Naruto Primer Lost Chapter: All
The Stumps
This suggestion came from no one. It was OUR idea!! We know how much you guys love the competition chapters so we decided to give you another.
It was the day after New Years and everyone was scheduled to meet at a certain area for training. It certainly was odd that EVERYONE was to meet in the same spot, considering their teachers had announced that there would be no more competitions. They found six stumps aligned in a row that weren't there before.
A brainstorming session commenced but before they could get terribly far into it, the teachers all appeared.
"Good job of being on time!!" said Gai excitedly.
"Now we can start the next competition right away!" Asuma said.
"I thought there weren't supposed to be anymore competitions." Chouji said. "Cause all four of you made resolutions not to make us compete with each other. Last night."
"The object of this competition is very simple!" said Kurenai, ignoring Chouji. "We have split you into partners! After we read off the partners, one of the two has to stand on the stump for the entire competition so choose wisely!"
"And the partners are as follows;" said Kakashi. "Kiba and Shino. Lee and Shikamaru. Hinata and Chouji. Ino and Sasuke. Neji and Sakura. Tenten and Naruto."
"All right!!" cheered Ino. "I'm with Sasuke!"
"You can stand on the stump." Said Sasuke to Ino. "I'll do the important stuff."
"You got it, Sasuke!" said Ino happily. "Anything you say!"
Shino turned to Kiba. "You got the stump?" he asked.
"I am all over the stump." Kiba replied.
"YEAH!!!" yelled Lee, jumping up on the stump. "I'VE GOT THIS JOB!!"
Shikamaru sighed. He wanted to be the one who stood on the stump. He assumed that since it involved standing on a stump, there probably wouldn't be much to it. But now Lee was standing on the stump. Gosh darn him.
"Um…do you mind?" Hinata asked as she nervously looked at Chouji.
"How about you stand on the stump?" said Chouji. "I want to do whatever Shikamaru's doing."
"Well, okay." Said Hinata with a shrug.
Neji had a similar philosophy as Sasuke, only backwards. He figured that the person on the stump would have a more important role considering it had a specific job. "Sakura, I'll take the stump." He said.
"Um. Fine." Said Sakura. She wasn't about to ARGUE with him!
"Don't worry, Tenten." Said Naruto. "I'll take care of that stump! You just watch me!!"
"Whatever." Said Tenten.
"So…Kiba, Lee, Hinata, Ino, Neji and Naruto are on their stumps?" said Asuma as all the mentioned students got on their very own stump.
"So that means that Shino, Shikamaru, Chouji, Sasuke, Sakura and Tenten… are on their partners." Said Kurenai.
"What?" said all the students.
"For this challenge, the person standing on the stump must hold their partner in the air!" Kakashi said. "The person on the bottom can hold the person on top however they want but they must remain ON the stump and the person on top cannot touch the ground or the stump!"
"Focusing chakra in your feet to make yourself lighter is not allowed." Said Gai. "And trust us, we'll KNOW if you're doing it! After all, we're jounins!"
"As soon as everyone is in position, we'll start!" said Asuma. "Whoever can hold their partner the longest is the winner!"
The students not on the stump approached their stumped partners.
"This would be a lot easier if you didn't have ten billion bugs in your body!" said Kiba as he hoisted Shino up onto his shoulders. It was like a shoulder ride! "But don't worry, I hold Akamaru all the time."
"I think I'm heavier than Akamaru." Said Shino.
"You are, actually." Said Kiba, pushing through the pain.
"COME ON, SHIKAMARU!!" yelled Lee. "WE'RE GOING TO WIN THIS ONE!!"
"All right…" said Shikamaru as Lee easily picked him up and held him high above his head.
"If I don't win this competition then I'm going to do five hundred laps!!" Lee announced. "And if I can't do those five hundred laps then I'll do a thousand push-ups! And if I can't do those then—"
"Lee…" interrupted Shikamaru. "Be quiet."
Chouji and Hinata stared at each other for a minute.
"I'm not going to make you do this." Said Chouji wistfully.
"But…" started Hinata.
"This stupid and random competition doesn't matter to me!" said Chouji. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Oh." Said Hinata. "I hadn't even thought of that."
"We forfeit." Said Chouji, trying not to sound sad.
"All right." Said one of the teachers as they marked that down on their sheet.
"I get to have Sasuke sitting on my shoulders!" Ino sang.
"Just for the record, I DON'T want to do this." Said Sasuke, crossing his arms. "So I'm going to STAND on your shoulders."
"Won't that be uncomfortable?" said Ino uneasily.
"Brace yourself." Said Sasuke as he jumped up into the air and landed on Ino's shoulders, standing upright. Ino faltered and almost stumbled off the stump, but she caught herself and grabbed onto Sasuke's ankles.
"I won't let you down, Sasuke!!" she said, her face getting red already.
"We need to win this, Neji!" said Sakura, strangely enthusiastic. "We're the underdogs besides Naruto but he doesn't count anyway!"
"You're an underdog." Said Neji. "I'M the number one rookie from my year."
"Okay…but still!" said Sakura. "If we win, we won't be underdogs!"
"YOU'RE an underdog." Neji said, not knowing how much longer he could go before he smote Sakura.
"Whatever!" said Sakura. "Let's get started!" Neji picked up Sakura and sat her down on his shoulders. Both of them were immediately not partial to their situation with the current person, but they tried to look on the bright side of things. At least Neji wasn't with Hinata and Sakura wasn't with Naruto!!
"I'm going to prove to Sasuke that I'm better than him!!" said Naruto to Tenten. "So I'm going to beat him while standing on my hands and you can stand on my feet!"
"No, let's just do this the intelligent way." Said Tenten.
"Fine." Said Naruto as Tenten got on his shoulders.
The minutes dragged by.
"This isn't as fun as I thought it would be." Admitted Gai.
"Chouji, Hinata, you have new jobs!" said Kakashi. "You have to make the teams fall!"
"WITHOUT touching them." Gai added.
"How are we supposed to do that?" asked Chouji.
"I don't know." Said Asuma. "That's part of your challenge considering you quit without trying."
"Sasuke…" Ino whined. "I don't know how much more my shoulders can take with you standing on them…"
Sasuke looked down at Ino. He battled internally with himself for a very long time before finally giving a heavy sigh. It was his personal comfort or winning. He was going for winning.
"I'm going to very slowly get into a sitting position." Sasuke said.
"Okay!" said Ino.
He moved slowly just like he said and, pretty soon, was bent all the way over. The hardest part would be to get his feet out forward. He started to move one but then fell backwards. He wasn't about to go down without a fight so he wrapped his legs around her shoulders and then, at the last second, he grabbed her legs with his arms.
"LEAN FORWARD!" he yelled. Ino immediately did so. It was a pretty hilarious sight for everyone who had turned around and looked just in time.
"This is a little weird." Commented Ino.
"Tell me about it." sighed Sasuke who was upside down. "I'm going to try and get back up to your shoulders."
"No!" said Ino. "If you move, I'm going to fall!"
Kiba chuckled warmly too himself while watching their predicament. Then he felt something tickle his arm. Upon looking down, he saw a little bug scurrying around. He looked perturbed for a moment and then flicked it away. After another moment of standing there, he felt more scurrying and spotted more bugs. So he flicked them away.
"Shino, keep your bugs away from me!" said Kiba.
"Sorry." Said Shino.
Then there was another waiting period.
Kiba then put his hand on his head to feel that there were MANY MANY bugs crawling around in his hair. "THEY'RE IN MY HAIR!!!" he yelled as he started jumping up and down and running in place. "GET THEM OUT!! GET THEM OUT!!!"
When nothing happened at that exact moment, Kiba jumped off the log, dropped Shino on his arse and then ran off screaming and trying to get the bugs out of his hair in search of some water to dunk his head in.
"Well that's a shame." Said Asuma with a fake sad expression. "You're whole team is out, Kurenai."
"God damn!" said Kurenai angrily. Shino stood up and brushed his bum off and then acted as though it never even happened.
"Whichever team falls over now doesn't get to place in either first, second or third!" announced Kakashi.
"I wonder what team that'll be!" laughed Naruto.
"Why do you always have to do that?" asked Tenten.
"Do what?"
"Act all cocky."
"What do you mean?"
"You always act all cocky like that and then you end up losing. Then you just look stupider when you fail."
Naruto frowned. "It's good that you have confidence in me." He said.
"I'm just telling you like it is." Tenten said defensively.
"I could stand here all day!" Naruto announced.
"So could I!!" Lee agreed. His arms were fully extended in the air, holding Shikamaru high above his head.
"Lee, I could always just sit on your shoulders." Shikamaru said, looking down from his cloud observing for a moment.
"NO!!" yelled Lee. "If you repositioned yourself now, we might get in a horrible mess like Sasuke and Ino!!"
"I don't know if I'd be that ambitious to stay up." Said Shikamaru. "I'd probably just let myself fall."
"But I would catch you!" Lee assured him.
"So if I jumped right now you'd do everything in your power to catch me?" Shikamaru said.
"Of course!!" said Lee. "But it would be silly for you to jump!"
"I know." Said Shikamaru. "What, when I could sit here all day."
Neji, meanwhile, was thinking about stuff. What stuff? Oh, I don't know. Probably the Main House and the Branch House.
Sakura was getting bored and subconsciously began drumming her fingers on Neji's head.
Neji was interrupted from his thinking. "Could you stop that?" he asked.
"Oh." Said Sakura, stopping. "Sorry. I didn't realize I was doing that!"
"Just don't do it again." Neji warned.
Chouji and Hinata decided to finally start their jobs of making people fall over. At first, they figured that Ino and Sasuke would be an easy target. But then they figured that that would be WAY too mean.
Instead they moved on to Lee and Shikamaru. They soon realized that there was no way they'd be able to move either of them.
Next they went to Neji and Sakura. But they were too afraid of Neji to even try anything.
So the only group that was left was the Naruto and Tenten group. After a moment of staring at each other, Chouji kicked the stump.
"Hey!!" said Naruto. "Stop that!!"
"No." said Chouji as he kicked the stump again.
"That's not fair!" whined Tenten as Naruto started wobbling because his balance was thrown off. "Is this fair?!" she asked the teachers.
"YES!" called the teachers.
Chouji took this evil opportunity to kick the stump madly and wildly as Hinata only watched in horror. She wanted Naruto to win get recognition from everyone as a good ninja. Now it didn't look like that was going to happen.
Eventually, and very sadly enough, Naruto stumbled backwards off the stump and both he and Tenten landed on the ground where everyone laughed at them. They were mostly laughing at Naruto since they hate him and don't even know who Tenten is.
"It's just like I said…" Tenten began to tell Naruto.
"I HATE cruel irony!!" said Naruto angrily.
"So that means that all teams still on stumps automatically place!" said Asuma.
"Great job, Ino." Said Sasuke. "Keep this up and…" He thought for a moment, trying to concoct the perfect bribe for her. "And…I might go on a date with you."
"You'll go on a date with me?!" Ino said.
"I might." Sasuke made sure to point out.
"All right!" said Ino happily as she stuck her tongue out at Sakura.
"That's so unfair!!" Sakura said, shaking her fist at Sasuke. "Why couldn't I have been paired up with Sasuke and have him wrap his arms and legs around me for a long time? No. I'm stuck with YOU, Neji."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" said Neji. "Whatever happened to us being the underdogs who have to come through and win?"
"I'd rather be with Sasuke." Admitted Sakura. "He's a winner."
Neji looked offended beyond all reason. "In that case, you can just get off now." He said as he grabbed both her legs and pushed her backwards.
Sakura wasn't about to quit. She was in last place and couldn't stand it. So, in attempt to save herself, she grabbed both Neji's legs just like she had observed Sasuke do to Ino. Unfortunately, Neji's legs were apart when she did it so she ended up snapping them together, throwing him off balance all together. Not only did she fall over, but she brought Neji down with her.
"Well, that didn't work as well as when Sasuke did it…" she said.
"You THINK?" said Neji in a frustrated tone.
"Don't get mad at me, you're the one who pushed ME off!" said Sakura.
"Aw…I was rooting for you, Neji!" said Lee who still looked like he could stand there all day.
"There are only two teams left!!" said Gai, whipping out a microphone. "And I can't help but feel that the odds are against Ino and Sasuke which is okay because I want Lee to win anyway!!"
"Go Shikamaru!!" cheered Asuma. "Go Ino! Wow, I'm torn!!"
"And I want Sasuke to win!" said Kakashi. He turned to Kurenai. "Who are you rooting for, Kurenai?"
"Shut up you guys." Said Kurenai.
That's when Kiba came back, his head completely wet.
"What was that all about?" asked Naruto.
"Akamaru had a bad flea experience about a month ago." Said Kiba as he shook his head off. "He infected EVERYONE in the house. I guess I'm a little paranoid."
"A little?" said Shino.
"Wow!" said Kiba. "Only two teams left!"
"Sasuke…" groaned Ino. "I don't know how much longer I can stay like this! Think about it, even if you lose now, you'll still be the best ninja in everyone's eyes! I know a lot of people think Shikamaru is better than you, but at least I know that you're much better even though he IS a chuunin!"
She stood there in silence.
"Don't give me the silent treatment, Sasuke!" said Ino sadly. "I'm sorry I said that! I can balance a little while longer! Sasuke…you're sort of slipping. Sasuke?"
She turned her head slightly when the noticed that Sasuke's grip on her was loosening. As soon as she moved, Sasuke tumbled off of her and landed on the ground.
"Oh no!" she exclaimed, running over to him. She looked him over to find that his face was completely red and he was unconscious. "What's wrong with him?!"
Kakashi came over and looked upon Sasuke. "Oh, no problem." He said. "All the blood rushed to his head and he passed out. Just hold him upright for a little while and he'll be fine."
"Does that mean we won?" asked Shikamaru.
"Yup!" said Gai.
"YEAH!!!" yelled Lee. "AND I COULD HOLD SHIKAMARU UP HERE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY IF I WANTED TO!!!"
"But you don't have to." Said Shikamaru, hopping off Lee.
Everyone stared at each other.
"We have another competition in mind." Said Asuma bluntly. "And we're going to start it as soon as Sasuke regains consciousness."