Fair in Love and War

It was about damn time already!

Third exam of the Chuunin Exams! Speechifying about how this is all a stand-in for war! Posturing around! There's just too many of us so time for preliminaries! Orochimaru in disguise! Kabuto dropping out even though I had specifically made eye contact with him!

"That yellow-bellied, spineless little four-eyes..."

Naruto blinked at me, frowning with a squint at my reaction, looking very much like an inquisitive fox.

"Isn't it good that he left, if he's so strong?"

I growl. "That he's strong is exactly why I wanted to figure out his techniques. And fighting him would be the easiest way to do that."

"I guess..." he shrugged, probably deciding that after spending five days in confinement with me that it just wasn't worth it to deal with my idiosyncrasies. Which was a bit of a shocker. Since when had I become the troublesome and tiresome member of our team?

Whatever. It didn't matter; the first fight was coming up.

And...

I blinked. Not exactly the fairest of match-ups, but at least I was fighting first again.

"Shikamaru, huh?" I said, a vicious smile tugging at my features as I turned to look at the Nara.

Our eyes met and I could see the desire to give up on his face, plain as day.

"...Too troublesome," he muttered, looking away.

"You're just going to give up, Shika?" Ino asked, looking conflicted.

The dark-haired nin grimaced.

"Come on, Shikamaru! You can't give up that easy!" Surprisingly—or probably not, now that I thought about it—it was Naruto who was cheering him on.

"Will the..." The special jounin—if I remembered correctly—started to say, but was interrupted by a coughing fit. It sounded wet and nasty, and at the end, his eyes looked a little bloodshot. I winced, hating the kinds of coughs where you could feel the pressure all the way up into your eyes. "Will the contestants remain, and everyone else vacate the arena for the stands above..."

Only the three of us remained, Shikamaru slouching as he shoved his hands into his pockets, studiously avoiding looking at me in the eye. How unlucky. Shika was never the strongest fighter, even if he is pretty well-suited for one-on-one fights.

Which was exactly why I had made a few strategies to deal with his sexual harassment shadow jutsu. It was exactly the kind of bullshit immobilization technique that I hated dealing with.

While it was an unlucky draw for you, for me this is pretty much optimal.

I liked this kind of fight. Sparring, friendly matches, tournaments, and the like. This wasn't like with Orochimaru, an asymmetrical battle without rules or restraints. This was more like my bout against Kakashi—the kind of battlefield where I could leisurely test myself. Specifically, things I hadn't worked all the kinks out of yet.

Because for all that I got called one—especially following the whole thing with Zabuza—Shika was an actual, legitimate genius. Let's see who'll come out on top - your big brain or my preparations and planning...

And as an added bonus, I had no interest in his skills or techniques, meaning I wouldn't worry about missing out on anything interesting that I might be able to see more clearly from the sidelines. I hated those kinds of scenarios, where two parallel goals required opposite means to achieve. Though that tended to be more in games than anything really important, back before.

This had actual consequences, so I was doubly satisfied with how streamlined it all was.

"Now, the fight will continue until one of you forfeits or I decree a victor. In that case, any further action against your opponent will be grounds for immediate disqualification or other reprisals under my discretion. Understood?"

We both nodded, Shikamaru more with the resolution of a man stepping to his death than my own expectant gesture for the fight to start already.

"Good. Then... Nara Shikamaru versus Uchiha Sasuke... Begin."

Neither of us moved.

We stared at each other for a long second and I could see the gears slowly turning in my opponent's head. I was acting cocky. But with good reason. With the difference in our base abilities, I could easily overwhelm him at nearly any range, even assuming I had remained at my level from the Academy and not kept improving at the furious pace as I actually had.

And right now, if I had to guess, Shikamaru was thinking whether or not I was cocky enough for him to eke out an upset win.

"Hmm."

Reaching back, I grabbed the bundled and folded tags from my pouch, taking three into each hand.

It had taken a little bit of practice and dusting off of old origami skills, but eventually the method for making paper shuriken out of two rectangular pieces of paper had returned to me. Of course, being paper they couldn't really hurt anyone and the way they flew was a little bit off compared to the real things, but that was fine.

Because these weren't just any old tags; these were the results of my ad hoc sealing practice these past five days.

I called them radiance tags! For the character 'radiance' written on them, obviously.

Well, with the current configuration they were radiance star-tags, though. Or shuritags in general. But semantics.

Turns out my worries about using kanji were mostly unfounded, for when it came to simple tags like these. No foreheads or cars; just a simple flash of light, the intensity of which was dependent on their charge. And among my experimentation with sealing in the past few days, they were my only solid success. Being little more than a variant of the basic explosion tag, they weren't that impressive though.

Now if I could just get my vacuum or implosion tag idea working, I could have solidly locked down half the competition. Well, half of all ninjutsu, period. Eh, save it for later.

I primed all six paper shuritags, dropping one to my feet and tossing the other two at Shikamaru.

He jumped back, hands flying to his pouch and drawing a kunai though he hesitated when the paper shuriken flew right past him, landing harmlessly at the end of the arena with soft, harmless noises on impact behind him. Way out of the radius of usual explosion tags, too.

Completely harmless things. I wouldn't worry about it, Shikamaru.

The Nara turned, his calculating glance only lasting a fraction of a second when the projectiles failed to accomplish anything.

"...What a drag."

He knew I was setting something up, because of course I was. But until I chose to use the tags, he had no idea what that something was. Should he move away from the tags? Or was that some kind of bluff, meant to control where he was going...

That's what I would be thinking, were I him.

Really though, they were just insurance. The far wall was a fairly good surface, nice and even and fairly light in color, to reflect light off of and to radically shift any shadows on the floor with.

I smirked at his wary mien and then tossed another two behind me, before finally drawing a kunai. A quick application of chakra string attached my remaining two projectiles, paper and chakra steel, to each other. With that, I tossed it straight up into the ceiling above us.

Front and back, floor and ceiling. I now had primed lights to cancel shadows from nearly all directions, without needing any handseals to set the tags off. Check and mate, I thought but didn't say out loud. I didn't actually know if there was a similar sentiment in Go and I had only ever played Chess casually before. I wished I had the foresight to figure out the phrase, just to mess with Shikamaru, but I hadn't really considered the fight before now.

Now what?

Seeing my confidence, the Nara grimaced, before sighing and finally deciding to make a move.

He threw his kunai at my legs. So I side—Aiming for the paper shuriken behind me?—I kicked the kunai out of the air, using the tree walking exercise to re-direct it in the air and deflect it into my hand, from whence I tossed it back with a lazy backhand.

Shikamaru dodged the projectile, his hands flying up into his favorite rat seal as he jumped forward.

His shadow shot forward like a loosed arrow.

And...

I let it snatch mine.

Shikamaru blinked as we looked at each other. In the stands, I could hear Ino screaming at the deer-boy to let me go immediately while Chouji tried to silently cheer him on following this most unexpected coup.

But I could see it in Shikamaru's eyes, that he was only growing warier with how easy this had been. He knew that I knew what his clan jutsu was. He hadn't ever showed it off at the Academy... but I was a clan kid. This was just information people knew, if not the specifics, then at least the general principle of it.

As he moved—and my body moved with him, without any input from me—I marveled at the sensation, Sharingan whirling finally to life as I stared at the thread of black connecting us together. Huh, can't make heads or tails of this. Go figure.

Maybe I should have actually looked at the handseals... Nah.

I had enough countermeasures I wanted to test out as it was; could I create a chakra construct around me to cut off our shadows since I could do it seallessly? Or how about Transforming and having its shadow separate from mine? Or how about simply straining against the jutsu with strength and chakra?

Struggling to move, I noted dispassionately how it felt like staring at your own hand and willing it to obey without actually going through the motions. Like I had been sitting on a leg for too long and it just refused to move.

That threw out brute force.

But what about the transformations and occluding it with chakra—Ah, he's about to do something.

Letting Shikamaru get too much free rein was not a good idea. Better to reset and keep him on his toes, trying out my other ideas at the second attempt. My chakra reached for one of the primed shuritags.

"Pop," I said out loud just for show.

The paper shuriken at my feet went off, its bright radiance blinding for a second as I had time to see my opponent's eyes go wide as he jumped back, my body moving to mirror his—until the connection snapped and I lurched back under my own control again. It was like the jolt when unexpectedly stepping off of an escalator.

Shadows vanished, no, were pushed back and torn apart under the harsh light, cutting the thread binding us together until the radiance star-tag died off, fizzling out with a small puff of chakra smoke on the floor between us.

Alright. That works.

I still had several surprises up my sleeve, like the fact that each star was actually two tags, since I needed two pieces of paper to fold one star anyhow. So if he tried to make me run out, I could surprise him by doubling the effective count of flashes at my disposal.

And I had a few ideas for dealing with his shadow even beyond that, which—

"I give up."

I blinked, stumbling even though I hadn't been about to take a step.

"Shikamaru, you lazy bugger, I was only just getting started."

"...Which is exactly why I give up. You've got that look in your eyes again..." Shikamaru sighed, turning to the proctor and stating emphatically: "I give up."

The special jounin coughed, a much dryer one this time, thankfully. "Winner by forfeit, Uchiha Sasuke."

I glared at them both, but seeing as how the show was already moving on without me, was forced to accept it. I retrieved all my tools, leaving my thrown kunai in the ceiling to last as I returned to the stands by way of a Flicker-to-the-ceiling-Flicker-to-Naruto.

At this rate, fighting that chakra-draining teammate of Kabuto's would have been a better use of my time. At least he would have actually tried. Then again, I hadn't prepared a specific hard counter for his abilities, wanting to observe in action as much as possible...

"So that's why you made all of those things."

I looked to the blond and nodded.

Well, not the only reason. Flashbangs are always useful.

Maybe teaching—or learning alongside with—Naruto how to make explosive tags wasn't the smartest of ideas, but I stood by the results. Sure, I could only realistically make the much, much cheaper radiance tags, while Naruto could just pump out explosive tags by the phone book, but it gave both of us a lot more options again. Especially Naruto.

Boom, boom, boom-days ahead, everyone.

"Maa, well done, Sasuke."

And enter Kakashi.

"Thanks, sensei. It was only possible because of your impeccably thorough and tough teachings. Couldn't have done it with you," I replied, chipper and smiling.

But he remains, as always, unmoved. "You're very welcome and I'm glad I could help, Sasuke. Now, we should be getting back to Konoha, wouldn't you say?"

So my going first wasn't a fluke? I guess in canon Sasuke went first too because they wanted him as far away from the forest immediately.

"Yeah, nah."

"Now, Sasuke..."

"That snake freak's still running around, isn't he?" I ask, just loudly enough for everyone to hear. Said snake freak included. Yeah, I see you bitch. "No way I'm leaving. The Hokage, his ANBU, and the village's strongest jounin are just about the only safe place around at the moment, when you think about it."

Everyone around stood quiet and tense.

Poor Kankuro and... Who was the other guy, again? I remembered that he was a stretchy guy, like Orochimaru. Just, without being a world-renowned badass and master of ninjutsu to go with the unnaturally long limbs. Misumi. His name was Tsurugi Misumi.

Wow, that's a badas last name. Aaand it's completely wasted on this fucker.

Anyhow, poor Kankuro and Misumi. No one was paying them any attention.

"Well," Kakashi began to say.

"And besides, I already showed all of my best moves against Shikamaru. There's no way it's fair for my competition to get away with that without me getting to see them." I turned to look at the fight below, ignoring Kakashi. "Oh, look, it's starting."

I thought about turning on the Sharingan, but...

Well, I had already seen Kankuro's string technique before and replicated the relevant improvements onto my own technique. And I had no intention of becoming a stretchy boy. Had never really been that big of a fan of One Piece now that I thought about it. Just never clicked with me.

Now that enough attention had been pulled to us and seeing that I wasn't coming along so easily, Kakashi seemed to give up on dragging me off. So we all settled to watch the fight, though it wasn't much. Misumi tried to put the squeeze on the puppet, puppet proved itself tough enough to withstand. Puppet was built full of hidden blades and poison.

It was over soon enough.

"Winner, Kankuro."

All eyes went to the randomizer board up above.

Shino versus Zaku, again.

Hmm. Different, but same.

As the two made their way down, I immediately noticed a change that entirely overturned my expectations for how the match would go. I hadn't run into the Sound genin during the second exam; Zaku's arms were still completely fine.

"Let's see how Shino handles this."

"You think he'll win?" Naruto asked. "We didn't get much info on those guys, but they seemed pretty strong."

I shrugged.

In the anime, Zaku had been pretty much the definition of a one-trick pony. Worse yet, he was a cocky one-trick pony.

"Begin," the proctor declared and I leaned against the railing to look on, though without my Sharingan. Neither had any specific techniques I thought I could use.

Zaku began with loud boasting, throwing some meaningful glances my way, as if he thought the insect user was completely beneath him. I guess the Sound genin were nervous, having so utterly failed in their mission to kill me.

Shino on the other hand looked like the picture-perfect Aburame he was.

Cool, calm, detached, and in perfect control.

God, he was so dreamy.

"Zankuha!" Zaku roared, throwing his arms forward, and the resulting blast was certainly impressive as it tore apart Shino.

Or the insect clone, anyhow.

Suddenly the arena was abuzz, massive clouds of insects seemingly appearing from nowhere and everywhere at once, blanketing every surface. Even without my doujutsu, I recognized the immaterial chakra constructs mixed in with the real swarm, easily quadrupling the apparent volume.

"Hah! Is this really the best Konoha has to offer!"

Zaku wasn't impressed, probably dismissing the basic nature of the jutsu as just a bluff rather than a distraction. Because Shino was moving behind the cover of his swarm, real and illusionary, setting himself up out of sight. Was he moving in closer for a physical attack, or setting his swarm in place to clog those body modifications that Zaku had, like in canon?

I resisted the temptation to turn on my Sharingan, intent on reasoning it out for myself.

"It's already over," Shino declared, standing behind Zaku.

The boy whirled—but in the wrong direction, arms cast out to throw out another blast of air which failed to hit anything. But he wasn't discouraged, growing louder and louder as he continued blasting as he whirled around again. He started laughing maniacally soon, too.

It was only a full minute later that he realized something was wrong, shouting loudly: "Release!" as he tried to stop his chakra circulation.

It looks like he took my advice to heart and managed to get something out of Kurenai, after all.

Mixing real attacks with illusionary clones were the basics, but the step after that was throwing in genjutsu and blurring the line between what was real and fake. And it looked like Shino had found some way to apply the chakra intrusion with his insects, without the need for handseals.

"Release! Release!"

If they could drain chakra, then surely they could just as well continually disrupt its flow, right?

Canceling a genjutsu attack was simple in theory; you detected an abnormality, either with your senses or then in your chakra, and then you disrupted the flow within you forcefully. It was like clearing your nose once your realized it was stuffed. Simple enough, though not always easy to do in the middle of a fight the same way that trying to clear your nose might not be.

"Was Shino always that good with genjutsu...?" Sakura asked aloud, with growing awe and apprehension.

In theory, it was possible to make double-layered genjutsu, which activated immediately following a forceful cancel of its first part, but such jutsu were very advanced. Definitely not something a genin ought to know. Even with my Sharingan allowing me to bypass the need for handseals, it wasn't something I thought I could do just yet.

Well, I had other measures I could use, of course.

"He's using his insects to do it," I whispered to her, careful to keep others beyond our team from hearing.

Though by the way Akamaru's ears twitched, he probably heard anyhow.

"The kikaichu can drain your chakra if they get on your skin. But it usually requires a whole swarm to be effective... Someone like Naruto could just ignore it and push through. But for genjutsu which instead requires very minute and careful control..."

She nodded, eyes alit with understanding.

It hadn't taken more than the length of our little conversation for Shino to set up his swarm. With Zaku blasting in all the wrong directions and tiring himself out, the insects had no trouble covering him more and more fully, even as the Sound genin tripped and tried to make distance from some illusionary assault.

And then Zaku was lying on the ground, covered in insects. It was almost like he had died and just been left the for a few days.

Only a scant few seconds later the sickly proctor ended it.

"Winner, Aburame Shino."

Alright, who's next...?

My memory of the prelims weren't the clearest as far as the details and order went, but I did remember the matchups pretty clearly. Looking up at the board for the next fight, I mentally tallied the remaining genin. Only...

Tenten and Ino.

"Huh. Well, this won't take long."

"You think so, Sasuke-kun? We didn't get any intelligence on her or her team during the second exam..." Sakura pointed out in quiet tones, just as the proctor called for Tenten and Ino to come down for the next match. "Her team is just one year older than us, and Ino-pig is from a clan..."

"Well, just watch," I replied with a shrug as I turned on my Sharingan.

It was a pretty brutal thing, even without the slow-mo, super-high-definition clarity my eyes gave me.

Ino was a support-type, through and through. Without her team to set her jutsu up she was left with essentially the same repertoire as Sakura had - that being the Academy basics. And with a year below her belt on Maito I-make-Uchiha-Itachi-pack-up-and-run Gai's team, Tenten surpassed Ino in all regards.

The fact that she had brought enough weapons to arm an entire damn army didn't even factor in as the weapons mistress opted to wield a staff instead of some of her more lethal tools. Which, while not a weapon I thought I would ever use, could someday turn out useful enough. I mean, a stick is a stick; you can always find one in a pinch.

"Winner, Tenten."

I closed my eyes, nodding as I turned off my Sharingan.

Sakura seemed more than a little bothered as her blonde-ex-friend was taken away on a stretcher, though it was only really a matter of a few bumps and bruises.

"Come on! When is it gonna be my turn?!" Naruto grumbled, glaring at the digital board as if it was to blame. The matches until now hadn't really managed to keep his attention.

The nearby genin—especially those from the other villages—stared at him with varying levels of animosity. It was doubtful they knew we had been the first to the tower and to them the entire fiasco with Orochimaru must have seemed, at least partly, to have been Naruto's fault, considering how visible the orange ninja had been during the whole thing.

It didn't seem like people were taking him very seriously, either.

That was to be expected from the Konoha genin, given Naruto's academic record, but most of the foreigners shouldn't have taken his orange and loud exterior as all there was to the would-be Hokage.

Hmm?

"So this time it's the Hyuugas."

The match-up remained unchanged, too. At this point, I was pretty sure it wasn't as randomized as we had been told, since so much had remained unchanged even with all the shenanigans I had gotten up to in the second exam.

I only paid the barest fraction of attention to the banter and drama between the two taijutsu specialists—and Naruto, who was paying rapt attention—before the match began. But as soon as the proctor declared the fight to begin, red screamed into my eyes as activated the Sharingan at full focus.

This wasn't going to be something I was going to miss.

"Sasuke, even with the copy wheel eye, you won't be able to use the Hyuuga's Gentle Fist style..."

"Hush, Kakashi. You know nothing."

As impressive as the Gentle Fist was with its fast, flowing strikes and angular deflections, the fight didn't last all that long. In fact, it was even shorter than the fight between Tenten and Ino had been, since once both had gotten into their preferred range, neither was going to step back. It was by no means a boring match, since the two had practically started with the pedal to the metal, throwing a dozen strikes a second.

And where the ending to that fight had been bloodless, this one ended with the heiress of the clan nearly dying again.

When Naruto got worked up, I almost pointed out that it had been his egging her on which had led to this conclusion, but in the end, I chose to just keep my mouth shut. Those two would probably end up facing in the finals, so no point in damping their drama.

So the shy girl got carted off in a stretcher.

Should I have done something about that? I didn't remember much about Hinata, other than the bad fanfics where she was paired off with Naruto. Well, there was People Lie, but I would never put Nugar's works in the category of bad fanfics, even if it was entirely removed from the real thing.

By now, Sakura was looking positively pale, having seen the two other girls from our Academy year already leave the exams on stretchers, unconscious. And as if to punctuate her worries, the next match-up looked positively brutal.

"Will Temari and Haruno Sakura come down for the next match?"

Ouch. Well, Sakura's done.

If Tenten hadn't managed a damn thing against the wind-user in canon then what chance did Sakura have?

"Good luck, Sakura-chan!" Naruto wished obliviously to his crush.

She nodded and turned to me, biting her lip with a look of hopeful expectation. Was she expecting me to say something? Well, I just nodded at her with a serious look, letting her take it however she wished.

The pinkette left without another word, hurrying down.

"You don't think she can win?" Kakashi asked, eyeing me sideways.

I shrugged, not willing to trash-talk the teammate out loud, even if I was willing to think it to myself. Pretty much constantly, too. Instead, I said: "The Sand team was second to the tower, right after us, and she's the oldest of the team. There's no way she's an average genin."

"And neither is Sakura. She is the brightest kunoichi of her age," he said with an eye-smile.

Riiight...

Down below, pinkette and blonde faced each other and their confidences couldn't have been further apart.

Temari, probably sensing just how precarious Sakura's chances were, was giving her best cocky bitch-smile. Which, given, was actually a pretty attractive look for her, since she wasn't just all talk either.

"Begin," the proctor declared.

Sakura immediately jumped back, drawing shuriken and tossing them at the Sand girl, who contemptuously slapped the projectiles aside with a swat of her large fan, opening it only enough to reveal a single one of her painted dots.

Just as I so often groused to myself, kunai and shuriken suffered too much from air resistance. In normal throws, it merely limited their effective range, but against a powerful wind-user like Temari, that made them effectively useless.

The pinkette barely had time to dodge the violent winds throwing her own weapons back at her, and I could see the mounting panic in her eyes as she rolled and jumped again to make distance.

Wrong... You should have closed in immediately, Sakura.

She ran through the handseals for the regular clone jutsu and it almost felt painful to watch, given how slow she made it look. I hated jutsu with long strings of handseals, but even so, I made sure to train in them so that if I did need them I could run through them as fast as possible.

Five Konoha genin popped into existence and the six all split, moving to enclose the leisurely Temari who was leaning on her fan.

They drew kunai and closed in, tossing the knives at the last second.

And the blonde snapped up the fan, deflecting the sole real kunai, having detected it through the sound of it flying through the air, just by keeping her head cool. It was the difference experience made. Seriously, what a babe.

Has Sakura even been to a single real fight, yet?

Well, this was as good a time as any, I supposed. Unlike her brothers, Temari was actually remarkably gentle. Sure, she'd drop a forest on her enemies if it came down to that, and would boast and gloat with the best of them. But unlike her siblings, she was neither cruel nor bloodthirsty in a fight.

The two kunoichi engaged in taijutsu, but it was obvious that the pinkette was being crushed by her more experienced opponent, who was using her superior physique and weapon to completely dominate Sakura. It was only by way of a particularly loud and painful-looking smack that she managed to make some distance again, stumbling back on her feet from the closed fan's strike.

Sakura panted, taking a knee and staring up through one purpling bruise that was starting to close over her left eye.

Temari by contrast was utterly uninjured. Hardly a hair out of place.

"Already finished?" Temari taunted.

My teammate looked down and I could see that she was biting her lip, trembling. Beside me Naruto was screaming his head off, encouraging his 'Sakura-chan' and grabbing the metal rail so hard that it was creaking, at the sight of how the match was going. Perhaps becoming mindful of Naruto, she turned her head and our eyes met.

Pale green and jet black.

Did she realize what that meant? That I hadn't even thought it worth to steal any of the techniques in this fight? That whatever she might be able to draw out of the Suna genin in this fight wasn't even worth the minimal expenditure of chakra? Did she expect me to encourage her on, or something?

She must have seen it, or at least a part of it, flinching back from the sight of me.

The sheer disinterest in her struggles.

Sakura pulled herself up to her feet, something settling in her back and shoulders as she turned to look at her opponent. Temari looked more mildly amused than anything as Sakura drew a kunai and jumped back, three, four steps, putting almost the entire length of the arena between them.

Giving me a new view of her face.

Hmm...?

That wasn't an expression I remembered ever before seeing on her face.

Her left hand drew shuriken and in a smooth motion sent them flying at the fan-wielder, who once again effortlessly swatted them out of the air. But the distance kept Sakura safe from the violent winds, their peak intensity aimed at the projectiles, only ruffling her long pink tresses as she stared with wild eyes at the blonde.

Not wild. Calculating.

Again, three shuriken sliced through the air and were swept aside, pink hair swaying softly. She was weighing the kunai in her hand, holding it point down in her right hand between thumb and index finger, not as if she was readying a throw, but rather as if...

"Wait...No way."

Sharingan whirled alive and my eyes went wide - she was.

The kunai wasn't held between her fingers. It was on a chakra string. She was readying a more powerful throw with the Chakra Sling. But why jump back, unless she wasn't trying to punch through the wind with force, but rather time it.

Naruto noticed my shift, broken from his desperate, wild cheering. "What is it, Sasuke?"

"Sasuke has just realized that there is more to Sakura than meets the eye," Kakashi said, sounding decidedly smug. And I just had to look at him. Since when goddamn had he put in a single shred of effort into any of us?

But annoyingly, he was right. If Sakura pulled this off, that was.

"Let's end this," Temari declared, apparently having grown tired as she snapped open her fan to a full three dots.

Sakura braced herself.

Through the Sharingan I could see the thick tendril of chakra pushing through the string into the metal, forcing its way inside. Way more chakra than was necessary for just the chakra string holding it. It was like she was pushing a bucket through a straw. Closer to the amount that was, rather, necessary for a Flicker Throw. Which, when I thought about it, was the perfect counter to Temari—using a technique specifically designed to combat air resistance to negate a wall of wind.

But this wasn't just something she could pull off nilly-willy; it represented a considerable portion of her meager reserves. She only had one shot at this.

The kunai dropped down to knee height, then stopped as if coming to a rest in mid-air, string stretching out for the Sling.

Set.

"Third Star!" Temari cried out, swinging her fan.

Sakura swung out, reeling in the chakra string at the same time as the wind rushed to slam her back against the wall. Where I had a habit of spinning it like a loud bullroarer over my head for the wind-up, her Sling was just a no-nonsense over-the-shoulder affair, trusting more on the quick and precise reeling in of the chakra string to launch the kunai from her grasp, closer to a shepherd's sling.

The launched kunai didn't even make a sound, punching through the air in an instant, drawing a black line through the length of the arena in my Sharingan, and...

Embedding itself up to the ring in Temari's gut, almost bowling over the blonde as her eyes went wide and she lost her grip on her fan, mid-swing.

Sakura weathered the wind, hunkering down on her knees and with the tree walking skill until the wind mistresses' only half-formed storm had passed. And aside from her torn clothes and a few shallow cuts on her shoulders, she looked perfectly unharmed.

"Go Sakura-chan!" Naruto cried, almost toppling over the rail and down onto the fighting arena. I turned off my eyes, exhaling slowly.

The pinkette got back up to her feet, looking almost surprised to see that she was still alive.

And then her eyes found the Sand girl, lying in a heap in the middle of a slowly expanding pool of her own blood. I could see the shock and horror register, snapping Sakura out of the zone - the state of mind of pure focus.

This was effectively her first kill, even if Temari would survive.

You didn't walk off a kunai to the solar plexus. Even if you lived, the nerve center there would absolutely wreck you with pain. Temari wasn't getting up. This match was over.

"Winner, Haruno Sakura."

Jesus Christ. Who the hell is that and what has she done to Sakura? I stared at her as she walked back up to us, looking shellshocked and overwhelmed, as if she had in fact been the one who had lost, rather than the other way around. How the hell is it, that the single most useful technique I've managed to steal during the preliminaries was from Sakura...?

That Flicker Sling was something I'd dismissed as so prohibitively difficult as to be pointless in a real fight. And with a normal kunai, for fucks sake?

Naruto loudly received her, showering her with praises, but it was only when Kakashi patted her that she seemed to snap out of her thoughts.

I almost felt dumb for talking so much shit about her for that moment, seeing her like that. Having won and actually accomplishing something without a shred of thought to her dumb damn crush on 'Uchiha Sasuke'.

And then she went and ruined it, hopeful eyes turning to look at me, hungry for the same praise and reciprocation of mindless affection that she always hounded me with. And it just made me so god damn angry. That she had this much fucking potential—that she had legitimately beat Temari—but that she still reverted to this goddamn fucking bullshit.

I had never before thought much of Haruno Sakura.

But, now I think I learned to hate her and everything she was, for just this one moment.

It made sense. Canon Sasuke left; Sakura sought out Tsunade; Tsunade accepted Sakura as an apprentice. Tsunade, while a lot of things, wasn't someone who'd accept a damn apprentice on nothing. Even something like being Kakashi's student or Naruto's teammate would mean fuck and all to her.

Yet that Sakura, who would no doubt lose to the one standing before me right now, had managed that.

She had the potential. But only so long as 'I' wasn't in the picture, occluding her potential from being realized.

Outwardly, I showed none of this, merely giving off a small, pleasant if utterly hollow smile.

"Good job."

But what could I do about it?

I could just continue to ignore her, treat her like the leper of the team like I had. In fact, since I was probably going to get promoted, I wasn't going to be interacting with her for much longer. But at this rate all she would think about was how to continue chasing after me, I figured, rather than accomplishing anything of her own.

Could I hook her up with Tsunade?

No, no. That was only possible through defection and having being abandoned galvanizing her. And I sure as hell wasn't going with Orochimaru just to give her some motivation. Besides which, hadn't she still ended up with canon Sasuke in the end? Meaning that she had continued to love him despite all that? I think they had a kid, too.

Again, my lack of detailed knowledge of canon was muddying the lines.

Should I just leave her be? Just because I hated what she was didn't mean I had to interfere. Or that I necessarily had any right to, either. Not if I wasn't going to take full responsibility. It was one thing if I was willing to more or less Hikaru Genji her up into something that suited my ideals. She was already an adult in shinobi society—but practically speaking grooming her wouldn't be that hard, given the difference in mental age and the sheer imbalance in our social standing, at least as far we concerned each other.

But the fact was that I had zero interest in her.

I didn't even hate her enough to want her harm. Just enough not to want to do anything with her. Fucking hell, what a primadonna I am. This is why no relationships ever worked out past a month with me back before.

It wasn't until the next match was well underway that I realized I had gotten way too lost in my thoughts over this whole thing.

Looking down I spotted Gaara facing off against one of the older Konoha genin. The chakra absorption guy who Sasuke faced in canon.

"Wooow..." I said, looking at the mask-wearing nin down there. "He's fucked."

Still, it was worth a look-see with my Sharingan to see if the chakra absorption technique was something I could steal. And unfortunately, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. It looked like a reversed form of the tree walking exercise, but how he managed to 'reverse the polarity' of his own chakra, I had no idea.

Not that it was working either.

The sand was just overflowing with so much chakra that no matter how much of it the Konoha genin drained and left motionless, there was always more to pick up the slack or to re-possess that which had been emptied.

Gaara had him overwhelmed and trapped shortly, and without Lee's stubbornness or the enraged bloodlust of being struck for the first time in his life, Gaara accepted the concession without complaint. It was only as the Suna genin Flickered back up to the stands in a cloud of sand that I sensed his bloodlust spiking.

Our eyes met.

He looks pretty similar to Sakura, now that I really look at him. I wonder if they're distantly related.

"Your lie has caught up with you, Uchiha Sasuke."

I smirked, glad for the distraction actually. "I guess it did. More of a practical joke than a lie, really though."

Browless eyes narrowed, death spiking against my senses.

"Guess we'll settle it in the finals, what do you say?"

He didn't answer, turning around and walking back to his brother, who had been staring tensely at our exchange. I thought about saying something about Temari... but I guess that ship had sailed by now.

I looked up to the digital board, announcing the next fight and I couldn't help but perk up with interest.

Kin and Kiba.

Both of them had techniques I was interested in, so Sharingan time it was.

Kin's sound genjutsu was pretty rudimentary, but I was interested in the basics of it regardless. She was no Tayuya, but compared to Dosu whose entire gimmick was his chromed-out ghettoblaster, she could probably give me some ideas about how to use genjutsu through sound myself. Kiba on the other hand also had his techniques with Akamaru, which I thought I might be able to use to improve my own clones and transformations with.

Interested, I leaned forward against the railing as they both headed down. Kin by the stairs and Kiba leaping over the railing with a wild yahoo! with Akamaru yipping excitedly.

"Begin."

My Sharingan activated before the word was over. And it started predictably enough; Kin threw a handful of needles, setting up Kiba's expectations for her timing as Kiba and Akamaru got on all fours and on top of each other after popping a few soldier pills.

"Beast-Human Transformation!"

Kiba took on a more feral appearance as Akamaru took on that guise as his own, as if the two were exchanging characteristics to suit each other. It was similar to how the Shadow Clone imprinted on the user, but at the same time different, giving me a few ideas for how to expand on my jutsu.

It's like a real-time reference, or imprint for the chakra to check back to.

"Sasuke?"

I ignored Naruto, eyes whirling slowly as I analyzed the jutsu further.

It required a chakra pattern—meaning I would have to use a real raven for my Midnight Nameless if I wanted to go that route... But that was meaningless since my current transformation was more than accurate and stable enough as it was. I should instead try and incorporate something, or useful characteristics from something else into that transformation, using the Beast-Human technique's imprinting as a basis.

Nodding to myself at the conclusion, I took out a notepad and jotted down a few ideas, only paying half attention to the fight as Kiba and Akamaru rushed Kin from two sides.

She was hemmed in until she whipped out her bells and began to apply her sound-based genjutsu to disorient her opponents. Kiba shook it off easily enough, though violently and needlessly blowing through his chakra, but Akamaru was having more trouble with it.

"Akamaru! You bitch!" Kiba growled as he leapt at Kin, claws tearing at her clothes as she struggled under his relentless assault.

Annoyingly enough, I hadn't been able to figure out how she used the sound to propagate her genjutsu. I hadn't noticed anything obvious, like waves of chakra through the air, or anything. What was the basic principle behind it? It couldn't just be sound itself, could it?

If that was the case then why even bother using the bells on the needles and why not just talk? Neurolinguistic programming, but literally?

No, no. Genjutsu by definition was a jutsu that used chakra to affect another person's chakra coils, interacting with their body that way. It was like biological hacking. There had to be some chakra involved in the process, even if I couldn't figure it out at a glance.

Could it be that it's not her doing this, but it's the bells? Like with Zaku's arms and Dosu's speaker-gauntlet, she's just using convenient tools?

It did fit Orochimaru's modus operandi for this useless batch of mooks.

Giving a bunch of easily impressed kids some overpowered weapons and then sending them into the slaughterhouse where the moment their one trick stopped working they got utterly crushed was exactly the kind of thing he would find funny.

I bet he was laughing his ass off when Zaku's arms blew up in canon. Or was he even there at that point anymore, if Sasuke had gone to get medical and sealing attention? Couldn't really remember.

Oh, shit. He's staring at me right now.

"I see you are admiring Kin-kun's technique," the Sound jounin said, without even a hint of Orochimaru's slithery voice.

It probably was Orochimaru, though. I mean this guy kinda looked like Orochimaru, just not enough to set off the alarm bells. Straddling the line of 'Could it... no, no way, not even he is that ballsy. Can't be him...' like a professional tightrope walker.

"Are you offering me one-on-one lessons or is this just a clever come-on, miss?"

I could see Dosu furrowing his lone visible brow behind the jounin—he probably didn't know it was ol' Oro in double disguise, so he didn't know that the man was currently in a woman's body. I'm only a spiritual homo if it's a female body, right? That's what my Japanese porn comics had taught me.

That said, Naruto and Sakura were giving me weird looks now, too.

"Oh, you could tell?"

Orochimaru thankfully saved me though—like a true bro—as everyone within hearing distance whipped around to stare at him, giving up any pretense of paying attention to the fight going on below.

"Yeah." I nodded. "Your hip-to-shoulder ratio and point of balance are a bit off for a man. I don't have a fetish or anything... but your walk doesn't lie."

His—her?—eyes crinkled in delight and she—yeah, let's go with she for now—smiled sultrily. So I really don't mind that it's a fifty-year-old man, huh? I realized all too suddenly.

"You have very keen eyes, I see."

Yeah, definitely Orochimaru. I shrugged.

"So I've been told. Supposedly runs in the family," I reply and make the eyes spin and glow, waggling my brows twice.

Shit, I really am flirting with Orochimaru now, aren't I?

Is this an overcompensation because Temari lost to Sakura?

I'm hitting on the strongest biological female in the elemental nations just to make sure Sakura doesn't get any ideas? No, actually I'm just enjoying this, creepier as that fact actually makes it. But hey, thinking positive, at least I'm not the pedophile in this relationship. Theoretical relationship. Completely theoretical.

But remember Sasuke, keep this from genre-shifting now. Mindbreak and bodyjacking are baaad fetishes and you will not be awakening to that kind of filth, now or ever.

"Maa, Sasuke, that's enough of that."

I roll my eyes, turning down the chakra going to my eyes and bringing them back to a less eye-catching level.

"You don't like it when I burn down training grounds, you complain when I read porn in public and steal my books, abuse me when I try to show everyone how much I admire you through imitation, and now to top it all off, you won't let me hit on the hot older kunoichi from out of town..." I complain. "I'm this close to single-handedly creating a lasting peace between our two villages, you know? I might just be averting the next ninja war here, Kakashi."

He's not impressed, giving me a piercing look with his lone eye. It's actually worse that the last thing I said might very well be true. But, ah, let's just not think about that for a little while.

I throw up my hands, scoffing as I turn to Oro.

"Sorry babe, it's not you, it's just I'm in a weird phase in my life right now where everyone is butting into my business and telling me what to do..." I offer the Snake Sage as an apology and she smiles, the only one besides me amused by all of this.

You know, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing some hentai anime with a girl with a tongue like Oro has... But I think she was literally sticking it up the butt of the guy she was riding cowgirl. Not sure if I'm ready for that level of intimacy...

"Oh, the fight's over."

While Kiba had been rushing Kin, Akamaru had managed to get his bearings and conked the girl from behind, ending the fight quickly enough. I hadn't really missed anything else, so I nodded and allowed my eyes to fade back to black.

"Your kids are all kind of one-trick ponies, huh?"

That got a reaction out of Dosu, his glare pretty ticklish. Oh, right, he was trying to project killing intent.

"They serve their purpose," Orochimaru replies, unaffected, as we both ignore the bandaged hothead.

The last Sound genin hesitates in his reply, staring at the jounin uncertainly. I have no doubt that even without the possibility of it being Orochimaru entering Dosu's mind, he must hesitate to speak against a superior officer, given what little I've been able to glean of Oto's inner policies. Specifically how, ah, fluid the workplace hierarchy was, shall we say.

He's already failed in his mission to find and kill me during the second exam, and now with two of his teammates out, the pressure must be building up.

"Those two were trash. Where they failed, I will not."

Ooh. I smirk at his baleful glare.

Touched a nerve there, did I?

A hand is placed on my shoulder. Right, Kakashi. All this talk about useless teammates and sacrificing them for minor benefits must be really rubbing against his delicate sensibilities.

"Alright, alright..." Without fighting him, I move back away from the Sound contingent.

Which was just as well, since the next fight is up.

"Uzumaki Naruto, Kinuta Dosu. Please come down for the next match."

Well, that's an interesting match-up, for sure. I turned to look at the blond who was practically exploding with excitement now that it was finally his turn, and from the corner of my eye, I could see Dosu's eye glint with intent most malicious. Hmm, should I tell Naruto about the nausea-glove?

I thought about it for a second, before shrugging.

It didn't really matter whether or not Naruto won here; he wasn't going to become chuunin anyhow. So might as well let him experience some of the hardships he had missed during the second exam. Well, not that Dosu and Orochimaru are in any way comparable.

"Hey, Naruto. Have fun," I said in my most unconcerned voice, ignoring the now-fuming Oto genin.

Naruto grinned, completely oblivious to my provoking of his opponent, throwing me a confident thumbs up.

Behind me, Kakashi sighed again. Well, if you won't let me flirt with crazy missing-nin, then I have to get my jollies somehow, Kakashi. I thought you knew me by now.

Anyhow, this would leave the final match of the day as...

"Lee versus Chouji, huh."

That could be interesting. Chouji wasn't a particularly dangerous opponent due to his gentle nature, but his strength and toughness should draw out some more of Lee's moves for me to watch. I could relax and spectate lazily this match and then focus on stealing everything in the next one.

Kinda wished we had some snacks here, though.

"Popcorn would be nice."