Yo!

Guess who's back. I've got my laptop charger and I fixed my laptop so the battery power is much better, seeing as I don't have the money to simply buy another one…yet…

Anyway…

When I was using my sister's computer I had the genius idea of writing as many new fics and chapters to these fics as possible so that I can put them up maybe twice a week. My average chapter per week is about four, maybe five, so I thought that I would be able to just go with that; putting up two chapters a week. But guess what? Her charger burnt up and spoiled. Yup, I kid you not. For a while I felt cursed cuz her laptop or her charger isn't the kind to just give up the ghost so easily. But the good news is that her computer (need I tell you that a laptop is a kind of computer?) and mine are working now and I got those new fics into my computer. Hopefully updates would go back to how they used to be. Though I do still want to stick with the two updates a week thing. School has resumed and I have many commitments to work on, posting story updates on this site is one of them, so I'll be multi-tasking a lot. So I plan on updating on Fridays and Sundays, if I can't make one of them I'll update on Monday. At night. I'm not going to always post updated stories, maybe new stories but hopefully updates' come when they come. Not that you have to worry about update times, just sit back, relax and read…

And I haven't forgotten about my older stories, its hard to do that. Updates for a few of them aren't done yet (Shadows smirk, Red Dawn, Out of the Blue and Greatness). BUT! If everything goes well I will have at least something new to put up twice a week. The only problem I see is that the network here is atrocious. Horrible. Simply disgusting XD

Shout out to 'Kiege': I try my best. Thanks!

To 'Lrmccr7': they already are a couple, more or less, but don't expect them to be making out in public. It's…hard to explain the kind of relationship they have. Maybe this chapter would shed some light on that.

To 'SlyUzumakiVii': haha XD if only I knew how to write lemons, I would definitely do that.

To 'Spark': Yes, they will and I will have fun writing about it.

To 'Red Eyes. B God': yes, he is.

As always, shout out to my friend Kilare T'Suna for letting me make this story. Thanks a bunch dude. I freaking appreciate the stuffing out you.

Also, don't forget to drop a review.

I have so many things to say but I don't want to bore you guys so…

[Update: 12th December, 2022]

God, I can ramble XD

Enjoy…

CHAPTER 3

"Next match, Namikaze Mikoto vs. Sabaku no Gaara!" The proctor yelled from the centre of the arena as the last two fighters were carted off on stretchers after a simultaneous double knock out.

The sand user wasted no time appearing by the proctor in a sand body flicker, his eyes immediately went to his female opponent.

The red-haired girl was busy searching the crowd until her eyes stopped at the Kage's box, straight into her father's soft blue eyes, he sent he a discreet thumb up.

"You can do it, Mikoto! I believe in you!" the older Namikaze winced at the volume Rin had yelled in as she wildly flapped her arms around. The younger girl hesitantly smiled at her, then lastly her eyes went to her older brother, Naruto.

Her fellow red head looked at her with a small smirk on his face and nodded, at this she puffed out her chest and leaped over the edge of the competitors' box, landed on the ground solidly and stopped barely even a foot away from her opponent, Gaara. Her new claymore was sheathed on her waist and she idly kept her left hand on the handle, preparing for a draw if necessary.

The Jounin proctor looked between them and noticed the tension that passed in their midst them. He sighed tiredly and prepared his mind to call up more medics after the match.

"You are not afraid of me." Gaara stated as he crossed his arms. "Why?"

"My big brother says that fear is only in the mind. Overcoming it in there," she tapped the side of her temple, then gesturing outwards. "Means you can overcome it out here."

"Then he's a fool."

Mikoto bared her teeth in rage at the insult to her precious older brother as she tightly squeezed the handle of her new weapon till her knuckles turned white. Then she remembered the advice her brother had given her a month ago in the Forest of Death.

"Don't let your emotions control you."

She smoothed the emotion off her face and smiled widely at the red head across from her with her eyes closed, a repulsively devious of false expression if Gaara had ever seen one. "I'll make you regret saying that. I promise."

Gaara frowned deeply and glared at her. "And I promise to grind your bones to nothing with my sand. Let the Red Demon watch."

This time he cast a look to the Hokage's box, to Naruto.

The Red Demon stared back, his arms cross and a glimmering frown tickling at the corners of his emotionless face. He didn't break eye contact, and the Kazekage's son felt something in him froth.

Gaara spat at the ground.

"Enough." The proctor cut in and took a step back as the two Genin looked at him with underlying bloodlust in their eyes; Gaara's rage being more physical that Mikoto's. "Mikoto Namikaze vs. Sabaku no Gaara. Begin!"

Not even seconds later, tendrils of sand shot out from the boy's gourd to the girl.

Mikoto leaped back twice and flipped dextrously over a sand tentacle that attempted to snag her leg. She clenched her teeth as she unsheathed her four-foot-long claymore with both hands, sparkling with silver and black metal, and drove the weapon clean through the sand as she touched down.

"Wind release: Pulse!"

The counterattack created a ball of air on the end of the blade, and this ball of chakra expanded over her, exploding outwards and pushing the sand away from her in a billowing gale of sharp heat and violent wind.

Not letting the miniature cyclone to subside, Mikoto ducked her head and ran through the wind to the red head with her sword flying in her hand behind her, hidden by the dust and sand in the air. She skidded on her knees under a blind swing from a sand tendril and used the slide to turn around. Gaara looked at her over his shoulder, bored being the dominant emotion in his murky eyes, watching his opponent spin like a top in a tight circle and swinging her large sword at him for another attack.

"Water release: Pulse!"

As her blade smashed against the imperial sand defence on his back water blasted from the sides of the blade, bathing the sand boy and her.

Gaara's eyes widened in horror as his sand became limper after the single attack.

The water kept on pouring from the blade and the girl held on strong as each wave splashed from the blade over them, flooding the arena.

The seals on the edges of the blade that glowed blue began to flicker, eventually flipping off and the water stopped flowing out. She savagely kicked his back forward and he flew through the air, hitting the wall and falling back into the waist-height water in the arena, air bubbles floated up and popped where he lay.

The boy lay blissfully in the water; his sand soaked so much that they didn't budge under his command and the red-haired girl walked on the surface of the water to him, cautious, her claymore in both of her hands and ready for any surprise.

In his semi-unconscious state, he wondered just how much the girl had prepared for their encounter; no one ever thought to use this much water against him, it being why he succeeded on missions. Each drop of water that his opponents sent could be distributed among his sand so thoroughly that it essentially made the sand stronger, and not heavier. But Mikoto had neutralized the biggest weapon in his arsenal by simply flooding the arena.

His lungs began burning for air and he tried to will his limp arms to move, but they remained heavy as stone.

He couldn't even open his eyes.

It might have been shock that had him bested so quickly and so easily, or it could have been an underlying fear for the girl.

A memory…

Nine months ago, one day before Lord Red Demon Week, his father, the Kazekage, had commanded that he lie down on an operating table so that Naruto could administer the beast containment seals his father had given him but he had refused and went berserk. They were far away in the same cave the one tails had been sealed in so they weren't worried about the civilian populace being injured.

He had been halfway to being full Shukaku and ready to use all the sand in the desert, spread out for miles and miles around, to destroy Sunagakure and his father.

That is, until Naruto stopped the older red head from acting and opted to try his luck against him. The ghost speed user opened a water satchel and squirted the contents into the air; he then moved his right hand, palm open, so quickly that the spray of water collected back together into a smooth water sphere. He then used his other hand to flash through a chain of fifty hand seals quickly and muttered a low jutsu.

"Water release: Black water vortex."

The sphere of water that levitated in his speedily moving right hand then spun within itself. This was when he began running at him with double high Jounin speed so that he could concentrate of the spinning ball of water in his hands, running directly on each sand attack that was shot at him. Before Gaara even knew it the spinning ball of water was thrown at him, much to close for him to dodge but he did raise a wall of sand to block. The water expanded, moving like an octopus, over the scorching hot sand and over the desperate sand user till he was basically in a large bubble of water that spun within itself like a washing machine. He was thrown around in the bubble violently for five minutes before the air in his lungs ran out and he passed out.

The jutsu was an A rank Namikaze ninjutsu only Ghost Speed users were capable of using. It wasn't regularly used since it consumed more than half of the users chakra.

Naruto was only still standing since he was part Uzumaki; his heritage from that clan was a massive well of chakra. Plus, Ghost Speed users were rare so that jutsu was locked away deep in the Namikaze jutsu vault in their clan compound.

It was possibly the fastest and easiest he had ever been incapacitated, and that sobered him up really quick.

Till this second, it still haunted his every waking days; that there was a single individual out there that was so strong he could toy with him.

If he had resorted to using all the sand in the desert, his father might find it difficult to restrain him.

It was possible that since the very instant they had been paired against each other, that the Namikaze prodigy knew how to take him down; he didn't believe she would resort to asking her older siblings on tips on how to disable him. That fact alone scared him, as a small bubble of air slip out of the side of his lips and his red hair swayed with the water, and he couldn't remember the day he had ever been scared of anyone, except with Mikoto's older brother and his father.

The water around him bubbled as the thought of him fearing the youngest Namikaze settled in his mind.

Toxic red chakra leaked out from his body and slowly spread around him.

If he was going to go down, he would go down fighting with everything he had in him.

Even though he was too soaked in chakra water to fully summon the One Tails, he would do what he could to fulfil his promise to the Namikaze.

The boy's eyes snapped open and his pupils dilated to a tiny dot as red veins pulsed from the edge of his eyeballs.

He roared from his underwater weight prison and the water exploded upwards like a geyser, forcing Mikoto to surf on the water to get closer to the centre, her right hand tightly holding her claymore. Her feet left tiny ripples on the water as she ran head first into the tall geyser in the middle of the arena, but she quickly dodged a normal sized brown arm that shot out from the geyser at her, sopping wet and mucky.

She grunted as the fist hit her square in the face and another met her unprotected stomach, the last one clipped her left cheek.

Blood spewed out of her mouth as she careened and bounced on the water.

She didn't allow her body to slow down before she got her hands under her and flipped three times, deftly landed on the wall and flipped forward once back onto the water, small ripples flowed out from under her feet as she landed.

She rolled her neck painfully, the crack making the collectively audience wince, and she ran her left sleeve over her mouth to clean up the blood. It smeared a down her chin.

Her eyes were fixed on the now settling spout of water, at the new Gaara; he was now encased in a wet sand body that was deep brown from the water. His head was covered in this sand leaving his lower face. There were lines and cracks running through his body, sealing fuinjutsu that carefully controlled the demon chakra flowing through his body.

Hand to hand wasn't his best fighting ability but he was passable in that aspect, Mikoto deduced. She didn't know that the armour, although providing a greater defence and eventual offense once a blow connected, was very slow.

"Your son can still use his bloodline with all that water soaked in his sand?" Minato asked the older Kage beside in bewilderment.

"He has been training to ever since Naruto left Suna." The man replied.

"But how is that possible? The weight of his sand should be impossible for one his age." Kamina, Leader of Hidden Marsh, asked sceptically.

"Gaara has always hated being weak; the weight of the sand and water is nothing. My only concern is on how long he would be able to hold it up."

"Especially with all that beast chakra he's using." Naruto muttered with his eyes narrowed. "Question is, would Mikoto use her own Tailed Beast as well?"

"We'll just have to wait and see." Minato replied his male bodyguard.

Mikoto did something that surprised the audience; she stabbed her claymore into the water and the handle stuck out of the water to show that it was indeed sheathed in the earth.

Everyone held their breaths in anticipation as the youngest Namikaze prodigy cracked her fists and discarded her claymore sheath next to her claymore; it splashed on the water and sank.

The proctor looked between them, standing a little bit away from their fight, and gulped as the water began to slowly churn within itself, Mikoto and Gaara though didn't move with the water. The proctor made sure he was securely stuck to the wall.

Suddenly the girl bent down and began running forward, her footsteps making a low pitter pattering sound as they hit the water, the audience remained silent as they watched the girl close the distance between her and the Kazekage's youngest son. Her right fist shot forward as she almost got to the boy, who remained unmoving, and the crowd erupted into crowing cheers as a wet sandy wall erupted from in front of him. Her fist smashed against the wet wall and it blasted inwards. She kept up her onslaught until a sandy arm pushed through the wall on the other side and nailed her face; she ducked the next blow and, with a yell of effort, punched the self-replenishing wet sand wall.

" Hyah!"

Boom!

As the wall crumbled Gaara wasted no time to dart to her with a head butt to her temple and a knee to her stomach, which was countered with her own knee. She slid around him and palm struck his back between his shoulder blades. The resounding thud echoed over the noisy crowd and she just barely leaned to her right as a sharp tendril shot from his neck, scratching her cheek lightly in the process. Though a dozen sand fists shot out from underneath her and punched her right under her chin, lifting her off the ground and slapping back onto the water.

Gaara raised both of his hands into the air and a wall of water-soaked sand slowly rose behind him. He growled as Mikoto painfully got back to her feet, she grabbed her chin and winced at the pain throbbing in it.

"Stay down!" the boy screamed and the sand wall divided into hundreds of poles that almost reached as high as the open roof of the arena, each pole swelled up at the tips to form boxing gloves, following the action of Gaara's balled fists. "Ten Thousand Sand Fists of Doom!"

His scream echoed over the uneasy noise of the crowd.

Mikoto looked on with one eye open and a mouthful of blood pouring down her chin at the incoming sand fists.

Without looking Minato raised his hand for Naruto to stand down. "No. Let her fight her own battles." The boy grit his teeth and grudgingly stood down. Rin though looked on worriedly as the fists got even closer to her sister but sighed in relief as the 'Mikoto' that was savagely punched exploded into a puff of chakra smoke.

Gaara looked around with his eyes wide and found his opponent standing further back than her dispelled clone, both of her eyes open and still having a smear of her blood on her chin; her clothes were still intact, merely soaked.

The sand user commanded the fists to return to him and they hovered over his shoulder, watching as the girl slapped her palms together, then into the ram hand seal.

"Uzumaki Chakra Chains." She said, much to the shock of everyone, especially the other team senseis'.

"She can use chakra chains?!" Kurenai muttered hotly to the masked sensei, the man eye smiled back at her.

"Of course she can. She is an Uzumaki." He said it like he was talking to a toddler.

"But Naruto and Rin are not able to use the Uzumaki's chakra chains." Gai asked slowly.

"Mikoto's chakra is dense enough to form long chains for an extended period of time, especially since she has the Kyuubi. But the twin's chakra is only dense enough for Chakra Construction." Kakashi explained.

" Chakra construction?" Ino Yamanaka, heiress of the Yamanaka clan, questioned as she watched three dozen golden chakra chains slither out from the youngest Namikaze's back but somehow not tearing her combat uniform. These chains waved like snakes in the air around Mikoto, their tips turning into sharp speared tips. "What's that?"

It was Asuma that explained it to the waiting Genin, even the visiting Genin listened in. " Chakra Construction is when the chakra of the person is dense enough to create objects, like weapons and even clothes; it's not like combining the Yin and Yang chakra since with Chakra Construction, the creations remain the colour of the persons chakra and isn't exactly… what's the word…? Permanent."

"Is that why the Red Sun are so strong? They are able to create weapons at will." another Konoha sensei asked the late Sandaime's son.

"Creating a weapon is one thing, using it well is another." The legendary Copy Ninja continued. He then entered teacher mode. "You see, Uzumaki Kushina-sensei was one of the greatest Uzumaki of her time. And since she was born from that clan, she had extremely dense chakra, dense enough to make thousands of chains that were able to hold down the Nine Tailed beast. This dense chakra watered down a little in the twins, only allowing them to chakra construct objects, mostly short to mid-distance objects, rather than full-on chains. Depending on the chakra capacity and density, the chakra chains could extend really, really far."

"Can they make throwing weapons then?" Tenten asked as she watched the chakra chains of the Namikaze girl clash against the sand fists of the sand user, the chains drilled through the sand and wrapped around the red-haired boy, who looked on with wide, horrified eyes as his attack was nullified. "I mean, since they can't use chakra construction for long distances."

"That's different. I haven't heard them using things like chakra shuriken before. I'll just say that it wouldn't be as strong as the real shuriken if it flies too far from them." Kakashi said as he scratched his chin. He watched as Mikoto forcefully broke apart the boy's sand armour by squeezing it and grinding it with barbed spikes on the golden chain. "That's a reason why people call Rin 'The Angel of Konoha' and Naruto 'The Red Demon'; they can use chakra construction to create wings and they can fly with them, but rarely."

"They can fly?!" Sakura shouted.

"Yes, but not usually. Naruto said it was because flying was too showy, it was more of Rin's thing," Kurenai responded. "And to think they couldn't get any stronger." She muttered to herself.

"Same." Kakashi sighed. "I'm so proud!" his eye watered and he sniffed. "You're doing great, Mikoto!" he shouted into the arena and sent the girl a thumb up.

The young Namikaze dragged the Kazekage's son to her and held him off the ground just in front of her.

Her face was emotionless to the way he struggled against the chakra draining chains.

She clenched her teeth and swallowed hard to hold in the anger that wanted to pour out, trying with all her might to suppress the bloodlust that originated from her tailed beast seal.

She forced the boy to look into her eyes as she spoke. "Take it back…" She said it so quietly, the crowd lessened their noise but only a little to hear what she had said. "Take back what you said about my brother."

"Fuck you." Gaara spat and his head cracked to the right at the earth shattering punch the girl gave him, he turned back to her and spat again, another blow met his other cheek. The barbed chains kept digging into his back, squeezing him tighter and tighter with each punch that broke him down. He could feel his cheeks splinter after the next blow and his left eye close after the one after that, his lip split open after another blank faced blow from the girl and blood mixed with spit dribbled from his lips after the next one.

Breathing became harder as the chains squeezed him tighter and darkness circled around his eyes with each continued blow.

Temari and Kankuro could only watch in horror as their undefeatable brother at the mercy of the Namikaze prodigy.

Worry grew in them with each small twitch of his leg, movement became shorter and they could barely see him breath until the proctor finally called the match in the young girl's favour. They wasted no time to jump into the arena and catch their younger brother as the girl threw him at them.

"Medic! We need a medic!" the proctor yelled and four medics ran in to attend to the limp Kazekage's son.

Mikoto numbly watched as the medics frantically tried to sustain the life of the young boy, who was now a bloody, broken mess of flesh, bone, sand and clothes. She hastily walked to him but the older sand siblings barred her from coming any closer, the sheer hate and fear in their eyes was almost overwhelming. Kankuro growled. "Don't come any closer, you've done enough."

"I-I'm sorry-" the girl whispered and tried to reach forward past them but Temari cut her off.

"Just…just go." The blonde girl said and turned around worriedly as her brother was gently set on a stretcher. "Please. Go." She said quietly and the red-haired girls shoulder slumped.

"I'm sorry." She said as she ran off the arena.

"Mikoto, wait!" Sakura shouted and ran after her crying team mate down to the lower levels of the arena.

Naruto pursed his lips and looked at his father, the man smiled faintly and nodded in the general direction the young red head had run to.

The Ghost Speed user exhaled gratefully before he told his sister. "Make sure Gaara's ok." The girl nodded at his order and both leaped over the railing of the Kage's booth.

As Naruto's feet hit the floor he looked to where his eternal rival, Itachi, sat with the rest of the Uchiha clan, and the Uchiha nodded shortly before he looked at the Yondaime. The informal switch of guards had been made but only until the bloody sun returned to their posts.

"Don't you think it's unwise to send out both of your guards?" the Kazekage droned, not showing much disturbance at the brutality of the last fight.

"The Chunin exam is being hosted in my village. I don't really need bodyguards." He answered as he looked on as Gaara was slowly carried off on a stretcher over the tall water by medics water walking on its surface. Meanwhile Rin, the gentler half of the Red Sun, spoke soothingly to Gaara's older siblings, gradually making them drop their guard around her and allow her a little bit closer to their broken younger brother.

Naruto simply pulled out his sister's claymore, sheathed it and clipped the sheath to his right hip as he exited the main arena. It was after Naruto had smiled with his eyes at him did Gaara finally pass out into blissful unconsciousness.

The hunter jogged after the small chakra he sensed in front of him, knowing that it was Sakura. He found the girl knocking against a door to a room and stopped when she saw Naruto coming up to her. "She won't come out."

He nodded and pressed his ear to the door to hear what was going on. No sound. "Mikoto, are you ok?"

"…Leave me alone." Was the muffled reply.

"I'm your brother; it's my job to bug you." He expected even a small laugh but he didn't hear any. Sakura nervously waited for the girl to open the door. "I'm not leaving. Miko-Miko…?" her eyebrows shot into her hairline at the unfamiliar name for her teammate and she was surprised when the door cracked open a little to show just a single sky-blue eye.

"I told you to stop calling me that." The girl mumbled tearfully. "I'm not a kid anymore." She looked like she was about to cry any second.

Naruto's purple eyes softened and he smiled gently at the girl. "You're always going to be my baby sister, Mikoto. That would never change." The girls lips wobbled and tears began falling from her eyes as she threw the door open to lunge into her big brother for a tight hug. The tears increased as her arms tightened around his back, she refused to cry loudly. The older red head patted her back. "Sakura, can we please have some privacy?"

"Mikoto's my friend-"

"Its fine, Sakura, I'll catch you later." Mikoto's voice was muffled against the boy's flak jacket protected belly as she kept her eyes clenched shut. The pink haired girl nodded curtly and walked off. The older Namikaze remained standing straight as he patted the girls back while she, yet to be as tall as him, stayed where she was. "I don't know what came over me; I just got so… mad when he insulted you." He didn't wince when she hugged him tighter but relaxed a second later.

The boy's eyebrows rose a little at what she said. "It's not your fault-"

"Yes, it is! I could have stopped myself but I didn't, I…I just wanted him to take back what he said about you." She exclaimed and looked at him, before she again pushed her face into his belly. "I'm sorry I didn't live up to my promise, big bro."

Naruto's lips twitched upwards in mild amusement. "I once broke a man's back for calling Rin an idiot." He stated abruptly and suppressed a grin when she looked up at him again, her mouth gaping in shock. "Well…he wasn't really a man, per say…more like a demon but eh."

"When did that happen?"

"Demon country." he answered shortly. "Have you read about the history of our clan?"

"Of course I have, big sis taught it to me when I was four."

"If you really studied our clan history, you'll notice that we are very territorial and protective of our family, even against seemingly small insults. Hell, father severely injured the current Tsuchikage's back during the last war when he called his older cousin a ditz, and we all know late Aunt Kumi was a little ditzy." He winked at her and the girl giggled quietly, hiding her red face in his stomach. None of them had exactly met Kumi Namikaze; rather he had heard stories of her from his father. Funny stories. "I'm proud of you for protecting my honour, Miko-Miko."

"Thank you, bro." she beamed at him.

He pinched her cheeks and ruffled her straight hair, laughing at her childish groan. "No problem. Now, I think you should be getting back to the arena; your next match is close." He returned her claymore and she attached it to her hip. They both began walking back to the contestants' booth. He idly asked. "So how was using your claymore?"

"Much better than the katana actually. For some reason, I can carry it better than I did with the katana. Is that weird?"

She had selected the claymore when she went weapon shopping with her older sister. She personally drew the Chakra Affinity Storage seals all over the blade, and had been assured by the shop owner that there was already a durability seal on it, her job was just to properly maintain the weapon.

Naruto shook his head. "Not at all, it just means that heavy weapons are more your style." He flicked his right wrist and a dark, eight-foot-long pole spun out of his palm. He hit the base on the ground and a misty red scythe blade shot from the top; it was about two and a half feet long. He twirled the scythe in his hand and it made a whooshing sound. "Like with this scythe for me; I'm not a weapons master but I can hold my own with any light-handed weapon. Your sister prefers heavy weapons, like broad swords, battle axes, bludgeons, you know." He stopped spinning the black and red chakra construction scythe and it burst into red mist, floating back into Naruto's palm.

"Can I ever use chakra construction?" Mikoto asked as she strained to form her own weapon but only three gold chains coiled out of her wrist.

Naruto chuckled lightly. "Your chakra chains are much better than my chakra construction, trust me. Your chains can go to any distance at breath taking speeds, while I can only use short to mid distance. Since your chakra is denser than mine, its stronger than mine."

"But…you're so much better than me…"

"You're still a growing kid, you've got time to learn how to use it better." They stopped at the stairs that led up to the contestants booth and the red haired girl quickly hugged her brother one more time before she ran up the stairs.

"See you later, bro!" And before she forgot. "And thanks again!"

Every other match seemed to pale against the Hokage's youngest child vs. the Kazekage's youngest child, except probably the fight between Sasuke Uchiha and Neji Hyuuga.

That fight had ended with the young Uchiha victorious but with painful pin-like marks on his body where his tenketsu had been poked; he had only dodged this by switching with a log that was riddled with explosive tags.

After an hour-long intermission agreed on by the village leaders, the exams continued, with the Namikaze Genin being the first to be called to fight against…

Kabuto smirked at the way the girl glared at him, expecting him to be intimidated. He didn't expect her to stop in front of him and thrust her hand forward for a hand shake.

"I hope we have a good fight, Mister Kabuto."

He looked down at the hand once and slapped it away. "Don't worry kid, I won't beat you too hard." The girl closed the formerly offered hand, closing it into a fist and popping the knuckles. With visible restraint, she took a step back.

"Proctor." She said.

"Alright, Mikoto Namikaze vs. Kabuto Yakushi. Begin!"

Every spectator expected the girl to draw her weapon, it was what they usually came to expect of her in her fights.

This time, Mikoto didn't unsheathe her claymore. Rather, she ran headfirst to the older teen as he began monologuing. "I'm not sure what you expect to do again-"

He was silenced when her fist wafted past his face. He smirked cockily but never expected the knee that had been covered by the initial fist to smash against his ribs.

Kssh!

He limped away from the girl and she patiently stayed where she was, watching him nurse his bruised ribs with a bright smile on her face. She ran to him when he started talking again. "That was a lucky-"

He bent under a spinning kick, leaned back from two solid kicks to his neck, slid to his left from an axe kick but was blindsided when a clone erupted from directly under him, nailing his chin squarely and bursting into thick white chakra smoke.

Yumi Chou, Leader of Hidden Chill, smirked when she realized the girls plan. "She used the dispelled clone's smoke to cover his senses."

Chakra smoke from a dispelled clone still carried the chakra of the user until it thinned in the air and returned, but it was a sure way to confuse a sensor. Sadly, shadow clones took a lot of chakra to make; this was why people rarely used them for this reason.

Mikoto leaped into the smoke as she drew her claymore, disappearing a moment later from their eyes. They could hear sounds of combat, particularly the sounds of metal slicing through flesh and muffled yells of pain.

There were five more puffs of smoke, showing that she had summoned more clones and Kabuto had made the mistake of dispelling them, thickening the chakra smoke around him even more.

Finally, they could hear the distinct sound of multiple knives sliding through a human body before the smoke was gratefully blown away. They could see Kabuto, barely even standing, with two kunai deep in his arm pits, two through each thigh and calf, two through each lower arm, two in his sides, two in his shoulders and one hilted in his belly.

Chouji gulped at the sight. "Mikoto sure is brutal."

Shikamaru unconsciously nodded in agreement.

The Namikaze then finished Kabuto off by kicking him face first into the ground and held another kunai blade pointed down, tip to his neck, pressing it in so that it drew a little blood. The knives in his limbs hindered any movement he wanted to make, grinding into his bones with every breath he took. The blade digging into his neck wasn't helping matters either. He closed his eyes in defeat as Mikoto was named the winner; he had made the mistake of underestimating her and she capitalized on it.

Rin cheered without shame. "Go, Mikoto!"

The medic could feel the blood lust of his Master digging into the back of his head as he shuddered, struggling to breathe or even move, he was hoisted onto a stretcher by the medics, loathing the pitiful looks they gave him and he was taken through the tunnel.

Before the tunnel could fully envelope him, he spared a look at the young, victorious Namikaze and frowned sharply at her grin. She sent him a finger wiggling wave as she sheathed her claymore into the sheath on her hip smoothly.

Something was wrong.

He could feel it.

Something was definitely wrong.

The medics lugged the immobile medic through the door and he was immediately furrowed his eyebrows when he noticed the lone occupant of the room.

The Konoha medics bowed to the person and shuffled out of the medical ward silently, clicking the door shut.

The matter was made worse when he realized that the weapons were still digging into his joints, paralyzing him; why the hell didn't he notice that the medics haven't even taken them out yet.

The other shinobi in the medical ward looked at him blankly, his spikey blood red hair seemed menacing as the light streamed through the window and hit him. The young man was in a pair of pitch-black long-sleeved shirt and pants that stopped at his ankles, his white sandals ended at his ankles and some white bandages around the middle of his right thigh. He had the standard forest green Konoha Jounin vest and his forehead protector was wrapped on his right upper arm. There was a scary looking, long red and black tanto that was leaning against the chair he sat on, safely sheathed in its black holder.

He was fingering the handle of the deadly weapon, which itself had a twin that wasn't present.

Naruto hummed, tipping his head to the side.

He allowed Kabuto to feel the killer intent he was focusing primarily on him, created and mastered from years of pain and experience, a killer intent that was one of the many, many reasons he was called the Red Demon.

The silver haired man's teen's eyes widened silently as a hovering beast formed directly behind the S ranked red haired Namikaze; the creature was misty red, bearing the jagged mandibles of a mantis on a mask most would affiliate with the god of death, the Shinigami. In its right hand was a long, curved scythe that was levelled on Kabuto.

The mask slowly cracked, bit by bit, to reveal that under it was nothing.

An empty, hollow nothing.

Vacant of light and sound, yet pulling in the light and sounds of the world around it.

The nothing under the mask churned within itself into a vacuum, getting stronger and faster.

Looking deep into the spinning red vortex on the face of the killer intent manifestation, it was already too late for the medic to look away. He could feel his very soul being pulled out of his body, he could feel fiery hot fingers stab though his chest and grab his soul by the neck, strangling it with savage strength and slowly drawing it out when it began to get limp.

The real Kabuto, meanwhile, was convulsing.

Sweat soaked his clothes, his eyes were wide and bloodshot, petrified to the very core by the tremendous amount of power he was witnessing from the fastest person on the planet.

Naruto slightly cocked his head to the other side curiously as he observed the terrified man vibrate from the illusion he combined with his killer intent, his sharingan spiralled slowly to a stop when the other teenager's heartrate spiked dangerously.

The pulling force that was applied to his soul ceased, but the fist that was wrapped around its neck didn't let up, suffocating him in ways he could never even imagine.

He had heard stories about the red demon and how he had once taken down a whole band of A ranked missing ninjas with a glance; reports said that a sole survivor kept screaming about how the Shinigami's right hand was coming to finish him off. He didn't imagine it was this harsh facing off against Naruto's killer intent, not even his strength, and he had already forfeited his life at his hands.

He had helped Orochimaru heal from the last time he had faced the ghost flash twins and he had resolved to stay as far away from them as possible but his fate was sealed the moment the sound messenger didn't return to Orochimaru with his response, not that he knew that.

The red void continued to slowly spin on the phantoms face as Naruto stood up and walked to Kabuto. He stopped at his side, the void faced phantom followed suit and looked over Naruto's shoulder. The sharingan user forced the haunted man by his neck and forced him to look into his doujutsu; he said a few short words to the man. "Tell me all you know about the Otokage."

The man gulped and hesitated for a few minutes but the phantom looked more over Naruto's shoulder at the medic. When he again witnessed the nothing face of death, Kabuto immediately felt his soul being dragged out even more, close to fully leaving his body, before it was pushed back violently into his body.

He blinked numerous times after this and gulped thickly before his mouth opened and everything poured out.

Naruto smirked a little as every secret concerning Hidden sound, its occupants, its dealings and Orochimaru sped out of the hyperventilating man's mouth at a fervent pace.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Something was wrong.

This thought ran through Orochimaru's head as he hastily looked around for his loyal assistant.

He refrained from growling, fearing that he would attract the attention of the others in the box with him.

His arms were crossed tightly as he scanned the crowd for any silver hair; he looked around until his eyes accidentally fell on the blonde Namikaze twin, Rin. The girl looked at him harmlessly and leaned to him. "Is there something wrong, Mister Bumi?" She stood protectively behind her father, the Yondaime Hokage, like every other guard and patiently waited for her twin brother to return.

The Hidden Sand ninja shook his head and spoke in a gruff voice, a close imitation to the real Bumi's tone. "It must have been something I ate."

The girl nodded sympathetically. "I know what you mean; sushi goes right through me, you know." She said it familiarly, even adding a tittering laugh that attracted the attention of a few other guards but not her father for some reason, but the Sannin knew she had an underlying meaning for her words.

He changed the topic when he sensed this. "Where is your brother? I didn't even notice him leave."

She shrugged. "We Namikaze have a way of speaking so fast no one notices; Lord Hokage sent him to tell the kitchen crew to prepare for the intermission."

The disguised man nodded slowly, not buying her excuse.

When the Namikaze didn't return, even after the intermission had run out, alarm bells rang through his head.

The short look the Hokage shared with the Kazekage put him on edge, this was after the blonde Kage had finished reading an incredibly short letter, and he did it so quickly he didn't have time to peak in to read as well.

He was aware that Konoha and Suna were on good relations. Despite the age gap between the Hokage and Kazekage, the respective village leaders held the utmost respect for each other; there were Suna ninjas all over Konoha and likewise in Suna. Relations between them were at an all-time high.

Why the hell did he disregard this and willingly request to be part of the Kage's guard, disguised as another Sand ninja, rather than enter as a team sensei?

He was snapped out of his frantic musings by the village leader he had assigned himself to.

"Bumi."

"Yes, Lord Kazekage?"

"Can you go and fetch my handkerchief from my room?" Minato snorted quietly when he heard this.

'Handkerchief? Really? That's the best you could come up with?' the Sand leader looked at the Leaf leader sharply, telling him to shut up with eyes alone.

"Hai, Lord Kazekage." He said mechanically.

"Do you want me to help you out? Handkerchiefs can be hard to find sometimes." Rin proposed slowly, also wondering why the old Kage chose to use the handkerchief excuse.

"No. I can find it." Orochimaru, already catching up to what they wanted to do.

They would all die trying.

He was confident that he was able to take one half of the Ghost Flash, but prevention was always better than cure; better to avoid confrontation for the time being.

As he left the Kage's booth, his plan was to make beeline to the west gate then back to hidden Sound, he didn't catch the nod in his direction.

Or even when Uchiha Itachi nodded curtly and excused himself from among his clan mates, no one the wiser except a few perceptive people in the arena, including Uchiha Mikoto.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The streets were deserted as Orochimaru removed the false skin over his head, he hissed in irritation at how his invasion plans had been blown to smithereens.

He had been receiving regular reports from the camps stationed outside Konoha, but it was only when he had eavesdropped on a conversation on when numerous camps were destroyed all around Konoha.

The plan was for Kabuto to put a genjutsu over the arena and for him to use a jutsu to push away the village leaders and guards, leaving Minato alone and with no reinforcements.

It was a flawless plan in his eyes; how did it all fall apart so easily? Especially when he realized that he had been receiving dummy letters from the supposed camps around Konoha for the past three weeks.

Was it old age that had made him overconfident?

He finished shedding the skin of the man he had killed three weeks prior, after the beginning matches of the third stage of the Chunin exams. Doing so revealed his usually pale skin, as opposed to the tanned appearance of Bumi the late Sand shinobi.

He quickened his pace but stopped abruptly, dozens of feet away from his destination, when a chakra signature blinked behind him, clearly wanting him to know of his presence.

He turned to the person and scowled; another person that had bested him in a fight.

"I would have thought that blonde brat would have sent his strongest shinobi after me. Not the dregs." He wanted to get under Itachi's skin but was failing.

Itachi remained impassive as his coal black eyes stared down the snake summoner. "I don't remember being a 'dreg' when I left you half-dead in Grass country." He didn't show it facially but he savoured the hatred the man was giving him. It always seemed that with every generation the ninjas were getting stronger and stronger; he remembered a time when he was the strongest of the Sannin, now he looked hopeless. He shook the thought out of his head; he wouldn't be beaten so easily again, Itachi can try.

"What do you want brat? I'm busy." He said as he crossed his arms tightly.

"I was ordered by Lord Hokage to bring you back, dead or alive. He doesn't really mind either way." The A ranked Uchiha leaned back in the lazy slump and looked at Orochimaru with bored, half lidded eyes. "Which do you prefer, Orochimaru?"

"You made the mistake of not coming with reinforcements, brat." He said as he ignored the question and flipped through two hand seals with a wicked smirk on his face. "Explosive clone technique."

Itachi cursed when he heard this and time slowed down.

His eyes transformed into his three tomoe sharingan and they morphed into the Mangekyo sharingan.

His vision saw the body of the Sannin bloat up at a super snail's pace, he saw the faint movement of chakra building up in the clone's stomach. He closed his left eye and whispered. "Kamui,"

An almost invisible vortex of air erupted from his right eye and covered the explosion that was to happen, swallowing it whole and leaving just black scorched ground. A small shock wave shook through the immediate area.

He closed both of his eyes as a single small drop of blood fell from his right eye; far away in the Forest of Death an explosion went off.

He sighed in frustration. "Lord Minato won't like this…"

He didn't look when he heard a low buzzing next to him.

Naruto materialized from the blurry red haze, like he had stepped out of a portal, looking to where the Sannin had escaped.

"You really should stop using that jutsu; I'm sure your doctor said not to do that."

Itachi waved off his concern. "I'm fine. Do you have a lock on his chakra?" he wiped the drop of blood away and Naruto narrowed his eyes, looking to where the Sannin escaped to.

"Since the very first day I met him, yes." Naruto replied as his own sharingan activated. "Do you want to capture him too?"

"Of course I do. I can't let you have all the glory." He looked at his long-time friend from the corner of his eyes with his now both open eyes. A small, near-identical smile grew on their faces, that was when Naruto noticed that Itachi still had his Mangekyo activated. "Think you can keep up?"

And he was swallowed up in a Kamui.

Naruto's eyebrows twitched when he realized that Itachi had, once again, cheated in a simple foot race. "Oh, we'll see who gets to him first."

He got into a start sprinting position and the air hummed in anticipation of what he was about to do. Chakra started gathering from his calves and spreading throughout his body before he released the tension in his body abruptly and shot forward.

He disappeared in a haze of transparent air half a second later.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It was always strange how Naruto had red-black chakra instead of the usual blue, just like how Rin had yellow-white chakra.

Studies on their strange looking chakra told them that they also acted differently; the first thing that came to mind was that Naruto and Rin were the first in recorded history to have the Chakra Construction ability, which was appropriately named by their father.

The various scientists all over the continent theorized that their chakra looked and acted vastly different because their father's chakra, laced through and through with Yin chakra, toppled the balance of the Yin/ Yang Kyuubi chakra flowing through Kushina.

The Uzumaki princess contained both chakra halves of the Kyuubi, but when Minato's large yin chakra content was added into the mix, the Kyuubi chakra didn't recede but rather it merged with his chakra in their children.

Naruto had gotten the more sinister colour either by some luck of the draw or because he had the affinity to unlock the Ghost Speed release in him.

That was the general, sane and logical assumption about the ghost flash twins.

The other theory was that Rin was actually an angel and Naruto was actually a demon.

But that couldn't be true, right?

Right?

Whether he was a demon or not the Kamui was zero point a hundred other zeros and a one times faster that his Ghost Speed. So, even though it was more of a race, the first thing Itachi did when his head popped out directly behind their target was to spit out three water bullets, not at Orochimaru, but a little to his side, making him feel like he dodged them but he didn't. These bullets smashed against the trees he was about to enter, about three miles away from Konoha now, and these trees abruptly fell in his path, slowing him down so that Naruto, who now sported two pairs of red-veined black wings, appeared in front of the Sannin and drove his fist into the older man's face, caving it in.

The man was thrown away by the brutal attack and he rolled on his side limply, blood gushing out from every orifice on his face before he stopped, face first on the ground and showing no signs of breathing.

Naruto still had his fan-like wings open, but folded them when he realized that he might not need them; the wings folded flat on his back and melted away into red mist.

Itachi and Naruto, with the barely alive Sannin between them, watched with mild irritation as the man hurled his own body out of his mouth, like a snake shedding its skin in a grotesque show of body horror, coming out good as new.

Naruto then said. "You have an annoying habit of running away, snake summoner."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hurt your feelings?" Was the sharp, sarcastic response from the man. "Do you cry yourself to sleep knowing I'm the one that got away?"

He was goading Naruto, hoping that the jabs would throw him off his game.

Naruto, though, wasn't fazed by it. Rather, he held up on hand and flipped through twenty lightning fast hand seals before Orochimaru could even process what was going to happen. After the hand seals were completed, a hazy bubble of red chakra escaped his body and covered the other two highly ranked shinobi, going as far as a two mile radius with him at the centre.

"Ninja art: Spinning Barrier of the Revolving Heavens."

Orochimaru snorted in amusement. "So, you trapped us in until you die, huh." He slowly clapped at this. "I didn't know the Hyuuga allowed outsiders to know and use their jutsu."

"It's not a Hyuuga jutsu." Itachi droned, reminding Orochimaru of his presence; the black cloak the Uchiha wore over his standard Jounin uniform fluttered almost dramatically in the wind as he continued. "It's a jutsu Lord Sandaime created. He used it to contain the Kyuubi when it attacked twelve years ago. But you're right. You have to kill him before it falls." Substitution jutsu and the body flicker jutsu wouldn't work. "Are you ready to face your fate, Orochimaru-san?"

"No, child, the real question is," he moved a little to the side so that he would see both of them and pulled up a sleeve to reveal the complex seals littered on his left forearm, Naruto's sharingan could only note that it was a level seven seal. "Are you ready for yours?"

Both sharingan holders narrowed their eyes in suspicion as he bit his thumb quickly and swiped over the seal.

"Summoning jutsu: Sound five!"

Six puffs of smoke burst from his sides and behind him to reveal six teenagers, younger than the two A rank teens, and in ready stances too attack at a moment's notice.

Their eyes widened when they realized who their master had summoned them to fight.

The Red Demon and the Crow.

They didn't crumble under the gazes of the high ranked ninjas though, and it was Kimimaro that spoke first. "You will regret the day you were born, Red Demon." He pushed down the urge to call the red-haired Namikaze 'Lord'.

The Red Demon looked over the young teens, two facing him and three (four) facing Itachi, and replied. "Is this what you really want? To die for this man?"

"We will gladly die for Lord Orochimaru. He was the one that gave us a purpose." Kidomaru said as his eyes trained on Itachi. "But we won't be the ones dying here today."

"So be it," Itachi grunted. Meanwhile, Orochimaru watched the interaction with glee, his servants would wear the two down enough for him to attack and take their eyes.

It was perfect.

It wasn't perfect.

The infamous red demon raised his left hand towards them and beckoned them to come at him.

Tayuya and Kimimaro barrelled towards him and the others ran at Itachi.

"Do you really think Itachi and Naruto are capable of defeating Orochimaru?" Kamina, Leader of Hidden Marsh, asked the Hokage at his side as they watched the very last match; Mikoto vs. Sasuke.

"I have no doubt they will." Naruto leaned back from the bone swipe to his neck and, quick as a flash, lifted his leg up to push the red-haired girl away when she came at him with a poisoned dagger. He uncrossed his arms and slapped three bones from the air, driving both of his palms into Kimimaro's chest.

There was a resounding boom after he did so and dust blew around, where he raised an intrigued eyebrow at how easily the bone user shrugged off the same attack that would have killed any full-grown man.

He didn't permit the boy time to gloat; his middle and pointer fingers, laced with red chakra, poked his neck and his forehead, dazing him so that Naruto could cock his fist back and drive it unforgivingly into his stomach, then a spinning kick to his cheek. He looked over his shoulder at the hesitant, foul-mouthed girl and narrowed his sharingan eyes at her. Without wasting any more time, she summoned four giant monsters and controlled their thoughts and actions with the sweet music she was playing with her flute.

"You have so much faith in them, especially your son." Yumi added questionably as she swirled a cup of tea with a small tea spoon.

"There is a reason I want him to be Hokage, instead of maybe Rin or even Kakashi." Minato continued as he smiled brightly at his daughter when she used the flat of her claymore to clang against four thrown kunai and ran head first at the attacking Uchiha.

"Mind telling us why?" the Kazekage droned as he divided his attention between watching the interesting fight and the leader's conversation.

"Well for starters, Naruto isn't just smart; he's a genius like none other. Myself included." A high praise couldn't be given. "He was able to devise a way to sneak past chakra detectors in the entrance of a night club, especially with the large chakra coils he has, and murder a whole meeting of kingpins, fifteen in number, without notifying their guards of his presence."

Naruto stepped away from a downward club from an adamant monster, seeing as it had witnessed its other comrades being beheaded by blows; their bloody carcasses lay on their sides, littered around. The Red Demon ran under another clubbing blow and slammed his palm against the bulging belly of the attacking behemoth; a scorching hand mark appeared on the creatures back before the mark exploded, throwing out blood and guts in a straight line, splashing Tayuya in the face. The boy allowed the creature to fall over, dead, as he idly began walking to the usually confident but now panicking girl.

She was frantic for good reason; he had destroyed her summons in four minutes and he didn't even use more than mid Jounin speed.

Kamina whistled, impressed at the feat. "That is impressive, but that can't be the only reason."

The blonde Hokage shook his head negatively. "No, it isn't. Naruto's logical prowess in the field alone doesn't set him apart, rather it is also his intelligence when he assists me in the office; he has shown me that he wouldn't easily crumble under the pressure."

The guards and his sisters listened to what the aging Namikaze said attentively.

"So far." he added under his breath.

"Why do you think he is so strong at such a young age?" Shibuki, Waterfall's leader pushed.

Minato shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"I know why, if you don't mind me interrupting." Rin said, the Chill leader nodded for her to speak. "He uses his fear to push him to be the best at what he does."

"And what is his fear?" the Sand leader prodded.

The girl smiled widely. "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that."

Naruto's biggest fear was of him losing his family.

He was now basically toying with them.

Kimimaro, with his Cursed Seal of Earth activated, was trying his possible best to at least get a tag in on the older boy.

Naruto dodged all of his attacks, kicked the back of his knees violently and smashed his foot into the boy's spine unforgivingly. The blow didn't harm the bone user one bit, but rather it shook him, distracting him from seeing when Naruto flashed through thirty-seven hand seals.

"Fire and wind release: Cooperation jutsu: Flames of the Underworld."

Crimson red fires billowed out of his mouth and washed over the bone user.

His pained screams broke Tayuya out of her daze.

"Fuck it, I'm gonna kill you-you-you fucking piece of shit!" She screamed madly and activated her Cursed Seal of Heaven.

Naruto kept blowing unbearably hot columns of fire on the bone user's prone body, idly keeping track of the girl. The abnormally red fire licked at the boy's skin and barrelled through his lungs, leaving a path of burnt destruction in its wake. All the boy could do was lay on his back, his mouth wide open in horror that he was indeed going to die and that even if Tayuya got to him on time he was still a lost cause. His skin fell off his bone in clumps, sizzling on the ground and that was when Naruto finally stopped pouring fire from his mouth, so that he could drive his knee up the girls chin.

Her neck snapped back harshly, a late realization of the futility of her last attack, and she fell back like a tree, a motion so fast she doubted it ever happened. But the proof was the consciousness leaving her and her beating heart thumping slower and slower.

The red demon looked at them impassively and cancelled the sharingan genjutsu he had on them from the very beginning; the fire that burned crackled and went off to reveal that the bone release user was also unconscious.

Didn't they know that looking into the eyes of a sharingan user was not advisable?

"I'm proud of my daughter, Rin, as well. She didn't just let her brother rise up through the ranks; she rose up too but I also have to consider whether or not she would be ready to become Hokage." The Hokage echoed as Sasuke threw two kicks at his youngest daughter that connected to her right shoulder and a final kick that hit her ear. The girl fell down face first into the ground, her deadly weapon still tightly grasped in her hands. "Rin has shown that she can be all-business but she also has a streak for illogical thinking, nothing severe or harmful to her performance in missions. I'm talking about in diplomatic relations." The blonde girl sheepishly ducked her head when her father said this. "That's why I send Naruto on those sorts of missions instead of her. She may have a way with words but she also wears her heart on her sleeve."

He sighed in relief when his daughter rolled away and flipped back to her feet, her face very much worse for wear but ready to fight again.

Naruto allowed a water clone to melt out from his side as he looked back at the Sannin, who was grinning ear to ear at him. "I would have expected them to be better, and I expected you to kill them."

"They have potential to be great shinobi. I will kill them only when they are irredeemable." He said mechanically as he closed his left eye, the Mangekyo sharingan spun to life in his right. "You have two options," he said as the air hummed with restrained power, ebbing out from the teenagers very being. His Mangekyo remained still and his eyes weren't yet bleeding but the strong gaze he levelled at the man would have delved any other person into hysteria. Orochimaru refrained from looking into his eyes. "Come back with us, dead or alive. Which do you choose?"

The man realized that he couldn't make the mistake of underestimating Naruto again, so he got into a strong Snake Fist taijutsu stance and his arms transformed into white twin cobras, each on hissing venom at the boy. His answer was predictable. "You'll just have to wait and see."

Naruto got into his own clan taijutsu stance and his Mangekyo slowly began to spin, not blindingly fast but still fast enough and red mist covered his arms; two red mantis Susanno claws covered his arms, the serrated teeth were black and the rest bubbled with red chakra.

Itachi effortlessly dispatched his opponents and ordered a clone to tie them up as he trained his eyes on both fighters; he wasn't going to interfere out of respect for his long-time friend.

"Naruto is not only mentally strong but also physically strong as well. Even though his is not the strongest, physically, in Konoha he has shown that he doesn't always need strength to win a fight." Minato continued, watching as twelve barbed golden chains slithered out of his daughters back, each one pointing at Sasuke while the girl herself pointed at him with her claymore. Her body was riddled with small scratches and bruises. All the while Sasuke, armed with two extra-long kunai, prepared to run at her; he too looked like the fight had taken a toll on his body, as much as it did with his rival.

His two tomoe sharingan were whirring blazingly in his eyes as he grit his teeth under the effort of reading her. "I have personally seen when he bested a comrade in a spar with just four punches and two kicks."

A right fisted upper cut, two left hooks, a heel kick to the side of the head, a kick to the sternum and finally a punch right across his opponent's face.

"There are only a handful of people that can really push him to his limits."

Rin, Kakashi, Gai and him. Not all at once but it was still an impressive feat.

"Rin might have been my first choice as Hokage, but Naruto is my final choice. He might need more training and experience to finally become Hokage, and I still have a few more years to go but I'm confident he will be ready to take the post."

'And I will stand by him till the very end. I promise, Naruto.' Rin swore in her heart.

She supported Naruto through everything and she wasn't jealous that he would become Kage instead of her.

He had been there for her, for them, through thick and thin.

Long ago, her father had confided in her that even when Naruto became Hokage, he would still need her to help him.

She was years ahead of him with that idea.

The older Namikaze knew that, even though Naruto was much stronger than her, when they fought together, she brought out the beast in him and he brought out the monster in her.

Naruto, with one eye still closed, ran at his opponent just as Orochimaru did.

A cobra reached forward to Naruto, purple, cursed chakra filled its harshly hissing mouth and a mantis claw slashed down at him, black chakra leaving a trail in its wake.

No one could feel the resounding boom as the attack made contact.

Authors note

And done. What do you think?

Expect the fourth chapter to be out tomorrow!

Let me know what you think, would you so kindly. Please and please, stay safe, where you are in the world. And I will see you when I see you :)

Foy.