Disclaimer: We don't own Naruto. If we did Sakura wouldn't break down in tears every time Sasuke's name was mentioned.

Warning! We do read the manga so there will be mild spoilers.

Rin's Return

Chapter Twenty

Misaki waited for Tadao to make the fist move. She didn't want to open herself up to an attack more than necessary. It seemed that Tadoa didn't have the same idea, because he attacked right away., lunging toward her. She sidestepped and used his momentum to flip him on his back, but he was right back up a second later.

Tadoa started running around her quickly, until he was a blur. Misaki pulled her sword out of its sheath and held out in front of her, bracing herself for an attack. She was standing still, shifting her eyes trying to watch him, but he was going so fast he was a blur. She heard him shout something, but couldn't tell what it was due to his speed. Suddenly her vision started to go black and the sounds of the crowd grew fainter. She knew that she had to break out of the circle he had created. She blindly thrust with her sword hoping to hit him, but she only felt air. She was getting desperate. She could barely feel, see, or hear anything, and she knew that her senses of taste and smell weren't working either. It was like her senses had been blocked.

That's it! She thought. She remembered when she fist saw him during the second part of the exam. He had used a jutsu called the Mystical Senses Block. That must have been what she heard him yell, and he was probably doing the hand signs while running. Now, what else did she know about it? She remembered that before he used it the pink haired girl, Hitomi, used some type of genjutsu on the other team. Now why would she need to use the genjutsu if he could just do this? All the genjutsu did was keep them from…moving! The opponent had to be still for this to work! Staying in a defensive stance was the wrong thing to do, she had to move!

She couldn't see or hear, but she somehow knew that he wasn't circling her anymore. He must think that she was fully incapacitated. But she could still feel the sword in her hand faintly, so she wasn't completely under yet. She experimentally wiggled her toes. She could feel them, but barely. She'd have to be very careful about how she moved. She waited a few seconds, bent her knees as much as she could, then jumped straight up into the air. She could already tell that the jutsu was weakening. When she landed she ran to her direct right, then forward, then to the left, trying to stay away from where she thought Tadao was. She could see again! She ran around the arena a few times and she got all of her senses back.

She looked over at Tadao. He was just standing there, with a slightly shocked look on his face. She lunged and tackled him, pinning her sword to his throat. She smirked, he stared, even more shocked. Then…he poofed into smoke. Misaki cursed under her breath. Scanning the arena for him. She couldn't see him anywhere, but there was a small clump of trees on her right, near the arena wall. She focused all of her senses over there, waiting. There! She thought, sensing movement near the tree farthest to the left. She threw a kunai and saw a bird fly out. She sweat dropped. So much for looking cool, she thought.

Then where is he? She wondered. He wasn't anywhere around her, or above her, which only left…beneath her! She realized it just in time to jump out of reach of his searching arm. She mentally cursed herself for falling for such an old trick while doing back flips across the stadium, landing underneath the balcony where the other ninja were watching. She mentally went through her list of jutsu. A water jutsu wouldn't be of any help…neither would a genjutsu. She thought a bit more and remembered one time, in one of the villages that they visited when one of the kids taught her how to make a ball out of anything by using chakra. Especially dirt. Like the kind that the arena floor was made of. Yeah, that might work.

She did a few hand signs and created five shadow clones. She did a more complicated pattern and about fifty dirt balls, about the size of soccer balls, appeared lined up in front of her shadow clones. She really liked to play soccer with the kids in the villages they visited, and she hoped that she remembered the way to kick it so it generated a lot of power. Tadao was standing on the other side of the arena. She narrowed her eyes, concentrated, and she and her shadow clones each kicked a ball at the same time. Tadao dodged them all. That was okay, it was just a test run. She made some more balls and got ready for the next kick.

She kicked again, then, even before the balls reached Tadao, kicked another round. She continued like that, kicking round after round, making more balls between, until there was so much dust kicked up that she couldn't even see halfway across the field. She waited, on alert, until it settled. She wasn't sure what she expected to see, but it definitely wasn't this. Tadao was against the far wall, looking pretty worse for wear. He dropped to the ground and looked to be out cold. The arena was silent. Genma walked over to Tadao and nudged him with his foot. Tadao didn't stir.

"The winner is…Misaki," he said at last. Misaki smiled and the arena erupted into applause, cheering for her. She watched as the medical team put Tadao on a stretcher and carry him out. One of the medic nin came over and escorted her out the same door they took Tadao through, saying that she would need an exam before they could let her go. She gladly went with him. She was a little bit surprised that she won so easily. She expected it to be harder. She must have just gotten lucky.

--

Kakashi watched a Misaki, his daughter (a concept that was still very new to him), was escorted out by the medic nin. He really hadn't expected to feel so...worried about her. He'd seen Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke go through this many times, and they were like his children, right? Right? Well, judging by his reaction to their chuunin exams and his reaction to Misaki's, real children and adoptive children weren't nearly as close as he thought.

What he'd felt during part of her fight was raw fear. It took all of his self restraint to keep himself from going into that arena and fighting with her. Or better yet, fighting for her. How is it possible that just by knowing that she was his child he felt like he'd do anything for her? He barely knew her, yet he was sure that he would give his life for her.

Thinking of Misaki, of course, made him think of Rin. He knew that he loved her, but did she love him? Did she want to spend the rest of their lives together in Konoha like he did? Or did she want to continue traveling around the world with her -their- children, like she had been doing before? What did Misaki and Yuuto want to do? Did they even want anything to do with him? Did they want to stay in Konoha? Did they want to travel? Would he be okay with it if they left?

All of these thoughts were swirling in his head. Questions that he didn't have the answers to. Speculations that could be true or could be completely wrong. All that he knew were his feelings. He was in love with Rin, he loved Misaki and Yuuto unconditionally, he wanted to stay in Konoha to keep an eye on his favorite students, with Rin. He wanted Misaki and Yuuto to stay with them, but would understand if that wasn't what they wanted to do.

He had no more answers. To get them he would have to talk to Rin, Misaki, and Yuuto to know what they wanted to do, and how they fit with what he wanted to do. But first he had to watch the exams to make sure that Yuuto didn't die before he could ask him.

--

Yuuto sighed as he watched Suigetsu fight Chou. He wasn't really interested in it, after watching his sister's fight, but he did have to admit that Suigetsu needed to keep on his toes to fight the sand kunoichi. She was very surprising, unleashing attacks that had nothing to do with each other. One second it was a barrage of taijutsu, then a water jutsu, of all things. Yeah, this fight would be very interesting if he wasn't so preoccupied.

Thinking was one of the things that Yuuto did best. He could sit and think or read for hours on end without getting bored. But right now all of his thoughts were really getting on his nerves. He wished that he could just shut off his thoughts for a while, but for some reason, his brain wouldn't let him. A few months ago the person taking over his thoughts probably would have been Sakura and he would have welcomed them, but now, with the whole thing with his mom and Kakashi he wished that was all that he was thinking about.

He still wasn't sure about how he felt about Kakashi. On one hand, he was happy that his mom was happy. But on the other...he was fine with his life before Kakashi was a part of it. He was happy traveling all over the world and helping people, learning new and strange jutsu, and meeting so many interesting people. He knew that if his mom and Kakashi stayed together they would live in Konoha for good, and he really wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He didn't want to leave Sakura. Sakura was the best thing that had happened to him in, well, forever. She was sweet and kind and wonderful, and had a temper and didn't hesitate to punch someone out for being a baka. In other words, she was perfect. Leaving her would kill him, but he knew that he couldn't stay in Konoha forever. He would figure something out.

He was kind of worried about Misaki. He knew that she liked Sasuke, hell, everyone knew that she liked Sasuke. Well, except for maybe Sasuke. But what if Sasuke didn't like her? Sasuke just didn't seem like the type of guy to get serious with someone. He was afraid that Misaki would get hurt, and he really didn't want to see that happen. He made a mental note to ask Sasuke about how he felt. Even if it might sign his death warrant, it was his duty as Misaki's brother, and he would do it for her.

He watched the final legs of the fight. It was clear that the sand konoichi had already won, but Suigetsu wasn't going down without a fight. He was mostly on defense now, only trying to throw a few offensive moves in here and there. With one final jutsu from Chou the fight was over. Suigetsu had lost, but was only unconcious, not dead. He felt bad for the former sound nin, but knew that he still had a chance at becoming a chuunin.

Chou and Suigetsu were both led out on strechers, as Chou had clapsed moments after she was declared the winner. Yuuto knew what was coming next: his turn. Somehow he could feel it. HIs instincts were correct. Genma called he and his oppenent, Hitomi, down to the ground.

Hitomi literally skipped over to him, her pink hair streaming behind her and her piercing pink eyes shining with excitment. "Hi Yuuto!"

she called. "I'm Hitomi! Do you want to be my friend?" she asked in the tone and demeanor of a young girl. Yuuto only had time to blink at her in something close to atonishment before Genma called "Go."

Yay! A long one! We tried our best with Misaki's fight, we really did, so we're sorry if it wasn't amazing. We both agreed that if we ever write another fanfic there will be NO FIGHTING! Fights are definitely the hardest thing to write...and we have two more. Yes, we are going to write Yuuto's and Sasuke's fights, no we aren't writing any more than that =D. We hope that you enjoyed the look into Kakashi and Yuuto's minds. One of our reviewers pointed out that Yuuto wasn't really featured in this story much, so we're trying to fix that. We really appreciate your reviews and constructive criticism, so keep it coming! Looking at the story and where it's going right now, it looks like there will only be another 4 or 5 chapters till the end. We'll let you know when we're sure. Thanks for reading and please review!

thebookwormandtheskater