Hi, guys, Weebee here. Happy holidays to everyone out there, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm going on a little vacation to visit my family later today, and it will last about two weeks. I may have internet, and I may publish, but it's not definite, so I decided to give my seasons greetings here. This extra long chapter is my gift to you guys, for being pretty awesome people most of the time.
Chapter 3, Don't Poke a Sleeping Racoondog in the Eye.
As Team 7 raced into the large space under the tower where all of the teams had been ordered after the scrolls had been opened, Sakura took the opportunity to observe the other teams. She frowned at what she saw, as though some of the members appeared injured, most of the groups, including the Sound nin who had attacked her team, had arrived early and had an opportunity to rest. She had no idea why they'd been called here, but she hoped it had nothing to do with endurance, as she was on her last legs, and as she turned back to her own team, she saw that Sasuke was once more briefly cringing and holding the mark on his neck.
The pink haired girl started towards the boy, but was stopped as the Hokage's voice echoed from the front of the room. Startled, she looked towards the sound to see the Third, standing in the middle of a small group of special jounin and jounin sensei, including Kakashi. As her eyes passed his, he caught them for a moment, and she was surprised to see an almost speculative look on his face.
"Welcome," the Hokage started, "and congratulations on passing the second Chunin exam."
As he went on with his speech, Sakura heard a strange sound from inside of her head, almost like a surprised gasp. 'Ranma?' She asked, wondering what was going on.
'Sakura, look over to your left, about forty-five degrees.' Ranma's voice instructed, and the pink haired girl did so. To that side were several teams she recognized, and she smiled as she saw her fellow classmates and Lee among them, but there was also another group, all three wearing the headbands of the village of the sand.
'What am I looking for?' The pink haired girl asked, concerned.
'That kid with the red hair.' Ranma explained. 'Since I'm a little closer to the front of your mind now, I can use my aura sense and some other passive abilities, even when you're in control. That kid's exuding enough anger chi to power Ryoga for a year, and something feels… wrong… about it.'
Sakura frowned. She wasn't sure what anger chi was, but it didn't sound pleasant. Narrowing her eyes and focusing on the other boy, she thought that she felt… something, though she was unaware of how to describe it. Still, it started bringing up a lump of fear in her stomach for little apparent reason. 'So, what does it mean?' She asked, finally.
'It means, if we fight that guy…' Ranma started, and it sounded as if she was having trouble completing her sentence, as if the words were sticking in her throat, even if she didn't have to actually speak them. 'We give up.'
"What?!" The pink haired Ninja burst out, absolutely not expecting that response.
"Miss Haruno, I fail to see why this is so surprising." The Hokage rebuked from the front of the room. "Though none of you knew the specifics, the idea of proving one's strength is common to all Ninja, when necessary."
"Oh, um, I'm sorry, Lord Hokage." Sakura said, quickly, and then bowed.
The Hokage just smiled at the girl for a moment, letting her know that there would be no further rebuke or reprisal, before going on with his speech, which Sakura once again tuned out to continue her talk with Ranma.
'But this is my only chance to become a chunin without spending years in the field first, I can't just give up on it!' She complained, resolutely.
'Didn't say you had to, only if you ever have to face that guy.' Ranma replied. 'From what I'm getting, he almost wants to tear his opponents to shreds. The rage's radiating off 'im in waves. Anyone else, and go nuts.'
'Yeah, I… I guess.' Sakura said, looking towards the red haired boy again, and now much more sure that she could feel something… odd… rolling off of him. As she turned her attention back to the Hokage's speech, and blushed at realizing that she had missed almost all of it, the pink haired girl blinked to see one of the special jounin stepping up to replace him.
The man coughed for a moment, sounding almost as if he was going to bring up a lung, and then spoke. "Hello, I am Hayate Gekkou, and I will be officiating for the third exam preliminaries."
"Preliminaries?" Sakura heard Choji exclaim from nearby.
"Yes." Hayate said, and then coughed again. "It seems that this year's Chunin exams were a little too easy, and too many teams made it through to the third exam. Since, as the Hokage has said, many of the world's most powerful people will be watching the event, we will need to cut it down to a more manageable size in order to keep it moving." He stopped to cough again. "As such, we are holding preliminaries to weed out the weaker competitors."
"But a lot of us haven't fully recuperated from the second exam yet!" Ino complained, motioning to Lee, who still looked really scraped up.
"That is understood, and that is why any one person will be allowed to drop out of the exams from this point forward, without any repercussion to their team." Hayate explained. "You may now have five minutes to decide if you are staying in or withdrawing."
As the man walked out of the middle of the room, coughing once more, Sakura heard Ranma muttering about bleeding and the drowning of the world, but ignored it, as it didn't seem to be aimed at her. Frowning, she looked around to see the other teams' members talking to each-other, deciding whether they should stay in or not. She thought of her own team. She and Sasuke, at least, were both bone tired even if Naruto was as bursting with energy as he always was. Also, she still felt a little stiff due to her injuries not quite having healed yet.
Looking over at the black haired Uchiha, she noticed that he was still wincing slightly and holding his neck. 'That cursed seal, it's still bothering him?' She thought, worried. She'd seen how badly it had incapacitated him in his previous fight, and didn't really want to think about what would happen in this one if he went out onto the field. 'I… I can't let him go out there.' She realized.
'And how are you going to stop him?' Ranma asked. 'He's as determined to get through this as you are, maybe more.'
'I… I don't know,' Sakura admitted, 'maybe I can tell the judges and they can take him out for medical reasons?'
Inside of her head, she heard Ranma sigh. 'Sakura, I don't really like the idea of you becoming a chunin.' The other's voice came back, evenly. 'It puts you on more difficult missions, and you almost got yourself killed on the exam.'
'I…" Sakura said, confused at where Ranma was going with this.
'How would you like it if I forcefully took your body over, and announced that I, Sakura Haruno, was dropping out of the tournament because I was too tired to fight.'
'You wouldn't…?!' Sakura gasped, horrified.
'No, I wouldn't, but that's basically what you'd be doin if ya reported lover boy right about now. I don't like the guy, but that don't mean I'll let ya screw up yer chances like that, and interfere with another martial artist's goal.' Ranma replied.
Sakura's face paled. 'I… you're right.' She finally admitted, but then looked back to Sasuke, who had straightened up slightly. 'B.. but I'm so worried about him, and…' She thought, and Ranma could feel the tightening at the corner of her eyes that signified tears.
'Aw, crap. I hate ta see girls cry.' She thought, unaware that Sakura could hear it, and then a long mental sigh escaped. 'Why don't ya just tell him what you're worried about? Ya could get him out, ya might not, but at least you tried and ya didn't take the decision out of his hands.' She finally offered.
Sakura nodded decisively, confusing Naruto, who was coming over to her to ask why she was staring off into space, and started to walk up to Sasuke.
HR
Outside of the tower, Kabuto was pacing back and forth nervously, frantically wracking his brain for a new plan. He had, quite frankly, screwed up, and he knew what Orochimaru tended to do to those who failed him. If he were lucky, he would be tied up and left in a deserted valley with a giant summoned serpent, and if he wasn't lucky… He shuddered.
He had to ensure that the Uchiha made it through to the finals, while still making it look like a good show. This was no easy task, as even as good as Sasuke was, the cursed seal nearly incapacitated him. Worse yet, he'd heard somewhere that one of the Jounin instructors had asked for a last minute re-ordering of the matchups, and he had no idea who Sasuke would be fighting to begin with.
Sighing, the grey haired Medic Nin looked up at the tower, and reached up to pull at his leaf village headband. There was only one way he could think to fix this, and it was down-right distasteful. Stepping forward, he disguised himself under as many transformation, illusion and invisibility jutsu as he knew, which was a staggering amount, and headed for the arena where the preliminary matches were being held.
HR.
In the arena, standing along the side next to Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura looked to the latter and, just for a moment, thought of smacking him over the head, repeatedly. She'd practically begged him to think of dropping out of the preliminaries, listing many valid reasons why he should, but he'd just shrugged, said he'd be fine, and refused to answer her afterward with anything other than "Hn."
'He's such a jerk!' She heard a voice say from inside her head, and was about to yell at Ranma for saying bad things about Sasuke-kun, when she realized it was her own voice that had yelled it.
'Told ya it wouldn't do any good.' Ranma's voice drawled back, sounding pretty indifferent about the whole thing.
'Yeah, but did he have to ignore me like that?' Sakura heard her own voice again, and guessed, correctly, that it was Kura-chan talking.
'You wanna be quiet?' Ranma asked. "First match's about to start.'
"Hmm?" Sakura asked, and looked up at the scoreboards on the other side of the massive underground arena. Sure enough, the names of all of the contestants were displayed there, rapidly flickering through the rows until two blinked up and stayed. "For the first match, Hinata Hyuga Vs. TenTen." Hayate announced, so quietly that most in the room could barely hear him.
The black haired girl jumped easily down from where she was standing next to the rest of Team Gai, Lee cheering her on as Neji looked as indifferent as physically possible, taking her place in the middle of the arena. A few moments passed, and when there was no sign of Hinata, Hayate called her name again.
Eventually, the purple haired girl reluctantly stepped forward from where she was standing slightly behind her two teammates, and walked down the steps to the ring. As TenTen looked into her eyes, the slightly older girl couldn't help but feel a little bad. Personally, though he was her teammate, she thought Neji could be a bit of a jerk, but this Hyuga was a completely different prospect. She seemed very timid, and was holding herself defensively.
Uncertainly, the black haired girl spoke. "Hinata, if you'd like, you can forfeit you know."
For a moment, the purple haired girl considered doing just that, but then she heard a commotion coming from the side of the spectator gallery. It was Naruto, and he was yelling and waving his fist. "Come on, let's see a great fight! This is gunna be awesome!" The blond haired boy cried, jubilantly. Naruto was, of course, just letting his enthusiasm for the event get away from him, but to Hinata, this cheering seemed to mean something else.
"N… Naruto?" She whispered, and then her stance firmed slightly. "Thank you for the offer, but I will fight you." She continued, quietly.
"All right. I'd feel a little bad if I got advanced through my opponent giving up, anyways." TenTen said, grinning at the other girl.
After she said this, Hayate stepped between the two, and began counting to begin the match. When he finally said "Begin!" and used the leaf teleportation technique to get out of the middle of the battlefield, Hinata started making handseals immediately.
TenTen also started moving, withdrawing several Shuriken from her belt pouch and tossing them at the other girl, meaning to rip her clothing and scare her a little. Much to her surprise, however, Hinata finished her seals, and the veins started bulging around her Byakugan eyes shortly before the blades could impact.
Being able to track the incoming projectiles perfectly, the Hyuga heiress managed to scramble out of the way, but did stumble as one blade caught on the leg of her pants. Recovering quickly, she charged for her enemy, preparing to engage in close combat, where her Gentle Fist style could give her the advantage.
TenTen, being a ranged combat specialist and having worked with Neji for well over a year, wasn't about to let this happen and started back-peddling, tossing a few more weapons from her pouch to keep her foe from getting closer. Circling around sideways, she frantically wracked her brain for strategies that had worked at least a little against Neji. Hinata seemed much more inexperienced, though she didn't want to go for any of the harder takedowns.
Narrowing her eyes, the black haired Kunoichi withdrew a scroll from apparently nowhere, and cut her own finger in order to allow a line of blood to drip down it. "Rising Dragon Jutsu!" She called, and the scroll seemed to explode in a mass of Kunai, Shuriken and spiked chains, all of which were headed straight for Hinata.
As TenTen had hoped, the Hyuga hadn't become proficient enough with her eyes to track all of the tools, and as they widened in panic, she froze in indecision. All of the bladed weapons sped past her on either side, though some did snag in her clothes, but the several spiked chains seemed to curve in mid-air, wrapping around her back and sliding back to clasp in front of her.
"Wh… what?" Hinata asked, struggling to move as she found herself wrapped in a cocoon of chain.
"You lose." TenTen stated, yanking the one chain she'd kept a hold of, and pulling the girl towards her, where she held a Kunai under her chin.
"I… I lose." Hinata eventually said, sighing.
TenTen nodded, and began quickly unbinding her opponent. "You did all right." She whispered into the younger girl's ear, causing Hinata's eyes to widen. "I normally never miss."
"Th… Thank you." Hinata stuttered, as she was helped to her feet, and walked out of the arena.
"What a pathetic first match." One of the Ninja from the village of the Sand, the one with the puppet on his back, said as he turned away from the arena and to the other two.
"Hey, what'd you say?!" Kiba demanded, but he was grabbed by the shoulder by Shino.
"Settle that if you get a match with one of them." The bug master said, though Kiba could have sworn that he saw a glimmer of hostility behind the other's odd, covered eyes.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Kiba said, and Akamaru gave a disgruntled growl.
Nearby, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke were looking down on the ring, the former whistling at how well TenTen did, while the latter two just looked on silently for different reasons. Sasuke's expression was a blanks slate, but Sakura was worried, and it showed on her face. She had suspected at the beginning that her team's tiredness would lead to problems, especially hers, and judging from the fact that TenTen had seemed to be at full strength and resupplied, she'd been right to worry.
As she watched the arena, she didn't notice Kakashi approaching the group until he was almost upon them. When he clasped Sasuke's shoulder and turned the boy to face him, both of the others turned as well.
"Sasuke, I need to talk to you alone." The silver haired man said, looking the boy in the eyes steadily.
"I have to wait for my match." Sasuke replied, flatly.
Kakashi sighed, and then nodded towards the board. The three Genin turned towards it, as the names sped past, and eventually settled on "Sakura Haruno Vs. Shikamaru Nara."
"I see." Sasuke said, and then turned to Sakura. "Would you do something for me?" He asked, looking into the pink haired girl's eyes.
Sakura's heart started beating faster, as she looked up at the boy she'd idolized for years, and she asked, "Yes?"
"Stay conscious until I get back." The Uchiha ordered, and then turned, walking away.
"Hey, what are you talking about, Sasuke?! Sakura's gunna beat that lazy Nara like a drum, right Sakura?" Naruto exclaimed, loudly. Sasuke didn't reply, merely walking off with Kakashi.
"I…" Sakura said, unsure of what to think or say at the moment. It hurt, to have Sasuke dismiss her fighting ability like that. It hurt a lot. "Yeah, I'm gunna win!" She finally burst out, clenching her fist.
"Then you'd better get down here." A bored voice called up to her, as Shikamaru stood at his place. "They'll disqualify you soon, you know. Of course, that'd just be easier, so if you wanna stay up there I'm not going to stop you."
Sakura responded by jumping over the wall, landing on the ring floor in front of the relaxed looking boy. Falling into a stance, she waited for Hayate to announce the start of the match, and thought to the person in the back of her mind, 'Do you have any suggestions?'
For a moment, there was no reply, and then Ranma's voice came. 'He uses shadows, right?'
'From what I hear, yes.' Sakura confirmed.
'Then, keep moving, keep out of shadow, and try to work with attack methods that don't involve moving your body.' Ranma returned, smoothly.
'that's… all? Two obvious responses and one I don't even understand?!' The pink haired girl thought, irritated.
'You're not in any real danger, and that should be enough to let you win, if you're good enough.' Ranma returned, sounding almost as casually dismissive as Shikamaru.
'Why you…' Sakura thought, about to start yelling at the voice in her head, when she heard Hayate shout "Begin!" She started moving instantly, following Ranma's first bit of advice, while thinking of a plan of attack.
Inside of her head, Ranma sat back and watched, while Kura-chan glared at her. "You know, you're not being nearly as helpful now." She complained to the slightly shorter redhead.
"Like I said, I'd like it much better if she stayed a genin until she gets a bit better, and I did give her advice that could let her beat him, if she's skilled enough." Ranma replied.
"Attacks that you don't need to move to use?" Kura-chan asked, unbelieving.
Ranma just shrugged and leaned back in a comfortable chair she'd materialized out of nowhere. "Popcorn?" She asked, materializing a bag of the stuff out of the emptiness of the mindscape.
Kura-chan's eyebrow twitched violently, but she found herself reaching for some of the junk food before she realized what she was doing, and resigned herself to watching this fight, no matter how it turned out.
HR.
"Stupid voices in my head." Sakura panted, as she once more jumped away from a wall, tossing the last of her projectiles. Unfortunately, she knew no distance Jutsu, and was afraid of closing the distance, as then Shikamaru's shadow would be far too close to easily dodge.
The other Ninja, for his part, was looking irritatingly bored with the whole situation, dodging just enough to keep out of the way of her blades, while lashing out with his shadow technique to try and catch her. Knowing that he had no fears of reprisal other than the thrown weapons, he was taking the fight slowly and methodically, waiting for the kunoichi to wear herself out from constant movement, or make a mistake that he could capitalize on.
That mistake didn't take long in coming, as two ninja re-entered the arena, the girl's team leader and one of her teammates, who'd left when she'd started the fight. She looked up at them, stopping her movement for a split second too long, and Shikamaru's shadow closed around her before she could react.
Abruptly, the pink haired girl stopped dead in her tracks, caught in his shadow bind, and Shikamaru smiled. "This fight was really too long, but it's finally over." He said, calmly. "Give up, and I won't have to go through the effort of knocking you out."
Sakura gritted her teeth, her eyes flickering to Sasuke, who was looking down at her with a neutral expression, and back to her opponent. She tried with all of her might to move a muscle, but other than most of the ones in her face, and the automatic muscles that kept her alive, she was completely paralyzed. She couldn't believe this. She'd fulfilled Sasuke's request, but immediately afterward she'd proven that that was all she was capable of, when she'd wanted to show her skills.
She wouldn't let this battle end like this, though. Not after the Forest of Death, and all the hard training she'd done with Ranma in her mindscape so far. Unfortunately, she had very little idea of what to do otherwise. She thought back over the advice Ranma had given her. Now, she couldn't move, and she was already caught in a shadow. There was, however, the third component. "Use attacks where I don't have to move." She growled, thinking furiously.
"Hmm?" Shikamaru asked, waiting and tapping his foot, annoyingly causing the pink haired girl's own foot to do the same.
Suddenly, an idea hit her. There had been one attack, one that hadn't used any hand seals… but could she do it? Concentrating, the pink haired girl dredged up every memory of how the attack had felt when Ranma'd let it off. How the Chakra in her body had seemed to be… augmented… by something else, and then it'd ripped itself free, slamming Zaku into a tree. At the moment, it was her only chance.
"Well?" Shikamaru asked, almost sounding impatient.
"Moko-Takabisha!" She cried, and her body exploded in a cascade of blue light. All of it seemed to wash forward, a massive wall of destruction that plowed up the floor of the arena as it flowed towards the boy. Shikamaru tried to get out of the way, but was slowed down slightly by the fact that he was shadow-bound to Sakura, and ended up being hit full force by the blue energy wave, flying quickly back into a wall.
Sakura pumped her fist for a moment, then sank to her knees as the world began to spin around her. She noted that it felt a little drafty, and looked down to see the front of her clothing shredded. "Eep!" She yelped, moving her hands to cover her chest and crotch.
"Sakura Haruno is the winner." Hayate said, coughing and looking away from the mostly nude young girl.
Sakura nodded, and then quickly scrambled out of the ring, and the area, to go looking for some clothes.
Up on the observation balcony, the reactions were very different depending on who you were. Naruto and Rock Lee had both passed out with nosebleeds, while most of the others looked away in deference to Sakura's modesty, and those who didn't were quickly slapped into submission by their female teammates.
Kakashi stared fixedly forward, his Sharingan eye uncovered, and his mouth agape. No, for once he was not being a perv. Sakura was only twelve, after all, but he had seen something that shocked him to his very core when she'd used that attack. For the briefest moment after the light had cleared, a symbol had shone on the girl's stomach… the symbol that also adorned the stomach of Naruto Uzumaki.
Blinking and then covering his eye, Kakashi was glad that he had been here to see this, even if it was because Sasuke had refused to have his cursed mark sealed until after his match. Unfortunately, this kind of procedure couldn't be done unless the participant was fully willing, given that it depended on his or her willpower to work.
What he'd just observed could be almost as dangerous as Orochimaru's return.
HR.
'I can't believe it destroyed my clothes.' Sakura ranted, pulling on a spare uniform that one of the older Ninja had lent her in a bathroom of the tower.
'Um, well, it wasn't supposed to.' Ranma said, sheepishly, and almost sounded nervous.
'Huh?' Sakura asked, completely confused.
'When I said attacks that didn't need you to move, I was expecting ya to try and distract him with taunts and insults, so he'd let his concentration slip, not to fire half our chi at him like a super-charged Moko-Takabisha.' She explained.
Sakura blinked. 'What?' She asked, deadpan.
'Um, I kinda don't even know how ta focus the attack anywhere but my hands, myself. Erm, well, I didn't know how to do it anywhere else up 'till you pulled it off.' Ranma answered.
Sakura was about to snap back, when she heard her inner self giggling like an idiot. When Kura-chan had finally gotten herself under control, she asked, 'You mean it was an accident?'
'Um, yeah.' Ranma responded, subdued.
At this,, even Sakura found herself giggling slightly, but she also felt a swell of pride. She'd managed to do something with this chi, whatever it was, that even Ranma didn't know how to do. She knew that it was mostly a fluke, and that she'd never have been able to do it if she hadn't felt Ranma's attack first, but she didn't much care. It was still a serious mood booster.
Straightening the slightly over-sized uniform, the girl stepped out of the bathroom, headed back to the arena. When she entered, she saw that one fight had taken place while she was gone, and it had done quite a lot of property damage. There were splintered poles, and bits of what almost looked like body parts everywhere. In addition, one of the members of the Sand Team, the one with the hood and the bundle on his back, was laid out in the middle of the arena.
Nearby, Naruto was jumping up and down, giving "V" signs, and punching the air. "I did it, I'm in the third round!" The blond said, jubilantly.
"So, the knucklehead won?" The pink haired girl asked, walking up to where her sensei and Sasuke stood.
"Hn." Sasuke replied, though Sakura noted that his Sharingan was active.
Kakashi didn't respond, and he was staring at her in a way that made her fidget uncomfortably. "Is… something wrong Sensei?" She asked, nervously.
The man quickly shook his head. "Nothing at all." He said, but his voice was obviously strained. Sakura wanted to push it more, but that was about when Naruto jumped up to the group, and dashed at her, ready to give her a big hug. Before she even realized, one foot was raised, planted in the middle of the blond boy's forehead.
'Sorry, reflex.' Ranma's voice came, sounding almost sheepish.
'It's fine.' Sakura responded, but after seeing the orange jacketed boy looking dejectedly up at her from the floor, she extended a hand to help him up.
"Congratulations on winning, Naruto." She said, as politely as she could.
"Thanks!" He replied, giving a thumbs up. "That guy's traps were pretty easy to bypass with the shadow clone technique, though."
"Hmm, they're deciding the next match." Sasuke commented, and the other two turned to look. When the names finally stopped flickering, the readout said "Rock Lee Vs. Shino Aburame."
Sakura looked over to where Team Gai were, expecting to see Lee jumping for joy that he was going to fight. What she did see caused her to blink rapidly and repeatedly.
"Get out of my head, I must not think of Sakura like that! She is innocent, and beautiful, and I must not think of her like that!" The boy was shouting, and slamming his head against a wall.
Sakura felt her face heat up, as she realized what the boy was referring to, and all the compliments he was giving her in effort to erase the images were kind of nice, too, but as she watched she saw that his head was starting, very slightly, to crack the stone.
She took a step forward, about to say something, when Gai stepped up next to Lee, and interposed his hand between the boy's head and the stone. A wince of pain seemed to cross his face as the two impacted, but it did get Lee's attention.
"Gai Sensei?" He asked, looking up.
"Get ahold of yourself, Lee! You've got a fight, and you don't want to miss it and end up disqualified, do you?"
"A fight?" Lee asked, and looked around. When his eyes rested on the board on the other side of the arena, they widened. "No, I do not want to miss it. I finally get to fight and show off my skills as a genius of hard work!"
"That's right!" Gai said, sticking one thumb up and giving off a smile that seemed to sparkle. "Now, go get 'em, Lee!"
"Yes I will, Sensei!" Lee exclaimed, and then jumped down, running into the middle of the arena, where Shino already stood.
"You three stay here. I'll be right back." Kakashi said, noting that he was pretty sure of how this fight would go.
"Don't you want to watch the fight, Sensei?" Naruto asked, confused.
"Don't worry, I'll be able to later. They're recorded." Kakashi said, and walked off.
His three students wondered where he was going for a moment, but were soon distracted as they looked to the battlefield, only to see it quickly filling up with little black things. "Are those…" Naruto asked, astonished.
"Oh, ugh!" Sakura exclaimed, shuddering. "I've never seen that many bugs in my life!"
"And they're coming out of Shino?"
"It's the Aburame clan technique." Sasuke said, in a monotone. He was trying to hide the winces of pain that came every minute or two, now, but definitely didn't want to show it to these two. "They let themselves become living hives for insect colonies that eat chakra. A pretty effective bloodline."
"Hey, how do you know that?" Naruto asked, looking at the boy suspiciously.
"I study." Sasuke replied, patronizingly, earning a hurt look from Sakura, who studied just as much as he did in class, and hadn't heard anything about these bugs. Just as she was about to say so, Gai called out from the sidelines.
"Lee, take them off!" The green clad Sensei ordered.
"Huh?" Lee asked. "But I thought that I must only do that to protect people."
"Yes, and becoming a chunin will allow you to do that better, so take them off!" Gai said.
"Yes, sir!" Lee replied, and bent to remove something from around his legs.
'What…?' Sakura thought, confused.
'Looks like training weights, but I don't know what good ones that small'd do someone like Lee.' Ranma's voice came back, instantly.
When Lee dropped the weights, and they hit the ground with a massive billow of smoke, Sakura almost felt the glee in Ranma's mental voice. 'I want some!' The martial artist exclaimed, giddily.
When Lee jumped into the air too quickly for Shino to react, bounced off of one of the arena walls, and came in with a speeding ax kick that was only momentarily hindered by the screen of insects that scrambled to help their master, Sakura was getting disconcerted by the giggling coming from inside of her head.
At the moment, her annoying new mental voice sounded like nothing so much as a young village girl presented with a lifetime supply of candy.
Once the dust settled, it was clear that Lee was victorious, though his green jumpsuit was splattered with squashed bugs, as Shino lay sprawled on the ground with his sun glasses broken. "Rock Lee is the winner!" Hayate said, clearly.
When Lee heard that, he walked over to Shino, checking him over and finding him unconscious. "It seems that I should not have taken off my leg weights. I am sorry for having done so, and next time we battle it will be more fair!" He said, not at all trying to be condescending.
That, of course, was when the chakra exhaustion from flying through a cloud of chakra absorbing insects hit him, and given his extremely small pool of said energy, it hit him hard. Abruptly, just after being declared the winner, the green clad boy fell over, unconscious.
HR.
"Are you sure about this, Kakashi?" The Hokage asked, as he studied a sketch that the instructor had quickly jotted down on a piece of paper. He knew that the drawing was photographically accurate, and this disturbed him greatly.
"Yes, I saw this mark on Sakura's stomach after her match." The silver haired man reported.
Hmm…" The older ninja said, studying the image again. "If this is holding a demon, it must be a very weak one, given how flawed the seal is, but it's troubling that we never noticed before."
"Well," Kakashi said, coughing nervously. "We don't exactly ask our ninja to strip and channel chakra."
The Hokage had to chuckle a little at that, even given the seriousness of the situation. "True." He conceded. "The fact is that if this young kunoichi is the container for some sort of demon, it'd be best if we don't confront her until after the preliminaries are over."
"But, sir…" Kakashi started, but was stopped with the Hokage's raised hand.
"Kakashi, I know you're worried, but it would be better if we could confront her away from the other genin, and it is entirely possible that this is some sort of misunderstanding. We will not endanger the lives of our ninja needlessly, and if this proves to be a false positive, we will not get the girl cast out the way Naruto was, is that clear?"
"Yes, sir." Kakashi said, and his feelings were slightly conflicted. Sakura was a member of his team, and he worried about her as any Genin Sensei did, but it seemed that she may have been hiding many things from him and the others, if both the report Gai's team had filed, and what he'd seen today were correct. He was at least certain of the second, as his Sharingan eye kept an indelible image of the sealing mark in his brain, now that he'd seen it.
"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Kakashi." The Hokage said, looking at the man sympathetically. "I know it must have been difficult."
"Thank you, sir." The Copy Ninja said, and vanished in a puff of smoke.
The Hokage turned back to the tournament that was going on, and frowned slightly as he saw that a round had gone past while he'd been talking. Apparently, Ino had managed to capture Choji with her mind switching technique, and make him give up the match.
He chuckled. He really should have seen that coming, but it was unimportant at the moment. He had this new development with Haruno to think of, piled on to the very important matter of an infiltrating Orochimaru.
The old man in the white hat sighed, letting himself relax in his chair. It was times like this that he'd desperately wished they'd been able to appoint the fifth after Minato's death.
HR.
Asuma Sarutobi sputtered in rage as he glared at Choji. "I can't believe this…" He muttered. "YOU LET HER BRIBE YOU WITH A STEAK DINNER?!"
Choji shrugged, smiling. "What, it's better than the weeks worth of ramen you were offering," He said, "And besides, I really didn't want to have to fight one of my teammates.
"That's beside the point, you… I…. argh!" Asuma said, tugging on the hair that fell over his headband.
"No real point in complaining about it now." Shikamaru said, where he was standing with an icepack over his head from his not-so-friendly introduction to a wall. "At least it means one of us got through to the third exam, and Ino showed some pretty good tactical ability by knowing precisely what buttons to push and when."
"Who's the Sensei here, exactly?" Asuma growled, leveling a glare at his third student.
Shikamaru shrugged, And then went back to his former occupation of seeming to stare off into space while observing the arena out of the corner of his eye.
Asuma just sighed. "Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed in the morning." He muttered, and stalked off.
"So, who's next?" Naruto asked, excitedly.
"Looks like I am." Sasuke said, and a look of relief flitted across his face for a moment, before it was gone. Jumping to the floor of the arena, he stumbled for a moment, almost falling, but straightened up after a few steps. Looking around, he saw no opponent.
"Dosu Kinuta, to the arena floor, please." Hayate said, speaking into a speaker grill at the edge of the floor which sent his voice through intercoms in the entire tower. The arena fell silent for several moments, before he shrugged. "It appears that your opponent has not shown up. You are the winner by default."
Sasuke swayed dangerously for a moment, and then staggered back up the stares, where Kakashi was there to grab and stabilize him. "We have to get that seal neutralized, now!" He said, urgently.
"Y… yes." Sasuke croaked out, and then winced as the seal on his neck pulsed an angry purple color for a moment.
"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, approaching the two, Naruto behind her, looking quizzical.
"Hey, that was a pretty lucky break, your opponent not showing up and all, given how badly you're hurt, eh Sasuke?" Naruto said, laughing and patting the other boy on the back.
"Gsh." Sasuke said, holding back a wince of pain.
"Sorry guys, but I've got to get him to the medical wing." Kakashi lied, leading the boy away. Sakura looked after him for a moment, unsure what to do. 'Ranma, can you tell what's happening?' She asked, worriedly. She really had nowhere else to turn, and it was worth a shot.
Ranma's voice came back from inside of her head, sounding grim. 'I really ain't sure.' She admitted. 'It's like his aura's bein… twisted. Every time somethin goes through that seal thing on his neck, it gets darker, more negative. Probly hurts like hell, and it can't be doin his mind much good, either.'
'What do you mean?' Sakura asked, suddenly going pale.
'How your chi flows tells a lot about how your body and mind are workin.' Ranma explained. 'I'm not as good at the theory as some of the people I knew, but basically, dark chi like that'll slowly start twistin his mind 'till all he can think about are angry and depressing thoughts.'
"Sakura, are you all right?" Naruto asked, waving one hand in front of the pink haired girl's face.
"N… No, Naruto, I'm not." She admitted, looking after Sasuke.
HR.
"Somehow, I don't think this was what Lord Orochimaru had in mind, but it'll have to do." Kabuto said, sitting placidly on top of a tied up Dosu, who was blissfully knocked unconscious.
He'd known that by this time, Sasuke was likely so incapacitated by the seal that there was no way he would win convincingly, and had only thought of this one way to get the boy through to the finals. It would deprive Orochimaru of some demonstrations of the boy's prowess, but it really couldn't be helped.
"Kabuto, what are you doing?" came a very familiar voice, and the sound spy gulped, turning slowly to see the leader of the Sound team, whose face Orochimaru wore.
"L… Lord Orochimaru, I…" He started, his composure slipping slightly as sweat began to role down his brow.
"I will deal with you and this idiot later." Orochimaru dismissed, turning. "I came to tell you to get him out of here, I have something to do and I don't need you two caught."
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru." Kabuto said, sighing in relief. A short reprieve was still a reprieve, and he could always hope that the man found his skills as a medic-nin too valuable to destroy him. "This just isn't my week." He muttered, after his boss left, as he hoisted the comatose Dosu over his shoulder.
HR.
"That… had to hurt." Naruto winced, as Kiba slammed into the arena wall for the twelfth time in as many minutes.
"Now, to ensure that you stay down!" Zaku growled, pointing the hand that had formerly been in a cast at the half-transformed dogboy. Nearby, Akamaru lay unconscious, a nasty looking gash running down the diminutive animal's side.
"I think that's enough." A stern, female voice said as a black haired woman jumped down into the ring. "He's down."
"But, I…" Kiba said, trying to force himself to his feet, but then collapsing as soon as he got one leg under himself.
"Kiba, stay down. You did well." Kurenai said, turning to her student.
The boy was about to protest, when he just fell forward, the massive injuries he'd taken in the battle finally catching up with him. "Get the medics in here!" She barked. "And an Inuzuka to take care of the dog."
Nearby, Zaku snorted. "Was hoping I could kill 'im." He sneered, and then walked out of the arena and up the stairs to the observation area. Kurenai glared daggers at his back, and wished she could hit him with the Hell Viewing technique, but it'd probably get her reprimanded for a year, or stripped of her position. "Just get the next one out here." She said, and leaned against a wall with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Next up, is Temari Vs. Neji Hyuga." Hayate announced, haltingly.
Neji immediately jumped down from where he had been standing next to TenTen, who was now going to see if Kiba was all right, generally looking unworried. "All right, let's get this over with." He said, activating his Byakugan with only a thought as he squared off against the blonde haired woman.
"My sentiments exactly." She replied, nodding at him.
Hayate looked at the two for a moment, and then announced, "Begin."
Immediately, Neji was moving, charging at his foe to put her down with the gentle fist. Much to his surprise, she was ready for him, as she unslung what had looked like an unusually thick pole from her back, unfurling it to reveal a large fan with a moon patterned on it.
"A fan?" Naruto asked, shocked.
"You've got to be kidding!" Sakura continued.
'Don't be so sure. I've seen some really mean things done with a giant spatula.' Ranma broke in.
'A giant… you know, you're just weird.' Sakura decided, before going back to watching the combat.
Immediately as Neji was about to come into contact with Temari, she swept down with her fan, somehow producing a massive gust of wind that sent the Hyuga flipping backwards. He easily caught himself on one hand, steadying himself on his feet, but he'd definitely been surprised.
Seeming to decide that that was a fluke, he charged again, and this time she brought the fan across in an arc, sending out a ripple of air that he barely managed to role under, before it gouged a hole in the wall.
"What…?" Sakura stuttered.
'Vacuum blade.' Ranma replied, instantly. 'She's going for killing blows.'
Sakura's eyes widened. She didn't know Neji terribly well, but she still didn't want to see the guy die.
Temari didn't seem to mind the fact that her vacuum blade had missed, as she swept her fan again, knocking Neji back for a second time.
He grunted in frustration, withdrawing a Kunai from his belt pouch and tossing it at the blonde, who swept her fan again, knocking it aside. This repeated several more times, before Temari sighed. "Is this all you can do?" She asked, impatiently.
"No, it's not." Neji replied, removing yet another Shuriken. Temari tried to bat it away again, but somehow he'd managed to throw it at such an angle that her wind actually caused its course to straighten out towards her, and stab her in the lower arm. She screamed in agony, and moved her other hand to clutch her arm, which was when Neji moved to capitalize on the opening.
This proved to be a mistake, as she moved the clutching hand to pluck the handle of the giant fan from the wounded one, unfurling it suddenly so that it now showed three moons and was triple its original size. "Die!" She roared, pain evident in her voice, as she swung the massive fan again and again, generating gale force winds.
Neji was knocked off of his feet in an instant, and flung back incredibly quickly until he smashed into the wall of the arena. The wind storm went on for about forty-five seconds, before Temari collapsed, panting. Unfortunately, Neji was much worse off, and fell out of a several inch deep indentation in the wall, barely breathing.
The arena fell silent for several minutes, until a group of medic-nin came hurrying out of a passage, scooping Neji onto a stretcher and leaving with him quickly. Seconds later, Hayate popped into existence on the arena floor, looking as if his headband had almost been blown off. "The winner is Temari."
At these words, several ninja's heads poked out of the tunnels they'd been hidden in. All except for Naruto, who had been a bit too slow to get out and was in a pit as deep as Neji's.
"Naruto, are… are you all right?" Sakura asked, uncertainly.
The blond boy groaned for a moment, rolling over where he lay on the ground, and gave the pink haired girl a thumbs up.
Sakura sighed in relief, then scowled. "You idiot, why didn't you get out?!"
"'cuz I wanted to see the fight, of course!" Naruto said, cheerfully.
Sakura sweat dropped, and backed away from the blonde boy carefully. 'That's it, he's insane.' She thought to herself.
'I probably woulda done it, too.' Ranma chipped in.
'You don't count!' Sakura retorted.
'So would I.' Kura-chan said,
Sakura just sighed. "Let's just hope the next opponent doesn't destroy the arena." She muttered.
Across the room, Gaara, another person who had stayed during Temari's little wind storm and been sheltered behind his sand, had the inexplicable urge to sneeze. He didn't, though. He did, however, start using his sand to drift down to the arena floor. He knew that he was one of the last two competitors left, and the sand was calling for blood. He'd had a hard time not just jumping in in the middle of someone else's fight, but had managed to control himself, barely.
"This is my fight?" He asked, looking over at Hayate.
The ailing Ninja nodded. "Vs. Kin Tsuchi."
"Me… against Gaara?" Said woman asked, her skin going pale. She knew at least a little about Gaara of the sand, the holder of the one tailed Tanuki. What she knew wasn't pleasant. Then again, she also knew that Orochimaru would probably kill her and hang the remains up on a wall if she ran now. It was a hard choice, but she supposed that Gaara's Sand Coffin was a much more quick way to die, if a bit more agonizing.
Stepping into the ring with a rather fatalistic attitude, she nonetheless got her needles and bells ready for combat.
"Try to make this entertaining." Gaara said, darkly, standing still across from her.
Kin shrugged, and as Hayate said "begin!" She leapt backwards, somersaulting several times to avoid any attack Gaara would launch to begin the battle. Strangely enough, he didn't attack at all, simply standing there, though the gourd on his back seemed to force its top off, disgoarging a large amount of sand that settled around his feet.
Frowning, Kin threw some of her needles, which neatly stuck in Gaara's skin about an eighth of an inch. "Hmm." The Sand Ninja said, and suddenly the sand at his feet formed into a wave, rushing towards Kin.
The Sound Nin jumped out of the way, throwing more needles, this time with bells on them. Much like they had before, they hit Gaara, who didn't seem to even try and block them. Raising one arm, where one of the needles with a bell on it was dangling, he studied it and flicked the bell.
Still, even as he did this, the sand around him roiled and tried to assault the desperately dodging kunoichi. Deciding to stop playing around, she pulled the strings that were connected to her bells in a very specific order, assuring a special resonance, reinforced by her chakra, to be set up.
It worked as she had expected, and Gaara stopped moving completely, his eyes wide in surprise. "This," She said proudly as the sand stopped dead in its tracks, "Is my ultimate attack. It paralyzes you, and then triggers hallucinations in your brain through vibrations on your inner and outer ear. Now, you undoubtedly see dozens of me, and I can continue attacking without reprisal."
"You're right about one thing." Gaara said, smirking slightly. "I see dozens of you."
"What?" She asked, as a huge mass of sand seemed to form, raising to the sky several feet to all sides of her, and closing in until it was only the size of a person.
"But I can attack you easily enough." Gaara continued. "And you're pathetic, goodbye."
Kin gasped as she felt the coffin of sand technique begin to slowly crush her, and desperately tugged on the few strings that were still intact and connected to her in-spite of the sand shell. The technique she was about to try was very experimental, and had never worked before, but she was about to die anyways. As she pulled the last bell, the compression of the coffin suddenly stopped, and Gaara's eyes widened.
"Wh… what?" The Sand Ninja stuttered, as he suddenly started to feel ten times more tired than normal. This was saying something, as Gaara regularly spent months awake, to keep Shikoku from destroying his mind while he slept. Eyes widening, he realized what was going on. "No, you fool!" He cried, his calm, yet homicidal, facade crumbling. "What have you…" The boy never managed to finish the statement, as his eyes closed first, and everything in the arena abruptly went to hell.
END.
Okay, given I just did a totally re-shuffled Chunin exam prelim, and had some really odd matchups, I'm likely going to get flamed. "How could Neji lose so pathetically!?" "Why didn't Sasuke fight!?" "Why didn't you show Naruto's match?!"
All I can say is, the fights were generated through a Random Number Generater. Yes, that means if I'd gotten Sakura V. Gaara, I would have done it, and it wouldn't have been pretty. Once I had the matchups, I honestly wrote them how I felt they would go given the data I have.
As for Naruto's, I was absolutely positive I didn't have the skill to write the massive ninja clones v. traps and puppets war that would have happened, and I didn't want to ruin a good chapter by trying.
Sasuke missing his match was part of his character arc and how I think the cursed seals work. Given it was speeding up in screwing him over, by that point he would be hard pressed to beat a three year old, and I really wanted him in the finals.
As for Neji... really, unless you've got certain abilities, being against Temari = screwed. For a mostly HTH fighter like Neji, she's a nightmare.
Now, shutting up. Please, tell me what you think, though I'm sorry if I don't respond quickly.
Have a happy holiday!