Next up was Temari versus some guy named Umaki Hiroko—another one from that trio of "careful" types. Only this one looked way more confident than his predecessor. His face was pretty damn cocky too, matching his black hair that was spiked up like some wannabe rebel. His outfit was just as "edgy": a dark-green jumpsuit left unzipped, metal bracers, and matching metal kneepads. Except his emotions gave him away—this whole look was pure self-deception, a costume to pretend he was someone he wasn't. The same nerves that had been eating the previous guy alive were chewing on him too. Just not as hard.
Stepping into the arena, Temari defiantly stabbed her metal-framed fan into the concrete in front of her, then—just as defiantly—started "explaining" something to her opponent. Namely, that he was lucky, and she'd graciously decided not to go all-out right away. He'd only lose once he saw three moons—one on each third of her fully opened fan.
Not impressed by the gesture, the Konoha genin, staying in character, voiced his doubts about her abilities. After calling her nothing more than an overfull-of-herself little girl, he got ready to fight. And then the proctor signaled the start, and it was over fast.
Saying she'd changed her mind, Temari snapped the whole fan open in one motion, then with a second swing whipped up a wind tornado several meters wide. It swallowed her opponent immediately, shredding him with countless tiny elemental blades. A few seconds later, the med-nin hauled away the cut-to-hell genin, and Hayate declared the Sand kunoichi the winner.
Next came Shino versus Kankuro, the puppeteer from the Sand. On his back was a puppet wrapped in bandages, which he controlled with chakra threads.
Only… yeah, he got screwed on the matchup. Shino was from a clan that specialized in controlling bugs.
And before the fight, he'd sensibly scouted exactly what his opponent was about. Actually, he'd scouted everyone who'd shown up.
Spotting the wooden puppet on the Sand genin's back, Shino sent a cloud of flying insects at him the instant the match started. They could drain chakra. Sure, they didn't move that fast, so Shino helped them out by throwing kunai at Kankuro—forcing the Suna genin to dodge and slowing him down just enough to get caught in the swarm. A few seconds later, he dropped from chakra exhaustion.
Of course, Shino had other bugs that could've been way more lethal. Like the kind of chakra-eaters that, once they get inside you, grow fast off stolen energy and just rip you apart from the inside. But this wasn't some random scuffle in the woods—it was an official match with rules, and killing was banned. Still, that didn't stop Aburame from acting decisively and shutting his opponent down quickly.
"Nex—kghm! Kha-kha!" the proctor coughed. "Gaara of the Sand versus Takeda Kaito."
At that, Gaara's face—which had already been pissed off about his brother losing—went even darker.
I threw a surprised look at the Hokage, like: So the matchups really are random? We could've humiliated Suna by having their genin not even make it to the finals! I mean… if Gaara's opponent had been me.
And I got a look back that basically said: Of course it's random. And don't start with your bullshit schemes. Everything's fair here.
All I could do was roll my eyes.
The next thing wasn't even a fight; it was more like some kind of execution, with Kaito as the guy on the chopping block. The last of the "careful" trio tried to talk up his "great taijutsu style." Didn't matter. Gaara the executioner was in a mood today.
The redhead was never exactly famous for restraint, but now he tried to bury his opponent in a Sand Coffin almost the moment it started. Almost—because it didn't work. Guy, back again, dispersed the sand with a clean, powerful strike and yanked the scared-shitless Kaito out right before Gaara crushed down on the sand that had completely swallowed the genin.
Good thing Might Guy's here. Means I don't have to bother. Though I was ready to pull Takeda out at the last second myself with a space-time technique.
Gaara's tailed beast can influence him because of the specifics of the fūinjutsu it's sealed with—and because that beast is straight-up insane. Those surges of cruelty, I'm guessing, are thanks to the "kind raccoon" inside him. Anyway, this time he held the bijū back and just left the arena.
As he walked away, a light burst of chakra made the sand gather into the gourd on his back, and I watched with interest. Not just because it looked cool—I had my Mangekyō active, so now I had the ability to use Sand Release too, just like Gaara.
The proctor announced the Sand genin's victory, and the monitor started rolling for the next matchup.
"Next, kha, kha!.. Next match: Kiba Inuzuka versus Tenten, kha-kha."
"Damn, I got lucky," Kiba grinned as he dropped down, eyeing his opponent.
"And why do you think that?" the girl asked, meeting his gaze.
"Because you look like the weakest one here!" Inuzuka said, like it was obvious.
"Yip!" Akamaru backed his owner up from the top of Kiba's head.
"Well, unless those three older shinobi didn't look strong either. But they're already out," Kiba added a little awkwardly, then perked right back up. "Like that Sound girl, for example."
By the end he'd compared her to Kin—the black-haired Sound kunoichi—and Tenten's face went a little annoyed, basically screaming: Great, more sexists…
"Don't you think judging an opponent by their looks is stupid?"
Kiba didn't bother answering, so that was that. At the proctor's signal, the girl shot upward in a fast leap. She pulled a huge scroll from behind her back and unrolled it midair while Kiba watched with a condescending grin. But then she spun and released a wave of chakra—and a straight-up hail of iron weapons came crashing down on Inuzuka. The dog boy, not expecting anything serious, didn't find cover and didn't have time to use Fang Over Fang either. All he managed was to cover Akamaru with his own body… and in seconds he was completely stuck full of metal. Pride didn't let him win, even though he actually had a decent shot.
Next was Abumi Zaku versus Choji Akimichi.
At this point, Choji only had one technique that was destructive enough, and of course his teacher—Asuma—knew it. Asuma had been watching the other genin matches this whole time, evaluating them, until he landed on the one obvious answer for his student.
When the monitor showed Choji and Zaku's names, the younger Sarutobi walked up to his student and ordered him to start with that technique. Immediately. No holding back. No point risking a win—shinobi are supposed to be decisive.
At first, Akimichi wasn't very motivated, but his sensei knew what to do. The second Asuma promised to take Choji to a barbecue place on his own money, the genin's eyes practically lit up.
Zaku was a Sound genin whose body had been slightly modified. Hollow tubes were built into his arms, and he could blast high-pressure wind from them. Or Sound—same air, just with a bit more control. Their jonin leader wasn't around right now, so the temporary leader of their trio was their teammate Dosu—the guy Sakura had busted the device on. Still, Abumi was disciplined enough not to need encouragement, and he stepped right into the arena.
"Just a fatso. Lucky me, hm," the Otogakure genin said, looking Choji over.
"Did you just call me a fatso?" Choji asked coldly, his face darkening. He really—really, really—didn't like being called that. "We don't even know each other, but this is definitely war. You're not leaving this arena on your own two feet."
"Hm?" Zaku looked him over again. Yeah, he'd hit a nerve. He just didn't give a damn. "Whatever you say."
After that little verbal back-and-forth, the proctor signaled the start of the physical match.
It didn't last much longer than the trash talk…
Moving surprisingly briskly for his weight, Choji hopped backward, transforming midair into something like a huge ball. When he landed, he looked like a giant ball. It was an Akimichi clan technique: they could convert fat into chakra, and do it in reverse too, increasing their size through chakra. The increase wasn't permanent, but swelling up dozens of times over with pseudo-flesh—created almost instinctively thanks to clan affinity—wasn't that hard.
Landing as a sphere around four meters across, Choji started spinning himself up with chakra on the spot, then charged at his opponent at insane speed—the Meat Tank.
At first, Zaku backed off, waiting to see what Choji would do. When that rolling mass came at him, Zaku jerked his arms out and used a burst of air from the tubes to push himself out of the line of impact. Then he didn't panic—using Choji's clumsiness, he let him rush past a few more times, adjusting, waiting for the moment. And when it was right, he blasted a full-power stream of air into Choji after he'd already rolled past, accelerating the already fast-moving body even more.
Akimichi couldn't stop. He slammed straight through the wall and only stopped when he hit the next one—which was close, since there was a corridor right behind the barrier. The impact knocked the Leaf genin out. Still, all that grown pseudo-fat kept him from getting seriously hurt. He just ended up with massive bruises and hematomas.
The next match was Yamanaka Ino versus Tsuchi Kin. Both girls specialized in Yin—Ino with her clan's Mind Transfer technique, Kin with genjutsu.
Before the fight, Ino looked pretty thoughtful. Heading down, she turned her head toward Sakura, then a couple seconds later snorted and looked away.
As I understood it, it was basically: Watch me, I can do shit too.
When they faced each other, they didn't seem to have anything to say, and they started without a word.
Kin jumped back and immediately started pelting Ino with senbon. Some of them had little bells attached, infused with Tsuchi's chakra. Every ring sent out chakra waves heavily shifted toward Yin, trying to drag the target into a pre-programmed genjutsu.
But Ino was the daughter of the Yamanaka clan head—a clan built around messing with minds. So the blonde handled her opponent's attempts to genjutsu her without much trouble, pushing forward to close the distance.
Kunai in one hand, Ino knocked aside the projectiles aimed at her, driving her opponent toward the wall and closing in. It took only a couple seconds for Yamanaka to get into close range. Then, forming a concentration seal with her free hand—just like Sakura had done recently—Ino detonated her chakra and fired a lump of Yin straight at Kin.
Tsuchi wasn't a newbie at Yin manipulation either, but even the slightly rough technique of a talented opponent who didn't spare strength hit her mind hard. Kin just stopped moving for the next few seconds, and that was more than enough.
Letting her kunai fall to the floor, Ino snapped both hands forward, forming a triangle with her index fingers and thumbs. One more second of focus—and the blonde's body went slack.
Mind Transfer.
To someone with hypersensitivity to chakra, it looked like something between shadow cloning and a Sharingan genjutsu. Ino focused most of her Yin and sent it into her opponent, suppressing her mind.
A few seconds passed with both girls motionless—until Kin calmly stood up. She looked over the body lying in front of her and smirked. Then she pulled out some wire from her pouch, crouched, and started methodically tying her own legs together. After that, she took off and tossed all her gear aside, slapped herself on the chest, and said with a smile, "This body surrenders."
That Yamanaka technique was well-known in Konoha, so they didn't instantly call it a loss when Ino's body dropped. Now, by disarming herself and binding her opponent, she made it obvious she'd dealt with Kin.
That was a pretty decent fight… well, for genin. At least it was a fight, I thought, glancing at Shikamaru nervously side-eyeing me. He was standing a little away from everyone, and he was clearly freaking out. Speaking of genin… there were only three of us left.
I waved at the guy and looked back at the arena, where Ino had already woken up. I gave her a thumbs-up, and Sakura nodded approvingly beside us, while Hinata smiled at her in congratulations. In return we got a slightly awkward nod, and Yamanaka quickly went back to her team.
The monitor started rolling names again.
Nara swallowed loudly. He kept staring right at me, like he didn't even take any other possible opponent seriously. Not that he had much to be scared of. If we end up facing each other, I'll just beat him up—painfully and educationally. Nothing wrong with that, right?
"Dosu Kinuta versus Uzumaki Naruto" flashed on the screen. Shikamaru exhaled with so much relief it was like he'd just given birth to triplets, then tugged at the protective mesh stuck to his sweaty skin.
I just snorted. After getting the girls' "blessings," so to speak, I headed down.
"How's the arm?" I asked cheerfully.
My always-hunched opponent tilted his head.
"It doesn't feel the cold of steel anymore," he answered in a rough voice.
"Got it," I said. "How about you just surrender?"
He thought for a second, then turned to the proctor.
"I surrender."
"You're surprisingly reasonable," I noted.
"That's what a team leader is supposed to be."
Yeah. Reasonable. Didn't try to act tough—just compared my reputation to his abilities and made the smart call.
After that, the Sound guy turned around and walked off the arena while Hayate announced my victory.
Up near the Hokage, Anko finished writing on another slip, tossed it into the box, and turned to Hiruzen. Getting a nod, she jumped down and yelled:
"Alright then! Everyone who won, get over here! You—the Nara kid—too!" Anko said, holding that same box.
When everyone she called gathered below—of course, except the Uchiha who got sent to the hospital—she continued, "The final stage will be the same as this one: one-on-one fights. But there's a difference. These fights will be play-and-you're-out." She looked over the gathered group lined up in front of her. "I'll be drawing slips with your names and announcing the order of the matchups. That's how you'll fight in the finals."
After that, Anko started doing exactly what she said, building the tournament bracket piece by piece. In the end it came out like this:
First match: Hyuga versus Uchiha
Second: Uzumaki versus Gaara
Third: Temari versus Aburame
Fourth: Haruno versus Tenten
Fifth: Yamanaka versus Abumi
And Shikamaru got lucky again—he'd be fighting the already-tired winner of the fifth pair. What a lucky little pineapple.
And that was the end of the second stage of the Chunin Exams.
After swapping a few words with former classmates and sending Sakura home to rest via Hiraishin, Hinata and I went to the Hokage to talk. After a short conversation, Hiruzen preemptively sent Hiashi a little letter, hinting that he shouldn't make his attitude toward his daughter any worse—unless he wanted to hear about it from someone later. Hiashi might not hear anything inside the village, since the Hokage could order his shinobi to shut up about Hinata's outburst, but counting on visiting shinobi to keep their mouths shut? Yeah, no. Plus, the Sand could use that info to mess with the strongest clan in Konoha by creating problems around the heir. So besides the hint to ignore outside chatter, Hiruzen straight-up voiced his own dissatisfaction with the Hyuga clan's structure, making it possible to partially shift the pressure off Hinata. Like: she listened to the old man and got ideas. Not because she was seriously trying to overturn centuries-old traditions, but because she was just a kid and impressionable. And if she's "just impressionable," then a talk and a not-too-harsh scolding should be enough to "guide" the heir back to the path the clan considers correct.
I wasn't happy about any of this—felt like way too much intrigue for my taste. But Hinata asked me not to interfere. She wanted to handle it with her own strength. And me, finding it sickeningly adorable how "grown-up" she was acting, decided to give her a shot. If it doesn't work out—well, she'll bump her head a few times, grow, and I'll help if she can't handle it.
After that, we split up, agreeing to meet later with Sakura at a restaurant to celebrate what we'd pulled off. And of course, when we parted, I didn't forget to leave a clone on Hinata.
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