A/N:
This chapter is a different version of the fight between Naruto and Pyrrha. Particularly, Naruto's finishing move was changed. I've included the entire fight so that you don't have to open the actual story to figure out what's going on, but it will be bolded and kind of a part of this Author's Note until the part where I've made changes.
I actually never planned to have this version of the fight be in the story. I just suddenly got the idea 'what if Naruto decided to use the Naruto Barrage rather than a seal against Pyrrha?' My brain wouldn't let it be, so I wrote this quick alternate ending with the intention of putting it in this Extras compilation. So, here it is.
Beginning of the match
Naruto stood in a ready stance, a Chakra-conducting kunai in each hand, as he waited for the professor to start the match.
Pyrrha also stood ready, with Miló in its spear form and her shield, Akoúọ, raised slightly. She knew that this battle would be difficult, and she wasn't sure if she could win. She knew that Naruto wouldn't be able to use his dragon attacks; they simply took too long to perform. However, she also knew that he had many smaller techniques that could just as easily win the match for him.
The professor looked back and forth between the two a few times before calling out "Begin!"
Naruto immediately threw the kunai in his right hand at Pyrrha while charging the one in his left with Lightning Chakra. Pyrrha blocked the kunai with Akoúọ and ran at him. As he pulled out a steel kunai and threw it at her, she dove forward and rolled into a crouch, allowing the kunai to fly above her.
From her crouched position, she threw Miló at Naruto, who was surprised that she would relinquish her weapon so quickly. He sidestepped it and ran at her, only to hear something flying through the air behind him. He put up an Aura shield just in time to block Miló from impaling him. As Miló returned to Pyrrha, the kunai in Naruto's left hand reached maximum Chakra capacity, and he threw it at Pyrrha.
Pyrrha blocked the kunai with Akoúọ and immediately regretted it as she was electrified and knocked backwards by a burst of lightning. She dropped Miló and landed on her back.
Naruto had already drawn Kitsune no Ikari by the time the kunai had reached her shield, and charged forward at his downed opponent. As he swung the sword at her unshielded side, however, he felt a force yank the sword to the side slightly, causing it to become impaled in the ground next to Pyrrha. He jumped back, leaving Kitsune no Ikari behind, when Pyrrha kicked out at his ankles and leaped up to a standing position. He watched with curiosity as she raised her hand and Miló flew back into her grip.
As Pyrrha readied her spear again, Naruto drew two more Chakra kunai and began charging them with Lightning Chakra again as he circled around Pyrrha, who was staying between him and Kitsune no Ikari.
After a few seconds, the kunai were fully charged, and he threw the one in his left hand at her. Having already learned her lesson, Pyrrha jumped out of the way, only to have Naruto throw the other kunai to where she was headed.
Naruto was surprised again when his kunai suddenly jerked in the air, shifting its course so that it would miss Pyrrha by less than an inch. She landed in a crouch, and shifted Miló into its rifle form. Barely a second passed since her landing, and she was firing a barrage of shots at Naruto, who drew two steel kunai and began to deflect all of the bullets that were in danger of hitting him. After a few seconds of this, Pyrrha decided that continuing to fire at him would just waste ammunition, and stopped. She rose to a standing position and shifted Miló into sword form. The two combatants stared each other down, and Naruto began to emit some KI, just to see how Pyrrha would react. To his surprise, she simply twitched in surprise, before returning to her focused state.
Apparently Naruto wasn't the only one capable of producing enough KI to use in battle. Pyrrha had obviously gotten used to at least some level of KI. That, or she just had naturally strong willpower.
Taking a deep breath, Naruto began to slowly circle Pyrrha, who mirrored his movements to stay between him and his weapon. Neither of them wanted to initiate an attack right away, although it was for different reasons. Pyrrha had the advantage in her current position; without his main weapon, Naruto was unlikely to be able to go for a win. Instead, he would have to do whatever he could to retrieve his weapon. Naruto, on the other hand, was trying to figure out exactly how Pyrrha had shifted the course of his kunai and Kitsune no Ikari. He was simply circling to buy himself time to think.
Unable to figure out what she had done with the information he had, Naruto decided to get a bit more. He pushed Chakra down into his legs, and charged at his opponent, drawing FireStorm on the way.
Pyrrha moved forward slightly, and raised her shield to block as Naruto stabbed at her with FireStorm. She blocked two more attacks before making a move. Naruto swung Firestorm downward at Pyrrha, and instead of blocking completely, she let the blade deflect off of her shield. The momentum of the sword put Naruto slightly off balance, and Pyrrha took advantage of that, swinging Miló at Naruto's unguarded side.
Moving as quickly as he could, Naruto took his left hand off of Firestorm's hilt and used his forearm guard to block Miló. It glanced off of the flame-stylized armor plating, missing Naruto by a few inches. Both combatants leapt away from each other and got back into a balanced stance. As soon as she returned to a proper stance, Pyrrha counterattacked. She moved forward and swung Miló at Naruto's left side, only to have it blocked by FireStorm.
Naruto pushed back against Pyrrha, and was about to push Miló out of the way and attack when another sudden force pushed his sword slightly to the side, allowing Pyrrha to get better leverage and break the grapple in her favor.
Pyrrha swung Miló overhead at Naruto, who sidestepped and kicked at Pyrrha. Unable to dodge, Pyrrha used Akoúọ to block Naruto's foot. Naruto smirked as he got another idea, and pushed a very exact amount of Chakra into his feet. Having stuck one foot to the ground, and one to Akoúọ, Naruto proceeded to yank his foot to the side and downward, pulling Akoúọ off of Pyrrha's arm, to her great surprise. He let Akoúọ fly off of his foot just before it returned to the ground, causing it to fly several feet away from the two combatants.
To prevent Pyrrha from getting a chance to retrieve her shield, Naruto went on the offensive again. Pyrrha took Miló in a two-handed grip, and blocked or dodged every one of Naruto's swings. Occasionally, Naruto felt another unexplained force acting on his weapon, preventing him from scoring any hits on his opponent.
After an intense minute of swordplay, Naruto saw an opening in Pyrrha's stance, and exploited it with relish. He took a leaf out of Ruby's book and stabbed FireStorm into the ground, using it as a handhold to swing around and aim a double-footed kick at Pyrrha's back.
Just when he thought he was going to score a direct hit, he saw a flash of bronze out of the corner of his eye, and Akoúọ flew onto Pyrrha's back, shielding it from his kick. Pyrrha then spun around and swung Miló at him, forcing him to pull FireStorm from the ground and block. Suddenly, Naruto realized what was going on. Pyrrha could somehow control things made of metal!
Naruto adjusted his strategy accordingly and leapt backward to give himself some space. He sheathed FireStorm and wove seven seals before crying out "Doton: Moguragakure no Jutsu!" (Art of Hiding Like a Mole) and disappearing into the ground before Pyrrha could even think about stopping him.
Pyrrha tensed up and began to look all around the arena, just in case he tried to emerge behind her. When she heard something pop out of the ground underneath her, she immediately jumped up and stabbed down with her spear. When she pulled it out of the slightly disturbed ground, her eyes widened as she noticed the blood on it.
Before she could become too worried, Naruto emerged from the ground about twenty feet in front of her, examining the quickly healing hole in his left hand. "Well done, Pyrrha. It's quite an accomplishment to be able to avoid the Headhunter Jutsu on your first try, and as far as I know, this is the first time the person using it was struck by any sort of counterattack." He smiled at her and said "It appears I will have to try something new."
'The first thing I need to do is to take her weapon out of the picture. Since I can't really use FireStorm or Kitsune no Ikari against her, I need to level the playing field.'
Pyrrha shifted Miló into rifle form while he said this, and began firing at him as he wove more seals. However, he only needed to weave four, and was able to dodge all of her shots long enough to call out "Doton: Ishihashira no Jutsu!" (Stone Pillars Technique)
Pyrrha raised Akoúọ and prepared to dodge, only to see pillars of stone slowly rise out of the ground all around the arena. She looked around quickly to see that they were apparently randomly distributed throughout the arena. Her gaze went back to Naruto as he pulled several small spheres out of his thigh pouch. He threw them at several of the pillars, which were about the same height and width as he was, and threw one at his feet. When they impacted, they created bursts of smoke that obscured the chosen pillars and Naruto.
As Pyrrha stared at the smokescreen that Naruto was behind, preparing for another attack, she heard a noise behind her, and turned to see a fist headed for her face. She leaned to the side, causing the punch to miss her, but was struck full-on by a second punch to the stomach. She stumbled backwards and swung Miló's sword form, forcing Naruto to back away, giving her a moment to recover.
Naruto smirked at the bewildered look on Pyrrha's face and moved in for a second attack. 'Just as I thought. You can only control metal.' He raised a fist, and Pyrrha noticed that his metal-plated gloves were missing as he ran toward her. 'My armguards are made to ANBU standard, which means that they're porcelain reinforced by strengthening seals. They act like metal, but you can't apply force to them like you would have been able to do with my gloves. It was worth getting wounded to be able to counterattack.' He threw another punch, which Pyrrha blocked with her shield and countered with a jab from Miló. Forming an Aura shield to deflect it, Naruto jumped back and threw out another round of smoke pellets.
Pyrrha readied Akoúọ again as she spun around, ready for Naruto to appear behind her this time. She was once again surprised when she heard a hissing noise off to her right, and was forced to use her Semblance to divert a barrage of shuriken that came from the smokescreen. As the smoke cleared a second time, she narrowed her eyes to see Naruto standing from where the shuriken had come. She shifted Miló to its spear form and threw it at him, using the rifle's recoil to speed it up. He quickly formed a Hitsuji seal as the spear left her hand.
Pyrrha watched first in confusion as Naruto made no attempt to dodge her spear, and then with horror as it impaled him through the stomach. This wasn't supposed to happen! The shielding Glyphs should have stopped her weapon from striking a critical area!
Before either Pyrrha or the professor judging the match could stop the match or call a medic, Naruto was obscured by a puff of smoke that cleared to reveal Miló stuck deep in one of the stone pillars.
With her years of experience in the Mistral Regional Tournament, Pyrrha was able to immediately realize that Naruto had been switching himself with the pillars somehow, and readied herself to defend again. She turned around to see Naruto running at her before he went in for a flying kick. She blocked the kick with Akoúọ and grunted as she was nearly knocked over by the force behind the kick.
Alternate Ending
Using Pyrrha's shield as a springboard, Naruto leapt backwards, doing a backflip for style on the way, and landed in a crouch. He smirked and formed a cross-shaped seal. "Kinjustu: Taju Kage Bunshin!" (Forbidden Art: Multiple Shadow Clones)
Around him, fifteen clones blurred into existence. Pyrrha's eyes widened, and she took a step back in shock. She knew that even she would have trouble with sixteen opponents at once, let alone sixteen copies of Uzumaki Naruto. She raised her shield and prepared to defend herself.
Naruto and all of his clones smirked simultaneously, and burst into motion. Two clones rushed Pyrrha straight on, and began to attack using Taijutsu. The others fanned out to surround her, some leaping to the tops of pillars, and others simply cutting off any avenue of escape.
Pyrrha was having a hard time of it fighting the two clones. Even though they weren't going for a knockout, their job was to make sure that Pyrrha couldn't mess with Naruto's plan while the others were getting into position. To achieve this, they took every opportunity to score hits that were painful and distracting. Without her weapon, Pyrrha couldn't guard completely against the two clones' perfect teamwork and collaborative attacks.
A spectator observing from above would notice that the copies of Naruto not fighting Pyrrha had gotten into a roughly circular formation, and the two that were fighting her were slowly driving her into the center of this formation. Over the course of thirty seconds or so, the clones pushed her closer and closer to the center of the formation, and when she was in the perfect position, the other fourteen moved.
An additional six clones charged forward toward Pyrrha, while the remaining seven and the original leapt into the air.
The two clones fighting Pyrrha each struck once more before leaping back just as four of the approaching clones slid in low to the ground and kicked upwards, launching Pyrrha up into the air.
"U!" all sixteen of Naruto shouted.
The four central clones that hadn't kicked Pyrrha jumped upward, followed shortly by the four who had. The clones used each other as springboards to gain more momentum, and, once again, four clones simultaneously delivered punishing kicks to Pyrrha, flinging her even higher and causing her to grunt in pain.
"ZU!"
The outer ring of clones, as well as Naruto himself, had already done one round of launching themselves off of each other by this point, and with a second push off, two more clones flew in to kick Pyrrha a third time. She cried out in pain and surprise for a second time.
"MA!"
One clone and Naruto himself remained in the air at this point, and Naruto kicked off of his clone so hard that it dispelled, driving him into the air above Pyrrha. He spun midair and delivered a severe axe kick downward into Pyrrha's back. This time, she could only make a rasping gasp sound as she was struck.
"KI!"
Pyrrha sped downward, toward the four clones that were waiting for her. The protection Glyph array had flared to life on Naruto's last kick, and just as she was going to hit the ground, the four clones each delivered a punch, ending up holding her up in between the four of them.
"Naruto Rendan!" (Maelstrom Barrage)
The Protection Glyph shattered under that final attack, and Pyrrha went limp. The proctor leapt up and shouted "That's enough! This match is over!" He looked at Naruto as he landed, and the ninja saw disapproval in his expression. "The winner is Uzumaki Naruto."
The clones dispelled themselves in puffs of smoke, and Naruto caught Pyrrha before she could fall, and set her as gently as he could on the ground. She was unconscious. Naruto winced. He had forgotten once again that these people were not Shinobi, and that he could seriously hurt them if he expected them to be able to handle things that Shinobi usually could.
The rest of Team JNPR rushed onto the arena, and Jaune kneeled down next to his unconscious teammate. "Pyrrha! Pyrrha! Can you hear me? Are you alright?"
Jaune put a hand on her shoulder, and her eyes flickered open. She blinked several times, her eyes unfocused, before she regained focus and locked eyes with her partner. "Jaune… what happened?"
Nora couldn't keep herself still. She darted around between different positions, checking to see if Pyrrha was okay. Ren was glaring at Naruto. "You lost," the green-clad Huntsman said. "Naruto decided to go all-out with his final move."
Naruto knelt down next to her as well. "Ah… sorry about that, Pyrrha." He looked at her apologetically. "Are you alright?"
Pyrrha nodded, and began to push herself up off of the ground. As she did this, she winced in pain, and Jaune quickly moved to help her up, putting her arm around his shoulder to help support her weight. "I'll be fine," she said. "Although I can't say that I've had worse. That was quite an attack you hit me with."
Naruto stood up as well as Pyrrha became upright. He looked down at the ground and rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah… sorry about that. I guess I got a little carried away. I forgot how much damage the Maelstrom Barrage can do."
Pyrrha smiled at Jaune in thanks for his help, and took her arm from around his shoulders. "It's alright," she said to Naruto. "It was a battle, after all. There's no reason to be afraid to hurt your opponent a bit." She went to take a step forward, only to wince again and grab her side from a sudden burst of pain.
Jaune immediately moved to help her again, putting his arm around her and placing her arm over his shoulders again, despite her protests. "He hurt you more than just a bit," Jaune said. "Come on, let's get you to the infirmary." Pyrrha knew better than to protest at this point, and the two of them began to move forward.
Ren and Nora followed behind them, but Nora darted back to Naruto and punched him in the arm as hard as she could. "Meanie!" she declared, before following after the fest of her team.
Naruto stood there for a moment, rubbing his arm where Nora had hit him, before sighing and going to gather up all of his weapons.
