Disclaimer: Refer to chapter 1.
AN: Full Chapter Title: Former Best Friends Collide! Who Will Come Out On Top?
"Ino."
"Sakura."
The two Kunoichi stood across from each other as the proctor quickly vanished from sight and back to the other side of the arena where he sat down.
'I am not going to be between that.' Hayate settled his back against the wall and merely observed the two Genin. 'This isn't going to be pretty.' He could feel the tension between the two Genin, the animosity that could only be born from a friendship that had been lost. 'These two hate each other.'
"So, how does it feel?" Ino put a hand on her hip, throwing her long blonde hair back with her free hand. Sakura looked at her for a moment before she turned red.
"T-That doesn't matter right now, Ino!" She was flustered and was stammering as she drew out a kunai from her ninja pouch. "We're supposed to be fighting! Not talking about stuff like that so fight me!"
"I'll fight you when I want to! Now tell me about what it's like being on a team with Sasuke-kun!" The Yamanaka's eyes blazed with fury as a kunai was drawn from behind her back as well. "If it comes to it, I can just beat it out of you too Forehead! Do the right thing and I won't embarrass you too much."
"Don't think so high of yourself Ino-Pig!" Sakura dashed forward with speed that made Ino's blue eyes go wide before the Yamanaka swiftly avoided the rapid swipes from Sakura's kunai before it was suddenly spinning in the air. She was confused for only a moment before she noticed the airborne Sakura forming a hand sign and she swiftly leaped back.
The explosive tag exploded just as she did so and she shielded her face from shrapnel.
"What a dirty trick, Forehead!" Ino landed on her feet and added a kunai to her other hand as she crouched on the ground. "It wasn't that good of one either now that I think about it. You probably learned it from that idiot on your team!"
"So what did you teach Shikamaru and Choji then?" Sakura asked her question as she threw a handful of Shuriken forward and dashed after them, weaving hand signs for a technique any student at the Academy, barring one Naruto Uzumaki, could perform easily.
"You've got too big of a mouth on you now, Forehead!" Ino watched as one Sakura turned into three in a jumbled mess, the three constantly crossing each other's path as she dashed to the side and threw a trio of kunai forward. "I'm going to like shutting you up!"
'Why take a chance when I can be certain?' Her kunai struck each of the three simultaneously and the Kunoichi grinned as she came to a stop and prepared to end the battle here and now. 'I've got you right where I want you Sakura!'
Sakura knocked aside the kunai sent at her with one of her own as her Bunshin failed to keep up the illusion any longer. She rushed through another set of hand signs but she heard hissing at her feet.
"Say goodbye!" Ino formed the needed hand sign and the explosive tags she planted when she landed from Sakura's own use of the ninja tool exploded. She was consumed by the blast and the platinum blonde smirked as her hands formed a unique seal out in front of her chest.
'This is it.' Ino could already see how the battle would end. Sakura would emerge from the smoke cloud, trying to close the distance between the two of them as quick as possible, it would be worthless thanks to the wire strings laying taut between two kunai, she would use the Yamanaka's Mind Body Switch Technique to take control of Sakura's body once she was tangled in her trap. Once she had successfully completed the Jutsu, it would be easy to make Sakura give the match up. 'You never stood a chance against me Forehead and you should have known it.'
"This is interesting, don't you think Kakashi?"
"Hmm?" The Jonin turned to the smoker next to him. The two had seemed to gravitate towards one another as their two female students did battle. "What do you mean, Asuma?"
"I mean, don't you think this matchup is interesting?" Asuma looked down at the two Genin, Ino ready to end the match. "It's a bit cruel putting an heiress like Ino up against a girl like Haruno."
"Well, if I didn't know you any better Asuma, I'd say you were insulting my student." Kakashi turned a lazy eye towards the bearded Jonin. "I'm hearing you wrong, right?"
"You can hear whatever you want." Asuma blew out a cloud of smoke that hung in front of him. "You can believe that your kid can beat Ino but you'll be disappointed." Kakashi's eye became more focused than it should when directed at a fellow Konoha Shinobi. "She was smart at the Academy, top of the class thanks to her test scores. She's hopeless against someone like Ino. She wasn't the smartest but she's going to wipe the floor with the kid." The bearded Jonin let his cigarette hang from his lip. "Some kids aren't meant to be Shinobi, its better she figure that out now than later."
Kakashi said nothing.
"I'm just trying to make sure she doesn't go out there and die, Kakashi. Don't hate me for trying to keep a kid not ready for this safe."
"You're wrong." He said no more.
'Now!' Ino saw movement coming from the smoke.
A barrage of kunai and shuriken flew towards her before she could get the perfect shot but it was no problem to dodge for a Kunoichi like her. A pink topped blur darted out of the smoke next, Ino effortlessly drawing twin kunai into her hands and deflecting Sakura's own. The Genin grinned for whatever reason as they fell away from each other, launching back to the ground.
Ino realized why when she caught sight of the wire strings tied to the shuriken she had dodged. Sakura pulled them back before she landed but it wasn't hard to deflect them with her two kunai.
"I bet you learned that trick from Sasuke-kun, Forehead." Ino moved the kunai she held in each of her hands, spinning them by the ring at the end of them on her fingers. "What else did he teach you?" She laughed as she sprinted forward. "Not like it'll help you beat me so don't bother copying him anymore!"
"I don't need to copy him." Sakura blocked her slashes with the ninja tool with her own. She attacked herself when Ino showed her surprise but didn't manage to get through her guard. She did manage to gain distance between the two a moment later and tossed one of her kunai towards Ino.
It was something the Yamanaka easily dodged.
"Legate." Naruto's single word earned a nod from the second in command of his forces. He wordlessly vanished in an impressive use of the Body Flicker Technique for a Genin. A centurion promptly appeared kneeling next to Naruto with ten of the men of his century with him.
"Praetor." The centurion of the Orange Legion rose and the two near identical figures observed the match below them. The absence of the Legate was not commented on.
'What is he up to?' Kakashi's eyes did not leave the match below him but his thoughts turned towards the Uchiha. 'What is Naruto planning now?'
"Give up already!" Ino kicked Sakura after the next clash proved less even. She was sent rolling across the ground but swiftly rose to her feet and reached into her ninja pouch. Ino threw a barrage of shuriken forward and forced her to reconsider whatever her plan was. "You can't beat me Forehead! You're the same now as you were back in the Academy!"
"No I'm not." Sakura leaped back a she landed, doing a trio of kunai Ino had thrown at her. "If anyone is, it's you."
"I was better than you back then and I still am." Ino's smoke bombs, tied to the kunai, detonated and Sakura coughed in the cloud of choking smoke. Her hands formed a familiar sign, the signal that use of her Clan's infamous Mind Body Switch Technique was imminent. "You didn't have what it took to beat me then and you don't have anything close to it today. Now give up or-"
A sudden surge of Chakra made her almost fall.
'That's it!' Kakashi's eye did not widen in surprise at his discovery as he turned his single visible eye to the blonde in front of him. The Uzumaki chuckled as the centurion was swiftly replaced by the Legate of his Orange Legion. 'He-'
"Bow to the might of the Orange Legion!" Sakura was behind a wall of steel, the arena floor filled with a century of the Orange Legion. "Prepare to fall Yamanaka!"
"Hayate, disqualify her!" Asuma called out to the proctor who didn't bother with responding. He merely turned to the Hokage.
'I'm going to regret this but…' The opportunity to gather more data was rare. He could sense the mark burning on Sakura's arm, Naruto's Chakra ripping free of it. He had made tough decisions before, decisions that cost hundreds their lives, but he had never had to deal with the look of his son when he made them. He didn't have to see how he accused him, another failing that was simply one of many now.
He didn't have to see his son look at him like he was now, already knowing what his father would say.
"I never outlawed summoning, Asuma." Hiruzen sealed Ino's fate in that moment.
"Stand back, Sakura-chan. Allow us to handle it." The centurion that had been summoned with his force drew his sword up, clashing the flat of the blade against his shield. Sakura's attempted protest was drowned out by the noise that grew hundred fold when the clones around her joined the beat.
"HA! I'm not afraid of a bunch of Shadow Clones from that idiot up there!" Ino threw shuriken but the wall of steel repelled them, the projectile weapons clattering to the ground once they met the shields. "You must be desperate to try and-"
"I grow tired of her voice. Take her down."
"HOO!"
'Dammit.' Sakura ignored the clones that ran past her. 'I didn't want this.' She ignored the centurion that stood next to her, his armor easy to recognize as the leader of her Blossom Guard. The same Blossom Guard she thought was destroyed when she took on Zabuza Momoichi in Nami no Kuni. She was clearly wrong. They had been butchered by the hired Shinobi until Naruto had arrived. 'Why do they have to be here? Why are they treating me like I'm some delicate flower?' Her eyes turned to pools of blue watching from above. 'It's because of him.' She had too much control of herself to glare at him.
It wouldn't work anyway. If, after everything she had done to him at the Academy, he still had his crush on her than she couldn't break his obsession over her with a mean look. She would need to do something far more drastic to get him to leave her alone.
'How am I supposed to do that if he put this stupid mark on my arm?' It was easy for her to feel the seal on her arm now. It all but blazed with Naruto's Chakra, consumed her entirely in a near shroud that she hated. His Chakra wasn't vile or hate filled, it just proved how obsessed he was with her. He had, for whatever reason, developed a seal to put on people that forcibly summoned his clones. 'How am I even going to get this thing off of me?'
Pilum thrust forward with blinding speed, all but caging Ino between the ten wooden shafts. She somehow managed to escape but already blood ran from a number of cuts and, from the grin on the faces of the clones, they were playing with her. None of them had seriously engaged her beyond ten of them. The rest merely encircled her, acting as a steel wall she couldn't get pass. They banged on their shields with their swords, stomped their feet on the ground, brought the shaft of pilum against the towering shield on their arms, and shouted and hollered at her but they did not attack.
"HOO!" Ino failed to dodge the next pilum, crying out as the blade at the end ran across her arm. She grabbed at it with her lips in a tight line before lashing out with a kick. A shield met her foot and she was sent stumbling back when the clone behind it shoved the shield forward.
"HOO!" She recovered before she could fall, planting her foot down and trying to burst through the small circle the ten made around her with a surprising display of speed.
"HOO!" The pilum of five of the nearest clones were thrust forward, Ino coming to a hasty stop to avoid being impaled on the sharp points. She turned and ran to the side, failing to dodge the next pilum thrust in its entirety and suffering a cut on her side.
"HOO!" Three shot forward from around her, hoping to cage her in a rough triangle that they would tighten. They failed when she hopped onto the shafts of two of the pilum, balancing there for a moment until a fourth struck her in the shin with the shaft of the polearm. She nearly lost her balance as she felt the impact she knew was unavoidable. She wanted to scream but instead her foot lashed out, her sandaled foot almost succeeding in striking the clone underneath his chin if he hadn't moved back in time.
"HOO!" The three that had aimed to trap her in the triangle let out a shout as they threw their weapons upwards, launching the balancing Ino surprisingly high into the air. She tried to control her descent, tried to avoid the bed of spikes that awaited her.
She couldn't.
The clones angled their weapons away from her, allowing her to strike the center of a new circle.
They were still playing with her from the grin on their faces.
'Why can't I show him how strong I am?' Sakura caught sight of the silver hair of her teacher, the one man she wanted to impress in this fight. Now she couldn't. Now he had to be sure that it was a waste of time to train her, to even bother with teaching her. 'Why does Naruto have to get in my way?'
He had to know then. It was the only option. He had to know that she hated him, hated how he had become obsessed with her, obsessed with treating her like some prize, and decided to show her why she didn't stand a chance. She couldn't escape his sight, his reach, with the mark on her arm.
"She doesn't seem appreciative of the gift, Praetor." Sasuke's Sharingan did not leave Sakura, focused on the mark that continued to pump out Chakra, Naruto's Chakra, on her arm. "What does this mean for the future plans you developed?"
"It changes nothing." Naruto chuckled as he clenched and unclenched his hand, the same hand he had grabbed hold of Sakura with. "I am the Caesar of the Uzumaki Empire. She will learn to appreciate my interest in her soon enough. She doesn't really have a choice. She can't get rid of that mark."
The mark on his palm, hidden by his armor, burned bright. At the same time, a grin of conquest was clear on Naruto's face.
"She belongs to me like all of this world soon will."
AN: So, a few things. First off, 4 of 4 for this update.
Next up, review replies:
tastybigsexy: I've already answered your questions. Hopefully satisfactorily.
MBAssassin360: I can only hope I continue to keep you entertained and interested with more chapters.
Another thing now and its about Orange Legion unsurprisingly. Just something at random really but how many of you reading actually like this story? Honestly, it has to have become boring at this point, right? Is it slow? Does nothing happen? Are the major points clear or not? Does it even make sense to begin with? Does it just suck? Is it just another one of the countless "Naruto gets INSERT POWER HERE instead of Shadow Clones and now is super strong and everything" stories. Is it original in any way? Is it even good?
This isn't like a discontinue notice by the way. There's still like 20+ chapters written for this thing and I wouldn't let all that work go to waste but...Just forget about all this actually.
Review or PM.
Peace.