The arena had been repaired. The gold dust swept away, the cracked stone patched, the blood cleaned from the sand. It looked fresh again. Ready for the semifinals.
Karura stood on the south side. One scroll at her hip. Indigo eyes ready for battle.
Pakura stood on the north side. Arms at her sides. Bandage across her abdomen. Her brown pupiless eyes fixed on the girl across from her.
The gallery was quiet. Every genin who'd fought, won, lost, or been cut leaned against the railing or sat along the walls, watching. This was the fight they'd all been waiting to see. The puppet master versus the Scorch Style user. Teammates. The two strongest members of the strongest team in the exam.
Chiasa walked to the center of the arena.
"First semifinal match. Pakura versus Karura." She looked at both fighters. "Begin."
Pakura raised her hand, "I forfeit."
Everyone gasped.
Chiasa's hand stayed raised. Her eyes moved to Pakura.
"I said I forfeit. I'm not fighting her."
The gallery erupted in murmurs. Genin looked at each other. Evaluators exchanged glances. From the observation window above, the Third Kazekage's yellow eyes narrowed.
Karura's lips parted. "Pakura, you don't have to..."
"Shut up." Pakura's voice cut across the arena. "Just shut your mouth, right now." It was taking a lot for her to do this.
Karura closed her mouth.
Pakura looked at her. She wasn't angry and that shut up wasn't out of resentment toward Karura.
"I still can't beat you. I knew it before I walked down those stairs. I could use every technique I have, every scorch style technique, every jutsu my parents taught me, everything Mai and I secretly trained for in preparation to defeat you or surprise you. And it wouldn't be enough. Not even close." She exhaled. Something physically left her with the breath.
"When we first became a team, I could at least see you ahead of me. Now I can't even see your back anymore. That's the truth. And I refuse to pretend otherwise."
Her jaw tightened. This next part cost her the most.
"I'm not ready for this fight. And after what happened in my first match, I know I'm not ready to be a chunin either."
The arena was silent. From the gallery, Mai was shocked speechless. Her glasses caught the lamplight but her eyes behind them were wide.
"But I will be." Pakura's chin rose. The fire didn't leave her eyes. It shifted. From the wild, reactive blaze that had nearly killed a downed opponent an hour ago into something hotter. "One day I'll stand across from you and it'll be a real fight. Count on it."
She turned and walked toward the stairs. Stopped.
"And don't you dare lose to Mai. Or I'll never forgive you."
From the gallery, Sayo's brow twitched. She turned to look at Ryusa beside her.
"Did she just decide I've already lost?" Sayo chuckled softly. "What the hell, man."
Ryusa winced. "I'm sure she didn't mean..."
"She meant exactly what she said." Sayo's flat expression hardened by a fraction. "What a stuck-up b-."
"Sayo!" Ryusa exclaimed.
"I'm just saying…" She rolled her eyes.
Pakura climbed the stairs without looking back. She passed Mai at the railing. Mai opened her mouth to say something. Pakura kept walking. She found a spot along the far wall, folded her arms, and stared at the arena floor with an expression that dared anyone to speak to her.
Nobody did, not even Mai who was still utterly shellshocked.
Chiasa lowered her hand. She looked at Karura, standing alone on the arena floor, three scrolls at her hip, no opponent in front of her.
"Winner by forfeit: Karura. She advances to the finals."
Karura stood in the silence for a moment. She looked at Pakura…
Pakura had called her superior. Publicly. In front of every genin and evaluator in the exam. That wasn't weakness. Karura knew it and she hoped Pakura knew it too.
She walked off the arena floor and climbed the stairs to the gallery. She didn't go to Pakura. Pakura didn't want that right now. She went to the railing beside Mai and stood there.
"I don't even know what to say…" Karura said quietly.
"You can't do anything to help her," Mai said. "If you tried, you'd only make it worse. Just do your thing and Pakura will do her thing." She wisely advised.
"Yeah..."
They stood together before Mai leaped over the railing for her match.
Sayo walked down the stairs with something sitting in her chest.
She wasn't really scared though. It was more like awareness. The understanding that the girl waiting for her on the arena floor had destroyed the Kazekage's protege. And Pakura, the Scorch Style user who'd melted a puppet to kindling in the first round, had just forfeited rather than fight her own teammate.
That was the level of opponents Sayo was walking into.
But she was also walking in with Pakura's dismissal ringing in her ears. "Don't lose to Mai." Not "Don't lose to Sayo's opponent." Not "Don't lose in the semifinals." Don't lose to Mai. As if Sayo was already beaten. Already irrelevant.
She was initially just going to surrender anyway like Pakura, but something about that comment really irked her.
Mai stood on the south side of the arena, bouncing on her feet, her swirly glasses glinting. She saw Sayo coming down the stairs and cracked her neck.
"Hey! Genjutsu girl!" Mai called. "I saw what you did to the face paint guy. Pretty clever stuff."
Sayo took her position on the north side. "Thank you."
"Won't work on me though." Mai grinned. "Just so you know."
"We'll see."
Chiasa raised her hand. "Second semifinal match. Sayo versus Mai."
She dropped her hand. "Begin."
Sayo's hands came together, quickly weaving through hand signs. The subtle genjutsu that shifted perception by inches. The technique that had beaten Goza. The technique that no one had ever detected before it was too late.
Chakra pulsed outward. Invisible. Silent. A whisper of foreign energy aimed at Mai.
Mai's head tilted.
Behind her glasses, the Byakugan saw it. A thread of foreign chakra, thin as silk, reaching toward her from across the arena. It touched the edge of her chakra network and slipped in through the gaps between her natural flow.
She'd seen this before. Pakura had done it to her dozens of times in their secret training. The feeling was unmistakable. Foreign chakra, trying to settle into her chakra network, altering her reality.
Mai flared her chakra. It surged through her network and blew the invading chakra out like wind through an open window. The genjutsu shattered before it had even formed.
Sayo's eyes widened by a fraction.
"Told you…" Mai sang.
Sayo tried again. A different approach. Layered this time, the same technique that had fooled Goza. An obvious first layer meant to be detected and broken, with the real genjutsu hidden beneath it.
Mai saw both.
The Byakugan showed her everything. Two distinct threads of foreign chakra, both reaching for her at the same time. She flared twice to break them both.
"Two layers?" Mai raised an eyebrow. "That's the trick you used on that Face Paint loser, right? Sorry! That's not going to work on me, sadly."
Sayo lowered her hands as the normally deadpan look on her face shifted into frustration. She couldn't catch this girl in a genjutsu. It was like she could tell every time. But the point of her genjutsu was that you couldn't notice it. Not until it was already too late. What the hell was going on?
But she wasn't giving up just yet.
Sayo's hand went to her kunai pouch. Three shuriken fanned between her fingers and she threw them in a spread aimed at Mai's torso.
Mai caught two out of the air and deflected the third with the caught ones. She started walking forward.
Sayo pulled out multiple kunai and threw them. Mai avoided the seemingly reckless and panicked spread without breaking stride.
Ninja wire. Sayo attached ninja wire to her kunai, creating a web across the arena floor, thin metal lines that caught the lamplight in faint glimmers.
Mai saw the wire through her glasses. She stepped over the first line. Ducked under the second. Sidestepped the third. The web that would have caught any normal opponent was obvious in her eyes.
"You can see them… You can see everything…" Sayo murmured. Something about those glasses.
Explosive tag. Sayo slapped one onto a kunai and threw it at Mai's feet. The detonation kicked up sand and stone. Mai was already airborne, flipping over the blast, landing on top of one of the wires.
Another explosive kunai. Mai used chakra to stick to the wire as she stood upside down underneath it, dodging it. A third. Mai leapt away. Each explosion bought Sayo a second of space but Mai ate the distance faster than Sayo could create it.
Poison smoke bomb. Sayo pulled the canister from her pouch and threw it between them. Purple cloud, expanding fast.
Mai ran through it. She held her breath, closed the gap in two strides, and emerged from the other side of the cloud with her fist already moving.
Sayo barely blocked the first punch. The impact traveled through her forearms and into her shoulders and she felt her feet slide backward in the sand. The second punch came from below, an uppercut aimed at her chin. She twisted sideways and it grazed her cheek.
Flash bomb. Sayo pulled it from behind her back and cracked it point blank. White light flooded the arena. Every genin in the gallery flinched and covered their eyes.
Mai closed her eyes behind her glasses, as she already saw Sayo bringing out the flash bomb. Once the initial flash was over and she opened her eyes, Sayo was pouncing toward her with a kunai in hand, eyes closed.
Mai grabbed her wrist, tapped her shoulder three times in a second and tossed her across the arena.
Sayo stood in the center of the arena holding her right arm that hung uselessly. Her pouch was nearly empty. Her genjutsu was useless. Her taijutsu wouldn't survive two exchanges against someone who had nothing but taijutsu.
She looked at Mai. At the bandaged fists. At the glasses that somehow saw everything. At the grin that wasn't cruel but wasn't kind either.
She thought about Goza thrashing on the ground, refusing to accept his loss, being pinned by the proctor. She thought about Pakura nearly killing Torune over a scratch.
She thought about what losing with dignity looked like versus what losing without it looked like.
"I give up." Sayo exhaled with irritation.
Mai stopped walking. The grin flickered. "What!?"
"My genjutsu doesn't work on you. My tools barely slow you down. And my taijutsu isn't going to beat yours." Sayo's voice was the same flat tone she always used. "I know when I'm outmatched. There's no point in taking a beating just to prove I can take one."
Mai looked at her for a long moment. She pouted.
"How lame…" Mai said. "I wanted to show off some more."
"Sorry to disappoint." Sayo crossed her arms with a small smirk. It sucks that she lost but she couldn't really do anything to prevent that. Not as she is now.
Chiasa stepped forward. "Winner: Mai!"
The arena let out a breath. From the gallery, Torune was the first to move, leaning over the railing.
"Sayo! Good fight!"
Ryusa joined him. "You did great!"
Sayo looked up at them with a shake of her head. She was a loser. That was that. She needed to find an answer for someone who could see through everything.
She walked toward the stairs. As she passed Mai, she spoke without looking at her.
"For the record, the genjutsu should have worked. I don't know what's different about you, but it should have worked."
"I trained for it. Specifically for someone like you." Mai said.
Sayo paused. "Someone like me?"
"A genjutsu user. I got caught in one once, on a mission. Almost got my teammates killed. So I spent weeks training to feel it coming and break it before it takes hold." She shrugged. "You're just unlucky. On any other day, against any other person, you'd have won."
Sayo considered this. "That doesn't make me feel better."
"I don't care about making you feel better. Just telling you the truth."
Sayo's eyebrow twitched "Mind telling me where you got those glasses from?"
"I do." Mai grinned.
"Well, next time you come by some, do you mind letting me know? I'd be interested in something like those." She climbed the stairs, already knowing she wouldn't do that.
"Are you crazy!? These are one of a kind you know! My-" Mai managed to stop herself before she revealed the origin of her glasses. "Clever Rat…"
Sayo laughed loudly on her way. A little bit upset her manipulation tactic didn't work. But she did manage to get that someone that she knew, gave her those glasses.
Chiasa walked to the center of the arena. She faced the gallery. The evaluators. The observation window where the Third Kazekage watched.
"The semifinals are complete. The final match of the Chunin Exams will be held shortly."
She looked at the bracket board. Two names remained.
"Karura versus Mai."
From the gallery, Karura and Mai looked at each other. Teammates. Friends. The puppet master and the taijutsu specialist who inspired her first puppet. Well, first complete puppets. The giant hands were like prototypes…
Mai's grin was wide. "I've been waiting for this since you buried me in that crater, Puppet Gal."
Karura adjusted her scarf. "Let's have a good fight, Mai."
"I'm not going to hold back."
"I wouldn't want you to."
"Good." Mai cracked her knuckles. "Because I'm going to win this time. My secret technique will floor you, Karura!"
Karura actually didn't know how Mai, who could not use genjutsu or ninjutsu, have a secret jutsu. "Secret technique?"