Chapter 48, lets see who's facing who. I'll cover the month that they train for the chunin exams in two or three chapters. Also I'll be showing Sasuke's handling his situation with Orochimaru. Naturally, I'll be getting Itachi involved with it but he's not going to know exactly what's going on of course. You'll all see what I mean in this chapter. Oh, and I gotta say thanks to you guys real quick for being so awesome with your reviewing lately, especially people like Chewie Cookies, Rose Tiger, Roboguy45, and so many others who review almost every chapter. That's pretty much I'll I've got to say about this chapter. As always, thanks for reading and please review.
Ten people had made it to the finals in total. One Rock ninja, three Sand ninjas, and six Leaf ninjas. There would have to be two fights before the quarterfinals to narrow down to eight, so four unlucky people would be getting an extra fight to two of the four.
All of the finalist watched breathlessly as the first match was called out, "Match one, Kurotsuchi vs Hinata."
The two girls smirked at each other from across the balcony. They were both clearly hoping to face one another.
Naruto was about to tell her to make sure and keep her cool during the fight, but Hinata stopped him, " Don't bother telling me to relax Naruto-kun. I'm kick her ass the moment I that fight begins."
Naruto just blinked a couple of times. He'd never seen Hinata so angry before. It was kind of...hot, "If you say so Hinata-chan."
The next match was called out, "Match two, Mito vs the winner of match one."
Mito wasn't really sure she liked that. If Hinata won then she'd have to face one of her best friends. Guess that's just way things went.
She was broken out of her thoughts by the next match being called out, "Match three, Kankuro vs Naruto."
Kankuro groaned. Naruto was one of the only two people he was really afraid of getting. He could actually keep up with Gaara for god sake!
He didn't have time to dwell on it though, "Match four, Temari vs Shikamaru."
That was not good. The couple looked at each other with questioning eyes. Shikamaru was the first to speak, "It's troublesome, but you'd better not hold back. I don't want you to risk promotion just for me."
Temari nodded, "Same to you, lazy boy."
Another match was called out, "Match five, Kakashi vs the winner of match four."
Kakashi was a little sad he wouldn't get to face someone at full strength, but at least either one of them would put up a good fight.
The last match was called out, "Match six, Gaara vs Kiba."
Kiba looked utterly terrified. He's wasn't sure he possibly could've gotten a worse first opponent. He'd have to make his first match a hell of a good one of he wanted to be promoted.
Hayate told the crowd one last thing, "You'll have a month to prepare for this fight. Train as hard as you can and be ready show what you've got a month from now. Good luck to you all."
Hayate walked out of the room and Anko turned to her students, "Meet me and the perv here at our usual spot in half an hour. Hinata, you come too.
They all were curious as to what was in store for them, so they immediately went to go to the training ground.
Jiraiya and Anko found their students had arrived ten minutes early. They really were excited for all of this. Anko spoke up first, "We've already got a training schedule ready for all four of you. Kakashi's gonna be the only one I'm gonna train personally since he's got the snake contract and he'll be training with his father and Itachi for his Sharingan some too. You know, when they have time off anyways. Don't worry though, we've got something for the rest of you too."
Jiraiya looked at Naruto, "Hinata's gonna be training with her father and cousin, so you and I are gonna go one on one for the next month."
Naruto was pumped, "Awesome! What are gonna do?"
Jiraiya gave a small chuckle at his enthusiasm, "I'll be helping you learn how to improve your control over the Kyuubi's chakra. Not to mention I'm finally gonna start teaching your fathers jutsu, the Rasengan."
Naruto looked like he was gonna explode, "Yes! Finally!"
Mito had an idea of what she was gonna be doing, "Let me guess, I'm training with mom?"
Jiraiya figured she already knew, "Yup, says she's got something special for you too."
Kakashi looked at Anko, "Will Sasuke train with Kakashi for the Sharingan stuff?"
Anko shrugged, "Probably."
Hinata was already up and going to her house, "I'll see you all later. I've got to go see father about my training."
Jiraiya and the rest of them waved as she ran off and then he looked at the rest of them, "Enjoy the rest off the day, because we really start training tomorrow. See ya then."
They left the training ground as their students happily chatted about their training. It was gonna be a crazy month, that was for sure.
Sasuke sat at the table at home, poking his food but not really eating it. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't think of a way to stop that snake Orochimaru's plan. He had to find a way to do while still making sure Kakashi wouldn't get hurt. However, that seemed all but impossible when facing someone as smart as Orochimaru.
Itachi walked in the kitchen and greeted his little brother, "Hello Sasuke. I heard you had to forfeit in the chunin exams due to chakra complications. I'm very sad to hear that, you could've gone quite far."
Sasuke didn't seem too concerned about it, "Yeah, I guess."
Itachi gave a small frown, "Everything alright little brother?"
Sasuke nodded nervously, "Yeah, why wouldn't it be?"
Itachi could see he was lying, "Sasuke, you can't hide it from me. Something is clearly bothering you."
Sasuke got up from the table and left quickly. His brother him too well so he knew he wouldn't last long, "I said I'm fine. Please just drop it."
Itachi had wide eyes. He couldn't believe it, his brother never hid anything from him. What the hell was going on?
Hinata swelled with pride as she told her father about the fight. He let her go on about everything that happened, despite the fact that he already knew most of it.
Neji had gotten home before Hinata and told everyone what had happened. To say the Hyuugas council was shocked would be an understatement. Some had even claimed Neji had thrown the match for Hinata's sake. Of course, that wasn't the case. In fact, Neji had admitted to considering attempting to kill her during the match.
The council knew this made Hinata the front runner for clan head and they weren't happy to say the all knew of Hinata's intention to ban the caged bird seal, and she was getting close to doing it. With Neji's support the branch family now fully had her back too.
Hiashi gave her daughter a hug and told her, "I'm so proud of you Hinata. You're proving to this clan and everyone else just how strong you are. Tomorrow, I start teaching you one of our clans most prized techniques. Neji, I believe you've been working on it already."
Neji was surprised he knew, but nodded, "Yes, I've almost completed it. The Eight Trigram Palm Rotation, our most powerful defense. I would be honored to help Hinata learn it."
Hiashi chuckled, "I was going to help you complete it too, but if you wish to help Hinata learn it too I won't stop you."
The three of them continued to plan for the next month. It was gonna be some intense training, but they were ready.
Itachi and Hana sat in the park eating rice peacefully. It was beautiful day with lots of sun and a nice breeze. The two of them had been dating for the past three months and had found they really enjoyed one another's company.
They'd actually ended up going out when Hana's dogs tackled Itachi and started licking him one day. He'd been helping his little brother's team deliver dog food to the Inuzuka compound at the time. Hana offered to buy him lunch to make it up to him and things just took off from there. Itachi had accepted very quickly as he'd been rather attracted to her since they danced at Anko and Iruka's wedding. They were quite the couple.
Hana looked over at Itachi and could see he was deep in thought, "What are you thinking so hard about sweetie?"
Itachi took another small bite of rice, "Sasuke is hiding something from me. Something is very clearly bothering him but he refuses to talk about it."
Hana didn't see what the big deal was, "Maybe he's just got a crush or something."
Itachi shook his head, "No, if that were the case Sasuke would be asking me for advice. You have to understand Hana-chan, he doesn't hide things from me. There's something very wrong here."
Hana gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek, "It'll be okay Itachi-kun. I'm sure Sasuke will come to you if it gets too serious."
Itachi still felt like something big was going on with his brother, but knew he couldn't do anything about it at the moment. He'd just enjoy the rest of his date for now. However, he'd be confronting Sasuje as soon as he could.
Naruto got to the training ground almost fifteen minutes early. He'd never been this excited before in his whole life. Jiraiya was finally gonna show him one of his father's most famous moves, the Rasengan. He'd be one of only three people ever to learn it. That was just freaking awesome.
When Jiraiya got training ground it didn't take long for him to see just he excited Naruto was. It was a good thing too, because this training wasn't going to be easy. He walked over and told him, "Sit down. I've gotta explain what all wet gonna be doing first. I'll be teaching you two things at once, so were gonna have to do it a little differently than we usually do."
Naruto couldn't wait, "Alright! So how are we gonna do it?"
Jiraiya motioned to a box he'd carried with him to the training ground, "That box is filled with water balloons. Go and grab me one of them."
Naruto didn't know what the hell he needed a water balloon for but knew better than to question him. He brought one over and handed it to him, "Okay, now what,"
Jiraiya took the balloon, "I'm gonna channel my chakra in this so that the water spins, and eventually the balloon pops. Like this."
Naruto watched as the balloon started to get little bumps all all over it and eventually popped. He had to admit, that was kind of awesome, "Cool, so that's all I gotta do?"
Jiraiya told him what else he had planned, "Make as many clones as you can and do what I just did. If you've got more clones than balloons, I'll go get you some more."
Naruto didn't get it, "Why would I do that?"
Jiraiya had figured all of this out earlier, "It's two fold. One, you'll get the memories of your clones making it easier for you and two, it'll drain even you of your chakra pretty quickly."
Naruto was starting to get the picture, "Okay, but why are we trying to drain my chakra?"
Jiraiya was getting a little tried of explaining all of this, "So that you have to use the Kyuubi's so we can train you with it. Look, just get started and come get me when you run out of chakra. I'm gonna be working on some sealing stuff under that tree."
Naruto nodded and started to make some clones. Time to get to work.
Kakashi looked at Anko confused, "Kakashi's gonna learn what?"
Anko rolled her eyes. She'd just gotten to their training ground and told him what she was gonna teach him, "Shadow snake hands, it's not that hard to remember. It's that thing where snakes come from my hands..."
Kakashi wasn't sure that made sense, "But Kakashi can already shoot snakes from his hands. He just summons them."
Anko smacked her forehead, "You don't shoot the snakes from your hands, your hands turn into a bunch of snakes that attack your enemy."
Kakashi went wide eyed, "That sounds awesome, show Kakashi how to do that!"
Anko sighed, at least he was excited.
Mito looked her mother as dhe discussed what she'd be teaching her. Tsunade pointed to the diamond on her forehead, "Do you know what this is?"
Mito shrugged, "A tattoo?"
Tsunade giggled, "No, it's a seal. I'm sealing off what ever extra chakra I have into this seal so that I can realse it later and heal myself without using any hand seals. That is what I'm gonna be showing you how to do. The first stage of it at least."
Mito was grinning ear to ear. Not only was she gonna be able to heal herself without any hand seals, but she'd have one of those cool diamonds on her forehead too.
That's it for now. See you all tomorrow.
