[A/N: Aaaand the Finals…finally! I hope this is to everyone's satisfaction. Thanks to vanelo159 for betaing!]

Chapter 21: Waiting Game

The day of the Chuunin Exam Finals dawned clear and sunny, much to the joy of the shopkeepers who hoped to take advantage of the festival atmosphere.

Sasuke, on the other hand, had been praying to every deity he knew of (and this was quite a few, due to his extensive travels) that it would rain hard enough for the Finals to be postponed. As the Chuunin Exams were largely funded by ticket sales to the public fights, good weather was important.

The desired downpour had not been forthcoming. At the moment, Kakashi was dragging him toward the stadium, ignoring Sasuke's protests about habitual tardiness and Kakashi having a reputation to uphold.

"But Kakashi-sensei, I know you don't want to be late today, but surely we don't have to be early!"

Kakashi turned to look at Sasuke, frowning, then sighed and ducked around a nearby corner with Sasuke so they could talk without the whole street watching them. "Okay," he said, "I admit I haven't seen much of you since you came, but I never thought you'd shy away from something like this. What is wrong?"

Sasuke shrugged, fidgeting with one of the leather straps that had replaced his metal bracers. He didn't like the leather nearly as much, but understood how unwise it would be to wear metal while hurling electricity about. "I'm not afraid of Neji," he said, wanting to clear that up to start with.

"Then why don't you want to go?" Kakashi persisted.

"It's just—I don't think anyone there will really be watching me. They just want to see the 'Last Uchiha', and whether he performs up to their expectations!"

Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow as Sasuke caught his breath after his outburst. "What makes you say that?"

"Well…" Sasuke unbuckled the belt and began to adjust the windings. "You know, the Hyuuga, and Kiba, and…" his voice trailed off as he realized how paranoid he was beginning to sound.

"I see," Kakashi said. "I can't say that you're entirely mistaken, but I don't think you really have quite that much to be concerned about." He glanced up at the location of the sun. "We're late as it is, so why don't we get you something to eat? They never have the big fights first off."

The market was nearly deserted, as nearly everyone was at the stadium for the beginning of the Finals. A few people looked at them oddly as they stopped at a nearby dango stand, but no one confronted them. Kakashi's habits were well known in the village.

Sasuke hadn't had dango since before he and Itachi had arrived at Suna, before the mission where he had first encountered Team 7. As he chewed on one of the sticky sweets, he wondered distractedly where Itachi was now. Someday, he would have to find him. However, Itachi was very good at covering his trail, as evidenced by how long he had kept himself and Sasuke safe. There were a few places Sasuke remembered going to, but even so, he wasn't sure how he'd get a chance to search. His best chance would probably be to make Chuunin in the exams.

"Okay then," Kakashi said finally, setting down his empty dango stick, "shall we go?"

…

"You're late, you know," the Chuunin guarding the private entrance to the stadium remarked as they approached.

"Don't tell me you're actually surprised," Kakashi retorted. The guard laughed, and let them pass.

As they made their way up the stair to the box where the other Konoha genin were waiting, they could hear the crowds cheering for the winner of the first fight. From the enclosed stairway, Sasuke could see nothing of the arena, and he wondered who had won, and who their opponent had been.

He very quickly figured it out, as both he and Kakashi were tackled by an ecstatic orange blur as soon as they opened the door. "Hey, hey, I won! I won I won I won! I am the best ninja ever, you know?"

They were spared having to ask what happened, as Naruto was only too glad to recount his fight with Tenten, complete with gesticulation and sound effects. Even though Tenten had lost, she hadn't gone down without exacting payment; Naruto's clothes were torn in several places, he had residual burns from exploding tags that had gone off too close, one arm was bandaged from his fingertips to above his elbow, and he had lost a few of the sharp tips of his spiked hair.

"Who's fighting now?" Kakashi asked, once he was able to get a word in edgewise.

"Shikamaru and that girl from Suna. It was supposed to be Sasuke and Neji, but they postponed that fight when you didn't show up. What's wrong, Sasuke? You should be excited, you know? I thought you wanted to pay back Neji."

Sasuke shrugged, but didn't reply. All the other Konoha genin who had advanced to the finals—Naruto, Kiba, Neji, and one of Kabuto's team, not to mention Shikamaru—were there as well, and he didn't want to appear weak in front of them. Especially Neji, who thought little enough of him as it was.

Turning away from Naruto, he went to look over the railing at the battleground below. Shikamaru was lurking in the shadowed side of the arena waiting for Temari to get within range, while Temari stayed a safe distance back and tried to drive him into the light with vicious wind attacks. At the moment, neither of them were being very successful.

"Well, this is going to drag on for hours," Kakashi remarked, coming up behind Sasuke. "At this rate, we could have gone for yakiniku or something, instead of just dango. Still, what's done's done, I suppose. I've got to go now, the jounin really aren't supposed to be here." As he turned to leave, his visible eye widened almost imperceptibly as he caught sight of something in the stands. "On second thought," he said quickly, taking Sasuke's arm and pulling him over to a less populated area of the box, "I need to tell you something."

"Kakashi-sensei, what's wrong?" Sasuke asked.

Kakashi motioned for him to keep his voice down. "Look, I'm sorry to spring this on you all of a sudden, but I need you to promise you won't use Chidori unless it's an emergency."

"What! Why—"

"Ssh. The thing is, it's kind of a top-secret A-ranked assassination jutsu, and there's some people who might not be too happy if they found out I taught it to you."

"You taught me a—"

"Er, yes." Kakashi laughed nervously. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Remember when I said you were insane?" Sasuke retorted. "I still stand by that."

"I'm sure you do. Well, good luck!"

With that, he vanished. Sasuke glanced discreetly in the direction Kakashi had been looking before he left, and saw the man who had been with the Hokage when Sasuke had first been discovered. Apparently he was a person of some significance, but Sasuke didn't even know his name. How was he supposed to find out anything about him with so little to go on? Besides that, now he had to change his battle plan against Neji.

"Hey, hey, Sasuke," Naruto said suddenly, coming up behind him, "Did Kakashi-sensei teach you anything cool? Ero-sennin taught me some super awesome stuff, you know?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I learned some things." He pulled out some kunai and a spool of ninja wire and began laying them out experimentally. Neji wasn't paying attention to him at all. "I'm not sure how much good it'll do, though."

The door to the box creaked open slowly, and everyone turned, ready for a fight.

Sakura blinked as she faced down the assortment of weapons. "Um, hi?" A small dog slipped through the door behind her and darted over to Sasuke.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted. "What're you doing here?"

"I didn't have anything else to do, so I snuck down here. Besides, Hana asked me to bring Kiba a lunch since it looks like we're going to be here for a while."

"No kidding," Kiba said as he took the bento box. "They've been at it for half an hour now and neither of them has taken a proper hit."

Kiba seemed all right outwardly, but Sasuke noticed that he fumbled the lid of the bento box as he opened it, giving away his stress. Akamaru was huddled in his master's jacket; he had barely reacted at all when Sakura brought Yamato in.

"And I brought you and Sasuke some onigiri," Sakura continued, handing Naruto another bento box. "I hope there's enough, I made them all in a rush this morning and I think Chouji took a couple while I was sitting with him and Ino."

"Oh, no, this is great!" Naruto said cheerfully, grabbing one and taking a large bite. "Want one, Sasuke? They're really good, you know?"

"No, thanks," Sasuke said, still intent on the contraption he was making. Thinking about fighting Neji without Chidori wasn't helping his appetite any, either. Neji was still not deigning to look his way, and he had the same scornful attitude from the prelims with Hinata.

Sasuke didn't understand. He had never had a proper family; Neji did. What made him hate it so much?

"Ooh, he got her!" Sakura said suddenly. "Shikamaru—hey, don't! That lazy—doesn't want to hit a girl, huh?" She was shouting now, and Naruto grabbed the back of her dress so she wouldn't fall over the rail. "What about all those spars we had back when he was on Team 7?"

As Sasuke was currently sitting on the concrete floor, trying to keep Yamato from getting tangled up in all the wire he had laid out, he couldn't see what was going on. "What happened?"

"He had her!" Sakura wailed. "He had her, and then he forfeited!"

"In other words, typical Shikamaru," Naruto replied.

Sasuke nodded, fastening the last few wires to the kunai and beginning to gather the whole thing up as neatly as possible. It would all fit in his pocket, but he couldn't afford to let it get knotted up before he had a chance to use it.

"Winner, Temari! Next up: Hyuuga Neji versus Uchiha Sasuke!"

...

[A/N: We are very close to the end of Part I, and then I'm going to take a short break to get another story started (so vote on the poll, please!). I hope you like the way things are going!]