A small fistfight happened out of sight of the Genin, resulting in Genma being the one to deliver the lot of us to the arena. Kakashi pouted slightly as we went, but honestly, 40% of the genin contestants couldn't be late, Hokage-sama would kill us all himself. Kakashi lurked just out of sight as we filed into the competitors' box (no doubt so he could still appear to be 'late'), Naruto hamming it up in front of the screaming civilians, the rest of us slinking away into our corners. I was able to tap a message onto Genma's elbow before he disappeared, letting him know that the Kazekage was Orochimaru. He didn't react outwardly, not bothering with further questioning, either. I'd never met the Kazekage, I wouldn't be able to tell anyone if he was completely absent or just in hiding.

The first match was called to begin almost immediately. I could no longer remember why Temari had fought, and her brother had forfeited the tournament match, but it didn't matter in the end. Temari leaped into the ring, glaring at anyone and everyone. Sasuke joined her, smirking as they stood across from one another. It was a politically charged match, with gambling abound. The Kazekage's oldest child versus the Last Loyal Uchiha; it was the match that had sold most of the tickets to the event for sure. That and watching a nameless orphan (me) getting violently murdered by the Kazekage's youngest.

I noted the differences almost absently, the proctor was alive, which was good. He was a friend of Genma's, it was nice to see he had survived. I couldn't remember what sort of intel he had sacrificed his life for in that previous existence that may or may not exist, but I didn't think it was anything we didn't know now. Maybe Tsunade would get rid of that cough and all would be well in that corner of the village. For now, he announced the contestants, fleeing back towards the wall the moment his hand fell and the match began. A good thing, too, because Sasuke immediately filled the entire arena with fire. Temari's first act was a wind jutsu, which didn't improve things a single bit. To those without a kekkei genkai or sensing ability, it was simply a wall of inferno.

I watched absently as they danced around one another, Sasuke not giving a single shit that the girls' wind jutsu would take his fire jutsu wildly out of proportion. His solution was to simply add more fire. His sheer experience with dancing fire around wind (in frankly ridiculous amounts, thanks Naruto) meant that it wasn't long before Temari was screaming out a panicked surrender, slinking back to her brothers with her hair slightly singed at the ends.

The match between Ichiyo and Lee was of a more technical nature, Ichiyo taking my warning of style into account. It was a complicated event right from the beginning, with Ichiyo using genjutsu to set his trap. There was a bit of a snag in the middle when Lee simply ran through the fire rather than being deterred by it, but Ichiyo recovered beautifully, eventually latching onto the other Genin's mind and forcing a forfeit.

As the arena was cleared and a flushed Ichiyo made his way toward us I was stopped by a hand at my elbow. I didn't start, Shikamaru's familiar presence in my space not being a cause for alarm. I raised a brow at him, and he asked, sheepishly,

"You wouldn't happen to have any of those light bombs you mentioned to Choji on you right now, would you?"

I stared at him. "Did you…did you leave off any sort of planning till right this moment?" I didn't wait for an answer, frantically digging out a scroll of paper and ink, "I don't have any pre-made, but I can get you some real quick. Any requests? I've got a neat strobe light one that can cause epileptic seizures if you wanna see how that affects bugs."
When he didn't answer I glanced up, seeing a strange expression on his face. "You'd just make a seal? Because I asked? Before a tournament where we might have to fight one another?"

"Obviously, keep up. You're my friend and this is just a tournament, there's no real reason to win, winning doesn't guarantee promotion, plus I've already been told I'm not getting promoted after this. Now, you don't have long so tell me what you want quickly."

He rattled off the parameters, easy things to meet, though not something I'd made before. I told him so, as I cranked out a few more for him. "Disclaimer, I've never used this particular combo before, and weird shit happens with untested seals. That said, I know what I'm doing and no matter what weirdness happens it won't kill you. Once a seal made a weird sound because of a particular combo, shit like that."

I waved the latest few in the air, willing the ink to dry faster, "Is fifteen enough?"

He stared at the waving seals. "Yeah. Yeah, that's enough." He glanced down at where the arena was still being repaired before back at me, "Thank you, Asuka. Seriously. I did actually have a different plan, there were no seals like this for sale at the weapons shops, but this makes things much easier on me."

"Good, don't use all your energy on this fight." I shoved the seals at him, "Don't look directly at them, you'll go blind. Remember those glasses of his will give him more protection than you've got."

"I know, I know. Thanks."

I shifted, uncomfortable with all of the gratitude. "Whatever, get out of here and win."

The perfect distraction came with Ichiyo's arrival, Naruto creating a giant production out of swooping in and drawing him into a hug. I dove into the action, turning it into a group hug partly to escape the conversation and partly because I actually was proud of my teammate. The rowdy exchange of hugs settled down only after the match down below was called to start. Shikamaru wasted no time at all, leaping toward his opponent. It was such an out-of-pocket move for a Nara that Shino barely reacted in time, narrowly dodging the initial hit.

Ichiyo nudged my side, "Did you give him contact knock-out tags? Is that why he's trying to close the distance?"

"Nope, I've got no idea what he's up to."

It was quickly apparent. Shino had seen Shikamaru talking to me, the closest thing the Rookie group had to a seal master, right before he made the uncharacteristic attempt at close combat. In Shino's mind that meant he needed to get away from the Nara, immediately. The Aburame was chased around the arena for a while, Shikamaru eventually slowing. The moment Shino stopped moving Shikamaru acted, two seals going up in arcs of light that stretched their shadows toward one another, backlighting each Genin perfectly. The quirk in the seal was readily apparent, the light a beautiful shade of light blue. It immediately summoned long-forgotten memories of a Disney movie about a lost civilization that wasn't as lost as everyone thought.

I couldn't help but make a noise like I'd been punched, "Oh, I'm keeping this seal. That's my new favorite color."

In a mirror of the preliminary match fought in a different life, Shikamaru bent backward, Shino following and meeting the wall of the arena instead. It was simple, neat. Poor Shino didn't have a chance to show off any Chuunin skills other than evasion and Shikamaru undoubtedly didn't even want to show any. I set aside that thought, turning to Sai.

"Your turn!"

He nodded, bland expression as determined as it got. "I shall do our team proud."

Making a snap decision I pulled him into a hug, ignoring his stiffening spine, and using the close contact to tap a message onto his back, 'Don't waste chakra, enemy action expected'. He didn't react, carefully extracting himself from the show of affection, "Attempted suffocation is not the usual method of encouragement."

"Oh hush, you know what a hug is. Go forth and conquer!"

I didn't want to examine why I had warned Sai, and only Sai, of the upcoming conflict, but my mind was whirling too fast to ignore it. Just as I'd had the idle thought that I was the closest thing our group had to a sealmaster, Sai was the closest thing we had to Anbu because of his Root training. If he didn't waste chakra on showboating he could put a serious dent in the opposition's forces. I shook the thought off, focusing instead on Ichiyo at my side as he huffed,

"I didn't get a good luck hug! And what's with the 'conquer' thing? You said it to me in the preliminaries."

"No idea actually, I read it somewhere and it stuck with me." I was fairly sure it was a quote from another life, one I would likely never know the significance of ever again. I forcefully pulled myself out of that thought spiral, letting out a cheer as Sai's match was called to a start. His opponent, Ito Taisho, was a Kusa Genin, the only one to make it to the finals. He was one of the Genin Hinata and I had tormented, and the poor fucker who'd had to witness Gaara liquefy his teammate in the preliminaries. I watched Sai destroy him, lazily, systematically, 'playing with his food' for once for the sake of the show.

I whistled lowly, "Yikes. I almost feel bad for the guy."

Tenten snorted from somewhere behind me, "I definitely feel bad for him. Think Sai-kun is going to put him out of his misery anytime soon?"

"Yeah, he's about done with him."

Kiba shuddered, "Poor dude. First, you and Hinata torture him for fun, then his teammate dies, and now he's getting slowly murdered by Sai in front of a crowd."

Sasuke frowned, turning to me. "You and Hinata-chan tortured people without us?"

"They were sniffing around something they shouldn't have been."

Sakura didn't even look up from the scroll she was reading, "If torture was your immediate response to that then I think this means you've been spending too much time with Anko-san. And now you're infecting poor sweet Hinata-chan."

I laughed, "Half of the shit we did was 'poor sweet Hinata-chan's' idea."

Kiba looked vaguely green, "I suddenly realized I don't know when her birthday is, and that might be really important for my health."

"December 27th."

He squinted at me, "You know everyone's birthdays, don't you."

"Of course. Did you know the Hokage's birthday is February 8th?"

A cheer went up from the surrounding stands, bringing our attention back to ground level. Sai's opponent was out cold, smoldering slightly. I squared my shoulders, resisting the urge to look toward where Jiraiya was hiding.

"Welp, my turn."

I waved off the various 'good luck' wishes, giving Sai a high five as I passed him. "Good job."

"I wish you luck. Conquer."

I smiled, resisting the urge to laugh at the way he had turned the phrase into an order. I absently tracked Gaara's progress down the other set of stairs, heart pounding as I came to a stop in the center of the ring. The proctor cleared his throat, voice pitched to not be picked up by the volume projection seals around the arena,

"You got a plan, kid? Cuz Genma will skin me alive if you get yourself killed here."

I followed suit, answering lower than what the seals could launch at the audience. "Yeah, I've got a plan. Just…don't panic when I start sealwork. I promise I'm not releasing a bijuu today."

His eyes widened but he didn't get the chance to question me on it, Gaara finally coming to a stop across from me. He had a crazed look on his face, so different from the blank calm of the first and second parts of the exam. I wondered idly if they'd hopped him up on ninja cocaine before sending him out here.

"Mother shall have your blood."

I eyed him, "You need so much therapy."

Hayate dropped his hand, teleporting straight out of the arena rather than leaping back. I couldn't blame him, the sand was already surging forward. I released the seal weights immediately, all of them vanishing completely for the first time since they'd been applied months ago. In another life Lee had made the mistake of ramping up slowly, giving the sand time to adapt. I knew better. The sand attempted to snatch me up and I moved. The speed was intoxicating, as was how damn light my limbs felt. I hadn't been totally without weights since that one incident, running from the Anbu outside the village. The wall of sand barely moved to intercept the kunai in time, absorbing the weapons and their attached seals, just as I'd hoped. Having watched that anime really was a hack.

Gaara remained stationary as I dodged, heart in my throat as I frantically placed each seal. I did my best to ignore every gasp and murmur of the crowd when sand came within inches of my person, tuning out Naruto's encouraging yells as well. For every move they saw there were three more happening outside of what civilian eyes could reliably track. The extra gasps and cheers marked the shinobi watching, gossipy little shits. It felt like it took hours for me to get the seals in place, though it couldn't have been more than a few minutes. I leaped out of the way, triggering all of the seals at once. A barrier went up around the sand-nin, blazing into life just as the sand dropped to the ground, soaked through from the storage seals it had absorbed. He snarled, furious, the sand sloppily inching forwards, flopping around but still moving. I had been worried about that. Good thing that definitely wasn't water.

I let out a breath of flame, the alcohol mixture within the sand catching immediately, bits of glass dropping out of the inferno as Gaara screamed. It was a risk, the fire could have stopped short of hot enough to burn the chakra out of the sand, leaving him with a weapon made of napalm. But the sand crackled, staying inert.

"Mother!"

"Get. Therapy!"
I soared through the barrier easily, its chakra recognizing mine, slapping the seal directly onto his forehead now that I could get in arms reach without the risk of sand. As much sand. The sand shield around his skin surged forward, attempting to latch onto me. It wilted the moment the seal touched him, his eyes rolling back in his head even as I jumped backward to exit the barrier.

There was only silence as he hit the ground, the crowd completely quiet, and only the sound of the burning sand over my own racing heart. A few beats, and then,

"Winner, Asuka!"

I didn't have time to feel relief, feathers falling from the sky almost immediately. I threw out more seals, creating a second barrier within the first even as sand-nin jumped down from the stands to get to their jinchuuriki. Purple fire bloomed over the Kage box and a rumble sounded in the distance as summons appeared just outside the walls, backlash from the barriers there lighting up the horizon. The sand-nin didn't get the chance to reach me before a host of leaf-nin were between us, likely intent on keeping the jinchuuriki out of their grasp.

Kakashi appeared next to me in a blur, "Asuka! Who can go through your seals here?"

"Me, you, and Naruto."

He didn't stop to ask about the addition of Naruto, just nodding, "Good. Go help Jiraiya break that barrier. I'm assuming it's Orochimaru on the inside?"

"Yeah, he was the Kazekage the whole time. No idea where the real one is."

There was a rustling from where the sand-nin stood facing off against the wall of Jounin, and none of them made a move to try to stop me as I left, probably more because of the killing intent Kakashi started leaking than because of my information. I arrived on the rooftop to anarchy, a whole host of Anbu out in plain sight and milling around the barrier, one writhing on the ground covered in slowly encroaching purple fire, two of their masked comrades attempting to put it out with no success. I grimaced, already pulling out a roll of seal paper. The best guess of cursed fire, mixed with Orochimaru's style… I shoved the seal in front of Jiraiya, interrupting his muttering. He glanced over it before nodding, turning to the fretting nin.

"Let her seal your friend and he just might live."

Their masks turned to face me in unison, an act that would have been unnerving if I weren't perfectly capable of telling their emotions from their chakra. I elbowed aside the closest one, slamming the seal directly into the downed Anbu's chest. After a beat of nothing, the fire faded out, leaving behind awful, twisting burns. I grimaced,

"I hope you're not the medic, buddy."

The Anbu I'd elbowed out of the way moved forward, hand glowing green, answering that non-question.

"Asuka!"

I made a mental note to be pissed later that he'd decided he had the right to drop honorifics with me. In a heartbeat, I was back beside Jiraiya, who was standing in a semi-circle with Nara Shikaku and a tall Anbu with an almost completely black mask.

"Ink up another of those seals."

I did my best to ignore the way the Jounin commander and what was likely the Anbu commander were watching me with laser focus, sketching out the seal quickly and efficiently before handing it over.

"It's not going to help with getting through."

He barely glanced away from the seal for a moment, "Why not?"

"For one thing, this isn't a permeable membrane type of seal. The best we could do is put the fire aspect of it out so it's not as much of a health hazard to the general public, but the activation energy of that would put Naruto on his ass."

"Why do you always rate seal chakra consumption from Kakashi to Naruto?"

"One has more chakra than a kami and the other has a parasite in his face, it's an accurate sliding scale." I glanced over at the crackling dark fire, "There are more barriers, it would be easier to take out the weaker ones first, and cause cascade failure."

He finally looked up at that. "There's more than one? Show me where each piece ends."

A Jounin from what looked like the diplomatic team scowled down at me, "Why are we trusting this Genin instead of getting one of the sensors or even the barrier corp?"

Jiraiya didn't even look at him, motioning me forward, "This Genin is sensor enough. Hey kid, where are the academy students right now?"

"Corner of Tobirama and Fourth, heading to the tunnels. All classes together, led by Iruka-sensei, Heiji-sensei, and Roku-sensei."

Nara looked at me sharply, "There should be four teachers."

"Natsuki-sensei is unconscious but alive. I believe Iruka-sensei is carrying them."
The Jounin scoffed, "Soft-heart, risking the students for dead weight."

Yikes did this guy not know how to read a room. I didn't comment, pointing out the corners of the barrier and clearing my throat, "Anyway, there are smaller barriers around each corner of the main barrier, with a single individual of…hmm…Chuunin level within. Their chakra is what's supporting the main barrier." The word 'barrier' was really losing meaning at this point.

Jiraiya's eyes lit up with unholy glee, "So if we get one of the corners then like you said before, cascade failure. And this wall is made of different shit than the one that nearly killed Bear-san?"
I nodded, tilting my head as I focused in on the nearest one. "Yes, it should be safe to touch at the very least." I winced, "Orochimaru just did something weird." I ignored the tensing around me, continuing, "There was some sort of…summoning? Not snakes, not…I've got no fucking clue what that is, but it's got an aftertaste like old corpse. Hokage-sama is doing well, though, has a summon of his own present. Oh, now there are…trees? This is weird."
Jiraiya clapped me on the back, hard, and I barely kept (most) of the flinch on the inside. "Focus, kid, let Sensei handle himself. What do you sense about the corner barriers?"

I rattled off the specs immediately, Jiraiya's eyebrows rising even as his grin widened,

"Kushina would have fuckin' loved you."

I rolled my eyes, "I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to know who that is."

"I figured you would know anyway, you always know more than you should, you nosy little thing. Now, grab a brush, we're doing a prime inversion on this thing. Everyone but the kid back the fuck away."

Anbu and Jounin alike jumped to follow the Sannin's orders, though the Anbu and Jounin commanders stayed close enough to listen to us bicker over line placement. I was kind of amazed I was allowed here, never mind told to participate. Whatever I had done while we were building the seal for Gaara had apparently earned me some sort of trust, because when I made an involuntary distressed noise at one of his lines he pulled back immediately,

"What? What now? Is this about the prime numbers again?"

"That's not how math works!"

"This is too how math works, and you can't hide behind Kakashi now, kid! Show me the math!"

"I was never hiding behind him, he's just inconveniently tall!"

"I dare you to say that to his face!"

"I do! Daily! And here's your math."

"...huh."

I remained silent, smudging out the line he'd placed even as he drew a new one out, scowling when he flicked me in the ear, though relaxing slightly when that's all he did in revenge.

"What did I say about the impertinence?"
"That it wasn't cute."

"Long as you remember. Charge the seal on three, everyone ready to move in?"

The nin surrounding us snapped to attention, moving forwards faster than I could comprehend the moment the wall shattered. The Sound-nin holding up that corner died between one heartbeat and the next, the purple fire fading out. We were in.

Sorry it took a few weeks, I'm starting to get nervous about how close we are to the twist I'm most worried about. I can't even just take it out and reformat, I've been hinting at it since chapter one. Thanks for reading, I really hope you guys stick around for the next few chapters.

~TimeLordOfPie