The atmosphere at the training field was like the peak of the cherry blossom season, and people had come together to picnic and view the cherry blossom— just that they weren't here to see the beautiful nature, but people duke it out in combat.

"Almost half of the people in the tournament are from our team," Ai declared, her tone braggadocious. Her nose almost seemed to lengthen from pride. With the Round of Sixteen over, eight genin remained. Takuma, Nenro, and Masaaki were among those eight.

"Now that I'm out of the tournament, can I participate in the festivities," Taro said as he took a bite from his lunch and eyed the chunin who had been betting ryo the entire morning.

Takuma ate the roll he had packed from home and eyed the genin who had remained and were participating in the Round of Eight. He still didn't know the bracket— none of the participants knew, the chunin had kept the bracket from them. He glanced at Masaaki, who was munching down kara-age (fried chicken) with no care in the world. Out of everyone remaining, Takuma didn't want to fight Masaaki the most. The totally one-sided brutal bashing he had dealt to his opponent without breaking a sweat or a crack of his smile had left an impression. Moreover, Masaaki was one of the people who hadn't showcased a jutsu. If Takuma were to fight Masaaki, he would fight him after knowing the jutsu he might face in battle.

As for his other teammate, Nenro was the one he was most willing to fight. Given that they were from the same group and team, he had sparred often with Nenro and was, thus, most familiar with him in terms of combat style. And while he had missed Nenro's fight and hadn't seen the genjutsu used in action, he knew that it was the paralyzing kind. As long as he had a clue, he could make something out of it.

"I wish all of you get to the next round tomorrow," Ai said with a grin. "Then our team would hold three out of four spots in the semifinals. Then the chance of winning the tournament is all but guaranteed."

"Possible if you don't get matched against each other today," Taro commented.

Masaaki laughed. "Bring it on. I'm ready any time, any day," he said, getting a shoulder slap from Ai.

Takuma and Nenro made no comment. The chance of them meeting in the Round of Eight was high. Takuma even thought that the genin weren't shown the bracket because the instructors could arrange the match-ups to be the most interesting for the chunin audience. Whether his conjecture was true, they would know tomorrow.

———

.

"Round of Eight, match one— Maki versus Yoshio, represented by Kame and Takuma."

Takuma dapped Masaaki and Ai before jogging to the middle to meet his opponent. Yuhi Kame was a short and petite girl with a long thin ponytail that sat over her shoulder and a distinct pair of ringed red eyes. If not for her eyes, he would've not remembered the one person he 'knew' with whom she shared that trait and family name— Yuhi Kurenai. One of the few characters he knew to have genjutsu as part of their primary skill set— the infamous woman who had tried to use genjutsu against Uchiha Itachi.

Just like her relative, Kame had shown genjutsu in the first round. He didn't know what genjutsu it was, but her opponent did seem to go somewhere else with their unfocused eyes.

He was a tad bit worried. Even though Yuhi wasn't a shinobi clan, they were still a shinobi family. Unlike Nenro, chances of Kame knowing some strange genjutsu he might not even have read about was high.

'Disrupt the chakra and you'll be fine,' Takuma said to himself.

"Let's have a good fight," Kame said to him as the announcer moved away to give them space.

Before she could even complete her sentence, Takuma charged at her, closing the distance. In the last fight, Kame had conformed to the stereotype of a genjutsu specialist being poor at taijutsu. But it seemed she was ready for it as Kame pulled back and flexed her wrist for a senbon to appear from inside her sleeve that she threw at Takuma. Not expecting the hidden weapon strike, Takuma moved his head to get out of the way of the large needle that would've pierced his mouth through his cheek.

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It was only a moment, but in the split-second Takuma paused, Kame had made a comfortable distance between them. Takuma clicked his tongue and continued his chase for her, but as if used to it, Kame continued to be on the move.

"Is running all you can do?!" after a while, Takuma spat out the line. It was after he had said it he realized how cliched his words were.

Kame didn't make a single peep. She remained in motion, dodging any throws that Takuma threw. She had definitely trained for this type of combat situation. It was annoyingly reactive and required deep patience to practice. She had to wait until Takuma gave her an opening to counterstrike.

But it seemed Kame wasn't that into waiting. She chucked a kunai toward Takuma. In a second and a half the kunai flew towards him, Takuma raised his kunai to deflect it, but he noticed something red wrapped around the kunai's hilt.

Explosion tag.

The emotions didn't reach his face before his instincts took over, and he dropped to the ground in a forward sliding motion as he contracted his body to minimize his surface area. The next moment the tag exploded, and Takuma felt the force slam into him, rattling his bones, as he slid forward. He pushed through the ringing in his ear and tried to locate Kame, to find her weaving hand seals.

'Shit'

Blood drowned the world in red. The glaring rays of the afternoon sun were replaced by the eerie chill of a blood moon. Whatever wasn't red had taken over a shade of the darkest browns. It was a sight straight out of a nuclear apocalypse or what Hell looked like.

Takuma felt his heartbeat flare up as if a hand was wrapped around his heart, squeezing it to beat faster and faster… and faster. He frantically turned towards where his team sat, only to find that he was alone. The entire training field was devoid of human life, even the chirping of birds was absent. His only company was the whispers out of the woods framing the field.

Where in the world was he? Where was everyone else? How did he get here…?

As soon as the thought ended, the ground shook, and cracks appeared everywhere in the field. Fingers poked out cracks, pushing the topsoil out of the way— and emerged from the ground were rock golems of various sizes— ranging from short quarter-lings to towering monstrosities surpassing human limitations.

Takuma's heart leaped to his throat as he looked at the horde of rock golems moving closer toward him. He wanted to run, but the golems approached from all directions. He calculated the possibility of fighting the golems, but their numbers only equated to certain death… for him.

He was going to die. Why so soon? For what had he endured the last year? He hadn't even completed a single mission. Didn't this make everything not matter anymore?

But as Takuma spiraled down deeper into darker thoughts, he found himself staring at Kame walking towards him. All of a sudden, his surroundings didn't look as they did before— the environment looked flat, and the golems didn't look as opaque. He remembered what his surroundings and situation looked like before, and the fear began to drain. He noticed his ears didn't ring anymore, and his skin didn't burn, which shouldn't have been possible with how close the tag exploded to him.

The fear began to drain away.

And with each step Kame took towards him, the clarity returned to him.

'This is a genjutsu,' he thought. 'Of course, it is.' How else would the surroundings change so drastically so suddenly? And no way someone in the Genin Corp— in basic training— would be able to use a Doton jutsu that would create golems in such numbers and sizes. It had to be a genjutsu.

He was about to raise his hands, make the seal, and break the genjutsu­, but as Kame walked towards him, he changed his mind.

"Apart from running, I can do this," Kame said, raising a kunai.

Takuma raised his fist faster and decked her in the jaw.

As Kame hit the ground, the genjutsu broke like shattered glass. The sky returned to blue, birds chirped their beautiful songs, and people's cheers entered his ears. He looked around to find the genin and chunin had returned while the golems had disappeared.

He took out a shuriken and dropped it near Kame's face, making her flinch, ending the match with a supposed death strike.

The announcer came beside him, grabbed Takuma's hand, and raised it as he spoke in his host voice, "Takuma with an excellent, last-second comeback! How he turned the tables on what seemed to be a done fight! And with this, Takuma has secured his place in the semifinals. Give it up for him."

Takuma jogged back to his team amidst the cheers.

"You won!" Ai squealed as she hugged him.

"I did, didn't I…"

Taro, noticing something, asked Takuma, "You don't look thrilled about it? Is everything alright?"

Takuma didn't know what to say. Well, he did. But instead, he said,

"Yeah, I just can't hear in one ear, and my skin burns…."

"Ah, sorry!" Ai immediately separated from him.

Inside, though, he had two thoughts—

One, the genjutsu cast on him didn't seem to work well,

Two, things seemed to be going swimmingly well for him— and for some reason, it made him really uncomfortable.