Illicit (Itachi Uchiha Love Story) *REWRITING*

Chapter 34

The next day, the genin all made it back to the tower. Anko, Dad, and I all stood together to continue the exams as normal. One of the proctors was on the screen talking about how we were going to do a preliminary round since there were 24 of them who passed.

"For the time being, we're going to continue the exams as planned, but I want to keep an eye on his movements," Dad said quietly to us, regarding Orochimaru.

We both agreed. 

The three of us walked onto the platform with the jounin who recommended their students here. 

I let Anko do the talking again since I hate public speaking.

"Alright now pay attention!" Anko shouted, getting their attention. "Lord Hokage is going to explain the Third Exam to you. You better listen carefully, maggots!"

I quietly chuckled at how Anko called them maggots.

"Lord Hokage, they're all yours." Anko bowed and Dad stepped in front of her. 

Dad started speaking. I remembered this speech too because my team zoned out on half of his speech and I had to keep smacking their arms until they paid attention. 

Some of the genins kept interrupting him, including Naruto and that red-headed boy. 

Hayate took over and Anko argued with Dad again, insisting that Sasuke shouldn't participate because of his curse mark. She was shocked when Dad let him stay in, as long as that curse mark doesn't spiral out of control.

The preliminary round started and we watched each match.

Dad looked over at me, noticing I was quieter than usual.

I had Gin and Orochimaru both on my mind right now. 

"Are you alright, Kasumi?"

I looked over at him and sighed.

"I just have a bad feeling right now that something is going to happen. I don't know what it is, but I do know that my gut feeling is hardly ever wrong," I replied. 

Dad gave me a smile.

"Everything will be fine, Kasumi. I know the situation with Orochimaru is stressful right now, but we'll get through it," He said.

I knew he was trying to make me feel better.

"Okay..." I trail off.

The preliminary rounds were really long and some of them were interesting. Sasuke beat one of the Sound ninjas and Kakashi took him, probably to get that seal taken care of. Anko was surprised to see that he had it under control.

Naruto's fight was probably the one that made me shake my head because he had farted in Kiba's face and that made Kiba lose since his sense of smell is sensitive. I chuckled when I saw Kiba's horrified face.

Kiba also looked at me as if he was telling me to not tell Hana or his mom about it. I smirked at him. I had to tell them about it, it was too hilarious not to. I saw the grimace on his face when he realized I was going to do it. 

Shikamaru was the only one out of Asuma's team to make it to the final rounds. 

After Lee and Gaara's fight, I didn't understand how Gaara had won after he had forfeited. I figured maybe they want to see Gaara's abilities or something.

I also felt bad for that Hyuga girl. Her cousin was pretty ruthless towards her.

Finally, Dad was done with his speech and concluded it.

"Now with all of that behind us, I'd like to begin winding things up," He said. "But before we can bring this to an end, first there is one more important matter to take care of for the final rounds,"

Anko handed me a box full of paper slips.

"And that is?" Someone asked.

"In a calm, orderly fashion, all of you are going to take one slip of paper from the box that Anko and Kasumi are holding," He answered.

"Everyone stay right where you are, we'll come to you," Anko said and we started walking around, letting everyone take a slip out of the box.

Everyone took a slip and Anko took the box out of my hand and stacked it with hers. Then we walked back over to where Dad was standing. All of the genin called their numbers out and I wrote down everyone's numbers so they could get their opponent.

"Very good, now I'm going to tell you about how the final selection tournament will work," Dad said.

"Wait, so we just got lottery numbers?" Naruto asked.

Dad ignored Naruto's outburst and turned to me. "Kasumi, you may reveal which ninjas have been paired up,"

I held up the clipboard that I was writing on and showed them who they would be paired up with. Most of them were happy with who they were paired up with and after that, all of us were dismissed. 

The ANBU called Dad over, telling them that Gin had some information. I hoped that he would stay locked up forever. 

I instantly got worried that he was going to snitch on me about Itachi. I had to calm myself down before another panic attack started coming. I had to rush home to make sure I could calm myself down. 

I immediately took a shower and started overthinking about how horribly wrong everything would go if he did tell Dad about Itachi. Maybe it's time to start thinking about a whole new name change and maybe moving countries. 

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Sorry about the short chapter. I already have two stories published that require me to go through the preliminary fights so I'm too lazy to do it on this story and plus I needed to get closer to an important part coming up.