The eighteen chuunin hopefuls lined up in front of a slightly raised platform which had sculptures of two arms making a ram hand seal at its rear. The six teams were lined up in order of arrival, with the Suna team on the left and the Ame team on the right bracketing the four Konoha teams. Since Tsunami's team arrived second, they had the unenviable position of being between the Suna team and Hinata's cousin's team. The gourd-carrying boy gave off a sense of "unclean" bloodlust to her chakra senses. Hinata was valiantly trying to ignore her cousin's belligerent glares.
The Hokage stood in the center of the platform with the six senseis lined up behind him. Kurenai smiled at them encouragingly. The other Konoha senseis were also smiling—except for Kakashi, who was reading his book. The guy with the bowl-cut who had a mini clone on Hinata's cousin's team was particularly exuberant. The Suna and Ame senseis were stoic. The Ame sensei's chakra was restrained in such a way that Tsunami could barely feel it. If he were not for the Ame team's acceptance, Tsunami would not have guessed he was a shinobi. The proctors were lined up in front of the platform with half on either side of the Hokage.
The lead proctor, Anko, stepped in front of the Hokage and said, "Congratulations on completing—and surviving!—the second phase of the Chuunin Exams! However, since more than expected made it out of the forest, Hokage-sama will explain what needs to happen before we clear you for the Finals."
She stepped back into line with the other proctors and the Hokage explained that they needed to participate in a preliminary elimination round and how one of the purposes of the Chuunin Exams was to gain prestige for their village by doing well in front of the Daimyos and other prospective clients as a kind of mock war. There was some major grumbling over the "do or die" nature of the preliminaries, but the Hokage told them to "put up or shut up" in nicer terms.
The Hokage was in turn interrupted by proctor whose name was Gekkou Hayate and whose most prominent feature was his chronic cough. Hayate explained that the contestants would be "randomly" selected by an electronic display. Tsunami rolled her eyes. She doubted that it was truly random. They would face off against their opponent and fight until one of them had given up, been incapacitated, or killed. The proctor had the option to end a fight if he thought one of the contestants had been clearly defeated.
At that point letters flickered across the display until it showed: "Rock Lee of Konoha versus Kankurou of Suna."
The boy with the bowl-cut on Hinata's cousin's team shouted in excitement, "Yosh! My Youth must burn brightly to be chosen to go first!"
The sensei who looked almost identical gave him a "thumbs up" and shouted, "Show them the Power of Youth, Lee-kun!"
"Yes, Gai-sensei!" the boy shouted in response.
Hayate directed the other contestants, proctors, and senseis to adjourn to the balcony to watch the match.
The Suna shinobi dropped his bundle as he approached Lee in the center and began to insult his opponent even before the match began, but this made the strange boy more determined rather than intimidated. Tsunami's sensor skill told her that the real boy was in the bundle rather than whatever was talking to Lee, although some of his chakra was present in the figure. Perhaps this was one of Suna's famous puppets?
When Hayate started the match, Lee leapt forward and struck the figure of the Suna nin. Instead of the sound of flesh hitting flesh as Lee hit the arm of the figure, Tsunami heard the splintering of wood. Whatever technique made the puppet look human vanished as the figure was now obviously carved from wood.
The previously discarded bundle that contained the real Suna nin stood up and shouted, "That was a lucky shot, Konoha wimp!"
"Ah, one of Suna's famous puppeteers!" Lee exclaimed. "This will be an exhilarating trial of my Youth!"
Despite the Suna shinobi's bluster, Lee made short work of the puppet. He was simply too fast and strong for Kankurou to hit with the puppet's tools. Within minutes the puppet was reduced to a pile of wood and metal scrap.
"Do you realize what you've done!?" Kankurou shouted.
"Yes!" Lee exclaimed. "I have boldly displayed my Youth for all my peers to see!" He mimicked his sensei's earlier "thumbs up" gesture complete with sparkling smile.
The Suna nin pulled out a knife, and with a wordless scream, charged his opponent. Lee sidestepped the distraught shinobi and knocked him out with a tap to the back of the head.
As Kankurou was carried off the floor in a stretcher, the other contestants anxiously watched the display to see who was next. Hayate read the names that appeared, "Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha versus Haruno Sakura of Konoha!"
Sakura whimpered next to Tsunami.
Tsunami smiled encouragingly at her teammate. "Give it your best shot, Kura-chan. He'll never respect you if you give up now."
"I'll never beat him!" Sakura complained.
"Probably not," Tsunami acknowledged. "Sasuke-san is pretty tough, but you might get lucky and you might impress him if you do a good job, regardless."
"Just do your best, Kura-chan," Hinata said encouragingly.
Sakura steeled herself and joined Sasuke down on the floor. Ino jeered at her that she would look like a fool before Ino's "true love." Sakura ignored her and set her stance for her fight. She received a slight nod of acknowledgement from Sasuke in return.
When Hayate began the match, Sakura quickly jumped back to create space between her and Sasuke. She quickly wove one of the genjutsu that their sensei had taught her. Sasuke halted his steady advance and looked confused for a moment before his eyes turned red with the Sharingan and he stared at her with a smirk on his face.
Sakura frowned and pulled out a handful of kunai and flung them at her opponent. Sasuke withdrew his own kunai and deflected the ones that were thrown at him as he continued to advance. He closed to taijutsu range where they exchanged blows. Sakura actually did better than Tsunami had expected, as she had really taken to Kurenai's taijutsu style, but Sasuke was still better, even discounting the advantage the Sharingan gave him. In the end, Sakura ended up on the ground with a kunai at her throat.
"Yield," Sasuke said.
"I yield," Sakura said softly.
Sasuke stood up and glanced down at her with a blank expression and said, "You've gotten better." He turned and walked away without saying anything else.
Sakura turned to look at Ino and smirked. She got up and rejoined her teammates.
Tsunami put an arm around her friend's shoulder and said, "You did pretty good, Kura-chan. If you had gone against anyone that didn't have a doujutsu, I think you would have had a good chance of winning. Poor luck with the draw."
Hinata also murmured consolation to their teammate.
The display next displayed the names: Hyuuga Hinata of Konoha versus Hyuuga Neji of Konoha.
A brief flicker of sadness and trepidation flickered over Hinata's features before they were replaced by resolve. Tsunami and Sakura wished their teammate good luck as she made her way to the center of the bottom floor.
The pre-match "trash talking" was especially vicious on Hinata's cousin's part. Hinata herself merely answered him serenely and politely—refusing his "generous" offer to "save herself the embarrassment" of a humiliating defeat. He nattered on about how he was fated to win and that she would always be a "loser."
Tsunami gritted her teeth in anger. If there were anything that she had always wished she had had more of it was family. She hated that this idiot disrespected his own so much. She was under no illusion that the Hyuuga clan was "one big, happy family," but if any of them deserved love and respect it was Hinata. Not only was she a genuinely kind person, but as the heir she had a real chance to change the clan for the better.
For the first five minutes of the match the two Hyuuga looked pretty even on the surface. Tsunami could tell, however, that the cousin was just a little bit faster and a little bit more skilled. Eventually he managed to maneuver Hinata into a position where he was able to land a clean hit on her forearm. The redhead had been in enough spars with Hinata to know that the match was probably decided at that point. Sure enough, the one strike acted as the start of a positive feedback loop and the cousin began to be able to strike her more and more frequently until he managed a palm strike to her chest which launched her a short distance. Tsunmai's breath hitched until she saw her teammate's chest rise and fall.
The cousin approached her and stood a short distance away. "You see that you are no match for me, Hinata-sama." He snarled the honorific hatefully. "Your feeble attempts to improve yourself are just that: feeble. You should have quit while you had the chance. For your impudence, you must swear to give up being a shinobi or I will end you now."
"I will not," Hinata wheezed. "You must have seen that I have improved."
"A meaningless improvement," the cousin said. "You are still Fated to be an inferior shinobi and an embarrassment to the Hyuuga clan. Swear."
Hinata shook her head and attempted to stand.
The anger that had been present on the cousin's face bloomed into full rage. He moved to attack her. Tsunami struggled within herself. She wanted to stop him, but knew it was better left to the proctors and jounin. She need not have worried because the cousin was surrounded by the four Konoha jounin sensei before he could take half a step.
"Favoritism for the Main House?" the cousin sneered.
"You're out of line, Genin," Kakashi snapped. "We would do the same for any of our comrades." Tsunami was mildly shocked by his response. She had never seen Kakashi act so seriously about anything other than his disgusting books.
"You have been acting most un-Youthfully, Neji-san" Gai, his own sensei, added sadly.
Kurenai looked enraged and Asuma-san looked disappointed. Tsunami wanted to yell at the jerk, but decided that if she spoke up now she would just embarrass the Hokage in front of the Ame and Suna nin.
The cousin haughtily walked off the floor with his head held high as Hayate announced him the winner, while Hinata was carried off in a stretcher. Tsunami wanted to go see her, but had to wait for her match. Sakura hurried off with Kurenai to the medical room to find out what the damage was.
The display announced the next match as "Gaara of Suna versus Oboro of Ame." The match was over in just a few seconds. Gaara summoned sand from his gourd and used it to crush the Ame nin who had been attempting to summon clones. The unfortunate Ame nin was left an unmoving pile of blood and crushed bones. Even more disturbing was the fact that the Suna nin seemed disappointed in the lack of effort it took. Instead he was staring hungrily at Sasuke and the Hyuuga cousin.
There had been an odd echo in his chakra as he used the sand—as if there were too sources of chakra. Tsunami wondered if he were Suna's jinchuuriki. It seemed likely from what her mother had told her about the Ichibi, Suna's Bijuu. Tsunami was deeply disturbed that it seemed that Suna had sent a clearly disturbed jinchuuriki to Konoha, presumably unannounced.
Aburame Shino was up next against Tenten, the female teammate of the Hyuuga cousin and the enthusiastic Rock Lee. Shino started off by trying to put distance between himself and the older genin. Tenten responded by saturating the air between them with various weapons she pulled out of a specialized storage scroll.
Shino kept himself in the match using misdirection—mostly by using some well-timed Replacements with Bug Clones. After several frustrating minutes for Tenten in which Tsunami could tell that the older kunoichi thought that she had the sly Aburame, Shino managed to maneuver a swarm close enough to her to engulf her.
Tenten tried in vain to swat the insects that covered her. When that failed, she resolved to keep fighting, but her moves were noticeably slower and eventually she dropped to the ground.
"Proctor," Shino proclaimed, "she is too exhausted to fight. Why? Because my kikaichuu have drained her of enough chakra to incapacitate her."
Just about all the genin still in the gallery looked disturbed. Ino looked especially affected. The only one that seemed immune was Gaara of Suna.
Tsunami smiled as the next match was announced by the display, "Tsunami of Konoha versus Mubi of Ame." While Konoha was not making a serious effort to hide her clan name, evidently the Hokage had decided to hide it from surface attempts at spying. Kurenai and Sakura were still checking up on Hinata, but Team Ten and Kiba all wished her luck.
The Ame nin wore a rebreather and a cloth mask wrapped around his upper head that covered his eyes and ears. Strangely, there was only one hole in the mask for one of his eyes. "You'll regret what happened to Oboro," Mubi proclaimed angrily.
Tsunami stared at him like he was stupid. "I'm from a different village than the candidate that killed your teammate," she responded.
"You're just unlucky that we have something to prove now," the Ame nin proclaimed.
Tsunami rolled her eyes, unimpressed with his bluster.
Ironically, the match began with them both making clones. As a matter of course, Tsunami used a Replacement with one of her Shadow Clones to obscure which one was the real her. Using her Mind's Eye, she could tell where the real Mubi was—under the stone floor. Her opponent had called out "Shadow Clone Technique" when he had created the clones, but her sensory technique could tell that they were a different type of clone. This was confirmed when one of her clones' attacks went through Mubi's clones.
Her only difficulty with her opponent's technique was that he was throwing kunai to correspond with attacks by his clones. Her Mind's Eye could not tell where the kunai were and the clones obscured them from her vision. Several of her own Shadow Clones had been "popped" by the kunai. She needed a way to force the real Mubi above ground. Luckily, her mother had shown her a seal that had been developed during the Third Shinobi War because Iwa shinobi liked to use similar techniques. The seal was simple enough that she could use the Chakra Seal Manifestation Technique with it.
She created a bunch more clones to make up for those that had dispelled. She Replaced herself with a clone on the other side of the room and then Flickered to just above where Mubi was. "Chakra Ground Saturation Technique!" she exclaimed as she slammed her palm in to the floor to cover the fact that she was using Chakra Manifestation and a seal. The seal, which actually was called Chakra Ground Saturation Seal, formed under her palm and saturated the stone and the ground underneath it. Tsunami's chakra disrupted Mubi's technique, which was probably the Earth Release: Underground Projection Fish Technique, forcing him to come up.
She quickly engaged him in close-combat taijutsu. He was not bad at taijutsu for a genin, but she was much better. Within a minute she had him subdued.
As Hayate declared her the winner, she thought about going to check up on Hinata. She knew that she should stay and scout her opponents for the Third Exam, but she could not help but feel that visiting her friend and teammate was more important. Luckily, she saw that Kurenai and Sakura had returned.
"God job, Nami-chan," Sakura said.
"Thanks, Kura-chan," Tsunami replied.
Kurenai added her congratulations.
"How's Nata-chan?" Tsunami asked.
Sakura and Kurenai both frowned. "The med nin are 70% sure that she'll make a full recovery, but they say it will probably take a month," Kurenai said.
"Her jerk of a cousin messed her up pretty badly," Sakura added.
"He's a disgrace," Tsunami muttered. "If I were the Hokage, I'd pull him from the Exam and put him on probation over that stunt. Konoha does not condone murdering comrades."
Kurenai shook her head. "I can guarantee that he won't be getting promoted, even if he manages to win the Finals tournament, but I doubt he'll be told why other than that he 'did not exhibit the characteristics looked for in a chuunin of Konoha.'"
"Why not?" Tsunami demanded. "How is he supposed to learn if no one tells him?"
She did not like the jerk, but thought he should be told that he was a jerk, in detail. Then maybe he would not be a jerk anymore and Hinata could have more of a chance at a real family.
Kurenai sighed. "It's an unofficial part of the test for chuunin. If the candidate can't figure out what qualities are important for a chuunin besides than martial prowess by themselves, they don't deserve to make it."
Tsunami snorted and determined to tell him something—even if it were not exactly that he had failed the exams when he attempted to murder a fellow Konoha nin.
The next match was Shikamaru versus Kiba.
Kiba immediately began blustering. "Alright, Akamaru! This will be easy. Lazy Bones has never managed to beat me!"
Tsunami shuck her head. This match would inevitably shake out different than an Academy taijutsu match. Shikamaru was very clever and an expert strategist. The only questions were if he was motivated enough to try and whether he had enough room to work with.
Kiba began the match by tossing a pill toward Akamaru, which caused him to turn red and more feral looking. Shika flung a handful of kunai at them in a wide arc. Both the Inuzuka and his puppy easily avoided the flung knives and charged him in a crude pincer formation.
Shikamaru started running in an arc around the room flinging kunai as he went in an apparent effort to put distance between himself and his opponents. The strategy did not succeed, however, because Kiba and Akamaru were faster than the Nara—even with the need to dodge kunai. Just as it looked like Kiba would catch Shika, the latter flashed a hand sign and seemingly teleported across the room.
Tsunami snickered. "He seeded the floor with Replacement fodder!"
Shikamaru visibly relaxed. "Running around the room was so troublesome," he grumped.
"Then stop running," Kiba growled.
"I would, but my mother threatened extra training if I didn't make it to the Third Round," Shika complained.
"You don't think she won't make you train for the Third Round if you make it?" Ino called out.
"Troublesome," the Nara muttered.
Kiba and Akamaru tried their pincer movement again, but Shikamaru Replaced another kunai. This happened several times until Shikamaru ended up in front of one of the stone arms. The faint shadow cast by the light fixtures behind the arms suddenly lengthened and snared both Kiba and Akamaru who were almost on top of each other with all their turning around.
"Shadow Possession Technique Complete!" drawled Shikamaru.
He drew a kunai and flipped it around. Kiba did the same thing in sync with him. Akamaru just pawed at the floor since he had a different body shape and no kunai pouch.
"Sorry, Akamaru-chan," Shikamaru muttered as he forced Kiba to club his puppy with the hilt of the knife.
"I don't need to do anything drastic to you, do I, Kiba-kun?" he asked.
Kiba growled in frustration. "No, you got me. I yield."
The next match was Chouji versus the last of the Ame nin: Kagari. Chouji used his Mult-size Technique and then the Human Bullet Tank Technique to try and mow down his opponent. Kagari used the same techniques that his teammates had: summoning clones and hiding in the ground. Tsunami was irritated that the whole team was so one dimensional—at least the Suna team's members had different specialties. Tsunami's Mind's Eye Technique was not good enough to tell that Kagari was hiding under the floor from up on the balcony, but it became pretty apparent when Chouji rolled through all the figures on the floor. For the first time that afternoon the Ame team's strategy worked. Chouji tired himself out by remaining in his Bullet Tank Technique for too long. Neither candidate could hurt each other while Chouji was a human bullet and Kagari was under the stone floor, but once Chouji released the technique he was a sitting duck for the other nin who had husbanded his strength more wisely.
The last match of the preliminaries was Ino versus Temari, the last of the Suna nin.
"When I destroy you, Sasuke-kun will know that I'm the one for him!" Ino declared.
Temari sneered at her. "You're a disgrace to actual kunoichi, Fangirl." Her lips twisted in disgust as she snarled the last word.
Ino rolled her eyes dismissively.
When Hayate gave the word, Ino launched a brace of shuriken. Temari negligently waved her fan, causing a blast of air to knock the missiles out of the air. She swung her fan again, more quickly, causing barely-visible blades of air to spin toward the other blonde. Despite her obsession with Sasuke, Ino still put in some practice time; she was quick and agile and was able to dodge the blades.
Temri continued to casually send blades of air at Ino, who was just able to avoid being slashed by the blades. Ino had no opportunity to do anything other than dodge. Tsunami noticed that Ino was being herded into a corner of the room where she would not have enough space to dodge. She hoped that the Suna girl was not as bloodthirsty as her teammate.
Finally, as Tsunami had expected, Ino ran out of room, an air blade took off most of her pony tail. A follow-up blast of air threw her into the wall with a heavy thud. Ino slumped onto the floor.
Temari approached her and stood over her. She prodded her with her fan, flipping her over. Ino looked up at her, dazedly.
"I hope you realize that I could have killed you whenever I wanted," the Suna kunoichi said. "However, I think making you look like a useless fool in front of your love interest is a worse punishment. Go back to your makeup and flowers, Fangirl. You fail as a shinobi."
Tsunami glared at the Suna girl. It was true that Ino did not take being a shinobi as seriously as she should, but she was a rookie genin. There was a reason why they were given easy missions. It was true that Ino was not really ready for the Chuunin Exams. Her team had probably only made it this far due to Shikamaru's intelligence. However, Suna was supposed to be their ally; they should not be sending bloodthirsty psychos to the Exams.
Hayate had all the winners come down and choose a paper with a number on it out of a jar. Tsunami drew number seven. Ibiki, from the first exam, wrote down each contestant with their number. She was curious as to what the numbers meant. She decided it probably had to do with their first match up for the Finals. She idly noted that her main competition, Gaara, Sasuke, and the Hyuuga cousin, had drawn one, two, and nine, respectively.
After a moment, Ibiki announced, "The tournament matchups are as follows: Gaara of Suna will face Hyuuga Neji of Konoha; Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha will face Kagari of Ame; Aburame Shino of Konoha will face Tsunami of Konoha; Rock Lee of Konoha will face Temari of Suna; Nara Shikamaru of Konoha will have a first-round bye. You will have a month to prepare before the tournament will commence. Good luck."
Tsunami rolled her eyes. She wondered if anyone believed Ibiki was not manipulating the matchups.
Author's Note: I again decided to summarize a lot of the dialog. I figure that for most readers this is not the first time they've read about the Chuunin Exams.
For the curious, yes, Orochimaru ganked and replaced the Ame sensei since Kabuto's team did not make it through the Forest of Death. I don't think that tidbit will come up anywhere else in the actual story.