By the time I hauled myself back up to the stands, my legs were doing that fun thing where they pretended to be solid and trustworthy while actually being wet noodles.
Naruto spotted me first.
"Sylvie!" he yelled, waving both arms like someone trying to flag down a ship. "Hey! Hey! You missed— okay, you didn't miss much, but—"
"I saw," I said, slipping in beside him long enough to pat his sleeve. "And I heard."
He grinned at me, all teeth and worry pretending to be excitement. His eyes flicked down to the bandages peeking from under my arm warmers and then away, too fast.
"I'm fine," I added, before he could explode with questions.
"Obviously," he said. "You got double-KO'd, that's, like, twice the win."
"That's not how math works," I muttered.
"Troublesome," another voice complained behind him.
Shikamaru had slouched a few seats down, halfway between Naruto and the railing, like he was trying to be close enough to see and far enough away to pretend he didn't care. The space next to him was empty, Chōji off somewhere nervously eating or preparing to be crushed by fate.
When I looked over, Shikamaru jerked his chin at the empty spot.
"You might as well sit," he said. "You're already up. Waste of effort to go back down."
Somehow, that counted as an invitation.
I made my way over and dropped down beside him. Sitting hurt less than standing, so I decided this was an excellent plan.
The board hummed overhead again, names rolling.
TENTEN
TEMARI
Naruto let out a low whistle. "Weapon girl versus fan girl," he said. "This is gonna be awesome."
Shikamaru groaned quietly. "Ugh. That sand chick."
"You mad because she looks like she could kill you?" I asked.
"She looks like she wants to kill everyone," Shikamaru said. "Very different."
He folded his arms behind his head, but his eyes were sharp. I could feel his chakra doing that thing it did—stretching out in thin, invisible lines, quietly mapping where the light fell, where the shadows pooled.
He cut his gaze sidelong at me. "Okay, pinkhead. I'm using you."
"Wow," I said. "Rude."
"As a sounding board," he added, like that fixed it. "Don't get weird."
"Too late," I said. "What do you want?"
He jerked his chin toward the arena, where Tenten and Temari were hopping off the rail and heading down.
"Tell me what their chakra feels like," he said. "I'll do style. You do… whatever brain-color thing you do."
"Synesthesia," I said automatically.
"Gesundheit," he deadpanned.
Temari reached the center first. She swung her giant fan off her back with casual ease, planting it in the stone with a dull thunk. Three purple circles showed when she flicked it open a notch.
Her chakra felt like wide sky and sandstorms—pale yellow-green, stretched out, restless. Not super dense, but big. It wanted to move. To carve big shapes.
"Tornado girl," I said. "Her chakra spreads out. Really broad. Feels… wide and mean."
"Wind style," Shikamaru translated, nodding. "Got it."
Tenten approached with a more grounded bounce. Her hair buns were perfectly symmetrical, her vest neat, scrolls strapped to her back in tidy rows. She radiated focus.
Her chakra was lines and threads—tight, neat flows, little spikes where it gathered at her hands.
"Strings and dots," I said. "Fast little paths. Everything nice and tidy."
"Pure weapons specialist," he said. "She likes control, small margins, lots of options. Looks like she's got good storage scroll work, too."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
He gestured at her pouches. "You don't wear that many without wanting to throw half a storm at once. Too much drag to carry otherwise. Bet she dumped taijutsu and ninjutsu points into 'never run out of steel.'"
"Don't say 'points,'" I said. "I'll start seeing health bars."
He ignored that.
Hayate shuffled into position, coughing into his fist.
"Next match—" hack hack "—Tenten versus Temari. Begin."
He sprang back, barely clearing the first volley.
Tenten didn't waste a second. Hands blurred through seals, scrolls snapped open, and suddenly the air was full of metal.
Kunai, shuriken, blades I didn't even have names for—she spun in place and turned herself into the center of a storm of steel, every weapon arcing out in precise, deadly fans.
Naruto whooped. "YEAH! That's what I'm talking about!"
Temari watched the oncoming storm with a smirk. She snapped her fan fully open.
Three purple circles flashed.
"Wind Scythe Jutsu!" she called.
Her chakra surged, wide and cutting. A wall of compressed air roared out from the fan, invisible except for the way it distorted the space around it.
The metal storm met the wind and lost.
Blades spun off-course, slammed together, clattered harmlessly to the ground. A few came whistling back toward Tenten—Temari's wind had curled just enough to send them looping.
One grazed Tenten's cheek. Another slashed her sleeve. A third nearly took out her bun; she ducked just in time.
I flinched.
Shikamaru didn't.
"Wide-area control," he said, voice almost bored. "Hard counter."
"Hard counter how?" I demanded, fingers digging into the rail.
"She owns the whole sky," he said. "Tenten has to load her options into the air for them to matter. If the air belongs to the other girl, all that does is give Temari projectiles to play with."
He tilted his head. "Tenten's type is great against people who can't deal with volume. She overwhelms you, traps you, pins you down. But someone with big, sweeping control…?" He shrugged. "Troublesome match-up."
Down below, Tenten gritted her teeth, already pulling open more scrolls.
"She's not stopping," I said.
"Of course not," Shikamaru said. "People like her don't bail on their specialty halfway through. She's gonna try to brute-force it. Maybe sneak a trick in with the patterns."
"And Temari?" I asked.
"Temari doesn't even have to think yet," he said. "She just has to keep swinging."
Temari did keep swinging.
Every new wave of weapons met another burst of wind. It was almost obscene, watching all of Tenten's careful prep work get shredded in seconds. Her chakra spiked harder with each attempt, little lines of effort burning out against that big, lazy sweep of air.
My stomach twisted.
This wasn't like Shino's bugs or Kankurō's puppets, subtle horror creeping up slowly.
This was watching someone's whole thing get broken. The way Tenten's face tightened, the way she bit her lip and forced more weapons into the world even as Temari toyed with them—that hit somewhere too close to home.
You can work so hard on your little systems, your spiral notebooks, your tags, your careful plans. Then someone with a single big, cruel answer swats it all away.
Temari flicked her fan again, this time angling it lower.
The wind caught Tenten.
For a second she was airborne, limbs flailing, trailing steel. Then Temari stepped forward, fan snapping upward.
The gust slammed Tenten back down.
She hit the ground in a tumble of metal, scrolls, and bruises. A kunai thudded into the wall an inch from her head.
"Damn," Naruto breathed.
Temari stalked forward, resting the edge of the fan on her shoulder, looking down at Tenten like she was inspecting an interesting bug.
"Is that all?" she called. "If you're gonna throw toys at me, at least make it a challenge."
Tenten wheezed, tried to push herself up. Her arms shook. For a moment, it looked like she might make it to her knees.
Temari's smile went thin.
With a flick of her wrist, she brought the fan down in a sharp, controlled smack.
It wasn't lethal. It didn't have to be. It was just humiliating—knocking Tenten fully flat again, pinning her with wind pressure and the weight of that stupid painted cloth.
I flinched harder.
Beside me, Shikamaru sighed.
"That was unnecessary," he said. "She already had it."
"Can I go down there and—" Naruto started, already swinging a leg over the railing.
Gai appeared out of nowhere, having leapt from the stands. Lee was half a heartbeat behind him. By the time Naruto's brain finished saying "avenge," Guy had already scooped Tenten up and was lecturing Temari about the flames of youth, and Lee was making threatening noises while Gai held him back.
Temari rolled her eyes, shouldered her fan, and walked away without a scratch.
Hayate declared her the winner.
The crowd roared. Or at least, part of it did. Another part murmured, uneasy. The line between "impressive" and "too much" was thin, even here.
Shikamaru huffed. "File that under 'women who are too much trouble,'" he muttered.
"That file's getting pretty big," I said.
He gave me a sideways look. "You're in it too, obviously."
"I better be," I said.
He snorted.
The board flicked back to life overhead.
KIN
Click-click-click.
NARA SHIKAMARU
Shikamaru winced like the screen had personally insulted him.
"Ugh," he said. "Of course it's me next. What a drag."
He didn't move.
"Are you going?" I asked.
"Do I have to?" he asked back.
"Yes," I said.
Naruto, having recovered slightly from the Tenten situation, leaned over. "Go kick her butt, Shikamaru! Don't lose to someone with hair like that!"
Kin's hair was fine. A little sharp, but fine.
Shikamaru rubbed his face with both hands. "Troublesome," he repeated, and finally pushed himself to his feet.
As he walked past me, he tilted his head just enough for his words to be for me alone.
"She saw my jutsu in the Forest," he said. "I haven't seen hers. That's bad odds. So if I die, tell my mom it was because the exams are stupid."
"You're not dying," I said. "You're too stubborn."
He clicked his tongue. "That's what you're worried about? Stubbornness?" He shook his head. "Watch my shadow. And try not to pass out again."
Then he hopped the rail and headed for the stairs down.
I exhaled slowly.
His chakra stretched as he walked, like he was absentmindedly dragging lines behind him. Graph paper, I thought. He was already drawing.
The stairs down to the arena were way too long for someone who didn't want to go anywhere.
Shikamaru shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched the whole way, like he might turn around at any step and go back up to nap. That would be simpler. Fewer life-or-death variables. Less… everything.
The problem was, people were watching now.
Temari had just lawnmowered through Tenten. The air up there was still buzzing with it. Everyone's eyes were hot and sharp, skittering around, looking for the next bloody distraction.
"Troublesome," he muttered.
Kin Tsuchi was already on the field when he got there.
Short dark hair, headband worn low, bells tied to thin strings that looped around her fingers. Her expression was flat, almost bored, but there was a little tilt to her mouth that said she liked the idea of breaking things.
He remembered her from the forest.
Not clearly—he'd been busy not getting punched by Dosu and trying not to die when Sasuke went curse-mark berserk—but enough. She'd stood back, mostly. Watched.
Which meant: she'd seen his Shadow Imitation in action.
He hadn't seen her fight at all.
Bad trade.
He took his place opposite her, shadow pooling at his feet, politely attached to his body by the mercy of daylight.
Hayate dragged himself between them, coughing into his hand.
"Next match," he rasped. "Shikamaru Nara versus Kin Tsuchi. Begin when I say."
Shikamaru sighed. "Such a drag."
Kin's eyes flicked over him, up and down. "You don't look like much," she said. "You sure you're in the right place?"
"I could ask you the same," he said. "Shouldn't you be behind your loud friends, holding their coats?"
Her smile sharpened.
Hayate's hand chopped down. "Begin!"
Kin moved first.
Not at him. Sideways, in a light, sliding sidestep that kept her out of his shadow's immediate reach. Smart girl.
Thin senbon needles flashed into her hands like they'd always been there. Some had bells tied near the end, silver glinting.
Shikamaru snapped his hands into the Shadow Imitation seal and sent his chakra out.
His shadow stretched along the floor, dark and liquid, lunging toward hers.
Kin hopped back, light on her feet. The shadow fell short by a decent margin and stopped.
"Already used that trick," she called, voice amused. "Try again."
She flicked her wrists.
Bells sang through the air—high, sweet notes that overlapped weirdly. The senbon they were attached to spun out in arcs around him, seemingly random.
He dodged the needles easily enough, letting them thud into the ground, but the sound stuck.
It wasn't just bells.
The tones overlapped, making ugly, scraping little harmonics that wormed into his ears. The arena started to feel slightly off-kilter. His stomach did a small, traitorous flip.
Genjutsu?
Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, a distraction.
He forced his breathing slow and kept his eyes on the real problem: her strings.
Every bell was tied to a filament, thin and nearly invisible unless the light hit it just right. They trailed back to her fingers, looping and twisting.
She moved those hands constantly, making the bells tremble, making the sound shift.
The senbon were a nuisance. The bells were misdirection. The strings were the weapon.
He shifted his weight, letting another pair of needles flick past his shoulder. One nicked his sleeve. The bells chimed.
"You look a little dizzy," Kin said. "First time hearing music?"
"More like first time hearing bad music," Shikamaru said. "You should get a teacher."
He let his hands drop, shadow snapping back to his feet.
From the stands, he could feel Ino's glare. She'd be rolling her eyes, thinking he'd already given up.
Good.
Let them think that.
He stepped left. Then forward. Then another step, stopping just short of where his shadow's reach ended, based on the angles he'd already drawn out in his head.
The arena was a big, flat grid in his mind. Stone tiles. Pillars. The overhead lights. His own shadow. Kin's. The strings.
He marked them all, quick and lazy-looking. Graph paper in his skull. X and Y.
Kin shifted to keep the distance constant, hands never still, bells chiming too fast in irregular patterns.
He yawned.
She sniffed. "You're not taking this seriously."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," he said.
He flicked his gaze up for half a second, just enough to track the light angle. The sun outside, the placement of the arena lamps… yeah. Good enough.
He breathed in, slow.
Shadow Imitation again.
His chakra surged out, thinner this time, more of a careful stretch than a lunge.
Shadow stretched across the floor, black on gray, toward her.
Again, she hopped back, just out of reach, and laughed. "You're predictable."
"No," he said. "You're helping."
She frowned.
He let his eyes half-lid, brain doing the ugly, necessary work. Every time she dodged, her feet fell in a different place, but her hands stayed in a certain bound range so the strings didn't tangle. The bells mostly stayed in an arc in front of her.
Strings made shadows too.
Thin, yes. Faint, yes. But they were there—dancing lines across the floor, quivering in time with her fingers.
Troublesome. But workable.
He took another step, deliberately careless. One of the senbon scraped his cheek. A warm tickle of blood slid down.
Kin's grin widened. "Hit," she said.
"Big deal," he muttered.
The bells sang again.
His vision fuzzed at the edges—she was definitely lacing the sound with something, maybe chakra-pulses keyed to the ear. The world's outlines wobbled like heat haze.
He squinted against it, kept his focus on the thin, stuttering shadows.
He sent his chakra into his own shadow again, but not in a straight push. This time he split it.
Shadow Imitation could change shape. Not many people bothered with that. Straight line was easier, more dramatic.
He preferred hooks.
His shadow rippled, widening, then narrowing, reaching not just toward her feet but toward the tiny shadows cast by the strings she controlled.
He felt it when it touched.
A faint resistance, like a rubber band hooking onto another. The extra length from the strings' position gave him just enough reach.
Kin didn't notice.
She was too busy shifting her weight, ready to throw another volley of needles, bells chiming bright in her ears.
He finished forming the seal.
"Shadow Imitation Technique," he said.
His shadow snapped thin, then jerked.
Kin's shadow jerked with it.
She froze mid-step, eyes widening as her arms locked.
"Huh?" she managed.
He let his hands rise into position, fingers together, elbows up. Her hands mirrored his exactly, strings going still. The bells fell quiet, one last chime dying out.
"A-and they said you were supposed to be smart," he said. "That's disappointing."
Her jaw clenched. "When—"
"You were so busy thinking about my shadow," he said, "you forgot you make your own."
He let that sink in.
Her fingers twitched helplessly in sync with his. The thin strings between them shivered. He could feel every tiny motion echoed.
Time to end it before the bells got clever again.
He drew a shuriken from his pouch.
Her hand copied the motion, fingers fumbling at her own holster.
Up in the stands, someone leaned forward. Probably Naruto. Always loudest when he wasn't the one in danger.
Shikamaru brought his arm back, shuriken ready.
Kin did the same, her eyes fixed on him, angry and a little scared.
This was the part that usually sucked. If he let this play out straight, they'd both throw, both hit, both bleed. He didn't actually like pain, no matter what this stupid exam seemed to expect.
He'd solved that too.
He flicked his wrist and let the shuriken fly, low and fast.
Kin's arm snapped forward, mirroring his throw.
He watched the arc of his shuriken, the angle of hers, the way her stance was slightly off-center because she'd retreated earlier and now stood closer to the wall than he did.
He knew exactly how far.
He'd made sure.
"Now," he said.
They both ducked.
His body folded backward easily, like he was dropping bonelessly under a clothesline. His shuriken whistled over his own head, the other one passing above the empty space his face had previously occupied.
Kin had to do the same.
Her spine bent.
Her head snapped back.
Stone doesn't move.
Her skull connected with the arena wall in a sharp, ugly crack.
For a fractional instant, she stayed upright, eyes wide in surprise.
Then her legs went out from under her.
Shikamaru felt the tug on his shadow break as her consciousness did. The technique dispelled automatically when the target couldn't respond.
He straightened, dusting imaginary dirt off his pants, and watched her slump to the floor.
Hayate hurried over, kneeling to check her pulse, then raising one hand.
"K-Kin is unconscious," he announced. "Winner: Shikamaru Nara!"
Shikamaru rolled his shoulders. The stretch of the jutsu had left a dull ache down his spine. Shadow work was always like that—like pulling a tight band and letting it snap back. Predictable. Manageable. Still annoying.
Cheers scattered through the stands, mingled with a few uncomfortable mutters from people who'd seen the head hit and winced.
He scratched the back of his neck and started trudging toward the stairs.
"What a drag," he said under his breath.
Up top, Naruto was already yelling.
"DID YOU SEE THAT?!" Naruto bellowed at anyone who would listen. "HE USED HER OWN HEAD AGAINST HER!"
Shikamaru flinched at the phrasing.
"You won," Hayate said as he passed him, voice as dry as his cough. "You can at least pretend to be happy."
"Winning just means more work," Shikamaru grumbled. "Isn't chūnin all mission planning and paperwork and babysitting people like Naruto?"
Hayate gave him a long-suffering look that said "yes" more clearly than words.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru said again.
He stepped back into the stairwell, feeling all the eyes on his back.
Shikamaru's victory announcement rolled over us, and Naruto practically climbed the railing trying to scream his approval directly into his teammate's skull.
I snorted.
In my sight, Shikamaru's chakra wasn't lazy at all.
Even now, trudging up the stairs, it was busy—thin strands still stretched along the floor, tracing the paths the strings had taken, the angles of the shadows, the distances to each wall. His whole presence looked like a giant, low-key schematic drawn over the room.
His "I'm lazy" act was a lie he told the world and himself. Easier to say "what a drag" than admit his brain never shut up.
Naruto elbowed me, eyes shining. "Did you see it? He went WHOOOSH and then she went BONK and then—"
"I have eyes," I said. "I saw."
"It was cool, right?" he insisted.
"It was clever," I said, watching Shikamaru emerge back onto the balcony, shoulders already slumping like the win weighed more than the fight.
He caught my gaze for a second.
I lifted two fingers in a small salute.
He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
The board hummed overhead again, names starting to spin.
Naruto practically vibrated beside me.
"Okay, now it's gotta be my turn," he said. "Third time's the charm. The universe can't resist this much awesomeness forever."
My stomach did that swooping thing again.
Brain vs noise, wind vs steel, shadows vs bells—we were all getting peeled back, one by one, to see what we were actually made of.
Somewhere behind us, Sasuke slept under a new seal. Somewhere in the walls, a snake had slithered away, patient.
And overhead, the letters kept spinning.