A collective gasp swept through the crowd as a large violent ball of fire engulfed Naruto's figure. The billowing smoke rapidly filled the entire arena.
"Naruto!" Mayu choked out in a shocked voice. She moved forward as if to run in, but was stopped by a raised hand from Kakashi, who had suddenly appeared beside them during the ruckus. Kakashi silently shook his head at her. Meanwhile, leaping over the barrier, the referee ninja had disappeared into the thick smoke.
"W...what happened?" Rai gasped, wide-eyed.
"It seems that your genius was outsmarted," said Neji, folding his arms across his chest. Fū let out an admiring whistle.
"Naruto – outsmarted?" Rai repeated dumbly. "Kakashi-sensei, what...?" The jōnin didn't respond.
"You better start getting ready for your match, Tenten," said Neji, turning to his teammate.
Looking dazed, she seemed startled at his suggestion. "Uh...right," she said weakly.
"The winner of preliminary round 1..." Satetsu's bodiless voice emerged from the smoke, recapturing their attention. Neji closed his eyes, nodding his head in affirmation. "...is Uzumaki Naruto!" Neji's eyes snapped open in shock.
There was a momentary pause of collective confusion.
"What?" called out a genin. "You sure you haven't gotten the names wrong?"
"Yeah! We saw Karin win!" said the girl next to him.
"I can't see anything," another genin complained.
In response, one of the jōnin raised a large metal fan and waved it once towards the arena. Immediately, a strong wind swept through once more, this time taking away the smoke – to reveal a completely different scene from the one they had been left with.
Karin was sitting motionlessly on her knees, with a look of fear frozen on her face. Naruto stood just as still behind her, one hand gripping the top of her red hair while the other held the blade of his tantō to the front of her neck.
...
"As mentioned earlier, I can decide during a match if a victor is made clear," growled Satetsu. "Now, lower your tantō."
For a tangibly tense second, Naruto didn't move, looking down at the girl with a blank expression on his face. A thin trickle of bright blood slid down his blade and dripped down onto the sand.
He'd been in this position before, and seen this scene before, he thought distantly.
Karin let out a pained whimper.
Upon hearing her, as though breaking out of a reverie, Naruto released his grip on her head and slid the tantō back into its strap on his back. Karin slumped onto the ground; several medic nin hurried over to the genin's prone figure. Ignoring the murmuring and questioning gazes of the crowd, Naruto jumped over the barrier and walked over to Kakashi's side.
"What happened?" Rai said eagerly in a tone of great relief that indicated that the world was as it should be once more. "I thought that even you wouldn't have enough time to dodge that!"
"I did," said Naruto shortly.
"Good ol' Naruto," said Rai, slinging his arm around his head. "You scared me there for a sec. Mayu too, right?" He nudged the pale-faced girl besides him, who nodded mutely. "I thought that maybe that flu you caught had made you slower or something."
"The flu?" Kakashi questioned, reaching out with a hand to Naruto. "Naruto, were you sick?"
Taken aback, Naruto shook his head. "No, I'm fine."
"Of course you are," Rai beamed. He turned to Mayu. "I'm more worried about you. My fight's gonna be a piece of cake but...you're up against that jinchūriki girl."
In an unusual slip of his composure, Kakashi's hand jerked. At that, Naruto turned to regard his teammate in bewilderment. What was Rai talking about?
"Jinchūriki...?" he repeated slowly. He couldn't recall ever having heard that word before.
And yet for some reason, the word did not feel unfamiliar on his tongue... Something throbbed in his head, and Naruto winced.
"Yeah," said Rai obliviously, waving his hand. "You know. That girl Fū."
But before he could ask him what a jinchūriki was, the second round of the preliminaries began.
...
The next few rounds of the preliminary went by fairly quickly.
In the second round, Tenten and the other Suna genin were overwhelmed by a Suna genin named Temari, who'd simply blown away all the artillery with a giant metal fan. In the next bracket, Rai lucked out; it turned out that the two other genin, a Suna and an Ame genin, hated each other's guts and spent all of their energy trying to beat the other.
When the Ame genin narrowly emerged victorious, Rai pounced, and made short work of him.
"Nice work," Kakashi praised Rai, who clambered over the sandy barrier with a triumphant grin.
"Good job," said Kabuto, pushing up his glasses.
Tenten, who was standing nearby, regarded Rai with a sour look.
"Did you see that move I made at the end there?" said Rai, swiping the air with his kunai. "It was like – "
"Oh please," Tenten cut in with a snort, folding her arms across her chest. "All you did was stand around and try to look invisible for most of that round." Though she'd been promptly restored to working condition by the medic nin, it seemed her pride had not yet made a full recovery.
Rai turned to her with a irritated look on his face. "Don't you have somewhere else to be? Like the stands."
Tenten scowled. "You wouldn't have done any better than me if you were up against an actual opponent!"
"Oh yeah?" Rai growled. "I guess we'll see in the third exam about that, then. The third exam you won't be participating in."
Tenten reddened, and for a second, Naruto thought she would hit him. But then, without another word, she turned on her heel and stiffly walked away. As Rai fumed, from the corner of his eye, Naruto saw Mayu biting her lip, as though debating within herself whether or not to talk.
"Your abilities and fighting style are fairly similar to Tenten's," Naruto remarked. "You might not have won against that Suna genin either."
Rai's jaw dropped. "What?"
"She was just upset she lost," Mayu piped in, looking upset. "You shouldn't have taunted her like that."
Rai slowly looked back and forth between them, before shaking his head.
"You two are never on my side," he groaned.
"I'm just stating facts," said Naruto matter-of-factly.
Rai turned towards his last hope with a pleading look. "Kabuto...?"
"Sorry Rai, but I'll have to agree with the rest on this one," Kabuto said with an apologetic smile.
Rai let out a long-suffering sigh.
"Fine," he said, throwing his hands up. "Fine! I'll go apologize." Hunched over, he slunk into the throng of genin.
Kakashi, who had been wordlessly watching the situation unfold, finally let out a chuckle. "You all rather remind me of my own team back in the day."
Feeling a lick of curiosity welling up, Naruto turned toward the jōnin. "What was your team like, sensei?"
"We were always fighting," was all Kakashi said, before turning to look back at the arena.
Naruto's gaze lingered on his sensei; he seemed distracted. Ever since his own match had ended, Kakashi had been sneaking discreet glances at him every now and then, before shaking his head and looking away. Was it because of that thing Rai had said? 'Jinchūriki?' He'd been meaning to ask Rai about it, but with Rai's battle being so soon after his, he hadn't gotten a chance to. And now, he was off doing who knew what. But what could Rai have been talking about? 'Jinchūriki'... was it a codename for something else?
Shaking his head to clear it, Naruto turned to look back at the arena as well. The second half of the preliminaries was starting now, and the first ones up were...
"Well that's rotten luck," said Kabuto. "They're both on the same team, aren't they? Neji Hyūga and Rock Lee."
"I wonder if that's why Tenten was so upset," said Mayu slowly. "Since she lost, and Neji and Lee are in the same bracket, only one member on their team gets to pass to the third exam."
Naruto silently observed the three figures who stood in the center of the arena. Neji, with his arms crossed, was an emotionless wall. Rock Lee on the other hand, had an interesting mix of determination and anxiety etched across his face.
Looking over the third genin – a jittery looking Suna – with a practiced eye, Naruto mentally dismissed him from the battle. This would come down to be a fight between the two male Konoha rookies.
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