I watched as the small bunny hopped towards our camp, it's innocent looks a decade for it's true intent.

I quickly pierced it's heart with a kunai, sending it flying away in the process. I assumed it would take about 30 seconds before they come out to face us.

"Everyone get ready."

25...

"Yoshi, You're on defense."

"Got it!"

20...

"Sachi, take whichever one looks most weapon heavy."

15...

"Jade, me and you are going to tag team the other 2."

"Will do bossuto."

"That was bad one."

10...

"Oh my, I'm suprised you managed to see the tag on that bunny." A voice said from ahead of us. There was no doubt in my mind about who had said it, The sound team was here.

My calculations were off by 10 seconds.

"Hah, no traps either. This will be easy! I expected more from you guys." I heard someone else say, likely Zaku.

The team finally emerged from the trees ahead of us. Dosu was in the middle, Zaku was on the right while Kin was on the left. It seemed as if they were trying to intimidate us, as little good that would do for them.

"Hand over the uchiha boy and we will let you live. Our orders are simply to eliminate Sasuke Uchiha." Dosu said, speaking as though he was giving us a choice. We all knew the truth though, we weren't going to give up Sasuke.

Yoshi immediately got more alert, ready to defend against any kind of suprise attack. In that subtle movement Kin was able to see her hitai-ate, previously hidden away by her hair.

"Wow, Kumo and Konoha working together? That's unexpected." Kin noted, incredibly suprised.

"Sachi, they use sound as their attacks. Your fighting style that you told me about isn't going to work. The girl looks to use senbon." My only reply was a subtle nod from Sachi, and a slight shift in her stance.

I looked back at Jade to give her instructions aswell, but stopped when I noticed her axe was mysteriously missing from her back. I looked back at the sound team only to see Zaku unconsious with Jade's axe lying nearby.

I stared at jade quizzically. "You know your now weaponless right?" She remained silent to my remark, only giving a snarky grin as a reply.

"He is right. Now I have your weapon." Dosu mentionned as he grabbed Jade's small axe... only to not pick it up.

He did a double take, but just shook his head and tried a second time. Now with both hands on the minuscule axe, and putting a fair bit of strength, he still could not make it budge.

"Why is it so heavy?" He said, finally giving up trying to pick it up.

His only reply was her continued smirk, the uncharacteristic quietness almost unnerving.

The small lapse in action allowed me to look over at our other opponent, only to see Sachi and kin were already fighting. Sachi was using her crowbar to deflect the senbon, letting none move past and get behind herself. Kin's entire strategy had been completely negated by Sachi's actions, and the fight was already determined.

Blocking all of those senbon though, the silent and belled ones. Impressive, but I guess they would give one of the village jinchuriki one of the best teams.

Dosu attacked with his resonating echo speaker, no doubt assuming I had been distracted by the other fight. Just the attack would have connected and shattered my eardrum, I moulded the chakra around my ears. It quickly solidified, creating makeshift earplugs. The quick maneuver on my part had almost completely nullified most of the damage.

Despite my defense against my ears, the pure force of the attack still sent me flying to the ground. I landed flat on my side, my hands conveniently blocked from Dosu's view. I used the opportunity to slice both my palms with a small knife I had hidden up one of my sleeves, only just enough to make them bleed.

I put my hands up to my ears as if in pain, and smudged some of the blood onto them. I also reinforced the facade by uncoupling my hands from ears, looking down at them as if I hadn't known there was blood.

Dosu smirked, however his eyes seemed to have been on something behind me. Sensing the chakra behind me, I easily deducted the unknown chakra as Sasuke, with a newly formed curse mark activated.

I henged back into my 12 year old apearance while the attention was on my teammate, so as to not let sasuke know I was currently 16.

He looked down at me before glaring at Dosu. "Which one of you did this?" He asked the sound genin. Zaku was still unconsious and kin was busy not getting a crowbar to the chest.

Dosu said nothing, but Jade was quick to point him out. Sasuke nodded and moves forward. In the blink of an eye, he was right in front of Dosu, who just barely got out of the way of Sasuke's kunai.

Dosu's eyes widened when he noticed the curse mark, finally grasping the full extent of the situation.

Took you long enough to realize you were being used by a snake.

He seemed to give it a little more thought before deciding what to do.

"Please wait, we'll give you our scroll, just let us go." Dosu pleaded, though it didn't appear Sasuke was listening. To Dosu's fortune, Jade had been. She quickly accepted the deal, holding her hand out.

Dosu threw the earth scroll at her, before jumping back and grabbing Zaku. He also called Kin to follow.

Sachi slumped to the floor, being the only one in our group who had actually faught, beyond a small axe throw from Jade.

Yoshi headed over to her quickly, grabbing some bandages.

"It's fine. Only one peirced my skin, and it wasn't poisonous." Sachi said, shoving Yoshi away lightly.

I got up once the sound team was fully out of earshot. I used a bit of water to clean my hands, as well as wrap up my palms with bandages.

"Why are you wrapping up your hands when it's your ears that are injured?" Yoshi asked confused.

I just poured a bit of water on my ears to get all the blood off, and she easily put two and two together. I had duped Dosu.

On to more pressing matters

Looking back at sasuke, his curse mark having only now fully receided. I needed to have this conversation now.

"Sasuke." I said to him, waving off Jade's team.

"What is it?" He asked bluntly, clearly not in the best of moods.

"We have some free time. Would you like to play a game of chess with me?" I asked, already unsealing a chess board.

His reply was a single nod, not having anything better to do.

I started first, and began with a knight to F3.

"That curse mark on your neck. You felt the power from it." I stated, idly fidgeting with my king piece, still at the starting point on the board.

He moved a pawn to E6.

"Of course. I felt more powerful then ever before. I felt like I could beat anyone, and I wanted to beat everyone."

I retaliate, moving my own pawn to E4.

"Control is the greatest kind of power. Control is what runs the world. The king would be easily overpowered by almost any other peice."

He moved the same pawn another space forward, onto D6 and directly infront of my own pawn.

I move my knight once again, this time to G5.

"It's control that keeps systems like this in place."

He moved his own knight to C6, continuing to reinforce his front line.

"Without control, nothing is maintained."

I move my queen to F3, and Sasuke stared at the board confused. His side was organized, so each of his pieces could be neatly defended in a few short moves. Meanwhile, I had 2 of my most important pieces in seemingly random spots, at a high risk of being taken.

He moved another pawn, this one to D6, reinforcing the defence on his front most pawn, likely expecting several sacraficed to occur in that position.

"It is easiest to control someone when they dont even know they're being controlled. If you can control from the shadows, Unnoticed, you can win the game of chess."

I moved my queen to F7, taking his pawn. He stared at the board for a moment, realizing what had happened. Every move he had made, I had already expected it. From the first pawn he had moved, to my initial play with my knight, he realized it was all planned. He had assume I had placed my queen on F3 to bolster my defences on my pawns, and as such he done the same. He had not realized it was merely a diversion to take checkmate, my queen protected by the knight, and leaving no spaces for the king with no way to escape, and no way to kill the queen with the knights protection.

"be the one making the moves. Be the one in control. Don't be a pawn in someone else's game."

With that I stood up and started walking away. Sasuke was going to point out that I had forgotten my chess board, but when he looked at where it was, it was gone.

The only thing remaining was a pawn. The only piece to have been captured in our short 9 move game.

Let's see if you can use my words, and escape being the pawn of a snake and an eye. You might even escape being my own.

¤◇¤◇¤◇¤◇¤◇¤
Yoshi's P.O.V

Our team headed back to the 'cave' as Bāsuto and Sasuke walked off.

As we awaited their return, I got bored and decide to have some fun in the meantime. Otherwise I might have just left without them.

Heading over to the blond kid, I kneed him in the stomaque. He woke up with a jump, clutching his stomaque in pain.

"What the hell was that for?!" He cried out, still feebly grabbing his stomaque. Me and Jade just laughed at his minor pain. It would be gone in a few minutes, and it got him up and running.

"He's awake. Let's move out then. We need to head to the river again. It's the easiest way to get to the tower." I heard Bāsuto say from behind me.

That was a shame, as I wanted to have more fun with the blond one. Jade seemed to agree, but didn't say anything.

We headed back to the river, as per Bāsuto's suggestion.

I was already bored walking over there, even though it would only take about 5 minutes.

"Hey Sachi, which one of those 3 looks the easiest to rape?" I asked her, hoping to get some amusement out of this stifling silence.

She just ignored me, however I noticed both the blond and the uchiha both heard me.

"What the hell do you mean by that?!" Naruto exclaimed. I also idly noticed him rubbing his ass as if feeling pain.

What the fuck happened to that kid?

"She doesn't mean it." Sachi explained, much to my displeasure. I had wanted that joke to go on a little longer, though I didn't care enough to speak up about it.

My mind started wandering as time continued to drag on.

I was suprised by how small this place actually was. It's only about a 5 km diameter. That litterally short enough for a civilian to do in less then 2 hours. But despite that, they gave us a 5 day time limit. Sure getting scrolls adds some difficulty, but still. Even this giant forest isnt such a big deal. I mean, it probably helps the konoha genin, who can use the giant trees to their advantage.

By now we were at the river, which meant we were almost at our goal... which way is it though? We have no way to tell. We could start heading away from the tower!

Or not apparently, because Bāsuto had this place memorized... I think? Well he was heading one way, so I guessed so.

"Hey Jade, when did you and Bāsuto meet? Seems like you guys have known each other forever." I asked Jade out of curiosity, interrupting the conversation the two were having.

Jade glanced back at me, before smirking.

"Our friendships feels like it has lasted lifetimes. He's more like a brother to me." She said to me. It didn't really answer my original question, but I could tell from her response I wasn't getting any more then that.

They went back to conversation, leaving the rest of us in relative silence, beside Naruto's complaining.

"You know in all 7 chunin exams I've participated in, I have never seen a konoha and kumo team work together. You guys really are one of a kind."

All of us went on guard at the unknown voice. As we looked around, I easily found the owner of the voice, a silver haired teen, or perhaps a young adult just at the treeline.

Although almost all of us were on guard, Bāsuto seemed perfectly calm in the given situation.

"Kabuto." I heard him say to the now named Kabuto, nodding his head in acknowledgement.

"Ah Bāsuto, good to see you. I was coming to see if your team needed help, but clearly not. Are you guys missing any scrolls?" He asked us, walking forward.

Of course we're not going to tell you! That would be stupid

"We still need a heaven and earth scroll..." I heard Naruto say.

Oh right, we haven't actually filled him in on the fact that we had more then just the 2. We could actually use this to our advantage.

"No actually, we got quite a few more when you past out naruto." Bāsuto said to him...

It looked like he wasn't going to use it our advantage then.

¤◇¤◇¤◇¤◇¤◇¤
Bāsuto's P.O.V

"We actually have an extra scroll you can have." I said, throwing him a white heaven scroll.

"No no, I already have both scro-"

He barely dodged the sword strike right behind the thrown scroll.

He got singed by my barrier when he tried to escape backwards, only now seeing the cube I had thrown at his feet.

He had nowhere to run and no time to react as a hissing sound came from what he thought was a heaven scroll.

No jutsu could save him from logic and intense planning. Nothing was left but a mangled corpse. One of the most dangerous men in the future of the elemantal nation had just been absolutely decimated in just under a few seconds. Looking down at Kabuto's charred remains, I decided not to store it, if only to leave a message. Not like they would know it. A simple message for a little snake. I quickly implemented the code onto the corpse, before turning away. I'm sure he would see it.

You will not fully succeed, the Toad is here, and One will fall to Nine. Do we have a deal?

The snake had lost it's bishop, but it would be getting a new piece soon.

)-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-(

I'll admit, that chess scene was really fun to write, and is actually a fully functional chess match that abides by the rules of the game. Here's what the final board looked like.

As you can see, this would be Bāsuto's final move, and that red dot would be checkmate. This is just to help those who don't understand chess terminology fully comprehend what that game looked like.

Also just want to point out, No bāsuto is not Gary Sue in any sense of the word. At this point in time, without prep time, he would lose against anyone chunin or higher.

Bāsuto's greatest asset is his mind, and the only reason he was able to take out Kabuto, was because he was given litteral years to plan the perfect strategy, with knowledge of Kabuto's entire arsenal, and knowledge of where he would be at that point in time.

These 'fights' may seem a bit lackluster (and I agree, they aren't all that much compared to some canon fights), but overall, I think the whole point of a fight is to finish your opponent off as quickly as possible, si when the opportunity is presented, there should be no reason not to take it.

Anyways, Enough of my ramblings,

Dont forget to vote, comment, and share. And, if you really enjoy it you can follow me and go check out some of my other books.

-JustSk8n

edited April 12th, 2020