Chapter- 8

The updated scoreboard:

Sand Genin vs. Mist Genin (Mist genin won)

Shino vs. Tenten (Shino won)

Choji vs. Hinata (Hinata won)

Sai vs. Ino

"INO YAMANAKA AND SAI ENTER THE STADIUM!"

The two entered the stadium, Ino had the same poker face on while Sai fake smiled, which angered Ino.

"You should just quit if you can't win a battle." Sai said with his fake smile.

"And you should not underestimate your opponent." Ino shot back.

The two engaged in a tai-jutsu fight, Sai's tanto against Ino's kunai. Sai had the upper hand due to the length, but Ino soon used that to his disadvantage. She remembered the technique that Neko had used against Kitsune in their yesterday's battle and decided to use it. She gave him an opening, slid her blade under his and parried with force knocking the blade out of his hand.

"Neko, she used your technique." Naruto whispered to Sasuke.

"Hn. She is pretty skilled." Sasuke whispered back. "Unlike the others she paid attention while we were sparring to learn a few tricks."

Sai immediately jumped back, removing his super beast scroll drawing lions to attack her. Eleven lions attacked her. Ino slammed her hands on the ground, "Earth Style: Flying Stones!" She shouted, sending a multitude of rocks, similar to Neko's 'Fire Release: Great Flame Flower!' into the air. The rocks came crashing down on Sai's drawings, instantly turning them to ink. Sai did a series of summersaults to avoid getting hit by the flying rocks, landing on his feet far from Ino. His vision was blocked due to the dust in the air caused by Ino's jutsu. He tried to find Ino but couldn't see anything. He suddenly felt two hands grab his legs and pull him into the ground. Ino pulled him into the ground, restricting his movements, and put a kunai to his neck. "Earth Style: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique." She said while emerging from the earth. She knocked him out using the butt of her kunai.

"WINNER: INO YAMANAKA!"

"Her use of the earth style is very good, if she keeps on improving, she might even grow up to be a better Earth style user than me." Mei admitted.

"She is quite observant too, some of her moves were the same moves used by Kitsune and Neko during their fight yesterday." The Kusakaze pointed out.

"Neko's technique is very hard to copy, also he did it while he was defending my attacks, so even seeing the technique was really hard, and she replicated it, she should definitely be promoted to Chunin." Kitsune said proudly.

"She is also a quick thinker; she made the whole plan and executed it perfectly." Gaara replied.

"I am thinking of giving her Katsuyu's summoning contact after the Chunin exams." Tsunade admitted. She was proud of her student. Her student may not be the best in medical-Ninjutsu but she was certainly her strongest student when it came to Ninjutsu and taijutsu.

SEMI FINALS

Shino vs. Mist genin (Mist genin won)

Hinata vs. Ino

"HINATA HYUGA AND INO YAMANAKA ENTER THE STADIUM!"

The two entered the stadium and smiled at each other.

"Hinata, best of luck!" Ino said with a smile, after all she was one of close her friends.

"You too, Ino. May the best Kunoichi win?" Hinata replied.

"Yeah, no hard feelings, okay?"

"No hard feelings. Byakugan!" Hinata said while getting into the gentle fist stance. She activated her Byakugan, her eyes widened and all the veins around her eyes became visible.

They started sparring, which was mostly Ino trying to keep out of the Hyuga's reach. Ino knew that she could never defeat Hinata in taijutsu, and if she went too close to her, she would just lose because of Hinata's ability to shut down chakra points. She remembered how Naruto had defeated Neji. She made a clone and used the Earth Style: Hiding Like A Mole Jutsu to hide underground while her clone dodged Hinata's attacks. She decided to use Earth Style: Double Suicide Decapitation Technique to pull Hinata underground. As soon as she was about to grab Hinata's leg, Hinata jumped away. Unlike Neji, she did not lower her guard. "You may have defeated Sai with that jutsu, but you cannot defeat me. I can sense your chakra. You have to try harder Ino." Among all of the other contestants, Hinata was probably her worst matchup. Hinata constantly tried to hit Ino's chakra points but was unable to as Ino never got too close to her."Earth Style: Flying Stones!" Ino yelled while slamming her hands on the ground, sending a multitude of rocks towards Hinata from all sides."Eight Trigrams: Palm Rotation!" Hinata rotated at high velocity repelling all of Ino's stones and creating a crater around her. Ino was getting irritated seeing Hinata defending against her attacks so easily. After getting tired of evading the Hyuga's attacks, Ino decided to use genjutsu on Hinata. "Genjutsu: Flower Hill" Ino whispered under her breath, while summoning up illusionary purple flowers from the ground in front of Hinata, trying to damage and paralyze her. Hinata quickly dispelled the genjutsu before it could harm her. "Earth Style: Earthen Stone Shoots!" Four large spikes attacked Hinata from four sides, making it hard to evade. Hinata gathered chakra at the bottom of her feet jumped to evade the attack however; the spikes scraped her right leg. She engaged Ino head on in a taijutsu battle, but Ino never got in her range, Ino knew that if she got into Hinata's range, she would lose, so she always put a lot of distance between Hinata and herself. She began thinking about strategies to defeat Hinata. She couldn't use taijutsu of genjutsu, so that only left her one option, Ninjutsu. She had to use something that Hinata can not break. Finally, she got it. "Earth Style: Stone Plate Coffin!" Ino said, raising curved chakra infused stone walls around Hinata and trapped Hinata inside, only leaving her face out so she could breathe. Hinata tried to get out of it but failed. Hinata struggled a lot before finally giving up.

"WINNER: INO YAMANAKA!" The proctor announced, the crowd cheered and clapped. Tsunade was really proud of her student. Inoichi had taken a leave just to watch his daughter perform in the Chunin exam, and he couldn't be more proud of Ino. Naruto smiled underneath his mask after Ino had won the round. She had come a long way from her first Chunin exams. He was excited to see her after the exams; he had planned a special evening for her with the help of Gaara and Sasuke, although they both teased him a lot.

"WE WILL HAVE A THIRTY MINIUTE LONG BREAK BEFORE THE FINALS OF THE CHUNIN EXAMS!" The proctor announced. Some members of the crowd went to get food.

"Guys, I am going to get ramen, do you want anything?" Naruto asked the rest of the people in the Kage booth.

"Onigiri and tomatoes." Sasuke replied.

"Bring me Taiyaki" Gaara said

"I will have dangos." Mei spoke up

"I will also have dangos" the Kusakaze replied

"So onigiri and tomatoes for Neko, Taiyaki for Gaara and dangos for the Kusakaze and lady Mizukage" Kitsune wondered out loud "Okay, I'll be back in five minutes." he announced before leaving.

Tsunade had already left to check up on her student before the finals.

-twenty five minutes later.

"THE FINALS OF THE CHUNIN EXAMS ARE BEGINING PLEASE TAKE YOUR SEATS!" The proctor announced. "INO YAMANAKA AND CHIZU KANEKO ENTER THE STADIUM!"

Ino stood across the mist genin now identified as Chizu Kaneko. She had little more than one third of her chakra resources.

"HAJME!"

The battle began. The two began throwing shurikens and kunai at each other. After a while, the two engaged in a taijutsu fight, landing some hits on each other. "Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu!" Chizu shouted before spitting fire from her mouth. "Earth Style: Mud Wall!" Ino rammed her hands onto the ground, erecting a strong wall to defend herself. "Earth Style: Stone Pistol Jutsu" Ino said while shooting several bullets from her mouth towards managed to avoid most of the bullets, but some hit her. The two engaged in a taijutsu fight again, landing a few hits on each other. Their chakra was depleting. Both of them wanted to finish this fight quickly, or they would faint from chakra exhaustion. All the people were quite intrigued in this fight. "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" Chizu said while expelling a huge orb of fire from her mouth. "Earth Style: Mud Wall!" Ino erected an even higher and wider wall to defend against the fire ball. "Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" Chizu immediately spat out a number of fireballs towards Ino from the back. The fire balls hit Ino, and Chizu lowered her guard, thinking that she had won. The real Ino appeared behind Chizu. "Earth Style: Bottomless Swamp" She said turning the ground around Chizu into deep mud, which swallowed her till only her head was visible. Ino put a kunai to her neck, without wasting any time.

"WINNER: INO YAMANAKA!" the proctor announced. The whole stadium burst into cheers. As soon as Ino heard this, she fell to her knees and smiled. She had done it; she had won the Chunin exams.

-The Next Evening

Naruto was waiting outside Ino's door, waiting for her to open. Ino opened her door and found Kitsune waiting outside. She was wearing her casual clothes, an orange tee and grey sweatpants. She looked up at Kitsune in a questioning gaze.

"Kazekage-sama has requested your presence." Naruto said.

"Okay, I'll be in his office in a few minutes." Ino replied.

"Actually, you need to accompany me; he's not in his office." Naruto said almost immediately.

"Okay, let me get dressed." Ino said closing the door. She opened the door five minutes later wearing her usual purple dress. "Let's go."

Ino followed him to the greenhouse in Suna. As soon as they were inside it, Naruto pulled up his barrier; he had used this so many times that he knew it like the back of his hand.

"Hey, Ino-chan" Naruto said. He was standing in front of Ino, only a couple of feet away. Gaara and Sasuke had helped him plan this whole date and Gaara even cleared the greenhouse for him. He closed his eyes and slowly removed his mask.

As soon as Ino saw his face, she was shocked. 'It's him, its Naruto, he's really here!' She thought, before punching him in the gut. As soon as he bent down a little, Ino hugged him tightly, not wanting to let go. She sinks her face into his shoulder and he rests his chin on the top of her head.

"I really missed you, Whiskers!" Ino says tears fall from her eyes. "Do you know how worried Shishou and I were?"

"I missed you too, Ino-chan. You crossed my mind every day."

"Then, why did you leave?" Ino asked looking into his cerulean blue eyes.

"I had to, I had no other choice. If I would have come back from the mission, I would have been either locked away in a cell or been banished from the leaf, regardless of the fact that I had succeeded or failed to bring Sasuke. I knew that something was wrong, so I left a clone behind to spy on the council and the civilian council and the village elders were overpowering baa-chan. And if Sasuke returned, he would be on house arrest and would have been forced to marry many women to produce Uchiha heir. So, we had no option other than to fake our death and assume other identities." Naruto replied looking into her ice blue eyes.

"So you mean that the great Kitsune and Neko are actually just Sasuke and you?"

"The great Kitsune and Neko? Are we famous or something?" Naruto looked at her weirdly

"Yes, you two are famous in Konoha; you are the only ones that Danzo could not gather any intel on. He has been trying for the past year, sending a lot of his root agents after you two, but none of them ever returned." Ino replied with excitement.

"Oh, I didn't know that we were famous. Anyways, I brought you here to fulfill my promise of taking you out on a date." He said, giving her his signature foxy grin as he broke the hug and walked to the table set up in the middle of the greenhouse.

The two had dinner, which was prepared by Sasuke, because Naruto couldn't cook anything except ramen and talked about the things that happened in the past two years. The two were now lying on the grass under a tree. They were holding each other's hands, fingers intertwined. The two looked at each other in a comfortable silence. Suddenly, Naruto got up in a sitting position, pulling Ino up by her hand. He sat in front of her taking her hand between both of his, looking into her eyes sincerely.

"Ino-chan, I had started liking you during the last year of our academy, and my crush gradually grew. That day, when you agreed to go out on a date with me, I was ecstatic. And in the past two years, I have realized something; I realized that I love you, Ino-chan."

Naruto leaned towards Ino, their faces centimetres apart, she looked into his eyes, eyes filled with love, her eyes travelled to his lips. She slightly parted her lips and closed her eyes, she didn't want to wait for Naruto so she quickly smashed their lips together, their kiss started out being a sweet kiss, but before Naruto could pull away, she kissed him passionately, and he returned the kiss with the same passion. Ino pinned him down on the ground, getting on top of him and breaking the kiss. She touched her forehead to his. "I love you too, Whiskers. Always will." She whispered back to him, before kissing him hungrily again. After breaking the kiss, she looked in his eyes. "You're mine, Uzumaki." she said in an ordering tone. "And you're mine, Yamanaka!" he growled back. She rests her head on his chest, slightly shifting her weight to his side and he wrapped his hands around her.

"When are you leaving?" Ino asked in a sad tone.

"Tomorrow." he replied, taking out a box from his pocket. "But, before I go, I want to give you something." He said taking out two ribbons from the box. One was orange, while the other was purple. He ties the purple one around his arm and gives the orange one to Ino."Even we are far from each-other, we will always be together. No matter what, these ribbons will keep us connected to each other."

"Yeah?" Ino asked hopefully, looking into his azure blue eyes.

"Yeah. Also there are gifts from teme and me for winning the Chunin exams." He unseals a Wakizashi and his tanto."The Wakizashi is from Sasuke, according to him, you need a bigger blade to fight. And the tanto is from me, it was my mom's, I found it recently and seeing your matches, I think this will suit your speed." Naruto said giving her the gifts.

"Thank you, Whiskers!" She says.

"Listen Ino-chan, I need to leave in sometime as I need to rest a bit. We leave tomorrow at the brink of dawn. I can't delay it as we have a meeting with the hidden cloud in five days." Naruto looks at her with an apologetic expression.

"A-Are you going to come back?" Ino hesitantly asked.

"If everything goes according to Sasuke's plan we will be back in the leaf. Although I don't know how long it will take."

"Oh okay." Ino looks down with a sad expression.

"Hey, don't be sad. I will still try to spend time with you if we ever run into each other while missions. And besides, we just have to be patient to the plan to work out." He kisses her passionately. He knew that they weren't going t see each other for a while so wanted to make the most of it. The two ended the kiss and their eyes met."Ino-chan, once this whole mess is cleared up; I'll come back to you. I promise. And don't forget that I love you." he said looking at her with a smile

"I love you too, whiskers! " she replied.

They spent some time together before returning to their rooms.

A/N:

Another chapter down. The next chapter is going to be following the events of shippuden. Also since I do not have any clue as to who to pair up Sasuke with, I'm going to create an OC for him. Let me know if you have any good names for her. This was my first romance scene so go easy on me; Now onto the important questions:

1) Should Shukaku / the one tail be extracted from Gaara or should Kitsune and Neko save him in the nick of time?

2) Which teams should the leaf send to help the Sand?

Let me know. Alright, I'll be off now.

Peace!