chapter 25
consequences of actions
Naruto was way past simply being angry. No, anger would have been wanting to shout at the teme, maybe beat him up a little bit. What he was feeling right now was more like wanting to pound the arrogant bastard's head in, rip his arms off, tear out his precious little eyes and mash 'em into nothing! How DARE he beat up Sakura-chan like that then act like it didn't matter?
The genin could feel the metal railing deforming under the full force of his grip, the groaning sound drawing more than a few stares in his direction. He needed some kind of outlet for this emotion, now. If his fight wasn't up next...
At just that moment, the board stopped flashing through the remaining names to reveal the next two contestants. He felt himself smile, not in happiness, but in relief and anticipation. The proctor, who seriously needed to check himself into a hospital for that cough, called them both down for the match. It was perfect. He'd drawn that weird bastard from Iwa, the only one left he could really go all-out against, as the other two remaining were both Konoha-nins.
The blonde was about to vault over the railing, more than ready to start, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He froze.
"Keep a hold of yourself down there." Ino's words brought with them a sudden feeling of calm. The wave of emotion washed over him, seeming to spread out from the point where her hand rested.
The boy knew she was still furious with the Uchiha as well, even more so than he himself was, and no doubt in severe pain. But she'd pushed all that aside to express her concern for him. Having friends, people who truly, honestly cared about him, was a wonderful feeling and one he promised himself to never take for granted.
Naruto turned to look into her blue eyes, his own expressing the gratitude he felt towards her at the moment. "I will. Thanks, Ino."
The hand was removed, but that calm feeling that had come with it remained. He could still feel the rage bubbling away under that, but it was no longer right at the surface, controlling his thoughts and actions. Instead he could control it, use it without being used by it. Good, because from his brief run-in with Akira and his teammates, the blonde knew he'd need a level head if he wanted to win this.
He made a small leap to the middle of the room, landing directly opposite the waiting Stone shinobi. From his kage bunshin's memories, he knew the guy was nearly as fast as him and a good bit stronger. The feel of his ribs shattering as his clone had taken that hit was enough to make him flinch mentally. The boy reminded himself to be sure and chakra-reinforce his body anytime he might be struck.
Outside of some impressive taijutsu and toughness to possibly rival his own however, Naruto had no solid idea what his opponent was capable of. This would have to be a mostly defensive fight on his part, thanks to that. He didn't like defensive.
"So, it's you again." Oh yeah, Akira was arrogant too. Not to the same degree as Sasuke-teme, but he had much more skill to back it up. "Sure you're not going to run away again, coward?"
The blonde growled threateningly, not at the insult, since there wasn't any truth behind it, but at the other boy himself. "What I said back in the forest still holds. Insult Yondaime-sama one more time, and I'll make you pay." He shifted into the ready stance of his father's dancing wave fist, fully prepared to get this match started. His opponent similarly readied himself, not even acknowledging his earlier promise.
"Well, -cough- as you're both clearly -cough- ready, feel free to begin," the examiner said before jumping back to give them room. Naruto moved in, at the same time creating four clones off to the sides of the room. If one of them saw he was about to take a serious hit, they would be able to kawarimi with him near-instantly.
As he closed with the taller boy, he shifted his left arm back ever so slightly, making his opponent think he was about to try a strike with it. The other genin subtly adjusted the positions of both his arms, the right to stop the attack and the left for a counterattack.
Too bad for him it was a feint, though, as Naruto planted his right foot and shoved backward hard with his left, crouching low as the force of the maneuver sent him spinning rapidly off to the side, passing just under the foreign ninja's extending fist, close enough to feel the wind on the back of his head. Completing his 360 degree pivot, he shot his left elbow out behind him and at an upward angle, the full force of his rotational momentum going into the attack.
The point was to swiftly get behind the enemy and drive your elbow into their kidneys, but the blonde wasn't quite fast enough for that yet. Instead, he caught his opponent about midway through turning to face him, and the strike went right up underneath the side of his ribcage. It was at that moment that he learned firsthand just how unnaturally tough the Iwa nins were; when the blow connected, it felt more like striking metal than human flesh.
Thankfully, even though the attack hadn't caused anywhere near as much damage as he'd hoped, the force behind it was still enough to knock the other boy several metes away. Otherwise, he would've been in a really bad position. There was a tug on his chakra from the kage bunshin off to the right, and he gave in to the sensation immediately. Just in time, too, as the instant he reappeared he received the memory of seeing handseals, followed by watching a stone spike nearly two feet long soar through the air, before feeling that same stone spike punch straight into his back and out his chest.
There was no time to rest, though, as another such spike was coming at him at high speeds. Naruto threw himself out of the way, but was a bit too slow. The damn thing still managed to hit his shoulder, tearing a gouge in the muscle and rubbing painfully against the bone on its trip to the wall. Well, shit. This guy could use jutsu silently. He concentrated chakra to the damaged area to speed up the healing process, but it would still be about a minute till his arm was fully functional again.
And there was already a kunai right on course to penetrate his skull. The clones he'd made earlier had all been dispelled by those spikes, too. The blonde brought his left hand over to meet his right, forming the familiar cross-shaped handseal.
"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
That'd keep the bastard busy for a good bit.
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Looking down at the fight below, Kakashi silently cursed himself for having been so blind. It took less than two seconds of watching him fight to realize the boy was Sensei's son. The way he moved, even the way he spoke sometimes, was like seeing a miniature version of Minato-sensei. Not to mention that they looked almost identical. That no one had known...
No, there had to have been people who knew, undoubtedly Hokage-sama, and Asuma, as he was Naruto's sensei. Gai, too, since no one else could have taught him Sensei's taijutsu. And it was definitely his father's taijutsu the blonde was using. The use of rotation to put power behind his strikes and the uncommon curved fingers were proof enough of that.
But if Minato-sensei was the father, who was the mother...? Of course, Uzumaki! Just like Sandaime-sama to hide the obvious in plain sight. And just like everyone else, he'd bought right in to the story that Kushina-sama had passed her clan name on to a random orphan as she died.
Hundreds of tiny things in the silver-haired jonin's memories took on new meaning. The way Sensei and Kushina-sama had always acted around one another. The woman's long-term classified mission that had started nine months before the Kyuubi attack. And many of Naruto's mannerisms and actions as well.
Concentrating on the blonde and his revelations about him was also a welcome distraction from what had just occurred with his own student. He'd need to find a suitable punishment for Sasuke, some way to relieve him of the idea that the world revolved around him. Kakashi just hoped the boy wasn't already too far gone.
No, he shouldn't be thinking about that right now. Sensei's son was down there, fighting for his life against an Iwa genin who clearly had no reservations about going for killing blows. The boy's brown-haired opponent had unnatural skill and strength for his age, easily dispatching all the clones that came at him.
Naruto may be using Minato-sensei's style, but the way he fought was far more reminiscent of the boy's mother. When he'd used his mass shadow clones, he had used it primarily as a stalling tactic (the idea of spending so much chakra just to stall an opponent made the jonin's head spin), but seventeen clones spread throughout the crowd had henged into small chips of stone, taking the exact position and shape of real bits of debris from the earlier matches, which they crushed to powder before transforming. It was so perfectly done that only a sensor-type or someone with a chakra-seeing dojutsu would be able to notice the switch during the heat of battle had they not seen it occur.
Kakashi also had his first chance to witness the boy's rumored miraculous healing factor in action. Keeping his eyes on the original, the man could actually see the damaged muscle repairing itself and the skin closing back up over the injury. And once he recovered, the blonde wasted no time going back on the offensive. He made and dispelled a single clone, instantly passing on whatever his plan was to the eleven remaining. They immediately repositioned themselves to surround the Iwa shinobi in a circle about seven meters across, all going through the same series of handseals. But wait, using that jutsu in combat made no sense... What was he planning?
"Fuuton: Onbin Kaze no Jutsu!" (wind element: gentle wind technique)
Naruto's voice called out the jutsu name from eleven places, and just as the name suggested, eleven light breezes swirled in on his confused opponent. The Onbin Kaze no Jutsu had been created for things like rustling up leaves to misdirect enemy attention while sneaking about, not for the middle of a fight. Then Kakashi spotted the original once again, though truthfully it would have been rather hard to miss him as he leapt into the air, arcing straight over the other boy while gathering up so much chakra it formed a visible blue glow around his hands. Hands speeding through handseals known to nearly every Konoha ninja.
"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!"
An enormous, wild mass of flame spewed forth from his mouth. Chakra-fueled fire met chakra-fueled wind, and the gentle air currents gave the burning death direction and focus. It was a brilliant idea. A strong wind jutsu would have tried to compete with the fire jutsu, resulting in a messy, spread-out firestorm, but the softer wind guided it along, taking the uncontrolled energy and concentrating it just as well as many high-intensity fire jutsu.
But the Stone genin wouldn't go down that easily.
"Doton: Iwa no Yoroi" (earth element: rock armor)
Ah, yes. Kakashi had some distinct memories of this particularly annoying jutsu from back during the war. That the boy had called out its name after having proven he could use silent jutsus was evidence that he was putting his full effort into the defensive ninjutsu. A smart choice, as Naruto's combination attack was devastatingly powerful. This was shaping up to be quite an interesting match, especially considering that both fighters were still genin. The Copy Ninja really wasn't sure who would win, but he believed in his Sensei's son...
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
After eight seconds, the heat got to be too much for his kage bunshin, and they dispersed. With no more wind coming in to feed the fire, that died out just a second later. At the center of the scorched floor, Naruto could see a human-shaped mass of rocks, red-hot from his attack. The rocks slowly fell away to reveal his opponent, unharmed but for light burns on his entire body. Damnit, he'd been hoping to end the fight with that combo, but from what he knew of this guy, the pain probably wouldn't even slow him down.
Akira grinned at him. "That was a nice trick you did there, but it's not enough." Then the boy started making handseals at a damn fast speed. Shit, he shouldn't have been standing still like that! The blonde immediately leapt at his opponent, throwing a double handful of shuriken in a wide spread, hoping to force him to abort whatever jutsu he was using.
But the Konoha ninja hadn't been quite fast enough, and a huge circular stone spike exploded out of the floor towards him from right in front of the tall boy, scattering his shuriken. Naruto twisted in midair, putting his hands forward as he rotated his body to better vault off the non-pointy surface of the fast-approaching earth technique.
It was a mistake. The moment his hands touched the surface, he felt the shift in the jutsu's chakra flow and pushed off with all his strength, but he had no chance of being fast enough to prevent the two sharp growths that speared right through his palms. Very not good. With a gaping hole right through bone, ligaments, and tendons, he couldn't move his fingers anymore. Not being able to move his fingers meant no ninjutsu, no taijutsu involving his hands, and no thrown weapons. Plus the wounds were bleeding. And they hurt. A lot.
If the missing patches were a bit smaller, the blonde could've used chakra to bridge the gap temporarily, but now he'd have to wait for his healing to kick in. His feet, on the other hand, were still just fine, so he channeled chakra to them, attaching himself to the ceiling the moment he touched it.
The next instant, Naruto had to run out of the way as another spike branched off the original, shooting straight up at him. As he just barely dodged a painful death, the rock spire dug into the ceiling, and yet another extension rushed off of that one towards him. For that bastard to have this much control over a jutsu was just plain crazy!
A brief glance down showed him that at least Akira couldn't move while doing this. Now, how to take advantage of that? He wanted to keep his hidden kage bunshin hidden until it was absolutely necessary, and most of his other usual options were out thanks to the state of his hands. So it would have to be a fast, powerful, single strike with a taijutsu technique, probably a kick. He was good at kicks.
Now, it was just a problem of getting close enough with these damn spikes following him everywhere. It looked like they could only come in straight lines, and only one at a time (as long as they weren't really small), but the things were fast and gave next to no warning. Well, the blonde had always done his best work when he simply went with his instinct and figured things out along the way. It had never failed him yet.
Leaping to a spot on the floor a good distance from any of the spikes (and twirling in midair to land right-side-up), the young shinobi was pleased to see that the jutsu's speed was limited. While there was no way he could outrun it, his speed in a jump was enough to give him some distance. He looked at the tangled mess of pointy stone growths that had formed in the middle of the room over the past couple minutes, quickly finding a free spot that would work for launching his attack.
Less than a tenth of a second after he landed, he was hurtling through the air again, back towards the ceiling. The spike the Iwa nin had shot at him before still hadn't reached its destination, so he couldn't send out any new ones just yet. His feet firmly attaching to the ceiling almost right above the other boy, the Konoha genin drew his body up into a sort of upside-down squat. Since his opponent was pretty much giving him a free shot, he was going to put as much power behind it as he possibly could without overloading himself with chakra. If he happened to shatter the teme's shoulder or something, so much the better; he had called his father a bastard.
Naruto shoved off with so much force he actually felt the ceiling sink in about a centimeter where his feet had been. He immediately threw himself into a forward tumble while curling into a tight ball, using what he could of pure wind manipulation to increase the rotational speed even further. When he was about halfway down the room, another growth shot out of the original spike, and his left leg flashed out to meet it, the limb encased in chakra both to lessen the damage it took and to keep the force of the kick from altering his path. The stone point cut a deep gash on the back of his thigh before the whole thing shattered. If he'd had the time or effort to spare, he would've frowned in puzzlement; the rock in this jutsu was weaker than regular rock, despite being infused with chakra. Weird.
But he didn't have the time or effort to spare, because he was far too busy slamming his right heel into Akira's... arm? Wow, that was an insanely fast block. Crashing down on the other boy with enough force that he bent over and the floor gave in over an inch where he was standing, the blonde ninja couldn't help but be shocked when the arm, which by all sensible estimates should've snapped like a twig, held firm. His blow had chipped the bone, but that was it.
Apparently, the doton ninjutsu he'd used required constant concentration to keep its form, because the whole thing crumbled into dust around them. The orange-clad shinobi kept pushing with his leg, using it to redirect his momentum to fling himself a good thirty yards away, outside the dust cloud. Both boys waited for it to settle. Then, glaring at his smug, grinning adversary, Naruto couldn't help but blurt his thoughts aloud.
"What the hell are you?"
The Iwa genin smiled proudly "'What am I' you ask? I'm the future." The look he had on his face showed that he somehow thought this explained everything.
He hadn't actually expected the tall boy to be in a talking mood, but the blonde, despite his status as an idiot, was not stupid enough to waste such a huge advantage. If this guy wanted to talk, he would both be able to find out more about him and have the time for his hands (and now leg) to heal. "The future? I never knew a person was capable of being a concept of time. But hey, if you're the future, then you already know that this fight's gonna end with me kicking your ass."
"Very funny," the tall boy responded, clearly not meaning it. "What I mean is that I and those like me will be the ones to lead the ninja world into a new age, where the indestructible Iwagakure no Sato will rule over the entire world! Selected at birth for our superior genetics, we have been trained our entire lives, given drugs and surgical enhancements to bring us to the height of our potential!" As he spoke, his voice grew louder, and his words took on a crazed, fanatical tone. To support his ravings, he crouched down and pulled his fist back, before driving it into the floor with a shout. A crater formed in the solid stone nearly a foot across, cracks spreading out even further around it.
The brown-eyed ninja grinned in amusement. "And we are but the first. A weak little Leaf like you, defeat me? Not a chance."
Naruto felt like bursting out in laughter at the sheer irony of the whole thing. This guy seriously thought that above-average genes, a bunch of training, and some medical improvements guaranteed his victory? And here he was, essentially created by an impossibly powerful demon to be some sort of perfect body.
"Oh," Akira spoke up again, an odd gleam in his eyes. "I just wanted to add that your Yondaime was an idiot and a fool, wasting his life to save a bunch of even more idiotic and foolish people from the Kyuubi. Now, I think you said something about making me suffer. Let's see you try."
"FUUTON: KAZE NO YAIBA!"
The blonde wasn't even fully aware of making the handseals for the lethal jutsu, before swinging his arm in a wide horizontal arc. A thick rock wall sprung up between him and his enemy, slowing the wind blade down just long enough for him to jump up out of the way before it was cut straight through. The proctor, too, had leapt up on top of the handseal statue to keep from being cleaved in two as the chakra-heavy technique made a deep gash all along the back wall of the room.
Just like every other time he got this angry, the kitsune was roaring at him, trying to tempt him with that oh-so-sweet feeling of unstoppable, infinite power. Naruto violently crushed any and all thoughts of accepting the "offer." He made his favorite handseal.
Fifty one kage bunshins appeared in a burst of smoke, the last one dispelling the moment it formed, passing along new orders to the disguised clones from earlier. They were to concentrate entirely on studying the Iwa genin's chakra. Find a way to do something about those damn earth techniques, and figure out how best to make that bastard fucking hurt.
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Hiruzen Sarutobi watched the match with a serious expression on his face. Naruto and his clones had started throwing out wind jutsu, kunai, and shuriken from multiple angles, while a few of them moved in close for taijutsu. His opponent had created five iwa bunshin, which were absorbing the brunt of the blonde's assault as they came at the larger force with their characteristic sluggish movements, the weight of their stone bodies leaving foot-shaped indentations in the floor as they ran.
The revelation about Hidden Stone's special program was troubling. It wasn't the program itself. Similar things had been done in all the villages at one point or another, Danzo's Root coming to mind, but none of them had had the best of results. The ninjas they produced were either highly unstable or not far enough beyond their more ordinary counterparts to be worth the resources, time, and effort put into them, sometimes both.
The boy's bragging claim was clear evidence of Iwa's usual militaristic nature. Apparently, they'd taken the lesson learned in the Third Great Ninja War about quality over quantity a bit too far. And that he would so openly and publicly release a village secret, with the full approval of his jonin sensei (the woman had actually been smiling down proudly), meant that the Tsuchikage was clearly overestimating the success of this program, based on the results the Sandaime saw before him.
For a genin, the Stone shinobi displayed exceptional skill and power. Had he been matched up against any of Konoha's contestants other than Naruto, the aged Hokage had no doubt he would have been victorious, but there was no large gap between the two, and the blonde had the strength of his beliefs to support him. Just then, the last of the iwa bunshin was destroyed, one final flying kick to its chest by a shadow clone enough to shatter it after the onslaught it had already endured. The flying shards of stone took out the clone and a couple others nearby.
What troubled Hiruzen about the new information was the simple fact that it was new. That their spies had failed to discover the existence of a program like this that had been running for at least thirteen years spoke of a huge blind spot in Konoha's information network. Coupling that with the recent discovery of the existence of the so-called "Youkaigakure," and Orochimaru's infiltration of the Exams... Jiraiya was focusing a bit too much on the Akatsuki, especially considering the significant lack of results the investigation had produced thus far.
Yet another thing to talk to his perverted student about. But that was for later. Right now, one of his ninjas was fighting for his life; as Hokage, he had a duty to watch.
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Damnit, this was getting frustrating. They'd been going at it for over a half hour now, and Naruto still had yet to cause any real damage. Both boys were starting to breathe a bit more heavily, and the blonde had a fair amount of blood and bruises on him from injuries both healed and healing. This was the first time his endurance had been put to the test like this in a real combat situation.
Plus, Akira was periodically throwing out taunts that were really getting on his nerves. He wanted to just beat that smirk off the bastard's face; that he was currently no closer to doing this than he'd been at the start of the fight was infuriating.
Hearing a rush of air behind him, the blonde dropped into a low crouch, tiny, high-speed pebbles soaring just over his head from yet another silent jutsu. The next instant, an earth clone was coming up on his left with a sweeping kick. Had he dodged the previous attack by simply letting himself fall, springing to a side, or jumping into the air, as the tall boy had obviously been hoping for, he would've been wide open.
At least his opponent had pretty much stopped with those rock clones. The things were as annoying as hell: they were slow and their movements pathetically easy to read, but still fast enough that he couldn't just ignore them. On top of that, the things could absorb a lot of damage, had absolutely no sense of pain, and packed a super-strong punch.
The earth clones the guy had been sending out for the past twenty minutes in attempt to counter his own never-ending stream of kage bunshin, on the other hand, really weren't all that bad. While just as fast as the original, they were a good bit weaker, and one or two good hits was enough to take them out. Halting the incoming leg by grabbing the shin with his left hand, Naruto yanked the replica towards him, slamming his right fist down forcefully on top of the locked knee. He smiled in grim satisfaction at the howl of pain that accompanied its leg bending in a way it wasn't supposed to, wishing it were the real Akira instead. While it was still stunned from the pain, he brought his right leg up and around, his foot connecting with the side of its head as its neck snapped.
As the tsuchi bunshin he'd just finished off crumbled into a pile of dirt, another one came up behind him, wanting to stab him in the back with a kunai. The young Konoha ninja caught it by the wrist in mid-thrust, and one of his clones embedded a kunai of his own in its skull. That particular copy of himself was then scratched by a flying shard of rock and dispersed. He'd considered making some of his tougher kage bunshin to deal with that problem, but it wasn't really worth it. They weren't tough enough to stand up to a direct hit from a doton jutsu or taijutsu, and he couldn't afford to keep on replacing them like he could regular kage bunshin. He sorted through he just-destroyed clone's memories and was just barely in time to leap out of the way of a huge boulder that soared right across the room. Five of his clones in its path weren't quite so fast.
While Naruto was still in midair, a sudden rush of information flooded his brain. One of the clones he'd disguised as rocks early on in the fight had just dispelled. For about an eighth of a second, he was completely disconnected from the present as his mid processed the memories. On returning to reality, only seven unhidden kage bunshin remained, the rest having been frozen at critical moments by the information overload. One of the jutsu's disadvantages.
But the stuff he'd just learned from the clone... This was great! He spent a quarter second deciding what he'd do now, before creating a kage bunshin in the air next to him. The two of them quickly linined up their feet and launched off of each other, propelling him straight for the original Akira. The clone went up in smoke immediately after, passing along his battle plan to all the others still left. The blonde couldn't spend the chakra to make any more at the moment, because he'd need to have as much as he could ready for this to work.
Five of the kage bunshins charged right up into the faces of the four remaining tsuchi bunshins and one iwa bunshin, releasing all their energy in ferocious blasts of wind chakra that shredded both themselves and their targets. The remaining two, the closest ones to the tall shinobi, rushed him, forcing him to cancel whatever ninjutsu he was in the middle of.
The Iwa ninja threw his left foot out in a side kick at the first attacker, scoring a direct hit on the chest. Good, just like he'd expected. Having the cumulative experience of about a full day fighting someone really helped in predicting their movements. The second shadow clone went right under the oncoming fist as he dived for the ground, ignoring the boy completely in favor of channeling a high concentration of wind chakra into the floor his right foot was resting on. That small patch of floor then exploded, taking the clone with it.
The next instant, the original Naruto reached him, shoving aside the brief memory of his ribcage shattering from his first kage bunshin, sliding in and delivering a strong upwards double-footed leg thrust to his chest. He knew the attack wouldn't cause any real damage, with what he now understood about the boy's chakra system, that extraordinary resiliency finally made sense, but causing damage wasn't his goal here. With both his opponent's feet now off the ground, he was temporarily unable to attach himself to the floor with chakra, so the laws of physics meant that the force behind the blow sent him flying up into the air.
Akira didn't bother twisting to land on the ceiling, instead just pushing off of it with his hands, leaving behind a pair of imprints. The young demon container was using this same time to gain a couple seconds' rest. How much did it cost Konoha to rebuild this room after each time it was used, he wondered. Was it normally this heavily damaged?
Seeing the Iwa shinobi land on the ground and start another rapid handseal sequence was his cue to move. When he'd just about closed the distance between them, the expression on his opponent's face morphed from triumph to confusion, and the blonde smirked.
Naruto spun about in a full circle on his right foot, his left leg picking up the full momentum of the spin as his hands quickly went through a series of eight familiar handseals. Akira's right hand grabbed his left shin before the kick could connect, similar to what he'd done to the tsuchi bunshin less than a minute ago. But then the young Konoha ninja strained to draw his legs together, while keeping his right foot firmly attached to the floor with chakra. This bastard might've been stronger than him overall, but his upper body wasn't as strong as both the blonde's legs working together, so he was forcibly bent forward.
"Fuuton: Guufuuken no Jutsu" (wind element: tornado fist)
The swirling, chakra-saturated winds condensed around his left hand as it sped directly for his opponent's navel. The other boy's left hand slammed into his left side, breaking two chakra-reinforced ribs, but Naruto gritted his teeth and pushed the pain aside. Then the blonde's punch connected. Akira's eyes widened and he stilled as what must've been excruciating pain flashed through his body.
Then the Iwa nin's face contorted in rage and his right foot shot up. Shit, no way to dodge. Naruto channeled as much chakra to his abdomen as he could before the kick connected. It didn't really do much.
Pain, as he went hurtling upwards. More pain, as he was embedded back-first nearly a foot into the ceiling. Fuck, his stomach hurt! And why the fuck didn't that work? He'd pumped just about all the chakra in his body into that one hit, and it still hadn't been enough. Now, he was drained, and his whole body was screaming at him as it worked to repair the damage.
Why the hell couldn't he beat this bastard? He was Uzumaki Naruto, the boy strong enough to hold back the Kyuubi no Kitsune itself, and he was about to lose to some deranged, brainwashed freak! His opponent sprang up towards him, fist drawn back, ready to pound his skull into paste.
Naruto was just too tired to try and avoid it.
A stream of memories flashed through his mind. He wondered briefly if it was what people meant by one's life flashing before their eyes, until he recognized the sensation as a kage bunshin dispelling. Laughing, eating ramen with a cute redheaded little girl. Asuka-chan, his brain supplied. Of course. The shadow clone watching over her must've felt it was time to replace himself. He remembered looking on as she played with her friends in the park, their smiles and laughter, just an hour ago when he'd been at Ino's bed, desperate for her to be okay.
If he let himself lose now, she'd end up alone. And his teammates, Ino, Kiba, Akamaru, and Asuma-sensei, they'd all be in pain if he died. So would Hokage-jiji, and the Ichirakus, all his friends, in Konoha and elsewhere.
But it was more than that. If he failed here, what was there to say he couldn't fail again, but this time in his all-important task of holding back the Kyuubi. Were the demon to get a hold of his body, the body it so craved, it would mean the end of everything!
Naruto could not allow that. He would not allow that! His father, Iruka-sensei, everyone who had died for him, and all the countless people who were still alive depended on him!
So what if he was currently having his ass handed to him by some crazy lab experiment! He was Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage of Konoha, and he never gave up!
The world snapped back into focus, and Akira's fist was milliseconds away from smashing into his skull. With so little time, the only thing the blonde could do was to gather up as much chakra as he could and release it in a single burst. The pulse of pure energy hurled his opponent back to the ground and made a spherical hole in the ceiling around him about two yards wide.
Naruto was grateful beyond words that Asuma-sensei had convinced him to pay to have that chakra thread stuff woven throughout all his clothes, so that they'd be unaffected by his own chakra. Otherwise, he'd be in a really embarrassing situation right about now. If solid stone hadn't survived that, there was no way the heavy-duty fabric full of rips would have. The zipper on his jacket, however, was not so lucky, and the garment ripped open straight down the middle, exposing part of the black T-shirt he wore underneath.
The young ninja formed a kage bunshin and used the clone to redirect his fall, not wanting to land right on top of the other boy. Okay, so that last attack hadn't been enough to end the fight. It had still damaged Akira, which proved that his theory was right. He'd just need to hit him with more power next time. A lot more power.
A plan began to take shape, and Konoha's prankster king smirked.
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She was confused. She'd always respected and admired Naruto-kun, always believed in him... But Hinata couldn't help but wonder: what was he doing?
When he'd taken that huge blow earlier it must have affected his brain somehow, because ever since then he had been acting very strange. First, the blonde had used his kage bunshin no jutsu, but nothing had happened. Then he'd started to sing.
Naruto-kun was an amazing ninja, but the Hyuuga heiress had learned that her crush really wasn't that great a singer. His song choice hadn't helped much, either. For over a half hour, he had been belting out "the song that never ends" nonstop It was really a very appropriate title, as the entire thing consisted of four lines that repeated over and over... and over... and over. It had finally ended when Gekko-san had given him an ultimatum: stop or be disqualified.
And throughout the entire time, the orange-clad genin had yet to actually attack his opponent. As a matter of fact, he'd been constantly running away from the tall boy, who was still incapable of using any of his doton ninjutsu.
The way Naruto-kun had managed that... was pure genius. Hinata knew she would never have thought of the idea, let alone been able to pull it off. The first time Akira-san's attack had failed, she had immediately activated her Byakugan to find out what was going on. Earth techniques, it seemed, required that the user push their chakra into the ground before they could take effect. The boy's disguised clones had somehow spread their own chakra all throughout the floor, walls, and ceiling of the room, most likely when he'd knocked the other ninja up into the air, leaving no place for his opponent to use the jutsus from. On top of that, the Iwa shinobi could no longer use chakra to attach himself to surfaces, and the chakra that was flowing through them made them all act essentially as a single solid object, so his devastating blows did more damage to his own body than the room.
But instead of using the obvious advantages the situation gave him, her crush was now bouncing around the room randomly. It didn't make any sense. Instead of fighting, he seemed intent on simply annoying the other boy as much as possible...
That particular line of thought was interrupted quite suddenly when a small army of orange-clad shinobi stampeded into the room. They were carrying a variety of different things. Paint... confetti... buckets of water... superglue... ramen? Yes, there were most definitely at least ten clones that had brought bowls of Ichiraku ramen.
They immediately got to work. The clones with the paint ran up the back wall of the room and started slopping the substance onto the stone. The ones with confetti took their loads to the ceiling. Was Naruo-kun seriously about to start pranking his opponent?
Yes. Yes he was. The blonde began taunting the tall boy, actually stopping several times to stick his tongue out at him. When missed strikes connected with surfaces, glue would be waiting, causing the limbs to become stuck until their owner tugged hard enough. One time, when the enraged boy (dripping with ice-cold-water) made the mistake of rushing him blindly, the Konoha ninja tripped him, causing him to land on his back in a pile of the sticky glue. Confetti and cheers rained down from the ceiling and balcony, where kage bunshins that had completed their tasks went off to. And proudly spread across the back wall, in bright orange paint, were the words "Iwa sucks." The Naruto-kuns who had painted it were now decorating the area with spirals of all different sizes.
"You little bastard! I'll TEAR YOUR HEAD OFF!" Akira-san screamed, his eyes darting about wildly as he scratched at his hair in a vain attempt to fight the itching powder that had just been placed there.
"Gotta find me first!" several clones shouted back, all from different directions. Most of the audience, Hinata included, had begun to laugh at the spectacle. The real Naruto-kun (at least she thought it was the real one) was sitting behind his teammates, devouring his third bowl of ramen.
The Hyuuga heiress looked to her left, where her teammates were reacting to the whole situation exactly as she had come to expect. Namely, Shikamaru-kun sighing and looking bored, with the occasional mutter of "troublesome," and Chouji-kun doubled over in laughter while continuously stuffing chips into his mouth. How the two of them could be such good of friends while being so different from each other was something the girl had taken a while to realize.
Truly, she was glad Chouji-kun hadn't been hurt too badly during his fight. The medic-nins had been able to patch up all his injuries and heal his broken bones without a problem. Many others, like Neji-niisan, Lee-kun, and especially Sakura-san hadn't been so lucky. She really did feel bad for them, but it would have been far more disappointing had the kind, jovial boy been so severely injured.
Noticing her gaze, Kurenai-sensei gave the kunoichi a proud smile. None of team eight had won their matches, but that smile reminded Hinata that she had put up a good fight. Naruto-kun had even told her she'd done a good job! Of course, she'd believed it to be nothing more than her imagination at the time, as he'd said it immediately upon her awakening, and she'd lost consciousness immediately afterwards, but her teammates had later confirmed that the event had actually happened.
Over the past few months, Hinata had become much better at being around her crush, thanks mostly to the efforts of her two teammates. Shikamaru-kun had come up with the idea of one of them using henge to take on Naruto-kun's appearance, then do their best to act like the blonde. Chouji-kun would often have long talks with her, having gone through the same sort of shyness she had. The frequent joint-team training sessions were also extremely helpful, as they forced her to be in close proximity to the blonde.
The girl had reached the point where she could hold a casual conversation with Naruto-kun, without stuttering or passing out, a fact she was secretly proud of. But when she'd woken up after her match with Kiba-kun to find the boy right up next to her, his strong hands on her shoulders, his smooth, powerful chakra flowing through her body, and he'd complimented her on her fight, it had simply been too much.
"Oi, Hinata, Chouji, Shikamaru!" His voice came from right behind her, and the Hyuuga heiress spun quickly, letting out a small eep of surprise Father would have frowned at. Standing just inches away was one of Naruto-kun's kage bunshin, holding a bowl of ramen.
His blue eyes were practically glowing with laughter and joy. "I wanted to know if you guys wanted some ramen. We kinda brought more bowls than we needed, y'see..." Her sharp eyes couldn't help but notice the way his jacket was hanging open, and how the sweat-drenched T-shirt underneath clung to his body, revealing a lean, muscular torso...
Hinata fainted, a small trickle of blood dribbling from her nose.
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Naruto spun to one side to avoid a punch, while keeping the final bowl of ramen level between his hands. Damn, it was hard enough dodging attacks when he didn't have to be careful not to risk spilling the heavenly broth. Not that he'd be eating it, of course. These particular holy noodles had a very special purpose.
And Akira had gone way past just being enraged, not letting up on his offensive for an instant. He was running low on shadow clones too. But really, the young genin only had himself to blame for this, it being entirely his idea. He'd expected his plan to be effective, but not this effective. The Iwa shinobi had confessed that he'd been shut away in that special training program most of his life, so he'd figured the guy would never have experienced the kind of constant teasing and embarrassment a true prankster could rain down on someone.
Plus, it was really fun.
Quickly putting a couple yards in between them, the blonde spun to face his opponent and promptly laughed in his face. "Ha, ha! You can't hit me!" He held his arms ever-so slightly away from his body, offering the ramen as a tempting target without making it obvious the he actually wanted the tall boy to go for the food.
Thankfully, this forty-second attempt at baiting the angry ninja finally showed success. Akira's right hand swiped quickly at the bowl, while the same leg threw a snap-kick at his gut. This time, he'd been completely expecting the attack and wasn't caught off-guard. It still hurt like hell, but there weren't any shattering bones or near-loss-of-consciousness to accompany the pain. He slammed into the far wall, then fell to the floor, not getting up.
Now for the part of the plan that was out of his control. What happened next would depend on the Iwa nin's actions. From his position glaring up at the boy, the blonde could see him smirking in triumph. "Seems you really love this ramen. I wonder what you'd think if I were to... eat it in front of you."
Naruto could have laughed in delight right at that moment, would it not have completely ruined the whole charade. Instead, he wailed, "Noooooo! My rrraaaammmmmeeeeennnn!" He continued to make whimpering protests as the other boy slurped up the noodles. Inside though, his anger was rising again. The brown-eyed boy wasn't enjoying the divine food one bit! He was only gobbling up the dish to spite him! How DARE he eat Teuchi-sama's glorious cooking with such impure thoughts!
And that fury rekindled the feelings from earlier, when the bastard had insulted Konoha and his father. He reigned in his emotions however, allowing none of them outward expression. Then, the moment Akira had drained the last of the soup, the blonde released the tight hold on his emotions and chakra. The massive amount of energy he'd spent the past fifteen minutes pouring into the food was released in an instant, flooding his enemy's body and vanishing all at once, leaving the Stone ninja drained and weak.
All twenty four remaining clones pounced immediately, the ones who had been disguised as rocks this whole time no longer being needed in their former roles. Four latched on to each of Akira's arms and eight per leg, all crouched down, gluing themselves to the floor with chakra. They pulled his limbs off to the sides and held them there tightly. The bastard was now effectively immobilized.
Naruto got up and walked over to the vainly-struggling boy. "Food, being made of things that were once alive, can be very heavily saturated with chakra before it becomes noticeable. Just how heavily depends on a bunch of stuff, like what the food's made of and how it was prepared. The ramen you just ate had enough chakra to fry your chakra coils." He had a promise to fulfill, but he'd give his opponent one last chance. "Surrender, and take back what you said"
Brown eyes glared at him in hatred. "N-never!" Any other time, determination like that would've impressed the young shinobi, but this had come from a lifetime of brainwashing. Even now, the idiot was hiding behind the beliefs and thoughts that had been forced into him, instead of wanting to break free and be his own person.
"You're pitiful," the blonde spat. Now that Akira was restrained, he had all the time in the world to set up the finishing strike. It was the single most powerful blow in the dancing wave fist, a straight thrust, with the whole body working in unison to concentrate as much force as possible through the fingertips of one hand. Naruto still wasn't very good at the attack, which was why he'd gone through this whole ordeal. He only had the one shot, so he needed to be sure he set it up right.
Planting his left foot firmly behind him, the boy flattened out his right hand and locked his wrist before drawing his right arm back until his fingers were even with his chest and his forearm parallel with the ground. He double-checked that his back leg was bent at the proper angle, his body in a straight line, and his hand on target to hit where he wanted it to.
Then, he channeled a short, overloading burst of chakra to all his muscles at once as he moved in one fluid motion. The right leg stepped forward and bent at the knee and ankle as the left straightened, his upper body twisted to the left, starting from the hips and working up to the shoulders, and his right hand shot straight forward, with the power of the entire movement behind it. His fingers impacted right in his opponent's navel.
Were it not for the Stone nin's surgically enhanced body, the blow would have killed him instantly. As it was, the force was so great that even with all twenty four kage bunshins prepared for it and bracing as hard as they could, the whole mass was pushed back several yards. Just the residual effects of the attack were enough to dispel them, and his opponent crumpled to the ground, no longer able to move.
Naruto kept himself standing through sheer willpower. With the amount of damage he'd caused himself just then, coupled with everything he'd taken throughout the fight, he knew that trying to move even the slightest bit would cause him to collapse. And it would be beyond ridiculous to win the fight only to be taken out of the running for chunin because he lost consciousness before being announced the winner.
His brain faintly registered Hayate making that exact announcement, and he let himself slip into blissful unconsciousness.
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When Naruto woke, the first thing he registered was the severe ache throughout his entire body. Raising his eyelids hurt. Hell, breathing hurt. He tried to move, but immediately dropped the idea, a moan of pain escaping his lips.
"Huh?" Kiba's face moved into his line of vision. "Hey, you're awake! Don't try t'move. Your body's still healing."
"...Too late..." the blonde forced out.
He was laying on his back. The cool stone floor of the balcony felt comforting through his jacket. There was a tantalizing smell nearby, but he was still too out of it to place it.
"We knew you'd be up soon enough, and since it wasn't life-threatening, figured you'd rather stay here than have to come all the way back from the infirmary before the preliminaries ended." Ino limped over to him as she spoke. "It can be a long walk when you're hurting. Trust me."
The boy slowly formed his mouth into a smile. "Thanks..."
His male teammate sat him up against the wall, then reached down for something on the floor.
Naruto's eyes lit up when the Inuzuka revealed it to be one of the ramen bowls his clones had brought.
"We saved this for you, thought you might want it after the fight. Asuma-sensei kept it warm with a katon jutsu. That was a great battle, by the way." Though he could tell by her tone of voice that the other blonde's words were sincere, she had a sly glint in her eyes that warned him of some kind of mischief. It took him a second to realize just what it was about.
He still couldn't move his arms to eat. Damn it.
Seeing his glare, Kiba snickered. "Open wide!" A pair of chopsticks carrying a load of dripping noodles inched towards his mouth.
They knew him too well. There was no way the boy could turn down Ichiraku ramen, even if he had to humiliate himself for it.
After about thirty seconds of his teammate shoveling food in his mouth, there was a bright flash, and Naruto looked up to see Asuma-sensei holding a camera. He glared, wishing the Kyuubi could've given him some kind of eye laser to burn through embarrassing photographs.
Nevertheless, the ramen-feeding continued. By the time the bowl was drained of the remaining soup, he felt strong enough to talk and make slow movements without problems. Huh, apparently his healing rate increased exponentially during sleep, cause it should've taken him hours to get that far. Weird how he'd never noticed before.
"So, how was Tenten's match?" Now that his mind was clearer, he remembered that she and that Misumi guy had been the only ones left to fight. As there weren't any sounds of battle coming from down below, said fight had obviously ended.
"She won, no problem. The guy she was up against had this weird stretching ability, but he never got close enough to really do anything. Now Hokage-sama's waiting for Lee and the Uchiha to be brought back before telling us what's next. And speaking of telling..." Ino trailed off, giving him an impatient look.
Naruto sorted through his accumulated memories. One of his clones had promised that he'd tell them what he was doing in his match. "Oh, right. Well, I had my clones paying close attention to that bastard's chakra flow, cause something was definitely weird. Turns out that on top of the regular chakra coils, he had this chakra shell-type-thingy woven throughout his whole body. Probably one of those surgeries he mentioned. Whenever I hit him, the shell would spread out the impact, both jutsus and physical attacks, to the point where it barely did any damage at all. That's why those three were so ridiculously tough. It also worked to reinforce anything he did, amplifying speed, strength, ninjutsu, you name it.
"A bit of studying, and the kage bunshin came up with an idea that a hard enough hit in the right spot would shatter the shell. The way it was interconnected throughout his body, losing it would leave him barely able to function, permanently. So I went for a straight blow right to the core of his chakra circulatory system."
Team seven's bearded instructor joined in on the conversation. "Well, you were right. The medics say that boy will barely even be able to walk again, if he's lucky, and trying to move him any long distance would be fatal. Iwa will probably be forced to allow him permanent residence here in Konoha, in the hospital's long-term patient wing. It's a political mess, and there was a brief incident with his jonin sensei when the report first came through. They're going to bring in an objective group of med-nins to take a look at him, and what happens next will be based on their diagnosis. But one thing that's obvious is that he'll be in constant pain the rest of his life."
The Yamanaka frowned. "Couldn't you have just put a kunai to his throat or something?" She obviously didn't like the way he'd ended the fight. It wasn't hard to guess why.
"He still wouldn't have given up, and I would've had to kill him. Akira's a crazy bastard, too consumed by whatever they drilled into his head to really think for himself. I gave him a warning and a second chance. He turned them both down." Naruto had no regrets about what he'd done. That would be against his nindo.
Before the conversation could go any further, Fuzzy-brows walked into the room on crutches, a pair of medics accompanying him. Right behind them was Kakashi-sensei, the last Uchiha tied up with a thick rope and slung haphazardly over his shoulder.
"Attention, everyone," Hokage-jiji called out. "I need all the winners from the preliminary matches to come down to the floor."
All three of team seven's genin made their way down the stairs, Kiba the only one able to walk normally. Looking around, the blonde boy saw that all the damage the room had taken over the past several hours was already fixed. Asuma-sensei noticed his questioning stare. "There's regeneration seals all throughout this tower, the village training grounds too. Enough chakra, and everything's brand new again." Whoa, he really needed to learn fuuinjutsu. That stuff was awesome!
By the time they made it to the lineup, everyone else was already there, so Naruto, Ino, and Kiba placed themselves at the far right. The old man stood looking at them all and used his speech-giving voice, just like he had at the start of the preliminaries. "Congratulations, all of you, on making it to the final round of the chunin exams. The finals will be a tournament-style event held one month from now. Ibiki will come around with a basket. I would like each of you to take a slip of paper from the basket and read out the number on the paper."
The scarred examiner started on the left, where the foreign ninja were standing.
"Nine," Gaara called out.
"Two," from Kenzo, the only one remaining from the Iwa team.
"Six," said the now-unbound Sasuke-teme.
"Three," Tenten announced.
"Eight!" Fuzzy-brows called out excitedly, though lacking the full extreme of his usual nthusiasm.
"Four." Shino needed to learn about emotions.
"Seven," Ino said after glancing at her paper.
"One," Kiba stated quickly, obviously impatient to know what this was all about.
"Five." Naruto hadn't needed to look, since he was the last person and it was the only number missing.
The Sandaime gave them all a serious look. "Very well. The matchups for the finals have been determined." Hayate, the coughing proctor, who had been writing on a sheet of paper, turned said paper around for everyone to see. The first match would be Kiba and Kenzo, followed by Tenten and Shino, then (and Naruto gave a vicious grin at this) himself and Sasuke, and finally Lee and Gaara. Ino would fight the winner of that match, then everyone still left would move on to the second round.
"Good luck, and use the upcoming month well. That is all." Everyone made their way out of the hall, most of the genin with a new glint of determination in their eyes.
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comments:
I'm sorry about not showing Tenten's fight, but there really wouldn't have been much point to it. Nothing really happens, and everyone reading this already knows her skills, so I skipped over it in order to bring this section to a conclusion.
Anyway, I hope Naruto's match was enjoyable. I tried to give as many different perspectives on the fight as possible without making it drag on too long and without losing the main focus of the fight, which is Naruto. Also, you finally have an answer about the Iwa nins and all the weird things I've been hinting at about them.
This fight was one of my original ideas when I first started this story, though at the time it was more in the form of "Naruto fights super-powered Iwa genin." Since then, I've had a long time to to develop the idea, add things to it, and change it around. It was a great chance to show views of Naruto from people who haven't been in the story much so far, like Kakashi and Hinata, and it gave me the opportunity to show another side of the blonde as well. Despite his hatred of arrogant people like Sasuke and Neji, his own self-confidence will sometimes slip into that extreme.
I also used this chapter to introduce a new concept into my world of Naruto: the bit about previously-living things being far more receptive to chakra. The idea came up because of the wood element in canon and how it often seems to be so much stronger than stone. So, to explain that, I came up with this theory.
Hopefully you all liked the chapter.
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beta readers: ching965, Orion, ABitterPill