Preliminaries: Part I

I never aimed for much in life. When I was younger, all I thought about was getting enough money to feed poor lil old stomach. After meeting Zabuza, I never worried even once. I only wanted to be useful to him, so he would feed me even BETTER food. And now in the Leaf, I still get fed. Not much, but still decent. So yes, there is no point in me taking or passing this chūnin exam.

I know what I want, but more importantly, what I don't want. But it seems like Silver thinks I'm too "young and misguided" to understand what I want in life yet. Something about wasted potential and destined for great things or some other shit. I think he just gone crazy from reading so much of that Icha Icha.

I glared at him as he tilted his head and smiled with his one visible eye. He may seem friendly on the outside, but that man's a demon.

Not long after our encounter with the Sound ninja, some Amegakure team—some other all boys group—came along. We already had both "Heaven" and "Earth" scroll, and being the gentleman I was, decided to let them go.

But the dumb shits persisted to play tag with us. Lucky for them, Naruto was finally awake to entertain them. Uchiha and I weren't exactly needed until we were approached by Glasses.

I attacked him, of course. I mean, who the fuck shows up to help another team unless they have some sick plan stuck up their ass that they're itching to release on us. But Fishcake was saved by him, so we called it even.

Still, something was definitely off about that "Kabuto" guy. It felt too "coincidental" to meet with him. My gut says something is wrong with that guy. I just don't know what yet.

But never mind that. There's a bigger reason why I hate him. Apparently after we all made it back to the tower, too many groups survived.

Twenty-fucking-one ninjas—double the number of survivors expected to remain after the fucking forest of psychos—to be exact. Thus, our proctors decided to host a fun little game called the "Preliminaries" where we fight each other and can get fucked to a pulp without any interference until someone "wins" as judged by Bandana. The fuck right?

So yeah, even if no one surrenders, I'll forfeit if I get matched up against White Eyes or the creepy Love Boy or Uchiha (who I absolutely can't take seriously) or String Bean (he throws me into a fit every fucking time) or Quiet-I-Have-Bugs-Living-Inside-Me. Yeah. Fuck.

Of the 21 remaining, only shitty Glasses successfully withdrew. I, on the other hand, was denied default by Team 7's beloved Sensei-Killer despite my list of valid reasons: I'm fucking exhausted after being forced to endure babysitting two idiots, being attacked by a Perverted Snake (whose name apparently struck a nerve in Silver—but didn't win me freedom), being bitten on the neck and branded with a curse mark (which I tried explaining disappeared only after Uchiha sucked a majority of my blood out), being disturbed by three peeping Pineapples, having my ears cry blood while Orange dreamt about some perverted shit, meeting Glasses, and finally arriving at the fucking Tower that doesn't look nearly as far and long as it actually took to get there.

"All the more reason to finish this," was all the sympathy I received from my recently registered sensei. Should've seen it coming. Other than his Icha Icha, nothing seems to really resonate well in his mind. Well, it's not like I didn't see it coming. All men are the same. Zabuza had his own secret stash of porn mags and I've already read that shit a million times.

So anyways, I had to stay and wait my turn to fight either a friend or foe to the death when my name was called. I am still waiting as I spend my time narrating this shit for you.

Uchiha is currently fighting some Avocado. Avocado seems to be sucking Sasuke's chakra. Smart move, but dumb when used against Uchiha. Didn't the poor man notice that Fan Boy barely had any chakra left by the time we reached the tower?

Turned out, Sasuke didn't need no chakra to beat Avocado. He copied String Bean Lee's technique, renamed it something cooler, and got all the girls swooning over him—Uchiha style.

Long story short, he won and is now being put onto a stretcher.

"Don't embarrass yourselves, Losers," said cocky ninja advised before lying back down comfortably on his stretcher and led out of the arena.

His wounds aren't even serious. The only thing making the scene dramatic was all the blood spurting out of the two holes—one that I proudly contributed to—on his leg. Other than that, he was perfectly fine kicking at Avocado. God, these Leaf ninja are spoiled.

"Next up…Zaku Abumi…against…"

I turned to see who this Zaku was.

[Oh that guy. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.]

"…Shino Aburame."

[Damn.] There goes the easy one. On the bright side, that eliminates Bug Boy (I've seen people from the Aburame clan and learned to identify them when I was working as a mercenary in the Mist. They have this similar feel to them, just like those Transparent-Eyed-Vein-Popping Hyūgas).

But even if I was to fight him, I'd have the upper hand. Bugs don't like the cold, and I just so happen to major in ice. But the result was for the better good—I detest bugs. Their bites are worse than that snake's—they can be so fucking itchy.

Anyways, I think I zoned out and missed the fight between Puppet Man and some dead guy. I would've fell off the rails if Orange didn't catch me.

"Next up…Ino Yamanaka against…

Blondie swiftly jumped off from the rail and perfected three flips before landing on one side of the giant stone hands. [Fucking show-off.]

"…Haku."

It was finally my turn.