26Chuunin exams: part 3.

The leader of the panthers, Yoru, stepped forward and shared the information they had gathered.

"The Silver crest serpent is not that far from here, a team of Amegakure being the closest to it and ready to engage. The tower where the items need to be delivered is in the north approximately five miles away from here. The proctor with the red tag is constantly on the move, making his way north at the moment."

The other panthers nodded while they kept a close watch on their surroundings.

Izana nodded while deep in thought. It would be for the best if the Amegakure team already had one of the items on his list. That way they would be done quite early and he would be able to investigate further what was happening inside the Uchiha residence. He didn't want to spend a full week scouring the forest for poisonous items.

"Do you know if they carry om of the items on our list?" Izana said, not daring to hope for his luck to be so great.

"We don't know. There is a team from Sunagakure, just a little past them, they definitely have one of the items, the Blooming Cap, as one of the others had seen them seal it away in the scroll." Izana nodded again as his luck was better than he had thought.

Izana looked around to see if anyone was near. When he was sure there were no listening ears, Izana distanced himself from Ren and Miyu, just outside of earshot and asked the question that had been on his mind the most.

"Have you found out when the Uchiha plan to commence the coup?"

While the other panthers had gone of searching the forest for the items, Yoru had been occupied with spying on the Uchiha, a task he had been doing for a while now.

Yoru's face became grave as he nodded.

"I have. It should be in a few months. The tension in the residence is rising and there are more Uchiha agreeing with the plan. Fortunately there are also a lot of Uchiha that disagree, including your uncle, Izana-sama. He is doing all he can to prevent it from happening, but there is a lot of pressure from many clan members. A lot of them are trying to convince him, hoping he can bring the clan together on this once he joins their cause."

Izana sighed as he ran his hands through his hair in an agitated manner. No matter how much experience he had gained in the past three years, it still wasn't enough to have him prepared for infighting in the family, don't even mention rebellion. He had been gone for a bit too long, being too late to stop the coup before the very notion of it would spread its poison to what it had become today, a wound festering too deep to cure. All they could do now was cut out the poisoned parts.

"I really need some help. So far, only Shisui and Itachi wanted to actively stop it. I need to find people who I can trust to help me prevent the coup."

The only preson who he could trust beside Itachi and Shisui, would be Jiraiya or the Third. From what he's heard, the Third already knew about the planned rebellion, which only left Jiraiya to help him. And to be truthful, he had more trust in Jiraiya than in the Third.

"Can you contact Jiraiya for me and explain about the internal problems in the Uchiha residence? I'll reward you guys for you hard work when I've finished the second part of the exam."

Yoru nodded again and he and the other panthers seemed to sink into their shadows. Once they were completely submerged, all traces disappeared.

Izana went back to Ren and Miyu and explained about the groups in the vicinity.

"The closest one is from Ame, followed by Suna and lastly Konoha. It has been ascertained that Suna has the Blooming cap in their possession, while Ame is moving in on the Silver crest serpent. Konoha isn't certain if they have any items on our list. I suggest we go after Suna, as the information on them is solid. As soon as we are done with them, we can collect the Silver crest viper from the hands of Ame."

Ren and Miyu looked at each other, nodded and voiced their agreement. What followed was a strategy meeting. The panthers had left behind a scroll with information on the enemy groups, which was incredibly detailed. Along with that was a piece of Black iron, testament to one of the panthers who encountered it on the way. 

On the scroll was described which affinities the opposing teams had, what kind of techniques they used and what their fighting style was.

The team from Suna was compromised by a squad of two boys and one girl. One of the boy was a puppet master. He carried a light and quick-moving puppet. It had four arms and had many hidden weapons, such as kunai and shuriken. The movements of the puppet were abit crude and had a few exploitable gaps. Miyu volunteered to be his opponent as she wanted to gain more experience fighting against puppet masters.

She seemed especially vindictive one the word puppet master was mentioned, giving Izana a sense of unease. Miyu surely had a deep grudge against puppet masters, surely caused by a death or injury in the family.

The girl was a user of earth techniques and was very good at Taijutsu. Ren chose her as his opponent. He didn't say a specific reason and was only fired up to fight a strong opponent.

Lastly the opponent Izana would be fighting against was the remaining boy, a user of wind release. It was described he was also adept at Taijutsu and was mostly speed based than power based. He used a lot of hit and run tactics, of which most were derived from assassination techniques, something all of them were rather adept at.

It shouldn't pose too much of a problem, though Izana still kept his guard up for unexpected surprises. Who knew what trump cards the enemy might have. He wasn't the only one capable of keeping some cards up his sleeve.

The trio prepared for battle, checking their equipment for the last time and started to follow their lead towards the Suna team.

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Two boys and one girl were walking carefully through the humid swamp. The kept a close eye on their surroundings as they had already been ambushed twice. Even when they had defeated their enemy, they didn't carry many of the items they needed, with only one item being on the same list, the Blooming Cap.

Deciding they wanted to trade one of the other items with another group, the trio kept the scroll with the items close on their body, afraid others might steal them. The surroundings were quite noisy, which was a good sign as it meant the animals and insects in the surroundings hadn't sensed any dangerous presences.

Though more skillfull shinobi would be able to mask their presence completely, Genin would have a hard time to mask it fully. It was a blessing in disguise that they were only fighting genin and not those of a higher rank.

The trio was tired from the battles they had gone through before and planned to take a short break. The girl used her earth technique to pick up on tremors from the ground, while the leader from the group used his wind technique to sense the surroundings.

When no signs were found, they sighed in relief and took a breather. They kept the girl on watch and would switch when the other was done eating and drinking.

Not one of them noticed a presence in the water. It quickly got closer and arrived near the shore, still staying in the water as it hid near the reeds. It eyed the situation, noticing nothing amiss as the guard of the Suna genin was slowly but surely being lowered. Unsupection to the Suna trio, a hand slowly came out of the mouth of the mouth of the creature, an unassuming frog.

Once the body was completely outside, it was soon followed by two others, revealing Izana, Ren and Miyu. The frog hid underwater and waited for the fight to end. Only then it would return, should its help still be needed.

Izana moved forward and activated his Sharingan. Ren and Miyu looked at each other and soon ran towards their targets. When they were close enough to be seen, the Suna trio was completely caught off guard. They barely managed to parry with their kunai, engaging in a fierce fight.

The leader from the Suna group ran towards his companions but was stopped in his tracks. In front of him stood Izana, his crimson eyes staring intently at the Suna leader. He seemed to know what the Sharingan was capable of as he kept his eyes lowered. Using his sense of the wind, the Suna leader engaged Izana in a Taijutsu battle, slashing with precise strokes at Izana's presumed weak spots.

Izana applauded the boy in his mind for knowing about the Sharingan, as only a few knew of a method to avoid the possibility of falling in a genjutsu. It seems the war with Suna had raised that awareness enough, even to the younger generation.

Still, the boy was limited by his lack of sight and had many gaps in his defense. With only a few well placed jabs, the boy lay groaning on the ground. Not able to avoid Izana's eyes this time, he looked straight at them and immediately fell into a daze.

Izana glanced around him and saw that Ren and Miyu were fighting decently and wouldn't take to long to finish it. Meanwhile Izana searched for the sealing scroll on the leaders body and quickly found it. He had two scroll on his body, one presumably from another group. Tucking the scrolls away.

When Miyu and Ren were done, they were both slightly sweaty, though they had big grins on their faces as they felt they had gained valuable experience. Miyu especially, since her target was beaten black and blue, though not life threatening.

Once they were all done, Izana and co left towards the nesting ground of the Silver crest serpent, finding it relatively untouched. While the other team had definitely been here, traces of battle were spotted as well, indicating the had to flee due to another team. Putting one of the snakes in a genjustsu to make it fall asleep, it was easily grasped and stored away. The bag twitched occasionally, but nothing more than that. All they needed now was the red tag from the proctor.

From the last intel he received, the proctor should be close, as he had made camp in the treetops.

Summoning his shadow panthers once more, he let them stalk the proctor, while he, Miyu and Ren would follow them from behind. 

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The proctor was easily found, observing his surroundings from above ground.

From the looks of it, he had been ambushed more than once, seemingly slightly tired and winded, but nothing more than that. If Izana had to judge the level the proctor was at, it would be around Jonin. Maybe a bit lower.

Having previously discussed their plan, the three split up, stalking from a bit away as the panthers made their first move.

Out of the shadow of the proctor, multiple panthers leaped at him, pressing him against the treee trunk. As the weight increased, the figure disappeared in smoke, a piece of wood taking its place.

Yet a loud scream was heard not much later, as the proctor encountered Izana and another group of panthers.

He was assaulted relentlessly by not only them, but eventually also Miyu and Ren.

It didn't take long before the proctor feel beneath the great power of strength in numbers.

Holding the red tag triumphantly, Miyu carefully put it together with all of their collected items, ensuring everything was in place. With the multitude of items they had, there surely was a chance they could throw a few teams out of commission for this exam.

Now all they needed to do was head back.

They made their way back to the middle of the training ground. They encountered a few ambushes, but they were defeated or outrun very quickly. By the time they arrived at the tower, it was already evening.

Izana handed in the sealing scrolls, earning them a pass for the second stage. They were allowed to leave and would be contacted in a little more than a month. In that time they could recuperate for possible injuries they might have sustained.

They quickly left the training ground, while Izana set his mind on the underlying currents in the Uchiha residence.