out the extra badges Satoru found, we will use them to escape." Kaito answered, Chosuke immediately brought out the badges as they neared the tower.
They four people suddenly stopped and hid, Chosuke took out a stealth tag used to mask chakra presence, Hinoka observing this weaved handsigns to form a simple barrier and stuck the tag on the barrier.
"This barrier is very weak but can be moved around as we move, so, everyone inside it will undetected. They can still see us physically." Hinoka explained before activating the tag
"Okay...so what do we do now? I abandoned my chips for this." Chosuke said before opening another packet
"Smell of food will get us detected, please refrain from eating. We will use those extra badges you guys have to bait them while we escape." Hinoka said glaring at Chosuke's chips, the smell of onions and cream bombarded her nose.
"We will use the strategy taught to us in the academy...the one second hokage used." Kaito said, a look of understanding flashed on his face as he asked
"Who?" "Me, of course." Kaito said before taking the badges with hesitation.
Kaito walked out of the barrier and walked away, Hinoka began moving the barrier to head towards the tower.
'Why is it always them? Why? It's always them who are contributing the most in every mission while I can just watch. I need to contribute more...I need to if I want to keep up with them.
I'll become a chunin for sure, I'll make my clan proud.' Chosuke thought as the three people and two unconscious ones made their way towards the tower.
Chosuke heard some distant explosions in the direction in which Kaito went in. He could see several shinobis rushing towards Kaito.
The explosions were visible from very far away. People from all the camps turned heads to observe the commotion. And most of them had the same thought going through their minds, let's scavenge badges from their corpses!
Chosuke made his way towards the entrance of the camp and only saw injured on non-combatants staring back at him. He figured that desperation to win made them send everyone except those who couldn't fight.
He dragged Satoru inside the tower and saw a massive hall reinforced in a way that would allow shinobi to fight. The massive hall had several weapons lined up on the side of one of its walls.
Chosuke saw a massive man in a clown outfit wear a clown mask and walk towards him. The clown stood right in front of him and spoke in a deep voice
"You look weak! But, the fact that reached here means that you must have something in you. Unfortunately for you, you need all three members with you before you proceed, from here." The clown said before walking back to his station.
"You can wait here till your teammate comes, though he should arrive within the five day limit. You will not be provided any food, water or any services like toilet till your teammate arrives."
'Kaito will probably be in bad shape when he comes back and Satoru will not wake up for a while..." Chosuke saw Hinoka approach the Clown to take the final challenge. The clown saw Chosuke looking at him so began weaving handsigns and blocked the view with a earth wall.
"...if we have to win then it will be upto me! It's my turn to contribute to the team." Chosuke said with newfound determination.