She was lucky that such a large portion of Konoha was distracted by the Chunin exams right now.
Well… it wasn't like she needed luck. But the captain would probably be happier if less people died. Silly medic's vows or something. Then again, mad as she acted, even she had some level of sanity left, some base knowledge that all life was precious. Just… not as precious as it needed to be. Not so precious that she wouldn't bother snuffing it out to save her teammate.
Daiya smiled as she knocked out the guard. Simply stall the blood from afar for a few precious seconds, and anyone was out like a light. After no one else came running, she slipped down from her invisible spot on the ceiling and loped over to the jail cell.
She was lucky that she only needed to break into the jail and not the prison.
"Was the blood boiling really necessary?" Sakkaku sat on the other side of the bars, arms and legs both crossed, staring out with a look of irritation.
"I needed to warn you, didn't I?" Daiya laid a hand against the bars, closing her eyes, then slowly closed her hand around one. The metal seemed to shimmer, flaking and cracking off, disintegrating where her skin touched the metal. "Lucky it's iron, eh?"
"Quite." Sakkaku swung herself out of the cell, landing lightly on the ground. She glanced at the unresponsive guard. "Dead?"
"Nah, just unconscious." Daiya rolled her eyes. "C'mon, let's go. No one wants to see us here, and I didn't knock out the cameras."
"Of course."
o.o.o.o.o
Robin rested her chin on her palm, watching the fight between Neji and Gaara with a detached look on her face, a mysterious smile on her face as always. Despite her expression, she was actually quite interested in the battle. Gaara was sluggish with his sand, at least in comparison to the way it had been in the preliminaries. He still had his sand armor in place, which meant that Neji was growing increasingly inventive in his plans to fight Gaara (and given the explosive notes and smoke bombs that he was using, he had been creating plans for a long time in advance, as TenTen must have been helping him with those). Granted, Neji had revealed his Kaiten again (and in front of the entire stadium, too, Hyuuga included), but he was nearly unscathed by the sand. The two were not outright fighting so much as testing one another for holes in their defenses.
"This is taking too long." Crocodile grumbled, shifting in his seat. Had Crocodile not been as intimidating a man as he was, several people would have already yelled at him for blocking their view with his bulk. As it was, they mostly just leaned over and tried to sit in one another's laps to see around the former Shichibukai.
"They're at something of a stalemate. Gaara is very long range, but is extremely good at defense. Neji is mostly close-range with some long-range techniques that he picked up from TenTen, but he also has his own nearly perfect defense." Robin mused. "However, Neji will likely be the one to concede the match, as he has much smaller chakra reserves. He can't keep up the Kaiten forever, and his 64-palms can't pierce through Gaara's sand armor well-enough to… oh."
"What?" Crocodile demanded after he noticed Robin's expression. He kept an eye out on the arena, which was filling rapidly with smoke bombs, blocking the view.
"Oh, you clever boy." Robin was smiling again, hand held up to her mouth to hide it, if rather ineffectually. Her eyes were trained on Neji, who seemed to have begun implementing a new plan that focused on the weapons and tags he'd borrowed from TenTen. "It seems you did take a chance to listen."
"I'd like an answer now, Ms. All Sunday." Of course he'd use that old name…
"Do you notice anything strange about those smoke clouds?" Robin gestured down. "The color, perhaps?"
Crocodile glanced down, but didn't see anything of note. Though… "The paper they came from, the so-called tags… their labels are different."
Robin nodded, smiling almost smugly. "Neji is using smoke tags that have been laced with something, likely a sedative of some sort. Killing the Kazekage's son would cause enough political trouble for him to avoid most poisons, but it may be one of the only ways to attack Gaara without having to find a way to physically pierce through the shield."
"Reasonable plan." Crocodile wasn't above admitting when someone had done something noteworthy. "Though he likely needs at least a few more backup plans."
"You always were fond of those." Robin smiled, watching as, below, Gaara swayed in place, glaring at Neji. The Hyuuga in question retreated as far as possible and bided his time, dodging the sloppy streams of sand that came his way. "But it seems that it was unnecessary."
"If the kid is that easy to take down, then what was the point of me coming here?" Crocodile grunted.
"The Mera Mera no mi?" Robin suggested. "It's entirely possible that Gaara was holding back or adjusting to some large change that had occurred. And we know that there are still problems coming."
Crocodile didn't answer, just shifted in his seat and continued to watch the children that fought below.
o.o.o.o.o
"Nii-san…" Hanabi had her hands over her face. Not out of fear of seeing what would happen, but out of embarrassment for her cousin. The fact that he'd done so well, even if it had included a fair bit of unconventional tactics, meant that the women around her were currently discussing what the best marriage prospects for him were.
He was only thirteen!
She took her hands down as the next fight was announced, between the other two from Suna (she couldn't really hear their names over all the shouting, but she didn't care much either).
It was probably a good thing, because the boy from Suna immediately forfeited.
There was silence for several seconds, followed by large booing, and the boy seemed nervous, but stood firm.
(Over the sound of the crowd, Hanabi could just barely hear him saying that he refused to fight his sister.)
(If that was his plan, then why hadn't he said so before today?)
Hanabi watched as the proctor spoke to someone on his headset, and then raised his hands for everyone to calm down. "As it is, we have a competitor that was meant to take a bye or be an alternative, so please welcome Nara Shikamaru!"
Hanabi watched the area where the competitors were waiting, and could tell from even this distance that the boy in question did not want to go down to the arena and fight. Unfortunately for him, at least three different people (including the pink-haired girl) seemed to make various threats (including something that made Hanabi's father almost smile and mutter about Nara men someone called "Yoshino") that got him to get up and actually go down to the arena.
What followed was a fight that was very, very, very long, made Hanabi very, very bored, and allowed her a chance to wander away (with her father's permission, of course) very late in the battle.
And she knew just where she wanted to wander away to.
o.o.o.o.o
Hinata was nervous. Antsy, really. As soon as Shikamaru and Temari's match ended (and that took a while, with Shikamaru forfeiting after he'd already won), she started tensing up, because it was Naruto's turn to fight, even if it was only against Sakura. The reason Hinata thought of her "only" Sakura was that the girl was someone who had a very, very low chance of significantly hurting Naruto, because neither one wanted to send the other to the hospital (at least, not for longer than a day or two), because they were teammates.
Still, it made her nervous. She could cheer for Naruto now, sure, but she couldn't really be heard if she did. Kiba was sitting to her left, and he'd probably help her if she asked, and Karin, two seats to her right (Sasuke was between them), would probably cheer for her cousin of her own volition, but Naruto wasn't exactly popular enough for them to be heard over the rest of the white noise the crowd made.
"Onee-sama?"
Hinata blinked and turned around, smiling softly when she saw who was there. "Hanabi-chan. Did Otou-san tell you that you could come?"
"Yes." Hanabi looked around, clearly searching for a seat, and finding that none were available. Hinata wordlessly patted her lap, and Hanabi hopped up to sit there, Hinata's arms automatically coming around to hug her and make sure she didn't fall off by accident.
Hanabi had met Kiba and Shino, and she knew Lee through Neji (she couldn't decide if that was a bad thing or not), and she even knew of Ino, Chouji, and Sasuke through reputation. Unfortunately, she didn't know who the last person was.
The last person, with red hair and eyes, was a girl, and that girl noticed rather quickly that Hanabi was staring at her. She didn't seem to appreciate it. "Can I help you?"
Hanabi flushed. She was supposed to have better manners than that! "I just didn't recognize you. I know the others, but—"
"Uzumaki Karin." The girl interrupted her, clearly still a little upset by the earlier staring. Hinata squeezed Hanabi for a second, lightly reminding her to keep her head about her and not get distracted by things. Hanabi had heard Neji mention running into this girl, once, but he'd called her shy. Maybe she was just more at ease with being abrasive around kids?
"The match is starting." Uchiha Sasuke (huh, so this is what the other heirs were like…) pointed out, drawing Karin's attention back to the arena.
"Right." And Karin snuggled into Sasuke's side, or got as close to doing so as one could around the Uchiha, and Hanabi found that almost as interesting as the figh—
Did Uzumaki Naruto just use fifty clones to attack in all directions at once instead of just breaking the genjutsu he was under?!
"Idiot." Sasuke grunted, pinching the bridge of his nose. Karin snorted, eyes still trained on the field, though they occasionally flicked around to other places where there wasn't anything to see. Maybe she had a doujutsu? It would explain the red eyes.
"How was he left so susceptible to genjutsu?" Karin muttered. "Didn't he bother to prepare at all? Sakura's building up at least three at once right now, and he doesn't look like he can sense a single one of them."
"Most genin can't sense genjutsu when they're carefully made." Sasuke pointed out.
"He's trying to prove that he's worthy of Chuunin status." Karin retorted.
"Point." Sasuke conceded. "But even then, not everyone is as sensitive to chakra as you are."
"He's an Uzumaki. Even if he isn't at my level, he shouldn't be this insensitive to it."
Sasuke just sighed and turned his attention back to the fight.
That was when the feathers began to fall.
o.o.o.o.o
A/N: I don't like long vacations from school. I lose all motivation during them, and then it takes weeks to get back into writing.
My vacation lasted from mid-December to the end of January. I hated it. I'm taking winter classes next year, at least one. And I'm hoping to take summer classes as well.
I'll be catching up with the chapters that should have been written during my period of ineptness, but you'll have to be patient. And please do review, because that will help me regain my motivation. There as a big review count drop last chapter, and while I know the chapter itself was shorter than normal, I was fairly disappointed.
Ja ne,
Phoenix