"How youthful! His progress is inspiring! To advance so much in such little time! It's decided, I'll have to ask Gai-sensei to train me even more!" Lee whisper shouts. That kid is always looking to push himself further.
...
Someone pulls out the chair next to me and lazily plops down into it. I take stock of the idiot who decided that was a good idea.
He has an Iwa forehead protector and appears to be in his mid teens, I'd guess around 15-16. He has a plain mop of brown hair and pale green eyes. He's wearing generic dark brown shinobi gear from Iwa and has a few scrolls strapped to his belt.
"And you are?" I gruffly ask.
"Noboru of Iwa. And you two?" He asks with way too much nonchalance and familiarity.
"Green."
"Red."
"Strange names." Noboru says as he examines one of the nails on his left hand.
"Why are you here?" I ask.
"I'm in the tournament, duh." He flicks away a piece of dirt he picked out from under his nail. "You think you would know that since we're where the contestants are supposed to be."
"No, why are you sitting with us?" I rephrase my question. I don't like this guy. He's to relaxed.
He offers up a shrug. "It was either sit with you two, sit with the Konoha group, or sit by myself. I didn't want to sit alone or with the tree lovers so here I am."
"Just don't irritate us and we will have no issue." Sasuke blandly says.
"Cool." Noboru turns to me. "So what's up with the bandages man? That's got to be ridiculously hot. Isn't the hooded coat enough? I mean I can understand wrapping sleeves or pant legs so they don't flap around or get snagged on anything, but it looks like you've covered everything. Hell it's even on your neck!"
I turn my covered face towards him. "Would you believe I'm self-conscious about my looks?"
"Nope!" He merrily says. "Come on, you can tell me. I can keep a secret I promise!"
"I have extremely sensitive skin and sunburn easily?"
"Hahaha! Good one!" Noboru laughs at the admittedly ridiculous excuse.
"It's because I'm horribly scarred all over my body."
"Oh." Noboru loses the carefree attitude. In fact some of the Konoha gennin shot me glances too, they must have been listening in. We aren't exactly trying to be discrete. "Sorry. I wouldn't have pried if I knew. I thought it was a stylistic choice."
"I won't blame you for ignorance. Just drop it."
"You got it." He goes back to studying his nails, this time on the other hand.
"Green heads up." Sasuke says and points towards a trio of approaching people.
It's the Sand Siblings, Gaara, Temari and Kankuro.
Gaara and Kankuro blatantly ignore us while Temari is glaring daggers at me. Oh boy, she's still mad that I knocked her out of the running while making it look like a game.
I cheekily wave at her. She instinctively reaches for the giant fan strapped to her back but manages to stop herself from drawing it.
"Leader-sama!" Oh fuck me is that Hiro? "Leader-sama how nice it is to see you! How have you been? Are you prepared for the tournament? Do you need anything?"
Sasuke looks at me and I just know he's quirking an eyebrow as if to ask 'who the hell is this guy?'
"Hello Hiro. I'm good. Yes I am ready. No I don't need anything." I forgot how annoying this one is.
"You're always so collected. I bet you have plans to beat everyone here!" He happily sits down across the table from me.
"Not really." I bluff. "I'm going to wing it and see what happens. Besides I don't know what half of the other contestants are capable of."
I can feel Sasuke roll his eyes next to me. He's seen the ridiculous wall that I had covered in dossiers. If anything I've over prepared.
"I'm sure you'll be alright." He gives me a warm friendly smile. "That doesn't mean I'm going to hold back on you!"
I sigh. This kid is annoying. "I expect no less."
"Oh what so he can talk to you but I can't?" Noboru chimes in. "Talk about a double standard."
"How about all three of you shut up." Sasuke demands. "The last three are approaching."
We all turn to where Sasuke is looking and sure enough there's the Kusa shinobi, the Kusa kunoichi and the Kiri shinobi all idly talking to one another. That's interesting, are Kiri and Kusa on good relations? I have no idea.
The three shinobi take a table all to themselves. Pity, seems I won't get to learn their names until later.
Then Eito, the same proctor from a month ago strolls into the gazebo.
"Hello everyone." We all quiet down and give him our full attention. "I'm here to explain how the bracket is going to work for this. Basically we're going to have a single elimination tournament with three rounds. The first round will be six 1v1 matches. The second round will be three 1v1 matches consisting of the winners of the first round. The third and final round will be a 1v1v1 match with the three winners of the second round. Last one standing wins. Any questions?"
No one speaks up.
"Good." He continues. "We will be drawing names for who will be fighting who, everything is left up to chance. Now everyone get up and follow me. We're starting." He turns on his heel and walks out to the field the stands are facing.
Everyone rises and follows after him.
"Kusagakure, I give you the twelve finalists!" Eito shouts to the filled stands. It looks like most of the village came out to see this. "We will now determine our first match of the day!" With a grand flourish he unseals a small decorative purple box. Without further ado, he reaches in and pulls out a name.
"Lee Rock of Konohagakure!" He calls to the crowd as Lee steps forwards. There's clapping and a few cheers, he must have made an impression in the previous part of the exams if the people here remember him.
"His opponent will be..." He reaches in again and pulls out another name. "Green of Otogakure!"
I'm facing Lee? Well this is going to hurt a lot.
I step forwards to general applause. They're just clapping to be polite, not because they want to or are genuinely cheering for me.
Then something happens that terrifies me to my core. "Remember Green, I expect a show."
He's here. Orochimaru is here. My head snaps towards the sound of his voice, on the opposite side of the stadium is another gazebo. This one is much nicer and there's attendants running around in the background. This must be where they have the visiting Kage at for the tournament.
Sitting beneath in the shade are three individuals, one is most certainly the Kusakage. The other is a grinning Orochimaru and the final attending Kage is a furious Tsunade.
Why the fuck are they both here? Better yet how are they both here without attempting to kill each other? Did Orochimaru know Tsunade was going and wanted to mess with her or something equally as ridiculous?
I don't respond to his words. Now I have to be a bit... brutal with Lee. This is not good.
"Now if everyone but the first fighters please go back to the tent?" Eito shoos them off of the field. "Alright you two, I'm the proctor for this fight. If I say it's over, it's over. Don't test me. This fight is to knock out or surrender, whichever comes first. Questions?"
"No, Eito-san." Lee respectfully answers.
"Nope." I casually answer. We're pretty different in how we deal with people.
"Fighters ready?" Eito takes two steps back.
Lee and I fall into our respective taijutsu stances. His is reminiscent of his sensei, one arm strongly held with a fist before him and the other tucked behind the back. I take a wide stable stance with my arms raised protectively in front of me. I can pretty much guarantee that Lee is going to be faster than me, if he isn't right now then all he has to do is open a few Gates.
Dammit. I really didn't want to fight Lee. He's not going to go down easy, hell he'll get back up from just about anything. I really wish I knew some genjutsu right now, I'll have to add that to the things Orochimaru will teach me before I kill him.
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my p atreon :
p atreon.com/CarriePoppins