Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Tower of God
AN/
Sorry I am late with this. Also sorry it was a bit short.
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Cap 3
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"...there is no more clues"
Naruto felt like he was going to have a headache.
Before him was the man, who looked like a woman but his nose told otherwise, that had spoken about there being no more clues.
He, the blond and the black haired one was in a room with lots of doors in arranged in a circle around them, and in the middle the male with a tea ceremony set. The person was currently making a drink, that certainly didn't smell like tea with a smirk on his face. Behind them far up hang a clock showing each five minutes for some reason.
The situation he found himself in was a test.
A part of the reason for the headache was because this test was a mind puzzle.
Now Naruto may appear smarter, but that was not all there was to it. Naruto had always been kind of smart, but it was limited because of being separated from his 'evil' side that cut what he had of intelligence in half to use for itself.
With the fusion of both half's to create a whole with both brains was able to work together. But that was still not all that. That merely put the brain power he would have at his depositional normal sized.
With the even split of intelligence, the emotions was split uneven between them. Naruto contained ruggedly 90% of the good emotions and 10% bad, while the evil on had the opposite % of emotions.
That is also why he appear more intelligent now. More so than having normal intelligence. With the union he was able to think thoughts that his moral code didn't allow him before because they was too morally questionable for his naive self. It wasn't that he didn't allow himself to, he simply was able to. Now he could think clearly and able to consider a much larger scope of things, instead of the narrow golden road of goodness.
But there is even more still to the increase of intelligence of Naruto.
And that is the life of being a fox. For a fox to survive in the wild it has to think functionality and practicability first before thinking of this is good or bad. It allowed him to think out the box and see the uses of an action before it become a moral question.
Later when he became aware of the evil on the hearts of humans thanks to seeing the after matches of bandit raids. At first he felt disgusted at his own humanity when he saw those. So he took a page of his favorite fox and cast away that humanity to become a monster.
A yoko. A monster fox. A demon.
Like Kurama. Distancing himself from human mentality.
However while all that made up a clear increase of intelligence in the fox boy, while he changed to very different than the person he was from when he had been human, he was still Uzumaki Naruto.
And he hate pure mind puzzles like this one.
They was simply too tied to logic thinking for him. They was unnatural for him. He was a person that functioned mostly on instincts and his ability to sense things than that of logical thinking. He use what his instincts told him as a base and worked semi-logical from that.
Logical thinking got in the way of fun, so he made a point to rarely use it.
Anyway he was now in a logical puzzle.
The goal of it was to chose the correct door within 10 minutes or die.
His two teammates was of no help, they as they at the start of it they said it was his job and they had no idea whatsoever about this kind of thing before they began fighting using words again, much to the tester's amusement.
Yea, his teammates are kind of useless. The worst is they isn't even ashamed of that fact.
Luckily he had already been given clues regarding this test.
Before they went into the room a person who reminded Naruto of a yellow bag coming alive went to give the clue. He knew it was a clue because this person wasn't there to take the Shinsoo barrier test, the Shinsoo strength of the yellow bag was too great for him to have missed when observing those who took the test.
So he knew it was a clue.
Knowing that all the teams that didn't scream finished before the 5 minute mark, while those who screamed took longer than those 5 minutes, made it a lot easier to gatherer what he needed to know.
The five minutes of the round clock thing marked a changed when it reached the those points, but what changed?
There was no other clues that could point to a door.
All the clues he had was about was about time, or to be more specific five minutes. There was a clear lack of clues pointing towards a door. Argo it was not about the door, but about the time.
From there it was a simple case of putting 2 and 2 together and get 4 and kick a random door off it hinges in frustration over this lame test.
"Bang!"
His two teammates stopped their fight there was almost about to become physical and stared at the fox boy. That was understandable since he had stood with his eyes closed while he thought and suddenly with no warning whatsoever kicked a door clean off hinges.
The test administrator stared also for a bit, before sipping his weird smelling liquid that isn't tea.
"Are you coming?" He growled impatiently to his two teammates, though from him it sounded kind of cute. He didn't have the build, height or face to pull the intimidating card.
Not waiting for an answer he walked into the light of the door opening.
The sitting test administrator called out to Naruto's back "Wait! Tell me how did you know you just had to opened a door before five minutes?"
"Why do you want to know?" Demanded the blonde haired girl. She was constantly aggressive.
"For the points you gain for how well you did in this test, didn't you know that?" Asked the sitting male, whose name is Yu Han-song dumfounded.
"You gain points?" Wondered the black haired one "for what?"
"For you role, and for your final ranking. Only so many are able to pass, and those with the highest points total passes." Answered Yu smirking. "So I ask again, how did you know little fox?"
"Because all the clues was about time, or to be more specific about five minutes. Nothing about a door, therefore it was not about the door" answered Naruto confidently.
At last he thought they was about five minutes, he wasn't quite sure. However despite the uncertainty he felt he didn't show it on his face, he had amazing bullshitting skills like that.
"Quite amazing, you pass" Yu said as he rose to give them a bow of farewell.
Naruto couldn't get out of the torture camber fast enough.
Logic was unnatural.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
And now... They was waiting.
After the test they got lead to a big room that due to the lack of people passing the last test seemed almost depressingly empty.
If he got it correctly they died, or otherwise incapacitated along the way. About 200 people died in the first test, the murder game in the wildness thing. Then a lot failed getting a buddy in time, resorting to another mass fail.
There should be around a hundred something-ish people passing that test.
Then about 50 of them failed passing the Shinsoo barrier.
Now after the mind test, there was just above 20 teams left, or 60-ish people.
They come a long way since the original 400 Regulars that started out. He supposed there had only been 5 hours since it started, and the most of that time was waiting to be let into the last test, which was only one team at a time.
Right now he was waiting until anyone that had passed come into a random weird cell arranged in a circle around a throne like stone chair.
The place was enormous, and the throne itself was rather big. On the fancy chair was a golden crown.
Not that he could see it as they was placed behind the chair.
The whole thing reminded him about what he read in one of the old books in the outside world. A gladiator ring, with all the cells pointing towards the middle where the throne was.
"Then~ now that I think that anyone is in place~" spoke Lero-lo from the middle of the room next to the throne. With a hash sound all the cells closed. The man looked around to see that no one was out of a cell and each cell contained tree persons.
Nodding at the fact anyone was in place Lero-lo began his explanation of this new game to the Regulars with a confident smile on his lips. "I will begin giving you the rules and goal of this game called the 'Crown Game'"
The man bended and picked out a golden crown and held it up for anyone the in the room to see.
"In a word, the Crown game is all about 'stealing' the Crown. The goal of the game is quite simple, the team in possession of the crown at the end of the game, is the winner. Though that may sound simple, the rules are a little more complicated."
"First is the game duration. The game is played over five rounds that each can last up to 10 minutes. Meaning that the game can last at most 50 minutes from start to finish"
"Second is that the number of teams may advance out of their cell to attempt to steal the crown, is limited to five each round. The team in possession of the crown at the end is the winner of that round, and get an automatic advance to next round where only fours teams can attempt to steal the crown while one team defend."
"Those teams that failed to steal the crown may attempt in a later round to try again."
"The team with the crown in their possession at the end of round five is the true victor of the Crown Game, and get the reward~" Smirked the test administrator.
"As a note, for each round, those who wish to advance have to press the red buzzer installed next to the exist for each team. Advancement is a first come first serve, and in cases where multiply teams pressed at the same time, it is the team that pressed the buzzer more frequently in the previous rounds that win out."
"Take note that there are only method to bypass the time limit of the 10 minutes of each round. That is, if you wear the crown and sit upon the throne before five minutes. In the event the possession of the throne and crown changes, the round will end and the team sitting on the throne becomes the winner of that round."
Putting the crown back on the throne Lero-lo smiled around.
"Next are the special rules. If there was a team in possession of the crown from from the previous round, they will continue be in the possession of the crown, but~, and do listen closely, a member out of that team must be seated on the throne with the crown. If that seated individual in completely disconnected, meaning touching the ground not touching the throne, or lost possession of the crown is unqualified and removed from the game."
'Or in other words, if you has the throne and crown you better keep it, because if you lose it you don't get a second attempt.' Thought Naruto 'Meaning it is very risky to get the crown in the early rounds'
"And as blue boy just said~! The winner of the previous round carry a big risk into the next round." now the man picked up the crown again and played with it in his hands"...But, just because there is too much risk, if you keep delaying your chance, the game may pass by without you have a single opportunity to participate you know~."
He joked a little "After all the limit is five teams in the game at a time"
Still playing around with the crown Lero-lo continued speaking.
"You may complain the rules are complicated but no matter what you say, in the end, the winner will be the team holding the crown at the game's end. Don't brother thinking too much." Putting the crown on his own head Lero-lo smirked darkly "All you have to do is simple to steal the crown"
Suddenly all happy smiles again Lero-lo put the crown back at the center of the throne.
"Ah, there is also one more thing. In this game there is a team of regulars from another district participating as well due a lot of complicated matters~" The Ranker smiled an unconcerned carefree smile as he gestured towards one of the cells, this one containing three black cloaked people.
One was huge, the two others was more normal sized. Naruto was able identify one of the normal sized ones as female due the nice legs and female type foot wear that the cloak didn't cover about this one.
"Ok!" Said Lero-lo loudly, gathering the attention back to him as he began to walk out of the arena "For a more detailed version of the rules read the paper next to your red buzzer with the rules attached, you may want to look over it"
Naruto looked at the paper and frowned, he couldn't read it. The languish was completely unknown to him.
"f###" He muttered annoyed, the logic test really did a number on his patience. He wasn't a creature bound by logic, in fact he was a very non logical that could bend the forces of nature to his desire.
You don't need logic.
But he supposed that the different language was to be expected, and Tower is more or less completely separated from the outside world. He was lucky they spoke the same language at all.
Wait... was they speaking the same language?
It honestly wouldn't surprise him if it was the effect of Shinsoo, the guardians, or the Tower itself that ensured anyone could understand each other.
"Then~ we will now begin... The Crown Game!" Come the test administrator through a cube thing floating high in the sky.
'So they are able to speak through such things' Thought Naruto, knowing they was able to after the wilderness test, but once again seeing it with his own eyes he couldn't help but comment on it. 'I wonder how they are able to do that'
"Anyone that want to be in the first round can press the bottom now~! Then beginning countdown~" The blonde ranker singsonged from the observation room, around the arena the various teams began to discus their strategy lowly to each other.
Naruto looking at his team, that he still didn't have any names on, sighed deeply. He pulled out the needle sword and normal gun that he stole some time ago out of nowhere, and thew them to the two as looking at they primitive weapons was getting painful from our foxy hero.
"Here use those" He said brightly, like he just didn't arm two unstable people with lethal weapons. He was getting back into a good mode at this game, he was a pretty optimistic person after all.
Blondy picked up the thin sword with a savage smile.
Blacky picked up the gun with a light frown, it was an unfamiliar weapon as guns wasn't used where she grew up. If she remembered correctly they worked like... this?
Experimentally she pressed the ticker, and Blondy only narrowly avoided getting shot by reflexively getting out of the way when Blacky pointed the gun at her before pulling the ticker.
Blacky smiled happily at her weapon, while Blondy glared that her.
"Want something bi*h?!" Blondy demanded.
"Your bleeding copse at my feet?" Answered Blacky nonchalantly.
"Bring it on if you can that is" Challenged Blondy as she pointed her sword at Blacky with blood lust coming from her in waves. In response Blacky lifted her gun to point it at Blondy in a clear challenge.
Naruto smiled amused as their infighting got the attention of the other teams nearby.
The fight was however called off by the countdown beginning.
"10~ 9~ 8~ 7~ 6~-"
Naruto gave shrug, before pressed the big red buzzer, less than a second later the two hands of his teammates joined his.
They was still glaring at each other so focused they didn't see Naruto press it before them.
"-5~ 4~ 3~ 2~ 1~ GO!"
Their gate opened and both female morons charged out yelling. Their goal... the crown. Of course the charge wasn't a united one, it was more like a competition about who get the object first, with cheating.
A kick there, a push there. They was trying while running to sabotage the other, almost more focused on that then their objective.
Naruto for his part was walking.
The crown was not his goal, not yet at last. It would place him in a too big a disadvantage to do it yet. His teammates was simply too weak to protect him if he sat on the throne, and the limitations placed on the on that bear the crown make defense difficult.
He could set one of his teammates on the throne if he wanted of course, but while that could be still entertaining it would much more challenging to get himself on it. It would also stoke his ego nicely. But now was not the time.
That was why he was not disappointed or surprised by a green female humanoid lizard appeared before his two teammates. In fact he had planed on it to happen. Fluidly he avoided the black haired one as she flew back toward the cell they just gotten out of. Nor did he care for the way his blond haired teammate had been swept aside by the weapon of the lizard. Some kind of green rod. She collided heavily with the wall.
He knew his teammates would be stopped, he knew they would get injured for their troubles. Maybe even die.
If that happened he wouldn't save them once again from their fate. He didn't want to make saving morons a full time job for himself. They would have to learn. They was gems for a purpose he wanted to try out, but they was not irreplaceable. Far from it.
You save a fool once, and see if the fool learn from their mistake. If they do not then what difference do it make if they die?
None at all.
Both of them threw up blood on the ground where they landed, but they was alive and awake. An improvement from before he injected his power into them. If he haven't they would have died by that blow.
Naruto was pleased by that fact. Not that they could have died, but that they survived. Fools they may be, they connected with his soul piece without any problems.
Now for the next part of his plan... hang back and hope not to be attacked.
After all the Ranker said it all, those that pressed the buzzer the most the most have the biggest chance to be chosen. It was dangerous to take the crown in the first round, but who said you had to make an attempt on it?
The plan was simple, press the button each round but not making an attempt on the crown to maximal the chances to be chosen in the later rounds where taking the crown was much more favorable.
Due to the lack of useful teammates then likely the last round, where he could take the crown and end the game at the same time.
All he had to do was wait.
He could do that, after all he had all this entertainment happening in front of him.