All war is based on deception. ~ Sun Tzu
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There was a long pause between matches as the proctors tried to decide what to do next. By rights, Sasuke wasn't here and should be disqualified.
I propped my chin in my hand and stared down at the arena.
"Just what is Sasuke playing at?" Kiba asked gruffly.
I shrugged. "Ain't that the question of the century?" Even as I spoke, I felt a whisper of familiar chakra brush against my senses. With so many people here, I would have ignored it… except I knew my team mates.
My head snapped around and I stared at the back wall of the box. There was nothing to see, yet I could still swear…
Are you already here, Sensei?
My brow furrowed. Was Sensei being deliberately late? Well… more deliberately than normal. As in 'standing about watching for the moment to make an entrance'?
What would be the point?
Was he hoping that Sasuke would get disqualified and not have to fight Gaara? I couldn't see Sasuke agreeing to that. Wait, hadn't Gaara been some kind of signal or something?
Extending the fights worked in Konoha's benefit because it was actually a legitimate Chunin Exams. There were watching dignitaries in the stands. The more they saw before the invasion, the better our reputation would be. And Genin were not supposed to be frontline fighters in situations like this, so them exhausting themselves fighting was no biggy.
Though in the eyes of the dignitaries, the invasion could go two ways. If we held it off well, without extreme damage it would be all 'very good, old chap, I knew you were strong' but if we failed at that it would be 'well, I hear the Village Hidden in the Clouds is quite strong'. It would either cement our reputation or break it.
Down in the arena Hayate coughed before his voice carried up to us. "One of the competitors for the next battle has not arrived yet so we're going to postpone this match and continue with the next fight."
There was a little bit of jeering in the stands behind me. I wondered if they were selling alcoholic refreshments here. Then again, people could be juvenile idiots without the aid of alcohol.
"That's interesting," Kotetsu said offhandedly.
"They don't usually make an exception like that," Izumo agreed.
Temari created a blast of wind with her fan and used it to glide down into the arena. Already, she was a hit with the crowd. It had been obvious, even back in the prelims that Temari was a bit of a showman. Right now, it was working in her favour. Ino was pretty, and charismatic when she tried, but she wasn't flashy.
Then again, the point wasn't to win the crowd over.
"Match two; Ino Yamanaka verses Temari," Hayate announced. "Begin."
There was a tense silence as the two regarded each other for a long moment. Ino was the first one to spring into action, pulling out two handfuls of kunai and flinging them at Temari before back flipping out of the way to get some distance.
The kunai flew true, but Temari's shifting wind currents scattered them to the ground at her feet. She scoffed. "Don't you Leaf ninja ever lea-"
The explosion caught her off guard.
See, most of the time, when you attached explosive tags to kunai they trailed from the hilt like tails. That was simply because they were easiest to attach like that; you could do it in the heat of combat pretty easily. But, if you knew that you were going to be using explosive notes, it was just as easy to wrap them around the grip.
That had the bonus of not being easily visually identifiable.
The smoke cleared to reveal Temari crouched down behind her opened fan, having used it to protect herself from the worst of the blast. She was still a little scorched, though, and completely pissed off.
"Wind Release: Sickle Weasel Jutsu!" She grasped the Tessen by it's huge iron base and heaved, body bending nearly double as she swung the huge open fan through it's full arc.
Ino did the sensible thing and went for cover. Dust blew, wind howled and slash marks appeared on all the trees. The gust was strong up here, I could only imagine what it was like for Ino.
"Is this all a kunoichi of the Leaf village is worth?" Temari sneered, trying to regain the mental upper hand of combat. "Running and hiding, girlie?"
"You know," Ino said, stepping out from behind the tree. She looked a little battered, but not overly so. "I did wonder how those wind currents of yours would handle explosive notes. I guess the answer is 'not well', huh?"
"Ooh, bitch fight," Kiba winced. "This is not going to be pretty."
I could only imagine what look was on Temari's face at that comment, but I agreed with him.
Ino hurled a second barrage of projectiles across the arena.
"I admit, you caught me off guard with those explosive notes, but don't expect the same trick to work twice!" Temari shouted, batting them away with a powerful heave of her fan, and sending the kunai reeling all over the arena. But the way that the light caught, for just a second, on nothing made me realise Ino's tactic.
"Clever," I said approvingly. "Ino knew she'd be expecting exploding tags, so the second batch had ninja wire attached."
"Same trick Naruto pulled on me, huh?" Kiba queried.
"Maybe. Not sure it'll work the same. The arena is bigger, for one, she has less wire and not all of the kunai are anchored… but I'm guessing Ino's game plan is basically - avoid the wind, trap her and then use Mind-Body Switch to make her forfeit…" As far as plans went, it wasn't bad. But, as they say, the Devil is in the details.
Temari kept blasting her Sickle Weasel Jutsu around, forcing Ino to dart in and out of hiding. But Ino wasn't running scared, she was moving with purpose, so I wasn't worried yet. Temari's attacks were throwing up a whole heap of dust, and effectively obscuring sight. But Ino was a sensor type so it probably wasn't as limiting for her as everyone expected. I could tell she was being very busy down there, but not at what.
"Come on! You run out of spirit already?" Temari taunted. "I'm just getting warmed up here! It'd be an awful shame to have to quit just yet!"
"You want spirit?" Ino yelled. "Then take this!" She hurled a … capsule? I couldn't quite see from up here. It arced up high, as though to come down on Temari from above.
Temari responded exactly the same way she had been so far, blasting it with wind. The capsule shattered, spilling a colourful gas into the air above her.
"Poison?" I guessed. The Yamanaka did produce a lot of plant based poisons, so it wasn't an extreme guess. When fighting by themselves, the slow speed of the Mind-Body Switch Jutsu meant that slowing down and stopping their opponent was modus operendi. Poison, traps, these weren't the basis for their fighting style, but they were used to assist in capturing an opponent.
"Hah!" Temari shouted, clearing the air with a wide sweep of her fan. "My team mate is a puppet master, you think I haven't built up an immunity by now?"
It wasn't quite the truth. Even from here I could tell that she was slightly slower (which meant Ino must have been using a damn fast acting poison) but it wasn't enough. Every village (if not individual ninja) used their own poisons, and guarded the secrets to those recipes. Immunity to one branch didn't automatically mean immunity to another.
But it gave her experience with dealing with poisons, that much was clear with how quickly she got out of the way and swept the entire area clear.
"Nice try, little girl," Temari taunted, propping her fan up and leaning on it, just a little. "But you should go back to playing dress up with your dollies."
"That's it!" Ino shouted, jumping out from behind the tree she'd been sheltering behind. "I have had enough of your lame taunts, you walking fashion disaster!"
"Aww, Ino," Chouji groaned. "And you were doing so well, too."
On my other side, Kotetsu leant back in his chair. "Match is over. Shame she lost her head like that."
I squinted down at the arena. "Ino's faking." Just what she was doing, I couldn't tell, but the rant was a distraction.
Kiba winced as she hit a particularly shrill note. "Well, I wish she'd hurry up. I think my ears are bleeding." Akamaru whimpered in agreement.
"- and I'll show you!" Ino shouted, hands forming the triangular seal of the Yamanaka Jutsu.
"What?" Chouji gasped. "Ino, you can't-!"
Temari obviously didn't know what the seal did, but she didn't look like she wanted to find out. She grasped her fan and heaved… and it didn't budge.
There were gasps of shock from around us.
"The ninja wire!" I blurted out. Ino had left ninja wire crisscrossing the arena floor in various patterns, not intending to trap Temari with it like Naruto had Kiba but to channel her chakra through it. She was standing on one strand, and had channelled chakra through the weave until it reached Temari. One strand was wrapped around the fan, another around Temari's legs.
"Mind-Body Swi-"
"Wind Release: Gale Palm Jutsu!" Temari thrust her palm forward like a strike, chakra blasting from it. It slammed into Ino hard, lifting her off her feet and smashing into the wall. She slumped down it.
Temari panted in the sudden silence. Clearly, using wind jutsu without her fan was more difficult and draining for her.
Hayate coughed and approached. Ino didn't stir.
"Ino Yamanaka is unconscious and unable to continue," he announced. "The winner is Temari."
Cheers exploded around us, but I sank back with a groan. "You were so close, Ino."
"That bites," Chouji said. "She's going to be impossible to deal with now." He looked mournfully at his empty chip packet before taking out another one.
"I have to admit," Kiba said slowly. "I didn't actually expect her to do that well."
"Solo combat definitely isn't her speciality," I agreed. "But she's been working damn hard this last month."
We watched as the medics carried Ino out of the arena. She might have lost but it hadn't gone as badly as it might have. She wasn't walking out of the arena… but she wasn't grievously injured, either.
"So next up …" Kiba trailed off, glancing at us.
"Yup," I confirmed. "Shika and Shino."
"Heh. Shino's got this won," Kiba boasted.
I scoffed. "Dream on. Shikamaru's obviously going to win." Okay, not 'obviously' but being overconfident in his victory was my duty as a sister.
"That slacker?" Kiba laughed. "He scored even worse than me at the Academy."
"Shikamaru knows exactly how much effort he can get away with not putting into something," I retorted. Because he had graduated, however barely.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Kiba said.
"Yeah, well," I floundered for a retort. "Your face!" Oh, god. I hadn't said that, had I?
His jaw dropped open. "That's… you… Akamaru! Sic her!"
Akamaru yipped and jumped off Kiba's shoulder at me. He growled fiercely and then proceeded to slobber all over my face. I caught his tiny body gently and tried to hold him at arms length. "Chouji, help me! I'm getting mauled!"
Chouji was laughing and being utterly unhelpful, so I proceeded to twitch over sideways and 'die' dramatically over everyone's laps.
"We'll be merciful if you admit to our greatness," Kiba declared, between fits of laughter. "Bow down to the might of the Inuzuka Duo."
"Never!" I yelped, taking a different tactic and scratching Akamaru behind the ears. He seemed torn for a second, between continuing his 'attack' and submitting before bunting his head into my fingers.
"Traitor!" Kiba accused him, but he clearly wasn't serious, considering that he was still laughing.
"Never underestimate the resourcefulness of a Nara," I said, before scrunching my nose up and trying to wipe my face clean with my sleeve. Dog slobber, lovely.
"Shino Aburame verses Shikamaru Nara," Hayate announced. "Begin."
I scrambled back upright, careful not to spill Akamaru on the floor, in order to watch the fight.
Shino placed himself on the west side, so that the sun was sinking behind him. Meaning, all the shadows created by the wall were also behind him. It was an interesting choice. On one hand, it separated Shikamaru from what could easily be a huge advantage. On the other hand, it put a huge mass of shadow behind him.
It could go either way.
"It would be intelligent for you to forfeit this match," Shino announced. "Why? Because your shadow jutsu is not a good match against my clan techniques."
Shikamaru sighed. "This whole thing is so troublesome. But having to do it all over again… that would be even worse. It really doesn't make a whole lot of difference to me if I ever become Chunin or not… but, eh, there are other people counting on me, so I guess I better give it a shot."
"Well, he sounds enthusiastic," Izumo said sarcastically.
Kiba snorted.
Surprisingly, after his declaration of non-interest, it was Shikamaru that started the combat. He folded his fingers together into the rat seal and sent his shadow straight out towards Shino. Our shadow jutsu were fast, but not that fast. If you saw it coming, you could dodge.
Which was just what Shino did, jumping backwards until he'd exceeded the reach of Shikamaru's shadow. If he wanted to go any further, Shika would have to find another shadow to piggyback.
Shino's Kikai swarmed out of his sleeves, coating his arms and hanging in the air around him. He was probably dispersing them, too; secretly preparing for a sneak attack. It seemed like the clever thing to do.
Actually, come to think of it… "Shino probably had him bugged before he even set foot in the arena," I thought out loud.
"Yeah, probably," Kiba agreed. "He's sneaky like that. Not that there's anywhere to hide down there."
Bugs swarmed across the arena in loops and arcs, the numbers so heavy that the masses looked almost solid. Shikamaru proved that Mum's early morning training had helped as he dived and dodged and avoided them. Of course, the bugs would just regroup and attack again, and he couldn't keep dodging forever. He tripped, rolled, and they all dove in for the kill, a thick black blanket that would drain him of chakra in seconds.
Shikamaru reached into his weapons pouch and pulled out a kunai with fluttering explosive note attached. He slammed in into the ground next to him, the explosion knocking the bugs back.
"The hell-?" Kiba wondered. "He just … exploded himself?"
I snorted. "Shika is slow and lazy by choice not because of any lack of speed," I said. That was a mistaken belief a lot of people had. When sufficiently motivated, he could move damn fast, as shown by the lack of crispy Shikamaru as the smoke cleared.
The explosion had certainly damaged a number of Shino's Kikai, leaving burnt insect husks littering the ground. Not all of them, though, and he certainly hadn't committed everything to that one attack.
"Hiding is futile," Shino said impassively, forcing Shikamaru out of the foliage by way of another attack.
Shikamaru tossed a wave of kunai at him, which were contemptuously batted aside, and darted forward, only to be forced back by another wave of Kikai. The two attacks nearly caught him in a pincer move, but he evaded.
"It looks like Shino really has him on the run," Kiba commented, a little gleefully.
I shared a glance with Chouji, who had just as much faith in Shikamaru as I did. "I think… he's positioning," I said slowly. "Though I don't know exactly what his plan is."
"I trust Shikamaru to know what he's doing," Chouji said easily.
The two appeared to be stalemated, Shika avoiding Shino's attacks and making attempts forward while Shino maintained a careful distance between the two and trying to prevent Shikamaru from elongating his shadow. They jockeyed back and forth a little, gaining and losing ground. Admittedly, it was more energetic than I had thought Shikamaru's match would be.
There were bugs creeping around the walls and swarming over the ground, reducing the amount of ground that was safe to move on. I considered the number of bugs there had to be down there and how many I had estimated Shino to have.
"Shino's overcommitted," I said. "Game over."
"What?" Kiba jerked up and stared at me incredulously. "Shino's winning!"
Shikamaru rolled to a crouch in one of the craters left behind from Neji's Kaiten. From this angle, I could barely see the scroll that he spread out on the bottom of the ditch and I could bet that Shino didn't see it at all.
"There are no paths of escape left," Shino said as his bugs closed in on my brother. "You should surrender before my Kikai suck you dry."
"Just try it," Shikamaru challenged.
The Kikai descended on him. Shino might have half been expecting another exploding noted, because the bugs were staggered in waves, making a very thick wall of them instead of all swarming at once.
Nothing…
Nothing…
Then…
Wssshsssnk!
It was kinda hard to describe the sound. It was a mix between an explosion and a huge wave slamming down on the ground. A huge surge of water burst out of the scroll and flattened the surrounding area.
When I'd made those water scrolls, I'd had Gaara's transformed state in mind. Therefore… I'd included a lot of water. Around a hundred thousand litres, which was approximately the amount of water in a small swimming pool. I'd had to go out of Konoha to find a lake big enough to make five scrolls without depreciating it too much.
That said, the water fountained into the air, sweeping Shino's bugs aside. It didn't fill up the arena, or anything dramatic like that, but the craters were now pools and the ground was nice and soggy.
"Shadow Possession Complete," Shikamaru said with a sigh, unfolding out of the water. I was impressed he hadn't been swept away.
Shino blinked. "As the sun sinks, my shadow elongates," he surmised. "Meaning that my calculation of the distance you would need to cover was incorrect. Clever. However…"
"Unfortunately for you, what you have snared is my Insect Clone," Shino's voice stated impassively from the other side of the arena.
There were gasps from the stands as people hadn't noticed switch. Although, Shino had been hiding until that sentence.
Shikamaru smirked lazily. "You sure about that?" he asked, raising his hands. Both Shinos mirrored him.
If it were possible to radiate surprise without moving a facial muscle, Shino did it. "How…" he trailed off. "I made certain that you did not connect your shadow to mine."
"Well, I'll have to thank Ino for leaving so much ninja wire lying about," Shika said, gesturing to one of the kunai lodged into the wall, a sliver of shiny silver trailing across the arena, where it ended by his feet. Even wire would cast a shadow, however faint. "Look over your shoulder, I'll let you." He twisted his neck so Shino could see the shadow extending from the wall behind him.
"I see," Shino said. "You used the ninja wire to get your shadow to the wall, then circled around until it was behind me. While I attempted to keep you away from it… that was exactly where you wanted me to be."
"Yeah," Shikamaru agreed, lazily.
"While I believed I was in control of the match… you were luring me into your own traps, to reduce the number of my Kikai that were free to move," Shino continued. "Believing I was winning, I committed too many of my insects to the field and you wiped them out."
I think he was stalling. The Insect Clone was shifting, rustling, and I didn't know if Shikamaru could make it hold together for long. If it dissolved back into free moving bugs there might be a problem.
"While I'd love to forfeit now and claim I can't go any further," Shikamaru said with a yawn. "That would be a lie." His hand reached into his kunai pouch and withdrew four kunai, paper tags trailing visibly from the hilt. Shino mirrored him. "Mine have exploding tags, yours don't. I'm going to throw these to box you in, one meter square, if you don't surrender by the count of three. One… two…"
Four exploding tags in such a close radius would do a whole heap of damage, particularly since Shino wouldn't be able to negate it in any way what so ever.
Shino nodded. "I surrender," he said calmly. "You have caused a substantial amount of damage to my colony and I am currently unable to move. My options are limited. I withdraw from this match."
There was a beat of silence.
Hayate coughed. "Winner by forfeit: Shikamaru Nara."
The applause was thunderous.
"Huh," Chouji said. "I'm surprised that Shikamaru didn't give up."
"I'm glad he didn't," I said, petting Akamaru absently. "Because that would have made me lose an argument with Kiba and that would just be embarrassing."
"Hey!"