COTE x Naruto: New Beginnings

Chapter 29: Outcome

Capture the flag was a disaster. Despite both Class A and Class D playing together against Class B and Class C, it was clear that the opposition was targeting Class D only. It started with seemingly accidental bumps and shoves, but had ended with one of Class D's participants, Horikita, with a sprained ankle.

Considering Horikita had volunteered for many of the upcoming events and had even volunteered to be the anchor in place of Sudo during the last relay event, this was bad news for Class D. And the more Sakura analyzed the capture the flag match, the more clear it became to her that Class C had intentionally tried to get Horikita and perhaps more classmates injured.

However, the cost of switching a participant was 100,000 private points, which was too high for Class D to do repeatedly. And while their team - the red team - was winning so far, it was only a matter of time before that came to an end.

Unfortunately, the disasters didn't end with capture the flag. For some reason, every event someone strong from Class D participated in, someone from Class C appeared that was even better than their Class D candinate. The matchups were terrible. Sakura especially noticed that she was getting some really tough opponents, and she'd even lost some of her events because of it.

It felt frustrating. In a race, one girl tried to trip her up. After that didn't work, she kept calling Sakura's name for some reason. She'd turned around to see what the heck did the Class C girl want, but the girl bumped into her and then tripped, landing onto the ground with a sickening crunch.

Sakura had won the race, but she didn't feel good about it. She felt like something was up.

Worst of all, Sudo was growing increasingly agitated with every loss Class D suffered. The head start the red team had before was quickly being lost thanks to their class losing so much.

With Sudo being so agitated, he'd started acting aggressive towards his classmates. He really was hot-headed, he'd even gone ahead and punched Hirata who'd tried to calm him down. Luckily, Hirata being Hirata, didn't report anything to the teachers. Still, Sakura could see her classmates getting disheartened and no longer having the motivation to do well in the upcoming events.

It was a ticking bomb, one that needed to be dealt with. Sudo stormed away, and with him being the leader of their class for the sports festival, his absence was noted and didn't help the situaiton at all. Sakura knew that if she wanted to salvage the festival, she'd need to bring him back somehow.

She knew well that wasn't in her capacity, however. She'd tried to find Horikita and try to get her to bring Sudo back since Sudo liked her, but Horikita was also nowhere to be found.

Feeling her frustration growing, Sakura wondered if there really was a traitor in Class D. After all, it would make perfect sense if they'd given Ryuuen Class D's participation table. It would certainly explain the terrible matchups.

She wasn't sure she could do anything about it, and it really irked her. She hated feeling so hopeless. She shouldn't have listened to Hatake when he'd said to give up on the festival and focus on other things. Sakura hadn't thought that everthing would go so wrong if she didn't actively plan the exam for her class. Were they truly so useless without her?

Did she even have a chance of reaching Class A with a class incapable of doing well on any exam without her help?

Sakura shook those thoughts off. She'd definitely not reach Class A if she lost faith in her classmates.

She couldn't do anything but watch as the rest of the exam unfolded itself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sakura had been very passive during the sports festival, allowing Kiyotaka's plans to unfold well for once. It was only a matter of time before Horikita realized and confirmed for herself the identity of Class D's traitor, which was the plan all along.