Naruto stared down the snowy pale eyes of Neji Hyuga without a blink or a twitch of his own burning blues. He ignored the roaring sound of the eager crowd seated high up in the stands on the top flat stone walls. He ignored the niggling sense of stomach-churning anxiety ebbing head to toe throughout his entire body. He ignored the snide smirk this arrogant son of a bitch had permanently tattooed on his thin lips.
Wrath was all the Uzumaki boy could feel for Neji right now. That same derisive look Sasuke always gave him plastered on his face, the air of arrogance that surrounded him and the memories of what he did to Hinata. This prick needed to be taken down a peg or a couple hundred.
"Ready to accept your fate and lose?" Neji taunted. "No matter how hard you defy it, destiny ordains I will win this battle. Whatever aspirations you have a purely a delusion brought on by your arrogance."
"I didn't come here to lose, I came planning to win." Naruto spat back. 'I'm gonna beat this bastard black and blue and then Sasuke, and then become a Chunin!'
"Hmph, I guess you really are happy to live in your delusions."
"Kiss my ass."
"Are you two ready?" Genma chewed on his senbon needle. Neji took the Juken fighting stance and the veins around his eyes emerged with an audible popping sound. Naruto didn't move at all, only clenching his fists tightly. The two boys nodded in silent agreement, still staring in silent, blistering hatred for each other.
"Begin."
With a single handsign, Naruto summoned a group of shadow clones. They drew kunai from their identical pouches and charged their opponent. Even with the Byakugan, the Hyuga Prodigy couldn't tell which was the real Naruto, all of these clones had a chakra network like a normal person.
'Shadow Clones!' Neji deduced.
It mattered little as with a few strikes and a dodge, they all vanished into smoke and a Naruto stood back away from the fray.
"Do you see now? You have no hope of defeating me. All of our abilities and talents are determined at birth and you lack any of either that could overpower me."
"Shut your hole! All you ever do is talk about fate like anybody cares! If you're so caught up with following your fate, then lay down, die and get the hell outta my way to being Hokage!"
Naruto reformed the sign and conjured a score of Shadow Clones and repeated his full-frontal assault. Neji parried the first punch that reached near his face and tossed that clone into a few others and all turned to smoke. The clones got closer. He struck them all as they came and spotted one standing behind the rest.
'That's the real one.'
Powering through the swarm of remaining clones, Neji reached the standing Naruto and struck into his chest. A river of crimson flowed from the blond's mouth like a bloody river.
"See? I told you it was fate." Neji snidely remarked.
Naruto coughed more blood, but his face held a cheeky smile. "And I told you to lay down and die!"
Suddenly, Naruto turned to smoke.
"What‽" The Hyuga boy shouted, stupefied he'd been tricked by this idiot.
"Over here jackass!"
A pair of Narutos launched themselves at their enemy from opposite sides.
"I got you!" Naruto triumphantly yelled before he saw chakra begin to cover the older boy. With a quick spin on his heels, Neji generated a dome of chakra that knocked both Narutos away. The clone poofed when it hit the hard ground. The real Naruto stood up, dazed, covered in dirt, a few shallow cuts, an out of socket arm, and a few fingers bent out of their normal shape.
"You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?"
"Yeah, still do." Naruto raggedly breathed, snapping his broken fingers back into place, each of them making a sickening pop. "Because you ain't all that tough." He clenched his teeth over his bottom lip and forced his shoulder back into its proper place. His teeth drew a trickle of blood. Naruto tasted the copper on his tongue.
"Kick his ass, Naruto!"
It wasn't easy for Karin to watch as her cousin struggled against the prodigy of the Hyuga clan. Neji, like all Hyuga, possessed the Byakugan, one of the Three Great Dojutsu. His vision was nearly a full three-hundred and sixty degrees, making it nearly impossible to get the drop on him. Perhaps only Sasuke with his Sharingan and that freaky Suna kid would have the upper hand, or at least an advantage, in this match-up. Even if he wasn't favored by the odds, Naruto would have her full support and she would make sure he'd hear it.
"Don't let him smack you around like that!" Karin's blood was flowing and she didn't want it to stop. It was exciting in the best ways possible. She was having fun as she had been with Naruto, but this felt different. To watch him actually face down an enemy was something entirely different from his usual boasting about his prowess. She believed firmly he could beat this fatalistic ingrate.
"You really think he has a chance?" Ino asked. "Neji's really strong and I don't think Naruto knows anything that can stop him. I think Neji's got this." Ino wanted to cheer on her...friend?... but in her mind, it just wasn't in the cards. Winning this fight would take real skill, not dumb luck like a conveniently timed fart. Ino felt a vain pulse on the side of her head as that memory came to her.
"The hell he does! Naruto's gonna crush him that arrogant, girly lookin' bastard, just watch!"
The redhead's spirited rebuke of Ino brought a pensive smile to Sakura's face. Sakura herself hoped against hope that Ino was wrong but she couldn't bring herself to cheer out loud should Naruto lose. Self-inflicted social pressure to be proven right and assert her intelligence still ate away at her psyche all these years later. She cursed herself for being so vain but did nothing to correct it.
Hinata was silently enthused by the support Karin was willing to proclaim with such vigor. She was too timid to announce her backing of the blond boy over the cousin who brutalized her with, presumably, the intent to end her life. And for what? For something, she had no control over? For something, her father had done? She didn't want her uncle to die in her stead.
Never aloud would the timid girl admit her contempt for the archaic ways of her family the Hyuga. The whole idea of the branch family itself infuriated her with how little sense it made. For a sibling to be punished for existing after the firstborn was asinine enough alone, but then to wonder how and why the children of the branch family, chiefly Neji, were as strong, if not stronger than the main lineage required some gall. Neji was a first cousin, not some distant relative for Kami's sake!
Hinata shook her head clear. She'd let herself get worked up about this nonsense later. Now was the time to watch her crush knock some common sense into her deterministic cousin.
"Don't you turn your back on me!"
Bruised, bloodied, beaten, but not broken was Naruto now. Hunched over slightly was he, breathing heavy and one eye opened lazily half-lidded. Part of him wanted to quit, but he ignored it. Maybe of ignorant rebelliousness, maybe of outright spitefulness.
"I ain't done with you yet!"
Neji bore no wounds on his person, unlike his opponent. He was more bewildered than anything else. This kid was even more stubborn than he originally thought.
'How can he even stand‽ I pressed most of his Tenketsu, he shouldn't even be standing!'
"You really are annoying." Insulted Neji. "You've only enough chakra in your body for your body to function. If you really are insistent on fighting more," He retook the Jyuken stance with a stern grimace. "then you're even more foolish than I thought!"
Naruto slapped his hands into a singular seal and closed his eyes. 'Hey Fox, rent's due!' He called on the sealed Biju. 'And don't scare Karin either you furry bastard!'
Burning red chakra exploded from himself. Neji watched with great wide eyes as the Uzumaki's Tenketsu began to reactivate. Starting from the spiral coil in his stomach, then to his chest, and from there to the rest of his body.
"What‽ How‽" Sputtered the prodigy to an unresponsive tongue. "This isn't possible!"
When Naruto's chakra network was filled, the chakra itself seeped off of him, forming into a black cloud, then into the outline of a shape of an animal's head with red eyes and snarling black smile. Neji was startled, taking an unconscious step back, and deactivated his Dojutsu.
'What the hell is this‽'
"Here I come, bastard!"
Another batch of clones appeared but these ones didn't rush him. Instead, two leaped opposite of each other and each threw a barrage of kunai at their target from their perches on the arena walls. Neji countered them with a few shuriken sending all the metal weapons to the ground. From the rest of the group, two more clones charged recklessly ahead, screaming intelligibly. Suddenly, the two clones standing on the walls launched themselves the Hyuga.
"Rotation!" Neji shouted. It was all he could think to do to defend himself against the coming clones. He couldn't argue with the results, however, as the clones were smoked nearly instantly. He panted a little as his technique whirled to its end with a soft whistle. His normal vision was besieged by receding clouds from the defunct clones and the dust his rotation kicked up. Reactivating the Byakugan, a last pair of Narutos stood still, without moving from where they stood.
The real Naruto stood and focused while his clone whirled its hands in circular motions around his own. A ball of spinning blue chakra no bigger than the boy's fist formed quickly, spinning faster than any normal man and some lower-level shinobi could hope to see. Placing his other hand over the ball to maintain the shape and power, the real Uzumaki rushed ahead, leaving the clone to disappear.
Neji rotated again when Naruto pushed the spiraling sphere forward.
"Rasengan!" The Blond shouted.
It came as a pleasant surprise to Karin whatever that red chakra wasn't affecting her anymore. She was happy her breakfast stayed in her stomach and wasn't splayed all over Sakura or Ino's laps, though a little voice in the back of her head told her to puke on Sakura anyway. Karin would dub that voice Vindictive. She did wonder why that Chakra didn't affect her now.
Perhaps Naruto could exert some control over it now. He was trained by a freaking Sannin over the past month, even if said Sannin was hardly more than a lecherous old pervert in her humble opinion but he was still a powerful ninja and willing to teach her cousin. And oh boy, it seemed Jiraiya taught him something, that much was certain.
There was no way Neji was getting up after whatever that jutsu was just sent him flying into the concrete walls of the arena.
She heard the people around her wince and moan as if they shared the pain the Hyuga Prodigy was no doubt in. Their chakras were much of the same, ebbing and flowing according to their emotions and feelings. Gaara's reacted oddly: it was happy, eager at the sight of blood, and dark, like the chakra inside Naruto. It left her nauseous. She closed her sensory ability, not wanting to get sick again.
Hiruzen's shock was kept hidden by the mastery of the emotions he possessed. 'So you taught him his father's own jutsu, eh Jiraiya?' He thought. 'I hope it'll be enough to take down his next opponent.'
Neji couldn't move his body. His limbs didn't respond to the orders he gave them. He lay there now, wondering if fate had decreed him to lose this battle as some kind of humiliation.
'Or does fate really exist at all?'
"Winner, Naruto Uzumaki!" Genma announced. It didn't take much effort to see that the Hyuga wasn't getting up from that jutsu.
Thunderous applause rained down on Naruto and for once, the village accepted him. He could hear Sakura's cheering, however, there was a louder voice.
Karin's. She'd been behind him the whole match, shouting for him to keep fighting even when Neji had beaten the utter crap out of him. Sakura didn't. She only cheered now that he'd won. He was still happy to hear her, but it stung a little as if she didn't believe he could win.
Karin did.
A swelling pit formed in his stomach, recalling the promise he'd made her. Of course, he'd tell her that he was the Jinchuriki of Kyubi, he did promise her he would, and Naruto Uzumaki did not break his promises. He still had another match and promotion ahead of him before he had to tell her what he was and the source of the sicknesses she told him of.
For now, though, the boy would bask in the adoration the village hailed on him.
This is probably the weakest chapter so far and I had a bitch of a time trying to write this fight. I'm not particularly good at fights as most of what I read doesn't have long fights, most of them last maybe a paragraph, if even that, but I'll try harder going forward. Not sure when I'll get the next chapters out but it shouldn't be too long. If I didn't just jinx myself.