Chapter 15: Shirotsu

The crowd was impatiently yelling for the next match when I rejoined Shikamaru. The proctor announced that Sasuke's match would be moved to the end, so he called for the next one. Kankuro withdrew, letting Shino win. The crowd got even more mad, and I walked down the stairs, knowing what's next. As the proctor called for the next one, I was already heading along the stadium floor. Shirotsu jumped down from his spot, and walked a bit behind me.

"Next match is Ami Hyuga versus Shirotsu Aburame." Hayate called out. "Begin!"

"You are at a disadvantage. Your twin just fought, showing everyone your moves." Shirotsu taunts me and I just stare at him bored. "Plus I've seen you fight in the preliminaries. You are a close range fighter, deadly in both speed and precision. So it's simple to beat you!" He calls out in a deep voice and jumps away.

I smirk at him, and take it one step further. I back away to the farthest corner of the stage. He starts to spread his bugs out, I can see them floating like a cloud towards me. I take out my fans and open them, blades extended, and brace one leg back against the wall. I may have created that one explosion as a decoy two nights ago, but it served an impressive purpose when I saw the pure destruction from it. So, when his bugs were about halfway through the stadium, I combined both fans and launched out the huge explosion attack, just on a smaller scale than I did in the woods.

"I hope those little bugs weren't your friends." I taunt as the huge cluster of bugs gets sliced to pieces from my wind. Shirotsu had managed to hide behind a tree once my attack reached him, so he got away relatively unscathed, only scrapes from the debris having hit him. I activate my eyes, and I can see him panting hard. He still has more bugs in him, but not that many anymore.

Shirotsu creates a bug clone and sends his real body underground. My eyes catch it easily so I keep an on his real self as his clone runs out to catch my attention. His real body isn't moving and doesn't leave the underground area, he's trying to lure me into a trap with his clone. I take my bow and load it as I jump high into the air. I load an arrow with wind chakra and send it like a missile into the ground where his real body is. I purposely have the arrow fly directly through his clone, the micro blades of wind on the arrow destroying the bugs.

"She only hit a clone." I hear people say from the audience and I smirk. Right after, everyone can see Shirotsu climbing out of the destroyed crater my arrow had struck him at. I didn't aim to severely harm him or anything, but he did get hit lightly on his side with the arrow, and his cover was blown.

"Forfeit now or die." I call out. I aim for a non-lethal spot, there's no need to cause long term harm or to kill him, he's done me no wrong.

"I'm not done yet." Shirotsu says boldly. I use my eyes to search around, and make my way away from the edges of the stadium. I put my bow away as I spot more bugs being called to him from far away. That's an annoying skill, he seems to have some type of beacon ability. In almost an instant, I'm surrounded from all angles by hordes of bugs, and it's like I'm in my own worst nightmare.

I take my fans again, blades out and use the Rotation technique, only with my own special twist. Instead of just creating the ultimate defense, the wind nature with it creates a large dome tornado. Arcs of razor sharp wind extend out like scythes from my dome, annihilating every bug and cutting down the trees. I reign it in when I get dangerously close to the audience, and notice the first few rows ducking down. May have put too much into that attack. I look around for Shirotsu, who went underground during my attack and is advancing towards me. He seems to plan to attack me the same way Naruto did to Neji, so I let him.

I stored my fans in my sleeves and took my stance. Shirotsu jumped out of the ground, and I angled myself to look like I took the hit, but just jumped in a backflip, pounced down, and then rapidly began the eight trigram 64 palm strike attack.

"2!" I call out as I land the first two hits on the off balance Shirotsu, who has no time to surround his body in bugs to defend himself. I call out each set of strikes as they land on him. He's lying on the ground after I land my last attack, which sent him flying back. I watch his body in a defensive position, keeping my eyes peeled for any hidden attacks. I don't trust how well that went, even if I was using overpowered attacks.

Hayate walks up to Shirotsu and checked on him. He checked his pulse, and for a moment of fear I thought maybe I went too far, but no, he's still breathing.

"Since Shirotsu is knocked out, the winner is Ami Hyuga." Hayate calls out and I drop my defense. I go to check on Shirotsu as well.

"Is he ok?" I ask Hayate cautiously.

"He'll be fine. You overwhelmed him, is all. Go retrieve your gear, you did well." He tells me kindly with a smirk. I look around and spot my arrow in a crater. As I pick it up, the audience applauds loudly for me. I gave a flashy performance with my big attacks. I take a moment with the arrow in my hand, and taking a risk, I look up at the Kazekage. He is already staring intently at me. I know I just blatantly revealed to Orochimaru who I am, but to honest he probably already knew. I make my way back up to Shikamaru before his match while some people from the exam team replace the tree's I destroyed. I guess I leveled the playing field a little too much.

"That was incredible." Shikamaru says in awe of me when I get back.

"Thanks, Shikamaru. It was apparently overkill, but I didn't want to underestimate him." I say honestly as Shino walks up to me.

"An impressive feat. It was wise not to underestimate Shirotsu. It will also be wise not to underestimate me in the next round." Shino says to me confidently.

"I didn't intend to. You bug users are formidable shinobi." I tell him kindly.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Naruto comes up to get my attention. "How did you make such a huge explosion!? Can you teach me that?!" He asks enthusiastically.

"How about a trade." I smirk at him, "I'll teach you something like that, and you teach me your shadow clones."

"Yeah!! That's what I'm talking about!" Naruto agrees, nodding his head a lot. And just like that, he no longer has any animosity towards me anymore. Guess his fight with Neji made him forget about Kabuto. I guess sometimes it's good to be lumped in together with Neji.

Shikamaru gets called down for his match with Temari. I block Naruto's hand before he knocks Shikamaru off the balcony. My friend throws me a smile before he sighs and walks to the field next.

"Hey Shika!" I call to him as he gets to the stares. I walk up and poke him in the head. "Use your big brain to fight your match." I grin at him as he huffs and rolls his eyes.

"Are you friends with Shikamaru too?" Naruto asks me.

"Yes." I reply simply, "He, Sasuke, and Kiba are my oldest friends." I tell him honestly as Shino listens in.

"Hey, wait, don't I recognize you?" Naruto squints at me suddenly.

"Probably. I do live in the village." I shrug it off. I've only seen him a few times prior to the exams, and only one of which we spoke.

"Hmm...." He thinks hard for a moment, then, "Miso ramen!!" He calls out, pointing at me.

"You remembered that? That was years ago." I say surprised. This kid remembers next to nothing about anything.

"I never forget anything about ramen! You ordered a miso ramen once at Ichiraku!" He tells me.

"I did indeed. You recommended to add pork next time. I was getting ramen that day for my brother when was sick." I admit with a smile.

"You must really love your brother if you buy him ramen, it's the best!" Naruto says to me excitedly.

"I really do love him. He's my best friend, and all I had in this world before I made my few friends." I turn to face him fully and bow, "Thank you for knocking some sense into him earlier. He needed to hear it from someone else."

"No problem! You know, at first I thought you were pretty scary, but you're alright!" Naruto grins as the match starts down below.

We watch together as Shikamaru lures Temari into a trap and then gets her with his shadow possession. He then forfeits and gives up. I chuckle as Naruto screams at Shika, and even goes and runs down to him to shake him around. I look around again at the stadium, and start to make a plan. At my top speed, I can get to the Root base in under 5 minutes. It's not exactly far, it's just well hidden. I know from memory that Sasuke will be late still. I turn to Shino, who is the only one left here who's not a Sand shinobi.

"I will be back before Sasuke's match, in case anyone asks." I inform him and he nods to me.

I walk causally out of the arena, then when I'm alone, I take off my weights and store them in a scroll, which negates their weight. I take off running at full speed, and when I get within two kilometers of the base, I activate my eyes. I want to get a pre-emptive idea of how many guards are there. What I find however, can't be right, and makes me halt in my steps.

There's over 50 Root members currently inside the base. That must be every member of the foundation. The most I've ever seen in my other trips here have been 10 members. This is looking like a road block in my plan. I can see one person with their arm in a sling, that must be Danzo himself. And if he's here, the Hokage tower must be clear of him currently. Knowing him, he probably has something to do with the attack that's about to happen, and is hiding his Root assets away here at the base for it. I make my way back to the stadium, leaving my weights off since the attack will start soon. Going through my options, I definitely can't go to Root now, but maybe I can find something at Hokage tower.

When I get back, Sasuke still hasn't arrived, but I'm betting it will be soon. I pop a replenishing pill in my mouth and eat it. I glance around, and spot Neji walking towards me from downstairs.

"Don't tell me you're only now getting out of the infirmary." I scold him lightly.

"Yeah, but don't worry, I watched your match. It was very impressive. Good job going through the clone to the real body. I can't believe that loser tried to use the same move on you that Naruto used on me to win." Neji says with a scoff.

"Yeah, that was entertaining for me." I say with a chuckle as Sasuke appears in the stadium along with Kakashi. "Look who finally showed." I nod to the arena and Neji follows my sight.

"He looks different than last we saw him." Neji remarks and I agree. Sasuke grew some in the month since I last saw him in the hospital.

After a few minutes of talking, Gaara heads down to his match as Shika and Naruto head back up. The match starts, only those two never make it back. I see Gaara go into his ultimate defense, and glance at his siblings who are quietly freaking out. When Sasuke gets his Chidori attack to land on the sand sphere, I take out my bow scroll subtly. I know the attack is soon.