A/N: 1000 favourites. Ohmygod. Nooooooo way. I can't cope. Just so you know, upon hitting that mark, I might have cried a teensy bit.

Um, thank you so much. I don't even know what to say. It's an amazing feeling.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Here comes a triple chapter update. Are you ready?

Many thanks to my beta, Ekusukallybaa.

Uzumaki

Chapter 14

The morning passed with little event, the three of them leaving quietly after stretching and collecting their things. The hall was cold and uncomfortable compared to the huddle of blankets beside the radiator. A man with a persistent cough explained the rules in a drawling monotone, before there was a loud series of beeps, and then two names.

"Uzumaki Naruto," he said, "versus Hyuuga Neji."

Naruto blinked. "Eh? Who?"

Kakashi frowned beneath his mask. 'Hyuuga Neji… one of Gai's students. Top graduating rookie of last year. Naruto may struggle.'

"Hyuuga," Satsuki muttered to herself.

"Heheh!" Naruto grinned. "This should be no problem!"

"A word of advice," Kakashi said. "The Hyuuga rely on close combat, so don't get caught too close."

Naruto's expression faltered for a moment. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, Kakashi-sensei."

'Naruto's going to regret this…'

"If you lose here, you're never going to be on my level," Satsuki said, eyeing Naruto cockily out of the corner of her eye.

"Hmph-! Just you wait, okay?! I'm gonna beat your ass one day!"

"But not now," Kakashi added, putting an encouraging hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Good luck, Naruto," Sakura said.

Naruto smiled, a blush on his cheeks. "Sakura-chan!"

He turned to the crowd, holding onto the railing and leaning over to look for whoever was heading down before spotting a boy with long hair and eyes milky white. "Eh- is that him?"

Satsuki frowned. "Those eyes…"

"Almost as scary as yours, Satsuki," Naruto said. Satsuki flicked him in the side of the head.

"Just shut up and get down there before you get disqualified."

"Yeah, yeah," Naruto muttered, halting himself over the railing and landing with a thud on his feet. The boy was in the centre of the arena, weight on one leg with his arms folded.

Satsuki scowled. 'He's not taking it seriously at all… but this guy looks seriously out of his league. Especially with a bloodline. Naruto's going to have to be careful-'

"Oi! White eyes! What're you standing around for?! Get on with it!"

'-never mind.'

The boy snorted. "The proctor hasn't initiated the match yet," he said. "Well, they do say the empty can rattles the most."

Naruto blinked. "Wait, what?"

Neji opened his eyes and smirked. "What I mean is, losers like you who talk big are the ones who have the least to offer. In other words, you're a weakling." He finally moved his arms and legs from that pose, shifting them into a strange one with palms facing forward. "I'll be done with you in a matter of seconds."

Naruto stared for a moment, jaw gaping, and his expression switching from pure indignation to unbridled anger. His fists clenched, and he snapped his gaze to the proctor.

"Get on with the announcing!" Naruto said, cracking his knuckles. "I've gotta teach this prick a lesson!"

The proctor looked at them. "Ehem. Yes…"

Naruto pushed back his shoulders and put a leg forward.

"Begin."

He launched himself forward, dust gusting past his feet.

"Get here, you bastard-!" Naruto yelled, cocking back a fist.

"As you wish."

With a smirk, Neji pushed aside Naruto's punch by the wrist and slammed a palm into his exposed shoulder, sending Naruto careening backwards off balance. Ducking beneath Naruto's arms, he drew back another arm to push a chakra-infused palm into Naruto's gut.

Naruto wretched, eyes straining and mouth tasting distinctly of blood as he fell forward.

Neji pulled back and drew his leg up before slamming it down onto Naruto's back. The crack, which Naruto identified as a rib, was audible.

He looked up to see Neji through a blurry double-vision, standing back and admiring his handiwork.

"As I said. A matter of seconds." Neji turned to the proctor, sounding bored. "May it end here?"

"Dammit. You prick…"

Naruto pushed himself up, leaning on his legs before staggering to both legs. His rib left a stinging, sharp pain in his chest.

"Still standing," Neji said, tone either speculative or interested.

Naruto winced. 'Damn, that was stupid. Kakashi-sensei told me not to go for close-combat, and I still ran in straight for it. I'm paying for it now, though… he pissed me off too easily.'

"You know, you remind me of my cousin Hinata," he said. "Wasn't she in your graduating class?"

"Huh? Hinata?" Naruto said, blinking. "What about her?"

"Nothing," he said. "She was just a failure that refused to accept her fate. Learn from her example, and stay down. It's easier that way."

Without a moment more to spare, Neji sprinted in, hands outstretched, and Naruto quickly threw himself to the side, his reaction slowed somewhat by the sting of pain in his chest. The fluorescent blue of Neji's palm rushed from his left, and he jumped backwards, barely dodging a hit as he put some considerable distance between the two of them. Naruto frowned.

'His hands… he's not hitting me hard, but those hits… there's something special about it. It must be his bloodline… I've gotta stay out of the way of that.'

"Hinata was always nice to me," Naruto said. "And she was never a failure! I hate people like you - people who are always trying to tell me what I can and can't do! I can see it in the way you look at me!"

Naruto gritted his teeth, firming his stance and making a handsign.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Neji frowned at the clones encircling him. "Kage Bunshin?"

With a cacophony of battle cries, the clones converged on Neji.

The boy reacted immediately, his body curling like a leaf at the edges to move to the left. He bent past the assault of one clone, grabbing him by the arm and spinning his momentum into another. One by one, he finished off the clones, each movement calculated perfectly, before at the perfect moment, his surroundings enshrouded in the smoke of dispelled clones-

"Take this!"

-Naruto and a couple of his clones threw a barrage of kunai at Neji's back.

As the smoke cleared, his heart sank.

On each finger lay a kunai, all caught cleanly through the ring at their bases. Neji gave him a look that made his blood boil.

"A shame," he said.

Naruto clenched his fists, gritting his teeth.

Sakura turned to Kakashi. "How did Neji see all of those so perfectly? There was smoke, and he was facing the other way!"

"The Byakugan," Kakashi said. "That boys dojutsu allows him almost 360 degree vision. There's no possibility of sneak attacks."

"Almost," Satsuki said. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the smile that twitched at the edge of her lips. "Naruto can do it."

"As you can see," Neji smirked, "I have the perfect vision. There's no way you can get an attack past me."

'Man… this guy… just who the hell does he think he is?!'

"Cocky bastards like you just piss me off…!" Naruto yelled, feeling a brief stirring in his stomach like ice. He felt his blood like fire and ice altogether and the disgusting lick of Orochimaru's chakra welling in his gut.

'The Kyuubi's power doesn't compare to mine,' Orochimaru drawled, deep in the recesses of his mind. 'And when they come together...'

Naruto bit his lip, clenching his fists and keeping his gaze firmly locked on Neji.

'I'll use an inch of this power,' Naruto thought. 'Just this once… to teach this bastard a lesson.'

Naruto advanced on Neji with a speed the Hyuuga hadn't seen once in this whole fight.

Neji pulled to his right, stunned by the single-second turn around, but Naruto caught him out by changing his direction and roundhousing him in his spin.

The boy was flung back, catching his balance after the blow. Naruto intercepted.

Naruto, who had at some point become three - grabbed him by his collar and kneed him in the jaw, the other kicking him by his gut straight into the air - and the third, at a speed he'd hardly seen, jumped into the air, grabbed him by his hair, and slammed him front-first into the ground.

There was the scraping of debris and the settling of dust, before a coughing filled the arena. Neji, arms trembling, was pulling himself up from the mess of cracked tiles and dust, bleeding from the mouth with a scowl.

The blond grinned, breathing heavily. He could feel the last bits of that cursed chakra flitering away.

"You haven't won yet," Neji hissed, spitting blood, before launching himself up and dispelling the clone on his back in the blink of an eye.

Naruto's rib troubled him for one vital moment, and he was locked into Neji's hits.

'I didn't even see him-!'

Naruto didn't have to see the boy to feel his fingers press into point after point after point until it was countless pains all over his body that he couldn't see nor counter.

Satsuki rushed to the railing.

"What the hell is going on, Kakashi?"

"The sixty four palms," Kakashi said, eyes wide. "A main branch only technique…"

Sakura's expression turned worried. "Sixty four palms? What's that?"

"A technique that can cut off all chakra. And if this kid hits the one above the heart…"

Kakashi's expression hardened.

"Naruto could die."

Sakura gasped, clasping her hands to her mouth.

"Sixty four palms!"

The final hit launched Naruto backwards with a mighty buzzing smack. His landing was quiet, then marred with loud, wet coughing.

Neji's hands were red, perhaps with Naruto's blood or his own; his chin was stained too, and he was breathing heavily, his stance wobbling. His smirk remained.

"You see," he said, "Fate is an unchangeable thing. There's no possibility of someone like you changing it… you are a failure, as my cousin Hinata is… and I am a prodigy, as that Uchiha girl is. Those who are born to succeed… succeed."

Naruto's arms trembled with the effort to push himself up, before his elbows gave in and he hit the floor again with a grunt.

Satsuki gritted her teeth.

"Is Naruto going to lose?" Sakura said. "If he doesn't give up now… and that other guy tries to finish him off, then…!"

Kakashi didn't respond, and Satsuki clenched her hands on the metal of the railing, before calling out.

"Oi."

Naruto turned his head to look at Satsuki, and she pinned him with a glare.

"Pick up your game, you loser!"

The coughing turned into a wretching for a moment, before Naruto cleared his throat. There was a scraping noise, as Naruto pulled his knee to his chest, putting his weight on his right leg. It collapsed from beneath him, sending him falling to the floor again. His body shook from exhaustion.

"I don't need you telling me what to do, Satsuki," Naruto said, voice hoarse. "So keep quiet and let me finish this…!"

He could feel the cracked rib pushing at his flesh.

'My chakra…'

His eyes widened.

'I can't… my chakra is…'

Neji laughed breathlessly. "I disabled your tenketsu," he said. "You won't be able to summon any chakra at all."

Naruto glared defiantly, desperately trying to summon up more-

'Do you require my power?'

The tone made Naruto sick, and for a moment, he thought of the awesome speed and power leant by the tiniest fraction of that chakra, until he remembered the flickers of fear in Sakura's eyes.

"No," he whispered. "I don't want any more of that disgusting power of yours…"

Neji's tone was smug.

"Won't you stand down?"

There was a heavy silence.

"If we clash again, I will win," Neji said again.

Naruto gritted his teeth, turning his head to look up at the Hyuuga. The boy stepped towards Naruto, the footsteps echoing. There was an exhaustion in his posture; he was just as tired as Naruto.

"You are just so full of shit," Naruto bit out, his body screaming with each movement he tried to make. "What the hell would you know about fate?"

Neji's stare hardened. "And what would you know about me, Uzumaki Naruto?"

Naruto chuckled.

"Quite frankly, absolutely jack shit."

His body trembled with his efforts to move.

"But I know what it's like to be a loser. I worked my ass off… every single day… and someone like you comes up and tells me that it's my fate to never succeed?"

Naruto felt his wrists wobbling as he tried to push himself upwards.

"No matter how long I train, no matter how much I try, I can never be anything at all?"

Neji didn't respond, and Naruto felt himself tense with frustration. "Hinata always worked hard too! Prodigies like you get a nice easy shortcut… even if Hinata is a loser, I respect her!"

His wrists collapsed beneath him, and he cried out with the pain. Naruto could feel Neji's piteous gaze on him, and it pained him more than any wound. He gritted his teeth.

"Geniuses like you will never know how… how humiliating it is to be this way! And the courage it takes to stand up again…!"

The Hyuuga was silent for a moment.

"But nothing changes," he murmured.

Neji's tone rose up a notch.

"No matter how noble you think yourself, the reality remains the same!"

Naruto scowled.

"Relying on being a genius might get you this far, but if you keep leaving it all to fate, you'll never improve. Take credit for what you've done… take credit for your mistakes… and work hard…! I've lived by that…!"

"And yet you're grovelling at my feet. What does that say to you?"

Naruto looked up at him with eyes defiant.

"I may be a loser, but I'm not a coward who blames it all on fate. Hinata may not be as good as you, but she is sure as hell trying!"

"That's what you don't get," Neji snapped. "Trying just isn't good enough!"

Naruto's lip twitched.

"I've had enough shit from people like you," Naruto hissed, and drew out a kunai from under his chest with a painful yank of his arm, and plunged it down.

"So just cut it out!"

The blade went straight through Neji's foot and into the floor.

The boy roared with the pain, lurching down to grab Naruto. He rolled painfully away from Neji's grab, pulling at the boy's ankle and sending him crashing down to the ground. The blade awkwardly came out of the floor at an angle and twisted in the wound.

Neji's head slammed down not a foot away from his.

With not a moment to spare, the blond swung back his right fist and slugged him in the jaw, pushing off the ground with a creak of his bones and leaning over Neji to hold him by the collar.

His breathing was heavy, and Neji was shaking from the pain and exhaustion. Naruto smiled through his pained gasps.

"I won't give up," he said, "and I won't go back on my word. That's my ninja way. So stop asking, asshole."

There was a deafening silence, Sakura's hand over her mouth, Satsuki wide-eyed, and then-

"Uzumaki Naruto wins."

A/N: Thanks for being great readers.