-8 days left till the Chunin Exams-

When Naruto woke up, he found himself in a hospital bed, not knowing how he got there, his memories then came back to him and he remembered what had happened, he had challenged the chief Toad, Gamabunta if he could hold on till sunset and he did, or he was sure he did, but sadly, the young boy couldn't remember what happened after that.

"Yo, Naruto," called a voice from the door, to which Naruto turned to find the young Nara heir, Shikamaru, waving at him.

"Hey, Shikamaru, what are you doing here?" asks Naruto, his face showing his confusion.

"I'm here to visit you, I heard you ended up in the hospital," said Shikamaru. Naruto pulled off the blanket and got off the bed, before deciding to step out with Shikamaru, out of the hospital room.

"So, how's Choji?" asked Naruto, as they walked through the halls.

"He's fine, by the way, why were you in the hospital?" asked Shikamaru. Naruto thought about it for a second, as he decided whether he should tell the young Nara the truth about his training, or just mess with him.

"Well- wait a second, isn't that Busy brows room?" asked Naruto, as he noticed another of the finalists standing outside the room that housed genin Rock Lee, Gaara of the Sand, who seemed to many to be a monster who hungered for the blood, as he killed without spite and hesitation, anyone who stood in his way, and also seemed to have this strange obsession with 'mother', whoever that was.

He opened the door that housed the sleeping taijutsu user, who had himself given the young bloodthirsty a challenge before being injured heavily, for using forbidden jutsu known as the 8 gates against him.

"Why is he? Oh no," said Shikamaru, as he and Naruto shared a look and a thought before both rushed through the room, to find Gaara hovering over the budding taijutsu user, as the sand user moved his hand towards Rock Lee's neck, Naruto silently moved behind the Sand user, masking his chakra while Gaara was distracted.

Gaara stopped moving as he felt a cold piece of metal at his neck, behind him he saw Naruto, holding a kunai at his neck, but felt no fear as the Uzumaki put the kunai away and took a step back.

"You know, it's kind of rude to try to kill someone in their sleep," said Naruto, as Gaara attempted to turn towards him but found he couldn't, he then noticed that Shikamaru was also in the room.

"Exactly, what are you doing?" asked Shikamaru, as Gaara looked at both of them annoyed.

"Proving my existence," said Gaara, chillingly.

"Proving your existence, how?" asked the young blond-haired Genin to the redhead.

"By killing this fool, Mother demands his blood." Naruto then wisely went and stood next to Shikamaru, feeling a bit chilled, at what the boy had just said, but then felt a burning piece of curiosity eating at him, who exactly was this mother that Gaara kept referring to? He constantly mentions her and he says something similar to Sasuke.

"Who is this 'mother', you keep talking about?" asked Naruto, to which Gaara looked at him.

"Mother has many names, she is known also as Shukaku the sand spirit, and as the One Tails," said Gaara, as Naruto's terror grew and he became pale as he realized what this meant.

'There are others like me,' thought Naruto, as the shadow retracted from Gaara and he began walking towards the door.

"It doesn't matter what you do, I will kill all of you and Mother shall taste your blood, " said Gaara, as Shikamaru's eyes widened.

"I know what you are, Gaara," said Naruto, finally before Gaara could step out, he turned to look towards Naruto, who kept looking at Rock Lee, avoiding eye contact with the Jinchuriki, "I will stop you."

"No one can stop me," said Gaara, leaving the room as Shikamaru turned towards Naruto, confused at what he meant by that remark but Naruto quickly followed Gaara's example.

"What exactly is he, Naruto?" asked Shikamaru, as Naruto turned towards him, his eyes determined.

"Don't worry about it, but Shikamaru, if it comes to it, don't try to fight him, drop out, he will kill you if given the chance," said Naruto, finally before leaving himself.

'What does Naruto mean by that?' thought Shikamaru, but Naruto had already left. Shikamaru let out a sigh before leaving himself but not before closing the door, to let the genin rest, 'I've got to investigate.'

-8 days later,-

It was finally the day of the Chunin Exams, Naruto had spent the last few days training the jutsu he had learned, of course, using 2 shadow clones on each jutsu to get experience and had even talked to the Pervy Sage about Gaara, who he had caught trying to peek into a woman's bath house again (does the man ever quit?)

As he rushed through the training ground, he found Hinata Hyuga, seemingly in deep thought staring at one of the large stumps in the training ground, the injured girl, he had sworn the oath to avenge and decided to talk to her before the match.

"Hinata?" asked Naruto, as Hinata released an 'eep!" before jumping behind the final.

"Naruto-kun? Isn't today the Chunin Exams final?" asked Hinata.

"Neji is your relative, right?" asked Naruto as he turned around.

"Yes," answers Hinata.

"Is he strong?" asked Naruto.

"Yes," answered Hinata once again.

"I know I look strong from you're point of view, but I always screw up," said Naruto, to which Hinata looks at him shocked.

"That's not true!" shouted Hinata, "Naruto-kun, you are very strong."

She then realized what she had done and quickly went back to hiding behind the stump as Naruto processed her words, before smiling at her.

"Thanks, Hinata," said Naruto, as he walked away, "you know something? I like people like you."

-Chunin Exams Stadium-

Naruto looked around, seeing the humongous crowd but then realized something, Sasuke wasn't here, where was the young Uchiha heir? Naruto knew that it wasn't like him to miss a match like this. As he tried to find Sasuke, he looked around before deciding that the Uchiha would be here, before looking up at the area that housed the two kages, the Hokage and the Kazekage.

Naruto felt strange about the Kazekage, he felt as if he should know him from somewhere, but couldn't place his finger where.

"I would like to welcome you to the Hidden Leaf Chunin Exam finales!" said the Third as he looked down at the crowds and finalists, "We will now start the main tournament matches between the 8 finalists, please stay till the end!"

Genma Shiranui stepped forward holding a sheet with the names of the competitors.

"There's something I'd like to tell you before the matches start," said Genma as the finalists looked at the sheets, "Look at this." They found that one of the competitors was missing and that some of the matches had been changed.

'I had an extra first-round match... Did that Dosu Guy forfeit?' thought Shikamaru.

"Hey, what will happen to Sasuke if he doesn't appear?" asked Naruto, to which Genma looked at him analytically.

"If he doesn't appear by the time of his match, he will be disqualified," said Genma, to which Naruto thought about it.

'It is strange, with his personality, he'd never miss this match, even if it meant dragging his body to it,' thought Naruto. Gaara, himself was annoyed as he wanted to kill Sasuke but the guy hadn't even shown up.

"Alright guys, this is the final test, the arena may be different but the rules are the same, as in the preliminaries, there are none, you fight until one of you dies or acknowledges defeat, but if I determine if a fight is over then, I'll step in and stop it, you got it?"

Receiving nods from the competitors Genma decided to continue.

"Alright, onto the first match, Naruto Uzumaki vs Neji Hyuga, you two will stay here while the rest of you go to the competitors' box," said Genma, as the first match competitors stared at each other.

"Looks like you have something to say," said Neji.

"I told you before, you're going down, Neji," said Naruto, as the two continued to look at each other.

Kiba and the others looked on in curiosity from their seats, some believing that Naruto had no chance like Ino while Kiba believed that Naruto would do something unpredictable as always, there was a free seat next to him, but he also noticed that there were seemed to be an Anbu there, but his attention turned

"May I take this seat?" asked a quiet and calm voice, yet at the same time commanding, Kiba nodded as he turned to find a man who was dressed like an Anbu Captain, with a white cloak and a porcelain mask resembling a crow with red strikes on ether cheek and forehead, his hood was up and Kiba looked at him wide-eyed.

"I know there are Anbu around, but shouldn't you be guarding the perimeter?" asked Kiba, shocked as the Crow-masked individual took a seat.

"I am Crow, the Commander of the Anbu Black Ops, I am not required to guard the perimeter, the Anbu are just here to stop any incidents from breaking out," answered the Commander, as he turned towards the kids who were all looking at him curiously, "you have a good nose to notice them."

"Thanks," said Kiba, happily.

"Why are you here?" asked Ino, to which the Commander turned towards her.

"It is rare that rookies ever get into the finals, I want to see if any have potential for Anbu and I am in quite a few betting pools," answered the Commander, to which the Genin looked at the Commander, shocked that he would admit that casually.

"Yeah but why would you want to watch this match, it's open and shut, Naruto's going to lose," said Ino, confused.

"I suspect that might not be true," said the Commander, confusing the Genin "Now then let's focus on this match."

"Now the first fight, begin!" shouted Genma, as he looked at the two.

"Hehe, that's what makes it worthwhile, it will be fun to watch you fall apart when you discover reality," said Neji, to which Naruto looked at him unimpressed.

"Stop all the blabbering, let's fight!" shouted Naruto.

AN: If you are wondering, then Naruto used 2 shadow clones to train each jutsu for eight 8 days, meaning that he has now 16 days of training the jutsu plus the 3 days using 2 shadow clones previously technically leads to 6 more days of training, meaning in total he has 22 days training the jutsus which could total to 3 weeks and a day.