Congrats, you have stumbled onto the first of several (dozen?) chapter of a Naruto fic. And personally, to have found this, you must have stumbled and fallen off into a bottomless hole. Well, cheiro and review (pwease?)

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and company, their world, the organizations in that world, or anything else you read in the manga. I do own the characters I bothered to give personalities to and the organizations I put them in and I shall flame you to hell if you use them.

NOTES: okay…I never really liked how Naruto was my age and could do so much neat stuff, so I added 4 to each of their ages, making them 16 or so.

This story takes place at about p15 of the 27th volume and about 11 months later, i.e. the start of the next chunin exam.

START HERE

Itachi grabbed Naruto's arm, stopping him from reaching Mitsu's disintegrating body. Naruto turned and snarled at him, canines elongated, eyes red.

"Kyuubi, Naruto, don't go out there." Itachi said, eyeing the liquid winds of chakra chewing everything within thirty feet of the dying teen. Sasuke hurtled out of the sky, landing with a painful thump beside them.

"Am I too late?" he asked his brother, brown black wings rustling to remove the loose dirt.

"Depends on what you wanted to see." Itachi said solemnly…

But it probably would be better to start at the beginning, so many long months ago, practically a lifetime away for the once upon a time demon child of the Hidden Leaf. It was suppose to be a relatively normal Chun-nin exam, but then of course, nothing is normal once you mix in demons. This tale could have started earlier, at the birth of a woman destined for greatness, or the slaughter of a fox demon protecting his family, or even at the infusion of the second Uchina, but that's like trying to tie a knot without any string, fun but fruitless. You know the story of Uzumaki Naruto, that is your platform of knowledge. Don't get too attached, what you will learn will probably knock the base out.

START HERE

Naruto cracked his neck and grinned. He, Sakura, Shino, Hinata, Neji, and TenTen had made it to the final round of the Chunin exam. Also there were two of the three Sand Siblings (Gaara wasn't present); a quartet from Cloud, four gaudily dressed genins from different villages and a heavily cloaked person whose alliance was unrevealed.

"Congratulations!" Gai, who was supervising the third test, started in his generally loud and annoying fashion.

"You youthful ninjas have made it to the preliminary round of the third exam!" It was here he inserted a "nice-guy pose" and blinded everyone not wearing sunglasses or use to it, in which case those persons (Neji and TenTen) simply sweat-dropped.

"This is a sudden death style tai-jutsu match with any weapon available but no gen- or nin- jutsus. And so that no country is misrepresented, would those people under gen-jutsus please release them." Naruto looked surprised at his fellow exam takers and saw one of the cloud shobito and the three of the assorted ones release their enchantments to reveal five ridiculously dressed ninjas with unrecognizable forehead protectors that had rough edges like they had been carved in after the metal had hardened. Gai stared at the symbol, which looked vaguely like a bat, until he composed himself to yell start.

The first match was Sakura against Neji. Sakura put on an impressive display using a variety of her special bombs that she had cooked up to attack different systems. But they were easily blown away with the Heavenly Spin. When Neji came at her with the Gentle Fist, she was able to dodge about 20 percentof the attacks, but80 percentwas too many hits if she wanted to win. Soon, she was swamped by the Gentle Fist techniques but was able to resign before fainting or suffering too much internal damage.

Next up was Naruto vs. Shino. Shino had the obvious advantage with his bugs counting as ninja tools, and Naruto couldn't use his enormous chakra. However, Shino hadn't considered that Naruto would think of simply gathering the chakra into different parts of his body. Naruto did though, and was able to give Shino a good kick to the chin after an explosive jump that would've landed him 10 feet past the bug user if he weren't there. After that, he tried a technique similar to Rock Lee's Lotus, which effectively sent poor Shino into a nice sized crater into the floor. But instead of hitting Shino, Naruto had hit a bug double and the real Shino appeared behind him. When he tried to overwhelm Naruto through the sheer number of his chakra eating bus, Naruto sent powerful waves of chakra out and the bloated bugs fell useless to the ground. After that, another Lotus style kick to the real Shino ended the battle in Naruto's favor. But, like Lee would, he found it hard to walk after using a Lotus.

Naruto ended up missing one of the bat ninja fight against a cloud because of a torn ligament, but was told that the bat nin, Kaiko, pulled out something that looked a bend pipe with a bulge at the bend and did something that resulted in a ball of light and a chunk of flesh being torn out the Cloud nin. The match barely lasted long enough for Gai to jump up to the stands before he had to jump back.

He was able to make it to Hinata's fight against Kankuro. Hinata, who had grown much more confident inside the ring but still wouldn't talk a full sentence to him without stuttering, started in the Gentle Fist position. Kankuro, seeing that he would probably be crushed in close combat, instantly put his newest puppet, a tiger, between him and the Huyga. Hinata, seeing that her opponent was out of her reach threw a kunai towards his lower body. As he directed his tiger's deadly jaws and upper torso towards the ground to catch in its jaws, Hinata ran and jumped off its head and landed right in front of her opponent. After cutting of the chakra holes in his arms, the jutsu specialist forfeited before the smaller girl could beat him to a pulp.

After a brief break, were Naruto congratulated Hinata on her stunning victory, and became incredibly surprised when she turn a brilliant shade of red and mumbled and stuttered her way through "thank you and you too," before shoving a steaming cup of tea into his hands and scuttling off, the matches continued.

The next match was the cloaked stranger (introduced as Horo) vs. another one of the Cloud nins. As the starting call sounded, the cloak fluttered to the floor as the previously cloaked figure plunged a kunai into his opponent's stomach. Just as fast, the black blur that was Horo's long hair dotted with white feathers disappeared back under the cloak as he slowly make his way up the stairs as his opponent was carried off.

"Oh my god." Naruto said, gripping the railing with white knuckles, "How can he be so heartless."

"He's the Gaara of the year." Hinata muttered to herself.

The next match was another Bat nin against the last Cloud nin. It started with the Cloud girl running at the Bat nin, who pulled a long pin out of her roll of hair. When fully unrolled, her hair, contained in three braids, reached the floor. After jamming the pin at the Cloud nin, who dodged, she spun around in a whirlwind of off-white locks, catching the Cloud nin with the jade beads attached to the ends. As the Cloud nin recovered, the Bat nin came up behind her and tied the Cloud girl up effectively with the braids. The match came to an end when the Cloud girl turned blue form the lack of oxygen because of the loop that crossed her windpipe.

The second-last match of the preliminary was a female Bat nin (introduced as Mitsu) against TenTen. TenTen started by throwing a wide assortment of weaponry at her. Some nicked or cut her but she dodged most. By now the dark haired girl had been backed into a wall. TenTen, confident in her victory, aimed a throwing knife at the large red "O" printed on her opponent's shirt.

"Man, that's like putting a bull's-eye on your chest," Naruto heard Temari mention to her brother. The blond smirked as he thought smutty, hormonal thoughts involving a bull's-eye and busts, but I digress. The black-haired girl failed to catch that one, but was able to miss anything vital. A tortured look crossed her face and she pulled the long knife from her shoulder, it was soaked up to the hilt and left an ugly wound. She clumsily threw it at TenTen, who smiled wider and caught it lazily.

"I can't believe she made it so far if this is the best she can do." Neji said,

"P-Please don't insult Mitsu." someone stuttered behind him, looking back, Naruto saw that it was the dark-haired male Bat nin. The things that he was told about, the bend pipe, or at least, one of them, were hung within easy reach on thick vinyl straps. A scream diverted his attention from the murderous inventing teen back to the fight where a blood red…blob was creeping up her arm from the newly cleaned throwing knife, and no matter how many time she swatted, scrapped, or scratched at it, it didn't stop moving mindlessly. It crept up her arm, neck, and onto her face. Finally, as it reached her right eye, she slapped it off. But when it fell off her face, there was an undeniable lack of the mate of the dark brown eye on the other side of TenTen's nose. Instead, a thin, fleshy membrane was stretched over the eyehole. When TenTen felt this, she started screaming all the more. Those who weren't staring, aghast at the horror, followed the red blob as it rolled toward the injured Bat nin, who looked exhausted like someone who had used a lot of chakra. Meanwhile, TenTen was yelling something like

"I resign! I resign! Get me my eye back! I resign!" Gai ended the battle, and Mitsu nodded toward TenTen and the blob moved back toward her, an eye that wasn't there before focused on her. Then, it jumped and hit her face. Then it dribbled off her face as a liquid, staining her shirt and leaving everyone shocked.

The final match was Temari against Naturu, the final Bat nin. Straight after the starting call, Temari pulled her fan out and unfurled it, small dust devils rising at the slightest flick of the oversized accessory. Giving it a hefty wave, she sent a billow of air toward the neon-haired boy, who held his ground with visible chakra around his feet. Seeing that her ranged attack didn't seem to be doing any good, she adopted a slight pout and flicked her fan shut. Jumping toward the taller boy, she swung the lethal block of wood at him. Jumping away, he flicked a brightly coloured and stout wooden cylinder at her face in an arc. Leaning back, she let it pass between her and her fan, but it came back and tried to hit her again, and again, and again. Each time, she simply let it pass just past her nose. Suddenly, it snapped tight to her fan. When Naturu jerked his hands, strings that were attached the yo-yo wrapped around the top of Temari's fan and the one he had wrapped around the bottom yanked it out of her hands. It soared through the air until the Bat nin had it in his clutches. Opening it, he sent a wave of air that encompassed Temari's entire half of the stadium, sending her flying back. After hitting the wall painfully and sliding down, she felt a heavy weight on her legs and neck. Opening her eyes that had closed from the pain of hitting the wall, she found her opponent standing on her knees with her fan at her throat.

"Yield?" he asked too cheerfully. She nodded, a hard task considering what was on her neck.

"Winner: Naturu." Gai announced.

"And now the preliminaries for the third round of the Chunin exams are over!"

STOP HERE

Sometime between the...

A/N: I said stop dammit! Beleive the author when s/he says stop! And just to make sure you feel horrible about reading when you should have stopped and jumped to this blip, those are the real first three words. bwahahahahahahaha!

Well, thanks for reading this piece of cra...eative writing. Please tell me if i should bother keeping this up or trash the rest of it. Pwease?

Feel the hypnotic pull of the little purple button...you are feeling sleepy...