Starting over

#49 Preliminations

Naruto POV

After four more days in the tower, in which nothing exciting happened, the remaining contestants all found small notes in their rooms. Temari and I looked at it and smiled. The note said that we had passed the exams and that we should get to the arena that apparently was under the tower. We went out of the room and met up with Gaara who had gotten the same note. We walked down the stairs and saw a few people that had made it to the tower that were also on their way to the arena. We saw Kiba and his team, Shino with his teammates Hinata and Neji who apparently were getting along way better than in my other life and we saw Lee and Tenten, although they had no one accompanying them so we thought that they have been eliminated. When we got to the arena we went to the Jonin that was standing in the middle of the fighting ground.

A few minutes later the Jonin looked at us counting, after he realized that we were all there he smiled. "Alright, now that all of you are here, we can start. I am Hayate Gekko, the proctor of the next stage of your exams. Because we actually have too many teams passing the exams, we will have to have a few preliminary matches. Now everyone please draw a number.", the man said holding out many small papers with numbers on them. We drew our numbers and waited for the man to continue. "Alright, now please look at your number and go to visitors area. I will call for the contestants after every fight. One more thing, from now on, you are on your own, if you fail it won't mean that your whole team fails like in the other rounds. Number one and number two can stay down here, you are up first.", Hayate Gekko said. We left the arena, except for Hinata and Kabuto who remained standing in the middle of the fighting ground.

I went up to the railing of the small balcony where we had been sent and watched what happened. Gekko told the two contestants to go a bit away from each other before declaring the match to start. Hinata went into the Juuken stance, while Kabuto stayed in a non combat stance, raising his hand up. "Proctor, I forfeit!", he exclaimed getting a lot of gasps from the genin that stood with us on the balcony.

"He is up to something.", I whispered to Temari and Gaara. They both nodded with worried eyes, watching Kabuto leaving the arena, since he had just disqualified himself. We decided that we wouldn't do anything as long as he didn't do anything either.

The proctor then called for the next two numbers to come down. Kiba along with his dog went down as well as a shinobi from the sound. I was so focused on thinking about what Kabuto and Orochimaru might have planned that I didn't even realizes that the fight had already ended. Kiba stood on top of the unconscious sound nin and while Akamaru showed his teeth and barked at the defeated boy. Hayate Gekko called the fight off and got some shinobi to carry the loser to the hospital. Kiba and his dog went back up to the balcony and got congratulations by the Konoha genins.

The proctor then called for the numbers five and six to go down, which meant that Temari's fight was coming up since she had taken number five. I gave her a quick peck on the cheek, before she jumped over the railing and landed silently in the arena. This gained a lot of stares from the other genin while Sakura went down the stairs. The fight was quickly over, since Sakura apparently had done nothing to strengthen herself. Temari assaulter her with a barrage of punches and kicks until one of her kicks hit its mark and the pink haired girl fell over, crying out in pain. My girlfriend kicked the downed girl in the ribs and was just about to do it again when Sakura called for the proctor, forfeiting the match.

After Sakura got carried away by the medical staff Hayate called for the next pair of competitor to go down to the arena. Temari came up again and I put an arm around her smiling. Tenten and Ino went down to the arena and I watched as Tenten made quick work of the mind transfering kunoichi. As it seems, Ino had done even less than Sakura when it comes to training, but since she had been trained by her clan at a young age she still had a bit more strength and skill than her pink haired counterpart. Tenten simply threw a few kunai and followed them up with a quick swing of a short sword, which Ino couldn't block. Tenten had made sure that she didn't kill the blonde girl, but she still did significant damage to her to put her out of the fight. Hayate Gekko called off the match and called again for the medics to carry the bleeding and crying Yamanaka away, while Tenten came back up again.

The next fight was between Shikamaru Nara and one of Kabuto's teammates. Exactly as Kabuto had earlier, his teammate forfeited the match before it had even started. This caused some suspicions with the others as well as it reinforced the bad feeling that me and my team already had about Kabuto and his master's plan.

After Misumi, Kabuto's teammate had left the arena Sasuke and the last member of team Kabuto went down into the arena. Against all expectations this one didn't forfeit his match but instead went on the offensive as soon as the match started. Sasuke didn't expect this and was forced on the defensive and, with the help of his sharingan, he managed to block or evade all attacks until he found an opening. Once his opponent threw a punch, Sasuke stepped back and brought his foot up, connecting with the chin of his black haired enemy. Yoroi immediately got knocked out. Hayate called for the medics and Sasuke went up to the other victors.