Naruto Primer: Selected
Laser Tag
"Well, I guess it serves them right for eating all that fish without us." Lee said as he, Neji and Sasuke came strolling out of the hospital. He looked mildly satisfied.
"Not really." Said Sasuke. "Because if we had been there then we would have gotten sick too."
"No we wouldn't have!" said Lee, striking a pose. "Because we are good and awesome and would have thought twice about eating fish if not everyone was there!"
"But if we were there then EVERYONE would have been there and the situation wouldn't have presented itself." Neji pointed out. "Then we'd all be lying out in the woods helpless and ill for who knows how long?"
"It's a good thing we DIDN'T eat that fish then!!" Lee yelled.
"Who knew it would have been poisonous?" Sasuke finished. The three of them stood there and gave a heavy sigh.
"Well, what now?" asked Lee.
"I don't care what YOU guys do, I'm going to go off and…do stuff." Sasuke said.
"How about we TRAIN?!" Lee suggested dramatically.
"You two would just hold me back." Said Sasuke.
"No." said Neji in his defense.
Just then, the four girls came running up, each carrying a flower or two of mourning for their sick men. But then they got distracted by Sasuke. Except for Hinata of course. She was just following the pack because she didn't want to walk in the hospital ALONE!
"How come you guys didn't get sick?" asked Ino.
"Because we're better." Said Sasuke.
"It's because we didn't eat the bad fish." Neji said, even though he was also partial to the simple story that they were just better than everyone else.
"Oh…well, do you want to go on a date, Sasuke?" asked Sakura in a very straightforward fashion.
"No." said Sasuke.
"Oh, so you'd rather hang around with Lee and Neji?" Sakura said. "It's because I'm a girl, isn't it?!" All the girls started whispering amongst themselves.
"Sakura, I'll go on a date with you!" said Lee.
"How about we all just go out TOGETHER?" Tenten suggested.
"Where?" asked Hinata.
"I've got the perfect idea!" Tenten said as the scene faded and then reopened with them all standing right outside a Laser Tag entrance room.
"This was a really great idea, Tenten." Said Lee. "I mean…laser tag is SO much fun!! NOBODY can hate laser tag!!"
"I know." Said Tenten. "And even though I feel bad that we're playing laser tag while a bunch of other people are sick in the hospital, I don't really know anyone else besides Lee and Neji and you girls so it doesn't effect me as much as it SHOULD be effecting the rest of you!"
"So…we're playing team laser tag, right?" asked no one in particular.
"I want to be on Sasuke's team!" said Ino, grabbing onto Sasuke.
"No, I do!!" Sakura yelled.
"I have ANOTHER great idea!" Tenten announced as the scene faded AGAIN and unfaded to show Tenten holding a hat. "Okay, the first three names I pick out of this hat will be on one team and then everyone else will be on the OTHER team!"
"ALL RIGHT!!!" cheered everyone as a huge odor.
"Okay, so the first team is…" Tenten said as she reached into the hat and pulled out three pieces of paper. "Wow! Me, Sasuke and Ino!!"
"HEY!!" yelled Sakura. "You SO rigged that!!"
"I did not!" Tenten defended.
"Give me the hat, we're doing that over again!" Sakura said, taking the hat and all the papers away.
"Fine by me." Said Sasuke because he didn't want to be on a team with all girls anyway.
"No way!" said Ino. "It was fair and square!"
"No it wasn't and you know it!" said Sakura. She dropped all the other pieces into the hat, shook it around and then pulled out three more. "Uh… do over! Another do over!"
"What's it say?!" Ino demanded, taking the three pieces away. "Aha! Hinata, Sakura and Lee! So that means that the other team is me, Tenten, Sasuke AND Neji! All your little redo did was lose you Neji!"
"Then we're going with the first group!" Sakura said.
"No, the first one was rigged." Said Tenten.
"No it wasn't!!" Sakura argued. "The one I just did was rigged!!"
"Geez, you're so annoying…" said Sasuke in that 'Geez, you're so annoying!' tone that Sakura just can't handle.
"FINE!" said Sakura. "If that's the way you feel! FINE!!"
The Hinata, Lee and Sakura team decided to be BLUE and the Tenten, Ino, Sasuke and Neji team decided to be RED!! They entered the laser tag area and gave the man behind the desk their crazy nicknames and got their backpacks and guns.
Then they entered the abyss and had one minute to split up and hide. Of course, the teams split up together so they could formulate a strategy. If only Shikamaru was there!
"Okay, our strategy is…BEAT THE OTHER TEAM!!!" screamed Lee.
"SHHH!!" hissed Sakura and Hinata.
"Oh right." Said Lee in a very quiet whisper. "We must have stealth."
"Should we try to stick together?" Hinata asked.
"YES!!" yelled Lee. "STICKING TOGETHER IS THE KEY!!!"
"BE QUIET!!" Sakura yelled back.
Meanwhile, with the Red Team…
"Guys, I can't see the other team winning at this point." Tenten began to explain. "All we have to do is the buddy system and we've got this locked."
"Neji and I will go out there and you two can stay behind and hide." Sasuke tried to strategize.
"…No." said Tenten.
"No?" Sasuke said.
"That's not exactly what I had in mind." Tenten replied.
"What IS the plan?" Ino asked.
"All right, I'll go with Neji and you'll go with Sasuke." Tenten began. "Neji, with your ultimate defense, you'll always know if someone is behind us… or in front of us for that matter. It'll be your job to make sure no one shoots at us!"
"…Um…all right." Said Neji. It SOUNDED reasonable enough.
"And…well, the same thing goes for over here." Tenten said with a shrug to Ino and Sasuke.
"That doesn't sound like a very good plan." Said Sasuke.
"Would you rather split the teams up so that all the defense is on one side and all the attack is on the other?" Tenten asked.
"Since WHEN am I considered defense?" Neji and Sasuke said at the exact same time. Ino said it too, but instead of saying 'defense', she said 'attack'.
"Well, I'M the one with impeccable aim." Tenten said. "And Neji, you have your Byakugan so when we're sniping or something you can say that there's someone behind me and I'll turn around and I'll SHOOT them!"
"But what if I want to shoot them?" Neji asked.
Just then, the alarm sounded to signal the crossfire to begin.
"Let's just try my strategy for a little while and I'll show you guys that it's the best we've got!" Tenten insisted.
"Whatever." Said Sasuke as he ran off. Ino quickly followed behind him because SHE didn't mind following Sasuke around everywhere, whether they were playing laser tag or not! She was just glad that Tenten had assigned herself with Neji because he was kind of creepy…and he did the Macarena.
Even though his team had previously decided that they were going to stay together, Lee had subconsciously run off without them and now he was all alone. It kind of scared him a bit, to think that no one was watching his back, but once he started improvising a little bit of theme music for himself, all his confidence returned and he was able to carry on.
He wasn't going after anyone particular, just looking for anyone on the Red Team he could potentially fire at. There was only thirty minutes to prove to the world how good at laser tag he was even though he had never really played before. Still! Even someone who can only use taijutsu had the chance at excelling at laser tag!
Hinata didn't like being alone. Not only did she not exactly have the best aim in the world, but she wasn't very good in pressured situations, such as this one. She didn't want to let her team down by not doing well, but she hadn't ever played before!
Suddenly, she heard the backpack she was wearing start sounding sirens and flashing bright lights. She looked at the yellow informational bar on the gun and read, 'Eagle'. "Shot by Eagle?" she said, looking a little distressed. She started looking around but couldn't see anyone who would have been able to get a shot at her. Quickly, she tried to dodge behind a corner.
Suddenly, her backpack started shooting of sirens again. "Ah! Shot by Eagle again!" she exclaimed. "I'll have to lose him…or her…!"
She started running away but her backpack seemed to be constantly on and she kept looking at the bar on her gun. "Shot by Eagle! Shot by Eagle!" she read time and time again. "I think Eagle is picking on me! Eagle hit me in the arm! Eagle hit me in the back! My front?! He's all around me! Shot by Eagle! Shot by…oh…shot by Spider Man."
She stopped and looked around. Still, she didn't see anything.
Meanwhile, Sakura was sitting in a slightly secluded area. There was only one opening in her entire corner and she knew that if anyone were to frolic by, she would see him before he saw her! Then she would shoot him before he even knew what hit him.
Suddenly, a green blur just flew by and Sakura's backpack started rumbling and making all sorts of noises. She paused for a moment and then looked at her gun to see who had shot her. "Lotus?" she said obliviously.
Sasuke was creeping around every corner. Ino was following him. "Have you gotten anyone yet?" Ino whispered.
"Wah!" Sasuke jumped as he turned around and shot Ino by accident. "Oops. Sorry about that. You surprised me."
"No, it's okay!" laughed Ino. "But I get to shoot you in return!" And then she shot him back.
Sasuke glared at her. "It doesn't work that way." He said. "Mine was an accident." Then he shot her again.
"Hey!" said Ino, shooting Sasuke. "Cut that out!"
"YOU cut that out." Said Sasuke, shooting her back.
Ino went to shoot him again, but Sasuke put his hand over the gun where the laser came out. Then, just for good measure, he shot her and then ran off.
"HEY!" Ino yelled. "We're supposed to be on the same team!"
Meanwhile, Neji looked up from his current mission at Tenten who was waiting ever so impatiently. "Are you done yet?" she asked.
"Yeah, I guess…" Neji said. They were just about to run off to find people to kill when Neji's backpack suddenly started going crazy.
"How…?" Tenten asked.
"What?!" Neji demanded, looking at his gun. "How did…Beautiful Maiden know my blind angle?!"
"The only person I can imagine who would know your blind angle would be Lee and there's no way he would name himself Beautiful Maiden." Tenten deducted.
Then they paused.
"Actually, he probably would." Tenten corrected herself.
"Well then I have to find Lee and hit him too." Said Neji. Suddenly, Neji spun around and shot his gun a few more times.
"What, was it Lee?" Tenten asked.
"No…I'm not sure who it was." Said Neji, looking at his gun. "I hit someone named 'Lotus'."
Meanwhile, Hinata was sure she had finally found a safe corner. By now, she was scared out of her mind by her stalker, Eagle, who had finally seemed to leave her alone. It was quiet at last, now that her backpack had stopped reacting from Eagle's continuous onslaught.
She gave a heavy sigh. "Maybe I should just stay here…" she said. "Eagle can't seem to get me here."
Suddenly, her backpack started reacting again. She jumped in such horrid surprise, but was almost relieved when she looked at her gun to see that it said Rose.
She tried to find the source of the shot, but she was just far too frazzled to collect herself. She hoped that Rose wasn't planning to continuously attack her like Eagle had, but she relaxed for a moment when her backpack did. Obviously, this wasn't a safe spot. But it was safe from Eagle, and wasn't that all that was important?
That's when her backpack spazzed out again. Hinata nearly started hyperventilating when she looked at the name on the gun to see that she had been shot by Eagle again.
"He found me!" she gasped. "I have to get away! I have to find a new hiding spot!!"
Ino was looking around for someone to shoot. The only person she had shot so far was Sasuke and a stranger named 'Topanga'. She hadn't seen who it was that she shot, she had just seen a figure in the distance standing still and figured she had nothing to lose. But now she had to find someone else. Namely, Sakura.
Sakura was in a similar boat, but she hadn't even had the grace of shooting Sasuke yet. She had been sitting in her little corner and shot the gun off wildly at the green blur again. She THOUGHT she got him, but the last time he had shot her, it had said that his name was Lotus and the name she got on her gun had said Eagle. Apparently, Eagle had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
They both rounded the corner and crashed into each other.
"Sakura!" Ino yelled, jumping backwards.
"Ino!" Sakura said as well. They both raised their guns to shoot each other, but before either pulled the trigger, something came out of nowhere and grabbed Sakura, disappearing in seconds.
Then Ino's backpack reacted. "What?!" Ino demanded, turning around to see Sasuke standing there.
"Sorry, I was going for Sakura." He said.
"You did that on purpose!" Ino said angrily as she went to shoot Sasuke but he was far too quick for her and was soon out of sight.
Meanwhile, Sakura was just landing. She looked up at her savior to see Lee standing there. She had been expecting Sasuke, though no one knows why, so you can imagine her utter disappointment. "I saved you from certain doom!" Lee announced.
"I WANTED to face off against Ino!" Sakura whined.
"Let's face off against Ino TOGETHER!!" Lee yelled as a wave crashed behind him.
Suddenly, both their packs reacted.
"Eagle?" Sakura said. "I guess he's getting me back for earlier…"
"GOD?!" Lee yelled. "I WAS SHOT BY GOD!!! SAKURA!! I WAS SHOT BY GOD!! GOD SHOT ME!!!"
"I'm going to go and…shoot stuff." Said Sakura uneasily as she stood up and quickly ran off before Lee could pursue her since he was still in shock about the fact that God shot him.
Meanwhile, Sasuke was peering around the corner, watching Neji and Tenten. Apparently he had managed to wedge himself in Neji's blind angle without even realizing it because Neji didn't seem to be noticing him. All he had to do was fire from his exact position at both of them and…and then what? Once Neji moved even an inch in any direction, he would be seen.
"The mirrors…" Sasuke said as he looked a set of mirrors that were behind Neji. "If I shoot the mirrors, they laser will bounce off and hit Neji. That'll confuse him for a bit. Long enough for me to get away, maybe even get another shot in…"
Just as he was about to carry out his evil plot, he remembered that he was on the same team as Neji and Tenten. Then he became frustrated. "Aw man…it's such a great plan…so perfect…" he muttered to himself. He thought it over for a good few seconds before he finally concluded that it was worth it just so he could throw Neji into an extreme state of confusion.
Taking careful aim, he shot the mirror, perfectly ricocheting it off and hitting Neji in the back. Then he moved slightly to the left as both Tenten and Neji looked over to see how Neji had POSSIBLY been shot, and then he shot Neji again from the side and Tenten as well.
With his fiendish plan carried out, he darted off as fast as he could.
Tenten and Neji, meanwhile, were baffled.
"How did that happen?!" Neji yelled, using his Byakugan to search behind him, not even noticing the mirrors. "My blind angle isn't THERE…"
"We'll just have to make up the points tenfold!" said Tenten.
"And I know just how to do it!" said Neji.
"No, not again." Whined Tenten.
Ino finally managed to hit someone called 'Topanga' again, but it seemed that someone named Spider Man was following her slightly. Not obsessively, but it seemed that a majority of the shots were coming from him. Or her. She wished she knew who it was so she would know how to strategize against him. Or her.
Suddenly, Lee descended from the heavens and opened fire on Ino. "Haha!" said Lee as he finally stopped. "Taste my wrath!"
It was silent. No sound of Ino's backpack reacting.
"Um…is this thing broken?" Lee said, looking at his gun.
"No, I think your aim is just bad." Said Ino as she shot at Lee.
Lee's backpack exploded with lights and sounds. He looked at the gun. "AWK! You're God?!" he gasped.
"…No…" she said. "Did I miss? Or did someone get you first?"
"God is out to get me!!" Lee gasped. Suddenly, his backpack reacted again. "Oh no! Eagle too?!"
Hinata was curled up in a little ball in the corner. She was only staring at the gun, FAR too scared to even move. Someone was out to get her. That EAGLE. This would haunt her forever.
Her backpack started going more crazy than it ever had before. She looked at the gun to see the words 'Game Over'. "GAME OVER?!" she gasped. "Did I get shot too much?! They wanted to end the game for me because I was just slowing everyone else down?!"
"No, the half an hour's up." Said Sakura as she walked by.
"Oh." Said Hinata, standing up and brushing herself off slightly.
When everyone met outside, they all met around the jounin behind the counter who would announce the winners.
"The winning team is the Red Team!" announced the jounin behind the counter.
"YAY!!" cheered the Red Team.
"Now, as you know, getting hit is –100 points." The jounin explained as he stacked all the individual scorecards up. "Hitting someone is +100 points. Hitting your own teammate is –500."
"-500?!" Sasuke gasped.
"Good thing you hit me more!" laughed Ino.
"So, the individual winner for today is on the Red Team!" the jounin said. "Coming leaps and bounds ahead of even the second place player is…Eagle with 8100 points!"
Everyone quickly looked around. They had all pretty much been shot by Eagle at least once, but Hinata wanted to know the most. Then, Neji stepped forward and received his scorecard.
"Nice job, Neji!" said Tenten.
"Oh…" said Hinata to herself. "He must have…um…oh…I bet it's nothing personal. Just a coincidence."
"Second place is…GOD with 2800!" said the Jounin.
"I knew Sasuke was egotistical and all but…come on, GOD?" Neji said under his breath.
"All right, who's God?!" Lee yelled. "It's you, isn't it Sasuke?!"
"No." said Sasuke.
Tenten stepped forward and took her scorecard.
"TENTEN IS GOD?!" Lee gasped. "Wow, Tenten! You got me so many times! You really ARE god of the laser tag!! Except for Neji who practically tripled your score."
"That's because he hit Hinata a zillion times." Tenten sighed.
"He must have spotted me and just gone after me because I was a target." Hinata assured herself.
Neji chose not to comment on the matter.
"Third place is Lotus with 400 points!" the Jounin said.
"ALL RIGHT!!!" cheered Lee. "I'M THIRD PLACE!!" Then he turned to Neji and Tenten. "But still, you two OWNED me!!"
"Fourth place is Beautiful Maiden with –100 points!" said the Jounin.
"Really?" said Sakura, taking her card. "I hardly shot at all. But at least I did better than Ino! Haha!"
People were starting to stare at Sasuke because he was BELOW someone who had 'hardly shot at all'.
"Fifth is Rose with --2800." Said the Jounin, getting less and less enthusiastic as he got down to the lower places.
"I thought I did a little better than that…" Ino said, looking disappointed.
"I have the two final scorecards here." Said the Jounin. "Officially, these are the two lowest scores ever recorded. In sixth place is Topanga who didn't even fire once but got shot by pretty much everyone else, especially Eagle. And then, in last place, we have Spider Man who managed to shoot ONLY members on his own team. And Topanga. Once. Might I add that Spider Man didn't get hit a SINGLE time…except for a member of his own team, Rose, who shot him twice."
He handed the Topanga scorecard to Hinata and the Spider Man one to Sasuke.
"Sasuke came in last…" everyone whispered amongst themselves.
"-13900?" Sasuke said, diving deep into his inferiority complex.
"I only got –9000!" said Hinata happily. "I thought I did a lot worse than that!"
"Sasuke, it's because you hit me twenty times, you know that right?" Ino said, looking at her scorecard. She took Sasuke's and looked at it. "And you hit Tenten three times and Neji four times. The scorekeeper was right, though. The only person you hit who wasn't on your own team and was Hinata! And the only person who hit you was me!"
She looked at her own scorecard. "And if I hadn't hit you those two times… I would have only had –1800 points." She sighed. "And if you hadn't hit me those twenty times, I would have had two hundred points!"
Sasuke was at a complete loss for words.
"I can't believe Sasuke came in last." Said Lee to Tenten and Neji. "I would have said that I owned him, but I never hit him!"
"He hit me four times…" Neji said, looking quite angry. "How did he manage to do something like that? One time…maybe. But four times? And what's this? Beautiful Maiden? That's Sakura, right?"
"I'm surprised that she could hit you in your blind angle." Said Tenten.
Hinata was standing slightly by herself. She was looking at her scorecard to see that Eagle, or Neji, had hit her seventy-five times. Was it just coincidence? Yes, it had to be. Why would he go after her like that? She was just a moving target, that's all…
As everyone left the laser tag place, Neji pulled Sakura aside. "Sakura, you were Beautiful Maiden, right?" he asked.
"Right!" she said.
"Well, I can understand how Sasuke might have hit me…" Neji said, looking at his scorecard. "But I have to ask how you knew where my blind angle was."
"…What?" said Sakura.
"You hit me." Said Neji, showing his scorecard to Sakura. "In the back. Right where my blind angle is. How did you know? Who told you? Was it Lee?"
"Uh…no…" said Sakura. "I just shot the gun a few times. It might have just been a random thing!"
"I would have seen it." Neji said. "This was obviously a calculated shot if you managed to hit the one spot that I can't see."
"I think it was just by accident." Sakura assured him.
Neji glared at Sakura. Even as he walked away, he was still glaring at her as his back was turned because he could still see her.