The last four days passed like a blink.
Satoru reflected on this as he sat on the edge of his cot, his hands resting on his knees, his Sharingan dormant but his mind active. Compared to the chaos of the first two phases; the desert, the hunters, the blast, the ruins, the extraction; very little had actually happened.
Most of their time had been spent sleeping, eating, recovering, and receiving intelligence briefings. Perhaps that was why time seemed to pass so fast; the absence of crisis, the luxury of boredom.
He looked across the room at Ren, who was lying on his cot, staring at the ceiling, his bandaged forehead catching the morning light. Mariko sat at a small table, a cup of tea cooling between her hands, her bruised arm wrapped in fresh bandages. They had been here for four days, in this Suna guest house, behind walls that were thick enough to muffle the wind but not thick enough to muffle the tension.
Sayuri was right to forbid training, Satoru thought. Every session would have been information. Every technique, a dossier. Every weakness, a weapon for our enemies.
He remembered her words, delivered in the quiet of their first night after Phase Two. She had stood in the centre of their room, her arms crossed, her silver eyes hard. "You are in Sunagakure. You are surrounded by foreign shinobi. You are under unknown levels of observation. Suna has sensors. Suna has intelligence operatives. Suna has every incentive to gather information on strong competitors." She had looked at each of them in turn.
"Every training session is information. Every technique you reveal is information. Every weakness you expose is information. You will rest. You will recover. You will not spar. You will not train chakra. You will not condition. You will not use the Sharingan. Understood?"
They had understood. They had obeyed. But obedience had not been easy.
Ren had grown restless by the second day, pacing the room like a caged animal, his hand twitching toward his sword. Mariko had secretly wanted to train; Satoru had caught her doing push-ups in the corner of the room, her bruised arm trembling with the effort. He had not reported her. He had simply looked away.
Satoru had spent the days reading. Every report he could get his hands on; intelligence briefings, team rosters, dossiers on the surviving participants. The information was incomplete, and sometimes contradictory, but it was better than nothing.
He had reviewed the list of surviving teams until the characters blurred together. Only seven teams remained out of the hundreds that had entered. Three were from Konoha: Team Five, consisting of Satoru, Mariko, and Ren; Team Two, the Sarutobi-trained squad made up of the Akimichi, Nara, and Yamanaka heirs; and Riku's team.
Sunagakure still had two teams in the running, including Team Five; the monsters, and another surviving squad. Grass Village had managed to keep one team in the competition, while the final surviving team hailed from Rain.
Seven teams. Twenty-one genin.
Satoru's focus, however, was on Suna Team Five. They had placed first. They had dominated Phase Two. They possessed multiple kekkei genkai.
If someone beats us in this exam, he thought, it will probably be them.
Sayuri had gathered them on the second day for a briefing. She had spread a scroll across the low table; a roster of the surviving teams, with notes in her sharp, precise handwriting. Ren and Mariko had leaned in; Satoru had sat back, his eyes already scanning the names.
"Sunagakure Team Five," Sayuri said, tapping the entry. "Three members. All dangerous."
She had pointed to the first name. Shigan. "Scorch Release. A Kekkei Genkai that raises temperatures to impossible heights. He can dry moisture from air and flesh, turn sand to glass, and probably cause burns that do not heal naturally."
She had pointed to the second name. Maki. "Typhoon Release. Manipulation of pressure systems. She can create wind dense enough to become almost solid, compress atmospheres into weapons, and generate the cyclonic forces that powered the combined technique."
She had pointed to the third name. Kaito. "Puppet specialist. His avian puppet is capable of high-altitude flight and serves as a platform for his teammates' techniques. He is the team's mobility and support."
Wait, Satoru thought. Maki is not the Scorch Release user?
He had assumed she was. Her personality; confident, fiery, aggressive; had seemed tailor-made for a heat-based Kekkei Genkai. Her red hair, her silver eyes, her crackling fingertips; all of it had pointed toward fire, toward heat, toward destruction. But Typhoon Release actually explained her combat role. She was the wind, not the flame. The accelerator, not the fuel.
That is a pleasant surprise, he admitted. It means I now understand my opponent slightly better.
He had filed the information away.
"Their jōnin instructor is Pakura," Sayuri had added.
Pakura?
The name resonated; a memory from Satoru's first life, from the anime. Pakura. The Scorch Release user from Sunagakure. A kunoichi of exceptional skill, whose reputation had spread across the shinobi world. He remembered her fate; betrayed during a diplomatic mission, killed by her own village, her body used as a political tool. A tragedy dressed in shinobi clothing.
If Pakura dies in this timeline, Satoru wondered, what happens to Maki? What happens to Shigan? What happens to Kaito?
None of them had appeared in the original story. That created several possibilities. Perhaps they died; eliminated during the Chūnin Exams or in some future conflict. Perhaps they became irrelevant; relegated to the background, their potential unrealised. Or perhaps history had diverged; the changes Satoru had already set in motion were spreading outward, affecting people and events he had never anticipated.
He found himself unexpectedly curious.
On the third day, Sayuri had briefed them on the structure of the remaining phases. The preliminary phase would be a direct elimination tournament; one-on-one matches, random draw, single elimination. The winners would advance to the public tournament; a larger venue, more spectators, higher stakes.
"The preliminary phase is not about victory," Sayuri had said. "It is about survival. About proving you belong in the tournament. Do not waste energy on opponents you cannot beat. Do not reveal techniques you do not need. Win efficiently, or lose gracefully."
Ren had frowned. "Lose gracefully?"
"If you are outmatched, surrender. There is no shame in recognising your limits. The shame is in dying for no purpose."
The words had settled over them like a cold blanket.
On the morning of the fourth day, Satoru woke before dawn. The room was dark; Ren's breathing was slow and steady, Mariko's cot was empty, its sheets folded. He found her in the common room, sitting at the table, a cup of tea cooling between her hands.
"You could not sleep either?" she asked.
"No."
She gestured to the chair across from her. He sat.
"The preliminaries are today," she said. "I keep thinking about the draw. Who will we face. Whether we will have to fight each other."
Satoru had thought about it too. The random draw could place them against anyone; Riku's team, Team Two, the Rain team, the Grass team, the Suna monsters. Or it could place them against each other. Ren versus Mariko. Satoru versus Ren. The possibility was uncomfortable.
"We will cross that bridge when we reach it," he said.
Mariko nodded. She did not look reassured.
The sun was fully risen when Team Five gathered at the entrance of the guest house.
Sayuri stood before them, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable. "The preliminaries begin in two hours. You will be transported to the arena. You will receive your match assignments there. You will fight, or you will withdraw." She paused. "Whatever happens, you have already proven that you belong among the best of your generation. Do not forget that."
She turned and walked toward the waiting caravan. Team Five followed.
Satoru walked at the rear, his gaze fixed on the horizon.
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