BSWS CH-45 The Chunin Exams XIII - Discussions for Preliminaries

After waiting futilely for Sasuke to wake up for hours, Sakura went back home. Late at night, she stood in an empty park near her house, experimenting with a certain idea that had struck her in the hospital.

Sakura first unleashed chakra strings, one from each finger to keep it precise. She infused them with compressed water chakra to activate her Water Severance Strings and kept them in an activated state.

Once that was stable, she applied Chakra Scalpel over the Water Severance Strings. As the two Jutsu merged, Sakura felt a change come over her strings.

Earlier, She had always felt that her Water Severance Strings were incomplete. However, the moment she merged it with Chakra Scalpel, the Water Severance Strings, which were like a compressed shape transformation of water chakra so far, suddenly transformed into thin exquisite ribbon-like blades made of water.

Seeing this new Jutsu, the name of a certain weapon of an ancient battle style flashed into Sakura's mind.

"Water Style: Urumi!!" Sakura exclaimed as she flicked her right hand's fingers. Before her finger movements had finished executing, five long and deep gashes appeared on the ground before her, extending up to more than a dozen meters.

Sakura's eyes widened at the sharpness of this move. This Jutsu had cut through the ground without any resistance or much loss of chakra.

Water Severance Strings, while powerful, had needed a lot of her constant focus to prevent from major chakra drain. However, Water Style: Urumi was much more stable, deadly, and effortless in its attacks.

Preparing to try out another move, Sakura readied her fingers. After taking a calming breath, she unleashed her move.

"Water Style: Blade Dome!!" Sakura exclaimed as her fingers flickered suddenly. At the same moment, the area within a dozen meters around Sakura was suddenly rippled and shredded with an unseen force.

A few leaves flying in the sudden airflow intruded in this area around Sakura. The next moment, it was shredded into organic mush that got scattered into the surrounding air.

Sakura was very pleased by this move. Similar to Hyuga's Gentle Fist Revolving Heaven, This move of hers was Defense and Offense combined into one. However, unlike the Revolving Heaven, her attack needed a lesser amount of chakra.

But on the downside, Blade Dome could actually harm Sakura too if she was not careful in using it, unlike Revolving Heaven, which only posed a risk of chakra exhaustion on its user.

'I need to practice at controlling Water Style: Urumi. Only when I have mastered it, I will start using Water Style: Blade Dome.' Sakura thought as she dispelled her Jutsu and removed the traces of destruction caused, through the help of some basic Earth Release.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Hokage looked at the scroll, which contained the result of the second phase, in front of him in surprise. Joining him in this surprise were the two Proctors of Chunin Exams Phase 1 and 2, and the Jonin instructors of the Brightest of the Leaf's Genin.

"While I did say that I will cut the numbers of them below half, this result and its method were …. surprising to say the least." Anko said as her eyebrows twitched, thinking of the stuff that had happened during the Phase she was in charge of.

First of all, her ex-mentor had sneaked in. Then he had killed a Genin Team, took their identity, then went on to attack the Last Uchiha.

If that was not enough, the Uchiha's team had put up a great enough fight that her ex-mentor had been forced to make a choice between fleeing or fighting against ANBU chasing him.

The Pink-Haired Girl in Uchiha's team had turned out to be the biggest Dark Horse. Who knew she had such expertise over Fuinjutsu.

Moreover, No one knew who had done it, but one or more of the Genin teams had managed to fool a lot of other Genin Teams taking the test by supplying them with fake scrolls.

Due to this, more than half of the Teams in the second phase had got disqualified without even fighting when they had reached the Tower and opened the scrolls, one of which was a fake.

Once the results were tallied, only a handful of teams passed:

From Konoha, there were Team Kakashi, Team Kurenai, Team Asuma, and Team Guy.

From Suna, there was Team Gaara.

From Ame, there was Team Oboro.

Rest all had either fallen prey to one of these teams or were fooled by the fake scrolls.

Moreover, Team Kabuto of Konoha, which was the suspicious team that was being tracked by the Sentinels, managed to somehow escape from their radar. They had clearly realized they being suspected, so they had practically vanished from Konoha without a trace.

All these events had given Anko a severe headache. Moreover, she had a vengeful gleam in her eye as she thought about the revenge she will take on the Pink-Haired Girl who thought to prank her.

After looking, through the results, Hokage sighed. Though it was a very Unorthodox Method, he could not find fault in Sakura's actions. She employed logical deception, which is a core principle for a Shinobi. He would have to let the Chunin Exams go as they were.

"These results will be accepted. Since 18 is still a high number for Genin participating in Finals, we will have one-on-one combat-based preliminaries to weed out the weaker ones or those who were lucky enough to ride the coattails of their talented teammates. Only the top 9 winners of the preliminaries will compete in the finals." The Third Hokage declared.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

In the early hours of the next morning, Sasuke finally opened his eyes. Sakura immediately called a doctor to check. After examining, the doctor said that Sasuke was fine. He had suffered physical trauma, so his body had taken all this time to acclimate, even if the doctors had healed him at once.

After making him go through a few more examinations, the doctor finally let him discharge. Sakura took him to a restaurant and caught him up with all that he had missed while being unconscious.

"Naruto is a clan head too? How times change.." Sasuke muttered as ate.

"Yes. And Kakashi sensei has informed me of the result of the second phase. It seems our trick played out beautifully. Most of the teams got eliminated by the fake scrolls."

"Only a total of 18 participants are left, who will participate in a random one vs one combat preliminary to choose the Top 9. Those Top 9 will then fight in the actual finals to be judged if they are worthy of being Chunin." Sakura said.

"So it seems that we could be matched against each other too," Sasuke said with fighting intent clear in his voice.

"Of course not. After all, it is supposed to be 'Random'." Sakura said.

"What do mean?" Sasuke asked.

"Sasuke, the village wants the best of us to go forward. Which means they will be rigging these fights to make sure that people they want to go forward to the next round will be placed against people they don't want to go forth."

"For eg: You are the last Uchiha. They will definitely make sure that you either have a weak and easy opponent or place you against someone who has a bad match up to you. Only in the actual finals will you face a strong opponent." Sakura clarified.

"Hmm, then maybe I will fight you in the finals." Sasuke said, "After all, I have no doubt you will make it till there."

"Careful Sasuke," Sakura said with a smile "You might think you have grown strong. But don't forget, while you were learning to walk, I had already begun flying."