Puppets of the Leaf
Puppets of the Leaf
By Riotv2
Chapter 11:
Following the conclusion of the preliminaries, Team 7, being the only team to make it through without having someone hospitalized, met at Ichiraku's for a team meeting.
Currently Naruto was on his sixth bowl while the others hadn't finished their first.
"So Sensei…" Naruto asked around a mouthful of noodles. "…what kind of training are we going to do for this month?"
Said Jonin was sitting as calmly as ever, ramen untouched, with Kubikiri Houcho resting up against the bar. "Hnnn…beats me."
At that, all three of his students dropped their chopsticks, and shouted as one. "WHAT?!"
sigh
"Look, I've already found a teacher for Sasuke, I've arranged for Sakura to apprentice at the hospital to help with her medic techniques, and I've asked the Hokage to give Naruto another scroll to work on."
Naruto put his bowl down, empty, with the others. "Why can't you teach us Sensei? Isn't that your job after all?"
With another heavy sigh, Kakashi closed his book, a sure sign that he was being serious.
"I can't train you two for the finals. I have… other matters …to attend to."
Sakura narrowed her eyes at him. "If you're going to spend this month reading your 'book', then…"
"Sakura…" Kakashi met her eyes and she saw that he wasn't messing around. "…there are… things… happening that I must prepare for."
"You're going to be training." This, from Sasuke who until now had been completely silent.
"Hai, I've been neglecting my own training for too long."
"Does this have anything to do with Kabuto?"
The question had caught them all off guard. Naruto hadn't discussed his suspicions with his two teammates, and they both had looks of confusion written across their faces.
"Yes and no. Kabuto…never made it to the infirmary after his match. ANBU found the medics that were transporting him, dead. He must've known that he'd been found out, and escaped the village."
"Found out? What do you mean? What's going on Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura didn't like what she was hearing, and was quickly becoming frightened.
"Kabuto, was a spy."
Sakura's gasp of shock was the only thing that could be heard for several seconds.
"Listen to me, all three of you. The only reason I'm telling you this is, first, Naruto was the one who uncovered him to begin with when he took his info card during the first exam, and second, because of your encounter with a certain Nuke-nin during the second test."
"You mean Kabuto was working for him?"
"We don't know, but it's too much of a coincidence for us to ignore."
Sasuke stood up and approached their teacher. "So why exactly are you going to train? What's going to happen?"
"I have to train…because after I left you in the tower…I had an encounter of my own with...him."
Flashback
Kakashi appeared in a puff of smoke outside the tower, located in the center of Training Field 44, also known as the Forest of Death. He looked again at the small card he held in his hand. It was highly disturbing that a Genin could have found all the information contained in this one card let alone on all the other information he's supposed to have, but then again one of his own students had managed to break into the Kage Tower to steal the forbidden scroll, though Kakashi suspected that the Hokage had actually let him take it purposely.
Never the less, he had to report this as soon as possible.
"So, Kakashi…How is your Sharringan coming along, hmm?"
The Jonin froze. He knew that enthralling, serpentine voice. He'd never forget it. After all he had been there the day the Third confronted Orochimaru, forcing the Sanin to flee the village. He had just started his career in the ANBU, and they had discovered his lab.
Now the Jonin turned to find him standing near the base of the tower, looking exactly as he had then, as if age and time no longer affected him, though he should be in his late fifties by now.
"Orochimaru…It's been a long time."
"Yes, hasn't it. I see you've picked up a Zanbato, I never figured you for the type."
"Why are you here? More experiments? Or are you still hoping the Third will name you his successor…"
With that the Snake Sanin let out a deep hissing laughter. "Oh you always were amusing Kakashi…no I'm no longer interested in ruling this pathetic village. I've just come to check up on one of your students, whom I have a vested interest in."
"Funny, I never had you figured as a hetero. But I guess if it means that much to you I can arrange an introduction to Sakura."
"Ahh, I see you've inherited your sensei's wit." Kakashi was satisfied to hear that he was starting to get to the traitor. "Too bad you didn't inherit his skill as well."
With that last word, Orochimaru threw out his arm, and several snakes flew towards the Jonin, who had Kubikiri Houcho out and in front of him to intercept them before they connected.
When he felt their impact on the flat side of his sword, he went into action, throwing the massive blade at his opponent, and running through several hand seals faster than most could accurately follow.
The spinning blade cleaved Orochimaru in half to reveal him as a mud clone. Having finished the seals Kakashi ran strait at a nearby tree, hand held back and away from him, a ball of lightning, screaming like a thousand birds charging up as he went.
Kakashi thrust the Raikiri into the tree just as the smirking ninja seemed to melt out of its surface and it exploded into a hail of wooden shrapnel as they once again faced each other down.
Seeing no other choice, Kakashi raised his Hitai-ate and unveiled a spinning red eye containing three tomoes.
"At last, the Sharringan, I feel fortunate to be the first in years to see it twice in as many days."
"You'll not lay another hand on Sasuke."
"Ohh don't worry I wont go near him again, until he comes to me, that is."
"Wont happen."
Kakashi charged strait in at him, throwing a complicated series of taijutsu maneuvers at him, only for the snake to weave in and out of them with no difficulty. Without warning Orochimaru hooked his front leg around Kakashi's, took him by the wrist and hurled him over his head, only for him to land in a crouch as the Jonin managed to straiten himself out in mid air.
As it turned out, the throw had placed him relatively close to where his oversized sword had landed. Taking it by it's long handle, he again ran at the Sanin, and brought the blade around to slash him in half again, to no avail as he was no longer there. The Snake Sanin was now standing behind him and Kakashi's eyes widened as he felt a kick plant itself into his back, sending him across the clearing. As Kakashi hit the ground, he disappeared in a puff of smoke, revealing a log in his place.
Orochimaru smirked wider and turned to see Kakashi leaping off of the side of the tower and coming at him with the sword raised over his head. The Nuke-nin took a step back and the massive blade buried itself into the ground at his feet. Kakashi used the momentum of his fall and pivoted on the handle of the embedded sword to bring both legs around in a kick that actually managed to catch his enemy off guard. The surprising attack impacted his chest, and Kakashi heard the sound of a bone crack.
'It's no good…'he thought to himself as Orochimaru recovered himself 'It takes more stamina than I have to wield this sword effectively, It's just too heavy, my movements with it are too slow, not that I could beat him without it. He's faster than I am at my best, and ninjutsu, are his specialty.'
"My, my, Kakashi, this has been fun, unfortunately I need to be on my way. Do say hello to Sasuke for me, wont you." Orochimaru then merged with the ground beneath him and was gone, as several ANBU, as well as Mitarashi Anko appeared on the scene.
Kakashi sagged to his knees, letting the sword bear most of his weight and re-covered his eye.
Flashback End
"Sufficed to say, I couldn't win. So, I need to train. I used to actually be much stronger than this."
Their sensei admitting to something like that actually unnerved them in a way that Naruto shuddered to think about, and for a few tense moments they were all silent, before Sasuke, for once, spoke up first.
"Then who did you get for my training?"
Kakashi smirked. "He's a Special Jounin sensei, named Ebisu." Naruto had to cover up his mouth to keep from laughing. The two Sharringan users looked at him strangely before Kakashi continued. "He owes me a favor, so he'll be working with you on your conditioning for the next couple of weeks. Afterward you'll come back to me to work on your Sharringan until the exam."
Sasuke nodded, apparently satisfied with the arrangements, and left to return to his home so he could freshen up before meeting with this Special Jounin. After all, he hadn't had a decent shower since before the first exam.
Next Kakashi turned to Sakura and gave her the name of the doctor that would be overseeing her medical training until the exam was over, and she too left to see to her hygiene.
Finally he turned to Naruto to see that he had finished off two more bowls of beef ramen, bringing his total to nine. "I know, I know I'll go get the new scroll from the Old Man." Naruto hopped off of the stool he had been sitting on and made his way out, only for Kakashi to stop him at the flap covering the upper part of the entrance.
"Naruto, I thought you'd like to know I managed to get into contact with someone who can take care of that…problem for you." He instantly had the boy's attention.
"Who?"
"Just meet us at our training field, after you freshen up and retrieve the new scroll."
Naruto nodded enthusiastically and ran out of the stand calling his thanks to Ayame for the food.
It was then, that Kakashi realized that he had made a critical, fatal error in judgment, and had made a mistake that Iruka had warned him about ever since he had taken on the three Gennin as his team.
He had let Naruto trick him into paying for lunch.
Just as he realized this, the attractive girl, whose father owned the stand, handed him the bill.
Now clean, and having gotten the, not just one, but two scrolls from the Hokage, Naruto made his way to the training ground that he had taken his team's survival test on. When he arrived he wasn't surprised to find that he was alone, it was Kakashi he was supposed to be meeting after all. It only made sense that his contact should be late too.
So to pass the time until they arrived, he assumed that he had at least two full hours, he sat himself leaning up against the very pole he had once found himself tied to, and began to look through the larger of the two scrolls he had just received. It began by going into extreme detail about different ways to make puppets that could be enhanced though seals, and then began going over the very most basic of the basics on the subject, saying after only a few paragraphs that he should find out about seals from somewhere else, since it would take hundreds upon hundreds of scrolls to explain the subject and, frankly, she wouldn't live long enough to finish writing them.
Naruto smirked. Oddly, after everything he'd been through recently, the old woman's familiar handwriting, and crude, to the point language, made him feel more relaxed than the hot shower that he had taken earlier.
But she was right. He would have to find someone to teach him about seals if he was going to have any hope at all of implementing the few she had included in this scroll.
Next the scroll described a theory she had about a way to get the puppets to perform jutsu's, but had never bothered to try it since her retirement, and figured maybe he could, if he lived long enough to get this far.
It was then that he heard a voice behind him near the memorial stone, and turned to see Kakashi standing there, with Zabuza's sword on his back and, this shocked Naruto, no little orange book in his hand. He was standing over the memorial stone with the names of fallen hero's on it.
He strained to hear what his sensei was saying.
"…I'm going to train harder again Obito. You'll see. Do you remember that technique you tried to show me when you became a Chunin? The one you said that you'd created specifically for the exam? Well…I'm going to teach it to Sasuke for him to use in his exam. I think you'd be proud of how far your cousin's come in such short time…"
'…cousin… is he talking to one of Sasuke's relatives?'
"…and don't worry Sensei, I'm taking care of Naruto also,…laugh …well…in-so-much as he needs me anyway..."
Naruto was so riveted by the mention of his name, and why Kakashi's sensei would be interested in him, that he never noticed the shadow creeping over him until it had completely covered him.
"You know, it's not considered polite to eavesdrop onto other peoples conversations."
Naruto slowly turned to take in the large form of the old man standing behind him, whose own face contorted from arrogant to shock as he got a good look at Naruto.
'By Kami…he looks just like you Minato…'
The boy before him sheepishly rubbed the back of his head as Kakashi walked over to join them.
"Ohh good you two have already met. Well then I guess I can just go ahead and leave. Ja- Ne." Kahashi vanished in a swirl of leaves and Naruto sighed heavily, and looked up at the man who was just staring at him expectantly.
"So…" the boy started awkwardly "…can you really fix my seal for me?"
The man scoffed. "Just show me."
Grumbling about bossy old geezers under his breath, Naruto lifted up his shirt and channeled chakra to his stomach, brining the inflicted seal to the surface.
The old man, who had yet to even give Naruto his name, looked it over with a critical eye, and hummed to himself for a moment before straitening up. "Do you have any trouble with your chakra control, more than usual I mean?"
Naruto gritted his teeth.
"Now don't get all angry with me. Having that beast sealed inside you is bound to mess with your control, and this extra seal can't be helping too much."
Naruto, still slightly insulted by the man's remark just pouted and turned his head to the side. "Yea…I would say that my level of control has been effectively cut in half by that stupid thing."
The white-haired man raised an eyebrow. "Just half? You shouldn't even be able to use chakra at all. And Kakashi tells me that you managed to remain conscious after this was placed on you?"
The boy nodded, now thinking back at how even that snake bastard had been mildly surprised by that.
"Interesting…ohh well, yea I can fix this no problem…but it's gonna hurt like hell."
Naruto grimaced and nodded slowly. He closed his eyes tightly, and the old man before him preformed a few hand seals. Before Naruto knew what had happened the man shoved his hand into the boy's stomach, in the exact place Orochimaru had, and he was sent to the ground, clutching his stomach. The pain was short lived however, as relief slowly spread outward from the points of impact.
He once again got to his feet and could feel his chakra flowing through his body without impediment. Oddly, he could never remember feeling so…free. The old man interrupted his thoughts with a grunt. "So…try using a jutsu or something to get a feel for your control."
Naruto nodded and took out the three scrolls containing his puppets. He bit his thumb and with a flick of his wrists and three puffs of smoke he had summoned all three. Blade crouched low before him, Kyu on his shoulder, and Kunoichi standing behind him.
He had strings connected to all three and was shocked to find that he had full control over them all. He could feel it, just as he knew he could raise his arm without actually doing it, he knew without even trying, he could manipulate all three. Keeping track of them in a fight…that would take a lot of work, but at least now he had a goal for the month.
He relaxed his posture, and looked over to see the old man staring at him, or more specificly at Kunoichi, with hearts in his eyes and drool hanging from his mouth, and mentally smacked himself. 'Just great…another pervert sensei…'
Out loud, he shouted at him. "OY! Stop drooling after my puppet Ero-baka!"
To his shock the man came out of his lusting fantasies instantly.
"Puppet?"
The old man walked over to him and poked the female puppet in the forehead.
The 'flesh' gave only slightly more than actual human flesh would have.
"Huh…" He looked down at the cloaked figure, and at the fox on the kids shoulder.
"A puppet user…" He then burst out laughing, which only served to piss Naruto off.
"What's so funny, you bastard?"
He waved it off. "Nothing, just never thought I'd see a puppet user in the Leaf. It's a Suna technique after all, and an inferior one at that." He began to walk away, and was stopped when two arrows hit the ground at his feet.
"You wanna repeat that old man?!" Naruto's voice was calm, but the killing intent that was being unleashed into the field was anything but.
The old man turned around. "I said, Puppetry is a waste of time. Now, toad summoning on the other hand…that's an art that speaks for itself."
Naruto cocked his head to the side. 'Toad summoning?'
At the kids confused look, the old man must've realized that Naruto still had no idea who he was. He smiled. And after a few drops of blood and a rather large explosion of smoke he appeared on a large red frog about as tall as the memorial stone, and began to go through his introduction as the Toad Hermit Jiraya.
Naruto just stared at the antics of the, obviously senile, old man. He looked at the oversized version of his wallet and scoffed. "And just what makes you think that frog is superior to my puppets?" Naruto turned away and started off towards the three poles.
Jiraya, not used to being dismissed by anyone, became angry. He lunged out at the boy, grabbed him by his shoulder, and turned him around. It was then, just as he met the boy's eyes, and saw the smile on his face that he realized. The shoulder he grabbed had a fox on it before his introduction. He turned around to see the fox sitting atop of the frog, which was now sprawled out on the ground, and asleep, with three senbon sticking out of its head.
Jiraya's jaw dropped. He then clenched his fist and grabbed the boy by his shirt. "WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
"Proving a point. Your frogs aren't better than my puppets."
Jiraya let him go and considered.
After a moment he got an evil smirk on his face. "You think that proves anything?"
"What the hell are you talking about perv? I defeated your summon."
"First…stop calling me that! Second…that wasn't a battle orientated summon."
Naruto took the bait. "Fine then, go on and summon one that can fight. I'll kick its ass and prove it to you."
Jiraya chuckled. "Ok, but don't say I didn't warn you."
With a smile Jiraya once again preformed the summoning technique, and with an explosion, much larger than the last, he was standing atop a frog that was bigger than most of the buildings in the village. It was a light tan in color with a deep brown on its back. The frog had twin katana on its back tied with a sash.
Naruto's control over his puppets slipped and they fell to the ground.
"Well Gaki? Can you match this?"
Naruto just stared at the giant frog before him, then resealed his puppets and walked away, towards town.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Jiraya called out to him.
"To build a puppet that can take that thing out." He didn't stop walking until Jiraya called out again.
"Hey how about this… if you can build a puppet that can match this toad, then I'll acknowledge its superiority, if you can't…then you must let me teach you the summoning technique."
"Deal…" Something occurred to Naruto at that moment. "Yo perv…how about if when I win you help me out with learning about some seals."
"Seals huh? Sure, why not. But you only have a week."
Naruto never responded. He just made his way to the shop where he purchased all of his puppet supplies. Upon his arrival he was met at the door by the old man who ran the shop.
"Naruto, good to see you. Need some more weapons?"
He shook his head. "Not this time. But could you help me get some wood……a lot of it?"
The next week passed in a blur for Naruto. The shop keeper had taken him to a lumber yard, and he helped Naruto purchase as much wood as he would require for his newest project.
After having the lumber delivered to the mans shop, he summoned several Kage Bunshin, remembering the alterations one had preformed on Kunoichi back in wave, and they all descended on the piles of wood with a frenzy. He worked tirelessly day and night, only pausing to create more clones when they ran out of chakra.
During the course of the week the shop owner began to see what Naruto was intending, and had mixed feelings about it, but he liked the boy and trusted him to not do anything to get himself into trouble.
On the day of the deadline, Naruto stood back and admired his work. It was by far the most ambitious thing he'd attempted in his life. Then the thought struck him. "Ohh crap how do I seal something like this?"
A low chuckle from behind him answered the question. He turned to see the shop owner and the Third standing there admiring his handiwork. "G…gi-san?"
"Naruto…this is…a very interesting puppet. Do you think you'll be able to handle it?"
Naruto looked back at his new creation, and smiled. "Yea it shouldn't be a problem. Um… could you make me another storage scroll for it please?"
The Hokage laughed again. "Of course, on the condition that you'll let me accompany you to meet with Jiraya. I can't wait to see the look on his face."
Naruto smirked in impending triumph. Granted, he now owed the old man enough money for the wood, that when he did pay it off he'd be able to retire, but it was more than worth it, he'd decided.
As they arrived at the training field again, Jiraya, who had been waiting there, and going over his notes for his latest book stood up and noticed the rather long scroll strung across the kids back. It wasn't that thick, but it was wide, to cut down on the bulk he was going to carry, the Sanin assumed. Then he saw who was accompanying the brat and suddenly wasn't so confident about this. 'Sensei wouldn't be here unless it was to see me lose to this kid.'
The boy approached. "You remember our deal right? I win and you teach me about seals?"
"Yea, yea…" Jiraya bit his thumb and summoned the duel sword bearing frog once again. "…let's see what you've got."
Naruto took the scroll from his back and bit his thumb as he threw it open. Smearing his blood on it he unleashed an explosion of smoke nearly the same size as the one resulting from Jiraya's summoning.
When it cleared Jiraya found himself staring at Naruto, on the same eye-level as him. The boy had a triumphant smile on his face, and brought his hands up, with thick chakra strings running from each finger. As he held up his arms he also began to rise to surpass the height of Jiraya. When the puppet he was standing on reached its full height, nearly 6 or 7 feet above him, Jiraya just stared at him open-mouthed, then hunched forward.
"Fine…what do you want to know about seals?"
It didn't take Naruto long to realize that he would probably never learn to master the art of seal making. As his scroll had said, there was just too much about them to consider. So, he decided to concentrate on learning the ones in the scroll. Even Jiraya had been impressed with those. The few that Chiyo-sensei had given him could be copied easily enough, but understanding exactly what they did that was worrying him. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally place the seal for an exploding note inside his puppets….though the idea had some potential…
After looking them over with Jiraya, and deciding that none would suit the next, normal sized, puppet he was going to build, he described to the old pervert just what he wanted the puppet to do, and asked if there was a way to make a seal that would gain him the required effects.
As it turned out, there was. The Sanin told him that it was originally designed by a ninja of a village that no longer existed, and was created to breach the outer defensive wall of an enemy village. The seal was complicated, and rather large, but it caused whatever object it was affixed too, to lose its rigidity, when it was charged positively with chakra.
Naruto's eyes practically lit up. Jiraya drew out the seal on a scroll and gave it to the boy, who merrily skipped off to the shop keeper's yard, where he still had enough wood left over for several puppets.
That night, Naruto ran into his two teammates, as they were walking home from their respective training. Deciding to get something to eat together, since it had been a little over a week since they'd seen each other, they headed into a small restaurant, not Ichiraku's, despite Naruto's insistence.
The three sat in silence for a while, al of them thinking over various things, until Sakura decided to interrupt the quite.
"So how are you both doing with your training?"
Their responses were typically those of what was common with those two. Sasuke kept his answer down to the minimum 'fine', while Naruto began to get really excited about a new puppet he claimed to have built, Sakura took the tirade with a grain of salt, after all, this was Naruto, and if his puppet was even half of what he was claiming… it would be bigger than most of the buildings in the village.
After a few minutes of not listening to Naruto, Sakura interrupts him to ask Sasuke about his new sensei. At first it seemed that Sasuke wasn't going to answer her, but then he looked at Naruto, who looked like he was about to go into another description about a new puppet, so to forestall him, and save them both from having to listen to it, he quickly ran through his first meeting with the Special Jonin, Ebisu.
Flashback
After Getting cleaned up and into fresh clothes, Sasuke met his new trainer at the hot springs, where Kakashi had told him to go. He arrived to see a man in a black bandanna and sunglasses leaning up against a low railing near the water. After the man saw him, he pushed himself off and approached.
"Ahh Uchiha-san, It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Kakashi-san tells me that you will need some help with training for the exam finals?"
At the boy's curt nod, he adjusted his glasses and smirked at him.
"Very well, first I'll need to get an idea of your overall skill…"
Without warning, Sasuke found himself the victim of a vicious assault from the black clad ninja. His speed, while not as fast as Kakashi, was impressive, as was his overall grace and precision, when it came to his attacks.
Even with his Sharringan active, he still managed to work his way passed Sasuke's guard. Not all that surprising, considering that his Dojutsu was only at two Tomoes in each eye. He could pick up on subtle shifts in the mans posture, and even sometimes see faint foreshadows of his movements, but it was still a far cry from the nearly precognitive foresight, Kakashi had described for him once.
Another problem he was having was that, while he could sometimes see the attack coming, his reflexes were too slow to intercept them.
A particularly fierce kick to the midsection knocked Sasuke into, and almost over the railing near the boiling hot water below them, and he was caught by Ebisu before he could go over.
"Good, your control over your movements is highly advanced for a child your age. Not surprising given your clan…We'll need to work on your speed though, and consequently your reflexes. I'm going to show you a technique to augment your speed with chakra. So, the first thing we'll do is work on your chakra control. Tell me, do you know the water, walking exercise?"
The next two days were a wet burning blur for the Uchiha, as he was given a crash course in the new exercise, after which he quickly mastered it.
Ebisu, having judged his control to be of an acceptable level, next showed him how to channel Chakra into his legs in order to increase his movement speed in short bursts. The first time he had tried it; he pumped too much into his left leg and suffered a catastrophic cramp, which effectively ended their training for the day.
Finally, he had the boy, copy a kata form off of him using his Sharringan, and perform it over and over while wearing weights on his wrists and ankles. The Kata was designed to condition the body for increased flexibility, while at the same time the weights would help him with his speed, and adding to the weight when he can move freely with his current amount. Once again, though he found that he couldn't exactly copy the kata. He could see the movements in his mind, though they couldn't be transmitted to his body as readily as Kakashi had done against Zabuza, once again due to his sharringan's underdevelopment.
End Flashback
"At the end of this week, I'm supposed to go back to training with Kakashi. He said that he had something he wanted to teach me, but wouldn't tell me what exactly."
Naruto thought about that. '"…I'm going to teach him the technique you developed…"'
He thought about telling him what he had heard, but thought that if Kakashi cared enough to teach him the technique of a friend, maybe even teammate, he'd let Kakashi do it his way.
Remembering the scene he had witnessed at the Stone, he also recalled the other person Kakashi had been talking too. '"…Don't worry Sensei, I've taken care of Naruto too…" who was his sensei?'
"Hey guys I'll see you later, I need to go finish working on my puppet." Without waiting for a response, Naruto dropped some money on the table and ran out the door, while his two teammates just stared down at the table before them.
"Did he just…"
Sasuke nodded. "He actually paid for his food…" They shivered, with a sense of impending doom.
Naruto walked calmly through the training field, idly tossing a white scroll up and down in his hand. Lost deep in thought, he almost missed the shout of warning as several Kunai missed his head by a hair.
Naruto dropped to the ground and stared up at the throwing knives that almost ended his life, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Hey!! Are you o…IT'S YOU!"
Naruto turned to see a girl wearing a pink shirt with her hair up in buns atop her head. She was holding a few more Kunai and looked pissed.
Behind her three more people entered the clearing. "Tenten-chan…are you alrigh…"
Naruto's eyes widened as he recognized them all, now as the area was filling with a very potent killing intent, he gulped down some air and gripped his scroll tighter. Slowly he began to get to his feet to fend off the attack he could feel was about to come, probably from the Hyuga, who had activated his bloodline upon seeing him.
Neji took a step forward and was halted when a hand came to rest on his shoulder. "MY STUDENT! WHY ALL OF THIS UNYOUTHFUL ENGERGY?"
The man, Naruto decided, was an older version of Lee, complete with matching leg warmers. When he noticed that the attention of all three of his student's attention was solely focused on the orange-clad boy before them. "OHH I SEE, THIS MUST BE THE ONE WHO YOUTHFULLY ELIMINATED MY STUDENTS FROM THE SECOND EXAM. TELL ME MY YOUNG FRIEND, WHO MIGHT HAVE THE PLEASSURE OF HAVING SUCH A SKILLED AND YOUTHFULL PERSON SUCH AS YOU FOR A STUDENT?"
Naruto blinked, the killing intent hadn't diminished in the least, but Neji had turned off his eyes, and his female teammate, Tenten, had put away her kunai.
"Uhh…Ka..Kakashi-sens…"
"HATAKE KAKASHI!! MY ETERNAL RIVAL!!"
"Eternal Rival?"
"YOSH! I HAVE KNOWN HIM SINCE WE WERE AT THE ACADEMY TOGEATHER!"
"Since the academy…then you must know who his sensei was?!"
Mighto Guy adopted a thoughtful posture, as he looked the boy over then looked to his own team. Tenten looked confused at the interaction between them and both Lee and Neji looked as though they wanted to fight him, though for two completely different reasons. He smiled, a plan forming in his mind.
"Yes, I do know who his sensei was, however I won't tell you unless you agree to help me with something."
"What? Anything!"
"I would like you to spar with my most youthful students."
The comment froze him in his tracks. "S…spar…with them?"
He looked over to the three students; two of the three were smiling, while the Hyuga simple reactivated his Byakugan. Naruto gulped, then stood upright and tightened his headband. "Sure, why not. It'll make a good warm up for the finals. Too bad you guys won't be there."
The comment brought the killing intent to such a level one could have cut it with a kunai.
Lee began to, enthusiastically, move forward, but was forestalled by his female teammate. "I'll get this one first if you don't mind. You guys can beat up what's left."
She took her position opposite from him in the clearing. Naruto recognized her from stumbling on this teams training session before, just after graduating. Watching one of her attacks actually served as the inspiration for one of Blades, weapons. Naruto grinned as he placed the white scroll he had been carrying into his hip pouch and took one off his leg.
Tenten mirrored his action by producing a green scroll from her pouch. They both bit their thumbs and wiped blood across the surface of their scrolls, and in two puffs of smoke, Tenet's being considerably smaller, they each called forth their weapons of choice.
Tenten had produced a pair of Tonto, which she held as she would a Kunai, with the blade extending downwards. She balked however as she saw what Naruto had summoned. Crouched low before him, and completely covered by its cloak, Blade sat watching her with a blank unnerving stare, from under its hood.
Guy signaled the start of the match from his position under one of the trees, with the two boys standing behind him, and Tenten immediately ran at Naruto with weapons raised hoping to score a crippling blow immediately. Naruto smirked. He knew that out of all his puppets, Blade was his best for a weapons user like her, unless of course you counted the one he built to show up that pervert of a Sanin, but he had promised the third he wouldn't use it unless it was a dire emergency and he had no other choice, so he let her come until the last second when in a large flurry of it's cloak, Blades arm came up to intercept her attack with it's own weapons.
Rather than display the shock that usually came from such an encounter, Tenten pivoted to her right and came in for a low sweeping cut across the puppets midsection. This too was caught on its other arm.
With a push of his hands Naruto sent Blade in close to her locking both of her weapons together with those of his puppet. He hoped to bring her in close enough so that he could use one of his other blades to capture her and win the fight, however she must have read his intention, because she instantly let go of one of her small swords, and back peddled away, throwing the second at Naruto in the process.
The projectile caught him across the leg, and he puffed into smoke, revealing that it had been a clone. Blade started to sag to the ground, only for it to rush at her before any part of it could touch the grass.
Tenten now had no idea where Naruto was, and couldn't look for him because of the puppet currently taking swipes at her, left and right. She leaped up into the air and threw two handfuls of Shuriken at her attacker, all of which struck it in its stomach and chest, and all of which had absolutely no effect whatsoever.
She had no idea what to do. She knew that she needed to find Naruto, but with that puppet of his not giving her a chance to attack, she had no chance to look for him. Her frustration increased when the puppet flew into the air after her. She took two Kunai out of her leg holsters and met the two outstretched weapons of her cloaked opponent. Its continuing momentum pushed her farther into the air, and it was all she could do to keep those odd swords from cutting her.
Finally it changed direction and began pushing her downward toward the ground. She began to struggle to push away from it but it actually wrapped its arms around her waist, and held fast. The two plunged into the ground with roughly half the power of Lee's Lotus technique guessed their teacher, but still by no means was it a small impact.
Tenten rolled out of the dust that had been kicked up and rose unsteadily to her feet holding an arm that looked as if it was bent at a slightly odd angle. When the dust cleared, she searched for her odd opponent, and saw that he was still lying in the same spot he landed, unmoving. She could clearly see the two Kunai she had stabbed into he back right before they hit the ground, and sighed, thinking she had managed to kill whatever type of summon that thing had been. She began to relax, until the rustle of fabric alerted her to the fact that the thing was moving again, at the same speed as before despite the wounds she had inflicted. It was coming at her and with one arm fractured there was very little chance of her effectively defending herself, but she would try.
She hopped to the side and pulled out one scroll from her pouch. With her one hand she threw it open and began to spin while pushing her chakra into the paper. The momentum kept it from floating away from her while she proceeded to throw all manner of melee weapons at the cloaked figure. Though only half as many as she would have been able to with both hands, it was still a fairly effective attack, and her opponent began to weave in and out of her missiles, knocking aside all manner of blades with it's two 'hands', until a particularly large curved blade hit it square in the chest, and spun it around before it fell to the ground. Her attack ceased and she stopped her spinning, now clutching her forearm tighter than before. The spinning, it seamed, hadn't helped her any.
She watched the figure closely, not ready to believe that it was over, and as she expected it began to move. This time when it rose, one of its arms fell to the floor under it, and she had to suppress a shudder. She once again reached into her Kunai holster and took one of the knives into her hand ready for its inevitable charge.
To her surprise however, it didn't advance, instead the clearing filled with Naruto's voice. The echo was such that she couldn't pinpoint his exact location. "Look, I realize that you're angry with me, but why don't you give up? This is only a spar after all, and I can see that you're hurt."
"Give up?! No way, I won't quit against some coward that lets a summon do his fighting for him!"
"Summon? Is that what you think you're fighting?" His voice had taken on a hint of amusement. 'He thinks this is funny!'
Just as that thought occurred to her she caught a sight of something in the trees almost directly behind the…thing…she'd been fighting. It wasn't much, just a small patch of orange. It was then that she remembered the ugly jumpsuit Naruto had been wearing. And she smiled.
With a flick of her wrist she tossed the throwing knife at the patch of color, eliciting a yelp of surprise. After a moment Naruto dropped down from his hiding spot with a look of shock on his face. He was holding the kunai and had a small tear in his shoulder. '…only nicked him then…'
"How'd you know I was there? You couldn't have followed my voice…"
She raised an eyebrow. "Uhh you're wearing a bright orange jumpsuit." 'This guy made it to the finals?!'
He looked down at himself and mentally, and physically, smacked himself. 'Crap, I guess I need to change my look a bit… but for right now.'
"My offer still stands, quit now and take care of that arm."
She reached for her Kunai again, and Naruto twitched his fingers. The 'face mask' that Blade wore split and opened firing one single senbon at her hand, just barely scratching it, but it was enough to make her drop the weapon she had been trying to get and she felt her hand go slightly numb, but she could still function with it.
After a second more Senbon followed and she was forced to retreat again. Shaking his head at the situation she now found herself in, Gai decided to step in.
"That's enough. I'm declaring Uzumaki-san the winner. Tenten you must get that arm addressed at once."
When she began to protest, her odd sensei interrupted her again. "Tenten, that boy has you out gunned with his puppet. You can't match it in your condition."
"Puppet?"
Naruto walked over to her with Blade at his side and a smile on his face. He pulled aside the puppets cloak to show that its body was made of wood and that it's feet, like its hands were swords. She looked at those with a look of revelation. 'He could have finished me when he had me in the air…I did lose.' She reluctantly nodded, acknowledging his victory.
"Ok…but if you don't mind I'll stay to watch the others fight too, my arm isn't that bad anyway." After Gai looked at her wound he gave his consent and she walked over to the tree his teammates were standing under. Lee whole-heartedly congratulated her on a well fought match and looked to Neji, who only motioned Lee ahead. The green clad boy leaped with glee and entered the clearing to face off against Naruto.
He set blade aside and took the white scroll from earlier out of his pouch. "I haven't used this one in battle yet, so you'll be the first to see it."
"I am Honored Uzumaki-kun!"
Lee had taken a stance that seemed to be very relaxed. He was standing upright with one hand behind his back and the other our before him palm open facing him, as if inviting him to attack. 'That's exactly what he's doing…' he realized. The stance looked as though he was being smug, that that was at odds with his personality. 'He likes to let his opponent have the opening move then, very well.'
Repeating his summoning process, Naruto called forth his newest puppet. In a plume of smoke, appeared a figure dressed completely in white. The figure appeared to be well built, athletic, and only slightly more muscled that Lee himself. If one were to assume it was a living person that is, but by now that surprise had been wasted for the rest of their team. 'Ohh well, at least it fooled Tenten.'
He hadn't been lying when he said this was the first time he'd be taking this puppet into battle. He had only tested it's abilities to be sure that they'd work the way he'd hoped, much to the chagrin of the Kage Bunshin he'd tried it out on, but it had worked, and he was quite happy with the aesthetic look of the puppet as well. The only feature on it that deviated from its white attire was a rounded plate of metal affixed over its face like a mask. There were no eye holes, no mouth; it didn't even appear to have a nose. In fact the only thing that stood out on the mask at all was the large red Leaf insignia that he had engraved on it. It was rough and filled with red paint to make it stand out against the grey metal.
However since he hadn't had an opportunity to practice with it, he had no style with which to fight with it, so he fell back on the technique that he had used on Kiba. He'd mimic his opponent. SO with a twitch of his fingers, he had the puppet emulate the fighting stance of Lee.
This caused the energetic boy to raise an eyebrow in confusion, and then break out into a grin. "They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Uzumaki-kun. So I thank you for the complement." Before Naruto could respond to the boy's strange remark, Lee had closed to distance between himself and the puppet and smashed his foot into it's stomach, sending it into the air. Naruto was speechless. '…F…fast…'
The puppet came back down and landed in its same spot with a resounding thud. Naruto looked at it closely, it didn't seem like it was too badly damaged, and so he got it to its feet, and was slightly surprised to find that it wasn't damaged at all. That kick should have shattered its wooden frame, but it was still completely whole, though there was a small dent in its stomach, Naruto sent a small pulse of chakra into the puppet to activate the seals concealed beneath thee cloth and the dent popped back out, like it was…elastic or something… 'ohh…'
Lee also noticed this and sent a punch into the stomach, followed by a quick few to its chest and finally one to its head, Naruto let them connect. The puppet bounced and recoiled from each blow, the last sending it back quite a few feet, and each time it was left un damaged, the neck of it did extend a lot farther than it should have, but it too came back to it's normal length.
Once again he got the puppet to its feet, and caused it to adopt Lee's stance, this time causing it to beckon Lee forward with a simple hand gesture. Lee, looking excited by the prospect, rushed at it once again, and threw another kick at its chest. This time however Naruto had anticipated the attack, and the puppet swung its arm out and intercepted the attack with its forearm, which then began to extend and coil around Lee's leg, moving up towards the boy's knee.
Naruto jerked his hand back towards him, and the puppet mimicked the act pulling Lee's leg forward, causing the shocked boy to lose his balance, and the puppet shot its other arm forward, it's fist connecting with Lee's face, sending him onto his back with his leg still tangled up in the seemingly elastic arm of Naruto's newest puppet.
To the young puppet users shock, though, Lee shook his head and broke out laughing. "What's so funny?"
Lee waved his hands while laughing. "No, nothing Uzumaki-kun, I just can't remember the last time I've had this much fun during a spar. YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH ARE TRULLY INSPIRATIONAL!"
A loud 'YOSH' was heard from their teacher as he seemed to agree with his clone of a student.
Lee managed to role himself into a handstand, which stretched out the puppets arm, and then reversed direction slamming his loose foot into the puppets shoulder, causing it to lose its grip and Lee spun away into a crouch, now free of his captor. Naruto eased back on the amount of chakra he had been feeding the seal on that limb and the arm regained its former shape.
The smile still hadn't left Lee's face and Naruto had to admit, that he was also having a good time. Deciding to start things off this time, Naruto launched the puppet at his opponent, elongating both of its arms hoping to entangle the taijutsu user once again. The boy deftly avoided both appendages by first stepping aside then rushing forward at a speed that far exceeded that of the arms as they tried to catch him. When he didn't slow down, Naruto realized what he was doing, avoiding the puppet and going directly for the puppet user.
One of the first scrolls he had received on puppetry told him the main weakness of the technique was that most puppeteers were left physically weak because they focused on their puppet skills and while he had to admit, he wasn't as skilled in Taijutsu as most, he wasn't weak.
One of Naruto's favorite training techniques was to create an army of clones and have them attack him while he defended himself using his puppets. This, he discovered after the mission to wave, allowed him to train with his puppets, but also gave him the memories of his clones after they dispelled. He was essentially getting twice the training. Training which helped him greatly now as he cast out his hand, two fingers extended, and attached a chakra string to each of Lee's feet.
As Lee rushed at Naruto at full speed he thrust out a back hand at the boy, which the blond deftly ducked under and rolled away from him, pulling his hand back in an overly exaggerated gesture.
Lee only had a moment to think on it though, and his feet were violently pulled out from under him. Carried by his forward momentum, Lee tumbled head first across the ground, stopping only after clipping a tree with his side.
Naruto had brought his puppet to his side, both hands once again connected to it through his chakra strings, the puppet adopting a more traditional, and basic fighting stance.
It took a moment for Lee to gain his bearings, having knocked his head several times as he fell. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs from his mind, and tried to lift himself up on his arms, only to fall again when a sharp pain shot up his left arm.
In a flash of green Gai was at his student's side, examining his arm. There was a small lump just behind his wrist. Gai looked at Lee with a warm smile. Naruto and the others approached them to see if he was ok, Neji following a slower pace.
"Is he ok?" Naruto asked guiltily.
Gai smiled at his concern. "Hai, his arm is fractured. He'll be fine."
Naruto winced. "Sorry Lee, I didn't mean for…"
"Forget it Uzumaki-kun, it was a truly youthful fight." Lee extending his good hand and gave him a thumbs up with a huge grin planted on his face.
Naruto smiled, and returned the gesture. "Yea, we'll have to have a rematch when you get better."
For a moment Lee said nothing as he looked at Naruto, then he clenched his fist and thrust it towards the boy, fire igniting in his eyes. "RIVAL!"
Both Naruto and Tenten sweat-dropped, "O…hh,…o…k…"
Behind him Neji scoffed, causing them all to focus their attention on him. "Come…" He adopted a stance that was utterly alien to Naruto as his eyes bulged with veins. "… fate has already decreed that you cannot defeat me. So let us end this quickly."
"Uzumaki-kun…" Naruto turned back to Lee. "…be careful in this match. Neji-kun has been angry at you ever since our elimination from the exam. He is the strongest of the three of us, and considered a genius among the Hyuga, even though he is of the branch house."
"So what are you saying I can't win?"
Lee smiled again. "Not at all. Just be careful, he won't be pulling any punches."
Naruto grinned at the other members of Team Gai and took his place in front of the Hyuga, leaving his new puppet sitting against the tree with Lee. A fact that was not lost on Neji.
"So you're going to use another puppet to fight me? It won't make a difference. You cannot alter the course fate has set us upon. You will lose."
Naruto sighed. "Let me ask you something…what is it with you and all this fate crap? I mean let's say you're right. Lets say that fate had, for some reason, decreed that we would be meeting like this and that we were about to fight, and that I would lose…If all that is true, then why are you so mad at me for taking you out of the exam?"
Neji blinked. "What?"
"Think about it. If fate decides everything we do then that means that I was destined to take your scroll from you and that you were supposed to fail the exam. So, you really have no reason to be angry with me for doing it…yet here you are…defying fate."
"…"
"…"
Everyone present to hear the blonds comments fell deathly silent. As everyone's focus turned to Neji, they could all see the wheels turn in his mind as he came to understand…Naruto was right.
Neji stared at the orange clad ninja before him and, slowly, his eyes narrowed. "You…you…" Neji grew furious, his killing intent rising once more. It looked as though Gai would have to step in to prevent his student from murdering the youthful student of his eternal rival, but just as it had grown, the anger and Killing intent abated. Neji brought himself under control, and took a deep breath.
"You…are a test, set before me by fate. You cause me to question myself and everything around me. However…you are still going to lose."
Naruto just shook his head in exasperation, while taking the purple scroll off his leg. As he prepared to summon yet another of his growing collection of puppets, Neji spoke out, yet again.
"My eyes see all, Uzumaki. Thus far all of your puppets have been close combat types, with some moderate mid range capabilities. You are brash, loud and over confident in your skills. I suspect that your next puppet will not be any different."
Neji took that odd stance again his hands held open, and activated his bloodline once again, and Naruto completed his summoning, and now stood with his first puppet, Kunoichi next to him, it's, highly, revealing outfit accentuated by the innocent pose it had taken before Neji. Behind him, Naruto heard two distinct thuds as both Lee and Gai fell to the ground, their green spandex, now stained red. Tenten was just staring at him with her hands balled into fists. Naruto could hear her knuckles crack from there, and he shuddered, relieved that she didn't attack outright.
Neji was shocked at the puppet his opponent had chosen to face him with. His cheeks took on a rosy color as he looked at her…it…he tried instead to look at Naruto, but still found her clothing distracting. He grew still more uncomfortable as she…it…began to walk towards him, her hip swaying, and stopped when she was only a few feet away, just out of arm reach. Suddenly she bent forward and blew him a kiss, winking at him as she did so. Neji nearly lost himself. He ran forward in an attempt to destroy the offensive thing before him, only for the puppet to be pulled backward into the air, by its master. At the height of its leap, she pulled out the longbow that had been strapped to its back and fired two arrows which had seemingly appeared out of mid air.
Despite the distraction, Neji still had the presence of mind to sidestep the projectiles as they thudded home at his feet. He briefly looked down at them and then back up at both puppet and master. "It appears I was wrong about your puppet. It is obviously a long-range type. It will make this more annoying, but will not affect the outcome."
Again Neji ran at them, nowhere near as fast as Lee had, though still quite fast, and had to duck, dodge, and in general, avoid all of the arrows the puppet was sending his way, through it all his forward momentum was not stopped. When he got into range, Neji thrust his palm at Naruto, who moved his puppet into the path of the attack, catching it on her bow, while Naruto backed up a few paces to put some distance between them.
Neji gripped the bow with both hands as he began to spin rapidly, taking the puppet with him. Chakra erupted from his body and he found himself in a dome made of pure chakra. As he stopped spinning, he released the puppet, sending it crashing into its controller.
Naruto fell to the ground with his puppet as they collided, but instantly got her back up on her feet with an arrow pointed at Neji's chest.
"Uzumaki, I will acknowledge that you have some skill, and your puppets show a surprising amount of creativity, however as I have said, fate will not allow you to win. My eyes see al…"
"Your eyes…see only what I wanted them too." With a twitch of his fingers, Kunoichi fired her arrow, however rather than avoid the shot, Neji caught it out of mid air, and a moment later had to jump as a hail of senbon needles sailed passed him.
Neji focused his Byakugan back in the direction they had come from to see chakra strings running to the puppet Naruto had used to defeat Tenten. It was rushing at him, its blades poised to strike. Likewise the white puppet that had fought Lee was extending its arms in an attempt to hold him for the blades of the first.
'So he can utilize more than one at a time…still not enough.'
As they closed in on him, he once more began to spin and push chakra out of nearly every Tenketsu on his body creating the shield that was one of the Hugo's signature techniques. Blade was blown backwards, one of its arms broken off, and the arms of the other puppet had gotten tangled up as they were deflected by the Kaiten.
Naruto's jaw dropped. "H..how..did…"
"I told you, my eyes see all. The Byakugan grants me the ability to see in a 360 degree radius."
"So…you have eyes in the back of your head…got it. I'm still gonna kick your ass!"
Naruto brought Blade in once again while the white puppet soared up into the air above the ensuing battle. All the while he tried to keep Neji off balance with Kunoichi's arrows. It was just as difficult as he thought it would be to keep track of all three. His shots with Kunoichi were terribly off aim, Neji hardly even needed to dodge them, and he hit Blade more often than not.
The cloaked puppet was faring a little better, since most of his attention was focused on him, while all he was doing with the third was keeping it up above them until an opportunity presented itself, which it did moments later when he shifted focus to Kunoichi, to take better aim. Blade was hit in its chest with a palm thrust, and knocked back. The Arrow he had aimed, sailed right at Neji, and as he moved to catch it, the white puppet dropped down on him from above, it's arms and legs elongating as it did.
Seeing the falling puppet, Neji abandoned the arrow in favor of another Kaiten. The arrow broke in half from the force of the impact, and when Neji came to a stop he had his eyes closed, and a superior smirk on his face.
The smirk vanished, when as he opened his eyes to see the arms and legs of the new puppet all around him. They were planted just outside of the small crater that was created by the Kaiten, and the puppets body was suspended above him, like a canopy.
He had barely stopped his spin, when the puppet descended upon him, entangling his limbs like it had Lee. Naruto was careful to keep Neji's hands away from each other to prevent him from performing any hand seals.
They young Hyuga, was struggling with everything he had against the restraining puppet that had caught him. He had clearly seen what the puppet was doing, however the high spin he was engaged in at the time, made him unable to do anything about it, and while he had been trying to keep the domes created by his Kaiten small, to limit the amount of chakra that was consumed by the technique, it was still used up a lot of his chakra to use.
Most enemies, once having seen one of his clan perform it, wouldn't really bother to try to attack that would cause him to use it due to utter futileness, however this opponent, either he knew how much chakra it took to use it, and he was trying to make him run out, or… 'He's too dense to learn from his mistakes…'
Neji rolled his eyes. Dense or not, the boy had caught him with his puppet. With his Byakugan still active, he could clearly see the chakra strings running from the puppet to the puppeteers' hands. He could see him controlling it, but didn't know enough about the technique to be able to anticipate its movements based on that.
Then as he focused on the strings, he saw them shrink a bit. As if the chakra was being stretched thinner. Then more strings shot out and attached themselves to the other two puppets again, while still another, single, string was sent off into the bushes to the side of the clearing.
This piqued Neji's curiosity, and he focused his sight, with no visible change in his struggle to alert his opponent, and saw that the string had attached itself to a small fox, that he recognized the boy to have from the first exam. It hadn't clicked then, but now that he had looked inside the small animal he could see that it was indeed a puppet. Its mouth was open and just seemed to be waiting. He focused on the mechanism inside the fox, and realized what the fox was there for.
'Huh…a back up plan…ok…I'll admit he's good. I never even noticed his summon that one.' The briefly tried to pinpoint just when in any of his three fights he could have placed that one there, since he had been watching the whole clearing the whole time, and then gave it up. It didn't matter when it got there, it was there.
Neji stopped his struggles and hung his head. There were a few loud gasps from his teammates, when they must have thought he had given up. 'Fools.'
He began to gather his chakra as he would for the Kaiten, and distributed it throughout his body, focusing it at his tenketsu, and allowing it to build in pressure for a moment. Then he opened all of his chakra points at once, and allowed the chakra to escape in the form of small, sharp blades. He wiggled a little in his captivity, and the result was immediate.
The puppet's body, every part that was touching Neji, was shredded. The move caught Naruto off guard, and he instinctively made the puppet back off, before it was destroyed.
Neji fell to the ground on unsteady legs, his limbs having lost any feeling after being held for so long.
Naruto surveyed the damage to his puppet, its clothes were mostly ruined, and the surface of the wood was covered in deep scores, as it he had taken several hundred razors, and sliced them across its surface. He tried to make it elongate its limbs again, and as they did the cuts became more pronounced as if he was stretching out a scar. Its movement seemed to be ok none of the seals had been hit, thankfully. He didn't even want to think about trying to reapply them without the help of that perverted frog guy.
Neji was getting to his feet, and Naruto sent Blade at him again, only for the Hyuga to sidestep the attack, and wave his hand behind the puppet, which promptly fell to the ground in a clatter of wooden parts.
Naruto's eyes widened in realization, 'T…the strings…he cut them…he can see the chakra…'
For the first time since the fight began, Naruto felt a flicker of doubt enter his mind. If he hadn't stolen their scroll, would he have been able to beat him during the preliminaries. Would he have even made it that far?
Neji read his body posture and nodded with approval. "Now you can see the truth. You have no chance. Fate has decreed me the winner."
Naruto's control fell away, and Neji could see the strings all fade away into nothing, as his other puppets, the fox included, joined the other one on the ground. Soon after, Naruto also slumped to his knees, as if someone had cut his strings. Neji began to approach. He focused his sight on him, bringing to bear the full weight of his all seeing eyes. He was intent on breaking his spirit completely.
"You weak, pathetic excu…"
He words dropped off as he picked up a slight flicker of movement from the boy's right hand. It had been fleeting, almost as if it were an effect of the light on Naruto's skin, but he couldn't shake the feeling off that he was missing something. His eyebrows shot up as he spread his sight all over the clearing again. The three puppets were still where they'd fallen. And the fox…he felt a small prick on his left leg.
This time he actually moved his head to look down at the object that had embedded itself into his thigh. 'A senbon needle…'
Naruto stood up once again and Neji could see a faint, barely visible to even his bloodline, glow on the tip of his index finger, which steadily grew brighter, and attached to it was a chakra string, which ran into the bushes. Another twitch of his finger later and the fox puppet walked out of them.
'He was only acting…he never dropped that string, he just made it so small the chakra was barely there at all…'
Neji could feel a numbing sensation spreading throughout his leg, and knew that unless he did something quick, he would lose. 'No…fate has made me the winner…you can't avoid fates will…'
With a great force of will, Neji forced his leg to respond as he slid into the opening stance of one of the main branches most devastating techniques. Naruto was just standing, noticed the sluggishness of the inflicted leg,and smirked.
"You, Uzumaki, are with the range of my Hakke…"
As their eyes met for a split second, Naruto found him self unable to move. "Eight Trigrams 64 Palms!"
Neji launched himself at the immobilized blond with all of the grace and precision, characteristic of his clan, though with less speed than Naruto was expecting. His first two strikes hit on Naruto's side, and intense pain, like that he felt when Orochimaru placed the seal on his stomach, and again when Jiraya released it. Then more pain followed when four strikes hit him on his shoulders, followed by eight on his legs, and sixteen on his chest and arms. Thirty two strikes found his chest stomach, and surprisingly his back, Neji was counting off on all of them. Finally, a new barrage seemed to hit everywhere that hadn't been hit so far, and Naruto was sent flying backward with the force of the final blow to his stomach. "64 Strikes!!"
Immediately after the attack, Neji also fell to the ground, the toxin in his leg, having moved on throughout the rest of his body. He managed to look over at his opponent and was shocked to see him looking back through gritted teeth.
"It is over…Uzumaki…you won't be able to continue…"
To Neji's utter horror, Naruto scoffed at the remark.
"My last attack has sealed your fate…along with your chakra."
Naruto sobered immediately, and realized that he was right. He could feel it, but couldn't mold it. Grumbling about stupid arrogant assholes who kept messing with his chakra system, Naruto slowly pushed his may off the ground with his arms.
Neji, who had been absolutely certain of a victory, nearly had a heart attack at the sight.
'No…NO! How is this possible?! He should be down for the count!'
It wasn't easy, his entire body was screaming in protest. He experienced pain in places he didn't even know could hurt. But still he willed his body to move. He had too. This bastard was asking for it. Neji had written him off as weak, just like the rest of the village…Naruto had made a promise to him self and to the village, that he would become Hokage, to do that he needed to change everyone's views on him. Already he'd had partial success with a limited group of people, and as he paused supported by trembling arms, their images ran through his mind.
'Iruka-sensei…Kakashi-sensei…Sakura…Sasuke…Gi-san…Chiyo-ba-sensei…'
One by one all of the rookies from his class also appeared.
He would change the village's opinion of him. He would show them all he wasn't weak…he wasn't a demon. Starting with this bastard.
Naruto reached back and took a Kunai out of his leg holster. His grip on it so tight, it almost seemed that the metal would deform under the stress.
Heavily he pushed himself into a kneeling position, and brought up the Kunai as if to ward off an attack, however, his opponent was still lying where he'd fallen. He was trembling, slightly, with effort of trying to get up. To no avail. Naruto smirked.
Neji looked at him, and screamed with rage and frustration. "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME?!"
Naruto lowered the Kunai, seeing that he wouldn't need it after all. "That… senbon in… your leg…" the words came in gasps, as he realized how much it hurt to talk. "…you're paralyzed…"
Neji's eyes widened, in alarm. '…poison…'
"Don't…worry…not…lethal…"
Neji almost sighed in relief, almost. "I…I can't lose…"it was said to himself, but Naruto still heard. And he sighed in exaggerated exasperation. If he could move his arms, he would have smacked himself in the face.
"Look… you can't move…my chakra's sealed…again…and I hurt like hell…lets just call it a draw, and have a rematch later…"
Neji looked at him puzzled. 'A rematch…'
He could see what the blond was doing. Trying to let him save face, and keep his, admittedly, over developed ego intact. There was no choice. He would beat him decisively…it was fate after all. He nodded his assent, and Naruto instantly fell backward, taking in huge gulps of air, as he surrendered to the pain.
After a second of this, he raised his head to address the, similarly disposed Hyuuga. "Now…WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO MY CHAKRA!?"
The answer came from behind him, where he had forgotten all about the rest of Neji's team.
"He forced all of your tenketsu closed, by pushing his own chakra through them. That's what their fighting style does…they attack your body from the inside." Gai, now stood over them with a very satisfied look on his face.
He raised his hand in a thumb's up and Naruto was momentarily blinded by the sun glaring off of his teeth. "Naruto-kun…those were truly inspirational battles. I thank you for showing my students, your youthfulness."
Naruto just stared up at him, eye twitching. "Uh…yea…sure…but could you help me fix my chakra?"
The Green Beast, continued to smile at him. "No…normally Neji could do it, but…"
All eyes turned to where Tenten was examining him for injury. "You were great Neji-kun. He had no chance, if it weren't for this lucky shot…" she held up the needle she had taken from his leg. And Neji shook his head at her.
"No…it…it wasn't luck. If anything it was luck that I was able to get him with the 64 palms."
"Neji-kun…"
"He…he beat me…" The last comment wasn't directed towards her, but she heard it nonetheless.
Neji allowed his head to sag backward and Tenten let him rest. She looked back over to the ninja who had, according to Neji, beaten all three of them.
"Hey…how long will he be like this?"
Naruto, who was now sitting up with the help of their sensei, directed his attention briefly to the Hyuuga prodigy. "At least another hour or two."
Gai nodded, and picked the boy up off the ground, despite the squealing protests the action elicited.
"HEY! What are you doing?" In response, Gai also picked up Neji who, surprisingly, didn't even flinch at the action.
"You both require medical treatment, so I shall bear the flames of your youth to the hospital!"
As he was about to leap off, followed by a loud 'YOSH!' from his clone of a student, Naruto began to thrash in his grip, making it difficult for the Jonin to keep a hold of him.
"Wait, what about my puppets!? I can't just leave them here!"
"Not to worry, my youthful friend! Tenten shall collect them and bear them hence to where ever you require them to go."
Tenten nodded and began to gather the discarded weapons, sealing them into a spare storage scroll. "Sure thing, where should I take them?"
Naruto thought about that. He didn't want to leave them in the hands of a relative stranger, even one a friendly as she appeared to be, but really had no choice. "Ok. Let me have Kyu…the fox…" he said indicating the small fury puppet. "…and I guess you can take the rest to Busho's Weapons Shop. Do you know where it is?"
The girl paused as she was picking up the small fox from the ground. "Busho's? Why there?"
"The old man who owns it is a friend, besides he sold me most of the parts for them. Why, you know him?"
Tenten smiled as she handing the puppet to Lee, who would carry it to the hospital. "I should. He's my father."
Naruto's shock was now complete. He was stunned into silence, and, only shook himself out of it when he remembered the only reason he had agreed to the fights in the first place. "Hey! What about my question?"
Gai looked at him with confusion written across his face. "Question?"
Naruto mentally smacked himself. "You agreed to tell me who Kakashi-sensei's Genin Instructor was if I fought all three of your students, remember?!"
Realization dawned and Gai crossed his arms, almost dropping the boy in the process. "Hai, I did agree to that didn't I? Very well my eternal rival's Sensei was none other than Namikaze Minato."
"…"
After all of the fuss, Naruto had expected some kind of major revelation, and was slightly disappointed to find that he'd never heard of the man, but now he had a name, so he could definitely find out more about him, and why he would be interested in him.
Since Naruto had fallen into silence again, Gai took it as a sign he was ready, and took off at a speed that brought tears to the orange clad ninja's eyes towards the hospital.
AN: So there's the latest chapter. Let mwe know what you all think. Next chapter will take us up to the finals.
