Early the Next Morning
"... And done!" I gently set down the brush and admire my first ever seal. I'm back at the hotel with Sasuke, who is still asleep. I may have been just a little bit excited about finally starting seals and didn't sleep once the Sand Siblings and I parted ways. I may really hate Orochimaru but hot damn does that man know his stuff! His journal is invaluable, if I didn't have that there's no way I'd be attempting to make a seal so soon.
And I want that couch.
"It's! It's! It's!" Excitement fills my voice as my pitch jumps up higher and higher with each word. "Abysmal. It's absolutely terrible. Kami my penmanship sucks!" There are no smooth lines. Everything is jagged and broken, it barely looks like a seal at all. I bet if any seal master saw this pathetic attempt at the art they'd die on the spot.
"Fuck it." I place a stone on top of the seal and put two fingers on the seal itself. "I can't not test my first seal. It's a storage seal, what's the worst that could happen?" I push chakra into the seal, just a tiny bit. "Huh. Nothing happened? Maybe it needs more chakra?" I send in a small but steady trickle of chakra. "Okay, this is getting out of hand. I should probably stop before-"
Bang!
Sasuke swiftly rolls out of his hammock and starts falling to the ground. While he's still in the air, he uses the rotation of his body to help him fling a kunai straight at my head. The sharp non-reflective metal soars through the air before suddenly diverting around me and the slamming into the floor. Chakra strings for the win!
Sasuke finally lands on the ground in a low defensive stance.
"And a good morning to you too!" I huff at Sasuke. "Did you have to try and kill me right off the bat?"
"Oh. Sorry." He stands up while suspiciously eyeing the room for threats. "I could have sworn there was an explosion."
"Well... there was." I sheepishly rub the back of my head and point at the table I was working on. There's a hole in it now about ten centimeters in diameter. "Turns out I'm not good at seals. I'm pretty sure I understand the theory, but I can't create one."
He glares at me. "I take back my apology. I should have thrown two kunai."
"Pfft like that would have changed anything!" I boast. "You'd need to throw two hundred kunai to sneak one past me!"
Another kunai flies at my head, but veers off course and stabs into the floor next to the other one.
"Sasuke really?" I flatly say to him. "You had to know that wouldn't work."
He growls in mild frustration. "You and your chakra strings!" He turns around to start getting ready for the day, there's no going back to sleep now. Even if it is around 4:00am. "I'm glad you're struggling with seals. Finally there's something you can't use your chakra strings to make easier!" There's a hint of smugness in his tone.
Hold on a moment. "Sasuke you're a genius!" I quickly pull out a blank piece of sealing paper and dunk my brush in the ink again.
"I know I am." He arrogantly says as he turns back towards me, probably to show me his damn smirk to get on my nerves. "But how did that possibly- oh you asshole. I literally cannot believe this."
Sasuke is glaring at the table. Next to the new hole is my piece of sealing paper and my brush. The brush is making elegant and precise strokes, it's moving smoothly with the grace of a painter. Each line it leaves behind is nearly perfect, only under ridiculously close scrutiny could a flaw be found and even then those flaws are negligible. They won't effect the overall performance of the simple seal. None of that is why Sasuke is glaring at the table as if he can set it all on fire. No, the reason he's so mad is because the brush is seemingly moving itself, it's floating as if it's alive. I'm not even touching it.
I'm holding it with chakra strings.
"What is it with you and your infernal chakra strings!?" Sasuke rages at me. "Why is that even working!?"
He's got a valid question there. "Two reasons really." I distractedly explain as I focus on manipulating the brush. I have one string tightly wrapped around it, if it was visible it would look like there was a spring on the brush. I'm going very slowly with this, even if the overall performance is better I still need to focus. Sure I am skilled with chakra strings but I've never used them like this before.
"One: I've never cared how sloppy my handwriting is, even in the Academy I didn't try to make it better. That means it's bad. Really bad. I figured as long as it is readable it I'll be okay so there was no need to strive for perfection. Two, I've spent countless hours working on precision with my chakra strings. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to catch an airborne kunai? Well I assure you it's even harder to catch Orochimaru's kunai, yet I can pull that off. Most of the time. Okay, when he's not that serious. Basically the thing I've worked on the most with my strings is striving for perfection. I can't be off by a centimeter with them, that could mean I miss. So it makes perfect sense that my control, my precision, with my chakra strings is better than my handwriting."
"I swear, one of these days you're going to find something that you can't use chakra strings to fix." Sasuke says in a low tone. "I swear it."
The brush pulls up from the paper and rests off to the side. I've finished it. "Damn dude, no need to be so serious about it all! I thought you'd be glad that I'm learning a new skill! We can finally store our tents and stuff. Oh, wait that's kind of a moot point now since we have Murasakino and the other Weavers to make hammocks."
"Don't get me wrong, it's not that you've started to learn seals that I'm mad about. It's your obsession with chakra strings. You've taken one of the most basic skills known to shinobi and made it broken. You do realize how insane the things you do with them are, right?"
"Oh believe me I know." I steal his trademark tone for my next sentence. "People have thought that I have the Magnet Release, the Storm Release, the ability of flight and so much more! Little do they know it's all the same skill just used a little bit differently."
I yank one of the two kunai from the floor and place it on my newly made seal. Even if this goes horribly wrong it'll just blow another hole in the table. It's not like I care about it at all, and judging from how shitty it looks neither does the hotel staff.
"Here we go!" I push chakra into my seal.
"Wait that's my good kunai!" Sasuke says as a puff of smoke swallows the weapon.
I quickly wave away the smoke to reveal my seal. The kunai is gone, or more accurately the kunai is within the seal. "Hell yeah! That couch is mine!"
Sasuke's entire body goes slack in defeat and he tilts his head back to look skyward. "Why is my best friend such an idiot? What did I do to deserve this?"
...
Eight Hours Later, Noon at the Contestant's Gazebo
"Oh good!" I chirp out once Sasuke and I take our usual seats. "Hiro did manage to escape. I was almost worried for a moment."
It looks like he just forced his way out. The earth pillar I made has been reduced to pebbles. Although, there are some interesting slash-like marks on the ground. Maybe he used wind jutsu to cut the webs then crushed the pillar in anger? Eh, whatever. Not like it's important.
"Yeah and I was worried that the hotel staff would kick us out. You caused an explosion at 4 in the morning." Sasuke grumbles. "If you make that a routine I will stab you. A lot."
"Okay okay I'll not work on potentially explosive things early in the morning."
"Hey Red. Hey Midori." Noboru plops down next to Sasuke.
We both nod to him.
Then something interesting happens, someone new sits down in our group. It's Leiko. She looks frazzled and unkempt. There's dark circles under her eyes and she has a twitch in her hands, like she'd rather be holding onto weapons than having them empty.
And there's a massive bruise all the way around her neck left over from when Gaara manhandled her.
"Why are you here?" I rudely say. "Trying to poison us to get a leg up in our fight?"
She nervously glances over my shoulder to look at something behind me. Or rather someone. "No. I don't want to be near that thing ever again. This is the furthest spot from it."
Okay, she's going down hard. I'm going to make her a laughing stock.
"Now that the three finalists are here, would you all come out to the field?" A familiar voice calls out.
"Holy shit why are they letting Eito proctor the matches still?" I can't help but to say. "I mean really? Like he's not going to be biased at all. I bet he holds me to ridiculously high standards and Leiko can do whatever she wants."
"Believe me," Leiko says with a haunted look in her eyes, "he'll treat this fairly. After what the Kusakage threatened to do he better."
"Oh. Worries abated then." I happily stroll to the field with both Sasuke and Leiko right behind me.
"Hey Eito." I greet him with friendliness. Okay so I'm feeling a bit vindictive. "How's it going?"
"Fine." He forces out.
"Just fine?" I cheekily respond even though it's clear he doesn't want me to. "Where's the fun in that? You need to get out more."
...
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