Author: Hey! I am thankful for all the reviews and suggestions you people sent me. They are extremely helpful. Now it's time for what everyone has been waiting for more…action and fighting scenes.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto


Chapter 9

It was near the midnight when Naruto had finally entered her room. For some strange reason she was still up in the clothes he had given her. The boy looked questionably at her.

"Are you okay?" his tone had a lot of worry in it.

"Naruto, I was thinking about what you said, and I don't really know who needs my protection."

"Sakura, it's no a matter of who you can protect, it matters who is precious to you. Let's say your mother for instance. You fight for her so that she will be able to see you again. Sakura I can even be your strength in battle. There are times where I wouldn't be able to handle a situation, but you will. Do you understand?"

"Yes I do. What took you so long for you to get here?"

"Sorry I had to talk to Kakashi and some other people."

"Who else did you talk to?"

"Oh, amazingly enough Sasuke actually wanted to talk to me."

"Really? Now that that is over where did leave off?"

I think it was right here…"

He grabbed her sides and pulled her in. Kissing her gently she melted into the embrace. They didn't kiss long but it was enjoyable.

"Sakura please get some sleep. We only have a day to prepare."

Final Day

All of the rookie nine, Zakuro's team, Gai's team, the sound three, the sand siblings and a team of grass genin made through the second part if the chuunin exam. A jounin stepped into the middle of the ring. He raised his arm to silence the chatting genins.

"Now settle down. I will not repeat myself!" a sickly looking man announced.

"I will call out your names. When your name is called you will enter the ring. I will tell you when you can begin to fight each other. You may not kill your opponent, but you may either beat them into submission, knock them out or they forfeit. If you try to break this rule I will interfere. Now we will begin…FIRST MATCH…"

A grass nin stepped into the center and a brown haired boy named Akira did the same. The weird thing about Zakuro's teammate was that he wore his headband over his left eye. Once again the jounin lifted his arm. The instant his arm swung down, the genin ran at each other. Akira began to do lots of hand signs. The strangely clad leaf ninja suddenly began to glow with an intense light. Everyone had to cover his or her eyes. It took quite a while for the brightness to disappear completely. Akira was fine but for his opponent, he didn't appear to be in such good condition.

"Winner…Mitimoshi Akira!"

Akira jumped up into the balcony.

"Smooth Mitimoshi…real smooth." Zakuro stated.

"Well…how was I supposed to know that I was going to trip and hit my head against his?"

"Don't forget that you fell on him then kneed him in the chest and then one of your explosion notes went off. I'm surprise that they even let you graduate for being such a klutz."

"SECOND MATCH…Bygato Zakuro and Yamanaka Ino…"

"Go get him Ino!" Chouji shouted.

"That guy creeps me out."

"Then end it quickly Ino." the large boy whispered to her.

"Okay."

The blonde jumped down into the center of the ring. Her opponent was no were in sight.

"Um…Bygato Zakuro! Please enter the arena…"

"I'm already here…" came a blood chilling voice.

A dark figure started to appear from Ino's shadow. It kept rising until it was about 6' 4". Sadly the girl didn't know it, that is, until she felt a light tap on her shoulder. Slowly turning her head, she jumped back in fear. For a small glimpse her eyes saw a scary vision. Regaining her composure the girl got into a stance.

"Ready…BEGIN!" the jounin announced.

The girl ran at the black clad ninja. When she completed a couple hand signals 4 clones became visible on either side of her. Two grabbed one grabbed each of his legs while two others grabbed his arms. The last one flipped over the top of him. Rapidly she did a series of hand signs. Putting her hands in a weird shape, she mentally said:

"Shintenshin no Jutsu…"

"I wouldn't do that…" came Zakuro's deep voice.

It was too late, Ino had entered his mind. She met a small version of the boy. She walked up to him and stood there for a while. Suddenly an enraged voice nearly shattered her ear drums.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!" it demanded.

"What in the world…"

"You should not be here…" a small voice quavered.

It was the curled up boy in the center of what she thought was to be his mind.

"Why is that?" she asked.

"You will endure the torture that I went through leave before…"

He wasn't able to finish. Zakuro's memories of his past teammates and missions began to flood into her mind. Some were pleasant, but soon those were crushed and replaced with all of his horrible memories. An intense pain shot through her head. She cried out in pain.

"You must get out of here!" the boy yelled. "Please cancel your jutsu now!"

The silver haired male ran at her. With all his might he pushed her out of his mind. She entered back into her body, but she was unconscious. Gently the tall boy picked up the girl. He jumped up to her sensei.

"Asuma, take her to a hospital. If you don't you can say goodbye to the Ino you knew."

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER!" Sakura tried to beat him to a pulp but Naruto held her still.

He walked over to the pissed off kunoichi.

"It's not what I did to her…it's what she did to herself."

"WHAT!"

"Sakura…Ino's Shintenshin no Jutsu makes her enter the mind of an opponent. It's greatest weakness is that she not also takes over her opponents body, but she also gains their feelings, memories, and other things. She witnessed his life, and it put her into a state of shock. It nearly destroyed her if it wasn't for Zakuro." Naruto informed letting her go.

"Winner…Bygato Zakuro…NEXT MATCH…"

The next match went quite quickly. It was the feminine teammate of Zakuro's team and Rock Lee. The match didn't last long. Lee did a quick chop to the back of the neck. As usual the sickly judge told the crowd that Lee was the winner.

"NEXT MATCH…Haruno Sakura and…"

She was going to fight the second grass genin.

"Begin!"

They ran at each other at a moderate speed. The grass nin pulled out a longer kunai. Using the forearm guards Sakura parried each blow over and over again. Once she got bored of this a blade ejected from the guards. It went parallel to her arm. Then she pulled out two knuckle blades that connected with the forearm blades. This made a protective metal weapon that looked like two L's on her arms. The pink haired girl began to instantly put her opponent of the defensive. The grass nin panicked and fell down. Instantly Sakura was on top of him with her arms criss-crossing over his neck.

"I forfeit!" he yelled.

"Wow Sakura has come a long way."

"I agree"

The next matches went shortly too. Shino beat Zaku, Shikamaru beat Kin, Temari beat Ten-ten, Dosu forfeited to Gaara and Neji beat Hinata. The next battle was Sasuke against Chouji. The two faced each other with stern faces. Chouji was the first to act. Using his meat tank jutsu he rolled up into a ball and sped towards the prodigy. Sasuke jumped up and was blown back a few feet from the impact that Chouji made in the wall.

"Chakura Kyuin Jutsu!" Sasuke yelled.

His hand glowed with a dull blue color. On impact Chouji minimized and looked completely drained of power.

"Winner…Uchiha Sasuke."

"Next match…"

The last grass nin and Kankuro faced off. Using his mastery of puppets the grass nin didn't stand a chance.

"Winner…Kankuro. NEXT MATCH…Inuzuka Kiba and Uzumaki Naruto…"

The two prepared to fight.

"So let's see how powerful you've gotten dead last."

"Don't be so cocky Kiba."

"Don't boss me around you won't even be a challenge to me."

"Oh really?"

"I bet you my necklace I can beat you in 1 minute. If you lose…" The dog boy said as he pulled a silver chain necklace that had 4 sets of fangs on it.

"I will give you this. It's a family weapon. These are worth more than you can imagine." the blonde interrupted him as he held out a weird looking kunai.

"It's a deal loser!"

"BEGIN!"

Naruto went quickly into a strange stance. His right foot was placed behind him and his left was in front of him. His right arm was bent at the elbow so his forearm covered his eyes while his left did the same except it was a bit lower (about parallel of the mouth). All but his middle and pointer finger were extended towards the dog master.

"Leg's get this over with."

A black aura began to slowly seep its way out of Naruto's chakra holes. It soon began to encircled the blonde. No one knew what this jutsu Naruto was doing.

"Kakashi what is Naruto doing?"

"It's probably one of his self-created jutsus."

"Do you know what it does?"

"No but maybe we'll find out."

Kiba just stood there watching, waiting, and wondering. Suddenly his sensitive ears heard a low voice.

It said "Night of a Thousand Strikes…"

The darkness that surrounded the boy shot throughout the room. Blinding everyone's view. Only some heard the few sounds that were made from his attack. A few seconds later the darkness dispersed. There on the ground laid a pretty beaten up Kiba. The blonde stood over him with a puppy in his hand.

"Winner…Uzumaki Naruto!"

The preliminaries were through. The Hokage himself appeared in front of the winning genin.

"Listen and listen well. All twelve of you that have passed the preliminaries are going to participate in a tournament for the third part of the chuunin exam. After you get into a single file line, you will pick one piece of paper out of this box. When you get your number tell the man over there."

This process went relatively fast. The battles were Neji against Shikamaru, Sasuke against Temari, Lee against Gaara, Naruto against Shino, Akira against Sakura, and finally Zakuro against Kankuro.

"You have one month to train and prepare for your battles. Now go and prepare."

"Ossu!" Most of the genin shouted.

Naruto was instant gone after that announcement. No one had a chance to stop him. The Hokage had just arrived when an ANBU was standing on his window sill.

"Is something wrong?"

"Sir Orochimaru is here…"

"Yes I know Anko has already told me."

"Lord Hokage, I have three sound genins that would like to quit their participation with Orochimaru, and join Kohona. I could bring them in."

"That means that they would have to become missing nins and traitors to the sound."

"Sandaime I know that you now know that Orochimaru is the leader of the Sound. They are willing to join us."

"Bring them in and I will talk to them."

"Oh and one last thing…they might be sought out by Orochimaru and I believe they should hide with someone or somewhere. How about that one building behind the Hokage mountain."

"That is property of Uzumaki Naruto…well he doesn't own it yet…could you deliver this scroll to him? It's the deed to that property and anything on it."

"Right away sir!"

The ANBU disappeared swiftly. Three sound nins were traveling around the large city. Suddenly a masked person appeared before them.

"Please come with me. The Hokage wishes to speak with you."

Of course they followed. Once there an old man motioned for them to sit down. Their chat went for quite a while.

"So where do you believe you were going to stay?"

"We don't know. Orochimaru could try and find us pretty soon, probably to kill us."

"You three could probably stay with Naruto since he just got a large house that no one except a select few know about. No one can enter unless Uzumaki Naruto himself brings you in. Speaking of which he's outside the door right now."

When Sandaime pressed a button a blonde boy stepped into the room.

"Naruto, welcome I believe by now you know of your family's house?"

"Yes I do…did you need something? Oh hi Kin, Dosu, and Zaku."

"Hello Naruto!" they chorused.

"Naruto I was wondering if you would allow these three to live in that house until it is safe for them to come out of hiding."

"I have no problem with that except that that place is most likely a large mess. If they don't mind helping me move and clean it would be find."

"Don't worry we will help in anyway we can." Kin informed him.

"Thank you…do you want to start now. I don't have a lot of things at my house so it will be a snap." Naruto explained.

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's go."

It didn't take them long thanks to the blonde's clones. The house was large. It's front lawn alone was enough to let two powerful shinobi to have a good fight. The house was about 500 yards in front of them. Slowly they trudged onward that is until they got to the front door. Opening the front door they were all taken back. The place had some of the finest furniture. There was a large couch, a big screen tv, and a lot of other fancy things.

"Man…my father knew how to trick out his house."

"Naruto come and look at the kitchen!" Dosu yelled.

"HOLY CRAP!"

The place was loaded with tons of ramen flavors, but it also had a large supply of health food too. There were actually 5 different fruit trees in the back. They finished unpacking and choosing which room they would be staying in. All four of them ate dinner together.

"Hey, I forgot to give you these…"

The blonde tossed them each a leaf headband.

"I don't know if this is legal but that Hokage gave me them. I'm going to go to sleep I have a long month ahead of me. Oh and if you need anything do not leave this house call me using that thing I gave you in the Forest of Death. Okay?"

"Yes Naruto." they answered.

The next day Kakashi informed him that he would be trained by another jounin. Naruto agreed to this condition, but during his training he ran into none other than the famous pervert Jiraiya who taught him how to summon Gamabunta. The Ero-sennin taught him a few other things, but nothing much. The month came to a close. The third part of the Chuunin exam was about to begin.


Author: Sorry to leave you here but the next chapter I will put everything in the tournament into that chapter. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I will be trying to get the next chapter up about after spring break Well please review and I will update ASAP!