"Blah" : Talking

'Blah': Demon speaking/ Inner Sakura

'Blah' : Naruto's Thoughts/other people's thoughts

'Blah': Harry talking to Naruto


Hello, once again. I hope you guys really liked chapter 8. I had to work on that chapter for over a month, but I think I finally got it right. I hope this version turned out well.

As for my payback for Azeroth44 making me pay for my ceiling repair and giving me head-trauma, you guys are about to find out.

Kvsyaoran: Oh, Azeroth44! Could you come in here please?

(30 seconds later)

Azeroth44: Yeah, dude? Need something?

Kvsyaoran: (Jumps out from behind chair) EAT FIRE! (Blasting a fully fueled flamethrower right at Azeroth44)

Azeroth44: OH MY GOD! (Flees as fast as humanly possible from destructive deathly dragon flames)

Kvsyaoran: This ought to teach ya, for smashing my head into my ceiling!

Naruto: Get him, Kvsyaoran! He cost my twenty bucks!

(Somewhere elsewhere, at a local bank)

Harry: Yes. Can I get this traded for eighteen Galleons, please?

Banking Clerk: What?

Harry: I meant eighteen euro, please. Stupid muggle banking system...


Remember: Reviews are welcome and wanted!

Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto,

Harry Potter is property of JK Rowling,


Chapter 9: A Gathering of Friends


The next morning Naruto woke up slowly by the light shining through his window in combination with the light that reflected off of all of his posters. Yawning loudly and stretching his arms and back after a good night's sleep.

But then he stopped immediately and realized, 'Wait a minute! I'm home? How did I get home? And I'm actually well-rested! Wait! Last night-'

'Incredible, huh?' Harry's voice sounded, 'You actually slept an entire night, little one.' Harry smiled.

Naruto thought slowly, 'I remember last night... Kaka-sensei... he...'

Naruto smiled, remembering the events from last night. How Kakashi finally pulled through for him, and told him the truth behind his actions for the last year. Although Naruto had to admit that he was still a little bit skeptical and angry at his Jiraiya for having orchestrated this entire façade that caused him so much stress and pain. But he then tossed the thought aside, understanding that Jiraiya probably thought only what was the best decision at the time for the greater good.

Harry smirked a little bit and asked, 'It's really quite surprising, isn't it?'

'What's interesting?' Naruto asked curiously.

Harry chuckled, 'Kakashi Hatake actually has a human heart... Funny isn't it?'

Naruto didn't respond, instead, he smiled and stretched his body once more before he got up and out of bed to tend to his Saturday morning ritual. He walked out to get gather his clothes in high spirits for the first time in so many months. Before he stormed off to take a nice, long shower, he looked over to his bedside table and saw a picture frame set face-down right next to his ivy wand and picture of his mother, Kushina. He walked across the room and knelt down onto his bed and kneeled before the table and slowly picked the glass-shattered picture frame containing Naruto's portrait of Team 7 shortly after they had officially become a team with completing the bell-test. After some hesitation, Naruto calmly replaced the photograph by picking up his wand and tapping the glass.

He said calmly, "Reparo!"

And the shattered and broken glass that Naruto had purposely broken shortly upon his return from the hospital was instantly repaired. The glass made several irritating scratching and reversed-breaking noises while the spell he cast on it did it's work and restored the glass and photo to it's original state. Once repaired, Naruto scowled at the unmoving forms of his teammates but soon sighed once he looked up at Kakashi's face. It looked as if he were sighing while also keeping a firm and affectionate grip over both Naruto and Sasuke, as if he were trying to hold them back from each other while also trying not to be too forceful or hurt either one of his students. Naruto couldn't even remember what it was that he and Sasuke were fighting about on that day, but whatever it was, it didn't matter to him anymore. He tried to look back to their time as a team earlier on before those disastrous Chunin Exams and thought back to when they acted like civilized human beings. The only time Naruto could recall of being the time spent at the Land of Waves. He could actually remember back when he and Sasuke actually acted like friends during the tree-climbing exercises but then he sighed. Naruto summed up that it was probably around the time he was holding Sasuke's almost dead body that he decided that Naruto was his primary target to obtain the new level of Sharingan. He grunted at thinking about it and soon looked away from Sasuke to look up at his sensei's expression and smiled again. Naruto didn't bother looking at Sakura's face in the picture and went on to plop it back down on his desk.

After that was done and settled, Naruto got up from his bed and walked off to gather his new clothes and take his eagerly awaited shower.

"Hmm..." he thought out loud, "I wonder if I should practice sword-fighting again or if I should practice spell-casting instead...?"


Monday morning, 8 o'clock

Naruto felt extremely anxious when Monday morning arrived at last. He was now already dressed and had his weapons strapped in all the right places. Today he was wearing a pale-blue t-shirt emblazoned with the black mark of the Deathly Hallows again, olive-colored baggy pants with assorted pockets and pouches, his headband hanging freely around his neck, and his new signature sports jacket that he'd grown accustom to wearing with nearly all his clothes. He had just slipped on a fresh, new pair of white socks and looked just about ready to pounce out of his home and to the usual meeting spot. But before he could get up and leave, he was having a great deal of trouble simply re-lacing his shoes, fiddling with them nervously. He tried using the same newly-learned method he had learned from Tsunade and tried loopty-looping his laces as fast as he could, but each time he tried tying them, he messed up and they came loose as soon as he tried tightening them yet again.

"ARGH! Stupid shoelaces!" Naruto growled frustratingly.

Harry chided his little brother, 'Oh for goodness sakes, Naruto. Take a deep breath and just relax.' he then went back to soothingly sipping some of his morning Jasmine tea and imitation dessert tart.

Naruto said nervously, 'How can I possibly relax, Nii-san? I haven't seen any of the other genin in months!'

'What can you possible be nervous about? They're your friends aren't they?' Harry insisted questioningly.

Naruto replied, 'I'm not even sure about that. A lot can happen in a few months, Harry. I didn't have any time to talk to anyone except for Gaara. His friendship is the only one I'm sure that I've got.'

'You had a very interesting encounter with Hinata-chan. that should could for something, with the way she was holding you so tenderly...' Harry smirked

'EEP!' Naruto squeaked embarrassingly, 'Well... we didn't really talk that day in a matter of speaking. I just cried and sort of passed out while she and I hugged... Either way, it's the other guys I'm worried about. I know that Ino is Sakura's best friend and chances are that she might treat me just as badly as Sakura did for what I did to Uchiha... She'll probably gut me alive for being one of the people that got him chucked out of the village.' Naruto explained.

Harry sighed tiredly, 'You don't know that, Naruto.'

He placed his tea down by his desk in his office chamber and said to Naruto, 'Ino may be a Sasuke Uchiha-fangirl, but she didn't lash out at you for no reason, like Sakura did. Didn't she try to hold Haruno back from attacking you?'

Naruto thought back, trying to remember the events at the hospital. He couldn't recall actually seeing Ino stand up to defend him, but he could distinctly remember hearing someone sounding like Ino call someone a bitch as he ran away.

'Yeah, I think you might be right on this one... Maybe she'll be nice... So long as she doesn't hate me for Uchiha having gone insane... But what about the other guys? Don't you think they would be little freaked out at me or something? What if they're not comfortable with being around someone who's magic? If they start keeping a distance away from me, like I'm some kind of ticking time bomb or something?'

Harry sighed for what felt like the twentieth time that morning, 'If they were afraid of you, they wouldn't have tried to visit you a few months ago... Naruto, you have nothing to fear. It's not like they're going to be waiting for you at the training ground with pitch forks and torches. You helped a good deal of those people, one way or another. What possible reasons would they have to scorn or hate you for what you are?'

Naruto had no rebuttal, so he remained silent as his answer.

'Exactly. If anything, Naruto, they are probably more fascinated by you. I personally believe that they would want to know more about you, and get to be closer friends to you now.'

Naruto smiled a little bit having finally calmed down enough to lace up his shoes.

'That's the spirit, Little one. Now get up off your arse and get to that training field already! Constant Vigilance!' Harry shouted, jokingly imitating Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody.

Naruto left his bedroom and went to his kitchen across the hall. He then walked over and opened his refrigerator and carefully pocketed the lilies he got from Harumi-san to gift to Hinata. Blushing slightly at the thought of giving the flower to her, Naruto smiled at the smile he predicted for Hinata to have and couldn't wait to give them to her. With the flowers tucked away securely in his jacket, Naruto left his kitchen after a quick breakfast of toast and jam and headed for the front door. He looked out his only window and checked to see that the coast was clear enough for him to leave without giving away the location of his home. Naruto watched as one of his new neighbors exited their home and left through the end of the hallway. Once clear, Naruto picked up his wand and tapped the doorknob, "Alohomora!"

Naruto left his apartment and locked his door quickly and ran out of his apartment, feeling a little bit more confidant about the rest of the day.


Sakura woke up that same morning as her teammate, around the same time or maybe a bit earlier. She took her time touching up on her makeup and hair and carefully sorted out all of the weapons in her newly bought weapons pouch, specially designed to hold in more weapons than her old one, particularly kunai. As soon as she was finished brushing her long, bubblegum-pink hair she finally bid her parents farewell and left her family's house. Once sure she had gathered everything, Sakura marched down the street, ready to meet the other genin. But first she would have to meet with Kakashi and Naruto, and then they would go to the selected meeting place together.

Over the weekend, Sakura discussed with her parents that she could no longer receive any proper training from Kakashi. Not that it was a matter of that he refused to train her or the other way around with her not wanting to be trained, it was because he was unable to train her properly at this point. Sakura's method of ninjutsu was more appropriate for her to expert in something that involved more chakra control than physical practice. She was more properly suited to becoming either a genjutsu mistress like Kurenai Yuhi or a skilled medical ninja, such as Shizune or even Tsunade (with such perfect chakra control she had). Sakura wasn't built for intense physical training or rather mastering powerhouse-level ninjutsu, like her teammates Naruto or Sasuke.

After a long discussion on Saturday, Sakura's parents decided to talk to the higher-up members of the village's council about their daughter's training and managed to get her signed up for a separate training program that was beginning this upcoming summer. Lady Tsunade, the current chief of the Konohagakure Hospital was leading the program and gathering young kunoichi and shinobi to practice in her specified art of medical practice. She would teach her future students on how the body worked and how to treat it, poison it, and resort it back to almost perfect health. The course was designed to last all the way throughout the year and have a side program of physical field training along with a possible assistant job/internship at the local hospital. The road ahead Sakura at possibly taking up this program had a lot of opportunities for her to follow and make her undoubtedly strong and useful. Plus, it was a perfect way for her to get away from Naruto, out of fear that he would one day cast a spell on her or something. She expressed her fear of being around Naruto and even lied about him to score points for the Council to let her join, seeing as she was drastically late to sign up for the classes. Plus, saying what lies she told her parents was also going to (maybe) get Naruto into trouble. The thought of that caused a wide, happy smile to turn up her face while she walked down the street.

But before she could celebrate and dance, Sakura still had yet to hear from the council on whether or not she had yet gotten into the program despite her tardiness. But for now, she would have to train on her own briefly, study up on any medical jutsu that she can get her hands on, and accomplish missions with her team while also inadvertently training to become stronger accomplishing them.

Sakura arrived on time, as usual. Waiting for her teammate and sensei to show up. She stood, leaning on the side of the bridge silently. Today looked like a pretty promising day, the skies were only a little bit cloudy, the temperature wasn't too hot or cold.

It was just perfect.

All was well until Naruto silently crept up on top of Kakashi's place on the red archway without so much as casting a shadow or crunching wood beneath his feet. He looked down to see Sakura humming to herself and relaxing while the waters of the reservoir rushed. Feeling inspired to cause mischief like the way he used to as a child and the stories of Peeves the Poltergeist, Naruto silently applied the Carpe Retractum spell on his feet and to the top of the archway. And like something out of Mission Impossible, Naruto slid down the rope of his spell in total silence stopping right behind Sakura and took a deep breath and caused his head to grow comically large.

"HEY, SNOT-FACE!"

Sakura immediately shrieked in fright and jumped straight up into the air before turning livid at her blonde teammate with comically sharp teeth and giant white eyes. Naruto was now laughing without end at how much he had scared her, falling to the ground and holding his stomach.

"NARUTO! YOU JERK! You scared me half to death!" she yelled at him.

Naruto laughed hysterically, holding his stomach while he rolled from side to side like a small child, "Hahaha! Not quite yet, I haven't! Hahaha! I got you, big time! You should see the look on your face!"

Sakura then yelled at him, "What happened to when you were stoic and emo? At least you were quiet back then! What happened when you were dark and cold?"

"I guess I finally found a way to vent out my frustrations," Naruto answered back, "So instead of me bottling up my emotions for years to come and act like your little emo butt-buddy Sasuke, I decided to be a normal human being again!"

Sakura seethed at Naruto and clenched a tight fist, "Say something like that about Sasuke-kun, and I'll knock your block off, freak!"

"Whoa!" Naruto laughed, "Looks like someone can't handle a little bit of criticism. In my book, that's not the best way to get a guy to like you, no matter how messed up he is. You should really work up on that! You're supposed to be a woman, right?"

Kakashi soon appeared as he did every morning, and Sakura immediately quieted herself and stopped herself from jumping Naruto and wailing on him. He eye-smiled towards Naruto and ruffled his untidy dark-blonde hair affectionately, earning a genuine smile from him in return.

"So?" Kakashi started at observing Sakura's livid expression, "Did I miss something?"

Naruto laughed and said, "Yeah! You just missed it, Kakashi-sensei! Sakura totally fell for my Fear-Factor no Jutsu!"

"Fear-Factor no Jutsu?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow, "Is that something new?"

Sakura growled at both males and said, "This mutant freak just snuck up on me and scared the shit out of me!"

"Sakura! You watch your mouth in front of me, you understand?" Kakashi growled angrily.

The pink-haired tween looked surprised and angry at hearing this from her sensei of all people, "You're taking his side on this? WHAT THE F**K?"

Kakashi furrowed his brow and crossed his arms at Sakura for being so obnoxious and stared her down until she began to feel intimidated by how silent and calculating she watched Kakashi slowly become. She soon quieted down and regained her position of submission and lowered her head at her sensei like a misbehaved child.

"Are you done, Sakura?" he asked patiently with a low and terrifying voice.

Sakura nodded her head and said grudgingly, "Y-yes, sir."

Their teacher suddenly eye-smiled at her and said in his chipper tone of voice, "Good! So about this Fear-Factor no Jutsu of yours, Naruto, how does it work exactly?"

Kakashi dragged Naruto alongside him and the two went on to discus on how Naruto accomplishes this so-called new jutsu of his own invention. Sakura then took on a look of complete disbelief and growled and yelled to herself before following along with the rest of her team. She just couldn't believe things were now working for Naruto's way again. Seeing that so-called teenage boy teammate of hers look happy and normal again made her feel sick to her stomach.


Now that things were finally set in full motion, Team 7 was fully ready to see the other genin at the secretly arranged rendezvous point. They left their original meeting place and began walking to Training Ground Three, avoiding the crowding streets of the village for Naruto's sake. In fact, the rendezvous point of the training ground was specifically chosen also because of Naruto, seeing as he would bring about unwanted attention from the village populace. As the team walked through the streets of Konoha as swiftly as humanly possible, the civilians were alerted and excited to get a glimpse of the village wizard. People started pointing out Naruto, alerting the others out of either fear, resentment or amusement and even tried to get Naruto separated from the team to crowd around and do what they wanted with him (Take his picture, get an autograph, or punch his lights out). Some of the more aggressive haters in the crowd of people even tried to grab Naruto but were soon pushed aside as Kakashi got in their way like a bodyguard (which he sort of was) and pulled Naruto out of the crowds and retreated both him and Sakura down a more secluded street. Kakashi led his two students out through the street and led them up to the rooftops and finally got away from the mob of admirers and discriminates.

Naruto huffed, "Maybe we should have gone around through the park..."


{{The Will by Alexandre Desplat}}

Some time after jumping a dozen rooftops and jumping into and through the trees of the local parks, Team 7 finally reached the dirt-road path leading down to Training Ground Three. In a few minutes, they soon approached the high, titanium-metal fence surrounding the private property of the training ground and gathered around the door inside. Kakashi opened the towering gate and allowed his team to enter with him, remembering the last time him and his team were last here being when he first administered their bell-test. He thought back on that day, that their teamwork as a team would only improve from that day on.

(A/N: But oh boy was Kakashi off-course on that one, eh?)

It didn't take Team 7 that long before they spotted the four other teams eagerly awaiting for Kakashi and his remaining students to arrive. Asuma, Kurenai, and Might Guy soon saw their approaching comrade, happy that he had almost managed to show up on time for once. While they shouldn't be surprised after knowing him for so long. But they still had their expectations for him this time, seeing as it was Kakashi's idea in the first place that they should meet up like this. He was the true mastermind behind the entire program's operation and how it worked.

Their arrival soon brought about the attention of the other genin and Shikamaru (still being the only chunin ninja among them). In no time at all, they spotted their blonde friend trying to walk behind his sensei out of fear and uncommon shyness. Kiba and Lee spotted him first and jumped out of the crowd and rushed over to him eagerly. The girls of the group looked over to see their old classmate arrive and were surprised to see him wearing different clothes apart from his now destroyed Chunin Exam outfit and his signature orange and blue jumpsuit. Ino spotted Naruto by his hair and loved to see the changed look in his hair, making it look more neatly-messy rather than spiky and wild as she and everyone else was used to. Tenten spotted Naruto's change of outfit and had to say that it was perfect for it a shinobi if they had to remain inconspicuous in a civilian environment. Hinata spotted Naruto and gasped in delight, blushed, and smiled at seeing Naruto wearing his own headband in the same way she did. But she was primarily focused on spotting the look of hope in his eyes that she felt was lacking in since the last time they saw each other. Remembering the advice from the book Shino kept on reading, Hinata gathered her courage from deep within and focused on keeping it wherever it was now.

The boys in the crowd each smiled or laughed at seeing Naruto and were just as surprised at the girls when they spotted his outfit and almost didn't recognize him at first glance. Naruto looked more like a normal teenage boy then all of them combined. Most of those gathered friendly shouted from afar and waved, "Naruto! Hey!"

Everybody excitingly approached him, but before any of them could ask the blonde any of the many questions they wanted answered, their sensei's ordered them to pay attention. The genin all conveniently stood close to Naruto, while the sensei's had them gathered, in the hopes that when they finished lecturing them, they could get a chance to start talking to Naruto right away.

Once the students were gathered around their sensei's, Naruto got a good look at each of their masters, allowing him to observe their changes since he saw them last, which were far and few in between. Naruto noticed that Asuma looked slightly bigger than last time, though he couldn't tell if he had just been working out more or pigging out more with Choji. Kurenai-sensei looked paler than when he saw her last, but then again, Naruto didn't even see Kurenai all that much to begin with. To Naruto, she almost looked like a beautiful vampire you would normally read about in novels or see on television. The only truly noticeable change about her was that she was wearing a new black and red utility belt to carry extra weapons and scrolls with her on missions. Guy looked just as green and ripped as he usually did. Naruto shivered in fear at remembering the horrific time he saw him without his top on. Harry's eyes suddenly turned white and round at seeing Guy and cried comical tears of joy.

'EYEBROWS! You have returned to me again!'

Naruto rolled his eyes at hearing Harry go on and on about how magnificent and unworldly Guy-sensei's eyebrows were. He thought for sure that Harry was done with this old phase as soon as Tsunade came into the picture.

Looking around to see if everything was in order, Kakashi started the meeting, "Good morning, everyone. Today we have gathered you all here for a very important purpose."

After starting it up, Kakashi stopped and gestured to Asuma to continue from where he left off.

"Due to the fact that Team 7 is currently down one member of it's squad, they've been given fewer and fewer advanced missions and have been resorted to doing only D-Ranks with minimal teamwork-ethic."

Asuma signaled Guy to continue next. Guy then exploded with enthusiasm, causing everyone to cover their ears a little (except for Lee).

"We've decided over the course of the past month, that we should start a new mission/training program! Designed to help out with the continued village restoration effort!" He said with overly-high enthusiasm before passing the torch over to Kurenai. Once the ringing in everyone's ears had finally stopped, Kurenai cleared her throat and took it from there.

"On certain days, every week, all of us will either train together in groups or go on missions together, in which, we will mix and match the sensei's with the students and trade around for every mission, based on how good your chemistry's are with each other and your teachers. That or will we randomly roulette with the sensei's and students. This program is also designed for your futures, in which you will have to learn how to quickly adjust to working with other comrades and instructors on a very short notice. Three students will go to one of us four sensei's. But only three teams will go on missions that day, while the fourth team, which will always be incomplete, stays behind to do either a simple D-Rank mission in the village, or train here in this training ground."

Shikamaru raised his hand out of an unbroken classroom habit, "Will most of us be going on mission today, or are we all going to train, instead?"

"We'll be training today, so you guys can get reacquainted with each other again. We thought it would be best, since you guys started getting along during the Chunin Exams, that you could converse and interact with each other more often. So you all could learn and experience more together." Kakashi answered for him.

"Oh... Okay." said Shikamaru, lowering his hand.

Asuma then said, "Today, we are going to start by sparing each other. One of you will each fight another person at random. To make sure you guys don't get carried away and hurt someone too much, we will be watching and having Guy over here be the proctor of each or your fights. We don't want to have any accidents on the first day of the program, So, we'll step in if things start to get too hairy."

Everyone nodded in agreement and the first day officially started.

"ALRIGHT!" Guy suddenly yelled out and randomly pulled out a cardboard box filled with tiny pieces of paper, "YOSH! Everyone! Pull a name out of the box and see who you will fight today!"

Kakashi looked at Guy as if he were scared half to death. As did Kurenai and Asuma, seeing as they had no idea that Guy had even brought a box with hm and had just suddenly pulled it out from absolutely nowhere.

"Where the hell did he pull that box out of?" Kakashi asked.

All of the students assembled in an organized fashion and one by one withdrew a slip of paper from the box. Lee was naturally the first person to pick out a slip of paper seeing as he was the most eager to fight someone and punched his fist downright through the bottom of the box just to reach. When everyone else had picked out their own slip of signed paper, they each opened it up to reveal who they would get to spar with first, written in Guy's somewhat hard-to-read childish handwriting. Meanwhile, one of the teachers withdrew a clipboard from their weapons pouch and wrote down the names of the people to fight in a convenient order.

Kiba groaned in defeat, "Oh no, I got Naruto! Not again!"

"I got Tenten!" Ino cried out loudly.

Shikamaru sighed lazily, "How troublesome... I got you today, Choji."

"Awesome!" replied his chubby friend.

Lee suddenly jumped ten feet into the air in excitement and exclaimed in front of everyone, "NEJI! It is you and me once more! We shall emblazon the fields of this training area with the flames of our eternal youth!"

"...Oh, goody... Dreams really do come true..." Neji replied flatly.

The final persons to pick a name out of the box were Sakura and Shino. The only problem with this was that one of them would have to wait out for someone to be available to spar with. Sakura wanted to get some action so she rudely pushed Shino out of her way before she grabbed his arm from reaching for the final slip, only for her to practically rip it out of Shino's grasp. The silent bug-user turned his head towards Sakura slowly, clearly upset and insulted at being shoved asside for Sakura to beat him to the punch.

Shino said politely, "I believe that was mine, Haruno-san."

"Ugh!" she said with disgust at being talked to by Shino, "Will you just go back to being silent, you bug freak?"

Anyone that heard Sakura say that to Shino scowled at her while Kakashi groaned and face-palmed himself as his adult comrades scowled alongside their students. Being oblivious to their gathered disapproval, Sakura focused on her slip of paper and read the name Hinata Hyuga. Sakura looked over at the quiet and shy girl across the crowd and smirked almost like Sasuke, being excited to get to fight the girl that stood her up at the hospital. This fight was, to her, the perfect opportunity to get back at her.

She called out, "I got Hinata Hyuga!" and Kurenai wrote down both girls names on the same round.

Shino decided it best to either meditate with his infestation or continue to collect flying-by insects in his encased bug environment he brought with him while he waited out the fights for his turn. His partner Hinata looked very determined and headstrong when she looked towards Sakura. Said pink-haired girl returned the look back, only she added her stare of determination with the stink eye also reminiscent to her beloved Sasuke.

As soon as all of the names were written down, Guy started drawing out a very large fighting ring large enough to fit in the entire Akimichi clan, plus a couple of rhinos and elephants.

Once he was done, Guy announced, "Alright! Let's start with our first sparring match! Shikamaru vs. Choji!"

Choji and Shikamaru approached and faced each other at the center of the circle, while everyone else gave them a fair distance to watch them fight. Guy stood in between them both, once he was sure they were both ready, he lifted up his arm and kept it as still as a statue before he growled and then roared as he threw down his lifted arm as if he were about to chop right through a wooden board.

"Hajime! BEGIN!"

Guy suddenly jumped out of the way and joined the gathered onlookers. The match started with Choji when he tried using his Multi-Size Technique to grab Shikamaru with immensely enlarged hands to pin him down. But Shikamaru was able to dodge and evade his friends enormous hands. Eventually, Shikamaru hid behind a tree a short distance away in order to perform his Shadow Possession Jutsu. But Choji was not far behind and knew what his friend was planning, so he quickly inflated his body into a large sphere and violently rolled towards the tree, avoiding the path of his friend's moving shadow.

Ino in the crowd cheered Choji on enthusiastically, "Go Choji! You got this match in the bag!"

Ino never got the chance to properly cheer on Choji as positively as she was now, acting like his personal cheerleader. She felt it only fair that she would cheer him on now, seeing as she was truly letting her new resolve over her obese teammate come out and shine. Shikamaru smirked behind the tree for two reasons. First, was that Choji finally got more attention and praise from a girl for this mock fight and the second reason was that he had now controlled his stretched-out shadow to move behind him and encircle Choji. But the speed at which he manipulated his shadow was nothing compared to Choji's Human Bullet Tank. Choji destroyed the tree Shikamaru was sitting behind and was blown away over fifty feet. The next thing Shikamaru knew, Choji had pinned him down with an enlarged hand. Shikamaru tried his best to remove himself from Choji's grip, but he couldn't overpower the Akimichi heir's inhuman strength. Unable to lock his hands together and use another jutsu, Shikamaru threw in the towel.

He grunted, "I surrender!"

Guy roared loudly and lifted his arms straight up, yelling, "The victor is Choji Akimichi!"

Everybody cheered and applauded Choji for his victory, most of it was overcome by Ino who was giving an absurdly loud and supportive victory cheer for Choji as she transformed her hands into teal-blue and white pompoms, using the Henge no Jutsu.

Ino roared, "That's my big-boned man, Choji! WAY TO GO!"

Choji released his jutsu and shrunk his hands back to their normal size. He outstretched his arm and helped Shikamaru get back up on his feet and even dusted him off clean.

He said with a big smile, "That was a lot of fun, Shikamaru! You okay?"

Shikamaru smiled tiredly as he dusted off some dirt off one of his shoulders, "I'm good, Choji. I had fun, too."


Tenten and Ino faced off next.

Their fight was played out for a while. They were both at a stale mate throughout most of their match. Both girls, especially Tenten, resorted to launching shuriken at her enemy. Every throw of a weapon from either girl was met with an inevitable deflection from the other. They both put up a fairly decent fight for the next ten or so minutes. Although Ino was at a slight disadvantage to Tenten, since she trained with weapons constantly ever since she was about six. Ino wasn't as physically practiced as her opponent, but she was practiced enough to endure a long fight and deliver every blow she threw.

After they both evenly spared for approximately five more minutes, they both agreed to a draw. Their individual teammates cheered them on regardless, as they both shook hands and congratulated each other.


Neji and Lee were up next on the list of those to fight. They both stared each other down once they stood across one another; Lee seemed very determined and headstrong as ever. His body was now fully restored back to perfect health and he was ready for anything to be thrown at him. Meanwhile Lee's ever so stoic teammate looked just as calm and patient as he ever did before in a fight. Neji readjusted his stitched up headband and calculated Lee carefully. Ever since his fight with Naruto, Neji learned to never underestimate an opponent, even if you've fought with them before, he resolved to ready himself for any unexpected surprise attacks, especially from his old teammate Lee.

Neji averted his gaze for a split second to look at Naruto in the crowd watching him, then quickly smiled in appreciation, hoping Naruto understood his unspoken thanks to him. Guy-sensei gave Lee his handsome-devil smile of encouragement and lifted his arm to signal his two students.

"Hajime! BEGIN!"

Lee was cautious and very evasive while Neji went in to advance first. He dodged and ducked beneath Neji's Juuken strikes. Neji had not yet activated his Byakugan, and focused on trying to hit Lee's arms in an attempt to numb him down until he surrendered. But he could not land a single blow, Lee's speed had improved so much more since his fight against Kimimaro with Gaara. Lee was trying to dodge and evade his teammates strikes and wait until he grew tired enough to retreat. Once he had resorted to retreating, Lee planned to move in with his advanced speed and strike Neji with a Leaf Whirlwind Kick.

Their fighting 'dance' continued for several minutes, neither candidate appeared to be getting any closer to giving up. Neji kept delivering every Juuken strike only to make contact with air, while Lee kept dodging at such impossible speeds it almost seemed as if the fight were sped up in fast-motion. Until finally, Neji jumped far back enough for he did start to grow more tired. Lee ground his feet into the earth and speed towards Neji, surprising him, and jumped.

Lee shouted at the top of his lungs, "Konoha Senpu!"

Neji was hit squarely in the chest and sent flying backward, his feet dragging in the dirt and kicking it up. It would appear at this point that Lee could actually win against him this time. But Lee had forgotten something very important that he saw happen during Naruto's past match against Neji. Therefore, he didn't know what exactly would happen when you got directly hit by the Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation.

Everything froze and stood still for several seconds as Neji released a large amount of chakra from every pore in his body. Neji exerted enough chakra from his body to create a sphere big enough to send Lee flying away over twenty feet, as Neji suddenly spun around rapidly to create a giant sphere of pure chakra energy. Those who didn't witness Naruto and Neji's Final's Match before, were mesmerized at Neji's advancement in Hyuga-style combat. Even Guy was amazed at Neji's improvement ever since the Finals.

Lee was not prepared for Neji's defensive attack and was thrown back harder than expected. And when he landed on the hard and unforgiving earth, he had swirls in his eyes with dirty and sweat covered all over his face.

Guy looked a little upset that Lee did not emerge victorious as he thought, and he yelled, "The victor is Neji!"

Tenten cheered on both her teammates along with everyone else. Neji soon stepped out of his newly formed crater and walked up to Lee and offered his hand to help him up. Lee was very surprised at this gesture from his once arrogant teammate. He would never expect to see Neji of all people help him up and dirty his hands in the process. Nonetheless, Lee took Neji's out-stretched hand and was lifted back up on his feet.

Neji smiled very lightly and said, "That fight was most excellent, Lee. You were more of a challenge than you ever were before this time. You've indeed become much stronger. Be sure to keep it up if you're going to beat me one day."

Lee was very surprised.

Neji had actually recognized him as a worthy fighter. He never did that before to anyone.

Lee couldn't help but wonder to himself, 'Did Neji's match with Naruto-kun have something to do with this change?'

The magnificent shinobi smiled and took his teammate's hand and pulled his sore body off the ground.


Next match was for Naruto verses Kiba.

Everyone was absolutely attentive at this fight in particular. Because most of the gathered crowd were very eager to see Naruto in action and witness his magical abilities in combat. Kiba in particular did not look happy to be facing Naruto with that possibility, but he hid his insecurities with a fake, cocky smile and crossed arms. But not without faltering and remembering back when he would act that way when he and Naruto were in school.

Seeing the reluctance to fight in Kiba's striking grey eyes Naruto decided he wouldn't use magic against Kiba, just to be fair. Then he would fight him with skill alone. Oddly enough, Kiba was thinking on similar grounds and reached into his jacket to put the safety back on all of his pistols he had secretly stolen out from the contraband closet in the ANBU policing station. Again. He smiled at clicking each of his newly acquired weapons and remembered back during the Chunin Exams during the invasion hen he found a rifle from the same place and stared sniping down every enemy he could see in his scopes.

When they finally approached each other Naruto and Kiba heard Sakura cheering Kiba on, much to both of their surprise and disgust.

"Go Kiba! Aim for the groin! KICK HIM IN HIS BALLS!" yelled Sakura.

It was then Hinata, Ino, Tenten, and all of their male teammates glared at Sakura angrily for showing such disrespect for her teammate and being biased against him. Even the sensei's in the training field looked angry and upset at seeing Sakura being so rude. Everyone there distinctly remembered that this was the very same girl that had cheered Naruto on so enthusiastically during his Preliminary match with Kiba a year ago.

Why the sudden change of heart?

In the fighting ring, Kiba didn't look in the least bit amused at how unsupportive Sakura was being to Naruto and didn't enjoy the attention from her at all. Kiba growled lowly and glared at Sakura, so did his hound partner Akamaru. Naruto simply ignored her rude attitude and turned the other cheek.

Naruto focused and took up a standard taijutsu stance and Kiba did the same. Only Kiba used his common Inuzuka family All Fours Jutsu stance in combination and ordered Akamaru to stand out the fight this time, much to his pup's reluctance. Akamaru also wanted to get a taste of what Naruto was truly capable of doing in a spar.

Kiba smirked confidently, "Lets make this a fair fight this time, Naruto! So no magic punches like back in the Preliminaries! You got it?"

"Okay, Kiba. You got it!" said Naruto, at seeing Kiba's high confidence.

Guy lifted up his arm and threw it down and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Hajime!"

{{Future Masters by Yoko Shimomura}}

Kiba launched himself towards Naruto on all fours. But Naruto sped out of the way and dodged Kiba even when he slashed his arm at Naruto as he grazed by. Naruto threw several heavily dulled kunai toward Kiba, but the Inuzuka thought quickly and withdrew his own dulled kunai and deflected all of them in a single swipe.

Kiba rebuked by throwing about five practice shuriken to distract Naruto. The blonde wizard pulled out another kunai and deflected any blades he couldn't dodge, but Kiba had snuck up in front of him and punched Naruto in the chest, sending him back several feet. Thankfully the blow didn't cause Naruto to flinch or retreat inwardly in pain. He sucked it up and waited for Kiba to come towards him for another blow. When Kiba finally reached Naruto, the blonde had accumulated a large amount of chakra to his feet and disappeared at speeds faster than Lee displayed earlier during his own Preliminary match.

His fight with Sasuke at the Valley of the End had apparently cleared his chakra system even more due to the intensity of the fight. Like a cleared out artery, Naruto was now better than ever and functioned much more effectively. Kakashi noticed that Naruto didn't make a move to hit Kiba yet. He appeared to be dodging and waiting for Kiba to grow tired trying to hit him. Naruto seemed to be waiting for the right time for him to hit Kiba once he slowed down enough. Then Kakashi got a very good idea for Naruto's taijutsu training. But he would divulge his revelation to Naruto later.

Naruto continued trying to evade Kiba with his newly found normal speed. Kiba soon grew slightly tired and even more frustrated everytime he failed to hit Naruto. While the blonde teen still had a lot of steam in him to drive himself to keep dodging Kiba's swipes and blows.

Kiba finally started using his environment to his advantage and tried leading Naruto against a tree. When Naruto's back met the tree and quickly realized his mistake and couldn't evade Kiba's upcoming blow aimed at his face. Naruto thought quickly and grasped Kiba's arm as it approached him and used his arm as a counter weight and evaded his body around it and had Kiba punch the bark of the tree instead of his face. Kiba's fist stung with pain and he tried rubbing out he pain that coursed through it. He got a little angry at Naruto for deceiving him like that, and made his move once again to launch himself at Naruto with all his speed.

Naruto finally took up his old habits and crossed his fingers into his signature handsign and thought, 'Kage Bushin no Jutsu!'

Then five perfect copies of Naruto suddenly appeared in individual blasts of thick, white smoke. All of the Naruto's quickly paced themselves to run towards Kiba. They soon closed in in a tight cluster as Kiba approached. And the Naruto's slid below Kiba in a false attempt to trip him using their own bodies as leverage. Kiba flipped over the Naruto's to avoid being mauled down by them. But then the Naruto's suddenly sped themselves and encircled Kiba in a circular formation. Kiba was caught off guard from this as the Naruto's suddenly sped in a counter clockwise motion at intense speeds. Just like what he did against Sasuke, only it was much slower without the Kyuubi's chakra and magic giving him a speed boost. Soon the dust the Narutos' feet kicked up while running created a mini-vortex of dirt that got into Kiba's eyes, as well as the eyes of the crowded onlookers.

Kiba couldn't see or blink out the dirt in his eyes as he tried to be wary of Naruto's next move. Then out of nowhere, Naruto came out of the dust bowl and punched Kiba in the face. This caused him to fall backward only to be punched in the back of the head by one the clones. Naruto then unexpectedly grabbed Kiba's right arm and lifted his left leg and tied them both together with some thick metal wire he withdrew from his weapons pouch.

Kiba lost his balance and fell to the ground with an audible thud.

The crowd of teams tried their best to see what was going on inside of the large dust cloud. But they only heard grunts and fists hitting something and then a loud thud was heard followed by silence. Soon, the dust cleared up and revealed Naruto standing over a defeated and tied up Kiba.

Guy shouted out, "Naruto is the victor!"

The crowd of genin and Shikamaru cheered in applause, except for an angry and unsatisfied-looking Sakura. Naruto helped Kiba get untied quickly to save him from any further embarrassment and discard the wire strings. He then helped lift Kiba off the ground and shook his hand, being a good sport to him.

"That was awesome, Kiba! Sorry about the defeat though. You gotta work on your speed a lot more. I was trying to tire you out the whole time."

Kiba felt a little strange and enlightened getting advice on how to beat the guy that just defeated him. He would normally remain blind with anger at being defeated by anybody, but he resisted it by how fair Naruto was treating him instead of rubbing it in his face as he expected.

Kiba smirked in appreciation of Naruto good sportsmanship and shook his hand gladly, "Heh! Thanks for the advice! I'll get you next time! That fight was a little fun, I'll admit!"

They both moved back into the crowd to await the next match, Kiba throwing his arm over Naruto's shoulder.


The final match of the first round was Hinata versus Sakura. The two girls entered the dirt arena and approached each other calmly. They then looked at each other in the eyes contemptuously. Well, more negative vibes came out from Sakura than Hinata actually, seeing as it was Sakura who wanted to get back at Hinata for daring to get in her way when she was punishing Naruto for his crimes against love.

They both stared each other down almost as if they were in the center of an old wild-west movie. The wind blew up dirt and dust, their hair blew along with the wind and kicked up dirt mentioned earlier making it almost look exactly like an old western. The cliché was unnecessarily completed when an empty bag of chips (belonging to Choji) blew in the wind as neither girl averted their gaze, and stared at each other in the eye, both kunoichi were ready to fight. However, Sakura was distracted briefly once she had noticed that Hinata started to grow her hair longer and saw that it had already reached down half way to her shoulders.

Sakura then smirked (imitating Sasuke), "So," she began to say to Hinata in a voice too quiet for everyone else to hear, "you're still following in the footsteps of that freak-of-nature Naruto, huh Hyuga?"

Hinata's thin eyebrows furrowed slightly, having been angered by Sakura's harsh generalization to Naruto.

"Why are you always so cruel to him, Haruno? All he's ever done for you is do you favors and defend you when Sasuke Uchiha didn't. How can you be so horrible to him?" She asked like her father would.

Her stutter had finally disappeared after months of practicing not to stutter anymore.

Sakura's smirk had vanished into a face of harsh indifference, "I don't care if he did those things in the past. They don't even matter anymore. If Naruto would have just submitted to Sasuke-kun's superiority, then Sasuke-kun wouldn't have found the need to leave the village and hate me because of Naruto's inability to give up when he should have been smart enough to do so while he was ahead!"

Hinata insisted, "Sasuke disdained you anyway, Sakura. Your reasons for being so cruel to Naruto-kun are completely unfounded! He was nice to you and would've continued being nice to you if you hadn't humiliated him and lashed out at him in front of us all! He didn't know what would happen in the time after the Chunin Exams. No one could! Who are you to say that he deserves punishment for something he had no control over!"

Sakura stuck to her hateful feelings towards her blonde teammate, still believing him to a manipulative creep, "You're so naïve. He's a liar and a cheat. He sneaked his way to get to where he is and stabbed Sasuke-kun in the back in the process. Haven't you forgotten?"

Hinata gave her an unbelieving look and said, "Are you delusional? Uchiha was the one who did the stabbing! Both figurative and literally speaking! Are you actually in love with him or just plain stupid?"

Sakura looked insulted at Hinata referring to her Sasuke as liar and a cheat, "You dare say things about Sasuke-kun to me, Hyuga?" she said out loud.

"I guess I'm allowed to say I think that he's a spoiled and selfish brat, if that's what you mean, Sakura." Hinata said back smartly at the now furious looking pink-haired teen. All just to test how far her courage could go.

"THAT'S IT!" Sakura roared.

Guy quickly summed up that both girls were ready and quickly threw down his arm to start the fight.

"Hajime! BEGIN!"

{{Black Garden by Yoko Shimomura}}

Both girls launched themselves at each other. Sakura focused chakra into the soles of her sandals and sprinted at Hinata with enhanced speed. Hinata prepared herself and carefully waited for Sakura to throw the first punch. Sakura whirled her fist back and started off with a carefully aimed punch. Hinata apprehended Sakura and grabbed her arm and threw her body over herself with all the strength she could muster, causing Sakura to land on her back fifteen feet away. Sakura landed on the earth with a loud and painful thud, she quickly got back up and glared at Hinata. The Hyuga heiress gave herself enough time throwing Sakura out of the way to activate her Byakugan.

Sakura quickly redirected herself at Hinata, remembering that taijutsu alone is a bad thing to use against a member of the Hyuga clan. But she had no other options, she didn't have any ninjutsu or genjutsu advanced enough to back up her desire to fight. Not to mention that weaponry is her second and only remaining option if physical attacks fail her. When she realized this option too late, Inner Sakura was the first to acknowledge it.

Inner Sakura yelled, 'GODDAMMIT! I should have decimated her with weapons first! CHA!'

She forced herself to sprint at Hinata while preparing herself to dodge and evade any of her Juken strikes with a quick burst of speed from her advanced chakra control. Hinata readied herself to either evade or strike Sakura, keeping herself rooted to the earth she stood on anyway as Sakura began to sprint forward. Sakura suddenly disappeared unexpectedly and reappeared right in front of Hinata and drove her fist right into her stomach. Which greatly surprised Hinata since she flew backward over thirty feet and Sakura smirked.

Everyone else in the crowd was shocked to see Sakura having so much strength to back up her mouth. Everybody thought she spent all her time daydreaming about Sasuke or shopping for girly things and putting on makeup. But apparently, they were wrong. Sakura had been training during Sasuke's absence. She must have been going to the training grounds or local gym, forcing herself to get stronger with the drive to one day become reunited with the Uchiha heir and together take down their commonly shared enemy. That thought alone could give her the strength to go on and train her tiny little behind until the day was out.

Hinata picked herself up and rubbed her now bruised stomach.

"H-how did you do that, Sakura?" she coughed out, having had the wind knocked out of her.

Sakura smiled and then giggled at Hinata, "A little combination of a well-balanced diet, good chakra control, and an intense weight lifting training session my parents helped pay for! Hehehe!"

Hinata coughed her wind back in and stood up straight with a strong and confident Juuken fighting position.

'Okay, I have to be careful with this one… she actually has a little strength to back up that big mouth of hers… And she has a little speed to boot too… I should try breaking her down and if worse comes to worst, I'll have to used that technique…'

Sakura, being too impatient and wanting Hinata down on the ground again, rushed towards her with a chakra speed boost. Hinata stood her ground strongly, and readied herself to strike or evade again. Her Byakugan saw her enemy get ready to withdraw a weapon from her pouch as she sped at her with top speeds equivalent to that of Naruto's or even Sasuke's from the battle at the Valley of the End.

'Right! Hold your ground, girl! Block and then strike…' Hinata realized, drawing out a kunai of her own.

But when Sakura reached close to her, she actually tricked Hinata, dodged her Juuken strike and slammed her chakra powered fist into Hinata's side. Causing the girl to fly ten feet on the side opposite from where she was punched.

"Hinata!" Naruto yelled out of concern.

Everyone else was in shock at the events that unfolded in front of them. Sakura laughed at how impressively weak her opponent turned out to be. She really wasn't expecting too much of her, seeing as she had failed to defeat Neji.

"Wow! I actually have more backbone than you, Hyuga!" she laughed with a level of sweetness that made several people who heard it want to puke.

This caused Naruto to start seething at Sakura for taunting Hinata in a way that reminded him of Neji's past treatment of her. This caused Naruto and yell out and throw some inspirational words for Hinata just as he had done before.

"Forget about her, Hinata! You're a strong kunoichi! Who is she to tell you what you're made of?"

Hinata looked towards Naruto's direction. She saw how he only had eyes for her at this moment once more, just like before in the Chunin Exams. His encouraging words effected her as they did before, as if they were laced with his magical powers. She soon felt the physical pain in her side disappear at once and found a great jump of strength to get up off her side and stand strong once more. Sakura didn't expect for Hinata to get up so quickly, not to mention that she was momentarily distracted by Naruto's obnoxious voice and turned around briefly to glare at him.

"Take this, Pinky!" Hinata shouted.

Hinata had driven herself to run at Sakura and focused chakra into her hands and tensed her muscles just before she drove a strike into Sakura's stomach with full force. Sakura doubled over, having the wind being knocked out of her, as Hinata struck her fingers into the chakra points on her arms and shoulders. Sakura grunted painfully with every strike Hinata threw at her without mercy. When Sakura's chakra points were pressed, it felt as if her skin was briefly pressed by a burning hot metal poking stick at every point Hinata struck with her fingers.

Sakura tried to suck up the pain and after several unsuccessful attempts to rebuke against Hinata's relentless attacks, did she finally throw her arm out and painfully block one of Hinata's Juuken strikes. Sakura had then managed to punch her hard in the face. Hinata's head was forcibly turned to the side at the force of the punch, which caused her to spit out some blood, but it wasn't enough to even come close to bringing her down. Sakura continued with two more separate punches to Hinata's naturally pale face. She ignored these painful fists to the face and she started to strike Sakura with normal Juken hits to her arms and successfully numbed out Sakura's arms until she could no longer lift them up to throw another punch.

"This is for Naruto-kun, you bitch…" Hinata said too quiet for everyone else but Sakura to hear, but said it with the voice of a fierce and powerful female warrior.

Hinata sprint forward and threw a normal punch to Sakura's stomach, causing her to fly backward over five feet and landed on her back. When she landed, Sakura's eyes were in swirls and Kurenai-sensei and Kakashi rushed to Sakura's aid and checked over her. She didn't have any internal injuries or any major injuries that should be of any concern. All she had were most of her chakra points pressed and a bunch of sore and numbed out muscles. Had Hiashi been there to see his daughter fighting today, he would be proud to call Hinata his daughter.

Hinata stood up straight when Guy announced, "Hinata is the winner!"

Everyone in the crowd was in absolute shock at the fight they had witnessed. Hinata Hyuga had turned into a badass. Naruto looked at Hinata proudly and also in admiration as she walked back over to the crowd of genin. Hinata had displayed so much raw power and courage when she was facing off his teammate. He couldn't help but admire her for her accomplishment.

Hinata had to rest herself down, holding her bruised stomach when Naruto ran up to her at seeing her hunched over her chest and became worried.

"Hey, Hinata-chan! Are you okay?" Naruto asked in genuine concern.

Hinata smiled as she sat down on the ground against a rock very close by, as happy as can be at the fact that Naruto was concerning over her well-being.

She said back kindly, "I-I'm fine Naruto-kun. But you should really be worried about Sakura. I-I think I might've taken it a bit too far with her…"

Naruto did feel that getting your ass handed to you, even if you were a jerk, you deserve to be checked up on. He didn't want to be a total dick and not care about her, she was still his of pity, Naruto reluctantly left Hinata's side to check on Sakura. He approached where Kurenai was bandaging her up right next to Kakashi close by the drawn out battle-circle. He stopped to see her sitting down against one of the three log posts. She looked fine except for a few bruises on her arms and a small cut on her lip. She was breathing fine, since Hinata didn't harm any internal organs or anything severe. She was just exhausted piled on with a good ass-kicking.

"Hey, Sakura. You okay?" Naruto asked with very little concern, seeing as she wasn't on her deathbed.

Sakura just grunted and scoffed at her teammates question and said grudgingly, "I'm fine, baka. Go away."

Naruto frowned at Sakura, seeing as she didn't care that her only teammate was still holding onto something that could be related to a friendship, "Well, either way I'm glad you're still breathing."

Kakashi appreciated that Naruto had the decency to check up on his teammate, and ruffled his hair as a silent way of showing appreciation, much to the blonde's enjoyment. He loved it when people did that to him.

"Well, now that I know that you're fine, I'm gonna check on Hinata-chan. Later!" Naruto said simply.

Sakura looked back at Naruto with a blank look, seeing him run up to and start talking to Hinata and congratulated her. But then she noticed a parcel hidden he had in his jacket and saw that he had flowers hidden in his confines. She completely forgot about the numbness and pain in her arms and adopted a more contemptuous look towards her teammate when she saw him try tucking them away deeper in his jacket and out of sight. She then seethed at both him and Hinata when she saw them both blush while they talked to each other and praised one another for their fighting efforts.

(A/N: I'm not going be totally relentless to Sakura. She's not going to be incredibly useless. If she can punch Naruto across a street in Part 1, then surely she should not be totally useless. She's going to be a force worth reckoning with.)


The sensei's had a pretty long discussion for a while. Wondering if a sparing match day was a little bit dangerous to start off their grouped sessions, given the amount of violence that broke out between Hinata and Sakura. They decided that maybe tomorrow they should start on missions again or simply train a little bit more safely tomorrow. They would discuss this matter over lunch in a few minutes, but eating and talking would have to wait. Because it was Shino's turn to have a match. He had left the area to gather more insects for his collection and had finally returned, covered with dirt and a little bit of sweat.

But after they offered the fight to him, Shino replied, "I do not wish to fight."

Everybody blanched in response and sweat-dropped in response. No one really had any grasp as to why Shino did not wish to fight when a few minutes before he looked pissed off when Sakura stole his chance to have a fight of his own.

"Why, Shino?" asked Kurenai.

"Well…" Shino gestured toward everyone else, who was either tired, laying down, or tending to a wound, "I don't think another fight will do my friends that much good…"

Kakashi looked at him strangely before deciding, "Yes. Well-I think that, uh, just about wraps things up for now. Seeing as we're not doing anything besides hanging out with one another, you kids are basically free to hang out. It's good for you kids to get out act like you're human for a day. Enjoy yourselves! Besides, me and your other teachers have things to discuss. So, bye-bye!" he winked.

Everyone got up from the ground and left once they had rested enough from their matches. And finally, once the students were leaving the gates of Training Ground Three, the genin finally obtained their chance to have their questions answered. They soon gathered around Naruto down the middle of the road, giving him enough room to breath at least. Naruto looked at his fellow classmates very nervously and gulped down what he thought was going to be vomit in a few moments.

"W-what is it?" he asked in stutter.

Tenten spoke out first, "Is it really true?"

"Is what true?"

"Is it really true that you're a real-live wizard?" asked Kiba excitedly.

Naruto looked very nervous and tugged at the collar of his t-shirt, "Well, I... Er... Yes... I am one..."

Everyone look positively breathless at this news. They took it all in and examined Naruto carefully, as if to see something they never saw about him before that was dramatically different. But they failed to see the change or see Naruto suddenly form a black cloak or pointed hay with planets on it appear out of nowhere or spot any sight of a magic wand or black cat to follow him around every step. With nothing changed before their eyes, they still had their questions.

Ino asked first, careful so as not to pressure Naruto too much, "Can you prove it to us? Can you, like, perform a small spell for us. I mean we can't just take your word for it now, can we?"

Naruto couldn't help but feel a little bit better at the thought of receiving positive attention. He felt for sure when he woke up this morning that his friends were going to persecute him or treat him harshly with knowing half of what he truly was. But at seeing the smiles and enthusiastic faces of his old classmates, he felt better and more confident. A feeling in his stomach told him that they were more amazed than scared at seeing something as supernatural as magic.

Naruto felt obliged and decided to do it for them at last, "Alright, then. But first I gotta show you guys something first."

The teen reached into his coat and rummaged through, looking for something apart from the flowers he kept trying to hide. Everyone stared intently as Naruto began to slowly withdraw his old wand.

"This, ladies and gentlemen, is a wand. It's an instrument that allows a wizard to conduct and control his or her magic and create spells, charms, jinxes, and curses. Almost every wizard and witch in history has used one. I made it myself!"

His wand looked very ordinary and didn't appear to be perfectly black with a yellow star on the end of it as the others had imagined. It was dark and light brown in color and was shaped in a relatively straight, if not, perfectly straight wooden stick. The end he was holding, seemed to shape into a rough, graspable handle and comprised of a dark brown color. While the shaft of the wand appeared to have a lighter shade of brown than the handle.

"Here is any example of one of the first charms I ever learned."

Naruto walked out of the crowd and to look for something to cast a spell on. He aimed his wand at a nearby large rock by some trees, swished and flicked his wand.

He annunciated, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Without any warning for the genin and Shikamaru, the rock hovered high above the ground and followed the movements of his wand exactly. Everyone gasped in awe at the wonder of what they were witnessing.

"I first learned to do this charm when I was about seven years old. It was one of the very first charm I ever learned." Naruto explained.

Shikamaru looked at Naruto strangely, "Who taught you how to do this? I heard my dad mention something about some psychic teacher/older brother of yours taught you. Care to elaborate?"

Soon everybody looked at Naruto in questioning, wondering who in the world Naruto's master was. Said magical apprentice sighed as he dropped the spell and dropped the boulder in the process. He put his wand in his pocket and cleared his throat to get ready to explain to his classmates the origin of his kind.


He quickly summed up the important details of the wizarding world and how his older brother Harry came into existence and taught him the ways of magic and sorcery. But no matter how much of the story he told them, he did not divulge any information in regards to the Kyuubi being inside of his body. Fearing that his friends might turn on him if they knew he was currently containing the most powerful destructive force on the planet. He could only hope that Sakura's parents didn't break the Sandaime Hokage's decree and told their daughter their true reasons for hating him, not that he would be surprised if they didn't tell her already. Because if she knew, she would pop up the fact right then and there.

For the next half-hour, Naruto went on and told his classmates (almost) everything there was to know about him and by the end of it, Naruto's throat felt tired and slightly from talking non-stop like his motormouth mother.

Once it was over, the classmates all understood the story a lot more now. It was much better explained coming from Naruto himself rather than the confused and mixed-up versions they each got from their parents. While they were generally the same story told, with the exception of Sakura's parent's version, it all seemed so clear as if it were a summary of a book on a website.

Kiba was the first to speak after five minutes of awkward silence, "That's freaking AWESOME!"

"Huh?" Naruto said in confusion, "Personally it's a little creepy, don't you think? I thought I would come here today only to be scorned or hated by you guys for what I am. I thought you guys would see me as some-as some kind of freak."

Everybody except for Sakura in the back of the crowd shrugged. Ino stood forward and asked, "Don't you think I'm creepy for entering people's minds when I want to?"

Shino asked, "Don't you think it's weird that my body is infested with insects?"

With that said by the heir of the Aburame clan those that were standing close by Shino and didn't know the details of his clan's unique biological traits backed away from him a few steps.

"Don't you think I'm a creep for controlling shadows at will?" asked Shikamaru.

Neji asked, "Hinata-sama and I basically have x-ray vision Don't you think we're strange for that?"

"Don't you feel weird that I can expand my body to be the size of a giant?" said Choji.

Kiba said, while Akamaru barked to back him up, "I can talk to dogs. That strange enough for ya?"

"And I'm a freaky weapons chick. Plus, Lee here does nothing else with his life but train day in and day out. Weirdo! Hello!" Tenten said with sympathy while patted Lee's shoulder to be nice.

Hearing all of them say these things, Naruto couldn't help but feel better with every word they said. He didn't even think to realize it before but his classmates, they were just as strange and unusual as he was. He always kept on thinking that he was the alienated one for having magical blood flow through his veins while everyone else had chakra or a kekkei genkai.

Shikamaru, being the smartest of the group, spoke up for everyone else, "We don't feel weird around you at all. You gotta understand that just because you're different, doesn't make you out to be the bad guy."

Naruto felt a small lump in his throat begin to form up and begin to expand with every word these people spoke to him.

"It's honestly okay, Naruto-kun. We don't think you're a freak or weird o-or anything." Hinata ensured.

Naruto looked at her with very watery eyes, threatening to be released and overflow with rivers of tears. Shikamaru stepped forward out of everyone else in the group and placed his hand on Naruto's shoulder upon seeing the tears that were about to fall, showing more of his sympathetic and human side more than he did with any of his own family, "We don't think you're a freak, Naruto. Because in all honesty, we are all freaks here in our own village. One way or another…We're your friends, Naruto…"

Everybody except for Sakura nodded or smiled in agreement. Letting Naruto know that he wasn't alone. Naruto could hardly even speak, trying his best to hold back the tears that were trying to make their way out of his eyes.

"Y-you guys really mean that?" he tried to ask without letting loose his tears.

Out of all the responses everyone threw back at him the phrases "Of course!" and "Hell yeah, dude!" were many of the honest and more frequent ones. Naruto tried to fake-sneeze to wipe out the tears in his eyes and as soon as he was sure he had wiped them all away from his face and eyes, Naruto looked back up at them and smiled at his friends.

"I don't."

Everybody looked at Sakura contemptuously, for not giving Naruto a single chance to feel welcomed. They all summed up that they should just ignore her and not let her ruin such a good thing for their clearly troubled friend.

"Most of us here accept you for who you really are, Naruto. Let's just leave it at that." Ino said with enthusiastic reassurance.

Naruto still felt so enlightened and relieved at his friends' responses to his obvious abnormality. He honestly never expected when he woke up this morning that all or any of these good people would be so open-minded and accepting. He sniffed a little bit and then said, "Thank you. Thank you all…"

The rest of his friends smiled along with him, feeling better about themselves for cheering up their previously depressed friend.

Kiba then spoke out with the greatest enthusiasm, "Enough of this soup opera crap! Let's go eat! It's lunchin' time according to my stomach! Let's get some ice cream!"

Now that Kiba had mentioned it, they all realized that it was well-passed mid-day and everybody only now just realized that they were hungry.

"Okay!" Ino announced, "Lunch is on me! Thankfully, before I left my house this morning I took my dad's credit card!"

Ino reached deep into her weapons pouch and pulled out a small platinum plastic card and flashed it for everyone to see and open their eyes greedily to the possibilities laid out before them.

"Alright!" everybody said together in unison

They all walked together back down the forest path that led to the village, eager to get into town and head for the first and most expensive eating place they could find first. However, Sakura did so reluctantly, wishing to meet up with her other friends for lunch instead. She didn't want to waste any of her time with any of these neanderthal freaks and geeks.

Naruto stopped and said upon realization, "Oh yeah! I almost forgot! Hinata! Hold on a sec."

Hinata stopped while everyone else walked on ahead, before stopping as well. Naruto held his hands together behind his back in nervousness and began to blush dark-pink.

"Hey, Hinata?" Naruto asked for Hinata's attention.

Naruto soon focused on what he wanted to do and pulled out his wand from his pocket and then said, "Let's see if I remember the charm to do this… Um…Oh yes! Orchideous!"

Suddenly, a flash of sky blue light erupted from Naruto's wand and a loud band rang out from the flash. Once it cleared, the lilies that Naruto had gotten from Harumi-san last week appeared in his hand in a lovely wisp. Naruto blushed even more as he held them out and gave them to a wide-eyed Hinata.

"I-I, uh... I wanted to give you these, Hinata. A-as, you know, thanks for what you did for me at the hospital if you remember…"

Hinata had never seen a flower specimen as lovely as the one Naruto gave to her. She slowly took them from his hand, unbelieving that the boy that she had been secretly crushing on for years had actually given her beautiful flowers.

Naruto kindly pointed out, "There's also some seeds in the tiny pouch there, see? That way, you can plant more of the flowers yourself in a garden if you like..."

"Oh! N-Naruto-kun!" she breathed so happily. She sniffed the flower's, taking in the intoxicatingly sweet scent they gave off.

The other genin sighed at witnessing something so sweet. Particularly, the girls of the group while the boys rolled their eyes and made silent fake-gagging sounds and gestures. The only person that didn't find this sweet scene between the boy and girl to be either a joke or cute was no one other than Sakura Haruno. She actually looked very enraged by this truly kind gesture.

Sakura thought to herself lividly, 'WHAT? He just goes off after the next innocent girl he sees! Just to hurt her feelings in the end, too!'

Inner Sakura managed to get a word in by yelling at the top of her inner lungs, 'Naruto is a man-whore! CHA!'

Sakura stomped her way loudly over to Naruto, similar to the way she approached him at the end their friendship at the hospital. Seeing Naruto going on and about to check out the next girl in line made her blind with pure rage.

"What are you doing?" she shouted at Naruto.

Naruto and Hinata, along with everyone else turned to look at her with surprise and irritance.

"What now?" Hinata asked angrily, upset that she would interrupt something so sweet.

Sakura snapped at Naruto, "First, you chase after me all these years, and then you just go after the next girl that so much as talks to you? YOU'RE A COMPLETE WHORE!" she yelled, slapping him across the face and turning his cheek raw-red.

Everyone gasped in outrage. Ino was about to move forward to teach her old friend one hell of a lesson. But then everyone froze at the sudden look Naruto threw at Sakura. His eyes had turned sharp as they did back during the Chunin Exam Saga. His pupils had turned as small as the point of a sharpened pencil while the blue color in his eyes turned slightly green for a split second before turning back to normal. Naruto leaked out from his inner being an ounce of killer-intent and let Sakura among several others to fall victim to it inadvertently. Naruto then shook his right arm and let his wand fall right out of his sleeve and into his hand. Naruto rubbed his red cheek with his left hand and continued to glare at Sakura with the nastiest look he had ever given to a girl apart from Temari of the Suna Siblings and Tayuya of the Sound Four.

"I've had enough of you, Haruno... You've hurt me for the last time...!" Naruto thundered at his so-called teammate.

Naruto pointed his wand directly at Sakura's chest and yelled, "Petrificus Totalus!"

A blue jet of bright light shot right out of Naruto's wand and struck Sakura directly at her chest with a surprise of shock and horror stuck on her pale-white face. At once, Sakura's arms snapped to her sides. Her legs sprang together. Her entire body turned rigid, and she swayed where she stood and then she fell flat on her face, stiff as a board and completely unmoving. Everybody in the crowd gasped at what they saw Naruto do to her.

"Holy shit! Did you kill her?" Kiba asked with hope in his voice.

"No," Naruto reassured them, "It's called a Full Body-Bind curse. Haruno is now completely frozen from head to toe, but she is still completely conscience and can hear everything we are saying. Look."

Naruto flipped Sakura's body using only his foot, and sure enough she still remained as stiff as a board and looked as if she were a plastic model of her former self. Sakura had on her face a forcibly frozen look of shock and terror. Her jaws were jammed together so she couldn't speak. Only her eyes were moving, looking at Naruto with anger and hatred.

"See? She's perfectly alright. I just wanted to teach her what happens when you mess with the lion." Naruto said with a tiny growl.

With that said, everybody looked at Naruto with a sense of respect, particularly from Kiba.

Naruto smiled, "The curse will wear off in about one, two, maybe three hours or so. For now, let's go to lunch, guys."

Shikamaru smirked, "I'm down with that. You guys?"

Everyone nodded in agreement, and decided to leave Sakura behind as payback from all her bull-crap that they took from her today. As they walked away, one or two people looked back at Sakura's motionless body and then back to Naruto in disbelief that he had actually done that to her. All the while, Naruto whistled to himself and twirled his wand in between his fingers, thinking about what flavor of ice cream he would be having.

"Y'know, Naruto, you're kinda scary sometimes," Kiba began to say, "You're brilliant, but scary…"

Naruto looked over towards Kiba and said as they walked, "They don't call me wicked for nothing, Kiba."

Naruto laughed a little as he walked to have lunch with his friends. Hinata walking by his side and enjoying the magnificent flowers that Naruto had gifted to her.


To Be Continued


And that's Chapter 9. I've had writers block for a while now, so it took me a lot longer to write this than I first anticipated. I really hope I lived up to your expectations, but if there's anything wrong about this chapter that you guys would like me to change, let me know in your comments. Because I'll change anything that I see fit if you would like me to.

I'm going to take a week off from writing. A week of writers block is kind of a sign that you should take a break, really.

But I'll come back in a week with some fresh new ideas, maybe a few OC friends for Sakura and future Sasuke. If you guys have any ideas for possible villain friends for those dastardly teammates, let me know!

As for my fight with Azeroth44, I believe we finally called a truce.

Azeroth44: You burned my entire arm, you bastard!

Kvsyaoran: Oh, will you let it go already?

Azeroth44: (Sigh) Fine. But you're paying for my hospital bills!

Kvsyaoran: Until you pay for my fractured skull!

Azeroth44: Okay. Fine. Just let me get out my wallet. (goes through pockets) HEY! Where's my wallet?

Naruto: Heheheh! All mine!

Azeroth44: Give me back my cash!

Naruto: NEVER!

That's all for now folks! I'll be back before you know it!


Review, please. I'll get psyched to see some when I get back!