Game of Shadows by Adrian King1

Chapter 118

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Cover Art: Kissuli.

Chapter 118

"Things have been quiet," Eiji mused out loud, walking leisurely and looking around only half paying attention. "Too quiet, really," He added, blowing a breath out of his mouth a moment later. He felt tired just thinking about it, really.

"Kinda jinxing us there," Tayuya said, her genjutsu voice straining. It shifted tones and went slower or faster due to the half distracted state of the caster. "Fearless Leader," She added. Oddly, the nickname came a lot clearer than her other words. His guess was that it was because she was more used to saying people's names than she was anything else, really. As good a guess as any, he supposed.

"Maybe," Eiji agreed with a shrug, turning to see Jirobo send a rock flying towards Kabuto, who happened to be on the team leader's other side. The rock flew by, the wind of it gracing Eiji's hair. "Close, that one," He commented, blinking to his side where the projectile had passed by.

"Calculated," Jirobo said. Although, his voice told another story altogether, really.

"That so?" Eiji asked, raising an eyebrow at the Squad members around.

"The exercise seems to be going well," Hachi informed him, since she was the one that had been keeping track of things with his threads. Meanwhile, he'd mostly just relaxed as he played the part of the obstacle he'd set himself up to be.

What was the exercise? It was a simple free for all. However, the very specific rules Eiji had set for it were equally as simple, even if they made the whole thing quite harder for his team. They couldn't team up with anyone else. They couldn't focus on one single person for too long until there were only two people left. And finally, don't hit Eiji.

That last one proved to be something of a pain in the ass for everyone except himself, it seemed. Especially since he started just lazily walking around in the middle of the battlefield and all but sightseeing while the fight went on. It meant that they had an obstacle that moved randomly and at differing speeds. Not an easy thing to avoid, especially when he was neither an ally nor a foe. Those either could be trusted to dodge or they didn't care to hit, respectively. However, Eiji's role was different. He wouldn't dodge, he'd let himself be hit and then punish them for breaking the rule.

Good practice in case they had to fight in a place with civilians or otherwise protecting a moving target, or something along those lines. He was doing his best to come up with different exercises. Sometimes, their aims weren't all that well thought out, sometimes they didn't even have a defined purpose. However, he wanted to keep things unexpected, come up with different ways for them to train, so that they'd better adapt when the time came that they met something that changed the rules of the battlefield.

That was something that was bound to happen, after all, especially if they remained by his side.

"Kumo hasn't done anything on Iwa's side since that day," Kage commented, following where Eiji's thoughts were coming from before. "Which isn't too surprising, all things considered. They are either taking their time to think things through, or they are in the middle of some negotiations."

"As for Akatsuki," Hachi continued then, still keeping an eye on the Squad. "That's more concerning. We have barely heard anything about them in a while. That can only mean they are biding their time for something, and that can't be good."

Those were things they'd already considered. However, the topics were still coming up again and again, just in case they thought of something new. Which they usually did, of course. Several ideas had popped up as to what Kumo and the Akatsuki could be doing or planning. It had even been a concern that Obito might have been controlling the formers into causing the mess they were dealing with. That was one of many scenarios they'd considered so far...