The Fox's Third Flash of Hope

Chapter 12

Computer drawn Kansen definitely gives off a different vibe. I'm proud of myself for not totally messing up her face. Whenever I see fanart I'm just like: I could totally draw like that how hard can it be and me now: nope. I still can't believe I forgot to draw Kansen's choker...

"Well, you definitely passed," Boruto sat up, rubbing his head where he had hit on the stone. "I hadn't anticipated how much stronger you'd gotten. I can't say the same about the other two though."

Kansen turned her head and cast a wayward glance at the two looking down at them from the cliff edge. "Oops. I stole their training. You got anything else in mind?"

"Of course I do. You can't have forgotten that 'severe punishment' I mentioned in the rules?"

Kansen looked at him warily, but her interest had been sparked.

"Originally I never expected any of you to get a bell so I designed it for the three of you all together," Kansen sweatdropped at this, but allowed him to continue."But since you got both bells you're obviously more than qualified so you can skip."

A smile crept up the redhead's face. She would be able to watch Niju and Penami struggle.

This was going to be fun.

*****

It wasn't disappointing at all. Niju and Penami waded through a thick wall of sharp metal thread, gaining a few more holes in their clothing and a few additional scratches. Behind them, stuck in another quagmire, was Rasu trying to pull up Hituro from a very very very loose pit of sand. It was almost liquid. Koruro was trying not to get stuck in the earth himself.

A few feet away from the obstacle course each sitting on one of the three upright training logs in the clearing, were Boruto, Sarada, and Kansen. The two jonin gave eachother a loud high five in the airspace between their logs without looking away from their floundering students.

The training area had taken an entire day to set up, and they certainly had done a good job. Shikadai hadn't helped so his students didn't get to go through the course. His loss.

The obstacle course had three parts: first was the 5 feet deep sand pit(Penami and Niju somehow managed to get across by a weird version of swimming without water), then the 3 feet thick wall of edged metal string that only had a few openings requiring flexibility, and finally was the vortex lake.

They had purposefully chosen this training area because of the waterfall and lake. A few trees grew into the waterfall, seemingly cutting it in half. Apparently the Seventh had trained here when he was developing Wind Style: Spiralling Shuriken. His team captain had created the cliff and waterfall.

Now, at the bottom of the huge, rumbling blue curtain was a whirlpool of equal intensity. Boruto and Sarada had felt kind of bad messing up the pretty lake, but it couldn't be helped. It was their first time being put in charge of genin; drastic times required drastic measures.

The other two obstacles were at the top of the cliff. Niju and Penami were almost through the wire wall now. What a surprise they would have to find they only had a few inches of foot space after the wall.

Sitting on their logs next to the lake, the three observers tilted their heads upwards to see the teens that were twenty feet above and in front of them.

Kansen knocked her feet together and against the stump, water constantly spraying her. A fine mist soaked through her clothing. She was actually really glad she wasn't doing this. The whirlpool did not look nice. She doubted falling in would either.

A loud scream sounded as a black haired boy fell along with the water and plunged into the whirlpool. Penami's jaw was open as she looked at Niju's blurry underwater form spinning around in the watery vortex. She was shaking from holding her position in the middle of the hostile threads. Her two feet were planted far away from eachother, front and back, and her arms were similarly placed. She was bent backwards at an awkward angle, craning her neck to see in front of her.

Niju washed ashore, limp and bruised. The three observers, being the sadistic people they were, let him be.

Penami closed her eyes and sighed. She quickly and carefully retracted herself from within the barricade of metal and fell over the ledge. She let out a long, high pitched "kyyaaa!" before being silenced by the water surface meeting her entire front side. Ouch. Kansen winced looking at the huge splash. The Sarutobi girl would be sore for days.

Meanwhile, the remaining three had begun weaving through the screen of sharp string.

Rasu's ninja hound, Tomaru, was having a far easier time than everyone else. Being only about the size of Rasu's head, the yellow patched light brown female slinked through the gaps with nary a scratch, except once when her pointed ear grazed a strand. The little dog didn't even notice until blood trickled into her eye.

After a painful 5 minutes, they had pretty much made it through. As soon as Koruro was able to move freely without sustaining injury, Rasu, who was behind him at this point, pushed him over the edge and into the raging water below. The greenette didn't even scream, just plummeted with wide purple eyes and somehow impacted feet first with closed eyes.

Rasu pretty much just jumped while grabbing Tomaru's waist. Nothing special. Her curly hair was straight when she emerged from the water. Her hound strutted head held high out of the water, indignantly soaked.

Hituro had a "what do I do" look while stranded up in the clouds by himself, so Kansen sent an Air Impact up to him and gently knocked the Hyuga off.

When all five had made it in front of the logs, the observers hopped off.

Rasu was wringing water out of her hair, accidentally pulling out strands and trying to get them off her hands. The struggle was real.

Niju was holding his head. He would have a nasty bruise for a few days, if the current level of pain was to judge by.

Penami was standing there dazed, eyes looking at nothing in particular. Her entire front was numb and on fire at the same time, and blood was trickling from her nose. Lesson learned: don't dive off a cliff into water horizontally.

Koruro and Hituro seemed fine and were silently wringing water out of their clothing.

"It really is a pity the whirlpool didn't do any damage. And we spent so much time setting it uuuuup," Sarada complained.

"Well the jumping part was amusing at least," Boruto said matter-of-factly. "Now, you are all excused. Next time me or Sarada will come to your house to get you, so be prepared at all times." He ran off full speed. Talk about short good-byes.

Sarada flashed a large closed eye smile. "Rest up!" Then she disappeared too.

The six genin were left alone in the clearing. Penami finally mustered enough concentration to talk. Though she was the only one who spoke, the five that went through the course all felt the same way.

"It's soooooo unfair that you got to skiiiip, Kansen............"

Ahaha I have to say writing this chapter was quite amusing.