Chapter 30

The four hours of sleep did wonders to my body. The twitching has gone, the pain is no longer there and I felt how my pathways were thrumming with power.

Seriously, these Jinchuriki are almost impossible to kill in a direct fight. Roshi has had simply bad luck with me attacking them in their sleep. That they haven't had re-breathers made it worse for them. Their guard must have fallen asleep from the toxin and allowed me to easily sneak up on them.

Roshi himself might not even have noticed that they get poisoned by simply breathing. His Bijuu will have detoxified him the moment he gets the substance into his blood.

Still, Roshi had attributes partly similar to mine, he died instantly and without any way to retaliate. His death should be a lesson for me, one I should never forget. I don't want to find out if my body is truly gamer like and if I can survive a pierced heart just because it didn't do enough damage.

"Something wrong Kenshiro-kun?" Asked Ariha after noticing that I was in deep thoughts.

I shook my head and gave her a smile. "Nah, I just thought that if the moss really makes you tired we wouldn't have been able to stay awake without the re-breathers. I might have fallen asleep during my shift and allow other teams to ambush us. We wouldn't even have been able to wake up thanks to the moss."

She grimaced at the thought and nodded. "Yeah, scary, you think your sister acted on the tip as we did?"

"I don't think so, haven't seen her with a re-breather and they weren't in the shop with us. But Tsu-chan is able to identify the early signs of poisoning and knows medical Jutsu against them," I answered, inwardly sure and worrying at the same time.

Sakumo placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a thumbs up. "She will pass the test, just like we will. Orochimaru is almost as skilled as you and she is already very versed in medical Jutsu. I'm sure she will finish before us if we wait any longer." I nodded again, inwardly hoping that Jiraiya will not fuck it up for them.

We started the same we did yesterday. I would make a group of clones and send them off, with us following. All the while trying to get westwards. For the first two hours not much happened, we crossed a few waterways, found a few crossings and generally found nothing of interest. This test was a lot more boring than I imagined. I knew that the competition would not be the best, but for the test to lack as well. Well, don't look a gifted horse in the mouth.

However, at the halfway mark to the second hour, a clone of mine made another one and dispelled itself to inform me about a Genin team. They were in front of us and walking in the same direction, from the looks of it they haven't noticed my clones yet.

I stopped running for a moment to inform my team of this new development."Guys, my clones found another Genin team. Should I give them the order to engage and weaken or even take them out?"

"How's your Chakra? Can you remake the clones easily?" Asked Sakumo.

"Sure, you know how fast I can get my Chakra back, if I sit down and meditate it will be even faster," I answered.

"Then sure, go ahead. Any fight we don't have to fight ourselves will reduce our fatigue," agreed Ariha. Sakumo did as well and I made a clone just to let it dispel again.

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CLONE POV;

We got the get-go from the Boss and began to get closer to the unknown Genin team. They were walking at a fast pace but still walking. It was a team of three, the normal combination of one girl and two boys.

"You'll take the girl, I will take the middle one and you the last," I ordered my co-clones. They nodded and the clone that had a Henge up as Ariha began to walk on the ceiling.

Chakra threads began to form around its hand and sneaked forward.

The other, as Sakumo hidden, clone pulled two Kunai and sneaked forward. I followed directly behind him and started to form a Chakra thread of my own. We were only a few meters away when one of them looked back. The dim lighting made it easier for us to sneak up on them but not enough to not be seen if we are as close as this.

"Attack!" Shouted the boy, now easily identifiable as a Suna Ninja. He threw a Kunai at the Sakumo clone and then pulled out a pipe from his pouch.

His teammates turned around as well, the girl began to form hand signs but was suddenly lifted up in the air and then bleed from her throat when the Chakra threads of the Ariha clone began to cut into her flesh, the weight of her own body worked against her and her headless corpse fell down.

"Mio!" Shouted her teammate in anger and shock. He looked up and saw the Ariha clone before he threw a Kunai at it with a speed that was fairly fast for a Genin. However, the Kunai got caught by a second Chakra thread.

"Chakra threads?" He asked in shock. The time he spent focusing on the Ariha clone allowed me to finish my own attack and a Rasengan, connected to my thread, was on its path to his chest.

He would have died if his teammate hasn't had flung himself into the flight path. My Rasengan crashed into his lower stomach and grounded first cloth, then skin and finally flesh into a fine paste.

He got bisected before he hit the ground.

He looked at his still living, only remaining, teammate and pleaded for him to flee. "R..run, Kamaro, run!"

Kamaro was crying now and turned around to run like his teammate wanted him to. He stumbled after the first step and fell down, eyes already sightless and dead. The Ariha clone has used the caught Kunai and thrown it with the help of the thread. It pierced into the back of his head and killed him instantly.

"Good job boys, let's search them for anything good," I praised and began to look through the stuff of the female Genin, she was the closest.

"Man, I couldn't do anything. Why did you steal my kill?" Complained the, as Sakumo hidden, clone.

"Cause you're too slow," rebuffed the Ariha clone with a mocking grin. The Sakumo clone flipped her/him off and then began to poke the bloody mess I have left with a stick.

The Boss, Sakumo and Ariha came a few minutes later, just in time for me to find the needed tablet. Both Sakumo and Ariha looked at the dead bodies for a moment but did not grimace. We were Genin for too long to not have seen some of the bad shit people do to other humans, as well as have done some of it ourselves.

"Hey Boss, they were easy to take out. Even had the right stone tablet. All you now have to do is reach the fucking middle of the labyrinth," shouted the Sakumo clone happily, while I gave the tablet over to the original.

"Yeah and then we can worry more about Tsu-chan," I agreed with the other clone.

"I want to just eat chicken, but I already know that I will no longer exist when this happens. A woe me, this life of a clone. Will this be my fate? Longing for something that you know will be good, but never able to reach it?!" Spoke the Ariha clone while hugging herself dramatically.

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Kenshiro POV;

I dispelled all three clones and made a new batch. "They sometimes become strange when they live long enough," I explained with a wry grin. Ariha was still staring at the spot where her clone was hug/molesting herself.

"Kenshiro-kun, why was it the clone that looked like me who was hugging herself?" She then asked slowly and in a too sweet tone.

"Don't know? Maybe because you feel good?" Answered the new Ariha looking clone for me. Ariha turned red and hit the clone into oblivion.

She turned to me and had a way too sweet smile on her lips. "Do you want to tell me how your clone knows how I feel?"

I hastily waved my hands in denial. "You misunderstand, it's not that I know how you feel. It's just that you are good looking and that you would probably feel nice if I were to ever touch you. Which will not happen without your consent. And, I think I heard the exit calling out to us. We have to follow this path and then turn to the right at the next crossing," I hastily said and then promptly began to walk.

Sakumo was laughing his ass off at the theatre, while I began to put Game Points into my luck. Their expressions will be priceless if it turns out to be true what I have just said. 200 points later and my luck was now a whopping 450

It gave me a perk that was looking too good to be true.

Gambler's Life; Luck 100

You are one fucking lucky fellow, somehow you survive everything.

You will be revived with full health after dying, once.

I now have a free life, what would happen if I get my Luck up to 500? If this is the reward for reaching a hundred then how much better will be the next one, or the one after that? Now I will even survive an extraction of the new Bijuu in my gut.

Also, the increase in luck did have an effect on the world. It turned out to be true and after the next crossing, we came upon a large lake. There were three crystal stalactites growing down from the ceiling and roughly pointing at the middle of the lake.

"I'll send a clone to scout," I said with a rather wide grin. The clone jumped into the water, dived down and found an underwater tunnel that led him deeper down. He had to swim for a rather long time before the tunnel turned almost a 90° to the right. From there it got straight forward until he had to dive up again. He came out in a man-made room. A Chunin was sitting on a chair, reading a book.

The Chunin looked up from his book. He noticed my clone and was shocked to see him, however, before he could speak my clone dispelled and sent the information back to me.

I turned to Ariha and Sakumo, all of us were in the middle of trapping the entrance tunnels. "This is the place, there is a really deep tunnel before we reach the end. People without a re-breather will get in trouble. What do you guys want to do? From the looks of it, there are a few tunnels that lead into this part of the cave."

"We could stay here and take out the competition," suggested Ariha slightly eager to do something. She might not be happy with the exam. So far she only had put their victim in the first test under a Genjutsu, the second part was only running.

"Yeah, and risk getting wounded or taken out as well. Say Kenshiro-kun, were there many strong Genin at the start?" Countered Sakumo before asking.

"Well, some were good for Genin and a few at low Chunin level. The three I hugged are all at my level or a bit stronger," I answered while placing a trap of my own.

"Really? Do you mean your level or 'your' level?" Asked Sakumo again. Ariha looked at him, not knowing what he meant. Sakumo is more of the quiet type. That makes it easy to forget about him or overlook him. It also allows him to watch his surroundings without anyone taking notice of you.

"How did you figure it out?" I asked with a wry grin. I don't know how he does it, especially with his silver hair. Maybe it is his Chakra that makes him unremarkable?

"You occasionally become a lot slower, weaker and easier exhausted. Then you get better again only to fall back to this strange weakened state," he listed and waited for me to explain myself.

"I can tell you, but not here, I need a fully silenced room for that. This is something only four people know," I answered honestly. Ariha now looked worried, as did Sakumo, but they agreed and decided to finish the exam. Their interest in what I will tell them was bigger than the chance of finishing the exam with less competition.

So we finished the traps, I made quite a lot of new clones to also trap other entrances. We then dived through the underwater tunnel to the Chunin who was reading again, but now also quicker to react. "Greetings, do you have the tablets?"

"Sure, wait a moment," answered Ariha. She took her tablet out of her scroll and I unsealed mine. We placed them together and then laid it down on his table.

He studied the tablet for a moment, before nodding and then pointing behind himself at the closed door. "Behind that will be a staircase, climb it and then get your room. The exam won't be finished until the day after tomorrow." He then ignored us and continued to read.

All three of us shrugged and opened the door, behind was a staircase. I think the long boring climb was more annoying that the tunnel itself. All in all this test was pretty boring. Well, not everyone can have something as awesome as The Forest of Death.