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 Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:01 pm
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you are officially ahead of Tokyopop....yipee!!!! and now...the Orochimaru fight.....i heart orochimaru!!!!!!
Chpater 12: A Common Mark
The test had begun almost three hours ago. Sasuke had come up with the idea of avoiding as many ninja as possible wile determining the layout of the training zone. They had been following this plan, leaping from tree to tree, when Sasuke stopped.
“What’s the matter?” Sakura asked.
“This is taking too long. We need to do this faster.”
“I could go up in the trees and get the basic layout by listening to sound waves.”
“Right. I forgot you could do that. How long should that take?”
“Not too long I hope. I’ve been practicing and I’ve gotten a lot better.”
“Then you should do that.”
“Hey! Who disappeared and put you two in charge?” Naruto was clearly irritated that they had not consulted him at all.
“Kakashi,” the Uchihas replied in unison. Naruto looked dumbfounded, he obviously thought they wouldn’t have an answer.
There was an awkward silence, until Solari spoke up. “All right then, you guys stay here. I’ll be back.” She began climbing the trees and didn’t stop until she reached the highest branch that would support her.
She sat down and began focusing on what was going on around her. She could hear animals as well as other ninja. From what she could tell, there were no ninja near Sasuke and the others. Most teams were all ready locked in combat while others were doing the same thing as team 7. She estimated that the gates were 10 kilometers tower in the center before Sakura called her back down.
When she got back on the ground, she noticed the concerned look on both Sakura and Sasuke’s faces. “What’s the matter?”
“You’ve been gone for over an hour.”
“And so has Naruto,” Sakura said.
“I guess I’m not really getting better. But where did Naruto go?”
“He went to the bathroom,” Sakura said with a disgusted look on her face.
Solari rolled her eyes. “Of course.”
From behind them they heard a scream. It was unmistakably Naruto. The three of them began running in the direction of the scream, but before they got very far someone blocked their way. It was the grass ninja from before.
“Let’s just get this out of the way, I have a Heaven scroll,” they said.
“So do we, so let us go by,” Sakura responded.
The ninja smiled a horrible smile, it was more like a leer. “I just wanted to get that out of the way. I could care less about the scrolls. I just want to fight you.” As the ninja said this, they made eye contact with each of them.
When Solari met the ninja’s eyes, she immediately collapsed to the ground.
She felt fear and suffering to the point where it cause her pain. She was 7, in the Sound village having to suffer through her accident. She was 8, running for her life from the Sound jonin. She was 10, trying to kill herself because she didn’t understand why she had to suffer through what she had. Then the pain stopped.
Solari found herself on her hands and knees. She was sweating, and when she tried to move she suffered from violent shaking. Working through this, she managed to move her head. Sasuke and Sakura were in no better condition, and the ninja looked disappointed.
“I was hoping this would be more fun. I’ll guess I’ll just have to draw this out a bit.” The ninja disappeared, reappearing behind Solari.
Despite her situation, Solari was horribly reminded of their first fight with Zabuza. In both cases she was a sitting duck. Why me? She thought as the ninja dragged her up into the trees.
They stopped after a while and the ninja put her down. Solari still had no chance of escaping, however, due to the vice-like grip on her left arm.
“So tell me Solari. Is that your new team? They aren’t anywhere near as strong as the team I had you on when you were in the Sound village.”
With a jolt of horror, Solari realized why that ninja’s tongue looked so familiar. “L-L-L,” she realized what she was about to say and stopped herself. “Orochimaru?”
“You remember me, I’m touched. I’m also glad you did not break you promise, you almost called me Lord.”
She tried to run but couldn’t feel her legs. Instead, she clasped her right hand over her left shoulder near the base of her neck.
Orochimaru smiled. “How is that going for you? What do you tell people when they see that curse mark I put on you neck?”
“They don’t see it. The Hokage sealed it as soon as I got back to the village.” Seeing the look on Orochimaru’s face, she instantly regretted saying this.
“We’ll just have to fix that won’t we?” Orochimaru raised his hand and slammed it down on the curse mark.
Solari felt extreme pain. She first felt Orochimaru’s jutsu eating away at the seal that had been there for four years. She then felt the power of the curse mark break free and flow through her body. The mark began to spread and Solari collapsed to her knees.
Sasuke leapt up behind them, without Sakura. “What did you do to her?” he shouted, seeing the black marks that covered more than half of her body.
“Nothing new. Anyway she’s only your team mate, so think about yourself and run.”
“No. She’s my sister, not just my team mate. I will save her.”
“Then it’s time to get serious. Let me introduce myself.” Orochimaru lifted his hand over his face and began to peel off the face of the grass ninja. His eyes were yellow and snake-like. His white skin stood out against his black hair. But what horrified Solari was not Orochimaru’s face, which she had seen before, but the fact that he did not bother to pull off the grass ninja’s face entirely.
“You’re a monster!” she shouted through the continuing pain of the curse mark.
He turned to face her. “Thank you, I try.” He then turned his back on her and took a step towards Sasuke. “Well then Sasuke Uchiha, it is very nice to finally meet you. After all you are one of the two reasons I am here. My name is Orochimaru. Now, you said Solari was your sister. This should make things interesting, I hope.”
Sasuke turned and ran but Orochimaru chased after him, leaving Solari behind. She tried to move and managed to stand while balancing against the tree. Sasuke has no chance against him. I have to help. Using all the strength she could, Solari attempted to force the curse mark to recede. She got the mark to leave her legs, she could now move. After regaining her balance she immediately went after Sasuke and Orochimaru.
When she got there she realized it was too late. Sakura was watching helplessly while Sasuke was immobilized on the ground.
Orochimaru looked up at her from the ground. “Good, you’re here. I though you might want to watch this.” Orochimaru made a hand sign and his neck began to extend. He was headed for Sasuke. He bit Sasuke’s neck with fangs produced by the jutsu and his head went back in place.
“No!” Solari yelled, but it was drowned out by Sasuke’s own agonized scream.
“What did you do to him?”
“Just a parting gift. Soon both the Uchihas will come to me by choice,” he looked up at Solari, “I promise.” With that, Orochimaru disappeared.
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 2:35 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:58 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 4:35 pm
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 5:36 pm
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Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 11:47 am
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:57 pm
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:03 pm
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Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:39 pm
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Chapter 13: Old Friends
Solari jumped form the tree and landed next to Sasuke. Sakura ran over to them but Solari stopped her. “Go find Naruto.” She said with a pained looked on her face.
“But what about Sasuke?”
“I’ll find a place for him to stay until he regains consciousness.”
Sakura looked worried as she turned to find Naruto. As soon as Sakura was out of sight, Solari bent over Sasuke. She felt like she was about to cry, but no tears came out. If he survives this, his life will be even harder and more miserable than it already is. She picked him up and went off to find a place to stay.
A little bit later, Sakura found the overturned tree that Sasuke and Solari were under. She was carrying Naruto, who was unconscious. Laying him down on the ground next to Sasuke, she said, “What do we do now?”
“Well one thing is for sure, no one can tell Naruto about the curse marks Sasuke and I have. He would go blabbing to everyone.” Solari looked up from Sasuke’s face to see Sakura staring at her. It took a few seconds before Solari realized that Sakura was staring at the curse mark that was still covering her entire left side of her body.
“Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine, I’ve dealt with this before. The real question is, will Sasuke survive.” At the confused look on Sakura’s face Solari continued to explain. “There is only about a 10% survival rate for people with this particular curse mark. I was lucky.”
“Is there any way to find out if will survive?”
“I don’t know. I suppose if I listen to him close enough I can hear how his body is reacting to the mark. But you will have to keep a very good look out. I’ve never done this before and if I loose consciousness someone need to guard the three of us.”
Sakura nodded, showing she understood. Solari began to focus on Sasuke, using the same jutsu she used when listening to her surroundings.
Instead of her finding Sasuke, however, something came out and grabbed her. The next thing she knew she was inside Sasuke’s mind. She did not only hear what he was thinking, she saw it to. She saw a 7-year-old boy she assumed was Sasuke. He was sitting in the corner of a room crying.
“I wasn’t strong enough. It’s my fault everyone died.” Solari felt like she was intruding and tried to pull away. However it didn’t work. She could get out of Sasuke’s mind. The last thing she heard was Sakura shout her name before Solari’s knees buckled and she fell, unconscious.
* * *
When Solari regained consciousness the forest thing she saw was Sakura. Sakura was fighting Zaku, and losing. Turing her head she saw another boy fighting Dosu and Kin, he was also losing. Solari jumped up to help them and ran over to the boy.
“You must be Solari,” he said between punches. “My name is Rock Lee.”
Solari nodded in acknowledgement. “Great now let me help you.” She picked up a rock and threw it at Kin to get her attention. Kin turned and smiled.
“It’s about time.” Kin threw some senbon at Solari who jumped to avoid them. As she did this Solari noticed that the curse mark had gone back to normal and was no longer covering her body.
Good. She thought. Not only will this free up my movement, but now that the mark is not sealed I can use jutsus that were blocked by the seal. She dodged some more senbon and tried to bring Kin away from the others.
“Figures,” she said following her, “you were always so weak. I bet your doing this so the three of us won’t team up on you.”
“Not likely, maybe I just want to kill you first.” Solari swung a punch, which Kin dodged. While Kin was on the ground she kicked Solari’s legs, causing her to fall to the ground.
“In order to kill me first you need to actually touch me.” Kin smirked but was forced to recede farther into the forest to avoid the cloud of kunai knifes and shuriken Solari had thrown.
They continued to fight. Kin was using a variety of senbon. Solari was using taijutsu and kunai knifes. Finally they both stopped. They both were equally battered and out of breath.
“Just as I thought. You’re as weak as ever.”
Solari smiled. “Hah, you’re not exactly unscathed yourself. Anyway I was holding back. You’re the one that’s just as weak.”
Kin ran at her and punched her in the stomach. Solari collapsed to the ground, coughing up blood.
“You were bluffing. You are just as weak as ever.” Kin opened her hand and a senbon fell out, the tip of it was covered in blood.
Solari put her hand over her stomach and felt a small puncture wound. When she looked at her hand again she saw it covered in blood. She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly, waiting for the pain to stop. When she opened her eyes again the edges of her vision were blurred. She looked up at Kin and saw a muscle twitch in her right arm. Solari lifted an arm to block the punch without even noticing.
About time, she thought.
“What I thought you couldn’t do that anymore!” Kin sounded shocked.
“Hah, no it’s just been blocked by the curse mark. When Orochimaru unsealed the mark it was released. Remind me to send him a thank you card.” Kin threw a few more punches and kicks that Solari successfully blocked. “When did you change Kin? You used to be my best friend.”
“It’s called acting. The plan the entire time was for you to stay in the Sound village and serve Orochimaru with your Uchiha kekki genkai.”
“You mean you knew who I was before I did?” Out of anger, Solari switched to the offensive. She threw some more kunais at Kin who dodged him.
“Yeah I did. But what happened to you? You used to be the best at gen- and ninjutsu.”
“There were Sound jutsu, I stopped using them when I came back to Kohona.”
“How noble.” They both stopped when they heard a scream come from the main are where everyone else was fighting. “Zaku!” Kin shouted.
“Sasuke?” Solari dropped her guard and Kin threw her against a tree.
Kin ran off and Solari got up to follow her. They both stopped on the edge of the clearing, staring horrified at the scene in front of them. Sasuke was awake, but something was clearly wrong with him. He was attacking Zaku with unusually ferocity, even for him. Solari could see dark purple chakra circling Sasuke, and when she looked closer she noticed that the curse mark had spread all over his body.
“No!” Zaku screamed. Sasuke had pinned Zaku to the ground and was pulling on both of Zaku’s arms.
“What? You seem to be awfully fond of you arms. I wonder what you would do if something happened to them.” He pulled a little harder, causing Zaku to wince.
“Please I’m begging you.” This was something Solari never expected from Zaku, he was pleading with Sasuke. Sasuke, however, seemed not to care, he pulled harder on Zaku’s arms until a very loud cracking sound was heard throughout the clearing.
“Sasuke stop it!” Sakura shouted. But Sakura ignored her. Dosu got up and began to run away. Kin followed suit, leaving Zaku behind.
Sakura ran up to Sasuke and hugged him, begging him to stop. Solari ran up to Zaku. She hated him with every fiber of her being, yet she could not help but feel sorry for him.
“Get up,” she said nudging him with her foot. “Get out of here before I do worse to you.” Zaku got up and ran after Dosu and Kin, his broken arms flailing behind him.
Solari turned to see Sasuke on the ground. The curse mark had receded and Sakura was crying silently next to him.
“Is, is he going to be okay?” Sakura asked through her tears.
“Yeah he’ll live.”
Sakura was not completely convinced. She looked into Solari’s eyes and gasped.
“You have the Sharingan?”
Solari shrugged. “Yeah I do but it’s nothing special. I never learned how to control it so it’s really more of a hindrance than a help.”
“When did you get it?”
“When I was 7. The same time I got this.” She showed Sakura her curse mark.
“Kakashi-sensei says that you only gain the Sharingan when your life is in danger. Sasuke got his while we were fighting Zabuza and Haku. When did you get yours?”
“I’d rather not say. The reason I got it is, well, complicated.” Sakura looked disappointed that she would not be able to learn more about her teammate but Solari changed the subject. “Now come on, I seriously doubt anyone will attack us anymore. Sasuke should wake up soon and hopefully Naruto also.” She remembered Lee, who had been fighting Dosu.
She looked over where they were fighting and saw Lee, unconscious. “We may even be able to help Lee.”
She walked over to Lee and propped him up over her shoulder. Just as she was doing this she noticed a scroll sitting about 10 feet way. She put Lee down and went to get it. Fortunately it was not a trap, it was a genuine Earth scroll. She went back to help Lee, but before she could pick him up, an unfamiliar voice came from the tree above her.
“He’s our teammate let us take him.” Solari looked up to see Neji and Tenten standing in the tree.
Tenten jumped down and picked him up. “I've got this under control.” She held the unconscious Lee facing her and began to shake him. “COME ON LEE PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER!” To Solari’s amazement, Lee actually opened his eyes.
“Good you’re awake we can go to the tower now. Come on.”
“Wait!” As much as Solari wanted the Earth scroll, she thought that if Lee had dropped it during the fight she should return it. “Was this yours?”
“No, it must belong to whomever Lee was fighting. We don’t need it. You can have it.” With that Tenten, Neji, and Lee left in the direction of the tower.
Solari smiled. No more ninja to deal with if we get to the tower quick. Now all that’s left is to wake up Naruto. Thinking of what Tenten had done, Solari laughed. “Hey Sakura, I think Tenten gave me an idea of how to wake Naruto up.”
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Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:34 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 7:01 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 8:44 am
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 10:29 am
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Chapter 14: Spies and Scrolls
They had to stay by the tree overnight. Sasuke still hadn’t woken up and Naruto was sleeping.
“This is so stupid Naruto,” Sakura said sitting by the tree next to Solari. “It’s totally obvious you’re just sleeping. Come on, how thick do you think we are?”
“Five more minutes,” he mumbled.
Solari got up and walked over to Sasuke. She bent down to examine him and was glad to find the cruse mark back in its original state. She knew that the Hokage would want someone to seal Sasuke’s mark, but what about her. No, I don’t want to get it resealed. Unlike Sasuke, if I get my curse mark sealed I will lose my Sharingan. Not to mention everything I had to go through because of it. She put one hand on her identical curse mark. She remembered back to when she first got it. Orochimaru had promised to make her pain go away. She remembered the Sound Four, forcing her to advance her curse mark to stage two. She smiled slightly to herself. If I went back to the Sound village right now I could probably walk around that hospital with my eyes shut. I spent so much time in there.
Sasuke opened his eyes. “Hey Sakura, tell Naruto to get up now. Sasuke is awake.” When Sasuke got up he steadied himself on Solari’s shoulder. “You feeling okay?” Sasuke nodded. “Good, we have both scrolls, so as soon as you’re ready we’re going up to the tower.”
“I’m ready. Let’s go.” He stood on his own shaking slightly, but he quickly gained his balance.
“Right, wait one second.” She turned toward Sakura and Naruto. Naruto was sleeping on the ground, despite Sakura’s efforts to wake him. Sakura looked up at Solari who pointed to Sasuke. Sakura understood and went over to Sasuke, giving him back all his weapons.
“Naruto refuses to budge,” she said.
Solari smiled. “Let me handle this.” Walking over to Naruto, Solari kicked him in the side. “Oi, Naruto! Get up you fat lump! It’s not nap time!”
Grudgingly Naruto stood up and began to walk towards Sasuke and Sakura. Solari followed him. They all took off into the trees, with Solari leading the way.
* * *
They had been traveling for almost an hour when they came across Kabuto. Not knowing what he would be like during a competition like this, they tried to hide from him.
Kabuto stopped walking. “Nice try, but you four aren’t the best at hiding.” He pushed his glasses up and smiled.
Feeling it was pointless to stay hidden, team 7 came out of the bushes they were hiding in.
“We have both scrolls, we just want to get up to the tower,” Sakura said.
“So do I. I’m meeting the rest of my team at the tower. Why don’t we go together? I’ve done this test before. I know the layout of the forest and the kind of things people do to get the scrolls.”
“No, it’s fine. We can get there on our own,” Solari said, taking a step away from Kabuto.
“You don’t trust me do you?”
“I trust you, but not enough to let you show us around this place.”
Sakura walked up to Solari and whispered in her ear. “We should trust him. We have to get to the tower as soon as possible, for you and Sasuke.”
Agreeing with a small nod, Solari stepped closer to Kabuto. “Fine, we will go with you but–” She lost her balance and fell to the ground. A pain shot through her stomach and she remembered the wound from the senbon Kin had done to her.
“Are you okay?” Kabuto asked, steadying her.
“I’m fine. Let’s go.”
“Solari you’re covered in blood.”
Solari looked down at herself. She was drenched in blood and her footprints were scarlet behind her. Without warning she lost her temper. “Why didn’t you tell me that? I was too busy worrying about Sasuke and Naruto, you could have told me that I was dying over here!” She still felt dizzy from loss of blood and her vision was blurring around the edges. She coughed up blood and completely lost control of her legs.
Kabuto was now holding her up completely. “No need to lose your temper. I can help you.” He held his hand over the wound. When he took it away it was healed. “You still lost a lot of blood, but you should get better now that the wound is healed.”
“How did you do that? You’re a genin, you shouldn’t be able to do medical jutsus.” Sakura looked amazed.
“I was raised by the head medic-nin in Kohona. So I know a thing or two.”
Solari was already feeling better. Hm, thing or two my butt. This is professional. I can already support myself. She pushed away from Kabuto and began to walk towards the tower. “So, are we going or not.”
They all started towards the tower. They had to go slower then they hoped until Solari was back to full strength but it was fast enough.
“So,” Kabuto said to her, “it seems like you’re the one in charge here.”
“Well, Sasuke and I came up with all the plans. Naruto is a nuisance so he makes no decisions.”
“What happened to you guys? You seem pretty beat up.”
“We were attacked by and S-class criminal who snuck in.”
“You survived? That’s amazing.”
“Thanks.”
They made it to the tower without any other problems. There were doors all around the tower and each had the name of a team on it. There were two people standing outside a door.
“Those are my teammates. I’ll see you guys inside.”
They waved goodbye to Kabuto and walked through the door labeled Team Kakashi.
There was a sign at one end of the room on the inside of the tower. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto headed towards the sign to read it, while Solari headed towards the wall.
“What are you doing?” Sasuke said, glaring at her.
“Shut up, I need to hear something.” She put her ear up to the wall and listened. Kabuto’s team had gone into the room next to them, Solari was determined to find out more about him.
She finally heard something from the other room. “Well Kabuto, do you have it?”
“Yes I do.” There was a period of silence. “Lord Orochimaru, what do we do now?”
“What you always do.”
Solari pulled away from the wall breaking the connection.
“What was that about?” Naruto asked.
She shook her head and turned her attention to the sign on the wall.
“I tied to understand it, but I don’t get it,” Sakura told her.
Solari read the sign over. “I think we need to open the scrolls. Let’s try that.”
The opened the scrolls and found two halves of a summoning jutsu. They backed up and in a puff of smoke Iruka Umino appeared.
“Iruka-sensei!”
“I’m glad you guys made it through this test. I was worried. How about I take you all out for some ramen at Ichiraku’s.”
“Woo-hoo! Yeah!” Naruto ran up and gave him a big hug.
“Hold on Naruto. I still have a job to do, and so do you guys.” He tried to push Naruto off, but it didn’t work and he gave up. “I have to explain what that sign means, then I’ll tell you what you can do while you wait for all the other teams to finish. This sign, in a nutshell tell you how to be the best ninja you can be. If you rely too much on ‘Heaven’ or you mind and you don’t train your body, you will be at a disadvantage. If you rely too much on ‘Earth’ or you body and you don’t train you mind, you will also be at a disadvantage. You need to have a balance of both to be a great ninja. You guys still have 3 days left in this competition. During that time you guys will be staying here. Unfortunately this tower wasn’t meant to have time spent in it, so you guys will stay in here. During the day you can wonder around the tower or try to stop other teams from getting here, but you have to be back in this room by sundown. I’m going to come back and check on you guys each night.” With that there was another puff of smoke came and Iruka disappeared. |
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Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 2:30 pm
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