I am so sorry. I seem to apologize a lot for taking forever to update, because I keep going months at a time in between updates. Sorry. On a different note, this story has passed five hundred reviews! I'm so happy! Thank you to everyone who reviews, because I do read them even if I don't reply, and I do appreciate them!

Here, a longer than normal chapter to make up for the months since the last update.

Chapter Thirty-seven:

The last weekend before the finals. It was a little unbelievable that it had come so quickly. I guess time flies when you're having fun - and when you don't want it to. I wasn't sure which applied here. There were still a couple of days before the day of the finals; for some reason, they'd put it right in the middle of the week, closer to the end. I didn't get it.

I wouldn't complain about the extra time, though, even if it wouldn't really be very helpful. There wasn't much else Naruto or I could learn or get much better at in the couple of days we had left. I was hoping to get to three full laps of the village within thirty minutes, and I was already pretty close, so it seemed likely.

I didn't really feel prepared, but I was all but out of time, so it seemed I would have to do with my and Naruto's abilities as they were. And however good Sasuke was, which I didn't know at all because he was off training with Kakashi. Annoying. It was petty, but I almost hoped Sasuke hadn't learned as much. Mostly, though, I hoped that he had, because of that thing that I'd been avoiding thinking about.

The invasion.

Really, I should have been planning for it - and I had, a little... Enough to have realized that there really wasn't much I could plan. I was too weak to really affect much; I was still Genin-level, probably. Maybe low Chuunin. But compared to Orochimaru? Or the One-Tails? I couldn't do anything. At this point, I was just hoping something would jump out at me in the moment.

Maybe I should have told somebody about the invasion. That was, you know, important information and everything. But then I'd have had to explain how I knew, which was... not something I wanted. Because I was a wimp, maybe. The only thing I could explain knowing - a high-level ninja showing up in the Forest - Kakashi already knew.

I felt useless. Surely other people - anybody else - with the information I had would have been more useful with it. I clearly hadn't been the best person to be reborn in Naruto.

"I'm going to bed," Sasuke said, poking his head into the living room.

So that he could disappear in the wee hours of the morning to meet up with Kakashi, I was sure.

"Okay," I said back. Before he could go back to his room, though, I had a thought. "Hey, Sasuke?"

He turned back. "What?" he asked shortly. He was probably impatient to get to his beauty sleep. The power version. His power sleep? That made it sound like power walking.

"You will come back from your super top-secret training with Kakashi-sensei before the finals start, right?" I said. I knew that he didn't originally, but a lot had changed, so...

Sasuke scoffed. "I'm not going to miss my fight, Reika," he said, annoyingly condescending.

I made a face at him for that. There was no reason to be a jerk.

"That wasn't what I asked," I pointed out. "I know what Kakashi-sensei's like; don't be late."

"I won't. It'll be fine," said Sasuke, trying for comforting. He might have hit it, but he also managed really patronizing and annoying. I was ten, not five. Well, technically I was twenty-six, but he didn't know that.

"I don't believe you. Knowing Kakashi-sensei, you'll end up showing up right as they're about to disqualify you for not being there," I said stubbornly. Because that wasn't, you know, what had happened originally. Of course not.

"Tch. Just drop it. What does it matter?" Sasuke snapped, apparently grumpier than I thought.

Maybe I shouldn't have left him alone with Kakashi for a month.

"It matters that I want you to be there for my and Naruto's fights," I insisted. "Is that so much to ask? Oh no, a couple of hours of missed training!" Sasuke tried to speak, but I continued before he could, "Besides, you shouldn't be training right before your fight anyway. Wouldn't you rather be rested before the finals start?"

Sasuke outright glared at me. "I need to get more powerful! Any training time I can get is necessary. Why would I waste time?"

Ow. That actually hurt a little. "So watching your teammate's and your sister's fights is wasting time?" I demanded. To his credit, Sasuke actually flinched a little. I shook my head. "Whatever. It doesn't matter. Either you show up the night before the finals, or else."

Sasuke did not look impressed. "Or else? What will you do, tattle on me?" he said.

"Well, we live together. I do have complete access to your room." I shrugged guilelessly. "Who knows what will happen to your stuff if you're not here to stop me? By which I mean that it may or may not end up on fire."

I gave Sasuke the sweetest smile I could manage while actually being annoyed. Sasuke's glower deepened.

"Fine, whatever," he snapped, turning to storm off to his room.

Apparently I wasn't the five-year-old; Sasuke was the five-year-old.

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. Because what we needed was to be fighting right now. And I had just wanted him to be there for the finals. I didn't know what would happen during them, what with the invasion.

But of course it would turn into a fight. What else had I expected?

I only had a couple of days before the finals, so it wasn't very likely that I'd be able to figure out the Body Flicker Jutsu and master it in time - especially if it was as difficult to master as Tsukiko had said - but that didn't mean I couldn't try. Seriously, if I didn't have some way to get distance from Lee, I would lose so bad. Besides, it wasn't like I had anything else to practice, really.

So, the Body Flicker Jutsu.

...Yep.

I was pretty sure that I was on the right track by putting chakra into my muscles. The problem was that that alone didn't do anything. There was a difference between 'filling' muscles with chakra and 'infusing' muscles with chakra. Of course, neither Tsukiko nor the scroll had said anything about either of those, so maybe I was completely wrong.

All ninja were far stronger, faster, and more durable than civilians, at least in part due to the unconscious chakra enhancement that apparently came with ninja training - specifically chakra control training. That kind of made sense, I supposed; the physical part of chakra (which was a combination of a person's physical and mental energies) ended up improving, you know, physical characteristics. Of course, there wasn't any proof of ninja being smarter than anyone else, so...

Whatever, that didn't matter. It didn't affect what I was trying to do.

Which is what, exactly? I don't even know.

Except, if it was specifically the physical half of chakra that caused the unconscious enhancements, then it would be specifically the physical half of chakra that caused conscious enhancements, right? But even if that was true, I didn't know how to use only the physical half of my chakra.

Uuugghhh. I didn't know anything.

Plus there was the problem of differentiating between enhancing speed and enhancing strength. I mean, strength had its uses and everything, but the speed was the thing I wanted. Although, I supposed, that was an issue for after I'd figured out how to do it at all.

Since theory was just sending me in pointless circles, I tried something random. Instead of directly moving my chakra into my muscles, I focused on the idea of making them faster, and then let my chakra flow in the correct direction. It didn't sound like there was a difference, but there was. It was just... hard to explain. Chakra was weird.

The result was shocking. Literally - my muscles felt weirdly electrified in a way that was startling, if not quite painful. Surprised into dropping my concentration, I promptly lost whatever effect I'd managed and the tingly sensation faded.

Well. That was interesting.

It wasn't like lightning, or anything - although I didn't know any lightning ninjutsu, so maybe I wouldn't know. It was more like the tingly sensation of a limb waking up, except less painful. Which was mostly what having chakra was like, and I'd pretty much gotten used to it, except the chakra system was its own thing, so it was weird all over again to have it happen in my muscles.

But, hey, something had happened. I was a little baffled by it, even; I'd been at least half joking. Apparently I was on the right track. So I tried it again - and didn't let myself lose focus when the tingling started. And it did. And it was weird.

I tried to shake my arm out in an attempt to get the tingling to stop - and nearly smacked myself in the face, my elbow yanking painfully at the abrupt, too-fast, too-far movement. The tingling didn't stop, either.

What the heck?

A little more carefully, going extra slow on purpose, I held my arm out in front of me. It moved much faster than it should have. Where it should have been slow and steady, it was almost like I'd been trying to move it as fast as possible. It was more than a little unnerving. Thankfully, though, the smoother movement prevented me from accidentally hurting myself again.

To test, I - still being as careful as possible - took a step forward. It was a little harder to adjust to the extra speed with that, and I jolted as my leg moved too quickly and my foot ran straight into the ground. If I hadn't been a ninja, I might have lost my balance.

Getting frustrated with my inability to keep up, I activated my Sharingan, since I'd never been able to move at the speeds it could see - and promptly lost my grasp of whatever I'd been doing to my muscles. Since I had to constantly channel chakra to do whatever it was, I couldn't really do anything else with chakra, as it disrupted the flow and messed everything up. But thankfully, it wasn't too hard to keep the Sharingan active, so now that it was, I could restart the speed-jutsu.

If this was the Body Flicker Jutsu - and I had a feeling it was - then no wonder people had such a hard time with it. Not only was it kind of hard to figure out, it was really hard to adjust to the extra speed.

With the Sharingan, it was a lot easier to keep up with it, though. I took a couple more steps, taking care to keep them smooth and not do anything that could hurt myself like I had with my arm. It didn't take too long after that before I stopped accidentally stomping.

Confidence growing with the exhilaration of being so, so fast, I couldn't resist the urge to test it more. I jogged, still a little cautious, across the clearing. It went by so much faster. Forgetting myself, I nearly ran straight into the treeline (not a good idea, probably), and had to slam on the figurative breaks. I didn't exactly hurt myself in the process, but my legs twinged a little unhappily at the abrupt movement.

I cut off the flow of chakra and let the speed enhancement fade - which it did almost immediately. Deactivating the Sharingan also, I let myself fall backwards onto the grass and laughed helplessly, still high from the exhilaration.

The Body Flicker Jutsu is awesome, I decided. It was awesome to move at the ridiculous speeds I could manage without it, of course, but I'd gotten used to those. Probably I'd get used to this, too, which would be good for my ability to fight while doing it.

Forget making do with my own speed - although I would, obviously, keep working on it - I was one hundred percent mastering the Body Flicker Jutsu to use against Lee. Maybe I'd actually have a hope then.

But I wouldn't slack off on my speed training. For one thing, I didn't want to suddenly be completely vulnerable if I couldn't manage the Body Flicker for whatever reason, and for another thing, the user's own speed probably affected how fast they were when using the Body Flicker. It just enhanced the muscles, so how good the muscles were naturally still mattered.

Still, though, chakra was awesome.

"Only two days left, huh?" Tsukiko said.

"The finals are on the day after tomorrow," I said, nodding.

Tsukiko let out an aggrieved sigh. "And I guess we have to go," she surmised.

I blinked, a little confused. They had to go to the finals?

"Um. What?"

"We had not planned to go to the finals," Mori-san explained, taking pity on me.

"But now that we've spent the last month training you, it's practically a requirement," said Tsukiko.

That made a little more sense. It was still weird, though.

"Oh." I blinked again. "Well, I don't really mind if you don't go, if you don't want to."

Tsukiko glared at me, for some reason. "That's not the point, Reika," she said crossly. She folded her arms and looked suspiciously close to sulking. She did not look as though she was going to offer an explanation.

Mori-san took pity on me again. "It's not purely for your benefit. We want to see your fight."

"I have to make sure you actually use the things I taught you. It's the same for Yuina," Tsukiko agreed. "But it's stupid, because now we're going to have to sit through all the other fights, too."

"Is that so horrible?" I had to ask, bemused. It seemed to me that watching some fights wasn't really that bad. Plus, this year's finalists were apparently particularly impressive.

"Yes," Tsukiko said firmly. She sighed. "Well, it's watching - how many of you are there? Ten? - It's watching ten maybe-Chuunin fight nearly to the death."

"It's not exactly the most thrilling pastime," Mori-san added with a semi-apologetic shrug.

I supposed I could understand that; they were ninja, after all. Their lives were pretty interesting. It was just funny, because watching the Chuunin Exams was entertainment in my last life - the Naruto anime in general was. Most ninja probably wouldn't be interested in watching it.

"That makes sense," I said. "By the way, does that mean I'm a maybe-Chuunin?"

Tsukiko laughed, startled. "No, you're not a maybe-Chuunin; you're a baby-Chuunin."

I got the distinct feeling my age had just been insulted.

"Baby-Chuunin? What's a baby-Chuunin?" I asked, faking an offended reaction.

"It's a baby that is also a Chuunin," Tsukiko explained solemnly.

I thought about that for a second. "So a maybe-Chuunin is a maybe that is also a Chuunin?" I said, just to be annoying.

Before Tsukiko could reply, Mori-san interrupted. "Children," she said disapprovingly.

Tsukiko turned and pouted at her, only proving her point.

Ignoring Tsukiko with great aplomb, Mori-san said, "In any case, Uchiha, 'Kiko and I agree that you're ready for the finals and, since they are only two days away, feel that you should take today and tomorrow off." She gave me a suspicious look. "From training with us, at least. I'm sure you'll do whatever you want on your own."

Oh. That did make sense, of course, although I wasn't sure anyone could need to take two days off training before doing something strenuous. If that was the case, ninja would never train.

"I'm kind of sad. The two of you were way better teachers than Kakashi-sensei." I bowed politely. "Thank you for your assistance with my training over this past month," I said formally.

"Oh, stop it," Tsukiko said with a roll of her eyes. "It's not like we're never going to see each other again, so what's with the super-formality? Boring."

Without dropping her polite smile, Mori-san swatted Tsukiko on the arm. "It was our pleasure, Uchiha," she responded. " 'Kiko is right, however; in addition to being at the finals, we are comrades. This is hardly a goodbye."

This was so anime I couldn't even. I was a little baffled to be part of a 'friends/comrades' speech. But also... I hadn't even said goodbye...?

"Yeah, that's true," I said, deciding to ignore it. I smiled. "See you around, then?"

Tsukiko grinned. "Don't think you can get rid of me. I'll definitely see you later." It sounded weirdly threatening considering the circumstances.

"See you later, Uchiha," Mori-san said. Despite the very casual phrase, she somehow still managed to sound polite. It must've been a superpower.

Before this could get (more) awkward, the two of them walked off together. I was a little glad the conversation was over; that was very uncomfortable.

But, yay for being comrades...?

I had a plan, amazingly enough.

Now that it was the day before the finals, I wanted to test Naruto. I knew that he could do the Body Replacement Jutsu seallessly, and I knew that he could do the Great Breakthrough, and he could obviously do Shadow Clone. I did not, however, know if he could use them properly together in battle.

So, after doing my thirty minutes of running around the village - I made it three laps - and practicing the Body Flicker Jutsu, I waited for Naruto to show up. As soon as he did, I pounced. Not literally, though; I wouldn't just spring a spar on someone. That would be rude.

Ahem.

"Good morning, Naruto," I greeted.

"Morning, Reika," Naruto returned, then gave me a wary look. "What's up?"

I blinked. "What do you mean?" I said, confused.

"You look weirdly happy," Naruto said bluntly.

"What, I can't be happy for no reason?" I said. Naruto looked like he didn't want to answer, so I continued, "Fine, I do have a reason. I know what we're going to do today! And by that I mean I want to spar."

Naruto was the one to do the blinking this time. "Okay," he agreed easily.

"But it's not a normal spar. It's a practice for you to fight Neji, " I said.

"A practice?" Naruto repeated. "But you're not Neji."

I nodded. "Yeah. I'm probably not as good at taijutsu and I can't do the poking thing that he does, but it's to give you some experience fighting like you'll have to against Neji. You can't let him get close," I emphasized. "So I'll fight only using things that Neji could: taijutsu and weaponry. You can use anything you want, but if I touch you - thrown weapons don't count - then you lose."

Naruto, as a competitive person, immediately got into it at that. "I won't lose," he declared.

"Good. You're not supposed to," I said. "Now, let's begin!"

I raced at him, trying to emulate the low, steady-footed style I vaguely remembered Neji using from when I was watching the anime. I possibly should have actually watched the fight between Neji and Hinata.

It was a little anticlimactic, I felt, to try to poke your opponent. But yet...

Naruto dodged backwards to avoid the strike. His fingers flew into the Clone seal.

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

A shadow clone appeared on either side of him. The two of them threw themselves at me as Naruto backed off further. Without the chakra of Neji's pokes, I probably couldn't actually pop a clone by doing that. So I cheated a little. My right hand, still out from where I'd tried to hit Naruto, I closed into a fist and swept sideways, hitting one of the clones on the arm hard enough to dispel it. The other clone, I jabbed in the throat with the knuckles of my other hand.

And then I got hit by the real Naruto's Great Breakthrough. Evidently, he'd taken advantage of the distraction offered by his clones to do the hand seals. Because Naruto overpowered the Great Breakthrough like whoa, I got blown straight across the clearing and into a tree. At the last second, I managed to flip around to land feet-first.

Using chakra to stick where I'd landed, I examined Naruto. He did the Shadow Clone Jutsu again, creating a mob of shadow clones around himself. I desperately wanted to use the Body Replacement Jutsu to switch with one of his clones, but, since Neji couldn't do that, I wasn't allowed to.

I felt like I had a bigger handicap in this fight than Naruto did.

The crowd of Narutos watched me, strangely patient. I had lost track, and now I didn't know which Naruto was the real one. Well, I'd just have to attack them all, then.

I pulled a number of kunai from my pouch. Keeping my eyes on the Narutos, I jumped off the tree towards them and threw my volley of kunai. They were woefully unprepared, and the majority of them were popped, leaving only five Narutos.

The momentum from my jump brought me straight into the foremost Naruto. I threw my arms up to keep from running face-first into him. The clone dispelled upon contact with my elbows and, left with too much momentum, I leaned forward to place my hands on the ground. Using chakra for a better grasp allowed me some control over my movements. I spun around to meet the next two Narutos with my feet. One of them used the Body Replacement Jutsu to switch out with a different Naruto, and both of them were popped as one of my feet made contact with each of their faces.

I flipped back around to land on my feet, flicked a kunai out of my sleeve, and threw it at the sole remaining shadow clone. It was dispelled, leaving only me and the original Naruto. I dove for him. He created another group of shadow clones, and both of us were engulfed in the swarm. I successfully dodged the first dozen attacks. Eventually, though, one managed to punch me in the face, throwing me backwards. Rather than keep me trapped in the conglomerate of clones, they parted to let me fly through and land on the ground a ways away.

Not very smart.

To their credit, however, about half of the Narutos did split off to follow me. I got to my feet hurriedly. Now that I was prepared for it, it wasn't too hard to dispel the dozen or so clones. As they closed in around me, I attacked before they could, elbowing one in the gut, punching one in the neck, and stomping on the connection between one's foot and ankle hard enough to pop it. Once I finished them all, I turned back to the other group of Narutos. They were clustered together watching me.

Grabbing a handful of kunai without notes on them and shuriken, I threw the volley at the crowd of Narutos. The Narutos at the front parted, revealing another Naruto, who clapped. The resulting Great Breakthrough hit my weaponry dead on, flinging them back in my direction.

Ah. Well. That backfired.

I threw myself to the side, avoiding the volley of redirected weaponry and the gust of wind both, though even the edges of the wind pushed me off balance and back a ways, and ran for the crowd. If I couldn't use weapons, I'd have to get close. Another Great Breakthrough hurled in my direction, forcing me to dodge to the side yet again. A third hit me. Chakra-sticking to the ground, I was able to keep from being flung, but I still slid backwards quite a ways.

Getting a tad frustrated, I tried again and barely dodged a Great Breakthrough. Another try brought me slightly closer, but another Great Breakthrough that I mostly but couldn't completely dodge flung me backwards. Backflipping to land on my feet, I tried again, and got a little closer - and then did get hit. And repeat. Every. Single. Time. I got close.

Stop Great Breakthrough-ing me! I raged internally, but didn't say anything aloud. This was good, it meant he'd do well against Neji. But it was frustrating.

The Narutos had apparently come into their own with their strategy. No matter what I did, I couldn't get closer; at least one of the Narutos was always prepared to do a Great Breakthrough. Not I nor my weapons could get close. At the same time, though, they weren't hurting me either: the Great Breakthrough didn't actually do much damage to the receiver, and any weapons they included were easy enough to dodge.

Apparently using the Great Breakthrough was just as good as or better than the 'Replacing with shadow clones' plan. Naruto had only had to use the Body Replacement Jutsu once.

If I'd been fighting Naruto as myself, there were plenty of things I could do: fire ninjutsu (which was apparently strong to wind ninjutsu), use the Body Replacement Jutsu to switch with one of the clones, even use the Great Breakthrough myself.

But I was pretending to be Neji.

Ugh, this is why specializing is stupid.

All right.

I pulled another clump of kunai and shuriken out of my pouch. And then I charged straight at the Narutos once more. As soon as the first Great Breakthrough went off, I darted to the side far enough, threw half my weaponry, and then continued further to the side. Again, I got far enough, threw the other half, and completed my half-circle around the Narutos. Then, on the perfect opposite side of them as I'd started on - my second volley of weaponry was deflected - I finally got to the group.

Grabbing the two closest ones by the collar, I flung them into the rest, popping the two of them and several others. Four Narutos left. I swept out my leg, toppling one of them, threw a kunai into another's face, and narrowly dodged a punch from one of the two remaining upright. Sliding past that one, I punched the other in the stomach and dispelled it.

Turning around would be too slow, so I did a backflip instead, my foot sailing into the last upright Naruto's face. Before it connected, the Naruto flickered as the two switched places. The shadow clone popped.

Only me and the original Naruto, sprawled on the ground as his clone had been, were left. Naruto scrambled backwards, apparently forgetting in his haste that he could make more clones. I strode towards him.

After a lot of frustration, I was going to win.

With my chakra sense, which I was barely paying attention to, I noticed another chakra signature flare to life. Behind me. It was obviously Naruto's chakra, but there hadn't been any smoke or even the audible poof that usually occurred when a shadow clone was created. Naruto hadn't even done any hand seals.

I elbowed backwards sharply, dispelling the clone right before it would have sneak-attacked me. Then I lunged forward and poked Naruto, who'd gotten back to his feet, in the stomach.

Haha. I won.

Naruto pouted. "Aww man. How'd you know about the clone?" he asked somewhat sullenly.

"Because I'm awesome. It wouldn't have worked on Neji anyway," I pointed out.

"Eh? It wouldn't have? Why not?"

Why not? Why not? It was obvious why not. Was Naruto messing with me? His guileless, genuinely bemused look indicated that he was not, but...

"Because he has the Byakugan," I said slowly.

Naruto's face scrunched further in confusion. "Right? So he can see the chakra points or whatever. How would that help?" he said.

I stared. I couldn't help it. I thought he knew. Hadn't somebody explained the Byakugan during the Neji vs. Hinata fight?

"The Byakugan can see chakra points because it can see through things. Through everything," I explained. "Including the back of their head. The Byakugan lets them see in a perfect circle around them."

Well, technically they did have a blind spot - but that wasn't important.

Naruto gaped. "What! No way!" he exclaimed.

"Yes way. Sneak attacks won't work on them," I said. "The same with hiding clones behind other clones like you did before - that wouldn't work," I added.

"Well, whatever. It doesn't matter that he can see everything," Naruto declared after a moment of adjusting to this new information and getting over his shock. "I'll kick his butt anyway!"

I smiled. "I know you will," I said. "You'll do great."

Since he'd apparently won against Neji originally without even knowing about the Byakugan's range of sight, how could he not?

Naruto got surprisingly flustered.

"A-Anyway, Reika, you're fighting that Lee guy, right?" he changed the subject, frowning in thought. "And he's a taijutsu specialist too. So do you want to practice like against him?"

Naruto was so sweet sometimes. Like a giant puppy. Not the most flattering comparison, maybe, but...

"Thank you, Naruto," I said sincerely, "but I should be okay. I'll be doing my best to keep my distance too, but I shouldn't have to change my fighting style too much, so I don't need to practice." Naruto looked a little crestfallen at the rejection, so, remembering Naruto's attempt at a surprise clone, I added, "By the way, how did you make that shadow clone? I didn't see you do the hand seal."

I'd forgotten about it before, distracted by Naruto's lack of knowledge regarding the Byakugan, but now I was curious. And Naruto must have done the Shadow Clone Jutsu somehow - unless it had just been left over from one of his other uses of the Shadow Clone Jutsu, but I knew that its chakra had just shown up. If it hadn't been made right then, I would eat my shoe.

Naruto brightened. "Oh yeah! I learned how to do shadow clones without the seal!" he said cheerfully. "Because, after you had me learn the Replacement Jutsu without seals, I figured that it'd be useful to be able to do that with shadow clones too. So I practiced a little. It wasn't hard."

I was blown away. The fact that he cared to was surprising, the fact that he'd been able to impressive - although, if there was any jutsu Naruto knew well enough to do seallessly, it was the Shadow Clone Jutsu - but even more so than either of those... he'd learned to do it without the seals, but still did the seals when he could anyway. The forethought.

I'm so proud.

"Wow, that's great, Naruto," I effused. "I didn't think of it; it's a great idea."

Naruto chuckled, rubbing under his nose. "Well, yeah..."

Getting a little awkward at the lack of anything to say, I grasped for anything. "Hey, we still need to pick up all of our weapons," I said.

"Oh, right! Let's do that!" said Naruto.

It was the kind of menial chore I would have expected him to be unhappy about having to do, but Naruto was actually surprisingly diligent about collecting his weapons. It was just one of those things, I supposed.

There. That makes fifty extra explosive notes.

I wasn't sure exactly how many I'd need tomorrow, so better safe than sorry. I'd also made a bunch of air seals and filled them with air, but I'd done that first, earlier in the day, so that I could recover the chakra from the Great Breakthroughs.

Now I just had to wrap some of each type around some kunai. Joy.

It was getting kind of late, I noticed. Almost dinnertime. And Sasuke wasn't home yet. Well, if he wasn't home yet by the time I got up tomorrow, then I'd mess with his stuff. Maybe lighting it on fire was a bit much, though; instead maybe I'd 'accidentally' dye all of his clothing pink. That was kind of hard to do with dark clothing, though...

But first, dinner. I sighed. I didn't really want to make anything. Cereal it was. Not the best dinner, maybe, but I didn't really care. And if Naruto could eat ramen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner - as he often did - then I could have cereal for dinner.

Right as I was sitting down at the kitchen table with my dinner, the front door opened. Seriously, what was with Sasuke and his getting home right then? Well, he could deal with it; I wasn't letting my cereal get soggy. Even though it was my own fault he'd come home at all.

"I'm home," Sasuke called, somehow managing to sound grudging and upset about it.

I waited for a moment. Fine.

Leaving my bowl of cereal, I went into the living room. "Welcome back," I replied.

He was dirty from training, of course, and looking particularly grumpy. I smiled at him brightly.

"You came home," I said, trying not to sound too surprised.

Sasuke just grunted back, apparently uninterested in conversation, and made for his room.

Well, all right then. If he was going to be grumpy, I wasn't going to deal with that. I turned to get back to my cereal.

"Reika," Sasuke said before I could reenter the kitchen. I looked over my shoulder at him to find that he was hovering at the entrance to the hallway. He hesitated. "You're not a waste of time," he managed eventually.

Embarrassed, he hurried out of sight. I resisted the urge to glomp him, the silly anti-social dork. He probably wouldn't be happy if I did - the nicest thing I could do would be to ignore that he had done that. Because he was silly and awkward. But still.

Maybe there was hope for him after all.

The finals themselves weren't super early in the morning - of course not, since they were a spectator event and no civilians would want to go at five in the morning or whatever. Plus, the Kazekage was travelling to the Leaf to watch them. Although, I supposed, there was no reason he couldn't get to the Leaf the day before.

It didn't matter, though; for whatever reason, the finals actually started at twelve. Noon. That seemed ridiculously late to me, given that Kakashi insisted we met at five thirty in the morning. Even the first part of the Chuunin Exams, we'd been supposed to show up early. Plus, those of us who were competing were supposed to show up at twelve, so it might not even be for a while afterwards that it actually started.

Even knowing that, I couldn't help but be restless from the moment I got up. Naruto and I had agreed not to meet up this morning, since we weren't going to be training today and we'd meet at the stadium anyway, so I had more time than I usually did in the mornings, but I still felt like I should be hurrying.

Clearly, having the finals so late in the day was a calculated move to play on the competitors' nerves. Sadly, I was probably the only one who was affected; the others were all too scary for that. Sasuke didn't seem particularly bothered, acting perfectly casual as we prepared and ate breakfast.

I volunteered to do the dishes, because otherwise I would spaz out, get dressed, and go to the stadium right now. Unfortunately, doing the dishes didn't take very long, and I was quickly left with nothing to occupy myself.

So I went to get ready anyway. I'd figured it would be best to not do any training before the fight so that I wouldn't be tired, but maybe I'd go for my habitual morning run anyway. It wasn't like I'd be that badly off after it - I never was - and I was so used to doing it that it was weird not to.

I double-checked all of my gear - forehead protector, pouch full of weaponry and pieces of paper, various holsters of kunai. All of it was, of course, there and in proper condition. Nothing was missing. I didn't know what I was expecting. I triple-checked it anyway. Surprise surprise, there was nothing wrong.

Then I went out into the living room.

Sasuke had also gotten ready, I found. He was in the living room, reading a book, and dressed in the weird jumpsuit thing from the anime. I'd entirely forgotten about it. He hadn't been wearing that yesterday, I was sure.

"What's with the jumpsuit?" I asked, unable to help myself.

Sasuke looked up - he kind of needed a haircut; his bangs were getting long. "What about it?" he said defensively.

I held my hands up. "Nothing, nothing."

Sasuke didn't look convinced, which was good because I'd been lying. But I just smiled. If he was going to get all defensive, I didn't want to start a fight.

"I'm going to go for a run," I told him. Running still sucked, but it wasn't completely horrible.

Sasuke looked a little caught off guard. "Okay," was all he replied.

So I left. And ran around the village for thirty minutes. And I did manage to do three laps - without even having to push myself very hard. Success.

As I reentered our apartment, I considered showering, but it wasn't really worth it; I was just going to end up fighting soon, so there was no point. Besides, I was a ninja. Anyone who expected perfect grooming was going to be sorely disappointed.

"I'm home," I called, slightly belated.

"Welcome home," Sasuke replied, glancing up from his book for a moment.

It seemed he'd switched books while I was gone, though he was back in the same position exactly enough to be funny. Reading wasn't a bad idea - something to distract me from the urge to go right now even though we weren't supposed to be there for five hours.

And anyway, I was avoiding training so that I wouldn't be tired, but that didn't mean I couldn't study. So I picked up a book from the bookcase and joined Sasuke in the companionable silence of multiple people reading together. I threw myself into my book - Theory of Hand Seals - which I'd picked up from the library after realizing that people invented jutsu with hand seals, so there had to be some kind of logic to them.

I was distantly aware of Sasuke getting up and moving around, switching his reading material around, and, at one point, leaving the room entirely, but I didn't really pay attention to it.

"When do you want to leave?" Sasuke asked abruptly, startling me back into the real world.

"Um, I don't know," I said on auto-pilot. Then I realized that I did, in fact, know. "I was thinking eleven thirty to make sure we get there on time."

As Sasuke nodded at my logic, I searched out the clock. Amazingly enough, it read ten thirty. As in, it had been three and a half hours. I glanced down at Theory of Hand Seals, incredulous. It was a long book, true, and there was apparently a lot of theory to cover, but wow.

"We should probably have lunch," I realized. At Sasuke's inquisitive look, I explained, "The finals are probably going to take a while, right? So we're not really going to get a chance to eat once they start."

Sasuke once again conceded to my logic with a nod. "That's true," he said. "Eat in or go out?"

I thought about that for a moment. On the one hand, I didn't want to go to the effort of making something, which would take too long anyway. On the other hand, going to a restaurant would also take a while, and we'd end up going straight from the restaurant to the stadium. So did it really matter?

We ended up staying in, a shocking turn of events considering that we were both children who you'd think would rather not cook for themselves. I tried not to get impatient because, apparently, the fact that it was getting closer to the actual time of the finals did not reduce my restlessness, but actually increased it.

Finished eating, I pushed away from the table.

"Want to go early?" I asked.

It was eleven twenty, so it was really only ten minutes earlier than I'd wanted to go anyway. I didn't want to end up being late; that would be ironic.

"Yeah, okay," Sasuke said with a shrug. He stood.

We set off for the stadium. Nothing huge happened or anything, although we did start running into a lot of foot traffic once we got close. There was a lot of people trying to get there and get seats. Some were even just wandering by, for some reason.

Without hurrying or bothering to push through the crowd - or go by rooftop, which would have been a lot faster - it took twenty minutes to get there. Twenty minutes early. That wasn't bad. Rather than go through the stadium to get to the actual arena where we were supposed to meet up, we circled around and went through the large entrance on the other side. It lead directly into the arena.

We stepped through the opening. The stadium was huge. I hadn't noticed when watching the anime, but it really was. The seats for the audience were further away than I had expected, and there were a lot of them. It was almost daunting, the huge stadium filled with hundreds of people all watching you.

Ignoring the crowds of people already present, I noted that Gaara, Temari, Neji, Tenten, and Lee were already there. Only Naruto, Shino, Shikamaru, and Dosu were left.

The finals of the Chuunin Exams were about to begin.