I arrived at the large arena where the rest of the fights are going to take place. I sat down, and turned to see someone sat beside me. I turned and raised an eyebrow, seeing a purple clad, blonde, kunoichi.

"Hi! I'm Ino Yamanaka! Nice to meet you, you're from the sand village, right?"

"I am. What's a pretty leaf kunoichi like you, doing talking to a sand shinobi like me?"

"Er, uh....well I thought you seemed interesting and I wanted to talk to you."

I watched as she brushed some of her hair behind her shoulder, while looking down. I smiled and set the bucket of popcorn I bought in between us. She looked at the bucket, then at me.

"You want to share? I don't know if I can eat all this alone."

"Of course! I mean, sure."

She turned to her opposite sighed, and started silently yelling at herself.

"I saw your fight with Naruto. You must feel bad about it."

"Not at all, actually. We fought as equals, and he just wanted it more."

Well, that was half way true. He did want to win more than I did. We sat waiting for the matches, eating the popcorn and enjoying each other's company for a solid five minutes straight.

"Seems like that Sasuke guy is gonna have to fight last. Shame, I was hoping to see him and Naruto duke it out to start. That would be a show."

"Really? Sasuke is top of our class, and Naruto is the bottom of the barrel."

"You sure about that? He beat me, didn't he?"

"Did he really?"

"......"

She laughed a little and took a handful of popcorn.

"Say, Ino, do you want to meet up somewhere when this is all said and done?"

"Uh, you mean like hanging out?"

"I mean like a date."

Her face flushed, and she ate another handful, before regaining her composure and looking at me with a smile.

"Sure thing. Do you have any ideas where?"

"That Ichiraku ramen place is pretty good, but I think that Achuriki place is worth trying out. They have miso, right?"

"Yeah, that sounds good to me."

"Awesome. Ooh! It's starting!"

She set the bucket on her lap and scooted closer to me, until our shoulders were touching. Naruto is truly determined to beat that Neji guy. I bet I could beat him. My massive range of jutsu available gives me a versatility that he's probably never been met with.

Naruto ended up winning, giving him a proud 'DATTEBAYO' and moving on. The rest of the fights were fairly uninteresting. Ino got ticked off when her teammate quit, but she was visibly holding herself back because of my presence. It's nice that she's considerate, better than her screaming at someone no matter who's there.

That Sasuke dude finally showed up, and his fight with Gaara was highly reminiscent of Gaara's fight with that Lee dude I wanna face, until Gaara made a dome. I watched as Sasuke went onto one of the walls, and made a jutsu that looks kinda like a thunderbolt in his hand.

"CHIDORI!!"

Huh, cool name. It broke through Gaara's defense, and I raised an eyebrow when I saw a blood drop hit the ground. Gaara screamed, and I watched as the plan unfolded. Originally I was supposed to just fake sleep, but I decided to wake up Ino.

"Ino, you okay?"

"Huh, uh, oh yeah! Sorry, what happened?"

"Genjutsu. Come on, let's get away from here, the jonin have it under control."

She nodded and I led her away. Not my plan, not my village, not my anime, not my damn problem. It is a shame that my next meeting with Ino wasn't at a resturaunt, but at a funeral. That wasn't very cash money.

Damn, and I have to stay behind for them to question me. Shit, I should've gone with Gaara. Maybe then something fun could have happened.