An Unexpected Love (Book 2 of the Unexpected Series)

Ch. 16 - Desert of Literal Demons

Summary: Too many teams have passed, and Team Masumi must pass the qualifying round. Later, dinner time commences, and with so many different shinobi in one, enclosed room, things do not run smoothly.

The shinobi that passed the first stage were brought outside in front of the building. Shikamaru was standing on a long, wooden box. Temari stood next to him. A guard stood on either side of them. Seeing Temari made Kokoro immediately think of Gaara and how much she missed him. She made eye contact with the blonde and tipped her head forward in greeting, but otherwise stayed quiet. Next to her stood Junichiro and Enkai. They stood close to one another with just a ruler's width in between each. All around them were shinobi either very happy they were still together or very upset they were not.

"How come all three of you got through to the next round?" the Suna guy with the red stripe on his face asked.

"Wasn't the decoy supposed to get disqualified?" his teammate asked. He was wearing visor-like glasses.

They were talking to Team Gai. Neji responded. "The rule said that all three had to have the same answer. So, our team didn't choose anyone."

"We turned in blank sheets!" Lee said.

"Blank?" the Suna shinobi asked. "All three of you?!"

"Of course!" TenTen said. "There's no way that we'd ever sacrifice a comrade!"

Having overhead, Enkai said, "I'm not surprised you picked a name." The Suna shinobi both turned towards him. "You," Enkai pointed to the Suna teammate with glasses, "were acting very arrogant in the room. How fitting is it that one of the most insignificant hidden villages has egos the size of the entire elemental nation."

"Must be overcompensating for something," Junichiro sneered. Kokoro smirked. She loved it when they got all antagonistic.

"What did you say?" red stripe guy asked as he took a step forward.

"The truth," Kokoro said. Silently, she apologized to Gaara. "Even considering allowing one of your own teammates to die is blasphemous. While we didn't leave our sheets blank, we certainly weren't going to sacrifice one of our own. We're better together."

"How did you pass if you didn't leave it blank?" Neji asked.

"Each of us considered the question carefully," Enkai said defensively. "It was something we had talked about before we set foot in this Exam."

"We would rather sacrifice ourselves than let a teammate die," Junichiro declared.

"The answer had to be unanimous," Lee said. "Besides, the answer was a hypothetical."

"A hypothetical that could happen in real life," Enkai said. "We took the question at face value. All three of us wrote me. I'm guessing that because it wasn't a name of a specific teammate and because the answer was unanimous, we were let through."

"Knowing Shikamaru," Kokoro said, "he probably deliberated it with someone else and came to the decision that it was okay simply because it was a loophole."

At that time, Temari slammed her fan down and garnered the attention of everyone left. "I'm Temari of Sunagakure. I'm in charge of round two. Unfortunately, too many teams passed the first round, so we're going to have to narrow things down even more."

"What do you mean by that?!" the red stripe guy yelled.

"Round two is also a team battle," Temari explained. "Any team without its third member is disqualified!"

"What?!"

"Yikes," Kokoro said as she side-eyed him. "Better luck next time."

"Furthermore, the upcoming round of these Chunin Exams is to be held in Sunagakure. Although there's a clear route between Konohagakure and Sunagakure, it will take a shinobi three days, no matter how fast they are." The shinobi guard next to Temari let his messenger hawk go. "We've just dispatched a messenger hawk to Sunagakure. Its message reads, "After the first thirty, all who follow are disqualified." Just as in round one, fighting is prohibited en route. You can fight to your heart's content in round two. That's all."