Naruto: The New Sealmaster

Looking disinterested, the Kusa-nin summoned a large python and sent it Aoshi's way.

Aoshi had to react, and he did. With his life on the line, he formed the seals for his other wind technique and blew a massive storm towards the snake which caused this one as well to poof out of existence.

The ninja must have been surprised, since he looked Aoshi's way. That was exactly what the little genin was looking for. That was his moment. He sent his most powerful genjutsu towards the enemy, and layered it as many times as he dared. He knew it wouldn't hold for long but maybe long enough for him to get away.

He used his original technique again to propel himself towards his teammates while the enemy was working through each layer of genjutsu one by one. Aoshi's muscles in his legs and arms were about to give in to the poison so he didn't have much choice, and chose to use all the chakra he could to get to his friends.

He found them on the ground a bit away, all laying in a bloody pile. But they were alive and breathing. He shot towards them and shouted with all the effort he could.

"Grab onto me! Right now!"

The girl wrapped her arm around his neck without question, the other two looked surprised, hesitant, and sad but grabbed onto an arm each. The very next moment they shot out away like a cannonball.

Aoshi had used up almost every last scrap of chakra to shoot them away, just praying to whatever god was listening that the enemy ninja at least fell for the final layer of subtle genjutsus. He was happy to see that he, in his rush, had shot them in the right direction. The four genins all flew right towards the middle of the forest and right before they were going to crash into the exam building, Aoshi used up his very last bit of chakra to brace their fall.

He would have sucked out some chakra from his friends to make it steadier but in his current state he didn't trust himself to hold back when absorbing chakra.

A massive dust cloud formed, and a small crater, right in front of one of the gates.

Three people stood in a circle around the fourth, just trying to get any kind of response from him.

Aoshi, himself, couldn't feel anything. His entire body was numb, his chakra reserves were gone, he couldn't open his eyes and he couldn't sense anything at all. He was honestly quite afraid that he had already died, but then a tiny voice rang through his right ear.

"Bite me! Come on! Bite me! Please! I haven't even told you my name yet, please! Just bite me!"

He wasn't dead. He was dying, but still. He couldn't do exactly what he hated others for doing. Aoshi didn't know where this altruistic side of him that was willing to die for his morals came from, but he really didn't like it.

He managed to shake his head, but the girl was relentless.

"There's no other way! Bite! Suck!"

But that wasn't true. He remembered reading the old stories. He remembered how her bloodline was used back in the day. It wasn't exactly a healing power, it was much more than that. It struck your very soul. And he knew how that kind of healing was done in the stories.

"A..kiss"

The girl didn't hesitate for a second. The very next instant, her lips were on his. It wasn't a very nice kiss if he was honest. She was crying and he was almost completely numb. But he could instantly feel the effects. After a second, he could kiss back and almost as if in reverse, he got the feeling back in parts of his body. His muscles got back under his control. He didn't fully heal though after almost half a minute of kissing, so he opened his eyes and pushed her away gently.

By this point they all lay down on the ground completely exhausted. None of them had enough chakra or energy to do much. Every little bit of energy in their bodies was working to heal themselves as well as it could. Aoshi still felt the effects of active poison inside him and could see from Kazuto's puncture wounds that he was suffering from similar conditions. Making a decision, he raised his right hand towards the others.

"Grab my hand."

And they all did. Aoshi felt what would be a safe amount of chakra, and extracted precisely that amount. He then grabbed Dai's hand with his left and poured it all into him.

"It's just like 10 metres Dai, You're going to have to carry us there. Once inside, I'm sure we can get medical attention."

Dai looked towards the door that would spell the end of the exam. He was amazed that Aoshi actually managed to land them so close to it. Then he looked over to his teammates only to see how they rapidly got paler. The strong man of the group jumped into action. He didn't dare take them one at a time in case the doors closed behind him.

Dai tried to come up with a plan but he was never one to come up with things like that. That's Aoshi's job, but now everyone was slowly falling asleep except for Dai. He couldn't let that happen, so in the end he decided that dragging them would be the best way.

They all wore jackets, it wouldn't be that bad, was what Dai told himself when he brought all of their legs together and dragged them the last bit. It didn't take long before he pushed the door open with his back and they were inside, now what?

He looked around only to find no one. Nobody was there to help him, only some dumb scripture on the wall. His teammates weren't completely out of it yet though.

Aoshi was slapped in the face three times. It was just enough to gather his attention and stop him from falling into the darkness. He looked up to see Dai completely panicking and wanted to laugh but it would be a waste of what little energy he had. He reached up his right hand towards Dai and soon felt the sweet sensation of chakra pouring into his chakra network once again. It felt like drinking water after a long walk in the desert. Before he could enjoy the moment though, Dai fell to the ground.

Aoshi reached into his pocket and unsealed the two scrolls.

He sat up, only to notice the scripture on the wall and instantly realised that it was time. And even if it wasn't he didn't have much choice. He opened both scrolls and threw them a few metres away. The next second, Hachiro popped into existence with a wide grin.

The grin didn't last long. Seeing his three pupils on the ground, two of them bleeding and all of them pale, made him worried and so he kneeled down next to Aoshi. Seeing his leader, Aoshi let out a small chuckle.

"We ran into a jounin, likely Orochimaru. They summoned massive snakes, had a snake-like body and had more chakra than most of our anbu. Me and Kazuto are poisoned, Dai and the girl are just exhausted. She's an Uzumaki by the way, under my current protection. And..that's pretty much it."

As he had said his piece, he felt a large weight off his back. He had little reason to stay awake so he let his body slip away into sleep. Hachiro would take care of it.

---

Light seeped through the window as Aoshi opened his eyes. It must be at the very least the next day, as he saw the sun just rising at the horizon. He looked around the room and quickly realised he was once again in a hospital room.

The boy sighed. He had promised not to end up here as often anymore.

He tried sensing through the walls and noticed he was pretty much alone in these rooms, and he wasn't actually at the hospital. He was still in the exam building, just a specific part that was probably made for incidents like his. Well not encounters with jounins from other villages, or traitorous ninjas of a higher tier, but snakebites at least.

Soon, a medic walked through the hall towards him. He assumed that him waking up had activated some seals.

"Good morning Rokushō-San."

It was an elderly woman. Though her hair had gone grey, she kept a certain charm to her. One which she shone his direction when she gave him a smile.

"It appears you are alright, just a bit low on chakra for now."

Aoshi bowed his head to show he was grateful to her. But then he decided to ask about the others.

"What about my teammates? Are they alright?"

She sat down next to him and gave him the last few checks while responding.

"Oh yes. They were all cleared yesterday. Though the girl has been insisting that she'd be allowed to kiss you for some reason. She claims it'd heal you of your injuries."

The medic laughed as if it was preposterous but seeing his sheepish grin, she knew there was something at play. She nodded.

"Well, I'll leave that to you two. Anyway, you may now leave. Though your superiors want a word with you as soon as possible. They should be on the top floor."

Aoshi put one foot after the other on the ground and stumbled to his feet. Then he bowed to the medic once more, before walking out the door while she was cleaning up after him.

He still wore his clothes, but they weren't very whole. So he decided to make a small pit stop at a nearby toilet and swap with a set of clothes he always kept sealed in his belt.

After a short swap, he walked up the stairs to get to the top floor.

"Aoshi-kun!"

He barely recognized the voice but the red hair flying his way was unmistakable. Pale slender arms wrapped around his neck as she pulled him into a hug. She was crying.

"Thank you Aoshi-kun. Thank you."

He didn't know if he had actually done enough to warrant that kind of reaction but he hugged the girl back gently nonetheless. Before he could question her, she got another word into the conversation.

"Karin."

She took a step back from him to look him in the eyes.

"Uzumaki Karin. That's my name."

She looked at him expectantly, the only way Aoshi could describe it was like a child wanting recognition from their parents.

He smiled at her and put an arm over her shoulder.

"Well then, Uzumaki-chan, mind helping me up the stairs to my superiors?"

She looked a bit disappointed for a second.

"You don't want to…to…"

A blush spread all over her face, so she didn't finish the statement before looking straight ahead and helping him walk instead.

Aoshi could only smile and chuckle at her expense. He knew what she was about to ask, and he might have misjudged what kind of expectancy she had before. But until he knew exactly how that power worked, he didn't want to just keep on using it.

Slowly but surely, they made it up several flights of stairs. In complete silence. That was until Aoshi decided he would play with her a little.

"You know, the idea for the kiss came from some Uzumaki stories I've read."

Her eyes widened at the notion of stories from her clan.

"Except…in all those stories, it was always a husband and wife using the power that way. Once or twice it was about lovers, but they were usually doing other things as well..hmm…"

He made a fake pensive look as he felt her get weak at the knees. He now had to support her, and when he looked at her he understood why. A small drip of blood fell from one of her nostrils and her face was as red as her hair. No wonder she couldn't stand well, her blood was all focused up there.

"But hey, we'll figure out how it works later."