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Nekomi, Zabuza, Gaara, Naruto and Itachi went to the ramen stand. Ishigo and his team, Tora, Haru and Takeo went to a barbeque place closeby and Shina and her team, Miwa and Taro went to a dango stand. Gaara had been split with staying and eating ramen or taking Itachi's place and going to the dango stand with his brother's team. He decided to stay with his otouto, Naruto and his kaasan.
Naruto asked "Hey, It...I..."
Itachi said "Yes, N?"
Naruto smiled a little in relief. He couldn't remember whether they were still using the code names or not. "I, how come you're not eating with your team?"
Itachi answered with a smile "Maybe I feel like some ramen."
Gaara joked "I thought you never wanted to eat ramen again, after that."
Naruto laughed while the rest of them chuckled at Itachi's embarassment at what had come to be known as the pink apron incident. Itachi muttered "Troublesome brat."
Naruto laughed some more, then suddenly he grimaced and clutched his lower neck, near his shoulder. He hissed. This caused everyone to grow alarmed. He shook his head "Nothing to worry about. It just flared up a bit, that's all."
Nekomi said "Let me take care of it."
Naruto shook his head. By taking care of it she meant taking the pain herself. He replied "No, you have enough to worry about. I'll be fine. It just surprised me that's all."
Zabuza frowned. He bet the ANBU spies the Hokage had watching them had seen that.
A rooftop away, a couple of ANBU sneezed. 'Why do we have to be doing this?' He complained mentally. His partner didn't look any happier. 'We're ANBU. Why are we watching this group of genin? Couldn't they get a jonin to this?'
Kakashi sneezed on his way out of the Hokage's office. He sighed. He had talked to the Hokage for about a half hour trying to convince him to let him be the one to take a look out for the waterfall nin, but he had been denied. The Hokage had told him that he had his team to look after. This was true, but...he didn't really need to be there. If he needed to tell them something, he could just send a kage bushin. He wanted to find out more about that woman.
Zabuza said "They're going to gather everyone together to talk about the third part of the exam in about an hour, right?"
Itachi said "That's right."
Zabuza looked at Itachi "Are you sure there's no where else you'd rather be?"
Itachi shook his head, catching Zabuza's drift. He said "No, I am where I want to be now and I'll be where I want to be in an hour."
Zabuza took this to mean that Itachi had plans to meet up with his little brother at the stadium. They all ordered their ramen and ate.
Nekomi was getting a little irritated as Zabuza was sending little concerned looks her way every few minutes. She said "I am fine," empasizing each word. She glared at Zabuza.
Zabuza looked at her sheepishly. Nekomi sighed. She said "Alright, we've got about twenty minutes now, let's go ahead to the tower."
"What about the others?"
Nekomi said "They'll be there too. They're responsible enough to be on time."
Sure enough, the other teams were already there when they arrived. The 'Jonin' leaders waved to each other.
Miwa winked at Itachi, causing him to blush. Nekomi smiled "You may want to rejoin your team, I-kun." Itachi shook his head, he was scanning the crowd. Nekomi said, realizing who he was searching for, "Talk to him when everyone's talking, after the hokage gives his speech."
Itachi nodded, distracted. He frowned. 'Where is he...' After some more scanning, he finally found Sasuke and his team in the crowd. His frown lightened up in relief. 'Sasuke seems to be alright. He looks distracted though and he's looking around for someone...' As he caught his brother's eye he realized he was looking for him. When he saw him about to come rushing over , he shook his head and mouthed 'Wait.' He saw his brother look at him for a second confused, then turn back around, with an annoyed gesture to face the balcony where the Hokage would be.
Finally the Hokage came out and spoke. Apparently, he had decided to tell no one of Orochimaru's attack during the second part of the exam and things were going as planned, except that there were going to be preliminary rounds, before the final match that took place in a month, that started immediately. Nekomi could understand the annoyed cries that went up. Many of the genin were still exhausted from the second part of the exam, to have preliminaries so soo after. She watched several genin from different villages drop out. She thought 'I suppose I should begin the reason why I'm here. It looks like the local dignitaries have shown up for the preliminaries. The others should be here for the final exam ina month. I shall have to complete my work then.' She stepped away as the Hokage called for all spectators to take their seats and for all participants to go up to the balcony.
Zabuza watched her go in discomfort 'Be careful, Nekomi...'
Haku asked "Is something wrong?"
Zabuza said "No...it's fine. I wonder who will be first in the matchups."
Naruto said "Yeah! I'm ready to do some real fighting! I didn't get to do any in the exam so far!"
Gaara said "You're about the only one."
Naruto said "Aww, come on, you're telling me that you don't want to fight, not even a little. You've got to be getting bored too."
Gaara said "No."
Naruto said "Yes, you are."
Haku said "Na...N, stop bothering G-kun."
"But I'm bored."
"We could play janken."
"I guess."
Gaara watched the two play rock-paper-scizzors while everyone was getting settled. He frowned. It wasn't good that there were going to be preliminaries. That held up their looking for the sannin that could help Naruto and the longer he had that curse mark on him, the more damage it could do. Plus, Konoha made him nervous. He wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. He guessed the reason Naruto wasn't nervous was that he was distracted at the moment. Either that, or he was hiding it really well right now. He watched the first match, it was between the pink haired girl, Sakura, on Sasuke's team and of a blonde girl. He shook his head as the blonde girl barely defeated the pink haired one. They were both weak. 'They wouldn't even be genin by Ban's standards.' The second match was a couple of genin he didn't pay much attention to fighting each other. The only interesting thing was that the one who one had bugs fighting for him. The third match was Naruto versus some kid named Kiba. Wait, Naruto?! He turned to warn his brother to be careful, but Naruto had already jumped down. Gaara frowned 'Be careful, you idiot.'
Naruto grinned as he stretched "It's about time!"
Kiba said "You're pretty loud, kid."
Naruto said "And you smell bad, dog breath."
"What did you call me?"
"Dog breath."
"Well, you smell...you smell like a fox!"
Naruto was shocked and almost lost his composure. He quickly made up a story to tell. He said "Well, I live in a forest where there're foxes. What's your excuse? Do you live in a doghouse?"
Kiba growled. Gaara sweatdropped. 'Do you have to act that immature in a match where everyone's watching you? Honestly, sometimes, if I didn't know better, I'd think you really were a lousy shinobi. The way you act...He stressmarked as Naruto continued his taunts after the proctor started the match. He yelled "Just get on with it! Act professional for Kami's sake!"
His teammates looked shocked at his outburst, as Naruto did, for a second. Gaara sat down, embarassed.
Naruto scratched his head, sheepishly, He said "Heh heh, I guess I should get serious. I must have taken it a little overboard if aniki got mad enough to yell at me."
Kiba said "Even if you get serious, I'll still wipe the floor with you."
Naruto shrugged "Whatever, dog breath." He grinned "Let's get started! Mizu bushin no jutsu!"
Nekomi tensed, in the stands, seeing Naruto do a bushin, but relaxed when she saw it was a mizu bushin. She was glad Naruto had enough forethought not to do the kage bushin. That would have been very bad, considering the Hokage already found them suspicious. The other waterfall nin were having similar thoughts.
In the ring, Kiba had taken his dog out of his hood and it stood beside him with its hackles raised. Kiba said "Alright, Akamaru, let's show this loser, Gatsuga!"
He destroyed three out of the dozen clones with the gatsuga, then doubled back and got another three. Naruto thought 'Okay, my fire and kage bushin techniques are off limits. There's not enough water around to do a lot of water techniques. I've only got one good wind technique and that really wouldn't work well in here, it's too powerful. What do I do? Just taijutsu? There's genjutsu, but I don't know a lot of techniques in that either...I can't summon...geez, I guess it's a taijutsu battle then, I guess I could use kunai and shuriken.' He smiled. 'Enhancing them with wind shouldn't hurt, too much.'
Kiba yelled "Hey, pay attention! I just destroyed all your clones! I bet you're about out of energy by now, huh?"
Naruto couldn't help laughing. He said "Dog breath, you have no idea. Prepare yourself." He ran at Kiba.
Kiba dodged the first strike and yelled "If you're not out of chakra, how come you switched to taijutsu?"
Naruto said "I've got some better techniques, but I didn't want to destroy the stadium."
Kiba sneered "Yeah, right, like a puny genin like you would have techniques that powerful. You're lying."
Naruto's eyes flashed "I don't lie."
Kiba said "Prove it! I want to see one of these amazing techniques of yours."
Naruto frowned 'No, kaasan would be dissapointed. I can't let my temper get to me...' He smiled a little "You're not worth the effort."
Kiba snorted "Yeah, right. You just can't do it."
Naruto suddenly felt a strong urge to do an exploding justu to the face of this annoying leaf genin, a strong urge. He restrained himself and just rushed at him, faster than last time. This time, he clipped the genin with a punch. He smiled. It had felt good to do that. He got a little faster and went at him again.
Gaara frowned. He turned to Haku and Itachi. They were frowning too. He didn't like the feeling Naruto was giving off. He knew that he hated Konoha, but the feeling he was starting to give off was malevolent and he was getting fast, he was soon up to his regular speed and he was thouroughly beating the Leaf nin. After another minute of this, the proctor stepped in and declared Naruto the winner. Zabuza, Itachi, Gaara and Haku met him as he ascended the stairs.
Haku asked "Don't you think you overdid it, N-kun?"
Naruto turned to her with a fierce gaze and said, in a low voice that sent shivers down her spine, "He deserved it."
Gaara frowned. He didn't like the energy coming from Naruto. He grew alarmed when she saw a several black commas spiraling out from the mark. He said "We need to talk, as soon as we get up the stairs."
Naruto turned to look at him, his gaze still fierce, but then, after locking eyes with his brother for a second, his eyes went back to normal and he looked around in a daze "Huh, why is everybody frowning at me like that? Did I lose the fight or something?"
Haku asked "You don't remember?"
Naruto scratched his head "Heh, things are a little fuzzy after the part where I first landed a hit on the guy and then everybody was looking at me funny. What?"
Gaara said, more gently, "We've got to talk, now." He grabbed his brother's shoulder and performed wakeshin.
Gaara showed Naruto the fight. Naruto cringed. "I...I don't remember doing that. I...hate konoha nins, but I...it looks like I almost killed him. I wasn't trying to kill him. I mean, he pissed me off, but I don't just go off killing people..."
Gara said "I think it was the curse seal, I could see some of it a minute ago. I thought the fox had it under control though."
Naruto frowned "Me too."
Gaara said "Bring up what you remember."
Naruto asked "Do I have to? I saw what happened already." He had a feeling he wasn't going to like what he saw.
Gaara answered "Your's might give us a better idea of what happened. Go on."
Naruto frowned, but he complied. He then watched in disgust as he felt himself enjoy beating the life out of the leaf genin, feeling more and more pleasure out of every hit. The other boy truly was lucky to be alive, if the other examiner had not stepped in when he did, he probably wouldn't be. "I... I acted like...like a...like a...m..monster." Naruto choked out. "I enjoyed it. I...what's wrong with me, how could I enjoy almost killing someone? I wanted to kill him! What's wrong with me?" Naruto asked, beginning to get scared. "Is it going to get worse? I don't want to become like that, I don't want to turn into a monster, aniki!" It had been a worry of his ever since he had found out about the Kyuubi.
Gaara hugged his brother and thought 'Man, I wish mom was here, she'd be able to handle this better than me and I don't know how to get in contact with Kyuubi. I'll just have to hope he's got everything mostly under control until mom can check.' He said "It'll be okay, Naruto, you're not going to turn into a monster. You've just got to try hard to keep control of your emotions until we can get that seal fixed, okay?"
Naruto nodded. Gaara broke the link. Naruto looked down, away from his friends, and ashamed of his behavior.
Haku asked, softly, "Are you alright?"
Naruto said "I'm sorry, for what happened back there. I...
Itachi said "Don't worry about it. We all lose control sometimes. Just watch your temper from now on. It's dangerous for you to lose control over your emotions right now."
"Hai."
Just then a black haired boy appeared beside Itachi, almost causing him to jump. "Why aren't you with your team?"
"I wanted to ask you something."
Itachi grabbed his brother's hand discreetly, to hide the action from the ANBU who were probably already suspicious of what his oneesan had done with Naruto.
Sasuke found himself pulled to a place like before. He asked "How do you do this? It's not tsukiyomi."
Itachi said "It's a ninjutsu technique. Now talk. No one can hear us in here."
Sasuke looked away slightly, embarassed "So, ano...aniki..."
Itachi said "Spit it out, otouto."
Sasuke asked "What's going to happen after this part of the exam?"
Itachi said "At least some of us are going to go look for someone who can help out Naruto."
Sasuke asked, with a frown, "What was wrong with him?"
Itachi said "You are to tell no one, but the curse seal is affecting him, slowly."
Sasuke said "The curse seal that was intended for me..." He looked away.
Itachi said "Do not worry yourself over it, he will recover. He is strong."
"He doesn't like me"
"He doesn't like any leaf nin, really, so it's not you. He'd like you if he got to know you."
"Why did he save me if he didn't like me?"
Itachi looked uncomfortable "Because I asked him and his team to watch out for you."
Sasuke thought 'So that's what he was talking about.' He said "He, they, called you aniki too."
Itachi said "They're part of the family I have now."
Sasuke asked "What will you do after the final matches?"
Itachi said "Go home."
Sasuke said "But Konoha is your home."
Itachi shook his head "Konoha has not been my home since that day. I can never return here."
"But aniiki..."
Itachi smiled "In fact, I believe I am currently dead."
"What do you mean?"
"Look me up in the bingo books a few years back, over the break. You'll see." He paused "Neesan made an offer, we could have you die too, and you could come home with us, think about it."
"Huh? Wait, I'm not done talking..." Sasuke faded out as Itachi ended the link.
Once out, Itachi said "Your turn, kid." His brother versus a nin from sound was the next match.
In the spectator stands, Nekomi was in the middle of a talk with a lesser damiyo. She had felt a chill go through her from Naruto's match, but she was glad that feeling was receeding. She had almost gone over, if the feeling hadn't receded, she would have and that could have been bad. The whole reason she was here was for the negotiations. She couldn't really afford to mess them up. "Ah, Kagami-san?"
"Hai?"
Down in the stadium. Sasuke was getting his chakra sucked out by his opponent. Itachi was getting annoyed up in the stands. He didn't want to blow his cover by yelling out to his brother, but he needed to switch to taijutsu quickly. He relaxed some when Sasuke figured it out and knocked the older genin off. 'His taijutsu form is terrible. I'm going to have to fix it. He must have made up what he hadn't been taught of their taijutsu form himself.
Sasuke thought 'Crap, I'm really low on chakra now. I wish I had known that guy could drain chakra before I did those katon jutsus...I've got to do this the smart way...
Itachi watched, impressed as his brother used taijutsu to back the other genin into a trap and distract him with weapons before coming up from behind and doing a roundhouse to the back of his head and winning the match. 'Good job, otouto.'
Haku watched, distracted, as Itachi's little brother walked up the stairs. She looked at Naruto, a little worried. She wondered where kaasan was and she hoped that she would get done with the negotiations soon and get back here so she could look at Naruto. She looked at his neck. At least the curse seal wasn't visible anymore, except for the three tomas that formed the seal.
"Haku, get down there, it's your match!"
"Huh?"
Naruto said "You're up, against that Hyuuga boy from earlier. Get down there."
"Oh, sorry." Haku blushed, embarassed at being caught in thought.
Naruto smiled "Have a good match, sis."
Haku smiled back "Hai." She went down.
Neji waited in the ring and watched the girl come down. He said "It is your fate to lose to me."
Haku asked "How is that? I've never seen you before."
Neji said "A weakling like you cannot defeat a genius like me."
Haku thought 'Hyuuga, that means he's like Hisoka-san. He should use the jyuken style too. Hisoka-san said that there was a weak point, that there was a small space where they couldn't see. If she could attack that small unguarded space...but she couldn't use her best techniques, her ice techniques. That would reveal too much about her. Very few could control ice. It was a good thing that she had picked up some weapon skills with senbon. "Oh, you were saying something?"
Neji grew agitated. She had just ignored his fate speech. He said "Enough of this. Byakugon! Eight trigrams sixty-four palms!"
Haku dodged the strikes fluidly, to her opponents shock. 'Hm...I know a technique that should work, without being too show-offy.' She took a small scroll out of the pouch on her thigh and opened it. She bit her thumb and swiped it across a seal quickly and an umbrella popped out. She sent it up, propelled by chakra instead of wind. "Rain of one thousand needles!" She sent the senbon down 'here comes the tricky part.'
Neji used kaiten to dodge the incoming senbon, then he noticed the girl had stopped moving. He then noticed the tiny strings attached to each senbon 'She has chakra strings, on all of those senbon? How can she control them all?' He asked himself, in shock. Suddenly,the senbon he had dodged came back around. At least half of them. He saw her jerk her left hand his way. He did kaiten again and thought 'I can't keep doing kaiten, I'll be out of chakra. I'll have to cut the strings...I don't have a technique to cut them all at once...' He grew frustrated 'I'll just have to get close to her. She won't be able to use them if I'm inside her guard!' He rushed in.
Haku thought 'What does he think he's doing? Did he forget that I can dodge him close up? How does he plan on winning? Although it's true that he can prolong the fight if he stays close...ah, that's it. he plans on me running out of chakra before him!' Haku smirked 'That's not going to happen. I really doubt this guy has more chakra than I do, besides he's wasted more than I have with the kaiten. Hisoka-san can only do six in a day without running low on chakra. I bet this boy's not as good as him.'
Neji growled "Pay attention to this fight, unless you want to die!"
Haku said "Hmm, so you want to see who runs out of chakra first in our dance?" She smiled "That's fine. It will be a fairly easy fight that way."
"You have to get tired sometime."
Haku smiled "Likewise." She dropped the senbon and let the chakra strings dissipate.
Neji smirked "That was your mistake." He rushed forward with another sixty-four palms. Haku dodged again.
Gaara shook his head from up in the stands. "It's turned into a stamina match."
Zabuza yawned "Stamina matches are always so boring, I wonder why she doesn't just finish the kid off."
Itachi said "It is a mistake to show your best moves to an opponent unless absolutely necessary."
Zabuza looked at Itachi and paused for a second. Then he said "Mah, that's true, but it's still boring."
Itachi sweatdropped "You're hopeless."
Zabuza laughed "And you're too serious."
"You should be more serious."
Zabuza frowned for a second. He said "Kid, I'm serious about a lot of things, but this..." he chuckled "Is far from serious. Look at 'em. That's not a fight. It's a dance!" He started laughing again "And the best part is how it's pissing off that other kid!"
Neji was getting a headache at this point. "Stand still already!"
Haku chuckled "And what? Let you hit me? That hardly seems fair."
Neji growled. "How do you keep that up? Just how much energy do you have?"
Haku said "How much do you have? You've used kaiten twice and your flashy technique three times. I wonder if you have enough to do it again."
Neji scowled. He only had enough chakra to do that attack one more time and he would be out. Why wasn't this match over yet? His style was ineffective. He almost wished he had listened to Gai sensei and learned another style on top of jyuken, or have trained with more weapons with tenten, now. 'Damn, gentle fist has never failed me before. Why is it failing now? I'll have to resort to other tactics.'
Haku frowned slightly. What was he up to? He had deactivated his byakugon. And he...fell over? Haku went over to him. Had he run out of chakra and passed out? She reached over to touch him when he suddenly flipped around and sent a jyuken strike to her chest. She flew backward and flipped over several times.
Up in the stands...Zabuza growled "That was a dirty shot. This is supposed to be a fair fight, too."
Naruto growled "Damn leaf nin, taking advantage of Haku like that..."
Gaara grabbed his brother's shoulder and said, quietly, "Temper, temper." Naruto calmed down a little and forced himself to relax. It wouldn't be good to set the curse seal off again.
Down in the ring...
Haku stood up slowly, coughing 'Damn, he got me.' Her eyes watered. 'I should have seen that coming...' She felt a sharp sting at her chest and looked down. It wasn't just the strike. She was bleeding. She looked. The crystal, it had been shattered and some of it had gotten into her skin. She panicked. If a sliver got to her heart...She cried out from her position against the wall and pulled off her overshirt, leaving her in a shirt like a sports bra. She picked out the pieces she could easily, with a wince. Now she'd have to do the extraction of the other pieces. She hoped that the leaf nin stood there dumb until she could fix herself.
Zabuza panicked when he saw Haku's image flicker out and her true self appear and then he double panicked when he saw the blood seeping out. He realized what happened and was about to run down and stop the match when Itachi stopped him. He said "Don't."
Zabuza turned to him and glared "Didn't you see what happened?"
Itachi said "She needs to finish the procedure herself. If she gets interrupted or moved, she might die. The leaf nin is shocked at the moment. Haku's smart, she'll find a way out of it."
"But..."
Gaara said "Aniki's right. Give sis five minutes. If she's not back up standing by then, you can forfeit the match."
Zabuza backed away from the railing a little bit "Fine, but I'm only going to give her three."
Neji looked at the girl in front of him. What had been a girl who looked around sixteen or seventeen with brown hair and brown eyes had turned into a girl who looked around his age or a little younger with long black hair and grey eyes, and a huge, bleeding wound on her chest. 'How...what...my byakugon didn't detect a genjutsu...and the jyuken doesn't cause blood like that...' He looked down at his hand which had started to sting and found something like glass in it. Suddenly it began to hurt, a lot. He cried out.
Haku was exhausted now. She had just finished pulling all of the splinters out and she got rid of them when she noticed her opponent crying out. 'That's right, the crystals are made of solidified chakra. Since my chakra was used for the crystal, it's poison to anyone else. That's the way kaasan designed it. He must have gotten some in his hand where he hit me.' She took the last bit of her energy and flopped over to him, where he had fallen onto his knees.
Neji looked up at the strange girl. "Wha...what is this?" He gasped out.
Haku said "Let me help."
Neji hissed "No!"
Haku said "I must treat your hand quickly, or you could suffer greater damage. I don't have enough energy for anything else, but I can't forfeit yet, they wouldn't let me stay to heal you."
"Why do you care?" Neji ground out.
Haku said "I'm the only one who can help you, right now. Trust me. After this, I will pass out, and you will be declared the winner. Now, let me see your hand." She took his hand. Neji felt some energy leave him.
"What kind of trick is this?"
Haku said "No trick. I'm sorry, I needed a little more energy. I'll be able to do it now." She removed the splinters and got rid of them like she had gotten rid of the others, by converting them back into regular chakra and absorbing them. She passed out.
Neji flexed his hand. It didn't look like it even had a scratch now. Was she a medic? "Match goes to Hyuuga Neji."
Neji walked back up the stairs, distracted 'Why...did she help me? I'm her enemy. What I did to her...and she still helped me. She could have won the match if she didn't. I don't understand...'
"Neji?"
"Hmn?"
"What's the matter?" Ten Ten asked.
"Nothing." Neji turned and walked ahead of his team mates, who had come down to greet him.
Zabuza had immediately gone after Haku and brought her back up. Itachi, being the one with the best medic skills out of the four of them, took a look at her. He said "She healed herself, and I'm guessing that other kid too. That took all of the energy she had left. She'll be out for a while."
Naruto asked, worried, "But she's going to be okay?"
Itachi smiled "She's going to be okay."
"Next match, Banshou Mino against Lee."
Gaara sighed "I really hate these preliminaries."