Naruto X
AN: Well originally I had a tl;dr of epic proportions talking about my future plans for this fanfic but then I had a moment of clarity and realized how I wanted to do things and how I was going to write it out. So let's resume this wild ride and see where it takes us.
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"Would the next competitors please come down?" Hayate called as everyone left the arena floor and the monitor had shown the next two names on the list.
Sasuke vs Kankuro
As Sasuke was about to make his way down, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and looked up at Kakashi who gave a nod at him. "Try to avoid using it alright? I'd prefer it if you didn't use any chakra at all this match but I know it can't be helped. If I see you attempt to use the seal at all, I will personally disqualify you." The jounin warned, making the genin nod before continuing down the steps.
Kankuro was the first make it down and he assumed a battle stance while Sasuke studied Kankuro for a moment before assuming one of his own. "Begin." The proctor said and Sasuke started by throwing some kunai.
Kankuro pulled out a kunai of his own and deflected them, just as he blocked the last one, he got a flying punch square in the jaw that spun him around and knocked him to the floor.
Sasuke waved his hand a bit, that attack had hurt his hand slightly and that was when he noticed the crumbled pieces on the floor and when Kankuro stood up, part of his face was cracked and missing.
The boy blinked as he realized this fact and quickly jumped back when more of his face began to crack apart until soon the entirety of his body had crumbled apart and a strange wooden thing had replaced him. Soon Kankuro popped out of the bandages that were on the puppets back and grumbled.
"Jeez, how strong are you to reveal my puppet in a single hit?" he asked before the puppet truly came to life with Kankuro controlling it. Blades, bombs and needles were all fired at Sasuke who was quickly dodging as best as he could.
Kankuro was slowly pushing Sasuke back into a wall which was what the boy wanted before he suddenly leapt forward and began to attack the puppet at the joints. Kankuro stared for a moment as his puppet was assaulted, not sure what the boys plan was because as far as he was concerned, Sasuke was wasting his time when he kicked the puppet down and farther away from Kankuro, whose chakra strings broke off.
While Kankuro was trying to reapply it, Sasuke had charged the boy. Kankuro quickly dropped the puppet and prepared for an attack, but the boy was completely caught off guard by how aggressive Sasuke was attacking.
He expected a few light jabs and some basic styled fighting, not this heavy punch brawler stuff the boy was putting out. His punches hurt, his kicks had more force than he thought and despite doing his best to guard, the boy still attacked his limbs as if he wanted to destroy them just to get to him.
Soon the puppet user was unable to keep up the defense, Sasuke did a kick and a crunch was heard from Kankuro's arms as he let out a cry of pain. Sasuke didn't let him have a moment before he leapt in and punched him square in the jaw, making the boy stumble.
Sasuke grabbed him and pulled him back as another punch connected to the boys stomach, chest and the Uchiha head butt him, gave him a knee to the gut and finally did a spin kick that knocked him onto his back.
Kankuro let out a groan before he looked up at Sasuke, who put a foot on the boys chest. "Either you forfeit or I see which is destroyed first. You or that puppet." He said, and the boy grumbled. "Proctor, I forfeit." He called out, making Hayate nod. "Winner is Sasuke. Please leave the arena." He said as medics came in to get Kankuro along with his puppet.
Kakashi gave a nod of approval to the boy as he made it back to the top of the stairs, and all of team 7 looked quite pleased with themselves once they realized that all of them had made it to the finals.
Kakashi turned to them and smiled. "I'm very proud of all three of you. Never in all my years did I imagine my first genin team would also have all of its members make it to the finals." He said, as the three genin looked quite proud of themselves.
They heard a scream and turned just in time to see the boy from sound that they met before have both of his arms explode. "WHOA!" "HOLY SHIT!" "DAMN!" were just a couple of cries from around the arena as medics rushed in and helped the unconscious boy.
"What the hell even happened?" Naruto asked as he stared at the disarmed (ba dum tssh) boy on the ground. "I believe Shino used his bugs to plug up the boys arms and when he attempted to use them, the pressure built up and made its own exit." Kakashi said, making the other genin shiver.
As they were about to relax though, Hayate made an announcement. "Due to an uneven number of competitors, we will be having one last match." He said as the monitor came to life and quickly began to flash through the names.
Suddenly the screen stopped and the names appeared, Naruto Uzumaki vs Dosu Kinatu
Naruto stared at the board in surprise before he jumped down to the ground below and to his surprise, the mummy looking boy from before appeared. Naruto stared at him before frowning, the other guy looked nervous.
"Final round, begin." The announcer said and Naruto raised his buster, but the boy held his arm out and it began to split apart and transform again. This time however, the cannon that was his arm was shorter than last time and it had a different coloring on it.
Naruto stared at it before Dosu suddenly fired a huge blast of energy at Naruto. The boy was caught off guard and hit by the attack, causing torrents of electricity to swirl around him before they vanished.
Naruto blinked in shock before his eyes narrowed in anger. "So that's your game is it?" he said before he raised his own buster gun. He began to charge his attack and Dosu blinked at the noise before he fired. Naruto fired back and Dosu's own attack was swallowed by Naruto's first stage charged shot and just like in the forest, the shot went into Dosu's arm cannon and there was a small explosion from his arm that had black smoke flying out of it.
Dosu grunted in pain before he fired again, the shot looked much weaker and there was a small blast of fire coming out from where Dosu's arm was smoking. Naruto sidestepped the attack before he began to charge up again.
Dosu began to fire rapidly despite the pain it was causing him, but it looked like he couldn't charge the attack and could only fire small attacks rapidly. Naruto fired a stage two charged shot at Dosu. The boy blinked in shock, it was faster than he had anticipated and before he even had a chance to dodge, and it tore into him.
Everyone turned away from the sight, all that remained of the boy was the metal arm and the lower half of his body which crumpled by hitting its knees and leaning back. Kurenai's eyes widened in shock 'That could have been Kiba…' she thought, thankful now that Naruto hadn't done that to the boy.
The medics put the remains of Dosu on a stretcher and went to the medical room. There was a small silence for some time until Hayate coughed and called for all participants to come to the arena floor.
Once they were all down, Hayate congratulated them and began to explain that the next portion of the exam would take place in one month's time and for now they would all draw numbers for the order they would be fighting in.
With that explained, one by one they began to draw their numbers. "One." Naruto called out. "Four." Sasuke said. "Seven." Sakura showed the ball to Hayate. "Five." Shikamaru drawled. "Two." Neji said. "Three." Shino said. "Six." Tenten said. "Eight." Gaara said.
Once that was over, Hayate nodded. "Okay that concludes the first part of the chuunin exams. The second part will take place in one month's time. Good luck and train hard." He said and with that, everyone began to go their own way. Sakura however stopped and quickly ran up to Hayate and tugged on his sleeve.
"Excuse me, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind taking on a student…" she trailed, feeling slightly shy at asking this. The man looked surprised for a moment. "You? Take on the sword?" he looked amused for a moment. "It might be interesting, sure why not." He said, making the girls smile widen. "Just so you know I won't go easy on you. We begin tomorrow at six AM." He said, making the girl nod excitedly before rushing back to her team.
Naruto looked over at Kakashi as they were walking. "So I'm assuming you'll be training Sasuke for the month?" He asked, making the cyclops nod in agreement. "Indeed. Sakura wanted to learn how to use weaponry but that's not my field at all, so I directed her to the proctor, Hayate. He's a sword master for Konoha." He explained, getting a nod from Naruto and Sasuke.
"And I'm sure you'll be busy as well with X and Zero?" Kakashi asked, getting a nod from the boy. "Yeah, I'm hoping to make it through the rest of the training simulations. They're a big help and the best part is, at the end of each of them I get to fight Sigma. X tells me it's needed however since Sigma always fights differently and it would be a good idea for me to know how to deal with him in various forms." He let out a small sigh. "Not to mention that the training gives me some pretty cool upgrades." He said as they walked out the doorway and stood outside.
Sakura soon caught up to them and Kakashi gave a small nod before he warped them all back to the teams training grounds. "Train hard, do your best and make me proud come time for the last exam." Kakashi said and with that he warped away.
"A whole month away from each other, training hard to pass that exam." Naruto said, making his teammates nod their heads. "Team seven needs to win this. I also can't wait to see what you guys are capable of after the training." Naruto said, making Sakura smile and Sasuke to grin.
"Please, the only one left that looked like a challenge to fight was Gaara and you handled him back in the forest." Sasuke said before looking at Sakura. "He uses sand as an attack and a defense. The sand moves automatically and reacts to anything near the boy. So far the only known option is to outrun it unless you know a fire jutsu strong enough to melt it into glass like Naruto's attack." He said, and the girl gave a "hmmm" as she looked thoughtful.
"What about water? If we dampen the sand, it would probably be harder for him to manage." She asked, making the two boys give a nod. "That might also work. I wonder how strong that armor actually is. You saw the beating Gaara took when fighting Rock Lee and yet he got back up as if nothing had happened to him and then all that sand fell off of him. The sand was also moving around and block in spots Gaara couldn't see. So I doubt he necessarily needs vision in order to defend himself." The boy added.
"Hey, the chuunin exams are always held in that one stadium each year right?" Naruto asked, "If that's true, the exam area is a flat ground with trees around it. What if we were to mess up the terrain and make it unsuitable to fight in?" he suggested.
"In both fights against him, he never moved unless you forced him to. In your fight in the forest, he didn't move at all, and in the fight with Lee, the only reason he moved was because Lee was fast enough to get in and actually hurt him. So the environment probably won't matter too much." Sakura stated.
Naruto suddenly looked thoughtful. "We know Gaara's sand protects him from physical attacks and weapons most likely, but what about chakra? I mean yeah, we already thought of jutsu but what about something like Lee was doing?"
Sasuke and Sakura looked thoughtful. "Enhancing our strength using chakra? I like the idea but do we even know how to go about doing that? I'd rather not do that gate thing Lee was using." The boy said, and then Sakura looked thoughtful. "Hey Naruto, your sword, what can it cut through?" she asked, making the blonde blink in surprise.
"Uh…in our world, pretty much everything. If the sword is made out of special materials or metal like Zabuza's cleaver was, then it can be blocked. But for the most part, it will cut through everything." He explained.
"Speaking of Zabuza's cleaver, what happened to that?" Sakura asked and Naruto shrugged. "I have it hanging in my living room as a trophy. There's no purpose it serves aside from that since my sword is stronger and much easier to swing around." He said, making the girl "Hm." in thought.
"Once I get strong enough, can I have it?" she asked, making the boy shrug. "Sure why not." He replied. "Thanks." She said with a small smile, inwardly though, her other half was whooping and cheering like crazy.
"Well I'll treat you guys to any restaurant you want tonight before we have to split ways for the month." Naruto said, getting a cheer from his teammates. The three of them talked casually and discussed strategy for the tournament throughout the night before finally heading their own ways.
Naruto went to see the Hokage on a whim to see how the man was doing. Once he arrived, the old man put down his pipe and smiled. "Hello Naruto, quite late to be making a social call, don't you think?" he said, getting a smirk from the boy.
"Not at all, old man. I figured I'd come visit you since I haven't actually come seen you in some time." He said, making the older man nod as he leaned back in his seat. "So tell me Naruto, how have you been?" he asked, and with that, the boy began to retell Sarutobi everything that has happened to him since he started his training.
The professor listened intently to the boy go on about all of his training to the missions he undertook which slowly shifted to his C turned A rank mission and what he did on that one and how the mission panned out, then it changed slowly over to before the exams and what had happened with Kabuto.
It was well into the night by the time Naruto had finished telling his tale and the Hokage looked deep in thought over everything he was told. He had many emotions, from pride at Naruto, to anger at Kabuto and Sigma, to acceptance for Megaman X and Zero. After they had finished talking, he congratulated the boy on his accomplishments and encouraged him to continue on with his training.
After he had left, the old man let out a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The boy was showing great promise and he was initially worried about how the boy would react to killing someone, but he had shown amazing maturity about the situation and said he didn't like it, but he would do it again if he had to.
Then there was the matter of dead shinobi coming back to life. It didn't sound like the impure world resurrection jutsu so that left this Sigma character. If he could revive people, that alone was a problem. In Naruto's first encounter with Zabuza, it sounded as though the man was not himself.
He then said that the sound kunoichi had her neck snapped by Sakura, but she was alive and participating in the exams later. What's worse is that, Sarutobi knew the girl was using jutsu which he had informed Naruto of.
The boy seemed a bit surprised, saying that if Sigma was modifying them and allowing them the use of chakra, they would certainly become a big threat, but Naruto was confident that he could handle any and all of them, no matter the circumstances.
This made the man smile at the boy and they were getting ready to leave when Naruto asked what he was going to do. The old man laughed and said finish up his paperwork to which Naruto asked why he didn't make the paperwork a mission or something to which the man replied that he couldn't let that kind of power go to ninja that were not the hokage.
Then Naruto asked if he really did know every jutsu, to which the man answered yes, at the confused look Naruto elaborated that he should use clones to do the paperwork which nearly made the old mans eyes bulge out. Why hadn't he thought of that? With renewed vigor, he thanked the boy who had left and immediately set some shadow clones to the task while he turned in early.
-Command Center-
X heard Naruto had a month to train and while he showed to be glad for the boy, Zero had an outright cruel smirk on his face. Oh they were going to train alright. Naruto was immediately put back into his training simulation for the z-saber. After using his buster almost exclusively since the last time, he had a bit of trouble adjusting back to using the z-saber and exclusively the z-saber.
Not to mention he had kind of forgotten about the mavericks, his powers and some of the stages and secrets he had found so he took a bit to readjust himself. Once he got the hang of things however, he managed to finish the rest of the training before X took over and made him do it all over again with the buster gun.
He was surprised when doing Zero's training that there weren't any capsules to find but he ignored it and continued on. However, as things progressed he had found out that he was able to access archives with information about them.
After he did so, he found out that X was created years ago by a man named Dr. Light, the same man who was appearing in the capsules Naruto found. He also discovered that Zero was created by a man named Dr. Wily with the intent to destroy X. He was also heavily shocked to find out that Zero is a maverick and technically still WAS a maverick.
This also served to shock him more when he found out that the robot he fought from before named Vile wasn't actually a maverick, but rather a reploid who willingly helped Sigma.
Getting confused by these thoughts, he did a quick check on the terms for mavericks and reploids. Reploids were robots and androids who were built to help humans and protect them. Mavericks were the labels given to reploids who willingly chose to ignore orders and harm humans.
He didn't see Zero as a maverick however and looked confused about these definitions. Vile was definitely fighting him, was it because he was a cyborg? When he asked X about these questions, he looked uneasy but answered that everything that he went through in the simulation had already happened to them years ago.
Vile hated X with a passion and that was the only reason he joined Sigma. He never once actually went maverick while helping Sigma and only fought against other mavericks or in X's case, reploids.
Zero was a different case. While he chose to be a maverick hunter and help X, he had no qualms about attacking anyone or anything he viewed as a threat and that included humans and other reploids. This led to quite a bit of controversy as many were distrustful of the red hunter.
What really tipped them off however was when Naruto found out a virus called the Sigma Virus had gotten loose and was turning reploids into mavericks. X was slightly immune to the virus, not going full maverick but suffering ill effects from it for a time. Zero however, was powered up by the virus and suffered no ill effects whatsoever, even going as far as to become invincible while under its effects.
He chose to stay away from the database after that and leave all information on a need to know basis. Things were just getting too confusing for the boy and honestly as long as Zero didn't begin going on a murder spree he didn't care what label the red hunter went under.
And this was when things began to get way too convoluted for the boy. He had ran into an enemy that resisted all the damage done to him no matter what Naruto used. He also found out later on that he could change styles anytime he wished before entering the stage, but also that he was able to customize his body from now on.
There were eight capsules hidden in the stages this time and each one had a different piece of armor for Naruto to wear. The first was the eagle armor that was capable of flight and had an armor piercing shot but this was all at the cost of having less armor, the second was the giga armor that had immense strength, could walk on spikes without death, could hang onto walls and gave Naruto a unique buster shot that could destroy certain types of matter, all at the cost of speed.
He had a sinking feeling he was going to need these armors in the future, but he also felt like he was missing something. He shrugged, not like it was important or anything, right?