Author's note: For a while now I had a beta called Kaiten. However as the story progressed Kaiten started helping me write chapters. Now, Kaiten is a full co-author to the story. With Kaiten's help, I bounce off ideas and plots. We make great jokes and funny scenes by talking about it. I had just realized why TV shows have different directors for the episodes. Same plot but each director has their own special touch. That is a bit of the reason why updates for this story is so hard to update since well….there are two people writing it.
Kaiten: Thanks for all the reviews!! They inspire me to write longer chapters. Sorry for the long wait, but hey, I actually DO have a life. Hope you enjoyed this chapter.
Author: And now please enjoy the chapter. Also as a bonus, I suppose if you guess correctly who wrote chapter 7 I'll let you ask me one question on spoilers. Other than that, I don't give out spoilers.
Chapter 12
When Naruto regained consciousness, he found himself in a room with all the other Gennin taking the Chunnin exam. Sakura and Sasuke were standing over him, idly waiting for him to come to. "Where am I?" Naruto croaked.
Sakura placed a hand on her hip. "We just passed the second part of the Chunnin exam. But they say there are too many of us to continue on, so we have to take another test," Sakura stated matter-of-factly.
Naruto immediately leapt up. "Another test?! Are you KIDDING me?!"
Sasuke knocked him over the head. "Calm down, dobe. It's more of a test of skill."
From the control room inside Naruto, Yondame sighed with relief. "Alright," Naruto said, game face on, "Let's get this over with."
Inside a large cavern carved of rock, all the remaining genin teams awaited their fate. Their teachers, the Chunin and Jounin of the Leaf, as well as the Hokage were all present. Orochimaru, masquerading as the mentor of the Sound nins, stood off to the side, looking imposing. His eyes roamed over the lines of apprehensive genins until they landed on Sasuke.
His prize.
Sasuke had survived the effects of the seal, and now Orochimaru could claim him as his own. All of a sudden, Orochimaru noticed something was off. His acute sense of smell had picked up a sent that should not be there. 'A demon has been tampering with my pet!' he hissed angrily in his mind. Sniffing, his eyes suddenly widened, then narrowed in anger. 'Kyuubi…'
Out in the sea of genins, another had also noted the scent of Kyuubi. Sabaku no Gaara was having a psychological battle because of it.
"It's Kyuubi!" Hissed Shukaku, deep within the depths of Gaara's mind.
"Kyuubi…? What does he matter?" a bored Gaara asked.
Eyes blazing, Shukaku turned to Gaara and slapped him across the face. Gaara's head snapped to the side, but his face betrayed no expression. "Kyuubi," breathed Shukaku, "is my older brother."
"And?"
Shukaku had debated many times about killing his host's conscience, but even in moments of insanity he had refrained. "And? AND?!?" Shukaku screamed, grabbing Gaara by the shirt collar. "You know NOTHING! If he sees me likes this… SMELLS my scent!" Shukaku let go of Gaara to pace. "Yes… Yes, I'll have to make a move…"
Gaara's facial expression never changed. Shukaku's insanity had become part of his daily life. Shukaku was imprisoned in him, but Gaara was the prisoner. While Shukaku ranted, Gaara silently took control of the body for the time being.
The Third Hokage felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand. It was a warning to him that something was occurring and it was dangerous. He liked to call that warning system the 'Encroaching Sense of Doom'. At the moment it was in overdrive.
He looked at the genin crowd through his crystal ball. His zeroed in on four possible disturbances. Sasuke was marked with a personal Seal created by Orochimaru. Garra of the Sand had Shukaku sealed within him. From the reports the Third received he knew that Garra did not have a seal like Naruto and thus could not contain his demon. He was a threat. Garra had already killed many people and possibly killed more people than the rest of the genins put together. And then there one that they knew about and deal with. The last one was Naruto.
The Third sighed. Ever since the incident years ago the Third had been watching over Naruto like a hawk making sure that the Kyuubi was properly sealed. He was proud of Naruto and how strong the genin had become. He made a note in his mind to take Naruto out to Ramen.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
All the genin's looked around apprehensively as they waited. The tension was high. What exactly would they be doing?
Finally, a very sickly Jounin entered the cavern. Coughing, he wheezed, "My name is Hayate, I'll be your judge for the third part of the Chunin exam. More of you than expected returned from the Forest of Death, and we have to eliminate some more of you before we can get on to the third part. The only problem is-" Hayate took a moment to cough and hack like he was dying, "The only problem is that there is one too many of you to continue on to that part. So… if your name starts with a "K" and ends with an "O" and you have white hair, please leave."
Everyone in the room immediately looked at Kabuto.
Kabuto blushed a bit from all the attention, but because he was such a swell guy even though he was so evil, he bit back all his anger and exited the room, vowing to take out Hayate if it was the last thing he did.
"Bye Kabuto-san!" Shouted Naruto, waving his hand madly. When Kabuto was out of sight, Naruto stopped and went back to look at the sickly jonin. Yondaime sighed, stretching his fingers. Controlling a body with a game controller was soooo hard. He wondered if Kyuubi could upgrade to something more stylish and futuristic. Already Yondaime had made a chair and a nice fuzzy carpet to put his bare heet on. He was making the mind his home. Yondaime hoped Kyuubi won't piddle on the carpet. 'Is Kyuubi housebroken?' thought Yondaime puzzled.
Hayate coughed again and asked, "Alright, now is there anyone else who would like to leave as well?"
Sakura nudged Sasuke. "Sasuke-kun, I know we've come this far, but after the Orochimaru fiasco in the forest, I don't think you should continue on," Sakura whispered.
"Don't worry about it, I'm fine," Sasuke muttered, impulsively adjusting his shirt collar.
"Sasuke, I'm serious!" Sakura argued in a strained whisper. "The Forest of Death showed that our team is not ready to complete the Chunin exam! " Sasuke just ignored her. Sakura began to pout. "Sasuke, if you're not going to pull our group out of the Chunin exam, I will." Turning away from Sasuke, Sakura started to raise her hand, but Sasuke grabbed her arm.
Spinning her around, Sasuke hissed, "Don't be an idiot. I can handle this "cursed seal" thing. Just don't worry about it and, whatever you do, do NOT tell Naruto about this seal. He just won't understand." He then roughly released her arm. 'More like YOU don't understand…' Sasuke thought annoyed, as he moved as far away from Sakura as was possible while still standing in line.
Sakura sulkily massaged her arm. "If you say so…" she muttered.
"No one else wants to leave? Ok," Hayate cleared his throat. "The system is fairly basic. The scoreboard up there will display two names. Those two genin will come down to the arena and fight until one is no longer able to compete. And the most important thing is: this is NOT a fight to the death." Hayate coughed some more. "Ahem, alright, any questions? No? Good. Now who's first?"
The scoreboard was activated and the name lottery began. Every genin was tense with apprehension. Even Yondame, who knew that even in Naruto's body he could beat the entire genin population with his eyes closed, was getting butterflies. The scoreboard began to slow, everyone held their breath…
"Up first is Uchiha Sasuke verses Akado Yoroi." Hayate announced.
"Sasuke-" Sakura started.
"Leave it!" Sasuke snapped.
Naruto had remained silent even after the calling of Sasuke's name. He may have appeared serious and deep in thought, but the true reason was because Yondame had fallen asleep due to all of the tension. Sasuke walked past Naruto on his way to the arena, purposefully bumping into him and only pausing to mutter:
"Naruto… I look forward to fighting you some day…"
The jolt woke Yondame up and he had just enough time to react and smirk, replying, "Same."
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The arena was now set. All the by standing chunin and genin were up in the balconies and the fighters were in their starting positions. Chunin exam part 2.5 could now begin.
Hayate glanced at both fighters. "This is not a fight to the death," he reminded them. "The first fighter to become unable to fight any longer is eliminated from the Chunin Exam. Ready? Begin!"
Up in the balconies, Orochimaru smiled. "Now, my prize, let's see what you can do," he muttered to himself.
Yoroi immediately lunged for Sasuke, putting him on the defensive. Sasuke, just a little unsure of how to control his demon seals, decided that the best thing he could do at the moment was just block the attacks.
Boy was he wrong.
Yoroi threw a hooking punch at Sasuke's head. Sasuke blocked it with his arm, trying to deflect the blow. Yoroi grabbed Sasuke's blocking arm instead.
Immediately Sasuke realized he was in trouble.
The instant Yoroi touched him Sasuke began to feel his chakra draining away. Immediately freeing himself from Yoroi's grasp, he jumped away, taking time to analyze his condition.
Sasuke looked down and saw that his hands were shaking. 'What is this? He can drain my chakra with a single touch?' He thought, alarmed.
"Kukukuku… so you noticed my ability?" Yoroi taunted. "But the real question is… how are you going to beat it without me touching you?" Unspoken, Yoroi's eyes asked, 'As well as not being able to use your chakra?'
Sasuke's eyes widened. Yoroi knew about the cursed seal.
But not about Kyuubi's seal.
Smirking, Sasuke began to do a series of hand seals. "Katon: Gouka-" Sasuke forced himself to stop the attack. Kyuubi's seal was activating, and it was flashy. The seal was drawing large amounts of chakra from within Sasuke, making his attack far more powerful than it normally would be. Confused and startled, Sasuke clamped a hand down on the seal and dove out of the way of a charging Yoroi.
The seal became dormant once again and Sasuke tried to get up, but Yoroi was a little faster. Before Sasuke even knew what was happening, Yoroi was on him, embedding his knee into Sasuke's chest and palming his head with the intent of draining every last drop of chakra out of him. Sasuke winced in pain as Kyuubi's seal began activating again, and Yoroi smirked.
"It hurts, doesn't it you little parasite?" Yoroi hissed into Sasuke's ear.
"L-look who's the parasite…" Sasuke spat back. Sasuke grabbed Yoroi's hand in an attempt to get him off, but Yoroi had drained too much of Sasuke's chakra and Sasuke's strength was waning. "Get OFF me!" he growled, starting to struggle.
As if in response to the lack of chakra in Sasuke's body, the seal Kyuubi had put on Sasuke drew from some unknown chakra source, just enough chakra for Sasuke to get Yoroi off of him. With a grunt, Yoroi flew backwards into the opposite wall of the arena, giving Sasuke enough time to recover slightly and form a plan. 'I have no idea what this seal does, so until I figure out how it works I shouldn't use my chakra…Forget this, once I'm done I'm going to squeeze every last drop of information out of that moronic demon lord and I'm gonna…' Sasuke let his mind wander in revenge land for a bit as he recovered.
Yoroi collected himself after his hot date with the cement wall. Extremely pissed off now, Yoroi went running at Sasuke for all he was worth. "YAAAAAAH! YOU BRAT!! YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR THA-"
Slow and lumbering as Yoroi was, he was no match for the speed of Sasuke. Recalling a fight he had had some time earlier with a solely taijutsu using nin, Sasuke sped right up to Yoroi and planted a kick to his stomach. As Yoroi flew upwards, Sasuke jumped up behind him, following up with a barrage of kicks and punches. Dazed and helpless, Yoroi was defenseless against Sasuke's last roundhouse kick to the back of his head, sending him straight down into the hard dirt floor. 'Lion Combo!' Sasuke named the move in his head.
From inside Naruto, Yondame watched the fight interestedly. "Not bad…" he mused. "He only saw that fuzzy browed kid perform that move once…"
Sasuke landed a little less than gracefully about ten feet away from where Yoroi lay, unconscious. Drained, Sasuke struggled to remain standing. Hayate watched him for a few moments, making sure he wasn't going to pass out and make the contest a draw.
Sasuke fainted.
Naruto grasped the steel railing until his knuckles turned white. "What are you doing, Sasuke, you idiot!!" He shouted at the limp form.
Next to him, Inozuka Kiba sneered. "Tch, that Uchiha isn't as great as everyone makes him out to be."
Naruto glared at him. "Keep your mouth shut, dog-breath."
Kiba turned towards Naruto and growled. "What did you say, dobe?"
The whole room held their breath. Hayate coughed and raised his hand, about to announce the draw, when Sasuke moved.
Groaning, Sasuke heaved himself into a standing position. Glaring at Hayate, Sasuke asked bluntly, "Well, do I pass?"
Coughing again, Hayate called out, "Winner, Uchiha, Sasuke!"
The room erupted into cheers, and Sasuke turned to walk up to his comrades, when Kakashi appeared from behind and put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
"We have some business to take care of," Kakashi muttered into Sasuke's ear.
"What kind of buisness?" demanded Sasuke.
"The Third has briefed me on your condition. I'll need to fix you up before anything else happens."
Sasuke shrugged off the hand, starting for the exit. "Fine… but make it quick."
Sasuke and Kakashi suspiciously left the building, followed inconspicuously by Orochimaru. Naruto and Kiba, on the other hand, were about three seconds away from an all out brawl. Fortunately, they were saved by luck of the draw.
"Up next," Hayate called out, "is Inozuka Kiba, versus Uzumaki Naruto!"
From across the room, Gaara's eyes narrowed. "Naruto…" he muttered.
Sensing a killer intent, Naruto looked across and made eye contact with Gaara, but was quickly distracted by Kiba.
Kiba stood square from Naruto, a cocky look on his face. "Bring it…dobe."
Inside Naruto's mind, Yondaime cracked his knuckles and grinned. Time to play.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH