𝘉𝘖𝘕𝘋𝘚 | ⁿᵃʳᵘᵗᵒ

twenty eight

"I was wondering the same thing." I pursed my lips, looking over to Naruto. "Where is Sasuke?"

Naruto shrugged, but looked worried. "I've got no clue. It's not like him to be late."

"Hey, Hey!" Ryuu grinned, pointing to the balcony the Kage sat at. "It's Raikage-sama!"

I looked up, shielding my eyes from the sun. Sure enough, there stood the legend himself, decked in the golden hat of Kumogakure. It was a little strange seeing him look so professional and not breaking his office furniture in a temper tantrum. It was even more surprising he didn't call off Kumogakure participating in the chunin exams entirely. Initially, Raikage-sama thought the chunin exams was just a ploy to lure us out and then strike on the village when our defense was weak. Especially since the leaf and cloud hadn't been on good terms for a while.

I respected our Kage a lot—don't get me wrong. I just hoped his pridefulness wouldn't get us into some deep shit.

"Raikage-sama!" Screeched Ryuu, jumping up and down and waving up toward the balcony. "I'm gonna make you so proud! Just you wait!"

I turned away in disgust. "He can't hear you, idiot. They're all the way up there! Even with how loud you are."

When I didn't hear a response from him, I turned to look his way with a raised brow. Sure enough, he was not taking a single thing I said into account. Thick waterfalls of passionate tears streamed down his face, snot mixing with the waterworks. He clenched his fist, hand shaking from how damn tight he squeezed his fingers.

I rolled my eyes. "Drama queen."

The Hokage, after greeting the Kazekage and Rakiage-sama, stood from his chair and walked to the balcony. He announced to the crowd the chunin exams would now be starting, giving the cue to the new proctor to get the show started.

He turned to face us, holding a piece of paper in his hand. On the paper was the bracket of all the matches, and instead of seeing mine next to the Takigakure Kunoichi, I was paired up against someone named Temari.

He swirled a senbon around his mouth, giving the paper a quick shake to grab out attention. "Listen here. There's a been a few minor changes to the matches since two of our participating shinobi have not shown up. Take a look at your respective opponent, and then we can get started."

I glanced down the line, ticking off the shinobi and their respective names. I already knew a majority of the leaf shinobi's names, so they weren't this so called Temari. Then it came down to the three sand shinobi. Temari sounded like a girls name, and there was only one girl among the mix. So, bada bing bada boom—the one with the massive fan and four ponytails seems to be our winner!

I scowled at the sight of her fan.

This bitch was a wind user, wasn't she?

Just my lucky day to face off someone who had a stronger affinity than I. There was three other affinities she could have had, but of fucking course she had to be wind. Of course! Lucky me, man. She couldn't have had earth or something?

Kami really hated my guts, huh?

"Let's have those who are not Uzumaki Naruto, and Hyuga Neji, head to the balcony and wait for their respective match." The proctor gestured with his hand to the upper level, closed off from the stands of those watching.