THE WILL OF FIRE: 2. The Phoenix (A Naruto Fanfic)

The Phoenix, Chapter 4

Chapter Four

When I walked in I immediately felt that chilly breeze and I knew he was here…only I didn’t know exactly who he was.

“Lily you made it!” Naruto shouted.

“Yeah well, I’m not gonna pass this up.”

“Hey Lily, what’s up?” Kiba asked and strolled by. Akamaru barked excitedly.

“Nothing much. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“You know, missions and stuff like that.”

“All right!” Naruto yelled. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

“Keep it down, numbskull,” said Ino. Sure thing, all eyes were on us. I was able to notice those three from Suna and that guy Gaara looked more freaky than ever.

“Who do we have here?”

I went completely still after hearing that voice behind me. I saw Sasuke’s eyes widening as my memory erase failed me all too quickly. I truned around and saw Kabuto leisurely leaning against the wall. What I also noticed was he was wearing a Konoha headband. Why was he wearing a Konoha headband? I shivered and remembered why I was here. No way am I letting him mess this up. I noticed Sasuke was glancing from him to me and I hoped he wasn’t going to give us away. He got himself together and I did, too. I managed to force my face to act natural.

“Just your regular contestants, I guess,” I said and managed a smile like I was meeting him for the first time.

“Rookies, I see.”

“Who are you?” Naruto asked him with that I-don’t-trust-you expression.

“My name is Kabuto Yakushi,” he introduced himself.

“I’m Naruto Uzumaki, believe it!”

“Nice to meet you, Naruto, but let me tell you, this isn’t the place to mess around.” He motioned towards the group from Kirigakure behind us. They looked really scary but nothing I haven’t already seen before. “Those guys over there wouldn’t hesitate to bite your heads of.”

“And how do you know so much about this?” asked Shikamaru.

“Well, this isn’t my first time here,” he said, looking genuinely embarrassed.

“Really?”

“Yeah. This is probably…my seventh time.”

“Wow, you failed six times,” I said, using the chance to mock him and let some of my anger loose. “I heard they weren’t even that hard.”

“You must be really weak then,” Sasuke said through clenched teeth but I was the only one who seemed to notice he was having a battle with himself. I gave him a look, saying to calm down, but he looked at me angrily, probably pissed off that I erased his memory.

“Well, I’m probably a lot stronger now,” he said, barely resisting an evil smirk. “I’ve been training a lot. And also, these help.” He pulled out a stack of cards. No he wouldn’t! My chances are, he probably would.

“What are those?” Naruto asked.

“Ninja cards. They hold all of the information I’ve gathered. They can be released with my chakra.”

He placed the deck on the floor and twisted one around. It was blank. He said, “I just release my chakra into it and the info appears.”

And surely enough, a map of the land and the info of how many Shinobi from each land showed up appeared on the card.