"You shinobi are strange," The samurai says, shaking his long mane of shaggy brown hair and continuing onward.
"We prefer 'eccentric'," Hatake chimes in from behind his book.
...
The stadium, as it turns out, is actually outside the village's gates, hidden by one of the mountain fangs which it's nestled beneath. It's connected to the village by an archway the size of the Academy, currently packed with people, as well as a discrete tunnel about a quarter mile down along the walls. Our guide brings us to the tunnel, guarded by not one, but four samurai, who all step aside and bow when they catch sight of us.
We head into the tunnel and down a series of hallways until we reach a set of heavy double doors with a picture of two men fighting to the death carved into its surface. Our guide stops short of the doors, stepping aside and bowing.
"You will find your examiners for the tournament beyond these doors," he says. "Good luck to you all."
Lee jumps forward and throws the doors open with a flourish, miraculously unharmed by Gai's suckerpunch, and rushes inside. Gai rushes in after him, roaring at him about the virtue of patience in a prospective chunin, and I follow them in after throwing the samurai an apologetic grin.
As soon as I step into the room I'm assaulted by the glares of over a dozen genin, in varying degrees of hatred. The guys from Suna and Kiri and such mostly look annoyed by me because of my affiliation with Lee and Gai, while the Iwa nin are doing their best to flay me with their eyes. I don't even want to think about how the Kumo nin would be looking at me if almost all of them hadn't been knocked out of the exams after the first task.
The double doors swing shut behind us, and from the other side of the room a man in a white kumo vest, sporting spiky, bleach white hair and dark skin, clears his throat. "Alright, that's the last of them. Let's get this started."
A woman with short black hair hair and pale pink eyes steps forward from the line of five proctors and gestures at the door behind them."Before we begin, we ask that the jonin sensei proceed through the door to the stands. The samurai on guard will escort you to your seats."
A low murmur sparks up as sensei go about wishing their students one final good luck, and I feel a hand ruffle my hair. I look up and see Hatake's eye curled up in a smile. "Good luck out there. You're going to blow everyone away out there, all three of you. I can feel it." He gives Sasuke a slap on the back and pats Sakura's shoulder, then walks towards the door, grabbing Gai by the back of his leotard along the way and dragging him from Neji and Lee mid-speech.
"Now then," The proctor from Kumo continues, holdings his hands out, palm up. "First off, congratulations. There were a lot of genin competing at the start of these exams, and throughout the course of the tasks the twenty-four of you proved you were the best of them all. You should all be proud of yourselves."
"Since you've made it to the final stage, though, the expectations have changed," The woman with pink eyes, Iwa's proctor, says. "You aren't fighting solely for yourselves anymore. From here on out you have a responsibility to your village, to perform to the best of your abilities and make your services and the services of your comrades desirable to all the clients in attendance, and all the clients who hear about your performance."
"The rules for your matches will be similar to the rules for the third task, with two key differences," The proctor from Suna, a man with dark blue eyes and close cropped blond hair, decked out in baggy yellow clothes with a white headdress and a thick brown belt, says. "First, you don't have to worry about leaving the arena. We'll be maintaining a barrier jutsu between you and the stands, so even if you or your jutsu made it to the edge you'd both bounce off.
"Second, we won't be interfering in any of the fights until a victor is decided. Matches will be called when one opponent is unable to fight, or forfeits." His serious gaze sweeps over us all. "The only time we will move from our stations will be to prevent outside interference. The consequences of attempting this will be severe."
"A few of you might be wondering what happens if your opponent forces you into a position where you're beat but can't forfeit, and could conceivably still fight," The Kiri proctor says, adjusting the sheath on his back and swiping a lock of black hair out of his muddy brown eyes. Several genin nod along. He crosses his arms over his chest, and stares each one of us down.
"Bottom line? You die."
"Is he serious?" I ask, voice low, as disbelief spreads through the room. Sakura shrugs helplessly, Sasuke watches the proctors with narrowed eyes, but Neji only shakes his head.
"It will not come to that for those who deserve to be here," he intones. His pale white gaze flicks toward me, lips twisting. "And though it pains me to admit it, you've proven yourselves worthy. Just pray you don't come up against either of us."
"Just be thankful Naruto and I can't both advance and crush you," Sasuke shoots back. Neji's look of grudging respect shifts into a sneer in zero seconds flat, and I find myself conflicted on who to snap at.
"Quiet!" Sakura hisses at them, relieving me of the choice. "They're saying something." After one last exchange of glares we turn our attention back to the proctors, and see the one with a Konoha headband pull a slip of paper from his flak jacket.
"If that's all the pleasantries out of the way," he says dryly, "Let's go over the tournament's structure." He unfolds the slip of paper with one hand and plucks the senbon from between his teeth with the other. I shuffle forward, squinting to get a look at the tiny scribbles on the paper, but can only get a vague outline of the brackets. Why do they look like they're separated into thirds?
The Konoha proctor taps his senbon against the paper. "The tournament will be split up into four rounds, with three different sets of brackets meeting in the finals in a threeway battle royale. The first round will have four matches per bracket, second round will have two rounds, and semifinals will have one," he says, pointing to each spot on the paper with his senbon. "Any questions?"
"I've got one, but not about the structure," A genin from Iwa says, raising a hand.
"Let's have it, then," The Kiri proctor grunts. "We're on a schedule here, kids."
"Who's going to be calling the matches if you're all going to be focused on a barrier?"
An uncomfortable look passes across each of the five elite jonin's faces. The Suna proctor coughs, sharing a glance with the Konoha proctor, and says, "Mifune-sama, the leader of the Land of Iron, has volunteered a samurai to act as the announcer for the duration of the tournament."
… Announcer?
"Okay, that's it!" The proctor from Iwa says, clapping her hands together. "Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto report up front. Everyone else follow me to the competitors box." She strides over to one of the two doors in the room, the crowd of genin following behind her after sending Sasuke and I the obligatory sneers and glares.
I'm in the process of brushing them all off and turning back to my teammates when I notice a flash of icy green, and lock eyes with Gaara. Time freezes as the two of us size one another up, then the pressure behind my seal pulses and Gaara walks through the door. I grit my teeth and clutch my stomach.
I'm really starting to worry about that. Whatever it is.
"Well, this is it," Sakura says, pulling me from thoughts of my 'gift'. She's hanging about a yard away from me and Sasuke, looking all too reluctant to leave us to our match.
"Yeah," I say, taking hold of my resolve and casting aside everything else. "It is."
"You two…" She sighs, and then before either of us can react steps forward and wraps both of us up in a hug, squeezing us tight. "Just don't go overboard, okay? We're Team 7, remember? Don't let something as silly as a promotion get in the way of that." Sasuke rolls his eyes, though he doesn't push out of her embrace.
"Hn."
"I won't," I say, voice firm. And I mean it. That's the whole point of this, after all.
A team can't function without respect. And what kind of Hokage would I be if I couldn't even earn the respect of my own teammates?
"Hey, pinky!" The Kumo instructor barks, startling us all out of our hug. "Competitors box. Now."
"Good luck, both of you!" Sakura says, and after one last glance at the proctors, darts out the door.
...
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