VII
Chunnin Exam
Part 4
A/N: The replies to the reviews are at the end of the chapter!!! Sorry for the late update, I had a bit of a writer's block. Sorry again, Itachi isn't in this chapter. Oh and MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok! I'm glad that's out of my system now!
1 month later…
They were late… and Kakashi was proud of them, in a rather odd and twisted way. He gave his eye-crinkling smile when he saw his three boys stroll into the stadium, Naruto with a grin, Sasuke with a smirk, and Sai with a fake smile. Tsunade glared furiously at the three; though the three couldn't really tell because she was sitting so high up in the stands. Sakura just tiredly sighed while running her fingers through her dawn colored locks.
"Now that our the rest of our contestants are here…we can start." Genma, the third examiner muttered with a bored expression on his face.
"First up Naruto v. Kohaku…"
"Yes! Let's kick some butt!!!!!!!!!" Naruto yelled excitedly. The many people in the audience sighed and sweatdropped at Naruto's antics. Tsunade vowed to beat up Naruto later. Then to everyone's great embarrassment, Naruto turned around to gaze at the VIP seats. God no… Gaara thought as Naruto opened his mouth wide, and hollered, "GAARA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SAKURA-CHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BAA-CHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WATCH ME WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... OH AND GAARA, YOU OWE ME RAMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Naruto I'm going to kill you!The three thought.
Glaring furiously, the Sand Shinobi snarled, "Brat! How dare you be so rude to our Kazakage!" His eyes widened in surprise when Naruto turned to glare at him angrily. "I'M OLDER THEN YOU! SO SHUT YOUR TRAP TEME NUMBER 342!!!!!!!"
"Idiot…" Sasuke grunted.
"SHUT UP TEME NUMBER ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Grumbling discontentedly, Genma mumbled, "Start."
"Wha…?"
"Dobe…Start. He said start."
Naruto's eyes widened in faint surprise, a dopey sort of look on his face while Kohaku rushed him, a glaive in his hands. With a sickening thunk, the glaive rammed through Naruto's chest. The world seemed to freeze as Naruto looked down at the weapon. His mouth was in a perfect round "O". Eyes wide Naruto gurgled weakly, his eyes still unable to register the truth. Then he went…BOOM!!!!!!! The red haired boy's body was thrown back from the force of the explosion. He flew back about 20 meters and crashed into the stadium wall, blood tricking from his mouth. Grunting, Kohaku pulled himself out of the wall, and kneeled, one leg propped up, panting, while wiping the crimson liquid with the back of his hand.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU FELL FOR IT!!!!!! MUWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!" Naruto had appeared out of the ground while laughing his ass off.
"What was that?" Kohaku growled.
Smirking Naruto gloated, "THAT MY NEMISES, WAS THE GREAT UZAMAKI NARUTO'S SUPER DUPER, FANTASTIC KABOOMER!!!!!"
"Che…" Glaring viciously Kohaku propped himself up using his broken glaive as a staff. No one but a few ANBU, Tsunade and Sakura noticed him making discreet, and swift handsigns. Judging by the number of the handsigns, I would guess that the jutsu is a high leveled one. Tsunade thought.
"That Baka." Sakura sighed. He was so into his little victory dance that he didn't notice that Kohaku was up to something. Glaring murderously, Kohaku quickly finished making his handsigns, finishing on the dragon sign.
"Poison Cell Jutsu!" Giving a cry of pain he doubled over as his whole body started to give off a faint amber glow. Raising his head, Kohaku panted weakly as he gazed at Naruto the faint light slowly receding. Grinning in triumph, he slowly raised himself up into a crouch. Like Kiba in a way, Kohaku changed, his eyes changed to an amber color, his pupils narrowed to slits, his nails grew like claws, and his canines sharpened. Naruto would have gone as far as to say that he reminded him of some sort of large scary cat. Eyes wide, Naruto backed away warily from the sand shinobi.
Without warning, Kohaku suddenly shot towards him, a wild and bloodthirsty glow in his eyes. Naruto leaped back quickly to dodge Kohaku's vicious claws, but even then, he got a slight scratch on his hand.
Stumbling back, Naruto twisted around and quickly blocked Kohaku's attack with his arm guards, but with ease, the sand shinobi managed to kick Naruto's feet from under him with a swift spinning dropkick. Grunting in surprise, Naruto fell to the ground with a faint thump, hurriedly he rolled to his left to dodge Kohaku's leg-drop kick.
Rolling a few more times, Naruto rapidly managed to distance himself from Kohaku, enough for him to get a bit of breathing space. Glaring at the flame haired genin, Naruto snarled angrily, his own blue eyes bleeding crimson. Naruto irritably made his own handsign. Growling faintly, Naruto made a Kage Bunshin. His eyes widened in shock when he gazed at his creation. Instead of a Bunshin that was the clone of Naruto, there was a crumpled heap of limbs, orange, and black on the ground.
"WHAT?!!"
Hearing a cold chuckle, Naruto spun around to murderously glare at Kohaku.
Naruto's face screwed up with a look of pure hatred. Glaring wrathfully he roared, "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME TEME 324!!!!!!"
Chuckling maliciously, Kohaku answered smirking, "I thought I was number 342 not 324."
"JUST SHUT THE F--- UP AND ANSWER THE F--- QUESTION TEME!!!!!"
Smirking, Kohaku purred, "Simply put, your poisoned. The last jutsu I did transformed all of the cells in my body into a unique type of poison that I'm immune to for a certain amount of time. Just brushing your skin slightly is all I need for the poison to enter your body. You should be feeling dizzy and drowsy by now."
Naruto clenched his fists, his skin straining against his knuckles causing his whole body to tremble, and causing his knuckles to whiten. Howling in fury, Naruto pulled out a kunai and viciously stabbed himself in the hand. The blood pouring from his hand flowed down and formed a small sticky pool of the dark red liquid on the ground.
Kohaku smirked at Naruto's futile efforts.
"Die…" A kunai left the sand shinobi's hand and flew through the air and hit the space between Naruto's eyes. Naruto's eyes widened in pain, and he slowly slumped down to the ground, dead…
BANG!!!!! Naruto burst out of the ground, a Rasengan formed in his hand. Bellowing a battle cry Naruto's Rasengan connected with Kohaku. The red haired shinobi's body was suspended in the air for a total of 3 seconds before he went flying back, slamming into a few trees, and finally into the rock wall of the stadium.
"Ha!!!! Always look underneath the underneath!!!!!!" With a faint poof, the "dead" Naruto on the ground disappeared leaving empty space. It turned out that Naruto had managed to flush out enough of the poison, by bleeding himself, to quickly substitute himself with a Kage Bunshin; a Bunshin that he had already created and left underground, in the beginning of the match, just in case.
Kohaku's face was blank, as was his half open eyes. There wasn't a look of anger, embarrassment, shock, pain…or sadness, just emptiness. A trickle of blood dripped down the side of his mouth but he did nothing. Kohaku slowly closed his eyes in defeat, as his body seemed to peel from the wall and fall. Naruto quickly rushed over and caught his opponent before he hit the ground, and carefully laid him down onto the ground.
"Winner Naruto." Genma stated, in faint shock. Everyone in the audience was stunned that Naruto had helped his opponent. Whispers could be heard all around the crowd, but in a certain VIP area, Tsunade was smirking while she gazed proudly at Naruto. Sakura, for the first time after returning to Konoha, truly smiled.
His face passive, Gaara gazed at the ecstatic blond, Naruto…I am in your debt…again.
The medics quickly took Kohaku away. Sakura frowned when she saw how the stretcher they were using to cart off Kohaku was rather uneven in balance. Sakura made a mental note to chew off the medics' heads later, when the exam was completely finished.
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"Next up is Sasuke v. Kimiko…" Genma grunted.
"Yay!!!! Sasuke-Kun!!!"
Sasuke grimaced and eyed the ecstatic sand konochi cautiously.
"Begin…" Genma mumbled without even waiting for Sasuke and Kimiko to get into battle stances.
Kimiko immediately drew a few shurikens and launched them at Sasuke. To her surprise, Sasuke easily sidestepped her attack. Fast. She thought. Watching Sasuke, Kimiko made a few handsigns before she threw a kunai at Sasuke.
Sasuke caught the kunai with ease, but without delay he hurriedly tossed the kunai away from him. The explosion tag attached to the kunai exploded causing Sasuke to shield his eyes with his arm, due to all the dust that was disturbed by the explosion floating around in the air.
When the dust settled, Sasuke realized at once that something was wrong. In front of him was Itachi. Blind rage erupted from him. His eyes flashing red, he snarled furiously at his brother. This time, nothing was stopping him from killing his brother, but he knew that too much emotion would blind him so he pushed away his emotions.
Kimiko watched as Sasuke's eyes flashed into Sharingan. She was confused and fearful at the anger that had erupted from Sasuke. The anger was now gone leaving an emotionless, but murderous Sasuke, but Sasuke like this was scaring her more then when he was angry. She couldn't understand. When she had created the handsigns, Kimiko had been starting a genjutsu. For the jutsu to succeed, Kimiko had needed Sasuke to be distracted for a short period of time. That was why she had thrown the kunai.
Kimiko knew that the genjutsu had gone wrong. The genjutsu's purpose was to make her look like her opponents worst fear, but instead of freezing in shock and terror, Sasuke became murderous. Her eyes widened in shock and fright when suddenly she felt Sasuke's form behind her. Impossible, I wasn't able to see him move. Kimiko gave a scream of pain when Sasuke rammed his knee into her back, causing her to fly forward and crash into a tree. Sasuke was there at once, his katana drawn. Kimiko shrieked in fear when she saw Sasuke loom over her with his long katana drawn. Lightening rippled up and down the blade causing a bright glow to illuminate Sasuke's terrifying figure.
"I forfeit!" Kimiko sobbed out in fear, but to her terror, Sasuke didn't halt his attack.
"Die…" He said, his voice and face cold.
Suddenly, before Sasuke could kill what he believed was Itachi, Sakura appeared in front of him. She's protecting him? Sasuke thought in shock.
Sakura watched as Sasuke's eyes widened as she appeared in front of Kimiko's figure. She knew that Sasuke thought that Kimiko was Itachi due to the jutsu. Fool. She thought.
"Sakura move." Sasuke said, his voice blank.
"Uchiha Sasuke, the match is over. This isn't Itachi…it's genjutsu."
Sasuke's eyes widened in surprise at what Sakura said. Kimiko, to her credit, immediately dispelled the jutsu on Sasuke. Sasuke's katana hung weakly in his hand, his blood red sharingan eyes faded away to black as he gazed at Kimiko.
Sakura knew that Sasuke didn't see through the obvious jutsu because of his inner rage. The sharingan could even be fooled if the wielder was blinded by emotions. Even though Sasuke looked impassive, Sakura knew that his mind overflowed with emotions every time he faced Itachi.
The stadium was dead silent as Sasuke sheathed his katana and slowly made his way out of the battleground. Kimiko was still in shock, paralyzed by her fear. A team of medics quickly rushed over to take Kimiko away to help her with shock, and four broken ribs.
"Genma…?" Sakura silkily reminded.
"Huh...? Right…winner, Sasuke. The next match is Toya v. Sai."
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Sai appeared in a swirl of black ink into the middle of the arena. Toya, slowly followed by lightly, and surprisingly gracefully, jumping from the stadium, 20 meters high from the ground. The strongly built sand shinobi gazed blankly, but politely at Sai.
Sai stared right back with his fake smile on. "Judging from your size…you probably have a large pride." Toya stared at Sai, a confused look on his face.
Sakura gave a tired moan, she knew what was coming and she didn't like it…
"I'll call you horsedick."
There was a pregnant pause as Toya stared at Sai blankly. The audience was silent, waiting to see how Toya would react to the vulgar nickname.
Unconsciously, everyone leaned in slightly as Toya opened his mouth. "You must be gay, but I'm sorry, I already have a girlfriend, I'm 100 straight."
There was another pregnant pause of speech as everyone in the audience stared at Toya in surprise.
Raising his left eyebrow slightly Sai politely asked, "Oh, you have a girlfriend…is she a horse?"
"No, she's your mom." The way that Toya stated this so calmly sent everyone into a fit of twitching.
"Oh…Well, I don't have a mother so you must not have a girlfriend. Which means that if you look at this logically, you are gay."
"Not interested."
"Horsedick." Sai replied smiling innocently.
How in the world Toya was able to look so calm even with Sai insulting him rather crudely, was a quite a mystery.
The two of them stared at each other blankly, when suddenly both flashed into action, Sai quickly unrolled a blank scroll and with a paintbrush, drew picture after picture with incredible speed and perfection. The giant ink eagles ripped themselves from the scroll and soared up into the sky alarming away the crows.
Toya in turn rapidly drew out a scroll as well. He quickly bit his thumb drawing a bit of blood. He then smeared a small line of the red liquid down the length of the scroll. "Great Bear Axe Summon." He said clearly.
With a faint poof, a giant bear appeared in front of Toya. The huge bear was a light golden brown with dark black eyes. The only thing that was different from a regular bear was that the summoned bear was huge!!!! And he had black strips of fur that made it seem as if it had extravagant black designs all over its body.
Sai stared blankly at the bear. "I take it back… you should be Beardick."
The bear lunged at Sai with steel like claws. Sai quickly jumped back away from the summons deadly oversized nails. The audience watched attentively as Toya raised his hand suddenly. A ripple of gasps flowed through the stands when the golden bear transformed into a giant axe. The claws of the bear seemed to vine down the handle, allowing the axe to injure or kill from either side. Sai watched curiously as the axe seemed to ripple, as if it was alive.
Unexpectedly, Sai smiled pleasantly as he calmly murmured, "Check mate."
A look of confusion crossed Toya's face at Sai's words. Suddenly to the crowds astonishment, Toya suddenly turned pale and collapsed face forward onto the ground. With a poof, the axe disappeared as well. Genma quickly hurried to Toya's side. After a quick examination, he grunted, "Some sort of poison. Not dead but unconscious." Genma pointedly turned his gaze to Sai. Asking wordlessly for an explaination.
"The eagles were just a distraction. The real weapon was here." Sai raised his hand to show Genma as he said this. Genma blinked uncertainly at the ink smeared on Sai's hand.
"I took the liberty to place some poison ink on the bear's claws when it swiped at me. The poison doesn't effect me, but it effects anyone else."
"The handle…" Genma murmured. "I see…the handle of the axe was the bears claws. He poisoned himself by touching the poison on the claws."
Sai gave his fake smile. "Exactly."
"Winner Sai."
Even though the audience weren't exactly sure as to what had happened, they were pretty excited and riled up by the unusual display of battle. The next battle will be Naruto v. Sasuke…
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Sakura gulped silently as she breathed deeply through her nose. This is going on too long…I've reached my limit.
"Tsunade-sama." Sakura panted weakly.
Tsunade turned her attention to Sakura. "Sakura?" She asked.
"I've reached my limit."
Tsunade's eye's widened as she quickly murmured, "You're excused."
The 5th watched with worried eyes as Sakura flickered away. While this was going on, Gaara listened in on their hushed conversation. His expressionless face narrowed its eyes as they watched Sakura leave after Tsunade's last statement, 'You're excused.'
Gaara blinked in surprise when Tsunade suddenly murmured, "Gaara-san."
"Hai."
"We need to make a few changes to the exam…" Gaara frowned slightly at Tsunade's words.
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The audience was dead silent except for the soft, muffled coughs once in a while. They were watching excitedly at the two boys staring each other down. The blond haired boy, Naruto, stood limp with his bangs shadowing his eyes. Sasuke in turn gazed calmly at the Naruto, his face carefully cleared of all emotions. Genma stood a little to the side, chewing on his senbon needle thoughtfully.
"We will now beg-"
Genma's words were cut off suddenly as a Kakashi suddenly appeared in front of him.
"Yo."
Genma's eye twitched in annoyance at Kakashi's calm, infuriating bored look.
"Kakashi?"
"There's been a change in plans." The next, and last battle will be at tomorrow morning at 10:00 am."
"Wait a second! Last battle? Tomorrow? What in the world are you talking about?" Naruto loudly voiced his question.
"Instead of you and Sasuke then Sai, we're going to do a three way battle."
A murmur of surprise rippled through the audience. A three-way battle was something that was entirely new in the Chunnin exam.
"So until then, all of you go home and rest."
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"Oi Naruto, Sasuke, Sai!"
Naruto turned towards the loud, rather annoying voice. "Huh? Oh, it's you Kiba."
"And Akamaru." Kiba corrected as the huge Akamaru barked happily.
"Were here as well." Said a cool, neutral voice.
"Neji!" Naruto called out in surprise as Neji, Kiba, Ino, Choji, Tenten, Lee, Shikamaru, Hinata, and Shino walked over to the three.
"N-N-Naruto-k-kun." Hinata nervously stuttered. Unfortunately for her, Naruto didn't hear her.
Neji looked around, and frowned slightly. "Where is Sakura-san? We thought that she would be here with you three."
"Ugly's not here." Sai smoothly murmured.
"Sai…you're really messed up…" Kiba sighed.
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Swiftly, and silently, the hunter neared its prey. The poor creature had no idea how much in danger it was in. Suddenly, to the hunter's frustration, the deer suddenly fled. She knew that she could catch it easily, but she wanted to investigate what had spooked away her food. Gracefully, Sakura swung down from her perch 30 feet from the ground, and landed silently, catlike.
She suddenly, with impossible speed drew, and threw a kunai to her left.
"Ah!" She heard
"Sakura-chan! What was that for?" Suki whined as he stepped out from behind a tree.
"You scared away my food." She bluntly stated.
Suki sweatdropped, and smiled sheepishly at the seriousness of her voice.
"…Ah…gomen about that…" Suki said, grinning embarrassedly.
"Where's Kamui?" Sakura asked while looking around for her other friend.
"Right here Sakura-sama."
Sakura looked up quickly, a soft smile on her face, as she turned to look at Kamui. He had the deer slung over his shoulder.
"Ah…thank you Kamui." Sakura murmured as she quickly satisfied her thirst.
After finishing her "food" Sakura asked, "Why are you two here anyway? I thought you wouldn't visit for at least another 4 months."
Suki shifted his weight as he answered, "Well you see Sakura…You have to come register…"
"Register? I thought I could do it next year." Sakura murmured, furrowing her brows.
"I'm not sure why, but my guess is that one of the seers 'saw' your power, and now the council. They want to meet you as soon as possible. "
"I don't know what my power is yet though." Sakura reminded.
"Yes, that's why you're going, to get a seer to find out your gift."
"I see…"
I'm still hungry… Inner grumbled.
Is that all you can think?
I hope there are some cute vamps at The Castle.
You're hopeless.
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Mayumi Crescent Moon: Thank you! I'm glad you like Itasaku too. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!!
FakeCompassion: Thank you for not being mad at me!!!! And Thank you for reviewing!! Your reviews helped me keep writing.
Pinky101: Yay!!! I'm really glad you like the pairing! Thank you so much for the review!
xXDaughterOfTheCrimsonMoonXx: Wah! I'm so happy that you like it!!! Thank you so much for reviewing, and your welcome!!!
aznkitty180: Lol! That my friend is a secret!!! Thank you!!!! I'm really glad you liked it!!!
NejiSakuFan: I'm glad you can tolerate Itasaku! Everyone, including you, have been very nice about my paring choice. Thank You!!!! I'll try to put in some NejiSaku moments! I promise I'll do my best!!!
TeenageCrisis: Thank you for reviewing!!! I'm glad you like it so far!!!
iloveyouneji: Thank you! Thank you!!! I'm really, really happy that you like it so far!!! I'm sorry that I wasn't able to update soon...I had a bit of a writers block.
romanticXXmidnightXXlullaby: I'm really glad that you like the story line. I promise that I'll try my best!!! And Thank you for reviewing!!
scarletmirror: I'm so happy that you like the vampire idea!!! Thank you so much for updating!!!!
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unbeatablehinata: I totally agree with you. I think the author of Naruto makes the female characters a bit too weak sometimes... Thank you so much for reviewing!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lady V-chan: Wow!!!: I feel so happy!!!!! Thank you so much!!! I'm so relieved that people like my ideas and plot! Thank you so much for the encouragements and the review!!!
narutocraze1233:That's an idea!!! Thank you so much for the ideas! You helped inspire me on my story, and you helped me write a better plot!!! Thank you so much!!!!!!!!
Bob1234: Also known as YY! Hi YY!!!! Thanks for reading my story!!! I'm glad you like it. Thank you so much for the review and the encouragements!!! BBF!!! P.s Please don't show anyone else ok. Not even your friends who don't know me!
cherryblossom94: Yay!!! I'm really happy that you like it!!! Thank you so much for the review! Lol! Sakura is sort of a bad ass isn't she!!
Kinomi-chan: I'm happy that you liked that line!!! Thank you for reading my fic!!! And Thank you so much for reviewing!!!!
Chocolat-Chan: Wah!!! Thank you so much for the review!! I'm really, really joyful that you like the story!!! I'll try and bring in some more Neji! I promise!!!
xXFallenSakuraXx!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!! You have no idea how happy I was when I saw your review!!! I love your stories!!!! Thank you so much for reading my Fanfic!!!!! I'm so honored that you would review, and say that you like it!!! Lol...Sorry, this is another cliffy...sort of. Thank you again!!!!!
