Hello, everyone, here's the new chapter. Enjoy!
* Review response:
Hakkyou no Yami, only for you I will answer such question. Naruto will (normally) be able to use only doton. He will train in using Kyuubi's yoki and, seeing that in this story sealed Kyuubi is nothing more that a mindless semiconscious mass of yoki, Naruto will be able to master it rather quickly. While using yoki, Naruto will be able to use youton and a bit of katon as well. Is this enough for an explanation?
nobother, eclipseX, doragonculaw, OBSERVER01, Reishin Amara, Hanzo of the Salamander, thank you!
Elemental Dragon Swordman, in preliminaries only one fight will be the same. In finals - two. But why am I telling you this? The whole thing is written just below.
ChaosLord SilverLink310, Still Not Dead Yet, Kabuto will be involved in the discussion, but only on the side note.
* Jutsu list:
Shunshin - (D-rank) Body flicker - 'teleportation' jutsu. Has several variations, including suna shunshin.
Bushin - (E-rank) - creates illusionary copy of user.
Chouju giga: shimure- (B-rank) Super beast imitation drawing: pride - allows to animate ink drawings, specifically a group of lions in this case.
Doton: iwa bushin - (B-rank) Earth style: stone clone - (credit for this jutsu goes to PalXan) creates stone-made solid copy of user. Stone clones are physically strong and have their own mind (although very weak so are most effectively used as a 'puppets'). Stone clones are easily affected by genjutsu. They are pretty hard to destroy physically, but have limited lifetime (the more chakra they are given when created, the longer their 'life' is). To create stone clone user must be near any sourse of material for clone (stone/brick-made walls, stone blocks, stones, sandy/rocky ground etc.)
Zankuha - (D-rank) Decapitating air waves - weaponised waves of air pressure.
Doton: ganchuusou - (unknown rank) Earth style: rock pillar spear - creates earth spear(s).
Sabaku soso - (unknown rank) Sand funereal - Gaara's sand crushes its captive.
Gatsuga - (C-rank) Dual piercing fang - Kiba and Akamaru turn into gray 'tornados' and attack their target.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Naruto" in any shape or form.
"speaking"
'thinking'
"speaking of higher beings / Naruto while using yoki / jutsus / Iruka's 'demon head' speaking"
'thinking of higher beings'
chapter 9: Chuunin selection exams, part II
The room Ibiki led was simple, with bare concrete walls and two two tier beds with simple mattresses, four small wardrobes and a door leading to the bathroom. But for the four days this will do. The proctor of the first test sat on one bed's lower tier, while three genins sat across from him on the other bed.
"OK, now." Ibiki started. "First, Naruto, I got your message and I agree with you. One of the ANBU operatives will investigate this case, but that's not what I wanted to discuss." He said.
"What is it then, Ibiki-san?" The Kyuubi jinchuuriki asked.
"I was getting to it." The large man said. "When Iruka-san passed your team, he classified you as a potential battlefield reconnaissance cell and asked Hokage-sama to see whether I can teach one of you basic interrogation techniques." Both Naruto and Sachiko were surprised: Iruka up to now trained them as a front line fighting team, so they thought that they will be one, not some kind of specialized cell... Seeing their faces, Ibiki roared with laughter. "I see. Iruka-san hasn't told you his vision of your team. But then again, he didn't know whether I – or anyone else who specializes in interrogation – will agree to teach you... Anyway, from the information about you three I collected, I gather that Naruto and Sachiko are more of the fighters while Sai's skills are honed more for information gathering and redistribution?"
"That will be correct." The pale boy confirmed with a nod.
"In this case it will be logical to teach you, Sai, into the interrogator, but I can see that right now you lack the understanding of emotions and ability to play with others' minds for that. So I will say this: in four months, I will meet with you again and we will decide, whom I will take as an apprentice, if I will take one at all." The team five nodded.
"Thank you, Ibiki-san." Sachiko said. The proctor of the first test nodded.
"OK... This will be all I wanted to tell you..." After saying that, the jounin stood up and walked towards the door, only to stop with his hand on door handle. "Oh, I forgot to tell you that this tower has a mess that is located in the basement." Genins nodded: the mess will save them quite a lot of rations as they will have to wait for four days until the next test. Giving the three a curt nod as a 'goodbye', Ibiki left their room...
Later, in the mess, the team five found out that the Sand trio was the first team to complete the second test. Down there, Gaara gave a small nod to Naruto, reminding the Kyuubi jinchuuriki about his desire to fight him, but the interaction between two teams didn't go past this point...
For the next two days these two teams were the only ones who completed the test, but in the afternoon of the third day, team eight from Konoha arrived. But still team five was mostly by themselves... This changed a bit when a day later the Ino-Shika-Cho trio arrived, and the platinum-blond kunoichi decided to annoy Sachiko with her new experiences... Couple of hours after team ten, the only team from the Hidden Sound, that passed the first test, reached the tower, followed closely by the 'team Gai'... Two hours before the time for the second test would be up, team seven and Kabuto's team, as well as a team from the Hidden Rain, joined those, who passed this portion of the chuunin selection exams...
When the time was up, chuunin assistants called the teams that passed the second test to the big arena in the center of the tower. Once everyone was there, Hokage gave the speech about the true purpose of the chuunin exams and answered some questions genins had. Then a sickly-looking jounin shunshin'ed into the arena in front of Hokage.
"Please, allow me to take from there, Hokage-sama." The man said and at Sarutobi's nod, he continued. "I'm Hayate and I'll be the proctor of the third test." The man coughed. "But before that, seeing that so many of you passed the second test, we will have preliminaries that will be simple one on one fights. If you don't feel well or just want to quit after the previous test, say now." He coughed again. Kabuto raised his hand, much to Naruto's surprise, as the silver-haired teen seemed to be alright. Then the Kyuubi jinchuuriki saw Ibiki nod to himself, too trying to understand Kabuto's reasoning... After the silver-haired teen was removed from the list of contestants – he was the only one who did quit – the large tableau appeared on the wall. "On this screen names of two ninja that will fight in the preliminary match will appear. As for the rules..." Hayate coughed again. "...Killing your opponent is forbidden and I can stop the match at any time I want. After the match is stopped, no fighting is allowed. Is that clear?" There was a chorus of 'hai' from genin contestants. "Let's start then." Names flashed on the screen for some time, before stopping on the two. "Our first match will be Haruno Sakura vs. Sachiko, both from Konohagakure no Sato." The proctor of the third test coughed once more. "I would ask the rest of you to move to the balconies." All but two genins quickly disappeared from the arena floor – Naruto, though, didn't forget to kiss Sachiko a good luck. "Are you ready?" Hayate asked.
"Yes, ready to lose, whore?" Sakura taunted. "After all you stand no chance against me as I trained with Sasuke-sama." The white-haired kunoichi simply ignored the banshee, and nodded to the proctor. Up on the balconies, Naruto had to use a lot of self-control not to jump down and punish Sakura for badmouthing his girlfriend.
"You may start then." Hayate said, before disappearing into the background. The pink-haired girl immediately charged at Sachiko with her fist raised for the strike, but her opponent made no move. Now completely sure of her victory, Sakura tried to punch the white-haired kunoichi's midsection, but only whimpered rather pathetically when her fist collided with the chakra-enchanted leather jacked. Surprised, Sakura did a step back, rubbing her fist... Sachiko raised her eyebrow, before commenting:
"That was useless." The pink-haired girl sent her a glare.
"Shut up, whore." And she attacked again, this time trying to hit Sachiko's face with her right foot. The attack was stopped by the white-haired girl with just two fingers. Then she wrapped her hand around Sakura's ankle and threw the banshee away. Groaning from her rough landing, Sakura stood up. "You stand no chance for Sasuke-sama's heart, whore, as I will show his who's the best by defeating you." In response Sachiko only shrugged. She could 'see' that Sakura really was good for nothing and had no real chance of winning this match. Too bad, Sakura couldn't see it... "Bunshin no jutsu!" The banshee announced loudly as three illusive copies of her appeared. Then all four charged at Sachiko, who simply followed the movements of the one with the shadow, easily blocking the fist to her head. Sakura was so surprised that her attack failed completely that she lost concentration over the clones and they disappeared. "H-How?"
"Academy clones do not have shadows." The white-haired girl said, before simply vanishing from Sakura's sight. Moment later Sachiko reappeared behind pink-haired girl and pressed the stiletto to banshee's neck, while holding girl's both hands with her free one. "Game over." Hayate appeared in front of the girls.
"Seeing that Haruno Sakura is unable to continue..." The proctor coughed. "The winner of the first match is Sachiko." The white-haired kunoichi returned the stiletto to its holster and walked away to join her boyfriend on the balcony... Once both fighters of the first match left the arena, the screen showed the next pair. "Will Tsurugi Misumi from Konohagakure no Sato and Kinuta Dosu for Otogakure no Sato come down for the second match?"
The second match wasn't much of an interest as it mostly consisted of Dosu dodging Misumi's attempts to grab him to use his special jutsu while sending back sound-based attacks every chance her got... Eventually, Dosu's sound attacks deteriorated Misumi's control over his body to the point where older genin could no longer stand on his own, thus marking the Oto ninja as the victor of the match.
Then there was the match between Kagari from the Hidden Rain and Akimichi Chouji from Konoha. The ...big-boned boy clearly dominated his opponent in taijutsu and moved fast enough to never let Kagari switch to long-ranged ninjutsu. Needless to say, Chouji won his match, and did it quite stylishly too... After the Ame-nin was carried away by the medical team, the forth match was announced.
"Will Akado Yoroi and Sai, both from Konohagakure no Sato, come down for the next match?" Hayate asked, before coughing for god-knows-what time this day. When both fighters were on the arena floor and facing each other, the proctor asked his next question: "Are you two ready?" At their nods, he wagged his hand and called 'Hajime!' before disappearing into the background... Not wasting any time, Yoroi ran through a set of handseals, before activating strange blue glow around his right hand. The moment that happened, the older genin charged at Sai, but the pale boy skillfully evaded him, while fishing a scroll out of his pouch. Then, after dodging another attack, he opened it and threw it into the air, revealing its contents to be many drawn lions. This made everyone, who wasn't familiar with pale boy's fighting style, raise an eyebrow.
"Chouju giga: shimure!" A good dozen of pictures came alive and jumped from the scroll onto the arena and immediately attacked Yoroi, simply swarming him with their number... When Sai canceled his jutsu, the older genin was lying without conscious with many tears on his clothes and visible skin.
"As Akado Yoroi is unable to continue fighting, the winner of forth match is Sai." Said Hayate, appearing next to the defeated ninja... The team five congratulated Sai on his victory when he joined them up on the balcony, just like they did with Sachiko not so long before... The proctor, once medics carried Yoroi away, announced the fifth match: Yamanaka Ino vs. Ami. The moment the purple-haired genin stepped on the arena, she immediately began bragging about how good she was compared to her opponent, clearly showing that Sakura's example of what can happen if you overestimate yourself didn't teach her anything. Unlike Sachiko, though, the platinum-blond kunoichi retorted, which almost escalated into verbal duel, but Hayate stopped the girls by asking if they were ready. After the both girls nodded, he started the match and once again disappeared into the background.
"I watched Sasuke-sama train!.." Continued bragging Ami. "You stand no chance against me, pig!" Ino sweatdropped. Was she really like that too? Well, not anymore. Asuma-sensei did a good job of weakening her fangirl tendencies. Plus when she met Sachiko at the Akimichi clan restaurant, she could see in white-haired girl's every movement that she was strong and trained hard. And despite being straight, at least Ino thought she was, she found Sachiko to be an attractive and sexy girl... And now, just after the week of training, the platinum-blond could easily tell that she was stronger than ever before. And no need to keep with sometimes ridiculous diets was a great plus in her book too; Ino liked eating tasty foods...
"Bring it on." Ami blindly charged at her opponent, and was quite surprised when Ino sidestepped her fist, well, she was more surprised by the ease Ino did it with. Using purple-haired girl's surprise to her advantage, the platinum-blond kunoichi kneed Ami to the stomach, making her fall onto the floor. Groaning in pain, Ami tried to stand up, only for Ino to chop at her neck, knocking her unconscious... The whole fight – minus Ami's bragging – lasted less than ten seconds... While Hayate announced her as a victor of the match, Ino stared at her own hands, trying to comprehend the fact that she just defeated the kunoichi that was ranked fifth in the academy with just two hits... The platinum-blond kunoichi slowly, still not completely believing in her victory, walked up onto the balconies and headed to where Sachiko and Naruto were. Once she was there, Ino looked at the white-haired kunoichi, who was standing, leaning into her boyfriend's embrace, and... bowed. Sachiko stared at her in surprise for several seconds, before giving her a smile with her eyes.
"If anything, I'm the one who should be thanking you." Now it was Ino's turn to stare.
"W-Why? You were the one who helped me..." The platinum-blond girl asked in a surprise.
"And you are the one, who stepped onto the path of becoming the real kunoichi, unlike those two who disgrace us by being useless fangirl. For that I thank you." Ino blushed and, giving the white-haired kunoichi one more small bow, walked her team.
During that exchange, the sixth match between Sabaku no Temari and Hyuuga Neji started. Despite his superior taijutsu, the Hyuuga genius could do only so much against fan-wielding kunoichi, who was either sending strong gusts of wind at him with her battle fan, or used the said fan as a club whenever Neji got close to her. In the end, the Hyuuga boy got caught by one of his opponent's wind jutsus. The small tornado Temari created had torn Neji pretty badly, and the moment he was dropped onto the arena floor, Suna kunoichi knocked him unconscious with her fan.
The seventh match was announced then and it was between Hyuuga Hinata and Mubi from the Hidden Rain. Despite her normally meek attitude, in this fight Hinata showed herself to be the real warrior, using her advantages in speed, agility and her taijutsu level to soundly defeat her opponent, destroying him in less than a minute, never giving him even a chance to go on offensive... After the medical team carried Mubi away, the preliminaries moved to the next, eighth, fight.
Tenten fought well, showing her great skills with almost every kind of throwing weapon, but the Suna puppeteer was not the opponent she could defeat with just that: the puppet protected Kankuro for lighter projectiles while he simply dodged heavier ones. When the war-paint wearing boy got tired of this little game, he just sent his puppet to capture Tenten by wrapping its four arms around the girl. Then he made a hidden blade emerge from upper arms and pointed them at the girl's neck. Konoha kunoichi forfeited...
"Ninth match will be..." Hayate said, before giving out a cough. "...Between Uchiha Sasuke from Konohagakure no Sato and Abumi Zaku from Otogakure no Sato. Will these two, please, come down to the arena?" Uchiha boy arrogantly and with no hurry strode down to the arena, while Zaku, who had one of his hands in a cast decided that jumping down straight from the balcony would be faster. After asking both shinobi if they were ready – and getting positive answers – Hayate started the match and, like before, disappeared into the background.
"Now I get the second chance to brake your arms. How convenient." Sasuke said a bit bloodthirstily, which, though, didn't scare his opponent.
"Don't underestimate me. Zankuha!" The last loyal Uchiha barely had time to sidestep the incoming attack. Then charged at Zaku, who tried to hit him with zankuha again. Sasuke evaded it too and appeared in front of the sound ninja, ready to start executing his 'revenge'. But he didn't expect Zaku to move his other arm from the cast and send zankuha point blank... Two of his cheerleaders winced as their Sasuke-sama landed roughly on his back. Trying to use the advantage he created, Oto nin charged at rising from the floor Uchiha boy, intent to the match now. Too bad, he underestimated Sasuke's speed, and his attempt of knocking Sasuke unconscious failed with his fist being caught. Uchiha glared at his opponent for a second, before unscrewing his arm, making Zaku let out a whimper from the pain. Not stopping there, Sasuke threw him down and, capturing his other arm while placing his foot on his back, yanked, smiling sickly when he heard other boy's bones pop of their sockets.
"You are no match for the might of the Uchiha clan. Know your place, scum." Letting Zaku's arm, Sasuke jumped up, before dropping onto the boy's back, most likely breaking his spine. Seeing that the match was over, Hayate appeared next to the fighters, but Sasuke tried to continue beating his opponent. A flash of killing intent later, 'frozen' but victorious Sasuke was handled to Kakashi, while medical team carried Zaku away.
"Ahem... Tenth match will be between..." The proctor waited for the screen to show names. "Aburame Shino and Uzumaki Naruto, both from Konohagakure no Sato." He coughed. "With these two come down for the match?" Sachiko removed herself from her boyfriend's arms and gave him a quick kiss for luck. Now, being motivated like that, Naruto had no other choice bit to win. Seeing that Shino had already almost descended to the arena floor, the Kyuubi jinchuuriki chose to jump down from the balcony to catch up with him... Once both fighters were standing in front of each other and all pre-fight formalities were kept, Hayate wagged his hand to start the match... Shino calmly stood, seemingly just observing his opponent, his face, partially hidden by the high collar, betraying nothing about what was going in his mind. Naruto was standing in front of him in a defensive position, waiting for the Aburame heir to make the first move.
'It seems my colony wouldn't be of much use in draining him: I can't drain more than high chuunin reserves at this point. Naruto-san has at least ANBU-level reserves.' The bug user thought, sending his bugs to obscure his opponent's field of vision, before attacking him with a powerful taijutsu combination. Though the said combination ended the moment his fist collided with Naruto's chest. Shino immediately jumped back, avoiding being hit by the blond and looked at him. Naruto's skin looked to be grayish like it was made of stone. Choosing not to reveal more jutsu from his arsenal than was absolutely necessary, the blond jinchuuriki charged at the Aburame heir, executing his own combo... Remembering from the academy days how strong Naruto was, Shino chose to use his slightly superior speed to avoid being hit, counterattacking at any given chance... Finally seeing that pure taijutsu will give him nothing against such opponent, Naruto did three handseals before slamming his hands against the arena floor.
"Doton: ganchuusou!" Stone spear grew from the floor very fast, making Shino pay attention to it for several moments rather that to the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. Using this distraction wisely, the blond shinobi silently created stone clone and hid under the floor using yet another doton ninjutsu, leaving his doppelganger to continue attacking the Aburame heir with taijutsu moves. But as the clone lacked speed, strength and intelligence of the original, Shino quickly drove it into a corner.
"Naruto-san, it seems that you lost the match." The bug user said in an emotionless voice as he placed kunai to the clone's neck.
"I wouldn't be so sure." Said Naruto's voice from underneath and moment later Shino was pulled under the floor. Naruto emerged in front of him and, drawing his own kunai, placed it against the Aburame heir's neck. Seeing that he was caught, fair and square, Shino forfeited.
"As Aburame Shino forfeited, the winner of the tenth match is Uzumaki Naruto." Announced Hayate, while the blond shinobi helped the bug user out of the stone 'prison' and returned the arena to its initial condition. "The eleventh match will be between Sabaku no Gaara from Sunagakure no Sato and Oboro from Amegakure no Sato." Suna ninja appeared in on the arena floor via sand shunshin, while Oboro made use of the stairs. "Are you two ready?" Both genin nodded. "Then, hajime!" Saif the proctor before disappearing into the background... Gaara gave his opponent one minute to execute any attack against him he wanted. The sand shield was enough to protect the redhead from everything that was thrown at him... After one minute of standing passively, Gaara counterattacked, sending a wave of sand at Oboro. Ninja from the hidden rain didn't expect this and got caught in the sand, that quickly formed a cocoon around him. And all that Gaara did, was raising a hand.
"Sabaku soso." The redhead said without even a hint of emotion. "He is dead." To emphasize, he made the cocoon shrink a bit. Hayate, who appeared in the center of the arena, nodded.
"As Oboro is unable to continue fighting, the winner of the match is Gaara." The Suna ninja let his opponent free, though he did it very reluctantly – it looked like the boy would rather kill Ame nin – and started walking back to where his team was standing. But halfway to the stairs Gaara suddenly stopped and grappled his head.
"Rrghh..." He groaned. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry mother!" He whispered, what it seemed in pain. "Bad men deny you blood... I promise, I will give you blood later... I'm sorry!" And just as suddenly as the seizure happened, it ended, and Gaara continued walking up the stairs with his ever-emotionless face.
The twelfth match was between Rock Lee and Inuzuka Kiba. Both specialized in taijutsu, so the fight was very dynamic, but not very long, as more experienced Lee knocked Kiba unconscious with a well-executed goken combo after dodging dog-boy's gatsuga. And as soon as the spandex-clad ninja was announced as the victor, his sensei – the man looked like an older Lee plus jounin vest – appeared next to him, and the 'duo of green beasts' started shouting each others' name and then... they hugged, creating quite horrific genjutsu that no one could dispel... After Hayate, with the help of several other jounins, removed the duo from the arena, the last match was announced.
This match was Nara Shikamaru against Sound kunoichi by the name of Tsuchi Kin. Shikamaru, despite being at the disadvantage of fighting genjutsu user, useing his tactical genius and his clan's shadow techniques, made Kin knock herself out by hitting her head against the wall.
"Now, I would like those, who won their matches to come down to the arena floor for the information about the final round of the chuunin exam. The rest of you are dismissed... When thirteen genin formed a line in front of Hayate, Ibiki passed a box, having each genin draw a paper with a number on it. "The finals will be held at the Konohagakure no Sato's main stadium and will be will simple one on one fights, the only difference will be that you will have a big auditory watching you." The proctor of the third test explained. "The only rule of the finals will be that proctor's word is a law. Is that clear?" There was a chorus of 'hai'.
"Now, some of you may wonder, what the papers you drew mean." Ibiki said, taking the word from Hayate. "The numbers on these papers will determine your opponent for the first round of the finals. Please, one by one, tell me the number you got."
"One." Stated Sachiko. Naruto, who stood next to her, waited for the second test's proctor to write something in his notepad before saying his number.
"Five."
"Thirteen." Said Sai then.
"Yosh! The flames of youth gave me number six!" Shouted Lee.
"My number is two." Replied Hinata, who was mostly back to her usual meek attitude.
"Twelve." Stated Sasuke in a tone that sounded like he owned the world.
"Eleven." Sounded the ever-emotionless voice of Sabaku no Gaara.
"Eight." Kankuro, who stood in a small distance from his redheaded teammate, said.
"Ten." Stated Temari. 'Damn, if I win my match, I will have to face Gaara.' She added in her mind.
"Four." Said Ino, trying to guess, whom she will have to fight.
"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered under his breath. "Nine."
"Seven." Said Chouji.
"My number is three." Stated the final genin who entered the finals, Dosu. Ibiki finished writing in his notepad and showed the result – tournament table – to the genins.
"The fights will be like this. First round:Sachiko vs. Hyuuga Hinata, Kinuta Dosu vs. Yamanaka Ino, Uzumaki Naruto vs. Rock Lee, Akimichi Chouji vs. Sabaku no Kankuro, Nara Shikamaru vs. Sabaku no Temari and Sabaku no Gaara vs. Uchiha Sasuke. Sai will get a free path to the second round. The second round will be: winners of the first and second fights of the first round, winners of the third and forth fights of the first round, winner of the fifth fight of the first round vs. Sai. Winner of the sixth match of the first round will get a free path to the third round. The third round will be: winners of the first two matches of the second round and winner or the third match of second round vs. winner of the sixth match of the first round. The fourth round will be a match between two winners of the third round." The proctor of the second test made a small pause. "Any questions?" There were none. "In this case, you are dismissed for one month to prepare for the finals. Good luck." As soon as genins left, Iruka looked at Kakashi and asked him:
"What do you think now about my 'mediocre' team?" The silver-haired jounin pretended not to hear him.
That's all, folks! Leave me a review!