COTE x Naruto: New Beginnings

Chapter 28: Sports Festival

Before anyone knew it, a month had passed and it was finally the day of the sports festival. A week prior, Horikita and Kiyotaka had finalized the participation table for Class D, so everyone was getting ready for the disciplines they would participate in.

The entire thing started off with the student council president speaking to the student body, and they'd even been introduced to the future student council president, Nagumo Miyabi. Kiyotaka wondered what kind of person Nagumo would be and if he'd make any significant changes to the school. He had to be interesting since someone as distinguished as student council president Horikita Manabu chose him to be the future student council president.

"Alright, we can definitely do this!" Sudo roared, fist-bumping the air in excitement. It was no wonder Sudo was anticipating the sports festival, he was one of the if not the best basketball players in the school.

Most of their classmates who were not physically inclined didn't share that sentiment clearly, as they were talking to eachother in apparent displeasure. Karuizawa in particular didn't look that happy.

Curiously, Kiyotaka looked towards where Sakura was sitting. He'd expect her to participate more in this special exam, but she hadn't shown any interest at all in deciding the participation table. Instead, she spent most of her time hanging out with Kei and occasionally chatting with Hirata.

He didn't really know what to do about Sakura. He'd had plans in place that would finally deal with Ryuuen, but she'd unknowingly dwarfed them all. And it wasn't for the first time either.

During the Sudo case, he had a plan to make Horikita take a more active role in Class D, but once again, Sakura had ruined it.

Then, during the island exam, when Chabashira-sensei had threatened him with expulsion if he didn't participate in class, he'd had the perfect plan set up that would not only make Class D win the exam, but it would make Horikita realize that if she wanted to reach Class A, she couldn't do it alone.

Yet, every single time, an unexpected wrench had been thrown into his plans. And the source of it was always Sakura.

Kiyotaka was good at predicting what people would do. He'd been taught to do that in that place. He usually made his predictions based off the behavior of the person in question, the way they dressed, the people they surrounded themselves with and finally, their attitude towards life.

He'd assumed that Sakura wasn't too different from the majority of girls in Class D. Her defect was probably her lack of athletic skills or intelligence, or she was socially awkward.

However, all three of those have been proven wrong. That meant that she was more like Kushida.

A seemingly perfect student that should've been placed in Class A but was in truth more flawed and troubled than the majority of Class D students.

He just had to find out what her defect was. Maybe then, she'd stop taking him so off guard.

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"Phew, that was exhausting!" Sakura bemoaned, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. She was stood next to Hatake as the two of them had just finished one of the many disciplines of the day.

"If you're already exhausted, then I sure hope you didn't volunteer yourself for too many events," Hatake remarked as he tied his shoes again, making sure they stayed tied this time.

"I guess I did volunteer for quite a bit stuff. You know, many people in Class D aren't athletic at all! I couldn't leave it all to them..." Sakura replied, taking a large sip from her battle of water.

"Hey, the races are about to begin. Wanna come with?" Sakura suggested suddenly, her eyes trained on Sudo who was getting ready at the starting line along with three other people.