Genkaku (Naruto fanfic)

Chapter 6: Frozen

Her back muscles stretched painfully as Shizuka bent over backwards, hands touching the floor overhead, feeling the woosh of air as the projectile narrowly missed her. She wasn't given a moment of reprieve before another came hurtling through the air straight at her. 

Her eyes widened from her backbreaking position. She wouldn't have time to dodge the second projectile. Shizuka closed her eyes, preparing for the inevitable hit.

"I've got you, Shizuka!"

Chouji skidded in front of her, hands slightly raised as he braced for the incoming impact. The boy dug his heels into the grass as his hands closed around the object, stopping it in its tracks. 

Shizuka took the time to complete her back walkover with questionable grace. She gleefully held out her fist towards her savior, grinning widely as the boy touched his knuckles to hers.

The pair snickered as a disgruntled Shikamaru was forced to leave the field opposite them, leaving only four opponents. The three versus five was now a three versus four.

"Get them, Chouji!"

The boy took three steps before sending the ball he had caught careening towards Ino who let out a screech as she attempted to dive to the right. The ball managed to catch the side of her legs, effectively eliminating her from the game. She huffed loudly as she got up, brushing the dirt from her clothes as she left the field.

Three versus three.

That's right. Their class was playing the most intense game of dodgeball known to man and their team, which had been the underdog so far, had managed to even the odds.

Sasuke, Chouji and Shizuka stood on one side of the line drawn in the dirt, while Naruto, Kiba and Hinata stood on the opposing side. The losing team had to clean the courtyard today, which meant walking around and picking up kunai and shuriken and throwing them back in the storage box, so the stakes were extremely high. Neither team was willing to lose and both had one ball in possession.

Hinata, bless her soul, had picked up the ball that had tagged Ino out, immediately passing it to a gleeful and very competitive Naruto. Shizuka had deduced over the past months that the shy but sweet girl had a bit of a crush on the completely clueless blond boy and it was absolutely adorable. 

Naruto yelled a battle cry before very predictable slingshotting the ball towards Sasuke. He hadn't even attempted to hit anyone else during the game so far, loudly declaring that he would teach his rival a lesson by showing him who was really the better shinobi.

Spoiler: it was not Naruto.

Effortlessly, Sasuke used the ball he had grabbed up to bump Naruto's shot in the air, allowing Shizuka to jump up and grab it out of the air. Now they had both balls.

On an unspoken signal, both noirettes send their balls flying towards Hinata who managed to weave out of the way of Shizuka's ball but not Sasuke's that was thrown a split second later. 

Three against two.

The grin on her face grew wider as victory was in sight. She could almost swear Sasuke was actually enjoying himself for once as he smirked at the orange boy tauntingly.

"Don't ignore me, you bastard!" Naruto screamed in frustration as he grabbed up one of the balls, immediately sending it flying towards Sasuke, who simply stepped aside and allowed it to harmlessly pass.

Chouji was unfortunately not able to duck out of the way quick enough and was hit in the arm by Kiba, who hollered gleefully. Akamaru barked encouragingly from the safety of the sidelines at his owner.