Disclaimer: I didn't own Naruto in Chapter 1-4, and I still don't.
Note: "Tenshi" means "angel".
Chapter 5: Underneath the Underneath
Tatemichi let out a breath and cast his eyes up to the ceiling. He could hear the sound of many feet thundering past above him, as the hundreds of people who had come to view the third stage of the Chuunin Exam took their seats in the stands. He and the other remaining contestants had been sent to this waiting room upon their arrival. The only instructions they had been given were, "Wait there until the proctor tells you what to do."
Scattered around the room were Tatemichi's teammates, the Mist team, and the Rain team. On the third day of the Second Exam, after fighting Tatemichi and his friends, the Mist genin had gone after the Rain team. The Rain students had managed to repel them, and barely two hours before sunset, they had launched a desperate attack on Leaf's Team 10. The attack had succeeded, knocking Lee's students out of the Exam. Tatemichi didn't know whether to feel sad or relieved about this. On one hand, Lee's students were his friends, and he had wanted to see them become chuunin. On the other hand, their elimination meant that he wouldn't have to fight any of them now.
All three teams were eyeing each other warily. The Mist guys have the best advantage in this part of the Exam, Tatemichi thought, because they've fought both of the other teams, so they have an idea of our abilities. But we don't know much about the Rain team and they don't know much about us. Essentially, for the Mist team, regardless of who they're assigned to fight, they'll have some idea what to expect. But for us, there's a one-in-three chance of being paired with someone whose abilities are almost completely unknown.
The door slid open, and Sakura entered. Immediately, every eye in the room was on her. "Everyone, listen up! The Third Exam is about to start. As you know, this round is focused on one-on-one combat. Match-ups will be selected randomly." She pointed to a screen above the door. "When it's time for a match to start, the names of the contestants will appear on that screen. When your name is chosen, proceed immediately to the arena with your opponet. And remember, this waiting room is being monitored, so don't bother trying to do anything to your opponent before the match starts. One last thing: you're to stay in this room until your own match, and there's no way to view the main arena from here. There's also a barrier around the arena that prevents mental contact between the participants and the spectators." She glanced at the Rain team as she said this, then continued on. "In other words, you aren't allowed to see any of the matches before your own."
"What!" Natsume of the Rain exclaimed. "But that means we can't cheer our teammates on! That isn't fair!" The Mist genin Narita was nodding vigorously in agreement.
"Maybe not, but that's the rules we've set up, and there's a good reason for them. If you don't like them, you can forfeit."
Both of Natsume's teammates had turned towards him. Sakamoto was giving him a "would you stop being an idiot" look, and although Asagi's eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, Tatemichi suspected that she was glaring at him too.
"Sorry," Natsume mumbled under his breath, not sounding the least bit apologetic. Nevertheless, Sakura nodded and pointed up towards the screen. "We're about ready for the first match-up," she said.
"I have a question," the female genin from Mist, Uozumi, interjected. "There's three teams left, which is nine people. How will we do one-on-one matches with an odd number of participants?"
"That's a good question," Sakura answered, "and there was a lot of discussion about it among the Exam organizers. You may not have noticed this, but during the Second Exam, there was a camera monitoring each of the stations in the Forest of Death, which allowed us to observe all of the fights. Based on your performances, the proctors, Kages, and feudal lords chose one member of the eliminated team to take part in the Third Exam. Think of it as a 'wild card' slot." She gestured, and Ootani Toda stepped through the door behind her.
Tatemichi leapt up from his seat. "Toda-san! Congratulations!"
Toda grinned. "You too."
Sakura cleared her throat, and everyone turned their attention back to her. "So, the first match-up is..."
The screen flickered, and words appeared on it: "Morino Noriki vs Koike Suga."
"Hmph," Suga smirked. "I won't fall for your genjutsu tricks this time."
Noriki smiled back. "What makes you think that's the only thing I've got up my sleeve?"
The two young ninja left, with Sakura following them.
"So, this is pretty crazy, huh?" Toda said, flopping down in a chair next to Tatemichi. Matsu trotted over and sat in front of Toda, wagging his tail, so the boy picked him up and started petting him. "We were all pretty bummed about losing so close to the end of the Second Exam, when suddenly Sakura-senpai comes in and explains that they need one of us to re-enter the Exam because they've got an odd number of people for the Third Exam."
"Y'know, I wonder about that," Tatemichi said. "I mean, it's usually tournament-style, so it doesn't matter if there's an odd number of participants. It just means someone gets an extra match. Or they'd do one preliminary match or something. But this makes it sound like each person's only going to get one match. It's kinda strange."
"Well, Hokage-sama did say that he was making some changes to the Chuunin Exam. Maybe this is one of them."
"Did Sakura-senpai say why you were the one who got picked for the wild-card slot?"
Toda shrugged. "No. I figured maybe they wanted to see a medic-nin in the Third Exam or something; I'm pretty sure I'm the only one left in the running."
"That's a tradition in your family, isn't it?"
"Yeah," Toda replied proudly, "ever since the Third Great Ninja War." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I wonder how things are going out there?"
"I don't know," Tatemichi admitted. "Noriki-san's tough, but that Suga guy already knows he's good with genjutsu, so he'll be on the lookout for it."
"Yeah, but Noriki-san's seen Suga-san's techniques before, too," Toda reminded him. "I wouldn't count him out, if I were you."
Their conversation was interrupted by Narita jumping to his feet and pointing at the screen. "Look!"
The screen read: "Ootani Toda vs Mizukami Narita."
"Noriki-san's match is over already?" Tatemichi swallowed hard.
"Don't worry, I'm sure he won," Toda reassured him as he stood up. "Wish me luck, okay?"
"Yeah! Good luck, Toda-san!"
Tatemichi willed himself not to get up and pace. Each time a pair of students was called out of the room, he had felt an odd mixture of disappointment and relief. Part of him wanted to postpone his inevitable solo fight as long as possible, while another part of him wanted to get it over with quickly. I don't know why I'm so nervous. It's not like I haven't been in fights before. Heck, this time there's even a proctor to make sure no one gets killed! But he had always had his teammates and sensei beside him in those other fights...and there weren't hundreds of people watching.
The other three students who remained-Uozumi, Sakamoto, and Asagi-all looked equally nervous. Uozumi was fidgeting, Sakamoto was pacing, and Asagi was hunched over and apparently staring at the ground.
A thunderous cheer came from the arena, and everyone looked at the screen, knowing that the current match must have ended.
"Kaneko Uozumi vs Kozawa Sakamoto."
Sakamoto and Uozumi exited the waiting room, leaving Tatemichi and Asagi to stare alternately at the screen and each other. After a few minutes, Tatemichi became aware that Asagi was humming something softly. She stopped when he glanced over at her, blushing and saying, "Sorry."
"No, it's okay. It actually sounded kinda pretty. What is it?"
She smiled. "Kaa-san whistles it a lot. She says Tou-san's best friend used to whistle it all the time. It's an old victory song."
"That reminds me of a story my Kaa-san told me once. She said that one time, when she and Tou-san were dating, Gai-senpai got Tou-san drunk and convinced him to stand underneath Kaa-san's apartment window and sing this really sappy old love song. She says it was horribly off-key, and he couldn't remember half the words, but it's one of her favorite memories of him anyway."
Asagi giggled at the mental image this created, but as something Tatemichi had said sunk in, her expression sobered. "What do you mean by, 'memories of him'?"
Tatemichi looked down at the ground, and said in a subdued voice, "Tou-san...he died before I was born."
Because of the sunglasses, Tatemichi couldn't tell exactly where Asagi was looking, but she turned her head away. "Mine too."
There was silence for a few moments, then the screen buzzed as their names appeared on it.
"Well, I guess it's our turn," Tatemichi said, feeling awkward. He had almost managed to forget that they would be fighting each other.
Asagi took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Let's go. We shouldn't keep the spectators waiting."
As they walked out the door, Tatemichi asked, "How many spectators do you think there are?"
Emerging into the stadium, he got an answer. The stands were packed with hundreds of people, whose clothing suggested that they had come from all over the continent. Tatemichi could see the Kages and feudal lords sitting in the front row, with the sensei and other students directly behind them.
Sakura stood in the center of the arena. She held up her hands, and the deafening applause from the watching crowd slowly came to a halt. "All right, Tatemichi-san and Asagi-chan, listen up! The rules for this part of the Exam are simple." She pointed to a silver bell that was tied to her belt with a thin thread. "Whichever one of you gets this bell first passes the Exam. You may use any means at your disposal-but if I order you to stop fighting, do it. And don't worry, I'll go easy on you." She smirked. "But not too easy."
Tatemichi quickly slid into a fighting stance, as did Asagi, but Sakura held up a hand. "Wait a minute! I know you're eager, but I didn't tell you to start yet. You need to introduce yourselves to the spectators first."
The two contestants looked at each other, and Asagi nodded slightly to Tatemichi. He stepped forward, and looked up into the stands. He saw Kurenai sitting between Kakashi and Genma. She smiled at him, and Tatemichi felt confidence flowing into him. In a loud voice, he announced, "I'm Sarutobi Tatemichi, grandson of the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, and son of Sarutobi Asuma and Yuuhi Kurenai!"
The Leaf spectators roared, clapped their hands, and stamped their feet. When they finally quieted, Asagi stepped up next to him. She raised her hands, and Tatemichi resumed his fighting stance when he saw her form a seal. What's going on? Sakura-senpai said not to start fighting yet! Wait a minute...that's only a release seal. She's not casting a jutsu, she's getting rid of one. But what could she have active already?
There was a puff of smoke, and Tatemichi recognized that a Henge had just been dispelled. Asagi looked mostly the same: still female, still thirteen years old, still wearing the blues and grays favored by Rain nin. Only the color of her braided hair had changed, from corn-silk blond to deep indigo. "I'm Fuuma Asagi," she called out, "Daughter of the Ame no Tenshi, Hashikabe Konan..."
Then she pulled off her sunglasses as a light rain began to fall, revealing gray, ringed eyes. "...and of the Ame no Kami, Fuuma Pain."
What...the hell? Scenes from the past couple of weeks flitted through Tatemichi's mind. He remembered how Asagi's refusal, on behalf of her team, to leave one of their own behind during the First Exam had been accompanied by a clap of thunder even though he could have sworn it wasn't raining. And on the third day in the Forest of Death, when the Mist and Rain teams would have been fighting, it had been raining as well. It had started up again the instant the two of them entered the stadium. That on its own didn't mean anything, of course. But hadn't Shikamaru told him that at the end of the battle in which his father died, the two Akatsuki they'd been fighting were called away by some sort of telepathic signal from their leader? And hadn't Sakura seemed to have the Rain genin specifically in mind when she talked about a barrier against mental communication? And then there was the fact that Asagi hadn't removed her sunglasses within sight of anyone else for the whole Exam, even when they were indoors, a habit that practically screamed "doujutsu."
Tatemichi fervently thanked his lucky stars that Asagi probably hadn't unlocked many of her bloodline's abilities yet-she would already be well beyond chuunin level if she had. And we aren't fighting directly, either. I just have to beat her to the bell.
Sakura pulled on a pair of gloves. "You two can start anytime you're ready," she declared.
Tatemichi and Asagi both stood still for a moment. With that rain, she can read my chakra anyway, so there's no point in hiding my capabilities. Which means I may as well make the first move. Because of the overcast sky, the shadows on the arena floor were dim, but they were still there. Tatemichi's shadow shot out towards Sakura, zigzagging across the stadium in as unpredictable manner as he could manage. Despite that, Sakura dodged gracefully.
Not unexpected. But try dodging this! Tatemichi took out a light bomb and hurled it high into the air. When it exploded, the blinding light made the spectators gasp and shield their eyes. All the shadows in the arena became darker, and Tatemichi sent them towards Sakura from all sides. Shadows of the trees planted near the stadium walls, Tatemichi's own shadow, and even Asagi's, stretched towards the pink-haired jounin. Sakura darted towards the center of the arena, at the farthest point from the origin of all the shadows. Tatemichi gritted his teeth and tried to force the shadows to reach her, but it was useless.
A flurry of small, dark objects soared past his head, and he realized that Asagi had made a move. She had thrown a set of shuriken, and as they went whizzing towards Sakura, Tatemichi saw that they were jet-black. He'd heard about those, too. Chakra-disrupting weapons. Great. Sakura dodged those as easily as she had avoided his shadows.
"My turn again!" he shouted, and made a series of seals. "Wind Element: Gale Blast!" A gust of wind spun across the open space, aimed straight at Sakura.
Sakura curled one hand into a fist and punched the ground in front of her, raising a wall of rock that blocked the jutsu.
At the edge of his vision, Tatemichi saw Asagi's otherworldly eyes narrow and her face harden in concentration. As the rocks that Sakura had raised fell into a pile of rubble, her head jerked back as though she'd been punched. Her look of surprise quickly changed to a fierce glare, and Asagi stumbled backwards with a startled cry. "Who was that? Who else is in your mind?"
Sakura grinned. "That's my inner self. I lost my susceptibility to mental attacks a long time ago."
Tatemichi reached into his weapons pouch and drew out one of the two trench knives Shikamaru had given him when he became a genin.
"These used to belong to your father. I think it's about time I entrusted them to you."
Tatemichi threw the knife at Sakura's shadow, hoping that repelling a mind-invasion jutsu had distracted her enough to land a hit. That was one of the things Shikamaru had drilled into his students' heads: a shinobi took advantage of any openings he could get.
Sure enough, Sakura didn't dodge. But instead, she pulled out a kunai and whipped it at the incoming trench knife, deflecting it safely away from her shadow.
Tatemichi prepped more wind jutsu, intending to force Sakura towards the long shadows of the trees. Sakura, however, seemed determined not to go in the direction he wanted her to. Asagi was resuming the attack as well, this time using wires to guide the course of her chakra-disrupting shuriken. As both genin tried their best to defeat Sakura and claim the bell, Tatemichi thought he noticed something odd about the jounin's actions. Of course she wouldn't be using her full strength against the two of them-the contestants were supposed to have some chance to win, after all. But it seemed to him that the level of power she was using was precisely calibrated. There was no way either one of them could defeat her, but the gap wasn't huge. One genin couldn't beat her, but two probably could. If only this were a team fight!
The thought brought Tatemichi up short. "Asagi-chan!" he called. "Hold up for a minute."
She looked suspicious. "What?"
"I think there's something else going on here. Just let me explain, I promise I won't attack you. I swear, on my honor as a shinobi."
Asagi fixed him with an unsettling gaze, and he felt a strange sensation, as if fingers were lightly brushing the surface of his brain. "I believe you. What do you think is happening?"
Tatemichi explained what he'd noticed about Sakura's use of her power. "I think we're supposed to get the bell together."
"But there's only one bell, and two of us. It's not possible for us both to win."
"Think about it, though. Doesn't this seem like exactly the kind of test Naruto-sama would set for aspiring chuunin? He's always said that he wants to reform the whole ninja system, and the best way to do that is to change what qualities are selected for when choosing chuunin, since chuunin are team captains. With the major shinobi nations in an alliance, the most important quality, the one he'd want to look for in chuunin, is teamwork. It just makes sense. Plus, think about that requirement that we can't watch each other's matches. Why have a rule like that unless there's something the organizers wanted to keep hidden from us, something we're supposed to figure out on our own?"
"...You're saying that being prohibited from watching other matches only makes sense if there's some kind of trick, like in the First Exam," Asagi mused. "If we saw even one of the other matches, we'd see firsthand what the trick is."
"And look! Sakura-senpai's just standing around waiting while we talk. Do you know of any jounin that would fail to take advantage of an opponent being distracted? It doesn't make sense unless she's..."
"...Waiting to see if we figure it out," Asagi finished. "You may be right. But what if you're not? If we collaborate when we're not supposed to, we'll both fail for sure."
"That's true. But neither of us will get the bell alone anyway. The only way for us to have a chance of passing is to work together."
Asagi tipped her head back and stared up into the sky, as if she were looking for an answer in the rainclouds. "Okay. So how do we best combine our abilities to get that bell?"
Sakura smiled as the clouds began to lift. There were still light sprinkles of rain, but shafts of sunlight now glittered off them. A sunshower. Enough rain to sense my chakra, and enough light to cast strong shadows. This is about to get a lot more interesting.
Asagi threw a few kunai made of the same black metal as the shuriken she'd used previously. Sakura didn't appear concerned-she'd dodged their other projectiles without any trouble, after all-but Tatemichi activated another Gale Blast to propel the kunai towards her at a higher speed than she was anticipating. She raised her own kunai and deflected them. Asagi jerked her hand back, and light gleamed on the wires that were attached to the kunai. The blades swung elegantly back through the air, heading for Sakura once more. This time, she dodged-only to see the shadows of the rubble pile she'd created earlier racing towards her. Grabbing a particularly large piece of the rubble, she launched it directly at Tatemichi, who was able to dodge only at the cost of losing control over the shadows.
Going on the offensive now, Sakura kept Tatemichi and Asagi moving by continuing to fling boulders. One missed Asagi closely enough that a smaller rock broke off from it and grazed her cheek. She wiped at the blood that trickled down from the cut, and grinned. "Perfect, that saves me the trouble of having to do it myself." Thrusting the blood-smeared hand up in the air, she declared, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
A bird appeared in the sky, but it was like no bird Tatemichi had ever seen. Its eyes bore the same Rinnegan as Asagi herself, plugs made of black metal studded its body, and its beak looked almost crumpled. With a screech, it dive-bombed Sakura. As it approached, its shadow stretched out, and Sakura's eyes widened. So, Sakura-senpai, do you think you can keep your eyes on both the bird above and its shadow below?
Sakura darted and weaved, expertly avoiding both the bird's razor-sharp talons and its clutching shadow. At one point, the bird's shadow touched hers, and Tatemichi felt a thrill of victory. It was premature, however: with a burst of chakra, Sakura broke free. She tossed a kunai at Asagi, and this one seemed to shimmer in an unnatural way. "Look out, that's poisoned!" The kunai hit Asagi square in the chest with a dull thud, but she vanished in a puff of smoke and a log fell to the ground in her place. Asagi herself reappeared a few feet away, and gave Tatemichi a reassuring nod to let him know that she was unharmed.
"Wind Element: Spiraling Vortex!" Carefully avoiding Asagi's summon, Tatemichi utilized a different wind jutsu, one that was designed to cut the opponent as well as to knock them back. When Sakura evaded it, he sent a cluster of kunai with exploding notes attached. The relentless barrage of shadows, the summon's attacks, wind jutsu, and projectile weapons didn't wound Sakura, but they allowed the two genin to herd her back towards a specific point on the battlefield.
The bird dove straight at Sakura, aiming to impale her on its oddly squashed-looking beak. Instead of simply dodging, as she had before, she leapt into the air above it and slammed a vicious downward punch into the center of its body. It promptly disappeared, but that was fine with Tatemichi: Sakura was now suspended in midair, exactly where he wanted her to be. He hurled another bevy of kunai with attached exploding tags, knowing that Sakura wouldn't be able to dodge in her current position. The tags blew up, creating an impressive fireball...and leaving behind a charred log. As Tatemichi had expected, Sakura used the Kawarimi to move herself away from the direction that most of the attacks had originated from. If I can force her to dodge just once more, that should do it...
Tatemichi threw the second of his trench knives, with wire attached to guide it. Asagi supplemented his assault with more of her own projectiles. Knowing the special properties of both weapons, Sakura deftly avoided them...and as she did so, her shadow fell on the first trench knife, which she had deflected early in the match.
Tatemichi pumped a triumphant fist in the air. "Shadow Binding complete!"
With Sakura pinned in place, Tatemichi and Asagi boldly approached to retrieve the bell. As they got close, however, Sakura gritted her teeth and swung a fist at them. It was a clumsy blow, hampered by the Shadow Binding, but it demonstrated that she still had some ability to move. When the two genin jumped back to avoid the attack, she began to struggle, trying to reach down and pull the trench knife out of the ground.
"She's not completely immobilized!" Asagi exclaimed. "We've got to get the bell before she breaks free, but if we get close enough, she'll knock us out!"
Tatemichi was breathing hard, pouring all his energy into holding Sakura in place. "There's a way to lift the shadows off the ground and make them wrap around the enemy so they can't move at all, but it takes a lot more chakra. I haven't got the reserves for it."
A small smile lit up Asagi's features. "If you need more chakra, I can help you out. One advantage of a bloodline is that it gives you absurd chakra reserves. Here, take this, it's the last one I've got." She handed over an ebony shuriken. "Teamwork, right?"
Tatemichi grinned, and closed his hand around the shuriken. "Teamwork." As the points pierced his skin, he felt chakra flowing into him. It was an overwhelmingly strange sensation that made his entire body feel like it was itching. It was unsettling, but at the same time, the influx of power felt remarkably good. He channeled the energy into the trench knife in Sakura's shadow, and gradually felt her struggles becoming weaker as his jutsu started to overpower her. He remembered the countless hours he'd spent practicing this technique. He had heard so many stories from Shikamaru about Asuma's proficiency with it, and he had felt as though achieving mastery of it would bring him closer to his father.
I wonder if he'd be proud of me. I think so. I wish he could see this!
The chakra surging through him fluctuated, and he heard a voice in his mind. Don't you think he can? Would a shinobi let a little thing like being dead stop him from watching over his family? Tatemichi remembered the pictures he'd seen of Asuma, and all the things Kurenai, Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji had told him about his father. Pride and love flooded through him, and as every shadow in the arena shot out and wrapped itself around Sakura, as one shadow yanked the bell from her and threw it into his outstretched hand, Tatemichi hollered: "WATCH THIS, TOU-SAN!"
A/N: Only one chapter left! Next time, we find out who gets promoted to chuunin, and Naruto makes an awesome speech.
Thanks for reading!
