Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but everyone else in his series does. (Carefully think about that statement for a moment, and then remember that there is no such thing as a good pun.)

Author's Notes: This is a brief interlude to Naruto's perspective. In the interests of a decent sequence of events, I'm starting at roughly the same point the first chapter did. So yeah, some repetition, but a different take on things.

The Gate: Chapter Two

Naruto had barely been able to contain himself the whole trip. Maybe it was finally doing stuff for Konoha again or maybe it was just the chance to retake the Chuunin Exam, but he'd been bouncing off the (nonexistent) walls with nervous energy. Something about the trip was just giving him a building feeling of excitement, like watching an exploding tag slowly sizzle before igniting in a flash of pyrotechnic destruction.

He'd had to find some productive outlet for his energy, or he never would have been able to get to sleep each night. Thankfully, Neji was leading the expedition, and made a convenient target for times when Naruto got tired of telling the other genin how he was going to kick their asses during the Exam.

Normally he would never grow tired of telling other genin about how awesome he was, except he'd run out of genin teams to taunt. He needed new teams to mess with, which meant getting to Suna.

So he took a carefully calculated step inside Neji's personal space. Any closer and Neji would step back, any further away and he wouldn't be as invasive of Neji's personal space, which was the whole point.

Adopting a begging pose and putting a slight tremble in his lower lip, Naruto whined, "C'mon Neji! You know we can go faster than this!" His empty canteen clunked against his side, clunking hollowly. Neji's eyes darted to the canteen and briefly narrowed.

Maybe he really was serious about those water rations? Nah. He was just being uptight like always.

Neji waved Naruto back a few inches and sighed. "Most of our genin are actually genin. They're not all jounin who have been too preoccupied to bother with promotions."

This was getting nowhere. How was he going to get Neji to start talking to him if the Hyuuga was going to be antisocial? A sly grin stole across his face.

"How about a bet? A hundred ryo says I could beat you in a race to Suna." Bets always worked on Baa-chan. But Neji was still silent. Maybe Naruto hadn't wagered enough? "Two hundred ryo?"

Neji's nostrils flared and he looked away, carefully studying the genin teams he was (nominally) in charge of. Based on the Iruka Scale of Frustrated, Naruto calculated that he was about two steps from snapping. (The ISoF was generally reliable with shinobi – they all tried to restrain themselves, and since they'd all had the same general education, they had a lot of the same tics.)

So one more step couldn't hurt! And Neji must not be interested in money; being a jounin probably paid well. Naruto opened his mouth to wager some of Kakashi's collection of porn – all guys liked porn, right? – but Neji cut him off with a hand gesture and a glare.

"Why are you even here, Naruto?" Neji asked. Before Naruto could answer, Neji pressed on. "You can't be here to take the exam; you don't have a team. What are you getting out of this?"

The ISoF was definitely not working. Some people went off easier than Iruka, but Neji had skipped deep breaths, threats, yelling, and had gone straight to "Adult to Child Lecture" complete with slow hand gestures and patronizing tone! If Naruto cared whether people thought he was being childish or not, he might have been offended.

Besides, retaliating was way more fun. "What do you mean I don't have a team?" Naruto responded with a Cheshire grin.

Neji's eye twitched. "Sakura is a Chuunin. Sasuke is…absent."

Neji really must not have much experience with this. Keeping the lecturing tone after the person being lectured revealed they knew something you didn't was always a bad idea.

Naruto formed the seal for Kage Bunshin, and with a puff of smoke, his team appeared. Beni immediately draped herself over Naruto, red hair dangling down to his waste, soft flesh pressing in all the right places. Seiji laced his fingers together behind his head and idly watched Neji's blood pressure spike.

Beni spoke first, fairly purring her greeting to Neji. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Hyuuga-donou."

Neji blinked once, twice in shock. Then he swallowed, closed his eyes, and took a deep, calming breath. "Naruto, go make a circuit of the group and make sure that nobody's decided to wander off. I'm going to scout ahead." Before he'd even finished speaking, Neji activated his Byakugan (about twenty seconds too late to hide the pulsing vein in his forehead) and walked past Naruto.

Naruto frowned at the Hyuuga's back. This wasn't going to get him anywhere! Obviously he hadn't pushed hard enough. Thankfully, his shadow clones thought just like him.

"Would you like to scout me, Hyuuga-donou?" Beni called out, hand halfheartedly held up in a feigned attempt at "protecting her innocence."

Neji ignored the "girl" and kept walking up the dune.

Damn.

Maybe he was gay?

Naruto turned to Seiji, but the clone had already had that thought and made itself scarce. Naruto didn't blame the little bastard; making fake sexual advances while transformed into a chick was one thing, but doing it as a guy was completely different.

Well, damn. Now the only thing he could do would be to be a dutiful little genin and obey the jounin…or he could start that race anyway. He was getting that urge again, that building feeling that he needed to do something.

Neji's voice rang clearly from atop the sand dune. "There's a sandstorm approaching."

The urge peaked. This could be fun. A deep feeling inside him resonated with the thought, and, as always, Naruto ran with the impulse.

It didn't take much effort to shrug off Beni and dash around the dune, easily avoiding Neji's eyes. A grin grew across his face, and he felt a savage exultation in finally doing something besides nothing.

Then he saw the sandstorm. It was godlike in size, covering the entire horizon with wind-tossed sand, obscuring the sun and creating a rapidly approaching black cloud that threatened him with destruction.

The pupils of his blue eyes dilated, his breath grew ragged, and he eagerly squeezed his hands into fists, fingers brushing against sweaty palms. He'd never had time to appreciate this sensation before, because impending death had always prompted immediate reaction. Now he could watch it come. He knew instinctually that this would be the perfect test. If he could make it through that, he could make it through anything. Naruto had never been one to back down from a challenge, and the storm was practically calling out to him.

Something was missing though. He needed someone to share this moment of anticipation with.

"Now!" barked Neji. He must have been talking for awhile, but Naruto had missed that little speech. Not that it mattered; Naruto had an idea.

The distance between himself and the Hyuuga was covered in two chakra enhanced leaps. Neji, absorbed in his nervous study of the genin teams, managed to completely miss Naruto's approach.

Naruto enjoyed his brief ability to sneak up on the man with eyes in the back of his head, and crept up until he was a mere foot behind Neji.

He briefly considered his options. He needed a hook…something to get Neji to follow him. Well, Naruto had never been a master of persuasion, but he'd always been a master of pissing people off enough to chase after him.

So he practically screamed "You know, I think you're just trying to sucker me into losing my bet!" right into Neji's ear.

Neji whirled, eyes wide in surprise, jaw clenched in suppressed rage. "Damnit Naruto, this is no time for games! There's a serious storm coming. We need to get under cover."

Naruto almost laughed at Neji's seriousness. Did he really think Naruto was that stupid? Well, only one way to find out.

"Oh come on, it's just sand. What the hell's a little sand gonna do, ruin your hair?" Naruto stuck his tongue out at Neji and jabbed a finger at the Hyuuga's long black hair.

Neji spoke slowly, deadly serious. "Naruto, this is not a game. This is a mission, and I order you to follow me and get to shelter."

Naruto grinned to himself. Neji really did think he was that stupid. Jeez, he'd fought Gaara before. He knew sand could kill. Still, Neji's paranoia was too easy to milk.

"I'm not stupid enough to fall for that. If it's so dangerous, why aren't you under cover already? I hear 'officers' aren't supposed to needlessly risk themselves," Naruto answered.

Neji's only warning was a slight tensing of his shoulder muscles. Then he lashed out with a hand, fingers extended in a perfectly aimed Jyuuken strike. Naruto never had a chance; the blow struck him right in the temple.

And he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Neji stared at the smoke, briefly unable to make the connection.

The real Naruto laughed loud enough to get Neji's attention. The moment the Hyuuga looked up, Naruto held up his hands, crossed in the seal for Kage Bunshin, and poured a massive amount of chakra into the technique. Hundreds of clones appeared, all screaming, "Catch us if you can!"

The clones scattered in every direction.

Neji ran up the hill after the biggest group of clones, lips white with barely contained profanities. The Naruto's laughed; Neji'd taken the hook.

This was the best moment in a fight. They were the thousand identical faces in every direction, and for the first little while, none of them was quite sure if they were a clone or the real thing.

They lived for these moments – risking it all on a flip of the coin. Would Neji find the original? Either way, the Hyuuga would follow them to the storm. They'd have an audience for…something interesting. They weren't quite sure what it would be, but they knew it would be interesting.

The wave of Naruto's crested the dune, and the sandstorm was right there to meet them. They yelled a challenge and disappeared into the onrushing wall of sand.

The last Naruto to be engulfed hesitated. Something seemed off; he'd never been quite this much of a thrillseeker.

Then the storm hit, and the world exploded into an impossible stream of lights and color.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto opened his eyes and shook his head. Fuck that had hurt; why the hell had he run into a sandstorm? That was the stupidest thing he'd done since…Naruto paused.

Wow. He'd found a new benchmark for "Bad Ideas." Well, on the bright side, everything other idea in his entire life looked slightly more intelligent when compared with "getting into a fight with a sandstorm."

On the down side, Neji was never going to let him live this down. Or maybe he would; Neji seemed like the type to think he was above friendly ribbing. Which was stupid; how were you supposed to keep your friends from repeating their mistakes if you didn't constantly mention them?

Still, the rest of the group would have no problems with calling him an idiot. Resigned to his terrible fate, Naruto rubbed his eyes, cracked his neck, and slowly sat up.

"Can we do that again?" he called out, a small smile building. Screw it; that'd been fun. He didn't remember a lot of it, but waking up with this many bruises would point towards his fight with nature being more than a minor scuffle.

No one answered.

Naruto rose to his feet and shook himself like a dog. Sand fell off in a wave, but he could still feel it scraping against his skin; it was stuck inside his clothes. Well, that could be dealt with later.

Naruto turned around to glare down the sand dune at the unresponsive Konoha nin, fully prepared to utilize his endless arsenal of attention-seizing annoyances.

There was only one minor problem with Naruto's plan of annoying the rest of the group for his own amusement. Rather insignificant, really, except it was kind of hard to annoy people who weren't there. And appeared to have been replaced with a rather massive rocky outcropping that Naruto was fairly certain he'd never seen.

Naruto cleared his throat. "Um…guys?" No response. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Guys?"

If the rest of the group was yelling back, Naruto didn't hear it. Naruto sighed and scratched his head, staring at the rocky outcropping.

Well. This was new.

He walked over to the outcropping and lightly poked it with his foot. Yep, definitely a rock. Naruto put more weight on the rocky stretch of ground until he was standing on it. Sadly, it didn't disappear. Shame, that. A genjutsu prank like this would have been pretty funny.

He really was stranded in a desert somewhere, alone, with no water. It never occurred to Naruto that panic might be an acceptable reaction. The only acceptable reaction was to keep going and to continue mourning the absence of Ichiraku Ramen.

Now, before the storm they'd been headed towards Suna, which was southwest of Konoha, and the sun looked to be rising behind him…so all he had to do was turn a bit to the left and he'd be going in pretty much the right direction.

Turning back was also one of those "normal" ideas that never occurred to him. So Naruto turned a little bit to the left and broke into a light jog, heedless of the oppressive heat.

Thank God Kakashi-sensei had managed to convince him that jackets were of little use in the desert. Even if the crazy perv had tried to get him to wear something besides orange, he'd at least managed to convince Naruto to wear lighter variations on his standard outfit.

Despite the uneven, rocky ground, the going was fairly easy for the first hour or so. Then he made it to a small cliff wall, and groaned.

The thing was only two dozen or so feet high, an easy leap. But Jiraiya had taught him to look before he leaped. (Literally. Jiraiya had told him to jump up over a security fence "as part of a mission." Ten seconds later he was being pummeled by shrieking, angry, half naked women who had been enjoying a hot spring.)

Climbing was going to suck, but jumping over and discovering it led to a bottomless cliff would suck more. Naruto wiped sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand and resigned himself to the task.

A rock behind him softly clacked against another. Naruto whirled, kunai in hand.

A person dressed in a strange outfit was a mere two yards from Naruto, posture relaxed. Naruto spent a brief moment glancing over the person's outlandish clothing – body enclosing suit, plugs in the nose, thick goggles, straps and pouches everywhere – before brandishing the kunai at them.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked. Maybe it (he? she?) was a Suna-nin, but Naruto wasn't going to count on that.

The figure remained silent for a moment before responding slowly. The words flowed smoothly, despite the slight distortion the tubes up his nose caused. By the rich depth of his voice, the person was obviously a man.

Unfortunately, despite the slightly musical quality of his speech, the man was speaking gibberish. Naruto narrowed his eyes in confusion. This was Wind Country, not some off continent fiefdom. People spoke intelligibly, damnit!

The man spouted another stream of gibberish, his tone angry and demanding. His finger jabbed towards Naruto's canteen.

Naruto flashed a conciliatory smile and patted his canteen with his free hand, letting it echo hollowly. "No water here, bud." Even if the other man couldn't understand him, the tone should get Naruto's peaceful intentions across.

The man drew a white knife from within the folds of his outfit and assumed a ready position. Naruto waited, still confused. What was this absurd little man up to? He probably wasn't a ninja; he didn't have a hitai-ate. Naruto obviously did.

Then the man charged, feet gliding over the rock in an impressive burst of speed. He lashed out with the knife, the tip blurring into near-invisibility.

Still, civilian was civilian. Naruto caught the leading edge of the knife on his kunai, twisted the thrust up, leaving the man wide open. Not wanting to hurt the man too badly, Naruto lightly punched him in the ribs. Lightly was a relative term; the punch had enough force behind it to daze a small ox.

But the man managed to roll with the blow and brought his now-free knife down in a backwards slash. Naruto spun out of the way and hop-skipped back three steps, trying to get some distance.

The man gave him none, following him step for step, wickedly sharp knife coming dangerously close to Naruto's skin twice.

Enough was enough though, and Naruto sidestepped the next thrust. A quick step forward and a drop to his knees avoided the backswing at his head, leaving Naruto in the perfect position to drive his fist into the man's stomach.

The man staggered back a few feet and shook his head. This time though, it was Naruto pressing the offensive, and he was faster. Much, much faster.

He let the next knife slash score a glancing cut on his arm; it let him get close enough t pinion the man's arms in front of him. Naruto flexed the arms outward, straining for just a moment before the man fell to his knees in an attempt to instinctively alleviate the pain. Naruto let go of the arms and, with a spinning kick to the temple, sent the man into unconsciousness.

Naruto took a deep breath, held it, and slowly exhaled. That had been strange. The man was too skilled for a normal civilian, even one who'd had some training. He wasn't strong enough to be a ninja of any note…maybe he was a genin gone rogue? He couldn't be samurai; he had no sword, horse, or armor.

A series of loud clicks echoed in the silence of the desert. Naruto slowly looked up, and swallowed nervously at the sight he was confronted with.

There were at least thirty more men, all dressed in identical fashion. More importantly, they all had crossbows aimed at his chest.

Well. That answered his question. The man was a rather skilled bandit. With friends who appeared to be equally skilled.

For the first time since he'd woken up, Naruto grinned. This wasn't going to help him make Chunin, or rescue Sasuke, or change anything important, but beating the crap out of these jerks would at least make him feel like he'd done something productive for the day.

"Several dozen of you…one of me. Hardly fair," he whined.

The crossbows didn't waver.

His grinned turned vicious and his tone became biting. "Maybe I should tie one hand behind my back?"

There was a unanimous click-fwoosh noise of crossbow bolts being fired, and Naruto stopped holding back. They'd started it, after all.