Dang, I haven't updated in awhile, and when I left it at a cliffy too……(hides from cliffy haters). Sorry, but I had too many ideas for fanfics running around my head and I needed to get them out (go look at my profile, I posted two other fanfics since I updated this last to prove my point). And then graduation mess started, and then AP crap, so yeah, sorry for the really long wait. School will be done in a few weeks so, hopefully, I will be able to get chapters out faster (and get the fic ideas out of my head too).
Anyway, enough with the useless ranting, on with the chapter!
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Chp. 4: K-I-S-S-I-N-G, Part 2
Rai had once again been awed by the stupidity of man. Ninja's of apparently the same level of aptitude as him and his fellow teammates had just fallen for what Rai was sure was the oldest trick in the book (seriously, Rai read the book, and it was the oldest trick a ninja pulled on another). Making something look like something else, one of the simplest things a ninja could do, and one of the major skills tested on by the academy to see if students were ready to become ninja by way of the Henge jutsu. Currently, Rai had played this trick on the Mist nins that he and Yue had just encountered. Instead of giving them one of the two that he and his friends had managed to obtain in the labyrinth of caves, he grabbed a can of old beans. Performing a simple and hastily made genjutsu on the can, he made it look just like one of the two scrolls they already had. This brought Rai back to his current state of awe. How did those Mist nin not see that it was just an illusion? Rai wouldn't be able to ponder this for long however, for a yell broke him out of his trance.
"NADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Crap. Rai ran over to Yue trying to see if he could help his friend with a plan. But soon he found all he could do was watch with anxiety, and later, amusement.
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Yue couldn't think. He wouldn't think. The only thing that was going through his head was Nade's pink hair sinked beneath the water of the large underground river. He barely registered Rai's footfalls as Rai came walking up to him. Before Rai could say anything though, Yue's body started reacting on its own. A slow step forward, the another slightly larger stride, then another and another, picking up speed until he ran right to the bank of the torrent. And dived.
The back of his mind knew that Nade wouldn't be in the general vicinity of where she went in due to the current of the river, but Yue still looked frantically around. Frustrated by the slight murkyness of the water, he charged his eyes with chakra, bringing forth his bloodline limit without having to use signs like he usually did. Full spherical vision soon greeted him with a radius of a good 50 meters. Soon he saw the large chunk of ice and his friend stuck inside it. He swam frantically in that direction and soon came upon the cold obtrusion in the river. Swimming around to face Nade, he found a pair of emerald green eyes staring at him as if trying to convey a message. Taking it to mean 'get me out of here' he grabbed a kunai from his pouch and started hacking away at the ice. Unbeknownst to him, the emerald orbs rolled within the pink framed face.
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How could he be so stupid? Nadeshiko was looking down at Yue frantically chipping away at the ice that held her. And he didn't even realize that they were both running out of air. Baka Yue.
However, about a minute later, Yue found he really needed to take a breath. Without even looking at Nade, he kicked off the bottom and went straight to the surface. If Nade lived long enough, she would kill him. Probably by drowning. And then she would find some old healing technique her mom hadn't taught her yet and bring him back to life (if he ended up saving her) and hug him……wait, did she just think of performing some form of affectionate action towards the annoying and stupid Yue?...nah.
And that was when Yue returned. The look on his face puzzled Nade for a second. He looked as if he were contemplating something, but finally turned and looked her straight in the eyes. It seemed to Nade that Yue had finally figured out that Nade was having trouble keeping her breath held (the frantic struggling might suggest that), but what Nade couldn't figure out was what Yue was contemplating doing about it doing about it.
And then it happened. With both hands he grabbed the sides of her face, pulled up to her, and brought his lips to hers. Nade's eyes went wide.
He kissed her.
He KISSED her.
HE kissed HER.
At that point, before Nade could explode in seething passion…..wait, what?...no, rage. Definitely rage. Before she could explode in rage, the little voice of logic in the back of her brain, which sounded strangely like her dad, informed her that Yue was forcing air into her mouth. This she gulped down greedily. Yue then let go and kicked off again. After a few seconds he swam back into Nade's field of vision.
And he did it again.
This time Nade was prepared. She knew he was only doing this to give her air, and not to claim his place as king of 'the pervert squad.' He's still gonna getting knocked upside the head if we get out of this alive! Shannaro! fumed Inner Nade. Nade herself couldn't agree more.
After this last breath, Yue started doing something. Instead of picking away at the ice with a kunai like he had been doing, he instead held his hand out, and screwed up his face in more concentration than Nade had ever seen in his face. Slowly, the water just above his hand started to swirl in all directions and coalesce into a tight ball. And within that ball, Nade could see visible chakra. Her eyes started to itch. She saw parts of the ball wobble and then straighten back up. She also thought she could see inside the ball and stare in wonder at all the little changes in direction that the chakra made inside it. Finally the look of semi-constipated concentration relaxed from Yue's face as Nade saw that the ball of chakra had finally stabilized. With a foxy grin, Yue shoved that little ball of chakra into the ice surrounding Nade. Nade would have been very impressed if the ball had remained stable as it crashed into the ice, but even as it destabilized after impact, it still go the job done. The majority of the ice surrounding shattered and what was left Nade could easily break through.
A hand grabbed her as she crawled up the edge of the bank. As she sat there gasping for her life, she barely heard the familiar voice above her.
"Nice to see that the both of you are still alive." Sitting on a rock a few feet away from where she and Yue pulled themselves out of the river, was Rai. And he was looking bored.
"You know, you could at least look as if you were worried about us," grumbled Nade, attempting to wring water out of the various part of her clothing.
"Yeah, especially after you gave those guys one of our only two scroll," Yue flopped into a sitting position glaring at Rai.
Rai pulled out the two scrolls from their hiding places in his clothes. "What? You mean these?" Emerald and pearl eyes stared at him, dumbfounded
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They arrived at the crystal cave with a day and a half to spare. Thankful, they took this time to rest and tend to their injuries. Finally, when the 5 day time period was up, they were called to the middle of the crystal cave, where several statues carved out of the crystal and a large display screen were set into the wall beside a large flat area, surrounded by several raised, platform-like crystal outcroppings. In short, it looked like an arena. Taking a place on one of the outcroppings, Team 13 took stock of all the other teams that made it to the third exam.
The other two rookie teams from Leaf had made it. Nade waved to Kujira and Kemuri, and strangely enough, Inoki waved back at her to which he received a whack on the back of the head by Shikami. The team from the Mist was also there and the large boy Same was glaring at them, no doubt angry over being tricked by Rai. Some strange, yet average looking, group from grass was there (upon closer inspection it seemed to be the same group that Team 13 got their other scroll from, the one with the snivelly grass nin). The only other team, and the only other ones they didn't know was a team from Suna.
The only thing the Suna team seemed to have in common was that they all wore a raccoon tail on their belts and they were all girls. Other than that they all looked completely different. One was really tall, another really short. The short one had and extremely crazy grin on her faced that skeezed Nade out and was twitching occasionally. The moderately sized one was sleeping standing up. The tall one was staring at all the various crystals around her, staring longer at those that reflected light. The short one had blue hair, the middle one had black hair, and the tall one had white hair. And they were all wearing different styles of clothing.
Unfortunately the observation time was cut short as a Slightly short woman with a long braid and a live raccoon on her head walked out into the middle of the arena area from the group of officials standing near the wall. Nade and Yue remembered her from the day that the Konoha caravan arrived at Suna.
"Alright, my little chilluns, I am the proctor for the third section of the Chuunin exam, Amaya. The third section will consist of a one on one tournament style battle. Only those that have not yet become chuunin can participate, so those of you who only participated to complete a team, you can leave now." The two masked nin of the Mist team, Kukami and Hakami, disappeared in puffs of smoke. "Ok, now that that's settled, today we are only completing round one of the tournament, the prelims, so seeing as there are…16 of you now, there will be 8 matches. The matches will be randomly picked, so watch for you name on the screen and come down here when your name appears." Amaya quickly spun around, almost dislodging the raccoon on her head, and watched the display screen. It began to randomly scroll through names.
Nadeshiko Uchiha vs. Same Zanza.
After a short pause, Nade laughed and grinned wildly. "Perfect."
It seemed kind of unfair for those watching that didn't know the girl well. A large burly guy with a giant meat cleaver fighting a small pink haired girl who wielded a kodachi seemed entirely one sided. Those who did know her well, being only her teammates and sensei, just sat back and waited for what they knew was going to happen.
"Time to beat you again little girl," Same taunted.
Nade just raised her eyebrow and looked at Amaya. Amaya shrugged and signaled for the match to start. And it did, in typical form with Same charging at Nade swinging his sword to cleave Nade in twain.
And Nade just stood there, until the last possible second. In the blink of an eye, the kodachi was out, flaming, and blocking Same's swing. Large cracks formed in the floor where Nade's feet were, but she shook not a millimeter. Same blinked.
"Seriously, is this as strong as you are?"
"How the hell did you block that so easily?!?!?!?"
"Simple," Nade disappeared, "like this." She reappeared right in front of Same, finger tucked back in her palm for a flick, right in front of his forehead. Rai and Yue cringed.
-flick- -kaBOOM-
Same fell, unconscious, from the man shaped hole in the wall behind him.
"Winner, Nadeshiko Uchiha."
"Hehehehe," the crazy looking Sand girl laughed, staring at Nade, "crazy strong girl!"
Again, Nade looked skeezed out, but turned to look at the display as it churned out the next two victims.
Inoki Yamanaka vs. Sabaku no Toppyoushimonai.
"What the heck kinda name is that?" Yue asked aloud. "And why is it so long?"
And then they saw why. Standing across from Inoki was the crazy Sand girl. This time they took a closer look at her. She wore the traditional black baggy pants of Suna and her headband around her neck. But what stood out the most of her wardrobe was her shirt. She was wearing a straightjacket. And its sleeves weren't tied.
"Yay! Toppy gets to play with boy today!" Toppy, as she called herself, clapped together her hands in the massive sleeves and bounced back and forth on her feet.
Inoki just looked extremely confused. Apparently he took after his dad more than his mom in social situations. And the match began.
Even with an army of ink-painting jutsu creatures and the mind-effecting jutsu of the Yamanaka clan, Inoki just could not win. A giant sand claw produced from her sleeves took out all of the ink creatures Inoki created, and the no doubt unstable mind of the Sand girl rendered her immune to the majority of Inoki's mind attacks. Needless to say, Toppy won.
During the match, though, Nade's eyes started to itch and burn again.
"Dang it! This is even worse than when I first got my Sharingan!"
Suddenly, Nade's sight went dark. Then slowly, images in black and white started to appear in flashes. Nade could make out one image of two people standing in the arena below her, both shrouded in lightning. In another flash, she saw the screen where the names appeared rotate through several names. The final flash showed the names Raimaru Nara and Ankashi Hatake on the board. Finally Nade's vision cleared and returned to the real world, and she was startled to find Shikami finishing her match with Chosuke. Just how long had she been seeing things?
"Oi, oi, Nade? You ok? Your eyes went kinda freaky there a minute, like the sharingan but instead of the crimson, your eyes stayed the regular emerald…" Yue was looking at her, and even placed a hand on her forehead.
"I…I don't know. I just saw some random images." She looked over at Rai who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall. "I saw your name up on the board with Ankashi as your opponent."
Rai's eyebrows peaked. Three sets of eyes turned in unison to the display board. It was currently going through random names.
And then it stopped.
Raimaru Nara vs. Ankashi Hatake
Nade gulped.
"Well, that was freaky," Rai commented dryly as he sank into his shadow, only to reappear in the middle of the arena.
Yue just stared at Nade. "How the crap did you know that?!?"
"I don't know…"
Both teammates turned their eyes to the arena below. The match had just been called, and both genin were preparing their respective jutsu. But that would be all that Nade saw. In a flash of lightning, where she saw Rai and Ankashi wreathed in lightning, charging each other, her vision darkened again.
A panoramic shot of a large rocky and sandy stadium out in the daylit sky, full of spectators watching the ground below. Two figures standing a distance apart, facing each other, breathing heavily, a kodachi and large boomerang lodged in the earth between them. One, with pink hair and black highlights, looked truly haggard, with burns and cuts all over her clothes, but where they should have been on her skin, nothing. She was hastily pulling her gloves tighter on her hand. The other, feral looking, was enveloped in a red aura, silvery eyes taking on a red tone, strange wisker markings thickened, and claws twitching. He rose slowly from a crouch.
The leaf of a strange desert plant flitted slowly down between the two. As soon as it touched the ground, both figures charged forward. Time seemed to slow as the two got closer, fists brought closer and closer to the face of their opponent's face. And right when they were about to hit…
…Everything went truly black.
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A/N: Dang this took a long time to get out. I had a hard time figuring out how I wanted the fighting to go. And then about a week or two ago, the idea for the ending popped up into my head. But don't worry, ill give you the full explanation next chapter (which I guarantee will not take as long as this one did to get out).
Thanks for reading! Please Review!