If I owned Naruto and Assassin's Creed, Anko would be doing very dirty things to Al-Tair at this moment.
Bold is Supernatural speech
Italics are thoughts and flashbacks
-Chapter Nine: One month break-
After the preliminaries, the final nine contestants were told that they had one month to prepare for the final match, They were also told that there would be four fights, and one would be a three way match. The fights are as follows.
-Uzumaki Naruto vs. Hyuuga Neji-
-Nara Shikamaru vs. Aburame Shino vs. Sabaku No Kankurou-
-Haruno Sakura vs. Sabaku No Temari-
-Uchiha Sasuke vs. Sabaku No Gaara-
Naruto smiled, he would get to teach that Hyuuga scum what it felt like to be battered mercilessly. Sasuke also smirked, he wanted to beat that Gaara kid, he seemed strong. Sakura was likely the only one who was a little on edge, Temari was a long range fighter, she was a close range fighter, but she had no doubt that this could be remedied in a simple way. Gaara was like a homicidal kid in a torture shop, he was (in his own way) giddy beyond all reason. Temari thought she had a cakewalk, Shikamaru simply sighed.
"I have to fight two people, troublesome."
Now, three days after that, Naruto was left on his own. Sakura and Sasuke had both gone to learn Jutsu from Kakashi, but Naruto really didn't care for jutsu that didn't kill his opponent instantly. Add to the fact that he could just focus chakra and say what he wanted to happen in Arabic, he really had no reason to learn them. Naruto decided then, to go to the hot springs, they would help him relax. It was then that he saw the strange white haired man peeping into the girl's hot spring and giggling like an idiot. He pulled his crossbow off his back, and shot right next to the man. As he jumped, Naruto recognized him as Jiraiya, the Sannin.
"Hey, what are you doing peeping old man?" Naruto said, not caring to show him any unnecessary respect as he'd met Jiraiya several times as he was growing up.
"Oh! Naruto! It's been a long time, how are you doing?"
"Bored out of my mind, can you teach me something cool?"
"Well, I could possibly show you a jutsu that's more destructive than anything you can possibly conjure with that Arabic you assassins use so often." Jiraiya held out his hand. Slowly at first, but then steadily speeding up was a blue swirling ball of chakra. He slammed it into a tree, the tree was now leaves and bark chips.
"You have got to show me that!" Naruto could only imagine what that would do to a person.
"Here, use this." Jiraiya handed him a water balloon.
"How?"
"Break the balloon only using your chakra, those assassins taught you how to use your chakra right?"
"Of course, we're not incompetent in the art since we mostly use blades."
"Good, now break the damn balloon, I have research to do." Jiraiya turned and looked though the peep hole. Naruto sat and spun the chakra in the balloon, it did no good.
think outside the box Naruto he thought. He then began to focus it from one point in the middle of the balloon and pushed it from there out, the rubber flexed, and eventually gave way, leaving him soaked.
"Hey old man, I finished, now what?" Naruto interrupted Jiraiya yet again. Jiraiya turned, and looked at the kid. He then pulled out a small rubber ball. "I've got to break this one too?"
"Yup, and don't just pop it, blast it to pieces." Jiraiya added yet another rule. Naruto tried to bounce the chakra again, but it didn't have the same effect as on the softer balloon, he tried spinning it, but it also did nothing, so he tried something new again, he spun it, to gain the speed, then let the spin go, pushing all the chakra away from the central axis, shredding the ball.
"Hey old man, I need something else to break, these balls and balloons are to easy."
"You did both stages already? It's only been twenty minutes! It took your father three years to create the technique! And here you are picking it apart in less than an hour!" Jiraiya laughed, this was truly the legacy of Minato. "Here, contain all the destructive force you used to break the ball in this water balloon, DO NOT break this one." Naruto looked at Jiraiya questioningly. "What is it?"
"Why are you carrying all this stuff?"
"I expected to see you sometime, and I knew that if you were anything like your dad that you'd want to learn something. Now leave me to my research, this is very important." Jiraiya turned away and began peeping and giggling. Naruto walked to his usual spot and began to practice this, he soon discovered that combining both the spiraling chakra and the destructive chakra was very hard. Eventually Naruto was left with all the balloons so he didn't have to keep interrupting Jiraiya's 'research'.
Naruto continually tried to not break the balloons, but eventually began running dangerously on chakra.
"So you've finally run out huh?" Jiraiya walked over. The assassin looked up at his 'tutor'.
"My father designed this you say?"
"Yeah, he only taught it to me because I'm supposed to teach it to you. Come back here tomorrow at noon, We can continue your practice." Jiraiya left after that. Naruto cleaned up his dozens of broken balloons and also left.
Back at the Namikaze-Uzumaki-Uchiha mansion, Naruto saw his housemate preparing dinner. He added the Uchiha name to it simply because he couldn't really see Sasuke as anything other than family and a teammate now.
"So what's the cyclops teaching you?" Naruto asked, sitting down at the table.
"He's got this technique called Chidori, it's a lightning jutsu."
"I'm learning one of my dad's jutsu from this weird old guy I met today. He's dad's teacher, and I met him a couple times when I was little, but I haven't seen him for about four years now."
"How's that going?"
"If I never see a water balloon again, I'm going to be happy."
"Why is that?"
"Because I'm using them to train, and I must have blown up at least a hundred of them." Naruto accepted the plate with a thanks. They ate salmon for dinner that night. Seafood was common in an Uchiha's cookbook.
"I've been blowing holes in rocks all day, I can only use the Chidori three times a day, it's hell in a hand basket, and somehow Sakura's got the strangest affinity combination ever."
"What is that?"
"Fire and Earth, I cracked a joke saying how she could throw flaming rocks at people, she decided she's going to try and make such a jutsu, after she gets some better earth jutsu under her belt."
"That's gonna be a way to beat that Temari girl."
"I saw her today, apparently her and that crazy exam proctor Anko have the same favorite food. I saw them eating dango today." Sasuke took a bite of his salmon. He had to say that this was the best prepared salmon he'd ever made, Naruto chose that particular moment to boost his ego a little more by also complimenting his culinary skills. The dinner was done, both went to their sides of the house, showered and then slept.
The next week was Naruto working to perfect his jutsu. He finally managed to contain the power on the last day of that week. Sakura was working on her jutsu, she still couldn't even think of a name, but had the basic physics of the jutsu down, she would have to create the chakra that formed the rocks, and as she sent them flying, supercharge them with fire element chakra, thus blowing the first boulders into thousands of smaller flaming rocks that hurdled through the air at high speed.
Sasuke stood in front of a massive boulder atop an even larger boulder, there was massive holes in the boulder, incinerated by the numerous Chidori that were used on the rock. Eventually, he learned to channel it through his body, and even his sword.
Naruto was angry. One might ask why he was angry. The answer was quite simple actually. In the past four and a half weeks he'd had almost no human contact except for Jiraiya and Sasuke. He hadn't seen Sakura, Kakashi, that weird Nara kid, not a soul, not even a store clerk as Sasuke did all the grocery shopping, Naruto was not the best cook, so Sasuke got the food.
Naruto currently stood on a building, he was planning. He thought it might be fun if he could get Sakura to sneak out with him and go have some fun. He just had to remember where she lived and when he remembered, he had to sneak in, wake her up, avoid getting himself killed, and avoid waking her mother. Sasuke was beginning to bore him, and he couldn't sleep. Despite all the calm and cool that usually made up Naruto's personality, when he was bored out of his mind, he would be very different. One time an artist that lived in Masyaf decided to draw what he thought Naruto would be like if he was a loud prankster all the time. The picture was very strange, it showed Naruto, with a bright orange jumpsuit, goggles over his forehead, holding back his spiky blond hair, and a giant grin on his face.
Naruto suddenly remembered where Sakura's house was, so he went there and sat atop the roof of the building across from it. He just had to remember which was her room.
-Flashback-
Naruto had some how been shanghaied into a trip with Sakura to the movies. Never would he quite remember how this happened, but it was okay, it was just a movie, what harm would it do? They were almost to the theater when Sakura stopped.
"I forgot something at my house! We have to go back Naruto!" Sakura grabbed his hand and dragged him back to her home. They walked in the door, up the stairs…(Naruto struggled to remember this part)… Down the Hall, past the first door, and then to the second door.
-Flashback End-
Naruto now remembered the window he was supposed to be sneaking in through. The movie was a kung fu movie, he'd half expected it to be something more along the lines of a drama or something, but Sakura was a rather strange girl and insisted they see a movie called "The Forbidden Kingdom". He stopped his mental stalling and looked for the right window, he then dropped to street level and then ran up the building silently, adhered to the wall. He slowly opened the window, and snuck in. He almost laughed at how easy it was, that is until he felt a blade against his neck.
"Who are you and what are you doing here." Sakura whispered. Naruto held up his left hand, allowing the moonlight to glint off his arm blade.
"It's me Sakura, Naruto." He replied in an equally hushed voice. She then realized she was only wearing her night clothes, which were a pair of small shorts and a tank top, she made a noise that can only be labeled as a 'squeal' and grabbed her blanket and quickly wrapped herself in it.
"Naruto! What are you doing here?!" She still whispered, but it was a slightly aggravated whisper.
"I couldn't sleep, you've gotta come with me, I know this really cool place, we need to go there."
"But I don't have any of my normal clothes on and I'm not getting dressed with you here. Plus my shoes are downstairs."
"You're a shinobi, right? Just sneak, your parents are civilians, they won't hear you. If you want clothing, here." He unbuckled his sword, and took off his cloak, handing it to Sakura.
"You're insane Naruto" Sakura accepted the cloak, when she put it on, she realized how much bigger than her he was. Though only less than half a year from thirteen, Naruto was quite well defined. He was only about five foot, but that was tall for a pre-teen. He kept his hair close cropped, and his face showed a fierce determination. He buckled his sword and knives (which are attached to his sword belt) back around his waist, and then set his booted foot on her windowsill.
"Meet me downstairs, and don't just lock me out and steal my cloak, I know where you sleep." Naruto grinned. Dropping onto the street silently, he waited patiently for Sakura to create a clone of herself, and get her shoes, she came out, swimming in Naruto's garment, he suppressed a laugh when he saw it. He never realized his size difference to the smaller girl.
"Don't even think about laughing, It's not funny. This thing is heavy! What's it made of? Canvas?"
"No, it's a secret, the brotherhood has a lot of them. Let's go, it's almost the right time, you'll know what I mean when we get there."
They ran atop the buildings until they got to where they would make no progress by staying on the buildings. They took to a well traveled trail uphill. Naruto saw the sun barely breaking the horizon as the sky began to turn from black to a dark blue.
"C'mon! We have to hurry!" Naruto picked up the pace, they continued running, until Naruto stopped, then Sakura realized where they were. They were on top of the Hokage monument, standing on Naruto's father's head. The sun was just now rising. Sakura could only think of one thing.
"Beautiful." was the one word that came from her mouth.
"I know, I come here when I can't sleep, sometimes I sleep up here. On my father's head I can see everything. But I know that I'm going to surpass him, I've got to."
"Why?"
"Because, I've got to be the best Hokage that there is." Naruto continued to watch the sunset, Sakura moved closer to Naruto, he put his arm around her shoulders, she rested her head against his black clad shoulder. They sat like that for quite a while, Sakura slept on his shoulder.
Kyuubi. Naruto addressed his tenant.
What is it boy? Kyuubi growled at his walking prison.
Are you ready to fight that Shukaku thing? It's inevitable that we fight it. So we're going to have to work together.
Aye, I have a personal vendetta against that Tanuki. We'll obliterate him. When you sleep, I'm going to implant the fox summoning jutsu into your mind. You will then be able to summon foxes to help you in battle. The Kyuubi had established contact with Naruto several years ago and told him that he would help him in times of need. Just the other day he'd told Naruto that him that if he were to start sensing demonic chakra from Gaara, that he would have to fight him and either kill him or render him immobile in some way. Naruto laid down, careful not to wake Sakura, he then went to sleep.
Sakura woke up first, realizing immediately that her blanket was not as heavy as what was covering her, she then remembered the night before, she wasn't in her bed, but laying on Naruto's chest. She sat up, waking Naruto.
"we need to get back to town, I need to get dressed and meet Kakashi Sensei." Naruto woke up, for just a split second, Sakura thought she saw red in Naruto's eyes.
"Alright, I'll come with you, though won't your mom notice your shoes are gone?"
"No, I left something in a Henge so it looks like my shoes, and a clone in my bed, I just need to sneak into my room, get dressed and go downstairs. You can come up to get your cloak, but you'll have to leave after that."
"Alright, I have to go meet the old man anyway. I've only got one more day to train before I use the last day off to rest." Naruto went and retrieved his cloak and then left.
-Chapter Nine: End-
Author's Note: I made this one kinda NaruSaku centric because a lot of people have been asking me when there will be more of it. The finals will start next chapter. Naruto and Neji fight, Sakura reveals her new jutsu, Sasuke shows off Chidori, Shikamaru shows his ability to get his lazy ass out of 'troublesome situations'.
