Chapter 10: Neji vs. Naruto (aka. comedy's last stand)
One month later
The remaining combatants lined up in an open field arena. Shino, Hinata, Naruto, Sauske, Rock Lee, Sakura, Shikamaru, and Neji. In the stands, Stretchy, Squeaky (on crutches), Choji, Tenten, Ino, and Kiba, with Akamaru in full body cast on his head, looked on. Also in the stands were the Hokage, the "Kazekage", and hundreds of spectators.
The announcer (really, he is more of a judge. Let's call him the referee for the rest of the story) explained the battle plan to the proud fighters. The next rounds were: Naruto vs. Neji, Shino vs. Shikamaru, Sauske vs. Rock Lee, and Sakura vs. Hinata. He told Naruto and Neji to stay and sent the others to the stands.
Mid-story note: The following is two versions of the battle. Version 1 is my favorite, but was too short and ended with the wrong victor. Actually, I made it up first, before starting this whole story. It was behind the whole premise of what I think should have happened. Version 2 will be what will continue into the rest of the tale as the "real" story
Version 1: Naruto and Neji stood, staring at each other. After a moment, impatient Naruto bit his finger off (okay, just the tip, but still), slammed his hand palm down into the dirt, and squeaked out his new move "Summoning jutsu!" Chief Toad appeared in the air above Neji and fell on him. Game over.
Version 2: Naruto and Neji stood, staring at each other. After a moment, impatient Naruto charged, and bounced off the resulting rotation jutsu. Then he duplicated and tried again. And again. And again. You get the idea. Bored with this whole thing, Neji started thinking about his past in long, complicated detail.
After a half hour, he looked around and realized that Naruto had stopped trying to beat his brains out on the rotation jutsu. Had he succeeded?! Neji slowed down his rotation and looked around. Off the tree on the other side of the stadium, Naruto was hanging like a bat, fast asleep, his feet attached to the branches by red energy, his arms hanging straight down, and a bit of saliva reaching three feet from his mouth to the ground.
Neji looked at the stands for an explanation. "Real booooring story, Neji!" he heard Ino shout.
Neji started to confidently walk over to Naruto to finish the job. A split second later, he slowed, reminded by the strange, red energy flowing from Naruto's feet of what happened when Gaara tried to sneak up on the guy. Cautiously, he approached his enemy.
The fox could sense Neji's caution. He didn't want his host to be in any more rounds of unnecessary, stupid, danger! The fox released his hold on the branch, completely removing his chakra from the boy's system.
Seeing that the energy was gone through his Biakugon eyes, Neji confidently charged his foe. He disabled Naruto's elbows and knees with four gentle fists, knocking him to the ground, and held a kunai to his throat, not wanting to do anything too excessive and unleash the red chakra inside.
Note: As you may have noticed in the title, this is (probably) going to be the last silly chapter. The rest will focus on the action, not the humor. Just as a reminder, the find stretchy's name challenge is still on.