Another Take (A Naruto Fanfiction) (Complete)

Ch. 28: It Has Begun

"Thank you to everyone who had come for the Third Round of the Chunin Exams!" the Hokage announced, his voice projecting throughout the entire stadium. "We will now commence the fights between our twelve- No, excuse me, ten competitors!"

There was some muttering in the crowd, because only eight people were present on the field. And some had even heard that there'd been twelve fighters originally. Where were the missing four people?

Now the proctor for this exam stepped forward, holding a piece of paper. "Listen up!" he commanded. "There have been a few changed to the match-ups."

The proctor showed the paper to the Genins, letting them see the new matches. Originally there were three blocks of fights, but now there were only two. The removal of one fight had made it so that there was also a single match, and the winner of that would move on to fight the winner of the second block. Then the winner of that match would fight the winner of the first block in the final fight.

"Awesome..." Shikamaru muttered sarcastically. "This is great." The lazy Nara was unhappy about the fact that he was one of the four people who had to fight four times if he wanted to win the whole tournament, as opposed to the six who only fought three times. The other unlucky three were Temari, Kaizen, and Kiyomi.

"Hey, I have a question!" Naruto suddenly asked, raising his hand. The proctor nodded at him, and Naruto continued. "What happens if Sasuke and Kiyomi don't show up?"

The proctor sighed. "Well, if they don't show up by the time their match is called, they automatically forfeit, and lose the match."

Naruto grimaced. Where were they...?

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Kiyomi's POV

"Ryuuko, I swear I'm going to be late if you don't hurry up!" I yelled at the red-haired man. He told me he wanted to give me something before I set off for Konoha, but when I mentioned this half an hour ago, he'd basically panicked, and started rifling through all his stuff.

"Oh, give me a minute." Was Ryuuko's irate reply.

"You said that twenty minutes ago!" I snarled. "I need to get moving if I'm gonna make it there in time!"

"Found it!" Ryuuko announced triumphantly, holding up the object he'd been searching for. "Here," he carefully handed it to me.

It was a small pouch, brown in color. It seemed to be... Identical to the ones Ryuuko stored Kiriyoru in.

"You didn't..." I asked cautiously, holding the pouch carefully in my hands. It didn't smell like the drug, but Ryuuko's a genjutsu master. And I wouldn't put it past him. My sensei was prone to do little things like this.

Ryuuko chuckled. "I did, actually. But-"

The Sage was cut off when I flinched because Fenrir had roared loudly in my head. 'You did not just give my host a drug!' Fenrir was pissed. 'If you're gonna give her drugs, wait till she's eighteen or twenty! She's TWELVE!'

"What did he say...?" Ryuuko asked with a slightly nervous expression on his face. Over the course of the month, the red-haired man had met and talked with Fenrir on various occasions (all while Fen was possessing my voice), and the two had seemed to get along well. But Ryuuko'd also learned the hard way that Fenrir would do quite a lot to ensure my safety.

I rubbed my temple, feeling the ache caused by Fenrir's roar to slightly fade. "Well, he's pissed at you. Apparently you can't give me drugs till I'm eighteen or twenty."

"That's not a problem," Ryuuko said dismissively. "That isn't for you, anyways. It's for Orochimaru, if you see him."

I raised an eyebrow. "And just why do you think I'm going to give a rogue Sage a pouch full of drugs?"