AN: Note that I do not own Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, or any of the characters from either Anime. This work is a fanfiction written out of my love for the series and not in any attempt to make a profit.
Proofread by: Me, but hopefully not for much longer. It seems that my two proofreaders are getting back on track, and I've found a third one that will get on it as soon as they're caught up with the story so far.
As a clarification, I wish to mention that italic dialogue is how I signify that dialogue represents either thoughts or mental dialogue. For those of you who were confused as to why Sakura's dialogue shifts between italic and not while conversing with Inner and others, and also while Inner's normally italic dialogue was written normally at the end in the last chapter as she spoke through Sakura's body to address Kakashi.
Chapter 27: 11 Finalists, unexpected results
Once Sakura calmed down enough to notice Kakashi had left, she sat down on the couch in a huff, still fighting down her blush. Looking over at the television, she distracted herself by watching the ongoing match. It was interesting to see how Ino had progressed since Sakura had seen her fight last and to be fair, she did quite well against Sakomoto who seemed to be relying mainly on Taijutsu and Genjutsu. At least from what Sakura could gather from seeing the match on the television. Without sound, she couldn't hear what Ino had told him, but whatever it had been, it had let Ino possess Sakamoto. He had simply remained still while she went through the motions for her technique and aimed it at him. Once possessed, Sakamoto quickly raised his hand and gave up, and Hayate announced Ino the winner.
Sakura felt a bit of relief as Ino passed onto the third exam, but in equal measure dreaded the coming confrontation she had planned. After all, she had been the one to initiate their silly feud over Sasuke, to begin with, and now she would be the one who took the initiative to end it.
"Your pride is worth swallowing in order to keep a friend, especially one like Ino," Inner informed her, and Sakura nodded in agreement. She hadn't let herself admit it previously, but she missed Ino's company. Ino had been her first real friend, and she had already decided to at the very least attempt to mend the divide she had created between them.
"It seems like you have calmed down," Kakashi observed as he entered the room, ignoring Sakura's slight glare as he sat down on the couch again.
"Not a word to the others." Sakura threatened, only to get a sinking feeling as Kakashi gave her an eye-smile.
"Certainly, Guy doesn't hear anything, and neither do your teammates," Kakashi promised her, and Sakura cursed mentally together with Inner who now regretted her actions. Sakura renewed her glare, while Kakashi chuckled. "Now, don't be like that, my cute little student. I will still keep good on my promise." He assured her, although Sakura wasn't entirely convinced, but decided not to make things worse for herself in case he was being serious.
"Fine. What else do we have to talk about before going back?" She agreed, before asking him.
"Nothing much, I assure you. I simply want to hear what happened during the second exam, the whole story, unabridged. Don't spare me details or your opinions, I feel it is important that I get the complete picture." Kakashi told her, and Sakura sighed as she realized it would be a while before she could reunite with her teammates. With a quick glance at the televisions, seeing the next matchup was Karin Uzumaki versus Kankuro, she deduced the last match would be Tenten versus Kabuto's remaining teammate and began telling Kakashi what had happened during the second exam.
Walking down the corridor alongside Kakashi as he led her to the room they had been given to rest up now that the preliminaries were over, Sakura took the time to think about the fights that had finished up while she told Kakashi the entire story, as well as more about Inner's part in the entire ordeal.
Karin's fight had been a surprise. The odds had been stacked terribly against her, but she had managed to make the most of her hidden advantage. Kankuro had turned out to be a puppet master who had his puppet disguised as himself, while he safely controlled it from his place on its back, disguised as a weapon of some kind bound in bandages. Karin had managed to take advantage of her opponent's confidence that she would fall for his ruse and had managed to deliver a devastating blow to Kankuro using a feint that made it look like she had fallen for his trap. He had immediately lost control over his puppet as he suddenly found a kunai embedded up to the hilt in his shoulder. Karin had decided to be brutal and efficient, saying something to him that seemingly had him give up as Hayate soon announced her the winner, and Kankuro was taken away fro emergency treatment while Temari, who had woken up followed after, sending Karin a murderous look.
Following Karin's fight, Tenten had her second match against one of Kabuto's teammates, named Misumi Tsurugi. The fight turned out to be a fairly close one as Misumi turned out to be quick on his feet and always closed the distance between them quickly, moving his limbs in unnatural ways to avoid Tenten's weapons with unconventional maneuvers. Eventually, he managed to catch Tenten in a death grip, by snaking his limbs around hers and begin to squeeze her slowly to death, likely trying to force her to give up. Tenten had used what little room she had to move and used the ninja-wire attached to her weapons to attack him again, this time doing some serious damage to him and making her let go of her, as he couldn't dodge while being wrapped around her. Naturally, Tenten's skill with her weapons allowed her to avoid hitting herself, and as Misumi fell to the ground, she turned around and held a blade to his throat, forcing him to surrender, allowing her to advance to the third exam.
As for Sakura's conversation with Kakashi, he had ended up suggesting that Sakura reveal the presence of Inner to Sasuke and Naruto while keeping her secret from everyone else if she could. After all, he wanted them all to trust each other and it would keep the burden of keeping Inner a secret from her. Besides, he believed it would be a good idea for Inner to form a relationship with the team as a separate individual, both for her own sake, as well as Sakura's.
Sakura didn't know how to feel about his suggestion. Would they understand? Inner was both part of her, but also separate from her. In a way, they were the same, yet different. Just thinking about it gave Sakura a headache. She knew that Naruto likely wouldn't care. One more friend was likely a bonus in his book, what worried her was Sasuke, what would he think? Would he consider it weird? Did attributing Inner's existence to her Kekkei Genkai make it less weird? She wanted to talk to someone about it, and Inner agreed with her that talking between just the two of them wasn't enough. Kakashi hadn't been any help either, as he simply shrugged and told her that it was her decision, in the end, he had merely suggested what he thought was the best option.
"This is why we need a friend who can understand us. Like Ino." Inner decided, and Sakura agreed before she turned her attention to Kakashi.
"Kakashi, I was wondering if I can go and talk to Ino before deciding to talk to Sasuke and Naruto about Inner?" She asked him, hoping he'd allow her to do just that. Looking over at her, he shrugged but nodded.
"I don't see why not. Although, I'm not certain what room she was assigned to." Kakashi admitted, leaving Sakura to sigh before continuing to follow him to their assigned room.
"I suppose I'll have to find her later then." Sakura conceded, and then continued the rest of the way in silence until they reached their room.
"Sakura! Sensei!" Naruto cheered as Sakura and Kakashi entered the room. Sasuke gave a nod of acknowledgment before returning to reading a scroll he had acquired from somewhere. With a nod to his clone, Kakashi dispelled it and sat down in the chair it had been using, taking its place to continue reading his Icha-Icha book from where his clone had left off.
"We all passed! We should celebrate!" Naruto suggested, only to be confused as the rest of his team gave him funny looks.
"Naruto, we're all exhausted, except for maybe Kakashi. We should rest and recover first and foremost." Sakura told him.
"Oh, come on! We have an entire month until the third exam! We should enjoy ourselves today before being all serious. Besides, I'm already fine!" Naruto argued while Sakura shook her head, wondering if Naruto was really just a simple idiot.
"Naruto, don't compare us with yourself. I don't know but you're not normal when it comes to this. Besides, Kakashi and I have been going through a lot of really tiresome paperwork, we're exhausted." Sakura informed him, glad to hear Kakashi remain silent, not contradicting her as she spoke on his behalf.
Naruto's mood immediately soured, and he crossed his arms before sitting down on a pillow, muttering. "Fine, guess we'll wait until tomorrow, but we're celebrating at Ichiraku's Ramen then!" Retorted, and Sakura, together with Kakashi and Sasuke rolled her eyes.
"Of course he wants to celebrate with ramen. That's all he thinks about." Inner commented, amused.
"Can you blame him? We haven't really eaten any decent food in days. I know I can't wait to celebrate with some Umeboshi and Anmitsu." Sakura responded, both Inner and Sakura practically drooling at the thought of some of their favorite food.
"Oh, we'll have to get ourselves some syrup-coated Anko dumplings as well!" Inner suggested, and Sakura agreed. If they were going to celebrate, they would do so properly and pull out all the stops, getting their favorites together.
"Dammit, now I'm hungry," Sakura admitted, managing to draw an amused smile from Sasuke.
"Well, in that case, how about we find ourselves some lunch? I'm sure that there's something left in the kitchen that we can grab before leaving, there's food to be had somewhere, right?" Sasuke concluded, addressing his question towards their Sensei who decided to put his book down.
"Yes, I suppose a proper meal after fighting without breakfast is a good idea for you three." Kakashi agreed, before standing up and gesturing for the three of them to follow. Leading them all to a kitchen where team ten was already helping themselves to some food.
Seeing Chōji stuffing his face, it was obvious that they would have made their way to the kitchen for a meal. No one was surprised to find them there.
"Yo, Kakashi." Asuma greeted them with a grin as they entered. "Congratulations, it seems all three of your team passed, while only two of mine did. Was it luck, or skill?" He asked, smirking as he joked about it.
"Skill, they did this all on their own," Kakashi responded in a deadpan, while his students picked out the already prepared food in the kitchen, before sitting down next to team ten.
"Hey." Naruto greeted them cheerfully as he sat down. Chōji grunted in response, his mouth full, while Shikamaru glanced up from the plate he was slowly eating from and held back a sigh. Sakura found Ino staring at her with an odd, calculating look before greeting her coldly, glancing over at Sasuke.
"Sakura." She acknowledged, deciding not to resort immediately to insults, not certain what she should make of Sakura now, having seen what she was now capable of, having seen her powers demonstrated more than once now.
"Ino." Sakura returned the greeting, returning the favor, a little surprised that Ino was being polite enough for now. Seeing it as a great chance, she decided to take the opportunity to mend their friendship. "I was wondering if you're willing to talk for a bit," she asked, glancing at their teammates before adding, "alone."
Narrowing her eyes slightly at Sakura and furrowing her brows, Ino wondered what Sakura wanted with her but then agreed. "Of course." She agreed, before standing up together with Sakura, both of them leaving while the males all exchanged questioning looks before settling on Shikamaru for answers.
Sighing, Shikamaru didn't answer. "Bothersome." Was all they got out from him.
AN: Now, I fully expect to get some comments about Karin being the winner of her fight, and I completely understand that by all means, she shouldn't have won against Kankuro in a normal fight. However, I fully believe that with her advantage, and the self-imposed handicap Kankuro imposed on himself through his subversion tactic was enough to allow Karin to take enough advantage of the situation and deal enough damage to force Kankuro to surrender. As for what she told Kankuro, she threatened to twist the kunai in his shoulder, telling him she could render it useless forever. Considering that Kankuro is supposed to be there to spring a plan and support Gaara, it seems reasonable that he would avoid taking unnecessary risks to advance further in a competition that might not see fruition. Also, I believe Karin not being from the "soft-hearted" Konohagakure Shinobi also had an effect as she was more of an unknown, and able to tell him apart from his puppet before he even realized what had happened. By all means, it was a long shot, but Karin decided to risk it and bet everything on her one advantage, and things simply fell into place well enough that it paid off for her. After all, she is considered highly intelligent.
Oh, and I wish to apologize for the delay in posting this chapter. I got held up and was unable to write on this chapter earlier like I had originally planned and then had to work fast to upload it as soon as possible. I really hope I can get into the swing of things again and make it so that I properly have 2 buffer chapters like I used to.