JackSGreyson Says

When Tetsuki wakes up again the dawn of the second day is beginning to creep through the sky, the clouds an increasingly more saturated lilac.

It’s a prettier sight than her partner’s jacket which has only gotten grungier after using his watch shift to further bolster their trap defense. Between the overt traps and the hidden ones she can kind of sense, she can’t figure out the safe path to exit–actually, she’s not sure there is a safe path to exit.

Naruto Uzumaki also presents her with two dead rabbits which he can barely look at. Apparently it’s one thing to know that they’ll make a good meal, it’s another to actually turn them into one. For now, she’ll let him turn away: he did good on catching them, she’s fine on being the one to clean and prepare them.

Next time, though, she’s tossing him in the deep end.

Stalking the bloated group of their eight classmates in the early morning is both more and less difficult than it was last night. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say frustrating.

They’re all awake–which is something in their favor, at least–but they’re noisy and sluggish, stumbling around and yawning, rubbing at bleary eyes. They seem to be in dire need of some kind of leadership but also seem to be lacking–they begin arguing amongst themselves on their next course of action, something that goes on for at least a quarter of an hour, before someone sarcastically suggests a vote.

After a few more minutes of shouting, they end up actually taking that vote.

Between herself and Naruto Uzumaki there is no need for that much structure. Except for that first negotiation, they both know what needs to be done and incorporate the other’s suggestions. If there is a leader between the two of them, she thinks it might be her, but only because Naruto Uzumaki has the kind of impulse control that needs to be actively curbed.

Finally the group decides to split up–some members remaining at the camp, which will act as a home base for everyone, and others going out to look for corresponding tokens.

For a moment, Tetsuki thinks they might be spotted, that their classmates may just get their acts together and fight these two loners hidden not twenty meters away who have four tokens between them. Even halved, she doesn’t think she and Naruto Uzumaki can take on a concentrated attack so outnumbered.

Instead, the deployed half decides to… split themselves up again?

If she weren’t so baffled and grateful, she thinks she’d be disappointed. Instead, all she can think of is Hikari-san saying: if this were wartime, they’d be dead.

The moon is but a sliver of light at the apex of it’s journey when she is roughly shaken awake. Reflexively she strikes out, fist meeting rough cloth over boney flesh.

Naruto Uzumaki gives a yelp, more out of surprise than any pain, and that places Tetsuki even better than the cool night air or the dirt floor of sleeping outdoors. That, she’s done before, but never where another person might happen upon her.

“Sorry, sorry,” they both gibber at each other, unused to company and all the more hyperaware for it.

“It’s been an hour and a half,” Naruto Uzumaki says, sheepishly, which she might have guessed for herself–unless they were being attacked or someone had stumbled into one of their traps, there’s no reason for him to wake her up.

“A little more gently next time,” she responds, shaking off the sleep.

“Yeah, I figured.”

Four hours of rest and a REM cycle each–the other on watch while the other slept–should have energized them enough for a midnight raid or, at the very least, a decent scouting.

Their traps they keep up–both to protect their makeshift camp and because, frankly, they’re pretty good and she’s impressed by Naruto Uzumaki’s ingenuity–though while it would be nice to catch someone in them, they can’t actually depend on it. Maybe they’ll catch a rabbit to supplement their ration bars.

They’ve been spiraling inwards rather than cut through the training ground in straight lines; their camp on the northern edge of the east sector. This outing they’re aiming for the center on the logic that the river bisecting the training ground would be an attractive place for those with armbands to camp–not considering that they might need more defensible positions.

Neither of them are so stupid as to think that they’re the only ones to team up: for everyone else, so long as their colors don’t match, there shouldn’t be any conflict. And considering that the two of them–who are are independent at best and friendless at worst–still managed to form an alliance, they wouldn’t be surprised if their classmates did the same–teamwork is Konoha’s most valued virtue.

They’re not expecting to find a group of eight settled together, a smokeless fire pit and bedrolls and camping gear and everything. How…

Is that a tripod with a hanging pot over their fire? Is that stew? What’s next, a tent?

… comfortable.

Not very well defended: the few traps are half-hearted at best, trip wires obvious and shining, and even the person on watch–only one, never mind they had more than enough people to do a two person watch in a three shift rotation–was staring into the fire and ruining her night vision rather than looking outwards where threats would come from.

Tetsuki wants to take them out so badly.

From the way Naruto Uzumaki practically vibrates beside her, he must feel the same.

But not yet. Foolish and audacious as their camp may be, it would still be eight to two, and in an outright fight no way would that end favorably for her much smaller team of two.

“Recon only,” she hisses to him, no matter how tempting–wait, what if this is a trap? After a few moments and no trap is sprung, she decides that that’s just her paranoia at work.

Together they make a count of the group–six armband wearers, one of them flak jacket green, and two probable token holders. No one particularly outstanding in any one area. One of the boys is better at taijutsu than either of them, but the Neji Hyuuga disguise ought to discourage that.

They observe for two shift changes–one watcher every hour, how… quaint–before the both of them decide to go back to their own, less comfortable but better defended, camp.

They’ve got a raid to plan.

By the time the sunset hits, forest canopy already turning the training ground dark, they’ve managed to find two more tokens–flak vest green and pale, pinkish peach.

“Alright!” Naruto Uzumaki cheers, “We’ve got this!”

She nods her head in agreement but doesn’t say anything. It’s true that three tokens in the first day is a decent haul, a great step towards completing their objectives. But she also knows that it definitely won’t be as easy as both time and the exam march onwards.

The remaining token holders that haven’t been hit will have gone to ground. Finding them–and specifically whoever has the copper one Tetsuki needs–will be an exercise in diligence and patience.

And that’s not even including the consequences of when news spread that two people–even if they’re not the right people–are ambushing token holders even without the matching armbands.

“We need to find a place for camp,” she says, checking the sky once more. She’s not tired, but not everyone has as awful a sleep schedule as she does.

“I can keep going,” he protests, arms waving as if to prove how energetic he still is.

It’s not as if she doubts him, it’s just. “We’ll regret not finding a secure spot later.”

Konoha at night isn’t too different from Konoha during the day–it is a ninja village after all, a great machine that functions at all hours, every day–but the both of them, for all that they’re in the Academy to one day become shinobi, still have the same civilian diurnal mindset. The same hindbrain instincts of prey animals who know that it’s not the dark which is dangerous, but the predators who use it as cover.

He doesn’t outrightly disagree, but he does bring up, “Wouldn’t it be better to attack at night? Maybe everyone else is thinking of resting while it’s dark, too.”

That’s a good point.

She says as much, because it’s an easy acknowledgement and Naruto Uzumaki blinks in pleased surprise when she does so.

They strike a compromise: for now, while the lingering light of the sun still remains, and while they’re still strong enough to search for another classmate or hold off an ambush against themselves, they’ll find a secure spot for camp. In shifts they’ll rest for a bit, until later in the night, when everyone else is either asleep or pushing the limits of their energy.

That’s when they’ll go out, refreshed, and hunt down their prey.

They are at the Academy to become shinobi, after all, it’s time they prove it.

Immediately after agreeing on their alliance, Tetsuki and Naruto Uzumaki take to the treetops. A far enough distance away from each other that they won’t needlessly overlap in their search, but not too far that they can’t signal to each other to regroup.

Tokens first. They’ll be more difficult to grab.

The token holders are already on guard, know that they’re targets if not whose exactly–if they hole up successfully, hide away or build a strong enough camp, then there’s no touching them for the rest of the exam.

In comparison, armband wearers are the aggressors. They won’t expect anyone to attack them, safe in their knowledge that they’re the ones seeking not hiding. They can be put off for later, tomorrow even, when they’ve gotten complacent.

It’s only been an hour, two at most, since the exam officially began. It’s possible that some token holders haven’t yet settled down, haven’t yet found a defensible, concealable position.

Except for the three that started in the southern sector along with them, they don’t have much information to go on. Unlike the armband wearers, token holders won’t exactly mark themselves overtly, meaning the two of them may very well just have to accost everyone in hopes of getting a token.

And if it gets out that there are classmates without armbands ambushing people…

“How’s your henge?” Tetsuki asks, drawing close for their conversation–no need to alert everyone else by calling their plans out in the open–even as they maintain a steady pace to catch up with their classmates.

The grin Naruto Uzumaki gives is wide and sly, the epitome of a troublemaker.

Tetsuki feels herself smiling back.

A few hours later, when they spot a classmate alone and with no armband in sight, it’s easy enough to take him down, outnumbered and surprised as he is. Knocking him out, tying him up, and getting a sky blue token for their efforts.

Still, it’s her idea to disguise themselves so when he does wake up, word of what they’re doing won’t spread too fast. Or, at the very least, not correctly.

It’s Naruto Uzumaki’s idea on who they disguise themselves as.

She gives it until noon tomorrow before tales of Neji Hyuuga and Rock Lee working together wind their way through the ranks of the class.