Chapter 4: The More They Stay The Same (NOT!)

I let out a yawn as I stood among all the chunin hopefuls. After a day of rest, the second stage of the chunin exams had come to an end and the preliminary rounds were about to begin. Ordinarily, I would have felt stressed at having to fight someone one on one while all the teachers and even the Hokage himself watched, but now I only felt excitement.

The Hokage already knew about my change in… attitude and I hadn't been dragged off to have a Yamanaka read my mind before having Kurama ripped out of me.

Not only that, but talking with and sharing my secret with Kurama really took a load off my mind. We weren't exactly best friends… yet, but we speak to each other with respect and maybe a form of friendliness.

"Uchiha Sasuke and Akado Yoroi, please step forward," The chunin proctor, Hayate announced.

Sasuke stepped past me, a confident smirk on his face. If I remember correctly, in canon, the curse mark was really bothering him. It seems Anko's medication was of some help.

"Everyone else, please move to the balcony area," Hayate continued, motioning towards the balconies that overlooked the arena.

Opting to jump to the balcony instead of walking up the stairs, I was immediately greeted with Kakashi's masked face.

"Yo," Kakashi greeted simply. "I heard you guys had a bit of a tough time in the forest."

Tough time was a bit of an understatement.

"Yep, but it all seems to have worked out in the end," I replied, a grin making its way onto my face.

"So I've heard," Kakashi said, his eye crinkling as he smiled. "You've really matured in the forest, I'm proud of you."

A warm feeling formed in my stomach and I couldn't help but smile. A part of Naruto… of me was really happy to hear that coming from Kakashi. "Thanks."

"And I'm proud of you too, Sakura. I heard how you took care of Naruto and Sasuke while they were incapacitated."

"Thanks sensei," Sakura began, blushing lightly. "It was really tough though. We had to fight Orochi–"

"I already know," Kakashi interrupted, placing his hand on her head, he ruffled her hair, much to Sakura's annoyance. "You won't have to worry about him again. Now, let's watch Sasuke's match."

"Alright," Sakura nodded, trying to fix her short hair as she turned her attention to the arena.

"The first round of the preliminaries will now," Hayate began, standing between Sasuke and Yoroi, "Commence," He finished, dropping his hand and jumping backwards.

It happened in a flash. Sasuke activated his Sharingan and rushed Yoroi, pelting him with punches, kicks and countering his every move. Yoroi didn't have a chance to touch him, let alone grab him and absorb his chakra.

Not even ten seconds into the round, Yoroi was knocked out and a panting Sasuke was declared the winner.

"That was fast," I muttered. It seemed that even though the matches were all the same, I had already altered them in some way. Originally, Sasuke was unable to use his Sharingan, but with Anko's help, he was able to use it to rush his match.

"He was… very brutal. You don't think it's the mark?" Sakura asked quietly.

"Nope," I hummed. "He's probably just wanted to get his fight over with so he can rest."

"But-"

"Sakura, relax. This room is filled with Jonin… hell, even the Hokage is here. If something went wrong, they would step in," I reassured her. Glancing back at Kakashi, I blinked owlishly when I realized he was no longer standing next to us, but rather down by Sasuke. Right, he's going with to seal Sasuke's curse mark.

The following matches continued to be the same as canon, with the exception of it being real. Zaku ended up blowing his arms off and spraying his blood over a portion of the arena, he was taken to the med bay and his arms were collected. Kankuro fought the Reed Richards rip off and ended up breaking his back.

Sakura's match on the other hand.

"Winner, Yamanaka Ino."

Sakura's match had ended differently. Only after the match, I realized that without me cheering her on and being a loud idiot, Sakura hadn't been able to fight off Ino's possession.

Sakura walked up the stairs, upset over her loss and all I could do was sigh. "Good fight," I said, trying to comfort her.

"I lost, Naruto," Sakura replied, looking miserable.

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean everything's over," I hummed, trying desperately to think of some motivational advice. "I mean, when you think about it, so long as you've managed to learn something from that fight, you haven't lost. You only lose when you give up."

Sakura's eyes glistened lightly, before she rubbed them and smiled. "Thanks Naruto. I needed that."

She really wanted to be thanking Bruce Lee who I was paraphrasing. "No problem."

Before I knew it, my round had come.

"Inuzuka Kiba vs. Uzumaki Naruto," Hayate announced.

"Yahoo, it seems it's our lucky day Akamaru," Kiba cheered.

Jumping down into the arena, I was greeted to the sight of a cocky Kiba, who believed this was going to be an easy round.

It was going to be an easy round, except not for Kiba. When I… when Naruto originally fought Kiba, it seemed he only won by a fluke of farting in his face, but that was a Naruto who had a five prong seal screwing with his chakra control and having just pulled an all-nighter fighting off those rain genin by himself.

I on the other hand am completely fresh. The Hokage removed the five prong seal, I've had a full day rest and I also know that Kiba has to feed Akamaru that pill to make him stronger.

"Begin," Hayate announced, jumping back.

"Let's go Aka-"

My fingers flashed together in a familiar cross hand sign. "Taju Kage bunshin no jutsu," I muttered. Sure, Kiba might be physically able to fight off one of me and Kage Bunshin are really fragile, but when a solid hundred form around you and immediately grab you by your arms and legs, pinning you down, it's a bit difficult to fight back.

"What the hell, let go of-" Kiba yelled, but a clone struck his neck, knocking him out.

Dispelling the majority of my clones, several stayed behind to ensure Kiba wasn't faking being unconscious and several more holding Akamaru.

Walking forward, Hayate leaned down to examine Kiba, before nodding his head. "Winner, Uzumaki Naruto."

Dispelling the rest of my clones, I jumped up to the balcony, smiling. I doubt flooding the room with clones will work on many more opponents, especially ones like Gaara, Neji or even Rock Lee, but on weaker ones like Kiba, it's a definite win.

"Your match was a little… fast, don't you think, Naruto?" Kakashi asked, eye smiling.

"I suppose," I shrugged. "Kiba was underestimating me and I didn't feel like dragging the fight on."

"Before you entered the forest, if someone underestimated you, you would have been angry, but now you're using it to your advantage," Kakashi noted, his eye crinkling as he ruffled my hair. "You really have changed."

"Haha, yeah," I said, feeling both elated and awkward. Hearing a soft, horrified gasp, I turned my attention to its source.

Hinata, the girl that had a crush on Naruto… on me was staring at Neji and shaking like a leaf. Right, her match was just after my own. Now I had a choice to make. Originally, Naruto kept inspiring Hinata to stand up and keep fighting, but all that brought her was a near death experience and wounds that lasted for more than a month and had to be healed by Kabuto.

Seeing Hinata meekly make her way to the arena, I let out a sigh. I hate to even think it, but she would be better off if she surrendered, that way she would have more time to tr… she… I have an idea.

"Eight round, Hyuga Hinata vs. Hyuga Neji, Begin."

"Give up," Neji said simply. "You're not suited for the life of a Shinobi."

"Ah, um," Hinata stuttered, looking around for anyone to help.

"Hinata," I called out, cupping my hands in front of my face. "There's no shame in surrendering here."

"NARUTO, what the hell," Sakura yelled, grabbing me by my jacket. "You can't just tell someone to give up."

"I'm not telling her to give up," I shot back, just as loud, gripping Sakura's wrists. "I'm telling her that retreating is a viable strategy. Neji is on Rock Lee's team and is stronger than him. You've seen Rock Lee fight, do you think that Hinata could beat him?! These are the chunin exams, they're to test if we have the strength and mentality to become a chunin, not if we are the strongest genin."

"What?" Sakura asked, almost dumbfounded at what I said, or rather that I was the one saying these things.

"It's simple, Sakura. Live today, fight tomorrow," I said, giving Hinata a confident nod.

"P-proctor-san. I forfeit," Hinata said softly.

"Winner through forfeit, Hyuga Neji," Hayate announced

"This is all wrong. What happened to you, Naruto?" Sakura asked, giving me a disappointed look.

"If we had to fight Orochimaru again, would you rather we stand our ground knowing that we stood absolutely no chance, or would you rather we retreat, train to get stronger and fight him when we actually stand a chance?" Pulling out of Sakura's grip, I walked towards Kurenai's team.

"Naruto… wait, where are you going?"

"To talk to Hinata," I replied, not breaking my stride.

Being spotted by team 8, Kurenai gave me a stern look, Hinata seemed to shrink in on herself, Shino… I'm not actually sure what he was doing, I couldn't see enough of his face to make out what he was doing and Kiba, he was still unconscious.

"Yo," I greeted team 8 in Kakashi style.

"Naruto," Shino nodded.

"Hello," Hinata greeted meekly.

"Naruto," Kurenai acknowledged. "What brings you here?"

"I wanted to talk to Hinata," I said, before turning towards her. "Knowing where your limit is and retreating when necessary isn't a bad thing, Hinata. In fact, I would say that it takes a lot of courage to forfeit while everyone is watching."

"R-really?" Hinata asked, looking desperate for validation.

"Yep," I nodded.

"You say that, but would you have surrendered if you had to fight Neji?" Kurenai butted in.

What was she doing… I get that I'm responsible for two of her students not making it to the final stage of the chunin exams, but was her pride as a teacher worth more to her than the student she was making feel self conscious.

"Against Neji… No. I have a… trump card that would have helped me beat him," I replied. "But, that redhead over there with the love tattoo… I currently don't have anything that could beat him."

At the mention of Gaara, Hinata froze, Shino stiffened and even Akamaru started whining next to his unconscious partner.

"You've seen what he can do, what he has done?" Shino asked, his stoic facade cracking.

"Hmmm, let's just say that I have an… inside source on what he's capable of and leave it at that," I answered calmly, before turning towards Kurenai. "I have no doubt that right now, Gaara is the strongest genin here. Anyone that fights him is either going to end up permanently crippled or dead."

"What makes you so sure?" Kurenai asked cautiously, picking up on her students nervousness.

"Just a gut feeling," I said, placing my hand on my stomach. "And, I believe Gaara has one of those… gut feelings too."

Kurenai's eyes widened as she caught on to what I was saying.

"He's-"

"Yes," I replied immediately. "And he's unstable too. If he gets worked up enough, something might come out. I can't stress enough that should a genin fight him, they're going to end up dead or crippled."

A large sand storm swirled through the arena as Gaara appeared at its center.

"Well, it looks like it's Gaara's round now… and against Lee too," I announced. "I should probably warn Gai. Lee seems too bullheaded to think of forfeiting on his own."

"Wait," Kurenai said, grabbing my shoulder. "Are you absolutely sure that he has one?"

"Yep," I replied.

"This is too much… something's seriously wrong with these exams," Kurenai muttered under her breath. "I'll go talk to Gai and make him understand the seriousness of the situation."

Seeing Kurenai march off towards Gai, I smiled. Lee is currently one of the strongest genin in Konoha, if I can prevent him from being crippled, I have no doubt he will end up stronger than he was in canon.

"U-um, what was that about?" Hinata stuttered lightly.

Crap, I'd actually forgotten about the reason I was here to begin with. "That… would be a secret. Just know that regardless of what you've seen of Gaara, he can be worse, way worse." Seeing Hinata's terrified face, I decided to change the topic. "By the way, I wanted to talk to you about something. After we're done here, I'm going to be doing some… serious training and I wanted to see if you would like to join me."

"Join you?" Hinata meeped, her face turning red.

"Yeah," I nodded. "You want to get stronger, right? I'm sure that we could help each other out."

"O-oh," Hinata looked down, seeming to fold in on herself. "I don't think I would be able to help you. I-I would just be in your way."

"Bullshit," I replied, snapping her out of her self depreciation. "Sure you may be weak now, but there's no way you would get in the way with just training. The whole point of training is to get stronger, you don't just start strong… besides, there's still a chance I might fight Neji and training against someone who has the same abilities, albeit weaker, would be invaluable. So I'll ask again. Would you please train with me after the preliminary rounds?"

"W-wh-wha-wha?" Hinata stuttered, her face turning red, before her eyes closed she fell forward.

Catching Hinata, I could only sigh. If she decided to join me, it would be a little difficult working around her fainting spells… that and working with a girl that had a crush on me, but that wasn't such a major issue, it wasn't like I was going to act on it, we were after all both just thirteen... Minus the memories of another life.

Gently laying Hinata on the floor, I turned to see Kurenai storm off from Gai who had a hard look on his face.

"He's still going to let Lee fight. I've told him what Gaara is and he's still letting his student fight him," Kurenai said almost harshly. "What happened to Hinata?"

"Oh, she fainted," I noted, watching Gaara and Lee in the Arena. I really want to stop this match, nothing good will come from it, but I know Lee won't forfeit and I know there's nothing I can do to convince him to do so. All I can hope for is Gai to jump in before Lee gets crippled.

"LEE, take them off and take this fight seriously," Gai called out loudly from the balcony.

"But sensei, I'm not supposed to do that unless-"

"I know what I said Lee. This is an exception, take them off."

Lee, looking ecstatic quickly pulled his weights off, dropping them on the ground, causing the entire arena and balcony area to shake slightly.

"That's not going to be enough," I muttered. It was insane that someone who was as strong as Lee still fell short to Gaara. The only way for Lee to win this fight would be if he fought with the intent to kill Gaara, using the gates along with a large, strong, sharp weapon like Zabuza's blade. Regardless of all that, I was actually excited to see this match.

"Tenth round, Rock Lee vs. Gaara will now begin."

"Ugh, what did I miss?" Kiba groaned, sitting up.

"Shhh, Lee is fighting Gaara," I shushed him, not taking my eye of this round.

"Gai-sensei told me to take this match seriously, so I will give my very best," Lee said, taking his stance.

"Whatever. Just make this entertaining."

At Gaara's words, Lee disappeared in a burst of speed. Bouncing off Gaara's sand, Lee immediately raced around, impacting the sand shield on various points, probing it for any weakness and it wasn't long before he found one and slipped in, punching Gaara in the face.

"That's still not going to be enough," I sighed, knowing that Gaara had sand armor on.

"The hell do you mean, Gaara just took a solid punch to the face," Kiba shot back.

"Look close, his face is dripping sand," I pointed out.

Gaara's demented grin along with the sand dripping off his face was enough to freak anyone out. Hell, I was even a little freaked out by that. Kiba. Shino and a freshly awakened Hinata on the other hand were horrified by the look.

"Wh-what's with that guy?" Kiba stuttered.

"He's playing around," I shrugged. It was the truth too, Gaara could end this round whenever he wanted, but didn't because he wanted to toy with Lee.

The sand began repairing Gaara's armor and I could only gape as Lee stood by, letting it happen. "He… he's just letting Gaara fix himself?" I honestly had no words for that.

"Come," Gaara said, his armor having been repaired.

I watched in astonishment as the match played out just as it did in canon. Lee was honestly both really impressive and also a major let down.

He was extremely fast and strong and the gates were amazing too, he moved so fast that I couldn't follow at all, but he was also an idiot. He didn't focus his attacks, he just hit wherever he could. Had he focused on a single point, say, Gaara's head, he would have been able to knock him out, but he didn't. Hell, if he had used a Kunai with the gates open, Gaara would be full of holes, but again, Lee didn't.

It was actually disappointing. Lee had so many opportunities to end the fight, but instead he wanted to prove that he was strong and it cost him the fight.

"If no one does anything, Lee's going to die," I said, trying to stop Lee from being crippled as I watched the sand creep closer to Lee who was crawling away.

Moving faster than I could follow, Kurenai disappeared and reappeared at the end of the ring with Lee.

"This match is over," Kurenai announced.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Something else had changed for the better.

"What? No, I can still fight… I can still win," Lee argued, weakly trying to stand up.

Sitting up, Gaara glared at Kurenai. "Why? Why are you protecting him, he's not even your student."

"That doesn't matter," Kurenai shook her head. "He is a member of this village and he was about to be snuffed out far too soon. Had this happened to any other leaf genin, I would have leapt in."

That… I'm not so sure she's telling the truth. I mean sure, originally a bunch of Jonin did jump in to stop Neji from killing Hinata, but that didn't happen in Lee's fight, only Gai jumped in to save him.

"I don't understand. Risking your life for others… others who you have no connection to," Gaara clutched his head in pain.

"You don't need a connection with someone to want to help them," Kurenai shot back, before looking towards Hayate. "Call it."

"Winner, Gaara," Hayate coughed lightly.

Soon, several medics came out to collect Lee.

"No, I can still fight. I won't lose here," Lee said, trying and failing to fight the medics off.

"Lee," Kurenai snapped. "Look over there," She said, pointing to Gaara who had gotten up and was walking away. "He is still in perfect condition. This wasn't a match that any genin here could have won. If the fight had continued, you would have died."

"No," Lee argued weakly as the medics finally pulled him away, dragging him off to the medic bay while Gai followed closely behind.

Walking back to my team, Kakashi gave me a pointed look.

"You convinced Kurenai to stop the match," Kakashi said, as if he was discussing the weather.

"Kinda," I shrugged. "I actually went over there to ask Hinata if she wanted to train with me, I figured that we could help each other out. She would get a sparring partner and I would get experience with her fighting style."

"In case you have to fight Neji," Kakashi nodded. "And what about getting Kurenai to stop the match?"

"Ah, that was kind of a happy accident," I chuckled, scratching the back of my head awkwardly. "We were talking about which match I would forfeit, Gaara's name came up and then things spiraled from there."

"You would have forfeited if you had to fight Gaara?" Sakura asked, disbelieving.

"I mean, I would have given it my all, but if I felt that I was going to lose, then yes, I would have forfeited. Gaara's… dangerous, deadly even."

"That's just… so unlike you," Sakura mumbled.

"Live today, fight tomorrow, Sakura," I replied.

The final round of the preliminaries was… disappointing compared to Rock Lee and Gaara's round. Choji fought Dosu and it was incredibly underwhelming, he just inflated into a giant ball and tried to crush him while Dosu avoided him and ended the round by using his melody arm on Choji.

"That concludes the preliminary rounds. Everyone who won their matches, please come line up in the arena."

Walking down the hallway to the room my team was assigned, I was on my way to collect Karin, but my mind was elsewhere.

I hadn't been acting myself. These Chunin exams don't really matter, the invasion is what's important, but I found myself almost prioritizing the exams. I really wanted to win the and I wanted to be promoted to chunin. It was the reason I initially approached Hinata… well, that and guilt for convincing her to give up.

When I really thought about it, I didn't actually need to be in the chunin exams to make a difference, I just needed to be in Konoha during the invasion. In theory, If I wasn't in the exams, I could have still meet up with Jiraiya, hell, I could have used the excuse of failing as a reason for wanting to get stronger.

It was Naruto's influence on me. His personality was merged with mine and apparently had more sway over me than I knew. It was the reason that I actually felt a little giddy knowing that Hinata had a crush on me, or when I saw Karin sneaking glances at me and then blushing. It was also the reason why I felt such burning hatred for Obito.

If I had just been me, without Naruto, I wouldn't have felt much for Obito. Sure I would still want to kill him, but that would only be out of self preservation, but the way I felt now… it was personal. I didn't just want to kill Obito, I wanted to make him hurt. A dark part of me even suggested bringing Rin back with Edo Tensei just to torment him, but I shook that thought off.

No… I will kill Obito and sure it will be revenge, but also out of a need to keep the world safe. His and Madara's plans to bring the Jubi back was doomed to fail and would kill too many people.

Shaking my head, I stopped at a door and knocked. "Karin, the exams are over."

I had to stop myself from jumping as the door swung open and a red blur rushed out of the room.

"Naruto… what took you so long?"

"Eh, there was a preliminary round where we had to fight each other," I explained. "But enough about that, are you ready to see the Hokage?"

There we have it, Chapter 4

I didn't want to linger on the preliminaries for too long, there's still a ton of more interesting things to come and most stories normally stall out around here, but don't worry. I've still got quite a few chapters in reserve.

All of your support really means the world to me and I'm really happy that this story has got such a reaction with only 3 chapters (4 now.) Love all of you dudes and dudettes.

Anyways, I'm up to chapter 9 on the spooky P word website, so check me out there if you want to read ahead. As I've said before, I'll always be 5 chapters ahead on there.

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I go by the name of ThatKircguy. Just copy the name and paste it in the Patty Rio On search bar. It'd help me out immensely, but don't worry if that's not your style. I will be uploading weekly, so it's not going to be stuck there permanently.

Also, I post my original stuff there as well. It's nothing much, just two short stories for now, but I'll post more as I write them.

Thanks for reading, enjoy your day. Kir C