Chapter 7

Naruto whistled candidly as he observed the Hyuuga on the opposite side.

"Because fate says blah, blah, blah…." Neji continued to monologue.

Naruto smiled at him, and continued whistling. He could tell that his nonchalance was pissing off the Hyuuga in a major way. He hadn't known that Neji had a thing for dramatics before-that was very interesting.

Not that it mattered seeing as Neji wasn't going to leave the place alive.

"Are you going to keep on with your monologue?" Naruto drawled convincingly "Look here's a tip: tape your whole fate speech in a recorder, so not only are you beating your opponent physically but you're beating them with boredom as well."

Neji's face became an interesting shade of red. He growled and stepped into a stance "I will make your death as painful as possible loser."

Naruto yawned "Bring it on lady."

Neji snapped.

With a manly scream, he lunged forward. Chakra glowed on his fingertips, death on sure wings. He took a fraction of a second to aim and his hand hit Naruto's heart. He grinned and proceeded to watch Naruto's death throes.

Only to be disappointed when Naruto gave him a lazy look and promptly exploded.

There was a hushed sound as the explosion took place. All the jounin teachers were staring at the arena with eyes bulging. Who the hell had been crazy enough to teach a kid who could spam out clones by the dozens that trick?

Kyuubi chuckled as he held back a sneeze.

The smoke cleared from the arena to reveal a slowly shifting dome of chakra. A moment later it cleared revealing a slightly burnt Neji. Neji gasped as he brought oxygen within his lungs once again.

Neji's byakugan shifted, and searched for the blonde. Obviously Uzumaki was a far more dangerous opponent than he had perceived at first. Not that it would matter; he had a bloodline and fate on his side.

He could not possibly los-what the hell?!

In the air above the arena sat an unusual sight. Actually it would be more accurate to say it floated.

Flapping its wings a giant bird flew in the air. Naruto grinned from where he sat on it, watching Neji's face.

The shock on it was delicious.

"So" Naruto smiled "How good are you at long distance?"

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Maito Gai could be said to have multiple qualities.

Delusional, loud and completely lacking in fashion sense were just a few of them. However arrogant was not one of them.

So when his jaw dropped and he observed the fight, it really meant something.

Lee gasped from his position at the chair with his crutches "….How?"

The strategy was simple yet brilliant. Keep your distance from the opponent and simply blast them into submission. Maito Gai began to wonder how no one had thought of this strategy…or had it simply been because there was multiple non-hyuuga ninja around the target at the time.

In any other situation, Gai would have been pleased that his student would be learning humility. Especially at the hands of the dead-last who was proving himself to be a dead-last only on paper. It would have been an educating experience and Neji probably would have gotten some meaning out of the experience.

But not now.

He had seen the look in Naruto's eyes when he had stepped in. This was not the same child who had learned the Kage bunshin, and stepped in to the forest of death. Either something had changed within the forest or Naruto had been hiding his real personality for all this time. It was more likely to be the first one; Naruto was one of the few genin that could actually say they walked away from Orochimaru alive.

The child who flew (when had he gotten his hands on a bird summoning contract anyway?) above his student was decidedly more ruthless, more powerful and simply more intelligent. A winning combination for any shinobi out in the battlefield.

The problem was that those winning conditions were now being implemented on a fellow leaf-nin.

Gai just hoped that he wouldn't have to leap in to save his student.

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"Kaiten!"

Hyuuga Neji spun as yet another volley of swords flew out from the blonde. The swords vanished into puffs of smoke as it made contact with the swirl of chakra. Moments later, the gasping Hyuuga stopped doing the Kaiten.

His face was red-not just from the need for oxygen, but from embarrassment. The Kaiten was supposed to be a trump card of his, for later opponents, not the blonde doofus. The perfect defense shouldn't have to even been used against an opponent such as this.

He had already used it four times.

So he discovered a flaw within his own technique. It consumed too much chakra, along with his continuous use of the byakugan. As it was he was having to shut off the byakugan for short periods to conserve his chakra reserve.

The blonde bastard knew it too.

"Looking exhausted Hyuuga? I guess the Kaiten never factored in repeated long-distance assaults instead of single long-distance assaults." Naruto smiled as he started a mental countdown.

"I will…still prevail. Fate says so." Hyuuga Neji wasn't about to admit that the jyuuken was flawed-especially not in front of the Hyuuga elders. They tended to rave at such an assertion….

"Did fate tell you about the explosion tag behind you?" Naruto innocently inquired.

Rather than make a novice mistake and turn around, Neji briefly activated his eyes.

He smirked as he saw nothing and smugly asserted "Cute tric-"

The clone who had dug underneath the arrogant Hyuuga violently exploded. The clone had also taken the liberty of spreading a flammable gas around the hole where he was. In circumstances above ground, the gas would have dissipated because of winds and open space. Underground, it stayed in place around the clone.

Normally Neji would have been ready for underground assaults. Several shinobi had attempted such maneuvers against him before. After the first time in which a kunai had penetrated his foot from below, he had been careful to check underground.

However, Neji had suffered from inattentional blindness and fixation on a target. He had been so focused on the blonde that was flying above him, he hadn't even taken time to look underground. Naruto had even asked him to check behind him to distract him further.

Neji knew the instant the explosion happened that none of the maneuvers in the jyuuken would help him. Kaiten would make the explosion worse because it would contain the flame within the chakra sphere, roasting him completely. So he used a trick he had seen a former opponent of his do.

He hardened himself with chakra.

It was literally the only thing that kept him alive, and in one piece.

The Hyuuga was thrown up, the flame stripping him of skin. There was a moment of hang time where he was at almost the same visual level as Naruto. So he saw the blonde mouth some words that infuriated him.

"Surprise Fucker."

He didn't have time to contemplate it further when he landed violently. There was the sound of bone breaking as his legs collapsed beneath him and his arms took the brunt of the force. He screamed in pain as his second degree burns were rubbed raw on the ground.

To him the world seemed to be moving slowly. Shock, he realized as he couldn't even feel the pain in his legs or arms. He saw his teacher approaching him at extreme speeds. He saw his opponent looking down at him with a neutral look, still on the bird.

Somehow the sight of his opponent spurned him further. Ignoring the pain racking his legs, he stood up shaking. His opponent's eyebrows rose nearly off his forehead and his mouth opened slightly in shock. A motion to move forward was aborted by the referee, and his own teacher.

"Neji." Gai sadly smiled "It's over."

As if waiting for the signal, his legs collapsed beneath him. He could do nothing as he was picked up the stretcher by the medic nins. He heard the declaration of victory to Naruto.

A little ironic fact made its way known inside his head. When he had gotten up from being nearly blown up, it had been exactly like his teammate Lee. Complete with broken legs, and his teacher approaching him.

The difference was….

Where Lee had stood, Neji had fallen.

What was it made that people like Naruto and Lee fight against such odds? They were both clan less and yet both had achieved levels of power that were formidable. Both were ridiculed by the village and yet both had continued on.

The answer came to him and caused a fit of laughter.

Simple, bloody-minded Will power.

The will to break from the restraints imposed on them.

It had not been Lee or Naruto who had been weak…it had been him.

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Naruto raised an eye brow at the fit of laughter from his downed opponent.

Odd…since when did people laugh when they lost? Especially since he had broken his leg bones, and severely charred his skin. Naruto shrugged; it must have been some sort of epiphany.

He noticed the looks he was getting from the audience, and his own comrades. There was a noticeable silence from the audience, and no clapping. Obviously they hadn't expected for fellow ninja to kill each other.

Naruto scoffed. After some creative…borrowing, he had managed to get videos from the past chunin exams to watch.

This was positively tame compared to previous ones.

He kept a careful look on his comrades to see if any of them were going to act.

So he was completely blindsided when someone punched him in the face.

Shaking his head, he turned around in a combat stance to see an angry Tenten.

"You…nearly killed him." Her response came like a boiling kettle.

Naruto smiled "Yep."

Tenten snarled and reached down for her Kunai pouch. The audience around started to back away from the engaging scuffle.

Naruto relaxed, as a green blur appeared behind Tenten and stopped her from taking more action. Maito Gai's face looked like it was frozen in stone as he looked at Naruto, and his eyes never moved away from Naruto.

Maito Gai, Naruto thought, had always been a mystery. His actions and speech were all goofy, and seemingly out of this world. Various times it seemed to waver the line between being a mask and his real self.

Naruto suddenly knew that the Maito Gai he was seeing was the real deal. This didn't make him feel any better.

Without a word, Maito Gai forced Tenten to go back to her seat. His face was still frozen into stone, and Naruto quietly shivered.

Ignoring any survival instincts that told him to not be within a mile radius of the man, Naruto quietly sat down and observed the match.