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[Ding!]
[Skill Tree Unlock used.]
[Choose between the two skills shown:
[Enhanced Eyesight Lvl 1]
[Iron Clones Lvl 1]
Naruto bowed to the proctor out of habit, before slowly walking back to the stands.
Naruto…you've improved a lot. Kakashi thought with pride. I wonder how you took his jutsu head on, but you probably won't tell me anyways. The old Naruto would have been racing up and down to tell me just how you beat the Inuzuka.
His rate of improvement…it's not only amazing—it's terrifying. At the pace he's going—
Kakashi wiped away the incoming thoughts, instead focusing on the small body climbing up the stairs.
Naruto wasn't paying attention to the crowd as he walked through the stands. He felt kind of sorry for Kiba, who was being placed on a stool to be carried away. It was unfortunate luck that Kiba had to face Naruto in the first round, but it is what it is.
"Naruto! Congratulations!" Sakura exclaimed, patting his back.
Naruto smiled. "Thanks, Sakura."
Sasuke just looked at him. "I won't congratulate you. It's expected for you to beat Kiba, after all."
Naruto nodded. He didn't expect much from Sasuke either.
"But, I guess, I have to win my fight now," Sasuke continued.
"Hmm?"
Sasuke smirked. "Because I'll have to defeat you in the finals."
Naruto chuckled. "You can try, Uchiha."
"Good job, Naruto," Kakashi said right after. "I guess I have to buy you some ramen now."
"Of course! The bet's the whole reason I actually tried to defeat the brat anyways," Naruto admitted. "Well, let's hope the next match for one of us is just as easy."
With that, they waited for the next match announcement.
Naruto looked back to the screen next to him.
[Choose between the two skills shown:
[Enhanced Eyesight Lvl 1]
[Iron Clones Lvl 1]
Enhanced Eyesight…it's the exact same skill as last time. As for the other one, Iron Clones. It's like Iron Skin but more of an advanced version. It's almost like the skills themselves are evolving for me to choose which to unlock.
The system blurred into a loading screen before then showing a digital tree of sorts. The skills Iron Skin and Enhanced Eyesight were at the bottom of the tree. The icons above Enhanced Eyesight were shaded black, indicating they were yet to be unlocked, whereas the icon above the Iron Skin skill was a bright white, with the label of "Iron Clones" next to it.
Naruto could see that the more he went through the skill tree, the further and further the skills branched. So far, he couldn't see an ending to the tree.
So then came the decision.
[Enhanced Eyesight Lvl 1]
[Info: While skill is activated, the User has a greater understanding of the environment. The range of the User's eyesight is drastically improved as well as the overall perception of moving targets.]
Alright.
It seemed pretty effective, but he still needed to see the other skill before he decided entirely.
[Iron Clones Lvl 1]
[Info: While skill is activated, any active clones the Used has summoned will have the effects of Iron Skin. Time of usage and Skill Cooldown is affected by the number of clones used at one time.]
That sounds…seriously useful. It would be easier for someone to think that one of his clones were actually real if they took more than one or more hits.
Furthermore, he would have a lot more firepower with several iron covered bodies. Naruto could swarm his opponents at once, and they wouldn't know who the real Naruto was until the skill was over.
So, while he really wanted to get Enhanced Eyesight, especially when he could barely see people like Fuu move while they fought, he also really wanted to get Iron Clones.
Choose Iron Clones.
[Ding!]
[New Skill Achieved: Iron Clones - Lvl 1]
[Usage takes 30 MP and lasts for variable time before a variable skill cooldown applies.]
30 MP!? What the hell! That's not too bad for a skill that makes my clones just as strong! Naruto thought with a clearly suprised expression.
He wasn't sure when he would get the next skill upgrade, but he seriously wanted to get it soon. Naruto might have to choose to get Enhanced Eyesight if the "Iron Route" as he started to call it had a mediocre skill next.
For now, he could wait.
Things were going really well, after all.
"Naruto," A dangerous, feminine voice whispered from beside him.
Oh hell no!
Naruto froze as he heard the voice. He slowly turned his head to the side to meet the dark, blazing eyes of one Kurotsuchi. Her eyes alone showed just how furious she was, and her fingers were trembling as she tried her hardest to not strangle the troublesome blond right then and there.
Sakura looked curious as she watched the two begin to interact, wondering what the connection was.
Sasuke couldn't really care less.
"Ah! Long time no see, Kurotsuchi! How's the team doing?" Naruto asked casually, trying to hide the nervousness. "It's been a while!"
"How's the team doing?" The girl in front of him repeated incredulously, her face turning red with anger. "You're a cheat!"
"What are you talking about?" The Uzumaki asked cluelessly.
"My scroll! You stole my scroll!"
Naruto shrugged. "And?"
"And? What do you mean 'and?'" Kurotsuchi sputtered. "I trusted you and you stole my scroll!"
"Then it was clearly your fault for trusting me, wasn't it? It's a battle, not an written test for someone to be expelled for 'cheating'."
"W-wha—"
Naruto sighed dramatically, placing a hand on Kurotsuchi's shoulder. "For what it's worth, I felt very guilty for stealing your scroll. But it was merely for your improvement that I did so. You shouldn't trust others so easily. Of course, you can trust me—"
"Don't spout all of that bullshit and distract me, Naruto. You know what you did was wrong! Just accept it and I'll leave," she growled, her eyes flashing dangerously.
Naruto felt the anger rise in his own chest. "How about you don't take a moral high-ground on this, and accept the fact that you got tricked, and deal with it? Or are you too spoiled to realize you can't trust anyone so lightly, and that not everything is handed to you? It doesn't matter if what I did was wrong, it shouldn't matter."
"You…you jerk!" Kurotsuchi yelled one last time, her eyes red and slightly watery.
She turned around and began walking away without ever looking back.
Wow, she's mad. Naruto thought with a frown.
"What's with her?" Sakura asked, eyes narrowed at the retreating back of Kurotsuchi.
"She's just mad that I stole the Earth scroll from her," Naruto replied plainly, looking back at the screen in the stadium.
"You did what?"
"It's a long story."
"AND FOR THE NEXT MATCH OF THE PRELIMINARY EXAMS!"
"GAARA VS DOSU!"
[—]
Naruto watched in silence as Gaara went to the fighting arena with Dosu coming from the other side of the stands.
He had no doubts about who was going to win. In fact, he was more so watching to see just how badly Dosu would lose. Ever since the fight back in the Forest of Death, Gaara has been especially quiet. He hadn't looked once into Naruto's eyes, which was surprising for someone who swore that he would kill him.
Dosu, with his bandaged face, showed no emotions as he went into the battlefield.
"Who do you think will win?" Sakura asked quietly.
Naruto just raised an eyebrow. Getting the message, Sakura stayed quiet.
Sasuke crossed his arms as he watched the fight. Naruto assumed he was thinking of his own fight with Gaara at the moment, and probably knew how dominant the Jinchuuriki was, even though he didn't actually know Gaara was a Jinchuuriki. It had taken him, Neji, and Lee together to actually hurt Gaara at all, meaning beating him in one of the rounds one on one was going to be a whole lot harder.
"Hajime!"
The fight started.
Sand exploded towards Dosu with frightening velocity, but the latter managed to dodge the first burst with his surprising speed. Naruto watched in shock as Dosu actually managed to close-up on Gaara without being hit by the sand, which was practically impossible for most of the Genin that were gathered.
"He's fast," Sasuke muttered.
"Yeah, faster than me, at least," Naruto replied with a frown.
He needed to find a way to get faster. If only the Skill Tree gave him choices which were related to his physical attributes and made him faster, he would take them in a heartbeat. While stuff like "Iron Skin" and "Iron Clones" sounded awesome, he found that the simpler abilities which would automatically give him a buff without any other consequences to be much more straightforward and effective.
Right when another stray of sand was about to strike Dosu in the heart, his gauntlets released a shockwave of energy (or sound?) that pushed away the sand extremely easily, making way for Dosu to actually get a hit on Gaara.
But of course, he didn't.
More and more sand came after the masked boy, who had to unleash his gauntlets to the maximum to keep it at bay. His eyes widened when he realized he couldn't do so for much longer.
The fight was practically over.
Dosu didn't have much an offensive arsenal compared to the Gaara, who didn't have a wide variety of moves, but his sheer control over the sand was enough to break through almost all defenses. Paired with his near impenetrable defense, the Jinchuuriki was unstoppable, and Dosu knew that.
Putting a hand up, he prepared to forfeit.
"Well, that's a smart way of going through with it," Sasuke snorted.
Naruto has to agree.
No words came out Dosu's mouth.
The audience burst into a collective amount of murmurs, each of them wondering what the hell Dosu was doing.
"Wait!" Sakura exclaimed. "Is that…sand?"
Naruto walked over to where Sakura was sitting seeing that she had a better view of the whole occurence, with Sasuke following behind soon after. She was right. A bar of sand blocked Dosu's mouth, preventing him from saying anything.
His eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets now, as he stood still with a hand in the air.
To everyone else, it simply looked like Dosu was out of his mind.
Naruto frowned. "What is Gaara doing—"
Sand burst beneath where Dosu was standing, immediately surrounding the boy who tried to jump upwards as soon as possible, but was too late. The sand had circled around him like a sphere, blocking any sort of escape from the second Dosu saw it. Dosu forfeited to gravity and was immediately put back down.
It all happened too fast.
The sand enclosed around Dosu, whose eyes spoke for themselves, even if his mouth couldn't. Naruto could feel the fear in Dosu's eyes.
Soon enough, Dosu was nowhere to be seen, covered by an armor of sand that rose around ten meters into the air.
At first, the dome was large enough to fit a regularly sized Genin.
Then it shrunk.
The crowd watched in horror as the ball of sand began to decrease in radius, and soon began to gasp in fright as red blood dripped from the dome and onto the floor. At that point, there was no question that Dosu was severely mutilated, if not dead by then.
Before the Proctors could even say any objections, Gaara squeezed his open palm into a fist.
The ball shrunk into the size of a cannonball.
Blood exploded outwards from the quick transformation of the container that once held Dosu. Gaara smiled evilly as he released his clenched fist, causing the ball to dissipate into regular sand that fell dramatically to the floor along with the crumpled and torn down bones of Dosu.
The audience was filled with shrieks of terror as they saw that happen in front of them, while the Jonins merely stayed quiet and watched. Naruto could tell that even they were surprised by the show of aggression.
The blond just narrowed his eyes at the Jinchuuriki in front of him. He's pure evil.
Some Genin just vomited into the stadium below, disgusted and horrified by what they saw, whereas others just mutely watched the aftermath. Sakura's eyes were just as wide as Dosu's before he died, and she looked like she was about to run away before Kakashi put a hand on her shoulder, and whispered something to her ear.
Whatever he said, it seemed to have calmed her down a little bit but the slightly crazed look in her eye was still present.
Naruto glared at the red-haired boy beneath him, the boy who merely grinned before a death he caused. A death which wasn't required.
"Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura," Kakashi stated calmly, bringing the attention of the Genin to him. "Don't be scared of him. While he may seem impossibly strong, trust me when I say this, I can mould you both to become stronger.
Scared? Never.
But Kakashi's words still brought some confidence to him.
There were holes in Gaara's defense.
That was something he realized from the first time he fought the brat.
"Winner: Gaara!" The Proctor stated with some hesitation.
"He's…insane," Ino whimpered slightly.
"Well, if I'm paired against him in the next round, I'm for sure forfeiting," Shikamaru said plainly.
Naruto didn't really blame him.
Hinata appeared as if tears were going to fall down her eyes soon. "W-why d-d-did he have t-to do that?"
"Some people are just like that, Hinata. Believe me, I've seen worse people in my career as a shinobi," Kurenai informed the frightened girl.
Naruto didn't want to believe that she was telling the truth.
"Such an unwarranted death. I sincerely hope my youthfulness will be enough to beat the evil of that boy," Lee stated seriously, staring intently at Gaara, who began to retreat into the crowds.
Where the hell did Lee come from?
"Ah, Lee," Naruto said. "How exactly did I not notice you yet?"
Naruto prided himself in being pretty observant, so finding that he couldn't notice Lee of all people, who was fully clad in a bright green suit, coming ho to them was quite demoralizing.
Lee looked thoughtful for a second. "Hmm, maybe because my footsteps are completely silent."
What?
Naruto looked confused for a second. How did someone make their footsteps absolutely silent? The only people he really knew could do that were Zabuza and Haku, in which the latter must have been trained by the former. He remembered getting the option back in the Wave mission to learn Haku's silent Taijutsu, but he didn't have the time to learn it back then, and nor did the "Archive" ability seem to be available.
With an interested glance, he asked Lee how exactly he learned to make his footsteps silent.
Lee looked at Naruto as if he were joking. "I didn't learn."
"So you're telling me it came naturally? Is that even possible?" Naruto asked, flabbergasted.
"Of course, I'm living proof of it, aren't I?" Lee replied, grinning.
Why am I asking the goddamn living freak of nature! Naruto thought angrily.
Everyone waited for the next fight in a dull silence afterwards, which was promptly broken by the interruption of one certain mint-haired girl.
There wasn't any other mint-haired girl he knew of, after all.
"Heya, Naruto!" Fuu exclaimed excitedly.
Either the girl wasn't present for the fight that just happened or she simply couldn't read the mood well. Naruto, unenthusiastic, looked up to her shining eyes.
"Why are you here, Fuu?" Naruto asked.
"Hmph. That's quite a rude way to introduce your best friend to your team! Hello everyone, my name is Fuu!"
Sakura was the first to answer. "We could tell."
Fuu, unfazed by the other girl's sarcasm, continued. "What are y'all's names?"
Seeing that his teammates had no desire to answer, Naruto answered for them. "The pink-haired one is Sakura, the brooding one is Sasuke, and the tall one is Kakashi-sensei."
"Nice to meet you all, I'm Naruto's best friend, Fuu. I'm sorry, I already told you that, didn't I?" Fuu asked, laughing. "Well, it's good to see you all. Is it alright if I borrow Naruto for a second?"
Kakashi's eyes twinkled merrily. "Of course. It's good to see Naruto making new friends—he's usually always so lonely by himself."
Naruto grit his teeth in annoyance, but was also thankful his sensei didn't question her story. "Yes, I'm always lonely. I'll see you guys soon."
They walked away to some abandoned seats, which was quite uncomfortable for Naruto who realized what someone else could think at the sight of them. Fuu, on the other hand, looked completely unfazed.
"Why exactly did you pull me away from my team?" Naruto asked questionably.
"It doesn't seem like it, but this is actually quite important, Naruto," Fuu said, and for the first time since he met her her voice actually seemed serious.
"And what might that be?"
"What do you know about the—"
"FUU VERSUS TEMARI!"
Naruto just sighed at the inconvenient timing. "I guess you're gonna have to go."
Fuu grinned. "Not going to wish me luck?"
The blond rolled his eyes. "I would if you needed it."
"Well, let me deal with this real quick, I still have to talk with you as soon as possible," Fuu stated.
Naruto nodded.
Then Fuu leaped from the stands onto the stadium below. At this point Naruto didn't even need to be surprised. The gap between him and her was becoming more and more evident, and it irked him all the more. He needed to defeat Neji quickly so that he could reap the benefits from the quest he was given a few weeks ago.
He swiftly walked back to where his team was located, wanting to see the fight for himself as well.
His ultimate goal for the Chuunin exams was to beat both of the other Jinchuuriki, but right now it still seemed completely impossible. Unless, he managed to improve at a highly above average rate, similar to how he did back when he was a mere LVL 5. But one thing he learned as he progressed through the ranks, leveling up got slower and slower as he continued to increase his level, which was balanced by the fact that new features for the system and higher rewards were supplied as he got into higher levels.
Shaking his head, he put his mind back into the fight.
"What did the leaf-head want?" Sakura asked curiously.
Naruto raised an unimpressed eyebrow at the horribly put nickname. "She didn't get to say anything, actually."
"Maybe they weren't there to talk?" Kakashi commented.
Naruto just sighed and shook his head. As if that could get a rise out of him. Kakashi was going to have to try harder than that, because whatever he just heard was absolutely pathetic.
"Hajime!"
The fight was over before he could even blink.
Temari began to open a large metal fan, most likely in preparation of a large attack which she assumed would knock out the girl instantly.
Fuu wasn't normal.
The instant Temari opened the fan, she bolted forward with all of her strength, before plunging her fist into Temari's completely open stomach, which ended up knocking Temari unconscious instantly. The crowd watched in shock at the sheer speed of the girl, the previous atmosphere completely destroyed by the stunning victory.
"Winner: Fuu!" The proctor couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice.
Fuu raised a thumbs-up to everyone, before leaping back to the stands.
"Your friend is…incredible, Naruto," Kakashi said at last. Sakura and Sasuke looked similarly impressed, with the former much more outward with it.
"Yeah, I know," Naruto deadpanned.
It's kind of the whole reason I became friends with her in the first place! Naruto yelled in his head. He still wasn't sure if Fuu was a good person or not. So far, she was only nice around him, but when she fought it was easy to think otherwise.
"Hey."
Naruto gasped in his seat as he heard Fuu whisper into his ear from behind him.
"What the—"
"C'mon, let's finish what we were talking about," Fuu said, not even sparing a glance at the rest of his team.
Sakura looked like she seriously wanted to ask what they were going to talk about, and Naruto probably would have indulged her except for the fact that he really didn't know. Sasuke looked indifferent, though he looked at Fuu with a competitive glare that Naruto recognized.
"Alright, again," Naruto sighed.
They went up to the higher stands where they were sure no one would be able to hear them. Naruto just wondered what was so serious that it warranted having them completely isolated, but he refrained from asking. He just wanted to get this over with. Hopefully, it really was something important.
Fuu looked around herself once more before leaning in towards Naruto's left ear.
"What do you know about the Akatsuki?"
[—]
Yo!
And that's a wrap.
WTH just happened? How does Fuu of all people know about the Akatsuki? Especially so early on? Find out in the next chapter, I guess. How was the slight gore in the Gaara fight? And sorry for doing Temari like that, but Fuu is just clearly way stronger.
Check my Pa treon if you want to read the next chapter tomorrow! It's www. / PaladinKaladin or search PaladinKaladin on the site. It's 2$ for 1 chapter ahead, that's being posted tmr. 5$ for 2 chapters ahead that's posted day after tmr. 15 for 3, 20 for 3 chaps plus other stuff.
Questions for the day:
Question 1: Who is your favorite Akatsuki member? Mine is either Konan or Tobi.
Question 2: Minato versus Pain, who wins? I've got Minato, only cus of the Haraishin.
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Cya' next chapter.