Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, Orochimaru wouldn't have bothered going after Sasuke and he would have just kidnapped a few baby Uchiha's before the Uchiha Massacre.

Up in the stands Chizuru was confused when the Announcer stated that the next match would be between Rei and Lee. Wanting to get some answers, Chizuru turned to her left and looked at Jiraiya who was in the row behind her. After politely coughing to get Jiraiya's attention, Chizuru politely said, "Lord Jiraiya, Why is my cousin fighting again when there are four other chunin hopefuls that have not yet fought today?"

Jiraiya, who had a secret fatherly soft-spot for preteens, gave Chizuru an honest smile and started to explain what was going on. "You see Chizuru the tournament is fought in rounds. If you were to look at the matches on a piece of paper you would see that the four matches we just watched are on lower level then Naruto's starting match. What's done in this case is the matches on the lower tier are fought first and then the next round starts."

Chizuru nodded her head and then politely said, "Thank you Lord Jiraiya for explaining that to me."

Upon seeing Chizuru bow Jiraiya let out a small chuckle and he said, "Don't worry about it Chizuru. If there's anything else that I can help you understand when you're watching the tournament just let me know." Jiraiya then turned his attention back to the area where he just barely got to see Lee go flying into the stadium wall due to Rei using a variant of the 1000 years of pain with her naginata. There were only two things that Jiraiya knew of that would make Rei use a technique like THAT on a guy. Either Lee had attempted to get Rei to go out with him and hadn't gotten a clue. Or Lee had said something to the effect that he wouldn't fight his hardest due to her being a girl and thus something to be treated with delicacy. Since Jiraiya hadn't seen any sign of Reiton he was assuming that it was option number two.

The sight of Lee imbedding into the concrete wall made Jiraiya want to go down to where Gai was sitting and strangle the fitness fool. Every genin with over a year's worth of experience should automatically know that ALL opposing ninjas are to be treated as being at LEAST as skilled as the genin themselves. That Lee had made such a rookie mistake and in front of the dignitaries was completely inexcusable on Gai's part.

After the proctor called the match with Rei as the winner, Jiraiya glared at the unconscious Lee until the medics carried him off of the field. The reason Jiraiya was glaring was because in his mind Lee represented all that was wrong in the majority of the ninjas that the academy was churning out in the past few years. In Jiraiya's mind the academy wasn't training the kids in the mentality one needed to be a great ninja. Lee had a great drive to become a great ninja even with his disability and Jiraiya respected that. However, Jiraiya felt it was the academy's fault for not teaching Lee about the need to be silent. Also, and Jiraiya grumbled as he thought about it, Lee's academy teacher should have pointed Lee in the direction of making traps and kenjtsu to diversify his abilities as a ninja.

The next scheduled match was supposed to be between Temari and Gaara. Unfortunately for the fight eager crowd, Temari had immediately forfeited her match. Therefore the announcer moved on to the next scheduled match. "Alright then folks; this next match is between Naruto Uzumaki and Tenten Shuranui. Miss. Shuranui happens to have the best eye among all Konoha genin when it comes to throwing weapons. In fact, there are rumors that she once used a senbon needle to pin a fly through its wings at 50 yards. For her opponent Miss Shuranui will have to face Naruto Uzumaki. Young Naruto is an orphan whose file is heavily classified for a genin. Which one of these two fine young genin will be advancing to the next round? Procter, you may start the match!"

Down in the arena Naruto gave Tenten a small head nod of respect. As he brought his head up from the bow Naruto said, "I hope you don't mind Miss Shuranui, but I won't be going easy on you for this fight." This statement of Naruto's caused a flicker of a smile to cross Tenten's face. She had expected that Naruto would most likely fight her all out. With a girlfriend like that Rei girl who apparently had zero tolerance for being treated like she couldn't fight a serious battle because she was a girl Tenten figured that any macho attitudes that Naruto may have possibly had were driven from him already.

Still, Tenten was happy that Naruto had said what he said just the same. All too often in her training Tenten had seen Gai or Lee unconsciously lighten the severity of their attacks and that annoyed her. Just because women tended to be a little weaker then men physically does not mean that a guy should automatically hold back when fighting a girl. As far as Tenten was concerned, the only reason why an opponent should hold back on her was if that person was either trying to teach her or if that person was an opponent trying to test her limits.

When Naruto and Tenten heard the proctor call the start of the match they both leaped backwards. Since he knew that Tenten was a ranged fighter, Naruto had decided to start off the match on a more defensive stance. A text book solution to the situation Naruto was in would have called for Naruto to quickly charge at Tenten closing the gap before she could use her weapons. However, Naruto had long ago thrown out that particular book and substituted his own. The Ranseigan would be able to give him enough of an advantage so he could avoid or deflect any of Tenten's projectiles. This would give Naruto the twofold advantage of being able to spot a good opening and allow both him and Tenten to show the judges that they deserved to be Chunin.

Tenten had immediately decided to start her assault on Naruto by throwing a rapid stream of kunai at him. She was throwing those kunai at such rapid speeds that the proctor actually blinked his eyes to make sure that Tenten wasn't using a genjutsu. However, Naruto calmly used Joshua and Gideon to calmly deflect each and every kunai that Tenten sent towards him.

While that level of skill on Naruto's part was surprising to Tenten she didn't let that discourage her. After all, Tenten had known in advance that she might have to face shinobi that could deflect her normal kunai. As she then jumped high into the air, Tenten called out to Naruto, "I'm impressed Naruto that you could deflect that attack. Let's see how you do against this one!" With that said Tenten whipped out a small summoning scroll and caused a small cloud of smoke to appear around her.

Naruto carefully looked up at the smoke cloud in puzzlement as if he was trying to discern what Tenten was trying to do. All of a sudden dozens of Senbon needles started to rain down on the field from the cloud that Tenten was in. Quickly making a set of handsigns Naruto called out, "Underworld Guardian Spikes!" However, Naruto's hair wasn't able to grow fast enough to form a shield of protection and he ended up getting perforated with the Senbon needles.

Just as she was coming out of her smoke cloud, Tenten saw Naruto fall to ground bleeding profusely from her attack. This sight sent a cold chill down Tenten's spine. She had never meant for something like this to happen! Her attack was only supposed to get pass Naruto's defenses and soften him up so she could then fight him hand to hand. That way she could advance and none of her fellow leaf ninjas got seriously hurt. During the preliminaries she had turned her opponent into a pincushion, but she had done it in such a way that he would be back up to full status in less then a month. No one was supposed to die in this match!

Tenten landed on her feet and look at where Naruto's body laid wishing that she could have rewind the time back just those few seconds. If she hadn't used the smoke to hide her attack, then she could have aimed more carefully at where Naruto had been. If she had done that, she could have made sure to hit Naruto's pressure points. Now, because of her arrogance, she would have to go up to that competitor's box and face Naruto's girlfriend. How was she supposed to go tell a fellow Leaf Ninja that she had killed the girl's boyfriend over something as stupid as a title?

Just as Tenten was about to turn to the proctor so she could be grimly told that she would be advancing to the next round, she felt cold steel touch the back of her neck. Tenten was so startled by the fact that a blade was against her neck that she didn't have time to react before a second blade was pressed against her belly. To Tenten's completely shocked mind she heard Naruto's voice saying, "Call the match Tenten."

There was only one thing that Tenten's shocked mind could at that point. In a trembling voice Tenten said, "I, Tenten Shuranui, forfeit the match." The proctor nodded his head and then officially stated that Naruto was the winner of the match by forfeit.

Once the announcement was official, Tenten felt Naruto withdraw his blades. Tenten then turned to look at where she had thought that Naruto had lain dead and was surprised to see a puddle of mud. She then heard Naruto, who had walked up next to her, calmly said, "When you were in the smoke I made an earth clone and replaced myself underground with the clone. All of the blood that you saw was due to the Shadow Clone Blood Justs, a family technique from my mother's clan."

After saying that, Naruto calmly walked towards the exit leaving a staring Tenten behind him. Looking at Naruto's receding figure Tenten could only stare in amazement. While she had known there would be some strong competition in the exams that could defeat her, she had never seriously considered that the competition would be in the form of younger leaf ninja. Still, Tenten could honestly say that she didn't truly mind being beaten by Naruto. He had treated her seriously as a ninja since the start of the match and had beaten her because he had the better plan.

There was a thirty minute break after Choji won his match against Kiba by growing into a giant and holding Kiba and Akamaru by the scruffs of their necks. During the break Naruto and Rei could be found in the otherwise empty contestant's box comfortably sitting next to each other on the floor. Rei currently had her eyes closed and her head was resting on Naruto's shoulder. She then gave Naruto's hand a little squeeze and she said with a little trepidation in her voice, "I'm scared Naruto. I honestly don't know if I'm strong enough to face Gaara."

Gently running his free hand through her hair, Naruto softly said, "It's alright to be scared Rei. Gaara's abilities scare me as well. However, I have full faith in you Rei that you can handle your next match. With your bloodline, your knowledge of seals, and your information on Jinchurriki I know that you are the worst opponent for Gaara to face besides a Kage. Just remember that you can always leave the match if you feel too uncomfortable with how things are going."

These words brought a small smile to Rei's face and she cuddled a little closer to Naruto. In a now calm voice Rei said, "I don't know what's with me today Naruto. First I jump down on that Lee kid because of what he said and now I was just nearly scared senseless because of my opponent."

Naruto just calmly nuzzled Rei's ear and reassuringly said, "Everything is alright Rei. I know that you normally keep a strong control over your emotions and to be honest that's one of the many things that I like about you. However, it's alright for you to have your emotions out for everyone to see once and awhile. Lee simply got under your skin because you don't like the idea of weak fangirl ninjas and he was unintentionally, or at least I think it was unintentionally, implying that you were in that group."

"As for your fear of Gaara, that's understandable as well Rei. He's shown himself to be very ruthless against his opponents so far and he is very powerful. The fact that it's likely that Gaara is a Jinchurriki only complicates the problem for you Rei. Your experiences with Jinchurriki so far have been reading your family chronicles and dealing with me. It's only natural that you would feel nervous before going into battle with a foe that you know is very powerful. Only a fool would go into battle against a person like Gaara and not be at least a little nervous."

Once Naruto stopped talking the young couple just enjoyed the comfortable silence between them. Rei in particular was enjoying the soothing aspect of the tender moment they were in. She felt all of her worries wash away from her and was thankful that she had such a wonderful boyfriend. Unlike what most of the girls' in her age group dreamed about when they imagined a perfect boyfriend, Naruto was not some shining knight on a white horse. Naruto also didn't just lavish her with praise about how she looked or go out of his way to give her fancy romantic dates and gifts.

Rei knew that most of those girls would be shocked and possibly outraged that Naruto's gifts had mostly consisted of uncommon, but still beautiful, wild flowers and a few whittled figurines that Naruto had made. Naruto's idea of a romantic evening was a long walk through the woods and then watching the stars from the Hokage Monument. The idea of going out to a fancy restaurant and then going to the best night clubs in the village probably never crossed Naruto's mind. As for comments about her looks, Naruto would usually just give her an appreciative glance once maybe twice during their dates and he would tell her that she looked great for the evening.

However to Rei, Naruto's romantic ideas were perfect. Those flowers and hand made wooden statues meant more to her then a string of pearls casually bought ever could. Rei had never really cared too much about how she looked and while she was happy that Naruto liked how she looked, she preferred that fact that Naruto was more concerned about her as a person instead of what she looked like. Their relationship was more like an old couple that had been around for a long time then a pair of teens who had been together for a little less then a month. Rei, unlike most of the girls in her age group, preferred this kind of a relationship over the fast pace whirlwind romance that was written about in novels which quickly burnt out in real life.

With the break over, the announcer called out as Rei and Gaara entered the arena, "We have now arrived at the Semi-finals everyone! In this match the elegant Rei Higurashi from Konoha will be facing off against the ruthless Gaara of the Desert from Suna. Will Rei be able to avenge her teammate's defeat or will Gaara plow through Rei on his way to the finals? Let's find out, Procter you can start the match."

Down in the area, Gaara was starting to grin like a maniac. In a slightly sadistic voice he said just loud enough for Rei to hear, "You're the key. With your pain, with your suffering, HE will be drawn out. The one by whose death I will prove my existence once and for ALL!" With that said, Gaara sent his sand rushing out towards Rei at break neck speed completely ignoring the fact that the match hadn't been officially called yet.

For her part Rei had reacted instantly as soon as Gaara started to talk by starting to move backwards. The instant she saw Gaara start to attack without waiting for the proctor Rei started to fear for her life. It was obvious to Rei that Gaara wanted to fight Naruto and he didn't care what he did to draw Naruto out into the field. Rei knew that she was no longer in a tournament; she was right in the middle of a war zone.

As the air rapidly filled with Gaara's ever increasing killing intent, Rei quickly thought about what she should do to make it out of this match. With her knowledge of seals there was the chance that she could create a seal that could calm Gaara down enough that she could make it through the match. However, making such a seal would take several seconds of concentration and those were seconds that Gaara obviously wasn't about to give her. Luckily for Rei, she had a way to get those precious seconds.

While nimbly dodging a pillar of Gaara's sand, Rei bit her thumb and called out in mid-jump, "Summoning Jutsu!" Instantly a cloud of smoke formed around Rei and she then appeared out of the smoke cloud riding on the back of a raven. As she clung to the raven's back using her chakra to anchor herself to the bird, Rei said, "Please keep away from our foe below us. I need time to create a seal to stop this madness before it goes too far." The raven Rei was riding simply nodded its head and took to the skies.

Down in the arena, Gaara was loosing his last holds on his sanity. His mother had told him about the one she wanted him to kill and she had told him that this person had a great deal of hidden power. Gaara had observed the one called Naruto who his mother was talking about. That boy's actions had showed Gaara that Naruto had some form of attachment to his current opponent. Thanks to his mother, Gaara knew that by hurting Rei he would be able to draw Naruto out.

Up in the sky Rei was lying on her back furiously working on a seal to stop Gaara. For ink, Rei had chosen to use her own blood that she had saturated with her chakra. This was done so that her seal would be extra powerful due to her bloodline. Finishing up on the last stroke of the needed Kanji, Rei then swung around so that she was sitting on her raven's shoulders. Rei then shouted out to her summoned ride, "The seal is complete! I now need you to get as close to Gaara as you can so that I can throw this seal at him."

The raven's only response was to sharply bank to the right towards Gaara. As the raven took her closer towards Gaara Rei felt her fear start to rise up in her. Part of her couldn't believe that she was doing something as reckless as flying strait towards an enraged Jinchurriki. Her family may have a history of trying to do as much as they could to help the poor souls that were cursed to become Jinchurriki, but even then the Higurashi knew that facing an enraged Jinchurriki head on was pretty stupid.

However, Rei knew that she needed to get in close enough so that she could send the seal at Gaara and make sure that he didn't dodge it. Her eye carefully trained on Gaara as she was carried through the air, Rei was watching for precisely the moment to throw the seal. Finally she spotted her opening and she smirked as she threw the seal at Gaara and order her summons to pull up. Thanks to excess chakra that was infused in the paper, the seal cut through the air and landed on Gaara's face.

Turning her head back to look at her handy work, all the color in Rei's face drained in an instant. Instead of seeing Gaara's sand falling to the ground and Gaara knocked unconscious like she was expecting, Rei saw something terrifying. The sand that Garra used was starting to coalesce on Gaara in the shape of the one tailed demon while brown lighting started to shoot out from around the seal Rei had created. For some reason, Rei's seal was apparently increasing Gaara's access to his biju instead of decreasing it and knocking him out.

Suddenly Rei remembered an old lesson on seals that her grandfather had told her once. "Oh no," Rei whispered to herself as she looked down at Gaara. "Don't tell me that the seal holding back the biju is an odd number seal." She had never even considered the possibility that Gaara's seal was an odd number seal because Rei knew that no person in their right mind would use such a seal on a living creature. It was a basic principal of seal making: odd for inanimate objects and even for living beings. Using an even number seal on an inanimate object or using an odd number seal on a living being would just cause the seal to degrade and mutate unpredictably.

Since a Jinchurriki sacrifice can only be a few days old at max for even the weakest demon, Gaara's seal had to have been degrading and mutating for years. Rei knew that it was possible to use an even number seal on a person who had an odd number seal in order to stop the effects of the odd number seal. However, the seal she had used wasn't that sort of seal and even if her seal was it was inadvisable to mess with a seal that was in such a state of decay.

There was only one thing that Rei could think of doing as she watched Gaara's demonic transformation. Gaara was now entirely covered in his demonic sand and his new demonic form was rapidly growing by the second. Rei cupped her hands to her mouth and screamed out at the top of her lungs, "EVERYONE LEAVE THE STATIUM NOW!"

All over the stadium everyone had been feeling the effects of Gaara's massive killing intent. Most of those civilians and ninjas from Konoha who could remember the Kyuubi's attack 14 years ago had started to become paralyzed with fear. The all knew that it was the power of a biju that they were feeling and they were terrified. Kyuubi's assault on the village had cost Konoha over a third of the ninja core along with the Yondaime. None of them wanted to even try to imagine what another demonic assault in the middle of the village would cost them.

As soon as Rei shouted out her warning, pandemonium broke loose in the stands. The civilians started to run towards the exits screaming their heads off. Many of the genin, at least those who weren't running towards the exits as fast as the civilians, were hurriedly helping those civilians who were too scared to move escape. The higher level ninjas, many of who had previous experience with handling demonic killing intent, started to unleash a barrage of jutsus. They had nearly lost their home once before to a biju, they would not allow their home to be lost this time.

Up in the Kage stand Sarutobi turned to look at the Kazekage and Sarutobi saw the Kazekage's fear. In a scathing voice Sarutobi said, "You knew something like this could happen didn't you Kazekage."

The Kazekage turned to Sarutobi and shot back, "Of course I knew that something like this would happen you old fool. It's happen twice already before! However, if your stupid little genin hadn't done whatever the hell it was she did then this wouldn't have happened to my weapon for another 3 to 4 years! Besides, I would have killed the thing before it gotten to this point. Now instead of getting S rank missions out of my weapon I have to make another one."

It took all of Sarutobi's strength of will not to puke or kill his fellow Kage. As a father and as a human being Sarutobi couldn't believe that the Kazekage could talk like that about his own flesh and blood. It was one thing to create a Jinchurriki like Minato did with Naruto in order to keep a demon from harming people. However, the Kazekage had just admitted that he had turned his own son into a Jinchurriki so he could have a money making weapon.

Putting his companion's poor parenting skills to the side for the moment, Sarutobi thought about what to do to defend Konoha. In all honesty he couldn't really think of anything that he could do that would be useful. The only thing that he could think to do at the moment was to pray and hope that a solution would present itself.

Naruto looked out from the contestant box at growing Shukaku and cursed at himself. He had been so busy observing Rei with his remote viewing ability to make sure that she wasn't hurt that he hadn't used his prescience abilities to gain an early warning that this would happen. If he had thought ahead and used his prescience abilities then he could have stepped in and warn Rei not to use the seal. In an indirect way, this demonic attack was his fault.

Removing his sunglasses from his face, Naruto took a second to stare at the glasses. Why did he really have those sunglasses in the first place? Was it really so he could surprise people when he used the Ranseigan or was it something else? Could it be that he was subconsciously afraid of what other people thought about his abilities and him? Had he been hiding his true abilities out of fear that people would reject him?

Naruto then crushed his sunglasses with a single hand and he activated his Ranseigan. No more would he hide his abilities from everyone but those closest to him. If those around him rejected him because of his abilities oh well; he had friends, family, and a love now. He would fight with all his might to protect those people who were so precious to him and he would never stop and worry if someone else besides those people saw his abilities.

In a calm voice Naruto called out, "Releasing binding seal level to level 8." Instantly Naruto felt the immense power that his seals were holding back start to pump through his being. A small light pink manifestation of chakra started to emanate from Naruto while at the same time his jacket came unzipped and the ends of it started to wave around as if in a breeze.

Naruto confidently stepped out of the contestants' box and then majestically jumped up onto the roof of the box. Everyone who was still in the stadium paused for a moment and they turn and looked at Naruto. Many of them were wondering about the strange pink aura that was emanating from Naruto and what it might mean. In a clear voice that cut through the silence and suffocating atmosphere of the stadium Naruto said, "Gaara. If it's a fight with me that you want then it's a fight you shall have!"