~First, we have the bonus content for chapter 26, which was posted a year ago. After that, there's a SHORT! Set during chapter 26.

Warning: original content! Sasuke! Fighting! Stay tuned to find out more.

So first, here's Kana's nightmares about the future teams:

"Team One," Iruka announced, "is Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura, and Hatake Wakana."

"No," I pleaded. "Don't make me the go-between. He doesn't even like me."

"Nonsense," Iruka said, frowning.

Sasuke scooted a hair closer to Sakura. "Redhead," he muttered. "Phobia."

I'll show you phobia.

Team Two," Iruka continued, "is Shikamaru, Wakana, and Kakashi."

"Wait," I objected, turning to look at the strangely young, silver-headed, grouchy boy seated at a far corner of the room. "I like Shikamaru. But I can't be on a team with my own father. He's a jōnin. He's an adult!"

The child-sized version of Kakashi morphed into my parent's familiar adult form. "I knew it," he hissed. "You LIKE someone."

Shikamaru paled and ripped off his hitai-ate.

Things went downhill after that.

"The next team is Naruto, Kiba, and Kana. Quiet down, you two. Quiet. Quiet! Kana, get back in that window or so help me—"

"Naruto, Kana, and Sasuke."

Was my dream even trying anymore?

"Pakkun, Kana, and—"

And this is the point where overthinking becomes unhealthy.

~Hee hee! And now, the serious short. I've mentioned the Academy tournament a few times in recent chapters, and I'm finally ready to share what happened with you guys. Enjoy!

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Time: Chapter 26

Ninja Academy, Konoha. Twelve years after Kyūbi.

The first annual academy tournament was somewhat blatantly designed to build teamwork and competition, and it managed both quite well. After all, there's no friend like your rival. (Hm, I should make a saying about that. We already have "the severed hand reaches best." Ninja puns stink.)

The tournament involved two parts. The first was a straightforward hand-to-hand tournament . . . how shocking. Everyone in the top four tracks of the Academy, which was the uppermost two years of students, participated. Kato and I were both in different tracks, but we were involved. In fact, since the tournament was a month before the next graduation exam, the Rookie Nine were in the highest track.

No one knew what the second part of the tournament would include, but we knew what the first part entailed, and we'd all been sparring regularly for a few years. We put our fighting faces on and guessed who would last the longest. It was a shame Hyūga Neji had graduated last year. If he'd still been around, there wouldn't have been anything to guess about.

Anyway, the day of the tournament came and we all buckled down accordingly. We fought the students in our own tracks first. This was pretty fair. While the older tracks had less students and therefore less fights, the older students were also relatively familiar with their opponents. The younger tracks had too many students for everyone to remember each other. But then, of course, there was me.

When you have ridiculously good hearing, there's always going to be something pressing at the back of your mind. When you're taking a test, it's other students muttering wrong answers. When you're listening to a lecture, there's always a fun technique or joke being discussed in the next room. And when you're bored out of your mind, there's always a class using the training field for combat training. So while I didn't know many of my peers by name, I knew how a lot of fights had gone. And let's just say that in the days before the tournament, I'd brushed up on things.

Some kids won, more lost. By afternoon, there were only a few kids left in each track. I was one of them—I was not going home to tell Daddy that his fastidiously-trained little girl couldn't handle some mere children (he'd worry even more about my vulnerability). On the other hand, this wasn't exactly some great glory. A chūnin exam involved other countries. Today was essentially just sparring with a larger class. Only a few people would even do that much.

Our teachers decided we'd weeded out enough kids and began herding us into the most spacious training field at the academy. It wasn't the usual sparring area, but there was a scuffed chalk circle drawn in the dirt in the center. I rolled my eyes. Why did every event with children always seem thrown together at the last minute?

The crowd of milling students was so thick that I didn't even realize there was another spar going on. By the time I'd fought my way to the front of the crowd, two more had gone by. I suppose I was pretty annoyed. I'm not a fan of crowds.

Kato elbowed his way over to me and filled me in. As I'd suspected, he'd been in one of the recent fights. He'd won the first spar, and his opponent had been one of my own classmates.

"I'm going to smash my head against something," I told him. "Did you notice that the younger years are watching out of their windows?"

He hadn't. He'd been too busy fighting.

"It's so loud," I complained. "All of this hype is stupid, and—" A teacher grabbed me by an arm and pulled me into the ring.

"Make the seal of confrontation," she ordered before letting go and backing away.

I made the seal and for the thousandth time today bit down on the urge to claw at my ears. Which was why when I looked up to see Uchiha Sasuke forming the other half of the seal, I felt an urge to punch something.

A whole morning of constant spars and chattering voices, and I didn't even hear this coming? I was so going to punch something.

As Sasuke came at me, it occurred to me that here was something to punch. And, ah, well.

Sasuke was not thrilled with his day so far.

For starters, he'd woken up sinking. In a pond.

Shisui's annoying habit of body flickering meant that the man went too far in more ways than one.

No, wait. There was no room for humor right now. Because he was busy reminding himself of his many reasons to be disgruntled.

Besides the reason (which occupied every moment Shisui wasn't in), there were a few highlights. Once he'd swum out of the pond, Shisui had refused to train with him. Annoying man. This was the day of the academy-wide sparring tournament—he couldn't let the clan's name be dragged through the mud. Shisui had no problem training him in the clan style most of the other days he was home.

He'd beaten his opponents with exactly the usual amount of effort. Couldn't they try to improve? Even the class idiot, Naruto . . . or something, had started using different angles. But no, Naruto had been eliminated early on. Idiot. . . .

The only interesting fight he'd had had been with Ino, who'd stopped that horrible strategy of blinking her eyes long enough to actually sneak under his guard. But that had been an hour ago, and now the teachers were refusing to let him leave to train. This gave every female in his year plenty of time to gather into their usual groups and giggle about him.

By the time the teachers began rounding everyone up for the last few spars, he'd begun to brood on the reason again. There wasn't much to take his mind off of it. Well, admittedly the Hatake boy darted his way through a very neat spar. Maybe it was time to train even harder again, if a boy two years his junior was that—

"You're up," one of the teachers told Sasuke, standing in front of him and meeting his eyes coolly.

Finally, something to do. He made the seal of confrontation and sized up his new opponent—it was her.

Uchiha Sasuke had never been one to care about girls. Sure, he'd loved his mother, and he'd recognized that one day, he would probably have a wife. In the meantime, girls were simply classmates with slightly higher pitched voices.

Or so he had assumed, until one day that person had begun teasing him. That person (His name is Itachi, Shisui's voice butted in) had found a girl Sasuke had only seen once before in his life and teased Sasuke. Sasuke had consoled himself that he would never see the girl again.

Not so.

The orange-haired girl was suddenly everywhere. Friends in the Uchiha clan, staying at the Academy to practice, talking to his classmates, hiding in the bushes during her lunch hour. She never said more than the occasional hello to Sasuke. She barely noticed him.

He never talked to her, either, but it was hard to ignore stories of the Copy Ninja's twins. Wakana stood out for more reasons than just her flashy hair. She was loved and hated by many in the school. Her only real flaw was the nonexistent skill she showed with projectile weapons, but Sasuke was willing to bet that that was a front. He'd seen the glint in her eye. He knew someone who trained that hard couldn't be a failure.

The shock of seeing her wore off and he lashed out. Or, attacked. The exact word didn't concern him.

He threw himself into the Uchiha style that Shisui had finally taught him and ducked low, aiming at her knees. She jumped the swipe and matched his follow-up punch easily. She mirrored it, in fact, catching his fist as she swung one of her own legs in a low swipe.

Funny, he hadn't thought she'd just copy his moves thoughtlessly, but he could use that to his advan— The leg swipe had mirrored his so closely that he'd instinctively reached out to block a punch that never came. Instead, her other leg moved in a blur and struck at his neck.

Sasuke threw himself to the side, all too aware that she'd landed a solid hit. He rolled upright, but she tackled him.

It was a short and brutal fight. Sasuke had never encountered an opponent so willing to . . . well, fight. Most of his classmates either spent too much time thinking or too little. Wakana was in the fight to win.

They grappled until Sasuke found a foothold and knocked her away. This time he pulled out a kunai. She matched the move. She went on the offensive now, hitting him with strikes that he had no choice but to dodge. He was losing. Something about her style of fighting (or rather her, when fighting) was disconcerting.

Normal fights were one person against another. Two styles clashing, two personalities breaking against each other until one prevailed. It was a struggle and a thrill. This, however, felt like Sasuke was fighting a version of himself that he couldn't trust.

It was almost like the Sharingan. Somehow, Wakana slipped past his guard again and again because she took on his mannerisms and twisted them. It was strange. It was different. It wasn't perfect, because several of his hits knocked her back and she'd developed a black eye by the end of the spar. Sasuke ignored his own body's pain.

Several minutes into the fight, he jumped back to avoid one of her kicks and tripped over a mound of dirt. He opened his eyes to see her forming the seal of reconciliation. The crowd of students was cheering her on.

"You blacked out," she offered, smiling crookedly. "Only for a second, but the teachers said I won. Sorry."

Sasuke didn't reply, but he did form the seal.

He didn't leave the crowd after their spar. Shisui always knew the latest village gossip, and since Sasuke could no longer win, he would need some way to stave off Shisui's incessant questions.

Wakana was slower than Sasuke. She appeared to have less stamina—she wasn't one for drawn-out fights. By rights, he should have won their spar.

As he watched the deceptively fluid style, he found himself oddly doubtful. It was subtle. Facial expressions, shifted posture. Whatever she was doing was almost impossible for him to observe. It seemed pointless, even. Why mimic someone else when you could just fight them on your own terms?

Her opinion worked here, where her opponents were at roughly the same skill level. On a battlefield, Sasuke didn't doubt she'd be dead.

Okay, so I went overboard sparring with Sasuke. I realized that partway through, when it struck me that if he hadn't been good at blocking, he would have ended up missing something important, like most of the blood in his body. The thing was, once I noticed, I wasn't exactly disposed to toning things down, which would have meant losing. This was probably my only chance to beat an Uchiha in a fight—ever.

Not to mention that this was the only Uchiha I'd ever have a chance at beating.

Having "sparred" with both Itachi and Shisui over the years, I can safely say that the only way someone like me could beat one of them would be in a dream. Sasuke was only a few months ahead of me in the Academy and the odds there were astronomically lower.

All the same.

For whatever reason, I knew how Sasuke fought. Some part of it was engrained in me. Perhaps I had a dim recollection of the old anime. Perhaps I'd predicted the way he'd use the Uchiha style. Or maybe.

Sasuke tripped over a rough patch on the ground and slammed his head. Oops. Ack, did I accidentally cheat with a genjutsu?! The answer to that, fortunately, was no. Today's genjutsu was a butterfly (which was leading two Aburame insects on a merry chase, it seemed).

I'd beaten Sasuke through his own misstep.

Somewhat annoying. I'd fought and concentrated and even synchronized with him to an extent—why couldn't I have won through my own efforts?

You wouldn't have won, a thought whispered as I watched Sasuke's eyelids flutter. You can't mimic forever.

Right, then. Fine. I'd win.

But . . . was my feeling right? Did my hearing really read the essence of my opponent and let me become it?

Best to forget about it for now.

One week following the tournament was the day we all expected the second part of it to land on. It was a logical choice. Our schedules allowed for it, the weather was expected to be fair by then, and I privately thought that a week would be important to mend any hurt feelings among the many bitter students.

Not so. The day after the tournament, the entire top two years of students were marched outside, split into eight groups, and sent to eight different sections of Konoha's woods. Naruto and Sasuke were in my group, but then so were plenty of other students. Kato's group had Shikamaru and I watched them leave with jealousy.

The best part of today was that what had started out as a morning drizzle turned into decent rain by noon. Whatever. At least we'd gotten to eat lunch before our teachers had handed us off.

When my group arrived at a suitably wet clearing in the middle of an even wetter section of trees, I was starting to feel a bit testy. The horde wasn't precisely quiet. And while I hadn't brought a raincoat today, Naruto had, and he wouldn't stop offering it to me. It was January. It was cold outside. I was wearing my own coat, thanks. Stop offering, Naruto!

The poor soul that was in charge of herding us students opened a storage scroll and told us to gather around. It was time for survival training.

"Hey," Naruto whispered (a feat in itself), "there's more of us than packs. Wanna team up?"

"Sure," I replied. "If we get to pick."

No, we did not get to choose our teammates. If we had, you'd better believe I would have joined one of the three-man teams. But anyway. As names were called, the group's grumbling increased. Pretty much every team had two people who as of yesterday held a grudge against each other. Or probably only the loser of each specific fight held the grudge, I suppose. So I wasn't surprised when I was paired up with Sasuke. He wasn't, either.

I grabbed one of the packs and followed him into the woods after all of the directions had been given. Make a shelter, look out for flash flooding, find food, don't kill each other. The objective was to be sane and healthy when morning came. From the sound of things, most of the teams weren't going to last that long.

After all, sunset was coming and the rain was picking up even more.

Like all unprecedented, somewhat tiring, crazy difficult, two-day Academy events, this one had been designed by a sadist. And why can I say that? Well.

"Sasuke-san, wait a minute." He didn't pause. I allowed myself a sigh before I darted up to his side. "I'm serious. Can you stop walking?"

He of the messy black hair aimed an unamused, dark-eyed glance at me and stopped. "The sooner we make our camp, the sooner we get out of the rain," he said.

Yeah, buddy, ain't no one getting out of this rain tonight, my thoughts complained, but I pushed them aside. "We need to see what's in the pack," I told him, and I reached for the buckle. I had a horrible feeling of what was inside the pack.

There was a poof as a seal released. And then nothing.

Sasuke snatched the pack out of my hands. "Are you serious? You took an empty pack?"

"I didn't see you picking one," I retorted quickly.

"Because any idiot can choose a full pack."

Wow, two minutes in and our friendship had grown this much. I glanced up at the rain—good thing I found the sound relaxing instead of headache-worthy—and pulled forth a scrap of patience. Then I met his glower with my own dark-eyed gaze (thanks to the black eye he'd given me yesterday). "The packs looked exactly alike, and it weighed the right amount, too. Opening it broke a seal. I bet you that every single pack was the exact same way." Four packs and counting, to be precise. I'm surprised he didn't hear the yelling.

"You shouldn't have opened it until we found our campsite," he argued, unwilling to be pacified.

Maybe, maybe not. I'd find out. Regardless, "Well, I did. So now that we know what we're missing, we can start filling the pack."

There were flags in our part of the woods. Each team had been assigned to one, and we were responsible to find it. So this was the first order of business. Plus collecting firewood along the way, locating a rabbit for Sasuke to kill (finally, a time I didn't mind having bad aim), collecting a few of the herbs we'd been assigned, and wondering if our clothes would ever be dry again. Why had he worn that open-necked shirt on a rainy winter day?!

By the time we found our flag, it was almost dark and we were both quite frustrated. We'd passed the stupid thing by at least once. So after the obligatory blaming game, he put the rabbit down, I put the pack down, and we raced the sun (what sun? It was pouring) to get a shelter up. Fortunately, there was room for a fire inside (if you wanted burned toes) and our collected firewood could be dried with a jutsu.

I stepped outside to skin the rabbit and handed it inside to Sasuke. I didn't really want to fight him, a rabbit, and a fire for space. It was safer outside. I could listen to the peaceful night sounds of a deluge and of grumpy chūnin jumping through the trees to check on us.

All things considered, I think Sasuke and I were getting along pretty well.

Sasuke. Wanted. To. Punch. Her.

She was outside for now, one of her few wise moves of the day.

An empty pack! How had she taken an empty pack? She hadn't even seemed sorry.

He'd lost to her in the tournament, and now he was going to lose points here, too. This was unacceptable.

Sasuke knew that Wakana probably worked almost as hard as he did (living up to the Hatake name wasn't as illustrious as his own clan's was, but Hatake Kakashi was probably just as unattainable a standard as Shisui). Sasuke was willing to accept the results of the spar. He was not going to forgive her laissez-faire attitude.

So when he'd finished roasting the rabbit over their makeshift spit, he cut off a piece and began eating. She was outside in the rain and probably hungry. He didn't care.

Wakana, however, cared quite a bit when she edged her way back into the sparse space of their shelter. "You burned it," she said crossly.

Sasuke nobly chose not to point out that she hadn't volunteered to cook.

"I skinned it for you and made sure the firewood wouldn't burn too hot," she stated dangerously. "How did you mess that up?"

He refused to admit that he'd used a fireball jutsu to help the meal along.

"Don't mind me," the glowering girl continued, "I've only been in the rain finding more of the plants you couldn't be bothered to look for. You couldn't even take down the spit?"

"The plants will be there in the morning," Sasuke snapped back. "You weren't here to take your share of the rabbit."

"Of course not—it wasn't supposed to be ready yet!"

"Then you should have cooked it yourself."

"I was—"

But Sasuke wasn't finished. "You couldn't even kill it," he said antagonistically.

Oops. Famous last words.

Wakana took the taunt for what it was and expressed her opinion very definitively.

I'll hand it to Sasuke, he gave as good as he got. Even though I was a girl, he muscled past his chauvinistic urges to return some of the "favors" I gifted him with.

I like to think that the black eye I gave him was very tasteful (after all, he'd given me one yesterday).

As we scuffled in the tiny shelter right next to a healthy fire, we quickly realized that fighting in such a small space was a terrible idea. A terrible idea. Ah, heh. Awkward trumps anger, as it happens.

Ahem.

We both backed out of the awkwardness with an almost single-minded agreement to never speak of this again.

And to my knowledge, that is exactly what happened.

This seems like a suspiciously fast conclusion to the tale, right? Surely more than that happened?

Ha, nope!

Sasuke and I handed our pack over in the morning and never even congratulated ourselves on our success.

And that's my story and I'm sticking to it, no matter what Kato says.

He has no proof.

He never will.

~So what do you think (happened)? Thanks for reading, and see you around!

2.16.18