"Lookin' for my boy, in the box, paranoid. Lookin' for Omoi, he's a boss, makin' noise."
Killer B mumbles to himself as he navigates the catacombs beneath the stands. His strides are purposeful, but to an untrained eye would look more than a little bizarre. Rather than simply walking, B's whole body is in constant motion, weaving along to a beat only he can hear, his arms darting this way and that in sharp gestures as he dives into his latest freestyle of the day.
"Gonna give him praise, workin' hard, for that raise." B nods decisively. Omoi had done quite well in his first match, all things considered. Fighting a long-ranged opponent as a close combat kenjutsu-specialist is no easy feat, a lesson that B had been more than happy to beat into his anxious student over the break. Omoi had done well with the skills he had at hand.
"He's in a daze, needs my help, come next phase." That Iwa punk is no joke, and B knows this well.
Still, he's confident. His students are no slouches, even if Omoi is the least enthusiastic of the three. He'll put on a good show, whether or not he pulls out the win. No, if B's being honest, he's more concerned with his favorite blonde kunoichi's next fight. Less because of her opponent's strength, though B concedes the young shinobi has some skills, and more because of her unexpected fixation on him.
"Need to give my girl a talk," B muses. "Samui's sharp, she'll walk the walk. But this boy's got her heart on lock." He'd done his best to dissuade the two of them from involving themselves with one another. There's clearly something going on beneath the surface, there, but neither of their villages are going to support them if they decide to act on it, and B knows this. B sighs wearily mid-verse, lamenting his role as the wise and supportive sensei. In spite of all that, his advice had only made Samui more interested in her fellow blondie.
"Matching up's some nasty luck." He isn't entirely sure whether he means that in a good or bad way. It makes keeping them separated impossible, but maybe that's for the best. B is a man of many talents, but romance is generally not one of them- maybe it doesn't matter that this can only end poorly. Maybe all that matters is that it happens in the first place.
B ponders this new, philosophical train of thought.
"Guessin' they should prob'ly fu- Ayo!" He breaks off as he notices a flicker of familiar chakra in a bathroom off to the right, pulling him from his path.
Samui's opponent has a chakra signature that's hard to miss if you know what you're looking for, and B is a lot more perceptive than people give him credit for anyway.
"Leaf dog?" B says by way of greeting, poking his head into the restroom. It's a spartan facility, clearly designed for participants and not guests to the colosseum, but it's well-maintained. B hears a short, sharp inhalation of breath further inside the restroom, near the sinks, and nothing more. He shrugs. "Comin' in, yo."
He finds Uzumaki Naruto hunched over a stone basin, his hands cupped in a pool of water. His face is dripping wet, and his bangs hang over his eyes in their dampness. When B walks in he gives himself one last splash to the face and steps away from the sink, shaking his hands out in an effort to dry them and put a stop to their trembling. He only manages one of the two.
"Killer B," Naruto mutters, peering through his hair with dark blue eyes. B doesn't remember the flecks of violet coloring around his pupils being there before. "What do you want?"
"Just passing by, my ninja," B explains, flashing a placating grin. "Figured I'd get with ya. You heard who you're fighting up next, now didn'tcha?" The genin from Konoha doesn't relax at his soothing rhymes, but he stops looking quite so much like a cornered animal.
He sighs, running a hand through his damp hair and shaking it out of his eyes. "No, actually. I was in the infirmary during the second match, so I don't even know who the fight was between."
"Your leaf homies didn't tell ya?" B asks, leaning against one of the stone sinks. Naruto grimaces.
"I didn't really stick around in the genin box," he admits. He pauses for a moment, visibly struggling to find the right words. "I'm not feeling great. I think the heat from my match messed with my head a little."
B eyes the smaller shinobi suspiciously behind his shades. He knows a lie when he hears one, and he's pretty damn sure there's more eating at the boy than some heat stroke. Naruto flinches ever so slightly, raising his hands halfway up to his ears and then dropping them.
"You don't believe me," he says quietly. He's perceptive, B will give him that.
"Sounds like some shit," B says frankly. "You ain't the type to fall short of the hype, and my girl tells me you've still got some fight."
She'd been quite adamant when it came to her foreign partner's endurance, throwing around terms like 'stamina monster', 'staying power', and 'inexhaustible' while B's students were sharing what they'd learned of their competition in the first three tasks. B had, admittedly, been skeptical at the time, both of the veracity of her claims as well as the status of her virginity. But looking at the kid now, he has to admit that he doesn't seem to be suffering from any sort of chakra exhaustion.
Which is a little odd, considering how much juice he'd pumped into that last miracle technique of his. But B digresses.
He crosses his thickly muscled arms over his broad chest. "So what's got you havin' fits?"
"You don't know me," Naruto grumbles, mostly to himself. B waits for an answer. Naruto hesitates for a long moment, but when it becomes clear B won't be moving until he gets one, he relents.
"Have you ever heard voices in the wind?" The words are softly spoken, with an undercurrent of something to go along with them.
B hums, considering the question seriously. Naruto fidgets, looking up at him with a hint of desperate hope. "Ayo, you a poet, leaf dog?" And the hope comes crashing down.
"No, I'm not a poet," Naruto says flatly. B eyes him, not quite convinced. The Konoha nin's hands twitch again, but he stops them from reaching up. "I'm serious."
"Good. Poets can't hold a beat like they should, stackin' up rhymes like flat racks o' wood." B scoffs, spitting into an empty sink to show his disgust for the inferior style. "But nah, the wind and I don't jam. Elements can't share worth a damn, and everyone knows that lightning's my fam." Hah, elemental affinity pun. B fist bumps the bathroom mirror's reflection.
Naruto nods, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. "I figured."
"You hearin' voices, leaf dog?" B asks, concerned in spite of himself. Things have been rough between their two villages ever since the incident with them white-eyed hoes years back, but B has never put much stock in politics. And from what Samui told him of the first task, the kid is in need of some props and B is the only Kumo nin likely to give them.
"Voices," Naruto echoes. "I... think I am, yeah. Two. Two voices." He sighs shakily. "Am I crazy, B?"
"Depends," B says. And to be fair, it does. He's seen more than his fair share of crazy shinobi- Kumo takes all kinds, so long as they're strong and loyal. "What are they tellin' ya? Want to be friends?"
Naruto shakes his head frantically, as if the very idea of befriending the voices in his head is something that won't let go if he allows it purchase in his thoughts. "No, they're not talking with me. They're just telling me... things."
B nods along. This sounds like crazy, alright.
"I don't know for sure," Naruto continues, leaning against a sink. B idly notes that he's acting less hostile than the last time they met. That could be because B's not actively pushing his buttons this time, or it could be insanity. Probably insanity. "But so far it's been mostly, ah, bad."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. They tell me when people are scared, jealous, suspicious-" Naruto's violet-flecked eyes dart to B before refocusing on some point on the stone ceiling. Huh. Guilty as charged. "Bad emotions," he finishes quietly.
"Might be coming into some sensor skills," B offers, "Gettin' extra senses up in your grill." Naruto's expression turns pained.
"I don't think that's it," he says, though it sounds like he very much wishes it was. "I don't- six paths save me, I don't know what to think." B blinks behind his sunglasses at the odd phrase, but lets it slide in favor of being the wise and supportive sensei.
"Hit me with the build up," he suggests. "Let's get this story filled up." Naruto immediately opens his mouth, and then just as immediately snaps it shut, expression deeply frustrated as he works his throat in an effort to speak and fails. B jots another mental point down for insanity.
"It's always been my chakra," the orange-clad shinobi says once he's regained his voice. "It's always been different, and not in a good way- or, well, not in a bad way either, I guess. But it's... it's not right. After a while I stopped thinking about it, because nobody knew what was wrong, and if the old man's fancy medics couldn't figure it out, what chance did I have?
"And now it's even more different than I thought it was. It listens in on other people, feels their emotions, talks to me- your chakra isn't supposed to talk to you. Does your chakra talk to you?" he asks, the same mania that had been shivering beneath his skin when B first entered the bathroom creeping back up to the surface.