"Neji, look!" Lee cries out the moment I enter the genin box. "Our comrade returns!"
I wave, shrugging off the pointed looks and negative emotions that the foreign genin are pummeling me with. "Hey, Lee." I glance back at B, only to find the hulking Kumo nin watching me expectantly from the hall. Resisting the urge to both sigh and grin, I wave my hand and close the door with a gust of wind.
I step further into the room, picking out Samui's team from the small crowd. They're in the same place they were when I panicked and fled to the stadium's catacombs, and if the voices in my head are telling the truth, Omoi is still terrified of me. I mentally shuffle him off to the side of my awareness, along with the rest of the hostile genin, and focus on Samui and Karui.
"There's someone you should see," I inform them. Their confused looks prompt me to explain, and my mind races. Okay, Lee, see... "They've got advice for free."
Karui scoffs. "What are you saying? You want to help us?" she asks disdainfully. "As if. Your village doesn't know what good faith means."
"That wasn't nice," I say, frowning. "I'm not a bad guy 'cause my symbol's a tree." Wait, fuck.
"Your symbol isn't a tree," Samui points out. "And why did you leave so suddenly in the first place?" She doesn't seem terrified of me like her teammate, but she's pretty suspicious. As is just about everyone else listening in on us. Or so the wind says.
"It's kind of embarrassing, that one was all me," I say, wracking my head for different words. Lee, see, free, tree, me, uh... "I had a big breakfast and needed to... pee."
What.
"What?" Karui asks, eyes narrowing. "Are you making fun of us?"
"No, that ain't me!" Wait, I already said me. Damn it! "The guys that's coming in now is the key."
"Oh no," Samui whispers to herself, realization suddenly dawning.
"You three should see him, so come take a knee." This doesn't even make sense anymore.
"What?" Karui demands. "Who the hell are you talking about!?"
The man I'm talking about kicks the door off its hinges with a thunderous bang, startling most of the present genin into combat stances, and throws his arms out triumphantly. "You already know, it's your boy Killer B!"
Samui sighs, leaning back against the wall and covering her face with one hand.
"Sensei!?" I probably shouldn't take as much enjoyment as I do in Karui's mortification, but I take it all the same.
"You just broke samurai property!" Omoi cries, less concerned than Karui with their sensei's sudden arrival, and far more concerned with what seems to be his latest damning prediction. "Do you know what that means!?"
It means, for me, that everyone is suddenly paying attention to Samui's team and not the possibly demonic genin from Konoha. Wait, no, not demonic. Just... just a little crazy. I shake my head, slipping away from B and towards the railing. I step up next to Lee, giving the box another once over to make sure I'm not missing anyone.
Sakura's gone.
"Are you well, Naruto?" Lee asks. "You seemed deeply unsettled when you left." I don't need the wind to tell me that he's concerned. I smile and nod. Passions and people.
"Yeah, I'm good now."
"How did you know what the idiot from Kumo was going to say?" Neji asks bluntly. "And why did you run away after he said it?" I resist the urge to flinch.
Nothing for it but the truth. Or, as much of the truth as Kazu will let me tell.
"I think I'm coming into some sensor-type abilities," I admit. "While Omoi was talking, I was getting these... impressions from him, I guess. Not quite thoughts, I don't think, but emotions and-" I shrug. "I don't really know how to describe it."
Lee looks as confused as I feel, but Neji looks much closer to satisfied with my answer than I expected him to be. "The Uzumaki were well known for their sensors. I suppose this is proof of your ancestry," he says, inclining his head a fraction in acceptance and turning his attention back to the arena.
Wait. They are? How did you not know that, Uzumaki!?
I shake my head, vowing to look into Uzumaki sensors when I get back to Konoha. Back to the matter at hand. "So is Sakura...?"
"See for yourself," Neji says, leaning forward with his arms on the rail. I follow his gaze down.
Sakura's there, alright- a bunch of her, all over the arena- and so is her opponent.
Koji no Senkou looks every bit as hateful of anything and everything Konoha-affiliated as she did when I met her in the first task. I can practically feel the rage and spite radiating off her in waves as she rails against my teammate, and I can hear it in the wind loud and clear. In spite of all that emotion, though, the kunoichi that served as the de facto leader of the joint Iwa-Kumo group after I threw their official leader off a waterfall doesn't look overtly threatening.
From what I can see of her as high up as I am, she's almost a full head shorter than Sakura, and doesn't have a ton of weight to her either. Her hair is dark brown, and it streams behind her as she runs, whipping around to obscure her face every now and then. In those brief moments, when her hateful expression is hidden, she almost looks like an Academy student up for a spar.
But even so, she's a vicious fighter.
I hiss a breath through my teeth, watching the brown-and-red clad kunoichi rush through the stone trees and tear into one Sakura with a straight-headed spear. My stomach clenches as the yari runs my teammate through, only for her to flicker and fade around the blade.
"Bunshin," I sigh, relieved. Koji is already moving on before the clone has finished dispelling, leaping up three flights of branches in a blur of speed to spear another Sakura through one temple and out the other. "Man, she's fast. How long has this been going on?"
"Seventeen minutes," Neji says.
I snap to the veteran genin, eyes wide. "Seriously?" That's a ridiculous amount of time for a one on one fight. Most never get past ten.
"This is her twenty-fourth set of clones," Lee says, clenching his fists tightly as Koji shears through another three clones in quick succession. "Her burning determination is an example for us all, but I worry. Neither of them have landed a hit, but she's been on the defensive this whole time."
We watch in tense silence while the kunoichi from Iwa picks my teammate's clones apart. They aren't putting up much of a fight. For all her speed and brutal efficiency with that yari, all she's really doing is running them down and stabbing them. They're not trying to fight back, disorient her, or anything, really. They're just running between the trees, reaching out every second or two with a brush-
Oh.
Koji zeros in on the real Sakura a few seconds later, when she lashes out with her spear and her opponent leaps away rather than run right into its edge. That's the fatal flaw with the regular bunshin technique- basic clones can only deviate so much from their set paths, and can't react to outside forces unless actively directed in doing so. So when a single face in the crowd shows a little common sense, it stands out.
"This fight is almost over," Neji says, watching the real Sakura drop down to the ground to avoid a jab at her heart and disappear in a body replacement. Koji immediately pivots and launches herself towards my teammate's new position, only for Sakura to shimmer and multiply, each clone dashing off in six different directions.
"Neji," Lee gasps- actually gasps- in horror. "How could you say that now, when she needs our support the most?"
I grin, patting the appalled genin's shoulder. "He means Sakura's about to win."
"Did you not realize why her opponent has been so desperately pursuing her clones this whole time, rather than waiting for them to come to her?" Neji asks, a familiar note of exasperation entering his cultured voice. "They're only bunshin. It would easy enough, even for an Iwa nin, to parse the difference in attackers."
"That's not Sakura's game, though," I agree, if a bit more quietly. Sakura's opponent was clearly paying attention during the preliminaries, and maybe even when her group was pursuing my teammates in the first task, but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone else will be. No sense in shouting her secrets for all to hear. "Her specialty is fuinjutsu, remember? She's using all the clones to distract her opponent while she sets up a seal."