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Naruto watched the fight in satisfaction. The bug boy did a rather thourough job of defeating the sound-nin. Kind of gruesome really, making the nin's arms explode, but he liked it. Sound nin deserved it, working for that snake bastard.
He didn't pay attention to the next fight, but showed some interest in the one after. It was Sakura and the loud mouthed blonde haired girl she seemed to be friends with. He watched the fight with some disdain. The fight was ridiculous. They didn't fight like true ninjas. Of the two, the blonde was the better fighter, at least she knew a decent jutsu. He watches silently as the blonde girl traps his teamate in a mind jutsu and makes her give up. 'Pathetic. Maybe if she had done something but be a fangirl to sasuke she could have turned out to be a decent kunoichi.' He put his mask back up when she returned to the stage. She looked completely humiliated. He said "It's ok, Sakura-chan, you'll..."
Sakura cried "Shut it Naruto! I got taken down by one jutsu! What kind of ninja am I?" Tears ran down her face. Naruto would usually do some comforting thing, although he really didn't feel like it. He said "Well, just train harder next time. You'll make it. You haven't spent much time training." His team looked at him, surprised by his serious answer.
Naruto ignored them and watched the next fight. Again, it was between two kunoichi. One was from leaf and the other from sand. He put his money on the one from sand. He watched the fight. He was right, it was brutal and over fast. He liked the way she took care of business though. Now she was a kunoichi worth respect!
He watched the next fight with a little less interest until he noticed that the lazy shadow user was paired up against another nin from sound, then he frowned, suddenly more interested. He scowled as she seemed to be winning, but then smirked at the end when Shikamaru won by backing her into a wall. 'I suppose one can afford to be lazy when you can do things like that. I wish that wasn't a bloodline trait. It'd be a good jutsu to have.'
The next match was his other team mate against the dog boy, Kiba. The Uchiha took care of Kiba without a lot of trouble with a few of his fancy fire attacks and some taijutsu. Not a very interesting match, though. He did like the look he saw on his face, but he decided against calling him out. Mocking wasn't something that he was known to do. He needed to keep his mask perfect to avoid suspicion for the rest of the exam.
In the eighth match, the Hyuugas fought each other. Naruto had stayed silent in the other fights, but Neji had always irked him and he thought that Hinata had the potential to be a good ninja if she got over her confidence problem. He listened to Neji mock her and could only stand it up to a point. He yelled "Don't listen to him, Hinata! You can beat him! You're stronger than you think! Don't let other people keep telling you you're weak. Show them how strong you are! You can do it!"
Hinata looked up, in the crowd. Just as she had been feeling most down and Neji's words had begun to take effect, he had called down and his words heartened her. Naruto believed in her. He thought she was strong, and that meant the world to her. She felt her confidence return and thought 'I will not make Naruto-kun a liar! I will give this everything I have!' She turned back to Neji with determined eyes.
"I will not give up!"
Neji frowned "It's your funeral."
They began fighting. Naruto frowned when he noticed that even though Hinata was giving it everything she had, the arrogant Neji was still beating her and mocking her while he was doing it. It made him angry. He grabbed his shoulder. 'Teme...' When he noticed that he was beginning to feel rage, he closed his eyes 'Crap! I can't lose control. Someone will find out what happened!'
The Kyuubi sounded in his mind 'Direct your killer intent at him. That will throw him off balance.'
'Won't everyone else feel it?'
'No, not if I help.'
Naruto let the Kyuubi have some control and smiled as he focused his full killer intent upon Neji.
Down on the ground, Neji froze, feeling like the temperature around him had just dropped to freezing. He couldn't move. It was then that Hinata used Hakke Rokujuyon Sho, Eight Trigrams Sixty-four Palms. All of them hit as Neji was paralyzed. He fell, weaked from the fight and the attack of the killer intent.
Naruto's killer intent vanished and he smiled. "Good going Hinata!" She looked up and waved at him, though she looked a little confused. "Winner Hyuuga Hinata." Naruto smiled further, it seemed no one else had picked up on him using his killer intent on Neji.
Kakashi looked at Naruto. The air had seemed a little colder a minute ago, what was that about? Oh well, maybe he was imagining it. Naruto didn't seem to be the cause of it. He seemd to be back to his happy self. It was strange that the Hyuuga boy just froze in the middle of the match like that.
Naruto stretched. There were only two fights left. He smirked as he saw the Hyuuga boy being carried away in a stretcher, but was quick to hide it. Hinata came up. He walked over "Good job, Hinata. I knew you could do it!"
Hinata blushed, her thoughts of the weirdness of how the fight turned out gone at her crush's praise. "Arigato, Naruto-kun."
He grinned "You didn't stutter!"
Hinata blushed more "A..ano..."
Naruto smiled "How about we get something to eat after this is over, just the two of us?"
Hinata passed out. "Hinata?"
Kurenai came over with a smile. She said "I think she's a bit tired from the fight. It was something."
Naruto nodded "Yeah, she was great."
"Yes, but don't you think it was weird how Neji just stood there and let her hit him?"
Naruto shrugged. "The guy seems to have a lot on his mind. Is Hinata going to be ok?"
Kurenai smiled once more. Naruto was relieved. It seemed she wasn't suspicious of him, as he had at first feared, she continued "She'll be fine. I'm sure she'll want to go eat with you. Come meet us after the preliminaries are over."
"Hai." Naruto wandered around, back to the area where he had been standing, but stopped when he saw who was fighting in the next fight. It was a red haired boy against that kid who was a clone of his teacher. Seeing the red haired boy made him excited. He was strong. Suddenly he felt himself itching for a fight, then he realized that it wasn't really him, it was the seal. It wanted to fight and it was starting to throb. He thought 'Kyuubi, do something...'
Kyuubi responded gruffly 'I did what I can, suppress it yourself.'
Naruto watched the match. It was going much as he expected, with the red haired boy winning, then Lee started to glow "What the...what technique is that?"
A voice next to him said "Lee is opening up the gates."
Naruto looked up. He had somehow wandered next to the clone boy's instructor. He looked worried. "The gates?"
"If he uses the technique for too long or opens up any more gates, he could die." Naruto watched in amazement as the boy in spandex starting beating the red haired boy and beating him good. It was a complete reversal of the match so far. He was impressed and a little dissapointed as it seemed the red haired kid took back control with his sand. Only a little dissapointed though, now he felt himself wanting to fight with the red haired boy. It would be a great fight...It was then that the boy locked eyes with him and broke his opponents arm and leg. The grin that the red haired boy gave him was a challenging one; bloodthirsty. Naruto returned it for the briefest of moments, then said "Man, that was brutal."
Kakashi again thought he felt or saw something strange, but it was as if when he blinked, it was gone. He shrugged.
Naruto was highly annoyed with the number of sound nin that made it to the preliminaries. He thought 'I should have taken them out in the forest of death!' He started to get angry again 'For serving him they should die! Oro-teme...' He just stopped himself from growling and put his mask back firmly in place just in time. Kakashi chose that second to look his way. Naruto wanted to do something, but he didn't dare something like last time. He scowled, but the sound genin had won the match. He consoled himself with the fact that he had been the only one who had. He was relieved, however, when the matchups were over. 'Now I can go get rid of this thing.' Unbidden, images of the red haired boy popped up in his mind and he felt the desire to fight him again. Then, images of Hinata. 'Oh, that's right.' He went to talk to her.
On the way over, he nearly ran into the red haired boy and the blonde haired kunoichi from earlier. He was about to walk past when she stopped him "Hey, who are you, kid? I saw your fight. What did you do to him?"
Naruto looked at her, studying her. He asked "I overloaded his chakra coils."
"That's kind of brutal for a leaf nin. You almost killed him. He might die."
Naruto said "He's still alive then?" With some disinterest mixed in with dissapointment.
Temari frowned. This blonde kid was strange. Suddenly she got the chills. The blonde kid and her brother were staring at each other.
Gaara felt Shukaku start to scream at him from within his mind 'Kill! kill!! There will be so much blood! And it will last!' Gaara began to grin.
Temari shivered. Hadn't the fight with the other boy been enough? Gaara had already killed others before his match. Was he still bloodthirsty? What chilled her more was to see the blonde stare back at Gaara, not with a scared look like she expected, but a matching bloodthirsty grin.
"Naruto!"
Naruto shook his head, snapping out of it, when he heard someone call his name. He turned around "Oi, Hinata, how'd you get over here?"
She blushed "I walked around, I thought maybe you couldn't hear me..." She shuffled her feet, her voice getting softer and softer.
Naruto said "Oh, sorry, Hinata. Let's go get some ramen."
"O..ok." She blushed harder as Naruto grabbed her hand. She left with him.
Temari thought 'Another boy like Gaara? That one gives me just as bad a case of chills as Gaara, if not worse. Who is he?'
Gaara said "I want to fight him"
Temari didn't think it was the time to remind her brother of the mission and the rules, though she did say "It may have to wait until the tournament a month from now, Gaara."
Gaara said "No. I want to fight him now!"
Temari said "The fight will be better in the tournament, Gaara, besides, if you fight outside the tournament, there will be leaf nin after you and you don't want to ruin the plan, do you?"
Gaara scowled and looked at his big sister threateningly. He said "I don't care about what father wants to do."
Temari hoped that meant he would leave the boy alone. If they got into a fight, she felt that, for some reason, it would be one that would get a lot of attention, the bad kind and father would kill her and kankuro if his plan failed. She would have said that he would have killed Gaara too, but everyone knew that Gaara couldn't be killed. She frowned, thinking back to the fight with the green spandex kid. He had hurt Gaara; something that she didn't think was possible. This kid...that was so like Gaara...what was he capable of?
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So, what do you think guys? RandR.