Chapter 11 – The Chunin Tournament

All of us in The Tournament were told to take a spot upon the front seats until we were called. Hinata and I sat down at the first front row seat we spotted; angle didn't matter due to the fact that the arena was a full circle.

This arena was kind of like a coliseum; the place was PACKED. Seriously, it seemed like everyone from Konoha and half of everyone from the rest of the Hidden Villages came to see this event. I had no idea it was such a huge deal, I mean come on, I just wanted to be promoted to Chunin!

Beforehand we were all handed a paper which was to contain the bracket matches. After all of us had settled in to our seats, we were told to look at them. The matches were as follows:

James vs. Alex

Choji vs. Lily

Hinata vs. Tenten

Alice vs. Luna

Dammit…I'm first…I hate being first…and I hate being last…*sigh* well, nothing much I can do about it now.

Alex, as he was looking at the lineup at the left of me, started jumping up and down saying, "HAHA! I GOT YOU FIRST! AWESOME! Hey, hope we have a good fight, alright? Woohoo, I'm ready!"

This guy's more hyper than me on my good days!

I smiled politely and said, "Yeah, this should be pretty good."

"Would James and Alex please come down to the arena?" Genma, the tournament proctor, said. I got up and headed down, and Alex did the same on the opposite side.

Now we were down, actually inside the arena. It was crazy. All of the people encircling us, and it was just me, Alex and Genma. We positioned ourselves so that we were properly across from each other. The stadium grew silent.

"Begin." Genma said, waving a hand down and jumping out of the way.

"Hehe, ready James?" Alex asked.

I smiled again and said, "Well duh." I assumed this guy would be pretty quick on his feet, so I gave myself some extra chakra on my feet and legs to move around with. Instantly he dashed to me with incredible speed, and threw a punch that I just barely blocked away. In that blocking process, I spun myself around with the momentum, ducked to dodge his next attack in mid spin, made the hand sign quickly, came back around and hit him with all my might yelling "Lightning Paralysis Jutsu!" My palm surged with electricity, and it connected right on Alex's chest. Alex made an "aieaieaieaieaieaieaiea" sound before I launched him off the ground and he landed on his back a few yards away. Heh, he leaves a lot of openings. Good thing too; I won't have to use my new technique quite yet. *sigh* It burns a lot out of me…I wanna use it only when I absolutely have to.

Not five seconds after he hit the ground, Alex had gotten back up and was bouncing on his feet again. Wow, this guy's got recovery! I made a hand sign, "Lightning Shock Jutsu!" I threw my fingertips in his direction and they emitted a short electrical shock, but Alex had jumped to dodge it right before I'd gotten it off. I didn't have enough time to counter when he came back down from his jump and socked me one right in the face. I stumbled a few feet and I thought I felt blood in my mouth. Ow…that hurt… I heard his footsteps coming towards me, and I back flipped right above him to dodge his attack. In mid flip, I kicked Alex in the back of the head and lifted myself off from him at the same time, landing perfectly. I quickly made the hand sign, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!", while he was still disoriented from the kick to the back of his head. Three other Shadow Clones appeared in front of me, and we all prepared our lightning attacks. One of them ran in yelling, "Lightning Paralysis Jutsu!", but Alex had recovered and easily dodged the attack, disposed of the Shadow Clone, and repeated for the other two Clones, all with amazing speed and agility.

Dammit! Alright, it's time for a different approach. I made the hand sign again, but before I could summon another Shadow Clone, Alex had already appeared right in front of me and uppercut me. I went maybe three feet in the air before I realized Alex was above me. He must have jumped right after uppercutting me! Oh shit! In mid air, Alex kicked me downwards, and I hit the ground hard.

I was dizzy, disoriented, and I think it knocked the wind out of me. Alex charged at me once more, jumped, and readied an almighty punch. I rolled over before he could smash my face into the ground, instead he hit the ground itself.

"OWWWWW!" Alex yelled "GOD DAMMIT THAT HURT!" He was distracted, and I saw my chance. Within a second, I'd already focused my chakra into my fingertips, rolled over again to where he was standing, and hit him on the heel with my Gentle Fist. He immediately collapsed on that leg, I made the hand signs, yelled "CHIDORI!" and raised up, striking him right on the chest. A flurry of lightning emitted from my hand as I struck, and the blow sent him flying all the way crashing back into the stadium's wall, then hitting the floor.

He didn't get up.

Oh no…I didn't want to kill him! I really hope I held my Chidori back enough! I ran over to him and knelt down to check if he was alive. He still had a strong pulse, but he looked pretty much KOed.

"The match goes to James." Genma announced.

I pumped my fist in the air. "YES!" The audience applauded, not wildly, but it was a pretty good applause. I laughed at the fact that I could still taste blood in my mouth a bit. Thank goodness I didn't have to use my new technique…that would have been bad. Sakura and another Medic-Nin rushed out with a stretcher and started to hustle Alex off the field. I stopped Sakura real quick and asked, "Is he alright?"

"He's just paralyzed; he'll be fine in a few days." Sakura said, "Now I gotta get him out of here for the next match."

"Oh right," I said, "That's all I wanted to know. Thanks." I smiled, and she did back before she rushed off the field with Alex and the other Medic Nin.

"Lily and Choji, please come down to the stadium floor." Genma announced.

I quickly rushed back to my seat next to Hinata so that Lily and Choji could battle it out. As soon as I got there, she hugged me fiercely. "Uhh, hi there, how are you today?" I said jokingly.

"I was so worried about you!" Hinata nearly squealed, "After that kick Alex did, I didn't think you'd make it!"

"Heh, well, somehow I did." I said back to her. The crowd quieted down again, which prompted us to sit back down and watch the next match.

Lily, the oriental-looking girl wearing a shiny, dark purple outfit, held her spear at the ready. Choji simply stood there.

"Begin."

Lily immediately stabbed her spear down on the ground and stood in a hand-to-hand combat stance. Choji aimed his fist at Lily and yelled "Partial Expansion Jutsu!" His entire arm and hand grew and lengthened, rapidly approaching Lily to strike the first blow.

Lily jumped and dodged the blow with ease, and landed on the Choji's extended wrist. The wrist rapidly retracted with Lily on it, leading right to kicking Choji in the face, lifting off of his head, making a hand sign and yelling, "Earth Release: Reverse Hidden Mole Jutsu!"

The spear disappeared from where it was stabbed into the ground, and reappeared from the ground, impaling Choji as Lily landed perfectly behind him.

Everyone gasped. My mouth was gaping, I didn't know about anyone elses. I heard Luna from afar yell, "Holy shit!"

Even Genma was taken aback before saying, "Dah-the winner's Lily!" quickly. Lily simply came back into the seats and sat down. Two Medic-Nin rushed out immediately and gathered Choji.

Hinata used her Byakugan for a few seconds, then deactivated it, saying, "She's either very good, or he's very lucky. No vital organs were hit."

I sighed, relieved. I didn't want people to die, though I knew that there was a fair chance of it happening anyways. Still, that fight was fast…

"Hinata and Tenten, you're up next." Genma announced.

"Please be careful." I said to Hinata solemnly as I kissed her on the cheek. She smiled and blushed a little, then got up and headed down.

Hinata and Tenten faced each other in the arena.

"Begin."

Hinata went into the Gentle Fist style stance and activated her Byakugan while Tenten brought out a scroll from which a Bo Staff appeared out of, and she took that stance. Hinata rushed at Tenten, and started slashing at her with Gentle Fist, but Tenten dodged all of it and counterattacked with her staff, which Hinata also dodged. She grabbed one end of the staff, slammed it down to the floor and stomped on the middle, breaking it in half, and then started striking at her once more. Tenten pulled out a thicker scroll than before and opened it, throwing many kunai and shuriken from it. Hinata dodged all of them except for one, which instead of dodging; she took hold of in mid air, twisted around and threw back at Tenten. Tenten got hit by the kunai thrown by Hinata on the shoulder, and while it wasn't too deep, it was enough to distract her from Hinata, who came charging at her and hit her a good few times. Hinata re-posed herself, and a green Yin-Yang symbol appeared under her.

Oh baby, here it comes!

"Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms!"

It hit Tenten in full force, all thirty-two times. She was out.

"Hinata wins." Genma declared. The medic-nin came to hustle Tenten off the floor, while Hinata came back up to sit next to me. When she arrived at her seat, I leaned over and placed an overjoyed kiss on her, saying, "I was worried about you!"

"Hehe, it's okay, I'm fine."

"Glad to hear it!" I hugged her tight again. Hey, I was excited, what can I say?

The crowd started to quiet a little, and Genma said, "Now, for the final battle of the first round. Alice vs. Luna. Would both please come down?"

The pale girl with the black hair, lacy black dress and whip entered the arena, and a blonde girl dressed in simple white clothes bearing a small sword and shield followed.

"Which one's which?" I asked Hinata.

"Umm…I think the one in the black is Luna, and the one in the white is Alice."

"Oh, okay then."

"She's right!" Alex said, who I didn't notice was sitting to the left of me.

"Whoa, when did you get back!" I asked.

"Eh, what you did wasn't really damaging to me; it was the paralization that did me in. But eh, I always recover fast, so I'm already back here now!"

"Oh good, I'd held back with the Chidori so you wouldn't be killed."

"YOU DID!"

"Yeah, why?"

"Damn, how much did you hold back by?"

"A lot."

"DAMN! That woulda incinerated me or something!"

"I know, that's why I held back. I'm not interested in killing anyone."

"Well hey, thanks man! You seem pretty swell!"

"Heh, you're welcome." I smiled as I said that, and turned my attention to the battle that was about to take place.

"Begin." Genma stated as he got out of the way.

Alice immediately made a few hand signs, placed her hand on the ground and said, "Ice Release: Ice Dome Jutsu!" A thick dome of ice formed from the ground and completely domed Alice inside. Luna grabbed her whip and lashed out at her with it multiple times, but the ice dome didn't suffer even a scratch. Alice made a hand sign and said something, but due to the ice dome she was in, I couldn't hear what she said. A spike of ice formed from the dome, pointing and launching from the dome directly at Luna. She dodged it with ease, but as she dodged, another one was launched, and another, and another, repeatedly one after the other. Luna just kept dodging and dodging as she made a hand sign, and said, "Shadow Release: Fireball Jutsu!" She blew and dark red and black flame came gushing out of her mouth onto the ice dome.

It did nothing.

As Luna looked in shock at what little her Fireball Jutsu did, one of the incoming ice spikes scratched her shoulder, ripping through her black dress. After that, she furiously knocked an ice spike away, ricocheting it onto the dome and cracking it.

So that's the dome's weakness…itself!

Luna must have caught on to this, because she grabbed some of the ice spikes laying on the floor and impaled the ice dome with them, shattering the dome and spikes in a brilliant blast of ice specks. Luna then moved in with her whip, lashed out at Alice, grabbed her entire body with her whip and somehow levitated Alice and the whip off the ground and into the air, tightening the whip's grip.

After a few moments, Alice said, "Okay, okay, I give up! Like, seriously!" And the match went to Luna. It was the only match that no one was rushed off in a stretcher for.

Genma, who was filling in the brackets, now looked up to all of us and said, "Congratulations, you've made it to the semifinals." The four of us remaining; Lily, Luna, Hinata and I, all braced ourselves for the first match of the semifinals. I held Hinata's hand, and she gripped it tight.

"The first match of the semifinals," Genma announced, "is James vs. Lily."