Sky Ruler

by HypeVein

A man grows tired of his life. Unable to achieve his true goal he decides to end it. What he didn't expect was to find himself in one those shonen anime series he loves so much. Now will he be able to accomplish his goals here or will the world just make his life worse?

8. New Potential

People talking: "Speaking"

People thinking: 'Thinking'

Chapter 8: New Potential

I was in the wreaked area of my fight with Orochimaru while I was freezing the ground under me to get some of my Chakra back. When I was done with that I increased my sensing range so that I could go find Karin. What I didn't expect was to sense team 7 still in the forest and not moving towards the tower. I ran towards their location expecting them to be in some kind of trouble only to find them staring in the direction of where my fight with the snake Sannin took place.

"Why are you guys just standing here!?" I shouted.

Naruto and Hinata flinched back at my voice.

"We were staying close by just in case you needed backup, but it seems that you didn't need it…" Naruto Said.

"*sigh* fine, but you still need to go to the tower and pass the exam so that you can alert the officials. Orochimaru is after Sasuke. Based on his usual MO I assume he wants Sasuke's Sharingan. You need to alert them as soon as possible because he'll probably try something again."

Hinata went wide-eyed at the last part.

"Wait, you still think he's alive after that attack!? How!? It tore its way through the entire forest!"

I nodded.

"Yeah I doubt that killed him. He's known for being very resilient; though he's at least heavily injured from it. It would be for the best that we warn the official about him being here."

"Alright then let's go." Naruto Said.

"You guys go on ahead, I still have something I need to do." I said.

"Huh? Do you not have the scroll you need already?" Naruto asked.

"I do, but there's something else I need to do before I leave the forest. Don't wait on me." I flash stepped away before they would be able to protest.

I was on top of the trees and increased the range of my En field to cover the whole forest. I looked for Karin's Chakra signature only to find nothing. I knew she wasn't dead because even a corpse leaves remnants of a person's Chakra signature and I doubted that nothing would remain of her if she was killed. I assumed that she was able to do a version of Zetsu which would make finding her signature impossible. Good thing I had another sensing ability to find her.

I covered my eyes with my forehead protector, blocked my ears with some air to stop me from hearing, created a uniform layer of air over my skin to stop me from feeling anything, blocked my nose with air to stop me from smelling, and covered my tongue with a layer air just like my skin to stop me from tasting anything. When I use Air Sense I usually only remove my sense of sight to improve it to the point where I can only see vague details of the area around me, but with all of my senses removed it's pushed to a whole other level.

I could see the entire forest like I had the byakugan without the blind spot they all have. I could make out the details on someone's face, and I could see the individual hairs on someone's head. With Air Sense improved to this extent I looked for Karin. I found her hiding from a monstrous sized bear in a bush. I ran over to her location and killed the bear. I took off all of my sensory blockers.

"You can come out now, I know you're there. I promise I won't hurt you."

For a while there was no movement, then the bush started to move and Karin came out. She had her arms wrapped around herself with blood on her clothes. She was shaking and looked at me warily.

"I-I don't have a scroll, please believe me."

I hold up my hands in front of me as a sign of peace.

"I'm not here to get a scroll from you. I just came here to talk."

"Why do you want to talk to me?

"I wanted to ask you something early, but I didn't want to ask you while you were next to your team. Are you an Uzumaki?"

She immediately went rigid.

"No, I don't know what you're talking about." She tried to play dumb.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I can already tell you are one through your Chakra signature and by the way you reacted to the question."

"You're...not going to kill me?"

I give her a reassuring smile.

"Of course not, we're clanmates after all."

Her facial expression shifted from shock to confusion.

"But your family name is Emiya."

"Well it's not really safe to use our clan name, and I'm only half Uzumaki from my mother's side. I also have an extra Kekkei Genkai that the rest of our clan doesn't, so I had to be classified with a different clan name. I'm surprised to find another Uzumaki alive other than my aunt and little brother."

There was a glint of hope in her eyes.

"There's really more of us left?"

"Yeah, though there's only three of us here."

She looked down while rubbing her arm.

"How are you guys treated here?"

"Ehh, besides my aunt having some extra protection we're treated normally. Why do you ask?" I acted clueless as to why she would ask this question.

"In Kusa I'm seen as an outsider who's only use is to heal people. For years as payment for them letting me stay there, they would have their injured bite me to heal them. But before it was me it was my mother who would do it."

She gripped her arm as her eyes started to water.

"One day they used her to heal a lot of shinobi after a large battle. They used her until she died! They drained her of every bit of energy she had! I didn't even have a day to mourn her before they made me take her place. I'm afraid that one day they will do the same thing to me too, but I had no other place to go. My mother said we couldn't leave because we would most likely be hunted down if other people knew that we were Uzumaki.

I became a shinobi to become useful in other ways than healing so that maybe I wouldn't have to do it anymore but nothing changed. I was only trained to the point where I could be sent on missions with the sole purpose of healing the people I'm with. They will never see me as anything more than a walking medkit.

I know this is a lot to ask, but could I say here? I know that would make me a missing-nin, and I know that villages usually won't take in someone who would be willing to desert their own village, but I just can't go back there. So I'm begging you, please-"

"There's no need for you to beg." I cut her off.

She looked up at me with a surprised expression on her face.

"W-what?"

"You have family here and we would be glad to have you. You don't have to worry about being known as a missing-nin. Konoha has a law that we will provide political asylum to any Uzumaki as long as they don't pose a major threat to the village. It's to make up for not being able to help protect our clan during the war. You'll have to go through some interrogation first, but it will just be questioning."

Her face lit up at my response.

"I can really stay!?"

"Yep, just one more thing before we get started on that process. I never caught your name."

"Oh right, my name is Karin."

"It's nice to meet you Karin. Now tell me where you are injured so that I can heal you."

"I'm not injured. This blood is from the guys I was with. They were killed by the bear."

"Well if you're ok then let's get out of this forest. No need to stay here longer than we have to."

She nodded with a smile and took a step towards me only to trip right afterwards.

"Karin are you alright?"

She sat up with a groan.

"Yeah, it seems that I sprained an ankle when I was running."

"Let me take a look at it."

I kneeled down to check on her leg and see the bruising. I unseal a medkit from a storage seal on my body and got ready to make some ice when an idea came to my mind. I stopped and rolled up one of my jacket sleeves.

"Karin, I want to try something. Could bite my arm for me?"

She just looked at me with a baffled expression.

"Why?"

"I want to see if I'm able to heal people by letting them bite me."

'I do have accelerated healing due to my Chakra so it should be possible to heal someone else if I was able to give it to them.'

"It's just a sprained ankle you don't have to go far!"

"There's someone that I'm trying to heal that has an injury that our current medical knowledge has no way of healing. If I'm able to heal someone else with my Chakra I might be able to heal that injury."

Karin's lips press into a thin line as she pulls up one of her sleeves. Underneath were bite marks covering her arm.

"The bite marks don't go away, so using it to heal something as simple as sprain is not worth it."

"Then let's use it as a mark of trust."

"What?"

"I know that you're putting a lot of faith in me by willingly becoming a missing-nin. That's a tough decision to make no matter what situation you're in. It would show that you can trust me. Also I would rather find out if I could do it now and not get that person's hopes up only to find out that I can't."

"Alright, if that's ok with you."

She hesitantly bit my arm and I focused aura into the area to improve the chance of it working. I watched the bruising on her ankle. The swelling gradually went away in just a few seconds.

"It's actually working! How does your ankle feel?"

She stopped biting me and stood up. Testing out her foot there appeared to be no problems.

"It's healed. Thank you for doing that for me, but are you not tired after doing that?"

"Not really. I felt a bit of a drain but that's about it. My healing prowess is more noticeable than most of our clan so I probably just have more energy to spare."

I see her just staring at arm.

"Karin it's fine. I can just hide the mark with-"

"The mark is gone."

I look down at my arm only to see smooth skin.

"I guess the marks aren't permanent. Maybe it just takes a while to heal. Like I said my regeneration is more noticeable."

Karin starts rolling up her sleeve.

"But I don't remember any of the ones I have going-"

Her eyes widened at the sight of her arms being completely clear of the bite marks that were there before. She quickly checked her other arm only to see no bite marks there as well. When she went for her shirt I turned around to give her some privacy. I heard the ruffling of clothes stop and started to hear quiet sniffling behind me.

"Karin are you ok?"

I suddenly get hugged tightly from behind with her head pressed into my back.

"Thank you…"

I still hear her crying into my back. Not knowing what to do I awkwardly pat her hands.

"No problem, glad I could help."

After a while she lets go of me. I turn around to see her rubbing at her eyes. When she was done she looked up with a bright smile on her face. She untied her forehead protector and chucked it into the forest.

"I'm ready to get out of this forest now."

"Alright then I can get us to the tower in the middle. I'll be able to talk to one of the Jōnin or Chūnin there to get the asylum process started."

"Ok then, lead the way."

"Oh I got something better than leading the way."

I stretched my arms out and formed a transparent blue barrier around us. I then rose us into the air with the barrier. Surprised by the sudden levitation Karin fell onto her butt.

"We're floating!?"

"Yep, why run when I can just fly us there?"

I quickly maneuver us through the forest towards the tower. It only takes a few seconds for us to reach one of the entrances of the tower. I go towards one of the unopened doors and we make our way through. The room that we were in had a balcony on our left and right with the paper about the heaven and earth scrolls in front of us. I readed it over to make sure it was the same one in the vision then opened the two scrolls. The scrolls were summoning seals and started to leak smoke after being opened. I threw them in front of me and waited for the person to appear. The smoke cleared and Kakashi was in front of me reading his Icha Icha.

"Kakashi-sensei, man I'm glad I got you. This will make this a whole lot smoother."

He took a peak over his book and finally noticed my presence.

"Ah Asahi, congratulations on passing the second phase."

He then takes notice of the smaller redhead next me.

"And who is this you have with you?"

I put my hand on Karin's shoulder.

"This is Karin. She's an Uzumaki that is requesting political asylum here."

Kakashi put his book away taking this situation seriously.

"She's really an Uzumaki?"

"Yep, her Chakra signature and Kekkei Genkai check out."

"Though that is good news you know that she still has to go through interrogation for a while before she's allowed permanent residence. We'll need a blood sample as well for confirmation of her status as an Uzumaki."

"I know and I told her that before we got here."

I unsealed a container with syringes, vials, and elastic bands inside and a medkit from my body.

"Karin I'm going to take your blood now, ok?"

She nodded and gave me her arm. I started going through the procedure of taking her blood.

"How many seals do you have on your body, and why do you carry syringes on you?" Kakashi asked me.

"If I wasn't able to make them invisible I would have lines and symbols across my entire body. As for having the syringes they're for my research on Fūinjutsu. Blood is required to make the ink used in seals and I've been trying to find out why it's needed. I can't always be near my lab when I have down time so I have some with me to do some tests on the go."

"Well aren't you prepared." He remarked.

"It does help to be."

I finished taking the blood and handed the vial to Kakashi.

"It's good we got you Kakashi-sensei. I thought I was going to have to explain that law to one of the Chūnin because I doubt any of them would've remembered."

"You would have if there wasn't an emergency investigation going on right now. An attack destroyed one of the entrances to the forest and created a trench that goes on for miles. There was an intruder in the exams as well. The Chūnin that were monitoring the exam were sent to investigate both the intruder and the cause of the attack. Some of us Jōnin have to step in to take their place while the investigation is going on."

My lips curved up into a nervous smile while I rubbed the back of my head.

"I can actually tell you the cause of that attack."

Kakashi let out an irritated sigh.

"Asahi...why?"

"I had a good reason! I was fighting the intruder and that amount of power was required to fight them."

"But the intruder was-"

"Orochimaru, I know. That level of power was required to fight him."

"You were able to kill one of the Sannin!?"

"No."

My immediate rejection caught him off guard.

"Did you miss?"

"No, I hit him with the attack. I just doubt that it killed him. Your team burnt him until his entire body was charred and he just healed from it within seconds. I cut off one of his arms and he reattached it not even a second later. I'm confident in saying that nothing short of disintegration or sealing is going to kill him. The purpose of that attack was to send him far away from the village while heavily damaging him. I didn't want that fight to continue because he could've brought out his boss summon. From what I've heard about it a fight with it would cause the destruction of the entire forest." I lied through my teeth.

"That's troubling to hear. And you're sure he isn't dead from it?"

"Positive."

"At least we can call off the investigation now. I'm ordering you to watch over Karin until the second phase is over. I would take her to get proceeded now, but with Orochimaru intruding on the exam we won't have time to do that for a while."

"Understood. Since I finished the exam early what do I do now?"

"You're assigned a room to stay in until the test is over. Follow me."

I followed Kakashi as he started walking up the wall towards one of the balconies.

"Wait!"

Me and Kakashi looked down towards Karin who was still on the floor.

"I can't walk up surfaces with my Chakra…"

'Damn, Kusa didn't really teach her anything. That explains why she didn't go up a tree when she was running from the bear.'

"I'll pick you up then. Don't be alarmed."

I held out one of my arms to produce some air to wrap around her. I picked her up and brought her with us. Once we're on the balcony I put her down and we walked the rest of the way towards our room. We reached the room and it was spartan to say the least. The room itself was slightly bigger than an average bedroom. There were three beds close together, and a wooden chair and desk in the corner with a small window above it. There was only one light bulb in the center room on the ceiling. A simple bathroom was connected to the room.

"You're not allowed to break anything in this room, or leave it until the test is over. Food and water will be provided for you during your stay. Get comfortable because you're going to be here for a while." Kakashi left the room and closed the door behind him.

I unsealed some plain clothing around Karin's size that were left over from when I was retrieving the people Gato kidnapped. I held them out towards her.

"Take these clothes. You can use the bathroom first. Don't want to stay in those clothes longer than you have to."

"Thank you, I'll try not to take too long."

"No problem, take as long as you need.

She grabbed the clothes and went into the bathroom. I placed my jacket on the chair and took off my sandals before laying down on one of the beds.

'Things didn't go exactly as planned today. Orochimaru knows that I was holding back when I fought him, Taki brought Fū here for a reason I don't know about, and the invasion plan might change significantly now. On the plus side, at least I found out that I can heal people by letting them bite me. I might be able to heal Oba-san if I can give her the same amount of regeneration that I have through the bite. If I'm able to heal her then that means that I'll be able to heal Anko after removing her curse mark as well.

Leaving that aside I need to do some more information gathering now. Need to find out why Taki sent Fū to the Chunin Exams, and how the plans for the invasion will change.

-Break-

It's now the final day of the second phase, and I've gotten some useful info in the past few days. After healing himself for a day, Orochimaru went to Danzo to discuss a new plan. Due to them now knowing that I have access to more power than I have been showing, more shinobi will be deployed for the invasion from both Suna and Oto. With Orochimaru being the leader of Oto and impersonating the Kazekage, making that happen shouldn't be all that difficult for them to do. They plan on having a group sent after me to hold me off while the barrier that Orochimimaru and Hiruzen will be fighting in goes up. I would then be too occupied with the invasion going on to break down the barrier after it's up. After I wasted my energy fighting the enemy forces, Danzo and his men will come and finish me off. It's not a bad plan for the information they have on me, but lucky for me I know what they're planning ahead of time.

The extra shinobi won't be a problem. I already planned out how I'm going to take them all out before the invasion starts; it's just going to take me longer to do it. There won't be anyone to stop me from going after Orochimaru. Danzo isn't really a problem either as long as I take him out of commission before he's able to use Izanagi. Maybe Orochimaru will bring Kimimaro. It would be great if he does because I could get rid of another curse mark for him to come back from. On the subject of the curse mark I found out that Orochimaru wants to experiment on my body to see if my DNA could improve his curse mark.

Apparently Orochimaru can sense natural energy even though he's not a sage and was able to tell that I was absorbing natural energy into myself. He said that the way I absorbed it was very similar to the way Jūgo absorbs natural energy. The only difference is that I stay sane and only my hair changes when I do it. However, if that is the case then why does Jūgo go berserk when he absorbs natural energy? I've never lost control of myself when I use Sage mode. The only time that I could think of that was close to me losing control was when I was on my second mission. I was more violent than usual with the way I killed those guys, but I didn't have any natural energy absorbed when I was fighting them. I just got caught up in the fight and wasn't thinking about what I was doing. Nothing like that has happened since then so I don't think natural energy is the cause for him to go berserk.

Other than that I also have been spying on Fū's team. Those two guys on her team are secretly Jōnin that are here to protect her and bring glory to Taki. Fū's here for the last objective as well. I watched them for multiple days and from what I could see they don't have an ulterior motive for being here. It just seems strange to me that they would send a jinchūriki that isn't fully trained to control their bijū to a Chūnin exam just to bring glory to their village. Taki is the strongest of all the minor villages, so it's not like they need to do that. I'll stop watching them for now because I don't have the time to constantly watch someone that might not pose a danger.

While my clones were doing that I would either be talking to Karin or would leave a clone behind so that I could sneak off to the base to help with construction. From my conversations with Karin I found out that there might be a good chunk of Uzumaki that survived the destruction of Uzushio that don't trust Konoha. Uzushio was destroyed some time during the second Shinobi World War. With the war going on Konoha didn't have the manpower to spare to help Uzushio. With Konoha not sending a single Shinobi to help it looked like we abandoned them from their point of view. They weren't right, but they weren't exactly wrong either.

Sending shinobi to go help Uzushio would have been a major risk for the village at the time; a risk that the village didn't have a good enough reason to take. The reason for that was because the alliance between Konoha and the Uzumaki was weakening at the time. The main reason Konoha had an alliance with the Uzumaki was because the Senju clan were close allies with them. The village only had the alliance by extension of the Senju clan being the main founders of the village.

During the first and second war most of the Senju were killed off. The fear of someone else being born with the ability to use Wood Release was a big one for everyone outside of Konoha. The Senju were specifically hunted down on the battlefield to lower the chance of Wood Release coming back. Now the amount of Senju left is barely in the double digits, and the only one that is a shinobi is Tsunade. With most of the Senju dead the alliance with the village was nowhere near as strong as it was before. With the alliance being incredibly shaky at that point, even trying to go live in Konoha after the destruction of Uzushio seemed risky for some of the survivors.

More than likely a good chunk of them went to hide in the minor nations because it would be easier to go unnoticed. As long as they don't tell anyone that they were Uzumaki people might let them go even though they have red hair. Lucky red hair isn't exclusive to our clan. It's just an easy way to spot us due to very few of us not having red hair. While the Senju aren't hunted down as much as they used to be with only one of them being civilians now, our clan can't be safe by just becoming civilians.

We're hunted down for people fearing our knowledge of Fūinjutsu. It started when our clan figured out how to call upon the Shinigami with fūinjutsu. Before people just thought that fūinjutsu could only seal objects, but when they found out it could be used to seal something as abstracted as soul people started to figure out that we could potentially seal anything. That made most of the nations extremely fearful of us.

Unlike taijutsu, genjutsu, and ninjutsu, fūinjutsu doesn't require field experience to master. You don't have to be a shinobi to become a fūinjutsu master. All you needed was a teacher and/or reference materials to eventually become a fūinjutsu master. Unfortunately how someone learns fūinjutsu is also another factor to why other villages wanted us dead. There is no way to get even half decent at fūinjutsu without something or someone showing you how to do it. With taijutsu, genjutsu, and ninjutsu, the knowledge about them is so wide spread that you're able to teach yourself as long as you put the time in. However, knowledge on fūinjutsu is scarce even to this day. Just look at Suna and Taki. Suna, one of the major villages, can barely make a seal that can hold back the Ichibi. While Taki, one of the minor villages, can make one that can hold back the Nanabi. Suna has had decades and they still could never improve the seal for their jinchūriki. Only our clan had almost all of the knowledge on fūinjutsu, but most of all we knew how to make new seals.

After Uzushio was destroyed there has been zero development on making new seals in any of the villages. People now just try to figure out how to copy pre existing seals. All information on how to make new seals now lies with some of the survivors and scrolls that can only be opened by Uzumaki. All of us have a target on our back now because we could potentially have advanced knowledge on seals. The only reason me, Naruto, and Kushina aren't in significant danger of being hunted down is because we have the protection of the village. It would be too much of a hassle to try to kill us over a potential threat. Though the same can't be said for clan members like Karin and her mother.

There would be no repercussions if they were to die. The only reason I can think of as to why they weren't killed on the spot when they entered Kusa is because unless someone was alive when Uzushio was around they might not even know about the Uzumaki clan. A good portion of Konoha doesn't even know about the Uzumaki clan. By the time someone could have figured out that they were Uzumaki, Karin's mother was probably being used for her healing ability. At that point the village higher ups could see them as useful tools and would just make sure that they couldn't get powerful enough to retaliate against the village.

That probably explains why Karin was barely trained as well. The Kusa didn't want her to become strong enough to not need them or become a threat to them. The only thing they wanted from her was her healing ability, and with her seen as a potential threat to the village they didn't care how they used her as long as she was still usable.

It's despicable to say the least, but it's not like I have room to talk about despicable actions. I didn't know for sure that Karin was in Kusa, but I never decided to check to see if she was there. It would cause too many problems if I had tried to get her out of there earlier. Kusa has a peace agreement with Konoha. If I had snuck in there and got caught, that would've been bad for Konoha's image and would bring suspension onto me. I couldn't tell anyone that she was there either because that would also bring suspension onto me because there should've been no way for me to know about her being there. I say that, but at the end of the day I could've saved her from her treatment in Kusa. I didn't try due to the potential risk of doing so. I've made a promise to myself that I'll do my best to make up for doing that to her. It's just another one of my actions of keeping my mouth shut that I have to make up for.

I was sitting at my bed doing some control training when there's a knock on the door. I opened the door to see someone who I assumed to be a Chūnin from the village.

"The second phase of the exam is over. I am here to escort you to the next location. After that I'll be taking the girl to get her through the political asylum process."

We gathered our stuff from the room and followed him through the tower. We stopped at a large door that led to the preliminary arena. Karin looked like she was feeling a little antsy about me leaving, so I told her that I would go get her immediately after I was done. She would be fine because I placed the same seal that I placed on Naruto, Kushina, and Hinata that tells me when a powerful Chakra signature gets near them on her when she was asleep. It's also set to give me a specific alarm if Danzo or any ROOT member gets near her just in case Danzo wants to try something.

Karin and the Chūnin leave as I enter the room. Once inside I see Teams Guy, Kakashi, Kuranei, and Asuma. There's also Gaara's team, Kabuto's team, Oto's team, and Fū's team here as well. Naruto noticed me entering the room and ran towards me.

"Asahi-nii you made it!"

I raised my eyebrow at his statement.

"What, did you think I wouldn't?"

"Well before you just upped and left you said that the snake guy wasn't dead, so when you said you still had something to do I thought you might have gone after him."

"I didn't leave to go after him. There was something else that I needed to handle in the forest, but I'm not going tell you what I was doing. It's a surprise for later."

"Well you took your time getting here. I was starting to think you didn't make it."

I turned to my side and saw Fū walking towards me.

"There was no need for you to worry. I got through the test without too much difficulty."

"I mean you were taking this test by yourself, so it wouldn't be strange for you to fail it."

"I have some useful tricks up my sleeve to help with the no team disadvantage."

I look over at Naruto only to see him staring at me as if I just grew a second head.

"Uh, is something wrong?" I asked.

"You're having a conversation with someone other than me, Hinata, or okaa-chan." He sounded dazed.

"What are you talking about? I talk to other people."

"Yeah, when it has something to do with training or when you're on a mission. You politely brush other people off when it has to do with anything else."

"You guys keep saying that I need to be more sociable, so why are looking at me like I just did something crazy?"

"Because we've been trying to get you to do that for years! And now you just do it out of the blue without any of us even suggesting you to do it."

One of my eyes started to twitch involuntarily due to my growing irritation.

"You make it sound like I'm socially inept."

Naruto folded his arms together.

"With the way you act I wouldn't be surprised."

"I'm not socially inept! I'm just busy with-"

"Just reminding you two that I'm still here…" Fū interjected.

Me and Naruto turned and saw Fū with a slight annoyed pout.

"Right, sorry Fū. I just got distracted by my little brother's false accusations."

"Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that. How did you two meet anyway?" Naruto asked.

"Guess I might as well introduce you two to each other. Fū, this is my little brother Naruto. Naruto, this is Fū. I met her while waiting for the first phase to start."

"Nice to meet ya! Wanna be friends?" Fū asked Naruto

"Sure, and please continue being friends with my brother. He doesn't get a lot of social interaction, and he desperately needs it."

"I'm not in desperate need of social interaction." I remarked.

"Not a problem! I'm always willing to help a friend in need." I was promptly ignored.

"All candidates gather in the center of the room and wait until further instructions." One of the proctors for the exam said.

Everyone gathered in the center of the room. Soon after Hiruzen, the sensei, and some random high ranking officials came in and stood in front of the hand seal statue. What surprised me was that Orochimaru still decided to come even though he knew I could sense him. When I used En to check his Chakra signature I realized why he wouldn't consider that a problem. His Chakra signature was completely different than it was before. At first I thought that it might have not been him. It wasn't until I strengthened my sensing ability that I realized why his Chakra signature was different.

I couldn't sense his signature without focusing on him because he was using another Chakra signature to hide his own from being sensed. I assumed that the Chakra signature that he was using to hide was the original owner of the body. That would explain why Hiruzen doesn't realize that Orochimaru is so close to him at this moment.

Hiruzen goes over the purpose of the Chūnin Exams. About it being a replacement for war and to show the power of the villages with less bloodshed. After that he told us that we have to go through a preliminary round due to there being too many people. He handed it off to Hayate and he explained the rules for the preliminary. Kabuto forfeited and two fighters were selected. The first ones to fight were Zaku and Kiba. Those two stayed in the arena while the rest of us went to the balconies.

"Hey sensei."

I walked up to Anko and saw something that I rarely see from her. She was looking at me with stern glare with her arms crossed.

"I've heard about the fight you had in the forest."

"What exactly did you hear?"

"That you fought Orochimaru when he snuck into the exam. What I would like to know is why you decided to fight him."

"He was going after my brother's team and I had to hold him off while they went to alert everyone that he had snuck in."

My explanation only caused her to glare at me harder.

"Asahi, don't give me such a weak excuse. I know that you could have picked up Kakashi's team and flown yourselves away from him. At the speeds that you're able to do that there would have been no way for him to catch up to you. What is the real reason that you fought him?"

I let out a sight as I closed my eyes. I set up a Save State around us so that people wouldn't be able to see or hear our discussion.

"I needed to get information from him, and the only way I would get it is if I forced it out of him."

"And what information did you need so badly that you would decide to put your life on the line against one of the Sannin?"

"I needed to know how to remove one of his curse marks."

For a while neither of us said anything. The tension from before was nothing in comparison to what it was now.

"How do you know about that?" She asked me.

"I've known about it since the Genin test. Whenever you start using your Chakra I could sense another Chakra signature attached to yours originating from the side of your neck. The way it was attached to you was eerily similar to a form of curse mark. It was confirmed for me when I saw the seal for myself.

There are very few people who know how to make a curse mark that won't kill the person it was placed on. There was only one person that was close enough to you that could make one that works; Orochimaru."

"But how did you even know that I had a connection to him?"

"You're contracted with the snake summons. One of the top three summoning clans that have very few summoners. The only person that could have brought you in contact with them is Orochimaru. Also didn't take too much digging to find out that you were his apprentice."

"Why did you never bring it up?"

"Bring what up?"

"That you knew that I used to be Orochimaru's apprentice. Were you not suspicious of me?"

She did her best to hide it, but I could tell that she worried about what I would say.

"I don't think you're some hidden traitor to the village if that's what you're thinking. I've known you for long enough to know that's not the case. The reason I didn't say anything is because the curse mark that he put on you is no normal curse mark."

"What's different about it?"

"When making a curse mark the person placing it puts a small amount of their Chakra inside of it. However, the amount of Chakra that's used normally doesn't even come close to the amount that he used on your seal. It's close to an amount that the average shinobi would have access to. Honestly it's a miracle that you didn't die when he placed that on you. Having someone else's Chakra going your Chakra network becomes more lethal as the amount increases when not converted to your own.

It only takes a small amount of Chakra for a typical curse mark to work, so there should be no reason for him to put that much Chakra into the seal unless he needed it for a specific purpose. I originally wanted to know how to remove the seal because it was dangerous to your health if it were to be activated. You're safe right now because of the other seal that stops that from happening."

"Then why do you need to know how to remove it? The seal keeps the curse mark from activating and more than likely he's not going to give you an answer on how to remove it."

"Because I had a few hunches as to why he made his curse mark the way he did, and none of them were good. After the fight I had with him I now have a theory as to why the curse mark has so much of his Chakra in it. If I'm right about this then it is necessary that I find a way to remove your curse mark.

When I was fighting him I didn't just sense his Chakra signature in his body. It was faint, but I could sense someone else's Chakra signature being overpowered by his Chakra. His Chakra was attaching itself to the other signature as well. Both of these signs point to a forbidden technique that was not completed.

Around the time jinchūriki were first being made there was a theory going around that we could potentially seal humans into other people like we did with the bijū. On the surface doing so seems borderline useless due to the low Chakra levels a human has in comparison to the bijū, but there would be a benefit if the sealing process was done in reverse. Instead of sealing a human into someone else for them to be used they would instead be sealed to take over the body of the person they were sealed into."

From the distant look in her eyes I could tell that the mental gears were turning now.

"The benefit of doing so would allow the person being sealed to gain a new body. This would allow people to counteract the problems of aging physically and would make stealing a clan's Kekkei Genkai possible. Using this technique would be vile, but the benefits from it caused people to research it regardless. Yet its development was dropped due it being lethal to both the person being sealed into and the person being sealed. The body would shut down due to the large amount of foreign Chakra, and would kill both parties as a result.

If he has found a way to complete this technique it would explain a lot. When he placed the curse mark on you, did he bite you to do it?"

She rubbed where her curse mark was with a pained expression.

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"When he was fighting Kakashi's team he said that he was there to give what he called a gift to Sasuke. When he was about to give said gift it looked like he was about to bite him before I stopped him. It's likely that the gift he was referring to was his curse mark. Based on the rumors of him kidnapping people with Kekkei Genkai and his experiments on the people of the village it's possible that he would want Sasuke's Sharingan. More than likely he would want to take over his body as well to negate the extra Chakra cost of using the Sharingan with his current body. He's using the curse mark to not only test to see if the person's body is compatible with his Chakra before sealing himself inside, but to also have control over them if they are."

Anko clenched her teeth as her fists were shaking from anger.

"He would be able to transfer himself into anyone he successfully marked whenever he wants."

"Exactly."

"Why are you only telling me this now if you knew that this could be the case!?"

"Because the only way to remove it, without him telling me how to, would kill you in less than a day."

She became pale after hearing that.

"W-what?"

"Curse marks are dangerous to remove without the help of the person who placed it. The only process we have would be to forcefully extract it from your body. Even if this was a normal curse mark the best outcome of doing that would cripple you from being able to use Chakra because they're attached to your Chakra Network. Removing them forcefully damages your Chakra Network, and depending on the damage your body might just die from a lack of Chakra in certain areas of the body. With his curse mark having so much of his Chakra inside of it, removing it would cause too much damage for you to survive for long in any scenario."

"But wouldn't the seal that's stopping it from activating prevent him from being able to take over?"

"Not for long. If he's able to take over someone's body with the sealing technique then getting through the seal that's stopping the curse mark from activating would be child's play for him. I didn't say anything about this before because I didn't want you to worry over something that we had no way of changing."

"So, that's it then. He can just take over my body and I can't do anything to stop it from happening. As long as I have this mark on me he can still use me whenever he wants. In hindsight it's not that surprising that he had been working on something this heinous even back then."

"There might still be a way to remove it without you dying in the process. If the damage that is done to your Chakra Network is healed immediately afterwards then you would be able to survive the removal process."

"Tch, fat chance of that happening. Even I know that there's no medical procedure that can heal damage to someone's Chakra Network."

"You're right there's no medical procedure currently that can do that. The reason I brought that up is because I recently found a new way to heal someone. I can transfer my Chakra to someone by letting them bite me, and my Chakra will heal them similarly to the way it heals me. I'm able to regenerate from most injuries and my Chakra Network is among the injuries that I can heal."

She looked a bit more hopeful after hearing that.

"So we can still remove it?"

"Unfortunately it's not that simple. I've only used the ability once so far, but the healing process was noticeably slower for the other person than it is normally for me. Currently it might not be strong enough to keep you alive after the removal. Luckily we don't have to gamble on if it will work or not. My aunt has permanent damage to her Chakra Coils, and if I'm able to heal then that means I can keep you from dying from the removal. I have to do more tests to see how effective my healing is."

"Well that's at least better then nothing."

She let out a tired sigh as she grabbed her forehead with one of her hands.

"I wasn't expecting to have this conversation. I thought that you might have fought him because of your habit of going after the strongest person you can find. I had this whole lecture planned out about how you shouldn't do that all the time because it's needlessly risky."

'Well I didn't fight him to find out how to remove his curse mark either. I knew I wouldn't really get anything from him by doing that. Just wanted to give a test of his abilities. The visions already showed me what he could do, but they're not right all of the time. That's a good enough reason for me to fight him.'

Anko looked to her right and saw Naruto tapping on the barrier.

"Uh, kid are you alright?" She asked him.

"He can't hear or see you right now."

I knocked on the barrier with the back of my hand.

"I put a barrier that blocks people from being able to see or hear what goes on inside of it. All they see is the last moment before I put the barrier up. Right now people on the outside only see you looking at me with my eyes closed. I assume you wouldn't want people to hear the conversation we just had."

Her eyes widened a bit.

"Yeah, kind of forgot where we were once we started getting serious. When did you make a jutsu like this?"

"About a few months ago. When used correctly I can make myself virtually invisible to anyone that isn't a sensor."

I made this Save State without using In to hide its Chakraso that Orochimaru wouldn't find out that I could spy on him without him knowing about it. She looked at me with a sly smirk.

"And why did you make a jutsu that would make you invisible, hmm?"

"To help me on missions that require stealth."

"Not for anything else~?"

"I don't have any reason to use it outside of that."

"Oh I'm sure a boy your age can figure out another reason to use it. Maybe to sneak a peek at the fairer sex during steamy situations, or do you consider that a stealth mission?"

I looked at her with my eyes slightly narrowed.

"I don't peep on women sensei."

"Are you telling me that you're not even a little bit interested in sneaking a peak?"

"I don't have time to be exploring my sexual urges."

"Oh come on gaki live a little. There's more to life than going on missions and training you know. You don't want to look back on your life and feel like you wasted it. So go on and get a nice good look at-"

"I'll be taking down the barrier now." I cut her off. She held up her hands pleadingly.

"Wait! I'll stop, there's just one more thing that I want to say before you take it down."

"What?"

"Thanks for still trusting me after finding out about my past. There's very few people in the village that still trust me after finding out about it."

She hits me with a genuine smile. A sight that I rarely see from her.

"No need to thank me for that sensei. I wouldn't judge someone based on the actions of another person that was close to them. I've known you for a while now and you're nothing like the traitor some people expect you are. Besides I doubt a person that's secretly against the village would spend time trying to convince me to peak on women."

"It's not exactly about getting you to peak women. Just trying to get you to think about life outside of being a shinobi. I want you to be able to function when you're not on a mission."

"I can function when I'm not on a mission."

"Ok then, what have you done in the past two months outside of training?"

"I...talked with people."

"With people you don't live with?"

"With Hinata a few times...when she came over to the house." I muttered the last part.

From the knowing smirk on her face I could tell that I was only proving her point.

"Fine, I admit that I might have a problem, but we can talk about that later. The match is about to end so I'll be taking down the barrier now."

I brought down the barrier at the same time Kiba drilled a Gatsuga into Zaku against a wall. Zaku fell limply to the ground with Kiba and Akamaru still standing while breathing heavily with a few bruises and cuts. The arena looked like a few bombs had gone off down there.

Kiba was declared the winner of the match, and the medics took Zaku away.

"Oh you're out of that barrier thing now." I heard Naruto say to the right of me.

"You missed a pretty good fight just now. That guy from Oto had these air cannons in his palms and Kiba's dog was able to transform into a clone of Kiba. Oh and there was-"

"Naruto, there's no need to retell the fight to me. I didn't see the whole thing, but I got the gist of it."

"Oh, then why did you put that barrier?"

"Just had to handle something."

Sasuke was called down next to fight the guy on Kabuto's team that can absorb Chakra through his hands. As expected Sasuke beat him handily. A weaker and more handicaped version of himself was able to win, so this isn't a surprise. The next fight was Kankuro vs the ninja equivalent of Stretch Armstrong on Kabuto's team, and that goes the same as before. The projector screen randomly picks the next two fighters from the people remaining. The screen projects my name and the black haired guy on Fū's team. Hayate coughs a bit before calling us down.

"Candidates Yōrō and Emiya Asahi. Please make your way down to the arena."

'It's time for the next step of the plan to commence.'

-Third person POV-

Yōrō and Asahi stood apart from each other waiting for the match to begin. Yōrō had a look of concentration while Asahi's expression was completely impassive. No words were spoken between the two combatants.

"This is the fourth match of preliminaries. Both fighters step up now." Hayate said.

They both walked closer to each other to get ready for the fight.

"Let the fourth match begin."

Yōrō took the first opportunity to strike, leading with a swift kick aimed at Asahi's face. Asahi tilted his head to the side with the kick almost grazing his ear. Yōrō swung his outstretched foot towards Asahi's head only for Asahi to slightly duck under the attack. Yōrō's assault continued with him increasing the speed of the attacks gradually while Asahi dodged and blocked each one.

"Those guys' movements are crazy! Their attacks are just blurs!" Choji said.

Most of the Genin were unable to track the movement of the two. Yōrō jumped away from Asahi with a frown on his face and his eyes narrowed at his still impassive opponent.

"What are you trying to do?" Yōrō questioned him.

Asahi raised one of his eyebrows.

"What am I trying to do?"

"You haven't made a single attempt to attack me nor have you moved from that spot. I know you can, so why?"

"I'm just curious about what's the best you can. I'm sure you have something better than what you've shown so far."

"Hmph."

Yōrō threw a shuriken that multiplied into dozens with them all heading towards Asahi. Right before they made contact the ones that would have hit him were flung away in different directions. Asahi was left holding a shuriken on both of his index fingers and dropped them to the ground. He had taken two of the shuriken that were heading towards him and used them to deflect the other shuriken.

While Asahi was dealing with the shuriken, Yōrō was going through hand seals. He took in a large breath and shot a massive torrent of fire at Asahi. This was countered by Asahi raising one of his hands toward the fire, releasing nitrogen, and dissipating it halfway before it got to him. Yōrō stopped the fire after seeing it had no effect.

Seeing as his opponent was content with waiting patiently for his attacks, Yōrō went through another set of hand seals before slamming both hands on the ground. The rubble that littered the area shot towards Asahi. Asahi closed his eyes and prepared to defend.

"Trace On." He muttered under his breath activating UBW in the process.

A nodachi materialized in his hand and he shredded through the projectiles at speeds Yōrō couldn't track with his eyes. Once the barrage was over Asahi opened his eyes. Yōrō and his fellow guard Kegon started to slightly sweat due to the predicament he was in. Asahi hadn't moved or attacked him the entire fight, and while Yōrō was starting to show signs of fatigue Asahi looked as if this had been just a walk in the park for him.

'Damn it! Yōrō is being forced to show off too much of his abilities. The likelihood of our cover being blown gets higher and higher as this match goes on, but we still need him to go on to the next. Even if that means he has to go all out.' Thought Kegon with Yōrō sharing a similar sentiment.

Yōrō rolled up his sleeves revealing unusual stitching around his wrist. Stitching that Asahi has seen before. Yōrō goes through another set of hand seals. When completed his skin became noticeably darker as dozens of black threads came out of the stitching around his wrist.

'Well this is familiar. Seems like Taki is trying to produce another Kakuzu. From the pained expression on his face and the lack of threads and hearts in his body I assume that he still has a ways to go before that happens.' Thought Asahi.

"Fine you wanted my best so here it is!" Shouted Yōrō as the black threads sped towards Asahi slicing cleanly through anything that got in their way.

'Try avoiding this. These threads are strengthened by Earth Spear, so not even your sword would be able to-' Yōrō's thoughts were cut short.

Right as the threads were about to reach him Asahi vanished from Yōrō's view. Immediately after that the threads fell apart into tiny pieces. The parts of the threads that were still connected to his wrists were barely longer than the hairs on his arms. Yōrō stood there in shock trying to figure what just happened until he was snapped out of it by the sound of electricity behind him.

He turned around only to receive an electrified punch right under his chest. Just from that one punched he felt like he was about to pass out. While he was breathing heavily from the pain Asahi grabbed his face and a white light was coming off his hand.

"Tanma Otoshi (Time-Out Drop)" Asahi used an incantation that flooded Yōrō's head with nitrogen causing him to go unconscious.

Yōrō was about to fall limply to the ground before Asahi grabbed the back of his collar. He placed him gently on the floor of the arena.

"This match is over." Asahi dematerialized the nodachi.

"The winner is Emiya Asahi by knockout." Hayate said.

Asahi walked away from the arena.

-First Person POV-

'Now with that performance done I'll be able to goad Gaara on to the point using Shukaku without anyone being too suspicious.'

I walk back on to the balcony to be greeted by the shocked faces on Fū's team.

"Asahi, how were you moving so fast!" Fū said.

"I was just using Wind release Jutsu to increase my movement speed."

"But you didn't make a single hand seal that entire match. Also where did you get the samurai from!? It's like it just appeared in your hand."

"That's because it did."

I slowly materialized a knife in my hand.

"An ability of my Kekkei Genkai allows me to create any type of bladed weapon."

I dematerialized the knife.

"That's cool, but if you can make any bladed weapon then why make a samurai sword? That's not really a common weapon for a shinobi to use, and there's very few shinobi that would be able to teach you how to use it."

"I just like some of the swords that the samurai use, so I taught myself how to use a few of them."

She tilted her head to the side with a puzzled look on her face.

"Hmm, that's weird. I wouldn't think that a shinobi would try and fight like samurai."

"I don't do it most of the time. Just when I'm using a sword. Their style compliments my techniques."

"But wouldn't that be most of the time because one of your main abilities is bladed weapon creation?"

"Yeah I do fight with a sword a lot, so I guess it would be most of the time." I said, feeling a little bit embarrassed at that fact.

The next match was Sakura vs Ino. The fight was different this time because Sakura was unable to break through the mind transfer jutsu this time allowing Ino to take the win here. The match after that was Dosu vs Choji and after that was Shikamaru vs Kin. Both matches had Dosu and Shikamaru win the same way as before.

"The next fight will be Uzumaki Naruto vs Kegon." Hayate said.

"Alright, it's time for me to show off what I can do!" Naruto said as got ready to jump down onto the arena.

I grabbed his shoulder before he jumped off.

"Take this guy seriously."

He was about to retort when he noticed that I was being serious about this. He gave a firm nod and jumped down onto the arena.

-Third Person POV-

Naruto and Kegon stood apart from each other waiting for the match to start. While Naruto was having a cool head about this Kegon was a different story.

'I have to win this match. Our real ranks are probably being suspected at this point, and if we get taken by some Genin we'll be laughing stocks.' Kegon thought as he was itching to go into his weapon pouch.

While this sentiment does sound strange to care about it's actually one of the important priorities of a hidden village. It's one of the major reasons why the Konoha was able to survive after the Kyūbi attack and the Uchiha Massacre. Konoha is known for producing legends in every era. Like how Minato, just one man, was one of the main reasons why Konoha won the third war. It's examples like this one that made the other villages wary of attacking Konoha even when they seemed to be in a vulnerable state. If word got out about their Jōnin being beaten by another village's Genin, other villages would be more willing to fight them.

When the match started Kegon immediately dashed towards Naruto with a kunai aimed directly at Naruto's gut. Right before he is stabbed, Naruto made a clone without hand seals and used Body Replacement to switch himself with the clone. As the clone was being stabbed he made the Clone hand seal and filled the area with dozens of Shadow clones.

From that first attack Naruto was able to tell that Kegon was a lot faster than him, so he was going to need numbers to gain the advantage. Kegon was attacked on all sides ranging from fists to kunai. While he did have the speed and experience advantage, it didn't stop Kegon from faltering due to the constant assault. He quickly took out a scroll with fūinjutsu seals on it with the kanji symbol for water in the center, and a large wave of water shot out of the seal.

The entire floor was covered in a small layer of water. Naruto and his clones went up on the walls and ceiling just in case he was using the water as a trap. Kegon goes through a set of hand seals and the water gathers around him creating a dome. Kegon catches his breath while Naruto attacks the dome from the outside. A few of the clones were going through the hand seals for Wind release: Great Breakthrough while Kegon was going through his own set of hand seals. He prayed that Naruto didn't have access to either fire or lightning jutsu as he prepared his next jutsu.

The dome started to shrink as the five clones released the jutsu. The jutsu collided causing debris and dust to shoot out from the impact. The dust cleared and in the center of the impact Kegon stood with water covering his entire body with a rebreather around his mouth.

This jutsu was the Water release: Steel Water Armor. It worked like the Water Prison Jutsu, but instead of trapping someone in dense water the user used the water as an armor. It increased the users defense and power tremendously at the cost of some of their mobility and a constant use of their Chakra.

Kegon ran towards the group of Naruto clones. His strength was increased to the point that the clones were now going down in one hit from him and the stone would blow apart whenever he missed. He was slow enough to the point that Naruto could keep up with his movements now, but he was unable to hurt him. His punches, kunai, shuriken, and even Great Breakthrough couldn't damage Kegon. He had access to the Rasengan, but he was not allowed to use it unless his life was in danger.

'This guy just keeps going through anything I throw at him. This sucks, but I think I might have to wait until he runs out of Chakra. I don't have anything else that would be strong enough to-' Naruto's thoughts were cut short as he got an idea.

Naruto had a fox-like smile as he made the Clone hand seal and filled the arena, the walls and the ceiling entirely with clones. Kegon barely had room to move with the amount of clones that were there.

'I'll definitely be able to get through his defense with this move, but I'll only be able to pull this off once before I run out of Chakra so I gotta make this count.' Naruto thought.

All of the clones charged at Kegon. They would focus most of their Chakra around their fist before punching him. The difference this time was that instead of not doing enough damage to hurt they were doing no damage at all and dispersing right afterwards. While everyone else thought that the attacks were doing nothing, Asahi and HInata were able to see that Naruto's aura was building up around Kegon whenever a clone would hit him. Asahi was a bit worried because he had an idea about what Naruto was trying to do.

"Uh Fū, do you know how strong Kegon's armor is?" Asahi asked.

"I haven't seen it fully in action myself, but Kegon said that, as long as the jutsu doesn't use fire or lightning, it would take an A-rank jutsu in power just to scratch him when he is using the armor. I don't think Naruto is going to win this if he keeps making those clones. He's just going to tire himself out at this rate." Fū said.

'I'm not worried about Naruto winning this. If Naruto is about to use what I think he is, then Kegon better pray that his statement holds true otherwise he might just die from this attack.' Asahi thought as he focused more on the match.

Kegon had taken over 300 hits from the clones during that exchange. Naruto was down to three clones and was showing signs of fatigue. A rare sight to see from a stamina monster like himself. Kegon was fairing even worse than Naruto. The Chakra toll of the water armor was catching up to him. He only had a minute or two at most before he ran out of the Chakra needed for the armor.

"Surrender kid. You don't have your army of clones to help you anymore and I can tell that you can't make anymore. You don't have anything that can get through my defense so just give up." Kegon said.

Naruto chuckled at his offer.

"Oh I'm not too sure about that."

He had a triumphant smile as he pointed at Kegon.

"I'll make you a counter offer. How about you surrender and I won't hit you with this next move that will break completely through your armor."

"Fine, your funeral. Don't blame me for your long stay in the hospital." Kegon ran towards Naruto and his clones.

The three clones intercepted Kegon forcing him to hit them out of the way. This left him open for Naruto's punch and he only had time to hold his arms up to brace for the attack. He didn't believe that Naruto could pull out a move that could break through his armor at this point, but just to be safe he stood still to improve the armor's defense. What came next shocked everyone in the room.

Right as Naruto landed the punch Kegon shot backwards faster than a bullet. He was launched through multiple walls and sent out of the tower. He was only stopped after going through a couple of trees. Everyone in the room, even Naruto, was left in shock and awe from the attack.

"I...didn't think I would hit him that hard." Naruto said while staring at the hole.

Hayate snapped back to reality and ran towards Kegon to check on his condition. Fū went as well shortly after. Hayate and Fū saw Kegon lodged into a small crater. Most of his bones were broken from the attack and multiple collisions. He was unconscious but he was still breathing. Lucky for him the collisions he took were secretly cushioned by Asahi using some air to absorb some of the impact for him to make sure he didn't die. Hayate and Fū came back after medics grabbed Kegon from the crater.

"The winner is Uzumaki Naruto by knockout" Hayate said.

"Knockout!? That guy lived!?" Kiba shouted from one of the balconies only to get slapped behind the head by Kurenai.

"Kiba, remember tact." Kurenai chided.

"That's good, for a second there I thought I killed…" Naruto's voice petered off as he passed out.

Asahi Flash Stepped next to him and grabbed him before he could fall. He carried him back to his team.

"The power of that jutsu was incredible. When did he even learn to do that?" Kakashi asked.

"It was one of the things we were working on during our training sessions. We were looking for ways on how to improve the use of his clones. We didn't have anything that worked effectively before the Chūnin Exam started. At least this time it worked before he fainted." Asahi said.

One of the Hatsu ideas that Naruto came up with was stacking attacks to be used all at once. The problem was that this required Enhancement, Emission, and a bit of Manipulation Nen to work. Naruto's proficiency with Nen is still a little shaky, so making an ability that used two Nen types that he wasn't proficient in was a tall order.

The ability works by Naruto or his clones hitting an object or person and sending their aura inside using Manipulation and Emission with the condition that the attack does no damage. Whenever Naruto wants to unleash the built up aura on the target he will hit the target normally. The stored up aura would then go into Naruto and enhance the attack with all of the aura that was stored up before. However, Naruto has been running into problems whenever he would use it.

Naruto can use it successfully when the aura is a small amount, but problems start to arise when there's a lot of aura stored. There are four different outcomes for when he fails to use it correctly. The first one is that he will absorb the aura but won't release it in the attack. The second one is that the stored aura will be released but Naruto isn't able to absorb it. The third one is that the full amount of aura won't be used in the attack. The fourth one is that he will release more aura than was stored into the attack causing him to faint from the sudden dramatic decrease in aura. The third and fourth outcomes are the most common when he fails.

Asahi advised Naruto to make a Hatsu that only required Enhancement type Nen to work for his first Hatsu, but Naruto refused due to the versatility of the ability. It's great for setting up traps, stealth attacks, and makes blocking near ineffective against him. A person can keep blocking his attacks for most of the fight, but they probably can't block the equivalent of those blocked attacks combined in an instant.

The only problems outside of making it work is that it takes time and you can't hurt the target when storing attacks. These aren't really a problem for Naruto because he can make time by using his clones and have a group of them attacking normally while another group stores up aura for an attack. Once Naruto is able to perfect it, every hit from him no matter where it lands on the target would be dangerous.

Naruto woke up slowly after regaining some Chakra.

"Huh? What happened?" Naruto groggily asked.

"You fainted after using up too much of your Chakra in that attack." Asahi said.

Naruto let out a groan of disappointment as Asahi stopped carrying now that he was awake.

"I thought it was going to work normally this time."

"I would say it was a good move, if you didn't faint after using it that is." Sasuke said.

"Shut up Sasuke! It still worked, I just used more Chakra than I was planning to is all. You try getting through a defense that strong without using a lot of Chakra."

"If you're talking about that guy's armor then I would just use either fire or lightning to get the job done with less than a tenth of the Chakra you used. I have more options outside of brute force due to having more than one Nature Element, unlike a curtain someone."

Naruto crossed his arms and looked away.

"You think you're so good just because you can use two elements." He muttered to himself.

"Well the important part is that you passed, so congratulations Naruto." Hinata said.

"Thank you Hinata. Sasuke can learn a thing or two from you about congratulating a teammate." Naruto said.

Naruto noticed Fū walking up the stairs to the balcony.

"Hold on I need to go handle something." Naruto ran off towards Fū.

"Fū I want to say I'm sorry for hitting Kegon with that much force! It wasn't my intention to go that far. I just wanted to get through his armor and put too much Chakra behind my attack."

He expected her to be angry with him, but she only had a solemn expression on her face.

"You don't have to apologize for that, Naruto. You both were just doing what you needed to do to pass the exam, and Kegon didn't give you that many options when he started using his armor. I was just hoping that we could all pass the exam."

Fū perked up and gave a smile full of resolve.

"That just means that I'll have to try even harder for the both of them! You better hope you don't have to go against me because I'm fired up now!"

Naruto let out a relieved sigh and gave back a smile of his own.

"That's good to hear, but I won't be going easy on you either!"

"Wouldn't want it any other way."

After the hole that Naruto created was quickly patched up the next match was about to start. The match between the genius of Hyūga and the one that they had no hope in was about to commence.