Team Harmony

CE34: The Preliminary Exam Pt. 1

The next morning, Team 7 was already awake and ready by the time Kakashi came to pick them up. Hinata was currently sitting on her bed and checking over her healing arm while the other three waited for her.

"How is it?" Kakashi asked as they left the room and made their way down to the main hall.

"It's healing nicely," she replied. "Do you really think we'll be fighting each other?"

He shrugged. "It's not very likely, but I'd like you three to be prepared for anything." As they made it to the assigned room, a large open auditorium with a balcony wrapped along the walls, their sensei turned to them. "Are you ready?"

They looked him dead in the eyes with smirks on their faces. "Yes!"

Kakashi grinned underneath his mask before focusing on Sasuke seriously. "If that mark starts giving you any trouble. Let me know," he warned. "Hokage-sama is already aware of the situation—that you want to wait to seal it—so he will not interfere unless it is clearly bothering you. Do not let it come to that."

Sasuke nodded. "I understand. But I will not fall behind."

"I'm aware," chuckled Kakashi. "Before you three head in, I wanted to tell you that I'm allowing you to take off your weights now." They all looked at him in surprise as they had been wearing them since they began training for Zabuza. Back then, due to the ambush, they had been unable to take them off. Eagerly, they unstrapped the weights and handed them to Kakashi before testing it out.

"Wow, I feel so light!" Naruto exclaimed. "I'm kinda gonna miss them, I'm not gonna lie."

"Maybe we can put them back on after," Hinata suggested.

"And add more weight to them, too," said Sasuke.

"We'll talk about that more later. For now, let's head in and wait for the announcements. Line up as everyone else is." Kakashi stood to the side and let them enter. In the room, all genin were lined up vertically based on their teams. In the end, Team 7 was lined up between Team 8 and Team 3, with Naruto in the front, Hinata in the middle, and Sasuke in the back, as they awaited instructions. When the Hokage came out, everyone straightened up.

The first to speak was Anko, who congratulated them for passing the second phase and voiced her surprise that this many managed to pass. Then, she stepped aside and let Minato take over.

"As Mitarashi-san stated, it was a big surprise to see that so many candidates have passed but judging by the talent everyone here possesses, it is no longer shocking. However, due to the high amount of remaining candidates, we will be holding a preliminary round to cut this group down in half," he explained. "Behind me is a large screen that will display the names of the individuals who will be facing each other in a one-on-one match. Your names will be generated automatically."

He made eye contact with his son who was standing proudly in the front of his team. Looking past him, he saw Hinata with her arm in a splint and bruises and small cuts on her face. Behind her, was Sasuke whom he was most concerned about. When Kakashi told him that Sasuke wished to wait to seal the Curse Mark, he couldn't say he was very surprised. The Uchiha was a very driven person and wasn't going to let anything get in his way, and his teammates would also fight for him.

"From this point forward, any individual can choose to withdraw if they feel they aren't up to it without their entire team suffering any consequences. Is there anyone who wishes to withdraw for any reason?" He asked, fully expecting everyone to stay in. He masked his shock well when one hand went up.

"I'm afraid I'm too injured to continue and it wouldn't be very smart to needlessly injure myself further." Everyone's heads turned back to look at Kabuto. He made it to the tower before they did, and Team 7 was confused. Especially Hinata as she still had a feeling that Kabuto was much stronger than he was letting on.