Strongest Shinobi

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

"There are three teams near here with a team of Amegakure being the closest. The tower where the scrolls need to be delivered is in the north approximately five miles away from here."

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 that team had an earth scroll. That way they would be done quite early and he would be able to investigate further what was happening inside the Uchiha residence.

"Do you know if they carry earth or heaven scrolls?" Izana said, not daring to hope for his luck to be so great.

"It should be an earth scroll. Otherwise the scroll from Sunagakure, just a little past them, should definitely be an earth scroll as one of the others had seen them carry it." 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?"

The panthers 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."

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.

"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.

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

The panthers nodded again as they 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 an Earth scroll, while Ame is a guess. Konoha isn't certain. I suggest we go after Suna, as the information on them is solid."

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.

On it was described which affinities they 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 quickmoving doll. It had four arms and had many hidden weapons, such as kunai and shuriken. The movement 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.

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.

It shouldn't pose too much of a problem, thoug Izana still kept his guard up for unexpected surprises. Who knew what trump cards the enemy might have.

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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 woul only be carrying earth scrolls, the same as them.

Deciding they wanted to trade for a heaven scroll, the trio kept an extra earth scroll on their body. 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.

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. Unsupection to the Suna trio, a hand slowly came out of the mouth of the mouth of the creature, a 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.

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 stroked 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.

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 scrolls on the leaders body and quickly found the earth scroll, two at that.

Deciding to take out an extra team, Izana kept the other scroll too. 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.

Once they were all done, Izana and co left towards the tower in 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 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.