Chapter 98 - Quickplay Finish

Inou was surprised for perhaps a moment, before collecting himself and thinking. Senritsu hadn't left the arena, of course he hadn't. And the arena was a large, open area, with only a few, inexplicable trees dotting the edges near the high walls. And since he was not above, nor besides…

Inou dashed for the trees. And as soon as he did, a brown-and-pencil-gray blur shifted from one tree to the next. The crowd gasped as the blur moved to another tree, and further away from Inou.

Senritsu could move.

Of course, Inou was only mildly impressed. And figuring that Senritsu was keeping his distance to set up a trap or spring some sort of genjutsu, Inou decided to set up camp himself, and he scrambled into the tree immediately beside him.

The crowd, of course, wasn't happy, since for a short while after this, it appeared as if nothing were happening. "Come on, we want a fight!" "Stop hiding!"

They were doing Inou's work for him. And soon, with a rustle, the blur returned, leaping from tree to tree and closer to Inou.

Inou, however, anticipated the move, and dropped down from the branches right as Senritsu was set to collide with his own tree. While Senritsu was still landing on the branch, Inou hopped up again and made a grab for his arm, flinging him over the branch. Using gravity to his advantage, he could throw Senritsu to the ground and have the wind knocked out of him, leaving him vulnerable for a possession.

Senritsu, however, recovered quickly.

Way too quickly.

He spun through the air and out of Inou's grip, landing, almost cat-like, on all fours, and whipping his head up as the dust settled. He was in the air again almost immediately, springing desperately for the tree.

Not to hide, however. Before Inou could react, Senritsu had whirled around on a branch's arm like a gymnast's bar and kicked him square in the face. The white smell of the impact and the dirt in Inou's eyes blinded him, temporarily, which Senritsu more than took advantage of by grabbing Inou with both arms and pulling him into a sleeper hold. Spots appeared in the darkness before Inou's eyes.

But the shape of the hold felt familiar, the way that his arms were fastened around his neck and arm.

This was how his father had taught him the hold.

Ah. Now he remembered. Senritsu was his father's student.

Well, Inou had trained with Sasuke too. For far longer.

And he knew how to get out of his father's holds. Even blind.

It was in the ease of his freedom that Inou, for once in his life, remotely appreciated how very hard his father pushed him. Compared to Sasuke, Senritsu's arms were made of grass, and they bent and flexed with almost no effort on Inou's behalf.

Inou took the opportunity to turn himself around and get Senritsu pinned, however momentarily. And, indeed, a short while later, Senritsu was gone from beneath his knee and was upright. Inou made a few jabs, but even after his eyes cleared, none of them came even remotely close to hitting him.

Senritsu's dodges were flawless, almost like his father's own Sharingan-aided moves. Though they were less analytical and more fluid, here; he was not dodging Inou because he was anticipating the attacks, but because he felt the need to dodge, instinctually. This felt unnatural, unreal, and yet utterly exhilarating. Inou had never fought anyone quite like him, and his mind was dazzled with the new experience.

But Inou could not keep up forever. And even though Senritsu was not terribly on the offense, matching his moves took up quite a bit of energy; energy that Inou could not afford to waste on mindless sparring. So, when Senritsu hazarded a strike of his own, Inou made use of a substitution jutsu to replace himself with a nearby tree branch, so he could hide and rethink his strategy.

Inou also took the moment to catch his breath—his fatigue, already setting in this early, ashamed him. But his thoughts were clear, and the sooner he got back into his element of the mind, the more quickly he was able to forget about his weaknesses.

Senritsu was fast, and his physical techniques were familiar, but fairly developed. And Inou was going to have to trap him, like an animal.

So he needed bait.

He glanced at the arena. Senritsu was gone. Inou prepared his chakra.

Senritsu did not hesitate this time. The rustles heralded his arrival, before the blur. But as soon as his fingers were on Inou's shoulders, flesh was replaced with wood and leaves, and Inou was on the ground, his hands quickly transitioned from traditional sign to Yamanaka.

The packet of chakra shot out of his hands and collided with Senritsu in less than a second, as anticipated. And Inou felt his mind in his fingers, and, carefully, he pressed into the areas that controlled consciousness, awakeness, awareness…

Moments later, an unconscious Senritsu fell out of the tree. And Inou stood, brushing the dust off of his clothes as the examining officer bent down to look at the boy. For a while, all was quiet, until Hakkou stood.

"Victory goes to Uchiha Inou!" he called.

The crowd cheered.

Inou finally allowed himself to brush his eyes over the crowd.

(He saw Nadeshiko first, a black flower in the midst of their blond relatives, clapping with a kind smile on her face.)

But finally, his father. His arms were folded, his face firm, even though his mother and brother were applauding.

Of course not.

Medical ninja had come onto the field to attend to Senritsu, though he was already regaining consciousness. Inou had made sure of that. Though, curiously, Senritsu was stumbling his way after getting to his feet, with almost a smile on his face.

"Th-thanks for the great match," he said, holding out a hand.

Inou's eyes flitted to his father again. His expression hadn't changed.

But Inou shrugged. "Yeah, sure. You have an interesting style," he replied, as neutrally as possible.

"Heh, well, thanks…" Senritsu replied. The medic nin behind him were making motions with their hands, so the two genin followed them into the door set in the arena's wall and up the stairs to the observation deck, with the rest of the contestants.

"Right, next up: Nara Shikake and Chouso!" the examining officer called.

Chouso decided to make an entrance with a bang. Throwing something down onto the ground below, Chouso leaped over the railing of the deck and landed just as the smoke was clearing, for a very artistic effect. A box full of Earth people cheered.

Shikake, however, just took the stairs. Which Chouso did not find at all acceptable.

"You made me wait, um?"

"You didn't exactly have to jump over the railing, you know," Shikake replied. "Can we just get this over with?"

"Yes, if you two would please come to the center of the arena," the examining officer said.

Shikake sighed, pulling her messy ponytail tighter. "I hate fighting boys, they're so damn flashy," she muttered, though clearly loudly enough for Chouso to hear.

"Excuse me, um?" Chouso said, sounding immensely uppity.

"What."

"I'm a girl?"

Shikake blinked, then smiled. "That makes you a flashy tart then."

"I am not a tart?" Chouso said.

"Actions speak louder than words."

"Could we get the match started, please?" said Hakkou.

"Hey, soon as the tart's ready," Shikake said. She reached into her jacket for a scroll.

"I told you, um, I'm not a tart?"

"Whatever," Shikake replied. "Let's just get this over with."

"Are the two of you ready?"

"Um, yeah?" Chouso said.

"Whenever," Shikake said.

"Then, begin!"

Chouso opened up much like she had entered the arena: with an excess of explosions. Shikake, however, jumped just far enough away to avoid the stronger shockwaves, and opened the scroll to summon a series of curved knives attached to wires. Since it was obvious that Chouso was a long-range fighter, what with the barrage of cherry bombs she was lobbing here and there.

The blades managed to make contact with Chouso, Shikake wrapping the wires around her wrists and whipping them her opponent's way, but their accuracy was shoddy. Chouso seemed to have come up with an ingenious method of moving around, where she planted bombs in the ground and stepped on them to fly most magnificently away from whatever attack was being sent her way. Whenever Shikake trod on one—which happened twice before she got wise—she would get blasted into a nearby wall. Though she was able to twist her way into recovery in midair, the blasts singed her legs and burned the hair on them, and she was bleeding fairly badly by the second blast from the flying debris.

Chouso, however, was prepared. There were metal braces on her legs, and her shoes were heavily-reinforced in a similar manner. And she was obviously used to the blasts in general, enough to fly gracefully with the shockwaves instead of letting them control her.

Well, there were ways for Shikake to not have to move around. She reached for another scroll, and summoned five puppets, each draped in worn and ragged cloth. Gifts from her uncle, Kankuro. They were custom-made by him, with multitudes of arms. Shikake had a particular talent for manipulating many things at once.

This development made Chouso pause, a clay-caked bomb in each hand. "You're a puppet-user?" she said.

"Sorta," Shikake replied.

"Like Sasori-sama?"

"Whatever," Shikake replied, and with a twitch of her fingers sent her two outer-most puppets zooming towards Chouso, leaving the three in the center to guard her. Chouso quickly threw the bombs in her hands at them, and they hit and exploded in a shower of blue-green sparks.

But puppets were not made of meat, and they could not be harmed in the same way. And with another twitch, Shikake had them continue forward.

"This is, um, so cool?" Chouso was chatting to herself as she leaped around and over Shikake's head. Her puppets bobbed in the air protectively with each movement. "It's almost like destiny?"

"Would you, um, shut up?" Shikake replied, in whiny imitation, before sending two more of her puppets out to intercept Chouso on either side. Before they could reach her with their arms, Chouso utilized a substitution technique. With the expected "flair."

The puppets collided and soon exploded, and pieces of wooden limbs scattering everywhere, raining to the ground and hitting the walls of the arena with hollow clatters. Shikake shielded herself with the one puppet near her, the other two staying distant and wobbling uncertainly in the air.

"This is way too much damn trouble," Shikake mumbled, shaking her head, and checking her scrolls in the meantime. She didn't want to waste her best stuff on this hyperactive nuisance, so she decided to stick to the puppets. The two damaged ones still had some use to them, she figured, and thought, quickly.

The four outer puppets returned to her, though only briefly, before she sent the two damaged ones out and towards Chouso.

"That's not, um, going to work?" Chouso said.

Shikake, however, didn't say anything, sending the other two out, taking a path that was lower to the ground.

Chouso shook her head, playfully, the long brown bang over the left side of her face flipping over her shoulder. With a purposeful stomp, the ground beneath her exploded and she soared into the air, easily avoiding the four puppets heading her way.

The puppets, however, weren't exactly heading for her. They were heading towards each other.

It was soon apparent why. Shikake had formed a small net out of chakra threads, and with their convergence, it began to tighten around Chouso. Her flight seemed to mysteriously slow, and as the pairs of puppets began revolving around her, her limbs were pushed closer and closer to her sides, and soon she was suspended mid-air, wrapped in a pale blue glow, like an insect trapped in a spider's web.

Shikake's one remaining puppet slowly hovered away from her and over the ground, its many limbs touching the earth every now and then, its hands shining with reflected light. All the while, Chouso was completely trapped, her arms too tightly-bound and numbed by the over-strong concentration of chakra that Shikake had imbued in the threads to reach for her bomb bag.

When Shikake's puppet finally returned to her, it floated behind her, and it raised its many limbs out behind her in a blossom of arms and metal. And each hand held a knife, rescued from the ground. Shikake kept her fingers and her mouth curled, savoring the taste of the moment.

"I think I'm going to take this slowly, since you seem to like going so fast," Shikake said.

"I-I surrender?!" Chouso stammered in reply.

"Now you say it," Shikake said, putting down her hands and loosening her fingers. The four puppets returned to her, the net of chakra disappearing. Chouso hit the ground with an unpleasant thud, and she picked herself up slowly.

"Victory goes to Nara Shikake!" the examiner declared, and the applause commenced.

Shikake, however, ignored all of it, getting to work resealing her weapons into their scrolls.

"Okay, um, even though you beat me, I gotta say, um, you're really amazing, and we should be partners?" Chouso was behind her.

"Huh." Shikake didn't look up.

"Like, um, Deidara-sama is my idol, and he had a partner, um, named Sasori? And he used puppets, um, like you?"

"And your point is?"

"Well, I just think, um, it would be really awesome?"

Shikake sealed her last puppet into her seal, and put it in her jacket. "Even if I were like Sasori, I'd never want to be partners with you. Tart."

Shikake went with the medical ninja, after that, to get her legs and whatever else healed up, ignoring every over-eager attempt Chouso was making in trying to get her attention. She returned to the observation deck with her hands in her pockets, where Inou had also returned, though the Senritsu kid was nowhere to be seen.

"Looks like we're gonna get to fight each other," she said.

Inou, leaning against the railing, did not answer.

He was watching Karai's fight, against the Sand ninja, Garyuu.

She fought like their father. Fire bloomed everywhere, and her dodges and strikes were highly-practiced and strong.

Apparently, Shikake had returned near the tail end of the fight, because Karai had Garyuu pinned and crying for surrender very shortly afterward.

"She's good," Shikake said (knowing exactly how Inou would take it).

Inou, again, said nothing, watching as Karai extended a hand to help Garyuu up, which was swiftly denied.

("I should have fought the bear guy," he muttered, in leaving.)

The next match, between Kashiwa Ichii and Natsuhaze Hari went… strangely.

Ichii entered the arena to an outburst of shouts and cheers, which he responded to with eager waves and smiles, like he was behind a reporter on a news show. Hari simply waited for him to finish, and for the examiner to start the match.

What happened after that was fairly unclear, at least to the spectators. Hari lowered the high collar of her turtleneck to below her chin.

There were scars over her lips, puffy and unsightly.

And she began to sing.

(The Natsuhaze clan had once been known as the Sirens of the Mist. They had unusually-shaped larynxes, with chakra systems woven around them, with which they could perform stunning feats of genjutsu.)

Her voice was light, and soft, yet seemed to fill the whole arena. It was a song without words, and the melody felt nostalgic and comforting, like a favorite grandmother's lullaby.

(Orochimaru had lured them away, once, decades ago, with promises of power and freedom, where they would not be consigned to the rocky, miserable outer reaches of Mist, to keep intruders out. They were among the first to join his new nation, and were the ones to give the land its name.)

The harsh, mid-day light of the sun seemed to dim, replaced with a softer, paler imitation. The air thickened, images blurred into blue shadows of themselves.

(Mist lured them back, in time, with promises of payment and freedom, where they would not be experimented on without their consent and their best and brightest turned into stumbling monsters; where their precious techniques would not be stolen and warped, forced into flutes and used by outsiders.)

Peace fell thickly over everything. There was nothing that needed to be done. To simply sit and listen was enough.

All anyone wanted to do was listen, after a while. Unto the point of starvation, or exhaustion, if it went on long enough. Just anything to listen.

(As a child, Hari had a device sewn over her lips to keep her from accidentally activating her gift, while they trained her.)

(Or so they told her.)

And then the mist lifted. The peace fled. The sharp light of the sun broke into the arena once again, as the vision of the audience cleared and sharpened.

(Except for the Mizukage and her followers, of course. They had brought earplugs.)

Hari, the rough-faced singer, was on the ground, unconscious, the needles in her sleeves scattered away from her hands and gleaming in the harsh light. Ichii was standing over her with his hands on his hips, his smile bright, yet a touch confused.

He was wearing headphones, attached to a cassette player on his belt. He'd put on his music, a mix-tape from his cousin Fuzan, as soon as the battle started, to pump himself up. It had managed to effectively drown out Hari's song, causing him a great deal of confusion when Hari began to come towards him very slowly and very carefully.

By all means, he should have been hypnotized. And she would have pierced him through with needles to ensure unconsciousness, for her victory.

Instead, she got kicked in the face and stomach several times, and was knocked out before she could retaliate.

"Uh… victory goes to Kashiwa Ichii?" Hakkou was rubbing his eyes, disoriented but certain of the verdict.

Ichii drank in the applause, pumping his fists high and waving.

Hari, however, seemed to grow narrow, as if she herself were trying to disappear.

(She would be punished for this.)