Naruto has no choice but to stay out of Gaara's way. If he could stop for a minute, he could draw a seal, but he does not dare stay still for a second. Naruto is fast at drawing seals, but not as fast as Karin, or Iruka-nii. Heck, Iruka-nii can activate seals he knows well with his MIND.
Naruto isn't that good. So Naruto runs for his life.
There is one thing he can do, though. "Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Naruto makes a hundred clones and has them all run in different directions to confuse Gaara.
Gaara attacks the clones at random, his transformation getting worse and worse, encompassing his whole body by the time all Naruto's clones are dispelled. Naruto himself is crouched in one of the arena trees, trying to figure out what to do next. Should he summon Gamabunta now, or wait? Summons are allowed - Naruto checked. It's just that most genins can't summon, nor would they need to, so usually summoning is not something commonly seen in the chunin exams. Looking at the rampaging, half transformed Gaara, Naruto makes his decision.
"Summoning Jutsu!" Naruto casts his jutsu, glad that he thought ahead and had Iruka-nii put up the Spacial Distortion Barrier. There is a puff of smoke and a tiny toad in a mini version of Gamabunta's outfit appears. "Gamakichi?!" Naruto recognises this toad from his backpack.
"Wassup?" asks the little toad. "So what are we playing? Do you have any snacks?"
"Aw, I was trying to summon the Chief Toad!" Naruto whines.
"ARE YOU MOCKING ME?" screams Gaara, attacking Naruto and Gamakichi.
Naruto grabs Gamakichi and dives out of the way.
Gaara's attack goes wild and hits the barrier, putting a crack in it. If that barrier breaks…
"YES!" Screams Gaara. "BREAK! BREAK SO I CAN KILL ALL THESE PEOPLE!"
"I won't let you!" says Naruto, clasping his hands together to mold his chakra. Gamakichi sits on Naruto's head, shaking a little. Naruto will protect the baby toad too. "This fight is between you and me!"
"Where did you get all that power?" yells Gaara, fear colouring his voice.
Naruto stares down at his hands. He summoned more chakra than he ever has before. "I don't know," he admits. "I guess it was always there."
"How?" demands Gaara. "How do you have so much chakra?"
Naruto feels positively superior. "I am an Uzumaki. I always have a ton of chakra." Naruto makes a couple hundred Shadow Clones and beats up Gaara with them.
Then Gaara freaks out and yells, "I won't lose to a guy like you!" Smoke envelops him.
Naruto feels a sense of nausea as the Spacial Distortion seal enlarges the space inside it to accommodate Gaara's new transformation.
When the smoke clears, a giant racoon dog towers above Naruto. If it were not for the seal which increases and decreases the amount of room inside it according to how much room is needed, this giant beast would have crushed the stadium.
"What is that?" asks Gamakichi, huddling into Naruto's hair.
"That is Shukaku, the One Tailed Sand Racoon-Dog," says Naruto. "We can't take this guy on alone." Naruto yelps as sand envelops him. Only one way out.
"Sand Coffin!" says Gaara.
"Summoning Jutsu!" says Naruto.
The space inside the barrier grows twice as large. Gamabunta appears in a cloud of smoke. "What? You again?" he says. "What's got you in a jam this time?"
"Dad!" whines Gamakichi. "Shukaku is picking on me and my new friend!"
"Is that right?" says Gamabunta, his eyes narrowing.
"Yeah," says Gamakichi. "We were gonna play after this, right Naruto?"
"Yeah," says Naruto, catching on to what Gamakichi is up to. "I was gonna introduce you to Sparky." Up in the stands, Sparky squawks.
"Don't forget the snacks," adds Gamakichi.
"Yeah!" says Naruto. "Like chips and dango and stuff. I know where to get the good stuff."
"ARE YOU IGNORING ME?" demands the transformed Gaara. "I'll kill you!"
"Is that right?" says Gamabunta, grabbing his sword and drawing it out of its sheath. "You kids hang on tight. Chief Toad's gotta kick some Tailed Beast Booty."
Naruto hangs on tight with his chakra.
Gamabunta leaps forward and cuts off the giant raccoon-dog's arm. The arm dissolves into sand. Gamabunta's sword flies through the air, landing a few meters away, blade down, sticking out of the ground.
Gaara's body rises out of the top of the Raccoon-Dog's head.
"What is he doing?" asks Naruto.
Gamabunta takes a good look at Gaara. "He's probably going to release Shukaku. I can see the signs of insomnia that mean, if he falls asleep, Shukaku will take over. If that happens, we will have a much tougher time of it."
"Oh." Naruto checks the place where the crack in the barrier was. The crack is fixed, but it could easily be broken again. "Hey, Chief Toad?" says Naruto. "We need to avoid hitting that barrier. If it breaks and the jutsu come undone, the amount of space in here will go back to normal and we'll crush the stadium, then Gaara and Shukaku will kill everyone who survives that."
"That's quite a problem," says Chief Toad Gamabunta.
Gaara starts making handsigns. "Play Possum Jutsu," he mumbles, and falls forward, his eyes closed. Something changes, and all at once, Naruto feels an oppressively strong chakra.
Shukaku throws his hand up in the air and yells, "WOO! I'm BACK, baby!"
"He's kinda groovy," comments Gamakichi.
"Nah," says Naruto. "He's lame. Toads and foxes are WAY cooler than stinky raccoon dogs."
"Naruto! We need to wake the jinchuuriki if we are going to have any chance of beating this thing."
"Right!" Naruto nods.
"I'll get in close, you give him a good punch in the face!"
Gamabunta charges in. "Liquid Bullet!" he announces, firing off a giant ball of water at Shukaku.
Shukaku shoots a blast of air at the jutsu, blowing it away. Gamabunta lands on the far side of Shukaku. The space inside the barrier is simply enormous now. Gamabunta fires off another Liquid Bullet, which Shukaku counters with another blast of air. Gamabunta keeps charging forward, only to be hit by a follow-up blast.
Shukaku rejoices, "I did it! I killed him!"
Gamabunta descends on Shukaku saying, "That kinda hurt! Another couple of those, and you might kill even me!" He grabs Shukaku's shoulders and says, "Now's your chance, Naruto!"
Naruto starts forward to hit Gaara, but Shukaku shakes off Gamabunta and backs off. "You're gonna need to keep a grip on him if I'm to get a shot in!" says Naruto.
"For that I need fangs and claws!" says Gamabunta. "And I don't have any of those."
"So what do we do, then?" asks Naruto.
"Simple: transform into something that has what we need!" says Gamabunta. "But I'm not too good at the transformation jutsu, so you'll have to do it. We'll join our chakra and do a combined transformation. Ready?"
"I don't know what to change into!"
"Think of something!" snaps Gamabunta.
Fangs and claws, fangs and claws… Naruto gets ready to perform the jutsu. What has fangs and claws…? Of course!
"Transform!" Gamabunta and Naruto cast the jutsu together. The strangest sensation comes over Naruto as the transformation kicks in.
Deputy Kinoko checks in on the south patrol. "Any sign of the invasion?" she asks.
"Nothing to report, deputy," says the patrol leader.
"There is nothing from the other patrols either," says Deputy Kinoko. "What's taking so long?"
"Maybe there isn't going to be an invasion," suggests the patrol leaders. "Maybe that spy was lying."
"I don't think so…" Deputy Kinoko feels a twinge of doubt. The spy did refer to Orochimaru as 'she', something the Chief, the Hokage and the TI department are all scratching their heads over. Maybe he was delusional with fear. "But it's better to be prepared - just in case."
Deputy Kinoko does a quick scout of the area and heads over to check in with the East Border Patrol.