A strange new life

3.15

In my post exam fatigue and general ‘this speech from Iruka-sensei is boring’, I missed the opportunity to report the forest’s events to Iruka-sensei. Worse, there were no proctors inside the waiting area; I wasn’t sure if I could leave to search for one. In the end, I decided I would report to Kakashi-sensei first opportunity I got.

I didn’t want to leave the tower and risk failing the team. Konoha’s jounin must already know Orochimaru was here by now, and if they weren’t doing anything yet, a first hand account of the confrontation with the man wouldn’t change much. The second part, the one about my thoughts and human experimentation and traitors, that one could wait. At least I hope it could.

Team Gai arrived just a day later. Tenten refused to look at me. Neji glared from afar. Rock Lee actually came over, talked to me, even if it didn’t make any sense.

Rock Lee pointed at my face. “My springtime of youth will prevail. I’ll defeat you!” After saying that, he bowed and left without giving me the chance to say anything. What a cool weirdo. There was a bit more comedy when team eight arrived.

Rock Lee looked a the newcomers, eyes going wide when he noticed them. He did a guts pose. Tenten facepalmed, sighed exasperated. “Here we go again.”

Konoha’s green beast walked to the newly arrived team eight. Stopped by the girl with pink hair and red sort-of-qipao.

“Hi, my name is Rock Lee, you are Sakura…” He trailed off for a bit. Sakura looked pretty spooked off. “Would you go out with me? I’ll protect you with my life!” The boy winked, and gave Sakura a dazzling smile. I could see from here the sparkling teeth.

I did a small victory dance. Rock Lee was so cool!

“No… way… you’re lame.” Sakura-chan answered. But was that a light blush on her cheeks? Way to go Konoha’s beautiful green wild beast!

On the last day of waiting, Kabuto’s team joined the gathering. He looked at us, before looking away. Was that a flicker of annoyance on his face? I would have gone after the fucker in the forest if I had any confidence in killing him. He did try to ingratiate with our team soon after arriving, but his was the last passing team, and soon after they arrived, more people entered the arena, ending any attempt at socializing.

Ninjas flooded into the open area. All the team leaders, proctors and even the old man Hokage. We stood in lines with our teams. All waiting for the old man’s wisdom. And wisdom he dispensed. Talked about the shinobi alliance, the purpose of the chunin exams, and the mini war between allied nations concept. On and on the old man went.

The logistics of it all didn’t seem to make sense, that was what I always considered about the original story. The original show made it seem that promoting chunin happened only during the exams, and each exam promoted just a few ninja at time. The exam happened only two times a year. The numbers just didn’t match. There was no way the hidden villages could keep the necessary number of ninjas by promoting less than ten shinobi per year. It was all bogus talk the old man wanted to push down our throat.

The chunin exam was, at least what I really thought it was, a publicity stunt: ‘Here are our youngest and more talented ninja. Let us put them to the grinder to give them a chance to grow and show how our village is strong.’ I didn’t really remember all the political ramifications, and the story never went into detail about what happened to all other genin promoted out of the academy not put in a four man cell with a jounin. In the end, we were just prized horses to put on a show for an audience.

While I was lost in my own thoughts, a new shinobi interrupted the Third. He looked tired, heavy bags under his eyes, sickly looking skin. Introduced himself as Hayate.

“As Lord Hokage mentioned,” Hayate said, “a number of honored guests will observe the battles of the third exam. We must make it intense, tight and fast moving. Anyway, we have to cut down the numbers. Anyone who doesn’t feel like fighting now, walk away. Because the preliminaries start now.”

Like usual, for the eighth time, Kabuto gave up. He used one lame excuse or another. I don’t know how, with this many jounin and even the Hokage here, no one realized how fishy that was. Kabuto was the only one to give up. It still left a large number of participants.

Hayate didn’t miss a beat. “Fights are as individuals, not teams, I forgot to mention. Feel free to leave without implicating your team.”

There was some commotion, some manipulative parting words from Kabuto, but I doubted it had the desired effect, we hadn’t had any contact with the man since the written test. Sasuke’s hand pressed against his neck. I looked at him, and the boy looked away, nodded. I remembered the cringe in our conversation, but gave him a thumbs up anyway.

“Well then, let’s begin.” Hayate called out after a minute of no one else leaving. “We have twenty participants, that’s ten bouts. The winners will move on to the third exam.” He pointed at an electronic board up in the wall. “The first battle is between Uchiha Sasuke and Akado Yoroi.”

“Uchiha Sasuke, Akado Yoroi, you’ve been selected to compete in the first bout, any objection?” Neither participant opposed.

The rest of the genin moved up to the stands while Sasuke and Yoroi, the other traitor from Kabuto’s team, took the stage. The man looked in his twenties. Protector worn like a bandanna, cloth covering the mouth and black eyeglasses. Yeah, not suspicious at all. Kakashi-sensei approached Sasuke, they had a whispered conversation and Sasuke looked gloomy. Was that about the cursed seal?

The battle was a strange one. Sasuke wasn’t in top shape. The battle started with the enemy throwing shuriken and delved into what looked more like a street brawl than ninja fight. No jutsu, no flashy movements, just punches, kicks, grapples and dodges.

Traitor Yoroi did something mid-fight however, because the struggling Sasuke struggled even more. Mid grapple, Yoroi’s hand latched to Sasuke’s head. Then I saw it. Sasuke’s chakra dwindled, Yoroi’s chakra increased. It reminded me a lot of when my own chakra ate genjutsu. Fuck, I had chakra absorption was well? I really wanted to run away and hide forever now.

Sasuke broke the grapple, kicked Yoroi away. It didn’t last much longer than that.

Yoroi dashed in, hand primed for more chakra absorption. But now that Sasuke knew what the enemy was about, he proved to be the stronger and faster ninja. Sasuke’s taijutsu was top notch, even if it wasn’t as strong as Rock Lee, and if Sasuke hadn’t copied the Beautiful Wild Green Beast movements. He attacked relentlessly. Yoroi had no chance and no other tool than his chakra absorption trick. The battle ended with Sasuke knocking the traitor ninja out.

Naruto of course had to give his two scents. “Hey Sasuke, you won but in such an uncool way.”

Sasuke actually smirked. “Shut up, you clown.” 

I was glad both boys were on good terms again. 

Kakashi-sensei had flickered to the arena, and after a brief talk, led Sasuke away. I guess now that he had won, Kakashi could finally deal with the cursed seal. I don’t know why Anko added such a dumb rule to the exam.

The next battle was Shino against one of the Amegakure shinobi. The battle wasn’t even interesting. The Ame ninja hadn’t seen the bugs, and fainted after having his chakra sucked out of him. Yeah, Shino was one of those I really wouldn’t want to fight against. No sir, thank you sir. Unless explosions were involved. 

Third match was Kankuro against yet another traitor from team Kabuto. The traitor was one of those who could modify their body. Soon after the battle started, he dashed in, wrapped himself around Kankuro. Shame for him though, it wasn’t Kankuro he wrapped himself around, but the doll. Kankuro had hidden himself as the big wrapped thing ‘Kankuro’ carried all around on his back. The proctor called the match soon after.

Kakashi returned soon after. “Sasuke is sleeping in the medical bay, you don’t need to worry about him anymore.” I noticed he seemed even more distant now, or distracted. Was that because of Orochimaru? I guess I was about to make his day even worse then. I leaned against the railing, pretending I was looking into the arena. My fingers tapped a soundless message. Report, intel, enemy, strong, important.

Fan-girl me squirmed a bit, even after all this time, secret communication and coded messages triggered her super hard. I had to hold in the smile, the grin, the happy dance. Kakashi-sensei patted my head, like I was an excitable little kid. The movement of his hand was another message. Understood.

Fourth match was Ino versus Sakura. I won’t lie here. I was hoping Ino won. 

The battle was a mess. Almost like a cat-fight. None of the girls used any jutsu; they just ducked it out like street thugs. At some point, Ino tried her mind control jutsu. She managed to even start the surrender, but loudmouth Kiba and Naruto yelling at Sakura to not surrender somehow helped the pink haired kunoichi to break the technique. It ended with both girls punching themselves unconscious. Much to my displeasure.

But the fight hadn’t been angry, for lack of better words. I saw Sakura smiling, even Ino too. Would they become friends again? I sure hope so. Emosuke didn’t deserve any of them.

Fifth bout was Tenten versus Temari. It was almost a massacre. Temari shut down Tenten hard. Temari ended the fight without suffering a single wound. Scary.

Sixth fight was Shikamaru versus another Ame shinobi. It wasn’t exciting. Without knowing about the shadow jutsu, the kunoichi walked right into his trap and Shikamaru ended the fight by forcing the woman to bang her own head against the walls. It was cool-ish, but not exciting to watch.

Seventh fight was Loudmouth Kiba versus Loudmouth Naruto.