As soon as the Iwa jonin had said start, Several jutsu were being thrown around to blast enemy nin back from the sticks.
Jets of water, balls of fire and great walls of stone rose up all around us, but my team didn't care. We were already running towards Ryzo.
When Ryzo had thrown the sticks into the air, I'd seen the opening for what it was and reached out with three chakra strings towards the sticks.
Next to me, Kenji had done the same, except he only sent one string. We weren't the only ones with this idea.
One of the sticks I'd been going for with my third string was pulled away before I could grab it by a ninja wire sent by a Kiri genin who'd been standing closer to Ryzo than our team was.
Another stick was snatched by an Earth clone that threw the stick back to its creator before being scattered by a wind jutsu that cut it in half.
Kenji's string wrapped around a stick, and I was able to grab two. I handed one to Misa as we ran. It was better to spread them out to guarantee one of us getting hit didn't lose them for us.
With our three sticks clutched protectively to our chests, we dashed towards Ryzo, an unspoken truce between us, the Kiri team and the Iwa team that had sent the clone to not screw with each other.
If we fought, the odds of our sticks breaking or being lost was high, so it was better to just ignore each other unless we were attacked first.
"Four teams chasing us. Seven o'clock. None are from Konoha." Misa reported, the veins around her eyes bulging under the effect of her byakugan. I knew that she and her Byakugan would be incredibly useful to notice as well as avoid the different genin teams.
Either the teams behind us knew that we had multiple sticks, or they didn't want to deal with the hundreds of genin fighting over what sticks were left behind, hoping to steal ours instead. Either way, we had to lose them.
Thankfully, there was no Konoha team chasing is or I would have to wonder whether Hiruzen's will of fire was losing it's effect or not. Attacking your own village Genin in a chunin exams might be something that his will of fire wouldn't like.
I closed my fist around my stick, using one of the techniques Shikaku had shown me during our training to cut it in half, but holding it together with my shadows so it didn't appear to be broken.
"Kenji, Misa, keep hold of your sticks. I'm throwing mine away to ditch our pursuers." I reported before tossing my stick high into the air.
"One team following us. Six o'clock." Misa reported. My diversion had worked, but not well enough. We were almost to Ryzo now, but I didn't want to risk that other team slowing us down enough for the other genin behind us to steal our stick.
"Kenji, give me your stick." I ordered. He handed it to me without a word of complaint. I repeated my shadow trick, slicing the stick in half but holding it together with my shadow as I threw it straight into the air.
The teams that were following us would fight over the sticks that I threw. But since they are broken, they would not be able to pass. Thus, I was eliminating the competition at the same time.
"We're clear." Misa reported as we closed in on Ryzo.
The Iwa team had beaten us to Ryzo. He was holding their stick and they were standing behind him, not appearing even the least bit winded. I attributed their greater speed to a home field advantage, but I made a note of their faces just in case.
Misa held our stick out to Ryzo as we stopped in front of him.
Ryzo looked bored as he plucked the stick out of her hand and looked it over. "What team are you?"
"Team 3." Misa reported.
"Team 3 passes." Ryzo said, grabbing both ends of the stick Misa had given him and snapping it in half. "Stand behind me and wait for the test to be over."
We all fell in a few meters away from the Iwa team and watched the rest of the test. Off at the other end of the field, there were still jutsu being thrown back and forth. We all watched closely, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the fighting ninja.
This test had gone about as well for us as it could have. We got through it in second place and revealed almost nothing we were capable of.
All we'd used were chakra strings and Misaki's byakugan which was already a known quantity. I also used my shadows, but I was hoping the teams who caught the sticks I threw would think it was a genjutsu. Even then it was not much of a big deal. We'd also prevented two teams from progressing after us.
The Kiri team that had snagged one of the sticks I'd been going for with ninja wire finished behind us. Then two Iwa teams were disqualified as the sticks they presented to Ryzo fell apart in his hands, no longer held together by shadows.
It was very hard for me not to grin in triumph at the furious looks those teams shot my way. I just stared straight ahead and acted as if they didn't exist. That only seemed to piss them off more.
When all was said and done, fifteen teams had passed the first test of the Chunin Exams to move on to the second.
In addition to the two sticks I had broken, three others broke in the mad fighting back at the start.
The upside was we would be facing fewer teams in the second round. The downside was we were the only team from Konoha to advance, and there was only one team from Suna, a tentative ally of Konoha.
The rest of the teams were from Iwa and Kumo with the exception of the Kiri team that finished right behind us and a team from Ame. I didn't recognize any of the people we'd be facing in the next round from the anime, which was good and bad.
Good in that they weren't named characters with absurdly busted abilities. Bad in that we knew nothing about them so they might have absurdly busted abilities.
---------Author Notes--------
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