So, I'm back after a couple of weeks, hehe. I'm sorry, it's been quite busy recently, and I've spent nearly all my free time (which isn't much ;-;) playing Genshin Impact, so I hope you understand.
Anyways, here's chapter 21, and we've officially caught up in chapters with the original version! As well as officially started the final phase of the Chūnin Exams hehe.
I hope you enjoy it!
As the sun entered through the window of his room, the half-blood saiyan had already woken up. He'd already prepared his breakfast, one of his favorite plates, actually, a bowl of rice with eggs above it. This plate was called just like him back in his world, he wasn't sure if it was the same in the one he'd been living on for the past few weeks. Eating that plate gave him some nostalgia from past breakfasts with his family, when his mother cooked it to him.
His plate was on the table, close to the little kitchen he had in his apartment. In that same table, a pile of books stood out, books that Gohan had read in search for a possible way to go back to his home. He really hadn't taken much time to think about his situation and being stranded in his world, he just worked hard to go back and fix the problem as fast as he could. One thing started to feel wrong, though, that for as much as he read and researched, he could not find anything that got him even remotely closer to finding an answer. There, though, is when it hit him. He could possibly be stranded there forever.
Nah, they'll take me back with the dragon balls anyway. He tried to convince himself. Maybe time here goes by faster than in my world, that's why they seem to be taking so much time.
As he thought, he noticed that he'd already finished his meal, so he went back and washed the bowl he'd filled at least five times before. He had already got used to cook lots of food for himself, figuring that it would be cheaper for him to cook than buying food constantly.
While he washed the dishes, he continued thinking, even though he didn't want to, about his situation. He tried to imagine forming a life there, which he had kind of done already, but maybe going more serious. He thought of all the friends he'd made up until now, all the people he's known, and yet he was quick to reject it. He still preferred his life back in his world, but deep inside, he knew that he probably wouldn't be able to go back, and deep inside, he started to get ready for it.
As he finished washing the dishes, he got himself ready. He had already taken a bath and changed his clothes, so he only needed to brush his teeth and make sure he looked decently good. As he brushed his teeth, he noticed that his left arm still had a noticeable scar due to the blast received from Cell, which made him find the net shirt he wore under his normal shirt really useful at hiding said scar. As he finished, he left his hair messy and left for the arena where the Exams were being held. He really wasn't enthusiastic about it, but he wanted to support his new friends, as they had supported him back when he surrendered.
As Gohan arrived at the arena, he noticed how big it was, which surprised him as he had never really had the opportunity to go to one. He also noticed that he hadn't been the only one to wake up early that day, as the arena was already full when he arrived, and everyone was ready for the event to start. It was only then when he noticed how big of an event the Chūnin Exams truly were, which made him upset.
He met with his teammates and master right before heading to his seat along Chouji. That month of training had surely made them improve, but it had been quite a soft training for him, which did no more than help him realize the difference between himself and his teammates. During that month, Asuma helped Gohan understand chakra fully, although the half-saiyan still found it improbable for him to ever try to imitate such energy flow with his Ki. After his lessons with the son of the Third, he compared the Ki and Chakra and found that Ki seemed to be much more of a simple and stronger energy than the more complex and yet weaker chakra.
What he hadn't noticed up until meeting them before the exams, is that he'd grown closer to his teammates during that month. He'd started to worry about them, and there was no exception knowing that two of them would be forced to battle to death against another one of their level.
"If anything happens, I'll intervene in the fight." Gohan said, his voice and face serious, but clearly concerned for his now friends.
"Well... That would be against the rules, you know..." Asuma scratched the back of his head as he smiled nervously.
"Yeah, you'd only get us disqualified." Shikamaru said with a dull tone, yawning afterwards product of him not being accustomed to waking up early.
Ino laughed softly at the concern of the strong-looking saiyan. "Don't worry, Gohan, we've trained a lot this month with you and Asuma-sensei, we surely have become stronger!"
"Uh, I'll try not to, then, but I don't promise anything." Gohan said as he crossed his arms, his concern remaining intact.
They talked for a couple more minutes, now about the matches and what they should take to account during them. Gohan, Chouji and Asuma said goodbye to their teammates and students, respectively, as the time of the matches was already getting close. The half-saiyan hoped he was able to go where the remaining candidates to become Chūnin were so he could support them more closely, but in the end he thought that it wasn't all that necessary.
When Asuma, Chouji and Gohan reached their seats the Hokage had already started to talk. Lord Third was sitting up in a balcony that stood at a higher level than the rest of the seats of the gigantic stadium, having a better view of the entirety of the arena in which the genin would fight in that day. Next to his own seat (which was bigger than a normal seat for normal people), the Kazekage, the leader of the Village Hidden in the Sand, was sitting in an exact copy of the Third's one.
Gohan paid close attention to the old man as he spoke, everyone cheering at him after every single sentence. He felt it weird for people to love a leader that would allow kids to fight to death with other shinobi, maybe he still failed to fully comprehend the world he was currently living in, but at least he was still able to empathise with people from there.
"Now, proceeding to announce the matches prepared for today, which weren't revealed until today for purposes related to the characteristics we want in our chūnin." The Third grabbed a scroll and opened it as he cleared his throat. "The first match will have Sasuke Uchiha and Kiba Inuzuka face each other. Please, go into the arena so we can proceed with the match."
Inside the special balcony for the participants, confusion grew as Sasuke was nowhere to be seen. They started looking for the Uchiha, some even going out of the special balcony to see if he was lost or if he hadn't seen the entrance of the balcony in the hall of the stadium, but everyone still failed to find him. Once they met back, they started theorising.
"Is he late or something?" Kiba asked as he scratched the back of his head through his sweater.
"I have no idea." Ino said, disappointed as she wouldn't be able to see him fight.
"He's late, we only have to wait for him for a bit!" Naruto cheerfully said, excited to watch his teammate and friend compete.
Back up in the balcony of the Third, Yuichi, the assistant of the Hokage, informed him that Sasuke had not arrived on time for his match. Hiruzen thought about the situation for a couple of seconds before nodding and taking a decision.
"As Sasuke Uchiha is yet to arrive," the old man said, catching the attention of Daichi in the audience, who was surprised that Sasuke had been late, "the first match will be postponed and we'll go on with the next one." He opened the scroll once again to check for the second match. "Shino Aburame, from the Leaf, and Zaku Abumi, from the Sound."
Shino was quite confident in himself, and everyone there was able to notice, surprising even Naruto for his attitude even in the last phase of the exams. On the other hand, Zaku was more confident this time than he'd seemed to be in the preliminaries, being able to at least hide his nervousness. Now with his arms recovered, the genin from the sound had the capacity to exploit the full potential of his special technique.
Both shinobi went down to the arena through the stairs that were in a side of the balcony, some large staircase that went directly to the door that entered the arena. In there, Hayate, the referee, waited for them patiently. They positioned themselves one in front of the other, adopting their respective fighting stances. Zaku's serious glare broke for a second because of the coldness that came from his opponent, his black glasses doing no more than increase that coldness. Hayate gave the signal and the genin with the glasses started to attack almost immediately.
A rain of kunai was easily avoided by the sound genin, which helped the Aburame to have a better idea of the level of his opponent. Zaku was the next one to attack, throwing a couple of shuriken to distract his opponent, and hiding the sound of his movements with soft sound waves thrown by his arms. Once Shino had deflected the shuriken, the sound genin was nowhere to be seen, at least until his back was kicked. The hit threw him slightly in front, but he was quick to react to the attack, blocking his opponent's punch with his kunai.
Shino hardly ever forgot the way someone fought, and that's what surprised his teammates as a powerful shockwave hit him directly, as if he had forgotten the signature technique of one of his possible opponents in the final phase of the exams. The sound wave forced Shino to fall back, giving Zaku the confidence he'd lacked at the beginning of the fight. From this point on, the sound genin would try to not give a chance to his opponent.
Zaku ran towards his opponent, throwing a kunai when he was quite close, it being blocked by a cloud of bugs, and throwing himself to the side of his opponent, letting another powerful sound wave out of his hand to, once again, hit his opponent directly. At this point, Shino was covered by a gigantic amount of bugs that seemed to come out of nowhere. The sound genin now extended both of his arms towards the barrier of bugs, obviously planning to destroy the defense with his sound waves.
In the balcony of the participants, a great sensation of surprise and concern started to grow within the Leaf genin, while the Sand genin seemed to be quite unsurprised of what was happening. Even back in the audience, Hinata and Kurenai were really worried of what could happen to him. Something catched Chouji's attention, though, Gohan seemed to be more confused than surprised, as if he knew something that they didn't. He did, of course, as he could feel that Shino's power was higher than his opponent's.
"What's happening to Shino? He seemed quite calm at the start..." Kiba confusedly said, more to himself than to anyone else.
Ino shook her head, not being able to explain what was happening. "I have no idea."
"He's probably letting the other guy get overconfident, so he can easily counter attack and win." Shikamaru said as he held his hands behind his head, quite relaxed. "I assume that's the reason why he hasn't used his bugs that much."
"I see... So maybe those trees are already filled with bugs?" Lee said, thoughtfully, as he scratched his chin.
"That's just one possibility." Shikamaru responded.
Gaara and Neji ignored the conversation as they limited themselves to watch the match, both of them already wanting to have their own matches. Temari, on the other hand, was surprised by the assumption of the Leaf genin with the pony tail. Naruto didn't even notice there had been a conversation, his thoughts already being too busy in understanding the match itself.
"But what if he doesn't have a plan?" Shiho suggested, gaining everyone's attention, except for Naruto's, Neji's and Gaara's, that is. "I mean, he already used his bugs, and a large amount of them, so that isn't a valid argument anymore..."
"He surely has way more, he's Shino, after all." Shikamaru calmly answered.
"She has a point, though." Temari intervened, surprising the girl with the glasses. "That barrier surely has many bugs forming it. I don't think he can fit much more bugs in his jacket."
Before the Nara could respond, a giant stream of bugs came out from the barrier, causing Zaku to throw his sound waves quickly, out of surprise, and missing one of the shots. One did land on the stream, even being able to stop it at first, but it went on and hit the Sound genin directly in the abdomen. Subsequently, the black shadow of bugs absorbed the body of the Sound genin, not taking much time for two powerful sound waves to be shot out from it, opening to big holes in the shadow and being able to escape the swarm of bugs.
As soon as Zaku tried to shoot his sound waves, he figured he was unable to, and instead, he felt an increasing pressure in his arms. Shino smirked behind the turtle neck of his jacket, waiting for his opponent's arm to explode. His smirk was quick to disappear, though, as the bugs inside the mechanism were thrown out by the sound waved, and now, his opponent would not make the same mistake.
Shino was forced into a more one to one fight, his plan A already having failed, although it had managed to do something, it had damaged the insides of his arm and now the waves were weaker. The bug expert noticed that he was too slow for his opponent, because Zaku put his hand directly in his ear, and he was suddenly dizzy and only heard a whistle-like noise.
From the outside, the damage to Shino's left ear was clear. Blood covered almost the entirety of it, while the shot of sound had been enough to make him fall down on his butt. Anyways, Zaku could not enjoy this sight for much, as the bugs attacked him in response, now not only entering inside his arms, but also inside his ears, mouth and nose. The Sound genin's eyes widened in utter horror as the bug expert stood up, blood still coming out of his ear, looking directly at him.
"Surrender now, or die a horrible death." Shino said with his cold and creepy voice.
"I prefer to die than to surrender." A clearly scared Zaku responded, standing up in one last try to knock his opponent out.
Unfortunately, as soon as he placed both of his hands in Shino's ears, the bugs knocked him out from the inside, but causing a domino effect and shooting the sound wave from Zaku's hands. Now Zaku was unconscious and Shino was almost deaf and incredibly dizzy. Zaku started to fall down through the bug expert's chest, and as the last insect came out from his body, he was already in the floor.
"Zaku Abumi has fallen unconscious, the winner is Shino Aburame!" Hayate announced, gesturing his hand towards the genin with the black glasses, who let himself fall down as soon as he saw this.
The audience cheered after a thrilling and intense match, which increased the expectations as this had just been the first one. The participants were all amazed by how intense the battle had been, specially Naruto, who was just shocked at how good Shino really was. Kiba cheered for his teammate, as well as his master, Kurenai, back in the audience, although Hinata was worried for her teammate.
Gohan, however, was shocked by the injuries the genin had received. He never thought that this competition would exceed the likes of the World Tournament back in his world, but this had been even worse than any story his dad had told him. Asuma put his hand on the half-blood saiyan's shoulder, giving him a smile and patting his back afterwards, and this helped Gohan calm down.
So that was the chapter!
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