Yeah, sorry about not updating this, and I wasn't really supposed to post anymore on here for a while, as I said in my profile, read it if you wanna know, but I managed to get this chapter out, so I hope that it wasn't too bad. If it was then feel free to criticise or whatever you want. I also know that it has been ten days since I last updated this fic so sorry about that too...
Anyway, I had something else to say but I forgot, so I'll just skip right up to the disclaimer...
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto (sniff, sniff...)
Team seven had made it to the tower in the center of the forest at the end of the fourth day, which meant that they would have a day to rest before the second exam would be officially over.
All three of them had been completely silent for the journey to the tower, as none of them knew exactly what to say or how to say it. They just wanted to finish the second test.
They made it there easily as they didn't encounter any other teams or 'beasts' of the forest.
They entered the doors and they were in a large room where, on the opposite wall, there was a large poster with writing on, which they tried to decipher but found that they couldn't. Nothing happened, so they turned to their scrolls. Sakura opened the heaven scroll whilst Sasuke opened the earth scroll, both of them throwing them quickly to the ground when smoke started to rise from them. When they reached the floor, there was a poof. When the smoke disappeared, Iruka was standing where the scrolls had previously been.
"Congratulations!" He beamed at them.
"A summoning scroll… But what would have happened if we were to have opened the scrolls before we got here?" Sakura asked.
"Good question. Well, we were ordered to put a genjutsu on anyone who opened the scroll if they didn't have both scrolls and if they weren't here in the tower. They would then wake up when the test was over and they would have failed."
Iruka then looked at the three genins when he set his eyes on Niina, who had lost her cloak when she fought Orochimaru. He was confused, he knew that he had placed Naruto on this team. Where was the high spirited happy-go-lucky Naruto? But he saw that the girl standing there looked about ready to burst into tears. He had never seen anyone looked so saddened.
"Tomorrow, when the exam is over, everyone who passed will meet in the sparring hall, where you will be told of what will happen next. So, since you got here early, you'll be allowed to rest until then, alright? Good." The three genin made their way towards the door, but Niina was stopped by Iruka right before she reached to door. "You two go on ahead, I just need a word with her." The two genins nodded and began walking again, but Sasuke turned his head slightly back to catch a last glance at Niina.
Iruka lead Niina up to the Hokage, who had a small office near the top of the tower. He knocked on the door and entered when given permission.
"Iruka… I had a feeling that I would be seeing you here…"
"With all respect Hokage- sama, but where is Naruto!"
There was a pained look on the Hokage's face as he knew just how fond Iruka was of Naruto. He would feel betrayed when he found out but he had to find out sooner or later, sooner being the better choice.
"Iruka…" Sarutobi let out a long sigh, getting Iruka to listen intently. He then began to explain the whole story to him, breaking in between important parts to let them settle with Iruka, who would every now and then glance over at Niina, who was staring out of the window with a distant expression on her face.
"I'm sorry about this Iruka, I knew how you felt about… Naruto, but it was needed to have it like this for Niina."
"Yes, of course… I-I understand." Iruka then stood up and left without another word.
Sarutobi looked over to where Niina was sitting and noticed that something was wrong, so he walked over to her and crouched down by her side.
"Is everything alright Niina?… You look… troubled."
She nodded slowly, but then began to shake her head violently from side to side as tears began to stream from her eyes. She threw herself forwards to hug Sarutobi, who patted her gently on the back for comfort.
"I… I lost control… I couldn't stop, i-it just happened… I-I just got s-so angry a-and it just happened…" Her tears were soaking the Third's shoulder, but he didn't mind.
"What happened there in the forest?... You know you can tell me…"
"… We were attacked by someone… But h-he was much too strong to be a genin, even a jounin… H-he did something to Sasuke… A-and I j-just lost it."
"This man, what did he look like? Was there anything distinctive about him?"
"He was extremely pale, long black hair and he reminded me of a snake." Niina replied after her sobs had ended.
Immediately Sarutobi knew who it was. …Orochimaru… So now you have decided to act… He raised a hand to Niina's face and wiped away a couple of her tears. "Now, why don't you go and join your teammates, and I'll take care of the rest." Niina nodded and left.
As soon as she was gone, he summoned Anko. When she came, he briefed her on what Niina had told him. "I think it would be wise if you and a few others of your choice were to scout the forest for anything related to him."
"Yes Hokage-sama." And she was off, leaving the Hokage to think things through and prepare for the following day.
Over to team seven…
The three of them had each received a room to stay in for the night. They had found out that Team Gai had already made it through, as well as the sound team and the sand siblings. So they were the fourth team to pass, the first of the rookie nine, maybe the only one, but they later heard that team eight had also made it through.
They woke up the next day, got dressed and made it to the sparring hall. When they were there, they saw that team ten was also there, along with Kabuto's team. Seven teams had made it through to the next round, all of which were standing in lines with their teammates, and their sensei standing at the back of their team.
The Hokage, along with several other jounin were standing up on the platform which was in front of everyone. He was congratulating everyone on getting so far, but when he was about to explain the next part of the exam, he was interrupted by another jounin who said that his name was Hayate.
"Too many people have made it through to the next round, so preliminaries will be taken. But before we begin, is there anyone here who doesn't think that they'll be able to fight now or who wishes to leave?" Everyone was looking around, until finally one hand was raised, it was the hand of Kabuto. After he left, no other hands were raised.
"Alright then, it seems that we can begin. Two names will appear on the screen behind me at random. Those two will fight first and after they're finished, the next two names will be chosen. As for the rules, anything goes. However, I can stop the fight if I think that the winner is obvious. Also, you may forfeit anytime during the fight." He then turned to the screen as it began to flick through names at a high speed. It began to slow down when it stopped on two names; Uchiha Sasuke and Yoroi. Everyone else made their way up to the watching platforms, standing in their teams with their senseis.
The fight began and went on for a couple of minutes with Sasuke winning at the end, but he was exhausted and he was quickly taken away by Kakashi, and Yoroi was taken away by the medics.
The next fight was between Shino and Dosu, the sound genin. The two made it down to the floor to begin their spar. Hayate began the match.
At first, no-one moved, but then Dosu decided to act first by throwing a couple of shuriken at Shino, which he managed to evade, but Dosu had hoped that he would do that, as he ran straight towards him to start off in a taijutsu fight. At first, Shino eluded every one his kicks and jabs, but then Dosu managed to get a punch through, however, instead of forcing Shino back and down, his hand got stuck inside of him, and he could feel movement inside there.
He looked down in horror as bugs were coming out and made their way up his arm. He wasn't able to take his hand out as it was stuck, so more bugs made their way up his arm, reaching his body and they began to cover him entirely. He could feel himself growing weaker and weaker like he was being drained. His knees buckled underneath him and he fell down to the ground. His eyelids began to grow heavy as they made their way down until he couldn't hold them up anymore. They closed and he fell completely down to the ground, hitting his head at the same time.
"Winner… Aburame Shino!" The screen stopped again, the next to fight were Tsurugi Misumi and Kankorou.
Kankorou won and Misumi was rushed to the hospital by a group of medics after being squeezed to the point where he suffered major bone damage by Kankorou's puppet. The next two names appeared and Shikamaru and Kin went down the stairs and quickly began their spar, Shikamaru winning at the end.
The next fight was between Yamanaka Ino and Haruno Sakura, two former best friends who lost their friendship when they both fell for the same guy, namely Sasuke. They walked down to the ground without looking at each other in the eye until they were both in their stances. Nothing happened after the battle had begun, until Sakura started the attacking frenzy off. The battle between the two was more of less even and that's exactly how it ended; as a draw.
When the screen stopped; Kiba let out a howl at being the next up to fight, completely forgetting to read his opponents name out of excitement as he headed down towards the center of the hall.
When Niina saw whose other name was on the screen, her heart missed a beat as it were her own. She was debating whether or not if she would continue, until she felt someone's hand on her shoulder. She looked up to find that the hand belonged to Sakura, who had just woken up from her last battle.
Sakura could see the nervousness in Niina's eyes, and she pitied her, as she always seemed to be like this. Sakura smiled a small but reassuring smile to Niina, who blinked a couple of times in response.
"You go down there and show Kiba what you're made of, alright?" It wasn't as much of a question as it should have been. However, it had the desired effect as Niina slowly made her way down to the center of the hall, facing Kiba, but not quite looking at him in the eye.
She felt more pressure then she should have as all eyes were on her now, and it made it worse that she didn't have her cloak to hide in. She raised her right hand and held her left elbow, showing her nervousness to everyone around.
Meanwhile, Kiba had been jumping up and down from excitement until his opponent had come down. He saw how she reacted and immediately thought her weak, though he also pitied her, though only a tiny bit.
"If you give up, then you'll spare yourself the pain and humiliation of being finished with one move." Kiba said, receiving a bark from Akamaru as backup.
As tempting as it was to give up, she couldn't betray her team by just doing that, so she made herself stay where she was, though she was shaking ever so slightly, which hadn't gone unnoticed by Kiba, who smirked.
"Alright then… but don't come crying to me when this is over."
Hayate coughed, receiving everyone's attention. "Begin!"
Immediately, Kiba ran straight towards Niina, whilst she wasn't focused, ready to throw a punch that would be sure to knock her out. But, just when he was just over a meter away from her, he saw her left eye glow yellow, but he had too much momentum to stop, so he pursued with his attack.
Niina reacted to the attack like it was something she had been trained to do everyday of her life. She wasn't even aware of her doing so, as it was in fact a reflex action.
As Kiba's fist neared, Niina bent backwards, hands firmly placed on the ground behind her as she was going to flip backwards, however, that wasn't all, as she had also grabbed Kiba's fist with her feet, flinging him with little effort towards the wall behind her, all of this being done within a quarter of a second.
The was a deafening noise as Kiba made contact with the wall. When all of the smoke and dust had cleared through the air, everyone saw that there was a crater in said wall and that Kiba was right in the middle, knocked out.
Once Niina saw this she immediately ran over to him, as she didn't mean to do any of what she had just done, but rather acted out of instinct.
"I-I'm sorry… I d-didn't mean to…" She had her hands covering her mouth.
Medic nins appeared and placed Kiba onto a stretcher. "I-is he going to b-be alright?" Niina was worried that she had hurt him. However, she got no answer as the medics, along with Kiba, were soon out of the doors.
Niina made her way up to the platform, feeling worse then she had when she made her way down. Sakura saw this and immediately ran over to her teammate.
"That was amazing Niina…" Sakura began to praise, stopping herself when she looked at Niina's eyes. "Don't worry… you did nothing wrong… he just got a hit in the head which, if you ask me, he deserved for being so arrogant and obnoxious." Niina looked up to meet Sakura's gaze.
"Thanks… I needed th-that…" And with that, the two walked back to the spot where they had been before. Seconds later, Kakashi poofed in.
"Kakashi-sensei, where's Sasuke-kun? Is he alright?" Sakura asked her teacher like it was the most important thing in the world, well, it was for Sakura.
"He's fine, there's no need to worry about him… though I would like to know what actually happened in the forest, but you can explain that to me later." Kakashi finished this with his infamous eye smile, before he remembered something. "Have either of you fought yet?"
Sakura was the one to answer. "I did two matches ago…"
"The outcome being…" Kakashi pushed it.
"It was a draw, between Ino and I."
"And what about Na-… I mean Niina?"
"You just missed her spar, well pretty much everyone did as it was quickly over. She won quickly against Kiba." During the short explanation, Niina had move a few inches away from her team, feeling slightly uncomfortable with all of the attention, her eyes focused down on the railing in front of her.
Kakashi had noticed and raised an eyebrow subconsciously. "What happened?" Kakashi was intrigued and wanted to know.
"Well, Kiba ran towards Niina really fast and then her eye began to glow yellow. In less then a second, she kinda flipped backwards and threw Kiba towards the wall; see where that big crater is." She pointed to the hole on the wall, Kakashi nodded in seeing it. "But she is kinda upset about it… I think that what she did was just a reflex or something, I'm not sure though…" Kakashi just nodded
Again, the screen went buzzing, ending with Hyuuga Neji and Hyuuga Hinata – cousins.
The end was inevitable, Neji won the battle, but Hinata, she had become stronger, maybe not physically, but mentally, she had been able to stand up to the person whom she wanted respect from. But then she suddenly fainted and fell to the cold hard floor. More medics appeared and took her away to the hospital. Neji however, watched Hinata being carried away, with a smirk on his face, almost as if he was proud of what he had done.
Yeah, I'm ending it there. This chapter was much longer then the other chapters, though I know that it is still pretty short compared to some of my other fics, but I did say that this fic would be made of short chapters and well, this is what you get, so yeah...
Anyway, sorry for just blabbering on like this and you're probably thinking that I don't have anything better to do, so I'll just stop writing know...
Until Next Time..,
(Yep, same ol' ending)
