Life Revisited Chapter 4: Orange Flash

A/N: This chapter is a lot earlier than the previous ones, mainly because of all the nice reviews I've been getting! Thanks a lot! The reviews made me want to work harder and get the next chapter out already. As a note, I will be changing minor details, but nothing too important. Well anyways, onward!

Naruto--

Naruto rolled over in bed for what seemed to be the thousandth time that night. Opening his eyes he looked over at the simple digital clock on his rather small excuse for a nightstand. 'Great, 12:00.' Naruto had been trying to go to sleep since 9:00 because he was tired of worrying about the Chuunin exam. He remembered specifically seeing the grass-nin that was actually Orochimaru at the first exam earlier, which really didn't help his nerves. Still completely stumped on what to do, he rolled onto his back to give it serious thought. Naruto slowly drifted off to sleep, but not before finally deciding on what he was going to do. The clock shone 12:15 into the night.

Naruto woke abruptly to the loud screeching of his alarm, telling him that it was now 6:00 A.M. From previous experience, he knew that Anko had given a rather vague idea of what time to be at the forest, but also remembered that she cut off arrival after 9:00, giving him plenty of time to set what he hoped would fix things into motion. He quickly showered and got his survival pack ready, then scribbled a quick note and left his apartment headed towards the Hokage Tower. He reached the area quickly and stopped on the roof of a building several buildings down from the tower. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the note he had scribbled down at his apartment, which read:

"Orochimaru is posing as a grass-nin for the Chuunin exam. Please take this seriously because if you don't people may get hurt."

He had signed it as 'The Orange Flash of Konoha.' Naruto quickly attached it to a kunai and threw it through the window of the Hokage's office. 'Please jiji, do something!' Naruto said to himself as he sped away to make the 7:30 meeting that he had planned for his team at the bridge.

Sandaime--

The Sandaime Hokage was busy doing paperwork when a kunai flew through his window and implanted itself into the wall of his office. Not sensing any chakra around, he didn't jump into battle mode, but kept himself prepared in case he needed to. He walked over to the kunai, having noticed that it had paper attached to it and pulled it from the wall after making sure that the paper wasn't some kind of explosive note. Unfolding the note he read it. Surprised, he sat back down at his desk and quickly summoned three ANBU captains. They 'poofed' into his office and took a knee, prepared for his orders.

"I have just recieved a note saying that my old student Orochimaru is posing as a genin in the Chuunin exam." Before the Hokage could speak another word one of the ANBU captains stood up and interjected.

"Sir! Are you sure? Is the source of the note reliable?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm going to have you three and your teams check it out anyway. The note says that he is posing as a grass-nin, which simplifies things a bit since there is only one team of grass-nin in this exam. I want you," the Hokage said, pointing at one of the captains "to go and notify Mitarashi-san. Make sure that you get her off to the side and that she keeps her cool until we can verify whether Orochimaru is actually here or not. It is important that she doesn't try and do anything by herself. After you do that, join up with the other two groups and watch Orochimaru, but don't interfere unless it becomes obvious that it is Orochimaru." The three ANBU captains left with a chorus of "Hai!" and three loud 'poofs' to do their repspective tasks leaving the Hokage alone in his office again. 'What are you scheming Orochimaru?'

Naruto--

When Naruto arrived at the bridge, it was 7:25, but Sakura and Sasuke were waiting there for him already. All three of them were anxious about the exam, but the other two had no idea about Orochimaru. Naruto nodded at them, and the three headed toward the forest. When they arrived, it was around 8:00 and almost all the other participants were there already, earning them stares from the rest of the genin. They quickly found the others in the rookie nine and started conversation, and before they knew it, it was nine and a slightly disgruntled looking Anko called to them.

"Ok, this is the second exam in the Chuunin exam! Here's how the exam works: each team will be given a scroll, either heaven or earth. You must steal an opposing teams scroll using whatever means necessary and reach the tower in the center of the forest. I wouldn't recommend opening your scroll before you reach the tower, as I'm sure you won't like the outcome. You will have five days to reach the tower before you are disqualified. Now, one person from every team come up here and get a scroll." Naruto saw that Sakura was going to go up and get the scroll, but he held up his hand so that she wouldn't and went up and got it himself. He arrived back with his group, heaven scroll safely tucked away in his pocket.

"Listen up!" Anko shouted. "Each team has been assigned an entry based on team number. The list of entry ways are on the board to my left," she pointed at it, "so please take your assigned position and wait for your gate to open. That is all." There were twenty teams prepared to go into the forest, and Team 7 had been assigned to go to entry 10. They stood and waited, and Naruto noticed that unluckily Orochimaru's team had been assigned entry 9, a detail he had forgotten. This meant one thing really, that he would be forced into a situation with Orochimaru sooner than he would like to be. Naruto looked and saw that Orochimaru was staring at Sasuke's back, and apparently Sasuke knew this as well.

"Baka grass-nin needs to stop staring at me." Naruto actually found this funny and chuckled lightly. Sasuke had no idea what fate had in store. Mere moments later the gate to entry 9 opened and Orochimaru's team went silently inside and after a tense five minutes, the entry in front of Team 7 opened. 'No time like the present,' Naruto thought to himself.

Team 7 had been running for a half hour already, and Naruto thought that maybe the Hokage took his tip off and ambushed Orochimaru when he entered the forest. Just after that thought though, he sensed it and then saw it. 'It' being a rather large snake headed for the group of genin. But then, just as the snake was almost upon them, an ANBU-nin jumped down and killed it. This shocked Sakura and Sasuke, but Naruto just sighed in relief. The Third had taken his note seriously. Naruto's relief was cut short however when he saw the grass-nin run out with the leaf-cutter sword, charging at the ANBU-nin, who fought bravely but stood no chance against the legendary sannin. A group of eight more ANBU-nin jumped out to confront him, but they too were shortly taken care of.
"Hello, Sasuke-kun." Naruto could tell by the looks on the faces of Sakura and Sasuke that they were paralyzed with fear.

"Come on guys! Snap out of it!" Naruto yelled, successfully shaking the two out of their stupor. An enraged Orochimaru just glared at Naruto. Naruto realized that there was no getting around it, he would have to try and fight Orochimaru. He opted for surprising the snake-bastard. "Consider yourself lucky, snake-bastard," Naruto said while slowly raising his hands in front of him, dragon seal showing, "you get to be on the receiving end of the first battle of the Orange Flash of Konoha!" His eyes shown orange as he channeled chakra through them. Then, faster than anyone could see, he formed hand-seals and shouted "Kirameki no jutsu!" He looked over at his teammates, "Run! I'll keep him away!" Sasuke just looked him in the eyes for a second, nodded, grabbed Sakura, and ran.

To say that Orochimaru was surprised would be an understatement, and as much was visible on his face. Naruto knew that he would recover shortly, so he decided to go on the offensive first. Pulling out a kunai, he threw it at Orochimaru and zipped to where he figured the snake would dodge, another kunai in his hand ready to attack. Orochimaru had been able to predict this even though Naruto had Kirameki active however, still dodging he swung his sword, aiming to take off the boy's head. Naruto's kunai came up in time to block the sword, and he decided that he might as well show off another skill he had been saving for a special occasion. Using kyuubi chakra, he internally formed seals while bringing his hand up to his face. He formed the 'ok' hand gesture and said "Katon: Karyuu Endan no jutsu!" The fire technique hit Orochimaru so abruptly that he was unable to make a replacement and took the full force of the blast head on, making his false skin melt. Just as Orochimaru was going to go back on the offensive and turn the tides with his techniques, five squads of ANBU jumped out of the trees, and moments later the Sandaime Hokage was standing next to Naruto.

"Good job Naruto, or should I call you 'The Orange Flash of Konoha'?" The Hokage smirked.

"Naruto is fine, jiji!" And with that he was gone, off to find his teammates before something bad could happen to them.

Sasuke and Sakura--

Sasuke had been running for around five minutes now, and despite the fact that Naruto was his biggest rival, he hoped that the orange-clad ninja was ok. He had put Sakura down a few minutes ago, when she said that she could run by herself, and she was running beside him. They both stopped, there in front of them stood the group of sound-nin.

"Hello, Sasuke." The one with the metal thing on his arm that had shattered Kabuto's glasses at the first exam said. "Where is your third teammate? Could it be that Orochimaru-sama killed him?" Sasuke didn't recognize the name, but Sakura did.

"Orochimaru? Naruto-kun is fighting one of the sannin?" Sakura shouted. Sasuke's eyes bugged out, if that really was Orochimaru, Naruto would be a goner. "No! Sasuke, we have to go back and get Naruto-kun!" Sasuke fully agreed, so they turned to leave, but the sound-nin zipped infront of them.

"You two aren't going anywhere, we have orders to bring Sasuke here to Orochimaru and we fully intend on fulfilling those orders." The same sound-nin said, before flicking his arm piece, causing the two to grab their ears and double over in pain. "But Orochimaru-sama never said we had to bring you in alive." He pulled out two kunai and aimed to kill the two genin in front of him but before they could be hit with the kunai, there were gone, no kawarimi, just gone. How had they moved fast enough that he couldn't see the movement? A moment later he got his answer, as Naruto appeared where the two were a second ago. He had stashed his teammates a little ways away, but far enough to put them out of danger, they had passed out of sensory overload.

"Now, let's see how you fare against someone who's stronger than you." Naruto said. The three sound-nin laughed.

"You stronger than us?" The female sound-nin said incredulously, "yeah right!" Naruto did some internal seals.

"Kirameki no Jutsu!" There was an orange flash.

"I didn't see him make hand-seals!" The second guy sound-nin said to the first.

"That's because I didn't make any." Naruto said, now standing among them. With three flashes and three quick punches to the face, they were all passed out and less one earth scroll. Now that they had both scrolls, Naruto knew that they would have to head to the tower as soon as possible or else risk having to see Orochimaru again, so he retrieved his teammates, woke them, and they headed toward the tower, Naruto taking out any threats on the way. They reached the tower shortly after nightfall.

A/N:

Ok, there it was the fourth chapter, sooner than I have updated ever before. I know that it seems that I'm overpowering Naruto, but I really think that if he had all of the knowledge of his past life and all those techniques, that he'd be really powerful. He ISN'T as strong as Orochimaru yet though, just in case you didn't catch it in the chapter, he was able to defend himself and get a short edge because of his speed, and if Orochimaru would have started fighting seriously Naruto would have been screwed. The next chapter will have the confrontation with the Sandaime and Orochimaru in it among other things to look forward to. I've really liked getting all the reviews I've been getting, even if it's just 'I like your story, update soon' type reviews and it would be cool if you guys could keep sending me reviews. If you want to contact me elsewise, for whatever reason, you can email me at or talk to me on AIM, my screen name is freakytikiLTFW. Thanks and 'til next time. Kreekoh