Chapter 26 Part 2
One short but expressive girlish scuffle later, the genin were seeing off the first day of the exam's second stage.
Two ruffled girls sat on opposite sides of the hollow, occasionally exchanging lightning-fast glances. The young man seated closer to the exit felt slightly uncomfortable, and was trying with all his might not to stare at the girls in their damp clothes, clinging to their bodies.
UUUUURRRRRR!
Hearing the strange sound, the team started, glancing around in search of its source. Very quickly, Sakurai's and Sasuko's gazes converged on Naruko.
"Oh, that was me. Heh-heh!" The girl laughed, sheepish, with a noticeable blush on her cheeks. "Might be time to eat."
RUURRKRR! Her stomach confirmed.
"Pfh... hh..." Trembling, Sasuko snorted, derisive. The girl turned away from her comrades, but her shaking shoulders gave her away completely.
"Heh... heh-heh..." Haruno pressed his lips tight so as not to burst out laughing aloud.
"HEY!! Don't you dare laugh at me, tebane!!!" The blonde protested, but she herself had already started quietly giggling.
It was the stupidest stupidity of all stupidities, but for some reason, it was incredibly funny. So funny it was simply impossible to hold back. It took them some time to calm down, but even after, smiles lingered on the teenagers' faces. The laughter had helped the genin shed the tension of a hard day.
And they also remembered they hadn't eaten in a very long time.
It was a very late supper. The moment they unsealed their scrolls, the genin nearly drowned in the saliva flooding their mouths: the food sealed within the scrolls had preserved its freshness and, most importantly, its temperature. Simple as they were, still-hot(!) rice balls were nearly ambrosia. For the next ten minutes, the genin simply devoured the food greedily, caring about nothing else.
"UMmm! Thank you, Koru-chan!" Naruko sang out, happy, patting her full stomach.
"Mh..." Sasuko agreed, sated, reflecting that she ought to thank the young man after the exam. By Sasuko's calculations, the food should last another two or three meals. If they rationed, six or seven. Plus, they still had a supply of food pills, also included in the kit Kaoru had provided. But pills were a last resort. It would be simpler to secure food by hunting. Though, Sasuko wasn't planning to let it come to that. Tomorrow, at worst, the day after, they would have to obtain the matching scroll and reach the tower.
"Damn, so enviable... but it was delicious." Sakurai mused, glum, stealing glances at the brunette's satisfied face. Once again, he'd had his nose rubbed in his own lack of preparedness. And even though he now understood it was his own fault for not thinking to gear up seriously, that didn't negate his emotions. The feeling of being slighted was extremely unpleasant.
"UUMMmhhh!... Nee, what're we gonna do?" Naruko asked, stretching with relish. Leaning back against the uneven wall, the girl lifted her gaze to the dim lantern. "Tomorrow, I mean. Set up another ambush?"
"A waste of time," Sasuko spoke, frowning. "We could sit here until the stage ends and achieve nothing. We need to find a team with a different scroll and attack!"
"But then we could end up walking into a trap ourselves, Sasuko-chan!" The young man countered, reasonable, peering intently at some small vial. "Maybe we should take it a little..."
"Tch! What's the point in that?!" The brunette cut off sharply. "That way, we'll just fall behind!"
"Ugh, that was harsh. What the hell, Hedgehog?!" Naruko protested.
"Shut up, Idiot." Sasuko's cheek twitched. The current situation was starting to grate. Uchiha was the best in her class. She was used to achieving the best results. Did Haruno not understand that his approach was too cowardly?! Hiding, waiting for an enemy to just up and wander into a trap? And hoping, on top of that, that the ones who fell into it would have the scroll the team needed? It was far simpler and more effective to find their own target! Sasuko was convinced they needed to act more decisively, more aggressively. "You... Hm?!"
"Listen, Sa—"
"Sh!" The brunette exhaled, hoarse, waving a hand. Her body tensed, and her ears greedily caught every sound.
Seeing their comrade's alertness, the others focused as well, freezing in place. Half a minute passed, a minute, a second... Somewhere outside, thunder boomed.
"Sas... What?.." Naruko whispered, lips dry.
"I don't know," the tense Uchiha breathed out slowly. She herself couldn't understand what had put her on guard. For a fleeting moment, it had suddenly seemed to her as if Shinigami was sharpening its scythe behind her back. Something anxious, imperceptible, hung in the air. "I... OUTSIDE!!!"
Jolting sharply, Kaoru broke free from his half-slumber. The inkwell knocked over by the abrupt movement rolled across the floor with a clatter, spilling thick ink liberally.
"How unsettling..." The young man whispered, turning his face toward the window. "Guys... I hope you're alright."
Sighing heavily, the young man wearily rubbed his face with his hands, completely oblivious to the ink smearing across it. During the second stage, the perimeter of Training Ground 44 was heavily guarded, so he simply couldn't sneak into the forest to keep an eye on the genin.
Kaoru could only hope his preparations would be enough...
"Ah... Work! Work-work-work..." The young man muttered, dipping his brush straight into the ink stain on the floor. He didn't have much time. There was work he urgently needed to do.
The genin burst out of their shelter without unnecessary delay. An instant later, a multitude of incessant cracks and crunches sounded behind their backs. The dense wood was pierced by hundreds of fine needles that literally riddled the hollow's walls through and through.
Disoriented, the team members began frantically peering into the darkness of the rainy night, trying to understand: where had the attack come from, and where was the enemy. But it wasn't necessary: the enemy announced their presence themselves.
"Ku-ku-kuuu... Good reflexes," a hoarse voice praised from the darkness, mocking. To the accompaniment of thunder, a flash of lightning illuminated a slender figure upon one of the branches. "Excellent!"
"Tch... Who the hell are you?!" Naruko shouted, angry and frightened, craning her head toward the unknown shinobi. On top of the darkness, the rain greatly hindered visibility, making it extremely difficult to make out the attacker.
"Kusa..." Sasuko muttered, enhancing her vision with her Sharingan.
"Hu... Those eyes." It seemed the mood of the unknown man from Grass only improved with each passing moment. "Yes, those are the ones! Those beautiful eyes. The eyes of the Uchiha!"
Lightning flashed again, and the genin shuddered. An invisible horror gripped their bodies and sank its claws into their souls. Even when everything darkened once more, those terrible eyes still stood before their vision. Terror paralyzed them.
"This... It's like that woman!" A weak thought rustled in Naruko's head.
"This dread..." Sakurai trembled, unable even to think.
"Just like Zabuza! He's the same kind of monster as her!" The realization struck Sasuko as she convulsively tried to force herself to move even a finger. A moment later, the girl understood: she'd been wrong. True, this monster was even more terrifying than Zabuza. The pressure this shinobi evoked by their mere presence made even simple breathing difficult.
"Ughh!" Naruko groaned with strain. Her body twitched disobediently, but she stubbornly forced herself to move. And she was succeeding! A recalcitrant hand, shuddering convulsively, reached her pouch so her cotton-wool fingers could catch on the cold iron of a kunai. Even paralyzed with terror, she could still resist this. One of the nuances of being a prison for a demon: eventually, you simply start getting used to this sort of thing.
"Khuuu?.. Curious. Well then... Shall we begin?" The shinobi licked their lips, predatory. "Our battle!"
And again, the genin shuddered at the sheer quantity of bloodlust directed at them. And then... death was all around them. Another rain joined the water droplets: a rain of steel needles. It descended upon the frozen genin. A flash of lightning blinded the world, accompanying the roar of thunder with the sound of pierced earth.
"Ho, you fled?.. Not bad." The enemy praised, seeing that the attack hadn't reached its target: the ground was studded with iron needles, but there were neither bodies nor blood. "Excellent! Prey should be lively!!!"
"What... what... was that?.." Sakurai whispered, incoherent, dimly grasping what had happened in the last few minutes. His mind had been literally stunned by the enemy's psychological attack.
"Crap... we're in deep crap..." Sasuko muttered, feverish. The proud Uchiha was pale as chalk, and the heart pounding in her chest felt ready to burst from the strain. The girl clenched her fists so hard she'd cut her own palms with her nails. But it was precisely that shocking pain that helped her throw off the stupor.
She had never been so badly frightened. Mixed with the fear was also a hefty dose of shame and anger: Sasuko simply couldn't believe she'd been scared! But it was fact: moments ago, she'd been shaking with fear and could barely even breathe.
"Agh-ieee..." Naruko exhaled, pained, yanking a metal needle out of her shoulder. She'd never been faster than her rival before, and in this case, nearly half-paralyzed, she'd barely managed to escape the enemy attack's area of effect, catching a few unpleasant "gifts" with her body along the way. Only, unlike her comrades, Uzumaki was reckless enough to provoke a completely opposite reaction to external pressure. In other words: she got angry. "Ugh! Nasty bastard! Did you guys see him? It was sudden, but that trick's not gonna work on him again! I'm gonna kick his ass!"
"Don't yell, you stupid idiot!!!" Sasuko hissed furiously at the blonde. "He could find us if we're not careful! Didn't you feel it?!"
"So what?! That bastard just got lucky catching us off guard!" Naruko raged back, though she did, at least, drop her voice to a whisper. "Remember that bandaged woman! We handled it back then!!! And like hell am I gonna shake with fear!"
"Don't be such a moron, Naruko! This enemy isn't on our level!" As loathsome as it was to admit, Sasuko realized they couldn't defeat an opponent like this. "In any case, we have to retreat! We can't fight him. Not at night!"
The Uchiha frowned: the entire setting was against them. Though shinobi were trained to operate at night, they'd never been prepared for pitch-black darkness. The downpour's noise completely drowned out hearing, and the dense clouds hid the stars, depriving them of even the smallest scraps of light. Their enemy, judging by everything, experienced no problems at all with the darkness. This put the genin team at a severe disadvantage. Worsening the situation was the fact that most of their supplies had remained in that ill-fated hollow.
"It couldn't be worse!" The Uchiha lamented, patting down her pouches. They could only hope the enemy would be satisfied with their scrolls and not pursue the team. Though Sasuko had little faith in that: the enemy had clearly stated their position, they had come to kill! Moreover, they apparently had some business with her bloodline. Maybe the Uchiha had once killed someone the Grass shinobi knew, and now they wanted revenge? Blood feuds were the most trivial phenomenon in the shinobi world.
"Hey! Hey, Sasuko!" Naruko tugged the brunette by the sleeve, insistently drawing her attention.
"What?"
"Do you still have Koru-chan's scrolls?"
A scroll? Yes, she had one. One of two, to be precise, the field first-aid kit.
"Yes, I have it," she answered, trying to make out her comrade through the gloom and water. "Were you badly wounded?"
"Eh? That's nothing! I heal fast! What's more important: give it to me!" The fussy blonde waved it off, impatiently reaching into Sasuko's pouches herself.
"Gh, stop, idiot! Not there, you'll mess everything up!" Knocking away the other's hands, the girl fished out the sought item from one of the hidden pockets. "What do you need it for?"
"I think I saw something like that in there..." Naruko muttered, thoughtful, unfurling the paper bundle with a sharp motion and unsealing it. Wasting no time, she began rummaging through the contents that burst forth, searching for something only she knew. "Not that, not that... argh, can't read!.. not thaaaat... GOT IT!"
Exclaiming in victory, the blonde squeezed a small box between her fingers. She'd recognized it by the small symbol carved into the lid. Since Naruko had unsealed her own first-aid kit out of curiosity (and because of that, it had remained in their abandoned shelter), she roughly knew what she needed to look for. Though she didn't recall the exact name given in the instructions: "extract of purple..." something-or-other, the note, she remembered well. "Apply to eyelids, wait half a minute. For night vision. Protect eyes from bright light!!!" The explanation had been short and succinct.
"What is that?" The Uchiha asked with curiosity, peeking out for a brief instant from behind the root of some tree in whose niche they were hiding.
"You said as long as we can't see that creep, we can't fight him either, right?!" The blonde asked, fired up. "Then we just need to be able to see him! So... this... mm..."
Wasting no more time, the girl opened the box and dipped her index finger into the thick mass. Sniffing it out of curiosity, Naruko jerked, banging her head on the root above: the smell was very sharp and pungent.
"Hope this stinky gunk helps..." The girl thought, liberally smearing the ointment over her eyelids.
"Hm?.." Sasuko was intrigued. Thanks to her Sharingan, she could notice something strange: the greenish ointment seemed to glimmer faintly with luminescent light. When Naruko, having waited the requisite time, opened her eyes, the Uchiha nearly flinched with surprise: the blonde's eyes shone dimly with that same greenish luminescence.
"Wah?! Everything's so green!" Naruko exclaimed, amazed, looking around. The pitch darkness had, for her, been replaced by a dim green picture. But most importantly, she could see! In varying shades of dark, but she could see, and more than clearly. "Hey, I can see you!"
"Really?.." Sasuko murmured, not believing it. "Naruko, you can see in this darkness?"
"Yep! But everything looks so weird... and green. Lots of green. But it looks like it's working!"
Sasuko's mind broke into a gallop: it seemed their odds had slightly improved. Their main problem had been that the enemy could see them, and they couldn't. Now, a chance had appeared to somewhat bridge the gap. Though the Uchiha harbored some doubts about how her eyes would interact with this preparation, they had no other choice. So she decided to trust in her faith in Kaoru and his pharmaceutical mastery.
And besides...
"That idiot's definitely gonna die if she fights alone," Sasuko thought, with a considerable share of irritation, refusing to admit she was worried about Naruko. Without hesitation, the brunette scooped up the ointment with her fingers and resolutely smeared it over her eyelids. The girl felt a faint itch on her skin, and her eyes seemed to grow warmer, but the miraculous remedy's effect more than compensated for the discomfort with interest: her vision gained clarity! It was far from ideal, but the Sharingan's capabilities worthily compensated for the imperfection of her newly acquired night sight. Now she could see the enemy, she could fight!
Now they would have a chance!
...
Or rather, that's what she thought.
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Thanks for reading the chapter!
I started a new translation and I would be very happy if you decided to check out my new translation for a rather rare fandom. It's a crossover based on Mondaiji (Problem Children Are Coming from Another World, Aren't They?)
This story has a somewhat similar style to my other translation for this fandom (same author, after all), but it's completely different from any other fanfic I've come across for this fandom! It's set thousands of years before the original novel/anime, and the MC literally plays a part in shaping the backstory of this world. I really enjoyed it—hope you will too!
Mondaiji: I Really Didn't Want to Become God https://www.webnovel.com/book/36945944200410205