Disclaimer: If only this wasn't a habit of mine I would stop... no still don't.
Blah! I don't want to go back to college! NOOOOOOOO
Thanks to Love8Peace, Freedom its2l8, Kiyomi-Takashima, and SoraLover987142 for the kind reviews, they always motivate me to write more. Also thanks to Silvermist464 and Kiyomi-Takashima for favoriting my story.
Naruto was wrong; the finals took place a month from the preliminaries. During that month I continued my work at the hospital, although it was slightly lonely when Jiro left. Instead I found myself spending my free time by Tenshi's crib; sometimes whispering to her what life would be like if she came to live with me and Reiko or just content to watch her. Tsunade alternated my lessons so that some days I would be learning medical techniques and others I would continue child care.
Every night Reiko would stumble home, bruised from his extensive training, and would stay awake long enough to eat then crash on the couch. I rose each morning knowing Reiko was already gone to train again. I worried that his sensei was pushing him too hard, but didn't say anything. If Reiko didn't complain, I wouldn't either. Sometimes he was rested enough to talk to me, but most days he just sat there. From the scant information he gave me, I learned that he was one of the few that passed the preliminaries, Naruto and Sasuke include.
The day of the finals came so suddenly that I had forgotten about it. I had walked out of my room, expecting to have the house to myself as usual; but Reiko was pacing the room, surprising me. When he caught sight of me Reiko exclaimed, "Could you be any slower? I have to be there quickly, you know!" Confused I blinked until he finally grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the house, "Did you forget that the finals for the chuunin exams were today? Let's go, we're probably the last people there!" It turned out we weren't, Sasuke wasn't there when we arrived. We had missed Naruto fighting Hyuuga Neji and defeating him, which was a huge feat, considering Neji was supposed to be the prodigy of his clan. Shikamaru was in the middle of fighting a female Suna nin. I was slightly stunned that Reiko's teammate was such a strategist. I had always thought he was a lazy boy who was pessimistic about everything.
Reiko gave me a brief hug before leaving to join the other contestants. I found a seat towards the top of the arena and sat down. The people closest to me didn't even try to hide their disgust and moved as far away from me as they could, crowding each other just to get away from me. I sighed and rested my chin in my hand, even after all I do at the hospital, and I'm still considered a threat.
Shikamaru finally beat the Sand nin using his shadow kekke genki to trap her. I leaned back, and closed my eyes, waiting for the next battle to begin. I knew it was supposed to be Sasuke and a boy named Gaara, but Sasuke had yet to appear. A familiar voice said beside, "I've heard of fashionably late, but this is ridiculous!" My eyes snapped open at the sound and I turned to see a Rabbit ANBU mask peering blankly back at me. I glared at wearer, "So when did you get back?" Shisui laughed, "A few minutes ago. The minute my captain heard about the chuunin exams we wrapped up the mission and headed back here to see Sasuke participate in the exams. Although, I think we could have taken an extra day the way this is going." I glanced around, but only Shisui was near me, "Where is... your captain?" Shisui shrugged, "Hokage needed him for something." He sat down beside me and we talked for a good time about what we had been up to the last two months.
Sasuke arrived at the last minute, when the officials were about to disqualify him. Shisui chuckled, "Well, better late then never I guess. Although I would have enjoyed watching Sasuke have a temper tantrum once he learned that he was disqualified." I laughed with him and sat back to enjoy the fight, chuckling at Shisui's snarky comments.
Soon neither of us was even smiling, both of us were leaning forward, engrossed in the extraordinary battle raging below us. Apparently Gaara was a force to be reckoned with, given his complete control over the sand. He hardly moved an inch for the first half of the fight, but then Sasuke began to change his tactics, causing Gaara to go from neutral to defence mode. Finally Gaara simply created an impenitrable ball of sand around himself. When Sasuke managed to punch a hole in Gaara's defence using the Chidori I was impressed, from what Reiko told me the Chidori was a very powerful jutsu. I bit my lip when a large apendage came out of the sand ball to swipe at Sasuke, I was suddenly very worried for the young Uchiha. Shisui looked very pale.
"Kakashi wants us. Lets go." Itachi suddenly said, causing both of us to jump. I didn't know how long he had been standing there, or if he had suddenly just arrived. Shisui sighed, "Can't that lazy pervert do something on his own for once?" He grumbled as he rose, deliberatly slow I noticed, to his feet. Even though Itachi wore his ANBU mask I could still feel the heat of his glare and shuddered. Shisui seemed used to it though and turned to me, completely ignoring his cousin. "Sorry Tora, it seems duty calls me away again. See you later." Like that they disappeared.
A white feather floated past my nose. I blinked and looked up to see thousands falling from appeared to be no where, it almost looked like snow. That was when I noticed the people near me dropping into a sudden sleep. I myself began to feel lightheaded and dizzy. Shaking my head hard to clear away the fog of sleep I stood and staggered up the steps. I put a hand on the wall and bent over, gasping. I felt like something smothering and heavy was pushing at me, demanding that I lay down and fall asleep.
Something Lady Tsunade said to me recently managed to escape the haze taking over my mind, "Genjutsus are hard to detect, very few know when they are in one. Fewer still can deactivate it. If you ever feel like reality isn't real anymore it most likely means you are in a genjutsu. The bast way you can avoid one, Tora, is to get out of it's range until you learn how to deactive it yourself." The only reason anyone would cast an illusion sleep on a crowd of people would be because...
The sound of battle reached my ears. I turned to see shinobi, both Konoha nins and Oto, attacking each other in the arena.
...Because Konoha was under attack.
^o^
Sorry if is't shorter than usual. But I found a good place to stop and took it. (Plus I can't pass up torturing my readers with cliffhangers sometimes! XD) Do me a favor, take three seconds to write something like 'I really liked this chapter!' or 'I hate you for ending with a cliffhanger' in the little box kindly provided by Fanfiction below. Thank you and have a nice day! :)