CHAPTER 10

A year later

Anko looked over her team as they stood in front of her and had never been prouder.

At first, when the Hokage told her the reason he wanted her to befriend his son she wanted to kill something, but right now, after another successful training session she wanted to squeal at her luck. At first glance, one would think she would not make a good sensei, her team was living proof that she was.

The team was a capture and interrogate based team so the D-rank missions they took had to do with investigating thefts, finding lost property and interrogating low level criminals; for the first time in the history of Konoha, a genin team looked forward to D-ranks. They were the first newly minted genin to collect a C-rank and a B-rank early; the Hokage could find no reason to hold them back from taking one. The mission was a relatively easy one: they had to help the police in Tanzuki town find out who was robbing their towns small retail businesses, they found out that it was a small time thug that wanted to make a name for himself.

Team 14 had their individual strengths that made them the best ranking genin in their generation.

They mostly had the same skills but some had more specialties. Like, Sai was quiet and a very good critical thinker; he was the one that usually found a lead in a mission. His taijutsu was average but his ink (art? Drawing?) Ninjutsu and genjutsu was what he used to compensate, so he was a long range specialist. He was quiet and professional, and he was a stone cold killer. Like all of them.

Ami was the one that ironed out the details and connected the lead with another. She had learnt that she was a mid to long range specialist, with her traps and weapon aim being on par with Naruto's. Her taijutsu was passable but her genjutsu were a thing to behold, she had taken to looking for one of Anko's friends, Kureanai, and making illusions that she got from her many nightmares. That was why Naruto hated sparring with her going all out; she would gain distance and place him in an illusion before she would incapacitate him with a kunai to the neck since dispelling an illusion took a while for him to gather the chakra and dispel it painfully out of his tenketsu. She had the record in the team for the fastest trap made, so she and the team's sensei were in charge of making the training course.

Naruto was the mid to close range specialist because of his taijutsu, ninjutsu and fuinjutsu. He was the strongest in the team for obvious reasons so he was the one to make the plan of action when they solve a case in the mission or are to capture someone or something. He revealed to them that he was a puppeteer when his oji-sama advised him to do so; team mates don't keep secrets from each other. He made them swear not to reveal it to the general public until he was a jounin, thank fully they agreed.

But the thing they all had in common was that they had no problem with killing as long as it wasn't illegal. At least Ami enjoyed it.

Anko had them running laps, doing physical exercises, mental conditioning and some torture methods from dawn till noon, which was when they would go to the missions' office for a mission. They would learn jutsu at their own time or if they met her. She wanted to nominate them for the chunin exams earlier but wanted to wait for the next one that was in Konoha. That way everyone would see that she could teach. 'Take that, Ebisu.'

Though the woman still couldn't stop saying the Naruto's name without moaning. It was a work in progress. She just took to calling him 'Gaki' or 'Blondie.' It was safer not to moan his name out in front of his parents or her colleagues. She had a reputation to keep, right.

"Quick question," she snapped as she looked them over, they stood at attention in front of her looking back at her with their faces neutral, "what would you do if Blondie here is held hostage?"

It was Sai that answered, "We don't have to do anything, his can use his strings to free himself."

"What if Sai is held hostage?"

Ami answered, "There are seals on his wrists and back of neck that can shoot out weapons. We still don't have to do anything."

"Smart, smart, what of Ami?"

Naruto spoke, "she can do a sealless disorientation genjutsu, after that the rest is history."

She put her hands on her hips and grinned, 'oh yeah, these guys are so passing the chunin exams.' Anko then schooled her face and folded her arms on her chest, "if you ever encounter a person with an even more potent chakra than Blondie, what would you do."

Ami cleared her throat and replied, "Which is still yet to be seen but we would see if the person is immune to poisons or illusions. Naruto's strongest poison can kill a bear, my strongest illusion can traumatize a genjutsu specialist." Her team mates nodded at her reply. "We could also always see if he could survive all three of us going all out."

Anko nodded and smirked at the memory of Kureanai demanding she sleep over with her because of one of Ami illusions. The sweet girl.

"That's good. The chunin exams are around the corner and by that I mean tomorrow; you may have noticed the influx of foreigners in the village. I believe you three are ready to compete."

"Ne sensei, are you sure?" the purple haired girl asked, "I mean we just graduated from the academy last year."

"If I didn't think you guys were ready I wouldn't nominate you." She presented three slips of paper and handed it to them, "fill those and report to the front of the Hokage tower if you want to participate. 8 'o clock sharp. Got it?"

"Hai, sensei!"

"dismissed." And she walked out of their unofficially claimed second training ground with training ground 44 AKA the forest of death being their first unofficially claimed training ground. She chose not to reveal the fact that the exams may not have too many contestants with Iwa hating Konoha and Kumo still fearing an attack from Konoha. Still there were plenty enough since the civil war in Kiri had ended some time ago they would be able to send their genin, that village has seen a decade of war so she didn't expect them to be stringy and she knew as a fact that Suna were not string. Maybe the smaller villages would show up, her students needed a challenge.

Back in the training ground, Sai was looking at the form in his hands. He and his team were going to attend their first chunin exams, this was really happening. He may not know how to express it but Sai was nervous, 'what if I mess up?' he scrunched up his pale face lightly. The pale boy looked at his fellow 9 year old and grinned, he was also nervous but held it in very well. He at first only joined the team because his real leader had commanded him to but now that he had spent a whole year with Naruto as well as Ami he couldn't help but like them, despite his peculiar nicknames for them they were the closest thing to family he had with Danzo sending his 'brother' on a suicide mission.

"Hey dickless, you're going right?"

Naruto took in a weary breath and pinched his nose. He would never get used to being called that, despite all the pleading, death threats and all the beatings he gave the boy during their spars he wouldn't stop. Sometimes he just felt like strangling him but realized that boy was a Konoha ninja so his absence would be noticed and most likely Danzo would come after him early; it was blaringly obvious that the pale and emotionally messed up boy was a ROOT operative. Although the fact that he was close to being his friend he didn't want to bring him any nearer in case he would have to be forced to kill him. "Sai I am warning you, stop calling me that."

"Yeah, yeah, just like you warned me yesterday, dickless" he savoured the glare the blonde boy gave him, "I've read that name calling strengthens bonds."

"I don't think calling someone dickless strengthens anything, Sai." Ami piped up from their side, she shuffled closer to their circle with a wide grin. She wore a black form fitting short sleeved apron shirt with a mesh armour shirt beneath and tight red shorts with black sandals and long red socks that passed her knees. Her purple hair was cut short so it hung a bit over her shoulders. She now took to wearing her bandages anytime she came for training and her 'lucky apron' sealed in her wrist.

"On the contrary, psycho, I think me and dickless here are the best of friends. Isn't that right, dickless?" she maintained her composure at her nickname, she actually like it. But Naruto was another story entirely; the normally stoic boy grabbed Sai by the collar and glared figurative fire balls out of his eyes. Sai's grin seemed to widen "easy there, I don't kiss boys."

With a final glare, Naruto let go of the messed up ROOT operative and closed his eyes, taking breathing exercises. Not even Shin yu could get him this agitated; he blamed the nerves he had for the test tomorrow. "Yes Sai, I'm going are you?"

"Of course I am, dickless" the boy seemed to get some form of sick pleasure calling Naruto that name, "what of you, psycho?" the girl just nodded. "See you tomorrow then." He waved and walked off the training ground; his other team mates also left for their homes.

Naruto chose to go to the site of his newly constructed house. More like a freshly rehabilitated house; there was no one willing to sell a plot of land to an 8 year old whether the Hokage's son or not. It was a run down two story building that was located further away from the rest of the houses in the residential area; it was on the edge of a forest. It was formerly owned by a particularly irresponsible man; the house was inherited from his late parents but apparently he needed the money more than he cherished the house. The place was secluded and quiet. The building was normal sized and the remaining land it was on was wide enough for a personal training ground.

It contained a living room, a kitchen, six bedrooms with bathrooms in each, a storage room, an attic and a basement. All he had to do was replace the furniture, the water pipes, electrical system and re-paint the whole place, he added in his own security system. The most noticeable security feature was the tall fence that surrounded his property; it had a blood seal on the entrance and a sort of durability seal that would protect it for a time against jutsu.

He had carved out multiple pairs of hands and designed a unique seal called 'the heart seal' which gave the hands some semblance of life and a small supply of chakra, so they could make a string of green chakra. He then constructed over 30 puppets that all looked the same with no distinguishing features, he had them wear black on black and equally black face masks with a spider painting on the forehead, and connected the wooden hands to them. He hid the hands in dark corners of inside and outside his house; the puppets that were connected to it would patrol around silently at night but would stay hidden but still vigilant by day, remaining unseen until a fool wanted to break in. They were built similar to his mummy puppet but without the bandages which meant that they were amazingly fast and mercilessly strong, add in the random weapons he gave them and they were jounin level. He called them his 'shadows.'

Naruto chose to make the basement where he would keep all the essential machines and seals that powered the whole house. He kept a larger version of his heart seal carved into a wall; it supplied the smaller heart seals around the compound with the chakra Naruto gave it every 6 months. The only down side to the whole heart seal was that it gave the puppets chakra to move about but they needed a mind to make them think and fight, to solve that he left seven highly powered clones in the basement to control the hands through the main heart seal. The way they could see what was going on was by connecting a chakra string from the back of their necks to a part of the seal; it was dizzy seeing from all those eyes but they had long since gotten used to the feeling. Clones didn't need food or sleep so they were very effective. He also kept the main generator there and the main source of the houses electricity (I've forgotten the name). The door had a blood seal on it and he covered the only window with durability and torture seals that would subject the person that touched it to a less than pleasant feeling.

The whole house was a living trap just waiting for a poor idiot to spring it.

He built a small separate house outside the main building that functioned as a workshop and forge. He has not used the place yet so that meant that the equipment and tools he purchased were still pristine and new though blood draining-ly expensive. He literally felt like he lost a few pints of blood after seeing the price and paying for it.

The work has been completed for the past four months but he wanted to become a chunin before he moved in. 'thank kami for clones.'

Right now he was checking up on the clones he put in charge of security.

"Anything new?"

"Not really, just that Danzo's getting more and more curious about the house, we've had to kill 7 of his ROOT operatives in the last few months."

"Have you turned them into puppets?"

"On that same day, boss." That was another thing he had been doing. He had finally perfected turning a person into a puppet. He had to practice the art extensively on animals, the smaller mammals until he got to animals that were approximately the size and weight of humans i.e. apes. The animals he turned into puppets that were successful he stored them in a spare room just in case he would ever need them. The process took a lot of his conscience away from him but it was worth it, he did all of this before he turned Nobu into one and for his first attempt it was perfect. He clothed him in the same clothes as his shadows but the bandages around his face were green. He sealed the dead boy in a tattoo on his left arm. His cursed seal was still very useful so he made sure to train with him on how to use it. The fact that there were more human puppets as guards was a nice addition because human puppets could also perform nin- and genjutsu. He had so many secret weapons it wasn't funny.

"Where are they?"

"They were the ones at the gate."

"Good. Have some of them give a quick scan around."

"On it boss." The clone connected the chakra string from his neck and closed his eyes. Naruto looked around and nodded in satisfaction; the place was very nice. "Eh boss, I've just caught another one." The clone's eyes were still closed in concentration.

"ROOT?"

"Hai, the dude was trying to counter the blood seal on the south gate; probably doesn't know that its unique." He snapped his fingers and looked at his 'boss' "we've finished the memory seal and added it to the heart seal, we're just here to add as much as we can. It seems we have to add a quick scan every 5 hours during the day." The memory seal was a means of controlling the puppets without any clones', it recorded the movements, moves, formations and skills that the clones had the puppets perform so that they would be able to perform a task when it was presented. So far they had to go through all the scenarios they could come up with and incorporate it to the memory seal. (Sort of like programming a computer.)

The real Naruto patted the clone on the shoulder, "sensei nominated my team for the chunin exams; I wouldn't be coming for at most three months, keep everything organized."

"Hai boss."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

He couldn't feel her.

The knowledge scared him. Though he wasn't a model sensei he cared dearly for the girl, albeit in a twisted, psychotic, stupid way. He placed the seal on her for her own benefit but it turned own to be defective, there wasn't anything he could do; he couldn't look at her after he had bitten into her neck. She was betrayed but it was for her own good, she should be thanking him for his last gift to her. The seal connected them in no way like the other seals he had given his other followers.

The man sat on a spiny throne in a dimly lit room, his breath raspy and his body shuddering in the ghostly pain of Itachi's amaterasu. His unnerving yellow slitted eyes glowed in the dark and squinted as another pained shudder flowed through him. His current body was rejecting him but he wasn't scared, he'd soon have that damn Namikaze's son and make him his new body. Maybe it was because his current body was rejecting him that he couldn't concentrate on his precious student. Though almost sadistic as him, he knew Anko's softer side and that was why her 'presence' was soothing. His glazed over eyes snapped to the doorway as a silhouette blocked the light from outside, "what do you want?"

The person was tall and lean, unhealthily so. "I have bad news from Konoha, Orochimaru-sama." He shuffled in nervously and knelt down with his head looking at the ground. He stuttered over a few words but when he heard the snake Sannin's angry hiss he blurted out, "Kabuto sent back a message that Nobu-san was killed." If the man had the strength to stand up he would rip into the poor boy, but he settled for a deranged yell. The boy used the chance to make a swift escape.

The man kept yelling, he searched for his students feeling to calm him down but still couldn't find her. He clamped down his jaws when the yell turned pained, the pain was almost unbearable, "Kimimaro!"

Footsteps pounded towards him, "yes Orochimaru-sama." This boy was also tall and lean but he held himself more like a robot, without any trace of fear for the man but an ultimate amount of respect and unquenchable loyalty for the man before him.

"Find any worthy person to be my new body and bring him back here! Now!" he grabbed the boy by his neck and held him, the man quietly hissed to Kimimaro's face "do not fail me, Kimimaro." And threw him towards the door.

"Hai, Orochimaru-sama."

'Anko, where are you?'

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

'Interesting.'

This was the collective thought of team 14. The first exam was to separate them into three groups with no two team mates in the same group and the jounin in charge of a group would intimidate them into quitting and when most of the weak willed chunin hopeful pulled out they revealed the true reason for that particular exam. If one person in the other group ran away with his/her tail between his/her legs then the whole team would be evicted from the exams. It was pathetic really. Almost as pathetic as the second test.

In all honesty, it was harder than the first. The remaining teams were then shoved into the forest of death with either a red or a blue scroll, tasked to collect the other coloured scroll and report to the tower in the centre of the deadly forest, doing all of this and also avoiding capture from chunin Inuzuka and Hyuuga.

This is where we find ourselves…

Finding and collecting the scrolls was nothing to the Anko trained genin, avoiding capture from a particularly vexed group of Inuzuka chunin was another thing entirely.

"Hold still you damn bitch!" one of the three feral chunin yelled to Ami. The girl rolled away from the unrestrained 'fang over fang' and jumped over the man's partner. The man stopped for a breather and was about to move for another attack but he and his ninken were promptly held down by three chakra arms courtesy of Naruto. Ami gave him a thumb up and went through some hand seals that ended on the dragon seal.

'Purple illusion: black ice snake's smile!'

The custom made genjutsu was a by-product of the girl's nightmares. It showed a snake like shadowy construct winding around the victim-restricting his arms at his side-sending cold tendrils over him. The construct wore a blank, eyeless mask that would level with the persons face and slip off revealing an equally eyeless but toothy creature that would open his mouth in an impossibly wide grin, showing of serrated teeth that wound down further into its throat. The mouth would glow black and the victim would feel like his eyes were being sucked out of his body along with his soul. This was what was happening to the Inuzuka chunin, his brown eyes dilated and his mouth opened in horror, then he passed out into blissful unconsciousness, his ninken following suit.

The blonde lay the man down gently and checked behind him to see how his other team mate was doing against the equally if not more enrage chunin. He was doing fine; he had his mummy puppet fight alongside him.

Why were the chunin mad? The only girl in the genin team thought it would be funny to set wedgie traps along with her normal low level traps to delay the obviously easily enraged chunin and their ninken.

The ROOT agent back flipped a slash and punch from the partners, giving the mummy an opening for a particularly vicious heel kick to the human partners jaw. The man stumbled back but the dog clamped his jaws on the mummy's leg, the puppet cackled and speed wrapped the animal in its chakra draining bandages, knocking it out in a minute. The mummy gestured to the last Inuzuka that was tied to a tree to Sai, the boy nodded and drew some ink tentacles, commanding them to hold the pair, allowing the purple haired girl to go through a different set of hand seals and she cast another custom made illusion.

'Purple illusion: Yami's army!'

This illusion made the receiver think her were in one of Suna's deserts, running on fumes, till they hear an ominous trumpet and the sand turned to black silt and the cloudless sky slowly formed green clouds that poured diluted acid on them. The will to live would be drained from them when bone white skeletal hands erupt from the ground and drag them in, and in the ground, effectively knocking them out when they entered the ground. Sai instructed the tentacle to drop the man and his partner onto the ground and the whole team looked at the last man who had recovered from the powered kick a second later.

The man growled defiantly at them when he saw his team out cold lying on the ground. He was about to run at them in a last ditch-and dumb-effort at over powering them but slumped on the ground like a rag doll after a step when the missing mummy puppet erupted from the ground and chopped his neck. The creations weapon secured on its back, but it wasn't black but it was a normal scythe (you know, wood and steel). Naruto had the real obsidian scythe on his back.

"That was fun!" the genjutsu specialist exclaimed as she put her arms behind her head and sauntered in the general direction of the tower.

"We can't just leave them here, you know, wild animals could eat them." The sole blonde piped up tonelessly. He threw a kunai into the bush in front of him, scaring away a tiger that prowled on the other side, the humongous creature recognised their scent and knew better than to challenge them.

"Leave a clone or something." She waved at him dismissively. The made a sealless clone and jumped into the trees, Sai at his side and Ami behind him. They were the first team to reach the tower and the only team to present more than two sets of the coloured scrolls.

"Congratulations to all who have made it to this last stage in the exams." The Yondaime was the one who spoke; he then went into a long winded monologue about the real reason for the chunin exams (dudes', I am not writing that). The war veteran glanced over all the chunin aspirants with a wide grin. He swished his arms to his right, motioning for someone behind him to come forward, "Kakashi, your turn."

The masked man sighed dourly and snapped his porn closed. He stepped forward and said, "You guys are too many, so there would be a preliminary round before the real third round." True to his words there were 8 teams, making 24 genin. The genin though were out raged and some voiced this very loudly, Kakashi though looked over them with a bored eye, "shut up. If there is anyone here that doesn't think he or she is fit enough to continue the third exams they can leave, those left on your team can proceed without you no problem." None raised their hands. The man's shoulders slumped in defeat, "well then, if you turn your gazes to the screen above you would be able to see who you're matched against."

'Neoshiki Ba of Kiri vs. Mita Saito of Suna.'

"The rest of you beside the named genin should go to the competitors' booth and wait your turn." Ba was a sickly looking boy from Kiri. His skin was bland, his eyes held heavy bags and his hair was stringy and limp. He wore a dull yellow short sleeved shirt with an impossible number of pockets on it and red pants that had absolutely no pockets at all. His arms were so thin they looked skeletal, but from his quiet but confident posture you would know that he was far from sick, though the masked proctor still asked, "er…are you sure you want to compete; you don't look too good." The boy glared darkly at him in response. The man rolled his eye and looked at the other boy. The boy was from Suna; his skin was golden brown from tanning. He wore a sandy brown camo scarf and equally sandy brown camo baggy pants. His shirt was black with the kanji for 'chameleon' on his right chest with an intricately drawn chameleon winding over his left arm that the sleeve was torn off. His hair was styled into a green mohawk that shadowed his left eye with an overhanging bang. The boy was busy waving to the crowd, occasionally blowing a kiss to a girl he thought winked at him. "Kid…" the boy did little tap dance for the crowd and was met with the satisfying sound of laughter. "…Mita, are you ready."

The boy stretched his body for a full minute before he responded, "yup."

The man chopped his hands between them and yelled, "Neoshiki Ba vs. Mita Saito. Fight." He jumped back and Ba jumped back as well to dodge Mita's long tongue. The boy retracted it and shot it out again but the sickly boy ran up the wall and back flipped, the appendage impacted the wall and cracked it. Ba put his hand into one of his pockets. The one at is lower back, and brought out a bone white kunai and threw it at the organ, the sand genin pulled it back into his mouth and spat out the rocks that came with it. His tattoo glowed orange and then he shimmered out of sight, the pale Kiri genin jumped into the middle of the arena, closed his right eye and held the snake seal.

'Ninja art: Shiki's eye view.'

Kage's booth

"I haven't heard of that jutsu before, Mizukage-dono." The Kazekage muttered loudly, he looked at the young woman who wore a proud grin, "and I feel like this year's chunin exams will show more of these unfamiliar jutsu." (True that!)

"Ba is a special case; after Kumo-dono helped us win the civil war we found Ba-kun under the rubble in the Kage's tower. He couldn't use some of the conventional jutsu, so he had to make his own. What of Mita, Kazekage-dono, what's his story?"

"The boy and his family were immigrants from Kusa, his father works in my council and he told me that Mita was the only one in their family that the chameleons trusted enough to sign their contract."

The Hokage hummed in thought and asked, "two very special cases and I also feel like this exams would reveal something never seen before." The other Kage's nodded in agreement.

In the arena

Ba suddenly threw his kunai to his right and ran after it, the weapon clanged out of the air, the boy kicked where it clanged off and the chameleon summoner melted back into sight and fell on his knees, holding his stomach and gasping for air. The pale boy gave him another kick but this time to his head but the boy contorted his body and slinked backwards. He stood up and ran at his opponents. He jabbed the Kiri nin on his chest but on contact he felt a small stinging pain, he parried the pale boys kick and felt the pain but stronger, in his distraction Ba palm struck his chest and stepped back. Yellow veins protruded from Mita's chest to his neck till it covered his body, he gasped and fell on his knees again.

"It would be wise if you forfeit Mita-san. A human can only take so much lack of oxygen." Neoshiki said to his asphyxiating opponent. The boy's face was turning a deep purple contrasting the bright yellow veins on his body. Kakashi looked at him but held his surprise in when Mita stumbled to his feet and took a stance.

"Fat chance." He cart wheeled forward and a spikey tail grew out of his tail bone. The boy blurred to his opponent and wrapped the spiny appendage around his body, Ba grabbed the tail but jerked it off when an uber sharp bone shot out of it then his eyes widened when Mita's tongue wrapped around his throat, all the while his own face getting deeper and deeper purple. Ba struggled in the hold and gasped when the Suna nin punched his stomach again and again. He tried wriggling out of the hold but the tail and tongue tightened around him, making breathing all the more harder. The punches kept coming and his struggling lessened.

"that's enough, winner Mita!" said boy let go of his pale opponent and at the same time they collapsed onto the ground, but Ba still found the strength to crawl over, put his hand on Mita's shoulder and suck out his chakra. "Medics!"

(I'm not going to write all the awesome matches, just the noteworthy ones.)

'Ami of Konoha vs. Jogu of Taki' (I can't remember the name)

The purple haired girl looked at her team mates in a rare show of nerves. The blonde allowed a small smile to show on his face and he patted her shoulder while Sai grinned and slapped her back. She winced from the contact but still pulled them into a quick group hug, warmed from the friendly hair ruffle from her sensei, and leaped over the railing to her awaiting opponent. The boy was an almost exact replica of Naruto's tank puppet except he frowned heavily and glared darkly at her, and he was a hidden waterfall nin.

"Just give up girlie; you're obviously no match for me." She looked at the crowd till her eyes fell on her surrogate sister. Yugao was uncharacteristically jumping in her seat, cheering for her. She waved at her and turned back to the fat boy, his eyes snapped to where she looked and he smirked evilly, "I bet she knows you'll lose, girlie."

"If that's your best way of intimidating me then you're doing a horrible job." The girl said airily. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and waved to her team who gave her thumbs up.

"Oh and you can do a better job than me?" he snorted. He bellowed a laugh and waved for Kakashi to begin the match.

"Ami vs. Jogu. Fight!"

The girl sniffed and tightened her bandages nonchalantly as she dodged a ground breaking blow to her former position, she yawned and dodged another but this time she tried to stick her kunai into the stretched arm but it clanged off. She followed the arm to Jogu who stood about 15 feet away from her.

"That's my special jutsu. I can stretch as far as I want and my body is as hard as a rock."

"You shouldn't go around telling people your secrets or you could get really hurt." She jumped over another punch and ran on it to him, kicking his head back and flipping off when his other arm came at her.

"Like a pipe squeak girlie could hurt me. Last chance, give up."

She sniffed again and let her hair shadow her eyes, "are you calling me weak?"

"That's exactly what I'm calling you!"

"Good, then I can beat you all I want to prove you wrong." She threw a kunai and detonated it when his arm came up to block. The smoke obscured his view and he used his soccer ball sized hands to wave it away. When it was clear his eyes widened.

He was in a room with a mirror on the wall looking at himself. The room had no windows or doors; it only had the single, large mirror. The Jogu in the mirror was identical to him but the difference was the shadows under his eyes. The held tried to dispel the obvious genjutsu but it didn't even blur at the edges, which meant it was at least higher than B rank. He cursed himself for not learning how to dispel higher genjutsus'.

A chair materialized behind the mirror Jogu with straps and belts that were meant to restrain him, it pulled the boy down, the real one following suit and miming the motion but there was no seat but he still sat on the air with his feet planted on the ground. He heard jaunty whistling more common to sailors and saw Ami washing her hands in a sink that was definitely not there before, she dried it on a cloth, re-wrapped her bandages on her arms and wore a red cooking apron over her apron shirt. She turned around and grinned toothily at him, she was in the mirror with the fake him but not in the still empty room with the real him.

She ghosted her hands on his chubby cheeks and giggled. Ami walked around the chair and grabbed them like handle bars, "I am going to hurt you, Jogu-san. I am going to hurt you really, really bad." The girl licked her lips and taped the mirror Jogu's mouth closed, the real one strangely felt the tape but didn't see it. She looked at a rack of weapons that materialised at her right and picked a tanto. The girl gently put the tanto on the right side of his right chest and slowly pressed it and drew it down till it reached his pelvis, the boy screamed, feeling the invisible pain and struggled against the equally invisible chair. The girl bit her lip in joy and trailed the knife down his other sides till he was all bloody from a weapon that only his mirror self's side had. She jammed the knife into his knees and picked up some smelling salts, waving it under his nose to keep him awake. She giggled and picked up some hot sauce. "Guess what I'm going to do with this." He shook his head hysterically and tried to pull back and away from her. "Correct. You're so smart!"

All the audience saw was the girl standing about 10 feet away from the boy that mimed sitting on a torture chair. His voice was muffled but from the tears that streamed down his face and the screams that made out of passed his mouth all knew he was in a world of pain. The girl sighed in satisfaction and folded her arms behind her head; this went on for a minute before he collapsed on the ground in a dead faint.

'Purple illusion: you see you.'

The masked proctors eyes widened and he yelled for medics. "Winner Ami!"

In the competitors' booth, Anko looked at a sweating Ebisu. She had bet all her life saving and her pay for the next 5 years (let's say 50,000,000ryo) on all her students passing the preliminaries while the man bet on the Yondaime's kid going through and the other two getting killed in their own matches, 200,000ryo for each death. The majority of the other chunin and jounin that were not familiar with her team bet against her with half if not all their life saving. Needless to say, if the assumed weakest could win against a walking tank without touching him then the snake lady would become a very wealthy woman.

Ami walked back to her team and silently looked at her sensei. The woman beamed and silently ruffled her hair, Sai gave her another slap on the back while Naruto nudged her ribs.

'Ito Yumi of Kusa vs. Sai of Konoha'

"Wish me luck Anko-sensei. Dickless, psycho…" the girl grinned and slapped his back, hard, sending him over the railing. He laughed and righted himself before he impacted the ground. Sai's opponent was a ninja from Kusa. He wore a khaki shirt and trousers with white sandals and a white trench coat. He wore shades and a black bandana with a skull on it over his hair but a bit of his red hair escaped the front and fringed between his eyes. His eyes were black and his skin was pale and thin.

"I don't have time for this, see" the boy drawled, his blue tongue slipping out and licking his lips, "just give up and go home, see, 'cause I'm going to win this exams, see, and you will die if you proceed, see"

"I hope you're as strong as you think you are, Ito-san." Sai responded.

"Ito Yumi vs. Sai. Fight!"

Ito slipped out a metal walking stick from his coat and smirked, 'secret art: song of a million bullets'

And true to the name, it rained bullets, not from the sky though.

"Dance! See, dance!" the man yelled in ecstasy. He fired bullet after bullet at the boy who ran around the arena from the lethal slugs. The bullets stopped but the other boy just cocked the stick and started firing it again.

Sai chose to hide behind a tree that took the brunt of the attacks valiantly. Plans whizzed in his mind till he settled for the easiest one he could think of and mentally thanked his blonde team mate. 'Earth release: hiding like a mole' he slides into the ground and all traces of his presence disappeared. He stalked to the crazed gunslinger and pulled him under till only his head remained. The black haired boy jumped out of the ground and held a kunai to his throat.

"That was quick," Kakashi murmured, "winner, Sai."

Ebisu wanted to die. He looked at his team and gave them a brave-but fake-smile. He was done for.

The snake lady looked at him and gave him a feral grin with a finger wriggling wave. She saw her student look at her expectantly, "you did good, kid." Though it was small, she saw the relief wash over his face, the boy turned around and grinned at the last team mate whose name had popped up on the screen.

'Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze of Konoha vs. Hamacho Sho of waterfall'

Kage's booth

"My money's on Naruto. That other guy has no chance."

"You say that as if you know my sons fighting style, Kazekage-dono." Minato said, he glanced at the female Kage and raised an eyebrow, "you too huh?" the woman nodded.

"I have a good idea on how he fights."

Flashback

This is about the time he moved out of the house after the birthday.

"How have you been, Gaara?" Naruto said to the red head. They were in one of the rooms in The Golden Leaf hotel, trying to catch up on lost time. Temari couldn't come because she wasn't feeling too well and Kankuro chose to follow his father to the Kage's tower for the meeting that was usually held every time they visited. The two 8 year olds sat opposite each other, actually smiling. Gaara laid his gourd near his bed, while Naruto laid a large scroll beside it. "I hope Temari gets better."

"She'll be fine. Things in Suna are too dull, you know. At least my control over my sand is better, thanks to your kaa-san, that's good." Naruto waved his hands dismissively and reclined in his seat, "so what was that secret project you were doing that you couldn't tell me through letter?"

The blonde looked around the room conspiratorially and whispered, "I'm learning how to fight with puppets."

"Like Kankuro-nii-san?" the blonde nodded, "cool! Can you show me?"

Naruto wriggled his fingers and a thin green thread coiled out of his index finger, reached into his coat and pulled out a small, plain wooden puppet. He connected the rest of his fingers to it and commanded the creation to dance around the room. "I'm still on the smaller puppets but soon I'll be on the bigger ones."

"That's still cool."

Time skip: 3 hours later

Both boys lay on the grass looking at the clouds with their gourd and scroll lying beside them.

"Ne Gaara," the red head grunted beside him, "I saw this cool taijutsu scroll in the library, you wanna see what I can do?" The red head looked at him and sat up. The blonde jumped to his feet and stretched his arms, he then breathed in deeply and raised his right hand to Gaara. "I promise I won't hurt you." He started off slowly till he built up speed and there were a few after images, not too many but plenty enough to entrance the jinchuriki. The boy swayed in his seat and straightened up when his friend stopped. Naruto groaned and rubbed his shoulders sorely.

Hidden from their sight the Kazekage and his son, Kankuro, watched the display, impressed at the speed Naruto already has to make after images.

Flashback end

In the arena

Hamacho was a burly man with a cocky smirk plastered on his face as he stared at his bored opponent. Though Naruto did wave at his sister and Shin yu in the crowd who were surrounded by a gaggle of gossiping girls from her class that giggled and winked at him. Hamacho was shirtless and had brown shorts that frayed at the edges; he was also barefoot but had a hard hat on his head. He slung a war hammer over his shoulders and looked down on the blonde.

"Your team mate traumatized my team mate, and Jogu is like a brother to me which means that means I'm going to take out my violent frustrations on you, Kage's son or not." Naruto just silently cocked his head to the side and removed the black scythe that was strapped to his back. "Do you even know how to use that thing?" still no answer, besides a bored blink.

"Last match, Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze vs. Hamacho Sho. Fight!"

Hamacho raised his hammer above his head and it glowed a deep blue, "I call my weapon 'kami's finger,' do you want to know why," silence, the boy took a stance with his scythe across his chest, "because it can do this…" he zipped to the boy and brought his weapon down on Naruto. The blonde, not fazed by the surprising show of speed, raised his weapon just in time to catch the hammer and the subsequent lightening that tried to surge through him but was countered by the toxic chakra he insulated his scythe with. His arms shook from the pressure of the blow and he skidded back a few feet before he stopped, smoke coming off his spotless black weapon and his slightly singed coat sleeves. He blocked another blow but this time he was prepared. He caught the blow and shifted his weight to the side so the attacks momentum would carry Hamacho down. The older man though rolled forward and slammed his hammer onto the ground, the blond slammed the butt of his weapon and the resounding shockwaves pushed themselves to a standstill.

The bulky man's eyes widened in pure, unadulterated shock; no one had ever blocked his 'kami's finger'. The boy gave a small smirk and ran forward, his scythe behind him, the man tried to slam the hammer on him but he slide under his legs and the long weapon made the man trip. He kicked Hamacho's side and used the blunt side of his weapon to whack his ribs, he heard a satisfying crunch. The man grunted and rolled away, picking himself up and readying his hammer. He caught a hack in time and parried a slash narrowly, sparks flew everywhere after contact. The fighters' arms blurred. The slashes and blocks kept raining down on the struggling man until the sunglasses wearing boy feinted a slash to the man's stomach and used the butt to bash the side of his head, effectively dazing him. He followed up with a snap kick to the head and another kick to the other side of the head.

The man was obviously not used to being man handled; he looked like he would fall down anytime soon. The puppeteer swung the blunt side of his weapon up at the tall man's chin and he fell back like a tree, even booming when he met the ground. He walked to the man and held the scythe to his throat and looked at Kakashi, who eye smiled at him.

"Winner Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze! Damn kid, where did you learn how to fight like that?" The boy didn't hear him though; his green shaded eyes were fixed on his father in the Kage's booth. The man was wide eyed and gaping, not too far behind him was his red haired mother, equally in shock. He sighed and trudged back to his team. Kakashi cleared his throat and asked the remaining genin to come down and pick a number. (I'm not going to call all 16 genin, just those in team Anko.)

Ami of Konoha vs. Mita Saito of Suna

Sai of Konoha vs. Ito Yumi of Kusa

Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze of Konoha vs. Sistene of Taki.

"Come back in a month's time for the real third round, dismissed." The copy ninja said more to himself than out loud, though he was still audible, as he read his porn. He waved them away and shunshin'd to a more private spot, giggling perversely all the way.

The snake mistress looked down on her students and felt a warm feeling fill her chest. She ruffled their hair one by one, though her hands shook when she reached Naruto-who flinched and readied his senbon launcher. She placed her hands on her hips and smiled, "I'm proud of all of you. Take the next four days off to relax or hang out with your friends. Training starts after the small break so don't miss out. Dismissed. Oh and Naruto-kun" she called out to him as he was about to run out, he gulped when he heard her moan, "…erm, I have this kink in my back, can you help me rub it out?"

"Sorry I think I hear my sister calling me, see you later sensei." And he disappeared just in time to avoid some ensnaring snakes.

She growled, "I will have you, Naruto-kun, and we will have explosive sex even if it's the last thing I do…" the few spectators-thankfully not his parents-stepped away from the woman as she stomped out of the arena, muttering about, "sex…red light district…and more sex."

Authors note

Pardon my laziness on not writing all 16 matches but my fingers can only type so much. I'm not too good with dialogues but I still tried right? This month alone I published about three 'short' stories, try and read them in my profile. I will shamelessly advertise myself till you dudes try my other books! *grins*

This is the dawn of the 'DUCI2' series written by yours truly.

Have no fear; Naruto is still the same only that now he's trying to be a team player.

I want a vote. Who wants Naruto to finally have sex with Anko? When he's older of course or whatever. I want to hear your ideas, opinions, criticism, etc.

Review!

B.j.