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…

Sakura weaved past the punch aiming at her face before countering and knocking the Suna ninja in the stomach. Her blow, however, carried nowhere near the strength needed to be a finishing blow, and she was greeted with a knee to the sternum. Bile and spit were expelled from her mouth as she tried to get some distance away from the attacker, her hands going through several hand seals as she did so. "Katon: Kasai Nagare!" she shouted as a thin river of flames prevented the assailant from gaining any more ground on the pink-haired girl. Her reprieve was short lived, however, as she twisted on the spot to find a kunai coming straight for her head.

The clang of metal upon metal rang through the air as Naruto soared past, metal blade in hand as he deflected the attack that would have struck Sakura. "You okay?" asked the blond as he stood protectively by Sakura's side.

"Never better," said Sakura sarcastically. "How you holding up?"

"Six so far," said Naruto, having kept count.

"You have to consider, though, that these guy's aren't the strong ones. I think the Jonin are going after Kakashi-sensei," said Sakura, looking over her shoulder to see that their sensei was doing his best against several of the elite shinobi Suna had to offer.

"He's Kakashi-sensei, though. He'll be fine," said Naruto waving it off. "So, Flamethrower no Jutsu?"

"We really need a better name for this attack," said Sakura as she started going through the necessary hand seals.

"Not going to happen," said Naruto as his fingers flipped through the multiple hand seals.

…

"So are you going to tell us who our real opponents are now, at least?" yelled Ino, the proctor's revelation still suspending her in disbelief. And here she had thought that she had gotten lucky with having Hinata as her opponent; fighting the girl would have been a cakewalk.

Somehow, over all the loud noises, the instructor managed to hear her. Instead of continuing to use the voice-projecting Jutsu, he just yelled over the crowd. "I just said that we will do that momentarily. While I am about to reveal your true opponents, keep in mind that I will not be revealing the order that the matches take place."

"So you mean that we don't know if we'll be first or last?" questioned Kiba, his normal bravado gone as a frown fell upon his face.

"Precisely," said Genma with a nod, his hands in a firm seal. "The real fights are as follows in no particular order: Nara Shikamaru vs Kin Tsuchi; Kiba Inuzuka vs Tenten of the Leaf vs Shino Aburame; Temari of the Sand vs Choji Akimichi; Dosu Kinuta vs Neji Hyuga vs Ino Yamanaka; Hinata Hyuuga vs Rock Lee and finally Gaara of the Sand vs Kankuro of the Sand."

"Hang on," Tenten raised her hand as she cut off the proctor, a frown on her face. "I think there's been a mistake, you listed Kiba, Shino and myself as in the same match."

"Yeah you did the same with Dosu, Neji and myself," said Ino, a look of confusion upon her face.

"Is there a problem?" asked the proctor with a slight smile on his face. "If you kids hope to be Chunin, you have to understand that fights aren't always going to be black and white. There won't always be a good side and a bad side, and you'll find that fights aren't necessarily comprised of just two parties."

"That is a… problematic development," said Neji under his breath as he snuck a glance at his cousin, who was standing with her team. While his own match-up seemed simple enough, he was a little worried for Hinata. Not only was she going to be fighting against Lee, of all people, but there was also the possibility that she would find herself in a three-way fight. Even if she managed to somehow make her way past his juggernaut of a teammate, he was worried about how she would fare in a three-way fight.

"I suppose that is correct," said Shino, his voice muffled by his collar as he looked at his fellow Genin.

"What?" said Kiba in outrage. "That's not fair, no-one else has to fight two people at once."

"Except for your two opponents... and also the other three-way fight," quipped Genma as he surveyed the children in front of him, and he couldn't help but be amused by the faces that both Tenten and Kiba were giving him. Ino seemed to be giving him a look mixed between disbelief and anger, while Neji and the Sound ninja both seemed determined. The others seemed to be somewhat accepting of that particular revelation, the previous one likely having opened their minds, but rather glad that they weren't going to be a part of the first three-way battle. He imagined that Shino would have had a shocked expression but being an Aburame, it was quite possible that he didn't know how to show emotions.

Hinata, meanwhile, just looked at her two teammates with a sense of dread, not wanting to see the two people that she had been partnered with fight each other upon the arena floor. She always knew there was a possibility something like this might happen, but it didn't make it any easier to swallow.

Silently she prayed that neither of them hurt each other too badly.

…

Kakashi successfully broke the nose of the Jonin who had been charging towards him without remorse. He didn't know why he'd suddenly found himself under attack, but was happy to see that the bigger threats had decided to target him as opposed to picking off his Genin. By no means was he going to voice this, though, as he didn't want to give them any ideas.

"Futon: Shifuto Soyokaze!" shouted one of the opposing ninja as they swung a massive war fan at the ground, causing the sand to shoot up and conceal them from sight.

Quickly realising what was going to happen, Kakashi leaped backwards in order to create some distance, as a flurry of kunai and shuriken penetrated through the blanket of dust. Using a kunai in his own hand, he deflected the multitude of weapons before ducking to avoid a kick that had been aimed at his blind side.

Before the Suna ninja could figure out why their attack had missed, they found themselves in agony, Kakashi's kunai having slashed open their torso. While the wound was not life threatening, it would cause serious irritation as some of the sand being flown through the air would slowly but surely find its way into the cut and cause tremendous pain.

As predicted, the injured fighter leaped backwards in order to patch up their wound, another shinobi preventing Kakashi from delivering the final blow. Such an attack wasn't on the copy ninja's mind, however, as he was still trying to figure out why this fight was happening. These thoughts were quickly pushed to the back of his mind, though, as he swiftly dodged the attack that had been coming from underneath him, one of the enemies having been hiding underneath the cover of sand.

A barely audible sigh escaped Kakashi's lips as he planned to counter the home ground advantage the Suna shinobi had, his hand reaching up and moving his headband off of his concealed eye.

…

Choji gulped as he bit into the last chip of his packet, quietly looking at the crowd in front of him. He had never been the type to doubt himself all that much, but up in front of this many people… he couldn't help but feel a nervous wave rush through his body.

He had thought that Shikamaru or someone would be first, never had it dawned upon him while their proctor had been speaking that he would end up fighting in the opening match of the day. The revelation that the opponents that had been assigned to them a month ago were, in fact, falsified ones, shocked him as much as the next guy, probably even more so because he had thought that he would be receiving a free pass into the next round.

Worst of all, was that he hadn't even bothered putting some kind of strategy together in order to combat the sand girl while the proctor had been talking. He had thought that he'd be able to wing it by sticking to his original plan of analysing everyone's fighting style first - her brothers probably fought in a similar way to her - but that plan had been shot to hell.

He glanced towards her as Genma raised his arm. She was glaring back at him with a stone-cold gaze, and Choji could tell from that moment onwards, there would be no games. He didn't want to admit it, but his best bet was to probably try and steamroll the girl before she even had a chance to blink.

"Temari of the Sand vs Choji Akimichi… begin!"

…

Sasuke frowned as his fingers flew through numerous hand seals with as much speed and accuracy as he could manage. He'd already had a Grand Fireball fail on him and that hadn't resulted well, as numerous puppets had used the distraction that the failed attack provided to surround him.

"Katon: Gokakyu," said Sasuke breathlessly as he expelled yet another ball of flame from his mouth. It travelled roughly a metre or two before it collided with two puppets, causing them to burst into flames. He spun around and quickly continued going through hand seals, but he didn't need eyes at the back of his head to tell that the two destroyed puppets had been replaced by entirely new ones.

It had been like this for the better part of the fight, and each fireball he created was rapidly decreasing in both strength and size. He hadn't seen heads or tails of either of his teammates since they had been separated when a wave of puppets had washed through the three of them. Evidently, the majority had come after him.

He paused for a second, charging up his chakra as he surveyed the opponents in front of him. That was, if one could consider what looked to be at least a hundred puppets and not their respective puppeteers to be opponents. The Uchiha almost wished that he wasn't fighting puppets; actual humans were far less predictable but a simple Genjutsu would go a long way. Genjutsu was useless against puppets.

Taijutsu, as he had learned the hard way, didn't work very well when several of the puppets could produce poisoned spikes as a defence mechanism. Thankfully, he had been able to bleed out what was probably the majority of the poison when his finger had been pricked after he had accidentally misplaced it.

His mind raced suddenly as realisation dawned upon him. He was fighting puppets, not actual humans; they had no free-will and could not move unless they were being controlled by someone. That meant that if he could somehow disable the puppeteers for even a moment, he would either be able to easily take out several of them or escape - though he could not sense anything near him to replace himself. Come to think of it… outside the circle of puppets, he could not sense anything or anyone. Not even his teammates.

Shaking his head slightly and convincing himself that the heat of the burning sun was getting to him, he continued to charge his chakra. He soon reached enough chakra to make a shadow clone, then he pushed past that. Two shadow clones… He drew deeper into his reserves and grabbed at every wisp of chakra within his body. Chakra exhaustion would be the least of his problems if he didn't get out of here soon.

As the looming puppets neared, he became acutely aware of the fact that by unleashing so much chakra at once it was possible that he would end up blowing each and every tenketsu within his body. However, all he did was smirk as the tomeo of his Sharingan rotated in anticipation.

"Raiton: Hekireki!" he bellowed with all the strength that he could muster as he pushed his chakra through the Jutsu's final hand seal. Without waiting to see if his idea had been successful or not, Sasuke immediately thrust his palms to his ears and squeezed as tightly as he could.

Suddenly a deafening boom tore through the concentric circles of puppets which had formed around him, as Sasuke leapt as high as he could, the ground violently shaking before his sandals left it. He got but a mere glimpse of his surroundings before he found himself touching down on the considerably calmer ground. That, however, was all he needed.

The puppets nearest to him had taken direct damage from the sound. Many blades and what looked to be arms had fallen to the floor, but it was the various cracks running directly through their bodies that caused the avenger to grin. As quick as a hurricane, he set to work dispatching the puppets, firm strikes meeting wooden fractures as weak points became weaker.

Within the space of a few seconds, he managed to almost effortlessly dispatch at least thirty puppets, likely having injured or damaged many more. Then, they slowly began to move again as their invisible puppeteers managed to regain control of them. Sasuke almost threw his fingers into the hand seal for his favourite Jutsu, but the boy realised that his chakra was almost certainly running low if it hadn't already been completely depleted.

He jumped backwards to give himself a bit of breathing space as he fished around into an outer pouch of his backpack. Pulling out a soldier pill, he swallowed it whole with a grumble or two before preparing to face the puppets once more. Thankfully, however, his attack had not only disabled the tools around him but had also caused the puppeteers a considerable amount of pain, bodies having risen out of their hiding spots in order to place pressure on their eardrums.

A smirk crossed Sasuke's face as he rushed forward, hoping to make use of the situation and bring down the numbers. While he and Naruto had shown great confidence before the fighting had begun, he knew that it had been more to keep the opponent on the back foot as opposed to them thinking they had the upper hand. His blond counterpart could probably keep going for hours on end, while he, unfortunately, wasn't as much of a chakra battery as his teammate like many would believe.

Closing the distance on his target, Sasuke happily drove his elbow into their sternum, though the cracking he heard was not the sound of bone breaking but rather wood. A burst of cloud confirmed his mistake as the henged puppet exploded outwards, sending small planks of timber and shrapnel in all directions, many of which pierced Sasuke's body and caused him to bleed from all over.

"Shit," he cursed as he ran damage control, knowing that the tides had once more swung the way of the Suna ninja. As if to emphasise his point, bursting from the sand behind him was another puppet, its extended arms wrapping around his body and holding him in a tight grip.

"Got you," declared the puppeteer as they revealed themselves from underneath the sand, their fingers dancing as they ordered the puppet to squeeze tighter. "Be thankful that we were ordered to keep you alive, Uchiha, or you'd be dead already."

Sasuke's eyes went wide at that news, but quickly pushed it to the side for a time when he wasn't heavily outnumbered. A groan escaped his lips as he tried to fight his way out of the hold he was in, but it was to no use as he dropped to his knees. Lifting his head, he saw that one of the shinobi approaching him held a senbon in their hand, a small liquid dripping off of the tip to which he could only imagine was a poison of some kind.

With so few options available, he pulled his arms as close together as possible until his hands were touching, despite the amount of pain it had caused. While his hands went through the seals he had copied seemingly ages ago, he had no idea what would happen, but considering what Naruto had been able to do with this technique he only hoped that he could do something similar.

...

Hinata nervously pressed her fingers together as she glanced down at the fight below her. While she naturally wanted her former classmate to win the fight, it was clear that he wasn't faring too well. She believed that it would be possible for him to turn it around, but at the same time knew that things weren't going to end in his favour if he didn't do something soon.

She winced slightly as she watched him face a particularly nasty blast of wind that had him blown away like a leaf before deciding that she'd seen enough. Hinata turned around and looked away from the fight as she allowed her thoughts to drift away to the multiple revelations of the morning. She had prepared to fight everyone, knowing that though Ino made a great ninja in the ways she could think outside the box, the girl wasn't much of a fighter. Naruto had taught her not to underestimate anyone, but with all those lessons with her father and the disastrous outcome of her bout with Hanabi considered, Hinata was sure that she was rather prepared for the girl.

Her father had discussed it with her and they had come to the conclusion that it would be possible for her to defeat any of the rookie Konoha Genin. Neji's team and the ones from other villages, however, were another story.

The Hyuga heiress had spent much time honing her Taijutsu in order to defeat people like Kiba or Choji, the spandex wearing Rock Lee, however, would be a much bigger problem. Even looking at him now, she could see that he was thoroughly excited for the matches that were to come, and that no matter what, he would not be satisfied with anything less than a hundred percent.

The fact that the boy also faced the Hyuga's techniques each day in the form of her much more competent cousin did nothing to ease the feeling quelling in her stomach.

…

Shikamaru would have described the situation as troublesome, but he had uttered the word so many times that day that he wasn't sure if it still held any meaning. He was glad that he wasn't immediately fighting that kunoichi from Suna, since that would have been too much of a drag, but it was still irritating to have to rethink his strategies. Plus, considering that they were fighting in a different order than to the one that had been announced before, it meant that he had no real idea which fights he should be looking out for. While he could understand the meaning behind all of the randomness - something which he had hypothesized was possible a month earlier - it didn't make it any easier to swallow.

Lifting his gaze from his teammate being carted away after his bout, he looked at the Suna ninja's teammates as if looking for a reaction of some kind. To overhear that the older one was going to forfeit their match was quite a troublesome thing to listen in on, but to tell this to any of the other competitors would have caused some ruckus that he didn't want to.

That said, a few of the matches looked like they were really going to work out to be something else. He'd had a slight inkling almost a month ago that the exams were still related to their teams, but he had long since forgotten about that. That, however, had played out to be true, since the unsettling revelation of three-way battles had also put two teammates against each other and another opponent. Whether that was a coincidence, planned, or an intimidation tactic was anyone's guess at this point.

"Would Shikamaru Nara and Kin Tsuchi make their way to the arena floor for the next match," shouted the announcer which caused the crowds to roar with anticipation.

"Maybe I should forfeit right here and now," said Shikamaru to nobody in particular as he looked up at the clouds.

"Like hell!" screamed Ino who had been standing behind him, extending her arms and pushing Shikamaru off of the railing.

A couple of screams for help escaped the Nara's lips before he crashed on the ground flat on his back, leaving him minorly dazed and confused. Regaining his senses, his eyes viewed the clouds above while now knowing that the beating Ino would potentially give him for giving up on purpose would potentially be worse that than fight that was about to occur.

"Troublesome."

…

"Be careful with those," chided Naruto as he watched Sakura consume what must have been her third soldier pill. "If you're running low on chakra, I can probably handle these guys while you sit this one out."

"Tch, not a chance," she said as she spat on the ground. "Sasuke-kun's already fighting off all of these guys by himself, I'm not going to let myself sit around in your dust while you do the same."

"Suit yourself," muttered Naruto as he brought his hands into his favourite seal. Before he unleashed his Jutsu, he remarked to Sakura, "We're definitely giving Flamethrower no Jutsu a rest for a while though."

"I think we overdid it with that one," replied Sakura, taking a second to evade a Suna Genin's attack through a Kawarimi. Though she tried to appear calm because she was in the middle of a rather important battle, she knew that she was pushing her through thoughts on the matter to the back of her head. While the more experienced of the Genin and most of the Chunin they had been fighting managed to escape their Jutsu with little to no trouble, roughly a hundred metres south of their current location lied a small pile of charred corpses of the less fortunate ones.

"It worked, though," said Naruto, the slight crackle in his voice betraying his words. Clearly he was doing his best not to think about it as well. "But I think it's time to put the numbers game in our favor."

Sakura smirked as she knew exactly what Naruto was going to do, the boy's hands going into the single seal which could give them an entire army. Out of the corner of her eyes, however, she saw the glint of metal flying through the air heading straight for Naruto. It was travelling much faster than it should have been, and she could only imagine that through the use of a wind jutsu its speed had been increased. Extending her arms she went to push Naruto out of the way but was too late as the weapon pierced straight through Naruto's shoulder.

"NARUTO!" shouted Sakura as he dropped to his knees, the shock seemingly too much for him to handle. Also from the dripping at the end of the blade she could only imagine that some form of poison was now coursing through Naruto's veins, but without time to do any analysis, she couldn't administer an anti-poison of any kind. "Hold on, I'll get it out," she said as she reached for the handle. Before she could get a grip, however, she was knocked to the side, a strong gust of wind blowing her off of her feet and into the air.

Sakura couldn't help but scream in pain, her vulnerable position having made her the target of multiple kunai and shuriken which soon found themselves embedded in her skin and flesh. With a thud, she landed on the ground, and tried to get back to her feet only for her balance to sway, resulting in her falling back down. "Damn it," she cursed as she looked at the scenario from her position. Kakashi was holding his ground against the elite ninja in the area, but she couldn't expect aid to come from him anytime soon. Sasuke was missing, and Naruto was possibly out for the count. No matter what way she looked at it, the situation was unfavourable.

"You're mine!" shouted a ninja from in front of her, their katana held high above their head. Sensing the oncoming danger, Sakura plucked one of the kunai from out of her arm, ignoring the pain as she did so, before holding it in a defensive way to give herself some cover. It did little as it was swatted away with a single swing like it didn't exist at all. The brief time reprieve, however, was enough to allow her time to get back to her feet and try and create some distance between her and the sharp metal.

Unfortunately, her footing on the uneven terrain wasn't enough against somebody who had trained to fight on sand their entire life. Whatever ground she had gained was quickly destroyed as the Suna shinobi closed in on her, swinging their katana at her head. Sakura could only put up a feeble guard in response as she closed her eyes, believing that this was the end. Moments passed, and Sakura found herself landing on her rear, no other pain having entered her system.

Opening her eyes, she found herself looking up at the all too familiar orange jumpsuit of her teammate and she couldn't believe that he had been able to save her. But the manner of doing so was quite disturbing, since Naruto hadn't blocked the attack with a weapon of his own but rather had his forearm held at a right angle, the katana buried deep within his flesh and grating away at the bone. Sakura also noticed that Naruto hadn't removed the blade from his shoulder, his jacket stained with his blood.

"N...Naruto," she said in disbelief, thinking that he may have died on his feet. That thought was quickly destroyed when she nearly felt herself being pushed back from the immense power that began to radiate off the boy. Sakura's mouth gaped wide as red malevolent chakra began to dance off of Naruto's body.

For weeks she and Sasuke had pondered the enigma that was their teammate, asking themselves why the Uzumaki was hated by nearly everyone in the village. As an animalistic growl escaped Naruto's lips, she suddenly understood that Shikamaru's statement had been correct all along.

Naruto was the jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi.

The blond looked over his shoulder at his fallen teammate, the weapons in both his arm and shoulder not seeming to phase him in the slightest. Sakura could see that his pupils had changed shape and his canine teeth had elongated to something which resembled a member of the Inuzuka clan. Pulling his arm free of the katana, he reached across and pulled the blade from his shoulder before smacking the stunned ninja across the head with the weapon's handle.

Sakura couldn't then believe her eyes as the puncture wound began to distort and heal, flesh seemingly expanding from nowhere to make it look like the attack had never happened in the first place. Likewise, the gash that had been in his arm vanished, making it look like Naruto hadn't even taken a blow this entire time.

"Sakura," said Naruto softly, the pink-haired Genin looking at her teammate's face and realising that despite everything she had just witnessed, the real Naruto was still the person standing in front of her. "Stay here, I'll finish this now. I won't let any more harm come to you. I promise."

Sakura blinked a handful of times as Naruto's words sunk into her being. They were not the boastful words of a brash kid who was attempting to do something seemingly impossible. As he turned away from her she found herself looking upon his back and she knew one thing for certain.

This was a promise he would keep.

…

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Translations:

Katon: Kasai Nagere = Fire Release: Stream of Fire

Futon: Shifuto Soyokaze = Wind Release: Shifting Breeze

Katon: Gokakyu = Fire Release: Great Fireball

Raiton: Hekireki = Lighting Release: Thunderclap

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