The Red Maelstrom

[24] Fuyu Kohana vs. Satoru Yoshiaki

Kohana's body was ramrod straight and far too tense as she eyed the genin around her. Despite her injury, Kohana wanted, with all her heart, to fight someone strong, someone worth her time... and hopefully, someone who wouldn't want to kill her. That, however, left her with the Konoha genin. Kiba would be a fine candidate—and really, so would any Konoha genin who wasn't in her team. Any of the Otogakure ninja would have been fine because she still had a score to settle with them, but she knew that she wouldn't be so lucky for a second round.

"There are basically no rules," explained Gekkō Hayate. "The fight continues until one of you dies, is knocked out, or admits defeat. If you don't want to die, then quickly acknowledge your defeat." A cough followed after, but as always, Hayate went on. "But when I decide that the winner has clearly been established... umm... since we don't want to pointlessly increase the body count, I'll jump in and stop the battle. And the object the controls your destiny is..."

"Open it," they all heard Anko say.

Right on cue, a large screen had unveiled itself above the statue of a pair of hands forming a seal.

"This electronic scoreboard will... show the match ups for each battle." Cough. "Now this is sudden, but let's announce the two names of the first fight."

Gone was the tension from earlier when Sakura and Sasuke had argued; the preliminaries were officially about to begin. Now, Kohana was practically vibrating from where she stood, eyes eagerly glued to the rapid flickering of pixelated names on the dark screen above.

Finally, the flickering stopped, and Kohana almost cheered for joy upon seeing her name. She was nervous for sure—in fact, she was quivering a tiny bit, but her excitement overshadowed her apprehensions even without putting a face to the name, Satoru Yoshiaki.

"Now, these two entrants, come to the front."

With her opponent still unknown to her, Kohana sent a smile and a salute to her teammates. "Good luck, Hana-chan!" Naruto practically hollered even when he stood only a few feet away from her. Sasuke nodded with a smirk. "Don't die," he said. Sakura, however, was still tormented by thoughts of what was to come. Kohana winked at her. "Don't worry, Sakura. I'll be fine. Do you trust me?"

Sakura blinked for a moment, genuinely surprised, until she visibly swallowed and nodded. "Y-Yeah. Good luck, Kohana."

"Thanks."

The rest of the genin made their way toward the viewing decks above, and as Kohana was approaching the place where Hayate had gestured for her to stand, she caught sight of Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei!"

The tall white-haired jōnin gave her a salute. "Yo! Looks like you're first to go." Once he was close enough, he placed a hand on Kohana's shoulder. "You're injured. Think you can win this?"

Kohana shrugged and grinned. "I'm just gonna have to make sure I do!" Truthfully, now that her sensei had pointed it out, Kohana felt the nerves seep in again. She shook them away; her teammates were watching and so were a couple more strong genin. This was her chance to prove her worth as a kunoichi.

Kakashi nodded his approval, but before he could leave, Kohana beckoned for him to lean closer. She began to whisper in his ear, "Kakashi-sensei, someone named Orochimaru left a mark on Sasuke. It looks like he's waiting for Sasuke to come to him for more of that power he gave him." She couldn't tell what expression Kakashi was making, because she couldn't see his one visible eye, but he was frozen for a few seconds before he straightened his posture and gave Kohana one of his wide smiles.