Naruto arrived at the Chuunin Exam Stadium ten minutes before she was supposed to. She had already created a bunch of contingency clones that Disguised themselves so that she had backup, if she needed it. A few of them were Disguised as Hyuugas so that they could use their Byakugan. The clones were going to scatter themselves throughout the audience. She was actually one of the last to arrive. Only Shino and the Suna shinobi had not. The Oto nin, Kin, was looking sleep-deprived and nervous.
Naruto walked over to where Hinata and Sasuke were standing. Sakura was also standing nearby, but Sasuke was pointedly ignoring her.
"Hi, Hinata-chan, Emo-chan," she said to her teammates.
They responded, "Hello, Naruto-chan," and "Dead Last."
"I'm kind of surprised you aren't late, Emo-chan," Naruto continued, "but I'm glad Kakashi-sensei didn't rub off on you."
Sasuke rolled his eyes. "He tried to talk me into making a 'grand entrance,' but I declined."
The three of them made small talk with Sakura trying to interfere in the conversation. The Suna shinobi arrived about five minutes later. The Ichibi jinchuuriki continued to try and bore a hole through Naruto with his eyes.
Shino arrived exactly one minute before he was due.
The ten of them were called into the center of the arena. The Hokage gave a speech while they stood there. Then an announcer introduced them. The proctor, who was different than the one who ran the preliminaries, repeated the rules, which were the same as the preliminaries. This proctor's most notable feature was the senbon he kept in his mouth almost like a cigarette. His name was Shiranui Genma.
Hinata's match was first. When the rest of them were dismissed to the stands, she saw her friend casually rub her ears.
The match was over fairly quickly. The Oto kunoichi launched senbon at Hinata, but she deflected the ones that came at her with a chakra-coated palm and ignored the rest. The Oto shinobi tried to retreat, but Hinata pursued her relentlessly. After a few short hops backward that caused her to lose ground, the Oto girl quickly turned to run. That was the moment that Hinata was waiting for. She lunged at her and disabled her using the Gentle Fist.
"Winner: Hyuuga Hinata of Konoha!" called the proctor.
Hinata reached for her ears again and then bowed to the Hokage and waved to the crowd. Naruto cheered happily for her teammate.
Sasuke and Shino's match was next. This match was a relentless game of cat and mouse, with Sasuke trying to herd Shino into a corner. Shino was elusive and kept laying traps with his kikaichuu bugs which Sasuke ruthless destroyed with Fire Release Techniques. Several times Sasuke tried to catch Shino with his wire techniques, but Shino was quick with his Replacement techniques, and Sasuke only caught Bug Clones which dissolved into kikaichuu which launched themselves at the Uchiha only to be turned to ash by a Fireball.
Finally, Shino called out, "Proctor, I forfeit. Why? Because my kikaichuu are mostly gone and I know from experience that Uchiha-san can best me handily in taijutsu."
"Winner: Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha!"
Sakura's match was next against mini-Gai. Lee spent several minutes before the match telling Sakura how he would defeat her quickly and gently, but how he could not let his feelings for her interfere with his dreams.
"Can we just start, please?" Sakura finally interrupted.
When the match started, Sakura quickly cast a multi-layered genjutsu on Lee.
Lee shouted, "Release!" and let out a burst of chakra.
"You see, my Sakura," he proclaimed, "I have trained tirelessly with Gai-sensei in order to be able to defeat your genjutsu so that my Youth may not be diminished and that the Springtime of my Youth might not end early!"
Sakura circled around behind him as he continued to talk to the location she had been standing. Naruto saw with her Byakugan that she was continuing to layer genjutsu upon the helpless and oblivious boy.
Lee engaged in a short shadow boxing match with an opponent only he could see. He stopped and then turned to face where he thought Genma was. "Proctor?" he called, only to be clocked in the back of his head by a full-strength punch from Sakura. He dropped like a lead weight. Naruto knew form experience in the Academy just how hard Sakura could hit.
"Winner: Haruno Sakura of Konoha!"
Naruto's match against the Suna kunoichi, Temari, was next. Naruto hopped over the edge of the competitor's box and made her way to the center of the arena.
"You going to take my advice?" Temari asked.
"I know what your brother is and I'm not afraid of him," Naruto responded.
"Your funeral," the Suna kunoichi said doubtfully. Naruto knew that she meant it literally.
"You both know the rules?" Genma asked.
"Yes," they both responed.
"You ready?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Start!" Genma yelled as he leaped away.
Naruto opened with an overloaded Great Breakthrough as Temari swung her giant fan. Naruto's Wind Technique overpowered Temari's, sending the Suna nin flying backward. Naruto used the opportunity to create twenty Shadow Clones which spread out in a large semicircle. All of them had their Byakugan active from the start since Wind Release Techniques were difficult to see with the naked eye. She kept her Sharingan in reserve, since she did not expect to need it.
Naruto and her clones started firing staggered Air Bullets at Temari. The blonde responded by swinging her fan quickly to release Wind blades that disrupted the bullets. However, she couldn't keep up with the large number of them, forcing her to jump back.
Naruto and her clones repeated the staggered Air Bullet swarm to keep forcing Temari back. The Suna nin quickly figured out she was being herded, so she jumped back and made a large swing of her fan while shouting, "Great Task of the Dragon!"
The technique summoned a large tornado that roared toward Naruto. Five of Naruto's clones blew it away with Great Breakthroughs.
Naruto and her clones launched another Air Bullet swarm. Temari leaped back and bit her thumb and wiped the blood on her fan and swung it. A child-sized weasel with an eyepatch and a large sickle appeared in a puff of smoke, riding the currents from Temari's technique. The weasel and sickle spun quickly towards her original position like a shuriken. She had long since swapped with a clone via a seal-less, smoke-less Replacement, but did not want to ruin her formation. All 21 Narutos launched overloaded Great Breakthroughs at the weasel. The weasel was launched backwards toward the arena wall at high speed, where it hit with a thump and dispersed.
With one more Air Bullet swarm, Temari was at the base of the arena wall. The clone in Naruto's original postion paused to make two more clones that jogged to another area of the arena. Her clones disrupted Temari's techniques while waiting on the two clones.
"Hey, Temari," said the clone in the prime position, pointing to the two clones off by themselves. "Want to see something cool?" They were going to do something very showy and destructive. She had actually not tested this version of it yet, not having a good location to try it, but based on "lesser" versions she had tried it would work and should be safe, since it was only clones using it. Naruto did not actually want to badly hurt the Kazekage's daughter and the recipient of this technique would be very badly hurt, if not dead.
One clone launched an overpowered Great Breakthrough while the other launched an overpowered Fireball. Both clones dispersed due to an unpleasant, fiery death. Naruto decided it was not a combo to use lightly. The dirt in a large cone in front of their former position was turned to glass and the wall at the base of the cone was covered in thick, black soot. The shield guarding the spectators was shimmering in the heat haze.
"You think ten times that might be overkill?" the prime clone asked.
"You wouldn't with yourself this close," the Kazekage's daughter declared.
The prime clone chuckled. "You saw the preliminaries. Who says I'm really here?"
"Proctor, I surrender," Temari said with a grimace.
"Winner: Uzumaki Naruto of Konoha!" Genma announced.
"You have some awesome techniques," Naruto said to Temari as they walked back to the competitor's box. "Do you hold the weasel contract?"
"Thanks and I do," Temari said. "How did you overpower your techniques that much and do so many?"
"I have jounin-level chakra reserves as an unofficial bloodline ability," Naruto said. They were well beyond that, but technically a kage was a jounin. While not strictly speaking a Bloodline Ability, monstrous chakra reserves, was an Uzumaki trait. "Is Wind Release common in Suna? There aren't many here that I can go to for help."
"You're Wind Release?" Temari asked.
According to what Jiraiya had said, it was likely she had an affinity for all five basic Nature Transformations due to the Rinne-Sharingan, but she was not going to say that to a foreign shinobi.
"Yeah," Naruto agreed. It was her primary affinity, after all.
"While not all Suna shinobi have Wind affinity, a substantial number do."
"Why didn't you injure me or even kill me?" Temari asked quietly as they walked up the stairs.
Naruto looked at her funny. "Suna and Konoha are allies. Why would I try to hurt you if I didn't need to over something like the Exams? Plus, you seem like a pretty decent person."
"Thanks," Temari said, subdued.
Naruto wondered what the big deal was. Maybe having an anti-social brother had jaded her.
The two kunoichi nodded to each other as they separated to sit by their teammates.
When the next match was announced, Kankorou forfeited without even leaving his seat. Naruto had half expected that based on the way Gaara and his siblings interacted. The crowd booed in response.
"Winner: Gaara of Suna!"
The proctor announced a thirty-minute break until the next round.
Naruto noticed that Sakura, who was standing by Shino, was glancing nervously at Sasuke. Naruto decided to give the girl a break, since she had been impressed by the girl's performance up till now. She walked over to the members of Team 8.
"You know that if you forfeit, he'll never respect you," she said. "Sasuke respects strength more than anything."
"Why would you help me?" Sakura said suspiciously. "I bet you want him for yourself!"
Naruto giggled. "I'm not interested in dating anyone. I'm too young and too interested in being a shinobi. Besides, I think of Emo-chan as a brother."
"Stop calling Sasuke-kun names, Bunny-chan!" Sakura said, taking a swipe at her.
Naruto, who had been expecting it, dodged out of the way. "Don't say I never helped you, Forehead!" she called back as she skipped back to where Sasuke and Hinata were waiting.
"What were you doing over there, Dead Last," Sasuke said suspiciously.
"Trying to help your number-one fan get a clue," she said.
"I thought we were friends, Naruto-chan?" he complained.
"Sasuke-kun, if she turned into someone you liked, wouldn't that be a win for you?" she teased.
"No," he said. "Now stop it."
After the break, Sasuke and Sakura took the field. Sakura had a determined look on her face while Sasuke looked impassive. Naruto turned on her Byakugan.
Once again Sakura started off with a multi-layered genjutsu. Sasuke had his Sharingan blaring, so they should not affect him. However, his movements seemed a little drunken and the shuriken he threw at her were not targeted to his usual standard, but he seemed to be aware of where she was.
"Must be a non-visual genjutsu," Hinata murmured. "Possibly affecting his inner ear."
"She really is good at genjutsu," said Naruto.
"She got the perfect teacher for her aptitudes," said Hinata.
Sasuke realized something was off and flared his chakra, shouting, "Release!"
After that the match was quickly over as Sasuke closed the range and had no problems beating her in taijutsu.
"Winner: Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha!"
"Are you ready for this?" Hinata asked Naruto.
Naruto smiled at her in return. "I've got this, no problem."
In truth she was a little nervous, but she figured that if he did release the Ichibi, she could handle it. She had worked out a decent game plan for his normal sand abilities with some feedback from Jiraiya. Most shinobi were pretty one-dimensional. The fact that they were versatile is what made people like Jiichan and the Sannin so powerful. The least versatile Sannin was Tsunade and she was an acknowledged expert in two fields: medical ninjutsu and taijutsu. Theoretically, jounin were supposed to be diversified, but few truly were. The chuunin hopefuls she had seen so far, even the powerful and skilled ones, did not have anything in reserve if you could counter their specialty. The only real exceptions were Sasuke and, to a lesser extent, Hinata. And Naruto herself, of course. She patted the weapon's pouch that had her primary counter to Gaara. She had a secondary counter, too. Jiraiya said that you should always have, at the bare minimum, two plans for beating an enemy shinobi. He said he was not truly comfortable unless he had three, preferably four. She had Plan C and D, but she hoped she did not need them.
She hopped down to the arena floor and made her way to the center.
"Do you both understand the rules?" Genma asked.
"Yes," Naruto said.
Gaara just stared at her creepily.
"Gaara of Suna, do you understand the rules?" Genma repeated.
Gaara nodded, his eyes not leaving her.
"Ready?" the proctor asked.
"Yes," Naruto said.
Gaara said, "Mother wants your blood."
Genma frowned, but said, "Start!"
Naruto jumped back several times. Sand was already leaving the gourd on Gaara's back.
Naruto quickly did the Boar and Tiger seals and yelled, "Swamp of the Underworld!" She poured a large amount of chakra into it.
The ground underneath Gaara turned to goo and he started to sink into it. More sand poured out of his gourd and began pulling him up. He was up to his knees in the muck. The muck did not easily let him go.
The first sand out of the gourd was still heading toward her. She removed a kunai from her special pouch and flung it at the sand. It trailed a paper tag like an explosive kunai. However, instead of exploding in fire and pressure, the tag exploded in a large quantity of water due to being a time-release storage seal filled with obscene amounts of the liquid. Jiraiya had only gotten as far as teaching her storage seals as far as fuuinjutsu went, but he had been willing to teach her how to add this trigger when she had asked. She had made the tags herself. The sand collapsed under the additional weight.
Naruto summoned Shadow Clones which spread out around the edge of the swamp. She swapped seallessly with one of them that was behind her opponent. By this time, Gaara had managed to pull himself out of the swamp and was floating on a "cloud" made of sand. She tossed another of her special kunai at his gourd at the same time that her clones threw its duplicates. Sand moved to block all of the kunai, but they exploded into water which drenched the Suna nin. She was not sure how long the cloned water would persist, but there was enough real water there to make things difficult for him.
The boy sank onto the surface of the swamp, but did not sink. He must still have some control of the wet sand. To confirm that, a bunch of wet clumpy sand arose into the air and dispersed, moving through the air in small bits so that it would dry out.
Deciding it was time for Plan B, Naruto whistled a short code and then swapped with a clone. Two clones sacrificed themselves and their neighbors by using the combo from hell: overloaded Great Breakthrough and overloaded Fireball as soon as the sand came back together in mass.
When the smoke cleared masses of broken glass of various sizes lay on the surface of the swamp and Gaara was nowhere to be seen. Naruto hoped he was alright, since she did not want to kill the other jinchuuriki.
Her Byakugan focused on the swamp and she could see his chakra. A mass of potent, insane-feeling chakra exploded out of him and a mass of sand in the shape of a giant tanuki grew out of the swamp.
Meet your craziest stepson, the Ichibi no Tanuki, the Kyuubi said.
Feather-like constructs fell from the sky. Her Byakugan could tell they were not real. A foreign chakra tried to invade her system, but she easily expelled it.
Author's Note: For the curious, Shino surrendered because, in his experience, Sasuke is dangerously unstable. He's unaware of how much his mental state has improved since he got a team.
Kin figured out something was up and avoided everyone for the training month. Orochimaru let her go, for the moment, since he has no shortage of mooks to use for Edo Tensai, but it's only a reprieve since she didn't accomplish anything in her match to earn forgiveness.
The two matches not occurring because of the invasion are the Semifinal match between Sasuke and Hinata and then the Final.