Disclaimer: I do not own anything of Naruto I am simply borrowing them to create a story of my own, each and all of the characters (excluding OC's that shall be introduced later) are owned by someone else.

Authors note: Well in the process of reorganizing and editing all of the chapters I realize that I don't really have time to do this all. So I've decided to just continue the story and save the changes I've made too the story. These changes are very small and probably not really noticeable. There is one big change and that's the spacing I tried to imply to make the story go smoother. As well I've decided to be rather less generous than before. Before I was punching out chapters every other day, well now I'm going to try and slow down and make more quality chapters and make them neater and with less errors. Anyway that's all I had to say so on with the show

Trials of the Shinobi

A Naruto Fan-Fiction

By Dark-Angel-Cronos

Part 2: The tournament begins

Chapter 5: Ranks

After the battle on deck the Nin from Konoha had become very worried. Their new enemies were very strong, and seem ruthless in tactics. Yet Kazuma's kindness at the end of the match gave everyone a strange feeling like they really weren't the enemy but a few nin still held a large grudge against Kazuma and Michiyo, but now wasn't the time for grudges. Naruto, Sakura, and Hinata were in Sasuke's room waiting for him to wake up. Lee had Neji and Tenten looking after him so although worried about him Sakura and Naruto knew Lee would be okay.

"GRRRR I want a crack at that Michiyo girl, who does she think she is! She could have killed Sasuke." Naruto was furious although he had shown a lot of maturity upstairs on deck for Kakashi and the others it was more because he was confused by a lot of things. Why did Michiyo almost kill Sasuke, why did Kazuma step in and save Lee and Sasuke, who are these people anyway and what do they want with them, and most importantly, what was that thing that stopped Sasuke's attacks?

"Naruto I feel the same way but Sasuke needs us now we can have our revenge later when the tournament starts up." Sakura's inner self couldn't help but e angry and she wanted to show Michiyo one four and give her a good thrashing for hurting her Sasuke-kun.

"Naruto-kun, Sakura I don't think its right to judge people so harshly. I mean sure they hurt Sasuke and Lee but something's not right. Here. Why would Kazuma heal them both after the thrashing? Plus neither of them seemed intent on hurting Sasuke or Lee to start with." Hinata was thinking the situation over hoping Naruto would keep his head about things and not do something stupid.

"Hinata you're right, but that still doesn't explain why they did it." Sakura was starting to think that maybe Hinata was right and that they hadn't really meant to hurt Sasuke or Lee but she still wanted a piece of Michiyo.

"Well I'm not gonna sit around and just wait all day! I'm gonna go talk to Michiyo and figure what the hell is going on!" Naruto got up from his seat and moved out the door slamming it shut. Sakura gave a worried look towards Hinata.

"Don't worry I'll go and make sure he doesn't get himself hurt." Hinata got up and followed her hot headed lover. Sakura was left alone with just Sasuke now, how often she had longed to be alone with him like this. She just wished she knew if he was okay he had been out all night and his body was acting weird. Irregular breathing and he often developed a cold sweat. He seemed to be getting better though and she wished he would just wake up.

"Please wake up Sasuke-kun, we need you, you're strong and the teams gonna need you for this mission," Sakura had stayed up all night and she was so tired she could help herself. She laid her head down his chest her arms making herself a pillow so she could be comfortable. "Sasuke-kun, I need you" She yawned after this and started to drift asleep. Sasuke however wasn't gonna let her get away with sleeping on him see easily.

"Hmmm you're so annoying sometimes" Sasuke had spoken his eyes were closed though. It brought Sakura to attention waiting for him to speak again she didn't lift her head though she really didn't want to she was so tired. Sasuke was slowly moving though he pushed his hand from beneath the covers. Sakura barely noticed as she was too tired, but what she did notice was that he had wrapped his arm around her.

"Sasuke-kun" She moved up to look at him his hand was in her hair now and it slid down to her back. He slowly got up his eyes still closed. His head was hanging low but he lifted it to look up. Opening his eyes he spoke again but it was a little incoherent from his weakness. "What Sasuke-kun?" Sakura bent down a little to try and hear better, while Sasuke had a better idea he wrapped his arms around her and moved so that he could whisper in her ear.

"You're so annoying sometimes, but I think that's why I like you." Sasuke moved back and shook his head throwing off any fatigue he still had and gave her a smile. He seemed calm and peaceful.

"Sasuke-kun, you need your…" Sakura was interrupted; Sasuke had put his finger to her lips and just smiled at her.

"I'm fine I don't need any rest. Some sunlight might do me some good but for right now just don't speak." Sakura blushed as he pulled her closer moving his hand away his lips were centimeters away from his. She was finally gonna do it. She was gonna kiss Sasuke. Her mind screamed so very loud she thought for sure Sasuke heard it 'YES!' But to Sakura's undying bad luck the door crashed to the floor and Sasuke and herself were frozen in time as they heard the sound of a familiar voice.

"I tried to stop him but he had to see Sakura." Neji was standing behind a panting Lee he was still in his strange formal clothing's as no one had dared change him out of them.

"SAKURA-CHAN! Do not fear you're love is perfectly fine and I am here to stop your weeping!" Lee was standing his arms out stretched in declaration of love.

"LEEEEEEEEE" Sakura had turned to face the fuzzy browed ninja her head was red with anger and her expression struck terror into Lee, but slowly her face cooled and her expression became sad and tears began to well up in her eyes. She had been so close and yet no matter what it hadn't happened. It seemed there was almost no way it could have gone wrong.

"WHY ME!" Sakura cried out for almost the entire ship to hear. Sakura turned and hugged Sasuke close he hugged back lightly.

"Come on Lee," Neji had Lee by the ear and was dragging him back to his room. Lee was stone petrified from the experience and was heartbroken Sakura had turned to Sasuke for affection.Neji noticed that Naruto and Hinata were at the stair well talking and wondered just what they were talking about.

"Naruto-kun, don't be foolish, even if you do figure out why she did it what do you plan to do?" Hinata was worried that Naruto was going to pick a fight he couldn't win. She was scared for him, she had seen how easily Michiyo had tossed Sasuke to the grown using that jutsu and her weird eyes.

"I'm going to figure out what's going on and then I'm going to kick her ass for hurting Sasuke." Naruto had become very protective over all his friends after Sasuke left with Orochimaru and they had finally gotten him back and he wasn't going to have some arrogant Nin from another country think she could walk in and just take his friend away from him again. "She crossed the line with that last attack; I won't forgive her for that." Naruto turned and showed her he was serious his eyes showed fire and determination.

"Naruto-kun…..be careful…..for me?" Hinata turned away she didn't wanna look at him; she was scared of what she might see.

"I will," Naruto dropped down and kissed her on the cheek. "Don't worry I wouldn't leave you alone." Hinata looked up at him he was wearing his usual confidant smile now he gave her a wink and went up top. Hinata sighed and smiled she went back to see what was happening with Sasuke when she saw Neji standing in the doorway of Sasuke's giving her a suspicious eyebrow. She gave one right back and pointed at Lee who was unconscious and being dragged by his ear. Neji looked behind him and could see that Lee had been knocked out when he had dragged him into a wall going through the door.

Up top Naruto was walking the deck looking for Michiyo. Heading towards the back of the ship he saw Kazuma and Michiyo lying back in lawn chairs. Michiyo seemed relaxed she had a headset on and a MP3 on the ground at her side. She had switched into a bikini bottom and her top was a simple t-shirt Kazuma had no shirt as usually and was in comfortable jean shorts that had been apparently made from a pair of jeans, you could tell from their frayed ends.. Both were wearing sunglasses and looked asleep. Naruto walked over to them trying to contain his anger. Neither one moved as he was now hovering over them.

"Yes, can I help you," Michiyo had her eyes closed behind her glasses and didn't know who was standing over her but she moved her headphones down off her ears to show she was listening.

"Yea you can help me! Why the hell did you almost kill Sasuke last night?" Naruto was still in control over his anger but his voice had an angry tone and it stirred Kazuma.

"Michiyo, its Mr. Uzumaki himself." Kazuma gave Michiyo a shake and she rose up lowering her sunglasses just enough to see over the rims and opened her eyes.

"OH! MR.UZUMAKI! It's you what a pleasant surprise I wasn't expecting to see you until later during the tournament let me just say it's a pleasure to meet you" Michiyo had stood up but not taken off her sunglasses. She vigorously shook his hand leaving a shocked expression on Naruto's face.

"We've been wanting to talk with you for a while now Mr. Uzumaki" Kazuma had gotten up as well and gave Naruto's hand a shake after Michiyo was done. "Let us introduce ourselves"

"My name is Michiyo Nakamura of the hidden Flame village," she showed him the headband she had wrapped around her waist like a belt it was hiding under her shirt.
"And I'm Kazuma Watari of the hidden Spirit village" he lifted the headband that was handing from a loop in his jean shorts.

"It is indeed a pleasure to meet you Mr. Uzumaki. If I may be so bold could I ask if the Kyuubi is still locked away in that body of yours?" Michiyo had gave him a disarming smile.
"Yes it is but I didn't come here to talk about…" Naruto was interrupted by Kazuma.

"Wow, that's great you know you're the hero of Konoha right?" Kazuma's voice was bright and flattering.
"Huh?" Naruto had never been called the hero of Konoha before and he felt strangely flattered they called him that.

"Yea you're body was a vessel for the Kyuubi, you are very important to Konoha if not for you the Kyuubi might have still been around. By the way have you learned to use the Kyuubi's power yet?" Michiyo relaxed a bit removing her glasses.

"Well I don't want to brag but yes I have it's completely under my control now." Naruto blushed he was loving all the praise he was receiving and it was sure boosting his ego.

"That's excellent you'll have to show us sometime I'd love to see a display of power like that" Kazuma gave him a smile and then laughed "But I'm sure its not as strong as me" he gave him a little flex of his muscle.

"Whatever! My strength is the strength that took down Sasuke when he was using Orochimaru's cursed seal at level 4!" Naruto hadn't noticed that Michiyo had given him a devious smirk as she saw they were getting to his ego and he was speaking of things he shouldn't.

"Wow that's strong." Michiyo complemented him. "One more question, have the Akatsuki attacked you? I hear they're after the Jinchuuriki." Michiyo was pleased, placing her glasses back on she smiled as he willingly spilled the beans.

"Oh them I've taken care of a few of their members I don't think I really need to worry about them" He smiled wide and gave them the final bits of info they needed.

"Oh look at the time, we'd love to hear more of your story but we have to go. Right Michiyo." Kazuma smiled at her, she smiled and nodded back.

"Yep sorry to have to leave so soon, we'll see you later in the tournament okay" She gave him a smile and they picked up their things.

"Okay!" Naruto smiled and turned around feeling very happy that they had thought he was a hero. Then it hit him. His smile diminished and his face turned into a face of anger. "GAH! YOU TRICKED ME!" he turned quickly yelling at no one as they had already left. "DAMMIT!" Naruto screamed he was angry they had tricked him, and to on lookers he looked like a crazy man. Sasuke and Neji had come up top Sasuke wanting to get some fresh air since he had been stuffed up in that room all night and most of the day. They both saw Naruto screaming and kicking over two lawn chairs and quickly developed twitches in their eyes.

"Neji I think that's enough fresh air for now." Sasuke was already turning around with Neji's help.

"I think that's enough fresh air for a week or so yea?" Neji gave him a look and Sasuke nodded in agreement. They sighed together.

"Why do we have to know him?" Sasuke and Neji returned to the room with annoyed looks on their faces that gave Sakura and Hinata a very sneaking suspicion Naruto had something to do with it. Naruto returned shortly following Sasuke and Neji appearing the doorway of Sasuke's room more angry than when he left but unharmed for which Hinata was glad. Everybody had been told that there would be an announcement about the tournament before they arrived at the Island. Apparently the other villages that they were going to pick up have decided that they will not send participants.

"GAH I wish they would tell us what's going on already!" Naruto was still mad and Hinata was cuddling him on a sofa in the wreck room they had found. The room had arcade style games, TV's that got clear satellite reception, pool tables, and had a small corner kitchen stocked with prepackaged sandwiches, cup ramen, and drinks of both the hot and cold nature.

"Oh come on Naruto just be patient this wreck room has plenty of things we can do to bide time how about you join Sasuke and Neji in their game of pool or something and stop being such and impatient little brat" Sakura was rummaging through the fridge for something for Hinata and herself. Although every one had gotten older they still treated each other like they had when they were kids.

"Naruto-kun come on, let's go look at the Arcade stuff they got here" Hinata was impatient as well but she didn't show it.

"Oh alright." Naruto got up with Hinata and played some arcade games before the loud speakers were turned on and it brought everybody attention to the voice speaking.

"Attention all Ninja participating in The Trials of a Shinobi." The voice was calm and was a young woman making the announcements.

"Please report to the top deck near the front. For of those of you who don't know where that is it's the side where the concert was last night. That is all, thank you and good luck" The group was puzzled at the good luck part but they headed out running to the top deck and over into a crowd on ninja to see what was going on. They had the stage setup again but this time there were just three life size wooden dolls like a puppet master's dolls. A Nin wearing the headband with the six pointed star was standing on stage with a microphone in hand.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" The Nin was fumbling with a notepad trying to get everyone to calm down. The crowd just got more restless all the Nin were crowding around the stage and there had to be literally hundreds of ninja their. "ATTENTION!" The Nin now had the full attention of everyone and was ready to get started, he handed the microphone to one of three Nin who appeared behind him.

"Alright I'm sure you all want to know what this tournament is all about. Well we're not going provide any answers. You'll have to figure it out yourself, but to prepare for the upcoming tournament we're going give each and every one of you a rank and a number. This rank and number will do one of two things. First it'll give everyone of you a little extra info about your opponents and how strong they are. Second its going basically decide how the teams are divided up." The proctor was in a little bit of a hurry to get on with things so it took a ninja raising their hand to get his attention for more information to be given. "Yes, what is it?"

"Teams?" The unknown ninja lowered his hand and gave the proctor a suspicious glance that everyone soon followed suit with.

"Ugh okay, the first part of the Trials is a team tournament. Teams will consist of 5 members and each team will random be created using our machines. Each team will go through 3 rounds fighting a different team each round. Each round is made of 5 single combatant matches. Each team member must fight 1 match per round if you choose not to fight a match or can not fight a match you will be disqualified from the rest of the trials and someone else will have to take your place. During these rounds we will keep individual points on each Nin. For every match you will obtain 5 points and for every round your team wins you will gain 5 points, think of these as preliminaries and to move on you need to successfully accumulate 15 points." The announcer Nin took a breath.

"Wait! What do you mean disqualified?" An angry Nin yelled from the crowd.

"Oh that's simple, all disqualified combatants during this phase of the trials will be shipped back to their home countries in shame, so don't get to comfy once we land cause many of you will be coming right back and being shipped back to where you came from." The ninja had a wide evil grin now that made most of the Nin uneasy. "I'll let my fellow proctor explain how the ranking will work." He handed the microphone to a female proctor now.

"Okay let's get started. This is very simple I will call out your name and you will step up on stage. Each one of these dolls is tuned to rank a certain quality. The one on the far left ranks Taijutsu, the far right Genjutsu, and the one in the middle basic attack Ninjutsu." She smiled for effect and then spoke again. "You will step on stage and face on of the three dolls and perform a jutsu the doll will rank you with a letter rank just like a mission D being the lowest and S being the highest. Then after we're done the dolls will print out a list of numbers and names we will post these numbers for all of you who care to see how high in your letter rank you were." The Nin became a fuss at the news to show off their strength. "Okay let's begin, we have a list of random Nin and we're going to begin with, SHINO ABURAME!" Ino was with Shino and she turned not really believing he was going first.

"Good luck Shino!" Ino screamed to her new boyfriend he turned and gave her a nod. The others from Konoha were worried that Shino might not be able to use a jutsu strong enough to gain him a high rank. Shino on the other hand had a move ready that would give him a nice average rank and not show off too much of his skill. Shino stepped to the stage and faced the proctor waiting for any further instructions. The blank monitor that was relatively unnoticeable before came alive and showed a picture of Shino from his ninja license and as well as three bars that each had a word next to them, one was strength, another was chakra, and the third was potency. A mechanical voice came alive from the speakers apparently the screen was speaking to them.

"Shino Aburame, Leaf village." The speakers grew silent and Shino gave the proctor for a signal to do something.

"After the computer calls your name and village for everyone to hear you are immediately allowed you start any jutsu or movement and attack the doll of your choice." The proctor nodded that Shino could start.

Shino paced slowly till he was in front of the Taijutsu doll, he clapped his hands together and began focusing chakra. Shino then put together three simple hand signs.

"HERCULES BEETLE STRIKE!" Shino let his voice pump adrenaline into his system and let him release more chakra into his attack. His arms swung outwards and he slammed his two hands, now shaped like pincers, into the dolls sides. The screen flashed and the bars became empty then slowly started to fill his strength raised about halfway up, while chakra did the same. His last bar filled up 2/3's of the way however and it flashed a grade across the screen.

"ShinoAburame B Rank, currently top score on Taijutsu charts." The voice announced then a new picture flashed on the screen. It was Lee's

"Rock Lee, Leaf village" The speak was now doing most of the talking and the proctors were standing at the sides of the stage observing probably to catch cheaters and to make sure the attacks performed wouldn't destroy the dolls and if they did replace them. Shino stepped down and Rock stepped up in his place almost if on queue.

Lee pondered what technique he should use against the doll, he was still a little weak from the night before and he wasn't sure if he could perform anything too high level but he needed the boost so he opened his first gate giving the crowd something too ooo at as the chakra around him swirled. His swirling chakra gave him and idea and he almost stepped off the stage backing up to make room. He ran about three steps did a front flip and came down hard with his left heel across the dolls head. It was his relatively strong tornado heel slice that he had first performed on Gaara a while back. The screen came alive ranking him with his bars and gave him a A rank in Taijutsu and pushing Shino down a rank, Lee was pleased that he made above average with such a weak attack.

The computer called out a few more miscellaneous ninja names that aren't very important most of them making D's C's and one or two made a B but non of them were really spectacular. But then a special Nin from a village the Konoha troop hadn't seen in action yet came to the stage.

"Kuroda Yamashita, Light village" the computers voice announced his name but no ninja immediately appeared on stage instead the crowd had to clear a bit as the ninja who apparently was Kuroda walked towards the stage he had straw hat on his head and wore rather flimsy looking glasses.

He defiantly wasn't the most graceful almost falling off the stage as he got up and took his position before the Ninjutsu doll. Slowly taking off his traditional straw hat he revealed his short cut hair and rather gentle face. Adjusting his glasses with one hand he pulled a very sharp katana from its sheath and placed the katana's handle in his mouth. Apparently his jutsu involved the weapon but he needed both hands to perform the hand signs. He took a deep breath and began a relatively short sequence of hand signs buts that's just because his hands moved so fast from one hand sign to anther seamlessly he seemed to put together hundreds of hand signs together a second when he was finished he let the sword drop from his mouth and into an open hand the sword burst alive with chakra that quickly formed a blade of almost pure light it was stunning and blinding as well.

"Solar Katana Blade Winds!" He moved swiftly forward taking only one step and sliced diagonally and sent out a huge shockwave of chakra and wind that hit the Ninjutsu doll almost knocking it over. The light was gone and everybody could see now the screen had already displayed a grade and everyone was shocked to see what he had obtained. On the screen was a large red S that signified he had performed a technique of immense power. He bent down pickup his hat he placed it back on his head and sheathed his sword a smile across his face as he let the hats rim sink over his eyes so he seemed mysterious and it would have been a perfect exit after a marvelous S display if he didn't trip over his own feet and fall on his face.

"He maybe a klutz, but he's strong." Neji was standing next to Sasuke and watching the doll as it regenerated parts of its body that had been sliced and diced by that last attack and then set it self upright again ready for the next combatant.

"Yea, I was starting to think we wouldn't have any fun here but now. I think I'm starting to get an itch." Sasuke smirked a devilish grin as he thought about all the strong warriors that were in this crowd and how he so much wanted to fight them all.

Authors note: Okay small kind of cliffy hanger there it's because it was starting to get long at 4500+ words and me still having to write descriptions for roughly 25 more important Nin. The next chapter will be along shortly. I hoped you all liked it. Review for what fights you want to see in the upcoming preliminaries. I'm going to try my best and oblige you guys but it might be hard seeing how a lot of these ninja need to get 15 or more points to move on to the next round. Don't worry though even if some of the couple pairings don't go on to the next round that doesn't mean they're leaving the Fanfiction. They still get a chance later to prove themselves strong.