A Declaration of Strength

Naruto and Lee dashed towards each other on Tsunade's signal. A furious and rapid flurry of punches and kicks were exchanged with a few acrobatic evasions added to the mix. After a bout of 15 seconds, Naruto backtracked away from Lee. He knew a losing battle when he saw one. Chakra pumping was the only way to go against this guy. 'Jeez, talk about overkill. Does this guy even sleep? How is he so freaking fast?'

Meanwhile, Guy was gaping dumbfounded. He never imagined someone would be able to keep up with Lee's speed, especially without a bloodline or chakra enhancement. But Naruto clearly could. What's more, he could see that unless Lee dropped his weights, his fight with Naruto would become one of attrition, not skill. Kakashi saw this as well. The rest were too shocked to think straight.

Shikamaru mentally thanked Lee for allowing him to gauge Naruto's level. And his assumptions based on Naruto's 15-second performance…... were that they were well and truly screwed. After all, one Naruto on Lee's level in taijutsu was bad news. But since said guy was also having the chakra reserves needed to create nearly 300 shadow clones…or more…. well, he hoped that Naruto would have mercy on them. 'And who knows what tricks this guy had learnt over the next three years.'

Just as Lee moved out of Naruto's range, Kakashi fired a fireball causing Naruto to dodge and Shikamaru tried to trap him while he was mid-air. But Naruto noticed Shikamaru's movements and used a shadow clone to not only dodge the shadow tentacle, but to propel himself towards Shikamaru and punched him square in the jaw, causing Shikamaru to crashed into the arena's wall, after which he slipped down onto the ground motionlessly and only half-conscious.

"Shikamaru-san!" Lee cried out and then moved towards his comrade to check on him. Before Naruto could catch Lee off-guard, Kakashi swooped in, kunai in hand and attacked Naruto furiously, without a moment's rest. But Naruto had no trouble dealing with Kakashi and he deftly disarmed him with a kick to his arm, which nearly dislocated his shoulder. 'The fuck! He is too unpredictable for my Sharingan! Who disarms someone with a kick! Not to mention - too freaking fast!'

Kakashi immediately put some distance between him and Naruto and fired off a couple low-level fire jutsus and then shoutied, "Earth Style: Earth Swamp Jutsu." The Earth Swamp threw Naruto off balance but still escaped the fire jutsu with a substitution, not without getting burnt a little though.

Lee then appeared behind Naruto and punched him, only for Naruto to dissolve into smoke. Another Naruto stepped right out of the smoke preparing to start another taijutsu bout, when Kakashi came and made it a 2v1 battle. Meanwhile, Shikamaru still pretended to be concussed while trying to gain more information on Naruto. Kakashi and Lee clearly had the upper hand against Naruto and kept landing blows left and right, until finally...

Naruto used his first offensive jutsu.

When Kakashi landed a solid punch on Naruto, Naruto suddenly exploded. Kakashi barely managed to get out of the way, courtesy of his Sharingan, but not before his left leg got burnt. Lee on the other hand, was caught completely unprepared and was thrown into the air courtesy of Naruto's exploding clone.

Kakashi wasted no time and again moved to attack Naruto but suddenly found himself flying through the air, hitting the wall, and then receiving a powerful wind blast to the stomach which pummeled him further into the wall, after which the jonin decide to fake his fainting to buy some recovery and analysis time.

Lee had now recovered from the blast and paying no heed to Kakashi's injury, charged Naruto. But this time, he unlocked his first gate. "Konoha Whirlwind!" Lee cried.

Needless to say, Naruto could not adjust to this sudden development and had now received several nearly bone-breaking blows. Lee did not relent his attack and kept punching and kicking Naruto at inhuman speeds. Naruto managed to recover and deflect some of them, but Lee kept unlocking more of his gates right up to his third. Naruto was totally on the backfoot and had suffered some considerable damage.

He decided to take things up a notch. So, he started to channel all of his chakra into his limbs and all of a sudden, Lee was on the ground with a powerful punch from Naruto.

Keeping up the momentum, Naruto and Lee kept exchanging blows when out of nowhere a shower of senbon and kunai rained down on the two of them, Naruto and Lee leapt apart to dodge them, and all of a sudden, a horde of clones popped out from beneath Lee. 'What but there were- oh no a genjutsu!' "Uzumaki Barrage!" After receiving a vicious uppercut and several more punches and kicks, Lee gave into his exhaustion and signaled that he could no longer continue.

Kakashi and Shikamaru who had been on the side-lines formulating a plan while Lee fought Naruto, immediately jumped into action. Kakashi summoned his ninken to try and distract Naruto while either Shikamaru trapped him or he managed to incapacitate Naruto. He fired off several fireballs, which Naruto had to dodge using his shadow clones and several substitutions.

Yet, the assault on Naruto never ended. Kakashi resorted to shadow shuriken and kunai while Shikmaru made optimal use of the shadows created by the numerous objects to make Naruto quite literally run laps around the arena.

"Gah! Fuck this! I am done being on the defensive! Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Nearly a hundred Naruto appeared all over the arena. "Give them a beatdown guys!" "Yosh!"

And then, it happened exactly as Shikamaru feared. Fifty clones rushed towards him, sending him to a complete state of panic. He threw down a smoke bomb, to find a farther spot to use his shadows from, but then came a shout, "Wind Style: Breakthrough!" and the smoke disappeared, with which, so did Shikamaru's hopes. "I SURRENDER!" Shikamaru shouted hoping to save himself from a complete 'beatdown' as Naruto put it. And immediately, the clones dashed towards Kakashi, leaving Shikamaru alone, but not before firing off the Water Style: Water Cannon which hit Shikamaru square in the chest.

And Shikamaru promptly fainted, feeling exhausted after almost seeing his life flash before his eyes.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was having a hard time, facing off 50 clones with taijutsu skills greater than his. "Tch. This is bad. Bad…. Ah fuck it! Chidori!" And then Kakashi went on a slaughter run, finishing off the 50 clones in 15 seconds. "Huff…. huff…. well let's see how Shika-" and having just said that, Kakashi was sent flying again by another shadow clone.

"What's this? Is Kakashi sensei on his last legs?" one of the clones said mockingly. Kakashi slowly got up from where he had fallen, looked up at the clones….

And eye smiled.

BOOM!

A massive explosion rang out through the arena, and when the dust settled down, not a single Naruto was visible. "Hahh…damn…. at my…limit," Kakashi panted and fell down on his knees.

"Well, that solves all our problems, doesn't it sensei?" spoke a faraway voice.

"What…." were the last words Kakashi said as he felt a blow to his neck. As his consciousness faded away, he somehow saw the blurred image of Tsunade standing up from her seat in the viewing gallery and saying "I hereby declare Uzumaki Naruto as the victor!" After that, Kakashi passed out.

Sakura's POV after the fight was over

Sakura trudged back to her home after the fight was over with Ino and Chouji. All three of them were too shocked to speak or think. They kept walking silently and slowly until Chouji saw the Ichiraku ramen shop.

"We are outclassed," Chouji started, snapping Ino and Sakura to attention. "To say we have been left behind is a lie. We were always behind him. Both him and Sasuke. But now, the distance between us is too large. Astronomical really. I was excited to meet my friend Naruto again. But that Naruto is long gone. Oh, sure he shows that personality even now, but it's just a front," Chouji shook his head. "Clearly we had forgotten the meaning of a true shinobi."

"Amen," Ino agreed. "To think that the dead last of our class is probably better than the most elite jonins bar the sannins, we just whiled away our time, didn't we?" Ino asked to no one in particular. And yet despite this byplay, Sakura did not utter a single word. The only thing going through her head, was that she had failed as a shinobi. Despite her hard work and dedication, she still fell short. And this time, there were no excuses to use.

Kiba, Shino, Asuma, Gai, Lee and Kakashi POV

Konoha Hospital

Silence.

Tense silence.

Agonizing silence.

"So…."

"Don't. Just don't Kiba."

"Come on Kurenai sensei! This is not normal! In fact, this is the stuff I never want to see my nightmares!"

"Kiba, I think it would be logical to say that while Naruto may not plague our dreams, he will certainly be the focus of our thoughts. For a long time."

"Shino is right you guys. To say that Naruto's flames are burning like the flames of youth in Gai sensei is an understatement. In fact, I dare say he has a reached a level which only S ranked shinobi can reach."

"Very astute Lee. On both accounts. Asuma?"

"….."

"Yeah, he is gonna take a few hours to snap out of his shock. Kurenai why don't you dismiss your team? At this rate all they will get is a headache. They need to sleep over today's events. Frankly all of us do."

Shikamaru's POV

Nara Clan Compound

As soon as Shikamaru reached his house, he immediately went searching for his father. And just like always, he found him feeding the deer. This was the only free time he had in his daily schedule after all.

"Dad. I need to talk to you."

"About the fight, right?"

"Yes. We should not have lost. Not so easily anyway. So, what happened? Did we underestimate Naruto? Did we focus too much on offense? Did Naruto's actions from before mentally affect our fight? What was it?"

"All of it. And some more. Another factor is there in all this son. In fact, it's the most important one."

Shikamaru patiently waited as his father took a dramatic pause. He wondered for a short time how his father knew about the fight when it just happened minutes ago. Then he remembered that he was the Jonin Commander.

"Unshakable resolve. A quality, that only Kage level shinobi possess. Doesn't matter if the shinobi has malicious plans, or humanitarian. You will see, that his faith in his plan, will be, simply put, unshakable."

Naruto, Jiraiya and Tsunade POV

Hokage's Office

"Woo-hoo! That was a blast! Man, Ero-sennin you weren't kidding when you said that Kakashi would be on his knees by the time our fight was over! Damn, that felt good."

"Good?! It was fucking brilliant! Man, you should have seen the look on your friends' faces. Ha! Priceless I tell you! But the best, get this, was Guy looked ready to shit his pants when you were finished with Lee! Damn! That was so satisfying!"

"SHUT UP YOU MORONS!"

Naruto and Jiraiya's laughter immediately quelled. They knew this was coming. So, best to get this out of the way. Tsunade reigned in her temper, and continued.

"Jiraiya, why don't I tell you what Asuma told me before he left the arena? His words were, It's him."

"There is only one shinobi that Asuma is dead scared of. He does not even want to fight this particular shinobi. Not to save his comrades. He admitted that he would gladly abandon his mission and teammates as long as it meant not fighting this shinobi. Kakashi, while disapproving of his word choice, did not disagree. Neither did Kurenai. Nor…. nor Guy."

"And to identify this shinobi, they had only the following clues. A black trench coat with red flames. Red undershirt. Black pants. Black hair. Nearly onyx eyes. And a bandaged face, exposing only his eyes. And he only used water, wind and earth jutsus. Which surprisingly, Naruto used a lot. Not offensively, but certainly while evading all those attacks."

"So…. Tell me Jiraiya. What do you know of Akai Arashi?"

'…Crimson Storm… Well time to come clean…'

"Allow me, Lady Hokage," started Naruto, shocking Tsunade as she never expected him to address her so formally.

"For you see, it's a long story. And I am the best person to tell it."

Author's Note: So yeah, the fight is over and now there is a major flashback where I will describe Naruto's training in detail. Also, we crossed crossed 50 followers and 30 favorites man this is crazy! Thank you so much for showing your support and I am glad you guys are enjoying my story so far!
As usual, review and let me know your thoughts!