*Chapter 23*: Chapter Twenty: Political Fallout

-AN: The properly edited and beta'd version of chapter 20- thanks again, G!

Previously: The pride of the Hyuuga clan has taken a dreadful blow as Neji is crippled in his fight against the previously all but unknown Kabuto, while immediately thereafter in his loss, Haku manages the unthinkable in his own defeat, wounding Gaara. Naruto learns a little more about Haku's ultimate technique, and Konoha learns more about Naruto's newly developed dojutsu, while the remaining contestants prepare to step forward and do battle, competing for the right to become chunin. But the Pride of Takigakure prepares to rear its head...

Chapter 20: Political Fallout

Hayate coughed, grinding his teeth in frustration. Every fight today has made such a mess.

The cleanup crew had spent ten minutes with minor fire jutsu to melt the ice barricades Haku had created, and another fifteen with wind jutsu blowing out the water that hadn't drained away. The clean up crew followed up with a point blank statement that they weren't coming back again today, and short of actually knocking down the tower, any further messes would wait until tomorrow.

Meanwhile, in the balcony, the tension was growing palpable. Only four genin remained, two from Takigakure, and two from Konoha. Traditionally, Takigakure and Konoha held the closest and most trusted alliance in all the Five Nations, a relationship partly due to the fact that Takigakure was a de facto vassal village to Konoha.

Konohagakure never took advantage of this relationship. In fact, in their dealings with one another Konoha traditionally treated Takigakure with the same deference and respect that they did Sunagakure, granting the sitting Hero the same treatment as they would any Kage whether the Hokage was visiting Taki or the Hero visiting Konoha. And yet, it was this very treatment that rankled Taki so heavily. The extra effort Konoha made to maintain the illusion that they were equal in Konoha's eyes… that was responsible for a deep-seated and growing resentment on the part of Takigakure. And now, in this Chunin exam, this resentment was beginning to show.

Takigakure was making a statement — whose first sentence had been the rough treatment of Uchiha Sasuke in the first match — that they were content to remain in Konoha's shadow no longer. They were determined that here, now, they would demonstrate that they, too, had strength; and though they were small, they would brook polite disregard no longer.

Their pride, however, was an inconvenient thing, especially at this point in history, although few of the real players were fully aware of just how much so. All of them, of course, realized this much; that in flinging this statement into the teeth of the most powerful of the hidden villages was a dangerous step in unbalancing the carefully measured distribution of power and caution across the continent.

In response to Takigakure's actions, Konoha had two alternatives, and only one of them was actually viable. First, they could graciously and condescendingly step aside and let them flex their muscles. This was no longer a possibility, not with any form of credibility, after the hospitalization of the scions of some of Konoha's most prestigious houses. Sasuke's hospitalization, as the last of the Uchiha, was bad enough; but the crippling of the Hyuuga heir set this statement as crisis. If Takigakure could put the three-way on Konoha after two of their most prized weapons had been forcibly put out of commission, whether temporarily or permanently, Konoha would lose tremendous face in the shinobi community. And this would have disastrous consequences for the shinobi world at large, due to Konoha's status.

The current climate of relative peace existed because Konoha was, by a large margin, the strongest of the shinobi villages. The truce existed almost entirely because the biggest and baddest player at the table wanted it that way. But the balance remained stable only if that power remained feared. Strength without the will to use it is wasted strength, directionless and ineffective, and a deterrent is feared only if it is demonstrated that the one with the biggest stick will use it as needed. Therefore, if so small and ineffective an entity (at least, on a national scale) as Takigakure could flaunt Konoha with impunity, the certainty of other hidden villages regarding Konoha's superiority would be cast into doubt. They might decide that, on the basis that if Konoha was either unwilling or unable to spare the relatively minimal resources needed to put Taki in its place, then Konoha's threat had lost its teeth. In effect, coddling Takigakure's bruised ego could very well reignite the Shinobi wars all over again.

Which, in turn, determined that the other alternative — still a bad one — yet remained the lesser of two evils: slap them down hard and fast and with no room for misinterpretation or exception. Make the statement that, 'yes, in fact, we are bigger and badder than you; and if you willingly reach out to poke us, you'll be pulling back a stump'.

And that is exactly what Gai-sensei and Asuma-sensei informed their students Rock Lee and Yamanaka Ino.

At first glance, an observer would think that, with two remaining Konoha genin and two remaining Takigakure genin, that there was a fifty-fifty chance of the last matches being village against village. That initial observation would be inaccurate and wrong.

Each of the two remaining villages had two genin left to choose from. Thus, once one of those genin is selected, he or she has three potential opponents remaining: one from his or her own village, and two from the other village. Still, it was twice as likely for that shinobi to be facing an opponent from the other village as it was for them to face one from their own village.

When looked at in this light, what happened was almost inevitable.

By the end of the day, tensions between allies had never been higher. Many outcomes balanced on a thread.

By the end of the day, one of these few remaining genin is almost murdered, and will require a number of weeks to recover.

By the end of the day, a straw begins to fall, a straw whose path does not end for almost a month. And the camel upon whose back it lands is a proud beast indeed.

The next fight is announced.

Koizuma Kaneda. Rock Lee.

Lee sighed in relief. There were two girls left, Ino and the female from Takigakure. Kaneda was a man's name, therefore, Lee was lucky enough not to be fighting a woman.

Rock Lee didn't care much for the idea of hitting a woman. Oh, sure, he had sparred with girls in the past, and Tenten was a tough chick to go toe to toe with, but he wasn't just sparring or even fighting now. Gai-sensei had been quite clear.

If he faced off against either of the genin from Takigakure, he had to make an example of them. Crush them mercilessly, or else humiliate them enough to force them to give up.

Lee was tempted to believe that Gai-sensei was still in shock over what had been done to Neji. He wanted to believe that

Gai-sensei's grief made him want to lash out at something, anything, take blind revenge on anyone. But that wasn't like Gai-sensei. And Ino's face, looking back at him as he shot a glance at her, told him that she'd received the same instructions from her sensei, Asuma.

Lee landed in the middle of the floor, several feet from Hayate. Despite the extreme magnitude of weight he wore, the touchdown on the stones of the arena was almost feather-light. After standing from his crouch, the green-clad genin looked expectantly towards the stairs… and his face fell.

The girl from Takigakure was headed down the stairs to the arena floor.

Lee was speechless for the time it took for his opponent to reach the center where he and Hayate stood. She was his age- or no more than a year older, at the most- and slender, with shorts that showed off her well shaped legs, heavy leather gloves, and a thick shirt with heavily stitched pockets rather than the usual tool bag that most shinobi used. After a moment, Lee found a voice and used it, shocking himself awake from the pretty shinobi who stood before him. "I, uh… I thought that Kaneda was... a boy's name."

The Taki-nin's forehead popped an angry, bulging vein. "I'm not a woman!" snarled Kaneda, his voice a high tenor but still indisputably male. "Are you blind, you bowl-headed idiot?"

Lee was too startled to notice the slur on his hair; his answering words were born of strictest honesty. "I would have to be blind not to think you one; you don't look like a boy at all! You don't even have an Adam's apple!"

Kaneda drew a kunai, murder in his eyes, but Hayate's glare forestalled him, intimidating even with a cough like a deathrattle. Kaneda settled for saying, "I will carve out your Adam's apple and wear it myself."

Lee stood straighter. "You will not have the chance. You will surrender now, or I will show you why I am known as Konoha's Handsome Blue Beast." He held out a hand in a ready stance.

Kaneda saw a chance to even the score. "Even if I am prettier than most boys, I am not interested in your 'handsome beasts', or whatever you call them. Although," he added as if in afterthought, "wearing an outfit like that, I can certainly understand why your balls would be blue."

Lee's eyes grew even more round than normal, and in a whisper, he said, "Proctor, I am ready to start the fight."

Hayate looked back and forth between the two, before he said, "Begin!"

There was a snapping crackle of cloth, a mammoth impact of bone to bone contact, and Lee was standing where Kaneda had been, his backfist still extended. The Takigakure nin spun and tumbled backwards in a flopping motion similar to a puppet with its strings cut. Kaneda did not move as Hayate ran over to him. And then Lee found himself standing staring down Kaneda's smirking face.

"Begin!" called out Hayate.

Lee blinked momentarily. Had he zoned out? Kaneda moved to throw his kunai, Lee darted forward faster than Kaneda could react. Lee's backfist sent the Taki genin tumbling backwards.

And Lee found himself standing staring into the smirking face of the Taki-nin.

"Begin!" called out Hayate.

Lee closed his eyes and began to speak.

"Begin!" Kaneda was already stepping to the side as Hayate spoke, and not even a moment too soon, as the backlash of displaced air rocked him. Lee was standing almost on top of Kaneda's original position. Lee's face registered a moment of surprise, and he lunged forward again, an almost identical backfist strike. Kaneda looked rattled; both attacks had been faster than he could even process, much less defend against. Hayate had dashed backwards, watching the two of them intently. Lee closed his eyes and said, "Genjutsu specialist."

Kaneda gulped visibly, but gathered himself together, as he pulled out a length of wire from a shirt pocket, wrapping it tightly around his gloves and moving to come around behind Lee.

Lee spoke again. "You would do well to surrender now. This is... your last chance."

Kaneda said nothing, moving in and raising his hands to bring the wire over Lee's head, when Lee suddenly shouted, "Kaimon! Kai!"

There was a loud cracking noise as Lee vanished, leaving smashed stone where he'd been standing. His voice rang out from above, where he stood upside down, attached to the ceiling. "Kyumon... Kai!"

The assembly of proctors and jonin-instructors looked on at the fight in shock. Then, almost in unison, those from Konoha turned their heads to aim a withering, accusing look in the direction of Maito Gai.

Kakashi was especially angry. He left Team Akachi's side and walked up to Gai, pulling him off to the side in a less than gentle fashion.

"Gai," he began, shaking slightly in his anger, "I recognize that they are your students. But I am severely disappointed in you. Isn't one permanently crippled student enough?"

Gai flinched as though he'd been punched, but he rallied himself. His voice was soft and level in his response. "You don't know the first thing about Lee."

"I've substituted for you in the past with your team, Gai, and I'm aware of Lee's trouble with jutsu—"

"Trouble?" Gai said snidely, his eyes boring into Kakashi's with the force of a rockslide. "No. You know nothing. Do you know why he cannot use jutsu?"

Kakashi frowned. He hated being interrupted. "Enlighten me," he prompted coldly through clenched teeth.

"It is because Lee has virtually no ability to produce chakra whatsoever. Any chakra he produces is almost immediately absorbed by his tendon, muscle, and bone. It allows him to transcend normal flesh and blood limits... and cripples him as a ninja. Unless he has a means by which to work around it. The only time he produces enough free flowing chakra even to manage the tree-climbing exercise is by releasing the first Inner Gate. He wanted to defeat Neji... but that isn't the reason that I taught it to him, regardless of what I told him. If I hadn't taught him the Lotus, what would he do when he ran across a Genjutsu user… as he is now? I'll tell you what. He would lose. And likely die." Gai looked back at Lee, who upon releasing the 'second gate' was able to manifest the much needed pulse of chakra that would disrupt the genjutsu that had held him unable to effectively fight back until now. "Set against that certain death sentence, this was really not a difficult choice at all."

Lee released the flow of chakra to his feet. He had only started to drift downwards before he kicked out, shattering the ceiling tiles where he contacted and vanishing as rapidly as his original leap.

Where Lee touched down the floor shattered with a titanic booming. Shards of stone, dust, and debris flew upwards in a blinding cloud, and through the top of the expanding cloud flew the Takigakure genin, limp and unresponsive as his body rose in the air. Lee rose up behind him in a perfect Kagebuyo, unravelling his bandages as they ascended.

Gai's eyes widened, and he swore sulfurously. "Lee, no!"

Lee found his upward progress arrested as one of his bandages went taught, pinned to the Ram Seal statue, while Gai intercepted the falling Kaneda, supporting the Takigakure genin's neck. Kaneda's eyes were filled with tears of pain and terror. Gai set him down as gently and carefully as he could manage, but there was no hiding from anyone the boneless motion of the genin's neck. He was lucky to be alive at all. And if he was to stay that way, the medics would have to work fast.

The medics were forced to artificially manipulate his lungs and heart. With no signal from the autonomous nervous system, everything had simply... stopped. His heart did an uneven fluttering as the body's natural backups attempted to assert themselves, but the medic-nin were forced to keep him on artificial support until the damage could be repaired... if it could be repaired at all.

"Lee." Gai's voice was carefully neutral.

Lee's head hung with shame and exhaustion and pain from the stress of the Lotus. "I have failed you, Gai-sensei."

Lee flinched as Gai's hand rose from his side, but the jonin only rested it on Lee's shoulder. "Do you know why I stopped you?"

Lee's uncertainty was apparent. "I..."

"Your first kick broke his neck," Gai answered. "Had you completed your maneuver, you would have killed him stone dead. And I know that you wouldn't have wanted that."

Lee's eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry, Gai-sensei, I went too far—"

Gai's eyes were misty as well. "No, Lee. You gave him several chances but, in the end, you did exactly as you were ordered to do," Gai admonished. "You performed your mission exactly as you were required. As any splendid shinobi would."

Lee burst into tears and collapsed into Gai's chest. The jonin simply wrapped his arms around the genin, enduring the storm of his emotion. Lee's world — and Gai's own, for that matter — was a turbulent maelstrom of pride, fear, shame, embarrassment, joy, and many others, all competing for dominance. The price of youth, Gai told himself.

Mizuten Takumo stood in the balcony, his fists clenched tight enough that his fingernails were drawing blood. Is this all that the pride of Takigakure can manage?

In the second exam, the two teams from Takigakure had joined forces. They were as strong, as skilled, a group of genin as had ever been produced by Waterfall. They'd been lucky enough to draw opposing scrolls; meaning that they had a fifty percent force advantage over the one team in the exam guaranteed to have everything they would need to pass the second exam.

The second Taki team had been a tracking team, and track they did. They'd stayed hidden and on the trail of the four-man team from Konoha, watched for almost eighty-five hours as they learned how they operated, how they secured their perimeters, how they fought and attacked and defended. They had solid data on the three they'd been able to track down, and when their fourth had rejoined them they were ready to make their moves. They had initially assumed that he'd been picked off or separated early on. Probably the team's weakest member, they'd assumed. Back in the first exam, he'd been openly derided by all those who had been from his graduating class. And his outburst of violence early on, they'd taken as the barking of a small dog in fear; intimidating, but ultimately powerless in a real fight.

They'd seen the traps, keeping a sharp lookout in case they decided to mix them up... and then somehow, the one they'd assumed they could discount had somehow set off one of those damnable traps.

Thoughts and impressions and feelings whirled in Takumo's head. The Konoha genin had lived up to the terrifying reputation of their village. Konoha genin had comprised a little less than half the total registrants for the Chunin Exam, but more than two-thirds of the genin who had passed the second exam. And now, so far, only one Konoha genin had been eliminated by a genin from another village, and a second because she'd been, barely, caught cheating. Both had displayed impressive prowess even in their defeat, and now all that was left was another kunoichi from Konoha and himself.

He himself, out of the six entrants from Takigakure, was the only one not dead or hospitalized. His two teammates, who had survived the glass traps relatively unscathed, were now both hospitalized in critical condition. Of the other team, one was hospitalized with moderate blood loss, one blinded, and one dead. All at the hands of Konoha genin.

And now, if he lost, shame, defeated even by Konoha's women. Women had no place in fighting; Takumo firmly believed this. They had neither the temperament nor the strength to battle; few enough men did, for that matter. Yet, even if he won, shame still, for there would be those back home who would say he had won solely because he was fighting a woman. Even in victory he would be a laughing stock... unless he made it clear from the manner of her defeat that she'd been outclassed from the very beginning. Only if he destroyed her utterly…

That was the answer, then. This Konoha kunoichi (what a detestable concept!) would be the first order of vengeance for his fallen comrades at the hands of Takigakure's supposed allies. It would be a bloodbath and he would exact from Konoha payment for every comrade he'd lost.

That was it. Anger. Hatred. Vengeance. And that little trilling sensation in the pit of his stomach was excitement.

Not fear.

Certainly not fear of a woman.

The two remaining genin did not need their names posted on the board. As soon as Kaneda was strapped to the board and carried away, Ino and Takumo began their descent to the arena.

Ino noted the look of anger and contempt on the face of the Takigakure nin. Good. His contempt would lead him to underestimate her, while his anger would prevent him from thinking clearly.

And she was fairly certain that she could wreck any further thought processes with... special talents of her own.

Hayate surveyed the arena with something akin to dismay. How many times had it, or portions of it, been destroyed today? Had to have been less than eight. But each time it was repaired, the kids had done a pretty solid job of destroying it again. Lee's fight had been pretty tame by comparison, in spite of the wide, shallow crater he'd made on landing before the kick that ended the fight. Probably because of all the weight the kid was wearing.

At least this will be the last fight, Hayate thought to himself.

Ino was favoring her opponent with a sultry look. "Your teammate was the pretty one," she observed vampishly, "but I like my men a bit more rugged. Do you like to play... rough?"

If anything, Takumo's sneer grew. "This is exactly why women shouldn't be allowed in the ranks of ninja. If you can't control your hormones, you aren't fit to be a genin, much less a chuinin. Besides, a little girl like you…? I'd rather kill you than touch you."

Ino tossed her hair and gave him a superior little smirk. "Yeah, with a pretty thing like him on your team, I guess it makes sense that you'd rather touch little boys. Disgusting, but still it makes a sort of sense."

"I don't have to touch you to kill you," Takumo said. "Proctor, start the fight already. Her voice is giving me a headache."

Hayate coughed heavily into his fist before nodding. "No objections?" At the lack of response from the two genin facing off, he nodded. "Begin!"

Ino twisted her forearm slightly, and a kunai she'd stored in a docker's clutch sprung into her hand, where she launched it almost point blank into Takumo's face. Despite his surprise, his reflexes were plenty fast enough, and rather than the blade taking him in the eye it only drew a bloody line across his cheek and left ear.

Takumo sprang backwards, forming a short, rapid series of hand seals while inhaling deeply, then exhaling a stacatto barrage of wickedly fast water blasts, each roughly the size of a small watermelon. Ino dodged, now on the defensive, staggering a little as one blast clipped her hip, but her smirk never left her face nor did a limp show despite the massive bruise already forming.

"In a hurry, are you?" she taunted, back-flipping, her right hand slapping hard against the tile as she did. "Don't blow all your stamina in a quick rush. A girl likes a guy with a little endurance, not someone who ends up wiped out before she's even warmed up."

Takumo launched several more water blasts. The explosive note Ino had pasted to the floor detonated. The force of the explosion deflected the water bullets in a spray of droplets that doused the arena floor. "Don't you worry about that, you little harlot," he snarled. "I'll take your breath away."

"Ooo, that sounds promising!" retorted Ino, flinging several volleys of shuriken, the last few had explosive notes pasted onto them. He dodged them handily. "But to do that you need motivation, and my girlish looks just can't be helping you." Ino tossed him a flirty wink and raised a kunai. "How about if I cut my hair short for you?"

And Ino cut off her ponytail, flinging it onto the floor between them.

Takumo gaped at her as her platinum blond hair, almost three feet of it, fluttered to the stone tiles, strewn across the shattered remnants on the outskirts of Lee's crater.

Ino was sweating, smiling at her opponent and panting. Everything was going wonderfully; the Takigakure nin was completely losing it. A little longer and she'd have him pinned and humiliated.

The only way it could be better was if it wasn't so damned humid in here.

Kakashi watched as Ino skillfully manipulated her opponent, playing to his obvious misogyny and gynophobia, using those traits against him in a masterful display of applied psychology.

He tossed a look in the direction of his occasionally apathetic appearing colleague, Asuma, and smiled under his mask. Asuma had managed to teach his team how to take advantage of their talents in the face of opposition, even a talent for seduction and aggravation in the middle of a fight.

Kakashi noticed that Ino was fatiguing rapidly. He didn't think it was her physical condition. As far as Kakashi could see — and in her outfit he could see far more of the twelve year old girl than he was comfortable with — she was in excellent shape.

Ino made a particularly stinging comment about being more attractive to her opponent if he saw her from behind, so he could pretend she was a skinny boy. Takumo snapped; he charged at her angrily, only to be halted as he stepped onto a few strands of Ino's chakra-infused ponytail, which seized him and bound him tightly to the floor.

Ino smiled at Takumo dangerously, and gave a wet sounding cough, before saying, "Maybe you should... learn to control... that temper of yours." She said in short, gasping breaths.

Kakashi frowned. Ino's lips were turning blue.

The end of the fight was sudden. One moment, Takumo was trapped, Ino preparing to use her mind possession technique, and the next, she seemed to lose focus. Takumo was suddenly free, the flow of chakra through Ino's hair failing, and she fell to one knee, gasping like a fish out of water. She turned a puzzled look at the Taki genin, who formed two seals. Ino shuddered, water poured out of her mouth, and she fell face-first to the floor.

Hayate called out, "Medics!"

As the medic-nin rushed over, Hayate declared Takumo the winner.

One of the medics shouted, "She's drowning!"

There was a streak of red and black from the balcony, and Takumo was slammed into the arena wall. Naruto held him by the throat, his eyes glowing a feral red, his whisker birthmarks enhanced, and the grabbing hand clawed. Kubikiri Houcho rested across the rear of Naruto's shoulders, the dull side of the blade against the back of his neck and the razor sharp end of the blade poised at Takumo's neck just above Naruto's knuckles.

"Release it!" Naruto yelled.

"Oh, right." Takumo said with a smirk. "Did I forget to do that?"

Water poured out of Ino's mouth again; as the medics began CPR, one of them declared a pulse, and she was loaded onto a stretcher, two of the medics simultaneously trying to clear out the rest of the water and get oxygen back into her blood.

Hayate, Yamato, and Ibiki were now flanking Naruto. Ibiki spoke. "Uzumaki, you will release Mizuten-san or we will be forced to place you under arrest."

Naruto's voice was an angry growl. "He just tried to murder her after the fight was over!"

"He released the jutsu," Hayate said, drawing his sword. "You will release him now. The attack was initiated within the prescribed conditions of the match. The form for the exam that you signed clearly stated the possibility of death in the exam. I assure you that Ino's form was no different than yours."

Naruto spit in Takumo's face and threw him to the ground. As Takumo gingerly touched the bruises forming on his throat, Naruto said, "You'd better hope you lose before you fight me." Naruto's eyes were glowing a bright and deadly red. "You'd better hope real hard."

Kakashi shunshined to Naruto's side. "I think it would be best if we just calmed down now, Naruto."

Naruto snorted. "I am calm. If I hadn't been calm, this kusotaregakure nin would be in two pieces on the floor. And I still think he's the one you should be threatening with arrest for trying to kill someone outside the boundaries of his fight, but since the proctors of this 'exam' have seen fit to take his side, I'll wait until the finals. Mark my words, if he and I step into the ring together, only one of us walks away."

The proctors stepped back, allowing Naruto and Kakashi to return to the balcony. The Takigakure jonin-sensei was arguing with the proctors before they had left the arena floor. "That kid attacked one of my students at the end of his fight, and you let him go? Is this how you honor the treaty between our villages?"

Morino Ibiki turned to face the Taki jonin, and calmly said, "It looked to me like Uzumaki-san was merely giving him a friendly reminder to release his jutsu on the girl he'd beaten, since his fight was already over. I can attest to you from personal observation — as could a dead genin from Otogakure — that if he was attacking your student, you would be taking home two students in critical condition and that one…" He jerked a thumb at Takumo. "…in a box. So obviously it wasn't an attack. Naruto doesn't hesitate to kill, if that is his intent. Being that your student is unharmed — if a little humiliated — Naruto had no intention at all of attacking him."

The instructor for the Takigakure team muttered something under his breath as he stalked off.

"That could have gone better," said Ibiki softly.

"But could it (cough) have gone worse?" asked Hayate rhetorically.

"One thing you learn," Ibiki replied wryly, pulling off his cap and rubbing his ruined scalp before pulling the headgear back on, "is that things can always go worse."

Kakashi was exhausted. He'd performed a high-level sealing jutsu, several shunshin, and been under a great deal of stress, all the while maintaining a kage bunshin who was itself maintaining a henge. He hadn't used this much chakra at once since...

Well, it had been a while. Just a little bit longer...

He watched from the sidelines, his eyes burning and blurring, as his clone spoke. "Except for one last item, the preliminaries are over," spoke the 'Hokage'. "So now, we need you to step forward and take a number from this box."

The genin filed forward, one at a time. The spectators from before were gone now, leaving only those who had passed their matches, except Sasuke. According to a nurse who arrived half an hour ago, Sasuke had been cleansed of the blood-thinning agent, and would be kept overnight to ensure that there were no complications, even though none were expected, or even at all likely.

Fair enough.

After everyone had selected a number from the box, Naruto said, "I've got nine."

Tenten, "Three."

Temari: "Five."

Takumo: "Seven."

Gaara, "My number is two."

Kabuto: "Eight."

Lee: "I am number one! Yosh!"

Shikamaru: "Four."

The Hokage nodded. "Which, by default, gives Sasuke number six." He unrolled a scroll. It revealed a tournament chart whose numbers were replaced by the names of the genin holding them. The slips of paper in each of their hands crumbled into dust as their names appeared, save for Sasuke's which remained a number.

Gaara versus Lee. Tenten versus Shikamaru. Temari versus Sasuke. And Takumo would fight the winner of the match between Kabuto and Naruto.

Naruto and Gaara locked eyes. They wouldn't get to fight until the very last match.

"You'd better not lose before you face me," Naruto said with a grin.

Gaara snorted. "I'll kill you."

"You're welcome to try."

"Save it for the match boys," Ibiki said. "First things first."

"Indeed," said the Hokage. "You have all performed well today. You've fought grueling battles against one another, after five successive days of similar battles, with little sleep and likely as little food. Add to this that you have almost certainly shown your best moves, and you undoubtedly have little left to give. So we now give you a month; one month in which to train, grow strong, and prepare yourselves for the coming battles. When next we all gather, it will be under the watchful eyes of the most powerful men and women in our nations. So use this time wisely; for, I assure you, your opponents shall do the same."

And at that, the Hokage shunshined away, barely in time to vanish in a puff of smoke outside of anyone's field of view.

Kakashi collapsed in the stands and closed his eyes. Finally, time to take a nap.

End Chapter 20 Translation:

Kusotare- Literally anus, or the little hole at the end of one's colon. Therefore, kusotaregakure is a direct insult meaning, more or less, village hidden inside the(ir) asshole.

-AN: Well, I'm back after an exceedingly long absence. The only thing I can offer you is apologies for how long it's been and mention that I DO work in a grocery store- in other words, in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, there is absolutely NO time or energy to type after I finish shifts. If you don't like it, too fucking bad- if you can still hassle me after looking at that situation impartially, then you are likely one of the sorry, self righteous, mother loving butt monkeys I've had to deal with the last three weeks.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I will inform you all that I have a HUGE backlog of written work to transcribe on this story- after the end of this chapter I still have sixty pages. So pending my typing time- which will evaporate in approximately one and a half weeks as the Christmas Dinner people come in and start hassling me about 'why their Goose is so fatty' (That's what a Goose is like, now go buy a turkey like a person who is NOT stuck in the seventeenth century Dicken's stories) or why their chestnuts that they roasted in a fireplace burnt down their house (Cut an 'x' clean through the shell, so the steam can escape or yes, one of those little fuckers IS going to explode in a ball of high calorie, flamable fragments).

God, I hate the Holidays. It turns me into something less than human- Bing Crosby and the rest of you carol-singing shriffs from the forties and fifties can go drown yourselves please. Oh wait, you're all pretty much dead now from gin and tobacco. Why the fuck every store feels the need to endlessly replay ninety-fucking-nine different version of the same six Christmas songs is a mystery I'll never understand, and I curse the day my manager told me I had to remove the earplugs so I could hear what Mr. and Mrs. Complainsalot have to say about their prepackaged mistletoe making their dog sick after he ate it (Yes, your romantic little decoration is poisonous if eaten; do NOT let it fall into the gravy and then throw it on the floor).

HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE. If there is anyone on earth who has the right to hate Christmas it is we who work in retail. Rant out.

On the topic of Mizuten Takumo, yes, he's a first class jerk and a misogynist. No, I do not subscribe to anything he believes, as should be apparent from what I've written in the past... but I refuse to betray my vision of the story by portraying anything in a candy coated or idealist fashion. Utter honesty from my own viewpoint is all I can depict, and I hope you forgive me for forcing myself to write what I see out of his eyes; I feel dirty about it still. But to not do so would be somehow worse for me.

At some point in the future, I will look at this and cringe because I know the time of year has severely altered my emotional state and I could probably use professional help or at least a hug. But as I only have the story right now to comfort myself, I will use it as violent catharsis, and take comfort that, after this chapter, it will be a little while before any really gory stuff happens. I'd like to focus on something other than violence right now.

Alright. If you want to contact me, you can leave a review, or PM me. I will do my best to respond to either. I appreciate your readership, and beg your forgiveness for my venting; I'm just really tired and unhappy right now and I want to see some of my family during a season which is supposed to be family-centric, but leaves me no time to celebrate them.

Preview Chapter 21:

Hiashi took a scroll from the corner of his desk and, after looking at it for a moment, handed it to Hinata. The scroll was unsealed, but tied closed. Hinata looked at it, then at her father, before looking back at the scroll. Slowly, she unfurled the scroll with trembling hands. Her eyes scanned the first words on the page, widened as she read a few more lines, then filled with tears.

She dropped the scroll and jumped up. Pens, papers, scrolls, and various knick-knackery, along with Hiashi's favorite lamp, flew off the desk in disarray as she flung herself across it, wrapping her arms around her father and crying, interspersing her sobs with 'otousan' and 'arigatou'.

Hiashi's distress at the disorderly disaster made of his desk was pronounced; he still managed gentleness as he set her down. "Daughter, compose yourself! We have a great deal to discuss yet, and this must serve to soften the blow for what is yet to come."

End Preview.

Ja mata.

-AXENOME