Chapter 49 - 46

It's been three days and only a few teams passed the Second Phase. Either they got killed by other contestants, or they got eaten alive by the monsters living inside the Forest of Death. But Hikaru definitely had something to do with the decreased numbers of teams. First, he took out the majority of teams there. Only around 8 teams were left because of that.

Five from Konoha, One from Suna, One from Kumo, One from Oto.

It was also thanks to Hikaru why the others passed, he basically just left the rest of the scrolls he stole from other teams on the very spot they stayed.

He didn't really care, they got their goal and that's what really matters.

Inside his room, he laid his back on his bed as he "sleep".

Suddenly, without any warnings, he opened his eyes, revealing his dark eyes that has a red tint on the middle.

He rose up from his bed as he held his head, as if he was having a headache.

Earlier, he just died again fighting Manus. He thought he could take him on but that thought was squashed when he stood in front of the beast of the abyss. It was really strong, he could barely scratch it even with his strongest weapons. It had a very dense and tough skin.

"I think I would need to use blunt weapons next but that can wait. The preliminaries is already starting." Hikaru said as he stood up to leave the room.

His calm and collected face, his calculating eyes, and his guarded figure, it was as if his death earlier meant so little to him. Maybe it's because he already got used to it?

( At the Exam Hall )

Hikaru showed up suddenly between his teammates and along the other Konoha genins, surprising them all.

"Gah, you surprised me!" Sasuke said.

Sakura fell down a little before she fixed her posture.

The rest were just mildly surprised.

They all talked a little until the Hokage came out and proceeded to announce his speech. It was just all about the chuunin exams being a replacement for wars and stuff, before Hayate Gekko, the proctor, decided to take the lead.

After a short speech from their proctor, he announced the preliminaries to begin.

There was a large screen in the middle of the ceilings, and on it were the names of all of the Genins present.

Hayate gave them a chance to forfeit and Kabuto immediately raised his hand. Shikamaru seems to have the same idea but he suddenly remembered his mother, he shivered, before he ultimately decided against that decision.

On the other hand, Hikaru stared at the Kumo team. They were the ones who defeated his clone, albeit that clone of his was holding back, even so, a defeat is a defeat.

There were three of them, two of them had red hairs. They were a boy and a girl, and the other had a darker tone of skin, different from his teammates tanned skin. The two red hairs seems to be siblings since they almost had the same face, and purple eyes. The other one had grey hair that had long bangs, a lazy-looking eyes, and he was quite tall. The other two were about the same height as Sasuke.

The grey haired Kumo genin has a pretty big sword on his back The two red hairs had tantos on their waists. They may be all proficient in Kenjutsu, and they're quite a threat to his team.

Hayate stood in the middle of the arena and the large screen on top of the ceiling suddenly flashed before two names were picked.

"Akimichi Choji vs Nara Shikamaru, please step down here on the arena, " Hayate announced.

The two were quite surprised to see their names on the board but accepted it nonetheless. The two friends went down and faced each other.

"Alright, start!" And just as Hayate announced the battle, Choji suddenly forfeited.

"I forfeit, proctor. I don't want to fight my best friend." Choji said as he munched on the ch.i.p.s he had on his hand.

'I was about to forfeit, too. What a drag." Shikamru thought as he scratched the back of his head.

"F-fine, cough, the winner is Nara Shikamaru!" Hayate announced.\ but he coughed mid-way.

The two returned back to their spots on top of the arena.

The board then flashed another names.

"Mizumi Tsurugi vs Kankuro, please come down to the arena." Hayate announced. It was pretty obvious that he was sick.

The two came down and Hayate announced the battle to start before jumping back.

After a few minutes or so, Kankuro's opponent fainted because of the poisons he injected to his body via his puppet. He could've killed him there but he decided against it. Orochimaru might get a little upset.

"Winner, Kankuro from Sunagakure!" After announcing that, the board then flashed another two names again.

It was Tenten and Temari.

Both of them jumped down towards the stage, where they both looked fiercely at each other. Seeing that the two were ready to fight, Hayate announced their battle to start before retreating.

"So, I heard around here that you are a weapon expert. Care to show me?" Temari said as she readied her battle fan.

Tenten smiled with confidence and said, "Of course, but you better be ready 'cause I'm not holding back!"

She took out a scroll before she spread it out, and smokes after smokes poof out a variety of weapons. She then threw all of them towards Temari in high speed, some even doubt that she was a genin.

"Hmph." Temari snorted before she waved her battle fan, deflecting all of her weapons but that was a bad move from her because almost of those weapons were connected to streams of exploding tags.

When she noticed this, it was too late. All of the exploding tags planted by Tenten exploded everywhere.

"Good job, Tenten!" Rock Lee shouted from up the stage along with Gai.

The entire stage were covered by smoke before Temari waved her giant battle fan, dissipating the smoke created by those exploding tags.

It was good that she managed to kawarimi just in time.

"Tch, how did you survive that? No, it doesn't matter. I'll show you how a weapon master fights!" She said/

She then threw four shurikens towards Temari, only for her it to missed as Temari smirked.

"No way, Tenten missed!?" Rock Lee said in shock.

Gai then squinted his eyes and said, "No, if you look a little closely, you would see that girl from Suna just dodged it, very easily if I say so myself."

Temari decided to taunt her, "Is that the best you got? You won't even be able to scratch me like that."

"Don't you underestimate me!" Tenten then ran around Temari before jumping upwards. She took out another scroll and she spreads it out in the air before flipping through the air as the scroll was spinning around her.

Dozens upon dozens of various weapons were shot towards Temari as she spins in the air. Seeing this, Temari just opened her battle fan again before she deflected all of it easily.

Up on the stage, Hikaru only turned his back around and said, "Tenten will lose. Obviously, Temari has the advantages. Tenten's rapid throwing of weapons will only lead to futility."

"How can you say that? She's from Konoha, you know!" Rock Lee said, he was quite angry hearing someone say that about his friend.

"Well, if you say so. But it doesn't change a thing, she will still lose. If just throwing a bunch toys in mid-air can make you a shinobi, many would've succeeded a long time ago." Hikaru said harshly.

"You take that back!" Rock Lee yelled at Hikaru in anger.

Hikaru narrowed his eyes, seeing him do that, Kakashi decided to intervene.

"Gai, can you do something about your student? I'll take care of mine." Kakashi said to Gai with an eye smile.

"Of course, my eternal rival! Lee, calm down. I'm sure young Hikaru here didn't mean a word he said, " Gai told him as he tried calming him down.

Hikaru snorted and just ignored them. He was still quite upset about losing all of his souls after he was killed by Manus. That was more than 5 Million, mind you. Anyone would be upset if they lose that kind of huge amount.

And, just as he said a few moments ago, Tenten lost terribly to Temari. Even as far as using the technique she called, "Rising Dragons". Which was just another name for throwing a bunch of weapons towards her opponent. It was ridiculous, really.

Seeing him this annoyed, his teammates worries about his opponent in the preliminaries. Imagine someone as strong as Hikaru your opponent.

After Temari was taken by the medical staff, Hayate announced Temari as the winner. Tenten's defeat was not as bad in the anime, Temari just made her faint after tiring her out. It may be because they're basically prisoners of Konoha that she went easy on Tenten.

Next, the board then flash two other names.

Uchiha Sasuke vs Yoroi Akado.

"Please come down the both of you." Hayate said.

"Sasuke-kun, good luck." Sakura told him.

Sasuke simply smiled and said, "Thank you, I'll defeat him a hundred percent." With that, he left Sakura with hearts all over her eyes.

On the other side of the stands was Orochimaru, who's disguised as the Jounin-sensei of Yoroi and two others. He's gritting his teeth in anger as he missed the chance to mark Sasuke with his cursed seal earlier in the forest of death. He simply couldn't find him!

'Tch, it doesn't matter. I heard Sasuke has some brother issues, maybe I will be able to take advantage of that. First, I need to mark him. That way it'll be easier to get him to my side.' Orochimaru thought deviously inside his head.

As he stared at Sasuke, he didn't realize that Hikaru was looking at him. It seems like he already got a gist of who he is.

Seeing that snake present, Hikaru close his eyes and waited for his turn.

In the fight, Sasuke had a rough start. It was because Yoroi was able to absorb his chakra just buy getting in contact with him, and that messed up his sharingan because his eyes needed chakra to be active. So he decided to turn it off and started to use long-range attacks, I.e Jutsus.

After a few hits of his katon jutsus, he finally knocked him out with a simple taijutsu.

"Winner, Uchiha Sasuke!" Hayate announced.

Sasuke went up the to his team but he was a little tired. That fight with Yoroi definitely did some numbers on him.

"Congratulations, Sasuke-kun! You won!" Sakura cheered for her beloved Sasuke.

"Yeah, thanks. I'll rest for now. Good luck with your fight, Sakura." He said as he sat beside the wall to rest a little.

Next, it was Sakura's turn to fight, Her opponent was Ino.

They both went down and faced each other. Hayate announced the beginning of their fight and they got ready.

Their fight was quite pathetic, actually. A few slaps here and there before they knocked each other out with a punch in the head.