William Little wrote:
Installment #2. I'll get to the end of this eventually.
Take your time. :)
I was going to criticize you for having everyone speak too much during
the battles.
Then I remembered the source material. Now I have to criticize you for
far too few and short flashbacks (For instance, there is no excuse for
not turning Midori's past into at least a 5000 word interlude) and
barely even a token effort at spectator commentary. There must have been
dozens of characters who commented on only half the fights- or less!
Totally broke my suspension of disbelief that I was watching the Naruto
anime.
Heh. What, the chapter wasn't long enough for you? ;)
We'll probably be getting a Midori flashback or two later in the story.
She's not through yet...
As for spectator comments, there were some that I wanted to get in that
I wasn't able to, such as the various jounin teachers comparing notes
and realizing just how many of them had trained Sakura at least a
little. However, I find that trying to do quick cuts of the sort that I
would need to get in as much commentary as the canon Exam fights just
wouldn't work as well in text form. So, I had to do without.
Judging that the time was right, Anko activated a technique to
amplify her voice so that it could be heard throughout the arena, even
though she spoke only slightly more loudly than usual. "The first
match," she stated, then waited a moment for the echoes to die down. In
an instant, the crowd hushed itself almost completely. "The Hidden
Mist's Haruno Midori against the Hidden Leaf's Mitokado Fuki... begin!"
Anko is surprisingly subdued about needling the genin throughout the
entire chapter. I suppose enough of an audience will sober even her.
There's that, and also the fact that she knows Tsunade is going to be
pissed when she finds out Anko taught Sakura snake summoning and doesn't
want to give the Hokage any _more_ reasons to be mad at her.
As an 'if you ever do a rewrite' comment, some of the fights switch at
random between omniscient observer and the perspective of the fighters
or a spectator. It works, but I think choosing one nearly-omniscient
observer (Anko might be the best choice- she's good enough to catch
pretty much everything, and caustic and biased enough to be interesting
and funny) as viewpoint for most of the fights, with occasional
sidelines to Tsunade and Sakura for their conversations, might be
better. You skip in and out of Anko's viewpoint in this first battle,
then mostly abandon Anko's viewpoint for the rest of the chapter. For
rather more work, you could have it be the viewpoint from the peanut
gallery (the waiting genin) to give Sakura more screen time and preserve
some surprises that Anko would have seen coming.
Noted. I was deliberately trying to keep the viewpoint moving between
scenes to make things a little less monotonous (at least, as
non-monotonous as fourteen more or less uninterrupted fight scenes can
get) and to aid in glossing over the unimportant details of certain less
interesting fights. Your suggestion will definitely go in the "if I
ever do a major rewrite' pile, though.
I was trying to keep things pretty much from one point of view inside a
scene with a couple of exceptions where it just didn't work otherwise,
but it sounds like I may have slipped up; I'll try and catch the worst
of those before finalizing the chapter.
The watching crowd erupted into loud cheers. No surprise, Anko
thought. While there were likely a handful of visitors from farther
away, the vast majority of the crowd were from the Leaf Village and most
of the rest from the other allied nations. All of those would be
rooting against the Mist kunoichi. While they weren't at war at the
moment, all the allied nations had fought the Mist in living memory.
THAT's what's missing. Personalized Cheers. ("NEJI, NEJI, he's our man.
If he can't see it, no one can!") Parking lot brawls. Post-match
interviews. Lee groupies!
Heh.
Unfortunately, Neji's the only one the audience has seen before, and he
didn't exactly win himself many fans the last time around. :)
"Right here," Midori answered as she landed behind Fuki on the
tree branch.
Why does everyone ANSWER that question?!? It must be some kind of
instinctive genjutsu.
Heh.
Genre emulation, really. It's part of what makes a fight feel like a
Naruto fight. ;)
Then, Anko grinned. An instant later, a massive explosion
engulfed the tree Midori was standing on as she stepped too close to the
explosive tag Fuki had placed. Fuki had decided that she couldn't see
through Midori's genjutsu, so instead she had maneuvered Midori into a
trap by presenting a too-tempting vulnerability. Unfortunately, it
seemed Midori had noticed the tag quickly enough to use the Replacement
Technique to escape the explosion, but now her cloaking technique was
disrupted. She stood, plainly visible, on the ground facing the trees.
This paragraph is the worst example of the viewpoint switching in the
chapter, and the only one I think really needs to be cleaned up.
Hmm. It was supposed to all be from Anko's point of view, though I can
see how that could get lost in there. I'll definitely try and clean
that paragraph up.
Anko let her hand rest on Fuki's shoulder. "Don't worry about
it," she told the young kunoichi. "You did really well, particularly
for a rookie. You probably won't make chuunin this time, but I expect
you'll manage it within a year." When Fuki didn't say anything, she
continued. "You can go back to the waiting room to stay with your team
or leave now, whichever you want."
Ahah. Now it makes sense. Tsunade lost faith in Anko and ordered Iruka
to use the transformation jutsu to take her place for the tournament!
Heh.
Actually, Anko has her reasons for being unusually sympathetic toward
the losers (or at least, those she doesn't _want_ to see lose), which
should be made clear next chapter.
Not far away, Sakura had finished giving her condolences to Fuki
and walked over to her rival. "You're up next, Ino-pig," she said.
I'd actually kind of have wanted to hear that conversation.
Hmm. I'll see what I can work up.
Ino grinned widely at her. "I told you before, Forehead, I'm
not going to lose. Worry about your own fight." With that, she
casually jumped from the waiting room to the arena floor. Sakura
grimaced as she stared after her and remembered...
Yeh, flashback!
Not very far back, though. And only one? Where are all the revelations
of the childhood traumas of people we didn't care about before and won't
hear much about again? I mean, Midori's rant is good and all, but we
don't even get to see her heart-breaking beating by her fellow villages
or hear the taunting voices of the village bullies.
Heh. All in good time.
Yamanaka Ino landed lightly on the arena floor. She took a
moment to stare up at the stands. They looked so much bigger from down
here than they did when you were in them. For an instant, a hint of
nervousness paralyzed her, then she forced herself to straighten and
walk toward the center of the arena, where Mitarashi Anko stood
impatiently.
It struck me a moment ago. Something important is missing here.
What are Ino and Sakura wearing?
Yeah, it's petty. But come on, they're on display in front of all of
Konoha and a lot of what, three other villages? Can you see either of
them not agonizing over that decision for hours?
Heh. That honestly didn't occur to me.
I'll see what I can work in.
She took another step forward, and realized that she was still
wearing the weights Gai had given her. She glanced down at the
atrocious orange leg warmers that hid them - she kept on forgetting to
get around to purchasing something less ugly - and considered taking
them off.
See, this alone could have been cause for a panic attack in the morning
and maybe a snide comment or two from Ino, or even better Ami, right
before the match. Sakura's going to be remembered forever now (at least
in her own mind) as the only female genin in the tournament to utterly
lack a sense of fashion.
True. Something will have to be worked in, indeed.
Sakura didn't respond, instead imitating Ino and starting to
stretch. "I'm ready whenever you are, Mitarashi-sensei," she stated.
The thought struck her that Anko and Ami looked sort of similar, and she
idly wondered whether there was some connection between the Mitarashi
and the Uzuki. She shook her head slightly. This wasn't the time for
that sort of thought.
Is this foreshadowing, or just an observation from Ami's very brief
appearences the anime?
Just an observation, really. There might be a connection, but it isn't
important one way or another to the story.
Basically, when I was selecting family names for the extremely minor
characters I was expanding on, I tried to match them up with characters
that looked at least a little like them if you squinted hard enough.
Ami could easily be a younger version of either Uzuki Yuugao or Anko,
character design-wise.
Moments before it would have struck Sakura, the ball of flame
stopped and pulsed. Eyes widening, Sakura flung herself to the ground
as Ami's technique exploded behind her. When the dust faded, there was
a shallow crater near where she had been standing, and Sakura gulped as
she realized what might have happened if that attack had hit her. Not
wasting any more time, she regained her feet, keeping her eyes on Ami.
Ok, so you decided to plagarize a DnD spell and give it a name from
Sailor Moon? Have you no shame, man?
Heh.
Actually, I mostly just adopted the visuals from the first appearance of
Fire Soul in the Sailor Moon anime. No DnD-plagiarizing, at leat not
intentionally.
"That's enough," Anko stated, grinning widely. "No need for
unnecessary deaths." She once more raised her hand. "Haruno Sakura
wins the third match!"
Funny how the rules changed when it was Sakura in danger. You'd almost
suspect someone cared.
Heh.
Thank you for the comments!