NOVEL NEXT Chapter 9: 7. Tournament of Survival: Round One: End
{Sakura: "I love you, Naruto." - Around the time of Five Kage Summit}
A girl opened her eyes and checked her surroundings. On seeing the familiar face, leaning against the wall, she raised a brow, "I am pretty sure that I died or was that Genjutsu?" She asked as she could still remember her head floating in the air and looking at the moon.
"Well, it was Genjutsu, I just wanted to see how you will react when you actually die, Actions speak louder than words," He said
"I see"
There was a silence that stretched for an uncomfortably long time, and after who knows how long, she said, "So, what now?"
"What ?"
"Why did you not kill me?"
"Why would I kill you?"
"Coz... I tried to kill you?"
"You think one should kill others if one aimed for your life?"
"Yes" She unhesitatingly said
"Well, ya, that should be done" He really can't argue with that as he would have done the same when he was young.
"Then why you didn't do that?"
"I don't feel like it, I guess, it was a whim to leave you alive then"
"I don't think you will survive if I fire a point-blank Piercing Great Breakthrough at you now"
"Your wrists are still broken"
"Why do you assume that I can't seal-lessly do it" She quipped back.
"Well, be my guest then"
Just as he said that he ducked and the area above his head which was a wall, now had a thumb-sized hole in it.
"Woah, Woah, calm down now, Shouldn't you be grateful to me as I showed mercy" He tried to stabilize the situation while moving along the wall of the cave-like structure they were in.
"I never asked you to leave me alive, only idiots do such idiotish things," She said like a child throwing a tantrum and firing another beam of compressed air.
"Well, we were having just a spar you know, I don't know when it turned to a deathmatch," He said while dodging another blow.
After hearing that she paused and remembered how they started fighting in the first place.
"Right... Anyway, how did you not die when I actually tried to kill you stealthily."
"I just have good instincts, I guess" He sheepishly said while rubbing his head, this seemed like an excuse to the little girl, but she accepted that for now, she didn't believe that it was the truth.
"So, what now?"
"Well, that depends on you as I have bandaged both your feet, but you have to walk or run by managing the pain till the exam ends," He said.
"I didn't know that you were an Earth user till the last moment." She nodded and changed the topic to which he just hummed.
She got up with her bandaged feet still on the ground, and she didn't even wince at that, other than the quality of shinobi, this program had many opportunities for a child to increase their pain tolerance and one example is this.
"Where are we?"
"Underground"
"You won't crumble the ceiling and bury me alive right?" She made a morbid joke but seeing that his expression didn't change, she started moulding her chakra.
If she was going down, then, she may as well bring him down.
He smiled and the Tension broke, "If I wanted to kill you, believe me, you wouldn't be standing here"
Well, that was not what one said to break the tension but it did work.
He put his hand on the wall before pausing, "Why don't you break the ceiling with your deadly jutsu followed by an AOE jutsu? We are not that under the ground, so it should work, it would take too much amount of chakra to change the layout to reach the surface."
She nodded and just did that, the ceiling started crumbling before getting blown away. They started walking on the surface side by side in silence.
"Now, I think about it, tell me the real reason why you were referring to me as 'oni-chan' as you don't really seem that insane." He asked
"I saw an orange book and it had a female refer to male as that for some reason, it intrigued me, so I got the idea from that," She said
Now, No.13 was not generally curious about the shenanigans of kids his age, but this statement seems to have made him remember an orange-coloured book from his 'meta-knowledge' or 'anime-only to-do list'
"I think it was about tactics or something," she said with a pondering expression.
"I see"
Suddenly they both jumped and a second later ground was covered in ice.
Yes, that guy from the beginning was the one setting up this ambush.
"Well, only 2 hours are left till the end of the exam, I can only find you two after searching for the last 3 hours," He said while weaving some hand signs and sending icicles towards them.
"Well, let's meet again if you survive that is," The only girl present said and disappeared in the air.
"Damn it, Just die already so I can go after that girl," He said but icicles pierced a log instead of him.
He looked around but found no signs of his prey. It was like he never was there similar to the girl.
"Wait, Am I hallucinating?" Maybe, they really were his figment of imagination.
The last 2 hours of the exam were again him finding nobody after searching 3 times across the forest.
"They must have found a good hole to hide their sorry asses" Ice Boy angrily muttered.
When the exam ended, Ice-boy was shocked to see only the other two present with him and that also who he encountered two hours before at the test site.
"Where are the others?" He asked the instructor present.
"Everyone who survived is here already," He said with a neutral tone
This did get some reactions from the ice-boy but he just kept his thoughts to himself.
"Okay, now take out your plaques for rank tallying," the Instructor said and they complied.
The Ice-Boy was the first one to do so and showed 23 Plaques to him.
The Only Girl present was next and showed an astounding 51 Plaques!
It seems that she got the plaques of more than half the number of players by herself.
The last was Our one and only No.13 who got 22 Plaques. It seems 4 Plaques have been unaccounted for... Now, the management either would have to change the colour of the Plaques or use any other object for another batch or would have to find the other 4 by themselves in this forest.
"Everyone!, Round two will take place after every other batch is done with their round one, so around 4 months, You will be given points accordingly for your performance in this round, Also, A rank jutsus are available for use, I wish you Good luck,"
He said and promptly disappeared which was followed by other two, leaving the ice-boy alone who wanted to ask something.