The next day, Ryuu informed his team that they had to meet up with his father's contact in Konoha. The four of them henged into plain civilian looking people and snuck off to a small house on the outskirts of town. As Elyse stepped into the building, she stumbled a bit upon seeing the person leaning against a wall inside of the room. She recognized that girl from many drawings and photos shown around the clan. The girl that stood inside that very room was Tenten.
"Whoa!" Diane gasped.
"Yes, I'm a character in the manga," Tenten said with a sigh. "Don't get overly excited about it." The other four people in the room dropped their henges.
"You're not just a character. You're a main character!"
Tenten rolled her eyes. "I'm hardly a main character. I just share a team with a couple of actual main characters."
"What do you mean you're not a main character? You're one of the Konoha 11. You can't get more main character than that," argued Diane.
"Of course she can. She could be Naruto. He's the ultimate main character," Isamu said.
"I'm not any kind of main character," Tenten reiterated placing her hands on her hips. "Think about the screen time I get in the manga. I'm just in the background when Team Guy is around because Kishimoto needed a female member to complete the team. My whole fight against Temari got cut out in the manga to show Ino and Sakura repairing their relationship at the end of their fight. It just cuts from them to me balanced on top of Temari's fan knocked out. I'm not looking forward to that, by the way. And where am I after that? My skills never get properly explored. I practically have less cumulative screen time than freaking Tazuna!"
"Geez. Ok. We get it. You're a supporting character," Isamu said placatingly.
"A supporting character at best." Tenten huffed. "But never mind that. I guess you guys are here to hear about the breakfast incident."
"Yes. We're just dying to hear all about Sasuke eating breakfast," Elyse said. Ryuu shot her a displeased look for her sarcasm. Elyse held up her hands in a shrug .
Turning to Tenten, Ryuu focused on the topic at hand. "How did you find out he ate breakfast?"
Tenten rolled her eyes. "Guy sensei wanted to check out his rival's new team to see what the competition was like. He watched them that whole morning and throughout the bell test. And then our team had to hear about it during the entirety of our next mission."
"He watched them the whole morning? That's kind of creepy," Elyse put in.
"Tell me about it," Tenten agreed. "It's just one of Guy's oddities, though. You learn to look past that sort of thing."
"But do you know what caused the change?" Diane asked having gotten over her wonder at meeting a main character -or supporting character if she went by what Tenten said- that was also a reincarnated person.
Tenten shook her head. "It's a mystery. Nothing else is different from canon."
"I have a question," Elyse said having thought of this before she'd even been given this mission. "How certain are we that Sasuke didn't eat breakfast in canon?"
She received four befuddled looks in return. "What are you talking about?" asked Tenten. "Do you not remember Kakashi telling them not to eat the next morning? Do you not remember him telling team seven that he did that intentionally to fuck with them? Do you not remember their faces and growling stomachs afterwards?" She spoke certainly, but as she finished, she scratched her head and looked over to the others with a perturbed expression.
"Uh, it might not have been explicitly stated that Sasuke didn't eat in the manga," Tenten said with a frown as she tried to think back to the early part of the manga.
"It wasn't. I checked before we left," Elyse said. "It was implied heavily but never outright stated. Sasuke might have just gotten hungry again while waiting for Kakashi to show up," Everyone else looked at each other with various degrees of chagrin for not having realized that themselves.
"You checked before we left?" Ryuu asked. Elyse nodded. "And you didn't think to tell us then? You could have saved us from this whole mission."
"I wanted to go on vacation to Konoha," Elyse said.
"Works for me," Isamu said with an uncaring shrug. Diane mouthed a 'thank you' to Elyse. Ryuu was less thankful. He scowled angrily at Elyse before shaking his head.
"Whatever. Juanita's giving me a large bonus for this mission, and it turned out to be pretty simple. I'm going to go check out the wonderful Akimichi restaurants that Konoha is famous for." Ryuu glided out the door leaving the younger folks to themselves.
Tenten let out a giddy laugh. "Well, I guess I caused a panic over nothing."
"It certainly seems that way," Elyse mused. "So you're some kind of weapons specialist, right?"
Tenten tossed her head arrogantly. "I have the best weapon control of anyone chunin level or lower."
"Highly unlikely," Elyse said tossing her hair over her shoulder. "I can throw any projectile with high speeds and pinpoint accuracy. I'm basically the Clayton Kershaw of projectile weapons."
Tenten furrowed her brows. "The what of projectile weapons?"
"Never mind." Nobody ever got her baseball references. Was there no other reincarnated person that liked baseball? "The point is that you can't have better weapon control than me. Not when it comes to projectiles."
"But, Elyse," Diane said timidly. "She's Tenten." Elyse narrowed her eyes at her. Traitor.
"That doesn't mean anything," Isamu said. "We haven't ever seen Tenten's skills. They never really got showcased in the manga."
"That's what I was just saying," Tenten said exasperatedly. "I might as well not be in the story. But back to the topic at hand… You have nothing on my weapon skills, Elyse, was it?"
"Yes. I'm Elyse-"
"I'm Diane!" Diane interjected.
"And," Elyse continued ignoring Diane's excited interruption. "I don't think there's anymore point in this back and forth. Let's put this argument to the test."
"Ooo, I like that." Tenten cracked a smile. "Let's set up some targets in one of the training grounds. We'll test shuriken first and then kunai."
"Deal," Elyse said with a matching smile.
As the team from Suna made their way over to the training ground with Tenten, Diane bombarded the girl with questions. "Does Neji obsess over fate on a regular basis or is that just during fights?" "Do Guy and Lee wear those green jumpsuits all the time?" "Oh, they do? Doesn't that make going to the bathroom a hindrance?" "Is Neji as awesome as he is in the manga?"
Tenten answered Diane's questions briskly in the following ways; "Just when someone brings it up", "Pretty much", "I would assume", and "He's decidedly not awesome".
"What? How is he not awesome?" Diane asked offended. "He's got the byakugan and the juken. He kicks ass."
"He is an ass. That's why he's not awesome," Tenten said simply.
"But he gets better later," Diane said with a slight whine.
"It's not later though, is it?"
Diane frowned and sidled up next to Elyse. "I changed my mind. You're going to do much better at weapon throwing than her."
"Thanks for the support," Elyse said sarcastically not moved by Diane's sudden change in mind.
"Ok. Shuriken first. Then kunai." Tenten said. Elyse nodded in agreement.
Both girls pretty much matched each other with both types of projectiles, but Elyse eked out a victory with kunai and narrowly lost with shuriken. "That settles it then," said Elyse through ragged breaths. "You're the Kershaw of shuriken, and I'm the Kershaw of kunai."
"I still don't know what a 'Kershaw' is," Tenten said.
"She means you're the Tom Brady of shuriken, and she's the Tom Brady of kunai," Isamu explained.
"Oh," Tenten said as realization dawned on her. "I see now."
"Great." Elyse scowled at Isamu and Tenten. "You understand a football reference but not a baseball one."
"American football is more popular than baseball," Isamu said.
"American football is more popular in America. You're Irish. Neither sport should be familiar to you. Why do you even know who Tom Brady is?"
"I watched a super bowl game once. It was boring, but I remember Tom Brady was playing."
"Stop talking about stupid sports," Diane complained. "I want to meet Neji and Lee. Tenten, can you take us to your team?"
"Hmm, let's see," Tenten said thoughtfully. "Right now, Neji is probably practicing in the Hyuga compound, so we can't visit him. Lee is probably still Lee, so I don't want to visit him. No, I won't take you to see my team."
"I'm glad you're only in the background in the manga. You're rude," Diane said.
"Your words cut deeply," Tenten remarked drily. She turned to Elyse. "Do you want to have another competition tomorrow?"
"Absolutely," Elyse said. The team parted ways with Tenten and returned to their hotel room.
As Elyse and Diane got ready for bed, Isamu pulled out a deck of cards. "Wait. Before we go to sleep, let's play a game."
"Is it going to be short? I'm tired from my competition with Tenten." Elyse yawned to emphasize her point.
"It's not going to be short at all, but the setup will be so deal with it." Isamu dealt five cards face up to the three of them. He proceeded to throw the rest of the deck in the trash can and set it on fire.
"What the hell are you doing?" Diane asked staring at the fire and then Isamu dubiously.
"Cards like this aren't made outside of our clan, so I'm ensuring none of us can use cards that I didn't just deal out. If you look at all of our hands, you'll notice that each of us has a high card of ace. Right now, we would all tie. The goal of the game is to steal cards from the other players in order to make the best poker hand. We have until we fail the chunin exam. As soon as we exit the testing room, we check our cards." Isamu picked up his cards and tucked them into his pocket. Diane and Elyse exchanged glances before snatching their own respective cards.
"This is a game I can get behind," said Elyse as she made her way over to the dresser she was using. She already had some traps set up, so she could store her cards in there momentarily. After carefully placing her cards, she turned to the her friends with a grin. "You two know you have no chance against me, right? You never notice when I take something from you."
Diane flicked her cards into a small pile and vanished the pile before their eyes. "You're not getting any of my cards from me. Now shut up and go to bed. I plan to meet Naruto tomorrow if I have to search the whole village."
As it turned out, Diane did end up searching practically the whole village with Elyse and Isamu in tow. Naruto turned out to be much more elusive than Elyse would have expected. She thought someone loud with a tendency to wear bright, attention grabbing clothing would be easy to find. "He has to be in the village," Diane said despairingly. "The chunin exams start tomorrow."
"Maybe we just keep missing him," Elyse suggested.
Diane huffed. "Whatever. Let's just go back to where Shikamaru was. I'll set my goals a little lower."
"Just two days ago, you would have been excited to see Shikamaru." Diane ignored her in favor of turning around and going back the way she came from.
"Hey, you!" Diane called as she approached Shikamaru's feet. He lifted his head slightly to see who was bothering him.
"What?"
"What's your name?" Diane asked brusquely. Apparently, she wasn't in a very patient or polite mood. Shikamaru laid his head back down without answering. Diane kicked lightly at his foot. "Don't ignore me."
Shikamaru sighed heavily and sat up. "What do you want?" he asked warily.
"I want you to entertain me," Diane demanded. "So far everything in Konoha has been much more boring than I expected."
Elyse sidled up next to Diane as Shikamaru pulled an expression that combined bafflement with peevishness. "Diane, do you know the definition of petulance?" Elyse asked quietly in her ear.
"Yes. Do you know the definitions of condescension and intrusiveness?"
The two girls smiled blandly at each other for a while until Elyse decided to put an end to it. She patted Diane's back and then stepped to the side. "Alright, then. Carry on." She turned to Shikamaru. "You're going to have to entertain her."
Shikamaru gazed back languidly. "How?" Elyse shrugged helplessly, and Diane just folded her arms.
"I know how," Isamu said. "You need to say, 'Jashin isn't your God anymore. I am.'" Elyse giggled as Shikamaru frowned in confusion and Diane spun around appalled.
"Isamu, you can't… You just… That's not even the full quote," Diane stammered. "And you can't just say something like that. Not in front of…" Diane cut off looking back at Shikamaru who adopted some curiosity into his confusion.
"Come on, Diane," Elyse said. "You know you want him to say it. What's the harm?" Elyse was a little giddy herself at the prospect of Shikamaru saying his future line. It was just so ludicrous to be standing there trying to get someone to say something they were supposed to say years down the line.
"The harm? It could change…" Diane abruptly broke off again as she glanced at Shikamaru a glint in her eyes. "Will you say it?"
"Will you leave me alone if I do?" Shikamaru bartered. Diane nodded eagerly. "Well, ok then." Shikamaru scratched his head awkwardly. "Um, Jashin isn't your God anymore. I am."
Elyse laughed at the completely bored tone Shikamaru used. Beside her, Diane clapped her hands together in glee. "It could use some work, but I'll take it. Thank you, Sh- uh, random person I just met," Diane said cheerfully. Shikamaru nodded hesitantly and laid back down to stare at the clouds. "Well, bye then." Shikamaru lazily waved a hand in her direction.
"I'm glad he cooperated with the quote because he kind of sucks," Diane said after they left Shikamaru in peace. "He's wasn't interesting at all."
"I hope you don't expect all of the characters to entertain you with manga type activities," Elyse said.
"We're about to leap headfirst into canon events. I'm sure we could expect it then," Isamu pointed out.
"You mean the first part of the exam? At this point, I don't think Diane will be satisfied by that."
The subject of the conversation stopped in her tracks affronted. "Are you kidding me? They'll all be there at the exam. Together. The whole cast of main character Konoha genin. Believe me, I'll be more than satisfied."
"Good then. I'm going to meet up with Tenten. Are you two going to come?" Elyse asked.
"Definitely. I'm not leaving you alone to hide your cards someplace secret," Diane said. She turned to Isamu. "You're coming too. For the same reason." Isamu smirked back at her.
This time, Elyse won both competitions against Tenten, just barely. "Yes!" Elyse shouted. She looked at Tenten. "Nice try."
"Sure," Tenten said disgruntled. She smiled slyly at Elyse. "You want to try with nunchucks next."
Elyse shook her head vehemently. She already told Tenten she had no use for close range weapons. Unlike projectiles, she had no natural talent with any close range weapons. Once her lack of talent in that area was made clear, she abandoned the idea of developing any related skills. "No way. If you want to go close range, ask Diane. She's practically in love with her chain."
"I'm not in love with it," Diane said rolling her eyes. "I just recognize it's value and the importance of taking proper care of it to keep its value at its maximum."
"You also sleep with it at night," Isamu chimed in.
"So that I can grab it easily if an enemy tries to attack me in my sleep!" Diane defended loudly. "Elyse sleeps with kunai under her pillow too."
"Yeah. Under my pillow. Not hugged to my body by one of my arms."
"That way I have access to it right away." Diane pulled out the chain and waved it in Tenten's direction. "Don't listen to anything they say. I'm a professional. Do you want to challenge me or not?"
Tenten pulled out her own weighted chain. "This is actually one of my most used weapons. I wouldn't expect to win if I were you."
Diane stepped closer whirling her chain to her right. "How many different weapons do you claim mastery over? This is the only weapon I specialize in which means I've mastered it more than you."
"Only people that underestimate my affinity for weapons think I can't match their ability with their favorite weapon." Tenten whipped her chain out interrupting the whirl of Diane's chain. As the chains clashed together, Diane leaped forward thrashing the temporarily tangled chains at Tenten.
"Hey, Elyse," Isamu whispered leaning down closer to her ear. "I'll bet you an ace that Tenten wins this."
"Intriguing." Elyse watched as Tenten defended against a vicious blow towards her head. From watching the fight, she concluded that Diane was willing to take the fight more seriously than Tenten. "Ok. I'll take you up on that bet."
Elyse started to doubt her decision to agree to the bet as Tenten started to match Diane's viciousness as the fight went on. Diane had power and speed over Tenten, but Tenten was just skilled enough to overcome that disadvantage. More than anything, Elyse hoped Diane won for Diane's own sake. She took a lot of pride in her skill with her chain. Elyse blinked as she saw a kunai fly from Isamu's hand and deflect Diane's chain just as it was about to land a hit on Tenten's waist.
"Hey! Don't interfere with my fight!" Diane yelled at Isamu. Tenten's chain wrapped around Diane's arm as her attention was split by Isamu.
"You can't cheat," Elyse said angrily to Isamu as Diane freed her arm.
"It's not cheating. No one ever made a rule against it." Isamu had a point. Elyse took out a few kunai of her own and chucked them towards Tenten who ended up receiving a blow on her leg as she dodged the kunai. After that, Elyse and Isamu proceeded to empty their supplies of kunai on trying to influence the outcome of the fight.
The fight ended with Tenten bending backwards to avoid a kunai resulting in Diane sweeping her feet out from under her with the chain. Diane pounced on Tenten as she fell restraining her from movement. "I win," Diane chirped.
"Yeah, fine, let me up," Tenten said irritated. Diane leaped up and held out her hand to help up Tenten. Tenten grudgingly accepted the help.
Meanwhile, Elyse prodded Isamu in the side. "You owe me an ace." Silently, Isamu pulled his ace out of his pouch and handed it to Elyse. She pocketed it quickly. "You never should have thrown that kunai. You gave Diane the advantage by doing so. I'm much better with kunai than you."
Isamu shrugged. "I couldn't resist the opportunity."
"I'd be mad, but I won the fight, so I don't care," Diane said as she sauntered up to the two of them. Behind her, Tenten looked less pleased.
"I could have won that fight," Tenten hissed.
"You can't expect other people not to get involved in your fights. We were just helping you simulate a fight in the middle of a battlefield," Elyse defended.
"I think a battlefield would be a bit more intense than that, actually," Tenten said drily. "Never mind. Team Elyse and Diane won. Congratulations." She turned to Isamu. "You need to work on your aim. It's a disgrace."
"So I've been told," Isamu said indifferently.
Tenten frowned at him and then shook her head. "Ugh, I can't believe I lost in two weapon competitions in one day. At this rate, I might as well hang up my chain and my kunai... And my shuriken and my tanto and my nunchuks and my mace and my club and my fan and-"
"Ok, we get it," Elyse interrupted. "You have a lot of weapons. Maybe you should decrease your arsenal just a bit."
"No way," Tenten said. "I mean, I'd love to. As proud as I am of all my weapons, it's just a little too much to keep track of for me, but it's canon to have all these weapons. Besides, I could never decide which weapon to leave out. Maybe my club… No, I saved Neji's life with that once. My bow and arrow, maybe? I never use that. I can throw faster than the bow can shoot. But what if I run out of other projectiles?"
"You know what? Just keep all your weapons," Elyse said. "Clearly, you need each and every one."
"Yeah, maybe I do." As Tenten pondered her various weapon needs, Diane rested her hands on her hips.
"Why'd you two decide to interfere in our fight anyways?" she asked.
"I thought you said you didn't care," Elyse said. At Diane's glare, she decided to answer the question. "Fine. Isamu and I made a bet on who would win the fight?"
"And you bet I would win?" Elyse nodded. With a touched smile, Diane pulled Elyse into a quick hug. As she released Elyse, she frowned at Isamu. "You bet against me?!"
"Someone had to. If we both bet you won, it wouldn't really be a bet," Isamu defended staring warily at the chain that was still in Diane's hand. For Isamu's protection, Elyse didn't point out that Isamu initially proposed the bet by picking Tenten.
"Alright. I guess I can accept that. What did you two bet anyways?"
Elyse didn't want to answer because it favored her for Diane to not know that she now held two aces. Unfortunately for her, Isamu had no motive to not answer the question. "We bet our aces."
"What!" Diane exclaimed. "You gave up your ace to Elyse just like that? Where's the subtlety in that? You're supposed to use espionage and stealth to steal the cards not just bet it on something."
"I made no such rule," Isamu said.
Tenten looked between the three of them with confusion. "What in the world are you all babbling about?" Isamu explained the game to her. "You have cards that you can only get in the Nintendo clan compound?"
"Yep," Diane said pulling out a two of diamonds from seemingly nowhere. She turned it around to show the back to Tenten. A Nike symbol was drawn onto the back of the card. "Apparently, this is some symbol from your original world."
"It definitely is," Tenten said staring at the symbol with amusement. "I didn't think I would have to deal with old world advertisements here." "It's not like the company exists in this world, so it's not much of an advertisement," Elyse said.
"Fair enough. Why doesn't the clan sell the cards outside the compound? They could start a card company and really emulate Fusajiro Yamauchi." Tenten's lips twitched with mirth.
"What? Since when did Fusajiro Yamauchi start a card company?" asked Elyse. "Was that before or after he founded the clan and how come I never heard of it? I read all his memoirs."
"No, I meant the real Fusajiro Yamauchi. The one from our first world. Nintendo started out as a hanafuda card company," Tenten clarified. Elyse slumped her shoulders. "The one time I didn't bother asking which Fusajiro Yamauchi, it was actually the original one."
The next morning, Elyse dangled her headband in between her thumb and forefinger as she got ready for the chunin exam. She really didn't want to bring it, but it was required. "Just put the damn thing on," Diane said testily. She had woken up before sunrise more anxious for the exams than Elyse had ever seen her. Even Elyse's threats to shut up and let her sleep before she threw Diane's chain into the bottom of a lake didn't stop Diane from restlessly pacing around the room.
"But it's so ridiculous," Elyse complained. "I don't want to parade the triforce around like I'm some huge Zelda nerd."
"You are a Zelda nerd," Isamu said from the bed. He hadn't even started getting ready yet. Maybe Elyse should work on getting him and Shikamaru more acquainted. Isamu seemed to get lazier and lazier everyday.
"I'm not a Zelda nerd. I just like the games. An actual Zelda nerd would get offended if I called myself a Zelda nerd. They'd be like 'If you like Zelda so much, name every single Zelda game in order of release.' And then I'd have to point out that such knowledge is incredibly useless and they should not be advertising their weird specific knowledge with such pride. I mean if you know that much about a game, then fine, good for you, but don't act like it's some kind of wonderful skill and don't act like I have to waste as much time learning the same thing to call myself a Zelda fan."
"Speaking from past experience?" Isamu asked with an amused smile when Elyse finished her rant.
"My sister from my past life," Elyse explained. "She was a bitch. I'm glad I got that off my chest."
"That was-" Diane paused looking for the right words. "-weird. Just weird. Now, put on the headband. And Isamu, get up and get ready. You guys are being agonizingly slow this morning."
"We're taking just as long as we normally do," Elyse grumbled as she tried to figure out the least intrusive place on her body for a headband to go. "You're just more impatient this morning."
Diane snatched the headband from Elyse and tied it around her forehead for her. "There. Problem solved."
Elyse scrunched her face with displeasure at the weird feeling of having a foreign object covering her forehead. She reached up and moved the plate of the headband to the top of her head. There. That felt a little less weird. Really, Sakura wore her headband in the most convenient way.
"Your turn to get ready, Isamu," Diane said as she pushed him off the edge of the bed.
After Diane finished berating Isamu into getting ready, the three made their way over to the testing room. As a result of Diane's pushiness, not many people were in the testing room when they arrived. Only a team from the Land of Rain and Gaara's team stood in the room. Gaara stood facing the team from Rain with a threatening glower and killing intent pouring from him. The team from Rain tried to pretend not to notice Gaara, but they watched him carefully out of the corner of their eyes. They were not immune to the killing intent.
"Gaara's natural rate of killing intent is pretty high, huh?" Isamu whispered as he leaned against a wall a safe distance away from the other genin. Diane narrowed her eyes at him.
"Did Elyse put you up to this natural rate of killing intent thing?"
"I don't know what you mean," Isamu said innocently. "I'm just talking about the long term percentage of killing intent that makes up a portion of a person's free roaming chakra."
Diane shook her head at Elyse with her lips pressed tightly together. "I'm not going to believe in your made up thing just because you dragged Isamu into this. Actually, his involvement makes the natural rate of killing intent less believable."
"It's real," Elyse said. She didn't continue with the convincing speech she had planned because she saw Temari making her way over to them from over Diane's shoulder.
"What possessed you three to show up so early?" Temari asked as a greeting.
Elyse reached out and placed her hand on Diane's shoulder. Diane immediately shrugged off her hand. "This one. She's really excited about the chunin exams."
"What's Gaara so upset about?" Diane nodded to said red haired child.
"Oh, it's the Rain ninja." Temari sent the Rain ninja a scathing look. "Gaara really doesn't like filthy water jutsu users."
"I understand the anger," Isamu said. "But I think Gaara needs to rein in his temper when it comes to the Rain ninja." He looked expectantly at Diane who frowned at him in confusion and then shrugged it off.
"Yeah. I don't think Gaara should be starting fights before the exams even start," Diane said in agreement.
"He won't. He knows better than that," Temari reassured. "Probably. I hope we have a chance to fight those Rain ninja soon though. I wouldn't mind beating the crap out of a few of them myself. Imagine dumping perfectly good water on the ground with jutsus."
"It is abhorrent behavior," Elyse agreed for the sake of keeping the peace. "But maybe that kind of behavior doesn't necessitate a violent response. They come from a land with an abundance of water. They just don't realize how important water can be."
"That's fine. We'll just teach them," Temari said cracking her knuckles. "I'll get the lesson to sink in, and then they'll never underestimate the value of water again."
"Well, alright." Elyse knew a lost battle when she came across one. The Rain ninja would end up receiving a pummeling from the Kazekage's children if they crossed paths in the second part of the exams.
"So why did you come early?" Diane asked.
"Gaara wanted to scope out the competition. I think he's looking for someone he can kill that won't create an international crisis," Temari said nonchalantly.
Elyse grimaced back uncomfortably. "And you're ok with that?"
Temari shrugged. "It's better if he lets off some steam once in awhile." Elyse didn't know what to say to that. She didn't consider murdering some random person the same as letting off some steam.
"Maybe he should get a stress ball," Elyse suggested.
"A what?" Temari asked.
"A stress ball. It's a ball made of squishy material that people squeeze to relieve stress. It's a lot less messy than crushing a person with sand."
"I would like it if I didn't have blood cleaning duty anymore, but somehow, I don't think Gaara would go for a squishy ball as a replacement for killing people."
"No, probably not," Elyse agreed. "I'll let you know if I come up with a reasonable solution."
"Thank you," Temari said. She glanced back at her brothers. "I should get back to my team. Sometimes, Kankuro likes to exacerbate Gaara's anger for his own amusement. I don't want Gaara to end up killing the Rain ninja before the exams even start."
"I don't want that either. I so don't want to take the exam with body parts all over the place," Diane said with disgust. Temari said her goodbyes and went back to her siblings.
"I can't believe neither of you got my pun," Isamu said after Temari left.
"What pun?" Elyse asked furrowing her brow. She couldn't remember Isamu saying anything that could possibly resemble a pun.
"When I said Gaara needs to rein in his temper with the Rain ninja!"
"How in the world is that a pun?"
"Because 'rein' and 'Rain' sound the same."
"What?!" Diane exclaimed. "Those two words don't sound anything alike. What in the world are you talking about?"
"They sound the same in English," Isamu said exasperatedly.
Diane gaped at him incredulously. "Are you kidding me? You can't make an English pun while you're speaking Japanese. That doesn't make any sense."
"I have to agree with Diane here," Elyse said. "If the pun needs to be translated, it doesn't count as an actual pun."
"Damn. Really?" Isamu asked.
"Of course not!" Diane yelled briefly drawing the attention of the other six people in the room. She lowered her voice. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You can't be serious."
Isamu shrugged. "Ok. No more English puns in Japanese."
"That should go without being said," Diane said. She looked around the room. "Where is everyone else? I want to meet more Konoha characters. I've only met two and one of them is another reincarnated person. She doesn't count."
"You just don't like Tenten because she wouldn't introduce you to Neji and Lee." Diane ignored Elyse's statement.
Diane had to wait a long time for any Konoha characters to come in. Genin slowly started pouring into the room, but they all had Rain, Waterfall, or Sound headbands. When the Sound genin arrived, Diane perked up a little, but she ultimately had no interest in talking to them. Only when team ten arrived did Diane make her move.
"Oh my God! Look who just walked in," Diane gasped as she seized Elyse's arm tightly. Elyse looked towards the door and smiled as she saw Ino, Choji, and Shikamaru. It was happening. All the canon characters were gathering together. There was so much chaos to be had.
Elyse's smile slipped as her arm started to hurt under Diane's hold. "Ok, you need to let go now."
Diane startled and looked down at the hand that grasped Elyse's arm. She released her hold. "Oops. Sorry." As Elyse rubbed her arm, Diane glanced back over at team ten. "I'll be back. I'm going to go talk to them."
"Ok. Don't be too weird," Elyse warned. She wouldn't want Diane to embarrass herself in front of the people from the manga she loved so much.
"Are you sure we should let her go over there alone?" Isamu asked uncertainly as Diane strode off.
Elyse waved him off. "She'll be fine."
Shikamaru eyed Diane warily as she approached his team. "You're that strange girl from yesterday."
"You know her?" Ino asked.
"Not really," Diane answered for Shikamaru. "He just did me a small favor yesterday. I'm Diane, by the way." She held out her hand to Ino.
"I'm Ino," Ino said shaking Diane's hand reluctantly. She gave Shikamaru a questioning look. "What favor did you do for her?"
"I don't know. She wanted me to say something weird."
"It's a clan thing," Diane said dismissively. "And I never got your name."
"Shikamaru." Shikamaru shook Diane's hand with even more reluctance than Ino.
Diane turned to her last target. "And you are?"
Choji finished munching on the chip in his mouth before answering. "I'm Choji." He brushed his hand off onto his pants before shaking Diane's hand. At the end of her handshake, Diane had to wipe her own hands off. Choji still had some crumbs and salt on his hand when he shook Diane's hand. "Sorry about that," he said as he stuck his hand back into his chip back.
Elyse sighed as she watched over the scene with disdain. She nudged Isamu. "This is what happens when you make eating a personality trait," she whispered to him. "It becomes significant in every interaction with the person even though it's such a mundane aspect of life."
"Are you saying you wouldn't read a manga if the main character was a guy that just ate all the time?" Isamu asked with a snicker.
"I have absolutely no interest in a story like that."
Elyse had to end her conversation with Isamu as Diane blurted out, "Can I have your guys' autographs?"
"Wow. Excuse me, I have to go save Diane from her current situation." Elyse made her way over to her friend as team ten stared at Diane with varying expressions of shock.
"Our autographs?" Ino asked as if she couldn't believe she heard Diane correctly.
Elyse forced a laugh from her mouth as she reached her destination. "Don't mind her. She enjoys teasing rookie genin. Diane, leave the rookies alone."
Diane laughed nervously. "Of course! Just a joke! Bye!" Diane practically ran from team ten leaving them in a state of bemusement. Elyse followed right behind her not interested in trying to further explain things to team ten.
"I changed my mind. Keep me away from the rest of the characters," Diane murmured to Elyse and Isamu. "I'm never going to recover from that."
Elyse patted Diane's back comfortingly. "I think you successfully played it off as a joke." Behind Diane's back she shook her head at Isamu mouthing, "No, she didn't."
True to her word, Diane stayed put when Tenten's team came in and even when team eight came in, but her resolve dissolved as team seven entered the room. "I need to talk to them," she said determinedly.
"Um, I'm pretty sure canon is about to start," Isamu pointed out.
Diane faltered, but then squared her shoulders. "It can wait a little bit."
"Oooo, I'm going too," Elyse said excitedly. "There's always something I wanted to tell Sakura."
The two quickly walked towards team seven. Out of the corner of her eye, Elyse noticed Ino stopping in her tracks as she spotted them walking over. Elyse wondered if Diane realized this was changing canon or if she was too focused on meeting the title character to even think of that.
Each member of team seven had a different reaction when Elyse and Diane stopped in front of them. Sakura shrank back behind her teammates looking a bit frightened, Sasuke narrowed his eyes at their headbands in suspicion, and Naruto pointed a finger at them before yelling, "If you're coming over here for a fight, we'll take you on easily."
Elyse chuckled and glanced at Diane. Diane was just staring openly at Naruto eyes wide and mouth agape. Elyse gripped her shoulder. "Get a hold of yourself," she said through gritted teeth. To Naruto, she said, "We don't want to fight anyone. I just had something to say. To her."
As Elyse gestured towards Sakura, the pink haired girl gave a squeak. Gathering herself together, Sakura stepped forward and tried not to show how apprehensive she was. "I don't want to join your cult." Sakura's eyes widened, and she waved her hands frantically. "I mean your clan. I don't want to join your clan."
Elyse resisted the urge to roll her eyes. So Sakura was one of those people that thought the Nintendo clan kidnapped children and forced them into the clan. "I'm not trying to get you to join our clan. You don't meet our qualifications anyways. I just wanted to tell you that you shouldn't date or marry guys that try to kill you."
Sakura blinked back in astonishment. "Well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?"
"You would think," Elyse said.
Sakura stared back at Elyse for a while waiting for her to explain herself. "So, uh, is that all?"
"Yeah, I suppose so. Just remember what I said." Elyse would probably have to do more to prevent Sakura and Sasuke from getting together, but hopefully, this would have a bit of an effect.
"Hey, wait a second," Diane said from beside her as she slowly started to get out of her Naruto induced trance. "Did you just say what I think you said to who I think you just said it to?"
"Wait, who are you people?" Naruto asked pointing his finger at Elyse and Diane again. "Why did you come over here and say strange things to Sakura? And what is that weird symbol on your headbands?"
"Naruto, that's the symbol for the Nintendo clan," Sakura said impatiently.
"The Nintendo clan? Never heard of them," Naruto said. His two teammates adopted identical expressions of disbelief.
"Naruto, how do you avoid hearing about the most basic of things?" Sakura sounded slightly impressed by Naruto's pervasive ignorance.
Naruto laughed nervously and scratched the back of his head. "Oh! The Nintendo clan. Yep, I've totally heard of them."
Meanwhile, Diane tugged on Elyse's arm and leaned down to whisper in her ear. "We shouldn't be here right now. Canon is supposed to be happening right now! This isn't canon!"
As if to dispute her words, Kabuto came over to the group. "You guys should consider lowering your voices. You're attracting a lot of attention." Diane yelped and hurriedly dragged Elyse away from the canon moment.
"Everything's fine," Elyse assured once they were back with Isamu. "See, it's all continuing how it's supposed to." It wouldn't be for long if Elyse got her way, but for now, canon still seemed to be on track.
Elyse's real plan for changing canon started when the exam started. She chose her target two days ago after five seconds of deliberation. If she wanted to make team seven fail the exam, Naruto was the obvious choice for her. She had to fail them in a way that wouldn't get traced back to her which meant using a widely known genjutsu that increased feelings of fear and thus desperation. That made Naruto the right choice for two reasons. One, he currently had almost no skill with identifying and dispelling genjutsu. Two, he didn't have a skill set that enabled him to cheat without getting caught by the chunin watching the exam.
While Elyse kept an eye on Naruto after casting her genjutsu, she worked on the test in front of her to blend in. Even for a relatively intelligent person that lived a collective 35 years, the questions were difficult. Not that it mattered. Her team had to fail the test anyways, and people could pass without getting any answers right on the test. That was a major flaw in the test in Elyse's eyes. This part of the test was designed to ensure that the genin who made it through had the ability to gather information without detection, but anyone could pass without doing anything. If a test failed to test what it was supposed to, then it didn't work as a test.
Naruto started sweating and twitching nervously in his seat. Any minute now, he would feel desperate enough to try cheating. There it was. Naruto looked over Hinata's test answers with the subtlety of a skilled civilian. Not enough to avoid detection from the chunin or to warrant them overlooking his transgression. Just a bit longer now. Elyse's hand shook with excitement as she scribbled down some nonsense onto her paper, too filled with anticipation to properly work out a problem.
"Number 4, fail," one of the chunin from the side said.
There was a beat of silence and then a horrified "What!" rang out from four different people; Tenten, Sakura, Naruto, and Diane. As Naruto left the room with an angry Sasuke and Sakura at his heels, Elyse looked at Tenten who stared blankly ahead of her with disbelief and Diane who actually stood up staring in the direction of the door team seven exited through. Isamu had already turned back to his test after giving team seven a brief, curious look.
"Number 17, sit down before you fail the test," an examiner said to Diane. Diane took one look at the examiner and then marched out of the room. Isamu and Elyse exchanged glances.
"Shall we, then?" Isamu asked. Elyse nodded and followed after Diane with Isamu. She could hardly believe it. She had done it. She changed canon and not in some ridiculous, insignificant way like getting someone to eat breakfast. She caused the main character to fail the first part of the chunin exams. That arc, at least, was completely ruined.
.