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Chapter Twenty-eight:

Oh crap.

Well, what had I expected? Of course, now that I was part of the ever-cursed Team Seven I would be put up against one of the opponents that I didn't want to be.

It's fine, I told myself firmly, forcing myself to stay calm. He's not that strong; there are ways to beat him.

"All right!" Naruto cheered, looking almost as happy for me as he'd been for himself. "Beat the crap out of him, Reika!"

I smiled weakly at Naruto's enthusiasm and apparent dislike of Kankurou. It made sense, I supposed; our first meeting with the Sand Siblings hadn't gone too badly, but Kankurou had still been a jerk about it.

Sasuke was calmer about it, giving me a serious look. "He's not even a challenge," he said dismissively in an almost joking manner, belying the serious look.

It made me laugh, which I guarantee was the point. Sasuke was so cute, trying to calm me down. I was a little resentful that it worked.

"Not even slightly," I agreed, though it wasn't true.

As I traveled the now familiar – though I'd never done it before – path into the arena, I couldn't shake the ominous feeling of walking to my doom. It was silly, because I wasn't walking to my doom, or even anything of the sort. I was perfectly capable of fighting Kankurou. Hopefully.

I did notice, as Kankurou moved into the arena himself, that he stumbled slightly on the first and last steps of the stairs. Of course; he must have already switched with his puppet – probably had before even entering the arena – so he couldn't see very well, if at all.

That calmed me slightly, too; Kankurou was probably relying on his trick, but I knew about it. Even if I hadn't known, really, I might have been able to tell. Not only could I sense the chakra in Kankurou, I could sense the chakra strings he was using to control his puppet. It probably would have been even easier if I activated the Sharingan, which could see chakra, but with Orochimaru still standing there watching, I didn't dare risk it.

Standing in position, across from Kankurou and with Hayate to my left, I mused that it was very different to actually be in this place. It was much more daunting than I'd expected. Watching the anime, it was all very… distant and unimposing, and from the watcher's balcony it was easy to imagine that I was just watching the anime. Now, though, standing in the surprisingly large, intimidating arena with only my opponent and the examiner around – it hadn't been nearly so daunting when all of the examinees were down here – and my own fight looming, it all seemed very real.

'Kankurou' gave a derisive scoff. "What's a little kid doing here?" he wondered aloud mockingly. I couldn't bring myself to actually be intimidated or offended when all I could think was how good Kankurou was at ventriloquism. That wasn't a skill usually attributed to ninja.

"Winning," I said back to him with a smile. It achieved the desired result; 'Kankurou' glowered at me and swung the bandaged figure off his back.

"Cocky brat," he snarled at me. "Just don't go crying to mommy when you get hurt."

I blinked. "My mother is dead," I informed him nonchalantly. "And because I'm not an insensitive ignoramus, I won't say the same thing to you." I smiled sweetly. "But it's not going to be me who gets hurt."

'Kankurou' spluttered wordlessly, incoherent in his rage. It was his own fault for underestimating me because of my age. A nine-year-old Itachi could have killed him.

"Ignoramus?" I heard muttered from the peanut gallery. I didn't quite recognize the voice, which really just meant it wasn't any of my team.

Before anything else could be said, Hayate coughed. This wasn't really news, as he'd been having coughing fits the entire time, but 'Kankurou' and I looked to him anyway. When he finished coughing, he waved his hands downwards and said, "Begin."

I acted first, throwing my hands into the proper seals for one of the genjutsu that I did know. Finishing, I flicked my hand out at 'Kankurou' and snapped my fingers.

"Fire Snap Jutsu!" I announced.

The action sent a relatively small burst of flame in his direction. Kankurou didn't even bother to dodge, as the fire mostly dissipated before reaching him and did no harm.

That was okay; I'd only done it to cover my usage of seals. The Fire Snap Jutsu, of course, didn't have seals. Since Kankurou didn't know that, he'd assume that the seals I'd done for my genjutsu had belonged to the Fire Snap Jutsu. He wouldn't even suspect that he'd had a genjutsu used on him.

The one I'd used was fairly minor. All it did was tweak a person's perception slightly, altering their depth perception. Kankurou would think that everything was slightly farther away than it was. Hopefully, the fact that he hadn't gotten a good look at the arena, and presumably couldn't see now, would keep him from noticing.

Immediately after using my jutsu, I rushed towards Kankurou. I jumped, landing next to the mummy-figure instead of in front of 'Kankurou' as he expected. As 'Kankurou's' arms closed uselessly around nothing, I snatched up the mummy – it was really heavy – and dashed away with it towards the corner opposite the hand statue. Doing so required passing right behind 'Kankurou', but 'he' was too slow to turn in time to catch me. A flicker of my own chakra focused into my hand cut through the chakra strings easily.

I bodily heaved the mummy head-first into the corner, which wasn't easy considering that it was twice my height. Since I didn't want to reveal that I'd known the entire time that 'the puppet' was Kankurou and 'Kankurou' was his puppet, I backed away and turned towards 'Kankurou'. I also acted properly startled when 'the puppet' grunted in pain at its impact with the wall. One of my instinctively thrown explosive-note kunai sheared some of the bandages 'the puppet' was trying to get off and halted in the ground next to him. The second found its way into the joint between 'Kankurou's head and torso.

'Kankurou', with no puppetmaster to control him, didn't react at all as the explosion disconnected his parts, separating the head, arms, and legs from the torso and sending them all flying. 'The puppet', slowed by the bandages he'd had to remove, couldn't get away from the other kunai before it too exploded, hurling him across the arena and into the opposite wall as the flames licked across his skin, leaving faint burns.

The real Kankurou slumped to the ground, unmoving. I stared at him doubtfully. As much as I'd like to believe that he was unconscious, that I'd really won, I wasn't willing to risk being caught off-guard and losing if I let my guard down now. Kankurou wasn't so weak that it was believable for him to lose quite so easily. My suspicions were confirmed once I felt the flare of his chakra as he recreated his chakra strings, maneuvering to reconnect them to the pieces of his puppet.

Well then…

My third explosive kunai of the battle imbedded itself in the wall next to Kankurou's elbow. Sure enough, Kankurou wasn't quite so unconscious as he'd wanted me to think, and like he had the last time, he scrambled to get away from the impending explosion. As he did so, a twitch of his fingers sent the scattered pieces of his puppet clattering against each other and the ground as they began to pull themselves together.

As before, Kankurou wasn't quite fast enough, though this time, with no bandages to fight out of, he did manage some more distance. Even so, he was sent flying across the arena yet again. This time, I wasn't willing to leave it to the wall to knock him out. Dashing forward, I leapt up and kicked Kankurou in the face before he reached the wall, breaking his nose and propelling him into the wall even harder.

Even now, I was a little amazed at my own speed – there was still a part of me that argued that it wasn't possible to catch up to somebody who'd been blown backwards that hard by an explosion. That part of me – the part that was still a normal girl in a normal world – could picture the anime scene perfectly; a shot of Kankurou flying backwards in slow-mo, then flash out to show me standing there motionlessly for a couple of seconds, and then as I begin to take a step, skip to a closer shot of me in the air in front of Kankurou, my leg curled close to my body as I prepare to kick him in slow motion. After that, it would resume normal speed to show Kankurou impacting the wall at high speeds as I land lightly on the ground.

Although that wasn't how it happened at all to my perception – I was hyper-aware of every second and, since I didn't have the Sharingan activated, it was all in real-time – I could spare some appreciation for how cool I'd probably have seemed in an anime.

And again, Kankurou crumpled. The puppet, its strings very literally cut, crashed to the floor. The loud noise emitted upon the impact of the hard wooden components of the puppet with the floor drowned out the quieter sound of Kankurou himself falling to the floor.

Even as time stretched on and nothing happened, I retained a healthy level of skepticism. It was entirely unbelievable that I'd managed to beat Kankurou so easily – he was, after all, older and more experienced than me. And he was one of the Sand Siblings, the three children of the Kazekage; they were supposed to be really powerful. And I hadn't even had the Sharingan activated, since I wasn't willing to risk it with Orochimaru still watching me from the balcony. Then again, Kankurou was a puppetmaster; they were notoriously dependant on their puppets – hence the name – and I'd successfully kept Karasu out of commission for the majority of the fight.

But still. That had been ridiculously easy – I hadn't even gotten hurt (even though that was a terrible measurement of how difficult something was). It was pathetic – anticlimactic, even. So, just to make sure, though I had some confirmation already in that I could tell that my genjutsu was no longer in effect, I threw another kunai – not an exploding one this time. Even as the kunai dug into the ground beside his head, Kankurou didn't so much as twitch.

Well, either Kankurou was an incredible actor on top of being a ventriloquist, or, "He's unconscious," I said, turning to Hayate.

Hayate obligingly walked over to check. After crouching over Kankurou for a moment, he turned back and announced, "Winner, Uchiha Reika."

Oh my gosh I can't believe I won.

Naruto promptly burst into loud, embarrassing cheers. I forced myself to walk sedately back to my team, rather than running as I wanted to so that I could shut up Naruto and get everybody to stop staring at me. Oddly enough, being stared at by ninja with a range of emotions including but not limited to happiness, shock, contemplation, and murderous intent (not really of the angry kind. Mostly) was not an enjoyable experience. I ignored Orochimaru's creeper stare with particular vigor.

Sasuke gave me a smug, I-was-right smirk. Naturally, I scrunched my nose up and stuck my tongue out at him childishly. I was –physically – nine; I could get away with it.

"Reika-chan," a voice said from behind me – Sakura's voice.

I turned to find her smiling at me. "Haruno-san…" I replied slowly.

Sakura flicked a glance at Sasuke, who was staring at her with a rather unimpressed expression, and blushed slightly. I was immediately against her for that, but to her –slight – credit, her eyes didn't waver in his direction as she looked at me after that.

"Your fight was really impressive," Sakura offered to me. I couldn't help it as my eyes narrowed, wondering what she wanted, even as I gave a somewhat fake smile.

"Thank y-" I halted; I could feel a Naruto pout brewing.

Sure enough, he bounced into sight a moment later. "Hey, hey, what about my fight, Sakura-chan?" he asked, completely ignoring boundaries as he moved into her personal space.

Sakura shifted away from him slightly. She didn't start yelling or assaulting him for ignoring her personal space, however, as she would have in the Academy. "Your fight was impressive too, Naruto," she told him, and though she sounded like she was gritting her teeth to keep from giving a meaner response, she also sounded like she genuinely meant it. Which, hey, was progress – incredible considering that they hadn't spent any time together since graduation.

"Did you want to talk to me about something, Haruno-san?" I interrupted bluntly.

Sakura sweat-dropped slightly. "Well, yes – actually, I was wondering, since you've already fought…" she paused almost nervously. "If you'd be willing to go see if Ryuuta-kun and Shinichi-kun are all right?"

I blinked at her. That was an odd request. Well, not really that odd; it was odder that she'd asked me. Obviously, Sakura couldn't go herself, since she hadn't fought yet, but there were other people who'd fought earlier than I had who she could have asked.

Maybe she… trusts me? It was a slightly baffling thought considering how little we'd ever interacted. A lot of the time, I'd been pretty mean to her to make her keep her grabby hands off my brother.

Before I could answer, however, my attention was drawn to the screen behind her, which was finally displaying the next match.

"That might not be necessary," I told her instead, raising my eyebrows. The T.V, of course, displayed Haruno Sakura vs. Yamanaka Ino.

I couldn't help but wonder why, exactly, the examiners wanted Sakura and Ino to fight – it had happened both times. Maybe it was all some kind of cosmic plot device so that neither would get through to the finals. Of course, that assumed that they'd tie again like they had originally, which, since Sakura had been on a different team, might not happen.

Following my line of sight, Sakura glanced over her shoulder and gasped slightly. Her expression became determined, and she nodded to herself before walking down to the arena, her posture stiff with forced confidence.

Ino moved into the arena too, and they stood facing each other like every other match-up. Ino said something quietly.

Whether in response or otherwise, Sakura said, much louder, "I have no intention of fighting over Sasuke-kun with you anymore." As she said it, she untied her forehead protector from where it was acting as a hair band, holding it by one end of the cloth.

This Sakura hadn't cut her hair in the forest – of course not, since she hadn't fought the Sound Trio. That could change a lot about their fight. Ino would probably not cut her hair and use it to trap Sakura. That was good for Sakura, since that was how Ino had managed to use the Mind Body Switch Jutsu on her originally, and Naruto might not pep talk Sakura into beating it this time.

"What did you say?" Ino screeched, her outrage audible.

I leaned forward, curious to see what Sakura meant. Hopefully, she meant that she didn't want Sasuke anymore and would stop fangirling on him, but I wasn't certain of that. The way she'd said it was more self-assured and haughty than that, like she'd already won him.

Before Sakura could respond, however, Yue-sensei cleared her throat loudly – and yet somehow, inexplicably, in a manner that remained lady-like. Sakura promptly jumped to attention and turned to her, forehead protector swinging wildly in her grasp as she spun. Yue-sensei glanced pointedly around the room, clearly indicating the many Jounin and Genin both ally and potential enemy who would be able to hear their conversation if held at that volume.

Sakura blushed slightly, nodded, and turned back to Ino, saying something too quietly to be heard. Whatever it was, Ino nodded to it.

I pouted slightly. I'd wanted to see how their argument played out this time – it had been a major character development moment for both of them originally. Plus, I wasn't sure what would have changed.

Despite my wishes, they held their argument quietly and I wasn't able to tell what they were saying.

Note to self, I thought sullenly, learn how to read lips.

Well, at least their fight itself would go differently, even if I wouldn't be privy to their altered conversation.

Sakura tied her forehead protector to her forehead, prompting Ino to do the same. That had some kind of, like, meaning or something. It was a running theme, after all (meaning that it happened twice that I could think of). There was this fight, where Sakura and Ino put their forehead protectors on their foreheads to show how… serious they were, or something, and there was the fight between Naruto and Sasuke in the Valley of the End, where Sasuke tied his to his forehead for… the same reason, maybe.

It seemed strange to me, but apparently it made sense to them, so whatever.

Hayate began the fight.

Sakura sprang backwards, her hands flashing through a series of seals that appeared to do nothing. Ino, however, tensed and paused mid kunai throw. She wobbled slightly and nearly fell over, throwing a foot out just in time to stay standing.

It was obviously a genjutsu. Since the Academy didn't teach anything about genjutsu, Yue-sensei must have taught it to her. A glance at the woman herself, however, revealed nothing – she had a carefully blank expression.

Sakura gave Ino no time to recover from her obvious, somewhat badly planned genjutsu, dashing forwards. A knee to the stomach had Ino doubling over, saved from falling over only by Sakura's following punch.

Sprawled on her back on the ground, Ino kicked Sakura in the stomach as she approached recklessly, forcing Sakura to double over in turn. Ino scrambled backwards to put some distance between them, staying on the ground so as to not fall over again, and folded her fingers into the tiger seal.

"Kai!" she spat, probably forcing the genjutsu off of herself.

Sakura didn't quite recover in time to block Ino's first punch, but caught Ino's other hand before she could be hit a second time. Sakura's return attempt to attack with her free hand was caught in the same manner. The two of them stood there struggling against each other, hands stuck together.

Judging by how long they spent in that position without either of them actually doing anything to get out of it, they were probably arguing again. Quietly.

Finally, though, Ino kicked out at Sakura's legs, throwing herself backwards at the same time and dragging Sakura, now off-balance and still attached at the hands, with her. Ino landed on her back and released Sakura's hand, but made no attempt to keep Sakura from falling on her. Sakura was forced to let go of Ino's hand in order to catch herself, hands on the ground on either side of Ino's head, to keep from head-butting Ino.

Ino, now in close proximity with Sakura and with both hands free, formed the seal of the Mind Body Switch Jutsu, and, before Sakura could react, went limp under her. 'Sakura' then stood up, stepping away from Ino's body, and raised her right hand.

"I f –" she choked before she could say the whole word, and then went silent and unmoving.

This scene, I decided, had been a lot more interesting in the anime. Of course, in the anime we'd been able to see what was going on in Sakura's head, the continuing fight between the two of them. Now, all I could see was Ino's unconscious body and Sakura's motionless one. Not particularly interesting.

It was interesting, though, that Ino had still managed to use her jutsu on Sakura – in fact, she might have managed it even faster this time.

"Eh…? What's going on?" Naruto wondered.

"Ino used the Mind Body Switch Jutsu," Kakashi explained helpfully. "It's a jutsu specific to the Yamanaka clan that allows the user to move their consciousness from their body into an enemy's."

Naruto blinked. "What?"

"It lets them possess people," I clarified. "Right now, Ino – ahem – Yamanaka-san and Haruno-san are fighting for control of Sakura's body. Haruno-san's body."

It wasn't my fault; I'd gotten far too used to referring to them by their first names during my last life.

"Oh." Naruto paused for a moment. His brow furrowed. "Hey, that's no fair!" Raising his voice, he made absolutely certain that Sakura could hear him (I may have gone deaf in one ear), "Sakura-chan! Don't lose to her! You can definitely win!"

Another thing that happened like it originally did, I noted. Unlike before, however, it didn't seem to have a big enough effect on Sakura. She regained control for a moment, shifting jerkily towards Ino's body, before losing it again.

A long time passed with them fighting over Sakura's body. Occasionally, one of them would steal control and begin to do something – forfeit in Ino's case and move towards Ino's body in Sakura's case – but neither managed to get very far. Undoubtedly, they were having their whole argument in there.

"Maybe their fight will end up being longest," I muttered after several minutes of this. If they kept at this fighting for control thing for much longer, it probably would.

Finally, a scream of frustration burst from Sakura's mouth, and the one who'd just gotten control dug a kunai out of the leg holster, bringing the hilt crashing painfully into her own temple. Sakura's body crumpled, the kunai falling from limp fingers with a metallic clang.

A long moment passed as neither girl got up. After a hit like that, Sakura was clearly unconscious, and Ino wasn't moving either.

Shikamaru clenched his hands tightly around the railing, both he and Asuma looking worried. I couldn't hear what they were saying, though.

At this point somewhat resigned to the fact that this battle would end as it had originally, I sighed inwardly. Sakura hadn't really seemed any better than in the series – but then, it could just be that she lost her temper when faced with Ino and hadn't been thinking rationally. Given Yue-sensei's appearance – which was almost perfectly civilian – and the fact that Sakura had started with a genjutsu, Yue-sensei had probably been teaching her the more subtle ninja arts rather than ones that were good for an open one-on-one fight – such as genjutsu, infiltration, lying; things like that.

Hayate checked both Ino and Sakura, then declared, "As both participants are unconscious and therefore incapable of continuing to battle, this match is a tie."

Yep. I'd figured. Because some kind of cosmic plot device didn't want either of them to go through. I knew I was in the Naruto storyline, of course, but I hadn't really noticed before how convenient some of this stuff was. Sometimes, it seemed obvious that I was in a story (even though I obviously hadn't been in the original Naruto).

"That's possible?" I deadpanned out loud.

Nobody answered.

I ran through all twenty-four of the original participants, and found that twenty of them had already gone. The next match would be the eleventh. The four people left were Hinata, Neji, Tenten, and Kin.

And that did not bode well.

Of course Hinata and Neji would still be put against each other – or at least I figured they would be. It wasn't technically certain yet, but with four people, there were only so many ways they could be matched up. In fact, there were two ways, considering that Neji and Tenten were teammates and probably wouldn't be put against each other. It would have to be either Hinata vs. Neji and Tenten vs. Kin or Hinata vs. Tenten and Neji vs. Kin.

It was probably bad of me to think Hinata couldn't handle it (she obviously could – and had originally), but she'd been hurt really badly in her original fight with Neji. As in, she'd still been having problems a month later – which was obscene for a ninja – hurt badly.

At least Tenten wouldn't be as mean to Hinata, since she didn't have the whole grudge thing against her. That was probably why they had and would pair Hinata and Neji, though – the fact that the prodigy of this generation had such a huge grudge against his clan's heir was probably bad for the Hyuuga. Easier to just let him beat on her now and get it out of his system.

I really hated clans sometimes – my own included sometimes – and I really hated the Hyuuga clan a lot of the time.

Plus, the finals were a huge spectacle, and there was no real point to showing off the skill of two people from the same clan who fought almost exactly alike. Of course, that brought up the question of why they'd let me and Sasuke both pass

(not to mention that at this point, during peacetime, they probably didn't want to be showing off a nine-year-old; it would just make them look brutal for using particularly young children as ninja unnecessarily. And Leaf was, after all, the nice Hidden Ninja Village),

since we were both Uchiha and fought relatively similarly. It might have been because we were on the same team, and so they couldn't make us fight each other, which was really the only way to guarantee that only one of us would go through.

So does that mean they were trying to have me eliminated? I wondered, then realized that they'd put me up against Kankurou, who was supposed to be very powerful. If I hadn't known about his trick with his puppet, it probably would have gotten me and I'd have lost. And I hadn't been paying attention to the adults' emotions very well, but it was entirely possible that they'd been upset when I won.

Well. That was a little rude. I couldn't decide whether to be angry that they'd purposefully nearly gotten me eliminated or smug that it hadn't worked.

Smug is better, I decided. Or at least more fun.

And really, why would I give up any of the soon to be very few opportunities to have fun?