A/N: I was right, it seems that more people then usual were slightly upset about the last rant on crossovers, however I will not take back my opinion. The fact of the matter is yes, not all crossovers are bad. I just happen to not like them. I know that it all really depends on the author, because if a writer is good enough, they can even make a good "Female Naruto is really a Uchiha who is taken away from the village by a super powered OC at the age of three to train and become stronger then all other ninja in the world by the age of 12 incest Naru/Sasu" story (though for that it would have to be a really good author). Well, all of that said, on with the story.

Shadow Fox

The three sound genin sat in silence around the fire they had set up. They had stopped to set up camp, planning to travel to the tower and finish this part of the exam tomorrow. Both Kin and Zaku were nervous about starting a conversation, they were unsure about how Naruto was feeling, what he might have thought of them for trying to kill this person that he was so closely tied to. Kin had decided that this Sasuke character must have been Naruto's old teammate, since he was the teammate of the pink haired girl that Naruto had told her was his teammate. Naruto had just been in somewhat of a trance ever since they had left the fight, obviously still a bit shaken by the turn of events. After a long period of silence, Kin decided to take a chance and spoke up.

"Naruto…" She began, since no one was around to uncover his identity. Whatever she was planning to say was quickly cut short as Naruto spoke up.

"I am not mad at either of you." He said, practically reading their minds "You two were just following orders."

"Naruto, who was that guy?" Zaku asked.

"He and the pink haired girl were your old teammates, weren't they?" Kin added.

Naruto nodded to the two of them, letting them know that those were indeed his old teammates. Before the two of them could ask him anymore questions, he spoke up.

"I am sorry you two, but I need to some time alone to think about things." And with that, he went a short distance into the forest, leaving his teammates to think about thing themselves.

"Why do you think that guy had the cursed seal on him? If that is Orochimaru's way of giving a ninja more power, why would he give it to a leaf ninja?" Kin asked Zaku.

"I am not really sure why. I think that the cursed seal may also be a way for Orochimaru to hold a measure of control over a ninja, so he might have given it to that guy in an effort to gain some control over him. He may want him for some reason." Zaku answered.

"But if Orochimaru wants him so much, why would he give us a mission to kill him?"

"I think he told us to kill him so that while we attacked him, he would activate his cursed seal."

"What? But why would Orochimaru-sama do that? We could have been killed by that guy if Naruto hadn't interrupted. Why would he risk sacrificing us just to get some leaf ninja to activate his cursed seal?"

"I don't know Kin…I really just don't know."

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Naruto was sitting on a nearby rock looking out into the night sky. He was very confused and torn by this new turn of events.

'I can't be mad at Zaku and Kin. They were just following orders. And besides, I never told them that Sasuke was my old teammate, they couldn't have really know how this would affect me. Why did Orochimaru order them to kill Sasuke? Why does Orochimaru even care about the fate of a genin from Konoha? I don't know what to do anymore. I am a member of the sound village, but I don't want to hurt my old team. Why did it have to be like this?'

As Naruto was lost in thought, Kyo came out and gave a playful yip in an attempt to cheer Naruto up. Naruto gave a small laugh at the young fox that was playfully running around the rock on which he was seated. He soon fell back as he lay down on the rock to gaze up at the night sky. He gave a small sigh to himself as he spoke to his partner who had settled down for a nap on his chest..

"What am I going to do Kyo? I just don't know anymore."

"You'll think of something eventually. Just take things as they come for now, and whenever the time comes to make that choice, I am sure that you will make the right one."

"Thanks Kyo." Naruto replied as he let sleep overtake him.

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Naruto awoke the next morning and went to go and rejoin his teammates. The three of them continued on towards the tower to finish the second stage of the exam. They all arrived at the tower with little difficulty. They had managed to avoid any genin teams that might attack them and had reached the tower, where they opened their scrolls and were greeted by a random ninja that told them that they had passed, and that they had two days remaining until the third exam would start. They were given a room in the tower that they could stay in and they spent the next two days resting and waiting for all of the other teams to arrive. When they went to the arena at which the third stage of the exam would take place, they took note of all of the teams that had passed while the Sandaime gave a speech about the purpose of the chuunin exams and promoting goodwill between nations. Naruto noticed that five teams from Konoha had passed. All of the rookies that he had gone to the academy with, the team with the boy named Lee, and the team with that silver haired boy with glasses that they had attacked before the written exam. He also noticed sand team with the boy with red hair that had confronted his old teammates was here. He had a strange feeling that there was something different about this boy, something powerful. He shook off these thoughts as he looked up at the Sandaime Hokage, a man who he always considered like a grandfather. A small smile played at his lips upon seeing the old man, not that anyone notice under all of the bandages wrapped around his head.

'I really have missed the old man, him and Iruka-sensei. I hope that they weren't too sad over my departure. I really wish that I could go see them, but that is impossible now.'

After the speech was finished, they were told that they would have a preliminary round before the third exam to narrow the numbers down even further, and that anyone who wanted to quit could do so now. The boy known as Kabuto was the only one to drop out. The three sound genin went and sat with their sensei, waiting to see if one of them would be the next one to fight. They looked up at the large electronic board to see whose name would be chosen for the next fight.

Uchiha Sasuke V.S. Akadou Yoroi

The trio watched the fight, wondering how their former target was going to fare. Naruto was particularly interested as he watched Sasuke walk out, occasionally bringing a hand up to the area between his neck and shoulder. Naruto had wondered about that power that Sasuke had shown in the forest of death, it was something that he hadn't been capable of before he left, and the power just felt so dark and ominous. He figured that Sasuke's constant reaching up towards his neck might have something to do with it. When he got that power, he had been covered in marks, so he figure that the power might be a result of a seal of some sort, and based on his actions, it was probably located at his neck.

They watched as Sasuke initially struggled with his opponent. His opponent used a technique that managed to absorb his chakra. Sasuke was not fairing too well, and it seemed like he was holding back for some reason. He didn't seem to be fighting with everything that he could. His opponent seemed to only be able to use his technique at a close range, so it seemed like the smart thing to do would be fore Sasuke to attack from a distance with some of his long range jutsu. However, he was making no such move. Finally, Sasuke managed to catch a break and managed to deliver a hard kick to his opponent, sending him up into the air. Sasuke then followed behind him while Naruto watched with a sense of familiarity. It seemed that Sasuke had managed to copy the attack of that Lee kid, or at least, what he had seen of it. He watched as Sasuke then followed up with his own no version of the attack, calling it the Shishi Rendan. The combo had knocked Yoroi out and Sasuke was declared the winner as he was rushed of by Kakashi.

Everyone turned their attention back to the electronic board to see who the next contestants would be. It began to shuffle through the names again until it once again chose two more names.

Yamanaka Ino V.S. Hyuuga Neji

"Damn it" The complaints of a loud blonde girl carried over the arena as Ino let everyone know how she felt about having to go up against last years number one rookie. The white eyed Hyuuga just scoffed at having to fight such a weak opponent.

Ino was terrified. There was no way that she could beat this guy. The only jutsu she could use to win the match was the shintensin, and the odds of her actually hitting him with that were slim to none, and she couldn't trap him with her hair because she had already cut it off. To put it simply, she was screwed.

Shikamaru gave a sigh at his teammate's predicament as he decided to give his teammate some encouraging words.

"Don't die."

The fight was rather one sided and couldn't have lasted much more than 3 minutes. Neji had beaten Ino with little effort at all. No one was really surprised at the outcome, so they just turned to look up at the board again to see who would be in the next fight.

Temari V.S. TenTen

The fight was mildly interesting to watch, however the weapons girl, TenTen, didn't have a chance. It wasn't that she was bad, but that she was paired up against the one opponent who perfectly opposed her style. For every weapon thrown, a single wave of her fan would create a gust of wind that blow all of the weapons away. TenTen had fought well, but the match just wasn't in her favor and she eventually wound up defeated. Everyone turned to the board yet again to see who would be in the next match.

Akimichi Chouji V.S. Kankuro

At first it seemed like the large boy had the advantage as he used his multi-size techniques to attack Kankuro. Most people thought that the Chouji would easily win this match with the lack of significant action on behalf of the cloaked sand genin. They were all proven wrong when it turned out that the figure that Chouji had spent all of his time attacking was nothing more than a puppet. Through the use of trickery with his puppet, Kankuro had managed to wear down Chouji and drain his chakra as he repeatedly used multi-size jutsus to attack the puppet. Eventually, the puppet had managed to get behind Chouji and lock him in its grip. Soon after that, Chouji was forced to give up and Kankuro was declared the winner. Everyone turned to see who would be next.

Aburame Shino V.S. Tsurugu Misumi

A fairly uneventful fight. Misumi was constantly fooled by the use of Shino's bug clones and soon found herself drained of Chakra due to the Chakra leeching bugs of Shino's. everyone looked to see who would be fighting next.

Haruno Sakura V.S. Tsuchi Kin

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A/N: Ok, yeah, this chapter kind of sucks, but it is a simple filler chapter mostly. It was basically to get through all of the fairly unimportant fights and those that are not changed from the anime. I don't feel like retyping the fights from the anime since you should already know them, and the unimportant fights are just that, unimportant. The more important fights coming up I will spend more time on to make them good. So no complaining too much about this chapter.

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Today's rant…some short rants about different annoying fic types.

First off, we have the female Naruto fic, the spawn of the people who want to pair Naruto with a boy, but don't want to write a yaoi because they don't like yaoi. Therefore they decide that the whole issue can be avoided by making Naruto a girl. This obviously makes sense because he has his sexy-jutsu which makes a naked girl, so it is only logical that there be fics were they turn him into a girl. This logic is completely idiotic and turning him into a girl is completely useless, unnecessary and stupid. In addition, people can't think up a name for female Naruto, so about 3/4 of them call him Naruko. Come on people, try a bit more originality. If you really want to pair Naruto with a boy so badly, then go ahead and write a yaoi (not a support of flooding the site with even more yaoi.), but trying to avoid actually writing a yaoi by turning Naruto into a girl is just plain stupid.

Next, why the hell do we have so many idiotic 12-13 year old fangirls writing their crappy sleepover/truth or dare fics. For the love of all things holy I am sick of looking through the new stories and updates, only to find a bunch of stories about the kunoichi having a sleepover that the boys decide to crash, or the Naruto gang playing a game of truth or dare. And people wonder why I have so much against fangirls. If you are going to write a story, try to think up something with a plot and action, romance, or both, not a crappy sleepover story.

Next, we have the crack fics. I seriously wonder what the hell is wrong with half of these people as I read what their stories are about. Why in hell do we need stories about Sasuke being turned into a cat, or TenTen being a stripper or A crazy stalker following Itachi around, or making Itachi smile by having Sasori sing the peanut butter jelly time song (I really, really hate that song, I don't know why people think it is such a great video to watch). These fics are all incredibly stupid and I don't know why people keep writing them (all of these are actual summaries out there now.) but it really needs to stop.

And lastly, we have the excessive character bashing fics. Now don't get me wrong, I kind of like having mild character bashing (like what I do with Hinata), but when you base your whole fic around character bashing, then it just becomes stupid. I don't always like Sakura, but when I read a story out there where everyone tells her to shut up or that they hate her every time she speaks and hit her in the face constantly (or the one story where the author decided that he hated her so much that she should be paired with a cow), I think more about how much I now hate the author then how much I dislike Sakura. Mild character bashing with a reason, and that ties in with the plot is fine, but those stories are just completely idiotic.

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Well, that was a pretty long rant. Till next time, hopefully with a better chapter.