Game of Shadows by Adrian King1

Chapter 46

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Chapter 46

"Do you think it'll be as easy as she said it would?" I asked Shikamaru as we saw Ino facing Raijin.

"No," He shook his head decisively. "But she has her tricks. She'll be fine," He reassured with a shrug and I nodded.

"Bold, that guy," Anko said, drawing a frown from both of us. We had seen Kiri nin speak, but he had done so in a normal volume, which meant that the words didn't reach our ears.

"You can hear them from all the way over here?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I can read their lips, brat," She corrected with a roll of her eyes. "By the way, in case you were curious. That guy really wants to beat you."

"Gee, I wonder why," I shot at her, my hand sliding over the railing over to where Nuibari rested next to me. I had taken Zabuza's words to heart and left the sword out. Although, I would need to get a sheath for it or something, since I didn't have anything to carry it on my person.

"Begin!" Gekko called, for the last time and my eyes narrowed as Raijin instantly unsealed a pair of swords.

"Wow, these guys really aren't being very subtle here," I muttered to myself, drawing humming sounds from Shikamaru and the Sensei's. Sasuke remained with his hard to read expression as usual and Naruto made a confused 'huh?'. Why did I say that? Because the swords were very obviously Kiba imitations, just like the Hiramekarei lookalike Choujurou used before. 'This Exams really are to show off... which makes me wonder-'

My thoughts were interrupted as the participants made their moves. Ino ran through a couple of hand seals, which drew a confused frown from me. Not because I was surprised she used a ninjutsu technique besides her clan's though. The others had shown me not to expect that from any of them. No, the confusion came because after doing that... nothing happened. Nothing at all, I even sent a look around the arena to see if she had set up something of a trap, but nothing came up.

Her opponent, however, didn't sit around to see what that was all about. Raijin rushed at her immediately, swords ready to start slashing at her. With her Jutsu, whatever that might have been, done, Ino drew two Kunai from her pouch and readied her stance to defend herself.

From where I stood, Raijin seemed to be fast. As fast as me, actually, although that was without any of my Active Skills on, but it was still a lot, really. It was fortunate then, that all my friends sparred with me, using Taijutsu and Kenjutsu, regularly. Physical prowess was, after all, something that everyone needed, regardless of specialization.

Still, as the blades clashed, I knew that Ino wasn't going to do so well. Even if she was used to the guy's speed, she still didn't have the skill to face the guy. And it showed. Slowly, she started to lose ground against Raijin, the guy pressing all her openings, no matter how small they were. And when she took a step back, I knew that her time was running out.

"Still," I muttered to myself as I looked at the two combatants. "Something looks wrong here," Shikamaru's small smirk told me that, yes, there was something I was missing in the battle. Taking a moment to look deeper into both of their movements, I finally realized what it was. "Why is Ino breathing... like that?" I asked worriedly. The Yamanaka was gasping for breath like she had been fighting for a day instead of just a minute. And I knew there was a reason for that. She wasn't the weakling that I had written about in my notes about canon.

There was something happening here. 'Is it the effect of that Jutsu she used at the beginning? What does it do, then?' I wondered to myself. There was no time to ponder on that, however, because things changed again then.