Awakening
Morino Ibiki glanced at the broken glass his comrade's entrance scattered across the floor and grimaced. That woman's going to be the death of me, he mused.
The number of examinees who passed the written exams was greater than the previous year, almost double. Hopefully the numbers will have dwindled by the time the one on one matches begin. The examiner took a cursory glance at the answer sheets he held in his hands and out of boredom decided to read some of them.
Most of the questions in almost all of the papers were left unanswered, with a few exceptions. The Haruno girl he was hearing so much about had full marks, which wasn't really a surprise because her academics had always been good. The Uchiha's paper had handwriting identical to one of the chuunin proctors who sat among the class. Ibiki glanced among the remaining batches of tests until his eyes came upon one name.
Uzumaki Naruto, he read.
From what the examiner remembered, that was the name if the boy who held the Kyuubi inside of him. He never went to the academy because he was supposed to have been taught privately by Uchiha Itachi himself. Not that it was common knowledge of course, but then again Ibiki had his connections.
The scarred jounin's eyes widened as he read the answers. And reread them again. And again. The jinchuuriki had answered every single question correctly but there was something about the way that he worded them that made the answers seem suspect. It took him a few minutes to realize that the boy's answers on some of the more technical questions were actually better and more plausible than what was written on the official correction sheet.
Morino Ibiki was very impressed.
"Kami-sama," he said. He made a mental note to see Naruto's match, if only to see how the boy's ANBU training would come out in combat. Grinning like the cat that caught the mouse, he hefted the answer sheets in one palm and walked out the room, whistling as he went.
Naruto kept his eyes open, all the while making sure his chakra detecting senses were alert for any threat that might come their way. It was a basic technique in ANBU involving being able to blend your entire biological rhythm with the surroundings, thus incorporating your consciousness into the equilibrium of the immediate vicinity. Forming a couple of seals, he dispatched a crew of clones to scout the area when his teammates weren't looking.
The team needed to find aHeaven scroll and be able to get to the tower to be able to pass the exams and move on to the next part of the test. Team seven had yet to encounter any opposition, but Naruto felt it best to be sure just the same.
He followed a short distance behind Sakura and Sasuke to make sure they had backup when they needed it. As insurance, he had three of his replicants shadow them all the way, watching their backs from hidden locations within a sixty-foot radius around them.
"Ne, Sakura."
"Yes Sasuke-kun?"
"Have you noticed that we passed the same tree three times already?"
Sakura nodded. They had been traveling in the cloak of a rather wide-area genjutsu, and probably right into the hands of another team. Naruto noticed this too and used a couple of silent signals to alert his clones to be wary of who cast the spell. It was a couple of minutes before the blond detected a slight disturbance in the air.
"Move."
"What? Naruto?"
Sasuke had already picked up on the movement and knocked Sakura aside, just as a flurry of shuriken embedded themselves on the spot where she was. Naruto's fingers were clutching bladed weapons he snatched from midair as he raced across the grass to meet up with a trio from Amagakure wearing breathing masks.
With a flick of the wrist the blond launched his projectiles. To his surprise the shuriken just went through the Rain nin, as if they weren't made of solid material. "Hasty aren't we?" one of them said as a large group of clones appeared all around them. "Give up your scroll or else we kill you."
Naruto remained silent, drawing a kunai from his pouch. Sasuke glared at the Rain nins and stood protectively over Sakura. "They're all clones," the Uchiha said. "but they didn't dematerialize even when Uzumaki struck them dead on."
"Sasuke, prepare a fire jutsu," the pink-haired kunoichi barked. "Naruto and I will go after them with ranged weapons."
The raven-haired ninja hurriedly complied as Sakura and Naruto circled him, throwing kunai, shuriken and other throwing weapons which the clones did not bother to block. When Sasuke was done charging his fire attack, he inhaled and shouted "Katon: Housenka no jutsu!"
A single fireball each slammed into all fifteen of the clones, reducing them into mist. "Advanced version of the water clone," Naruto breathed. "Impressive analysis, Sakura." The kunoichi raised a thumbs up. "Lucky for us Sakura's forehead contains a whole mess load of knowledge on those jutsus!" Sasuke joked, and the kunoichi slapped him playfully. "If only we knew where the originals are."
Sasuke gasped as he scanned the area with his doujutsu. "Oh crap," he exclaimed. At his words fifteen clones appeared again, each one of them mirror copies of the clones they dismembered. "You kids are impressive," one of them said. "Not many people realize that our clones are water-based. However destroying our clones doesn't mean you've destroyed us." The clone let out a sinister laugh.
"Damn."
"Sasuke-kun, what should we do?"
Naruto's mind was spinning as he tried to divine the answers. Water clones that attacked the same way as normal people shouldn't be possible and it was doubtful any of them knew Kage Bunshin. So how did these ninja accomplish this?
He was mulling this over when a silent signal came from one of his hidden replicants. The blond translated and nodded before he gave the order to strike. Sasuke and Sakura were blocking the advance of the Rain nin when suddenly all fifteen of the clones dissipated into mist. Sasuke blinked, powering down his Sharingan.
"What just happened?"
"Look."
The two followed the direction where their teammate was pointing and saw three Rain nins hanging by their necks on ninja wire. They were thrashing silently, unable to scream. At the top of the branches where they hung stood three of Naruto's Kage Bunshin. After the ninja stopped moving, the blond dispelled his clones, climbing up to fetch the scroll.
His two teammates were speechless. "H-he…" Sakura began. The Uchiha's eyes widened at the ease with which Naruto killed. His fists clenched and opened several times in an attempt to channel the tension in his body. The blond returned moments later with a second Earth scroll. The team's shock wore off quickly when they heard applause coming from somewhere.
The clapping came from a group of Sound genin, each one of them gazing admiringly at the blond ninja. "And here we were thinking that Leaf ninja were weak," the tallest one said. A brunette girl and a boy with holes in his hands smiled like predators who caught their prey. Sasuke and Sakura drew their weapons as Naruto just watched. "I like you boy," the tall one said again, pointing directly at Naruto. "Tell you what, just give us your scrolls and we'll be on our way."
"What?" Sakura raged "Why should we? Besides you need only one scroll of each to pass the exams." Naruto cocked his head. "A team can use scrolls as bargaining chips," he said simply. "The more scrolls you have the more currency you have to trade with the other teams."
Sasuke grimaced. "No way." The shorter Sound shinobi grinned evilly, aiming an open palm at the Uchiha. "You're Uchiha Sasuke right?" he mocked. "I really don't see what's so special with you. As a matter of fact, I think I can take you down!"
"Try me, you pathetic little prick!"
"Ooh. He talks the talk. Can he walk the walk?"
Without warning the three Sound ninja attacked with distance strikes, the one covered in bandages emitting some sort of sound with the instrument on his forearm as a powerful blast of air shot out of the shorter shinobi's open palm. The kunoichi from Sound blurred out of existence and slammed right into Sakura's defending kunai where the two of them locked in battle.
A warning resounded in Sasuke's mind as he dodged the Sound genin's air blasts. Sasuke, Kakashi warned try not to use too much chakra. The seal on your neck acts like some sort of modification jutsu to change your chakra into something more dangerous. As much as you can try to focus on taijutsu alone.
He huffed. He'd been able to use the Sharingan for a little while before. And he'd been able to let out a short fire jutsu. Sasuke ignored the warning and charged up his doujutsu while his hands danced across some seals. A sharp biting pain erupted from his neck, distracting him from completing the jutsu. The brown-haired Sound genin smirked.
It was all he needed.
A powerful air blast knocked Sasuke off his feet, dragging him across a good fifteen feet of ground. He hadn't finished moving when a second air blast sent him into a state of semi-consciousness.
Meanwhile the Sound kunoichi had gained the upper hand and now held Sakura in a vise grip. The pink-haired ninja struggled in vain, the brunette having too tight a grip on her. Of the three, Naruto was having the best luck as he evaded each one of the bandaged Sound nin's attacks, all the while his hands firing quick shuriken blasts at his opponent.
"I'm impressed kid," his opponent said. "You lasted a lot longer than the Uchiha, and I expected him to be at level with me. Too bad he couldn't last against Zaku though…" Naruto dashed up a tree, forming a quick set of seals that got interrupted as a blast of air came from Zaku's open palm.
The blond evaded, each attack narrowly missing him by inches. He was actually a lot faster than this but for Sakura's sake he remained in the area, withholding his true skills. A shot from the bandaged Sound nin got lucky and hit him square in the chest, making breathing difficult. The two sound genin got closer and closer, and when they were three feet away Naruto smirked.
Wait, Sakura thought. Since when did Naruto smile? Her questions were answered as a blinding explosion blew the pair away, leaving scorched bodies in its wake. The kunoichi looked and saw Naruto standing on the side of a tree trunk, his hands locked in a seal. "Kage Bunshin Bakuha," (Exploding Shadow Clone) he breathed.
The Sound kunoichi began to panic, until she realized she still had a hostage. "Listen blondie," she spat "I don't care how powerful you are, but if you fear for your friend's life you will surrender your scrolls to me." Naruto hesitated, but reached into his pouch when the girl put a kunai to Sakura's neck.
Sakura's mind went into overdrive, and as soon as the girl tried reaching out for the scrolls, she flipped the enemy kunoichi over her head and dashed away. Unfortunately the Sound kunoichi was fast and made a grab for the scrolls, running away in one smooth motion. Naruto started to chase, until a voice stopped him in his tracks.
"Hold it right there Uzumaki."
Naruto turned to see Sasuke covered in strange black markings. He cursed himself for not watching if the curse seal had been activated. Sasuke shouldn't have been so careless. Sakura looked at her teammate in horror. "Which way did she go, Uzumaki."
Naruto pointed and the Uchiha grinned evilly. When Sasuke blurred out of existence, Sakura found her voice again, asking "what was that?"
"A curse seal."
"A what?"
"Can't explain now. Follow me."
Without another word, Naruto gathered chakra to his legs and leapt up a branch, intent on shadowing Sasuke's progress. Sakura shook her head in disbelief, unsure of how to respond to recent developments.
A/N: Good heavens. An interesting development of events, don't you think? Please review.