Onoki turned to look at the snake coldly over his shoulder. "This is a part of Iwagakure's chuunin selection exam Sannin."
The serpent hissed, his tongue flicking out between his teeth. "I can taste your lies, Ryoutenbin. And your blood lust"
"Bloodlust snake?" He drawled. "Projecting are we? My Jounin can control himself just fine."
"But accidents do happen don't they." He snarled.
"That's true for anyone. It happened to your Yondaime after all."
That was about as close to an open declaration as he would ever get and everyone knew it.
Onoki panned his eyes behind him. His fellow Kage were watching closely, neutral expressions on their features.
Koutou sat in his chair, brow scrunched as though he had a headache, mouth set in a grim line with his eyes closed.
He looked back to Orochimaru. A cruel smile threatening to pull the side of his lips up.
He'd go through a thousand accusations of breaching the treaty, take on every sanction and cursed word ten times over before he let another Namikaze walk this world.
The Sannin straightened.
"I propose a change to the terms." He said.
"This isn't a forum for yo-"
"Should my team-" He spoke over the shorter man. "-be defeated or lose without suffering crippling, permanent injury or death against your jounin..."
He paused, staring into Onoki's eyes and the Sandaime Tsuchikage could see a glimmer of something behind that gaze.
"Then you...may kill me."
With a crowd of over a thousand people below them the hush that fell over the box was astounding.
Onoki's face twisted into a baleful smile, the sheer glee at Orochimaru's folly shining through every pore of his features. "And if they win?"
Orochimaru's eyes flashed. Ever the predator. "Then I kill your son."
The smile faltered, but reasserted itself after a moment.
Three Gennin defeating or surviving for three whole minutes one of his most elite Jounin? It was a pipe dream.
He could kill the Sannin now, and kill the Namikaze spawn before he could set one foot in Konoha's border ever again.
"Deal!"
Chapter 69
The note was a simple thing really. Five words, scratched onto a slip of paper in his fathers sharply angled handwriting.
Don't kill or cripple them
His curiosity was raised. The sole purpose of his being here was in case the Konoha team won. His job was to kill the six year old child of Minato Namikaze.
He was under the surname Uzumaki but that was a paper thin shield. Anyone that had ever laid eyes on the double S rank monstrosity that had been Konoha's Yellow Flash would see the family resemblance here.
If his father was now recanting his orders for killing them something big must have gone down in the box. He'd have to ask later what it was.
Crinkling the page up in his fist he tossed it to the side as he looked up towards his father then he looked at the proctor and nodded.
Accordingly the Chuunin spoke up. "We apologize for the delay, the final portion of this chuunin exam will now commence. Konoha team take your places please."
The team shuffled back into the field, the silver haired girl limping badly on a leg that had been hastily bandaged by the med nin.
He pulled out a single kunai blade, eyes fixed on his three targets as he waited for the proctor to signal the start.
-0-
"Heard of your son." Zabuza drawled. "One of your best or so I've heard."
"He is." Onoki answered.
"Isn't that a little overkill then?" Mei ventured, eying him through a sideways, narrowed gaze. "Surely any Jounin would do."
"Possibly but I'd rather not embarrass my village by placing a Jounin that had a chance to flat out lose if the winning gennin team was truly exceptional."
It was a practiced excuse, but a valid one. With clients watching the very last thing any village would ever need was having one of their elites get thrashed by a mere gennin of any other village. The three minute mark was the victory any team should pull off if they managed to do so.
Koutou adjusted his weight on the seat, shoulders tense. Orochimaru stood placidly beside him. The Daimyo could say the Sannin had the single greatest poker face he'd ever seen. One would never guess his life was now dangling by the thread of the skills and possibility of three gennin surviving an elite Jounin for three minutes.
-0-
"Begin!"
The words were barely out of the chuunin's mouth before Kitsuchi was behind Ryoko, his open hand thrusting forward to drive the tips of his fingers into the wound at the back of her knee.
The girl howled. It was a sound of bloody murder that deafened her teammates as she fell onto one knee, the wounded one giving out. Kitsuchi moved to kick her in the side of the head when Naruto did a leap frog jump over her, latching onto the Jounin's limb and throwing him completely off balance
The man stumbled and was stabbed with a kunai in the leg, only for the limb, and body to be replaced by a log.
"Above!" Kyofu shouted as a shadow grew over their heads.
Naruto looked but was blinded by the noon sun's glare, barely even seeing the outline of his enemy before he turned his eyes from the harsh sting. "Scatter!" He yelled, and they each rushed to get away, or tried to in Ryoko's case, the girl barely got 1/3rd of her normal distance she would have with her wounded knee.
She had barely landed before a shuriken found its way into her shoulder.
This time she held back her scream, tears of pain leaking from her eyes as she roared, turned and with the mightiest heave she could muster, threw her weapon. Four spinning wind blades exploding from the four tips to cut anything that got in their way.
He swerved to the side, avoiding the blade with laughable ease four of the ninja at the edge of the field behind him formed several earth walls with the wind blade slicing its way through more than half of them before coming to a stop.
The Jounin rushed her.
"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"
There was a cloud of smoke off to the side and a blindingly fast tail whipped out of the smoke, buffeting her with the brush of air of the strike and looking to hit Kitsuchi with a blow that could cut the man in half.
The Jounin barely broke his stride, jumping up and over the tail in a smooth roll, getting to his feet just half a foot infront of her. She drew one of her knives when his foot lashed out, blindingly fast and struck the side of her wounded knee again.
The pain made both legs fail, blinding in its agony; her vision swam as she nearly threw up, the already throbbing injury became the center of her awareness and the kunai blade that ran her hand straight through to nail it to the ground seemed like background noise by comparison.
There was the heat and glare of fire over her head and infront of her face and the next thing she knew a shadow was blocking out the glaringly bright sun.
She groaned in pain, half sitting half laying on the floor, her hand, shoulder and leg pooling her blood over the dirt.
"Ryoko-chan?"
She looked up, fining Naruto's worried face looking down at her.
She swallowed, moistening an all to dry throat. "I'm not...feelin so good." She whispered as her vision darkened and her eyes rolled into the back of her skull.
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