Half an Hour Later
"Glad that's over with." I mutter to myself as I'm walking up the mast to my hammock. I'm only partially lying to myself. I did enjoy retelling the events of a Game of Cat and Mouse and Naruto was an enthusiastic audience. But Shikamaru and Ino didn't let me gloss the story up as much as I wanted to.
Yet I can't get used to being around them. I will be leaving them again and soon at that. The very first chance I get.
"Now I can just kick back and relax." I lazily fall into my hammock and let a very contented sigh escape me. "We should be close to the Land of Snow tomorrow afternoonish, provided that there's no unexpected events that happen. Right, I'm going to expect several unexpected events to happen."
"Alright everyone!" I hear the Director call out beneath me. "Are we ready to shoot that scene? The deck of the ship is the perfect spot!"
"You've gotta be shitting me." I groan out.
...
A few Hours Later, With the Konoha Group
"We're all here. Good." Shikamaru temples his fingers together. "We've got to get some form of a game plan together."
"What do you want us to do?" Kakashi asks. "This is your mission, use us however you want."
"I'll take you up on that offer." Shikamaru readily accepts Kakashi's statement. "Okay, so first of is you Kakashi."
"Me? What will I be doing?" Kakashi diverts a smidgen more of his attention to his team leader.
"You're the best one here, that means you get to go after the biggest threat. If we're confronted by a group it's your job to remove their strongest member."
"Simple enough." Kakashi agrees.
"Anko, you're the next most skilled here." Shikamaru turns his intense gaze onto her. "You're going to be focusing on defense. If anyone slips by the rest of us you'll be the last line of defense."
"Aw. I wanted to play." Anko pouts at Shikamaru. "But I do get where you're coming from. This way our forces are evenly spread out among offense and defense. I just don't like it."
"You don't have to like it, you just have to do it." Shikamaru moves on. "Next will be Naruto, me then Ino. We'll be defense or support for Kakashi. We'll break off in that order, so if there's a pair of attackers Kakashi and Naruto will handle them while Ino and I support them. If there's three I'll join, if there's four then Ino joins too."
"Sweet! I get a cool job this time!" Naruto fist pumps.
"You're way too excited for this." Ino sighs. "I hope nothing goes wrong. I'd rather not fight in snow, it sounds very unpleasant."
"What if we're attacked by a group of bandits? Those can get pretty big, way larger than four." Kakashi points out.
"They're bandits. Naruto can send in a horde of Shadow Clones and we'll call that good." Shikamaru easily answers the question. "So, we good? It can change at a moment's notice but that's the basic plan we'll stick to."
"What about Alvarcus?" Naruto asks the question that everyone was thinking. "Why didn't you include him?"
"We already know what he's going to do." Shikamaru frowns. "He made that clear earlier today. He's on defense for Yukie."
"Then why am I on defense?" Anko asks. "If Kakashi is right about him being as strong if not stronger than me why are we both on defense?"
"Because he's on defense for only Yukie." Shikamaru's frown deepens. "I don't want to say this, but Alvarcus has changed. He's not the same as we remember so we can't expect him to act like he used to. I'm not willing to risk the lives of everyone else on the off chance that Alvarcus will step up and save them. That's why you're on defense Anko, because someone has to look out for the rest of our group. He'll keep Yukie alive, I have no doubt of that, but he doesn't care about anyone else."
"He cares about us." Naruto points out. "Even if he says he doesn't he cared enough to stay. Plus he took the time to give us those seals so we don't get ripped to shreds."
"True, but he knows that we can defend ourselves so he's not worried about us." Shikamaru explains to Naruto.
"Ripped to shreds?" Kakashi asks. "He gave me a seal but he told me it was so nothing explodes next to me."
"Strange." Ino speaks up. "He told me that it's because he's got a move that swallows everything whole in a five meter radius. Not even air is spared."
"Ha! I got the best one!" Anko gloats. "He said that it'll stop me from being torn out of this dimension into a void of endless darkness! Pretty sure it's a suicide technique. Those are always nasty."
"Dammit. He's good." Shikamaru's frown deepens even further. "By telling us all different versions he's basically not revealed exactly what the technique is. It could be any one of those or none of them but he still got the desired effect of us being protected from it. How the hell am I supposed to get a plan together when I don't know enough about him? At this rate I won't have anything ready to beat him by the time we're finished with the mission."
"You'll have to face the possibility that he will get away." Kakashi reluctantly admits. "Alvarcus is very crafty, you can plan ahead as much as you want to but all he has to do is find one exploit, one weak point to escape."
"What do you mean 'you'll?' You have to face it too." Anko cuts in.
"I've already lost him twice. A third time will not surprise me." Kakashi's demeanor darkens. "I recognized it as a possibility the moment I first saw him. It's very likely that he will escape again, I've come to terms with it."
"I've got an idea! It'll make him reveal more moves than we've seen so far!" Naruto happily throws out a suggestion. "It's simple, we can all ask him for a spar! We all fight differently so we'll be sure to see a variety of his skills! It's perfect!"
"That's not a bad idea." Shikamaru concedes to Naruto. "But there is a problem with that."
"What is it? It's foolproof." Naruto boasts.
"He can always say no." Ino blandly points out. "He doesn't have to spar anyone and good luck getting him to do anything at all. It's a miracle I've gotten him to do as much as I have. He's freakishly stubborn."
"Guys." Naruto leans forward in anticipation. "I've got a plan."
...
"OI!" Naruto shouts up at me. "ALVARCUS!"
"LEAVE ME ALONE!" I roar back to him. "THE DAMN MOVIE CREW JUST STOPPED FILMING! I'VE GOTTEN FIVE MINUTES OF SILENCE! FIVE MINUTES!"
"I'M COMING UP!" He shouts to me.
"Why? Why don't you people just leave me alone?" I whine to myself. "I think Shikamaru is my favorite. He's the one who has bothered me the least."
"Oh shut up you know you've missed us." Naruto isn't phased at all by my prickly demeanor.
"You know what else I've missed? Peace and quiet." I haven't had that in what feels like years. Oh wait, it has been years. How sad is that?
"So I've been wondering." Naruto ignores my obvious jab at him and everyone else. "I've been trained by a Sannin. You've been trained by a Sannin. Whose Sannin taught better? Yours or mine?"
"I promise Jiraiya's teaching methods are a lot more friendly than Orochimaru's." I monotonously say to him. "I promise it."
"You sure? Jiraiya threw me off a cliff." Naruto returns my blunt tone.
"Orochimaru shoved me down into a hole filled with hundreds of his failed experiments and told me to survive. He left me down there for two months." I one up him. "I'm going to win the game of who has the more fucked up sensei."
"Yeah well one time Jiraiya threw me into a whore house -"
"Brothel." I cut in.
" - whore house and said good luck!"
"Orochimaru ordered one of his kunoichi to seduce me." I'm winning this. "I'm half expecting him to do it again too, I've gotten a fangirl. She'd be more than willing to take that mission."
"I've got to constantly put up with Jiraiya running off to perve on women! Top that one!"
"I've got to constantly put up with Orochimaru asking me to help him with his experiments. You know, the ones that kill people or horribly deform them forever?"
"Damn that's a good one." Naruto's face scrunches up in concentration. "Jiraiya constantly finds new ways to make my training horrible! One time he tied boulders to my limbs and told me to climb a tree! The boulders were so heavy the tree broke!"
"Naruto. Orochimaru constantly maims me horrendously during training." He went down a poor route. "If he doesn't cut of at least one of my limbs during training it was an easy day. On the hard days he cuts them off tens of times."
"Dude." Naruto winces in sympathy for me. "That's fucked up."
"News flash: Orochimaru is fucked up." You could describe all of Orochimaru with those two words. "But his training has made me really good."
"How good?" Naruto boldly asks with a tint of victory.
"Very." I vaguely reply.
"Better than Jiraiya has made me?" Naruto asks with eagerness. He's planning something, something I'm not going to like.
"I dunno." I admit. "Depends on the situation. I know what I'm good at but I'm pretty sure our strengths don't line up exactly. You could probably beat me in some areas while I beat you in others."
"Want to find out?" He very enthusiastically asks me. He's practically vibrating in giddy excitement. "It's like seeing which Sannin is better by comparing their students!"
"Nope. I don't particularly care." I turn my gaze skyward, the sun is beginning to set. It's really pretty to watch the sun set over an ocean, the water makes it even more beautiful than usual. This is what my vacation is supposed to be about.
"Ah come on! Where's the fun in that?" Naruto urges me to spar him. This is not what my vacation is supposed to be about.
"Say hypothetically I do accept. Where would we spar?"
"Uh… on the deck?" Naruto offers.
...
A/N:
If we hit 500 Power Stones by the end of this week, I'll drop an extra chapter as a thank-you!
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...
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