"Speech"

'Thought'

"Demon/Summon Speech"

'Demon/Summon Thought"

"Jutsu"

Chapter 11 - The Finals

The day of the final exam brought hundreds of guests and dignitaries to the great stadium in Konoha. Not to mention the hundreds of hidden Sand and Sound ninja waiting for the signal to attack the village.

In the center of the Konoha arena stood seven individuals, arguably the most powerful of their generation, these seven were the ones to make it to the finals of the Chunin exams minus Sasuke. Sasuke was simply late, a trait picked up from his perpetually tardy Sensei.

'This place is packed, how many do you think we can slaughter before someone with actual power tries to stop us?' Questioned Kurama as he looked through Naruto's eyes at the onlookers.

'I count at least 100 civilians that tormented me as a kid and maybe 50 ninja that liked to use me as a pincushion. Less than I thought, maybe most of them were afraid I would turn on them now that I'm a ninja. Maybe they're smarter than I gave them credit for.' Naruto thought with an internal laugh. 'I think we could probably kill them all and more before they can even think of trying to stop us.'

"Ahem, quit looking around. You're all on display so put on a good front and prepare yourselves for what could be your final fights as genin of your villages." Said Genma Shiranui, the replacement proctor for the finals of the exam. The original proctor, Hayate, had been killed during an altercation with Baki while he was meeting with Oto's spy Kabuto.

Naruto scoffed and looked up to where the Kage's were sitting, the Hokage sat with his guards behind him, next to him sat the Kazekage with four of his own guards behind him. Hiruzen stood up and looked over the crowds, as he surveyed he couldn't help but feel that something was going to change, something big and definitely bad.

"Welcome everyone to the final round of the Chunin Selection Exam, I would like to formally begin this final tournament and hand over to our esteemed proctor, Genma Shiranui." Hiruzen exclaimed with an amplification jutsu on his voice.

"This tournament consists of a series of battles pitched between our Chunin hopefuls here, if a contender is incapacitated, killed or disqualified I will personally end the match. Any attempts to continue the fight after I have announced a winner will mean an immediate disqualification." Hayate announced, "Now the first fight will be between Neji Hyuuga of Konoha and Gaara of Suna. Will all other competitors please head up to the observation deck and wait for your turn to fight."

Naruto placed his hand on Gaara's shoulder and a slight surge of demonic chakra passed between the two, carried within the chakra was a message.

"Don't waste too much energy on a pathetic leaf scum like Neji, wait for the big finale to pull out all the stops."

Gaara nodded as he waited for everyone to clear the arena floor.

"The first fight of the Chunin Selection Finals, Begin!" Cried Genma as he jumped back to a safe distance.

Gaara just removed the cork from the gourd on his back and let his sand begin pouring out onto the floor.

"You should just give up now, fate has already declared me the winner of this battle. You beat my team mate but compared to me he's a pathetic child. I am the prodigy of the Hyuuga clan and I will not be defeated by a lowly sand ninja." Neji announced mockingly.

"Are you finished?" Gaara droned, his gourd now completely empty of sand.

"This match will go down in history as Suna's greatest shame!" Exclaimed Neji as he sunk into his taijutsu stance. Gaara deadpanned as he looked at his opponent.

Neji narrowed his blank eyes as he charged forward and sent powerful palm strikes towards his opponent. Each strike was blocked with sand but the chakra discharged from Neji's hands disrupted the demonic chakra within the sand causing it to fall to the ground with each strike.

"I grow tired of you." Gaara stated as he swept his hand forward causing the sand that had fallen to the ground to rise up into countless arms of sand. Neji jumped back as demonic hands of sand chased after him.

"Jinchuriki Art: Desert Pursuit"

"Byakugan" Neji cried as he activated his kekkei genkai. Precise strikes lashed out at the hands that came towards him, tearing through them as they came after him. But with each he broke more would rise up.

"Eight Triagrams: Palm Rotation" Yelled Neji as he spun on the spot and emitted chakra around him into a dome of spinning energy. The hands slammed into the dome and were shredded, scattering sand around the arena floor.

Gaara looked down at the sand around him, he had expended most of Shukaku's available chakra with that attack and would be hard pressed to bring up a full shield of sand when Neji closed in to attack again. It was time to think strategically.

"You cannot hide anything from my eyes, I can see your connection to the sand is limited at best now. It's time I ended this. You are within my range of divination. Eight Triagrams: Sixty Four Palms!" Neji dropped into a low stance and brought one hand forward. With a cry of "One!" He began his attack sequence, announcing the number of strikes with each consecutive hit.

After his final cry of sixty four, Neji jumped back out of breath from the exertion of pulling off one of his clans most prized jutsu.

Gaara grunted in pain, feeling his chakra points completely sealed, luckily his armour had deflected most of the shots aiming to physically damage him and the few that made it past his armour were already beginning to heal.

"That is a nuisance." Gaara mused out loud as he attempted to access his chakra. As he searched through his body he found something, the small burst of Kurama's chakra from Naruto that had carried his message was still lingering slightly in his system. The chakra was so dense and powerful that now that he had accessed it his chakra points were already being forced back open by the chakra.

With renewed energy Gaara stood up straight and raised one hand up in front of himself. Neji gasped in surprise as the sand that now covered the arena floor glowed with chakra.

"What did you say before? It's time I end this? I think you're right, it is time I ended this." Gaara said with a smirk on his face, up in the stands the Hyuuga clan stared in abject horror, they had trained Neji mercilessly this past month to make him the perfect example of Hyuuga dominance and now he appeared to be on the ropes and their most powerful techniques were made to look like child's play to overcome. This would not reflect kindly back onto them, they would have to rely on the age old tactic of blaming Neji's failure on being a branch member and therefore not as powerful so they could save face.

-Back in the arena-

"Jinchuriki Art: Desert of Despair" Gaara cried as the sand rose up around the arena, Gaara raised his hand up and clenched his fist causing the sand to begin swirling around the two of them. Neji immediately began spinning into another rotation but even within the dome of chakra he wasn't safe. Bits of sand rose up from the ground beneath him and even through the dome of chakra, while it was a good defense it was far from air tight.

From outside the sudden sandstorm Genma tried to ascertain the state of the genin within. He could feel Neji pumping chakra out into what he assumed was a rotation but with Gaara's chakra saturating the air it was hard to get a proper read on what was going on.

Before he could intervene however the sand was sucked back into Gaara's gourd leaving the redhead looking no worse for wear. Neji on the other hand was a complete mess, his clothing was in tatters and most of his exposed skin was left bloody and ragged from the sand slicing into him.

Neji lay on the ground barely clinging to consciousness, his body unable to move anymore.

"Winner of the first round, Gaara of the Sand!" Genma cried as Gaara body flickered up to the observation deck while Neji was taken away by medic ninja.

"Impressive Gaara but you could have finished that so much quicker. Although I do like how you played with him at the end. Letting him put up his defense only to sneak past it anyway, fucking hilarious" Naruto laughed as he stood with the sand siblings.

"I learned from the best." Gaara said with a smirk, Naruto just laughed harder.

"And don't you forget it, I have plenty more tricks up my sleeve for when we finally get to face off properly." Naruto responded, his own fanged smirk having more of an effect on those around him. Those reactions being the leaf ninja backing away slowly, Kankurou shivering, Gaara mock bowing and Temari blushing slightly.

"Will Kankurou of Suna and Shino Aburame of Konoha please report to the arena floor!" Yelled Genma as said genin made their way down to the arena floor.

"So Temari between your brother and Shino who do you think will win?" Questioned Naruto as he put his arm around her shoulder, causing her to blush.

"Well to be honest with Kankurou holding back for you know what I doubt he could put up much of a fight, even if he was fighting at full capacity from what we know of the Aburame clan he would still have trouble."Temari surmised.

"Interesting, so little faith in your own brother. But you're right in your assessment, the Aburame is a threat that your brother has already underestimated." Naruto said with a laugh as he watched the battle begin down in the arena.

Kankurou began the fight by immediately taking cover in the wooded area of the battle ground. His puppet doing all the work for him as he desperately tried to hide himself. Unfortunately Shino had already placed a female beetle on Kankurou while they had been in the viewing area.

Upon finding what he considered to be the perfect hiding place Kankurou turned his full attention to his puppet which he had been using to keep Shino occupied. He smirked seeing that Shino appeared to be struggling to fight against his puppet and now that he could properly focus on it he would surely win.

A few finger movements and suddenly blades slid out of Crows sleeves, the added advantage of the blades made it seem that Shino was now losing badly. Kankurou almost cheered in triumph when he saw one of the blades slide between Shino's ribs.

His cheer died in his throat however when Shino exploded into bugs, his puppet's joints immediately seizing as they were clogged with bugs. Shino sat behind a simple genjutsu as he watched the puppet struggle futilely, with a wordless command to his Kikaichu beetles they began eating the chakra that connected the puppet to its wielder.

Once the puppet had fallen to the floor useless Shino turned his attention to where Kankurou thought he was well hidden.

"This battle is over." Shino said as he turned to look at Genma. Genma raised an eyebrow in confusion until an unconscious Kankurou fell out of the tree he had been hidden in.

"Winner Shino Aburame." Genma called with a shrug, medic ninja came and carried Kankurou away to let him regenerate his missing chakra.

"Did he seriously not notice bugs crawling on him while he was hiding?" Naruto questioned Temari.

"When he's playing with his dolls he has a hard time paying attention to his surroundings." Temari tried to explain only for Naruto to shake his head in amusement.

"He'll need to work on that."

"Could Temari of Suna and Shikamaru Nara of Konoha please report to the arena floor. The third battle will commence shortly." Genma yelled.

"Don't underestimate him, he may be lazy but he's smart. The bastard will back you into a corner without you ever realizing it." Naruto advised to Temari as he gently pushed her towards the stairs, she playfully shot back a smirk.

"Don't worry about me, worry about your pathetic friend." Temari said with a smirk as she ignored Naruto's suggestion of the stairs and instead glided down to the battle field on her fan.

Shikamaru's entrance wasn't quite as epic, instead he was unceremoniously shoved over the balcony by Ino who had come down to make sure he did actually compete.

The fight looked to be one of attrition, Temari constantly staying out of Shikamaru's range and Shikamaru hiding and planning.

"Stop hiding and fight me coward!" Screamed Temari, her rage built to the point that she opened her fan fully and unleashed a torrent of cutting wind into the small forested area that currently housed Shikamaru.

When the dust settled the ground was littered with broken branches and foliage, Temari was standing in the only clear patch of ground and around her nothing stirred. Shikamaru was nowhere to be seen.

"With Naruto's recent change in attitude and power I thought it best if I increased my training tenfold." Whispered a voice that appeared to be all around her. Temari attempted to spin and search for her target but found herself unable to move.

"Shadow Possession success." Whispered a voice behind her, suddenly her head moved against her will and she found herself looking at an empty space. "Look lower." The voice whispered.

Casting her eyes down Temari saw that her shadow wasn't her own, but that of Shikamaru. With a small grunt of effort the Nara clan heir rose from her shadow and held a hand seal. Once he was fully risen from the shadow he reached down to his thigh, his own kunai pouch had been discarded before pulling off the jutsu, Temari felt her hand clasp around the handle of a kunai before pulling it up to her throat.

"I could kill you right now Temari, and I would never have to lay a finger on you." Shikamaru commented.

"H-how?" Stuttered Temari.

"I used a secret technique of my clan, called Shadow Swim. Using the shadows cast by the debris I was able to get right up to you and from there all my jutsu were nigh impossible to miss." Shikamaru commented, "But you see I don't want to fight Naruto, and we both know he'll beat Sasuke and Dosu. Neither of us have a chance against him, the only one who could is your brother and even then it's doubtful he'd even come close to matching him in power. I may not be a sensor but even I can tell that Naruto's strength is unnatural, almost godlike."

Temari watched as the boy behind her lifted his hand, her own matching. He cleared his throat as he prepared to say something.

"Proctor I forfeit." Yelled the combatants simultaneously.

"Well it appears that there is no winner of this round due to twin forfeit!" Yelled Genma, "We will have a twenty minute break to reconstruct the arena and then the final fight of the first round will commence between Dosu Kinuta of Oto, Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha."

Naruto groaned in annoyance.

'Damn, have to wait even longer before I can get into the bloody arena.' He thought as he cracked his neck and began to look through the crowds. If he wasn't going to be getting into the arena for twenty minutes then he would have to find his own fun for a while.

A subtle scanning of the crowd allowed him to find several people who didn't fit in, subtle genjutsus over their skin and all had them placed firmly over their foreheads. Marking them immediately as ninja who didn't want to be found. The few he picked must have been the few whose genjutsu were weaker than their allies meaning they were likely heavy hitters in other fields.

"Perfect." He muttered, "Be back in twenty minutes, Temari keep your brothers in line for me." With a wink he vanished without a trace.

Naruto stalked through the stands, hidden in shadows and blending into the movements of the crowd around him.

Upon reaching his first target he sharpened his claw like nails and swiped where the cloth of a forehead protector would be. A metal plate with a musical note carved into it fell to the floor with a clang. The startled ninja spun around only for his own movements to impale a large claw through his eye socket. A small pulse of demonic chakra later and the body was gone in a swirl of leaves. Around the arena shadow clones began repeating the attack on several other hidden Oto ninja and taking their bodies to be disposed of with the real Naruto who had already lumped three bodies together in a pit in the Forest of Death.

As the twenty minutes neared their end Naruto shot a demonically charged fireball into the pit and left a shadow clone to watch the bodies burn. After all half the fun was the memory that would be left behind from watching the flesh melt.

Naruto and Dosu stood in the arena waiting on Sasuke until an ANBU landed next to Genma and whispered in his ear.

"As Sasuke is yet to arrive we will have Naruto Uzumaki and Dosu Kinuta compete and if Sasuke arrives he shall fight the winner in the next round!" Genma yelled to the audience which was met with polite applause. Naruto growled low in his throat, the bastard was going to get the beating of a lifetime.

"Final fight for the first round between Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha and Dosu Kinuta of Oto; Begin!" Yelled Genma as he jumped way back.

Dosu began the fight without any fanfare, immediately dashing forward with his melody arm raised. Hoping to finish the fight before Naruto could really get going. But his hopes were dashed as Naruto was suddenly encased in glowing red chakra with a single tail swaying behind him.

"My, my so eager to die?" Naruto said with a laugh as he swung his hand forwards causing a claw of red chakra to launch forward and knock Dosu back into the wall. "I think I'll play with this one." Naruto licked his lips as he said this revealing his sharp teeth.

"I won't lose so easily, I am all that remains for the Sound Village and I will show that we are strong." Dosu growled, Naruto stifled a giggle and yawned to mock his opponent.

"If Sasuke had been here for this fight I would have killed you before you could move. My fight is with the Uchiha and I need to blow off some steam, I don't like being left at the altar so to speak." Naruto said as he waited for Dosu to charge him again. However Dosu seemed to have learned his lesson as he dashed to hide in the a series of rock spires that had been constructed to replace the trees that had been destroyed by Temari.

Dosu smirked as he left behind kunai embedded in the walls, the kunai were made of a special metal that reflected and amplified sound waves. When he reached the center of the maze of spires he sat in a meditative position and began striking the melody arm with a tuning fork.

"Ready or not here I come!" Naruto yelled with dark glee as he dashed into the stone pillars, the sound waves washed over him with a dull roar and he groaned for a second before compressing the chakra around his ears muffling the sound. "Little annoying runt." Naruto growled.

In the center Dosu smirked he had heard the groan and growl reflected back to him by his kunai.

Dosu was certain Naruto wouldn't make it to him before the sound waves completely incapacitated him so he began striking the melody arm faster and harder just to make his win guaranteed.

He was however stunned when Naruto appeared in front of him looking no worse for wear, behind him were three tails swinging lazily in a breeze of their own creation.

"Time to die." Naruto said quietly, his enhanced hearing taking a battering even with the added protection of his chakra.

Naruto slammed his chakra shrouded fist into Dosu's stomach and sent him rocketing backwards but before he could get far Naruto appeared behind him and struck him again sending flying towards another wall. Naruto continued this for several minutes until he was confident Dosu was nearing unconsciousness. As Dosu passed over the center of the little clearing like area they were in Naruto appeared above him and slammed an axe kick into him causing him to slam into the ground with devastating force.

Naruto smirked in triumph as he punched Dosu from beneath, his chakra shroud flying into the air with him making the hilarious image of Dosu flying into the air whilst laying on a palm of chakra.

"And now I finish it." Naruto said with a laugh as he closed his hand into a fist causing the chakra hand to close, impaling Dosu five times with the chakra appendages.

With a casual flick Dosu was sent crashing into the arena floor. Naruto walked out of the stone spires brushing dust off of his clothes. Clicking his teeth in annoyance he tried to scrub a bit of blood off his pants.

"Um Winner Naruto Uzumaki of Konoha!" Yelled Genma as he tried to avoid Naruto and the bloody mess that used to be Dosu that the medic ninja were trying to clean up.

"We will begin the second round in a few minutes folks, so get ready for the next round of the Chunin Selection Exam!" Genma yelled trying to get the audience back to their previous enthusiasm.

A/N It has been a long time since I've written anything seriously… So uh here's a chapter that I wrote most of months ago but didn't get around to finishing till well just now. I'm trying to write more often but usually end up just messing around with other story idea that I have no intention to post… plus my laptop is really freaking old and a little frayed around the edges mainly being keys on my keyboard not working like they used to making writing a slow, slow process… But thanks to those of you who put up with my non-existent updating.

Thanks Trigger2332 out!