A/N: An entire mini-arc of buildup later, we're finally at the main attractions of this part of the story. Well, some of them, anyway.

Naruto vs Neji will be *extremely* different in this fic as opposed to canon, as you will see in this chapter, and for those of you requesting that I give Naruto some new tricks, this fight will make you happy.

Time for Final Round, Part 1

Enjoy!


The first detail that struck Naruto as he walked toward the center of the arena was the silence of the crowd. There was still idle chatter echoing throughout the stands, but no clapping, no cheers, no commotion. He had not known what exactly to expect upon his entrance, but apathy was certainly superior to outright negativity for the most part. Reaching Genma within a few moments, Naruto stared across the arena at the doorway on the opposite side. Neji had yet to join him.

Thankfully, he was not made to wait for long, as the Hyuga soon emerged into the battlefield. Much unlike Naruto, Neji received a rousing reception. The audience cheered, clapped, and voiced their approval loudly. They had spared the Jinchuuriki their ire, but it was clear who the crowd favorite was. Once Neji had joined Naruto and Genma in the center, the proctor cleared his throat and folded his arms across his chest.

"I already explained the rules to you both once today, so we're going to skip the formalities. The fight ends when one of you either gives up, or can't continue." Genma said, eying both boys intently. The genin each gave a nod in unison.

"Take five steps back." the proctor ordered, to which Naruto and Neji both obliged. The blonde inhaled deeply through his nose. All there was left to do was fight. What he had spent much of his life doing, in one form or another. As Genma raised his hand up above his head, Naruto felt an odd wave of calm wash over him. Win or lose, this was where he wanted to be.

"You may begin!" the proctor announced, chopping his hand down toward the ground. Now free to move, the genin charged simultaneously. For Naruto, it was the only way he knew. Aggression was part of him. For Neji, based upon what the Jinchuuriki had seen during his clash with Hinata, such a bold start was out of character.

'Works for me.' Naruto thought to himself, honing in on the first task Kakashi had laid out for him in their preparation. The boys met one another halfway, planting their feet to begin the first engagement of the match. As he was wont to do, Naruto led the dance, spearing out his left hand in an attempt to catch his adversary cold. Neji easily leaned his head off to his right, allowing Naruto's closed fist to whiz past his face by mere inches. In retaliation, the Hyuga attempted to strike the blonde in the gut with an open palm.

The Jinchuuriki raised up his knee and blocked Neji's strike ith his upper shin. As the Hyuga attempted to pull back out of range, Naruto grinned and slashed his right hand down across his fellow genin's face. A clean incision immediately opened up above Neji's right eye. They then both leapt backwards to recreate distance. Blinking plasma out of his eye, Neji scowled in the blonde's direction. First blood belonged to Naruto, and aside from the numbness in his left leg, he had taken no damage in the first exchange.

'That went well.' Naruto thought to himself. The match had barely even begun, but the initial success was heartening. Neji was certainly a fair margin quicker than he had expected, but he was still able to react to him mid-skirmish. Any nerves he had carried into the beginning of the battle had lessened somewhat. The pair then began to circle one another, eyes narrowed and bodies tensed. After a few seconds of silent measurement, they engaged for a second time.

When they collided, Neji made the first move. Stabbing his right foot past Naruto's leading left, he slammed the heel of his palm into the blonde's nose and snapped his head back. Before he could regain his wits, Naruto was struck twice more, once in the stomach and once in the sternum. Clenching his jaw and ignoring the internal pain suddenly assaulting him, Naruto jammed out his right hand straight, grazing over the top of Neji's shoulder and cutting straight through his pale vest. The Hyuga winced in pain and hesitated for a moment.

Taking full advantage of the small window he had created for himself, Naruto kicked out one of Neji's legs and scampered back out of close quarters. He was given little time to rest, as the moment the Hyuga had regained his footing, he chased him down again. Widening his stance, Naruto ducked under Neji's attempt to drive his palm into his face for a second time and pivoted off to the side. As the older boy turned to face him, Naruto cracked him across the left side of his jaw with a short punch.

The blow connected cleanly, but did little to buckle him. Absorbing the impact admirably, Neji paid him back with a harsh kick across the right side of his ribs. Naruto caught his leg, pulled him forward a few inches, and then swung his free hand down in a chopping motion across Neji's chest. Completing his counter, Naruto spun him around once and tossed him away.

Neji landed on his feet with ease, but wore a pained look on his face as he looked down at the red stain seeping through his vest on his abdomen. Though he would have liked to enjoy his handiwork, Naruto was interrupted by a harsh cough that sent his own blood splattering into his palm. He felt like throwing up, and it hurt to breathe.

"Only my uncle has ever made me bleed. Be proud of that. You won't have much else by the end of this." Neji called out to him. Naruto forced a smile despite the ache, but said nothing. Focus was paramount. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward. Neji did the same. The encounter was still young, but one thing was clear.

It was going to be bloody.


Satsuki watched with pursed lips as her teammate dueled down below. It was difficult to draw concrete impressions of what could be expected from the little she had seen, but if nothing else, Naruto was certainly not being dominated. He had enjoyed a fair amount of success in, of all things, direct taijutsu. He had spun Neji's head around several times, doubled him over once with a knee to the gut, and most interestingly of all, cut him wide open in several places.

Each and every time they came together to trade blows, one or both of Naruto's hands laced themselves with a rapidly vibrating chakra. It was likely that Satsuki herself was among the only spectators capable of viewing the tactic for what it was, as she had been blind to it until applying her dojutsu.

"I haven't seen either of them use a kunai yet. How is Naruto opening him up like this? He's hitting him, but punches don't cut a person that way." Shikamaru asked Kakashi, voicing the very same question Satsuki had intended to ask herself. The Jonin, who had moved down a row to sit in between his students, smirked beneath his mask.

"It's a little something we threw together around two weeks ago. He was never going to be able to handle Neji up-close for long, no matter how much he improved. So, I gave him a weapon." he began, earning the undivided attention of both genin.

"I tested his chakra nature, and as it turns out, Naruto's a bit of an anomaly around these parts. He has a natural affinity for wind. His chakra is inherently sharp and fluid. With some basic control and shaping, you can turn anything you run it through into a makeshift blade." he explained. Satsuki nodded along, narrowing her sharingan to better observe the clashes taking place.

"I figured it had something to do with his chakra, but why not just use a kunai? It costs less energy, and requires less focus." she pointed out. Kakashi shook his head.

"Naruto could slice a kunai in half with his bare hands. He doesn't have to aim or adjust much to split Neji wide open. It's basic, but it serves a purpose. He still won't win a taijutsu match. I'd say he's already losing it." he said. Shikamaru observed nervously as his teammate was briefly staggered by an elbow to the temple as he stepped in.

"Shouldn't you be more worried?" he asked. Satsuki couldn't help but agree with the idea. Naruto was competing well, but he was a long way off from winning.

"Just wait and see. You'll see it soon." the Jonin said vaguely, his tone perfectly calm. Satsuki gripped the bottom of her shirt tightly. She was far more stressed than she had expected to be. Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself.

'You'd better be right, Sensei.'


Naruto gritted his teeth and dug his heels in as he cracked Neji behind the ear with an angled punch over his left shoulder. The Hyuga remained sturdy, but leaned forward ever so slightly. In the midst of his stagger, Naruto dug his opposite hand up into Neji's liver with a forceful punch. While the strike landed solidly, Neji took it well, and quickly retaliated by seizing both of Naruto's wrists, pulling them out to his sides, and driving a knee up into the bottom of his chin through the new opening.

Momentarily stunned, Naruto was forced to swing blind as Neji closed in to follow up on his success. It did him no favors, as the Hyuga easily evaded his wild counter and sent him flying backwards with a double-handed palm strike to his chest. Shrieking out in pain, Naruto managed to land upright, but immediately dropped to his knees and hacked up an unsavory sum of blood. Unsteadily rising, the Jinchuuriki didn't bother to whip the red from his chin. His reactions to the damage he was taking were certainly worse optically than Neji's were, but one look at the Hyuga restored his confidence to a degree.

He was masking it well, but he was feeling the effects of the numerous wounds Naruto had inflicted upon him. His breath was slightly choppy, and he flinched each time he moved. The blood loss almost certainly did him no favors as well. Naruto himself was certainly damaged, but if he could trust anything about himself, it was that he was capable of winning wars of attrition. He had done so countless times. If all went to plan, he wouldn't even need to. Not for long, at least. He was awaiting a single cue. A lone shift.

'Only one way to find out.' the blonde thought to himself with an inward nod. Ignoring the fact that he was likely bleeding internally, Naruto blitzed forward. Unlike every other occasion thus far, Neji did not charge to meet him. He held his ground, but his aggression was visibly quelled. They broke even in the subsequent exchange, with Naruto managing to slam his fist square into his nose, while also absorbing a harsh knee to the solar plexus. Opting to press the small sign of weakness he had seen moments ago, Naruto pressed on.

For the first time since their encounter had begun, Neji retreated. Knowing precisely what to do as a result of the endless drilling Kakashi had subjected him to, the blonde weaved a sequence of hand signs.

"Wind Style: Vacuum Bullet!" he yelled out. He then launched a volley of heavily compressed airwaves from his mouth. Neji ducked and dove his way around four of the five blasts of oxygen sent his way, but the fifth nailed him straight on the thigh as he attempted to leap over the top of it. Crashing to the ground and rolling twice, the Hyuga grunted in pain as he gripped his wounded leg. Wasting little time, Naruto readied his jutsu for a second time, and sent a second assault Neji's way.

The Hyuga made a dash to his left, which Naruto cut off with a continuous barrage of focused air. Once again, Neji was unable to fully avoid the danger in his path. He was struck three times. Once on either shoulder, and once right in the center of his forehead protector. The impacts put a dent in the metal and punctured his skin. Neji staggered, but stayed on his feet. Naruto smirked to himself. The tide had turned, all in one fell swoop. Throwing together a different sequence of seals, he reared his head back.

"Wind Style: Great Breach!" he bellowed, sending forth a far more potent, much larger single blast of wind directly at Neji. If it were to connect at full force, the match was likely to be over. Initially, the enormous mass of torrid air appeared to do exactly that, as it slammed into the area around Neji and threw up a blinding cloud of dust. As the obstruction cleared away, however, it soon became apparent that Naruto's effort to end the fight early had failed.

A rapidly spinning dome of blue chakra was surrounding Neji, who was rotating in a tight circle. A few moments after rocks and dust had ceased falling, the dome dissipated, leaving Neji standing in a small crater. Climbing out of the hole, the Hyuga spat blood out of his mouth and assumed his stance once again. He was far from finished, despite the damage he had absorbed. Though he still disliked him in general, Naruto couldn't help but respect the dogged grit on display.

"You know what? You're alright, golden boy." Naruto called out. Neji's eyes narrowed slightly, likely at the name the blonde had assigned to him, but he said nothing in response. Instead, he let his actions speak and charged forward. The Jinchuuriki hopped backwards to lengthen the distance between them, and afford himself enough time to form hand seals. Within seconds, he had launched a swarm of vacuum bullets in Neji's direction once again.

The Hyuga was finally able to avoid being hit directly by any of the focused airwaves, but the maneuvers he was forced to take to ensure his own safety badly compromised the soundness of his entry into range. As such, he was off balance and unthreatening by the time he was within striking distance of Naruto, who clattered him on the temple with a sharp, right handed punch to his temple. Neji's knees buckled, causing him to nearly sit himself down in front of his fellow genin.

Before he could fully escape the perilous space he had found himself within, Naruto made him pay for his blunder with another violent cutting motion, this time across his cheek. Neji scampered back away from the Jinchuuriki as blood seeped out of his face. Naruto took a deep breath to stabilize himself as his right hand glowed with vibrating blue chakra.

'Sensei was right. This is a really neat trick.' he thought to himself, taking a glance up toward his team's section of the seating. He couldn't quite make out their faces from the current distance, but he could spot their outlines. Turning his eyes back to Neji, he steeled his focus.

'Let's wrap this up.'


The sight of Naruto Uzumaki, village pariah, taking apart a member of the Hyuga clan piece by piece was headline-worthy news. For a boy who had nearly dropped out of the academy numerous times due to poor attendance and poor performance, to be well in control of a pitched fight with easily the most talented member of the country's most prestigious family was an absolute shock, and it showed on the faces of all those in attendance. Even Shikamaru and Satsuki wore looks of quiet surprise. Of them all, only Kakashi was unsurprised.

It was fairly common for those uninformed and inexperienced to lose the forest for the trees when it came to combat. A prominent last name, and a widespread reputation could often project a level of infallibility onto a person that simply did not fit. Neji Hyuga was certainly powerful. Much more so than many Chunin, but he was still a young, relatively green teenager. He was highly skilled within his own parameters, but he was exploitable. It was certainly easier said than done, but Kakashi's task had been a fairly simple one fundamentally:

Equip Naruto to survive, neutralize, and punish a taijutsu specialist.

"Everything's flipped on its head. It happened quick, too." Satsuki said, smirking as Naruto caught Neji coming in with a stiff punch to the gut.

"The second Neji gave him any initiative at all, Naruto started ripping him up." Shikamaru added, looking a tad more animated than usual. Kakashi looked on with reserved pride.

"Everything we worked on was tailored for this matchup specifically. He was never going to beat him up close, but facing him there was always going to be crucial." he said. Shikamaru shifted in his seat.

"The idea was to put enough of a scare into him to convince him to back off a bit, and then for Naruto to make closing that distance again as difficult as possible. Do I have that right?" he guessed. The Jonin made a 'so-so' motion with his hand.

"Not quite. Fact is, playing keep-away never works for long. Not against somebody with a head on their shoulders. The point of it is to force Neji to cross the distance over and over again. Every time he does so, he'll take damage on the way in, and on the way out." he corrected. Naruto then unleashed another massive blast of wind, stemming from his Great Breach.

"You taught him some fun stuff. You held out on me." Satsuki commented grumpily. Kakashi chuckled at her mild jealousy.

"He needed more help than you did. Besides, you can't honestly say that I didn't give you some new toys to play with." he said, sobering her somewhat.

"Don't complain. He only taught me one jutsu." Shikamaru complained. Kakashi sighed and shook his head.

"That, and how to not eat every punch a person throws at you." he added. The argument never got off the ground, as the group's attention was soon snapped back to the match.

As they would be reminded, no matter the flow, a battle could never truly be predicted ahead of time.


Naruto ducked deep to his right to avoid a stunted charge from Neji, just barely managing to avoid being struck in the throat by his palm. Pivoting to face him again, the Jinchuuriki caught him exiting striking distance with a digging kick to the stomach. Neji breathed in sharply as he regained his balance. With a long range established once again, the boys began to circle each other.

Naruto suppressed his urge to take a deep breath and put his hands on his knees. His stamina was a strong suit, but he had exerted a tremendous amount of chakra with the numerous jutsu he had used to damage Neji at a distance. That, compounded with the punishment Neji still managed to inflict in between, had left Naruto far from fresh. As a result, he took far longer than usual to resume his ninjutsu assault.

His hesitation would cost him dearly.

In a sudden flash of opportunism, Neji produced a smoke bomb and threw it between them. When it burst, Naruto lost all sight of the arena in front of him to the haze, let alone of the Hyuga himself. With frantically darting eyes, Naruto attempted to find a point of reference, some sort of anchor to cling to for orientation. Well before he could find such a thing, Neji made his move.

"Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms!" the Hyuga yelled out from beyond the smoke. In an instant, he came down on Naruto like a storm. Piercing through the smoke, Neji struck the Jinchuuriki twice, then four times, and then eight. Within mere seconds, he lost count of the endless combinations of strikes he was being hit with. Coincidentally, as Neji concluded his final sequence, the smoke fully wisped away, allowing the crowd to view Naruto's painful fall to the ground in crystal clarity.

Landing on his back several meters away from his adversary, the Jinchuuriki could only twitch as he stared wide-eyed up into the afternoon sun. His body was numb, and he could hardly breathe. Every joint was stiff, and his heart had slowed. His senses were blunted and fuzzy. Through it all, he could just barely hear the crowd. They were cheering. Roars of approval. They had been kind enough to grant him silence earlier, but now, they saw fit to celebrate.

"This is done. He won't get up." came Neji's voice through the muffled fog. No matter how badly he wished to retort, the blonde could not find his voice, or the breath to use it. He could feel Genma's feet pounding across the dirt from across the arena. He was on the verge of being beaten. At the edge of being declared the loser, and for his prospects to be proven just as hopeless as the odds suggested. Through the noise of the crowd and the sound of Genma's footsteps, a single voice broke through.

"Is that it?! Are you finished?!"

Though it took him a moment, Naruto recognized the owner of the voice to be Satsuki. She sounded somewhere between angry and disappointed, with a trace of something else mixed in.

"Were they right about you?! Answer me, Naruto Uzumaki!" she screamed out from the crowd. Her voice had broken the tiniest bit. If she said anything more, Naruto did not hear her, as his attention was quickly stolen by Genma's eyes staring down at him.

"If you aren't up in ten seconds, I'm stopping the match." he said seriously. The Jinchuuriki clenched his jaw, forcing himself up onto his elbows. Feeling was returning, but at a painfully slow rate.

At eight seconds, he made it to his rear end.

At seven, his hands and knees

At six, his legs refused to work.

At three, they finally complied

With only two seconds remaining, he staggered up to his feet.

"Show me something. You aren't getting a second chance." Genma said sternly, stepping back from in between the two genin as he spoke. Naruto nodded and stared at Neji with black framing his vision. Though he had yet to try, he knew that Ninjutsu was no longer an option. Kakashi had informed him of the consequences a mistake like the one he had just made would bring him. It was far from a comfort, but Neji appeared even worse for wear than before. The violent barrage he had unleashed had drained him significantly.

"No matter what they may say to you, you belong here." the Hyuga said raggedly, surprising Naruto greatly. Laughing painfully, the blonde stepped forward. Neji did the same.

"Thanks for that." the Jinchuuriki rasped.

With nothing left to say, the genin tore into one another.


Shikamaru swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. Things had become uncomfortably visceral down below. Taijutsu had always been the most demanding of the three primary arts of Ninjahood, but the spectacle before him now was the rawest example he had seen in his young career. Neither Naruto nor Neji possessed the energy to be defensively sound, and it even appeared that the Hyuga had slowed to the point of losing his potency.

Every time either one of them landed a blow of any sort, they were paid back in kind immediately. Neji's strikes were tighter, and more compact. He tended to get to the target first, but when stripped of their ancillary abilities, it was clear that Naruto hit a fair bit harder. Each punch he landed moved the Hyuga around, while Neji could only stun him momentarily.

"This is a dog fight." he said aloud. Kakashi nodded solemnly. Whatever plan the Jonin had laid out for Naruto, it clearly had not featured engaging in a drawn out slugfest. Unfortunately, no other options remained. It was do or die, and Naruto had recognized that fact.

"He won't be able to fight again today. No way in hell." Satsuki said. The Uchiha's voice was calm, but her hands were gripping her armrests tightly, and her knuckles were white. Her desperate call for her teammate rise had been a dead giveaway of how she was truly feeling. Kakashi drummed his fingers on his thigh.

"The medical staff are always top notch for the final round. On top of that, he heals faster than most. Don't get ahead of yourself." he said with as much assurance as he could muster. Shikamaru flinched as Naruto leaned directly into Neji's shin bone, which caught him square on the forehead. The Hyuga then grabbed him by the back of the head, drove a knee into his ribs, pushed him away, and punched him clean across the jaw as he stumbled away.

"He doesn't even have the energy to fight like a Hyuga anymore." the Nara said with hollow humor.

"Most of the time, the amount of chakra that style of taijutsu requires is small enough to not matter a ton, but in a fight like this, endurance is everything." Kakashi said. Naruto then came roaring back, catching Neji on one leg during an attempted kick with a forceful counter that sent him reeling.

"God, there's so much blood." Satsuki said, her face twisted up in discomfort. Shikamaru had long ago noticed that Satsuki was far from a fan of gore, which was certainly understandable given her history, but in this case, her squeamishness was relatable. Neji was bleeding from a litany of gashes all over his body, and Naruto's mouth, nose, and even one of his eyes were spilling red.

"A little too much, I'd say." Shikamaru agreed. The group said little else over the following several minutes. They simply watched in tense silence as their comrade valiantly, brutally, pushed on. After a time, Satsuki spoke once again.

"I think this is gonna be over soon." she said vaguely. Shikamaru frowned. While both Naruto and Neji were being pushed to the brink, neither appeared ready to drop just yet. More confusingly, Kakashi echoed her.

"Good eyes." he said curtly. The shadow user took a closer look at both of them, and came upon a rather obvious answer. Both were utilizing their sharingan. There were things they could see that he simply could not. Taking a deep breath inward, Shikamaru leaned forward in his seat.

'Finish him off, Naruto. You've earned this. Go and take it.'


Red saliva flew from both genin's mouths as they cracked one another with simultaneous hooking punches. They both staggered back a step, but kept their footing. While the exchange was outwardly even, Naruto knew he had won it. The punch had stung him to be sure, but he felt no ill aftereffects. Neji, on the other hand, was forced to open and close his mouth several times to ensure that his jaw had not been broken. If the Hyuga took the apparent injury seriously, he did not show it, as he re-engaged quickly.

Shooting out a straight palm toward Naruto's face, Neji was made to miss by a miniscule margin as Naruto jerked his head off-line and seized his wrist. Pulling the Hyuga in, the Jinchuuriki stepped off to his right, released his grip, and nailed Neji upside the bottom of his chin with an uppercut that snapped his head upward. Somehow, some way, the Hyuga did not fall. He wobbled, and staggered back, but remained on his feet.

Naruto did not pursue him immediately. He simply watched in burning exhaustion as his foe regained his senses. He had no sympathy for him. He simply did not have the energy to take advantage. He had been attempting to force what little reserves of chakra he had left to the surface for several minutes, but he had yet to break through the damage Neji had done to his pathways. He was close, but there was still work to be done.

Finally finding the strength to press on, Naruto walked him down and raised an arm to absorb the impact of a kick aimed for his head. Following the strike back to its source, Naruto swept Neji's supporting leg out from under him. The Hyuga caught himself on his hands and knees before he could fully drop. As Naruto stepped in further to attack his compromised foe, he was caught unaware by Neji whipping his head upward and slamming the back of his head into his chin.

Naruto backed up a step, wincing in pain. As spent as he was, Neji still dredged up enough energy to hit him twice more across the face before allowing him to retreat. The Jinchuuriki wiped blood out of his eyes. He had never experienced exhaustion quite to this extent. His entire body burned, and nothing sounded more appealing than dropping flat and passing out. Deep down, winning still mattered more to him. He had come too far, and suffered too much to let victory slip away.

Reaching deep into the furthest reaches of his body, Naruto grabbed hold of the burning, unsavory chakra he had worked to suppress since the beginning of the match. He would do what was necessary, even if it meant exposing himself to an already unsupportive crowd. Ripping the dark power up to the wall Neji had built up inside of him, Naruto forced the gates open with every ounce of will he had left.

Beginning a slow advance toward Neji, Naruto's eyes flashed red. The Hyuga moved to meet him. The boys clashed for the thousandth time, with the blonde being struck clean on the cheek by the heel of Neji's palm. It mattered not. Crossing his arms in front of himself, Naruto poured the absolute last of his chakra into recreating the serrated blades he had used to cut the Hyuga time and again.

Naruto slashed his arms down across Neji's chest, creating intersecting wounds that formed an 'X'. He had cut him deeper than ever before. The Hyuga lurched over, his weight falling onto his opponent. The Jinchuuriki was the only thing holding him up. Pushing him back by his shoulders, Naruto watched him slowly fall to the ground.

Within moments, Genma was present, standing over the fallen genin. Naruto stepped away and allowed the proctor to do his job. After twenty seconds or so, Genma waved his hands over Neji. Whether he was fully unconscious or not, Naruto did not know, or particularly care. He was too tired to think clearly. He hardly registered his wrist being grabbed and raised up into the air symbolically, or Genma announcing him as the winner. His body gave out the moment the proctor released him.

With nothing left, Naruto fell forward, and joined Neji in the dirt.


A/N: Alright, so I don't know how well that turned out. It's the first time I've ever had to write a fully-detailed, fully-explained fight of any significance since taking over.

I hope it was as good as canon, but maybe it wasn't. I just want it to be enjoyable for you guys :)

I'm uploading this chapter at a terrible hour, so I don't expect a ton of feedback, but if you could, a review would make this dorky girl very happy!

I love you all

Read and Review!