"Nice job, Sakura." We bumped fists upon her return. "That's two of us. Looks like Team Seven is all making it to the finals." Neji let out a humph on hearing that.
"You think that failure will be making it with you?" He gestured to Naruto. "Once a failure, always a failure."
"Oh yeah!? Why don't we go down there right now!? I'll show you who's a failure, dattebayo!"
"That's enough, Naruto." Kakashi grabbed his shoulder. "No fighting outside the scheduled matches. Do you want to be disqualified?"
"Hmph. You talk a big game, but you're just hiding your insecurity at being a talentless, clanless failure. You-"
"That's enough, Neji!" Guy interrupted, and the Hyuuga boy turned away. "I apologise for my student's unyouthful behaviour." Thankfully, the next match was announced before things could grow even more awkward.
"The sixth match, Karui vs. Yamanaka Ino!"
I looked on at the two kunoichi below in interest, Sharingan ready to copy. While I doubted Ino's ability to perform in a one-on-one fight against a kenjutsu specialist, I was hoping this match would at least last long enough for me to get some basic swordplay down.
"Hey, Sensei?" Sakura asked Kakashi beside me, "I've been wondering something. If the last stage of the exams is single combat, isn't that biased against support-style shinobi like medics, or the Yamanaka clan?" That was actually a good point, one I hadn't considered before. It was strange that, in a system that so heavily emphasised teamwork, a person's career could be permanently stalled just because they weren't suited for one-on-one fights.
"Excellent point, Sakura," Kakashi complemented. "Not every chuunin exam ends with single combat for exactly this reason – sometimes it's team battles, sometimes it's capture the flag or some other objective-based competition. Also, most chuunin aren't actually promoted through the exams, but receive field promotions once their performance is deemed satisfactory. Only a tiny minority of the very best shinobi are promoted by examination. For most average ninja, they get a field promotion in their late teens or early twenties."
"Wait," Shikamaru interrupted, a frown on his face, "so I didn't actually have to enter these exams to get promoted?"
"No," Asuma acknowledged, "but you wouldn't want your teammates getting on your case for holding them back, would you? Or your mother for being lazy?"
"...Troublesome."
"Begin!" At Hayate's call, we all focused our attention back on the arena floor.
This fight was, frankly, pathetic. Ino was hilariously outmatched from the outset, having no possible chance of getting her clan jutsu off. She made an effort at fighting her foe off with a kunai, but she simply could not match Karui's skill, and it wasn't long before she had a katana at her throat.
"I surrender!" she practically squeaked out.
"Karui wins."
Damnit, still not enough of a fight to get anything out of, I lamented as the two kunoichi returned to the observation balconies. While Ino's teammates consoled her, I watched the screen for the next match.
"Match number seven: Akimichi Choji vs. Uzumaki Naruto!"
"Yeah! It's finally my turn, dattebayo!" Choji was significantly less enthusiastic until Asuma promised him unlimited barbecue if he won.
"Yes! Pork ribs! All you can eat!" he shouted out eagerly before rushing down to the arena after Naruto.
"Huh. You know, I could go for some barbecue pork ribs right about now, too," I idly commented. "Maybe I'll take Naruto and Sakura for some to celebrate us all reaching the finals together."
"Don't underestimate Choji, he's stronger than you think," warned Shikamaru.
"Don't get me wrong, Shikamaru-san, I mean no disrespect, but Naruto's on another level. There aren't many genin here who could take him."
"The dead-last? Really?" Kiba asked incredulously. "No way he's gotten that good."
"You'll see. Trust me, none of you are prepared for what you're about to see."
"Begin the seventh match!"
"Sorry Naruto, but no one gets between me and all you can eat barbecue!" Choji declared before forming two hand seals. "Baika no Jutsu (Multi-Size Jutsu)!" With that, his body expanded into an enormous round shape, and his head and limbs disappeared like a turtle retreating into its shell. "Nikudan Sensha (Human Bullet Tank)!" Choji began spinning rapidly in place before shooting off towards Naruto at high speed. The blonde's eyes widened and he threw himself to one side, barely avoiding getting crushed beneath the Akimichi's bulk.
"Yeah, Uchiha-san, I really wasn't ready for this!" Kiba laughed, watching Naruto frantically dodging Choji's jutsu. "He's gonna get steamrolled!" I shook my head.
Show them what you can do, Naruto.
After narrowly escaping a crushing for what must have been the dozenth time, Naruto seemed to conclude that Choji was not, in fact, going to just get dizzy and stop his jutsu.
"To hell with this! Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Ten extra Narutos appeared beside him with a cloud of smoke.
"What are you guys, Team Clone or something!?" Kiba asked incredulously.
"I was thinking we were more like 'Team Colossal Explosion'," I answered, "but we used all our paper bombs during the second exam."
This time, when Choji came in for an attack, the Narutos stood their ground.
"Fuuton: Daitoppa!" all eleven of them shouted in unison, unleashing a veritable windstorm that launched Choji against the arena wall, dissipating his jutsu and leaving a perfectly circular crater. He pushed himself out of it and rubbed his head.
"Ow, that really hurt. But I can't lose with barbecue at stake! Baika no-" before he could finish, a Naruto clone rushed forward and struck with an imitation of Lee's Konoha Shofuu, launching him into the air. He only rose a little, but more clones joined in, jumping up and landing their own kicks that pushed him further up.
"Na!"
"Ru!"
"To!" Three of the clones shouted in sequence as the real Naruto used them as stepping stools to jump up above Choji and hit him with an axe kick.
"Uzumaki Rendan (Uzumaki Barrage)!" Choji was smacked back down with enough force to throw up a dust cloud. When it cleared, he was out cold.
"The winner is Uzumaki Naruto," announced Hayate. The Narutos all shouted loudly and jumped for joy.
"That was Naruto!?" Ino seemed to speak for all the non-Team Seven Leaf genin, as they were all showing varying degrees of shock.
"I told you. Looks like it's Team Seven who'll be enjoying some barbecue tonight." I turned back to our sensei. "Hey, Kakashi-sensei, you wanna join us? I'm paying."
"I've got nothing else to do, so sure. And I'll foot the bill this time. The three of you deserve it, I'm proud of you all."
Unfortunately, the celebratory mood quieted when the next pair of names were announced.
"The eighth match: Sabaku no Gaara vs. Samui." We watched quietly as the Kumogakure kunoichi, apparently unaware of what exactly she was facing, nonchalantly entered the ring, where Gaara had already arrived with his Body Flicker.
"She's gonna die," Kiba noted sadly.
Damnit, I can't just let this happen, I realised. "Hoy, Samui-san! You should surrender. You can't fight this guy."
"Shut the fuck up, Konoha trash!" Karui shouted back from the other balcony. "What are you doing? Trying to psych out my teammate for your allies in the Sand!?" I shook my head with a sigh.
"Well, I tried. Let no one say I didn't warn her."
Samui frowned as she stood across from the red-haired kid with the gourd on his back. Karui thought the Uchiha was just trying to psych her out, but she wasn't so sure. She had been standing pretty close to the Suna team, and had picked up on the fear they seemed to exude just being around this guy. They had barely talked to him the entire time, and had been strangely deferential when they had. Even their sensei seemed shaky.
I can't just give up without a fight. I can always surrender if things get dicey, she decided, drawing her tanto and taking a stance.
"I hope you can last long enough to entertain me," Gaara said, his voice quiet and monotonous.
"Round Eight! Begin!"
Samui rushed forward, tossing shuriken to distract her enemy so she could potentially slip around his guard. Her plan was foiled when, with seemingly no input from Gaara himself, a stream of sand rushed out of his gourd and blocked her stars.
A shield of sand? she thought, stopping her attack. I need to test it out, find a weakness. She strafed around her target, tossing knives and shuriken from various angles at various speeds. All of them were intercepted, even the ones in his blind spot. So it's automatic, and he doesn't even need to see. So not cool.
"Is that all you have? Mother will be so disappointed with your blood." Gaara raised a hand, and a wave of sand shot out at her, which she barely managed to dodge. As it flew past her, it suddenly changed direction, and she slashed at it in an attempt to disperse it. The move failed, and she was forced to abandon her weapon and jump away to escape. Samui sighed. It was clear that pure physical attacks wouldn't work, and she didn't have any long-range jutsu that she thought would break the sand shield. That left only one option, one she had been hoping to save for the finals. She threw more shuriken to force the sand to intercept, taking it away from her tanto, then made a seal with her left hand to focus her chakra while rushing to grab the discarded blade. The moment she picked it up, lightning chakra rushed to coat the blade, making it spark and glow.
"A lightning sword? That might actually work," I mused at the sight of the electric aura coating Samui's blade.
"What do you mean?" enquired Sakura. "No other physical attacks worked."
"Because lightning is extra effective against earth. It should be able to cut right through that sand shield."
While she didn't show it on her face, internally Samui was grinning as her lightning tanto slashed through Gaara's sand shield as if it wasn't even there.
Looks like I have a way through. Cool. She slashed her way through a wall of sand, closing in on her target, only for him to narrow his eyes and make a series of slashing gestures in her direction, sending multiple waves of sand at her, pushing her back and bogging her down. She grit her teeth and continued swinging, until she noticed the sand at her feet moving to surround her and quickly disengaged, barely getting away in time to avoid the surge of sand that rose up in the place she had just been standing.
"Is that all you have? Things were just starting to get interesting. Suna Shuriken (Sand Shuriken)."
Unfortunately, despite having the means to breach Gaara's defences, it was clear that Samui was not going to win this battle. She simply lacked the speed and precision necessary to close with the Ichibi jinchuriki and deliver a damaging blow. That's not to say she wasn't putting up one hell of a fight: she was dodging and deflecting his attacks with exceptional skill and finesse, and her strikes, while never actually landing, came very close on multiple occasions.
Still, it was only a matter of time until she made a mistake, and against an opponent like Gaara, one mistake would be all it took for her life to be forfeit.
It was a relief when she leapt away in a backflip, allowed the lightning coating her weapon to fade, and declared her surrender.
"I'm done," she panted out, sweating and looking worn out. "I can't beat him, I give up."
Less relieving was Gaara's response.
"No! You can't surrender!" the bloodlusted jinchuriki shouted, furious. "Mother hasn't tasted your blood yet!" A colossal wave of sand was launched towards Samui, who for the first time actually appeared affected, her eyes wide.
"Kuroi Kaminari (Black Lightning)!" Before she could be struck, a blast of lightning as dark as a moonless night filled the space between her and Gaara, annihilating the sand wave in an instant before fading to reveal Darui stood in its epicentre. At the same time, Hayate Gekkou appeared in a shunshin beside him, sword levelled at Gaara.
"Samui-san surrendered," Gekkou warned. "If you continue to attack, you will be subdued and disqualified." Gaara ground his teeth angrily, before grunting and rejoining his siblings with a Shunshin, both of whom took wary steps away from him. Darui and Samui also returned to their fellow Kumo shinobi, and Hayate coughed as he moved back to his earlier position, sheathing his blade. "The winner is Sabaku no Gaara," he announced with a sigh.
"That guy's bad news," Shikamaru commented. "Whoever faces him in the finals should probably just forfeit. How troublesome." No one contradicted him, not even Neji. It was clear that none of us would have any hope of beating him at that point, though I fully intended to change that in the month before the third exam. Naruto, too, by the look on his face.
"Matchup nine: Hyuuga Neji vs. Hyuuga Hinata."
Ah, shit. I had been hoping this one wouldn't happen. Watching Neji blatantly try to murder his cousin had been hard enough when it was just an anime, watching it in person and being unable to intervene would be torture. Of all the possible opponents for Hinata to fight, the RNG just had to give her this one.
Actually, now that I really thought about it, I suspected that the so-called 'random selection' was specifically rigged to make these two fight. It wouldn't surprise me if the Hyuuga elders wanted their prodigy in the finals rather than Hinata, who they considered a failure to the clan. I would have to do something about that clan in the future, when I was stronger and had some political influence in the village.
Down in the arena, the two Hyuuga stood opposite one another.
"I did not expect to fight you here, Hinata-sama."
"Nor I you, Neji-niisan."
"Wait wait wait, they're siblings!?" Naturo exclaimed.
"Not quite, Naruto," Kakashi clarified. "They're both Hyuuga, yes, but the Hyuuga are a large clan. Hinata-san is from the main household, while Neji-san is a member of the branch family. They're cousins, not siblings."
"Huh? 'Main household'? 'Branch family'? What does that mean?" Kakashi had to explain the concept of the main and branch families, and how the branch Hyuuga basically lived to serve and protect the main branch. Naruto was aghast. "But that's horrible! You can't force someone to give up their own dreams and live for someone else just because of who their parents are!"
"Right," I nodded in agreement. "For all their strength and their influence, the Hyuuga are anything but noble. They're disgusting."
"Careful Makoto," Kakashi cautioned. "The Uchiha weren't exactly saints themselves, you know."
"I'm well aware of that, Sensei. My clan was full of arrogant fools who thought themselves superior because of the Sharingan, and if they were still alive, I'd have plenty of work to do to change things." With that, I turned my attention back to the arena, where despite Hayate signalling the start of the match neither combatant had yet moved from their starting point.
"Tch, that bastard's got a real stick up his ass," Kiba grumbled at the mind games Neji was playing with Hinata. "It's not Hinata-chan's fault he was born into the branch family!"
"It's because he can't challenge the actual heads of the clan. He talks a lot about fate, I think, because he hates it for putting him in the branch family, and he's venting all that hate on Hinata-san because he can't take it out on the people who actually deserve it. Poor bastard."
"Are you defending him!?"
"What? Fuck no!" I protested emphatically. "Sure, the guy's suffering, but that doesn't justify treating Hinata-san like shit. It's not like she's got any power over the way their clan operates."
Just as in canon, despite Naruto's fervent cheering granting her courage and the strength to fight through her injuries, Hinata was brutally beaten by her cousin to the point of being rushed to hospital, and he was only stopped from making a killing blow by the Konoha jounin. Naruto hopped over the railing to check on her as the medics ran in, and I followed.
"Will Hinata-chan be okay!?" he demanded as she was rushed out on a stretcher, having fainted from the internal damage taken during the fight.
"She'll survive," the medic assured him, "but she'll need time to recover. Probably a couple months." As he ran off to make sure his patient was treated, Naruto growled.
"I'll kill the bastard for this!"
"Hmph. As if a failure like you could even touch me," Neji commented cruelly. "I can see why you're so worked-up though. You two are a lot alike: destined failures." I grabbed Naruto's shoulder before he could rush Neji.
"Hyuuga-san," I started slowly, "were you just about to kill her?" He scoffed.
"So what if I was? It should make no difference to you what happens to an embarrassment like her." I took a deep breath. Seeing that he still had the Byakugan active, I deactivated my own Sharingan that I had been using to watch the fights and began gathering chakra.
"Okay, you know what? Fuck it. Flash." I forced as much chakra as possible out of my body all at once in what, through a chakra-seeing doujutsu, would resemble a flash grenade. Neji immediately screamed and grabbed at his eyes, cursing up a storm from his eyeballs being seared. "You'd best hope you face Naruto or Lee-san in the finals instead of me: they'll just hand you a humiliating defeat. But I will fucking end you, Hyuuga-san. Konoha doesn't need another Itachi." With that, I turned on my heels and headed back up to the balcony, soon followed by Naruto.
The jounin conferred with one another, and with the Hokage, for a short while before rejoining their genin teams, while Neji went off to stand by himself. Kakashi immediately had something to say to me.
"Makoto, you're lucky you weren't disqualified for what you just did to Hyuuga-san. In light of his own actions, you've been allowed to continue competing. I understand your anger, but it's up to the Hyuuga to discipline their own members."
"As if they'll punish him," I grumbled.
"They probably won't," he conceded. "But that doesn't make it your job to do it for them."
"The final match!" Hayate's voice interrupted from down below. "Nara Shikamaru vs. Inuzuka Kiba!" We turned our attention to the arena floor as the two shinobi in question headed down.
Shikamaru sighed when Hayate called for the match to start. He had a good idea of how to deal with Kiba – he'd been planning it out since Neji and Hinata's fight was announced – but he would still rather not have to fight at all. Forfeiting was, of course, not an option: his mother would never let him hear the end of it.
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to just give up and save us both the bother of fighting, would you?" he asked hopefully, but Kiba scoffed.
"No way, I didn't come this far just to give up to your lazy ass! Gijuu Ninpou: Shikyaku no Jutsu (Imitation Beast Ninja Art: Four Legs Jutsu)!"
"Tch. Troublesome." He drew a kunai as Kiba moved onto all-fours, canines and fingernails lengthening. This would be such a drag.
"C'mon Shikamaru-kun! Do something, lazy ass!" Ino yelled. The Nara boy was dancing around, dodging attacks from both Kiba and Akamaru, but not retaliating in any way except to make the occasional feint with his knife to keep the Inuzuka on guard. It looked to me like he was waiting for something specific to happen, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was.
"Are you just going to run around dodging me all day!?" Kiba angrily shouted as yet another strike missed its target.
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Grr, we'll see about that! Akamaru!" He tossed a soldier pill at his dog, who caught it, then made a tiger seal. "Gijin Ninpou: Juujin Bunshin (Imitation Human Ninja Art: Beast Human Clone)!" Akamaru's fur turned deep red, then he burst into smoke, which soon cleared to reveal that the puppy had transformed into a clone of Kiba. "Gatsuuga (Fang Passing Fang)!" The two Kibas launched themselves at Shikamaru from different angles, both rotating around at such high speeds as to blur their forms. Shikamaru barely evaded while also attempting a parry with his knife, only for the iron blade to be shattered while having no effect on the target.
"Troublesome…" Shikamaru mumbled, dodging a second pass.
Shikamaru was not enjoying himself. Knowing he couldn't take Kiba in a straight-up fight, he had no choice but to keep dodging and wait for his enemy to make a mistake. Fortunately, he was good at that, his perceptive nature making it easy for him to pick out the angles of attack and keep himself out of the way, though his shirt had some tears in places from a couple of close calls. Unfortunately, however, his stamina was not good enough to keep this up forever. He just had to hope he could outlast Kiba's temper.
Ino's annoying yelling wasn't helping his focus either.
Troublesome woman, he groused in his mind, barely avoiding yet another strike. This time, Kiba did not immediately launch into another attack.
"Damnit, you're pretty good at running away! But let's see if you can dodge something you can't see!" He tossed a smoke bomb at Shikamaru's feet, who made no effort to escape. Shikamaru grinned as the smokescreen concealed his position.
Finally. Hoping he had predicted the angle of attack properly, he clasped his hands together in the rat seal. "Kagemane no Jutsu (Shadow Imitation Jutsu)."
When Kiba and Akamaru didn't emerge from the smokescreen after their latest attack, I finally realised what Shikamaru had been waiting for.
"Clever bastard." The smokescreen soon cleared, revealing Shikamaru and the two Kiba copies stood in identical postures, connected by the former's shadow.
"Kagemane no Jutsu complete," Shikamaru drawled, grinning. "I knew I'd never beat you in a straight fight," he explained, "and you'd easily avoid my Shadow Imitation if you could see it coming. But I also knew you'd get frustrated if you couldn't hit me and try to take away my sight, since you could just rely on your nose to find me. However, shadows don't smell like anything. If you couldn't see them, you couldn't avoid them."
"Yeah, yeah, real impressive, but what now?" At Kiba's question, Shikamaru drew a handful of shuriken from his pouch, forcing both Kiba and the transformed Akamaru to do the same. Then he shifted position, manoeuvring the three so that Kiba and Akamaru were facing eachother.
"Now you surrender before I make you toss those shuriken at Akamaru." Kiba's eyes widened.
"Alright, I give, I give!"
"The winner of the final match: Nara Shikamaru!" With Gekkou's announcement, Shikamaru allowed his jutsu to fade. "If everyone will come down to the arena floor, we will announce the matchups for the third exam."
Soon enough, the winners of the preliminaries were all lined up in a row, Hayate standing in front of us holding a wooden box.
"The final exam consists of a one-on-one elimination tournament. One by one, each of you will blindly pull a slip of paper from this box. Each one will have a number, and the numbers will determine the brackets for the tournament." He moved down the line, everyone picking a slip as he went, until we all had one. "Now, starting with Lee on the left, everyone will reveal their numbers."
"I have the number two."
"Seven."
"Ten."
"Five."
"Nine."
"Eight."
"Three."
"Six."
"One."
"Four."
"Okay," Hayate acknowledged. "So the initial matchups will be as follows: Hyuuga Neji vs. Rock Lee, Uzumaki Naruto vs. Nara Shikamaru, Uchiha Makoto vs. Sabaku no Gaara, Aburame Shino vs. Karui, and Haruno Sakura vs. Temari. Then the winners of the first two matches will fight eachother, the winners of the next two will fight eachother, and then the final round will be a three-way free-for-all between the winners of the fifth, sixth, and seventh matches."
"Wait, so either Haruno-san or Temari-san will get a free pass to the finals just for winning one fight!?" Karui complained.
"Unfortunately, because there is an odd number of pairs, someone was bound to have an easier time of it," the proctor acknowledged. "But that might not be a benefit. Remember: whether or not you are promoted will depend on your performance in the arena, but you do not necessarily have to win the tournament to be promoted. Having more fights will give you more opportunities to show what you can do, and therefore increase your chances of promotion. Now, I will hand you all over to Hokage-sama for the closing remarks." He stepped back, and Hiruzen took his place.
"I will begin by congratulating those of you who triumphed in your battles. You have all worked, trained, and fought hard in order to reach the final exams, and your respective villages should be proud of you all. The finals will occur in precisely one month's time, at Konoha's Exhibition Arena. Use this time to prepare wisely, to refine your tactics and techniques in time to put on an excellent show for the nobles who will be here to oversee your battles. And to those who lost here: do not be discouraged! It was not easy to reach this stage of the exams, and you all have the ability to reach the finals at the next chuunin exams! Now go! Rest, train, and prepare yourselves for the coming battles!"
A/N: So the second stage of the exams is finally over! Next week we'll be moving on to training for the finals. Happy Holidays everyone!