~Epilogue~

The winners of the preliminaries, excluding the Uchiha heir who was still hospitalized, gathered around the Hokage and the three Chuunin proctors.

"To those of you who won your bouts and qualified for the finals of the third phase of the Chuunin Exam…" Hayate began, "Congratulations!"

Hayate then turned to his Kage and respectfully bowed to the older shinobi; giving Sarutobi the floor.

The old warrior stepped forward, looking at the four present Konoha Genin, three Sand Nin and the lone Sound Ninja.

"Well then…" The Hokage muttered around his pipe with a small smile on his face. "I shall begin explaining the finals…

"As I mentioned earlier, you will conduct your final round of battles in front of everyone. Each of you represents the battle strength of your respective lands… so we want you to exhibit and fully showcase your various talents. And thus the finals…

"Will commence one month from now!" Sarutobi announced, startling the eight present winners.

"We're not doing it right here, right now?" Konkuro grumbled.

"We call this the Requisite Preparation period." The Leader of Konoha stated.

"What do you mean?" Neji frowned.

"Well…" Sarutobi began, pulling the pipe out of his mouth, "It's a period of time that allows us to relay the results of the preliminaries to the rulers and shinobi leaders of each land… and to summon them to the finals… and it also serves as a preparation period for you applicants."

Konkuro gritted his teeth together.

"I still don't get it! What do you mean?"

"You must prepare to understand your enemy and understand yourself." The Hokage explained, "During this period, you can analyze the intelligence you have gathered on your foes during the preliminaries and use it to increase your chances of victory.

"Even though," Sarutobi continued, "up to this point, all the battles have been real battles… they were conducted on the promise that you were fighting an 'unknown' enemy. However, the finals are a different story… some of you probably ended up exposing everything you've got in front of your rivals, and some of you may have gone up against comparatively strong opponents and found yourselves badly injured.

"In other words to make the finals fair and just, we give you this month. Each of you must embrace the opportunity to practice hard, learn some new tricks and of course get some rest, as well!"

The Hokage paused, letting his words to settle into the final contestants' minds.

"So…" He continued, "Those are the basics. I would like to let you all go now, but there's one last thing we must do for the finals.

"There are slips of paper inside the box Anko is holding… each of you, take one."

"I'll come around, so line up, okay?" The young woman said while she approached the applicants, allowing each of them to pick a slip of paper.

"All right," Sarutobi began, "Does everybody have one now? Then… starting at the left, each of you read out the number written on your slip!"

Dosu began by announcing he had the number '8'. Ibiki quietly wrote each candidate's name with their assigned number.

"So, Uchiha will be number '4'." Ibiki remarked after Shino gave his number.

"Good." The elderly shinobi acknowledged then addressed the eight Genin, "And now I will reveal the match order for the tournament style finals!"

Dosu vs. Nara Shikamaru

Temari vs. Winner from the Dosu vs. Nara Bout

Konkuro vs. Aburame Shino

Gaara vs. Uchiha Sasuke

Uzumaki Naruto vs. Hyuga Neji

Stay tuned for the first installment of Konoha no Yoko: Chuunin Exams – The Final Exam coming 1 Dec 2017.