She really wished she knew some super cool Ninja Magic right about now. Some AOE attacks would be great. Shooting fireballs would be nice or maybe a wind Jutsu to blow away the mist, but nope, she couldn't do squat besides sending more clones of herself to buy time and running the hell away.

Chucking Kunai and Shurikens only served to waste her ammo and piss them off.

The things were too damn fast, and she couldn't get a lock on them to cast a Genjutsu. When she get back she should finally work on learning at learning her Affinity and maybe some D rank NinJutsu. Lacking range was really biting her in the ass right now, and she was too scared to attempt to throw a tree after the last one blew her the fuck up.

When there are a shit ton of wire traps laying around, uprooting the earth was a really bad fucking idea.

Eventually, in the wild flailing, she had managed to set off enough trap and run fast enough that the damn things gave up.

What an amazing aspiring savior of the world she turned out to be, getting her ass kicked by a gang of birds.

"What the fuck was that?"

"Hell if I know, but I don't wanna stick around and find out."

"Probably some dumbass running blindly through the jungle. From the sounds of it the poor bastard set off a dozen explosive note and a third of the traps on the island."

Team play wasn't encouraged but wasn't technically against the rules so the group of Suna Ninja decided to stick together, idly discussing the fate of whatever idiot has been running amuck the place. They've been using a combination of clones and wind Jutsu to clear out the area and breeze their way through.

"W-why are you doing this?! We're both from the same Village! We're on the same team!"

"Hoo...? I don't remember being on the same team with such a weakling. How about you do us both a favor and such up? At least die with some dignity, or whatever."

"You Demon, do you think you'll get away with this?!"

"This is why I hate cowardly idiots like you. The only thing they can do is bark and cry. This is the Chunin Exam, dumbass. Did you think it was a picnic? People die all the time, and it seems like you've just fallen into that category."

"W-wait, stop, please. I'll do anythin-"

He didn't manage to finish his sentence before he noticed something odd. Why was his body over there...? And more importantly, where was his head?

The boy with short dark hair swung his sword to rid it of the dirty blood, walking away without a single glance backward at the now cooling corpse of his fellow ninja from the Hidden Mist. There was no room for weakness within his village and he'd be sure to use this rare chance to weed them out.

The danger of the island was increasingly difficult as one got further in. At first, Julia would encounter a trap every ten or five minutes, but now it felt like every other step was trigging some hidden mechanism of doom.

The concentration of it was so bad that even the monstrous animals have started to avoid the area.

She, she bullheadedly rushed forward without pause and had managed to get there within an hour and a half. It seems she was the third one there.

"What're you looking at, shit head?"

"What was that..? I could've sworn I heard a dog barking? How strange to find a dog on such an island."

"You bitch, you're really itching for a beating, huh?!"

A brown-haired girl black-eyed was glaring at a tall dark-skinned boy. His head shaved closely with yellow hair and rage pooled within green orbs. Even as he stomped towards her she didn't back down and instead pulled out a scroll. Unrolling it in a single fluid motion she slid her thumb down its length.

In a puff of smoke, a wooden puppet in the shape of a bull appeared next to her.

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing, a flea-ridden mad dog like you, there's only one cure for your stupidity. A nice long stay in the hospital after I break your legs, bitch."

He pulled out a small Warhammer tied to his right waist, lightning crackling along its head. Julia was content to watch the fight after picking up her won wristband.

"Fellas, let's relax now, shall we? There is no need to fight amongst ourselves when there'll be plenty of people seeking us out soon for our bands. I propose a temporary alliance, what say you?"

With an oily voice like a used car salesman, an older man with an Iwa headband interjected himself into the conversation. Unlike the other two young teens, this was a man well into his twenties. His dark hair was like curly waves while his goatee was sharp and well-trimmed.

"No way, I don't need help from this stupid oaf!"

"I say you take your proposal and shove it up yer ass, because I'm going to kick this bitch's right now!"

While the boy had pointed his hammer and pointed it at the man, the girl had sent her animal puppet to knock him flying into the ocean via horns to the backside. Julia tried to be sneaky but couldn't hold back her laughs at the sight.

"Oh...? A fourth one? Welcome!"

"A pipsqueak? How the hell did you manage to get all the way over here...?"

Sabako Kaze had a crass mouth but was a pleasant enough person once you got over her strong personality. The two girls spent most of the time chatting and decided to leave on their own after half an hour. They already got their wristbands so sitting around wouldn't do much and they didn't quite get along with the others. It was pretty hard when people looked down on you for being young or a girl. Even in another world sexism was apparently still a thing and neither felt like having a dick measuring contest with every idiot that came running around.

"So, that puppet, I've never seen anything like it. It's pretty cool looking, did you make it yourself?"

"Ha! I wish, but no I brought this baby from a specialist back in Suna. I only modified it slightly."

Julia listened attentively while keeping an eye on their surroundings. It might've been stupid to stick around with a stranger in a mysterious jungle, but Julia quite liked the girl who was so passionate about her craft. She didn't understand half of what came out of the other's mouth, the intricacies of the art of woodcraft and the joint mechanisms was lost upon her, but it eas quite charming and seemed interesting as she listened to the girl half complain and half brag about her Bull.

"By the way, why do you use wood? Wouldn't something like Metal be a lot more durable and strong...?"

"Whattt? Are you kidding me? First of all, do you even know how expensive that would be? This isn't a cheap point chunk of metal like a Shuriken or a Kunai you know. The amount of work and cost for such a project would be immense, to say nothing about how ridiculously heavy it would be. My Buru-chan here weighs more than 3 people combined you know. Also unless it's Chakra metal, it wouldn't last very long nor would it be able to handle Chakra being channeled as well as organic materials like wood."

It seems Julia accidentally stepped on a verbal landmine in her ignorance, this clearly wasn't a first-time issue for the other girl as she ranted on and on.

"Seriously you just can't get the same effect with metal, and-"

"Alright, alright. I get it already. Still, you sure seem to know a lot about it and I've heard how hard it was to use puppets, yet this thing is moving so smoothly." Julia was pretty impressed truth be told. They were both sitting on the puppet named Buru's back as it treaded through the jungle, ignoring any and all traps along the way, Kunai or paper bombs couldn't seem to rattle it at all.

"Yeah probably for other losers. The concentration needed to divide your attention into two or more while keeping up your situational battle awareness if pretty hard, but I'm just awesome. I'm going to join the Puppet Brigade and surpass Sasori-sama and Chiyo-sama! I don't want to simply keep using their hand me downs, I'll make the best puppet ever, ones that won't need a user's command to carry out dangerous missions or hard tasks!"

Isn't that just a robot then? Then again Toneri and his stupid clan managed something similar in the movie, didn't they?

"Good luck with that, I think you can do it if you keep at it! Say, I don't suppose you'd be willing to give me some tips? I don't want to be a puppet master, but I've been looking for new Chakra control exercises."

"Huh? Yeah, sure thing, not like this is a secret or anything, just knead out your Chakra into a thread and connect with something. Think of it as an extension to the tree walking exercise-"

The first two days went without much of a hitch, they traded training advices, ran into and away from the occasional beasts, and beat up a few Genins that went after them once in a while. It was fun, almost like a camping trip. The jungle was dangerous but so were they and so they spent time having fun.

It was a mistake because, on the third day, they ran into a Demon and it brought hell with it.