Part 14-Competition

The eight of them left through the village's gates, they were no longer in the sanctuary of the hidden konoha village. 7 of the most talented genin the village have; Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuga Hinata, Aburame Shino, Haruno Sakura, Uzamaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke and Yamanka Ino, and finally, the newest and probably most intelligent Chuunin so far, Nara Shikamaru.

They travelled for a day until they came to the fire country's boundaries.

"We can't go any further for now…" Shikamaru stopped

"Why not?" Naruto attempted to get Shikamaru to keep walking

"Because where we are standing is fire country territory, if we walk about 10 meters that way," he pointed to his right, "we'll be in sound country, once we cross that border we have officially started this mission. We have passes but since that is Orochimaru's country, we may not be allowed entry if we are caught by any sound-nins."

"We may as well camp here for tonight then…" Ino threw down her bags, soon followed by everyone else.

"Man I'm tired!" Kiba decided to make a point of his tiredness, he walked over to his tent and tripped over a rock, he got up and dusted him self off, "I'm okay!"

"Hahahaha! You tripped over a rock!" Naruto proceeded to ridicule Kiba as he walked towards him and tripped over the very same rock

Kiba looked down at Naruto, raised an eyebrow and held out his hand, "need help?"

"Umm…" Naruto looked around, "Yeah… Thanks…" Naruto reached out his hand and Kiba helped him up, "try not to draw attention to this…"

"Everyone's looking already… and laughing…"

"Just don't embarrass me…"

"So… You mean, don't do what you did?"

"Yeah."

"Hahahaha! You tripped over a rock! You mean that?" Kiba smiled a little

Naruto shot him and evil glare and walked off, cursing under his breath. Kiba turned around and headed to where Shino and Hinata had set up. He stood there for a minute, wondering where they had gone when he heard a loud shot from about 5 meters away. That sounds like… He turned and ran as fast as he could, closely followed by Akamaru.

"NINPOU, FIRE STORM NO JUTSU!" A whirl of flames flew at Hinata's opponent, who dodged them easily

"Kikai bunshin no jutsu." Shino's bugs created a perfect clone of himself. The two Shino's approached Hinata.

"Damn…" Hinata jumped away from the approaching Shinos, she stood on a branch about halfway up the tree, she performed a set of hand seals that Kiba had seen on many occasions, "byakugun!" she blinked to focus in on her opponent and his clone, as soon as she could tell Shino's chakra apart from the bugs' she performed a familiar set of hand seals, "FIRE STORM NO JUTSU!" Another whirl of flames flew at Shino's clone. The bugs immediately dispersed.

"Damn…" This time it was Shino's turn to have his plan thwarted. He sighed; he found it amazing that bugs from fire country were afraid of fire. He frowned, he couldn't think of anything that wouldn't harm Hinata

"Maybe you guys should give it a rest, ne?" Kiba jumped down from the tree, he stayed at the sidelines just in case they decided to carry on

"Yeah, I guess you're right Kiba-kun." Hinata walked to the edge of the branch she was standing on and jumped off, unfortunately for and unsuspecting Kiba she landed on him causing Kiba a very unpleasant feeling in his head. "Oh my god, Kiba you're bleeding!"

"Hinata?" He managed to choke out

"Yeah?" Hinata answered while she was plastering the cuts that had now appeared on Kiba's cheek

"You're… crushing… mee…"

"Oh! Sorry!" Hinata jumped up, she looked down at him and raised an eyebrow, "do you ever go through a day in your life without getting injured?"

"Not since I was born…" He stood up and brushed himself off, "Hinata, where did you learn that skill?"

"Remember when I said that I was getting help from Shikamaru on some new jutsus?"

"Vaguely…" He raised an eyebrow, "that was it?"

"One of them… I've been practising elemental type jutsus, so far fire and water types have been the easiest."

"Water types… unusual…" Shino raised his own eyebrow

"We should rest up, our mission starts properly tomorrow…" Hinata strolled off towards where they had set up, followed by Akamaru. Kiba turned to follow Hinata and Akamaru but he was pulled back by Shino.

"You like her, don't you?"

"Me? No way, she's totally not… my… type?" Kiba could tell by the look on Shino's face that he didn't believe him

"Idiot, it's obvious, I'm honestly surprised that no one's noticed it other than me."

"When did you notice?"

"Probably when we were in the academy, I just never brought it up…"

"Shino, if you want… I'll back off…"

"Don't… I'm not going to make you do that, besides, you liked her first"

"This is pretty unusual for you Shino…"

"I look forward to the competition…"

"So do I…"

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A/N-Sorry it took so long to write, I had really bad writers block, I still cant think of anything for my Gaara fic, the only reason I managed to write this was because of questions from my mum, yes that's right, my MOTHER reads this fic