Invisible- A Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter 36

"You all pass the second part of the exam, but there's still one more part." Shit. "And," Kakashi laughs nervously, "Because too many ninja passed this part, there's going to be a preliminary round for the final round."

"Hell no." I shake my head and cross my arms. "There is no way I'm doing a freaking preliminary round! I'm tired as hell, I'm injured, I'm not really in the best mental state, and I need to go find some Mist sensei and explain to her that I killed her student!"

Silence falls on the room. Iruka is the first to speak. "Y- You killed someone?"

"Yes. Two someone's. But one was an accident, so I have to apologize."

They all look at me. Staring. Like I'm some sort of freak.

I shove my hands in my pockets and look towards the floor. "Yeah, well, we better get going." I begin to walk off, but a hand on my head stops me. I turn around to see Kakashi smiling through his mask.

"Don't worry about it. It's something that happens often in our line of work, and no one will judge you for it." He pulls me into a hug and the rest of my team joins in as well. I can't help it when the tears start falling.

"I was trying to help her," I say between sobs. "But I made a mistake. I killed her."

Sasuke, who's directly to my right, squeezes me tighter and whispers into my ear, "It's over now. You did your best and we're all proud of you. I'm proud of you."

We make our way to the mini stadium inside the building after our little sob-fest. I'm no longer crying, but my eyes are still puffy. All the genin line up according to their team, and wait for further instruction.

The Hokage stands in front of us and bellows, "Welcome, all of you. You have safely made it through the Forest of Death!" A cheer erupts from the crowd. The Hogake motions to us to simmer down, and we do. "But, you are not done yet. More of you passed than I had expected, so we need to slim down the ranks a little bit." We already know about this, but the other teams are looking around in confusion. "There will be a preliminary round for the final!" A collective moan flows through the crowd. "And it will commence immediately! All of you who feel unfit to partake in this section are welcome to leave, it will not affect your teammates at this point."

A few people raise their hands, I notice Kabuto among them. So, he's giving up? He doesn't seem like that type of person, but maybe I judged him wrongly. Sakura is muttering to Sasuke about something. She can't be telling him to give up, can she? He's got the best chance out of all of us of winning!

I forcefully turn Sakura towards me, interrupting her conversation with Sasuke. "There's no way that Sasuke is giving up! He's the only one of us who actually has a chance at this. You're not getting in the way of this!" A low rumble echoes in my throat as I growl at her.

"I have a reason!" She whisper-yells back. "After that creep in the forest bit him, he started acting all weird. I don't think it's safe for him to fight!"

"Don't worry about me, Sakura," Sasuke butts in.

"Stay out of this, Sasuke," I growl back. "It's not your decision."

He blinks at me, like I'm the stupidest person in the world. Then I realized what I had said. Oh.

"I'm fighting in this battle, and neither one of you can stop me!" With that he turns his back to us. Well, I guess that's that. We're all fighting in the preliminaries.