During the next and final week of training, she occasionally felt eyes on her back. None of the spells she had active showed anyone nearby, but apparently, she wasn't the only one sensing something strange because they changed training locations in the last few days. Before she knew it, the day of the fight arrived.
"I can't BELIEVE IT!" Naruto ended up shouting with excitement, and she moved her ear away. "The day has finally come."
"Calm down, or you'll lose all your strength before you start."
She listened as her brother talked non-stop about his fight with Neji. How he was going to put him in his place, avenge Hinata, pass the exam… She watched as most of the villagers headed to the stadium to watch the fights, and suddenly, her stomach danced with the usual nerves as she realized the audience was going to see them fight. Damn. More than 130 years later, and she still didn't like crowds.
Upon entering, they followed the arrows to the candidate area for the exam. She saw they were among the last to arrive, even though there was still plenty of time. She observed the ninjas present and realized Sasuke wasn't there. She fervently wished, praying that it was just a bad feeling, that Kakashi-sensei wouldn't pull his usual stunt of showing up an hour late. Naruto started talking to Shino and Shikamaru, not even noticing his teammate's absence. She rolled her eyes. She felt a gaze on her back and knew it must be Gaara. She turned around. He was watching her with a neutral, contemplative expression. She nodded in his direction. To her surprise, Gaara returned the gesture almost imperceptibly.
"You can go to the arena, boys and girls," a jonin informed them. "Line up and face the audience. They're here to see you."
Seina swallowed a sigh and stood next to Naruto. She knew, without looking, that Gaara had positioned himself beside her. She listened to the combat rules, essentially the same as the last test, and noticed the moment Naruto realized Sasuke wasn't there. He turned to look at her, a clear question in his eyes, and she shrugged.
"Hey! Stand still and face forward," the jonin told Naruto.
They were all sent away except for Naruto and Neji. She crossed her arms, listening to the crowd cheer for the contestants, and watched as Naruto and Neji started exchanging blows. She had to admit Neji was very good. She began to get nervous seeing how Naruto wanted to win using taijutsu against the Hyuga, trying to prolong the fight to teach him a lesson. She saw some junken strikes land with clenched fists.
She heard Neji telling his story to Naruto, much to the astonishment of the entire stadium. She looked towards Hinata, to see her reaction, when she realized she wasn't there. Nor was Kiba, who had been sitting next to her. Hinata's father's face, on the other hand, was impassive as he listened to his nephew talk about his father's death.
"Come on Naruto! What are you waiting for?" she thought to herself, thankful that Naruto couldn't hear her at that moment.
"You're nothing but a coward!" her brother retorted, wiping a bit of blood from his lip. "And I'll defeat you!"
Astonished, she saw Naruto using Kurama's chakra without hesitation. Her brother was so indiscreet. Why use it if he didn't need to? He could have defeated Neji a while ago with his cunning! Even so, she watched with interest as Naruto, covered in Kurama's chakra, disappeared in a burst of speed that impressed everyone. The clones were to be expected. What made her laugh was seeing how he knocked Neji out with a simple tunnel after one of his clones played dead and the Hyuga declared victory.
"He won!" she shouted, but she wasn't heard over the crowd. "HE WON!"
She hugged Shikamaru and Shino by the neck with each arm. She couldn't believe it. She let them go and quickly leaned over the railing, ignoring the other participants who looked somewhat nervous about the arena now that the first fight was over.
"AMAZING NARUTO!"
"Nee-chan! Did you see that? I won!" Naruto shouted when he ran to her side and jumped on her.
They both laughed. Few people believed in her brother, and now everyone had to eat their words. She just waited for her turn to do the same. She observed over Naruto's shoulder the surprised faces of many people, with some of her thirst for revenge satisfied. There was no better reward than proving that nothing had stopped them from being the best, despite many people's ill intentions.
"Where's the teme?"
"He hasn't shown up yet. At this rate, they'll have to cancel the fight."
Naruto glanced sideways at Gaara, who was waiting against a wall with an impassive face. They saw what seemed to be an intense conversation in the Kage's booth that, to everyone's surprise, ended with the postponement of the fight. Were they going to let Sasuke fight despite being late? It didn't make much sense, considering punctuality was necessary for a ninja and was an evaluable factor in the exam. It seemed they wanted to see the fight more than anything else.
"The fight between Gaara of the Desert from Sunagakure and Sasuke Uchiha from Konohagakure is postponed! Next match: Shino Aburame from Konohagakure vs. Kankuro from the Desert of Sunagakure!"
"I forfeit!"
"HEY!" Naruto exclaimed, realizing that Shino had won by default. "What an injustice!"
Seina, however, realized it was her turn.
"Winner by default: Shino Aburame! Next match: Seina Uzumaki from Konohagakure vs. Dosu Kinuta from Otogakure!"
"Give him a beating!" Naruto cheered her on.
She accepted her friends' words of encouragement and then went down to the arena, discreetly putting in her earplugs while pretending to adjust her hair. Dosu looked at her with his one visible eye, unblinking, as if he couldn't wait to tear her to pieces. She read the lips of the jonin in charge of this part, who was reminding them of the rules, activated the aura spells and the silencing enchantment. She also used others to protect her ears, just in case.
"Hajime!"
Seina jumped back, dodging Dosu, and created a clone to distract him while using her enhanced speed to burrow underground and appear atop a tree branch without him noticing.
"Kirigakure no jutsu."
A thick mist covered the entire arena as she created more clones strategically placed underground and among the bushes. She put on her steel gloves and started attacking him along with one of her clones each time. Did he want a sound fight? She was going to give him one. He didn't even see it coming. Every time he thought of counterattacking with sound, she would switch places with one of the clones, hitting him from behind. It took him a while to realize that the clones were the only ones making noise intentionally to make him turn and leave himself unprotected against her real self. That, and it seemed his sound jutsus had no effect on her. Not only did she have earplugs, but also several spells.
Just when she saw him jump, hiding where she knew a tree was, she switched places with the hidden clone and appeared on the ground.
"Doton: shinju zanshu no jutsu."
She buried him up to his nose and finished him off with a blow to the head. She cleared the mist by deactivating the ninjutsu and also dispelled her clones when she saw the referee had realized she had won. She didn't know how long the fight had lasted, but she felt it hadn't even been ten minutes.
"Winner of the match: Seina Uzumaki!" she saw him say.
She left the earplugs in to avoid listening to the audience and jumped up to the terrace where Naruto was waiting, jumping as if he had won again. She removed the earplugs, seeing how he was talking to her. She only understood one in three words, he was so excited.
"Incredible! You won! Even though we didn't see anything, but you won!"
Shikamaru burst out laughing at hearing this. Shino congratulated her, and she accepted Naruto's hug.
"It looked like you were giving him a beating," Naruto informed her. "Did you have earplugs? Good thing, because he got pretty mad when he couldn't land a single hit on you and started insulting you."
"Huh. Cheap tactics," she thought aloud. As if a 12-year-old's insults would offend or anger her. "Good luck, Shikamaru."
The mentioned person just sighed and walked down to the arena as if he were about to be executed, with his shoulders slumped. She watched the long fight between them until Shikamaru got tired and withdrew, to her brother's astonishment and her surprise. He almost had it!
"You're so lazy, Shikamaru!" Naruto groaned next to her.
"He seemed unwilling to hit his opponent," Shino murmured, bundled up in his coat despite it being August.
Seina sighed as she listened to the crowd shouting Sasuke's name, eager to see him fight. She rolled her eyes at the public's indignation. She heard Gaara's voice assuring that Sasuke would come, and for the first time, she wondered if it would be better if Sasuke didn't show up. Just when she thought they were going to wait for a long time, Sasuke appeared in the middle of the arena accompanied by Kakashi-sensei.
"YOU'RE LATE, TEME! I HOPE YOU DIDN'T PICK UP THAT HABIT FROM KAKASHI-SENSEI!"
"You're such an idiot," Sasuke sighed, looking up at them with a slight smile.
"YOU MISSED OUR FIGHTS, IDIOTS!"
"I'm going to get something to drink, nee-chan. Do you want anything?" she shook her head.
"CANDIDATE GAARA OF THE DESERT, COME DOWN HERE!" the referee shouted.
Seina turned to look just as, who she assumed was his older brother, opened his mouth.
"Hey Gaara... About the plan, take..." began Kankuro but his sister covered his mouth with her hand.
"Don't talk to him now," she whispered in his ear, "or he'll kill you."
Seina frowned at hearing this. What plan was he talking about? She watched as Gaara walked down to the arena, the crowd whispering and cheering Sasuke's name, even though they didn't know him or if he was a good ninja.
"Seina-nee!" Naruto shouted mentally, and she opened their link. "You have to see this!"
She saw Naruto's memory where Gaara walked down the stairs and was harassed by a couple of Kirigakure ninjas asking him to lose so they could win a bet. She watched with some hope as he ignored them until one of them, unaware of the danger, grabbed his shoulder when Gaara passed by, ignoring them. She knew at that moment what she was going to see. The ninjas were killed as if it were nothing while Gaara clutched his head, as if suffering from a terrible migraine.
Seina turned her worried gaze to the arena.
"It's already started... This is not good," she heard Kankuro's confused whisper.
"Let's go talk to Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto said, returning.
"I have to leave, Shino. See you later."
She turned and ran off to find her brother and sensei. She got there in less than five minutes. Alongside Kakashi-sensei were Team 10, Lee, and Guy-sensei.
"He's going to kill him!" Naruto assured Kakashi-sensei, but he didn't seem worried. "You don't know what we've seen!"
"Sasuke will be fine. We were late for a reason."
Kakashi-sensei smiled at Naruto, trying to comfort him without much success. Then he looked at her. At that moment, she didn't feel very charitable towards the jonin. After all, Sasuke wasn't his only disciple. Everyone had received support from their senseis, even if just their mere presence, except Naruto and her. Something in her face must have shown that she wasn't happy with him because he stopped smiling with a hint of confusion. She stepped away from the group, approaching the edge of the railing, and watched as Sasuke gave Gaara a beating using incredible speed.
Everything seemed to be going in Sasuke's favor until he used a sort of lightning in his hand to attack Gaara, who had taken refuge in a sand sphere. She narrowed her eyes at the slightly scared face of her teammate who seemed unable to get his arm out of Gaara's defense.
"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted next to her, realizing the same thing. "He's going to rip off his arm!"
However, to everyone's relief, Sasuke somehow freed himself, though not without being badly injured in his left arm. The sigh of relief was so deep she couldn't hide it. Just then, she began to feel the typical tingling of genjutsu on her mental barriers.
"Genjutsu!?" Naruto asked mentally and then took refuge with her in her mind, seeing it was a genjutsu capable of dominating him. "Everyone is falling asleep!"
"It's clear something is happening. Look at the arena. Gaara's siblings have come down to pick him up."
She heard the sound of weapons flying through the air in several directions. Naruto and she ducked, seeing the metal blades cut through the air right where their heads had been. They watched as Kakashi-sensei and Guy-sensei deflected the attacks from what appeared to be Konoha anbu. When she saw one of them lunging at her brother, she prepared the deadly curse in her fist and intercepted him with a shunshin. The mysterious anbu fell dead to the ground, flying back a few meters as a dead weight due to her blow.
"Look! Sasuke is going after Gaara!" Naruto exclaimed, looking at the arena.
Kakashi-sensei heard him and checked out of the corner of his eye.
"Seina, Naruto. Wake up Shikamaru and go after Sasuke. You know he can't be left alone."
They reached where Shikamaru was lying.
"You are awake!" Naruto shouted indignantly. "What were you doing lying here pretending to be asleep!?"
"Let's go, we don't have time for this," she cut in before Shikamaru could open his mouth.
Naruto used the shunshin before her, reacting to her thoughts. Seina picked up Shikamaru in her arms, ignoring his shout of indignation and surprise, and then followed Naruto in the direction Sasuke had escaped.
"Can you locate him?" he asked mentally.
"I have a tracking spell on his bracelet and earring. Follow me."
She put Shikamaru down, and the three of them ran after Sasuke. They could see his back in the distance, entering the forest. The characteristic sound of ninja weapons clashing, screams of pain, and dying groans echoed all around. Fortunately, all the civilians were asleep, so there were no panic screams or stampedes in the streets. She activated the spell to see auras and realized that at least nine people were following Sasuke from the sides.
"Damn! We'll have to get rid of them if we want to catch up with Sasuke!"
They entered the forest, and those ninjas cut them off in less than five minutes. Shikamaru sighed and stopped abruptly.
"You go. I'll hold them off."
Seina looked at him intently and nodded. They resumed their run, grateful they weren't wearing weights, and soon caught up with Shino finishing off Kankuro.
"He's injured!" her brother told her, as if she couldn't see it herself.
"His puppet was poisoned," Shino informed. Seina sighed at hearing this.
"Go, Naruto. I'll catch up in a few minutes."
Her brother left her alone with Shino without a word. Luckily, Shino didn't reject her medical help, so she focused on healing his wounds and gave him an antidote potion she had made.
"Since when are you an expert in iryo ninjutsu?"
"Expert?" she laughed softly as she finished healing him. "No. I just take classes at the hospital just in case. Good thing I did. There, it's done! The antidote should take effect in a few minutes."
"Thank you, Seina."
"I'll leave a couple of clones with you just in case. I have to go. If you walk in the direction we came from, you should find Shikamaru."
Shino nodded.
"Good luck."
Seina leaped in the direction of Sasuke and Naruto. When she arrived, Sasuke looked badly injured and exhausted, panting on a branch, barely able to move. Naruto, on the other hand, was exchanging blows with a half-transformed Gaara.
"Heal Sasuke, nee-chan! I'll handle him!" Naruto said to her. She felt irritated at being left behind again. "You tried to talk to Gaara, now it's my turn, please."
"Alright. Don't die."
"Great advice," Sasuke panted with a laugh, and though he didn't say it, she knew he had missed their arguments. "Do you have one of those potions?"
"Stupefy," she cast the spell at Temari of the Desert. "Yes. I'll give you one now."
She grabbed Sasuke and laid him against a tree trunk a bit further from Naruto and Gaara's fight. She handed him the invigorating potion and immediately started healing his wounds. She frowned when she got to his left arm. It looked like the cells in his arm were... electrocuted? She also found the beginning of nerve damage in the arm that she knew she couldn't heal with the iryo ninjutsu she knew so far.
"I shouldn't have used it a third time today," Sasuke informed her, "but I had no choice."
"Luckily for you, I have what you need," she sighed. She found the necessary potion and gave it to him. "Take this."
Minutes later, after the potion created to alleviate the effects of the Cruciatus curse started working, the nerves in his arm were as good as new. She used a spell to increase the cellular regeneration rate in his arm and, little by little, she felt new cells replacing the damaged ones. She felt the burning sensation it was causing Sasuke to heal him so quickly, but if the invasion continued for days, she couldn't afford to leave him injured.
"There, it's done," she sighed. She applied an anti-inflammatory ointment on his arm. "You can use your arm with your normal techniques. No more of that new jutsu."
"It's called Chidori. Look at that dobe," he pointed with his head at Naruto. "One day, he'll flood us with so many clones."
Sasuke and she watched as countless Naruto clones attacked Gaara, who had now become a two-meter-tall raccoon made of sand. Without a doubt, that was the miniaturized form of the Ichibi. Was that how she would supposedly look if Kurama's chakra corrupted her during training? Suddenly, Gaara-Shukaku opened his mouth in a scream. She felt a grand concentration of chakra and a cloud of smoke rose, not enough to hide the breath of a gigantic beast.
"... Is Naruto seriously discussing drinking sake with a giant toad?" Sasuke asked exasperated.
Seina groaned in frustration, but apparently, something changed because the enormous toad under her brother's feet drew its weapon and charged at Shukaku. Sasuke and Seina watched, stunned, as Naruto and his summoning fought against a bijuu.
"Your brother's not bad," admitted Kurama, who was watching the fight excitedly. "I see he's trying to wake the jinchuriki. If he succeeds, it'll be over."
She watched Shukaku's wind technique clash against the toad's water technique with her heart in her throat. Luckily, the toad leapt into the air without putting Naruto in danger. Kurama and she saw the summoning transform into him, the Kyubi, under a henge and grab Shukaku with its enormous claws.
"Go, Naruto!" she shouted, seeing that Gaara was closer than ever to her brother.
She saw, through Naruto's eyes, how he landed a precise punch. However, Gaara didn't wake up.
"He's using the chakra from my other half!"
A second later, Gaara woke up from Naruto's headbutt, charged with demonic chakra. At the same time, the two clones she had left with Shino deactivated, giving her information. She saw Shino reunite with his father, who thanked her for healing him, and they headed towards the village.
"Come on, Seina, they've fallen to the ground."
Sasuke jumped from the tree, and she created a clone to grab the prisoner. Leaning against a tree, they watched Naruto and Gaara land a final punch on each other before collapsing. Seina sighed, listening to Naruto reaffirming her words from the hospital and proving to Gaara that being a jinchuriki didn't mean being alone.
"Hey! Leave Temari on the ground!" a voice said behind them. It was Kankuro, talking to her clone. How the hell had he escaped from Shino's bindings?
"No. She's a prisoner," she refused and used the shunshin to appear behind him and knock him out like his sister. "Did he really think we'd let them go just like that?"
"Idiots. Can you create a couple more clones to carry Naruto and Gaara?"
Seina picked up her brother and the other jinchuriki and headed back to the village. They were so exhausted that, despite not having seen each other for a month, Sasuke and she didn't exchange a word. When they reached the edge of the forest, they saw that most of the battles had ended.
"Look! The barrier around the Hokage's box has finally disappeared!"
"What do we do with these?" Sasuke asked aloud, glancing over his shoulder at the Suna siblings.
"We should find someone of higher rank."
It didn't take long to hand over the prisoners to a nearby ANBU. They carried Naruto in search of Kakashi-sensei, seeing that everything seemed to be over. She worried about Shikamaru, whom she hadn't seen for a while, until she spotted him with Asuma-sensei near a group of people surrounding a body on the ground.
"What's going on?"
Kakashi-sensei noticed their presence and walked over to them, checking them for injuries. He raised an eyebrow at Naruto.
"He's exhausted. He has no chakra left," she said flatly. "What's happening?"
"The Hokage is dead."
He explained how, apparently, the Kazekage was actually Orochimaru in disguise from the beginning. How it had been impossible to help the Hokage while he was fighting against him on the stadium roof. How they were now defenseless against any invasion.
"Things have started to change. Soon we'll have a new Hokage. Who knows what will happen."
The next day, after almost a day and a half without sleep, the village was back on its feet. The bodies were recovered, the wounded were healed and hospitalized, the civilians returned to their homes, and the attackers were captured and interrogated. The only things left were to interrogate the prisoners, repair the building damages, and strengthen the village defenses to prevent an opportunistic invasion.
Lined up among her teammates, she watched the Hokage's funeral with a distant gaze. How everything had changed so quickly, she couldn't quite understand it. Suddenly, she felt as if they had reached the end of a chapter in their lives, but she didn't know where they were headed from there. That worried her because something told her she should be concerned, and she was rarely wrong about her premonitions...