There was a brief intermission at the conclusion of the first round of the tournament. While I was sure the main purpose was to give the people in the stands time to spend their money, the competitors used it as well. The two Iwa nin who would be fighting one another were both beat up. The first, a brown-haired teen, had a gash in his chest. The second, a dark-haired kunoichi, was panting in exhaustion as she popped a soldier pill into her mouth. She'd thrown around a lot of jutsu during her first match and was clearly feeling the strain on her chakra.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the second stage of the finals will now begin!" Tenjo called, once more standing in the center of the arena. "Ai Kojo and Shinto Nara, report to the field!"
The blonde-haired Kiri kunoichi who would be my opponent hopped up onto the railing. She threw a challenging smirk over her shoulder at me before she leapt through the stands towards the ground.
Misaki was scowling at my opponent's back. "Humiliate her." she said simply, sounding irritated.
I smirked at her. "I'll do what is necessary to beat her and no more. I need to save some energy for when I meet you in the finals."
"She'll be dead before this round is over." the burly Kumo nin who had been throwing jabs at us the entire finals said. Misaki and I both ignored him.
I mantled over the railing and leapt down into the arena, landing around twenty meters from Ai, the Kiri nin.
"I hope you have something more impressive to show me than those poisons." she taunted as I landed. "The only way I'll let you behind me is if you beat me. I'll even bend over for you." She was smiling suggestively at me as she said that, brushing at the belt of her kimono with her fingertips.
There were lots of whoops and wolf whistles from the stands, but I didn't let the kunoichi knock me off my rhythm. She was just trying to throw me off balance so I'd be easier to beat, and I wasn't going to let her trip me up with amateur flirting. I was a fully grown adult in my last life. I'd heard far better. Granted, none of it was ever directed at me, but still.
I raised an eyebrow. "A tempting offer, but I'm afraid I'll have to pass. I prefer women that don't offer themselves to children that beat them into submission."
The Kiri kunoichi's act was gone. She was glaring daggers at me as laughter rose up among the crowd.
Tenjo had been silent as we traded barbs. He was likely ordered to let the contestants smack talk each other to provide a better show for the audience. As both the Kiri nin and I fell into our stances, he finally spoke up.
"Are both contestants ready?" At our nods, Tenjo cut his arm down through the air and said, "Fight!"
The Kiri nin was already weaving hand signs, leaping up into the air to avoid the barrage of kunai and senbon I threw towards her. "Suiton: Hail!"
Orbs of undulating water appeared in the air around her and began to rain down towards me. I wasn't familiar with the technique, so I wasn't going to let any of the orbs hit me lest they have some unknown effect that debilitated me.
Shadowy tendrils rose out of my jacket to smack away the orbs nearest to me as I danced around the arena to dodge the others.
"Suiton: Water Clone!" Ai called. The few orbs of water that were still falling from the size shot towards each other as if they were magnetically attracted to each other. They squished together in mid air and rippled into humanoid shapes. When Ai landed on the ground, four water clones identical to her landed on the ground in front of her. All five of them charged towards me.
Ai had demonstrated she was adept with water to the point she could use what was leftover from her other jutsu to use other jutsu. I was worried that if one of the water clones got a hand on me she'd be able to use the water within them to launch another jutsu at me from point blank range. So, rather than charge to meet her and her clones, I retreated, using the shunshin to rapidly transport myself to the other side of the arena.
More shadow tendrils grew out of my jacket as Ai and her clones doubled their pace towards me. Chakra strings grew out of my fingers and one of the storage seals in my jacket popped. I cast False Barrage and began flinging the senbon and kunai from my seal at Ai with my shadow tendrils and chakra strings.
Ai's eyes widened as my genjutusu showed her a wall of deadly metal flying towards her. Two of her clones leapt in front of her to act as meat shields as she skidded to a stop, weaving hand signs.
"Suiton: Water Prison!" she called. The water left hanging in the air by the clones who'd been hit with my kunai hovered for an instant as gravity lost its hold on it. The water then surged up around Ai, adding to a watery orb that had already started to form as she spewed even more water out of her mouth. Each of the projectiles I'd thrown were batted away by churning water as the Kiri nin shrouded herself in the Water Prison Technique. Conventionally, the orb of water created by the jutsu was used to hold enemies in place, but it could also double as an effective barrier against the sheer volume of projectiles I was throwing at her. I wouldn't be able to touch her unless I joined her in that orb, and intentionally trapping myself in a body of water with a Kiri nin was a really bad idea.
From inside the safety of her water prison, the Kiri Kunoichi smirked at me.
"Genjutsu." One of her remaining clones said as it walked in front of the orb, a smirk matching that of its creator on its mouth. "That's how you beat the Iwa guy, isn't it? You just tried the same thing on me, but I know your tricks now." Ai, the original, reached into her weapons pouch from where she was still suspended in her prison and withdrew a kunai with either hand. She flicked her wrists forward, sending the kunai out of the sphere. Each of the remaining clones caught a kunai and held it up threateningly towards me.
My eyes were narrow as I looked at Ai in the Water Prison. During her first fight, she'd beat her opponent with a Hail barrage. With that added to the three jutsu she'd used against me, she'd burned a considerable amount of chakra for a genin, yet she didn't seem the slightest bit winded. She probably had enough juice to keep tossing jutsu at me until she inevitably got lucky and hit me. I had to end this fast. She'd been generous enough to trap herself in a single spot submerged in water, so letting this opportunity pass would be stupid.
I flashed through hand signs as Ai's clones charged me. Once the nearest clone was within ten meters of me, the shadowy tendrils around me snapped back into my jacket as a thin shadow shot out of the bottom of my pants and across the ground, trapping Ai's clone. I wasted no time as I leapt off the ground, planting my foot on the clone's shoulder and using it to launch myself further into the air. I finished my hand signs just as I started to fall towards Ai's Water prison. There was a shocked look on her face at my brazen strategy, but she didn't know what technique I was planning to use. If she had, she would have fled the Water Prison.
"Futton: Grease Fire!" I shouted, then spat out a blob of oil alight with flames. A sphere of water followed it, rapidly condensing around the oil. As the water within rapidly evaporated, the fire flared wide like a phoenix's wings as it wrapped around Ai's water prison. The moment it made contact with the water, her prison began to unravel as the water maintaining it evaporated, causing the fire-coated oil from my technique to explode outwards even more.
When I'd first developed this technique along with Scalding Mist, the chakra expenditure needed to cast it was ludicrous. Since then, I'd improved my control with it, making it only as costly as your average jutsu. While I could have likely created new Boil Release techniques in the time I'd refined my control with the two I already had, I felt it was better to have two reliable techniques instead of twenty useless ones. I was right. Both in the second test of the Chunin Exams and now here, the lesser amount of chakra I needed to devote to my kekkei genkai served me well. I would still be able to fight seriously in the coming matches, and even spam Grease Fire if I needed to.
Seeing she was in trouble in the face of my technique, Ai launched herself out the back of her Water Prison, trying to flee. She'd underestimated me.
In addition to giving me a great target for my Grease Fire technique, her water prison had also cast a rather large shadow on the ground. I controlled that fading shadow before the prison was fully gone to reach up and snatch Ai's leg, pulling her back to the ground.
Ai landed on her stomach, her head slamming hard into the dirt. She was already moving to rise when I landed next to her. A shadow snuck out of the leg of my pants into her own shadow. Ai froze as she fell under the influence of my Shadow Imitation Technique.
She rose to her feet, standing opposite me in a perfect mirror of my body save for the furious look on her face and grit teeth. A chakra string rose out of my finger to retrieve a kunai from my weapons pouch, retracting back to deposit the weapon into my hand. I tossed it towards Ai, moving my hand to force her to copy me with Shadow Imitation. Ai caught the kunai I'd tossed her as I closed my fist down around empty air. I brought my empty hand up to my own throat, Ai copying me to place a razor-sharp kunai up against her own jugular.
"Proctor?" I called.
"The victor is Shinto Nara!" Tenjo announced, using the Shunshin to appear a short few paces away from Ai and I.
The crowd was on their feet, clapping wildly as they roared their approval. This fight had been far more flashy than my first, and they'd loved every second of it.
I pulled my hand away from my own throat and mimed a throwing motion, releasing Ai from my shadow possession as I did.
Her anger was gone, confusion in its place as I caught the kunai I'd forced her to throw back to me. "Why didn't you kill me?" she asked, eyebrows furrowed.
I shrugged. "I didn't need to, so I didn't." I turned around and began walking back towards the contestant's booth. My answer may not have been the great philosophical marvel she'd been expecting, but it was the truth. I'd beaten her and already advanced, so there wasn't a need to kill her. If I'd have needed to kill her to move on, I would have, but pointless slaughter didn't sit well with me. Maybe that made me a bad shinobi, but whatever.
"Well done. That was suitably humiliating." Misaki greeted me as I returned to the box, a cocky smile on her face as she glared down into the arena. Ai was being escorted down one of the side tunnels leading away from the stadium by an older Kiri nin. Ata guess, the slim, brown-haired man was her jonin sensei.
"I aim to please." I said, sticking my hands in my pockets and leaning against the wall, settling in to watch the rest of the second stage of the finals.
X
Hiruzen Sarutobi, Hokage of Konohagakure, was sitting with a proud smile on his face as he watched his genin leave the arena after his second match. Twice now, Shinto had defeated his opponent soundly without the need for bloodshed. His victories were unprecedented for one so young. All of Iwa, no, all of the Elemental Nations were watching, beholding his strength, skill and cunning.
Through the creation of a single jutsu, Shinto had already done so much for Konoha. But after this performance, the other villages would be wary of konoha's strength. The Land of Fire's borders had been probed regularly in the wake of the Kyuubi attack that claimed so many lives, but now the world would be hesitant to test the strength of Konohagakure. If one of their genin was this skilled, one of their children, what were their lifelong jonin capable of?
"That boy is good, Hiruzen." Onoki, third Tsuchikage and host of this Chunin Exams, grudgingly admitted, a displeased frown on his face. The short, bearded man was focused intently on Shinto as the boy returned to the contestant staging area.
"Futton," A, the muscular Raikage of Kumogakure, said with his lips set in a thin line, his arms crossed over his chest. "The boy has the Boil Release."
Hiruzen smiled warmly at A and nodded, carefully controlling his expression and actions. "Yes. Our young Shinto is quite talented. He has been training with his family recently and they have all progressed rather well." Hiruzen delighted in the way Onoki and A's eyes snapped to look at him as he finished speaking. A little misdirection to make Onoki and A's lives more difficult was certainly amusing.
Hiruzen's smile faded as he looked at the fourth Kage in the box with him: Yagura, Fourth Mizukage of Kirigakure. Yagura had been staring intently at Shinto for several seconds now and still had yet to look away. His interest could lie in the fact that Shinto had just eliminated one of only two Kiri genin in the finals, but Hiruzen sensed something more sinister in the eyes of the Mizukage. He could not place it, but he did not like it.
X
The two Iwa nin fought first. The first's chest injury really slowed him down, but the fight was still evenly matched due to the kunoichi's low chakra. In the end, the shinobi's injury proved too much for him and he passed out, leaving the Kunoichi to advance to fight me in the semi-final. She looked dead on her feet, only standing through sheer willpower. I thought my chances of winning were high, but I'd keep an eye on her to see if it was an act.
The match between the sole remaining Kiri nin, a shinobi with white hair who used a blade, and the Iwa kunoichi, a woman with short brown hair in shorts and a tank top, ended with the Kiri nin cutting into the Iwa nin's leg deep enough the Tenjo called the match and had the Iwa girl rushed to the medics.
It was time for the final round of the second stage: Misaki versus Yuto Ai, the Kumo nin with the wrapped sword strapped to his back.
"Better kiss your girlfriend goodbye. She'll be dead in two minutes." the Kumo nin taunted before leaping out of the stands down to the field.
Misaki didn't seem the least bit intimidated by him. "Will it reflect poorly on Konoha if I kill him?" she asked calmly.
I shrugged. "He's been threatening to kill us the entire tournament. The civilians probably didn't hear him, but it's a safe bet that every village has ninja that did hear him. Besides, I already spared two of my opponents. It'll be good to show everyone that Konoha is lethal as well as merciful."
An excited grin pulled at the corner of Misaki's lips. "Good." She turned around, taking a step closer to me before hesitating, her arm half raised towards me.
"What?" I asked.
Misaki shook her head. "It is nothing. Cheer for me please, Shinto." She hopped up on the railing and leapt over the crowd down towards the arena.
X
"Any last words you want me to pass along to your boyfriend, little girl?" Misaki's opponent taunted from where he stood on the dirt in front of her. He had a cocky smile on his face as he reached behind him to grasp the hilt of the sword affixed to his back. He did not use the blade in his first fight, whether because he was arrogant or the sword was for show and misdirection, Misaki did not know, but she wasn't afraid of it.
The wrappings covering the sword were unable to prevent her byakugan from discerning its nature. It was a large, two-handed sword with a thick, fat blade. The sword was as long as she was tall and was shaped like a cleaver. While Misaki did not know of any nin from Konoha who used a blade like it, it was simple enough to determine how her opponent would attack with it. It only had one cutting edge, and was designed for chopping. She would avoid its strikes rather than foolishly standing in its path intending to block it.
"I have grown tired of your voice. Cease speaking so the fight can begin and I can detach your throat from your body." Misaki said, settling into a fighting stance, her open hands raised in front of her.
The Kumo nin huffed angrily. "You dumb bitch, I'm gonna murder you."
"Are both contestants ready?" Tenjo asked calmly, not reacting to the casually stated intentions of murder of the youths in front of him. Misaki nodded and Yuto, her opponent, swung his sword off his back to hold it in front of him. The blade was still wrapped. Misaki did not know if he was unaware of the byakugan's capabilities or just left the wrappings in place to be dramatic, but it didn't matter. The moment he removed the wrappings, Misaki would have a short opening she could exploit.
"Begin!" Tenjo called before he used the Shunshin to get himself clear of the area they would be fighting in.
"Aaah!" Yuto screamed, rushing forward to swing his sword down over his head towards her.
Even if the blade wasn't as massive as she knew it to be, Misaki would not have tried to block the strike. Yuto was far larger than her and very likely stronger. Fighting on his terms would only serve to harm her.
Misaki sidestepped the sword, leaping and twisting as Yuto adjusted to strike at her again and again.
Yuto grunted in frustration as none of his strikes connected. His blade was too cumbersome, and he was too inexperienced with it to land a hit on the nimble Misaki. After one final, horizontal swing to create distance, Yuto leapt backwards, tossing his sword into the air behind him as he wove hand signs.
"Raiton: Spider Web!" he yelled, slamming his palm into the ground as he landed, holding his other hand out behind him to catch his sword where it fell. The ground beneath him lit up bright blue as a web of electrical energy snaked out away from him.
Misaki had begun retreating the moment she saw the hand signs he was using. She'd seen them woven before to channel the attack that immobilized Kenji and ultimately led to his death. Her library of Lightning Jutsu had been limited by the limited number of jutsu the Hyuga Clan had access to, so she'd made it a point to memorize the seals and the effect of the jutsu, though she hadn't learned it herself yet. She was focused on something else leading up to the Chunin Exam finals.
Misaki flipped backwards as the lightning web continued to spread beneath her, extending further and further as Yuto channeled ever more chakra into the technique to increase its range, but that was what she wanted. She wanted him to burn through his chakra. Then his only avenue of attack would be his sword.
When Misaki reached the border of the arena, she landed on the wall and began to run its perimeter, staying ahead of the web as it followed her up the surface of the wall. Several spectators screamed as the jutsu flared up close to them, but the protective seals around the arena flared to life to contain the energy before any bystanders were harmed.
Though Misaki was looking in front of her, her byakugan still allowed her to watch Yuto as his brow creased in concentration. There was sweat gathering on his brow and he was breathing heavily. He was about to drop the jutsu.
Sure enough, he lifted his hand off the ground a moment later and charged towards her, the lightning web falling apart behind her.
Misaki kicked off the wall, leaping forward to meet the Kumo nin.
"Take this, you little bitch!" Yuto screamed, reaching up to pull the wrappings away from his sword.
Misaki smirked. A sound like a thousand chirping birds sang through the stands as lightning coated her open hand.
Yuto's eyes were wide in fear. He hadn't expected her to close the gap so quickly. His hand fumbled as he tried to drop the wrappings and defend himself in time.
Misaki struck. Yuto's sword fell from limp fingers to heavily smack into the ground. Misaki clenched her fist around the meaty part of the boy's throat she'd speared her hand through and pulled, tearing flesh away with a spray of blood.
Yuto's lifeless body fell backwards as Misaki dropped his crushed throat to the ground, her hand still coated in singing energy. She reached down with her other hand and picked up Yuto's overly large sword.
"I think I will take this. Thank you for the gift, Ai-san." Misaki cut the flow of chakra to the Chidori on her hand and slowly began walking back towards the contestant section of the stands. She retrieved a storage seal from her pouch and stored Yuto's sword in it.
"Yuto Ai is no longer able to continue. Misaki Hyuga is the victor!" Tenjo announced as med nin flooded the arena to tend to Yuto. They wouldn't be able to help him.
Misaki's byakugan was still active. She could see the entire stadium as well as a fair distance beyond it. Through guided training with her parents and other elders in the Hyuga Clan, Misaki had been studiously working to improve the range of her sight. When she'd first activated her eyes, she could only see for ten meters. As time passed, that increased to thirty. Since graduating from the Academy and training seriously, her range had increased sevenfold. She could now see for over two-hundred meters in every direction, excluding the single blind spot in her Clan's kekkei genkai, a weakness few even knew existed.
It was thanks to this sight that Misaki saw her parents sitting in the stands. Both of them were sitting tall with carefully controlled expressions, but Misaki could see their hands, hidden to others inside their sleeves. They were communicating to her in Konoha's ninja sign language, applauding her swift victory and telling her they were proud. Misaki smiled wide, preening under the praise as she rose through the stands to join Shinto once more.
"Well done." Shinto said, looking at her with narrowed eyes.
Misaki frowned slightly under his gaze. Was something wrong? "Thank you, Shinto. Is something the matter?"
His eyes slowly tracked down to her hand. It was spotless due to her technique vaporizing the viscera it came into contact with, but the hem of the sleeve around it was wet with blood.
"Neat jutsu." Shinto commented. "You weren't planning on using that against me, were you?"
Misaki relaxed. Shinto wasn't displeased with her for killing the Kumo nin, he was just cautious of her technique.
"I will not use it against anyone I do not want dead, Shinto, and I would much rather you remain alive." Misaki said, a humorous smile on her face.
The 'jutsu' Shinto was so impressed by was what she'd spent the month leading up to the Chunin Exam finals learning: the Chidori. Misaki herself wasn't aware of all of the details – and knew better than to ask – but Hiashi-sama reached out through various contacts seeking lightning techniques that would allow her to improve. Konoha was lacking in ninja with lightning natures, so she had been without new jutsu for some time now.
At the start of her first week training, an ANBU wearing a mask in the likeness of a dog was accompanied into the clan compound personally by Hiashi-sama, the Hyuga Clan Head. The ANBU worked with Misaki for a full week, teaching her a lightning jutsu that concentrated lightning around her hand to be used for cutting. The ANBU had stayed only long enough to teach her and had said nothing to her that was not explicitly related to the technique.
Misaki would admit to curiosity about the ANBU – he hadn't seemed very much older than her and she found that strange – but she would never act on that curiosity. In his presence, she did not activate her byakugan once and did not ask any questions that did not pertain to the technique the ANBU was teaching her. ANBU served as the village's fist and shield. Their identities and workings were a closely guarded secret both to protect them individually and the village as a whole. Misaki would never do anything to jeopardize the protection of her home or those who valiantly defended it.
"You'll have to tell me more about it later." Shinto said, still looking at her hand.
Misaki smiled. "I will." Due to the obvious eavesdropping of their remaining competitors in the box with them, neither of them would openly speak about their strengths and weaknesses, but Misaki was open to such a discussion later. She looked forward to such an opportunity. She enjoyed spending time with Shinto, and she enjoyed the intelligent light in his eyes whenever they discussed their chosen profession.
Misaki owed Shinto so much. If he hadn't approached her that day during the first year of their Academy tenure, she would still likely be at the Academy. She was not taking her training seriously and believed her eyes alone would grant her victory. Shinto's constant presence and wisdom helped her free of that arrogance and allowed her to truly improve.
When they'd lost Kenji, Misaki had been devastated. She'd never lost a friend before, but Shinto was there for her, silently helping her through her pain in a way words would have failed to.
And now here they were, both of them through to the semifinals of the Chunin Exams, both of them younger than most graduate from the Academy. Misaki's eyes let her see many things, but she could not see the future.
She looked forward to witnessing it with Shinto at her side.