Contrary to Haruto's fears, Yuugao did not send her teammate to the hospital the morning after her drunken slumber. Fortunately, the twenty-something female ANBU was not prone to bouts of violence at the merest hint of perversion. Unfortunately for the blond, he learned that she happened to be something of a pervert herself.
Apparently, Yuugao had been truthful about all the things she and Hayate had done over the course of their relationship. Haruto was deeply traumatized by his sensei's onslaught of Jiraiya-esque innuendo after she recovered from her hangover. The fact that she recalled a particular morning condition pressing into her abdomen didn't help matters any.
The masked ANBU winced at the memory. While he was perfectly capable of dishing out damage with his transformation technique, the experience taught him that he was less apt at taking it. The memory made him blush whenever he thought about it.
Despite all that, Haruto was sorely tempted to ask Yuugao if he could sleep beside her again. The experience had been wonderful and he had never felt so invigorated in the morning. He would willingly suffer the incessant teasing if he could wake to the comforting presence of a warm female body next to him. However, the youngster knew better than to give voice to his thoughts. In spite of his youth, he knew the basic conventions of social propriety. Unless it was their profession, a guy just didn't go up to a girl and ask if he could sleep with her.
Haruto forcibly cleared away all wandering thoughts. From behind Genji's mask, he surveyed the exam arena. It was the final day of the Chuunin Exam and the day of the invasion. The stands were packed with cheering spectators, who mostly ignored the black clad ANBU amongst them. Everything was set for the grand finale.
Jiraiya must have begun his attack by now, Genji thought as he discretely checked the time.
Since Konoha knew both the approximate time and location of the attack, they could proactively deal with it. With the Hokage's blessing, several strike groups were formed for the purpose of preemptively striking the enemy as they were about to launch their own attack. The goal was for these ninja to harass and hamper the enemy's main advance, buying time for Konoha to finish mobilizing its reserves. Jiraiya liked the idea so much that he volunteered to personally lead one of the strike groups.
Whatever one thought of his hobbies, the Toad Hermit remained a formidable shinobi and capable of facing entire shinobi divisions by himself. With him at the head, Genji felt much better about the strike groups' prospects. On the other hand, Jiraiya's insistence on greater allocation of manpower effectively left the village with no preplanned reserve units. If the strike groups were bypassed or routed, Konohagakure was screwed. When Genji brought up the issue, the Toad Sannin shrugged and smugly told him, "You're the genius. You figure something out."
That was probably the spymaster's way of expressing confidence and support… or so the young shinobi hoped.
Damn pervert better not fail, Genji thought fiercely. The young strategist had solved the problem posed by the reserves in a manner of speaking. There was little he could do to replace the ninja Jiraiya had appropriated. Too many people were already involved with the operation for him to risk bringing in others. But as long as the great Jiraiya and his people did their job, Genji was confident that sufficiently strong reserve forces could be mobilized and deployed from within Konoha before they were overrun.
"Will the next two contestants, Uchiha Sasuke and Sabaku no Gaara, please come down?" the exam proctor thundered.
Genji watched as the redhead descended onto the field, trailing behind an angry sandstorm. Everyone in the arena could feel the genin's simmering rage. Certain of Konoha's culpability in his brother's death but unable to act lest he reveal his village's treacherous plot, Gaara looked ready to unleash an unholy bloodbath in the arena.
The tactical coup that Jiraiya and the Hokage engineered probably didn't help. Because the body of the Suna prince and his puppets were discovered in a restricted area, the Kazekage ended up facing some very uncomfortable questions, questions that he could not answer. What was more, Konoha used the incident as justification to sharply restrict the mobility of foreign nin, ostensibly for security reasons. Obviously, this made it much harder for their enemies to spy on Konoha while making it much easier for the defenders to move their people into position.
"Last call for Uchiha Sasuke. Is Uchiha Sasuke present?"
Disquieted murmurs broke out when Sasuke did not present himself. The mutterings reached a crescendo and the proctor moved to disqualify the Uchiha. Then, there was a flash of light that blinded the proctor and audience. When it faded, it revealed the missing Konoha genin.
"I'm here," Sasuke stated in his normal emotionless tone. The so-called Uchiha prodigy leveled a cold glare at his opponent, who gladly returned the favor. Strictly speaking, watching the two stoic genin face-off against each other was probably as exciting as watching a snail race, but the audience didn't mind and seemed content to provide all the adrenaline.
Showoff, Genji mused. Though not an unforgivable evil – the young prodigy could hardly claim to be completely modest himself—it was hard to imagine Sasuke's behavior as anything but foolish and arrogant when he brazenly Shunshin'd onto the field. Standing across from him, Gaara was able to carefully and safely assess his opponent's performance. Sasuke might as well have just told the redhead his technique's weaknesses. Admittedly, it could have been a clever ruse to lure his Suna opponent into a false sense of security, but Genji seriously doubted that the Uchiha heir was capable of such deception and foresight. One look at his sensei's less than cheerful face told him all he needed to know.
Kakashi definitely deserved credit for teaching his student the basic but extremely useful D-rank technique as opposed to some heavy hitting B-rank or A-rank technique, which might not even work against the freaky Suna nin. But the famed ninja failed in the critical matter of instructing his student on how best to utilize his abilities. Genji could not help but wonder if this was part of a broader trend, one in which better ninja made for less effective teachers.
"Begin!" the proctor announced.
Predictably, Sasuke immediately charged his opponent, launching a series of rapid attacks. For a while, it looked as if he was slowly driving Gaara into a corner. At one critical point, he Shunshin'd around the redhead's flank to launch a devastating blow, which his opponent barely blocked with his sand… or so it seemed. In reality, the Suna genin was never in any real danger. The Uchiha neophyte dispersed so much chakra that his opponent knew exactly where and when he was going to reappear. So while he was fast, no one would ever confuse him for Shunshin no Shisui.
Genji was therefore not the least surprised when the tables rapidly turned and Gaara made Sasuke eat his first mouthful of dirt less than a minute later.
"Genji," the Hokage called out. Alas, his amusement was superseded by the needs of his leader.
"Yes, Hokage-sama?" Genji shifted to look at the Sandaime.
"The Kazekage informs me that his son holds a vendetta against Konoha due to recent unpleasantness. I want you to go down to the balcony to make sure nothing untoward happens."
Genji narrowed his eyes from behind his mask. This was such an obvious ploy by the Kazekage to isolate the Hokage. No way was he leaving his leader unprotected with one of the enemy chieftains. The ANBU moved to protest but was pre-empted by his supreme commander.
"That was not a suggestion, Genji." The Hokage's statement shocked and confused his subordinate. Genji had enough misgivings to consider disobeying the direct order but the old man's serene smile alleviated his fears. Surely, the Sandaime knew what he was doing.
"Yes, Hokage-sama," Genji acknowledged with a respectful bow and left the skybox for the balcony below. The young shinobi would have little time to ponder about his leader's curious order. As soon as he reached the balcony, he detected the telltale signs of an area of effect illusion taking hold.
The enemy's preliminary genjutsu was Genji's signal to act. As the resident genjutsu expert, he immediately overlaid a series of genjutsu over the one already cast. Without destroying the original illusion, which would have alerted the enemy, he negated its effects and replaced it with new illusions that targeted only the foreign ninja. The beauty of the pattern lay in the fact that when the would-be attackers detected his illusions, they readily dismissed them as the work of their allies. In essence, the enemy was not only blind and deaf, but was also doing nothing to correct their vulnerability even when they knew about it.
Tilting his head towards his radio microphone, Genji gave the coded input, indicating the completion of his task. Once done, he surveyed the battle raging below him. It would seem that Uchiha Sasuke was Lady Luck's bitch this time. Before he was completely overrun by his clearly superior opponent, Captain Tenzou of ANBU gave the signal to attack.
Under the cover of his genjutsu, Genji Shunshin'd five meters to the left and plunged a kunai through the heart of an unsuspecting jounin sensei. His neighbors remained none the wiser even when the victim's lifeless body hit the ground. All over the battle arena, elite members of ANBU Team Alpha moved to neutralize foreign ninja believed to be in league with the enemy.
Unfortunately, as with most battles, the original battle plan derailed fast. In their haste to eliminate as many enemy targets as quickly as possible, one ANBU left his target dying but not dead. Before the man expired, he disrupted the carefully laid lattice of illusions. Seconds later, Genji's beautiful mirage crashed, exposing the horrific massacre of Suna, Iwa and Sound nin.
It was instant pandemonium.
Shrieking spectators ran madly for the exits while ninja from both sides engaged one another. Konoha, however, retained the tactical advantage. While the enemy was composed of disparate ninja from various national denominations who had never worked together, ANBU Team Alpha was composed of Konoha's elite and had been a team for a long time. It took mere seconds for Tenzou to switch tactics. Instead of individual assassinations, Team Alpha began to overwhelm individual enemy ninja in groups of twos or threes. The enemy, however, had no intention of accepting defeat gracefully and fought back tooth and nail.
In one such instance, a high-powered but misaimed elemental technique smashed into the base of the balcony that housed the Konoha contingent. The balcony collapsed, spilling several surprised and confused genin onto the dangerously exposed battlefield below. As a group of foreign, presumably hostile nin charged from the other end, the twelve-year-old ANBU leapt into action.