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Naruto had seen a lot of things in his life. It was expected to experience the unnatural and witness jutsu and techniques that were just plain weird when one became a shinobi. However, giant creatures that were made out of stone, that could walk and attack just as quick as any shinobi, despite their size, was not something he had experienced before.
Konohamaru yelped as one of the stone beings tossed a tree trunk in his direction before darting off to the side in an attempt to avoid being squashed.
"What the hell are those?" Naruto asked. The kunoichi in control of the stone beings smirked and wiggled her fingers in a mocking wave.
"Your executioners," she replied before directing her attention on the stone beings. "Take care of them for me. Permanently." Then the kunoichi disappeared, certain that her orders would be carried out without issue. She had teammates to find.
Konohamaru and Moegi traded looks at her confident tone before examining their new opponents. There were five stone beings, all larger and quicker than they were. While the stone beings had been awaiting their orders, Moegi had thrown a couple of jutsu at them, in hopes of destroying one or two before the fighting began. Fire, water, earth, air…None of the jutsu she knew had even landed a mark on the beings.
"We should retreat," she whispered.
"No!" Naruto instantly decided. "We're shinobi of Konoha and we don't flee! We can take on these weirdos! They don't have anything on—"
His final words were cut off by a punch to the chest. The stone being followed Naruto's trajectory, delivering punches to the blonde shinobi whenever it could. Moegi and Konohamaru winced when the strength of the punches caused Naruto to fly into a tree and actually snap it in half.
"Naruto?" Konohamaru called, hoping that the being hadn't actually killed his idol. "Naruto?"
The two younger shinobi breathed a sigh of relief when they heard a faint groan.
"What do we do?" Moegi asked Konohamaru. "I don't know about you but my taijutsu isn't strong enough to break rock."
"We just have to try our best," Konohamaru replied. "Let's get where the forest is thicker. Maybe it'll be more difficult for them to move and we can trap them somehow."
Moegi nodded before sprinting toward the area Konohamaru had pointed out.
Naruto groaned as he felt his body being pushed further into the earth. One of the stone beings seemed intent on punching to the center of the earth, not giving Naruto any chances to recover. Thankfully all of the punches had been directed at Naruto's midsection and legs, not at his head. The blonde shinobi was pretty positive that was the only reason he was still conscious.
Despite being conscious, Naruto knew it was only a matter of time. There was no doubt that he had broken ribs and bones in his legs. Even if he stayed awake in the next few minutes, there would be no way he would be walking away unassisted from this fight.
The Kyuubi roared in Naruto's head, demanding to be freed. Naruto had tried to bring the fox out but the constant beating had prevented him from concentrating enough.
Give up! Just give up and I'll do the rest. You'll kill us otherwise!
"I don't give up," Naruto said weakly. The Kyuubi roared in rage, slamming to the forefront of Naruto's mind. As Naruto's vision reddened, he was faintly aware of the bones in his body healing and a horrible screech emitting from his mouth. Then everything went completely red and the Kyuubi was fully in control.
Kurama growled at the stone being, which hesitated, sensing something had changed. The brief second allowed Kurama to get a grip on the stone being and push upwards, forcing it away from the shinobi's body. As the fox pushed, the human body slowly got to his feet. Once both feet were on the ground, the fox gave one last push to put some distance between its body and the stone being. As the being began to charge at Naruto again, the fox channeled as much chakra as its body could stand before delivering a devastating punch.
Stone shards flew as the being shattered into thousands of pieces, cutting into anything that was in its path. The fox growled as it pulled a few shards out of its arms and legs before turning to face the rest of its enemy. One thing Kurama had hated in the past was pain and he was in a lot of it right now. He had learned that the only way to rid himself of the pain was to eliminate the problem and that was what he was going to do.
Moegi shrieked as she eyed a stone being uproot trees a few feet away from her, taking out anything that stood between it and its target. The kunoichi pushed further into the trees, hoping to put more obstacles between it and her. They weren't stopping the stone being but they were slowing it down for the time being.
As she pushed further into the heavily thicketed area, Moegi felt, rather than heard, the snap of a wire. Her eyes widened as the trip wire lashed against her leg and out of pure reflex, she was able to throw up a dirt and wood barrier between her body and the exploding tags.
Over the explosion, Moegi heard an earth-shattering inhuman roar. She cringed before looking back—just in time to see Naruto punching the stone being after her to pieces. The blonde shinobi barely stopped to make sure it was still before moving on to the next being.
Kurama, using Naruto's body, was able to finish off four of the five stone beings before collapsing from exhaustion. Moegi and Konohamaru had ventured out of the thicketed area to watch the shinobi in action, silently amazed at the show of strength.
"Push it towards the traps surrounding the flag," Moegi said, once it became obvious that Naruto would not be getting up again for some time and they still had one stone being to face. She had noticed that so far, the traps had remained intact. Hopefully there would be enough firepower in them to destroy the last stone being.
Konohamaru nodded in understanding before going to draw the stone being's attention.
"Oi, hardhead! Come and catch me!" he yelled, before darting towards his target. Moegi was running beside him, calling out instructions so that they would both hopefully survive this mess.
"On three, leap as high as you can and start climbing once you touch the tree trunk! One…two…three!"
Both Konoha shinobi pushed off of the ground, aiming for the tree trunk directly ahead of them. As soon as their feet touched the trunk, they raced for the top of the tree, not even hesitating when they heard the explosion of the traps being deployed. The tree began tilting and it was only the surrounding trees that kept it from falling completely to the ground.
"Did it work?" Moegi asked once it was silent. Konohamaru glanced down nervously before sighing in relief.
"It worked," he said. "Let's get Naruto and get out of here."
That was a plan Moegi would readily agree with.
When Naruto came to, he was lying on a tree branch a few feet above one of the main paths.
"What happened?" he asked with a groan and tried to sit up. He was too weak to even manage that.
"You were totally awesome!" Konohamaru said. "We didn't think we had a chance of getting out alive but then you took out four of them all by yourself! When did you get so strong? Can you teach me how to became that strong?"
"Sorry, Konohamaru, that's my secret," Naruto said with a weak smile. To be honest, he couldn't even remember that. He just reminded everything going red and then…oh. So that's what happened.
"A secret?" Konohamaru practically whined. "But Naruto…"
"Sorry," Naruto said.
"Me and Konohamaru took out the last one," Moegi added. "And destroyed their flag in the process. Needless to say, they won't be moving on to the third exam." The kunoichi sounded extremely smug at the thought.
"Good," Naruto replied. "I wouldn't have liked to face that kunoichi in the stadium during the third exam."
"Do you even know what the third exam is?" Moegi asked. Naruto nodded.
"It's always one-on-one battles, sort of like a tournament. Important people come to watch and gamble, I guess."
"So only one person is made chuunin?" Moegi questioned, sounding disappointed. Naruto shook his head.
"It depends on your performance," he replied. "Even if you win the third exam, there's no guarantee that you'll be made chuunin. Just look at Shikamaru. He was made chuunin despite all but defeating Temari and then throwing in the towel before claiming a victory. I still don't know what he was thinking, pulling a stunt like that."
"I don't either," Konohamaru agreed.
"How long was I out?" Naruto asked.
"Nearly a day," Moegi said. "The second exam will be over in just a few hours. We decided to get to a trail, just in case you didn't wake up in time. We weren't sure how we were going to get the flag back if you didn't wake up."
Nearly a day? Naruto's chakra stores should have been replenished if he had been out for that long but he still had barely any.
"I can't wait until this is over," he said, pushing away memories of the last time he was in this forest and felt this horrible. He and Kyuubi had separated and Yuri had just been able to save his heart from stopping. That wasn't something he wanted to repeat, especially without a trained medic around. As it was, Sakura was still going to have a lot to do, once they got back to the village.
The next few hours passed painfully slow. Naruto could still barely move and Moegi and Konohamaru were on alert for any sign of the other teams coming for them, thinking they were easy targets. As they waited, Konohamaru and Moegi told Naruto of their journey to the path. Apparently they had encountered Temari's team, but instead of trying to take on each other, they just passed without a word.
"Ittetsu and Matsuri looked like they were in bad shape," Moegi was saying. "They were still conscious but it was pretty clear that none of us wanted a fight."
"Be glad that this is only an exam," Naruto said. "If it was a life and death situation, they would have easily fought you."
"How do you know?" Moegi asked. The older shinobi sighed.
"Because I've seen it before," he said. "I'm starting to learn that it's pretty common and when the stakes are high enough, shinobi will turn on and kill even their best friend."
"That lesson is learned by every shinobi at some point in their life," a voice remarked. Moegi and Konohamaru withdrew their kunai and stood over Naruto, ready for anything. Their eyes were drawn downward, toward the trail, where a masked shinobi was waiting for them.
"The second exam is complete," the shinobi called up to them. "Now come down and show me your flag."
Naruto struggled to his feet, determined to walk out of this exam on his own two feet. He had just enough chakra to summon Shohei, who was reluctant to part with the flag. In the past forty-eight hours, the fox had grown fond of it and the fashion statement it had made. It took Naruto promising to find something similar for the fox to finally sit still long enough for Moegi to remove the bright piece of fabric.
"Ready to head back to the village?" the masked shinobi asked once the flag was in hand. The mask hid the smile as the three nodded, faces showing a mix of relief and exhaustion.
Sasuke watched as the four left, a masked shinobi in the lead and Naruto limping between two younger shinobi. It would be so easy to take them out, but it would reveal his presence and that wasn't something he wanted until he had gathered more information about this village.
He had been surprised to discover that the village was hosting the chuunin exams upon his arrival but it had made it easy to go undetected.
Sasuke was glad he hadn't moved from his resting spot a few minutes later, when a kunoichi walked right under him. A large cat prowled at her side, tail lashing.
"What a waste of time," it hissed.
"We knew not to expect anything," the kunoichi replied. "Yuri's smart. If she were still around, she wouldn't make it easy to find her. At least now she'll hear that we've been looking for her."
"And she'll do nothing about it," the cat snarled. "Like I said, a waste of time."
"You're boring me, Hotaru," the kunoichi said in a dull voice. Her hands formed a series of signs, before lifting them up to her mouth and exhaling. A large fireball formed and the cat began to chase after it, quickly becoming distracted. Sasuke had seen the signs performed in that series enough times to recognize the jutsu for what it was.
An Uchiha jutsu.
So secrets were already being passed on. He would have to take action soon, to prevent any more from being revealed.
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