Cannonball

When Zabuza didn't get his way, he resorted to ruthless violence. That was just how he was.

Fuyuki Sanzenryo was even more outrageous. Usually, he was the very image of a modest gentleman—kind to others and low-key. But when Zabuza had insulted his ideals and slandered the Yagura he respected most, he had immediately erupted in fury.

In Zabuza's eyes, Yagura teaching Fuyuki ninjutsu was a way of winning him over and cultivating a subordinate. That was why he had made those sarcastic remarks.

But to Fuyuki, Yagura had acted out of friendship. They shared the same ninja way, and there wasn't the slightest hint of self-interest between them.

He looked just like Kimimaro would if he heard someone insult Orochimaru: all the fury in his heart had burst out, impossible to hold back.

Perhaps Yagura simply admired Fuyuki. Perhaps he wanted to build connections and cultivate more subordinates—or maybe he was brainwashing him or something. Whatever the case, none of it had anything to do with Kanna.

Kanna stopped paying attention to the two of them, quietly left the Hidden Mist Technique's range, and immediately called the examiners on her communicator.

"I want the coordinates of Candidate Number Eight, Yetsuki," Kanna said bluntly.

"You're Candidate Number Thirteen, Kanna, right?" the chief examiner, Long, replied through the earpiece. "According to our monitoring, your current score is zero. Are you sure you want to borrow ten points to obtain the coordinates? If you don't have enough points when we tally the scores, you'll be eliminated outright."

"Of course," Kanna replied calmly. "It's only ten points. I can earn them back in no time."

"Very well, then. Listen carefully," Long said. "Candidate Number Eight, Yetsuki, is at Tiger Sector. We'll send you updated coordinates every half hour for the next six hours. Over."

The call ended with a beep. Kanna nodded to himself and memorized the coordinates.

"Tiger Sector—that's the Third Sector. Hmm. Yetsuki and Asu Usagi are sisters, so there's a good chance they'll be together. And there must be plenty of candidates around the two intelligence agents. I'll earn enough points in one go and finish this exam."

Meanwhile, at the foot of a mountain about two kilometers from Kanna, a group of more than ten people had gathered around two girls, discussing what to do next.

"We have two maps, with ten supply caches marked in total. There are plenty of possible routes, but most of them are concentrated in these mountains."

The girl on the left, dressed in black, spoke unhurriedly. She was the older of the two sisters, Yetsuki.

"According to the map, though, the nearby supplies are all in pretty dangerous places, like near cliffs or on mountain peaks. There's also one downstream from the waterfall on the big river behind us. The ones farther away are safer and easier to get."

A handsome boy in the crowd smiled brightly. "It doesn't matter! Any route is fine. But we could do something else: find the pursuers and defeat them. Then we wouldn't have to worry about them anymore."

"I disagree," said a serious-looking boy beside him, dressed in a loose robe. "Let's set aside how we'd find the pursuers. The chief examiner assigned them that role for a reason, so we mustn't underestimate them. They may have strength beyond that of their peers, enough to defeat three or even more candidates head-on."

Genin combat relied heavily on close-quarters fighting. If several opponents surrounded one enemy, only two or three of them could actually engage at once. Suppose the enemy could defeat three Genin head-on: that meant he could escape whenever he wanted, use hit-and-run tactics, and wear their team down.

"Relax, relax! Yong Kong, you're worrying too much!" the handsome boy said casually. "It can't be that bad. Even if he can beat three of us, the rest of us can keep him occupied. He won't be able to take our tags during the fight. Besides, if we drive the pursuers off, we'll get fifteen points in one go!"

Yong Kong said sternly, "I'm only saying we need to be cautious. This is an important exam, so we should give it our all. I think we should follow the route the chief examiner gave us, avoid the pursuers while collecting supplies, and then escort the intelligence agents to the designated location. We should only fight the pursuers if we have no choice and they catch up with us."

"I think Kazama's right. If we've gathered this many people and still don't dare face the pursuers, we're bound to fail this exam eventually."

"No, I agree with Yong Kong. I don't think the chief examiner assigned our roles arbitrarily. If they made someone a pursuer, that person must have some special ability. So unless we have to, we should avoid them."

"We're not students fresh out of the Ninja Academy! We're all Genin. No matter how strong he is, if we all attack together and use ninjutsu, we can take him out!"

"That makes sense, but we should still be careful, right?"

Some people supported Kazama, while others backed Yong Kong. Each side stuck to its position, and neither could persuade the other.

Those who supported Kazama believed that a ninja should always push forward. They didn't deny that the pursuers might be strong, but they didn't think they could overpower ninja of the same rank, either. With the right tactics, they could defeat or drive them off. Some even felt that the exam itself was secondary; the important thing was to follow the ninja way and keep an intrepid spirit.

The others, who sided with Yong Kong, were more cautious ninja. They believed the chief examiner wouldn't randomly select the pursuers just for the sake of it. After all, the pursuers were outnumbered, which put them at a far greater disadvantage than their opponents. For the exam to be fair, they had to be strong. The group would be better off taking care.

Yetsuki pursed her lips and looked at her younger sister, Asu Usagi. "Usagi, what do you think?"

Asu Usagi was a beautiful girl who looked exactly like Yetsuki. She wore a tight white dress, and at her sister's question, she smiled. "However we look at it, pursuers who can find out our coordinates will eventually find us. A fight is inevitable. But there's nothing wrong with being cautious, either. Let's stick to the usual route and find one supply cache first, so the people following us can earn some points."

"All right, let's do that," Yetsuki said, nodding. She was about to announce their decision when a series of beeps suddenly rang out.

"What's that sound?" Everyone turned to look and saw Yetsuki take a small round box from her belt.

The steel box was pitch black, with a tiny indicator light on its left side. The light was now flashing red, and the box was beeping urgently.

"The Coordinate Locator," Yetsuki murmured, looking at the box in her hand.

"What does it mean when the locator beeps?" Kazama pushed through the crowd and leaned in, grinning. "Could it actually be a time bomb?"

The ninja way dominated this world, but that didn't mean no one studied other fields. Sunagakure, for example, often used explosives to blast apart mountains, so timed bombs that beeped like this had appeared before.

Even explosive tags came in similar types. Before they detonated, the paper would glow red as time passed. It was a natural effect of the chakra reaction speeding up. Once the reaction reached its limit, the tag would explode, much like a timed bomb. (One appeared in a movie once, shaped like a feather. It flashed and beeped before exploding.)

As soon as Kazama made his joke, everyone instinctively stepped back. Then they came to their senses and started scolding him.

"What's wrong with you? How can you joke about that?"

"You're dead, Kazama!"

"Damn it! Why are you joking around at a time like this?"

"Could you take this seriously, Kazama?"

Kazama apologized with an awkward smile, but his joke had at least eased the tension a little.

"Everyone, listen. Could this be some kind of feedback mechanism?"

A girl with rosy cheeks and a shy look spoke up. Pointing at the locator, she stammered softly, "For example, when the examiners search for our location, the locator receives some kind of signal and sends one back. Maybe that's what causes the beeping."

They all looked at one another, unsure what to make of it.

The examiners were searching for Yetsuki's location? Did that mean a pursuer had called in and used the locator function?

They'd just been discussing how to deal with the pursuers, and now one of them had found them?

Was that really a coincidence? Maybe the device just made that sound during normal operation.

At the edge of the woods, a hundred meters behind them, a boy ambled out at a leisurely pace.

Dressed in a black outfit, he walked with his head held high. He casually stepped into a puddle about the size of a hand, then seemed to blink into existence on the surface of another puddle more than ten meters ahead. With his next step, he moved another five meters to the left. He repeated this, and six seconds later, he had reached the rear of the group led by Yetsuki and Asu Usagi. It was Kanna, who had followed the coordinates to catch up with them.

Using the Water Style: Water Body Flicker technique, she took advantage of Kirigakure's damp climate and the puddles scattered throughout the forest to move at high speed. Without the seals required for the Body Flicker Technique, she couldn't truly vanish and reappear, but it took her only four minutes to cover the two kilometers.

That wasn't particularly fast. In Kanna's previous life, the passing time for an ordinary man to run a thousand meters was four and a half minutes. Even someone in decent shape could run two kilometers at full speed in about ten minutes. Kanna's body was countless times stronger than the one she'd had in her previous life, and with her skill at controlling water through Water Body Flicker, this speed was nothing special.

What surprised Kanna a little was that Yetsuki's group hadn't moved at all. They were still in the same place.

"One, two, three... Twelve in all." Kanna counted the people opposite her and laughed. "Excellent. That's more than enough!"

"I remember you. You're Kanna, right?" Seeing the situation turn against them, Yetsuki stepped forward without hesitation and shouted, "If you're a candidate being pursued and you want to join us, we refuse! If you're a pursuer, then—"

The ninja around Yetsuki spread out in unspoken agreement, taking battle stances and watching Kanna intently.

Kanna chuckled and waved a hand.

"No need to make this complicated. I'll just take you all out."

As she spoke, Kanna formed Hand Seals and stamped her foot. A splash burst up. Then she pinched her index and middle fingers together, catching a tiny water droplet between them.

The round, glistening droplet didn't burst, even though she held it between her fingers. It was clear that Kanna had mastered water control.

She rolled the droplet around, then flicked it up and down on her index finger like a glass marble. The sight shook Yetsuki and the others.

A master! She was definitely a master!

"That person is a pursuer! Everyone, get ready to fight!" Yetsuki said in a low voice.

"Good! Ready?" Across from them, Kanna flicked the droplet high into the air with her index finger. "Here I come!"

With that, Kanna snapped her finger, sending the droplet shooting toward Yetsuki.

Gurgle! The puddles scattered across the ground began bubbling as if summoned, then surged together and flowed into the droplet Kanna had flicked.

The distance—less than twenty meters—vanished in an instant. As it flew, the droplet absorbed dozens of pounds of water and grew into a ball as large as a barrel.

That was the nature of Water Style: as long as water was available, any Water Style technique could keep growing stronger until the user ran out of chakra or lost control and the technique collapsed.

Using a bean-sized droplet as the core of the technique had produced a "cannonball" weighing dozens of pounds and traveling at over thirty kilometers per hour!