Fire and Ice ~ Naruto Fanfiction ~ Book One

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten: Insanity's Favourite Playground

(A/N: One of my Favourite Openings in this series^^)

I stood in front of the full body mirror in mine and Ren-nii's room, giving myself a look over. Black cargo pants, and my pajama top. I had no idea what to wear as a top and was completely pickled.

A knock sounded from the closed door, followed by a voice. "Rin, are you ready? Ren wants to leave for the second phase of the exams soon." It was Haku.

I went to the door and swung it open. Haku was in an outfit fimilar to his shinobi attire he wore when we met. Brown pants, a black sleeveless high neck top, his green haori that had white trimming, a brown sash wrapped around his waist twice and platoon sandals. His hair was gathered in its usual white bun holder, leaving two locks of hair loose to frame his face with those metal cuffs at the ends. His black forehead protector was tied around his forehead, but this time instead of the Kirigakure symbol it was the symbol for Konohagakure.

I pouted. "Haku, I can't find anything to wear." I sighed, not in a whinny tone, but a frustrated one.

He arched up a perfect brow as he asked his question. "What happened to all of your clothes?"

I groaned and pointed to my opened dresser, showing him my shirts and tops all covered in neon pink paint. "My twin brother happened."

Haku chuckled and shook his head. "Why don't you just take one of his shirts then?" I opened Ren-nii's dresser to show Haku that he had already hid all of his clothes from my reach. "You can borrow some of my clothes, if you'd like." I nodded and followed him to his room, which was just the next one over to the right.

I walked in behind him and looked around. He repainted the walls to be a forest green, but kept the dark hardwood flooring. Senbon were hung and stored everywhere neatly, along with a katana hanging on the wall. "I didn't know you had a katana." I commented, walking over to the sword that had a black and green hilt and was sheathed in a green sheath.

He looked at the sword as I took it off the wall and then looked to me. "I only know the basics of using it, but I don't use it often." He said. "Here, I think this should fit." He tossed to me a sleeveless black top that had a high neck, just like his.

I caught it with ease in the hand not holding the katana. "Thanks, can I wear one of your haori too, please? I'll help you get better at using a sword." He just laughed and tossed a green haori. "Thanks Haku!"

After I changed into the top and haori Haku lent me, we were off to the second phase of the Chūnin exams.

We were all gathered just outside of the 44th Training Field; the Forest of Death. Just as the exam rundown was about to be explained three kids from the academy showed up and the exam was put on hold for interviews. They lookes familiar, but I couldn't really remember who they were.

I sat in front of the three as I awaited their questions.

The orange haired one gave an awestruck look. "Hey! You're that girl that helped save Konohamaru that time with the long haired boy!"

"Oh, so that's why you kids look so familiar." I said, striking my fist into my palm in remembrance. "Anyways, let's get this interview thing over with."

"Want to start by introducing yourself?" The boy with glasses asked.

I nodded leaned back in my seat a bit. "My name is Rin, I'm from outside of Konohagakure and have been living here with my older twin brother for a little over two years now. Oh and my whole team is also about a year or two older than the rest of the rookies my brother and I graduated with. Ren and I are both fourteen while Haku's fifteen."

They were jotting things down in notepads. The kid with a blue scarf asked the next question. "Can you tell us about your team?"

"I'm on Team Momochi which consists of my twin brother, Ren, our friend Haku and myself along with our leader, Momochi Zabuza. Ren is like me, yet at the same time my complete opposite. Haku is our good hearted friend and teammate. He's incredibly talented at fighting and, though I hate to admit this, is at a whole other level than me. He could have been an ANBU if not for the fact that he wanted to stay with my brother and I." A melancholy smile glossed over my face before I wiped it blank once again.

The girl spoke again. "What about your leader?"

"He's strong and a great sensei, though he's also ruthless, cold, and a bit of a sadist. Then again he isn't known as the Demon of the Hidden Mist still for nothing. Over all he's not a bad guy once you get to know him." I smiled at a memory of how his face contorted into shock when I first offered up my proposition to him.

Once the interviews were all finally over, the second phase prompter, Mitarashi Anko, explained to us how this phase was going to go down, and then had papers handed out. They were forms to relieve all responsibility from the Leaf if one were to die, at the very least it wouldn't be on her hands.

As I was signing my form, I heard Uzumaki doing a poor imitation, in a mocking tone, of Mitarashi. Said kunoichi had thrown a kunai at the blonde that grazed his cheek, leaving a thin line of blood for Mitarashi to lick up.

A snake-like woman--no wait that's a man--from Kusagakure returned the kunai using his really long tongue... grose.

Anyways, after Haku grabbed the scroll for us, the three of us went to our assigned gate. Standing there to open it for us was a female Leaf Chūnin with choppy green hair and pale green eyes.

Haku showed us the scroll we got. "So we've got the Heaven Scroll, how ironic." Ren-nii chuckled as he took out two scrolls from his bag and transformed them into Heaven Scrolls.

He handed me the fake scrolls, along with the real one, and i started juggling them before tossing them to each of them. We had already decided who'd be the one to keep the real Scroll while we were signing our forms, so all that was left was for Gate 17 to open up.

The gates opened at the sound of Mitarashi's shout and we rushed into the forest, zipping from tree to tree to the tallest one we had spotted from the gates. Once we got to the top, we stopped and looked to each other. "Well Haku, do you want to make the call?" I asked as Ren-nii and I looked at our teammate.

He was in thought for a moment before nodding. "Alright, I'll start with my mist, then we head in the direction of the Ox-Tiger in tactic three formation." He offered and we nodded.

Rin punched her fist into her palm with a wicked grin. "Alright, let's make some kiddies cry." Haku formed his Hidden in the Mist technique. When the mist was thick enough we each created three clones that grouped.

One set of our clones went northeast, Ox-Tiger, just as Haku instructed. Another three went to the direction of the Boar-Dog, the next to the Snake-Dragon, and we went to the Sheep-Monkey--Southwest.

On the way there I stopped and spotted a team from Iwagakure being tracked by a team from Kumogakure. I also noticed that the Iwa team had the same girl that sat next to Rin during the first phase. "Be right back." I said in a hushed tone to my team and went to the blonde's team.

I quickly made the signs for the Ram→Tiger→Hare and fires gathered around me in two circles. Ren Style: Shatered Phoenix. The little flames shot out at the Kumo team like little phoenix bullets and took them all out as they pounced on the all female team.

The girls looked and had their eyes trained on me as I went up to the burnt corpse of the Kumo team. I grabbed the Earth Scroll from one of the bodies and looked to the Iwa team. "It's kill or be killed during this phase." I said to them in a cold tone. "I'll be taking this." I slipped the scroll into my bag and leaped away to catch up with my team. There are 90 total, 30 teams... seemes this phase is insanity's favourite playground.