Paths of Divergence

Determinent

(Picture above was again drawn by a former author named DropDeadThenDance. OC: Nitatchi Hyuga)

Chapter 2

-Determinant

"No no! That's not a quick enough response time Team Kari! Again!" Shizake shouts at his underlings.

"But Kouen...! The clones are too fast!" Toshi whines while plopping down onto the grass.

"You think our enemies are going to be slow for us? No, our targets are picked for a reason. They are dangerous. We need our skills to be at peak performance. So get up and do it again!"

Shizake forces the three ninja to the other side of the battlefield. The objective is to fend off waves of shadow cloned ninja tools while trying to make it to Shizake to "take him out". Shizake reaches into the pile of shurikens he has set up by him and gives them all a good toss before making the shadow clone hand-sign. The sharp tools seem to flicker before multiplying into dozens upon dozens of shuriken. They soar at the three ANBU who immediately react by sliding into a battle stance and jumping into action.

The air fills with the sound of shuriken deflecting off of other ninja tools. Shizake's squad weaves in and out between the flying weapons, making the best effort to dodge each and every one without being nicked or even worse, impaled.

"Good job so far! Keep it up!" Shizake encourages.

The three ANBU continue to persevere, pushing through the onslaught of cloned shuriken. Finally there's a break, the team exploding through the last wall of shuriken. They all pull out their tantōs, charging at Shizake with full force. Behind his mask, Shizake smirks, a plan formulating in his head. There's a massive poof of smoke before blurs of shadows begin shooting up through the plume of smoke. Shizake's squad looks up to see senbon raining down upon them like a sea of arrows launched by an army of archers. The three stop dead in their tracks gazing upon the hell storm before them. Immediately they react, using their swords to block what they can. It proves to be futile as the tools hit their armor and bounce off, others slicing at the skin that the armor does not protect. Others aren't so lucky as they are directly stabbed, though non-lethally. Finally the senbon storm stops and the smoke clears. The training field is ridden with shuriken and senbon sticking into the ground like a graveyard for ninja tools.

All of the squad except Shizake lays back in the middle of the training field, beaten and bloodied up from the rigorous training. Exasperated, they huff heavily, exhaustion tugging at every inch of their bodies.

"Still not good enough..." Shizake says with his arms crossed.

"That wasn't even fair Kouen!" Toshi yells, pointing an accusatory finger at Shizake.

"You three still haven't learned. The battlefield is ever changing. You have no idea what will come next during a fight so you must be prepared for anything. I threw that last one in there because I knew you weren't prepared for it."

"I see why they made you captain now..." The raven masked man says.

"Heh. Thanks Shozen. We'll keep going until we get this right. Again!" Shizake barks.

Hours and hours of the same thing go by, Shizake cloning the shuriken and adding in a new surprise attack on top of the old one. Eventually the recruits pile ten surprise attacks before they finally give up in a collapsed heap on the ground. The Uchiha shakes his head, glancing up at the gray sky.

"What the hell Kouen...?" Shītto demands.

"I never said it was designed for you to beat it. To be honest I pulled it out of one of the old ANBU training files. There's dozens more I could've tacked on," Shizake states.