Not one to waste valuable training time (all other time was, of course, fair game), Kakashi met with his genin bright and early the following day to introduce them to their potential new teachers for the next month, and possibly beyond. None of the genin had an easy match-up. Naruto currently lacked anything that could effectively penetrate Kankuro's armor. Sasuke was no match for Hinata's gentle fist at close range, and at longer ranges her water-style jutsu trumped his fire techniques. Sakura didn't know what Karin's skills were, but the rain ninja had shown the potential to use A-ranked or even S-ranked ninjutsu, so Sakura wasn't going to take any chances. All three knew they needed to produce drastic improvement just to give their opponents a good fight, let alone win.
Thus, it was with excitement that the three genin met Kakashi at the usual training ground seven to meet their new sensei. Kakashi lazily greeted the first to arrive, a nondescript face that the genin were quite familiar with. "I know you all know him, but he's pretty important, so I'll give him the grand introduction anyway," Kakashi drawled, "This is Tenzo, wood-style master. He signed up primarily to work with Sakura, but he's willing to help you boys with water and earth style if you want. Tenzo's as good at water jutsu as I am, and almost as good at earth, so you're in good hands with him." The next arrival was the same spandex-clad, bowl-cut jonin from before, Might Gai in all his glory, complete with mini-me Rock Lee. "You've already met Gai. He might look and dress a little dubious. Ok, a lot dubious. But, he's also the best Taijutsu instructor in the village. Possibly alive. He and his apprentice have agreed to help with physical skills, since none of his genin made it into the finals."
"I look forward to stoking your flames of YOUTH to volcanic levels!" yelled Gai at his only volume setting, "And my YOUTHFUL battle garb allows complete freedom of movement in a breathable yet weatherproof package. You cannot mock it until you have tried it, for you will never go back! This I swear! In fact, if you try it for a week and do not find it the best combat clothing ever, I will scale the Hokage tower with only my teeth and my left big toe!" The jonin's radioactive smile beamed over the assembled ninja.
"Yosh! And I will join him in this youthful challenge!" Lee was not to be outdone.
"Oh, Lee!" Gai embraced his ward in a tearful hug.
"Gai-sensei!" Lee's eyes were no drier.
"Lee!" Gai's already booming voice got even louder. Kakashi shielded his eyes with a Make-out Paradise book, and Tenzo took cover behind a tree, but the genin stared at the display in horrified fascination.
"Gai-sensei!" An all-encompassing genjutsu of a golden, setting sun over a cliff besieged by crashing waves covered the environment, providing a backdrop to Lee and Gai's emotional display. Team seven found, to their horror, that they could not look away. The illusion would not dispel, and using the Sharingan to try to make it vanish proved a terrible mistake, as the kekkei genkai could not see through the illusion. Even worse, anything seen with the sharingan remains fresh in the viewer's mind as the day it was seen for all time. Sasuke frantically shut the experience in the same repress-and-deny cubby inside his battered psyche as the Uchiha massacre, Itachi, and Orochimaru's killing intent. When the illusion shattered, Sakura staggered to a nearby bush to throw up, but Gai and his apprentice did not notice.
"He really is quite good," Kakashi muttered apologetically, while Naruto swore dreadful prank vengeance upon the silver-haired jonin for subjecting his students to Gai's display.
The next teacher to arrive introduced himself as "Gekko Hayate, special jonin. Pleased to me-" He then broke off into a wet, hacking, coughing fit. The older ninja was pale, with dark bags under his eyes, which contrasted with his dark hair and uniform to make him seem even sicker than he obviously was. A long katana hung at his waist. "I'm the village's current swordmaster, but as you can see, I'm slightly concerned about making certain my techniques aren't lost to the next generation. I heard there were talented genin in this group interested in kenjutsu, and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. And don't worry, I'm not contagious. Anymore." The genin, who had been slowly edging away from the ill jonin, halted their movements with a collective sigh of relief, only to jump back in alarm as a massive cloud of smoke and dust accompanied the thump of something massive hitting the ground between the younger ninja and their teachers.
With a dull report of displaced air, the obscuring smoke parted, revealing the most… colorful person any of the genin had ever seen. He had white hair, gathered in a spiky ponytail that nearly reached his knees, and wore garish red and green clothes with a set of red platform sandals, although even without them he would have been the tallest person in the clearing by half a foot. Twin red lines stretched from his bottom eyelids to bracket his very square chin. He wore a headband in an archaic style, complete with decorative miniature horns, with the kanji for oil etched in the center. To complete the image, the odd man was dancing on the back of a brilliant blue toad as tall as he was. "You can believe your eyes, gentlemen and ladies, the great sage of Mount Myoboku, has arrived!" He finished his dance by clicking his heels together and striking a dramatic Kabuki pose, only for the toad to shift its balance and unceremoniously dump him face-first into the dirt. The amphibian gave its former rider a vaguely disapproving look before disappearing in another puff of smoke. "Never fear, ladies and fans, for nothing can discourage the greatest of men!"
"Then you ought to be easy to get rid of," Sakura cut in, "Kakashi-sensei, why the hell is this idiot here? This is the same guy that got caught peeping on the public baths a few days ago. Kurenai-sensei and a couple of her friends beat him into a pulp without really trying. And now we get to add animal abuse to his criminal record, with whatever he was doing to that poor toad."
"You want this guy to teach us?" Naruto agreed with his teammate, "This guy acts like me dattebayo! Except, yanno, not as good at it. I thought I was supposed to be getting better at stuff?"
"You don't recognize him?" Sasuke certainly did, "That's Jiraiya, of the sannin. It's said that the only reason he isn't Hokage right now is that he declined the job. How could you not want to learn from him? It's the opportunity of a lifetime!"
"Must be an imposter," Sakura observed clinically, "Not buying it. I'm gonna work with the competent people."
"Emo-boy's right!" Jiraiya made a grab for his rapidly evaporating credibility, "The Toad Sage is just an alias, and I'm through with aliases! The Gallant Jiraiya! That is my true identity!"
"You're an S-ranked ninja. Konoha's strongest fighter, and a sage of the ancient secrets of ninjutsu." Naruto tilted his head to one side, "Naw, I just can't see it."
"Then I'll prove it to you!" Jiraiya seized on the opportunity, "Have you ever felt, say, a different kind of chakra inside you, Naruto? I'll teach you how to use it!"
"Uh, no? I haven't?" Naruto was clueless, "You suck, dude." While Jiraiya gaped like a landed fish, Naruto turned to the other sensei. "Even spandex guy looks more trustworthy. But I wanna work with Hayate! Sasuke always kicks my ass when we spar, but if I learn from the best sword fighter in the village, it'll be different the next time! And then I'll be one step closer to Hokage dattebayo!"
Hayate had heard that Sasuke was a budding kenjutsu prodigy, and had been hoping to take the Uchiha on as a personal apprentice. However, an enthusiastic, trustworthy, and dedicated student was a rare gift for a ninja looking to teach, and Hayate wasn't about pass up the opportunity. "I would be happy to teach you, Naruto. We (cough) can get started now, if you'd like." The special jonin was practically dragged away by a chattering Naruto while Jiraiya was still recovering from his off-hand dismissal.
"Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with Naruto on this one. Incredible, I know," Sakura turned to Tenzo, "I assume you have something useful to teach me?" With that last dig at Jiraiya's competence, Sakura strode from the clearing, an apologetic Tenzo close behind. Jiraiya and Gai were left behind, the latter enjoying the show and the former feeling rather disappointed. Jiraiya had intended to pass on to Naruto the secrets of sealing, as well as how to better control the power of the nine-tailed fox. He had never dreamed that Naruto would not have accessed the demon's power yet, with the stressful situations he had been subjected to!
Then, and it was a testament to Jiraiya's shock that it took the master ninja as long as it did, he remembered that Kakashi had three students. Where was the third one? After scanning the surroundings, the toad sage looked down to find Uchiha Sasuke, the very definition of prideful, bowing his forehead into the dirt at Jiraiya's feet.
"Please teach me, sensei," Sasuke pleaded, unable to keep the tone of desperation out of his voice, "I am willing to do whatever is required of me."
Over the next few days, while Naruto endured seemingly endless footwork drills and Sakura explored the limits of what could be constructed with wood, Jiraiya found that Sasuke was indeed willing to do absolutely anything for instruction. Including sacrifice his reputation, ego, dignity, self-esteem, and physical well-being. The sannin had expected Sasuke to bow out after a few days of pointless tasks so Jiraiya would be free to work with Naruto. But when the genin returned from his latest mission with perfectly accurate nude drawings of women the sannin, assuming Sasuke would refuse to do it, had sent the genin to spy on, the toad sage realized that his student, of sorts, was not going to quit. Jiraiya decided it was time to talk to Kakashi; Sasuke's actions seemed totally out of character for him.
However, Kakashi was just as surprised as the sannin. Sasuke hadn't been willing to ask Kakashi for anything, even after the jonin had demonstrated his skills. He suggested that Jiraiya ask Sakura, who had been convinced of the sage's credentials, although she still avoided him as much as possible on general principle. Of everyone in Konoha, Sakura probably knew Sasuke best, if only because she had practically stalked him for two years while they were in the academy together.
"Well, you heard about Orochimaru attacking us during the second test?" Sakura shared, when asked by the perplexed sannin, "He offered to train Sasuke to Itachi's level. Orochimaru also offered to use a forbidden jutsu to let Naruto meet his mother." Sakura missed it, but Jiraiya flinched slightly at the thought. "Then, he offered them both jobs. Neither of them have talked about it, but I know they had to have both been really tempted. Naruto doesn't like to share about himself; he usually tries to change the subject whenever he gets asked a personal question. But when he actually opens up a little, it's pretty obvious he'd do almost anything for his friends. Even better, from Orochimaru's perspective, Naruto doesn't have a lot of experience in being a friend, Hinata and Kiba exempted. It takes a lot less for Naruto to consider someone a close friend than anyone I've ever met, and when I said he'd do anything for them, I meant anything. How much further would he go for family, who, in theory at least, would love him unconditionally? I- I mean, that's what family is supposed to do, and it's obvious he isn't really used to people who care about him, more than what you'd expect from basic human decency. I- Well, once I started noticing… I've been trying to be nicer to him, but no matter what I do it'll always be a raindrop in the ocean. I'm still not gonna go out on a date with him, though." Jiraiya appeared caught between dismay and abject guilt, but Sakura was on a roll now, and didn't pick up on his changing expression.
"That said, Naruto may be improving rapidly, he'd probably be the most driven person I know if I didn't know Sasuke, but Naruto's still an idiot. He has a short attention span, and is probably better at compartmentalizing things than is healthy, so he's not going to worry about it until the exams are over. Sasuke, though, he constantly broods about this sort of thing. I don't think he's done a single thing that hasn't been directly related to hunting down and killing his brother since his parents' funerals. I didn't stop asking him out because I lost interest, you know. I just don't think there's any way he'll respond until he gets some closure. It… I'm kind of worried about him, actually, more so now that I know him a little better. Obsessing like that for four years straight can't be healthy. Sasuke has to be worried about what Orochimaru wants to do to him, but he might not think he has another choice if he wants to become Itachi's equal. Then, you come along, just as strong as Orochimaru, and offer to teach Sasuke, without the risk of you stealing his eyes or something. As far as he's concerned, you're his only hope for avenging his family without betraying his friends or the village." Even if he wanted to save his best, personal techniques for Naruto, Jiraiya resolved to take Sasuke's instruction seriously from now on. The last thing he wanted was to turn a promising young genin over to Orochimaru.
Thus, as two weeks passed by, Sasuke actually learned quite a bit from Jiraiya, especially in honing the genin's fire jutsu with exercises in the manipulation of pure fire-style chakra. After some consideration, the sage also started teaching his personal taijutsu style to Sasuke, passed down by the toad summons (The source of Jiraiya's toad, summoning is a type of ninjutsu that allows a ninja to make a mutual aid contract with a type of ninja animal and teleport them to his or her side in times of need. The power and number of the summoned being[s] is directly proportional to the amount of chakra used to summon them) to their representative. Additionally, Sasuke did some bladework drills with Hayate and on Kakashi's insistence, began learning the special lightning technique, invented in Kumogakure, that can be used to exponentially enhance one's speed and durability. All-in-all, the Uchiha felt like he was improving rapidly, although he was still unsure how he would defeat Hinata. A ranged lightning jutsu would be perfect, but Kumogakure guarded such techniques jealously and successfully, and Sasuke didn't like his chances of inventing an entire new jutsu in one month.
Naruto spent extensive time with Hayate, improving his sword skills by leaps and bounds. He also talked Asuma into sharing the jonin's special blade enhancement technique, which runs wind chakra through a weapon to increase its cutting power. An enhanced blade can slice through a boulder like butter. Naruto was sure Kankuro's armor would fare no better. The technique was not a closely guarded secret, and if he had wanted to, Naruto could have learned it from a scroll in the military library. However, the demon vessel had no patience for book work, sealing aside. Naruto also spent some time learning about the sealing arts from Jiraiya, but the jinchuriki never gained much respect for the sannin, continuing to insist he was a fraud. And a pervert (which was true, to be fair). However, once Jiraiya proved his sealing skills by removing the Five Elements seal Orochimaru had placed on the jinchuriki, Naruto had to admit that the toad sage knew his seals. Naruto even studied under Gai, gaining some of the physical skills the demon vessel had missed at the academy.
Sakura focused on her ninjutsu with Tenzo, gaining a better understanding of how to shape the wood she produced. She was still hindered by her relatively low chakra reserves and lack of conditioning, as she had only recently started putting effort into the physical side of her chosen profession. Sakura had the average amount of power for a girl her age, which was utterly insufficient for high-level ninjutsu, so she went on a special training regimen constructed by Gai and Jiraiya to improve her physical skills and available chakra, which did work, even if she felt like kneaded dough after every session.
At about halfway through the training month, as he did every day, Naruto visited Ichiraku Ramen for a late lunch. Usually, the stand emptied at that time, as other prospective customers knew that the shop's stocks would be cleared out by the hungry genin until the reserve ingredients were brought out for dinner. So, Naruto was surprised to see another customer at the counter. She was a youngish woman, wearing simple clothes, a hidden rain headband to hold her deep blue hair in place, and a paper flower tucked behind one ear. She was currently busy sealing a tall stack of full ramen bowls into storage seals. Naruto reacted as anyone who knew him would have predicted.
"Stop stealing my ramen dattebayo!" He yelled, striking a dramatic, and although he never would have admitted it, Jiraiya-like pose, accusing finger outstretched at the kunoichi. She ignored him with quiet dignity. "That's my lunch! Hands off!"
"Your lunch?" Her soft voice was full of humor, "I ordered it. I paid for it. I think that makes it my lunch, Uzumaki Naruto." Naruto, although he was never the best at the mental side of being a ninja, was put immediately on guard. How did a foreign ninja know his name?
"Who are you? How do you know me?" Subtle, Naruto was not, "Answer me dattebayo!"
"How could I not know you?" She smiled slightly, "After all, most of Mr. Ichiraku's most amusing stories seem to have you in the starring role. Uzumaki Naruto, his most valuable customer. However, just to keep things fair, my name is Konan. I'm the jonin-sensei for the team from Ame that made it into the finals."
"That still doesn't tell me what you're doing with all that ramen! Are you really going to eat it all?" Naruto seemed close to tears at the thought.
"What? No! It is not for me. Well, maybe one bowl." Konan explained, "It's for a… friend. Two of my friends, who live in Ame, are absolutely obsessed with ramen. Left on their own, they would eat nothing else, and probably die of malnutrition. Just like you, I would wager. But, unlike you, they cannot visit Konoha whenever they want a bowl from Ichiraku. He really is the best in the known world, you know, but I think the Hokage would frown on foreign ninja making regular ramen runs. So, whenever I am in Konoha for the exams, I make sure to buy as much as I can and seal it so that it stays fresh until I can deliver it to them…." Konan trailed off, bemused, as tears welled up in Naruto's eyes.
"Tha- That's just so sad dattebayo!" he sobbed, sympathetic tears dripping down his face, "To only have the food of the gods once every few years… There can be no greater evil in this world!" The tears abruptly vanished as a thought occurred to him. "Hey, hey! I live in Konoha! If you teach me the seal, I could send you guys ramen whenever you want dattebayo! Wouldn't that work?"
Konan giggled quietly at his changing expressions, mouth concealed behind a raised hand. "It is very kind of you to offer, Naruto, but I don't think it would work. For two reasons. First off, I doubt you have the sealing skills. Secondly, if you're constantly sending scrolls to Ame, wouldn't the Hokage think you had been replaced with a spy?" Although the thought of the Hokage's intelligence division trying to find the significance of a dozen bowls of ramen headed for Hidden Rain was rather amusing.
"If I get permission first, then they won't think I'm a spy, right?" Naruto reasoned, displaying a potentially unhealthy amount of faith in the good nature of his fellow man, "And Jiraiya-sensei may be a jerk and a pervert, but he's still taught me a lot about sealing, even though I've only known him for a few weeks. Your storage seal is no problem dattebayo!"
"Jiraiya, eh?" Konan's expression was utterly unreadable, "Do you think I could speak to him? We met a long time ago, during the Third Great War, not on opposite sides, before you ask. I was only ten years old at the time, and had no ninja training whatsoever. He saved my life, and the lives of my closest friends, when we found ourselves trapped on a battlefield. I haven't seen him in a long time."
"I dunno if I should," Naruto wasn't sure, but he didn't think it was a good idea to show the jonin-sensei of Sakura's opponent their training grounds and teachers.
"I will buy you a bowl of ramen. Miso, with all the fixings," Konan bribed slyly.
"Done!" Naruto had trouble distrusting anyone, especially when they provided ramen.
So, when Naruto returned to training ground seven, he brought Konan along. "Hey, guys!" he shouted to them with typical exuberant disregard for the rules of polite society, "This lady says she knows Jiraiya from way back! She wants to talk to him dattebayo! Says it's important." As far as Naruto was concerned, few things were more important than reuniting with an old friend. Ramen and beating Sasuke at anything also featured high on that very short list.
Jiraiya, however, seemed to disagree, as he reacted with cautious and comical dismay. "What? Oh, man, I swear I used protection! It's not my fault, I swear! But, uh, I do have enough money to help support the kid, if it comes to that…" He abruptly fell silent, as Konan's expression cycled rapidly from confused to shocked to frighteningly blank. Square geometric patterns spread across her skin as a rustling sound filled the trees surrounding the group of ninja. Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke instinctively drew together for mutual protection, but Konan's ire was not directed at them.
"You don't remember? YOU DON'T REMEMBER?!" The second repetition was at a shriek, the first time Naruto had heard her voice raise from her usual quiet tone. Many miles away, in Amegakure, several extremely powerful ninja felt a sudden urge to crawl under a rock and hide there for a few months, even though they didn't have a concrete reason why. It was pure instinct. "Do you really? So, you don't remember saving my life. The lives of my friends. I suppose you also don't remember leaving us for dead, either? In that war-torn hellhole? For FIFTEEN YEARS? Would it have been so onerous, oh gallant Lord Jiraiya, to check once a decade on your old students? Is that too much for your busy schedule? You disgust me! Coming here was a mistake; I should not have bothered with someone like you." The rustling sound turned… sharp, somehow.
"Konan? You're alive?" Jiraiya sounded like he'd been punched in the gut, "You're alive! Hahaha!" He seized the kunoichi from Rain in a bone-crushing hug, sheer audacity saving him from retaliation, "I- I thought you were dead! How are you not dead? I saw the bodies!" His elation rapidly transformed to suspicion. Konan responded by pulling the flower from her hair and cradling it in one palm. Although she remained motionless, the flower unfolded itself into a featureless sheet of paper, before reforming into a simple origami crane. While unexpected and kind of cool, the other ninja weren't certain how this confirmed her identity, but to Jiraiya it did, as the smile returned to his face. If Jiraiya trusted her, the other jonin were at least willing to extend the benefit of the doubt. "It really is you! I can't believe it! Damn, someone went to a lot of trouble to fake your deaths."
"There were a few close calls along the way, but I assure you that I remain among the living," Konan assured the group, "And neither I nor my village, to my knowledge, hold any enmity toward Konoha. In fact, since you apparently did not know of our survival, Jiraiya-sensei, I can say that the opposite is true. And, to answer the question you were about to ask, sensei, the reason I believe you is that you had no way of knowing I was in the village until a few minutes ago. Even a master ninja like yourself isn't that good of an actor, to fake a story so quickly. Plus, that one-eyed guy wouldn't have been preparing to stab me in the back when I attacked you if you wanted to manipulate me. No one puts together a plan that complex with no words or sign language exchanged." Kakashi, who had indeed positioned himself behind Konan, undetected (so he had thought), took a few artificially casual steps back and reopened his book.
"Yeah, so you know that I know that you know that I know that we slightly trust each other, blah, blah, blah," Jiraiya's face was consumed by a massive grin, "Sometimes I think being a great ninja isn't worth all the paranoia, when two old friends can't even meet without having a buddy along for safety! Regardless, it's great to see you again! How are you? How're Nagato and Yahiko? It's been way too long!
"See for yourself," Konan offered, the markings slowly vanishing from her skin as the rustling subsided. "Lord Pain, the ruler of the village hidden in the rain, formally extends an invitation to Uzumaki Naruto and any friends he wishes to bring to visit our fine home. I am certain, though, that he would want to see you as well, Jiraiya-sensei." The other ninja stared in shock. Hidden rain was incredibly insular. Chunin exams aside, no foreign ninja had been inside the Land of Rain in nearly six years. Their forces seemed to have an uncanny ability to pick out and eject spies, informants, and infiltrating ninja. To suddenly have an invitation to visit was unexpected, to say the least! And why was this 'Lord Pain' interested in Naruto, specifically? He'd never been within twenty kilometers of the Land of Rain, and Jiraiya had been careful to keep knowledge of the boy's status as Jinchuriki contained within the village.
"So you three really pulled it off," Jiraiya put off his questions for later, in favor of catching up with his old student, "Old Hanzo never knew what hit him, eh? So which one is this 'Lord Pain'? Did Yahiko achieve his big dreams? Or has Nagato finally stepped out of his friend's shadow?"
"You will just have to see for yourself," Konan's smile turned slightly sad, "Melodramatic idiot that he is, Lord Pain would doubtlessly prefer to reveal his identity himself."
"Huh. That… really doesn't narrow it down between them," Jiraiya muttered with mild discontent.
"Uh, Lord Jiraiya, who is this?" Kakashi finally got a word in edgewise.
"Oh, uh, where'd my manners go and die?" Jiraiya joked, "Guys and girl, this is Konan, of Amegakure. I saved her and two of her friends, Nagato and Yahiko, back during the Third Great Ninja War. They'd been trapped on a battlefield, between the sannin and Hanzo of the Salamander himself and I got them out. Barely. He was a bit before you kids' time, but Hanzo was probably the strongest person in the world during the war. Less so more recently; age catches up to everyone eventually. I gave them a little training so they wouldn't be in the same situation again, hopefully, and resumed my duties with Konoha. But, a little over a year later, when I sent one of my most trusted agents to check on them, he brought back their… remains, in storage scrolls. You never know for sure unless you see the body, I know, but I saw the bodies! I really had no idea… But I can say that I trust them without reservation, assuming they haven't become mass-murderers or something?"
"No more so than any other ninja," Konan confirmed, "It was not easy to unseat the tyrant Hanzo." The paper crane unfolded itself again. "When you wish to set a time and place, if I am no longer in the village, write the information on this and leave it somewhere outdoors." She handed it to Naruto. "It will find its way to me. Now, if you will excuse me, I believe Jiraiya and I have some catching up to do." She practically dragged the sannin away, ignoring Sasuke's faint sound of protest. If Jiraiya was gone, that meant a full day with Gai, and no sane person wanted that!
With a trip to Amegakure scheduled for after the conclusion of the exams, and the promise of spy training to glean as much information as possible from the experience lurking in the near future, team seven continued to train for the tournament much in the same way they had before. Sasuke, however, added in practice dealing with extensive water jutsu use with Tenzo and Kakashi, and Sakura wheedled a powerful earth-style technique out of Jiraiya, Earth style: Dark Swamp. The useful technique produces an area of soupy, sticky mud that can be used to incapacitate or even drown an unsuspecting foe, which the user can stand on as easily as solid ground. The jutsu scales with chakra investment, which would have made it perfect for Naruto if he had any talent at all for earth style. But, before they knew it, and far sooner than any member of team seven might have liked, the day of the tournament arrived.
The genin of team seven showed up early and entered the contestants' box, a special set of seats set aside for the chunin hopefuls, but they were still the last to arrive. The friends sat, unaware of the rumble of sound that swept around the arena at their arrival. The exam tournaments are a major spectator event. Few circumstances allow a ninja village to openly advertise the strength of their soldiers to the Daimyo and public, but the exams do. Also, the nobility of every land in the elemental nations, great or small (Amegakure exempted, as it never had nobility, even under Hanzo), are fond of blood sports and gambling, and the chunin exam finals help to scratch their itch for carnage and blood money. Furthermore, the last genin team to have all three members reach the final tournament the first time they competed were the sannin themselves, and comparisons were invariably drawn.
Sasuke was likened to a more trustworthy Orochimaru, never mind that the two have very few personality traits, preferred tactics, or ninjutsu in common. Sakura was compared to Tsunade, even though the young girl was training to become a ninjutsu mistress, and had no interest whatsoever in medicine. Naruto was touted as the next Jiraiya, even though the jinchuriki's tactics, although not his personality, were closest to what Orochimaru had employed at that age. Misdirection, clone tricks, and kenjutsu were all essential parts of Naruto's and a young Orochimaru's arsenals.
While the bets were tallied, Naruto and Kankuro made their way down to the arena floor and faced off, narrowed blue eyes boring a hole into the Suna genin's featureless visor. Naruto thought about saying something, but he remembered what had happened to Lee and Neji when they started talking, and the demon vessel decided to hold his tongue. When the proctor of the third exam, a nondescript and heavily scarred jonin named Raido, stepped back, Kankuro promptly ignored over fifty years of tactical doctrine and charged Naruto, a wide hidden blade extending from the knuckles of each gauntlet. Suna's standard tactics dictate that a ninja puppet-master is most effective at long distance. There, the ninja can focus on controlling his man-sized, heavily armed puppet (or puppets, if he is skilled enough) without worrying about melee combat. Kakashi and Hayate had assumed Kankuro would follow these tried-and-tested tactics, and coached Naruto accordingly. So, when Kankuro chose to engage in melee combat, without so much as a boast, it caught Naruto off guard.
After their earlier encounter, the Konoha genin had read his opponent as a cocky and cruel person, who liked to gloat and talk down to his foes. Based on Kankuro's treatment of Konohamaru, Naruto's teammates had supported and helped to construct this analysis. The faceless, implacable warrior Naruto instead faced nearly skewered the jinchuriki with a single lunge, but Naruto managed to substitute with a rock from the edge of the arena, and buy enough time to draw his (now proper steel) sword to defend himself.
The next shock was that, whatever Kankuro's weapons and armor were made of, it was far harder, tougher, and lighter than steel. The Suna genin was extremely light on his feet, considering his heavy gear, far beyond what manipulating a heavier armor with chakra strings would allow him to simulate. Furthermore, every clash of their blades left deep notches in Naruto's sword, but not even a scratch on the armored ninja's weapons. Kankuro easily had the upper hand in a straight-up sword on knife fight, at least until Naruto charged his weapon with wind chakra and cut through an attacking gauntlet knife like the metal offered no resistance at all.
Kankuro, realizing that the next sword-stroke would sunder his protective shell, set off several explosive seals, prepared as most ninja do on slips of paper for easy use, at point-blank range. The Suna genin, weighed down by his armor, which also protected him from the blast, was mostly unharmed. Naruto, by contrast, was thrown across the arena by the force, giving Kankuro time to draw a scroll from his holster, and unseal from it a clattering, four-armed, bladed marionette made of the same material as his armor. With a flick of his wrist, he animated the puppet with chakra strings, sending it to its feet with clattering, boneless grace.
In his heavy armor, Kankuro was not especially agile, and could not dodge Naruto's wind-enhanced slashes. His primary defense was sturdy protection, rather than speed and reflexes. The fast, light puppet, on the other hand, had no such problems. Kankuro's fingers danced, and the puppet danced with them, leaving dozens of shallow cuts on the jinchuriki and easily dodging the return strikes, bending and twisting in ways that would cripple any human. After a few minutes of this, Kankuro spoke the first words either genin had in the match.
"Ok, I give up trying to figure this out. How the hell are you still standing?" The words were laden with frustration and confusion.
"Waddaya mean?" Naruto asked, "I get hurt worse than this when I ask Sakura out and she turns me down dattebayo!"
"All my blades are poisoned!" Kankuro exclaimed, "Nothing lethal, but you've been dosed with enough to knock out three camels! Three camels! And you haven't slowed down a bit!"
"I heal fast," Naruto shared, "Always have."
"That doesn't explain how you shrugged off that much poison at all," Kankuro grumbled.
"If it helps, when I was like six I got into the orphanage's cleaning supplies," Naruto added unhelpfully, "I drank half a bottle of window cleaner and didn't even realize it was supposed ta be bad for you until years later. Actually tastes pretty good, but Iruka-sensei made me promise to stop drinking stuff like that. Something about other people copying what I did and getting really sick."
"So you're a freak of nature. Of course you are. Because you couldn't just be a kenjutsu expert with a jutsu that can cut through freaking metal like paper. That would be too easy. Sometimes I think the Kami find my suffering amusing," the puppet-master lamented the unfairness of the world, as he drew his second scroll, "I was hoping to save this for the next round, but it looks like I'll need it here. Naruto, meet Tortoise. The puppet you've already seen, Crow, is based on my sensei's designs, but I built Tortoise from the frame up. So, as a cheesy puppet theatre villain might say, it's showtime!"
Tortoise actually resembled the animal whose name it bore fairly closely, It had a bulky, pyramidal body of the same gleaming metal, and four curved, stocky legs at the corners. Four circular openings, one near the center of the base of each side, were concealed behind tightly fitted metal doors. The geometric puppet turned one of these doors toward Naruto and opened it briefly, releasing a smoke bomb, followed by a spray of senbon. Naruto defended by creating a shadow clone and using it as a meat shield. This gave the jinchuriki an idea. A wonderfully awful idea that would probably confirm Kankuro's suspicion that the Kami were out to get him. "The Art of the Shadow Doppelganger!" Shouting the jutsu name was a bit showy, but worth it for the priceless expression on Kankuro's… It was then that Naruto remembered that Kankuro wears a full helmet. Oh, well. At least the jutsu still worked.
Kankuro looked about, his body language conveying fatalistic despair, "Did you say shadow doppelgangers? Or just regular doppelgangers? 'Cause that's kind of an important difference."
One of the doppelgangers responded by drawing a kunai, wrapping an explosive-sealed tag around the hilt and throwing it to explode against Tortoise's side with a hollow report, knocking Kankuro about. Naruto's homemade explosive seals, vetted by a master of the art, were much higher quality than Kankuro's mass-produced ordinance. "Shadow doppelgangers," Naruto confirmed, as every single duplicate drew an explosive tag with each hand.
"I think I'm just gonna surrender now," Kankuro offered in a high pitched voice. One bomb was no problem, but there was no way he could survive that many explosions. "With all these bombs, I'd lose a limb at least. Getting promoted ain't worth that. I give up."
Kankuro trudged heavily toward the stairs, while Naruto performed an impromptu happy dance that had Hinata swooning in her seat, before leaping for the stands. He reached the competitors' box in a single bound, and landed lightly next to Sasuke. "Hah, waddaya think of that, you jerk?" Naruto taunted his teammate, "When Hinata kicks your ass, I'll get promoted and you won't. Then I'll be able to order you around dattebayo! This is gonna be great!" Hinata, a few seats over, nearly fainted again upon hearing the off-handed compliment, fleeing the stands for the sake of her composure and odds of being conscious for her match.
"Hn. When I defeat your friend, we will face one another in the semifinals," Sasuke disagreed, "And then I will progress to the finals, where I will win this pathetic excuse for a challenge to my skills." The Uchiha was generally not given to boasting beyond what he knew his abilities to be, but Naruto had a special gift for getting under his skin. As Sasuke forestalled any further wordplay by hopping the railing around the box and dropping to the arena floor, he privately admitted that Hinata actually had a lot of advantages over him.
Before the massacre, the Uchiha and the Hyuga clan had been fierce rivals. Both are ancient clans with a long and storied history. Both have powerful kekkei genkai seated in their eyes, and unique advantages over the other. Along with the equally formidable Senju clan, the Uchiha founded Konoha, and all other clans joined later, granting the Uchiha impressive political power. However, unlike the sharingan, the byakugan is always passed down to everyone with Hyuga blood, and it is usable from the moment a Hyuga has enough chakra to turn his kekkei genkai on, giving the Hyuga superior numbers of powerful ninja. In contrast, while the sharingan also grants greater prowess in ninjutsu than an Uchiha could achieve without it, the kekkei genkai must be awoken and honed in battle and training before it becomes truly useful.
Now, it seemed someone wanted to revive that old conflict one last time, probably Hyuga Hiashi, Hinata's father and the current and highly influential Hyuga clan head. Hiashi and Sasuke's father Fugaku had been known, within the clans, for a legendary grudge spawned when Sasuke's mother, Mikoto, had turned Hiashi down in favor of dating her future husband. Sasuke thought, based on what little he knew of the man, Hiashi might be the type to reach for a vicarious last triumph through his daughter.
Against an ordinary Hyuga, Sasuke could have dusted off the successful anti-Hyuga tactics from his clan's library and won with ease. As Hinata had demonstrated against her cousin, most Hyuga have no defense against powerful ranged jutsu, and he could have forced a surrender with shuriken and fire blasts.
However, Hinata had displayed considerable prowess with water style, which can out-power any fire jutsu that is not significantly stronger than the water technique used. If that wasn't bad enough, she was the heiress to the clan, which meant she could know the most powerful of the clan techniques. Sasuke had to be prepared for her to know the Heavenly Rotation, a near-impenetrable but thankfully chakra-intensive defensive jutsu, and the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, a special, high-speed hand-to-hand technique capable of shutting off his ability to use ninjutsu for hours or days. Plus, this didn't take into account lesser secret techniques not mentioned in the Uchiha library!
Even in the academy, the one person who Sasuke could not defeat in taijutsu was Hinata, which logically meant he had to keep his distance. Hinata had been trained in the gentle fist since she learned to walk, and Sasuke simply could not match her close-combat abilities, having not started training seriously until he entered the academy shortly before his seventh birthday. However, her water-style and enhanced vision meant that not only were his fire and shuriken attacks unlikely to work, but it was more than possible that he was outmatched at long range. The only distance that Sasuke had any advantages in was at sword's-length, and it was at this distance that he resolved to keep his foe. If he could do that, and it was a pretty uncertain if, he might be able to eke out a win through superior control of the distance between himself and Hinata.
With this in mind, Sasuke drew his katana before the match even began, situating himself into a classical kendo stance opposite Hinata's own picture-perfect gentle fist form. As one, both genin poured chakra into their eyes, blood-red sharingan blazing into icy, metallic byakugan. The paired, dark teardrops in Sasuke's eyes swirled lazily about, in time with the pulsing veins that fed blood and chakra into Hinata's own kekkei genkai. Sasuke briefly reflected on how odd it was that Hinata, who was usually timid as a mouse, could look so fierce with her eyes active. Then, he had no more time to reflect as Raido told them to begin, and "Please don't try to do anything permanent to each other. I'd rather not have to step in."
The second Raido fell silent, Hinata lunged forward, seeking a quick end to the fight. Sasuke was forced to retreat, fending his opponent off as best he could with superior reach. Gaining control of the tempo of their duel, he went on the attack, charging his sword with stunning electricity. Hinata parried with a flimsy barrier of chakra, feet already in motion, and spun about in a rapid circle, the barrier expanding outward and flinging Sasuke and his attack away before the fragile defense could be breached. She did know Heavenly Rotation after all, and now Sasuke was out of distance and vulnerable. Although Hinata gave no outward sign, Sasuke's sharingan picked up a mass of blue-tinged chakra gathering at her mouth, confirming that she also knew sealless water style techniques. Against anyone else, she would have had a devastating sucker punch, but against an Uchiha the surprise attack was merely dangerous. Sasuke supposed she might not have done as much research as he did.
Forewarned by his chakra sight, Sasuke was able to raise a wall of earth to block a volley of water bullets, using a jutsu he'd copied during a spar with Sakura. Without an earth affinity, it used a hefty chunk of his stamina, but he thought it was better to be tired than take the hit. Against most foes, he could have used the wall to hide his movements long enough to set up an ambush, but against a Hyuga such tactics are futile. With this in mind, Sasuke used his own kekkei genkai to track Hinata as she flanked the wall, substituted in closer using a nearby tree branch, and entered his safest distance again, trying to put the Hyuga back on the defensive with a swift lunge. Instead, a powerful, invisible bludgeon of raw chakra erupted from Hinata's palm and slammed into his chest, feeling like one of Rock Lee's devastating punches. Presumably galvanized by the perceived danger, the world suddenly slowed down, at least twice as much as it had the last time his sharingan had grown. Sasuke felt like he was moving underwater, and was unable to react to the input of his newly enhanced senses in time to do anything but witness every moment of his defeat. Before the Uchiha could recover from the blow, Hinata slipped under his guard and slammed a series of pinpoint strikes into his arms and legs, which promptly went numb. Sasuke managed to balance himself in a kneeling position, wheezing for breath, but the Uchiha couldn't feel his arms, or anything below the knee.
"I concede," he reluctantly stated. "I cannot move. Continuing would be both foolish and one-sided." Sasuke briefly considered his condition, and that in light of how his match had gone, he was really, really, really looking forward to watching Hinata smash Naruto flat. Swallowing his pride, he spoke out over the protests of his badly bruised ego. "Uh, I don't suppose you, I don't know, can undo this or something? I'd, um, kind of like to watch my teammates' other matches. If you can help."
"O-oh! Of course!" Hinata gently laid her hands across his arms and legs briefly, sending a warm wave of energy to cut through the icy numbness. "You should be f-fine in a few minutes." She offered him a hand up. "Um, I'll give you a hand up to the s-stands? If you want?" The last sentence came out as more of a squeak than anything.
Sasuke considered the offer briefly. He wasn't the type to hold a grudge against anyone but Naruto, and he hadn't really expected to win. Besides, Hinata was nice and reasonably harmless (now that the match was over), and as his well-ignored hormones pointed out, she had already hit puberty faster and harder than any of her peers. Plus, she had defeated him with ease, and wasn't even sweating. Although the Sasuke didn't know it, his parents, Mikoto and Fugaku, had met in nearly identical circumstances twenty-five years ago, and the young Fugaku had sworn then and there that there was only one girl in the world for him: the one who had beaten him senseless. It isn't that they are masochistic, but Uchiha men have proven time and again that they are hard-wired to find power very attractive. Between exhaustion and close proximity to what a small voice in the back of Sasuke's mind pointed out was a very pretty girl, hormones and a neglected desire for friendship won out against his carefully cultivated, habitually aloof personality. "Thank you, Hinata."
While Hinata helped Sasuke limp back up to the stands, Temari and Kabuto squared off for their own match. As she had against Shino, the Suna genin opened with a massive blast of wind, aiming to slam Kabuto into the wall and end the match in a single move. Her jutsu whipped up a huge cloud of blinding dust, accompanied by the sound of something heavy hitting the wall of the arena with a crunch. However, when the dust settled, Kabuto was nowhere in sight. Temari cast about for her opponent, left, right, behind, up? This left her unprepared when Kabuto burst out of the ground below her, and simultaneously disarmed her and sent her staggering backwards with a stunning blow to the face. Temari was not bad at taijutsu, for a genin, but she had focused on ranged combat over hand-to-hand skill for most of her career. What little close combat training she had done had involved using her huge fan as a weapon. Kabuto, experienced from years as a genin, knew exactly what he was doing up close and personal, and could use basic medical techniques in inventive ways to disrupt his opponent's body. The entire match took about a minute and a half, and ended with Temari immobile in the dirt while her apologetic opponent treated the wounds he'd inflicted.
Soon enough, the final match of the first round was set to begin: Haruno Sakura vs. Karin. The Rain ninja, fiddling with her spectacles, kicked off hostilities with a barrage of insults. "You sure you want to do this, princess?" Karin was not impressed by the look of her opponent. Sakura tried, especially recently, to take all aspects of her training seriously. That said, she was the first ninja to come out of the Haruno clan, a family known primarily as merchants and bankers. She also was still trying to impress Sasuke, even if she now was waiting for him to come to her. Her well-used armor (even if she hadn't taken it on a lot of missions, frequent spars with Rock Lee laid a lattice of scratches and scuffs over the dull metal sections) and fierce expression provided an odd contrast with her lovingly tended, bright pink hair and light cosmetics. "I wouldn't want to muss up your perm or something. That'd just be rude."
As Naruto could attest to, Sakura had a quick, hot temper. While it wasn't easy to make her lose it, certain subjects, like Sasuke, Ino, or her hair (especially after Orochimaru's disturbing revelations), were sure to set her off. "Oh, you're one to talk, dye job!" Sakura raged, "At least my hair's natural. What, couldn't stand out from the crowd without glow-in-the-dark enhancement?"
"I've dyed nothing, you bitch!" Apparently, Karin's ire was as easily provoked, "This is all natural, just like the knuckle sandwich you just ordered! I'm gonna pound you into dust!"
"You know, they say profanity is a sign of a lacking mind," Sakura pointed out in a deliberately superior tone, "Couldn't you think of a creative insult, at least? If it helps, I've heard the one about my hair twice today already." Sakura scoffed at her opponent's wit, "I've been insulted by professionals, you kiddie leaguer." Seated in the stands with her parents, Yamanaka Ino, self-proclaimed chief rival for Sasuke's affections and source of many of the professional insults, tried to figure out whether Sakura had just given her a compliment, albeit without success.
"Give the word already, examiner guy!" Karin urged Raido, voice dripping with bloodlust, "There's only one way to settle this." As he nodded, and escaped the midst of the rapidly developing cat fight (Everyone in the audience would have agreed it was dripping with cattiness), Karin was already halfway through a seal sequence that Sakura thought looked extremely familiar… Hadn't Sasuke tried the same jutsu against Kakashi, right before he'd fallen unconscious after a long and exhausting battle against a worthy adversary?
Unlike Sasuke's tiny tongue of flame, Karin breathed out not one, not two, but five bright orange balls of fire, each as tall as their creator, the facial features of a fearsome dragon outlined in darker, red flames. Generated in sequence, the swiftly moving dragon head bombs tracked Sakura across the arena as the Konoha kunoichi ran for her life to evade the explosive projectiles, which struck the wall with enough force to shake the stands. Up in the competitors' box, still leaning on Hinata's shoulder for reasons he couldn't have articulated even to himself, Sasuke swore quietly, muttering in envy. On a good day, he could use the same jutsu once, and this Karin, no older than the Uchiha, could use it five times? She could throw away that much chakra on an opening move? It just wasn't fair.
Sakura actually wasn't in as much trouble as she could have been. The dragon head bomb jutsu is devastating at most ranges, having both decent coverage and projectile speed. However, like most fire techniques, it is easier to avoid at long distances, when the target has more time to react. A momentary lull in the incoming fire as Karin went through the signs for a new jutsu gave Sakura the opportunity to put a plan into action. Like Naruto, Karin had deep reserves, which she could use for powerful offensive jutsu. Like Sasuke, she seemed to prefer fire techniques. However, unlike Sasuke, Karin didn't seem to have a sensory ability to cover fire style's weaknesses. The primary downside to high level fire jutsu is that they produce a lot of heat and light, obscuring the caster's vision as the jutsu is fired. Sasuke could compensate for this with his kekkei genkai; Karin couldn't, and it was throwing off her aim. After the first shots, the Rain Kunoichi had become noticeably less accurate. Sakura thought that she might have another way to exploit this drawback. Naruto was better at this sort of on-the-fly trickery, but Sakura had spent enough time with him to pick up plenty of useful tricks to supplement what she'd already learned in the academy. When Karin finished her sign chain and drew in a deep breath, Sakura made a gesture herself, and carefully partitioned her chakra. While difficult, it is not impossible to use multiple ninjutsu at the same time, as long as you have excellent chakra control and only need signs for one of them. Sakura might not have hefty reserves like Naruto, or Sasuke's ability to perform any jutsu (with practice) after seeing it once, but in technical skill and chakra control her teammates could not keep up.
Karin's next attack took the form of a seething tide of fire that swept across the arena, reducing the stand of trees in the corner, planted to provide varied terrain and substitution fodder, to ash. Up in the stands, Sasuke practically turned green with envy. He recognized Karin's jutsu as the Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation, an S-ranked ninjutsu the Uchiha clan library touted as one of the pinnacles of fire style, only available to the greatest masters of the art. Sasuke knew it would be years before he could even attempt this jutsu, and he would never be able to do so more than a few times per day. Using the immensely powerful technique had winded Karin, but she clearly had only used up a small portion of her reserves so far. Ignoring his own genetic advantages, specifically the ability to learn ninjutsu and taijutsu after seeing them once, which Sasuke's sparring partners all would have agreed was equally unfair, Sasuke proceeded to descend into a black mood.
However, he was distracted from his discontented sulking when four Sakuras proceeded to jump through the dying inferno without so much as a scorch mark and attack Karin with fists and knives, forcing the Rain ninja to evade. How had Sakura shrugged off one of the most powerful fire jutsu ever created? And gotten doppelgangers, usually so fragile as to vanish after a single hit, to become just as tough. Unless… "Oh, that is clever," Sasuke admitted quietly. He almost hadn't figured out Sakura's trick. Sometimes he forgot that basic illusions worked perfectly well on almost everyone else.
"Doppelgangers!" Hinata whispered next to him, pitching her voice even lower than normal so that Karin wouldn't hear, "They're just ordinary doppelgangers. Since they don't have a physical form, it takes a physical attack to dispel them. They just passed right through the fire." Sasuke confirmed her insights with an Uchiha Grunt, the mildly impressed version.
Down on the arena floor, Karin parried an incoming doppelganger attack, only for the illusion to vanish upon contact with her kunai. Drawing a handful of shuriken, the rain kunoichi removed the remaining chakra constructs. Scanning the arena, she was unable to spot any sign of Sakura amidst the dying embers. Without any fuel, the fire could not sustain itself. "Where are you, princess?" Karin asked the empty air, "Time to find out! You can't hide from me! Earth style-"
"Dark Swamp?" Sakura offered her foe. When the fire hit, the Konoha ninja had sent her doppelgangers as a distraction, and sunk beneath the earth. While Karin was distracted, Sakura snuck behind her underground, preparing an ambush. "So, give up yet?"
"Screw you, Princess Bubblegum!" Karin exclaimed, immersed up to her neck in the thick, slimy mud. Despite her thrashing, she was unable to gain any traction, and the viscous liquid resisted her movements well enough to keep her in the center of the small swamp. As Karin started to bring her hands together for more signs, Sakura ended the jutsu, reverting the disgusting mud to hard-packed dirt. Karin, still imprisoned, was now held immobile.
"Unless you can teleport or something, I'm gonna take that as a yes," Sakura declared with vicious glee, "Examiner, sir, you want to call it, or should we watch her struggle a little more? This is kinda funny." After confirming Karin's inability to free herself, Raido complied and ended the first round of the final exam, before announcing that there would be a short break between the rounds to allow competitors a chance to recover a bit, as there was no sense in someone failing due to something as preventable as dehydration. Left unsaid was that the first round had contained several upsets, namely Sakura, Naruto, and Kabuto winning against genin who were superior to them on paper. The bookies needed time to recalculate odds and take new wagers.
For Hyuga Hinata, this was probably the worst thing they could have done, as far as her chances of victory went. While the other genin got water, plotted last-minute strategies, and generally did sneaky, sensible things, Hinata kept busy psyching herself out. She didn't doubt her skills, not anymore. Defeating Neji and Sasuke, when she really hadn't expected to be able to last a minute against either them, had taken care of any lingering insecurities. Her problem was that her next opponent was Naruto. She wanted to win, but not if it meant Naruto couldn't continue. Or what if, Kami forbid, she hurt him. Hinata had managed to avoid causing any permanent damage to Sasuke, but she thought Naruto had to be stronger than his teammates. What if she had to hurt him badly to stop him? She couldn't do that! However, as Hinata resolved to quit and spare her crush, Naruto noticed her distressed expression. Socially oblivious though he was, Naruto had been Hinata's friend for the better part of four years, and the Hyuga girl was not trying to hide her feelings.
"Hey, Hinata, what's wrong?" Naruto asked, trying to sound sympathetic, "You look like somebody killed your cat or something." He may have tried to be sympathetic, but he didn't actually pull it off very well.
"Wha?" Hinata was confused. How had her pet gotten involved? "S-somebody hurt Neko-chan?!"
"Uh, no. No!" the jinchuriki backpedaled rapidly, "You just looked really sad and like you were trying to make a decision about something, and I thought maybe somebody we knew died 'cause you looked real sad, but nobody we knew died that I know about, so I just thought maybe it wasn't a person but, uh, that's not really the point dattebayo! You're upset. Something's wrong. You wanna tell me what it is? Maybe I can help, 'cause I'm awesome!"
"What- What if you're the problem?" Hinata asked in a very small voice, almost inaudible under the murmur of the crowd.
"I'm the problem?" Naruto was dismayed, "What did I do?" He asked seriously, "If you tell me I can stop dattebayo! I'll do it right now!"
"I-it isn't like that," the Hyuga shrunk into her seat, worrying at a fingernail with her teeth, "It's just… We've been friends for a long t-time, and I- we- neither of us has a lot of other friends, and now we've have to fight each other, and, and," By this point her silvery eyes were practically the size of dinner plates, shining with unshed tears at the very thought of what she was about to say next, "What if we hurt each other? I don't think I could live with that… I should just forfeit now. Then everybody would be h-happy." She lowered her head in resignation, squeezing twin droplets from her now-closed eyes. "I c-can't fight my friends. I just…" In hindsight, Hinata realized she should have predicted Naruto's response.
"You can't quit dattebayo!" he shouted into her face, placing a hand on each of her shoulders and shaking her back and forth to emphasize his point, "You never give up! I mean, it's one thing if it's like a tac-tic-al retreat or something, where you run away until you can come back and win later, but you never, ever just give up without a fight! You know how, in the second task, Sasuke and Sakura and me came out of it looking like we got run over by a horse or something? Well, we got attacked by an S-rank ninja who snuck in, Orochimaru. You've heard of him. We didn't wanna fight him, but we didn't have a choice dattebayo! He wouldda killed us if we hadn't. We're still here, 'cause we fought, even though we didn't want to, or think we could win. Not that I remember too much of the fight… I was knocked out for most of it, I think, but Sakura and Sasuke filled me in on the details later."
"Uh, I don't think I understand where you're going with this," Hinata admitted. It was an interesting story, but, "How is this like us fighting at all?"
Naruto realized he had gone off on a bit of a tangent, but he wasn't about to admit that to anyone but himself. "The point is that you can't give up! Not now! It isn't fair to me. I don't want to win if I don't earn it. An awesome guy like me has to do things the right way, after all. But more important, it isn't fair to you." He looked Hinata in the eyes, doing his best to be completely serious. "Since I've known you, you've always just assumed that other people are better than you. Neji, Sasuke, your kid sister Hanabi, even me. Don't deny it; you know it's true. But now, you've beaten Sasuke. You beat Neji. You're the one who gets to be awesome now! I can take a hit, just ask anyone who's ever fought me, and besides, I trust you, Hinata. You won't screw this up, so don't throw it away dattebayo! We're gonna fight, and it's gonna be epic, whoever wins. That's a promise! Uh, if it helps, just think of it as one of Kakashi-sensei's 'keep going until somebody drops or gets trapped' spars." As he finished, it occurred to Naruto that maybe he should have started from the last sentence. Was the other stuff really helpful? He was particularly unsure about the bits with Orochimaru, and the cat… But, Hinata seemed to straighten up, head held high, and although she was still chewing on her nails, her posture suggested it was now due to habit more than anything.
"W-we'll both do our best then, right?" Hinata asked, a hint of a smile on her face, "I wouldn't want you to hold back and let me win, just because you don't want to hit a girl or something like that." Having gotten the last word, she walked over to the stairs down to the arena, a new spring in her step. Naruto, left behind for the moment, was too busy devoting every bit of his self-admittedly unimpressive brain to one simple question: had Hinata of all people just teased him? Where had that come from?
A.N. Here are the answers to a few questions that people who are familiar with the manga or anime might have:
To anyone who is wondering where Sakura's psychoanalysis came from, I would like to point out two things. First off, in the original source material, it is repeatedly stated that Sakura's only real competition in the brains department is Shikamaru, who is a certified genius of everything. Secondly, Sakura has spent most of her time in the academy as best friends with Yamanaka Ino, who is the heiress to an entire clan of ninja psychologists. Even if Sakura wasn't a voracious reader with a curious mind, she would have picked up some knowledge. Also, she has been stalking Sasuke for quite some time, and Naruto is not nearly as good at hiding his feelings as he thinks he is.
Also, I know that in the manga, Jiraiya meets Konan, Yahiko, Nagato, and Hanzo durin the second Great Ninja War. However, as I said in the AN at the beginning of this story, the chronology doesn't really work out there. So, in the interest of making sense, Kakashi and his contemporaries are in their early thirties, Konan and friends are around 23, and the sannin are in their fifties. The sannin were involved in the second and third ninja wars as a team, as was Hanzo. Konan, Nagato, and Yahiko were orphaned in the third war, not the second, and later rescued by Jiraiya from being poisoned by Hanzo's special ninjutsu when he tried to kill the sannin in battle.
Finally, I am not necessarily setting up romance between Hinata and Sasuke. They are both preteens, making this middle school romance at best. Such relationships, if you could call them that, are measured in hours and days. There will be no romance here between any characters, until/if I decide to do the three year time-skip that happens in the manga. I still haven't decided if the story will go that way or not. That said, giving Sasuke character development and letting Hinata be awesome makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, and the chance to do both at once was too tempting to pass up.
