48 - From Exams to War

The final round.

Kai was near unscathed, while Yozora was battered from previous rounds. This in itself was bad news for the purple haired boy.

He began with summoning Aquila as usual, leaving Perseus to spar with Kai. It took her only a few Earth Sword blows to bypass the constellation's defenses, defeating it.

"Earth Style: Mud Wall!" Instead of acting as a wall, however, Kai got the wall to form a spike at the top, which Yozora's bird narrowly dodged. She followed up with a string of such walls to force Yozora to land.

Against a sword user like Kai, Yozora decided his best bet was more Perseus. This time, he summoned two. Unfortunately, summoning multiple humanoid constellations put quite the strain on his already tired chakra reserves.

As Kai sparred against the two Perseus, Yozora summoned another Draco. He flinched as the chakra strain set in, but he still clambered onto the dragon.

Kai defeated one Perseus with a swing of her sword, erecting a mud wall just in time to block a beam of fire from Draco before whipping around to defeat the other Perseus. With most of the chakra from maintaining the Perseus back, Yozora summoned two more Draco to bombard Kai with fire.

The girl instead opted to summon another mud wall, but this time she stood on top of it, jumping onto the Draco Yozora sat on and throwing him off with a swing of her sword.

The purple haired boy felt the impact as he landed on the rocky ground. He managed to crawl up, controlling the other two Draco to attack Kai at once. She got singed, but managed to backflip off just in time.

Even as his constellations disappeared, returning some chakra, Yozora could feel the exhaustion settling in...

"The winner is Kai."

One day later, Yozora was on his way back to Konoha.

Unfortunately, his chakra reserves were still weakened, so instead Anbu Wolf had suggested taking breaks at night instead of flying the entire time.

This morning, Yozora and Wolf were walking out of the small village, wanting to stay away from the general public in case summoning a bird out of nowhere freaks them out.

However, they were interrupted by none other than Rina and Kessho of Sun Star. The former stepped forward to talk while the latter stayed silent.

"I believe the alliance between Konohagakure and Sun Star still stands. Do you need something?" Wolf asked, although she was tense.

"Look, Kyomu asked me to deliver a message to the purple kid. I dunno what it's about, I'm just here as a messenger. And also to buy toilet paper, but I'll probably pick up some dango too. I don't think anyone's gonna notice." The pink haired woman waved a rolled up piece of paper around.

Wolf nodded at Yozora. "There's no traps on it. You can take it."

The purple haired boy stepped forward, taking the letter. He didn't open it yet, deciding he'd read it later. Frankly, he'd rather burn anything from Kyomu with Itera's explosive arrows, but it could contain important details on how Sun Star would act in the war.

"Well, gotta go now. Shit to buy." Rina walked past them towards the village. "And there's no point in pretending, Koto. You can't hide from me. I hope that fancy mask of yours isn't blocking your eyes as well as your face."

Yozora blinked in confusion, turning back to Wolf. "Do you know her? Was that your name?"

"Koto Okami," she replied. "Don't ask."

"Wait," Yozora said. "Your last name is your code name? Does the Anbu have this sense of humor?"

"Don't ask," Koto repeated.

"Okay, fork guy, you can hand over the map now," Rina called, extending a hand.

Kessho's pink eyes narrowed. "I thought you had the map."

"Fuck no, you were supposed to have the map!"

"Didn't you bring the map?"

"No, you were supposed to bring the map!"

"Why are you forgetting what you're supposed to do?"

"You had the map, fucker!"

"..."

"..."

"So... are we lost?"

"Fuck."

"Yo, Yozora, you're back," Fuyuka greeted, waving at the purple haired boy as he landed within the village. "Did you get promoted?"

Yozora smiled. "Yeah!"

"Well, that's great and all," the blue haired girl replied. "Did anything interesting happen?"

Yozora summoned a Libra to sit on, before recounting the entirety of the exams, as well as all the people. "Tomo- that's my teammate, he reads Bleach too."

"Let me guess- he likes Shinji. No, wait- Urahara."

"Yeah, you got it," Yozora nodded. "And also, I got a letter from Sun Star when I was on the way back. I need to go see Hokage-sama."

Fuyuka narrowed her eyes. "Sun Star again... stupid ripoff. Go ahead."

"Yozora," Tsunade greeted, glancing up. "What's the letter you were talking about?"

The purple haired boy had read the letter earlier, on his way back. He retrieved the paper from his bag. "Kyomu says... he's willing to help you in the war, but in return, he wants a large amount of Night Star."

Tsunade frowned, her eyes furrowed as she thought. "I won't be surprised if there are large amounts of distant Tsuyoku descendants out there, letting Night Star get out could be dangerous."

"That's what I was thinking. The Allied Shinobi Forces should be able to do fine in the war, I doubt six people would make much of a difference anyways," Yozora agreed, placing the letter down on Tsunade's desk. "...what will you do?"

Tsunade sighed, tapping her desk with her fingers. "Shizune, write a reply for me. Tell him no, but we'll send a message if we need help."

"On it," the brown haired medic replied, Tonton in her arms oinking in synchrony.

All five members of Sun Star converged in their cave.

"Rina, Kessho, did you deliver the letter and buy the toilet paper?" Kyomu asked, desperately hoping the two combined had about 10% of Kitanai's common sense. "And nothing else?"

"Kessho forgot to bring the map."

"Rina forgot to bring the map."

"Fuck you."

"No, you."

The two glared at each other.

Kyomu was already having a migraine and he hadn't even moved on to the others. The red haired man sighed like a middle aged office worker, massaging his temples. "Okay... Yurei, did you get any information on Makoto?"

Apart from social situations, at least Yurei was reliable. "She has twelve puppets, including Ivory. They have various specialties, totalling twelve. I have created illustrations of the six that I have managed to spot and noted down the abilities we are aware of.."

"I see," Kyomu nodded.

"You're blind, no you don't," Hoka coughed. Everyone ignored her.

"Henka, have you analyzed the materials on Ivory?" Kyomu continued, earning a nod from the blond man. "The particular one seems to be made of a mix of generalist materials, with a focus on materials from the Lands of Lightning and Snow. I'll still need samples of others to be sure, however."

"And Hoka, have you... avoided setting anything in the cave on fire?"

"Just one Henka mannequin, but nobody cares about those things," the fiery haired girl shrugged, leaning back on her chair.

"Wha- absolutely everyone cares about those things!" the blond argued angrily. "I'm the reason all of us haven't burned to death yet! You should be grateful I'm still making fireproof socks for everyone!"

Kyomu sighed again. He should really get some better subordinates.