[GUtW]—❈—50:: Round One: Fight! [III]

"Congratulations, Sasuke," Sakura says, looking at me with starry eyes. "I knew you could do it."

"Meh, he wasn't that impressive," Naruto says. "After my fight no one will even remember his."

Sure thing, Naruto. Keep telling that to yourself.

The next names are called; looks like it's Kankuro's turn.

—❈—

Myself and my teammates included, ten of the contestants are Leaf-nin; a number that makes sense since, as the hosting village, we had more entrants in the exam this year.

Kankuro's opponent is one of said Leaf-nin, a fourteen year old named… honestly I've forgotten the name despite just hearing it.

Kankuro and his opponent stand facing each other on the arena, the Leaf-nin watching the Sand-nin's large, wrapped package warily.

The gong rings.

Neither genin attack.

Finally, after several seconds of standing and staring, calmly on Kankuro's part and suspiciously on the Leaf-nin's, the Leaf-nin finally cracks: "Well, aren't you going to unwrap your weapon?" he asks.

Kankuro scoffs. "Please, you're not worth me going through the effort to unwrap this thing," he says.

The Leaf-nin scowls. "Fine then," he says. "Don't cry foul when you lose."

Despite saying that, the Leaf-nin doesn't rush at Kankuro carelessly. Instead, he approaches him with care and vigilance.

My opinion of him climbs appreciably.

Halfway to Kankuro, the Sand-nin sighs.

"Sage, you're so slow," he complains. "Fine, I'm coming to you."

What happens next is, to someone without the sharingan (or a convenient jōnin-sensei nearby to explain), I imagine rather amazing.

Kankuro floats at high speed towards his opponent. The Leaf-nin is of course startled, but he recovers quickly enough. Unfortunately however, it does him zero good.

Kankuro flows around every strike of his, landing strikes of his own on the Leaf-nin in hard to counter positions.

The Leaf-nin puts up a good attempt; trying to dish back the hurt at first, and then trying to create breathing room for himself when that fails, but in the end, it doesn't do much.

Blow by blow by blow, Kankuro slowly and methodically breaks down his opponent, making it obvious the entire time that he could have killed the Leaf-nin if he'd bothered to use a kunai or worse.

The Leaf-nin makes one last attempt, trying to use an area-of-effect fire jutsu, but Kankuro simply floats high up into the air.

Hanging above his opponent, Kankuro asks: "So, you wanna keep getting beat up, or should we end this? 'Cause I'm game either way."

The Leaf-nin glares at Kankuro, but eventually, he accepts reality; he can't win this.

"I surrender," he says, the words sounding like they physically hurt.

Kankuro is announced the winner, and his puppet lands, then retrieves his wrapped body and returns to the loge.

The next pair of names go up; Naruto, up against another of the Leaf-nin.

"Remember," Kakashi says, "don't get carried away. Don't try to drag it out to make it more fun, or fair for your opponent. You're here to wow the audience, so just go down there and be loud, be flashy, and blow your enemy away."

"So… just be his usual self?" Sakura quips.

Kakashi smiles. "Pretty much," he says.

Naruto grins. "Don't worry, guys, I'm gonna blow him so hard the whole arena will shake," he says.

Sakura tries to hold back a snort, her cheeks turning pink, I sigh and ask the universe for strength, Kakashi's eyes sparkle.

"Maybe not in front of The Hokage," he says ruffling Naruto's hair. "Now, come on, get going."

Naruto rushes off.

On the arena, the announcer begins to introduce the fighters.

"We have two Leaf-nin battling it out this match, and on the left is yet another rookie, teammate of the jutsu cancelling Uchiha we just saw two rounds ago, Naruto Uzuma—"

"Yeah, that's right," Naruto says, talking over the announcer. "My name's Naruto Uzumaki and I'm gonna be The Hokage one day, believe it!"

"What?" the announcer sounds utterly poleaxed. "Did he just—"

But Naruto isn't done. Oh no.

He turns and points at, who I assume is The Hokage, since they're sitting right above us.

"You hear that, Old Man?" he asks. "I'm coming to take your hat, believe it!"

The crowd draws in a collective breath.

Sakura facepalms, Kakashi mutters a "well, I told him to be memorable", and I try to ignore the looks my fellow contestants are now shooting in my direction.

Looks that clearly say "that's your teammate?"

Fucking Naruto, I almost sigh.

"Well, um, a bold declaration from Uzumaki there, but, of course, it remains to be seen if he can back it up," the announcer says, trying to wrest back control of the situation.

You know what they should do? They should make it so no one can here what the contestants say.

Yes, I know the way it is right now creates more drama and whatnot, but they really should reconsider it, or at least set it up to turn off whenever Naruto is down there.

With the fighters' introductions finally done, the fighters ready themselves.

"So, you want The Hokage's hat, huh?" Naruto's opponent asks. He settles into a fighting stance. "Well, you'll have to get through me first."

Naruto grins. "I'm gonna blow you away," he says.

The gong rings, and just like he said, Naruto blows him away.

To be honest, it can hardly even be called a fight.

—❈—

One more chapter should round up round one.

Thanks for reading, everyone.