Chapter Nineteen

"Participants ready? Begin!"

In a flash, Kato had his escrima sticks out and he hurled one of them at his opponent. Sota juked out of the path of the steel pole, pointedly ignoring how it pierced the concrete of the small arena, and jumped backward to avoid Kato's follow up strike. Sota grimaced and noted that Kato had used his first attack as a distraction to give himself time to close the distance. 'Clever monkey,' he thought darkly.

Sota unsheathed his sword and shot forward with a thrusting motion, one that Kato gleefully dodged before striking the sword from his opponent's grip. Sota wasted no time in unsheathing one of the many kunai knives from his belt and lashing to deflect Kato's follow-up strike, the match devolving into a weapons spar from there.

As they dueled, Kato took the time to observe his opponent. The Hidden Grass ninja was a tall boy of sixteen or seventeen, his dark hair tied in a bun at the back of his head and his clothes were dark grey and form fitting. The sword he used, previously strapped to his back, complimented the row of kunai lining his belt.

After a flurry of strikes, parries, and exchanges, Sota reeled back before closing back in with a sweeping slash. Kato prepared himself to block it with his escrima stick, but something in his guts and in Sota's eyes told him to be cautious. Rather than try to stop it cold, Kato swung his weapon in a similar motion while avoiding the line of the kunai's arc … and he was glad he did. The short blade sheared through the inch-thick steel of his escrima stick.

Kato hissed and jerked backward, turning the choppy, instinctual motion into a backward handspring with all the grace of his clan's namesake. Sota, on his part, scooped up his sword and held his ground, his body language heavy with disappointment that his tactic had failed.

Kato glanced at the remains of his weapon, running his thumb across the slight angle and noting the sheer smoothness of the cut across solid steel. A very distinctive mark that he was actually quite familiar with, thanks to sparring matches with his older sister.

"Chakra flow, huh?" he asked. "Since I can still feel my hands, it's gotta be Wind chakra, too. The best of the best for cutting." Sota narrowed his eyes and that was all the confirmation Kato needed.

Tomoko had given him the rundown on chakra flow, the infusion of chakra into objects to enhance their attributes or provide additional ones, when he was younger. As he had said, Wind chakra was the absolute best for flowing through bladed weapons as it increased their cutting power to their absolute peak. Lightning chakra could do something similar using intense vibrations with an added numbing effect, as he'd alluded to earlier, but it still couldn't match the sheer shearing power of Wind.

Lucky for him, his older sister had taught him more than just theory. Kato tossed his ruined escrima stick aside, glancing briefly at the other one still lodged in the arena wall, and brought a kunai to bear in each hand. "This is getting fun," he said, both as a jab at his opponent and as an honest statement.

"Not for long," Sota growled as he charged forward. Now that he knew what to look for, Kato could recognize the faint yet thick aura of chakra surrounding Sota's blade, with the distinctive white coloration and jagged arcs radiating within it marking it as Wind natured. He braced himself and charged to meet his opponent in turn. Sota cried out as he swung down in a classic two-handed strike for maximum power, while Kato stepped to one side at the last second and swung his knife upward to meet the swing. With the speed of their movements, no one saw the flash of orange light until it was too late to adapt.

Sota's sword cleaved straight through Kato's kunai, the Sarutobi himself barely avoiding the attack … and an explosion of light and force like a detonated exploding tag forced both of them backward. Sota cried out in shock and pain from the sudden trauma and was flung to the far side of the arena, while Kato had anticipated the reaction and properly braced his ears and his stance, sliding backward a few feet on his balls of his feet.

"What just happened?" one of the Kusa nin in the stands asked.

"Kato flowed Fire chakra through his kunai at the last second," Hotaru explained, her byakugan active. "Fire trumps Wind, and the two chakra natures being flowed through bladed weapons reacted like a spark meeting a keg of gunpowder. But Kato has used this tactic before and knew what to expect, while your colleague did not."

Ignorant of the discussion above him, Sota grimaced against the ringing in his ears and shakily stood up. He growled at the loss of his sword, which had been blasted too far away to reach and could be seen steaming dangerously even from this distance. He removed one of his kunai and prepared to flow Wind chakra, but a flare of light caught his attention to find a stream of yellow flames headed his way. Sota dodged to his left, but the stream altered its path to cut him off. He tried to back track, but the initial flames had bathed the wall and ground where he had first stood, and were still burning brightly.

Sota felt his stomach fall to his feet as he realized he was now trapped in an improvised cage of flames, stretching in a ring from the floor of the arena before him to the wall behind him. He struggled for breath as the heat emanating from the flames ripped the oxygen from the air around him and he thought furiously for a way out. After a few moments, he realized the only way out was forward.

Sota braced himself for a standing jump and leapt with all of his might, his kunai armed to ward off any attack. But none came, even when he was at his most vulnerable in the air. Sota couldn't see his opponent as he landed lightly … and was immediately tackled from behind to crash to the ground with Kato holding his wrists with one hand and the edge of a kunai to the side of his neck with the other.

'He used the flames as a curtain to hide his movements while I was distracted by difficulty breathing,' Sota realized, 'and waited for me to jump out of the ring to get me from behind when I expected an attack from the front.'

"Surrender, Souma," Kato said, his tone gentle but firm. "You have fought well. Heck, if my sister didn't use Wind nature so often I never would have seen that trick of yours coming. There will be other Exams, but I refuse to lose here." He pressed the tip of his knife deeper into Sota's neck, drawing a bead of blood. "Please withdraw."

Sota groaned in defeat. "Proctor," he called out, "I surrender." As soon as the words had left his mouth, he was free and Kato was drawing him to his feet.

"Winner of the first preliminary match," the proctor called, "Kato Sarutobi!"

Kato nodded to Sota and retrieved his other escrima stick before returning to the stands while Sota shook his head and rejoined his team, too.

"Well done, Kato," Ken congratulated. "Both your tactics and your sportsmanship. I think your family will be proud to hear about this match."

"Yes, well done," Hotaru added.

"Thanks, guys," Kato said with a smile. "Let's hope you guys have it as easy."

"That was quite an impressive display," a Kusa jonin commented, just a bit begrudgingly. Apparently he was Sota's jonin instructor. "Though I suppose I should not be surprised by a scion of the Sarutobi clan, the very clan of the Leaf's current Kage."

"I assure you, good sir, that Kato's skills are the result of diligent training as much as natural talent," Muta said in defense of his student, his high collar and shades doing nothing to hide the faintest annoyance in his voice. "And you should be proud of your own student in turn. Why is that? Due to his excellent showing. Very few chunin could use chakra flow with such precision or consistency. I would reason he will do quite well in his next Exam."

The Kusa jonin remained silent as the next pair of names were put on the bracket screen.

The next match pitted a strapping Taki nin dressed in a vest and cargo shorts with a bandolier of narrowly-shaped kunai across his chest, his spiky hair held back by a bright red bandana against a slim Kusa kunoichi with a scarf wrapped around her hair, a close-fitting uniform, and goggles that she slipped over her eyes.

"Participants ready? Begin!"

The Taki nin wasted no time in drawing kunai from his bandolier and tossing them at his opponent. The Kusa kunoichi clapped her hands into a Snake seal and then to the ground to raise an earthen wall to block them with a second to spare. Many in the audience were surprised to see the knives bury themselves to the hilt in the stone wall, easily imagining what they could do to flesh.

"Come out, come out!" the Taki nin goaded cockily, already spinning more blades between his fingers. The grin slipped from his face as he felt the ground beneath his feet shake just a bit, then it gave away and plunged him into the ground up to his neck with a high-pitched yelp.

The Taki nin grunted and strained against his confines, and then bit back a scream of pain as the hole constricted him like a vise. The Kusa kunoichi rose up from beneath the ground as if from the surface of water and moved her goggles back to her forehead. "Proctor, we are done here," she said with solidarity.

"Winner of the match, Yui Doi!" the proctor announced.

The third match was set between a girl with burning red eyes and short-cut orange hair from Kirigakure, judging by the faint greyish tone to her skin and the way her teeth were filed down to shark-like points — she was dressed in a zipped sleeveless jacket covered in belts and a large sword on her back, loose dark pants, and sandals with Kiri pinstripe bracers on her arms — against a boy from Kusagakure dressed in a light yellow jumpsuit that matched his fair hair and contrasted his light skin and dark shades.

"Participants ready? Begin!"

The Kiri kunoichi unsheathed her sword in a flash, her pointed teeth bared in a feral grin. The Kusa participant, visibly sweating with nerves, leapt backward as he wove hand seals. He took a deep breath and spat a volley of fireballs at the Kiri kunoichi — the Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique.

The Kiri kunoichi cackled and pressed her fingers to a seal carved at the hilt of her sword, unleashing a wave of water as she wove between the fireballs. As the water descended, she slashed her sword through it, only to have it wrap around her sword to extend the reach. With a series of swipes, she cut the last few fireballs out of the air in bursts of steam.

"What do you think of my weapon, you sissy?" the kunoichi cackled. "I call it 'Hiru,' the Leech. Because it will sap the blood from your body and make itself stronger!" With continued mad cackling, the Kiri swordswoman continued her onslaught, the Kusa nin barely able to avoid fatal blows and the small wounds he was collecting indeed dying the water blade with streaks of vibrant red.

"I forfeit!" the Kusa nin shouted desperately. "Stop! Please!"

Like a candle blown out, the Kiri nin's visage changed from insanity to something like cold disappointment. "If you can't even handle a little swordplay, you aren't fit to be a ninja." She cleared her throat and spit at the Kusa nin's feet before the water was retracted and resealed into her sword.

"Winner, Asashi Sebire," the proctor announced." Without looking back, Asashi of Kirigakure returned to the stands, seemingly as stable as could be.

"Uh, do you think that crazy was an act?" Kato asked warily.

"It was not," Hotaru said, her eyes hard and unyielding even as a bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face. "Her chakra was agitated in a way that cannot be faked, a way that bespoke madness."

"Damn Yagura," Ken muttered. "The Mizukage really cranks out the crazies."

The next pairing set a boy from Kiri — his long brown hair matching his slanted eyes that gleamed with bloodlust and his large dual swords and pinstriped sleeves and leg warmers announcing his origins — against a girl from Taki with short black hair and plain grey clothes, her feet bare, a simple bo staff in her hands, and a cloth wrapped around her eyes.

"Participants ready? Fight!"

"Is the Hidden Waterfall so desperate for troops that they conscripted a little blind girl?" the Kiri nin asked, unsheathing his swords with a cackle. "Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll make this quick." With that, he leapt bodily into the air, taking one forward flip before swinging down at the Taki kunoichi.

And with the grace of a dancer, the blind girl spun out of the arc of his attack. The Kiri nin had no chance to divert his attack before his swords struck the concrete of the arena floor; while they did not break, they slid in a trail of sparks and robbed him of his balance for a long moment — long enough for the kunoichi to spin her staff in a devastating arc against his right wrist with a sickening crack of shattering bones. The Kiri nin's cry of pain was cut off by a smooth follow-up that smashed against his chin and sent him reeling backward.

With a vicious snarl, the Kiri nin jumped back a few more feet and, remarkably for his age of late teens, began weaving one-handed hand seals while cradling the other to his chest. His cheeks swelled up before he spat a string of water bullets at the kunoichi, which she bobbed, wove, ducked, and flipped to avoid without a scratch.

Sweat beading his brow at such a display of agility, the Kiri nin narrowed his eyes and bellowed a challenge before charging directly at the blind kunoichi with a drawn kunai. He hacked and slashed wildly, clearly hoping to surprise and overwhelm her with his ferocity, but his opponent blocked or evaded every attack. The cycle was broken when she gripped her staff at both ends and drove it into the Kiri nin's gut before striking as fast as lightning into his jaw. The Kiri nin dropped like a sack of potatoes, out cold.

"Winner, Aki Kita!" the proctor announced.

"Did she just take that guy down with only taijutsu?" Kato asked. "And blinded?! That's insane!"

"I've heard blind people's other senses are sharpened but I think this was something else," Ken noted. "It's like she knew what he was going to do before he did it."

"I think she did know," Hotaru commented, her byakugan relaxing. "She did use one technique throughout the match: the sensory technique. She was moulding sensory chakra as a fifth sense and monitoring her opponent's chakra network much like my own clan do."

"So how does that let her see the future?" Kato asked.

"It doesn't, not literally," Hotaru explained. "But the flow of one's chakra alters when using ninjutsu, which would allow her to anticipate its use, and her chakra sense would let her track the technique's trajectory as if she could see it. She could probably even track his movements with her sensory technique without sight to interfere."

Ken and Kato glanced at each other. "That's … pretty ingenious," Kato laughed.

The scoreboard lighting up drew everyone's attention. When the names appeared, Team Fourteen looked to one of their own.

Hotaru Hyuga vs Kukyo Chinmoku

'Hospital chairs are the worst. It's like they're designed to be uncomfortable,' Karin thought venomously as she wriggled in place to find a fleetingly more comfortable position, one of her textbooks in her hands as she read for an extra credit assignment. All the while, she pointedly ignored the genin team assigned to watch her, a mission that was classified as babysitting but was really more akin to prisoner watch.

'As if I would run away and abandon Mama,' she thought, shaking her head to restart the paragraph she had been distracted from.

Karin could honestly say she was anything but happy here in Kusagakure. Sure, it was nice to be protected, even if it was more her mother's unique ability they were protecting rather than her or Karin as, you know, people. But they were still treated as outsiders, no matter how valuable they were. They were treated as if they would turn traitor at the slightest provocation. Which was really ironic since they offered a lot of small provocations.

Karin sighed and put her book down, her thoughts too agitated to properly study. She removed her glasses to rub her eyes with the heel of one hand, covertly brushing frustrated tears out of her eyes. No matter what she dealt with, she would not let people see her cry!

As she returned her glasses, she took a deep breath and stilled her thoughts, opening her mind's eye just as her mother had taught her three years ago with practiced ease. Without considering it, she moulded sensory chakra and focused it into her forehead, melding the two techniques in a way that her mother had called genius with proud tears in her eyes.

Karin allowed her perception to expand outward and envelop the village as a whole. To her mind's eye, physical obstacles became dark, nearly invisible, while everyone around her was glowing with chakra. Colors ranging between lighter to darker blues and yellows, each undulating with a pulse that mirrored the person's heartbeat. The sight of it all soothed her nerves, like the floating lanterns the villagers would cast off on the Night of Ancestors.

On a whim, Karin focused her mind's eye to find her mother's familiar warm chakra signature. She was about halfway across the hospital in intensive care, as usual, and Karin's breathing hitched at the irregular threading of her chakra that meant she was using that technique. The Rejuvenating Bite of the Uzumaki.

The very reason she and her mother were allowed refuge in this village.

Her mama had explained it to her very recently. The technique, if one could call it that, was tied to their powerful life force that they had inherited from a powerful figure all Uzumaki, as well as the Senju of Konoha, were descended from. This powerful life force was what made them so resilient and allowed them to heal faster than anyone else. It was so powerful, in fact, that when others drew upon it in its rawest form it sped up that person's healing, too. It was a trait that outstripped even the most exacting medical ninjutsu.

But drawing on that life force had its drawbacks, too. A few hours after being healed, the recipient would have a fever, body aches, and shaking hands for about half a day, as if coming down with the flu. Even after that, their chakra pathways close to the healing site would be sore for days afterward from exposure to the potency of Uzumaki chakra, and they would have phantom pains for weeks.

And that was just for the person healed. What really concerned Karin was what it did to her mama. Each use of the technique made her tired — not a sleepy tired, but an empty, aching tired — in a way that was almost unheard of for Uzumaki. Her mama tried to wave it off, but Karin knew that too many uses too soon would mean she would be seriously hurt. Or she would die. And Karin had overheard the jonin that watched her mama say that if she died, Karin would take her place.

Karin almost hated the Rejuvenating Bite. She wished there was another way for her and her mama to help people, to be useful to the village, without having to rely on it. It was why she had enrolled in the Ninja Academy. She closed her mind's eye and opened her physical ones to look down at her book lying on the sitting room table. And it was why she was taking foundational courses in medical ninjutsu. To find a new way to heal that would not put her mama at risk.

Her will to study restored by the thought, Karin picked her book back up and resumed her studies. Before she lost herself in the medical text, she thought briefly about the familiar chakra signature she'd felt the previous week. What did it mean?

After her teammates had wished her luck, Hotaru made her way down the steps to the arena alongside a young man from Kumo. Her opponent, Kukyo, was a slight boy of an age with her, his head shaved bare and his Kumo headband sitting on his brow, dressed in an open vest with no shirt, baggy pants held up by a leather belt, and close-toed sandals. A kunai holster sat on one hip and was balanced by an oddly-shaped leather case.

The participants took their places, Hotaru settling into a standard Gentle Fist stance and gathering chakra to activate her byakugan while Kukyo flicked open his odd case and braced his hand near it.

"Participants ready? Fight!"

For a moment, neither of them moved, each seeming to try and get a read on the other. The corner of Kukyo's mouth twitched down before he spoke. "I am sorry if you are harmed during this fight, Miss Hyuga. The heavens know my village has done enough to your clan in recent years."

Hotaru felt molten rage rise up in her belly — which she focused into a tight ball to use later — and her byakugan flared to life before she lunged with devastating swiftness, gathering chakra in her hands and aiming for a point in her opponent's shoulder to inhibit his chakra flow. If she could incapacitate him quickly, she wouldn't have to draw out his suffering.

Kukyo evaded her first strike and removed the object from his case, which she now saw was a simple hand bell. Hotaru narrowed her eyes as she perceived him channeling chakra through the bell and rushed to stop him … but he only needed a moment to flick the bell.

Rather than a simple ring, the bell made a crashing noise far too large for such a small device, one that sounded like dozens of gongs being rung at the same time. Hotaru cried out in pain and clapped her hands to her ears to drown out the noise, but it did nothing. With her byakugan still active, she saw Kukyo lunge at her with a kunai even with her eyes reflexively screwed shut and she drunkenly lurched away to gain some distance and think.

What just happened? How did that small bell make such a tremendous sound?

Kukyo removed a second bell, this one a bit smaller, and swung it, creating a resonating, echoing, high-pitched ringing that seemed to pierce her ear drums. If the earlier bell had been a battering ram, this was a spear that lanced through her ears. And with it came a sudden bout of vertigo that had her crashing to the ground.

Hotaru tried to breathe evenly, fighting off the effects of whatever had happened to her, as Kukyo drew closer. He rang his first bell again, Hotaru physically rolling away from him to escape it. He rang the second, drawing a pained screech from her.

"I am sorry, miss," Kukyo repeated, replacing his first bell and drawing a kunai. "But this is the end of it." Kukyo flipped his knife into an icepick grip and swung downward, intending to illustrate his win with a warning shot at the ground next to her neck.

But in a blur of movement, Hotaru rose and struck both of his shoulders, the flesh feeling like it was on fire as her chakra invaded his body. Kukyo shouted in pain and surprise, dripping his tools as his shoulders went numb. The kunai fell with a clatter and the bell with … a simple, serene ringing.

"You're within my field of divination," Hotaru intoned. With a series of rapid open-handed strikes, she had closed thirty-two of Kukyo's tenketsu at critical points for mobility, sending him crashing painfully to the ground.

Kukyo groaned in pain and looked to Hotaru with confusion. "How?" he asked.

"My clan's eyes can see more than chakra inside the body. We can see it in any form within our range ... including within ourselves," Hotaru explained. "The ringing of your bells was laced with chakra that rode the soundwaves to enter the ear and initiate genjutsu that simulated cripplingly loud noise, each type targeting a different aspect of one's physiology." She gave a somewhat haughty smile.

"But after that first technique caught me off guard, I saw the rest coming, and I saw its effects within myself. Knowing it was a genjutsu rather than real sound made it simple to intercept the effects. After that it was a simple bit of acting to have you lower your guard and enter the range of the Gentle Fist."

Kukyo was speechless for a moment before chuckling darkly. "No wonder the Lord Raikage wanted your clan's eyes so badly. That's pretty useful insight."

The faint grin slipped from Hotaru's face and she closed her hands into fists of smoldering anger. "And your village would do well to remember that we are not a clan to be trifled with." She turned away from the Kumo nin as medics came to take him to the treatment ward, the proctor announcing her win, and rejoined her teammates.

"Nice job, Hotaru," Kato crowed, holding his hand up for a high-five that she routinely ignored.

"That was an impressive display of acting," Ken noted. "Have you ever considered theatre work?"

"Be quiet, you two," she snapped almost playfully. "The next match will begin shortly."

The opening matches to the Chunin Exams. I gotta say, it took me weeks of brain-throbbing imagination to come up with so many different characters and skill sets. It was painful, but also very rewarding. And I hope beyond hope that they are as fun to read as they were to write.

*I will have a lot of characters using chakra flow in these exams and this fic as a whole. I think it's a relatively simple yet very awesome and applicable technique that went under-explored in canon.

*Both of Sota Souma's names translate to "sound of the wind," a reference to his preferred technique.

*Yui Dohi's name means "helpful foundation" and "earthen wall," both references to her techniques, too.

*Asashi Sebire's names mean "ray of light on the shore" - which I can only imagine would seem red, like blood - and "dorsal fin" as in the fin of a shark that cuts through the surface of the water.

*For the sake of this fic, Yagura is still alive, but not for very long. And Ken's animosity is related to Uzushio's downfall as much as the madness of the Bloody Mist.

*Aki Kita's name means "clear/crystal" and "true north," a an ironic reference to her blindness and then one to her unique skill. Yes, comics nerds, she was inspired by Daredevil. Sue me.

*Karin's backstory here was based moderately on anime-only content. I don't enjoy using anime-exclusives, but I consider it something like half-canon in the absence of manga contradiction or alternatives. I tried to give their time in Kusa more emotional depth.

*The Rejuvenating Bite is my own title for what is usually called - for lack of an official term - the Heal Bite. The side effects are all from me. I wanted to balance out the potential story breaker with more than just "too many uses kills to user." It was fun to come up with!

*The sound genjustsu was inspired by Tatuya's music. I thought it would be really interesting.

Thank you all for reading on this very merry Christmas Day! May your inspirations flow ever free!