A/N: Great reception on the last chapter. Good to know that I'm pretty decent at wholesome scenes.

This chapter won't have any narrated combat, but I'll be using it to establish a few things regarding chronology, structure, and things like that.

First scene will be picking up directly from the last chapter. After that, FINAL ROUND TIME!

Time for Chapter 44

Enjoy!


Naruto stretched his neck silently as his eyes dragged open to a view of darkness. He had not been awoken by an alarm, nor had a dream stirred him. As his vision adjusted to the dim lighting, the Jinchuuriki swept his gaze across the room. It took him little time to recall where he was, that being Satsuki's room. He soon found the clock hanging on the opposite wall. It was quarter to three in the morning. Four hours remained until Team Seven was due to report to the arena for briefing. Naruto was well used to rising early, as he had seldom slept past seven in the morning the past month.

Turning his attention to his own space, Naruto was reminded of the surprising sleeping arrangement that had been established the night before. Satsuki was still latched onto him, with her head nestled between his shoulder and neck. Her arms were wrapped around his abdomen, keeping them glued together. They had both shifted somewhat in their sleep, and the blonde was now on his back rather than his side with Satsuki laying partially on top of him.

'She's really warm.' Naruto thought to himself as he studied his sleeping teammate. The feeling of sharing a bed was a foreign one to the Jinchuuriki, though he was struggling to find anything about the experience that he disliked. If anything, despite only having done so once, Naruto preferred it to sleeping alone. Wiggling slightly to free one of his arms from under himself, the Jinchuuriki made a few inches of space between himself and the girl attached to him. At the brief separation, Satsuki let out a soft whine and tugged on his body unconsciously. Naruto yawned quietly and rubbed his eyes.

Turning back onto his side, he drew her into him with his newly freed left arm. The Uchiha girl loosely draped her right arm over him and gripped his shirt with her left hand. For such a prickly and abrasive personality, Satsuki was certainly tactile. Further cementing this trait, she threaded her right leg over Naruto's left, binding him to her more tightly.

"You awake?" Naruto whispered to her. No response came other than her continued gentle breathing. She was still out cold. The Jinchuuriki couldn't help but find his current reality surreal, the longer he thought about it. In the grand scheme of things, their relationship had been anything but positive until rather recently. He had been flatly disappointed to have been placed in the same cell as her. Now, mere months later, she was stuck to him like glue.

He still struggled to pin down what exactly he made of her in a personal sense. She was his closest bond, that much was indisputable. Their accidental reunion had brought about one of the more joyful nights he had known in recent times, and he thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of cradling her in their shared sleep. Despite every emotion he could pick out, Naruto was unable to mesh them together into something more coherent. She occupied a new position in his life. One that he had yet to even acknowledge up to now.

'I'll figure it out eventually.' Naruto silently decided, opting not to stress himself out with such an inward-looking question. Adjusting himself for greater comfort, the Jinchuuriki brushed a hand through Satsuki's dark hair. A small sigh escaped her, coinciding with the girl's grip on him growing a bit more snug. Closing his eyes again, the Jinchuuriki allowed a smile to spread across his lips.

'You're all over the place, but…who cares right now?'


Kakashi smiled beneath his mask as his genin rounded a corner and came into view. It was the first he had seen of them as a complete group in an entire month, and the sight was refreshing. Their dynamic appeared to be intact, as Naruto and Satsuki were bickering about something, and Shikamaru was wearing a look of tired apathy. In short, they were in their element. It was a relief, more than anything else. Naruto and Satsuki had suffered through a shared saga that Kakashi had been unfortunate enough to witness the roots of, and while he knew little in the way of details, Shikamaru's recent demeanor suggested that he had been busy himself.

As his genin approached, Kakashi took a glance back at the entrance to the arena, which he was standing in front of. It had been several years since Konoha's last hosting of the exams, and while it was a rare event, the structure existed nearly exclusively for that purpose. It was occasionally used during cultural festivals, but even then, only on a rather small scale. Today, its full scale and grandeur would be on display.

'All for you guys. You've earned this.' Kakashi thought to himself proudly. The cell was certainly still green, but they were immensely talented. They deserved recognition, and win or lose, they would receive it. Shelving the pride he felt in his cell for the moment, Kakashi strolled out to meet the trio in the bustling square before the arena.

"How was the briefing? Riveting, I'd assume." he asked as a greeting. Shikamaru and Naruto gave a mimicked groan at the question.

"Two hours long, saying the same crap over and over again. Most of it was just common sense to begin with." the Nara recounted, his tone dripping with irritation. Kakashi stifled a low chuckle. He had been through the very same experience many years prior. Apparently, little had changed in the time since.

"Somehow, none of us fight first, either. We've gotta sit through a match." Naruto complained. Kakashi's brow curled upward at the revelation. Team Seven occupied three of the four quarterfinal matches. The fact that none of them had drawn the first lot was surprising, to say the least.

"Of the three of you, who fights first?" he asked, diverting the topic somewhat. Satsuki jammed a thumb at Naruto's chest.

"Naruto and Neji fight second, after Shino and Kankuro. After that, Shikamaru and Temari. Gaara and I are last." she listed. Kakashi nodded along with the explanation. It was somewhere in line with his expectations.

'Satsuki and Gaara are the main event. It's a little tacky, but they always pick a fight to market. Ticket sales usually make a killing.' the Copy Ninja thought to himself. Gesturing for the genin to follow him, Kakashi turned on his heel and led them toward the open entrance of the arena. The group was only briefly halted at the gate by a skeptical guard before being allowed through without the need for a ticket.

After a brisk journey up several flights of stairs, the cell emerged into one of the upper sections of the arena's seating.

"Great. Stuck in the nosebleeds." Naruto grumbled as he took a seat in the first row of the section. He was quickly joined by his teammates. Kakashi chose a seat in the row behind them.

"Oh, trust me. You don't want to be on ground level. Even the slower matches tend to have a splash zone. You'll thank me by the end of the day." the Jonin said. He then reached into one of the pockets on the front of his flak jacket and produced a small brochure he had picked up from one of the bulletin boards lining the outskirts of the arena several minutes before his team's arrival.

"On another topic, are any of you three into betting?" he asked, earning backwards looks of confusion from his genin. Shikamaru shrugged his shoulders.

"My dad gambles a little when he can get away with it, but I've never cared much about that sorta thing. What about it?" he asked. Naruto and Satsuki nodded in agreement with his sentiment. Kakashi opened up the brochure.

"Well, they've got odds on every quarterfinal match. Interested in knowing them?" he revealed. In an instant, the trio's confusion turned to thinly-veiled intrigue and curiosity.

"Let's hear mine first." Naruto pressed eagerly. Kakashi dragged his eyes across the brochure in search of the numbers he had found so very amusing earlier that day.

"You're a sixteen-to-one underdog to Neji." the Copy Ninja read off from the brochure humorously. Satsuki barked a short laugh and gave the blonde a patronizing slap on the shoulder.

"You'd better be high on confidence, because literally nobody else believes in you, dead-last." she joked. Naruto shot a glare her way, met by the Uchiha girl's smirk.

"I've got money on him, actually, so that's not quite true." Kakashi interjected in defense of his blonde pupil. Satsuki brushed back a strand of her hair.

"That's just a bad investment if you ask me." she countered, earning another harsh look from the Jinchuuriki. Clearing his throat, Kakashi snapped all three genin to attention before a full-scale argument could brew.

"I bet on all three of you out of fairness, actually. As a group, you're my parlay." he clarified. Shikamaru scratched his cheek absently.

"Neji's got a name, and Naruto doesn't. The odds make some sense. What about mine?" he asked. Kakashi glanced down at the brochure again.

"You're at even money, actually. No favorite either way." he replied. Shikamaru mumbled something under his breath that the Jonin couldn't quite catch.

"And before you ask, you're favored three-to-one over Gaara." Kakashi added, looking to Satsuki as he spoke. The raven-haired girl nodded approvingly and turned back around to face the arena.

"Sounds about right." she said haughtily. Naruto began to retort, but pulled back before the words could leave his mouth and joined her in looking out over the ground below. Shikamaru did the same. Kakashi scanned his surroundings in search of a clock, finding one a moment later. It read half past noon. The first match was set to begin in fifteen minutes. Within reason, that gave Naruto anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five minutes to mentally prepare for his own match.

'I cut it a little close with the scheduling.' the Jonin mentally noted. There was value in not allowing a person to overthink, but too short notice of a call up could be a detriment. There was little point in regretting what could not be changed.

'Satsuki keeps him on edge enough as-is. He'll be fine.' Kakashi decided, looking on in amusement as the Uchiha girl lectured Naruto on something trivial. His eyes drifted over to Shikamaru. The Nara appeared quite relaxed, with a look of classic boredom on his face.

'At least he isn't sulking like he has been.' Kakashi thought optimistically. In all, his genin seemed to be in good spirits. The brutal regiment of their training had not broken them of their enthusiasm.

'I'll buy you all something nice if I go three-for-three on my bets.'


Satsuki Uchiha had never considered herself to be much of a patriot. Nationalistic ferver had always struck her as artificial and forced. Those who were swept up in it tended to be blindly loyal to their leadership without consideration or patience for any of their flaws. In general, she viewed such leanings as undesirable. At present, however, she was discovering that she herself was not immune to feeling pride in her own country. Or, at the very least, a desire for it to succeed.

Shino was far behind. Kankuro had dominated him thoroughly from the very beginning of their match. The Aburame heir's bugs had been rendered utterly useless by the Suna boy's command of distance and his ability to strike Shino from well beyond his effective distance. The art of puppeteering was one Satsuki knew seldom little about, but its perks were on full display. Kankuro himself had taken absolutely no damage. The contraptions he skillfully manipulated kept him safely out of the line of fire.

And yet, despite the overwhelming deficit before him, Shino refused to quit trying. His tactics were growing sloppier by the minute as his options were stripped away piece by piece, but his determination could not be denied. Satsuki had never taken the time to speak with Shino beyond basic courtesy, but she very much respected his grit. Alongside her admiration for his will, the fact that he was effectively defending home soil against a foreign opponent brought an unexpected new intensity to the affair.

"This might get ugly soon." Naruto said with a wince as one of Kankuro's puppets spitefully knocked Shino to his back and cracked his sunglasses. Satsuki nodded in grim agreement. The crowd roared each time Shino accomplished anything remotely positive, but those cheers were being given less and less occasion to be heard as the match progressed. Thankfully, the section Team Seven was confined within was among the least crowded in the arena. Only ten or so others were present.

Turning her attention away from the match below for a moment, Satsuki took a look around the arena to study the postures and faces of those in attendance. What she found was predictable. Most of the audience wore looks of dejection, with hope brewing just beneath the surface. They were ready to pop for their native son, but they hardly saw victory in the cards. The raven-haired girl began to turn her eyes away from the crowd, but stopped as something caught her attention.

Red hair, lifeless blue eyes.

Directly across the arena, sitting among a group of unsuspecting civilians, was Gaara of the Sand. His posture was relaxed, with his arms folded across his chest and his back leaned against his seat. Even from such a great distance, Satsuki could feel the fabricated nature of his outward facade. Over nearly two minutes of observation, she witnessed him greet several strangers, even bothering to make small talk with one or two. He was blending himself into his environment. A shudder worked through the leaf genin's frame.

His disposition was genial, his manners polite. Even his smile was rather convincing from far enough away. By every metric, he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. It was no surprise that he could so easily dodge blame for the horrific murders he had committed. Even under suspicion, one would be hard pressed to find a damning narrative surrounding him. As she watched him, Satsuki noticed something else. Despite every effort Gaara made to appear unassuming, he had not looked a single person around him in the eyes.

It wasn't as though he was actively avoiding doing so. Rather, his vision had been firmly focused in one direction since Satsuki had begun her eavesdropping. Tracing the redhead's line of sight carefully, Satsuki found its focus, and when she did, she tensed. Her initial guess had been that his eyes were fixed on her own, but as it turned out, she was off by just a few feet. He was looking directly at Naruto.

It was rather difficult to discern the emotions swirling about in Gaara's eyes from hundreds of feet away, but Satsuki could feel traces of his bloodlust from across the arena. He was suppressing himself, but to a set of trained senses, he was so inherently repugnant that no amount of fronting could fully conceal his darkness.

'You won't even get to touch him. You're gonna leave on a stretcher after I'm done with you.' Satsuki silently swore to the unsavory Jinchuuriki. The girl suddenly found herself feeling both incredibly uneasy, and intensely territorial. Naruto could fend for himself, he hardly needed to be protected, but in spite of that fact, Satsuki had to actively deny the urge to stand up and block him from Gaara's view.

'Don't fucking look at him that way, you freak.' she thought vulgarly. The redhead's eyes had become more clear to Satsuki the longer she'd looked at them. He wanted nothing more than to rip Naruto apart. She couldn't quite see it, but the Uchiha girl was entirely sure that he was shaking in anticipation. He was utterly depraved.

"Satsuki? What's up?"

Satsuki snapped from her unhappy haze and jerked her head left. Naruto was gazing at her with curious eyes. Glancing down, the Uchiha girl found that she had subconsciously taken a tight hold on the blonde's right wrist with her left hand. Letting go of him quickly, Satsuki folded her hands in her lap.

"Sorry." she mumbled. Naruto tilted his head to one side, but did not press her further, instead choosing to focus on the match, which appeared to be nearing its conclusion. Once he was occupied again, Satsuki looked at him directly.

'He ran into Gaara alone. He had to face that monster all by his lonesome.' she thought to herself, now having gained a new understanding of her teammate's brittle reaction to the redhead. Before she could follow the train of thought any further down its tracks, the crowd fell nearly silent. Looking down into the arena below, Satsuki saw that Shino was unconscious on the ground. He didn't appear to be critically wounded, but he was certainly unable to fight on.

"He gave it a solid shot. That's worth something." Shikamaru said. Naruto, who looked rather disappointed, nodded solemnly. Quickly, Genma Shiranui, who had briefed the genin earlier that morning, rushed to the Aburame heir's side. After a cursory glance over him, he waved his arms over his unconscious form. The signal that the match had been called off.

"You should go warm up, Naruto. You don't have long." came the voice of Kakashi from behind the genin. The blonde responded by rising to his feet and stretching his back. Indeed, the intermission between the quarterfinal matches was only ten minutes, the countdown of which began immediately after the conclusion of the previous match.

"I'm heading down to the stairs." Naruto called, waving a short farewell to his team as he jogged off. The genin had all been shown the route to the stairwell that led to the entrance into the arena's center early that morning. Within seconds, Naruto was gone. Upon his exit, Satsuki looked back across the arena to locate Gaara. She found him without much trouble. This time, they locked eyes. Taking the opportunity with both hands, she sent a single silent message through her expression.

The road to Naruto Uzumaki went directly through Satsuki Uchiha.


Naruto took an anxious look at the clock for the fourth time in three minutes as he jogged up and down the lowest flight of stairs. He was fully prepared to fight, and he had faith in the plan of attack Kakashi had ruthlessly drilled into him, but he could not entirely free himself of his apprehension. The discovery of just how badly he was being counted out by the masses had hardly been a surprise, but it had still managed to intensify a feeling that had been eating away at him for weeks.

He was not meant to defeat Neji Hyuga.

The blonde was guilty of slowness from time to time, but he was perceptive. He was, in the minds of both the public and the administration that had matched the final round, being offered up as a sacrificial lamb. He was a warm body, so to speak. He knew all too well how his chances were perceived, and while he had not allowed it to bother him during his preparation, now that he was only minutes away from facing his foe, doubts were creeping in.

'It's on you now. Nobody else can make this happen. You've gotta show up.' he coached himself silently, stepping off of the stairway and taking a few deep breaths. His blood was now flowing. He was ready. The only thing left to do was wait. Five minutes separated him from the task at hand. Pacing around the small concrete room, Naruto fought to gather himself and smooth out his nerves. His concentration was broken only moments later, as the sound of footsteps echoed down the stairwell.

Turning his attention to the metal stairs, Naruto was surprised to find that he had been joined by Satsuki, who halted on the platform just above ground level.

"You're already sweating. Might wanna slow down the warmup." she commented. The Jinchuuriki scratched the back of his head and chuckled awkwardly.

"I just don't know when to quit. You know me." he said dishonestly. Unfortunately, his attempt to appear composed fell flat, as Satsuki read him like an open book. Descending the first step, the girl gave him a knowing look.

"The moment's getting to you, isn't it?" she inquired perceptively. Naruto pursed his lips and nodded reluctantly. There was no point in putting on airs. Especially not in private.

"I'm just feeling the pressure, you know? I've put so much work into this. I want to win. I want to make this my day. I…wanna make you guys proud." he admitted, saying a bit more than he would have liked. Satsuki turned out one of her palms.

"Think of it this way, then. Nobody is expecting you to even compete with him. In a way, there's no pressure on you at all. Just go out there and make Sensei rich." she offered. It was a worthwhile suggestion. The psychology behind the mindset made sense, in a backwards sort of way. It still didn't quite stick.

"I wish people took me seriously, I guess." Naruto muttered, looking to the floor. He then heard Satsuki sigh and walk down a few more steps. Her hands were soon on his shoulders.

"News flash, dumbass. We all take you seriously. Me, Shikamaru, Kakashi, all of us. Maybe that's not what you're looking for, but the people who know you think you're pretty neat." the Uchiha girl said bluntly. The Jinchuuriki turned his head up and looked at her fully. She was smiling

"You're real inconsistent about showing it." Naruto shot back. Satsuki rolled her eyes and inched into his personal space just a touch.

"I spilled my guts and cuddled you last night. Take the hint. I like you a whole lot. Doesn't mean I won't push your buttons every chance I get, though." she said. Naruto blinked at her sudden closeness.

"You're really weird." he said. It was a weak retort, and he knew it. The Uchiha girl reached out and poked him on the forehead with her index and middle fingers.

"If you didn't like it, you'd avoid me. Now go out there and break his nose. If you win, I might let you be my body pillow again." she said, tacking on an incentive to her encouragement. Naruto took a quick look at the clock. Only a minute remained. Turning back to Satsuki, he nodded.

"Deal." he said, turning around and taking a deep breath as he faced the exit door. Hesitating only once, Naruto strode out into the arena, leaving Satsuki alone in the concrete room. Watching his back as he walked away, the raven-haired girl slid her hands into her pockets.

'I'm gonna check the betting stand.'


A/N: Alright, so I decided to completely skip the bullshit with the final round, and just jump right into what you guys came here to see. I made you wait over a month for this, and much of the intermediary stuff was easy to exposition.

Did this feel rushed? If so, I apologize. I promise that the rest of this arc will be very in-depth, as it has great importance for the plot moving forward.

I ALSO apologize for the extra day of waiting. I got a little sick yesterday, and ended up napping most of the day.

Either way, leave me a review if you're able. It means the world to me :)

I love you all

Read and Review!