The day of the Chuunin Exam Finals came with mixed feelings for Naruto. On the one hand, he was not sure if he was ready. On the other hand, he definitely wanted it over and done with. He had come up with a plan for Shino and both Jiraiya and his mom thought it had a good chance of working. He had made plans for all the finalists, but some of them were more iffy than others.
He had woken up and had a good breakfast early enough that it had time to settle adequately. She stretched and did a light workout as Tsunami to take the edge off her nerves. She arrived at the stadium fifteen minutes early—enough to make sure she was there in plenty of time, but not enough to that she'd be waiting around for a long time. All three foreigners plus Lee were already there. She greeted the strange boy and was treated to a long rant on "Youth." She planned on being "young at heart" her whole life, but the boy was way over the top.
Hinata's cousin arrived five minutes before the competitors were due. Shikamaru slouched in a minute late. She nodded at him and he shrugged his shoulders in response. Sasuke arrived about ten minutes later grumbling about "stupid senseis" and their need to make dramatic entrances. The exam proctor looked relieved and went over the rules, which were the same as in the preliminaries.
A few minutes after he finished, the contestants were ushered out onto the floor of the stadium and introduced by a tokubetsu jounin named Shiranui Genma. Naruto noted that she was once again introduced solely as "Tsunami of Konoha." She had no idea if leaving out her family name would actually protect her. She was sure that Orochimaru knew, if only due to Kabuto. She supposed it was possible that Iwa and Kumo would not find out from their spies that were attending, but she doubted it. Kiri was so disorganized that she was doubtful that they even had spies here. Suna… theoretically, as an ally it should not matter if they found out, but there was something odd happening with them. Why would they send a clearly deranged shinobi, whom she suspected was their jinchuuriki, to a Chuunin Exams hosted by even just a nominal ally?
Lee and Temari had the first match. Once they both made it back onto the floor of the arena, Lee once again started ranting about "Youth." Tsunami did not care enough to try and follow the rant enough to derive an actual meaning to his tirade. Temari looked at her opponent as if he were less than a bug, which irritated the Uzumaki girl. Sure, listening to Lee was exhausting, but there was no need to treat him like a subhuman.
The match began and Temari initiated it by swinging her fan in Lee's direction. A sharp-edged disturbance raced toward the green-clad boy. Lee jumped out of the way. He was simply too fast to be taken out by ninjutsu at long range.
Lee immediately began praising Temari for her "Youthful" skill at ninjutsu.
"Shut up about 'Youth' already!" Temari screamed at him. "Nobody cares about your youthfulness!"
Lee suddenly went still. "Youth is serious business, miss," he scolded her.
Temari let out a wordless scream and started flinging Wind ninjutsu after Wind ninjutsu at him. Lee effortlessly dodged them
Tsunami shook her head. Lee had somehow rattled his opponent without it even being his attention.
Lee looked over at his mentor in the stands. Gai gave him a big thumbs up. Tsunami could swear she saw his teeth gleam. Was it a minor genjutsu? Lee returned the thumbs up and then rapidly closed the distance to the Suna kunoichi. Temari rapidly retreated by taking backwards leaps, but Lee was too fast and had her backed up almost to the wall. Any further retreat would limit her ability to swing her fan.
Temari made swing after swing at Lee, but he ducked and dodged them all. Suddenly, he struck back and the fan went sailing. Temari gave it her best, but a brief taijutsu scuffle ended with her blasted against the wall of the arena, gasping for breath.
Lee glanced over to the referee, who in turn glanced to the Kage box. Tsunami saw the Hokage nod.
"The winner of the first match is Rock Lee of Konoha!" Genma called.
If Tsunami were to guess, the Hokage did not want a repeat of what had happened with Hinata and her cousin; no one wanted to see another match where a clearly defeated opponent felt forced to continue which extended the beating.
Medics came and helped the woozy Sand kunoichi off the field while the audience cheered for Lee. Lee jogged off the field and started speaking loudly with his sensei.
"The next match will be Shino Aburame versus Tsunami, both of Konoha," Genma announced.
Tsunami nodded toward Shino who was standing not far from her and then followed him down to the center of the field.
"Good luck, Tsunami-san," Shino said.
She raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised to hear a competitor—even one from Konoha—wish her luck.
Shino's eyebrows and forehead twitched, deviating from their normal serious mien. To the Aburame, that was as good as laughing out loud, especially since his mouth was covered by the oversize, up-turned collar on the coat he wore. "Why do I wish you luck? Because a good showing by both of us is more likely to advance me in rank."
She laughed. "Good luck to you too, Shino-san—but not too much luck, understand?" She winked at him.
Shino nodded, his eyebrows still twitching.
"Are you both ready?" Genma asked, a lazy smile on his face showing around the senbon he was sucking on.
"Yes," Tsunami said.
"I do," responded Shino.
"Begin!" commanded Genma.
Tsunami immediately leaped forward, hoping to catch the Aburame boy before he could deploy his kikaichu. It seemed, however, that Shino anticipated that move, because he disappeared in a puff of smoke—a large tree branch appeared in his place.
Tsunami scanned for her opponent with both her sight and her chakra senses. Unfortunately for her, Aburame chakra was difficult to sense because most of it was diffused into their insects, which did not necessarily remain with them. It was obvious at a glance that Shino was in the small copse of trees that were at one end of the arena. The trees in the copse were spread out, like an orchard would be. This allowed the audience to see most of the action that happened inside it, but still left lots of hiding spots. She warily approached it.
Shino emerged from the trees and took a ready stance. This in itself was suspicious, because Shino should know better than to engage her in taijutsu, her known specialty. The chances were high that this was a trap. However, she had a counter which she hoped would work against Shino's main techniques. She decided to probe him by unleashing a rapid trio of kunai at him. As expected, Shino easily deflected the kunai with one of his own. Two were deflected such that they went flying, but the last was deflected downward.
That settled it in Tsunami's mind; Shino was not sloppy enough to unintentionally leave Replacement fodder at his feet. Still, she was not going to win a match against someone of Shino's caliber without taking chances. She hoped that her preparations were sufficient.
She Replaced the kunai at Shino's feet and launched an open-handed blow at his chest. She caught a minor fluctuation in his chakra as she was striking at him and grinned as "Shino" practically exploded into a swarm of insects. She could feel her chakra being sapped, so she rapidly threw down a specialized storage scroll and activated it. Nearly all of the kikaichu disappeared into the scroll. The effects of the Aburame insects and their chakra sapping were well known. While Shino did not use them in the spars she had had with him as part of her original form's weekly training with Kakashi's team, it had been easy for her to overhear the specialties of all of Konoha's clans while hanging out in bars disguised as a chuunin. She examined her chakra and was somewhat surprised to find that she her chakra stores were full. She must have been quick enough that the amount that the kikaichu took was small enough that her reserves replenished themselves quickly. She felt a small tug on her chakra stores and realized that her storage technique, a modification of a prisoner scroll that only affected insects, most have missed some or, more likely, more had approached her after the seal was used. Still, the drain was minor enough that her chakra regeneration was keeping up with it.
She picked up the scroll and placed it in a previously empty pocket. She had two more of those. She didn't want to mix up the used with the unused ones.
"Shino-san!" she called. "I want to play with you, not your little friends!"
"Then I invite you to join me within the copse, Tsunami-san," he called back.
She frowned and hoped that three insect-storage scrolls were enough. "Ready or not, here I come!"
The copse was small and she could identify Shino's chakra. The problem was that it was spread out over a portion of the copse. She headed toward the largest concentration of it. She considered sending out Shadow Clones, but Shino's kikaichu would make short work of them and while the Shadow Clone copies of the scrolls would work, the insects in them would be released once the clone that it belonged to was "popped." Still, clones might be useful to spring a trap. She quickly made a small batch of eight to sweep the copse with her real self the second to the end.
Kunai came at her from a series of locations, accompanied by small fluctuations in Shino's chakra. She figured that he must be swapping with his Insect Clones in order to mask his location. Her Shadow Clones deflected the kunai, but were swarmed by kikaichu. Tsunami and all of her clones threw out the second of her insect storage scrolls, however, three of her clones "popped" before she could activate any of them. One of her clones managed to activate the "real" scroll, before dissipating from the effort. The Shadow Clone next to her used Body Replacement on the scroll to move it next to her. She quickly reached down and snagged it while the two closest clones covered her, putting it next to its mate.
"How many of those do you have left, Tsunami-san?" Shino asked.
"How many kikaichu do you have left, Shino-san?" Tsunami responded.
"I have sufficient for my needs," he responded.
"I too have sufficient for my needs," she answered in kind. She hoped it was true. She could tell that a few more kikaichu had found her as the chakra drain had increased somewhat, but her regeneration was still keeping up with it.
She dismissed her four Shadow Clones and created another eight fresh ones. She continued to sweep the copse. The concentrations of Shino's chakra gathered into three locations. However, one of the locations had much more chakra. She figured that was where Shino currently was, but thought he might be able to switch quickly. She thought up a plan of action and quickly summoned and dismissed a Shadow Clone in order to let her existing clones know what it was. They split into three group of three and approached each location from opposite directions such that the three groups were surrounded by her groups.
Her goal was to gather the rest of Shino's insects into one location so that she could use her last insect-storage scroll. She figured that Shino was clever enough to try to hold some in reserve, so she needed to make him think he did not have a choice. With her high chakra stores, she thought she could handle the drain of most of his remaining kikaichu for a short time, at least. If she could not, she would have no choice but to use her last scroll and then retreat to recover. It was risky, but she had always had a high chakra recovery rate. At that point she'd be forced to destroy any kikaichu she encountered, but at least she would have saved a large portion of her comrade's swarm. Shino was not exactly a close friend, but she knew he cared for his bugs and it did not seem right to destroy them if she had an alternative. First, however, she would try and use another of her prepared tricks.
One of her clones in each group surreptitiously activated tokens with a seal on them that mimicked the Wind Release Technique called Great Breakthrough. She only had two of them, so using the cloned tokens preserved her real ones. Leaves, twigs, and kikaichu all went flying toward the center of the triangle formed by Shino's positions. The Wind blasts were not powerful enough to make Shino himself go flying, but she could feel him swap with some of his bugs in order to maintain some of them out of the collection zone. Another of her clones at each spot activated their Wind tokens. Perhaps 90% of Shino's chakra was now centered in one spot. She hoped it was enough.
Tsunami and all her clones charged Shino's location, dragging some of the remaining bugs with them. She, and each of her clones, dropped their last insect-storage scrolls. One be one her clones dispersed. Just as she activated her scroll, she saw Shino pop away, Replaced by a log. She smiled. A standard Body Replacement meant he probably did not have many kikaichu in reserve—or he was being more cagey about conserving them. She felt with her chakra senses and confirmed that other than a few small sources, that were converging on her or Shino himself, only one source of Shino's chakra remained. Her smile broadened as she scooped up the used scroll. The small chakra drain on her began again as a low number of kikaichu found her. Her chakra replenishment easily kept up with it.
Tsunami made her favorite hand sign and 14 Shadow Clones popped into existence. The spread out and swept toward Shino. About half the clones remained behind in case Shino tried to evade her via Body Replacement. By the time she forced him out into the open, three of her clones had dispersed due to the chakra drain of the remaining kikaichu. She created more to replace them.
"You've led me on a merry chase, Shino-san, but this is the end of the line," she lightly taunted him.
"I am impressed, Tsunami-san," he replied. "Why? Because you are more resourceful than your reputation would imply."
"Reputations can be misleading," she said impishly.
"Indeed."
She charged and engaged him in taijutsu. More kikaichu latched onto her, but still the drain was not enough to overcome her natural recovery. Shino was decent at taijutsu—better than most of their Academy class—but she was in clear control of the engagement. His style was heavily defensive in nature, probably in order to give his kikaichu time to drain a foe. His excellent footwork allowed him to retreat before her without getting completely overwhelmed.
Finally, she backed him against the wall of the arena.
"Proctor-san," Shino called. "I surrender. Why? Because Tsunami-san has denied me the use of my tools and forced an engagement where she has the upper hand."
"The winner of the second match is Tsunami of Konoha," Genma announced.
Tsunami whooped for joy and pumped her fist into the air. The audience cheered. She motioned Shino to follow her into the tunnel.
"You did well, Shino-san," she commented as he followed her. "However, I had better intelligence on you than you did on me."
"Indeed," Shino responded. "My clan is very specialized, which can lead to one-sided victories in one-on-one engagements against clever opponents. As part of a team, however, the specialization is a decided benefit."
She nodded. "Yes. That is why Konoha has us operate in teams. She placed the insect-storage scrolls on the ground and activated the timed release. She stepped back and three seconds later the scrolls released their captives. After a momentary roiling confusion, all the bugs converged on Shino and disappeared into his clothing.
"Thank you for preserving my companions, Tsunami-san," he said.
"It's no problem, Shino-san," she replied. "You're a friend and sparring partner of my brother. I didn't want to kill your kikaichu unless I had to. This solution was actually the most convenient for me too."
"Would you be willing to sell some of those scrolls to the Aburame clan?" Shino asked. "I can see a number of benefits for us."
She thought about it for a moment. "I don't see a problem with it in principle, but you or your clan leaders should talk to Naruto about it. My brother is the one who runs our fuujinjutsu business."
"Very well," he said with a small bow. "I shall talk to the clan about the possibilities."
They both returned to the competitor's box. She wondered what the judges would think of their match. To the audience, she was sure it had looked like she had dominated the match. However, she knew that Shino had done a decent job reacting to a very bad situation and had implemented some clever stalling techniques. He might have even won despite her measures if she didn't have such a large chakra reserve and high recharge rate.
The next match had just started by the time they arrived. It was Sasuke against Kagari of Ame. The Ame nin had once again sunk into the ground with his Haze Clones arrayed between himself and Sasuke. He was using the same strategy that he and both his teammates had used in the preliminaries despite the fact that it had only had a 33% success rate there. The fact that they were clones was obvious to Tsunami's chakra sense, as was his actual location. Sasuke obviously knew where he was as well. He was effortlessly deflecting senbon that the Ame nin was throwing at him from underground. Tsunami could see the red of his Sharingan from where she was watching. The Uchiha was also wearing the dismissive smirk that used to bother her so much when she was younger.
Tsunami shook her head, the poor fool was not even trying a new strategy. She knew Sasuke would have figured out a way to deal with his opponent being underground. Sasuke's smirk intensified as he formed the hand seals for the Earth Release technique that allowed one to "swim" underground. She shook her head again.
"The Ame nin used the technique in front of Sasuke's Sharingan, didn't he?" Tsunami asked.
"Yep," Shikamaru drawled lazily.
By this time Tsunami knew Sasuke well enough to recognize the smirk as being the one that indicated he was going to cream the Ame nin due to his opponent's stupidity. If he had learned the technique from someone else, the smirk would have been the one that indicated Sasuke's own superiority over his opponent.
Sauske dove into the ground. Half a minute later an unconscious Kagari was tossed out of the ground. The Uchiha rose out of the ground smirking. There was the superiority smirk.
"The winner of the third match is Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha!" Gemna announced.
The crowd roared its approval. Tsunami was slightly annoyed that Sasuke got a louder cheer than she had despite facing an easier fight, but she was used to it.
The last match of the first round was between Hinata's jerk of a cousin and Gaara, whom she suspected of being Suna's jinchuuriki. She was of mixed feelings about this match. She wanted the Hyuuga brat to be creamed because of what he had done to her friend and teammate, but the unstable foreigner was unlikely to stop short of killing him and she knew that Hinata didn't want that—no matter that the ingrate had tried to murder her, the one most likely to end his grievance against the Hyuuga Main Family in his favor.
"You should forfeit," the jerk told the psycho. "Fate has decreed that I will win this match. As the strongest candidate from the strongest village, there can be no other result than my victory."
Tsunami rolled her eyes. Even she knew that was a logical fallacy. In truth, she suspected he was just saying it to rattle his opponent. She snuck a glance at the other competitors. Sasuke was glaring death at the Hyuuga. Obviously, he disagreed with the Hyuuga's assessment. Shino was stoic, as usual. Shikamaru muttered, "Troublesome," under his breath.
Over in the Suna section, Gaara's siblings were staring at the Hyuuga in sheer disbelief. Their jounin sensei was looking disturbingly pleased with the pronouncement.
On the field, Gara grinned creepily. "Mother wants your blood," he said bloodthirstily.
The Hyuuga sneered dismissively.
The proctor rolled his eyes at the posturing of the genin. "You both ready?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Begin!"
The match began with a lightning-fast glowing palm thrust from the Hyuuga to the Suna nin's chest. The Hyuuga looked like he was about to begin gloating, but the Suna nin simply smiled—his eyes wide with insanity. Sand began to rise into the air from the gourd on his back. Sand flaked off the wide harness belt that covered his heart, where the Hyuuga had struck him.
Sasuke grunted and said, "Personal shield."
"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, obviously thinking about having to fight the insane Suna shinobi. If Tsunami knew the Nara, he was weighing forfeiting before stepping into the ring like he had told her before versus facing his mother's wrath for doing so.
The Hyuuga stuck the sand tendrils with his glowing palms. The tendrils shattered where he hit them, but he sand rose again to rejoin new tendrils. Gaara simply stood with his arms crossed, not having moved from his original location. The Hyuuga had retreated a couple of steps, but refused to move any further. Hinata's despicable cousin was moving faster and faster as more tendrils attacked him. The tendrils began to spread out so that some of them could circle around to attack him from behind.
"Heavenly Spin!" the Hyuuga cried as he began to rotate, his body emitting a dome of chakra around him.
The Hyuuga was close enough to the Suna nin that the dome flung Gaara across the arena, halfway to the wall.
Gaara stood up and exclaimed, "Yes! Yes! You shall prove my existence! Mother will drink your blood!"
More sand tendrils rushed toward the Hyuuga. The jerk was forced to use his Heavenly Spin Technique again almost immediately. Since Gaara was far enough away to not be personally effected by the technique, he simply continued to press the Hyuuga, despite the protective dome of chakra. Hinata's cousin was forced to immediately enter the Heavenly Spin again, and then again. The fourth Spin lasted only half as long as the others. The exhausted Hyuuga made a few attempts to block the tendrils, but he was quickly caught in a thick tendril of sand. Unlike with the Ame nin from the Preliminaries, Gaara did not immediately tear him apart.
"This is the best that Konoha has to offer?" he sneered. "Scream for Mother!"
The sand began to squeeze the Hyuuga. "I surrender!" he croaked out.
The tendril continued to squeeze. A green blur crashed into the tendril, shattering it. Maito Gai stood between his genin and the insane Suna nin.
"Enough!" he shouted. "Neji-san has surrendered. It is not Youthful to continue!"
"Mother demands blood!" Gaara screamed.
"Is Sunagakure no Sato so lacking in the Flames of Youth that they would renounce the treaty during a Chuunin Exam Final?" Gai asked. "Over an Unyouthful need to slaughter defeated opponents?"
The entire audience was riveted on the drama happening on the arena floor. Tsunami wondered why the Kazekage was not stepping in. She thought he was seated with the Hokage. She glanced toward the VIP box where the Hokage was glaring at the man with the green hat with the kanji for wind on it.
Tsunami felt foreign chakra descending on the arena like petals from a blossoming cherry tree. She was momentarily confused before she realized it was a mass-targeted genjutsu.
"Release!" she exclaimed, expelling a large amount of chakra around her. Her chakra disrupted the genjutsu that was attempting to ensnare her. It also stopped it from latching on to anyone within ten meters of her. Elsewhere, the audience was falling asleep except for scattered shinobi and former shinobi.
Shinobi with Suna and Oto headbands began pouring into the arena stands. The Hokage was dragged onto a neighboring roof by the Kazekage where a purple barrier sprang up around them.
"Treachery!" cried Gai from the arena where he was facing off against Gaara. "Konoha to arms! We must Quench the Flames of these Unyouthful Villains!"
Author's Note: Wow. It's almost been a year since the last update on this story. No promises on the next one. I'm not sure writing another invasion will be any better than writing another Chuunin Exam Tournament. Hopefully after that things will speed up.