answers to reviewers questions and statements:
DarkDevilKnight: Man's committed to his role as a spy, if he gots to take a beating, he has to take a beating. Than again, Fū's no pushover. At least I like to think she wasn't before she was slapped around by Kakazu and Hidan before having the Seven Tails ripped out of her.
iupuifan: Fū's pretty cool, kinda sad she's not given enough attention.
CRUDEN: You'll probably wanna marry her after this story.
darthwolf: I have plans for Fū, don't worry. And if she does go, it's gonna be like a fucking boss.
gontheone: No Pītā himself is much stronger than either Naruto or Fū in terms of sheer raw power, barring the whole bijū sealed in him which is weaker than either the Nine or Seven Tails. Fū is close to rivaling him in terms of sheer raw physical strength alone because of her own bijū which is a beetle.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Naruto characters seen, mentioned or used.
Sakura Haruno vs. Ino Yamanaka.
"Ah this should be interesting, two Kunoichi from the same village going head to head" Pītā said as he examined the names of the next to combatants before he looked towards the stands and gestured for the two budding shinobi to make their way down to the arena floor.
"One of them better not throw the fucking thing so the other can get a free pass into the next stage" Anko muttered bitterly.
"That happen often?" Pītā asked with a raised brow as he watched Ino and Sakura take their spots opposite of each other.
"Oh yeah" Anko nodded before she used the Shunshin to make her way over to where the Hokage and his guard were standing, leaving Pītā alone.
Once he was sure that Anko wasn't coming back and he glanced at each Kunoichi to see that they were ready for the match to begin, he loudly cleared his throat "Alright, let's get this match underway... BEGIN!"
After declaring the match to begin, Pītā took a few steps back and waited for the two younger shinobi to start going at it with... well whatever it was they had left in them. The first few seconds ticked by silently as the blonde and pinked haired girls stared at one another with matching looks of grim determination.
"I never thought... I'd fight you" Ino said after almost a minute of tense silence between the two "Or at least I didn't think it'll happen this soon. But don't expect me to go easy on you-"
"WAIT, WAIT, HOLD UP! NO FIGHTING YET!" Pītā suddenly stepped forward and held his hands up "Just realized something I forgot to mention until you two here reminded me of it by doing nothing"
Ino and Sakura, along with just about everyone else turned to stare at Pītā with varying looks of surprise and curiosity on their faces.
"W-What is it?" Sakura asked.
"No prolonged talking or monologuing or taking forever to attack someone because of the previous two mentioned things" Pītā said as he shot both Kunoichi an annoyed look "You two just scream 'need to talk for a long freaking time instead of attacking during a fight cause we got history' or some kind of crap like that. It's something I've noticed a lot of people around your age doing now a days"
"We don't do that, do we?" Kiba whispered towards Shino while Akamaru barked in curiosity.
Shino's response was a brief but dry glance aimed at Kiba before he returned his gaze towards the match below, causing the Inuzuka teen to scowl at him and mutter something too low for Shino to bother trying to listen to. Kurenai suppressed an amused snort as she leaned against the wall behind her and folded her arms across her chest as she noticed a few other Genin in her fellow Konoha Jōnin's squads stare at their sensei's with sheepish expressions. None of them were quite sure when the trend began, but many of them have noticed in their observations of the recent graduates from the Academy the past few years tending to draw their fights out because the combatants decided to stop and have some long drawn out monologue with one another about... well anything.
"So, from now anyone who takes longer than ten seconds to attack their opponent will automatically be disqualified from the Exams and have to wait until the next one" Pītā said.
"What?" Ino blinked in shock at the Proctor's statement.
"You heard me" Pītā scoffed before he gestured to the two Kunoichi before him and through them, the other Genin taking part in the exam "Cause if you fight an enemy shinobi in a actual life or death battle and take too long to fight back, YOU WILL end up dead or dying. Trust me, ten seconds is pretty fucking generous far as I see it. So either start fighting or get the hell out of my arena and try again next year when your actually serious about doing this kind of thing"
"Can he do that?" Kiba glanced back at his sensei with wide eyes "Just... kick someone out like that?"
"Technically, yes, he can since he is the current Proctor of this stage of the exams" Kurenai nodded before she gave her student a small grin "And he's not wrong. In a actual fight, if you don't keep moving and stay on the offensive if possible, you may very well end up dead, And ten seconds really is a long time in a pitched battle with someone else"
Kiba paled at this while Shino simply nodded at the wisdom of his sensei's words while down below, Ino and Sakura were both gaping at the elder Shinobi's remarks before they realized that eight seconds of non-action from either of them passed since his... decree. Sakura quickly rushed towards Ino, intending to prevent the blonde from utilizing her family's infamous mind transferring jutsu while Ino jumped back and drew several senbon to use to keep her opponent at bay. Pītā nodded in satisfaction before stepping back and let the two young Kunoichi duke it out. Don't get Pītā wrong, he's all for a long strew of hurling insults at someone he's fighting to pass the time and get them to misstep or overplay their hand, but something just told the former Kiri nin that he wasn't gonna get that kind of entertainment here, least with these two.
'Bet the worse they can come up with is something like 'your hair style is dumb' or 'your a fatty' or 'that look is soo out of style' Pītā thought as he watched Sakura dodge several Senbon needles and finally closed the distance between each other and resort to pure Taijutsu.
The two's forms were... acceptable, though Pītā honestly expected better given their Sensei's.
'Note to self, when I get my own Genin, make sure they can fight. Screw chakra control, most fights boil down who can beat the ever loving crap out of the other the best' Pītā thought as he silently watched the two's battle drag on.
At several points it looked like one of if not both had something to say to the other, but the image of Pītā standing just within their peripherals, and his threat of kicking them out if they monologed, stopped them. Though Pītā was starting to somewhat regret this as the fight dragged on for several minutes in awkward silence before the two young Kunoichi punched one another with enough force to knock the other out.
"Huh, double knockout" Pītā said as he glanced at each Genin for a moment to see if one of them would stir and climb back to their feet "Whelp, this match ended in a draw. Uh, congrats, Asuma, Kakashi, I guess? Y'all can come down and get them now if you want"
Once the two Genin had been retrieved by their respective sensei's and dropped off at the Tower's medical ward, Pītā signaled for Anko to have the next pair selected. A part of the Jinchūriki hoped that this next match would be more interesting, at the very least have a few actual Jutsu thrown around, else this year's Chūnin Exams was gonna be a little too boring to the visiting Daimyō. Granted most Shinobi fights rarely involved such wide scale destructive and flashy Jutsu, but it was that sorta thing these nobles came all the way for in the first place.
It was than that Pītā felt something hit him in the side of the head and fall on to his shoulder before slipping off and hitting the floor. Pītā blinked and looked down to see that it was a small Dango skewer that was thrown at him and looked up towards a smirking Anko and felt his brow twitch.
"What?!" he asked, causing Anko to point towards the large screen to show him the next pair of Genin to kick the crap out of one another.
Naruto Uzumaki vs. Kei.
"Oh..." Pītā said as he stared at the screen for a moment before glaring back at Anko "Could've just said something you jerk!"
Anko's response was a razzberry blown his way while Naruto and Ichiro silently made their way down to the arena proper. Kei seemed unfazed by his match and approached it with a somewhat laidback attitude while Naruto's approach was... different, from what Pītā and from the looks of it, everyone else, was expecting. Some of Naruto's former classmates expected some loud proclamation about how he was gonna win this fight without any trouble and that he'll be one step closer to becoming Hokage. But instead the rookie Genin, or what ones were still present, were met with a ominously silent Naruto as he made his way down towards the Arena before coming to a stop across from Kei.
Pītā's eyes narrowed a little at the muted Killing Intent coming off the blonde haired Genin while Kei shifted his weight from one foot to the other nervously.
"Alright, you both know the rules, fight until your opponent can't anymore or I step in" Pītā said as he looked back and forth between the two before he rested his gaze on Naruto "And if I say stop fighting, you will stop fighting, clear?"
Normally Pītā wouldn't bother to drive that point home by asking someone directly, but there was something about the younger Jinchūriki that was setting alarm bells off in his head.
"Yeah, yeah, I know" Naruto said with an eye roll while Kei nodded solemnly.
"Alright than" Pītā nodded as he took a few steps back and raised his arm up before slicing down with it "Begin!"
Kei leaped back several meters and drew a pair of Kunai to hold in each hand while Naruto simply brought his hands up and formed the Clone seal for the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu and summoned five copies. Naruto seemed to have given the five clones a unspoken command of sorts as they rushed towards Kei while he himself stayed back and watched with narrowed eyes.
'Smart, send clones in to get a feel of your opponent. Not exactly original, but still, a novel tactic' Pītā thought with a slight nod of approval.
Kei handled himself fairly well in Pītā's opinion, instead of running and leaping around the clones, the Taki Genin simply held his ground and blocked each punch or kick thrown at him by the Naruto clones before he dispelled them with a 'lethal' strike with his Kunai. The downside to this was that Kei was surrounded by that white 'fog' or 'clouds' that were formed whenever a Kage Busnshin was destroyed, something that Pītā always thought was annoying.
'I swear the Nidaime added that little effect just to troll people after they beat the clone. He was probably like 'Oh, you beat my clone? well inhale his wife smoke as a reward you fool!' Pītā thought with a silent chuckle as he watched Kei leap from the cloud of smoke he was in and land a few meters away in a crouch.
Naruto had strangely refrained from moving when Kei dispelled his clones and re-emerged from the smokescreen he was in, all ample opportunities for him to have gone on the offensive.
Sasuke found this particularly odd and voiced his thoughts to Kakashi with a confused frown on his face.
"What's with him?" Sasuke nodded towards Naruto has he made a trio of clones, now all arming themselves with Kunai, before they charged towards Kei "He's been acting different lately. And now he's fighting differently too"
"I've noticed" Kakashi said as he leaned against the railing and watched the fight with a focused gaze in his lone eye "Could be a number of reasons as to Naruto's... change in character"
"Such as?" Sasuke asked before he winced as the mark left by Orochimaru on his neck flared up a little.
"Could be Naruto had undergone a sort of metamorphous since our mission to Nami no Kuni and we're now seeing the results of said change. Missions like that, how challenging and brutal it was, can leave a lasting impact on Shinobi as young and as inexperience as you all were and still are" Kakashi said as he watched and studied Naruto's modified tactic of spamming clones on an opponent.
He wasn't spamming nearly as many clones as he would've expected, nor was he joining them in their all out assault like he did back when Kakashi was first testing them all with the Bell Test. Instead he was doing what Kakashi himself has done on many occasions, though with a few more clones, send them to screen the enemy's abilities and then plan a counter to them. Under any other circumstance Kakashi would be praising his student for taking after him in that regard, and using some actual tact for a change, but ever since his conversation with Pītā in regards to the revelation of Naruto being seen practicing with the Rasengan, Kakashi has been... suspicious of Naruto's growth.
Granted he was a bit after they all had returned from Nami no Kuni and saw Naruto's shift in personality, but hearing from a trusted source that his student was learning something that he shouldn't have any actual knowledge of, and progressing fairly far with it, began to leave the masked nin uneasy.
Something's changed, Kakashi doesn't know what or why, but it has.
'Could it be a result of the Kyūbi's influence somehow?' Kakashi thought as he watched Naruto summon only one clone after the initial three were defeated by Kei.
"That all you got, just a bunch of useless clones to throw at me?" Kei asked, a little overconfident after dealing with so many of Naruto's clones.
"No, I just needed to see how you moved" Naruto said tonelessly as he brought his hands up and formed a Tiger seal and began to build and mold his chakra while his clone formed a Bird hand seal.
"Katon: Endan!" Naruto said before he unleashed a flaming bullet of oil towards Kei while his clone expelled a large amount of wind from their mouth and had it connect with Naruto's Katon Jutsu, increasing it's power as the wind fueled the fiery oil.
"How in the hell?!" Pītā said as he leaped back to avoid getting caught in the flames as the collaborated Jutsu raced towards a shocked Kei.
Kei stared at the approaching Jutsu with terrified eyes before he raced through a series of hand signs just as he was engulfed in the fiery Jutsu and it created a large explosion of burning oil and enflamed stone.
Most of the Genin watching the match were in complete and utter shock at the use of TWO Jutsus used by Naruto, and used to create a more powerful variant of a standard C-ranked Jutsu, while the various Jōnin and senior ranked Chūnin watched on in silent contemplation. Kakashi for his part was gaping at the sight, as was Sasuke, while the Hokage himself merely inhaled from his lit pipe before slowly exhaling a steady stream of smoke out his nostrils.
'You've come a long way Naruto... a very long way' Hiruzen thought with a thoughtful look in his eye 'Where did you learn such Jutsu? And how to apply them in such a way?'
It seemed that Hiruzen would be having an interesting talk with Kakashi later.
"Where the hell is this all coming from?" Kiba said with disbelief in his voice as he watched the flames die down, half expecting to see a charred corpse lying where Kei was "I thought the most that idiot knew was that clone jutsu of his. Not... not whatever the hell that was!"
"It's called training" Shino answered in a bland tone "You should try it some time, it could help improve you too"
Kiba growled at this teammate "You know what I meant! Also I train plenty you jerk!"
As Kiba bickered with Shino, or attempted to since the boy seemed content to dryly rebuke his more boisterous teammate's comments, Kureani watched Naruto with narrowed eyes. She was in a similar boat as Kiba, wondering where all this skill and power was coming from, because it wasn't simply a bit of extra training on the side when in between missions. No one, not even Shinobi as skilled and as talented as the late Yondaime would be able to learn two Jutsu from two separate Elements and apply them in a Collaboration Jutsu as flawlessly as that little Demon Brat had!
'And I know for a fact that Kakashi hasn't been teaching you such things' Kurenai thought with narrowed eyes as she spared a quick glance towards her fellow Jōnin to see he was every bit as shocked as many of the others, perhaps more so since he was the thing's teacher.
In Kurenai's opinion, it seemed Kakashi didn't have as much control of the Demon brat as she would've hoped.
As the various Genin, mainly the ones from Konoha tried to comprehend how someone like Naruto of all people was able to pull off two powerful Jutsu like that, Pītā was scanning the area where Kei was for any signs of the Genin. Naruto seemed to have already written him off as dead and was looking expectantly towards him to call the match in his favor.
'Fire wasn't hot enough to completely incinerate a person, and I'm not seeing a body... and he was flashing through hand se- ahhhh, there you are' Pītā thought as he could just faintly feel the tremors in the earth as the Taki Genin burrowed his way through the arena's floor and towards Naruto.
"Oi, Proctor, you gonna call the match or not?" Naruto asked with annoyance.
"Why would I do that?" Pītā asked dryly.
"Because I won. obviously" Naruto scoffed.
Pītā stared at the blonde Genin for a moment than back at the area that Kei escaped from as the tremors finally stopped and for a brief moment, Pītā sensed a spike in Chakra from underneath Naruto's feet "Kid, word of advice, make sure their actually dead or beaten before deciding you've won..."
Naruto frowned at this before he heard the sound of the ground beneath him cracking and looked down just in time for Kei to tear through the stone floor and deliver a powerful uppercut to the Genin's face, sending him flying into the air.
"...Cause if you don't, that happens" Pītā snickered as he watched Naruto crash back down to the floor while Kei sat on his knees, panting as he looked at his bloodied hands.
It seemed that the boy had covered his hands in Chakra to help him better dig through the arena's stone floor rather than utilize something more economic to move through the ground, like the Iwagakure no Jutsu or the Dochū Senkō but he'll cut the kid some slack for literally pulling that escape off at the last second. Plus, seeing the likes of Naruto, who was so certain he won, get knocked flat on his butt was pretty hilarious in his opinion.
"Still want me to call this match kid? I can if you want" Pītā joked as he watched Naruto struggle to get back up, cupping his now bleeding mouth.
"I-I w-wouldn't be... against it" Kei said with a pained wince as he tried o form fists with his hands, one of which had lost two nails when he was all but clawing his way through the stone to avoid Naruto's Jutsu.
Pītā's head snapped towards Kei and was just about to ask if the Genin was certain before Naruto suddenly began to rush towards Kei with a snarl on his face that was made all the more intimidating with the blood leaking from his mouth. Kei readied himself to move before Naruto was suddenly in front of him, moving at speeds that were almost blurring before he received a painful kick to the gut that knocked the wind clear out of the Taki Genin and sent him skipping across the arena's floor. Pītā winced at the impacts as he watched Naruto slowly approaching the downed Genin while holding a hand out a little and began to channel Chakra into it.
"Call the match kid..." Pītā whispered as he watched as Naruto gathered a large amount of Chakra into his palm, so much that it became visible and began to form it into a sphere.
If the Genin from Konoha were floored by Naruto's use of two different elemental ninjutsu, than they and everyone aside from Kakashi were absolutely floored by the sight of the Rasengan being formed before their very eyes.
"Holy shit..." Asuma said as the lit cigarette held between his lips slipped out as he gaped at the sight of one of the Yondaime Hokage's own Jutsu being used.
The former Twelve Ninja Guardian knew that Kakashi had learned the Jutsu years ago by his late sensei and was likely to teach it to Naruto at some point after he made Chūnin, but to see it now was... well shocking didn't seem to be doing the feeling justice. And it wasn't just him from what he could make out, everybody, even the Jōnin from Oto, Suna and Taki all stared at Naruto with wide, open eyes of shock. The woman from Uzu however looked on with a look that was almost bored while her two red headed Genin stared at Naruto in wonder.
As the Rasengan began to form and condense, Kei slowly made it back up to his knees before he felt the feeling of pain in his hands intensify and he found his fingers unwilling to move, it seemed he broke a number of them. Seeing that he'll be unable to adequately continue fighting, and his opponent was forming some kind of sphere of chakra in his hands that looked like it'll hurt like hell should it connect with his body, Kei did the only thing a Shinobi could do in such a situation.
He called it a day.
"I forfeit!" Kei yelled towards Pītā with a slightly panicked look as Naruto got closer to him "I'm done, I give up!"
"Naruto wins via forfeit from Kei of Taki" Pītā proclaimed as he began to approach Naruto on a intercept course, already seeing that the kid wasn't gonna stop because Kei wanted to "Fight's over kid, cut the jutsu off"
Naruto either didn't hear him or more than likely, didn't care, as he snarled at Kei with dark blue eyes, his pupils turning to slits as he neared the Taki Genin. This bastard made him look like an idiot in front of everyone, that bastard Uchiha, his useless sensei, his former classmates and in front of his mother who said she'll be watching his match with excitement! Naruto didn't care if this punk said he won, in the real world, your opponent wasn't just gonna hang up the towel and call it a day just because you didn't want to keep fighting.
It was than that Naruto felt a powerful grip on his shoulder that stopped him cold and he turned to meet the masked face of Pītā.
"I said the fight's over kid" Pītā said as he stared at Naruto's enraged expression with a detached one of his own underneath his mask "Now you can either accept that or I can disqualify your ass after I kicked it. Which would you prefer?"
Naruto gritted his teeth at the man before he huffed and ceased the flow of chakra to the Rasengan and allowed the swirling orb to disperse. Seeing that Naruto wasn't going to try and defy his orders, Pītā released his grip on the younger Jinchūriki's shoulder and allowed the teen to step back while he turned his attention to the wounded teen still kneeling in pain on the floor. With a simple hand gesture, Pītā signaled for Anko to summon the Medic nin for another beaten Genin-
Pītā suddenly froze before in the blink of an eye, he turned and reached over to grab Naruto's wrist as it began to remove a kunai from his leg's kunai holster. The blonde blinked in surprise before he let out a pained yell as Pītā suddenly snapped his wrist, causing the radial bone that connected to the wrist to tear through the teen's skin and begin to emit a large amount blood while the kunai in his hands was suddenly released and fell to the cracked floor beneath. Pītā's eyes narrowed in anger as he watched Naruto try and fail to pry the man's hand off his now broken and dislocated wrist.
"I warned you Uzumaki. You are herby disqualified from this year's Chūnin Exams. Work on following orders and maybe you can try again next year" Pītā said before he yanked the teen in close and delivered a simple jab to the back of the Jinchūriki's neck, knocking him out and letting him fall to the floor with a 'thud'.
Everyone in the arena was silent as Pītā slowly turned towards where Sarutobi stood and waited for the old man's response. The Kage stared at the scene with an unreadable expression on his face before he gave a very minute nod towards him, signifying he supported Pītā's actions. Pītā slowly let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding and gestured for the medic nin to also collect Naruto just as Kakashi appeared beside him, his infamous orange book gone and a grave expression on his three quarters covered face.
"I'm terribly sorry for this" Kakashi said in a low voice as he and Pītā watched Naruto placed on a second stretcher "I have no idea what just came over him. I'll-"
"It's fine" Pītā waved off Kakashi's apology with a simple slap to the man's shoulder "There's always that one guy that tries to test the Proctor's limits and kill someone else to prove that they can. Your student just happen to be this year's one. No worries, really"
Honestly Pītā's just surprised how long it took for the younger Jinchūriki to finally snap and try to kill someone outright. While Pītā could safely say he's never had that urge, he could think of a number of his predecessors over the years and Jinchūriki from the other nations that up and began to slaughter people after years of mental and physical abuse. Hell, the son of the Kazekage, Garra, was a prime example of a Jinchūriki gone very wrong in his eyes.
'Honestly I expected him to be the one I'll have to reign in' Pītā thought as he briefly eyed the red headed boy up in the stands before he took a deep breath and loudly cleared his throat "Now than, let's get this over with. Run up the names for the next match Anko!"
Anko responded with a thumbs up before she muttered something into her ear piece and the screen began to cycle through names for the next round's participants. As Pītā patiently waited, he for a very brief moment, sensed a spike of Killing Intent before it vanished just as quickly as it appeared. Pītā frowned at this and very discreetly looked around to see if he could possibly spot it's source. None of the Jōnin from Konoha seemed to be the ones that set off Pītā's sixth sense and the ones from Suna, Oto and Taki seemed pretty content with how things played out.
'So that just leaves Uzu' Pītā thought as he spared a brief glance at the red headed Jōnin and her Genin.
Fūka didn't seem to want him dead, if anything she wanted to sleep with him, though given Pītā's past experience with... well just about any woman, she could've been just hiding the fact she wants him dead. Though if that's the case, why would she show the briefest bits of hostility when, far as Pītā knew, nothing was done to her or her students.
'Maybe it was seeing me deal with Naruto like that. Probably doesn't like seeing another 'Uzumaki' getting manhandled like he did by me' Pītā thought as he saw the next participants were Sasuke Uchiha and the last Genin from Taki who had yet to participate, Ichiro.
Ichiro looked a little uneasy taking on the teammate of the Genin that more or less tried to kill off his own teammate while Sasuke seemed a bit... distracted. Likely a combination of being attacked by Orochimaru out in the Forest and given his Curse Mark if what Kakashi said was true, and seeing one of his teammates getting disqualified for attempting to execute a fellow Chūnin hopeful. On top of that, it seemed he was just given a front row seat to just how powerful Naruto had become or was, someone he and the rest of the Rookie Genin thought as a dead last with no real or serious talent outside his abnormally large Chakra reserves.
'Kami I hope he doesn't see that as a reason to go overboard for his match, like it's some kind of compensating thing' Pītā sighed at this and gestured for the next round's combatants to make their ways down to the arena 'I'm too young to be saying this, but I'm getting too old for this crap'
He's really starting to wonder what the weather in Amegakure is like this time of year, he might just end up moving there once these exams were over.
Assuming he isn't killed by Konoha for 'deserting'.
...
And done.
Next chapter, The preliminaries conclude and Pītā has a date with Kurenai!