Red Riot - Chapter 6 - The Shark coast (Patreon)

I watched the rat run around frantically before expiring. I rubbed my temples. “Another failure for the liver’s healing, cause of death—” I put my hand on the rat and pulsed my chakra through its now dead body. “—cancer, resulting in hemorrhaging from cirrhosis,” I said a moment later.

A few of the kids that had been watching me shifted uneasily.

They hadn’t liked seeing mse start working on the rat’s organs. It was tantamount to torturing them with all the different organs I needed to learn how to adjust for. It wasn’t as simple as making cells replicate. There needed to be a specialisation in how the cells formed. Type mattered as much as orientation and amount.

That wasn’t to say I hadn’t improved. I’d had results and made significant progress in the few weeks of work I’d put in.

I had much better control of my chakra now. Thanks to having to flex my chakra in a hundred different little ways—amount, shape, or even the alignment of yin—  that caused me to improve.

By focusing so hard on my control and testing myself on some of the toughest parts of a rat’s body to heal, I had forced myself to get better. You could only stomach so much failure before you forced yourself to the grindstone, even if only to stop the rats from squealing in pain.

This had resulted in further breakthroughs that had only been compounded by the slow cleaning out of my chakra nodes when I floated in the salt caves.

I now had a primitive diagnosis jutsu that allowed me to ‘view’ my patient’s internal workings. I’d been able to translate that at least to viewing the kids, despite their reluctance. I had to vow that I wasn’t going to do anything, and instead I just looked.

The human body was mostly the same from my previous life. The major difference was that everyone now had a chakra network that was in various stages of use or disuse. Some kids needed to work on cycling their chakra more. The Geisha at the Okiya barely had any chakra networks with how atrophied theirs were.

For me, it was a small difference internally, but it had a cascading effect for our group as the amount of chakra and control they had improved thanks to my being able to sit with them and watch them guide their chakra through their bodies. It had resulted with them improving drastically.

The paper name tags of the civilians had started to trickle slowly upwards while metal name tags filtered down.

This caused the fights we were going through in the academy to become more desperate. Kids started getting more frantic as their names dropped lower and lower.

I spied more than a few kids coming into the academy with bruises over their bodies after they had dropped into the bottom five positions on the rankings.

It seemed the parents or guardians of the kids dropping that low held to archaic methods of motivation. Aka, beat them to toughen them up.

I’d thrown up after telling my group to exploit the bruises and the weaker areas being presented to us. This had caused the groups in our class to tighten up further as some of the kids came to see us as the issue.

It was a simplified answer, and I could understand their reasoning. In truth, it was the system and mindset that was being perpetrated that was mostly at fault. Here, you could only excel by stepping over someone else. You were meant to harden your heart and care very little to become a shinobi.

I glanced up to watch Rei get thrown by Himeko Kaguya again. The white haired girl snorted in contempt, and I grimaced. Rei was one such child that didn’t work well in a learning environment where you were put under pressure. She needed to be put in a different role  than one that involved fighting for her to shine, not put under pressure constantly.

“Gotcha!” said Shoto as he poked me in the face.

I stiffened before cursing. “Shit, so you did.”

The kids that had been watching me relaxed and giggled at me. I rolled my eyes at them only to glance at Shoto and his pleased expression. Had he done that on purpose to make the kids more relaxed?

“How’d you go?” I asked neutrally.

“Got all the way to the gates of the Terumi compound before some old man patted me on the back and told me to beat it. I ran off, but not before seeing that the old man started cuffing the Terumi from the academy about not keeping up their guards. I don’t think they realised that he meant that because of me though.”

I hummed. “You didn’t run into any trouble running after them in the shinobi part of the village?”

“Nah, mostly saw people moving about like normal in the mists. "No one walks on the streets there, but that makes sense because the clans own a lot of the land."

Shoto started drawing a crude map on the ground. All of the land is divided up with open areas that are called training areas. Not sure if it would be worth training there though cause the land is pretty much on the doorstep of the clans that border it. They’d be able to watch everything you did.”

I watched as he sketched out a triangle shape over a few different sections, but not perfect equilateral triangles. No two points of any clan compound ever touched another clan compound. Instead, they always had buffer space. It reminded me of a map between older kingdoms from my past life.

“They’ve also got room to be separate from each other… killing fields if they need to repulse people.”

Shoto tilted his head and nodded slowly. Himeko stalked over and snorted at the crude drawing before snatching the chalk from Shto and drawing a much clearer map which she proceeded to label with symbols.

“You dumbasses, certain training fields are also not allowed to be used by certain people. The fields around the Terumi are for their clan and their subordinates, just like the Hozuki won’t let anyone but themselves and the Yuki train near them. Anyone coming near the Kaguya have to accept that one of my clansmen can and will drop in to spar as it is seen as a declaration of intent.”

Shoto and I stared at her. This was the most talkative she’d ever been.

She continued, “If you think you’re good enough to train there, you need to be prepared for people looking to test you.”

Shoto and I shared a look. Himeko had never volunteered information like this, but then again, I’d never asked her about it, thinking that she would deny me. It seemed the logic of ‘keeping clan secrets’ wasn’t something she fully adhered to.

“Huh, that’s actually good to know. What do they think of civilian shinobi?”

“They don’t care as long as you’re strong. In my clan, the strongest has the final say.

I nodded before tilting my head. “How do they determine who’s strongest?”

“Two people enter the bonecage, one leaves and runs the clan.”

I waited for something else and when it was obvious Himeko wasn’t going to say anything more, I raised a finger. “That... is a system that is just begging to be taken advantage of, isn’t it?”

“Nah, everyone prefers it to stay simple. Makes it easier.”

I shared a look with Shoto. There must have been more to it than that, but I wasn’t sure if Himeko would know or be aware of the intricacies. She came it fight us and get stronger. Something that she had, ostensibly been achieving. She’d even sat in on some of the study sessions about the written material last week.

I’d hadn’t seen any fewer bruises on her arms for all that she was scoring better and still playing as the best taijutsu user in our class. It was tough to see under the henge she usually adopted, learntbut when I fought with her she had started to lose control of it as she focused on beating me into paste.

I really, really couldn’t wait until I had the Mystical palm jutsu up to snuff enough to deal with bruises and sprains. I probably could start making the leap for that with the rats not having any issues when I healed them after tearing or rupturing their joints or muscles these days.

I just needed a willing test subject, or to be brave enough to start by testing it on myself.

I kept quizzing Shoto on what he’d  learned from sneaking around the public shinobi area. Himeko snorted at his descriptions and pointed out a few spots on the map she’d redrawn that he needed to avoid, such as the building the Village used for Torture and Interogation.

“They’ll snatch you up really quick if they see you sneaking around there. Don’t try and be clever with them.”

“That’s good to know,” I said with a nod before flicking my eyes up at her. “Anywhere else to avoid?”

Her finger swept over to a small building with another mist symbol on it. “The Hunter nin headquarters for the same reason.”

Another point and grunt. “The Mizukage tower where missions and records are kept, and the cryptography sections. You’re not allowed there unless you have actual business being there. People will be able to tell if this is true because there is supposed to be a token that some of the sensory nin can detect on people. They’re given out to those who need to use these facilities; otherwise, you don’t have any business being there.”

An idle thought occurred to me. “How does the Village get civilian’s to drop in missions?” I squinted my eyes and tried to extrapolate the distances from the map I had before me. “Are they ferried in, or are they collected somewhere else?”

Shoto tilted his head in consideration, but Himeko shrugged. “No idea; I don’t care!”

I facepalmed and sighed. “Never mind,” I said, making a mental note to keep that in mind. If we were separating where civilians could come in were we taking civilian missions? Or was everything just being sent out through the Mizukage’s office? If so, that could be a very powerful level of control.

“Heyo ramen stand sixteen?” said Kizan as he walked n with a few other kids, each of them carrying a backpack.

“It’s, Heyo Soba stand six,” I said lazily back, giving him the return phrase we’d settled on for today.. The other kids all rattled off their own greetings.

Kizan sniffed. “Whatever, I got the supplies from my parents; we’re good to go any time in the next two weeks if they spring the demand to go on this expedition. If they give us the time to collect this stuff anyway,” he said with a snark.

I nodded, “Yeah, yeah. They most likely won’t but if they do, we will have it prepared. Any chance of finding—”

Kizen flicked a scroll at me and I snapped it out of the air. “Holy shit, you got one?”  I said as I unrolled the scroll.

“Yeah, took a while, but finally found one. It works too,” he said as I put something into the indicated circle and pushed chakra into it. The item vanished before reappearing. I started playing with it, sending the item in and out repeatedly. The other kids rolled their eyes at me and lost interest quickly.

I sighed. Despite my nearly constant proclamations of them as an essential requirement for any shinobi, the kids didn't understand how broken it was to dump items, even single items, into a scroll that could be attached to your belt.

I dropped twenty kunai and a few packs of ready-to-eat meals that we’d gotten our hands on that wouldn’t spoil into the two of the three seals this scroll contained.

“They cost much?” I said as I considered the final circle and the symbols around it carefully.

“A bit, but that was cause they’re hard to find. Not many civilians bother with them, as shinobi get suspicious if merchants have them, start sniffing around more than they should.”

He gestured at the scroll. “Still have no idea where to find those water balloons you mentioned. Why’d do you need them anyway?”

“I'm working on controlling my water bullet jutsu and making it stronger,” I I said, not showing how disappointed I was that such items weren’t available. With those, I’d be able to accurately judge my progress on a particularly famous jutsu.

Kizan easily accepted the lie, his gaze drifting over to the other kids who were either sparring or practicing water bullet jutsu. Some of them had managed to learn it, much to their loud pleasure, while others had struggled. I had suggested aloud that this was due to the kids having water nature chakra, something that had been vaguely mentioned in one of the lectures we received.

I’d said it stood to reason that other natures might better suit them such as fire, wind, earth, of lightning jutsu. The kids liked that idea and became extra vigilant in their stealth games against the other kids and the instructors at the academy.

I tucked the scroll into a small pocket within my shirt. “Thanks for that Kizan. Good job.” I shot him a smile; he smirked and rubbed his nose.

“Wasn’t too hard!”

I just nodded at him, making sure he knew I appreciated the work he went through. I gave the rat cages another look before deciding I’d tormented enough of them. I’d get to practice the coma jutsu I’d come up with, but they’d probably make a racket, which would freak the other kids out. Instead, I decided to tap Himeko on the shoulder.

“Wanna fight?”

She grinned happily and launched herself right at me, not worrying about waiting or even Allentering a space. The other kids were obstacles and either became apart of the fight or got trampled or evaded depending on who was throwing the punch.

So, a now normal training session saw me getting my backside handed to me, all  in the name of getting stronger.

After the beating, I decided enough was enough and pulled the pin on testing the mystical palm on myself; I healed the bruises and scrapes I’d earned.

All the kids, Himeko included, watched me like a hawk. I ran my hands slowly over the area before slowly relaxing. Then I stood up and stretched, feeling for anything that was out of the ordinary. I ran through a series of push ups, handstands, and arm swings to make sure my arms were still feeling fine.

“Alrght, it appears good for now. Let’s see if I live through the night yeah?” I said with a smile.

Rei scowled at me. “That’s not funny!”

“Gotta get my jokes from somewhere," I said with an easy shrug before giving them a wave and heading back to the Okiya.

I woke up with little to no muscle soreness from the workout I’d put myself through and the ability to work through just a few more push-ups than I had yesterday. When I reached the academy, I for once didn’t stop myself from smiling. Or more like I couldn’t stop smiling.

No aches, or pains and no bruising.

It was a little bit sad, but it had been a long time since I’d woken up without at least some form of pain.

It was a small step, but it represented a big leap in what I could now do.

Himeko merely sniffed and declared she could stop holding back as much during our spars.

Which… hadn’t been my goal but… was an unintended consequence. The other kids started working harder and being more reckless in how they trained. Within the week I had to fix someone’s arm after they broke it. But bones were the next step for me that I’d already learned to do well enough on the rats.

I succeeded in fixing the kid, but that didn’t stop me from giving my entire crew of kids a dressing down on being too reckless. It made a small difference, but only as long as it took to see visible results at school. Then the kids were back into throwing themselves into the training.

By the end of the week, a few more names for civilians trickled upwards, with Kizan trailing my position at fourth in the sixth position while Shoto broke into the tenth.

The clan kids did not like that at all. There was a lot of muttering and a few cases where kids got stalked or attempts at ambushes played out to ‘teach a lesson’ to us. Thankfully, our earlier training saw us avoiding them.

Even Rei remained elusive to them. One of the things she picked up from being able to be wilder in her training was a confidence in free running that none of us could match.

I started to feel pretty confident with how things were going for us. Which, was of course, when the instructors promptly had us change rooms due to us being in the wrong room for a lecture.

At first, we didn’t think anything of it. Merely, a strange but understandable command to keep us from getting comfortable. It wasn’t until we reached the door that my instincts flared up and I realised this could potentially be a trap.

I whistled a prearranged signal. The other kids with me blinked and stared before realising that, ‘yes, I was calling out a potential threat and that this wasn’t a training exercise’. They instantly went stiff and started surveying their surroundings, which in turn warned the rest of the class that something was up.

Only a few of the other groups became more alert, while the Hozuki and the Terumi kids looked disappointed. They must have known but not wanted us to catch on.

The instructors looked amused as we walked into the room.

It was a room like any other we’d sat in. There was still tiered seating but no windows, only one door into and out of the room. The instructors stood at the front but had the ability to walk up any of the lanes that divided the groups. I checked the chairs and tables as I sat down with the others copying me. The shinobi-born kids did the same only much more discretely, or had their ‘friends’— read lackeys —do it for them.

The instructors allowed this with an air of amusement.

Then they barked at us all to sit down and shit up before they started a lecture on the importance of keeping an enemy shinobi alive for as long as possible for interrogation purposes.  It was morbidly interesting to hear the detailed and clinical discussion of torture put forth but Instructor Geta. The man had a small smile and a gleam that brightened for certain topics, while he almost gained a hopeful tone for certain acts of torture. n

I kept a mental note on which acts he seemed fond of, noting that he probably had done them, while others were on his, ‘wish-list’ of acts to perform. The other civilians were disturbed by this, but I noted that none of the shinobi-born kids batted an eye. The Hozuki brat even looked interested.

Geta was in the middle of vividly describing the uses of a rope with a knot in it for information extraction when a man appeared in our midst without any warning.

I reacted like I’d been trained, rolling backwards while flicking the pencil in my grasp straight at the man.

He shifted his body out of the way even as his hands flew through seals. Then the air around the man exploded outwards, causing everyone close to him to be tossed around.

I slammed my hand flat onto the ground and dug my chakra in to resist even as other kids hit me. Oddly, kids behind me were also hurled into me making me turn and realise each group had an assailant. I flicked my eyes to the front and noted the instructors weren’t worried and merely looked interested in how we were all reacting.

Like this was a test.

Himeko, having sat near the wall threw herself out of the small dent she’d been imbedded into at the closest man only for him to twist and stomp her into the ground faster than I could track.If she went down that quick…

“Bail out!” I shouted, grabbing a chair and hurling it at the man as Rei perked up. She bolted for the door ,only for the man I’d thrown the chair at to vanish and kick her into a wall. Then he grabbed Shoto as the scrawny kid lunged at him and used him like a bowling ball by tossing him into a pile of Karatachi kids.

Alright, so they’re not going to just let us get out. So we needed to fight our way out.

“Kizan! Kunai barrage!” I ordered, making everyone step back and release a torrent of kunai.

The man snatched them out of the air and grinned at us before drawing back his arm.

“MOVE!” I screamed, jerking to the right before throwing myself to the ground to throw off his aim. The kunai still clipped me on the shoulder while other kids took the hits to the sternum. I felt my eyes widen.

Those had been kill— my mind jolted as some of them rolled, the kunai tinkling to the ground. I leapt onto my feet and ran my hand back over the spot where the kuani had hit me; I realised there was no blood. He’d used the reverse side of the kunai, not the sharp end.

I lashed out with a kick when he appeared in front of me only to have him ignore the kick. I hit him and felt my leg scream like I’d just kicked a rock wall. “Weak,” he said before backhanding me. I rolled with the hit and kept spinning as I swung around and tried to clip him in the jaw.

He swayed backward, only to duck and roll under Himeko as she leaped at him, no reorientated enough to fight like normal. When she landed she sped after him, her arms became her arms became deformed as bones protruded out like daggers. She threw herself against him with her arms slashing and slicing only for him to spin around her and grab her by the head. Then, like a adult dog that had gotten hold of a rat, he shook her.

Her body twitched before going limp as unconsciousness set in. Then he smiled at the rest of us. Rei tried to tackle him only to get a chop to the back of the neck. When Shoto and Kizan attacked, I joined in with a water bullet. Something that he narrowly dodged, but then he was on me an instant later.

I saw his hand loom large in my vision.

He had a rather nice wedding ring on his hand.

As I blacked out, I wondered if his strike to my face would leave an imprint.

Then darkness claimed me.

                                           ____________________

I awoke with my back pressed up against a rocky outcropping. The shirt I was wearing wasn’t the shirt I had started the day with. My hands tracked across the various sore parts of my body and I noted I was lacking any supplies. My sealing scroll had been taken, as had my kunai.

I glanced around and corrected my earlier thought: all of my kunai bar one and a scrap of paper were what I had.

I grabbed the kunai and paper and read what was on it.

Student, you are to remain on the island for the next week. Your means of survival are entirely up to you. You and your fellow students have all been restricted to a single kunai and no meals or supplies.

Survive until the end of the week, and you will have passed the first term of the academy.

I sighed and tucked the paper into a pocket. It would make for good fire fuel. I glanced around at the outcropping of rock I had found myself on. I was at the base of a cliff with what looked like the tide coming in.

Cute. rom

I’d have suspected that Geta had a hand in my placement if not for the fact that my nose wasn’t broken. I was just hurting in other parts of my body.

I stood up and started checking my range of motion. Was I injured in that brief scuffle? Did I need to heal anything?

It turned out that I only had some mild bruising and strains around my neck. I was, for all intents and purposes, combat ready. Nothing was pulled or would throw me off.

I glanced around. “I’ve got a long run to the right or left which appears to be…” I glanced up at the sun and frowned before blinking as I realised just how far  I could actually see.

I stared at the island and the ocean. Waves rose and fell and the wind swept over them rushing over my face as I took in the world stretched out before me.

I’d somehow never seen this far in… well this entire lifetime. I knew it was possible to see further than a kilometer, but it stood out to me now that I could see the way the bay curled around the water, forming a sort of lagoon that was going to be filled up. With the discolouration, and broken parts of the cliff-face, I had a good idea of how much the water would rise.

I noted that with the way the cliffs arced around, I was literally at the midpoint. The water in front of me was rising as it surged in with the tide, slammed into the rocks, and sent up great sprays of water.

I rechecked my view and nodded. So, I was in the middle of a watery trap, and if I chose to run around the edge, I’d need to really sprint to beat the tide. Or, I could be a shinobi and simply go straight up.

I looked up at the distant clifftop. There could potentially be anything up there.

Still, I had to go, and waiting wasn’t going to make the run any shorter. So, instead, I ran straight at the wall and up it. My chakra stuck despite how slippery the surface was, and within a few seconds I was closing in on the top. I paused just before the edge and worked on what senses I had.

Nothing but the salt of the ocean on my nose, no noises from what I could hear thanks to the wind roaring into the cliff, nothing I could see, and nothing I could feel with my chakra.

I sprinted the last few metres and darted over the edge, staying low so that my profile would be as minimised as possible. I didn’t find anyone waiting for me.

Insteadn what I found was a rocky landscape with a bare few trees and what looked like a lot of rocky outcroppings. I could see a small forest further away and the island we were on sloped away. I glanced back and saw that the area from which I’d departed had some other notable features. Or rather, notable fish.

Throughout the water, there were a number of large fins lazily swimming. I huffed. “Shark coast indeed.”

I turned back and made for the forest. Chances were that would be one of the best locations to find shelter, water, and food.

Before I found any of those, I found a girl. She came over the edge of the cliff a few hundred metres in front of me, and I paused. When she looked up at me, she twitched into a fighting stance and I saw the symbol that marked her as a Terumi.

I flicked my eyes towards the forest. “I’m going in there. Any problems with that?”

She shifted and adjusted her kunai, searching the area before slowly relaxing. “Go right ahead; I’ll be right behind you.”

I snorted. I didn’t want her at my back, so instead I ran wide and then put on a burst of speed. “Hey! Wait!” she called out after me, “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Nope! And I think I like it that way! Hope you return the favour!” I shouted back as I ran into the trees and out of sight. The trees themselves weren’t thick enough for her to lose sight of me sadly, and when I came upon a spring with some water bubbling up I paused and started assessing the area, which meant she could catch up.

“Hey!” she hissed as she closed in. “You’re a rude boy, aren’t you?” Then her eyes narrowed. “Are you one of the Hozuki pledges?”

“Pledges?” I said, inspecting the girl. She hadn’t adopted a fighting stance, and she had her kunai tucked away instead of in her hand. I could beat her on the draw if it came to it but I would need to be aware of the Terumi’s famous corrosive mist. Until Mei came along, that was, and made a name for herself as a dual kekkei genkai wielder.

It stood out as deeply unfair that they ‘evened’ the odds by making sure everyone only had one kunai on them when they started this little expedition. It would seem fair at first glance, but the inherent unfairness stood out with even a cursory inspection.

Bloodline users had a natural advantage. By limiting the weapons that could be brought in there was already a skewed balance. Or perhaps it was a reflection of the most real world balance?

“Pledges, you know, those who swear to the major clans to make sure that they have protection! Don’t play about, it is well established! You must be pledged to either one of us, the Terumi, or those Hozuki.”

“I didn’t pledge to anyone,” I said.

walked up to a tree and cut the branch with a few deft strokes of my kunai so that I had a pole to use alongside my kunai. I made up a few more and sharpened the edges. I kept the girl in my peripheral vision, and she gaped at me.

“What?” She blinked. “Oh, you’re one of those odd ones from Hideka’s class aren’t you? Those civilians playing at their own gang yes?”

I laid out the third pole, inspecting my quick work. “You know of us?” I said neutrally. “I didn’t think we were that noteworthy.”

“Noteworthy in your oddness.” She peered at me. “You really haven’t pledged to anyone yet, despite it being so late in the term? My cousin would look after you, you realise?” I almost got the impression that she thought she was helping me by making the offer.

“He’d also send me out to poke and prod at the Hozuki in my class. Or we’d be the weak link poked at. I realised where that was going and instead…” I considered how to phrase this. “Joined the other group. We make do.”

“For now,” she said with a shake of her head.

A burst of movement had me catching a pole ontop of my foot in readiness to kick it while my kunai raised itself. The Terumi girl spun about and leaped to put her back to a tree. It was ostensibly a good position, but it created limitations I’d found.

Shoto and Rei walked in slowly, both of them watching me carefully.

“Ramen stand seventeen,” I said.

“Soba stand six,” Rei said before nodding at Shoto. “We‘ve been with each other for a while.” Her eyes flicked over to the Terumi girl. “Hello there? Who are you?”

“I am Hanahime Terumi!” she said with a jut of her chin. She flicked her eyes to me. “You… You’re all part of the same group aren’t you?”

Rei, Shoto, and I shared a look before I nodded slowly. She chewed her lip. “In my class, there are eighteen of us. I propose that we join our groups.”

Rei perked up, but I shook my head. “All of the Terumi kids are going to link up right? So there’s only going to be eighteen of you, only if your class group stays together. You’ll get bigger than that, and then there might be a problem.”

Hanahime scowled at that and to cut her off from asking for us to ‘pledge’ again I raised a hand. “How about an agreement not to attack each other?”

She nodded her head. “I can agree to that for now, and I will vouch for you when I join my group.”

I nodded and felt myself relax. It looked like I wasn’t about to… I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Fight a kid? Capture? … Kill?

I worked my jaw and nodded at the poles I’d been making. “Need to make some bamboo water containers. Notice anything on the way in?”

Shoto relayed that he and Rei had woken up on the beach. I put a hand on both of them while they spoke and checked them over as well as I could. Shoto frowned before realising what I was doing. Usually I would ask, but with the Terumi girl with us, that wasn’t something I wanted shared around.

Shoto nodded his head and Rei smiled at me when I squeezed her shoulder; they were both alright.

By the time we had some containers of bamboo made up for all of our group, we had another five from our group trickle in.

Hanahime had twenty trickle in and join her while I spotted another group forming up just on the edge of the clearing. I was pretty sure Hanahime had spotted them but was adopting an air of nonchalance for now.

“Fill the water bottles,” I said to the others. We all had poles now, and each of us were carrying three or four waterbottles that we’d share with the others when they joined us. I watched as the Terumi kids and their ‘pledges’, started eyeing off what had to be the Hozuki kids forming up.

I could tell a fight was coming and I wanted no part of it.

I glanced at the water spring. A resource. That’s what this was, and whoever controlled it would have a lot of power for themselves.

I didn’t want to ‘give it up’ but there was no way I would be able to keep it, even if all twenty of my group were here. The other groups would soon number over a hundred, I had no doubt. There’d be a little turf war.

I sighed. Was there a way to cool tensions and not have a fight break out? Honestly the more of us injured or that died here the lower everyone’s chances of makign it through what was coming for us before we could graduate. This expedition? This was just a taste of what was to come.

The Hozuki kids marched out of the trees with greater numbers than the Terumi kids. They obviously liked their odds, with how there were more of them than the Terumi kids now, and they were going to push their weight around. I whistled lowly, and my group faded back. We had what we needed, and now it was time to get out.

“Matsu?” Hanahime said as my group began to move away.

I waved at her. “We agreed not to fight. That means we’re not going to fight. But I don’t need to be putting myself or my friends in harm's way or fight for you.”

Hahahime tilted her head, her eyes darting about and taking in how everyone in my group was arranged around me. “You’re their leader then?” she said with narrowed eyes.

I shrugged. “I wouldn’t say that." I jutted my chin at the Hozuki that were approaching, “You have other things to deal with by the way.”

She sniffed haughtily and marched to the front of her group, making me raise my own brow in surprise. Apparently, she wasn’t just a Terumi member. Was she possibly a big shot?

I moved away, but not before looking over my shoulder as a Hozuki boy stepped forward. The odds of me being close to the Terumi ‘leader’ —if she was that— for our year. That had to be deliberate, right?

I signaled my group, and we darted into the trees. We made sure to arc our way around. Occasionally, one of us would scratch some markings into trees at head height, where they might be visible. Not anything large, just simply little markers that we had devised in the lead-up to this event.

As we moved through the forest, I frowned when I noticed there was a distinct lack of any fruit-bearing trees or even any birds or wildlife. “Anyone noticed there aren’t any food sources around?”

Shoto grunted. “Was wondering about that. I thought I saw some fish at the beach we woke up on, but there wasn’t any that were edible.”

“How so?” I said.

“They all contained a lot of poison. Unless you know how to cut up a pufferfish?” he said, asking the group at large. He got a lot of shakes in reply.

I grimaced. “I don’t know how to heal poison either, so let’s not go with that option just yet.” We broke out of what passed for the forest on the island and found ourselves looking into the setting sun. “How long do you think it took them to get us here?”

“Think they used Jonin?”

I shook my head. “That’d be a waste of resources for us wouldn’t it? Especially if they transported all of us while knocked out.”

Shoto sniffed. “If they even did that.”

I rubbed my stomach. “I’d say they kept us knocked out for a day at least. Got us here on a boat and then left us to wake up.” I chewed my lip. “Which would still involve a lot of poison and a specialist, or rather, a team of specialists.”

Shoto rubbed his chin as we assessed our surroundings. “Cave over there we might be able to hide out in? Also, that seems like a lot of effort for this. Why knock us out?”

I scratched my head. “Why indeed? Give it a sinister overtone? Some people might go to pieces at being deserted on an island. It might shake people up?”

As we darted in towards the cave, I considered our usual group make up. “Might have shaken up a few of ours or even the other big groups yeah? Creates tension straight away as there will be people shifting about depending on the group we link up with. This might only seem like it will affect us here but what we do here will stick in people’s minds outside of here as well.”

Rei spoke up choosing to join Shoto and I’s conversation. “Is that why you didn’t want to accept Hanahime’s offer to join up with her?”

I nodded. “Yeah, pretty much. She might seem nice, but she’d still have a lot more control of us when all her group members link up. She might be different then.”

Shoto grunted. “Kizan would know. He was tracking a lot of that with his sneak arounds at the academy.”

I merely nodded, a small niggle of worry entering my mind. “He should be along soon.” I said, like I wasn’t all worried.

The other kids seemed to relax at my faux bravado which made me want to sigh. It looked like I’d need to keep a ‘stiff upper lip’ as it were, and help morale stay as high as possible. I noticed Rei still looking over her shoulder at me.

“Rei, I also didn’t agree because Hanahime is forgetting that it’s not just the Terumi, the Hozuki and us out here.”

“Hmmm?” said Rei with a tilt of her head as we entered the caves cautiously.

“The Kaguya,” I said. “Places like that water spring are going to be contested, and the Kaguya won’t shy away from a fight. From everything Himeko has said, they’ll happily charge into those areas regardless of who controls it. If we’d remained there we’d have been beaten on.”

“Oh… I hope Himeko is alright,” said Rei. I chuckled at Rei’s good nature.

Shoto groaned. “Why your parents signed you up to be a shinobi, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.”

I considered that for a second, Kizan’s had gotten a bit of a tax break as I understood it. Why had Rei’s parents done it?

Before I could consider it anymore, or ask questions, the sounds of fighting reached us, and we all perked up.

“Shoto!” I barked.

“On it!” he said, darting away with Rei following him to act as a messenger.

I put my fingers to my mouth and blew a shrill whistle that had all the other kids with us loosely adopting a diamond formation. If you squinted at it, it had a vaguely diamond-like shape. I assumed a spot in the middle and kept my eyes roaming about.

When a shrill whistle sounded back, I chopped my hand forward, causing our group to accelerate into a sprint towards the beach. When we reached it we paused to take in the scene of Kizan and the rest of our missing group fighting with a trio of Kaguya.

“Beat them back!” I shouted, letting the Kaguya know they were now well and truly outnumbered. Instead of retreating, they smiled wider and dug in, fighting harder. Bones were ripped from their arms and hurled like short spears. I hefted my pole before tossing it up to land next to Kizan.

He grabbed it and whipped it up where he started beating on the most aggressive Kaguya boy. Welts and hits began to build up and the Kaguya boy snarled.

“Fucking pussy!” he roared before throwing himself at Kizan. Kizan spun the weapon and smacked the boy into the ground before smashing his pole into the boys head. Knocking him out.

By then, the rest of our group piled onto the final two Kaguya and they were all knocked out cold within moments.

I raised a hand towards Kizan before straightening. “Psycho cutter, one hundred,” I said, using last week’s challenge.

Kizan blinked before nodding and responding, “Wise gardener, two hundred.”

I grunted and started addressing the others with similar challenges, only for one boy to break off and dart away. It took a moment for me to register what that meant.

Shoto swore and gave chase, only to be outstripped by Rei who burst past him and slipped between the boy’s legs and entangled him. “Tag!” she said as she sent the boy tumbling.

The rest of us trotted up and inspected the now revealed shinobi-born kid. “Honda? Right? You’re from our class, but one of the Terumi’s… pledges,” I said carefully.

The boy, Honda, sat up and shook himself, sending flecks of sand about. “...yeah, what about it?” He then eyed Rei like he’d never seen her before. “You took me down?”

She grinned and raised two fingers in a V for victory. “I’m fast! That was just a little game of catch!”

I coughed before she could divulge any more hidden strengths she had. “Honda. I spoke with Hanahime earlier. There’s a truce between our groups.” I pointed at him. “No hostile actions between us.”

Honda gaped at me. “You spoke with Hanahime?” Honda blinked when I didn’t react. “You know she’s like the clan head’s niece, right?!”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I didn’t care,” I said, the lie coming easily to my lips. Internally, I was sweating bullets. Damn it! I really needed to find out who was who! I’d spent too long focusing on things like getting the water bullet jutsu or the mystical palm jutsu working.

“...” Honda stared at me.

I gestured for him to stand up. “Let’s, for convenience’s sake, just claim that you didn’t know about that truce. I let you go report to her, and we let this incident of you sneaking into our group slide, yeah?” I held up a hand. “After you tell us what you did with our teammate.”

Honda coughed. “I knocked them out and left them where they started, it’s um, on the beach that way.”

I turned my head to inspect the area, only to frown. “The part of the beach that the tide is coming up on well and truly now?”

“Yeah?” Then the kid blinked. “Oh.” He shrugged and gave me a smirk. “Oops?”

I restrained the urge to knock him out and instead grabbed him and pushed him towards where I’d seen Hanahime last. “Get the hell out of here!” I reconsidered not harming him and instead stepped after him and kicked him hard in the ass. “Rei, Shoto, scout ahead we need to found out our guy. Let’s move!”

Once more, Rei and Shoto burst off. Kizan watched Honda scurry away with a growl before he moved to join me as I moved up the beach. “We could have beaten on him a bit more, you know?”

I snorted and waved him off. “I don’t think that would go down with the Terumi girl well.” I worked my jaw back and forth. “Anyone else important enough worth knowing about in our year?”

“The Yuki kids have the grandson of the Clan head, not that it means much due to the Hozuki claiming all Yuki as their subordinates. Just means they can’t get away with as much with the Yuki this year.”

“Karatachi or Kaguya?” I asked.

“No idea for the Kaguya but then again, that might not matter with their whole, strength makes for the best leaders. No important Karatachi kids.”

I grunted in acknowledgement only to find myself catching up with Rei and Shoto who were staring out to sea where there was an outcropping of rock with a single person on them waving at us.

“Help!” they cried out before darting around the other side of the rocks. I had a moment of confusion about their actions, only for a large shark to leap from the water and snap its jaws where the kid had just been.

I clicked my tongue as a vague memory of sharks from my past life returned to me. Apparently there was one place in the world where sharks were known to actually leap out of the water from a natural desire to catch sea birds. Somehow, I doubted it was chasing seabirds that had taught these sharks to leap at rocky outcroppings after kids.

I glanced at the number of fins in the water before gnashing my teeth. “Everyone buddy up! If you’re not confident in water walking stay here and on watch!” four of our group stepped back.

I pointed at Rei. “You’re with me; watch my back. We’re going to run across the water and if anything comes for me, you call it out. Stab the sharks as they go past. Loose diamond people!” I called out.

Kizan moved to my right his pole now featuring his kunai attached to it with a strip of cloth from his shirt acting as rope. “What? I prefer not to get close to things that want to eat me?”

Instead of saying something negative back like he expected, I copied him. “Good idea,” I said.

It was a good idea after all. A minute later, we had torn shirts, but were now equipped with ‘spears’. I nodded at the group coming with me before leaping over the edge, Rei at my back.

We ran fast and low over the water. Tiny splashes of water flicking out behind us as we ran. It almost felt like we were real shinobi.

We almost reached the outcropping the kid was on without issue, only for Rei to scream a warning that didn’t register beyond the words, “Your left!”

I cut the feed of my chakra to my feet, dropping into the water before pulsing my chakra to launch myself in a steeper dive straight forward. My spear swivelled to the left and I made it past as the shark exploded out of the water on me. A trio of spears slammed into it and two stuck, causing the shark to flail and bleed as it hit the water.

Then, suddenly, more sharks appeared. Rather than attack us they tore into the weakened shark.

I whistled sharply and got everyone moving rather than watching the feeding frenzy. “Keep moving, eyes up!” I tore my own eyes back to the kid as they leapt out to land on the water wobbly. “Kizan! Carry him back! Center of the formation!”

I shifted to a middle position in the diamond as we reoriented, this time we didn’t make a straight run for the coast but arced around the feeding frenzy. Another shark must have spotted us as it surged out of the water with seemingly no warning. Rei tackled the kid next to her around the ankles and both of them fell under the beast’s belly. Shoto snarled as he tackled the shark which did very little. But he showed that he was thinking ahead by having his spear in position to stab it into the top of the shark's head before it hit the water.

He must have got it in the skull, somehow, as it fell flat and still before it started to sink. Then Shoto grabbed it by its tail and started dragging it after us.

“Drop the damn thing!” I shouted at him only for him to give me a gimlet look like he wasn’t going to drop his trophy. I dropped back and, instead of knocking his hands off. I grabbed the fin next to him and added my own strength. Now wasn’t the time to argue, but rather to get off the damned water.

He grinned at me, and a few moments later we made it to the beach with all of our group and one shark carcass. I dropped the shark and shook myself out before rounding on Shoto. “What the hell was that about?”

Shoto grinned. “I haven’t seen anything to eat around here. Not even crabs which is crazy for an island like this. It’s not natural. There was only the one spring, which we’ve found so far.” He pointed to the bamboo containers. “We have water enough to last us, but we don’t have any food.” He slapped the shark. “Now we do.”

I blinked at the logical thought process. “You’re right.” I bowed my head to him. “Sorry for losing it, I should have just asked you.”

Shoto grunted. “It’s fine; you helped me drag it back.” He glanced around. “Anyone know how to cook shark fin soup? I’ve always wanted to try that!”

I snorted at his antics before checking everyone over. Rei and the boy she’d tacked had some light grazes from where the second shark had scratched them but were otherwise alright. I healed them and the kid we’d rescued. Then a stray thought entered my mind.

I smiled. “Your name is now Sharkbait.”

“Huh?” said ‘Sharkbait’ intelligently.

The other kids laughed and started calling him Sharkbait teasingly, which drew a blush. I just smiled and squeezed his shoulder. “Don’t do it again.”

We then made our way back to the cave entrance that we claimed for ourselves.

There we made up a small fire while it was still light where we hurriedly made up stakes that we used to cook up strips of the shark, all the while on guard for any other kids on the island with us.

We got to eat a full meal uninterrupted and considered that a win before the sun went down and most of the kids bunked down in the cave. The cave itself branched off and we’d learned it went a lot deeper than it appeared.

When the stars came out I found myself sitting with Kizan, Rei and Shoto on watch. Rei couldn’t stop looking at the stars. “I know my mother said they were there but with the Mist… I never thought I’d see them… I’m glad,” she said.

I opened my mouth to ask the question before shutting it. It seemed obvious now that Rei’s family were not merchants. They must have been the servant class. They’d put Rei into the academy as a way to see her jump up the class structure that would see her at the bottom otherwise.

Kizan sniffed. “I’ve been out of Kirigakure on sales runs with my family. The mist is only around Kirigakure as bad as it is because the other nations would attack us otherwise.”

Shoto yawned and scratched his chin. “Yeah, yeah, your family is rich we get it.”

Kizan blushed. “That’s… We’re not that rich. We’re nothing compared to a shinobi clan or one of the big merchant groups.” He flapped his hands about before clenching them. “I’m just saying the mist doesn’t cover places outside of Kirigakure.”

“I still find it amazing…” Rei murmured. “I would have stayed on the beach staring at the waves if Shoto hadn’t been there.”

“It surprised me as well,” I said after a moment. Then I decided to throw Kizan a bone. “Where else have you been outside of Kirigakure? I think I’d like to see those places.”

Shoto snorted but didn’t say anything. Instead, he stayed with us and listened, just as interested as the rest of us to learn more about the world outside the mists of Kirigakure.

I considered it a nice night and it set a good start to our expedition.

For the rest of the week we ran patrols and explored the tunnels underneath the island, and in doing so found a tiny spring that was more than enough for our group to last off.

We otherwise ghosted in and out of the forest as much as we could to test our skills. The Hozuki and the Terumi kids occasionally got into fights. Which proved highly useful for us, as we watched and gathered a list of different jutsu such as the water whip, the clone jutsu, and even an earth spear jutsu. It was all very flashy and a serious step up from the academy fights we’d gotten into, but not that dangerous. It seemed like nothing would happen to change this.

And then, on the last day before we were collected, one of the Hozuki boys tried to stab a girl through the heart when he encountered them alone. He’d assumed they were by themselves. That hadn’t in fact been the case as we’d been watching, but the girl hadn’t been by herself either.

Right before he could kill the girl, Hanahime appeared.

She’d been all over the boy with her kunai and a stick that she used to smack at the kid to drive him away from the other girl as she recovered. When he didn’t back off and instead tried to fight on, Hanahime spat a wad of mist into the boy’s face. The kid had screamed and tripped over himself before landing awkwardly.

His neck made a horrible snapping noise.

He didn’t get up.

I watched Hanahime process that she’d killed someone. She blinked and stared at the now dead boy with her mouth open in shock. Then she swallowed and like shutters on windows her emotions vanished as she urged her still shivering friend away. It must have seemed liek a secret that only she and her friend knew. I glanced over at Rei and Shoto who’d joined me for today’s sneak around ‘mission’. Rei had been white, while Shoto had a focused look about him.

This, we knew, would change things.

It took the Hozuki kids an hour to find their dead fellow. They screamed and roared and gnashed their teeth and started to look around for any details that they could, but there were none that indicated who had killed their friend.

There was a lot of talk about it having to be the Terumi, as the Kaguya weren’t yet killing anyone they beat, and the kid had acid burns on his eyes. They also disregarded us due to us having no chance of learning a fire jutsu yet.

I had to agree with them. We hadn’t stolen those yet. When we’d started picking up jutsu I’d been tempted to force the two ‘warring’ groups to fight more to get more. Or even have them encounter the roving Kaguya groups. That  would guarantee more fights broke out that we could watch.

Now, with a kid dead in front of me, I wish I’d kept them apart.

“What are we gonna do?” asked one boy to the Hozuki leader, thankfully not the one in my class.

The boy grunted. “Nothing, for now. We wait. There are going to be more expeditions and we’ll be ready then.” That got a few sharp smiles as the kids walked away, taking the dead boy with them.

We returned to our own group and informed them of what we’d seen, swearing them all to silence. We spent that night eating another shark—we'd all gotten pretty good at hunting shark, especially Sharkbait—and talking about what we needed to think about for the next time and what that would be like.

When a chunin arrived and ordered us to follow him to a boat, we followed quietly. The boat ride back with everyone in our year on one large boat was extremely tense. It was like there was a powder keg just waiting to be sparked.

Only I suspected, that each spark that fell on it would most likely result in a bigger reaction each time.

The first expedition for our year was over, and a proper blood feud was now in the making, and my group’s desire to grow stronger had only grown.

                               _____________________________
A.N. Whew! That one took a lot of finagling to get myself the time I needed and the energy needed to sit down and write it! I hope I can get more free time next month and life, in general, can calm down! I'm hoping to do a bit more writing with the time off I'm supposed to be getting from work. But yeah, life will find a way as they say?

Hope you have all have a happy holiday and thank you for your support!