Game of Shadows - 46 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Chapter 46

“Do you think it’ll be as easy as she said it would?” I asked Shikamaru as we saw Ino facing Raijin.

“No,” He shook his head decisively. “But she has her tricks. She’ll be fine,” He reassured with a shrug and I nodded.

“Bold, that guy,” Anko said, drawing a frown from both of us. We had seen Kiri nin speak, but he had done so in a normal volume, which meant that the words didn’t reach our ears.

“You can hear them from all the way over here?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I can read their lips, brat,” She corrected with a roll of her eyes. “By the way, in case you were curious. That guy really wants to beat you.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” I shot at her, my hand sliding over the railing over to where Nuibari rested next to me. I had taken Zabuza’s words to heart and left the sword out. Although, I would need to get a sheath for it or something, since I didn’t have anything to carry it on my person.

“Begin!” Gekko called, for the last time and my eyes narrowed as Raijin instantly unsealed a pair of swords.

“Wow, these guys really aren’t being very subtle here,” I muttered to myself, drawing humming sounds from Shikamaru and the Sensei’s. Sasuke remained with his hard to read expression as usual and Naruto made a confused ‘huh?’. Why did I say that? Because the words were very obviously Kiba imitations, just like the Hiramekarei lookalike Choujurou used before. ‘This Exams really are to show off… which makes me wonder-’

My thoughts were interrupted as the participants made their moves. Ino ran through a couple of hand seals, which drew a confused frown from me. Not because I was surprised she used a ninjutsu technique besides her clan’s though. The others had shown me not to expect that from any of them. No, the confusion came because after doing that… nothing happened. Nothing at all, I even sent a look around the arena to see if she had set up something of a trap, but nothing came up.

Her opponent, however, didn’t sit around to see what that was all about. Raijin rushed at her immediately, swords ready to start slashing at her. With her Jutsu, whatever that might have been, done, Ino drew two Kunai from her pouch and readied her stance to defend herself.

From where I stood, Raijin seemed to be fast. As fast as me, actually, although that was without any of my Active Skills on, but it was still a lot, really. It was fortunate then, that all my friends sparred with me, using Taijutsu and Kenjutsu, regularly. Physical prowess was, after all, something that everyone needed, regardless of specialization.

Still, as the blades clashed, I knew that Ino wasn’t going to do so well. Even if she was used to the guy's speed, she still didn’t have the skill to face the guy. And it showed. Slowly, she started to lose ground against Raijin, the guy pressing all her openings, no matter how small they were. And when she took a step back, I knew that her time was running out.

“Still,” I muttered to myself as I looked at the two combatants. “Something looks wrong here,” Shikamaru’s small smirk told me that, yes, there was something I was missing in the battle. Taking a moment to look deeper into both of their movements, I finally realized what it was. “Why is Ino breathing… like that?” I asked worriedly. The Yamanaka was gasping for breath like she had been fighting for a day instead of just a minute. And I knew there was a reason for that. She wasn’t the weakling that I had written about in my notes about canon.

There was something happening here. ‘Is it the effect of that Jutsu she used at the beginning? What does it do, then?’ I wondered to myself. There was no time to ponder on that, however, because things changed again then.

Raijin slash went wide, giving Ino an opening to cut his upper arm with her kunai. At that, the Kiri nin jumped back visibly confused. Narrowing my eyes, I caught the guy blinking rapidly and giving his head a little shake. I shared his confusion, honestly. I would have liked to know what the hell was happening down there.

The boy seemed to reach a conclusion on what to do eventually though, while Ino waited with her guard up, trying to catch her breath. The Kiri nin’s new plan seemed to be much the same as before, but with a little more ‘oomph’ to it, as some would say.

His Kiba imitations started sparkling with electricity all over and I immediately knew what that was. ‘Chakra Flow, huh?’ I mused with a frown. The Lightning element wasn’t really a surprise, since he was being trained to use Kiba of all swords. However, it was obviously bad for Ino, since she couldn’t safely block the things with her metallic kunai now.

Or, that’s what I thought, because when Raijin rushed back in, that’s exactly what she did.

“What?” I asked out loud with wide eyes as I saw Ino take the hit with her weapon and remain perfectly fine. Her opponent reacted just like I did, but much louder. Anko’s laugh behind me broke my concentration for a second before I focused my eyes back on the battle and how my friend continued to block the incoming enhanced attacks.

“It seems your friends were preparing to fight you, Eiji,” My sensei commented, sounding highly amused. I paused at those words and considered them. The secret Jutsu additions to their skill sets, had been a surprise, yeah. But this… She was right, I thought with an incredulous chuckle. They had prepared tricks and secret cards to fight me.

“Can you blame us?” Sasuke asked from the side, with a raised eyebrow. The upwards curve on the corner of his mouth denoted that he was very amused by my reaction. “You were the person to beat in this exam, for us at least.”

“You guys, honestly,” I shook my head.

Meanwhile, I could see the desperation starting to get to Ino’s opponent. I couldn’t blame him, if I had pulled a trick that my opponent countered perfectly without effort, I would have been afraid too. But the guy wasn’t a Swordsman-in-training (with capital S) for nothing.

Jumping back, Raijin stuck both his swords on the ground. Ino let out a long breath out as she, once again, kept her guard up and ready. She had been on the defensive for much of the match, I realized, but she was doing something, that much was obvious to see.

The Kiri nin’s next attempt was much different from his first two approaches, which had been reliant on his swordsmanship. This time, his swords weren’t coated on Lightning. No, instead, it looked like they became electricity itself. And then the charge shot towards Ino who instantly jumped to the side. I didn’t quite recognize the Jutsu myself. It definitely wasn’t one of the Electromagnetic series, since it traveled through his weapons into the ground and then forwards. Sadly, Ino’s attempt at dodging wasn’t quite fast enough to succeed, her leg getting hit and leaving her twitching on the ground.

Taking his swords out of the now broken ground, Raijin prepared to charge back in now that his opponent was weakened. However, I narrowed my eyes when he stumbled forward. ‘What even did you do, Ino?’ I wondered to myself. The only clue I had was her strange breathing but…

Then it dawned on me and I grinned, chuckling to myself.

“Finally noticed?” Anko asked and I could hear the smirk on her face.

“That tricky little shit,” I muttered, my eyes firmly set on the arena.

“What’d she do?” Naruto asked curiously. It seemed that they hadn’t shared their tricks between teams. Understandable, I guessed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, sealboy?” I shot back with a smirk, earning a whine from the blonde.

Finally, Raijin seemed to regain his bearings and ran forwards… much slower than he had before. Still, Ino had barely had the time to recover slightly before the swords came down on her. Her kunais almost didn’t make it to block the assault, but she managed at the last second. The edge stopped barely an inch away from her face. I had to smile at the determined expression on her face, she really had changed.

Still, I gotta hand it to the guy as he started his barrage once again, his skill remained just as good as it had been, regardless of what Ino was doing to him. My skill didn’t drop by much with those kinds of things, but that was probably because of the System. After all, no matter what people did for me, short of maiming me, my skill would always stay up to par. Or, at least, that was the case with everything that I had had to deal with so far.

Eventually though, the Kiri nin’s strikes started to go falter. His arms didn’t move as he wanted them to. Being too slow. Going slightly off. Not having enough strength. And his chance slipped by him.

“Pride strikes again,” I said with a smile as I saw victory come my friend's way. If the guy had gone all out from the beginning, throwing that Lightning Jutsu from the beginning instead of showing off his sword skill, it would have been different. It hadn't been decided yet though, of course. To be fair, Ino looked like she was barely hanging by a thread, sweating bullets and gasping for breath in a way that I was sure had nothing to do with her Jutsu anymore.

Then, just as Raijin sent another double attack with his blades towards Ino, she jumped back. The Kiri nin all but fell on his face as the now expected block didn’t come. He was that out of it. Visibly psyching himself to get up, he put his hands on the ground and tried to push himself to his feet. It didn’t quite work out.

Ino, where she stood, let his arms down for seemingly the first time in the whole match. I could almost hear her praying that Raijin wouldn’t stand up. She was on her last legs too, and that was only defending throughout most of the match.

Still, a win's a win, and as the Kiri nin finally fell to the ground without even trying to get up, Gekko announced hers.

“Well, most of us passed, so that’s great,” I commented with a proud smile.

“Shame for Sakura and Chouji,” Naruto sighed and I nodded in agreement. Secretly, I was more bummed by the second than the first, but there was no need to point that out. I liked Sakura alright, but I was just closer to Chouji.

‘We still got an odd number of participants passing, huh?’ I realized then with a raised eyebrow. Then, Gekko asked all winners to go to the arena, and, as everyone walked towards the stairs, I stayed back.

“Eiji?” Anko asked and I looked at her with a serious expression.

“My teammate, the one that quit, Kabuto,” I said with a click of my tongue. “There was something going on there. There’s no way he was exhausted from our time in the forest,” Her eyes narrowed.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Just an observation,” I shrugged with an unsure expression. “I just found it odd. We had days to rest, and he was still tired from a bit of healing? I’m no expert but I like to think I know enough about healing to tell if someone should have exhausted himself or not, even with smaller reserves.”

She stared at me for a moment before nodding slowly.

“Go down there, kid,” I nodded back and turned. ‘That was as much as I could do on that front, I think,’ I thought, trying not to grimace. I hoped it would be enough. With everyone’s paranoia sky high due to Orochimaru though? ‘It should be enough,’ I reassured myself.

Soon enough, the eleven winners were standing in front of the Hokage as he explained the Third Exam to us. ‘One month,’ I mused as we heard and some asked their questions. ‘Not nearly enough to work on much. Probably enough to Max one Jutsu, an original one at least...’ I mused with a frown. One Jutsu sounded like very little.

Someone might have said that I needn’t worry. After all, I had taken out Gaara, and he was the one to beat in the Exams, right? And that much was true, yeah. But the problem wasn’t the Exams. I could honestly care less about those.

The problem was the Crush.

The Invasion of Konoha that could or could not happen during the event. Orochimaru was coming to mess things up and kill our Kage. Suna and Oto attacked the whole village. And with the changes that had already been made, who knew what else could happen?

The last thing I needed to do was take it easy.

‘I have to make a more powerful Jutsu,’ I noted mentally. ‘From there, anything that helps is welcome.’

Eventually, it came time for us to draw the numbers for the Finals. And the results were… surprising, although they were also quite interesting, in my opinion. Naruto and I looked at each other with wide grins.

For the first match, it would be Ino vs Shikamaru, the winner of that match would go against Temari after all the other matches were done. I found it more than a little amusing that Shikamaru was dealt the same hand that he had in canon but with Ino taking the Sound nin’s place.

The second match was the important one though, for me at least. Me against Naruto. That would be a great fight regardless of whatever went on in it. And I was looking forward to it, since Naruto didn’t use many seals in our training spars. I wanted to know what else he had up his sleeve.

The third match would be Sasuke vs Akatsuchi, which I was pretty sure the Uchiha would win. However, I was pretty sure that it would be, at the very least, entertaining to watch. I expected the Iwa nin to make our friend work for his win, at least.

And last, but not least, was Kurotsuchi vs Lee. Ninjutsu vs Taijutsu, as far as I was aware that is. ‘I’m looking forward to all the battles, really,’ I thought, grinning from ear to ear.

“Well, that’s it,” I said as Hiruzen dismissed us. Turning towards our group, I blinked repeatedly. Ino had her arms wrapped around Naruto’s neck as he gave the girl a piggyback ride.

“What? I’m tired. That fight was tough,” Ino defended herself.

“A bit too defensive there, aren’t you, Ino?” Shikamaru commented with a smirk.

I continued staring. ‘Is this a thing?’ I wondered, more surprised than anything else. Of all changes that I had caused, that wasn’t one that I expected or even considered, but I probably should have. After all, if events could change as much as they had already, why wouldn’t people end up with different partners? Granted, this didn’t really mean that, but it was a nice reminder that nothing was set in stone.

Still…

“My siblings grow up so quickly,” I wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of my eye. “You didn’t tell big bro Eiji that you two were together, you two!” I exclaimed exaggeratedly, earning whined ‘Eiji!’ from both. “Now, let’s go visit Chouji, Sasuke, Shika, lovebirds.”

And with that, I turned towards the exit with the Uchiha and the Nara grinning and holding back chuckles next to me. Behind us, a pair of blondes complained the whole way there.

[}-o-{]

“You were awesome, Chouji!” Naruto told the Akimichi as we all stood inside his room. His parents had told us that he had already been treated and just had to wait for the poison to be completely dealt with, which would take a day at most. For now, he needed to stay in the room just in case, but it fortunately allowed us to visit and all together.

“It was a really good fight, Chouji,” I nodded, and I was telling the truth too. He had done exceptionally well. Much better than he had in canon, that’s for sure.

“Thanks, guys,” Chouji accepted with a bashful nod of his head. “Still, I’ll need to train harder.”

“That’s the spirit,” I gave him a pat on his shoulder. Then, I sat back as the others gave him a rundown on how the other matches had gone. Congratulations were traded and soon enough we had to leave, lest the nurses started getting on our cases.

As we stepped outside the room, I paused. There, further down the hall, stood Kankuro and Temari. I stopped walking and looked at them for a moment. ‘That means Gaara is there,’ I thought, strangely curious. Strangely because I hadn’t even thought about the sand user that much after our match. Still, something nagged me in my mind, and I half suspected it to be Orochimaru or the purple thing that had started making a mess in my mindscape. But I knew it wasn’t either of those.

“Guys, go ahead, I’ll meet you guys back at home,” I told the group who were eyeing me curiously. “Are you going to eat at your houses or am I preparing a meal for everyone?”

“We’ll eat at home. Maybe tomorrow, Eiji,” Shika nodded, his eyes looking over my shoulder and probably guessing what I was about to do. He narrowed his eyes and stared at me before I gave him a nod. The Nara then took a deep breath as if calming himself and nodded back.

“Ok, keep an eye on these two, will you, guys? God knows what they’ll do if left by themselves.”

““Eiji!””

With a chuckle, I turned and we went our separate ways.

‘Why am I doing this?’ I wondered as I approached two of the three Suna siblings.

“What do you want?” Kankuro asked instantly as I drew closer, both of them tensing up. ‘I wonder that too, buddy,’ I thought to myself before putting my hands up placatingly.

“I just wanted to see if he is ok,” I replied unsure.

“Do I look stupid to you?” He asked with a frown and I tilted my head.

“Is that a trick question?” I couldn’t help but shoot back. After all, he did look very silly with that… war paint, or whatever. That earned me a growl and a snort from Temari. I counted that as both a win and a loss. “Look, I’m not stupid. I know you don’t like me-”

“Well, aren’t you a genius?” He interrupted sarcastically.

“-but I’m just here to see if he is ok… and maybe talk with him, that’s all,” I finished explaining, ignoring his words. Both of them stared at me as if I had grown a second head. Which… was fair, since I felt equally confused myself.

Then, Kankuro smiled, which was all sorts of creepy. Mostly because I could guess what he was thinking. ‘If he has a death wish, he can go right in,’ I could hear in my head with his voice. After all, I knew he probably still held a little bit of a grudge for the thing before the First Test. It wasn’t that much of a problem, really. If it got me what I wanted, all the better.

“Well, you can go in if you want, he is awake,” He signaled the door, grinning from ear to ear. Looking at Temari, I saw that she was unsure, but still kept her silence.

“Thank you,” I said flatly as I moved towards the door. ‘Why am I doing this?’ I asked myself once again as I took a deep breath in and made my way inside.

I had half expected the room to have sand flying all around with Gaara throwing a tantrum that I hadn’t ‘proved his existence’. Instead, I found the redhead simply lying on his bed, looking at the ceiling with that dead stare of his. When I closed the door behind me, he turned towards me and I tensed up, preparing myself to Flicker right out the window if things went south.

“Why are you here?” He asked then, his voice as dull as his eyes.

“I would like to know that myself,” I replied with a shrug, moving towards a chair in the corner of the room. “I just… felt like visiting,” With that said, I looked at the seat for a second before turning and leaning against the wall on the side of the window instead. No need to make an escape more difficult for myself by sitting.

Then, as we stared at one another, neither showing anything in our faces, silence fell in the room. It wrapped around everything so tightly that I would swear I didn’t even hear the outside even being next to the window. No birds, no people. Nobody seemed to walk by in the hall either.

It was just Gaara and I.

And I didn’t know where the atmosphere had come from, if I was honest. I could go for the obvious and say that I was tense in the presence of a boy that was clearly a little out of it with a demon whispering in his ear. That I was on guard in case he attacked.

However, that wasn’t it.

“Did you prove it?” Gaara broke the spell first, almost making me jump in surprise. When I didn’t immediately reply, he elaborated. “Did you prove your strength?”

I remembered then, what I had said in our battle. And with that came the memory of the high I had been riding during the whole thing. A slight smile formed on my face as I considered his question. In the end, I nodded.

“Yes… I think so, at least,” I replied slowly. “You were really strong, by the way. So, thanks for that.”

“Thanks?” He blinked at me, his head tilting the slightest bit to the side in confusion. Like the word was foreing to him.

“I needed a strong opponent. To prove my strength to myself. To prove that I could face the forces out there and maybe survive them,” I mused out loud, almost like I was talking to myself. “And you were that person. So, thank you.”

Silence returned this time, although it was quite as oppressive as it had felt before.

“And you, what was the deal with the ‘prove my existence’ thing?” I asked, internally preparing in case he snapped at my words. Instead, he looked out the window next to me for a moment and turned back to me.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” He asked instead of answering, his green eyes focusing on my red ones. I blinked at that, taken aback before I remembered what I knew about him.

“I didn’t need to,” I answered simply with a shrug.

“Everyone’s always tried to kill me,” The boy spoke, and I felt the slightest bit amused that this time it seemed to be him the one that talked to himself more than to me. That was sadly buried under the weight of what he was actually saying. “I started thinking that was my purpose. To kill those who could kill me. That was the meaning of my existence. Or so I thought… but you didn’t kill me. I don’t understand,” He said, looking truly confused by what had happened.

“There were many reasons for not killing you,” I replied then, ignoring the first part of his speech. “But in the end, I didn’t need to, so I didn’t. I don’t like killing, honestly. Not if I can avoid doing so.”

“Then someone else will kill you instead,” Gaara declared, as if that was an universal truth. And to him, I supposed it was. It also, depressingly, was probably more true than not in the world we lived in.

“Anyone that is a danger to me or to my friends will die.” My eyes stared intently at his, trying to convey how serious that vow was.

“Friends,” He said then, in a way that seemed both confused and disbelieving.

“Yeah, they are all that matters to me,” I nodded with a small smile. “When we die… what do we take with us? What do we have then?” I asked him, and he tilted his head.

“Nothing, I would imagine,” He answered, looking like he was trying to decipher where I was going with my words. My smile turned sad at his words.

“I think so too,” I agreed. ‘I know so,’ I corrected in my head. “When I first thought that, I wondered what I would miss the most then. And the answer I came to was that I would miss my friends the most. My family. The people that I care about. So, that’s what really matters to me. What I fight for.”

Silence fell on us, once again. But it felt like a peaceful one this time. My gaze moved to the side, looking out the window towards the street. This time the absence of words didn’t hide the sounds of the world outside our conversation, I noticed. I was… calm, in the presence of a boy that could kill me very easily if I let my guard down. That was… strange.

“Is that why you are so strong?” Gaara broke the silence again. “Friends? Family?”

“I like to think so,” I mused. “That I am the strongest when I fight for them.” ‘Did I just pull a Talk no Jutsu out of nowhere?’ I blinked when the realization hit me. Then, I turned towards the red haired boy. ‘Doesn’t look like it worked though,’ I thought, somewhat dejectedly as I saw his expression remain empty. I wondered if Gaara would remain an enemy. “I hope you recover soon,” I said then, pushing myself off the wall and walking towards the door.

“We’ll fight again,” I heard just as I closed the door behind me. And I wondered then.

‘Was that a threat… or a challenge?’

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

I’m honestly shocked with how easily this chapter came to me. Especially since half of it was Ino’s fight and we all know how I feel about fighting. But I’m not complaining, that's for sure.

I’m also, surprisingly, not very worried about the contents of it. I think this one went well, all things considered. I mentioned something about this in Game of Monsters, but I thought it was a thing only for that fic. But I seem to be less worried about my chapters in general now. Which is good, fearing the reception of all my chapters was more than a little bit stressful.

Am I having my own character development? Maybe.

I want to point out that what happened in this chapter doesn’t mean this will be a NarutoxIno story. I just thought it would be fun and it would be nice to point out that pairings may vary from canon too. With that said, this also doesn’t mean that this won’t be a NarutoxIno. After all, even I don’t know what the pairings will be, since I probably won’t touch romance for a good while.

Random Question: What do you think about the Preliminaries? They weren’t as painful to write as I expected them to be, but I’m still happy it’s done.

Random Question 2: What do you think of the Finals’s matches? I decided those with a randomizer too, if anyone wondered.

See you.