Here's the new chapter. Team Kurenai vs Team Zabuza. Also, I forgot to talk about this a little, but the henge jutsu has some clear restrictions here as shown in the previous chapter. Canon generally uses it well, but it wasn't clear about the restrictions. Also one other thing that I didn't mention is that the larger the size difference as a result of the transformation, the larger the chakra drain. Moreover, it's a continuous drain, as the jutsu needs to be constantly maintained for as long as you're transformed.


The Kiri team repeated what they did against the Iwa team.

He and his team were quickly surrounded by ice mirrors, with Chojuro and Kurone attacking with swordsmanship and blood spiders respectively.

Luckily, they already knew what to expect before they came into this fight and had enough time for Shikamaru to come up with a plan.

'Kage Bunshin no Jutsu'

He created about twenty shadow clones, all distributed in a circle around his team. The crux of the plan was to stop Haku. The problem was Haku's speed. The continuous attacks by the other two didn't help.

The best they could understand was that Haku was moving between the mirrors at a high speed. Shikamaru's jutsu could theoretically stop him, but Haku was moving far too quickly. So he had to be stopped for a moment. Since Ino couldn't help in that regard either, that step came down to him.

It was time for the shitty Fox to help. He drew out as much chakra from it as he could, but being in a chakra tug-of-war with it was not easy. Eventually he managed to draw out enough that a powerful red aura surrounded him. He had all but 3 of his clones charge at all the gaps between the ice mirrors. He himself stayed back, holding back the pain from both the powerful chakra coursing through his body and from the increase in the negative emotion prickling at his mind while watching carefully.

During this time, his teammates were going up against the other two, and were being beaten up. Ino was barely dodging the blood spiders and the senbon flying around. She couldn't find the timing to use her jutsu. Shikamaru was relying on one clone to block the senbon and blood spiders, while trying to catch Chojuro in the shadow possession jutsu. His other 2 shadow clones were fighting against Chojuro, trying to help Shikamaru. But Chojuro was still winning, and seemed ready to take out the clones.

He focused his attention on Haku who was dealing the 17 clones one after the other quickly. But one clone managed to slow him down just enough that he could barely catch sight of Haku, and quickly threw a shuriken to capitalize on the opening. It just barely cut Haku's mask, but it was enough to buy time for him to close in, infused with the power of the Nine-Tails. He punched Haku through the gap between the mirrors, thus effectively cutting the senbon assault off.

But he didn't stop there. He couldn't. He continued his assault on Haku, who tried to summon more ice to defend, but he just punched through them.

Chojuro and Kurone quickly ran out of the ice structure made of floating ice mirrors as it was dissipating away, Haku no longer being able to maintain them and needing the chakra to survive his onslaught.

Chojuro caught up quickly and attempted to help Haku, first launching a bunch of water spikes at him, which he was able to knock out of the air with a powerful scream, resulting in a powerful burst of chakra being released. Chojuro continued advancing, while clearly afraid of the power being put on display, his hands trembling while holding a sword. Haku took advantage of the distraction to stab a senbon into his neck, causing him to wince in pain.

Chojuro pounced on the opening and swung the sword down hard on his neck, but he turned his head in time and caught it between his teeth. He sent a powerful burst of chakra through his teeth at the sword, thus shattering the blade. He turned his attention back to Haku, launching a roundhouse kick that completely crushed the mask, while launching Haku back dozens of feet. He moved to beat down Chojuro who'd been caught by Shikamaru, but before he released his punch, Kurone cried out, "We resign!." Ino had been in position to use her jutsu, but it didn't matter now.

The fight was over.


A yelled out, "Another Jinchuriki! What the hell is going on in these exams!"

Onoki rubbed his chin thoughtfully and said, "So the beast was sealed by the fourth hokage. And into his own son at that. Surprisingly cold of him, but I suppose the Yellow flash has never had trouble at that. But maybe there was just no one else available."

Yagura interrupted here, and said, "I must say, the seal must be very well done. For the boy to be able to access the energy with relative ease while not being affected by it much in his normal state like the Kazekage's son is astounding, especially since the fox is the mightiest of the nine beasts."

Rasa bristled at that, but said nothing.

Personally he was enjoying these exams more than he'd enjoyed any other chunin exam in recent memory. It'd been a while since Konoha had given a decent performance in these, with Kumo generally dominating. But now they were destroying the competition. This would be excellent for their economy.


A/N

Hope you enjoyed that. Also, Naruto here is using slightly more than 1 tail of Kurama's power. So we're almost done with this tournament arc. Just one last semifinal and then the 3 way final are left. I think I'll have about 5-7 chapters after that at most, and then I'll have a 3 year timeskip. By the time of the timeskip, Naruto and others of the same age will be 14. And no, I haven't aged up the characters. From what I can find online, Naruto was 13 during the chunin exams. Since it takes place several months later here, by the end of part 1 he's 14. Also, the 3 year timeskip isn't exactly a timeskip, as I'll have short interlude stories following a bunch of different characters. The ones I have planned are one mystery style story following Shikamaru, a slice of life type set of small stories following Tenten, a short story following Sakura and Kakashi that looks at her training, and maybe some stuff with Naruto as well. I have ideas for Sasuke and Lee, but I'm not sure whether to keep them in separate stories in the interlude chapters or just throw bits and pieces as I'm writing the main plot of part 2.