Naruto had thought he'd felt emptiness before. Empty like lonely, empty like hungry, empty like tired of the hatred from the villagers. He'd never been empty before. Naruto had nothing left in him, now. Like he'd been scoured out with steel wool.
He left his apartment without so much as bothering to close the door. It wasn't like anything was left inside to ruin, and all of his things were long gone. He had the black tank-top he was wearing, and the black shorts, and the hitai-ate he used to hold the ripped up shirt over the stump where his left arm used to be. As he walked out of his building to head towards the arena, he idly smoothed the metal with his hand. It had a chip near the upper left corner he hadn't noticed before. It must be from the kunai that got that chunk of his hair.
The sun looked to Naruto to be at about the 10:00 position, so he'd make it just in time for his match if nothing waylaid him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to make it to his match or not, but he idly thought that once he wasn't feeling so empty he'd probably regret it if he didn't give Neji the respect of a proper fight. Neji wasn't as bad as he'd thought, six months ago. Well, one month for the human realm.
The arena was unfamiliar and familiar to Naruto. The entrance was unguarded, so there was no one he could ask about directions, but he'd had enough practice tracking that it turned out he didn't need them. He hadn't realized his sense of smell and eye for scuff marks had gotten so refined. He walked down an arched hallway towards the sound of dozens of people shuffling and the smell of all those people, shinobi and otherwise. He brought his arm up to his face and idly tried to wipe away some blood from the cut on his forehead. Healing would be really great right about then, but the nine tail's chakra and his own large reserves weren't something to waste even if he did have plenty. He knew that now. Right before a fight was the last time to worry about superficial wounds.
Naruto noticed he seemed to be slipping back into survival mode. That is, if he'd left it in the first place. His bare feet shuffled against the dusty stone. He was at the entrance.
"Naruto Uzumaki has 20 seconds to enter the ring or face disqualification!" The voice sounded like it had come from some sort of megaphone. He guessed that was his cue. Naruto grabbed onto the railing and flipped himself heels over head into the ring, where he could see Neji waiting with a deep scowl. He let himself fall freely, with no attempts at evading injury. After all this, after coming here to pay respect to Neji, he didn't really care if he scraped a knee.
He landed a fair few meters away from Neji with a thud and, as he'd predicted, a bloodied knee. He took his time standing up and once he had his feet under him he looked over to the proctor with a lazy sway of his torso. His balance was perfect as always, and he hated feeling so stiff. He was tired, so why shouldn't he just barely do what he needed to stay on his feet?
The referee was holding a senbon in his mouth, but it slipped out to the ground as his lips slackened. His eyes were also bugging out of his head beneath his hitai-ate. Naruto jerked his head away from those eyes. After six months free from the glares or judgements of Konoha citizens, he didn't know how he felt about being looked at. Especially looking so raggedy. Kami, his teammates up in the stands must think he looks so stupid, having somehow managed to get so beat up and be late for such a big exam. Naruto refused to look up at the stands and check. Kakashi-sensei was probably going to look at him all condescending and apathetic.
Naruto looked across the center of the arena to Neji. The Hyuuga was perfectly clean. His clothes were untainted tan, his joints clean and un-chapped. His hair was so straight and shiny draped around his flawlessly polished hitai-ate. Naruto would probably get him all smudged when they fought. Neji would look pretty funny with red-brown streaks all over wherever Naruto hit him.
Neji was staring at him with his face all veiny. He'd never seen Neji make an expression that wasn't pissy before. It didn't suit him. Whatever look Neji was giving him, it made him look like he was holding back a sneeze. The weirdo was actually leaning forward and gaping a little. Even his teeth were shiny clean.
"Hey, Neji!" Naruto shouted over to him with his first smile in days, "You look really nice! Sorry about how dirty I'm gonna get ya! Also I'll probably laugh at you when you're all messed up so sorry in advance! Do your best-ttebayo!" Neji's jaw dropped a little lower. Still, his expression was less goofy and more angry, now, so that was maybe a good thing. Neji almost looked handsome when he looked like he wanted to kill you.
Nothing moved for a long moment, and then the proctor's watch let out a chime and, seemingly reflexively, the ref said "Match, start!" Naruto planted his heel and spun, sprinting away at a slight angle from Neji. He let his bare feet dig into the dust for speed, staying as low to the ground, as fast, as possible. He could hear Neji shouting and pursuing him at what would for most shinobi be a bad angle to be approached from. Naruto, though, he loved it when he was approached from the side where he'd had his arm chopped off. He ran as fast as he could go in a wide circle, a circle he'd chosen so that his stump would face inwards. It was the perfect bait.
His first glance at Neji was when the Hyuuga was mere feet away and Naruto had to swing himself up onto his palm, upside down and pulled forward by his own momentum so that he could land his heel with a deep crack against Neji's jaw. By the time Neji had snapped his head back forward Naruto was already spinning away in his much faster three-limb rotational movement. For every two or three times he put down a foot, he also used his hand to push himself forward in a front or back or even side flip. It was a bit uncontrolled when he needed to stop, but stopping was not going to be his biggest problem today. He didn't need skin on his knees anyways. He just needed to complete his circle and then he could end this.
Naruto began his circuit by planting one palm into the dirt as he cartwheeled and letting it twist.
He was up and continuing his circuit on two feet as soon as he'd planted the mark. He had to distract the Hyuuga, to keep him from noticing the circle. And Naruto knew, the best way to hide a prank is with a prank.
Naruto whipped around and launched himself at Neji. Those big, pupil-less eyes look pretty funny all wide open like that. It made Neji look like some sort of bug-eyed bug! Naruto giggled as he used his twisting momentum to break through the unsuspecting Hyuuga's guard and punch Neji right in the nose. It snapped beneath his fist.
Naruto was now tilted forward, in the perfect position for Neji to do anything to him. To touch Naruto in any painful way he wanted. Naruto dropped down bonelessly, not even pretending he was willing to get into a spar, and pushed chakra into his bare feet, activating the seals. He was launched forward right beneath Neji's extremely fast knee-jab and off running to the next mark point before Neji could wrap him up into an exhausting taijutsu battle that Naruto would almost certainly lose.
Naruto's breath was already coming fast. It made the bruises around his ribs ache, made his nose and eyes sting. His throat felt like he'd swallowed sandpaper. There was blood dripping into his eye again but he must not stop to wipe his forehead, he knew that. Fighting with obstructed sight was a basic survival technique. Naruto cussed under his breath. He'd have to believe he'd learned enough to handle this. A fight where his opponent wasn't even trying to kill him should be doable. He wasn't sure why he had to win if his life wasn't at stake, he couldn't think well when all his thoughts were focused on the rocks stuck in his feet and the not-enough air in his chest and locks of blonde hair sticking to his neck from blood. Still, he could figure out why he was desperate to defeat Neji after he'd managed it.
Naruto hit the next mark and flipped himself forward onto his palm, throwing his legs into a split and spinning them to twist his hand down and make the second mark. This had the added advantage of helping him to dodge an incoming jab from Neji. Naruto let Neji drive him back. Every jab towards one of Naruto's whatever-points that Hyuugas liked to poke missed be inches as Naruto kept pushing himself back and away. He watched carefully as Neji got angrier and angrier.
"This is the end, for you. Talent is decided when the person is born. You were never destined to win this fight." The Hyuuga's teeth were gritted. Naruto eyed Neji's feet and bared his teeth as his opponent rocked his weight forward on his back foot. The Hyuuga slammed his arm forward into a lunge just a tad further forward than he'd used so far. He obviously expected Naruto to jump back again.
Naruto lunged forward towards the arm aimed at his neck, let it skim the side of his face, and bit down hard on Neji's clean, soft forearm.
The Hyuuga screamed and his other hand rocketed towards Naruto's side, but he'd already dropped onto all fours and yanked his head back, throwing Neji off by a mile. The flesh between his teeth separated from Neji's arm with a harsh slurp and Naruto dug in every finger and toe, even the nail less ones, as he shot away from the enraged Hyuuga. He spat out the lump of bloody skin on his way.
"Neji," he called back to the Hyuuga, "sorry, but I just don't know when to give up!"
The Hyuuga was fast, Naruto would give him that. But Naruto had been running for his life for months. Neji had none of Naruto's capacity for a desperate, burning sprint or a random, zig-zaggy path meant to keep Naruto away from those precise blows. It also helped that Neji wouldn't stop clutching his arm. Neji was faster than Naruto in almost every single way, but not when it came to running away until the trap was set.
Naruto got two more marks placed as he led Neji around the arena. The Hyuuga was furiously pursuing him, leaping at him with chakra enhanced everything. It was kind of what Naruto had always imagined playing leapfrog would be like. Naruto would jump, so Neji would jump, and in the end they just ended up going in circles exactly as Naruto wanted.
"Enough!" cried the Hyuuga. Naruto didn't stop. Any word from an opponent's mouth could be a trick, and he could not let Neji land a hit on him. Two limbs unusable would be a bit much. "This is the end, for you. You're in range, and you can't escape my eight trigrams. Gentle-fist art: Eight-trigams, sixty-four palms!" Neji had stopped and placed his arms and hands in position for what was obviously a new technique. Naruto skidded to a halt and prepared to launch himself out of the way.
Neji came at him in a blue-tinted blur. Everything hurt. He'd had so much worse, so much faster, but Neji just kept jabbing him in what felt like the worst possible places. He could feel his already damaged and incomplete chakra pathways slamming shut, everywhere except around his stump where the chakra pathways were already broken and frayed at the edges. It felt, maybe, two-thirds as ad as getting stabbed. What was worse was that Neji was close to him, hurting him, and moving so fast that Naruto couldn't even see him. He couldn't dodge, couldn't block, he was powerless. Again.
Neji finally backed away and Naruto felt dirt and small stones digging into his bewhiskered cheek. He opened his eyes and kept them on the only part of Neji he could see, his pristine, clean feet. Not a toenail out of place. Naruto was kind of jealous. He missed his toenails a lot…
"You're lucky to still be breathing. Must be frustrating, to realize how utterly hopeless it all was, this little dream of yours. You thought you could succeed through hard work alone? That's only an illusion. Especially with this new disadvantage of yours." Naruto planted his hand against the ground and half-shoved, half-rolled himself upright as quickly as possible. Being prone before an enemy rattled every last one of his nerves no matter how stiff and in pain he was in.
"What disadvantage? You talkin' about my height you bastard?" Naruto was very frustrated by his apparent inability to surpass 4'10". He refused to believe it was because of ramen!
"Impossible. How could he?" Neji was staring at him with his weird veiny-eyes again. It was pretty dumb of the Hyuuga, how he kept pausing to talk in the middle of a battle, but Naruto figured if he kept Neji talking then he'd have more time to catch his breath. Naruto grinned so that Neji could see every last one of his sharp teeth.
"I told you. I just don't know when to give up."
"Stop this madness! You'll only get more of the same. I have nothing against you personally." Neji wasn't even in a fighting stance. Naruto, however, dropped into one. This match was going to go to whoever could catch the other by surprise. He loved being surprising.
"Ha! That's touching. You're gonna make me cry. Anyway, I haven't got anything against you either." Naruto started pushing his awareness inwards, to that strange link at the small of his back.
"Then why are you even fighting me? You obviously shouldn't be out of the hospital." Naruto growled and kept focusing inwards.
"Because you're wrong about who's a failure. You don't get to just take out your pissiness on others, you arrogant jackass! I'm here to give you my best fight, and I expect the same from you. Out of respect for an equal Konoha-nin." Neji scoffed and for the first time this fight he looked truly, albeit angrily, sad. His nose crinkled up in a look like villagers gave him when he tried to buy food.
"Arrogant? Equal? Do you know nothing of the Hyuuga clan's heritage of hatred? For generations the main branch has practiced a secret ninjutsu, the cursed-mark jutsu." As he spoke, Neji untied and removed his hitai-ate. It made Naruto want to scream, before he saw the tiny green cross on Neji's forehead that reeked of fuuinjutsu. "It is the symbol. Of a bird trapped in its cage. It's the mark of those who are bound to a destiny they cannot escape…I was four years old when the leaders of my clan branded my forehead. Lady Hinata's third birthday. Her father is sitting up there. My father's twin brother, older by seconds. And so my family is lesser. By my own Uncle I was made a bird in a cage. It is not arrogant to see the truth of this world. You and I will never be equal." Naruto was horrified. Neji was clenching one fist tight around his hitai-ate. It was the fist on his injured arm. The blood dripped down his inner elbow to the ground faster as his hand shook with pressure.
"What does it do to you? What does it seal?"
"It is the instrument by which they keep us in our place." Neji spoke like he was delivering a eulogy. Even his veiny-eyes were dead. "We live with the fear that they will use this curse mark to turn out brains to jelly any time they wish. Fear. That is what we live with, every day. And only in death are we free of it. This is how the power of the Byakugan is kept sealed away. Only the Hyuuga possess the secret of our doujutsu, and it is the duty of the branch members to protect that secret, and serve the main branch obediently, without question, for eternity. That is our destiny.
And this match is the same. Your destiny was sealed the moment I was chosen as your opponent. It's your destiny to lose to me." Naruto didn't laugh at him for this. He kind of got it, how it might feel like Neji couldn't make a difference no matter what. And if he couldn't, what chance did Naruto have? Then again…
"Yeah? Then go ahead. Beat me. Your seal is not fair. But that's because it was never your destiny to be trapped. I will prove that destiny has nothing to do with this! And that's why you're right to be mad at your clan." If Naruto could defeat destiny, then Neji had no excuse not to do the same! Neji didn't seem to feel that way, because he growled at Naruto and replaced his hitai-ate with a venomous glare. Venomous by genin standards, that was.
"You're a failure, a ninja that can't even keep himself whole. You impudent little brat. You don't deserve any explanation from me! You don't know what it's like to be branded with a mark that sets you apart. A mark that can never be wiped away!"
Naruto burst out into laughter before he even realized it. It echoed strangely shrill and rough against the walls of the arena. Neji actually flinched away from it. Naruto noticed that some blood flung from between his lips. Idly, he wondered if it was his or Neji's.
"Man, you think you're the only special one around here? Heh." Naruto smirked ruefully. His secret wasn't made for being shared, not here. He wished he could, though. Neji shouldn't have to be alone. "All that crap you said about destiny, you don't even believe it, do you? You call this obedience, telling me about the worst of the Hyuuga clan? You haven't given up yet! And neither will I! You know everyone's weakness, right? Well I'm gonna show you just how wrong you are. People call me a failure. I'll prove 'em wrong. I will defy fate! I will break your seal if it's that last thing I ever do!" Neji scowled and actually turned away from Naruto. This was the dumbest mistake he'd ever seen from a shinobi, turning their back on an enemy. Even if he did have those funky eyes.
"Proctor, I suggest you stop the match. I won't be responsible for what happens to him if he continues."
Even if that enemy was him.
Naruto closed his eyes and reached for that spot, that tricky spot between his stomach and the small of his back and called out deep into himself.
'Kyuubi! Lend me the chakra of a tail!'
A moment of stillness and black, and then there was red over everything he saw. Naruto felt his aching and twisted chakra pathways burn with power bound beneath his skin. It tore through the closed tenketsu points from Neji's attack. Naruto was free. He flipped backwards onto his palm before Neji could do more than whirl around to face him, once, twice, three times and laid the final mark with his hand planted in the dirt. Then he swung his feet under him and ran straight towards Neji, who hastened to meet him right in the middle of Naruto's circle, looking so completely stunned it was almost insulting.
Naruto stopped a step before Neji. Ignoring the boy completely, he jumped a step into the air, barely hovering a few feet above the ground as he rolled into a ball, took a deep breath, plugged his ears, and closed his eyes. He released the chakra to the final mark, in the dead center of the circle where not a moment before he'd laid his foot.
All around Naruto he could feel a strange pressure, then lack, then pressure, then lack again. It sounded like something was cracking inside of his ears, even with them plugged up as best as he could manage with only one hand. The cycle of pressure finally stopped when gravity dropped him to the ground and he released his breath as his touch deactivated the central storage seal he'd laid between the circle of five directed storage seals.
Naruto had learned something pretty cool since the preliminary rounds. See, storage seals were kind of stupid if you didn't tell them exactly what to do. They could store lots and lots of just about anything, but you had to be extra careful to make sure you told them when you wrote them not to store anything too fast, because seals tended to suck stuff in or let it out so quickly it got all twisted if you didn't write in some sort of time limit. So, Naruto had made some storage seals for air, got rid of the time limit, and then put them in a circle so that they basically connected to each other into a bubble where they'd suck in whatever they were told. By making sure the directions they were written to pull from aligned Naruto had managed to, for a second at most, make a space without any air right where he and Neji were fighting. He'd let out all of his breath before he'd set it off, but Neji hadn't. His lungs would've expanded and then crunched and his diaphragm would've gone nuts as the seals frantically cycled to suck in each new input of air. Also, since the air rushing in to fill up the empty space was so fast it made a huge noise and a lot of pressure. Naruto only was okay because he'd prepared himself for it, but Neji had been running at him with lots of straight rigid muscles and panting. He ran straight into Naruto's trap.
In front of him, Neji was laid out on his back out cold. His ears were bleeding, his eyes were surely bloodshot, and his chest was fluttering like he was hyperventilating. As Naruto sat up he watched Neji's breathing slowly even out even as several black-clad figures leapt down and checked the boy's pulse and throat. One looked over to the proctor and raised a thumbs up. Naruto was glad Neji was okay. Although, he'd been right. Neji's shirt was smeared with dirt and blood all over. He should've worn a darker color like Naruto.
The ref guy's senbon was nowhere to be seen as his mouth gaped open at Naruto. The poor man still had his hands over his ears and everything. Slowly, he lowered them as he looked between him and Neji.
"Winner is…Naruto Uzumaki!"
Fuuinjutsu was Naruto's favorite thing in the world. And not just because it was in his blood.
Kakashi felt every bit of air in his lungs leave his body. Beneath his mask, his blood had left his face. His fingers fumbled as he reached up and shoved his hitai-ate up away from his Sharingan eye, staring down at his student.
There was no mistake. No genjutsu, no transformation jutsu (although that would take some incredible work), nothing. Naruto's left arm was truly just gone.
And that wasn't the only problem.
Naruto's forehead was streaked with dried blood half-sweated off, and fresh blood was slowly oozing from an infected head wound that must be days old. Except a jinchuuriki shouldn't have day-old wounds. He shouldn't have missing toenails, or skinless knuckles, or scrapes all up and down his remaining arm, or skinned knees.
Then again, Kakashi had never heard of a junchuuriki missing a body part, either. Not even a finger.
The stump of Naruto's left arm was facing Kakashi as Naruto stood, unsmiling, staring at Neji. It was eerie, to see the hyper blonde so still and blank. The stump was even worse to see. It was knotted up and deep, leaving no bit of the limb behind. It seemed fully healed, but poorly so, with no evidence of medical intervention that Kakashi could see. If anything it looked like the wound had been chewed on and then just left alone. Kakashi doubted he'd ever see such a scar again. Anyone without Naruto's healing ability would be a corpse if a wound like that went unstitched and ignored. There was no way for Kakashi to tell how old the wound was, what with even the vague idea he'd had of how Naruto's healing worked now nothing but rubble beneath the sickening weight of the still-bleeding cut on his student's forehead.
Kakashi twitched and had a kunai in his hand before he realized that it was Sakura tugging on his flak-jacket. The girl should really know better by now, but just this once he'd let it go. It wasn't her fault he was so on edge. Down the row, Sakura, Sasuke, Ino-Shika-Cho, Asuma, and team 8 were all looking down at Naruto with varying expressions of distress. In the row behind Asuma, Gai was standing up and jogging over to Kakashi with that oddly grim look Gai got almost exclusively on missions. Kurenai was walking with very forced nonchalance towards the Hokage's box.
"Kakashi-sensei! What happened to Naruto?" Sakura asked him with a very shrill voice. Sasuke behind her was alternating between glaring at Kakashi and turning activated eyes to Naruto. Kakashi had never seen the boy look so terrified and confused all at once. Hinata, too, was using her doujutsu to see if the Naruto before them was truly as he appeared. She was crying, so she probably saw the same thing as him. Meanwhile, Shikamaru had obviously given up on his surroundings altogether. Ignoring the panicking Ino and Chouji rapidly approaching Kakashi, the Nara heir was standing to lean on the railing, eyes fixed on Naruto, and hands touching at each fingertip in his deepest thinking posture.
Before Kakashi could start to corral the baby-genin, Gai reached him and Kakashi gladly let himself be pulled over to the side.
"Who did you get for Naruto's training for the month?" whispered Gai into his ear.
"Ebisu. But I heard Jiraiya was planning to train him once he finished his research."
Gai nodded and jogged away. His last look at Kakashi was disappointed, but sympathetic. Kakashi was very familiar with that look, and this time as always he knew down to his bones that he deserved worse.
Kakashi turned back to the frantic blob of Genin in front of him. Asuma was performing a summons, except Kakashi watched aghast as a jounin-level shinobi failed to summon anything, even as he tried again. In the meantime, the remainders of team 8 had joined the clump along with Tenten, who looked very disturbed and also very annoyed. Shikamaru, however, had not moved. His thinking pose was unbroken, and he was leaning his whole body forward towards Naruto. Only his eyes were shifted to the side towards Kakashi. The Nara raised one eyebrow at him before turning back to Naruto with an even deeper furrow between his brows.
"Maa," Kakashi started to the small horde of genin, "don't worry, genin-chans! If anything appears to go wrong, your senseis are ready to stop the match immediately. We'll take care of Naruto." He floppily waved a hand towards them. Baby-nin were like puppies. If you stayed calm, they'd stay calm. If you panicked, they'd panic.
"Hey, Neji!" Kakashi heard echoing from the arena, "You look really nice! Sorry about how dirty I'm gonna get ya! Also I'll probably laugh at you when you're all messed up so sorry in advance! Do your best-ttebayo!"
The genin as a clump ran to the railing and peered over the side. Kakashi used his height to watch over their heads. Naruto was smiling. He'd shouted at the Hyuuga boy with his arm stretched straight out ahead of him to point at Neji. It was a startlingly normal look, given he only had one arm to point with.
"It's really him," whispered a genin from Kakashi's left. It was the Nara. His thinking pose was broken. Instead, he had his hands clasped together in a shaking, bloodless clench. "Naruto," the Nara went on, "what happened to you?"