Chapter 8
3rd Person PoV
It was the beginning of Chunnin Exams. Naruto wasn't participating because she wasn't a part of a team. However, Naruto was involved in the exams specifically the second part of the test. She was glad to see two of the teams with her classmates in the exams, but she was worried also. Team 7 wasn't nominated by Kakashi, but Teams 8, 10, and Lee's were all nominated.
Naruto, like every other person with even a little bit of first aid and combat experience, was roaming around Training Ground 44 looking for people she could stabilize but mostly she was looking for bodies.
However, she was also a lone gennin girl. She was just lucky that she got to wear a special vest that all the other people with medic training got. It was bright white with the kanji for medic in red emblazoned on the front and back. One team had decided to attack her but once they realized that she wasn't participating and didn't have a scroll they left her alone.
Unfortunately, the second team that encountered her didn't have that level of logic apparently. They were from Iwa and there were only two that were attacking her. They decided that since she looked like the Yondaime that she needed to die in the Yondaime's place.
"What the fuck kind of logic is THAT!?" Naruto yelled at them as they proceeded to attack her.
"Shut up!" One of them yelled throwing a few shuriken in her direction.
"Fuck off! I'm here to make sure that fuckers like you don't have your bodies stolen by rival villages! I'M NOT EVEN A PARTICIPANT!" She bellows easily dodging both a jutsu and several kunai thrown at her.
'Kami, this is so much easier than baa-chan.' She would remember to thank her grandmother for the hellish training later.
"We'll kill you Konoha scum!" The one firing the jutsu roared.
Just then someone else came into the clearing they also had an Iwa headband. Naruto hoped that they wouldn't be joining in. They were easily high chunnin level. It was something Tsunade had noticed, Naruto was a pretty good but untrained sensor. However, the girl just looked at the fight with disdain before yelling at her teammates.
"Kenju! Horako! What the hell are you two doing!?" The two boys stop their attacks immediately and she can see them beginning to pale.
"Kurotsuchi-sama!" They both yelped instantly getting into a stance that was obviously standard.
"Why the hell are you two attacking a medic?!" The girl's dark eyes narrow and focus in on her two teammates. "Do you want to get is disqualified?!"
"Thank you Kurotsuchi-san. I think they were after me because of my hair and eye color." The girls narrowed eyes observe Naruto.
"I apologize medic-san. My teammates are idiots that should focus more on the test than vengeance."
"Oh, it's find Kurotsuchi-san."
"I seem to be at a disadvantage here. You know my name but I don't know yours."
"Oh, I'm Naruto-medic-in-training extraordinaire. It's nice to meet you."
"Aren't you a little young?"
"Ever since Tsunade-sama returned to the village anyone with potential has been getting medic training. And honestly all I'm cleared for is basic first aid. I'm just here looking for any bodies."
"Ah, well I apologize for the inconvenience that my team has caused you." The dark-haired girl says possibly a little off put by Naruto's extremely cheery personality.
"That's fine Kurotsuchi-san. Good luck in the exams. Ja ne!" Naruto then speeds off before they can think anything of it.
Naruto is mostly left alone for another hour or so. She doesn't find a lot of bodies that can be salvaged. As she goes around she realizes that she's being followed by someone.
They have way too much chakra to be a gennin. They have about the same amount as Tsunade. They are alone like her and are wearing a Kusa forehead protector. She decides to finally bring out the walkie talkie for emergency use.
"Vixen to Hub, Vixen to Hub."
"This is Hub, go Vixen." A female voice answers slightly annoyed.
"There is a possible hostile following me. They have chakra levels way above gennin, hell above jounnin. They also smell like death and snakes."
"Are you sure they smell like snakes?" They are dead serious and a little nervous.
"Yes, they smell similar to special jounnin Anko." Naruto is a little scared.
"I need you to begin flaring your chakra Vixen. We will send people to your position ASAP."
"Will do Hub." Naruto begins pulsing her chakra and she is so glad she has a shit ton of it.
She runs faster until she hears a scream. A young redhead girl is being attacked by a bear. She is still being followed by the Kusa gennin who she thinks is Orochimaru the Traitor Sannin. So, she decides to spam shadow clones and have them go in different directions with some being sent to their deaths. Her theory was correct because that guy survived being blown up and summoned a snake.
Naruto decides to use her momentum to her advantage as she charges her fist with chakra. She falls and when she hits the bear it's head explodes in a shower of bone, brain, and gore.
She turns to the other girl. She has short red hair with one side of it spiking up like she had slept on it. She also wore glasses and had bright red eyes. She was around Naruto's age, and has a Kusa headband.
"You okay?" The redhead nods a little shocked. "Cool."
She felt someone pop up and she thanked her lucky stars that it was Kakashi. She turned towards him.
"Are you okay?" He asks obviously worried for her.
"I'm fine only shadow clones were harmed, saved her, Orochimaru is here. Now get us out of here before he gets here!" Naruto is obviously demanding but Kakashi just nods.
He has them offer out their elbows and he weaves his arms through on each side. Then he shunshins away and they arrive in the tower. Kakashi quickly untangles himself from them. He then leaves them with Pakkun.
"Stay here." He disappears in a swirl of leaves.
"Who was that?" The redhead asks with a little bit of a lovestruck air to her.
"That was Hatake Kakashi." Naruto replies, something dark rearing its head at the girl's admiration for Kakashi.
"How old is he? Does he have a girlfriend? Have you seen his face?!" The girl asks excitedly obviously having the beginning of a crush starting.
"Um 19, it's complicated, and no." Naruto answered her a little overwhelmed.
"How is it complicated? He either has a girlfriend or not."
"Well, I guess you could say yes but that was because the Council has assigned him to marry someone to continue on his clan." Naruto really does not know how to deal with this situation, it should come with a handbook.
"So, he's married?" She asks her incredulously.
"Um, no he's not. He's kind of engaged to me." The girl's eyes almost bug out of her head.
"Oh," she's silent. "You're really lucky. He's hot." Naruto blushes as red as the other girl's hair.
"Um, thanks." Naruto really didn't know how to deal with this. "But you don't have to deal with his fan club. Oh by the way, my name is Uzumaki Naruto."
"Karin, but how are you an Uzumaki? Aren't they supposed to have red hair?"
"My mom did but I guess I got something from my dad's side of the family. How do you know about that?"
"My last name is Uzumaki."
"Really?! Awesome that must mean we're like cousins or something." Naruto excitedly declares.
"Well, thanks for saving my life cousin, and you know the eye candy." The girl with short red hair is blushing as red as her hair when she says the last part.
"Sure, anytime Karin. Now let's see if there are any showers and change of clothes around here."
"I thought we shouldn't move?" She asks a little panicked.
"This place is safe, and I don't know about you but I have bear brains in my hair that I want to wash out." The girl looks over at her short red locks and grimaces.
"Yeah let's go."
The two make their way towards the Hub control. Naruto turns in her walkie talkie and gives her report. The two girls are led to some showers by a chunnin medic. She also leaves them some clothes. The two rinse off mostly in silence.
"You said your mom was an Uzumaki?" Karin asked once they were dressed.
"Yeah my mom's name was Uzumaki Kushina." Naruto answered as they made their way to a lounge.
"Wait, Kushina?! That means you're the daughter of the last clan head!"
"Yeah, that's still really weird for me. Tsunade-sensei told me that my jiji was the Ruler of Uzushiogakure which makes me royalty."
"It does, my father was an Uzumaki, but I think he was a part of the Branch family." They sit down in a room with Karin curling in on herself a little.
"So, do you know anything about the Uzumaki Clan?" Naruto asks. "I'm still looking through the old documents that they sent through the connected vaults."
"Really they had connected vaults?" Karin looks surprised.
"Yeah, it's pretty great. Do you know anything on the chakra chains though?" Naruto asks her hoping that she knew something. "I know my mom had them but I haven't been able to find anything on them."
"Well, my dad had them, so maybe it was a family thing." Karin suggested.
"Well then let's try something. I want you to channel your chakra into one of your hands and I'll do the same with the other and maybe something might activate." Naruto tells her excitedly.
"I don't think that would work but sure let's try." Karin decided that there couldn't be any harm in trying.
So, the two girls began to channel chakra into their palms and joined hands. Karin was shocked that both of them developed chakra chains.
"Awesome!" Naruto cheered.
4 Days Later
The Chunnin Exams were going to continue. Kakashi knew every single argument for and against it, but he was still angry. No one knew exactly what Orochimaru was after but he mentioned the Sharingan briefly. However, Orochimaru had attacked Naruto which suggested something different unless he had old information and thought that she was on Sasuke's team.
Considering a S-class nukenin being in the village, Naruto, Sasuke, the other various clan heirs and heiresses, the Kazekage's children, and the Tsuchikage's granddaughter were all being followed by ANBU teams at all times. No one knew what he was after but it wouldn't be at all surprising for it to be clan heirs.
So here Kakashi was watching the preliminaries with all the other jounin and chunnin that were unfortunate enough to be sucked up in this mess. He felt Gai approaching before the man began to talk.
"Eternal Rival, I heard that your future wife was attacked." Gai told him obviously worried.
"It was only her shadow clones thankfully. She wasn't hurt, in fact she found a cousin." Kakashi thought back to when he found Naruto and the girl she saved freaking out over the fact that they managed to activate chakra chains.
"I am overjoyed for her. I know Kushina would be proud. I am also glad that Naruto-chan is unharmed. How has it been with you two?" Gai asked him surprising Kakashi with the question.
"Good, unfortunately she's been learning my secrets." Kakashi internally winced that he said that.
"What kind of secrets?"
"That I can cook and that I could have easily done so for the rest of her team." Gai laughs a full belly laugh.
"Ah, and now Naruto has blackmail to hang over you." Kakashi sighed and turned back to the fights.
He watched as Chouji was utterly destroyed by an older Konoha gennin. The boy was too easily wound up about the whole 'fat' business. He hadn't expected any different from Asuma who seemed to think that his team would just train themselves. Then in was Kiba's turn. He was facing down an Iwa gennin that was maybe two years older. However, it seemed that the boy held a grudge for the last war because he was particularly vicious. Kiba crashed into an earth wall while performing a Gatsuga.
After Kiba it was Ino. She was against the Tsuchikage's granddaughter Kurotsuchi. He knew Ino was not going to win against the girl. Kurotsuchi was obviously very well trained, and Ino was not as well trained. Following Ino it was Shino who was against the last Iwa gennin. He swarmed the boy with bugs and drained him of his chakra until he passed out. Shikamaru followed and was the only one on his team to secure a win against a Sound kunoichi.
Then it was Hinata Hyuuga versus her cousin Neji. He was a student of Gai's and one that looked down on Naruto and was arrogant. Unfortunately, he wasn't called the Hyuuga Prodigy for nothing. He set about destroying his cousin with no mercy both verbally and physically. Kakashi had to admire the girl for getting back up again and again.
It was only when he was about to deal a lethal blow that someone intervened. Naruto had run over from the medic station to stand in front of the boy's attack knocking it aside. She then turns her back on the boy and begins to work on her friend closely followed by Tsunade. While she is working, although she's been mostly sidelined by Tsunade, there's glares of red hot fury traveling Neji's way. He becomes more and more miffed about Naruto's glares. Then he decides to open his mouth.
"I do not deserve judgement from the Hatake's fated broodmare." Kakashi almost began to pity the boy because if Naruto was anything like her mother, and she was, then he was going to be in for a thrashing.
"And I don't need judgement from someone trying to kill their cousin over something they couldn't possibly control. No three-year-old can fight off a jounin. Maybe you should get angry at the right people, like your uncle and grandfather." Kakashi was surprised that she didn't just punch the boy across the arena but he was guessing that it was Tsunade's doing.
Unfortunately, what she had said enraged the young Hyuuga boy. When Naruto had turned back to Hinata the boy attacked. He was stopped by Naruto's chakra chains and wrapped up high enough so that he couldn't touch the ground. Her chains were gold just like her mother's but these ones lacked the spikes on the end. Kakashi wasn't sure if that was normal or if Naruto's chain reacted to her immobilizing a comrade by not making them as dangerous. The Hyuuga boy was screeching in anger.
"I apologize, but to keep myself and Tsunade-sensei safe I must restrain you until we are able to safely move Hinata." Her voice is calm and cold, not in the least apologetic.
She keeps him suspended in the air, wrapped up in chains, until Tsunade and the medics can safely move Hinata. Once the girl has disappeared off the arena floor and Naruto has made sure that the girl has truly left that she releases the boy.
"That was cowardly-"
"We are ninja Neji-san. Everything we do is cowardly and geared towards survival. You can be courageous when you finish your samurai training." Kakashi almost laughs at the disgruntled look on the Hyuuga's face.
"I challenge you to a fight Uzumaki Naruto." The boy was almost snarling his challenge.
"Right now?" She asked incredulously. "Do you really think that's wise? You have multiple tenketsu closed and you just finished a fight. You should at least let yourself rest against a fresh opponent."
The kid doesn't listen to reason and charges her. She dodges him and his angry attacks.
"You are fated to lose! You were the dead last!"
He goes for another attack only she dodges spinning and kicks Neji into the wall. The strength was from Tsunade. He was stuck in the wall with huge cracks surrounding him. He eventually falls forward out of the wall.
"B-but f-fate…"
"Is something a scared little boy is hiding behind." Naruto stoops down as she talks. "Good night Neji. You should have taken my advice."
Once the boy is fully knocked out Naruto grabs the boy and walks towards the medic station. She eventually disappears into the little medic station leaving stunned silence in her wake. Then some erupt into applause and others follow with halfhearted clapping.
"Your fiancé just beat my student." Gai told Kakashi obviously surprised that it happened that quickly.
"I would apologize but he deserved it." Kakashi stated looking over at Gai who shook himself out of it.
"Yes, he did deserve that for such an unyouthful outburst. I hope that this teaches the boy." Kakashi thinks of Inari in that moment.
"If I know anything about Naruto then it will sink in." Kakashi tells Gai patting him on the back.
Kakashi has never been more proud of Naruto.