WOOT! I am back once more! SO sorry for not keeping my promise, but whatever, I have a life too you know! xD but hey! Happy New Year y'all! Guess who's graduating from High School this year? That's right, ME! Anyway, I'm glad and thankful for all of the love that this is getting!
So without further ado, here ya go
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Ever. T^T
Chapter 6: The Second Stage
Naruto smirked as he and Karin walked from the academy with beaming smiles spread across their faces. Karin was saying something important, but Naruto paid no attention to the woman. Karin didn't realize and continued to talk, occasionally asking Naruto something and the blond would say something in response causing Karin to continue on with their conversation.
But Naruto was suddenly smashed against the head by Karin's fist. Naruto turned around and froze in his tracks when he found that Karin looked ready to kill him with her anger. He started backing away, but slipped on a rock and ended up crashing into the sandy ground below. Karin glared at him with her glasses covering her eyes because of the lens flare.
"You BAKA!" Karin roared. "You weren't even listening to me were you?!"
"I-I was! Don't worry about it Karin-ch-"
"Then what did I ask you and what did you say in return?" Karin asked as her fist clenched even tighter.
"I…uhm…I don't know…" Naruto was suddenly blown back by an amazing blast of chakra coming from the irate redhead.
"I asked if you'd like to bang Temari and you answered yes!" Karin shouted. "Then I asked if you'd like to suck another guy's dick and you answered yes!"
"What?!" Naruto turned red from embarrassment. "Are you sure I answered yes?"
"Oh shut up." Karin growled. "I hate you so much."
Karin crossed her arms over her chest and walked ahead of the Uzumaki. Naruto laughed softly and rubbed the back of his head and took off for his woman. Naruto wrapped his arm around her waist, but the woman quickly elbowed him in his gut, causing him to hunch over and hurl on the ground below. People groaned in pain when the elbow made contact, while others shot from their seats to help the hero of Konoha.
Naruto was helped from the dirt path and patted down by kunoichi from the different villages. Karin saw this and stomped right back to her blond man and slapped him upside his head and dragged him away from the mob of kunoichi. Most of which were quite beautiful. Naruto was sweating bullets more than what he should, but he didn't say a thing, knowing that if the wrong thing was said, he would receive another, well-deserved punch across the face.
Soon enough, they reached the destination of the second stage of the Chunin exams. In front of them was a great gate with massive walls to match its size. The flags of Sunagakure were draped over the side, waving in the warm desert wind. But beyond the wall and even over the top, small wisps of sand and sand clouds were seen waving around. If one were to put their ear against the gate, they could hear rushing and crashing sand and other non-desirable creatures going about through the sand dunes.
Karin sensed a mass multitude of creatures ranging from large, to gigantic. His skin went cold when she sensed desert spiders of massive size and even desert scorpions. She shivered greatly getting Naruto's attention. The boy quickly looked her way and wrapped his arm around her protectively.
"What's wrong?" Naruto asked softly.
"T-There are…"
"Scorpions, spiders, desert snakes; the whole she-bang!" Temari laughed. "This is the second stage of the Chunin exams! I am Sabaku no Temari, and I am the proctor for this exam!"
A few genin shivered slightly at the mention of such insects and creatures living behind the walls. Naruto felt his own skin turn cold and even felt his bowels want to release from the mere thought of scorpions. But then again, he knew that they wouldn't be a challenge for his awesomeness.
"So here is your mission; survive and fight your way through one hundred miles of desert, infested with animals and insects that have evolved to kill shinobi and kunoichi alike, to deliver four scrolls to checkpoints dotted around the area. The Checkpoints are in twenty-five mile intervals. Surprise, surprise; you only get one scroll each team, so figure out how to get the rest, it really shouldn't be THAT hard to figure out. By the way a small hint; killing is allowed!"
If it weren't for the raging sands behind Temari, one could hear a pin drop a mile away. The air turned cold all of a sudden and teams looked at one another nervously and with wary eyes. Each team examining each other, looking for the weakest teams to pick off first. Naruto narrowed his eyes at the teams from Iwa and Kumo, while Karin started sensing people's chakra signatures and their emotions trying to get a good idea of the weakest teams that made it to the second stage.
"Get to your gates!" Temari shouted. "You have three days to make it to the final checkpoint! Get ready!"
Naruto and Karin sped off to their gate and stood steady. Naruto already gathering senjutsu chakra into his body. Karin shut her eyes and channeled a small, untraceable amount of chakra to work as sonar. Within a second, she was able to pinpoint five teams in their immediate vicinity. Three of which were weaklings from Kiri.
"Begin!"
Without a second thought, all teams shot forward into the walled desert. Karin ran ahead of Naruto and jumped into the air. Naruto ran ahead and Karin landed on his back with her hands in a tiger hand seal. Naruto continued running and now, he was in sage mode. He was able to sense already, ten teams have been defeated by animals, and two have already fallen prey to an Iwa team.
"Naruto! To your right!" Karin shouted.
Suddenly, a barrage of kunai and shuriken shot towards the blond Uzumaki. With a quick movement of his wrist, he drew out a kunai and blocked a great deal of the projectiles and narrowed his eyes at his assailant. They were two Kumo teams with the same thought of defeating the Hero of Konoha, not that they even knew who he was.
The first charged for Naruto without checking his surroundings, but Karin jumped in and kicked the shinobi in his gut, before bashing her elbow into the shinobi's back. She kicked off of his fallen body and with an even quicker motion; she managed to even swipe their scroll in the confrontation. She smirked a little and ran away before jumping onto Naruto's back.
The Kumo shinobi charged after the two Uzumaki, but they were stopped when an Oodama Rasengan smashed into the desert surface, throwing up sand and dirt, covering Naruto's and Karin's escape. Once the dirt cloud dissipated, all that was left though were two clones of Naruto. They smirked before dispelling.
A few yards away, Naruto was running full speed with now, two scrolls in his possession. He smirked and jumped up using senjutsu to increase the strength in his jump. Around the two shinobi, they looked down to see giant creatures jumping from the sand and taking out entire teams with single swipes. When they landed, they landed right in the path of a rising scorpion.
Its black exoskeleton made Naruto's skin freeze in fear, but Karin wasn't faring any better. Naruto though, quickly snapped from his stupor and charged forward with a rasengan in his palm. The scorpion snarled at the Uzumaki. Naruto shook his head and slammed the rasengan into the scorpion, shooting it a good twenty feet; just before it dug its stinger into the sandy surface and spun it back around. It landed all eight of its feet onto the sand just before it charged at the Uzumaki.
"I-I-I-It's coming!" Karin howled.
"I know that!" Three Naruto clones popped into existence and the three clones started forming a rasenshuriken. The scorpion closed the distance too fast, and dispelled the three clones with a single swipe of its stinger. Naruto jumped back and tightened his hold on Karin as he struggled to keep free from the range of the apparent extending stinger.
"We have to get around this thing!" Naruto shouted over the clicking and crackling of the insect. The scorpion shot its stinger down towards the Uzumaki, but Naruto jumped away and formed another three clones that grabbed the stinger and lifted the scorpion from the ground and slammed it into the sand using the amazing strength that senjutsu provides.
The clones jumped onto the underbelly of the scorpion and used the frog slap, bashing the thin, unprotected underbelly of the beast, repeatedly. But as they continued, one of the clones put too much chakra into the attack and burst the scorpion in all directions, spraying the sands with its insides and entrails. But from the blood and flesh, spraying from the now empty husk of a scorpion, a team of partially digested shinobi from Kiri, flowed out with three scrolls clutched tightly in their hands.
Naruto looked up to the sky and let out a quick whistle. He smirked. "There must really be a Kami..."
"Whatever. Just get the scrolls." Karin jumped off of Naruto's back and sifted through the bodies and grabbed the scrolls. She wiped them clean of stomach juice and read that the three scrolls had numbers on them, one to three in consecutive order. She looked to Naruto and asked for the scroll. "Hmm. It seems that we have two number one scrolls."
"Let's keep them both. We can use them as a bargaining chip with other teams that have the scroll we need." Naruto quickly said with a smirk. "If they don't have the scroll we need, we could always farm for more and beat them down."
"Oh Naruto. You're getting pretty violent." Karin smiled and climbed back onto Naruto's back. "I can sense the first checkpoint to the northeast."
"Got it!"
Naruto charged through the sands, kicking up a massive cloud right behind them. He smirked at how easy this chunin exam was. Already he was able to piece together the meaning of the tests. While the first was quite obvious, he was now able to see what the second test would bring out. It was a trial to see what shinobi would be willing to make it in the messenger corps. He remembered reading about them with Karin one day, and found that it was probably the second most dangerous position to be in, other than a vanguard shinobi. If one could survive running through a desert and deliver the correct scrolls to the correct checkpoint, then they were good enough to continue on through to the final stage. They were good enough to be in the messenger corps.
The two continued on their journey towards the checkpoint without much interaction with the other teams, which went well into the hundred. But with the first checkpoint closing in with just a few hundred yards to go, a massive heat wave shot down upon them, slowing the Uzumaki down. Naruto made a quick jump from the ground and soon enough, an Iwa genin shot from the ground. Or at least, he thought it was a genin. The rest of her team shot from the ground as well and released a barrage of earth jutsu and fire techniques. All of which Naruto dodged thanks to Karin and her sensing ability.
"Watch out! A clone is coming from underneath us!" Karin called out.
Suddenly, a clone of the kunoichi of the team shot from the ground, and she barely missed Naruto's chin. The clone spun in mid-air and hurled kunai at Naruto and Karin as she spun. Naruto jumped back and dropped Karin and drew out his own kunai and started deflecting the attacks. But because of this, he wasn't thinking and ended up leaving Karin unattended for.
Once the Kunoichi from Iwa stopped her spinning she sped through a quick hand seal pattern and shot out a massive stream of water and blew Naruto back with a force equal to getting kicked in the chest by a raging horse. Naruto struggled to get back to his feet. Soon enough, the same kunoichi was flying through the air with her fist exploding with chakra.
"Oh fuck!" Naruto quickly rolled over and hurled a few shuriken and kunai in a failed attempt to stop her, but her chakra deflected the attacks. The girl slammed into the sand, launching a massive storm of sand and dirt in all directions, and even managed to blow Naruto away even further. He struggled to push through the sand, but in the end, the sand was blown away by the winds of the desert.
"Karin!" Naruto cried out. "Where are you?!"
Naruto dashed through the sands and crawled through the dunes wondering where the girl was. It didn't take long, but Karin was lying on the ground with a massive gash across her abdomen. Karin was slowly healing herself, but the Iwa shinobi were in front of her with their weapons drawn. The four scrolls were askew behind Karin.
"They seem to have the same scrolls that we do." The lead Kunoichi sighed. "I guess we should keep them."
"What do we do with the girl?" One of her teammates asked.
"Do what you want."
Naruto shot through the sand and lodged his foot into the larger of the three, forcing the boy into the sand. The blond quickly spun around and dug his fist into the chin of the other, knocking that boy from his sandals. Naruto looked to Karin with his eyes blood red in the first stage of the jinchuriki cloak. His whiskers were darkened and more defined and his body was healed of any and all wounds.
But the two genin he had just disposed of, were actually clones. The real shinobi came up from the sand and grabbed Naruto's ankles and pulled him into the sand. The shinobi then rose from the ground and smirked with their team leader. The Iwa shinobi were about to continue what they were doing, until Naruto spoke up.
"What is your name?" Naruto asked. His eyes were shut to the world. Naruto's whiskers reverted back to normal, but something strange was happening with his eyelids.
"Kurotsuchi."
"Well…Kurotsuchi…I'm Uzumaki Naruto! Sage of Konoha!" Naruto raised his arms, blowing back almost a thousand pounds of sand, and forcing himself from the sand. Kurotsuchi's eyes shot wide open as she and her team were blasted away from the two Uzumaki. Before Karin and the scrolls could get swallowed by the sand, Naruto jumped back and grabbed the girl and the scrolls with a quick movement.
A clone popped next to them and hurled Naruto into the sky and out of the pit hole. They spun through the air as Naruto grabbed Karin closer to him. He took the now floating scrolls and quickly slid them into Karin's shirt without her noticing. He knew it was a bit dirty, but if it was to mean their survival, he was going to do whatever it took.
They spun once more as they tilted towards the ground, and Naruto pushed her away and grabbed her once more, wrapping her arms and legs around him, just before he hit the ground below. The impact threw up a perfect cover of sand and dirt. Karin was starting to breathe hard as the wound continued to bleed. Naruto didn't even need to look back. He simply charged off through the sand cloud and into the desert around them.
He jumped into the stones protruding from the sand and started skipping along, all the while feeling Karin's breath get heavier. It seems that Karin was having trouble healing her wound. Naruto wanted to set her down, but he knew that those Iwa shinobi were probably on his tail. Of course though, like almost always, Naruto jinxed himself the moment the thought was made.
The three Iwa shinobi pushed themselves from the sand and immediately followed after the Uzumaki. Naruto felt his body run cold when he realized that he'd basically run into a path for them to take him and his girlfriend, kill them, and take their scrolls. Kurotsuchi sped through a quick hand seal pattern and shouted out a jutsu that Naruto deigned from hearing, and soon enough, a barrage of quicklime bullets shot forward, grazing a couple hairs off of Naruto's head.
He spun around and formed three clones to deal with the Iwa shinobi. The three clones shot off towards Kurotsuchi and her teammates. The lead clone jumped and kicked for Kurotsuchi, but she quickly caught the attack and hurled him to her right, causing him to bump into another clone, dispelling the two of them, leaving the final clone to Akatsuchi.
Kurotsuchi nodded her head and took off with her other teammate and gave chase to the retreating Uzumaki from Konoha. The black haired girl shook her head and nodded at her teammate. The boy sped through a quick hand seal pattern and shot forward a steady stream of fire, which quickly exploded into a massive dragon that sped forward on a warpath to incinerate Naruto and Karin.
"N-Naruto…" Karin whispered. "My wound…it's festering…all of this sand and dirt…"
"Don't speak Karin…" Naruto said back with a frown on his face. "It'll only make things worse. I'll get us to the checkpoint, and there might be help."
'Oi, Kyuubi.' Naruto suddenly said.
'What do you want Gaki?' The Kyuubi replied. 'As you can most likely see, I'm taking a nice nap.'
'Give Karin some of your chakra.' Naruto stated. 'She needs it to stay conscious.'
'Now why would I give chakra to another Uzumaki?' The Kyuubi taunted.
'Damn you Kyuubi!' Naruto shouted. 'Fine, if not for me, then do it for you!'
'How does saving her, help me?' The nine-tailed fox fought hard not to laugh at the notion.
'Without her, I'll most likely die here, and if I die, So. Do. You.' Naruto replied with a stern voice. The Kyuubi was about to start laughing, but he quickly resigned the thought, knowing that the boy was right. With a begrudging sigh, the Kyuubi let out a smirk.
'You humans are annoying.' The Kyuubi laid his head back down onto his paws and shut his eyes for just the moment. Naruto was about to say something, but the Kyuubi's chakra shot from the cage and entered Naruto's body, but just as it entered, it disappeared, almost as if it was being funneled off somewhere else. The Kyuubi smirked once more. 'Get out of here and let me sleep Gaki.'
Back in the real world, Naruto came to reality and turned to see Karin's eyes a darker crimson than before and with a slitted pupil in the center of her irides. Her fingernails were extended and small whisker marks were formed on her cheeks. She looked to Naruto with a surprised look on her face, but didn't say anything. Instead, she channeled chakra and her wounds healed immediately, and her range of sensing was increased tenfold.
"Naruto, keep running! The checkpoint is just fifty yards away! We're very close!" Karin shouted out while grabbing some kunai and hurling them back at the Iwa shinobi chasing after them. "I'll hold them off alright?!"
"Let's go!" Naruto channeled chakra to his legs and took off running, trying his hardest to make it to the checkpoint. From what he was able to discern from the vicious attacks that the Iwa team was giving them, the Checkpoints are safe zones.
"Naruto, jump!" Karin suddenly screamed. "Jump now!"
Naruto didn't question her and jumped as high as he could. As he jumped though, he could feel his senjutsu chakra leaving his body once more. He looked down to see the largest snake he'd ever seen in his life. Easily twice as large as the purple snake that Orochimaru used all those years ago. It was covered in sand and its body was obviously shedding.
The three Iwa shinobi down below froze in their tracks, but unlike what Naruto knew that most of his friends would do, the Iwa shinobi jumped back and started hurling ninjutsu and weapons at the snake in quick succession. It didn't take long, but they quickly realized that long range wasn't going to cut it. Kurotsuchi charged forward with chakra building up in her fist and smashed it into the snakes face, forcing at least a fourth of it back into the sand.
She landed on the ground and sped through another pattern of hand seals.
"Youton: Sekkaigyō no Jutsu!" Kurotsuchi spit a massive blast of quicklime, quickly mixing into the face of the snake, forming a mold around it. She went through another, just as quick, hand seal pattern, and shot another blast of water, much like the one she used to blow Naruto back, not too long ago. The combination of the two jutsu, brought the snake curling down to the ground, but it did not stop the snake. Kurotsuchi landed on the ground with fear crawling up and down her spine. She sped through another quick hand seal pattern. She took a deep breath and spit forward a ball of fire that was equal to Sasuke's use.
The snake didn't falter though, in fact, it was practically unscathed. The quicklime started crumbling and falling off of the snakes face. Naruto and Karin landed just a few feet away from the backside of the snake. Naruto looked to Karin and was wondering if he should help them. Karin, even though the thought wasn't said out loud, she knew what Naruto was about to do. But before she could hold him back, Naruto was already halfway up the snake's spine and nearing the top of its head.
"Goddamn him." Karin let out and exasperated sigh. "Naruto! Be careful! From what I can tell, its scales are strengthened with chakra! And lots of it!"
Naruto grunted when he heard what she had just said. For years he's been punching through things, blasting through things and rasengan…ing through things that have been 'strengthened' with chakra. First Haku's mirrors, then the sand armor of Gaara, then Gaara himself, then on and on. Naruto smirked and knew deep down inside that this snake was going to be of no problem.
He jumped onto its head and raised his hand with a rasengan spiraling violently. He let out a loud battle cry and slammed the attack into the snake's bare and unprotected head, forcing the beast into the ground, faster than the speed of light. Naruto landed next to Kurotsuchi and drew out a kunai whilst drawing onto Senjutsu chakra. Kurotsuchi was quite terrified of Naruto's power. Soon enough, Karin dropped next to them and placed her hands on Kurotsuchi's shoulder and began to heal her wounds.
"Hold still." Karin replied. "Naruto what did you do? It looks like nothing changed…"
"I had a quick theory about those chakra enhanced scales." Naruto said. "If I were to dispel my rasengan at the moment of impact, instead of drilling it into the scales, which would most likely deflect the attack, the chakra from the rasengan would lose the gravity holding it together and spiral off in different directions, causing the chakra within each individual scale within the spread radius to fluctuate, weakening the flow of chakra to the protective shield of the snake's cranium."
"So in other words…" Karin started smirking.
"I've given it the headache of a lifetime." Naruto smiled. "Kurotsuchi-san. Do you think you can help me bust this snake's skull right open?"
"Gladly!" Kurotsuchi jumped forward just as Naruto did.
The Snake saw this though and lunged forward with its head and dug into the ground below, kicking up sand and injuring Akatsuchi and almost killing their other teammate. Naruto and Kurotsuchi landed on the back of the snake's neck and charged up with their best attacks blaring wildling in their hands. With Kurotsuchi having a fist made from earth and Naruto having two clones behind him helping him make his rasenshuriken.
The two jumped up into the air and first went Kurotsuchi with her slamming the rock fist of hers into the snakes dented cranium, causing the scales to shoot off, cracking a great deal of the skull itself, revealing the targeted area. Naruto's clones popped away leaving him in the air as he got ready to hurl his rasenshuriken into the brain of the blasted snake.
"FUUTON: RASENSHURIKEN!" Naruto bent forward and hurled the monstrosity of a jutsu forward just as Kurotsuchi made a jump off of the doomed snake's head. The rasenshuriken sliced through the air and dug deeply into the opened head of the snake, slicing, tearing and mauling the beast. Naruto narrowed his eyes and soon enough, the rasenshuriken exploded, engulfing the entire head of the snake, tearing it apart and lodging small chakra spikes into its face, skull and any other part connected to its head.
Naruto landed not too far away and popped his neck before walking up to the group of fellow shinobi. Karin was struggling to keep Akatsuchi's bleeding at a minimum. She pumped as much of her chakra as she could, and she was still in the Kyuubified state. She narrowed her eyes and started channeling in the Kyuubi's chakra, strengthening her skills and her powers. Within moments though, Akatsuchi's bleeding stopped, but the damage to his body was still on the inside.
"It's poison." Karin stated after running her hand over Akatsuchi's body. "I don't know how to stop it without the correct antidote."
"Karin…" Naruto said suddenly. "You know what you have to do. Remember what you've told me about your powers…"
"But you said…"
"I'm saying do it now. We have to help him." Naruto said with a calm look.
"Understood Naruto-kun." Karin rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm. "Bite my arm."
"What are you minions doing?!" Kurotsuchi growled. "What-"
"Be quiet and watch." Naruto quickly said.
Akatsuchi struggled, but was able to sink his teeth into Karin's arm. The redhead grunted in pain, but let out a quiet sigh instead. Kurotsuchi though was appalled. But upon closer inspection, chakra was being funneled from Karin and into Akatsuchi. It didn't take long, but the effects were immediate. Akatsuchi's once pale and sickly looking body was healed and after doing a quick diagnostic over Akatsuchi, Karin confirmed that the poison was no more.
"H-How…?" Kurotsuchi's eyes were wide with fright. "Who are you two?!"
"That is of no concern right now." Naruto grabbed Karin and hoisted her onto his back right before taking off in the direction Karin pointed.
Karin smiled softly and rested her chin on Naruto's shoulder and let her hair run free in the desert wind. Naruto was strong and held her tightly against his back, making sure that she would fall off. The day was already at midday, and he wasn't looking forward to having to have a schedule of one checkpoint per day, with four for three.
He shook his head and continued to run taking orders from the girl he was carrying. She wasn't heavy nor was she a feather, but Naruto was thinking about complaining to the girl about why he has to carry her. Then again, if he did ask, Karin would probably smack him against his head or call him lazy, or something to some other effect of endearing insults.
Karin tightened her hold on him and felt a big smile grow on her face. The longer she stayed with Naruto, the more distinguished his chakra became to her. So far, she was able to capture and memorize ten different moods from the boy, just by reading his chakra. As of now, it was grey-green, meaning, he was thinking hard and was bound to say something insulting to someone. Since she was the only person there, she knew that he was going to complain about him carrying her.
She did try and tell him that she could run on her own. Damned blond trying to be chivalrous. Karin struggled to keep her giggles in. She looked up though when she sensed the checkpoint nearby, just a few feet away from where they were currently.
"Naruto, we're here." Karin said.
"Where?" Naruto asked. "There's nothing here…wait."
"Genjutsu." Karin said. "Wait, Naruto, don't dispel. We don't want brainless teams to be after us now do we?"
"I would like to…" Naruto cheekily replied.
"No one cares what you want." Karin retorted with a laugh.
"Troublesome woman…"
"Tch! Just go already!"
One down, three to go.
So here's the first part of the Second Stage of the Chunin Exams!
I hope you had fun and enjoyed it!
Ja ne!
gottahavekyuubi